By Jenn Gidman
Images by Jonathan Thorpe
DC photographer Jonathan Thorpe is known for quirky commercial images that seamlessly merge technical proficiency, an eye for the unusual, and his trademark humor. One thing he's learned over the years: You're not always in control of your set, a client can ask for anything at any time, and you never know if Mother Nature will cooperate.
What you should know is that with a little photographic finagling and lighting adjustments, you can make almost any photo work. Using his Tamron SP 24-70mm VC, SP 70-200mm VC, SP 10-24 wide-angle, and SP 60mm and 90mm Macro lenses, Jonathan is consistently able to go beyond what his clients envisioned.
Read on for Jonathan's tips for making the most of the resources you've got to create visually inventive images.
Run with spontaneous ideas.
I often photograph the band Reel Big Fish. They've been my favorite band since I was 16, and they've become good friends of mine over the years. They were in town for a show and needed some new promotional images, so I headed over to their concert with the plan to take some pictures after the show.
There was a hot tub in the green room, which I hadn't intended to use in the shoot, but the lead singer, Aaron, said he wanted to use it. So, while they were performing, I ran out to a pool-supply store about 30 minutes away and bought all of the pool toys you see in the photo. I set up three lights: a beauty dish on a strobe positioned in the front-middle, directly over the tub, then two strobes on either side behind them, really high up and aiming straight down.
When they got off the stage around midnight, they jumped right in the hot tub with all their stage clothes still on. My goal was to simply capture their personality. They arranged themselves and the toys for the shoot. I'm a real proponent of getting everything right in camera; nothing was Photoshopped in for this image. The duck, for instance, was really riding on top of that little wave—there was a chlorine holder it was perched on in the hot tub.
I used the 24-70mm lens at 35mm to capture this image. We had to keep doing the same take over and over to time everything right—it was a 1-2-3 count, then they'd have to shoot the water out of the snorkel, pump the water gun, and pour the beer out. By the time we finished, we had poured about 15 beers into the hot tub. The water was pretty nasty!
Can't control the weather? Control the lighting.
A friend of mine, Sean Mahon, is a pianist and needed new promotional pictures for some solo work he's doing. He's a teacher also, so we did the shoot at the house of one of his students. Unfortunately, it was 20 degrees outside, snowy, and totally overcast, which presented a real lighting challenge. Everything looked flat and dreary. I grabbed my lights and went outside, positioning one light on top of an AC unit so that it would spill right into the house and near where he was sitting at the piano. It was a little sketchy—I didn't know if the wind would blow it over! I did a custom white balance off of that light and also placed a beauty dish inside.
Sometimes it can be hard for musicians to be completely comfortable in front of the camera when they're not actually performing. I told my friend to just play while I set up the lights. I was running in and out of the house while he was playing, and every time I ran past him I'd make a joke; it loosened him up. Once I knew I had the lighting just the way I wanted it, I said, "Hey, stop and look at me." He stopped, turned, and I snapped the photo. No poses necessary—I just got him right in that moment, with the 24-70 at 60mm, F/2, so when the light came in, it would flare off a little, not look too fuzzy and hazy. That somewhat hard light, hitting him just like a spotlight on stage would, was exactly what I was going for. And it looks like it was beautiful and sunny outside.
Don't just take a picture—tell a story.
It was the first time modeling for the woman in this photo. We did her hair and makeup and took her out in my backyard, where I have a wooden fence covered in ivy. My goal wasn't just to take a portrait, but to tell the story behind the portrait.
I took this photo with the Tamron 24-70, zoomed in at 70mm. I had hoped there would be snow on the ground, but no such luck. Instead, I used canned fog I had lying around. It's like a can of hairspray, except when you spray it, it creates a light, misty, foglike atmosphere. It gave the photo a Disney evil-queen type of vibe. That's one tip I always try to relay to other photographers: Create a cinematic scene if you can.
I did another series with the same model where we filled my bathtub up with milk and had her lie down in it. All you see is her face peeking out of this white cloudiness all around, which was really cool. I love piquing the viewer's imagination like that.
Try something fun you've never tried before.
I have an actor/producer friend I work on film projects with, and one night we were bored and decided to head over to the studio. We went to a local military surplus store and bought a bulletproof vest, fake police badge, and fake gun so we could do one of those cop-riding-a-motorcycle-in-an-alleyway scenes. It was going to be the first time I had composited a motorcycle into a background scene I had photographed under a bridge at another time.
I took the photo keeping the eventual composite in mind. I tried to keep the image of my friend at the same angle as the background photo so when I joined the two images together, it would look somewhat believable. I knew it wouldn't appear totally realistic, but I was hoping it would look like something out of a video game—something exciting and fun.
I lit my pal with a beauty dish up above and two lights on either side of him. I took a speedlight and gelled it orange to lend a warm tone to his skin that would look like the reflection of the bullet being shot out of the gun. I also added some motion blur to the wheels and background to make it all fit together. It was challenging to get the perspectives to match—and when I first started shooting, I was like, "There's no way this is going to work!"—but I'm happy with how the composite came out.
Surpass client expectations.
I happened to see a post on Facebook one day in which someone mentioned their hairstylist needed a photographer at the last minute: She was trying to enter a hair contest, and her photographer had dropped out. I contacted her, and before I could even get into my photography credentials, she said, "That's OK, I just need a photographer who can show up and do this." She was kind of in a panic and really just expected someone to show up with any old camera to take a quick picture she could use.
I never just mail it in like that. We met up at my studio, where I discovered she had no intention to do any makeup, either. But I had brought my makeup artist along and we went to town to complement all that cool, awesome color in her hair (it's her real hair). I lit her from above with a giant parabolic umbrella and took this picture from almost directly above her, shooting down with the Tamron 90mm Macro. She was standing against a wall, and we kept fanning her hair to fill the frame. I felt bad—by the end of the shoot her eyes were all watery from all the fans blowing on her! But the image came out great, and even though that's not why I did the shoot (I was just trying to help her out), the hair salon she works at became one of my clients. As a photographer, you can never just give them what they expect. As they say, underpromise and overdeliver. Take that extra step!
To see more of Jonathan Thorpe's work, go to www.jthorpephoto.com.