Joe McNally Photography

Yep, we are back at that hulk of a building hard by the Hudson River, which for a time was my studio, and for a shorter time, was my home. The one day lighting workshops are up and running again, and of course, the inimitable Andrew, he with the heart tattooed on his chest, is back helping us out…..

This was 4 SB900 Speed Lights. Used a combo of small flash tools to produce a look reminiscent of what I saw through the lens in ambient light conditions. Lemme s’plain…. Andrew was standing there with his jarhead haircut, backlit by window light that was doing highlight skips off his temples. Unlike Clint Eastwood, who has a pulsing vein in the middle of his forehead, Andrew has one just by the left side of his forehead. Saw this, made a kind of soft, flat ambient light pic of the scene, and then thought, we could sharpen this up with some flash, albeit small flash, placed in a way that would mimic the existing light pattern.

So, the temple lights were produced by two speed lights, both outfitted with Lumiquest Mini Soft Box 3.0. Played with those for a bit, and then stripped them off and went with hard light produced by just the flashes, both zoomed to 200mm. The hard, shadowy face light was another SB900 zoomed to 200, and hand held high and in front of Andrew’s face. The chest light was another zoomed 900, this one with a tight Honl grid spot. Four lights, wireless TTL, and Andrew’s lookin’ like a bad man. Which he distinctly is not. Good guy, good shooter, great on a Mac (learned all his computer stuff from me) and a tremendous help to any and all at the workshops.

Moving on…..Jasmine came back! Again! Is there anybody out there as sweet, sultry and talented as she in front of the lens? Hailing from Emmanuel Models in NY, she gets in front of the lens and just rules. She mentioned to me she needed kind of high key, fun stuff for her book, so we conjured the white set. This is my first experience shooting on one of the new vinyl drops made by Lastolite and marketed here in the US by Bogen. Great stuff. Walk all day on it, takes a beating, and has a real rich, matte white feel when you light it. We switched up for this to big flash–real big flash–meaning the Elinchrom Octa. The big fella took over the set, and coupled with a floor bounce directly under it, coming from a Ranger pack, it gave the white on white Jasmine just the right lighting pick me up. Soft light, but general (as opposed to the hard spotlights for Andrew, which meant he could barely move an inch) this broad, beautiful light allowed Jasmine to be Jasmine, and she could go ahead and conjure all the beautiful moving geometry she always does when a lens is pointed her direction.

Later that day, in the last 5 minutes or so of the workshop, we collaborated on an impromptu set. Take one battered old room on the ground floor, mix in a Ranger pack with 1/2 cut of CTO, outside the windows near the train tracks, with a long throw reflector. Throw in an Elinchrom Skyport for good measure so you can run the pack and control the power rating from camera. Hook all that up with Will running a wind machine, and let Jasmine start moving, and, I think this is the type of shoot that the term “shooting fish in a barrel” was coined to describe. You cannot miss. Shot on D3, Lexar media, 70-200 lens, auto white balance, auto focus, cursor smack on her face.

Back to the white set. Not everybody’s got an Octa, so we stripped all of that out, and went back to basics with 2 SB900 units blasting on TTL through a hand held Tri-grip diffuser. Nothing else. Lauren’s never really modeled, but she has a wonderful, commanding presence in pictures. Simple, soft, done.

Onto the basement. Had this nutty idea. Gelled lights blasting down hallways. Beauty dish overhead. Ranger pack. Floor bounce off a gold Tri-grip from an SB900 in SU-4 mode (manual optical trigger). Jaira was our subject, and the up front light combo looked like it was meant with her in mind.

Lighting all day. Small flash, big flash. An even bigger thank you to our sponsors–Nikon, Adorama and Bogen. Jeff Snyder was up from Adorama, shooting and dispensing wisdom. Mark Astmann, the William Holden of flash lighting, was there as well, and he was able to bring and demo the new Elinchorm Ranger Quadra.

more tk.

In yet another case of bedsheets disappearing from hotels, the suspected perpetrator of these thefts struck again, operating in unusually brazen fashion in front of 5 or 6 horrified onlookers in Venice’s historic San Marco Plaza. Going from hard light to soft light, he allegedly pulled the sheet from his equipment bag with a flourish, uttering what has become the bandit’s signature location phrase….”Let me just whip this out.”

Venice is a beautiful city. Amazing. It has a patina and character that is all its own, which might stem from the fact it is under water a great deal of the time. The Cafe Florian is undoubtedly one of the most historically significant places in the ville, and what makes it truly wonderful is that you can plop yourself smack dab in the middle of its beauty and character for the price of a cup of coffee. An expensive cup of coffee, to be sure, but still, one of the red velvet chairs in the joint can be yours’ for a cuppa joe. Anybody who has had the dubious privilege of spending 5 bucks in a Starbucks for a triple vente soy bean no foam iced latte’ knows that it don’t come with a red velvet chair and wall art dating back to 1720.

I’ve been thinking about shooting here ever since I first came to Venice 3 years ago. It’s just an amazing place, dripping with history and ornate detail. Given the way my noodle often operates, I was sitting in there and it crossed my mind that it would be an interesting portrait venue for maybe, I don’t know, lemme guess, a ballerina! Mongo like!

The opportunity here came about via the good graces of Marco Tortato, of Manfrotto, makers of all things to hang lights and cameras from. His wife, Sylvia, handles public relations for the cafe, and I was allowed to shoot there in the early morning, before any caffeine seeking crowds descended. Not only did Marco facilitate the shoot, he worked his magic all week with our VSP class, pulling and hauling gear, and providing us with C-stands, Manfrotto air cushion light stands, Justin Clamps, Tri-flashes, Lastolite tri-grips for diffusion and reflection….(Hmmm…..diffusion and reflection. Sounds like that should be a desk at the state department. “Department of Diffusion and Reflection, may I help you?)….

I digress. Anyway, our class was kitted out admirably with the gracious assistance of Marco and Manfrotto. We toodled all over various water bound locales, even shooting early am in San Marco……

The above is one SB900, zoomed to 200mm, and placed outside the columns on one of those little floor stands that come with the unit. Full cut of CTO. 70-200mm lens on the camera, and an SU800 linked to the hot shoe via 2 SC29 cords, firing just to the left of the columns. The light is maybe 40-50 feet away from the CLS trigger. Kinda set this up for the class, and everybody got a chance that morning to work with light and wonderful dancers. Thanks to Beatrice, Barbara, and Celeste who arose earlier than any other ballerinas in recorded history to make this shoot happen for all of us.

Shooting inside the cafe, the setup was a bit different. Gelled all the lights warm, and just let them rock at a 200mm zoom from about 20 or so feet from the glass. No diffusion, just hard, warm light.

That combo produced a slashing, shadowy light, and it pushed the color button pretty hard. Eventually I put a 4th SB900 in there, Justin clamped to an existing stand, and just banged that down into the ground, hoping a little bounce light might grace the ceiling, which was equally reflective and gaudy as the walls. Had a traditional Venetian mask on hand, which Beatrice graciously wore for a few frames.

Enter the bedsheet. We clipped it up with a couple of plastic A clamps brought by Frank Keller, who attended the workshop, and is on the very beginnings of an intersting photographic path. That big swatch of diffusion softened the light and filled the whole room with detail embracing, easy going photons.

As they say, a face in a place…..

Up early and off to the airport. Commercial job this week. Drew’s been in Nashville shooting the lollapalooza, or bananarama…something like that. It’s a music festival. As you saw last week, he’s a good music shooter who always manages to talk his way on stage somehow. He’ll pick me up at the airport. Had no choice but to get up early. Nigel’s been getting bigger. I think he’s about 21 pounds now. That boy is hungry all the time. He jumped on the bed about 3:30, and you can’t sleep through that. It’s like somebody just dropped a bowling ball on your pillow. More tk….

Drew here, Joe’s first assistant/tech guy/personal darkroom, etc.  I’m the guy who helps Joe keep up with all this stuff when he’s on the road, as I tend to be back in the studio a bit more than he is.  I started working for the studio back in October, when my good pal, Brad Moore moved down to FL to assist Scott Kelby.  Previous to this job, I was a PA-based freelancer (website), doing a lot of work in the music industry… 

So, first off welcome to the new blog, and thank all of you for the amazing feedback on both the blog and website.  Hopefully, all of the little glitches will be ironed out very shortly, and YES, that includes the RSS feed issue (most of which “should” be fixed right now).  The amount of feedback we’ve gotten, and the speed at which we’ve gotten it has been extremely helpful, so keep it coming.

Also, wanted to give you a few tidbits about the redesigns, and say a few thank you’s.  We worked on the website with our friends at Livebooks, and would like to give a big thanks to Jon Lucich, Pochih Chang, and everyone else we worked with over there!  The blog was designed and coded by the great Lauren and Eric Murrell at Volacious Media, who patiently worked with us to bring our ideas to life.  They all did an amazing job, and without them, we’d still be tinkering with a sketch pad.

A few things have changed around here…we think, for the better   There’s now links to Joe’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc..  This handful of online sites can hopefully help you keep up with Joe, no matter where he is (and no matter where you are, for that matter).  Twitter is the place to see all his spur-of-the-moment thoughts, cool links, and other quick updates, especially while we’re on the road or on-location.  Facebook will be continually updated with all kinds of behind-the-scenes photos/videos.  The blog..well, you’ve all come to know what to expect here!  We’ll also be adding much more video content on both YouTube and the website in the coming months.

You’ve probably also noticed that the workshops calender is no longer on the blog- but you can check that out if you click the “workshops” link up top. That’ll bring you right to the workshops page on the new site.

The “What’s in the Bag?” page has always been one of our most requested items, so we moved it up in the right bar…just about any equipment inquiries you may have can be answered there.

We have a bunch of great ideas rolling around in the studio, but being that we have this incredible community here, we’d love to hear from you as well….feel free to comment anything at all you want to see, and it very well may come to life.  Any questions you have, just drop us a line.

Lastly, for an update on the One-Day Lighting Summer Workshops (click here for PDF), there are only FOUR spots left!  If you’re interested in getting in, email Lynn, our studio manager/producer at lynn@joemcnally.com.

Looking forward to bringing you a ton of very cool content in the coming months.

Cheers,

Drew

The world wide web is the deal now for photogs. Gotta have a website, gotta have a blog. I credit Moose Peterson with nudging me into the blogosphere. For about a year, he was givin’ me the Moose Eye, ya know? “Where’s your blog?” Every time I’d see him. “Where’s your blog?”

So did a blog, and it’s been fun. But our website and blog have never been synced up style-wise, till today. Credit to first assistant Drew Gurian, who has been laboring on these puppies now for some time. Happy to say, they launch today. Lots of new work, new design, new linkage between the two. Love for you to check ‘em out. (If you’re reading this, you’re halfway done!)

Lots of inspiration, great work and strong voices on the web. One particularly inspiring voice is Chase Jarvis, who in terms of innovation, creativity, and the sharing of knowledge is at the top of his game. He just launched a series of really fun videos called The Consequences of Creativity, in which all sorts of dastardly things happen to him while he’s pursuing an image. He falls off a bridge, explodes into flames, gets hosed down, and also gets run over by a fast moving vehicle. So my studio started buzzing, and well, we have a lot of sick puppies here.  One of our interns, Mike Grippi had an idea and here’s what we came up with…

a ton more stuff in the pipes..

more tk.

Man it was rough at Kennedy. I mean, it’s never easy at that nexus of sweat, angst, nerves and fatigue nestled near the Brooklyn shoreline. It’s a classic case of way too many of the frayed, obnoxious and demanding being serviced by way too few of the disinterested and disgruntled.

The cafeteria line was really long, made longer by people demanding specialty food alterations that really didn’t have a prayer of making anything that had been baking under glass for several hours in the noxious JFK terminal air taste any better.

One of the guys slinging food behind the counter did a quick, mostly covert move and appeared to get his finger so far up his nose as to indicate there might have been something truly valuable up there, but, ahhh, relief, he turned around and put on gloves. Thank goodness….with the motley and colorful variety of pizzas served there it would be tough to pick out a booger.

I got stuck behind two pleasant ladies who insisted on debating the various tantalizing merits of almost every offering, but then got themselves one slice of cheese pizza to split and moved forward. I was right behind them at the register when they sparked a lively debate with the cashier about getting the pizza/salad combo price and were informed the discount didn’t apply to a piece of plain cheese pie.

It was all cordial and chummy, but it took several minutes to agree to the ala carte pricing. And then! Drumroll please! The search for the wallet begins! Both of these ladies had shoulder bags the size of say, a large turkey. They were both crafted in that puffy, fabric-y style that looked like they were stitched together from the also rans at last year’s county fair quilting contest. Colorful is the kindest word I can find at this writing.

Eventually, the wallets were found, and the aforementioned pizza was bought. Why do women do that? Wait for the cashier to tell them the total and have a hand out before they in turn reach for the dough? I mean, they hadda zip open these bags and begin a rummage that would make the search for the holy frikkin’ grail look as easy as a connect the dots game on a Denny’s placemat.

I would not have put my hand inside one of these bags. The innards were spilling out and looked a bit reminiscent of that plant in Little Shop of Horrors. I was waiting for one of them to belch “Feed me!” in guttural tones. I’m surprised these women had all their fingers.

See, men don’t do that. They belly up to the counter, $20 in hand, and just fork it over. Like Robin Williams says, you get your McBurger and fries, grab your McChange and get the McFuck outta there. Maybe it’s cause we all remember our first illegal beer bought at a bar and we had no idea what it was gonna cost so we had a twenty ready to go so as not to get embarrassed by having to fish out some extra dough on the spot. Dunno. Might be genetic. Might be that chromosome right next to the one that causes Male Refrigerator Blindness.

Back to the ladies. Oh, we’re not done!  They also asked for cokes with lots of ice cause they had just got back from Europe, and you know, “In Europe, they just don’t serve anything with ice! I mean, really! They drink their soda warm! Can you imagine? And you can’t get tap water anywhere, it’s all in bottles, they cost like $6 each! I tell you, we’re glad to be back in America!”

And by golly, we’re glad to have you back…

I got on the plane and was seated next to someone who was part of a group that couldn’t get seats together so they were shouting to each other over the aisles. Pleasant. My neighbor allowed in a loud voice as he probably shouldn’t have just had those 4 beers. It was a swell flight. More tk…..