Photo District News Equipment Guide article

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GET THE SHOT A globetrotting corporate photographer, a West Coast still-life shooter and an up-and-coming fashion and advertising photographer talk about the equipment they can’t live without, their suppliers, a typical assignment and their secrets for success.

© TED KAWALERSKI

By Susan Reich

Ted Kawalerski is always on the go—traveling from the jungles of Jakarta to the African savanna to capture digital annual report images for corporate clients. Paige Craig Apodaca is a former child model from Amarillo, Texas, who now shoots fashion and advertising assignments on both coasts. Jennifer Cheung is a pensive traditionalist whose exquisitely composed still-life images, interiors and garden scenes reflect her early training as a prop stylist.

They have radically different backgrounds, distinctive visual esthetics and unique ways of approaching the photographic process. For our annual Equipment Guide, we asked each of these three photographers to give us a behind-the-scenes look at a typical assignment—and the gear that they used to get the shot.

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to create motion blur. He used the headlights of a car as his sole source of illumination and exposed the image for 1/15th of a second with a Canon Digital Rebel camera and a 16-35mm lens set at f/4.The camera was mounted on a Bogen Manfrotto 3021 tripod.

Ted Kawalerski www.tedkawalerski.com This New York-based shooter has traversed the globe capturing images for clients such as Bausch & Lomb, ChevronTexaco, Johnson & Johnson, MasterCard and Xerox. One month he’ll be training his lens on a businessperson surrounded by Masai tribespeople in Nairobi and the next he’ll be photographing women commuting to work on bicycles in Xian, China.

Last year, the 56-year old Kawalerski—who spent more than two decades shooting film-based images—made the leap to digital photography with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel camera. He now works exclusively with a Canon EOS 1D Mark II camera.

“Shooting digitally has changed the way I work,” he says.

“Because I can see my images immediately after I shoot them, I feel more confident about taking chances and shooting more spontaneously. My style has become less controlled and more reportorial.”

Kawalerski created this image of a Shanghai businessman (top) for a Praxair annual report. “The subject was standing on the sidewalk outside of a window,” he explains. “My camera was positioned inside the building and I was shooting through the window glass.”

Kawalerski keyed his subject with a Lowell 650-watt Omni Light (with a 20-degree grid, barn doors and a single layer of diffusion) and used a white Photoflex LiteDisc for fill on camera right. To block reflections in the window, he suspended a 4 x 4foot black fabric drape from a Bogen/Manfrotto crossbar and light stand. He exposed the image for 1/60th of a second with a handheld Canon EOS Digital Rebel camera and a Canon 2470mm zoom lens set at f/13.

Kawalerski shot the image of an Otis truck on a Shanghai street (opposite) for a United Technologies Corporation annual report at night because he wanted to capture the beauty and color of the lights in Shanghai and use a slower shutter speed

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eras, Macintosh 15-inch aluminum Powerbook G4, LaCie 60 gb pocket drives.

SUPPLIERS: Tekserve for Apple computer equipment and supplies. Alkit Pro Camera for photographic equipment rental and supplies.

TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL SHOOT: “I pack duplicates of everything. Each case contains a complete camera or lighting system, so if one case disappears, I can still complete the assignment. I also back up my raw digital files three times—on my Macintosh Powerbook and on on two LaCie pocket drives.

© JENNIFER CHEUNG

© TED KAWALERSKI

EQUIPMENT ESSENTIALS: Canon EOS 1-D Mark II digital cam-

Jennifer Cheung www.jennifercheungphotography.com Almost invariably, a Jennifer Cheung photograph is an oasis of quietude in a percussive world. Her simple, formal compositions have a hushed and timeless beauty, coupled with a strong sense of color and design.

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“I try to take a concept and reduce it to its simplest expression,” says Cheung. “A simple image often conveys a feeling or an idea more effectively than an image that is crammed with visual information.”

After earning a B.F.A. in studio art, this L.A.-based still-life, food, garden and interior photographer honed her technical skills at the Art Center College of Design and spent her post-college years assisting prop stylists. She continues to style much of her own work today for clients such as Behr, Dreamworks, Entertainment Weekly, Garden Design magazine, Hilton Hotels, The Los Angeles Times magazine, MGM Television, Olympus Camera, Simon & Schuster, Sunkist and This Old House.

Cheung used a mixture of ambient daylight and strobe to light this image of a woman in a yoga pose (previous page, bottom) for an editorial entitled “Relaxation” in Distinction, a magazine published by the L.A. Times.

“The main source of illumination is the daylight coming in through the windows,” she points out. “You can see it edge lighting the model. I used two Dyna-Lite strobe heads bounced off of the ceiling for overall fill, but I wanted to give the viewer the impression that the room hadn’t been lit by any artificial sources.”

Cheung powered each head with a separate Dyna-Lite 1000xr pack and exposed the image for 1/15th of a second on Kodak E-100G color transparency film with a Fuji GX-680 camera and a 150mm lens set at f/8.

EQUIPMENT ESSENTIALS: Minolta Auto Meter IVF light meter, Fuji GX-680 camera, Dyna-Lite 1000xr location kits.

SUPPLIERS: Calumet Photographic and Samy’s in L.A. TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL SHOOT: Never underestimate the power of a simple image. Always bring back-up equipment on location. Listen to your client’s needs. Remember that every image is a collaboration. Have good food and coffee on hand!

Paige Craig Apodaca www.pcaphotography.com This Seattle-based photographer started hanging around photo sets when she was just a kid modeling for department store catalogues and television spots.

By the age of 20, she was hired as the director of new faces for a major West Coast modeling agency. Frustrated by the dearth of photographers who could work with her inexperienced models to produce the strong images that she needed to market them, she began shooting the model portfolios herself.

By the time she turned 25, Apodaca’s book was strong enough for her to make the leap to the other side of the camera.

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© PAIGE CRAIG APODACA

GET THE SHOT

Gregarious, upbeat, and unabashedly ambitious, this 26-year old newcomer has shot for clients such as PerfectMatch.com, CollegeGear, Noc-On-Wood Records and HeidiK Jewelry—and she continues to create model portfolios for agencies across the country. Recently, she photographed Olympic basketball player Lauren Jackson for People magazine and created a series of portraits of coffee baristas for a Starbucks global ad campaign.

Apodaca created this image of a woman in front of a window (above) for self promotion in August 2004. Lit with a combination of ambient daylight and strobe, the image is strongly backlit by the late afternoon sun.

“I shot from a very low angle, so that the sunlight created a halo around the model’s head,” she notes.

For a diffused frontal fill source, Apodaca used a Profoto head with a large Chimera softbox, powered by a 1200 watt-second Acute 2 power pack. She exposed the image at 1/125th of a second on Kodak 400 VC color negative film with a Mamiya 645 AF camera and an 80mm lens set at f/11.

EQUIPMENT ESSENTIALS: Lowel Tota-lights. They’re lightweight, easy to pack for travel, affordable and a good last resort when strobes fail.

SUPPLIERS: Glazer’s Camera Supply in Seattle and B&H in New York.

TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL SHOOT: For flattering skin tones, I meter my film at half of the manufacturer’s film speed. This slight overexposure will wash out most small lines or blemishes on a model’s face.