Shooting For Composite Images

For the first post in the new Photo Blog, I thought I'd share my thoughts, process and photos from a recent assignment for Signature Brandywine Magazine. My assignment was to photograph the owner of the Dilworthtown Inn and a new bistro called the Blue Pear in West Chester, PA. During the photo session & interview, I learned of a wine cellar at Dilworthtown Inn and thought how great a portrait in there would be. I returned the next evening for a fabulous meal at Dilworthtown Inn to photograph both proprietors who we'll call Jim & Bob.

Before I get started, let me drop a plug for these guys. If you live in the area, I highly recommend reserving a table at the Dilworthtown Inn for a superb, 5-star meal in a formal dining experience or the Blue Pear for a few drinks and great food. Visit dilworthtown.com or call 610-399-1390 for reservations.

Ok, back to the job. The thing about wine cellars is that they are, um well… cellars. You know, dark and generally unevenly lit with generously cramped spaces as far as making portraits is concerned. The challenge was to light a flattering yet powerful portrait while maintaining the ambiance and character of the wine cellar.

When photographing people of such importance it’s crucial to have the game plan worked out before they walk into the room for the portrait. It’s generally respectful to take up as little of their time as possible. We didn’t have room to set up more than the one light and I couldn’t get a gel to match the supposedly daylight-balanced fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling. I decided to tackle the image by way of digital composite as I had several exposure times and light temperatures to deal with to get the dynamic tones I wanted.

First step – I made a custom WB (white balance) for the ambient light, (more on how to do this in a future post).

Space was tight so I used a single Nikon SB800 Speedlight at 1/16 power on a stand through a Westcott Bruce Dorn 18x42” strip bank with a 1 stop diffuser. I fired the flash via a pocket wizard from the camera. I used a Canon 5D and 17-40L lens on a tripod for the composite shots. There are a few important things to consider when doing shots for a composite image:
1) Use a good tripod.
2) Focus only once. If you refocus between images the nature of the lens bokeh, (out of focus area,) will change the perceived scale of objects in extreme foreground or background.

I started with a quick reference frame to illustrate how mixing the ambient light with the non-gelled speedlight would give me a very unusable mix of colors not to mention an exposure that would be tough to ensure my subjects stay sharp. This exposure is 1/5 sec. f/8 ISO 800. (For those of you still reading, this is the image that gets tossed.)


The test shot to illustrate messy mixed light (this image gets tossed).

The first good image below is exposed and color balanced for my subjects. I set the focus for the face of the closer of the two subjects and turned my auto focus off to help avoid re-focusing the lens. An aperture of f/8 would ensure good clarity across both faces. WB was set to match the speedlight (sunny on the camera) for a slightly warm tone. The exposure was 1/30sec. f/8 ISO 800. My shutter speed was still pretty slow, so I made multiple frames to ensure sharp subjects.


Exposed for subjects with higher shutter speed to maintain sharpness.

After less than 2 minutes of making exposures, my subjects are excused and I can concentrate on the shots for the room ambience. I switched to my custom white balance I made for the ceiling lights and bracketed several frames. I settled on an exposure of 1/5sec. f/8 ISO 800 for the look I wanted.


Exposed for ambience at low shutter speed & custom WB

Next it’s into the computer. I processed the RAW files in Adobe Lightroom 2 Beta and did the composite and polish work in Photoshop CS3. The final PSD file had close to 30 layers and at least a dozen masks. The resulting image maintains the historic character of the wine cellar yet portrays the subjects in a flattering light several stops brighter to convey their importance.


The final composite image.

I hope this has been informative - Thanks for reading!