Gersh Photo Post | Max Gersh | Multimedia Photojournalist

I’m working on updating photos on my website. I started by adding a “Sportrait” category since I have shot so many in recent months.

One I added was of New Castle baseball player Caylor Escalante.

We first started in the dugout with the team name, Trojans, behind him. After we finished that shot, he told me that he spent about 50 hours painting that by himself.

Caylor Escalante (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

Next, we went out to second base, his position on the field. I laid down in the dirt to get the right angle but the shot turned out pretty cool.

Caylor Escalante (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

To see my new Sportrait gallery, head on over to my main website.

June seemed to be a good month for images. On top of some of the others that I’ve already posted, here are a handful more.

Without question, the newsiest thing to happen to New Castle this month was a roof collapse. Big Bounce Inflatables, a local children’s attraction, had its roof cave in one afternoon with people inside. No one was seriously injured but the building had to be bull dozed down to ensure there were no further collapses. I arrived on the scene about the same time as emergency responders.

City Building Commissioner Les Hall, right, walks around Big Bounce after its roof collapsed Thursday afternoon. There were five people inside at the time of the collapse. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

Jim and Bonnie Henson take photographs of Big Bounce as emergency workers barricade the streets after its roof collapsed. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

Wastewater Treatment Plant workers place barricade the roads around the Big Bounce Thursday afternoon after the roof collapsed. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

An Indianapolis based civil engineer searches through rubble at the site where Big Bounce Inflatables collapsed Thursday afternoon. He said that it is difficult to distinguish what damage was done during the collapse from what was done by bulldozers. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

As hard as I try to get to spot news quickly, sometimes I just can’t get there fast enough. For example, a motorcycle caught on fire one afternoon. My route was plagued with stop signs and red lights. By the time I got there, the bike was extinguished.

Vaughn Reid Jr. looks down at a motorcycle that had caught on fire Thursday night shortly after the bike had been extinguished. The motorcycle was supposed to be sold later the same evening.(C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

The last thing you think of with a parade is rain. During this year’s Memorial Day parade in Middletown, it hardly let up. Wet streets, diffused skies and umbrellas all can be beneficial to photo composition.

U.S. Marines carry flags down Main Street in Middletown Tuesday evening as part of the parade during the Middletown Lions Club Fair. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

A woman watches the parade from a balcony Tuesday evening as part of the Middletown Lions Club Fair. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

With Memorial Day comes the opening of swimming season. Of course I have to make the obligatory pool feature shot.

Jae Williams, six months, swims with her mother, Marquetta, and father, James Wednesday afternoon in the Aquatic Center at Baker Park. The Williams' moved to New Castle in January and this is Jae's first season in a pool. "We'll be out here every day it doesn't rain," said James Williams. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

I’ve started shooting more sportraits as the school athletic seasons winded down. Here was one of local track star J.T. Griggs.

Blue River Valley's J.T. Griggs leaps a hurdle June 25 at the BRV track. Griggs won three events in the Henry County track meet this year. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

With budget cuts running rampant, it came as little surprise that the New Castle Community School Corporation decided to close Greenstreet Elementary School after this school year. It wasn’t easy for many of the students or teachers on the last day of school.

Fourth grade Greenstreet Elementary School teacher Aaron Benson waits at the door to hugs students as they leave Tuesday after their final classes. Students are being spread between three area schools after budget cuts forced the school corporation to close Greenstreet after this school year. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

My paper has started a project called 20 under 40. Citizens under 40 years old were nominated for profile pieces that would appear in our paper.

Each one needs a storytelling portrait.

It has presented a unique opportunity to really think on my feet for a good environmental portrait for so many different professions. We are only half way through the project and I haven’t shot every single one that has been published. Here are a few of my favorites thus far.

Each portrait delivered a new set of challenges. For this portrait of Jerry Ingalls, senior pastor at First Baptist Church, I had to find a location that focused on him but still had a churchy feel. When he told me about how he really likes to interact with his congregation, I thought it would be best to sit him in the pews near some stained glass.

I try to pay a little extra attention to the details with portraits. For example, I didn’t want a big highlight from my strobe (I used my DIY beauty dish on all of these) on the stained glass so I had to angle it just right. Also, I positioned myself so the pew on the right hid an electrical outlet on the wall.

Jerry Ingalls came to New Castle in January of 2010 to lead the First Baptist Church as senior pastor. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

For some of these portraits, I had very little time to work with the subject. For example, I met up with Dr. Damion Harris at his work during his clinic hours. Needless to say, he wanted to be in and out. He mentioned that he could pull up an x-ray on his computer and we went with it. Within five minutes, we were done.

Dr. Damion Harris is an orthopedic surgeon at the Forest Ridge Medical Pavilion. Harris came to the New Castle facility about seven months ago and specializes in shoulders. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

Reflections were again a huge issue while photographing Adam Bowman in Myers Furniture and Appliance. The light had to be just right to minimize huge glares. It was also interesting trying to balance the exposure on him and on the surrounding HDTVs in a very dimly lit room.

Adam Bowman is head of electronics at Myers Furniture and Appliance in New Castle. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

Weather was the tricky factor for Lindsay Brown’s portrait. It stormed very heavily the morning of the shoot. I wasn’t sure what was going to be happening by the time of we met up. The clouds broke and we had sun. Lots of sun. So much sun that I had to shoot at ISO 50 and f/8 to get my shutter slow enough to sync with my flash  (1/250th sec) which I needed to fill in shadows.

Lindsay Brown has been working at Henry County Hospital for almost five years, currently working in the emergency room as a nurse. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

For Seth Stevens, the biggest challenge I thought I would be facing was the location. When I heard banker, I immediately wanted to shoot by or in the vault. I was almost certain they wouldn’t allow it for security reasons. But it never hurts to ask.

Seth Stevens is the business development officer for Citizen's State Bank in New Castle. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

I still have more portraits to shoot in the coming weeks so I look forward to seeing what kind of fresh ideas I come up with.

The sports department has kept me busy recently. On top of regular feature stories here and there, the paper is running articles on the players of the year from each sport. I’ve shot so many sports portraits that I tried to coin the phrase “sportrait.” (Don’t forget my underwater portrait of the two swimmers or the group shot of wrestlers.)

Unfortunately, it only takes a quick Google search to see that I was not the first to be so clever.

I’m fortunate that I get to do all of my sportraits as environmental portraits. I have a tremendous amount of leeway in how I shoot it.

There are a few things I look for when doing an environmental portrait.

1. Dynamic lighting
2. Clean or purposely integrated background
3. Something that ties the subject to their sport or profession
4. Probably some other stuff that I notice subconsciously

That being said, sometimes that isn’t so easy to do.

Many of the locations I’ve been shooting at are indoors in a cluttered room. I have a few options. I can either overpower the ambient light with my own lighting or alter my shooting angle to fill the background with a clean area of wall, floor or ceiling. Or in some cases, both techniques used in tandem work best.

In a recent portrait of a swimmer, I stood on a bench and shot at a slight downward angle with my 70-200mm lens to compress the subject, William Kelsik, against the pool in the background.

William Kelsik - Swimmer at New Castle Chrysler High School. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

The free space to the left provided a nice balance of negative space and gave the ambiance of a pool because it is a pool. When it went to print, we used that area to run the beginning of the story.

B1 of The Courier-Times on March 11, 2010. ©2010

On another outing, I was sent to photograph former Tri High coach Don Schwarzkopf.  The school school board had voted to rename the gym after him. Great. I’ll get a shot of him in the gym.

It’s never that easy.

Of course, there were multiple activities on the court. Instead, I went to the upper deck of the seating which was halfway compressed (collapsible bleachers compressed for storage) and left maybe two feet of room to work side to side.

I tried to frame him the best I could with his sectional championship banners in the background.

Former Tri coach Don Schwarzkopf looks out at the high school basketball court with three sectional championship banners hanging in the background. Schwarzkopf won all three of the titles. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

No matter how much I want to be in control of every portrait I shoot in terms of lighting, apparel and location, I can’t always have it my way.

For almost a week, I had a scheduled portrait set up with Shenandoah High School’s star diver, Kate Hillman. I showed up on time with all of my equipment. I went to the school’s office and had them page her.

When she came in and saw me with my gear, she said “Oh my gosh. It’s Tuesday, isn’t it!”

Yes it was. And she had locked her keys and swim apparel in her car. Oh well.

The original idea for the portrait was to have her in her swim gear in the halls of the school. Shenandoah doesn’t have a pool for her to practice in so she drives to a pool nearly half an hour away. We wanted to illustrate a swimmer without a pool.

Instead, I just posed her in the halls of the school as she was.

Shenandoah's Kate Hillman will dive for Indiana University next season. Hillman finished second in the state this season in diving. She also set an Indiana High School record in the sport this season. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

I wanted a backup option for this shoot. Since I couldn’t have any swim gear or a pool, I wanted something that had the schools name on it. We headed to the gym. At center court, the name Shenandoah wraps around in an arc.

An alternative portrait option of Shenandoah's Kate Hillman (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

This image clearly wasn’t as strong of a portrait as the first but I always like to have multiple options to present.

My latest shoot has definitely been my most difficult. A portrait of a gymnast. The problem is that I know very little about gymnastics and I am not sure how to best make an image that represents the sport and the subject.

I spent quite a bit of time with the subject, Ashlan Millikan, to ensure I made satisfactory images.

At first, I had her practice parts of her floor routine while I had my light aimed at her. As she interacted with it, I fired.

Ashlan Millikan poses parts of her floor routine in the path of my light. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

I knew an image like this was usable but I was not satisfied. I wanted something more dynamic. We headed over to the beam.

She began to practice parts of her routine. When I saw something that I thought might work, I had her do it a few times to insure I had a sharp image.

New Castle's Ashlan Millikan practices a move on the beam Wednesday afternoon. Millikan will be competing in the all-around competition in the state tournament this weekend. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

This ended up being the lead art for the sports page.

I wanted to have a backup image so I took a photograph that was more portrait-esque. That image ended up running as secondary art.

Ashlan Millikan poses for a portrait on the beam in New Castle's gymnastics room. (C-T photo Max Gersh) ©2010

Like I said, I’ve been busy.

Most of these images were lit with my DIY Beauty Dish. The light was set up on a stand and fired by Pocket Wizard.

Let’s just say I was bored the other night. I decided to shoot a self portrait.

The idea was to capture an image of myself off the ground glass in my Hasselblad 500 C/M. I had done something similar when I was testing the Hasselblad.

Looking down at the ground glass of a 1976 Hasselblad 500 C/M at a stream in Potosi, MO. ©2009 Max Gersh

So, I began to setup.

I sat the Hasselblad on the table and aimed it at my recliner. It was important to have both the focus of the Hasselblad and the capturing camera, my Canon 1D Mark II, sharp. To pre-focus the Hasselblad, I laid a newspaper over the headrest on the recliner. The contrasty text made for a great focus chart.

Next was to position my 1D Mark II.

I knew I would need a unique positioning so I took out my Magic Arm, a multi-jointed camera mount. I carefully positioned it directly over the focusing screen of the Hasselblad.

I was shooting with the Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L lens. This gave me a bit of versatility once I had the Magic Arm locked down.

I wanted the image to be spot lit. I put my Canon 550ex Speedlight on a stand and attached the Gary Fong PowerSnoot. To fire it, I used my Pocket Wizards.

I took a few test shots to fine tune the exposure.

The portrait itself looked okay but I wanted to see more of the Hasselblad. I took out a red LED flashlight and sat it on top of an old cheapo zoom lens to angle it at the lens of the Hasselblad.

Here is what the setup looked like.

The setup for the self-portrait. ©2010 Max Gersh

The flash is to the left and about eight feet up.

I was worried about the Magic Arm tipping over so I placed a somewhat heavy box on the back of its tripod base as a counter-weight.

When all was said and done, the portrait turned out kind of cool.

A self-portrait of Max Gersh seen through the ground glass of a Hasselblad 500 C/M. ©2010 Max Gersh

It was completely overkill and unnecessary.

But like I said, I was bored.