SIGNAL
26 February 2013
African migrants on the shore of Djibouti city at night, raising their phones in an attempt to capture an inexpensive signal from neighboring Somalia—a tenuous link to relatives abroad. Djibouti is a common stop-off point for migrants in transit from such countries as Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, seeking a better life in Europe and the Middle East.
via, World Press Photo
We emailed Art Buyers and Art Producers around the world asking them to submit names of established photographers who were keeping it fresh and up-and-comers who they are keeping their eye on. If you are an Art Buyer/Producer or an Art Director at an agency and want to submit a photographer anonymously for this column email: Suzanne.sease@verizon.net
Anonymous Art Buyer: I nominate Dustin Chambers. This kid is legit. Slowly getting more and more National work. Love to see him get some press.
How many years have you been in business?
I’ve been shooting professionally since I got out of school, so since 2009.
Are you self-taught or photography school taught?
I am self-taught, I studied film as an English concentration and minored in French.
Who was your greatest influence that inspired you to get into this business?
My father was an advertising photographer, so growing up I spent many afternoons after school in his studio. I didn’t really pick up a still camera until high school. I remember being taken by the work of Bresson and Arbus from a young age.
How do you find your inspiration to be so fresh, push the envelope, stay true to yourself so that creative folks are noticing you and hiring you?
I’m still figuring that out. Life feels non-stop a lot of the time, so I’m just evolving with the work I do and hoping my photography gets better in that process. There are a lot of photographs I’d like to make, but ultimately I make photographs that I’m moved to make and hope for the best.
Do you find that some creatives love your work but the client holds you back?
I work mainly with newspaper and editorial work, which is creatively a little more free. They hire you to do what you do in relation to the rest of the world. There’s no art director, no stylist, it’s just you. Ideally you work with creatives who can turn into clients.
What are you doing to get your vision out to the buying audience?
Even learning to think of myself as an artist has been a big step. This year I’ll be one of 12 artists in Dashboard Co-Op in Atlanta, as well as showing work in the Art Papers auction. I also participated in a Flash Powder retreat where I learned a ton about the fine art side of the business.
What is your advice for those who are showing what they think the buyers want to see?
I guess that’s good as long as you’re staying true to your vision.
Are you shooting for yourself and creating new work to keep your artistic talent true to you?
Not recently, no. It’s hard! But I’m also on staff at Creative Loafing, an alt-weekly in Atlanta, that allows me to shoot my art for their stories, which is really a blessing. I do find that I am most prodding and curious and inspired when I’m somewhere out of my element, away from my city. It doesn’t have to be some fantastic journey across the seas, but if I drove to Florida or Mobile, Alabama, I’d certainly be more taken with more mundane stuff, as I tend to be.
How often are you shooting new work?
Every week for the paper or freelance. For myself solely? Rarely. Every month maybe.
Dustin Chambers is a editorial and documentary photography born, raised, and living in Atlanta, GA. He is a staff photographer at Creative Loafing, Atlanta’s alt-weekly paper, and has freelanced for New York Times, LA Times, AARP, and Chronicle for Higher Education, among others. He loves the American South and the odd cultural dichotomy that exists particularly in Atlanta.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s, after founding the art buying department at The Martin Agency then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies. She has a new Twitter fed with helpful marketing information. Follow her@SuzanneSease.
Jonathan Blaustein: I was ready to begin this interview the way I typically do, by asking some questions about how you came to photography. But in my last bit of research, I noticed that you had actually done an interview like that for APE in the summer of 2012.
Jeff Lipsky: Yes, I taught at Chris Orwig’s class at Brooks, and he did a little piece on me which was really nice.
JB: But I didn’t know that until six minutes ago.
JL: Oh.
JB: That means I’m up shit’s creek, because I can’t ask those questions, since you already answered them.
JL: (Massive pause.) Well…
JB: I don’t know what to do. I can’t ask you how you got into photography if we already published that.
JL: (Another massive pause.) That is interesting.
JB: We’re screwed, man. (laughing.) Listen, this is my thing. I’m just joking around. I’m not serious at all.
JL: (laughing.)
JB: Right. Now you’re with me. I was just messing around. The point was simply that we appreciate that you’re doing another interview, but we’ll have to take this one in a different direction. Otherwise, I become the laziest journalist in the history of mankind.
JL: Right. And my saying is, anyone can take a great picture or write something great under perfect circumstances. But when you’re thrown a curve ball at the last minute, like every photo shoot you do, it’s what you make out of it that counts.
JB: You, and the entirety of our audience will now be judging me harshly to see how I do. Can I hit the curveball? Because we now know the Denver Broncos’ center can’t hit the curve.
JL: Obviously.
JB: Obviously.
JL: I was on an airplane during the Superbowl, so I missed the entire game. I guess that was just as good.
JB: You know what you’re supposed to do next time then, right?
JL: Yes.
JB: Fly Jet Blue.
JL: Fly Jet Blue. That’s right.
JB: It would have solved your problem. Taking a look at your previous APE interview, as well as your website, it says that you were a, I don’t want to say ski bum, let’s say you were lifestyle skier in Telluride, Colorado for ten years. Is that right?
JL: You’re the first person to say that. A lifestyle skier. I love that. I’m going to use it.
JB: Feel free. I just made it up. It seemed more politically correct.
JL: It is very good.
JB: So you were there for a decade?
JL: A decade.
JB: With all the mountain towns in the US, what did you love so much about Telluride?
JL: I believe it is one of the best ski resorts in the world, as far as terrain goes. It produces great skiers, and I wanted to become a great skier/snowboarder at the time. Also, it’s one of the few ski areas in the world where the ski lifts go right into town. The town is not separated from the resort.
It’s a real town. It’s not like you’re living in a resort. People living there do normal things, and there happens to be a ski resort there.
It’s the most beautiful place in the world, too, as far as I’m concerned. Without a doubt.
JB: Without a doubt?
JL: Without a doubt.
JB: I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I’m conducting this interview from the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Taos, New Mexico.
JL: (laughing.) Taos is pretty close. It’s very similar.
JB: Right. But if you’re going to say “the most beautiful” and “the best” to someone like me, it’s going to get my back up a bit and force me to challenge you on some of those assumptions.
JL: {Taos Ski Valley Founder} Ernie Blake made it so I couldn’t snowboard at your mountain.
JB: He did. It’s true.
JL: So Telluride is number 1 for me.
JB: I don’t know if you heard, but Taos Ski Valley recently sold to a conservationist, hedge fund billionaire. Around here, I think the general consensus is that Ernie Blake built the ski valley, but also doomed it by locking out the snowboarders for 20 years. It was inevitable we would decline, after that decision.
JL: I think that they should have remained snowboard free. I just love that certain ski resorts hold their integrity. Even though I’m a snowboarder, I do think snowboarding sometimes brings down the integrity of skiing, because skiing is such a nostalgic sport for me.
JB: Well, we did give up our integrity, and I’m suggesting that it happened too late. We’re now hoping that this guy Louis Bacon’s billions will fluff up the place, because the terrain is amazing, but our resort stopped taking care of itself in the early 90’s, and that was quite a while ago.
JL: This is a big deal. It’s going to be a big resurgence for Taos.
JB: Indeed. I’m telling my friends with money, which is a very short list, that Taos real estate a really good buy right now. We’re pretty much guaranteed to ascend.
All those people out there who don’t ski or snowboard are probably asking when the hell these guys are going to talk about photography. Right?
JL: Right.
JB: But I didn’t really have a choice. Once I couldn’t ask questions about how you got started at Smashbox studios in LA, I was in a bit of a pickle.
Let’s just jump ahead. You live in Venice, and you shoot predominantly in LA.
JL: I live in the Palisades now, and I have three kids. I still have my connection with Venice, though. It got to be too much for me. Venice is a little spoiled.
JB: I heard that.
JL: I moved my production office to Main St in Santa Monica. I just love it.
JB: Do you surf?
JL: I do surf, but not enough to call myself a surfer. I photograph the surf world all the time, and am often with the biggest surfers in the world, shooting their portraits. But I’m not allowed to say I’m a surfer, because my assistants are huge surfers, and they know I don’t really surf.
I can’t walk the walk.
JB: You don’t surf well enough to use that noun to describe yourself.
JL: When I’m with them, I don’t even admit that I surf.
JB: But if you took them to Telluride, with all that vertical, they might struggle.
JL: They would. I know so. I was with Jerry Lopez when he came to Telluride to go snowboarding, and all these great surfers. I had them on the snow, which was really nice.
JB: Is that a part of your street cred with those guys, that you can handle yourself in the mountains? Because you’re an outdoor enthusiast, do they have more respect for you?
JL: I think so. Definitely.
JB: There’s a comfort level that translates into the photography?
JL: Yes. Exactly. Every once in a while, I do get a chance to incorporate my snowboarding or my flyfishing in photography. I’m not really an action sports photographer, though. I’m more labeled a lifestyle celebrity photographer.
Sometimes, I’m able to go on these great adventures. Eddie Bauer was a really good fit for me. Roxie was a good fit too. Shooting surfers on the beach for Outside Magazine. It’s an environment that I’m used to.
I just shot Olympic snowboarders for this Olympic package in Breckenridge, and one of the Dads and I had twenty mutual friends, because they were from Steamboat. It’s always nice to have a connection. You’re looking for that one degree of separation.
JB: Which is maybe not such a hidden secret anymore? How much the personal connection enables the photography to get going in the first place?
JL: Oh yeah. You look for a connection. That’s the number one thing.
JB: You dropped the c-word earlier. Celebrity. That’s the equivalent of you saying Beetlejuice. It opens the door for me. I know our audience is far more educated than your average bear, as far as understanding how photography works.
But anyone who goes to your website will be immediately overwhelmed by the collection of star power that has stood on the other side of your lens. Anybody would have a little Hollywood envy. So we kind of have to talk about it a little bit, if you don’t mind.
JL: When in Rome.
JB: I just didn’t know if you were the equivalent of a lawyer, and part of being able to do this work was there was some kind of photographer/client privilege. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to share some stories.
JL: Oh no. That’s the whole point of my workshop that I’m going to teach at the Santa Fe Workshops. I say how it is. I literally describe the whole process of shooting anyone. Whether it’s a celebrity, or an advertising shoot.
JB: I was curious about the real world charisma of some of these people. The first link on your site is to celebrity men, and you open with pictures of Jon Hamm, Ryan Reynolds, James Mardsen. These super-handsome movie stars. You’ve got some old school guys thrown in there, like Dustin Hoffman.
How much of inherent charisma is dripping off of them when they walk in the door?
JL: It’s interesting. A lot of actors, they obviously have “it,” but a lot of them don’t necessarily have “it” for a stills camera. They’re used to being in front of a moving camera. When they have to stand in front of a stagnant camera and look into the lens, it’s actually awkward for them.
The ones that are pros, and have been doing it for a long time, obviously, are used to it. But they don’t necessarily like it.
Most actors, I believe, don’t like being photographed. When they’re acting, they’re doing their skill. When they’re in front of a stills camera, it’s not necessarily what they want to be doing. In fact, my job is to make it as pleasurable and easy for them as possible.
I’m usually done shooting them before they think they’re going to be done. And I keep them moving around as much as possible. I’ll never have anyone standing around on a set for more than 10 minutes. Then I’ll have another set or scenario where I’ll put them.
It’s always moving and changing. We also play amazing music. Half the time we’re talking, keeping them entertained and amused. So we’re always goofing around.
JB: You’re describing it like they’re going to the dentist office. And you’re in character. Not them.
JL: Sometimes it’s like that. There might be 50 people on set, and all this commotion. But I’ll break it down to be as intimate as possible, and have the fewest people around me when I’m shooting.
Basically, it’s a closed set. That way, there’s one-on-oneness. Or, if I’m not connecting with someone, I might have my first assistant try connecting with them. He’ll be standing right there, and we’ll just chat, and try to include the celebrity in the conversation.
We make it so they’re there hanging out with us. Like, “Hey, what song do you want to hear next?” And I’m firing away at the camera. When I’m done, I want them to say, “That was a pleasure. That was so much fun. I didn’t feel like I was on a photo shoot. That was great.”
That’s what I like.
JB: You’re basically talking about people skills. Which is an open secret among professionals.
JL: To me, you already have to have your skills down as a photographer. It’s already known that you know how to take a picture.
I know my lighting. I’m very technical. I’ve already scouted the location I’m going to be at. I know what time the light is coming, if I’m shooting ambient, which is my preference.
I know exactly what time the sun is going to come through which window. I know what diffuser I’m going to put in front of that window. I know everything about it.
If it’s cloudy, I know which lighting package I’ll use. I know what cameras, what lenses. I already have these things in place, and a fantastic crew.
That’s a given, that you have that skill. And then, when you’re with a celebrity, you have to turn that off. You know you’re prepared, so you just have to be yourself. Be personable. You have to show a certain ease.
You want it to seem easy and effortless. In fact, it’s not, with weeks or months of preparation for that twenty minute shoot. You have to let it go. You know you have everything in place, and you just do it.
That doesn’t make sense, does it?
JB: It does. And it actually helps lead up to where I was headed, especially as you so carefully dodged my attempt to get you to squeal about anyone in particular.
JL: I’ll squeal. Like Dustin Hoffman, whom I’ve shot many times. The first time I shot him, I said, “Thank you so much for sitting with me, and letting me take your photograph.” He said, “What are you talking about? This is what I do.”
This is what I do. It was so nice that he said that. This is my job, he said. “What do you want me to do, Jeff?”
JB: Wow.
JL: Right. Dustin Hoffman. Then you get some actors who are like, “No. I’m not doing that. Absolutely not. No way. No.” They put you on the spot. I’ve had things happen to me where you just want to shrivel up.
Sometimes, I go to my happy place and go snowboarding in my head.
JB: (laughing.)
JL: I’ll be behind the camera, and my crew will look at me, and I’ll look at them, and they’ll see in my eyes that I’m dropping in on my first turn. Then I come back and re-think the situation.
One time, I was on a big set in New York, shooting a TV show advertisement. There was a cast of five or six, and I was supposed to start with the first actor, so I had it lit for one person. He was a tough actor to shoot.
I’m trying to get the shot right, and there were at least 45 people on set. The creatives are all staring at the monitor, but I didn’t even see it. They were seeing it first, which is really hard.
So someone said, “Put the whole cast in.” So they put the whole cast in, and I went, “Oh my god.” How do you compose all of those people in a scenario you’re not prepared for? I shot a few frames, and I see art directors turning their heads, going, “Ew. No.”
I pretended to look at my viewfinder, and for 30 seconds, I say absolutely nothing. I was drifting away on a powder turn, in a happy place.
JB: Awesome.
JL: Then I had to get up, take a deep breath, re-compose, and say, “OK. Everyone needs to be off the set. I’m going to re-set for one person.” Because you always want to start out taking good pictures, not crappy pictures.
I said, “Let me do what I want to do first. One person. Standing over there. And let’s go.” They said, “Oh. Ah. That looks great.” And then I was ready to put the other people in the shot.
Sometimes, you have to check out for a second and re-group.
JB: You’re talking about gaining the confidence to assert authority. You have to get comfortable enough in your own skin to know how to crack the whip among people who maybe aren’t used to being told what to do. Right?
JL: Oh my god yes. Let’s say I’m going to shoot the cover of a magazine that I’ve shot maybe 15 times before. Sometimes, I’ll get caught with my guard down, and someone will say, “No. I don’t like this light.” Or, “I don’t like the height of your camera.”
I’ve had that happen to me. I have to remind myself, I’ve been doing this for 11 years, and I know what I’m doing. You have to speak up. I’ll say, “You see that truck over there? I have a truck full of equipment to light anything I want. And right now, the light I have on the subject is the perfect light. Trust me. This is what I’ve been doing for a long time.”
JB: Let’s go with one more question about the celebrities, because I admit I’m curious. Do you watch “Mad Men?”
JL: A little bit. Yes.
JB: Well, I’m a season behind, and hopefully no one will spoil it for me, but I’ve always been amazed with Jon Hamm’s performance in the show. I don’t think he gets enough credit for how good he is.
His physicality as an actor is amazing. The way he manipulates his facial muscles and posture as Don Draper, so terribly tense. It’s totally different than when he switches character to Dick Whitman. Everything about the way he holds his jaw, and his cheek muscles. Everything changes. It’s the epitome of art, to watch the physical manifestations of his talent.
I know this is a long question, but because you’ve shot him, I thought you might have some insight into that skill set he has. Maybe he brings it with him to a photo shoot? Or maybe he doesn’t? I was curious about your observations.
JL: The thing about Jon is he can sometimes appear to be goofy. He’s such a good-looking guy, and he is easy to photograph, but he is kind of goofy. Some of the frames I’ll go through, you’ll see the goofiness he has, when you want him to be looking serious.
He’s so playful that in some sense, you’re not getting the frames that you really want. Like the picture on my website, where he’s laying back, in a jacket, looking over at me? We’re watching a World Cup soccer game, and he’s sitting on a bed in a really cool house.
He was talking about the World Cup, so I said, “It’s on right now. Kick back and watch.” He started watching, and I said, “Jon, look over here.” That’s the photo, because he’s so happy he gets to watch a few minutes of the World Cup.
Not that I would normally ever put a TV in front of someone, but it happened to be there.
JB: It says something about your improvisational skills.
JL: That’s why I like that photograph. It’s a fresh, real moment.
JB: Have you seen him literally turn “it” on and off in front of your camera?
JL: Yeah. A lot of people can do that.
JB: I got interested in the idea a few years ago, when I was watching “The American,” a movie that Clooney did. He turned his charisma off, 100%. It was chilling. I didn’t realize until I saw that film how many of these men and women are capable of adjusting their wattage like it’s on a dimmer.
JL: If you can have a choice to shoot someone in or out of character, I’d choose out of character. Because I’m always interested in who they are as a person. It’s easier to shoot someone in character.
JB: How often do you feel like you’re getting a glimpse into a real person, when their job is to obfuscate their personality for a living?
JL: I’m getting them as who they are all the time. I see it. That’s the goal.
But it’s different when you’re shooting a cover of a beauty or women’s magazine. There has to be a certain pose, and a certain look. You’re not necessarily shooting them. You’re shooting a look. That’s what’s so tricky about a cover.
JB: It sounds like a template.
JL: For the covers, yes.
JB: So much of your knowlege has been accrued over time, through experience. Going through the battles, finding your voice as a photographer, and your swagger as an authority figure. The Santa Fe Workshops is sponsoring this interview, and you’re going to be teaching a workshop there in March called “The Editorial Portrait.”
How are you able to translate your experience in a workshop environment?
JL: It’s such a pleasure, and so much fun to do. I basically just dictate my approach to photography. I strip down exactly what I do. I don’t have any secrets. I don’t have a special “guru” light, and no one can know what it is.
All my stuff is pretty basic and simple, and I’m an advocate of “Keep it simple, stupid.” That’s what we say all the time. When I go to set, I usually bring the same things. You have a tremendous amount of equipment sometimes, because if something goes wrong, you have it.
I show how simple it is. I go through my photographs, and I simplify the process. I show them a photograph of Sharon Stone on the beach. It looks like beautiful light, and it is, but it’s just a piece of board bouncing into her face. That’s all it is. Nothing else.
JB: But you live, as you said, in Pacific Palisades. I’m guessing you use that golden, gorgeous, California beach light all the time.
JL: You have that, sure. But heck, I was just in Ireland shooting a “Game of Thrones” character, and I didn’t have that light. But I had the same light source that I always travel with. So I created it.
It’s true that in certain advertising situations, you have to have an arsenal. You have to know how to do the lighting, and it does get complicated. But generally, editorially, it’s more about getting the shot.
I keep it very organic, and let my subject know that’s how we do it. They appreciate it. If something’s not right, I won’t shoot it, and I let the subject know I don’t to waste their time.
I do that with my class, in Santa Fe. I teach them that it’s all about keeping your eyes and ears open for everything. I might put a celebrity on a couch, and someone says, “Hey Jeff, did you see that chair that was in the kitchen? It was really cool.” So we’ll go look at the chair. You’ve got to keep your ears open for all suggestions. It’s not a single-minded set. It’s everyone’s set, in a way.
I encourage that teamwork, as it’s very important.
JB: In your workshop, you have people work together like that?
JL: In the workshop, yes. I teach teamwork, and keeping it simple. We go through edits of photographs, they can see the mistakes I made.
JB: We’ve been talking a lot about how when the technical skills even out, the interpersonal skills dominate. That seems like a difficult thing to impart to others. I get that you do it, but I’m wondering a bit more about the specifics.
How do you teach your students how to be charming, and confident and relaxed, all at the same time?
JL: First, you need to be confident in your equipment. And you can only control so many things in your environment, so I teach people how to control the things that you can.
If you have certain things in place, what’s the worst thing that can go wrong? You need to put everything in place so that you can be confident about yourself. You do your due diligence, you’ve investigated who you’re shooting, you know where you’re shooting. You have your equipment that you know very well.
You know, if you don’t have any sun, that this light source works really well. You know that you have certain tricks that you can do. If you know those tricks, and you feel confident in them, you can be relaxed.
You can be yourself, knowing that you have everything in place. That’s the key.
JB: You use proper organizational skills, as much as anything, to mitigate your stress?
JL: Oh yeah. Beyond a doubt. I make sure everything is in place, and I have a team of people. If you don’t have a team, you have to do it yourself.
JB: When you teach your workshop, you’re able to go through the technical aspects of your work, you look at your student’s work, you present these philosophies, and they learn from you, even if they don’t have a truck full of expensive lighting?
JL: Yes. If I want anyone to get anything out of the workshop, it’s that photography is simple. It doesn’t have to be complicated.
When I was an assistant, and I worked in the grip room at Smashbox studios, I’ll never forget this one experience. Mario Testino was shooting the Gucci campaign. It was late at night, and I was loading the docks.
I remember that the campaign was already out, and I’d seen it. So I went into the studios, and I remember thinking, “That light is incredible.” He was doing some re-shoots, and I saw that he just had a single strobe on a C-stand with a reflector pointed toward the wall. That’s all he used for that campaign.
He could have had any piece of equipment, but he was only using that. That’s the day I realized, “That’s all you need. One light.”
I’ve come to that philosophy, if I have one light, and a couple of simple sources, it allows me to move faster. It lets me think on my feet, and change it up when necessary, to get the shot.
Keeping it simple is the hardest thing to do.
JB: So what’s coming up for you in 2014?
JL: I just came back from Kona yesterday, where I shot a portrait of a golfer. I’ve got a lot of great editorial coming out, but when you shoot celebrities, you can’t really promote it before it comes out.
It’s hard with social media, these days. I can’t say, “I’m on set with so and so, shooting so and so for this magazine.” I can’t do that. I have to wait for it to come out, and by then, I think it’s so old. That’s the downfall of shooting mainly celebrities.
JB: Well, I think I’ve got the perfect topical ending. You want to go topical, and keep it easy?
JL: Yeah.
JB: How about Bieber? You shot that kid. People can’t stop talking about him. What do you have to say?
JL: I feel sorry for him. I do. I feel sorry for all those kids that have to grow up in the spotlight.
He’s making mistakes. I don’t like to hate these guys.
JB: Understood.
JL: But I did ask him to give me a little smile, and he said, “I don’t smile.”
JB: (laughing.) There’s our ending right there.
JL: He was a punk. If you really want to know, he was a punk.
The “pool,” a White House staffer once told me, is a “thing.” If the thing is sitting in the briefing room for hours or in vans outside a restaurant, it doesn’t matter. It’s a thing, like the Secret Service or the Truman balcony. Give the thing a picture or two each day, preferably scripted. If the president is meeting with a head of state, the pool is part of the ceremony.
via Lens Blog.
Ski Jump – Sarah Hendrickson – Ski Jump takeoff How did this project for ESPN come about and how did you make it your own?
JOHN: The first Technique assignment was with figure skaters for their December issue. While I thought the magazine was doing a great job, I wanted to add an extra layer to the final image and make it a little easier to understand the athletics going on. The skaters were throwing a quad, and this team is the only one to do so in competition. Impressive. Since the athletes are spinning in the air 4 times, I wanted to avoid the 16 image sequence looking cluttered, and make a more interesting image. I added a ghosting effect in post, to delineate complete rotations full color images were added in the sequences.
Are the lights an issue for the athletes? How fast is the camera capturing images?
The motor drive shoots 14 frames a second, however, when I do some of the shots at night, it slows down quite a bit. The final composite is usually a collection of maybe 3 or 4 takes.
For the ski jumping shot how many remote cameras did you set up?
We have about 15 set up and we got two 4-6 second takes each shot, errors and do over’s aren’t really an option.
How do you know where to set up your remotes? Did you know how far she’d jump?
We were testing our equipment on the previous jumpers, and I assumed they’d all be about the same distance.
Then along comes this young 18 year old, unassuming girl. Takes her first run and goes twice as long, and twice as fast!
What was the most challenging of these assignments so far?
I’d say the bobsled event. I couldn’t use any flashes, only hot lights, it was at night, the athletes were all in black, in a black bobsled going over 90 miles an hour.
The low light slows everything down so I had to be certain everything was in the same position in order to get the sharpest and most accurate shot I could. Each of these events has specific needs, and I love all the problem solving that comes with it.
You can’t show up and set things up. You have to study the environment, and make choices from there.
About how many images do you have to review before selecting the right move?
DAVID: For the skaters, John narrowed it down to about 70 shots that had the cleanest look at the quad throw, that’s not including the stage shots of the empty rink. The freestyle ski shot had 166 (I know he had a big remote set-up for that one). For the bobsled, we had about the same number. He relied heavily on multiple cameras for that one too, since the bobsledders were only able to do a few runs for him.
Do you study the sport prior to piecing these together?
I did. I believed it was important to understand exactly what happens in each event to effectively distill the action into one composed image. I did take liberty with some parts just for artistic sake. For the most part though, I did everything I could to be true to the action.
I also studied the previous technique features that ESPN had done. John and I talked a lot about really making the shots beautiful both in the action as well as the background. We wanted to make a visually interesting stage for the action that didn’t detract from what was happening. We also believed we could come up with a really interesting technique for ghosting the shots. I’m very proud of what we made up.
Which posed the biggest challenge for you?
The biggest challenge was definitely the bobsledders. Beyond the technical aspect of it being a high-speed shot of a black sled with two guys wearing all black shot at night, getting all of the shots laid out together was especially difficult. I tried for a while to get the track and sledders to be aligned in kind of an S-curve across the page. That blew up in my face. Eventually, after playing around, I came up with a bit of a fish-eye lens look. That format was able to capture all of the action while highlighting the crucial moment when the sledders enter the bobsled.
For the skater’s throwing the quad, how many images do you like to include to show a complete rotation? How did you determine what is the right amount?
I played with the sequence of the shots to see what looked right. We were very lucky that John was able to capture her facing almost exactly front, left, right and back in a couple of the throws. That allowed me to have an order to the images of her in the spin instead of a bunch of random, confusing shots. Each spin shows her facing each cardinal direction. I think that’s one of the big reasons that this shot succeeded so well. If I had just slapped a bunch of shots her together, you wouldn’t be able to follow the action. This way you have touch-points and order throughout the move. We also wanted to give a brighter highlight to one direction of her facing in each of the four spins. We believed it would give the guys at ESPN good reference points to call out parts of the action.
I understand that you two are the only team to throw a quad in competition.
Were there any different focus tools you used to perform the move for the photo shoot that were different from competition?
Athletes: Because of the difficulty of executing throw jumps, I need to keep my focus directly on the element and not on my surroundings. Even in the competitive program, where everything is timed so carefully to the music, I need to shut out everything and zero in on my technique.
Did you find any of the lights or the equipment distracting?
Yes, there was a very specific area we had to do throw in, the rest of the rink was pretty dark, that made it hard to find my landings. When we were doing the throw there was a series of flashes and made me disorientated at times.
What are you thinking about, lets say 4 seconds or so before the move, to prepare for the jump?
Focusing on my key points for my throw, such as stay low, follow through, and over the right.
It’s not uncommon to have a photographer ask you to repeat the action, how many times did you throw the quad?
I would estimate that we did about 20 throws. But, I cannot be sure because it was so cold, I think my brain froze after 15.
What was the most challenging part of doing the shoot for you?
I would say staying warm. The rink was freezing and in between each throw I would run over and put my jacket on.
For more of Johns work visit: official Olympics Instagram @olympics and visit his personal site here
Burned by the recession, clients are loath to greenlight risky work and bottom-line pressures are driving them to wring costs from their shops. To grow, independents are selling to public holding companies and succumbing to the balance-sheet demands that can dull a free-spirited culture. Often, the result is chasing business they might once have scorned while private.
by Jess Dudley, Wonderful Machine
Shoot Concept – Interior Architectural and Detail images of installed small residential appliances
Licensing – US Advertising and Collateral Use of up to 24 images in perpetuity
Location – Two residential properties
Shoot Days – One
Photographer – Lifestyle, Architectural and Home & Garden Specialist
Agency – N/A
Client – A small residential appliance company – a household name to those “in the know”
Here is the estimate:
Intro: Last year I worked with one of our Midwest-based photographers to put together an estimate for a small residential appliance company. The shoot was fairly straightforward, without much in the way of production prep on the photographer’s side. The photographer was to shoot architectural interior and detail images of the appliances in use in two nearby homes. The client would be providing homes with the appliances already installed. After reviewing all of the details and correspondence and researching the brand a bit (I wasn’t familiar with the product and wanted to get a better sense of the size of the company and their product line), I connected with the client to discuss the project and sort out licensing and our approach.
After confirming that the photographer would be shooting two scenarios at each of the homes, and that we’d be shooting 2-3 architectural/wide shots and 3-4 detail/tight shots in each scenario, we dove into the licensing. The locations, product, installations, props and props styling would be provided by the client, which simplified things for us considerably on the production front.
Creative/Licensing: Initially, the client requested “unlimited use of all images captured.” Although you won’t always like the response, you need to challenge a client when they request, all images, a buyout or unlimited use. These are all vague terms we try to avoid (or elaborate on at a minimum). In this case, I needed to clarify if the client truly wanted the license to use all of the images captured. I also wanted to pin down their intended use. After a little push, the client was willing to limit the licensing to US Advertising and Collateral Use of 24 selects. The duration was still a sticking point, they we still insistent on a perpetual license. We don’t usually press very hard on the duration because there is an inherent shelf life on any given image. The value of a given set of images will taper off over time. The slope of that taper will vary based on the style, styling and subject matter. So even though the licensing was drastically limited from the original request, the client would still be able to use the 24 images in a manner that felt unlimited to them, so they were content with the restrictions.
After developing a firm understanding of the project and a decent rapport with the client, I pressed for some insight into the budget. About half the time I ask about the budget, I’ll get a valuable response. The other half of the time the budget either hasn’t been set, or the client is unwilling to reveal it for some other reason (triple bid, etc.). In those cases, you can press a bit further and find out if they’ve shot anything similar in the past, and if so, what they spent. You’ll also want to know who else is bidding if they’re willing to share that info with you in order to alter your approach to the estimate. In this case, the client was forthcoming, and had a firm 10k budget. At first glance, considering the usage, it seemed low, but I took the news in stride and set about drafting the estimate.
Because the budget was tight, I decided to approach the estimate differently. Typically, I’ll determine the creative/licensing fee, then build out the production estimate. Since we had a tight budget to begin with for this project, I opted to work backwards and price out the production first. With my production expenses dialed in, I was able to see that I had about 6000.00 left in the budget for fees. This is quite a bit lower than I would like to see for this usage. However, after considering the likelihood of any major consumer advertising (minimal), the straight forward nature of the production, the photographer’s level of experience (pretty fresh) and the size and prominence of the client (all of which apply/allow for downward pressure on the fee and/or value) I felt it was a reasonable fee. I calculated the fees on some of our pricing resources as well: Blinkbid’s Bid Consultant – 5,030.00/image for the first year, Fotoquote – 21,454.00/image for the first year and Corbis – 12,000.00/image for the first year. Though definitely valuable tools, these resources assume that each of the images will be used in every conceivable manner within the prescribed parameters, so you have to take their suggestions with a grain of salt.
Tech/Scout Day: We estimated a half day of tech/scouting time for the photographer and client to walk through the locations to nail down the shot list and angles in advance of the shoot. This would be crucial since the shoot day schedule would be somewhat ambitious. It would also allow the photographer choose a staging area and determine which gear to bring and which to leave at home.
Assistant: The photographer generally shoots without much grip or supplemental lighting so he was comfortable including just one assistant. We opted not to include a second assistant, instead relying on the tech to be an extra set of hands to load in/out, etc.
Digital Tech: The digital tech would help to manage the flow of file intake and display for client approval on set. Because it takes much longer to dial in and bracket an architectural shot, the selection process happens on set, during the shoot, in realtime (the client approves the shot composition, the photographer covers exposure and focus and processes those approved shots in post for final delivery). In the case, a tech essentially eliminates the need for a “shoot processed for client review” fee.
Photo Equipment and Workstation: This covered the one day rental costs for a laptop workstation, two DSLR bodies, a variety of lenses, grip equipment and lighting (some of which the photographer owned, but planned to rent to the production at the market rate).
Images Processed for Reproduction: 50.00/image is in the lower end for architectural selects processing but the photographer was open to reducing the rate a bit to hit the client’s budget. Normally, I’d like to see that rate closer to 75.00-200.00/image for architectural processing, depending on the shoot.
Miles, Expendables, FTP, COI and Misc: This covered the basic out-of-pocket expenses the photographer would accrue between mileage, FTP cots, Certificate of Insurance (ranging from free to 50.00/COI depending on your insurance company) and any other miscellaneous expenses that may arise.
Overtime: Because the shoot day was fairly ambitious, I wanted to make sure it was clear to the client that if the time on site exceeded 10 hours, that the crew would bill OT at time and a half.
Housekeeping: For the sake of clarity (read: cover your ass) I made sure to note all of the production elements the client would be providing.
Results, Hindsight and Feedback: The photographer did not get the job. Although it seemed like we had the project locked up, in a excruciatingly frustrating turn of events, another photographer estimating on the project neglected to ferret out the client’s budget and priced the project at less than half of our estimate, all in. The client was eager to work with us, but felt that the difference in quality between the two photographers was negligible while the difference in fees was substantial. It was particularly tough to hear because the budget was borderline unreasonable to begin with. I’m sure there are some who would look at our willingness to work with the budget with a judging eye, but the fact of the matter is that the client had a finite amount of money to spend, we’d limited the licensing as much as we could and the photographer rarely, if ever, shoots five figure budget projects. No matter what, the client could not spend more than 10k. For some, that’s not nearly enough. For those who are willing, but fail to ask the right questions (ie ignoring a client’s budgetary threshold) end up carelessly undervaluing their work, seriously undercutting the market.
Ask the uncomfortable questions. Usually they are only uncomfortable for you.
If you have any questions, or if you need help estimating or producing a project, please give us a call at (610) 260-0200. We’re available to help with any and all pricing and negotiating needs—from small stock sales to big ad campaigns.
Roxanne. You don’t have to put on the red light. Those days are over. You don’t have to sell your body to the night.
I can’t imagine how many times I sang that song, back in the 80’s. It’s simply too big a number for me to bother guessing. I sang it as loud as I could, in that phase before I discovered things like Zenyatta Mondatta. (Voices. Inside my head. Echoes. Of things that you said.)
Can you imagine what my parents must have thought. All those parents, rather. Ten year old kids going on about prostitution. Oblivious.
Personally, I was just glad to be able to enjoy a few songs by the same band, rather than having to remember a new strange name every time I heard a song on the radio. (Men Without Hats. The Human League. Etc.)
I didn’t have a clue what the song meant. Obviously. It just sounded cool. Those Police riffs are still magical today, though repackaged/stolen by Bruno Mars, for the 21st Century audience.
But the subject retains its eternal fascination as well. The oldest profession. Paying for sex. I’ve never done it myself, but there was one night in New Orleans, many years ago, when I might have, had the opportunity presented itself.
I have spent a good deal of time in Amsterdam, though. I’ve written about it on several occasions, and always take the chance to say how brilliant that city is. In fact, I just read in Time that Steve McQueen (the alive one, who lives there,) said it’s “full of hardworking, down-to-earth people who don’t really give a damn.”
They have lots of prostitutes there. Sitting in windows. Staring laconically. I’ve never stared back. The Puritanical nature of my NorthEast American roots creeps up not-so-often, but I tend to give the ladies a wide berth.
Even through my peripheral, (and possibly altered) vision, I could see that they were regular looking, sometimes heavyset ladies. Maybe a little worn out. No Showtime/Cinemax lipstick softcore porn goddesses these ladies. No sir.
But that only means that reality is real, and fantasy is not. Which we all knew. Right? It’s not like my former-neighbor Julia Roberts sold an even bigger bill-of-goods a few years after Synchronicity came out. Right? As if George Costanza could ever make a convincing villain. Please.
But what do the ladies really look like, I wonder. We featured a book showing the employees of chicken ranches in Nevada a while back. True. But this is Amsterdam, we’re talking about. With the red lights and all.
Fortunately, Malerie Marder and Twin Palms have given us “Anatomy,” an over-sized, razor sharp, pitiless but charismatic look at the hookers in question.These are terrific, discomfiting but honest photographs. (Honest how? Were they arranged and staged? Probably of course. But are these women authentically who they appear to be? I’d say so.)
There is a photo of a woman of African descent, holding a picture frame. It doesn’t work out right. Two hands holding it, but then another arm right there. I’m still trying to figure it, and how often does that happen?
The latex-on-the-face older vixen repeats towards the end, but that’s the first time I’m sure I’ve seen the same woman before. Had I, though? Given their everywoman-at-Walmart-in-Oklahoma physicality, might I have just assumed they all look alike?
The cover of the book, where another reviewer might have began, has an incised quote that sets up the premise. And that’s all the text you need (or get) until the end. Just a slew of excellent and powerful photographs, which sometimes shift orientation. The print quality, plus the action of shifting the book back and forth, make you slow down with it. (And also make you feel, perhaps, like you’re getting your money’s worth out of a purchase.)
There are some stories that never get old. I recently read that President Obama described his time as Commander-in-Chief as “his” paragraph in a continuing Epic tale. One that often repeats. As human nature, writ large, does not change easily. If at all.
So people will continue to pay women to have sex with them. And men. And children. There are elements of this larger narrative that involve slavery and all sorts of horrors.
But there are also hard working women and men out there who pay for sex, and hard working men and women who pay to be sexed. It’s true, and I’d imagine there are many “real” relationships around the world that are built on that foundation. I’m sure of it.
A book like this, which gets right up in there, and does it with style, feels like a metaphorical financial transaction. Where we’re the John. Except buying photobooks. Get it?
To Purchase “Anatomy” Visit Photo-Eye
Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.
Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.
I think the thing that makes photographs most interesting, and which most fundamentally challenges any notion of a photographic language, is their total ambiguity.
Professional Photographer Webcast Episode 7
Topic: Sustaining A Career In Photography
When: Today at 2:00 EST
Where: Here on aphotoeditor.com and Google +
Suzanne Sease and I will be joined by Commercial and Editorial Photographer Andy Anderson. Suzanne as you may know comes from the Art Buying side of the business with many years of experience working at Advertising Agencies. Andy is a well known Commercial and Editorial photographer with a career that would make most of us green with envy. Andy claims it’s “not rocket science” so we’ll talk with him about how relationships, small towns, personal projects, passion, DNA and the fundamentals of business all combine to put him at the top of the game.
If you have any questions you can email me before the webcast rob@aphotoeditor.com (Note: you will remain anonymous on the webcast, I will not share your identity with anyone) or during the webcast you can ask them on Google+.
You can see our previous episodes over on the APE Google+ page (here).
Show Notes:
Visit our show sponsor:
http://aphotofolio.com/
Suzanne Sease can be reached at:
http://suzannesease.com/
https://twitter.com/SuzanneSease
Our special guest, Andy Anderson can be reached at:
http://andyandersonphoto.com
http://www.andyandersonstock.com
We will both be in conversation at:
http://www.texasphotoroundup.com
Photographers mentioned by Andy:
http://hunterfreeman.com/
http://www.larryfinkphotography.com/
http://www.erikalmas.com/
http://kevintwomey.com/
Former assistants:
http://www.matthewturley.com/
http://shaunfenn.com/
More links:
http://ianspanier.com/Personal-Work/Long-Beach-Heroes/1/
http://lookbook.adage.com
Most actors are hard to take good portraits of. You have access to the biggest actors and think, great, a chance to do an intimate portrait. Then you look at the contact sheet and you realize that they totally played you. They are aware of the camera in each single frame. They raise an eyebrow just so. They are very good at making it look natural, but then you look back and nothing is off-guard.
via Martin Schoeller’s Tips on How to Take the Perfect Portrait – WSJ.com.
JR is amazing.
Don’t you just love it when things pan out? It doesn’t happen all that often. There are so many things that can muck up the works, when one strives for synchronicity.
Last week, we showed you early work from an acknowledged master: Martin Parr. Wasn’t it fun to see his youthful vision? How sympathetic and romantic were those pictures?
And then this week, we ran an interview with Aline Smithson, who recently published some projects from the 70’s on Lenscratch. Apparently, what’s old will forever be new again. I’m sure there were Pharaohs going on about “ochre is the new black,” but of course we’ll never know. (Unless time travel gets invented one day. And then, I’d probably just ask a Pharaoh why he tried to keep the Jews as slaves. Didn’t he know we were the Chosen People?)
Given the path I’ve unwittingly followed this week, of course the very first book I picked up off the stack, “Bottrop-Ebel 76,” would be a publication of early work from 1976 by Michael Wolf, another of contemporary photography’s darlings. I’d suggest that it was destined to happen, but then I’d probably lose 10% of our readership. (I can only be so much of a new-age-freak before the New Yorkers stop reading in droves.)
Yes, this book even features an amazing photo of a dude with a ladder, just like last week. (Only this time, they were smart enough to put it on the cover.) So, what’s this one about then?
For a university final project, Mr. Wolf hung around the coal miner’s neighborhood of Ebel, in the town of Bottrop. (Hence the title.) Just as I can recall the joy I felt at pointing a 35mm camera at everything that walked, when I was 24 and in Europe, these pictures also reflect a less specific eye.
They’re really good photographs, for sure. The anticipation of a pig’s slaughter, contrasted against the jimmy-rigged football being kicked around in the background. The intensity of a fu-manchu mustache, or the cold eyes of a 12 year old smoking a cigarette. There’s a dude getting naked in his kitchen, and a little girl swinging in a doorway.
All are cool to look at. For sure.
But the closing essay ties these pictures directly to Mr. Wolf’s current work: faces pressed against the cold glass of a Tokyo subway, or the artist’s camera pressed against the computer screen, documenting Google’s world domination.
I don’t see it that way. Just as I was fascinated when I once saw a show of William Eggleston’s first B&W pictures at Cheim and Read, I love looking at where a really good artist comes from. Aline Smithson also referenced how differently we see the world in our 20’s, relative to the wisdom we accrue thereafter. Pushing 40, I’d have to agree with her.
So you might find these pictures brilliant. You might even buy the book. Cool. Enjoy it. But by now we know that’s not why I highlight a photo book each week. I do it because I’m pretty sure you’ll find it interesting, and seemingly, you’ve all learned to trust me. (Suckers.)
Bottom Line: Another look at young work by a famous photographer
To Purchase “Bottrop-Ebel 76,” Visit Photo-Eye
Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.
Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.
“The biggest problem facing curators and historians of photography,” Mr. Bajac said, “is the overflow of images.”
— Quentin Bajac, the Museum of Modern Art’s new chief curator of photography
via NYTimes.com.
Aline Smithson is a photographer, writer, teacher, and the publisher of the popular photography blog Lenscratch.
Jonathan Blaustein: Looking over your website, one of the things that popped up a few times is that you were born and raised in LA. A couple of blocks off of Hollywood and Vine. Is that right?
Aline Smithson: Yup.
JB: Well, we certainly don’t need to date you, or ask how old you are, because my mamma taught me better…
AS: God bless you.
JB: I write about LA a lot, and visit when I can. I think it’s got a mythology that people around the world are captivated by.
How do you view the place now, and how do you think it’s changed over time?
AS: I actually lived in New York for a long time. I had a whole other career, so I’ve actually seen Los Angeles in two incarnations. I left LA when I was 18, and didn’t go back for about 15 or 17 years.
Growing up, I lived in a very cool neighborhood called Silver Lake, which is now the Brooklyn-hipster community of LA.
It was that way when I grew up: a community of artists, and very ethnically diverse. Beck and Leonardo DiCaprio went to my high school, so I was in good company. Not at the same time I was there unfortunately…
JB: Did they have craft butchers and pickle shops on every corner back then too? As I might imagine they have now?
AS: No. (laughing.) It’s not that kind of community. We’re car centric in LA, so we don’t have things like that. We just go to Whole Foods.
I grew up in this great, nurturing, artistic community. Then I went off to art school, and moved to New York, where I met my husband and had my first child. Then we moved back to LA, and I was sure it would be a short stint, because I swore I would never return. I was a New Yorker by then.
I had my second child while my husband was in grad school, and we decided it was too hard to move back with two kids and live in Manhattan. So we stayed, and it took me a long time to fall back in love with this place. But I have.
What I found interesting when I returned was the influx of whole new communities. Koreatown did not exist, when I was growing up.
JB: As big as it is now, it didn’t even exist?
AS: No. The Asian communities are so much larger. The Persian community, which has now sort of taken over Beverly Hills, did not exist when I was growing up either.
It’s a much more ethnically rich city, and that makes it exciting. Our food choices are truly spectacular. Downtown has completely transformed as well–Photo LA and Art LA were held there. It’s a thriving place to explore, and a great place to shoot.
JB: Your bio says you worked in the fashion industry in your time in New York. What did you do?
AS: I moved to New York to be a painter, doing large abstract oils, and got a job in an art gallery. But I had also grown up with an interest in sewing and fashion. I spent a lot of time on the couch reading fashion magazines, and imagining that lifestyle.
After about a year of working in the gallery, I got very disenchanted. The gallerist that I worked for was very shady. He ended up murdering someone three weeks after I left.
JB: Get out.
AS: Yes, it was called the “Leather Mask Murder.” He was deeply into drugs, and into the gay bar scene, and he had sex with a young, Norwegian fashion student. He put a leather head mask (with no holes) over his head to feel what it was like to have sex with someone who was dying.
They could not convict him, but they got him on tax evasion charges. That’s who I worked for. I had a really bad taste in my mouth about the gallery world, from that one experience.
JB: Sure.
AS: It was eye-opening, because that gallery drew really famous people. I would show work to Diana Ross and Steve Martin and the movers and shakers from all different worlds. I learned so much about NYC in that year.
After that, I got a job putting together fashion shows, even though I had no background in it. And then I traveled around the US and put on shows in different cities. I did that for about a year, through Vogue Patterns, and then they asked me to be their fabric editor. All of this with no background.
JB: So how did it happen?
AS: I’m just a hard worker. I’d grown up sewing, so I knew a lot about fabric. Then I became the fashion editor for not just Vogue Patterns, but also Vogue Knitting. Ultimately, I was responsible for 19 publications a year, and went on all the shoots, and had to learn on the job.
What was unique was that every single day was creative. I picked out all the fabrics for the clothing, worked with the dressmakers, the art director, the accessory editors, hired the models and hair and make-up artists.
Then we made it all come together on the set, and the art director and I had to edit all the film. I did it for 10 years. I worked a lot with Patrick Demarchelier, Mario Testino and many others, and even once with Horst. Just amazing photographers. I learned a lot about working with people from them.
We went on a lot of exotic trips. I know I’m kind of rambling here.
JB: It’s a good story.
AS: For me, though, the job that has influenced me the most was waitressing. I did it all through college. That ability to see the one table, and what they need, but also to see the eight tables in the section, it teaches you to see the minute and the big picture at the same time. And it teaches you how to work with people.
When I applied that to the fashion editor job, it made a huge difference. For instance, we would travel to far flung places where we would not be able to find any accessories or that last minute item. So, before we left, at night, I would lie in bed and imagine the different outfits we were taking. I’d imagine every possible thing I needed to bring, so we were prepared.
It was a fantastic job, and then my husband and I moved to Los Angeles so he could pursue a masters degree in architecture. It was really hard give up a job where you have so much creative expression.
JB: Not that I would ask you to dish, but did you have any personal contact with Anna Wintour? Was she your buddy?
AS: No. Even though Vogue Patterns was at one time associated with Vogue Magazine, it wasn’t in the same building. Though I did interview at Vogue when I first moved to New York, and it was right out of “Devil Wears Prada.” People were raking me up and down.
I have to tell you this story. I went to college in Santa Barbara, so I was not coming with to New York with a suitcase of Chanel suits. I didn’t even own a coat when I arrived. I made one dress for myself. A beautiful Givenchy green silk dress. I wore it to my interview, and they loved it, and asked me back for a second interview.
But it was the only dress I had.
JB: (laughing.) I can see where this is going.
AS: Right. I had to wear it again.
JB: Oh no.
AS: So of course they said, “You’re wearing the same dress as last time.” They remembered.
JB: Of course they did.
AS: And I didn’t get the job. But that’s what gives you character. Going through these things.
JB: While you were working in fashion, were you also taking pictures for fun? Snapshots?
AS: I never considered being a photographer. I was a painter. After we moved to LA, and my kids got a little older, I decided to go back to school and get my degree in fashion design. I went to Otis Parsons, at night and on the weekends. Then, the day I graduated, I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do.
I realized it was way too much about business, and not creativity. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and went into a funk. I decided to take a photography class to learn how to use my camera better, and at the end of that class, the instructor told me I should start showing my work.
I hadn’t put it together. My father was a photographer; we had a darkroom in our basement. My uncle was a travel photographer. And I stood right next to the camera with some of the most amazing fashion photographers. As an editor, you have to see what they see.
I had been surrounded by photography all my life, and yet never considered it as my path. But as soon as I got that camera in my hands, that was it. I never looked back.
JB: I think we all have some version of that Aha moment. But let’s jump ahead a bit. Our readers are by now familiar with my thoughts about the 21st Century Hustle. And you seem to embody that right now.
You’re publish the popular blog Lenscratch, you teach, you make and show your work, and you’re a Mom. I was going to ask how you came to that, but you already described the progression for us. It sounds like you’ve always had multiple talents and interests, and the gumption to go for it.
So this current version of musical chairs is not so different for you?
AS: Yeah, I feel like I’ve always been a multi-tasker. I’m not someone who can just sit down and watch TV. I’m doing five other things at once. But trust me, I AM watching TV while I’m doing them.
I don’t come from any formal education, photographically. So part this journey, for me, especially with Lenscratch, is educating myself. What makes my blog different, maybe, is that I’m really looking at it as someone who is still so excited about photography and wants to figure out why people make the work that they make.
I’m not bringing the intellectual, MFA point of view about the analysis of photography. I just write about work in simple language.
JB: (laughing.) I hate those intellectual MFA types. They’re the worst. (pause.) Shit. Wait a second. I am one of those guys.
You’re answering my questions before I’m asking them, which is not the way it’s supposed to work. I was just about to ask how you came to found Lenscratch. It’s a very popular blog, where you show a different photographer’s work every day.
How many years has this been going on?
AS: Almost seven years.
JB: Almost seven years. Every day.
AS: Every day.
JB: That sounds like a lot of work.
AS: Hell yes. I’ve developed a muscle. It’s really helped me write. I write quickly now. A lot of students will send me their statements, and I can whip out the edit in ten minutes.
I’m getting to the point where I need to shift. I want spend more time on my photography. I want to put that role first.
I don’t want to get off topic, but I’ve noticed lately how quickly people are churning out new work. As a reviewer for Critical Mass, when I see a new body of work from someone every year, and sometimes two or three a year, I wonder if that project has had time to percolate.
JB: You make a good point. It’s crossed my mind a bit lately. A new body of work becomes a product line. Just like, back in the day, when the car companies would totally change the design of each car every year.
At some point, the hustle does begin to take away from the contemplative, creative practice that art is supposed to be about. We’re all working so hard to pay the bills, and still have time to make art, it’s very easy to lose sight of what you’re talking about.
If you’re always thinking about the next marketing campaign, it stands to reason you might have less time to think about how to make the pictures better, and what your process means to you.
AS: Frankly, I haven’t been pushing my work out for about two years. Maybe I needed that time to reboot. A lot of my work is conceptual and you can’t churn that out quickly.
We all love to make work. That’s the high that we get from this journey. The making of the work is the reward, not anything else.
As you get further along in your career, have your museum show, and meet the traditional goals one seeks as a photographer, it doesn’t feel like what you think it’s going to feel like. It’s just another marker. And when the fanfare dies down, you realize you have to start from square one again.
The true thing that gives you the high is the making of the work in the first place. I think that’s why people push work out so quickly. Creating work is a joyous thing.
JB: It’s really easy to forget why we fell in love with the process. We think acclaim was the goal. Social media makes that part worse too. We’ve become so accustomed to the instant gratification. And signs of popularity.
AS: Some of the major players, they’re not on Facebook and tweeting. They’re busy making work.
JB: Right.
AS: And I think about all the time we waste on social media that we could fold back into our journey. I’m really re-thinking it.
JB: I’m trying to build structure in the way I use the tools. I think they’re brilliant. But I also think they’re addictive, so I’m trying to find some structure to limit that pull. I began to feel like the monkey tapping at the lever all day to get the peanut.
AS: That’s a great description.
JB: Thanks. Tap. Tap. Tap. I don’t want to do that anymore.
With all the things you do that we’ve talked about, I want to focus on the teaching a bit. This interview is being sponsored by the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, and you’re giving a workshop there this March.
Could we talk a bit about your teaching philosophy? What do you think are some of the key elements of being a great educator?
AS: I’ll give you a little history on my teaching career. Never in a million years did I think I’d be a teacher, though my mother and sister were teachers.
I used to have two great fears in my life: snakes, and public speaking. About 13 years ago, I went to a portfolio review with Julia Dean, who has a photography school in LA. She was there, along with the photo editor of the LA Times.
I was working alone in the darkroom, at that time. I had two or three photo friends, and no real photo community, beyond the darkroom. About a month later, Julia called me up and asked me to teach her toy camera classes, because that’s how I was working back then.
I told her I was too afraid to stand up there in front of people, and she said, “I’ll teach with you. I’ll help you.” So I went to the doctor, and asked if there was a pill for the fear of public speaking, and he said yes.
JB: (laughing.) It’s called Valium.
AS: No. It’s called Inderal. It’s a beta blocker.
JB: I was kidding. You’re serious?
AS: Yes. If you ever have to give a lecture, and you’re a little panicky, it’s called Inderal. It’s a beta blocker that keeps your heart beating at a regular pace. You can get scared, but you can’t panic.
It really helped me. I started out teaching toy camera classes, and then realized that no one was teaching anything about the journey of the photographer, at least in Los Angeles.
I began to teach things like how to navigate the fine art world, and learning from the mistakes that we make. Those classes helped build a fine art community in Los Angeles, and now I am so lucky to have a huge community of photo friends, many who have taken my classes. I work hard at keeping us all connected.
When the Santa Fe Workshops asked me to teach for them three years ago, I realized it was an opportunity to combine several of those classes into something titled “The Big Picture“. I help photographers become more visually sophisticated, give them a tool belt of ideas for making imagery, and then put it all into context of how to shape work and launch it into the fine art market.
Students finish the class having written their statement, bio, and are working on a resume. I try to answer every question a photographer has about the complex world of navigating the fine art market. And it’s in a very safe, nurturing environment for anyone at any point on their journey.
You asked about my philosophy as a teacher?
JB: Yes.
AS: When I was in art school I had some crippling critiques, that I can still remember. I decided I was never going to be the kind of teacher that devastates students. I really teach with enthusiasm and the idea of possibility. I look at every student, no matter how unsophisticated the work, and believe they have the potential to make amazing work.
I’ve seen it happen in my classes, right in front of me. The work they bring in initially is something they been doing in a vacuum. Then they see the bigger picture, figure out other ways of working, mine their own lives for subject matter, and then, all of a sudden, incredible work begins to emerge.
JB: You encourage them, I imagine, to mine their own lives. You say it like it’s an afterthought. But for so many people, when they first start out, they’re doing it for entertainment. For diversion. We all know how exciting it is when you first learn you can “rectangularize” the world.
That initial impulse can only carry one so far, before you need to become willing to inject yourself into it. To learn the self-criticality that is so necessary to improve.
You’ve explained that you’re positive and supportive. But what are your tricks for getting people to have the bravery to look at themselves, and then to share?
AS: I create a safe environment, where I don’t say anything negative. Instead I show them something different. There’s a way to guide someone without annihilating them, and that’s the way I work.
I feel like a photo-therapist. I know that sounds crazy, but…
JB: No. I love it. I’m not going to steal it, but I love it.
AS: Sometimes, I feel like the photo whisperer too. When I do portfolio reviews, I ask photographers to tell me their life story before I look at their work. Because I want to know what brought them to make the work they’re doing. Sometimes, I’ll see a connection to their life that they don’t even see themselves.
It’s the recognition of why they’re making the visual choices that they’re making. I also think I’m just very personal.
JB: Looking at your work, two words that kept popping up for me. Family and history. You’ve photographed your daughter extensively, and a project about your mother was recently featured on Lens.
Do you feel a connection with the past? Or am I over-reaching?
AS: It’s interesting. Because I came to photography later in life, I look backwards as easily as I look forward. When you’re in your twenties, you’re always looking forward. I’m in a position where I’m considering life in a different way. That just comes with age.
I think I would be a much more irreverent, edgy photographer if I was in my twenties right now. You get an attitude in art school that you are the next great thing and like to challenge the norm. But now I have more wisdom and an understanding of humanity.
I’m not so flippant. We’re so quick to judge the things we don’t understand. With Lenscratch, I often find that when I don’t like work, I force myself to spend more time with it, so I can understand it.
JB: (pause.) The quiet moments don’t show up so well in the transcript, but you definitely shut me up there for a moment.
It’s something I probably need to work on. In my role as critic, in parallel to being an artist, I’ve probably become a bit comfortable in the seat of judgement.
AS: That’s something I find really obnoxious in photography today. The quick judgement.
JB: Did you just call me obnoxious? Or can we assume you mean other people?
AS: No, no. There is a lot of photo crap out there. Fine. Judge it. But I try to slow down in that judgement, and try not to make it public. That’s just me. If I don’t like something, I don’t put it out into the world. Being an artist is a tough road, and criticism is subjective.
JB: I do have a hard time sorting out how you juggle all of it, but you have an active exhibition record as well. Do you have any shows coming up?
AS: Yes, I have a show coming up in May at the Davis Orton Gallery in New York. And I’ve got some group shows coming up in LA, Palm Springs and San Francisco. I might have a solo show in Paris this year.
JB: We’ve been talking a lot about slowing down, and being more contemplative. One word that hasn’t come up yet is patience, which I’m still learning. People can’t see the video of you, obviously, but you project an aura of calm. Almost equanimity. Do you feel like patience is a strength for you?
AS: Jonathan, that’s such a brilliant observation. Because I feel like I was always the last one to get asked to dance or picked for the team. I’ve had to be patient in life, but I also don’t have huge expectations. I’m always thrilled when something happens for me, but I’m OK when it doesn’t. I’m not waiting for recognition. I just want to make more photographs.
This week on Lenscratch, I posted all about work that’s 30 years old. I think it’s really interesting that these photographers are getting their moment in the sun now. Three of the photographers I featured are 2013 Critical Mass winners, and for two of them, it’s work that was made in the 70’s and 80’s.
If that’s not patience, I don’t know what is.
Editor’s have to think beyond themselves. Their primary motivation has to be to help others grow, to tell stories and make systems work – outside of their egos. Editors have to be able to conceive of and communicate ideas that are about things outside themselves. Photographers, on the other hand, for the most part have to be so self involved that they can envelop what they photograph from a completely personal perspective. The more dimensional a person who makes pictures is, the more dimensional her photographs will be, the more they will connect with a subject. We are the photographs we make, they are us.
via APAD blog.
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