The season for shooting schools prospectus and other types of photography for colleges and academies tends to take place between April and September as a large part of it is on location (buildings in good light, trees with leaves, flowers in bloom). This summer was quite a difficult time for location photography, but the show has to go on – rain or shine. If you are a teacher, bursar or school marketing manager planning your photography for next year or have a specific requirement for this year do please get in touch.
Here’s the techie bit. When the sun is weak or hidden by cloud, classrooms can become very dark and shots of people lack contrast. You don’t want to rely on orange colour-casted lights or overhead strip lights. Often I have to place off camera flash guns where the windows are (to keep the light flow logical) with a bit of fill elsewhere. On other occasions you want to bring down the ambient in the room to direct light for specific emphasis. All of the shots below, bar the two outside, were shot with artificial lighting (nothing bigger than Canon Speedlites with Stofen Omnibounces and flags – anything bigger than that requires more space, time, an assistant etc.).
