Joe McNally

Apr 28

Venice Has Legs….

In On Location, Seminars & Workshops at 11:32pm

Leaving beautiful Venice. Great week, as one would expect in this incredible place. Last year, when I taught here, we wandered in as a group to the Ostaria Sora al Ponte, a small eatery at the foot of one of the myriad bridges. I literally can’t recall laughing that hard, that long. The gentlemen who run the place, Marino and Mario, should take their more than slightly tipsy act to Vegas. They would be headliners in a heartbeat. Marino runs the front of the shop, Mario cooks. Collectively, they tipple their way through the day, laughing, tweaking, debating and generally disapproving of their customers if said customers appear cautious, quiet, sober or don’t want any dessert. If you are wise, you go with the flow and get into the spirit(s) of the establishment, and kiss your sobriety goodbye almost immediately. Last year, I barely ate, though I remember drinking a lot and laughing even more.

Well, we did it again.

Jonathan and Marzia of the VSP Workshops and I threw caution to the winds and wandered in there. About the same time, a lanky redhead walked in with short shorts, legs long enough to get an NBA tryout and killer stilettos. Marino immediately began telling her his legs were better than hers’. Naturally, photographically speaking, I joined the debate.

Of course, Marino insisted on further comparisons.

Photographically speaking, I figure my legs are about plus 3 EV. (Photo by Jonathan Maher) Recalled a time, many, many moons ago, when a bunch of us were in Las Vegas for the Larry Holmes-Jerry Cooney heavyweight bout. What you did back then was shoot film tests, soup it at the local lab, and eyeball the results before the fight. We were all hanging around poolside when the test Ektachrome arrived, and various shooters pulled out their loupes and wanted to use my back for a light table. Ouch!

The observers of all this silliness were of course the regulars. I believe I remember these faces from last year. In fact I’m not sure any of them have ever left the bar.

Next morning, up at dawn and in the Piazza San Marco, where we photographed a decidedly more beautiful pair of legs, those belonging to the lovely ballerina, Francesca.

Many thanks as always to Jonathan and Marzia of the VSP workshops, who create a wonderful environment for a workshop. Also, a huge thank you to Marco Tortato, who represents the photographic division of Vitec here in Italy. He helped us with everything from Gitzo tripods to Manfrotto grip equipment to Lastolite diffusers and Skylite panels. Our class was stylin’ to be sure, thanks to him and his generous support.

In Madrid airport now, pre-dawn. (What else?) On the way to Dubai to teach at the Gulf Photo Plus. An amazing workshop with a great group of instructors. (I think everybody in the Strobist community should chip in a buck or two and charter a 747 to Dubai for David Hobby’s classes. In between my schedule, I’ll be slipping into the back of his lectures, Chase Jarvis‘, Bobbi Lane, Ben Willmore….you name it, the list goes on.)

Speaking of Chase, I owe him several beers and a steak the size of Texas. He graciously took over my first class as I am running late to Dubai. After leaving Venice, I have been off the internet and kind of out there a bit in a mysterious land surrounded by a yellow border:-) Many Thanks, Chase!

More tk……

12    comments

Apr 15

Hold the Phone…

In Lighting, On Location, Thoughts at 7:42pm

Or, maybe just hold the light. Or a bunch of lights. Posted last week and alleged using 53 speedlights of various types on the above. It’s a number that stuck in my head. I kept thinking on it and in the interests of veracity and accuracy and all that stashed up guilt from being raised Irish Catholic, I did some research on it and the official number came back as 47. My bad. The source here is Bill Pekala, the General Manager of NPS over at Nikon. He worked with me on it, as he has many projects in the 20 plus years we have known each other. Great guy, and a mind like a bear trap for all things photographic. A photog’s friend, in a word, who leavens his photo discourse with various down home Tennessee-isms that are part country wisdom and part Nikon manual.

Dunno why 53 stuck with me. It might have come from chewing the fat with Bill, over a couple of beers, and doing the old, “Remember when we lit up that KC-135 with like 50 or so flashes….” type of thing. I’m sure some day in the home, on the porch, in my wheelychair, it’ll be up to 103, and somehow the entire mission would have mysteriously acquired an element of danger. “Remember all those flashes? They ran on steam, remember?! Damn dangerous! Had to wear a bomb suit just to handle ‘em!” This conversation would of course be attended to by the rolled eyes of those who can hear me say anything, the odd cackle or two, and the more than occasional fart.

Light doesn’t have to be hard, or a lot. True, every once in a while you get confronted with something, you know, like Everest, and you just climb it cause it’s there. It ain’t fun, I tell ya. One of the first stories I ever did for the National Geographic was about the then soon to be re-opened Ellis Island. The first part of the coverage was a blast. Just me, Kodachrome 25 and rising morning light. I would get onto the island in total darkness, roughly 4 am (it was Nov-Dec) and start walking the halls of the deserted section of the island.

It was kind of creepy. Lots of folks died out there. They have the remnants of the medical area and the old crematorium. I’d have my tripod and just to keep myself company, I would push open a door with it and stir up a flurry of pidgeons. Then I would call out, “Freddy? Jason? You in there?”

Too many movies.

It was a revelation. No PR people hovering (they flutter just like pidgeons, by the way, so I felt right at home). No plug ugly subjects, no light hearted bullshit banter at the camera, no real timetable except the sun striking an object.

Came up with some of my favorite photos. No people, just rust and ghosts.

Of course I wasn’t stupid enough to think that Geographic gave me this wondrous job to wander around abandoned hallways in rising light. Lots of folks better than I am at that. No, no. The job had a wrinkle, as they often do. At one point in the coverage, I was gonna have to light Ellis Island.

Not the whole damn thing, just the museum portion, which is a biggggggg building. At the time it was a construction site with very limited electric power. Had to drag my own genny truck out there. Quick $1000 under the table to the union rep (I love NY!) and voila, I got my own power on the island.

Next, the lights. Woe to a shooter trying to rent strobes that week in NY. The shot below is done with about 50-60 power packs (2400ws, some 48’s) plugged into roughly 100-120 flash heads. We spent 4 days or so wiring and testing and shooting this rig. Killer sked. Shoot sunrise, run the film to the lab. See all the mistakes, run back to the island. Make adjustments. Shoot sunset. Run the film to the lab. See the mistakes. Back to the island. Make adjustments. Sleep in the car for a couple hours. Shoot sunrise. Go on another mistake finding lab run. This went on for 4 days.

Crew of 4, I believe, and they were all ready to tie some Speedotrons around my neck and dump me in the harbor. “Where’s Joe?” Splash. “Dunno. Haven’t seen him.” (One member of the crew came by the studio personally to pick up his check and assure me that lighting Ellis Island had been the worst experience of his life.)

Triggered the system from 3 vantage points on the ground, and tried some stuff from the air, with line of sight flash triggering. (Clamped Hensel Porty heads to the open door of the chopper and flew that baby in close to rooftops where we had slave eyes on light stands. (Sounds antediluvian but it was, you know, like 1989 or so.)

We got a pic, and the flash pop was easily viewable from Brooklyn or New Jersey. Got on the WINS traffic report on the last day cause the reporter and his chopper pilot were drawn to the explosion of light in the harbor. Never forget his opening line for the traffic report: “And there’s lightning over Ellis Island this morning as National Geographic lights up the island for a story!”

My day rate at the time was $250 per day, which made me far cheaper to rent than the strobe system. But it was there, you know? I had to climb it. More tk.

29    comments

Apr 10

Maddie at the Piano…

In Equipment, Lighting, On Location at 7:43am

Or, maybe, Little House on the Prairie? Dunno. Doesn’t really matter, cause I just like the picture. One of those things about being a photog, is that you can occasionally make a notion a reality by making a picture of it.

Let me explain. I teach a bit at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, and during the lighting classes, we often go to pretty cool locations, with some models, who are also pretty cool, and try some portraiture and some lighting solutions. We use everything—big strobes, small flashes, reflectors, Octas, strip lights, beauty dishes, and even, when one presents, a lace curtain.

Maddie here is Mawgie’s daughter. Mawgie is one of the loveliest, liveliest people I have ever met, and she brought along Maddie to a class we had recently. Everybody had a ball with her, and being a bit of a ham, Maddie didn’t mind all the photographic attention.

You know how faces stick in your head sometimes? You just see a face, and it hangs around in your photo imagination. When I saw Maddie, I thought, you know, one of these days I might try to get a picture of that kid.

So we were doing one of the Kelby Online Training videos on lighting, and we were pretty determined to get out on location and away from Tampa, where we had shot the first four. Hello Santa Fe! Phone call to Mawgie. Whadddaya think?
Next thing we know, we found ourselves at Eaves Movie Ranch, run by Thomas Wingate, a dear friend and possessor of one of the great all time American faces. Thomas has been the subject of more photos than Carter’s got pills and he deserves every one of ‘em. He honors the lens with an instantaneous combination of grit and dignity that you just don’t run across every day of the week.

At Eaves they have this old ramshackle (actually, everything out there is pretty ramshackle) saloon that always gives up a good crack at a photo. I’ve wanted to do a couple of simple shots in there over time, and never really had a chance, till Maddie sat down at this dust laden piano, which stands by a lace curtain, yellowed with age and dirt. Pulled the curtain over the window, and she dressed in frontier wardrobe, courtesy of another great cowboy subject, Thadd Turner, who’s got this terrific stash of cowboy and cowgirl duds.

Put an Elinchrom Ranger out in the street with a long throw reflector, and just pointed it at the window from about ten feet away. Ran it on the B port of the Ranger, which gives only 30% of whatever power setting you have programmed, hence the light was real minimal, just a small pop through the curtain. That enabled me to shoot it with my favorite telephoto, the Nikkor 200mm f2, wide open at f2, at 250th of a second.

And of course Donald came along. Already blogged a bit about his decency, wit, and presence in front of a camera. Told him I did that, and he was quite pleased, though he hasn’t seen it. He admitted he’s been having a problem figuring out how to turn his damn computer on. He tries to keep things simple. Doesn’t have a cell phone. He did tell me he and his honey complicated their lives a bit this year, though. “We learned a new dance step,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

The pix of Donald and Thomas were shot, by the way, with one light. Again, an Elinchrom Ranger, stuck outsided the building and bouncing down into a white sheet, mimicking and amplifying the hard sunlight that was bouncing around out there.

I always say a bad day in the field beats a good day at the office, anytime. Gotta figure out what a great day in the field compares to, cause Tuesday was one of those days.

21    comments

Apr 6

Kathy Siler for President

In On Location, Thoughts at 5:26pm

I know it’s dangerous to take an ostensibly photo oriented blog into politics, especially with the current messy state of affairs we find ourselves in, but I think I have a great idea here. (Photo by Brad Moore)

Obama-mania is careening around the country, and the Hil-Billy circus is like watching a What’s-Behind-Door-Number-Three game show, and amidst all the hucksterism McCain is trying to appear presidential, though that’s hardly advisable given the current state of disrepair of the highest office of the land. His people might better counsel him to try appearing more like, say, a carnival barker, so he can make as much noise as the Dems.

I’m just leaving Tampa/Orlando, heading to New Mexico, Land of Enchantment, pueblo architecture, bleached cow skulls hanging above every fireplace (This is attractive?) tacos and wind chimes. (The southwest serenity scene is cool and all, but honestly, after about a week or so down there, if I hear another frikkin’ wind chime I tend to be tempted to get a sawed off shot gun and give it some special air mail. Must be 30 years around New York, I guess. Is the fact I’d rather hear a taxi horn than a wind chime weird?)

Oh well, it’s a great place, and I love to go down there, as I often do to teach at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops. Beautiful place, and great people, and I’ve been blessed to work with a bunch of them, as I’m about to again this week, shooting on location in SF for another Kelby Online Training video. More on that tk.

Anway, the deal is I’m flying away from Photoshop World. What a great week! Talk about terrific people. Never met a more congenial, enthusiastic group. Did a couple classes, and ran around crazy busy, which was great except for the constant pangs caused by running past the doors to classes where cool stuff I need to know was being taught by great instructors and I couldn’t manage to go. There is such talent hovering around in the instructor’s room I was hoping to just go up to them and do a Vulcan mind meld, given the Star Trek theme this year. I mean, you got Scott Kelby, whose particular genius started the whole shebang, and Dave Cross, Matt Kloskowski, that sexy Klingon RC Concepcion (RC, shoulda given you a solo bit….”I’m Too Sexy for My Phaser, too sexy for my phaser, too sexy for my phaser…”)

And Ben Willmore, Terry White, Moose Peterson, Corey Barker, and on and on……..just crazy.

And guess who makes it all happen? Kathy Siler. She pulls together the whole deal, gets everything done, schedules stuff, puts out fires, spins the wheels, works an absurd amount of hours and somehow floats through the hallways looking like she just had a spa day. I mean, there’s not a hair out of place, and every problem is greeted with the warmest of smiles, the serenity of a bhagwan, and the confidence of a Navy Seal. Unflappable, in a word.

The problems vanish. The thing runs smoothly, and the thing in question of course is Photoshop World, this conference of over 2000 rambunctiously creative folks, many of whom are involved in photography, which means the whole deal is inclined to behave like an overlarge pre-k class. And she keeps the whole thing on time and on the rails. Amazing.

Hence my write in vote. She probably doesn’t want the job, cause she seems pretty happy working for NAPP and all. But I tell ya, we need help out here.

11    comments

Apr 3

Whoosh!

In On Location, Thoughts at 12:10am

Last week was a week and a half. It went by in a whoosh, which is always the way of a DLWS week. We start off on Sunday afternoon, clean our sensors, have a cookie and Boom! It’s Thursday.

We were in Moab, with lots of reds rocks, but the twist of the week was going to this little ghost type junk pile of a town called Cisco. I realize that last sentence might offend the 3 people who live in Cisco, but there ain’t no getting around it—the burg is basically a big car garden by the side of a very lonely county road.

But I loved it. Give me old, dilapidated, run down and rusted out any day of the week. Why is it that photographers look at a place most people would figure to be a likely setting for a crime and go, “Cool!”?

Got home late Thursday night. Had a bit of a family weekend, thankfully. Monday. Up at 3. Back on a plane. Oh well. Staggered through LaGuardia Airport. For whatever reason, I tripped the metal detectors, and I wasn’t even trying to pull off a Spinal Tap. Dunno. My fillings, maybe? Had to get frisked and wanded. Generally speaking, when you hear somebody snap on a rubber glove immediately behind you, it’s not gonna be a good day. I tend to disappear, and imagine the wand thingy is the thingy that Bones used to use on Star Trek. “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a miracle worker!”

There was great stuff in Cisco, even though I’ve never been a very good “thing” photographer. I tend to need people, context, story line, that sort of stuff. I’m liking photographing things of late, though. Maybe I’m tired of 30 years of people asking, “How long is this gonna take?” (Answer: “As little time as possible!” Big smile.)

It’s wonderful, actually, being a people photog. I’ve met amazing folks. But it has it’s downside, too. I got introduced to the vagaries of photographing very important people a long time ago. My first cover of Sports Illustrated was of Herschel Walker. If you remember Herschel, you’re either old, a real football fan, from Georgia, or a bobsledder. Herschel was switching leagues, and headed for the Dallas Cowboys. This was big news.

To work with somebody like Herschel, you need to deal with a sports agent. Some are wonderful. Others are like gum on the bottom of your shoe. The situation here was that the deal was done, but the ink wasn’t dry on the signatures, so the only cover I could shoot was of Herschel with the Dallas helmet halfway on. I’m not kidding. Only game in town. Shoot it with the helmet just off his head or don’t shoot it.

Not one to let the fact that I knew the picture was gonna suck before I even took my cameras out of the bag stand in the way of a cover fee, I shot it. Met Herschel, who was a great athlete but a bit of an odd duck. He kept referring to himself in the third person, as in, “Herschel has to do what’s best for Herschel.”

Right. And Joe has to do what’s best for Joe and shoot this job and get back on a plane to the planet earth.

Anyway, high angle, 3×4 soft box in close, out of focus greenery in the background, and we were done. It alerted me to the fact that a soulless snap of a photograph could do just fine as a cover of a national magazine. Covers are not photographs, they are trained seals, designed to make noise and entertain. They need to jump through certain hoops, like being visible on a newsstand from 30 yards in a sea of other pubs trumpeting weight loss solutions, have large swatches of out of focus monochrome so star spangled type and a sticker announcing this month’s subscriber contest actually enhances the picture, and a bland little corner to accommodate the bar coding.

Cisco, by comparison, made no such demands. Cisco was, in fact, a very good friend of mine.

(This is another one of those weeks. Here teaching at Photoshop World. Whoah! Pretty crazy. Lots of fun. Time flying. More tk.)

18    comments

Mar 26

Flash in the Canyon

In Lighting, On Location, Seminars & Workshops at 1:13am

Maybe we set a record last night. Dunno. Probably not. But we had fun, and once again, proved that trying to get photographers to read and then abide by the dictums in the instruction manuals is roughly akin to the New York Knicks going on a substantial winning streak. Just ain’t gonna happen.

There are 33 participants this time around at DLWS Moab, and 12 of ‘em are out there in this photo holding Nikon SB800 flash units. We started off with splitting the VALs into the three groups of A, B, and C, and that worked well, but then we decided to stress the system and put all dozen units into A group, which the manual does not recommend. I have no idea what the max is, or what the manual actually says, but even if we had known we would have blown it off anyway in the interests of experimentation and devil may care, laugh in the face of danger shenanigans.

Son of a gun, it worked. I mean, it worked after I got all the guys alerted to the fact that it wasn’t gonna work if they had their big hairy thumbs covering the receptor on the flash unit they were holding. That minor issue resolved, all twelve fired off of my little friend, the SU800, hot shoed to the camera. Overall exposure was about 1/6 second or so and maybe kind of 5.6 with EV minus two dialed in on aperture priority. All flashes have zero compensations dialed in.

The key to the coloration is pushing the white balance into tungsten, and covering the daylight flashes with 2 full cuts of CTO (color temp orange) which brings the units to the temperature of your average bedroom lamp. The minus 2 stop overall exposure gives the moody blue color to the fading daylight, and then the gents all light themselves up.

We’ve been working pretty hard out here.

Josh Bradley and Brad Moore are just about done in. Some of the participants are a bit pooped, too. But, as I always tell the assistants, don’t limp. If they get sick, or tired, they get left by the side of the road. We’re really gonna miss those guys.

10    comments

Mar 25

Phil In the Middle of the Road

In On Location, Seminars & Workshops at 12:45am

It was rush hour last night in Cisco, Utah, so naturally we took the whole workshop onto the middle of the highway. That’s what you do as a photog. When you finally figure out the best angle it is always in the middle of something. Thankfully the rush last night in Cisco consisted of precisely one car, so we weren’t overly obstructionist.

I’m out in the wilds of Utah with my buds Moose and Sharon Peterson, Laurie Excell, Kevin Dobler, Josh Bradley and Brad Moore, all of us working on another edition of the Digital Landscape Workshop Series. It’s cool out here, and we always get into some great locations, thanks to Moose’s encyclopedic knowledge of National Parks, and amazing landscapes in general. It’s gotten so with Moose he should bring around small placards to put up in the best spots. You know those Kodak signs they have at Disney….”take good picture here?!” Moose could put up something similar, except his would read. “Shoot from here with the 14-24mm Nikkor on aperture priority with EV minus one dialed in. Double process the raw, set your black point in NX, move two exposures into blend mode, stack the images and combine them for foreground detail and background drama. Use Epson Ultra Smooth fine art paper for best results.”

I ain’t completely kidding. I’m along for comic relief and to bring out some SB800 units and mess around with what’s left of the daylight. Drug the ever patient Phil out there on the highway and told him to give me that old cowboy, hang dog, she done left me after swindlin’ my money, sleeping with all the neighbors, swipin’ my bible, stealing my pickup and shootin’ my dog kind of look. (All the other stuff woulda been okay but I’m right pissed about the dog.)

It was a tall order, but Phil actually pulled it off quite well. We lit him up via aperture priority mode (minus one EV) and one SB800 camera right, gelled to a warm tone and running through a Lastolite tri-grip one stop diffuser. Red rim light comes from 2 SB units on floor stands in the road, with red gels stuffed in the dome diffusers. Triggered the whole shebang with an SU800 unit hot shoed to the camera. That puppy is pretty effective. Looks like a small version or R2D2 and is a pretty directional, powerful trip for the remote SB flashes. Lens is Laurie’s 24-70 mil. Shot about 5 or 6 frames that worked out okay.

But hey, I’m a little bent out of shape about breakfast. You know, Moose blogged about me the other day and showed a pic of his empty breakfast plate. I wasn’t even in Utah at the time. Well, now I know why. He’s basically cleaned out the Jailhouse Cafe of all their ginger pancakes and now that I’m here I gotta resort to a breakfast of pharmaceuticals.

He’s across the table double ordering bacon, and I’m sitting here with my glucosamine and ginseng. Tomorrow I’ll fix him. I’m gonna order like, 5 omelettes.

9    comments

Mar 17

Sometimes You Get the Shaft

In Lighting, On Location, Tips & Tricks at 7:15am

Nothing like a shaft of light for drama. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in places and wished I had a 12K movie light, a scissor lift and a big ass smoke machine. Shaft city! Just like in the movies!

But sometimes, it happens for you. Saw this light coming through the busted ceiling of the officer’s quarters on Corregidor, and I thought, you know, cool! Of course the ballerina available at the time was wearing dead white, so it meant I was going into close orbit around Ice Planet 255, but, I’m always up for an adventure. So she gets in there and does something appropriate, elegant and graceful. She is as soft and lovely as the light is harsh and slashing.

But where is she? One of the things you realize over time is that a successful photograph and a successful restaurant often have something in common. Location, location, location. Now I could have left well enough alone here, but hey, it’s me, remember? Never met a subject I couldn’t overlight, so we drug out a couple of SB800 strobes and simply laid them down on the ground, camera left and camera right, about 5′ in front of the lens. Didn’t put ‘em on sticks, cause the main source of light in the pic is the way overhead and it doesn’t really bounce off anything until it hits the ground. It’s not even spilling very much onto the wall, hence the wall color, which is pretty terrific, is gone. So if there is any bounce in the frame, anything that might logically reflect light, it’s the rubble strewn floor. So the units go on the floor.

In terms of color and detail, our eyes can see it. And can see her, and even the folds of the dress. That’s cause the eye is an amazing instrument, making nanosecond adjustments we’re not even aware of. The camera, as sophisticated as it is, is a 5 stop instrument. It makes the very smart decision to expose for the highlights, and kisses the shadows goodbye. Bye bye wall. Bye bye color. Bye bye context.

But you can make inputs to the frame and dial in some light from the SB units right from camera. Messed with them a bit, and came up with this. In other words, with these small flashes, you can bend even strong light in your favor, just a little.

Had a class running, so only shot about 4 or 5 frames of this, and each one I was dialing in some different EV values. I believe these two units were running somewhere around plus 1 EV. The effect on the wall is pretty soft, and could have made it softer yet by, say, running the units through umbrellas and laying them down on the floor. But umbrellas weren’t immediately available, so we moved fast and hoped the uneven junk on the floor would break the light up a little. Still pretty hard, though. Look at the shadow of her trailing leg. That definitive shadow gets softer as you go higher in the frame towards her arm, and the strobe mixes with a greater and greater percentage of available light. It’s fun to mess with this stuff, I tell ya. You throw everything into the hopper; your gut, your sense of time and place, your histograms, the light, the color, the subject, and voila! You have ze magnificent and tasty stew! Or, sometimes, you get something you wouldn’t feed your cat. What was I saying earlier about pictures and restaurants?

I like dance, what can I say? I’ve said many times that dancers and photographers have a lot in common in that we are hard working, creative, and underpaid. Recently, on a trip to Milan, the venerable La Scala School of Ballet graciously allowed me to shoot their workouts and practices. What a wonderful place!

Not only did I witness great dancers in training, the opportunity gave me a chance to practice more with the AF modes on my D3. More on that tk.

And finally…..HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good old St. Pat’s. First time I ever came home truly hammered. I was 17, and my high school senior class always marched in the parade. (We were taught by the Irish Christian Brothers, go figure.)

After the parade dispersed, all of us disappeared into bars that weren’t checking for ID, and proceeded to get stupid. I was lucky I found Grand Central Station and the train home. Only took like, 2 beers. Complete lightweight.

Now, the day is spent more quietly. I start my class today here in Santa Fe. (Don’t think they have a parade here, but that’s just a wild guess on my part.) It’ll be a great week, as they always are here at the workshops.

My friend Mark Krajnak, the K-Man, the man in the fedora, he of the Flickr site and the New Jersey Noir style of shooting, sent me a pictorial note of how he might spend St. Pat’s. Seems he got comfortable with an Irish writer and a bottle of Jameson’s:-)

15    comments

Mar 11

“Clicks” Cover Shot Explained & Vertical Grip

In Lighting, On Location, Tips & Tricks, Videos at 1:56pm

A reader wrote in and said they enjoyed the book, but was disappointed I didn’t discuss how I did the cover. So here goes.

The model is holding the jagged mirror in her left hand, and the camera is basically perched on her right shoulder. Shot with a D2Xs, with a 17-55, my favorite DX format lens. The camera sees the sky, and her reflection (tweaked the mirror just about where I wanted it). Then, off to camera right, is an SB-R200, the baby close-up brother to the SB800. It is about 2′ from the model’s face, just off the field of view, and controlled wirelessly from the SU 800 on the camera. As I recall, the sky is pulled down about a stop via minus one EV, and the flash is pumped up just a touch to compensate.

Da Grip….update….Couple of folks wrote about vertical grip on the camera. Here’s the thing. The grip I’m talking about really is mostly applicable to left eyed shooters of motor driven cameras. But that doesn’t mean elements of it–the boxer’s stance, the elbows tucked, center of gravity positioned properly, exhaling, etc. can’t be stripped out of this and applied on a selective basis. Some folks asked about shooting verticals. Without a vertical release, holding and firing the camera in the vertical position is plain and simple just tougher than holding it horizontally. (I have asked art directors for more money to shoot a vertical picture as opposed to a horizontal one, just on the basis that it is harder to turn the camera vertically. Haven’t gotten it yet. I’m only kidding, but if someone offered me the dough I would take it!)

Also, for those interested, here’s the video version of Da Grip and an outtake featuring Nigel, my wife Annie’s cat, who joined us on the set for a bit.

30    comments

Feb 28

Milan

In On Location at 3:59am

In Milan right now, Milano, as the Italians say, which of course is in Italy, which, in my mind, means I’m in a place that’s a step closer to heaven than much of the rest of the world. Happy to come back here, as the only time I had ever been to this city before was on a corporate shoot, and I didn’t see much except an office park somewhere between downtown and the airport. You know, one of those luxurious, expansive shoots where you fly in, work all day and into the evening, stay at a box of a motel off a cargo route from the import area of the airport, the one where trucks load all night and punctuate their minute to minute departures by sitting on the air horn. After a restful 3 hours, you stagger back onto an airplane for a quick hop to the next office park, located somewhere else you won’t really see.

Milano, is great, though, now that I have a chance to wander a bit. I’m predisposed to like the place as it is evidently named after my favorite cookie in the world. Also staying at a tiny hotel, run by wonderful people, kind of a mom and pop shop feel. Folks at the desk know your name, and the view from your window is, for a change, not of a parking lot.

Teaching and lecturing here, in conjunction with an 80 picture show opening this weekend at the Foundation Bandera for the Arts. These folks are terrific, and do an amazing job of finding a way to fund the arts on a consistent basis. The trip is sponsored by the Foundation, and by Verve, a magazine that is all about Milan, and Azonzo Travel agency, expert shippers of people to far off places.

And it would never have happened were it not for Federica Brunini, who is an all around journalist and photographer based in Milan. We met at the Santa Fe Workshops, where she took a course from my wife Annie (astounding teacher, patient, kind and knowledge of all things digital) and then we worked together on a couple of National Geographic workshops in Tuscany. This was her idea, and she knitted together all the appropriate pieces to make it happen. She is a talented wonder, and very central to the active photography scene here in Milan…

Gotta go…have my fingers crossed the meeting with La Scala Ballet goes well today.

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