My life in serious photography started quite by accident. It could be said there were signs in 1974 when I honeymooned in Bermuda and my brother suggested I take his 35mm camera along to record the occasion. As I remember I made about 200 slide exposures, less than a dozen with my new bride in the photograph. There was something brewing but nothing came of it until the early ’80’s. To this day there is a personal relationship of challenge and creating a visual being in every image I make.
I had been involved in drag racing since my high school days and thru a family member met another racing fan who was a professional photographer by day. We became friends and early in 1981, he introduced me to 35mm black and white photography and film processing in the darkroom. Later in 1981 Mark suggested I answer a call for an internship with a photography studio in East Hartford, CT. I did and joined Gary Wnek as the only two accepted into the weekly training sessions with Stelcar Studios. The studio saw potential in both Gary and I and encouraged us to attend monthly meetings of the Connecticut Professional Photographers Association.
I first attended a CPPA meeting in Oct. ’81 while interning for Stelcar Studios as a wedding photographer. To their credit, Stella & Marty Seefer knew I preferred subjects that did not talk back and were always very supportive of my personal interests in photography beyond their own business interests. So while I shot my fair share of weddings the studio pursued some commercial clients for me, as things progressed the studio sent me to a lighting workshop with a famous commercial / illustration photographer located in Massachusetts. Xenophon Beake taught me many tricks to control light but most importantly to understand that controlling light is the single biggest factor in creating shape and roundness in a 2-dimensional photograph. This 4×5” chrome was made as a promotional piece to show Colt Firearms in Hartford CT. Each gun was lit and photographed by itself in three separate exposures on a single sheet of 4×5″ Ektachrome film. Marty Seefer and I spent near 35 hours as I recall constructing and lighting this setup, each gun was laid out with grease pencil on the back of the camera’s ground glass. Dozens of sheets of 4×5 Polaroid film were used to determine exact positioning as well as perfecting the lighting. Careful attention had to be paid to preventing any exposure from stray light, black velvet would soak up the light so other areas of the film would accurately record the 2nd and 3rd guns. The two smaller guns were done 1st and 2nd and the larger one saved for last. Each gun, seemingly in mid-air was supported by a black aluminum rod that was bent to shape each time so it was hidden by the gun itself. Each time we photographed a gun we took 5-6 polaroids to be used later in positioning and balancing of light, as I remember it was a bit of pain to extract the polaroid from its holder without actually processing it so we could use it later for exact positioning of each gun.
We only had a small portrait studio softbox strobe light, at only 400-watt seconds of power multiple “pops” of the strobe would be necessary to build density in a darkened room and the set draped in black velvet. As I recall the smaller guns were over 20 pops of the strobe to gain proper exposure and depth of field while using a small f-stop. With the first two guns already positioned and photographed independently, it was time for the last and most prominent gun to be positioned and photographed. The lighting for the smaller guns was fairly easy with the softbox taking care of the bulk of the exposure, the light rounded off nicely on the barrels giving a sense of roundness and shape. There should have been more care taken to balance the light on the grips, more on that later. The 3rd and most prominent gun had to be placed in a specific area to allow for Colt to drop in their logo if they had interest in using the shot for promotion. The gun had a unique finished called “bluing” seen most prominently in the stock of the gun. Our contact at Colt Firearms explained that the bluing had to be specially highlighted in the photograph, hence the angled gun to the camera not only provided a sense of depth and drama but also shown the random patterns of the bluing in the best light. The position of the gun created depth of focus problems, partly offset by swinging the back to alter the plane of focus combined with the light necessary to highlight the gun stock and the bluing effect necessitated an f-stop of f-45 requiring as I recall near 35 “pops” of the strobe. This much light caused an undue amount of light striking the grip, we had to subtract light to provide controlled texture to the grip so it would not be blown out, as I recall we blocked light from hitting the grip for about 1/3 of the exposure. Because the barrel of this gun was bright chrome I had to use a trick that Xenophon taught me, I put several strips of black tape across the face of the softbox which would be reflected back to the camera lens as a darker area giving a sense of shape to the barrel of the gun. The black tape was also placed so the letters would “see” part of the black tape to accent the lettering on the barrel. With this type of close up photography, you had to move your head around in front of the lens so your eyes were exactly in the center of the lens so I could see precisely what the film would record. This one project was a huge learning experience for both Marty and me, one that took several weeks to complete, numerous challenges, a few laughs and a lifelong friendship.
With the photography of the guns complete it was time to add in the stars. I used a piece of black foam core board approx 3’x3’. Randomly sized holes were punctured in the foam core, the board was positioned in front of the lens and lit from behind with a hot light for placement. With each gun’s space on the ground glass outlined in black grease pencil, I went under the dark cloth and Marty would begin covering holes with black tape that I could see would intersect with the space each gun would occupy on the exposed film. At this point all three guns had been exposed on 4 separate sheets of film, adding the stars was the last part of the shot and had the potential to ruin all the hard work to this point. Polaroids were again used to determine the exact position the stars would fall on the film. There was only one pop of the strobe necessary as the lens didn’t have to be stopped down nearly as much as the exposures for the guns. There were, however, two exposures for the stars, one with a cross star filter which would refract light into 4 rays of light and the second exposure with no cross star filter which yielded small round holes for a random look of outer space.
It’s important to note, without the brainstorming of Marty Seefer and the tricks I learned from Xenophon Beake this image would not have happened for me back in 1984. The entire image is done in camera on one piece of film with no computer software or manipulation, the Photoshop software program was not even released until 1990. This image would lead to dozens of specialized engraved guns I photographed for Colt Firearms to show perspective gun collectors all over the world. Prior to Colt Firearms commisioning Stelcar Studios to photograph specially engraved guns Colt would fly a representative and the guns all over the world to private gun collectors seeking a certain engraving style from a Master Engraver.
For me personally, barely 3 years into serious photography I entered this very chrome titled “Stars Wars” in the Professional Photographers of America annual print competition where it scored a 90 and was accepted into the International Loan Collection, an incredible honor at the time for such a young photographer. The whole concept of the photograph and the huge popularity of the Star Wars phenomenon had a lot to do with its success. It was pointed out to me there were some deficiencies in lighting that needed to be corrected in my technique going forward. The lighting on the grips was inconsistent especially on the gold medallion on the smaller gun was too bright. The barrel of the large gun even though it is near the center of the image showed some distortion due to the short focal length lens, the studio only had a 210mm lens, so much more to learn !! Even to this day, I am amazed at some of the minor techniques or details I remember from print competitions and programs while I was a member of the Connecticut Professional Photographers Association.
Ultimately the passion for large film Black and White photography would win out over a career in professional photography. However, the friends I made in those early days of the “80’s are still to this day the closest friends I have, photography or otherwise, a reward that simply has no equal.
Very interesting article Good as all you publish Best Regards
Thank you Gerardo !
I remember seeing this picture many years ago. Thanks for the narrative; I have a whole new appreciation of this photograph. wow.
Thanks very much Rick for your kind words !!