Professor Darryl

The assignment to photograph astronomy professor Darryl Stanford at the College of San Mateo probably had the longest pre-session planning calendar of any photo I've ever made to date. 

October 21, 2025

October 21: In anticipation of the upcoming photo shoot, I visited the CSM campus at 6:30 pm, which on Photo Day would give us 30 minutes to work before his evening class started.  When I arrived at the planetarium the evening sky provided a marvelous potential backdrop for the photo. Professor Stanford would be positioned on the left third of the photograph.

The only problem would be getting some light on the Planetarium marque. Any lightstand would need to be more than twenty feet away from the building if it was positioned outside of the frame. I was confident that I could solve that problem during the preparation period before the October 23 session date. 

A non-technical issue came up: We had failed to see if there would be any security issues associated with this on-campus photo, and Professor Stanford said he'd follow up with the Dean. Ever the optimist, I planned to show up as scheduled, confident that approval would be shortcoming.

October 23: I parked my car on campus, and waited for Professor Stanford to call me. It turns out that he was unable to secure clearance for the Dean to make the photo on campus, so the shoot was off. Early dinner.

November 11: I received word that approval had been obtained, so I returned to the campus to see if I could still take advantage of the sunset reflecting in the windows of the Science Building. Alas, 6:30 PM was long after sunset, so I was left with a half-empty building with minimal hallway lighting. I decided that I would use the lobby of the Planetarium as my  background, 

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November 13: I arrived on campus with 45 minutes to set up the  shot. For the Planetarium marque I used a 200 watt-second flash with 2 grids to concentrate the light into a large spot with smooth edges. I used my tallest light stand to align the flash beam perpendicular to the wall. A CTO gel was added to better match the ambient lighting of the lobby. For the key light  I decided to use a gelled speedlight with a Lumiquest Softbox III. This small softbox is less affected by the wind, but it doesn't provide the same softness of a shoot-through umbrella. 

I added two additional speedlights for accents. You can see it at the left edge of the sketch photo. I added a blue gel, primarily to see if I could subtly suggest that it was a chilly evening, as it was. Finally, a fourth speedlight was placed on the ground and pointed straight up. Professor Stanford would be bringing a sky globe as a prop, and I thought it might benefit from a bit of light coming from below.

November 13, 2025

This draft photo shows the effect of the four flashes on the final image. You can see that the un-gelled floor light appears on the palm of my right hand, the anticipated location of the sky globe. The Lumiquest Softbox is, to paraphrase David Hobby, "Not hard, and not soft". I was able to gently direct light away from the lower half of my body by tilting the softbox up slightly.

If it isn't apparent, I mounted the camera on a tripod to ensure a consistent relationship between the subject and the background. I also had a piece of gaffer tape on the ground to ensure that Professor Stanford would always be in the same location in the frame.

Preparation was completed just as Professor Stanford arrived. This helped to promote the illusion of an organized photographer with a clear vision of the photograph and the ability to carry it off. Well played, Tom.

The final photograph (top of post) turned out well. If you look at this cropped image, you can see that the facial highlights are very smooth and not overly bright. Not as soft as those from a larger shoot-through umbrella, but certainly adequate for an environmental portrait made outdoors.

Alternative Marquee Lighting: I don't always carry a 200 watt-second flash, so I thought about how I would have lit the marque with a speedlight of lesser power. The easiest way to maximize the output would be to move the speedlight closer to the subject. 

For this exercise, it is important that both the camera and the subject locations are used as static reference points. Since the camera was on a tripod, its location would remain constant.  I would then put a piece of gaffer tape on the ground where I wanted my subject to stand. Next, I would stand at a point where the camera (tripod) and the subject (gaffer tape) were in perfect alignment. Then I would walk away from the subject's mark while keeping it aligned with the camera. If I placed the lightstand along this line it would be hidden behind the subject. You'll now have placed the speedlight where it can't be seen by the camera. The process could have been made simpler with a lighting diagram, but at the moment I haven't found a source for photo appropriate clipart. I know that they're out there, and I would have purchased an entire set if I had realized how useful they would someday become.