Make the Light Jump...and Other Lessons

AS THE PHOTOGRAPHER ON THE SET, you drive everything. You direct the light, relate to the talent, manage the personalities, listen to the art director, and, at all times, try to please the client. Photographer as ringmaster! Except you are often running far more than three rings simultaneously. These kinds of photographic juggling acts are exhausting, not to mention difficult to survive. Photographic nirvana is achieved on those truly rare jobs when the client yields the road to you, with the only mandate being to make great, gorgeous photos, and you are the art director, the lighting director, the casting agent, and the cameraman. Those are yippy skippy days, to be sure, but they come with a burden, as well. If the shots don’t soar, all fingers, including your own, hav....