suggestions needed for my first shoot!

<short version>I need advice, suggestions and tips for my first semi-pro job, shooting a classy, small, dark cocktail bar</short version>

Now for the long version...

I was in my favorite cocktail bar Friday and I got talking to the owner, who I tend to chat with whenever i'm in there. Turns out the place is closing down in a few weeks, so now i've nowhere to go and drink cocktails! Anyway, it's a lovely place, and I said i'd love to get a pretty young thing and take photos of her on the bar, or even just take photos of the place while it's there, he was keen, so i've got my first semi-professional job! It's unpaid, but I can charge for prints - although i'll just charge a very small markup for this job.

What i'd like is for recommendations from people about the best way to do the shoot, and any cool shots they might be able to think of. I'll obviously use tripod for pretty much every shot.

The place is lovely, maybe 3 meters wide and 10 meters long. It's lit by a few classy red lights hung over the bar, some mellow green-tinted spots in the roof, and candles amongst the many bottles. The bottles are on racks on the left wall behind the bar, there are barstools all around it, and there are comfortable sofas around it too. It's quite low light in there. I've drawn a rather bad diagram, which you can see below. The red circles are the drop lights, and above the blue bar on the right is the spot lighting.

In general, i'll avoid flash for this shoot, there's lots of glass and bottles that might make for bad reflections. I might however try a little bit of bounce flash off a side wall (which is reddish), to illuminate the bottle labels a little more. Suggestions on this are more than welcome.

The shots I have planned are:
- A shot from outside across the street.
- Shots from both doors, taking in the bar and bottles. I might try with bartenders behind the bar and also without.
- A straight on shot of the bottles, if I have a lens that can get 'em all in (maybe the 18-55 will do it).
- A shot of a glass of bubbly on the bar, with the owner blurred out a bit for effect. This will be with the 100mm macro lens.
- A shot of a row of cocktails on the bar, diagonally, with the bottles in the background. Also some where the entire background is blurred out.
- I'll try and pick up on what the owner/staff like about the place, and try and capture that.

I might have to take my rather huge "laptop" (desknote really) along, both to see how shots came out straight away, and in case I run out of memory. I have a single 1GB card and plan to shoot RAW + small jpg. My equipents's all in my sig (hopefully).

Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions!

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

Shooting in RAW is a great start.
1. Get on your knees & be thankful that you aren't shooting film! Digital makes this a LOT easier than it was 30 years ago. So...
2. Custom WB & shoot on manual. Review them on the laptop. Shoot some more to refine your results. Review, shoot, etc., etc...

Thanks for your reply

I was under the impression that when you're using raw the white ballance isn't applied? I thought you did that later in photoshop?

I will take the "laptop" along, even though it's more like a portable desktop than a laptop

I'm not sure of the purpose of your photos of the place. Nevertheless, you want the photos to make the place look good. In other words, minimize the weak points and maximize the strong points.

If you shot it to look dimly lit, it might look exactly like the average pub. So, shoot it brightly lit and a little more on the clean-cut side.

If the place is only 3 meters wide, that seems narrow. So maybe find some angle where the room does not look so narrow. Some width of lens might make it look wide open. However, if the room is only 10 meters deep, then that isn't much, so you probably will not be using any long lens.

If you have any people in the shot, then watch out. If their faces are recognizable, then you might want to get a model release on each one. The easier way would be to shoot with people in the scene, but looking somewhat away from the camera, like they were having a good time and not noticing the camera around. By the same token, if you have lots of tall people in the scene, then that will make the room seem smaller. If you have a few shorter/smaller people in the scene, then that will make the room seem alive.

---Bob Gross---

The point of the photos is just for the owners and staff to remember the place by. For me, they'll build up a portfolio of work. It's just a hobby for me, but if I can get paid to take a few pics then i'll give that a go too.

Maybe it's more than 3m wide, but it is quite narrow. 4-5 meters might be more realistic, but it is very long and skinny. I'll keep your tips in mind thanks Robert. I expect i'll shoot it with the 50mm 1.8 lens, but I might have to try the 18-55 kit lens for some shots, stopped down well.

Good point about the model release. Should I have them sign some kind of form to say the photos are my property too? Wouldn't people object to you owning the photos that they've paid for, and what do you say if they object?

My instinct tells me that I would try to shoot it with the widest wide angle available. This would tend to make the room seem larger. I think I would try to shoot it with several big external flashes going. You could do it without flash, but you would have to use a tripod, long exposure, all lights in the place lit up, and tungsten white balance set.

The purpose of a model release is that it gives the photographer the right to use the photos without paying any money or any more money to the models. If you had paid models in the scene, then you would make that release part of the business agreement whereby they get paid. If you had unpaid models, like just friends hanging around, then it is not a bad idea to get the model releases signed, just to be on the safe side. If this is just for the proprietor to use, then maybe just a few of his family members sitting around would do, in which case you could skip the releases maybe. Of course, you want to be able to show your interior shooting skills in the form of the finished photo, and somebody might possibly object if they were in the scene. So, the release is not a stupid idea.

---Bob Gross---

If there is one customer who is a fixture around there, sit him/her at one end of the bar. Have the owner stand leaning with his arms outstretched on the bar. Take the shot from the opposite end of the bar.

Also if you can get on a ladder high up in the corner, use a fisheye lens and take some shots of the place from up above the doorway looking in.

Also be sure to be there on the night they close. Without the owners knowledge if you can, get a shot of him from across the street as he is locking up for the last time. It will be an emotional shot for him I am sure. Of course you may have to have a lot of patients to accomplish this undercover work LOL.

I have only one 550EX turning up tomorrow, and no off camera cable. I was planning on using a tripod and long shutter times, to better capture the mood of the place. Lighting it up would spoil that, with the candles and dim light it looks great to my eye, I just hope I can capture some of that with the camera.

Jeff, getting high up might be an interesting idea, I hadn't thought of that! How i'd get my tripod up there for the low light shot could be interesting... and the closest I have to fisheye is 18mm.

I'll definitely be there the night they close, but probably as a customer not a photographer. They serve very good, strong cocktails, i'm often not sure how I got home afterwards! I'll try and stay sobre enough to get a shot of him locking up, but a pissed guy with a rather large silver camera and a huge flash mounted on a tripod would be pretty easy to notice!

Thanks for the advice guys, any more is very welcome.

You do it during conversion from RAW. Custom WB gives you a better starting point.
Try this - When you get there, take a few shots on auto, then some on Custom WB. See which ones you prefer to work with.

Be careful. Alcohol and good photography do not mix.

---Bob Gross---

Photosguy - yeah I tried it last night, the white ballance is applied in raw, but you can change it with no penalty if I understand correctly.

Bob - there's no way i'm taking that much camera gear when i'm pissed, and I know i'd end up with awful photos anyway

I went down today and took a few test shots, just to get a bit of an idea what i'll need and what I should do on the day. If anyone wants to take a look and make suggestions re composition i'd love to hear them. I found a few interesting photos but nothing that makes me say "wow".

I know the image quality of the photos is pretty lousy, and a few aren't properly focussed, i'm not worried about that right now. I was using the 50mm lens quickly, when I do it for real i'll take all my lenses and eevry shot will be on a tripod with mirror lockup.

http://mrwild.co.nz …l/JamTestShots/​index.html

Those look good for a start. Image IMG_3499.html (2nd one in 2nd row): You might consider bouncing a bit of light into his face from the right?

my 1.25cents:

I would try a short tele and shoot from one end of bar to the other, rather then the wide angle trying to get the 'whole' bar. Maybe even setup justoutside the door. Put subjects middle or far end of bar. Forshorting effect of tele will help compress the length. example shoot down length of bar to tired customer leaning over drink, owner could be at far end of bar in background waiting for last customer to leave.

For picture of owner I would use a shallow wide angle, and try to get some patrons in background/foreground.

I also like to try to focus in on specific details for things like this say unwashed glasses, register, drink mixer, money on bar <g> person/people etc. and then let the enviroment of the bar float around that. Depth of field control is important here. I've used assitant with flashlight to put some light on subjects face in situations like this. But that was for Black & White, u could try but color balance may be difficult.

Happy shooting, sounds like a fun assignment.
Post some pics when u are done I would love to see what you come up with.

Thanks guys. I'll see what I can do about the light, i'm limited because i've a single flash and the wall's red, and there are no other light sources available. I might try turning up the lights on that side of the bar.

djtowle: i'm not sure I 100% understand your first paragraph, but I'll definitely try the shots you suggested. I'll be doing the shoot when the bar's closed or almost closed on a tuesday night, maybe i'll go a little earlier to get a few people in it. I will definitely look for interesting or unusual things to take pics of, or ordinary things looked at in different ways.

Except for when I explicitly want a narrow DOF, i'll be shooting at F8+ . Blurred backgrounds are nice, but not all the time.

Any more suggestions or crituque of those shots is more than welcome.