The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets From One of the World's Top Shooters

bouncing around through all this stuff, could become…unpredictable. That’s a good thing. Predictable is not where your lighting wants to be.

    And, if you by chance have a 3×6′ Lastolite panel, [ 1 ] one of those puppies just about fills a doorway. Instant softbox!

    [ 1 ] Lastolite Panel: A kit that has both diffusion and reflective material that fits onto a rigid, collapsible frame. Comes in 3×3′, 3×6′, and 6×6′ sizes. Ideal for diffusing or flagging light sources, or simulating window light. Breaks down into a small, light duffel bag. Very roadworthy.

    No Lastolite panel? A bed sheet and some gaffer tape will do.
     
    This shot has no diffusion. I put a battery-operated strobe head outside the locker room, which had kind of a wide door opening that led out to the practice field. The light is hitting a couple of things, like a bank of lockers, which is causing the shadow behind the player’s head—a happy accident (I love those!)—that produces the sharp line between that shadow and the highlight on the wall. (This is the opposite of the highlight/shadow play on Bobby’s face, which is another happy accident I thought about later, but if I told you I was going for that or was even aware of it on location, I would be lying.) The rest of the light flies around the yellow walls of the locker room and, guess what? It gets warm! Light picks up the color of what it hits.

    Unpredictability. Accidents. Not good when you’re engaging in, say, brain surgery, but when lighting…wonderful!

     
    Try Something Different
     

    “Try it, you might like it. You never know.”

    Winona Ryder had a loft bed and high ceilings in her NYC apartment. The actual bedroom area was super-tight, up a small staircase, big enough for the bed, her, and me. The ceiling was out of bounds for a bounce—too high.
     
    So, where ya gonna put the light? There was a room directly beneath the loft, and a small channel, sort of in the shape of a strip light, [ 1 ] where light from that room could filter upwards to the bed chamber.

    [ 1 ] Strip Light: A strip light is simply a long, skinny softbox. It’s great for adding an edge light around the body of an athlete.

    How to Get This Type of Shot

    So I put a light downstairs and fired it into the wall by this little opening. Never tried a bounce light from the floor below my subject, but you never know. Turns out light skittered up through the opening, hit the wall by the bed, and presto, we were lit.

    It wasn’t a tour de force of lighting, but it was good enough. When you’ve got Winona Ryder in her pajamas, in her bed, how much further do you need to go?

    When I’m figuring out where to put the light in a situation like this, in my head I’m channeling my grandmother trying to get me to eat Brussels sprouts or something. You know, “Try it, you might like it. You never know.”

     

    Winona Ryder
    Hold It Steady
     

    No matter how many megapixels you’ve got inside that fancy machine you hold in your hands (and the megapixel wars are overrated), they aren’t worth beans if you don’t hold your camera steady. This needs to be worked at and practiced.
     
    I’m right-handed, but left-eyed. Go figure. After years of straining to focus through lenses, my left eye is so much stronger than the right, I’m amazed I just don’t walk around in a circle all day long. But, being left-eyed is an advantage when holding your camera at slow shutter speeds. Years ago, Keith Torrie, a terrific
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shooter with a similar eye/hand changeup, pulled me aside and showed me how he held a motor-driven camera. Keith was known around the shop as one of the few guys who always made a good neg. That meant he knew what he was doing.

    He showed me how he threw his left shoulder forward and stuffed the base of the motor drive where his chest and shoulder met. There are no lungs up there, no heartbeat, just muscle and bone. Work it properly and you might as well have a third leg.
     
    Nowadays, too, you don’t have to worry about changing f-stops and focusing constantly with your left hand. So take that flipper and slap it over the outside of your main support—your right hand. Elbows into your gut, exhale, and you can shoot hand-held at speeds you never thought were possible.

    How to Get This Type of Shot

    This is just a straight available light photo taken from a helicopter, but the key to getting a shot like this is to be able to hold the camera steady while using slow