Joe McNally

Jun 12

North Country

In Seminars & Workshops at 10:41pm

In Maine. Love it here. Come every year to teach at the Maine Media Workshops. I’ve brought my kids a couple of times, and I always prepare Caitlin and Claire by regaling them with stories and images of the McNally Clan loading the giant oxcart and trekking into the great North Country, far beyond the mountains and the reach of other fierce, warlike clans. I paint them a picture of their role, foraging along side the cart in the near forest for roots, nuts and berries, dressed in simple homespun garments. They just roll their eyes.

They are used to dad’s overactive imagination. Whenever I have landed a major National Geographic story, I would tell them to gather round the campfire and listen. Father has slain the great woolly mammoth! There will be meat, tea, flour and sugar for the winter! They’re like, “Yeah Dad, that’s great. Can we have some money to go to the mall?”

Oh, well. Here in Rockport, home of the Workshops, one coffee shop, and Chalky. He’s a good guy, really, even though his mandate in life is to chalk your tires and then ticket you if he comes back and discovers your vehicle has overstayed the two hour limit for that parking space. He has the gait of an old dog, the gruff demeanor of somebody who has fended off too many whiny ass parking violators in his day, and a memory like a bear trap. I’ve gotten to know him a little bit, mostly by asking him if he’ll let me do his picture. He refuses. Always. This has gone on for, like, 10 years. It might be me. The idea I have is to close off the main drag of Rockport, put him in the middle of the road and make a chalk outline of his body in the road, like a crime scene, with him standing over it, wielding his all powerful chalk wand like Thor wields the mighty Mjolinir.

The longest conversation we ever had was about the various body parts and organs he’s had go missing. I was very sympathetic, and it was certainly interesting, but didn’t gain me any personal traction in the old parking situation. Son of a bitch ticketed me twice yesterday morning

Last night the class went to Firefly, where I made the above picture. (Tech notes below.) It’s run by Andy Swift, who is an artist, a mechanic, and a genuine Maine character. He restores historic fire engines for a living, and runs his business out of an old chicken barn that used to house 33,000 of the feathered darlings. It is quite simply one of the best places I have ever been, chock full of stuff–fire trucks, wheels, engines, parts, tools, and toys. Andy used to have Osama bin Laden targets in his backyard which he would regularly chew threw with a 30 cal.

Andy also did the restoration on a historic hose wagon that became the ceremonial hearse for FDNY after 911, an emotional, powerful project. I gave him my 911 book back then, and made his picture. Yesterday, I gave him my new book, The Moment It Clicks. Our mood was much lighter. He was laughing and joking with the class. I signed the book for him….”Dear Andy, happiness is a belt fed weapon.”

Techy stuff……

The lady in the two location pics is Brianna Borkowski, who works often with the workshops, and has always been patient and hard working with my classes. In the top photo, knocked it out with 6 SB800 units. Two are above camera, running through a Lastolite 3×6 Skylite panel. One is below camera as a beauty fill, firing through a Tri-grip diffuser panel, hand held. There is a unit camera left making the warm ceiling highlight, and one in the way back, giving a little squib of light to the far, far wall. And one is bang on in back of the American flag, flying around and creating backlit type effects and shadows.

Then there’s Brianna in the boiler room, all glammed up. We take her to the nicest places! This one is done with Elinchrom Rangers. Two are camera right, out of the room in the parking lot, with 1/2 cuts of CTO (color temp orange filters, the filter that makes a strobe balanced for neutral daylight look like 1-800-DIAL-A-SUNSET. Boom! Got the room taken care of. Lit like fading daylight, when in reality, the place was so dark the AF on the D3 was workin’ hard. For up front, took an Elinchrom beauty dish through a 3×6 Lastolite Skylite Panel, and then filled just a touch with a hand held gold side Tri-grip reflector. Add a dash of Brianna type photo model attitude, and we be done. More tk….

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Jun 10

News and Notes

In Links at 7:07am

Granted, my blog isn’t generally where you would go for current photo news and tidbits of information about the latest and the greatest way to jam more pixels onto the head of a pin. “Sony Announces New 27 Megapixel Lapel Button Camera with Automatic HDR Mode!”

Sheesh! I don’t know how guys like Scott Kelby and Moose Peterson do it. They’re onto everything. For me, it’s tough. I wake up every morning and generally can’t find my ass with both hands. I mean, it’s the new millenium dude, and I’m still struggling with my first rough draft of the 70’s.

The news in my head plays like an old Firesign Theater routine:

And now the news….Red-lighted sky slated to appear in east! And now for the rumors behind the news….

Couple of things, though…….

I met Tim Mantoani last Friday. He’s given himself the unenviable task of tracking down photographers (talk about herding cats) into the Polaroid 20×24 studio in San Francisco and New York to push forward his long term project, Behind the Photographs. What he requests is that you bring in one of your most well known pictures (a short list for me) printed and simply stand with it. Sounds simple enough, but the wonderful catch to the whole deal is that you are standing in front of the Polaroid 20×24 camera, a truly unique instrument. (I might be missing my guess here, but I believe there are only 6 Polariod 20×24 cameras in the world. There are now Wisner cameras which will accomodate 20×24 film, and Tim owns one of these.)

He has been remarkably persistent with this project, pursuing it now for the better part of two years. You can see the results of his dedication here.

It is becoming a terrific and complete document that, I believe, will stand the test of time. I mean he’s got Phil Stern, Walter Iooss, Greg Heisler, Jean Pagliuso, Jay Maisel, Dave Burnett, Bill Eppridge, Carl Fischer, Barbara Bordnick, Neil Leifer…..Lots of folks. Lots of pictures you’ve not just seen, but had your life, your sensibilities, your sympathies, your appreciation for that which is beautiful, significant, and lasting molded, altered, informed and shaped by. Many of these images are some of the larger footprints we will leave behind. (Photos by Brad Moore)

Michael Clark just recently posted his spring newsletter. He is one of those guys who shoots perfectly composed pictures while hanging from one hand on a rock over a chasm in the great out there. He does a lot of really great climbing and outdoor sports shooting. We got to know one another in Santa Fe a few years back, and I look for his newsletters and blog all the time cause they are loaded with good images and info.

And….drum roll, please….our own Syl Arena has launched a blog….pixsylated.com. Now I call Syl “our own” cause we met at Santa Fe and he has been a prime mover and shaker in keeping our group talking and laughing together on line. I mean it was quite the class, with a range of personalities from Syl to “Machine Gun” Krista Lee.

Syl is an excellent shooter and master of color management and workflow. He combines all this with a personality as electric and curly as his red hair. He brings passion to everything he does, which now includes his excellent blog.

And our own Brad Moore is blogging–bradmooreblog.blogspot.com/

More on Brad in a future post. He’s just getting the wind in blog sails now.

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Jun 5

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

In Seminars & Workshops at 9:27pm

Long time, no blog. Actually about a week or so. Been logging a lot of late hours and road time up and down the Jersey Pike, which after all these years, I could probably drive in my sleep, and in fact probably have. You know the old joke, “I wanna die just like ol’ Uncle Elmer, asleep and peaceful. Unlike the passengers in his car, who died awake and screaming.”

Reason for the north south transit of late is that it is time once again for the Department of Defense Worldwide Military Workshop. Held every year at Ft. Meade, a terrific group of young military phojos gather and have their minds bent a bit by the likes of ex-Marine Earnie Grafton, extraordinary newspaper shooter for the San Diego Trib, Preston Keres, a mainstay at the Wash Post, Eli Reed, one of the most gifted of the Magnum shooters, commercial photog Greh Hren, and the list goes on.

The architect of all this craziness is Ken “Make It Their Problem” Hackman, the dean of military photojournalism. He is complemented by Chip Maury (actually, Chip rarely compliments Hackman), former Navy parachutist, underwater demo guy, photographer’s mate, and, as a civilian, DOP of the Indianapolis Star and Providence Journal. They go around dispensing years of photo wisdom, on both the shooting and editing side, coaching and cajoling young shooters, and just in general acting lead roles in their own version of “Grumpy Old Men.” The young’uns are blessed to have these guys to lead the way. Chip gives a talk and a handout he serenely refers to as “Chip’s Tidbits of Bullshit.” Wish somebody had bullshitted me in such a fashion when I was a young shooter. His lessons are signposts to heed when you hit those dangerous, dark curves of life and career.

It usually falls to me to teach a lighting team, with none other than–David Hobby. I tell ya, you can learn a lot from the Strobist. Our team mentor is the Coast Guard’s Tom Sperduto, a terrific shooter who plows through every day at nine frames a second. We have a great team, with lots of energy. The pic below was shot by Stacy Pearsall, who hung with us for a couple of days, and has been Military Photographer of the Year– twice. (Mulitple wins in the Milphog contest is like, you know, Lance Armstrong type stuff.)

Shot with 7 or 8 SB800 units. David and I are VALS up front, either side of the lead, group A. Middle two are group B, and the two guys in the back are group C. We knocked it out, not perfectly, but real well real quick. Speed is often the order of the day for a military shooter. Fast, fast, fast. I just threw the camera at Stacy and said, okay, you run it. Stage it, light it, shoot it. We got 10 minutes.

Later, we headed for the studio.

Now, anybody who can just about cover their ear with their kneecap and calmly look at the camera while balancing on the other foot is, well, extraordinary. Or destined for the Cirque du Soleil. Shelly Guy is friends with one of the guys on our team, and prior to heading for Italy for a performance tour, she helped us out and came into the studio. The light combo here is overhead umbrella with 3 SB units, and a silver fill with one hand held pop off of it. Don’t use silver too often, but seemed appropriate here for the kind of stage quality Shelly has. She has a website, shellyflex.com. Wonderful person, fun to work with.

And very patient too, cause David put her in a locker. It was slightly bigger than a shoe box. Terrific pic. She handled it with aplomb. Putting me in there would have required a welder’s torch, a sawzall and the base fire department.

Referring to the zoom up top, I went to low one on the D3 to minimize ISO and maximize length of shutter speed. The camera burped out an exposure of 1/5th @ f16 on Aperture Priority. The background is dropped to about minus 2 EV. It was lit with 2 overhead SB800 units through a 3×3 Lastolite panel. The panel is angled overhead pretty steeply, almost table topped, so there is a bit of a brooding feel to the light, given my subject. I call it Goodfellas light. It’s like the light that’s suspended over the table at the back of the restaurant where the Don sits, meting out judgment and punishment. The face is framed in shadow, and the eyes are shaded. You know you better kiss this guy’s ring, pronto. David did me the good turn of reminding me that you need to start your zoom before the exposure, so it will be smooth, and not herky jerky. You get different feels from zooming wide to long and vice versa. Calls for some experimentation.

Up to our usual tricks, makin’ small flashes behave like big ones. More tk.

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May 27

Holy Sand Dune!

In Lighting, Travels at 9:09pm

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.

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May 21

The Quiet Guy

In Seminars & Workshops at 6:55pm

He goes by a couple names here at DLWS. “Kev” for short, and of course, “Kevin.” Moose just calls him flyboy, cause he’s an aviation engineer and a pilot who works for Cessna and teaches newbies how to fly.

I figure that’s why he’s so damn unflappable. Never see him upset or off kilter. Years of flying buddy to a bunch of nervous new pilots will probably do that to you. He’s got that Midwestern voice, too, the kind as a passenger you like to hear coming from the cockpit. Reassuring, in a word.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you might have just noticed, heh heh, our old airplane just took a big swoop upwards out of our landing approach, and you might’ve heard those old engines back there barkin’ like a big dog, but there’s no need for alarm. Seems I got this little red light here on the panel tellin’ me my landin’ gear’s not coming down. Darnedest thing. But I tell you what, we’re gonna come around again low and tight over the runway and give them nervous nellies on the ground a looksee up our skirt a little bit, and get what we call a visual. And they’re gonna find out what I know already, that our old landin’ gear’s just fine. I’ll get back with you in a couple, meantime, sit back and enjoy the flight, winds are out of the southwest at about 20mph, broken cloud, unlimited visibility, about 65 degrees Farenheit. It’a just a beautiful day out there!”

For Kevin, an emergency code red situation means his heart rate will drift slightly above 65.

Of course, he’s not always quiet and reserved.

But what he is, consistently, is indispensable. He stays in the background of the workshop, helping people with every photo problem from tripod mismanagement to exposure issues, composition, and finally, ouptut. He is a magician on the Cintiq, the Wacom’s version of a flying carpet, and in the classroom sessions, always has a crowd hanging around, watching him work.

He’s also a helluva shooter. Check out his blog. He and Moose have been photographing together for years, flying small sea planes into remote areas up in north country and making pix of big critters like the Kodiak Bear. They keep asking me to come. They say they’ve got this special wardrobe item for me. It’s a scratch n’ sniff shirt that smells like barbecue sauce. Hmmmmm. Think I’ll stick with the subways in NY.

So we have been in the Redwoods. Lots of fun. Great bunch of folks.

Of course, we be earnestly searching for the forest in the trees, and the wonderful youngster Raven chose very smartly to focus her attention on something much smaller. A ladybug.

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