The finished un-retouched photo
Years ago, right after the last remaining dinosaur disappeared, I shot a campaign for Russel Athletics. Among several other photos, this idea was to capture a well-known athlete during the sport he or she was involved in.
To digress for a moment, I show people both in my online classes with the BPSOP; and also in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind ways to create Visual Tension in our imagery. I’m not talking about the kind of tension that comes from mental or emotional strain, I’m talking about Visual Tension. One of the ways is to stop an action and leave it uncompleted.
This is what I was thinking when I first started preparing for the shoot.
When this photo was taken, Adobe was a type of house in the southwest part of the country…in other words, Photoshop didn’t exist so we had to everything in the camera. Can you imagine how much easier it would have been if shot today? Easier, but not nearly as much fun.
This is how we use to do it, and this shot was relatively easy to create. One strobe head with an umbrella. I waited until the beginning of the Blue Hour and with a one-degree handheld spot meter set on the flash function, I waited until the exposure on his face matched the shy behind him.
How it was done.
I purposely shot directly into the lights so I could blow them out, creating not only energy but also more Visual Tension. BTW, don’t let anyone ever tell you that ‘clipping the highlights’ is a bad thing!!!!!
This image was produced using one frame, one exposure, and one click.
Visit my website at www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
JoeB
