Got a call a few weeks back from my old pal David Oates, who runs the PR firm Stalwart Communications.  Dave needed some portraits/headshots done for some promotional purposes.  He wanted something solid, but different from the traditional headshot everyone uses.

I really admire the portrait work of Martin Schoeller, and I tried to add my own flair to his “Close Up” technique on a few with Dave.

The lighting was a bit different from Martin’s setup.  Instead of Martin’s Kino-Flo hot light, I lit Dave with two Nikon SB-800s on a Brewer Bracket (thankfully, this setup has now been replaced by a single Dynalite UniJR 400 w/s strobe), shot through a translucent umbrella.  Using a boom, the strobes were centered and right on top of Dave.  I added another SB-800 camera left and below him to light his jacket a bit and fill in the area below his chin.

We shot this at about 11 AM at a park near Dave’s home, so I knew I’d have a built-in rim light if I just positioned him with his back to the sun.  I put him in front of a small grouping of trees to minimize background distractions, but also give the sense that we weren’t in a studio.