Circus artist Joan Català with friend and colleague Marti Soler (feet).
The cool kids of Oulu will remember this guy from an amazing circus performance he did in Kultuuritalo Valve a few months back. This is Joan Català who brought the wonderful and funny PELAT for us to marvel at. It's a man and a pole and some rope. Such good fun!
His visit to Oulu happened to coincide with my pop-up portrait studio. I had never met the guy, but since Pirjo from Flow Circus is a dear friend, I figured I'd get his email and ask him. And he said ¡Sí!
I knew next to nothing about the piece because I try to make it a point not to check out anything in advance and rather want to be surprised by the show. I knew I wanted to make his portrait in various lighting set-ups, shoot something on film as well, but I wanted to incorporate the fact that he's a circus artist somehow in his portrait.
Luckily the guys were not too pressed for time and we had a chance to meet before the sitting. We discussed some ideas over lunch and Joan quickly realized that the constraints of my 15 square meter studio with a ceiling height of little less than 3 meters meant that the pole would have to stay out. But being performers and brimming with ideas, he and Marti came up with a few options that they could do even in a small room. Professionals!
We thought that a portrait with something weird like feet on shoulders or Joan's face or something would make a funny image. The guys quickly found a way to have Marti stand on Joan's shoulders (no, really) and after that, it was only a question of having Joan hit the right expression.
See, I told you! "And can you hold that pose for me?" "Claro!"
We tried a few different expressions. The guys would take a rest and we'd talk about the emotion and the expression Joan would go for before Marti got on his shoulders. Then it would be 1-2-3 GO!
And we went for a horizontal version:
And Marti got his shot, as well:
Marti With Feet.
The wonderful thing about working with professional performers like Joan and Marti here is that they will always hit their mark. (This reminds me of Sasu and Inni, our intrepid acrobat friends, who starred in this Unhola portrait. Those guys are unbelievable.) It's my job to be ready and hit my mark, too. I decided to keep the lighting super simple so as not to fuck shit up. Also, Joan and Marti had some time but not that much, and I did want to crank out a few other portraits of him, too. So these images are lit with one speedlight in the Creative Light umbrella softbox lighting both the subjects and the background. One light, sucka.
Here's another look for Joan, shot during the same session. Lighting here is Apollo Medium softbox to camera left.
Same lighting, different background (the white seamless). Shot on Tri-X 120 roll film.
We had time for a quick detail shot, too.
Joan and Marti were great guys and so much fun to photograph! Lots of laughs to be had with these two. If you ever have a chance to check out PELAT, do it! Be on the look-out for it in a town square near you.