How I Shot an Annie Leibovitz-Style Group Portrait Using Just One Light (and a Medieval Castle)

I’ve always been a big admirer of Annie Leibovitz’s Vanity Fair group portraits, those sprawling celebrity scenes that somehow feel both meticulously staged and completely effortless. Everyone looks like they just happened to be there, bathed in this perfect painterly light, and yet every detail has been thought through.

So when a local choir reached out asking for new promo photos and casually mentioned the location was a 12th-century Moorish castle, I knew exactly where my brain was going. This wasn’t just going to be another “stand in three rows and smile” kind of shoot. This was my chance to try an Annie Leibovitz-inspired group portrait, only with a smaller crew, a tighter budget, and just one light.

Photographing big groups is never easy. Once you’ve got more than ten people in front of the lens, it’s as much crowd control as it is photography. But when the setting looks like something out of Game of Thrones and you’re chasing that Vanity Fair vibe, you find yourself wanting to do things a little differently and make the most of the location.

The Concept: Vanity Fair Meets Medieval Architecture

The plan was to photograph the choir in several spots around the castle. I was looking for rich textures, arches, stairwells, and stone alcoves. I wanted each image to look like a scene from a period drama, yet still have the cohesion of a modern group portrait.

Each person had to be deliberately posed, but because we had everyone on-site, I didn’t need to composite individuals later. Instead, I decided to light smaller groups separately, then blend those exposures in Photoshop to get that polished, layered look.

Lighting Setup and Equipment

My gear list for this shoot was surprisingly minimal:

• 1 x Godox AD200 strobe
• 60-inch Octabox (Small Rig) for soft, directional light
• Tripod-mounted camera (Canon EOS R6 Mark II with 35mm lens)
• Canon Connect app for wireless triggering
• An assistant to press the remote shutter while I directed the poses and moved the light around (my 8-year-old son helped out here, it’s surprising how good a ‘grow your own assistant’ can be!)

The key was consistency. By keeping the camera locked down on a tripod, I could move the light around the scene and build up a composite later. This gave me control over how each mini-group was lit, like painting with light across the frame.

The Method: Building the Portrait, Person by Person

Before bringing anyone in, I shot a few bare plates of each scene at different exposures. That gave me a clean background to work with later if I needed to patch anything in post.

Then, I started assembling the group in small clusters, groups of threes, fives, pairs, and then individuals to fill in gaps. I like to think in triangles and diamonds when posing: it keeps the composition dynamic and avoids the dreaded “school photo rows.”

To add visual interest, I used three height planes: people sitting on the floor, sitting on chairs, and standing. This layering fills out the frame nicely and creates that lived-in, storybook feel you see in Annie Leibovitz’s group portraits.

Once everyone was in position, I left the camera untouched and moved the flash around to light each section. I took a wide “safety” shot at the end to evenly light the whole group, just in case I needed to fill shadows later.

Post-Production: The Magic in the Layers

If the shoot was about logistics, post-production was really where everything came together. I brought all the frames into Photoshop, stacked them up, and started painting in the lit sections using layer masks.

This technique lets you sculpt light exactly how you want it, subtly guiding the viewer’s eye around the frame. After that came the cleanup: removing distractions, evening out tones, and finally, a subtle colour grade for added mood.

For the final polish, I ran the image through Exposure software, which is great for adding a bit of “film” character and depth. A touch of sharpening later, and the image had that timeless Vanity Fair sheen.

Results

Overall, I was genuinely pleased with how it came out. It’s not my first time using this lighting and compositing method, but this was definitely the biggest group I’ve tackled. The castle setting was incredible but tricky with lots of mixed light, deep shadows, and uneven textures. I also only had about an hour to work with the group, and I had to deliver 6 photos in total (luckily the rest were more conventional outdoors group shots).

The stairwell, in particular, was a logistical puzzle, and not at all easy to fit everyone in, but that’s part of the fun. In the end the ‘safe shot’ for that scene worked about as well as the Annie-inspired shot, proving that it’s always good to have a plan B up your sleeve!

If you’re planning your own Annie Leibovitz-inspired group portrait, perhaps for a wedding party, for example, remember that lighting and posing are only half the battle. The real magic is in the storytelling, capturing the relationships, the hierarchy, and the quiet interactions that make the subjects feel like a cohesive group, not just a random bunch of people.

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