Prints that Win: The Mechanic

The Mechanic by Jeff Gulle

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.”

Prints that Win: Watching and Waiting

Award Winning Print by Jeff Gulle

One of the “secrets” of a great portrait photo is bringing out the character of the subject. But what if the subject is a character? All the better, as you can see from this recent winner of the LexJet Sunset Award at the Georgia PPA print competition.

Entitled Watching and Waiting, pro photographer Jeff Gulle was commissioned to produce publicity photos for a ghost town-themed amusement park near Maggie Valley, N.C. called Ghost Town in the Sky.

With a group of students in tow from North Georgia Technical College in Clarksville, Ga., where Gulle teaches, this particular image was fittingly captured at high noon.

The problem with high noon is the lighting, so Gulle and his students waiting patiently for clouds to pass over and lit the Preacher from the right to ensure an image with depth.

“I love having the students with me. It elevates my photography since I need to explain everything that goes into the capture: picking locations, lighting, posing, and so forth,” says Gulle. “I tried lighting him from different spots and angles, but lighting from the right was the best shot.”

Gulle did some minor touch-ups with Photoshop, eliminating the sky peeking through in the top right corner by cloning and bringing the greenery up to fill the space and then adding a grainy, gritty touch with a Topaz plug-in filter.