Aurum Light Blog

After publishing photographs from The Trial, my recent conceptual shoot, I’ve received a ton of emails asking ”How was it done?” and “How on earth we managed to convince over 50 girls to take part in the project!”

I will be more than happy to answer, but first I would like to thank you all for your messages and kind words, I really appreciate them all!

OK, So let’s get straight to the point!

Working around your limitation is what photography is all about really.

“Do you need a big budget to do big things..?”
- I don’t think so!

What matters is thinking outside the box and always willing to go the extra mile!

The Courtroom scene was the most challenging illustration.
We had no budget to hire over 50 models or the full house of lighting gear…

So instead I decided to Shoot in Sections.

I have prepared a little animation to give you a full understanding of what this involved:

 
The camera – Phase One!

For this kind of work, you want to have something which will justify the scale of your project.
And I knew I wanted the best possible output!

I decided to try the Phase One camera system, and to say that I am thrilled with the quality of the final images is not enough.
I worked with P65+ Digital Back  and I think that the resolution, quality and level of noise is just superb.
When your focus is in place you will get an extraordinary level of details and – to paraphrase my friend Drew – “the Angels sing!”

And that illustration when printed at almost 2m wide paper is just breathtaking!

[To Enlarge please click on the photo]

 
Now with the introduction of the new model – Phase One IQ180 Digital Back with over 80MP, and extraordinary quality and detail – they just rewrite the standards!

I hope to put my hands on the beast soon enough to shoot with it my new project – Awakening!

 
The Setup: Gitzo + Manfrotto

If you can manage to keep your camera locked dead tight on the tripod and keep the lighting consistent – it allows you to multiply not only models but also the lighting setups!

When working with such a camera – and the medium format is not a small body – and large groups of talents + team on the day , there are so many things around you that the least important thing to worry about is to secure the consistent output – you want to be sure that the rig keeps the frames identical.
For that you need to go for the sturdiest tripod which you can get.

We worked with Gitzo GT5660SCT Giant Tripod with a fantastic Manfrotto 405 Geared Head which allows for an absolute fine detail camera position adjustments.

To make sure you will not move anything while shooting – we tethered and operated the camera from a laptop via Phase One, Capture One software.

 
After all that… it is just as simple as layering final frames in Photoshop!

And other than that, there was almost no postproduction on the images.
You gotta love it, when it is all done in Camera!

Oh, and if you missed my previous post here is the complete Behind The Scenes Video from The Trial and the final photographs you can find here [click]:

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THE TRIAL by AurumLight Studio