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Rangefinder Magazine
January 2003

Profile: Michael Taylor by CharMaine Beleele
Teaching at the Speed of Light

You have all been there. In your mind’s eye, you can see the grounds of a glorious garden estate: You, your equipment, the wedding couple, still aglow from their ceremony. You have 15 minutes in the magic light of late afternoon before you are whisked away to the reception. So begins one of my favorite parts of the wedding photography experience. We rush to my special part of the garden, a rustic bridge, overlooking lush landscaping. Almost at our destination, I stop. My mind has flashed back. Only two days before I had attended a workshop given by the impressive PPA Master Photographer, Michael Taylor. Honored as a member of the Society of the XXV, with 500 merits to his PPA credit, and four prints on display at the Photography Hall of Fame, this teacher had made a profound impression on me. As I pause in the midst of my session, I could almost hear Michael’s voice. Something about the light…

As I help the bride “unbustle” her train, I remember his words from the workshop, “Lighting on the face is the most critical light,”said this gifted portrait artist and owner of the elite Taylor Fine Portraiture of Pasadena, California. He added, “Do not choose the background first.” In dismay I notice an awful glare on my beloved bridge. In fact the canopy of trees dappled the bridge with several contrasty hot spots that I would have ignored just a week ago. I searched for light that would look the best, not on the background, but on the faces of my clients. I resisted the bridge, and guided them to the area beyond.

Michael had said, “Choosing the background first is a backwards way of looking for a location. Texture and color should not come before lighting the face.” Taylor teaches with a great deal of visual imagery. He told his workshop students, “Imagine you can build a wall of light. You need to create that wall of light through artificial means by using strobe lights or you can find that wall of light. By “finding,” I am talking about discovering window light, light under overhangs, an opening in the trees, or reflected sunlight off a wall.”

Even as I arranged the bride’s veil and train, I could hear Michael saying, “I want directional light. I want quality of light. And I want lighting on the face first.” I found my wall of light thanks to a thin embankment of clouds shading the area below the bridge. (The clouds provided a relatively easy answer, but at the on-location workshop, Michael had shown students how to make light sources out of buildings, fences, and even the dull gray of old train cars.)

To enhance the quality of my fill lighting on the couple, I did two things. First, I disconnected my “sure thing,” the fill flash! Secondly, I had my assistant gently feather light into their faces with a gold reflector. I had learned in Michael’s workshop that there is more to the art of using a reflector than just throwing more illumination into the face. I also noticed that the warm light not only bounced from the reflector, but from the soft peach colored shirt that my assistant wore.

As I tipped and tilted the face of the bride, I noticed the magic of “form-fill light.” Michael had taught, “Form fill light comes from placing a fill light in between the key light and the camera. With the face turned toward a half way point between the key light and the camera, the form fill follows the form of the face, creating a slimming light down the form of the face.” In the studio, form-fill flash works like this:

1. Using a flash meter, make a base exposure reading with the fill light only. Then, leave it turned on.

2. Add in the main light, and the combined exposure will be one stop greater than the fill light by itself.

3. In the above example, both lights will be the same intensity.

As my couple turned their faces to the half way point between my keylight and the camera and the form-fill light from the reflector softened the shadows, the delicate embroidery of the bride’s bodice materialized. What a nice bonus! And I know from Michael’s lessons that I was beginning to understand the way to “use the edge of the light.” Just having flat light would never be enough for me again.

Only after seeing the light on the couple’s faces did I notice my “new” background: I saw the way an S-shaped path of stone led the eye into the water’s edge under the bridge. I noticed the olive-toned elm trees in the distance. Frilly red Chinese oak trees which I had never even seen before, broke up the sculpted hedge in the mid-ground. I had shot at this estate over a hundred times, and yet, I had never found this view. The light had led me there. Or rather, Michael’s comments about lighting had led me there.

At this point I could adjust my subjects, left and right, without losing my lighting pattern, and I could utilize another Taylor lesson: “Use environment to create a dimensional look in your portraits.” During his demonstrations, Michael had shown us how to “use the environment to vignette” a portrait. For my portrait of the bridal couple, this was simple, because I was given the appropriate plants and leaves. In his interior on-location lessons, he had shown us how to use books, bric-a-brac, even the arm and side of a chair, to vignette the subject. This is one of the key features of Taylor’s museum quality interior portraits. He uses available props as vignettes to create foreground interest.

Had I been working with a family group instead of a wedding couple, I would have drawn on another Taylor tidbit: “Make Mom look small and Dad look tall and the whole family will love you.”

William Arthur Ward stated, “The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” In two short days, Michael Taylor, had taught me a completely new way to perceive portraiture. What’s more, he had inspired me to dig into the mysteries of light. Taylor has put his background to work, not only as an artist, but as a passionate teacher. It is no surprise that he graduated with honors from Brooks Institute of Photography, or that in addition to his two earned degrees, he has six honorary degrees. He is also a Fellow of the American Society of Photographers. Taylor offers his students two main masterkeys to success: Education and participation in professional organizations. Practicing what he preaches and teaches, Michael has been on the Board of five professional photographic associations. He is a former president of both PPLAC and the ASP. Currently he is on the executive board of the PPofA, and he has served on many committees such as the Board of PPA Charities, Nominating and PEC as well as Art Tech and the International Committee. It is to the excellence of the PPA system of photography schools that he ascribes much of his success. Yet, in spite of all the awards and all the education, he keeps the ego out of his classroom. He concentrates on demystifying the art of portraiture. Basic to his teaching, Michael has reduced the art into 10 teachable precepts:

1. He reminded us to be aware of our “clients” as people. “Develop a relationship with your subject. Nothing else matters unless this happens.” To demonstrate this, Taylor formed relationships during modeling sessions. This is not an uncommon manner of teaching in workshops. What was uncommon was the genuine sincerity with which he gave each model his relaxed friendship in spite of our eavesdropping. Teasing one of the child models in the workshop, he taught us to “talk turkey.” He teased “Don’t you call me a turkey!” When she laughed, he chortled, “gobble, gobble!” Click. He stated, “Everything I do, from marketing to the creation of any image, can be summed up in one word and that is “relationship.”

2. “Lighting on the face is the most critical light.”

3. “Do not choose the background first.” Closely related to this point are his cautions, “Don’t overuse one tree!” And “Don’t overuse one pose!”

4. “Find or modify light so that it is directional on your subjects.”

5. “Use your environment to create a dimensional look in your portrait.”

6. “Expose film correctly, overexposing doesn’t mean better.” He utilizes Kodak T-max 100 for his black-and-white work, Portra 160 NC for in studio portraits and Portra 400 VC for his available light portraits. When the lighting is very low, he resorts to Portra 800. It is no wonder that one of Michael’s portraits is on the front cover of The Portrait, published by Eastman Kodak. With his philosophy of using the correct film, properly exposed, he has collected seven Kodak Gallery awards as well as a Fuji Masterpiece award, and was included in Tom McDonald’s book on portraiture.

7. “Use your environment to vignette and give a feeling of depth and dimension.”

8. “Use the edge of the light.” Closely related to this point is his reminder to “point the meter at the camera, not at the light.” 9. “Tell a story with your image.” All of Michael Taylor’s award winning portraits tell the stories and even the feelings of his subjects. His paradigm for portraiture: “This is chaos brought to a defining moment in the subject’s life.” He strives to create work that is “distinctive, memorable, individual and captures a relaxed elegance.”

10. “Look for areas opposite of reflected light.” All ten of these Michael Taylor precepts were with me as I created the wedding portrait in the garden. When the couple ordered their 20x24, they expressed delight that it did not look like any of the other portraits on my studio wall. No wonder.

Barbara J. Winter wrote, “When you come to the edge of all the light you know and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen. There will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught how to fly.” Michael Taylor provides his workshop students with the basics, “something solid,” plus the “wings” of inspiration. Talk to Michael about your “flying lessons” at his e-mail address, which is: mtaylor@ppa.com.

CharMaine Beleele, with an MA in Communication, owns a small studio, Angel Kissed Studio, and teaches communication, at Westark College. She also writes part-time for a small newspaper in Fort Smith, Arkansas. She can be reached via e-mail at: LBeleele@aol.com.