I did this shot after a long day shooting lions for a pillow company. The lion was sitting on the pillow to show that they were soft and tough. Not my idea but I was more than willing to take the money to shoot the idea.
I negotiated with the Tiger owner to keep the tigers (We had 3 there) after hours to do my shot. I built the set and got everything ready a few days before. I was very excited about the shot and everything was in place. When it came time to shoot I asked the tiger owner to put his animal in the tub. Being faced with the reality of what I wanted and what we had discussed, he began to him and haw. “Its not that easy to make a tiger do things. Or for that matter do anything.”
It seemed a little late for this conversation to me. I started to express my displeasure. We had discussed the shot as part of the shoot and he was happy to say “no problem” before the job was awarded, but now it was late and the main work was done so it was impossible. My directness got him back into the game. He led one of the females over to the tub. He managed to get her front paws into the tub with her rear end facing the camera. Not exaculy what I had in mind. We tried the second tiger and it went crazy and would not get into the tub. It looked very bad at this point.
We pushed in the last cage containing the large male. Now I have to admit that I had been told that tigers will spray just about anything that gets too close to the cage. I was pushing the back of the cage when I looked up and saw the tiger lift its tail. It was a curious moment as I looked deep into the back side of a tiger. Then he simply peed all over me. I was furious. We can’t get the tiger into the tub and now to add icing to the fail cake, it peed all over me.
Quite frankly when I went home that night my cat freaked out. It thought some very large animal had just moved in.
Well the trainer was more determinied than ever to get the tiger into the tub. He needed to save face. In the mist of all this process we came up with the idea of cutting a whole into the back of the set and leading the tiger in from behind. It worked! The tiger in this shot only has its front paws in the tub. The back end was sticking out the back of the set. It worked in the end.
Lighting
The lighting was very simple. We had the following strobe lights.
1. A head with a reflector pointing at the tub from camera left. To give it the look of a doorway we simply used two pieces of foam core to simulate a door.
2. We cut a hole in the wall and placed a light coming through the medicine chest.
3. There was a 20 degree grid on the woman from camera right.
4. There was a 20 degree grid on the man from camera right.
5. Extra large Soft Box from overhead for a top back light.
6. An umbrella behind the camera.
