From the Photo Editor’s desk :: Finding light with the Lytics

A few weeks ago for The Uniter I was assigned to photograph local hip hop group The Lytics. We met up late Monday night (Nov. 5) at Urban Bakery on Portage Avenue to shoot the cover.

After the initial walk around, I decided the location wasn’t a great place to do a vertically-oriented cover with five people and leave room for headline copy. There just wasn’t anywhere that I could really see to set them up without it looking boring. But, it’s what I had.

First thing to do was to look at what kind of lighting was already there. I asked Lonnie from the group to turn on all the lights in the store. You know the saying, “Let there be light”? Well, light there was and all my problems were solved!

When you walk into the store there are shoes behind glass on shelves, that with all the lights on, are lit by what amount to strip lights from the edges of the shelving! Perfect—I now had side lighting for my group of five and lots of space at the top of the frame for copy and the ever important title of the publication!

With a little fill light, here’s what we ended up with as the cover.

Once I knew the cover image was shot and that my editor would be happy, I stuck around and kept shooting. I always stick around. This way I get the shot that my editor isn’t expecting and show him that I can look beyond the assignment. And who knows, it might even get published?

To view the full gallery of rehearsal shots head over to my blog [url=“http://blog.hewlettphotography.ca/2012/11/the-lytics-winnipeg-hip-hop/”]here[/url].

Cheers,
Dylan