I was recently contacted by a family who asked me if they could have their portraits taken, as well as a group photograph, in order to have a beautiful surprise gift for their mums’ 50th birthday. They would be 5, 4 sons and the father.
They wanted a group photograph in the studio, against a white background and they wanted to dress up for the occasion.
Having a rather small home studio, which has served me well so far, I was a little tense and I was prepared to photograph every family member on his own in order to photoshop them all into one image. However, always being up for a challange, I tried to photograph them together in one shot.
When they arrived at the studio, they all got dressed into these very smart dresses (some of them had difficulties getting into their trousers, but eventually every one managed to get fully dressed).
I managed to position them in such a way that they looked well, that the image was interesting to look at and that everyone somewhat showed his personality. Than, the biggest problem with such a group shot lies in lighting them all evenly, which, in a small studio, is not easy. In order to do so I used only one studio light, placed behind a huge softbox that I created out of translucent material. The total area of this material is about 4 square meter (roughly 6 foot by 6 foot). In doing so, I created a large lightsource, which results in an even illumination of the subject whilst still creating enough contrast.
The background was lit by a background reflector, so I used 2 studio lights in total. This is the result, which finally got printed on canvas at 1m by 1.50m.
Studio shoot