More "off camera" + hands + blur.

Two of my favorite things is to get folks looking off camera and using their hands to talk.  It looks so natural, but is so hard to get right.  When it works, it's great.

We created this image at the offices of CRT-Tanaka, in Richmond, VA.  The gentleman is Steve Clementi, Director of External Affairs for Verizon.  He's involved with "Great Expectations" a scholarship program for foster children who enter the Virginia Community College System.

If you look through Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company or Wired, you'll see this approach with some regularity.  Personally, I get tired of just asking folks to look into the lens.  Photo editors chose these off-camera, talking shots to publish because the subject looks like they do in real-life.  

Once we set up our lights and figured out where to place Mr. Clementi, I asked my client, Natalie Smith, to sit to the right of the camera.  I kinda felt bad because to get the angle I was going for,  she had to sit on the floor.  But she's a trouper, thank goodness.  Steve was terrific to work with, he seemed to enjoy simply having a conversation with Natalie, off camera. 

The other thing that gives this image some liveliness is Steve's right hand, which even at a 60th of a second caught some motion blur.  Some of that blur is because we were shooting at f2.8 (shallow depth of field) trying to hold the focus on his eyes.  But since I encouraged him to "talk with his hands" there was just enough fast movement to pick up a blur in his right hand.  Of course, our naked eyes wouldn't see that blur.  But in a still image, a little motion blur gives a sense of movement and credibility.  Like my yoga teacher says: "our bodies never stop moving."

Hassan Pitts (assistant) and Winifred Halliday (stylist) crewed this shoot.  Hassan & I set up the lights, and had a lot of fun working in this historic warehouse which has been renovated for office space.

Copyright 2010 Elaine Odell for Church Hill Photography, LLC.

Looking "off camera".

See how the woman at this conference room table is looking toward the camera, but not directly at it?  This is one of my favorite views to capture with "real people".  This is from our shoot at the engineering firm,  Greeley & Hansen.

There are lots of reasons why this approach: slightly looking off camera is so compelling.  First, you give the subject another person with whom to interact.  This usually results in more natural, realistic expressions  Why?  Because it's simply more comfortable for the subjects.  Looking down the barrel of a 200mm long lens is kinda intimidating.  Its much easier to look at a person and simply talk.

Another benefit is that the viewer is reminded that this is a group meeting and the woman's gaze reinforces the sense of discussion with participants.  It's like you just walked by the room, and glanced through the open door. 

We frame shots like this with stuff in the foreground, and let that go out of focus or "soft".  This helps give depth to the image.  It also reinforces the "work is going on here" theme by leaving the papers, pens and hard hat on the table.  Hassan and Winifred (assistant and stylist) often push things in and out of the frame and go on search missions within the locations to find what we need to place around the edges of the image.

This style of shooting does take practice.  Especially if you let the subject actually talk.  Expect to shoot a lot of frames.  Often, I ask the subject to deliberately slow down the pace of their discussion, and add pauses, holding their gaze with the other folks in the room.  Sometimes I give them a word to say, like "seven" or "five", to get their mouth in an attractive position.  I can't take any credit for that "single word" technique.  I totally stole that from another photographer, Mark Mitchell.  I assisted him for a few years...and well, tricks like that are too good to leave behind.  

The CSO Engineers of Greeley & Hansen

CSO means Combined Sewer Overflow, which is what happens when it rains a lot in Richmond and the storm drains become overloaded.  A "CSO Event" is when the storm drains and the sewer system combine and overflow into the James River.  Not an ideal situation, but apparently not all that uncommon with cities situated on rivers. 

A few years back, Richmond initiated a massive restructuring of the overflow system, to help minimize the amount of storm water that was flowing directly into the river.  The engineering firm that is responsible for our city's new system is Greeley & Hansen, which is based in Chicago, with a large office here in Richmond. 

A member of the communications staff in Chicago contacted us recently, and asked if we could spend a day photographing the Richmond engineers and staff in their offices, working in teams.  The folks in the Richmond office were great to work with. The goal was to create images that looked spontaneous and not posed.

As in most offices, there was a "break-out" area that allows a small team to sit together and work on something without the formality of a conference room.

I particularly like the image above because none of the subjects are looking at the camera.  I was holding the camera (on a monopod, if memory serves) just a few inches above the surface of the table.  My goal was to make the viewer feel like they were part of the meeting.

We were also interested in keeping the images crisp and a little on the "cool" side, reinforcing the modern feel of the office environment. It might look like we relied solely on the existing office lighting (overhead fluorescent fixtures).  If we'd done that, we never would have achieved the sharpness of this image or the direction of the light (our lights were placed about eye-level with the subjects.)

To add depth and interest to the composition, we placed a light in the small office that appears in the background behind the subjects.  Notice the slight blue tint, thanks to a blue gel photo assistant Hassan Pitts clipped to the front of the strobe head.  We also added a light in the hallway to the left.  It illuminated the wall behind the subjects (it too had a light blue gel) and added an edge/rim light to the woman seated on the far left at the table (notice the highlight on the camera-left side of her head.)

Strobe Alchemy & Happy Accidents

Ahh, I love accidents.  Like when the chemistry in an old black and white Polaroid gets too hot, or there is a light leak somewhere in the Holga.  Good times.

For me, accidents that "work" are immensely pleasurable.  But I can't build a business on them.  Imagine pitching a client this: "were gonna try all these difererent things, some might work, some might not.  We might get some great shots, but we might not get anything at all.  Oh, and we still expect to invoice you and get paid after the shoot."  Uh, huh.  Yeah, clients are lining up to sign-off on that estimate.

Nowadays, happy accidents often occur when I'm setting up a shot.  This is Hassan, a photographer who works with me often on location shoots.  We were setting up lights (strobes) in an the interior hallway with no windows, just doorways leading to offices.  We used the office doorways to "hide" our lights in.

This historic tobacco warehouse, in Richmond's Shockoe Slip, houses the offices of Thompson McMullan.  And the old building is a big part of the law firm's personality.  While much of the lighting there is directional,  it's too weak to shoot with (in other words, the lights are too dim for the shutter speed and ISO we wanted to use).   So, using our Dynalite strobes and grip gear, our goal became to create atmospheric light, directional with a little edge to it.

The "laser beam" on Hassan's left, our right, is one of our strobes standing a little to far out to the doorway of the closest office to the camera.  What we're seeing is technically called "lens flare" similar to what happens when you point your camera directly at the sun.  But doesn't it look cool?   Yeah, but a little too edgy for a lawyer who practices business law and commercial litigation. 

So here is what we finally came up with.  The lights behind and to the sides on our subject, attorney Sherry Fox, are directional and very contrasty.  They outline the architecture of the old warehouse with it's exposed beams and massive pillars, providing texture and depth for the environmental.  Also,  the edge lights on the human subject give her dimension and keep her from flattening out against the background.

Credits go to Winifred Halliday (stylist) and Hassan Pitts, (photographer's assistant) and client Amy Smith, Marketing Director at Thompson McMullan.

Good boys just wanna look bad.

Never fails.  The nicest, most polite kids in the world come to the studio.  Their grandmother, my neighbor, Debra, has assured me they will be good. 

And indeed, they turn out to be some of the best behaved boys I've ever met.   They change into their white shirts and take turns posing for grandma's Christmas portraits.  They smile like angels.

After I've told them how to sit, stand and pose for a few minutes, I ask them what they want to do in front of the camera.  Suddenly, they're all tough: pro-athletes, hip-hop artists, movie stars.  The stand like rouges giving me "the look."

But that bad boy look isn't exactly what the grown ups want to see in an 8x10 on the mantle.  So I've got to soften it, make the boys more approachable.

 Of course, this "back to back" pose above has been done a zillion times.  Why?  Because it works. If you stop and think about it, it shows independence and connectedness.  Perfect for team athletes or siblings. Fortunately, the boys liked the pose too.  They'd probably seen it before on some sports hero poster.  

The one thing that I did was raise up the boy on the right, Trey.  His older brother, Terrance was about 12-14 inches taller.  When I first posed them, the height difference was too much...I needed to see the faces closer together.   A full apple box gave Trey the boost he needed to bring his head up to Terrance's neck, yet still convey the age/size difference of the brothers.

Chutzpah meets my new/old chair.

The kid is Trey.  The chair is a rescue from the Dock Master's office at Richmond Yacht Basin. 

The chair is solid oak, circa 1930's(?).  It has years of sweat, solvents and stains unevenly permeating the grain.  The previous owner said he was "gonna toss it into the dumpster".  Well, we just couldn't let that happen (another good reason to own a pickup truck and have a husband with a strong back!)

I saved the chair because wanted to see what people would look like seated in it.  It's really fun to sit in.  It swivels, rolls tilts, and is rock solid. 

My goal with portraiture is to give the subject whatever he/she needs to be themselves, or release whatever side of their personality wants to be "out" the day of the shoot.

Because this chair's personality seemed so welcoming and secure, I was hoping it would help give the subjects something to work with or relax in before the camera.

Young Trey (charming, witty and full of chutzpah) has the honor of being the first person to have their portrait made in this chair.  The day of the shoot, we called it "the grandpa chair".   He's a little small for it, his feet couldn't touch the floor.  So just out of view, his huge sneakers are propped up on a half apple box.  That allowed him to have his knees at a 90-degree angle, so he could place his elbows comfortably.   I love this pose on him.  The composition is the classic triangle (arms to head) atop an inverted triangle (knees to ankles.) 

I'll continue to have folks sit in this chair at the studio (gawd, it's too heavy to take on location--but if you got the budget, I got the brawn) and see if we can create a body of work with this chair.

New Years Resolution

Blog more.  Videography: a new passion. 

The image above is from the pre-Christmas blizzard we had here in Richmond, VA.  This is the entrance of the Tricycle Garden on Jefferson Avenue (right next door to the studio,) in Union Hill where a classic trike sits perched atop the entrance gate. 

Moving Pictures--Our Newest Work

We did it. Made the leap to video and sound, mixing with still images to create our studio's first multi-media production for one of our favorite clients: Union-PSCE here in Richmond, VA.

See it by clicking here: Union PSCE-Service Day 2009

We is Hassan Pitts and I.  I'm holding the camera in most frames, shooting stills and video.  Hassan is setting up shots, and handling all the audio.  Hassan interviewed the participants, getting great testimonials.  He also captured the hymn the group sang during their brief service that morning.

The Political Up and Comer

This is Susan Stimpson, candidate for Falmouth Supervisor, Stafford County, Virginia.

I first met Susan a couple years ago when she was the Stafford, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania regional campaign manager for then candidate, Richard Stuart. He was running for the Virginia State Senate (a tough race which he won thanks in good measure to Susan's hard work and dedication).

The day of that first meeting, we were relying on Susan to be our "go-to-gal" to help us gain access to all the various locations and wrangle the extras into the shoots we had scheduled for candidate Stuart.

She may have been just a volunteer, but wow, did she make things happen. That hot summer day in 2007 was one of the smoothest (although long) days of location work I've ever had thanks to her relationships with folks throughout Fredericksburg/Stafford region.

This year, in 2009, its Susan's turn to be the candidate. Earlier this summer, I jumped at the chance to see her again, and even tho I'm a Democrat and she's a Republican (I know, I know, I have lots of GOP friends even though I'm true-Blue) I truly feel this is a "woman on the verge."

I think Stimpson will run for governor one day. Seriously. I want to be able to say "I knew her when". But of course, she has her current race to run, which is happening right now.

One of Susan's platform issues is education for a high-tech workforce and job creation in Stafford for high-tech industries and business that support the Federal Government.

Her day-job is a budget analyst for the US State Department, working for a government contractor. Folks who already know her understand she's got a head for business. But for the folks who don't yet know her, we needed to reinforce that with imagery.

These types of conference room shoots are hard work, but I enjoy them tremendously. First off, the folks in the room are "real people". Not actors, not campaign staffers. My goal with this type of shooting is to try to get the candidate and the constituents to engage in conversation that's meaningful. That way, they keep their focus, and don't get bored with the tedium of the shoot (i.e. shot after shot after shot.)

I get each person to take a turn asking a question of the candidate. I use those moments to capture what I call "active listening" images of the candidate. Then, I capture images of the candidate responding to the question.

Its only natural that one starts to listen to the folks in the room, even though I'm supposed to be focused on the visual aspects of the scene.

After hearing these folks talk about the issues that concern their everyday lives, I came away with an overwhelming sense that this area of central Virgina, just a thin county line from what we call Northern Virginia, is markedly different from it's neighbor to the south, Richmond and it's surrounding counties. It was if I'd gone to another state.

Plus, it was fun to be the "fly on the wall" listening to the candidate tune her responses and warm up for the public forums and debates that were sure to be more rancorous as the campaign season heats up post-Labor Day.

All images and text Copyright 2009, Elaine Odell, Church Hill Photography, LLC.  No unauthorized use allowed. 

Henrico Federal Credit Union

One of our favorite clients is the Henrico Federal Credit Union. We've had the pleasure of working with them for a few years now, creating images of their staff, members and directors. Recently we photographed five members of the HFCU management team.

Standard operating procedure for their shoots is to ask the subjects to wear what they wear to work on a normal day. The idea is that they'll be more recognizable to customers/members when their image shows up on the HFCU website, on a display poster or advertisement.

The set is always the same: high key background (a white seamless sweep) and lighting that is directional, but with no heavy shadows. Our goal is to provide images which can be "mixed and matched" by the graphic designers who work for HFCU.

Our stylist, Winifred, helped folks look their best for this shoot. And since she's a former professional model, she also helps us with posing. Hassan Pitts, was our lighting and digital tech assistant for the shoot.

The bonus for us crew members is that we talk about financial products with the staff. And we always learn something about what's going on in the industry, credit availability and interest rates.

Whenever I spend time with the HFCU folks, I also get a general "pulse" of the local economy.

For example, I learned that they're putting HFCU branches in some of the local high schools this year. Plus, they're holding financial planning and credit management workshops for students and teachers...free of charge.

How great is that?! High school students are prime candidates to learn about saving early in life and taking advantage of compound interest. Not to mention learning how to use a credit card responsibly and avoiding excessive debt early in their adult life.

That's one of the best things about being a commercial photographer. You get to learn a little something about each client's business and it helps balance your perspective as a business person. I guess it's my old college b-school head taking over.

All images Copyright 2009, Elaine Odell, Church Hill Photography, LLC.

Back to the Fountain with Grace & Otto

Family and friends came to Richmond this July to celebrate the marriage of Grace & Otto. Folks came from as far away as Korea, the Philippines and South America.

Since their wedding reception was at the Omni, in Downtown Richmond, we were only a block from the Shockoe Slip fountain, where a couple months earlier, we'd made their engagement pictures.

Grace and Otto wanted to brave the heat and humidity (really, for the middle of July, it wasn't that bad,) and be photographed at the fountain in their wedding day finery.






















All images Copyright 2009, Elaine Odell, Church Hill Photography, LLC.

Richmond River District Engagement

This is Grace and Otto. They're getting married this summer and Hassan & I will have the pleasure of being with them on their wedding day.

We do A LOT of planning and preparation before we shoot a wedding, and one of the most important ways we prepare is to shoot an "engagement session" with the couple.

Since their reception will be held at the Omni Hotel, we decided to use the picturesque River District (which includes Shockoe Slip and the Canal Walk) for our location. This allowed us to show the couple (who don't live in Richmond, thus weren't that familiar with the area) the locations we might use for their wedding portraits.

We started at the fountain infront of the Martin Agency on 13th Street. I love this fountain, but so do the birds...so if you go to make pictures, bring a few paper towels if you want to sit on the edge of the fountain itself.

We started shooting in the late afternoon, but not close to sunset, because I wanted to be sure to get sunlight on their hair, and hard light in the water droplets from the fountain.

I love Grace's hands. I always love hands showing in portraits, and it's even better when you can incorporate that with a couple. It takes some practice though, getting hands to look pretty and not like bear claws.

One of the drawbacks to shooting in urban settings are cars parked on the street. This was a beautiful Saturday, so the whole world was out. A long lens with shallow depth of field helped blur the parked autos, and keep the focus on the couple.

We lingered here on the fountain and let the two of them just look out at the scene. I always turn away from the couple and give them a few moments to chat and whisper to each other. If I'm lucky, they forget I'm around and do something silly. That's when I get images like this with energy and spontaneity.