yesterday, i braved the 100degree heat to head down to williamsburg for an assignment for the William & Mary Alumni Magazine. they're doing a feature article on the debbie taylor, the head women's basketball coach, and they hired me to shoot the artwork.
i never know what to expect, going into assignments like this. they gave me some parameters, but pretty much leave it up to me to figure out how to handle it. essentially, the parameters are to deliver 300dpi images that can be run as a full-page bleed, with room for text to be overlaid. for the most part, this means shooting horizontally with a vertical composition, to allow as much flexibility as possible for cropping and sizing.
i also never know what to expect of the subject and the environment. are they used to the camera? do they like the camera? are they used to one-on-one's with photographers? is the place photo-friendly? so much to think about, especially being on their turf (i guess that's one of the advantages to having a studio--having your subjects come onto your turf.).
coach taylor and i hit it off immediately. although i didn't know her in college (she was a freshman when i was a senior), one of her closest friends was a good friend of mine while in school. it always helps, being able to find common ground. establishing a rapport with your subject really helps lower the barrier that the cold metal and glass can put between you.
before we got going, i asked her how she had been shot before. she said it had always been down on the gym floor. so, i immediately decided that we would shoot from everywhere BUT the gym floor. i also asked her if she could spin a ball on her finger. she said she doubted it and i told her that we might as well find out. so she got a ball and we headed up into the bleachers.
we shot all the way around william and mary hall, all the while with her assuring me that she was not photogenic and that it was nearly impossible to get a good picture of her. i told her that it might be true, but that i would give it my best shot...
i'd have to say, i'm pretty happy with the results.
Hmmm interesting. I tried the link again. I got your background and text and such, so I clicked on home. All I got was plain text jammed against the left side...no background or colour. I clicked on your About, services and prints and got error 404. No images on any pages.
Awesome skip, then I went through your galleries, truly amazing stuff there too, and congrats on th Kodak POTD. If I ever grow up I want your job, lol.
Skip is not Firefox friendly. I guess he works for MS now and again. The site / Flash whatever does not work for me and the links on the home page are dead too.
Excellent work - she looks plenty photogenic to me - that's on you as I see it. I think this might be the most challenging type of photography and you pulled it of like a champ.
Outstanding work Skip! There are some real gems in there. I particularly liked, 0061, 0077, 0068. There was only one that I didn't care for, shot quite wide with her at the RH side of the frame, kinda made her look too wide (0009).
yeah, the whole site needs some work to make it work with all the main browsers.
as for the shoot, YES, the client is ecstatic, and i have reason to believe the subject will be, as well.
whenever i set out on a shoot like this, my goal is to create a headache for the photo director. i want it to be a problem for them to have too much good stuff to pick through, rather than for them to be coming back and wondering, "well, do you have anything else..."
spinning a ball HA! no, that's not a requisite, but it does take either a bit of practice, or a fairly quick shutter (blur can always be added later...did i say that out loud?) ;-)
