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

into main light, fill light.

    I posed Frank against a dark wall with the windows on either side. It took about a minute to shoot at ISO 400 and we’ve made 24×30″ prints of this frame.
     
    Stuff like this happens and it convinces me all over again of two things:

This digital stuff really works.
Autofocus is really handy when you’ve had three pints of Guinness.
     

    Frank McCourt
    Beware Straight Flash
     

    “Straight flash is Disaster Light.”

    Straight flash is disaster light. Use it at 3:00 a.m., with bodies on the highway, and nothing to bounce off.

    Jerry Seinfeld has a funny routine about guys who are desperately trying to meet girls but can’t figure out how. He talks about the guy who sits in his car and honks his horn at women. As he very rightly points out, “This is a man who has run out of ideas.”

    As photographers, when we use straight flash, we’re that guy.
     
    We’re in the cavern of a casino—nothing to bounce light off of—straight flash was the only way to go. In this case, the picture sucks, but the personalities saved it. And believe it or not, this picture got published in Newsweek . The mantra of editoral photographers is “get the shot”—even if you know it’s going to suck, when you have an array of personalities like this, you have to put the camera to your eye.

    That being said, any light that originates at the camera is de facto unflattering—you’re literally throwing light at your subject. You’re not making a picture, you’re making a copy. It’s a game of inches, even if I can only get the flash off the camera by a few inches (to the left or right of my camera), I know I improved the quality of my light. I always tell my students: when you use straight flash, you turn your camera into a Xerox machine.

     

    Tyrell Biggs, Donald Trump, Don King, Mike Tyson
    Pray for Bad Weather
     

    “Pray for bad weather. It makes for GOOD pictures.”

    When my students go out and see a cloudy day and sigh, I tell them, “I love this weather.” When there’s clouds, there’s soft light, and that means there’s texture and shape in the sky—not just a bald blue. This lack of light gives you enormous control, if you’re using flash.
     
    On a bright, cloudless day, it’s close to impossible to overpower the sun. Put a rack of clouds up there and you’ve got an instant softbox in the sky, and then by introducing your own light, you can easily use the cloud light as either a main or a fill light.

    Things like raindrops on windows are a wonderful thing to shoot—and there’s never been a better time to shoot on a rainy day, thanks to new camera technology (as some bodies are now sealed against moisture) and a whole range of camera rain covers from companies like Kata.

    How to Get This Type of Shot

    This is where your ability to focus comes heavily into play. I’m not talking about the lens (more on that later) but I’m talking about upstairs…mental focus. You’re cold, you’re wet, you’re miserable, you’re worried about your gear, and the last thing on your mind is the shot. Hot coffee at the press bar is looking like an awfully good option. But stick with it. Sports-shooting great Neil Leifer made some of his best pictures out of lousy conditions and lousy light.

    Play with the rain. That may sound ridiculous, but try holding your long lenses at slower shutters like aor so. You can get moments when the players are sharp and the rain, especially heavy rain, whips through the frame like tracer bullets. You actually turn the rain to your advantage, and make it a stylistic element of the photo. This is where Continuous High on your advance options comes to your rescue. Burst the camera. Shoot lots of frames. Accept that certain stuff will be out of focus.
     
    And, speaking of focus, be careful. Heavy rain can play havoc with autofocus, so you may occasionally have to go back to doing it the old-fashioned way.
    It’s Gotta Speak for Itself
     

    “You are not going to be in the room when people look at your pictures. Your picture has to speak for itself.”

    I always tell my students, and I really try and hammer the point home, that you are not going to be in the room when people look at your pictures. The picture has to speak for itself. No matter what your experience of that day, no matter what you went through to get that photo, it doesn’t make a bit of difference to someone who’s looking at that photo, unless the photo carries the