CONTROL IN PHOTOGRAPHY

I knew it all along.

Photography is about control.

But only up to a point.

I saw alannah performing at La Petite Mort Gallery about a year
ago. She’s a gal who, in certain situations, likes to cede control.
In fact, the first time I saw her she was tied up naked, hanging
from an armature at the gallery. I was attracted to her calm
demeanor and very interested in meeting a person who seemed
to like the idea of, in a way, being a vessel. I wondered what it
might be like to shoot her.

So I contacted her and explained that I wanted to explore the idea
of control in photography by shooting her, a person I could tie up.
(Plus, if I’m going to be perfectly honest, I was also interested in
taking these fotos for other, slightly prurient, reasons. Guilty as
charged.)

Anyway, in the few days before I set out to shoot alannah, I thought
a bit about this whole control in photography thing and I knew, right
from the start, that it wouldn’t make a bit of difference whether the
subject is trussed into a pose or not. There’s just too much other
stuff, magic, involved in taking pictures (at least the pictures I like
to take) to be able to rely solely on locking the subject into some
sort of form. In fact, I discovered that the opposite is true. Allowing
the person you’re shooting freedom and flexibility is where it’s at,
for me.

Annie Leibovitz once said: “Photography is about lighting and
moving furniture”, that’s control. Of course, she was being glib,
but there’s a certain amount of truth in that statement. These
photos here are lit, and we did have to move the bed in the
motel room. But portraiture is mostly about give and take,
about the fluidity of (controlled) situations, about directing
and allowing the directed (subject) to move and be awkward
and human.

In photography, control is the science, or engineering, if you like;
ceding that control, allowing stuff to happen, is the magic.

HEAVILY MANIPULATED

In my years as an editorial/commercial shooter, I’ve discovered that
photographers and art directors tend to use Photoshop in different
ways. Jut like they, often, look at photographs in different ways.

Now, what I’m about to go into here is not a diss of how end users
treat pics. I understand that, especially in the case of commercial
work, a photo is only one piece of the puzzle for designers. They
have a strategy, going in, as to how the photos will contribute to
the whole. And, anyway, I’m a big fan of copy over images and of
graphic treatments of photos. I love the way graphic treatments
can change a photograph into something else.

Here’s a case in point…….

A while ago I shot a series of images for some DND posters.
The poster’s job was to inform cadets about harassment and
what to do about it. I knew going in that the images were going
to be heavily manipulated.

Jean Brunet, the creative director at Innovacom, and his team of art
directors and production people did a great job of Photoshopping
and assembling my images in ways that give the posters the impact
they need to make them work for their intended audience, teenage
cadets. Photoshopping them, I might add, in ways that are WAY
beyond my abilities.

It’s a pleasure to see my contribution to projects used in fresh
ways.

MARK LAITA

Brilliant and simple, what’s better?

I bumped into a series of fotos by Mark Laita, called: CREATED EQUAL.
A series of portraits in diptych form. Each portrait, by itself is beautiful,
but his combinations change the way you look at the subjects.

I like this series of images so much I had a difficult time choosing (stealing)
just a few to use as examples.

Go here to see them all.

Office Worker / Carney. © Mark Laita

Tornado Victims / Lottery Winners. © Mark Laita

Lingerie Model / Woman in Girdle. © Mark Laita