At the Soulstore: A one light setup for shooting a store

Mattias at the Soulstore. Note how Mattias is lit by a remote triggered flash, while most of the store is lit mainly by ambient light.

I have shopped props and other things for the Horror Noir project from the Soulstore in Gothenburg. When I was there today, I asked Mattias, the proprietor, if I could take a photo for our behind-the-scenes photo comic.

I wanted to light Mattias, so attention would be drawn to him in the photo. I placed a single hotshoe flash behind one of the books in the pile on the right side of the picture. I put a 1/2 CTO gel on it and zoomed it to 105mm to narrow down the beam of light.

Shooting a store is a job for a wide angle lens, of course, so I used the Sigma 10-20mm at 10mm. I mounted the camera on a monopod, set the self-timer, and hoisted it high in the air.

I took a couple of shots without triggering the flash, to set the ambient light level. Then I turned the flash remote trigger on, and took the shot. I took a couple of more shots with slightly different settings to be on the safe side, but I liked the first shot best.

I did the post processing in Aperture. This included some cropping, because I wanted to zoom in on Mattias a bit.