Rangefinder Magazine
July 2002

Profile: Tim Kelly by CharMaine Beleele
The Legend of the Thirteenth Frame

Tim Kelly

“The Thirteenth Frame.” Many classically trained photographers know that this elusive frame refers to that shot, that perfect moment, that personal expression missed because the roll of film has ended. If you create portraits, you have been there: As you turn your attention to load film, you may glimpse your subject in a totally self-disclosing moment of self-revelation. Tim Kelly says, “This lost frame, impossible to recapture, became known as the 13th frame, in honor of the Hasselblad backs which held 12 exposures.”

From his early days as a lab technician to his present status as a prestigious portrait artist, Tim Kelly has always been obsessed with that 13th frame. Over the years, the individual portrait has become his forte. The Kelly Studio/Gallery in the North Orlando Suburb of Lake Mary, Florida, is the epitome of a high-end creative environment.

Figure 1 “This is How We Want to Be”

As we tour this facility, we will discover the stories behind the portraits on his showroom wall and also gain insight into this 21st century artist who sculpts his subjects with light.

In the showroom, Kelly indicates a portrait entitled “This Is How We Want To Be,” (Figure 1) and says, “I don’t always warn my clients I am ready to start the session.” I don’t believe in faking the spontaneity of the subject’s expression.”

Catching his subject by gentle surprise is the first hallmark of a Kelly Portrait. In the aforementioned portrait, Kelly remembers that the two little girls posed themselves in a hug, gleefully informing him, “This is how we want to be!” Thus, the moment was created and the portrait named. Click. Kelly, a long time member of Kodak’s Pro Team, and under the wing of their sponsorship since 1988, advises his students, “Watch your subjects before you capture the image. Sometimes the things they do naturally become great artistic poses.”

	Figure 3 “Reluctance”

We also view “The Debutante” (see page 22), a girl gazes off, daydreaming. Click. A young girl, camera shy, turns away (Figure 3). And as she peeks through her veil of hair, the portrait “Reluctance” is created. Click. A miracle baby glances over Mom’s shoulder (Figure 4). Click. Their embrace is entitled “Worth the Wait.” These portraits are of a style that Kelly has named “the captured moment.” This special portrait style has established the Kelly portrait as fine art, treasured by a worldwide clientele.

As we watch Kelly with clients, casual and quiet, it is difficult to imagine that during his 30-year career, Tim Kelly has won almost every available photography award. This PPA, Master of Photography has amassed numerous awards: PPA Loan Collection, Kodak Gallery, Gallery Elite and Epcot Awards, Florida PPA photographer of the year, Kodak Gallery Award and Kodak’s Top Award for Photographic Excellence. At regional level, he won the SEPPA award, as he did in the year 2000. We see him carefully arranging a tendril of a four-year old girl’s hair and we know that such detail is why he has captured top honors more than once.

Figure 4 “Worth the Wait”

The year 2001 brought international recognition with prestigious awards: a fellowship in the American Society of Photographers, a membership in the Cameracraftsmen of America and gallery display in the permanent collection of the Photography Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

In the camera room, we are met with the second characteristic of the Kelly portrait: the subjects are bathed in gorgeous soft light, reminiscent of portraiture lighting of 18th century artists like Sargeant and Romney. “Seeing the light was always important to me. Back when most professional films were about ASA 80, we were trained to judge not only the angles of light but also the quality and value of the light.”

	Figure 5 A basic Kelly lighting setup.

Tim describes his lighting instruments: “The main light, a Photogenic Powerlight, is housed in a 3x4-foot Larson Soff Box, set at f/11.5 and a 4x6-foot Soff Box is the fill light, set at f/8–8.5. The hair light is a Larson 10x30-inch Soff Strip with louvers, f/11 average.” There’s a round disk on a mini boom arm, useful as a gobo, positioned near the main light. At an angle, we can see the small reflector with grid spot, the Kelly background light. A large light form-type reflector or Larson Silver acts as fill, to the right of the subject, and it provides f/5.6 to f/8, as needed. We can think of these large light sources as Tim’s paintbrushes—there is no magic in them as they stand alone, but in the eye and in the hand that adjusts them (see figure 5).

Figure 6 “The Emerald Garden”

The third characteristic of a Kelly portrait is the purity of the setting. Here in the shooting arena we see simple backgrounds—an understated chair, a muted plum flower arrangement, a pillar of gray alabaster. The “Emerald Garden” (Figure 6) shows how he orchestrates classic clothing, timeless background and soft directional light. Another honest moment is revealed in “The Debutante,” in which a young woman gazes off as if picturing her future with an arch of her eyebrow. Elegant but not stiff. Formal but not rigid.

Tim is a classic traditionalist but he is also a forerunner in digital techniques, which we realize as we meet Kelly’s cameras: There’s the Foveon, called the “laptop with a lens.” Nearby is his Kodak DCS 560, similar to the 660 and the 760. And for still other uses, he has a Canon D-30, “a mid priced digital workhorse. I use the D-30 for many smaller sessions. It’s like the Swiss army knife of cameras.” For the last 12 years the Kodak Prism system mated to the Hasselblad camera has been supreme in Kelly’s studio. Why digital? “It’s faster. My salespeople and I want to offer our clients the state of the art.”

He next guides us past a dozen workstations packed with enough Macintosh and Kodak equipment to make any technophile tingle. Then we turn the corner to Kelly’s thoroughbred printer, the Kodak LED II. He offers his warm-toned black-and-white recipe, which begins with a desaturated RGB file and adds 2R and 2Y to the shadows, 2R and 2Y to the midtones, with 3R and 4Y added to the highlights. (These figures are used with the Kodak LED.) He explains that the important point is to have a repeatable, consistent formula so that orders match.

We have come full circle back to the gallery, where Tim says, “I am an artist first, and an imagemaker. It doesn’t matter if the subject is captured by window light, in oil paint, or in a fraction of a second by Powerlight. What matters is that my rendering of the subject is the best interpretation that can be made. I think my work is artistic, but I do not consider it creative. The creation is the subject.”

And Jeff Williams, his general manager, describes the “interpretation” of Tim Kelly with this simple statement: “When a mother’s eyes tear-up over her children’s portraits, you know you’ve done your job well. That’s what Tim does. Often.” And, as we leave, we know what makes the mother cry. That elusive “13th frame.”

Tim Kelly can be studied at his website: www.timkellyportraits. com and e-mailed at tim@timkellyportraits.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.