Studio Thoughts - David Anthony Williams

I’m going to share my experience of a small studio. Obviously, if you plan on a ‘get-em-in, get-em-out’ studio – your choices and needs will be different. And I can’t help you there.

A studio is just a room. It’s just a room where we make pictures. Any room is a studio. Bear with me here….

If you walk into a studio (which is after-all only a room) and the background is set up at one end, ‘where must the camera go?’, ‘where must the lights go?’, and ‘where do your subjects go?’

Forgive me for raising my voice here but: WHERE is the creativity?

I simply have a room. I can move chairs, couches and tables – the walls are ragged/painted. If I need a light, I set one up.

Think of it this way…how many of us love shooting location work? Why? I would suggest it’s because we photograph in depth. My studio does that precisely because I have no fixtures that dictate to me what I must do.

Find a building or room that faces north. Use daylight. Frontally, or side or whatever.

Use one studio light with a dirty great big softbox or preferably a Larson starfish or equivalent. One light.
Use silver (not gold, not white) reflectors.
Did I mention use one light? (There is only one in the sky).

Do NOT bolt anything to your ceiling or walls – do NOT use scissor lifts etc, especially if you want to aim for, or maintain, a casual style of work.

What I’m challenging on is the concept that you MUST have this type of set-up, or that you must have multiple lights to make great portraits. When I started in photography, I was told I should have at least three studio lights. Daunting, expensive and not quite correct. Fortunately, my father educated me that the work I most liked used one light (David Bailey, Snowdon, Irving Penn et al).

(Pretty much everything you ever see of mine is one light…for what it’s worth!)

David Williams My reception area IS my studio. Why would I take people from lovely light and nice furniture to another environment when it's all right there to start with?

Think of it this way, why do we love environmental portraiture? Depth is one reason; a natural feel to the background is another. Personally, I appreciate really good environmental portraiture more that work against a background

I did a series of ‘mentor’ lectures throughout Asia and India for Kodak a while ago…it was a very interesting experience. Every wanna-be photographer goes to a studio to learn:
Every studio has five lights.
Very few studios know how to use those five lights. They use black backgrounds.
The lighting pattern as taught is hair light too bright, sidelight too bright and the rest totally flat. I was photographed in a ‘studio’ that was less than 8ft square with five lights.

During one of the seminars I shot a model, low angle, in a hotel at the bottom of some steps, with a single light and a car sun-block screen for a reflector. I dragged the shutter to incorporate the towering garden foyer and ‘splashed’ colour up the stairs with a little flash wrapped in unexposed but processed film.

The resulting ‘kodak-roid’ (fuji disguised) when peeled apart caused absolute consternation, admiration and wonder. “Be-yoo-tifool Mr Williams”, “So ravishing Mr Williams”, “The quality is incredible Mr Williams”…

The final comment from the guy most vocal in his admiration floored me: “But Mr Williams, this isn’t professional photography – it hasn’t got five lights!”

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There are 227 days to get ready for the SWPP Convention and Trade Show at The Hilton London Metropole Hotel ...
which starts on Tuesday 8th January 2013

Photo Quote: The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. - Dorothea Lange