A while back I promised a cautionary tale…

So this is the basic setup for a seamless portrait with back glow. I set this up in the reception area, with a 5 foot white seamless. I just gives enough to get a head and shoulders edge to edge. Nothing fancy, it works. The backlight is a speedlight with a diffusion dome, on a stand, probably set to 1/8th power, aimed sort of at the paper and up a little, about a foot away from the paper. The subject, Ian, is about 3 feet away from the paper, and I am under the front light on a c-stand extension arm, with a speedlight in a x-small chimera over camera. It is maybe 2.5 feet away and above. Power is probably 1/4, 400 ISO. I can get f8-1/3 out of this with an instant recycle using the canon battery pack.

So that is what you see top left, moi, ugh…doing the self posing self timer thing. I keep meaning to get the canon remote. And a makeover!

That is the “A” setup, there is another setup in his office with a big softlighter. The issue is when I packed, since I was doing this solo, and I had a backdrop, I only packed four stands. So I had to take the stand from the backdrop light to use in the office setup. Once I got this done, I realized I had compromised myself, that there was not going to be any time to move the stand back, so I improvised using my tripod as you can see. Well, I couldn’t now test that because the tripod was holding the camera…

Interview ends and we do the “B” setup first, in the office, and it goes well and I tell my charming tale of my only experience in Studio 54–NO I am not THAT OLD- it was a magazine party for NY Magazine 40 years in 1999. Not even ‘back in the day but now it qualifies as a kind of ‘back in the day… We then move to the “A” setup and first frame- that is top right. Bingo. Or not Bingo. The rear light is not firing. Ok, Strobist does not tell you this, but I will-honestly- again-speedlights are no substitute for real lights, the kind that go off every time. Why-? In that moment, I had no idea why. But you can’t do anything about it. You have to punt. So I continued. And finished. But the writer has a few more questions, and Ian is wonderful, takes time, and they go back to the interview.

So now I am determined-what is going on? I fire directly at the slave- nothing. I move the head around, jiggle, watusi- nada. Then I pull the batterypack cord out-the result frame bottom left-what had happened is that the rechargeables in the battery pack had flatted in the interim- unlike regular batteries when they go they go-instantly. There is no delayed recharge. It is just done. So now the light is firing and I summon up some crow eating reserves and politely ask if I could have a few more, I’d like something a little different. And Ian again is wonderful, and he stands in for a few more, frame bottom right.

At this point, I really don’t know what I am getting. I cannot really look, really take time. I have no modeling light on the speedlight to see what it looks like. The light should have been a tad higher to give a full shadow under the chin. But I can’t really see that, and every moment I chimp is a moment lost. I have to go on experience and hope there is something useful. Also, the camera is not on a tripod, so I cannot stand off from it, I must look through the viewfinder, and this reduces me to taking pictures, not making pictures.

Ok- so the problem is not the speedlight but the batteries. True. But they are a fact of using speedlights unless you want to be tossing batteries into the trash once a week. And recharging 24 double-A’s at a time is a PITA. Then they flat unexpectedly. It has happened before. If one goes, or if you bought the cheap Adorama batts, one out of four will be flakey. And that one will take down the entire unit. You could get a turbo, but for another 400 dollars on top of the 400 dollars you have already spent- do the math people, 2 speedlights plus 2 turbo battery packs is 1600+. Even the canon pack is 150 each. Plus rechargeables. You are well on your way to two monolights or an elinchrome quadra.

Yes they are small and they are light and they go anywhere but when you really need them-they suck. I really cringe when I read the supposed wisdom that is being shared on the ‘internets and what the next generation of photographers are taking away-good work is not, repeat, not being done with voice-activated light stands-salad bowl beauty dishes or tinfoil hats! Light is our most important ingredient-forget the cameras, with great light you can use your iphone (don’t get me started on that…) to make a picture.

Second problem is I got lazy, humping all the gear, and thought, a fifth stand- won’t need it. But I did, and in moving a tested setup, as you can see, the glow is not as good in the final as in the setup. So another piece of advice, if it is working leave it alone! It is the kind of thing that inexperienced people do, and interestingly enough, the kind of thing experienced people do too…because they know they will be able to figure it out. And I did, but it cost me, it cost me frames I did not get.

In the end, photoshop saves the day. Awful to say, but I pulled a page out of Nadav Kandar’s book and sandwiched two layers of the same image processed differently, you can control background and foreground colour and exposure this way, and came up with a third look, which is on my portfolio site. And depending on the way you brush the two together, a third colour appears which is the blend of the two layers. You can see it in the hair, it looks like bleed from the background. Also, the shadow is not really there like that. He looks somewhat flat yet three dimensional. Another way to do a classic portrait on white.

An actual back of the envelope lighting diagram. An un-actual polaroid.

I had tested all this out, with lights in front., but we got to the condo and there was nuthin- no space at all, no way to put the seamless illumination in front of the seamless, so we punted, and put it behind the seamless. The big box is actually the hallway we setup in, all white, about 12 feet deep. I figured if I could blast all 1600ws through the paper I could get something in front- which turned out to be 5.6 at 200 ISO. This accomplished a couple things, one was to soften the edges of the subject next to all that massive overexposure. In the past I have seen digital do nasty things to fine edges like hair when silo’d in front of 255,255,255. 5.6 keeps things softer.

Next we setup a small softlighter on a c stand arm in front-this was going to be the “second” setup, in other words, shoot backlight for some of the session and then add the front light for a different look. We went with f11 on the front light, which gave me almost pure white on the background with the backlight on. Something like 245, 245, 245. If you wanted a third look you could then kill the backlight and end up with middle grey on the backdrop. Ann was about 2 feet in front of the paper.

OK, WHAT STROBIST DOESN’T TELL YOU (well he’s been saying it more lately…)

So if I had brought three speedlights I would have been really stuck. NO way to blow two speedlights through the paper. Even 1600ws was barely enough. And we were boxed in with the location, literally. So the whole backlight ethereal idea goes out the door. As it was, I had two broncolor heads and a third Q-Flash in the front light. So what isn’t ideal about that? No modeling light. You can’t see your subject, and you can’t see what the light is doing. Sure, you can test it and set it, but when you are actually shooting, you don’t know. And critically, the front light has to be just right, not too high not too low. In a tight head portrait there is nothing but small moves, and every move looks different. It was great on my assistant, but not so good on her.  So I 86′d that setup as we were shooting, and just went with the backlight.

So I can’t stress this enough-you can’t shoot what you can’t see. Another thing I like to do is put the camera on a tripod and use the live view to focus and compose, standing next to the camera, so I can see in 3D and in “2D” simultaneously. Like using a 4×5- there is something liberating about not looking through that 35mm viewfinder tunnel. But I didn’t do that, the hallway was only 4 feet wide, and the tripod was going to be a timewaster to move around. But in retrospect, perhaps useful. See I didn’t expect a long shoot, but actually there was no time pressure once we got started, and having some process to stumble through with the tripod might have been useful, useful to break the constant practiced media smile I was getting. Whatever works.

So what does this tell you? Well, really great work requires preparation and support. There is a lot of cost cutting going on, downsizing of gear, all this information out there about how to get good results without employing a truckload of lighting. I am here to tell you it is mostly bunk. You may think you can hang out at ISO 800 and f2.8 with a few speedlights and get what you want, and sometimes you have to, but the difference, what you see in really good work is different by an order of magnitude. You do need gobs of light, small apertures, fast recycles, bright modeling lights, some space, some preparation, and good crew. I had only a few of those things going for me. And some luck.

In a couple weeks I’ll have another back of the envelope to share where I made a crucial rookie mistake but learned something I didn’t know in the end. For now, lets just say for want of a stand…

Went to “bat” for Todd Selby…

Jumped around the Plaza Hotel with Betsey Johnson,

Found out “What Girls Want”

and spent some time up in the clouds with Nadia and Myriah (right).

more to follow.

WhiteHouse Custom color is doing the printing, short runs of 25, 50, 100, etc. Makes it real easy to send out quick hits. About the only paper I like from them is their Art Recycled.

Had the good fortune to shoot for Time 100 recently- a really wonderful guy Matt Berg, who has developed a text messaging system to track children’s health that is being used in Africa-ChildCount+.

Got an email back from him saying he was really happy with the picture and felt it reflected who he is, which is interesting- you spend a couple hours with someone and try to put that into a picture. From experience I know that the way I see someone in their picture is often very different from how they see themselves. Nice when the two dovetail.

Another view;

In case you are not on the list.

A New Year and a New Website…well, another update.

What’s that Crazy Font you say! – Well Sir, Madam, it’s “Eloquent Regular” by Jason Walcott after the long lost Pistilli Roman. Just the perfect Tonic to Pick You Up I say! Peppy? And How! Well, where can I get some? Veer!

There is some confusion on the intertubes about who created it first-either John Pistilli or some other blogs say Herb Lubalin and Lou Dorfsman-I am sure some typophile can correct me. Depending on how it is deployed it can either look playful or ‘eloquent’ or classic like Bodoni/Didot.

It gets a little funky small so I am not sure about the blog header, but I wanted consistency.

And yes, designed by me. The function parts come as before from Slideshowpro and Director, it is based on their layered thumbgrid demo for those that care, with some custom ActionScript thrown in. I posted before about it here.

The site coding is from Freeway Pro. I don’t know of any other web design software that allows a total idiot like me to make a decent website.

Every site is a trade off, for me my goals are to get people to see a lot of work quickly and big if they want to. So the update saw me redo every image for the site at 900 px wide-This is about as large as I want to go.

Also performed an upgrade on the portfolio-

Went for a couple portfolio meetings yesterday and one editor was surprised by the physical porfolio-she was seeing a lot of laptops. Really? Talk about No Plastic Sleeves! Speaking of, yes those are acetate sleeves, the International House of Portfolios kind (iHOP). I’ve read a lot kvetching over there about the practice-but Really? You want to change the order of your book or one image and you can end up reprinting most of the book? And what if you don’t want to print on any of the double side offerings- or on matt paper? I love Harman Gloss. It is what I print on Period. And it ain’t two-sided. You think I’m gonna glue that sh– together? Really? You think acetate is going to lose you work? Really?…I think bringing a laptop in is gonna lose you work. You have no idea what it really looks like.

Another editor said they were seeing a lot of Blurb books. For the price it might be cheaper even. But then you give away control of colour I would expect, and what you can print in CMYK is nothing like what you can print on inkjet or c-print. Which brings me to my final point; minilab develop and scan. I had a roll done recently just to see what was up, what was out there. Picked the wrong lab. L&I on 22nd. Can you say rip-off? 18$ for dev+scan-get this a whopping 15mb scan. Do you know what that really is? 2 Megapixels. Yes, your iPhone has 2mp resolution. But they call it 15mb-which is a to confuse the point, 1700px x 1100 px is ~5mb per channel RGB- there’s you double digit file size-15mb! Thanks a lot! And colour-don’t get me started! But it did make me think about what I am seeing from the gang rediscovering film-

wonky purple shadows, no detail, stained highlights. Excuse me while I book an ad shoot. Off to look for another lab.

Following on the heels of a story in NYT here, I made a few changes, added the Flyover States video, and a random function to load a few images at launch. Yes I had to do a lot from scratch because blah blah blah Flash CS3 is not Flash CS4. Its 2:35am…Just pay for a site is my advice…