Britta Giese Wine Consultant

This was an editorial shoot for Everything Wine that featured wine consultant and sommelier, Britta Giese.  We had decided that the shoot take place at the Sooke Harbour House, about 45 minutes away from Victoria.

The shot above was lit with a White Lighting X1600 in a 60" Photek Softlighter positioned to the left with a reflector on the right.   Shot at f8 with a slow shutter speed of 1/50th to balance the natural light  coming in from the windows.  Here is a set up shot:

At about this time, I had started using the Whibal white balance reference.  It is a super easy tool to use: just photograph it in the same light that you will photograph your subject.  In post production I grab the white balance dropper from develop module in Lightroom and pick a spot on the gray part of the card and click. Viola!  Insta-white balance.  I admit I get a fleeting sense of credibility when I see the histogram reds, greens and blue come together.  

Having said that, I typically move the temperature slider a couple of points to make the image just a little warmer.  Go figure: salt and pepper.

The above image was shot in the lounge of the Sooke Harbour House.  Again, the light was a WLX1600 and softlighter with a reflector for fill.   I quite like the specular highlight along Britta's boots.

During this session, I heard my name called out from behind me.  I turned to see a woman smiling at me who turned out to be an old classmate of mine, Geri Solodky.  We've known each other since grade 7 - homeroom no less.  And I believe that she also occupied the locker next to mine.  I remember it fairly well as I had just moved and none of my grade 6 chums were there to begin Junior High with me.   We haven't seen one another since High School - 23 years ago!  Yikes.  I feel old now.   Let's move on.

One of the shots we really wanted to do was a cellar image.   For this we used two CTO gelled speedlights on stands:  one with a plastic straw grid that is camera right; and another speedlight that is behind an unseen pillar near the back illuminating the background racks.