The final image of Brad Pennington speeding through the water.

Recently, I worked  with champion marathon kayaker Brad Pennington.  I’ve shot many athletes in my career……and many are absolute tops in their respective sports, but you have to be completely blown away by a 43-year-old guy who set a course record in the Yukon River Quest by paddling (yes, paddling) his super skinny racing kayak 460 miles in 44 hours, 14 minutes.

Most people think kayaking is all about having giant shoulders and arms, but in fact, it engages the core muscles more than most people would realize.  If you sat in Brad’s boat, you would turn over almost immediately and fall into the water.  My assistant, Nathan Lindstrom, a very agile and athletic guy, who rock climbs regularly,  had a pretty hard time keeping the boat upright, and he ended up in the drink.  Brad offered me a chance to sit in the tippy vessel as well, but I politely declined.

I planned on photographing him paddling towards the camera, in motion, with a slow shutter speed capturing some movement in the background.  I had done a similar picture with a bicyclist at a velodrome before, with the camera attached to the bicycle: rider frozen with strobe, but with the background completely blurred in motion.

Our first attempt. (Photo by Todd Spoth)

I talked to Brad about mounting a camera on his kayak, with a wide angle pointed back at him.  I made arrangements to rent an SPL surf housing and a Canon 5D MkII for the shot (we decided that a Canon EOS1DsMarkIII would be too heavy and unstable.  Assistants Todd Spoth and Nathan Lindstrom drilled a hole in one of Brad’s older kayaks, and we then mounted a small ballhead to the bow and attached the housing/camera.

We set up our lighting equipment on another boat (a party barge, with a large flat deck), and had Brad follow us, slightly off to one side.  although the lighting worked great, and the Pocketwizard Multimax triggered everything perfectly (inside the housing), what we found was, that the top of the kayak was just too thin to support everything in a stable manner.  The thin hull, although mounted securely to the ballhead, still allowed the mounted camera and housing to buckle like a plastic bottle, allowing the camera to flop back and forth.  Brad makes constant adjustments, using his balance (and core muscles) to keep the kayak upright.  With a slow shutter speed, this resulted in a lot of undesirable side-to-side motion blur, rather than the linear motion blur we were hoping for.  There were some good frames, but again, it was not the picture I had originally envisioned.  While I had the housing, I tried some other “waterline” shots with Brad and his kayak.

Waterline shot of Brad Pennington taken with an SPL surf housing.

It was clear that we needed to somehow have the kayak and camera on the same platform, moving at the same speed through the water.

I decided to reshoot on another day.  In the interim, we explored building a camera rig for the kayak, almost like a Hollywood style car shot, but eventually we settled on strapping the kayak to the barge using nylon webbing and rubber pads to provide friction and to protect the hull.

After trying in vain to secure Brad’s kayak to the barge (there was no way to do it without scratching or otherwise damaging the kayak), we finally realized that we could essentially tow him through the water with very little effort.  Because there were no eyelets or holes to tie a line to, Nathan laid down on the stern of the barge and held on to Brad’s kayak as we towed him through the water.   Brad paddled some, but mostly to keep himself balanced and upright, as Nathan held the bow in place, between the pontoons of the barge.  As strange and low tech as this sounds, it worked quite well.

Torn from one of Leonardo's notebooks, obviously.

Our light source, a Profoto 7B, with a Plume Wafer 100, was mounted on the deck of the barge, off to the side opposite the kayak.   We tried out a new product from Lighttools, the company that makes Soft Egg Crate fabric grids for softboxes.  We used a 30 degree grid in the Wafer 100, to limit spill and concentrate most of the light on Brad instead of the kayak and water……not an unusual setup, but this time, we added a Lighttools Stretch Frame.  The Stretch Frame, consists of collapsible poles covered in velcro, which mount inside the softbox, providing a rigid frame for the grid.  This eliminates sag, and keeps the openings in the grid fully stretched open, which was critical on a moving, windy boat deck.  I was skeptical when I first heard about these, but they actually work really well, and are now a permanent part of my lighting kit.

I mounted my camera to the railing of the barge with a Bogen superclamp and ballhead, directly over Nathan’s head, but eventually switched to a handheld shot so that I could manually keep Brad’s head in the center of the frame while we were moving.  although I normally wouldn’t have done this, I zoomed the 16-35mm lens ever so slightly to accentuate the motion of Brad coming toward the camera.

The lesson here:  Despite the best laid plans, renting expensive equipment, hiring extra assistants, etc…..sometimes the simplest solution is the right solution.

Portrait of Brad, taken with a Plume Hexoval 180, (rimlight courtesy of the Sun).

There’s a profile on me on the Profoto site.  I was really honored that I was asked to participate.  It’s got some career history, lighting stuff, and a little bit about how much I enjoy using the awesome Profoto 7B, and the famous Jeffrey Salter quote:  “Saw the hot shoe off your camera.”, (which is what got me started in lighting in the first place).   Check it out here.

I was recently assigned to photograph figure skater Becky Bereswill.  Becky is 19, and won the gold in the 2008-2009 ISU Junior Grand Prix in Goyang, South Korea.  In addition to being an incredible figure skater, Becky was also a record setting track athlete in high school, and she has an identical twin who also competes in figure skating!

She normally practices at a suburban Houston ice rink.  Most ice rinks are tough to light, and usually have all the drama of a high school gym, with fluorescent or sodium vapor lighting.  We are fortunate to have a great ice rink here in Houston in the Galleria mall.  The Galleria is one of the first multi-level malls in the country, and the ice rink on the bottom level was the centerpiece of the design when it was originally built in 1970.  I thought that the skylights in the roof, and the elevated positions on the second and third levels might make for some interesting pictures…..certainly better than a fluorescent lit metal building.

We arranged access for early morning, before the mall opened to shoppers.  Becky was in expert hands with makeup artist Wendy Martin, while assistant Nathan Lindstrom and I set up the lighting for the shoot.  Unfortunately, we knew it was going to be a cloudy day, so in order to get something similar to the skylight effect I was hoping for, we brought a 2000 watt-second optical spot called a Dramalight (made by the Flash Clinic in New York).  I’ve mentioned this unit before, and even though I rarely use it, it comes in handy in a situation like this.

The Dramalight was set up (and chained to the railing for safety) on the second level of the mall, and pointed down onto the ice.  We used a variety of Rosco gobo patterns to create different window light effects on the surface of the ice.  To light Becky, we set up a Profoto 7B on the ice with a Plume Wafer 100 and a Lighttools 30 degree grid.  This provided a soft yet dramatic effect, and minimized the amount of spill from the Wafer onto our window pattern background.

Becky was tireless throughout the shoot, and showed us a wide variety of poses and jumps.  Not only did she execute perfectly, but she also hit her marks so well so that we were able to line her up exactly where we wanted in the various window pattern compositions.

A video of the lighting workshop webinar presentation Photoshelter founder Allen Murabayashi and I recently took part in is now available.  The video features our live webinar from March 31st in which we discussed my lighting demo shoot with Michael Scott Creature from the SXSW festival in Austin last month.  Taylor Jones, the owner of Texas Grip, provided us with a fabulous grip truck stocked with Profoto gear for our demo shoot.

The video has made the rounds among many of my favorite photography websites, including, David Hobby’s Strobist site, Rob Galbraith.com, and even the Profoto blog.

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak at SXSW in Austin at an event sponsored by Photoshelter.  At the end of the seminar, we did a quick lighting demo with a local Austin musician, and we’ll share those photos, the planning, and the thought process that went into the demo this Wednesday night, March 31 from 6-7pm Central Time during a live webinar at Photoshelter.com.  I hope you can join us.

Taylor Jones, a fabulous Austin digital tech (and owner of Texas Grip) provided support with live capture during the event, and provided most of the lighting equipment from his magically awesome grip truck.  We were assisted by good friends Nathan Lindstrom, Todd Spoth, Will Rutledge, and Andrew Loehman.  Profoto also helped out by loaning us some additional equipment for the event.

We thought it would be interesting to show a scenario that happens all too often in our business:  How to deal with a subject with limited time in a single location.  Planning and choreographing your shoot ahead of time and utilizing different lighting tools can make all the difference and can give your art director more setups to choose from.

We really lucked out by landing a great musician and artist to be our muse for the shoot:  Michael Scott Parker, of Creature Rock.  Michael used to live in San Francisco, and has been photographed numerous times by the trinity of rock and roll photographers: Michael Zagaris, Baron Wolman, and the late, great, Jim Marshall.  She was great to work with, and I hope to shoot with her again soon.

I’ve been asked to participate in an exciting event coming up on Saturday, March 13 in Austin, Texas.  Photoshelter, the premier company helping photographers with websites, sales and marketing tools, file delivery and secure image archiving is putting together an exciting photo workshop  in conjunction with the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference.

Allen Murabayashi, the CEO of Photoshelter will be presenting a program on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for photography websites.  Allen and his colleague Grover Sanschagrin  have studied photo websites and SEO more than anyone on the planet.  (They are also two of the smartest people I know).  If you haven’t checked out their FREE pdf reports on SEO, social media, and photography websites, then you’re just plain nuts.  This will be a great presentation.

I’ll deliver a talk/slideshow showing a wide-ranging body of work, and talk about transitioning through different phases of a photography career.  I started in newspapers, migrated to a magazine staff job, and then went out on my own as a commercial photographer.  I’ll talk about each phase, the challenges of a changing marketplace, and (of course) show lots of photographs.

After a quick lunch break, there will be a panel discussion with my two of my good friends:  stellar photographer, and BBQ buddy  Darren Carroll (probably the best golf photographer in the world, and a helluva portrait shooter, too), and Taylor Jones (a fellow photographer who has made a name for himself as a super high-end digital tech, who works all over the country for some of the biggest names in the advertising world).  Local photogs (who I don’t know personally – but am looking forward to meeting) Eric Hegwer, and Jack Hollingsworth will also be on hand to complete the panel.  Together we’ll discuss both the art and business of photography.

At the end of the day, we’ll have a live photo shoot/lighting workshop.  I’ll answer some lighting questions, talk about portrait concepts, research and planning.  I’ll show you how to pull off a quick portrait shoot with a variety of looks in one location.  Taylor will be on hand to demonstrate how a great digital tech operates.  It should be a lot of fun, and I’m excited that they’ve asked me to participate.

The event will be from 11-4, at The Long Center for the Performing Arts, 701 West Riverside, Austin, Texas on Saturday, March 13, 2010.

Looking forward to seeing lots of folks there!

The cover shot from inside Kentucky's Memorial Hall

I recently had the good fortune of a great assignment in Lexington, Kentucky.  I was sent there a couple of days after Christmas to photograph one of the top college basketball players in the country, John Wall, for Sports Illustrated.

Portrait of Wall inside Kentucky's Memorial Hall

My charge was to photograph Wall on the Kentucky campus in an iconic and easily recognizable setting.  Lexington is an absolutely  beautiful area, but the horse farms, race tracks (Bourbon distilleries?…..just kidding.)  and the like were out due to the limited time we had with Wall, and oh yeah….it was about 24 degrees, completely overcast, snowing off and on,  with 20-30 mph winds that day!

We couldn’t use Rupp Arena either, as the team was practicing throughout the day, and the women’s gym (the old coliseum) was being set up for a gymnastics event.  I found a nice expanse of three large glass brick windows (the outside wall of an old swimming pool) on campus, but alas, it had been divided into classrooms/study halls for the athletic department tutoring program.  Ugh!  Most of the buildings with character  on campus were closed for the holidays and we were quickly running out of options.

It’s tough trying to come back with nice pictures, when you have very little to work with in the background department, but it’s also the most common problem most photographers deal with.  When pressed, I can take a 6-10 foot sliver of just about anything and make a passable shot.  I was just about ready to stage the shoot in a practice gym, or a locker room hallway….hell, even a stretch of solid white concrete wall was looking pretty good to us at that point!

Fortunately, with the help of the Sports Information Director, we were able to convince a campus guard to let us access Memorial Hall, a grand old theater/church-like building on the campus.  Anyone who is familiar with Kentucky knows this building, which is a memorial for soldiers killed in WW I, and dates back to 1929.  During our scouting trip the night before, our plans were just to utilize the signature building in the background of some of the shots (although we knew we would have to work fast due to the weather conditions).  When we got inside, it was obvious that the stage, with the cool arched windows in the background, could make a great and very graphic shot.

Black background, with the gridded Wafer 75 high on a boom, right in front of the subject

We had to make the most of our 35 minutes of alloted time, so SI assistant Andrew Loehman and I  quickly went to work inside, setting up lighting gear in a central location around one spot, so that Wall would not need to move much at all.  Since we originally planned to be outside on the campus, we brought Profoto 7B packs and heads for the assignment.

For the black background-tight shot we used a Plume Wafer 75 directly over and in front of the subject’s head on a boom, with a Lighttools 30 degree fabric grid to limit the spill. The rim-light was formed by  two lights with regular reflectors and makeshift snoots from behind the subject on each side..  We intended for the background to go completely black, but since we were working in a white room with no black background, I placed a black reflector disc behind the subject’s head, in the event that background retouching was required (so there would be no issues with selecting hair).

Sepia shot from the middle of the hall

For the full length shot, we used a Plume Wafer 100 with a 30 degree grid, high and to the subject’s right, and a Wafer 75 with 30 degree grid from behind on the left side of the subject…slightly lower.  This formed a simple crosslight effect, and the grids kept the white walls of the room in check.  I would have preferred using a larger light source for both of these, but the smaller boxes with grids were really the only solution to preserve the effect of the dramatic window in the background.  We added a full CTO gel to the strobes so we could shift the overall white balance  cooler, making the subject a normal skin tone color, but the window light slightly blue.  For this shot, we did tight and loose static poses, and then just before moving on, I asked Wall to do a few leaps for me.  He obliged with a few dramatic spring-loaded jumps.  One of these was eventually selected for the cover.

Next, we quickly moved forward in the seats (about 20 rows back) to  create a higher-key portrait from the middle of the hall (which I converted to black and white).  Then we had John change into his warm ups (not for sartorial reasons, but  for warmth), and sprinted outside with one light and a Plume Wafer Hexoval 140 (Plume’s medium hexoval).  There we photographed Wall for 4 minutes or so at two different spots with Memorial Hall, with and without tungsten white balance settings.  On the tungsten shots we added a full + 1/4 CTO gel to bring the strobe back fairly close to daylight on camera.

Wall was a great kid to work with, and I’m hoping to photograph him again someday (probably soon), when he makes his next leap to the NBA.

Wall: outside in the elements with Memorial Hall in the background

All Photographs in this article are © 2009 Robert Seale.  All Rights Reserved.  Feel free to link to these, but do not otherwise use without permission.  Thanks.

Olympic gymnast Raj Bhavsar hanging from a goalpost

I had the opportunity to collaborate recently on some sports portrait photographs of Olympic gymnast Raj Bhavsar.  Raj was on the 2001 and 2003 U.S. World Champion gymnastics team, and was a bronze medalist on the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team in Beijing.

After a weather delay derailed our first shoot, we regrouped a week later and had a wonderful day with clear skies for our rescheduled shoot.  One of the chief concerns was finding a suitable location for the shoot.  Raj’s gym was a typical fluorescent lit nightmare for photography.  I knew that we could get cleaner and more dramatic photos outdoor somewhere, but Raj is a badass in the rings event…..where do you hang his rings outside, so that you can still get a sky/clean background behind him?

Raj at the edge of the Galveston seawall: sometimes you lose the strobes and go with what God gave you...

After thinking for a few days, it hit me…..why not hang them from the goalpost of a football field?  This is Texas, so football fields are everywhere and easily accessible.  We wanted a location that might give us several different options, both with the rings and without, so we finally decided on Galveston Island.  I used Google Earth to scout football fields, and to look at the directional layouts of various fields.  Google Earth rules, and has become an invaluable scouting tool for us.

We began the shoot at Galveston Ball High School (we got permission from the school district first), and used a ladder to rig Raj’s ring setup to the crossbar of the goalpost.  We decided to do this shoot with Raj dressed in jeans, and we did some shots with and without his shirt on to showcase his highly developed upper body.

After breaking down the ring setup, and after an interview and quick costume change we took Raj down to the Galveston seawall, and photographed him there.  The evening light was beautiful and warm, so we went with natural light on this series.  For sunset, we traveled to the end of the seawall and photographed him holding an amazing pose as the sun went down.  The sunset shots were lit simply, with a Plume Wafer Hexoval 180 held by assistant Nathan Lindstrom over very uneven rocks in high winds.  Raj was really interested in photography, so he made a fabulous subject.  I can’t wait to work with him again soon.

Raj holding an unbelievable pose, lit with a Hexoval 180

Neftali Feliz and Derek Holland for Sports Illustrated.

I recently photographed Texas Rangers pitchers Neftali Feliz and Derek Holland for Sports Illustrated.  While brainstorming ideas for the shoot with the photo editor, he mentioned a picture I had done several years earlier for a Sporting News cover of CC  Sabathia in which I had lit Sabathia’s face with a small strobe hidden in his glove.  He mentioned that he would like to see this treatment with the Feliz/Holland duo.

Sabathia, "throwing" the 25 dollar Morris Mini Slave.

In the original photo, we lit the background with a strobe with a blue gel, to give a graduated spot on the background wall behind Sabathia.  I then used a (no kidding!) 25 dollar Morris mini slave strobe in Sabathia’s glove……since the strobe was circular and of similar size to a baseball, we even shot some photos of him “throwing” the strobe/ball at the camera.  It made a pretty cool picture.

Strangely enough, that photo of Sabathia was taken in Arlington when he was pitching for Cleveland, and visiting the Texas Rangers.  Several years later, here I was in the SAME ROOM beneath the Ballpark at Arlington shooting Feliz/Holland in a very similar setup.  Weird.  Sometimes I feel like I know the hallways, storage rooms, and locker rooms of these stadiums better than the actual field.

The downside of using the Morris Strobe, is that they aren’t very powerful, nor can you vary the power.  We decided that the much more sophisticated Canon 580’s would probably work much better……however hiding them in a tiny pitcher’s glove proved to be a challenge indeed.

Anyway, we knew the Rangers photo was to be combined in the final layout with several other pitchers from around the league, so we kept the background a simple black.  I decided to rimlight the two guys with a pair of medium softboxes ( Plume Wafer 100) with a 30 degree grid on each side.  We added a Plume Wafer 140 in the center of the set on a low stand directly below the camera, for fill.  It was important to set the fill light at a low enough power to keep the white uniforms from blowing out.  We just wanted the fill to barely illuminate some detail in the uniforms and faces of the players.  Then we placed a Canon 580 Speedlight with an Omni-bounce in each player’s glove with a Pocketwizard Multimax to trigger each strobe.

Assistant Will Rutledge testing the glove strobe.

It took some careful testing to get the ratios just right, which we of course tested before the players arrived (I think we got about 10 minutes with them).

Basically, we set the camera up at F11.0, then adjusted the softbox rimlights a full stop hotter (F16.0), the speedlights in the gloves were set and metered to 11 1/2, and the Wafer 140 softbox, our fill light, was set to  5.6 1/2.

In addition to this photo, we also shot individual portraits of both players, and a couple of different versions of a “safer” shot of the two of them together.  For the “safe” shot, we simply ditched the 580’s, kept the rimlights in place, reposed the players, and raised the fill light onto a taller stand and adjusted the power up one stop.

The "safe" version.

Ostrich Dior suit

I was recently asked to collaborate with the fashion staff of GLOSS, a monthly glossy broadsheet fashion publication produced by the Houston Chronicle (Hearst Newspapers).  Over the past few months, I’ve shot four cover stories for GLOSS.  I thought I would share a few stories from those shoots, since they presented some interesting lighting challenges.

Bottega Veneta coat (Plume Wafer 100 with grid, Dramalight optical spot for rimlight, Plume Wafer 75 for the background),

Fashion photography is a nice break from shooting sports portraits of famous athletes, or annual report photography with CEO’s.  It’s nice to be completely creative, and work closely with a talented team of writers, editors, stylists, and designers who produce the section.  Even though you can experiment more and take chances with the lighting (more so, than with a CEO for example…); you still have to keep in mind the paramount principle of fashion photography….the point is to show (and sell) the clothes! 

During our first shoot together last fall, our showcase piece of the season was a purple Dior suit made of ostrich.  We really wanted the texture to come out in the exotic skin, so we kept the light soft and simple, but directional, with a dim backlight on the background in the center behind the model.  The idea was that the model be almost anonymous, so your eye would really focus on the texture of the suit.  We kept the lighting similar for a purple velvet hat/coat ensemble.

For a gray-purple Bottega Veneta coat, we took a slightly different lighting approach.  The coat featured all sorts of embellished fabric….stacked layers of loops and fringes outlining the shoulders and sleeves of the coat.  Lighting it in exactly the same manner as the other two wouldn’t show this critical signature feature of the piece, so we placed a Dramalight (a Flash Clinic custom modified optical spot), behind the model and tightly focused on her back to highlight the irregularities and loops of fabric in the coat.  The keylight was a Plume Wafer 100 with a Lighttools fabric grid to limit the front light to her face and front ¼ of the clothing.  

Many of the clothes had a funky sixties feel to them, so our makeup artist, Wendy Martin created some really over-the-top heavy eye makeup to keep with that era.

Herve Leger bandage dresses (Photek Softlighter).

 With the exception of the different treatment of the Bottega Veneta coat, we used a Photek Softlighter (essentially a 60” umbrella, with a diffuser on the front) as our main light for most of the day.  With the grey background formed by either not lighting (or in some cases barely lighting) the white cyc wall background, this gave a very similar look to Avedon’s 60’s lighting style, which fit well with the dresses and makeup.

The Photek is an interesting piece of gear.  At 90 bucks, I often call it my “Ghetto Octabank”, but in reality it gives a look with more contrast.  If you place it close to the subject on a high boom, you get a similar look to the lighting style of Avedon or David Bailey in their 1960’s heyday.

Fashion editor Clifford Pugh and designer Kellye Sanford prep model Megan O"Leary.