Reverse Engineering - Mark Seliger
Those of you who know me well know that I have a man crush on Mark Seliger. I have been a big fan of his work for years. His work is beautifully clean and simple. He also rocks the OneLight all the time. He and Annie seem to be tag teaming Vanity Fair shoots lately. I thought we could take a look at his latest cover shoot for the August 2007 Vanity Fair featuring Shia LaBeouf and reverse engineer a few things about how the image was made. Lucky for us we have a few blazingly obvious hints given to us as to how it was shot.
It is important that we as photographers learn new skills. Sometimes that simply means we study images that we like. A lot can be gleaned from this process. Usually it is a little more difficult to study an image and wonder how it was lit or what went on during the shoot. This image and the corresponding video (linked below) tell us everything we need to know EXCEPT how to make a long running career out of doing this day in and day out like Seliger does.
August 31, 2007 4:17 PM
Here is a close up of the reflection in the helmet that LeBeouf is holding...
I was an assistant for four years so I have been around sets a lot like this as well as running some shoots like this myself. As armchair photographers here, we can see from this image that Seliger is using one main light on LaBeouf. I’ll take a guess that the light is a big ol’ Profoto head being run by a pack. I’m only guessing that it is Profoto because it is the industry standard for editorial shooters. I could be wrong. I can hear that generator now as it revs up after each shot. The light is being modified by a large Octabox of some sort or another. That light is being feathered off a bit by a large 1 stop flag (the thing with the red border around it in front of the light source). I suspect that the light was getting a bit too hot for taste on one side of LaBeouf or the ground around him. They may have been using the flag to smooth a highlight.
There is an assistant holding a large scrim that is blocking the sun from hitting LaBeouf. If you can’t find shade in the location you want to shoot, you have to make shade. Large scrims and cutters do the job very well. This summer I had to do an advertising shoot on the top of Stone Mountain here in Atlanta. I had 3 assistants that day because I needed as many folks the budget could handle to fly a 6x8’ scrim over our subjects’ heads. In the video (linked below), we also see a large scrim being flown over LaBeouf’s head. This translates to very little of the final exposure on LaBeouf coming from direct sunlight. Ambient light is adding some fill to the shadows from the main light. You can see just a bit of direct sunlight making an exposure from behind LaBeouf. See the detail of direct sun exposure here...
We can break it down like this.
• Subject placed in shade of one scrim over head and one scrim hand held at camera left near subject. Sun is nearly directly behind subject.
• One large light source at camera left being flagged by a 1 stop scrim.
• Direct sun light providing a hair of rim light from behind. Not much though. Much of that cut by the scrim over and behind his head. (as seen in video)
• Open shade ambient light filling in the shadows created by the main light. This could have been reduced further by flying a cutter (cuts out the light) instead of a scrim (diffuses the light.
A few other things that are noteworthy. Seliger is shooting this image with a 4x5 camera mounted on a heavier than yo fat mamma Gitzo tripod. If I had the money, or rather, my clients had the money, I would shoot 4x5 on every job. Seliger also is seen using a Mamyia RZ 6x7 as well. That’s probably his point and shoot. :)
It looks like all the lights and modifiers are mounted on Matthews stands. They are massive, beefy, and rock solid. My favorite stands in the world but you need a truck and a crew to carry them around. One of those trucks in the back is probably a grip truck filled with nothing but stands, sand bags, lights, etc. Puts our Vivitar 285’s into a “different light” so to speak huh?
2 assistants seem to be on camera. The one behind is probably dealing with the film and the one in front is helping shade the lens from the flare. I’m wondering why a black cutter is being held up behind Seliger. It isn’t shading him. Maybe it is to mask him in the reflection. Also take a look at all those stands, bags, and misc grip. Looking closely at the reflection in the helmet I can count 12 people hanging out in front of LaBeouf. Judging from all the cars we see in the video, there were probably more than that. This ain’t no Craig’s List budget photo shoot is it?
Here are some stills with notes from the behind the scenes video on VanityFair.com. One thing I saw a few times in the video that has me scratching my head is the guys with the smoke machine. Either they thought the smoke would be cool in the background but later did not choose those images for print OR the smoke was acting as a sort of scrim and helped cut the exposure of the ground in the background of tshe portraits they were shooting. Maybe. Never seen smoke used as a scrim but from looking at the video, that may be what they were doing.
You can see in these two frames what images from this location would like without the ability to light the subject.
Here you can see the scrim above his head.
Dudes on the smoke machine.
That is not a small amount of gear.
Way more than a $250 OneLight rig.
Assistant dealing with the 4x5 film.
And he rocks a similar hat to mine. Nice.
Expose for the face, lose the background.
Expose for the background, lose the face.
The magazine is worth picking up just for the shot of LaBeouf with the mermaid.
So what do we come away with from this? First, a lot can be done with a single light source. Yes, the sun came in to play here but much of it was cut out so that the Octabank could be the main light. Another aspect to notice here is how much production can go into a cover shot. The final image is very simple and clean but the work going into it can be quite complex.
Do you HAVE to have all that gear and crew to make amazing photos? No. Not at all. Having all that gear and crew give a photographer a lot of options. Heading out without all that gear will have you facing a number of limitations but this type of work can be achieved when you understand how light works, how to modify it, and how to control the environment. You probably will just have to wait a lot later in the day.
Lastly, I was surprised they didn’t retouch the crew out of the image for the cover but check out the inset image on the credits page.... They completely retouched the crew and gear from the shot. Huh. Weird.
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Cheers,
Zack Arias
