It’s been a fun year of photography so far, and running the Web Portraits Zurich project has given me reason to reflect on the process of making cool portraits of interesting people. I’ve contrasted my findings with the ramblings of professional photographers and teachers of the internet (where I learned a lot abouot photography), and have come to the conclusion that most internet sources don’t really have a handle on the portrait process, or they simply like to focus more on gear and dehumanizing people into subjects with gear talk rather than having a conversation on who is in front of our lenses.

Now, understand, it’s not their fault. It’s not embedded in their DNA. It’s just part of the mystique of this easy-lazy-art-form called photography. Cameras and photo gear became popular because it’s easier to click a shutter on a device than painting a canvas or doing a detailed sketch of what ever it is you’re looking at. When you shoot with a big camera it makes you feel important, but there’s a reason I don’t take myself too seriously. There’s this romanic ideal of photographers being like painters and artists delving with their whole soul into the artistic expression of the portrait. Photographers are expressing the inner soul of humans for all to see in the printed or screen viewed image…however…

A person is not a subject

Simple, and to the point. A lot of folks get into photography because it’s cool – like I did. I drew things in math class because it was interesting, I started with photography and Photoshop because the gear makes it easy. There’s a romantic notion embedded in the collective history of photography of capturing emotions and elements of people, which would otherwise be lost forever as the second-hand ticked over and the present becomes the past and that look is lost forever (unless captured by the photographer). But a person is not a subject. Even models have names and personalities, but photographers sometimes like to ignore those humanizing notions and instead focus on the technical process of focusing light onto an image capture surface (like film or a digital sensor).  Afterall, we’re all engineers and poets, painters and scientists. But I like photography because it opens a door to the non-technical side of life. Models are not Barbie dolls. I know of what I speak, for I shoot pictures of Bratz dolls when I don’t feel like talking to people.

If you’re into photographing people, then just think of the process as an extended conversation with some visual elements thrown in. When you start saying things like, “I lit my subject with this and that camera and photographed them with an 85mm f1.2 lens…” Well, you’ve lost the point of the conversation. If you listen to professional photographers they’ll tell you to talk to your subject. Get to get to know them, make them feel comfortable. But here’s the thing, small talk like, “what do you do” “what’s your favorite color” “where are you from” is just filler talk. You’re probably doing it so the person doesn’t feel ignored but not because you really want to know who they are. This type of small talk simply says, “I’m just interested in my camera and making an image and you’re just a body…so smile.”

A Portrait is just Conversation

A photo session is just an extended conversation, and if you start out talking with people with an authentic voice, then the photo session will just be an extension of that initial, real, emotional connection. If you starting shooting like a pornographer and only start talking when you notice your subject is looking uncomfortable, then the whole positive momentum of the conversation has already been lost and you need to sort of start over. Tripping the shutter is the least important part of a portrait photo session. Think of the photo session in this way:

Conversation – Lighting/Set – Picture

The more time you take in getting to know a person before you light them with a million-gazillion photons, the more natural the resulting image will be. Once you understand something about the person you’re planning to shoot you can design the lighting, build a set or pick a proper location, and then being planning a post-processing philosophy, all before taking any pictures. Spend the least amount of time possibly on actually shooting, cause the shutter trip is the most insignificant part of the process. Now, maybe you’re going for the whole Stanley Kubrik, make-the-actors-feel-uncomfortable-to-illicit-emotion-from-them deal, but that’s a whole other level of person-photographer interaction. An authentic portrait session starts (and ends) with a conversation.

Most of the technical things about photography I’ve learned from the internet. However, when I watch things like creativeLive with Zach Arias or attend a Strobist workshop, I’ve started to notice how technology and lights are always at the forefront, and the whole emotional connection thing is thrown in afterwards. That’s a key element that a photographer like Joey L communicates extremely well in his DVD tutorial (Sessions with Joey L). In his tutorial Joey Lawrence pushes the ideas of trust and emotional connection as being primary, and lighting and camera technology as the secondary elements of a photo shoot (or photo career). This isn’t meant to be a negative critique of Zach Arias or of David Hobby. The latter two (and internet icons like Chase Jarvis) are just responding to what sells. People love the technology of photography, the lenses, bodies, radio triggers, flashes, etc. People drop big bucks on technology and then wonder why their pictures look lifeless and ordinary when they know the person has a soul and interesting story to tell. The thing I love about the Vincent Laforet CreativeLive workshop is that he started out talking about the philosophy behind movies, the story telling and emotional elements, and then got into the gear talk. It sets your head in the right mind-set, to tell a story and to make a connection to the viewers or consumers of the media product you’re producing.

I love photo gear. I have more cameras than Onitsuka tigers and picked my last apartment based on how I could setup a photo studio. One reason I started the Web Portraits Zurich project was to do portraits of people. I wanted to setup a process of including the emotion of the person in their portrait. I want to portray people including elements of how they perceive themselves. I shoot the web portraits based first around the person, and then as a secondary condition around lighting and Photoshop. For each portrait set we start out with a concept meeting, the people I’m shooting get to know me and I start to understand how they see themselves. This is the grounding for the whole photo session, and I see the whole process as one long conversation with some camera equipment and photoshop thrown in as an after-thought.

A person is not just a subject

A photo shoot is just an extended conversation

Yes, I also photograph boring landscapes. It’s true. In between Web Portraits and Barbie Hunters and Bratz dolls I shoot landscapes and views of cities. My first dance with the photo mistress started with Women’s Rugby at the University of Michigan (my sister was a star player) and continued in Alaska and then Bolivia with views of the land and my travels. Why don’t you see them? Because there’s a perverse notion in the mind of many photographers that light painting is art, and that you should put up every great image on a webpage called a portfolio and allow casual visitors to get lost in random images of flowers and sunsets. But what is the message?

Now, landscapes are good places to start out and a wonderful place to end. I love them, everybody loves a sunset and I’ve shot some fucking amazing shots of flowers. But one night in a cramped Tokyo dormroom I was watching a video from Photoshelter with Chase Jarvis showing his Ninja images, and I think he said something like, “shoot what you love to shoot, and make a concept around that.” Or…that’s the message I took away from it. Well, I’m in agreement with this mentality, and have decided I want to shoot things with a touch of the strange intermixed in the madness. Strange from the perspective of normal people, it’s all very normal for me to put a Bratz doll on a street in LA and start shooting away. And that’s the vision I’ve been developing in the past year, so you don’t see images from Chaco Canyon or the islands of Greece or views from the high camp of Huyana Potosi in Bolivia on my website or online profiles. It’s easy to make a great landscape image, just go to an interesting place and snap the shutter release. I’ve been of the opinion that I should challenge myself and instead try to go to interesting places in my head, and then translate that somehow into a digital image. But the truth is, I was looking back on a few piles of developed Provia, and decided that I should at least see what was there.

It turns out, from reviewing the evidence, that I’ve trekked over a collection of interesting places, and amassed a nice collection of interesting images, and it’s time to post a few for the world to see. I’ve sort of always been into exploring. It started in the basement of the house I grew up in when my mom brought home old toys from rummage sales. Then I started climbing trees in the backyard and now I ski tour in the Swiss Alps. Sometimes I travel in my mind, sometimes in Science, but always the pull of the world, undiscovered from my eyes, has drawn me to various parts of the globe. Along the way I started shooting with a Fuji GA645, because 35mm was too small and the rise of digital make medium formate affordable to the masses of people like myself with more drive than money-sense. The Fuji GA645 and GA645w make amazing images with film like Fuji Provia. However, for the longest time I didn’t have a scanner (like for four years) to actually get the images onto my computer. About a year ago I rented a Nikon LS-9000 and spent a weekend scanning film like a hermit-mad-man-artist-wannabe.

There is something about the landscape, it is exploration. It is also isolation, and the reason I got away from it is because shooting people is just more interesting. You can not interact with a landscape, can not ask it why it is or what it sees itself as. The best you can do is to stay mobile, to experience the landscape by walking into the sunset and not back to the car. That’s why I have a small GA645 and not a big 4×5 large format camera. I like to move through the world and record it as I saw and felt it. I don’t take myself too seriously, it’s the hubris of the photographer to believe that their pictures have any real value. I don’t want to be one of those guys who goes into the fetal position, hurt and sobbing in tears when you ask them if they used a filter for that landscape of the Grand Canyon…

“It’s NOT the camera, it’s ME, the PHOTOGRAPHER!”

We all want to be loved (the only thing really worth feeling in life). The photographer (like any “artist”) wants to be loved for who they are, not what they produce. The beauty should exist forever on a canvas or print. The scientist is humble, and wants to remove emotion from their creation – but technology is developed my mortal humans, not cold computers. So it’s a hard pill for a budding landscape picture snapper to grasp, that their camera is the soul of the medium, and no one person is so special. We grow up with so many stories of being special, that it’s hard to comprehend our ordinariness. You see, probability is on your side, if you shoot one thousands frames, at least a few are going to be “good.” I think everyone is a capable artist, you just need to find your medium and your audience. You’re not talented, you’re not special, you’re just chasing a vision with determination. That is what makes the difference. We are all empowered to create beautiful things in life. It’s like when you head to the Picasso museum in Paris, yes, some of his stuff is interesting, but when you consider that he produced something like 50,000 works of art in his life, it makes statistical sense that some of it will be good. Now go to the Picasso sketches gallery in Luzern – which is full of nothing but crap paper scribbles he did for no reason. The place isn’t worth the admission fee to see – because it’s not any better than I would do if I felt like sketching large forms of voluptuous females all day.

I use landscape images to remember a time. They often tie together with pages from my moleskin journals and the words are one with the colors and shapes of the land and cities. But I’m not hurt when no one else makes that connection, and only sees a sand dune instead of an expanse of my soul warming in the morning Colorado sun. It is the communication of an emotion which we respond to. Make it real and authentic – allow the audience inside, allow them to connect to the vision, and you’ve created something timeless. I don’t create timeless, I take snapshots of places I go and people I meet.

If you keep chasing that vision in your head, good things are bound to happen. I got away from landscape photography and turned to portraits of people because it gave me a way to interact with my fellow human beings in a new and fulfilling way. I don’t have landscape images on my website because I wanted to focus on something else – there’s been a vision in my head and I couldn’t figure out what it was, but it was coming through in the self-portraits and abstract Lazy Art and in the Barbie Hunter and the Web Portraits. There were (and still are) shadows of understanding you see – in the grunge, in the shadows gradations, and I feel a need to chase it.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. You’re no more special than the idiot adolescent standing next to you. Just because you made one nice picture doesn’t mean it will happen again. Everything has already been photographed and every idea has already been thought of in a another place and another time. The details change but the vision stays the same. We want to be respected and loved, and if you see that reflection in the photograph you’re holding, then it’s a good image.

It’s good to know other photographers. It’s good to meet, and to discuss things like life and vision and get some perspective from other creative people. It’s good to do collaboration shoots, the two of you decide on an idea/subject to shoot and work to make it a reality. And lastly, it’s good to know photographers with weapons. The conversation went something like…

“Ummmm, do you want to do a creative shoot in your studio?”
“Yeah, sure. Just come over with some stuff and we’ll do a martial arts shoot.”

Ethan from Zurich did just that. In addition to being a photographer he’s also into martial arts, and in addition to a ThinkTank rolling case he walked through my doorway with bag of fun including numbchucks, short swords, and an Onitsuka Tiger jacket. From my side I provided the studio space and lights, along with a Katana. It was the perfect time to add to the Urban Ninja series I had started last year. First we decided on some lighting and then I posed with a pair of my green and white Onitsuka sneakers and the white jacket.

As the night wore on I switched from the Katana to posing with numbchucks and short swords. Posing like a comic book ninja isn’t easy when you’re at it for a few hours, and it equalled a night of climbing in the gym. Plus, when you first start posing with nunchucks you’re careful and timid, then you swing them around a bit, channel the spirit of Bruce Lee, get brave, and start accidentally hitting your head and elbows. When the temple gets hit, that’s when you know it’s time to switch up the model-photographer role in the shoot. After shooting me for a while we switched, Ethan took to posing with deadly blades and I took up my Sony A900 to shoot with.

Authenticity is Key

Posing with weapons is probably the hardest thing I’ve done photographically speaking. It’s easy to think up a cool image (Urban Ninja Concept to Photo), but finding the right model to pose authentically is harder than you might think, and in the end it’s easier to be model and photographer. I mean, as a guy with a childhood American Ninja fantasy, it’s natural for me to bust out a Katana attack pose. I’m always bewildered when the female models I shoot don’t do the same. The thing is, unless the model is really good at taking direction and is athletic, they probably won’t know how to pose with a sword with any authenticity. The worst thing you can do is pose a guy or girl with a sword and expect it to look good just because…

“ummmm, you know, hot women and dudes with and swords are cool!”

Right, just like adding a gun to shoot makes a woman “sexy” and “dangerous.” Think what you like, but I’m of the opinion that an attractive woman who doesn’t know how to hold a sword will just look awkward, and the resulting image will look like crap, unauthentic, and generally be a waste of time to look at (but only if you were going for authenticity in the first place). For example, when I did a shoot with Alexandra, it was obvious that the Katana was too heavy for her, but since we were shooting the Barbie Hunter concept, it fit – because Ninja-Authenticity wasn’t the subject of the shoot. It was awesome doing an authentic martial arts shoot with Ethan. He knows the pose and understands the form of the body and how this all relates to the position of the sword or other weapons. Ethan could probably kill me five different ways with his pinky finger before I realized I was standing in a blue tunnel and as a bonus he has a sweet look.

The Urban Ninja

For the Urban Ninja look I gave Ethan a mask and a pair of welding goggles to wear while he stabbed the air with the short swords. For lighting I used my Creative Light softbox (60cm x 90cm) with a grid from the side and my Elinchrom BxRi 250ws strobe. I had a Sunpak 383 in a Kacey Beauty Reflector high from the opposite side, and there was fill coming from a Lastolite TriLite reflector kit. I post-processed this image with a couple of texture layers, creating a color transition from top to bottom and gave it some grit.

I also shot Ethan with numbchucks wearing the Onitsuka jacket, lighting him only with the gridded Creative Light softbox and added fill from the opposite side with a large silver reflector. With his bald head and muscle-memory knowledge of martial arts, the images of Ethan are just fantastic. This will sound strange, but I love shooting guys with bald heads. You can really focus on the features of the face without getting distracted by the hair. Without the hair your attention is drawn so much more to the eyes and I think this makes for interesting portraits.

More Info

To check out more on my Urban Ninja Concept here are some other posts.

To see more of Ethan’s work check him out on Flickr or his website.

Sometime ago I was on vacation around Detroit and while chilling in an internet cafe I got a contact from Arctica, via ModelMayhem. She was going to be in Switzerland and was wondering if I wanted to set up a shoot date. After some time I figured, “sure, why the Hell not?”

For this shoot I put together some concepts for ProtestLove imagery, and also wanted to do some straight-up portraits. Easy things to filter through the camera lens and fill the imaging sensor with smooth skin and textured eyes. I was also geeked to use my new Creative Light softbox. It’s a decent size, about 60 by 90cm and I picked up a grid to go along with it. After all, a serious photographer needs serious gear. directional light, place it where you like and sculpt out an image from the darkness. The setup for the above image was this…

An Elinchrom BxRi 250ws strobe in a Creative Light softbox (60×90cm) (w/grid) from camera right. Sunpak 383 in Kacey Beauty Reflector above and slightly left (with diffusion sock), and Lastolite Trilite reflectors setup in front.

I was sort of screwing around at this point, I’d paid her to stand there and give off some sort of radiant Architecture of the soul. Lets take a moment and peer into the unknown. The element which draws you in and holds the gaze in an awkward embrace and the mind fades off along visionary walkways through tangible (but untouchable)  elements of the imagination. That’s what I was looking for in her.

Within this construct, the shoot was a success. There are many different types of models. Many varieties of photographers, and once you buy a camera you might tend to think. “Well, fuck, I paid so much for the damn thing, everything else should be free.” That’s why people start looking for TFP models and become consumed with getting make-up artists for free and buying the cheapest flash gear possible. There is a notion inside my head, and it is that the camera and lens are the least important. The light and image are all that is relevant, and no amount of gear masturbation will bring a vision into your head, it comes from the deranged depths of humanity, and no Photoshop God can render even a minute contribution to your vision.

The model: Arctica MM# 1356612
The photographer: MM# 879737

Probably the most frustrating thing about shooting with someone is that you generally only get to do it once. You notice things during a shoot and afterwards, and often time I wish I could shoot more with folks like Demari Vi Syth, Margarita or Arctica, but one lives in England, the other is based in the Ukraine, the third is in Germany, and being models, they’re often traveling to different shoots anyways. So if I were able to shoot with any of them more than once a year, it would be a miracle.

That’s why it’s always awesome to have a local model to shoot with, and to develop a body of work with. When a model is living right next door you have the freedom to plan and re-shoot concepts as needed. You also come understand one another in a way, the shooting style, the posing methods, and this can bring a greater depth to a shoot and concepts. That’s why I’m eternally grateful that Jurgita lives next door.

I met Jurgita over the summer while shooting with Margarita, and we’ve since met to shoot on different occasions, either with a specific idea or just to produce some more imagery. We shoot in the studio and I’ve shot Jurgita around the Sulzer-Areal of Winterthur, that fabulous urban location every photographer in Winterthur and Zurich knows about. You go there on a sunny day in spring or summer and there’s always a wedding shoot, skate shoot, urban portrait thing or another going on.

Having access to the Areal is like having access to a large urban movie set. There’s a large parking garage to shoot in, which is mainly empty on the weekends and after 5pm on other days. I seems like you can basically do whatever you like there, including dry tooling (but probably you’d better not). There’s also a lot of small areas in the Sulzer-Areal complex including parking spaces, walls, staircases, and an illuminated bridge, all of which gives a vast canvas for the nimble photographer and model to play within.

On location and in the studio Jurgita is open and easy to work with. She has a certain look, a subtle shadow of knowing in her facial features and cheekbone structure which give a certain something to the images. Shadows curve around her eyes like the the old songs of a mystic fire dance. She also has an eye for style and posing, which makes the shoot all more natural and authentic (sometimes difficult to find).

Since both Jurgita and I like to shoot and model around, it’s been fun playing with lighting gear and concepts. For example, using an Orbis ringflash to add some shadow texture to the face, in a poorly-lit parking area. Or perhaps using a gridded octabox to define a lighting poem for the whole image, or just stepping out of that constrictive Strobist-Mindset and shooting with the natural street lights.

If you stagnate, your creativity and drive dies with your indecision and only the mediocre sentiments of lonely idea will sit upon your mind for a second before flying off into eternity. So stop hesitating and shoot, develop something and challenge yourself to be something which society has taught you that you’re not. My mind is a blank and the words have run on into obscurity so that I’ve forgotten the point.

If you’d like to work with Jurgita she’s on Model-Kartei…

Jurgita on Model-Kartei