For this edition of The All Worlds Traveller, we’re continuing our exploration of hard light and glamor in our ode to Hollywood’s golden age in our series Golden Age of the Silver Screen. In our first article, we showed Elizabeth Quilter’s homage to Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Fred Astaire. In our second, we present actor Gary Henderson, referencing a range of personalities from Clark Gable to Errol Flynn to Walt Disney to Vincent Price.
Gary Henderson
Gary Henderson is a thrice-exceptional actor who’s always exceptionally prepared and exceptionally creative. We first met during Idle Muse Theatre Company’s production of Hound of the Baskervilles in 2016, where he earned the nickname “Contemporary Gary.” We’ve worked together several times since 2016, from theatrical productions to Distant Era projects like The People of Light and Shadow and Hauntings from a Distant Era.
In 2022, last week’s Golden Age of the Silver Screen subject, Elizabeth Quilter, and I went to see Gary in The Black Knight when we realized we both knew him. Just for fun, here’s a gallery of those two in the current series, in our 2022–23 series, and then an out-of-costume picture from after that show.
Golden Age of the Silver Screen: The Spark
Golden Age of the Silver Screen sparked from Distant Era’s desire to time travel. A confluence of influences fueled the fire, including a 2019 Disney Noir project made with friends and the work of photographer-educator Lindsay Adler. In addition, I needed to stand up and stretch from Distant Era’s still-current project Gods and Heroes of the Aegean, a photo compositing series about the ancient Greeks that keeps me in my chair for long hours.
Golden Age of the Silver Screen was an opportunity to get back to playing with light without worrying much about color, and after months of meticulous work at the computer, I longed to get on my feet and experiment with light in the physical space.
It was also an opportunity to learn about the photography of a different period. Not only the photography but the films of the period and the people who made them. We aren’t using the same technology, but some of the principles are similar.
The Session
Gary’s was the first full session we photographed for Golden Age of the Silver Screen, following an initial test session by Elizabeth MacDougald, which we’ll show later. He looked like he’d walked right out of the era.
When we initially discussed the series, Gary had a ton of ideas, which he refined to a man in a smoking jacket, with a classic mustache and a cigarette case.
I had initially intended these to be thirty-minute sessions, but we kept having ideas and having fun, so we kept shooting.
The purpose of this series was to get creative and experimental with light, so that’s what we did.
Hard Light in Black and White
We started with a spotlight on curtains, followed by barn doors on our light, before moving to some projected background patterns. In each of these setups, I thought Gary looked like a classic show host or producer.
Our creative direction for this series was to use hard light modifiers as much as possible. As Gary and I moved from concept to concept, we used a magnum reflector as our main light; a small spotlight; a light with barn doors; and a small zoom reflector with a grid. We used a beauty dish with a grid for fill.
Our lighting setups became more complex as the session progressed, culminating in a four-light setup that became my favorite look we photographed that night. At that point, the room was hazy from smoke, which added a certain quality to our images. We finished out our session with some tightly controlled lighting.
Gary is one of the hardest working and best prepared people I’ve worked with, and it’s a great joy to play with him.
Cat BS and BTS
Gary had a little friend with him for much of the beginning of the shoot. Garrus the Cat sees photo sessions as his time to get attention from whoever’s in front of the camera.
We’ll leave off with a couple behind-the-scenes images in which Gary interviews Garrus for his role of co-host and (later) our favorite four-light setup from this session.
We’ll be back next time with more to share from Golden Age of the Silver Screen. If you’re reading this and you’d like to hire Distant Era for a session of your own, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
