My mission for the day was simple. I visited a local gallery to drop off my portfolio for possible inclusion in a proposed show.
The gallery, in a local mall, rarely included photography in its offerings because few people purchased higher priced prints and less inexpensive prints weren’t financially beneficial to the photographer or the gallery.
Still, the owner wanted to look at my work because he’d seen a few pieces in other places and wanted tos ee more.
I arrived just as he completed the first coat of paint on a free-standing wall in the center of the gallery just inside the door. Painted a bright red, the wall was a visual assault on the senses even with the uneven thickness of the first coating.
I showed off the portfolio. We discussed pricing, display options, dates, and the art of photography in general. We couldn’t agree on several of these items, mainly pricing and whether or not it was worth the time and effort of either of use for what was anticipated to be a minor number of sales.
If I had a photo of Ohio Stadium filled with 100,000 football fans it would have been a different situation.
That didn’t mean the visit was a total loss.
After bringing in my cameras from the car, I posed the gallery owner for a quick portrait in front of his newly painted wall. Choosing a frame just large enough to tightly frame his face, I placed him in the center of the right third of the empty wall. I preferred the placement at right although either side would have worked. Placing him off center is better composition than in the center of the frame.
I popped a small strobe in a softbox onto his face to fill in the shadows from the overhead lights used to illuminate the wall. The softbox light was set to be just bright enough to slightly overpower the overheads. The color was balanced to the strobe daylight setting which increased the deep tone of the wall.
It was just luck that his sweater grid pattern mimicked the frame and wall rectangular shapes.
Other than the 45 minutes we spent talking about the art of selling art, this photo took no more than 5 minutes from camera setup to completion.
