Advice on taking headshots for a website

dakid

dakid

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Apologies if this isn't the right place ... wasn't quite sure where to put it.

I'm soon going to be making my choir's website, and I'm due to be taking headshots of all of them for this purpose. Having only just got my camera, and having done little or no portrait work, this is obviously a cause for concern!

I have a colleague at work who does a lot of portrait stuff (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamtrash), and he's going to lend me a couple of flashguns and a background for the shoot, but it's not going to be any special location; simply the next rehearsal that we have, either in a church or a church hall.

I have a couple of main questions that I was hoping for help with:

1) While my friend will be giving me good advice about how to set up the lighting (and we'll be trying it out tonight, in advance of the shoot next week), I'd love to gather more opinions and comments on how to flatteringly light people. The choir's age ranges from 21 to 70ish, but only a handful are under 40, so I'm hoping for suggestions on how best to make people not look too wrinkled, fat or bald!

2) This is why I didn't simply put this thread in the lighting section. On the website, the images will be laid out in a grid, so any identical pose would - to my mind - create a pattern when duplicated that often. There are about 30 members of the choir, so it'll be something like a 5x6 grid of maybe 100x150 images (just guessing at the moment), so can you think of any way of doing it, beyond simply straight-on, that won't make it look too much like a pattern on the web page?

Thanks for any advice at all ... it will be appreciated :)
 
No-one any suggestions at all? :(
 
I may as well start the ball rolling. Flattering portrait = soft light like you see spilling through a window. A lot of Portrait studios use large soft boxes attached to the lights to replicate this and give soft even lighting.

If softboxes are not an option then firing the flash at a white reflector and using this reflected light to illuminate the subject would also work.

Finally if you are using studio lights simply with reflectors you could use the technique of feathering the light where the light is not pointed direct at the subject and the subject is lit by the edges of the light produced by the flash. This sound complex but is easy in practice and avoids using the harsh core of the light. It was taught to me by a superb portrait photographer of years gone by and has been lost amongst the simplicity of the softbox.

However people still look in awe at some of the portraits he produced and the quality of lighting obtained.

Can you be more specific as to the equipment (lights) you'll be using?
 
Not yet ... will be able to after my friend comes over with his equipment this evening. The idea is that we play with the setup and try and find something that works, but with a self-timer I can probably play around after that as well, so will let you know specifically what equipment there is later on.

Thank you for replying :)
 
A gold reflector helps reduce wrinkles on old people... I would recommend you start with one main light, positioned much like the sun. Then use lower output fill in light/s or reflector/s as needed. Keep a reasonable distance from any background to avoid casting shadows. Otherwise, as already mentioned, use soft boxes and brollies to produce a soft less harsh light. Hope that helps...
 
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