What is my style? Photo-journalism in the truest sense!

When I had my website re-built in the spring of 2015 I found it difficult to write a biography for the site. Personally, I find it difficult to write about myself and not feel like I’m bragging. The team at Elle Jay Inc. hired the incredible Jack Goldenberg of Einstein da Vinci & Goldenberg of the Greater New York area to look at what we had and make revisions and recommendations. Jack did a complete rewrite.

He looked at my work and came back with the tagline “Storyteller. Artist. Photographer.”  In Jack’s words the first thing my images did was tell a story. They did that in an artistic manner. The fact that I did that using photography was no more relevant than saying I painted with oil, or acrylics or watercolour.

And that’s where the tagline came from.

Sometimes you can be too close to the forest to see the trees. It’s only been recently that I truly appreciated what Jack saw in my work.

It all begins with the storytelling. A photograph without a story is equal to somebody talking just to hear their own voice. What’s the point?

There are lots of different stories and even more ways to tell them.

I see a trend where a “photographers” are re-branding and saying they’re “digital image makers” and for them that is very true. What they create starts with a photograph but then it is painted, manipulated, composited and the final result is an artful image that began as a photograph and often ends up looking like a photograph but in a completely different land, time or setting. They express your imagination and they’re really really good at it. I like what they do, but it’s just not for me.

Another popular trend has photographers describing themselves as “photojournalists.” They work only with available light because that is the best light. They don’t pose because they want it real; not phony. Some pull this off, but really, it’s not “photojournalism” it’s just “candid photography.” And quite frankly many of the people that use the term “photojournalist” are trying to hide bad photography behind a fancy name.

My hero is Yosuf Karsh. He was one of the greatest “portrait photographers” of all time. Yet what he did was journalism. Let me explain.

We all know what a “photo” is, but what is “journalism?” The American Press Institute describes journalism this way:

Journalism is the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information. It is also the product of these activities.

When Karsh created the iconic image of Churchill he went through several well thought out steps to make sure he had the right image.

Churchill by Karsh

• The day before the room next to the speakers chamber was emptied.
• Karsh found a man that was similar in statue to Churchill and had him stand in while he set the lighting.
• The day of the portrait Karsh was in the gallery for Churchill’s speech. He was there to observe and watch for idiosyncrasies and mannerisms.
• He left the chamber just prior to the end of the speech and made final adjustments to his equipment and set up.

Karsh was known to arrange a meeting for tea the day before the portrait, just so he could observe and get to know the subject. He would often have lengthy conversations with his clients before ever taking a single shot.  He had staff to make sure he had the right information before a sitting.

In the book “The Life of Yousuf Karsh” by Maria Tippett on page 209 Tippett quotes Joyce Large as saying one of her primary responsibilities was “making sure that ‘the Maestro’ had biographical information for an upcoming sitting with an important personality”.  Karsh did extensive research into the background, habits, hobbies, and personalities of his important subjects prior to ever photographing them.

Style = Journalism

This is real photo-journalism.  This is what intrigued me about portraiture from an early age. This is “the why” of my becoming a photographer.  Every portrait begins with the questions.

• What is the story in and behind this face?
• Who is the audience this image is intended for?
• What is the story that is to be told?
• How can that story be illustrated?

And it is for this reason I find Goldenberg’s observation “Storyteller. Artist. Photographer.” so appropriate for what I do. Every successful portrait has to have a well told story.

I encourage any budding photographer to learn to first ask “why am I taking this picture” each and every time they go to create an image.