We had less than an hour before a storm hit our way and we were in the middle of a golf course, photographing the cover for Active Retirees Magazine.

During the shoot, I was thinking about how quickly our hour was pushed into half an hour by the weather.

The client was very driven to replicate the mock-up, which had clear blue skies. I shot according to the mock up first and once I knew we had gotten the image, we quickly moved to a different location so a cloudier piece of sky acting as a backdrop.

I wanted to add some contrast to make the image pop, make it more dynamic.

The sun was hitting the model’s head quite nicely so I used a main light to fill in the shadows. By now the wind was really battling against us so my first assistant held down the lighting equipment. My second assistant held the reflector just hovering over the grass below the dark golf club to fill in the shadows.

I’m really happy with this picture. It was created in half an hour and I feel like it really builds on the concept of a happy, active retiree.

 Want more? Watch the behind the scenes video.