When a Globe and Mail photo editor gave me the assignment to photograph John le Carre the famous espionage novelist, I was thrilled. Being a big fan of his writing and having spent many hours lost in the pages his spy thrillers I thought this job was going to be a lot of fun. Now it's always wise as a photographer to have an idea in mind as to what you want to achieve in a photograph, have a plan. The best way to do this is to do research on your subject so you know something about them so you don't go in cold. Research gives you ideas and ideas give you images in your mind, a plan to move forward. What does your subject do, what are their passions, knowing something about them gives you a bridge, a connection to conversation and trust. A wise man once told me that if you have a hard time making conversation with someone start talking about them, their interests, the conversation will flow. Now my thoughts on John le Carre as far as a portrait was pointing me in the direction of light and shadow and The Globe as it happens at the time was a strictly black and white newspaper so my concept of what the image should be worked well. John le Carre wrote about spies, his stories were of shadowy characters hardly being seen but still there, a world of subterfuge. This is how I would light him, hard shadows, things hidden with a bit of mystery, hopefully.
The assignment was for 8:30 pm and as I would need to get there to find a location in the hotel, get permission from the hotel to plug in, I would have to be there an hour early. So with our assistant Eva we loaded up the car with an abnormally small amount of gear because this would be a two light shot, one for the background and one for Mr. le Carre, also I would have Eva hold up a scrim of black card to block some of the key light which was a Comet 1200 WS head in a Chimera medium soft box. We got everything ready to go and promptly at 8:30 around the corner appears John le Carre ready for action. Mr. le Carre was very gracious and was up to collaborate with me to come up with a successful shot. This photograph was successful because of pre planning, formulating an image in my mind before arrival, being prepared for the worst and arriving with my kit in good working order, if you can bring someone with you, good. You never know when you might need the extra pair of hands as Eva did in this shot holding up a black card to block the spill of the soft box on le Carre's right side.
So to go over the lighting technique for this portrait, I used two lights, both Comet heads powered by a 1200 watt second power pack. The key light was to camera left housed in a Chimera medium pro shallow soft box feathered away from the subject. Eva held a black card in between the soft box and the subject to act as a scrim essentially turning the medium soft box into a strip soft box. I didn't have any strip soft boxes back then so I worked it out. The camera was a 500 CM Hasselblad with an 80mm f2.8 hand held. The actual photography took about fifteen minutes. Before the shoot I talked with him about his books and the enjoyment I had reading them. He talked to me about my camera a Hasselblad and so it seems we had both met the same wise man in talking about each other.
Lighting Diagram SO SORRY ABOUT MY ART WORK!!
So as you can see this was a very easy shot to make, simple lighting simple concept. The hard part about portraiture is to make a connection with your subject. The stronger the connection the better your photographs will be. This is the best part about portrait photography, meeting interesting people finding out a little bit about their lives and their work and working with them to make something worthwhile. I am always up for better portraits, it's a marvellous way to spend some time with another human being.