A photo for a local TV station that ran in TV Guide a long time ago. My oldest daughter (now 23) is model.

I did a lot of work with a local station here in Arizona. It was a lot of fun to see my images in TV Guide.

Preparing for your kid's education was the story. The AD and I kicked around some concepts: stacks of money with baby pacifiers, toddler in front of Gammage (ASU) with book bag dragging on the ground, Crib with a vault door on the end...

We really liked the idea of the toddler with the bag, so a quick scout drive took us to... a parking lot. With the construction at the time, The only angle we could get was with a bazillion cars in the foreground.

Well, we kicked that idea down the road and thought a little more about it. He decided to do something very simple... a child with a diploma. Too much in the image and it spoiled the presentation... it was a small magazine and the ad ran across the top of the page.

A kid with a diploma huh... well, that shouldn't be too hard. I had the child, and he could make the diploma. Woohoo... we were off.

A quick call to the wife and Shanna (my daughter) was at the studio and ready to go. She loved having her picture taken and really hammed it up fo us.

I used a Mamiya RB67 for the shot. This AD loved the bigger contact sheets, and that made the call. I could easily have done it on 35MM but making the AD happy is part of the service.

I used my hand-painted background pretty far back from Shanna. It is at least 8 feet behind her. I didn't want the main light to spill over and kill the contrast, and I wanted my spray light to be seen, and not diminished because of main light falling on the canvas.

A large 4x6 foot softbox is to camera left, and oblique to the subject. That means it is straight at her from the side, not angled toward her at all. A 4x8 sheet of fome core is flagging the light from reaching the background and extends to within inches of the frame. The light is 4 feet from the subject.

A second 4x8 fome core is standing verticle to camera right, but back about 4 feet to not fill too much, only a little bit to not let the darks fall too much into non texture. I needed that sleeve on her left arm to have some light so it could be made out. If that little rim didn't show, that would be a huge black area instead of a sleeve with an arm sticking out of it.

A Norman head with a 12" reflector covered with a spun glass diffuser was moved to within inches of the background facing it. I had to make sure Shanna was hiding that light when I shot, and the spray had to be controlled to not be way too hot... I only wanted a little separation.

We set it up while Shanna was on her way, and when she came in it was only a matter of a few Polaroids to get it ready. I shot two rolls of film (20 images) and we immediately loved this one. The hat started tipping and she naturally reached up to stop it from falling. The smile was natural because of the falling hat...click. Got it.

Film (T-Max 100, 120) developed, contacts made and delivered. Choice circled and print was made on Seagull #3 semigloss paper and delivered.

Shanna and I had lunch yesterday. She is now a customer relations specialist at Verizon, and is 23.

As a photographer I like this shot. As a dad... well. You can only imagine.

Don Giannatti: Designer / Photographer / Writer

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