Next, my friend and our Pastor, Poly Rouse.  Poly is a great guy that is a lot of fun to hang with.  We ride bikes together (yes, he rides a Harley)  Plus his wife Julie, who as he says is "the best part of him," and my wife are close friends. 

 

They wanted a brick background for this portrait.  Marlene and Sherry scouted out this next spot while I finished the previous one.  I brought the Elinchrom Quadra in from my left, his right.  One of the advantages of this powerful light is it's total portability!  The battery weighs 9 pounds and the head only a half pound. Lighting location portraits are made simpler because it has it's own power, no electricity needed.  Two considerations, it needs to be soft so I don't blow out his smooth head.  I also wanted to create a shadow on the wall for effect.  To make sure that happens, pull the light away from your subject.  The further the distance from the light to your subject, the more specular it becomes and you will get a shadow.  Here it is a soft shadow because it is a larger source (the soft box).  I am really very happy with this portrait and he is too.

Fuji X Pro 1

Fuji X Pro 1 and the 55-200 lens, mounted on a Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod with Really Right Stuff Ball head

Fuji X Pro 1

Dynalite with grid, same camera with 18-55mm Fuji zoom lens and tripod

 

Ed Ollie is our new "Senior Associate Pastor," but isn't that a stuffy sounding title?  I mean, who wants to hang with someone that has that has that position?  It's OK because you wont ever hear that come from him.  You will hear him laugh a lot, and he will be wearing some unpredictable bight color of shoes.  Look at this portrait, now wouldn't you want to hang out with him?  This is a pretty low key image, in a very dark spot of the building. In fact, I kind of laughed when they took me to this spot and commented that this might be a bit more challenging.  I knew we could make it pop with the right light sources.  There was next to zero light here, so I used a tight grid on the Dynalite from high camera left to separate the shadow side of him.  I brought in the Quadra from camera right and it was done!  Take a look all the way down to his brown shoes against a brown wood floor, its all there.  When Sherry saw it come up on the back of my camera she said, "Wow, that is incredible, it looks great!"  You've heard it said before, beauty is in the eye of the checkbook holder! 

 

Come on back tomorrow, I have a few more location portraits to show you.  Thanks for stopping by!