Simon Gerzina’s 600 Watt Seconds of Signature Light
On his journey to becoming a professional still photographer, Simon Gerzina, has, like most pro shooters, had his share of detours. Originally a student at Hampshire College, he also attended Vassar College before graduating from the School of Visual Arts. Attending SVA got him to New York City, where he realized he had wanted to be all along. Gerzina studied directing and video production. It was here his interest in still photography was rekindled.
©Simon Gerzina
“I intended to go to school for still photography,” he says, “but each school I went to had programs so small and congested, you basically had to lottery your way into classes. I consistently failed to make those lotteries, and doing video and TV production was the booby prize.” The production experience didn’t hurt Gerzina, because it helped pay the bills. Then the Internet came along. In 1994 he and a college friend started a nascent online music magazine called Jam! Online, not to be confused with the Canadian venture of the same name, which came along later in time. In the course of interviewing bands and attending shows, Gerzina was the partner who owned the cameras, making him defacto photographer. This helped him get back into still photography.
After graduation, the production freelancing and day jobs helped keep his photography flame alive after hours. He lived project to project in diverse gigs wearing hats such as video editor at a small station in Brooklyn, media producer at a dot com agency, and producer/director for a production company. Ten years later, Gerzina took a few classes at the International Center for Photography. He welcomed the merciless review of his teachers, who helped identify the innate strengths of his photography. It became apparent the journalistic style of shooting rock bands late at night was becoming too chaotic artistically and technically, not to mention the grinding hours. Gerzina realized portraiture was what he wanted to be doing, with controlled lighting in a controlled environment. In this way he began to shoot fashion.
©Simon Gerzina
Gerzina found an added benefit of shooting fashion photography in a studio was teamwork. The do-everything-yourself nights were replaced by working with stylists, makeup artists and assistants. He also began sharing a studio with two other photographers, which brought further stabilization to his logistics and gear situation. Most importantly during this critical period in his stylistic evolution, the young photographer found the courage to shoot simply and cleanly, which has become part of his signature.
“I’m not a retouching technician,” Gerzina says. “I’m not one of those guys who takes two photos and spends four hours in Photoshop completing them. I want a photo to be at least 85% finished when I click the shutter. The post work I do on an image is five minutes, at most.”
©Simon Gerzina
Although it’s rare when he’ll go out to shoot reportage these days, when he does, Gerzina will typically grab two bodies and his favorite lenses. His settings tend to emulate his film-shooting days when he shot one body with low-speed color film and one with high-speed black and white. In the studio, it’s usually one body and a backup. In general, he avoids long glass and long focal length. 85mm is the longest he’ll ever employ. He loads up heavily on accessories, a lesson he learned in mosh pits while shooting for Jam! Online. “Backups to your backups,” he says, including a 50mm lens “which takes up almost no room in a bag.”
©Simon Gerzina
“When I started buying strobe equipment, I bought based on what I could afford at the time, which was inexpensive,” Gerzina recalls. “I used that for a few years, until I outgrew it. You get to the point where it’s not helping you, but actively hindering your process—getting in the way of the things you otherwise know you’re able to create. I stepped up to another brand, and their design decisions seemed questionable to me. Their modifier mounts made no sense. They were not very aggressive at all on their accessories and the modifiers in their line. After using that brand for two years, I finally realized the gear I was renting for shoots, which was Profoto, was the gear I was happiest using.”
Acute is currently his line of choice. “I now own Acute2 and AcuteB gear and I’ve never not been happy with the Acute line,” he says. “It’s been great, and I’ve made converts out of a few other photographers. The Pro line is fantastic, and I rent it when I need to rent, but the Acute line just sits in such a great sweet spot for what I need to do. The quality of light it puts out is fantastic. There’s a cleanliness and a precision to the light I really love.”
©Simon Gerzina
“For me, half the reasoning behind the gear I choose and own is the what the experience of working with it is like. It’s just the little things that make me happy with the Acute. The build quality is great. The first time I hooked it up as rental gear and shot a couple of frames, and felt that really satisfying ‘pop,’ that sound won me over. It’s been really great gear to own. It’s durable. It goes without saying the zoom mounting system is unparalleled. I’ve yet to meet another modifier mount as effective and secure, offering the same versatility. The AcuteB has been an amazing godsend for doing location work, either portraiture or fashion. I do corporate portraiture as well, and the first thing I used to do was look for outlets when I went into someone’s office. I’d always try to speak to the facilities manager to find out what was on what circuit and how much amperage was available. Now I just throw an AcuteB and a head into a shoulderbag. It’s so small. I put pack, head, cables, and PocketWizards already connected to it into the shoulderbag. Sometimes we handhold the strobe with a monopod. We can roll in with 600 watt seconds, or joules, of beautiful light. It carries the same logistical load as another body and another couple of lenses. Great flexibility. It’s made traveling and flying for shoots or even just bumping around town with this stuff so much easier. I find I’m more likely to bring it by tossing it in a car trunk or on the subway even if I’m not sure I’m going to need it.”
©Simon Gerzina
“I’ve joked in the past year that I’m getting over a fear of hard light after years of working with very soft light. Now I’m embracing hard light all over again. Part of that and part of my comfortability with it is the zoom reflector system gives you the ability to tweak and feather the hard light in a way other systems can’t as easily or not without specialty reflectors. More and more I’m using only simple gridded head as my only light source in a fashion or portrait image. You can even use just a bare head if you’re willing to finesse it a little, as opposed to going with the spray and pray method. There’s such beautiful light to be had when going with minimal gear. It’s actually really exciting to me to find I’m going with fewer and fewer lights. I’m lighting with just one light more than I ever have in the past, sometimes just two. The fashion or portraits looks I’m being known for with my clients are often based on just a single light. I don’t think I’d be as comfortable doing that with other systems. I wouldn’t feel like I’d have the same control and I wouldn’t feel the baseline unmodified light was as strong a starting point to build on.”
With minimal lighting gear his ethos and maximum results in his fashion, beauty, and portraiture work, we’ll be following Simon Gerzina’s continued journey of shaping light.
Gerzina also uses a Mamiya RB67 a Mamiya 645AF, PocketWizard Plus II’s, and Sekonic L-358 meters.
Simon Gerzina Photography
Simon Gerzina’s Twitter feed
Simon Gerzina’s Facebook Fan Group
Simon Gerzina’s Workshops
Fashion Shoot with Ford Models
Simon Gerzina’s Flickr Photostream
Behind-the-Scenes on Flickr (Profoto tagged!)
Written by Ron Egatz
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YAY Simon!
Excellent article. Love it as this is pretty much my own story .. first one plays around with the soft lights and the bouncers .. then you gradually turn into enjoying the pro 2400 screaming when you max out on all four heads .. harsh, hard light is the coolest .. just love doing outdoor shoots in bright sunlight at f16 .. with a flash head just to lighten the shadows, and the sun takes care of the rest. Br Robert
Congratulations on your achievement and publication of this nice article.
I do agree that Profoto’s zoom heads are versatile and very nice. I would switch to Profoto if their gears, especially heads were lighter… that’s the issue I didn’t go Profoto… since I would have to carry heavier light stands, more counterweights, more sand bags, etc., when I shoot on location. What’s your opinion about this?
Wow, just ran across this searching for something. I had no idea Simon was published on here. Congrats! He is a great photographer and always gives out excellent advice.
Good little read for me.