This year so far has been a bit of a mixed bag for business. I've done some corporate, a lot of photojournalism, sports of course, some portraits...which I swore I wouldn't do any more, and a fair amount of non-profit stuff. Lets discuss portrait for a bit.
One of the things most recently invented for the photo industry is Photoshop, and by recently I'm meaning in the last 20 years. I would love to extoll the virtues of Photoshop but I find it is taken to the extreme more often than not. If you're tryning to create an original work of art from a photograph this does not apply. The creativity is boundless with this software and koodos to those that can manipulate the program to make it bend and sway with the breeze.
I personally love the program to touch up my lighting when I do photojournalism style work, or do the work that burning and dodging would have done in the good old days of darkrooms and chemicals. After that, I leave it to the graphic artists to make magic. I do my magic with my camera on site. As I said before, good lighting can make or break your images.
My only reason for not doing portraiture as a steady income, is about photoshop. I could make a fortune with the requests I get, but how far will I go to destroy my 28 years of honing my craft. The skill is in the lighting and the camera operation, not in the photoshop. If you have to spend more than a few minutes editing each picture, you need to head back to photography school. It's a wonderful program for touching up a blemish, dark circles, and brightening the eyes. I've been asked to 'make me look 20 pounds thinner, can you straighten my nose a bit, my husband forgot to shave today, could you edit out his 5 o'clock shadow, I can't get my son to sit still can you take him out of that picture and edit him in to a different one..." etc etc etc. You get what I'm saying. Last I checked, I did not go to medical school or graduate with a degree in reconstructive surgery, barber school, or nanny college. If you require these services, hire the professionals who did graduate with those designations because I have to say... they are the people I call when I need those things taken care of.
My kind of photography is the kind that tells a story. I love to capture a moment, sometimes they are so fleeting, that one second of timing, is the difference between an amazing photo that will sell 200,000 more newspapers and one that gets deleted.
I once did a photosession for a large family. A Mom and Dad, 4 children. The 2nd youngest was not quite 5 and very shy. She spent the hour or so, hiding behind her parents, or her siblings. My staff and I tried all kinds of tricks to coax her out of her shell during traditional poses, and then I asked the family if they minded just playing games with her and their other children on the floor in front of the backdrop. She relaxed and played and still her expression did not change. The last game was the one that stuck. I made it so in the end they all had to look up at me at the same time during the game, even though she was hiding behind her next older sibling, she peaked out and smiled just the barest of smiles.
When the Mom and Dad returned a week later to look at the proofs, they cried when they saw that photo. Their little girl had never smiled in a photo, or ever for that matter. She was born with a rare disease where it was not possible to smile. She had become so self concious of this fact in her very young life that when she saw a camera, she hid. We had her relaxed and playing, laughing so much that her laugh and the light in her eyes looked like a smile. The picture was natural and untouched by photoshop. The Mom had said she had given up on family portraits because it upset their little girl so much, and when other photographer's tried to make her smile with photoshop, it didn't look like her face it was always so distorted. This one I did for them was a moment every mother in her situation could dream of, and we made that moment happen for them.
I do my best to get a natural picture. Some of the best images I have ever taken was when no-one was looking at me and my camera, they were looking at each other or simply enjoying the moment. This is why I love photography so much. It's about the moments remembered that make you smile, cry, or laugh. If you string all those moments together for a lifetime, you have stories to tell, giggling to do, or maybe a few tears to remember a loved one who has passed on. I want to see the real you in a photo. Not the image of what you wished you looked like or the fantasy. I want to be able to see the wrinkles, baby fat, big feet, school kids with missing front teeth, and Grandma wearing a purple turban cause she thinks it makes her look like Betty Davis. These are things that I see as character. Being able to look at a photo and say " I can't believe I wore that." may seem like a bad thing to others, but I see it as who you were then.
My advice ... be who you are in your photos, so in 50 years, when you have time on your hands and your grandkids or other little people are visiting, you have stories to tell about that moment. Not a fantasy of who you thought you were back then.
Just sayin.... Lol! Don't forget to check your Compass!
Cole
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