This image was shot for DePaul University's admissions material. It is part architectural photo and part environmental portrait.

The fun part of this image is dealing with three light sources: the natural light in the windows, the tungsten stage and house lights, and my strobes. It would have been easy to overpower the ambient light with the strobes and simply light the whole scene, but I wanted to capture some of the warm glow of the tungsten and contrast it with the cool dusk light outside. Since I had no control over either ambient sources, we simply had to wait until they balanced each other. Then I added a handful of Profoto strobes to highlight the pianist, the keyboard, and the interior of the piano as well as adding a little rim lighting to the pianists face to separate him from the background. I exposed for the strobes and let shutter speed hang open long enough to expose the ambient light about a stop less to capture the sort of light you would find here during a performance.