At the Theater with a camera and a big lens.

Images from Zach Scott Theater's "Rockin Christmas" Musical

One of my favorite clients is Zachary Scott Theater. Their marketing director uses photography well and they appreciate my style. I do a lot of straightforward, set-up images throughout the year for their website and print collateral. But one of the things I've been doing for them for over sixteen years now is "running shoots". These are documentary shoots of the dress rehearsals. We usually do them the night before each show opens. We do them straight through. No stopping and starting. I have access to every part of the stage but there are no "do overs". These are the photos that the theater sends to the lifestyle publications and the local newspaper to run with reviews and announcements.

What we're trying to do is give a potential audience the feeling of what it's like to be there. To be in the audience.

When I first started doing this the publications wanted black and white prints. We shot black and white Tri-X in Leica M series rangefinder cameras. This took a lot of concentration on the changing stage lights. Since the cameras were unmetered I was constantly checking things with a spot meter. It was quite an undertaking. Our hit ratio for well focused and well timed images was much higher than our ratio for proper exposure.

At the end of the show I'd head to my darkroom to develop film that evening. The next morning I'd make contact sheets and try to meet with the marketing team around 11 am to get their input for needed prints. By mid afternoon I'd have ten or fifteen 8x10 inch black and white prints ready to be picked up and sent around.

Over the years the cameras changed but the deadlines never did. Last year I was shooting the shows with a Nikon D700 and assorted lenses. As you may know I changed systems and now I shoot with the Olympus e series SLR cameras. I really like them but they don't handle high ISO noise as well as the Nikon stuff. I was nervous about using them on a show like the one I've included images of. The stage light isn't bright and everything is knocked down a bit by colored filter gels. I have trepidation in shooting anything over ISO 1600 with the e3 or the e30 so I didn't go there. But while I was getting ready for the shoot I remembered shooting at ISO 400 with a manual focus Leica. Things have gotten better.

The standard lens I used for 80% of my stage shots last year was the Nikon 70-200 f2.8. The Olympus equivalent is the 35-100mm f2.0. The Olympus is a full stop faster and at least two stops sharper. By that I mean that the images I get at f 2.0 seem on par, in terms of sharpness, with the images I used to get from the Nikon at f4. I packed an e3 and an e30 and just two lenses, the 35/100 and the 14/54mm.

I shoot a lot during rehearsals so I tend to shoot large/fine/jpegs. I set both cameras to ISO 1600 and I set the color settings to "natural" with a minus one click on contrast. I use the spot meter in both cameras. One 4 gb card for each. (I've settled in at 4 gb because they fit nicely on one DVD.....).

Since both cameras have great IS (image stabilization) I forgo the tripods and monopods. This year my 14 year old son, Ben, joined me with his Pentax istD camera and short zoom lens. 14 year old non coffee drinkers seem to be better at holding a camera still than some adults....

While I missed focus more often than I would have liked I found that the lens performed very well at f2, f2.2, f2.5 and f2.8. I rarely had to go below 1/160th of a second and found that most of the time I was working around 1/250th of a second. Not a very perilous range for handholding. Most of the actors were African American and nearly every background was dark and continuous. A ready made torture test for noise in the shadow areas.

Non of the examples above have had post production noise reduction applied. The noise reduction in camera is "standard". Please take a moment to blow a few of them up on your screen and evaluate the noise. While I'm the first to admit that the Nikon's are less noisy I don't think the noise in these files is at all objectionable. I took the time to print a few and found them to be just right.

When I pick up the 14-35mm f2 SWD I'll stop worrying about noise altogether.

The magic thing seems to be that the lenses have enough depth of field to cover what I need at nearly wide open. Not the case with full frame which requires me to work around f4 for satisfactory sharpness and focus depth. Amazing how you can never compare apples to apples in this craft. If Olympus made a few f1.4 or f1.2 lenses for this format I'd sure give the whole thing a try with the older e1's and e300's. If I could use them at ISO 400 it would be fun.

So, sheer square inches is a nice thing to have when you need to shoot under low light but.....it's just one shifting side of a changing paradigm. Olympus figured that out when they started designing lenses for their small sensor system. I can hardly wait to try my hand at some architecture with these little cameras. The 7-14 and the 9-18mm lenses have reputations for being some of the sharpest and best corrected wide zooms around. Couple the lens performance with really wide DOF at f5.6 and f8.0 and you really have a totally different way of looking at that field. Should be fun.

I suggest you head out and support your local theaters during the holidays. Live theater is something special. And while not as polished as a movie or a television show there is a tremendous value in the unexpected and the energy of live performances. Many theaters depend on the holiday cash flow to help subsidize chancier work during the rest of the year. And if we let theaters die off all we'll be left with is television and YouTube. Don't you want a nice excuse to get out of the house?

Final Note/Request: If you are looking for the perfect gift for someone who is really hard to shop for, like a really hot girlfriend/boyfriend, a generous aunt, a demanding boss, your sainted mother, etc. you might want to consider a really original gift. My third book, Commercial Photography Handbook, comes to mind. Beautifully illustrated and full of good, solid business info. You never know when your great grandmother will give up knitting and pick up a Leica S2, ready for business. You'll be happy you got her the book when she starts turning a major profit. Heck, she may even share tips with you. Thanks, Kirk

The Anatomy of a Corporate Portrait Shoot.

Dell Executive onsite at Dell Headquarters.

When I read various forums about lighting and photography there are presumptions about the way professional work is done that are just plain wrong. When I used to post images as examples in discussions about lighting people would always demand that I post "the set up shots." What they wanted was a step by step photographic build, or instruction manual, of the way the image was constructed. People also wondered, "why didn't you try this, and this and this???" And, of course, the constant assumption that I would have hours to put everything together while a highly paid VP or CEO stands around waiting for me.

Well. Uh. No. When we hit the client's hallowed halls our one intention, with laser like focus, is to get in, get the images we need and then get the hell out before we overstay our welcome.

So, here's how I do executive portraits in 2009. The call comes in from the Vice President's administrative assistant and we begin the planning process. Here are the questions we cover:

1. What kind of images do we need to end up with?

Answer: We need a standard headshot against our regular blue background. Then we'd like a series of images shot across a conference table in our briefing center. On some of these we'd like to do an interview style where he appears to be answering questions for a magazine or other interviewer. Finally, we'd like two or three different environmental shots in our beautiful briefing center.

2. How much time will we have with the executive?

Answer: Can we do all of this in one hour? I'll push for an hour and a half but that's going to be the outside limit.

3. How much earlier can I have access to the locations?

Answer: I can get you into the conference room where we'll do the headshot and the conference table shots about an hour before the VP arrives. Will that work? As to the public areas we'll have to set up and tear down as we go. Sorry.

4. Can you have him bring several suits, several ties and several shirts?

Answer: No problem. What about make up?

My Answer: We'll bring our "Barbie" case and I'll powder him if necessary. I don't think we have time to put him into a standard make up routine.

5. How will the shots be used? What kind of rights license are you looking for?

Answer: We'd like unlimited public relations use for a period of three years. Can you send me an estimate for the shoot?

My Answer: I'll have an estimate to you before the end of the day.

At this point I'll sit down and figure out how I'm going to produce the job. From arrival to the point where I'm loading stuff back in the car. Now my budget is approved and we've set the date and time.

I make sure my assistant has her driver's license with her. They will ask for it at security check in. We meet at my studio at 11am and load all the gear into the Honda Element. We drop by Starbucks for coffee and snacks and then head north to Dell. We discuss the shoot, step by step. We've both done jobs in the conference center before and we have a good working knowledge of the layout and what to expect in terms of existing lighting.

After clearing security and meeting up with our client we head to the conference room with a ton of gear on a cart. We set up a blue background on background stands and put together a standard three light portrait set-up. We always bring our own posing stool for these situtions since high backed conference chairs are horrible for headshots. We test the lighting set up with the assistant sitting in and then, satisfied that we have it nailed we move on to setting up a second set of lights for the conference room table shot. Before we move on to the second lighting set up, however, we pull out the little notebook and jot in the shutter speed, aperture and other settings so we don't have to waste time when the VP sits down.

The conference room table shot calls for a Chimera Lantern (large size) over the table with a Profoto Acute 600b head and pack. The back wall is lit by several shoe mount strobes with home made grid spot adapters. A third gridded, hot shoe flash is used as a hair/rim light. That's an effect I rarely use and I keep it powered way down for a subtle separation. Once these two set ups are in place we go to scout the other locations. Along with our client we decide on three looks in one really great room. Shooting from three different vantage points will give us three completely different looks. We pull out the notebook and I sketch out how we will light it and where the camera and subject will end up.

Our subject shows up right on time and we start moving. We select a suit and tie combination that looks great and he does a quick change in the restrooms down the hall. We get warmed up with the headshot, get to know the guy pretty well during the conference table shots and build a sense of collaboration by showing him the best images from each set up. By the time we get ready to do our environmentals we're all part of one team and everyone's fairly excited about getting the best stuff in our last three shots.

While I was shooting the conference table shots my assistant was tearing down the headshot lighting set up and moving those lights into the first position we'd sketched out in the final area. She's got the lights set and ready, metered and color balanced by the time we finish with the conference room.

The VP, client and I move to the first set up in the new room. I do test shot and quick tweak and then we start in earnest. The real goal in portrait photography is to let the real person come out in the photograph. At least all the good stuff... And in this case our subject was really wonderful. Very engaging and very savvy about the process and what we hoped to get.

After the first set up in our new area I sent the VP off to change clothes so we would have a different wardrobe look. My assistant had wrapped the conference room and we set up the second lighting design for this room. In each position we're shooting fifty or sixty images in order to have a good selection to work with. While I've carefully metered and white balanced using a Lastolite gray target disk I'm still shooting raw because if we've missed anything we're going to have a hard time getting back on this VP's schedule.

As we're finishing our third set up in this location the VP looks at his watch and starts to look a bit...impatient. We're right at the hour we'd been promised. I know we've got a lot of good stuff so we shake hands and he sprints off toward his next tightly timed meeting.

While my assistant begins wrapping equipment I talk over payment schedules and delivery schedules with my client. Then I help with the packing and the load out.

On the way home we discuss the shoot. I'm looking for feedback and she's looking for answers to several technical questions. We hit the studio and unpack all the gear. I write a check to the assistant and sit down to back up the raw files in several places and then fire up Capture One for a first pass editing session.

The stuff looks good. I have a web gallery, with globally corrected images, up for our client inspection and selection and I send her the link before 5pm. Along with an invoice for our services and usage license. This shoot has gone like clockwork. We have enough gear to keep two different set-ups rolling all the time.

We got what the client needed in the time we were given. The next step was finishing out the selected images and delivering tiffs and jpegs. Since we don't know in advance the number of files they'll need we have a la carte pricing for finishing out the raw files. They're generally delivered by FTP.

This job was done with Nikon D700's and assorted Nikon Lenses. Lighting was mostly Profoto Acute 600b's which are battery powered, light and portable to the extreme.

At no time was it either appropriate or feasible to step back and shoot step by step images of our entire set up. The client's needs are primary. That's just good practice and good marketing.

All the best, Kirk