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Stills tomovie: a pro’s story Chris Frazer Smith is an award-winning people photographer, with a long and impressive client list. His passion for imagemaking has led to non-commissionedwork in stills and, increasingly, video. Chris shares his journey tomoviemaking, focusing specifically on the hardware he relies on
CHRIS FRAZER SMITH chrisfrazersmith.com
MY PRIMARY CHALLENGE as an environmental portrait photographer is to shoot clear, graphic portraits that resonate with the audience. I have to grab their attention and pretty much tell them what the subject does and where they might be in the world, then capture a moment that I feel needs to be shared as best as I can. So, essentially, my main influence comes from wanting to share a story via the narrative of my visuals. With the arrival of digital and, in particular, mid-generation DSLRs – the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, for example – filmmaking was put into the hands of stills photographers, whether they liked it or not, and in an entirely new technical way. I shoot a great deal of non- commissioned photography, and my desire to tell a story through stills has opened up the canvas of moving images, largely thanks to progress in the camera world. For me, it’s been a very natural progression from stills to film. I am passionate about photography, video, painting and typography; I know my strengths as a stills photographer, and my approach to filmmaking has been for the most part driven by the aesthetic of my stills compositions, allowing the subjects I film to play out in front of the camera. There’s often very little movement from the camera, although
AWORLD-BEATER The NINJA V+ (right) is the world’s first 8K RAW HDR monitor/ recorder enabling continuous recording in Apple ProRes RAW. Its bright 5.2in monitor is fully featured, including focus peaking, zoom and vectorscopes
that is evolving as I utilise gimbals, tracks and a drone. Strangely, as I think about this, I have been on projects in the past few months where going from motion, back to stills, was more challenging. Some subjects work better in the medium of moving images. I make my living predominately as an advertising photographer, so my background comes from being involved with big productions, and I have a wealth of pre-production
experience, as well as creative collaboration with art directors. I plan carefully, and recce as much as possible, but allow the subject matter to play out with minimal direction. My most recent short, The Residency , was the realisation that I could film a young, talented painter on the journey of her parting residency at a gallery, capturing a portrait at this time in her life. (Check out the short film on Chris’ website.) The challenge was to be invisible and still have the ability to move very quickly with the technical set-up, capturing shots in one take. Using the Canon EOS R5, with the ATOMOS NINJA V+ and Azden mics, allows me that freedom to anticipate, while not worrying too much about equipment. Keeping the kit really tight means that I can control these personal
projects by myself, to an extremely high-quality standard. The NINJA V+ is my canvas first and foremost. The features within it simply provide me more assistance compositionally than the camera’s rear monitor on its own, although running the screen live on the EOS R5 is also very important. Without the NINJA V+, I would be running from shot to shot at a slower rate, and there would be a danger I would miss crucial moments. I allow the action to take place naturally without interference, although will
direct certain scenes that I feel are crucial elements to the work that’s being created. The EOS R5 was a game-changer for me. No single camera system is perfect, but my move in recent years as a stills photographer from medium format to only Canon 35mm kit has been a great experience. I went from a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, then onto the Mark III and EOS 5DS, and now to the EOS R5 – my first mirrorless camera. What it offers both in RAW stills and 8K and 5K video capture with the NINJA V+ is remarkable.
“Keeping the kit really tight means that I can control these personal projects by myself, to an extremely high-quality standard”
18 Photography News | Issue 98
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