Jaston Williams as "Maid Marian" for an upcoming Zach Theatre Production.

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Jaston Williams in costume with boots.

I love working with Jaston. He's funny, brilliant and amazing. The first time I saw him perform was in the famous play that he co-wrote and in which he co-starred, Greater Tuna. I've watched him as Truman Capote and in a number of other roles in which he was uniformly superb. But I've rarely laughed as much in a marketing photo shoot as I did when he played it up for me as Maid Marian. It's a wildly comedic role based on someone from Jaston's past.

We shot a series of images for the promotion last Fall. I'd just mastered the strange Samsung Galaxy NX camera and used it for the shoot along with the 18-55mm kit lens. It was the first time I'd used a camera with a touch screen (with touch focus and touch shutter actuation...) in a studio set up. The art director and I actually had a lot of fun looking at the giant screen on the back of the camera (four point eight inches), touching Jaston's face on the screen to focus and then touching again to shoot. 

All the images from the shoot, which also included other actors, were perfect. Tack sharp, great expressions and great image quality all around. Funny, I think it's my nature to "problem solve" which generally means searching out and identifying problems with a process or a product. In this situation I should have come to the conclusion that, while the big screened camera was not my choice for street shooting, the camera is a unique, fun and effective platform for shooting with people in a controlled, studio environment. I pulled the camera out today and put the 85mm lens on it in anticipation of some portrait shoots we'll be doing tomorrow. 

The Panasonic GH4 and related system parts will have to wait their turn. I've got some serious screen touching to do.

Knowledge. A good differentiator!