The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets From One of the World's Top Shooters

all these pictures of me.” I knew the session was over. Grabbed a 105mm lens, shot a couple tight frames, and I thanked him.
     
    The Godfather of Soul! He was dead a few months later. This just might have been his last formal portrait.

     

    James Brown
    Pay Attention to the Small Pictures
     

    “Tom Kennedy, the former DOP at National Geographic, always used to tell me to Pay attention to the small pictures.”

    Tom Kennedy, the former DOP [ 1 ] at National Geographic , always used to tell me to pay attention to the small pictures. They are the connective tissue that holds together the larger bones of the story.

    [ 1 ] DOP is Director of Photography. He’s the guy that controls my air supply—he assigns the story, has control over the overall direction of the photography, and is the main tap. Everything flows from him.

    On the story about ballerina Paloma Herrera, I had done grand, beautiful, soaring, magnificent. She was all of those, to be sure.
     
    What I hadn’t done was a detail. Something small, intimate, telling. Hard to blame me for this, really. I mean, when you’re assigned to photograph the Concorde, do you shoot the landing gear?

    Beauty and pain go hand-in-hand—especially in the world of dance. Paloma wasn’t happy about it, but I asked her to take off her shoes at the end of a workout. Her feet were a mess. I shot it flash-on-camera in about a minute. Not the best, nor the prettiest picture of the take, just the most important.

    How to Get This Type of Shot

    I mentioned that I took this with on-camera flash—I swiveled the head 180° straight upward and bounced it off the high ceiling of the dance workout room. Having that flash head aiming straight up fills in just enough—it’s still a primarily available-light photo, it’s just that the fill flash improves the quality of what you can see.

     

    Paloma Herrera’s Feet
    Get the Right Five Minutes
     

    With major athletes, five minutes is a big deal. This picture I shot in about three minutes, and got a total of 17 frames. Because of his size, I put El Guapo (reliever Rich Garcés) in the middle with Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez on either side. Then I told Manny and Pedro to pull El Guapo’s ears, which they were more than happy to do. I got a reaction, got a picture, and they were gone. Play ball!

    If you’ve only got five minutes, you’ve got to force an emotional response from your subjects that in turn will translate into an emotional response from your viewer. Humor is one of the biggest things you’ve got in your bag of tricks—if you can introduce a little humor into your photo, so many things can go to hell in a handbasket, and you still get a great picture. In public, these guys have got their game faces on, so when you capture them laughing, it makes them more human to the reader.

    How to Get This Type of Shot

    I took this using one Elinchrom Octabank [ 1 ] with a strobe positioned to the right of my camera, with the height just above the eye line to get some light up under their ballcaps.

    [ 1 ] Elinchrom Octabank: A large softbox, slightly over 6′ wide. A source of very soft, reflected light. An industry standard for both studio and location portraiture.

    “It doesn’t matter if it’s only five minutes, as long as it’s the RIGHT five minutes.”

     

    Manny Ramirez, Rich Garcés, Pedro Martinez
    Gradate the Light
     

    Jenny Gutierrez

    “Light falls. Just make sure it falls in your favor.”

    You don’t want the reader to look at your pictures and say, “Well, he must have the light over here!” No. You want the reader to simply say, “Whoa, cool picture.” You don’t want them looking up the sleeve of the magician.
     
    One of the dead bang giveaways occurs in a full-length picture when you don’t gradate the light. You put up the light on camera left, for instance, make it all nice, and the subject looks nice and the ground looks nice too, ‘cause it’s lit up with the same intensity, feel, and f-stop as the subject.

    Bad move. Being careless like that creates an off-ramp for the reader’s eye to exit your photo.

    How to Get This Type of Shot

    Take the time to do the following:

A) Raise the lamp head so most of the light blows past and over the subject and disappears into space.

B) Hit the subject with a hard light you are controlling with a spot grid or a barn door.

C) Take anything you’ve got (a piece of black paper, a cloth, your winter jacket) and skirt the bottom