Photo Shoot at the Dojo

This week I was on location at The Dojo American Karate Centers for a two day photo shoot. A couple of times a year, I setup this shoot for the students (and of course the parents).

I utilized my 9 foot wide green screen for the background and three Norman LH2400 strobes for lighting. Two in PhotoFlex LiteDome Softboxes, and one in the back, bouncing off a silver umbrella. I shot with my Nikon D80, USB tethered to my MacBook Pro using Apple’s Aperture application. This workflow not only gives me a great place to organize and edit the photos, but also allows the parents to see the shots live on a second Cinema Display as I shoot.

Here are some behind the scenes photo’s…

I shoot everything in RAW so that I have full control of the images. From within Aperture, I export the images out to Photoshop CS4. I then use the Plug-in Vertis Fluid Mask 3 to cut out the green screen from behind the student. From there I composite two or three images of that same student on my own backgrounds and create the final composite images. I send the finals out to a local lab to print the orders that the parents selected. Everything from wallets to bag tags and prints up to 11×17. I also offer posters framed or un-framed that I print on my Epson Stylus Pro 9800 42″ wide ink jet printer.

Check out some of the finals from my last shoot: