On Assignment: Portait of Fred Beckey.

Here’s a recent assignment I shot for a newspaper client on the East Coast.

The subject was famed climber Fred Beckey, who turned 86 years old this past week.

Pretty straightforward assignment as these things go — meet the subject at his home and make a portrait.

From the email detailing the shoot from the photo editor:

“We’ll need a great environmental portrait. Something really strong…maybe a close up of his face (weathered?) or hands. This could be nice. Can you light it? “

Like I said, pretty straightforward.

Immediately I’m thinking about shooting him climbing at one of the local rocks around Seattle or at an indoor climbing gym.

As always seems to happen (and you editorial photographers out there have all experienced this), the subject has already gone to the climbing gym with the reporter, and they didn’t make the assignment until after the reporter was done.

Nice.

Mr. Beckey is busy preparing to go to Europe and he doesn’t have time to climb or go to the gym, so we’ll meet at his home.

He lives in a very standard split-level home in North Seattle. Small rooms, no real space to set up a good lit portrait. Some of his photos hang on the wall, but the rooms are crowded and tight.

I do the standard walk around his home, feeling that familiar sense of panic set in — there’s no good place to shoot, there’s no good backgrounds, I’m totally screwed…etc.

In my pre-assignment brainstorming (which we all do, some of us write things down, some of us just obsess over the possibilities), I did make a mental note of getting some of his climbing gear into a shot. Beckey has been climbing for the better part of six decades, so I figure if climbers are anything like photographers, he’s got to have a ton of gear lying around somewhere.

So I ask him about his gear. Tells me there’s much of it down in the garage, but that it’s a mess.

We walk down there, and it’s a treasure trove of climbing gear, just as I’d imagined.

Now, where to put him?

I spot some ropes and axes and other tools hanging on a wall. There’s even kind of a natural space for where his head could be if I shot it from the right angle.

I snap a quick shot of the wall and can see that it will work.

(Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm/f2.8 lens @ 66mm, ISO 2000, 1/100th sec.,f4.0)

What about the light? It’s flat.

(Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm/f2.8 lens @ 32mm, ISO 2000, 1/80th sec.,f2.8)

We open the garage door and voila, there’s the light. Streaming in from one side if I pose him correctly. It’s a large and soft light source, one that I could duplicate with strobes, but why?

(Nikon D3, Nikkor 70mm-200/f2.8 lens @ 102mm, ISO 2000, 1/100th sec.,f4.0)

Now that I’ve established the background, the light and the composition, it’s time to work on the most important part of the portrait — the position of the subject and what we can share about him in the final image.

I decide that I want him close to the wall of equipment — I want the viewer to know it’s climbing gear.

(Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm/f2.8 lens @ 32mm, ISO 2000, 1/125th sec.,f2.8)

With this image we have established the following about Fred Beckey — he’s well-lived, he’s an adventurer and we’ve done it in a distinguished manner. It’s a fairly strong portrait and it conveys the basics of what we know about him.

Moving on, I try to work in a piece of equipment as a prop. The ax I find beneath some bags of gear is fitting. It’s decades old, it’s rough and it’s sharp. Just like Mr. Beckey.

I shoot a couple of frames loose. I’ve brought him away from the background of gear now. Because he has the ax in his hands, we don’t need to see the detail of the gear behind him. It will distract. I shoot a little longer, at 70mm, and wide open at f2.8 so I can control the depth of field. I want the background to blur away.

(Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm/f2.8 lens @ 70mm, ISO 2000, 1/320th sec.,f2.8)

From here, I shoot tight details. The photo editor suggested maybe tight shots of the hands that have conquered so many peaks. I use the sharp features of the ax as a contrast to Beckey’s weathered, yet soft hands.

(Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm/f2.8 lens @ 70mm, ISO 2000, 1/100th sec.,f4.0)

We move from a tight shot of his hands to one that incorporates his face as well.

(Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm/f2.8 lens @ 70mm, ISO 2000, 1/100th sec.,f4.0)

To wrap up, I shoot a tight frame of his face.

(Nikon D3, Nikkor 70-200mm/f2.8 lens @ 170mm, ISO 2000, 1/200th sec.,f4.0)

The soft light wraps around him and falls into every weathered crease in his face. Beckey manages a crooked smile for me but the thing I think the viewer notice first is the life in his eyes.

Portrait assignments can be challenging, especially for me. But I try to remember that each photo I take needs to tell a story. The light and the composition give the viewer a frame of reference to Fred Beckey, but his face and hands tell the story of a man who has “bagged” many many peaks all over the world. And at 86, he shows no signs of stopping.