Shooting what you eat with Jessica Hirsch
Oct 20, 2022
SEASON TWO, EPISODE three
Audio Version
Nashville’s top Photographer Allen Clark interviews content creator Jessica Hirsch of @cheatdayeats
In this episode we discuss what it’s like to be a content creator in NYC
In this episode we discover the story of New-York based content creator, Jessica Hirsch. Jessica started over 8 years ago in the early days of social media before anyone used the term "influencer". Early on in the days of Instagram, she had built an audience of over 100,000 people and today has grown that to almost half a million followers! Thanks to her innovative photography style and her understanding of everyone's inner desire to indulge in tasty treats: Cheat Day Eats was born.
2 different generations of photography come together to discuss the state of events in all things internet marketing. Stay tuned to find out current strategies of navigating the rapidly evolving world of Instagram and TikTok while hearing how the traditional world of photography is adjusting to today's nuances. As always, thanks so much for listening and make sure to like, follow, subscribe and give us a great review!
Recently Allen spent time with Jessica at a studio in NYC / Jersey City .
Jessica & Allen sit down for and discuss being a content creator In New York city
“I can host my own show. I have the platform. I don't have to go onto TV, although that's really fun too. So I think that's where I'm gonna see myself in five years. And I also want to just build off of the recipe content that we create and collab with different restaurants and maybe have my own little bakery.”
Out-shooting your expectations with Scott Evans
Sep 09, 2022
SEASON TWO, EPISODE two
Audio Version
Or Watch The Video Interview
Nashville’s top Photographer Allen Clark interviews Photographer Michael Scott Evans in this hilarious interview about their build as working commercial photographers.
The Photo Untaken Season 2 Episode 2
In this episode, Nashville’s top photographer Allen Clark talks about the journey in their careers with Nashville-Based Photographer Scott Evans. He and I are situationally intertwined from our shared history in photography. After we began our early career together, Scott branched off and began a career in photographing the world of comedy. In this episode, you'll find insight from behind the scenes lighting techniques to navigating the underlying politics of the creative world. Thanks for listening and make sure to like, follow, subscribe and give us a great review! Lots more content coming soon!
Scott Evans on trusting yourself……
“I just trust in my instinct. And you know, I realize that I’ve gotta stop asking the clients questions. They hire me to do a job and they hire me for my opinion. And I just shoot it. Now, if they want give you their opinion while I’m shooting, that’s fine. But I’ve just learned to trust that instinct. And as far as you’re concerned, because of you, I’ve actually learned to embrace the shadow as well. Cause that used to be, I used to over position lights and I would get in weird positions to, to make sure there’s no shadow at all. But I still find myself struggling with that, trying to not have a shadow in a photograph. And then you just have to embrace it. No, think it, add to it. Yeah the way I shot George Jones, there was a shadow at the very bottom right hand corner. And for years I obsessed about that. Why is there a shadow down there? but actually it, works very well. It’s because he’s, you got his hands together his, head down and the light comes from, the top left and drops off at the bottom. And it looks good and it took me years to embrace that. And I’m still doing that. I’m embracing the shadow. It’s okay. “
Exploring the Animated Life With Floyd Norman
Jul 08, 2021
SEASON TWO, EPISODE ONE
In this episode we discuss life in the animation industry with one of its actual troubadours, Floyd Norman, who - even after his long and amazing history working with Walt Disney - continues to tap into the heart and excitement of his inner child as he teaches a new generation of visual artists.
Welcome to Season Two
Jun 03, 2021
SEASON TWO TRAILER
The Photo Untaken is back after a successful first season. In Season Two, we'll capture the story untold through Allen's lens and meet exciting new guests along the way. Stay tuned to find out who will inspire you next and enjoy as we launch Season Two.
Shooting the Future at NASA With Chris Gunn
Aug 09, 2020
SEASON ONE, EPISODE FIVE
Chris Gunn has been shooting science as art for NASA since 2000, and is currently documenting the construction of the James Webb Space Telescope.
Cig Harvey shares her process of “make, see, listen” using both photography and the written word to tell stories about time, fragility, and relationships.
Sam Abell, now retired from decades of National Geographic assignments, has always pursued moments to photograph where his sensibilities and the world meet.
Allen: I'm Allen Clark, and you're listening to The Photo Untaken, stories from outside the frame.
This episode with Michael Grecco is going to be about your ideas, and how you need to bring powerful ideas to what you're doing, and then the protection of those ideas.
He is the type of photographer that most of us look up to, in that he was one of the first guest to come up with a lot of these visual things that we used to do, tricks and amazing technique, sometimes to make things look more sensational, like he did with The X-Files photography back in the day. But the thing that Michael's known for is light and bending light. In fact, I call him our light-bender for the show. He's a wonderful person who loves to laugh, who loves to teach, who loves to not just support, but just be a part of the photography community, and that's one of the things I love the best about Michael Grecco.
He's out of LA. He started in New York though in his early days. He has two books that I bought back in the day. One of them was called Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait:The Art of Celebrity and Editorial Photography, and the other one was called The Art of Portrait Photography: Creative Lighting Techniques and Strategies. I bought both of these books. The first one, Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait was just, I don't know about life-changing, but it was definitely career-changing, game-changing for me, and that's how I got to know him first was through his books, through some of his photography. On the show today, he just goes into how he got started, and some of the things that he found out and figured out along the way.
Then more importantly, as we finished the podcast, he talks about protection, copyrights, things that we need to know about as photographers and what we can do to protect us as creators. It's a really exciting episode today where we just go into some of the nuts and bolts of photography, but also some of the things that can help you figure out how you can make a difference in your work, and just separate from the pack.
Allen: Let's go back. Let's start from the very, very beginning when you started in New York.
Michael: I was born in the Bronx, in New York, and I grew up in Westchester County.
Allen: What thought crossed your mind that at some point you were going be a photographer?
Michael: For me, I learned the darkroom in summer camp. It wasn't about the camera, it was actually about learning that you can put this piece of paper in an enlarger and have this magical thing happen and a print come out. That was just totally cool.
Allen: Now, the type of music you were listening to then, what was Michael Grecco listening to back then?
Michael: My Facebook age is not my real chronological age. I'm going to date myself if I tell you that. [laughs]
Allen: That's okay. It doesn't matter.
photo of Billy Idol by Michael Grecco
Michael: The music of the times. When I was a kid in summer camp, it was the early '70s, and I was probably listening to, I don't know, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Santana, and Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan, and Jimi Hendrix. Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan were my big biggies.
Allen: How cool was it to get to work with David Crosby then?
Michael: It was really cool. That was really totally amazing, and he's such a nut in a good way. I really like David.
Allen: Yes?
Michael: Yes.
Allen: Have you guys hung out since?
Michael: My ex-wife used to be able to get high value seats for the Laker games, and I walk into his house to shoot him, and he's screaming at the television. I'm like, "What the fuck?" He's like, "The Lakers, they're losing. They're losing." I'm like, "I thought you grew up in San Francisco." He goes, "No. I grew up here, and I love them." I said, "Have you ever been to a game?" He goes, "No." Subsequently, I took him and his wife, and then him and his son, to at least two Laker games.
Allen: Wow.
Michael: Yes, that was good. Really good.
Allen: Yes, it was. That's very good. Let's go back again to New York. It's well-known that you started as a photojournalist. What led you to that path?
Michael: When you're 18 years old and you enter college, you think you know everything. I've been interested in photography and studying photography. I'd learned the darkroom at 13. I had a camera, I would shoot. I took college classes in my senior year of high school with two fine art photographers at SUNY Purchase. I grew up in Hartsdale which is near White Plains and that's near Purchase, New York, where the state university is, and there were two very renowned teachers there.
I worked with both of those teachers. Then I entered college and thought, "Gee, I know everything." I used to study the Time Life book, so I'd be up late looking at the pictures, and the photographers, and Bresson, and Bruce Davidson, and just all the greats. Avedon and Penn. I did know a lot, but I didn't know everything. Then I went to School of Communications. I didn't know what I was going to study. I thought I might study film to learn a little something tangential, and I got hooked up into photojournalism course, and that was it.
My parents were very old world, middle to upper middle class parents, but very protective Italian. I would have to fight to go into the city and go to The Museum of Modern Art to listen to music. I listen to a lot of jazz as a kid also. So I would go to the Village Vanguard, and Sweet Basil's. I'd go to different concerts in the city, but I go to The Museum of Modern Art all the time. When I entered college, I had a general knowledge and interest, but this photojournalism thing was like, "Wow. You could see the world." It was like joining the Navy. Joining the Navy, see the world.
That part of it, from a kid's perspective who grew up in suburban New York, was really interesting to me. I did that, and then of course, that wasn't where my heart was. That wasn't what interest me creatively. In high school, I'd photographed my friends and done a lot of portraits and formal portraits. I really loved portraiture. So I started for the Associated Press. While I was shooting for the Associated Press, I was a club kid. So I have a new book coming out in October called- the title's new. Punk, Post Punk, New Wave: Onstage, Backstage and In Your Face.
Allen: Wow.
Michael: That's coming out with Abrams in October for a Christmas book. I had these two lives. I was this club kid, sex, drugs and rock and roll. During the day, I'd work for the Associated Press. The photographers with the Associated Press and my picture editor would kick my ass. I really learned a lot. Then I got a staff job at The Boston Herald, and sort of gave up the night life because I really wanted to do well there. Then after a few years there, I had outshot Ken Regan and Mike Fuller on the Maria Shriver and Caroline Kennedy weddings. The associated director of photography, the second in charge, Beth Filler said, "I'll give you a job."
It wasn't really a staff job, but it was, "You're working full time, you're working all the time for People magazine. I'll give you a job if you leave the paper." I literally called her up one day and said, "I'm moving to LA, and I'm leaving the paper," so there you go. I did that for a number of years, and realized that they had me do photojournalism because that's what I had excelled in. After a while, it wasn't where my heart was, and it even meant not shooting for People magazine anymore.
It even meant MC Martin who was the picture editor at the time was like, "Your photojournalism is so good, why do you want to do portraiture? All our shooters do portraiture. I have enough people to shoot covers. I need good photojournalist." It's like you don't want to do something that your heart's not into, you know what I mean?
Allen: How did you know that, though? How did you know that doing what you were doing, and how long you had done it just wasn't the thing? What told you that?
Michael: I didn't have the core interest. I wasn't a concerned photographer trying to save the world. I wasn't trying to capture a moment. I would go to events and create the way they should've set it up, what should happen. I would go to news events, and my head would explode with ideas of how this should've been better, or wouldn't it be great if some news event happened now, and someone gets into a fight? Wouldn't that make a great picture in the next day's paper?
It's like I wanted to take control of my world, and think, "Why don't I create scenarios?" Annie Leibovitz was just getting her juice on then, the scenarios that she was creating for Rolling Stone were just-- It was the late '70s, early '80s, they were just being seen, and I was like, "Why don't I come up with ideas and creative things that- or a creative outlet for me rather than hoping something happens?"
Allen: Yes. It seems like maybe the first part was observant, and then you were like, "I'm not an observer. I'm an instigator."
Michael: Yes, exactly. I'm definitely an instigator.
[laughter]
Allen: That's okay, but you had to figure that out. How old were you when you started figuring that out?
Michael: I did photojournalism for about 13 years, and I probably knew within 10 of those years. Probably '88, '87 when I moved to LA. When I moved to LA for People magazine, I knew that I didn't want to be their news photographer covering events and shooting picture stories. I knew that ultimately, I wanted to move towards creative portraiture really. That's what it is for me.
Michael: There was an agency called Onyx. The agency was bought. They had all these shishi portrait photographers, and that was endemic of what I wanted to do, really.
Allen: You took what you learned from photojournalism and added that to portrait.
photo of Dead Can Dance by Michael Grecco
Michael: Yes, for sure. I'm a storyteller. That absolutely came from working for a newspaper, and working for the Associated Press. When I went to journalism school at Boston University, they talk about the who, what, where, when, and why and how all of them need to be in a photograph, if you can. The when is usually part of the caption, but the who, what and where, have to be there, and they should add up to the why.
Allen: If you're talking to a young person who's in school and trying to learn the things that we're learning, the things that you're talking about, and we're talking about, that to me seems to be the first place to start, because a lot of the things that they're doing just don't have any of those questions built into the photograph. I can tell you from portfolio reviews that I've done, I'm sure you've done, where you're just sitting there-- And you're not trying to rip them apart. You're not trying to tear them a new one.
You're just like, "Hey, there's none of that here." They're like, "What do you think of these photographs?" And you're just like, "I don't know, nothing. I don't think anything, because there's no story. There's no who, what, when, where, why, none of that in this photo." I felt bad, but a part of me is like, "If you want to do this, you're going to have to add that to it." A part of me felt bad and a part of me didn't. I was being honest with him.
Michael: You're tough. [laughs]
Allen: To me, that's the whole thing. What's missing from this photograph? I'm like, "Everything, there's nothing. I've got a close up shot of two old people holding hands. Why did you crop it? Why did you do any of that?" That's some of the things that just irked me to no end when I'm looking at something and there's no story. I say a great photograph always makes you ask questions or have questions. That to me is what was missing or is missing from a lot of photographs, that as you're flipping past them, so callously these days, especially. What's your opinion about some of those things that you added to your own photographs to make them interesting?
Michael: I was on staff for The Boston Herald for five years. I took that storytelling on a newspaper level and launched it more into a magazine level. Magazines, not today, because believe it or not, they're not usually as creative as they used to be. Magazines now are so concerned about readership, but magazines could be lyrical. The way you can tell a story could be not literal. For a newspaper, you have to tell a story in literal means with signage, with props that talk about what someone does. In a magazine, you could build a set that's a fantasy, that tells a story, that's not so on the nose, and it's more lyrical, and it's more expressionistic, and it's more artistic in general.
Allen: What were some of the first things that you created that you're, not necessarily really proud of, but just something that you were like, "Okay, this is where I'm headed."
Michael: We're doing this book, which is my punk and post punk stuff. As soon as I got here, I tried to make images that were artistic, even while I was shooting for People Magazine. It was almost the dichotomy. You do these sometimes formulaic images for People Magazine, and then I go and have an assignment for Regan. I have two shoots that are the last and oldest for the book. One is of Al Jorgensen from a band called Ministry. I shot it Hasselblad and put like a gargoyle in his mouth, a little one. We did motion, and I had him turn his head with a strobe on one side and a hot light on the other, and he has two heads. This other guy, Daniel Ash from a band called Love and Rockets.
Allen: Love and Rockets, man. I have not thought about them forever.
Michael: I did a portrait with him with a fire and flame thrower and flame special effects thing in the studio. Immediately as soon as I got here, I was looking to break the mold. It's hard to break a mold once you've been taught a certain way. You know what I mean?
Allen: Yes.
Michael: My work definitely has a commerciality to it, that look to some degree because that was the '80s and '90s, and where I came from.
Allen: Did that help you glide into figuring out the formula for Hollywood?
photo of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson for the X-Files by Michael Grecco
Michael: Yes, for sure. You and I had mentioned in our pre-interview about The X-Files. That was probably my first and biggest assignment. It was interesting. The original pilot for The X-Files had no look, and it looked like it was shot in a gymnasium. It had no lighting, look, it had no style, it wasn't visual. You could tell that Chris Carter, its creator and director, was a scripts guy. They hadn't brought in a really talented director of photography for the pilot. They show me the pilot, and I talked to my client. I'm like, "What do you want me to do?" He goes, "I want you to do what you do." I just showed him a little portfolio, black and white, like artsy images, darkly lit, very moody.
He's like, "I want you to do what you do." And I did it. Because a lot of photographers come from this place of fear where they're concerned about what their client's going to think, and what it should look like, and what their client wants. For me, that's not the answer. For me, the answer is to find the balance between your vision, your ideas, and your style, and what the job needs. X-Files, instead of always coming from this place of fear, second guessing myself, wondering if the client's going to like it, I really said screw it. I'm going to do what I do. That first publicity shoot was the one in the hallway, and we built that set with the middle walls. That shoot rocked, man.
Allen: Yes. It did.
Michael: To this day, it rocked. Then that set the tone. We shot cross processed, that was before digital. We shot cross processed film, we did a whole bunch of stuff. To this day, although the cross processing might look a little dated, those pictures still hold up.
Allen: Yes. I shot the hell out of some cross processing. Explain to everybody that's listening that may have missed that. What was cross processing?
Michael: Cross processing was a style in the late '80s and the early '90s of an altered color. Remember, we didn't have digital, so we had to do everything in film medium. What you would do is you would shoot either color negative, and process it in transparency chemical. The terms for film, for those of you who don't know who are listening, our wonderful audience here today, thank you for being with us, the terms are C41. That was color negative film, and E6, which was transparency film, slide film. You would either take transparency film and process it in C41, and you'd get a negative, or you would take C41 film, and process it in E6 chemistry, and you would get a chrome.
Now, the colors were like really screwed up unless you filtered them. You would have all these crazy filter packets. You'd have to put some magenta and some warming, so it wasn't so blue. It became very blue green. If you pulled that back, you actually got a decent skin tone out of it, and everything else was whacked. If you finessed it, it was pretty cool. That hallway shot for The X-Files was cross processed.
Allen: It was, and I think anybody from 35 and over knows exactly what we're talking about. They know the hallway. That just burned into the psyche of the American public, and that was such a huge thing.
photo of Martin Landau by Michael Grecco
Michael: Afterwards, because I started doing this conceptual produce portraiture, then I started working a lot again after I didn't work for People Magazine just to make my transition. Then I worked for People Magazine a lot for their special issues, like their 50 Most Beautiful, and 25 Most Intriguing. I shot Chris Carter for the 25 Most Intriguing, and I called my connection at Fox to set up the shoot. My friend Richie, who was one of the picture editors and publicity there, he goes, "Chris doesn't like you." I'm like, "Why doesn't Chris like me?" He goes, "He's kind of pissed off at you." I said, "Why would he be pissed off at me? I've never met him." He goes, "After that shoot, the network made him give the look of the show based on your photography." So that was a huge compliment.
Allen: It's a huge compliment. I'd rather him be mad at me.
Michael: He was fine. In an old house, I had a black bottom pool, and we built a plexiglass platform, and he was walking on the water. He was fine.
[laughter]
Allen: You made him walk on the water.
Michael: If you make Chris Carter walk on the water, he's going be okay with everything.
Allen: He's going to be fine. Any kind of Jesus comparison, he's going to be okay with that. You brought him back from that, so that's awesome. Tell me, did that shoot elevate you to anything, or did it put you into conversations for other things?
Michael: It's very hard today to get noticed because there's so many outlets and things get so fractionalized. There's so many social media outlets. There's Facebook, and Instagram, and Snapchat, and print media, there's websites. There's so much information. When you did things 20 years ago that got noticed, they got noticed. That had more of an effect than I think it does now. Now if something goes viral, people just want to steal it. They don't want to hire you and pay you real money. They just want to steal it. [laughs]
Allen: Right. They just want to be thieves, and they don't want to pay the consequences for it. But I think there is consequences and we've paid the price, photographers have paid the price for it. We'll get into that in just a minute. Tell me what changed for you. Did anything change for you after this photo shoot with The X-Files? Did it kind of take you to a new level? Did it take you to some other place that you wanted to be, or no?
Michael: Everything is a build. I had this idea for a fashion shoot for the LA Times Sunday Magazine, and I did these weird fashion pictures of this jewelry. They were black and white, and we copper-toned the prints, and they had sloppy borders, and they were really artsy fartsy, and then that job got me this huge job around the world for Business Week. And Business Week when they were around, didn't do huge jobs around the world. It was a special issue called "The Entrepreneurs That Mattered". And I shot 12 entrepreneurs, two of them in England, the other 10 all around the US. Then that became a portfolio, and I sent that out as a reprint from the magazine. Then that got me The X-Files job. In a career things just build on top of each other.
Allen: Were you saying that you used the reprint as a promotional piece? Is that what you're saying?
Michael: I did.
Allen: That worked, and it totally worked. What else besides The X-Files thing did that get you?
Michael: That was an era where there aren't eight million people sending promotional pieces.
Allen: No.
Michael: That was an era when sending a good promotional piece would get you work. It's just a little harder now.
Allen: I don't know. I've had conversations with Jody from Rolling Stone and different people when I've asked them, because to me, it seems like the problem now, and for our photographers and commercial photographers that are listening, that getting ganged into an email with 10 other people, 10 other artists, whether they're illustrators or designers or photographers, being sent countless amounts of PDFs and types of stuff from agents and things like that, or what agents exist that are still around, things like that don't necessarily work like they used to, or they don't work much at all.
I've heard that people say that the second they get the email, they'll, "Hmm, that looks good, that person's great," and then just forget about it immediately. Actually, the old school promotional piece that you actually physically mail to somebody is starting to have a little bit of relevance again. I know Jody had said that, "Hey, you know what? If somebody sends me a calendar or something that it looks nice, I am going to hang it up." That, to me, spoke a little bit more about maybe it's kind of full circle again to where maybe promotional pieces that are actually physically printed are working again, as opposed to PDFs that nobody pays attention to.
You have to think as a person trying to promote yourself what works, what doesn't. I mean, the answer is everything. Obviously, you have to do all the stuff. But what would you say works for you these days, or when you've talked at different conferences, what's the word on the street, or whatever? What do you think actually physically works now?
Michael Grecco shoots Jesse McCartney
Michael: I think you have to do all of it. You have to have a website with great search engine optimization. You probably have to do email blasts, doing a printed piece. But an agent explained this to me a long time ago. Ultimately, you have to have what the buyer wants. If you don't have what the buyer wants, you could be jumping up and down, and there's such a glut of photographers these days. It used to take skill to expose film correctly, and focus the camera, and hold the medium format camera. And if you were shooting with a Hasselblad, or a Fuji 680 which I use, everything's in reverse, and you have to get used to that.
You used to know how to light. You couldn't fix everything in Photoshop if you screwed it all up. You used to have to have a certain skill level to be a photographer that was successful, and the barrier now to entry is almost completely gone. The cameras do all the work for you. And if it's messed up, you fix it in Photoshop. You need to know very little to be able to create. There's so many photographers that clients have the choice of whoever they want, and you're also- it's very hard to cut through all of that noise.
Allen: It is, and so to me that just tells you automatically that it's best for you to be different. It's best for you to have a different idea, and the idea is keen. Would you say that?
Michael: Yes, for sure. For sure.
Allen: I don't know about you, Michael, but I can remember back in the day, there was actually a little period because we looked at negatives so much, my brain actually reversed it. I could actually see negatives as positives. There was things your brain did. Remember, there were things like that that I don't know if I could ever explain that to a person.
Michael: When I was at the newspaper, or for the wire service, you would process film, take a loop, put it right on the film, and take a hole punch, and put a notch in the negative, and slip it right in the enlarger. You didn't make contact sheets.
Allen: That's crazy. That is just crazy.
Michael: The generation before me when I was a newspaper photographer, before there were 35 millimeter cameras, were shooting Speed Graflex. You couldn't focus that because it's a four by five piece of film. You were shooting a news event, you would have to guess the focus, and that was the skill they had.
Allen: I didn't think about that.
Michael: They would know what six feet were. They would know what 10 feet was. They would know.
Allen: I didn't even think about that. That's the level they were bringing to it, and they would just have to guess. I've always wondered if shooters like Walter Yost, who worked for Sports Illustrated, and they manually focused with those long lenses the action, that is just fast as it is today, on manual, fully manual. That just blows me away. I've always thought about, good Lord, I can't imagine. I guess we both would have done it. It would have been harder, but we would have done it. And that's just always intriguing to me how much more difficult it was to be a photographer, like you said, in the generation before us.
Michael Grecco on a shoot for Porche
Michael: For sure. But again, even with 35 millimeter cameras, you had to expose them. There was no autoexposure. There was no autofocus. The barrier to entry right now where the camera does almost everything for you is pretty crazy.
Allen: It does allow for others to kind of get in that door, I would say, if you're trying to turn this into a positive, because I think one of the complications for being a photographer is that the skill level does have to be very high. And so maybe someone gets in the door that wouldn't have gotten in the door, and hopefully they learn how to use the camera, and they do dive deep like we did. Let's go back to you. I want to talk more about you. I want to hear about what happened from there. Was there a point in LA where you were kind of the hot guy?
Michael: I think that for me I've always kept a level of personal style and artistic nature to my work. The really hot guys were the guys like James White who shot women really beautifully, because that was the commodity in Hollywood. My dramatic lighting and hard light and shadow, I did a lot of editorial. I was a hot guy in the editorial area, but when it came to doing movie posters and shooting starlets and fashion shoots, that hard lighting didn't lend itself to the starlet, thinking they were going to look good.
Allen: There was a little bit of danger in using you.
Michael: Exactly. And in retrospect, I'm okay with that. It's kind of interesting to look at this body of work, the punk images. The overall project, which isn't the same as the book title, is called Days of Punk. It's kind of interesting to look at these because they're that dark and moody and edgy and they're the photojournalist version of my '90s black and white Hasselblad work. The funny thing is that Hasselblad work came from me shooting a Holga camera.
I was asked to shoot portraits of John Singleton for LA Style Magazine. LA Style Magazine was this very hip and artsy broadsheet magazine. It was a large format. It wasn't quite broadsheet, but it was larger than most, and it was gorgeous. It always had creative photography in it. I was asked to do this job. I've always liked the Diana camera. The Holga was an early discovery for me where you can put a flash on. I'm like, all right, I'm Mr. Strobe. I love overpowering the sun and making dark and moody. I call it myopic. I like that myopic look, as if your eye is just tunneling in.
Not to digress, but if you think about it, it's like a newspaper photograph where you're burning and dodging and you're burning the hands of God, and you're focusing someone to the pinnacle of the action. I did that with light. As a lecturer, as a speaker, you tend to dissect your career and look at what motivated you to do things. So I wound up doing that with light. I thought, all right, I'll use this Holga with John Singleton. I put the strobe on, and I did some really artsy pictures, and they were beautiful, and the magazine flipped. Then an assignment came from a magazine called Volume, which became Vibe Magazine.
For the first issue, I was assigned to shoot two more African American artists, LL Cool J, and I forget the other guy's name. He was a writer. He was a big movie script writer. They were like we love that John Singleton picture. We're going to use your picture, plus we need two more portraits. And I was like, well, screw. That picture worked because it was dusk. The Holga is only like 60mm f/8. You have no shutter speeds and ability to control it. What do I do? The shoot with LL Cool J was the middle of the day, so I figured out how to get that myopic look with the Hasselblad. I had a compendium shade that slid in and out. Depending on the lens, I would put black camera tape around it. I vignetted the edges like the Holga. It didn't optically fall apart on the edges like the Holga, but then I made sure I lit it like I did that Singleton picture, and then that became my style in the '90s of these very artistic, very dramatic environmental, or abstract, or expressionistic portraits, because I would use graphic elements for the backgrounds, and some information, like Singleton, was shot with the watchtower behind him in South Central.
LL Cool J was shot with this big film strip which is a metal sculpture in front of the Culver City Hall. I would use the environment to tell a little bit of a story, or give a graphic nature to the picture, but I'd like the crap out of it.
Allen: I loved it, too. In fact, that's the first thing that I ever saw of yours that I was familiar with you were those things, the shots of John, and then you'd have to go back and do a little bit of history, and the X-Files stuff came clear after that. That was my first experience of what you did and how you shot things, and I loved it. It's funny because I've had a similar background running simultaneously, maybe two years behind you, but just editorial in the same way. I work for the Source Magazine, so I shot a lot of hip hop and rap artist and stuff like that back then.
Just seeing these portraits actually had a huge effect on what I did, so thank you on that one. Was there another point were you just like, "You know what? It's time to move on. Let me do something else." What's new for Michael Grecco? You know what I mean? Was there a point in which you felt like, "It's time to shake things up again."
photo of Amber Rose by Michael Grecco
Michael: To stay relevant, you're always shaking things up. The black and white work that everyone loved then, and was willing to print in the '90s, they weren't willing to print in the 2000s. As the internet age came, magazines were competing against the internet for readership. They wanted to be more commercial, look more accessible, not look too alternative. They were demanding more color, less black and white, so we moved there. When color negative came in, it was a little bit of a different style, and some different techniques, and we moved there.
I started directing when I moved there. Now, I'm working on this special project, this book project with museum shows and all of that. You have to adapt. You just have to adapt and figure out what you can do in photography that's going to allow you to pay the rent and keep you happy.
Allen: I've always said that being objective about yourself is one of the toughest things to be as an artist. That has a lot do with adaptability. We get married to things we like. We get married to a style, or at least a style that we think is ours, and it's not. It's just something for the moment, and then it's going to move on. How hard is it to see past yourself sometimes? How do you know when it's time to move on? How do you know this? I know that you do have to have that built in, but some people don't.
Some people don't know when it's time to move on or to stop doing this certain style. What if you hadn't? In other words, if you hadn't just kept shooting black and white when the times were changing. How do you know when to move on sometimes?
Michael: I think you know when it's not working. I think you know when you're not making money, when people aren't hiring you. You have to be conscious of what's going on. You have to be conscious of the market around you and the environment around you and if stuff is working. If you can't make the rent, you know-- [laughs]
Allen: Something's up.
Michael: Something's not working. [laughs]
Allen: Yes, exactly.
photo of Will Smith by Michael Grecco
Allen: For every one of my guests that's come on the show, I've had like, for instance, Chris Buck, and you know Chris is the contrarian. He calls himself that, I call him that. And Sam Abell. I call him the poet photographer. I'm trying to figure out the title for you. I thought about light-bender.
Michael: I like that.
Allen: You like that? I'm going to have that be your title. Michael Grecco, light-bender.
Michael: The subversive light-bender.
Allen: The subversive light-bender. It's like you're a super hero. We've got to come up with a character, too. We have to come up with a character and shoot you as that. I absolutely love what you wrote about yourself on your about page, A Few Words from Michael. It's just funny. I was just like, "Golly, man. Maybe he should write something for me." I loved all the things that you said between the master of light, and just talking about serving the community, the photography community, and all that type of stuff. What makes you want to help other photographers and the photography community so much?
Michael: Because most of them can't help themselves. [laughs] I'm sorry.
Allen: Oh my God. That's true.
Michael: But most of them can't help themselves. I figure ultimately if we make the industry better, it helps everyone, including me. There's an altruistic portion to it of giving back and wanting to help. But ultimately, if you can help make better legislation, or do something to service people, ultimately, it'll teach the world not to steal. It'll make legislation possibly like the case act, and all these great trade organizations, like NPPA that have been working so hard on it, it'll make our world better. I love this world. My wife's a photographer. She's an amazing photographer. I love photography. I love photographers. Although most of them can't help themselves. [laughs]
Allen: That's so funny you say that. Why do you think I'm doing this podcast? I'm doing this podcast for the exact same damn reason. It's because we cannot help ourselves sometimes.
Michael: The simplest thing for a photographer is to register their copyrights. How many of them do it?
Allen: Not very many. I've gotten lazy, I have to admit, as of late.
Michael: There's nothing more important. I'm successful now in defending my copyright and creating a revenue stream because I've spent 25 years registering my copyright. It's brought me to have this company image defenders, and we do it for some very, very high-end photographers. It's a business that I make money on at the same time, but there's also a piece of it that if someone gets caught in a copyright infringement, maybe enough people know that they shouldn't be stealing work. They should be licensing it.
Allen: There is actually something wrong with it. I think that's the first thing. I think people think that there's nothing wrong with it just because it happens all the time, and that's not true.
Michael: There's this attitude that because it's on the internet, it's okay. I'm like, "What?" This is where photographers can't help themselves. It's like they've been very slow to market to try to fix this. The music industry waited too long, but too long was 20 years ago. In the past 15 years, they make sure they get every penny from every use. You know, if you hit the sample button to listen to a track on Amazon, ASCAP, and BMI get a license for that? Even the 15 second sample of a song?
Allen: I did not know that.
Michael: Everything on the internet and on the radio, every little thing is monetized by all the music companies, the songwriters, the record labels. Photographers don't do that. Not only do I have Image Defenders, which is a private company that helps photographers who have registered their work with the US copyright office, find infringements and defend them and generate them income.
I started the American Society for Collective Rights Licensing, ASCRL. We're trying to distribute funds that are collected around the world that don't go to US photographers and illustrators because no one has figured out how to distribute them before. No one has made this a priority. For me, it's a priority. Why is money being collected for my copyright and other people's copyright that isn't going to the artist?
Allen: You know what? While we're at it, take me through the steps of what I would do if I was going to try to register my work as a copyright. What would I do? What are the best resources to do that?
photo of Will Ferrell by Michael Grecco
Michael: I'm actually going to do a video that'll be a tutorial. We're talking about ASMP getting involved.
Allen: It's probably a long conversation to have, in my guess.
Michael: I can't do this now. You got to walk through what's published, what's not published. The copyright office doesn't make it easy with the forms they've added and everything else.
Allen: How about this? What if we did something together, or what if you do this video, and then we obviously send links through the podcast and through the website and that type of stuff?
Michael: It'd be amazing.
Allen: I would love to do that with you. Honestly, I knew what you did in the old days, but I don't know what you do on the digital age as much. I've had to do it a couple of times, and I've actually have done is hire other people to do it. I can remember actually reading an article that you wrote, I think, from years ago about how to do it with film. I remember you were doing it having to put it on a light table and do a game. Either scan, or you would take photographs of things sitting on a light table. That was actually really helpful because you're able to chew through a lot of the work that way.
That was something that I thought was amazing back in the day was just you talking about that. I don't know how long-- That's probably been 10 years since that article. Maybe longer.
Michael: Oh, no, that was maybe 20 years ago.
Allen: Oh my God. I had to think about this all the time. I keep thinking it's 1995 or something. It's not at all. I'm just like, "Where have I been?" My brain is not there. Here's what we'll do. We'll create a link, or we'll do something together, and this way, because I do want people to know this, it's very important. It's important to me. It's important to Michael, and it should be important to you as a listener. Just because you don't want to go through the process of getting it done, and just because it happens all the time are not reasons to get this stuff taken care of. We'll just figure this out, and you guys will hear about it later in the link. From there, let's talk about where we're at with the case act.
Michael: The case act is in the senate right now, it passed the house unanimously. It's being held up by one senator in Portland, Senator Wyden. From what I've heard, and this is hearsay, a former staffer who's worked for Google in the past, the staff and Senator Wyden's office has put a hold on the bill, which means it cannot move forward. The infringers are trying to prevent artists from protecting their work.
Allen: What do we need to do about them?
Michael: We need to look for the tweets about Senator Wyden, and people need to get on Twitter. It's unconscionable. I'm not even sure he knows what's going on with his staff, but it's unconscionable holding a bill because of their special interests and the special interests of either campaign supporters. That's a good piece of legislation, it's a fair piece of legislation, you can always opt out of it. You don't have to ever use the copyright small claims court, but there are still people who will object to any forward movement for photographers and artists if they can, and that's what's happening here.
Allen: If you live in the Portland area, that would be a good start. If anybody listening right now actually lives in Portland area, you can always just float down to the office, or call, or send letters, or emails, but we got to make something happen from this. We got to change this.
Michael: I agree, and I know that all the organizations, ASMP, NPPA, the Graphic Artists Guild, they've all put a lot of effort and energy into making sure this bill will happen. PP of A, especially the Professional Photographers of America. We don't want all that effort and energy to go to waste.
photo of The Cramps by Michael Grecco
Allen: Talk about this book that's coming out. I know this is something important to you, something that affected you early on, and is still very important to you now. A book that you've got coming out that's really interesting and sounds interesting, and I've watched some videos about this. Talk about it a little bit.
Michael: I have a book coming out with Abrams in probably mid October of next year. It's an unseen body of punk and post-punk new wave images. The images are happening. I look back at this work, and I was being trained as a photo journalist during the day for the Associated Press, and I'm quite happy with these images. They make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It was an interesting period of my life, club kid, party boy. It was an interesting period of my life in general, and I'm really excited about it. We probably going to have a show at Photo London. We're arranging gallery events and shows all around the world, trying to make it a big noticed thing.
Allen: Is it going to be some galleries and things like that that will visit, and if so, how can I get one- just that will support the book or that will show some of the photos from the book, or whatever?
Michael: It'll be galleries and museums worldwide. There's a website daysofpunk.com which will have all the events. It will have the next show, it'll have everything on it.
Allen: Basically, coming to a town near you.
Michael Grecco on a shoot for Porche
Allen: On The Photo Untaken podcast, we always ask three questions. And we can either rapid fire this or spend a little bit of time on it or whatever, but I think you've already talked about this. But what photoshoot made you, what got you your starter, or at least got you into different circles, in the circles that you wanted to be in?
Michael: The job that launched my career from a stylistic where I had a lot of people interested in the work and- was that Business Week article where I did 12 black and white portraits with the Hasselblad where I made them look like the Holga. We put tape in the front, and we used little hot lights in places, and we lift them very dramatically, very artistically. And I told a story in people's environments with props. It was this myopic, very artsy sending that out to 2000 clients that launched a lot of work. It was shoots for Rolling Stone, and major magazines.
Allen: The second question is what photoshoot got away from you, or what photo got away from you? What was something that you were looking forward to, excited about, and then it just didn't happen?
Michael: The photoshoot that got away, the one that didn't happen, I take lessons from this. I was asked to shoot something for Fox, a big TV show for Fox. It was supposed to happen at a particular time, and it wasn't confirmed, and I didn't have to shoot yet. The shoot wasn't locked in. I turned down a shoot for the LA Times Sunday magazine which was a series of portraits of creative people in Los Angeles that helped launch Frank Ockenfels' career when he moved from New York to Los Angeles.
Frank's an amazing photographer. He's a good friend of mine, anything would have launched Frank Ockenfels' career, but that certainly was the thing when he moved here that got a lot of attention. I turned down a job, I didn't have the bird in the hand. So I let the bird in the hand go for the two in the bush, and I got nothing in the end. That's the shoot that got away. That would have been a big series of environmental portraits.
Allen: The third question, and to me it's always a very fun or very tense question is, what is a story that's just almost too crazy to believe? Something that happened on a photoshoot where you were just like, wow. You don't have to say any names or anything like that, but just a photoshoot that was just amazing, but also, I can't believe that just happened.
Michael: The most hard to believe story. [laughs] I had an assignment for Esquire. It was a combination of portraits and a photojournalist thing which should have made me a little leery about it to begin with. We went up to Mavericks, to Big Surf, and we were shooting one of the surf competitions to ride the big waves, the big waves surfers. I brought two assistants with me, and long lenses. The plan was to shoot the surfers, and also then to do portraits of them as they came back after the day, so on and so forth.
I got on the boat. We all went out, and what you realize what makes really amazing surf is really rough water. Every time I would lift the lens up, I was so nauseous, even with Dramamine which we took prophylactically. I was dizzy, nauseous, almost fell over. I was like, I got to get off the boat. I take an assistant, and we wrap up gear in plastic bags, put it on a backpack. They had these emergency jet skis that were going to take us back. I got on one, the assistant had the 300 millimeter F28 lens and the light meter. The other assistant was already back on the ground, setting up lights and stuff.
I get there. By the time they get us in, it's almost dark, and there's no portraits to be had. But the jet ski with the assistant and the gear, crashes. The expert jet ski search and rescue woman who was doing the search and rescue protecting everyone, hit a rock under the water. The jet ski goes down with all the gear, thank God it was in plastic bags. The repair bill- things weren't totaled. They did need to be cleaned up. I never got a picture of anyone surfing, I never got really anything great out of that. This is like the black cloud.
Allen: It is. This is the worst thing I've heard. It's not the worst thing.
Michael Grecco on a shoot for Panasonic
Michael: No, no, it gets better. The magazine hates the story from the writer, and they killed the whole thing. After I'm beating myself up about what a crappy job I did, and then the magazine loses all the film I sent them, that I did send them.
Allen: What? Are you kidding? That was the most amazing things I've ever shot in my life.
Michael: You don't want your film lost. [crosstalk] It was like there was something so ill-fated about that day.
Allen: Oh my God, everything was ill-fated about that day.
Michael: That was my worse, and I hope I take the cake on that one.
Allen: That's the worst that you could think of, is the gear going down. Hopefully nobody got hurt.
Michael: No, no one got hurt. We're all good.
Allen: That's good.
Photo of Tim Montgomery by Michael Grecco
Allen: You know my favorite thing and we'll finish with this. I just love the last thing you say on your own about page, and it says, "I go out every day with the intention of breaking visual rules and creating evocative cinematic images that inspire." You just kind of give an invitation, let's connect for a light bending photo adventure together. That's kind of what went on today, and it was amazing. You are my light-bender, Michael Grecco. Thanks for being on the podcast today.
Michael: Thank you so much. Thank you, audience. I really, really appreciate it. Really want to thank everyone. Thank you for listening. Thank you for the interest.
Allen: Absolutely. Thanks for being here with us.
Hitting the Target With Chris Buck
Jan 26, 2020
SEASON ONE, EPISODE ONE
Chris Buck doesn’t care if you like his photos.
Music for this episode is by our good friend Aaron Tosti.
Allen Clark: I’m Allen Clark, this is The Photo Untaken.
I’m very excited about today’s guest, his name is Chris Buck. He started out as kind of a mentor to me. I met Chris years ago in New York at these big events that American Illustration, American Design would have but originally when I met or knew anything about Chris, I knew about his work. I knew some of the photos that he’d taken. I knew that he’d worked with Jeff Buckley. He’s always been this guy that goes the other way and I identify with that because growing up I did the same thing.
If you like this, I was not going to like it, automatically that’s how I was and I think he’s actually called himself before a contrarian which I believe is completely true. When he does shoots, he’s not the guy that wants to be friends with the celebrity or the clients necessarily, he likes that separation but he definitely likes the roles that happen on photo shoots and he doesn’t want to get something out of them that’s pleasant or nice.
Chris goes for the odd, Chris goes for weird ideas and sometimes ideas over niceness or friendliness or something like that. He’s really about the idea to the sacrifice sometimes of being able to be this person’s friend. He’s very clear in his vision. He talks a lot about having to protect that vision but Chris was always one of these people that was… He wasn’t really necessarily even about the technique and the technical aspects of it.
I know for a fact that he’s not the most technical photographer but he is definitely one of the greatest when it comes to ideas and getting your idea across and hopefully it jibes with your client. Sometimes it doesn’t. I know for a fact he has shots that were asked to be not used because of that and sometimes he would use them anyway. That’s the person that Chris is, he’s not there to make you happy necessarily. That’s what I like about him.
Chris, talk a little bit about how you started. That to me is just as important as where you are right now. How you started and you like me, started with music in Canada in the music scene.
Chris Buck: Exactly. And the fact is I would have rather worked in music. That was really my passion in my 20s but the thing is I have no musical talent and that became an obstacle because I couldn’t even be a producer. Essentially I would have had a record label or been management. I recognized that I wanted to be on the creative side so I then decided I’d photograph musicians.
I did one of those Venn diagrams (I didn’t literally do one) but I think my calculation was — I had these two who concentric circles and one of them was what I was interested in which was pop culture: music, movies, politics, just the whole messy thing. And then what I was good at was the visual arts and photography, I just seemed to have a knack for. I really wasn’t very interested in it honestly, I was interested in music and movies and such but I had a talent for photography, so I knew I could use that to get connected to the pop culture world.
But I realized later that I had a third circle which I recognized as a marketplace and even though in the spectrum of what one does in pop culture portraits, I was kind of at one end of it — a little odder, more personal, less glamorous perhaps, in terms of my take. But that market was so big that I believed I could carve out some tiny sliver of it and make a living out of it.
Allen: How did you make the choice? You said a little odder but how old were you at the time and then what made you decide to be odd? Did that come from music? Did that come from the scene that you were in? Did that little choice that you made instead of going, “Hey, I’m going to go for pretty, I’m going to go for great lighting, I’m going to go for making people look perfect.” You didn’t do that, you said, “No, I would like to have a different take on this.” Which you did. But at that age, how does a person do that? I know so many people that never make that decision that early because they’re trying to please everyone.
Chris: I think it was a personality thing that at some point I recognized — this is in elementary school — my peers didn’t accept me, I wasn’t an outcast but I was not really let into the cool crowd of the boys and so I was like, “well I’m going to go my own way and I’m going to find my own path.” I rebelled by not even trying to be part of their group but I think that little psychological flip gave me an advantage that I could go down the path less taken and be not only comfortable but much happier there. That became my groove.
Obviously, I wanted to succeed and I needed to make a living, I do want to be successful but I do think that high risk leads to greater success.
Allen: Absolutely.
Do you remember the point at which there was a photo shoot that “made” you — that got you talking to a different circle or got you talking to the circle that you wanted to be in? Was there a photo shoot in particular that was that or was it just a collective group of maybe going into American Illustration, American Design or something? Can you remember something changing drastically after this one shoot?
Newsweek cover photo of Michelle Bachmann by Chris Buck
Chris: I would say that for the first 20 years of my career, it really was just a slow gradual climb and I could certainly, in retrospect, point to benchmarks of my first full-page editorial in the US or things like that. You hear the stories of David LaChapelle or Irving Penn, these amazing narratives of these crazy skyrocket careers and I never had anything like that. It wasn’t like Annie Leibovitz gets onboard at rolling stone and three years later she’s shooting all the covers. I didn’t have a career like that, I will say that I did a shoot of Michele Bachmann for Newsweek. It became a very famous, sort of notorious cover in 2011 and that changed things for me in a way I never would have guessed.
At first, there was a cooling effect of like, “This is very controversial.” But then I believed people would perceive me as being good at covers because I did a famous cover. So I started getting a lot more cover shoots which meant I was shooting A-list people in their prime, which I’d rarely done that before. Most of my shoots were people on their way up or on their way down and so even though I shot a lot of great people, I was shooting like William Burroughs in his 70s or Keanu Reeves in his 20s. Then after this cover I shot Barack Obama while he’s in the White House. I shot Kendrick Lamar. I shot Yo-Yo Ma. I’d be shooting, every month it would be another A-list person in the zeitgeist.
photo of Kendrick Lamar by Chris Buck
Allen: Did you change anything once this Bachmann thing happened? At that point you were like, “All right, I’m at that party now.” Did you change anything about what you were doing?
Chris: No, not at all. If anything, I remember even like five years before chatting with a friend and saying, “Look, I’d rather do what I do with niche personalities who are lesser-known and doing my Chris Buck thing than to change what I do so that I can get the A-list people.” I did think like, “Hey, one of my goals still is to do the Chris Buck thing with the A-list people.” If I can get to the A-list, I’m not going to suddenly soften my approach. Look, I always do what the clients ask me to and I’m always respectful and professional. But if anything, I want to get with the A-list people and make badass Chris Buck pictures. That’s the point.
Allen: Another thing that this podcast is going to be about is: was there one that got away? Was there a photoshoot that you were going to do that didn’t happen and did it just shatter you? Was there something that you had…
Chris: Yeah. So many.
Allen: With me, I was supposed to shoot Sister Rosa Parks. She actually was in the other room next to the room I was standing in. She had a break-in in her house that week and her handlers were just not…anything. Even if they committed to something, they were saying “no.” So I’m sitting in the room all set up, ready to go. She’s in the room next to me and they just completely said “no.” And that just literally devastated me because she passed away I think maybe six months after that. The reason why I’m asking this question is how did you respond to that letdown? Did you come back stronger or is it just another one of the things you did and you just kept going?
Chris: I didn’t really… Just a few people who I have written letters to asking to take their picture over the years but very, very few. I’d love to have an amusing collection of rejection letters or whatever but…
Allen: That would be amazing.
Chris: …I don’t really have that because I usually relied on assignments. Occasionally I’d hear someone is coming through town or I just have someone on my radar. I do tend to be drawn to niche celebrities, like people who are giant in their world. I remember pitching Ennio Morricone. The guy that did the soundtracks.
Allen:The Mission.
Chris: Pelé the soccer great. I wrote a letter to Frank Sinatra.
Allen: You did?
Chris: Yeah.
Allen: Did you get one back?
Chris: I got one back like six months later from his PR people. I wrote a letter to Barry Goldwater. I had a friend in Phoenix who had worked with him and he knew how to get to him so I got a personal letter from Barry Goldwater which is obviously super badass. It’s really cool.
Allen: Did you tell him about the ideas that you had for the shoot?
Chris: No, it was just a general request, I guess. I would never tell ideas. I do find that when I shoot people for me like that, I find it actually difficult because there’s an implication — whether they take it that way or not, I perceive an implication of, “I’m going to make you look good.” And that’s not really my thing. As you said it’s not really what I’m about.
One time I photographed Miss Manners, Judith Martin who was a columnist in the ‘80s and ‘90s an etiquettecolumnist and I was a fan of her column. She had been photographed in my local newspaper in Toronto and I wrote her a letter saying that I thought the picture was unflattering and disrespectful. She wrote me back saying, “Sure you can come photograph me.” I drove to DC and made her portrait. In that case, I was a fan. I was happy to make her look good.
photo of Joaquin Phoenix by Chris Buck
The thing about it is early on, that was very important to get to people. I built my portfolio initially because no one’s gonna hire you if you have no pictures. The way I initially got my first photo shoots was, I became friendly with a music promoter in Toronto. Then he introduced me to artists who were coming through town who I wanted to photograph.
So I photographed — pictures in my early portfolio were like John Cale from the Velvet Underground or Mark E Smith from The Fall. I photographed those guys by going through this booker. Actually, I ran into him in the airport in Toronto 20 years later. I said, “Hey, great to see you. Look, I really want to tell you how much I really appreciate - really, this is what launched my career, was this access and having to be able to shoot these, they’re underground people, but they were international personalities. I was able to build my initial portfolio. I’ve got to ask you, why did you give me that access?”
He shrugged and said, “You seemed serious.” I was like, “that’s it?”
I thought about it later and I realized that I’m kind of similar. When young people come to me and even the way they phrase their email or the work they have suggests a level of seriousness… Because in a way too you got to think for people like you and I, at this point most people come to you, or you cross paths with, frankly, they’re not very serious. They’re just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks and the ones who are more serious… Because the fact is, you’re busy, and you have limited resources for helping people. You realize, I need to filter who I spend time giving help to or connecting. You realize, well if they actually do really seem serious actually, it does have meaning.
Allen: Absolutely. That’s part of the reason why you’re on this podcast because I am very serious about this. I love this. This is the lane that I’m in, I love the lane. I don’t want to do another lane and I also cannot stand people that do 10 things. If you look at somebody’s Instagram handle, they’re this that and dog mom. It’s not that I’d mind them being a dog mom, they could be a dog mom, but it’s just like, can you pick a lane here? You’re not really excellent at anything.
That’s the problem. It’s a lost art of doing one thing well, and that’s the main heart of this whole thing. The reason why I’m even talking on a podcast is because I want to help remind people what it’s like to do one thing well, to put the time in. To be serious like you’re saying. That’s exactly it.
Chris: Well, you know, when you asked me what I want to talk about, I mentioned talking about the investment of time. Looking back, I recognize my superpower was that I knew what I wanted. That’s it, end of sentence. What happens is over time, you get distracted by commercial pressures or paying bills, with life like moving or whatever things are going on, dealing with a loved one or whatever responsibilities.
But if you have a target, you continually readjust your aim to that target over time. I knew I wanted to do odd personal photographs of pop culture figures. That’s all I wanted to do. For the first 15 years. That’s it. Even though I did other things, I always trained back to that target when I had that free moment or whatever. Over time, I hit that target, but took me 10-12 years to land it square on bullseye.
Allen: What kept you going during this time? What made you still try? Did you get any feedback that it was working at the time?
Chris: Sure, look, I was hitting the target. I just wasn’t hitting the bull’s-eye. Also knowing my target gave me clarity and gave me faith.
One of the things when you see people of faith, they have that superpower. They believe in that higher power that is driving them in the right direction. So they’re doing a similar thing. When you see Mormons, they learn a foreign language, and they go to that country, and they work to convert people. That is crazy focus. Then you see them learning Portuguese and going to Brazil or Chinese and going to China, because they have that belief, and they have that target.
I think it’s a similar thing in the arts. If you have your target. That’s why I’ve talked about those circles, right? If you have the talent, and the marketplace exists and then you have that focus on the thing you want, wow. The thing about it is when I meet young people and they don’t know what they want, I don’t know how you find it. When you have that target, you make sacrifices to keep focus on that target, right? You have to jettison certain things to get there. Not everyone has that.
Early on, I had interns, I had them work the same hours as me, which is like ridiculous, insane hours.
I had an intern one time. At some point she was like, “Can I leave at some point? I want to go meet my boyfriend for dinner.” I remember at that moment I thought, “you’ll never be a photographer.” To be fair, now I have reasonable boundaries around work hours and such. But I did recognize, she doesn’t get it. It wasn’t that she was saying, “Hey, I also have this thing I need to do, but I could work later tomorrow perhaps.” She just was like, “This isn’t reasonable.”
Allen: Do you happen to know if this was true or not for her?
Chris: Yeah, she didn’t stay a photographer.
Allen: Well, then you were right.
Chris: She was talented. Talent has little to do with people’s success. It’s an ingredient but it’s not the only one.
Allen: We live in a town here in Nashville where people come here all the time to record records. They spend 40 grand on the recording process but zero on marketing, zero on giving the love back to that thing they just spent all this money on. It just sits in their garage and rots. Whether it’s a download card, or box of CDs. To me that’s exactly about this.
Chris: I see this with photographers too. They spend years shooting a project, a year and a half making the book, they have an exhibition and then the thing comes and goes, I never hear anything about it anywhere. It’s like, you’ve got to hire a publicist and spend the same money on a publicist and on hustling and selling that thing.
Allen: Anything that comes to mind when it comes to a photo shoot that you just didn’t plan, a story of something that happened on a photo shoot that’s just absolutely crazy or you definitely didn’t see it going this way.
photo of A$AP Rocky by Chris Buck
Chris: A relatively recent one was, I had a last-minute assignment to photograph A$AP Rocky and I was scheduled to take care of my daughter that day. She finished with their daycare at a certain time and then I was responsible for taking care of her.
She was five. I did have a babysitter lined up, the babysitter wasn’t going to be available until after the shoot was about to start or whatever. So I got my daughter, brought her to the shoot with the assistant and I just said, “Okay, just sit here and just be good and maybe you can do a drawing or whatever.”
Then the babysitter comes and she’s a young woman. She was like, “A$AP Rocky! Oh my God! Can we stay?” I’m like, “Sure you can watch. Stay.” So they stay and she’s with my daughter in the back of the room. And so my daughter does a drawing of the shoot.
Allen: That’s awesome.
Chris: She draws the lights, she draws A$AP and me holding the camera and all that. At some point, we’re a couple setups in, A$AP’s got a shirt off. He’s like, being crazy and the babysitter knocks. Then they’re outside and they finish the drawing. They come back in and she’s like, “Olive wants to show you guys the drawing.” She comes in very sheepishly, and she’s an outgoing kid. Obviously, she gets that this person’s important. So she shows the drawing to A$AP and he loves it. She’s drawn a big chain in his red shoes. He’s like, “Can I have it?”
Allen: Wow. That’s so great.
Chris: She nods slowly, yes. So he says, “I’m going to use it for my next album art.“
Allen: Wow. Did he?
Chris: We have not heard from him since. I’m not sure if Olive will give the permission.
Allen: She’s got a lot of money at stake here.
Chris: Well, let’s say she’ll have to talk to her lawyer.
Allen: Yes she will. Her people will have to get with A$AP’s people. It’s necessary. He might be in jail in Sweden still so that might be a problem but when he gets out…
Chris: I now have to break it to her that he’s had some assault charges.
Allen: Actually, if you watch the video, he didn’t do anything. He was actually trying to keep the fight from happening. These guys kept egging it on. It’s sad but it’s one of the rare instances where a rap artist didn’t instigate the incident, you know?
Chris: He didn’t strike me as the fighter type.
Allen: No, he’s not.
Chris: He seems more like a lover than a fighter to me. But you never know.
Allen: I’ve been called that too.
photo of Billy Bob Thornton by Chris Buck
Marcus asked me a question today. Marcus is our producer here on the podcast. He asked me how long we’ve known each other. I was trying to figure it out. I think it’s something like 20 years. It doesn’t seem like… I think you and I first met at one of the American Photography and American Illustration parties they would have - what was the name of that? Remember that synagogue in Greenwich Village that we used to go to for those parties all the time?
Allen: It’s such a cool place. I tried to rent it once for a photo shoot, but it was for half-day and it was something like five or 10k for half-day seems ludicrous. Even though the budget was almost there, I was just like, “Can you give me four hours or three hours?” “No.” We used to have these parties there all the time. I think I met you at one of the American Photography and American Illustration parties and you came up. I think we were just standing in a circle and you asked me… I can’t remember if it’s for handball or stickball… You asked me if I wanted to play handball or stickball, and I was like-
Chris: It’s street hockey.
Allen: Street hockey, that’s it. Street hockey. You being Canadian, I can see how that would happen. I was like, “Oh, wow.” This guy is there instead of me rubbing elbows with Chris Buck. Like, “Let’s go and have some drinks,” and it was just [chuckles] “let’s go play street hockey.” I was like, “Okay, cool. I actually might be this guy’s friend.” That was the first thought in my head and that was amazing. I don’t even remember how long ago it was.
Chris: What you didn’t realize that this is how I vet people. If they come, I get to see what they’re really made of.
Allen: That’s right. I don’t think I could do it, but I think later, a couple of years later ended up doing a studio thing with AIGA and I ended up in your apartment, the first one that you had in Chinatown where you shot Chloe Sevigny. I loved the wallpaper. Remember that blue wallpaper on the wall?
Chris: Yes, that’s right.
Allen: That was amazing. It was just so cool and I just remember thinking, “This is a cool spot that I could see myself shooting in here.” You did a lot of shoots there. Did you do Farley there?
Chris: No, no. I did a handful shoots there. Chloe Sevigny I actually did at Sundance in Utah. Chris Farley was at a studio — ironically, in the photo district. I did a couple of shoots there.
Allen: I just remember the wallpaper being in one shot, particular one, I just can’t remember-
Chris: It’s in the Casey Affleck shoot.
Allen: Okay. But that was when I think I actually got to spend more time around you, at that point. But to me, knowing you for this long is absolutely a treasure. But the main thing is, is that always in the back of my mind I’ve always been similar to you in that I don’t want a typical photo shoot to happen. I always want at least my idea to come across, take away one for just me. And that’s something that I think I learned from you a long time ago is that it’s okay.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t thinking that, it was that there waspermission there. I really love that about everything you’ve always done. You’ve been uncompromising with that. Did that have anything to do with your book title for the book that you put out with Joaquin on the cover, Uneasy? Did that have anything to do with that? Does that kind of sum up who you are: Uneasy?
photo of Steve Martin by Chris Buck
Chris: Yes. I think it’s sort of sums up my style in photography and certainly some part of me. I think I’m more comfortable now than I was 10 years ago, 15 years ago. I wouldn’t say I’m easy, but I am less uneasy.
[laughs]
The pictures in the later years, in the last set of seven, eight years, their people are less uneasy in a way. My designer actually came to me with a couple of pictures and I was like, “These aren't very uneasy, you need to go back to your edit.”
Allen: That’s interesting. It’s almost like they knew you and they knew that you weren’t choosing the best you?
Chris: Well, I think it’s more that my style that point was a little more high production and I was choosing what I thought were the best pictures, but with the high production and the pictures being more, it’s still odd but it was more relaxed and happy. I think he was just like, “Yeah, this doesn’t fit the narrative.” Maybe half of the pictures in the book really fit the narrative precisely, but I think that he just found a few of the pictures just, throwing off the balance in some way for him.
Allen: Originally, when we first started talking about doing a podcast, you said that you had a book coming out, it’s a year off, what’s this book going to be about?
Chris: I’ll tell you in a year. [chuckles]
Allen: Okay. All right. That is typical Chris Buck, everybody. This is exactly [laughs] what he does. This is how Chris is. We’ll wait patiently for that title and subject matter and I think I know what it is but I’m not going to say anything.
Chris: Thank you.
Allen: No problem.
photo of Tina Fey by Chris Buck
Who are some of your favorite people through time that have inspired you in your work?
Chris: Well, photographers, certainly when I was starting out, probably my biggest influences were Arnold Newman, Irving Penn, and Anton Corbijn. Those three really were the kind of stylistic influences. Photography wise, more recently I’m a big fan of Katy Grannan. I think her portraits are amazing, just the vulnerability, but also her visual style can be fantastic too. I like Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Career-wise, I love Cindy Sherman. I love how the longevity and how her work changes but remains within a consistent theme too. She’s really fantastic.
Allen: That was amazing that you got to do a photo shoot with her then, right?
Chris: I’ve shot her three times and still not happy with any of them. Hopefully, there will be another one coming up.
Allen: Is that you’re not happy with anything up to your standard or do you want her to like it?
Chris: I don’t care if she likes it.
Allen: Yeah, there you go. Good answer. How meaningful was it that you were the first recipient of the Arnold Newman award then? That to me would be a milestone in my career, I think.
Chris: Yes. I mean, it’s funny. It wasn’t something I submitted for. There was no entry. This just was bestowed onto me. That was amazing. I’d actually met Arnold Newman and interviewed him when I was still living in Toronto.
Chris: Unfortunately, I don’t have the original transcript and I can’t find the audio. This was a phone interview. I have the original article, so I’ve been able to put that on, it’s on my blog.
Allen: Was there anything from that Arnold Newman interview that just struck you as amazing?
Chris: I tell you something funny that I learned from that, that’s not from the interview. He came in to talk at my alma mater in Toronto and then I approached him probably after. I made a quick portrait with him which wasn’t very good, but I made a quick portrait with him, and I got his phone number of his studio and that’s how I did the interview on the phone, a week later or whatever.
He said, “I’ll give you half an hour for the interview.” I did it in the late afternoon or early evening with him, and I planned to go and see a movie with a friend after. There was a half hour window for the interview and then I’ll have to run off to the theater to meet my friend for the movie. We got on the phone, we got talking and everything was going great, we’re hitting 20 minutes, 25 minutes, I’m looking at the clock, and I realized he scheduled a half an hour because he wanted to have an out. If he wasn’t into it, he wanted to be able to jump off the phone, right?
Allen: Yeah.
Chris: He was doing fine and he could see that I knew his work, and I was, whatever relatively articulate, and keen, and he would have happily probably talked for an hour. But because I scheduled something for after [laughter] I had to get off the phone with Arnold Newman to go see some dumb movie.
Allen:You had no out. You needed an out from the movie.
Chris: And so I had to get off the phone and end the interview.
Allen: Wow. That sucks.
photo of Chris Buck by Lou Noble
Chris: It was a great lesson. I never schedule anything after a shoot or any kind of professional appointment. I never schedule anything for after because you never know what’s going to happen. I mean, if I do a photo shoot… I went to go photograph Annie Leibovitz, and it was supposed to be 15 minutes. I ended up being there for hours.
Allen: Really?
Chris: That’s a whole another story.
Allen: [chuckles]
Chris: For our next interview.
Allen: This would be for part two with Chris Buck.
Chris: Yeah, exactly.
Allen: Well, I thank you for being with us today. This is been amazing. Thanks for spending some time with us.
Chris: Happy to be here. Let’s do another one again soon.
Allen: I would love it.
Introduction
Jan 16, 2020
Allen Clark gives his background, why he is doing this podcast, and who he will have on the show.
Transcript
Allen Clark: I always like to say that I've been known to photograph two presidents, two knights, and a ghost. That's a very odd thing to say but it's true.
I'm Allen Clark. This is The Photo Untaken.
For those of you who don't know me, I've worked in the industry for close to 30 years. I've worked for just about every publication, tons of people in the music industry, and tons of people in the acting industry. I've traveled the world doing this and have worked for publications both domestically in the United States and also abroad. I've worked for Fortune 500 companies. I've done it and I've been there. It's been fun. It's been an amazing career, and I think part of the reason why I want to talk to other people is just because we have been doing this for a while, and I think there's a lot of knowledge to be gained from just the things that I've done, the things that I've seen, and the people that I know. I'm not embarrassed to call on some of these people.
What's interesting is these are people that have been important in my career, but also some of them have just invested back into me and we're friends or, for whatever reason, something either I said or did on a shoot really affected them and they've made the decision to reach out to me in friendship and that's been amazing. Also, I've cherished these friendships and I've been very careful to not abuse the friendship.
This whole thing is about being behind the veil, this podcast, and getting to see and hear some of the things that happen behind this wall. That wall sometimes is protection and that wall is sometimes anonymity and that wall is sometimes celebrity. Sometimes that wall is secretive. The things that companies or governments don't want you to know. There's a lot of intrigue with our jobs as photographers. A lot of times you, for whatever reason, have been invited behind this wall, even if it's just a backstage pass, and the things I've seen and done and been a part of are crazy. There's going to be stories that I'm going to tell on this podcast that it just seems even too hard to think that it could be true. There have been times where I've given advice to world leaders. How to position themselves, clothes to wear, how to wear their glasses, and all this type of weird stuff. "Put your hands in your pockets, Mr. President." That kind of stuff.
There have been things that happened. I've been on shoots and been around people that are influential and it's amazing, but you know? Everybody just needs a friend and a person they can trust, and I have found that to be true from the bottom to the top. Everybody is a person, everybody is real, no matter what weird situation they're in or the circle that's around them. Once you have passed that wall you can see that for yourself. It is really about the exchange to me, between subject and photographer or anybody in the creative field where you're giving your heart and your best, and then how is that shared? It's just the connection between humans. That's what everybody wants or everybody's trying to get is that connection and this is all about that. This is about connection.
One of my favorite photographers, Sam Abell, who was a National Geographic photographer forever, he has a book called Stay This Moment. He's one of those that I definitely want on the show because he brings so much poetry to this than anybody. It doesn't matter what creative person you are, you will get something from a podcast with Sam Abell. There's going to be a lot of the high-end amazing, inspiring commercial photographers, art photographers. People that just are in galleries only and they don't really do commercial photography. There's hopefully astronauts involved. There's musicians who are photographers now. Celebrities that I've photographed. People that are important to me and to my career and I think that have a lot of great things to say. I want that type of stuff on this podcast to inspire others.
Marcus dePaula: This is The Photo Untaken - Stories From Outside the Frame. A podcast conceived by photographer Allen Clark, who you just heard from, and produced by me, Marcus dePaula. Join us as Allen talks with some of the greatest photographers and artists in the world about how they got their big break, what it took to build their careers, where they find inspiration to stay relevant, and which photo was the one that "got away." You can listen to all the episodes of The Photo Untaken, see show notes, and subscribe to the show at thephotountaken.com.
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