Fred Fraser Commercial Photographer

I had sworn off lighting like this because it only really flies in the fashion world, and only then in editorial — I probably wouldn’t be popular with my clients if I lit their catalogues and look books this way. Or even better … shooting corporate portraits.

But … it’s just way too much fun to resist, and put it together with some great hair and make up work and I’m hopeless. And ya, the title of the post is a punny double entendre – another thing I seem powerless to resist.

Click on the fuzzy thumbnails to see not so fuzzy larger versions.

I am certain any experienced photographer will tell you that the photo you see, and the session that produced it, account for a small part of the total amount of effort that go into producing it. I am still faintly surprised when I see a published piece at how a photo that took hours of meetings/consultations, planning/logistics and scouting to set up factors in to the overall marketing “weight” of a finished project.

The photos in Port Metro Vancouver’s recent annual may appear simple, and no doubt 20 years ago when I started in this crazy business I would have looked at them and thought, “pff, I could do that no problem”, but the truth is producing a good “simple” photo can take a lot of behind the scenes effort from everyone involved. In the case of the cover photo of the rope laid out to mimic the Port logo there were no less then 6 people involved in the planning, coordination and execution of the shoot: The design company CD and AD, the client, the onsite foreman and one other of the staff to assist us on the location, plus myself (and that leaves out the person designated by the client to paint the dock the precise color of red that is used in the logo!). I was ready to go with a truck load of equipment to light the shot, but the photo gods were smiling on me that day and the cloud cover was exactly the right sort I needed – soft diffused light with some direction to it (other then straight down). I wish they had smiled on us everyday we were shooting the annual … Anyway, 90% pre-production, 10% shooting – a lot of work for what looks simple.

The moment you involve people in the photo the amount of pre-production coordination increases significantly … but then, so does the fun factor (and the marketing power of the photo).

As an aside, the rope in the photo totaled about 30 feet in length – and weighed about 80 lbs. A great prop to move around from location to location. The model holding the rope on her shoulder was Tough!

Click on the photos to see bigger, less fuzzy versions.