I recently photographed a series of advertisements for ExxonMobil Chemical at one of their technology centers. We worked with a fantastic team from McCann Erickson in New York, and they did a great job of conceptualizing the final ads. The comp we were presented with showed a black and white image of an ExxonMobil scientist working in a lab environment with a detail breakout photo of a macro subject from their lab.
The labs were very tight and cluttered spaces – lots of scientific equipment everywhere, lots of hoses and pipes, and very few clean simple backgrounds. We decided to shoot several different lab techs and scientists working with their respective equipment on white. This was a serious challenge, as there was not ample room to do a normally lit white background. We settled on placing a 6 x 6 scrim jim behind the subjects, just to de-clutter the room, and give the retoucher clean images of the subject and foreground equipment to work with. This worked well, but it was a very tight squeeze all day. To look good in B&W, the light needed to be fairly dramatic and contrast-y. We used gridded softboxes, a Wafer 100 and a Wafer 75 in some cases, both with Lighttools 30 degree grids.
We also had great fun creating the macro images. Kelly Clark, our art director, would work with us to pick out various interesting pieces of scientific equipment, and we would then set up lighting and photograph details, often with the Canon 100mm macro, which is just an incredibly sharp piece of glass. It was interesting to create tight abstract views of everyday science equipment.
One of the cool shots we did, came about during the scouting trip. We noticed that several of the scientists would write in wax pencil on the plexiglas cover of their lab enclosures….math formulas, notes, etc. We decided it looked pretty interesting, and ran out to Home Depot to get a clean new piece of plexi to recreate the same look on white in the lab. (Apologies to Neil Leifer and his iconic Bear Bryant portrait. )
Andrew Loehman did a great job digital teching for the day, and Nathan Lindstrom assisted. Juan Guadiana, a stellar Houston-based retoucher did a masterful job of cutting out our subjects with their equipment for the final ads. These were not easy to do. Andrea Kaye, the art buyer at McCann Erickson, Valerie Sena, the account manager, and Kelly Clark, the art director were wonderful to work with, and we were able to enjoy a fantastic Tex-Mex meal with our ExxonMobil client at El Real, a cool new restaurant in the former Tower Theater during their brief visit to Houston.
Here’s the “before” photo in color…One of the other ads….we created four of these.
Our model, rhythmic gymnast Olga Karmansky. (Photo by Robert Seale)
I returned recently from speaking and doing a lighting workshop at the Photoshelter Luminance conference, September 11-13 at the TriBeca Performing Arts Center in New York City. Luminance was far from a typical photo industry conference or convention. Photoshelter founder Allen Murabayashi and the great folks at Photoshelter put together a unique event, bringing in a wide variety of speakers from the technology world to compliment the usual suspects from the photo industry.
On the bill for the three day event were interesting and varied speakers like:
The most overqualified assistant ever? Photoshelter Chairman Allen Murabayashi helping us get our lighting setup together. (Photo by Robert Seale)
I felt super intimidated to speak and do my little demo in such good company, but I was very lucky to have some super overqualified assistant help, including Photoshelter folks Allen Murabayashi, Sarah Jacobs, and stellar music photographer Chris Owyoung helping out.
Our model, Olga Karmansky, a rhythmic gymnast, was wonderful and patient during two back to back lighting sessions. We had a short window of time, so we concentrated on doing multiple lighting looks from one setup in the studio. We were able to create several different looks without moving the model at all – very similar to the lighting talk and demo I gave at the Photoshelter event in Austin.
Allen and Photoshelter CEO Andrew Fingerman put together a hell of an event. It was wonderful to hang out with the other photographers and speakers, especially a speakers dinner on the first night, and a wonderful get together with my good friends: bay area baseball photographer Brad Mangin, and Boston commercial photographer and ASMP president Shawn Henry. It was also great to meet the young, super sharp and vibrant Photoshelter team, many of whom I had talked to over the phone over the years, but never met in person. These are creative, smart people that you wish you could work in an office with every day.
Hopefully Andrew and Allen will be able to make this an annual event!
Close up of Olga Karmansky during the lighting demo. (Photo by Robert Seale)Olga, photographed with a 5 degree grid during the lighting demo. (Photo by Robert Seale)Allen introducing the speakers. (Photo by Michael Treola)
Shaking hands with Joe McNally arriving at the studio. (Photo by Michael Treola)McNally shooting in the studio downstairs. (Photo by Michael Treola)Seale shooting during the lighting workshop. (Photo by Michael Treola)Zack Arias speaking to his class. (Photo by Michael Treola)Brian Smith speaking during his lighting workshop - note the model is ASMP president Shawn Henry. (Photo by Michael Treola)
Mary Lou Retton, photographed at her home in 2008.
Since the 2012 Summer Olympics in London is in full swing, I thought it might be interesting to pull together a collection of some of my favorite Olympic sports portraits. I’ve had the fabulous opportunity to photograph several notable athletes, and I’m hoping to meet and photograph more of these folks in the future.
I photographed 1984 Olympic gymnastics champion Mary Lou Retton with her daughters in their backyard a few years ago for a magazine. Mary Lou, now in her early 40’s, is in incredible shape and is still incredibly fit and ripped. It was a fun shoot, but it’s interesting to note that at least one of them was much more interested in being an equestrian than a future gymnast. They were all good sports, though and played along for a memorable photo.
I’ve photographed Steven Lopez several times. He won the gold in Taekwondo at the Olympics in 2000 and 2004, and a bronze in 2008. He’s in London competing again on the 2012 Olympic team.
Laura Wilkinson, who won a gold medal with a horrendous broken foot in 2000, was a joy to photograph, and was willing to try several different concepts, including a waterline shot, and some slow shutter flash shots of her diving during sunset. She also competed in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. Today, she is a motivational speaker and has her own foundation.
Stuart Holden, a professional soccer player, was on the 2008 US Olympic soccer team. Although he’s had a string of injuries, he’s still playing professionally in Europe.
Bicycle motocross champion Kyle Bennett was on the US Olympic BMX team in 2008.
I photographed Peggy Fleming, who won the gold in figure skating in 1968. After a breast cancer scare in the late 90’s she became an outspoken advocate for breast cancer awareness and early testing. She stays in fabulous shape (she’s 60 in this photo…) with a regimen of yoga and running.
Raj Bhavsar is an incredible gymnast who won the bronze in 2008. He was also an alternate on the 2004 team. He has two gymnastics elements named after him, and is most well known for his prowess on the rings. After retiring from competitive gymnastics, he is now performing with Cirque de Soleil.
As Jeremy Lin was in the process of inking his deal with the Houston Rockets last week, I got a call from Sports Illustrated. Often in sports, when a star player is traded to another team, there is a big fancy press conference to introduce the player to the media. Usually the player stands at a podium with the new owner, professes his love for the new city and holds up a freshly minted jersey with his name on the back. Interviews follow with all the local media outlets: radio stations, TV stations, teenage sports bloggers, and typically, the surviving newspaper in town.
What most people don’t see, is the behind the scenes photo shoots. Put together in a rush, the sleepy player gets herded to multiple locations throughout the building to pose for the NBA, a magazine or two, the local paper, and a host of team sponsor PSA’s. It’s a challenging situation, very similar to “media day” shoots that we all engage in during preseason training camps. Each photographer or news outlet gets the player for a couple of minutes and they produce the best sports portrait they can.
After I hung up with the SI photo editor, I immediately called my good friend, Rockets photographer Bill Baptist, who I knew would be doing the same gig for the NBA. I found out that we were scheduled to be on one half of the practice court, since the other half was being used for the press conference setup. Billy had to do two large setups, so he generously offered to have our shoot moved to the empty arena floor. I quickly jumped at the chance and agreed that a larger room would be beneficial for all of us. This way, we wouldn’t be crossing cords or competing for space. Plus, the last time Billy and I were that close together, I’m pretty sure he kicked my ass at tennis.
Stellar assistant Nathan Lindstrom and I showed up to the Toyota Center the next morning with a ton of gear, and made our way to the main arena floor. An empty arena makes a great photo studio, but unfortunately, it really was empty: as in, no floor! Since the arena hosts a different event almost every night, the wood basketball floor was in storage – along with the basketball goals, etc.
With the help of some friendly folks at the arena, we were able to get one of the basketball goals rolled out onto the empty concrete floor. I figured that, even if the floor didn’t show, we could at least utilize the goal as a background element for context.
We put together lighting setups in two locations: A wide angle view with the goal in the background, backlit on both sides with Profoto 8A’s and large Chimera gridded softboxes. We used a Plume Wafer Hexoval 180 as the main light near the camera.
On the other setup, we put together a seamless paper backdrop with two different lighting setups: a three light setup with two Plume Wafer 100’s with Lighttools grids, and a Profoto Beauty dish on a boom just above the camera. The other setup was another Wafer Hexoval 180 to the right of the camera. We used three Profoto Acute 600’s for power on the seamless setup.
Lin showed up in a brand new red Rockets uni and made his way to our set. After shaking his hand and welcoming him to Texas, we quickly put him through both seamless lighting setups, and then standing and dribbling poses on the backlit concrete floor setup.
Part of Lin’s appeal is his status as a young, springy, high-flying point guard. He looked great flying through the air, going to he hoop, and passing in mid air to his Knicks teammates during the a few months of “Linsanity” last season. At the end of the shoot, I asked Lin how his knee was feeling.
He said it felt great.
Great enough to jump on a concrete floor?
Sure, he said.
Ok then, let’s do it.
I placed the camera, a Canon EOS1DS Mk III on the floor, and proceeded to shoot Lin leaping straight in the air with the basketball goal in the background. He looked great – our only minor tweak being that of changing his hand positions during the jump. At the end of the shoot, I handed him a towel, shook his hand and said thanks. I looked down at my watch and a mere 12 minutes had passed.
He left the arena soon after and was mobbed……not by New York paparazzi, but by mouth-watering Houston real estate agents, eager to spend at least some of his 25 million bucks.
Photography consultant Jasmine DeFoore has recently started a great website called Ilovetexasphoto.com featuring photographers and production resources from Texas. Jasmine was a photo editor and marketing guru for the Redux agency in NYC before moving to Austin to start her consulting business. She’s done a great job organizing events and helping the Texas photo community, and the new ilovetexasphoto website is an awesome resource for photo editors, advertising art buyers and anyone else producing visuals in Texas.
Austin photographer and ilovetexasphoto contributor Destry Jaimes interviewed me recently for a photographer feature on the site, asking me about my work, education, and influences, and featuring some of my favorite photos. If you’re a photographer or photo enthusiast in Texas, or a photo editor producing jobs in our state, this site needs to be in your bookmarks toolbar.
A copy slide of my first Chronicle photo. I was later asked if this marine died from radiation overexposure from my Metz 45 flash.
Twenty years ago today my career officially began as a professional photographer.
It all started with a pre-dawn phone call in the winter of 1992 from George Honeycutt, then Director of Photography at the Houston Chronicle (in those days, George worked from 6am-2pm, and I…..well, I did not). Working as photo editor of the school paper and co-editor of the college yearbook, I was just getting to bed some mornings as George was showing up for work. Anyway, the phone rings, and there’s a gruff voice on the other end of the line, “Seale, you got any tickets?”
In those days, the Chronicle had great company cars, full size Ford Broncos, and they even issued one to the intern, so your driving record, not just your photo ability, was a consideration.
So with my unblemished driving record intact, I began one of the most formative experiences of my life: a summer internship at the Houston Chronicle.
During the spring of 92, I visited the paper a couple of times, going on “ride-alongs” with staff photographers Howard Castleberry and Dave Einsel, who both showed me around the department. Howard even offered to let me live at his house for the summer virtually rent-free, so I could be closer to the newspaper ( an incredible gesture, for which I’m very grateful).
There was nothing cooler than a big city newspaper, particularly one like the Chronicle in those days. You parked across the street, then went through the press room up a freight elevator into the composing area (ah, the smells!), past the newsroom and into the photo department. Each photographer had his own private darkroom (left over from the black and white days). There was a community area where everyone got their mail, typed captions, and, at night – hung out and watched TV. There was George’s office, on the end, which reeked of 30 years of cigarette smoke, and then a beautiful studio, with lights mounted to the ceiling on rails. There were two large community darkrooms: A BW darkroom with two rows of Leitz enlargers, and giant trays in a center island, with the final wash tank going through a wall to the well lit office area. The color darkroom, had fewer enlargers, a giant Noritsu machine to develop film (just like a one hour photo lab!), and a cool device called a Photovix, where you could view your negatives on a television monitor. All the chemicals were mixed and stored in gravity fed tanks upstairs. There were 4 full time printers on staff, because photographers were “supposed to be out taking pictures”….George designed it all. Most of the staff wore blue jeans to work every day, and they all had these impressive arrays of police ID’s, season credentials, and sharpies around their necks. Everyone had police scanners, and two way radios in their cars. They carried cell phones. The Gordon Gekko kind. It was awesome.
The Chronicle had hired their last staffer straight out of his internship. I quickly got it in my head, that if I did a good job, that I too would be hired, either by them, or at the very least, by some other newspaper at the end of my summer there. I literally did not take a day off for almost 4 months. Even if it was my scheduled day off, I would troll for “wild art” or accompany other photographers on assignments, hoping to build a set of portfolio pictures good enough to land me a job.
My first day was supposed to be the Tuesday after the Memorial Day holiday. All the interns (over 20 as I recall in all departments), were supposed to have a meeting in the managing editor’s office and then go to lunch.
Being super gung-ho, and scrambling frantically to replace pictures in my portfolio, I decided to spend Memorial Day at the VA cemetery, photographing the ceremonies there, not for publication, but just to get experience and maybe make a portfolio picture. Another photographer was already assigned and I wasn’t officially working there yet.
After shooting my photos, I drove down later that night to the paper just to process film (a free Noritsu machine! Free film! Cool!). While viewing my contact sheets on the Photovix, a copy editor walked by. “These are great!”, he said….and pretty soon they had two of my photos mocked up for the next day’s paper. I was shocked that they were even considering my photos at all.
I was terrified at the time that the staffer assigned to the VA cemetery assignment was going to kill me the next day. After all, he had turned in his assignment and I don’t even think he knew I was there. It was a touchy situation, I felt guilty, but I was lucky, he was congratulatory the next day, and became one of my good friends. It was a very classy gesture to such a young insensitive punk.
A clip, lovingly preserved by my best friend’s mother, who made a scrapbook of every single photo I had in the paper that summer.
It was an awesome feeling to walk into that intern meeting on Tuesday with both section fronts. They had run my photos, both verticals, as the main art on Page 1 and the Metro front. Tommy Miller, the ME, a gentle, nice man who just passed away earlier this year, said something like, “well, I guess you don’t need my help-keep up the good work.”
From there on George treated me like one of the staff, and continued to feed me good assignments all summer (much better assignments than I deserved). He even kept me on for an extra month or so at the end. George was tough – he was an icon straight out of the cigar chomping, fedora-wearing days of journalism. He had been the NPPA photographer of the year early in his career. There was no coddling or hand holding, just a quiet, intimidating presence. He was like a football coach that you didn’t want to ever disappoint. I didn’t get hired by the Chronicle, but I did land a job at the Augusta (Ga) Chronicle, and a year after that I was back in Houston working for the Houston Post.
The photos were not my best. Certainly not adept at lighting that day, I had blasted one of the veterans I photographed with a Metz 45 “Potato-masher” flash to bring the exposure of the sky down during the mid-day ceremony. Later in the year, my ego bubble was burst during a portfolio review at the Atlanta Seminar when the reviewer said, “Did this guy survive the radiation? – you blasted the shit out of him.”
I feel like I got in on the newspaper business just in time. Digital photography was in its infancy, we still shot film, sports photography still required the skill of manual focus, and there were older guys, like Curtis McGee, still on staff who could tell you stories about the flash powder days. I got to work with great photographers and learned a lot from guys like Buster Dean, Kerwin Plevka, E. Joe Deering, Steve Ueckert, Carlos Rios, Richard Carson, Paul Howell, Steve Campbell, and John Everett, each brought something different to the table. The paper spent money and covered big stories in those days: Dave Einsel spent several months doing a 40 page special section on Columbus’ impact on the New World, and Castleberry jetted off to Somalia to cover the famine and fighting there for over a month. It was an incredible experience, and some of the wisdom and advice from that summer still resonates through my head daily. While many of my friends graduated from college and went the assisting route, I was lucky enough to spend my summer at the Chronicle, driving all over Houston and getting to push the shutter button every day.
I shudder to think what might have happened had George not called me that winter morning in 1992.
I recently photographed a series of advertisements for ExxonMobil Chemical at one of their technology centers. We worked with a fantastic team from McCann Erickson in New York, and they did a great job of conceptualizing the final ads. The comp we were presented with showed a black and white image of an ExxonMobil scientist working in a lab environment with a detail breakout photo of a macro subject from their lab.
