Nicholas Nixon's latest book "School" was all shot with an 8X10 camera, with many indoor environmental portraits taken at close range. It would appear that he uses one strobe (i.e. a single light source), judging from the reflections of light off black boards, TV monitors and of course the eyes of his subjects. Does anyone know exactly what sort of lighting set-up he uses and what sort of light modification is used?

-- Mark Nowaczynski (archivalprints@home.com), July 09, 2000

Answers

I imagine that Nicholas Nixon works alone and with the minimum of equipment. I doubt that he has a platoon of Avedon's assisstants with him in the classroom (i.e. on location). Does he use a single light source through an umbrella? Strobe or tungsten? I am not interested in what brands he uses, but what sort of set up a photographer working alone could use for indoor environmental portraits on location. Any thoughts or comments?

-- Mark Nowaczynski (archivalprints@home.com), July 12, 2000.

For most of Nick's indoor stuff he's bouncing a pretty high powered stobe off the ceiling. Here he can roam all around the room and not have to worry to much.

-- Michael Cappabianca (mikecapp@hotmail.com), May 04, 2001.