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| My dad (click on photo to see full size image) |
On my visit back home for the Thanksgiving holiday I decided that I wanted to take portraits of members of my family. Quite a few of them hadn't had a professional photo done in years, or in some cases, not at all. My dad falls in the not at all category. The last time he had his portait done, professionally, I believe he was 16 years old. It was an old, sepia toned photo that used to be in a frame in my grandmother's house on a small end table in her living room. I remember when I was a kid I asked my grandmother who was that boy in the picture and she chuckled and said, "You don't know your dad?" Other than his wedding pictures 30 years ago, that was the last time his face was ever seen in a picture not shot with a Kodak disposable camera.
So, with doing these portraits, I really wanted to try and capture the essence of who they are. I wanted to reveal a part of their character and their personalities; exposing their flaws or highlighting their attributes. A portrait, even a simple one, can and should be able to tell something about who that person is or how they lived their life. You should be able to see them for the first time in a way you may have never taken the time to see them before. For my dad, shooting him in his garage was the perfect setting for his portrait. He's pretty much spent his entire life around, in and under cars! His hands and nails, even after a heavy scrub, have a perpetual blackness to them; worn and stained from years of grit, oil and car grease. But his hands, although not the smoothest feeling or cleanest looking, tell the story of a man who's lived his entire life handling the intricate mechanics of hundreds of automobiles. That's everything I wanted to capture in my dad's portrait.
The really cool thing was how he got so into the shoot. When I first started, I told him I was going to take a couple test shots (I actually re-explained it to say "practice shots" lol) and he said okay, that's fine...but I could tell he really wasn't sure what to do. He was so impressed with my the light setup and camera while taking the test shots, I think he realized more at that moment his son is actually a REAL photographer! lol. In the beginning I didn't really want him to do much. I took some shots of him sitting on a small stool in front of a car. He wanted to know if I wanted him to straighten things up, sweep or put some of the cords that were hanging away, and I said NO. I wanted everything to look naturally as it was supposed to. I could tell he was still a little unsure of what to do or even what the photos would look like, or he in them, so after I took about 10 frames I showed him a few of the shots. From that moment on, he was floored! He started suggesting props he could use and giving me ideas for poses. He got so caught up in taking the shots that when I said, "okay, I think I got it," he actually sounded a little disappointed and asked me, "are you sure?" It was then I really saw the magic of photography. How it excites the imagination and gives you license to be free. And for my dad, who hasn't had a professional portrait taken in nearly 40 years, watching him become totally immersed in the process and, at least for the moment, forget about everything else outside of those garage doors, was a really magical thing to me.
Every once in a while it's good to rediscover your passion. Sometimes we can get so caught up in the work and what we have to produce for a client, the concepts, the setup, the team, the business, the money, the contracts, we don't always get a chance to just shoot when it's natural or organic to do so. I wanted these portraits of my family to capture something natural and organic, and I hope they did, because long after we're gone from this earth, a photo will still be here, living on forever...and that's REAL magic.
[I'll be posting portraits from my other family members soon, so stay tuned!]
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