Classroom Photo Shoot

Saturday's stock photo shoot of a simulated classroom was great. This was the most models that I have used in a single session and everyone did an awesome job.

The location of the shoot was a local private school. One of my friends (and regular reader) was able to put together the use of the facility (thanks Ricci!). The room we used wasn't a normal classroom, but a common area in the school. By using this room, we had extra space around the perimeter to place lights, equipment and such.



In lighting the scene, my goal was to have natural looking classroom light. I wanted one side of the room to be much brighter to simulate light that would normally come in through windows. To achieve this, I placed two softboxes down the side for the mainlights and then brought in fill light from the back and opposite sides of the room. Here is an overview photo (taken by our teacher's husband):



Once the lighting was put in place and adjusted for exposure, I pretty much left it sit except for the occasional fine-tuning to add or subtract light from part of the scene.

For models we had 9 children and a teacher. Michelle arranged having the children at the shoot and we ended up with a majority of 6th and 7th grade girls to go along with our teacher, Jenna. The kids were great. They were extremely patient as we set up different shots and even suggested a few things to add or take away.

Today's featured image (on the top of the page) was one of the funnest shots for everyone to do. For some reason, this group of above average students got a kick out of tying up their teacher and going nuts. Jenna was a great sport, but of course this wasn't the first time we tied her up for a shot (see here).

All in all, I classify the day a success. The photos are very close to what I sought to capture. I now have the task of weeding through the 250+ images to select and edit the keepers for a set on iStock.

Canon 5D, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens - 1/125 second, f/10, ISO 100