Gersh Photo Post | Max Gersh | Multimedia Photojournalist

If there was one valuable thing about photography that I learned in college, it was the science behind lighting.  Understanding the inverse square law and how multiple lights can affect an image proved to be invaluable to me.

While I was at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I had an editor give me the idea of shooting a food set with multi-point lighting. The basic multi-point setup includes three lights. One each to the left and right and one from behind. The problem is I only have one light - my Canon 550EX Speedlight.

While I was realizing how impossible this was with my gear, my editor opened my eyes. Why not set the camera on a tripod and shoot a long exposure. During that time, I can walk around with my flash off of the camera and fire it manually multiple times from multiple angles.

Voila. Max’s quick and easy multi-point lighting was born.

The one problem with it is that it is very hard to replicate an image. You can never get the light exactly where it was before. This is one of those situations where you shoot a lot with a general idea and hope for the best.

The first time I attempted and accomplished this technique was exactly one year ago on location at a Brazilian restaurant in the Central West End of St. Louis called Coco Louco Brasil.

Monday February 16, 2009 Coco Louco Brasil Foreground: Espeto Misto - kabob with pricanah (brazilian steak), smoked sausage, shrimp, filet mignon wrapped in bacon, chicken wrapped in bacon, onions Background: Tostada de Camarão - shrimp sauteed in Bobo sauce served on toasted garlic bread. Max Gersh | Post-Dispatch ©2009

For that shot, the camera was set for a four second exposure at f/16 and ISO 100. If I remember accurately, I fired the flash three to four times.

Coincidentally, I used the same technique today.

I was given the last minute assignment to shoot a group of local high school wrestlers that have advanced to the state championships. I wanted to isolate them in the image. I turned off all of the lights in the room and fired the flash twice - once from each side.

New Castle wrestlers (left to right) Connor Mullins, Brenden Campbell, Alex Catron and Cody Fellers will compete Friday and possibly Saturday in the Indiana High School Athletic Association state championships. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

This time, the camera was set to a two second exposure at f/8 and ISO 400. I also was using the Gary Fong PowerSnoot on my flash.

With one light and forward thinking, any image is possible.

Cell phones are everywhere. Most people have one. Many people have more than one. It should come as no surprise to me for people to be using their phones in my pictures.

As a society, we are now used to seeing citizens take out their phones to snap pictures at the passing by celebrity or even from the upper deck at a sporting event. National Geographic even published a book on how to optimize your cell phone photography.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008 Fans embrace Will Smith as he exits the St. Louis Post-Dispatch building Wednesday afternoon. One fan in the lower section of this image can be seen photographing Smith with a cell phone. Max Gersh | Post-Dispatch ©2008

But is it always appropriate to be on your phone? Does it sometimes go beyond what social etiquette deems acceptable?

I want to say upfront that I pass no judgment on the people in these photos. I have no idea what is considered acceptable in their fields. These images just struck me as peculiar.

This first photo is from St. Louis on the Martin Luther King Bridge. There was a fatal car accident. I was shooting from the MetroLink station in Illinois just south of the bridge.

The police officer in the photo had already taken what I presume were the official photos of the scene with a DSLR. Then, it appeared as if he were taking shots of the wreckage with his cell phone.

Friday, December 5, 2008 A police officer holds up his cell phone at the scene on an early-morning fatal accident that blocked all traffic on the Martin Luther King bridge. Max Gersh | Post-Dispatch ©2008

Today while photographing a meeting of the New Castle/Henry County Economic Development Corp. (EDC), one of the panel members seemed to have trouble staying off of his phone.

Scott Hayes, right, a New Castle-Henry County Economic Development Corp. board member, talks on Monday about problems the EDC has with a proposal for an economic development alliance while County Commissioners Kim Cronk and Bill Cronk listen. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

These photos have no significant meaning other than the included cell phone usage caught me off  guard.

Again I want to stress that I pass no judgment on the people in these photos. I don’t know if there was something of the utmost importance that couldn’t wait. I just felt like sharing these images to see if anyone else had to think twice about the situation.

Like I said in my previous post, I enjoy the challenge that comes with newspaper photojournalism. There is something different to shoot every day and I am obligated to make it visually appealing.

Earlier this week, I was given the task to photograph two high school swimmers that made it to the state finals. The reporter was meeting them at the beginning of their swim practice. I think he was under the impression that I would come and take a standard environmental portrait.

I decided to try something a little different.

When I was thinking about an environmental portrait, I came to the conclusion that their environment was in the pool, not at the pool. I wanted to take an underwater portrait.

I can’t afford an underwater housing for my camera so I had to improvise. One 10-gallon aquarium later, I was ready to go.

I set the camera longways in the aquarium with a 24-70mm lens attached and set at 24mm. The camera was triggered by a Pocket Wizard which in turn fired my 550EX Speedlight flash.

Because I was uncertain how the water would scatter my light, I wanted to do my best to directionalize my flash. I attached a Gary Fong PowerSnoot which turned my flash into a high-powered spotlight.

After a little experimentation, I got a shot I was satisfied with.

New Castle swimmers Aimee Haddix, left, and Hannah Espiritu pose for an underwater photo at Parkview Pool. The two swimmers are competing in today's state final. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

Is this perfect? Not by a long shot.

The biggest problem is just what I expected. The lighting. I feel that I probably needed at least one more light. It would also have been preferable to have those lights underwater somehow. That would require making a much more complex rig but might be something I try in the future.

The least of my worries was having my camera go underwater. The aquarium was so buoyant that it was actually a little difficult to keep submerged to the top of the lens. I had the writer that was with me apply a decent bit of pressure to keep it down.

I will consider this first attempt at an underwater portrait a success but I can’t wait to try again and put some new ideas to the test.

So that was one situation this week where I tried something a little different. The other is a little more practical.

The paper is doing a story on the St. Anne Catholic Church. A few years ago, an arsonist burned the church down. It has taken three years to rebuild. I was granted a sneak peak and I wanted to show everyone what the inside looked like.

It would have been easy enough to go up on the balcony and take a wide angle photo and squeeze as much in to the photograph as I could.

A view of the new St. Anne Catholic Church from the balcony. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

Even in this image shot at 24mm, there is so much of the church that is unseen.

I went out to my car and got my tripod. From the back row of pews, I started panning and tilting, taking incremental photos - 24 total.

I took those 24 separate photos and stitched them into a panorama that covered more than 180 degrees laterally.

The interior of the new St. Anne Catholic Church is seen in this photo illustration showing approximately a 180-degree view. The image was composed from 24 separate photos. (C-T photo illustration Max Gersh) ©2010

This photo will be running six columns across the page on today’s paper.

In an effort to maintain journalistic credibility, I do list this image as a photo illustration. Since this isn’t a capture of one moment in time, it has to be that way. Otherwise I risk compromising my ethics by misrepresenting a scene.

Part of my job as a photojournalist is to show you something you might not ordinarily see. That might be changing angles or getting somewhere you can’t. I think both of these images do that.

Let’s hope I don’t run out of fresh ideas. Any suggestions for what to try next?

I’ve always been a supporter of the idea that it is the photographer that makes the image and not the camera that he/she uses. While my close friends constantly hear me praise Canon and bash Nikon (jokingly, of course), a good photographer can make a dynamite image with a disposable film camera.

That being said, I had an opportunity to shoot with a fantastic camera - the Pentax K-7. This is Pentax’s ultra-rugged flagship camera. Considering that I learned photography on a Pentax ME Super, this was a very welcome homecoming to Pentax for me.

While I didn’t get to test the dust, weather or cold resistance of this camera, I did get to shoot a handful of portraits with it. I paired it with a Pentax 50-135 f/2.8 DA* lens and a Pentax AF-540FGZ flash used in wireless mode off camera. For a few shots, I even used the kit 18-55 WR lens. I had no trouble picking up the entire system on the fly and sincerely enjoyed the results.

The 14.6 megapixel files aren’t given any justice on this blog, but take my word for it that they are stunning.

Gavin Culbertson and Yuefeng Deng - Shot on the Pentax K-7 with the 50-135 DA* lens. © 2009 Max Gersh

Gavin Culbertson and Yuefeng Deng - Shot on the Pentax K-7 with the18-55 WR lens. © 2009 Max Gersh

Have you ever wondered what the St. Louis Gateway Arch and its surroundings would look like if it were its own planet?

Probably not…But I did.

Today, I went down to the Arch grounds with the express purpose of making a 360 degree panorama and warping it into a two-dimensional globe. I only had a vague idea of what I was doing.

Just like any panorama, it is best to set your camera on a tripod to get equal and level rotations. I set my Canon EOS 1D Mark II on the tripod and took pictures in a full circle with the camera leveled. I then made a second and a third pass, one with a high angle of view and one with a lower angle.

This was tedious. I had to make sure there was some overlap so the photo stitching would be easier. It wasn’t long before my friend, Gavin, had a better suggestion for capturing the angles.

He recommended putting my camera in full motor drive (8.5 frames per second on my camera) and just spin it quickly while running a circle around the tripod. This worked like a charm capturing at very even and overlapping intervals.

After capturing 89 frames, I rushed home to see my finished product.

I opened Photoshop’s photomerge program and set it to auto. I figured that I could fine tune the problem spots by hand.

An hour later, my straightened 360 panorama was complete.  One step remained. Stretch the image so it is equal in height and width and then run a Polar Coordinates filter on it.

After all that work, I was tremendously disappointed.

Photoshopped version of the 360 panoramic of the St. Louis Arch grounds. Photoshop left sloppy merge lines and caused significant distortion. ©Max Gersh 2009

That is when I decided to edit it a different way. I had read about a method of 360 photo merging called stereographic projection. In essence, it is a way of wrapping the images without distortion around a circular (almost spherical) plane. That yielded much better results.

Stereographic projection of the 360 panoramic of the St. Louis Arch grounds. All merge lines have vanished and the distortion is so minimal that you can even clearly see my friend sitting on the grass meditating. ©Max Gersh 2009

One St. Louis themed Little Planet / Wee Planet / Stereographic Projection down. The rest of the town to go.