Gersh Photo Post | Max Gersh | Multimedia Photojournalist

I went to the St. Louis Pride Fest in Tower Grove Park earlier today with the express purpose of taking quick portraits of attendees.

From the moment that I started photographing each subject, I tried to spend no more than 30 seconds taking pictures of them. This was partially as a courtesy to them but more as a drill for myself. I wanted to see if I could light quickly with my beauty dish to an acceptable level.

If you are one of the subjects in these photos and are interested in buying prints or digital copies, please contact me.

St. Louis Pride Fest 2009 ©2009 Max Gersh

St. Louis Pride Fest 2009 ©2009 Max Gersh

St. Louis Pride Fest 2009 ©2009 Max Gersh

St. Louis Pride Fest 2009 ©2009 Max Gersh

St. Louis Pride Fest 2009 ©2009 Max Gersh

St. Louis Pride Fest 2009 ©2009 Max Gersh

St. Louis Pride Fest 2009 ©2009 Max Gersh

St. Louis Pride Fest 2009 ©2009 Max Gersh

St. Louis Pride Fest 2009 ©2009 Max Gersh

St. Louis Pride Fest 2009 ©2009 Max Gersh

St. Louis Pride Fest 2009 ©2009 Max Gersh

I got the chance to test my DIY beauty dish this morning. It worked like a charm!

I once again had my friend Gavin Culbertson stand in for a few quick portraits.

Gavin Culbertson lit by my DIY beauty dish.

He was standing in the shadow with a sun-lit wall behind him. This picture could be improved with a back light but I only have one Speedlight, a Canon 550EX.

I love the circular highlight that shows up in the eyes of the subject.

Gavin Culbertson lit by my DIY beauty dish with circular highlights.

I will need to play with it more but it certainly gives off a nice quality of light. Not bad for a $20 DIY light modifier.

Ever since I discovered what a beauty dish was, I’ve wanted one. The problem is that I don’t have any strobes to use one on. My lighting is limited to a single Canon Speedlight (shoe mounted flash).

How could I produce the look of a beauty dish with my one Speedlight?

Simple. Build a beauty dish to fit.

I’m not the most handy of the handymen. Therefore, instead of designing the dish on my own, I Googled other peoples designs and copied it. I ended up using the one I found on David Tejada’s blog. His looks better (and probably works better too but that is yet to be determined) but I gave it a good effort.

To get most of the parts, I visited Home Depot. The main “dish” is a plastic terracotta planter. I wanted to find a relatively shallow one that was 14″ across but they didn’t have any that size. I ended up getting a deeper one that is about 12″ across.

Next, I headed over to the gutter section. I was looking for what is called a drop out or outlet (I think). While David used a metal one, the only one that fit my Canon 550EX was a plastic one. It doesn’t really make much difference. If you are planning on doing this, bring your Speedlight with you to check the fit.

I then headed to the paint section. I bough a can of flat black spray paint and a can of glossy white spray paint. I figured the gloss might help the light reflect. Maybe not.

After leaving Home Depot, I went to the auto parts store and got a 3 3/4″ blind spot mirror.

When I got home, I began building. I traced the outline of the gutter outlet onto the bottom of the dish. I used a Dremel to cut it out because I could. I imagine a sharp knife would work just as well.

I then also cut the same shape out of the bottom of a CD spool. A little bit of hot glue later, and the dish, the bottom of the CD spool and the gutter outlet were one.

I then spray painted the inside of the dish white and the outside black. I didn’t want an orange dish.

I glued a CD to the inside top of the CD spool. On top of that, I placed that blind spot mirror.

The light will be firing through the back of the dish, which is also firing into the bottom of the CD spool. The light shoots straight at the mirror which spreads it back around the dish which in turn lights the subject.

The beauty dish as seen from the front.

A rear view showing the mount for the Speedlight and also the depth of the dish.

The interior of the dish with the reflector off and set to the side.

I haven’t had an opportunity to test it on a person yet. The one thing I am concerned about is the direction of the light. This is what I would describe as a “shotgun beauty dish.” Its depth makes it a directional light modifier. I am concerned that it wont wrap a subject with light as beauty dishes are known to do.

Just from popping off a few test frames, I have noticed that I do lose about two stops of light.

Hopefully this weekend I will have an opportunity to further test it and see if this is something worth keeping. As soon as I find a wider and shallower planter, I will probably build another one.

This entire build cost me just over $20 but I already had a CD spool.

Over the last week or so, I have found myself working closely with my good friend Gavin Culbertson. It started when I told him how much better I could make his Web site.

You see, Gavin is a cinematographer. When you work in a visual field, the presentation of your portfolio is just as important as its contents. He had a really poorly designed i-Web Web site with great content.

After working for a few hours over the course of two nights, his old site was obliterated and the new and improved site was all that existed.

I did this for him free of charge.  While it was mainly because he is my good friend and his old site was atrocious, it was also my way of thanking him for directing photo work to me.

Gavin is the broadcast assistant at the premiere talent agency in St. Louis, TalentPlus. When actors come in, he can recommend me for head shots.

While Gavin had seen a lot of my work (we have known each other for five years), I wanted to reassure him that directing traffic my way was not a bad idea. I proved that to him by giving him a complimentary portrait session.

Portrait of Gavin Culbertson in Tower Grove Park ©2009 Max Gersh

Portrait of Gavin Culbertson in Tower Grove Park ©2009 Max Gersh

He was happy with the results.

There are many videos linked in this post.
All of them are in HD and will take some time to load.
If the video is laggy, pause it and let it load before you try and watch it.
They are all worth the wait to watch.

A few months ago, multimedia photojournalism was revolutionized. Canon released the first ever full 1080P HD video camera that was integrated into a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) body - the EOS 5D Mark II. It is a terrific tool. A photographer can utilize this camera as a 21 megapixel still camera or as a high definition video camera.

It wasn’t long after the release of the camera that beautiful videos were hitting the web. The first and probably most famous yet was Reverie shot by Vincent Laforet. It showcased the cameras abilities by shooting at night with Canon still lenses ranging from Fisheye lenses to a 500mm lens and even a couple perspective correction lenses. It was not photojournalism nor was it intended to be.

The next video that caught my eye was that of German photographer Julian Stratenschulte. He did two videos on cyclists. They were unique because he was able to attach the camera to the bikes. One of his videos was called Backflip and the other was called Nachtfahrer. To view them, click on the movies link on his site. The last two videos (the ones sponsored by Canon) are those two.

At this point, everyone in the photo community was blown away by the abilities packed into this small camera. It was still yet to be seen how it would be used for photojournalism.

That is when I came across the work of David Stephenson, a staff photojournalist for the Lexington Herald-Leader and the photojournalism adviser to the Kentucky Kernel, the University of Kentucky’s student paper. He put it to the test for a photojournalist. Here is the video:

David Stephenson wrote his review of the camera on his blog.

Now I don’t bring this video to you to argue its technical execution or use of light and lenses. I think it was shot beautifully. My concerns come with the way the story was told.

With the advent of new technology in photojournalism, journalists have to be more careful than ever to maintain objectivity.

If you look at any of my multimedia pieces, you will see that I let the subject tell the story. Narration or title slides are sometimes necessary but I try to avoid that. My way isn’t the only way and it is probably not the best way. But it is an objective way.

David Stephenson did a great job of gathering beautiful shots. The problem is that most of the video was narrated by a reporter. While I’m sure unintentionally, her tone was one that makes you sympathize with the boy and his family’s story. It worked. That should not have been the job of the story.

Photojournalists are there to inform. Not to take sides. We are used to carefully crafting pictures and words to meet a strict objectivity guideline. Slight changes in tonality and word spacing in narration can change the connotation of the message.

I don’t think any damage was done with this video. It is a happy story with beautiful imagry. It just makes me think about how video and multimedia will evolve photojournalism and if advocacy journalism is on the rise. My good friend Lanz Bañes hopes so.