- The First Rule of Moody Lighting...
- Black on Black on Black
- Are You Gellin'?
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Are You Gellin’?
Gels and moody lighting go together like a wink and a smile. Even better, flash gels are one of the cheapest, yet most powerful and valuable items that you’ll put in your camera case. Nowadays, you can get a pocket-sized pack of over 50 different-colored gels to accompany your flash for under $20. At 1.5 by 3 inches, these tiny pieces of nylon sure pack a wallop. That’s because gels can do more than just colorize an accent light. If used on a main light, they allow you to change the white balance in your camera, thus allowing you to control your entire scene (more on that in Chapter 20).
The more light you pump through a gel, the more washed out the color will be, so keep your output lower for a nice rich hue. Figure 11.11 is a fashion shot I did with Sebastian. I liked his tailored suit and wanted to capture it in a number of different ways, to see which I preferred. I shot it with direct light on a white background, subtle lighting on a black background, and as you can see here, with an accent color on a white background. Figure 11.11 ended up being my favorite take on the subject. Although the background was lit, I positioned Sebastian about 6 feet away from it, which was far enough in front of it that his body went into shadow. I lit him with a red-gelled flash with a grid on it to constrain the light. The red face, paired with a silhouetted body, gave him a nice ominous mystique.
)
Figure 11.11 Gels are small but extremely effective. For instance, the red gel in this image provides an accent color and adds an ominous mood to the fashion shot.
Gels are also effective at changing silhouetted color. I own a variety of colored backdrop rolls, but my options are much greater when paired with the use of a gel. Combine a red gel with a yellow background, for example, and you get a beautiful, rich tangerine color. Pair a red gel with a blue background and you get purple. A red gel on a white or gray background can vary from red to pink, depending on how high the output is on the flash (lower output is more red, higher output is more pink). Figure 11.12 is a red gel on a white background. The main light was a gridded flash to the right of the model, which created the spotlight on the model and backdrop. The red-gelled background light was on the floor to the left of the model, aimed at the backdrop, with a piece of cardboard next to it to flag the light off of the model. The crisscrossed lights along with the gel created the trippy double shadow, giving the image a ‘60s vibe, which was the direction for the shoot.
)
Figure 11.12 Gels are great for changing your background. The red gel in this shot changed the backdrop to a bright pink color.
You can also shift a colored backdrop to a totally different color. If you aren’t familiar with color theory, do a quick Internet search for subtractive color mixing to see what will happen when you mix one colored gel with a different colored background. In Figure 11.13, you can see what happens when you use a red-gelled flash on a blue background: You get a beautiful shade of fuschia. Now go out and get crazy with it!
)
Figure 11.13 A red gel on a blue background creates a beautiful fuschia.
Pro-Tip: How to Pursue Editorial Work
I have always wanted to shoot editorial work—assignments for magazines and newspapers. To me, seeing your own work in print is the mark of having “made it” as a photographer. The problem is, how do you get your work in front of the right people to even be considered for an assignment? You’ve no doubt read articles in industry photo magazines about how to make brilliant and eye-catching marketing materials to nab that client you are after. But that doesn’t help you very much if you don’t know which person you should be sending it to, let alone how to get his or her contact info.
Wonder no more. Yodelist.com is a service for photographers who want to buy email and mailing addresses for industry contacts, such as the photo and art directors at your target publications. Once you become a member, which isn’t free, you have access to an enormous directory of industry contacts. In my case, I was interested in magazine and newspaper publishers, specifically on the East Coast, because I live closer to it than to the West Coast. Once you narrow down the list of publications that you want to contact, you can purchase the emails of the contacts at each publication for 10 cents apiece.
Next, go through your list of addresses, and send a short email to each publication; simply introduce yourself and provide a link to your portfolio site. Note I didn’t suggest linking to your Flickr or 500PX page. Get a website, or at least a clean-looking Tumblr blog, that shows a few of your best, most diverse images, rather than a smattering of all the work you’ve ever done. I have several galleries on my portfolio website, with less than 30 images per gallery. Less is more. Save the rest for your blog.
The important thing to keep in mind is whether or not your photography fits well with the style of the publication that you are contacting. I recently read an interview on aPhotoEditor.com (another amazing resource you should check out) with Jodi Peckman, the director of photography for Rolling Stone magazine. In the interview, she mentioned that she receives hundreds of emails per day and that the vast majority were from food or lifestyle photographers (not the kind of photographer that Rolling Stone needs). Hundreds a day! When you reach out to photo editors, make sure to show them work that fits with their publications.
After you send out your emails, all you can do is wait and understand that you won’t hear back from the vast majority of them. Be patient. If they respond at all, it won’t be immediately. I once personally emailed over 900 people; about a dozen responded. Although I didn’t hear back from most of the magazines, I did see huge spikes in my website analytics on the days that I sent emails, so I knew that people were reading them. I didn’t lose heart, and you shouldn’t either.
About a week after I had sent out the emails, I received an offer from ESPN Magazine: Would I be interested photographing an athlete’s family that lived on the east side of my city? Yes! I was ecstatic. More than that, I was validated. Not only had my emails been reaching the right people, but I now had a photo shoot for a huge client.
Even though I wasn’t sending out pretty little marketing pieces to these publications, I was still getting my work in front of them. The right people were seeing my images. And convenience is a powerful thing. If you can save these photo editors and directors some time and make their lives easier by being their go-to source in your region, then it’s a win-win for them and for you. Since then I have added The New York Times (Figure 11.14) and Forbes Japan (Figure 11.15) to my client list.
)
Figure 11.14 I shot the Ohio State Reformatory for an article on the 20th anniversary of The Shawshank Redemption for The New York Times.
)
Figure 11.15 This shot of the founders of Nottingham Spirk is from a job for Forbes Japan.