Category Blog

Who needs a light meter?

April 28, 2015 0 Comments read Blog, Shop Talk, Tutorials

Back in the film days, a light meter was the most ubiquitous piece of equipment found in the bag of any respectable photographer. For years I carried a Gossen Luna Star Pro, which measured ambient and strobe light as well. It served me faithfully until finally, a duct-tape-covered horror with parts hastily soldered back together, it gave up the ghost.

I never replaced it.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve used (or really needed to use) a light meter. Plenty of professionals use them still—in particular in situations where proper exposure is critical, such as studio and product shoots. There are times when having one would make my life easier, perhaps…..But I’ll admit it: I don’t use hand-held light meters. The closest I get is using the built-in meter in my DSLR camera. It serves me well as a starting point when measuring light in reflected light situations.

The built-in meter of a DSLR camera does the best job when the subject is uniformly lit and comprised of tones with a medium reflective value. But let’s be honest—how often is that the case? More likely, you’re photographing someone in a dark coat in the snow, or someone in a white T-shirt with dark woods or a shadowy doorway behind them. These are situations that will seriously fool with your built-in sensor and give incorrect exposure readings.

That’s why so many photographers use a gray card to determine exposure. A gray card is nothing more than a piece of fabric or cardboard that has a gray surface on one side and usually a white surface on the other. The gray side reflects 18% of the light that hits it. Your camera’s meter is calibrated to view a gray card as a neutral (middle) tone, halfway been white and black. Thus if you take a meter reading while pointing your camera at a gray card, you’ll get a reading that you can then apply to your real subject under the same lighting conditions. Next time you’re shooting a person standing in the middle of a snowy field, whip out your gray card, point your lens at the card (filling the frame with the card) and take a reading. Then manually set your camera to match those same settings, recompose your shot with your actual subject, and fire away. You may not get a perfect exposure, but you’ll be close in most situations.

What do you do if you don’t have a gray card, or if you’re in the middle of a location where it’s difficult to use one? Easy. That’s when I use my tried-and-true photojournalist trick: I stick out my hand, palm upturned and fingers together, and use that as my gray card. The skin on your hand isn’t gray, but it will provide a reading close to the proper exposure. I’ve found that opening up my exposure by a half or full stop produces great results.

Showcase: Portland Pirates Ad Campaign

April 13, 2015 0 Comments read Blog, On Assignment, Recent Work, Shop Talk, Showcase

A few months ago I had the fun duty of shooting a series of images for an ad campaign for the Portland Pirates hockey club. The campaign, “A Pirate’s Life for Me”, features former Pirates players and current junior Pirates in split-view, in street clothes and in their hockey gear, game faces on. I worked with the crew at Pulp & Wire to create the images, which I photographed in my downtown Portland photo studio. I love how completely the demeanor and look of each player changed so dramatically once the pads and helmets went on. I asked Pirates CEO and former player Brad Church, bottom, to show his game face during the session and he clearly had no problems doing that. I’m just glad I wasn’t a player on the opposing team.

Showcase: Baker, Newman & Noyes

March 20, 2015 0 Comments read Blog, Case Studies, Recent Work, Showcase

I’ve worked with the fine folks at BNN, a full-service accounting firm based in Portland, ME, for a few years now. In honor of their 20th anniversary, they just relaunched their refreshed website look this week with a new logo and a few of the environmental portraits we’ve done featuring their principals within their beautiful downtown Portland office space. They wanted to emphasize the personal, human component of their services, and I think the new web design and images work well to do that.

Introducing: The Main(e) Light Workshop

March 9, 2015 0 Comments read Blog, Shop Talk, Studio, Workshop

I’m proud to announce the dates for my first-ever Main(e) Light Workshops . This workshop series is focused on an area that many photographers struggle with: using electronic flash on location. It’s my attempt to cut through the hype around specific gear and to teach the skills that photographers can put to immediate use when creating portfolio work or meeting a deadline for a paying client. It’s practical, it’s hands-on and it’s set up to allow (encourage) tangential topics—how best to approach assignments for clients, how to organize and optimize your workflow, etc.— as they come up in relation to the work. But let’s not kid ourselves: the work is first and foremost.

The first workshop, Speedlight Bootcamp, is built around the off-camera flashes that today can cost as much as a decent studio head. The second is on location (in a very cool Maine setting) and combines a variety of studio and off-camera flashes with ambient (mostly sun) light to create spectacular effects. For that one, we’ll roll with the weather and take a studied, and at times seat-of-the-pants approach to lighting to produce amazing images.

The Main(e) Light Workshop has been in the works for a year or more. In a way, I’ve been preparing for it my whole career. I learned from a great many others in my field when I started out in journalism. From Tim Rogers to Paul O’Neill to Brad Armstrong (to many others), I’ve learned about being patient, how to really connect with people and how to read light. This workshop is my chance to help others succeed and grow in much the same way. I’ve taught other seminars over the years, but never an intensive set of workshops quite like the Main(e) Light Workshop. My plan is for each photographer to leave with the tools they need to create interesting portraits with the gear they can afford. It may take years to master electronic light, but this workshop will give anyone a big boost in the right direction.

So please check out the lineup. Tell me what you think, ask me questions. And if you sign up, welcome. It’s going to be a great ride.

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No, I was not attacked in Iraq

February 10, 2015 7 Comments read Blog, News, On Assignment, On Location

[rev_slider iraqslider]

Note: the above images are mostly outtakes from my time embedded with troops from the 737th Transportation Company from January-March 2004. All images © Yakima Herald-Republic.

CORRECTION: I mentioned “bulletproof” vests in my article. The troops at the time had fragmentary resistant vests, later upgraded to the type of vest I wore–a ballistic vest with ceramic plates in the front and back. Also, a soldier with the 737th pointed out that he had never heard a mortar ‘whistle’. While the sound is clear in my memory, I’d have to describe it more accurately as a loud hissing noise, increasing in intensity to a roar. In any case, terrifying.

Like many of my journalist friends I’ve followed with fascination the controversy over NBC anchor Brian Williams’ misrepresentation of his role during an incident in Iraq in 2003. As someone who spent 16 years as a photojournalist and photo editor, I’m particularly sensitive to the topic. Just a few months after Williams’ incident, I was also an embedded journalist, living with and reporting on troops in Kuwait and Iraq.

Everyone remembers incidents differently over time. Ask a cop whether eyewitness accounts are reliable. Williams’ account isn’t the first time that someone with an incidental role in a major event ends up over time recasting themselves closer and closer to the action. But I’m hard-pressed to remember a time when a professional journalist of such stature—someone paid to bear witness and to tell truth—has so been accused.

It’s not just his dramatic retelling that happened in the years since the episode. For me, it’s interesting that in the report Williams aired immediately after the incident, he reported that the chopper ahead of his had taken fire and was forced to land. It implied that he witnessed the scene as part of the convoy rather than on a ‘following’ chopper arriving later at the scene. I suspect that Williams’ error has less to do with some moral failing and a lot to do with the nature of TV news. The emphasis is for TV journalists to be in the picture, part of the scene, and encourages them to imply an immediacy that may be misleading. It’s a desire to be part of the story, and is in contrast to the type of journalism practiced by print and photo-journalists whose emphasis is should be on the subject and never on themselves (with some exceptions, I’m sure).

I witnessed both approaches during the time I spent embedded with troops of the 737th Transportation Company back in 2004. I was one of two journalists from Eastern Washington state given the opportunity to document the lives of some 160 Army Reservists whose unit had been last called to active duty during the Vietnam War. The goal was to tell the story not of the war, but of the men and women from my community who put their lives on hold for a year (or more) to go to war far from home. My sacred mission was to keep the focus on them and not on me. Looking back, it was easier for me as a newspaper journalist to do that—to stay behind the scenes, watching, reporting, photographing. For a TV journalist it’s not so simple. Embedded with me was Patrick Preston, a reporter from KXLY-TV in Spokane, Washington. Both of us were doing double-duty: I was photographing and writing stories and he was filing reports on air and handling his video camera and gear. After looking at his bags of gear, I realized that I had the better end of the bargain. Even with my RBGAN satellite data phone, my voice satellite phone, two cameras, lenses, laptop and backup drives, I was 10 times more mobile than Patrick (see his picture, above). I also could ‘embed’ easier, hanging out the soldiers, photographing them as they went about their business. Patrick had to do a lot of stand-up interviews, usually at 5 am each morning in time for the Spokane broadcast. He also had to be in front of the camera, essentially narrating and shaping each broadcast while I had the luxury of letting my photos tell the story with a little help from a caption or two.

This gave me a distinct advantage, and allowed me to grow closer to the troops. For Patrick, his broadcast time restraints and his heavy gear all made it tougher for him to just be one of the guys. During a convoy escort mission into Iraq, Patrick and I were given space in separate Humvees. The reason was simple: a journalist doesn’t have a weapon, and so you spread them out so that you’re only missing one rifle in each gun truck, rather than two. The First Sergeant told us in no uncertain terms to stay awake. His theory was, if a hostile is looking for a weak spot in a line of trucks, they’ll go with the one that has one less rifle–especially if they see a civilian not paying attention. Because Patrick had to do daily early-morning stand-up reports, he tended to pass out after hours in the Humvee. Eventually, the First Sergeant got so frustrated that he came to my Humvee, pulled out a solider and traded spots with him. He was worried that Patrick’s Humvee would be hit, and he didn’t want to tempt fate.

Through it all, I think Patrick did a great job with very little resources or sleep. I had the easier time. But having gone through that experience, I can understand some of the context around Brian Williams’ faulty memory. To me, it’s really not about a faulty memory. It’s about an emphasis in TV news about being on screen instead of behind it; about being part of the story instead of simply reporting it.

Patrick and I spent about five weeks with the 737th, living with them at Ft. Lewis, Washington and deploying with them overseas to Kuwait. We actually feared that we wouldn’t make it to Iraq at all, given the fact that the mission changed, and changed again after our arrival. The last week of my embed—the very end of February, 2004—we were given the mission to escort a convoy into Iraq. We were nervous, excited, but happy to be given a chance to show the folks back home what the Iraq experience might be like for their loved ones.

We spent five days in Iraq. During that time, we ate a lot of dust, saw a lot of destruction and saw the troops perform admirably. We were subject to two incidents: one in which unknown persons hurled a large rock from an overpass in Baghdad, hitting the windshield of a Humvee (not mine, nor his), and another in which two mortars were lobbed indiscriminately from beyond the perimeter and landed among our lines of trucks at the motor pool at operating base Speicher, near Tikrit, Iraq. In that incident, we were relaxing and awaiting departure when we heard the whistle of incoming mortars. We were unprepared. Many soldiers were missing their Kevlar helmets and others (probably me among them) had taken off our uncomfortable bulletproof vests. There were casualties with minor injuries, as the rockets landed a hundred yards away between lines of fuel tankers. It could have been much, much worse.

We were lucky, and neither I nor Patrick ever ‘conflated’ our role in either incident to one of prominence. After all, it was about the troops and not about us. Whatever happens to Brian Williams, I hope the incident isn’t cast as a simple failing of an egotistical TV personality. It should be a reminder for all journalists, TV or otherwise, of something my ASU journalism professor Bruce Itule always told us: “It ain’t about you.”

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Inspire ME with John Lee Dumas

January 6, 2015 1 Comment read Blog, Inspire Maine, On Location, Showcase

John Lee Dumas, a very cold EntrepreneurOnFire. Photo by Brian Fitzgerald

Way back in 2011 I launched Inspire Portland, a project showcasing (through portraits and interviews) inspiring and interesting people who choose to call Portland, ME home. I planned it to last a year and so I closed it down in 2012–temporarily glad to move on to other things but sad to see it go. When you get down to it, Inspire was a killer way to meet and spend time with all sorts of interesting people that I found fascinating. The photos and the website? Like icing on the cake.

Fast forward to 2014, just a short year ago now. I had been getting occasional emails from people suggesting those they felt would make a good profile. In my travels around Maine I realized that there were many more interesting people all over the state that I’d like to meet. Inspire Maine was born.

This week I relaunched the project, albeit with a slightly different name. My first victim is John Lee Dumas, who runs the crazy-popular EntrepreneurOnFire podcast and who, according to his website, generated income in November of $307,504.50. Dollars. I hate to be a numbers guy, but that’s pretty astounding. Even more incredible is that he has more than 800 podcast episodes to date, broadcasting seven days a week. Not bad for a commercial broker from Portland.

I’ll be posting other episodes on Inspire on a semi-regular schedule from here on out–most with a behind-the-scenes story to go with them here on this blog. As fun as these shoots are to do, there’s always a bunch of stuff that happens during the shoot (much of it unanticipated) that you don’t see. Take John’s shoot, last January. We’d intended to take his photo months later but John ended up coming to Maine for a short trip during the coldest time of year. Our initial idea was to photograph John in a typical Maine coast setting, but with a twist: we wanted to try a complicated procedure with steel wool, sparklers and flame. I mean, EntrepreneurOnFire. What could go wrong? We didn’t have time to practice much beforehand, and then we ended up outside in 10 degrees with the temperature falling fast. Lights, steel wool and my brain do funny things in such situations. The result was not exactly a great image (saving this technique for another time) and John looks….well, freezing. My assistant, Charlie, still points out that he has a burn hole through one of his jackets as a result. We definitely suffered, but sometimes things don’t come up like you planned. At least we have a new story to tell…..

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Friday Clicks: Daily websites for creatives on the go

October 17, 2014 0 Comments read Blog, Friday Clicks

I’m a bit of an information-gatherer: equal parts useful data and interesting trivia, with a dash of inspiration. It’s easy to get distracted on the web that I like having my handful of go-to sources of information.

This changes a lot, as one might imagine. I tend to like websites that offer unique content, or organize content in such a way that it makes it more useful or easier to get to. Bonus for strong and defined points of view.

Right now, here are some of the sites I got to daily for my never-ending quest to understand the worlds I inhabit.

Josh Linkner’s blog – Author, entrepreneur

Altucher Confidential – The blog of entrepreneur and investor James Altucher. I love that James questions many of the assumptions I (and we) take for granted. Like, should you spend money on a home? Is the expense of a college education actually worth it? Worth a read.

Seth Godin’s blog – Short but thoughtful insights delivered daily.

The Daily Beast – The Cheat Sheet is a quick rundown on the day’s top stories.

Vox – When you want to dive deep and explore analysis of current events.

Quora – Always entertaining and often informative. The tagline says it all: Your Best Source for Knowledge. I spend way too much time on this network, but I always seem to get more value than I end up putting in. Gotta work on that.

Strictly Business blog – This is an aggregator of sorts, full of ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) member blogs along with original content. It helps me greatly to hear the stories of others deep in the professional photography trenches with me. It’s not coincidental that this is the only photo-related source of information listed here; at that, Strictly Business has more to do with the business nitty-gritty of photography than it does about photo technique.

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Recent Work: Maine Standards Company

October 9, 2014 0 Comments read Blog, On Assignment, On Location, Showcase

It’s surprising to realize just how many amazing, world-class companies we have in Maine that fly under the radar. Maine Standards Company is one of those. Based in Southern Maine, Maine Standards develops and provides kits for the precise testing and calibration of medical diagnostic equipment. They’re doing cutting-edge stuff using some pretty cool tools. My job was to spend the day photographing their lab, testing kits and analyzers for use in trade show materials. It was a jam-packed day of setting up and breaking down gear, gelling lights and blocking light from reflecting everywhere in those shiny lab surfaces. I love, love this stuff! Check out some of our results.

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Recent Work: ecomaine

September 30, 2014 0 Comments read Blog, On Assignment, On Location, Recent Work, Showcase

This is the second time I’ve showcased some of my work for ecomaine, a non-profit waste management company. That’s due in part to the fact that the work they do is so interesting and their industrial environment lends itself to amazing images. This time around, I spent a day following around the people who work at ecomaine’s landfill, waste-to-energy plant and recycling facility. The job can be difficult and the environment is ever-changing, which makes it a photographic challenge. I opted for a very portable lighting kit that I could set up and take down at a moment’s notice. Even though the lighting looks complex, I kept it fairly simple, choosing to incorporate ambient light into the scene whenever possible. Here are some of my favorites that I think really capture both the environment and the diverse people that work there.

ecomaine_by_Brian_Fitzgerald_05 — Inside the machine shop.

ecomaine_by_Brian_Fitzgerald_03 — Operating the Recycling Facility compactor.

ecomaine_by_Brian_Fitzgerald_02 — Inside the “tipping hall”, where garbage is unloaded into a seven-story bunker.

ecomaine_by_Brian_Fitzgerald_04 — The ultimate result of all that garbage is tons of ash.

ecomaine_by_Brian_Fitzgerald_06 — A view of the landfill through the window of a vehicle.

ecomaine_by_Brian_Fitzgerald_01 — Recycling Facility supervisor.

I can’t say enough positive words about the ecomaine crew. It’s not fun to have a camera in your face, and likely it’s even more uncomfortable when you’re operating heavy and fast-moving equipment. They were fantastic to deal with and I think the images make them look like the rock stars they are.

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Announcing: new portfolio edit, new site

September 2, 2014 0 Comments read Blog, Showcase

Today I’m relaunching www.fitzgeraldphoto.com with a new look and a complete re-edit of my work. For a lot of reasons I love the results.

Easy to navigate? Check. Responsive goodness? Check. Easy to customize (read: I can change the font to Zapf Wingbats at the click of a button)? Check.

Most photographers have a love-hate relationship with their websites. Love ’em one day, can’t stand to look at ’em the next. Even when I created great images I’d have liked to show to the world, I hesitated posting it on my old site. For me it was kind of like putting a new rear spoiler and sweet ground effects on a broken-down AMC Gremlin: A lot of effort but the end results pretty much look the same. Redoing my site involved not only a new design, but a full re-edit of my work—and that is a huge and hairy task I couldn’t wrap my head around.

Luckily, I got help with that piece from Peter Dennen of Pedro+Jackie Photo Consultants. Peter is a great editor, and he helped whip my work into shape. I’ve also relaunched my blog, too (ooh….ahhh). Now it looks more like a tricked-out 1974 AMC Javelin, which is kind of a bad-assed looking set of wheels (truly, thanks, Peter).

The process took longer than I initially planned but the upshot is it made me reevaluate my work and gain a new sense of perspective. So please take it for a ride and stay tuned for new work to pop up here on the blog and on fitzgeraldphoto.com. Thanks!