Nightmare Senior Piano Shoot

OK I was asked to shoot this senior and they play piano so they said they wanted to have a shot sitting at a grand piano. On location shoot OK. I get to the apartment with the baby grand and it is in a hideous living room with very distracting things everywhere you turn. The living room is so small there is no way to shoot with a portrait lens everything has to be shot with wide angle lens as well and the only wide angle I have is the 18-55 kit lens and a 24-70 not my usual portrait lenses. So this was a shooting and retouching nightmare as not only do you have to remove most of the distractions from the background you then have to remove them from the reflections as well.

Anyway would love your thoughts on these shots.

1.

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Here are two shots just to show you a little bit what the background looked like. One whole wall behind the piano was glass which was another reflection nightmare and the other way was just house clutter.

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I leally like # 2, 3 and 4. #1 Still has the clutter in the reflection. Great job considering the surroundings

It's on wheels, did they offer to move it to a less cluttered place possibly clean up a bit and push it against a wall? I think you did well for what you had to work with.

agree w/^! I think you did a fine job considering. Actually, I like 2-4 and think that they are quite sellable.

My first thought was to move it but it was not on movable wheels and we could not move it. Thanks for the comments it did turn out better then I ever thought when I saw the set up.

Great example of people hiring a photographer but having no idea what is required to deliver the goods. You did great!

One shot I was thinking of was through the lid. You could have positioned yourself to the left and shot her face through the open lid while she was playing. Was this considered, or even possible? Just a thought.

dave

This is why I always bring some background stands and plenty of black draping fabric. What lights are you shooting with? Could you have used and gridspot for her and let the background fall to near black.

Damian I did bring black fabric and stands the problem was the piano was shoved into the corner and I had a terrible time trying to get the fabric in behind the piano and time was limited so I tried it and then realized it was going to be very hard to get the shots even with this. Here is a shot with the black fabric behind to get rid of the window. Again the room was tight so I had to use a wide angle to get the shot I just feel there is too much distortion for my liking.

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Just for fun here is a shot my daughter took with my iphone you can see the black backdrop we put up and my wife holding the hair light the reflector for extra fil and there is a light behind me as the main light not seen in this shot

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Wow my girlfriend is a pianist...she will love to see these,great lighting,pretty young lady,and the vignette is also very nice..

you did pretty good for the clutter and limited shooting angles..

black cloth and white cloth saved you nicely.. plus your good photoshopping skills helped too..

Note to self: Get black and white cloth into the kit.

To the OP
I think you did a good job given the conditions and the sample images you show are nice.

Loved the third shot

I hate to do so at the expense of others, but I was chuckling while I was reading about the heat and seeing the clutter. Certainly a nightmare! You did great with what you had to work with though. I don't like white vignetting however.
I think a good fast lens wide open would have done great here, like maybe a 35 1.4 and just melt the BG away. I dunno. Great results as is.