Jeff Dunas

September 7, 2008

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Jeff Dunas

Fine Art Photography
Adding 'Mood' To Your Portraits.

Article rating: 7.11

Jeff Dunas does a lot of things well—portraits, fashion, fine art and beauty—for his own projects and for publications as diverse as Life, GQ, Vibe and Entertainment Weekly. He is the recipient of the Print Magazine Photography award and the New York Art Directors Club Award, among others.

He began to interview and photograph legendary blues performers in 1994, and the result is the stunning collection, State of the Blues, published by Aperture. With a preface by John Lee Hooker, the book showcases Dunas's portraits of dozens of legendary blues artists, from Hooker to B.B. King to Etta James. There is also a historic essay by William Ferris, and interviews with over 25 musicians about what it means to live, to have, and to play the blues, mixed with Dunas's photos of the music's birthplace. A permanent exhibition of the work is installed at the House of Blue in Los Angeles.

Buddy Guy - PHOTO: Jeff Dunas

A talk with Jeff Dunas

"I've always worked on long-term, ongoing projects," Jeff Dunas says. "I use my commercial work—my editorial and advertising photography—to support these projects." The personal projects have included documentary (Disappearing America is a ten-year ongoing journey), nudes and, recently, portraits of legendary blues musicians, published in State of the Blues.

"I realized long ago that the music I liked best was based on blues," Dunas says, "and when the pop music of the '70s disappointed me, I found myself listening more and more to the real stuff, the originals." About six years ago he decided to document with a series of portraits of the musicians who made this music.

State of the Blues

PHOTO: Jeff Dunas

State of the Blues

"I saw a lot of photos of blues musicians, but they weren't what I really wanted to see. They seemed like clichés: an old man hunched over a guitar. I wanted a good look at these guys, face to face, in a real portrait." And so he decided to take the pictures he wanted to see. "I basically carried a fully equipped-studio around the country for five years. The photos were made with a Mamiya RZ67 on Agfapan 400 film. I also carried around a big set of Balcar lights and five or six black silks in a frame to build a basic studio situation. I set up my traveling studio in the middle of the street in Helena, Arkansas, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the House of Blues in Chicago and L.A. and at the Long Beach [California] Blues Festival, where I was given access to some really amazing blues people."

Jeff estimates that he managed to produce portraits of perhaps 90 percent of the key blues performers in the world, photographing many of them minutes before they went on stage. "I'd set up anywhere—behind the building, just off stage, even on stage."

With State of the Blues Jeff Dunas achieved his goal of "making photographs that feel like the blues."

James Cotton

PHOTO: Jeff Dunas

MOMENTS IN TIME - Jeff Dunas on Portraits

"I'm not a portraitist who believes he has to sum up a person's life in one picture," says Jeff Dunas, our Pro Profile subject. "I don't think it's possible. A portrait is a document of a specific place and time, a moment in that person's life."

He also believes that the portrait should depict the person, and little else. "I think that imaginative and creative settings or backgrounds take away from the portrait," he says. "Some portraitists' work is all about them, and has little to do with their subjects. That's a valid approach, but it's not how I want to work. I want to look at my subjects, look close at their faces. When a portrait is loaded with props and background items, it becomes entertainment.

"To me, 98 percent of what I do is access, two percent is taking the picture. I make most of my portraits in five minutes or less. Magic happens, and it often happens quickly.

"I think it's also almost essential that I don't know the person. That's not what my job is; I'm not doing a curriculum vitae on the person. I just want to see what my subjects are all about at the moment I photograph them."