Headshots for Lee & Associate

It’s always so much fun photographing headshots for Lee & Associates!

On this visit, I had two new hires to capture. I setup a main light by placing 2 SB-5000 flashes on a Manfrotto light stand shooting through a large 60″ Westcott Apolo umbrella. And I set up a fill/kicker light behind them using the same exact setup. The images were shot with my Nikon D5 with 70-200 f2.8 on a Manfrotto tripod, tethered to my laptop using Adobe Lightroom. ISO 400, 1/200, f5.0.

We had a great time and came away with some wonderful images! Here are just a few of my favorites…

Headshots for Lee & Associates

It was a pleasure photographing Alex this morning for our wonderful clients, Lee & Associates! He seems like a great guy and a perfect fit for the team.

I used a 2-light setup for this shoot using 4 Nikon SB-5000 flashes, 2 Westcott 60″ shoot-through umbrellas, and 2 Manfrotto light stands. The Nikon D5 with 105mm Micro lens was tethered to my Lenovo Yoga laptop for instant review and selection of final images.  After photographing a self-portrait to test the lights, Alex stepped in for his shots.  We captured a variety of poses for use in their website, bio, and other marketing material.

CONGRATULATIONS to Alex on joining a fantastic company!

Charleston Business Photographer, Charleston Corporate Photographer, Charleston Headshot Photographer, Charleston Head-shot Photographer, Charleston Portrait Photographer, Charleston Real Estate Agent Photographer, Charleston Real Estate Photographer, Chris & Cami Photography, Commercial Real Estate, D5, Lee & Associates, Nikkor, Nikon, Nikon Pro, Nikon USA, OCF, Off Camera Flash, SB-5000

Headshots for Lee & Associates

It was nice to get out and feel relatively “normal” the other day! As the tide of the COVID-19 pandemic begins to turn, businesses are starting to get back to work. Here are a few shots of some new employees I did for our awesome clients, Lee & Associates…

Charleston Business Photographer, Charleston Corporate Photographer, Charleston Headshot Photographer, Charleston Head-shot Photographer, Charleston Portrait Photographer, Charleston Real Estate Agent Photographer, Charleston Real Estate Photographer, Chris & Cami Photography, Commercial Real Estate, D5, Lee & Associates, Nikkor, Nikon, Nikon Pro, Nikon USA, OCF, Off Camera Flash, SB-5000

Ashley at Lee & Associates

It was a pleasure photographing Ashley this morning at Lee & Associates! Ashley is originally from Ohio, but bounced around through Tennessee and Texas before finally landing in Charleston. She and her husband have been married about a year now. He works for The Citadel. Welcome to a great team, Ashley!!!

Office Headshots

Here’s a little behind-the-scenes peek at the setup I used for photographing headshots in a client’s office today.

The assignment included a Nikon D5, Nikkor 70-200 f2.8, 4 Nikon SB-5000 speedlights, 2 Manfrotto light stands, 2 Westcott umbrellas, and a Lenove laptop tethered to the camera with Adobe Lightroom.

They were a great group and I had a wonderful time working with them!!!

Lee & Associates at Cannon Park

One assignment I always look forward to every November is photographing the annual holiday team photo for Lee & Associates! This year the photo was held at one of my favorite locations we’ve used. It’s the old historic steps and columns from the original Charleston Museum at Cannon Park. It was a cool and foggy morning, which lent itself perfectly to the “holiday magic” for the session! 🙂

The Principals at Lee & Associates

This morning I had the pleasure of photographing the principal leaders at Lee & Associates. I’ve been working with this organization for a long time. They are always so much fun to work with!

Arriving a few minutes early, Lizzie met me in the lobby. Lizzie is the Operations Manager and always has a good eye for photos. She and I came up with three configurations in the office that we could use to give them a variety of “looks” in a short amount of time.

I know how busy these gentleman are.  So I set everything up in such a way that we could quickly cycle from one scene to the next. I used the Nikon D850, Nikkor 24-70 f2.8, and 3 SB-5000 Speedlights. In the images with the blue glass behind them, I placed blue gels on the two background flashes to achieve that effect. Working with such a mobile and light-weight set of tools, we had all three images knocked out in about 15 minutes!

Many thanks to Lee & Associates, and especially to Lizzie for always making sure their photo shoots go so smoothly!

Headshots in The Cigar Factory Basement

Being a professional photographer is not always roses and sunshine. Sometimes we are faced with difficult scenarios, yet expected to produce stellar results!

Photographing an assignment for Lee & Associates, I needed to create headshots for a couple of recent additions to the team. We normally do their shoots in The Cedar Room. This is the big beautiful ballroom in Charleston that’s known for its gorgeous historic brick walls. Instead, they offered us this wall in the bottom floor, which is now a a back service entrance in the basement of the old factory.

I got to work and set up my Nikon D5 with Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 on the Manfrotto 055 carbon fiber tripod. I mounted 2 SB-5000 flashes, both set to Group A, on a Manfrotto light stand with a 60″ Westcott shoot-through umbrella, as my main light. I set 2 SB-5000 flashes, on another light stand with a shoot through umbrella in the back. One of these flashes was set to Group B and directed at the subject to act as a rim/fill light. The other was set to Group C and directed at the wall as a background light. The camera was then tethered to my Lenovo Yoga laptop, which rested comfortably on the trash can in the corner.  Using Adobe Lightroom allowed the client to proof images as I shot, and allowed each individual pick out their favorite shots.

In spite of the conditions, with a little ingenuity, and a dash of creativity, we were able to make this dark hallway look as bright and beautiful as the gorgeous ballroom above!

Headshots at The Cigar Factory

I love using interesting old brick walls and unique backgrounds for corporate photo shoots and head-shots! Here are a few from last week where I used part of the exposed brick walls at The Cigar Factory.

Congratulations to all the new members of the amazing team at Lee & Associates!!!

Lee & Associates at The Gaillard

Precariously positioned on the top step of a rickety old aluminum ladder, awkwardly balancing $5000 in camera gear in one hand, I had to ask myself “how did I get here?”.

I love photographing the annual holiday photo for Lee & Associates! This year they had selected the grand staircase at The Gaillard as the location for their photo shoot.  I owe a special thanks to April Curci for all her help gaining permission from the venue and coordinating with everyone’s schedules. Also thank you to Emily Valentine for snapping the shots of me in action.

Arriving early, I had everything set up before the team arrived. Since it was a rainy overcast day, there wasn’t much natural light coming through the windows as we’d hoped. To augment the lighting, I mounted 3 SB-800 flashes on a Manfrotto light stand, bouncing into a 60″ Westcott umbrella. These were set to Group A on camera right. I mounted 3 more on a second stand as Group B on camera left. All flashes were controlled by an SB-5000 Master Flash on the camera, and set to 1/8 power using RadioPopper wireless transmitters.

Because of the tight quarters I was working in, I mounted the Nikkor 14-24 f2.8 to my Nikon D850. The high resolution of the D850 was perfect for the task of clearly capturing every face in this large group with excellent detail. Settings were ISO 400 at f5.6 and 1/30th second. By standing high on that wobbly ladder, I was able to shift the plane of focus to be more inline with the slope of the stairs, thus only needing a mid-range aperture to get enough depth of field. And even though I was hand-holding the camera at a relatively low shutter speed, the pop of the flashes and the use of a wide angle lens prevented any motion blur.

By tethering the camera to my laptop, the client was able to review the photos right there on site before the team dispersed. Everyone loved it!

Headshots for Lee & Associates

It was a pleasure photographing new headshots for Lee & Associates today!

I always love photographing assignments at the iconic Cedar Room in the old Cigar Factory. We used one of the original historic walls , with its amazing patina, as the backdrop for the portraits.

This image was photographed with a Nikon D5 at ISO 400, a Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VRII set at f5.0, and a pair of Nikon SB-5000 flashes diffused with Westcott 60″ shoot-through umbrellas.