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Rangefinder Magazine
November 2003

Profile: Will Crockett by Stephen A. Dantzig
The Genius Behind shootsmarter.com Talks About Light and Procedures for the Digital Age

t is not difficult to determine who the man is when you walk into a Will Crockett seminar. Simply look for the crowd of people, and listen for a hearty laugh. It is a mutual admiration club—the people are there to pick Will’s brain and he is just as happy to answer any and all questions.

This image of British playwrite Alan Ayckbourn for TIME was created on 64-speed Tungsten transparency film with the subject lighted by strobes gelled with full CTO sheets.

The room takes on a feeling of anticipation as the seminar is about to begin. Photographers of all experience levels have come for one purpose, to learn more about light, and they have come to the right place. There are few, if any, people in the world of photography today who know more about recording the intricacies and subtleties of light and can effectively communicate those concepts to an eager audience. What began as a very successful career as a commercial shooter—with clients like Boeing, Tootsie Roll, Sears and United Airlines—has turned into an educational juggernaut, culminating in the ShootSmarter.com website, which is a free website where aspiring and professional photographers alike can go for the latest information on all aspects of commercial photography.

Will’s success in commercial photography can be summed up in one word—control. His exposures are controlled down to 1/10 of a stop, and the exact color temperature and balance of his lights is known at all times. The transparency has been the king of the commercial photography world and Crockett is one of the best at nailing down the perfect chrome. However, things have been changing in the world of Crockett and Company. The digital explosion came knocking, and he tackled the new technology with the same fervor with which he dominated the world of conventional transparency film. His lectures now encompass the tricky aspects of digital capture as well as how to incorporate film into the digital world. We asked Will, who discovered his fascination with light and its changing qualities as an 11-year-old boy growing up in Central Illinois, to join us for a very candid conversation.

Making industrial machinery look cool is one of Will’s passions. This is actually a stainless steel drum made blue with a little “Crockett Magic.”

RANGEFINDER: For years you primarily shot transparency films. Is that where and why you developed your “style” of ultimate control?

WILL CROCKETT: Absolutely. No matter how we capture the image, we need to maintain maximum control to create the shot that the client wants and ultimately pays for. Maybe the tight control is part of my style.

RF: What are some of the factors that you take control over and how do you exercise that control?

WC: After 25 years of shooting, cli-ents come to me with concepts and ideas and ask me to put some of that “Crockett Magic” on it and create an image for them. They don’t push me into a box and dictate how to do the shot, they know that they just need to sketch me the outline of the general shape and let me bust out the crayons and start coloring. That’s where they lose a little control of the image and I get to steer it where I think it needs to go. After that, my control is guided by the ever-present thoughts of what the images need to “do” for my client because they have got to be happy with the final image.

Author Alex Haley photographed in his Tennessee home, shot for a Northwest Airlines ad; was one of Will’s all-time favorite subjects.	“Bobbi Clarke” presents what Crockett does best—smooth lighting, strong composition, flawless technical aspects, and a little magic to pull out the subject’s personality	Crockett constantly blends light sources like this one that has the subject lit with strobe, and the background all tungsten.

RF: It must be nice to have earned that respect from your clients. However, it really isn’t “magic,” is it? The reality is that the technical aspects of “Crockett Magic” consist of your control over the color temperature, color balance and exposure of the scene. Just for the fun of it, I want to throw a term your way—“bracketing!”

WC: Bracketing! Steve, you know better! Gaining command over exposure is not difficult to master. In the commercial/advertising world, bracketing is a sign of weakness and significantly lessens a photographer’s fiscal value. I think the only folks who want you to bracket are the film manufacturers!

RF: One thing you have continually stressed is the need for accurate metering. Can you explain why?

WC: Exposure onto transparency film and now in the digital world is crucial for maintaining premium image quality. This is one of the big messages we try to deliver in my programs and videos. In the portrait world, the transition from years of shooting color-negative films to digital has been a bumpy ride for many photographers. Exposure control seems to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks. Color-negative films will yield a great looking print even if they are underexposed by a stop or over exposed by a stop or more. That’s not the case with digital. If you overexpose a skin-tone oriented image by more than 3/10 of a stop, it’s toast. If you underexpose that same image by 1/2 stop or greater, it’s never going to yield a good-looking print, no matter how many hours of Photoshop you put into it. Photographers who spend day after day “fixing” their digital mistakes in Photoshop can invest a few hours into learning how to use a flashmeter to provide proper exposure and eliminate over 90 percent of their image quality problems. Nothing will provide a photographer better, faster or more accurate exposures than proper use of a flashmeter.

RF: OK, let’s tackle the issue of metering once and for all. You meter for exposure by placing the dome of the incident light meter at the crucial position in the image and pointing it directly into the lens of the camera. There is a camp that will vehemently disagree with you and states that a proper exposure is gained by pointing an incident meter towards the main lights rather than into the lens. How do you respond to that?

Author Edward Allbee sits in dramatic lighting for a TIME feature article. Location images, like this one taken in Cincinnati, are what brought this photographer’s work to national attention.	President Gerald Ford at home in Palm Springs—shows just how simple yet powerful lighting can be in creating a visual dynamic.	Smooth, large light sources, like the one used for this ad shot of a Harlem Globetrotter, are Will’s primary main lights.

WC: I’m all for photographers using any methods that work for them, but this particular topic is one of great interest to me and I’ve been referred to as an exposure expert by many of the top photo manufacturers, so I’m comfortable swimming in these waters. Modern premium flashmeters are engineered to produce accurate skin tone exposure when used with the dome or “lumisphere” placed right under the subject’s chin, pointing the dome exactly into the lens, and measuring the total exposure, then setting the camera for the same exposure value that pops up on the meter. Done deal. Welcome to Crockettville. They really do work that way! We show this technique in my seminars and workshops then actually capture and print a file live on stage, to prove that it works perfectly. I think we’re helping a lot of photographers by telling them the truth and showing them the facts.

RF: What are some of the most dif-ficult situations that a commercial shooter will face?
WC: Photographing environments can be a nightmare. All the vapor, halide and fluorescent lights play games with color and exposure, which results in us bringing in mountains of strobe gear and color gels to get the shot to its “perceived” color value.

RF: Your training programs and vid-eos do a nice job of detailing some of those concerns and showing how to fix them. You were relatively quiet on the issue of digital photography for many years. Digital capture now comprises a major portion of your shooting and your seminars. What was the transition like for you?

This image of columnist Ann Landers shows the intracacies of lighting a room, as well as a subject all in one shot.	Restaurateur Arnie Morton posed in his namesake bistro to create a great example of the strong compositional style of this photo.

WC: For many years, digital capture just wasn’t ready for me. The skin tone reproduction, with even some of the pricey medium format capture backs we owned, just was not good enough. Film gave us a much better skin tone and a better overall image for reproduction. Adding a high-end scanner to our studio gave us the ability to create digital files from film that rivaled any digital capture system. Now, with digital capture technology where it is today, we are very happy with the image quality and for most applications, digital is every bit as good as film. The transition has been relatively smooth because color and exposure control are as important to shooting transparency film as they are with digital—we had good technical skills coming into the digital era. Digital allows us to see the image right away, make any adjustments we need, and even print out a color proof within minutes instead of days with transparency film. It’s been terrific!

RF: Tell us about ShootSmarter.com.

WC: ShootSmarter.com is a free website that is exactly what I want as a photographer. It’s a place for fact-based info from real shooters to real shooters, with no ads or bias or baloney to get in the way. We have monthly articles (we call them “smARTICLES”) from five experts in the field on a wide range of professional topics like technical shooting data, making the transition from shooting negative film to digital, Photoshop productivity, business management, and getting the creative juices flowing. I’m very proud of ShootSmarter.com and so grateful for its success with over 9000 registered members, over 300,000 hits each month and growing everyday.

Dr. Stephen Dantzig is an award-winning photographer. He is the author of a forthcoming book on light and fashion photography. His work has appeared on more than 20 magazine covers. He is a frequent contributor to Rangefinder magazine. Stephen runs a commercial photography business from Honolulu, Hawaii. His work may be seen at www.dantzigphotography.com.