Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: RSL on February 04, 2016, 02:43:21 pm
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Rob C stopped posting on LuLa in December, but yesterday he came back with a very wonderful post. Rob's a retired pro who did all sorts of work with models here and there around the world. Recently he did a shoot of a very lovely young woman and posted the results at http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101927.160. You need to scroll down the page to find the post and the link to the little book Rob posted, but here's the link: http://www.roma57.com/interrelate.html.
The young woman in the shoot isn't a model, so the problems and solutions Rob faced in getting these fine shots ought to be interesting to any amateur (or pro) working with someone who's not a professional model. I've been trying to get him to write an article for LuLa about his experience as a pro -- but especially the problems he faced with this shoot. If you think that's a good idea, pile on.
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Of course.
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Second the motion!
Rob C has amply demonstrated that he has a lot of genuine wisdom about what good photography is all about.
The little book that Russ mentions is a true gem. I would love to hear what he has to say about the making of it, about how a photographer can relate to people, and anything else he learned during his many years as a pro.
Thanks for starting the ball rolling, Russ.
-Eric
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Now you're making me tongue-tied.
There's not a lot to say; I've considered this in the past and inevitably end up thinking along the lines that it isn't gonna go anywhere. One has to be an international celebrity to get traction with that sort of ego-gig, and though I did a lot of work in different places around the world it was quietly, and without fanfare.
As for advice about dealing with models - it's tantamount to giving advice about shooting: you have to, and can only do, what comes out of you - there's nothing else in there! Techniques with models? They never were a 'learned' part of me; I don't think anybody seriously has them, though I'm probably wrong as I draw from a vast database of one opìnion! The single thing that I did know was that you have to encourage: never show negative on a shoot or you'll cripple the girl and you may both just as well go home. It's easy now: digital costs nothing, and in the film days, a client was paying anyhow; as an amateur, it's as it is for me now: almost impossible to find anyone open to you with whom you wanna do it - a bloody vicious circle! (It's possibly something very else in a big smoke, but I live in the sticks.)
I once posted a link here to a Sarah Moon video where she talks her way through how her shoots go: the gamut from ecstacy to wanting to give up being a photo-grapher, as she delighfully pronounces it; the sense of the unexpected 'gift' that can land at your feet, but better yet on the film. I understood and recognized every bit of it. Another one is Harri Peccinotti, even more ancient than I, who is still active, and he laments so many changes, including how difficult it is to work regularly with familar faces now because there's too much money and too much hurry and demand - amongst other things; girls move around all the time... how can you be available?
What I do know for sure is that I can't tell, just by looking, if somebody is going to be good at it or not: I have to try doing the job with her. Males? I hated those gigs: never had any conversation to share; nothing in common at all with the guys.
As bad, if not worse in terms of giving advice, is obsolescence. My pro time was from 1960 until perhaps the end of the 80s, after which it was on/off with bits of this, bits of that (a penalty(?) for lotus-eating in the Med instead of tending the treadmill in the UK) and so my ability to contribute to pro discussion today is severely limited, especially with regard to the working atmosphere, from which I'm far removed. Regarding the actual photography, I guess it's always the same, just sometimes with slightly different tools; listening to the 'blad interview today I was in total agreement: getting that first spanking new 500C was a signal to self that yes, one was possibly here to stay; extra bodies became purrrr material! During the 50s/60s it was customary to speak about photographers in terms of being 'established' or not; I doubt many people think of it like that today: I think you make it big time or you die. Which in truth, is probably better than a long, slow and lingering death.
Maybe the best guy to listen to here is Cooter: he's wonderful at his job, he's got access to fabulous girls and uses them so damned well. What's also telling is that he isn't strung out on gear: owns a lot and uses what feels right. It was ever so: one instinctively knew when to Nikon and when to slow down and 'blad.
But thank you for the confident thoughts!
Rob
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"Quietly, and without fanfare" is just what I think we all need right now, not more ego-tripping bombast.
If you don't want to write a whole essay, why not start a new thread called "Rob C Says" and just comment on anything you feel like, whenever you feel the urge.
I would follow it, and I suspect Russ and I wouldn't be the only ones.
Cheers,
-Eric
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Here's a hearty +1.
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Here you are Rob, a very small soapbox, so you won't feel excessively self-conscious. Or you could just sit on it and tell us a story :)
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Here you are Rob, a very small soapbox, so you won't feel excessively self-conscious. Or you could just sit on it and tell us a story :)
Ah Graham, it's not about being self-conscious in that sense; frankly, doing a shoot never gives time to feel anything but productive - or not! - and external factors don't enter the equation. Thank God! Unless they have a direct input: clients. I hated those times. Messed with me, the models whose attentions were constantly being distracted between doing the job and/or getting closer to the 'company' on whose account they were working.
Currently, I'm sporting a friggin' great gash of dried blood on my head. I had decided that as it's Saturday - it is, isn't it? - and as I usually eat at home weekends, I may as well spend most of the morning finally doing a tiny part of last year's spring cleaning. So, decided to start in the sitting room, and all went as planned(?) until dusting the old hi-fi system. I got too close to the turntable cover and raised my head too quickly too far and met the unforgiving and brutally sharp corner of the B&O speaker. Heysoos! The offender is the mother up on the right.
(http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/5848147_orig.jpg)
Maybe there's a message there: don't clean more than you have to clean just to see where you might be.
Rob
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Rob,
My wife came in just as I got to your latest post. She took one look and said "That reminds me of the room in Diane Arbus's 'Jewish Giant' photo."
I'm still not sure what the message is, but the image is still compelling.
-Eric
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Rob,
My wife came in just as I got to your latest post. She took one look and said "That reminds me of the room in Diane Arbus's 'Jewish Giant' photo."
I'm still not sure what the message is, but the image is still compelling.
-Eric
Message? It's part of my Apartment For Sale shoot, though the estate agents have all the shots in colour; I thought the 'Giant' room looked a shambles, which is rather discouraging for me in my sales drive. Perhaps that explains why no bites in fourteen months... and to think I blamed the economy!
But then, anything to do with Ms Arbus discourages me... but to be fair, I haven't seen that pic in years.
I don't think your wife likes me.
She must also be into photography to remember such things as details of old photographs! My better half disliked photography, despìte doing her bit towards it when work called upon her so to do. Not really sure why she felt that way about it, but I suspect it was reaction to the way it sometimes got to me on bad stretches. Correction: the way it always got to me at bad times.
;-(
Rob
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I was quite astonished by my wife's comment.
To me, your room looks pleasant, not fancy, but lived in. The absence of a person in the room invites speculation about the absent occupant (you?), thus evoking stronger feelings than if the occupant were actually in the picture.
Arbus's photos were usually depressing and often frightening. I would never say that about any of yours I've seen.
-Eric
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...It's part of my Apartment For Sale shoot...
Time for me to come and do it really professionally? ;)
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Despite being a landscape guy, I always enjoy reading Rob's posts. Not only can the man write, but he provides a perspective that one can only develop through years of work. I would like to see Rob contribute an article. By the way Rob you live in a palace.
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Rob, you need to hire a "stager" to redecorate your house for sale.
No offense, but your furnishings are dated. If it looks like an Arbus picture it's because it looks of that period, which means attractive to people your age. By redecorating in a more contemporary style you open the market up to young families as well.
14 months without a nibble means something is seriously wrong. Either it's priced too high or it doesn't show well. I don't know the price but I do know it looks like it's from a bygone era.
I hope you take this in the spirit it's given. I think it looks lovely and comfortable, but I'm 56 years old and it feels like my parents house. That's how dated. Unless it's part of a senior community, you need to broaden it's market appeal to a "youthier" market if you want it to move.
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Rob, you need to hire a "stager" to redecorate your house for sale.
No offense, but your furnishings are dated. If it looks like an Arbus picture it's because it looks of that period, which means attractive to people your age. By redecorating in a more contemporary style you open the market up to young families as well.
14 months without a nibble means something is seriously wrong. Either it's priced too high or it doesn't show well. I don't know the price but I do know it looks like it's from a bygone era.
I hope you take this in the spirit it's given. I think it looks lovely and comfortable, but I'm 56 years old and it feels like my parents house. That's how dated. Unless it's part of a senior community, you need to broaden it's market appeal to a "youthier" market if you want it to move.
No offence taken, and I agree with most of it, but it ain't gonna happen. In fact, I had to dress the place down because of the risk of burglary etc. Due to pics remaining in agency windows for so long, it's a convenient, risk-free way of casing a joint...
Most of the people buying here (before many estate agencies went bust post '08) are retired, or about so to do; it's either second-home folks or as I said, people wanting to trade northern Europe for the expected sunshine. Younger folks with pots of loot will be looking at villas with pools, anyway, not thinking for a moment of the downside of all of that.
If you look at the glossy boat/lifestyle magazines about Spain, the places you see featured are either those of Spanish nobility/old money (traditional furniture) or swish holiday villas and apartments with glass/chrome everything, marble floors and no carpets. We started off believing we could hack it without fitted carpets, and for a couple of winters tried to do that. In the end we had to give in and get them installed throughout. The cold in winter is fearful, made even worse by the sea dampness that pervades everything. We are one huge step ahead of most here: the buildings were damp-proof coursed during construction: saw it happening. So any dampness is in the air, not from the ground.
The simple truth is, the property market here is dead, and will probably remain so for years, because they 'developed' hundreds of apartments, prior to the crash, that have never sold or even been looked at. As bad, estate agency fees are at least 5% and used to be much higher. So, unless you are selling because you don't expect to live long, and have no need to rebuy, you are faced with building in a massive over-price factor just to be able to buy again at somewhere vaguely near the same level as you are selling. In my case, I'd probably move to another country, thus losing even more taking the capital out of this country, and converting euros into pounds or whatever.
A recent newspaper article said that 10,000 German property owners in the Balearics were trying to sell, not because they were in any way cash-strapped, but because they objected to the Spanish level of taxation that would be applied to sale or inheritance.
I giggled at the 'parent's house' bit; age would put me exactly there! I expect that the solution will be that I peg out and then the family will perhaps just let it and get some income that way, which could be the best thing, in the longer term, as I don't really have anything much to gain from moving unless I can move to Rome, but that would be even more expensive and precarious!
But, I'm not getting depressed about it: I still do the lottery!
;-)
Rob C
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Despite being a landscape guy, I always enjoy reading Rob's posts. Not only can the man write, but he provides a perspective that one can only develop through years of work. I would like to see Rob contribute an article. By the way Rob you live in a palace.
Heaven forfend!
It's perfectly comfortable - thanks to all the work of a wonderful wife - and as the third bedroom was converted to an office/darkroom amost thirty years ago, suits me down to the ground, even if the darkroom part proved impossible to keep due to technical reasons such as water problems.
However, living alone now, it's a bit of a hassle in that I have to look after a lot of space that has to be kept clean and heated, much more space than I ever use. Also, the older I get the more jealous I am of my time, and housework and cooking sink ever lower down the list of priorities, especially the cooking, which I'm pretty 'not good' at.
Thing is, once you reach a certain age you come to terms with yourself and what you think matters in life. Also, if you move abroad to live, you eventually realise that lots of things don't travel well: furniture from Britain looks daft here as does Spanish stuff taken out of the sunshine ambience. People spend fortunes shipping stuff around and often regret it.
Regarding writing an article: as I think I mentioned before, my time in professional photography was long ago; I gather it's all quite another ball game today, so it couldn't really offer any valid guidance to anyone currently young enough to appreciate advice. In the end, it would all come down to a personal recounting of things done, places been etc. which would never read well. Technically speaking, I think most people on LuLa know as much, if not far more about digital photography than I do! And like it or not, the world is digital. Which is quite good for me now, in retired mode, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to produce anything at all. Which of course, might really be better for the environment, but I won't tempt fate with replies by saying that!
Cheers,
Rob C
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All of the stuff about you being technically outmoded I'll let you have if you insist, but I recall you saying that when you find interviews, articles and interviews with other photographers, that's not what interests you. So you could 'fess up some of the stories such as you might have wanted to hear from others...
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In fact, I had to dress the place down because of the risk of burglary etc.
That explains why I don't see your famous coke bottle ("Ms. Coke") sitting on a shelf in that room. ;)
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All of the stuff about you being technically outmoded I'll let you have if you insist, but I recall you saying that when you find interviews, articles and interviews with other photographers, that's not what interests you. So you could 'fess up some of the stories such as you might have wanted to hear from others...
Indeed, Graham, it's not about the tools, for me, with regard to reading about others; but that makes my position pretty isolated, I'd guess.
Furthermore, things today are so different to the way they used to be: was a time that if you wanted to know more about someone you had to buy a book or magazine featuring something about them. Today, there's the website phenomenon, and all that's worth knowing (or not) is there, in plain sight and but a click away. Seems a bit repetitive to repost the same stuff where it's already accessible if desired.
In the photo business, the most interesting things for me used to be finding out what other people working in parallel fields were doing: who was shooting with whom and for which assignment. That's why I find interviews with Bailey et al. interesting: we are contemporaries but with very different trajectories, and therein lies the fascination, really, because I remember so well looking at his work and that of so many other during the period when I was doing much the same as they were, but in different worlds.
Remove the personal aspects from the equation, and what's left of interest? A catalogue? Look, writing about self isn't difficult: it's the subject of which I'm most knowledgeable, after all. The problem is that there really isn't a heap to say that goes beyond "I met so and so, and he/she introduced me to etc. etc." Everyone today has been abroad, pretty much, and writing about places worked is nothing anymore, though it used to be something special in its day. The business side of it all is not going to be thrown into open debate for obvious reasons. No skeletons would be about to emerge; that's best left to kiss 'n' tell artists with nothing to lose and everything to gain!
You see the difficuties in doing it in worthwhile manner?
Rob
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That explains why I don't see your famous coke bottle ("Ms. Coke") sitting on a shelf in that room. ;)
Right!
She's safe in the office, also not photographed for similar reasons.
;-)
Rob
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"That reminds me of the room in Diane Arbus's 'Jewish Giant' photo."
I'm thinking it's just because a large amount of plain ceiling is visible... in the Arbus photo you obviously see the ceiling because the point of view is upward, and the Giant's head is jammed against it. It happens to also to be a plain, flat ceiling. Funny the things that trigger visual memories :-)
In fact ceilings are interesting things. Normally I don't notice them, and I'd previously lived in houses with either small rooms or high ceilings. The house I bought in Lyon is relatively young (well, same age as me) and I set about demolishing interior walls (a nice feature of French constuction is that usually only the exterior walls are load-bearing. An architect friend took one look and warned me:
"If you make the space too big, it will look like an airport terminal: ceiling too low for the size of the room."
And she was right, so I used it as an excuse to not repair the plaster after I ripped out the walls :-)
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Which is all very well, but also demonstrates one of the penalties of a life again without a PC lens...
I sometimes dream of an entirely open space: no internal doors, and central heating, all in white, and lots of framed pix on the walls. Then I think of the bloody cold, the heating bills and sanity returns in the form of doing nothing!
If there's one thing I miss about l'Écosse it's the central heating. Our neck of the woods had water so pure I used to do the car battery with it... here, radiators would probably explode with the cal deposits - much like a heart attack, then.
But summer is just a few weeks away.
;-)
Rob
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Rob C stopped posting on LuLa in December, but yesterday he came back with a very wonderful post. Rob's a retired pro who did all sorts of work with models here and there around the world. Recently he did a shoot of a very lovely young woman and posted the results at http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101927.160. You need to scroll down the page to find the post and the link to the little book Rob posted, but here's the link: http://www.roma57.com/interrelate.html.
The young woman in the shoot isn't a model, so the problems and solutions Rob faced in getting these fine shots ought to be interesting to any amateur (or pro) working with someone who's not a professional model. I've been trying to get him to write an article for LuLa about his experience as a pro -- but especially the problems he faced with this shoot. If you think that's a good idea, pile on.
Well, Russ, against my better judgement, I've written a brief article as you suggested.
If it sees the LuLa daylight, you know the various 'whoms' to hold responsible for disappointments and brickbats!
With all this fanfare that's gone down, I think I should now take a long cruise far away from computers and the Internet...
Rob
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Rob C stopped posting on LuLa in December, but yesterday he came back with a very wonderful post. Rob's a retired pro who did all sorts of work with models here and there around the world. Recently he did a shoot of a very lovely young woman and posted the results at http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101927.160. You need to scroll down the page to find the post and the link to the little book Rob posted, but here's the link: http://www.roma57.com/interrelate.html.
The young woman in the shoot isn't a model, so the problems and solutions Rob faced in getting these fine shots ought to be interesting to any amateur (or pro) working with someone who's not a professional model. I've been trying to get him to write an article for LuLa about his experience as a pro -- but especially the problems he faced with this shoot. If you think that's a good idea, pile on.
Hey...I like the Rob's book.
One B&W pic actually reminds a lot of a Peter Lindberg
Portrait.
Nice work.
Ps: I think professional models are only linked with
A product's sales. High-fashion ain't the same as prêt à porter
And models have to reflect that. In Prêt à porter we'd need
The "next door good looking girl", in fashion we'd need
The woman you never find on the streets. An ideal (arbitrary)
Etc...but out of commercial needs, or a particular will of
A photographer who can afford the very best, there is no reason to
Use a professional model. IMO.
But ironicaly, the master of the masters in haute couture,
(Chanel and Dior said: "he is the master of all of us")
Never matched since: Balenciaga, never used specially good
Looking women nor the very best top models.
And the guy was absolutly against ready-to-wear.
So it's fun to see that the one who was the most prestigious
And recognized to do the most perfect and sophisticated
Clothes, obsessed by perfection, did not attached much importance to the models.
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Hi Fred,
Thanks for the nice words re. the new girl.
Not so sure about the model philosophy, though. Specifically: I like the 500mm mirror optic, but to use it means that I'm going to be at walkie-talkie range and not a chance, on a beach with not-so-gentle zephys and waves, of making myself heard, never mind understood. So, you need a girl with experience, a girl who already has a routine - a 'thing' she can do on her own without photographer input. Then it becomes a matter of catching the bits you like... Arnaud de Rosnay was also very partial to the mirror lenses. If you look at his stuff you see he was very much with Marisa Berenson, hardly an inexperienced chick!
I also had the hellish experience of working with some local dodos; my last calendar for one of my best clients was the last one because of that: the PR guy decided to use local 'talent' instead of the London professionals that I always booked for that company (when the gig was always, previously, handled by the Marketing Director) I protested at the time, but you know what I was told? "Then you'll just have to work harder, won't you?" That is NOT an exaggeration: it's a straight quotation. I took the gig, too big not to take, and did a TMAR production. I never worked for them again... You travel that route, you pay the price for when it goes tits up. But when you know it's already sunk, you salvage what's salvageable.
Thing is, if the girl has got it - as my only muse of the 60s/70s had - then the first time you shoot is as good as it gets, and you don't need more than to trust her ever after. It isn't the normal experience, IMO!
Rob
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Hi Rob,
There is no question that pro models (and not the locals
As you point) is the way to go when professional
Assignement is involved.
Most local models are just good looking women a bit
More good looking than the average next door girl and very
Much inexperienced. Yes, there is the luck of the beginner
But it's a bit playing with fire.
They are useless with 15cm high heels and then you have
The pudor of nudity and so on...no...too many hassles
On the corner.
There are things you can't do. Imagine for ex a James Bond
With me instead of Connery..it would not work only as a parody...lol...
Same with girls.
I would have loved to work with Betty Page.
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... Imagine for ex a James Bond
With me instead of Connery...
Not that hard to imagine. Apparently, anybody these days qualifies. ;)
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There is no question that pro models (and not the locals
As you point) is the way to go when professional
Assignement is involved.
That's quite true. A a couple of decades ago I was fortunate to be in a couple of test shots at a benefit with a well known model. There was not much need of middle aged male models at the time so I was never going to look at this as a mid-life career change. ;) We did have a chance to talk a bit and it was clear that those at the top of the profession work very hard.
Alan