…join me in the search for the simplicity found on the other side of complexity!
The corner of her studio where Ria does the majority of her drawing and painting.
One of my favorite commissions is shooting an artist working in their studio. The best results are when an artist lets me come in for a couple hours when they are working on one or more pieces. We start out with more talking than shooting. Pretty soon the artist forgets about the camera (not always easy when strobes are going off every few seconds) and I start to see both the Art and the Artist’s personality emerge.
The shots in this post are from a shoot I did last week with with Ria de Neeve, a Missoula-based artist who’s work you may have seen in my prior posts. (You can view some of Ria’s amazing paintings at her website: www.iamariver.org.)
The purpose of these shoots is to provide artists with professional images that look casual for gallery brochures, articles, and websites. (These candid images appear by permission of Ms. de Neeve. Click on any of these thumbnail images and view a larger version.)
Her non-traditional tools yield amazing results
Ria uses plastic cards of several sizes as painting tools. This made for some interesting shots. (Shallow DOF helped here.)
Ria de Neeve using plastic affinity card to apply paint
I’m always on the lookout for good facial expressions. Posed photos are fine, but some of the most captivating Gallery books I’ve seen are based upon truly candid photos – where the Artist’s personality – be it stern or playful, or both – comes through. Several good opportunities occurred as Ria and I talked:
A phone call offered a chance to make use of a mirror I had been eyeing, but had so far had not been able to figure a way include in my composition:
We chat about Art in general, and muses in particular. Finishing her work with some paints, Ria turns to me “lets take a picture of my painty hands!” she says, thrusting them out. Her hands are below table level, and it takes me a couple seconds to readjust my camera for the reduced light. “Some people really like my feather tattoo,” she offers. Peering through my viewfinder, I become one of them.
Ria's Feather tattoo - and painty hands
The feather design is Ria’s own design and artwork. She had it put on with WHITE tattoo ink. It looks a lot like a reverse suntan – and is a beautiful, delicate addition to her arm.
White Feather Tattoo
Today Ria is working on a series based on the Hebrew alphabet. Starting with pencil drawings, she is building collages. I get several good images of her working with scissors, cutting out a drawing:
Having spent just over an hour and taken about 400 frames, we agree we are done in the studio. Even though it is now noon with full sun and no clouds, I agree to attempt at least a couple outdoor photos. I quickly abandon all hope of getting good fill flash – the sun is too bright and we are both squinting like sun-blinded Eskimos. Ria suggests a shady spot she knows. Bingo!
And we are done! It was the kind of shoot photographers love – it took 90 minutes but it felt like 15. And we came away with over 100 publication-grade shots.
TO SEE RIA de NEEVE’s art you can visit her site at: www.iamariver.org
TECH NOTES -
CAMERA – Canon 5D Mark II.
LENSES: Canon 24-105 and Canon 50mm 1.4.
LIGHTING – Available light augmented with fill from a Canon 580EX speedlite (as a master) and two Canon 420EXs (as slaves). For beauty-light type shots I used a DIY three-strobe bracket with polyethylene diffusers.
ISO/Shutter speed/F-stop: ISO indoors was usually 500. ISO Outdoors 320 and 640. Shutter speed ranged from 13th for blurred hand shots to 80-125th for most others. f-stop was typically 2.0 for the 50 mm and 4.0 to 5.6 for the 24-105mm. This varied when I was creating implied sunlight with strobes.
MODE: Manual (I almost always shoot in manual for complete control.)
PLEASE NOTE: All Photos on this site are Copyrighted and may not be used without written permission.
