Denny Henry

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

 Recently I shot some images for an annual report.  The shoot was schedulued last minute and had three locations for pictures.  The biggest part (or at least the part with the most equipment to lug) was for headshots of the board of the agency.

 The image below is one I shot while setting up. It's of my friend, a fellow photographer, Harry Chun who was helping me carry gear and set up. 

Portrait of Harry Chun

Over the past few months I've been very interested in making portriats of people.

This is a portrait of Jackie taken in open shade against a white seamless.

Jacqulyn Maisonneuve

I went to New York recently to visit my great-uncle Norm. We spent the afternoon catching up, and I shot a few 4x5 portraits of him.

Norman in his apartment in New York City.