No room, no time… no problem.
Yesterday Vinacapital held their annual investor’s conference at the Sofitel Metropole in Hanoi. I’ve worked on several assignments with them in the past, and am always happy to get a phone call from them. My assignment this time was to setup a studio on-location and make portraits of the staff and investors during their coffee breaks between meetings. Corporate portraits are always a challenge – titans of industry generally don’t have much time to sit for a photo session, especially during their annual investor’s meeting. As well, the room we were able to set up in was on the rather petite side. But what’s a photo shoot without a little challenge?
I had scouted the room the week before and had some time to problem solve. I felt a tiny room + time constraint = I better have a reliable lighting setup that would give me strong, consistent lighting. Decided to go with a new ringflash I recently got to amp up the images a bit. So ringflash+softbox+2 rim lights. The room was blasting light like the 4th of July. I wanted to give Vinacapital some images that were more contemporary than their previous headshots, something you might see in Forbes or Wired. Considering the constraints, I was happy with the results.
My most-excellent assistant Linh and I did a lightning-quick setup in the early morning, and we were ready to shoot by 8 AM, just before the conference began. Investors dropped in for some rapid-fire portrait shooting, averaging about 45 seconds per session. That’s really not any kind of time to work some magic or create any kind of relationship to help bring out some personality in the photos, but everyone co-operated brilliantly. These are confident people, and it shows.
Note: When working in a very small room under a tight schedule and your client wants a white seamless backdrop, pray for white walls. Saved me an extra few feet by not having to setup the backdrop. And looks exactly the same.
Note II: When sitting in a small room for an hour waiting for a 15-minute coffee break to photograph people, it helps to have intrepid Saigon-based snapper Fred Wissink drop by to have a chat. Nice seeing you Fred!
