You can almost consider this the second season of Field Lighting, especially since I haven’t posted one since November of last year! Think of this as a reemergence, then, and since I don’t have to keep some larger portrait projects under wraps anymore, you’ll hopefully see more of these in the near future!

The last Field Lighting post focused on photographing a local artist, and what better way to reintroduce the series than with another. James Watkins is a world-class ceramicist (you may have dug up a couple posts about him from earlier here and here), and I’ve been fortunate to photograph and visit with him several times over my career. The most recent shoot took place last July, and it produced some of my favorite portraits in my portfolio. I believe one of the reasons for this is because I sat down and visited with him for close to three hours a week earlier and interviewed him for the story I wrote to accompany the images. During this time, I was able to learn more about Mr. Watkins than I usually do in conversation with many folks I’m photographing. Conversation is key for creating storytelling images, and when the opportunity comes along to have more one-on-one time with your subject, take advantage of it! It just so happened that I pitched the story about Mr. Watkins, and the magazine wanted me to write and shoot it. I think it worked out for everyone involved!

We’ll come back to the image above later. To show this shoot chronologically, we’ll start in Mr. Watkin’s living room. This is where we spent our time talking weeks before, and during that visit, I began to see how representative this room was of the artist. I saw him sitting in the exact same location that you see him in the photograph (I was sitting directly across from him), loved the colors, the design, the art, and the large window to his right.

When I came back for the shoot, I knew we would start in the living room. The large, north-facing window poured attractive light in between the blinds, but to my dismay, it wasn’t quite as shaping as I wanted. For consistency purposes, though, I sought to replicate the same light. I placed an ever-trusty Elinchrom Rotalux 39″ softbox off to camera left, and feathered it past his face, making sure Mr. Watkins’s left side fell into a contrasty dark, yet still maintain a bit of detail. The height of the light was just above his head (the center of the light, that is), and the shadows fell attractively downward, imitating the light from the large window. Pointing the light down and feathering it past his face just a small bit helps create a natural vignette, as you can see in the shadows creeping in at the top and bottom left of the frame. We like that area, but it’s not what we’re here for. It’s there to complement the subject, help say something about him–not necessarily to override his identity. The exposure was made in consideration for the lamps framing the artist, balancing just enough so the wall (not the inside of the lampshade) would not overexpose.

I never leave a shoot without making a headshot, and on our walk through his backyard to his studio, I placed him in front of a dark green tree. The same 39″ Rotalux was placed high and to camera right. This time, the light was not as feathered, and you can see a bit of the artificial light filling in the shadow side of his face. The sky was fairly cloudy at this moment, so the more blue-toned shadow came as a result. The power from the Elinchrom was relatively low in order to avoid overpowering the ambient light much. The low power also allowed me to shoot with a very open aperture (f/3.2) at 200mm, a tight focal length for filling the frame up comfortably.

The first image in this post, as well as the second image in the diptych, were made inside Mr. Watkins’s studio. I’ve photographed him throwing clay several times in a teaching environment, but this time, the one-on-one experience was much more accommodating of the camera. The studio, adorned with wooden shelves holding supplies, several tables with pieces waiting to be fired, and photographs of his travels lining the walls, was very much where his art came alive.

The ceiling in the studio was very high, and it reminded me of what we know of Rembrandt’s studio, where light poured in through cheese cloths placed in windows high above the floor. When Mr. Watkins sat down at the wheel, clay plastered towel over his pants, all I could think of was replicating this same light. Instead of using the Quadra+Rotalux combination, I opted to use a much lower-powered Canon 580EX+Pocket Wizard through a 30″ shoot-through umbrella. I placed it high and to camera left. Balanced with the room’s ambient light values, the idea for this shot was not to create what looked like an obviously lit shot, but rather one that imitated the light Rembrandt once used to light his portraits: directionally-diffused and at a high angle. After getting what I felt was the appropriate balance between ambient and artificial, I was free to move around the artist and the wheel as if that was the general light source for the room. The first image in the post actually ran as the opening spread to the story, and while I like it, I’m actually a much bigger fan of the vertical shot you see in the diptych. Compositionally, those lines and the very high, wide angle shows an artist among his environment in a way that speaks to me more so than the top image. Design-wise, the top one made the cut, though!

The last set of images I made of Mr. Watkins were simple yet telling environmental portraits with his soon-to-be-fired work. Like I mentioned earlier, he had several pieces setting on a nearby table in the studio, and I simply used them as foreground content to frame him up against the wall of images in the background. The lighting is much the same as the others shot in the studio (so, I won’t leave you with another diagram; you can reverse-engineer this one by looking at the reflection in his glasses and by following the direction of the shadows). Here’s a tip, though: when shooting in the same environment as other setups, it’s wise to try to recreate the same light.

The key to this shot was composition. The framing achieved with the pots work, but it’s actually the lines of frames on either side of the wall that further lead the viewer’s eyes to Mr. Watkins. All of the framing mechanisms seem to be saying, “Look at this man!”

It was certainly a pleasure getting to photograph and visit with James Watkins more, and I’m glad to see the story turned out so well in the magazine. Speaking of which, you probably noticed that in terms of composition and the Rule of Thirds, Mr. Watkins is placed in the right of the horizontal frames. I noticed this more when editing the images after the shoot, and one can always say: shoot for design. An art director or designer is always looking for images that both tell story and work within their vision as well. The choice to place Mr. Watkins in the right of the frames just seemed to be the natural fit for each location. However, I did have to go back through and make sure there were plenty of images with varying composition, ha!

Thanks for sticking with the Field Lighting series, and look forward to more additions coming soon! Thanks again to James Watkins, and if you ever get a chance to visit his studio or spend time with his art, you’re better for it!

If you go back to the very first Field Lighting post, you’ll know that I try to introduce lighting concepts used pragmatically in the field, on assignment. I haven’t strayed too far, and I don’t intend to. Sometimes, it’s nice to revisit some of the more basic lighting concepts, mainly because these “basic” ideas is what can make or break a shoot. Such was the case for this mid-morning shoot with metal artist, Charise Adams.

I enjoy working with and photographing artists, and Charise was certainly a joy to watch work! Charise owns EdibleMetal, a unique decor and art company where she creates original pieces from metal work for local, national, and international clients. Charise’s husband, Ted, incorporates his clay work with some of the metal art, and her colleague and studio neighbor, Kate Williams, supplies custom glass work for others. All in all, it’s a pretty familial force that produces the art and runs the business. I’m always appreciative of assignments to photograph artists, because you always know you’ll be documenting creative passion! It also doesn’t hurt when the light works for you!

Maybe it’s my background in the agricultural industry, maybe it’s just the smell of burnt metal, but I feel oddly home inside a metal shop. I’ve been known to spend upwards of three hours photographing inside tool sheds and large ranch shops. One of the reasons I enjoy shooting these environments is the source of the light, which is usually created by large sliding or overhead doors. Sometimes, there’s even a skylight, and those can be great sources of fill light. Charise’s metal shop was roughly the size of a large room in a storage building. Large enough for an eight to ten foot overhead door and a normal shop door, this shop was a prime location for photographing her work. Why?

My goal in photographing people doing their thing is to be the least intrusive possible, particularly when that particular person moves around quite a bit. I also try to work efficiently, because I have to move around a lot as a result! If I’m not, I’m not doing my job. I’m not saying that I won’t throw some light around in the process (usually in this type of situation, I’ll resort to one speedlite in a shoot-thru or small softbox), but when I saw that huge overhead door roll up, I was a happy man! The door to Charise’s shop faces due West, and it was mid-morning. All of that indirect light pouring in to the room was worth its weight in gold and a lot more valuable than any large octabox you could have put in that room!

Large light is good light when you are trying to work in an active environment. Large light wraps around and creates beautiful shadows on what you are photographing, it’s just a matter of shooting from the angle that shows off this graduated transition between light and shadow. When I teach this concept to my students, I mention two things worth noting in regards to light: 1) the direction of the light, and 2) your angle in respect to the light source. Knowing how to operate around these two pieces of advice can help problem-solve a precarious light situation.

The image at the very beginning of this post is a good example of this concept. Her work at this table was performed almost perpendicular to the light. Then she turned into the light, just enough to create the evident transition between light and shadow. Perfect! The light from the door was hitting her in a way that gave her more contrast-based dimension than what she had when she was directly facing me in her work. You can spend thousands on studio lighting equipment to get this type of light (believe me), or if given the opportunity, you can find it naturally as what is often referred to as directionally-diffused light. Directionally-diffused light is simply substantial light that does not include direct sunlight, yet is not so diffused like an overcast sky would give you. The sun was overhead by this time of day, and it did not threaten to drop down into the door, so we could have worked in the shop all day with relatively similar light the entire time! Essentially, this IS the light studio modifier manufacturers are trying to recreate when they build large softboxes and similar tools for shaping photons.

Wait, we’re not done yet. When the light is large enough, it pours over everything in the environment. This being the case, balancing the exposure of the walls with Charise was simple. Using the dark was behind her as the backdrop, she easily stood out due to the reflection off her shirt and skin. The difference in these values (background and subject) was enough to pull her off an otherwise busy background, even though it is out of focus due to low depth of field.

What about the sparks? This is an exposure and time call. The sparks themselves are not all that intense in value, so there’s no real issue of them completely blowing out and creating a major distraction (rather, you want a contributory distraction that says it is indeed a part of the environment). Working with the desired exposure I had going, I just adjusted my shutter speed (countering with the aperture for exposure equivalency) until the spark streaks were, in my opinion, just right. This ended up being about 1/100 of a second.

The light values of the environment were even enough to not have to worry about exceeding the camera’s dynamic range where it counted. This is a blessing when you realize you don’t have to set up any lights and can work unencumbered (as seen in the above shot taken by Charise’s daughter, Ivy, an aspiring photographer herself)!

Finally, I can’t leave a shoot without getting a headshot (a ‘mug’ as some of my editors affectionally call it) and an environmental portrait. Again, the size of the light in this area was just too easy to work with. By turning Charise in to the light slightly, I was able to keep the shadows I wanted and show off the work in her face. All the time, the softness of the light providing warmth for skin tones and color.

I could go on and on about big light, but I better stop here. I just wrapped up a book project for a university entity, and I’m excited to be able to share some of the shoots involved soon on Field Lighting. I have been working with a few new light modifiers (new to me at least), and I’ll be posting images and reviews soon!

As always, thanks for reading! Comments and Questions are open! I’d love to hear from you.

When I posted last about James Watkins’s hands, it struck me that most of the posts regarding lighting and photoshoots (in my world at least) revolve around using some sort of artificial lighting technology. I love using lights, and if you’ve read this blog enough, you’ll know that I’m a diligent user of several gonzo-sized sticks of dynamite-like photons, er, I mean studio and flash strobe systems.

What doesn’t get paid its due in this world of gear, gear, and more gear, are those times when “lights” aren’t needed. Take for example the photograph in the previous post. Uninhibited by gear, I was left able to just simply find the light. Although it doesn’t present itself to be as simple as we all would really want, when you do find it, you’re more likely to find it later! I was shooting an assignment for a magazine on the art classes held every summer in Junction, and I spent a great deal of time working in the pottery class, taking advantage of the beautiful, directionally diffused light coming in through the screen windows (below is a shot of the interior of the studio where the class was working). The shot in the previous posts, as well as the one above and one below were taken of Mr. Watkins in the right-hand corner of the building you see here. Non-directional light flowing in from everywhere, and the highlight kicker touching his hands came from the window to which he was sitting closest.

Directionally diffused lighting that occurs naturally offers soft, wrapping light that is more subdued in intensity, giving your camera (and you) a break in dynamic range limitations. The values in the shadows and highlights come a bit closer, and you’re able to capture detail in both areas more easily as opposed to shooting outside in direct sunlight at high noon (blech). In essence, it’s a naturally occurring softbox or scrim.

And this light rocks! It can be soft and subdued, or even more dramatic, particularly when it is more directional, such as the shot below taken in the evening. Notice that nice highlight on the artist’s hands.

Basically, this light is coming from behind and nearly level (in terms of the sun) with the window it is passing through. That nice, warm evening light makes everything dramatically tangible, and it’s something that many folks using artificial lights strive to recreate! Hats off to those who do!

So there, it’s always a good practice to review the light given to you naturally, particularly if you’re on assignment and needing to move faster than your assistant (or yourself). In this case, I don’t think artificial lighting would have done this work any justice, especially given the subject and his artwork!

I probably have this in a previous post (no doubt a failure of my memory), but I just wanted to post one of my favorite shots taken over the past few years. These are artist James Watkins’s hands. I have an upcoming Field Lighting post generated around this shot and a few portraits of this great ceramicist, but I thought I would go ahead and show this one. I just love the light, the texture, the work taking place, the solidarity of the subject, and the combination of a moving and a still subject play in tandem to make this image come together for me!

Hands are so important to many craftsmen/women and artists. For this reason, I’ll always consider this one of my best portraits!

Please provide any interpretation of the shot that you feel like…

Meet Catherine Keeney, a super artistic jewelry designer. A few weeks ago, I had the chance to photograph her work for a Lookbook that she is using to promote her jewelry to fine fashion entities across the nation. As you can see, she has a unique vision with her jewelry, and the Gallo-Roman inspired designs meet up nicely with modern styling. Visit her Web site here.

The idea was to go for a very clean look, really emphasizing the offerings of the jewelry, such as the black diamonds, brushed white gold, sapphires, etc…

For you photogs out there wondering about shooting, all jewelry shots were made under a shoot-tent, a large box made of diffuse material similar to what a shoot-thru umbrella is made of. There were three strobes placed at 90 degrees to each other surrounding the tent, and the power was kept relatively low for depth of field purposes. Extension tubes, those that I used to make the Texas Tech Alumni ring shots I mentioned in an earlier post, were utilized once more.

All images made with a Canon 5D Mk II and 24-105mm f/4 L and 70-200mm f/2.8 L.

This is a quick post, but definitely check out Catherine’s work. She is super talented, and so is her husband, Stayton Bonner. We have worked together on a couple projects, and I’ll have more on that later!