APhotoEditor.com interviewed (in two parts) the fabulous editorial portrait photographer Chris Buck. Below is a distillation of what the most important parts of the interview are. Chris is quite candid and honest in the interview, and it is of good length. If you want to read the full interview please go
here for the part one of the interview and
here for part two.
If you don't already know this, Chris grew up and went to school in Toronto, Canada. As a young photographer out of Ryerson, he wanted to be a professional photographer, but he wasn't one hundred percent confident he could be--which is funny because he is a prolific photographer today. Chris feels "...there's a certain arrogance that goes with wanting to do something like this." For example, being in Toronto, Chris felt the portrait photography that was being produced locally was not very good. This fueled him to work hard at his own vision and develop something that is different than anyone around him (what he calls "arrogance"). In fact, Chris spend a number of years living with his parents and saving money. After he felt it was time to move on to New York, he had money saved up, so when he moved there, he wasn't thrown into the problem many photographers run into: having to take any photo job that pays just to make rent. He was able to be choosy, and when he did take a commercial job, he always shot photos that the clients wanted, but to keep his vision and style progressing, he took shots for himself. Chris didn't want to be one of those photographers who started off their career with promise and an edge, but fifteen years later to have become a successful commercial photographer but have pictures that are unmoving and not interesting. Keeping his artistic vision and integrity intact were vital to him--and this has paid off. The commercial world doesn't need another successful photographer, what the world does need is visionaries like Chris.
"...what you react against is far more powerful than what you are influenced by," Chris gives this advice to young photographers, because he believes it is much more important to follow a path of reaction to a style than follow the influence of a style that you like. The latter puts you in a mode of copying another person's vision; whereas, following a reaction to a style that you feel is horrid, helps you create something new and fresh, and this can lead to the development of your own unique visual style. AphotoEditor also adds that it is important for photographers to always be updating their web sites with new content. This gives the photographer reason to email photo editors to tell them to look at the great new photos that they have created and put on their site.
In the interview, Chris talks about a fairly recent talk he had with the photographer Dan Winters. Dan is famous for only submitting one photograph (or as many as are going to be printed) to photo editors. This really energized Chris to tighten up his edits. He believes it is important for a photographer’s future success. This idea goes back to his arrogant comment and wanting to keep the integrity of his work. Future clients are basing if they will work with Chris by his latest work that is printed in magazines. By supplying the magazines with a much tighter edit (thus fewer photos, but more impressive), only his best work will be published. Rather than giving the editor an option to print an average photograph. As a young photographer, this idea would be much harder to execute. Chris can get away with this because magazines want a “Chris Buck” photograph; he is established. But, a young photographer has to display a sense of arrogance and integrity of vision. Chris admits that there are some clients who he gives more pictures to than others.
Chris points out that many young photographers don’t realize that it takes a long time to become established. While there are a few photographers that burst on the scene in their first five years, they are in the minority. Chris remarks that if you look at the top 100 working photographers, a vast majority worked in the business for 10 to 15 years before becoming established. It is, therefore, very important for a young photographer not to give up too soon. It took thirty years for Larry Fink to become a known name in the art scene; it took Chris twelve years.
Chris is adamant against young photographers falling into he assisting trap. He even goes as far as saying it is his personal crusade to convince them not to assist. He feels while you can learn from assisting, the best way to learn is by interning, not assisting, and Chris doesn’t mean sweeping the floors. One problem with assisting is that if you become good at it, and start making decent money, you end up assisting for 5-8 years. This is way too long a time to be away from actually taking photographs—which is the best way to progress and evolve as a photographer. Many people believe they will only assist for a couple of years, and while this is a good idea, it is not realistic. Once a person begins to make money assisting, it makes the jump to professional photographer much riskier, and thus much harder. Becoming a professional photographer, most likely, means struggling making a living. It is hard to go from making a living (as an assistant), to not making any money as a professional photographer. One could fall into the trap of starting to assist again to pay bills or make rent. APhotoEditor notes that the famous photographers who assisted famous photographs (Martin Schoeller and David Clinch come to mind), they only assisted for a brief time.
It is refreshing to hear that in photo school (and for awhile afterwards), Chris didn’t have a visual style. In fact, he was envious of those in school that did have one. Instead of forcing himself to find a style, he allowed the style to gradually find him. Today, Chris is one of the most stylistic editorial portrait photographers working. In school, he had an interest in a certain subject matter, but no visual style.
“…to be a great photographer you have to be a great editor of your own work.” Chris likens editing his photographs to being a sculptor. First you start off with a large stone, and then slowly but surely, you chip away at the stone until you have a finished piece, so Chris does a first edit, then a second edit, until he gets down to 6 frames to hand to the magazine—or client. Going into a shoot, you have intentions and hopes that are in your head. Sometimes, what is on the contact sheets is different than your hopes and intentions. It is, therefore, easy to miss a gem of a photograph because it doesn’t fit with your initial goal or vision for the shoot. A photographer must be open to this as he looks over the contacts.
Chris talks in detail about the preparation that goes into each shoot. He feels preparation is vital to his shoots. Even after years in the industry, Chris still gets nervous, and if he didn’t prepare this nervousness would make him forget ideas he had and his mind would go blank. Chris doesn’t have time to think of ideas during the shoot; thus, he conjures up ideas ahead of time.
Chris outlines a typical shoot preparation. First, he is given the assignment. Then, he researches the person by reading interviews. After which, he talks to the magazine. Then he goes to some place quiet and thinks of and writes up to seven different ideas for shots. He also has a ten-page list of ideas that he has gathered over the years. He comes up with those seven different ideas by free-association of ideas of 2-3 pages. Then he goes back and reads the list to see what ideas he can build on. After that, he emails the magazine and tells them maybe half of his ideas. He purposely keeps a number of his ideas to himself that he feels he could relatively easily pull off. That way, he doesn’t even give the magazine an opportunity to say no, and he just does them.
At the shoot, Chris believes he has to be ready to throw out ideas when he realizes that they aren’t going to work or something better comes along. When he gets there, therefore, he starts his list over again, and writes down places he thinks are interesting. This, then, sparks ideas of what could be done—mind you this is all before the celebrity arrives. Then Chris goes back to his original idealist and picks which ones will work and which one’s won’t. He always keeps a full range of ideas, from “this person will do anything” to “this person will do nothing.” That way, he has everything covered. After the shoot, Chris puts the ideas he didn’t use on his original idealist.
Chris has three different lists. The first list is broken down into sections: working on location, location ideas, lighting, poses, styling, props, backdrops and studios, technical stuff, and general approaches. The second list is called “Vows and Declarations”, and it is just a list of things he wants to do in the future. The final list is a list of people he has photographed and the ideas he did and didn’t use with them.
The last topic that Chris discusses is regarding dealing with publicists. Chris feels many publicists are shy people who need to be invited into the creative process; consequently, Chris gets the publicist involved by asking questions such as “I love this idea, will you give it a go?” Involving the publicist normally makes them more open to Chris’ ideas.
The interview is long and full of wonderful tidbits into Chris’ work process, philosophies, and advice. It is almost so much that it is hard to take in all at once. One of the most important things that I get from this interview is the detailed focus on preparation of the shoot, specifically the idea of lists of ideas. Going into a shoot already with seven ideas keeps you focused. I, too, have forgotten ideas or gotten sidetracked due to nervousness and the resulting photos were unfocused and to be blunt, not up to par. This is something to work on and pursue.
