Monday, July 19, 2010

On Assignment: Office Lady

Recently I was assigned to make photographs for a local motor company for use on their new website. The motor company was founded in the 1960s and they started out helping taxi owners and drivers with their insurance claims against their insurance companies or against third parties.

Through the years they have evolved into one-stop repair workshop and service center as well as accident reporting center. They have gained trust and confidence of both their clients and numerous insurance companies. As such, they have been named Authorised and Quality Workshop for various insurance companies.

Drive over the hump ahead into the workshop as I'll elaborate on the photography session.



I was required to make photographs specifically for my client's website, based on their web designer's new concept and web page layouts. In one of the sessions, specific staffs are required to be photographed in the motor company main front desk office. As the company staffs are mostly male, there is only one office lady who is responsible for all sales admin and transaction work. I've applied Nikon CLS entirely for this assignment. Here's the photograph of the office lady.


My approach to this photograph was to create a tightly cropped image, enough to show the office environment on the background. Initial plan from the web designer was to capture candid shots of office staffs as natural as possible. Well I proposed that it would be better to take individual shots rather than every one cluttered in the frame, which looks messy.

Yes, this photograph is staged. I got them to tidy up the desk, tilted the PC monitors at a certain angle. I directed the lady to sit up straight, facing the camera at about 45 degree, pick up the telephone to act as if her customer calls in and to put on a big smile and she followed through naturally, just like any other day at work. It's pretty much like those you've seen on TV commercials or magazine advertisements.

I placed the key light on her left at about 2 - 3 meters away with a shoot-through umbrella for soft lighting. Next I placed the side light right opposite the key light at about 2 meters away from the lady with diffuser cap on. I wanted to create highlights on the lady's face. I could have slowered the shutter speed to include the ambience lighting on the far background but instead I prefer to dim down so as to make the lady more stand-out on the foreground.

Below is the lighting diagram to illustrate what I've elaborated.


Check out the rest of the photographs on my website.

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