Story Behind the Photo-Freeman Patterson

0921NCFREEMANBLURFAV1.jpg

Many people ask me about how photographs I’ve done were taken. Lots of interest in the techniques or technical aspects. The Story Behind The Photo series answers those questions! This one is a portrait of world renowned photographer Freeman Patterson.
If you see any shots of mine that you are dying to know how they were done, send me an email and I’ll post em.

As a photographer, being assigned to photograph one of your peers with the stature of Freeman Patterson would scare anyone. Having known Freeman personally for a few years however made me a bit less apprehensive. The assignment was made more difficult however as he insisted that he would not be photographed with a camera, slides, or taking photographs.

As we went through his house he showed me some recent slides images he had captured. One of which was a scene of backlit trees with light shining through, with the trees blurred by camera movement, a technique he uses frequently. When I asked him where the photograph was taken, he said in the woods just outside his front door. We ventured into those woods, and I saw the same type of light as the photograph he showed me. I had him stand so he was backlit by the trees, then using a slow shutter speed I began attempting various blurring techniques like zooming, juggling, and rotating the camera during the exposure.
This created the interesting background, but of course Freeman was backlit so he was just a black shape. So to get him in the photograph, I used a flash off camera to fire at the end of the exposure, which then produced a sharp Freeman in the middle of the blur. The fact he was backlit was very important, because if the same light was on him that was on the background, it would have recorded him as a blur as well as the flash. When I showed the photos to Freeman, he asked me how I was able to get him sharp in the frame…now that was cool, I was able to teach Freeman Patterson something!!!

Below are some outtakes from the shoot using different movement!

0921NCFREEMANBLURFAV2

0921NCFREEMANBLURFAV3

0921NCFREEMANBLURFAV4

Technical info:
Canon EOS-1D Mark II N
Lens: 35mm
ISO: 100
Shutter Speed: 1/4
Aperture: F11
Whitebalance: Daylight
Metering: MANUAL of course!

Noel Chenier

———-
Photographer and teacher
Connect with Noel on INSTAGRAM or TWITTER or via EMAIL 
Photography Assignment Generator Apps now available on the app store!
Noel’s Portfolio
Work Done by My Students!

Want to make sure you get all the latest posts and info? Subscribe!

 

 

More Stories Behind The Photo Post

  • Canada Games Athletes-Rower Keegan Drummond

    Canada Games Athletes-Rower Keegan Drummond

    Today’s portrait shoot is of Canada Games rower Keegan Drummond. With my previous water based shoot experience, I realized that I needed MORE POWER if I was going to be able to light up Keegan while he was in the water. So I velcro-ed together THREE Canon Flashes and fired …
  • Making Something Out Of Nothing: The Boardroom Shot

    Making Something Out Of Nothing: The Boardroom Shot

    There is nothing more challenging that trying to make an interesting photograph in a boardroom…. On this particular day, I had to photograph William Stanley of Atlantic Hydrogen at the office as he was coming through town. Normally we would have gotten him with some of the company’s technology, but …
  • Canada Games Athletes-Softball player Sam DeBortoli

    Canada Games Athletes-Softball player Sam DeBortoli

    Today’s athlete shoot is of softball player Sam DeBortoli. This was the second baseball/softball related shoot that I did, so I started up with something different. (170)
  • Canada Games Athletes-Tennis player Daniel Blake

    Canada Games Athletes-Tennis player Daniel Blake

    Today’s shoot is of Canada Games Tennis player Daniel Blake. Another shoot where I had an idea of the shot I wanted…the player leaping through the air, stretched out, smashing the ball… and well, just couldn’t make it work the way I envision it. I don’t think Daniel had enough …
  • Canada Games Athletes-Soccer’s Cassian Ferlatte and Marisa Duguay

    Canada Games Athletes-Soccer’s Cassian Ferlatte and Marisa Duguay

    This was the second shoot done for this series, this time it is soccer players Cassian Ferlatte and Marisa Duguay. As previously mentioned, the first day of shooting was an overcast day. Which is good in that the light is lower and makes for better flash control, but the skies …

 

(779)

1 thought on “Story Behind the Photo-Freeman Patterson”

Leave a Comment

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.