Shooting blokes dressed all in black sports compression wear against a dark background is never going to be easy. Spill too much light into the background as it goes to grey. Have none at all and it looks like a Photoshop cutout. Add in the complication that they should be wearing the ubiquitous flat peak cap, and shadows all over the face become a problem.
And of course, it’s all on location as studio shots and location shots are needed too. So everything had to be packed into the trusty VW van and moved there to meet the very nice people who are launching Virus Action Sport Performance wear into the UK.
Shooting on my Phase One 645 DF+ with Schneider leaf shutter lenses means quality and beating the sunshine outdoors wasn’t an issue, thanks to its 1/1600sec sync speed. Glorious.
Mains powered Elinchrom monoblocs – 600RXs, 1200RX and a pair of the new ELCs with a mix of Elinchrom light banks and Chimera softboxes were used indoors thanks to AC power. Then outdoors, three 1100Ws Elinchrom Rangers with beauty dishes were used for some harder-edged light. The Square 44 is one of my faves and works a treat. And the smaller Elinchrom beauty dishes with a silver lining work well for blokes, and they are very light efficient. Thoroughly recommended. Bit of a cool tone suited the shots, I thought.
