joemcnally.comJoe McNally | Photographer, Director, Author, Storyteller

Joe McNally Photography The website and blog of Joe McNally About About Joe McNally Contact Gear Store Portfolio Work with Joe Education Events Testimonials Blog Instagram Twitter Facebook YouTube Pinterest RSS Blog Sign-up & Newsletter Subscribe to Blog Sign-up to receive Joe’s Posts by email Email Address Get Posts by email Newsletter Sign-up to receive email updates Name * Email Address * Hidden Email Options Updates from Joe Workshops and Event Information Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Δ Nuclear Fusion - Power of the Sun Medical and Healthcare Frontiers Nikon Z 9 Tokyo Olympics Amazing and Notable Humans Concrete Muse Dancers All Higher, Farther, Faster Double Take Fascinating, Fractured World Service Flying Machines Uncommon Style Latest News from Joe Climbing the World’s Tallest Building! Time flies. Roughly ten years ago, I climbed the Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in […] Game Over at Sports Illustrated Legend has it that Heinz Kluetmeier donned scuba gear and dove into the Olympic pool […] An Irish Workshop Adventure in May! Ireland is one of the most welcoming places on earth, not just for a greeting, […] View all News Upcoming Events Spring in Ireland Fall in Tuscany! Ellis Island Greece Greece Day of the Dead -San Miguel De Allende The Amazon Safari – 2025 Vietnam – 2025 View all Events Follow Joe on Instagram joemcnallyphoto 1,296 Professional Photographer. Director. Author. Nikon USA Ambassador. joemcnallyphoto View May 11 Open On Monday, heading to gorgeous Ireland. The UK is a land of music, laughter, beautiful faces, and beautiful places. This is @nwilmshurstx A beautiful Scottish dancer, actress and model, who can captivate the camera with a look. The rolling landscapes over there are lovely to photograph and provide moody, ethereal settings for portraits. We’ll be chasing the light and the land, not to mention music, dance, and…drumroll… puffins! We’ll be on boats, investigating the cliffs and rocks off Dingle, photographing these amazing birds. A workshop adventure with a bit of everything! LINK IN BIO⬆️ #saturdaymorning #portraitphotography #nikonpro #nikonambassador #NikonD4S shot with the 85mm lens at f/1.4 and 1/1000 - high-speed sync. ... 1649 35 joemcnallyphoto View May 6 Open Astronauts are among the very few explorers who can truly claim to go where no one else has ever gone. National Geographic assigned me to spend time with America’s most famous astronaut, John Glenn, as he prepared to go to space, many years after he was our country’s first astronaut to orbit the planet, I said yes immediately. NASA is not an easy bureaucracy to navigate, but this was a unique story to engage with, and a historic mission. Via Geographic, I became STS-95’s official photographer. Scans of my negatives are in the Library of Congress! Senator Glenn was an old school, amazingly agreeable photo subject. I used to tease him that he went to the Ralph Morse school of being a photo subject. Ralph was the LIFE photog who documented the original Mercury 7. I was there for Senator Glenn’s training, his classes, his Senate duties in between training stints, and I spent time with the Senator and his amazing wife, Annie. NASA was doing research on space travel and its effect on aging, so he even allowed me to photograph his bone scan on a computer and then project that scan onto him while he was wearing his flight suit. The STS-95 crew were a wonderfully congenial, professional group who also accepted me working around them as they trained. A wonderful memory for #nationalastronautday, and a huge thank you to those who dare to explore. More on the blog! LINK IN BIO⬆️ #mondaymotivation #spaceexploration #astronauts ... 271 13 joemcnallyphoto View May 5 Open Alter the scene. Selective control of light. A gridded @profoto produces just enough hard highlight for the angular, wonderful visage of Anthez Williams. Lower east side of NY. I saw the hard sun hitting the old fire escapes and thought, long lens, edgy light. Single pop of flash, compression coming from the Nikon 200-400mm lens racked at 200 mil. Anthez was fantastic to work with. And the Profoto tools are so intuitive, it makes it easy in the field to create a look in a matter of minutes. ISO 100, Nikon D4S - 1/250th at f/5.6. #picoftheday #profoto #profotosharethelight #NikonAmbassador @nikonusa #NikonD4S ... 1329 20 joemcnallyphoto View May 1 Open Acrobat, aerialist, dancer…. There’s not much in the way of elegant form and supreme physicality that Vegas based Lina Tabakov can’t do. Currently appearing in Absinthe, and formerly a performer in Cirque’s Zumanity, we had a chance to work together earlier this year. When we talked about the shoot, she told me that, as opposed to most humans, she is actually more comfortable in the air. Such is the way with so many of the Vegas performers who tirelessly hone their art and craft, creating astounding acts that often run counter to the basic laws of gravity. Worked with @profoto lights, fitted with their new generation of updated light shapers which are a dream to work with on location or in the studio for speed and ease of use. Set up 1x4 silver soft boxes on either side of her, with blue gels, three quarter back. Beauty dish above her in front, as the main, with a low, gridded fill to create the feel of stage light. One hard backlight for the silk. Shot with the Nikon Z 9 and 70-200mm lens. BTS and shoot details coming on @profotosharethelight. #wednesdaywisdom #dancephotography #profotosharethelight #profoto #nikonambassador #nikonpro #nikonz9 ... 1361 31 joemcnallyphoto View Apr 30 Open In the wake of #internationaldanceday - an excerpt from an essay I wrote to accompany a show of my dance work some years ago. Tech notes on the photo at the bottom. In the course of their careers, dancers will have many partners, but a constant one is the camera. Why else to fly and leap so magnificently, except to have that flight recorded and preserved? No other medium can slice time and freeze moments quite like the still camera driven by a knowing eye. Given the quicksilver, all too brief career of a dancer, this is highly desirable. The photograph preserves that split second when it appears gravity is suspended, and the rest of us, earthbound forever, gasp. These photographs are my own gasps. I have been privileged to simultaneously have had my breath taken away and my camera to my eye many times. This selection represents a few of those moments. The photograph becomes a continuation of the dancers’ performance, which are too often are seen only by a blessed few. The camera is the dancer’s eternal partner, lockstep in a lovely pas de deux.” Lighting was a large Octa box slightly camera left, plus a fill bounce off the white floor. Background was created by stacking portable ballet barres in an irregular pattern and blowing some cool light thru them. The color was obtained by placing different shades of gels over the flash heads. Dancer: Callie Bachman - Picked from the chorus to dance Juliet. #transformationtuesday #tuesdaythoughts #tiptuesday #nikonambassador #picoftheday #dancephotography ... 1009 26 joemcnallyphoto View Apr 27 Open Artificial” late sunlight. I always look to the windows. It’s where light comes from in the first place, and if you are on a ground floor somewhere, it’s potentially logical to supplement existing daylight, or totally alter it if your flash has enough juice. You can throw anything over a window, such as a light panel, a bedsheet, a tree branch—depending on the look you want. Light and shadow, and the control thereof. Some fill strobe upfront, and, with the warm gelled flash in the street, it becomes late afternoon at the bar, complete with patrons in the back. @profoto lights all around, esp the backlight, which is, as I remember a 500ws monolight, most likely a B-1 style of flash. Also, I try to never look into a bar. I try to point the camera out, as in, back towards the door...