Working Fast - The 1 Hour Portrait

Sometimes you have to work fast. Like "passport photo" fast.

That was the case today when a PR professional needed a quick head shot. Neither one of us had much time, so i noted just how long it took to deliver a gallery of images from the moment we met to the moment I sent her the URL. The verdict: less than 90 minutes.

Start with the shoot itself. The sun was nice this afternoon, so we walked outside with a Canon 5D and the 70-200mm f/4 L lens. No extra lighting, or even reflectors were used. I positioned her so the sun provided rim lighting on her hair and used the spot meter to determine the exposure for her face.

Click, click, click.

Then back to the computer to download the images to Aperture. I did a quick sort and narrowed the selects to a gallery of 15 images. I adjusted two of the shots, then used lift and stamp to apply those adjustments to the images that were similar. I cropped each one individually.

The last step was uploading the selects to MobileMe via Aperture to create the online gallery. I included the "download" option so the client could grab a high resolution version of the shot she like best. I sent her an email with the url and password, then moved on to the next item on my ToDo list.

These are the times when knowing how you like to shoot, then having an agile post production workflow, really pay off.

Now Available! The Digital Photography Companion. The official guide for The Digital Story Virtual Camera Club.