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Master Photographers Tell You How

TakeGreatPictures.com (TGP):  Tell us a little about your background.  How did you get into photography?  Where did it all start?

Glen Wexler (GW):  I was originally a fine art major at Humboldt State University.  I just kind of stumbled into photography.  I really enjoyed the immediacy of the process, the instant results you could get in the darkroom.  I realized pretty soon that I needed to develop my craft from a technical standpoint in order to say what I wanted to say with the medium of photography.  I appreciated what Humboldt State had to offer in terms of introducing me to the art of photography and influences such as Duane Michals.  His work was important to me because it described the difference between taking a picture and making an image.  The narrative of his images is something I gravitated towards.  He could illustrate a concept through photography.  But, at that time, what I also needed was the technical background to become succinct enough to say what I wanted to say with my images. 

TGP:  Where did you end up going to achieve that technical prowess? 

GW:  I looked at schools that had solid technical training, and I settled on the Art Center College of Design, to the horror of my instructors!  (laughs)  It was like I was going over to the dark side because the college concentrated on the commercial aspects of photography.  But it was something I thought was important, although I had no intention of getting into commercial work.  What I was exposed to at the Art Center was other areas of photography, especially the fashion work in Europe that was going on in the late 1970s, which to me was just as interesting and influential as fine art photography. 

TGP:  How did you make your way from the Art Center to creating album covers?

GW:  Music was always a passion of mine and I found some inroads and connections in the music industry.  Like many kids of that era, my art collection was my album covers.  It always seemed like such an esoteric market that I never really thought about it seriously as a career path.  I never expected it to happen.  But at the time, I was inspired by the work of a London design firm, Hipgnosis, which was blurring the line between photography, design and illustration.  They were known primarily for creating the packaging art for Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.  Their iconic work got me thinking that there were no impossible images within the medium of photography.  I had the opportunity to run with that notion and got to shoot my first album cover while I was still in school.  I dropped out the following term and started working professionally.

TGP:  What a break!  Was the work for a high profile band? 

GW:  It was an amazing break.  The band was called the Brothers Johnson, who had a platinum album to their name and were produced by Quincy Jones.  It was a gatefold so I had a 24 inch space to work with.  The following year, I had the opportunity to design and art direct their next album and that really threw open the doors for me professionally.  I did a lot of R&B and New Wave bands' packaging.  By the end of the next decade, I had more than a couple of hundred covers to my name. 

TGP:  Was this your bread and butter for the early part of your career?  Did you create other work during that period?

GW:  I did have some projects outside of the music industry.  A milestone project for me was the annual report cover for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.  It was the year that the film Tron was released and the art director wanted the Oscar on a blue glowing grid.  It was pre-high tech and that opened up new avenues for design and advertising assignments.

TGP:  This was before Photoshop and digital manipulation? 

GW:  Yeah, this was around 1982.  My first introduction to digital came in 1986 and that was still pre-Photoshop. 

TGP:  What kinds of tools did you have at your disposal in 1986? 

GW:  I was contacted by a guy named Tony Redhead.  He was modifying a Quantel Paintbox used in the film industry and they adapted the technology for graphic 2D image editing.  He was familiar with my work from the music industry and had me down to his post production facility, Electric Paint, to try out the system.  I was hooked from day one.

TGP:  Did you have any reservations about working digitally?  What was the attraction that made you an early adopter?  There were quite a few photographers who resisted the technology when it first emerged because it didn't fit into the framework of "pure" photography. 

GW:  Lucky for me!  I was doing composite imagery early on that was very painstaking, drawn out, and time consuming.  I would create complex, multi-camera set-ups, use the darkroom to combine multiple exposures on 8x10 film, then go to outside resources for composite prints and traditional retouching.  It was a very slow process.  What I found immediately with the introduction of digital tools was a level of control that exceeded what was possible before.

TGP:  It must have been a "eureka" moment for you.  These were the tools you'd been waiting for. 

GW:  It was an incredible, serendipitous type of thing.  There I was, slaving over these complicated executions and struggling with the notion that there's no impossible image and making sure that they became a tangible reality.  Suddenly, there are these tools that catapulted us to the next level.

TGP:  To put in the work of composite imagery takes enormous patience and skill.  Were you nervous that once these tools were let loose on the industry that people who did not have those inherent talents would then be able to overwhelm the market with similar work?  Was a Pandora's box opened that could never be closed? 

GW:  I know what you're asking, but it was inevitable that the playing field would be leveled.  We were in such an elite position for so long. The original image editing system I worked on cost 1.5 million dollars.  Over time, with computers getting bigger, faster, better, and cheaper, and the software getting so much more sophisticated, but accessible and easier to use, it was only a matter of time before it was all out there for the general public.  Frankly, I was surprised it took as long as it did and that photographers were so resistant to the technology.  I felt we had a ten year window where there were only a few guys out there doing a similar thing. 

TGP:  It’s funny that you mentioned Duane Michals before.  I interviewed him and Jody Dole within weeks of each other years back.  I remember thinking that they represented the poles of photography at that point.  They both had strong opinions about technology, and what it would do to the craft of photography.  Michals was cautious and Dole was exuberant.  What I'm hearing from you is that it was a liberating experience, a cathartic moment when these tools became available. 

GW:  To a large degree, just by virtue of the fact that productivity was enhanced exponentially.  I was able to do things in hours that used to take days, weeks or months.  I've viewed the technology as the natural evolution of photography, but never as a threat.

TGP:  To resist is futile. 

GW:  I remember a conversation I had a decade ago with a really well known gallery owner who insisted that digital would never be accepted into the fine art world.  His argument was that there was too much manipulation applied by digital tools. He argued that given the degree of manipulation, the images were no longer photography and had become “something else”. My response to him was that photography is all about manipulation and the subjective use of tools.  Every decision that a photographer makes:  where he points the camera, what film he's going to use, what lens he's going to use, how it’s exposed, how the image is printed, these are all different manipulative processes to create an image. My definition of photography is “the recording and manipulation of light.” All digital represents is another layer of tools in the creative process of recording light.  You touch on the idea of how this will affect the medium now that people have all this power.  It’s no different than when anyone could get a professional Nikon and call themselves a photographer.  Now anyone can get Photoshop and call themselves a photo illustrator. 

TGP:  You still have to have the talent.  You can't just give a monkey a camera and have him open the shutter. 

GW:  You still have to have skill and apply it to a vision.  Every step of the way, it’s about manipulating technology for the purpose of creative expression. 

TGP:  Back to your chronology.  After your work with album covers and your introduction to digital, where did your career take you?

GW:  At the onset of the 1990s, the music industry changed radically.  We went through a fun period in the late 1980s working with a lot of hard rock and metal bands.  They weren't bands that I had a particular affinity for musically, but there was a lot of effort put into big production album covers.  I had a lot of freedom to do innovative work, but that died down.

TGP:  Nirvana ruined everything...

GW:  The grunge stuff started to appear and hip hop, rap and country music became popular.  The economy of the music industry was also taking a downturn and the bands often had friends that were “computer savvy” that could produce a CD package. All of a sudden, I found myself without the most viable market that my images were appropriate for.  But, what was interesting at that time is that advertising, a market I never thought I'd work in because I viewed it as crass and soulless, presented many artistic opportunities for me.  Now, my work is almost 90% advertising. 

TGP:  Do you have the same creative freedom as you did at the zenith of your early work?

GW:  Its more collaborative now:  there's more people to answer to, bigger budgets.  What's nice about advertising is that I continue to have the opportunity to make very interesting images.  I tend to get assigned images that are suited for my style.  I typically get projects in a crude stage, pencil sketches, rough ideas.  Whereas I don't have the conceptual freedom to start with a blank slate, I can elevate a crude drawing to a photographic reality and put a signature on it.

TGP:  Clients hire you to be their problem solver.  "We need cows to be secret agents."  Tell me about that process.  How much is photography, how much is illustration, and how much is digital manipulation? 

GW:  The bottom line in all my images is that the essence of the work is created with photography.  I shoot all the elements that are required for the assignment.  We make the props as we need them and we fabricate the sets.  I use the camera and lighting to capture the essence of the image, and then assemble and fine tune the photographic elements in post-production.

TGP:  What's to prevent you from creating the sets and props digitally?  Is there a virtue in shooting all the elements in a traditional manner?

GW:  To me, 3D rendering has a plastic, artificial look.  I'm a huge advocate of creating practical sets and capturing the organic nuances created by lighting real surfaces.  There's a level of credibility that we get by shooting real objects.  The secret agent cows are a good example.  We manufactured those realities in the studio.  We sculpted a third scale, miniature cow and then created posable foam cows from the original cast.  We created the wardrobe for each cow, placed them in miniature set environments, and shot them as we had envisioned.

TGP:  Who was the client?

GW:  Chick-Fil-A, a rising fast food restaurant.  They do a calendar project every year.  Last year the Bovine Superheroes sold 2.5 million copies.  To put that in perspective, the second best selling calendar, the Sports illustrated Swimsuit edition, sold 750,000.  Secret Agent Cows are just being released for 2005. 

TGP:  You also produce portraits that are a marked departure from your photo illustration.  They are realistic and faithful to the subject.  How do you approach those images differently? 

GW:  I still generally have a pre-conceived notion of where I'm going to go with a portrait.  With the photo illustration work, it’s very contrived and I basically work backwards.  I know where I want to go and then it’s all reverse engineering the idea to become a tangible reality.  With my portraits, I think about the image in the same way, but when you're working with a person, and trying to bring their personality across, there's got to be an aspect of spontaneity. 

TGP:  Finally, given your longevity and success in the medium, do you have any tips for our readers? 

GW:  There's such emphasis on the technical aspects of photography that pulls photographers away from the core of what's really important.  Mastering craft is essential to photography, but the essence of any art comes from the idea, from creating original images.  A personal point of view is crucial to becoming a successful photographer. 

>>Click here to read Glen's Bio/Background...

>>Click here to read Glen's Ten Tips and Techniques on Creating Impossible Images...

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really interesting wish you good luck Posted by: SGHIR MOMO Nov 23, 2006 @ 10:49 AM EST

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