Blood from a Stone

Atlanta Photographer Matthew Lane-
In the continuing search to create great natural light headshots, I worked hard this weekend to wrangle the bit of light coming into the dining room at my home into something to work with. The sun light shines hard on the floor so the goal was to get that light to shine brightly on the ceiling to create that big diffused light coming from everywhere. To accomplish this, I used two gold reflectors, one held with a light stand and the other on the floor. This lit the ceiling brightly to create two large light sources from above and below. For the shot, I placed Abbie just under that bright ceiling looking up. I did have to position her to keep the bright gold reflectors from creating too much low light which is quite unflattering to anybody.

See more at www.zazenphoto.com

Ben Johnstone

Atlanta Photographer Matthew Lane-
This week, I shot Ben Johnstone. Ben is a private baseball coach for kids who wanted some better shots of himself for his website. His website is where parents can learn who he is, what his credentials are and contact him for booking info.

We decided to meet at a field during one of his sessions to get some actions shots followed by some more formal portraits. His client was quite gracious to allow us to shoot and have him and his child in some of the shots.

The light was so gorgeous this day that I decided to run with it and keep the strobes in the bag. The action shots were taken with the telephoto so I didn’t interfere with the learning. It also provides some nice separation from the background.

The portrait shooting was a bit more complicated. I was lucky to have two lovely assistants with me to manage the reflectors. For this shot, I placed Ben in the shade and then bounced some gold reflector for low fill.

These turned out really great and I can’t wait to see them on his website.