When Canadian photographer Crombie McNeill first started his career in photojournalism in the early 1960s, a peer suggested that he visit the Union Mission and take some portraits of the homeless people there in order to build his portfolio. Based in Ottawa, Canada, for the entirety of his career, McNeill entered the Union Mission skeptical that anyone would allow him to take their photograph.  

Like so many other people, McNeill had a certain perception of homeless people that was informed by the narrative that they were dangerous and unstable. What he encountered was so much different. “I went into the Union Mission with great trepidation, but the people welcomed me, and offered me coffee,” he said. “Here I was, with all of these prejudices, and what I found was a group of warm, generous and kind people.” 

Throughout his more than six-decade career, McNeill has returned frequently to the subject of unhoused people. During that time, he says, he has met a broad spectrum of personalities, each of which belongs to a unique human being. There is Tommy, for example, who panhandles on the street with his dog, Jones, despite having a collection of valuable Mickey Mouse watches that could easily be sold for thousands of dollars. There is David, a recovering alcoholic who lost his wife and son in a drunk driving accident and spends his time counseling individuals struggling with addictions. There is Pepper, a young woman who left her family in Toronto, and has dreams of becoming a writer one day. And there is Bill, a proud man and a former member of the Canadian Coast Guard who always is quick to tell a joke and buy his companion a beer. 

McNeill never asks his subjects to pose or do anything that would make them uncomfortable. Instead, he photographs them quickly, using available light and a long lens with an analog body that allows for a close crop of his subject’s face. He never photographs people in compromising positions, or who are obviously unable to give their consent. “I try to eliminate the sundry details that don’t capture their personalities,” he says. Instead, he wants to capture the unique spark of each person’s essence. “The texture of skin and a person’s eyes tell so much of a person’s story,” he notes.  

Most of McNeill’s photographs are taken on Ilford HP5, a high-speed black and white film that allows McNeill to capture the fine details in his subjects’ faces. For example, the fine lines etched in David’s face from a lifetime of smiling, and the salt and pepper shades of Tommy’s hair. Over the many years that he has worked with the unhoused, McNeill has heard many stories, none of them exactly the same. As a photographer, he’s less interested in proposing a solution to the housing problem in Canada – the estimated number of homeless people in Canada is anywhere between 150,000 and 300,000 people, and has been steadily rising over the last decade – than he is to transfer some of the empathy he feels for his subjects through his imagery. “At the very least, we should look at them as fellow human beings,” he says. 

One immediate way to help, he notes, is to donate to caregiving agencies such as the Salvation Army, which could always use more resources. For this reason, McNeill hopes to publish his portraits of unhoused people in a book, which he hopes would be distributed to local government agencies as well as individual collectors, all with the goal of raising money for food, shelter and treatment programs. Currently, McNeill is trying to raise the $15,000 necessary for a publisher to agree to print the book. Anything beyond that would be donated back to people trying to house, feed and clothe people in need. If you would like to contribute, you can contact McNeill directly (crombiemcneill.photo@sympatico.ca).

[Read: Documentary Portraits of Humans at 100]

When McNeill considers homelessness around the world, he becomes overwhelmed. “It is just such a vast problem,” he says. For this reason, he has chosen to photograph only the population near his home. Over the last six decades, he notes, the demographics of the unhoused people in Ottawa has changed dramatically, shifting from a majority male population to one that now includes many women and children. “I am so honored that over my life, these people have trusted me to photograph them,” he says. “I hope my photography transmits how honored I feel, and how resilient these people are who are living on the streets.”  

The post Capturing Humanity: Crombie McNeill’s Portraits of the Homeless   appeared first on Rangefinder.

With the eye of an eagle, the endurance of a mountain goat, and the joy of a wildflower in the breeze, Chilean-born Andrea Enger was destined to become a photographer of adventure elopements. She has overcome her share of challenges as both a Latina woman and immigrant, pioneering into photography with her heart set on a life of creativity. Now residing in Colorado, Enger chooses the (actual) path less traveled: Taking her couples to the tops of mountains or expanses of deserts to exchange vows — rain or shine. “I believe that adventure brings everything to life. I don’t ever want to stop exploring our beautiful planet,” she says with a radiant smile. 

Enger’s first memory was of her dad’s camera. “He was always documenting. Our first steps, our first time swimming, our family trips to the Andes Mountains. He is the reason I fell in love with storytelling,” she recounts. She would flip through family photo albums and remember the joy and love captured in the pages. When her father passed away when she was 12 years old, she committed to memorializing beautiful moments for herself and others.  

Enger chose to specialize in outdoor adventure elopements because she feels they are the truest, most candid, and sincere way for two people to commit to one another, especially in breathtaking natural environments where they can just be themselves. “I am so much more than their photographer. I curate the scene, paint the picture, and capture the essence of their love,” she says. “There’s no better feeling than when couples trust me with their most important day.”

As an avid outdoor enthusiast, Enger finds adventure elopements exciting because of the challenges. Whether it is summiting a mountain in unpredictable Rocky Mountain weather or scouring the red desert for a bit of shade, she finds that the couples who are open to these kinds of weddings aren’t deterred by the whims of mother nature. “In order to bring their vision to life, it truly must be a collaboration and, of course, an adventure,” she says.  

But her challenges aren’t always climatic. When she first came to the US, she barely spoke any English. She immediately enrolled in ESL classes and took jobs where she had to speak more. “It took time, but it slowly improved. There was no other way to do it,” she recounts. When she decided to start her own photography business, she had to learn how to manage clients, create contracts, file business taxes, and market herself—all while still mastering English. One of her greatest assets is knowing her strengths, but knowing where and when to ask for help. “Being a business owner is made up of so many parts. I have the vision and plan, and then I assemble the team to help execute it. You keep your sanity by not trying to do it all yourself,” she says. 

[Read: What to Consider When Offering All-Inclusive Elopement Packages]

Enger is a member of the Colorado chapter of Latino Outdoors, an organization dedicated to getting the Latinx community exploring more outside. They host group rock-climbing events, trail runs, stroller hikes, dog walks, and more. Enger recognizes the need for more inclusivity in the photography industry as well, and knows that it can be much harder for non-native English speakers to start their own businesses. However, “I don’t pity myself for having to work harder,” she says. “I am proud of my Latinx heritage and how far I’ve come, and I am proud of all the others who are establishing their businesses as well. I hope for more success stories out of our community.”

Whether in Rocky Mountain National Park or on the peaks of Patagonia in South America, you’ll find Andrea Enger capturing once-in-a-lifetime photos around the world, for only the most adventuresome couples. To find out more about Enger and her adventure elopements, visit her website.

The post From the Rockies to Patagonia: Elopements that Go the Extra Mile  appeared first on Rangefinder.

If Robyn Lindemann of Robyn Rachel Photography, had known that she would be diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a genetic disease that causes the retina to break down over time, eventually leading to blindness, she likely would not have pursued a career in wedding photography. And for that reason, she’s grateful that she didn’t find out she had the disease in her late twenties, when her career was already established. “Wedding photography was a career that made my heart beat,” she says. “I thought that I would do it forever.” Instead she has had to make some serious changes in her life and her business. With February being Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month, Robyn Lindemann is sharing her journey from light to darkness and back again with us.

Lindemann began taking wedding photographs in 2009, in Chicago, where she was born and raised. In her second year of business, she was hired to photograph the wedding of Kyle Busch, a professional NASCAR driver, which led to an avalanche of bookings. At the time of her diagnosis in 2013, she was shooting weddings that had six-figure budgets, and making, on average, $10,000 per event. “Wedding photography never felt mundane,” she says. “Every dress, every location, every relationship with a client was different.”

At six feet tall, Lindemann had always been athletic and limber. When she began bumping into things at the grocery store, she went to a doctor to get her eyes checked. There, she found out that her peripheral vision was limited, and worsening. A few weeks later, she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa. “The doctor who gave me the diagnosis told me not to give up on life,” she says. “It was such bad bedside manner.” Instead, she decided to embrace every second. “I was given a different future than the one I thought I would have, and I chose to make the best of it because that’s the only choice I had.”

[Read: How Felicia Reed Kept Her Brand Thriving While Fighting Cancer]

For a while after the diagnosis, the photographer’s vision remained stable. (She describes the disease, which impairs the vision from the outside of the eye towards the center, like looking through a straw at the universe, and noticing that stars are dying around the edges. Either that or watching an aperture close on a camera.) Then, she went through IVF to get pregnant with her daughter and noticed that her vision worsened significantly.

Even still, she kept on shooting weddings. She didn’t tell clients about her diagnosis, choosing instead to hire second and third shooters who could capture the shots she couldn’t take. For example, action shots in the middle of a dance floor, where the low light and movement made maneuvering with her vision very difficult. “I felt like my work only got better,” she says, noting that her shooters were aware of her disability, and could cover her in situations they knew in advance would be challenging for her. Lindemann worked as hard as she could knowing that one day, she would no longer be able to shoot weddings at all. Rather than waiting for a day when she wouldn’t be able to work any longer, she decided that she would stop shooting weddings by the end of 2019. “I wanted to go out on top,” she says.

Lindemann planned on ending her career as a wedding photographer with a yearlong trip around the world with her husband and toddler daughter. In preparation, the family saved for two years, and rented out their Chicago home. Her husband planned on quitting his job, allowing her the freedom to take photographs while they traveled. Her intention was to create a series of fine art travel photographs that she could show in exhibitions, and potentially publish in a book, at the end of the journey. “The plan was to finally come out with my story, and be open about it,” she explains.

[Read: Insider’s Guide to 5 Travel Hot Spots for Photographers]

Then, just as the family was preparing to leave, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world. She was devastated. “The trip really was a Band-Aid. I wasn’t dealing properly with grieving the loss of something that was so meaningful to me. I completely lost my identity.”

After sheltering in place for almost a year, during which time the family were infected with—and recovered from—COVID-19, Lindemann decided that they would travel in spurts. Over the past two years, they have been to Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama, Croatia, Montenegro, Italy, France, England, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Spain, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Estonia, Scotland and Belgium, among other countries. Everywhere they go, they immerse themselves in the local culture. “We have coffee in town squares and find local playgrounds where my daughter can make friends,” she says. Of primary importance, she says, is just spending precious time together, which they will lose not only because of her disease, but also, because their daughter is getting older, and recently started full-time school. 

Although her husband has kept his job, working remotely while they’re on the road, Lindemann still makes time to take photographs. She has become particularly interested in drone photography, which allows her to capture landscapes that she wouldn’t be able to see even if she was full-sighted. The resulting images, which show a birds-eye view of gorgeous beaches and picturesque towns, flatten the world in such a way that it is rendered into patterns and gradients of color, limited to what is within the frame—not dissimilar to the way that Rachel sees as she continues to lose her vision.

She says that she is only halfway done with her journey around the world—the family plans on traveling to Australia and Southeast Asia when her daughter finishes kindergarten this spring. She plans on continuing to take photographs for an eventual exhibition and photo book, even as her vision deteriorates. At night, her peripheral vision is only about 15 percent as strong as a full-sighted person; during the day, she can see 50 percent as well as a full-sighted person. This has not stopped her from enjoying the journey. “I never thought I’d get this time with my family,” she says. Every trip, she is amazed by how well her now six-year-old daughter adjusts to new situations. “I’ve never seen anyone with more of a zest for life than she has,” she says. “Her sense of wonderment is the most joyful thing I’ve ever seen.”

When the family is not traveling, Lindemann continues to take photographs for clients, focusing on branding imagery and family portraits. She recommends that photographers who have similar disabilities, or worsening vision, rely on the ever-increasing range of new technologies to accomplish tasks they no longer can do by themselves. For example, image and video stabilizing software and drone cameras.

[Read: Drone Portraits: A Guide to Making Images That Soar]

As the world around the edges of her vision continues to disappear, Robyn Lindemann continues to photograph it. Fortunately, technology is such that the camera—or drone—can fill in where her vision fails. And when she needs help getting to a location, she has her daughter or her husband there to help her. “I’m hoping that I can show that even with my diagnosis, life can still be amazing and beautiful and inspiring.”

Read more about Robyn Lindemann’s story and travel at silverliningexplorer.com.

The post Robyn Lindemann Finds the Light in her Darkening World appeared first on Rangefinder.

What are celebrities doing when the world isn’t watching? That’s the question that artist Alison Jackson explores in her photographs. While Jackson’s photographs appear to capture candid moments among celebrities and world leaders, the images are actually highly-orchestrated productions using doppelgängers to imagine what happens behind closed doors. Jackson’s latest series, a project designed to highlight a vegan line of options by Bird’s Eye, imagines the moment that Prince William and Kate Middleton read Prince Harry’s new memoir, Spare.

Jackson’s work ranges from images of The Queen shopping at Tesco to Marilyn Monroe’s alleged affair with John F. Kennedy. The British photographer describes the images as “pictures that we’ve all imagined, but never seen before.” While much of Jackson’s “celebrity” photography encourages discussion about fake news, her latest work mixes meat alternatives from Bird’s Eye with celebrity lookalikes. (And, she adds, the food really does look and taste like the real thing.)

[Read: Lookalikes Portrait Project Leads to Discovery on Doppelgänger DNA]

The Bird’s Eye campaign imagines a question that fans of the royal family are thinking: Has Prince William read Prince Harry’s memoir? How did he react? The images imagine the royal couple eating vegan burgers in bed while guffawing over the memoir. The series also includes images of King Charles and Camilla lookalikes eating meat-free burgers by the fireplace. Another set imagines Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his family at the dinner table.

Most of Jackson’s photographs are the result of time spent setting up the shoot, planning all the actors, locations, props and wardrobes, with the latest shoot taking about two weeks of prep work. Yet, Jackson shoots in a way that makes the images feel candid and unposed.

“I shoot through door cracks and window frames and past flowers and flower pots to really make the viewer feel like they are looking in on something maybe they shouldn’t,” Jackson says. “They are looking on on a private moment. That’s what I do. I shoot it blurry and grainy, that’s all designed to help us think that it’s a caught, snatched picture.”

One of the challenges of Jackson’s photographs is that the lookalikes typically only look similar from a particular angle, at a particular moment. While she uses wigs and sometimes a prosthetic like a fake nose, much of the resemblance comes from the angle, she says. As a result, she’s constantly directing the actors to create the right moment from the angle where they look the most like their celebrity lookalike. Taking the photographs for the Bird’s Eye campaign took up one long 12-hour day, she says.

[Read: Sigma’s 60-600mm Sports Lens: The First 10X Zoom for Mirrorless]

Jackson works with zoom lenses in order to shoot different focal lengths quickly. “It’s just that split moment, that deciding moment when they look like the real deal,” she explains. “I have to take a lot of pictures and I never know when I’m going to get it.” The photographer adds that she could shoot with any camera body but fast, versatile lenses are the most essential to her work. (She shoots with Canon and Sony bodies and favors Sigma’s zoom lenses.)

Another challenge the artist regularly faces is finding doppelgängers, laughing as she recalls running after people on the streets. She also puts ads out on social media looking for the right actors. (She’s currently looking for a Meghan Markle and a Joe Biden lookalike.) Others she works with on multiple shoots, including the Prince William lookalike from her latest series. See all of Alison Jackson’s photographs here.

The post Alison Jackson Captures Celeb Moments Sans Celebrity appeared first on Rangefinder.

Fashion photographer Dixie Dixon knew she wanted to a be professional photographer ever since her high school marching band director in Texas yelled at her for missing a step during rehearsal. She played saxophone but she quit the band in protest. To fill her time, she joined the yearbook staff, where she learned how to discard her shyness and immerse herself in a scene. “It got me out of my shell, going to events to photograph them,” she says. “It felt almost rebellious.” Before graduating, one of Dixon’s images graced the front cover of the yearbook. That would come to plant the seed for a successful career in fashion photography later on.

[Read: From the Runway: Photographing Bridal Fashion Shows]

Dixie Dixon: The College Years and Beyond

In college at Texas Christian University, Dixon majored in entrepreneurship with a minor in art so that she could learn the business side of photography alongside the craft. Her junior year abroad, she chose to study fashion photography in London and Prague and got hooked on the business. “I love how controlled fashion photography is in comparison, for example, to shooting weddings,” she explains.

Upon graduation, Dixon shot any type of subject that would help her pay the bills—weddings, for example, or sports teams—while building her fashion photography portfolio in her spare time. She did so by calling local modeling agencies and asking them if they had any new faces that needed images for their portfolios. She realized early on that modeling agencies are in the business of selling models to clients as opposed to clothing, make-up or any other type of product. “With brands, you’re showcasing the fashion,” she notes. “But when you’re shooting models for an agency you want to keep the hair and make-up really clean.” She also learned that the process of working with a model was something like a dance. “You don’t want to overly pose a model because it will stifle his or her creativity. Models know their angles, and if you work in tandem, you get better shots.”

Dixie Dixon’s First Big Break

An early, and big, break came when a friend who worked as an editor for HDNet (now AXS TV) contacted Dixon and asked if she would be interested in shooting still images of the cast members of Doheny Models, a docu-series about the modeling industry. This led to a full-time position as a staff photographer for Get Out, another documentary series about beautiful women who travel to exotic locations around the world. With the show, Dixon traveled frequently to locations including Puerto Rico and Ibiza. “I would do it again in a heartbeat,” she admits.

Although she held that job for four years, Dixon never got complacent. Every time she traveled to a new city, she set up meeting with advertising and marketing agencies who could connect her with future clients. “You have to make 20 calls to get one meeting,” she laughs. She recommends that photographers looking to break into the industry do something similar. “Set up meetings with brands you want to shoot for, or creative directors you want to work with,” she recommends.

The Payoff: Clients Galore

All her hard work paid off. In 2013, she was hired to shoot the annual Magpul calendar, which pairs fashion models with firearms produced by the brand. To date, her clients include Disney, The Salvation Army, Kathy Ireland Worldwide, Manfroto, People magazine and AutographCollection Hotels, among many other major corporate clients. After meeting the president of Nikon at WPPI —she attended for free after winning the Hy Sheanin WPPI Photographic Award in 2008—Dixon was chosen as a Nikon ambassador, a role she still serves today.

Dixon, who says that she shoots a very classic style of fashion photography that doesn’t necessarily respond to trends, works with a large team that usually includes a producer, a lighting technician and a digital tech, along with prop and hair and makeup stylists. She didn’t always have the budget to hire such a broad range of talent, and recommends that if you are starting out, you reach out to other creatives on Instagram to see if they want to collaborate with you to help you both build your portfolio. “When I was starting out, I would literally bring my model to the Mac Cosmetics counter at the mall, and have their makeup done there,” she says. “But I realized early on that I can’t do it all.”

In Dixie Dixon’s Gear Bag

Dixon works with a toolkit that includes a Nikon Z9, a broad range of Nikon prime lenses, Profoto B1 and B2 flashes, SanDisk memory cards and a Manfrotto gear bag. But she also likes to experiment with unconventional tools including a battery-powered leaf blower to add volume to a model’s hair. Her lighting techniques vary depending on the shoot, but she loves—with the aid of her lighting technician—adding softness with umbrellas or a beauty dish, or making light bounce off a wall and onto her subjects using a bare strobe.

What’s Next

Lately Dixon, who is currently based in Fort Worth, Texas, has begun shooting commercials for television, which she really enjoys. If she had any advice for aspiring fashion photographers beyond networking, posting their work constantly on social media and adding to their portfolios,

The post Dixie Dixon Takes Us Inside Fashion Photography appeared first on Rangefinder.

On the day that Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida, photographer Krista Kowalczyk and her partner sat in her house in Fort Myers, which was just outside of the flood zone, and listened to shingles flying off their roof. “It sounded like there were construction workers pounding above our heads,” she says. “At one point, I called our neighbor, and told him that if we needed to make a run for it, we were headed to his house.”

The roof stayed mostly intact. “In retrospect, we were so blessed,” Kowalczyk says. The morning after the storm, she woke up, and knew that she had to go help friends and community members who weren’t so lucky.

[Read: Is Your Photo Business Ready to Face a Natural Disaster?]

The first thing she did was call her daughter, Olivia Shears, who is in college in Miami. Shears had not sustained much damage from the storm and was able to connect to the Internet, where she could access the back end of her mother’s photography website, Impressions Photography. Although Shears had no experience with e-commerce, she was able to upload a gallery of her mother’s photographs of Sanibel Island, which was left a disaster zone after the storm, and offer metal prints of the images to raise funds for hurricane relief. “It was the easiest way I could think of to help people immediately,” says Kowalczyk.

Soon after Hurricane Ian left the area, Kowalczyk, who already donates much of her free time to community service, ventured into the places that had been heavily flooded. She did so with the intention of moving furniture; upon arriving at the first house, however, she found that her friend had taken all of her family’s soaked photo albums and laid them out on the front yard in the sun.

Kowalczyk has worked for the past 20 years as a wedding, portrait and family photographer in Southwest Florida, staging many shoots on the beaches of Sanibel Island. But she received her photography education at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in the early 2000s, where she studied analog photography. “I learned enough there to know that I don’t really know what I’m doing,” Kowalczyk laughs.

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One thing that she did know, thanks to her education, was that the photographs had to be taken out of their albums so that they could dry. Even though she knew that her professors would cringe if they could see her putting on dish washing gloves and cutting the photographs out of the plastic album pages, she knew that she had to work quickly before mold began spreading over the images, ruining them forever.

Working on the fly, she developed a process to save her friend’s precious family photographs. First, she took a digital image of the photograph in case it was damaged during the removal process. Then, she cut the images out of the plastic albums and lay them flat to dry. Any images that were stuck together, she soaked in water for up to 10 minutes, at which point they easily peeled apart. “Photographers who haven’t printed their own images likely don’t know that you can dunk photographic prints in water,” she says.

[Read: Photography Insurance: 5 Ways to Protect Your Business]

Even though, as a family photographer, she knows how precious images can be, Kowalczyk was moved to see her friend react to having family photographs saved after the flooding. “It gives people hope,” she says. She noted that many families she’s spoken to since looked for their photograph albums first upon returning to flood devastated homes.

Kowalczyk knew that even if her process was imperfect, and that she could only do so much personally, she could help a lot of people to save their images by posting tips on her social media pages, which include an Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok accounts. Truly precious images, or those that already were covered in mold, she recommended freezing until a restoration specialist could work with them individually. The freezing, she noted, would stop the growth of further mold. For images that were salvageable, she recommended that families take photographs of the images, and then remove them from albums, where moisture easily gets trapped. Any images that were stuck together could be soaked in water, and then dried. And if a photographic print was destroyed beyond recognition, she recommended that families look for negatives, which could be used to make new prints.

Kowalczyk also began to compile a list of photographers who were willing to volunteer their time to re-touch images and began connecting them with affected families online. She also connected people to Chatbooks, which has offered to reprint photographs lost during Hurricanes Ian and Fiona for free. Working round the clock with her daughter and her regular assistant, Maddie Briggs, Kowalczyk helped families in her local community begin to dry out their images. Throughout, she continued to sell metal prints of her Sanibel Island photographs—to date, she’s raised over $2,000 for hurricane relief, which she plans to donate to a local community organization for people devasted by the flooding.

As much as she can, Kowalczyk continues to spread the message that precious photographs should be digitized. Hurrican Ian just enforced that notion even more.  “People love their pictures,” she says. “You never know if you’ll have flooding damage, or a fire. I definitely hope people hear this story and think, ‘I need to digitize my family photographs.’”

In the meantime, Kowalczyk is faced with the prospect of having to completely restructure her business, which mostly involves shooting weddings and family portraits in the Fort Myers area, which likely will take years to completely recover from the storm. “I don’t know what my business will look like a year from now,” Kowalczyk confesses. She’s already booked some sessions in other states, but regularly, she refunds clients who already paid deposits for shoots at venues that no longer exist due to Hurricane Ian.

Even still, she’s hopeful. “I guess I’ll just have to take my show on the road,” she says. In so many ways, what she has done over the past few weeks is a continuation of her passion for community service. “I am a lover of photography, and I’ll always have a camera in my hand,” Kowalczyk says. “But I really do love helping people as well.”

The post Photographer Restores Photos for Families After Hurricane Ian appeared first on Rangefinder.

When Jim Cornfield was assigned to photograph the famous author George Plimpton for an in-flight magazine in the mid-1970s, he knew that he wanted to capture a shot that, as he put it, “encapsulated the George Plimpton ethos.” Best known for his sports journalism, along with for founding The Paris Review, Plimpton was on a deadline when Cornfield arrived. Plimpton didn’t have the time or patience for a lengthy shoot so Cornfield improvised. In the corner of the room, he noticed a large wooden alligator with a trap door  and a compartment filled with a large bag of white powder. Cornfield asked for the story behind the alligator and learned the Plimpton had bought the object while shooting a documentary in Africa. Telling the story relaxed Plimpton, which made it easier for Cornfield to capture a meaningful environmental portrait of Plimpton right there and then.

Over the course of his career, Cornfield has photographed many environmental portraits while on assignment for publications, learning along the way—as the Plimpton anecdote conveys—how to tell a story with the materials available to him. “There’s a narrative tucked inside of every image,” Cornfield says, “made up of the details in the image that make the viewer question who the subject of a photograph is, and why they are being photographed.” Drawing out the essence of a person in a portrait, he notes, is an intellectual exercise. Doing it successfully, he adds, requires capturing a human being within the broad canvas of their external reality, which can be encapsulated in their  physical setting, or simply with a meaningful prop or tool from their trade. This is the foundation of successful environmental portraiture.

In his latest book, Environmental Portraiture: A Complete Guide to the Portrait Photographer’s Most Powerful Imaging Tool, Cornfield lays out both the practical and intellectual apparatus behind creating a successful environmental portrait. Equal parts field guide (the book includes loads of how-to information, including section on how to file for location permits), meditation on the history of art and photography, and personal memoir, Cornfield hopes that the book appeals to a wide audience. “It’s a good fit for readers with any kind of intellectual commitment to portraits, including art buyers, designers, collectors, directors, and of course, photographers,” he says. Ultimately, Cornfield wants the book to “stir up an interest in taking a more cerebral look at photography.”

Cornfield notes much of photojournalism is environmental portraiture. A photographer is assigned a subject for an article, and in the short amount of time allotted with the subject, that photographer tries to capture the essence of this person’s job and daily life. “The image has to read really quickly,” Cornfield says. “It has to say, here’s the person, this is what they do.”

Cornfield experienced this acutely when he was assigned to photograph Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the controversial former chief medical examiner of Los Angeles County, for a New York book publisher in the 1970s. Noguchi had presided over post-mortem investigations into the deaths of Sharon Tate, Robert F. Kennedy and Natalie Wood, among many other celebrities. In an episode recounted in the book, Cornfield talks about how he spent a morning with Noguchi in the morgue where he worked. The more he got to know the coroner, the more he admired him. By the time he finally took a portrait of Dr. Noguchi, in front of the metal vaults where the dead bodies he examined were kept, Cornfield had a deep understanding—and respect—for  the complexity of the environment. The resulting image puts Dr. Noguchi in a white lab coat directly in the center of two heavy metal doors that evoke that role and the institutional heaviness and sober nature of his job. In taking this portrait, Cornfield says, he first began to understand that environmental portraiture is “clearly more than the sum of its parts.”

Over the many years that he has been honing his craft, Cornfield has developed empathy for his subjects, as well as an ability to make connections between seemingly disparate elements in an environment. For example, in an episode recounted in the book, he discusses how photographing Kenneth Curry, a decorated Vietnam veteran who suffers from PTSD, brought up memories of photographing Shigeku Sasamori, a Japanese woman who survived the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. While photographing Curry in front of the Aqua 2, which was the B-52 airplane that was struck with surface-to-air missile fire while Curry was piloting it, Cornfield was struck by a memory of Sasamori looking up at a beautiful clear blue sky and seeing a gleaming B-29 (the B-52’s predecessor) drop the bomb. In the final image he took of Curry, Cornfield photographed the B-52 looming above him, evoking terrible fear and guilt. In post-production, he changed the background color of the aircraft hangar to blue to pay homage to Sasamori’s conflicted memories of the Hiroshima bombing. “There’s an ’invisible thread’ that weaves together all of the backstories at play in any given portrait scenario,” Cornfield writes in the book. “Weaving these threads together is the mark of a great environmental portrait photographer.”

Although Cornfield’s environmental portraiture book could easily be read straight through, Cornfield also imagines that readers will skip to chapters that appeal to their interests. For example, you can read a section about the art of research, or you can flip to the end to read one of Cornfield’s many case studies of masters of environmental portraiture, including chapters devoted to an A-List of contemporary shooters: Michael Grecco, Phil Borges, Joe McNally, Eric Myer, Rania Matar, Tom Atwood, Lou Jones, Al Satterwhite, Larry Schiller, Michael Wilson, and Cathy Church. The book is meant to be a living document that can equally accompany photographers on shoots or be kept by a lifelong learner on their nightstand. “There’s a lot of enjoyment you can get out of thinking about the creative ingenuity necessary to take a great environmental portrait,” Cornfield says. “It’s a satisfying intellectual exercise.”

The post Environmental Portraiture: Telling Stories About Your Subjects appeared first on Rangefinder.

The process of learning how to be a father has been a rich—and sometimes complicated—journey for documentary photographer Antoine Didienne, who has two children. His wife has always worked a full-time corporate job that requires her to be in the office while Didienne is a freelance photographer with a lot more flexibility in his schedule. It made more sense for him to stay home with the kids. “It was hard to let go of certain things in terms of pride,” Didienne says. “But my kids have always been more important than my pride.” When he saw depictions of fathers in modern culture, they were either imbued with a toxic masculinity, or overly lauded, as if taking care of your own children is somehow heroic if you aren’t a woman. But Didienne’s experience with fatherhood was much more nuanced than that. “I wanted to tell the story that I thought should be told about fatherhood in a way that made sense to me,” he says. He decided to embark on his “Portraits of My Father” project and set out to find 50 different subjects to photograph.

The most important criteria, for Didienne, was that the series was both inclusive and diverse—just like his own family. He wanted to include fathers and children of all different races, genders and sexualities, as well as many different ethnicities and backgrounds. He wanted to include fathers that were adoptive or had become fathers through marriage, and fathers that identified as transgender. “How can I talk about fatherhood if I don’t talk about everyone?” he says. He believes strongly that fatherhood is not tied to biology. “DNA has nothing to do with fatherhood,” he says. Instead, he asked himself the question, “What makes a father?” And began to answer it visually.

Finding a wide array of subjects took several years. The first subjects Didienne photographed were his brothers-in-law. Then, he began to reach out to other fathers through friends and social media, including on neighborhood groups in San Diego, where he is based. When a subject agreed to be photographed with his children, Didienne photographed them in his home studio using a Fujifilm X-T3 mirrorless camera with a Fujifilm XF 23mm f/1.4 R lens. “I like shooting with a wide-angle lens because it adds context to my subjects,” he says. For light, he used a Godox AD200 with a Magmood Magbox 24 Octa modifier. Ultimately, he converted each image from color to black and white. In total, he shot 53 different portraits.

[Read: Making Portrait Projects That Educate and Empower]

The resulting images are full of tenderness, joy and humor. What most surprised Didienne was that his subjects didn’t need to be prompted to be affectionate with one another. “I don’t have that kind of relationship with my own father,” Didienne says. He wonders if the type of dad who would volunteer to be photographed with his kids is also the type of dad who is open to physical intimacy with his children. To keep the mood authentic, he didn’t pose his subjects, and instead, started conversations that led to goofy, poignant, and emotional moments.  

Didienne hopes to turn the “Portraits of My Father” project into a book, which will also feature essays about fatherhood— including one by the father he lived with when he was a high school exchange student in Buffalo, New York. He hopes to share the book with his own father, whom he describes as a very typical post-war French dad. “Even though I’ve never talked to my own father about the photographs, we’ve become closer as I’ve shot the series,” he says. He hopes his work helps other fathers to explore—and— strengthen their relationships with their own children, no matter what kinds of labels are used to describe them. Ultimately, he hopes that every father can see himself within this photo project.

The post “Portraits of My Father” Project: Inclusive, Diverse and Emotional appeared first on Rangefinder.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and as a way to pay tribute, photographer Zabrina Deng has embraced her love for her Cantonese culture, as well as her adolescent memories of visiting San Francisco’s Chinatown, by creating a series of compelling portraits of the hard-working, but often unseen, women in her Chinatown community. Deng’s portrait project has evolved into a special exhibit titled “Portraits of Unsung Heroines: Women of Chinatown” that is currently on view now through June 12 in San Francisco.

“This series of Chinatown portraits celebrate the unsung, unseen women who make the community what it is: a thriving center where immigrants come to set their roots and where 2nd and 3rd generation Chinese come to be reminded of their roots,” says Deng, a Sony Artisan who was born in China, studied photography in Paris and is currently based out of San Francisco. She is also a destination wedding photographer and WPPI Master.

[Read: Making Portrait Projects that Educate and Empower]

Deng says that each woman she profiled came with a story of challenges and triumphs. With these images, she is celebrating their professional and personal successes. “As we make our way through the images, important mainstays of the neighborhood and community emerge—that of a small business owner, wife, pianist, merchant, baker, waitress, poet, fashion designer, grandma, opera singer, dancer, musician, and retiree. I photographed women from all different walks of life but with common bonds of deep roots in the Chinatown community,” she explains.

The seeds of the project began to germinate when Deng stopped getting hired by her usual destination client in 2020. “I used to cover a lot of weddings and engagement sessions, especially for overseas gigs,” she explains. “But it all dried up because of the pandemic, especially since most of my clients usually are from Asia. That’s when I started photographing local clients, and then whenever I would be in Chinatown, I got to know the merchants there. Even though everything was in lock down, there was still a small window of time each day where local businesses had limited hours of operation.”

Deng says it was fascinating to dig deeper and really get to know the personalities and work ethics behind many of the women she photographed. Take, for example, Wilma Pang, an 81-years-old who at one point ran for Mayor of San Francisco. The retired music professor from San Francisco City College is also a strong activist and advocate for the Chinatown community. She founded A Better Chinatown Tomorrow, which focuses on beautifying the neighborhood with music and performance on the streets of Chinatown.

“If you are in Chinatown on any given afternoon, chances are you will find Wilma performing Chinese opera at the park in Portsmouth Square,” says Deng. “She is a classically trained opera singer who can perform in German, Italian and Cantonese, and has been performing and teaching music for over 30 years.” Deng adds that Wilma doesn’t dress normally dress very glamorously so this was a fun opportunity for both of them—for Wilma to get glammed up with fun outfits and for Deng to provide a fun look for her. “Now Wilma also has own profile image for Facebook and can share it with friends or whatever purposes that she needs it for,” says Deng. “Or if she wants to run for mayor again, she can use the images in her campaign!”

Clara Hsu, another subject in Deng’s portrait project, is a poet, playwright, composer, actor and piano teacher. “She brings theater, art and music to kids in Chinatown and even wrote a rap song, ‘Gai Mou Sou Rap’ to assert the vitality of seniors in the community and stand firm against Asian hate and violence,” says Deng.

So far, Deng has photographed 15 women from the community. She took it upon herself to take these glamorous photos, often paying for all the clothes, hair and makeup styling out of her own funds to help give the women a feeling of self worth, confidence and power.

[Read: Creative Portrait Photography: Jason Vinson on Making the Ordinary Look Epic]

Deng continues: “Asian women historically have a lot of expectation coming from our families—from our parents, from our significant others—on how we should be in that ‘Asian woman’ role. It’s suppressive in a way; that’s why it was so refreshing to discover who these women really are and that they love what they do. They’re all so passionate, and they do many things.

In a way, the women I photographed are all trying to break away from the stereotypes of Asian women, but they are also embracing their roots at the same time. I felt strongly about putting this project out there, especially with all the hate crimes spiking against the Asian community. I want everyone to get to know our culture and our people. I also wanted the larger community in San Francisco to be more intrigued by these women and by Chinatown. It’s not just for food…!”

Deng’s Women of Chinatown portrait project is currently on display at Chinatown Restaurant (yes, that’s its real name!), one of the oldest dining establishments in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and will be up until June 12. Sony helped fund the portrait project and has created this behind-the-scenes video (below). White House Custom Colors (WHCC) and their sub brand, ProDPI, are also sponsors of the exhibit.

The post Portrait Project: Zabrina Deng’s Women of Chinatown appeared first on Rangefinder.

While most photographers refer to the people in their images as subjects, portrait photographer Sergey Volkov uses a different word: Heroes. Whether the people in front of his lens are a bride and groom on their wedding day or the residents of a nursing home, the award-winning Ukrainian photographer works to capture “the whole path of a person.” His latest social photography project has taken him into nursing homes to capture the stories of the residents there.

“Portrait photography is a creative passion and inspiration—creating a character’s story. [I aim to] show the viewer the whole life path of a person in several photographs. Working with the subjects of my photo projects allows me to grow professionally and spiritually,” says Volkov.

As both a wedding and portrait photographer, Volkov decided to fill his slower winter season with a creative project: photographing the residents of nursing homes. After discussing the idea with the management, Volkov then started to get to know the residents. “The heroes of the project are people who, for various reasons, spend the rest of their lives in a place where they are taken care of,” he explains. Among them are theater directors, university teachers, librarians, and even those who were born in such institutions and have lived in them all their lives. Most of them are disabled. These are very strong-willed people.”

[Read: Ukrainian Photographers Put Down Cameras for Sandbags and Suitcases]

Getting acquainted with the heroes in his photographs is an essential step for Volkov’s workflow. “Usually the heroes of my photos know that I will come to visit them and take a few shots. We communicate with them. I always talk about myself and they are happy to share their life story with me. At this time, I ask permission to take some pictures. Very rarely do I shoot portraits of random people on the street.”

After chatting with the heroes of his images, Volkov worked to create a series of photos illustrating the resident’s life, often including sentimental objects to help tell that story. While he captured a series of each resident for the project, Volkov said there’s usually one that stands out. “It seems to me that one portrait is enough to convey the character of a person. In his eyes one can read unbroken spirit, strength, and a real core. And a series of pictures creates a kind of story that tells a difficult and at the same time interesting life.”

Volkov hasn’t always been a photographer. After graduating from college, he began working as an engineer. But, he found the work monotonous and realized that he didn’t want to devote his life to engineering. After he found he enjoyed editing photos, he bought his first camera.

[Read: Creative Portrait Photography: Jason Vinson on Making the Ordinary Look Epic]

Volkov’s portraits often feature strong emotions, while his wedding photography plays with timing—sometimes comically—and people interacting with each other and the environment. He prefers working with natural light, sometimes adding his own backlight to the image.

Those striking features recently won him two WPPI awards, one for his portrait of a fellow photographer (above) and one for the bridal portrait below, taken while the bridesmaids were tying the bride’s dress.

Volkov’s work has taken him to places like Sri Lanka, France, China, Germany, Austria, and Poland. He always has a 35mm and a 135mm in his bag.

Taking portraits helps Volkov reveal the story behind the person in the photo but, in turn, he says photography has also helped him find himself. “The most rewarding thing about my work as a photographer is that I really got freedom. It is a real joy to do what you like and get great pleasure from it,” he said. “Photography has revealed me as a person.”

The post This Portrait Photographer Treats Every Subject as a Hero appeared first on Rangefinder.