Here is a copy of the Scholastic News cover for January that I shot a few weeks ago. More info on how I shot it after the jump…

The assignment was to shoot a group of kids for the story the schools “Stop, Walk, Talk” program. The premise of the program is when a bully comes up, you tell them to “Stop” and if that doesn’t work, “Walk” and then go and “Talk” to an adult. We wanted a group of kids to show the “Stop” sign for the cover. I also needed inside art and a couple of mugs for pulled quotes.

It was sunny outside, but about 18 degrees down in Eugene that day, so I didn’t want the kids to freeze to death, so I started in a classroom. Setup 3 lights with softboxes and shot the mugs and the photo on the left, but it was missing something. Didn’t quite have the pop I wanted. I had already arrived to scout the school and say the play ground so after we had most of the shoot wrapped Liz grabbed a couple of lights and we headed outside. Pretty sure the kids loved me and I just told them to go play while I setup. The sun was in just the right place to backlight the kids and I used a large softbox all the way to the right as the main light and then a smaller box just to the left of that for fill. Then I had to get the kids to stop playing and hold still for a few seconds. I stood on a ladder and shot looking down on them. After a few frames I knew I had it and had them go play some more while I shot a few more photos for the inside spreads. The photo on the right is the original photo used for the cover.

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