The Photo World Lost a Gem this Past Weekend
On this summer Monday morning safely back in SoCal after a whirlwind Rte. 66 trip, I had originally planned to write more about the journey.
But something happened this past weekend that made me profoundly sad and I wanted to share about this person.
You see on Saturday Bill Cunningham the famous New York Times Street Fashion Photographer passed away at age 87. He recently suffered a stroke which led to his passing.
If you’re not familiar yet with Bill, I encourage you to first read the NY Times obituary here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/style/bill-cunningham-legendary-times-fashion-photographer-dies-at-87.html?_r=0
To view the slideshow about Bill, please go to this link:
To really get a feel for Bill and his passion for his work, you simply must view the documentary about him that came out in 2010.
Seeing that movie with my wife Nicki was my birthday present in 2011 when it was available in very limited release. I simply loved it then and will watch it again to remember Bill (I never met him personally but did see him when I used to work in NY back in the day).
If you happen to be an amazon Prime member, you can watch it on streaming there by going here:
It’s available to rent on Netflix in DVD form though not available on streaming currently.
What made Bill so special was his love for photographing a subject he loved — street fashion. He was as giddy as a four year old at Christmas when he was working. And he WORKED. Man, did he work. His energy and his enthusiasm for a man in his 80s is nothing short of inspirational.
I loved that he loved photography and capturing life in the moment.
He was a gentle man, a learned man and despite covering the world of fashion, Bill was himself not a fashionista though he had his own inimitable style of clothing.
Bill’s work made it possible for photographers such as Scott Schuman, The Sartorialist. Scott’s success and other photographers doing street fashion (or even street portraits) has a lineage toBill Cunningham.
https://twitter.com/Sartorialist
R.I.P. Bill Cunningham. You and your gifts to the world will be missed.
Carol Anne & Marty Saying Goodbye
Our good friends Carol Anne and Marty are moving this next week and will be leaving California, where they've lived for 9 years (and the only state their kids have lived) for Chicago -- the places where Carol Anne and Marty grew up.
It's bittersweet for us.
On the one hand we're happy that they're heading back to family and a place they really want to be. Yet we're of course sad that they'll be leaving as we are friends and our kids are friends.
So this morning, I headed over to their home to do a very UNportrait session and produced these photographs (among others).
Travel safely you guys -- we will miss you! Our loss is Chicago's gain.
The new Godox V860II-S TTL and HSS Flash for Sony -- initial impressions video
The new Godox V860 IIS (for Sony) flash is one I have been anxious to receive. Check out the video "first impressions" review that I just posted to You Tube.
One of the great benefits of being a Family & Portrait photographer...
One of the things that I really enjoy tremendously about my work as a private, personal photographer is when creating custom portraits for families is that my work becomes a focal point and centerpiece in their homes.
It's as if the homes of my clients became a private art gallery.
Recently, I had a session amidst the wildflowers of San Juan Capistrano and photographing two young sisters — one age 9 years old and another just a few days old!
It was a great session and we were able to get some fantastic portraits of both the girls outside on location late in the day when the lighting for a portrait was optimum.
Tessa, the older sibling, has been a subject of mine in previous years. So it makes it extra special to have watched her grow up in front of the camera. The earlier portraits of Tessa as a toddler and the family are displayed in their home even now all those years later.
And now with a new baby sister there’s the opportunity to do that for Helena.
Here is a gallery of images that we created for Alan and Cynthia at their OC home.
(These are our Folio Box Collection 7 x 10 portraits and the mats were upgraded to 14" x 14" size to allow for a six square portrait grid for their home.)
"Hi Paul,
The photos look beautiful, especially on our living room wall. Thanks so much!
Cynthia"
Does anything ever hold you back from taking a photograph?
A woman waits at John Wayne (SNA) Airport last Friday before a flight to Denver. In the foreground are the busts of Angels greats Jim Fregosi (left) and Nolan Ryan (right). Sony a7SII, 35mm f2.8 FE Zeiss lens, Silent shooting mode, 1000 ISO 1/80th at f2.8.
I was at John Wayne Airport on Friday morning before the sun rose, heading to a training event in Colorado.
Whenever I travel by air and I’m waiting in the airport, my mind takes me back to an article that ran in a photography magazine in the early 1980s when I was a young photographer, still in school, and hoping to make a place for myself in this industry.
The article was about a professional photographer named Burk Uzzle. He is a photographer from North Carolina who was a member of the prestigious Magnum Photo Agency at the time and also did a lot of commercial and corporate work. He photographed Woodstock in 1969, started work at a newspaper at age 17 and was the youngest photographer hired by Life Magazine.
This particular photo magazine that profiled Uzzle was one of those magazines that I wish that I still had but unfortunately I don’t (I’ve been trying to track down the exact date with no luck yet. You can find some of Burk Uzzle’s work on the NY Times Lens Blog site re: a retrospective show of his work http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/15/burk-uzzles-american-puzzle/ . While these aren’t the photographs that were in the article you’ll get a sense of his unique view and very intimate and graphic style (in b & w).
The profile featured photographs that he made from the airport with a camera that he always carried with him, ready to go and loaded with black and white film. (During this period in his career he was doing annual report photography all with Leica cameras to travel light and lean as he traveled the globe doing the travel. Two Leica cameras were his color cameras and one Leica with black and white for his personal work).
The photographs were haunting in their composition and they were wide angle so they showed people within the landscape. Some close, some wide. The light was often early light or end of the day light captured in those off moments that happened when he was traveling from assignment to assignment.
The beauty of those Leica cameras is that they are so small and lightweight (not intimidating) as well as very quiet.
Since I’m now shooting with Sony digital cameras, I’ve tried to replicate that small form factor and low key photographer demeanor by using my cameras in a similar type of "rangefinder" way.
On this day my easy access travel camera was a Sony a7S II and a tiny 35mm f2.8 FE Zeiss lens. Very small and jewel like, it doesn’t look particularly intimidating.
And yet, despite this stealthy little camera in my possession, when I saw a scene that struck me as interesting and a scene that I simply had to photograph, I hesitated taking the photograph!
This is the small camera used to make the photograph above -- a Sony a7SII, 35mm f2.8 FE Zeiss.
Fighting “The Resistance"
The scene happened when I was in line to board and I casually glanced to my right and saw an older woman with a soft drink, seated on a bench. Her body language said “tired” which I totally understood (after all it was around 6:15 AM and we were waiting to board a plane).
So I noticed her body language, but what made it more interesting, and maybe a bit haunting was the fact that she was flanked by the sculpture busts of two great and former Angels baseball players from the late 60s and 70s — Jim Fregosi and Nolan Rolan.
They were housed in a display case where they appeared to float and the cases were angled, sending a diagonal line toward the camera.
This was a photograph that instantly brought me back to that article and also brought me back to why I love photography so much.
It’s that element of surprise — even for a photographer, who’s really expecting to see something at this godforsaken hour of the morning on a Friday at an airport? But it’s also a reward for being ready, even in a kind of casual, ready-for-a-photo way.
And still, I have to admit I turned and saw it and then I held off taking the photograph!
Would this woman see me? Would she mind? Would other passengers see me? Would they mind? Would anyone say anything? Can you do this kind of photography in a post 911 world?
Those ideas flashed through my mind in an instant and kept me frozen, not making a photograph.
I turned and looked again and the feeling gnawed at me.
That’s a photograph that I want to remember. I want to remember that feeling, I want to remember this moment in time, I want to honor that artistic instinct in me that sees something and then takes it — not in a big footing “I’m a photographer I have a right to take a photograph” jerk mentality but instead, the "Wow, that is amazing, it speaks about life, it’s real, it’s beautiful and I really want to remember it” kind of way.
So despite the hesitation (yep, even after doing this for decades, that resistance still wells up) I got the camera out and prepared to make a photograph.
In this case I would go into the quiet camera mode. Silent shooting on the a7SII and then I flipped the view screen down so I could see through the lens without bringing the camera to my eye. I framed, focused (using my thumb on the back button) and made several exposures. I checked the images by looking through the EVF. There was one in there that I really liked.
Another thing that I observed while working this way was that I wasn’t noticed. Well, not at least in a way that calls attention to itself.
In a way it was as I was invisible. I have found that holding the camera away from my eye and stretching it out a bit, makes it seem less intimidating. Old school medium format cameras are similar when they have a waist level finder so you are looking down to focus. Simply keeping the camera AWAY from my eye made it seem like I was an amateur or not even making a photograph.
And, the quite mode on the Sony meant that camera shutter is not even heard. Even quieter than a Leica when in this mode!
The lesson in this for me was to continue to be ready to make a photograph -- to continue to look and see and feel and be open to discovering a photograph.
How about you? Have you ever hesitated in taking a photograph? What held you back? Did you overcome any fears? What’s your story (please share it below in the comments).