Pears - Bill Gekas

Written by Andy. Posted in Portrait Inspiration

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What is the difference between a professional and an amateur? I can honestly tell you it has nothing to do with the quality of work. My friend and photographer Bill Gekas proves this theory. He is not a professional photographer, and his quality of work is simply amazing.

I wanted to share his work with you to show that you don't need fancy equipment, a fancy studio, or even to label yourself as a professional to produce amazing work....the only thing you truly need is knowledge. Your brain is much more powerful than any camera, strobe or softbox! Be resourceful, think it through and get out and shoot...right after you read this article though..

PEARS

cherries My name is Bill Gekas and I live in Melbourne Australia. I’m a self taught photographer that first started shooting film with an slr camera in the late 90's shooting a bit of everything and just generally having fun with the film based medium. Photography not being my full time profession has over the years become my part time insanity. I believe we all need an insanity to stay sane and photography is mine! I'll shoot the occasional portrait for a client on a weekend but I shoot primarily for myself with my young daughter playing a role of some sort in my fine art setups.

oranges My interest in portraiture didn't come about till 2005 about the same time I switched from film to digital. I remember viewing some portraits from past well known photographers that just pulled me in, as if the photographs had a life to them, although the subjects were complete strangers, they had that something that connected with me. It was at this point I knew this is what I wanted to create. Creative portraits that have a deeper emotional appeal, that have a fine art aesthetic with a sense of atmosphere. And this was coming from someone that previously had no interest in photographing people!

Many compare my style and see similarities in some of my work to paintings by the old masters, and there's definitely an element of that taken from them as in most cases when I seek this style of inspiration i'll typically look up works by Rembrandt, Titian, Caravaggio, Raphael, Vermeer etc. so it's only normal for their style to wear off on me and show through in my work. These guys from a few hundred years ago had this visual art all worked out and even though it’s been done before we can still study and learn from their techniques and then apply certain aspects of it to our own style. A main source of daily inspiration is the online curated photo gallery www.1x.com that I consider the pinnacle. An awesome gallery which should be in every photographers bookmarks, basically this site to me is an inspiration hub, 5 minutes browsing the categories in here every day is a lesson in seeing.

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More recently one of my photo's “Pears" took 3rd place in the WPPI online second half competition under the children's portraiture category and i'll break down the lighting, but before I explain the setup, let me begin by saying that I don't have a dedicated studio space. I usually shoot in my home studio which in my case is a small corner in my loungeroom which I can set a background stand and lights and break them down again in a real short time if I need to. For photographing little people (children) it's fine, if I need to shoot a few adults i'm then fortunate to have access to a large warehouse floorspace not too far from home.

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Pears - Bill Gekas

This photo like most of my others was pre-planned a few days before I shot it and the purpose was to create a posed photograph that was reminiscent of the paintings by the old masters. This required getting the right pose, composition, lighting, and tonal relationships all coming together. It was shot in my home studio using a very basic two light and reflector setup. The background was just a brown piece of fabric material stretched out on the backdrop stand. The reason I stretch out the fabric using clamps is to have an even surface to give the illusion of a wall and this also makes it easier to blend a texture over it during post. I didn’t place the subject too close to the background for two reasons.

(i) I preferred to have the background slightly out of focus as it turns out smoother and is easier to do something in post when overlaying a texture etc. and

(ii) by using a wide gridspot to light the background from further back prevented this light hitting the subject.

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A 1/4 CTO gelled speedlight @ 1/4pwr in a Westcott apollo 28" softbox cam left about 45 deg high and to the side as key, another speedlight with a 65deg gridspot camera left just next to the softbox aimed to the background for some separation. With this style of portraiture I’ll almost always light the background in some way rather than use a hair light for separation. The third source was a gold 42” reflector cam right next to the subject just out of frame which kicked back a decent amount of fill. Shutter speed used was my max sync speed so that all remaining ambient was killed off in order to have total control of all light sources. Although I have an einstein studio strobe which is a great light, I find that in my small studio space I can do almost everything I want using AA powered speedlights and this photo was no exception. Working in small spaces has it’s points too once you know how to take advantage of the inverse square law, and I can comfortably work at 1/4 - 1/2 speedlight power and still be hitting f5.6 @ iso100.

The rest is just careful post work which involved overlaying a texture and then the usual hue/saturation/curves adjustments that we all do to give our photos that pop they need, many ways of doing the post and i'm no expert in post processing but know enough to do what I need to get to the final image. As for gear I try not to think about it too much as it can get in the way of the creative process. I have many different types of light modifiers but in most cases end up using the Westcott 28" Apollo and a gridspot. It’s my goto light mod and if there's only one light mod I could have the Westcott Apollo 28” would be it hands down! Camera brand or type is not that important to me but for the record I shoot with the Pentax system using their prime lenses and a zoom, just a follow on thing from my K1000 days but with this style of shooting I can smell the appeal for sensor size going medium format digital!

The most important aspect to this whole process is the learning and applying. I have the utmost respect for people like David Hobby, Zack Arias, Bert Stephani, Jeremy Cowart etc. (not forgetting these other two cool dudes that spent some time in Colombia ;) and it’s not because of their photography work (although that is awesome too) but because of the time they have spent sharing their knowledge with the rest of us and then saying “Now go play, and master your craft!”. Hopefully the next generation of photographers will be willing to pass the torch of knowledge on in the same way as I believe it’s not only rewarding to do so but also gains you more respect than any of your next award winning shots will give you.