“I’m Known For My Girlfriend”

CONCEPT/OBJECTIVE: The assignment was the documentation of a visit by Oprah Winfrey’s “boyfriend”, Stedman Graham, to an inner city youth program. It was important to show Stedman engaged with the community, and students.

PRE-PRODUCTION: This type of assignment is fairly typical, and you just don’t know what equipment will be called for, beyond a standard lens/camera kit. The shoot was very much a reportage style assignment.

THE ASSIGNMENT: Everyone was in their Sunday best, awaiting Stedman, depsite it being a hot Thursday in Washington DC. A tent covered the dais where the speeches would be given, but the best images would come from the classroom inside, where Stedman would engage the students. We weren’t staying for the his entire meeting with the youth, only the first few minutes, so getting engaging images fast was key. Mixing that, with the fact that his program was being projected on a white wall, and we had to bounce off odd walls to get Stedman lit , and rely on the falloff factor to ensure that the wall projection remained visible. The only real time that he engaged the students directly, was when he came in, and shook everyone’s hands. Knowing that this was going to happen beforehand, and pre-lensing and testing the strobes off the wall was key to getting it right.

POST-PRODUCTION: Immediately follwing the event, we had to deliver several images, properly captioned, with client approval, to the news media, and having a digital workstation on hand to facilitate that was key.

FINAL ANALYSIS: Stedman was a great subject. I wish there was more signage in the images of the handshake, and when he was addressing the audience, but wherever possible, we included those in the images.

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Theater Philanthropist

Sheila Johnson, formerly of BET, at the school where she donated the theater, with the students behind her perfroming, for a magazine.

CONCEPT/OBJECTIVE: This magazine assignment was produced of the subject with a fair amount of pre-production and planning - moreso than many editorial assignments. The idea was to make an image that would illustrate the donation by Johnson to the local school.

PRE-PRODUCTION: We had several conversations with the subject’s publicist, and talked about locations both outside and inside the school. The school had signed off on the shoot being there, and further, agreed to have students on hand, should they be needed.

THE ASSIGNMENT: We arrived and set up outside with a single battery pack and softbox, as you’ve seen elsewhere here. We made a few images, but they just weren’t compelling. We then moved inside, and set up with the subject on the stage, on the steps to the stage, and so forth. There was a large area about 20’ x 60’ between the first row of “bleacher” seats, and that was problematic. In the end, we set up several chairs that were moveable (since the bleacher seats were not) and turned the one she was to be seated in, so as to provide more of an “open” feel to her. A single softbox on her from the right with a tungten gel on it to balance with the tungten of the stage lighting, as well as a daylight balanced rim light from the left, gave her some depth. Adding in the students and set from the show they were rehearsing were the final elements in making this image appealing.

POST-PRODUCTION: As an editorial assignment, there is little post, besides a nominal balance of main subject and background lighting.

FINAL ANALYSIS: Half-way into the shoot, with the outside image under my belt, and perspiring from the 90-degree-high-humidity heat, I was concerned about the final result. However, everything came together inside, and the client not only used it in their publication, but extended the rights package to online use as well.

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Two CEO’s One Light One Capitol

This assignment was for a portrait of two CEO’s of two different latin-american radio companies. The client wanted the Capitol as a backdrop, so we planned accordingly.

Beauty and A Few Beasts

The objectives for this assignment was to produce a hand-out photo of this celebrity with rescue dogs, to promote the launch of this dog food manufacturers’ efforts to help rescue dogs.

Russert On Set

The objective for this assignment was to capture NBC’s Tim Russert in two locations, on set, and outside, for the cover of the magazine. We wanted to show the set, and a bit about his character, and we were given a narrow window during which we could make the photos, given Tim’s schedule.