The Bookstore Portrait

I did an environmental portrait of book store owners Abbey and Shane Gottwals this morning. I wanted something to show off the interior of the store. Had an early idea of sitting them in the floor in the middle of an aisle of books. Then I thought ‘wow, with a pile of books around them, maybe.’ I planned on probably lighting the picture with one off camera flash.

I got to their Byron store and looked around. I found a great spot that showed nice book store surroundings, and there was a big display of books sitting in the floor. I told them where I wanted to shoot, and it surprised them when I told them to sit in the floor. The light was really nice, a front window lighting their faces, other windows adding a nice rim light to them and filling the background.

I began shooting with my 15mm, and got the image below. I shot around with it, then switched to my fisheye. Came away with the top image. Really like the way it flows, like seeing down the aisle on the extreme right. Also like the books in the foreground. A little distortion, but it adds to the photo. By having Shane and Abbey in the center, they are pretty distortion-free.

Think it made a nice photo.