strobist.blogspot.com/2008/11/vote-and-consider-uplighting.html
Tuesday, November 04, 2008 Vote -- And Consider Uplighting First of all, if you are reading this in the US, get off your butt and go vote today. Either that, or don't complain during the next four years no matter what. That said, take a look at this morning's Washington Post. They are running the expected, "same play" careful coverage that a newspaper has to run, lest it get howling complaints. This morning's front page also is a very interesting look into lighting styles -- and media control. After you have voted, make the jump for a little more on the lighter side (so to speak) of this front page.
The campaign staff wants to do all of the heavy lifting, so the media can swoop in and get stuff that looks good with a minimum of effort. In that sense, how you light your candidate is a point of significant control. And it is somewhat subconscious, which makes it even stronger. And by that, I mean, create a little looking-into-the-sunset lighting and line up the shooting pits to where they show your guy in front of a big American flag. Deaver (Reagan's Deputy Chief of Staff) was the first to exploit on a large scale the idea that, if you controlled the lighting/backdrop/shooting location, you could damn near put your candidate on a movie set. And since the Reagan/Deaver (or maybe, Deaver/Reagan) one-two punch was so well executed, that strategy went a long way towards crafting a heroic visual image of Reagan in the media. The media could hardly help themselves, either -- Deaver had seen to that. The lighting and shooting geometry on McCain are now pretty much standard procedure. Not even Jill Greenberg could make the guy look bad in that situation. But looking over at Obama's photo, I find myself wondering if his campaign's lighting person is not trying to evolve the Deaver look a little bit. The first thought that came to my mind when I saw this morning's dual front was to notice the uplighting.
Seeing Linda's Obama photo above (lit probably not by her but by a campaign staffer who appears to know their stuff) really shows the power of the technique. All the more so because it it juxtaposed against the technique that has been the Gold Standard of making a US politician look heroic and significant for the last 25 years. But clearly, it is a powerful way to accent light -- and one that certainly lends itself to speedlight-based lighting. Sad, but after two years of non-stop campaigning being shoved down my throat, this is what I notice on the Big Day. To me, the Obama photo looks like it jumped off of the pages of WIRED Magazine. Which is pretty amazing, really, when you consider that the person who shot the photo was not the person who decided the light. In a time of increasingly sophisticated visual presentation in the media, it is interesting to me that we might be seeing the next chapter in the Michael Deaver playbook.
But I would be curious to know your nonpolitical thoughts about the differences in lighting above. If you have covered either campaign, feel free to chime in with lighting-related observations. Although, I would think you are probably busy today, at least. Seriously, the politically-tinged stuff is strongly discouraged. Save the politics for the one place that it really matters.
One thing that caught my eye, too, was the American flag. The Obama has a straight black background, but the McCain is full color, with the flag. Interesting to note the subconscious effects of that, too. But, then again, I'm a sucker for color, and usually a habitual over-saturator...
After photographing Obama's campaign and McCain's campaign multiple times throughout the state of CO this year, I can tell you that the democrats have put a lot more into their lighting than the republicans. I'm not trying to start a fight here, this is just what I have observed. Obama has always had several light banks during his appearances. Usually there is a large light bank directly in front of him with a couple of smaller light banks on either side. The large bank provides a shadowless main light to the podium with the outside banks providing a rim light that adds a little separation between him and the backdrop. Its really pretty nice because he is usually a 1-2 stop difference from the background.
He is ALWAYS positioned with the right side of his face towards the camera-the reason being that he has had a huge chunk of the left side of his face carved out to remove cancer (melanoma). the occasional circumstances when you can see it (without heavy TV makeup) it looks scary.
Trying to walk the balance between keeping a conversation going and not letting the conversation get politicized. Please save the subjective stuff for other places and venues. FWIW, I am very certain that McCain's wife, mother and kids think that the post-surgery portions of his face are absolutely wonderful compared to the alternative. Also, I would imagine that there are more than a few post-op melanoma patients out of the 250,000 or so monthly readers.
Looking at the location setup, I think they lit the podium with what they had. Obama's primary key are the series of Arri 5k's (or 10k's), which are the same type of lights they use on film sets (among many others). All I really see is a basic 3 point setup, just expanded to cover the entire field and slightly focused on the podium. I find it difficult to compare these two particular photos from a lighting perspective because of their opposition, one is day and the other is night. Given the cost associated with turning night into day by just using a crap-ton of light, and with support being in Obama's favor the night before election day, it's easy to justify pulling the reigns on that expense and going with a smaller production. My beef with the headline is, they say his grandmother's death casted a "pall" on the rally, which I firmly disagree with. Made it easy to approve of that darker image with hot highlights, creating a more haunting tone. That juxtaposition of the image and headline focuses on Obama's personal experience, whereas McCain's column focuses on his campaign effort. Of course, I assume the McCain picture was taken yesterday. If we found another picture of McCain at night and compared, I could see that. Or a comparison of images from both of the RNC or DNC conventions, that would also be a better comparison. The intent would be similar with both efforts, especially at a time when support to one side was less defined.
The lighting from underneath on Obama makes him look older, hence more experienced. It also emphasizes the feeling that he's talking to a large crowd. I've seen some of the other shots of him from similar events where the photographers were positioned to where the only shots they could get had crowds of thousands of people in the background. Seems like their strategy is to make him appear immensely popular and well-liked. It really helps with the message of unity and hope that he's after!
David I like Heisler's #6 "The Whistle Blowers" Time magazine cover. You think that he lit each subject individually and put them together in PS? The lighting profile of Sherron Watkins on the right makes me wonder?
Looking at the results of Obama's uplighting, and comparing those to McCain's more "odd" experience with that effect, I was curious to know -- is uplighting naturally more kind to darker complexions?
JG was obviously trying to do as much damage as possible to McCain, and was not using anything *butt* that one bottom light. But take a look at what Heisler did with Rudolph Guiliani and Michael Phelps (both caucasians) -- Friggin' amazing.
The thing i also noticed is that they are both looking in the direction of the political views of the party they are representing. Republicans being part of the right wing politics and Democrats being of left wing views.
Next time my dad talks at the Rotary Club maybe I can set up a smaller scale version of this, as most of their talking head photos look pretty horrible. I tried searching, but it's pulling pretty much EVERY page up.
I think it's worth considering that it may be horses for courses to some extent - the uplighting suits Obama's slim and relatively youthful features...
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