The Carlyle Group announced on Wednesday that it had reached a deal to acquire Getty Images, the well-known distributor of photography, video and multimedia products, from Hellman & Friedman for $3.3 billion.
via Carlyle in $3.3 Billion Deal for Getty Images – NYTimes.com.
Wow, that didn’t take long. I was really digging the idea of street style, á la the sartorialist but this video makes me think it’s a sign of the apocalypse rather than a powerful social media tool:
a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their disinclination.
— Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
via Tchaikovsky on Work Ethic vs. Inspiration | Brain Pickings.
see you on Monday.
Recently I had the idea of interviewing some of my colleagues, photographer to photographer, to gain some insights and see how they do what they do. I started with someone I know well and whose career has somewhat mirrored my own. Although Evan shoots portraits and babies, and I shoot still life, he has long been one of my technical go-to people and a good friend. He is one of those photographers who is not only creative but also knows how everything works. I have always loved talking to him and I hope you will find our exchange interesting and informative. In order to focus the conversation I chose some recent ads Evan has shot for Huggies Wipes.
Evan owns and operates a small rental studio in NYC’s flower district called Some Studio; it is here that we sat down for a conversation.
(There are 3 other ads in this series, here is the one we talk about)
Worrell: Hi Evan, I am here to talk with you about your work but my first question is: why a rental studio? It seems like a lot of work on top of being a photographer, how is that working out for you?
Kafka: Hey James, thanks for stopping by. Yeah, I like having the rental studio. It helps keep me from being isolated like a lot of photographers are. It’s fun to meet new people and have people around all of the time but you are right, it is a lot of work. I used to have an office in my apartment but my daughter was born and she kicked me out (laughs). No seriously, I wasn’t looking for a studio but i needed an office, and a friend of mine was leaving this space. I saw it as an opportunity. The rental income offsets the cost of the space but as you said before, it is a lot of work with upkeep, marketing, etc.
Worrell: I am glad you did, it’s a great space. How long have you been shooting, how long did you assist other photographers and where did you go to school?
Kafka: I went to RIT, came to New York in 1995 and assisted for about 5 or 6 months. I got shooting work really early, I was pretty lucky.
Worrell: Your work is very bold, simple and graphic, did the transition to digital affect your style or way of shooting?
Kafka: I don’t think it has that much. I look at pictures I took 10 years ago on film and printed C-prints of, and I am always amazed at how similar the lighting and composition is. Digital is really just another tool. Obviously I wasn’t doing the post-production that I am now, and that is a big part of my look, but part of that is just to get it back to how it looked in film. Another part if it is trying to get it to where I wanted it to be when I was shooting film but I didn’t know how to do it, how to get it there. There were people doing post production work back then of course but it wasn’t as common as it is now.
Worrell: I was looking at your work and was struck by the Huggies ads you did recently. I love the humor and simplicity but I know that it was anything but simple. How did you get the gig?
Kafka: It was my 3rd job for Ogilvy Chicago in the past 12 months or so. It’s hard to say exactly where it came from or specifically how they found me but it’s safe to say it was a group effort between me and my agent. I have spent years marketing myself with the help of my agency, Glasshouse Assignment, and have done a lot of baby promotions in recent years. I think a lot of people believe that if you get an agent, that alone is going to bring in the work. But for me it seems like I have to drive it, I have to bring it. My agent helps things go smoothly, negotiates and puts my work in front of the people who need to see it. But I have to give her something to sell. I had to get my work to the right place before we started getting work, that’s the bottom line.
Worrell: What was it like leading up to the job? Were the ideas collaborations or did they bring you everything sketched out?
Kafka: This particular art director, Vince Soliven, had these ideas and concepts sketched out, they were definitely his concepts, but I had ideas on how to execute them and together we worked that out. You mentioned that they looked like a lot of fun, and they were a lot fun, some clients and agents have a good sense of humor (laughs). It’s great when you can work on something that is supposed to be quirky and humorous. The traditional market for baby photography is more lifestyle oriented so it’s sometimes hard to get them to choose the funny pictures. Which is what I love about babies, just how spontaneous and ridiculous they can be. Ultimately, clients decide on the tone of the piece by their edit, luckily Ogilvy, and by extension Huggies, has a great sense of humor. I commend art directors and agencies for wanting to go for the full-on funny and if their clients have to pull them back, at least they went for it.
Worrell: How many shots did you do for this campaign? I see 3 tearsheets on your site–were there more?
Kafka: There are four ads total, one should be coming out in the near future. But we did five shots plus variations.
Worrell: Did you do it all in one day?
Kafka: No, it was two days, thank goodness (laughs). And it was a pretty intense couple of days.
Worrell: How much pre-production did they give you?
Kafka: Well, it was really hard because we bid on the job right before the Christmas holidays and the shoot was on January 2nd or 3rd, something like that. We had little time to prepare and we had to pull it together during that crazy time of year. We had one producer tell me that it couldn’t be done–luckily I found one that said sure, no problem.
Worrell: So how big was your crew? As you said you had a producer, someone who organizes and puts the whole thing together. But who else?
Kafka: This was a big one, in fact I have a crew photo on my blog which shows the 20 people directly involved with the shoot. So basically, we shot at Gary’s Loft, a location studio.
Worrell: So you didn’t use your own rental studio?
Kafka: No, quite often I need to rent a bigger studio, especially for advertising productions.
Back to the crew:
We had a producer, Jake Mills, and he had a production coordinator with a production assistant. The prop stylist, Peter Gargagliano, was also the set builder and he had four assistants. There was a wardrobe stylist, Ellen Silverstein, and she had an assistant. Nikki Wang who did hair and makeup. I had three photo assistants and a digital tech. Also, Huggies used Bambini Casting for the casting and wrangling of babies.
Worrell: That is an important point, a lot of people might not know about the baby wrangler.
Kafka: Yeah, you gotta have a baby wrangler. Bambini is run by Michele Avantario and she is the main wrangler but she has a team of usually two or three assistants who also help wrangle. A big part of what they do is manage the flow of babies (we both laugh).
It’s important because on a shoot like this, I think we had five babies for each ad, knowing that we were going to only use one in the end. It’s just a matter of who’s going to perform best when the time comes.
Worrell: How much time do you get when you book a baby model?
Kafka: Typically you get two hours, we try to stagger them a bit so they are not all there at the same time. Another thing is that Huggies is very particular about having a separate baby holding studio. Gary’s loft is three floors, we had one floor for two days that was essentially the baby holding area. We had to pad the floor with foam padding and that area was just for the babies and the parents. We shot on the other two floors, one on the first day, the other on the second. But one of the rules is that the parents and families can’t be on the same floor as the shoot, or within earshot. So we really needed a big studio.
Huggies also used a diaper stylist named Heidi Samuda. Like Michele, Heidi Samuda is a freelance stylist and she also cuts the babies’ hair if needed. An important point is that we have her do that the day before the shoot so as not to aggravate the baby the day of the shoot.
Worrell: So was that the whole crew?
Kafka: No, there were three people from Kimberly-Clark/Huggies, three people from Ogilvy Chicago, and one from Ogilvy New York. So it was a lot, certainly one of the bigger ones for me.
Worrell: Wow, that is a lot but it’s a good thing to point out. I don’t think the average person knows how much goes on behind one of these ads.
(Above is a crew shot, and below are a bunch of behind the scenes shot by his photographer friend and assistant Joshua Freiwald.)
Worrell: Now let’s talk specifically about that one shot, the Spaghetti Challenge. First of all, was that sauce real or was it done a lot in post?
Kafka: It was real tomato sauce, with some pasta in it. So yes, it was real and Peter did the sauce the day of the shoot. It was a little scary because once it was laid down that was it. So what we did was we shot as much as we could without it. We shot a lot of plates, etc, then splattered it on the dad and then we gradually built it up on the floor and the wall. We also splattered some sauce in different shapes on a smaller piece of wall board and shot various angles so they would have different splatter options for the shots.
Worrell: So let’s talk about how you lit this shot.
Kafka: It was our second shot of that day so I tried to get it going before the other shot was finished. When I am doing a multiple set shoot like this I have my assistants set up a number of lights that I typically use and I start grabbing things. On this specific shot we had our main light, a small Photek Octabank coming from overhead and the left. It is similar to the Elinchrome mini Octabank.
So, I had this light up high overhead, pointed straight down which is what I tend to do. I tend to point my lights straight at the floor more often than at the subject. If you think about lights in nature, they are very seldom pointed right at somebody. It’s more of a gradual feather, where light sort of catches, where you sort of enter into the beam of light. It’s a better way to evenly illuminate somebody from top to bottom. If you point the light more at the floor it tends to rake across their body a little more evenly.
Worrell: That is interesting to hear you say that. It reminds me of the advice a lighting master once gave me during my assisting days where he said never point the lightbox directly at the subject, always off to the side to find the sweet spot.
Kafka: Yeah, it’s also an easier way to control the light falloff on the background. One thing I want to say is that my lighting tends to evolve throughout the shoot, I don’t get it perfect at first. It tends to change as we’re shooting. I would say typically I arrive at the lighting that works about 1/3 of the way into a shot, sometimes less. I have some standard things that I tend to do but I try not to start a shot with the same formula, especially when the shot is in an environment.
Worrell: Here is a lighting diagram that your assistant Richard did so everyone can see all the other lights and modifiers used:
(Diagram made by Evan’s Assistant, Richard Solinger, using a lighting diagram photoshop document @ www.kevinkertz.com)
And for all the gearheads out there, specifically what kind of lights and cameras do you use?
Kafka: I light with strobes or flash equipment. I own Profoto Acutes and when I rent I tend to use the Profoto 7A packs. So if I have a job with a decent budget I will rent the 7As because although they are bigger they have a much faster flash duration. And with babies, animals, even adults, you can get a bit of blur with the Acutes due to its slower flash duration. It really has little to do with camera sync and shutter speeds and more to do with flash duration.
Worrell: For those who may not know, what is flash duration exactly?
Kafka: It is essentially the length of the flash. When you increase the power of your flash you are actually just increasing the length of the burst; you’re not really increasing the strength of the burst. So when you use high powered lighting it tends to have a longer flash duration. Studio Packs are usually engineered to have shorter flash duration than the portable packs but they are a lot more expensive. I just had the chance to use Profoto’s new 8 pack and not only is the flash duration fast, you can dial one channel from the full 2400 watt seconds down to 4.7 watts. This is great because I tend to use a lot of lights and often have a hard time shooting below f11. With these packs I could dial it all down and shoot at f1.6. I sometimes have to use an ND filter to get my f-stop where I want it but these packs are more versatile.
Worrell: Canon, Nikon, or Digital back?
Kafka: I use Canon. Right now I have the 5D MarkII and MarkIII cameras. On that Huggies ad I used my 50mm Zeiss ZE Macro lens which is not an autofocus lens. And since I was on a tripod for this shot and the models weren’t moving around too much I used the Zeiss lens which is a sharper lens edge to edge when wide open at lower f-stops. So at lower f-stops I like the Zeiss lenses but down past f8 or f11 I think the Canon lenses are better.
Worrell: Do you shoot tethered and if so, what program are you using?
Kafka: I use the software that comes with the Canon Utilities and I focus in live view, I find it easier and faster to use than Capture One or Light Room. But I catalog and organize everything in LightRoom.
Worrell: Thanks Evan!
Check out Evan’s website and blog for more work and insights.
Monday morning entertainment:
And so for all the challenges which young photographers face, and they do face serious challenges, I am not making them smaller than they are, there are also tremendous opportunities that didn’t exist then that do now.
First thing is the opportunity to have your work seen
It’s essentially a golden era.
via david alan harvey in conversation with jim estrin | burn magazine.
Good boys make good husbands, but bad boys have all the fun. So they say. Ever the dutiful first son, I fought the truth of the adage for years. While young, I doted, wrote poems, gave flowers, held doors, basked in my own chivalry. And what did it get me? Not very much.
As it stands, I am a good husband. I cook for my family, and sometimes even clean up. But I’d never have made it to husbandhood had I not embraced my dark side. It’s what makes us whole.
Argue if you must, but there are very few sociopaths out there, and fewer psychopaths still. Most of us possess the milk of love and murder in our veins, and almost everyone does the best they can. Horrible deeds, more often than not, come with easy justifications. Most miserable acts are not seen that way by those who commit them. There are reasons that cloak the wave of unstoppable emotions.
We have, and will always be fascinated by those who dance too close to the darkness. Literature, Film, Photography, and many other media have long mined the hills of sorrow, and rarely do they celebrate remorse. People just love to watch other people get killed. (Pretend, now. Not so, back in the day.)
Bad guys are like fun house mirrors. When we gaze into their eyes, we fool ourselves into believing they contain all the horrors of the world, sucking it out of us so we may remain clean as the carpets in the White House. (I’ve never visited, but even with our huge government debt, you know they’re not scrimping on the President’s hired help.)
I am no different, whether yelping with delight as a teen-ager, as Stephen Segal broke bones Aikido-style, or whooping with dismay as another head dropped in Game of Thrones. Like I said, I’m no different. It’s a part of the human psyche, and deny it at your peril. Repressed emotions, in my experience, are far more powerful than those honestly expressed.
“Dead Men Don’t Look Like Me” is a powerful new book, for all of the reasons above. Recently published by TBW Books in Oaktown, (as they call Oakland,) the small, black soft-cover book contains a trove of images found by one Mike Brodie in 2006. The book was put together by the publisher, Paul Schiek, with an opening essay by Vince Aletti.
Speaking of Oaktown, I recently read that there have been a spate of robberies of late, where photographers, like us, have been relieved of their heavy camera equipment. (Thoughtful burglers, no?) Televison news vans have been jacked too, multiple times. My wife’s friend swears that every major item in her home has been bolted to the floor. Her neighbors, she claims, have all done the same. Welcome to California in the 21st Century.
The book, though, remains rooted in the middle of the 20th. (Yes, I do remember to review the books from time to time.) The photos contained within were made in a Georgia prison; each image a portrait of an incarcerated inmate. Without the provided backstory, you’d probably figure that out for yourself.
They’re all white, as Mr. Aletti points out, and in the range of 25-40. Conmen, grifters, fighters, killers, car theives, rapers, hustlers, and maybe even one or two who didn’t do it. (Is everyone always innocent in their minds?) Most, if not all, have that look about them. Trouble, but the kind that makes you look twice. Dark charisma.
We’ve all seen books of found photos before. This time, the photographer was maybe some prison guard named PorkPie, who took his job seriously. Even mug shots can have class, after all. (Thanks, PorkPie.)
I love flipping through these pages. The images are not really that old, so maybe some of these guys are still alive. Drinking cold, cheap beer on a trailer porch. Shooting cans, laughing with a deep smoker’s growl, and telling tales of all the stuff they did before they got caught.
Bottom Line: A gem of found robber portraits
To purchase “Dead Men Don’t Look Like Me” visit Photo-Eye
Full Disclosure: Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.
Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.
Don’t be fooled by the seemingly endless stream of classic-looking portraits – there are as many pyrotechnics to be seen here as in any photographic show in recent memory. For me, this retrospective helped me to see the entire spread of Dijkstra’s genius (not just her greatest hits) and to more fully appreciate just how much she has successfully challenged and expanded the traditions of photographic portraiture.
via DLK COLLECTION
Still Images In Great Advertising, is a column where Suzanne Sease discovers great advertising images and then speaks with the photographers about it.
I had the honor to attend the Lucie Awards the year Vincent Dixon won for his amazing ad campaign for Unicef. When I was an art buyer, I was very familiar with Vincent but never had the pleasure of working with him. I went to his website and was pleasantly surprised at the commercial produced work for large clients while giving back for public service campaigns like the Unicef campaign and The Foundation Abbe Pierre. I don’t know the specifics of the campaign but they usually ask for reduced fees to get the message out. And this campaign is so thought provoking that depicting the tragedy of Haiti, that I am sure it took more than just shooting.
AD: Mathias Laurent et Grégoire Lauzon,
Copy Writer: Pierre Clavaud
Art Buyer: Laurence Namhias
Creative Director: Chris Garbutt
Suzanne: Vincent, how did you get involved in this campaign and how much legwork did Unicef do prior to your arrival?
Vincent : Hi Suzanne, I shot this campaign for Unicef in France. I was contacted by Laurence Namhias, the head art buyer at Ogilvy & Mather, Paris and Matthias Laurent who did the creative.
To be honest we pretty much did everything ourselves. I went with Jonathan Orenstein, a photo assistant, who is great in these types of situations and Matthias came from Paris. We shot this over five days about six weeks after the earthquake. We weren’t sure what we would be faced with when we got to Haiti. We knew we needed a stark image of the destruction to really make the concept powerful but were not sure what would be there to shoot. I was worried before getting to Haiti that everything would be cleaned up in the six weeks since the earthquake and that we wouldn’t be able to get background plates, that unfortunately was not the case. Porte Au Prince was basically flattened and since almost all government buildings including hospitals were destroyed there were no government services and tent cities everywhere.
My agent in Paris, Florence, found us a place to stay with a friend’s father who lived in the hills above Porte Au Prince and he drove us around and acted as a guide for us. Mathias, the art director had a friend who worked for an NGO in Porte Au Prince and he helped us find the school and get permission to shoot the kids. We organized everything on the ground and that is one of the reasons I gave myself five days to shoot it, we didn’t know what to expect. If necessary we would have stayed longer.
We drove down to Porte Au Prince every morning at around 5 am and shot pretty much all day. The photo is a composite of different background elements and the school portrait. We also shot other plates as Matthias also wanted elements for additional Unicef projects including wrapping a school in Paris and having a mural outside the Parisian school of Haitian children waiting to get into school.
Working there was so moving, one of the ruins we shot was a flattened school with notebooks and report cards in the rubble. Everywhere you would find personal items like old photos, Music LPs and you never know what became of the people who lived in those buildings. Yet every day by about 8 am people were setting up market stalls in the rubble and getting on with their lives.
Suzanne: How has the campaign had an impact on the rebuilding of Haiti? Have donations continued to come in for Haiti after won the awards?
Vincent: Yes the campaign raised a lot of funds and awareness for UNICEF who were really happy with the results. It ran just as schools reopened after the summer holidays in France. This was about six months after the earthquake which was probably out of a lot of peoples thoughts by then so it was effective putting the relief efforts (which still continue) back in the public consciousness.
Suzanne: What are your thoughts on doing work for NGO’s (non governmental organization) where concepts are different from your work? A lot of the campaigns you are hired to produce have a subtle comical twist while this work does not. What are your thoughts on that?
Vincent: I really love doing work like this on many different levels, there are so many social and environmental issues that we need to be reminded about and often the story telling abilities of advertising are very effective for this. Photographically it is really refreshing for me and you always hope that the campaign will be effective. Quiet often we have little or no money but everyone helps and that is great. I really like the human aspects of these campaigns, for example the kids on the school wrap are happy despite the destruction, which I think was an important thing to say too. There is hope and education is the long-term solution for Haiti which has so many problems.
Note: Content for Still Images In Great Advertising is found. Submissions are not accepted.
Vincent Dixon is represented by Brite Productions in the US.
Irish born Vincent Dixon moved to Paris, France in his early 20’s where he discovered his true passion, photography. Shortly after starting his professional career, he was quickly awarded some of the top campaigns in Europe such as Absolut Europe & Perrier. Those highly visible campaigns, among others, quickly gained him notoriety throughout Europe and North America. An early champion of digital imaging, Vincent embraced the developing technology and quickly made it an integral tool in his work.
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..
At the advent of photography, most people didn’t believe it was possible for a photograph to be manipulated. Thus, when they saw visual “proof” in a photograph, it would bypass their normal filters for determining what is or is not believable.
As people have become more familiar with how much photographs can be manipulated, and as the tools for doing that manipulation have become more powerful and accessible, that special status that photography once enjoyed has faded away. It isn’t that photographs are inherently distrusted, but just that they’re no longer inherently trusted. Today, I would guess that a photograph carries only slightly more inherent trust than the written word—and then only because people know it is still much harder to convincingly fabricate a photo than it is to fabricate a story.
thx, Miller.
My first professional job as a photographer was to make Bruce Springsteen’s first pictures at Columbia Records, in February of 1973,” Peter Cunningham writes. “It was just before ‘Greetings from Asbury Park’ was released—I got paid twenty-five dollars.
I don’t think many covers are thought out in this level of detail but the conversation is always very similar with some sort of reference art, preferences of lighting and mood for newsstand sales and a description of an image you see in your head. I think the key to the cover discussions is to hire talented photographers and leave the description more amorphous so they can use their creative talent and on-set adjustments to make it great. This is obviously a great collaboration between a talented creative director and photographer.
Dear Anuschka and Niels,
We would like to brief you on how we envisage the cover of Re-Magazine #7. As you both know, the theme of this issue will be ‘Re-View’; all the articles will, in some way or other, question their own place and function. Magazine formats such as fashion features, letters and interviews will be ‘reviewed’. It remains to be seen however, if the published images and texts will amount to a significant media contribution . They may verywell cause the same kind of pollution caused by the daily flood of undesired information.
In nearly every issue of Re-Magazine, we are inspired by the notion that people yearn for media silence because they’re continually subjected to information overkill. Texts Meant To Be Written, Not To Be Read. Pictures Meant To Be Taken, Not To Be Seen. In a way, ReMagazine is a magazine that refuses to be a magazine. The cover should communicate this ambiguous refusal – the cover as a review of itself.
How do you feel about a girl on the cover? In our opinion, it would be better to work with a non-professional model. Someone from your own scene, someone you already know. Maybe someone you know really well. For example, someone you shared the third story of a house with for four years when you were a student. Perhaps someone with mixed blood, an Albanian father or something? That her grandmother still lives in Albania and she visits her during the holidays. Someone with long brown hair, copper highlights, a sort of autumn feeling. A girl’s face that has something classical, but also with a modern aura. A face in which the features are all very small; the eyes, the mouth, the nose. There are so many people who seem quite ordinary, but if you look at them closely, have really striking faces.
We have a strong preference for a cover with a Vermeer connotation. The Girl with the Pearl, for example, is in fact already a cover avant la lettre. The glance the girl casts over her shoulder at the very moment the viewer catches her eye, is the central motif of this painting. That specific glance can be linked effectively to the concept ‘Re-View’. The painting is layered in gray tones and has a dark – nearly black – background. Regarding the cover, it’s probably better if the image is brighter and lighter because dark covers don’t sell at the newsstand.
Ideally the facial expression of the girl will be less subtle and sensual than in Vermeer’s painting. Possibly a bit startled, a combination of curiosity and fear. Maybe even a bit scary. You could achieve this effect by getting the model to pose in an uncomfortable position. Having her avert her gaze from the camera as far as possible, but still just able to look into the lens. A difficult pose to keep. Possibly this will result in that slightly uneasy, startled and anxious look. The image together with the word ‘Re-View’, no longer has the meaning ‘critique’ but more a sense of reawakening in a visual world, seeing your surroundings afresh. Maybe the image expresses ‘Don’t buy me!’, ‘Go away!’ A message that alienates people but also intrigues when displayed among all the other magazines at the newsstand.
We advise you not to take too long with the shoot. Have it take place, preferably, during the day. Towards the end of a Sunday morning, for example, so that the sleep wrinkles have just disappeared and the day’s weariness is not yet evident on the model’s face. Between eleven and two is probably the best time. When the model arrives you could make her feel at home by kissing her cheeks three times and offering her a cup of Earl Gray tea.
While Niels is reminiscing about his student days, Anuschka can get the rolls of film out of the fridge and put on some music. Music the model also likes. Nomi for example, that opera singer from the Eighties who has overdosed on heroin since then. The singer who sings extremely high and then very low, a bit of opera and then an Elvis cover.
When the model feels at ease, you can begin with the styling. A pearl earring or a headscarf à la Vermeer isn’t necessary. In actual fact you don’t need any styling at all.
Professional models have self-thinking hair that springs into form at the mention of the words ‘photo shoot’ and we don’t want that now, do we? Possibly, the model is a little disappointed that there are no hair and make-up artists running around on the set, but she’s sure to understand when you explain that you’d rather portray her naturally, with uncombed hair, to stress her simplicity. During the shoot Anuschka might possibly tuck the model’s hair behind her left ear, as a reference to the line of the headscarf in The Girl with the Pearl by Vermeer. It might also be wise to ask the model to wear something neutral. In case her clothing isn’t right, it’s best to keep a gray or black T-shirt in reserve.
For the lighting you could for example use a RedWing softbox measuring 90 by 120 centimeters. It would be best to place the softbox about one-and-a-half meters from the model. Set the RedWing softbox to medium to ensure the lighting isn’t too harsh. A light gray background seems to us a very suitable choice. Scenery would only distract.
Maybe it‘s a good idea to direct a small, subtle red spotlight on the model’s face? Not an obvious effect in first instance, but once you’ve discovered it, an essential part of the photo – like a stain. Niels could make a hole with his finger in a polystyrene partition.
Behind the partition you could aim the red spotlight on the model. In this way you can conjure up an improvised, painterly red spot on her face.
In the end you could flip the image horizontally. So the reader could see her as she sees herself when she looks in the mirror.
For this shoot you could use the Mamiya RZ67II instead of the Sinar technical camera. With the Mamiya RZ67II you can just keep snapping away, leaving you with 47 pictures to choose from in the end. With the Sinar you always have to change cassettes and ultimately you end up with only 5 pictures. With the versatile Mamiya RZ67II it’s easier to capture that specific look we’ve described. And don’t you agree that with the technical camera something of the picture’s inner focus might be lost because the model’s eyes, due to the slowness of the technique, assume a much dreamier expression?
Good luck!
Jop, Julia, Lernert, Arnoud
(via Richard Turley)
‘Marketing. Photography – Marketing = Fail.
’How do you define ‘success’ in your own career?
‘It is complicated. Each achievement is a stepping stone to the next level of possibilities. There isn’t really a final goal to reach. So true success is never reached. We just keep working.’
By coincidence, I was in New York the day after Lehman Brothers crashed, back in 2008. Fear was in the air. Not a nice smell.
I sat in a Hungarian pastry shop near Columbia University, downing cup after cup of diner-style coffee, chatting with a friend. His name is Ivan, and he’s the only person I’ve ever met who introduced himself as a Mexican Marxist Yankee Fan. Top that.
He was my professor in graduate school, an expert in the Globalized Economy. We stayed in touch after I left school, but this was our first meeting in 4 years. Each sip of the weak, caffeinated beverage sped the pace of our speech. Spittle flew, hair was tossed, eyes ablaze.
In the end, we agreed that the Global Economic System would not collapse. The crisis, in it’s purest form, was not yet 24 full hours old. Still, we thought it through, and both believed that there was too much money in the system, too much at stake, for Chaos to Reign. Whosoever had any money left at all, be it the Chinese, the Oil Kingdoms, the Russians…little matter. Money would, in the end, protect itself.
I clung to that belief as the markets fell. It will get better. It will get better. Back home, my in-laws would make off-handed comments, like, “Well, at least we have lots of water, and we can always grow our own food on the farm.” Or other times, someone would say, “At least Tim (my brother-in-law) knows how to hunt. A big elk can last a long time.” Not. Very. Re-assuring.
By now, we all know it never came to that. The system defended itself, though, of course, many still suffer. Still, the milk trucks run, McDonalds cranks out it’s faux-burger-patties, and now we have Facebook. It’s hard to channel the depths of that early fear, but I remember it’s smell.
There are those, though, who need not fear a system crash. They eschew the system, and re-create the old ways. Living off the land, beards aflowing. We have lots of folks like that in Taos, and we call them hippies. Most of them live on the Mesa, where the water flows 600 feet beneath them. Good luck drilling through that.
But that’s all I know of such communities: local gossip and hearsay. Not much to go on. And the little I’ve seen makes me root for the system to chug along a bit longer. I don’t think I’d like the taste of bony rabbit, but you never know.
That said, I was fascinated to get a glimpse inside the lifestyle, courtesy of Lucas Foglia’s new book “A Natural Order,” published by Nazraeli Press. It’s a straight-forward, very well produced volume that settles down into a group of off-the-grid communities in the Southeast of the United States. Fascinating stuff.
The first test that I give a book, when I pluck it from my stack, is, do I want to see more? Is there a need to turn the page? Do the pictures build to something, or can I get a good sense of the thing from the first 10 pages? You’d be surprised how many books, by great artists, are not designed to hold attention. Simply to show off the plates. (Just this morning, I set down a book by Daido Moriyama for that very reason. A big name artist does not guarantee a great book.)
When I picked this one up, though, I was captured, and transported. Ironically, I’d seen some of these images before on the Internet, and was unimpressed. But a book is a thing, with a built-in structure. Not a few illuminated pixels on a screen. And in book form, this work shines.
I’d guess that the artist was using a large-format camera, given the sharpness and clarity of the photographs. But the angles and setting, deep in the woods, would have made that a difficult proposition. Either way, kudos to the image quality.
The photo on the cover shows a young red-headed lad, in the woods, holding up a big cast iron skillet filled with mystery meat. The title, given later, confirms that it’s possum. Yummy, yummy possum. (I think I’ll keep my refrigerator, thanks.)
After the title page, the artist delivers a short statement about his upbringing. Apparently, his family lived off the land, not far from NYC. But they didn’t take it as far as the subjects of the book. So Mr. Foglia, curious to see his how far the lifestyle could be pushed, set out to discover the answers for himself. That is how it’s done.
The pictures are well-composed, and slowly build together the details that matter. Animal skins covering windows, teepees popped up alongside pretty lakes. Guns, and bows and arrows, and chainsaws and women with underarm hair. Water serves to bathe, but also as a mirror for a man checking out his new haircut. An oxplow is pulled by a Toyota pickup truck, a boy drinks raw goat milk from the teat, and a poisoned dead bear rots on the ground. (We also see a token boob shot. Remember, Boobs Sell Books.℠ To be fair, it’s balanced with two penis shots, one belonging to the perfect cross between Chris Robinson and Jesus.)
It’s a seamless vision, clad in cloth, of some people who don’t conform to the standards of the majority. Will you be curious to see this book? I don’t know. Will you?
Bottom Line: Happy Hippies, one possum at a time
To purchase “A Natural Order” visit Photo-Eye
Full Disclosure: 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 evolution right now is interesting. It’s almost limitless what you can do with technology changing as it is. You can create and distribute anything and have your images seen in so many different environments and so many different ways. But conversely, having the infinite possibilities detracts from the tradition and the craft sometimes. I like to think that there’s room in this world for user-generated content and iPhone snapshots to beautiful platinum prints.
via Suzee Barrabee of Goodby Silverstein & Partners « Heather Elder Represents Blog.