One exposure, one frame, one click
For those of you new to my blog, I teach an online class with the BPSOP, and I also conduct my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops all over the planet.
I love writing these posts because they bring back great memories of when I was working as an advertising, corporate, and editorial photographer; that would be right after the last dinosaur disappeared.
That period of time when everything had to be one click, one exposure, on one piece of Kodachrome film; ‘Adobe’ was a type of house in the Southwest part of the USA.
The New York Stock Exchange called me to shoot a portrait of (at that time) the youngest recipient of a heart pacemaker.
Since this little girl was so young and more than likely shy, I had an idea for the shoot and had my studio manager call her parents to find out what she loved doing and what she wanted to be when she got older; also, did she dress up while playing?
We were told that she was taking ballet lessons and wanted to be a ballerina when she grew up. Perfect I thought, and we instructed her mother to have her come fully dressed in her balet attire.
I had a location scout locate a place that would work for the environment, and she came back with the absolutely ideal room; and it was only a mile away at Rice University.
I scouted the room and found that the row of windows face west so the light would be perfect if we shot late in the afternoon.
Being a firm believer in covering my butt at all times and Murphy’s Law, I decided not to trust whether it was going to be a clear sunny day with golden light streaming through the windows.
That said, I was able to secure additional monies to bring in my own lights; two 12K daylight balanced HMI’s (used in television commercials and motion picture films), a really big generator, a grip, and his assistant; and a fog machine just for the hell of it!
The day of the shoot, the sun was hidden behind a dark overcast sky so we went for plan B and through the window I lit the room with the lights I had brought in…and smoked it up a touch.
The little girl arrived wearing her favorite outfit and held tightly by her mother on one side and her father on the other…not good!!!
As I predicted she was very shy and her mother giving her directions didn’t help. So, what do you do? You make the parents leave the room, that’s what you do.
At that point I wasn’t going to try and direct her so I composed the shot the way I wanted by aiming the camera towards the mirror, putting on a 20mm lens, and left my camera on a tripod. I then attached a twenty foot cable release to it…and walked away.
I turned my back to the camera and started a conversation with my crew. When the little girl realized that no one was watching, she turned towards the mirror and started pretending. As she was doing this I started firing off shots.
Visit my brand new website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
JoeB
