Gersh Photo Post | Max Gersh | Multimedia Photojournalist

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.

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.