Read Online The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets From One of the World's Top Shooters by Joe Mcnally - Free Book Online
Authors: Joe Mcnally
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Wojnarowicz
Put the Light in an Unusual Place
“Using the flash freezes him, but allows me to use a slower shutter speed, which blurs the world outside the car. This sends a message: fast-moving, powerful man on the go.”
I spent a week with corporate big shot Larry Tisch as he was preparing to buy CBS. I needed a lead, something jazzy to kick off the story.
I put the flash in an unusual place—outside the limo, aimed at the backseat side window (it was attached using a Bogen Magic Arm, which let me clamp the flash to the limo, right by the driver’s rear view mirror).
This wasn’t frivolous. I had good editorial reasons. First, it gave me the main light off-camera (and as I mentioned before, direct flash is a disaster) and it also gave me control over the look of the picture colorwise, because the flash was gelled to make it slightly warm.
Using the flash freezes him, but allows me to use a slower shutter speed, which blurs the world outside the car. This sends a message: fast-moving, powerful man on the go. Also, he was in the backseat of the limo. Another bunch of messages: power, money, and very importantly, the photographer is right there with him, behind the scenes, inside the fence. It says to the reader: Stay with the story, you haven’t seen this before.
Sheesh, you mean I can do all that with one lousy flash?
You can, until the driver forgets the light is boomed two feet outside his window and squeezes left onto 5th Avenue, splattering it against the rear view mirror of a double-parked van.
I only had one flash with me, so I turned to Tisch and said, “You know, I think we got it!”
Larry Tisch
Filter!
Bruce Dalrymple
30 magenta plus full green equals good sunset.
Uh, wanna run that by me again? In English?
One of the tough things about digital is the Fluorescent white balance setting. I use it, monkey with it, push it up and down a bit, and can still get results that look like I’m shooting through an aquarium that hasn’t been cleaned in a while.
So I often do things the old-fashioned way. I set the white balance to daylight, pop a 30 magenta filter on the lens and a full cut of green conversion filter on the flash, and boom, we’re cleaned up with good skin tones to boot. (The green flash filters are fluorescent conversion filters that come in different strengths.)
You’ve got your skin tones nice and normal, your disgusting green fluorescent foreground wrestled to the ground, and…Ta Da!…your not-so-great sunset has just exploded into an extravaganza of pinks and violets and reds, the likes of which will make your readers swoon and start thinking Tahiti, even when they’re looking at Piscataway.
How to Get This Type of Shot
The only consistent thing about the NYC subway system is the fact that when the cars pull into the station, they always stop at the same spot. That simple regularity made this shot possible in real time, without setups, models, and a staged train. I scouted a good area, sat Bruce on the basketball, and set up a 1×2′ softbox on a floor stand on camera left to mimic the door light of the train. Gelled it full green and put 30 points of magenta over the lens. The sky was crashing into twilight and I’m nervously looking over my shoulder, waitin’ on a train.
One came in, blessedly. The doors opened, I shot three frames of Kodachrome, and the doors closed. By the time the next train rolled in, the sky was gone, and so was my shot.
P.S. Just try this nowadays with a tripod, camera, and flash on the subway. Hello, officer!
“City lights go green. 30 points of magenta cleans that up. and your sunset doesn’t hate it either.”
Keep Your Eye in the Camera
“You can miss lots of moments with your head stuck in your LCD. Checking what just went on is a surefire ticket to missing what’s about to go on.”
I became a world-class chimper from the very first moment I held a digital camera. Click, click,
Put the Light in an Unusual Place
“Using the flash freezes him, but allows me to use a slower shutter speed, which blurs the world outside the car. This sends a message: fast-moving, powerful man on the go.”
I spent a week with corporate big shot Larry Tisch as he was preparing to buy CBS. I needed a lead, something jazzy to kick off the story.
I put the flash in an unusual place—outside the limo, aimed at the backseat side window (it was attached using a Bogen Magic Arm, which let me clamp the flash to the limo, right by the driver’s rear view mirror).
This wasn’t frivolous. I had good editorial reasons. First, it gave me the main light off-camera (and as I mentioned before, direct flash is a disaster) and it also gave me control over the look of the picture colorwise, because the flash was gelled to make it slightly warm.
Using the flash freezes him, but allows me to use a slower shutter speed, which blurs the world outside the car. This sends a message: fast-moving, powerful man on the go. Also, he was in the backseat of the limo. Another bunch of messages: power, money, and very importantly, the photographer is right there with him, behind the scenes, inside the fence. It says to the reader: Stay with the story, you haven’t seen this before.
Sheesh, you mean I can do all that with one lousy flash?
You can, until the driver forgets the light is boomed two feet outside his window and squeezes left onto 5th Avenue, splattering it against the rear view mirror of a double-parked van.
I only had one flash with me, so I turned to Tisch and said, “You know, I think we got it!”
Larry Tisch
Filter!
Bruce Dalrymple
30 magenta plus full green equals good sunset.
Uh, wanna run that by me again? In English?
One of the tough things about digital is the Fluorescent white balance setting. I use it, monkey with it, push it up and down a bit, and can still get results that look like I’m shooting through an aquarium that hasn’t been cleaned in a while.
So I often do things the old-fashioned way. I set the white balance to daylight, pop a 30 magenta filter on the lens and a full cut of green conversion filter on the flash, and boom, we’re cleaned up with good skin tones to boot. (The green flash filters are fluorescent conversion filters that come in different strengths.)
You’ve got your skin tones nice and normal, your disgusting green fluorescent foreground wrestled to the ground, and…Ta Da!…your not-so-great sunset has just exploded into an extravaganza of pinks and violets and reds, the likes of which will make your readers swoon and start thinking Tahiti, even when they’re looking at Piscataway.
How to Get This Type of Shot
The only consistent thing about the NYC subway system is the fact that when the cars pull into the station, they always stop at the same spot. That simple regularity made this shot possible in real time, without setups, models, and a staged train. I scouted a good area, sat Bruce on the basketball, and set up a 1×2′ softbox on a floor stand on camera left to mimic the door light of the train. Gelled it full green and put 30 points of magenta over the lens. The sky was crashing into twilight and I’m nervously looking over my shoulder, waitin’ on a train.
One came in, blessedly. The doors opened, I shot three frames of Kodachrome, and the doors closed. By the time the next train rolled in, the sky was gone, and so was my shot.
P.S. Just try this nowadays with a tripod, camera, and flash on the subway. Hello, officer!
“City lights go green. 30 points of magenta cleans that up. and your sunset doesn’t hate it either.”
Keep Your Eye in the Camera
“You can miss lots of moments with your head stuck in your LCD. Checking what just went on is a surefire ticket to missing what’s about to go on.”
I became a world-class chimper from the very first moment I held a digital camera. Click, click,
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