Alex bakes cupcakes for his pre-school class.
When aspiring photographers ask me how they can become professionals, I start with the same question, "Why do you want to be a professional photographer?"
It's not a trick question, and there's no right or wrong answer. But in my experience it's helpful to know your own motivations and why you would want to subject yourself to the agony of trying to earn a living doing something that you're passionate about, in a cut-throat, crowded field where someone else is always willing to do a job for next to nothing. What will sustain you when you're doing the bidding? Your taxes? The grunt work?
For me it's simple. I became a professional photographer to meet interesting people and find myself in unusual places. Not for the love of the art form, not to shoot women in bikinis, not for dreams of winning a Pulitzer. It's simply the selfish desire to rub elbows with and learn from fascinating people and experience places most others will never see. I work hard on the product, but I always try to enjoy the process.
This is not a political post, it's an origin story.
Once up on a time there was a kid who grew up in Maine. (For argument's sake, let's say that it was me.) He liked his hometown and all, but couldn't shake the feeling that everything was happening somewhere else. He didn't know anything more specifically, except that sometimes his little corner of the world felt like the outer rim, far away from the center of the galaxy. (Yes, that was a Star Wars reference.) I'm not saying that this is accurate, fair, or right, but it's just what he was feeling. Really important things (again he wasn't sure what) just didn't happen in Orono, Maine.
One day in 1992, during his (probably) Junior year of high school, he finds out that someone important (he suspects) is coming to the University of Maine to speak. Hillary Rodham Clinton was stumping for her husband, Bill Clinton, who was running for President. Not only was someone important 'from away' coming to town, but the venue was 200 yards from his house. His little corner didn't seem so remote anymore.
I can't remember the details, except that obviously I called someone, told them I was representing my high school newspaper, and secured press credentials. I do remember going through the secret service checkpoint (THE Secret Service!!), past the bomb sniffing dogs, and being allowed into the press photo pit up front. I remember sitting cross-legged shoulder to shoulder with the Bangor Daily News photographers. I remember my legs and my butt falling asleep. I remember wondering if I should use flash or not. But mostly I remember feeling like I was actually being taken seriously. While this was just another stop along a long slog for the campaign, it was personally historic for me.
I've shot HRC, and many many other politicians in the more than twenty years since this picture was made. Mostly in step-and-repeats (the assembly line of the photo industry) and now this sort of thing feels, well, a bit tedious. I realize that it's part ofthe same machinery whether it's politics, Hollywood, or sports. It's the grind that keeps things churning, for better or worse. These days, my work involves more interacting with and learning from the subject, but the thrill of working with people who are at the apex of their professions is still there. I don't feel like Orono is the edge of the galaxy anymore (New Brunswick is a lovely place) but sometimes we need to step away from our own center of gravity to look at, and appreciate it from away.
Photo notes:
My wife is on maternity leave for just a few more weeks so we decided to play hooky on a brisk Thursday afternoon and check out the National Aquarium in Baltimore. If you are ever in the area, I highly suggest it. Ticket prices are pretty steep, but if you're local you should consider the family membership. It'll save you some dough and supports a good cause.
Sam (currently 2 1/2 months) had a limited experience there, having slept through most of it in the free baby carrier that the aquarium provided. He kinda looked like this Emerald Tree Boa. -->
Alex (almost 4) was a bit more adventurous and ran from tank to tank. He had his favorites, which included NEITHER of these two:
Big Scary Shark. (Latin: sharkus nightmarus)
Freshwater Crocodile
But, he's a trooper and had a great afternoon. And, since I wasn't working, I had no problem not getting the appropriate captioning information. If anyone knows the names of any of these, let me know in the comments!
For the gear heads out there. All the images were made with a Canon 5Dmk4 with the Sigma 35mm 1.4 ART, except for the emerald boa, which i made with an iPhone6 and the Snapseed app. They were processed in CaptureOne. I turned up the crunchiness a bit, to compensate for shooting through 2" thick aquarium glass.
Last year I was fortunate enough to shoot my second book in the Try This: series for National Geographic Kids with super author Karen Romano Young. While I can't show any of the pictures from the book until it's actually published, I decided to shrug off "real" work on this rainy Tuesday and do some quick images of some of the things we did, post mortem. Science is messy and involves breaking as well as creating. Here's to wreckage.
