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

resonates well against the cool overall lighting of the building.
     
    To get all this done, I first had to write a letter to the commandant, a formidable Russian by the name of General Pyotr Klimuk. The Russian assistant in the NASA Star City office was helping me translate, typing the letter in Cyrillic.

    “What is your title?” she asked in her heavy accent. I told her I was a photographer. She shook her head vigorously. “Photographer does not write letter to General Klimuk. You must call yourself somesing else.”

    “Okay,” I said. “How about ‘project coordinator’?”

    “Zees is better,” she said, finishing her typing.
     
    Sometimes (we can’t help it) as photographers, we get to liking ourselves too damn much, and really think a great deal of our abilities and our place in the universe. Then we run into a Russian commandant and find out it’s actually better to be a project coordinator.

     
    The Subject Determines the Light
     

    “Light speaks, just like language. You can make someone look like an angel, or the devil.”

    Do the math. You’re not going to light the grandmother of the year for an article in the hometown Daily Astonisher with a ring light. [ 1 ] It doesn’t matter if you just got the ring light from B&H and you’re dying to use it.

    [ 1 ] Ring Light: A circular light source that wraps around the barrel of the lens. Produces a hard, shadowless light. Very popular with fashion photogs.

    Grandma’s got to be lit softly, gently. Save the ring light for the local tattoo queen, or Mr. Lifto from the Jim Rose Circus. Light speaks, just like language. You can make someone look like an angel, or the devil. Take a look at Arnold Newman’s famous portrait of Krupp, the German industrialist. Light speaks louder than words.

    How to Get This Type of Shot

    Lifto’s an intense guy, so the light is intense. He’s onstage a lot, and he’s pretty theatrical, hence the light is low, mimicking the footlights of a theater, sparking his face and eyes. It’s also a very controlled light, a head with a honeycomb spot grid [ 2 ] on it, so it does not spill evenly. Notice his hands and arms fade out of the highlight. The human eye wants to go to light areas, so my light tells you, stick with the face, that’s where the action is.

    [ 2 ] Honeycomb Spot Grid: A circular metal grid (that looks like a honeycomb) that goes over your strobe head and limits the spread of the light.

     

    Mr. Lifto
    Do Your Homework
     

    When I was assigned to shoot Steve Martin for Life , I got my hands on everything Steve—his movies, profiles, any publicity. I knew I was not walking in on a “wild and crazy guy.” I was walking in on a shy, diffident intellectual who would much rather I go away.

    I had to give him something to chew on or act out. For me, his comedy always had a wince factor, an underlying sadness. That led to the tragic-comic masks and an in-camera double exposure.
     
    I shot a Polaroid double of myself the night before in my hotel. This had two purposes: I could show him something and I could work the shot out—right down to the power ratios of the strobes, camera-to-subject distance, and f-stop. I couldn’t waste time on location with that stuff, ’cause Martin was giving me four hours to fill six pages in Life .

    Martin liked the Polaroid, so my assistant Garth headed to the basement to set up the double exposure. I tailed the comic through the house, shooting bits and pieces with available light. When the double was ready, we knocked it out in about 15 minutes.
     
    Believe it or not, many actors/actresses are terrified of a still camera. Why? They can’t act to it. There’s no music, there’s no dialog, there’s no motion, there isn’t another actor to bounce off of—just an unforgiving machine staring them in the face. That was part of the thinking for the Polaroid: it gave him an outlet, he could act.

    “Do Your Homework.”

    How to Get This Type of Shot

    The shot was taken with three strobes: two camera left, one camera right, each positioned within one foot of his face, using small softboxes (1×2′). Both flashes were positioned slightly above his eyes and there is a low box for the left side of his face, softening the shadows and filling in his expression. I used smaller softboxes to control the light—I didn’t want a lot of spill. Because I wanted to blend the two photos together, I wanted the light to hit his face and then immediately fall off.

    This