Annie and Sean Connery for Louis Vuitton: The Light Touch

Reading the section about lighting in Annie Leibovitz's At Work book, I was intrigued by the idea of running a big source off camera essentially as off-camera fill in a neutral ambient-based exposure. (This is compared to dropping the ambient a stop or two and overpowering it with a big light.)

It looks like this is what she is doing for this fashion shot of Sean Connery. In fact, I thought the whole setup was pretty light touch, especially considering the photographer.



I wasn't sure I would like this look when I first read about it, but I really do now that I see the result.

My guess is that assistant thought the lighting gear was plenty heavy, thankyouverymuch, given the angle at which he had to hold that whole boom/light rig. Which might be the reason she chose a lightweight brolly-box thingie over an Octa to begin with. Who knows.

But I found both the lighting gear and the soft touch on the balance to be a neat change of pace.

Not so surprising: The "Bond boat," which speeds away on cue for every shot on the verticals. Oh, and they faked the entire dock. It is a prop. Gotta like that.