For the past two years, photographer Frank Ockenfels III has shot the official Breaking Bad portraits and images used in the show’s advertising. His challenge has been to be creative while trying to make something that fits within the well-developed and dark aesthetic for which the show is known.
“Vince is amazing and very open to ideas but in the end he also wants everything to tie in,” Ockenfels says, referring to Vince Gilligan, *Breaking Bad'*s creator and director. “He wants to make sure we keep up the intensity.”
This year’s portraits were shot in early 2013 behind the sound stages the show uses in Albuquerque. The highly variable weather in Albuquerque made it a challenge to shoot outside. One minute it’s blue sky and the next it’s pouring rain or blowing like a mini tornado.
The morning of the portraits, it was snowing, but by the afternoon things had improved. To try and keep tabs, Ockenfels had people watching the horizon for oncoming weather and tracking the sun with an app so he could know if it was headed for a particular cloud.
Before the shoot he had assistants drive an entire truck full of gear out from Los Angeles to make sure he had the right equipment but ended up only using one light, a reflector and the sun, which popped in and out of the Simpsons-esque clouds Breaking Bad loves to feature.
Ockenfels has set up complex lighting scenarios on the other shows he works with, including Mad Men, but too many lights would have made the Breaking Bad photos look over-produced, which goes against the griminess of everything else in the show.
“With the Breaking Bad stuff they want that rawness,” Ockenfels says.
All the photos were shot on a Hasselblad with a Phase One digital back. Ockenfels says he has used the highest resolution Phase One backs before but there was too much resolution so he opted for one of the smaller ones.
“[The biggest Phase One] images were so sharp they had to retouch the perfectness out of them,” he says.
Last year the Breaking Bad photos were shot in an old building near the train tracks in downtown Albuquerque. It was a similar scenario with mostly natural light and pieces filled in with a strobe or reflector. Ockenfels says that once the light is where he wants it he just leaves it up to the actors, who tend to make things easy.
“Luckily, when Bryan or Aaron would stand in front of the camera you could literally see their whole being turn into Walter White or Jesse Pinkman, it was amazing,” Ockenfels says. “Then it just become like shooting fish in a barrel.”
All Photos: Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC
