Dad, photographed in August at my pop-up studio.
A lot of times my Dad, Tarmo, helps me out on certain projects. He was a big help for me and Sampo on Space Madness and Unhola, two of our favorite fine art projects. He's really handy--I am not--and he doesn't mind standing in for a light test or two.
In August, I set up a temporary studio in an empty office space in downtown Oulu, courtesy of Njetwork Inn. The idea was to use the 15 m2 (or 160 sq ft) room as a portrait studio with three different backgrounds for three different looks. That way I could change the look quickly for a sitter and just switch from one wall to another in a snap.
I brought in a seamless white and a seamless medium gray background. For the third option, I brought a beautiful gray hand-painted canvas that the artist, set designer and costume designer Heidi Kesti custom-made for me in the spring. I already used it for a project with the P*lluralli crew back in May, and wanted to bring it back for this. It's roughly 1,4m wide and 1,8m tall (5x6 ft maybe) and has a little texture to it. It's bluish-gray, which I really like, and usually cool it down a tad more in post. But it works fine even with a warmer color temperature and it is super nice in B&W.
The room was wide enough for me to set up a full roll of white seamless (2,75m, 9ft) which was great, because I planned to bring in some dancers and give them at least a little room to maneuver. The gray is just half of a big roll, which makes it roughly 1,4 m or 4,5ft wide, good for one person.
The room was white and carried with it the same issue that all white rooms have: light bounces everywhere. Tough to control.
So! In we go with Dad to set up our crap. The room had three windows on one wall facing the street (and early morning sun). The other walls were bare. We set up the white seamless at the long end of the room and taped the canvas to its opposite wall. The medium gray we taped on the wall opposite the windows. So when you walked in the room, the canvas would be on the right-hand wall, the white seamless on the left-hand wall and the medium gray would be on the wall with the door, facing the windows.
We brought in some black fabric to dim out the considerable daylight as the windows were only equipped with standard blinds. We set up most of my gear, like stands and reflectors and such, by the walls around the shooting area for easy access. I got a great sitter's chair from Cocktail Company (I would photograph the proprietor, Jani Virta, later that week) and another option from Heidi. I was also able to set up a small area in one corner of the room, where I would have a laptop and speakers to cull images and play music. And that was it!
Once we were done with the setting up, I asked Dad to stand in for a few light tests. I tested the set-ups that I thought I was most going to use. I would most likely use a gridded medium Westcott Apollo 28" softbox or a CreativeLight 41" umbrella softbox as my main light so I photographed Dad with the Apollo. Later on in the week I used a variety of lights: bare speedlights, gridded speedlights, a 50" shoot-through umbrella, window light etc. But the Apollo and the CL were my go-tos.
And Dad was thrilled:
Always excited about a light test! I lit him in all of these with one speedlight in the Apollo. Middle image has two speedlights on the white as well.
With the studio all set up and ready to go, we were on our way! During the week I photographed 16 sitters in that setting--artists, writers, dancers, musicians, not to mention two circus guys from Spain.