I am an Ironman – progress

I have made some good progress with the I am an Ironman series. I have now decided to unify the background using shades/tones of grey.

For location work the Lastolite collapsible background seems to work well – although it does have an irritating weave in the cloth which creates lines which are not quite vertical!! I also plan to continue with using ambient light for fill and a single softbox as the key light. When travelling I will use speedlights in an lastolite exybox softbox. At home I can use my Elinchrom Quadra set up with a larger Rotalux softbox. What is clear is that if the ambient light conditions are darker then the overall background will be darker also – as in the Anne Bristoe shot below. For all the work going forward I will use the Hasselblad 503cm with and 80mm lens and the Phase One P45+ back. This will enable me to produce larger prints.

I do have two photographs from the past which were shot on my Canon 1ds mk 3 – Mickie Shapiro and Nick Kinsey. They were also not shot on grey backgrounds. I have been able to satisfactorily replace the backgrounds to a level which would be good enough for my final portfolio. The photographs which I took in Hawaii with just window light and a reflector have a different look and the cream background does not work as well as the grey – particularly for Tricia Totten with her blond hair. Happily I will be able to reshoot these in July.

The photograph below gives an indication of the current state of play.