I started a series of images based on portraits of people in their garages, highlighting their vehicles and or Hobby.

One that I shared early on was this one of my friend Bill in his stable. This one doesn’t show his personality as much as his home garage, but still provides a decent portrait and works well for this example.

More sessions will soon be visible in the gallery. But what I wanted to share this week, is some of the work that goes into how I get my images.

I approached this session as a commercial portrait. Documenting set up time, travel time, shoot time, Digital Captures, and all the fun stuff needed to provide an invoice for the client.

I didn’t scout the location so no additional fees there, but was going in a bit blind, it adds to the challenge.

When I got there this was what it looked like inside.

So now the challenge of how to make the scene more interesting.. without going overboard?

While I set up my lights, I got Bill and his friend to reposition a couple of the cars.

Once I was reasonably pleased with the arrangement I began to light the individual cars.

In the diagram below I try and explain the movement of light.
Light A was my main – a Profoto with a 64″ Paul Buff BLM umbrella and diffuser, A represents the initial position, A2, A3 etc the subsequent.

A7 was the final position with light B as a fill for the actual portrait of Bill.

Seven main images were combined and used in the final image. More images were taken at different exposures and slightly different positions, but for this composition I used seven main images.

So how long did this take?
As I mentioned above I approached this as a commercial client, so..
Drive time was 30 min each way
Session time was 60 min
Set/up/Tear down was 30 min
Processing time was 25 min
Retouching time was 1 hr 45min

So time invested- 4hrs and 40 minutes.

The invoice for a hypothetical commercial client for this file would be $1041.55

Now I know what you are thinking…”What $1050?, no thank you we will have our media guy do it. ”

Not a problem, I’ve told you how I got the image, so in theory anyone can get this shot now. In fact, I want to add some information to think about and help you get the shot.

Some of the Equipment you need.
Rental for 1 day.
Camera with suitable lens $200
Profoto Kits (2@90) $180
Soft box $25
Strip Box $25
Large 64″ umbrella-Not available for rent, but you can find similar $25
Elinchrom Quadra (2@50) $100
Transceivers (2 sets) $40

Rental total= $595+ 29.75 GST

Media guys salary, $35/hr x 4.66hrs $163.10
But this is his first time… and doesn’t know photoshop or know how the equipment works, so add a day to google/youtube learn $35 X 8= $326.2, add second day rental so he can figure out how it works together $624.75
+ add an hour to pick up and drop off the equipment. + $35

You should be able to get a similar shot in the range of $1773.80… assuming media guy is a quick learner, and you don’t have to pay him overtime to complete his regular duties, or have to re-shoot because it didn’t work out… I won’t add car rental..

Anyway I hope this helps put things in perspective, I can be booked for photography, or for consultations to your media guy.
Just give me a shout, 780-983-5515 or drop me an email info@davebennett.ca and I’ll be glad to help out.