Joe McNally Photography

I joshed a bit the other day about our precarious place in the tachycardiac economic universe, prompted by yet another edition of the ongoing black humor fest Bill D. and I have been engaged in now for, oh, about 20 years. Things are admittedly a bit terrifying of late, which in its own way is reassuring.

Hear me out. Engaging in anything creative pushes the meter anywhere from uncomfortable to risky to flat out screaming bejeesus anxiety attack status. Just does. Couple that with the uncertain (now there’s one way to put it) nature of being a shooter and trying to make a living at this, especially now, and you can see your way to terrifying real easy. But, when has this not been terrifying? So there you go. At least that hasn’t changed a whit, and immediately we’re back to reassuring. Stable, even.

Whew! Nothing like a big, fat juicy rationalization or 30 or 40 to get you through the day!

As the bhagwan says, the only constant is change, and that dude is definitely onto something.

I grew up shooting for mom and dad’s magazines. You know, National Geographic, LIFE, Sports Illustrated, Time, Newsweek. Change has hit those books hard and they have come in for some rough sledding. LIFE of course, after giving Lazarus a run for his money, finally gave it up for good. When I was a staffer there, I would always note that it was appropriately titled, seeing as it would reincarnate endlessly. And, of course, “Death” didn’t test well.

Nat Geo is still kicking, and bless ‘em, they’ve kept me a bit busy this year. I tell ya, though, I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve been in the field and somebody said, “Oh yeah, my mom and dad used to get that. The attic was full of old issues.” That usually produces from me a strained smile that is more akin to a grimace than an expression of shared joy and reminiscence. Much more likely now, though, you get, “National Geographic, dude, cool! When’s this gonna be on?”

No, no, young person. This is for the printed page. It has no buttons or blinking lights. You don’t turn it on. I hear that from a teenager and my D3 feels like some parchment and a quill pen.

All this uncertainty is okay, though. I’ve been fired from almost every job I’ve ever had, so by now, I guess I’m comfortable with not knowing where the next assignment or check might be coming from. I was fired from my very first job in journalism in NY, at the NY Daily News. It was fun while it lasted. I’m still friends with some of the gang there, though the real classic old characters have long since shot their last holder.

My bud Johnny Roca, a terrific street smart shooter and all around NY original is still there, 35 years in. Quintessential ladies’ man who had a phone booth of an apartment in Tudor City with nothing in it but a circular bed and an entertainment system. The whole staff would live vicariously through John and his tales of leggy women in the windswept dunes of the Hamptons, where he would regularly seclude himself for much of the summer.

One year he had copped himself a good chunk of freelance work  and bought a convertible Mercedes. He called me up. “Joe, Joe, you can’t believe it. I got women diving in the car with me, they’re diving in the car. It puts out a male scent, I swear to God.” He would tell tales of his exploits and a bunch of the photo guys’ eyes would glaze over in rapture. Of course it wasn’t that tough a crowd to impress, as many had, you know, a house in Massapequa, a battle axe for a wife and their groins had stopped working sometime during the Truman administration. Their idea of really cutting loose on a weekend was to pop open a brewski and fire up the weed wacker.

I don’t have 35 years in anywhere, having been fired from the News during the Pleistocene Era, and, from that point taken, well, a different road. Not so much a road, really, more of a cow path. But back then, I was bent on being a newspaper guy. Johnny and I would ban together as apprentices in the studio, waiting for a spot on the street to break open. We would pass the time by complaining to Al Pucci, the lab manager, about our schedule. Al was a lovely, decent man with one helluva stutter. (Think K-k-k-Ken in A Fish Called Wanda. “Otto tried to k-k-k-k-kiss me….”) It was one of those painfully wonderful moments in life that would occur when Bill Umstead, managing editor, crashing the night owl at 5:30 would scream over the newsroom intercom about where the hell was his page one, and poor Al, also on the blower, under pressure, on deadline, would attempt an answer.

The silver lining in this of course was that, if page one was not ready at that moment, Al’s crafting of a response would give the printers a bit of extra time to slosh the print through the fixer and slap it on the drum dryer.

The printers were a cool bunch. Union to the core, and utterly unflappable, seeing as one of the chemicals in regular employ back there in the dark, right next to the dektol and the hypo, was Johnny Walker Black. (Does wonders for a flat neg.) They had unique skills. Soon after the night owl went to bed, the presses would start to roll, and literally, the entire building would start shaking. At that point, getting a sharp print meant that the enlarger had to be oscillating at the same frequency as the print easel, and boy these guys had that down pat.

They spoke their mind, too. Bobby Hayes, master printer and ex-jar head, was hammered a great deal of the time, and come one newsroom Christmas party time, had a brisk exchange with Mike O’Neill, the exec editor. The News would give out Christmas bonuses every year, based on length of service, but it was ridiculous. Guys with 30 years in would get, like, 300 bucks. O’Neill, a glad hander who spoke like his mouth was full of marbles, was working the crowd, and had the occasion to wish Bobby Christmas tidings. Bobby was appreciative. He thanked Mike for his bonus, but added something along the lines of, “Usually, when I get fucked, I like to be lying down in a dark room.” O’Neill mumbled something like, “Sorry to hear you feel that way, Bobby,” and meandered off in search of some egg nog.

Anyway, back in the lab, Johnny and I would appeal to Al’s better instincts to make our skeds more regular and desirable and Al would simply say, “Y-y-y-y-you boys want a regular schedule? Get a job in a b-b-b-b-b-bank.”

Never did that, either, cause I suck at math. It was the freelance photo life for me. Until I got a staffer job at LIFE, of course. I got fired from that one, too. In the waning days, they brought in some dipstick of an efficiency expert to go around and see if corners could be cut. He came into my office and I fruitlessly tried to explain that photography couldn’t be metered on an efficiency scale, couldn’t be plotted or graphed and wages and hours and time spent didn’t necessarily add up to usable “product,” to borrow his term.

None of it washed, or even dented his numerically driven psyche. He tried to prove his point by singling out one of my pictures, and telling me, while jabbing his finger at it, that he just didn’t understand that photo.
I told him that was vastly reassuring. I was fired soon thereafter. Actually not. In Time Warner parlance, I was “riffed.” (Reduction in force.)

SI is still going strong, though not according to upper management who would have you believe that their poor magazine is the equivalent of the guy on the street with a tin cup and an eye patch. (They would try to convince you of this from their regular table at Elaine’s.) Steve Fine and Jimmy Colton, the bosses in photo, routinely do more and more with less and less, witness SI’s stellar photography outta Beijing.

Colton and I go way back. As kids together we were over in Poland for the first papal trip JP2 made to his homeland. Talk about doing more with less. Newsweek was always a distant second to Time in money and resources. As Jimmy used to say, “Time is a hospital and Newsweek’s a mash unit.”

I was designated as the courier to get  Newsweek’s last batch of deadline Ektachrome back to NY. Sheesh, was I nervous, sitting in the bare bones waiting room of the then Communist Warsaw airport, clutching a bag of about 200 rolls representing the efforts of some 7 or 8 fellow photogs. I was routed outta Poland to Zurich, where I picked up Swiss Air, first class. The home office knew the trip had been hell, and sprang for a seat up front.

Hot damn! First class on Swiss Air! The flight attendants were super nice, constantly filling my plate with fancy foods, even though I’m sure they were mildly bemused by having someone whose face more likely belonged on the side of a milk carton than in one of their first class recliners. That stuff, by the way, doesn’t happen anymore. Tough enough to get a day rate, much less a first class ticket.

Called Jimmy at the beginning of the Beijing Olympics, and told him my ruse worked. He was like, “What?” I told him I had circulated a rumor on the internet of a major sporting event happening in China, and SI took it, hook, line and sinker and sent their entire staff out of the country, creating a wonderful window for us lonely freelancers. We had a good laugh, but I didn’t get a job out of it. Last day I worked for them was last November, when I put Shawn Johnson on a balance beam in an Iowa cornfield. One day job, which produced the lead double truck for their Year In Pix female athlete portfolio last December.

Didn’t like what ran.

Would have preferred this.

What I really would have preferred is for the clouds to hold off for a bit longer, but no. Slogging a 300 or so pound balance beam outta the Iowa mud was one of the aspects of photography I don’t believe they dwell on at say, Brooks or RIT.

It ain’t the way it used to be, but what is? There’s never been any guarantees, or forgiveness, or for the last 10 or more years, fairness, in this industry. But here’s the thing.

We are out there, in the air, in the world. We don’t go to a cubicle farm everyday and stair at dismaying numbers on a screen. We make pictures. At the end of the day, we create something potentially significant that did not exist at the beginning of the day. We go forward, despite the uncertainty. Because this is an act of love and passion, which defies reason and prudence.

And we make that occasional good frame, the one that sings, the one that lifts our hearts and the hearts of everyone who sees it. That well and truly is as good as it gets. More tk.

Jerry Courvoisier is a good guy. He’s also a terrific shooter, a great Photoshop/Lightroom guy, and a gifted teacher. I love to teach with him cause he’s down to earth and easygoing about everything. We get along, in short. We often teach the National Geographic Expeditions workshop courses offered via the Santa Fe Workshops, and it’s always fun, even when he gets the entire class to pick up buckeyes in the park and pitch them at me when I start a lecture. When we teach an NGS class in Santa Fe for instance, we often assign the class to go to the town square and be adventurous with their camera. We go to one of the benches in the square and sit there, ostensibly to be a resource to the class, but in truth we just talk and toot, doing our own version of Grumpy Old Men.

But boy, did he screw up. Last time I was in Santa Fe, he proposed a bet. We calculate our weight (vetted by our wives, who are scrupulous and honest about this stuff, something Jerry and I would never be) and whoever lost more weight by the time I got back to SF wins. Loser buys dinner at Geronimo, a really tony restaurant on Canyon Road, the heart of the gallery district, a street where a lot of rich folks go to buy really bad art.

I arrive in Santa Fe on Saturday, and man, is he in trouble.

Jerry sent me an email after we made the bet, noting his weight, again, with Julie’s stamp of approval. He evidently has got one of these fancy pants scales at home cause he sent his weight (won’t tell you exactly, but it was north of a deuce), his body mass indicator, his muscle to fat ratio, his shoe size, his favorite cologne, and whether he wears boxers or briefs. This machine calculates all that stuff in one shot. We ain’t got one of those, so Annie and I jumped in the car and headed out on Interstate 95, where Annie pulled off at an inspection station and threw my sorry ass on a truck scale, where I clocked out at an eye popping 211.

Jeez. Who knew. I fell off the gym wagon about 3 years ago, when work kinda sorta took over my life. I got real busy, and real lazy, at the same time. Another unfortunate trend intersected with this development. I tied on the feed bag, big time. There wasn’t a plate of pasta out there I didn’t like, from straight up spaghetti with meatballs to expense account truffle ravioli soaked in squid urine. Not good. I was like a hot air balloon, and 211 wasn’t even my low/high point. I remember after one really bad, excruciating job consoling myself with a beer and a Baby Watson cheesecake. I topped out at 215.

Leave it to Jerry to motivate me. (Geronimo is a really expensive restaurant, and their truffle ravioli in squid pee is excellent.) I’ve been working my ass off, kinda the way I used to. I figure this is a good time to attack, cause I know Jerry’s been working on this book he can’t talk about much, but it will be all about post production, workflow, digital asset management, you name it. Given the depth of his knowledge of these areas, it’s gonna be one of those go-to, gotta-have books that will stay by your computer for a long time. Pretty sure it’s out very soon, like this summer. Track it and sign up now, is my advice.

So I gotta figure Jerry’s been up at night, stressing about this book, writing actions and workflow plans and scarfing Freihoffer’s. Too bad for him, cause I’ve lost 25 pounds, and I’m around 190, cruising for 180. Annie’s been helping, cause she’s super healthy, and a great cook. She’s been preparing all this stuff that probably lives on the underside of mushrooms but tastes like a Delmonico steak the way she spices it. (How does a man get this lucky?) Jerry will get off easy at Geronimo’s though, cause I pretty much consume only rainwater, bark and sprouts now.

Poor Jer. i think he proposed the bet to get back at me cause when we teach together I demonstrate flash by using his head as a fill card. He never gets ruffled, though. That’s why it’s great teaching with him. I always say, he’s got good bedside manner. We’ll have a workshop participant positively melting down, I mean just spritzing about some thing or another, like I lost my files, or where did my pictures go, or I turned on my computer and it’s making a noise like a thirty horsepower milking machine, and I’m ready to go for the defibillator and shout CLEAR! when Jerry walks up and says okay, well, let’s take a look, maybe you have them behind that other file on your desktop, the one with the pictures of the family trip to Niagara Falls and those other almost certainly personal pictures, and, ahh, there they are, underneath everything, just around the corner and down the hallway inside this monster Dell that causes a brownout in most of Santa Fe every time you turn it on. There they are!

He’s calm, in word. Knowledgeable. Along with Reid Callanan and Renie Haiduk, he’s helped build Santa Fe into a powerhouse workshop center, especially in the realm of digital and workflow. It’ll be good to see him. All 200 plus pounds of him.

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?

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……

Been reading Strobist, which I do on a regular basis, and it seems like David and I stirred up a mild sand storm with our lighting efforts out there in the vast beyond. Some folks have weighed in on the potential excess of multiple multiple SB 800 units on location. I did myself actually. In my blog, I wrote ”……we got a bunch of of the SB800 strobes, and of course, I never met a subject I couldn’t overlight, so we put up a mess of them. It was kind of this loopy strobe puzzle stuck on the end of a c-stand…”

I also owned up to my tendency to overdo things. I think it must be a bit about being raised Irish Catholic. I go out there anticipating disaster. I look for the simple, fatal flaw that will dash my hopes, crush my spirit, befuddle my brain, corrupt my flash cards, estrange a client, and generally doom me to a ruinous fate. This flaw, mistake, gaf, miscue, misdeed, or error is usually self inflicted.

So, I bring more stuff than I need. Mostly for backup. Sometimes I even use it. At LIFE, Eisie always used to say, bring it, even if you don’t use it. It does you no good back at the studio.

Nowadays, of course, one needs to be more sparing in what one brings in the field, cause it just costs so damn much to bring just about anything. But I did go to Dubai with multiple SB 800 units, which I often bring along when I teach.

So I needn’t go over the reasons I popped 7 SB flashes on a stick in the desert. David spoke of the technical reasons for the number far more eloquently than I can, and with more solid reasoning and backup than I can muster on any given day. When David does his book of strobe, it will go on the shelf right next to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We’re talking stone tablet truisms here. I do things by the seat of my pants, based not so much on the absolute certainty of knowing the deal before I get there, but by the feel of things at any given moment. Needless to say, after operating like this for some 30 years, the seat of my pants is wearing pretty thin.

But there is a bit of history that pointed me towards the big flash tree. The day before the shoot, I went into the near desert, just outside Dubai, with a wonderful dancer who had worked really well in one of my classes, and is just a terrific, easy person to shoot with. This is just off the highway. No need for land rovers or camels. I shot a few things, experimenting, as I tend to do.

I used 3 SB units on these pix, and here’s what I found. They weren’t enough. Again, I was using FP hi-speed sync, pretty much a given in this sun blasted land, and I was pretty skinny on power. The specs on the above were running at 1/600th @ 5.6. As you can see, it’s pretty dead. Looks like a fairly blah available light rendition. Certainly nothing like I had set up in my class on the beach in Dubai, with one of our gymnastic stars, Salim.

With the above pic I used 6 SB units, just out the frame, without the dome diffusers, and zooming them to 105. The light stands are three quarter back of my subject, and it gives me almost an angle of incidence/angle of reflection efficiency for the light. (He was also oiled up, which some of the women in the class were happy to help him out with:-)

Back to Alessia. Moved her much closer to the lights and racked the camera out to 1/8000 @ 2.8. She continues to move in eloquent fashion, and now, because of her closeness to the light, and the wide open f-stop, I can see strobe punch, and exert a little control over the landscape. But here’s the giveback. (Always!)

She is working so close to camera (D3, 14-24mm lens) that some of her begins to get the edge of distortion. Just a touch here, but I am, in this iteration, compositionally constrained to a degree. Also, light on power, I am working with the sun here, not against it. Danger there is the shadow of your own gear on the desert floor, as you can see in the background. Doesn’t trouble me overmuch here, but it is something to be aware of.

Okay, I used 3, and that wasn’t enough. Figured for the deep desert and wider views (meaning strobes further away from subject) I gotta have at least one more f-stop. One more f-stop means twice the light, so 3 units becomes 6 units, nutty as that may be. That formed the basis for putting up that gaggle on the shoot with David.

It’s not that unusual for me to do this. I use multiple SB’s on lots of occasions.

There’s 8 SB-80 units under this experimental aircraft. Individual splashes of light. They are triggered by two larger strobes, camera left and right, running through strip lights, which are long, skinny softboxes. Used those cause the wings are long and skinny, and wanted the light to travel with the shape of the plane as best I could. The small units make great kickers in a scenario when you are using larger strobes.

Above, shooting Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman’s hands, the principal setup is a pair of Elinchrom Rangers. But the photo lives because of those little sidelights off his body behind his hands. That light is coming from 4 SB units, running on SU-4 mode, 2 on either side of him. Why four? Two (one per side) would be plenty for this view. But I knew I was going here.

I thought I might need good pop and some spread on the sidelights, so I put up two per side, which I knew (or felt I knew) would give me good coverage through a range of his moves. Last thing I want to do is interrupt the flow of the shoot by stopping for not enough light. Rather have too much already up, and then just turn ‘em off. Also, redundancy in this mode, SU-4, means the lights work less hard, and I have faster recycle time, while he’s got the weight up. Even Ronnie Coleman gets tired.

Out in the desert, there’s another important reason I didn’t use a bigger strobe with a single pop. I didn’t have one. I can’t speak to Alien Bees, cause I’ve never used one, but I can pretty much guarantee the Elinchrom Ranger units (1100 ws) I use could have done the job. I use them religiously, and especially when you put them through a long throw reflector, they give a pretty good wallop of light. A long throw reflector is a deep dish, polished reflector pan that gathers the light and throws it a good distance with less dispersion than the basic standard issue pan that comes with the head.

So in the time honored tradition of shooters everywhere, I went with what I had. How I got into the desert with that particular gear set is a mildly interesting parable of the modern photog interfacing with the wondrous miracle of flight. Ahh, flight! Remember Spencer Tracy magnificently lecturing the stacked jury in Inherit the Wind? He’s talking about the price of progress, and he uses air travel to make a point. “Mister, you may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline.”

Flight has distinctly lost its wonder, especially if you are a bedraggled photog on a budget and gotta get yourself and a bunch of gear from here to there. I am exhibit A in this regard

This trip—flew to Venice with a little bit of grip and a bunch of SB units to teach small flash at VSP. Flew Delta. Checked 4 pieces. Cost me $150 in overweight.

Okay, didn’t break the bank on that one. Finished Venice. Loaded the exact same gear onto Iberia for a hop to Spain. Cost me almost two grand! Thankfully for the that leg, I was Spain bound on assignment. (Iberia was one of the worst experiences ever in 30 years of flying claptrap, bucket-of-bolts airplanes all over the world. The plane to Spain charged me the dough, then tried to pry my camera bag from me and check it—unsuccessfully. Their personnel opened the counters in Venice late, with no stanchions to establish lines. Pushing and shoving occurred, so intensely the police were called. Lots of harsh language. I don’t speak Italian, but “Push me again with your suitcase and I’ll punch your lights out ya scrawny ass sumbitch” sounds pretty much the same in any language. Completely, totally, Iberia’s fault.)

Meanwhile, the intrepid Mr. Moore was loading 8 pieces aboard Delta in NY, and heading for Spain. Those bags cost about a grand. We met in Madrid and headed north. Was planning on flying Iberia back to Madrid, but I was terrified of the potential bank breaking luggage deal with them, so we got a van, loaded the gear, and drove 7 hours so Brad, who was returning home, now with 10 pieces, could interface direct with Delta. That leg cost $1500 in overweight, and took years off Brad’s life as he negotiated 10 pieces on 3 luggage carts through the Madrid airport to Spanish customs, signed off a carnet, and then got it to the counter without the aid of a skycap. Wonder of wonders, it all showed up at JFK.

By then I was flying KLM (love the Dutch!) through Amsterdam to Dubai with a vastly reduced inventory of gear. Still, getting it to UAE and home again (this time on Etihad Air, a first for me) cost about $800. All this is why I only had SB units in the dunes.

It tries one’s soul, and tests one’s patience and just generally makes you feel good about yourself when your stuff costs more to ship than you, and is probably more comfortable down there in the luggage hold, where there is presumably more leg room.