Annie Leibovitz technical question

[Disaster_Area]

I recently picked up Annie Lebovitz, American Music and looking through her shots I can't help but notice there's no shadows in a LOT of her environmental portraits. Whether it's in a cramped studio... a stage, a bedroom or even out in an alley she gets these beautifully detailed shots with soft lighting and VERY little shadow... does she just carry huge octa-boxes everywhere she goes or is it some other technique I'm not seeing.

I can tell with some of her shots that it's cross-lighting, flash on camera axis with bright ambient directly behind... boom, even light, little shadow... but I just can't wrap my head around a lot of her lighting... truly amazing. I KNOW there's a flash... i just can't tell where 🙂

 

[gavinlg]

It's masterful lighting with massive expensive lights and modifiers. The bigger the modifier and the better the modifier the better and softer the light. Use 3-4 of them in perfect positions and you get gorgeous natural looking light with next to no shadows.

 

[Disaster_Area]

Ahhh... I kinda figured... though I was hoping her secret was fairy dust... I'd have a better chance of getting a hold of that than her lighting set up 😉

 

[David William White]

A nice big window.

 

[dan denmark]

interesting point, this... "...I was hoping her secret was fairy dust...I'd have a better chance of getting a hold of that than her lighting set up..."

i just came across a set of small-theatre stage spots, 500 - 650 watts from a school that was upgrading their stage program and i paid no more than $150 per light...gel slide and barn doors included, globes still functioning. they made a humble effort of advertising them and were going to throw them out if no one bought them. so i did, got six of ten. used in a low-ceiling studio as bounce off the ceiling i can get a similar effect as that of an overhead skylight (keylight) effect. takes a bit of playing around, though.

-dd

 

[Morry Katz]

Her still shoots look more like movie shoots. Lots of lights, generators, etc, plus many, many assistants. The end results are amazing - but not cheap.

Morry Katz - Lethbridge , Alberta

 

[lanky]

If you have any queries about Annie's work check out her latest book: "At Work". In it she talks at great lengths about all of her work, styles and gear. As well as gives an insight into some of her more well known images. It's a great snapshot in modern photography with tales of grappling Digital and treating it as another beast when it's still the same old ideals.

Good Luck

 

[mllanos1111]

I just watched her DVD "Life through a lens" and yes her shoots are very elaborate and expensive. Tons of soft boxes and assistants.

 

[Frank Petronio]

She probably is just keeping the people further away from the backgrounds because she can use those huge studios like Industria and get the distances that most studio shooters simply can't. And it helps to hire actual lighting technicians, not just college student assistants.

 

[CK Dexter Haven]

She's used a lot of different lighting equipment and techniques over the years. Window light, with/without bounce reflectors/foam core; 7' Elinchrom Octabanks; custom made light banks/boxes; small and cheap shoot thru umbrellas; giant white diffusion fabric panels, suspended to soften the sun.... None of it, though, is very complex. It's just simplicity done well.

Not necessarily expensive, either, in the case of the shoot-thru umbrellas. Those can be had for not much money, if you're already got the strobes.

Do you have a specific example you can link? Maybe we can dissect it, or find a real set diagram/photo/discussion. She often does interviews or is published in American Photo with explanations for how certain things are accomplished.

 

[drewbarb]

I was one of the assistants working for her during the time that she published American Music. A lot of the images in that book were pulled from her archives, but much of it was shot just for the book, and I was on plenty of those shoots. Yes, she often used tons of lights- sometimes we would work a full day to set up one shot. But a good deal of it was also done with "only" two or three lights- particularly the stuff shot on locations. But even if the shot was done with natural light, or just one moderately sized softbox or beauty dish, (as many of them were) we still had to carry a truck's worth of gear (generally based around many big, heavy, and very expensive Profoto power packs). Even with months of planning and seeing many pictures of subjects and locations, we often didn't really know just what conditions we'd have, and had to be prepared for anything- which basically means a ton of gear. A very small production team was three people- besides Annie, the talent, and the local "fixers".

Yes- one or more very large light sources will give you that smooth, shadowless look- especially when you find and fill in all the shadows just so; and a huge production helps to ensure success- but why would you want to work that way?

 

[Disaster_Area]

wow... drewbarb 🙂 nice... I guess I know who to ask when I get home and pick out the shots I was thinking about when I wrote the post. I think it's amazing how she's able to keep a "street shooting" look to some of the shots in there even though you know there's a huge lighting set up behind her. Out of curiosity.. for American Music was she mainly shooting 35mm or medium format?

 

[drewbarb]

Out of curiosity.. for American Music was she mainly shooting 35mm or medium format?

Most of the new work that made it into the book was shot with medium format (6x7 with Mamiya RZ's). But she did use 35mm - mostly Leicas, though we carried a full kit of Nikon gear too (I assume out of nostalgia; I know much of her early work was shot with Nikon gear). Anyway, in 3 years I don't think I ever saw her pick up a 35mm SLR- it was all medium format.

But- it was often two or three frames which were later stitched together to make up a single image. Some images you can see this- like an image of a back-woods juke-joint in Mississippi, shot with 665 P/N Polaroid; other times you can't see it. Stuff shot on color negative (most of it) was printed with several frames mated together invisibly. This was pretty fancy Photoshop work for the time. It makes it tough to look at an image and see how it was shot.

 

[Disaster_Area]

ahhhh.. that explains SOOOO much. I do lighting reverse-engineering for fun and practice and some of the shots from that book had lighting that seemed to be completely impossible.. shadows that just didn't fall right, shadows that fell different on two different subjects in the same shot at different angles.

 

[Disaster_Area]

That would also explain some of the shots in that book that have too much detail even for medium format.

 

[35mmdelux]

With Annie we're talking major shoot expense. I'd estimate $40,000 to be chump change. Prof assistants, canteen, lighting rigs, location, models galore, props, transportations, lodging, nannys.

 

[cmedin]

With Annie we're talking major shoot expense. I'd estimate $40,000 to be chump change. Prof assistants, canteen, lighting rigs, location, models galore, props, transportations, lodging, nannys.

Sure, but you give me (or most of us) the same gear, and see if we can manage to crank out shots like she does. Yes, the gear DOES matter, but it's only part of the equation.

 

[Tuolumne]

Sure, but you give me (or most of us) the same gear, and see if we can manage to crank out shots like she does. Yes, the gear DOES matter, but it's only part of the equation.

Ok, gimmee. I'm ready for my test, Mr. DeMille. 🙂

/T

 

[drewbarb]

Ok, gimmee. I'm ready for my test, Mr. DeMille. 🙂

/T

Who can you get to sit for you?

 

[Tuolumne]

The gorillas at the Bronx Zoo!

/T