Occasional Moments of Brilliance

Photography that is always great, and occasionally brilliant.

Posts tagged ‘photo’

A Voice Above the Storm

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It was easily the windiest day of the season, and definitely the windiest outdoor portrait session I’ve ever had.

The leaves outside were zipping past the window as we sipped coffee and discussed our shot list on that Sunday afternoon. Her eyes kept going to the window, coming back with questions. Was this really going to work? How many shots could we get in this gale before the inevitable downpour?

Katelyn Beaty had contacted me a few days before about getting an updated headshot to coincide with her recent promotion at Christianity Today. Founded by Billy Graham in 1956, Christianity Today is a leading voice of the evangelical movement and seeks to address real world issues from a biblical perspective. In her new role as Managing Editor, Katelyn is called to comment on Biblical issues in print, online and in speaking engagements. She’s excited about this opportunity to be more involved with their eponymous magazine as well as oversee aspects of their web presence including the women’s site Her.meneutics and the This Is Our City project. Katelyn as been applying her writing and editing talents to Christianity Today since shortly after graduating from Calvin College in 2006.

As we finished talking over a shot list, I told her that I thought we could get some good shots before the rain. I hoped that I was right. We ended up in a brick alley that I’d walked past for years thinking it would make a good portrait location. I set up a flash 10ft. high pointed at one wall as she posed on the opposite wall. This gave me a large diffuse light source that picked up a slightly warm cast as it bounced off the bricks. The alley was only 4ft wide and allowed just enough wind through to give a slightly windblown look…until the rain started. Fortunately we had agreed beforehand on an alternate indoor location, which we made it into just as the deluge began.

As the rain pelted against the windows and I set up the lights, we had a brief conversation about trust. A great portrait requires mutual trust. One of the things I enjoy most about photographing people is creating connections and capturing real, honest moments. It can be intimidating to put the responsibility for creating ones distributable visual identity into the hands of someone else. Sometimes you can see in the eyes, or the pose if the model and photographer haven’t made a connection, if they don’t trust each other. The model needs to trust me to portray them in the desired fashion.

Eye contact is vital to communicating and connecting with others. Often in a portrait session, that connection is broken when one end is replaced with a cold, unblinking lens. If there isn’t a good connection they won’t open up and put their true character and personality into the images. Fortunately this wasn’t the case and we had a successful session in spite of wind, rain and alternate locations.

I decided to use a large softbox as main light source, and translucent umbrella as fill. We tried several different poses and had fun arranging a few pieces of vintage furniture to use as props.

We ended up not only dry, but with a series of images that both of us are happy with.

A Picture is Worth

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“The last time we had our pictures taken was maybe ten years ago” say the parents of two children aged 11 and 14. I pondered this as I arranged and posed them. Each year growing up, my parents would update the 8×10 school portrait of my brothers and me hanging on the wall in the family room. This family on the other hand had no recent portraits of their teenaged children. Last weekend I volunteered for a great event called Help-Portrait. It’s an organization founded by celebrity photographer Mark Cowart. Their first international event took place in 2009 and has now spread to 60 countries. Here’s a quote from their website “Help-Portrait is a community of photographers coming together across the world to use their photography skills to give back to their local community.”

This year’s event put on by the Carol Stream Illinois chapter was coordinated by Mark Lane, graphic designer at Tyndale House Publishers. On Friday evening there was an opportunity for Tyndale employees and their families to get some portraits done for a small donation that helped recoup costs for the event. The next day, over the course of six hours, 71 families showed up at the Wheaton Ministry center. That means 680 people were given professional portraits that they normally couldn’t afford. It was a busy day as I along with 3 other photographers captured memories for each of them. There was also a café set up so that they could relax as they waited for their appointment, and look for frames afterwards.

This was a fun event for a good cause. For more information, or to get involved yourself, check out the Help-Portrait website here: http://help-portrait.com/.

Technology Entertainment Design

When I first entered the auditorium at Grounds for Hope Café for the TEDxNaperville event, it took me back to my first experience with TED. I was living in Seoul and stopped in to see my friend Jeffrey who lived in my building. After chatting for a few minutes he put on Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk about education and the role of creativity in it. I was riveted. When it ended less than 20 minutes later, I hoped it was just a commercial break.

This was my first time attending a TED event, and I was there as a volunteer. As the auditorium began to fill with speakers, musicians, dancers, teachers and learners I quickly jumped in and got involved. I spent most of the afternoon doing backstage production, liaising with the speakers and coordinating with other volunteers. I stayed busy in between presentations, but while they were going on, I was able to focus on all of them, and be inspired by most.

Wes Douglas of Maddock Douglas was scribing visual notes to go along with each. These boards were on display during intermissions as reminders of key points of each message and as kick-starters for conversation.

All in all it was a very cool, inspirational, educational and motivational afternoon and I look forward to being involved next year. Volunteering was a great way to network with speakers, guests and other volunteers. In addition, I was able to use my own presentation and production skills to support this amazing event.

Check out their homepage at www.tedxnaperville.com.