In a Foreign Jail

My final photo comes from a series of shots that Britt and I took of how we thought an American might look in a third world country’s jail.  

I wanted to include part of the bed so I selected my 17-35mm f/2.8 lens.  This lens would allow me to get very close to the bed and keep most of the frame in focus.

I made several shots from outside the bars, but really did not like them.  The bars became very distracting, so I decided to let the lighting indicate that Britt was behind bars.  I placed two strobes outside the bars.  One strobe was at about 7 feet and pointed slightly downward to produce the shadows on the back wall; the other strobe was at about 4 feet and pointed at the foot of the bed to produce the harder shadows on the bed.  After a few test shots, I decided that I need to warm-up the light some, so I placed a full cut CTO on both strobes.

I was now happy with overall lighting, but did not like how Britt’s face was being illuminated.  I added a strobe with a fine grid on it to light Britt’s face and left side.  After tweaking the settings for this strobe including putting some gaffer's tape on the grid to help direct the light where I wanted it, I was happy with the level of light on Britt, but not the color.  I then added a ¼ cut green gel to the strobe to bring back the real colors of his face and clothes.

I was surprised at how fast we were able to get to our final images.  It usually took us about 20 minutes to derive our final product.  One of my biggest problems was that I had not worked with studio strobes and therefore was constantly surprised at the level of light the produced.  I almost always had to turn them down significantly from my original settings.

Overall, I was happy with the shot.  I like the color combination—warm earth tones and blue.  I think that the photograph looks like it was taken with only ambient lighting.  I do, however, wish that I had removed the light bulb.  It adds nothing to the photograph.  It is just a big, white distraction.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, 17-35mm f/2.8 at 20mm, shot at ISO 200, f/11 and 1/250.

Post Processing:

Lightroom:  Set white and black points, added mid-tone contrast.

Photoshop:  Used nik Color Efex Pro’s tonal contrast to increase the details in everything but Britt’s skin and sharpened the image using the high pass filter in overlay mode.