Denny Henry

 Last week I got a last minute corporate photo assignment to shoot a cultural event for interns that are spending a semester in Washington.  Most of the students were from outside the United States, and the idea of the festival was that they would all share the culture of the countries they're from. By the end of the night, about half the crowd was signing and dancing, which made for fun shooting.

Before every shoot, I have some idea of the types of images I'm going to be making or looking for.  On some shoots such as portraits and weddings, I have very specific ideas of what's needed.  Other times I have a more general idea of what the final product is going to be, and have to see what I can do on the spot. 

Every so often I come across images that aren't really what I was looking for, and don't fit the assignment, but I have to shoot it anyway. 

One of my favorite things about shooting for The Corcoran is that I get to meet great artists.  Listening to each artist in their own words gives a more complete picture of how they view their field and a better insight into their own thought process.  Thomas Demand was one of the more soft spoken artists I've met at The Corcoran, but listening to him gave me a lot to think about while pursuing my own photography. 

Thomas Demand works with photography in his art, but specifically stated that he doesn't consider himself a photographer.  Demand is fairly critical of many of the conventions of photography.

He spent the better part of an afternoon meeting with the photo seniors and discussing their work.  He didn't hide his opinions, or beliefs about photography, and offered candid advice that would push the students farther with their work. 

The below portrait is of Susan Sterner, the head of the photojournalism program at The Corcoran college of Art + Design.  She was also my teacher when I was a student there. 

It can be nerve racking enough photographing other photographers, but I think it's even worse when that photographer is a former teacher. 

I started with two ideas for the portraits that would relate to Susan's involvement in Photography.  The first idea was to shoot her in a studio environment, and to include the strobes and seamless as part of the setting for the portrait.

The second setup was to use a 4x5 Crown Graphic to shoot a tight shot of her face with a very shallow depth of field.  I set up against a white stucco wall with a large window to the left of the camera.  The image on the bottom shows me focusing the 4x5 camera.

Susan Sterner

Behind the scenes image by Jacqulyn Maisonneuve

Update on Friday, March 5, 2010 at 8:00AM by Denny

More behind the scenes photos can be seen on Jacqulyn Maisonneuve's blog. 

As part of an ongoing effort to update their website and other collateral materials I have been shooting portraits of various staff and faculty members of The Corcoran. 

This portrait is of Kerry McAleer-Keeler, the woman who is in charge of the Corcoran's Art and the Book Master's program.  We shot the image in the Corcoran's letterpress studio in their Georgetown campus.  The studio is filled with racks of type setting pieces as well as presses to use them on.  All of the equipment in the room made for a nice backdrop, but makes it fairly cramped to set up lighting and shoot in. 

Chair of the Corcoran Bookarts department Kerry McAleer-Keeler

I set up two locations in the room to get different styles of portraits.  The picture below shows the setup used for the image above.  The setup was fairly simple, consisting of a bowens monolight in a medium softbox above the camera and a reflector underneath. I tried to maximize the space I had to work with, and ended up setting up some of my equipment over top the presses. 

Behind the scenes image by Jacqulyn Maisonneuve