A re-post of an article that I re-read every time I find my work/photos looking like everyone else's....

4.19.2009

Why you shouldn't shoot like everybody else.

By Kirk Tuck

Let's face it,  I don't think any of us woke up one morning and said, “The thing I love best is taking pictures of strident brides putting on yet another cookie cutter,  antique ivory white dress with the annoying little buttons down the back.....”.  We didn't.  We don't.  We do many of the annoying little jobs we do because they pay the bills.  The wedding profits pay for the mortgage and the car payments.  The bridal portraits help pay for new gear.  And the PR photos of “guys in ties”, done with the same old soft box and grid light on the background,  pays for dinners and electric bills.  But you are way off base if you think we buy for a moment that you shoot these things because you are driven by your “inner muse” to do your “Art”.  (That's capital “A” art.....).

We're not all wired the same way so if you really get a thrill running a business and making a profit and that's all you want out of your photography then I get it and we'll give you a pass on the art thing.  But the rest of you aren't getting off so easily.  Most of us got into this field because we loved taking photographs of people, or landscapes, or life on the streets.  I certainly didn't pick up a camera because I saw a cool product photograph in a catalog.

I picked up a camera because I loved taking photographs of my friends.  I wasn't drawn to images that were lit in a particular way, I really loved the stuff that was black and white, available light and relatively unposed.  When I had done this kind of work for years as a pleasurable hobby I found my self at loose ends after my partners and I sold our advertising  agency.  I had some money in my pocket and a bunch of people kept hiring me to photograph them or their loved ones in the style I'd done.

But.....as soon as the art moved from hobby to business there started a subtle erosion of the essential point of view that made my work different from everybody else's.  I learned that there was an established style to shooting business head shots and so I learned that style and began to offer it.  I had to buy lights and drag them into the mix.  I learned the “right way” to do an executive portrait and I started to incorporate what I learned into the mix.  

And if you think about it, the convergence of digital imaging and the photo sharing sites on the web has quickened a process of homogenization that now seems relentless.  How many of you think that a reportage style of wedding photography is wonderfully unique?  Really?  Even though every wedding book I've seen in the past three months has exactly the same stuff in it?  The close up of the fingers trying to button five hundred annoying buttons on the back of an antique ivory wedding dress?  The edgey images with the razor thin slice of sharp focus that just screams out, “Hey, look at me.  I got a Canon 5D and a fast 85mm lens...”  You know the drill.  We all know the drill because we presume that these are the images and styles that brides want and we want to deliver them so we can make the car payments and buy dinner.  And in the corporate world we know that the standard head shot is generally a boring piece of crap that doesn't move the game forward any more than music on your website.

I think we homogenize for a variety of valid anthropological reasons.  We have a subconscious  desire to please our tribe.  We fear striving for originality and excellence because we have a suspicion that these things aren't valued by our clients and showing different work might cause them to reject our services.  Which we then interpret to be a rejection of our selves.  We might fear the hostility that will inevitably come from those who are practicing the status quo.

But here's the nasty reality statement that I'm sure you've known was coming from the minute you started reading this:  The people who populate the top 1% of the art world don't really give a minute of thought to what might “play well in Peoria”.  They pursue their vision.  Their own vision.  And they do it in a way that basically welds them into the longer view of art history or photo history because it introduces aesthetic game changers that the rest of us will buy into decades down the road and work to homogenize into our collective offerings while some where a new generation comes knocking with the real goods.  But we won't understand the value of those goods until it's just too damn late.  Think Richard Avedon and Irving Penn.  Both of whom were incredible pioneers as opposed to the Chase Jarvis and Michael Grecco types who understand a trendy, contemporary use of the tools, and the power of good, pervasive marketing.

It's like Avedon invented Haute Cuisine while Jarvis added an extra strip of bacon to the cheeseburger.....while Grecco introduced pink mayonnaise and convinced Ludacris to put it on his bacon cheeseburger.....really, it is apt.

Consider this for a moment...two companies sell 90% of the cameras used by professionals today.  Both have the identical format!  Your choice is really sensor A or sensor B.  Processing algorithm A or   Processing algorithm B.  Can you imagine the photographers we truly admire from the film age being constrained to choose between just two different films?  Where is the differentiation?  Where is the rugged individualism?  How did this all happen?

Some postulate that every move toward convenience decreases overall quality.  That every wave of mass acceptance creates an inertia to consider whatever the masses have embraced to be the “standard”.  By that measure, clothes from Walmart are the new standard, and if you are truthful you'll acknowledge that you'd never get your wardrobe from Walmart...

So, what do you do? If you are a business person, first analyze your business carefully, and if you find that selling your current product, no matter how commodified it is, is going well and your market share is growing, then continue on your path.  But if you feel like you got into this field to do something unique and different but you have the queasy feeling that you let the weight of life and money drag you into some compromised stasis then start pushing back and re-connect with why you wanted to be here in the first place.

When I taught at The University of Texas at Austin I had a student who came to me and complained that she couldn't possibly fulfill her promise as a great fashion photographer unless she had a Hasselblad and a stable of good, Zeiss lenses.  But she whined that she could never afford them, so she was doomed to failure.  A week earlier I had overheard her telling a classmate that her parents had just bought her brand new, turbo-charged  Volvo station wagon. ( in the early 1980's this would have been viewed as radically indulgent within the student class---now, who knows?).  

I suggested that she sell the car and buy the dream.  She thought I was insane.  The money trumped the art.  The comfort quotient kicked the crap out of art.  I caught up with her two decades of “life lessons” later.  She has become a gifted artist.  She pursues her vision with a Holga camera.  She lives on the edge.  She doesn't own a car.  But here's the news flash, she's happier than she ever was because she's very clear about what she wants.  And what she wants is to pursue the vision she had in the very first gestalt moment of loving photography.

So, how do you change?  How about throwing away all the trappings and offering what you really feel compelled to offer as art, and the hell with the rest of the market.  After all, would you rather be the next Avedon or a watered down/ tarted up version of Olan Mills.  You have the “Art” with a capital “A” in you or you would have never chosen this business.  Owning a McDonald's franchise is a much more secure way to earn lots more money.  So trade down on lifestyle, if necessary, and trade up on artistic integrity.  I can almost guarantee that you'll spend less on therapy and Xanax.  And people may grow up wanting to be just like you----instead of wanting to have your lifestyle.

I know you might think this sounds preachy and high handed but it's really a synopsis of the journey of self discovery I've been on lately.  I've opened the files in my office and dragged in a big ass trash can.  Anything that doesn't feel good, special and all about my work goes into the can.  All the event negatives from the 1990's.  All the executive portraits older than three years.  And I've started showing only the styles I want to shoot.  Not everything I could do in a pinch.  It makes me feel lighter.  Like I'm freeing up mindshare.  But that's something for another month.

In the meantime my prescription for change is to go back to using your very first camera for a month.  If you learned on a Canon AE-1 or a Minolta Maxxum 7000 or a Holga, go back and get one and load it up.  Shoot the way you once loved for a month.  Live with your style for a month and see if it doesn't feel better. 

I could give you more advice about shooting with little strobes but it would all be bullshit until you figure out why you shoot, and what you want to have coming out of your camera.  Customers?  If the work is satisfying to you then you'll find the market you want.  It may not be the market that supports your BMW payments but remember, you trade you life for money and you'll never get either back, so you might as well start doing it on your terms right now!

Thanks, Kirk

Author:  Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography

       Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Studio Photography

(really, two totally separate books with annoyingly similar titles.....)

See more work:   Kirk Tuck's Commercial Website/An adventure in iWeb

How do you design light?

What does your light say? Direction, quality and the motivation of the light are all much more important than the kind or brand of instrument you use. To get it right, use the light. 

My friend, Will, likes to light portraits with one light. If given the choice I will always use two. I think the background usually benefits from its own source of illumination. 

Three lights are generally too many for a single portrait. The more lights you use the more complicated production gets and it's almost always a case of diminishing returns. 

Fun on a Sunday Afternoon. Sony RX10. Kirk Tuck at the Wall. No, not that wall...

I am fascinated by two things lately. One is the Sony RX10 and the other are the giant walls filled with ever changing, legal graffiti. One fascination led to another today as I grabbed the RX10, an extra battery, and a microphone and headed over to Baylor St. to document the wall and grab some interviews with some of the artists who come by to work on their art. 

When I finished with the video shooting (so much fun) I decided to give the still side of the camera a work out because it's still very new to me and (uncharacteristically) I haven't photographed very many people with the camera and I've withheld my opinion about the camera's portrait ability until I have more total data points to integrate.

The wall of graffiti is a great thing to shoot because I can look for tiny details as well as bold concentrations of saturated colors. 

I shot the video in the best light and I will tell you that I have already reviewed a lot of the footage and to say that the video files from the RX10 are sharp and detailed while still appearing natural is an understatement. This may be the best video camera I've ever shot with. Ever. But take that with a grain of salt because the Sony Beta SP cameras I used in the 1990's were not HD and I haven't really touched a dedicated video camera since then. I know the Sony F55 is much better but it's 25 times the cost and....well it's 25 times the cost! I'll get some video up as soon as I edit it in but I'm trying to figure out a bold work around. 

I used an Azden mini-microphone in the hotshot of the camera, didn't bring headphones, and just trusted to the fates that the audio would be fine. After all, it was perfectly good the last time I stuck a Rode microphone on the camera. Well, my hubris was smacked down by the gods of audio and they rendered by Azden mic mute. Narrator track here we come...

Back to the stills. I used all the focal lengths on the camera and then some. I engaged the digital telephoto setting and occasionally cheated by going off the reality end of the zoom and into the highly magnified, made up area of the zoom. I'll note which still is an example of that below.  

Here are my observations: The camera handles well and with the "active" setting that incorporates physical I.S. along with digital I.S. the camera is rock steady and easy to handhold at its longest focal length and at shutter speeds down below 1/50th of a second. Here's an interesting operational note; the zoom will not operate as long as you have your finger pressing on the shutter button. The EVF works well in full sun and the images on the monitor in the office match what I was seeing on the EVF on site. 

The files have really good detail to them and the flesh tones (where relevant) are neutral, non-splotchy and very pleasant. "Yes." I can use this camera for portrait work. 

Have a gander though the images below and take note of particular images which are samples of some effect or another. 

A wider shot in open shade. 

Medium shot in open shade.

Nice, neutral flesh tones and good skin rendering.

She was moving and he had paused. The slow shutter speed was enough to render the guy sharp but too slow to render the movement of the girl sharply. 

An embarrassingly awkward stance for a "fashion" photographer. But I liked her pearl necklace. And I noticed that she was shooting her images with a Sony R1 camera. What are the odds?

Here's the close up so you can evaluate skin tone (and rolled eyes) while the image below is the full frame. 

I'm not sure the clothes are a good match for the outsider art. 

Here is an image from the camera at the full 200mm equivalent setting. 

The image just above is a 2x mag of the longest setting via the miracle of 

digital zoom (and active image stabilization).

I am thoroughly satisfied with the RX10. I'll keep shooting with it until I run into some sort of technical road block but I can now recommend it whole-heartedly because it works very well and the video also looks superb. Inventory for the next out of country shooting trip? Two of these (one as a back up) and a pocket full of batteries. Plus a full on sound check with headphones for external microphones. Live and learn. Again and again.

Photo of Ben working diligently at his computer back in 2000.

Like millions of families before us we've come to that time when we are looking at colleges and universities for Ben. He'll be graduating from high school at the end of May and we're anxious to make some final choices. I was thinking about that today when I came across a little, black and white 4x6 inch print (above).  Tempus Fugit !!!

I still have the blueberry MacBook. It still works. 

Hanging out in Austin? Go have dinner at Garrido's.

Here's my favorite current chef photo. I took David's photo for his restaurant's web site. In fact, I took all the images on the website. If you can't make it for a great Mexican style dinner at least drop by the website and look at my portrait of David:

http://www.garridosaustin.com/chef.html

Charles Allen Wright by Kirk Tuck for Private Clubs Magazine.

This is an image of Charles Allen Wright, a very famous Texas Lawyer. I shot it in his office at the University of Texas at Austin Law School. I used several different cameras on my editorial photo assignment but this image is from a Rolleiflex twin lens camera with a 2.8 Planar lens.

The camera could shoot twelve images on a roll. 

I used an old, manual, Vivitar 285 flash in a small white umbrella. 

I connected it with a cable because we didn't have inexpensive radio slaves at the time.

In a strange role reversal my most important mentor, Wyatt McSpadden, came along with me as my assistant. 

After we finished up we headed back to the studio to unload and I went into the darkroom and developed the ten shot rolls of 120 film from the shoot.

I made contact sheets and sent them, via Federal Express, to the magazine. 

The art director at the magazine circle one image and sent that contact sheet back.

I printed three or four variations of the image on fiber based, double weight paper and sent the resulting prints back to the art director via Federal Express. 

The image ran as a half page illustration in the magazine.

I was thrilled. 

A few years later I was showing my portfolio to someone at an outdoor café. 

A well dressed woman walked past, saw this image in the portfolio and stopped. 

She said, "He was the greatest influence in my entire life." 

The art director I was showing the portfolio to was surprised. 

Will revisited.

Pity my dearest friends because I've subjected them to unscheduled portraits far too often. This is Will a few years ago, caught mid-statement, at lunch. The image was taken with a Pentax 645 camera and a 150mm lens. I love the way it goes out of focus. I really like the glasses. I am indifferent to the Pentax's bokeh.