Photographic equipment used during a portrait musician session
APRIL 2021
*For the benefit of the reader wishing to obtain information about the photographic equipment used during our portrait session, it is summarized for your convenience below.
I was pleased when my photographic engagement with Mr. Lemelin was secured, myself being an individual who appreciates a diversified range of music. On the day of our scheduled event, my portrait session was surprisingly delayed due to a frosh weekend “move in” creating virtually no available parking at the time of my arrival! This occurrence had gone completely unnoticed by me being a person caught up in one’s daily routine. Had I been aware of these circumstances beforehand, I would certainly have had to make alternate arrangement’s particularly pertaining to rescheduling the event if at all possible. Conclusions had to be made quickly and I finally chose to double park my vehicle. My equipment set up was inevitably overly rushed due to the limited time of our engagement together. This is when knowing how one’s equipment operates inside and out is indispensable when situations of this nature occur. There can be no time allotted for indecision under these fast paced circumstances.
Recognizing that I had a limited amount of time with my guest, I quickly arranged the preliminary lighting on the set and finalized a series of poses as time afforded it. Glancing the room we were situated in presented infiltration of ambient light which was distracting and I chose to eliminate it entirely with strobes. Taking both incident and reflective light meter readings ensured more predictability of the overall lighting conditions in this environment. (On an amusing note, the rapid construction of the set produced an array of power cords, power bars, power packs, sync cords and strobe head cables making the floor area resemble that of an emergency fire crew hoses that had just responded to a 911 call). As the portrait session continued, my guest began playing quietly while I was repositioning my camera and lights for an additional pose and the subtlety of his music created a splendid atmosphere in which to work. This event reminded me of a similar situation when I photographed a lead violinist from the National Arts Centre Orchestra years ago when he visited my studio for a session equipped with his Stradivarius. I commented on the beauty and sophistication of his playing while loading another film back and he humbly redirected a compliment back to me indicating that it is probably no different than myself as a photographer who becomes very familiar with one’s trade. The session continued for a short time afterwards and I quickly reviewed the amount of colour and black and white imagery produced ensuring adequate amounts of each. After the portrait session concluded, my guest departed, pleased with the level of efficiency and visual results from an initial Polaroid print I produced while testing the strobes prior to exposing film. As mentioned in other related blog topics, I customarily hand process b & w film in my darkroom ensuring that proper densities of both highlights and shadows are achieved. The resulting imagery I am pleased to say was a success and well received by others who viewed the completed portraits. Recalling that I was double parked, I gathered my equipment as quickly as possible, then made a rapid exit of the building only to find that my car had “not” been ticked. I smiled thinking perhaps my guardian angel must have been looking out for me! End.
Bio Of Mr. Lemelin
Pianist Stéphane Lemelin is well-known to audiences throughout Canada and regularly tours in the United States, Europe and Asia as soloist and chamber musician.
His repertory is vast, with a predilection for the German Classical and Romantic literature and a particular affinity for French music, as evidenced by his more than twenty-five recordings, which include works by Fauré, Saint-Saëns, debussy, Poulenc and Roussel. Stéphane Lemelin is director of the French music series “Découvertes 1890-1939” on the Atma Classique label, dedicated to the rediscovery of neglected early twentieh-century French repertoire and for which he has recorded works by Samazeuilh, Ropartz, Pierné, Migot, Dupont, Dubois, Rhené-Bâton, Rosenthal, Alder, Lekeu, and Vierne. His latest recording features the complete works for violin and piano by Gyorgy Catoire, with violinist Laurence Kayaleh, and was released on the Naxos label in 2016.
Stéphane Lemelin studied with Yvonne Hubert in Montreal, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel in New York, and received both Bacholer’s and Master’s degrees from the Peabody Conservatory as a student of Leon Fleisher. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University, where his teachers were Boris Berman and Claude Frank. He was a professor at the University of Alberta and the University of Ottawa, where he also served as Director of the School of Music from 2007 to 2012. He is now Chair of the Department of Performance and Professor of Piano at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. A dedicated pedagogue, he has been invited to give master classes around the world. Stéphane Lemelin was a member of Trio Hochelaga from 2003 to 2012 and the founder and artistic director of the Prince Edward County Music Festival from 2004 to 2017.
Equipment
My gear consisted of two professional lighting systems manufactured by Dynalite and Photogenic including a soft box as a key light followed by a supplemental power pack acting as secondary accent and fill lights. The portraits were created with both Kodak and Fuji professional 120 medium format films, and both were intentionally overexposed rendering greater information in shadow areas. I often pre-load film backs prior to my arrival which frequently pays great dividends regarding set up time however due to rushed circumstances, this did not occur but is strongly recommended. The selected on location camera system was a completely manual Hasselblad 500CM camera which included the usage of an 80mm and 150mm portrait lens accompanied with 12 exposure film backs.