Dave Smith, Circus Performer #3

Dave Smith from onemansideshow.com posed for me as the next circus performer in my series. Dave had a narrow time frame before jetting off to Europe for a few weeks.

We were trying to get a few good portraits that he could use as some promo shots and we were also looking for detail shots.

Since fire is always eye-catching, I wanted to get some pictures of him doing some fire eating. I thought hard edge light would be a good place to start, so I used a three light setup to grab the shot above and this:



Each of the back lights were into reflectors and a softbox was used for up high. The rim lights were one stop above the main to give some definition and separation against the black background.

I set the lights up while Dave was in the “Juggling Laboratory” beneath the Juggling Studio breaking some bottles with his sledgehammer. He was breaking glass for his amazing feets of strength. This shot was done with backlight to create some highlights on the glass.











My favorite picture of the shoot was the long trail of fire we got with a creative exposure of 2 seconds. Although there is some blur, we got this one in 2 tries. The single light froze the action while the fire exposed itself throughout the range of motion.


Click to see the slideshow of my favorite shots from this session.

Performance Lab

I have been taking a bunch of photographs in the new Performance Lab, a state of the art exercise science and sports medicine facility in Cherry Hill, NJ. Today, we photographed a VO2max test in progress.



Simple lighting, using a softbox on the right and a blue gelled flash as a rim.

Wissahickon Portraits

We took advantage of the balmy Sunday to hike and play in Valley Green. I've never seen valley green so busy. The foliage was mostly gone, but Ben had fun near the creek and the dams.

Fitness Shoot!

In anticipation of the opening of The Performance Lab in Cherry Hill, I have been taking pictures to use for ads. I was so inspired by shooting running and cycling models that I wanted to have another photo shoot with a fitness theme.

My model for the shoot was Kimberly Tosoian, a former dancer, soccer player and recreational athlete who is also a fabulous fitness model.

Like any photo shoot, I try to mix up the lighting, some dark and some bright with different colored lights to match the feel or the wardrobe. Kim multiple outfits which gave us lots of choices.

First, we went with a running shoot on the track. I chose to go low key to send the background into darkness. To add some separation, I used a yellow gel to complement her black and yellow outfit.



The lighting setup was soft in front from a softbox with a gridded light for a rim from the back. A separate flash with a yellow gel was aimed at the back wall.









Next up was a workout inspired shoot that would look right at home in a national fitness magazine. I wanted the background to be brighter than the foreground so a aimed a strobe at the weight rack and the mirror behind it. This provided the nice rim light. A reflector in close provided fill. The softbox above left was the main light and set to be less bright than the background light.



The left side of Kim's face was still going dark, so I placed a shoot through umbrella with a flash in the back of camera right for some extra fill.

The whole series of shoots from the different poses and outfits can be seen on this page

Ch..ch..ch..changes

Arguably one of the best things about having to dig out from snowstorms and deal with cold mornings and frost on the windshield is the change of seasons and the feelings that we have with each season. Hope and optimism in the spring, long sunsets and fun in the summer, the awe at the beauty of the changing leaves and dramatic skies in the fall and the solemnity which greets us after the leaves are gone. I dug through the archives of art and landscape photography and pulled up a few of the pictures that reminded me of some of these feelings.

The slide show is here. Or if you prefer HTML, look here.

Go Philles!

The Phillies are to my 6 year old son what the 1977 Yankees were to me as a 6 year old growing up in a NYC suburb.

Here's what leftovers look like to a six year old during the World Series.

Happy Halloween

I'm not sure when the "Halloween Parade" became a big thing at schools, but everyone seemed to be ducking out of work to watch their children's parade of costumes. Luckily, I wasn't working on Friday, so I didn't have to shoulder the guilt of slipping away. I met my son and his class as they walked to their Halloween activities at the upper school and then had just enough time to hit the coffee shop before they came back to their classroom for more Halloween related festivities. The slideshow is here



Since Trick or Treating was rainy, I didn't set up any lights like I did two years ago.











I did, however shoot the boys on a white seamless background in the photo studio. That's Putting on his best performance as GI Joe. And yes, that really is Jake as IronMan. I didn't just post a shot from the costume website.

Circus Performer, Shoot 3

Today I shot with local juggling wunderkind, Kyle Driggs. Kyle performs locally as an associate of the Give and Take Jugglers and practices in the rehearsal space they share with Greg Kennedy

Kyle wanted something that was different from the ordinary “promotional portrait” so we took some more “moody”, almost film-noir juggling portraits.

One of the most difficult parts about shooting aerialists is that the rope suspending them keeps twisting (thankfully, the static trapeze is really static). One of the most difficult parts of shooting jugglers is getting the objects that are being juggled to be in the right place, especially not in front of the face. If I saw the right composition in the viewfinder, I knew I missed the shot because those balls and clubs move pretty fast.

For lighting, I chose two flashes 45 degrees behind Kyle and one 45 degrees off to the side for Rembrandt style lighting with strong rim light. I wanted to keep the light restricted so that we could get some good motion blur when the balls and clubs were out of the zone of light and not being lit.

We started off with some club juggling and I soon realized that I would need to shoot wide. Here’s a shot from the first series.



I really like the expression and how Kyle seems to be communicating with the club.














Behind the back…behind the other back. I slowed down the shutter a lot to get the ghosting and motion blur.










Next we tried shooting from up high to give some forced perspective as the objects gained height. With a wide lens, the high objects would look bigger.

I changed the lighting to hatchet lighting with a strong rim light. I really like the way the light on the balls matches the light on his face.


One of the problems I was having was that I was losing the balls into the shadows high above Kyle. Even with a shutter speed of 1/8 second, there was not enough ambient light to capture the balls. I added another gridded light off to camera right so that the balls could at least be caught in silhouette. The uppermost circle of light is the daylight coming through the door of the studio. The lower circle is from a flash with a grid.

Here's a slideshow of the whole series.

Circus Performer, Shoot 2

I've been looking to take some cool portraits of circus performers all summer. Since the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts is close by, I've been trying to shoot aerialists. Yesterday I shot with T. Lawrence Simon.

I was trying to capture motion, produce some portraits with his favorite apparatus as well as portray his personality.



In this picture, I really liked the use of negative space as well as the serious look he was using. Sort of like Atlas, holding the weight of the world on his shoulders, T. is posing with the hoop, his favorite apparatus.

To keep with the serious tone, I lit this with a softbox high to camera right and a silver reflector for fill camera left. The wall in the background is a light purple which became gray since it was not lit by the softbox.



T. was telling me that the reason he chose the hoop as his aerial specialty was to spin. Even as a child, he loved to spin around. I wanted to catch him spinning, and be able to show motion at the same time.

To do this, I chose a slow shutter speed, in this case 1/20th of a second, and aimed a narrow spot of strobe at his face. To narrow the beam, I attached a grid to the light and I tried to trigger the flash as his face moved around. I have a lot of shots of his back.

Lastly, I wanted a portrait that was lighter than the first one. To do this, I knew I wanted a white background which I achieved by hitting the brick wall behind him with a lot of light. This made the wall go white. I got some reflected highlights on T by shooting with a meter reading that equaled my exposure reading behind him. I then set a light with a grid to that reading and aimed it at his face. Here's the result.



You can see the entire set of photos here

Handwork Studio Fashion Boot Camp

Welcome Desgners! to Michael j Ross Photography!

Here are the photos from the Handwork Studio's Fashion Boot Camp. I had a great time shooting all of the designers/models. I hope you enjoy the pictures: