This shoot was short, spontaneous and completed in about one hour around a month ago. It was the result of a short message to a friend and makeup artist, Jessica Morales, on a Thursday evening about putting together something to do with the camera on Friday evening. I've been having fun with shooting along the lines of an old film noir look using a 650w tungsten fresnel light and wanted to give the same style a go on location using strobes. The original plan was to go with a female model but Jessica suggested changing it up by sending Dan Stubbs in a suit and tie. Sure, why not?
Dan showed up around 8:45, minutes before sunset and a short time before blue hour began. He was already in the suit and ready to get started. We picked a location very familiar to photographers in the San Angelo area, often called the "Art Alley". The spot has earned some minor contempt from photographers due to the frequency of its appearance in family photos but it felt like the right place to be for this theme -- old brick warehouse, dirty lamp casting a conical pool of of light down the side of the building, metal bars over windows with an antique look. Shooting at night gave us the opportunity to breath new life into an often-visited location.
The lighting setups were simple and quick:
- Strobe in a 22" beauty dish with 20deg grid.
- Strobe in a standard reflector with 10deg grid.
- Both.
The second setup in particular allowed for a lot of light control, providing the ability to shine a harsh light on Dan's face for that noir look. In some shots, the beauty dish was used as fill. In others the beauty dish was added as fill or used as a key.