Every few months, Profoto has the pleasure of interviewing an accomplished and highly regarded photographer to bring you their passion and knowledge of light shaping. This collection of interviews makes up the Master Series.

The latest addition to the Master Series features New York-based photographer Gregory Heisler, renowned for his technical mastery and iconic Time Magazine covers, to name just a few examples.

In this fourth video Greg takes us behind the scenes of his shoot with controversial Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat – a shoot that resulted in an iconic portrait that eventually could be seen on the on the cover of Time Magazine all over the world.

The fifth video will be posted in exactly one month. In case you missed any of the first three videos, check our dedicated Master Series page.

You can see more of Greg’s work at his website. He is also a frequent Twitterer.

©Gregory Heisler

Every few months, Profoto has the pleasure of interviewing an accomplished and highly regarded photographer to bring you their passion and knowledge of light shaping. This collection of interviews makes up the Master Series.

Today, we are happy to introduce the latest addition to the Master Series, featuring New York-based photographer Gregory Heiser, renowned for his technical mastery and iconic Time Magazine covers, to name just a few examples.

In this first video, Greg reveals how he used his lighting expertise to make a studio shot of swimmer Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, look like it was shot in a pool.

For your information, we have another five Master Series videos with Greg in the pipeline, so stay tuned.

You can see more of Greg’s work at his website. He is also a frequent Twitterer.

Mario Andretti | ©Richard Dole

In the spring of 2012, Richard Dole was commissioned by Automobile Magazine to photograph some of the legendary figures in auto racing from the 1950s and 1960s. The “Generation of Heroes” project was published in the monthly magazine throughout the year, each issue contained a series of one-page profiles of the great drivers, engineers, mechanics and journalists who were part of the golden age of motor sport. The subjects not only included famous drivers like Mario Andretti, Sir Jackie Stewart, and Richard Petty, but also lesser known figures like mechanic and car builder Phil Remington, and motor sport photographer Jesse Alexander.

“The most critical factor in any portrait session is time,” says Dole. “The majority of these people are very active, even though their ages range from the early 70s to the mid 90s. I knew the amount of time they would allow themselves in front of the camera would be very limited. And it was. Most of the sessions last less than 10 minutes and a couple lasted less than 2 minutes.” (more…)

Fuse Book Cover | ©Kevin Twomey

San Francisco photographer Kevin Twomey was recently hired to shoot the cover for Julianna Baggot’s post-apocalyptic novel Fuse. To illustrate the novel’s dark content, he was asked to photograph a water bird in a stressful environment, and Kevin, who wanted to keep it simple, decided to shoot just the bird’s wing, splashing water and stirring up feathers. He then brought animal trainer Joe Krathwohl, the one-year-old pelican Neptune and a couple of Profoto generators with him to his studio and got down to business.

The rest of the story can found on pdnonline.com. You should also check out Kevin’s website.

©Gianluca Colla

Today, we present you with something slightly different: an article that was originally published in a printed magazine.

But first some background information. Photographer Gianluca Colla was recently assigned to shoot the cover for the Italian edition of National Geographic. The magazine cover (above) shows the portrait known as La Bella Principessa (The Beautiful Princess). This portrait had just been attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci, which, as you can imagine, caused a rather heated debate amongst scientists, historians and enthusiastic art lovers.

Arianna De Micheli, who works as a web editor for Photographers.it and the photography sections of Italian newspapers LaStampa.it and IlGiornale.it, met up with Gianluca and interviewed him about his unusual assignment. Arianna was also kind enough to ask us if we wanted to post the interview here on our blog – an offer we were more than happy to accept.

So with no further ado we present Gianluca Colla’s story, written by Arianna De Micheli. Enjoy!

“I’ve always been a huge fan of Leonardo Da Vinci,” says Gianluca. “So when I received a call from National Geographic about a possible Da Vinci painting they wanted me to photograph, I was excited like never before. Some years ago, an art collector bought a colored chalk-and-ink drawing on vellum, which seems now to have many common characteristics with the unique Leonardo painting technique, and the story is about showing what the common points are. The only downside to this assignment was that National Geographic already had a layout in mind, so I had to make images following some directions. It didn’t make the assignment any less appealing; it just made it more difficult. In fact, I had to make a picture with two hands with white gloves holding the painting, showing the signs of time on the paint, with a black background.

“Exposed like that, it doesn’t sound tricky, but when you get on the site and you find out there are almost 8 stops of difference between the painting and the hands with white gloves, you definitely need to find a good solution. Plus, the painting was glued on a wooden tablet so instead of being dark, it was glossy. Not exactly the easiest subject to illuminate… (more…)