Brenda's Portrait. First Round.

Two variations on one image of Brenda.


As part of my ten days of vacation I took portraits of friends and acquaintances here in Austin.  What else would a photographer do on vacation? Brenda is an extremely good and extremely successful public relations specialist.  I see her frequently at Zach Scott Theatre where she consults and has been a board member.  I was nervous about asking her to come to the studio and sit because I believed that she would be too busy.  Or that she had so many photographer friends that she couldn't find time for one more portrait sitting.  But in the end I asked and she graciously accepted.

We worked with a digital camera (the Sony a77) and with a Hasselblad medium format film camera, and the session lasted about an hour.  This image is from a first pass edit.  It's from the Sony camera. But I just picked up the contact sheets last friday and I've already found ten frames I have to scan.  The larger format camera just looks different.

But I've very happy with the color and feel of these digital images as well.  At ISO 100 the a77 files are everything you could want in a digital camera file for portrait work.  They are color neutral, not too saturated, they have low-to-noise and they have bountiful dynamic range.  If you shoot mainly in the studio you couldn't ask for a better tool.

I used a variation of the lighting I'd set up for Carrie's photos, which I've shown this week.  The main difference is that I put a 48 by 48 inch Chimera Panel with a 3/4 stop, white diffusion cloth between the front of the Octabank and Brenda.  It's about half way in between, maybe 18 inches from Brenda.  It softened the light which also softened the skin tone and made the transitions between light and shadow gentler and more gradual.

I haven't had time to scan the black and white film images yet but they should follow this post in short order.

While you wouldn't be able to tell from a file that's displayed at 1800 pixels at its widest on the web, the lens I used here is very, very sharp.  It's a $200 Sony 55-200 mm and it's quickly becoming my favorite portrait lens because it's optically so well behaved and I like to think that it's driving its big brother, the $2000 70-200mm 2.8 lens, that's just languishing in the equipment drawer, into a rage over the indignity of having to play second fiddle to a budget product.  But I have to give credit where it's due.

The secret of getting a good portrait has nothing to do whatsoever with equipment.  Using an 85mm 1.4 or a full frame camera won't trump the superior value of just spending time with your subject.  If you let yourself get hurried or work to an artificially short schedule you'll only end up with technically perfect images of people who aren't invested in the process or outcome.  You have to build a collaboration.  You do that by asking questions and listening.  You explain what you are working toward in a portrait and recruit the sitter as a close ally.  You work together to make something you'll both love.  The time is obvious in the outcome.

I watched a video where a photographer was instructing a student in the mechanics of shooting a beautiful model.  The student spent a lot of time setting up his lighting.  Way too much time working on focusing and composition.  And no time at all talking to the model.  He snapped one frame and turned around to show it, on the back of the camera, to his teacher.  He ignored the model completely.  She returned the favor and no one ended up with anything good.  Then the teacher stepped in and explained to the model what he wanted.  He shot tons for frames.  During the process he provided a steady stream of verbal feedback. He kept her in the process.  When he stopped and showed his work it was as though he and the student were working with two totally different women who just happened to be sharing the same outfit.

And as good as the photographer was the images he showed were of a surface beauty, a nod to a well done sample of the styles of the day.  But what was lacking was the bond between the subject and the artist that bridges the gulf between them and allows them both, for a slender slip of time, to share a kind of intimacy with the camera that translates into a brief insight.  An insight into what makes the subject special.  And unique.  It's time well spent.

Just another portrait.

Big light. Big camera. Black and White film.  Looking for alternate ideas of gut wrenching beauty.

Why do I bother to write when others think so well? Style? Read this !!!

http://www.fotocommunity.com/info/Helsinki_Bus_Station_Theory

It was written by a great photographer who is now, also, a great teacher.  It's about developing as a photographer.  Big thanks to VSL reader, Stan, who brought this to my attention.

On another note,  I love Robin's post today because the photos are great and the idea's he espouses match mine.  It's a good read: http://robinwong.blogspot.com/2012/04/dont-you-ever-get-bored.html


http://www.kirktuck.com/site/home.html

Comparing film and digital for the millionth time.

studio portrait of Carrie C.


I wrote earlier about photographing Carrie in the studio.  In that post I started with a portrait that had been done digitally, with a Sony a77 camera, and then post processed into the black and white image I wanted.  This image is from a roll of medium format, Fuji Acros, black and white film (ISO 100) that we shot at the very end of the session.  I used a 120mm Makro lens and shot a f5.6.  As I was photographing with flash the shutter speed is largely irrelevant.

While the focus on the background falls off much more quickly than the digital versions I think there are few major technical differences between the two images that would make either one a "pass" or a "failure" but it seems that a very strange thing happened, psychologically, on the way to pressing the mechanical shutter button.

Carrie and I had been working on making a portrait for the better part of an hour and a half.  All my work up to this point was done with a typical digital SLR camera.  When we switched to the bigger format camera, and I started loading film, Carrie immediately honed into the changed paradigm.  In fact, I think we both sensed that the larger camera signalled  a change in the balance of studio magic.  The bigger camera slowed me way down.  I couldn't depend on face detection auto focus to do my heavy lifting for me as far as keeping the image sharp went.  I had to do that work myself.  I was much more focused on looking at her face through the lens because of it.

And that meant that Carrie had to sense the longer lag for focusing and slow her global movements down to compensate. She couldn't shift position as quickly and without regard for its effect.  I think we also sensed that there was, for me at least, more skin in the game.  More opportunities to screw up. More real cost to the process.  And she seemed, instinctively, to step up her game, as a subject, in order to help me be more successful.  The larger, slower camera seemed more real and less like fiction; the industrial design and the more measured pace imparted an idiomatic majesty to the process that had been missing.  A fine dining perspective rather than a drop in to the neighborhood Chili's. 


I don't know if you can tell, when you look at this photograph and compare it to the earlier one of Carrie, but there is a more relaxed facial attitude, on her part,  coupled with a more forward and invested posture.  We're more of a temporary team.

It could be just the placebo effect of using something out of the ordinary in an ordinary time.  But most doctors will tell you that the placebo effect is a powerful force.  I won't disregard it in the future.

I ended up shooting three rolls of film with Carrie. I like everything I see on the contact sheets. Furthermore, it was a fun process for me because the performance art of shooting in short, slow bursts of 12 frames came back to me as fast as a freestyle stroke after one day out of the water.  It felt so right.

As I mentioned in my "welcome back" post I will be concentrating more on portrait work as we go forward.  Don't despair if you are only here for the "gear" though,  I have a gear post coming up tomorrow to break the monotony.

When working on a new style of portraits it's really nice to have good models to work with.

this is an image of Carrie C.  


Over the course of my recent vacation from blogging I asked people I'd met over the last few years to come into the studio and have their portrait done.  I'd seen Carrie present at a Ted Conference, live, and was blown away by her calmness and her ability to connect with an audience. When she accepted my invitation to come by for a portrait I was really happy.  I asked her to dress in something dark and with long sleeves.  That seems to help focus the camera's attention to a subject's face.  At the least it keeps a bright, white blouse from blowing out the highlights.

I'd been experimenting with LED lighting panels and Hasselblad film camera but I gave that whole methodology a break too and reverted to using two monolight flashes and a digital camera.  I figured I needed to master the camera anyway.  The flashes are the same type of light I've used for two decades so I figured it was a quick way to remove variables.

I do my own stunts.

I don't know if you've been there before but if you are doing a solo set up and shoot for a corporate client there's a point where you are in a big conference room setting up lights all by yourself and wondering if you're getting the lights right.  And there's no one to use for a stand in.  And you really want to see how the light looks, and whether you're going to get that little reflection in the top right hand corner of your subject's glasses....  But you knew it was silly to bring an assistant along just to have someone to aim your camera at for a few seconds.

I was setting up at a high tech company today.  We were shooting a key executive in two locations.  This was the first location.  I set up a light on the back wall nearly 30 feet behind the spot where the subject would stand.  It was an Elinchrom monolight set at its lowest power and firing through a small, small softbox.  I had a light to the left of my camera and up high enough so that the bottom edge of the Varistar 41 inch modifier would be just at chin height for my subject.  And everyone was off checking e-mail and waiting for the appointed time and I really wanted to see what I was getting.

I know you'll probably say to yourself,  "What a doofus.  He's been doing this for 25 years and he still wants to preview his set up?  Why, in the name of all that's holy and photographic, am I reading this blog???"   This is a good question but it's beyond the scope of our article of the moment.

But I really did want to make sure there were no glitches that might bite me later.  Like that reflection in the glasses...

I set the zoom lens on my camera to 12 feet (thank goodness I still own a zoom lens with a real distance scale) and I set the camera to manual focus.  Then I set the drive menu to "10 second self-timer" and I scurried over to the shiny quarter I'd left on the floor when I paced out the twelve feet.  The shutter fired and the flashes fired and I scurried back over to the camera to set what I'd gotten.

At that point I added a very weak backlight.  And I adjusted my exposure just a bit.  And I did a few cleaning cycles on the camera to knock the gunk off the sensor that was starting to come into focus at f8.  When my client came in I was nearly ready.  I forgot to switch the camera back to single frame advance so my first button push was a bit anti-climactic.  We got that straightened out quickly.

Knowing I had everything set up correctly before the "star" stepped in to the room helped me to be calm and to concentrate on building a rapport with him.  It was easy.  We talked about his kids.

The one thing I did absolutely right today was to bring along an "Apple Box."  You'll rarely hear the fancy photography blogs mention "Apple Boxes," but they sure come in handy whether you're shooting film or digital.  They are wooden boxes, originally used by the film industry, and they are great for people of absolutely normal height of....say, about five feet, eight inches tall, to stand on when photographing abnormally tall people (anyone over five feet, ten inches tall....).

Since my subject was about 6'2" or better I can't think of a better $25 piece of gear.  So, I do my own stunts with the help of the self-timer and, I like to stand on wooden boxes when I make portraits.  It all seems like a very strange business to me.

This is an Apple Crate or Apple Box.  I felt smart because I packed one today.

If the image doesn't work you weren't close enough.

So many people think that Robert Capa was talking about physical distance.  And maybe he was.  But I think he was talking about emotional distance.  If you can't feel emotionally connected to a subject I just don't see how you can expect to make a great image.  If you are a sports shooter it's a connection to the excitement of the competition and the grace of whatever sport it is that you've chosen to photograph.  Landscape photographers are drawn to certain areas and terrains.  Even if they have to fly thousands of miles to get there.  And portrait photographers who do their work for the love of the art should feel a strong connection with the person in front of them.  Closing the emotional distance to better understand what to show.  Empathy?  

To blaze away with your camera without coming to some realization of what you are trying to describe about your subject is a recipe for bland photos.  If you are engaged and your subject is engaged then you'll be better able to translate that energy to your audience.  The studio should be a quiet, private place with enough emotional space to allow a certain kind of magic to appear.  I can't do this work with an entourage.  It would be too impersonal.

Tech stuff:  Leica R8 camera. Ilford Pan F 50 ISO film. 90mm Summicron lens.  Scanned on an Epson V500 scanner and post processed in SnapSeed.