Panel discussion
topics, section 3:
MR.
HOCKENBERRY: Tom, let me shift gears here for a second. What
do you think the dramatic changes in the technology of photography means
for you who did some rather radical adaptations of existing 35-mm and
view camera technology to even operate the shutter?
MR.
LEE: Well, I like the old manual cameras and that's what I prefer
to use. It would probably be easier to get an auto-focus camera that
did everything for me, but the process of setting the shutter speed
and the aperture and focusing... when you work in that manner, it deliberately
slows you down and makes you think about what you're doing. So digital
imaging is fine, it's a good way to capture a picture really quick and
see what you've got.But it's kind of a different... it's a different
form of art, a form of self-expression. I know there are easier ways
for me to do things as far as electric cameras or inkjet printing, but
the process is the important part of the art. And so I like the slower
process... even if I had no disability I think I'd still be working in
the same manner.
MR. H:
But if something comes along that's actually useful, you'll use it but
you don't necessarily define your art in terms of ease of operation
in (UNINTELLIGIBLE) terms.
MR. LEE:
No, and I think there's something about... if you have to work for the
image, it's just much more satisfying. More so than just point and click.
MS. PARKS:
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) with that, Tom. I have to work so much harder and so
much longer to create an image, and I don't know what it looks like
until I get it back and I can put it on a magnifying machine. I have
no idea whether it's in focus, I have no idea whether it's what I want.
But it is, it makes it much more satisfying when it does turn out that
way.It is the process for me, also.
MR.
H: Well, it's certainly not the case that ease gives you any sort
of access to quality photography as any trip to a 1-hour developing
place.... We're talking to some of the people who work there and have
to work at the sunsets stamped out by the thousands will attest to.
Joan, what photographer's work has been particularly meaningful
for you?
MS. WEXLER:
Tina Barney, Sally Mann, well, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) White was my teacher,
and he was very influential toward me, but his work was not a favorite
of mine.
MR. H:
Did you let him know that?
MS. WEXLER:
No. (laughter)
MR. H:
Probably a really good idea.
MS. WEXLER:
I liked his work but his work itself didn't influence me, but he as
a teacher and an artist did influence me quite a bit.
MR. H:
What qualities of the people you've described are similar to the
kinds of things you're trying to achieve with your pictures?
MS. WEXLER:
Well, Tina Barney and Sally Mann photograph people in ways that look
candid but aren't really candid. They're somewhere between being posed
and being candid. I think Tina Barney actually stages her subjects to
make it look candid, but they really aren't. And I'm fascinated by that
concept. And so in the series of Lotti and Harry, it was in this wedding
reception, and they're candid pictures, and I don't usually do candid
work, but I was trying to get something where it was somewhere between
posed and being candid. And Sally Mann, in her photographs of her children,
she does similar there, a cross between candid photographs and being
staged and posed. And I find the relationship between those two really
interesting.
MR. H:
Lotti and Harry were aware of your presence at the party?
MS. WEXLER:
Yes.
MR.
H: So in a sense you're already on that continuum of candid versus
staged. And I imagine if you got out of hand, Lotti would let you know.
(chuckle)
There's
a range of career options for people who are photographers as artists,
and that can range from exhibition work, pure sort of exhibition work
all the way to certain kinds of magazine work and commercial photographic
work. How many of the people on this panel have done any commercial?
MS. PARKS:
I do all. Almost exclusively.
MR. H:
And Tom as well? Commercial work? Magazine work? Yes. Joan?
MS. WEXLER:
I've done portrait commissions and I work at the National Science Foundation,
and for 5 years I was the photographer there, doing mostly portraits
of employees for special events.
MR. H:
Oh, that's fascinating, that sounds like a book. Sounds like a great
book. Angelo, how about yourself?
MR. SCIULLI:
I was mostly into self-publishing my work. I found stock photography
to be as close as I wanted to get to a corporate client.
MR. H:
Not anything of corporate claim?
MR. SCIULLI:
No.
MR. H:
Would like to get into that?
MR. SCIULLI:
No. (laughter)
MR.
H: Okay. As a commercial magazine photographer, how limiting is
that? Or maybe not? I mean I think obviously we love to get paid to
do what it is we love to do. But I'm wondering if commercial photography
is a hard sell for someone with a disability?
MS. LEVINE (?): Well, not having a physical disability, although it turned
out I actually had to modify the amount of photography that I did, prior
to that time when there was no real... when it wasn't an issue other than...
MR. H:
The stealth approach.
MS. LEVINE: I'm sorry?
MR. H:
With the stealth approach (chuckle).
MS. LEVINE: ... but there wasn't much issue there other than the logistics of timelines, which is actually kind of...time management is a big issue for me.
And however, I specialized in the area of disability issues so that
meant the disability press in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. was my
target market. And that was kind of limiting in the sense of what people
would pay was below market rate. And sometimes the control of how
things are printed and the quality of the printing, so the duplication
of it was sometimes a little bit frustrating. But I chose it because
that's where I felt most comfortable. And I felt that monthlies were
an easier deadline than weeklies or dailies for me. And the relationship,you end up building a relationship with people. And those were the
values that I looked as being important. And then I built up a client
base of nonprofits in the disability communities and healthcare-type
communities of being a photographer for them. And so I would do event
photography as well and had a separate camera for those kinds of moments
when it wasn't more of a long-term relationship building.
MR. H:
But in pragmatic terms, your disability relates to your career in the
sense that a lot of terrified freelancers, you have to really watch
that you don't bite off more than you can chew and time management is
really the biggest issue then.
MS. LEVINE:
And making the deadlines, definitely, was an issue. And then sometimes
the numbers things was a little bit frustrating. But with frequent phone
calls to the contact person, it usually worked itself out. So it was
more the business side of stuff that became a little bit more difficult
for me than the actual going out and shooting. Although when I had to
go to location, I had to really make sure where it was located.
MR. H:
That's always a good part.
MS. LEVINE:
Because the directions I'd get confused me and I'd go the wrong way.
And so I built in extra time and things like that. But those were the
areas that it affected me most as far as that side of it.
MR.
H: How about for you, Tom?
MS. LEVINE:
Actually, that second image there that you showed in an amusement park
was shot through a Oklahoma Today magazine story that I did for them
a couple years ago. And that...they basically gave me the freedom to
go to this amusement park in Oklahoma City and then photograph it as
I saw it and use the images in the magazine.
MR. H: Was
there an article that accompanied it? Was there....
MR. LEE:
Yes, there was an article on their... it's called "Frontier City"; it's
Oklahoma City's amusement park. And they had a story about the amusement
park in a magazine.And I got the job just to go out and shoot the
park as I saw it. The editor came to me and suggested the job, and
jobs like that don't come along that often.
MR. H: No, it's really, really interesting. Let me explore this. So the
article was not about accessible amusement parks and you can take your
kids to it, right?
MR. LEE:
No, it was just a generic article on the amusement park. ThereÉit was
in Oklahoma City and you had all these attractions. But they gave me
the freedom just to go out and shoot it in my style.
MR. H:
I mean given that... how many of the rides could you or would you actually
go on at the amusement park?
MR. LEE:
I would be surprised if 10 percent of them were accessible.
MR. H:
Right. So with no experience actually of the rides and no ability
to necessarily get that experience, you were first of all given the
assignment. And I'm just wondering how liberating it was to approach
an assignment like that that really was in some way a kind of experiential
stretch.
MR. LEE:
It was a very good experience. I've had other jobs where you're told
go shoot a specific thing, whether it's an ad for a clothing store or
a portrait for somebody, but to just have the creative feeling to go
out and shoot whatever I saw that caught my eye was a very good experience.
MR. H:
Well, that's great. And what kinds of images do you think that
you got that nobody else would have gotten? And what about the
quality of your experience made it into the article, do you think?
MR. LEE:
Just like the shot of the ferris wheel that you saw on the screen. I'm
sure if they'd sent somebody else they would have got a color shot of
it and it'd be at night spinning around, orthey knew my work when
they sent me so they knew there were going to get something that had
a lot of contrast and texture, and then more of the artistic vent to
it than a commercial vent.
MR. H:
Not that you couldn't do the goofy shot at night with the lights.
MR. LEE:
Yes, I've done that stuff before for other jobs, and it's nice when
they know your work and they come to you for that style of work.
MR. H:Traci, you sort of alluded to the fact that your disability experience
was a marketing springboard for you. What sort of discussions do you
have with clients right now that brings your experience onto the
front burner for assignments?
MS. PARKS:
I work with primarily people in the building industry. I photograph
architecture because it's what I can see the best. I mean it's big and
it doesn't move (laughter) and that's very good.
MR. H:
It's your strength.
MS. PARKS:
Yes. And generally, if I screw up, the building will still be there
and I can come back.
MR. H:
Right (laughter). Not like sports photography.
MS. PARKS:
Not like sports photography.Most of my clients know up front because
I have gotten a lot of local media coverage. They don't have a lot of
questions about how I work, they are more interested in what I see versus
what they see. An architect is sometimes very, very close to the work
and they see...they think you have to show everything to make it a good
picture. And what I bring to the table is no, you don't. There are
very interesting details to buildings, and those are a lot more dramatic
a lot of times. And depending on how they're going to use it, that is
sometimes much better.
MR. H:
Can you describe a conversation you actually had with an architect where
you made that point and won?
MS. PARKS:
Yes. Well, actually I had a company hire me because I am visually impaired.
They thought it would be a riot to tell their client we hired a blind
photographer to shoot your building (laughter). I said I don't care
why you hire me, I'll photograph your dumpster if you want to.
MR. H:
This wasn't a prank.
MS. PARKS:
No.
MR. H:
It was the real thing.
MS. PARKS:
But I have a marketing background, so not only do I have a photography
background but I have a marketing background andwas trying to convince
one of the big developers in Columbus that a marketing picture is different
than a documentary picture. If you're trying to show what the building
looks like, that's different than making it... sometimes making it an
interesting photo that catches someone's eye and makes them say oh wow,
we need to rent space in that building.
MR. H:It looks like the real estate photographer versus the Ansel Adams
or something like that.
MS. PARKS:
Yes. And it again goes back to my perspective is usually different.I seem to focus on details that they're not even aware of. One
of the things that I do with clients is walk through with them before
I photograph. And we were at Autobine (phonetic) College in Columbus,
it's a very old, small college. And we were looking at the shots they
wanted. And we walked by this room that had these big, dark, wood doors
with beautiful stained glass, and it was a dance studio. I said oh,
my gosh, why isn't this on our list to shoot? And they said, oh, would
that make a good shot? (chuckles) Uh, yea! So we substituted. And one
of the other shots they wanted, it was a curved wall. And I... you know,
it is interesting, in the structure of it, I understand from the structural
standpoint that that's something difficult to do, but it would be very,
very bland compared to the other shots that you have. Let's do the dance... the
dance studio would have far more impact. And there was no interesting
artwork on it, it was a blank curved wall. So I try to give them some
objective perspective of what the viewer is going to see.
MR.
H: That's great. Joan, some of us are...some of us hear a
call to see expression early in life but I think probably most people
in America sort of have to find their way to art. Often for
young people it's a difficult choice to make to decide to be an artist,
particularly with parents saying well, wouldn't you rather be a doctor,
or something like that. I'm wondering... you've had 2 experiences; first
the decision to want to be a photographer as a young person. And I want
to explore your motivation for that. And then the struggle to go back
to photography after not being able to perform after what you describe
as your breakdown. What were those 2 decisions like, and how
do they differ, do you think?
MS. WEXLER:
Well, I was an art major in school and I wasn't interested in photography
until I had to take it; it was a required course. And so I took the
course reluctantly and then fell in love with the darkroom work from
the first day that I was in the darkroom. So that's how I started
my interest in photography. And I pursued it in graduate school afterwards.
And then I gave it up for 5 years. It wasn't a decision to give it up
permanently, it was just temporary.
MR. H:
You always knew you'd go back.
MS. WEXLER:
I always knew I would go back to it. I did sell my 4x5 camera though,
and never got another 4x5 camera. But I joined the Washington Women's
Art Center and joined the photography group there, and we exhibited.And I started exhibiting my work, and that gave me confidence to
continue because I would always get into shows and exhibits, and
that built up my confidence in being a photographer again.
