The Visual Science Lab / Kirk Tuck

I've been on a search for good, inexpensive, continuous lighting since the day DSLR camera makers started implementing real HD video into their cameras. The combination of video-ready cameras and electronic viewfinders flicked one of those small but important switches in my mind and it sent an alarm to the parts of my brain that do rational processing. And the alarm went something like this: "Danger/Opportunity. Big Changes Directly Ahead." As I've mentioned too often I think the commercial world of photography is in the midst of a dramatic sea change.

Lauren Lane in Harvey at Zach Theatre.

I know people who can tell you exactly how your word processor is programmed and coded but can't string together a coherent, creative sentence. I've met people who know every rule of grammar and every permutation of spelling who've never produced even a rudimentary piece of writing because the process rules dominate their thought processes. And I know some damn good writers who would perish without proofreaders. And there, in a nutshell, is the hierarchy.

David Steakley.

Mr. Steakley is the artistic director of Zach Theatre here in Austin, Texas.  I recently had the good fortune to photograph him for the theater's public relations work. The only problem with getting the assignment to photograph Dave is that his schedule is insane. When he's not directing wonderful shows he's in New York or some other cool city looking for new projects to bring back to Texas.

For this portrait I used the new Fotodiox fluorescent light fixtures.

I've been shooting marketing for Zach Theatre for about 19 years now. When we started it was with Hasselblad cameras and Tri-X film. When we went to color I switched to Leica M's and Kodak 320T tungsten balanced slide film, pushed to ISO 640. Now I routinely shoot the shows with a variety of digital cameras, all of which look better at ISO 3200 that the retired Kodak film did at it's native speed.

Chartier.

I was looking across the littered studio this morning and noticing that I'm not really a camera junkie as much as I'm a lighting junkie. As I looked through the little piles of lighting fixtures I starting into the reductive mindset that tries to eliminate clutter by pushing me to make choices and get rid of everything I don't need.

The two piles most in conflict, at the moment, are the new fluorescents over the older LED panels. They both cover the same shooting situations.

A quick summation of last week's hybrid job.

We set up a temporary portrait and interview studio in a big conference/mixed use room. I brought along one of my favorite color management tools, a Lastolite gray/white target. In this room I used the big Sony a99. One click white balance worked for both the stills and the video. I like setting the color correction once in shooting instead of pasting it in post. I lit with two fluorescents and one LED light.

It's kind of funny but most of the photographic images that I like of people are lit like the pronounced chiaroscuro of Caravaggio paintings. And most of the poses I like I've seen in paintings and sculptures. It would seem to me that a lot of our photographic imagery are really references to work done in other media and in other ages.

I confess that I love to photograph sculpture. From the Bernini pieces in the Borghese Sculpture museum to the Rodin Museum to the ancient Asian examples at the San Antonio Museum of art I am fascinated by all kinds of sculpture.

Often, when I read that the death of photography is approaching I remember that all the arts have been through ebbs and flows and all of them have, at one time or another, been declared dead except for sculpture.