Worth the weather ... and the fall

I woke up Saturday to a cold overcast sky. Welcome October. I was hoping for one of those wonderful Michigan Indian summer days because I had an outdoor engagement session planned mid-morning in Lansing. I dutifully packed my car with my photo equipment, including a small flashgun setup for use with a 24x24 softbox off-camera and an Alien Bee B800 studio strobe, along with a portable power unit and a couple of umbrellas, Oh yeah, and a pair of weight-lifter leather gloves with no fingers. It wasn't the clouds I was worried about, it was the cold.

We were to meet at 10:30 at the Fenner Nature Center on the edge of Lansing, and a short distance from the Michigan State University Campus. I had never been there before, so I made sure I arrived early so I could scout out some places for shooting. Turns out there were a couple of ideal spots right around the nature center building itself, plus I found a nice spot along a treed lined path just a short walk away.

Heather and Scott arrive a few minutes early and I suggested they wait inside the nature center while I got my off-camera light set up. I left the Alien Bee and battery pack in the car and opted to use my trusty Canon 580EX II flashgun mounted on a lightstand with the 24x24 softbox attached. I used a Cybersync radio trigger and receiver to set off the flash.

It was only 40 degree out so Heather and Scott would peel off their coats for a few minutes of shooting and then bundle back up. If you look at the photo of the top of this post it is hard to tell it was an overcast day, thanks to the beauty of the flash and pushing the white balance a bit warmer in post-production. The choice to use the flashgun on a lightstand setup turned out to be a good once because it was easy to lug around.

After about a hour of shooting at the nature center, we drove to downtown Lansing  to shoot about the state Capitol building. I abandoned the lightstand setup and mounted the flash on telescoping bracket attached to my camera. I was using my Canon 7D for the shoot and was able to control the flash without using a cord through my camera's own small flash, a neat feature on the 7D.

So what about the fall? Well, we had just gotten done shooting on the steps of the Capitol and I was walking down them when I spotted the line of lampposts along the sidewalks leading up to the building and had a moment of inspiration. Unfortunately, my brain apparently can't do two things at once and failed to register that I still had a step or two to go before I was on the sidewalk. I started to blurt out my idea when ... oops, I was tripping and tumbling straight forward toward the ground with several thousand dollars of camera gear between me and the cement. Somehow, I managed to jerk my body around so I ended up hitting on the backside (my butt and then my back), while holding my camera and gear in one hand above me. The camera gear was fine, I was a bit embarrassed but otherwise fine. One more moment of many to add to that long list of embarrassing moments. And we proceeded to get the shot that caused it all.

Fatherhood - Happy Father's Day 2011

I took this shot a year ago in May while visiting New York with my daughter. We were staying in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood and I got up early on Saturday morning to wander the streets of Brooklyn to see what I could see and hopefully do a little street photography. 

I was wandering up Fourth Avenue, heading north I believe, when I saw this cool looking mural on the other side of the street, at the intersection of Lincoln Place, on a building housing the Diaspora Community Services. Then this great fortuitous, serendipitous thing happened. Here was this man walking toward Fourth Avenue with this baby in a chest carrier. I already had my camera ready with a telephoto lens on it and I waited for him to come out of the shadow into the light. 

The man and baby by themselves would have made a great street photography grab - with his hat, pants legs rolled up and both hands holding the baby's hands. But there they were against the backdrop of a gigantic mural portraying this muscular working man seemingly embracing the world and everything in it. This photo speaks to  me of strong fathers -- men who toil for a living and love their families.

I was blessed with a father who strong and hard working and dedicated to his family. My Dad wasn't perfect and he made mistakes, but he was (is) a damn good father - I never doubted he love and always knew he had my back when I needed it.  He just turned 87 this past week, and even now he is ready to come to the aid of his very adult children when he thinks they need him.  

My father had a hard life. He was helping on the family farm, walking behind a plow horse by the time he was 5. He had to quit school in 8th grade, as the oldest child, and take over running the farm, while his father went to work in town during the Great Depression. He and my mother had known each other only a couple of weeks before they got married and he shipped overseas to the Pacific during World War II. Sixty-seven years later, my father remains a dedicated, loving husband to my mother. 

After the war, my parents moved to Detroit, so my Dad could get a job in the auto factories. He eventually ended up at Massey-Ferguson, where -  despite only having an eighth grade education, he eventually rose up to be a plant manager. 

Growing up, I truly thought that this was a man who could do anything. When I was about 12, he took a sledge hammer to the back of our small brick ranch in Livonia, knocking out the wall to begin a summer long project of building a family room addition - pretty much doing all the work himself. He could fix cars or just about anything else. 

Back in the days of my youth and when I fashioned myself as an aspiring poet, I wrote this poem about him:

My Father Can

My father amazes me.

He can square, saw, plane, nail

a whole house together.

But he falls asleep

when he reads the paper.

And he couldn't tell you

the last book he's read.

I can tell you I just finished

a Hemingway novel

and write newspaper stories for a living.

But I could never be so smart

as to square, saw, plane, nail

a whole house together.

My father and I were different in many ways - I was a dreamer with a love of reading and the arts; he was practical and a nose to the grindstone guy. He didn't drink or smoke, but he sure could swear when he got mad (which wasn't all that infrequent). But, despite our differences, he taught me a lot, mostly the importance of being a good, hard-working, honest man. And he inspired me to try to be the best father I could be - someone who would always be there for my daughter, just like I always knew he would be there for me and my brothers and sisters.

So thank you Dad for everything you have done and achieved, and the path that you showed me to take.

Negative Space

I have been reading a bit lately about the use of negative space in photography. My interest in it was piqued while watching a training video with photographer Jeremy Cowert. Generally in photography, the tendency is to fill the frame with as much as the subject as you can.  Background that doesn't add to the photo is called dead space and is often cropped out.

Negative space is perhaps dead space taken to an extreme. It can be used to isolate against or contrast the subject to his or her environment or to define the subject in the photo.

The inclination might be to fill up the frame with as much of the subject as you can. That wouldn't work in this case. Having the boy at the edge of the frame, facing out from the center of the "action," creates a tension or drama that wouldn't be there, say, if you centered him in the frame or even if he happened to be facing inward. The negative space is what makes the picture work. 

Lady with the red dress

Same old story. You want to be a good photographer? Then take the time and make the effort to become one.

Driving home from work the other night, I was cutting through the Kerrytown area of downtown Ann Arbor on Kingsley Street toward North Main. As I crossed over Detroit Street, I looked (as I always do) at Zingerman's Deli. I have shot it a hundred times, but there is always a new angle. Sure enough, there was a woman in a bright red dress with white stockings and white sunglasses sitting on the bench in front of the famous deli.

I drove through the intersection, wrestling in my mind whether I should try to find a parking spot. At I spotted a spot, but instead of turning left and grabbing it, I kept driving. It had been a long day at work, I was tired and I wanted to beat the brunt of the rush hour traffic that awaited me on Main Street as it heads north onto M-14. I turned north on Fouth Avenue, as part of my regular zigzag route over to Main, and got down to Depot Street. Shit, I had to go back. Chances are the parking spot and the woman would be gone by the time I doubled back the half-mile I had already driven, but I had to go back.  So, I turned right on Depot, drove over a block, then turned right onto Fourth and headed south back into Kerrytown.

As, I came up to Kingsley, I saw the parking spot was still empty, and even a bigger surprise, I glanced down to Detroit Street and could see the woman still sitting there. I parked, grabbed my camera, threw two dimes into the parking meter, and walked a block over to Detroit Street to grab the photo that was waiting for me there.

Leaving Las Vegas

I might be one of the few people in the history of the world to spend a full week in Las Vegas and not drop a dime in the slot machines. It's not that I have anything against gambling (at least in moderation), it's just that I would rather blow my hard-earned money on other things, like photo equipment.

Besides, I wasn't in Las Vegas to party, I was there for the annual Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) convention, and I had some serious learning to do about marketing my fledgling wedding photography business. I went with my business partner, a beautiful, single, young woman who did joyously throw herself into Vegas' party scene. Let's just say, she had a much better time than I did, if you don't count the hangovers.

It's not hard to gamble in Vegas, the slots are everywhere. They are there to greet you in the terminal when you step off your plane at the airport, and you have to wade through a mile of slots, crap tables and poker tables to check into your room at most of the hotel-casinos.

Perhaps, what struck me most about Vegas is that it is truly a city that never sleeps. I would wake up at 6 a.m., take the elevator down to the main floor to pick up a cup of coffee and find dozens of people feeding the slots, turning cards at poker tables and tossing dice at crap tables, while tossing down drinks and smoking cigarettes.

Like most big cities, Las Vegas is a town of contrasts, but maybe even more so. It is hard to imagine the amount of money that is being spent there each day. I watched an older Italian gentleman buy $5,000 worth of chips at a crap table one afternoon in the Paris Casino, and wager hundreds of dollars per toss.

Yet every day at the bus stop shelter in front of my hotel, a half dozen or so of some of the most desperate-looking homeless people I had ever seen would hang out most of the day (I am embarrassed to say that I stayed at Hooters Hotel and Casino. Hey, it was cheap and right across the street from the MGM Grand, where the convention was).

The casinos are all glitter and lights, both inside and out, yet every few feet you walk on the Boulevard there is someone snapping a card at you to hire a prostitute. On the Saturday night, I spend exploring Las Vegas Boulevard, the sidewalks were littered with thousands of these cards.

And you have to wonder, how many of the thousands and thousands of people that are feeding the slots or betting on the next Blackjack hand are gambling away this month's rent or mortgage payment. As my friend Mercy says, Vegas wasn't built on winners.

Following your instincts: The long cut home

Driving home from work tonight, I got off the freeway at my usual exit at 8 Mile Road at Whitmore Lake  and headed west and north along my usual maze of winding side roads that would get me home in the quickest manner. The sun was just starting to drop, below a western cloud cover. Through the trees and houses I could see a vibrant orange and yellow horizon.

I was tired and I really just wanted to get home, but I started thinking about where I might get a good view of the sunset and maybe a nice photograph. I decided to cut up north along unpaved Hall Road, which runs along the eastern side of Hamburg Lake. It's a small but pretty lake, with the dirt road running close to the lake and the houses sitting on the other side of the road, leaving a clear view of the western horizon.

As I drove, I looked for something to frame against the beautiful sunset. As soon as I spotted the snow-covered bench next to the huge tree with its drooping limbs, I knew I had found the right spot. I framed the photo so the sun would be captured between the tree limbs which flowed downward toward the bench. I slightly underexposed the shot to better capture the color and drama of the sky through the web of tree limbs.

It's the same lesson I have learned time and time again. Good photos don't find you. You have to find them. And that sometimes that means taking the long way home after a long day at work.

The glorious wonders of natural light

Ask just about any portrait or studio photographer, and they will tell you how wonderful natural light is. We shoot with flashguns and studio lights, trying to imitate what nature often does best. The sun in the early morning or late day casts a beautiful, warming, golden light.

This photo of model Rita Riggs was taken during a shoot in my studio on a overcast Sunday. We had been shooting for a couple of hours, with my studio lights with the venetian blinds shut on the windows, when late in the afternoon the sun broke through a brief hole the clouds. I opened up the blinds, turned off the studio lights, quickly re-adjusted my camera and got off a half-dozen shots or so before the sun disappeared again.

I love this shot for its sensuality, accented by the partially closed eyes, Rita's pursed lips and the way the light falls on her face behind the mosquito netting. It turned out to be one of my favorite shots from a shoot in which I took more than 500 photos.

You can view more photos from my studio session with Rita at www.pbase.com/spepple/rita_riggs_jan10.