Steve Smith shoot

I did a really quick little shoot for NSMB with Steve Smith a week or so ago. Really quick because by the time we got started it was almost getting dark. NSMB was doing a review of the new Evil "Revolt" Downhill Bike and needed some images, you can see the finished review here. Here are a couple of shots from the shoot.
















There are 4 lights in this shot, all SB800's. I started by creating the "ambient" light with a straw gelled flash really high up and a little back on the left. That was to give the whole scene a warm look and to show off all the cool moss on the trees. Then I used 2 lights in the front to light Steve, one behind the tree on the left of the trail, and one in kind of the same spot on the right. That was working fairly well but the background was really dark so I decided to put a light behind Steve to give him a bit of separation from the background. It's on the right hand side.
















This shot is very similar in lighting with just a few small changes. I used a straw gelled light on a really tall stand to create the warm look to the greenery, then used 2 lights to freeze Steve a little and take the color cast from the straw light off of him. I wanted a bit of blur in the photo so I placed these lights lower and kept them pointed up away from the ground as much as possible. I used a slower shutter to create a little blur and also to try and bring out some of the background.