“I think there’s a certain arrogance that goes with wanting to do something like this.”

That’s Chris Buck telling me what it takes to become a photographer; it’s one of many astute insights he had when I talked to him on the phone several weeks ago. Chris is one of my all time favorite photographers. I worked with him several times when I was Photo Directing and the best part is always when you get that box of contacts after a shoot because it feels like Christmas morning when you open it. There are the smartly executed pictures you talked about and then there are always surprises, pictures and ideas you weren’t expecting in there as well. You will discover why that happens and more perceptive insights into the business in part two of this interview tomorrow.

I consider Chris to be one of the great editorial portrait photographers of our generation, he also cares very deeply about the business of photography and was very generous with his time for this interview. Here’s what we talked about:

APE: You just had your 20th anniversary.

That’s 20 years just being a full time photographer not making a living any other way. I say that because that’s how I define being a photographer.

APE: Yeah, that’s how I define professional photographer as well.

I was the photo editor at a pop magazine in Canada called Graffiti for a year after getting out of college.

APE: I would love to get a snapshot of what you were like 20 years ago and what was going through your head.

Funny you should ask, because I just ran across this footage from 21 years ago where I was interviewing my mom and sister and they turned the camera on me and started asking me questions, “what are you up to, what are your plans for the future” and I talk a little bit about how I want to photograph bands and I want to photograph other people and just shoot portraits for a long long time. It’s amazing because I ended up saying what I ended up doing.

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APE: So, what made you think you could become a professional photographer 20 years ago?

Well, obviously I wasn’t totally sure. I think there’s a certain arrogance that goes with wanting to do something like this. I was living in Toronto at the time, I looked around at the photography that was being made in Toronto at the time and thought, this is really lame, this is not the way portraits should be done. And I think that was the impetuous that gave me fuel to last me through the first five years, when I was really not making a living financially.

APE: That’s a pretty bold statement to make. It’s not something you would really hear from photographers today.

I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I had a fair amount of humility, I still lived with my parents in the suburbs. I considered assisting and looked around and thought there were two, probably actually one photographer that I felt like I could learn something from and so that’s how I felt. I saw the work I was doing at the time and felt it was as good and I kind of imagined what I could do and thought it was far more interesting than what was being done. I really think that’s important and If you don’t feel that way at the beginning of your career or after a year or so out of college then you probably shouldn’t be shooting.

One of the things I say to young photographers now is that what you react against is far more powerful than what you are influenced by. I loved Irving Penn and Anton Corbijn at the time and it’s one thing for me to be influenced by them and say I want to make cool pictures like them but it’s something completely different to see the mid 80’s sunset lighting with blue sky behind (that was the prominent look at the time) and think “how lame.” For me there’s no mystery to it and it’s very heroic which is also something I didn’t like, so I find my reaction against that stuff to be far more exciting

Reacting against photography was much better for me, because there were many more avenues to go down and say “this is what a portrait should look like,” instead of saying “I want to make pictures that look like this.” When you react against something you can go in so many different directions then when you are influenced positively because that’s a much more narrow influence.

APE: Ok so you meet with a lot of young photographers and you have this internship program, so do a lot of them have this attitude.

The arrogance?

APE: Yes. I want to know if it’s changed in 20 years. Do young photographers still think like this?

I think different photographers find their paths in different ways and some do start off being very influenced by someone and then they shake that off after a few years. So, I’m not saying someone who is influenced by Nan Golden or Philip Lorca DiCorcia is necessarily someone to be written off. They might develop into something really interesting but I don’t think it’s the best way to start out.

James Mahon is someone who assisted me and is now shooting fashion and we will have huge arguments about how things are done. He definitely has some arrogance and in many a ways it’s one of the most powerful things about him.

APE: It’s interesting because as a former client of yours I wouldn’t necessarily call you arrogant.

Oh really? There was that one shoot I did for you where someone who was working for you at the time sent me a shot list and I called you and said “Rob, I assumed you hired me to do what I do, is this really what you’re looking for.”

APE: Oh right. I guess I never felt you came off that way, but maybe it’s because that how I expect photographers at your level to act.

You factored that in, but some may see it as arrogance.

APE: That brings up something interesting because many young photographers feel like their hands are tied when it comes to client demands because the client can just go off and hire someone else. When you were young how did you behave.

Honestly, it’s an issue I still deal with. I was in Austin recently and I looked up Dan Winters and we went for lunch. And I asked him “Dan, you have a reputation for handing in just one picture or however many pictures they might run. You’ve got to be kidding me, you really do this?” He was like “Yeah, I do.” We talked most of the lunch about that. It was really inspiring for me. I try to give much tighter edits now. It’s important because potential clients will look at my work in magazines and either say “Chris Buck is not as interesting as he once was” or they will say “this is a really cool picture and this is what I expect of him.”

But, you know I live in a real world too and it’s a place that’s complex and not always generous to you, so there are clients I give more pictures to, but from 2 years ago to now it’s half as many frames as I used to turn in. I went and saw Larry Fink recently and he talked about being on a shoot and being humiliated by the shooting circumstances. He’s been doing this for 40 years now and he still puts himself in those situations. It’s good for young photographers to hear that, because it’s not like you get to a point where everything is easy.

APE: Are their myths that you have to dispel when talking to younger photographers about the business that come up over and over again?

There are so many things.

One of the main things is that most people don’t make it quickly. They think that If you are meant to be successful in photography it should just take a few years and the obvious stories are about Irving Penn, or David LaChappelle. Larry Fink is a great example of the alternate narrative and one of the things I really admire about his career is that in a way his name became known to most people 30 years into his career and that’s kind of amazing. The young photographers tend to know about the people who made it in 5 years but that’s really, really unusual. If you go look at the top 100 photographers working today most of them made it in 10 to 15 years not in under 5. I think that’s really important to know. People get into it and in 3 years they’re like “I’m getting good feedback but I’m not getting a ton of work.” It took me 12 years before people started saying to me “wow, you’ve made it.”

Another thing that’s like a personal crusade for me is trying to talk young photographers out of assisting. Because, I really think it’s a dangerous road to go down. I really try to discourage it. The example I give is that assisting a photographer to become a photographer is like assisting the CEO to become a CEO one day.

APE: That’s an unusual point of view.

Well, if you look at the careers of assistants there’s a number of problems with it. You can certainly learn things from assisting, but I guess what I recommend for people if they feel any clarity about who they are as a photographer then I would really recommend that they intern rather than assist. And, I mean a real internship not sweeping floors. Don’t intern for photographers where you have no access to them or the shoots. People tell me they intern for big name photographers for their resume, but why do you have a resume. If you’re a photographer you don’t need a resume. Your portfolio is your resume, not some piece of paper.

You can certainly learn more from assisting, fair enough, but if you’re any good at assisting you end up doing it for 5-8 years. That’s a long, long time to not be focusing on your own work. And people say they’re only going to do it for a couple years but if you’re any good at it you don’t.

APE: When I think about some of the famous photographers who were also assistants for famous photographers, they didn’t really do it for too long. Maybe they assisted a couple years and they usually had a bad attitude about it too.

I was having lunch with a couple of my assistants on a shoot and one of them said “half the people I work for never assisted”. When you think about it, that you’re assisting to become a photographer yet half the people you assist for never did it. Statistically it’s kind of a crazy number. So, is that really the ideal route to becoming a photographer? I think it’s certainly one but there are other routes that aren’t really being talked about. When you’re 32 and you want to stop assisting and try and shoot full time and you’ve been making a decent living for awhile how do you transition to shooting full time when you’re not going to make any money for 2-3 years.

APE: I see the same thing with people who want to transition to Photo Editing mid career, because you reach a point where you can’t really intern or work for no money anymore.

Also, having to live as a starving artist at 32 is a really painful thing. When you’re 25 living as a starving artist is actually kind of fun.

APE: You have assistants, so as soon as you get a new assistant do you tell them about this?

No, of course not, if they’re great assistants I don’t want to lose them.

Part 2 tomorrow.

Todd Selby is the talented young photographer behind TheSelby.com a website dedicated to documenting interesting people, their creative spaces and their stuff usually in New York, London and LA. It seems to have hit a critical mass online recently with a mention in the NY Times (here) and all kinds of design blogs (here, here, here and here).

Todd has really found an underserved market in media and he stands to reap the benefits of not only by becoming known as a photographer who shoots creative interiors but also for serving an audience who’s hungry for this type of photography and any collateral he can come up with to go along with it. It’s quite inspiring to see someone forge a new path and then actually begin to see serious traction. I asked Todd a couple questions about it:

How did The Selby get started?

I have been thinking a lot over the past two years about wanting to work on a photo related art project that I could do on my own and distribute on the internet. When I started taking pictures professionally seven years ago I did my first portfolio solely of photos of my friends in their homes combined with a few still-lives of their possessions. It was a natural shift to just take that work and put in on the internet. From there the concept has evolved and I have started adding new elements such as paintings, videos and hand written photo captions and interviews.

It’s completely blown up online and even made an appearance in the The NY Times. Does that translate into assignments for Todd Selby or just calls from people who think they have a cool place?

Yes, I have been getting a lot more calls from magazines, tons of interest from advertisers as well as home and fashion brands contacting me directly. I also get a lot of emails from people around the world showing me their homes and their artwork.

Any thoughts on getting pigeon holed into the guy who shoots those hip interiors?

No thoughts of that until you just mentioned it. Ha, Ha.

How do you know The Cobra Snake? Do you know The Face Hunter? Any thoughts overall on the popularity of this type of documentary photography?

The Cobra Snake is an amazing photographer as well as a marketing and business genius who’s 5 to 10 years ahead of most photographers. He helped me realize the importance of distributing your work as widely as possible and building up content that is really interesting. I think this is something you already know as well Rob. This is a tumultuous time for photographers, and I believe that the people who are going to really succeed are the ones that think outside the box and really forge their own path directly to the consumers of photography. Cut out the middlemen, do it yourself and get it out there. That is Cobra Snake’s DIY ethic which has directly inspired me to do The Selby project.

Is there ever an end to a project like this?

I dont think it will end, it is too much fun.

Do you have anything else you’re working on?

I am working on doing more of my watercolor paintings and editing photos for an upcoming show and book release which will be at Colette in April 09. Also I am producing some extremely limited edition clothing, jewelry and art collaborations for sale on my online store, http://store.theselby.com. Also look out for shows in Tokyo, Los Angeles and New York for 2009.

Bil Zelman contacted me recently about some pro bono work he’s been shooting and in particular how rewarding it is for him. Ultimately it ends up benefiting his business too with genuine interest in the work from Art Directors and nice press placement. Here’s what we talked about:

Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you arrived at a successful commercial photography career.

In art school I developed a particular style of hard-flash, in your face, street photography that landed me some museum shows. This was a handful of years ago when 6×6 transparency film and a tripod were standard for the commercial world, but things were just beginning to change. After sending out a few hundred ridiculously inexpensive promo pieces, I gained the trust of a local agency who hired me to shoot a campaign for Virgin Megastores. I took the campaign to the street with no assistants, very little experience and it turned out stellar. The work won a bunch of awards and suddenly the kid with two cameras and four lenses was getting calls. I suppose my confidence and naiveté mixed with my shooting style was something people were ready for.

I’ve always tried to bring something fresh and innovative to the table, and the believability of my shots has been well received and rewarded.

How do you determine what is pro bono and what should be paid, how do you know it’s not something the client should be paying for?

I don’t have any steadfast rules except that they have to be non-profit and preferably a charity. There are plenty of large non-profits which can clearly pay a fee for their photography. Also, many trade and lobbying organizations are nonprofit groups, but not charities so you do need to be careful.

I’ve chosen to work with non-profits which are local, for the most part, whose only budgeted alternative would be to have someone on their staff shoot stuff with a digital point and shoot. And who, after a little research, could clearly benefit from my help. I will also admit that I generally only accept projects where artistic excellence is appreciated and encouraged. Something you’re not going to find everywhere.

Also, when the entity is small and local, it’s pretty easy to tell the difference between the budget of your local “keep kids off the streets program” and someone who can probably afford you like say Greenpeace. Beyond that it’s all about researching them and trusting your gut.

Pro-bono projects I’ve worked on recently would include:

My local Sudanese Center, which clearly operates on a tiny budget. They covered $380 of my expenses and my assistants and I donated time/equipment. When the children and families found out that they were getting their photos taken for free, 80 people showed up dressed in their finest at sunset in a field I had scouted (they were bussed from the center). It was an amazing feeling…and scary, as I had imagined 8-10 would actually make it.

The the International Pediatric Neurological Society. Sound fancy? It’s two doctors I know who donate time and resources in their spare time. They could never have afforded to fly a photographer to Kiev, and Peru, but really needed the help. Because of the two trips, on which they covered about half of the cost, they now have a fantastic presentation with which they can seek out funding and raise awareness to their cause. And I ended up feeling really good about it and landing three pages in Archive.

A local, neighborhood outreach program came up with just enough money for me to shoot 30 rolls of grainy b/w on their project; A well designed, oversize brochure to raise funds and awareness. Beautiful.

Anymore it seems like the big commercial guys are not shooting as much editorial and I would suspect that at times shooting commercial can seem tedious and un-fulfilling. Does this serve as an antidote to that?

Absolutely, I manage to shoot about a five or six good editorial pieces a year and crave more, but San Diego isn’t the best place to be for that kind of work. While I’m blessed with great commercial assignments, those projects are usually confined to product placement first and artistry second.

The charity assignments I’ve done have given me grounds to test new ideas and ways of working, are usually not collaborative (Yes, it can try your patience to have someone else edit, crop and manipulate your work all the time- No matter how well it’s done, or how good the intentions).

I feel so empowered to be able to use my camera as a tool for social change, large or small. Nothing has felt more satisfying, and nothing has garnered a greater response for me than this type of work. From simple thank you letters from complete strangers to Art Buyers skipping over ad campaigns and
celeb work and asking “where where the photo’s of those children taken.” It still amazes me.

It’s also a sad fact that no matter how good that cover shot or ad campaign is, there’s a shelf life before it’s thrown out with all of the other magazines. It kills me. Hopefully people will be able to use the images I create for their causes to raise awareness and even funding for years to come. A longevity we rarely see in other media applications.

You mentioned that photographers are missing out on a opportunity by not taking on these kinds of projects. Can you explain?

The positives to taking on these types of projects are endless. To improve the lives of others, to better your community, to art direct your own piece and have total creative freedom, to travel, to see and experience things you may have never thought possible, to be reminded that not everyone is middle class.

And even the self-serving part; to draw attention to your own work and your own vision and be noticed by others in a fantastically positive light. Images from my last trip to Kiev ended up being printed in both Archive and the PDN Photo Annual. One week of shooting with no production work at all ended up getting noticed just as much if not more than my bigger budget shoots for the year.

And, oh yeah, did I mention that you’ll feel really, really good about it?

Jake Stangel has a new website for young photographers called “Too Much Chocolate” and it’s already off to a great start because of a smart interview with Trevor Graves. Trevor was part of a group of talented snowboard photographers who revolutionize the snowsports industry in the 90’s. They brought in-your-face, lifestyle and grungy party photography to an industry that had been dominated by pretty landscape pictures with people walking/skiing through them. The surf/skate/snowboard genre of photography is my favorite for the way it seamlessly blends lifestyle and action photography. Trevor now helms Nemo Design over in Portland, OR.

Here are a few choice quotes from Trevor in the interview:

“Personally I hope to be exposed to a young shooters work though a respected third party.”

“We are looking and thousands of creatives a year, I may not have a job today for you but I may in the future so I want to put your website in my bookmarks folder under “something”. David Lachapelle I would put under “Fashion” or “Sexy”, Ansel Adams I would put under “Landscapes”, Annie Leibovitz as a “Celebrity portrait” photographer. Make my life easy, where can I classify your style? Is that category the type of work you would like to be doing ten years form now? I don’t want this to sounds harsh, but I have 10 minutes for you today; ask yourself how do you want me to remember you?”

“We all need to make a living in life and everyone has different standards of living and if you have a high standard of living, then go get a business degree, photography in the long run will not make you happy. ‘Starving artist’ is a cliché for a reason. As a professional photographer if the first year doesn’t break ya, the next five will keep trying.”