“Your greatest curse could be your greatest blessing”
Shadows, at times they are such a curse, but with a bit of creative manipulating they can be a wonderful blessing.
When working on a Hollywood set there are times I’ll will have the Grips (the guys who rig things, their name comes from old Hollywood “because you needed a strong hand grip to secure things”) set up a diffusion panel for me. If its going to be a full length shot for one or more talent you might end up seeing the edge of a 6×6, or up to a 20×20 foot frame’s shadow. Its a ugly hard edge on the ground.
Some of you may have used something very similar like Westcott’s Scrim Jim. If your going to shoot a medium to tight portrait no problem, the moment you pull back and widen your shot, there’s the curse, a hard edge shadow. Here’s what you do, go get some vines, branches or big leaves and place them on the edge of your frame, that will now create a shadow that looks like foliage. You can see in my images the Grips are preparing a 12×12 framed diffusion panel.
Throw some local leaves on the ground for some camouflage and now you have a beautiful diffused image that appears to have been shot under a canopy of foliage, what a blessing.
That’s a wrap, fade to black.
Mike Kubeisy has been shooting celebrities in Hollywood for over 30 years as a Motion Picture and Television Stills Photographer.
Mike is best known for his work on countless popular shows that are household names: CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, JAG, Boston Legal, Pretty Little Liars to name a few. His current projects are NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles.
Mike is a Trainer for KelbyOne, and Los Angeles Center of Photography. Mike is also a member of the International Cinematographers Guild.
You can view Mike’s work at 4stills.com, and follow him on Facebook at 4Stills.
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