A few weeks ago I was assigned to get a portrait of David Harris, a 16-year-old filmmaker who recently just directed a short film which has won all these awards at various youth film festivals. His film is about a kid who works at a funeral home, so I really wanted the portrait to reflect the dark and moody subject matter David took on in his film. When I told him my idea, he supplied all the props. I shot all these images at his school, the location I chose was down a hallway leading to the boy's bathroom. I was really attracted to the window at the end of the hall, and also that there were no lights. Believe it or not, this was taken right after school in the middle of the day. I used two lights most of the time, at the beginning I had them both shining on David from opposite sides (which you can see in the second photo below). Although I loved how his shadow was coming out on both walls and how illuminated he was, the lighting just wasn't as dramatic as I wanted. So in the end, I settled for one light (held up by his dad) with a gobo attached shining from the far right, then I placed the second light behind to add in the hair light and give him that rim light. If I had to do it again, I would have definetely had a third light for fill on the left side, and really bring out those lights and the chair better. Oh well. Anyways, this was a really fun assignment especially since I had the time and patient model to really work with it on. He is a very driven teenager; I am certain he will succeed well with film in the near future.
Not nearly as dramatic, but I wanted to show the school setting too.
When I first started interning at the Weekly back in Fall 2006, I received food and drink assignments a few times a month. Back then I really didn't enjoy shooting still life images at all (I was craving moments and spontaneous spot news). I would show up to restaurants not really knowing what the heck I was doing; hoping the chef just made something colorful and well presented that would be easy to photograph- something that would require little creativity on my part. But my how things have changed. The more and more I delve into studying studio lighting and trying to replicate it, the more and more I relish the occasional food photo assignment as an opportunity to explore my photographic identity. It's starting to become a passion for me: the composition, the lighting (now I have 2 light stands, whoo hoo!), the choice to include background details-or not, and the best angles to make food look at its best. It's a nice change from being the recorder of a scene to its creator; a newfound ability to imagine and produce.
