Getting Ready ©2012 D.A.Wagner

It only made sense that I started out assisting fashion guys, since I attended the Fashion Institute of Technology. But through a series of fateful events, I ended up assisting the brilliant photographer and lighting master, Ben Somoroff. Ben is one of the photographers whose career and vision blossomed under the tutelage of Alexey Brodovitch of Harper’s Bazaar fame. Brodovitch also influenced the likes of Art Kane, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, to name just a few of the ground-breaking photographers in that elite circle.

Ben shot fashion. He shot still life. He directed television commercials. He was a master craftsman and I was his apprentice. And while he was inventive and clever, patient and thoughtful, he was also easygoing and immensely likable. Remarkable traits in an incredibly challenging industry (polite words for stressful). During my time with Ben we worked with Milton Glaser, Walter Bernard and Gael Greene from New York Magazine, and Madison Avenue icon David Deutsch, who designed my first business cards because I asked (I didn’t know who he was). I was sponsored into NABET (National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, a union) by Mel Sokolsky’s studio manager (and former B&W printer for Avedon), Frank Finocchio, so I could work with Ben on TV commercials as a prop man. Ben taught me so very much over those years and I’m still learning today. I owe him a debt of gratitude, but regrettably can not give it. Ben died in ’84.

I never saw Ben loose his temper. Not even when I accidentally ruined a batch of film by washing it in near boiling water. He wasn’t happy, but I didn’t get fired either. I was a pretty lucky kid. Over the years, Ben has increasingly come to mind in my work. I now see and think in ways that allow me to take bigger risks. Ben did that all the time, he went with the flow. Now I find I’m doing that, too, and with a bit of patience as well. Some risks fail, fall short or look routine, while others succeed.

Eventually the risks become technique. Technique becomes style and style becomes vision. I’m taking even more risks these days, because even now, there’s so much more to learn. So why not reach out and explore?

The heydays of photography may be long since gone, but the challenges of reaching for greatness never change. Be complacent or take risks. It’s a choice. I’ll keep walking on that ledge to see what happens.

And if I fail or fall short, I’ll get right back up and try again. Boy, have I been there before.

Since I’m sidetracked right now with teaching my classes, this blog post is dedicated to my design students.

It’s the cold war. It’s the year after Sputnik was launched by the Soviets.

This 1958 film saluting the stylists of the automotive, industrial, interior and architectural design industry reflects the American obsession with consumerism and the future. It proposes that the American dream is here now. The opening features Finnish born and French educated Eero Saarinen’s General Motors Technical Center in Michigan, bathed in the light of a sunset before fading into a teenager picking up a Swedish designed Ericofon–a phone that Bell Telephone (today’s Verizon) aggressively blocked from import to the U.S. market for years. Ah, yes, the American dream of “fifties atomic-age minimalism.”

With it’s quirky, theatrical, dramatic, lighthearted, sometimes angelic and very 1950s music soundtrack, the film is filled with hundreds of wonderful designs – some of which our parents or grandparents discarded quickly after purchase, some which we still covet today.

This is only part 1 of American Look. You can find part 2 and 3 at the archive.org web site. Archive.org is one of my favorite places for ephemera.

The Hasselblad Masters Competition Web Page

I’m humbled. I’m a Hasselblad Masters Finalist.

No, really, I am. Some time around the middle of last year I entered the Hasselblad Masters Competition and promptly forgot about it.

Then I got a “congratulations” email from Hasselblad. And, thinking that everyone who entered got one, thought nothing of it until I went to the website and discovered I’m in an elite group of 110 finalists selected from of a field of over 2500 entrants. Hey, I have better odds of winning this than I do playing the state lottery, where my chances of being struck by lightning are better.

The winner gets to work on a “Masters” project supported by Hasselblad.

Cool.

Click here to vote for my photos. The voting process is wonky to say the least. But once you’ve muddled through, They fixed the voting and now it’s a breeze, so please give me five points if you don’t mind. It’s appreciated. You have until October 31st, 2011, which has to be one of the longest voting windows ever for a photo contest.

Now, get out there and vote.

Happy Go Lucky Goldfish

When I was a kid, my dad had a workshop, his sanctuary really. There were countless days spent at his side, building or fixing something, always setting up some kind of power tool or hand tool, depending upon the project of the moment. Much of that time I would have preferred playing outside with my friends, but it was demanded of me to be my father’s assistant, like it or not. But, like it or not, I learned. I learned to wood carve, make moulding and furniture from scratch, frame out and build structures, weld pipes, repair radios, TVs, and clocks, wire electrical outlets, and on and on.

No matter the project, he would read up, dive in, then bitch and moan about something gone wrong – frequently crying out loud, “goddammit!” – but in the end the project got completed flawlessly, as if he were a master craftsman, when in real life he was simply a repo man for a truck company. His quest for excellence was overwhelming at times, as nothing short of perfect was ever acceptable.

What about all these bits and pieces I weathered in his shadow? I grew up having a real comfort level around power and hand tools and that now translates into improvising sets and finding solutions to the day-to-day challenges of photography. These days I don’t build so much; it’s more like I modify props and rig sets to suit my needs. Although I’m not adverse installing an outlet or replacing an old faucet, it’s a lot more fun drilling out the bottom of a fish tank to see if water spins in a vortex.

In the Mirror...

In reading The Craftsman, by Richard Sennett, I was reminded of the guild hierarchy: an apprentice spent 7 years before becoming a journeyman and the journeyman, another five to ten years before earning the title of master craftsman.

After years of producing elaborate, complicated photography projects, my new style of work has become rather intuitive, natural and technically comfortable. Unconsciously, a natural perspective and a vision evolved out of years of experience. At first, however, I didn’t trust it; the process seemed too easy to me. Yet after a year of producing fun, new, portfolio images, I had to acknowledge my talent had become quite innate. I have become a master craftsman, not a charlatan wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes.

Sennett also notes that, “Masters should be pestered to explain themselves,” in a way that makes their process clear to others. That was meant in the context of training future masters, but I’d like to think it also pertains to relationships with clients. After all, everyone benefits from the dialog and the outcome is better work. And so I offer up this blog, without much pestering.

This new portfolio will never be finished. It’s a work in progress, always. Not just for the sake of marketing, but also for my own satisfaction and personal growth. I have to keep reminding myself, this portfolio took decades, not months, to develop—years spent honing technique and craft until it’s become second nature.

Now, I promise not to let this go to my head.

Or think that I’m wearing really nice clothes, when it’s just jeans and a t-shirt.