September 11, 2009 - Studio 1A at HowStuffWorks

1/30

f3.5

ISO 800

21mm

RAW

There's a good chance some of you have heard of HowStuffWorks.com, which is where I work (especially since I know some of my co-workers are following my 365 project). We have several outstanding podcasts, including one by Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant called "Stuff You Should Know."

(If you haven't heard it, you should check them out. They are available in the podcast section of iTunes. You'll probably find them in the Top 10 list.)

Anyway, yesterday Chuck asked me to get a photo of the recording studio. It seems some of the listeners wanted to see where they recorded their show. He also had received a wooden sign from a fan that depicted the name of the studio, and he wanted a shot so he could put it on his blog post. This way he could accomplish two things at once.

Today's photo is the result. After seeing how dark the studio is, I kinda wished I had brought my tripod to work. So I pulled out my image stabilized lens (which also happens to be my widest lens), set the ISO to 800, and played around with the aperture until I got a shutter speed I knew I could shoot with while hand-holding the camera.

I noticed the lights seemed to be all florescent bulbs, so I waited a few minutes until they all got as bright as possible (sometimes the CFL bulbs take a few minutes to reach full capacity). I shot it as RAW so if there were any problems with the coloring (even after putting the white balance to florescent) that I could have maximum control in correcting it.

While the photo may make the studio look fairly nice and orderly, it is quite the opposite. To the left of the table (by about three feet) is the sound engineer's work desk, complete with all of her controls, computers, screens, and everything else she uses (Jeri, you do a great job!). To the right of the table (and behind the thick woven fabric hanging over the wall) is the green screen portion of the studio where they shoot their video podcasts. It is a mess of cords, lights, stands, and other studio gear.

Because I was selective in what I excluded from the photo, the resulting shot is much stronger. I always try to keep that in mind when I shoot. Sometimes you can't help but have distracting backgound elements, but when you can minimize or eliminate them, your photographer will be much stronger.

Finally, I regret not being able to talk Josh and Chuck into sitting at their chairs for the photo. Both of them love what they do (after all, who doesn't like to just sit down with a great friend and just shoot the breeze about current events?), but they don't always like the publicity and fame they are getting. Ever the humble journalists, they turned down my request.