I’ve been spending time going through lots and lots of images as I prepare new print portfolios. One group of images sits in a sort of quasi-netherworld, not full-on produced portraits but not candids either. These are images I created for the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.
It was a fun project which ran for just over four years, portraits of faculty members and administration. These graced the walls of the light filled hallways, just outside the primary lecture hall, and just off the atrium of their main building, Roberston Hall.
WWS Faculty, 2004-2007, (click to enlarge.)
What stayed consistent over the years was the setup: full-frame Canon digital camera, 85mm f/1.2 lens shot anywhere between f/2.0 and f/4, and the subject lit a stop or so under ambient with a Canon flash in an XXS Chimera softbox. Whenever possible the photos were taken outside so that they would feel fresh and open. This also allowed me to challenge myself. Each portrait was limited to ten to fifteen minutes of set up time and ten minutes with the subject. Working with those constraints and photographing as many as fourteen subjects in a day, I did my best to vary the background on each and every image while still staying within a stone’s throw of their main building.
Beyond the lobby display, the portraits were used for publications, press, and development.
We had a brief shower followed by a balmy sunset with colors that felt more Pacific than New Jersey. I walked the dog along the same route where we had already been twice today and everyday.
Bats flitted about overhead. The dog, overdue for a haircut, was grateful for the tiny respite from the heat. There were pictures everywhere. I tried to capture the Magritte’ian feel of the light, street lamps and house lights versus the sky, but it was too much for my little point and shoot.
Darkness fell, the green glow of the street lamps took over. It was time to go home.
This past Friday I photographed Njoya Tikum, moments before he graduated from Columbia Law School.
Njoya Tikum, New York City, May 14, 2010
A native of Cameroon, Njoya was arrested, re-arrested, tortured, and his family abused because of his political views. He came to the United States in 2006 and was granted political asylum in 2008.
I’m excited to announce that I have just joined up with Wonderful Machine, a web portal and photographers’ representative dedicated to connecting art buyers with photographers. Part sourcebook, part agent, Wonderful Machine actively promotes its photographers through its website, print ads, direct mail, email promos, and portfolio showings. It has managed to hold buyers attention in a crowded dissonant marketplace by carefully selecting its members and promoting them only within areas where Wonderful Machine sees a deep proficiency.
When you sign up with Wonderful Machine, as with any rep, they decide how you will be marketed and which images will be used. Users of the web portal can search by city or specialty, or contact Wonderful Machine directly to find the best fits for their projects.
It was great to see that Wonderful Machine’s photo editor saw the depth in my work to include me in five categories: architecture, corporate, institutional, landscape, and fine art.
Goldman Sachs is in the news. Executives are on capital hill today to testify to whether they led investors astray by playing both sides of fence, aggressively selling mortgage derivative products while betting against them at the same time.
I photographed E. Gerald Corrigan, a Goldman Sachs partner and managing director, at the corporate headquarters in New York, in 2009.
New York, NY, February 24, 2009
I did two scenarios, one in a conference room adjacent to the hallway above and the other in the hallway. Both were setup and pre-lit in advance of the subject’s arrival, a needed step since he allotted me less than ten minutes. The conference room was the safer bet and led to a safer, less interesting, image. Corrigan conceded to the hallway image only because it was directly in his path out of the conference room.
The advantage of a bit of window light and the glow from behind made the image. I used only one light, an extra-small softbox with a grid to provide fill from camera left. The backlight glow is from a piece of artwork embedded in the wall and just peeking into the frame.
At the time it was late February, the economy had fully tanked the fall before. The golden glow seemed a nice play on Goldman Sachs’ name and it left room for the viewer to interpret the image as they saw fit.
As I continue to shoot with both of these lenses neither disappoints. Neither has needed an AF microadjustment and both lock focus quickly and accurately.
I first mentioned the Canon 24mm f/2.8L II and the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II in the KGB post last week. A few days after the KGB assignment I was shooting for a private secondary school, creating marketing images for their print and online use. Acting in fly-on-the-wall mode both lenses saw a lot of use.
The 24mm f/2.8L II
Canon 24mm f/1.4L II; f/4 @ 1/60, ISO 800, full-frame (click to enlarge)
100% Crop, focus point in the camera was on her eyelid, toward her nose.
70-200mm f/2.8L IS II
Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II; f/4 @ 1/1000, ISO 400, slight crop (click for full-frame)
100% Crop, focus point in the camera was to the left, just outside of the frame.
The 70-200 is the biggest surprise. The prior generation lens was very good but the new lens follow-focuses really well (AI Servo mode on a Canon.) It’s the first time since shooting with a Nikon F5 (on film and with a telephoto zoom, mid to late-90′s) that I feel I have an equivalent setup in terms of its ability to follow a moving subject.
A week ago Friday I was at the KGB Bar on East 4th in NYC to photograph writers reading from their works. The light in the bar was as low as low can get. Not wanting to disturb the activity with a flash, I had the bartender turn all the fixtures up full. This provided the bare minimum of light needed to work (ISO 3200, the limit on my Canon 1Ds Mark III’s.)
85mm f/1.2L II, f/1.2 @ 1/60
85mm f/1.2L II, f/1.2 @ 1/60
85mm f/1.2L II, f/1.2 @ 1/60
As fun as it is to be a fly on the wall with the 85mm f/1.2 II lens, it was a blast to continue to push the new 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II and the new 24mm f/1.4 II lenses to their limits.
70-200mm f/2.8L IS II, 135mm and f/2.8 @ 1/10
70-200mm f/2.8L IS II, 100mm and f/2.8 @ 1/8
70-200mm f/2.8L IS II, 150mm and f/2.8 @ 1/40
70-200mm f/2.8L IS II, 70mm and f/2.8 @ 1/10
Probably not a big surprise but there was more light on the street at 9pm than in the bar. These images are at ISO 1600.
24mm f/1.4L II, f/1.8 @ 1/40
70-200mm f/2.8L IS II, 70mm and f/2.8 @ 1/15
Both lenses are great improvements over their predecessors. The 24mm f/1.4 II is just shy of the new 24mm TSE II lens in terms of quality. It has little to no chromatic aberration, less distortion, and is noticeably sharper overall. Wide open it has none of the fuzzy hazy dreamy look common to Canon’s older f/1.4 lenses.
The 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II builds on the previous generation (a very good lens in its own right) and kicks it up a few notches. It’s sharper, focuses faster, and as seen above, it extends the IS range. Getting sharp images at 1/8 second with the new lens is very easy. The old model lens was about 2/3 stop more limited, with it 1/15 second handheld was my limit.
The new 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II is also a more consistent focuser than the old version. My copy of the old version would often have trouble with vertical images. It was not uncommon to get a vertical sequence which would miss focus when a horizontal sequence of the same subject was fine. I have yet to have this occur with the new lens in three weeks of shooting.
I assume the 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II and the 24mm f/1.4 II both have Canon’s new lens coatings, similar to the 24mm TSE II and 17mm TSE. I don’t know how they work but work they do. Combined with the lower distortion, images from the new lenses feel crisper and more three dimensional.
All of the images above were processed in Aperture 3 with no noise reduction and only a touch of sharpening added to the sized-down jpegs.
