Red River Pro
AL FRANCEKEVICH

The Photographer
Al Francekevich has worked as a New York City advertising photographer for more than 50 years and has won many advertising awards including the Gold Medal of the New York Art Directors Club (the “Oscar” of advertising). His work is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution.

The Client
Self-assigned for eventual sale as a stock photograph. Through the years Francekevich has created many composite images that begin in his mind’s eye and are then created using a number of elements.

© Al Francekevich

The Assignment
Create an image of a magical light beam being held between two hands. 

The Execution
"I placed this high-tech toy, which is actually a vibrating string, against a black background. Then, with a Hasselblad EL modified to allow multiple exposures on a single frame, I shot three pictures with intense red, green and blue filters on a 150mm Sonnar lens. A single Speedotron strobe head low and to the rear provided the illumination. The hands were shot as separate images.
 
Post Production
"This picture was shot prior to Photoshop; the beam image was combined with a shot of a female model's hands in the darkroom using 8x10 Kodak Duplicating film. I recently tweaked it further in Photoshop prior to making several exhibition prints." 

The Output
"A number of prints were made with an Epson Stylus Color R1800 printer using Red River's
Arctic Polar Satin paper. This paper perfectly reproduced the vivid colors due to its pure white neutral base. In comparing the output to a lab print made on photographic paper, the print on the Arctic Polar Satin paper was richer in color and optically sharper.”

Contact
Al Francekevich’s work can be seen at www.corbis.com. He can be emailed at alfrance @ earthlink.net