One of my clients (Rural Rhythm Records – a record label specializing in classic bluegrass music) asked me to come over and spend the day taking pictures for upcoming CDs releases. The owner's father-in-law, Joe, is the gentlemen pictured here. He has the perfect look for the bluegrass market so we had a blast putting him in various traditional bluegrass scenarios all day....ending with him dressed as Santa Claus playing a banjo for this year's Christmas release. But, that's for another post.
This shot was done in my client's backyard where he's got a wonderful old shed that's literally about to fall over, if not for the system of 2x6 boards propping up one side. Totally cool.
Joe had the wardrobe down and we knew we wanted a "hands to God" pose for potential use on a gospel package, so I stuck Joe in the shed and got this great shot.
It's lit with a single Sunpak 333 strobe, camera right, fired through a 42" shoot-thru umbrella. The sky that day was very overcast and the sunlight was very soft and flat, so I set the strobe to fire at one stop over the ambient light. Because of the angle of the flash to the subject, I knew I wasn't going to get any harsh shadows on his face, but I wanted a nice aggressive fall off to black in the space behind him. Seemed to work out perfectly.
The image has been colorized in Photoshop to give a vintage, Depression-era feel.....in tune with the look of the great Coen Bros. movie O' Brother Where Art Thou?
