Recently, I paid a visit to the new studio of Akron Photographer Andrew McAllister. The space is a few doors down from Crave and Rubber City Clothing on North High Street. Andrew has posted a write up about the studio on his blog, which has been added to our blogroll. The purpose of my visit was to serve as a stand in for some of the new lighting setups Andrew created in his studio. The upside for me was I got to learn about some of the lighting techniques, see the tools he uses, and get some professional head shots for posterity. Though I'm somewhat wary of doing a post that focuses on my mug, getting to talk a bit about the experience is worth it.












The studio has a high ceiling and two windows that overlook the alley and patio off of Musica. Andrew used a Leica M8 digital camera with wireless Pocket Wizards for the shoot. I asked Andrew if there why he used the Leica and if there were any advantages to a range finder camera for portrait shoots:

"No specific reason. It is just the sharpest digital thing I own. While sharpest is not always the best for portraiture, in the digital age it is not a big deal to make it less sharp if needed. Basically a personal preference. Your portraits were taken with a 50 mm lens. With the crop ratio of 1.3 it functions like a slightly longer lens but still looks "normal". Not compressing space like you get with longer focal lengths.

The studio had two different lighting set ups for the head shots. The first had a white backdrop with giant pieces of foam core board for front and side fill light. One flash was in a giant octobox that kicked out very soft light. He shot a few with a white background, and then stopped it down with a flash behind me to get a gray background. After snapping a few, Andrew changed to a gridded beauty dish positioned high over my head. He showed me a couple different looks and how a grid needs to be positioned at exactly the right angle to light properly since there was so little spill. The third set up had a brown background lit with a flash with a brown film to keep the light warm. We tried taking a couple more casual shots with no jacket, but the dress shirt I had chosen was showing too many wrinkles from a half day's wear and tear. Here is a look at how the different lighting changed the look of the portraits:

I'd like to thank Andrew for the opportunity to come visit his studio. Visit Andrewfoto.com to see more of his photography. We're in the process of setting up a Chief Source staff field trip to the studio for social and photographic purposes. Note to staff: internal memo forthcoming.