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

curtain, the flash goes off at the end of the exposure. That way the camera is exposing, and the subject is moving and blurring, and then BOOM! The flash freezes them, with their blur and activity behind them, not through them. The result is a logical flash-and-blur effect, one that makes sense and has direction, and gets the notion of motion across to the reader.

    FYI, I simply leave my cameras set to rear curtain all the time. Atof a second, it doesn’t matter. But it matters big time starting aroundof a second.

     

    “How do you show motion when you have a still camera in your hands? Rear curtain is the way to go.”
    Baby Shoots Are Tough
     

    “Remember, babies are soft and cuddly. Light accordingly.”

    Baby shoots are tough. Ya gotta have lots of the little tykes hanging around, ’cause most of ‘em aren’t going to cooperate. “Next baby!” you end up shouting and the next eager mother steps up with Junior in her arms.
     
    To do a good baby shoot, it actually helps if you’ve had a couple of ‘em yourself. I had young assistants on this shoot, pre-fatherhood, and there were a couple of moments.

    Like when one of the assistants brought the tot here onto the set, plopped him on the seamless background, and walked away. Poor little guy teetered upright for a moment and then the baby went BOOM!
     
    “My baby!” screamed the mom, anxiously fluttering around him, while he didn’t have a clue about the fuss. We got him comfortable and he performed like a champ.

    Off to the side, I pointed out to the assistant that the baby was not a beer keg. He was a baby, and babies like to get sort of settled in and comfy before you leave them off on their own.
     
    It’s tough, though. To get the reaction you want, you have to do ridiculous things, and sometimes even be kind of a schnook. Like dangling a Cheerio in front of the kid and then, just as he reaches for it, snatching it away. I mean, you get a picture, but man, you feel like dirt.

    How to Get This Type of Shot

    Shot in a studio on a white seamless background. There’s a big 30×40″ softbox about two to three feet directly over the baby’s head, aiming straight down. To fill in from the front, I used a big soft umbrella positioned to the left of the camera, moved in close. Given a soft, rounded dumpling of a baby, the kind of light to use is soft and rounded itself, so the whole idea is to bathe the whole set in light—kind of pouring the light right on him. Remember, babies are soft and cuddly. Light accordingly.

     
    Make the Right Friends
     

    I spent seven fun-filled days with Donald Trump back in the roaring ‘80s. As I recall, he had a driver named Big Tony. I made friends with Tony. We made small talk about the Mets and the Yankees and I gave him a bunch of color neg film.

    He would, in turn, tell me Trump’s itinerary for the day and when he needed a car. So whenever Trump came down to get into the limo, I’d already be in it.
     
    He didn’t really want me in there, but he was too cool to make a scene. He would just give me that, “What the #@! are you doin’ in my limo?” look.

    And off we’d go.

    “Make friends with the people surrounding the big shot.”

    How to Get This Type of Shot

    Shot with available light in the back of the limo, going across the Queensborough Bridge. There was hard light slashing through the bridge and coming through the limo’s sun roof. As we drove across the bridge, we’d get: light/shadow, light/shadow, light/shadow. I kept my camera to my eye—every time I saw light, I hit the shutter. Total luck.

     

    Donald Trump
    Check Out Their Hands
     

    Ronnie Coleman

    “When shooting a story about someone, their hands should always be on your list to shoot.”

     

    Photographing hands has been one of my favorite activities, even to the point of suggesting to Sports Illustrated that we show a life in sports by photographing just the hands of the athletes.
     
    They approved it, and then killed it during a budget cut.

    It was fun while it lasted. Around the photo department, the story was affectionately dubbed “the hand job.”

    But ever since taking a class from Life DOP John Loengard all those years ago, hands fascinate me. When shooting a story about someone, their hands should always be on your list to shoot.

    How to Get This Type of Shot

    I lit Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman’s hands with a beauty light combo. The hands are the center of attention, so directly above him is a