Portrait and editorial photographer Francesco Ridolfi is just as acquired with fine art projects as he is with commercial photography. Recently he got commissioned by König to do a campaign shoot in the Alps. So he filled his car with some Profoto B1 Off-Camera Flashes, Profoto D1 Monolights, and the BatPac, headed up the snowy mountains, and shot a behind the scenes video of it all.
The whole shoot took a total of three days. The first day was basically just for the trip and a quick location scouting of the place. Day two and three Francesco and his crew did the actual shoot. Since he was photographing in a pretty rough environment he needed equipment he could rely on.
“You don’t want to have any problem when you are on assignment for a client!” Francesco explains.
The location demanded portable equipment. For that purpose he had brought his Profoto B1 Off-Camera Flashes. But he also geared up with a pair of D1 Air 1000 Monolights which he powered with the BatPac. He equipped his flashes with the Softlight Reflector White, commonly called Beauty Dish, and the Zoom Reflector. The mission was to see the snow chains in use on-location, in a realistic environment. With a Grid 180mm 5 degree he could enhance the light on the front wheel.
“They didn’t want to see the product on the foreground, but as an element of the image in a credible context.”
Francsco says that the the toughest challenges was the typical mountain scenario: extremely variable cold weather: “We were lucky! After a day of cloudy and windy weather, it snowed almost 20 cm overnight. The next morning a beautiful sun arose from the Alp tops. The sun and the fresh snow mix was the perfect condition for the shoot. The snow naturally fills the shadows.
“I decided to add little hints of light with strobes just to give to the images that little extra touch.”
Visit Francesco’s website for more images.
