Pro Techniques

You can’t simply walk into an Operating Room (OR) and insinuate yourself into the scene. There are rules, there are boundaries. Greg Shapps knows them well. Still, he manages to produce telling images that convey the client’s message without blatantly advertising any product or service. The methodology involves a complete 180 from the way he approaches his small product photography, where the message is unmistakably to buy a specific product. His healthcare imagery is nuanced, often depicting healthcare givers and receivers alike. Specific products are not necessarily the focus. It’s more about what a product, service, or institution can do for the individual.

Widely regarded as “a photographer’s photographer,” Gregory Heisler has been described as having “the mind of a scientist, the heart of a journalist, and the eye of an artist.” Known for his candor, humor, and generosity as a teacher, he is able to convey the most complex photographic concepts simply and elegantly. In the long-awaited Gregory Heisler: 50 Portraits (Amphoto Books, October 22, 2013, $40) he takes us on a guided tour of his innovative editorial images and iconic portraits, engagingly illuminated by his insightful and highly personal perspective.

The idea for Phil Pantano’s photographic series, “The American Worker,” walked into his office at a local steel mill in Lackawanna, New York, where Pantano holds a day job as a computer analyst. The man who came through the door was Jay “Elvis” Borzillieri, a fourth-generation steelworker whose father died in the mill. It doesn’t matter to the story what Elvis stopped in for that day, but when Pantano looked into his face a flash went off in his mind.

Sunstars are a great way to fill an otherwise boring, cloudless blue sky with a feeling of drama and excitement. They are often a way to add a compositional element that helps draw a viewer into a scene. Technically, any light source can create a “sunstar” as long as it is a tiny point of light and the camera is set correctly. We often see the star effect in shots of buildings with their lights twinkling at dusk, or the moon in the night sky. Most commonly we see star patterns when the sun is setting on the horizon, but in this case we only see half of the sunstar because the other half is being blocked by the horizon.

I’ve seen my share, and I expect you have too, of people who basically spray the area hoping to get a keeper. I’ve also seen photographers who wait…wait…and wait some more to catch that decisive moment. I’m neither of those types. I think of what I do as mindful shooting: I know what I want the photo to look like; I preconceive and previsualize the moment; I control the situation as much as I can to get that moment; and I’m prepared to work with what I’m given and what I can’t control in order to get a good result.

Currently a lecturer, teacher, and writer, Sam Abell’s celebrated career includes positions as a contract and staff photographer and photographer-in-residence at National Geographic magazine. This 1959 photo of his father at the Painesville, Ohio, train station is the homepage image of his website, samabell-thephotographiclife.com.

One of the primary differences between a photograph and the real world is that reality has three dimensions: height, width, and depth. Your photos, of course, only have two—height and width. Any depth that exists in a photograph is purely an optical illusion. Even if you were able to create a print that was the exact same size as the scene (and wouldn’t that be fun) it would still pale beside the real thing because of the lack of that third dimension.