Displaced St. Louis couple, Brad and Kendra, have lived in the DC Metro area for the past few years. Now that Brad is finishing graduate school, they will be moving back to St. Louis. Since they only had a few weeks left in the area, Kendra emailed me asking to set up a portrait session to commemorate their time here in the area.
After discussing the session with Kendra, we decided on taking photos on the Mall and on the campus of The George Washington University, where Brad will be graduating. Deciding on a day proved to be limited because Kendra has already moved back to the St. Louis area and was only here on the weekends.
We decided to meet on the Friday of Brad’s graduation weekend. That morning we met at the Washington Monument and took a number of photos there. We then moved over to Constitution Gardens for a few more poses.
After finishing at the gardens, we began to head toward the Lincoln Memorial, but then the rain started. So instead of getting wet while walking towards the landmark, we opted to drive over to Foggy Bottom instead. There we would get some photos of Brad in his cap and gown.
For the shots on the Mall, I shot using available light. The day was overcast, providing a nice even light source for Brad and Kendra. My wife and lovely assistant, Cheri, helped me by holding a silver reflector to help add some fill.
At Foggy Bottom, we chose the courtyard next to the library for our setting. Here I used a two lighting set up for most of the shots. I used my SB-600 speed light (TTL triggered via Nikon CLS) with a shoot-through umbrella as the key and my LP160 speed light (on manual triggered via its built-in optical slave) as a back light / rim light to help give some separation from the background.
