©Albert Waston

Omahyra, New York, 2004

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Albert Watson in his New York City studio reflects on his 40-year career.

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A Life On Film

By Mike Foldes
with photographs by Chuck Haupt

Albert Watson’s iconic photographs have touched  the lives of millions of men and women over the past forty years. With more than 250 Vogue covers, 40 covers for Rolling Stone, movie posters, movie star portraits, and more, it’s unlikely anyone who’s ever browsed a magazine rack in a bookstore, bus station or airport hasn’t at one time or another seen an Albert Watson cover.

The following interview was conducted in mid-July at Watson’s  ground floor loft-office-studio in Tribeca. We’re let into the building lobby by security and met at the studio door by a young lady who disappears into the back room to announce our arrival – and, I gather, to see if we are even expected. We stand at the door for a moment and then move inside to a foyer with a big-as-life photograph of a NASA space suit on the wall.

Albert Watson comes into the room looking as he does in many of his published interviews and photos, dressed in a black shirt buttoned to the neck, black pants, black beret more or less tilted backwards as if the wind were forever blowing in his face, and a pretty cool pair of sneakers.We introduce ourselves to one another, exchange some pleasantries, then face off across a stainless steel table from deep seats on black leather sofas for what is expected to be about a 45-minute Q&A leaving little time for warm-up.

The interview has been arranged by Watson’s son, Aaron, who manages the photographer’s demanding schedule of museum exhibitions, interviews, commissions and gallery shows that have taken him most recently to Scotland (his native land) and Spain. Aaron is a former Associated Press sports editor, and spent many years traveling from one main event to another, including the Athens Olympics, the World Cup in Japan, the British Open, and more. He is not at the studio when we arrive, but comes in later looking very comfortable in jeans and T-Shirt, and carrying a motorcycle helmet.

Photography historian Gail Buckland, who wrote the introduction for UFO, one of Watson’s forthcoming books, was present for the interview.

The following is an edited version of that session.

Chuck Haupt/Ragazine

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Regarding Strip Search:

 AW: The pictures go way back. The Vegas book was shot the year 2000, 2004 about 16 weeks of shooting off and on for two years, a six-month break and then another year. But basically those weeks were dropped in, in like one and two week periods over that period of time. Several things held up the production of that book, just projects I was doing, museum shows, gallery shows I was doing, then it really came down to the wire because we were able with the publisher to really package two books together, UFO and Strip Search. So basically it meant that, basically I sat before a computer for four-and-a-half to six months pulling material for UFO.

The Vegas material was all together because that was one project. But pulling stuff, material for UFO that went back a long period of time, required a massive amount of research. Sometimes we’d be spending four or five days just looking for specific genre, or a specific thing. Basically, from ‘84 … ’83, the archives are very, very, ridiculously well organized… and previous to that, previous to that, things between ‘78 and ’84, things were quite well organized, and before ‘78  things were in boxes. And that’s pretty much how it went…. so it enabled some of the old stuff to come through …

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• STRIP SEARCH:
  Hardcover, two volumes • 14″ x 11″ (portrait)  11″ x 14″  (landscape)
  180 pages each  • 400 images approx.
  Hardcover with rubber silk-screened case.
  Boxed Edition: Two books presented in a clamshell cloth box with foil debossing
  Publication date: Fall 2010
  Introduction an essay by Tom Wolfe
  Published by PQ Blackwell, www.pqblackwell.com

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A project with a plan?

 AW: Vegas was always very specific. And I had done a book on Morocco (Maroc), and I had shot in a classic style, classic photographic style, because of the nature of the country. I mean you can shoot anything. Just because a country has an ancient tradition doesn’t mean you have to shoot it in an ancient way.  You can shoot it in different ways, and like it’s an old country you can shoot it in an old style.  I was comfortable with that and after shooting Morocco I wanted something completely, absolutely different, and I found that in Vegas. I was fairly familiar with Vegas, and therefore it was easy for me to start that project. … I’ve been going to Vegas for years and years. A lot of times, sometimes for photographing people for jobs, for advertising jobs, and I’ve directed quite a lot of TV commercials based out of Vegas. You’d use the desert around Vegas, but Vegas would be the base for shooting.

About the Web, and a video of Henry Rollins shot in the old Folger’s building in New Jersey:

AW: We don’t place any of that stuff. Aaron does things on the website. So he controls the web site. But beyond the website, all the interviews just get posted. Sometimes Rolling Stone will posts things, because they do music videos that get posted.

What about Hat Blocks?

AW: For quite a few years I collected hat blocks. When I say for quite a few years it sounds like I have a lot of hat blocks. I don’t. I maybe have about 24 of them but I collected the 24 of them over a period of about 10 years. So they’re interesting objects and very sculptural. And interestingly enough you can collect them in England, you can collect them in France, Germany and America. Obviously around the turn of the century hats were gigantic business and therefore hat manufacturing was a big thing all over and I just found hat blocks interesting.

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What’s left to shoot, and are you casual about finding ‘it’?

AW: I’m never casual. I’m always pretty determined about finding things, you know. Basically I’m always looking for things. Any good photographer should always be looking for something, you know.

If you’re casual you’re not going to be successful in what you find. If anything’s too relaxed and laid back, and so on. I’m not saying casually… If you sit in your library going through 150 photo books, or books on painters, or reading, you’re right, that can be construed as casual, but you’ll be looking for something. For inspiration. Very often it might be that you would find something in a book, you might look at something in a still life that might inspire you to do something in portraiture. You don’t necessarily find a portrait and suddenly say I’m going to go ahead and do a portrait because that inspires me to do a portrait of somebody.  I’m fairly lucky. When you’re passionate about something it’s the passion that’s the driving force to find things. Looking and working. Of course you go to museums and galleries, and New York is fabulous for that.

I think I can go to an entire museum show and not get any inspiration but I can immensely enjoy the show. Other times you go and see something quite casual, an exhibition of furniture which is not related to painting – I mean it’s a three-dimensional object, and for some reason that can be inspiring, and can help you see something.

How quickly up the ladder?

 R: When you first got into taking pictures of personalities in California, how did that evolve so rapidly? Was it the Hitchcock portrait? Or was it a variety of circumstances?

AW: No, I’m not that lucky. You don’t just happen… It’s pretty unusual in the magazine business for somebody who’s producing, say, Harper’s Bazaar magazine, which Hitchcock was for… it’s not so casual that someone says, “My nephew has a camera. Would you like him to photograph Alfred Hitchcock?”

R: From other interviews it sounds like someone gave you a camera one day, and the next day you’re taking pictures of Alfred  Hitchcock.

(Laughter)

AW: Well someone abbreviated things. I was at university for seven years having a visual education pumped into my brain. So it wasn’t seven years of photography, but it was four years of graphic design and three years of film school. During that period of time, of course, I had a camera as a graphic designer, and photography was viewed as a craft subject towards graphic design. So you’re not really a photographer, but you’re using it. If you want to do a poster and you say, “Well, I need a picture of a flower for the poster,”  they would encourage you to take a picture of the flower and then you lay the typography on your own picture.

And that was my first real contact, as it were, with photography. So I had a lot of training. And then when I went to California I began shooting fairly rapidly for, doing cosmetic advertising for Max Factor — and that was kind of fortuitous. But between 1970 and 1973, I really developed a commercial business. I was working as a professional photographer. You know, a very raw one. But I was working and making — not so much raw as when I was doing cosmetics advertising. But somebody in the advertising agency that handles Max Factor says to me, “I loved those pictures you did of that girl in the ocean. Have you ever thought about photographing cars?” And I said “No.”  “Well, would you be interested? I’ve got a car that needs photographing, and we were talking about doing it at the beach, a truck at the beach…”And I did it, and it was very successful, and then I started doing a lot of cars.

But by that time I was more and more becoming aware of light and using studio lighting. I was getting jobs but I was also learning at the same time and I was always doing a lot of testing on my own. So I might have a job on Tuesday and Wednesday, but Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday I wasn’t shooting, so I would always be shooting.

I would invent something, I would call up a modeling agency and say send me over a girl. I’d call up a designer for clothes and say send me over some clothes. Get hair and makeup people to work with, and so on. And bit by bit, in California, we built up a reputation as being a very productive studio. And from that, somebody from New York called, in ’73, and said, “We need a photographer out there to photograph Alfred Hitchcock. Are you available to do that?” You know… and I said “Yes,” and that was the first celebrity I photographed.

CONTINUED: Albert Watson / Part II

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The opening for Albert Watson’s solo show
at the Hasted Hunt Kraeutler Gallery
in NYC is scheduled for Oct. 21,
with a book party/signing scheduled for Oct. 23.
(http://www.hastedhuntkraeutler.com)

ALL ALBERT WATSON PHOTOS ARE COPYRIGHT
ALBERT WATSON & USED WITH PERMISSION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER.

Chuck Haupt Photos © Chuck Haupt & ragazine.cc, 2010

CONTINUED from Albert Watson / Part I

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On working with stylists:

R: When you’re shooting with a sylist, do you give a lot of direction, or do you let the stylist do their work, and then you kind of step in? Or say, I’ll work with what I’ve got?”

AW: Well I can actually help you with that, because I’ve done a gigantic, humongous amount of that kind of work, and believe it or not, even photographers working in the business don’t quite concentrate and realize this. A really good fashion editor at a magazine, a really good fashion editor, is a perfect combination of two human beings. They are stylists… but they are also art directors. The funny thing is that I was working for years and years and years for Vogue magazine and Conde Nast … and a lot of times people outside would say, “Oh, the art director of a magazine is, uh – might be Roger Schoening…” He was the art director of Vogue magazine. So we imagine Roger Schoening would be at the shooting, art directing them.

But, of course, art directors from magazines never go to the shootings, almost never. I’m not saying that they might not go once or twice a year, but they, art directors from magazines, almost never go to shootings. So who handles the shooting, based on what the magazine might want? That’s the editor, the fashion editor. And the fashion editor is part art director, and part stylist. So not only do they get an idea how the clothing might come together, they might be doing ten pages on cashmere, or something, but how are we going to shoot this? Who is the model? What’s the hairdresser going to do? What’s the makeup artist going to do? How does that come together? So therefore, a stylist is working with you to book a hairdresser and a makeup artist. What photographer they’re going to use. How it’s going to be shot.

If it’s a cashmere story, are we going to shoot in Scotland? Or are we going to shoot in an apartment in New York? Therefore, that’s something an editor works out.

Now a stylist is slightly different. A stylist is predominately putting together the clothes. So they may well get the belt, the shirt, the sneakers, the socks and the stylist might say, “I think this works pretty well together, let’s shoot this,”  and you go ahead and shoot it. And a really good stylist would be watching whether or not, if you’re shooting a shirt, whether or not the buttons are showing, or whether or not they are they like that… (holds up a cuff to hide a button)?  A good stylist will say, “Is there any chance we could just see that metal button?” You know, especially if you’re advertising a shirt.

Automatically, ultimately the buck stops with the photographer, and any good fashion photographer, if it is fashion, should have an awareness of that. Running back very quickly to photographing cars, you know very often that with cars you put 40 sandbags in the trunk of a car to weigh the back of the car down so it looks more streamlined, as opposed to a car that doesn’t have anything in it. So consequently, you would know to turn the sleeve on the shirt to show the metal button. So the photographer has a responsibility to that, and a good stylist. You’re working with those people, so always: it’s hair, makeup, stylist, editor. These things are a partnership. If you’re shooting, for example, a TV commercial, or directing a TV commercial, it’s very much a partnership.

Where it’s a group effort, so a lot of that happens. In a TV commercial you need a director.  As a photographer, there needs to be somebody in charge. You need good people around. The photographer doesn’t usually do makeup for the models, so you get a good makeup artist. These things are fairly obvious, but they’re very often overlooked.

R: Do you say to yourself, “I’ve worked with that person before. I know they know their job, they’ll do it, and go from there?”

AW: Even if it’s a makeup artist I’ve worked with a lot – it can be very often if  you work with a makeup artist and something comes out and you go….”I don’t like it.”  I’ve worked with this person 100 times. One hundred times he’s done a beautiful job, and suddenly it’s not working

In the end the buck stops here. You’ve got to control all these things. And the funny thing is, sometimes with fashion photographers, not all the time, but fashion photographers in my opinion are sometimes a little bit guilty of not being really strongly thinking about the makeup, and the clothes, and so on. Whereas sometimes a NASCAR photographer, he can tell by the sound of the engine what the car is.

You should know the difference between a low level silk, a high level silk, or regular cotton or brushed cotton. You should know these things. You should obviously know the difference between lambs’ wool and cashmere, or a four level cashmere. You should know these things.

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What about the print?

R: You’ve mentioned that you think the real end product of photography is in the print, and that makes a lot of sense. And you work with an HP (Hewlett Packard) 3100 …?  What makes that suitable for your work?

AW: First of all the machine has to perform well. What does that mean? It means if you are looking at a screen and you’re looking at something that has 31 percent magenta on the screen, you want 30 or 31 or 32 percent magenta on the piece of paper. So the translation from the screen image to the piece of paper should be very, very good. So if you’re looking on the screen at an apple green green and it comes out acid green green, you’ve got a disconnect.

HP is working very, very well, so that the translation from the screen to the paper works very, very, very well. Contrast-wise and color-wise. So the translation is excellent. The other thing that’s very good about these printers, which in my opinion is really remarkable, is that you put through 500 prints or 1000 prints, and they’re consistent. And very low maintenance. Remarkably, incredibly low maintenance. At the moment, we’re servicing our machines about once a year. And we’re not talking about a little old print coming out on 8×10. We’re talking about one of these (waves his hand around toward a number of very large prints on the studio walls).

Not the one at the door, that’s a C print. And not the monkeys. That’s a C print. But all the rest of them are HP.

R: Do you do the C prints in your darkroom?

AW: No. C prints that big I send them out and I have them done outside, but they’re all done from our files and from our master prints. So that, as far as I’m concerned, when we send them out they’re already done.

R: So, for example, you take a Batman picture, or a chrome, how much do you play with that?

AW: It could be gigantic. Look, the basic thing, you’ve got to, you can never rescue totally, if the picture’s not there — the essence and the soul and the power of the picture is not there when you take it, the computer is not going to rescue it.

R: I’m not talking about rescue…

AW: It depends on the image. You can move it gigantically in one direction, and you can actually pull it back in another. Look at the girl by the Frigidaire. I put a small strobe inside the refrigerator, OK? I filtered the strobe quite strongly with an orange red, OK?

I then lit the rest of the room by bouncing off the ceiling a neon green gel. If you look at the contact sheet, that’s what the contact sheet looks like. Now, if you actually look at the green, you go well, there’s a 10 per cent, an 8 per cent more gamma in it than the original That’s because in the original we might bring the original to a certain level and be comfortable with that level in the knowledge that possibly later, on the computer, we can go just a little bit further on  the gamma. But we don’t want to overload the negative, so consequently, we know that going in we can push it a little bit more, with something like that.

So, depending on the image, it’s a hard question to answer because, depending on the image, we are at that point not… We don’t know. Sometimes things are just straightforward things. But the soul and the essence and the power of the picture has to be in the taking.

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What about printers, and does everyone need an HP 3100?

AW: Well, you know the other thing is this, and I understand that many of your readers may be photographers, may be looking at something like that, it’s the 3100 that has the maximum width of a 44” print, which to your average photographer is gigantic. Forty-four inches, you know, and they scale down there. The interesting thing to me is that I consider those machines dirt cheap…. I think those machines are cheap…

R: Really. How much are they?

AW: I think you can get the machines now for 7,500 to eight grand. That’s cheap.  That’s cheap. Now. Eight grand is not cheap if you’re a photographer taking pictures of your kids, or your wife, or your aunt at a birthday party, or a kid blowing out a candle. You’re not going to spend eight grand on a machine like that, but if you’re a working professional photographer, eight grand he should be able to handle even if he pays it off for a year. That is dirt cheap for a machine like that.

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UFO (Unified Fashion Objectives): “A 40-year retrospective of Watson’s best work, pulled from his vast archive. In its pages, a memorable era of style, beauty, fashion, personality, and power is captured for posterity.”  Foreword by Gail Buckland.

Hardcover, 14″ X 11″ (portrait), 400 pages, 350 images approx. Saifu cloth case with printed band Boxed Edition: Hardcover presented in clamshell cloth box with foil debossing.

Published by PQ Blackwell, www.pqblackwell.com

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What the future holds?

R: Do you have another book planned?

AW: Well, that’s not a good question, but of course I do. But it’s not a particularly good question because we’ve just spent six months getting these two books out of here … And basically, the last one, the Vegas book, left on Friday of  last week. So I’m just happy… all I see now is the dust of those two books getting out of here.

There are a couple of projects floating around, some … There’s a project that a whiskey company sponsor wants me to do. A book on landscapes in Scotland. And there’s another project I’m quite interested in… But, I’m quite happy to not be doing another book for the rest of the year.

The daily grind …

AW: You know, I had a lot of that… I had tons and tons and tons and tons of that in my life, too…. Shoot a catalog and get it out … 20 outfits a day, and guess what we do the next day? 20 outfits. And guess what we do the next day? 20 outfits. ….

… and how long can you take pictures?

AW: Somebody asked me about that, and I said, it’s a weird thing about photographers. Photographers just seem to go on forever. I remember three years ago bumping into Irving Penn’s assistant, “How’s Mr. Penn?” I asked, and he said … he was shaking his head and he said to me, he said, “He just likes, really, to do three days a week now.” Of course, he was 90.  “He only likes to do three days a week now,” not the full five. At 90. We should be so lucky.

(Watson turns to Gail Buckland.)

Gail, how old was he? Ninety-two when he died?

GB: He was born in 1917

AW: Yeah, that’s right. And Avedon was born in 1923. So he was six years… so he lived actually longer than Avedon did. And he died a year and a half ago now, or was it a year ago?

GB: Maybe a little bit more. He was ninety three.

AW: Yeah, I think he was pretty close to 93.

GB: He was (still) having exhibitions.

R: And going to them, too?

GB: No, he stopped that.

AW: He never liked anybody taking his picture. I remember that. He had a big show at the Museum of Modern Art. There was a big dinner afterwards that we were invited to. We sat at the table adjacent to him, and it was a funny moment, when the Museum of Modern Art photographer came up to him during the whole thing, and went to take his picture, and he had a napkin in his hand and just as the photographer got there to take his picture the napkin went up in front of his face, and the photographer just got the napkin….. (laughter).

R: Did you ever show at the Witkin?

AW: No. …  We’ve been very low key in New York and what we’ve been doing for the past four years is working galleries and museums in Europe.

R: Is that because you don’t want ….

AW: No, it’s not because we don’t want to. I think it was just … I don’t really have a great or weird answer, or something strange about it. I think that we really wanted to, really practice in Europe, almost. I mean, I could have done a small show in New York, or a bigger show in New York, but we’ve been actually quite low key.

R: So you wanted to get it right?

AW: Well, I think it’s not a matter of  getting just the show right. It’s a matter of  getting the entire system right, of galleries, museums…. What’s the difference between a gallery show and a museum, except that people say we just do less in a gallery than in a museum,  because they have a lot more space.  But there’s more to it than that. Then, also, when you sell prints, how do you sell prints?  And how are you organizing that? And how mucked up is that, and that kind of thing? And really, in the past five, six, seven years, Aaron has done a fantastic job of it.

CH: I find now that I’m retired from the newspaper I take photos of things I’d never have looked at before….

AW: But that happens because you now have allocated some time to that. In other words, you’ve allocated time to suddenly, …  rather than Monday you’ve got to do this, and Tuesday you’ve got to do that, and Thursday do that. And maybe you’ve got to go into the office to do some printing on deadline, or organize something on a Saturday and maybe for 10 minutes on Sunday you do something you’ve got to do. And Monday you’re back into the whole system.

Now you’ve got a little bit of time, and you suddenly say you know there’s some nice looking rocks in my garden that have always interested me and I think I’ll photograph rocks. And then when you go and photograph the rocks, you say I’m not a rock photographer, and the next thing is you photograph the rocks and you make a print of it and then one of the twenty shots you take works, and then you say “That worked really well, I should apply that to the other ones, that technique,” and you go down a different road.

But a lot of what you learn by doing your daily grind… I would say the biggest thing for a photojournalist is to move up in his camera size, because you have time, you know. Obviously the nature of photojournalism is that you need mobility, you have seconds to grab pictures, moments, sometimes a little bit longer, but not long, you know.

You can buy an old 4×5 camera for nothing, with some nice lenses, some beautiful Zeiss lenses, and you can buy that, and suddenly …  And it will be uncomfortable for you, and awkward for you, and annoying for you, and so on. But maybe if you have a darkroom, or if you can load that stuff onto your computer, you might be pleasantly surprised. And, as always, when with something new, even when you get a new car, things are not quite what you remember of your last car. It’s annoying, but then eventually, of course, you figure it out. The more you do it, the more fluent you become with it.

R: Thank you very much.

AW: Thank you for coming all this way.

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To view Watson’s portfolios visit:

www.albertwatson.com

Video interviews and gathering behind the scenes content from the shoot, The Macallan Whisky, one of his latest projects.

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ALL ALBERT WATSON PHOTOS ARE COPYRIGHT  of ALBERT WATSON & USED WITH PERMISSION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER.

© 2010 James Friedman

U435

Interior Design

Curiosity led me to cut my collection of golf balls in half to see what the cores looked like. To my surprise, what I found inside inspired me to consider that I could discover, in the unlikeliest of places, elegant formal qualities, unpredictable color schemes and metaphor. Interior Design has moved me to be enthusiastic about abstraction, an exciting corollary to my work as a documentary photographer.

Incidentally, I do not play golf.

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Friedman on Friedman

As a five-year old using a Kodak Brownie camera, I took a self-portrait, became fascinated with photography and have been photographing ever since. Self-taught in photography until college, I was a participant in The Ohio State University Honors Program and earned a B.F.A. degree with Distinction in Photography. Subsequently, I was chosen to participate in Toward A Whole Photography, an experimental graduate program directed by Minor White at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Later, while earning an M.A. degree in photography from San Francisco State University, I worked as an assistant to Imogen Cunningham, one of the preeminent figures in the history of photography. As a teacher, curator, picture editor, and as a portrait, architectural, commercial and personal documentary photographer, I’ve enjoyed a wide-ranging career in photography. My work has been exhibited internationally and been published in numerous books and discussed in Artforum, Arts, Afterimage, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Selected from 800 international applicants, I was awarded the Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s Fellowship and have been the recipient of seven Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council. I was nominated for the 2008, 2009 and 2010 Governor’s Awards for the Arts in Ohio. In 2008, as an independent photographic educator without institutional affiliation, I was nominated for the prestigious Excellence in Photographic Teaching Award, which recognizes outstanding international teachers of photography. I am based in Columbus, Ohio, and offer classes, workshops and individual instruction in photography anywhere. My commissioned projects include architectural, fashion, curatorial and documentary assignments, photography for publication, and large-scale murals for interior or exterior commercial and residential spaces. My photographic portraits include Andy Warhol and Tina Turner, as well as lesser-known but equally vibrant subjects.

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Links

http://www.fractionmag.com/pastIssues/issue7.htm
http://2waylens.blogspot.com/2009/06/james-friedman.html
http://mwernertruth.blogspot.com/2009/06/two-way-lens-and-james-friedman.html
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2009/06/random-excellence-james-friedman.html

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Copyright 2010 James Friedman

Another tree bites the dust ...

The Art of Being Lucky

We photographers in general are convinced that the key to great photography is found in the equipment and in the talent of the photographer.  There is great truth in this, especially when the subject is standing still.  Once the subject starts moving, the burden shifts a bit, and given sufficient equipment and sufficient talent, the deciding factor then shifts to the individual’s ability to anticipate “the” moment or moments.
Baseball, because of the pace and nature of the game, probably provides more opportunities than any other sport for the photographer to predict the next moment, but for all the planning one does, there is never any guarantee that the action will be what was hoped for or expected.  The action of baseball is unpredictable, and therefore, photographing it well not only requires the combination of skill, equipment, anticipation, but also possibly the most important element, luck.
Branch Rickey is best known as the man who signed Jackie Robinson to a professional baseball contract, and in so doing, changed baseball and America forever.  He was not known as a photographer, but may have given us a piece of advice well worth heeding:  “Luck is the residue of design.”

Big fan in Syracuse.

So – heeding Branch Rickey’s words, the best I can do is make a plan and then hope I get lucky with the results.

I’ve spent most of my nearly 64 years on baseball fields as player, coach and umpire.  Now, most of my baseball work is done from the stands or photo pit with a camera.  My experience allows me the ability to anticipate plays, to think ahead a bit to predict the flow of a play, to know where the action is likely to take place.
Shooting baseball is a lot like playing shortstop.  You need to think a play ahead.  The player must consider what he will do with the ball if it is hit to him, while the photographer needs to consider where he will aim his camera.
The questions each must consider are the same – What is the situation?  The score, inning count, outs are all factors.  What will the pitcher throw?  Will the runner steal?  Will the batter bunt?  What to do on a ground ball – go for two, take the out, throw to the plate?  Where will the outfielder throw on a base hit?  On a fly ball?  Will the runner try to score from second?  These are all part of the anticipation.

My questions also have to include the contingencies.  If I am positive the runner will steal, I might manually focus on second base and hope something good doesn’t happen  elsewhere.  From the photo pit on the third base side, I can manually focus on home plate and second base because they are nearly equidistant from me.  This overcomes the auto focus problem that is caused when the shortstop cuts in front to the camera long enough to disrupt the focus from the runner to him.

Flying catch ...

Location, location, location

The photographers pits – at the far end of each dugout, are generally thought of as the best place to shoot from.  Not necessarily.  It is a great spot for shooting the pitcher, the action at home plate  and plays at first base if I’m on that side.  A down side is that since it is at ground level a lot of people on the field can get in the way.  I also shoot from behind the plate, but only for batter-pitcher-catcher-umpire shots.  It gets crowded around home plate, but some interesting shots happen.
For many action shots, I prefer to shoot from the aisle, about 12 rows back from the field, in the front row of the second deck, or from other spots high in the ball park depending on what type of shots I want.
I use a 70-200 f2.8 lens for most of my shots, and can add a 2x extender to shoot from upstairs.  There are a couple of spots where I use an 85mm f1.8 lens to shoot batters, especially when the light gets a little iffy.  Sometimes I will use a 50mm f1.8 to get action shots at first base from the pit or the front row of the seats.  I mix in other lenses depending on the shot or effect I want. It helps to have more than one camera body to make the switching easier, but it’s pretty much impossible to do it in the three-plus seconds that it takes for the batter to hit the ball and run to first.
Like many sports photographers (most?) I am guilty of wanting to get every possible exciting shot.  There is something distressing about  preparing for a steal of second and have the better hit a home run.
So – I generally have to be content with what I have in front of me, and not moan too much over the shots I miss.  An important factor here – rather than just cursing my fate for missing the batter hitting a home run, I aim for the outfielder and hope to catch him doing something interesting. Sometimes, a shot of the outfielder watching the ball leave the field is the best that can happen in that situation, but can still create an interesting photo

It’s hard not to be a fan

"OK, you guys, let me explain the rules."

I have trained myself to not watch the game through the viewfinder, which is difficult.  I try to watch the pitcher with one eye to get the timing of the play, then shift back to the viewfinder for the shots.  This helps me to get in sync with the batter or stealing runner.  As in batting, follow through is important. Even though the ability to fire seven or eight shots per second does a lot, the goal is still to get “the” shot every time, and many times the best shot is one that happens just after the main action.   I have to fight the tendency to stop when the action does.
I will probably never lose the image (it’s in my mind still, but not on my camera)  of a pitcher on his knees, laughing at himself for fouling up a play.  I have the play itself  recorded, but that was not the winner of a shot – the pitcher laughing at himself would have been.
The lesson here – keep shooting and throw away what isn’t useful during post production – not from the camera.  Bring enough CF cards so you don’t have to erase from the camera – you really can’t see the shot till it’s on your computer.
An important post production tip is to actually look at the photos.  I have often been surprised that in what I thought was a throw away shot there was actually something that turned it into a pretty interesting photo.

Quantity and quality

When I shoot professional baseball (mostly the AAA Syracuse Chiefs or the class A Auburn Doubledays) I usually shoot some 400-500 shots of the on field action if I shoot the whole game. Most are of the batter, since that is where most of the interesting things happen.  I get a lot of the pitchers, but pitcher shots tend to be very repetitive, so there is a great deal of choice in getting the “right” photo.  The shots tend to deal with grip, arm flexion and an occasional defensive gem on a ball hit back at him.  I try to spend part of the game concentrating on defense – the hardest thing for me to do because of the difficulty in anticipating where the ball will be hit.
I also throw in umpire photos and away from the action photos of players, coaches vendors and fans.  If I am assigned to shoot for a story about a specific player, most of my shots will be of him, both on offense and defense.
In AAA baseball, there is always the chance of catching a player in a rehab assignment.  John Smoltz made a start against Syracuse last year, so I spent two innings taking shots of him.  Steve Strasburg, Washington National’s star of the future is putting in a short tour in Syracuse on his way to the majors.  These become news shots, but most shots are background to a story or part of a collection.  There is a big difference between what is a news photo and what is simply a good photo – and most of us are really after the latter.
The inflatable man seeming to cheer the home run, the slightly blurry baseball in front of the even more blurred eye surgery billboard, the bat shattering, the batter in an uncommon position, the ball seemingly attached to the bat on its backswing – all make for good photographs and make a day at the ballpark, camera in hand, time very well spent.

-Herm Card, Syracuse, NY

Stephen Strasburg pitching for the Syracuse Chiefs

Chiefs' infielder Seth Bynum before suspension for amphetamine use.

Beat you to it ...

It's behind you ...

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email: hermphoto@aol.com

Candice Watkins

Candye Kane, 2009

Building the Cultural Bridge

Candice Watkins

ragazine.cc: As an organizer of the annual Comfest Street Fair, among numerous other items listed on your resume in the About Candice Watkins graf in your blog, you’ve done about everything and anything a person can to promote the arts in and around Columbus. What motivates you to participate?

CW: There is an inner need to work toward a better world, a place where people of all kinds are equal and talent is nurtured so everyone can be the best they can be. The arts and humanities have been venues for me as they translate well to community work and bridge cultural and economic gaps allowing for public opportunity to participate in sometimes heretofore unaccessible activities.

rag: You’re a visual artist engaged in neon and other light studies, but you’re also a musician and photographer. What’s your ‘favorite medium’?  The one that puts you in the driver’s seat of expression?

Roger Wilson, The Majestics, High Beck Tavern, Columbus, Ohio, 2008

CW: I enjoy being flexible, working in light is like working in photography so if I had to choose it would be both neon and photography. Both are the result of manipulation of light. Thought I also really enjoy event production, in that it allows me to share a vision with thousands of people at a time.

rag: You take a lot of photographs of musicians …

CW: I am a music historian or what is sometimes called an ethnomusicologist, as well as a collector of historical photos and documentation for mid-western artists. I continue to document performances myself and have a collection ranging from the 1960s through 2010.

rag: Is this a special subject for you, or one of many?

CW: I also shoot a lot of beaches and flowers – favorites for me. Check out my myspace.com/jazzneonfestivals4u and facebook albums.

rag: If you could sit down for a couple of mojitos with any musician at all, who would it be, and why?

CW: I  would like to drink with Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Art Tatum – both favorites of mine that I did not get to meet. Of course, I did get to hang with many folks who are gone but whom I loved, like Royal “Rusty” Bryant, Hank Marr, Jimmie McGriff and Frank Foster, and still do hang with Gene Walker, Sean Carney, Bobby Floyd, Derek Dicenzo and Shaunt Booker, among many, many more I am blessed to know.

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A recording done at Jazz & Eggs Jam Sessions, The River Club, Columbus, Ohio, in 1998, titled “Jam For Jitney” in honor of Candice Watkins’ father, Jitney, who had just passed away. The piece was a small part of the Jam’s ongoing music that day. Based in Horace Silver’s “Song for Our Fathers”, it sailed on for more than half an hour.

“Jam For Jitney”

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ABOVE: Derek DiCenzo, top, at the Rahsaan Roland Kirk Scholarship Fundraiser in 2008, in Columbus. Sean Carney, bottom left, of the Sean Carney Band, winner of the International Blues Alliance award in 2008. Taken at Blues for a Cure. Danielle Schnebelen, lower right, of Trampled Under Foot, at the 2009 Blues for a Cure concert in Columbus.

Willie Pooch Johnson 2008

Marcie Vaughn 2010

Harold Smith, The Lobby, Columbus, Ohio 2009

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Comfest Street Fair:
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, June 25, 26, & 27, 2010

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Watkins, with her ”time travel buddies”, is the author of a book from Arcadia Press titled “Columbus: The Musical Crossroads”.  The premise is that travel in the early to mid-20th Century was overland; the national road and major train lines went thru Columbus, and the music did too. “It was a major player,  just like those cities that have capitalized on it more.” The book is available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target and other booksellers.

Candice Watkins can be reach at comfeststfair2@cs.com.

New Port Richey, Florida

“A Camera Is No Substitute For Vision”

I had a strong interest in photography from an early age, and while I studied English literature at Ohio State University (B.A., M.A.), I was continually drawn to the work of favorite photographers (at that time Diane Arbus and Gary Winogrand). I took an undergraduate photo class and learned to process black and white film and make prints. After teaching Freshman English for ten years, I returned to school and majored in Advertising Illustration at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. From there I assisted many photographers in Los Angeles for two years before starting my own commercial studio in 1989.

Shadows

I always look for strongly graphic elements in the subjects I want to photograph. I look for strong primary colors, background negative space, and a subject with some sort of story. It doesn’t have to be a narrative story, but it has to convey an atmosphere or feeling. Sometimes just a beautiful graphic is enough. I prefer to shoot from a tripod simply because the tripod offers more control. You can slow shutter speeds down, and there is less chance of the subject being soft even at faster shutter speeds. I like the fact that a tripod slows you down and makes you think harder about what you’re trying to accomplish. Of course, using a tripod is not always possible, and many of the shots here are handheld shots, but if at all possible I use the tripod.

Because I pay a lot of attention to shutter speed and aperture, I usually keep the camera in its full manual mode. Unless the subject is backlit, I also try to use a handheld incident meter instead of relying on the camera’s metering system. The incident meter will tell you how much light is falling on the subject and give you a reading based on the light hitting the subject in the scene. A correctly exposed scene is often drained of all drama because the camera’s meter is trying to compensate for a dark background. The “correct” exposure is not always the best exposure. I have learned to see the subject the way I want it to look in the photograph, which is often not the way it looks in reality. The incident meter helps with this assessment. While the meters in today’s cameras are very sophisticated, they are no substitute for your vision and how you see the subject and want it to be seen in your photograph.

While I have good equipment (especially lenses), I try hard not to fall into the trap of thinking that good photography is about good equipment. Good photographs are the result of the photographer’s knowledge of light, not so much the result of how expensive his or her camera is. I once assisted a very successful photographer in Los Angeles who said “Equipment is not the answer.” That has always stuck with me. I try to think outside the box. I think hard about how the subject would look when shot with different lenses and at different apertures.

Red Gate

The shot of the red gate, for example, was shot with a 300mm lens on a tripod about twenty feet from the subject. This focal length produced the foreshortening that gave the gate a look I couldn’t get with anything else. This shot was taken right at sunset when the light is especially warm and made the red in the gate really pop. Because light and how it behaves is so infinitely complex, we will never exhaust its possibilities. I learn something new every time I shoot, and I always try to remember that there are new things to be learned. Many, many times I have gone into the studio thinking a shot would take one or two days only to still find myself shooting five days later. The shot of the martini glass was like that, with many problems to be overcome before I finally arrived at the simple, graphic shot I was seeing in my mind’s eye.

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Rob Mustard is retired from teaching, and from professional photography. He lives in El Segundo, California, with his wife, Deborah, and these days finds his time consumed by riding bikes, playing guitar and taking pictures  for fun, not profit.

All work copyright 1990-2010, Rob Mustard.
For contact information, see http://www.robmustard.com

A girl attends a ceremony in Duk Payuel in December 2009. One out of every seven children in southern Sudan dies before his or her fifth birthday, according to United Nations' "Scary Statistics -- Southern Sudan" report.

©2009 Michelle Gable

Lost Boys returned to Sudan

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In December 2009, I traveled to southern Sudan with former Syracuse Post-Standard reporter Maureen Sieh, who won a World Affairs Journalism Fellowship administered by the International Center for Journalists. We spent three weeks following four former Lost Boys, now living in Syracuse, N.Y., who returned to their home villages to build clinics, schools and wells.

Villagers greet former “lost boys” as they returned to their village in southern Sudan.

In 1987, John Dau, Gabriel Bol Deng, Daniel Amet and Angelo Kiir were among 27,000 boys sent fleeing across the East African desert when northern government soldiers ravaged their villages during the civil war in southern Sudan. Thousands died of diseases, gunfire, and attacks by wild animals. Dau, Deng, Amet, and Kiir made it to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, and eventually found a home in Syracuse in 2001. Everything they have done to build a new life in Syracuse has been devoted to the cause of helping their communities back home.

As adults, these former Lost Boys of Sudan, named after the fictional characters in “Peter Pan,” are bringing hope to their homeland. Here are some photographs from my travels.

— Michelle Gabel, Syracuse, N.Y.  April 2010

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A link to the multi-media piece that appeared at the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper website: Lost Boys Come Home.

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Michelle Gabel is an award-winning photojournalist who has worked for The Post-Standard, the daily newspaper in Syracuse, N.Y., since 1993. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, USA Today and the Detroit Free Press, among other publications.

She has documented a diverse array of human interest stories in the U.S. and abroad, including following the battle of a breast cancer patient during the year leading up to her death; the effects of environmental pollution caused by IBM in its birthplace of Endicott, N.Y.; the closing of a long-time, family-owned dry cleaning business; and the day-to-day reality of a couple raising 15 adopted children. Her recent international work includes a trip to Ghana, West Africa, to photograph a community’s efforts in furthering girls’ education, the building of a local library, and a Liberian family in a Ghanaian refugee camp preparing to resettle in Central New York. In December 2009, Gabel traveled to southern Sudan to photograph four young Sudanese men, now living in Syracuse, N.Y., who are helping to rebuild their homeland.

She has received honors from the National Press Photographers Association, the Associated Press and Gannett newspapers.

Michelle can be contacted at: mgabel@twcny.rr.com

© 2009 Michelle Gable

©Teknari

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From the photography studios of

Photographer, videographer, artist. Brent Williamson. Teknari.

The imagery speaks for itself.

From the blog:
“Up until this point with my photography, I have been mostly shooting for the sake of learning how to shoot, so I have not minded doing all these “one off” model shoots.  A model comes in, and I shoot her with a concept in mind, or I just do what inspires me at the time.  Nothing more was in mind other than learning how to shoot, and get the best pictures possible.”

Teknari:
“I first heard the term Teknari in the years after the Berlin wall came down.  In the Soviet Union after that time, not many people did very will economically, but young technically savy people did well, and the slang to refer to those people was ‘Teknari’.

“For some reason that word stuck in my head and I kind of adopted it.

“Interestingly, I can’t seem to find any documentation backing up my memory of this word and what it’s meaning was.  I am now just making it my own.  I am claiming it :-)”

Williamson works out of JungleScience Gallery and Art Laboratories in Binghamton, NY. He is currently developing new projects that will document the process of his work.

Images from his series, Edison

View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

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See also:

http://www.teknari.com/
http://teknari.blogspot.com/
E-mail Teknari@JungleScience.com

©2010 Chip Willis

Painting with Light

The art of motion in still photographs

Chip is based in Columbus, Ohio. We first saw his work in an exhibition at Jungle Science Gallery in March. It was too good not to ask if he would mind sharing. Chip doesn’t say much about his work, or the way he approaches it, allowing the images and techniques to speak for themselves. With this in mind, visit his website at http://chipwillis.com to see other work and to read his blog.

 Biograph: The Southern Tier

Andrei Guruianu, Poetry

John Brunelli, Photography

Artist-Photographer John Brunelli and poet Andrei Guruianu recently teamed up to produce a book documenting with poems and photos the present state of being of the upstate New York area around Binghamton, known collectively as The Southern Tier. In a forward to their book, “How We Are Now,” Guruianu writes of engaging ”in artistic dialogue that benefits both artists and audience,” in other words, a collaborative effort in which one and one make three.

Many of the depictions, in both word and image, characterize changes taking place not only in the aging rust belt cities of the northeast, but also in communities around the world. Here, the new has become old. but there is also the moment of silence or longing captured that in and of itself becomes monumental.

The Last Man Standing

 I am tired of living in a dying village
counting what hasn’t been lost yet
until I am withered and I fall asleep

 … tired of looking outside the window
at dust of the past and plow of the future
kicking up choking on even more dust.

 I am tired of always opening
my two swollen eyes in an empty white room
from which I am conspicuously absent.

 … tired of my inflated non-being
standing there taking up too much space
like a reflection in a hall of carnival mirrors.

 I am tired of distorting the truth
to satisfy an-already-come-to conclusion
writhing in the strangle hold of consequence

 … tired of sweeping the trail day and night
Eternity complicit in the crumbs I find
between the guilty pages of a red carnet.

Perfect Blue Houses

This could be the poster town of uncorruptable good.
The old scent of coffee chasing a distant memory.

 This could be the river screwed into a time and place,
the lights unharvested and steady covering the rust.

 This is silence housed in layers of paint and clapboard,
falling leaves that muscle in on the turf.

 This is the formula for hiding what is empty.
Nights of many matches burning down to your fingertips.

Where I Lay My Head… 

 When I say girl I am referring to an ideal. 
It crumbles like a weakness in the face of standards.
Impossibly perfect alignments— 

flesh and stars 
steel and patent leather 
hair the color of your own perspective

When I say girl I mean the roundness of blue,
the soft angle of shoulders. 
Two arcs of light folded over the edge of darkness. 

When I say girl I wish to seal a forgotten promise,
begin telling the story whose ending is yet to be written. 
Under a requisite black sky; everything veiled and out in the open.

“How We Are Now” was published by Split Oak Press, Vestal, New York, with financial assistance from the Chenango County Council on the Arts. Copies are available for $10.00 each from the press, and from Brunelli or Guruianu. See also, www.johnbrunelli.com and www.andreiguruianu.com.

© David Aschkenas

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Sleep Walking

Thoughts on my work…

This series is made up of older work along with new work.  My biggest challenge was to give a cohesive “feel” and “look” to the entire series of 28 images. The originals were a combination of black & white film, color film, Polaroid prints, Polaroid SX-70, 8×10 Polaroid image transfers, digital photographs, and chromes of different formats. No plug ins or presets were used.  Each image was treated as an individual image with layering of textures, burning, dodging, hue and saturation adjustments.

The name SLEEP WALKING was arrived at after the series was completed, because that’s the way it made me feel.

-David Aschkenas,  Pittsburgh, Pa., 2010

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David Aschkenas is recognized as a fine art photographer and is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts grant. A freelance photographer for 30 years, he is doing Annual Reports, Advertising, and Editorial photography for clients worldwide. His photographs are represented in the Polaroid Collection, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pa., Minneapolis Inst. of the Arts, Bayer Corp., University of Alaska Art Museum, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Howard Heinz Endowment, and many private collections. His work has been exhibited at The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pa., Kim Foster Gallery, NYC, Moore College of Art, Phila. Pa., Allentown Art Museum, Southern Alleghenies Art Museum, Friends of Photography, Carmel, Ca., Mendelson Gallery, Pittsburgh, Pa., Clarence Kennedy Gallery, Polaroid Corp. and many others.

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More images and many other subjects, can be viewed on Aschkenas’s web site: http://www.daschkenasphoto.com. He can be contacted by e-mail at: daschkenas@earthlink.net

Angora Goat

Dodging the limelight

Though drawing and painting have been my passion from a very early age, photography has always fascinated me, too. Taking photos allowed me to remember much more of the places I went, the people I knew. It never did evolve beyond the taking of snapshots though, mainly because I spent all my time and efforts in drawing and painting. But a couple of years ago, I gradually started to take it more seriously. I started to get addicted to going to old abandoned buildings and photographing them. I also looked at thousands of photos taken by other people and each day I raised the bar a little for myself.

Frankly, I don’t really care about stuff like the rule of thirds, or any other technical do’s and don’ts. I don’t think when I photograph, but I look. And when what I see feels right, I press the shutter. So I guess you could say I am an emotional photographer, haha. I am not easily satisfied with what I create.

Beside derelict buildings, I really like animals too. They are unpredictable and fickle, but that makes getting a good shot even more rewarding. I hope I can capture a bit of their personality. It bewilders people when you take both cute cat photos and scary dirty deserted rooms. I think most people want an artist to repeat the same thing over and over again, in a slightly different jacket, and looking around, I feel most popular artists give these people what they want. But there’s too much of interest in life to focus on just one thing. And life’s too short – so I will keep dodging the limelight.

-Ineke Kamps, Holland, 2010

Both Doomed

If you’re real quiet you can hear them

Closet ghost having a rest

Oink

Drink Me II

The girl has come undone

Kitchen Stories

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Ineke was born in 1972 in the south of Holland and studied illustration design.  She exhibited her photographs and paintings throughout her native Netherlands and in Belgium and Germany.  “I generally am just unprofitable and maladjusted without prospect of cure,” she says.  To see additional photographs and her paintings, visit: http://www.inekekamps.nl, and you can email her at: i.kamps@tiscali.nl

Welcome

Another New Beginning

The end of one year and the beginning of another … the end of one decade and the beginning of another.  Looking back, it’s kind of hard to believe we’ve learned anything about ourselves we didn’t already know, and many times tried to change. We’ve seen greed unbridled from Wall Street to Dubai, sports figures and politicians  revealed for the human beings that they are, common people with uncommon talents taking center stage, a victorious political party unable to deliver on its promises, and a world still waiting for its next real heroes to surface. Thank god for the arts. When all else fails, they still deliver.  
We’re glad you’re there for us; we’re glad to be back for you. This issue ofWe’re glad you’re there for us; we’re glad to be back for you. This issue of ragazine.cc , the on-line magazine of arts, information and entertainment, continues into its 6^th season with the usual eclectic mix of poetry, fiction, photography, art, politics, the law, and more – all of which has helped keep us afloat these last five years. If you haven’t taken the time to read through the Creative Non-Fiction pieces selected by CNF editor Leslie Heywood, take twenty minutes or a half hour and do yourself the favor.  You won’t regret it. Need a laugh? Find out why everyone should go to law school in the Casual Observer piece by Mark Levy. Wondering how to protect your intellectual property? Check out our Feeding the Starving Artist column by Mark and his associate Ryan Miosek.  Poetry editor Joe Weil has harvested the poetry of Raymond Hammond, and poetry in translation from Mario Moroni. See a world deconstructed by artist Roger Williams, and a long view of Iceland by photographer Chuck Haupt. Step into the fiction of Elizabeth Spencer and Alex Straaik; sneak a peak at Art Basel Miami, and hear Jeff Katz’s take on music, starting with the complex issue of vinyl packaging. Leave us your comments. Your feedback means a lot to us.

Thanks for reading! And don’t forget to tell your friends — we need all the help we can get. But then, who doesn’t?

Happy holidays, and a healthy and peaceful New Year!

 – MRF

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Images of a vanishing present

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Project Alexys

Ely Park Project

Ely Park Project

Ely Park Project

Ely Park Project

Ely Park Project

Ely Park Project

Brazilian native Eliane Lima is studying cinema at Binghamton University. More of her  photos from the Project Alexys and Ely Park Project,  as well as other photographic collections and short films, can be seen at http://www.elianelima.us and http://www.vimeo.com/user942850/videos.  Some of these photographs appear in the CNY Artist Database.

Iceland: Land of Contrast

‘Other-worldly” — those are the words that come to mind as you travel Iceland’’s “Ring Road” and try to describe what you’’re seeing. From glaciers to fjords, from black sand beaches to steam-spewing geysers, from desolate “moonscapes” to starkly beautiful mountains and waterfalls, no two places are quite the same. And they’’re all unforgettable.

With its ever-changing weather, Iceland is a photographer’s dream. No two days, no two hours, are ever alike. Wait two minutes and the light will change. The clouds  are among the most dramatic I’’ve ever seen. This island nation, which borders the Arctic Circle, sparks creativity at every turn and is one of the most visually exciting locations I’ve ever visited.

The mountain range, Víkurfjall, with its reflection in a pond,
dominates along the east coast.

A steampot at the geothermal area of Hveravellir. Iceland
is one of the most active volcanic regions in the world.

Barren landscape surrounds  Mount Lomagnupur along
Iceland’s Ring Road in  Suðurland, the south.

The turquoise-colored water at the Blue Lagoon, situated
in a lava field and created by geothermal water.

Clouds hang over the highland desert.

Mountains covered with moss by the coast near Iceland’s Ring Road
in Suðurland, the south.

Four-wheel-drive vehicles drive the Kjolur Route through the
highland desert.

Icebergs in the lagoon at the bottom of Vatnajökull,
the largest glacier in Iceland.

Chuck Haupt is based in upstate New York. His award-winning work during a 30-year career at the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin is recognized throughout the region for its impact and excellence. Chuck is known for his captivating images of residents of New York’s Southern Tier, images that reveal character and evoke a powerful response.

His work as a photojournalist has taken him to a wide variety of places, from hospital operating rooms to professional golf tournaments, to lower Manhattan in the hours after the 9/11 attacks, and into the homes of ordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell.

Ragazine INTERVIEW:

When did you get into photography?

I always had an eye for details and started with a Kodak Instamatic that I got free from saving box tops way back when. In 1965 I got a Polaroid “Swinger” and soon after my first 35 mm. I haven’t stopped shooting since.

How does your approach to photography differ between what you shoot as a news photog and what you shoot ‘for fun’?

When shooting a news assignment you are shooting something specific, usually to accompany a story and reach a specific publication’s audience. When shooting for fun, you are seeing things in a different light.

Have you done much with digital photography?

I have been shooting in digital since the first the first Nikon D1 came out in 1999. I have made the change back to “full frame,” now that models of the “FX” digital camera with 12.1 megapixel sensor has been released. At first you really had size limitations with the 2.7 megapixel sensor of the early digital cameras. Today, if you want to spend the money, you can shoot 35mm with up to a 24.4 megapixel sensor. Shooting RAW format gives you all the control you need in preparing your images for publications or prints, the same, I feel, as when shooting film.

What do you think the future is for young people who want to enter the profession of photography?

If you have the passion for making photographs, nothing will stop you. You’re going to have to work hard at it to get yourself established, creating a niche. Whether you shoot for publications, stock photography, events, or fine art, there will be a market for quality images. While technology has improved the ‘point & shoot’ camera the past couple of years, you still need an eye for composition and for capturing the moment.

Do you worry about what happens with your work when it reaches cyberspace, such as publishing in ragazine?

Yes, it is so easy for people to download photos off of a web page. Most don’t understand photography is copyrighted for use. That’s why it is important to copyright a body of images to protect your work when infringement occurs.

What’s your favorite photo? Why?

Legendary photographer W. Eugene Smith’s “The Walk to Paradise Garden,” a photo of his two children walking hand in hand toward a clearing in woods. It was the first image he made after he was seriously injured and hadn’t been shooting for a long time. The photograph hangs in my home to remind me of the power an image can have on you.

Would you rather photograph people, places or things?

All three — it depends on my mood. I started shooting “rocks and trees” when I first discovered photography. Being exposed to photojournalism during high school got me interested in being able to tell people’s stories visually, which I went on to do professionally for 36 years. Now that I’m retired from the newspaper profession, I’m getting back into those rocks and trees. Still, I’ll never tire of wanting to shoot that interesting face and tell the story behind it.

More images from Iceland, and many other subjects, can be viewed on Haupt’s web site: http://www.chuckhaupt.com. He can be contacted by e-mail at chaupt@chuckhaupt.com.

© 2009 Chuck Haupt

Narratives:

Framing the Dark Side

 By Larry Hamill

I have known Chas Ray Krider since the mid 1970’s, when he would roam the streets of Columbus, Ohio, with his trusty Leica M2. He shot seemingly mundane scenes that on closer examination revealed an aesthetic underpinning, which would continue throughout his life’s work. His deceptively simple compositions lent themselves to more complex narratives

In recent years, he has subtly combined his street images with fine tuned studio photography to create a more cinematographic experience. Through a very distinctive form of lighting, Chas Ray creates a sense of impending drama in his photographs. His exterior environs lead to an evocative interior action as his inner and outer worlds combine in fascinating ways.

Throughout his career, Chas Ray has received numerous grants from arts organizations, enabling him to continue pursuing his Zen-like form of narration. His work has been published throughout the world, and whether he is on the streets of Los Angeles or Madrid, his photographic journey continues.

The following images are from two series: Goodbye Kitty and Days of Noir. 

__________________________________________

Goodbye Kitty

Goodbye Kitty, 6

 

Goodbye Kitty, 17

 

 

 

 

 

Goodbye Kitty, 18

 

 

________________________________

 

Days of Noir

 

Days of Noir, 1

 

Days of Noir, 1

 

 

 

Days of Noir, 4

 

 

Days of Noir, 8

Some photographers

paint with their cameras … 

… Others just paint them

Weegee & Speed Graflex

The Colorful Camera Series

By Larry Hamill

I began collecting old cameras about ten years ago and starting painting them as decorative objects to place around my studio.  In June 2009, I photographed Jonathan Putnam, an actor with the Columbus based Contemporary American Theatre Company, posed with a silver painted Brownie camera.  I then superimposed him over a 3-D Bryce computer generated image. And thus began the Colorful Camera Series.

 I perused camera stores, flea markets and Goodwill stores for old cameras, painting each with spray paint. Since then, I have asked various members of the community to pose with the  painted cameras – exaggerating the camera in each portrait by using an ultra-wide angle lens. Each subject was then superimposed over an image from my library of manipulated images — a process I call “photilation”.

 Current plans for the Colorful Camera Series include a 2010 calendar and possibly an I-Book, with the hopes of an exhibit of prints to follow.

Far Out Camera

Red Brownie

Banana Colored Camera

Roger Williams

 

 

Arnett Howard & Blue Camera

 

 

 

Colored Pano Camera

 

  

Fluorescent Yellow Camera

Editor’s note:

GUEST CURATOR

Columbus, Ohio, photographer Larry Hamill is guest curator for photography for the  November-December 2009 update of ragazine.cc. Selections of work by his friends and colleagues Kojo Kamau and Chas Ray Krider appear in Photography posts.

 

Hamill is a frequent contributor to ragazine.cc. More of his work and contact information can be found at: www.larryhamill.com and www.larryhamillphotography.wordpress.com

 

 

Capturing the Essence:

Some say photographs

steal the soul, others that

the soul simply is revealed.

  By Larry Hamill and Pamela J. Willits

Kojo Kamau grew up on the east side of Columbus, Ohio. As a child, he bought a Kodak Box camera and became enchanted with capturing pictures of his vibrant neighborhood. After graduating from East High School, he took photography courses at the Columbus Art School before enlisting in the Air Force in 1960, where he served as a photographer. Following four years of service, he was hired as a photographer within The Ohio State University’s School of Allied Medical Professions.

Over the years, Kojo visually documented his ever changing neighborhood and the hustle and bustle of downtown Columbus. A collection of his photographs was published in the book, Columbus Remembered.

One of Kojo’s strengths is his ability to capture the “natural human side of people”. From neighborhood barber and renowned woodcutter, Elijah Pierce, to Maya Angelou, Tiger Woods, Muhammed Ali, Gordon Parks and many others, Kojo has lent his gentle dignity to their photographic images.  

Maya Angelou, The Ohio State University, October 25, 1976

 

Muhammad Ali, The Ohio State University, January 12, 1979

James Baldwin, The Ohio State University, February 12, 1979

Niki Giovanni, East High School, May 26, 1979

Miles Davis, Ohio Theater, March 23, 1986

Gordon Parks, King Arts Complex, November 14, 1992

Tiger Woods, The Ohio State University, September 24, 1994

Nancy Wilson, King Arts Complex, 2006

 For more photos and information about the photographer, see http://www.kojophotos.com.