Apologies if you’ve just used a search-engine and are looking for the 1969 Sydney Pollack directed film about a dance marathon, but this is nothing to do with it.
This is about me shooting horses, actually more about shooting a horse-trainer, and only shooting with a camera.
I was assigned last week by one of the “Sundays” to head out into the countryside early on a very cold morning to shoot a feature on former jockey, now trainer, Jim Culloty. Jim won many races as a jockey, including the Cheltenham Gold Cup three times in succession aboard Best Mate.
I met up with the journalist and we arrived together, so while the interview was taking place, I was off scouting locations and setting up lights.
By the time the interview was finished, I had my shot-list sorted out in my head, and lights set-up in two locations.
First up was a shot in the Yard, one-light with a mini softbox:
Then there was an archway that led from the Yard to the Gallops and I wanted something there. This was going to be quite difficult to balance the daylight coming into the arch from the Yard, with the darkness underneath the arch itself. I had set-up two lights on stands behind the conveniently located doors that hid them, both firing out towards the entrance at about 45deg. As best I could guess I had the power about right, at least that’s what the images of the back of my hand were telling me!
I had my subject lead a horse through the archway, and believe it or believe it not, I’d nailed the flash-power with the 1st image:
I made another couple in different locations, here’s one:
The one that was used was actually taken in one of the stables, no lights, just subject interacting with one of the horses. Out of about 6 frames I chose this one to transmit and it was used pretty-near full page width:
That was it. 15 minutes to set-up lights, 20 minutes shooting, 5 minutes to pack-up lights and 30 minutes & 20 miles down the road before I could feel my fingertips again.
…including completely flooding the basement of the prestigious Lewis Glucksman Gallery in University College Cork. Kind-of created a bit of a problem, as that’s where artworks are stored when an exhibition finishes, before being returned to their source.
It rains a lot in Cork of course, but this was ever so slightly over-the-top rain. It was like India in monsoon season this past winter, and so when an already just-about-breaking-it’s-banks river had a gazillion tons of water released into it from the dam up-river, the city ended up like Venice on a bad day (and I know Venice on a bad day, I lived near it for some time).
A couple of months later and I was assigned by one of the “Sundays” to create some images for one of their magazine supplements. This was to be a “How is it now?” type feature after most of the art that was damaged has undergone a conservation process. Not much to be done on images showing the actual conservation, but some of the work was back on display, and that would do me. Of course I’d need to add a yooman-been into the images as well, as that’s what I mostly do, make images with yoomans in them (well apart from wedding images of course, I’d rather eat a bucket of s…..).
So, luckily for me the Director of the gallery was available to be photographed. Pause for a moment now, while you imagine some kind of mad-professor type (like astronomer Patrick Moore) wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches.
Fortunately, SHE is nothing like that. There is one problem with her though (it’s OK F, don’t panic), she wears glasses (eyeglasses for U.S. readers). Very nice they look too, BUT, glasses as with anything reflective, can create a problem when using flash lighting. I want to see my subjects eyes, not a big flare from the glass, so particular care is needed when making images with a subject wearing glasses.
So here’s a little look at how I lit this assignment. For once I kept quite a few of the setting-up and testing shots to give me enough ammunition for this post.
So here’s one of the images (the one that was used in the magazine btw):
Looks simple enough right?
Except, this was the starting point at the aperture & shutter speed I wanted to work at:
I started off with half an idea that I was going to try and get away with the one-light approach, but in reducing the flare on the painting, I was starting to get too much of a side-lit portrait. That’s not too bad if the subject is a man and you want dramatic lighting, but for a lady? I don’t think so. There was too much “fall-off” to the right side of the painting as well:
I really needed to get some separation as well. No, not as in “Six Degrees of Separation”, I just needed one degree, subject – separation – painting. The separation is basically just getting some light behind the subject in order to “lift” them away from the backdrop, so they don’t merge into too much of a “flat” image.
So, I was going to keep the one-light (Ezybox softbox) as the key from left, but add a second light as the fill from the right. Hmm, small problem, there’s a wall in the way.
Time I think for the famous napkin lighting-diagram, except I can’t find a white paper napkin, so it’ll have to be kitchen roll:
As is customary with extremely accurate and highly complex Technical Plans & Drawings, I offer the following warnings:
Not to scale.
Double-check all measurements.
If in doubt ask.
That gave me just about what I wanted:
And the final image again:
The umbrella just put some nice soft light between subject and painting. If you want to see it larger it’s on my website in the Editorial section. Can’t put a permalink to the specific image as I move things around in the portfolio, but it won’t be far from the start. I think the image really “pops”.
I then went for something slightly different, and put subject and a part-restored piece on the floor, softbox on subject, and umbrella into ceiling bouncing back for art-piece. Shame it still needed to be covered as part of the conservation, but we rotated it until there was enough clarity to see what it was:
In between those two images, I made another one, but I saved it until last, as it’s my favourite.
There was a wall where there was some descriptive text regarding the conservation. This was the ambient light that I had to work with:
Similar lighting problem to image-one there though. Too much direct flash and the writing would disappear. Not enough and it would be too dark to see that any writing was there at all. Solution was similar to the first image, except softbox and umbrella reversed like this:
And the resultant image:
So there it is.
The Glucksman Gallery is a fabulous place to visit if you happen to have some time when in Cork. Wonderful location, fabulous (award winning) building, great exhibitions and ADMISSION IS FREE!! (make a donation though, it’ll cost you less than a couple of cappuccini). Open every day except Mondays. No-one gets in on Mondays, unless you happen to be a photographer on assignment .
…of my blog will know, it’s normally only a twice-weekly assault on your senses (Mondays & Thursdays), but I did promise you an update on the AIB Photojournalism Awards of the Press Photographers Association of Ireland (PPAI). The awards ceremony was last Friday in the Burlington Hotel in Dublin (or The Burlo as the Dubs are inclined to call it). Facebook page followers usually receive a daily dose of verbiage, but that’s normally just a link to images I find elsewhere that I found of interest.
So apologies if you don’t expect to have to put up with my valuable insights drivel more frequently, but here we go:
Al the other individual category winners are on the PPAI website as well, but if you just want a quick link to the categories, together with the first place award they follow now:
Sports Action: Ermmm, seriously underwhelmed here. Without wishing to sound bitchy – none. The only one I like is by Andy Paton, and although it’s in the catalogue, I can’t find it on the website so can’t show you. Moving swiftly along….
Sports Features: Bog Snorkelling by Cathal McNaughton, 3rd place and Lone Rider by Lorraine O’Sullivan, short-listed.
Individual Study: The Indian by Julian Behal, 1st place.
That’s it. An exhibition of the images will be travelling around the country visiting many of the AIB branches during the coming year. Do visit if you get a chance. It’s difficult to convey the images properly on a website. Even in this day-and-age, the printed image is much more powerful.
Lastly, big it up (is that what one says nowadays?) for Allied Irish Banks (AIB) for their sponsorship, and all at Mary Crotty PR for organising the awards and the awards ceremony.
…no not that type of playing the field. Get your mind out of the gutter.
This is more like playing ON the field. I was assigned the other day / week / can’t remember exactly, to get a few portraits of one of the Cork Gaelic footballers, or is it Cork Hurlers?
Actually it’s both, as he’s going to be playing both codes this season. That used to be not uncommon, but with the increase in training and match schedules, in the last few years nearly everyone has opted to declare for one or the other. Even the legend that is Seán Óg decided that Hurling would be it, rather than continue with both.
Bear in mind, for those not of the Irish persuasion, that Gaelic Games is an amateur sport. These guys aren’t professional athletes. They have to work full-time, in addition to all the training for their chosen sport.
So the time for the assignment was set, and the journo was due to interview him at around the same time, which (at this time of year) was fast approaching dusk. As usual, journo had a ready-made excuse as to why he needed to go first (sorry Michael, couldn’t resist ), so it meant I’d be shooting in near darkness outside by the time he’d finished the interrogation.
The location was a hotel, which, in common with most modern hotels, is a bit restrictive in terms of backgrounds. Still, no worries, it was going to be pitch fricking dark anyway for the outside shots. At least said hotel has a little bit of a garden that I could probably make use of.
Did a couple of shots inside, a half-length:
and then a close-up:
There were also a couple outside:
and the stand-out image for me:
All images were the old favourite – one-light. The half-length was using a 24mm lens, the close-up a 135mm and the 2 outside using what is increasingly becoming my favourite lens – a 50mm. All those years of going round and round in circles with different lenses, going from wide-angle to wider-angle, and I’m now back where I was donkeys years ago, shooting a full-frame camera with a 50mm lens. Technology, PAH.
So which one was published? None of those above. No, as usual they published the only one I didn’t really like which I haven’t shown. Typical.
Lady readers please stop drooling before you go to work.
…Mark Condren, staff photographer with Ireland’s Sunday Tribune newspaper, who was named last night as the PPAI Photographer of the Year at the AIB Photojournalism Awards in Dublin.
Superbly consistent photographer and all-round nice guy, he must have come close on several occasions in the past to receiving the award.
I can’t remember all the winners by category and as I left the catalogue in Dublin (well done Einstein) I’ll hold off on a review for a while.
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