We’ve wrapped up the 2010 Pagosa Springs Official Visitors Guide™ and I can give you a sneak peek of why it’s been awhile since I visited with you about photography. I’ve had my hands full taking some photos for the visitor guide, some more of which that I’ll be sharing here in a few weeks when the magazine breaks, as well as the ad sales and design.

Above is a portrait that I shot last month of Todd and Kellie Stevens at Alley House Grille. This isn’t a photo that we used in the magazine but was a second choice to what we did use. Here’s a very quick breakdown of what went into this photo.

I met with Kellie at about 1:30 in the afternoon and looked around the restaurant and dining room for a spot to take the photo that would showcase both them and the restaurant. I got up on a chair and shot a test frame to give me an idea of the dining room’s light and what I might be able to work with.  Here’s what we were working with:

From this point I was working with different types of light including the art lights, bar lights, and the very strong light coming in from the outside and reflecting on the bar. In addition I’d be adding the candles to the tables in a few minutes. The first thing I like to do with lights is turn them all on — it’s easier for us to cut light out than it is to create it when I’m working with ambient and one speedlight.

After we had taken down all the chairs and moved a couple of things around I set up my speedlight. For this shot, I set up an sb800 in a Lumiquest Softbox III on a simple light stand to the camera right. I brought up the ISO for a little more light since I didn’t want to go any slower than I had to with the shutter speed and changed my aperture to f8.0 for a little more depth of field. Here’s what resulted:

After I got the light balanced to where I wanted it I pleaded with Todd to change his shoes. However comfortable they may have been they were seriously messing with a great color palette that we had going.

I ‘m picky about little things and spent time lining up all the candles on the tables and straightening some of the chairs.  I also turned on the dining room fans and slowed my shutter speed to 1/25^th to catch just a bit of motion blur and a hint of that it was summer for the photo.