TESTING

Showing posts tagged portrait

3 notes

Homeless Brattleboro

Four men share their experiences of being homeless in Brattleboro, Vt., at the First Baptist Church and Winter Overflow Shelter. 3/25/13

032513-homeless10-zps

(This man chose to be known as his initials F.E.H.)

032513-homeless9-zps

(Victoro Johnson)

032513-homeless7-zps

(Kevin Regan)

032513-homeless4-zps

(Ferris Cathey)

Behind the scenes:

The videos for this assignment were shot on an iPhone 4 with the Kitcam app utilizing the black and white filter.

The still images were shot in the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church in Brattleboro, Vt., with a single Canon 580 EX II on a stand with a shoot through umbrella at camera right.

Jerry Goldberg.

After spending the past 6 years as the Executive Director of the Brattleboro Chamber of Commerce, 74 year old Jerry Goldberg will be retiring at the end of the year.

“I will not trade one minute of the past six years. I could not have written it any more perfectly,” Goldberg said during an interview in his office Tuesday. “Now it is time for me to move on, and let someone else try this.” (Reported by Howard Weiss-Tisman, 2013, Brattleboro Reformer, pg. 1.)

Behind the scenes:

Image 1. Goldberg is standing on the sidewalk on Main Street in Brattleboro, Vt. I dropped down the ambient exposure to darken the background just a little and keep the focus on Goldberg. I then used an off camera strobe , hand held, to light Goldberg.

Image 2. Goldberg in his office. Lit by a off camera strobe , hand held, bounced off of the wall at camera left.

Image 3. Goldberg stand on the sidewalk in front of the Brooks House, an iconic building in Brattleboro, Vt. Shot using only natural light and converted to black and white in Lightroom .

James Gray. The Libertarian candidate for Vice President, James Gray, swung by the office for an interview with Reformer Reporter Mike Faher last Friday. I had a couple of minutes after the interview to get a quick shot of him in the parking lot. Luckily he showed up in this flashy minivan with a graphic wrap of the presidential candidate Gary Johnson and the words “LIVE FREE” in bold letters. This made for a pretty decent background. I had Mr. Gray stand in front of the van so you could clearly see what was on it and popped my flash on a ttl cord, did some photog-flash yoga holding the speedlite at camera right with my left hand, dropped the ambient, ttl +1 stop and bam. That’s the shot. A quick and decent portrait for the story which you can read here: http://www.reformer.com/ci_21615491/veep-candidate-libertarians-are-mainstream?source=most_viewed

James Gray.

The Libertarian candidate for Vice President, James Gray, swung by the office for an interview with Reformer Reporter Mike Faher last Friday. I had a couple of minutes after the interview to get a quick shot of him in the parking lot.

Luckily he showed up in this flashy minivan with a graphic wrap of the presidential candidate Gary Johnson and the words “LIVE FREE” in bold letters. This made for a pretty decent background.

I had Mr. Gray stand in front of the van so you could clearly see what was on it and popped my flash on a ttl cord, did some photog-flash yoga holding the speedlite at camera right with my left hand, dropped the ambient, ttl +1 stop and bam. That’s the shot.

A quick and decent portrait for the story which you can read here: http://www.reformer.com/ci_21615491/veep-candidate-libertarians-are-mainstream?source=most_viewed

4 notes
Ethan Reichsman. This portrait I shot of Ethan for THIS article in the Reformer was lit with a Canon 580EX II speedlite on a stand at camera left. I dropped the ambient exposure down about a stop or two and then exposed for the speedlite. I took a couple of shots as I waited for students to walk past in the background and mixed it up with some verticals and horizontals. In the end I liked this vertical with one student entering the building in the background. It’s a clean portrait that gives you just enough information. Purchase photos here: http://reformer.mycapture.com

Ethan Reichsman.

This portrait I shot of Ethan for THIS article in the Reformer was lit with a Canon 580EX II speedlite on a stand at camera left. I dropped the ambient exposure down about a stop or two and then exposed for the speedlite.

I took a couple of shots as I waited for students to walk past in the background and mixed it up with some verticals and horizontals. In the end I liked this vertical with one student entering the building in the background. It’s a clean portrait that gives you just enough information.

Purchase photos here: http://reformer.mycapture.com

1 note
This is Les Nicholas, a pioneer in the development of electronic organs and former employee of the Estey Organ Company. In this photo he is playing an AS1 Electronic Organ that he built with Harald Bode in 1958, which is on display at the Estey Organ Museum in Brattleboro, Vt. The portrait is to illustrate a story that we are doing about the Estey Organ Museum receiving a donation of another electronic organ that Les built when employed at Estey in the 1950s. Read the story here. The portrait is shot with two strobes. One as the key light attached to a pipe with a ball bungee at camera left. The second strobe is sitting on a bench at camera right and is acting as a fill. Rather than sitting Les down and posing him for this portrait, I asked him to just play a bit for me. My intention is to get a more natural and candid look. Les sat down and started to play commenting that the organ is terribly out of tune. “Don’t worry, you can’t hear the photo,” I say. Purchase photos here.

This is Les Nicholas, a pioneer in the development of electronic organs and former employee of the Estey Organ Company.

In this photo he is playing an AS1 Electronic Organ that he built with Harald Bode in 1958, which is on display at the Estey Organ Museum in Brattleboro, Vt.

The portrait is to illustrate a story that we are doing about the Estey Organ Museum receiving a donation of another electronic organ that Les built when employed at Estey in the 1950s. Read the story here.

The portrait is shot with two strobes. One as the key light attached to a pipe with a ball bungee at camera left. The second strobe is sitting on a bench at camera right and is acting as a fill.

Rather than sitting Les down and posing him for this portrait, I asked him to just play a bit for me. My intention is to get a more natural and candid look.

Les sat down and started to play commenting that the organ is terribly out of tune.

“Don’t worry, you can’t hear the photo,” I say.

Purchase photos here.

© Zachary P. Stephens / Brattleboro Reformer

Peter “Fish” Case, radio personality at WKVT-FM, was recently honored by the American Cancer Society for the volunteer work he does promoting the organization’s goals and programs.

To illustrate the story I was sent down to the station to get a nice portrait of Fish.

I decided that I wanted to get a shot of him in one of the studios where he normally does his show. A real environmental portrait.

This is a two light set up. One bare strobe high at camera right reaching over the front of the desk and monitors as the key light. The second strobe is on a window sill at camera left bounced off of the white blinds as a soft fill light.

Fish is a really easy person to talk to, which is good for his profession and also really great when shooting a portrait. It’s important to keep your subject engaged, interested and at ease when you are photographing them. Otherwise they will freeze up and look awkward in your photo.

Read the story about Fish here.

Purchase this photo here.

© Zachary P. Stephens / Brattleboro Reformer

I recently shot this portrait of Brattleboro Union High School Principal Steve Perrin for an article for the paper.

Perrin was actually one of my teachers when I was in high school and has since worked his way up to becoming the principal of the school.

To illustrate who he is at the school, I wanted to have him stand in front of the building to give a sense of power and place. When you see him in this photo you have no doubt that he has some kind of authority at this school.

He is also a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of guy. Very approachable and easy to talk to. I wanted to convey this in the portrait as well. So rather than have him standing there stiffly looking at the camera, I tried to make him feel relaxed and asked him to lean on the half wall behind him a little.

The second image here is a lighting diagram of the shot I had in mind. You can see that the subject is placed in front of the half wall with the school in the background and it is lit with a strobe on a stand high at camera left with no modifiers. The ambient is dropped down by about 2 stops to add a little drama to the light.

Purchase this photo here.