A video of the lighting workshop webinar presentation Photoshelter founder Allen Murabayashi and I recently took part in is now available. The video features our live webinar from March 31st in which we discussed my lighting demo shoot with Michael Scott Creature from the SXSW festival in Austin last month. Taylor Jones, the owner of Texas Grip, provided us with a fabulous grip truck stocked with Profoto gear for our demo shoot.
The video has made the rounds among many of my favorite photography websites, including, David Hobby’s Strobist site, Rob Galbraith.com, and even the Profoto blog.
Lighting Scenarios
Photoshelter Webinar: Lighting it up in Austin
Recently, I had the opportunity to speak at SXSW in Austin at an event sponsored by Photoshelter. At the end of the seminar, we did a quick lighting demo with a local Austin musician, and we’ll share those photos, the planning, and the thought process that went into the demo this Wednesday night, March 31 from 6-7pm Central Time during a live webinar at Photoshelter.com. I hope you can join us.
Taylor Jones, a fabulous Austin digital tech (and owner of Texas Grip) provided support with live capture during the event, and provided most of the lighting equipment from his magically awesome grip truck. We were assisted by good friends Nathan Lindstrom, Todd Spoth, Will Rutledge, and Andrew Loehman. Profoto also helped out by loaning us some additional equipment for the event.
We thought it would be interesting to show a scenario that happens all too often in our business: How to deal with a subject with limited time in a single location. Planning and choreographing your shoot ahead of time and utilizing different lighting tools can make all the difference and can give your art director more setups to choose from.
We really lucked out by landing a great musician and artist to be our muse for the shoot: Michael Scott Parker, of Creature Rock. Michael used to live in San Francisco, and has been photographed numerous times by the trinity of rock and roll photographers: Michael Zagaris, Baron Wolman, and the late, great, Jim Marshall. She was great to work with, and I hope to shoot with her again soon.
Lighting Talk/Demo at SXSW in Austin
I’ve been asked to participate in an exciting event coming up on Saturday, March 13 in Austin, Texas. Photoshelter, the premier company helping photographers with websites, sales and marketing tools, file delivery and secure image archiving is putting together an exciting photo workshop in conjunction with the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference.
Allen Murabayashi, the CEO of Photoshelter will be presenting a program on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for photography websites. Allen and his colleague Grover Sanschagrin have studied photo websites and SEO more than anyone on the planet. (They are also two of the smartest people I know). If you haven’t checked out their FREE pdf reports on SEO, social media, and photography websites, then you’re just plain nuts. This will be a great presentation.
I’ll deliver a talk/slideshow showing a wide-ranging body of work, and talk about transitioning through different phases of a photography career. I started in newspapers, migrated to a magazine staff job, and then went out on my own as a commercial photographer. I’ll talk about each phase, the challenges of a changing marketplace, and (of course) show lots of photographs.
After a quick lunch break, there will be a panel discussion with my two of my good friends: stellar photographer, and BBQ buddy Darren Carroll (probably the best golf photographer in the world, and a helluva portrait shooter, too), and Taylor Jones (a fellow photographer who has made a name for himself as a super high-end digital tech, who works all over the country for some of the biggest names in the advertising world). Local photogs (who I don’t know personally – but am looking forward to meeting) Eric Hegwer, and Jack Hollingsworth will also be on hand to complete the panel. Together we’ll discuss both the art and business of photography.
At the end of the day, we’ll have a live photo shoot/lighting workshop. I’ll answer some lighting questions, talk about portrait concepts, research and planning. I’ll show you how to pull off a quick portrait shoot with a variety of looks in one location. Taylor will be on hand to demonstrate how a great digital tech operates. It should be a lot of fun, and I’m excited that they’ve asked me to participate.
The event will be from 11-4, at The Long Center for the Performing Arts, 701 West Riverside, Austin, Texas on Saturday, March 13, 2010.
Looking forward to seeing lots of folks there!
Creating a Sports Illustrated Cover shot
I recently had the good fortune of a great assignment in Lexington, Kentucky. I was sent there a couple of days after Christmas to photograph one of the top college basketball players in the country, John Wall, for Sports Illustrated.
My charge was to photograph Wall on the Kentucky campus in an iconic and easily recognizable setting. Lexington is an absolutely beautiful area, but the horse farms, race tracks (Bourbon distilleries?…..just kidding.) and the like were out due to the limited time we had with Wall, and oh yeah….it was about 24 degrees, completely overcast, snowing off and on, with 20-30 mph winds that day!
We couldn’t use Rupp Arena either, as the team was practicing throughout the day, and the women’s gym (the old coliseum) was being set up for a gymnastics event. I found a nice expanse of three large glass brick windows (the outside wall of an old swimming pool) on campus, but alas, it had been divided into classrooms/study halls for the athletic department tutoring program. Ugh! Most of the buildings with character on campus were closed for the holidays and we were quickly running out of options.
It’s tough trying to come back with nice pictures, when you have very little to work with in the background department, but it’s also the most common problem most photographers deal with. When pressed, I can take a 6-10 foot sliver of just about anything and make a passable shot. I was just about ready to stage the shoot in a practice gym, or a locker room hallway….hell, even a stretch of solid white concrete wall was looking pretty good to us at that point!
Fortunately, with the help of the Sports Information Director, we were able to convince a campus guard to let us access Memorial Hall, a grand old theater/church-like building on the campus. Anyone who is familiar with Kentucky knows this building, which is a memorial for soldiers killed in WW I, and dates back to 1929. During our scouting trip the night before, our plans were just to utilize the signature building in the background of some of the shots (although we knew we would have to work fast due to the weather conditions). When we got inside, it was obvious that the stage, with the cool arched windows in the background, could make a great and very graphic shot.
We had to make the most of our 35 minutes of alloted time, so SI assistant Andrew Loehman and I quickly went to work inside, setting up lighting gear in a central location around one spot, so that Wall would not need to move much at all. Since we originally planned to be outside on the campus, we brought Profoto 7B packs and heads for the assignment.
For the black background-tight shot we used a Plume Wafer 75 directly over and in front of the subject’s head on a boom, with a Lighttools 30 degree fabric grid to limit the spill. The rim-light was formed by two lights with regular reflectors and makeshift snoots from behind the subject on each side.. We intended for the background to go completely black, but since we were working in a white room with no black background, I placed a black reflector disc behind the subject’s head, in the event that background retouching was required (so there would be no issues with selecting hair).
For the full length shot, we used a Plume Wafer 100 with a 30 degree grid, high and to the subject’s right, and a Wafer 75 with 30 degree grid from behind on the left side of the subject…slightly lower. This formed a simple crosslight effect, and the grids kept the white walls of the room in check. I would have preferred using a larger light source for both of these, but the smaller boxes with grids were really the only solution to preserve the effect of the dramatic window in the background. We added a full CTO gel to the strobes so we could shift the overall white balance cooler, making the subject a normal skin tone color, but the window light slightly blue. For this shot, we did tight and loose static poses, and then just before moving on, I asked Wall to do a few leaps for me. He obliged with a few dramatic spring-loaded jumps. One of these was eventually selected for the cover.
Next, we quickly moved forward in the seats (about 20 rows back) to create a higher-key portrait from the middle of the hall (which I converted to black and white). Then we had John change into his warm ups (not for sartorial reasons, but for warmth), and sprinted outside with one light and a Plume Wafer Hexoval 140 (Plume’s medium hexoval). There we photographed Wall for 4 minutes or so at two different spots with Memorial Hall, with and without tungsten white balance settings. On the tungsten shots we added a full + 1/4 CTO gel to bring the strobe back fairly close to daylight on camera.
Wall was a great kid to work with, and I’m hoping to photograph him again someday (probably soon), when he makes his next leap to the NBA.
All Photographs in this article are © 2009 Robert Seale. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to link to these, but do not otherwise use without permission. Thanks.
Sports Portraits with Olympic Gymnast Raj Bhavsar
I had the opportunity to collaborate recently on some sports portrait photographs of Olympic gymnast Raj Bhavsar. Raj was on the 2001 and 2003 U.S. World Champion gymnastics team, and was a bronze medalist on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team in Beijing.
After a weather delay derailed our first shoot, we regrouped a week later and had a wonderful day with clear skies for our rescheduled shoot. One of the chief concerns was finding a suitable location for the shoot. Raj’s gym was a typical fluorescent lit nightmare for photography. I knew that we could get cleaner and more dramatic photos outdoor somewhere, but Raj is a badass in the rings event…..where do you hang his rings outside, so that you can still get a sky/clean background behind him?
After thinking for a few days, it hit me…..why not hang them from the goalpost of a football field? This is Texas, so football fields are everywhere and easily accessible. We wanted a location that might give us several different options, both with the rings and without, so we finally decided on Galveston Island. I used Google Earth to scout football fields, and to look at the directional layouts of various fields. Google Earth rules, and has become an invaluable scouting tool for us.
We began the shoot at Galveston Ball High School (we got permission from the school district first), and used a ladder to rig Raj’s ring setup to the crossbar of the goalpost. We decided to do this shoot with Raj dressed in jeans, and we did some shots with and without his shirt on to showcase his highly developed upper body.
After breaking down the ring setup, and after an interview and quick costume change we took Raj down to the Galveston seawall, and photographed him there. The evening light was beautiful and warm, so we went with natural light on this series. For sunset, we traveled to the end of the seawall and photographed him holding an amazing pose as the sun went down. The sunset shots were lit simply, with a Plume Wafer Hexoval 180 held by assistant Nathan Lindstrom over very uneven rocks in high winds. Raj was really interested in photography, so he made a fabulous subject. I can’t wait to work with him again soon.
The old strobe in the glove trick
I recently photographed Texas Rangers pitchers Neftali Feliz and Derek Holland for Sports Illustrated. While brainstorming ideas for the shoot with the photo editor, he mentioned a picture I had done several years earlier for a Sporting News cover of CC Sabathia in which I had lit Sabathia’s face with a small strobe hidden in his glove. He mentioned that he would like to see this treatment with the Feliz/Holland duo.
In the original photo, we lit the background with a strobe with a blue gel, to give a graduated spot on the background wall behind Sabathia. I then used a (no kidding!) 25 dollar Morris mini slave strobe in Sabathia’s glove……since the strobe was circular and of similar size to a baseball, we even shot some photos of him “throwing” the strobe/ball at the camera. It made a pretty cool picture.
Strangely enough, that photo of Sabathia was taken in Arlington when he was pitching for Cleveland, and visiting the Texas Rangers. Several years later, here I was in the SAME ROOM beneath the Ballpark at Arlington shooting Feliz/Holland in a very similar setup. Weird. Sometimes I feel like I know the hallways, storage rooms, and locker rooms of these stadiums better than the actual field.
The downside of using the Morris Strobe, is that they aren’t very powerful, nor can you vary the power. We decided that the much more sophisticated Canon 580’s would probably work much better……however hiding them in a tiny pitcher’s glove proved to be a challenge indeed.
Anyway, we knew the Rangers photo was to be combined in the final layout with several other pitchers from around the league, so we kept the background a simple black. I decided to rimlight the two guys with a pair of medium softboxes ( Plume Wafer 100) with a 30 degree grid on each side. We added a Plume Wafer 140 in the center of the set on a low stand directly below the camera, for fill. It was important to set the fill light at a low enough power to keep the white uniforms from blowing out. We just wanted the fill to barely illuminate some detail in the uniforms and faces of the players. Then we placed a Canon 580 Speedlight with an Omni-bounce in each player’s glove with a Pocketwizard Multimax to trigger each strobe.
It took some careful testing to get the ratios just right, which we of course tested before the players arrived (I think we got about 10 minutes with them).
Basically, we set the camera up at F11.0, then adjusted the softbox rimlights a full stop hotter (F16.0), the speedlights in the gloves were set and metered to 11 1/2, and the Wafer 140 softbox, our fill light, was set to 5.6 1/2.
In addition to this photo, we also shot individual portraits of both players, and a couple of different versions of a “safer” shot of the two of them together. For the “safe” shot, we simply ditched the 580’s, kept the rimlights in place, reposed the players, and raised the fill light onto a taller stand and adjusted the power up one stop.
Fashion Photography for GLOSS
I was recently asked to collaborate with the fashion staff of GLOSS, a monthly glossy broadsheet fashion publication produced by the Houston Chronicle (Hearst Newspapers). Over the past few months, I’ve shot four cover stories for GLOSS. I thought I would share a few stories from those shoots, since they presented some interesting lighting challenges.
Fashion photography is a nice break from shooting sports portraits of famous athletes, or annual report photography with CEO’s. It’s nice to be completely creative, and work closely with a talented team of writers, editors, stylists, and designers who produce the section. Even though you can experiment more and take chances with the lighting (more so, than with a CEO for example…); you still have to keep in mind the paramount principle of fashion photography….the point is to show (and sell) the clothes!
During our first shoot together last fall, our showcase piece of the season was a purple Dior suit made of ostrich. We really wanted the texture to come out in the exotic skin, so we kept the light soft and simple, but directional, with a dim backlight on the background in the center behind the model. The idea was that the model be almost anonymous, so your eye would really focus on the texture of the suit. We kept the lighting similar for a purple velvet hat/coat ensemble.
For a gray-purple Bottega Veneta coat, we took a slightly different lighting approach. The coat featured all sorts of embellished fabric….stacked layers of loops and fringes outlining the shoulders and sleeves of the coat. Lighting it in exactly the same manner as the other two wouldn’t show this critical signature feature of the piece, so we placed a Dramalight (a Flash Clinic custom modified optical spot), behind the model and tightly focused on her back to highlight the irregularities and loops of fabric in the coat. The keylight was a Plume Wafer 100 with a Lighttools fabric grid to limit the front light to her face and front ¼ of the clothing.
Many of the clothes had a funky sixties feel to them, so our makeup artist, Wendy Martin created some really over-the-top heavy eye makeup to keep with that era.
With the exception of the different treatment of the Bottega Veneta coat, we used a Photek Softlighter (essentially a 60” umbrella, with a diffuser on the front) as our main light for most of the day. With the grey background formed by either not lighting (or in some cases barely lighting) the white cyc wall background, this gave a very similar look to Avedon’s 60’s lighting style, which fit well with the dresses and makeup.
The Photek is an interesting piece of gear. At 90 bucks, I often call it my “Ghetto Octabank”, but in reality it gives a look with more contrast. If you place it close to the subject on a high boom, you get a similar look to the lighting style of Avedon or David Bailey in their 1960’s heyday.
Lance Armstrong in 4 minutes flat
UPDATE 8/24/2012: Lance Armstrong Portrait photographs available – contact us directly for information.
I recently had the opportunity to photograph seven time Tour de France champ and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in Austin, Texas for an editorial client.
Lance was preparing for his Tour de France comeback, so he was only in Austin for one or two days in the time period that would make our deadline, so there was a very narrow window to schedule the shoot.
Celebrities have lots of demands on their time, and are often dealing with tons of requests for interviews, photo shoots, etc. Lance preparing for the Tour was no exception. On the day we were shooting him, he had a charity event scheduled, two or three television interviews, a live radio broadcast, and our shoot….all crammed between 7:30 and 9am, so that he could train the rest of the day.
Lance owns a really cool bike shop in downtown Austin called Mellow Johnny’s, and the shoot (as well as the other events) was scheduled for the bike shop location. We scouted the shop the day before, and determined that the best location would be in the basement area of the shop, where we could essentially set up a studio shoot, away from the charity event crowd and his other interviews. For the shots of Lance, we knew ahead of time, that we were only going to get a portrait of him in a Livestrong t-shirt. He was not going to pose in a jersey and bike helmet, he wasn’t going to pose on a bike….it wasn’t going to happen, so, in a way, it simplified things. The question then became, how many looks can we get out of a black t-shirt portrait in 4 minutes?
With limited time and no props, and no environment, I decided to try to get as many different looks as possible in the short time frame available. If you try to move a celebrity around to multiple locations, or move lighting equipment during the shoot, you are wasting their time, and you risk the shoot being over even quicker. The best way to photograph them and get multiple looks, is through careful planning, and essentially encircling them with all the lighting equipment you’re going to use.
I decided on three shots: The first would be a double rimlit tight portrait, with a small stripbank over camera; the second shot would be a broad softbox source –a large Plume Hexoval 180 slightly from the side; the third shot, would be a dramatic profile, lit with a Plume Wafer 100 with a Lighttools 30 degree fabric grid, with a projection of a bike wheel centered behind his head.
We started with a grey seamless backdrop, because we knew in the limited space that we had, we could use it as a grey/tan backdrop, we could make it go black, or if necessary, the art director could make a clip path and turn the background white….it gave us a range of options.
We arrived early, near 5:30am and began our setup. Each lighting setup was plugged in to a different set of power packs, so that we could switch between setups simply by turning power packs on and off. This kept things organized and simple, and allowed us to get multiple looks without fumbling around, switching heads, packs, stands, etc.
Andrew Loehman, the assistant on the shoot, actually hung a real bike wheel from a piece of fishing line, and held it at the proper distance between the background and the light to create the shadow of the wheel on the wall. A custom Dynalite projection spot provided the light. With more time, we could have created a custom bike wheel “cookie” for the spot, but with limited prep time, an actual wheel was used to provide the signature bike wheel shape.
Lance was in and out of our setup in about 4 minutes. Other than turning his body 90 degrees for the profile shot, he never moved, and even with that limited amount of time, without changing his wardrobe, and without a bike, we were able to give the art director several looks to choose from for the story.
(All photos © 2009 Robert Seale. All Rights Reserved. – please do not post, right- click, steal, or otherwise use any of our photos without permission. For licensing info, contact Robert Seale Photography through the “Contact Info” link on the right)
Nikon vs. Canon Hi-Res shootout
I recently had the opportunity to test the new 24.39 megapixel Nikon D3X. I currently use the Canon EOS1Ds MkIII, which shoots a 21.1 megapixel file, but I’m always looking for the best equipment, and I try not to buy anything without testing it first. In addition to some lens tests and landscape shooting, where I compared the lenses I would most likely be using to my current Canon equipment, I also put together a studio shoot to compare systems. I figured it made sense to set up a shoot with people and interesting lighting, since that is the main focus of my business. I was anxious to see what the camera could do under controlled conditions, with light falling on a subject from highlight to shadow.
With my good friend and stellar makeup artist Wendy Martin, we came up with a couple of ideas. One of my favorite places on the planet is California’s El Mirage dry lake bed. Inspired by that location, I’ve always wanted to do a photo of someone covered in cracked earth makeup.
Wendy knew all of the tricks for making this happen, and was quickly able to research and buy all the right supplies and colors for the shoot.
Next, we needed the perfect model for the shoot. We were hoping for someone with a shaved head and really interesting eyes. We looked at a lot of models, but my favorite was Curtis Brown, of One Model Management. Curtis is a veteran model, and has been featured in Soloflex and REI ads. He has killer green/hazel eyes. He travels all the time for modeling work all over the country, but we were very fortunate to land him for a day and collaborate with him on our shoot.
We booked a rental photo studio with Holly McDonald, a fabulous producer from 808, Inc., and were all set for our shoot. Nathan Lindstrom was on board as an assistant to complete our small crew for the day.
Wendy spent quite a bit of time mixing the masque material with various airbrush colors and a powdery red makeup, that almost looked like dirt. After experimenting for a while, we discussed airbrushing the cracked masque in various colors, particularly earth-tones, but finally decided that the reddish color would be a great contrast to Curtis’ eye color.
After mixing the makeup, it was time for Wendy to apply several thick coats to Curtis’ head and shoulders. She used a hair dryer to dry the makeup until it started cracking. Just the movement of Curtis’ facial muscles and skin caused the tight dry makeup to crack and give us the perfect look we were all after.
We had two different lighting schemes in mind, but eventually decided to stay with a very simple setup……one large Plume Wafer Hexoval, slightly to the right of the camera, equipped with a single Dyna-Lite 4040 head.
Everyone did a great job, particularly Curtis, who sat for hours with all sorts of gunk caked all over his face. He is a serious pro.
Both cameras produced great files, but in the case of this particular picture, I thought the camera I currently use, a Canon EOS1Ds MkIII, produced the best image. I shot several tests over a couple of weeks with the D3X, but this photo was instrumental in convincing me to stay with my current Canon system.
Read more about my Nikon D3X vs. Canon EOS1Ds MkIII test at Sportsshooter.com.
Under Armour Lacrosse Ads
I thought I would share a cool job I did for Under Armour a while back. Under Armour began as a small sports specialty clothing company based in Baltimore, Maryland. Legend has it that the founder, a Maryland football player named Kevin Plank, started the company after he was unsatisfied with the t-shirts and undergarments players wore under their football uniforms. His company was the first to develop the stretchy, moisture-wicking fabrics that are commonplace today.
Anyway, Under Armour has grown into a gigantic company that makes all sorts of sports apparel and shoes. I was contacted by them to do an advertising shoot featuring their new line of products for lacrosse players.
We used real college lacrosse players as models, which was a huge help, since I’m a Texas guy. Football, basketball, baseball, track and field: no problem…..but I was not equipped to teach any models the finer points of lacrosse form.
Fortunately for all of us, the Art Director from Under Armour, Steve Grudzien, did a great job of imagining the final ad. His idea was to shoot a sequence of a player in action, and then combine the individual shots into a composite. Since we were shooting in the daytime on a lacrosse field, we had to really crank the strobes to overpower the ambient light and create the backlit “Under Armour Lighting” that the brand is known for in all their advertising.
Steve did a great job of seamlessly combining 5 separate shots into the finished ad.
We had two great models to work with, so after nailing down the sequence shot, we set up mats on the field and staged some diving shots. We slowed the shutter a little on these to create a bit of motion blur around the player. Another Under Armour designer, Megan Bolster did a great job of designing the diving shot into another cool ad.