In my ode to Ake I may have made you a bit curious about a shoot we did for a corporate client. Uplace is a fantastic company to work for. They want strong images and give me the freedom, thrust and budget to make those images. This time they asked me to make promo shots of triathlete Bruno “Bruce” Clerbout. Thanks to Uplace, Bruno is a full time athlete from today on.

We made many pictures but the image below is the one that jumps out to me because it’s exactly what I had in mind.

The circumstances for this shoot were far from perfect. It was damned cold and we even got a storm for free. Busy schedules and a tight deadline didn’t allow to reschedule. But as you probably know by now, I don’t like to be held hostage by the elements. I figures it was possible to do this shoot with some proper preparation.

I had an extensive meeting with Bruno and the people from Uplace to decide what story the pictures had to tell. We also went through lots of practical things. We agreed upon shooting in the park surrounding the Uplace offices. This gave us the possibility to set up a warm and dry HQ close to some good shooting locations.

I had worked in that location before but still I went out for some scouting after the meeting. I picked some spots to shoot and took lots of pictures. this allowed me to prepare mentally for the shots once I was back at the office.

It’s clear that posing in his competition suit was not going to be very much fun for Bruno in this weather. So we had to be able to work quickly and set up (and test) before bringing in Bruno. A good crew is crucial in those circumstances so I decided to bring my fantastic intern Marisa and the experience of Ake along..

With all the practical stuff arranged it was time to design some image. I like to improvise and I think I’m pretty good at it but this shoot would not allow many surprises. So I created the images in my head and decided on the technical parameters so we could set up quickly. The most important image I designed is the one in this post.

To give you an idea about the lighting setup, I’ll show you the same image before it went through photoshop.

When backlighting a subject while shooting with the Canon 15mm f/2.8 fisheye on a full frame camera, it’s practically impossible to keep the lights out of the frame. You can see 2 Vivitar 285HV’s on stands held (heavy winds) by the brave communication manager and Marisa.

The limited ambient light takes care of a dramatic background but wasn’t giving enough fill light to Bruno’s face. So we added a third flash in a small softbox to camera left. You can see the reflection in Bruno’s shades. Ake had to hold on tight to the softbox to prevent it from becoming an expensive kite.

I was happy with the framing and lighting but still wanted the picture to be a bit more dynamic. My initial idea was to create some motion blur in the background by mounting the camera to the bike and trigger it with a pocketwizard when Bruno passed the spot where the lighting was set. Another option would have been shooting from the back of car (with the softbox in the car). Both options would have been doable with more time, a bigger crew and better conditions. But in this case it would have been irresponsible. I like to get as much as possible done in the camera but my religion says nothing about not using photoshop. So I made the image with the post processing in mind.

The most important thing is to add the brur in the background. I also corrected some details and finished by adapting levels and colors using adjustment layer and layer masks. And I ended up with this:

Big thanks to Bruno for his determination and fun, Ake and Marisa for their help, Uplace for the fun assignment and the weather for the challenge.