Portraits

I love photographing people Our fellow human beings tell a story when their eyes look into the camera lens. I went through a time when I took very long exposures of individuals, sometimes minutes long.

I had read somewhere in my early studies about how a long exposure allowed the soul to radiate out and be captured on film. Sometimes the images were remarkable and other times very blurry as the subject would move. One of my most successful long exposure photographs is Miss Kerr, 1977. She had travelled to Santa Fe with Andy Warhol. I happened to be in the gallery that day when they were preparing Warhol’s upcoming exhibit.

I used my Deardorf 4×5 with 100 iso film and stopped the lens down to f/64. Her white hat had dropped to the floor, and I remember saying, “Just leave it there for this shot”. It became an award-winning image. R.C Gorman at Work, 1975, Chateau Coudree, Lake Geneva, 1977, Melissa at the Fairmont, 1980, Fritz Scholder and Friend, 1982, Tony Price, Atomic Artist on site at Yucca Flats, 1982 and the list goes on were taken with long exposures and a very small aperture. My Balinese portraits taken in 1991 were also made using this style of exposure.

This technique was incorporated into the landscape images. Fleetwood, New Mexico Skateland, The Doll House, Room Service, Boots &Wurlitzer and many others are some examples of images made in this style. Today the use of digital cameras and image stabilization makes it is easier to do handheld portraits at longer exposures. I still like using a tripod.

On one of my several early 1970’s summer Yosemite Ansel Adams workshop trips, I met Arnold Newman who inspired me with his stories and examples of portrait photography. Early in my career I was fascinated by the works of Richard Avedon, Phillip Halsman, Yousuf Karsh, Irving Penn, and later in the 1980’s became a fan of Annie Leibovitz. Today with almost everyone having a high-quality cell phone camera in their pocket, I am seeing some wonderful portraits being made and sent out via Facebook or Instagram.