Take Another Look

I recently met up with Duey, a park ranger for the National Park Service, at the Lowell National Historical Park visitor center for our photo shoot. Duey has a lot of responsibility for the organization and smooth operation of the Lowell Folk Festival, which is one of the city's big events, and is going on as I write this.

I am constantly saying this to people who have not visited Lowell in a while, so at the risk of repeating myself (which almost never occurs!), Lowell is rapidly becoming a destination. Great food, art, music, festivals, businesses and community, as well as the national park. Duey and I were discussing where we should go for our photo shoot when she suggested the Riverwalk, behind the Lawrence Mills. The mill buildings there, like many in the rest of Lowell and some surrounding communities, have been converted to beautiful living spaces, and the grounds, including the previously mentioned River Walk, are a real asset to the city. Like many people though, I had never been there. It's an incredible space which I discovered thanks to my guide for the afternoon!

In spite of the day's intense sunlight, the Lawrence Mills building afforded us lots of shade which, in cooperation with the beautiful landscaping, made for perfect portrait lighting conditions.

Networking and the Photographer

For a while now I have been working on a self-assigned project to photograph people in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. One of several goals of the project is to show the work in an exhibit that I will be doing with painter and pastel artist Bill Tyers. That goal, along with the always-present desire and requirement  to expand my portfolio, has allowed me to meet and be introduced to many people whom I may not have otherwise met. For this I have utilized several of my networks. A few of my subjects were either part of, or were introduced to me by members of some of the business networking groups that I belong to in Lowell, Chelmsford and Westford, Massachusetts. Other meetings came about as a result of simply asking clients and Twitter contacts if they would pose, and if they could think of other people who might make interesting subjects and might pose as well.

One such person, referred to me in the latter category, was Fru Nkimbeng, originally of Cameroon, and now President of the African Cultural Association of Lowell. The association puts on the Lowell African Festival along the river each year, and which took place just last weekend. Fru works in Information Technology, so between our common experiences in that and our short conversation in French upon first meeting, I think the trepidations that Fru had in my photographing him were lessened. But being very active in the local African community, we both thought that he should be shown in traditional dress of Cameroon. For a photographer, the oranges, reds and blues in his garments were a gift.


If you are a photographer, and you like to photograph people, but don't know whom to ask, my advice is to just start somewhere. Ask that first person if they will pose and then ask if they might know other interesting people who would also be interested in posing. Keep doing that and after a while you will have a very long list. Networks work for more than just getting referrals for business in the traditional way.

Environmental Portraits in New England

A couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune to photograph the Director of the Cultural Organization of Lowell, LZ Nunn at her home. We had originally planned to do the shoot in a beautiful courtyard in the back of her house. As the hour approached for the shoot, I watched the clouds gather, but we decided to go ahead with the shoot anyway, as we had been planning it for months. The metadata on my first frame reads 6:02:19 PM, and the last one that I shot in the courtyard, before it began to rain reads 6:06:20. Never a dull moment... Anyone who does environmental portraits and other location shoots in New England can relate. But the quality of light just before the rain was amazing!

We decided to move inside. The walls of the room to which I was led are a great yellow. I really do like warm and lively colored walls in general, and they are a gift to photographers. I mean what is more difficult to deal with than white walls? But while the light had been really amazing when we were outside, before the rain began, inside the house was another story. It was dark. So even though it was raining, I decided to put a speedlight with a warming gel and a bounce umbrella outside the window that faced the sofa to simulate late afternoon. I really like the reds, yellows and the richness of the wood floor turned out.

COOL, The Cultural Organization of Lowell, is a 501(3)(c) tax-exempt corporation affiliated with the Office of Cultural Affairs & Special Events in Lowell, Massachusetts. Do checkout their web site to see all of the things they do for the cultural ecosystem in Lowell. See you at the Lowell Folk Festival July 23rd, 24th and 25th!

Another COOL Lowellian

Julia and I had been talking about a photo shoot since January. She is often incredibly busy with events that the Cultural Organization of Lowell organizes, but we finally were able to set up the shoot last week. We had discussed a number of locations over that time, but what was clear to me was that the location should say, Lowell. Then there is always the exciting machinations of Massachusetts weather to contend with. In the end, where we ended up, was a location that everyone who visits Lowell has probably seen or walked by many times, and the shoot took just over 8 minutes. Julia is moving on soon to a new career and I, for one, have really appreciated her assistance in her roll as one of the important facilitators at COOL events in Lowell.

An Artistic Voice

Color, light, shadow and texture. The elusive harmony of form and composition. A look, a laugh, or a moment that draws you in. These are the things that compel me. This is why I create images.

I wrote this recently in an attempt to describe how I feel about what I do. What made me think of this was that I had recently photographed a young actor and college student and was trying to come up with a reason to show them off. She and I will be doing some conventional  actor headshots for her portfolio, but I also asked her to be a subject for my ongoing Merrimack Valley People portrait project, and those are the shots shown here. In mulling  over today's blog I encountered another blog, entitled "Your Artistic Voice - Do You Have One?", which you can read here.

I hope I have a vision and a distinctive style, or as the blog describes, "that work [that] couldn’t possibly have been done by anyone else". I also hope that my short statement at the opening of this post accurately describes it. The other article also says that a style comes from "life experience and mastery of material". In my life, both of these things are works-in-progress. I think if one ever considers either of those things complete, the game is over. If there's no learning going on, things get old pretty quickly, both in terms of the work product and the activity of creating it. One of the things that I like the most about doing a project like this is the ability to experiment, both artistically and in terms of that "mastery of material". I've seen web videos of photographers who tell their audiences that one light goes here, the other one here, and a hair light goes over there, and how they use a length of string to check the distance of each light from their subject so that their setup is identical each time. All together now: yawnnnnnnnnnnnn ..... Even in the studio, where I can control everything, I normally breakdown the equipment after each shoot so that no such boring thing will occur.

Color, light, shadow and texture. The elusive harmony of form and composition. A look, a laugh, or a moment that draws you in.

Whatever I am seeking when I shoot, even if it is something that I've done many times,  if I am not stretching, at least in some dimension, I am not growing and am not giving everything I have to my artistic voice. In a commercial photographic setting, the client may think, and verbalize, that they "just want" <fill-in-the-blank>, but giving them something more than that is what differentiates and what results in an artistic vision.

Deb and the Community Gardens Greenhouse

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting Deb Harding, who is the Operations Manager of the Community Gardens Greenhouse in Lowell, Massachusetts, and the Vice President of Keep Lowell Beautiful. Interestingly, we also share a background in the high-tech world, and in fact, are both refugees of the same very old and very large computer company. At our first meeting to talk about her projects and my interest in photographing her, we discovered that we had an amazing amount in common in that respect and had, in fact, both decided to walk away from that life.

Borrowing from the Community Gardens Greenhouse web site:

"Founded in 2004, the Community Gardens Greenhouse is a not-for profit initiative, the
beautification sub-committee of Keep Lowell Beautiful, dedicated to creating social
change through the art of gardening, growing communities from the ground up."

Please check out their web site for more information including their accomplishments, who is involved, and, if you are interested, how you can participate : http://www.communitygardensgreenhouse.org

The Greenhouse has also hosts The Earth Day Festival at their location at 220 Aiken Street in Lowell. Here are a few shots from this year's event.

The Creative Process - A Constant State of Agitation

If you're like me, you enjoy the times when things are happening; those times when things are getting done and when you are creating things. But if you are really like me, you also have a tendency to look ahead to the quiet times that follow the storm. A little of this is OK, but I think being creative and productive, and interesting to others requires us to be in a constant state of agitation. We need to be thinking of what to do next, how to create, how to do something better than the last thing that we did, and how to continuously reinvent ourselves. That restlessness is what drives the creative process.

It's a little like brewing beer. Huh? Well, when beer is brewed, the wort (pronounced like dirt), which is the mixture of grains, hops and water, is inactive until the yeast is "pitched" into it. Soon after this happens, the wort becomes very active and "agitated". My analogy is about to breakdown here because the Lowell City Councilor Franky Descoteauxcreative process doesn't involve turning sugar into alcohol, but never mind :-)  My point is, the introduction of that yeast causes some pretty violent agitation which, in turn, results in the creation of beer. Very productive indeed! Without the introduction of that yeast, no beer will result. In fact, the inactive wort will turn into something very nasty after a few days.

OK, so my analogy is a little out there, but I can feel the pulls in my own life that cause me to be creative and productive, or not. We all have times when we are doing things that we don't want to do and wish them to be done with. But don't wish away the good stuff. And don't avoid the chaos. Put yourself into challenging positions and places. It really took me a long time to get the confidence to ask people if they would pose for me, for no other reason than that I wanted to create a portrait of them. People almost never refuse. People are not going to come to you to create something for them until you create a body of work that demonstrates your ability to do so. You craft that by putting yourself out there, by challenging yourself, by getting restless, by thinking about the next thing to create. As tempting as it can be to be complacent and satisfied with your work to this point, don't. Pitch that yeast.

Me and My Shadow

I am constantly learning, or trying to. I don't have all of the answers. In fact, some days I could stand to buy a vowel... But sometimes I see photos that really leave me wanting less. I'm not really a fan of HDR, or that toasted look that is so readily available with Photoshop, but that isn't what I mean. I am thinking of the more basic concepts of light and shadow, and the seemingly irresistible urge to get light into all of those shadows, leaving nothing for the imagination.

Controlling the light that falls on your subject and everything else in the shot, whatever your subject might be, is fundamental to creating a good image. That goes for whatever type of light you're employing; I am referring to available light too. Creating a good photo does require controlling the light, even if the light source is the sun. If you do landscapes, then controlling the light means being where you want to be when the light is "right". Scout out your location and be there when the sun is exactly as you want it. If that means showing up at nautical twilight, then you are controlling your light by choosing when it is right. If you photograph people or objects, then trees, windows, curtains, almost anything can be used to control available light.

Boothbay at DawnSummer MorningMy point is, use the shadows too! People photographers who use strobes and hot lights sometimes have the urge to "open up the shadows". Fine. But sometimes, those shadows are what make the image interesting. Even totally black areas do that. Use them! Shadow creates depth, texture and contour for your subject. Shadows in the non-subject areas of an image cause the viewer's attention to be drawn first to the subject, and then provide some interest and maybe even mystery to the subject's surroundings.

The next two shots were available light with a fill, and available light with a gold reflector only, respectively.

JustinTosh FarrellI like to read blogs and articles in which the technical aspects of the shots are detailed, and sometimes the number and types of lights that are used are pretty surprising. I read one the other day in which a single person was under 5 lights! If I use more than two strobes for anything, it's very unusual. And usually my second strobe is for an accent, a streak of light on the background, or something shot through a "cookaloris" (something put between a light and a subject to create a pattern), such as a window, a window blind, etc.  This is a matter of personal preference though. I also tend to use my lights at the lowest power, sometimes inches from my subject. But that's the look that I am going for most of the time. Your mileage may vary...

The next three shots were done with one light. The first incorporated florescent ambient light. And "Melissa with Sweater" has no light in the front! A gridded light behind her is refecting off a gold reflector in front of her face.

Dug NorthMelissa with SweaterKerry
I am most definitely not showing my images in this post as the best examples of what I am trying to say, but I obviously can't illustrate that with other photographer's images without their permissions. I would however, encourage you to check out the images of other photographers who are masters of light and shadow. Here is a tiny list of my favorites for you to Google. Some are from another era, some from today, neither set in any particular order:

Irving Penn
Richard Avedon
Yousuf Karsh
Arnold Newman
Philippe Halsman

Joe McNally
Annie Leibowitz
Tracy Powell
Marty Umans
Zack Arias

396 Square Feet

I have been churning over in my mind the idea of doing a faux video of a photo shoot for almost a year. The idea would be to show what goes on and how my shoots differ from a "fast-food" portrait experience. With the help of my friend Melissa, whose photos I showed in a previous blog, the video is done! It's a "faux" video because it's really a stop-action trick, using still photos. I waited until after the Academy Awards so as not to embarrass James Cameron, but as it turned out, he didn't win anyway. <Insert eye-roll here>  In any event, please check out the video!

If you have the bandwidth, please check it out in HD, and maybe full-screen. You will have to go to YouTube to see it that way. And don't forget the sound!

To go directly to YouTube, click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leovjeCdLow

Plan, plan and plan some more

The great Boston photographer, Louis Fabian Bachrach Jr., known as Fabian Bachrach, passed away last week at the age of 92. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/arts/design/02bachrach.html)

He came from a family of photographers, most of whom worked and still work in the family business. His grandfather, who started the studio, photographed Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg!

According to the NY Times article, when John F. Kennedy was a US senator, he sat for a portrait with Bachrach. The results were what Bachrach considered unusable, which, in the words of his son, "ate on my father for months and months and months". Any commercial photographer can relate, although most not at the same level as that of photographing a US senator. But when Kennedy became president, Bachrach convinced his office to let Kennedy sit for another portrait. This time, Bachrach was kept waiting for 8 hours only to be told that the session had been cancelled. Pleading to be allowed to go ahead with the session, he was given 10 minutes, "from start to finish", as the Times article says. This 10 minute session resulted in the president's official portrait, which is arguably the most well known portrait of Kennedy. See the NY Times article and the gallery of Bachrach's work to see the photo.

There are so many lessons here, for people photographers especially. When you screw up, the first thing is to admit it to yourself and to your client, and then to get over it. Easier said than done. But you can! I have a quote from Joe McNally on my wall. You can find it in his blog post, (http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/2008/09/10/cant-get-no-respect), look for the paragraphs that begin with "I’ve shot a lot more bad pictures than I’ll ever shoot good ones". That I read his quote periodically is closely related to one of my blogs from last week in which I talked about being the photographer you want to become. Even that phrase is a quote from another great photographer, Craig Tanner. But when you doubt yourself, step aside! Try to step away from your own person and ego for a minute and ask, what would <a photographer that I admire> do in this situation? Obviously, that person could be anyone that you admire, not necessarily another photographer.

Another lesson that I took away from the Bachrach anecdote was how necessary it is to plan. Plan, plan and plan some more. Try to envision what the situation will be like, how you will feel and how you will act and react. You need to be reacting to the environment and to the things that could not have been anticipated. You should already have thought about all of the things that you knew about beforehand. Clients don't want to wait for you to have a happy accident. The art, creativity and imagination that you bring to a commercial job begins where your technical knowledge and experience leaves off.