Friday Five is a roundup of inspirational tutorials, articles and videos that I stumble across in my everyday browsing.

1. Gregory Heisler whiteboards Rudy Giuliani Time Cover

The portrait of Rudy Giuliani for the Time Magazine cover taken by Gregory Heisler is a remarkable image.

This image was taken in 2001 after the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, in which Giuliani played a very visible role, for which he gained great praise and was recognised as Person of the Year by Time magazine.

This image was taken on the top of the Rockefeller Center – 65 stories up. It would be hard enough asking your subject to stand on the edge of the roof that high up, let alone organising the lighting! This image took a week of planning, and was captured in only a handful of frames using an 8×10 camera.

This really is a great portrait, that has had a lot of time, thought and consideration go into it. Gregory Heisler has recorded a video white boarding the details of the shoot, the lighting and some of the challenges that they faced. It is a very interesting video – be sure to also take a look at his website to view more of his work.

2. Tyler Gray – composite for Red Baron beer

Tyler Gray is a photographer who works for Westside Studios in Toronto, Canada. Westside Studios have a blog, on which they regularly post interesting details about their commercial photography.

Tyler has created this composite for a recent advertisement for Red Baron beer, and was kind enough to post some of the information detailing how the composite was created.

I didn’t realise at first that this was a composite image; which is the true test of a composite done well.

3. Brad Trent  – artificial portraits

Editorial photographer Brad Trent has a solid portfolio with some fantastic portraits. He has a unique style which has him in high demand for magazine and editorial work.

Amongst his portfolio, he as an interesting body of work titled Artificial Portraits. This series focuses on the fake reality of photography; most notably the crafted lighting that is used to create portrait images. It’s a look behind the scenes which breaks the fourth wall of normal portraits. He has some great work, and his website is well worth a look.

There is also an interesting article on Strobist.com about Brad Trent and his work, which is a good read.

4. John Keatley – portrait photographer

I really like John Keatley’s work. He primarily shoots portraits and has a knack for creating images that are simple, but intriguing. I follow his blog and like to keep an eye on the work that he is doing, as he continually produces quality work.

I came across this video of John, which gives a good overview of his work and his style. I particularly like this comment in the video:

“…when I go onsite for a shoot, I always ask for the full tour. Usually there is always one place; a basement or store room, that they say ‘you don’t want to go in there, there’s nothing in there, it’s terrible’ – and this is usually the place we end up shooting.”

This is one of the ways that he manages to create unique and interesting images on a consistent basis.

John Keatley – Photographer from Redux or Michael Kasino on Vimeo.

5. Dan Winters interview on The F STOP

The F STOP has published an interesting interview with Dan Winters on their blog. It talks about a recent project for wired magazine shooting Will Ferrell, as well as his other work.

Dan Winters is an iconic photographer, who has an incredible body of work. He is based out of Austin, Texas – but seems to be called on to photograph all over the place. Similar to John Keatley, Dan is very good at reducing an image to just the essential components. Everything in the image is included for a specific reason. Dan describes his work as:

Very studied, meticulously-composed pictures. Frames within frames, really compressed lighting. I was trying to keep it simple. I was trying to make things that seemed a little bit more timeless or lasting but odd at the same time. There’s also a specific emotional range that I like to work with. I find when people get quiet and reflective, there’s a catharsis that can take place. The viewer doesn’t feel intimidated. If the subjects eyes are averted, rather than making direct contact, I believe the viewer feels more comfortable looking at that person and studying them and feeling, not necessarily voyeuristic, but not feeling shy or reluctant to scrutinize the subjects physical self.

Dan also makes this following comment regarding the current rush by photographers to embrace the convergence of still and motion. Still photography stands apart from motion because it engages the viewer in a different way:

Historically whenever new technology comes around, people scramble trying to figure out how it’s going to be used. For so many years, still photographs have been in magazines. The still photograph works for a reason. The viewers ability to ponder and scrutinize a moment can only exist in a still image. The photograph of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima is a perfect example. There’s also film content of that identical event, where the army photographer was literally standing right next to Joe Rosenthal filming the event, but it doesn’t have nearly the same impact as Rosenthal’s still image.

Head over to Dan Winters website and take a look around, he has a massive amount of work, which is all of a very high quality – something to definitely take inspiration from.