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More Fun in Seattle: Full Write-up
All things being equal, I would rather shoot someone than be shot by them. But that wasn’t gonna fly last Sunday when I popped in on the Seattle Flickr group meetup while on a trip to see Chase Jarvis.

But getting shot at is a small price to pay for getting to see one of these legendary Seattle Strobist meetups first-hand. Darien Chin, the guy who did the cool multi-flash car shot, had another one of his speedlight-hungry concepts in mind for me. So I got to be the model for a change.

More on that, and the video Chase Jarvis’ crew made from the evening, after the jump.
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Now that I have been to one, I can tell you that attending one of these Seattle shindigs is a total hoot, and worth flying 3,000 miles for. I spent the evening walking around talking to people and checking out all of the various setups. But I also had a turn at getting shot in Brittney’s famous bear hat (and in about a dozen other ways) and trying to keep a straight face when Robyn kept requesting an particular type of not straight face. I’d say more, but this is a family blog.

Suffice to say that this group knows how to have fun.

The photographic highlight of my night was getting shot by Darien Chin (AKA Knottyy on Flickr) in the photo seen at the top of the post. It was a great example of the collaborative spirit of the evening — Darien ~~stole~~ borrowed speedlights with Pocket Wizards from as many people as he could find.

He arranged them on the floor, set mostly on 1/64th power. There was one at 1/32nd power which was aimed a little up to catch my face. My job was to sweep them up, like so much trash.

The fill light was from an White Lightning monobloc in an octa, which was on a large light stand which itself was being held up by volunteers to get extra height. For those of you who I have not met, I am very tall — about 6’11″, and you have to take special measures to light me form the top. (Hey, whatever it takes.) It was positioned overhead and a little behind me, to bring up the shadows. (You can see a setup shot here.)

Add a few more speedlights (clearly we did not have enough in the frame yet) to light the background and to separate me from both back sides, and we were ready to go.

This was a cool concept for Darien to think up, much less to execute. He did some with Chase in the frame, too, to up the average attractiveness quotient a little.

This was not an easy shot to pull off on a technical basis. But having fifty photogs in the room made for no shortage of ideas and opinions. Nice one, Darien. But get a prettier lead subject next time…

Here is the video Cody shot from the night, including some pretty spiffy time-lapses that show just how big this hangar was:

Chase has a post with a lot of back story on his site, here. Check it out if you are thinking of having one of these in your own town. (And if you are not thinking that, you should be…)
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After that it was off to Chase’s new studio for one of those cool “after parties” which I almost never get invited to. Great food, great people and lots of good conversation. Chase and the crew know how to roll, and this place is equipped to the nines.

A couple hours into the evening, someone broke out the Wii set (on a huge projection screen, of course) and a long string of Guitar Hero battles soon followed. Chase offered up some respectable riffs as the host. But it turns out that Danny Ngan, whom you may know as the guy who does all of those jumping photos on Flickr, is like, a 9th-degree Guitar Hero black belt. Dude can wail.

I think there was actually some close-up video done while Danny, who is seen playing above, with chase watching. But it is pretty useless because the camera was only filming at 30 frames per second. Seriously, he was amazing. Just throwing up six-digit scores left and right.

The Seattle folks are taking this lighting meetup thing and running with it. But there are lots of other meetups happening all over the world now. You can search for one here, and I highly recommend trying it.

Just do not challenge Danny Ngan to a Guitar Hero contest, because he will smoke your butt. And watch out for Robyn if she shows up, too. She’ll bust you up laughing and then shoot you when you lose it.

Thanks for a great night, guys.
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:: Slideshow from the 1/20/08 Seattle Meetup ::
:: Chase’s Report Here ::
:: How to Plan a Meetup ::

Lose the Smile for More Versatile Headshots
If you are going to go to the trouble to shoot a head shot (or, “mug shot,” as we called them at the newspaper) you may as well set up good light. This can elevate a head shot into a portrait and yield a photo suitable for many more uses.

And if you are going to make a portrait, shooting a range of expression can further expand the ways in which the portrait can be used.

Hit the jump for a very good, current example.
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British photographer Platon (whose site we accidently overloaded when we all showed up to watch his videos a few weeks back) photographed Eliot Spitzer before he became better known as Client #9.

(At least, I am assuming he shot Spitzer before that, as pretty much nobody has been near Spitzer with a set of lights since. I would think that not even Platon is that smooth…)

The photo, seen above, appears as lead art, running full-page on a two-page spread on pages 24-25 of the March 24th U.S. edition of Time Magazine.

Platon’s photo was lit with a simple, two-light scheme — soft source directly above the camera, back light aimed at the background. He usually uses a medium-format camera, with a moderately wide-angle lens, which creates both intimacy and lots of detail in his portraits.

Reverse engineering notes:

The location of the nose shadow (butterfly position) reveals the position of the front light source: above the camera. We can also see the front light source reflected in a specular highlight on the forehead. The softness of the highlight-to-shadow transfer area further reveals it as a soft light source.

The even quality of the background light tells us it was almost certainly behind the subject. It was either between the subject and the background, aimed toward the back, or behind the paper, aimed forward at the paper.

Where is the chin light coming from? Looks like the shirt, to me. White shirts kick a ton of fill in at close range. And it would have been awfully hard to hide a mini softbox under Spitzer’s chin.

But what about that expression? The same photog who famously got Bill Clinton to “show me the love” (resulting in another much talked-about photo) captured Spitzer in a quiet, downcast moment, not even making eye contact with the camera.

Generally, you do not get much time when shooting celebrities and other famous people. So you have to spend your ammo wisely. You want to get a photo that connects with the viewer, but you don’t have to hold the button down and dupe that look continuously for the whole three minutes you have them captive in front of you. Do you really need that 37th version of a canned smile with eye contact?

Instead, when you are shooting a headshot, spend a little time grabbing the smile (that’s what they’ll be expecting to do anyway) and get it out of the way. Then spend the rest of your time exploring different expressions — quieter expressions, no-eye-contact looks, etc. It is a little more difficult, because you have to create the conversation that evokes the various looks.

But it is worth the effort. Neutral expressions are far more versatile in what they connote. A smile say only a couple of different things (maybe a couple more, if you have a dirty mind) but the quieter expressions can make much more powerful photos.

I would go so far as to say that this photo probably was not the final edit from the original shoot. It is very appropriate in the context of Spitzer’s sudden collapse in the wake of a prostitution scandal. But it hardly would fit for a photograph of the “Sheriff of Wall Street” even a few weeks ago.

The fact that Platon had the presence of mind to both evoke and then capture the contemplative moment of Spitzer yielded a stunning photo which may turn out to be the iconic image of an imploded politician. Kudos, too, to the picture editors and designer at Time Magazine for spending the square inches to give it the weight it deserves.

Nuts and bolts takeaway: Not everyone you shoot is going to get caught at the Mayflower hotel with their pants down. But if you are going to go to the trouble to light someone, make sure you take the time to work some different looks into your session.
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More Fun in Seattle: Full Write-up

Tent Pole Light Stands: More Details

More Bert, On Location

Lose the Smile for More Versatile Headshots

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