Field Lighting #4 – Reflectors Only
February 15, 2010
Let’s face it: often times as a photographer, you’re pressed for time. Hopefully you’re never late for a shoot, but when we start working with light and other people, we’re involved with highly dynamic variables. On a clear day, light is pretty predictable, but sometimes that sneaky set of clouds will set in right before sunset, and you’ve lost the shot you were looking for, only to find another (again, hopefully). And people, well…will always be people, you included! The point of all this is that sometimes, you only have a small window of opportunity to get the shot you need!
Ever since I made this portrait, I keep going back to it, remembering how much pressure there was to get the shot under the particular environmental conditions. Randall Jeter, Ph.D., is a bacterial geneticist at Texas Tech University, and I was photographing him for a university research publication a couple of years back. Instead of photographing him in his lab with the prototypical white lab coat on and a microscope nearby, I decided to put him in a field of spring wheat. I couldn’t begin to intelligently explain what Dr. Jeter researches (if you want to find out, click here), but after we spoke on the phone the day before, I had an idea that part of his agenda was analyzing the water on the Southern High Plains. So, where else but an irrigated field would work the best!