Champion Cornhole Player Ryan Smith for The Wall Street Journal

Ryan Smith, a former defensive back for James Madison University, found his post-collegiate athletic calling through the game of cornhole. The object, to toss a bean bag 45 feet away into a hole six inches in diameter, is as challenging as it sounds.

I was able to photograph Ryan at a brewery, Twinpanzee, in Sterling, Virginia. The cavernous space offered lots of room to work in. Movable walls made of plywood the brewery uses to separate brewing equipment from the cornhole court created interesting, clean backgrounds and good visual separation between Ryan and what would otherwise have been a very cluttered background of tanks and hoses. The best part is Ryan had no problem at all with my strobe blasting away for the whole shoot. He continually dropped bags into the hole like he was standing right over it - it really was amazing to witness.

It’s a good thing we both showed up early, because I used up a half-hour attempting some stroboscopic images of Ryan tossing the bag, but there was just too much ambient light I couldn’t control, so I bagged the idea and moved the strobe behind and to Ryan’s right, really just to see what it would look like and to get some kind of visual starting point. As soon as I saw the potential in the first frame of creating Ryan’s silhouette on the wall and getting his beanbag in there, nicely separated inside the shadow, I knew I’d have a keeper.

My favorite photo is the first one below. I brought along a Q-Flash T5D-R, a small, powerful strobe that is easy to move around in active environments like the cornhole court.

The image also set a style for the remainder of the shoot. Luckily, Ryan was playing in front of a large stainless steel wall, inside which kegs of delicious beer are kept. The Q-Flash loves shiny surfaces, and with Ryan’s bright red jersey, blue beanbags, and outgoing personality, I was able to create images that, for me at least, made something visible from the invisible.

Check out The Wall Street Journal’s story to learn about his workout routine and how he keeps in shape physically and mentally for his upcoming busy tournament season. And see some outtakes and the tearsheet below.

The Light Is Fantastic

Photography: Portraits of a stage artist, student and tech wiz

I love working as a photographer in the San Francisco Bay Area. The light is fantastic, there are numerous locations offering great architecture or interior design, and because of the culture’s embrace of creativity and innovation, many of the subjects are game to play and experiment during photo shoots.  To show you what I mean, I’ve selected just three images from some recent assignments.

Theater artist Taylor Mac won a MacArthur “Genius Grant” in 2017. Mac writes, directs, acts, sings, and performs experimental works that work as theatre and social commentary. I had about 15 minutes to photograph Mac for the MacArthur Foundation. Between performances of the groundbreaking “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” Mac was staying at the Hotel G in downtown San Francisco, built in 1909. The hotel room abutted a stairway; I peeked inside, saw the color of the walls and the window light, and immediately knew this was the place to make a picture. I had Mac play the ukulele, which was slightly difficult due to a hurt finger from stumbling in high heels during last night’s performance. Nonetheless, Mac was able to strum two or three chords, humming a quiet melody as I made pictures.

Photographed for the MacArthur Foundation.

Aaron Chow, an economics freshman at UC Berkeley, decided to research and investigate a real estate investment trust that a friend had invested in, only to discover that the trust had failed to file all kinds of SEC paperwork. Oops! Good for him, an…

Aaron Chow, an economics freshman at UC Berkeley, decided to research and investigate a real estate investment trust that a friend had invested in, only to discover that the trust had failed to file all kinds of SEC paperwork. Oops! Good for him, and probably bad for shady investment firms, once this young man graduates and starts his career. Chow suggested we shoot at the Asian Studies library because it has "cool architecture." By the Japanese periodicals, I custom white-balanced the fluorescent light by his head, which pushed the huge skylight in the background into a deep blue. I love it when I can employ optical physics instead of a dolly full of lighting equipment to make a compelling portrait!

Photographed for The Wall Street Journal.

David Wallerstein, the “Chief Exploration Officer” for Tencent, works in a converted church in Palo Alto. We made a number of moody pictures by the stained glass windows, and thought we had it in the bag. As we were walking back to the front door, w…

David Wallerstein, the “Chief Exploration Officer” for Tencent, works in a converted church in Palo Alto. We made a number of moody pictures by the stained glass windows, and thought we had it in the bag. As we were walking back to the front door, we passed through the kitchen area where I saw the yellow-green wall with symmetrical clocks. At this point, we were warmed up and talking. David was using his phone to play some of his band’s heavy metal songs for me, and I commandeered his public relations assistant to hold a strobe. As you can see, David rocks!

Photographed for The Wall Street Journal.

Mark Stefanik for The Wall Street Journal

Shooting a portrait about cybersecurity for The Wall Street Journal, I had spontaneous inspiration to purchase a chain and pad lock 15 minutes before the shoot and to have the subject stand behind a chain-wrapped computer monitor. Of course I also shot the portrait without the chain, which is what eventually ran in today's Wall Street Journal. Nonetheless, my computer monitor in bondage lives on here, at my blog. Enjoy.

 

Mark Stefanik of Advantage Benefit Solutions was hit by ransomware when his computer files were locked by a cybercriminal. Stefanik paid $400 ransom to unencrypt his data.