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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

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

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(Victoro Johnson)

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(Kevin Regan)

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(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 .

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

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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 Today it was announced that the current owner of the Brooks House in Brattleboro, Vt., will be selling the historic building to local investors. Bob Stevens and Craig Miskovich will be leading the search for investors to take over the property and revitalize it with housing, local businesses and possibly a local college campus. To illustrate this story, which can be read here, I met with Bob and Craig at the front of the very recognizable building in downtown Brattleboro. I met them in the afternoon which is perhaps the most challenging time of day to get a shot of the building. The front of the building faces west so in the afternoon the sun is throwing the building almost completely into a silhouette. Rather than fight this, I decided to embrace it. The building is so recognizable, even in silhouette, that I didn’t really need to worry about showing too much detail in it. So I let it go dark while I exposed for the sky. I placed Bob and Craig in the foreground standing on either side of the frame with the tower of the building rising between them in the background. I popped my Canon 580 ex II onto a stand, pulled the stand back a little to get an even exposure on both guys (inverse square law), and balanced the light from the flash with the sky. Shooting from a low angle with a wide lens, I kept a dialogue with the subjects and got a pretty good shot all in about 5 min. Purchase this photo here.

© Zachary P. Stephens / Brattleboro Reformer

Today it was announced that the current owner of the Brooks House in Brattleboro, Vt., will be selling the historic building to local investors.

Bob Stevens and Craig Miskovich will be leading the search for investors to take over the property and revitalize it with housing, local businesses and possibly a local college campus.

To illustrate this story, which can be read here, I met with Bob and Craig at the front of the very recognizable building in downtown Brattleboro.

I met them in the afternoon which is perhaps the most challenging time of day to get a shot of the building. The front of the building faces west so in the afternoon the sun is throwing the building almost completely into a silhouette.

Rather than fight this, I decided to embrace it. The building is so recognizable, even in silhouette, that I didn’t really need to worry about showing too much detail in it. So I let it go dark while I exposed for the sky.

I placed Bob and Craig in the foreground standing on either side of the frame with the tower of the building rising between them in the background.

I popped my Canon 580 ex II onto a stand, pulled the stand back a little to get an even exposure on both guys (inverse square law), and balanced the light from the flash with the sky.

Shooting from a low angle with a wide lens, I kept a dialogue with the subjects and got a pretty good shot all in about 5 min.

Purchase this photo 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.