photography

Two years ago I was one of the subjects of Bill Wadman’s 365 Portraits project. Last year he was one of the photographers for the Hot Blogger Calendar project I co-created with Jane Porricelli. His work has been everywhere and he’s shot amazing people. And in reading his photography blog, On Taking Pictures, I’m usually fathoms out of my depth.

But I was lucky enough to study oil painting at the National Academy School of Fine Arts school for several years, and that gave me questions for him – less about the technical aspects of photography, and more about how you think when you’re making portraits. The below is excerpted from our conversation.

(Also, it just feels wrong to have a post about photography with no pictures, so I hope he thinks I went with one of the good Facebook photos. Because for a minute there, this was totally going to be a baby picture.)

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You jack up the contrast and the color and pull out the crags and the imperfections. In the world of your pictures, life is saturated with color and the edges are sharply defined. I wonder how you’ve come to that style. Do you feel like it gets you closer to representing the person more strongly, to emphasize all the details almost to the point of exaggeration?

Considering the fact that I haven’t been shooting that long, my style has changed fast. In fact it’s only in the past year or so I feel like I’ve leveled out, which I’m not comfortable with by the way, but that’s another story. It was during 365 that this all came about, because I was shooting so much and so often, and somewhat starting from a blank slate every morning, that I evolved into the look that you can recognize as mine today. In fact, you can go through 365 from beginning to end and probably make a flip book that would watch my work evolve.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do, really, I just knew what I didn’t want to do, which was to take boring pictures. I didn’t want to take snapshots: that was my biggest fear. There are a lot of technically good photographers out there who take very good pictures, but whose work you couldn’t tell from the next guy. Maybe it’s my obsession to be the exception rather than the rule, but I didn’t want to be one of those guys. In fact, if I knew that’s what I would be, then I didn’t want to start.

As I got more comfortable with taking portraits I liked, I found that many times they weren’t the necessarily the most flattering images, but I hope they are a ‘good’ picture of the subject. As you said, though, it’s the interesting people who are easier to paint, because you’ve got something to grab onto.

Sometimes getting an interesting portrait of a really good-looking person is like trying to rock climb a sheer cliff. There are just no holds to climb. But if he’s got a crooked nose or she’s got big eyes or something, then you’ve got somewhere to start. I try to find those things like a caricature artist does, except I want to make them communicate instead of being funny. I think a slightly exaggerated version of reality can be interesting.

Do you look at it from a straight geometry and color-theory perspective of how to make the colors and shapes look best and most interesting?

I’m not consciously thinking about geometry or color theory but I’m sure some of that is involved. Growing up, I was terrible at drawing and art. I’ve got no skills at that stuff at all, so I find it a little funny that I’m doing visual art now. Cartier-Bresson always considered himself an artist, not a photographer. My talents were always in music, not visual.

That said, I think that proportion and angles and contrast and color all mix up to make a good photo, and I think I’m getting better at mixing them, but it’s all subjective. Some people look at recent work that I’m generally really proud of and tell me that I’m moving backwards… so who knows.

I don’t want to take snapshots. I’m not a “carry around the camera and catch a good shot of Tom turning around” kind of shooter. Then again, I’m not the other end of the spectrum, either, with huge setups and over-thought concept shots. I want to take deliberate portraits without it feeling staged. I want to get past the wall most people put up when they get their photo taken, while at the same time taking a portrait they themselves can relate to. Something like a commissioned painting.

Sargent is my favorite painter, and he did some commissions at the turn of the century that go in the direction I’ve been thinking lately. Sometimes it’s figuring out how to translate interpretive styles into the more literal photographic medium. This is also why I do a lot of post-production on my images, because for the most part, I can’t get what I want right out of the camera.

To me, art is fundamentally about seeing things more deliberately than most of us do, and using that better vision to create beautiful things, so I loved trying to figure out how Bill sees. And Sargent is one of my favorite painters too, so that might explain why I like his work so much. You can see it at billwadman.com and his thoughts on photography at ontakingpictures.com.  And if you know any of his heroes, let him know.

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Three months ago… this crazy idea got started.

Two months ago… 359 people were nominated for it.

Last night… 20 people from all over the country drank rather a lot of tequila in celebration of it.

Today… 12 of the 24 certified Hot Bloggers rocked the camera like they were born to, with photographers Bill Wadman and Meg Wachter and makeup artist Jillian Villafane making them look like the supermodels they are.

Amy , Britt , Ces , Dave , Erika , Jill , Jim , Josh , Katja , Peter , Riese and Shawn … you guys looked amazing and are amazing. How lucky am I to get the chance to meet people who are so great (in addition to being so hot, of course)? The only possible way it could have been better would have been if your 12 counterparts had been there too. But we’ll see their gorgeous photos shortly. And until then, it’s been a fabulous weekend of hijinks with my partner in crime, Jane (and her completely wonderful parents Barry and Sharon).

Guys… thank you for coming from all over the country to be a part of this. It’s an honor.

Everybody… you’ll have to wait to see the real portraits in the calendar, but in the meantime, check out my Flickr for some shots of the past two days.

Edited to add: also check out Shawn’s photos!

And Amy’s!

And Sharon’s! – And her eloquent post about the shoot – done on her birthday, nonetheless!

And Dave’s! And his post! And Poppy’s photos!

And Jane’s!

And Jill’s post about the shoot!

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There are a few cheats to make a photograph seem more interesting than it really is. Use the macro setting, tilt the camera about twenty degrees, add a Photoshop effect – any one of these, or a combination, and you’ve got yourself a picture that’s good and artsy. People may not even notice that you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.

It’s the same way with most of life, I think. Posing, that is. A few tricks can get a person pretty far.

It’s not hard to look like you know what you’re doing to someone who has no idea how it’s done. The question is whether you can hold up when you’re among people who know far more than you.

I was reminded of that today when I read Colin‘s latest Canuckflack post, “I Am a Capable Strategist and Thoughtful Person.” It’s a delicious skewering of 99% of all blog posts – mine included, I’m sure.

There are people who seem to act their way through their profession by knowing the rote way to say things (like Colin points out). And they live in constant fear that someone is going to expose them as frauds.

It’s incredibly uncomfortable to be hopelessly out of your depth – if you’re trying to pretend otherwise. It’s embarrassing, stressful – a horrific strain. But if you’re out of your depth, honest about it, delighting in it, glorying in how much there is you don’t know yet, it’s not in the least scary. It’s learning, and there isn’t much that’s better.

So you have to be honest about how you’re using tricks of the trade. If you use crutches too long, next thing you know, you can’t stand on your own two feet alone.

And of course this tied back, to me, to social media, because it focuses on the individual – not the tricks but an actual person’s thoughts and actions. It’s much easier for someone to be outed as clever, as relatable, as human (or otherwise) when you’re hearing one person, not a faceless corporate “position”.

With that said, though, social media itself can be the worst bag of tricks of all. And Jeremy’s Pop PR Jots post today relates to that – a caution that the technology you use doesn’t define whether you’re good at what you do. Any medium is just a conduit for communicating information – it’s what you’re actually trying to communicate that’s the point. We can’t become so enamored of what the latest cool toy does that we forget what the point of the toy is.

Technology, by definition, enables us to do what we do better. The question is, what do we do? It can be surprisingly easy to forget what the answer to that question is. It helps to sit back and think about what we’re really trying to do, and whether we’re really any good at it at all.

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