Rangefinder Magazine
August 2002

The Rƒ Cookbook by Jen Bidner

INGREDIENTS
• Camera: Kodak Professional DCS 760 Digital camera (based on a Nikon F5 body) with Nikkor lenses

• Flash: Photogenic studio flash units in a 3x6-foot Westcott softbox and a 42-inch Westcott softbox

• Fill: Cards and “kickers” (hair lights) as needed

• Background: White to make silhouetting on the computer (using the pen tool) easier

• Digital Manipulation: Computer collaging

“Amy 2002” photographed by Ralph Romaguera.

The Romatage

Business is thriving at Romaguera Studios, where Ralph and his two sons Ralph Jr. and Ryan and over a dozen employees run three studios in the New Orleans area. One of his most popular products is the “Romatage” school sports montage for athletes.

The first time he tried it, it took a long time to create, but now he has a formula that enables the photographers to shoot images that fit into a loose “template” like the one shown here of the basketball player Amy.

“We start with a white background because we like to use the pen tool to silhouette the picture.” explains Romaguera. “It also eliminates the problem of the background creating color casts in musical instruments, trophies or other reflective objects.

The entire shoot shown here took only a few minutes, with Amy posing in various basketball poses without the ball. The images were taken with a digital camera and quickly silhouetted on the computer. The basketball was then added from stock images, which had been previously created, and in the case of the top and bottom balls, the motion-blur was created digitally.

School colors were then added to the background as a separate Photoshop layer behind the silhouetted figuresto create the final, personalized look

Romaguera created the lighting to go from left to right, “because that is the way we read. If I were working in Arabic I’d do it opposite,” says Ralph Sr.

His main directional light is a Photogenic flash in a small 42-inch Westcott softbox at a 45-degree angle and feathered (the subject is lit by just the edge of the softbox). A second large softbox is then positioned at 90-degrees to the subject. “Both are as close to the subject as I can get them, without having them in the picture,” he explains.

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The amazing part of this whole operation is that within 30 minutes of when the athlete walks in the door of a Romaguera studio, they can be viewing a composite of the image on the computer screen. He no longer makes proofs, but take the orders then and there. “Every kid has a scanner, and with proofs we’d lose money to copies they’d make at home,” he warns.

RomaTip #1: Look for the little things. If you can nitpick those little things that are “wrong,” then everything remaining is “right.”

RomaTip #2: “Real smiles happen at the corners of the eyes and mouth,” explains Ralph Romaguera. He strives for smiling expressions without teeth.