Cognitive Bow Tie

CASE STUDY #20 Cognitive Bow Tie

CAMERA: Hasselblad 503c LENS: 120mm macro

FILM: 120 color infrared film rated at ISO 200

EXPOSURE: f/8 at 1 / 125 second

LIGHTING: 1200ws Profoto pack and one head with a medium softbox OTHER: yellow (Kodak #12) filter

Assignment Brown Alumni Magazine (Brown University) was doing a special issue on the top one-hundred graduates. They assigned me to photograph Aaron T. Beck, the father of cognitive therapy.

Visual Objective When I arrived at Dr. Beck’s home, I noticed this great, tall, green hedge next to his home. I thought that using it as a backdrop for him sitting in a chair would create a surreal effect.

Posing To emphasize the unnatural setting, I used a traditional corporate pose, having my subject place his elbow on the arm of a chair and interweave his fingers. about his personal life—when he first started wearing one, when he met his wife, etc. I believe the bow tie broke the ice; I wasn’t sure how he’d react to the idea of sitting on an old wooden chair in front of a hedge, but he said it was “interesting.” You never know what line of conversation will loosen up your subject. Taking notice of the small details about your subject shows that you are paying attention.

The Story This was a fun assignment for me since I was teaching at the University of Pennsylvania at the time and Dr. Beck was an eminent scholar there. Alumni publications don’t pay very well, so I recruited my wife Kate (a Penn alumna) to assist me. I didn’t know much about cognitive therapy and realized it would be foolish of me to pretend I did since I was photographing the father of the discipline. In my research on Dr. Beck, though, I did notice he always liked to wear a bow tie. So that’s how I started the conversation. He laughed when I asked him about it and started to tell

Tips Although the magazine used the image I shot with normal film I have always felt the color infrared image was much stronger. If you are interested in learning how to use it, check out my book The Art of Color Infrared Photography, also from Amherst Media.

medium softbox

LIGHTING CASE STUDIES 63