"Part-time magician Glenn Chelius performs a trick on a custom built stage in the basement of his home in Crystal Lake, Thursday, March 5, 2009. Chelius, who is in sales, has been hooked on magic since he got a kit when he was six years old."
Last month I photographed Glenn for McHenry County Magazine. He was extremely accommodating and really worked with me to make the shot work. The real trick with this shot was lighting the shot while trying to overcome all the reflective surfaces present. The custom table and stage in his basement were fantastic but the tight quarters made it somewhat difficult to get all my lights into position.
This image is shot straight out of camera without any toning in Photoshop so keep reading to learn how I lit it.
I ended up using four lights in the final image that made it into the magazine seen above. The main light was a Dynalite head at camera left and I used a 20 degree grid to control spill and provide him with a little more definition around the edges. The sign/table is lit from below using a Dynalite head and a medium Chimera softbox. Since Glenn's last name is written in a reflective material I used the softbox to bring out the shine.
The white surface of the softbox would have created a nasty specular highlight on the red/black part of the sign if I didn't place it at the correct angle so understanding the family of angles played a big role in the success of this shot. Essentially you have to light the sign just how you would photograph someone with glasses, place the source off axis and use a relatively long focal length.
Since the background was only three feet from glenn I used Canon speedlights for the last two sources because their compact size allowed them to fit in the tight spaces. The background was black velvet so I added a purple gel to my flash to match Glenn's shirt. I set the zoom at 24 on the speedlight and placed it really close (about 8 inches) from the background. This would allow the light to fall off quickly around the edges.
The final source is a hair light using a speedlight with a grid at camera right behind the subject. I set it up so that it would just barely add enough light to show up. It's barely noticeable but that is, in my opinion, what takes this image up a notch.
I used a Canon 5D with an 85mm f/1.8 with settings of 50ISO, 1/200 at f/4. The main light and fill light were metered at f/4 while the background was down one stop and the hair light was down a stop and two-thirds.
-JCE
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