I was on assignment for the University of Idaho's alumni magazine, Here We Have Idaho when I did this photo of Philip Vukelich. The story was about the winners of a photo competition that the Student Recreation Center held. The magazine had me come in and photograph the photographers that took the winning photos. This is one of the subjects from that shoot. 

The goal was to get them doing what they loved, other than photography, since that's quite obvious due to winning the competition. Philip's activity of choice was rock climbing, so we headed to the famous U of I rock wall for a shot. 

The lighting was fairly simple for this shot, a Profoto 7B head with a standard zoom reflector, zoomed all the way in, boomed over the rock wall from the second floor. The next light, a Yongnuo YN-560 III was positioned behind him and about 13 feet high on the C-Stand with a CTO gel to give a little bit of warm separation. 

Rigging me up was fun. I was strapped into a harness, luckily I had a ladder to climb, because I definitely am not built like a rock climber. So we're about 10 feet up the wall, the pose was simple and easy as well, reach the hand towards the camera for drama, be sure to include the whole body, and then have Philip look up at the light. 

The Profoto pack gave the rock nice definition and created a contrasty look on his face. Impactful, just the way we like em' here! 

In post I cleaned up a few random signs and darkened the edges a bit to keep the focus on the subject. 

Overall, a pretty simple, but fun shoot! Questions? Post them below!

If you're looking to pick up some gear, be sure to check out http://www.mattleitholt.com/gear for a basic lighting kit.