An Acerbic Wit

CASE STUDY #15 An Acerbic Wit

CAMERA: Hasselblad 503c LENS: 120mm macro

FILM: Fuji RTP 100

EXPOSURE: f/5.6 at 1 / 15 second

LIGHTING: Luz 800ws with spun glass over the grid; 20-degree grid with black foil affixed to the reflector to create a triangular shadow on the background

Assignment Channel 4 of London was doing a documentary with the author, journalist, and literary critic Christopher Hitchens. They needed a promotional image of Christopher to promote the program.

Visual Objective Hitchens is a controversial writer. I wanted to illustrate this by creating a somewhat mysterious environment and using a slight tilt of the camera.

The Story The image was photographed in a typically small, nondescript New York City apartment—not the type you see on television. When I arrived, Hitchens was working on a deadline and didn’t have much time. After looking around the apartment for a location, I decided the best location was right where he was sitting. I told him to continue working at his laptop and when we were ready I would let him know.

After we set up, I asked Christopher to give me five minutes, which he did. I snapped away, and after about three rolls I was finished. He said thanks and went back to work on his laptop.

Tips This was a situation where I had to alter the environment to create a more intriguing portrait. As I mentioned, the apartment was pretty plain, and Hitchens was under a deadline. To spice it up, I decided to shoot tungsten film—even though there was daylight streaming in from the windows. The trick is to convert your daylight strobe on the subject to a tungsten color balance with a CTO (color temperature orange) gel. This keeps the light color balanced on the subject while allowing the daylight to go blue.

30-degree grid 30-degree grid with black wrap attached to cast shadow on wall

Posing There was not much prompting on my end. When I asked him to turn and face the camera, he clasped his hands and looked up at me. That was it.

52 50 LIGHTING SETUPS FOR PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHERS