CRASH COURSE

ESSENTIAL PHOTO SKILLS MADE EASY

- James Paterson

GET YOUR GOAT

James Paterson shows you how to set up a portable studio to capture stunning animal portraits on location

A portable studio allows you to capture subjects in all sorts of places, and with a clarity that only comes from flash lighting. The mobile studio plays a key role in the history of photography. In the mid-19th century, 'ambulant photographers' would travel from town to town. Later the practice was embraced by a host of famous photographers, and perhaps the most captivating images 2 HOURS were those of Irving Penn, who travelled the world with his Rolleiflex camera and north-light studio, photographing everything from mud-masked men in New Guinea and hippies in San Francisco.

Whether you want to capture animals, people or any other subject, a mobile studio can work wonders. It might seem complicated at first, but in a sense it's a great simplifier. By using plain backdrops and sculpting the light to suit our needs, we eliminate the context, which allows us to create bold, simple portraits that celebrate the subject without the distraction of their surroundings.

The portable studio approach is especially suited to animals like the goats, sheep and chickens we met at a local rare-breeds farm. Such animals are likely to be skittish in unfamiliar surroundings like a distant studio, so we took the studio to the farm...

ON LOCATION: FARM IT OUT

Build a portable studio with a three-light setup for beautiful animal portraits

1 THREE-LIGHT SETUP Our farmyard studio setup consists of three lights, although only the key light on the right was required for some shots. We set up in a barn not far from the chicken coop and goat stables. This way, we could grab an animal and take a few shots, then let them wander off back to their friends.