He shot the photo in three sections, and in post production, the left, middle, and right sections were merged into the final triple page spread that appeared in Vanity Fair. However, it’s important to note that all 116 people were on stage at one time. Nobody was stitched into the photo, nobody was added in post."
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I did a big group shot quite a few years ago for a Ballet Co. It was also shot in 3 sections.
However I decided to use three cameras synced together but set up so the shots would be sets of three and all in the same instant...
well almost.
It was shot with strobe, but I had to use a sync speed of 1/30th of a second so as to have all three shutters open at the same time.
I ran some tests and identified the slower camera and used it for the sync. The 1/30th made for a long enough safety margin for the shutters to still be open when the slower camera ought up.
The three shots being exposed with the same single flash overlaid each other perfectly
I used a sneaky trick to get the subjects to pose well.... I gave then the instruction by voice, but then used a musical cue to get then to
do it all together.... I also had the conductor wave his "sticks" at them leading up to the musical cue.
I used a single light.... Elinchrom Dual Head 6K shoved in the back of giant fresnel