When in Doubt, Improvise

You could make the case that photojournalism is largely about solving problems. At least that's what photojournalists seem to spend most of their day doing. We find the stories, secure access to people and places, work out logistics; only then do we make pictures. And when you're shooting an assignment, the problems you face depend on the needs of the client for whom you're making the pictures.

With documentary photography, often the biggest problem is to deliver a publishable, memorable picture without influencing the situation. When I began my newspaper career, the documentary approach was very influential. You couldn't move the furniture; you couldn't tell the subject what to do or where to stand; and artificial lighting was suspect. The idea was to make pictures with minimal intrusion.

I didn't quite buy that approach. I always carried a small flash and I'd bounce the light from any available surface to add a bit more needed illumination. I liked what the eminent photojournalist Eugene Smith said: "My attitude towards available light is that I use whatever light is available."

These days much of my work is for magazines and nonprofit organizations. Whether the need is a documentary-style image or something more illustrative, I have to produce the best possible picture that accurately tells the story, and I'll use whatever lighting I can to solve problems. For a recent Smithsonian magazine assignment about breeding cattle, I was told that much of the photography would take place in a barn, so I anticipated having to light the location.

I am not what you'd call a heavy lighter. I prefer to work with whatever ambient sources are available—daylight, fluorescent, incandescent, sodium vapor—and use Speedlights placed strategically around the subject to create emphasis. My lighting kit is four SB-800s, a couple of softboxes and umbrellas, Omni-Bounce domes and a few light stands.

For the Smithsonian job, I flew to Dallas, then drove four hours northwest to a small cattle-ranching community. After a quick scout of the ranch, I realized that four Speedlights wouldn't be enough. I'd imagined the barn to be a wooden structure with light filtering in through doors and windows. In reality it was a huge construction shed with high ceilings, metal walls and no windows.

Maybe daylight would help. The barn had two large double doors opening to the outside, and an overcast day would give me some nice soft light. Unfortunately the day was bright and sunny, and the open doors admitted a glaring shaft of daylight that cut right across the work area, creating a situation that was impossible to balance with the dark interior.

I ran tests for my original plan to mix my Speedlights with the barn's dim sodium vapor lights, but I wasn't getting results that I liked, and my four Speedlights didn't have the power to replace the sodium vapor lights.