To date one of my most amazing experiences as a photographer came at the end of 2012 when I worked on BET's The Game Season 6 promo photoshoot. For me, this shoot declared me a professional photographer, even if only to myself. So much went into this shoot that I knew about but never had to put into action and it really let me know that I could rise to the occasion. There was equipment rental, studio rental, crew, digital tech, mock ups, equipment insurance, shoot insurance, shot list, lighting diagrams, and the list goes on that had to happen in less than 3 days. What's so funny to me is that at the very core of it, all I had to do was photograph people on a white cyc and that's something I've done a million times over but not like this. Everything needed to be spot on, exposures needed to match on each person, no hot spots, no blocked up shadows, detail throughout, and no fixing it in post, it needed to be right in camera, because the people looking at the monitor wanted to know they had the shot when they looked at it. Now I can pretend thats what I do every time but in all honesty I know I've got a little give when I'm shooting for general projects in my own personal studio but not with this.
Every person was shot individually with the intent of being composited into a group shot or standing alone. No lights were moved once we got the exposures correct so we had to tape off the floors of the studio strategically to guarantee that everyone stood in the correct location for every shot… even the bench was rolled in and put on top of apple boxes to raise it up, so when someone sat on it, they would be about the same height as when they were standing. It was an incredible incredible experience and I loved every piece of it.
All in all, we used about 7 lights. 4 lights were just being used to light the cyc which was being flagged off by 2 v-flats on each side. The subject was being lit by a beauty dish with a parabolic umbrella flying behind to add some overall fill to the shadows that the beauty dish may cause, and a bare bulb was on the ground at low power serving as a kicker to add a bit of fill to the bottom half of everyone. This was all shot with a Hasselblad h5d with an 40mp back.
Side Note: Whenever I thought about my profession as a photographer, being a celebrity photographer was never the thought, just being a photographer, and God willing a great one, was my goal. Whatever the case, I have been afforded some fantastic friendships along the way, and I always make it a point to try to have at least one of my "crew members" be a friend that honestly cares nothing about photography but genuinely just wants to be there when I photograph a celeb…. this shoot was no different… I worked one of my best friends Bob into my crew. Looking back I maybe should've hired one extra person that actually knew how to setup the lights and be an actual assistant but Bob held his own, as best he could lol.
