Tv Repair Shop

It was one of those rare occasions where I got an assignment with plenty of time to prepare. Danny Sertich owns and operates a tv repair shop in Sandy Springs, and it's the place where tv comes back to life, one way or another. Gutted parts covered the walls just waiting for their day to resurrect an appliance.

Scouting day: office.

I scouted the shop the day before, and while it was a cool little shop full of texture and props, it was a tiny space and I was beginning to worry where I'd place my lights.

But in the back-backroom, where Danny does the soldering and other fun stuff with electronics, is where I decided to do shoot. The little hallway I was standing had little over two feet wide of space for me to walk. Flat screens hugged the walls so I had to be careful.

Even with a point-and-shoot on wide, it was hard to get a shot of the room.

That night I found a picture of the color bars online to project on the main tv screen, and took a picture with my backup camera. The next day I asked him to move the projector from the table on the left, and cleaned up the space a bit. To keep Danny in focus instead of the wire jungle in the background, I spot lit his face with a 30 degree grid on a boom, and a brolly behind me for fill. Ideally, I would've setup a medium box with grid, but it's impossible to put a medium stand, much less a c-stand in that hallway.

I also wanted a wide aperture, and at the same time avoid tv-screen flicker. So I was locked in at 1/25 of a second, and wanted a wide-ish aperture at ISO 100. I had to compromise for ISO 160 and f/6.3.

You can see on the camera settings on the screen because I'm outputting the color bars straight from my backup camera. I increased the fill and lowered the key; the back light is just a small reflector. The magnifying headset looked interesting on him and thankfully the tv in the back wasn't showing any celebrity.