For the same mag I mentioned the other day I had to do their monthly fashion article. This time it’s based on a cool shoe boutique. A few years ago I started to learn a lot about fashion from my wife and although I am no expert I do know my way around. A-line to empire waist, Von Furstenberg and Nina Garcia … Not bad for a guy who normally wears jeans and hiking boots, huh?
Anyhoo, neat-o shoes are to me like kittens: no matter how cute they are they are still way down there on the ground. So since we were doing the shoot in the tiny store I essentially did the entire shoot lying on the ground. Another reason why I don’t wear Armani suits to “the office”! I wanted a visual theme to carry along with all the photos so I used the fact that the store has all the mirrors and wall displays in large ornate picture frames. So I kept them in the background intentionally but used a limited depth of field so that your eye goes to the $400 shoes and not much else.
I wanted to also control not just the look of the lighting but also the color. With tungsten lights in the store but large windows on the opposite side I had to strobe the whole thing so that I didn’t have a blue/orange cast anywhere in the shot that would detract from the look. For each setup I used a single monolight with 7inch reflector bounced off the ceiling to act as “room light” set 2 stops under main. A Medium softbox was used for foreground fill, one stop under with two grid spots used for separation and high lighting. In essence the shoes are all spotlit but only by one stop.
Technicals: Technicals: Nikon D200, custom WB, ISO 100. AF-S 17-35 @ 20mm f/5.6, 1/125th. Strobes triggered with Pocket Wizards.
Since we were shooting during business hours we had to stop whenever customers would come in and get in my shot. While one such stoppage happened I grabbed a shot of Kate our model who was balanced rather precariously as you can see.