Steve Pepple Photography

Worth the weather ... and the fall

2011-10-02T20:34:00.003-05:00

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

2011-06-19T08:21:00.004-05:00

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

2011-04-03T08:01:00.003-05:00

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

2010-05-12T09:05:00.000-05:00

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

2010-03-17T08:27:00.003-05:00

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

2010-02-23T21:36:00.002-06:00

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

2010-02-07T10:53:00.006-06:00

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.

That cafe thing

2010-01-30T13:08:00.002-06:00

Every since the digital age caused me to jump back into photography several years ago, one of my favorite haunting grounds in my street photography quest has been coffee shops. I'm lucky because Ann Arbor has more than its share of coffeehouses and cafes. There are several Starbucks, a couple of Sweetwaters and at least two Expresso Royales, including this one downtown on South Main Street where the photo above was shot.

I dropped in there the other day at lunch for a cup of coffee and a muffin. It is one of those marvelously lit places, with strategically placed overhead spots and even lamps at some of the tables. As I sat there watching this guy sort through his mail and bills, I knew I had to try to sneak a shot. The key was to get him when the light from the lamp was hitting his face. Because of the low lighting, I snapped my 50 mm F1.4 lens on my Canon 7d and cranked up the ISO to 400. This shot was exposed at F 1.8. The 50 mm is a beautifully fast lens, but it is a fixed focal length so I couldn't "zoom in" on the subject. Instead, I ended up doing about a 50 percent overall crop on the photo, but the 18 megapixel 7D left me plenty of room to do that and still have a nice size print.

Shooting in cafes is a bit awkward and, I suppose some people might think, intrusive. It calls for discretion or, at the opposite extreme, straightout boldness. I prefer stealth, but I have been know to be bold. One of my favorites from my own photos has long been a shot I took of a bunch several old couples sitting around a table at the Manistee Bakery & Deli in Manistee, Michigan. The light was golden, the mood and setting perfect. As I sat there at another table watching them from another table, I knew this would be a missed opportunity if I didn't act. So I quietly stood up, put my camera to my face and took a photo, like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. My only regret is I did not share the photo with this group of friends. It I had to do it all over again, I would have walked over, shown them the photo on the camera's LCD and asked them if they wanted me to email them a copy.

That's what I did when I shot yet another favorite photo of mine, of a girl in a hat doing her homework at the Sweetwater Cafe on West Washington Street in downtown Ann Arbor. I had just been out shooting an anti-war march through town and stopped in for a cup of coffee. She was sitting a couple of tables over, right next to a window that was casting the late afternoon light on her. I couldn't resist. I managed to fire off several frames without her seemingly knowing it, then walked over, introduced myself and showed her the photos. Of course, I was worried that she would think I was some old pervert, but I explained how the light was coming in on her and how much I loved her wonderful hat. She seemed flattered.

Starlight, star bright ...

2010-01-24T08:08:00.000-06:00

A lot of people who know me might be surprised to find out I when I was 18 years old, I completely tore apart and reassembled a 289 cubic inch Ford engine from a 1966 Mustang I bought from a friend. I did this over several weeks in my friend Doug Gordon's parents' garage. I already owned a 1965 Mustang 2+2 fastback (pictured below at right), and I don't recall why I bought this car or why I tore the engine apart. Back then cars and girls ruled my world and I for some crazy, unexplainable reason wanted to be a mechanic. Auto shop was about the only class I didn't skip in high school. Thankfully reason finally took over, and I decided I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with banged knuckles and a rim of grease under my fingernails. OK, reason didn't complete prevail because I became a journalist instead.

Nowadays, I much more prefer taking photos of nice cars than working on them. One of the benefits of living in the Metro Detroit area is that it is the home of the annual North American International Car Show. While the show has lost a little of its luster since the days when the Big 3 ruled the world, it is still a pretty significant event that attracts nearly three-quarters of a million visitors and news media from around the world to view the latest and greatest from the car makers.

As a photographer, it is an event I look forward to each year. It is a wonderful setting of machines and people. And the lighting is spectacular. A lot of thought goes into how the cars are lit with an emphasis on the dramatic.

This year's show gave me a chance to try out my new Canon 7d, plus I decided to bring along a star filter. The filter adds a starlight reflection to lights and specular highlights along surfaces such as the reflective body of a car. The photo above is of a Subaru concept car called the Hybrid Tourer (yeah, I know, really innovative name for a fancy futuristic car). The car was the centerpiece of the Subaru display, posed on a revolving platform with one of its gull-wing doors open. The interior was lit with pink lights and its silverly exterior was aglow from strategically placed spotlights. It was a perfect setup to use the starlight filter.

(For you photo buffs, I used a Cokin P 056 star filter. I had it in a filter holder but did not mount it to the lens. Instead, whenever I wanted to use it, I would just hold it up against the front of the lens.)

Admiring Avedon

2010-01-20T09:19:00.000-06:00

A couple of my owns shots from Sorrento, Italy (top and below right)

As a photographer, I find it hard not to feel a little envious of the life Earl Steinbicker has led. He had his own New York studio and later went on to become a travel writer. But more importantly, he spent 10 years working with iconic fashion photographer Richard Avedon, first as an 17-year-old assistant and later as his studio manager.

Steinbicker, now in his 70s, is in the process of writing a book about Avedon. In the meantime, he has shared many of his stories from his years with Avedon on a couple of blogs he maintains at Life's Little Adventures; The Avedon Years and at AssistingAvedon.com. I stumbled across the first blog several months ago and found myself mesmerized by Steinbicker's tales of working with Avedon as he photographed some of the biggest stars of the 20th century, including Marilyn Monroe, Mae West, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and Jimmy Durante. A favorite tale was the trip they took to England to photograph the Beatles and watching Avedon engage in a drinking contest with Ringo Starr that ended with both men passed out in the studio,

I have been increasingly fascinated with Avedon for a couple of years now. I think it probably started with my trip in May 2007 to Italy, which reinvigorated my cultural interests. In November, I had the opportunity to see an exhibit of Avedon's work at the Detroit Institute of Arts. I was so in awe of what I saw that I was at Borders Books the next week, buying a $100 book "Avedon Fashion 1944-2000," containing the work that was part of that exhibit.

Here today, gone tomorrow

2010-01-11T19:17:00.001-06:00

On days when I am especially stressed or, at the opposite extreme, especially mellow, I like to take the back roads home. It gives me time to myself and allows me to enjoy the countryside. I normally battle it out on my 23-mile drive home on US-23, north from Ann Arbor. One of the alternate routes is along Whitmore Lake Road, aka Old US-23.

Not too far outside of the Ann Arbor city limits, the scenery quickly turns to big open farm fields, old barns and farmhouses. One of my favorite sights was this old barn that was collapsing on itself and become intertwined in scrub trees and vines. It was as if nature was reaching up and reclaiming the land by slowing pulling the old barn into the ground. Each year, there was more trees and less barn it seemed. For most of the dozen years I have worked in Ann Arbor, it was a sight I could always count on. I don't know how many times I stopped and took photos of it - in spring, summer, fall and winter (including the photo above from a January 2006 ice storm and the photo at right, taken in the spring of that same year).

Then suddenly this past summer, it wasn't there any more. The first time I drove by, I did a double-take. Where did it go? I must have already driven by it, I thought. But then I noticed the towering pile of limbs and other debris not far from where I remembered the old barn standing in the midst of the farm field. I wanted to believe that I was mistaken, that I was in the wrong spot. But I knew in my heart this was right spot and it made me sad, knowing the old barn was gone forever.

Now there was just a flat farm field that holds no real interest for me. Yet I still always look when I drive by that spot and wonder why they bulldozed the barn down. It wasn't hurting anything and certainly doesn't add much plantable ground. But I suppose to the landowers, it was just an old, collapsing eyesore, best gotten rid of.

Hats off to these kids

2010-01-08T18:42:00.001-06:00

About a month ago, I got the opportunity to photograph a couple of my friend Mercy's children. The shoot was at her home, so I brought along a suitcase full of equipment and a big black plastic trash bag stuffed with hats and other items. I wanted it to be fun. I've photographed her children before as an assignment for a studio photography class I was taking at Washtenaw Community College, so I knew they were photogenic and I knew they could be prompted into silliness. Both of the kids are cute, but in different ways. Justice has a face and ears that reminds me of an English lad. LIllian has a beautiful round face and wonderful silvery eyes that look blue. As it turned out, Lillian was a much more willing model than Justice, allowing several different series of shots.

For the lighting set up, I used three Alien Bees B800s. I placed the mainlight with a 24x36 inch softbox at camera right. The fill light with a 36-inch umbrella was placed camera left and a rimlight was placed in the rear, camera right, with a silver reflector. A 10x16 black muslin was used for the background.

It was one of those shoots where you have a hard time narrowing down the best shots because there are so many good ones. The photo above was the best of the brother-sister shots and a great candidate for stock photo sales. My personal favorite though was the the following photo. The lighting was spot on and Lillian's beautiful eyes and personality seemed to sparkle under the man's fedora hat.

You can see more photos from this session at www.pbase.com/spepple/mercy_kids_dec09.

Photographing ZIngerman's Deli

2010-01-07T20:59:00.001-06:00

One of my favorite buildings to photograph in Ann Arbor has always been Zingerman's Deli on Detroit Street in the Kerrytown area. It is an odd shaped building with a lot of character, made special by the famous deli it houses. I especially love the way it looks at night, when the neon signs in the window, the lit up deli cases and the interior lights cast a warm glow that invites you inside.

We were getting hit by a snow storm and traffic was horrendous in downtown Ann Arbor after I got off of work tonight. As I inched along in traffic on the slushy streets at dusk, it occurred to me that it would be a good night to photograph Zingerman's with the fresh falling snow. Plus it would help me destress a little. It is that constant nagging thing about trying to be a good photographer - you can't just think about it, you have to do it. So I cut over and backtracked a couple of blocks to Detroit Street and waded out into the snow. I was glad I did.

You can view more of my Zingerman's photos at www.pbase.com/spepple/zingermans. You can buy prints by contacting me at spepple@mac.com.

It's a small world

2010-01-06T09:16:00.000-06:00

In November I went with my friend Mercy to the Richard Avedon exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts. At the end, we went into the gift shop area for the exhibit and a woman in a motorized scooter asked my friend Mercy to pose for her using a hand mirror. The woman said it was part of a photo project she was doing. Mercy is a good sport and agreed.

I pretty much forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago when I was looking at one of my lists of favorite PBase artists and spotted a photo of my friend Mercy posing with a mirror . Of course, I clicked on it and was surprised to find the photographer was Patricia Lay-Dorsey, a fellow Pbase artist with whom I had corresponded a couple of years ago when we talked about having a PBase artist meetup.

I remember back then being impressed with Patricia's photo project "Facing up to my face." She was 65 at the time, and taking a honest (and beautiful) look at what age does to us all by photographing the wrinkles on her face. Since then, Patricia has documented, again through self-portraits, her life with MS, a disease she was diagnosed with when she was 45. Her photos are honest and inspiring and sometimes simply amazing. Her work even caught the attention of NY Times photo blogger James Estrin. I urge you to take a look at her work on PBase and on her web site at www.patricialaydorsey.com.