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Master Photographers Tell You How

Reed Hoffmann: Surprise Me by Mark Lapin Surprises, coincidences and visual story-telling have created a great career for photographer Reed Hoffmann Article rating: 8.63

>>Click here to see Reed's Ten Tips on Improving Your Vacation Photos Without Ruining Your Relationships...

It’s a good thing that Reed Hoffmann loves surprises and knows how to make the most of fortunate coincidences because there have been plenty of both in his outstanding career as an editorial/commercial photographer and guru of digital photography.

Reed’s love of surprise showed up early.  ‘I loved Christmas as a kid,’ he says.  ‘Not just the presents, but the pleasure of unwrapping those packages on Christmas morning, not knowing what was inside, and being surprised.  That’s one of the things that got me hooked on photography, not knowing whether or not you had something special until you developed the film and took a closer look.’

Reed discovered photography in his teens when he and his best friend both bought SLRs.  The friend’s mom allowed them to rig up a photo lab in her laundry room.  For Reed, the darkroom became a place to experience Christmas year round.  ‘‘The first time I watched the print come up in the developer, I thought: Whoa, that’s amazing!  I was hooked.  It’s the classic story that kids who grow up in the digital age won't be able to tell,’ he says. 

Award-winning career
During his 25 years in the profession, Reed Hoffmann has been twice honored as the NPPA Regional Photographer of the Year.  He has consulted for more than 30 thirty newspapers seeking to improve their digital photography workflow.   He has photographed the grueling Eco-Challenge Adveture Race on three continents and far-flung islands and documented popular reality TV shows including the Apprentice and the Contender.  As a teacher, he has led American Photo Mentor Treks around the world and helped run the Nikon School of Digital Photography.  He is a regular columnist for several digital photography websites and has written papers on color management and digital workflow.  Chosen as an Icon of Imaging by Microsoft, Reed now splits his time between editorial assignments for prestigious publications including USA Today and The New York Times and consulting/ teaching as a partner in his company Blue Pixel (www.bluepixel.net).

Making the most of the breaks
The fortunate coincidence that helped transform photography from a hobby to a career path for Reed was meeting professional shooter Kent Whitehead.   Kent volunteered as yearbook advisor at Reed’s high school in Evansville, Indiana.  ‘He was your typical 70’s studio photographer, and I ended up working for him through high school and into college,’ Reed says.   ‘He was kind enough to let me come to his studio all week long and ruin a lot of paper, film and chemicals.  On Sunday morning, we’d hop into his old VW van and drive back roads around the tri-state area of Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky, just looking for pretty pictures.  I love doing that, and I’ve been lucky enough to do it my whole life.’

In college, Reed shot for the newspaper and yearbook, which led to another good break.  The Evansville Sunday Courier and Press, now defunct, called the college with a job offer.  They wanted a student who was qualified to work as a part-time news photographer.  Although he’d never considered a career in photojournalism, Reed took the job and loved it.  ‘It was a great training ground for me,’ Reed says. ’I had a chance to work with veterans who loved photojournalism and approached every assignment as if it was a story, which forces you to slow down and think more about what you’re going to do, about lenses and composition.  If there’s a downside to photojournalism, it’s that you run, you shoot, you move on.  So this was a nice slow way to learn.  It got me hooked.’

Right place, right time
After college, Reed worked for newspapers around the country.  When the digital revolution began to hit the newsroom, he found himself in precisely the right place.  He was on staff for two newspapers in Rochester, New York, when the parent company (Gannett) decided to lead the charge into the new era.  ‘We were the largest news organization to go digital and the first to give each photographer two cameras, which cost around $13,000 apiece at the time,’ he says.  ‘But buying and handing equipment out was the easy part.  The hard part was getting everybody up to speed, managing upgrades for hardware and software, and doing it as seamlessly as possibly in 24x7 situation like a newspaper.’

Most newspapers delayed the transition until the mighty Nikon D1 appeared in 1999, cutting the cost of professional digital cameras down to $5,000.  By that point, Reed was opening the next chapter of his career as a freelance photographer and digital consultant.  ‘When the D1 came out,’ Reed says, ‘every news organization in the world wanted to go digital.  There were only two people who had experience with that-- Rob Galbraith in Canada was one, and I was the other.  So for the next two and a half or three years, the majority of my business was going to newspapers and helping them make the transition, set up work flow, set up systems, help everybody understand what works, what doesn’t and didn’t how to get around problems.’

To the max and beyond
When not on the lecture circuit, Reed was exploring places a lot more exotic than conference rooms as a photographer for Eco-Challenge, the worldwide wilderness race sponsored by Discovery Channel.  Reed’s association with Eco-Challenge (and other reality TV shows including The Apprentice and Contender) came about because of yet another fortunate coincidence.  Reed was shooting a Buffalo Bills football game when he ran into an old friend, Kevin Gilbert, who was assembling a team of photographers to document the adventure race.  Reed expressed interest without much expectation but Kevin came through with a long-running assignment. 

‘For me, Eco-Challenge meant going to spectacular, outdoor locations to photograph athletes pushing themselves to the max and beyond,’ says Reed.  ‘It’s taken me to Australia, Morocco, Borneo, New Zealand Argentina and Fiji.  I’ve always done a lot of outdoor activities, including backpacking, whitewater canoeing and snowshoe climbing in winter.  So for me, it was the perfect thing that combined two of my passions-- photography and the outdoors.’  Eventually, Reed and Kevin Gilbert formed their own company, Blue Pixel, to do digital consulting and teaching.  Blue Pixel is now in its seventh year and still going strong. 

Visual story-telling
Since 2000, Reed has also been offering his enthusiasm and expertise to amateurs as a leader of American Photo Mentor Treks, which take small groups to photogenic locations ranging from West Virginia to Croatia.  ‘Teaching has been extremely rewarding, especially with digital photography, he says.  ‘With a few tips and a little explanation of what’s going on with the camera, people can progress so quickly, and I love seeing that.  Every trip I’ve been on, people come back with some wonderful pictures, regardless of their experience level.’ 

While leading a trip, Reed encourages participants to think beyond technology and look beyond individual images.  ’When I’m teaching or leading a tour, I always tell people to think about making a visual story, not just taking a few beautiful pictures,’ he says.  ‘A lot of good things come from that.  If you know you’re going to tell a story, you look at close ups, people, patterns, architecture, interaction, details.  It makes you think more and take more pictures, and the more you shoot, the better your odds of getting something good.  Some of my favorite pictures were almost accidental, not what I first saw but something that developed from that I originally planned to photograph.  The things that surprise you, the things that you don’t expect, can the best pictures.  That’s where people get the excitement and that can happen anywhere.’

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Are those jellyfish or sea wasps upside down? As a diver, I have only seen them with their heads up and squiggly stinging tails down, so I am wondering, was this for photographic effect or were they actually upside down? Posted by: lindi Oct 17, 2008 @ 5:25 PM EST

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