(c) Roger Overall 2009 - www.rogeroverall.net

Location photography is great fun. All the challenges of a studio shoot, without the control. In the studio, I am king. On location, the gremlins rule.

Over the past ten days, I’ve photographed two managers on location in their workplaces (one for an editorial feature, the other for promotional use) and two food shoots on location with the producers. In all cases, I used off-camera flash, which at least helps me control the light. A couple of small strobes on stands and you can pretty much overcome any indoor lighting situation.

What you can’t do is control co-workers and the general public.

The editorial portrait above was taken at an outlet of The Perfume Shop in a shopping mall here in Cork city. Despite scheduling the shoot for the morning, the mall was still busy thanks to a farmer’s market outside. The shop also has two big glass fronts, so it was like shooting in a goldfish bowl. Plenty of gawkers. Nobody likes having their photograph taken at the best of times, but it’s even harder when Joe Public is watching.

So you try to keep things moving quickly, keep a steady flow of banter going with the subject and hope that they aren’t as fazed by all the attention as they could be.

In the case of store manager Helen (above), I got lucky. I’d say she could face a cavalry charge and still pull of a relaxed, confident smile.

The magazine had this to say about the final set of photographs: “The images look brilliant.”

At least part of the credit goes to Helen and her staff at shop.

For the Strobists among us, the lighting set up was very simple. The background is underexposed by about a stop and the camera white balance was set to tungsten (hence the blue). Helen was lit from camera right by a single flash and shoot through umbrella. I gelled the flash with a CTO gel to compensate for the blueness and give her skin a natural colour.