The Informal Portrait: Ghanaian Deaf-Mute Woman

Deaf-Mute Ghanaian Woman

Olympus OM, 85mm f2 Zuiko lens, Fujichrome RDP 100 film

 

Although I've photographed a wide variety of subjects in my career, from studio work with complex lighting setups to landscapes, the human face remains my favorite subject. I love to make informal portraits of people wherever I go. As I wrote in an article in Rangefinder Magazine some years ago: 

"As a photojournalist and producer creating magazine features and audio-visual programs to help religious and humanitarian agencies communicate their mission, I'm always looking for opportunities to make portraits.  Strong photographs of people add power to the message I want to communicate, because people are interested in people.  That's why we call it "human interest."  When someone from another culture is portrayed in all of his or her humanity, dignity, and individuality, both the subject and those who view the photograph are served.  As the great Edward Steichen, creator of the landmark "Family of Man" exhibit said, "The function of photography is to explain man to man." 

Photography bypasses the logical centers of the brain and communicates directly to the heart.  When the subject is someone from another culture, an incisive portrait can arouse in the viewer a deep awareness that this also is a person, a member of my species.  Different from me, yes, but part of my family.  Nearly 50 years have passed, but I still remember the first time a photograph connected with me in this way.  It was an Emil Schultheiss portrait of an African girl in the old Modern Photography magazine.  Her face plastered with ceremonial paint, she peeked at the camera from the corners of her eyes.  I looked into her soul and was hooked for good." 

In 1989 the World Missions Department of the Church of God sent me to three African countries to make photographs and research script material for several audio-visual productions. The countries were Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia. I also spent two nights in Kenya as I flew from Nigeria to Zambia and back again.

In Ghana, I traveled around quite a bit of the country with the church's national overseer (equivalent to a bishop). One evening we found ourselves visiting a family of church members living in the border zone adjoining Togo. (I would have liked to go into Togo, but wasn't sure my visa would allow me to leave Ghana and return, so I didn't try.)

We had supper, cooked in a big pot over an open fire, with the church family. A woman came by as we were eating; a deaf-mute lady who allowed me to make her photograph. My aim, as always, was not to show some poor woman in worn and ragged clothes, but to portray a person of dignity and worth,. 

The blue cast is courtesy of the post-sunset light, the so-called "blue hour." 

Blog Note: Please forgive the irregular timing of my posts. The wi-fi service here at the campground varies from terrible to non-existent; however I'm working on a solution and hope to have it in place tomorrow. (Hat-tip to fellow blogger Dave Hileman. 

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Lighting the WMBW Photos

The WBMW Radio morning show personalities in a more conventional pose.

Fuji X-H1, Fujinon XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lens

 

Lighting for photography can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it. In general, the harder I work on a lighting setup, the more simple and natural the photographs look. Sometimes, though, complexity doesn't make a lot of difference. 

In 1972, early in my first (and only) studio job, I went along on a location shoot for a fast-food restaurant chain. My company assigned a two-man team to the job and sent me with them to observe and learn.

Our lighting in those antiquarian days consisted of  1000-watt daylight blue  floodlight bulbs in 18-inch reflectors. No flash. I was salivating with anticipation, because this was finally my chance to learn all about lighting ratios and exotic stuff like that.

We set up the lights at the work area and the photographer moved them around a bit. He turned to the director and said, “That look okay to you?” The director said, “Looks good to me. Shoot it.”

And thereby I learned the most valuable lesson I’ve ever learned about photography: photography is all about how things look. If it looks good, it is good. Shoot it 

I've come a long way in the intervening 49 years, but that lesson has stuck with me. And although I've created some very complicated lighting setups when the situation called for it, sometimes a simple solution works just as well.

In previous years I've been able to make the  WMBW staff photos in large spaces -- a gym, on one occasion, and a warehouse another time. But this year, because of the dread virus, the station manager asked me if I could shoot in a room at the radio studio.

In a larger space, I would normally set up a nine-foot roll of seamless paper on background stands. A flash in a 24-inch softbox would be placed on each side of the background and turned to light the background without any light spilling on the subject(s) of the photograph. The main light would be a flash in a 30x40-inch softbox, placed fairly high and positioned at a 30-to-35 degree angle to the subject(s). I might also use a weaker fill light in another softbox at camera position or sometimes, a reflector opposite the main light and close to the subject(s). 

This time, though, I had to make do with a room that was long enough, but only about ten feet wide -- just wide enough to take my roll of seamless and background stands. Definitely not wide enough for a softbox on each side to light the background.

The room at the studio was narrow, but long. By using a longer focal length,

I was able to get the entire station staff on my nine-foot background.

Fuji X-H1, Fujinon XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lens

 

 To make it register as white, the lighting on the background needs to be about one stop brighter than the light on the subject(s). Since I couldn't do this in my usual way, I placed a softbox on the floor behind the subject(s) and angled it up to cover the background. 

The only good thing about the narrow room was that the walls were close enough to serve as reflectors, so I was able to shoot with a main light and no fill. I no longer have a 30x40 softbox, so I used a 24x24 instead. Some photographers get off on using the largest light source possible, even adding layers of diffusion, but look at the photo at the top of this post and this one, which was made with a large softbox and a fill light. Can you see any significant difference in the shading and modeling of the faces? I can't. 

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

Hello again!

Morning show personalities, Moody Radio WMBW, Chattanooga

Fuji X-H1, Fujinon XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lens

 

I promised to post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. However, I've now missed four posts.  I can only claim extenuating circumstances. I hope you missed me -- if you did, thanks! If you didn't, it's okay. This is just a blog, not the world news report.

The last few weeks have been beyond hectic, getting ready for the big estate sale, which took place last Saturday. I don't yet know how well we did -- the estate sale ladies said it was a really good sale -- but I do know we sold every stick of furniture in the house, including the washer and dryer and the lawn chairs. 

On Tuesday we closed on the sale of our house and property, so we are now officially homeless.

I've been spending my days carrying truckloads of stuff that we can't yet bear to part with to the storage unit and hauling trash to the dump. Oh! -- and another blogging problem -- beside lack of time, we were without internet access for several days, and the service here at the campground varies from poor to non-existent. In fact, I'm writing this while I do our laundry in the campground laundromat, which is right behind the office. The signal ought to be at least reasonably good here. If not, I'm off to McDonald's!

A few days ago we sold our little travel trailer -- the one in which we lived for the month of September, 2018 as we drove 7,000 miles around the wild, wild west, and for three weeks in 2019 as we went to Maine and Nova Scotia, plus two trips to Florida and one to Indiana. It has been a pleasure to own and use, and we sold it for about what we originally paid for it, which was a special pleasure.

We have been sleeping in our new, 2021 Grand Design Reflection fifth-wheel trailer for almost two weeks now, and are finding it very comfortable except when we are tripping over the not-yet-unpacked boxes that cover about 90 percent of the floor space. As we say in the South, we are carried-in, but not yet moved in.

For the time being we are living in an RV campground just outside Chattanooga while we wait to interview surgeons and decide who will do the surgery on Louise's back and neck. If she decides to use the surgeon in Chattanooga, we will stay here while she convalesces. If she decides to go with the one in Knoxville who has done her previous surgeries, we will find a place to park the camper in that area.

For those who came hoping to read about photography, my apologies. We'll get back to that. But this blog is about photography, about life, and about a life in photography. Today, it's about life. But if it will help, I'll give you a picture to look at. I wrote recently about my final commercial photography gig (maybe!), and showed a photo from an earlier assignment for the same client. Here's a shot from that (maybe final) session, showing the interplay between the two morning show personalities.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

 

Sorry about That!

Civil War Re-enactor, 1975

I promised to post a photo of our new home, a Grand Design fifth-wheel trailer. Unfortunately, packing took up so much time today that it was nearly dark by the time I got to the campground with another load of stuff to try to find a place for. I think we'll get it all in -- the camper is roomy and well-laid-out, with lots of nooks and crannys, but it may take a while.

Meanwhile, I still haven't made a photo of it. So what you're getting instead is an apology, a brief post (too busy to write more), and a different picture to look at.

This is a special photograph to me -- it's my very first award-winning photo, from way back in 1975. The subject was a Civil War re-enactor at the Chickamauga Battlefield National Military Park. The camera was a Nikkormat fitted with a 100mm f2.8 Vivitar lens, and the film was Kodachrome.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts?

(Photograph copyright David B. Jenkins 2020)

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone