Shot by Scott

Steve has an alter ego… Strider the ranger of the north. I found photos of Steve on an internet portal and was impressed with his costume. I asked if he would model for me as I had several ideas in the back of my head for a while now, and before I knew it we were in the studio. Knowing that the “Jedi Girl” would be interested in a shoot like this I asked her to join. 

Aragorn, son of Arathorn is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium, one of the main protagonists of The Lord of the Rings. He was originally a Ranger of the North, first introduced by the name Strider at Bree, which the Hobbits continue to call him throughout The Lord of the Rings. He was eventually discovered to be not simply a Ranger, but the heir of Isildur, rightful claimant to the thrones of both Arnor and Gondor. He was also a close confidant of Gandalf, and as such an integral part of the quest to destroy the One Ring and defeat the Dark Lord Sauron.

I wasn’t out to recreate scenes from “Lord of the Rings” but it definitely was a large motivation for all of us involved in the shoot. Especially with Steve being so motivated by the character Arogorn. My lighting concept was to shoot everything blow f8, I wanted the big screen cinema depth of field. And to create a 3 dimensional look with props and depth of field.

My other goal was to create a mystical look through lighting and smoke affects, you know all that standard fantasy film stuff. Although this was Steve’s first shoot as a model he did a fantastic job and bought a lot of ideas and suggestions with him.

As for the lighting I use several different setups

• A Bowens 400ws strobe in a 180cm octobox positioned at 90° to the model and well in front of him so he was only getting the fall off light. (as in the photo with the bow and arrow above)
• A Clam shell lighting set up with, Bowens 400ws strobe with a large 100cmx80cm soft-bow above and a Bowens 200ws with a 60×60 soft-box from below as fill (like the top  photo)
• 2 Bowens 400ws strobes with 41cm beauty dishes place left and right 45° behind the model and behind to large black gobos. Another 400ws Bowens monobloch was placed 45° infornt of the model camera left with a snoot, used only to throw a bit of light onto the subjects face. And a 700w smoke machine for atmosphere (see the bottom photo)

We uses a few other lighting setups but they were defiantly my faves on the night.