[Leica] Portrait by window light :-)

[Simon Stevens <simon@camera-craftsman.com>]

Dear Ted:

I was tickled pink by your story. I do 100% of my work on location, and
a lot of these jobs are corporate head shots. For them I use a backdrop,

a 4 head lighting setup (with a wheeled case, thankfully) and a
Hasselblad. Lugging this is a royal pita. On occasions for "rush" jobs I

have used the Leica either outdoors or with flash bounced off of a wall
to the side, above and to the front of their face making a nice 3/4
lighting. The results are great. Maybe a little different, but just as
good, and perhaps better because the client is more relaxed. Since it's
not a question of quality of results, I have asked myself is why I
wouldn't do it this way always, flog the medium format, use the money to

buy more Leica lenses (yea!), and overall save my back from injury?

From my point of view the studio equipment serves two purposes: First,
it ensures a certain dependable and reproducable result.  The only thing

the Hasselblad has which I really miss with the Leica is the Polaroid
back. Reshoots are embarrassing and for me peace of mind is priceless.
Reproducability is also important because I do a lot of corporate
bruchure-type portraits where they want a couple of dozen portraits to
all look essentially the same (for example: "this is our sales team").
Since these are frequently shot on different days, the studio set-up is
useful to ensure consistency.

The other thing is psychology and marketing. An amazing number of my
first-time clients had to have their arms twisted to hire a pro in the
first place. Getting the intern to shoot it with a digital camera is
becoming quite a trend even with large firms that can afford to do
otherwise (and could also afford not to keep me waiting for my invoice,
but that's a different matter.) Showing up with impressive gear and
turning a conference room into a "real" studio screams "professional
worth paying for" and I have noticed also that the sitter is often a
little more respectful of the process that way.

I'm assuming that with your reputation you don't run into the need to
use this kind of dumb exploit-the-stereotype marketing. I wish it wasn't

necessary for me as well, and I'm quite jealous as I'd much prefer to
work the other way.

Simon Stevens