Reference · A working journal

Techniques

Readers ask, often, how a particular essay was made — what film, what light, what exposure, what gear made it through customs. This page is the slow, honest answer: the techniques I rely on, the ones I avoid, and the working logic that connects them.

It's a reference, not a tutorial. I don't believe anyone learned to make pictures by reading about pictures. But if you've already started — already have a camera you trust, a film stock you keep coming back to, and at least one project you can't quite finish — there might be something useful in here.

Section 01

Light & weather

Light is the only material a photographer has. Weather is what shapes it. I have spent more time reading marine forecasts and high-pressure charts than I've spent reading photography books, and the difference shows in the work.

The two hours after the cloud deck breaks behind a coastal storm are worth more than any so-called golden hour. The trick is to be standing in the right place already — which is mostly a matter of having driven there the day before.

The blue minutes: The seven or eight minutes after the sun has dropped below the horizon and before the streetlights take over. Color temperature crashes from neutral into deep cobalt. Hand-held is impossible past about minute three; a tripod or a wall to brace against is non-negotiable. Almost every cover frame on the Iceland series was made in this window.
Storm light: The shaft of low, raking sun that pushes under a retreating cloud bank. Lasts ninety seconds, maybe four minutes. It separates everything in the frame and makes ordinary subjects look carved. The only way to work in it is to be set up and ready before the front clears — which means you're committing to a location on faith, and most of the time the light never comes.
Flat overcast: The most underrated light in the world. No shadows, no contrast, full information across the tonal range. Portraits made on a foggy afternoon look better than the same face in a softbox. The whole Quiet Mornings series leans on this — fog is a six-foot scrim hung between you and your subject.

See it in the work

The Long Light — Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland
Quiet Mornings — Olympic Peninsula, Washington

Section 02

Exposure

I meter for the highlights on color negative film and for the shadows on black-and-white. That single rule has saved more frames than every technical article I read in my twenties. Everything else is a refinement of it.

For color negative — Portra 400, mostly — I expose at box speed and trust the highlights to behave. If the scene has a strong specular highlight I'll bracket half a stop down to keep the brightest area from shouldering off. Color negative holds shadow detail in a way digital does not, so the downside of slight underexposure is almost nothing.

For Tri-X I expose at 200, develop normally, and live with a slightly thicker negative. The shadow detail is the point — most of the documentary work in the Brooklyn series is shot indoors at f/2 in window light, and a negative that reads on a thin shoulder is a negative that prints badly.

On the Leica Q3 I shoot raw, expose for the brightest tone I want to keep, and pull shadows in development. The sensor's dynamic range is more than enough to absorb a stop of pull. The discipline of metering for highlights is the same across both — only the recovery margin changes.

Rule of thumb If you're not sure which highlight matters, ask yourself which one a reader's eye will land on first. Meter for that one. The other bright spots can blow if they have to.

Section 03

Film stocks

Three rolls cover almost every situation I shoot. I have tried most of the others. None of them earned a spot in the bag the way these three have.

Kodak Portra 400: The most forgiving film stock in current production. Beautiful skin tones, clean color across the spectrum, gracious shoulder. I rate it at 320 in contrasty light and at box speed in flat light. It is the default loaded in the Mamiya unless I have a specific reason for something else.
Kodak Tri-X 400: What I reach for indoors and at night. The grain structure has more character than newer black-and-white emulsions, and the curve is steep enough to give weight to a flat-lit interior. Rate at 200, develop in HC-110 dilution H for nine minutes — the recipe hasn't changed in fifteen years.
Kodak Ektar 100: For high-resolution landscape work where I want saturated color and an almost grainless negative. Less forgiving than Portra — the highlights can go plasticky if you overexpose by more than half a stop. I keep one or two rolls in the cold bag and use them on bluebird mornings.

Section 04

Portraits

The most technically simple work I do, and the most difficult. Almost everything depends on whether the person across the lens trusts me, and almost nothing on the camera.

I work close — 80mm on medium format, which is roughly a normal lens — and I keep the camera at chest height so I can talk over the top of it instead of from behind it. The first frame is almost never the keeper.

Available light only. A speedlight changes the social temperature of a room immediately, and a softbox changes it twice. I'd rather lose two stops and a sharp portrait than gain them and a tense one.

I do not pose hands. I ask people what they're working on this week and listen to the answer. The hands sort themselves out somewhere around the second story.

Backgrounds matter more than expressions. A face in front of an interesting wall holds the eye; the same face in front of a clean studio sweep doesn't. Most of the work in the Brooklyn portrait series happens because I asked permission to shoot in someone's stairwell or kitchen rather than asking them to come to a studio.

See it in the work

Faces of the Borough — Sunset Park, Brooklyn

Section 05

Field practice

The unglamorous half of the job — the part that determines whether you have anything to print at the end of a three-week trip.

Two cameras, never three: One film body, one digital. Three cameras means you spend the day deciding which to use instead of using one. The Mamiya for the considered frames, the Leica for what wants to be made now.
Film on the plane in carry-on: Always hand-inspect. The newer CT scanners will fog 400-speed film at the first pass. A polite request at the security desk works ninety-five percent of the time outside of the U.S. and about sixty percent inside it.
Develop one test roll on arrival: Before the project starts, I shoot a single roll of a known subject and develop it the same evening. If the curve is off — bad batch, fogged stock, heat damage — I want to find out on day one, not day twelve.
Notes in the same notebook every trip: Roll number, date, location, light, what I was after. Without it, the contact sheets are a memory test I would lose. The notebook is a battered Field Notes with a rubber band around it; it's been replaced once in four years.

See it in the work

After the Storm — Hatteras Island, North Carolina
Last Call — Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Night Shift — Mott Haven, Bronx

A note on this page

Everything above is what works for me. The phrase you should read into every paragraph is at this point. Five years ago I shot Fuji Pro 400H, exposed for the shadows, and carried three bodies; ten years ago I was a digital-only photographer and would have argued with anyone who told me film was worth the trouble. Practice is a long argument with yourself.

If something on this page contradicts what you already do and is working, ignore it. If something on this page lines up with what you've been suspecting, run the experiment.

— Iris Halloway, Reykjavík / Brooklyn