I still shine like the sun when I think about the times I got to make portraits of Jennifer Kimball (blog post coming soon!) and Jonatha Brooke. For almost thirty years their music has been part of my life’s soundtrack. I can remember certain events that happened to me so clearly because their voices and music underscore those things. So when I finally reached out to both of them it was a dream come to life.
Jonatha was going to be back in our area in Rockport Massachusetts performing at the Shalin Liu Performance Center. After a few back and forth emails, she said I could come prior to the performance and grab a few shots of her after soundcheck.
I get exceptionally nervous on shoots like this. My brain goes into over dive and I start thinking and talking a mile a minute and I get all sweaty and my mind is racing and things are moving so fast I feel like I’m making a bajillion mistakes. Because of this, I overcompensate by trying to take the least amount of time as possible with the subject. In this case it was because of who the subject was. I wasn’t just a photographer in these minutes, I was a hardcore fan. As a fan I got overly nervous. I did’t want to take up any more of her time than necessary.
I had never been in the Shalin Liu center before. But, man, the whole back of the performance stage is a gigantic window that overlooks the harbor. It was GORGEOUS. What a beautiful location.
After we got there, we were brought down to the green room so we could meet up with her. She then led Sara and I to the stage and we chatted a bit while I got my equipment out and set up. I didn’t want to take up a lot of her time so I kept things as simple as possible: one light on a light stand in a softbox. I set it up off to camera left and I had Sara sit in for me while I found what lens I wanted to use and my basic composition and exposure.
Once I got my exposure locked in I just wanted a few simple images of Jonatha sitting at the piano framed by the gorgeous location behind her. The colors of the sky and the floor matched up really well with the jacket she was wearing and everything felt like it came together easily.
From looking at the data of my RAW files, the first test-shot with Sara sitting in was taken at 3:58pm. The first frame with Jonatha was at 4:03pm, and the last frame was at 4:10pm. So I took 15 frames in seven minutes. There was lots of nervous talking in between. Once I had a few frames I knew where the shots, I told her we were done. I think she was a little surprised by how quickly it went, but I was really nervous and, again, I didn’t want to take up all her time.
My plan, if you can call it that, is to photograph her a few times, quickly, so that she can get to know me a little bit. So that in the future, maybe we can spend a longer session together. Since she already has worked with me a few times. I’m trying to establish a history with her. I don’t know - it makes sense in my head.
I processed a few shots from our session, but the image leading this post is my favorite. She’s looking off frame, she’s got this great shadow under her chin and on the side of her face which adds a little contrast that I like. She’s framed by this gorgeous blue window with the ocean behind her and the wood of the floor is picking up the sky. It’s warm and cool tones all mixed together. It’s so good. It’s so simple. It’s so clean.
A HUGE thanks to Jonatha for letting me photograph her again. I will continue to ask to photograph her and I’m hoping I’ll get to work with her many more times in the future.
Visit her website. Catch her on tour. She’s amazing. My inner music-geek is GLOWING that I’ve been able to photograph her twice now. My heart can’t thank her enough.