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Stuart Wood's Tunisian Masterclass - part 3 of 1 2 3

by Stuart Wood Published 01/02/2014

Double-page spreads or DPSs as they are known, are much beloved by magazines so that they can place the image over two pages of the magazine and still have plenty of space in which to place text onto it. So, the secret is to always fill one side of the image with something simple and uncomplicated, where text placed over it can easily be read, and never ever place your main point of interest in the centre of the image, as this is where the page gutters will have to go.

We only had 30 minutes with Mohammed, so I had to work swiftly while still explaining carefully to the delegates exactly what I was doing. Although I am now well practised in the art of working a location, what did surprise me was that in four classes of fellow professionals, no one else had spotted any of the locations that, for me, had been begging me to photograph them.

As a result, one of the most valuable lessons that the delegates learned was not about apertures, exposures and shutter speeds, but how to open their eyes.

We shot our porter on the beach and near to palm trees and amongst the architecture.

Then it was time for my main picture and I stood Mohammed in the room with my favourite pillar directly behind him. Using my trusty 70-200mm lens at my favourite f4, I shot my porter through the slot that I had seen when walking into the hotel. I wanted minimum depth of field so that you always look at Mohammed and his lovely red fez.

With the textured sandstone wall, I created the perfect double-page spread by placing Mohammed to the right of frame while facing him into the image. Behind Mohammed was a large window and that lit both the back of him and put a nice gradation from light to dark onto the pillar behind him. I then introduced my Elinchrom Quadra location flash, that was placed on a stand and carefully positioned in front of Mohammed in the room. After determining my flash exposure, I decided to control the ambient light that lit the wall in front and the window lighting the pillar and back of the porter, by underexposing it by one stop by selecting a faster shutter speed. As it was the shutter speed and not the aperture that I adjusted, the flash exposure was not affected in any way. This technique can create a superb, almost 3D effect, because the brightly lit porter is what you always want to look at and the ambient light does not look particularly underexposed as Mohammed is so nicely lit. Using a nice bit of 'Rembrandt' lighting from the left not only gave Mohammed some shape but also ensured that his wonderful face would look amazing and I added a little extra interest in the pose by getting him to slightly lean forward, like he is peeking at us.

His primary red fez was placed exactly at the 'rule of thirds' for maximum impact. And so we got our perfect DPS, and when the class ended, I slipped away quietly to sample a well earned glass or two of Tunisia's finest libation...well it was all-inclusive after all and it would have been rude not to, wouldn't it?

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1st Published 01/02/2014
last update 09/12/2022 15:00:00

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