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The year is half over and that means The Mid-Year Roundtable issue of Barron’s has hit the stands. I’ve already spilled the beans on some of some of what went down at the Harvard Club that cold day in January in PART ONE and PART TWO, and now comes the final story of how we shot the ten members of the Roundtable separately and put ’em all together into a cover, an inside opener and individual portraits that would accompany each of their stock picks.
Adrian DeLucca and I figured we would hammer home the Global theme we started in the January issue by shooting each person against a section of a World map and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for me to squeeze a few Artificial Portraits in at the same time. I photographed a giant map I picked up from IKEA and then printed it out in ten 40″ x 50″ sections that would serve as a backdrop for each individual portrait…..
Since we had precious little time to waste the day of the shoot, I decided to ‘map out’ who would be in front of which section ahead of time…..
I kept the lighting pretty simple…just a gridded 20″ Profoto beauty dish way up high on a boom and an on-camera ringlight…..
Because we were jumping between the two sets, I gave myself a few cheaters to remind me what my settings should be…..
Oh yeah…just about forgot…I added an over the shoulder fill in the form of an open-face Octalite…..
…all of which gave us ten images that I had to re-assemble into a map of the World…..
…which looked like this on the cover…..
…with a variation for the inside opener…..
But while I was shooting the images for the cover, I also had to come away with some individual portraits that were a bit different and that’s where the Artificial Portraits came in…..
…and these shots were peppered throughout the article…..
And another year of the Roundtable was in the can! So until next January, Photo Editor Adrian DeLucca, Art Director Pam Budz and yours truly wish you well!
Damn Ugly Photography 
Nice going Brad! I talked with your Mom yesterday (their anniversary). Adios! dw
Jaw >>> floor.
Awesome. Loved parts 1 and 2, was waiting with baited breath for this. I love the detail you brought to these articles. Leaves me wondering how you come up with so many ideas to bring to one project, and how youll do it all again – and again, and, just wow…
Great set of articles, like the top shot of you, is that for the G12 summit in Greenland?
More like the G9 Summit…(bad joke)…..BT
Greatness defined once again Brad! Awesome…
Speaks 4itself, lol
or . . .
Talent mimics nature,
as the cream rises to the top.
Thanx M8
Fantastic shots! Were the cords the back plugged into anything important? The lighting may be simple for you bu quite imaginative in my mind! Thanks for sharing!
Ha! I think the orange cord was for the Beauty Dish and the white one was my makeup artists hair dryer! BT
Great article Brad!
Great shots. Why ring light AND octabox ? Wouldn’t one or the other accomplish the fill?
‘Cuz NOBODY uses a ringlight just for fill! Using a ringlight gives a toothy edge to everything from the skin texture to the fibers in the clothes a person is wearing. And even though it acts as fill in a situation like this, it still tends to jack up the contrast and God knows I’m not afraid of a little extra contrast! Oh yeah…and the HALO…ya just gotta love the ringlight halo!!! BT
Oh!…Nice, fantastic!
I love the strong of your pictures and I like also your explanations and the way you use to do them!!
Thnks a lot!
http://tuphoto.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/pasarela-guys-2/
great images.. nice to see how it is done….
Thanks for sharing; i’m inspired to use my beauty dish more. Really enjoy the artificial portraits.
Those are killer shots Brad…and and super informative blog post. Thanks! Are there copyright issues you had to work out for using the backdrops?
Did you get property release for the use of the maps? After all they are someone elses copyrighted work and commercial use would normally warrant a fee.
The number of people who are worried about whether or not it was OK to shoot this map because of a possible copyright conflict boggles my mind! So for the last time, here’s the story…I purchased THIS MAP from IKEA…there is no copyright notice ANYWHERE on the map and even if there had been, I figure I’m in the clear for a couple of reasons…..first, I altered the map significantly by not shooting it in one single piece and I drastically changed the color, contrast and proportions, and secondly, the final images were used for an editorial client, NOT an advertising project, so any claim of copyright would have to prove malice and gross disregard on my part in pursuit of profit. But even if I HAD used a copyrighted map, the fair use section of the uniform copyright code protects noncommercial editorial use. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment when the cultural or social benefits of the use are predominant. And further, since each of my photographs only include a portion of the map, it would be considered an incidental reproduction of the (copyrighted) work. Bottom line…I own the map and can do just about whatever I want with it…if IKEA wants to sue me, bring it on! BT
Absolutely love your blog posts! I would love to know 1. How do the lights compare to each other in terms of strength (f-stop) and 2. What does the ring light add vs octalite (or vice versa)?
You can read my full explanation about why I used both a ringlight and the Octa over on STROBIST in the comments, but as to the lighting ratios…the Beauty Dish was about a stop hotter than the ringlight and the Octa was a stop and a half under the overall exposure. BT
Fantastic job!
I love the way you handled this project!
thats a very informative post, Brad!!
thanks for sharing!!
Brad – Love the take here. The cover layout with the photos is great. The “insider” shots are pretty rad – seeing lighting set up, light stands and the like. I take Barons as a fairly conservative magazine – noting that all men are in nice business suits. How hard was it to sell this set-up and idea to them. Did they come to you asking for something outside of the box – knowing that’s your forte, or did they ask you to shoot and you said, “hey wait a minute – let’s try this?” Thanks for sharing your work.
Sincerely, Lech
and one more touch of irony – thought – given how consumer trust in the markets and investors has plummeted over the past 4 years – I’m really surprised the “fake reality” was a go… okay, that’s it. thanks again.
“but as to the lighting ratios…the Beauty Dish was about a stop hotter than the ringlight and the Octa was a stop and a half under the overall exposure”. So I assume if the sticker on the ring mentions f11 so the the Dish was f16, and octa maybe about f9 ? The exif on the shots peppered throughout the article indicates f18… I read that sometimes you use the ring about 4 stops under the main light, it’s really a fill light !
Actually…the ‘f11’ on the ringlight was a reminder for me to set the exposure on the Hasselblad/Leaf since I was jumping between the black velvet set (f13) and the map set (f11) and I didn’t want to take the chance that I would forget to set the Hasselblad back to f11. I had a similar piece of tape reminding me to be at f13 on the black set.
But since the Leaf back was exposing at ISO 50 and the Canon at ISO 100, that doesn’t explain why the Canon shots weren’t set to f16, does it?!! Well…the Canon always give me captures that are a bit hotter than the Leaf, hence the f18 exposure! And yes…the ringlight is kind of a permanent attachment when I shoot…..it’s almost always in there, even in tiny amounts. BT
well, i thought i was asking a stupid question, but your answer makes me think it wasn’t ! thanks again for these precisions. Why don’t you use the ISO 50 of the mark 2 ? I noticed between two same pictures, one at 100 Iso, the other at ISO 50, that the last one was bigger in terms of Mo… maybe more information on the ISO 50 version ?!