Contrast . . .
By
John Terence Turner
Stock Asylum Columnist
Oct. 2, 2006
©
2006 John Terence Turner
What makes us look at a significant detail of a picture? What makes us look at any picture? Frequently, one reason is contrast. Whether it is light against dark or dark against light, areas of strong contrast are easier to discern than those with subtle shade differences. When aided by good composition, the viewer’s eye seeks out the contrast first.
These two images provide successful examples of the use of high tonal contrast –– areas or whole images where very dark and very light details prevail at the expense of the middle tones that dominate most photographs.
I regard them as companion pieces because the scale of the runners relative to the larger scenes is very similar. Also, the images deal with the same subject and were shot for the same client.
 Turner's "There is No Finish Line" photo and the urban runner image below helped establish the Nike advertising look. The two images illustrate how high tonal contrast can be used to attract the viewer's eye to important details like a runner dwarfed by large trees or big city buildings. ( © John Terence Turner) |
“No Finish Line” was shot for the legendary art director Denny Strickland when his Seattle agency had the Nike account. Along with a picture by my friend Bob Peterson, they were the foundation of Nike’s early advertising.
Denny had sent me out to shoot running, but not racing. He really did use the phrase, “There Is No Finish Line.” It was winter in Seattle and I went to Greenlake, a favorite of area runners then and now.
Shooting with the light behind me was not appealing because the weak winter sun showed dull, brown grass and leafless branches. It lit my runner and the scenery equally, causing the runner to almost disappear into the background.
We went to the north end of the lake and set up with a Nikkor 24mm lens on the motordrive. On the infrequent occasions when there is sun in the winter in Seattle it comes only from the south. The sunlight weakly forced its way through near total overcast, bouncing off the lake surface toward me. As my model ran the lakeshore path, he was silhouetted, along with the naked tree branches of January in Seattle.
The backlit, leafless trees provide the contrast in size with the runner while the bright light bouncing off the lake created a contrast with the silhouette of the runner. The shot became an ad and a best-selling poster.
 Though this is one of Turner's most famous images, it almost did not happen. Turner had to wait for the sun to cooperate on a day when downtown Seattle traffic was minimal. When everything fell into place, the author had just 15 minutes to capture the image. ( © John Terence Turner ). |
A year passed, the Nike account moved to Portland and, in a conversation with a different art director, I was told that, “We love the Greenlake shot, but in some ways it is too pretty. Not everyone runs in a location that attractive. We’d like something more urban.”
“I think I have the place for you,” I replied.
And I did. I had recently noticed, a downtown Seattle location that, for a few minutes in the afternoon, was lit with a shaft of sunlight peeking between two tall buildings on Fourth Ave. I told the art director I’d shoot the location and send some slides (How much easier it is now that we have digital cameras and the internet, eh?).
He liked it and, in mid-September, asked me to do the shoot. I planned to do it on a weekend when downtown Seattle traffic would be lighter.
There began a long string of cloudy, overcast weekends.
This picture obviously requires sunshine to make its point; so cloudy Saturdays and Sundays were not helping me get the shoot done. Finally, the art director called. “We’re going to print this poster along with several others in one large print job and yours is the only one not ready. If I don’t get it in a couple of weeks, we’ll have to cancel it.”
It was November and unusually sunny. Veteran’s Day was approaching on a Thursday and that would mean lighter traffic. I had to shoot it soon or winter would be upon us and there would be little hope of getting it done. I called my brother and persuaded him to be my runner.
I told him to wait for holes in the traffic and to be in full stride when he hit that sliver of sunshine, then run back and do it again. We had to work fast because the sun did not maintain a clean shaft of sunshine on the street.
After about 15 minutes, the sun moved enough to produce the shadow of a light standard and bisect the sliver of sunshine, thus complicating and ending the shoot.
I set up on a fourth floor ledge with a tripod, two motor-driven Nikons and a 24mm as my primary lens.
Tom didn’t have an easy time of it. No one on the street saw me four floors above and across the street. All they saw was some idiot running in little circles and, apparently, behaving irrationally. Car horns were honked, harsh words were exchanged and middle fingers were extended.
Meanwhile, I was shooting every time Tom hit the sunny spot. We worked hard for the 15 minutes and it was done.
Because the scene is generally dark with the bright sliver of sunshine, the runner in full stride attracts the viewer’s eye. It also helps that the bright bit of sky diagonally opposite the sun and the runner balances the bright patch of sunshine in the lower right.
It is reminiscent of a number of early American landscapes where the painter brightly illuminated the significant part of the painting (see Thomas Cole, Falls of Kaaterskill 1826 and Albert Bierstadt, The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak 1863).
Those painters had it easy. They went out and made a lot of sketches and then went back to the studio to do their landscape, painting the sunshine where they wanted it. We photographers have to find it, then be there when it happens with our model doing what we want when the sun does its ephemeral bit.
This shot became a best-selling poster and, as an ad (“Most Heroes Are Anonymous”), was designated “Best National Color Ad” by the New York Art Directors. Both images were featured in Communication Arts and won Addys.
Both use the details of the context in contrast with the subject (a runner) to contribute subtle information and emphasize the isolation of the athlete.
Some time later, a young Columbian photographer, with a death-grip on my arm in a huge, crowded Cartagena nightclub waxed drunkenly eloquent about my use of “espacio negativo” (negative space) to direct the viewer’s eye to the subject. I hadn’t thought of it in those terms, but the conversation ended prematurely when my friend slumped unconscious against the wall.
He had recognized that locations with the right elements are important. The search for location is extremely important. You have to do it while imagining it with optimum light. Sometimes you find the right location but you can’t use it until the light comes from a different direction. Shoot some photographic notes and come back when the light is doing what you want.
Great light seldom lasts long. When it does what you want, you must be there and be prepared to shoot.
(John Terence Turner has been shooting stock photography for 20 years. His work can be seen at Getty Images, Alamy and, of course, The Stock Asylum, where his column appears twice a month. He lives and works in Seattle, WA.)
Turner's web site can be found at: http://www.johnterenceturner.com.
For more of his images: click here.
For all of Turner's columns: click here.
