chipgreenberg
Well-known
KoFe’s Amateur vs Pro thread got me thinking a bit about the two fashion photographers I worked for right out of college.
Dave seemed to have some money behind him. He had a huge, beautiful studio. His cabinets were bristling with just about everything the latest Nikon and Hasselblad had to offer. He had banks of Broncolor lights when most everyone else used less expensive stuff. He had an army of Mathews stands, sturdy well made gear used by the film industry that were much more expensive than the Bogen stuff most people used.
Thing is I don’t remember Dave shooting a lot of jobs. Most of his shoots were “testing” to work on his portfolio. He spent a lot of time interviewing models and looking at their portfolios to make sure he got just the right model for his portfolio pieces. Since the gear wasn’t used much it remained new and shiny.
When I wasn’t working for Dave “helping” him interview models I worked for his friend Paul. Dave told me Paul had recently gone through a nasty divorce. His wife locked him out of the apartment with all his photo gear inside. It seems whenever he would show up and try to talk to her something expensive would fly out the window.
Paul was using the ugliest gear I had ever seen. Rather than a dozen Nikkor lenses on new F3HP bodies he had an F and a couple lenses that looked like they used to belong to a war photographer. Rather than the latest from Hasselblad he had a 500c and an 80c that looked like maybe they were amongst the first to roll off the line in the late 50’s. His 2 backs needed to be taped together to make sure they didn’t come apart during the roll.
Paul spent time interviewing models also, but he booked them for paying jobs. I remember helping him with quite a few cool jobs including some double page spreads for Italian Vogue.
Paul didn’t have the luxury of of saying, “I really need to trade in my ancient C lens for a CF lens that is multi coated. C lenses are so 1960. I’ll never do great work with a single coated lens.” or “Gee, I think I need to upgrade my 500c to a 501CM to get the new gliding mirror. That gliding mirror is what will really separate my work from the crowd.” (yes I know the 501 didn’t have a gliding mirror, just making a point)
His gear was fugly but he made a lot of great images on a regular basis.
Not long after I stopped working for these guys I heard Dave was also going through a nasty divorce.
I got two take aways from this.
1. Having the best gear didn’t make you the best photographer.
2. Too much time interviewing models was a hazard to your married life.
What do you think? More or less relevant today in the digital age?
Dave seemed to have some money behind him. He had a huge, beautiful studio. His cabinets were bristling with just about everything the latest Nikon and Hasselblad had to offer. He had banks of Broncolor lights when most everyone else used less expensive stuff. He had an army of Mathews stands, sturdy well made gear used by the film industry that were much more expensive than the Bogen stuff most people used.
Thing is I don’t remember Dave shooting a lot of jobs. Most of his shoots were “testing” to work on his portfolio. He spent a lot of time interviewing models and looking at their portfolios to make sure he got just the right model for his portfolio pieces. Since the gear wasn’t used much it remained new and shiny.
When I wasn’t working for Dave “helping” him interview models I worked for his friend Paul. Dave told me Paul had recently gone through a nasty divorce. His wife locked him out of the apartment with all his photo gear inside. It seems whenever he would show up and try to talk to her something expensive would fly out the window.
Paul was using the ugliest gear I had ever seen. Rather than a dozen Nikkor lenses on new F3HP bodies he had an F and a couple lenses that looked like they used to belong to a war photographer. Rather than the latest from Hasselblad he had a 500c and an 80c that looked like maybe they were amongst the first to roll off the line in the late 50’s. His 2 backs needed to be taped together to make sure they didn’t come apart during the roll.
Paul spent time interviewing models also, but he booked them for paying jobs. I remember helping him with quite a few cool jobs including some double page spreads for Italian Vogue.
Paul didn’t have the luxury of of saying, “I really need to trade in my ancient C lens for a CF lens that is multi coated. C lenses are so 1960. I’ll never do great work with a single coated lens.” or “Gee, I think I need to upgrade my 500c to a 501CM to get the new gliding mirror. That gliding mirror is what will really separate my work from the crowd.” (yes I know the 501 didn’t have a gliding mirror, just making a point)
His gear was fugly but he made a lot of great images on a regular basis.
Not long after I stopped working for these guys I heard Dave was also going through a nasty divorce.
I got two take aways from this.
1. Having the best gear didn’t make you the best photographer.
2. Too much time interviewing models was a hazard to your married life.
What do you think? More or less relevant today in the digital age?
