February 2, 1998

If you are standing on a street corner, with camera in hand, waiting to photograph yet another “man in the street” interview and armed guards come running out of a bank, shooting at some bad guys holding money bags, and the activity causes a bus to swerve and crash into a truck and both vehicles end up crashing through a storefront plate glass window leaving carnage everywhere, you are one of the lucky ones. It’s not hard to aim your camera anywhere and come up with great pictures. But, not all of us are so lucky. We have to generate our own luck. And it usually comes in the least suspected places. Most of the daily grind that we find ourselves shooting most days are usually little slices of life in the communities in which we serve. On most of these, you can search and search and find it impossible to come up with an angle or lighting or lens combo or anything that will make a silk purse out of this sow's ear. So, you end up doing the best you can and you have to accept that as part of the job.

Ah, but sometimes....sometimes you find yourself in one of these “no big deal” assignments which can be worked into a decent photo. I’d like to describe two of them that happened to me recently.

The first one concerned a small village whose historical society was preparing an exhibit to celebrate their anniversary. I was to go to their little museum and get a photo of two white haired ladies setting up the exhibit.

When I arrived, I saw that the building was old and dingy on the outside. I assumed it would be the same on the inside. I had a decision to make. On feature assignments I try to avoid on camera flash like the Ebola virus. Normally, I would grab my tripod and set the camera on it, find a location in the museum that had decent lighting, shoot a slow shutter speed so that I could stop down to a reasonable degree, and throw in a weak, off camera fill flash. I shoot lots of film to accommodate the possibility of subject movement or camera shake. The available light keeps the ambiance and mood of the scene. But, since I expected dusty, musty gloom, I left the tripod and grabbed my spare SB-26 flash on a light stand.

When I was led to the room where the exhibit was being worked on, I found a quaint period drawing room with a dusty, late winter light coming through the large windows. I couldn't have asked for better. But, I had brought a light stand instead of a tripod and my car was some distance away. So, I set the scene, braced my elbows on a table, took a deep breath and squeezed off my shots at an 8th of a second and bounce fill. The results were better than I had any right to believe.

To make sure that I came back with something usable, since I do not have the steadiest hand at age 65, I shot another series, using my side light and a higher shutter speed. These photos turned out to be far too contrasty in lighting so I went with the available light pictures. However, just barling around in our scan room, I ran the second shot through Photoshop and was able to make it work nicely. But, I still went with the first.

Dick Kraus

Staff Photographer Newsday

February 2, 1998

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