Late as usual, but you have to give a guy a break when he’s trying to re-invent his time management.

I’m rather fond of this image. I’m especially drawn to the hair-like flow of the dried corn stalk leaves, almost as if they’re ready to bow out for the season. The pivot, a signature characteristic of the plains, simply resigns to the oncoming of another cold season.

To be honest, it was made the same evening as the October calendar was shot. The fall skies in West Texas are nothing but impressive, and I enjoy nothing more than just driving the Llano Estacado during this time of year and running down the sunset. Alternatively, the color in the sky makes up for the lack of it on the ground this year.

For those interested, the book is wrapping up well, and should be shipping in just a little over a month. I can’t describe how excited I am to have it out, and I hope you find it useful in your photographic storytelling!

Enjoy.

Large: 2400 X 1600 pixels

Laptop: 1440 X 960 pixels

iPad: 1024 X 1024 pixels

iPhone/iPod: 960 X 640 pixels

Most of Texas would certainly be happy with a little rain right now, even if it brought with it a bit of ferocity! This menacing looking thunderstorm came in during September, 2007, and it was what some folks in this area call a “gullywasher.” We definitely could use a washing of any kind right now! Drought cycles come and go, but for those of you that live in semi-arid to arid environments know it’s never easy on the land, its flora, fauna, and other inhabitants. It’s certainly not easy when wildfire ignites and makes its way across thousands of acres.

For those interested, the exposure for this hot storm was 1.0 seconds at f/22, ISO 50 (Canon EOS 5D, 17-35mm f/2.8L @ 17mm).

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.

This past Sunday was my and Amanda’s first wedding anniversary, and we spent it at the Ironman 70.3 at Buffalo Springs Lake in Lubbock, Texas. To clarify, Amanda (she’s the one smiling, in the pink and blue) participated in the triathlon, and like any proud husband, I went for support…and to take photographs of the event! In fact, Amanda and her teammate, Lindsey Putman, won the female team sprint portion of the race! So, not a bad way to start an anniversary, I might say!

Again, like any proud husband, I thought I would post a few photographs of the event. Amanda participated in the swim and bike portions of the sprint, and I think she surprised herself. I couldn’t even make it to the first buoy in the swim if I wanted to! Of course, she’s no stranger to this kind of competition, completing an earlier triathlon and several marathons before we were married. She has staying power, and I suppose if she’s going to be married to a hard-headed traveling photographer, she ought to have it!

The Buffalo Springs Ironman qualifier race is actually one of the more popular races in the nation, and many of the pros appreciate the fact that it combines a hilly ride and run, which if you were to come to Lubbock, you would ask yourself, “Hills? Where?” Thanks to folks like Mike Greer, the race here is a gem of a competition for more than 1,500 competitors each year!

Every year sees some of the top athletes in the field compete at Buffalo Springs, and this year didn’t disappoint. Chris Lieto (pictured above), a U.S. Ironman Champion, and one of the top athletes in the business took home the men’s top spot, while Magali Tisseyre (below left) and Angela Naeth (below right) finished out the top two spots, respectively, for the female 70.3 race. It’s impressive to be where records are being broke, and world-class athletes compete alongside those just starting out!

Amanda said it best when she mentioned that the atmosphere around triathlons is one of the best in sports. You see everyone from teenagers to 70-year-olds competing, and everyone is encouraging the next to have a great race. Even the spectators are an integral part of the performance, providing vocal support to ALL the racers that pass by! It reminds me of high school cross country…ahh, the golden days, ha!

I was certainly impressed by the performance, from the sprinters and 70.3 triathletes, to the 70.3 aqua bikers and hand cyclers. You want to talk about determination. These guys and gals will make you feel like a pile of unfit bones. I can’t imagine doing the full 70.3 miles, water and land, by hand! Kudos to these folks for showing everyone up!

That was my first year anniversary, and I couldn’t imagine not being able to spend it with Amanda. As it would turn out, I got a few good photographs out of the day as well! I really am blessed to be with a extraordinarily driven, supporting, and loving individual! Thanks for letting me share this with all of you!

It’s that time of year again, when cotton starts to develop in to what most of us visualize when you mention the crop. Lubbock is central to the greatest amount of cotton production in the U.S., let alone one of the most agriculturally-driven areas in the world. My first internship was with Plains Cotton Cooperative Association, the largest cotton marketing institution in the world. I wet my feet in publications and communications there by writing and designing for their magazine, The Commentator. This internship definitely spurred my interest in other publications, as well as documenting more and more the richly-diverse agricultural environment we have in West Texas!

Photo taken with EOS Canon 1D Mk III or EOS Canon 5D (can’t remember, sorry, and didn’t look up the exif data, ha).

Often times in West Texas, you have to get down real low to avoid high-lines and houses in your shot of the awesome skies we have out here, even if you are in a somewhat remote area. However awesome the skies get though, getting down low sometimes presents its own advantages, like creating perspective in the shot with something terrestrial to go with a comforting storm rolling over the South Plains. For you photogs, it’s also nice when there’s just a little detail left in that foreground!

Canon 5D Mk II, EF 17-35 f/2.8 L, 1/80 sec, f/11

I love West Texas wine! I had a conversation the other day with a gentleman about a friend of his that was a supposed “wine snob.” You know, one of those folks that will only drink $60+ bottles of imported wines, letting only the “finest” wines indulge his palette. Anyways, said gentleman sent his snobbish friend a bottle of West Texas wine (variety and winery not discussed), and while it was a fine gift, the friend did not have positive reaction…at first. After a while, the friend gave in, drank a glass, and voila, decided that West Texas wine wasn’t so bad, not bad at all, well, some really dang good wine!

I mentioned in a previous post about an article I am working on for a regional magazine about the West Texas wine industry. I wanted to share another portrait from the experience. Greg Bruni, pictured above, is one of the wine makers and owners of Llano Estacado Winery in Lubbock, Texas. Bruni grew up in a California wine family, and his knowledge and techniques as a wine maker has helped shape West Texas wine.

This is one of my favorite portraits I have taken this year! The best part of it all is that it didn’t take long to get it! I counted up, Mr. Bruni and I took eleven total shots. He showed up right at sunrise, we ran out into the vineyard adjacent to the winery. The light was just impeccable for the shot. The sun rose just over his right shoulder, and a 580EX with an umbrella was placed just off the 45 on his front right. Just enough to fill in the shadow side of his face and get up under that awesome hat! Pump up the power enough on the flash, say 1/2 +.7 power, and balance it with a solid ambient exposure, and there you have it! Light makes color, and this is a very colorful photograph, telling the man’s passion for his work.

Hope you enjoy the shot, and please, enjoy yourself some West Texas wine soon! JF.

Here’s a thought that is stressed throughout the industry by leading professionals and educators: always have your camera handy! Now, I’m not going to tell you that every successful photog out there always has their camera with them, no matter what, but I will tell you that they have theirs around more often than not. Photographers may not always carry a “pro-level” DSLR, maybe perhaps a nice point-and-shoot, like the Canon G10, Nikon’s P6000 or the Panasonic LX3, but at least they have some form of photographic equipment near (I’ve surprised myself about how much I use my iPhone to take photographs for mental record of a scene, to visit later with a larger rig).

I was at my fiancé’s softball game yesterday and just thought to bring a camera (actually, I thought, “Hey, the game’s at 8:00 p.m., sunset’s just around the corner from there, they will have lights on the field, there’s some nice clouds in the sky, this may make a neat “American Pastime” type of shot!”) Sure enough, the clouds formed up a very nice looking thunderstorm around sunset, however, the field wasn’t what I was thinking, there wasn’t a very high place to be in order to shoot down upon the diamond. What do you do? Put some people in the shot or course!

OK, so the shots at the field weren’t super, but you can definitely see the power that the sky structure, combined with super tangible light in the evening, adds to the photograph. To make a long story short, the Agletics (Amanda’s team, home team if you will, ha) run-ruled the other team, and within 20 minutes we were out of there…but the lightning wasn’t. Great, but I don’t have enough time now to get out of town to an open field or overlook. This brings me to the next point of the blog.

What do you do in an urban setting, thunderstorm overhead, when you really want to be out in the great wide open? You put something cool in front of the storm, like this mill! Shooting in the city can be pretty dull at dusk, little dots of light distracting from other dots of light. However, if you think basic composition and a layered image, you can blow those little dots of light out of the distractometer in to I’m-not-paying-them-any-attention space. Throw this mill in the photograph, and it automatically feels like Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory!

Don’t forget that even though you have a nice sky above, if your light intensity levels are even enough, structure in the near foreground offer a lot to the image as well, such as this railway, serving as a means of transporting us to the evil laboratory even faster.

For some more interesting recent sky shots, check out one of my former student’s blog at www.davidhalloran.wordpress.com. He even has some images up from this past Texas Tech University Junction intersession. Great job Wild Dave!

It’s been a doooooozy of a past couple of weeks, but I can’t complain from any kind of standpoint. Being busy is good. I often read Joe McNally’s blog, as well as Chase Jarvis’s blog, about how busy one can really be in this industry!

Talk about a guy that has been busy, especially for the majority of 70 years. I met Mike Greer a little over a month ago when I was doing a piece on men who have unique hobbies or collections. Joe McKay was one of the gentlemen I had the opportunity to shoot as well. Greer turns out to be a pretty unique individual as well, and many people who have seen the article have been floored by what he does!

Greer is a solid triathlete, and at 70 years old, he has endured approximately 300 triathlons and seven Ironmans…yes, that’s right, seven Ironmans. When I was in high school, I was part of a very successful cross country team, and one summer I decided to go to a running camp (crazy, I know). One of the instructors had the Ironman tattoo on his ankle, but instead of making fun of him for having a tattoo on his ankle, I stood in awe of this guy. If you do an Ironman, even if you finish last, needless to say, you’re tough. My fiance has completed an IronGirl, and she’s tough. Greer lacks nothing in toughness either.

Greer has quite a bit of history behind him, as a member of the U.S. military, a manufacturer, a few graduate degrees, and it would be easy to sit down and interview him about all of the unique aspects of his life. Did I mention he is also getting certified to be a life coach? I spent a couple of hours with him, and for lack of better words, he fired me up about what I do just from hearing his history and really feeling his tenacity for life!

For those interested, Greer was photographed using a Canon 5D Mk II with a 24-105mm f/4 L or a 17-35mm f/2.8 L. He was lit using a Canon 580EX mastering two 430EXs with flash diffusers on stands for the dock shots, and one 430EX with shoot through umbrella in the training room. Pocketwizards are about to be in the mail, and I’ll give a quick review on those when they come in to play!