In case y’all haven’t heard of The Image Deconstructed blog, it’s an amazing resource! It deals with photographers’ mental processes & as a whole, gives insite into how photographers think — and sometimes feel — when they’re making pictures. It’s the brain child of Ross Taylor, who — and it should go without saying — is Rossome!

Here’s my specific entry, but I truly and whole heartedly recommend seeing some of the other photographers’ work being deconstructed. (each word is a link to a different post, by the way. Isn’t that super clever!?)

Mychael Wright, a friend of mine, agreed to let me make a few lit portraits of him about a month ago. It was a few days after Hurricane Irene came through and his power was still out. So, I used a portable battery pack.

Recently I’ve been trying to make as many portraits as I can. That’s my theme for this year. PORTRAITS PORTRAITS PORTRAITS!

The idea is that I’ll have a new body of personal work to show off and, of course, a whole mess of mistakes and successes to learn from.

One thing I’ve dealt with recently is content. Recently, I’ve been forcing content into my lit work. Lets take this shoot, for example. I think the most beautiful image is the one up top. …granted, Mychael’s a beautiful man. The bottom line is, there’s really no “story” being told. This picture’s all about mood. The weird thing is, it was the easiest for me to make & think up. …so, I treat photos like this as plan “b” or “c.”

When I ask my friends for edits, they typically respond much better the moodier photos over the forced-content stuff. That sounds obvious, but I suffer from that classic photographer problem: I put too much stock in my effort.

After all, when all the lights are packed back up, and the armpit sweat has dried, the strongest image still wins.

So, thanks again Mychael for “sitting” for me.

If you want to see more images of Mychael and/or you want to buy prints, purchase a usage license, or get a t-shirt or coffee mug, among other things with Mychael’s picture on it, check out the gallery below:

http://mattrothphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/Mychael-Wright/G000040NZiQlx1l4

FASTER THAN A SPEEDLIGHT!

ABLE TO GEL SMALL FLASHES

STRONGER THAN A VIVITAR 285

…he’s THE STROBIST!

My buddy Drew and I used to joke about how mild mannered (yeah right!) David Hobby’s alter ego “THE STROBIST” was a great super hero’s name. And the last time I got to photograph him, I really wanted to make him into a super hero, but David wasn’t about to put on any spandex. …can’t say I blame him. I probably wouldn’t have done it either. So, I finally got my “super hero” photo! Albeit, it’s a bit more noir-ish than your typical “caped crusader” look.

And more important to me, this photo is way more like how I shoot than the one that ran in the Howard County Times. Below are a few more frames from the day. He made some nice portraits of me, too. He might be posting them as a way to show off this rad new contraption he made — a beauty dish for an sb-800. That’s what we used for this image. he hand held it and aimed it behind his head.

If you ever get the chance to meet him –  AHEM – you’ll see he’s like the nicest guy.

LOOK! you can see into the shadows! thanks on axis fill!

David wanted to experiment with the silk lantern, the setting sun, and trees. It was a really cool idea. …which I will no doubt steal one of these days. All in the name of flattery, of course.

I really did help. …a little bit.

Here’s the final product: BOOM!

Sally Borghardt’s renovated 1840′s Centreville, MD home is selling for $292,500.

Check out the New York Times article and accompanying slideshow. My photos are in the middle.

For this shoot I got assignment editor Becky Lebowitz’s approval to use a Nikkor 24mm PC-E — often referred to as a “tilt shift lens” because it does some tilting and some shifting. But if we wanna get all persnickety the “PC” stands for Perspective Control.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I know. this is a gimmick lens. …well, that’s not necessarily true. But it can easily become a gimmick lens.

In the most utilitarian sense, it’s supposed to fix perspective problems — like keystoning, fringe distortion, and the curving of otherwise straight lines — common with wide angle slr lenses. But, when the aperture is closed down (like f/22), it yields otherwise normal looking images.

BUUUUUT, when the aperture’s wide open and you’re tilting and shifting, it’s also got this super cool ability to throw the depth of field into different planes. Plain and simple, it’s a gimmick.

…and I am a cheerleader for gimmicks! Sisk Boom Ba!

(A “Fatso” coal burning stove, set up in the living room, is the main source of heat in the winter.)

…well, as long as they’re used thoughtfully.

And here’s the thing about gimmicks — they’re like magic tricks. …or if you prefer a sports analogy, knuckleballs. They’re Totally unnecessary!

But lets be honest, everyone loves a good magic trick, right?

To continue this analogy, skilled use of a gimmick takes time and practice. And it’s important to recognize when you’ve failed and, it’s important to learn from that failure. For instance, there’s a lot wrong with the above image — like the bowed lamp reflected in the mirror, the crooked horizon. It’s far from perfect — and honestly, is there any such thing as a perfect image? — BUT I think it’s on to something. I think there’s some magic in it.

When I played little league, there wasn’t a game that went by when one of my teammates or I didn’t throw a knuckleball or two during warm ups. It’s just dumb fun. But try to tell Hall of Famer Phil Niekro his bread & butter pitch is silly. But like anything, if you put enough focused effort into a skill, you’ll become an expert. — maybe even a Hall of Fame pitcher? How much effort? …10,000 hours some say.

Some of you might’ve deduced that I’m reading …okay, I’m listening to, Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers right now. But even before I heard about the 10,000 hours rule — back when I was an intern, I started a love affair with the (in camera) starburst effect. I discovered it accidentally and every chance I got, I turned in a picture featuring a starbursted sun. I ran that gimmick into the ground! But I learned an important lesson through that embarrassing fad — A gimmick is useful when it’s used intelligently. Now I know how to use it when I need it. And, more importantly, I learned that a gimmick, like a tilted horizon, for example, can be useful — like when trying to fill the frame. And in the case of Justin Maxon’s use of multiple exposures in his “When the Spirit Moves” essay, downright powerful!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say these real estate photos are anything like Maxon’s work. But gimmickry, is often dissuaded. Chip Litherland does a pretty good job explaining that stance here.  I’m not saying he’s wrong, but I do think he’s underestimating the importance of just playing around. Had Phil Niekro’s little league coach told him to quit messing around with the knuckleball, I doubt he’d be a Hall of Famer — or, for that matter, a pro baseball player. So, I say EXPERIMENT if that’s the kind of person you are. Your tomfoolery could lead to something super-smart and unorthodox.

Let me first say that David Hobby is an SEO powerhouse! When he pimps me out my analytics look like a big mountain is stuck in the middle of a desert. So, after getting hit with well over 500 page views within an hour of @strobist ‘s tweet, a few reached out, asking for a post explaining the lighting set up in my initial post showcasing Tyler Maizels’s weight lifting skills. With all this attention, I figured no action would be rude. By the way, if you’re reading this, thanks a ton, David.  Oh! Before we start, I should let you know, this post is less about the specifics of this lighting set-up and more about technique and approach. you know, less numbers… more brains. and I used all I could. I think that’s why my head hurt the next day.

The above photo is one of my initial “test shots.” And if I’ve learned anything in my eight years as a pro, is that “test shots” can just as easily become your “A” shot. I quite like this photo. Depending on your school of thought, this photo skirts the line of success or failure. On the one hand, the mood, subtlety, setting, body language, are all working really well. If you wanna get all heady with the right slogan this image is a best-selling motivational poster. …am I right? high five!

Now, if you’re in the camp that thinks the shadows in his midsection are too dark, and for that reason alone, the photo is unusable, then, you probably need to do some soul searching. …that is, you need to find your soul. Remember, a lit photo is so much more than the sum of its lighting technique.

Tutorials can be all about the lighting,

…but photographs need to be all about the content.

But this is a tutorial… so lets talk BEAUTY DISH!

I recently bought an Avenger boom arm which was a game changer. Now I can do things like

hang a beauty dish over 11-year-old weight-lifters’ head and not worry about his barbells breaking anything (lightbulb, my foot, his head). The idea is simple. I wanted to light him brighter than the rest of the room. BOOM! (hehehe see what I did there?) over head beauty dish! It’s like one of those cool lights you see at a wrestling match. Fall off was inevitable, (thus the midsection shadows), but that was okay. I had like two to three more Alien Bee’s to play with. Aside from varying power settings and angles, the boom never changed stage position. It was always to my left and above Tyler.

So, if any of you read the Strobist blog you already know about his love for “on axis fill lighting.”

While David usually uses a ring-flash (or a speedlight close to the axis of his lens to fill in the shadows) I opted to go the big-dumb-light route to fill in my shadows/the rest of the room. I used a HUGE umbrella. And like my boom set up, it also never really moved its stage position. It remained set up on my right at like 2:30 o’clock position. I don’t know the specific dimensions of the ubrella, but I know it doesn’t fit in my light case. Oh, and I’m also shooting through it. The original idea was to have it behind me — you know — classic on axis fill style. But the room was a little too small to accommodate both of us on the same plane.

I think we can all agree the big-dumb-light flattened-out the moodiness from the first photo. The light’s a bit more normalized, which isn’t something I necessarily wanted, but I saw the usefulness in it. In hind-sight perhaps a ring-flash might’ve been a better way to “light the shadows” on Tyler. …but I don’t have one. Don’t worry, it’s on my buy list. In the future I’ll probably use the speedlight-under-my-lens trick.

The shot still needed some pizazz! Don’t you guys think? So, I messed around with some power settings, changed the directionality of the big dumb umbrella and introduced some contrasty side light. I first used a grid, because I didn’t want the spill off to make gross shadows in the background, but I think I ultimately abandoned the grid and just powered down my AB 800. I think I also flagged the light with something. My next purchase will probably be some barn doors.

So, I like the composition of this image. Well, I like way the weights look. At a glance, the lighting looks fine. …fine-ish. Okay, so there are some gross shadows I wanna get rid of. At this point I totally messed my lighting up. I think I powered down the big dumb umbrella light a little too much. Bare with me folks. It’s been a while since I shot this. I also think I maybe angled it too severely, defeating any semblance of the “on-axis” effect I was using it for. I also think I powered up the overhead beauty dish a bit too much, too. And rather than point it straight down, using it like a bad-ass, directional key light, I think I angled it to much. So, as you can see it’s lighting the background a bit better than Tyler, who has shadows underneath him again. I’ve also introduced the “pizazz” side light to the right of Tyler.

heh. pizazz fail. . See how gross the shadows are? It looks like bad stage lighting.

So, why am I explaining all this failure? So, you know how it works. At this point in the shoot I realize I have shadow problems and now I gotta fix them! It’s important for photographers to know mistakes are awesome. I’m still learning. Every setting is different. The more mistakes — and this is key — and the faster i learn to correct them — the more versatile and faster I’ll be at making rad photos. And isn’t that what we all want? …Rad photos?

I would like to say that I still think this photo works. The composition is clean-ish — at least where it needs to be (head, feet, weights, body). The setting and the subject matter are still interesting. Right now the image ruiner is the lighting. My fault. I need to fix it.

And I did. The lighting set up in this photo is the same as the lead image in my original post. Sure, there’s still some shadows, but they’re more defined. The background is darker. He’s brighter and more evenly lit. There’s an unfortunate shadow on his face. It’s a product of the weight eclipsing part of the side light. When you have so many moving parts in a photo, something’s gotta give.

But here’s the thing, I didn’t not choose this photo because of the shadow on his face, I chose the other photo because his face had a better expression. It was more interesting.

To be sure I worked hard to achieve this somewhat underwhelming lighting scheme. And I think the photos are more effective because of it.

Before I left I tried a quick “dramatic” lighting set up on Tyler’s mom, Pat.

Admittedly, it’s sloppy. Of course, if i put more time into the design I think it has potential be a really slick photo. But, here’s the thing I notice right off the bat — to me, the photo all of a sudden becomes more about the lighting, and the mood I’m creating. It’s almost discounting the the built in charm this room came with. And that big hot light on her face distracts from those awesome socks she’s wearing.

Do y’all get what I’m saying? (yes I said y’all. I’m a Georgia boy living in Baltimore). Sometimes its best to use lights only to accentuate awesome places. I’ve certainly been guilty of juicing the natural charm out of a setting. Of course it’s important to keep your ambiance creating skills sharp. Sometimes you’ll be called to make an office look interesting and, maybe even, otherworldly.

The bottom line is, it’s important to build up range in your lighting skills.

For this tutorial I used 2 AB 1600′s 1 AB 800, a beauty dish, a BIG umbrella, a grid spot, light stands (duh), a boom arm, and pocket wizards.

(photo by Matt Roth)

Laurel resident Gabrielle Galvez, with Baltimore Fencing Center of Columbia, won a bronze in the Division 3 Woman’s Epee at the US Fencing Association’s Summer National Championships in Atlanta, GA. Galvez is photographed at BFC Friday, August 20, 2010.

This was a really cool shoot for Howard Magazine. It was a bit challenging, too.

For those who’ve photographed fencers with lights before, they know how super hard it is to show their faces behind all that protective mesh. After a ton of chimping and head-scratching, I eventually figured it out.

Here are some tips. use a shallow-ish DOF. This was shot at f/4.5. Granted, it’s not super shallow, but it’s not f/11. The more closed down, the more defined the mesh and the less face we’ll see. And here’s the kicker, light from the sides!  Utilize modifiers, like umbrellas and parabolics, that are better at wrapping light. …otherwise the strobes will light the metal in front of their faces. make sense? If not, feel free to ask in the comments section below. thanks for checking out the photos!

Ben Bender linked to an article on Emotional Lighting when he commented on my recent post, Shoot the Emotion!

So, since I love to use lighting, I think it’s worth discussing.

Now, this may not be the best photo to describe emotional lighting, buuuut, it’s by far the most convenient. I shot it Saturday.

I gotta ask: is this photo emotional?

Well, it certainly doesn’t gush. But in this setting, with this lighting, I think we all get the idea that these ladies are not to be messed with.

I called this my mafia shot.

I’m using two lights in this “stage.” One is placed behind the frosted glass. There’s a bar back there. To avoid a huge bright spot and maximize the light spread, I’m bouncing it off the white ceiling. This serves as a rim light does double duty as a part-time ambient light. I also think it’s doing all the heavy lifting, lighting Lisa Troia Martin, in the upper right. The second light, shot through an umbrella, is to my left. I jacked it up to 100% to maximize its throw. It’s about 8 feet away from Carol Troia, the lady in red on the right, BUT it’s pointed right at her mother Elena Troia, sitting.

Deep shadows and high contrast light is a common Hollywood trick to visually describe something sinister. …you know, because villains dwell in the shadows.

But these women are NOT villains. Truth be told, they’re charming charming people.

So, this photo is an outtake. Turning this photo in would be inappropriate for the assignment — a wine dinner preview. Below is the

photo I turned in:

“Salute!” The three women of Cafe Troia, clockwise from the left, Carol Troia, from Towson, her daughter Lisa Troia Martin, from Timonium, standing, and matriarch Elena Troia, from Mays Chapel, clank glasses of Antinori wine for a photo shoot held in the restaurants dining room Saturday, January 2, 2010. On the 19th of this month, Cafe Troia will host a special regional wine dinner, featuring the Italian wine. And as a special treat, Alessia Antinori, the youngest member of the wine family, will be on hand to discuss the business.

I don’t necessarily need a story/caption to go along with either image. The “mafia” pick stands on its own. I also think it’s the stronger of the two images. — more visually arresting.

The “Salute!” photo is more obvious. It’s well lit. With the addition of another umbrella, to my right, everyone’s face is filled in. It’s a happier image. I’ll admit, the lighting is a bit sloppy, but over all, it feels happier, joyous, (and maybe a bit artificial.)

Comments are, as always, welcome. Thanks for looking and reading.

If I was to give myself some professional New Years resolutions, this is one of them.

“Shooting the emotion” weighs heavier to viewers than cool, graphic images. Using rad light and a bad-ass compositions, don’t cut to the core. They’re just eye candy.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOOOOOVE eye candy. When I look over my work, I’m kinda predisposed to it. It’s easier for me to make.

My friend Monica Lopossay — three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee (and she’s only 33!) is waaaay more in tune to people’s emotions. Her photos make viewers feel something. Her most important work makes you “want to slit your wrists,” …her words.

Emotions are relatable. They transcend cultural norms.

They’re also iconic.

Sure, this photo is really just Jess upset that I’m busy taking her picture instead of unlocking the back gate. She’s cold and wants to get in the car. The truth in this photos is that the cold is making her more upset than I am.

But I’ve seen this face before. I’ve upset her. I’m sure anyone who’s been in a relationship has hurt their loved one before.

I don’t have the courage, or maybe I’m smart enough not, to pick up the camera during those moments.

But that’s kinda the point I’m making. I think it’s safe to assume everyone on this planet has been on the opposite end of this kind of stare.

It’s relatable. …and therefore, it’s powerful.

So, 2010! the year to shoot the emotion!

Who’s with me?

(Tuesday, March 31, 2009) I just bought a new 35mm f/1.8 DX lens. I tried it out on my D700. I guess it’s a part time FX lens. If you close down the aperture and focus out the lens casing starts showing up. So, if this lens stays below 5.6 I think it’ll be fine. This is my friend Jared.

Laurel sophomore short stop Sarah Allsop is one of the team’s top players. She is also a Seventh Day Adventist and does not play on Saturdays.

The story was all about Allsop, but she didn’t get much action. Laurel lost to Bowie 22-0,  Thursday, April 23, 2009. She’s a pretty good hitter, but Bowie’s pitcher is amazing.

So, what do I do? I needed to keep my head in the game, so I decided to keep shooting. Photography is in the business of non-verbal communication and this narrow assignment was a great excuse to exercise my powers of perception. I’m a firm believer that shooting sports is great practice for shooting the other realms of life.