A NEW TYPE OF PLANT
Sometimes as a celebrity photographer you have these opportunities to work with talent that you have been admiring for just about your entire life. Robert Plant lead singer of the worlds greatest band Led Zeppelin is one of those people for me. I had photographed Robert in the past for my coffee table book 'Shades of Elvis' www.ShadesofElvis.net after that shoot Mr. Plant was so happy with the images he had asked if I would should publicity shots for his then upcoming tour. As you can imagine this was a thrill for me to get to work and spend time with this musical giant.
My idea for this shoot was to try and capture Robert Plant like we have never seen him before. The first time I worked with Robert we shot in a more natural environment on the beach in Malibu California. It was a very gloomy over-cast day but I was super excited with the results of the shoot as was Robert. (see black and white photo second down)
So with this new publicity photo shoot I wanted to be in a more controlled studio environment. I wanted to be able to light and create the entire look.
Let me explain how I achieved the lighting and vibe of this photo.
Sometimes as a celebrity photographer you have these opportunities to work with talent that you have been admiring for just about your entire life. Robert Plant lead singer of the worlds greatest band Led Zeppelin is one of those people for me. I had photographed Robert in the past for my coffee table book 'Shades of Elvis' www.ShadesofElvis.net after that shoot Mr. Plant was so happy with the images he had asked if I would should publicity shots for his then upcoming tour. As you can imagine this was a thrill for me to get to work and spend time with this musical giant.
My idea for this shoot was to try and capture Robert Plant like we have never seen him before. The first time I worked with Robert we shot in a more natural environment on the beach in Malibu California. It was a very gloomy over-cast day but I was super excited with the results of the shoot as was Robert. (see black and white photo second down)
So with this new publicity photo shoot I wanted to be in a more controlled studio environment. I wanted to be able to light and create the entire look.
Let me explain how I achieved the lighting and vibe of this photo.
In the studio that I have been using for many years called Macadden Space in Hollywood Califonia there are many different types of walls and textures. On one end of the studio there is a blue metal sliding entrance door. Now I have seen this door had been used in many different shoots at the studio and pretty much from the same angle and lighting. I wanted the photo to have the feel as if there was a blast of light coming from the area off to the side of Robert. I achieved this with a flight panel strobe it is about a 14 x 14 inches in size. It gave me a pretty wide blast of light. As you can see it also gave me some great highlights on Roberts hair just enough to keep the detail and not be too blown out. Because the metal door was painted blue semi-gloss I knew there would be a pretty strong reflection off the door and that would give me another dimension and feel and not just an even blue color.
So now I have to light my subject but not use too much light that will flatten out what I was trying to create behind Robert. My subject light was a strobe on a stand with a small soft box up high this gave me a bit more control over how much would spill on other areas besides Roberts face. If you can imagine, the light was in-line with Roberts nose up just above his head pointed down at him. This gave me a nice even light and filled in any place there might have been hard shadows. Also because the soft box was small it would give enough light to accent his jacket. As you can see from the photo there are nice highlights.
I really like to shoot down low and point up at my subject but for this look and setup I was up slightly above Robert and had him look up just enough to give his eyes a more expressive look.
My camera setting for this were:
Nikon D800
f/13 Exposure-1/125 sec ISO-500 AP- 4.5
Overall when I look at this studio photo I see many different angles, colors and shapes. As always I never like to shoot my subject directly centered so having Roberts head off to the top right worked for me.
Later in post once again I had a great canvas to work with some really great detail and colors. I really love the way Roberts hair fell into place and almost has a wind-blown vibe without using a fan. There is some really good contrast and deep colors. We never really see Robert like this and was excited to hear his reaction to this photo. He said to me "There he is. I see that young lad in there" that made me feel proud of my work. This was truly and experience and one that will go down in my photography books forever.
(From my first shoot with Robert in Malibu California for the book 'Shades of Elvis' www.ShadesofElvis.net)
