Today, I just finished up a collaborative shoot with Chance NW and Mac Fashion House. The goal was to do something more editorial, and as a news guy, I figured that this would be a good challenge for me.  The shoot took place at Kristen’s house, which had a nice patio with a great view of Seattle.  The weather was clear, and the other photographers went outside and started shooting in the sun.  But I wanted to do a shoot that would give me a bit more control over the lighting.  So that meant going indoors.

The common area of Kristen’s house was wall to wall windows, which made it incredibly bright.  I tried a few shots in the kitchen, but I couldn’t get a look that I wanted.  I thought about sticking a flash in the fridge for some moonlighting, but that posed a health risk to anyone who wanted to eat from there. The only two rooms that were open to us were the laundry room and the bathroom.  The laundry room only had about 1.5 feet of walking space, and I didn’t feel right about blocking off the bathroom to the people who actually needed it.  So those were out.

Eventually, I decided that the only place where I could minimize the sunlight was the hallway.  Although the hallway was in direct path of the sun, it was also an enclosed space, which kept bounce light to a minimum.  I put one flash in the back, but I had trouble putting a flash in front of the subject without showing up on camera.  So instead, I decided to light her from the side by hiding the flash in the laundry room.  I would have loved to open up a few more doors to light the models from additional angles, but the other doors were off limit.

After a few poses in the hallway, I decided to turn the laundry room itself into a prop.  I told the models to imagine that there was something important going on inside, and they were peaking on it from the shadows.  A simple storyline, but that’s all you need.

Unfortunately, the shoot started and ended late, which meant that I needed to leave midway through and head to work.  Still, I’m very happy with how things turned out.