The Snake Lady

Oh Boy Oh Boy! The assignment was to photograph the reptile curator at a local museum. The reptile is a Mountain Kingsnake,  a harmless snake to could be mistaken for the venomous Coral Snake, were it not for a simple rhyme well known in areas where the two might be encountered:

Red and black, venom lack,

Red and yellow, kill that fellow!

This was a rare opportunity to see this snake up close, as they are not commonly found in captivity. The snake has fascinated me ever since I saw a photograph of one in an encyclopedia when I was very young. This is the first one I've ever seen up close. While this photo was my personal favorite, it will not be included when the article is published. An explanation will be given after I talk about some technical details

1/45 second, F 5/6  ISO 400 

Setup: Since I would be in an enclosed area of the museum,  I didn't worry about overcoming enormous amounts of harsh daylight, so my equipment could be kept to a bare minimum. 

I entered the museum about 30 minutes before our scheduled session. I notified the front desk that I would be waiting by the King Snake enclosure, and that she should come in 30 minutes so I could complete my setup.. It took slightly longer than I hoped, and Michelle arrived in time to watch me spend a few more minutes making adjustments to my equipment.

This shot was made with a single speedlight using a Lumi Quest miniature softbox placed at camera left. Its small size allowed me to position it close to the window so there wouldn't be any "hot spot" reflections on the glass enclosure. Second, the enclosed nature of this miniature softbox allowed me to feather the edges to prevent overexposing the sign on the wall, camera left, nearest the flash. From my perspective, there would be three points of interest. First, there was the sign on the left identifying the terrarium's occupant. Second, I wanted to show the contents of the enclosure. And finally, there was Michelle herself,+ holding one of the museum's  "Animal  Ambassadors".

Cropped version of the submitted photo.

My editor saw the original photo, and suggested that she wanted to see a variation that was cropped tighter to Michelle. I wound up cropping the image to a square format, completely deleting the entire left third of the photo. I also suggested that she consider the photo from the top of the post. Her response was inciteful, and worth reading.

"If it were the SNAKE being interviewed, the top photo would be a no brainer. Its proximity to the camera makes it look alarmingly large, almost as big as she is, which makes it the main subject, overshadowing her. The photo is too much about the snake and, as you say, makes it LOOK much bigger than it really is. A reader who knows about snakes is going to read the caption identifying the type of snake and say..."WHAT??"

The picture below is, IMO, a better photo of Michelle, and puts the snake in the correct perspective. The lavender/lilac color of the snake enclosure frame is a nice "frame" for her and the color, which connects the frame and her shirt, will at least show up on line. Even in black and white the enclosure frame serves as a framing device. And, importantly, in the lower photo Michelle has a nice smile which underscores her delight in dealing with reptiles such as this fellow. This is the message of the interview text."

At that moment, I realized I had been so focused on getting the exposure right that I overlooked the subtle details in Michelle's expression. As a result, my favorite photo ended up being more about the snake than the person.

If the session had gone more smoothly, I probably would have paid more attention to the overall image. Instead, I was distracted by exposure issues with the single speedlight I was using. The problem was caused equally by my confusion while reading the LCD settings and by the flash controller's crowded, control button layout.. The solutions are twofold. First, I need to better label those speedlights. My problems assumed that my speedlight was in Group A, but in reality, it had been configured to respond as a Group C remote. My frantic output adjustments made at the controller level were being sent to the wrong flash, resulting in an anxious moment of "What's going on?" Ultimately I solved the problem by increasing the ISO, which effectively overexposed the terrarium in the background.

I may write more about that in a future post, but for now I'm creating a simple checklist to help prevent these issues next time. For the moment, I'll just sit and brood.

The Computer History Museum

This is Dag, the Senior Curator at the Computer History Museum’s permanent historical collection. The CHM contains the most comprehensive repository of computers, software, media, oral histories, and ephemera relating to computing in the world. The paper is running a Q & A article on  him, so I went down to the museum to provide the photograph. 

As usual, I arrived 30 minutes before our scheduled shoot at 2:15. This gave me a chance to scout out the museum for interesting backgrounds. I settled on a display that included the reel-to-reel tape drives that were spinning in the background of almost every mid-sixties film that wanted to project a high tech feeling.

The first thing I did was to establish the white balance. It is really a simple choice. Most displays still rely on incandescent lighting, so after making a sample shot (left) using the Daylight white balance preset, then I reshot it at the Incandescent preset (right). Luckily for me I had spent some time organizing and labeling the zipper pouches in the Pelican case, so I knew where to find the CTO (color temperature orange) gels I would need to install on all of the speedlights to match the accent lights on the foreground display.

I also wanted to add some depth to the photo, so I placed a gelled speedlight on a floor stand and aimed it at the graphic that already had its own accent light. With the light aimed directly at the graphic, the light randomly spilled onto the wall, providing a random light on the back wall.

This final test shot involved a speedlight mounted almost ten feet in the air and pointed at the brightly painted tape reels in the background. I would like to mention that I am constantly looking for a shooting position that would minimize the appearance of glare from both my flashes and some unexpected reflections of some windows on the walls to my right. In the lead shot, you can barely see the reflection in the glass protecting the blue tape reels.

With all the background lights positioned and adjusted, I added my key light, a flash with a shoot-through umbrella. If you look at the shadow cast by Dag's arm, it was positioned fairly high above the ground. I've been an advocate of carrying a tall light stand because a shot like this requires that you place the light relatively far from the subject, and to maintain a pleasing light-to-subject angle, you may have to raise it considerably. I am guessing that the flash/umbrella combination is about ten feet off the ground. Even then I still have two more feet if I need them. Remember that I am working indoors in an empty museum, so obstruction of visitor traffic isn't an issue.

Since all the lights were in position, I repositioned Dag so I could get a shot with more of him and less of the background. If you look at the orange tape reels in the background, you can see that my new composition allowed more reflections to appear on the protective glass. Since I needed to get the session completed within the allotted time. I decided to live with it.

Posing: Here's something I only noticed when I reviewed this image during post production. Dag's shirt  has vertical lines that curve slightly in the closeup photo, but they are less prominent in the leading shot. This is because in the top photo he's facing me straight on, while in the lower photo his body is angled away from the lens axis. It is possible to use the Liquify command in post production to reduce the curve by moving his waistline to the left to reduce the curved effect, but I can't alter content for anything published in the paper.

Just for practice I did a digital tummy-tuck and changed the contours of Dag's body. It took about five minutes, and if I spent a little more time on the project the results would have been marginally better. For the record, I did not push the curve toward the centerline, but instead pulled the waistline out to the left of the frame, giving his torso a straighter line. 

I may send Dag this altered version after the article is published. I am sure he'll appreciate the effort. And from now on I'll keep an eye out for vertical lines in EVERYONE'S clothing.

A Flock Of Flashes

I believe this photograph now holds my personal record for most speedlights used in a single photograph. Let's count them. From front to rear:

• 1 key light used with a shoot through umbrella
• 1 fill light bounced off of the floor beside me,
• 1 kick light used to create the highlight on the background 
• 2 background lights aimed at the shelves in the background
• 1 skid light aimed at an angle to the ceiling, and
• 1 background light aimed at the back wall

The Key Light: Nothing special here. I used my twelve-foot tall light stand to position the light high and to camera left. I angled it slightly to prevent severe over-exposure to the clock by the left edge of the frame.

The Fill Light: When I can, I use a Joe McNally technique of bouncing a flash, positioned perpendicular to the floor, to provide a highlight at the lower edge of the subject's eyes. It does throw some light into the nose shadow, but cannot brighten the teeth. The effect is very subtle, but I am a big fan of catchlights, and I am always uncomfortable when I can't see any. See left photo.

The Kick Light: This flash was aimed specifically at the rack of clothing behind the subject. I wanted to add some three-dimensionality to the clothing behind the subject. I clamped it onto a clothing rack at camera left. In retrospect, I should have reduced the power, or eliminated it altogether.

The Two (Shelf) Accent Lights: Because the isle between the two facing shelves was so narrow the flash beam angle, even at its widest setting, couldn't completely cover the box-filled shelves. This forced me to use two flashes to get the coverage I needed. Each flash had its own light stand. While the selves themselves don't add anything to the photograph, it prevents the warehouse from looking like a cave with no ending.

The (Ceiling) Skid Light: I started by aiming a flash perpendicular to the ceiling. Unfortunately, the reflective surface of the insulation didn't give me the effect I wanted. I then moved the flash as close to the back wall as possible and angled it so the light would bounce off the ceiling at a 45 degree angle. This increased the coverage and highlight size. And if you look closely, you can see the flash mounted in a "foot" on the floor.

The Background Light: The last light was placed to light the far wall of the warehouse, placed to define the physical limits of the room. Even though the flash wasn't powerful to fully light the wall, it added enough detail to proclaim its presence.

Controller Compatibility: My equipment included 4 older Gen 1 Flashpoint controlled and a total of 4 newer Gen 2 Godox controlled speedlights. In the past, I could cross-control these two different speedlight families by mounting a Gen 1 controller in the hot shoe of a Gen 2 controller. 

This photo shows a Pocket Wizard mounted on a Gen 2 Godox controller. A Gen 1 controller could be mounted in the same manner. I could have mounted the two controllers in tandem, but instead chose to maintain direct control over the original four speedlights and switch the three others to the speedlight's built-in optical S1 triggers. Shifting to the S1 mode requires manual adjustment of the output, but in truth, frequent adjustments are not needed for speedlights other than the Key light.

This photo was not an unplanned grab shot, but a carefully controlled and orchestrated photograph. It certainly wouldn't qualify as a "spot news photo" in the traditional sense, nor was it a managed candid. I wanted a photo that was eye-catching and visually interesting enough to encourage the reading of the caption.

I'm Getting Better

Graduation At The Adolf School. It's that time of year, and I returned to Hillsdale High School to photograph the students receiving their GEDs and High School Diplomas through the continuation school. My primary goal was to get a series of really nice photos of the graduates as they received their diplomas from the school's director. While candid photographs of the speakers at the podium would also be part of the coverage, the one posed handshake photo would probably be the most meaningful for the graduates, along with being a five-second window where I had total control of the photograph. 

Rehearsals: To prepare for the handshake photo, I got the sixteen graduates together and introduced myself and congratulated them on their achievements. Next, I gave the both instructions and a demonstration of exactly how I wanted them to proceed. First, the would shake hands with the director (right hand, below) while accepting the diploma (left hand, above). Next, I told them to stand on a blue-tape X I had placed on the stage, about ten feet in front of where I would be standing. Finally, I told them to stay put until I gave them the thumbs up sign, a signal for them to return to their chairs on the stage.

Equipment: Since I had so little time between graduates, the equipment needed to produce consistent results. I mounted a speedlight on a seven-foot light stand for a key light and aligned it with the taped "X" I had place on the stage. I triggered the flash using a radio transmitter. Then I went and stood on the X, and made selfies until I was happy with the exposure.  At the last minute, I decided to add a CTO gel onto the speedlight so I could use the same white balance preset when I photographed the speakers standing at the podium. With the gel in place, I reset my aperture to compensate for the light loss from the CTO gel. Finally (here's the genius part) I wrote down my final exposure settings (ISO, aperture, speedlight output) on a small card and taped it to the lightstand. This way I could effortless duplicate the setting when the graduates walked off  the stage.

I knew that when I returned to my usual aisle position on the floor, I'd be changing ISO, aperture size, and exposure duration "on the fly", so I was sure my settings would be very different than those selected for the flash-lit handshake shots.

This shot of the Valedictorian was made using only the house spot lights using a 28-70 equivalent lens on my Fuji T-4. I was shooting in burst mode, trying to capture one expressive moment during her presentation. This is the one I selected (60 frames just to get this one), and it's a winner.

When the last speaker had spoken I hurried back to my shooting position on Stage Left, an waited for the presentation of the diplomas. Only one shot per graduate was needed, and the whole process went quickly.

The exposures were very consistent, and no adjustments in post processing were necessary. I did erase an errant "Exit" sign,  since the images were not headed for publication so a little retouching is permissible.

The Takeaway: I believe that if you cannot add some form of light modifier (softbox or shoot-through umbrella), positioning the key light can greatly improve the quality of the image. In this cropping of the topmost image, you can see that the highlights are position higher on the face, although fairly close to the lens axis. If you look at the shadow cast by the tip of the nose, you will see that it's quite narrow AND does NOT CROSS THE UPPER LIP. This has been a hard rule for "normal" (read flattering) portraiture, as advocated by portraitist William Mortensen (1897-1965), a classic Hollywood photographer in the 1920s and 1930s. Like all rules, he and other photographer break the rule when an unconventional., albeit unflattering, portrait. Note too that the closer you light is to the lens axis, the better the chances you'll get some nice catchlights in your subject's eyes.

Congratulations, Class of 2026!