Your Staff Photos Will Never Look This Good

Photography Tips

SmugMug wanted some killer athletic shots of its own employees to hang on the walls of the company gym, so Chris MacAskill turned to photographer Ben Von Wong to shoot a series of black and white portraits. Von Wong envisioned and brought to life large, athletic portraits of the staff members that not only looked professional, but made each of them look like a machine! Take a look at how he did it:

A larger than life photographer, Von Wong is known for his drive to take chances and be extreme. Since he didn’t want to be confined to a studio, he took this shoot outside and built a rain machine out of sprinkles to really add impact to the images.

“When people saw the photos, it was a lot of shock and awe; people didn’t realize that that’s what they looked like.”

 Lighting Tips

To really emphasize muscle definition, Von Wong used hard, directional lighting. He used four lights:

• 2 MobiLED + reflectors at 90 degree angles behind the models
• 2 lights in softboxes from 90 degree angles in front (in this case, a Para 133 On the Scoro 3200S and a Para 88)

The portraits turned out great—really capturing the energy of the staff, who turned out to be the perfect models! It just goes to show what can happen when you’re willing to think outside the box and take risks as a photographer.