One of my favorite things about editorial location portrait shoots is dealing with the unknowns. Usually you are working with individuals with limited availability and often times the shoot takes place at a location where we haven’t had the ability to work previously. It’s not uncommon to show up and have to do a quick assessment of 3-4 or more shoot scenarios and account for the lighting for each. Ideally, you would have an assistant and get to pre-light each portrait angle. Then again, sometimes the shoot evolves more organically and on-the-fly. In the case of this shoot with Brent Britton for Boston University, I had photographed at the Tampa Museum of Art previously but we were dealing with mid-day light so I knew we would be fighting hard light and shadows. As a fix, we rely on Broncolor strobe lighting. For location work, I heavily depend on the self-contained Siros heads. A good friend of mine was assisting me that day and we had some time to scout so I had a rough shot list by the time the subject showed up.
One of the more interesting aspects of portrait shoots is how differently individuals can look in the same position and the same lighting. There have been times where the main subject looks completely dissimilar from the pre-light simply from the light falling on the subject differently than the assistant who stood in for the pre-light. It’s rare, but there are times when you have to scrap a scenario because of this. I often think back to something National Geographic photographer Joe McNally said, which was, “Don’t be afraid to say this isn’t working.” Coming from a photojournalism background, there were so many times where you had to make a situation work that just wasn’t wanting to work - we often didn’t have any control of who we were photographing or where or when. With editorial portraits, the photographer often has complete control so there is no need to be married to a shoot scenario that isn’t producing good results. I used to be worried about offending the subject if I said something didn’t look good but I think with the right bedside manner, they often appreciate it- they don’t want to waste time and energy posing for an angle that isn’t going to make the cut.
Luckily, we didn’t have to scrap any of the angles that we scouted but some definitely looked or worked better than others. And sometimes that is almost wholly determined by the subject- some poses or facial expressions or a particular posture can just click and make a scenario that was previously okay or passable into a photo that anchors the story and other images. Keep an eye out for natural movements or gestures that your subject makes and use the ones that are visually appealing to work from and to help your subject feel at ease during the shoot. For more portraits, click here.
Alumni-Magazine-Editorial-Portait-Photography-Tampa
Anyone who knows me, knows I’m fascinated by history and the context it provides for current geopolitics. And few places have been more intriguing to me than Central Europe so I jumped at the chance to tour a handful of cities recently from Warsaw to Budapest with Megan.
It only seemed fitting that I grabbed my favorite camera and the remaining rolls of tri-x from my fridge for the trip. I was lucky enough to stand in front of some pretty amazing history. What was my favorite place? …I’d have to say I felt the strongest connection to Poland.
Hope you enjoy a few frames.
“A history of Europe is a history of Wars,” I was told. World War II is a part of history I don’t really think many people from my generation fully appreciate or understand. I say that because I’ve tried to study a decent amount of it and still find myself at a loss for comprehension of reason and scale. I don’t know that seeing Auschwitz-Birkenau or so many other places ravaged by war helped me understand, either. But undeniably, I came away with something I can’t put my finger on. Here are a few more frames…
Leica-tri-x
Europe
I’d been driving past these old cigar factories in Tampa since I’ve lived here, having no idea what they were or how much history they had in the area until I got a call from Tanner Curtis, a very talented editor at the NYT.
Stepping into the last cigar factory was like taking a step back in time, quite literally. I mean, when was the last time you saw an ashtray in a urinal stall- an ashtray that people still use. Still, it didn’t get any nicer than the people I worked with at the J.C. Newman Cigar Company. It’s a family-owned business that’s been around for 119 years.
You can check out the story by Lizette Alvarez here.
Thanks goes out to Tanner for the great direction and edit with the piece.
The first clue you’re being photographed is usually when you see the photographer raise a camera and point it in your direction. Not so with Google Glass.
My assignment was to photograph Rick Sare, a trucker who has been utilizing Google Glass to avoid becoming distracted while on the road. Sare was a super nice guy and very down to earth- you could tell he really enjoyed the technology and embraced everything it allowed him to do. I think it’s pretty safe to say that he way more tech savvy than myself.
Below is how the selected image ran in the magazine and the two images below that were taken by Rick from the Google Glass during the shoot. It was interesting being on the other side of the camera, while I was on the other side of the camera!
Every assignment is interesting- after all, that is the nature of photography and photojournalism, right? If it weren’t interesting, no one would be doing a story on it. So I showed up to the Pasco County School board to photograph Alison Crumbley about third party investors offering free life insurance to teachers. The catch is that they would also be the beneficiaries along with the school district and the families of those insured. Sounds pretty crazy, right? Check out the rest of the story here.
Visually speaking, we didn’t have a whole lot of options, or time for that matter. But Alison was great and accommodated a torrential rain storm that day as well as me for the shoot. Thanks for looking!
