When Location Scouting Turns Into A Portrait Session

I was scouting locations at Balboa Park today when a portrait walked up and asked me to take it.

In my bag was a single light stand, two small strobes with remotes, a camera body and a couple of lenses. No light modifiers such as umbrella, softbox, etc. - I was traveling light. This was just a location scouting mission, after all.

That'll teach me.

After spending an hour looking for locations for an upcoming shoot, I was getting ready to head back to my car. That's when I saw Curtis. He was getting ready for his gig at the park, where he dances and speaks to groups in costume as "Zulu Warrior." He seems a little out of place among the mostly Spanish Colonial Revival buildings, but the park attracts all kinds. He was brushing out his black-and-white horse hair armbands when I saw him. I struck up a conversation and asked if I could take some photos. He begged off, saying the photos would be much better if I waited for him to get into costume. I said I'd REALLY really like to get photos of him doing what he was doing, but he was stubborn. As stubborn as me, and that's very.

I normally favor the journalistic approach, and would have pushed back, but as I was scouting locations for a portrait session, I thought "What the hell. Have him stand in for the portrait subject, see if you like the result." So I asked him to meet me around the corner from where we stood, as soon as he was ready.

I was too far away from my car to get a light modifier, so I just set up without what I had. I put up a flash on a light stand and did the old "shoot through the leaves" trick (better version here) for the background and thought I'd just try to feather the light off the subject so he wasn't getting hit directly with harsh strobe.

Here's the setup before Curtis showed up. The light hitting the right side of the palm tree is sunlight.


And here's the shot of Curtis in costume.

Needless to say, I'm going to have a decent light modifier and a light stand when I go back and shoot my (previously planned) portrait session, so I can get better quality and direction of light from the main flash.

I sent Curtis some photos, so by earning a little good will with him maybe I can set up a re-shoot with proper gear. And who knows? Maybe I can even weasel my way into doing something a little more documentary next time, too.