TECH how i Got that shot
Marco Grob oN the
© Remo Buess
Marco Grob
CLIEN T: Time magazine; director of
photography Kira Pollack
LOGISTICS: The shoot took place in June
and, like several of Grob’s photos for the
Beyond 9/11 portfolio, was taken in Time’s
Washington, DC bureau. Before the shoot,
Grob and his two assistants set up two small
backdrops, a gray and a white, and marked
the floor to show where Grob and the subject
would stand, as well as where Grob’s assistant handholding the light would stand.
During the shoot, Grob gave McRaven no
directions. “I actually sneak around and look
very precisely. I’m watching, not talking.”
He prefers that the subject interact with
his camera, not with him. He adds that the
images he can capture with the camera are
“brutal: you can run but you cannot hide,”
especially when the images are printed big,
as they were for a recent exhibition at Milk
Gallery in New York.
Whether he’s photographing a world leader,
an unknown firefighter, or the CEO of Apple
for the cover of Time magazine, Marco Grob
typically shoots a portrait in under three minutes. That’s about the limit of a subject’s attention span, he says, and if he hasn’t gotten
a good portrait in that amount of time, he assumes he is not going to get it at all.
“People hate to be photographed. I al-
ways think that everyone who doesn’t hate
to be photographed should go to a shrink,”
he says. “Even famous actors hate to be pho-
tographed because you make them be still.
They get bored.”
Grob has refined his lighting and camera
set-up for maximum efficiency and to guar-
antee him the flexibility to respond quickly when his subject steps in front of the
backdrop. “There is no margin for error, so we prepare, and then it’s more relaxed for
the subject. I owe that to the subject, to be as prepared as possible.”
For a Time magazine portfolio, “Beyond 9/11: Portraits of Resilience,” and a com-
panion book, Grob took intimate, probing portraits of 40 men and women who had
been leaders and sources of inspiration in the decade since the terrorist attacks on
the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Grob’s portrait of Adm. William McRaven, head
of the U.S. Special Operations Command group who killed Osama bin Laden, shows
how he used his simple lighting set-up to create a contrast of light and shadow that
symbolizes the former spy’s story.
McRaven told Grob that he had nev-
er been photographed professionally
before. “He’s come from the dark into
the light,” Grob says. “He felt uncom-
fortable still with being a public figure
after 30 years operating in the dark.”
Opposite: Adm. William McRaven, photographed for Time. Above: Grob used
a similar lighting set-up to photograph former Vice President Dick Cheney.
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CAMERA: Hasselblad H4D- 60 with an 80mm
lens; f/16 and 1/250th of a second. Grob always
handholds his camera. “Tripods are cumbersome and, because I’m physically close to the
subject, tripods are very uncomfortable for
the subjects.”
LIGHTING: An Elinchrom Rotalux on an 600
watt-second head, held by an assistant inches
from the left side of McRaven’s head. Another
assistant handheld a silver reflector low and
in front of the subject. Grob says he took 12
photos, moving slightly, and directing his as-
sistant to adjust the light slightly. “My assis-
tants know what to do when I ask them, so it’s
a very quick way of working and getting a lot done in no time.”
They typically carry flash heads. Because he handholds his camera, Grob says, “In
order to get maximum sharpness and absolutely no motion blur, you have to have a
steady hand and the flash head has to be fairly quick.”
Grob’s team used the same light when
he photographed former Vice President Dick
Cheney, this time in front of a white backdrop,
with the light held high and slightly in front
of him. “With Cheney, it just seemed the right
thing to do, to take this man who has been kind
of shady and to put him in the light.”
To see more of Marco
Grob’s portraits, visit
PDNOnline this month.
POST-PRODUCTION: “I always do it myself. It’s
not that post-production houses aren’t capable,
but I know what I want and explaining it is painful. It’s like, how do you explain a sound?”
Do you have a recently
published photo you
would like to share in How
I Got That Shot? Send it to
editor@pdnonline.com or
danhavlik@gmail.com and
tell us about the techniques
and problem solving that
went into getting the shot.
