Very Museum Shanghai
These pictures were taken for the Very Museum, Shanghai. They included film roles of Hollywood movies, as well as original works from sculptures of their collection. I prefer to shoot still life photography to portrait photography. If portrait photography is a dialog with people, still life photography is a dialog with myself.
Still life photography requires high light output to ensure f11 (or an even smaller aperture) while using ISO 100, to ensure enough depth of field. I usually use f22. The large sensor of my medium format camera guarantees a better resolution from the lens while shooting with such small apertures.
The set up consists of a Scoro 1600S power pack, a Litestick, a Satellite Staro and finally a 60x60 cm Mini-Hazylight. 1600J divided by the three light was enough light for this shot.
The Mini-Hazylight was on a 10 o'clock position and used as the main light for the face. The Litestick came more from the side (from about a 9 o'clock position) and was responsible to create a catch light as well as additional shadows on the face. The Satellite Staro finally was powered rather low and added some additional light to the hair. To control this light better, I added a grid to it.
My move power pack was feeding a fibrolite and a Boxlite. With the precise fibrolite I illuminated the little doll inside the statue while the Boxlite was set flat on the table to give some sidelight to the face and chin. I didn’t give any straight light to avoid "ghost lights".
The highest possible light output is a very important parameter of a power pack. But do not under estimate the possibility of working at extremely low settings, too! The next picture for example, is taken with a Mamiya 80mm/f1.9 lens (equals to 50mm/f1.0 for 135 cameras) with a Phase One XF camera. Because I used f1.9 aperture, I needed a very low output power. I used nothing but a Scoro 1600 S with a 90x120 Softbox.
The aperture I choose for a shot is an important creative decision. I do not want my power packs to limit this free choice. So I want my pack to provide very high as well as very low power settings.
This statue is iron grey, with a very shiny surface, giving it that “plastic” feeling. I was thinking: "How will this kind of surface look like in UV light?" So I used the UV adaptor of broncolor, and the result was a surprise.
The UV attachment blocks all visible light; only UV can pass. So the output is much lower compared to "normal" lights. This is why I used ISO 400 to shoot this picture. ISO 400 is a sensitivity that still results in "clean" pictures with very little noise. To get every part of object light perfectly, I shot 3 times with different light locations and angles. Then I used layers and masks to combine the whole picture.
This statue has a magnetic bird bill mask. In order to show that the mask is dismountable, I flashed twice within a 3s exposure time. The camera was set to front sync while the Scoro 1600 S was programmed to flash twice (sequence of two) and the interval was 2s. After I pushed the shutter button and exposed the first flash, my assistant took off the mask rapidly, and then the pack fired for the second time: The mask is finally the “half transparency” result.
