Rest in Peace, Larry

Last week, I had a request for a copy of a photograph of a couple I took for a corporate newsletter in August. That part seemed fairly routine. What caught me by surprise was the reason. The husband in the shot had passed away two days after I took the photo. My image was the last photograph of him. I was a little shaken by the news—this was a first for me. I had only met the gentleman—his name was Larry—just that one morning of the quick shoot. But he seemed like a really nice man. Without hesitation, I quickly ordered a set of prints from my favorite lab and burned the image to disk for Larry’s wife and family.

Ironically, I read last week where an Annie Leibovitz image of John Lennon and Yoko Ono is going to be auctioned in October. The image was taken by Leibovitz in December 1980 for the famous Rolling Stone shoot. Leibovitz wanted to photograph Lennon alone, as no one wanted Ono in the images, but Lennon insisted. Just hours after the session, as he and Yoko returned from dinner, Mark David Chapman gunned Lennon down in front of his building. Leibovitz’s images were the last taken of John Lennon alive. Another image from the shoot, one of a nude Lennon with his body wrapped around a clothed Yoko Ono, graced the cover of Rolling Stone’s tribute to the murdered star. That magazine cover has been ranked as the top magazine cover of the past forty years.

I don’t for a second pretend that my image of Larry and his wife is in the same league as Leibovitz’s shot of Lennon and Oko—or that it’s even art. But I’m honored to have taken the photo and to know that it might serve in some way as a legacy for their family. And I think about the weighty responsibility of photographers who take critical images, often of others final moments—war correspondents, photojournalists covering atrocities around the globe, or those snapping images of the World Trade Center after the first jetliner impact on 9/11. It puts a different perspective on everything when you peer through that lens.

Rest in peace, Larry. It was truly an honor to have met you.

Product Photography Revisited

This past weekend was a cornocopia of football here in the southeast. There was Dodge County High School, my beloved University of Georgia, and of course the Sunday fallback Atlanta Falcons. And none of them scored a touchdown, let alone won. So I was forced to throw myself at work... and photography.

I was challenged recently to create a photo for the cover of a corporate annual report. I needed to tie some repetitive graphic design elements, in this case an electric outlet, to something modern. Since the body of the document was to discuss smart meters and other high-tech, innovative issues and gizmos, I wanted to have a look and feel that emphasized technology.

I settled on using a photograph of a smart phone, in this case an iPhone, displaying a screen with smart meter data. It would have been much easier to photograph the phone and electrical receptacle and the screen shot seperately, photoshopping them together later. But digital photography gets a bad rap because we so often think, "I'll shoot it like this and just fix it later," instead of doing it right the first time. And I've got a heathy dose of Don Quixote in me, so the hard way was the only way.

Part of the design also required a high key, glassine effect for the image. I wanted the reflection of the phone and receptacle as part of the image. So I took the shot with the phone and receptacle sitting on a pane of clear glass between two supports. I had a softbox in the background and two gridded monolights on either side for some rim-lighting on the phone and to light the receptable. I quickly discovered that getting a proper exposure for the phone screen while achieving a high key effect on the rest of the image was a challenge. In the end, I had to slow the light down by using an aperture of f7.1 matched with a shutter speed of 1/6 second. Needless to say, a tripod was required.

Ironically, insisting that I shoot all of the required elements in one image without any compositing resulted in more trial and error than I had imagined. As a result, the battery in the phone ran dangerously low. I didn't think the red low battery symbol in the top right corner looked good for an energy company, so I had to photoshop in a green battery meter from another image. So much for idealism, huh?

I think the effect turned out rather nice. I guess time will tell as I get to see a printed copy of the report. Until then, I'd really appreciate any feedback.

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Here's another of the shots I took while touring New Orleans a couple of weeks ago. I can't explain why. There's just something very captivating about New Orleans' street cars, especially the St. Charles line. I wish I could go back in time and see and shoot the Desire line, which ran up Bourbon Street and through the French Quarter to Desire.

This was a fun shot. I got down on the ground in front of the approaching streetcar right on top of the rail and waiting until it got close. I'm sure the driver didn't care for my technique. Then I tried the zoom blur throught the shutter. I topped off the effect with Alien Skin's Exposure 2 TRI-X 400 emulation. I really like the grain and the depth.

I'm excited that fall is near. The weather has cooled off, the humidity has dropped, and college football is finally here. Early Happy Labor day wishes to everyone. And if you dig my streetcar shot, please let me know.