A transition to awesome

Thanks to the work of photographer Matt Hawthorne, I am looking at natural light in a different way. Not as something to use instead of studio flash equipment, but as something to emulate.

Parkour performers (L to R) Michiel Boone, Alex Laman, and Bulent Camdere. Shot in Rotterdam with two strobes.

Matt Hawthorne is a commercial photographer specializing in advertising for fitness brands. Most of his images feature athletes wearing bright colors with simple, bright backgrounds. I have always liked his work, but have found it growing on me more and more over the past several months. Other favorites, like Tim Kemple, Jason Bell, and Raymond Meier tend to shoot more complicated compositions. It is the lack of complexity that put me off a bit with Hawthorne's work at first, but the more I look at it, the more I like that quality.

Hawthorne's compositions are almost always a single athlete, full figure, centered in the middle of the page. Often they are standing or exercising in front of a simple industrial background containing only a couple of colors, most often gray. His lighting varies little from shot to shot. In every case, they feel like they've been shot in either brilliant sunlight (exterior shots) or very clean, indoor lighting. The shots always look good. There are no exceptions to this.

The simplicity of the work put me off, but even more, the fact that every shot looked like it was taken in exactly the same conditions. Or so it seemed. A few weeks ago, I wanted to see how other photographers dealt with the problem of shooting basketball in poorly lit gymnasiums. I have been asked to do this more than once, and always feel at a disadvantage. This is true whether I bring my own lights or not. The buildings tend to have high ceilings that prevent much, if any, reflected light. The walls are sometimes painted dark colors, including black. Existing lighting looks fine to the eye, but not to the camera. Add in high speed basketball action and shooting in these locations is very difficult.

Player Christiaan "Batman" Grives of the Rotterdam team Concrete Lions, at the Sportbox in Utrecht. Shot with one strobe for fill light.

Because this was so frustrating, I once arranged for some athletes to come into a studio, where I shot them with several strobes. The results were quite good from a lighting point of view. I could shoot at ISO 50, the highest quality setting, and high shutter speed of 1/1600s, and the light always looked fine. However, these weren't shots of a real game, meaning they lacked the dynamism of a game, and they didn't have the interesting backgrounds sometimes found at these gyms.

Four players from the Rotterdam team, Concrete Lions. Clockwise from left: Miquel Porconi, Manuel Tumba, Argil Randon-le Couvrier, and Christiaan Grives.

How do other photographers manage? I took a look at shots made by NBA photographers as a starting point. The best of these are typified by dark, almost black, backgrounds. The court and players tend to be bright thanks to powerful overhead lighting in combination with overhead-mounted strobes installed by courtside photographers. The lights are much stronger than anything found in the gyms I shot at, so it wasn't likely I'd get decent lighting from existing lighting. As for mounting my lights overhead, it wouldn't be easy. For instance, the rafters at the Sportbox in Utrecht are much higher than can be reached without a cherry-picker, and if the battery died on me (very likely) I wouldn't be able to change it.

The Sportbox, Utrecht

 To explore this further, I did a Google search on lighting for gymnasiums. This led me to Matt Hawthorne. This was a pleasant surprise, because his work is always fun to look at, but it also got me a bit distracted. I'd seen some of his behind the scenes videos, and now found a BTS image of a shoot in a high school gym! He had six strobes in there, along with some huge light stands. I didn't have that kind of equipment, but could rent it. He also showed the images made with the lighting from the other shot. It was nice and clean like his other work, though a little grainier and darker than usual. Still, it looked great. But, I got distracted. I wanted to see more BTS videos.

This led me to more careful searches on Hawthorne's name. To my surprise, there were a few videos I hadn't seen. More than that, by looking at their dates, it was possible to see some major improvements in his work and when they happened.

The first video (Video 1) was uploaded on January 24, 2010, eight years ago. The photos showcased in this portfolio reel looked nothing like the work I was familiar with. They feature desaturated color and notably less energy than his current work. More than anything else, the lighting did not look natural. This was a major distraction for me, and a surprise. If I had seen these without his name written below them, I never would have known they were by Hawthorne. I hate to say it, but this made me feel better about my own work. If Matt Hawthorne, one of the best advertising photographers of 2018, had work that looked totally different in 2010, there was hope for me.

As some people know, I have been working on my PhD since 2010, the same year this first video by Hawthorne was made. One of the things I focus on in my thesis is what a call the "transition to proficiency" (or expertise). I wanted to see students transition from not being proficient, to when they became proficient. This video gave me an opportunity to find exactly when Matt Hawthorne, photographer, became Matt Hawthorne, amazing photographer. There had to be more videos, hopefully enough to see the transition happen. To understand this, a few things should be said about the January 2010 video.

Video 1 lacks a clear focus. It has fashion, beauty, portrait, product, fitness, children, lifestyle, landscape, architecture, and skateboarding shots. It is clear from this that he hasn't yet decided what his focus should be. All of the images are strongly desaturated, giving the impression that this is either his style, or he is uncomfortable with the color he gets when he captured the images. Based on later work, my impression is that he wasn't sure how to deal with color at the time. Some shots use exactly the kind of backgrounds as his current work, but because the lighting looks artificial, they are much less interesting in the video than in later work. Most of the shots appear to be self-produced, while others look like they might have been made for clients. He also seems to favor wide angle lenses, or to use them more often, than in later work. Overall, the subjects of his photos appear to be lifeless, without energy. The exceptions are a couple of fitness-oriented shots. One of these, an image of a runner stretching, is more similar to his later work than anything else in the video. The fitness shots appear to be the seeds that took root, because only these images contain qualities found in later work. The poses look slightly more natural, and the compositions are a bit more dynamic.

The second video (Video 2), was uploaded to Vimeo on April 14, 2010. This is about three months after Video 1. This is a fashion shoot done at a rundown old hotel. It appears to have been done for the purpose of self-promotion rather than for a client. It is not meaningfully different from the fashion shots in video 1, and video 3, which follows.

Video 3 documents a skateboarding trip. It appears to have been done as a vacation for Hawthorne rather than for a client. It was uploaded on April 23, 2010, or just two weeks after Video 2. There are a couple of shots of snowboarding action, but they are flat compositions and have had their color desaturated. Again, not different from Video 1. They do, however, show that Hawthorne turns to sports when he isn't working on his portfolio.

Video 4 was uploaded to YouTube on February 28, 2011. This video is slightly more than a year after Video 1, but there are visible differences between it and Video 1. The opening shots for this video highlight that it was made as part of a shoot for a client. The client is LifeTime Fitness. Possibly this client saw something in his skateboarding and fitness shots that made them think Hawthorne was a good fit for the assignment. The video shows that he has a number of assistants on the set, several athletes, and two strobes. He highlights the Canon EOS and Hasselblad cameras he used for the shoot. The music makes more sense than it did in the previous video, making it more effective as a marketing tool, and the editing is better. This time, it tells the coherent story of how Hawthorne managed a fitness shoot. This is in contrast to Video 1, that had no clear focus.

The lighting of the shots is not noticeably different from shots in the previous video. The compositions, lighting, color, and posing are very similar to earlier work. That said, the video itself hints at what comes later. There are exterior and interior shots. For some of the interior shots, the video captures images that have the kind of composition Hawthorne started using later. This framing is more dynamic, makes use of foreground blur, and allows more light from constant light sources. It is unlikely that Hawthorne made the videos himself while simultaneously engaged in the shoot. More likely, someone else was hired to do it, and Hawthorne may have noticed some possibilities when he saw it later.

The contrast between the framing of the video footage of the models and Hawthorne's final images in Video 4 is striking. The video looks much more like Hawthorne's current style than his own photos do. Again, he desaturates the colors. This is more obvious in this video than in Video 1 because in Video 4, the athlete models are wearing bright colors. By desaturating the entire image, almost all of the colors outside their clothing looks completely gray. In Video 1, there weren't as many bright colors, so desaturating the full image allowed easier discrimination between colors that had been changed into similar grays.

Possibly the best shot in the group, of a swimmer splashing as he emerges from the ocean, looks nothing like Hawthorne's later work. Instead, it looks like it could have been made by any number of other photographers with some skill in studio lighting. The lighting however, is so artificial that it looks like it was taken on an indoor set, though he actually shot it outside in the ocean. This is a commercial style, though not distinctive enough to separate Hawthorne's work from numerous competitors, nor is it the kind of shot one associates with national advertising campaigns.

The improvements most visible in Video 4 are the posing of the models and the consistent subject matter (fitness). That said, the framing of the models remains flat and uninteresting, the lighting is artificial-looking, and the desaturated color does not emphasize the idea of health and fitness one would normally expect for this kind of shoot. Moreover, it is clear that Hawthorne still isn't comfortable with color.

Video 5 was uploaded to Vimeo on September 14, 2011. This is a little over six months after Video 4, and about 17 months after Video 1. There is little obvious progress between Video 1-3 and Video 4, but there is evident improvement in Video 5. In this video, his commercial style starts coming into focus. Keep in mind that the difference between Videos 1-3 and 4 is negligible, making the difference between Video 4 and 5 more striking. The improvement this represents likely occurred somewhere within a six-month span.

Video 5 is a behind the scenes video of a shoot done in a dimly-lit old gym. It is also used as an advertisement for Hawthorne. The video clearly shows that he has a team assisting him, the location (an old gym with character), and his equipment. The video itself is similar to Video 4. The difference is in the images shot by Hawthorne. Now, the way the models pose is different, and so is the color and lighting.

Models in Video 1 were for the most part stationary, or moved little (except the skateboarder shots). Video 4 has a few images of athletes in motion: men cycling past Hawthorne, women on stationary bikes, and a swimmer emerging from the ocean. However, the way the shots were framed does not emphasize the motion of the models. This is true even of the swimmer, where hundreds of drops of water are suspended in mid-air, caught by the flash. The swimmer's pose, however, is as static as an ancient Greek sculpture.

In Video 5, the models are asked to exercise in front of the camera. More importantly, Hawthorne frames them differently than he has in previous shoots. Now, he gets closer, shoots from a three quarter angle instead of a straight profile. When a model faces the camera in one shot, her pose is asymmetrical, more natural than earlier shots. The biggest difference is in the color. For this shoot, the colors may be slightly desaturated, but nowhere near as much as before. Now, the vivid colors of the model's clothing stands out. Their poses look more natural because of the way he frames (or crops) the shots. He gets closer to the models than before, and has the confidence to crop out inactive portions of the frame. The shots continue to have a strong flash shadow, making them clear products of artificial lighting, but the more saturated color compensates for the hard shadows from the flash.

Video 5 still doesn't look like Hawthorne's current style, but the images it contains have come closer than previous videos. All that is missing is a good balance between artificial and natural light. So far, the images have all looked artificial. In the first four videos, I found this to be unpleasant, but in the fifth video, the shots look on par with editorial spreads from magazines like Elle.

Video 6, uploaded June 6, 2012, finally starts to look like Hawthorne's signature style. It retains traces of his earlier work, but is clearly moving in a different direction. This video was uploaded about nine months after video 5. So far, videos 1-4 have shown no notable differences, apart from the introduction of a fitness client in video 4. Aesthetically, they are all about the same. The biggest difference was between video 4 and 5, where Hawthorne made two significant changes: he did not desaturate his colors and he framed the models from more dynamic angles.

Video 6 covers a very large (and clearly expensive) shoot done for Lifetime Fitness, the same client featured in video 4. In this video, we see a large panel truck loaded with gear, a custom luxury bus carrying models and crew, and rack after rack of clothing to shoot. The apparent cost of this shoot says something about Hawthorne's position as a photographer at the time, in comparison to the earlier videos, which would have had smaller budgets due to the smaller size of the crews, less equipment, and fewer products to shoot. The first three videos had no obvious client. That said, it is possible that some of the shots in video 1 had clients, but there were no clear brands in any of them, nor were the subjects recognizable personalities.

The time elapsed between video 1 and 6 is about two and a half years. In that time, Hawthorne has gone from an advanced studio assistant, to a photographer capable of handling a large and complex shoot over multiple days. Moreover, he has clearly earned the confidence of his clients. The shots, however, show a curious mix of characteristics found in the early videos and video 5. He now makes an effort to keep the color in the final images, but in some, desaturates it (though not as much as before). It is as if he has seen a new direction, but isn't fully confident in it yet. In some ways, it could seem that video 6 is regressive, though in others, it isn't.

The lighting in video 6 is clearly artificial, so he is not balancing it with natural light to get the natural look he is known for today. The compositions however, are bolder, and it looks like he has started using longer lenses to focus more on the models than their environments, which tend to be geometric. The geometry of the background isn't a difference, but by using longer lenses, the geometry is now clearer than in earlier shoots.Hawthorne does desaturate the colors in this shoot, but not to near grays, as he did previously. Now, we see the vibrant color of the model's clothing. The lighting is similar to the lighting in video 5, as if no accommodation were made for the fact that the gym in video 5 was an interior and the locations for video 6 are all exteriors on brilliant sunny days.

Video 7 , uploaded July 21, 2013, is an indoor studio shoot for a sports drink client. This video does not show any meaningful difference from previous shoots, possibly because the final images were black and white.

On November 4, 2013, video 8 was uploaded to Vimeo. This is three and a half years after video 1, and two and a half years after video 4, which may be one of his first advertising clients. This was a five day lifestyle and fitness shoot for Modere. The crew is large, and many models are involved. The models are in some cases doing exactly the same poses found in videos 6 and 7. Now though, the results are strikingly different. In this video, almost every shot has balanced lighting designed to emphasize natural daylight.

In the Modere shoot, for the first time, almost all of the elements of his current style are found: fitness client, bright color, natural/balanced lighting, dynamic, natural compositions, long lens used for most shots, natural poses from models, and action. One item not present yet, is related to composition. In this shoot, Hawthorne has cleared the foreground of any obstructions that might block the view of his models. It makes no difference to the professional quality of the images but it is an absent stylistic element. At this point, he has found the style that becomes his signature. However, at this point, in comparison to later development, he still has a few more tweaks to make.

So far, in the series of videos from 1-8, we have covered a relatively short span of time. Video 1 was uploaded on January 24, 2010. Video 8 was uploaded on November 4, 2013. Based on answers to questions given in interviews, we know that these dates roughly correspond to when the shoots were done and are a fair representation of the time elapsed between the shoots. This means that Hawthorne went from an aspiring photographer to a seasoned professional with a highly commercial aesthetic in a period of about three and a half years. This does not take into account the time spent as a photographer's assistant, though it is not clear if that period overlapped with any of these videos. It is plausible that it did, particularly with videos 1-3.

The next video I was able to find was uploaded on April 15, 2017. Video 9 is a behind the scenes video of a shoot for New Balance shoes, but it doesn't show any of the final shots. This is true of most of the other videos I found. However, by looking at still images from Hawthorne's online portfolio we can see some of the new things he has done with his work. These aren't dated, but comparison with the videos already presented shows that most or all of the images were made no earlier than video 5.

One of the more notable changes is that Hawthorne now includes foreground objects that partially obscure the view of his models (Image 1), or have compositions framed so that the viewer seems like an eavesdropper (image 2). He still tends to use simple color combinations, usually only two or three dominant colors (image 3) , but he has mastered getting a natural look with bright color, even when he desaturates the image slightly (as in image 3), or doesn't (image 4). His work is now typified by strong color and action, with natural framing (image 5). His weaknesses have become his strengths. The more recent shoots demonstrate that he has been innovating for the past couple of years as a photographer by pushing the quality of his classically simple images.

The major transitions visible from his videos occurred for the Video 5 shoot, when he decided against strong desaturation of his images and more dynamic framing.  The next big change is in Video 8, where he balances natural light with studio lighting to emphasize daylight and opts for more subtle compositions.

Looking at his body of work, I realize that what initially appealed to me was the lighting and color, starting with the Modere shoot. There were good images before that, but starting with Modere, his work started looking like it could fairly be described as among the best of its kind. It wasn't a simple matter of getting rid of bad habits. Other photographers can do quite well with desaturated color, and others cannot handle strong color. Hawthorne seemed uncomfortable with color at first, but then he was very good with it. Now, he is exceptional. Somehow, he became sensitive to which colors work well together, and then found ways to put them together in his photographs, in just the right proportions, to get the best results.

Tomorrow I shoot a basketball game in a windowless gym. One of these days, I hope to have the resources Hawthorne uses in his shoots, to get the most out of these dim environments.