Strength and Power

There is a lot of photography that I don't get to share sometimes that is done for larger companies and corporations.  That is just the nature of the beast.

But I did want to share this image, which I shot back in March of 2016.  It was for a very large company who had  hired me to photograph some of their clients on white, to match up with some video work another company down the hall from me was producing on the same day with the same clients.  These were portraits of survivors of trauma or sickness in one form or another.

When this gorgeous woman stood in front of my camera, she kinda took my breath away; she was really tall, towering over me, and she had this incredible jawline (I have a thing for jawlines - I have a weak chin which is why I have a beard: to cover it up), and as I had her stand straight and look directly at me, there was great strength and power coming from her.  You could feel it.  It was remarkable.

She nailed this in like two shots.  Some people are natural in front of cameras.  Look at that jawline.  Look how the light from the background traces the outline of her jaw.  Crazy powerful.  Crazy strength.  I love this portrait in black & white.  Being exposed to people like this, for however long or shot, is partly why I love photography.

UNH Graduates • LinkedIn/Social Media headshots

I've been working for a while now with UNH Manchester's campus.  A little while ago, they had me come in and provide headshots for graduating students so they could have a nice, clean, crisp portrait that they could use for LinkedIn and Social Media once they get out into the "real world" and the job market.

I always try to keep it simple in location situations like this.  For these images, I just had two lights setup:  one background light with a set of barn-doors on it to control spill right behind the subject, aimed at the wall so I could blow the wall totally white.  Then I had a light up on a c-stand inside the Westcott 28" Apollosoftbox.  I've used the Apollo for years and years.  The one I have has been through a war, but she still keeps up with the pace.  I bought a replacement back in maybe 2008, but I still haven't taken that out of the box because the original still works like magic.  Then I just adjust my exposure on the fly.

Things are so much easier to move around now that I've got my Rock'n'Roller cart, and having those Seahorse cases help keep everything protected while I'm out in the world working on jobs.

I think it's great that UNH wants to make sure their grads get their feet out the door with a nice, clean headshot from the get-go.

Thanks, UNH, for liking my work :)

Shelly Hudson

Shelly Hudson is doing some awesome stuff.  She's the Executive Director of Red River Theatres.  She's an actor and a director.  She directs stage plays.  She's creating a new theater company in the Concord NH area.  She loves movies, and talking about movies, and I love being around her.

Shelly needed a new head shot and we got together at the studio, talked a whole bunch about Mad Max and the Oscars and Academy Awards, and had a bunch of laughs while doing it.

See a few more images from our session together on my Flickr feed HERE.

Hot Mess

Let me introduce you to the gang that makes up Hot Mess, and give you a little behind-the-scenes of our session earlier this year.

Hot Mess came to me via musician Tim Paul Weiner, who came to me by way of Elise McDonald.  Elise used to run Studio 99, a local music venue that I miss terribly and I cherish all the friendships I made when it was open - both professionally as well as personally.  Tim and I met and talked about creating some images to be used for a new website and other promotional needs for his music.  During our conversation he told me he was part of a larger band that was going to be re-doing their website and branding and he'd share my work with them.

Jason Silverman is the man in charge of Hot Mess. He looks a little like actor Tom Hardy.  I'm a big Mad Max fan, so any chance to photograph someone that looks like Tom Hardy is kinda cool to me.  Hot Mess is a cover band out of Boston and were recently voted 2016 Wedding Wire Couple's Choice Award.

Jason was looking for something they could use as a splash page image on their soon-to-be-new website.  Something simple with everyone in a row.  I love keeping things simple, and we set up a time here at the studio.

I had never photographed a group of seven before (though recently worked with Fever Pitch made up of 7 smaller people).  Up until now, I think the most I've ever photographed in my studio was the Mwano brothers or the Brooks Young Band.  I knew that fitting 7 people on a nine-foot roll of seamless paper wasn't going to cut it, so the day before the session I went into the empty studio space next door to me and I took a roll of seamless and I ran it along one of the walls in there.  It let me go past the 9 foot restriction I would have faced here in the studio so that I could get everyone lined up along side each other.  I forget what the exact dimensions were, but it was pretty long.  So I gaff tapped the paper to the wall and we were good to go.

I wanted to keep the lighting simple, so I set up three lights.  I lined them up so that I created a single bank of light all flashing straight ahead towards where the subjects would be located.

Lights arranged in a line to create a bank of light, aimed at the wall with the backdrop paper.

Once they arrived it was just a matter of lining them up and visually making sure I had them in a good arrangement and getting to work.  When dealing with a group of 7 people, your rate-of-return when it comes to usable shots is going to be low, because you have seven sets of eyes that you need to make sure aren't blinking, seven faces that need to be looking at me and looking good, seven facets of seven people that need to be in check, etc.  After each shot I tried to take a peek at the back of the camera, but sometimes you get into rhythm of the shoot and don't check as often.  I had them pushed right against the wall at the start.

A shot taken during the start of the session with some text added as a mockup for them

After getting some shots with them against the wall, I pulled them away from the wall a few feet and then took my two side lights and moved them around a bit:

the view from my perspective

Once we got some good shots, I then started to play around a little bit, and bought out my prism and started moving it around the front of my lens:

I was really liking the reflections that the prism was picking up and took a few different shots moving the prism around and picking up reflections and little light blooms (like the one in the above image in the left corner).

eyeballing the shots to make sure everybody is in focus and not blinking

By now we were starting to fall into the groove.  I knew that we had the shot they wanted for their website, but I was just feeling like I was getting to what I wanted from the session, so I started to pull them a little further away from the background and stagger their arrangements.  Jason was the head of the band, so I knew I wanted him in focus, and if the focus fell off a bit, I was okay with that.  Not everyone had to be crystal-sharp for me.  I wanted to add a little dimension to the group shot.

And that was the shot I was looking for.  Visually I was interested in the composition and layout of all the members.  Jason was tight and in focus, and everyone else starts to go out of focus.  Visually I liked how my eye started on Andria in the left of the image and you can feel your eyeballs move up and down as you move across the image to the right.  This was the shot for me and after I got this, I knew we were good.

I also played around with the prism a little more:

“look that way”

Once the group images were good to go, I wanted to get individual shots of each band member that would go on the website's "About Us" page.

Tom Hardy. Totally.

It was a really great session and I think they were very happy with the images we created.

Their website went live and it looks pretty darn good:

Thanks gang, you guys were great to photograph, and I'm looking forward to working with y'all again in the future.

To see a few more shots, take a spin over to my Flickr feed.

Christ John Otto

Christ John Otto is an author and the founder of Belonging House.  He contacted me after seeing the work I've done with Ian Ethan Case and we've developed a friendship while preparing to work together.  Christ (rhymes with "wrist") was looking to have some promotional photography created in the form of head shots for his website and upcoming books.  During our session, he let me play around a little bit and diverge away from our head shot session and take a little more freestyle approach.

For the image above, I slapped the Petzval lens on the front of the camera and took Christ into an empty studio next door to mine.  I love this look he is giving me here.  I love how the background gets kind of messy and circular because of the Petzval.  I don't use the Petzval enough and have to remember to put it on the camera more often.

Then I tossed a prism in front of the lens and started picking up reflections and refractions.

I love when a client allows me to play a little bit during our session.  I'm usually very lighthearted during all my sessions, but the people that let me break out a little bit and try this and that hold a special place in my heart.

Christ is currently on a multi-month sabbatical in Scotland right now.  Color me jealous.  He told me before he left that he's already anxious to hire me for another session, which is the best compliment in the world to get.

See you soon, Christ.  Make magic while in Scotland.  See you when you get back.

Fever Pitch • North Main Music

Fever Pitch is an acapella group formed by students of North Main Music.  They needed some promotional photography that would be used on their website and for press releases for print, and Mike, the owner of North Main Music brought the gang by the studio one evening so we could create some photography for them.  Mike is a great guy, and I'm happy that he's hired me in the past for some of their photography needs.

I wanted to do a simple session on white, so that they could crop or extended the images as needed for posters and other various sized print materials.

Mike grabbed a shot of me while I played human-jenga and positioned the group:

If you get a chance to check them out locally, catch them singing.  It's good stuff.  And make sure you swing by North Main Music, especially if you are thinking about taking classes, or giving the gift of a class to someone important to you.

Jane Button

I don't remember how long I've known photographer Jane Button.  It seems like forever.  I know she was around when I was in college, so that makes it at least 14 or so years.  I've always thought she was adorable, and I'm always making stupid "cute as a button" comments because of her last name, but I love being around Jane.  She's a theater actor and she's always so friendly and I just enjoy her.

She's branching out to spend more time being a professional photographer and she hired me to create some head shots that would go on her new website and various online purposes.

Thanks, Jane.

Cute as a Button.