The Source is a hip hop magazine that’s been around since the late 80’s but this cover… well, it’s for the other The Source, a publication of the Healthtrust University (a buying cooperative for hospitals and healthcare providers.)
I had two assignments in hospitals this spring and what’s interesting is that for portrait work, despite the fact that the buildings can be behemoths, shooting areas are often limited to the hospital’s few public areas. That was the case at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJ) in New Brunswick, NJ which has a relatively small lobby for a building its size.
My subject was Vince Joseph, Executive Vice President of RWJ. My assistant and I arrived early to scout and set up. The lobby was our best bet and we were able to commandeer the corner of it which fronts on the road and a plaza. Had it been nice weather we might have shot on the plaza but it was raining. No harm, no foul as the wrap-around windows would allow the photo to feel much brighter than it really was.
The lighting was extremely simple – a key in the form of a Profoto Softlight (beauty dish) powered by an AcuteB 600 battery pack (always a plus in a public space.) The AcuteB 600 goes down to 9 w/s but even that can be too much. In this case we added some ND to it. A key is often not enough by itself to make an image pop but here the windows are providing both fill and a nice side light.
