After our recent announcement that we’re now offering corporate portraits and headshots, we received a call from Gibsons Steakhouse asking us to come by to photograph a few of their staff from Gibsons and their sister restaurants. Our goal was to create environmental portraits of Gibsons cooking staff, LuxBar mixologist Matthew “Choo” Lipsky, and Quartino Chef John Coletta.
For these portraits, we used both natural and studio light. Laurie and I scouted locations within the restaurants by looking for clean backgrounds, which still gave a sense of the atmosphere. LuxBar had beautiful natural light in the upstairs bar coming through the East facing windows. However, it was a little strong, so in the below image we filtered it by using the transparent side of our reflector.
At Gibsons Steakhouse and Quartino, we wanted to give the portraits a sense of the warm, inviting environment. These two Chicago staples are famous for making customers feel like their dining in their family’s home.To achieve this, we brought in studio lighting. We balanced the ambient light with our main key light, in this case, the AlienBee B800 with an umbrella attached. We used a neutral density filter to lower the strength of the flash plus a warming gel to match the existing tungsten color temperature. Throw in a dash of Revealed Studio charm, and voila, success.
