Studio Photography

 Studio Photography

When I photograph an individual in the studio, I’m searching for the essence of their character. For me, it is an exploration, a type of visual study of someone. Sure, there are other types of studio shooting. Fashion photographers will create a mood or a feeling and have the model artificially reflect an attitude to help market a product. This is commercial or fashion photography, and is not the type of studio shooting that I do anymore. I am interested in exploring the contours of the face as a window to some truth about an individual. This might be a façade to hide a more personal exploration? Richard Avedon said, “every portrait is a self-portrait.” On the surface it is hard to see how that could be true since a photograph of someone is of that person and not of the photographer. There are many assumptions that go into the interpretation of what photographs mean and how much legitimacy and photograph might have for a viewer. In this sense, a series of images of someone might tell a story all together one way, while an individual image selected from a series would tell a different story. 

A photographer will select an image that represents the best of many images from a photo session. That image will show the photographer’s perception of the best image. In that sense it is a portrait of the photographer’s perception. This is not what the world see s when looking at a photo. The average viewer sees the person in the photograph as expressing particular, visually obvious qualities, and easily defines those as a truth about that person. The image has photographic reality and is often simply accepted on face value as real.

Whether or not a selected image is a truthful portrayal of someone can be debated, but my sense of it is that the image displays “a truth”, and not “the truth”. People are way too complex for us to think that a single image could define them. However, this does not address the statement by Richard Avedon about every portrait being a self-portrait. To approach that issue we must think about the more striking concept that a series of portraits of a variety of people over many years might show us something about the photographer! Henri Cartier-Bresson created a body of photographic work over his lifetime. It shows us that he had a deep sense of humanity and compassion about his subjects. While he is will known as was one of the founders of the photo agency, Magnum, which has a reputation for hard edge war photographers, his work seemed to always search out the beautiful, the positive, and the humane. Thus, over time, we have a portrait of the photographer through the character of his images. Perhaps in this sense, “every portrait is a self-portrait

The Jungle Home

The Jungle Home by the Cliff

Photographing with the 8x10 view camera is an entirely unique photographic experience. Now that digital has taken over the practical side of photo reportage the use of large format film cameras is almost exclusively an artistic decision. 30 years ago I would have been asked by a client to use the 8x10 view camera to photograph food, architecture, automobiles, or some other such subject that would require extraordinary definition and quality. As recently as 10 years ago the 8x10 view camera was a standard piece of equipment in high-end advertising studios.

On the other side of photography, the art side, the 8x10 has been the standard tool of landscape photographers from the beginning. Photographers such as Frederick Evans, George Tice, Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston used the 8x10 for everything from still life photography to landscape and architecture. Brett Weston, Ed Weston’s son, used the 8x10 view camera for an amazing series of abstract landscapes.

My choice to use the 8 x 10 view camera is multifaceted. Ever since I was 17 years old I have been enamored with this format. My first 8x10 camera was a gray, Burke & James studio view, with a 165mm Wallensack lens. It had little coating and dated from just before World War II. My first subjects were still life objects, broad landscapes and clouds. 

Sure, the large format renders a high-resolution negative, but good digital images have excellent resolution as well. There is a character to the large negative, a way that it records light differently from other recording formats. Also, it is a tactile experience setting up the large camera, selecting the rise and tilt, and adjusting the camera movements for maximum depth of field takes a lot of manipulation.

Large negatives, processed and preserved correctly, are an extraordinary record with good longevity. These negatives render excellent images using alternative processes such as Cyanotypes, Kalitypes and Platinum prints. These alternative printing methods are beautiful and have a timeless quality unlikely to be usurped by digital tools. 

As the years have gone by I started to realize that my negatives also have historical significance. When I moved to Malaysia seven years ago I photographed several shop houses which now have been torn down for modernization. Back in the late 1970s I worked as an assistant for a large commercial studio in Dallas. Early on Sunday mornings I would take the 8x10 camera out to photograph old industry, trains, and warehouses. Much of what I photographed back then is gone, or renovated. I would like to think that the images have artistic merit, but for sure, they have historical significance.

As I set out last weekend for a drive through the middle of Malaysia up the backside of Cameron Highlands to make a big loop down through Ipoh and back to Kuala Lumpur, history, beauty, light and opportunity were at the forefront of my thought. Not everything looks good on film, and the light has to be right. As John Sexton always says, “light is the only subject”.

The photo of the jungle home with two motorcycles in front and a cliff in the back was a 15 second exposure at F64. Waiting for the light. Waiting for the wind. Something beyond a decisive moment.