ASSIGNMENT: A SCULPTOR AND HIS WORK

So, here we are with the first assignment post on this blog! I was booked to shoot sculptor Peter Orban for his next exhibition, and the shoot requirements were for me to shoot a couple of portraits of him as well as images of same of his most recent work. The whole shoot had to happen in less than three hours due to previous commitments on both parts and this being the only possible timeframe suitable for both of us. More, I had to fly+train to the location (one far from any major cities), with the resulting constraints in the gear I could bring and use for this job...

One of the final images is here, the rest of the pictures, the whole story and some behind-the-scenes after the break.

Peter Orban, Senigallia, Italy 2012

For this assignment, I decided to travel as light as possible; so I filled my backpack with my Nikon D3x, my 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/2.8D PC-E and 3 Speedlights (SB-910 & SB-700) to be controlled by the PocketWizard MiniTT1, FlexTT5 & AC3 system. As support for the lights, I used a GorillaPod, a VAL (Voice Activated Lightstand) and I had the Speedlights own footrests available if needed.

So, here we go!

Shooting requirements and constraints: the artist wanted to be shoot with a crystal sphere in his hand, being the sphere an underlining theme of his recent production and of the oncoming exhibition; the shoot was to be taking place outdoors, almost midday (=very harsh light); the whole shoot had to happen in less than three hours; I had to manage with 3 Speedlights and available light.

After a quick reckon of the premises, and being most of his work made of variously finished bronze, I thought that an old, rusty-red door in the shade on the back of the house would have been the perfect place for one of the portraits. For the photography above, I used a Speedlight with a Honl Photo Traveller 8 Softbox modifier high and 45' camera left, a second light was used to light the door camera light and a third to add some light lower camera left and balance out some of the shadows there - all lights were CTO'd (the blue catchlights in the sunglasses have been left on purpose!).

For a second image, I decided to use a bench placed under a tree overlooking the hills in the garden on the back of the house, and to light the scene as if it was late evening. To do so, I underexposed the ambient accordingly and used a VAL'd Speedlight camera right, added a second light on the ground camera right to light the sphere and the artist RH, and GorillaPod'ed the third light on the bench camera left, to open up the shadows on his right side a bit - all lights were CTO'd.

Peter Orban, Senigallia, Italy 2012

Total time for both portraits, around 30 minutes including recon and setup.

Bagged these two shots of him, we turned to his work - the sculptures - which were to be shoot in his studio/residence, a wonderful house overlooking the hills.

For the first of the 6 works, featuring a crystal sphere surrounded by bronze tree branches mounted on a wooden base, we decided to put the sphere's reflections to a good use to show the surroundings & especially the sky. Once more, I opted to turn daylight into late evening, and used my three available Speedlight to get this:

Then we moved inside, and worked on a sort of bas-relief representing a bronze torn letter which pieces had been re-positioned as if to put it back together, but lifted from the support as if moved by a breeze; the work was hang on a wall close to a corner, so I decided to live it there and lit it bouncing a Speedlight on the adjacent wall to get some light under the flying pieces of bronze-paper, using a second light on axis to make the polished bronze's writing bright in order to have them stand out (per the artist's request):

He also needed a detail shot to show the bronze's textures, so I used the macro capabilities of the Nikon 85mm f/2.8D PC-E to get this, using the same lighting setup:

Moving on, we organized a small set using a blackboard background, and we proceeded to shot the next work, lit using a VAL'd Speedlight behind the bronze piece about 45' camera left, a second one 45' high camera right and a third one low power on-axis:

Again, he needed a couple detail shots, so using basically the same lighting setup moving around the lights a bit we got these:

Without changing the lights too much, we replaced the exploded sphere with the next sculpture, which he needed 3 different views of:

Moving on, we had to shoot two more wall-mounted works; for the first, made of a wooden table and a bronze woven-like protuberance, he asked me if we could use the shadows of the bronze to create shapes on the wall that described the textures and volume of the work itself, so I placed my three Speedlights camera left, camera right and lower on-axis, and we settled for the image below:

The last work I was assigned to shoot was the most difficult of the bunch; a wall-mounted bronze, mirror-like disc with a half-sphere coming out of its center and a woven arc covering part of it... a reflections nightmare, so I decided to use one of the Speedlights to light the work from below through a huge white sheet of paper that acted as a diffuser; a second and a third light were placed on camera left and right to add some definition to the semi-sphere and to the arc:

After getting this, we thought it could be cool to shoot one more image of this outdoor, getting reflections of the cloudy sky in the disc, so with the help of one Speedlight we got this:

which officially ended the shoot, exactly in the timeframe we had.

Under the time, location and equipment constraint that we had to work with, I was quite pleased with the result - and, most importantly, the client was very happy with the resulting photographs.

Now for the technical stuff (click to go to the related product page): all images shown here have been shot with a Nikon D3x, equipped with the Nikon 50mm f/1.4 AF-S and the Nikon 85mm f/2.8D PC-E; lighting was provided by one SB-910 Speedlight & two SB-700 Speedlights, controlled by PocketWizard MiniTT1, FlexTT5 & AC3; for flash support, a Joby GorillaPod has been used. Photos have been developed in Nikon Capture NX 2 and finished in Adobe Photoshop CS6.

Thank you for reading this far, and see you soon on the blog! Stay tuned for more...

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