This is the first in what I hope will become an occasional feature dissecting how some of my photos - and those of the Cheapshooter community - were taken. These photo dissections will highlight how a photo concept is developed technically on a limited budget and will be geared for more advanced photographers. Cheapshooter’s first photo dissection is this concept portrait.

The concept: I shoot stock photography for iStockphoto, and I wanted an image to illustrate the concept of someone selling out or being held hostage by their finances. I decided to take a literal approach to things and develop a portrait where a person was literally gagged by their money. As is typical with my middle-of-the-night shooting sessions, I lacked a model so I had to use myself.

The equipment: Because of sites like Strobist, I’ve fallen in love with the use of off-camera strobes as a way of controlling the light within an image. I decided to use my two strobes - a Canon 430EX and a Vivitar 580HV - to provide the primary lighting within the image. I wanted a tight crop on my face, so I decided to use my Canon 200mm f/2.8L lens attached to my Digital Rebel XT.

See how it all came together after the jump.

Stumble It!

The diagram:

Excuse the crude quality of the drawing. This is how the photo was taken: I had two flashes, one of which was gelled and lit the background, and the other of which was fired into an umbrella perpendicular to myself. The camera was manually focused and set on auto-timer to give me time to pose.

From a stats standpoint, the 430EX was fired at 1/32 power and the 580HV was set to 1/16th power. The aperture of the final image was f/4.0 with a shutter speed of 1/125s. The flashes were triggered using Gadget Infinity radio remotes.

The challenges: I wanted a green-colored background, which meant that I either needed a green backdrop or I had to improvise. Lacking money, I took the latter route.

I hung a vinyl shower curtain as a backdrop and fired my Canon 480EX with a green gel into it to create the dark-green background. The problem was that the wrinkles in the shower curtain were fairly obvious - even at a low aperture and a shallow depth of field. To solve this, I increased the distance between the subject and the backdrop, as well as the camera and the subject. This gave me an even greater level of background blur, which eliminated the wrinkles. The tight crop helped as well

I also wanted a harsher quality to the lighting to give the image a bit edgier of a look. Lighting myself with direct flash produced too harsh of lighting for my tastes, and firing it into an umbrella first softened it up nicely. Placing the umbrella perpendicular to myself also eliminated the problem of flash leakage from the 580HV ruining the green lighting behind.

Staying on a budget:This wasn’t the cheapest shot in the world to produce, but I got an image I am happy with on a lot less than what a professional would use. Here are the major differences:

• Vinyl backdrop. It cost me a total of $4, and while it gave me a few problems, it worked out well in the end.
• Gel. A gel sheet costs a few dollars for a single color. Instead, I ordered a sample pack, which gave me hundreds of colors, each about the same size as my flash head. Total cost: $3.
• Radio triggers. The Gadget Infinity triggers allow me to fire flashes remotely, which is necessary for a shot like this. Professional-caliber Pocket Wizards cost hundreds of dollars per set. These cheapo triggers are less-reliable, but they only cost $50. The radio triggers also enabled me to get cheaper flashes, as I also could avoid investing in Canon’s proprietary wireless system to get the job done.

I could have shaved the cost even further. The Canon 200mm f/2.8L lens is a bit overqualified for this shot - a cheaper, consumer-zoom would have worked just as well since I was only shooting at f/4. I also could have shot against a neutral background and colored it later in Photoshop, eliminating the need for a second flash.

Photoshop: Only a bit to up the contrast and the saturation. Before and after provided below.

Image straight from camera (above)
After adjustments (below)

All in all, I’m proud of the photo and I think it’s a cool shot. Let me know what your opinion is in the comments, as well as anything you would have done differently. Be (constructively) brutal - I can take it.

If you have a photo you’d like to dissect, email me.

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