I like taking portraits better than just about anything else I do. I was very happy to be asked to create portraits for a well respected public relations firm, late last year. They had some fun, playful images that a photographer did for their website but they also needed something for presentations to more visually conservative clients.
I went on location to their offices to make images of their entire staff. We scheduled two days to do about 25 people. I used a 6x6 foot white diffusion scrim over to the subject's right side. A 600 watt second Profoto monolight bounced into a 60 inch softlighter 2 umbrella was the light source. It sat back about four feet from the diffusion scrim to help spread out the light.
I used a smaller Profoto monolight on the background with a small softbox mounted on the front and a layer of extra diffusion over the front of the box. That light was set up about five feet from the background and about 20 feet behind my subject.
My fill to the opposite side was a small white card at least five feet away and sandwiched between two big black panels. I wanted to control bounceback as much as possible.
I shot each person on both the Canon 5D2 and the Kodak SLR/n to see which one I liked better. In most cases I liked the Kodak better. In some cases the Canon. But seriously, they both created files that were sharp and easy to work with. At a certain level my preference was just a matter of taste.
I love doing portraits. If I could choose any job in the world it would be taking portraits........
