8 naked guys in a bathroom is funny, right?

This weekend I took some quick group shots for a local group of comedians called Comedians You Should Know. They have a block of shows scheduled at the Lakeshore Theatre, a Chicago haven for stand-up comedy with other upcoming shows including Sandra Bernhard, Brian Posehn, Jim Jeffries and more.

If I remember right, the last show I saw at the Lakeshore Theatre was a burlesque show. However, it was not that random factoid floating in my head during the photo shoot that inspired the photo of the Comedians You Should Know half-naked in the bathroom. The pervert with that idea was Michael Sanchez, a member of the group and featured in the photo with the red towel on his head giving another member a shoulder massage. (And he's not actually a pervert- sorry, Michael.)

He said, "I don't know, I really like the idea of a photo of us all half-naked and like getting ready for a show in a bathroom- 8 half-naked guys with chest hair in one small bathroom is funny, right?" I think it is. I was laughing, Michael.

The second shot of the members' heads stacked onto a table was my brainchild. Mostly because we didn't have much space for a group shot and I wanted to keep it small and easy to take... I think it turned out well and was worth the scrunched shoulders and aching backs after scrunching in that tightly for a few minutes.

If this group didn't know each other well before this photo shoot, they sure are well-acquainted with each other now.

Can you actually smile with your eyes?

I was taking someone's headshots a while back and while I was resetting a light she asked me, "is it true that you can smile with your eyes, or is that just baloney?"

I thought about it for a few seconds and came to the quick conclusion that yes, "smiling with your eyes" does indeed exist. I can remember many headshot sessions that would start a little bland and dry, with a familiar phenomenon that I'll refer to as the "cheese syndrome." I will be talking with a headshot client about something unrelated, like sports or something, and we'll be conversing and smiling geniunely at each other and laughing. Then as soon as I bring my camera up to my face to take a photo, and my subject is looking down the barrel of the lens, they have the instantaneous "cheese!" reaction and bring out the fakest smile since Joan Rivers.

I don't blame them, I blame cameras. We have all had our photo taken hundreds or thousands of times in front of national monuments and at school portrait sessions in the gymnasium, that as soon as we see a camera we have a Pavlov's dog reation to "say cheese!" and mindlessly flash our pearly whites.

During my headshot sessions, I try to medicate this "cheese syndrome" with an old-fashioned home remedy: conversation and jokes. If I can get a client confortable enough to be around me as individuals, they can momentarily forget the camera is there and smile for me- a person- insted of for the camera. I have noticed a real difference in a person's smiles while looking through the photos following a session and can tell when the person was just smiling for the camera, and when I told a joke or said something dumb and they were smiling at me.

And I just stumbled on a WikiHow and a Wikipedia entry on smiling with the eyes, which made me smile with my mouth. Apparently, there is a scientific difference between a smile and a "genuine" smile, which is referred to as a "Duchenne smile," after its discoverer, Guillaume Duchenne.

As Wikipedia explains:
A Duchenne smile involves contraction of both the zygomatic major muscle (which raises the corners of the mouth) and the orbicularis oculi muscle (which raises the cheeks and forms crow's feet around the eyes). A non-Duchenne smile involves only the zygomatic major muscle. Many researchers believe that Duchenne smiles indicate genuine spontaneous emotions since most people cannot voluntarily contract the outer portion of the orbicularis oculi muscle.

I love this description because it reminds me of one of the main reasons why I like to call my headshots "organic headshots." I think of an organic headshot as a headshot that someone means. It's a headshot that shows a person as they really are and can convey a sense of who they are and their personality and friendliness through the photo.

Okay, so now that we know we need to smile with our eyes to get a genuine smile and make a photo look better, how do we do it? Here's a Wikihow with some good tips.

Cheese!

Fashion in the fall

Last night an old friend and I met up for photo shoot in an alley, using some cool clothing from local Chicago designers.

We had a lot of fun, and were interrupted only once by a passing car. Not only is Tonee an excellent model, but he can grab a light on a stand and carry it to safety lickety split too!

Actually, we were interrupted a couple other times when we would hear some scurrying in bushes or behind trash cans. There were a lot of rats in the alley and if you don't move or make much noise for a while, they come out to explore.

I think some of them got used to us after about an hour, as they started to poke their heads out to say "hello" here and there.

But they were camera shy, so thankfully Tonee is the only one in the shots.

It was nice to get outside shooting on one of the last warm evenings of the season, before it gets too consistently nippy at night to wander around with cameras blazing. We laid out the outfits for the evening with lots of jackets and coats, and didn't really need them.

A very special thanks to Tonee Dang for being an excellent model for the evening, and for the designers for providing the shirts: Fussya Co. by Chris Ho, and Black Market Caviar by Marco Lopez.

PHOTOjournalism, duh.

Yesterday my second article in C-U Confidential was published as part of a hopefully long-running column on the independent film scene in Chicago. The article is here.

C-U Confidential is an online publication with a print counterpart, run and edited by Jason Pankoke- a totally swell guy who really loves movies and loves bringing people together with them. He started the magazine to track the activities of independent film in the Midwest. It's a very tiring project: there is quite a lot of indie movie action around these parts.

My second article is a profile of a new documentary by Logan Futej and Jared Hoffa. A film about their biker gang grandparents. Don't worry, they're safe people and I was not harmed during the interview. This photo is the photo I took of the duo just before they held a test screening at Columbia College Chicago to get some feedback for the film. And a stuffed panda bear. His name is Panda Bear.

I plan to include my own photos of everyone I interview for the column. Duh, right? I'm a photographer. I love photography and I love independent filmmakers, so this column is a chicken-egg puzzle for me. Did I agree to write for it so I can learn more about independent film in Chicago? Or so I could just take photos? For my first interview, I took the photo after I asked the questions... but for this one I took the photo before the interview. Hmmm... egg? Bawk?

"The Swooning Shadow" and other tales

If I could change my middle name, I think I'd change it to "rim light," because I like rim lighting so much. (Or I'd probably change it to "superhuman destroyer of evil," but that's a post for another day.)

Maybe it's because of my background in cinematography and filmmaking that gives me an affinity for rim lighting, aka edge lighting- films use it a lot to add dynamics to a scene. A light placed behind the subject to light the edge of his or her hair, shoulders, etc., really makes the subject stand out from their background and gives them a solid look. It splashes light all over their edgy parts, but also creates new shadows and gives their features depth. Hand me a shovel, because I dig it.

I took this photo last night as a comp photo project. I snapped the subject's photo with a simple lighting setup, then another of myself for the shadow, and replaced his shadow with mine in Photoshop. (Sounds simple enough, but my mouse-using wrist is still sore and my eyes are watering from staring at the screen for so long...) Special thanks to Dave Hamner for modeling for the photo, and for being so awesome!

From the land before iPods

I was looking for something in my computer and came across this photo I took a few months ago. I was walking through an outdoor lumberyard and spotted this amazingly bright red "boom box" thing that has obviously been the still-working radio of choice for lumberyard staff for at least 15 years.

I think it's so pretty. I want to throw on a pair of matching Reeboks and jam to some George Michael or something. Who's with me? Boom box. Max boom for your system.

The giant lumber shelves it was sitting on went back at least 20 feet. Even though it was a beautifully bright sunny day, the light was directly overhead and couldn't reach into the depths of the shelves, so the camera really caught exactly what the scene looked like: bright light on the front of the shelf with a fast drop to pitch black toward the back. It was really pretty- the kind of sight that looks like a still-life photo even if you don't happen to have a Canon 5D in your pocket. And it makes you want to jam to George Michael or something. Anyone? Hello?

Olympian needs "non-Olympic" headshots

Today I took Alexandra Yeung's headshot: a mountain biker who competed in the 2000 Olympic Games representing Hong Kong. She now lives with her husband, Mike, in Chicago and is working for the City of Chicago's 2016 Olympic bid. And she's an evironmental engineer! A very busy woman.

She came to me for headshots because she needed a photo to go along with her bio summary for various print and online materials whenever she speaks somewhere, sends a press release, or any other 2016-related use. I get a lot of requests for this type of headshot and always ask what the majority of uses it will be for, as well as what the person is trying to portray.

For example, a business professional who does a lot of formal speaking engagements might need a headshot that is more formal-looking, with a suit, full, bright lighting, and a mottled background. Yet writers usually request more informal or creative-looking shots for their bookjackets. Alexandra wanted something that wasn't quite corporate, but also "non-biking" or "non-Olympic," since she's not trying to promote her biking, but her more professional side.

We took a few different types of photos, and this one is my favorite. It's approachable, but kind of cinematic in a way. It presents her in a professional way, but with a bit of creativity that links her image with the fact that she has such a diverse and interesting background. And I think the gaze on her face portrays that too. It seems to say, "ask me about how I was in the Olympics."

You're famous, Mr. and Mrs Breen!

A wonderful couple I took photos for in the past just contacted me- they are going to be featured on an episode of TLC's "A Baby Story," airing later this fall. Congrats, Jen and Jim Breen! The television show recently filmed and followed the couple during the birth of their second child, which they decided to undertake as a home birth, after being inspired by the Ricki Lake documentary The Business of Being Born.

Here's where I finally come in... several years ago I took engagement photos for them, and the TV show will be using some of them as footage during the episode. Woo! I can't wait to see the episode, Jen!

To the Batcave.

Here it is... the first photo to be printed in the new darkroom. Drumroll, please... ta da! When I moved into my new apartment nearly a year ago I asked the landlady if I could put together a darkroom in the basement somewhere and she agreed. But I haven't gotten around to doing it until recently. I finally unpacked the 'ol enlarger, pans, cans, and other goodies and set it all up. There are still some light leaks in the walls, but I'm feeling lazy so I'll probably just slap some duct tape on the holes.

I'd include a photo of the new darkroom, but it's ugly and small and not very noteworthy. It's a small space, but I don't need much room since I'm a small person, so I'll just refer to it as "cozy." It's actually a half-finished or half-torn down (however you look at it) bathroom in an unfinished basement. It has a low ceiling, crumbling drywall, and someone put a random water heater in it. It doesn't sound too appealing, but it's nice. It also has a sink to wash prints in, which is great, and a working toilet which is kind of useful actually, since I lose a lot of time in the darkroom and it will be nice to not have to go upstairs to the bathroom after every bottle of water. And maybe when I make more prints in there and give them to people I can chuckle a little to myself... "I peed in the same room I made that photo in. Tee hee."

I forgot how relaxing, yet exhilarating making prints in a darkroom can be. While printing this photo I felt strangely calm and focused, yet every so often found myself breaking loose and busting a move, dancing to my iPod. Well... busting a small move since I don't have too much room and don't want to knock anything over. I'm going to name the new darkroom "The Batcave." Just because I want to be able to say, "if anyone needs me, I'll be in the batcave."

Pow! An explosion of ties.

I got this idea for a fashion photoshoot a while ago, and thanks to stylist Sheyssa Rosado and model David Latimer, I was finally able to make it happen. I saw a photo once of a bunch of ties flying through the air- like they had been tossed into the wind or something- and I thought it would have looked even better if someone was wearing one of those ties.

The concept was to have ties tossed around a model, almost like just the ties were caught in a wind machine but the model wasn't. Here's my favorite photo from the shoot... to me, it looks like he's so cool that he's immune to wind or something. Or maybe the ties are just so awesome that they keep exploding and jumping all over the place.

Obviously, to get that effect I couldn't use actual wind. It would be a little annoying to throw ties at David and try to have them catch the wind, then pick them all back up again for each shot. I won't totally give away the mechanics of the setup, but I will give a hint. A lot of fishing line, wire, and a patient model.

Thanks again, Sheyssa and David!

I feel 100 feet tall today

My roommie is going to film school at Columbia College right now and her new assignment is a short stop motion animation. So she's turned our dining room into a workshop of some kind, with lots of tiny trees and clay people, and made my dining room table look like a miniature park.

I walked by it while really sleepy the other day and thought for a split second that I was about 100 feet tall. Only a split second. I think it was the half bag of Oreos I ate that day... I started to hallucinate a little bit.

Anyways... I snapped some quick photos of her and her friend animating some clay people. I've played with stop motion before, and it can get a little frustrating if you're not in the zone- or if you're on a deadline and have to have it finished soon, in this case. At some point I heard her scream something like, "only 5 feet of film?! We've been moving that person's eyeballs for an hour and a half!"

I love the idea behind stop motion animation because it gets so close to the roots of filmmaking and reminds a person how film cameras work. When the first motion picture cameras were made in the late 1880's, they were modeled after the novelty-turn-boom picture cameras. They took single photos in quick succession, to create the illusion of motion. That's how film cameras still work- snapping 24 photos in a second, one after another, then projecting them at the same speed to recreate the motion.

Actually, when the first motion picture cameras were made, the cameras were hand-cranked and the average speed was about 16 frames per second (fps), not 24. The camera operators used to sing songs to keep a steady rhythm while cranking. 24 fps was introduced when sound film was invented and the projector needed to operate at a steady 24 fps to get the strip of sound to play properly. Which is why most silent films appear jerky now- because they were filmed at 16 fps but are being played back at 24 fps. When they were originally projected, the motion was smooth and normal-looking.

See. A degree in Cinema Studies can be useful now and then. Makes for good chit-chat at crappy dinner parties.

Headshots: four eyes or two?

I've taken a lot of headshots for people who, at some point during the photo session, suddenly turn to me and ask, "should I wear my glasses in the photo?"

And, as usual, my answer is, "it depends."

The first question to ask is, "do you always wear your glasses?" If the answer is yes, then put your darn glasses on for the headshot. A headshot is supposed to be a photograph of you, depicting what you generally look like on a regular basis... while looking your best and in a good mood, of course. So if you're always wearing your glasses, then wear them in your headshot.

Now you might be thinking, "I always wear my glasses, but sometimes I take them off when I'm on stage... or I want people I'm auditioning for to know that I can go without glasses too..." Aha! Very good point. Gold star. Most people look completely different with and without their glasses, so if you want people looking at your headshot to see both of their options, what do you do? If you're expecting an answer like "you should always wear your glasses in a headshot" or "you should never wear your glasses in a headshot" then I apologize, but you're not going to get that here.

There is no right or wrong answer to something like that- it all depends on what you want, need, and are comfortable with. Here's a case study with Victoria DeFrancesco Soto. She came to me asking for headshots for publicity purposes as a television personality and expert on minority figures in international politics. (With the recent Obama campaign, she's obviously been a busy lady...) She normally doesn't wear her glasses on camera, but is looking to expand her reach and believes some people might think she looks more learned and professional with her glasses on. So we snapped most of her photos without glasses, but made sure to grab a handful with her glasses on.

Now she has the option between two different looks and can use the glasses headshot for gigs she knows she'll wear her glasses for, and the other one for purposes that she doesn't think having glasses on will necessarily give her a leg up.

Like with any question about determining your look for a headshot, just remember to go with your gut and what you believe depicts you at your best. And ask yourself simple questions like, "do I ever wear my glasses?" And if your answer is, "only when I wake up in the morning to get myself from the bedroom to the bathroom where my contacts live, I'll never wear them outside!" then of course you should leave the glasses off for the headshot. Or maybe ask yourself the question, "am I a Groucho Marx impersonator?" If the answer is yes, put your Groucho glasses on.

And find a headshot photographer who will ask you these questions so he or she can help you set up the best possible photo.

Puuuuuurty

I was just up in Whitewater, WI filming some interviews at someone's house and saw this light switch cover in their kitchen. I had to snap a quick photo of it because it was just so pretty and I wanted to remember it.

I wonder what part of the brain it is, or even if there is a part of a person's brain that makes them want to use an opportunity such as having a light switch cover to display art. Where did this thing come from? Who was the first person to look at their light switch cover and say "boooorr-ing," and paint it pretty colors?

Dr. Camera asks: AIG- how does it make you feel?

There are probably a million blog posts out there this week about AIG using their Federal bailout money to give their executives bonuses so they can buy more toys, and how angry that makes us taxpayers... So I'm going to try not to rant about that. Instead, I will display how I feel about it through a photo. (While resisting the temptation to just take a photo of my middle finger.)

I've flipped through my negative sleeves and then finally turned to my digital libraries and found a photo I took a while ago that expresses my mood when I read about greedy corporations. It's a photo of someone peeking into a dumpster. I chose it because I think that when our taxes and our Federal financial situation are helping the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, we're going to end up with such a class divide in this country that you either throw your food into a dumpster, or you find your food in one.

I've been known to take walks down alleys here and there for some fun dumpster-diving. I think it should be an official sport in the Olympics, actually. I found a perfectly good glass cabinet once and it's still in my kitchen holding my spices and Tupperware. I also picked up an old window once and turned it into a little art project- taking the glass out, sanding the many layers of paint down, and then using it as a picture frame. Looks neat.

Most photographers or thrifty artists rely on thrift stores, alleys, and curbs for their supplies- especially tree-huggers like me who would rather re-use an old chair than see it slowly degrade in a landfill. (Who would throw away a perfectly good chair if you can sit on it without falling over? I've never seen a chair so ugly that I won't even put my butt on it. Are we Americans really that snobbish?)

I guess if I have a point to this rambing, it's that I hope there never comes a day when all of the thrifty dumster-diving artists out there ever stop looking in garbages for fun art supplies and start looking for food. I started re-reading some Studds Terkel books on the Great Depression... for tips on how to survive. Just in case.

Michelle in Chicago Redeye

Today, I woke up to several phone calls, emails, and text messages from friends laughing at me. Yes, they were laughing. My photo was on the cover of the Redeye- the entertainment publication of the Chicago Tribune, which is free and known for being picked up by commuters to learn about what Britney is doing and to pass the time on the train with some soduko or a crossword puzzle.

I learned today, that if you see someone you know on the cover of a newspaper, you laugh at them. Don't get me wrong- they weren't making fun of me- when you see something you didn't expect while on your daily commute, you can't help but grab your belly and laugh. Of course, they congratulated me and I thanked them... though I didn't feel like I did anything difficult. A reporter emailed me a few weeks ago, asked me some questions, sent a staff photographer over, snapped some photos in the freezing cold without my coat on, and that was it. Not hard work at all. Except for the freezing cold photo session, I guess.

I know this is a blog about photography, so I should let everyone know (if you don't pick up the Redeye) that I'm also an independent filmmaker. I've been making independent short and feature films for some time, and have co-founded a production company called Brown Finch Films, where we're working on several feature-length documentaries.

Primarily I work as the cinematographer, which makes sense if I'm also a photographer. Some people ask me if there's a big difference in filming movies compared to taking still photos. My short answer is, "yes. When you shoot someone with a movie camera, you can hear them fart. You can't with a still camera."

But I think my old cinematography professor from college summed it up best when he said, "Michelle, movies is just moving pictures. Photos in motion, but photos are photos. If the photos in the movie look like shit, the movie is shit too." I plan on cutting out the article and mailing it to him where he now lives in Bulgaria. He might be the only other person to recognize the camera I'm holding in the cover photo... Which is a 16mm Soviet made Krasnogorsk-3, for all you other nerds like me.

Rainy day project

Yesterday was a gorgeous day for Chicago in March: 65 degrees outside! It was so refreshing after months of snow and below freezing temperatures that I saw people just standing around outside and finding every excuse they could just to stand outside for a few minutes to enjoy the warmth. Some people looked confused. They were like pre-springtime zombies.

My boyfriend and I took the opportunity to walk around outside a bit and do some thrifting at a resale shop. We came across bags and bags of sewing thread and bobbins. I think he said something like, "jackpot." Of course, he's a fashion design student so all that thread for $5 was an amazing find and totally useful.

I have an antique sewing machine in my apartment collecting dust as a "conversation piece." The conversations usually go like this:

"Wow, is that an old sewing machine?"
"Yep."
"Groovy."

Today has been slimy and rainy outside, so I decided to make it a true rainy Saturday and do some crafty little things. I dragged out my lights and the heavy sewing machine (with a heavy wrought iron base, mind you) and played with the spools of thread and bobbins and made myself a photo. I'll include the setup of the shot, so you can see that I used fishing line to get the bobbins to float in midair like that. I'm only half magician.

I'm going to finish the rainy Saturday by making some banana muffins now.

"Standard" vs. "Artistic" headshots

The general "rule" for photographers when lighting a headshot is to light it evenly, diffuse it nicely, and keep shadows to a minimum. The idea is to take a portrait of someone that shows every inch of their face- because that's what a headshot is-- a photograph of a person that is a clear representation of what they look like, to help casting directors, agents and anyone looking at the photo know who that person is.

So most of the headshots I take are very bright and lit rather simply and minimally. But that can get boring for me. I didn't spend all that money on cameras, strobes, grids, and fancy electronics to take high school portraits, did I?

To keep me happy as a photographer, I like to try new things and get a little creative with the lighting. After all, "rules" should be in quotation marks, because if you know what they are and why they're there, can't you try breaking them now and then?

So here's the challenge: make a headshot more interesting with a more dynamic lighting setup, but still be true to the headshot's main purpose: to be a clear representation of a person. When you start changing lighting and angles in a photograph, a person's face can appear a little different than it did in the photo before. Our faces are 3D and photos are 2D, so any change in angles and representation will make a person look slightly different... which we don't want in a headshot-- a photo of someone that doesn't look like them.

I was taking headshots for Hannah yesterday, and after taking a majority of the photos in a more "standard" headshot lighting setup, I changed the lighting to make the headshots more "artistic." Hannah asked which would be better for a casting agent.

Good question.

My only answer is whichever photo you are more comfortable giving, and which one you feel looks more like you at your best. If the more "artistic" or interesting-looking headshot still conveys your look, your style, and your attitude, then print that sucker and hand it out. But if you're more comfortable with a "standard" look, then go with that. Some may say that the "artistic-looking" headshots will give you a leg up on a casting director's desk-- if the photo pops, then the person pops too, right? Others might say it's a gamble. But I think as long as a headshot is doing its job, then it's already a winner.

Watery dreams

I was looking through some old photos of mine the other night and then I had weird dreams. I dreamt I had to take photos under water but couldn't keep my eyes open under the water and couldn't find the shutter button for the camera so I had to open my eyes to see it... so I opened my eyes under water and my contacts floated away. When I finally found them, I tried to put them back in my eyes, but they were the size of teacups and too big to put back in.

A friend of mine told me once that if you eat different kinds of cheeses before going to sleep, you'll have strange or intense dreams based on the kind of cheese. Maybe the photos you look at have that same effect. I looked through a file of folders a friend and I took at a hotel swimming pool while we were on a trip, and the contacts-the-size-of-teacups is the dream I ended up with.

Maybe tonight I'll stare at a big chocolate cake and brochures from day spas before heading off to bed...

Yoko Noge: wonderful nutty lady.

For New Years Eve I hopped across town to a handful of parties, and found myself at Galaxie for one- where my friend Harry organized some jazz and swing bands to play for a few hours. Even though I just planned to pop in for a cameo (if I can pretend I'm cool enough to call it a cameo), I really wanted to make it in time to see Yoko Noge's band play.

I'd been following Yoko Noge from afar for a little while- she's a bit of a Chicago mini-legend for playing in the jazz and blues scene for so long. I was also hoping to finally meet her, since Harry knew her and could introduce us. Well I stepped in the door just as she finished belting out her last note. I didn't even have my coat off when I heard over the microphone in the other room: "thank you, you've been great!" and then no more music.

I wandered through the rooms to get myself a drink and as I turned a corner I stopped short and so did Yoko- we nearly ran right into each other. I said "excuse me," and she looked down at my feet and then back up at my torso, pointed, and said, "oh, wow! I love your dress! Sparkly!" Then walked off. Of course, Harry later introduced us formally, but I really like how that was my first in-person encounter with Ms. Yoko Noge herself.

Yesterday, Harry asked me and my roommate to come with him to Andy's Jazz Club, where Yoko and her band play every Monday night. And to also bring my camera to snap a few shots he might be able to use for a new website if he gets around to building it for her. I was glad to do it, and so glad to hear the band. They played some amazing Chicago-style bluesy jazz... but also threw in some traditional Japanese instruments. Some of their songs would start out with the stiff plucking of a Shamisen, or the soft flute-like shakuhachi, then somehow melt into a jazz tune. Seriously, an amazing experience. If she were to pitch the idea to a record producer, they'd call her a nutjob... but when you're there listening to it, it works amazingly well.