This photo was shot recently in southern Minnesota for television personalities Pat Reeves and Nicole Jones, who host Driven Hunter TV, (http://www.drivenhunter.com/). Although it wasn’t technically difficult, it did present a few hurdles we needed to overcome.
The first difficulty was the fact that fall colors were spotty at best. The area that we needed to work in was mostly green, save a single maple that you can see in the background. The solution was to trim some small colorful branches from other trees that had good color and attach them as needed in the background. Worked fairly well I thought.
Photo by Bill Konway.
The next problem we encountered was the height of the stands they were in. Simple solution would have been to lower the stands but then we would have had the ground and a single round bale of hay showing up in the background. Next, the sky was partly cloudy which meant that they would be brutally highlighted at times and not at others. Nothing worse than a big old leaf or branch shadow on someone’s face. To solve this we placed a large scrim, (P-22 Panel), above them, just out of the frame. That kept them in an even light that could be dealt with.
However, the flat light, from the scrim which is good, also provided no highlights or depth and left them darker than the brilliant colors in the background which would have become totally burned out with a proper exposure for Pat and Nicole. Another tall light stand with a single strobe triggered wirelessly to camera left brought up the light to the exposure value needed and provided a nice highlight on things and a single catchlight in the eyes of the subjects.
~Bill Konway
Bill Konway worked as a staff photographer for a Chicago newspaper for more than 20 years, before pursuing a full-time career in the outdoors as a photographer two years ago. Taking his lifelong passion for the outdoors and making a living at it has been a dream come true. Shooting primarily commercial work for hunting manufacturers, a few of his clients include Realtree, Bowtech, Prois Hunting, Dogtra, Knight Rifles, Rivers West and Alpen Optics. He has also been published in by Gatehouse Media, Indiana Outdoor News, Retriever Journal, Ducks Unlimited, Tennessee Outdoor News, Just Labs, Pointing Dog Journal and The Associated Press, and recently, online at Field and Stream, to name a few.
Bill also participates in the sports that he photographs and has hunted in several Midwest, Southern and Western states including deer in Iowa, elk in New Mexico, turkey and deer in Missouri, and turkey and deer in Kentucky,not to mention his home state of Indiana. Bill is also a co-owner of Straight Creek Outfitters in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. Bill has been married to his wife, Stacy, for nearly 20 years and has one son, Zak, who is 18 years old. For more information or to view some of his work, head to www.billkonway.com.
Bill Konway worked as a staff photographer for a Chicago newspaper for more than 20 years, before pursuing a full-time career in the outdoors as a photographer. Bill shoots primarily commercial work for hunting manufacturers. View all posts by Bill Konway
