Rangefinder Magazine
May 2006

Rf Cookbook by Chris Lalonde
Location Lighting for Annual Report Photography

Photoflex Softbox with Lightshaper attached

This image was recently shot for the cover of an annual report for a financial institution. All the images we did of the company employees and directors were done with the same theme in mind: stairs and their representation of growth.

We shot seven different locations with various styles of stairs, and the setups each had from one to seven people. The images will be used as full-page images to accompany text. The annual report is designed to open on an angle to echo the concept of stairs. This location, the Canadian War Museum, was ideal because of its grand spaces. Everything is very dark— blacks, grays, browns—so a lot of light was required. I hate to have to look for power sources on location, so all of the images were done with Lumedyne packs and Nikon flash heads.

I always carry seven or eight Nikon heads with me, and I needed all of them in this spot. I’ve also recently discovered the LiteShaper (XP Innovations Inc., www.liteshaper. com) modifier, a great tool to change the shape of your softboxes. Basically, the Lightshaper consists of four panels that velcro onto the face of your softbox. Because I wanted to keep the image very dark, I shrunk the softbox down to 1/4 of its original 24x36-inch size, creating a tight light on the face and upper body. This stopped most of the spill from hitting the background. The rest of the area was illuminated with Nikon heads modified with black foil that I taped to the front of the lights to control the shape of the source.

The image was shot in RAW format, converted in Adobe Camera Raw, then edited in Photoshop CS2.

INGREDIENTS • Camera: Nikon D2X • Lens: Sigma 18–50mm f/2.8 • Portable Flash: (5) Nikon SB-80 DX Speedlights and (2) Nikon SB-800 Speedlights

• Softbox: Photoflex 24x36-inch softbox w/Lumedyne 400W pack • Light Modifier: XP Innovations’ Liteshaper • Flash Sync: Pocket Wizard • Exposure: 1/20 at f/6.3