VCJ Cover shoot

Recently got commissioned by a subsidiary of Reuters to shoot the february cover and cover story spread. Venture Capitalist Journal (VCJ) asked me to take a few pictures of this bigshot VC/Investor, Alan Patricof, who resides here in Manhattan.

Cover

Getting your work published in any print or online article is an accomplishment. I got to do a cover and the inside cover spread! I've done covers before (for the same company) but as an illustrator, designer and retoucher. This is my first big gig in my young photographic career. By now, everyone who subscribes to VCJ (which is almost everyone in wall street and venture capitalist) has seen this. I'm just hoping this snowballs for me.

Inside cover spread

My real goal with this career path is to eventually get into commercial and advertising as a photographer. I'm already an Art Director in this field. Trust me, at times I want to hire myself to shoot our ads here but, there's serious protocol involved. From the creative directors, to production and art buyers. I can't simply insert myself into a bidding war against other more experienced photographers. Just so you know, I don't work for Thomson Reuters and VCJ, I just freelance for them. I work as an art director for EURO RSCG LIFE so, every now and then I'll get side work. which helps since, I have a huge mortgage now.

Here are the two setup diagrams. There were very minimal photoshop work done. Just white balance adjustments, retouched away some stray hairs off his head and that was it.

Cover diagram:

For the cover, I used the micro VR lens. The client had requested that i focus on all of the interesting features of Alan's face. In this case, an macro lens stopped down to F8 will yield super detailed results, especially on the D3x. I probably wouldn't try to do this for a younger and more attractive female, as it will reveal a ton imperfections in their face, Hence putting you on the spot to prepare for hours of retouching. Which isn't bad anyway, if you charged by the hour. I balanced the camera with daylight and tossed an amber gel in front of the sb-900 on the right, to simulate that warm dusk lighting.

Inside spread diagram:

The main light with the softbox had a CTO warming or (tungsten) gel over it. So did the one aiming at the wall behind Alan. There's a bare sb-900 off on the side that gave off the blue'ish highlight. What I did here was, I balanced the camera to tungsten, to match the amber gel'd softbox and anything resembling daylight (such as bare speedlights) will cast a blue light IF your camera's white balance is set to tungsten (that lightbulb icon)