Today I took photos at the Granger Commons site (in Granger Indiana). This space is part of the Granger Community Church and includes a coffee bar, eatery, cozy seating areas and many shelves of religious reading materials. I stopped by the site a few weeks ago to give it a pre-photo visit and was struck by it’s massive size and complex layout.
A mixture of artificial lights (both daylight bulbs and incandescent) and large windows on the north and south side of the facility meant that mixing light temperatures was all but unavoidable. The high black ceiling further complicated things by ruling out any possibility of using it as a diffuser to bounce my speedlights.
I arrived before sunrise in hopes of using early morning light for some dramatic outdoor photos AND to take advantage of the warm early light to match some of the indoor incandescent lights. Once inside, I put 3300 temp gels on my three flashes but within 20 minutes, the sun had lost it’s warmth, so the gels came off.
Inside composition was a challenge. This was a huge space with islands of chairs and sitting areas. The main area was designed for many hundreds of people to mingle (before and after church). While I wanted to capture this large area, I found doings so in a compelling way difficult but doable.
I exposed for the ambient light and used my strobes to light accent walls, sitting areas, etc. Of course, I shot off a tri-pod and kept my aperture between f8 and f13. Other photos from this shoot can be seen HERE.
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