Last year, I said goodbye to my beloved but aging Volkswagen, and upgraded to a more practical work vehicle for hauling gear around to location shoots (which I find myself doing more and more these days). After some shopping around, I settled on a Subaru Forester. In the year and change that I have owned it, I have nothing but good things to say about it. Great car.

One surprise benefit of my Subaru is that the dirtier I get it and the farther off-the-beaten-path I take it, the more it looks like a perfectly styled Subaru commercial! Below are two shots I took of it this Summer on two trips to different locations in the Sierras. It defies logic, but my Subaru sparkles more when it is peppered with mud and dirt, and parked in a remote location. It’s like a dog wagging its tail after emerging from a muddy romp, as if to say “Yes, Master! More! More! This is my idea of a good time!”

These are just snapshots (one taken with a point & shoot camera, the other with an iPhone). But to my eye these images are indeed remarkably similar to the elaborately styled “real” Subaru photos I see on billboards and in print ads.

Truth in advertising? You be the judge. Here is an older Subaru Forester print ad from the ’90s (borrowed from the annals of history housed on the internet):

My last blog entries were from the early part of the San Francisco Improv Festival, where I was photographing performers. I went back for a couple more days of shooting portraits and got some great stuff, but then I got slammed with a series of major jobs, and had no time to sort through much less blog about my SFIF portraits.

I’m happy to report that things are slowly getting back under control, and I’ve had some time to go through my images.

Some of the improvisors shown below are the people who first got me excited about shooting at the Fest. They are people who I have taken improv workshops with myself and/or seen performing on stage. They are some of the best. They came to headline some nights at the Fest, and I was lucky enough to have a few minutes of their time back stage to make portraits for my Improvisors series.

Without further ado, here is the product of the second half of my week at SFIF!

David Razowsky is a a veteran, based in L.A. I took a workshop with him two years ago that helped me break through to a new level in my own performing. I have experienced him as a great teacher, who can be unvarnished with both praise and criticism. My kind of guy. He’s also a phenomenal performer, as he proved yet again during SFIF. He performed a two-person show with local Bay Area improvisor Rachel Hamilton, who I also had the opportunity to photograph.

David is unafraid to dial any emotion up to eleven, as evidenced here:

I have to say, though, that despite his deep well of impish energy, my experience just talking with him is more as a calm, sophisticated and supremely confident man:

Now here is Rachel, preferring dialed-up-to-eleven over calm and sophisticated:

And of course a couple of images of them acting silly together (my first multi-person Improvisors portrait):

One of my best group experiences with improv was at the first ever Improv Summer Camp in 2011. It was an old-school sleep-away camp with cabins filled with bunk beds, nature activities, and a whole bunch of improv workshops, all taking place in a beautiful ocean-side location on the central California coast. Camp ImprovUtopia, as it’s called, is the brainchild of founder and director Nick Armstrong.

It had been a while since Camp, so it was great to see Nick again at SFIF, performing with not one but two L.A.-based troupes that were invited to the Fest!

A face I’ve seen Nick make more than a few times:

Nick role-playing as his father:

On my final day at SFIF, I came in with fingers crossed that I would be able to catch the great Susan Messing of Annoyance Theater in Chicago. She was teaching a morning workshop and then performing as the closing night headliner. To my delight, she appeared on set after her workshop and gave generously of her time.

All improvisors are personalities, but Susan is a personality among personalities. She did not disappoint in front of the camera. This is my favorite image, showing her characteristic intensity (and also displaying a novel way of flipping the bird!):

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, David Razowsky showed up to teach his afternoon workshop, and old friends were reunited:

Speaking of workshops, one of my goals while photographing at SFIF was to catch workshop participants–people from all over the Bay Area improv scene–who I might not have found otherwise.

I had some great volunteers, and got fantastic portraits. Here are my favorites:

All in all, the San Francisco Improv Festival was a huge success. I was able to meet and photograph so many great people, and spend time with some of the greats. It is a real perk of being a photographer that, if you pursue work that inspires you, you really get to enjoy what you do. My Improvisors project is limited in scope for now, but it’s coming along great and I hope to grow it and create a gallery exhibition and/or book at some point down the road.

Thanks again to Jamie, Chris, Cassidy & Jill for helping to facilitate my work at SFIF!

This week I’ve been posting portraits from the San Francisco Improv Festival. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to photograph improvisors! Such creativity, generosity and commitment. A photographer’s dream.

The Festival producers have allowed me to bring my somewhat elaborate Improvisors portrait lighting set-up backstage in the early evening before show, to photograph performers before they go on stage later that evening.

Here are some behind-the-scenes photos of yours truly being goofy with Jamie Wright, one of the SFIF’s producers. (Photos by my lovely girlfriend Jacklyn, who is a talented photographer in her own right.)

Here is the final portrait of Jamie, as well as portraits of two other SFIF producers, Sam Shaw & Cassidy Brown:

My schedule had me back at the San Francisco Improv Festival (www.sfimprovfestival.com) shooting performer portraits on Saturday. The headliners for the night were the husband and wife duo of Stephanie Weir (MADtv, Modern Family, Weeds) and Robert Dassie (Community, HBO’s Funny or Die), collectively known as WeirDass.

I had some back-and-forth communication with them about doing their portrait that evening. As it turned out, they weren’t available during the early evening hour that I planned to shoot with my Improvisors portrait set-up (a complex and very technical lighting design, featured in my last blog post). However, they would be available for a few minutes upon arrival, just before they went backstage to warm up for their 10pm show. This timing wouldn’t allow me to do my original planned lighting set-up. To add to the challenge, I wouldn’t have my assistant with me during that time frame.

Being an improvisor myself, I improvised. I went to my studio and concocted a simple lighting set-up that could be packed up into one small case, as an alternative to my more complex lighting (which packs into five cases!). After a quick studio test using myself as a subject, everything got broken down. Into the case it went, then into the car and over the Bay Bridge to the Eureka Theater.

My plan was to shoot in an emergency exit corridor just outside the Eureka. Upon arrival the mid-show crowds immediately signaled to me that the corridor would not work. So I improvised again and took my battery-powered lighting kit outside the theater and began searching for interesting alternative backgrounds. I found a cool tiled wall just in time to circle back and find Stephanie and Robert arriving at the theater. They were nice enough to agree to my outdoor shoot concept, so I set up in 4 minutes flat, made some portraits for about another 4-5 minutes in the brisk evening air, and then sent them on their way with my thanks.

Here are the results of that quick portrait session:

After the shoot, I packed up my gear and slipped into the theater in time to see an opening act and then watch WeirDass take the stage. They were phenomenal! Great people, great portrait subjects, and great performers. If you ever get a chance, go see them live!

One of my great passions over the past several years has been improv theater. I took an introductory class on a whim in 2009 and was immediately hooked. Almost everything I’ve ever done (including photography) has involved doing something different every day, as well as a healthy dose of problem-solving. Improv takes doing new things and problem solving to the extreme, with the who/what/where/when/why in a scene all having to be figured out on the fly, and no two scenes are alike. It’s a terrific challenge, and incredibly fun once you shed those regular life habits of caution and planning, and really just live in the moment. It is also great for team-building. I have met and worked with some great people in the improv community.

From my first days doing improv, I realized that improvisors would make amazing portrait subjects. There is no special wardrobe in improv, no props, no sets, and certainly no script. The only way that improvisors can set a scene is with improvised dialog and their ability to be expressive with their face and body. This expressive repertoire is a gold mine for a portrait photographer like me.

After a couple of years of thinking about it, I finally got off my butt this Summer and started shooting portraits for a series I simply call Improvisors. I have had several photo shoots at my studio this Summer, where improvisors from all over the Bay Area have dropped in to participate. Some samples from this project have made it into a new and growing portfolio on my website (www.samwillardphoto.com).

Upon starting this project, I immediately knew I wanted to shoot the performers at the San Francisco Improv Festival, which takes place every year during the month of August. My improv troupe had the opportunity to perform at the Fest in 2011, and it draws incredible local and national talent every year.

In early July, I started a dialog with the producers of the SFIF, and set the wheels in motion. I am pleased to say the the Fest is going on right now, and I have been on location at the Eureka Theater in San Francisco, making portraits of some of the headliners.

Shooting at the SFIF has exceeded even my highest hopes. For example, on Friday night I had the pleasure of photographing members of True Fiction Magazine, made up of some of the Bay Area’s most established and well-regarded improvisors. Here are my portraits of Friday night’s cast, which consisted of Barbara Scott, Ben Johnson, Rafe Chase, Regina Saisi & Joshua Raoul Brody:

The SFIF runs through August 25th. Although I cannot be at the Fest every night, I hope to return several times this week to photograph performers, and I promise to post more portraits here on the blog!

Last week I posted some shots of a little girl photographed at a friend’s wedding. Here is portrait of a grown up pretty girl taken on that same day. I’m thrilled to say it is my girlfriend Jacklyn.

Whether we are cycling, preparing a delicious homemade meal, or getting dolled up for a wedding, this is how I always see her: as a beautiful angel as if descending from heaven.

Yup, I got a good one.

I have an old friend who is a skilled electrician. When I first moved in to my new studio space I asked him to do some wiring work for me, since I needed to beef up the electrical infrastructure to run my lighting equipment. He was happy to do the work in trade, and he came over and did everything in under two hours.

For over a year, I waited to pay him back for our “trade” by photographing one of his big residential installations. I finally got a call from him this Summer.

The space was a home office. It had been exquisitely finished, including electrical work such as wiring for sound (wall speakers), accent lighting, sconces, a chandelier, etc, etc. It was a beautiful space, and it was my pleasure to capture some of my friend’s masterful work.

I have had the pleasure of working with Walmart eCommerce on a few occasions. Their photo production team is great, and they have a fantastic facility. In July, I was asked to photograph an event at the headquarters building. A Chinese diplomatic delegation was to visit and meet with the CEO and other executives at Walmart. There would be a meeting, an office tour, and a portrait.

The brief for the shoot was pretty straightforward: Shoot a two-person portrait of the CEO and Chinese Vice-Minister together and exchanging a ceremonial gift. Then photograph the Walmart team and Chinese delegation together in a single group shot.

Plans got a little complicated, however, when it was decided that the portraits would be framed against a wall opposite an elevator bank in a corridor near the headquarters building’s entryway. I recalled that space being tight for a big group photo, so I took a scouting trip over to the location to take a look.

As expected, the space didn’t allow me to back up very far from the wall I was shooting against. In fact, the width of the group (two rows of approximately 13 people) was almost twice the distance available to back up. And of course there was no room to place lighting behind camera. To make things even more dicey, I was told that I would only have 45 minutes between when I bring my lighting gear into the building and when the VIPs would arrive for the shoot. And when they arrived, I would have only 5 minutes with them.

Thankfully, I had a stellar producer from Walmart’s in-house photo studio working with me, as well as an executive staffer from the corporate office and support from facilities folks. With their help, all the pre-production was handled quickly and the shoot went smoothly.

I arrived early for the shoot with my assistant, and we loaded all our gear onto a cart for quick entry once the all-clear signal was given to start setting up. The elevators were turned off and locked in the open position so I could back up as much as possible for the group shot. I actually ended up backing my tripod and ladder up into the center elevator when it came time to shoot the full group.

We assembled lighting, powered up and did a few test shots with just minutes to spare before the Walmart executives and Chinese delegates arrived.

First up, Walmart eCommerce President & CEO Neil Ashe and Chinese Vice-Minister of Commerce Wang Chau exchange a ceremonial gift:

Then a handshake and some smiles:

Then the group. The plan called for hosts and visitors to stand on opposite sides. But the mood was relaxed and casual, so everyone decided to mix together:

In the end, all photography did happen within about a 5 minute window (with half that time spent just on arranging the big group).

This shoot is an example of a project that was 90% planning and 10% photography. Lots of limitations, including set-up time, shooting time, location options, etc. However, planning and a capable team made it easy.