Sussex Photographer Bernie Greene scratching out a tune while trying not to fall off the roof

Today I had a call from a client who asked if I were free today. I said yes. He said good. Be at blah blah in one hour for a shoot. Well okay. I like to work. But this was with zero preparation. Fortunately all batteries were charged and I had memory cards at the ready.

What kind of shoot does a portrait artiste extraordinaire get at such short notice?

It was to shoot pictures of gutter cleaners at work for a gutter cleaning business!

Don’t knock it I thought. Michelangelo once painted a ceiling and took 4 years doing it with a bunch of assistants.

These are the guys involved in the shoot fooling around during a break.

the boys

the boys 2

And this is where they were at the time.

the boys 3

Okay this probably isn’t what you’d expect to see in a 365 and I promise not to do many more like it.

What should the headline be?

This began as a simple concept and rapidly became more complex. Originally it was just to be a girl’s hand reaching for an apple. But then I had Jasmine get behind the apple just to see what it would look like and I liked it a lot better.

Here is a setup shot.

setup shot for girl reaching for apple

The SB24 to camera right at the back is snooted and pointing at the apple. The Vivitar 283 is behind the model pointing up at the wall. The Vivitar 285 is snooted and pointing at some A4 sheets of paper just in front of the girl’s face. I don’t remember the exact settings but the 283 was the main light and was at full power. The others were somewhat toned down.

So it was shot with the idea of being a full page magazine type layout, hence the large amount of white space at the top of the shot. What do you think would be an appropriate headline?

This is Angelo.

Angelo

A frequent question from sitters is “What shall I do with my hands?” One solution is to give them something to hold. In this case it worked out well. Angelo skimmed the book, a treatise on economics of course, and read passages to me and a discussion was underway. I like to encourage and sometimes goad my sitters into giving me thoughts, rants or anything at all that get’s an emotional or thoughtful reaction. Of course the type of expression I’m looking for largely depends on who the shoot is for and the purpose of the pictures that come out of it.

This is Horsted Keynes Station which is part of the Bluebell Line in Sussex. The line is shortly to run as far as East Grinstead to Sheffield Park. I’m intending to get some movie scene type shots at this station in the coming months. I’ll be needing models so if you are in the East Grinstead area or near the border of East and West Sussex and want to join in the fun let me know.

Horsted Keynes Station

It is a fine station filled with posters and decor of the ’50s and ’60s. A time that in many ways was more free than today.

The picture is not a straight photograph. It is a merger of 4 different images. 3 are different exposures of the same scene. The sky is from another picture entirely.

orchids

Well today’s pic was quite a bit of work. I had shot two other setups before I did this one. The first was daffodils and it had some merits but I really didn’t like the composition and couldn’t find a way to do better with it.

The second attempt was with these using a shorter lens and again the composition just wasn’t working out. So I changed to a longer lens and adjusted the setup a bit and got this which I liked a whole lot better.

There’s no getting away from it I keep going toward a painter type of finish in my processing. It is not deliberate. I’m just looking at the tones or the details and looking to emphasise one thing over another or tone down another part. I just don’t care if it looks like a photograph as long as it works as an image.

In case you’re interested the flowers were in a pot on a small table in the studio with a green blanket way back behind them. The light came from a Vivitar 285 in an overhead softbox. There were three exposures used in this with the same settings on camera but with the flash fired at different power settings. The three images were then brought together and tonemapped.

Not a conventional type of HDR photography and it may have been completely unnecessary. I’ve not heard of anyone else getting different exposures in that way. It was actually incredibly hard to do even with a tripod because of the length of the lens. The tiniest movement of the camera would jiggle the image about wildly. I had to fire the shutter using delay as I dont have a remote for it.

Enough ramblings.

apple and bananas

Lit with two large softboxes one to the rear and the main one to camera left. Plus lots of processing to keep the fruit more or less natural looking while giving it centre stage over the wooden background.

Meet Max.

sad-max

Not sure if the mood matches the face. But what a face. He’s a wow with the girls.

Rosie

Well if the rest of this 365 is as interesting and revealing to me as the first two days then it won’t just be worthwhile it will be worthwhile in spades.

This is Rosie. She lives with a private tuition student of mine. I had wanted to  shoot her for ages, just as a lighting challenge, but what I got from this was far more than that. I’ve found that I like shooting dogs. This is the second one in two months. The first was with her owner so this is the first solo dog.

I treated it much like shooting a portrait as far as lighting her.  The processing is quite a bit different.

The cheese yesterday was fun and quite a change from shooting people. I will do a lot more food type shots in this project but I don’t expect them to be as satisfying for me as shooting live subjects.

Cheddar

I thought I’d start off with something different. I’ve never shot food before. It was a learning experience. Among other things next time I’ll know to make sure everything in the shot that isn’t part of the food doesn’t have a lot of distracting texture.

I started with what I thought would be simple. I love very strong and mature Cheddar cheese so this was a good excuse to go and buy some. This is a crumbly cheese rather than a creamy one and I wanted to show that.

I was in too much of a hurry with this. I washed the board before using it here but it wasn’t entirely dry and so the dampness shows up as darker than it would have if it were dry. But I don’t think it bad for a first attempt.

Here is a shot of the setup.

cheddar-setup

The camera was on the tripod. Behind the cheese is a mushroom softbox with a Vivitar 283 fired into it at full power triggered by a PT-04. The second light is a bare  SB-24 at 1/4 power fired at the ceiling behind the camera to provide some fill on the front of the cheese without removing it’s shadow completely.

So I’ve just this minute decided to do a 365 thing. Was it just an impulse? No. Truth is I’ve kinda been thinking about it for months. The reservation was that I thought I might not have the time to shoot and process every day. Well maybe the time will be tight sometimes but if I make the commitment then I will adjust the time accordingly.

Enough on the difficulties. On to the reason. I keep reading about the idea of developing a style and I keep thinking that most of what is said on the subject is b/s. I can shoot in many styles right now and so can most photographers who know their basics and are aware of styles.

A photographic style

The above pic is mainly created in the studio as opposed to in post processing.

An Old Master painter's style

This one is from the same shoot. The lighting is different and the clothes were changed. The post processing was also different. The result is a different style. You may prefer one to the other or prefer something entirely different. The point is they are completely different styles.

So why am I writing about style?  Dunno really. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Well style is the thing that is supposed to make you unique. It is supposed to be your trademark. That thing you are known for. I don’t know about this. It seems to me that anyone who comes up with something different and interesting will be copied immediately by others anyway. Regardless of whether the copiers are right or wrong in copying the fact remains they will exist and many potential buyers will not know or care who the actual originator was. So I’d like to refine the first three sentences of this paragraph.

Your style won’t make you unique but it is something you could be known for. I don’t believe it is possible to come up with a style that retains some aesthetic qualities without it being copyable by others. Neither do I believe it necessary.

The kind of style I want to develop isn’t really a style at all. What I want is to get my attention away from any kind of technically derived “look” and on to communicating something in the most powerful way I can develop. Technique will certainly be developed. Looks might be more developed. Everything I know about technique might be used. But the primary purpose of any image I create should be to communicate something to a viewer.

So I want to do a 365 project with the sole purpose of leaning how to communicate better.

I love shooting portraits but I think this project will involve many other subjects as it will not always be possible to find a new sitter every day and it might become dreary using the same sitters too frequently.

* A 365 thing is a commitment to making at least one image per day, every day, for a whole year.