The 3 Min Portrait or, The Saving Grace

We were at this very special place that my good bud Joe McNally told me about here in ME. He threw me a lifeline bless him, and at first, I didn’t grab it. But in that process of throwing me a line he also threw me a challenge, get a portrait of Andy. Why was that a challenge, well you need to know Andy to understand that. At first, Andy turned me down cold. Being a guest at his very cool place, I didn’t push which is staying in my comfort zone. I was going to do a brief flash lighting demo for the class using it to teach light more than flash. The demo was scheduled for 5PM, I had 90min to get ready.

After dorking around outside, I headed in to see what a couple of the students were doing. I found Sharon and my MMW assistant in the “shop” talking with Andy. I stopped, thought about what I’ve learned from Joe and the challenge and engaged Andy in conversation. He had in a back room a old radial plane engine and I asked what was the story. He told me it was from a B-29, that he used to have two and sold one and kept the other one because his dad flew in a B-29 in WWII. I asked where, and he said in the far east. I said my dad was in a B-29 at Clark, and asked where was his dad stationed. In Saipan. We instantly formed a bond talking about our dad’s WWII exploits. I made contact with my subject on a personal level, right out of McNally’s playbook. As you can see, I got Andy for 3 min (and made a new friend!) and it was the best 3 min of the day!

The photo itself is pretty straight forward. I have minimal lighting gear with me, SB-900, SD9 & 24″ EzyBox with SU800. That’s what Andy is lit with. Jim in the group had a Tri-Grip & SB-800 with 1/2cut CTO so that lit the back left truck. Another Jim had another SB-800 and that lit the other side of the truck. Not happy with the highlights on the tank. The last flash was an SB-900 was set to 200mm to light the truck globe behind Andy. All TTL driven, pretty darn simple, the 3 min portrait.

Thanks Andy and thanks Joe!

Photo captured by photographer with head reattached