Prints that Win: The Mechanic

Jeff Gulle has found photogenic locations to demonstrate photography techniques to his students at North Georgia Technical College in Clarksville, Ga. The garage featured in this Sunset Print Award winner at the Georgia Professional Photographers Association competition, The Mechanic, is one of those favored spots.

Though it has the appearance of an HDR capture, Gulle says in situations like this where there is a lot of clutter he “cranks up the clarity and sharpness.” And, during processing, he did some cloning to clear out some of the distractions, like hoses, shelving and the cinderblock background, and shaded the edges.

“There’s really nothing in this photo that’s new and it works together in telling the story,” says Gulle.

Gulle used three lights to illuminate the image: one placed in the hinge of the pickup hood to illuminate the subject, one behind him and one illuminating the background.

“It was a little embarrassing, because my remote flash system wasn’t working and I spent 15-20 minutes fiddling with it in front of my students before I went back to using Nikon’s built-in wireless system to set off the flashes,” recalls Gulle. “I used a 24mm wide-angle lens at a 5.6 f-stop and dragged the shutter to 1/30 second.”

Gulle printed the image on Sunset Metallic Photo Paper. Gulle adds, “I’m addicted to the Sunset Metallic paper.”