Trying something different.

I had a fun assignment a couple of weeks ago for a story on the upcoming Chinese New Year. This was for the food page and it was about Dim Sum. I went to a local restaurant called the Sputnik Cafe. It was owned by the fun couple you see to the left and they were up for anything. She even offered to throw on a bikini, half jokingly, of course. We talked about what would look cool and I decided that I wanted the big sputnik satellite in the shot. I also thought about how the giant orb looked like the one of the famous statue of Atlas holds above his head.


They loved the idea and I went about setting up my Dynalite Uni Jrs. For this shot I used one strobe in a 4' soft box on the right and a second strobe in an umbrella behind and to the left for a hair and rim light. The position of his hands and my camera had to be just right to make it look like he was holding the orb. I think I came close but I am not quite there.

I did a second set of images to cover my butt in case the editors did not like the Atlas shot. And, of course, they must not have because they ran the regular shot on the right. What do you think? Which one looks better?