Merry Keatley Christmas
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Personal Work
Now before you go freaking out sending cards and flowers, you should know Oliver and I are doing much better after the sledding accident. It was unfortunate timing, one day before our 2009 Keatley office Christmas photo, but the show must go on! We were lucky to walk away with only a few broken bones, a concussion and some mild dizziness. The snowman however, did not fare so well.
Please allow me to introduce you to the Keatley team. On the left is our bookkeeper Nichelle. Now you have a face to put with the name next time you receive an invoice from her. I am in the wheelchair, and on the right is our intern Allison. Oh, and Oliver is on Allison’s lap. He is the night janitor. No job goes unrecognized around here.
Every time I look at this picture, it makes me laugh. I like that, and it is a good reminder for me to continue making images that make me happy. I decided after this shoot to make it a goal to get hired to shoot a ridiculous holiday portrait like this. I know there may not be a big market for this kind of thing, but when someone wants it done right, I have full confidence my phone will ring. I just hope my arm will be fully healed by then. (Here) are the Christmas pictures I did last year. The plan at this point is to make this a yearly tradition.
Merry Christmas everyone! I hope this puts you in the holiday spirit, and gives you a good laugh.
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Tags: awkward, awkward Christmas pictures, awkward holiday portrait, cheesy sweaters, Christmas portrait, Christmas studio portrait, Christmas sweater, Christmas sweaters, funny Christmas pictures, holiday portrait, Humor, John Keatley portrait, self portrait, ugly Christmas sweaters, ugly sweater, Ugly Sweaters
Lighting Technique: The Grid Reflector
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Lighting Technique, Personal Work
My assignment was to create a portrait of writer/director Josh Hornbeck, and our meeting place was an old theater he worked in at the time. There were no constraints or specific requirements, so I was able to “do my thing” and respond to what inspired me. In the theater, I didn’t see anything interesting to me, so I took a look at the lower level of the building. Once downstairs, I walked into a dark dingy room, and I knew right away I was in the the place I wanted to use for the location. The room felt like an interrogation room rather than a theater, but it was perfect. A lamp hung just slightly off to one side, and it seemed to hold a story on it’s own. I was fascinated by it.
Right from the beginning I had an idea of how I would light this picture, and I was pretty sure it would involve two lights. For the sake of time, I set up both lights right away, but I didn’t turn them on yet. I knew I wanted the lamp in the shot, and I also wanted the lamp to be on. For this to happen, the light bulb would dictate the exposure of the picture. If my exposure was not long enough, the lamp could appear to be off, or very dim. If the exposure was too long, the lamp would be blown out and there would be no detail. The image below is my exposure for the light bulb without any strobes. 1/40 at f/10.0 on ISO 100.
Key Light:
For the key light I used a 7” grid reflector with a 10 degree grid. This gives a focused beam of light with very little spread. The narrow grid also helps keep your key light from lighting up unwanted areas of the frame. I experimented with several different positions for the key light until I decided on the one in this image. I love the light falloff from grids. It is like dropping a pebble into a smooth pond. The greatest disturbance is at the point of impact on the water and as the ripples move out in a circle they gradually fade. It is the same with a grid reflector. The light is the brightest at the center, and it fades as it moves away from the center. If you position a grid reflector just right, you can use the light spread (dimmer light away from the center) to light closer objects without blowing them out. For example, the white lamp above Josh. If I were to use just a regular reflector on a strobe without a grid from the same position, the white lamp would be completely blown out on the right side because it is closer to the light source than the subject. The grid allowed me to direct the light at my subjects face so the exact center was on his face. This is the brightest spot of the light, and the light begins to decrease in power quickly as it spreads. Although the lamp is closer to the key light than the subject, they are both getting the same amount of light.
Once the key was set, I had some definition on the lamp, both on the inside from the light bulb, and on the outer right side from the key light. I also had my subject lit, but the shadows were still a little too deep.
Fill Light:
I already created the shadows I wanted with the key light, but I needed to use a fill light to add some detail to some of the shadows. What I did not want to do was add new shadows. The entire left side of the room (camera left, not pictured) was a white wall, just like the background. Because I wanted a soft and subtle fill, I decided to bounce the strobe with a 7 inch reflector off of the white wall. Think of the wall as a large softbox you don’t have to set up or tear down. Depending on how close you place the strobe to the wall, you can increase or decrease the size of the light source. I experimented with the light and tried a few different angles to get the right look. The first few angles I tried caused the left side of the image to be too bright. Eventually I angled the head so it was pointing more behind me than toward the subject. I lost a lot of light by doing this, but it gave me just enough light to gently fill in some of the dark areas not touched by the key.
Here is a list of the equipment I used to create this shot along with links to the product pages:
Camera: Canon DSLR
Lights: Elinchrom Ranger Battery Pack and Head x2
Light Modifiers: Elinchrom 7” grid reflector
10 degree grid
Elinchrom 7” reflector
Thanks for reading! Feel free to start a discussion or ask questions in the comments.
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Tags: grid reflector, how to light a portrait, how to lighting, John Keatley, John Keatley Lighting, John Keatley lighting technique, Keatley lighting technique, learn how to light, Lighting Setup, Lighting Technique, lighting walkthrough, photography lighting, Portrait Lighting, portrait technique, portraits explained, strobe lighting, using strobes
Follow Me On Twitter
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under News, Personal Work
Rubbing alcohol looks like mouth wash this early in the morning. Trying to get the taste out!
6:35 AM Sep 23rd from web
Trying to get out the door for a photo shoot. Phone won’t stop ringing…
11:18 AM Sep 23rd from phone
Brushing Oliver in the backyard. 80 degrees in Seattle!
5:01 PM Sep 23rd from web
I have been a bit slow in joining the Twitter community. But with good reason. Reading is fine and all, but who wants to read about what I am doing when you could see what I am doing. You following me? So I thought, why just write about what I am doing at random moments throughout my day, when I could break out my lights and take a really cool picture of what I am doing several times a day. Sure there are some obvious obstacles to pulling this off smoothly, but it can be done. I really think this is going to catch on soon. Show the world what you are doing right now, in 140 dpi or less. Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best ones.
It is probably going to take me a couple of weeks to raise the capital and develop a website to support this new idea, but in the meantime I did join Twitter. My name is johnkeatley, and at the very least, I will be Tweeting each time a new blog post goes live.
So if Twitter is how you like to stay informed, you can now follow me at http://twitter.com/johnkeatley.
And (here) is the RSS Feed to my Tweets.
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Tags: John Keatley portrait, John Keatley Tweet, John Keatley Twitter, John Keatley updates, Keatley Twitter, news updates, portrait of John Keatley, self portrait, Tweets, Twitter
Bus and Ida May
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Personal Work
Bus and Ida May are good family friends of ours, and they live on a farm near Seattle. Their farm used to be even larger than it is now, but there is now a major highway, several off ramps, businesses and condos where the cows used to graze. Every summer for the past several years, my wife Nichelle and I have enjoyed homemade desserts with them on their back porch made from ingredients picked just several yards away. After spending time with them one evening, I felt compelled to photograph them. To make things as comfortable as possible, I set up in their back yard, while friends and family came over for dinner. A good amount of my studio work is actually done on location like this. Not necessarily on a farm, but in a place that my subject feels most comfortable. In this case, it was a farm. Not to mention, I would choose to work outside on a warm summer evening instead of in a studio any time given the choice.
I have a photography show opening in a few weeks, and the headshots of Bus and Ida May will be two of the 12 or so images on display. I will have more information about the show shortly, and after I wrap up a few large projects, I will be able to get back to a more regular blog schedule. Thanks for taking a look, and I hope you are enjoying what is left of summer.
Tags: farmer and wife, Farmer Headshot, farmer picture, Farmer Portrait, Farmer Portraits, Headshot, Headshots, John Keatley, Keatley personal work, outdoor studio photography, outdoor studio portraits, Portrait, Portrait of a farmer, Portraits, retired farmer portrait, retired farmers, retired workers, Seattle Portrait Photographer, seattle portraits, studio on location, Studio portraits
About Personal Work
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Personal Work
This is a personal shoot I recently put together. Many of the ideas and sketches I have been putting in my journal lately are set in outdoor locations at night. I seem to go through cycles of being inspired by different things in my personal work. For example, there was a time last year, when all of my ideas were studio shots. After spending more time than usual in the studio, I began to find inspiration in other things. I am a very curious photographer, and I enjoy changing the situations and people I work with so I am always experiencing something new. Each time I explore my curiosity through personal work, I not only fulfill my curiosity, but I also grow as a photographer, and learn things that will stay with me. There is something inside of me that is constantly pushing me to try something different, and create something new.
What I have begun to notice this summer through my personal work is that each phase that I go through, it is becoming less about a technical aspect, such as a specific light, or studio vs. outdoor, and more about my vision or the story I want to tell. Each phase I have gone through has really been more about exploration and my own curiosity than the actual technical detail I was focused on. Through these periods of different inspirations I have learned a lot, and I hope I will always be learning something new about light, and photography, no matter how long I work at it. But now I am able to focus more on my vision and less on the tools required to make it happen. Not that the tools aren’t important. They are! But the more you practice, the more you will understand the tools, and the more they become ingrained in you so you don’t have to spend as much time and effort thinking about them.
This picture is the first in a series I am working on in my spare time. I felt excitement when I made this image, and it was a good reminder for me of how much I love photography. Thanks for taking a look.
Tags: Becoming a Photographer, dead summer grass, Environmental Portrait, John Keatley, John Keatley personal work, John Keatley portrait, Keatley personal work, Keatley Photo, Learn Photography, outdoor portrait, Personal Work, Photography Theory, photography thought process
Lighting Technique: Three Lights and the Sun
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Lighting Technique, Personal Work, Tools Of The Trade
A month or so ago, I was hired to photograph several people for a marketing publication. They were looking for lifestyle type portraits. So I shot most of them in natural light, often with a reflector or two. Warm, happy, and beautiful was my direction, and so I was looking for bright colorful backgrounds. When I arrived at this couples home, I went through the usual introductions and before long, I was taking the grand tour of their home. It’s always funny to me that as a photographer, I can walk into a strangers home, look around in all of their rooms, and tell them what to wear. Years ago, this took a bit of getting used to, but now it feels somewhat normal.
There was not much in the house that lent itself to what I was looking for, so I decided we would head to a park. As we were leaving, I took notice of this room with the piano, the old lamp, and the bright sun streaming through the window. For a moment, I turned off the filter in my head that was only looking for commercial lifestyle type portraits. The muted colors and the overall feel of the shot that began forming in my head was not something that would interest my client, but I decided that it was worth exploring for myself.
This was a really fun lighting process, and there were some elements that I don’t often get to work through. I know a lot of you are often curious, and email me about my lighting, so how about a lighting walk through. Take out a sheet of paper and a number 2 pencil. Here we go.
Direct sunlight was coming through a large window on the left side of the frame. You can see the bright spot on the floor pointing toward the piano. There were soft rolling shadows all over the wall and furniture from the sunlight bouncing off the white carpet and other light surfaces. It was beautiful light, but the range between the light on the floor and the shadows was too wide to capture with detail.
I took several frames with just natural light, to get a rough idea of what the shot could feel like. After I felt confident that something interesting could develop, I ran out to the car and brought in all of the lighting that I had with me. Three strobes in this case. I almost didn’t even bring them because I didn’t think I would be using lights that day. The first thing I did was get an exposure that had some detail in the sun spot on the floor. I wanted it to be bright, but not blown out. My goal was to mimic the natural light, but bring the range from highlight to shadow down to something that is within the camera’s range of capturing. I shot at ISO 100, and the exposure was 1/125 at f/9.0.
Exposing for the brightest spot in this case made the rest of the frame very dark. The next step was to add in light and bring up the shadows. I like to add and work with one light at a time when I am building my lighting setups. I start with the brightest light source. The sun in this case, and work my way down to the fill lights. I feel like this gives me more control, and allows me to better see the results and consequences of each light that I am using.
Equipment: Before I get into how I used my equipment to create this shot, here is a list of the actual equipment I used along with links to the product pages.
Camera: Canon DSLR
Lights: Elinchrom Ranger Battery Pack and Head x2
Extra Elinchrom Ranger Free Lite A Flash Head
Light Modifiers: Photoflex Large Softbox
Wescott 45” Umbrella x2
The Key Light: I set up a large softbox on camera left, in front of the window. There was a lot of furniture and items in the room, and although I did rearrange quite a bit, I didn’t want to make a complete mess of their home. There was not enough floor space to set up a stand where I wanted the key light, and even if there was, it would have cut into the frame of the shot. So I set up a C stand with a grip arm and mounted the softbox on the end of the arm. I swung this over the couch and up against the window so that it was angled down toward the floor and feathered away from the wall (pointing across the frame toward the right side of the room). The reason for feathering the softbox from the wall was because I wanted to create a darker shadow in the upper left corner of the frame. The more the softbox is pointed away from the wall, the larger and deeper the shadow in the left corner becomes. I also wanted the light to be a little more even across the frame, and feathering gave me more reach. You can see a slight shadow with a hard edge on the floor on the very far right at the base of the drawers. This shadow was from the softbox. If I had the softbox pointed directly toward the couple, the light would not have reached that far. And finally, let’s not forget. It is kind of important to actually light the subjects with the key as well. So I made sure that the light was hitting them how I wanted. The head and softbox were actually a little too large for the C stand arm, so I did have to do a little work with some tape, clamps and an extra light stand to keep the softbox from pointing straight down. Clamps and tape are a must if you ask me. Now we have a floor highlight that is not blown out, and properly exposed people on the piano bench. But, the right side of the frame was still really dark.
Fill Light #1: The goal for the fill light was to control the shadows. I don’t want this light to be even with the sun, or the key (softbox). What I want out of the fill is to bring up the dark shadows to a level that has detail, but still looks and feels like a shadow. I used a 45” umbrella with black backing that I bounced a strobe into. So the strobe is actually pointing away from the subject into the umbrella and bouncing the light back onto the frame. I experimented with a number of positions for the first fill light, but I ended up placing it about a foot or so behind me, and two or three feet to my right. The height of the strobe head was about a foot above the subjects head, and the umbrella was not angled much. The umbrella rod was about parallel with the ground. You can see the shadows created by this light on the ground behind one of the piano bench legs, and the right piano leg. There is also a very soft and subtle shadow on the wall to the left of the drawers. This tells you that the actual strobe head was just to the right of the edge of the drawer, but the umbrella just swept over the edge to create that soft shadow. If I would have moved the light further to the right, the shadow would have grown and become darker. If I would have moved the light more to the left, the shadow would have disappeared completely. I left the shadow in to create some depth on the right side of the frame.
Fill Light #2: I also set up a second umbrella for fill light. I placed this about 9 feet away from me on the right side of the frame, and used it to fill in the shadow on the wall to the right of the drawers.
And then it was time to start shooting. After a number of different poses, I decided on this one. I really like this shot. The man is a retired professor, and it turns out that he taught photography for a few years. This was many years ago, and the program eventually was shut down when funds became tight. But it was a lot of fun talking to him about cameras and equipment. It was also the first time I had a subject offer to set up and take down stands and actually know how to do it.
I hope you found this interesting, or helpful. Feel free to post any comments or questions. I will do my best to respond and answer any questions you may have.
Tags: assignment lighting, how does John Keatley light, how to light a portrait, how to lighting, John Keatley, John Keatley Lighting, John Keatley lighting technique, Keatley lighting technique, learn how to light, Lighting Setup, Lighting Technique, lighting walkthrough, natural light photography, photography lighting, Portrait Lighting, portrait technique, portrait walkthrough, portraits explained, Softbox, softbox diffusion, strobe lighting, Strobist, umbrella, umbrella bounce, use a softbox, use an umbrella, using a softbox, using strobes
Dirty Dancing
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Personal Work
Personal work. The best kind of work if you ask me. Well, maybe not from a financial point of view though. I met these three at an Enya concert this Spring. This is just a little peek into the after party. For obvious reasons, they requested that their names not be revealed. In these tough economic times, the last thing you want is to lose your job because you got caught listening to Enya.
Tags: After Party Pictures, Dance Pictures, Dancing Chicks, Dancing Girls, DJ, Enya, Hot Chicks, Night Club, Ricker, Rock Groupies, Rock Stars
Interview On PDN Features
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Personal Work, Press & Interviews
PDN just posted a great online article with interviews from me and Danny Wilcox Frazier (here). It covers our work in the new American Youth book that was released this month. We have been getting some fantastic press for this, and none of it would have been possible without the wonderful people at Redux.
I am getting ready to head out to New York for two weeks, and I will finally get to see the actual book for the first time. I am also looking forward to talking with many of the people who put so much time and energy into this project. Should be fun.
This is an outtake from the book, but one of my favorite pictures from the Seagals pictures.
Special thanks to Jasmine DeFoore and Conor Risch for this article.
PDN online article - http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/e3if6edc43bfbecc72af9626bec0b2f5b69
Tags: American Youth, Cheerleader Pictures, Cheerleader Portraits, John Keatley Interview, NFL Cheerleaders, PDN, Photo District News, Redux, Seagals Cheerleaders, Seagals Pictures, Seaglas, Seahawks Cheerleaders, Seattle Seagals
Hot Water Baptism
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Personal Work
A few months ago, I reconnected with an old friend from college, Kyle Bowden. I had not seen him for about 8 years, since we were both studying abroad in Uruguay during my senior year. A small group of my friends all decided to study abroad together, and we went during Spring quarter in 2002. After we had been overseas for about 6 weeks, we had an extended weekend, and decided to get out of town for a couple days. We ended up traveling to Suriname and got in pretty late. Just outside of the capital city of Paramaribo was an old brick convent at the base of the hillside. Not having made sleeping arrangements in advance, some of the guys were joking around about staying the night in the convent. I’m sure they would rent us a room for the night right? As the joke quickly came to an end, Kyle said in a rather serious tone. ”I am going to spend the night in that convent.”
I laughed at first, but quickly realized that he was serious. He thought he could sneak into the convent and spend the night without being noticed. ”No way!” was the unanimous response from the group. But this just made Kyle even more determined. Finally, we decided that we would see just how serious Kyle was about this idea. We made a bet with him. If he could pull it off, we would collectivly pay him $400. And if he could not, he had to buy the drinks for the rest of the weekend.
Kyle gave us his backpack, took a few snacks, and headed up toward the convent. We agreed that we would meet back at the same spot the next day at 11:00am.
Kyle never showed up the next day. And through a very strange chain of events, that one night turned into three long years of isolation and canning fruit.
In 2005, Kyle was discovered and kicked out of the convent. He is currently living back in the States, trying to re-discover himself.
THE PHOTO SHOOT:
You know how high school kids like to yell, and mock people while driving by in a car? I won’t go into the psychology of why they do this, but it seems to be in their nature when a group of high school guys are together. So just imagine a group of high school boys driving along the waterfront, and as they come around the bend, there in front of them is a nun. With her back to the car. How could you not yell, right? I didn’t see them approaching at first, but I heard the screams. Two guys leaning out the windows yelling a Braveheart kind of scream at the nun as they drove by. The other passengers smiling from ear to ear, feeling so proud about scaring and intimidating a nun. Then suddenly, as the car passed, the nun’s face became visible. The screams and smiles stopped as quickly as they had started, and disappeared into complete shock and confusion. It was priceless.
Tags: Advertising Photography, Bearded Nun, Classic Nun Portrait, Habit Picture, Male Nun, Nun, Nun Habit
Santa on the Street
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Personal Work
* If you are using a blog reader, you may need to visit my actual blog to see the slide show above.
I got a call last October from my friend, Tyler, asking me if I would photograph a Christmas party for street youth in Seattle’s U-District. It’s an annual party, and they usually have a volunteer take candid snapshots that they can give to the youth who attend. After talking for a little while, we both decided that it would be fun to set up a studio in a corner where anyone who was interested could get their portrait taken.
After I finished setting up, Tyler made an announcement about the studio letting people know that it was available. Everyone in the room turned to look at me. I smiled and waved, and then everyone turned back around and continued talking and opening presents. I waited for about 10 minutes, and still nobody came over. There were a lot of glances toward the studio, but that was it. I started walking around the room, and asking if people wanted to have their picture taken.
“No way man. I don’t want my picture taken.”
I knew it would just take one person to get things rolling, and moments later, that person arrived. Actually, he was a rabbit… Although I was excited about photographing a giant rabbit, I could tell that Santa was feeling uneasy and territorial. He took his white gloves off, one finger at a time, and threw them on the ground. ”This is my holiday, Rabbit!” He screamed across the room.
That’s a story for another day, though.
I was able to convince the rabbit to let me photograph him, and shortly after, people began lining up to join in. I took quite a bit of time with the lighting setup for this, and set the lights in a way that would allow for some movement and flexibility with each subject. I made an x on the ground, and asked each person to stand there. But beyond that, I didn’t control their movements. I wanted to let each person be themselves, and capture their personalities. I know that I am not the first person to photograph street youth. But often I feel that a subject like this is an easy way to create a dramatic story without any creativity. Street youth encounter struggles that many of us will never experience, some of them dress a little different, but that alone doesn’t make a great picture. What I loved about how these pictures turned out, was the laughter and humor that came through. I don’t think the pictures would have the same feel if I had taken as much control as I would have with a different subject. I might have asked Santa to look serious, though…Couldn’t resist that one!
What do you think about the slide show? Comments please. I have been posting pictures individually, but it seemed like there were too many for that this time. I’d love to hear what you think.
Tags: Headshots, Santa Clause, Santa Picture, Seattle photographer, Seattle Street Youth, Street Youth, Street Youth Headshots, Studio portraits, U-District, Volunteer Work
