Photographic Media - Shoot planning

My shoot will take place in a studio and I will be using my digital camera. I am choosing digital as apposed to film for convenience as there are less variables to control and I will be working at quite a fast pace. Also, in this case, only the digital files are required for the client (Paul, the model), not prints. I will get my desired results from using digital a lot quicker and easier than if I was to use film. Post processing will be quicker too by using photoshop.

 

If I chose to do a landscape shoot, I would have considered using film, as I do prefer the tones and colours that can be created with film but the main purpose of my shoot is to show shape, texture and definition rather than colour, so the majority of the images will be black and white. 

 

Film can also look quite grainy, but I want my shots to look clean, crisp and modern.

 

The problem I might have with shooting with digital is highlights. Highlights can be easily overexposed if using digital and appear pure white with no colour or tonal information. I will need to consider my lighting and meter them correctly according to my camera settings to get the right exposure.  

 

The cost also has a part to play in my decision to use digital. The cost for film is a lot more expensive and there is less room for mistakes.  

 

So, I will be shooting images of Paul, a personal trainer who has been doing a strict 10 week diet and training plan. Paul wants a set of images to show the results on his body at the end of the 10 weeks. I will use certain lighting techniques combined with different poses to best show off the tone and definition in his body muscle. Paul would like the images to promote this kind of diet and training plan to his clients. I aim to produce images that convey how his body looks now after all the hard work so that it will make other people desire to look like that too and try out the plan for themselves.

 

 

I am already aware of how to light this sort of subject, as explained in earlier studio photography posts. However, I have never done this kind of shoot before where the main subject is just one (topless) man and the purpose of the shoot is to show off the tone and muscle in his body and Paul has certainly never done anything like this before, so I have done some research on male models and what kind of poses I could try in order to portray this. I also have some ideas of my own that I will try.

 

Here are some images I looked at for inspiration..

 

 

As you can see, the lighting and the poses used, really exaggerates muscle definition which is what I aim to do. However, Paul is not an underwear model and I hope to produce images that look a lot more natural than these!!

I will be shooting on a plain white background using my Canon EOS 500D and a 24-70mm f2.8 lens. I have chose to use this lens as it is a great all round lens and is good for portraits. It can go to quite a wide angle so that I can get some full length shots of Paul without having to stand at the other side of the room and it has enough zoom for me to focus on certain areas that I want the focus to be on.

 

I will shoot consistently on f11 as I think that this is the most appropriate aperture for this kind of shoot because everything will be in focus. I will meter the main light to f/11 and the other light to about f/16 to ensure I get the correct exposure. I am aiming for quite moody lighting with lots of contrast.

When it comes to colour space settings, I always shoot in sRGB rather than Adobe RGB because I feel that I get accurate, saturated colours, whereas if I was to shoot in Adobe RGB, the colours would appear duller to me because it squeezes colours into a smaller range before recording them to a file as it has a larger range of colours than sRGB. Special smart software is then needed to expand the colours back to where they should be when opening the file. So basically, shooting in sRGB for me is a lot less hassle. It fits in with my simplified workflow and I still get the colours I want. Also, as I am shooting specifically just for digital images and not to print, sRGB will display the colours correctly digitally on a computer monitor because the monitor can read a lot more of the colours in the sRGB gamut than the Adobe RGB gamut. If I was to shoot in Adobe RGB, I'd have to use special software to convert to sRGB in order for it to display correctly on the screen.  After explaining why I shoot in sRGB, like I explained earlier, I think the majority of my images for this particular shoot will me monochrome.

 

This shoot will require a certain lighting technique to achieve the results I want. I will use just 2 lights with modifiers to create these effects and a flash trigger.

My main light will be to one side with a beauty dish. I have decided to go for a beauty dish so that the light can be focused on the model and nowhere else and also because it gives quite a dramatic light which will work well with the style i'm trying to achieve. I will position the other light at the other side of the model, pointing at him but further back.

Here is a diagram of the setup I plan on using