Joe McNally

Jul 2

Rollin’ with The Pride of Midtown

In Equipment, Lighting, On Location at 9:27am

That’s what the 54 house calls themselves. They are unquestionably the most popular and photographed firehouse in NYC. Literally millions of tourists are spread around the world, at home, with pictures of this house and “the guys.” In terms of runs, they are the busiest fire company in all of NY.

The guys are incredibly patient and easygoing about the constant stream of pedestrian traffic that flows in front of their doors, and the resultant, endless requests for photos and a smile. They are a great bunch. I got to know a few of them right after 911. One of my friends is Rich Kane, the driver of 4 truck. Rich is a veteran firefighter, good guy, terrific photog, and resident firehouse sex symbol. Mike Corrado of Nikon is also his good friend (they shoot a lot of sports together). So a few weeks ago, Mike, Rich, Brad and I got 4 truck together with a D700.

Strategy wise, it’s good to do this with a ladder truck and not an engine, cause as you will see, the up top ladder gives you a base of operations and a sturdy, extended platform to hang your rig off of. The gear needed to do this:

4 Bogen Magic Arms, each with 2 Bogen Super Clamps; 1 heavy duty Gitzo monopod; 1 SC-29 cord; 1 D700, 1 14-24mm f2.8; SU-800 trigger; 3 SB800 flashes; Justin Clamps; gaffer tape; gels; ball head; metal cable lanyards; zip ties; Pocket Wizards. (Couple notes later about ball head and PWs.)

Okay. Get what you figure will be the main light positioned first. That pretty much is standard placement, something on the dashboard, affixed with a Justin Clamp, and a warming gel. The flash from here, muted and adjusted properly, simulates instrument panel glow, at least in theory, though these shots have been done so often, everybody knows a strobe is down there. Okay, first result.

Would you let this man drive a fire truck? Hmmm….

Okay, one light is not enough. The cab of the that truck is large, and black. More punch is called for, or the driver will look like Dracula on a high speed run to the blood bank.

Had the notion I could maybe hide a light behind and somewhat obstructing the rear view (which is okay, given the way Richie drives:-). This light got a heavy red gel, and then some gaffer tape treatment, and a series of zip ties to make sure it didn’t go missing during a run.

All the while, you have to finesse camera placement and angle. I’m racked out to 14 mil on the zoom and the camera is upside down for convenience sake. (Hey, it don’t know.)

First few tests showed we had to bury a third light in the cab, filling the passenger side just a touch. Again, trying to avoid the big black hole in the photo type of deal. But, the system is running CLS/TTL so the 3 receivers have to see the impulse from the SU800. We hot shoed it–no go. This is where the SC29 is invaluable. Pop the SU trigger onto the 29 cable and hook it to the camera, then run that puppy out along the monopod, lock it into place with another Bogen Super Clamp, and boom, the strobes see the signal and you still have full wireless TTL. I could have locked the strobes into SU-4 mode and popped ‘em with PWs, but then I’ve got 3 units to ratio manually, and I’m crawling all over the truck, sometimes in the street off a run. Rather play with the values from one source, the SU800, and program strobe punch from there. It’s talking to the camera, and vice versa, so there will be a natural variation to the feel of the light as the truck zooms from light to dark areas of the street.

The camera’s out there, right? I’m pretty nervous, cause NYC streets ain’t exactly the autobahn. More like a donkey cart trail. Lots of bumps. But then I relax. It’s Corrado’s camera! I use the Manfrotto Hydrostatic Ball heads pretty religiously, but opted here for the Really Right Stuff system, cause I was unsure of whether I would go horizontal or vertical, and the RRS L bracket seemed to make sense. Mistake. (It’s the little things you don’t think of , ya know?) The L bracket I had for my D3 didn’t configure to the bottom of the D700. Man I had to give that set screw a pretty good, well, screwing, to get it to lock and then it was still kinda fragile looking and cattywampus. That’s where more zip ties and cable lanyards came in. I didn’t want the camera disappearing under the wheels of the rig, or, worse, flying through Richie’s windshield. (In the interests of safety and given the fact this was a live fire vehicle, Mike, Richie and I rehearsed getting the clamps and the monopod off the ladders. We got it down to about 30 seconds, within limits in case of a call.)

I tell ya something that saved me. The big LCD in the back of the D700. I had to check angle and exposure periodically, out in the street, and looking at a small, dark monitor whilst standing on the bumper and arching backwards hanging onto the wiper blade of the truck would have made for a long night. Also, perfect type of shot for full frame. Nuff said.

If you notice the background to some of these production pix, you’ll see it is a memorial. Engine 54/Ladder 4/Battalion 9 lost 15 men on 911. It was a rough time. Firehouses are resilient places, though. They bounce back. Lots of banter. They hang together and love each other like brothers, and just like brothers, cut no slack and take no prisoners when it comes to dishing out grief. If you are short, or bald, or have a big nose, and maybe are packing a few extra pounds, it’s well, noted. The operative phrase here is, “Don’t limp.”

Especially true for probie firefighters, who join the house and have to jump to for everything during the course of their probation. One of the things I did that night for the house was shoot new head shots for a bunch of the guys. We had a recent addition to the house in front of my lens, and see the shadowy figure in the background, high on the truck, bucket in hand? It is called, no mystery here, “bucketing.”

He smelled the prank and stayed dry. But a firehouse is not for the faint of heart, or the easily damaged. Guys will be guys. A veteran of the department I know pretty well used to go fishing to pass the time. To do this he would affix a dollar bill to a well worn wallet and attach the wallet to fishing line, crack the firehouse door, slip it out on the sidewalk and see what he could reel in. Most folks got a laugh and appreciated the joke, though he did say there were some interesting reactions when he did this at a house right next door to a methadone clinic.

Probie’s get lots of attention. Witness the power sit up. At some houses I’ve heard about, the competitive and eager to please new guy is told it is a strict house workout routine to push out sit ups while being restrained via a towel over the forehead, held by another guy. Invariably, the towels slips momentarily over the fnugys eyes, while he continues to try to power through the situp. While blinded by the towel, another firefighter, usually the biggest guy in the house (one house had a guy so big they called him “double date”) strategically locates himself in a squatting position over the hapless probie. He of course is buck naked. The towel intentionally slips and the new guy does an accelerated face plant into a butt crack. This is called fun.

Back to the streets. Had lots of misses, but a couple of real good hits. The other reason to work with 54 house photographically is that their zone includes Times Square. Talk about Friday night lights! The streets are almost daylight bright, except it’s neon.

I’m in the cab behind Richie, driving the camera with a Pocket Wizard. Lots of frames, cause you never know. You’re making what is hopefully a series of educated guesses. And depending on lots of variables to hopefully tip your way.

I can’t comment all that intelligently on the D700 (Pipe down right now, Mike. Corrado will read this and shrug and say, what else is new?) because I had it in my hands for only a few minutes until I put it at the end of a pole and hoped for the best. But, strategically, it was a great solution because you have the bright LCD, 12.1 megapixel FX (full frame) CMOS sensor, terrific metering system…in short, a package that gets most of the way to D3 in a smaller, lighter body. That played huge in my head as I watched the camera dropped into space on the end of a boom pole that was waving around like a swizzle stick.

We’ve made big prints of these shots for the house, though, as one of the guys riding in the truck commented, “Oh, yeah, that ’s my wife has been asking me for, big prints of Richie Kane driving the truck. She’ll be so pleased.”

They’re a good bunch, and I certainly represented myself better that Friday night than I had in our most recent encounter. I had gotten one of those contracts, you know the ones, that tell you they are not going to pay you any money, but they are taking from you all rights to your intellectual property, in perpetuity, in the known and yet to be discovered universe (I tell ya, the reprints rights on the moons of Jupiter are going to be a gold mine, hang onto those.), for all time, yet again, and furthermore, and by the way, we own your house, too. Instead of fire bombing that particular publication, I went to Times Square and stripped down to my u-trou with a couple of pithy things written on sandwich boards.

Just when I’m at my most undignified (a not infrequent condition) 4 Truck rolls through Times Square. “Hey Joe–what the f^%%$#(*&^%%k are you doin’?” Oh well….

Hey there’s links like crazy to the D700 and SB900 out there. Those links will give you more technical skinny than I can. I just feel lucky we have tools like this. I mean, I started with a Nikkormat, and then my first motor driven camera was an F. As Marty Forscher used to say, “you can hammer a nail with that camera.” True enough, but that wasn’t what it was for, was it?

Availability is always an issue in the early days of stuff. Got a call yesterday from Jeff Snyder, who I mentioned in my blog yesterday. Jeff is one of us. He is in the trenches, shooting and experiencing all the ups and downs of shooting that we do, so he is, IMHO, the real deal. He is just about single handedly responsible for taking his (relatively) new posting at Adorama and using it to catapult that operation more into the forefront of our industry. Witness the Sportsshooter site. More on Jeff and Adorama in a day or so. But he advises contacting him direct via his email—jsnyder@adorama.com. He’s like the man behind the curtain, pulling levers, making connections and working his butt off to get gear to people.

More tk……

29    comments

Jul 1

Just When We Figured out the 800….

In Lighting, Tips & Tricks at 10:30am

Along comes the 900. I’ve had two for a few weeks now, and the unit is, well, smooth. What can I say? Ed Fasano, a General Manager at Nikon, asked me what I thought after handling it, and I told him, “Well, if the SB800 is a real nice Chevy, this baby’s a Cadillac.”

It’s bigger, stronger, sturdier. It has crucial additional features that will go a long ways to making CLS a more complete system. It has a guide number that is the equivalent to the power of a thousand suns! It will retail for $33.95 after mail in rebate! I’m lying!

Smooth light. The unit has three light distribution patterns, standard, center weighted and even. So, for the first time we can really address the quality of the light we are getting at the source, in addition to the zoom control. Have I done the old flash against the wall test to check for the distribution pattern? No. That would be waaayyyyyy too thorough for me. I kind of took it and thought I would see how it interacts with the human face in the way I often approach portraiture.

I prevailed upon my daughter Claire to take a break from the non-stop pool lounging she is currently engaged in since school let out and come out for some pictures with her best friend, Amanda. I suggested they do something to illustrate the closeness they feel as friends. Overhead is two SB900 units, bounced into umbrellas (Lastolite All in Ones) and then running through a Lastolite 3×6 Skylite Panel. The panel is diffusing light and blocking sun, as we shot this in my driveway, with some black paper hanging from the overhead door.

But I like the light. It wraps, and it is, again, smooth. It’s tough to articulate about light in a reasonable way. I use terms like smooth, rounded, harsh, angry, voluptuous, poppy, dreamy, soft, rich, evil…sounds at the end like I’ve described your average afternoon on All My Children.

But then I decided to not give the unit a break with lots of softness and went to a simple, reflected umbrella, which is not generally my light of choice. Just keep it basic and see what it can do. Amanda here is holding up the wall.

Same deal here. Umbrella camera left, up high, middling distance from Claire.

Simple is the way I might describe this. Easy, even. Running aperture priority at minus 2EV to keep the wall a bit dense and below middle gray. Claire is lit with the 900 in group A, the only light in the mix. Put a little extra power in the strobe to compensate for the muted nature of the frame.

OTHER COOL STUFF!

You know the selector button in the back of the SB800. They key to the kingdom? The button that allows all? The one that was reluctant to respond when punching it in a frenzy? The one when crunch time is happening on the job and your lights are completely set but you gotta make a change and you are pushing and pushing on the button so hard you feel like you’re that kid in Gary Larsen’s cartoon about Midvale School for the Gifted? Cause nothing’s happening? Or, you happen to have a thumb the size of a ham hock, and you can mash that baby all day long and it’s giving you flat line, no response? That one?

Ugh! Mongo make flash work now.

Well, say goodbye to that puppy. See the wheel above, in the middle. Key in virtually any function with a tap on the appropriate button and spin that wheel. Plus/minus EV, groups, channels, the whole deal. Once you get yourself set, see the lock symbol? Yep, you can lock it so you don’t thunder thumb it to group 9 or something I am often prone to do. See the temp scale? Cool! Burst away! The unit will tell you when it’s heating up. It gets to the top of that thermometer, a klaxon horn sounds and a pre-recorded voice screams “Emergency Blow!” Kidding of course.

See the on/off/remote/master switch? Thank you, strobe wizards! Do you realize if you multiply how many times you use this unit over the course of your life by the number of seconds it would have taken you to punch through the SB800 4 box grid and get to the options menu and drop the 800 into either master, remote or SU-4 (let’s say, 15 seconds) that you will be given back probably enough time to watch all of the Rambo movies and seriously ponder the nuances of characterization and subtleties of the human condition that define those movies? And how much richer your life will be because of that? All due to the simple on/off/remote/master switch. No more punching through the menu. Go click, you’re there.

The unit zooms to 200. Which means it can throw light from a good distance.

The light here is TTL, zoomed to 200mm, blasting at Claire from maybe 40′ or so. Not artful, especially for Claire, but good indication of things to come, and things that might now be possible. I’m speculating I can maybe make a 900 a master, and zoom it and get more reach for the signal to my remotes. Just a hunch, and as I get cranking better with these guys, I’ll report back. Check out the shoes. I always joke with Claire that her first word was, “Chanel.” She is a fashion plate, along with her friends

Tried another simple umbrella approach on this, and thank goodness for TTL, cause I’m shooting one handed and holding the stand on a rocky incline with my shoulder and other hand. Managed to get it pretty close, and it is wavering around up there, but the exposure stuck with me, and I came up with teenage girls and their sneakers. I always remember a Time cover story on Diane Keaton, shot by Douglas Kirkland I believe, many years ago, where Diane is on the rocks of Central Park with goofy shoes and a wide lens. Nice frame, as I recall. I’m always harking back to work, footnotes in the random stock files of my brain.

And….TA DA! The unit swivels 180 each way for a total of 360! Yep! It is the Linda Blair of strobe units. Swing that light head. It comes to a click stop of course, and then you go back the other direction. But it is a full 360 which means we just got away from the angling the unit to maximize sensor reception but at the same time potentially compromising the approach of the light to the subject. This feature alone is worth the price of admission, to me. I was showed this out at Nikon and I almost kissed Lindsay Silverman on the lips.

And…drum roll…final note of the morning. It’s got a computerized gel system. Huh? Yeah, that’s kind of what I said. But here’s the deal. You put the camera in Auto WB (gotta be there) and then slip one of the gels that comes with the units into a holder. The gel has computer chips embedded in it, and the holder makes contact with the unit and translates a color temp back to the camera. In other words, put a full CTO on the strobe, and the camera internally adjusts to an incandescent white balance.

The below is a little light flash on camera through a Lumiquest Big Bounce. Bit of CTO on the strobe, daylight balance for the scene. Color pattern about what you would expect.

But, put the full cto on that comes with the flash, and it signals the white balance shift. And you get this.

Bears exploration, to be sure. Pretty nifty technology. Feel very blessed to have experimented with this stuff. Mike Corrado at Nikon told me I was the first shooter to have my hands on it. Dunno on that, but if true, it means I am the first shooter to have broken one of them. Mike, sorry! One of them pitched off a stand and came up scott free, not a mark on it, except the dome diffuser cracked a bit. My bad. Not looking.

Tomorrow, pictures you get when you mix a ladder truck of FDNY, a D700, Times Square, Mike Corrado, and 3 onboard SB800 units. More tk.

And..just in. Jeff Snyder, the magician of Adorama–his email is jsnyder@adorama.com and he is taking orders per a note I got from him this am. I don’t know if you know Jeff, but he is a wiz at navigating the system in the early release of a product. Food for thought….also Nikon has a link on their press room site, obviously…

36    comments

Jul 1

Make the Voices Stop!

In Lighting at 12:01am

So I’m home after 26 days in a row on the road. Great arrival at Kennedy. Usual deal. One of those line shepherds at passport inspection, probably pulling in at about a deuce, deuce and a half was screaming, I mean screaming, at people to make sure the lines moved fast. Have your documentation ready, have your passports out, your tie undone, your pants down at your ankles, and your vaccination card open! I mean she was operating at the top of a pair lungs that sounded like they were powered by a Cummins Turbo Diesel. She meant well, but for all the world sounded like a Marine DI shouting, “Quit your grinnin’ and drop your linen!”

Or something like that. Oh well….home and it only took about 3 minutes to get yelled at.

But happy to be home, for sure, even though both of my pieces of luggage went missing. They’ll show up. I don’t get upset anymore. Happened so many times, I just shrug. Used to have one of those T-shirts that said the rings of Saturn are actually made up of lost airplane luggage, which actually might be true.

So after some interrupted jet lagged sleep, I come downstairs and wander towards the kitchen. Annie’s already up, and the TV is on, and I hear a familiar voice. Wait a minute. Who is that? At five frikkin’ thirty in my house??!!

DAVID HOBBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Annie’s watching David Hobby’s new lighting DVD set at 5:30 am on Sunday! I mean the Strobist community is a lot like church and all, but geez…..

A little background. Annie is beautiful, wonderful, fun, smart, kind, decent (about this time, the question forms in your head, “So why’d she marry you?” I know, I know….). She’s also a real good photographer. And a perfectionist. “Perfectionist” and “photographer” are not terms that mix well. My work is so far off course sometimes I coulda captained the Exxon Valdez. I accept that and am used to the whole ongoing photo proposition about the day to day, unpredictable, on and off relationship between the windshield and the bug.

But not Annie. When she takes on a job, in this case a pregnant portrait of a dear and beautiful friend of her’s, she feels the pressure. As we all do. But unlike many of us dyed in the wool photogs, she actually does something about it, like prepare.

And obsess. We talked about the job, as we always do, and she was stressing a bit, and studying. I tried to make her feel better, and mentioned it was kind of relaxed and low pressure, i.e., she’d be among friends, unlike most of my jobs, where I can count the minutes till I wear out my welcome with an egg timer.

She countered with the fact that her friend, who’s got one of those faces the camera just loves, was very excited about the picture, and had gotten her three year olds’ hair cut and, you know, made everything just right. I mentioned the haircut and all as being the least of it. “I heard they put an addition on the house and had the whole place painted, just for the photo,” I said.

She had two words for me, and they weren’t “happy birthday.”

Hence, Strobist on Sunday. It’s cool, actually. The DVD is terrific. Complete, in a word. David’s got a straightforward way of representing the mysteries of flash that make it seem not mysterious at all. I figure that’s at least a bit about his career as a newspaper shooter. When you pound the pavement for a big city daily, you get real no frills, real quick. Down to earth. Improvisational. Fast. Call it good photography that is grounded in common sense. All of that is in these DVDs. If he’s not sold out, order ‘em. They’re so good, even Nigel has taken to relaxing and having a brewski, and figuring out strobe.

Three light setup. boom on a c-stand overhead with Honl snoot, Honl grid on another light for the Strobist DVD package, and a light with a full CTO behind the screen for a bit of separation. I tried to figure out what filter to use for David, but came up short.

Part of the deal was closing off the room to ambient light, and a 3×6 Lastolite Panel worked fine for the skylight. Popped it on a c-stand and ran it up there to seal the deal.

You might have noticed the strobes at my temples in the top photo look, well, a little different. More tk….

27    comments

Jun 27

Vive la France!

In Seminars & Workshops, Thoughts, Travels at 1:55pm

In France teaching for the National Geographic Expeditions Workshops.

Just came out of Boston, and a terrific week shooting on the streets of that Celtic crazed city. I truly felt for the production coordinators on this shoot. They had to constantly re-up the ante with the city, battling for photo permits until, finally, it came down to this; the last day of our shoot was in the city center, on Thursday, the day of the celebration parade. They offered to hold up the parade a day or so for us, you know, so we could get our work done, but we were gracious, and said no, no, it’s been 22 years, you guys go have fun:-)

During these negotiations we relied on Brad a great deal. It’s a little know fact that he is tight with Celtic coach Doc Rivers, staying in the background, advising him about off season moves, and always pushing to have KG attack the basket more, especially when the Lakers are in the penalty.

Folks in Boston were so happy we worked around their parade they let me spend some private time with the O’Brien Trophy.

The trip to France was tough, though. Flew outta Logan and had less than an hour to connect at Charles de Gaulle airport for my hop to Marseilles. Ran a road race through the massive CDG (my dad played in my head while I was running–from his military days, he used to say “over the wall with Charles de Gaulle” when facing difficult tasks.)

Got to my plane with minutes to spare, completely soaked in sweat. I mean, did you ever see the Albert Brooks anchor bit in Broadcast News? I was dripping. My condition stopped just shy of singing in the rain, but I was still massively embarrassed and tried to slink into my seat, unobserved, as best I could. Whew! Maybe out of sight, but surely not out of mind as people’s olfactory facilities were probably kicking in big time. I was a stinking mess.

But then I relaxed and remembered. This is Air France! I’m probably the best smelling person on the plane! Quelle joyeux!

I jest of course. The French get a bad rap. Google “Frenchman” and the first hit is: “Supercilious sumbitch who suffers the slings and arrows of all things un-Gallic with barely restrained contempt.” Mais, c’est ne pas vrai, mes amis! I have been treated graciously and warmly by my French hosts, colleagues, and have had routinely wonderful encounters here for many years.

I figure the French are a bit like New Yorkers in the image department. Folks from the Big Apple are often thought of as brusque, rude, and impatient, unfairly so. I’m sure you are familiar with the old NY joke/story of the out of towner, most likely from the Midwest, irretrievably lost in the asphalt jungle, knowing he has to ask directions, but terrified of doing same as he has heard about New Yorkers and their attitudes. He swallows hard, sucks it up and approaches someone who looks like the stereotypical denizen of da big city. (Sallow skin, sunken, darting eyes, hunched shoulders, racking cough, eyebrow twitch, and a pre-disposition to take anybody who interrupts them, slows their pace or generally just causes them aggravation and tear ‘em a brand new, strategically located orifice). The visitor clears his throat tremulously and, sounding as deferential and pleasant as possible, asks, “Excuse me sir, could you please tell me how to get to the Empire State Building, or should I go fuck myself?”

Ahh, mais oui! We find ourselves in one of the truly blessed and non-stop pleasant places on earth, Arles, in the south of France. I am teaching with the unique and gifted Elizabeth Opalenik, and the Italian force of nature, Diana Grandi. Both are approachable, resourceful, talented, and fun to be with. Our class has been great, as usual a terrific mix of people, personalities and talents from all walks of life. We have been rolling through villages, olive fields and abbeys, photographing where the Romans built arches and Van Gogh walked and painted so memorably.

Arles is the home of the legendary Lucien Clergue, a definitive and vibrant photographer (and dear friend of Elizabeth’s) who intertwines his art and life in a truly blessed way. At his amazing home, in a class visit arranged by Elizabeth, I had the good fortune for him to stand (momentarily) for my camera. Didn’t get the pic I wanted, but did okay….

When I teach, I try to get even a single frame I like for myself during any given week. Sometimes it happens, many times no. Ze good frames, zee’ are so hard to come by, no? It is a bit easier for me to find a few pix with the Nat Geo classes than my lighting classes, as in these, we are not so driven by the application of artificial photons emanating from large pieces of picture making hardware. Here, we talk about everything from exposure to light, to holding cameras to light, to making folders on the desktop to light, to f-stops to light, to…..well, you get the idea. Then we go someplace spectacular and shoot some stuff. Ca c’est tres amusant, oui?

Came close to a good frame this week with a picture of the hands of a boules player in the park.

Glad I got this cause I frikkin’ stalked the guy. He had great character to his hands and an interesting way of hitching them together on his backside before his next toss, a repeated ritual roughly akin to, say, Derek Jeter re-wrapping his batting gloves every time he steps in. He had the added bonus of basically wearing black no seam paper, as opposed to something stylish and colorful, which the French have a penchant to do.

Also went not to a bull fight, but to a bull ring to watch this crazy competition as these guys try to pluck bits of string off the horns of a pissed off bull who is running them down like a freight train. If any of these bulls ever catch one of these dudes, he’s gonna lift more than some string off of ‘em.

They keep getting in the ring to do it over again and again, which is not a reasonable course of action, if you want my opinion. Talk about thinking with your nuts. They even bring out fresh bulls, all the while these dudes are getting more and more tired. Plus they actively try to agitate and irritate the big fella, perhaps even farting in his general direction. “Ha, ha, come back here and I will taunt you a second time!”

Did okay pictorially, not great. But had nice light for sure. And managed to catch a couple of portraits, one showing the potential for damage. Also resurrected my old 180 f2.8. Not an internal focus lens, thus slow by today’s AF standards, but a great lens nonetheless. Small, light, fast and sharp. Pop it onto the D3 and it rocks.

So, flying home. Air France to JFK. I’m in seat 17, just outta biz class. They have this drape between the two sections that’s kind of gauzy and see through, muting the light and giving those comfortable chairs up there even more romance and appeal. My imagination wanders as my eyes strain to see more clearly. I hear music and laughter. The popping of champagne! The clink of crystal! Shit, I think they got a belly dancer up there! Damn, where’s my ticket? Maybe they need a photographer!

None of that is going on of course. I’m really tired. This trip started on June 2nd, and I haven’t seen home since. Which is why the rate of blogging has been slow of late. Back to normal (what’s that?) next week. Got some things to share, and actually, a couple of major announcements.

Au revoir, France! And fond goodbyes to my class. We had great people I really enjoyed. One of them was Monica, who to me, was the walking definition of a dame. Great lady, of a certain age. Monica’s been there and done that, all with style and flair. She’s a pilot, and a traveler. She carries herself with a certitude and a formidable feminity (think Lauren Bacall), and she deals on her own terms. This is a woman for a confident man.

She turned to me at the end of the week, and arched her brows. “Very nice class, Joe. I really enjoyed it. You have a flair for the ludicrous, and I don’t hang around with anyone who doesn’t.”

How do you say, “more tk” in French?

16    comments

Jun 20

Honl Rocks….

In Lighting, Seminars & Workshops, Travels at 3:56pm

I tell ya, these new Honl attachments for small flashes are pretty cool……

That’s Briana again, with my class at the Maine Media Workshops, posing at the window screen in a room at the Windjammer Hotel, a truly four star property that usually houses the YoFo’s, the young photog groups that come up to MMW every summer and jam into this establishment with the usual aplomb, verve and hormonal overload generally associated with their age group. If the newly spruced up walls of the old Windjammer could talk, oh my, we’d have one sweaty screenplay indeed.

We had a great week with my class. We rocked a bit at Firefly…….

And we did a session at the Lincoln Street Schoolhouse in Rockland, and then finished up the week at the Windjammer. I like using the location as it is a good place to show how to throw a light from a distance (like the parking lot) through a window to create different feels and moods. Hard light, soft light, warm light? You can produce it all with one source (an Elinchrom Ranger and a long throw reflector). Gels and a bed sheet can take you from soft, neutral, cloudy days to hard slashing sunset light. Lastolite skylite panels come ideally sized for this, at 3×3, 3×6 and 6×6. Frame up the diffusion material and drop ‘em in front of the window, and you got the room lit. Lessee….

Above is Ranger, half cut of CTO, average camera exposure, light source about 40′ away, no diffusion….

Drop the exposure about a stop and half, you get more warmth. Close the curtain, and you get the concerned young man checking the parking lot shot.

Shift the positions of your models, draw over curtains in indiscriminate fashion, and you have a a bit of a soap opera drama, or bits and pieces of light you can drop your drummer, bassist, and rhythm/lead vocals dude into for the garage band CD cover of the hot new group, Disaffected Young People.

Hmm…here I have digressed again. I started off discussing the nifty new thingamabobbers springing from the mind of shooter David Honl. They are pretty cool. David Hobby had an early version of the honeycomb grid over in Dubai, and naturally I began to lust for it. As soon as I got back, ordered a couple speed straps (essential to pop on the attachments) and a barn door, snoot, and a grid. They’ve been rattling around in my bag till the Windjammer screen deal, as seen in the pic up top. But first I tried to light the screen with just a gelled, raw SB800 zoomed out to 105, with no dome diffuser on it. Then I had the bright idea to light the room blue. Inventive, as always, that Joe. Bet no one ever thought of that one before.

Okay, got some blue going in background, but not a lot. Hmmm…Blue is is camera right, and camera left, in the room, bouncing off the opposing walls. So why no blue behind Briana?

Went vertical. Got nothing now. Smart move on my part.

We put in workshopper Jim Messerschmidt, and got the blue back….

Must be his aura. He’s a terrific NY Post photog. Trust me, anybody who pounds the streets of New York City as tabloid shooter knows the blues…..

Hmm….still not working. Then, in the time honored, “coulda hadda V-8″ moments we are all visited with as photogs, I thought, well, Mr. Brain Surgeon, maybe you’re not getting your blue cause you’re filling the room with unchecked, non-directional warm, yellow light! Why don’t you use one of those Honl things you just spent money on!

The honeycomb grid banged the foreground and sharpened it, in a no spill, no frill way. The group B blue fired, and group C went away, cause when you grid a light, one of the corollary effects is to have your remotes potentially not see it. I was too lazy to fix it, and besides, me and the class had the lobster Friday night dinner coming up in about an hour, as I recall, and we had some serious, post Workshop, Maine coast drinking to do…..so, untrue to form, I actually left well enough alone.

Done. Check out the Honl stuff, seriously. Fits well into a camera bag pouch, and has no weight. You can see below, for years I used the very inelegant solution of gaffering a circular spot grid meant for a big strobe on top of my small flashes. Pain in the ass, though it worked. Went through alot of dough on gaffer tape, though.

Only downside to the Honl stuff is I wish I had thought of it myself……

Outta North Country. Just finished a hard but wonderful week of commercial shooting in Boston. Just a great group of folks to work for, really like family. We just shoot like crazy and knock back pix all week, and have fun doing it. Blessed with working for one of the all time great art directors for this ongoing series. More on these pix in future blogs. Shot over 200 gigs in 3 days….that’s over 10,000 frames, which is why I use a D3 and not, say, a D80. That D3 shutter is made of tough stuff.

In Logan Airport now…..heading for France. Great week in Maine, though, as I look back. Terrific class. Always relaxed and enjoyable up in Rockport. I could almost live there, save the winters. Maine in February! Yikes! Do people just stay indoors for a couple months? I guess that could work, but then again, as was famously said in one of my all time favorite sports movies, Slapshot, you can only drink so much and screw so much. More tk……

12    comments