Taylor Erdman
In Motion Staff Writer
Students and community members packed the Mori Hosseini Center’s Madorsky Theater March 7 to welcome the one and only Joe McNally, highly acclaimed freelance photographer and certified Nikon Ambassador.
To kick off the lecture McNally made his audience understand that his lecture was not a lecture where he would ramble on about his achievements. Instead, McNally preferred to think of it as a discussion. He went back and forth with his audience, asking and answering questions. As the small auditorium soon reached capacity, he kindly invited eager photography students to sit up on the stage with him, at the feet of the master. But in a business where egos tend to expand, McNally proved to be as down-to-earth and humble as they get.
His hour-long discussion was equal parts entertaining and sombering, as he provided images from his monumental climb of the tallest building on Earth in Dubai to scenes of mass slaughter in Africa.
He previewed images from his collection “The Climber of Tall Buildings,” as well as the acclaimed “Faces of Ground Zero,” where he brought in families, firefighters and other workers who were there during the aftermath of that tragic event. Using what McNally called “A giant Polaroid,” he was captured 9-foot by 4-foot portraits of their stricken faces.
McNally followed the presentation of his images by emphasizing, “It’s best to stay humble and move onto the next job.”
He said he never takes personally the loss of a client or the fact someone doesn’t like his work. His passion and love for his work came through in spoken words and in the images projected on the screen. “After 35 years I’m in love with the sound of the shutter.”
McNally talked about how he gained the position he currently holds and the mistakes he’s made along the way, including losing a photojournalism job for a New York newspaper. On that latter count, he mentioned if he had kept the job he would have never gained the success he now has. By learning from the errors he made, he built a better version of himself that got him where he is today.
Ashley Major, a UCF Photography major who attended the event said, “I thought it was really encouraging. I get discouraged a lot, so it was good to know that there is greatness in error.”
After the Madorsky lecture-discussion, McNally offered those in the program a lighting demo, where students were able to ask his advice about what they are having trouble with the most in their classes. As always, the answer was lighting.
Working with lighting is difficult for any photographer, let alone students working with harsh fluorescent lights in secluded classrooms with no windows — something McNally has dealt with throughout his long career.
Using a series of strategically placed Speedlight’s — with a variety of different colored gels on them — and the help of the students, McNally created a perfectly composed image using a blue gelled backlight, yellow tones for a middle ground lighting and a regular flash on his main subject.
Showing the students the steps he took to get to the final image showed how crucial tactical lighting placement is. The gels, although not mandatory in a photoshoot, add interest to a photo that may not otherwise grab the attention of the observer.
“Our job,” he counseled students, “is to stop the reader and engage. In a world where people look at something for a split-second and don’t really take interest, if we can manage to hold their attention for just a few minutes, then we have done our job.”