Editorial Magazine Portrait Shoot for Boston University

One of my favorite things about editorial location portrait shoots is dealing with the unknowns. Usually you are working with individuals with limited availability and often times the shoot takes place at a location where we haven’t had the ability to work previously. It’s not uncommon to show up and have to do a quick assessment of 3-4 or more shoot scenarios and account for the lighting for each. Ideally, you would have an assistant and get to pre-light each portrait angle. Then again, sometimes the shoot evolves more organically and on-the-fly. In the case of this shoot with Brent Britton for Boston University, I had photographed at the Tampa Museum of Art previously but we were dealing with mid-day light so I knew we would be fighting hard light and shadows. As a fix, we rely on Broncolor strobe lighting. For location work, I heavily depend on the self-contained Siros heads. A good friend of mine was assisting me that day and we had some time to scout so I had a rough shot list by the time the subject showed up. 

One of the more interesting aspects of portrait shoots is how differently individuals can look in the same position and the same lighting. There have been times where the main subject looks completely dissimilar from the pre-light simply from the light falling on the subject differently than the assistant who stood in for the pre-light. It’s rare, but there are times when you have to scrap a scenario because of this. I often think back to something National Geographic photographer Joe McNally said, which was, “Don’t be afraid to say this isn’t working.” Coming from a photojournalism background, there were so many times where you had to make a situation work that just wasn’t wanting to work - we often didn’t have any control of who we were photographing or where or when. With editorial portraits, the photographer often has complete control so there is no need to be married to a shoot scenario that isn’t producing good results. I used to be worried about offending the subject if I said something didn’t look good but I think with the right bedside manner, they often appreciate it- they don’t want to waste time and energy posing for an angle that isn’t going to make the cut. 

Luckily, we didn’t have to scrap any of the angles that we scouted but some definitely looked or worked better than others. And sometimes that is almost wholly determined by the subject- some poses or facial expressions or a particular posture can just click and make a scenario that was previously okay or passable into a photo that anchors the story and other images. Keep an eye out for natural movements or gestures that your subject makes and use the ones that are visually appealing to work from and to help your subject feel at ease during the shoot. For more portraits, click here.