Shot in the Dordogne region of France, the picture on the right is a very early work of mine. Two important things come to mind with this picture.  First, for years, before I had even taken it, I had dreams about it. In photographic terms, I guess I sort of pre-visualized it. I can remember during the years I shot landscape, consciously looking for this location.  Therefore, I assume that this is probably the most introspective picture I’d ever taken, both consciously and subconsciously.  You can imagine the joy and sense of fulfillment I felt upon seeing this grove. But unlike many other landscapes where I walk to the spot where I think everything feels right and take the picture, this picture in the place I was familiar with, alluded me.

Upon entering the grove, I immediately knew this picture was there; the trick was where to find it.  While it looks very contrived, very precise, and very easy, it was actually very difficult to find.  It was there; it just took a long time to isolate the perspective.  Like many of my pictures, I only knew I had found it when it felt right.  It was not so much an intellectual experience of finding proportion, or scale; rather, it was an emotional or intuitive response that made me say, “Oh my god, this is it.  This feels right to me.” I had finally found what I was looking for. The only question remains to this day: what is it I found? Is it a way forward? A way out? Or perhaps a way in?

The second thing is the fact that this is a landscape.  It has actually been many years since I have shot a landscape without a figure in it.  As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, there was a time in my life that I shot only portraits and landscapes, but I would not combine the two.  This photograph is part of that period.  Over the number of years of trying to shoot landscapes, I have only shot 20-30.  They are the most difficult thing I shoot.

You have to be in the right place at the right time. One can’t manipulate the landscape.  When shooting a figure, if the person is in the wrong place, I can move him or her a few feet. If the sun is in the wrong place, I can turn the figure around, etc.  In other words, I can move the figure to fit into the landscape.  However, the landscape, which is large, is impossible to move. If I came to this landscape at 8 AM and it was cloudy, it may not work.  At 6 PM the light may not be right.  Landscapes only work at a particular place and at a particular time.

Many landscape photographers today manipulate the landscape—they use long exposures; they use filters; they do kinds of manipulations that mold the landscape to be what they want it to be.  They are able to take the landscape and make it their own.  However, I had to operate with the landscape as an integration between me and it.  They were the most difficult pictures I ever shot.  The following picture is a good example of this.

I lived in Wales, and had driven by this spot multiple times, and I never had any interest in taking this picture. All of a sudden, one evening, for fifteen minutes, the sky was dark and foreboding.  This picture presented itself.  In the next half hour, it didn’t exist.

Thanks for reading. For more information on the new book, take the leap and visit it here, where the end is just the beginning.

Unlike most of the pictures in this book, this picture was shot totally spontaneously. The experience taught me several important lessons.  We had just completed a shoot for Ralph Lauren and we were driving back to New York City.  On our way, the art director realized that we had yet to shoot a picture of a certain outfit. We stopped the car immediately to solve the problem.  Directly outside the car was this field.

The art director said we needed to shoot a picture without showing the model’s face. At first, I suggested we shoot from behind.  For some reason, this was not acceptable. We had a canoe for the shoot that we had never used.  Suddenly, I came up with the idea to place the canoe on top of the model’s head.  This sudden thought was a combination of spontaneity, luck, and necessity.  However, unbeknownst to me at the time, there was probably also something deeper at play.

For years I had placed hats on the heads of my subjects.  By doing so, I obscured their heads and faces, and these pictures inadvertently became more and more surreal.  This was not because I consciously or intellectually decided that’s what I wanted; rather, it was because I liked playing with the iconic image of the hat.  On the one hand, it dressed people up, finished the outfit, and made them timeless. But on the other hand, it acted as this obscuring object that made the person every man, as opposed to a specific person in time and history.  So, without even realizing it, I used the canoe as if it were a giant hat.

I usually spend days scouting and finding the perfect location.  However, here we were obviously pressed for time, and we had to get this shot right away.  We literally took the canoe off the car, and placed it in the field right where we stopped.   This was a very important lesson to me.  While the location is so important in my pictures and I work so hard to find the perfect place, on occasion, I can take what is given to me and make a great picture. This particular picture was totally fortuitous. We did not scout or permit the field; it was just kind of handed to me.  And to this day I really like this picture. Sometimes, days of preparation will not necessarily result in a perfect picture.  I have learned over the years to try to use things to my advantage.  I scout when it’s sunny, but it rains on the shoot.  The model is happy at the casting, and depressed on the shoot day.  The right clothes don’t arrive, etc. If you want to shoot on location, be open to the possibility of luck and chance. If this ability to not be in complete control is too bothersome, I suggest you stick to inanimate objects, landscapes, or accounting. Be open to complications and problems.  I welcome the rainy day, because I never know what may grow from it.

In the end, I was told Ralph Lauren never used this picture because he claimed it was too strong for the clothes.  People remembered the image over the clothing. I don’t know if that story is true, but it perhaps shows insight on the part of Ralph Lauren.

Thanks for reading. For more information on the new book, take the leap and visit it here, where the end is just the beginning.

Greetings.  At this moment, I’m feeling a little less abandoned than this picture, but not by much.  The spread reads, “Forgotten but not gone.” This picture was shot about 50 miles west of Calgary in the very rural farmland.  It’s a somewhat recent picture.  What strikes me about this picture is the integration of architecture, landscape, and figure.  I need to digress momentarily to talk about my early years as a photographer.

In my early twenties I shot mainly portraiture and landscapes.  For some reason I always found my self attracted, or pulled in, to getting very close to people. This translated visually in my early years to photographing people face to face. I didn’t use a long lens to get close to somebody.  I would physically be close, and ended up photographing people mostly from the waist up. I never used long or short focal length lenses.  It was always a normal lens. If you want to get close to somebody or something, don’t stand far away.  I would either shoot close up portraits of people, or shoot landscapes. I rarely integrated the two.  Ironically, rarely was there a sense of place in my portraits.  See below an early example of my portrait and landscape work.

Over time, and for a number of reasons that I will discuss at a later date, I began to integrate landscape photography and portraiture.  This picture is a good example of this integration of architecture, landscape, and the human element.  There is something about the disintegrating building that makes it a very important—if not the most important—part of the picture, as strong or even stronger than the figures.  This is a very modern example of years of shooting landscape, figures, and architecture, and integrating them all into a simple composition that all feels right.

People often ask how I found this particular location.  The way I found this location is indicative of how I go about doing everything.  Two days before the shoot, an assistant, the art director, and myself drove hundreds of miles looking for appealing locations.  I happened to pass this place the day before the shoot.  I knew immediately I could shoot a picture there. I didn’t really know what the picture would be, but I knew that I liked the building.  I realized the picture had to be shot first thing in the morning, before the sun emerged from behind the building.  We planned this to be the very first shot of the day.  It was probably 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning.  The sun is directly behind the building, right on the horizon line. In another hour or two, the shot would be impossible. As always, finding the right location is the single most important aspect—and the most challenging—in creating a photograph.  It is often days or weeks of work to find the right place.  After that, making the actual picture comes rather quickly and easily.

Thanks for reading. For more information on the new book, take the leap and visit it here, where the end is just the beginning.

Welcome to another Monday morning. It’s hot here in New York, but I am happy: this morning Blanchette Press completed final printing of The End and shipped it to the bindery. I have to admit that they have done a spectacular job with printing. So, it’s in high spirits that I will talk about this spread from the book. The text on the left reads, “Merry Leigh she rolls along.”

This picture was shot for the now defunct Mirabella Magazine at an estate on Long Island. The inclusion of this photograph arose from the need for a picture of a beautiful woman. The thing that is attractive—or maybe even unattractive—about this picture is the following story. We used two models for the shoot: Annika, the girl you see on the bicycle who is German, and Marie Claudia who is Brazilian. There were three days of shooting. After the first day of shooting, I didn’t really get along with this German girl. She was somewhat standoffish and aloof. The Brazilian girl, however, was lively, gracious, entertaining and funny. I suggested to the art director that we only use the Brazilian girl for the last two days of shooting. Citing contractual concerns, the art director said we had to use both models for the last two days.

I continued to shoot both of them, basically not really connecting with Annika. I don’t think she particularly felt a connection either. The result of the situation is rich with irony. For the most part, I’m pretty good at knowing what the pictures are going to look like when they are made into final prints. I don’t shoot Polaroids, which is maybe something we’ll get into later, so I have to get into a mode of visualization to imagine how the end results of the pictures. But in this case, I was completely wrong.

Because I did not feel a deep connection with Annika, I felt that the pictures of her would not turn out. On the other hand, I had high hopes for the pictures of the Brazilian girl, as we got along wonderfully throughout the shoot. In the end, however, the pictures of the Brazilian girl were just okay. They were not really exceptional. However, the pictures of this girl, Annika were exquisite. She looks strikingly beautiful in every frame, no exception. This is very memorable to me, because I was completely wrong. Here I was, not really feeling a connection with this model, yet I could not take a bad picture of her.  This experience contradicted all my experience up to that point, and culminated in this picture.

For more information on the new book, take the leap and visit it here, where the end is just the beginning.

I know your screen is small, and it’s hard to see the text in the upper right corner.  It reads, “We’re all in this alone.”

This picture reminds me of something my ex father-in-law, the playwright Robert Anderson, once told me: “You’re always weaving; you just never know when you’re weaving in gold.”  This picture was shot very spontaneously on a regular day of shooting.  We had just shot the following picture in a field using this coat and hat.

It was actually quite cool that day, so AJ, the model, was still wearing the coat as we were preparing lunch.  Just as he was sitting down, a workman from the stables where we were shooting walked by with this ladder.  Without realizing why, I decided to shoot a picture with the ladder against the wall. During this period, which extends to the present, I am so used to shooting the figure in a landscape, that it seemed incomplete to have a ladder without a figure. After convincing the workman to lend us the ladder, I placed the ladder against the wall and asked AJ to quickly climb it. He stopped where you see him.  It all seemed perfect.  I shot the picture. The whole process took less than three minutes.  The ladder was returned, and we went on to lunch.  It was not until after the shoot was over that I remembered I had even shot it.

This seems to me indicative of other experiences in my life.  When I least expect it, and I’m not looking for it, when I seem to let go completely, something wonderful happens.  The more I trust my instincts—which are a combination of intellect and emotion—the more I like the experience. The more I hold on, the more fearful I become, the more controlling I need to be, the less I seem to get.  Particularly in photography, you have to learn to let go and trust your instincts.

This seemingly offhand decision to shoot AJ on a ladder has over the years turned into an iconic picture of sorts. For many, this picture connotes looking into the future, or knowing what’s on the other side of the wall. It’s as if the figure in the picture has some sort of special knowledge that the rest of us are unable to access.  None of this was conscious to me when I shot this picture.  It may have been in my psyche, but it was not in my awareness.

Another quality of this picture is its timelessness. Many people have often mentioned they are unable to place my work in a specific time period.  This particular picture was shot fifteen years ago, but many would not be surprised to hear it was shot last year. That is a compliment in my mind.  As I’ve written in an earlier post, I believe classicism never goes out of favor. It may not be au courant or fashionable at the moment, but it actually never goes out of style.

For more information on the new book, take the leap and visit it here, where the end is just the beginning.