I spend most of my time photographing people in their homes or places of work. Most of my clients are busy professionals who don't always have the time to travel to a studio, or are uncomfortable being photographed in the studio environment.
Over the years I have minimised the amount of gear I use when working on location, so that I can be in and out of the clients office, or home, in as short a time as possible. Most of the location portraits, or environmental portraits to be correct, take less than 15 minutes to shoot, including set-up and take down time. Very few portrait sessions take longer than 30 minutes, most of those involve photographing numerous subjects.
The equipment I use is about as simple as you can get, either a couple of Canon 580EX speedlites, or a simple Lumedyne kit depending on my general requirements for the shoot. If I only have one or two subjects and the client only needs the simplest of pictures then I will often use the 580's, if I need to use a large softbox or I have numerous subjects then I will need the power and longevity of the Lumedynes.
The portrait above is a typical example of working with lightweight equipment. The photo is of my friend Mark Sheppard. Mark is a registered Hypnotherapist and the photo was required for his new website. I just used a simple set-up, a single 580 mounted on a Manfrotto Nano lightstand using an umbrella adapter. I aimed the 580 directly through a 30inch white shoot through umbrella placed about 20 inches from the subject. Mark was sitting about 3 feet from a plain wall just close enough to allow some of the light from the umbrella to fall onto the wall, but creating enough fall-off to drop the exposure by about 1 and a half stops, creating an even grey. Marks daughter was off school so I got her to help by holding a Lastolite 20 inch silver reflector on the opposite side, this just lifted the light in the shadow.
The result is a simple high quality portrait that could have been taken in a studio using an array of complicated and expensive lighting options, such as a softboxes, grids or spots. Even though I did stop for a cup of tea and a chat, I was in and out of Marks house in less than an hour, the photography was over in less than 10 minutes.
Simple yet extremely effective.
