For over 10 years now I have been a member of the Professional Photographers Guild of Houston, and during that time I have made a point to take advantage of all the benefits of membership while contributing my time and energy whenever possible. Continuing education is so important to me, so I was so happy and grateful to learn that I had been chosen to receive a scholarships of $500!
My name is Aric Hoek, and this is a story about my first experience at Texas School!
I consider myself to be serious about my continuing education in photography, and as I write this article I realize that I have four ways in which I enjoy educating myself. The first of these is my annual attendance at the Imaging USA Convention and Classes. Second, I really enjoy learning from a different speaker each month when I attend the monthly P.P.G.H. Meetings. Third, I have a list of websites that I read daily, and these sites are primarily blogs of my favorite photographers. And lastly, I purchased many instructional DVDs and books on photographic techniques which I can read and watch and listen to at my leisure.
Armed with my new $500 scholarship I realized that this money would be enough to take me to a second convention this year, and I already knew exactly where I wanted to go!
Texas School!
For years now members of the Guild and some of my closest friends, who are of course photographers, have been recommending to me that I go to Texas School. Mostly though, all I really heard about were the parties after the classes and the networking that was taking place. The education seemed to be a close second, and because of this Texas School was always on the back burner for me.
When you go to a large national photographic convention, you’ll always find a trade show. But you will also find educational classes taught by different instructors, with each class covering a different discipline of photography. So, before you go, you have the time to search through the different instructors and select what you would like to learn more about.
It was my intention to attend the hardest and most advanced course Texas School had to offer, and in my humble opinion, for 2007, that class was The Power of Light taught by Tony Korbel.
For those of you that don’t know, Texas school is a week long class, taught by multiple professional photographers, and one videographer. As a student of Texas School, you spend the entire week with one instructor only! It is my understanding, that for years Texas School has been taught at Texas A&M in College Station. Living in Northwest Houston, College Station is only about an hour and 10 minutes from my home. Wanting to make my $500 scholarship stretch as far as possible, I decided that I would drive to class each day, and then return home to Houston each night. Now that I’ve had time to reflect on the entire experience, I know that next year I’m going to find a hotel room so I too can talk about all the parties!
Now that Texas School is over, I can honestly say I will never miss another! If I had to sum up my experience of sitting in the front row in a classroom taught by Tony Korbel for an entire week in one word, that word would be inspirational!
As I look through my notes, trying to decide what to write in this article about the education I received, I hardly know where to begin. On multiple occasions I can see that I have circled certain areas in my notes, and to the side written “worth the price of admission”.
I wanted an advanced class, and that’s exactly what I got!
As the class progressed throughout the week, one of the things I began to admire about Tony Korbel was his ability to make me think big, and I’d like to share some of his stories with you now.
When I photograph a family portrait, a large group for me is about 20 people, so when Tony began telling his story of how he was commissioned to photograph the United Nations, I was blown away! Can you imagine the pressure of photographing a group shot containing every president of every country in the world?
If I remember the story correctly, Tony had to show up a full week before the shoot to start setting up. The group of individuals to be in the portrait was so large, and with so many rows of individuals, an enormous amount of light was needed to provide the proper depth of field. As we looked at slides of the lighting setup you can easily see that there must have been between 10 and 16 umbrellas with strobes, all synced together. However, due to security measures Toni was not allowed to sync his lights using the industry-standard radio transmitter and receiver Pocket Wizards.
For political reasons, each president was assigned a specific spot to stand in the portrait, keeping in mind that certain presidents in the room were at war with each other at the time the images was to be created. Secondly, without knowing any other language other than English (I’m actually assuming that Tony does not fluently speak any other languages), Tony had to communicate to each individual president the direction he needed him or her to face in the portrait. Tony’s solution was simple. Tony and his staff made outlines of feet using masking tape, and these feet were pointing in the direction that he needed the individual to stand, so as a subject placed his feet into the taped feet on the floor, they would already be facing in the direction that Tony needed. This was the most logical and simple way to communicate to everyone on the left side of the frame to angle towards the center of the image, and everyone to the right side of the frame to angle towards the center the image, without knowing everyone’s language.
As anyone can imagine, being hired to photograph the United Nations is a once-in-a-lifetime photo shoot! Tony wanted to make sure that nothing happened to his film during processing. To ensure this, Tony used multiple cameras during his shoot, each loaded with film. He would take a few shots with one camera, at which time an assistant would hand him a different camera to take a few more shots with until he’d used a total of four cameras. The film from each camera was then sent to different labs, in different states, to ensure the proper processing of the film should a blackout or brownout occur in the city where the film was being processed!
Tony Korbel will really make you think! He just has so many amazing stories to share, and I’m so glad that I got to hear them all!
Separate from the fabulous stories, the class was also taught a very wide variety of photographic lighting techniques. These included, as you might expect, the basic but useful lighting of family portraits or an executive head shot. But what I was really interested in were the unique techniques that Tony shared with us. For instance, lighting a bride in the studio so that the final image conveyed and 1940s movie star look. Or how to take a portrait of an individual, outdoors, at noon, in direct sunlight, and still produce a highly sellable portrait! Now that’s powerful information for a professional photographer!
Tony likes to think outside the box when it comes to lighting. For example, Tony uses a technique called “painting with light”. This is where Tony will enter a completely dark environment, set up his camera, and will take an exposure up to an hour long! Tony shared multiple stories with us to better explain the technique.
In my hometown of Houston there once existed a dance hall called Gillies, and Tony was hired to photograph an interior of the establishment. I remember that Tony had described the interior as very expansive and dark. In order to get the proper exposure, Tony turned out all of the lights in the facility. Every light he could find was turned off. He then opened up the lens on his camera to begin his exposure, and as he began to walk around the room he would use a handheld flash to illuminate different items in the room. For example he would pop his flash to expose a table and chairs, and he would pop his flash once more underneath the table and chairs to show the floor. He did this all over the establishment. He proceed with the same technique with the bar or any other area that he might want to draw attention to in his final image, which of course included the dance floor. Once he had painted the interior with his light, he turned on all the neon lights for an added final touch to the final image, and then ended his exposure.
After Tony had finished telling his story, and he was sure we all understood what he had done, he gave us a demonstration in the classroom. Tony stands up, and takes a backpack from one of the students in the classroom. He then sets up a small scene on a table using the backpack and a large muslin background. He places a camera on his tripod, sets his focus, and then turns out all the lights in the room. He wet his camera to bulb mode, began his exposure, and then began to illuminate the backpack and background using a hand-held flashlight! Tony constantly moved the light around and over the backpack and background to ensure a more evenly lit image, and to draw attention to certain areas in the image.. He then turned the flashlight off, pulled out a colored gel, placed the gel over the flashlight, and then began his exposure again to add color to specific parts of the image. The final result was amazing! In less than 10 minutes Tony Korbel taught the entire class one technique to photograph commercial products!
The information I learned from Tony Korbel at my first Texas school is invaluable. And let me finish this brief article with a small bit of advice for anyone planning on taking a class with Tony Korbel. Make sure you bring a light meter, lots of notepaper, and be prepared to be blown away!
I’ll see you all at the next Texas School!
