Getting pulled into a senator’s office to do an unannounced portrait with 5 people in horribly dim lighting and yellow walls was a shock to the system. Gets my vote for scariest moment of my photo career thus far. The rest of the evening was filled with high profile players at the National Children’s Museum mixed in with Senators and donors in one of the most historic buildings in the world. Still can’t believe I have this one under my belt.

These shots are almost all natural light from the gigantic chandeliers depicted in the picture below. They created a fairly bright key throughout the room as long as the subjects were facing the source at a good enough distance resulting in a nice 45 degree angle. This required much running around externally to the three doorways to the room, trying my hardest not to disturb the any conversations. I tried to be as discreet as possible, not use flash, and occasionally wait for the opportune moment to cut in and ask for a flash based photo opp. The 70-200mm was my best friend for this purpose. I was able to camp out at a door way and reach across to the opposite angles of the room, getting the nice light, depth of field, and the subjects were none the wiser. Then, if I saw that a separate cross angle shot would be better I ran around to the other side to grab it. The last thing I wanted to do was wade through an already tight, narrow space and blow up the scene with flash after flash. I did use flash about ten times though and when I did, it was the LumiQuest Big Bounce on an SB-900. I had yet to grab the LumiQuest Softbox III, which I now prefer for this type of situation. The III has much more control over the spill of the light where the big bounce just kind of blasts it out ahead of you, soft but wide. I also came prepared with the LumiQuest 80-20 system, but as you can see, the ceilings in the room were not exactly bounce worthy.

One other light source to note was daylight pouring in through two large windows at one side of the room. And as any photographer can surely confirm, mixing strong overhead interior light with natural daylight is the worst. Really had me cutting a lot of the yellow out of the shots from mid room and working with a completely different white balance depending on where the subjects were standing in the space.

Timing, 2.8 lenses, persistence, and lots of editing post event paid off richly for the NCM at the Capitol event. I am looking forward to my next gig with them which will be their annual Jump Off on October 3rd at the National Harbor. See you then.