The Tavern
As part of the Bogenwald shoot this year, Robbert and I couldn't resist using our full arsenal of LED lights all at once! So we did! Here's a movie-set worth of lights and smoke to capture a few epic character portraits.
The story behind the photos
This idea spawned during the Bogenwald shoot day when Robbert and I noticed the ridiculous amount of gear we both had brought. What would happen if one would put everything together for just a single shot?
So we did! We had this idea in mind of a character hero pose in a cozy, warm tavern, full of people enjoying themselves, and with a nice warm fire. Nothing too fancy, and something where we could quickly rotate out the models so everyone had a chance to get their version of an epic shot if they wanted.
From a technical side this plan required two zones of light - one for the hero, lit by the window and the fire, and one for the background, only lit by the window. Color wise I went for teal/blue/yellow, with more saturated colors on the hero, and less intense colors for the characters in the background. For each character I then changed the lights just a little bit to alter the mood to be more in line with their story. Yay for remote controls!
Luckily, most of this was easy to light by enhancing the available window light with extra LEDs on stands and booms. Creating the fire was a bit more tricky since we couldn't create a real fire at that time. I faked this with red LED lights in the fireplace, a few yellow ones just out of frame, and some added smoke. This worked well enough.
shot by Robbert Dijkstra
