The above image is a composite of four images, suggested by my assistant Wayne. The original portraits were to be full length, in an environment conducive to an era when a string quartet would have been very much at home.
The one location that instantly sprang to mind when organising the shoot was Eaves Hall in West Bradford, part of the James’ Places group. It’s Georgian styling is absolutely perfect as a backdrop for the Northern String Quartet. The beautiful dark oak panelling invokes a timely ambience to the images, although you could practically hear the dark wood eating the light!
Meet Nikolas Gjylaci. Managing Director of the Northern String Quartet, based in Manchester.
The corridor made an ideal setting for the portraits, although it was a little too confined to add any additional lighting for accent, which meant it needed to be a single light source quite carefully controlled. I used an Elinchrom ELB400 firing through an 80x80cm folding softbox with a honeycomb fitted. This was held aloft by Wayne on its lightstand and angled downward towards Nikolas’ chest to avoid lighting the ceiling or too far beyond Nikolas. The output was set to 3.0. The reflected light on the panelling leads the eye nicely to our subject.
Olympus OM-D E-M1 mkII 1/250th sec ISO200 12-40mm f2.8 @19mm & f5
These are the other images taken at the same settings, which made up the final composite. Featuring Sophia Dignam, Alexandra Grace Finlaison and Ela Maria Wąs.
The Northern String Quartet can be found at : http://www.northernstringquartet.com
Hopefully, their new website will be up and running by the time this blog entry is up.
Eaves Hall is a wonderful venue and is definitely one of my favourite for weddings.
I provide training via Focal Point.
