Today I spent the day with Barry Harris and his team of assistants, stylists and makeup artists in the Barry Harris studio (www.barryharrisstudio.com). Beyond exiting.
Upon arrival, the first thing I notice is that the building I am entering is fucking huge and I am risking getting lost for hours trying to find studio #5600. When I actually found the studio without too much trouble, I enter a huge square room with wooden floors, high ceilings and three walls made of windows. Very warehouse - air vents are showing, grey ceilings, etc. The shoot was for Reitmans - a real shmata business.
Because this was a “real” shoot, I was informed that I could not take pictures of our models or the clothes. In fact, I’m sure this post is very close to the line they drew for confidentiality.
Anyways, the amount of people that go into one picture is ridiculous. Us amateurs have to do everything ourselves. First step, two assistant guys put the whole set in place. They mount Barry’s camera onto a tripod, place a box for him to sit on and roll over a glass table that is adorned with a perrier and a plate of purple grapes. They pull out a fancy shmancy light meter, play with the camera settings and test the light. The pictures instantly pop up onto a screen near by where the Reitmans people sit - ready to comment.
Meanwhile our model is being dressed by stylists - plastic clips covering her back to make the clothes look tailored to a T. She goes through makeup and hair before finally takeing her place on the exact spot where the the light was tested. They take one or two shots to make sure everything works, and call Barry over from his computer where he is struggling to set up a Twitter account. He sits on his box, takes a whole bunch of pictures while the Reitmans people watch them pop up on the screen. They make comments - people adjust - the perfect picture pops up. Finally they take a picture of the model holding a card with several colored squares on it (to ensure printing quality and color balance in lens). The assistants organize all the photos into documents and the whole process starts again.
Lunch is catered by a woman who used their pristine kitchen to make the best food I’ve digested in a long time - including chocolate chip cookies with Toblerone in them. My mouth waters at the thought.
Point being, this is far from the world of two friends dressing up their two other friends to take pictures of them with whatever light the sun may bring. We may have 5 or more camera’s a piece, but our equipment is rudimentary. Michelle and I two cameras each that don’t have light meters. My modo - if you take the same photo at three different shutter speeds, one of them must be right. For Michelle, I think she’s just that good. It’s like photographers intuition or practice making perfect. I’m not saying we are amateurs (which we are technically, I just don’t like that word - we sound like a bunch of tweens with no talent) because we are both very good at what we do and like to kick it old school when it comes to equipment.
In our world, clothing is optional, breasts must show, and really expensive gadgets are expendable.As for Barry Harris, his job is ultra-cool and actually brings in the moohla, but for now me and my babe MK, we stick to the basics.
Sarah’s so sweeeet. She makes me feel like a real photographer thank you thank you yesyes.
