Nobody Does it Bestor

I promised a few weeks ago to post some images from my super fun shoot with Kurt Bestor. The shoot was done at the Covey Center for the Arts. When Kurt came in, I introduced myself and Kurt said, “I know you, you photographed me back in the mid-eighties! I still have the picture; I like it, but not the clothes I was wearing in it :-)))” We both connected back to the Osmond Studios and the eighties. The Osmond Studios was my first work place in the USA. Kurt has done more then 40 film scores, won an Emmy etc., but what he is most known for is his Christmas Concerts and albums for the last 21 years. I learned something cool from him: He is forty-eleven years old, so now I’m forty-fourteen 🙂 For more on Kurt Bestor here is a link to his website. and to the article.

On to the photographic part. First the back lighting. What gives both this images a performance feeling is the 650w Fresnel spot on the cover placed straight behind him many rows up. See how it spreads down the seat rows in the wider shot underneath the cover. It’s sitting on a very high tripod to create more even distance to the rows and get some of the top of his head. In the image underneath the fresnel spot is more to the right as you can see in the overview .The tungsten fresnel spot gives a nice and warm backlight, to separate him well. Compared to the strobes ( 5500K), the Fresnel is about 3400K.

Cover shot: Main light and fill light in this shot is Elinchrom strobes. Main light is an the 53″ Junior Octa 45 degrees from the right, as close as possible to him with out being in the image, placed right in front of row 1. The fill light is a silver umbrella right behind me up on the stage. Camera Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III 70-200mm 2.8 at 115mm and f 5.6. ISO 400.

In the image underneath it is NO strobes, just the fresnel from behind him to the right, existing light from bulbs, room, etc, then a Vector 3 mill candlelight spot with a diffusion screen slightly from the right of me. Camera Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III. Lens 50mm 1.4 @ 2.8. 1/160sec. handheld to be more free and faster for angles etc. ISO 400.

PS. To learn more about use of Fresnel spot and how it looks see this blog entry.