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 .
…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.
…time of year again when I have to try and sort through a whole year’s work and try and pick a maximum of 20 bits of crap from about 3,000 bits of crap.
It’s time to start sorting through images in preparation for the PPAI annual awards which happen in early February, but entries have to be submitted by early January. This year I am slightly ahead of the game. Instead of the usual last minute panic where I have to grub around through a years worth of images, I started a folder in my archive around March and ever since have been putting “possibles” into it every month or so. Just so you don’t think I’m becoming delusional, the criteria for “possibles” is if I look at an image and don’t instantly think “Complete and utter shit”, it becomes a “possible”.
The PPAI is the Press Photographers Association of Ireland and the correct title for the awards is the AIB Photojournalism Awards (AIB being the sponsors Allied Irish Bank – thanks very much for the support).
So, the awards themselves. There are awards and there are awards. Some associations dish out awards like confetti at a wedding and photographers proudly claim to be “Award-winning”, but the awards remind me of doing homework at school. Get a 6/10 for your homework, but instead of a gold smiley, you get an award. People come away with 4 Gold, 6 Silver and 3 Bronze. WTF is that all about, it’s like “One for everyone in the audience” to quote a famous TV show here. Award-winning my arse.
Actually, I’ve just re-read that last bit above, and it does appear a little over critical. I still stand by it, but would also point out that I’ve seen some of the images and they are stunning. It’s not the quality of the images but the way that pretty much anything half-decent gets an award.
The PPAI Awards are not like that. Last year there were nearly 2,000 images entered, from around 120 photographers, competing for just 29 awards. There are 1st 2nd and 3rd in nine different categories which are: News, Features, Sports Action, Sports Features, Individual Study, People, Politics, The Arts and Picture Story.
Now if you’ve been paying attention you will have noticed that 3 awards x 9 categories = 27 awards, and I said 29 earlier. The missing 2 are: from all the entries the judges will pick one image to receive a special Humour Award and all the award winners will then have their whole entry reviewed and one will be declared as Photographer of the Year.
It’s a bit tough on the guys that specialise in one field, like sport, as generally the POTY award will go to someone that includes News, and Politics in their entry. These are Press Photo (Photojournalism) awards after all, and those would be fairly important categories.
It’s all a bit of fun though, and the award ceremony is a very posh do, with everyone in penguin suits or evening dresses (not decided yet which I’ll wear this year), and is a chance to meet up with people that you may only meet a few times, or even once, a year.
Every year I get the same problem though (well apart from only having crap to choose from). I can edit down to about 50 images very easily, then 30 or so fairly easily. It’s then a bit of a struggle but I can get down to 23 and then… stuck, and the more you try to make a decision on the final 20, the harder it becomes!
Half the fun, and also sometimes the main problem, is having to think up a title for the image when it is limited to 8 words.
So here’s just a few of my entry from last year, with the CATEGORY / title:
SPORTS ACTION / Gaelic Football – it’s a summer sport.
SPORTS ACTION / That’s going to be sore in the morning.
FEATURES / A word in your ear.
FEATURES /At the cow-wash.
INDIVIDUAL STUDY /Says who?
SPORTS ACTION / You chukka-it, I’ll hit it.
PEOPLE / This horse should be dead.
Time to go. I need to carry on with sorting the dross from the crap from the rubbish for this year’s entry.
…Mummy depending on which version of English you speak.
This assignment was nearly 2 weeks ago, but I had to wait until post-publication before I blogged about it. Didn’t have to I suppose, but it’s the normal etiquette (and sometimes a contractual requirement).
This is the tale of Mortified-Mommy, Snot Queen, Small One (The Artist formerly known as Princess of Puke) and Soon-To-Be. Not my terminology, but that of my subject that I was assigned to shoot, for one of the “Sundays”.
Actually Mortified-Mommy is my phrase, but was inspired by her own comments after the shoot. How do I know? She blogged about The Photo Shoot and I even got a mention! I think it’s the first time I’ve ever been mentioned in print. Well, if you discount the writs, the lawsuits and the banning orders….
My subject(s) of the day were a stay-at-home mother/blogger/author and family. Family in this case are 2 gorgeous little girls and a soon-to-be husband (poor soul, 3 women in one house, he’ll be driven demented in a few years time). The story was related to post-budget financial implications on families.
I arranged the shoot for early evening and was under instruction to get a couple of pics of mummy with girls, and a couple of both parents with girls, and a specific requirement for a “letter-box”. (See, occasionally I do listen to what a picture editor says. Not often I’ll admit, but just occasionally..).
A “letter-box” is a very wide but not very high image. It usually means it’s going be used in a page banner.
Snot Queen was just adorable and I fell for Small One immediately. How could I not? The instant I met her she smiled at me. I have that effect on females. Oh OK OK so the grown-up ones normally laugh at me, still….
So here we go with the images that we started before soon-to-be husband arrived:
I think most of the images were shot with 2 white shoot-through umbrellas. That option gave me plenty of light at various distances from the camera, as they tend to spray light everywhere. Mommy might have sat still if I’d asked, but I couldn’t guarantee the little ones working under instruction from me! I didn’t want anything too staged or formal, this was not an family portrait session in a studio, so I needed some lighting flexibility to allow a little freedom of movement.
“Soon-to-be” then arrived home, and was commissioned into action immediately (he hardly had a chance to get his coat off):
And then the “letter-box” image:
That doesn’t look much like a letter-box, because I only cropped it a little bit from the bottom, but by arranging the family in that way allows (if needed) the image to be cropped like this, to fit into a banner:
Now that is what I mean by a “letter-box” image.
In the end the “letter-box” wasn’t used. The top image posted above was slightly cropped up from the bottom and was used 6-column (full-page width), above the fold as a supplement Splash (page 1). Niiiice. It’s gives you a warm fuzzy feeling when your images are used nice and large, as opposed to the times when you bust your arse to get an image, and it’s used the size of a postage stamp!
So finally, for Mortified-Mommy:
Could you send me a biscuit? I didn’t have one while I was there as I don’t normally eat them, how do you think I keep my Adonis-like figure? (That’s Adonis if he’d lived to be 95).
After all the effort you went to though, I feel guilty now.
.
