Bruce Wolf

I’ve been flirting with the world of Fine Art Photography since I moved to Portland. It’s interesting. It’s different. It’s heady and it speaks a different language. Sometimes it is mystifying to me. And then I try to reverse the thought process, and see the world of Commercial Photography from the “other” side. We wear black (never), drive fancy cars (not any more), hang out in herds at the most chic restaurants (never in a herd and never really chic), and are superficial and close to illiterate (damn, I hope not!). But I’ve been known to be cranky about the world of Commercial Photography, and  now is one of those times. Sometimes we lose sight of what we do, and who we are.

I’ve seen many things change in the course of my career, including my waistline! And my hairline. But those were inevitable I suppose. Genes, gotta love ‘em. When I started you could call Art Directors and get in to see them. Easily. Once in, you could wander the office and seek out other Ads, show a new piece of work and hang out a while. No Art Buyers, no Print Producers. The portfolio was made up of some large transparencies and some b&w prints, all held in place by a simple art box. Nothing precious. No white cotton gloves needed. Sometimes (most times), the Ads would hold your 8×10 transparencies up to the window to see them. Occasionally, if you had done a still life on a white background and the office was suitably located, the Empire State Building would appear in your still-life! I always favored the ad agencies that were near the Chrysler Building because, really, what product shot wasn’t improved by the addition of the Chrysler Building?

Then, in the Roaring ‘80s portfolios changed. Leather cases appeared. Custom leather cases. Gucci, even. The b&w prints were ceremoniously burned ’cause color was where the advertising world lived. Messengers cycled your portfolio at breakneck speed to the Art Buyer who requested it. After that who knows what happened to it, but it always reappeared, hopefully with a layout soon to follow.

And then, the Digital Age was born. Portfolios were made up of precious IRIS prints. Very expensive IRIS prints. Break out the white cotton gloves. They were beautiful, printed on $250,000 printers, and the inks were water soluble. One AD with one glass of water…ooops, sorry, well, you weren’t right for the job anyway. Now as expensive as the prints were, they were nothing unless bound in custom leather covers, embossed with your name. Leather fit for a Bentley, at least. Then it was fitted into a custom Gore Tex carrying case, zippered and velcroed to protect its precious little cargo. I succumbed to this for a while. My leather was green, sort of British Racing Green. Then I came to my senses, at least I think I did, and convinced my agents to let me put together a print portfolio with a simple double-ply, raw cardboard cover. I signed my name on it with a Sharpie. My cranky, contrary self mentioned to them that this was a personal statement: if the work inside sucked, the leather didn’t matter, and vice versa.

“Oh, it’s a process”. Process. It’s one of those words that have become so common in the last 10 years. Like “awesome”. Awesome, a word that means awe inspiring. Today someone’s haircut can be referred to as “awesome”. Ridiculous really, yet I use it all the time. I also use “process”, which is what this is all about, something I’ve noticed about my photography over the years. My process. This is about my commercial work, so you artists out there, see you again soon. Let’s get down to business.

I’m a slow starter for someone who likes to get up really early. Let’s talk about a big commercial shoot, on a set, in a studio. It’s the day of the pre-light, something becoming more and more rare in today’s economics. An entire day to “just” light the set. Sounds luxurious and generous. On paper. It’s also the day that the carpenters are probably still installing the finishing touches, the scenics are still painting, the stylist is still dressing, the assistants are still unpacking any rental equipment, the producer is starting to worry about the numbers, and the AD is trying to explain to the client that this is part of the “Process”. Coffee is being consumed by the gallon, the craft services table has remnants of breakfast and I’m hovering over it despite my need to lose some weight. I’m patient, and I’m not nervous. I like to let the talented people I have assembled for my shoot have the time they need to do their jobs. If the budget had not been slashed to ribbons, everyone would have had enough time, but that’s a long forgotten dream now.

The lighting begins in due course with carpenters, stylists, and scenics still on set. Not necessarily that easy to do, so we start with whatever is seen through the windows. I like to have translights shipped from LA because I’ve had the most success making the outside seem real with them. But they are often really large and unwieldy. And expensive. So after coffee, selection of music (which I generally leave to Ray these days), and time spent just talking with the assistants about new cameras, new programs, new Photoshop techniques, new apartments, new motorcycles, new restaurants, new personal dramas (their’s not mine) , and anything else new we come up with, the translight goes up. Translights are about the easiest thing in the world to light, so it takes about 10 minutes. Now we can resume our conversations.

The caterer brings lunch, the assistants are starving. I’m not and since we’ve actually started lighting the set, I usually don’t notice. The object for me is to light the set as it would be lit naturally, if it existed outside of Studio World. I had decided where the light would come from much earlier when the set was being designed. In essence I had decided what would be South. Move over Bush, I’m the Decider here in Studio World. I want to be able to shoot anywhere in the set without relighting, to move around freely if I want to. Of course that hardly ever happens. The set is designed for the ad we are shooting, and since it is print, it doesn’t exist outside of the original camera point of view. This was exploited in a bizarre Andersen Windows campaign, which showed the studio beyond the confines of the set, but that was the exception. Eventually I give in and break for lunch, or, more often than not, we rotate through lunch, two at a time, with me grabbing something alongside the camera. Lighting continues. Lighting continues some more. Problems arise, either with some set detail, product detail, the inability to get the client off a conference call to give an ok on something, or just some disappointment nagging at me because it ain’t looking that good. I fumble with the lighting some more, make it better or make it worse. Then the clock nears 6:00 PM and we have to secure the set and get out of the rental studio before we incur OVERTIME, the budget killer!

Then the whole reason for this unneeded, perhaps boring to you photographers, how-to-shoot–a-job happens. The most important, and unusual part of the “Process”. That inner nagging, which hasn’t left me, ramps up as I’m falling asleep. No, I’m not in a cold sweat, I’m not pacing the floor, I’m not even having a panic attack. I see how I want the lighting to look, I see that some fundamental changes have to be made. Perhaps a new “window” light-source has to be introduced. Sometimes all the lighting has to be completely changed, redirected. Sometimes it’s a simple small camera move or a contrast change. It doesn’t matter. But I fall asleep knowing we have work to do in the morning, and it’s going to be alright, certainly better. Now this isn’t mysticism or the guiding hand of a higher power. It is not Black Magic. It is part of my “Process’. Most times it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it emphasizes something I’ve discovered over my career: the only thing harder than starting is starting over.

Art Directors are funny people. Funny people. Wild and wacky. Not always “ha-ha” funny, but always funny. Some are literally so funny, they can disrupt the shoot by telling stories. Let’s hear it out there for Craig Mierop. When we worked together he was a talented AD, but his stand-up was truly outstanding. I had to ask him to stop, we were getting nothing done.

Talented ADs make you a better photographer, no two ways about it. They make you see things you didn’t see before. They are unrelenting, as they should be. Precise. Viewers of the big picture. Jim Sebastian, the quintessential hyper-talented AD, taught me more about light and composition than Ansel Adams ever could. We were shooting once in a cold, cold barn. All the lights were outside lighting a big set through wooden louvered windows. Some of the strobes were on cherry-pickers coming through, essentially, third story windows. Quite an intense situation. The barn had been turned into an enormous contemporary, eclectic living room. With a black sofa! As we got close to shooting after about 6 hours of tweeking props and lighting, on what I hoped was going to be the final Polaroid, Jim studied it with his loupe for a very long time. Now that was a good thing, meant final decisions were being made, and I was hungry and freezing. Jim finally looked at me and said, “don’t you think the front of the sofa should come up about a third of a stop?” It wasn’t really a question. We’re talking about the black sofa here. So I had to figure out how to lighten the front of the sofa without losing the integrity of the entire lighting setup. I did it, how doesn’t even matter. It took a long time. As always Jim was right and it was a better picture and I became, incrementally, a better photographer because of it.

"Let's open up the..."

Now there are other stories of funny ADs that come to mind. ADs usually believe that anything is possible, and it usually is, but not for their budget. At least not easily, for their budget. I was shooting a very odd campaign for a cigarette company with an agency from Chicago. The layouts juxtaposed strange objects with the cigarette pack. One layout called for several baby ducks, several live baby ducks with the pack. (Now aren’t you happy cigarette advertising has been outlawed!) I was shooting the whole campaign on 8X10 film. So it was slow. As always with animals on set, I asked everyone in the studio to not interact with the ducks, only the duck wrangler lady could even talk to them. Everyone complied, but the ducks were not terribly cooperative. Finally the AD came over to me and loudly asked “have these ducks been trained?” Now I didn’t know what to say, but I couldn’t help myself. I simply told him there hadn’t been time to train them, they were born yesterday! I really just wanted to laugh hysterically, it was one of the most inane questions I was ever asked on a job.

For some television manufacturer we were shooting down at two Weimeraners watching a TV. You couldn’t see the screen, but it was supposed to be the only light source, lighting the entire set. (Now aren’t you happy television company advertising has been outlawed!)  OK, so far, so good. I was pretty busy, I’m usually very hands-on. The AD was hanging around showing family photos to the client, my stylist, my assistants. This was long before family photos were carried on iPhones, they were individual 4X6 prints. Everyone was pretty interested which managed to annoy me a bit. When I regained control of the set, I asked my first assistant what was so interesting. Seems his wife was prominently featured in every photograph, in her sexy bra and panties. Except for the one where she was breast=feeding their new born, She didn’t have a bra in that one. Now this isn’t the funny part of the story. This was just the color commentary. We had the dogs in place. The TV had been hollowed out and a plexi was placed inside with about 8000 joules of strobe. The plexi was all paint splattered so the light would feel like an unseen scene. As we got close to shooting, 8X10 Polaroids were flowing freely, the AD asked for something that would have been better asked of a Quantum Physicist. This is because the indiscreet AD was asking if I could make the light coming from the TV, seem like individual pieces of light, discreet pieces of light. Ironic, isn’t it? He wanted to know if I could “like put a fan in front of the light, shoot while it was spinning, and get the light broken up between the TV and the dogs”.  We then had a heady discussion of whether light was a particle or a wave. The dogs sided with me that light was a duality and traveled far too fast to accomplish this anyway. We shot without the fan, the dogs were coming up on overtime and a pee break. That was the end of a truly bizarre shoot. And I never saw his snapshots, either!

When ADs ask for the world, I try to give it to them. I know I’ll come away knowing more about the craft than when I started.

The innocuous Raid. It's all in there.

I have always believed that life is episodic. I can track different paths I have chosen over the course of my life. I made the choices, took the paths, and really have never looked back. Well, I’ve looked back with  gratefulness at having made those choices, or in some cases, having luck and timing make those choices for me. In my career I see the good fortune of having met and worked with Tricia Guild in London and because of her, learning the meaning of “style”, and becoming a valid interiors photographer. Then Anna Wintour in NY, as well as Lloyd Ziff when he was at House & Garden. And then there was Jim Sebastian, who taught me more about the logic and elegance of light than anyone I ever worked with before. His precision, tenaciousness, and rejection of the “good enough” attitude made me such a better photographer. There will be more about Jim another time.

I was looking through my RAID storage and it was like looking at a diary of the last 10 years. I have some older images in there, but mostly the digital images I have shot in the last decade. I saw my kids grow up, pets who have died, people I love age, and a long history of my work all via the RAID.

Laurie working on her cat-top computer, Nick&Liv 2005, Megan died in 2010, Cooper died in 2011.

But this isn’t about the stupid RAID system. It’s about a group of people who have turned up, unexpectedly, as I surfed my professional history. They are in every picture in one way or another. Ghosts, easily overlooked, hidden  in the background. Bill Stockland and Maureen Martel and their entire gang! They were on the front-lines of every job, battling, convincing, cajoling Art Buyers and Art Directors. Letting them know that I was the best photographer for their campaign, their clients, and, finally, their careers. I wasn’t always the best choice for the job, but in the S/M collective heart, and in my heart, I was.

In the late ‘80s, I didn’t have a NY rep and things were really rolling. The Studio dealt with the agencies directly, composed each portfolio of 8X10 chromes (ever see one? just beautiful) specifically to appeal to the job it was requested for. I was repped in Chicago by the legendary Bill Rabin, and with every job we did, he urged me to talk to Bill and Maureen about hooking up in NY. I resisted, he reminded me that times were changing. I resisted and told him that time is always changing, after all, that’s the nature of time! He persevered and I went to see Stockland Martel. They were just three people back then, Bill, Maureen, and Pamela Lockhart. Bill loves to sell and he worked hard on me. He stroked my ego, telling me he couldn’t strengthen my career, but he could broaden it. Get me jobs I was overlooked  for at that time.

I resisted, and politely said no. Now, my wife Laurie had told me back in her food stylist days, that she had met Bill at some shoot, and that if I ever wanted a rep, he and I would get along well. She said he was an old hippie, like me, and had the right approach. Well, little by little, Bill Rabin, Laurie, and Bill Stockland’s persistence got to me. In 1990 or so, we got “married”. What a marriage! We rode through good times and hard times, we agreed and we disagreed, we sometimes fought like crazy, we tried to follow the markets and adapt. They prodded me, sometimes with no result, to stay fresh and vibrant. I watched as they were on the forefront of the industry, changing from simply being photographers’ reps to a worldwide brand. That was both good and bad in my eyes, as I liked my individuality. When a photographer says he’s with Stockland Martel, it gives them sort of instant credentials in the industry.

Bill Stockland amidst the chaos that would become the new S/M offices.

So why this walk down Memory Lane? Because we got divorced this year. As in many marriages, we had grown apart over time. It was amicable, we all felt it was time. So after a period of  being single, I am now remarried! GREENHOUSE REPS and I are currently enjoying our honeymoon! It is sort of getting married again in many ways. First of all, I’m head-over-heels in love with them and their rooster. Beth Galton has been a friend of mine for about ever and she is  the best food photographer out there. Period.  Same with Marty Umans, except his food always looks like the perfectly timed portrait, which it is, often seeing the humor and irony in people.  Then there are the other folks who are busy setting the photographic trends other photographers will copy tomorrow. As for Robin and Gary, they are already legends in the commercial photography world, and Christine and Jennifer are hot on their tails.I have been given new energy by having new partners and new eyes. Gary and Robin are great to work with and we will be showing much new work, never seen before. This blog exists because of them, as well as my fledgling personal website. We care about each other’s future and I expect to grow with them, as I expect they will grow with me. A  new episode is starting.

So 20 years with Bill & Maureen, et al! All thanks to the urging of Bill Rabin. Great memories, we have been through a lot together. I have watched them change the profession of “photographer’s agent”. They have grown and responded to the changes in the industry, better than I would ever have done alone. We’ve laughed, argued, fought, made up just like in every “marriage”, and in the end I love them still (like in many divorces!). They are good friends and I wish them well.

A GREENHOUSE.

But that was then, and Greenhouse is now. We’re leaving on a honeymoon that I hope lasts forever!

The Oregon coast is rugged and beautiful. I didn’t get there this summer. Paris shared her romantic beauty with many, but not with me. The International Space Station beckoned me, but I had other plans. I had a great summer in Portland. Do I think Portland is better than the above mentioned? No, no, no! I stayed in Portland to shoot more than 70 restaurants with Laurie, for a book we’re doing on the food scene here. Just Laurie and me,  just us against the “food scene”. For me, it was like guerrilla photography, 2 hours per restaurant. Ready, set, go! I started by bringing all sorts of shit with me: strobes, c-stands, flags, laptop, reflectors. An entire station-wagonful of stuff. Once I forgot the cameras, once the CF cards. This station-wagonful of stuff got old really fast. In the 2 hours I had to shoot: at least 1 dish, the restaurant, the chef, sometimes a drink, and anything else time would permit. That’s a joke for my normal style of shooting. Then Laurie started writing for the blog Serious Eats, so we would usually shoot another dish for them. Sounds HORRIBLE, but it was great. I silently dreaded each shoot on the way to it, but wound up having so much fun! ( See: “Falling in Love Again”) Years ago, shooting for Martex with Jim Sebastian (more to come on him later), I used to refuse to scout the locations before the actual shoot. I liked the challenge of arriving sight unseen, being impressed or unimpressed, challenged, and then reacting. It was exciting. Well, this was the same thing. But there was a bonus I hadn’t expected…the Chefs and their portraits. The Chefs were great to meet, to listen to while Laurie interviewed them, and talk to before I shot them. They were such an intelligent, interesting, knowledgeable, eclectic group, connected by their love of food. Most knew each other personally, and several had been involved in the blossoming of the Portland food scene in the ’90s. I photographed them environmentally, generally in the restaurant not the kitchens. In general they had strong visual personalities, and so did the restaurants. Most liked it, some didn’t, but they all did whatever I asked of them. One was a complete asshole, but he won’t be in the book after all. Another was a pretty-boy, ego-maniac, he will be in the book even though his restaurant is just so-so (I didn’t just say that, did I?).

So what did I get out of all this, other than learning about guerrilla photography and a book? Well, it has been no secret that my adjustment to Portland has not been an easy one. And to be fair to Portland you can substitute the name of any city with a population of under 500,000. Especially the ones with 200,000 hipsters. Moving from NYC to Paris was an easier cultural transition for me, language and all. So this summer gave me an inside look at one of Portland’s true gems, it’s approach to food, to eating, to farmers, to a sense of purpose and responsibility. The chef’s were just great and they provided me with a greater understanding and appreciation of my “new” hometown. Working closely with Laurie on a long project that she was so passionate about was wonderful.

Laurie at Yakuza, standing in for a Chef's portrait

And we discovered Roost, a really wonderful restaurant.

Craig, November 2, 1968

I’m listening to the White Album. For the under 50-somethings out there, it was a seminal album in 1968 by this pop group from England, The Beatles. It mixed some great, important music, with some foolishness, which emphasized the immense popularity of the Beatles at the time. It always reminds me of listening to it being played for the first time on AM radio, one album side at a time, uninterrupted. Three weeks before it was released! Unheard of in 1968. And I’m crossing the Throgs Neck Bridge to spend the night at SUNY Stony Brook with my then girlfriend, the beautiful Ellen Blevins. I had spent the day riding motorcycles with my BFF, Craig Lassen. Months before, Craig handed his Triumph Bonneville over to me, showed me the controls and said “go have fun, don’t come back for 2 hours, you’ll know how to ride by then”. No helmet law, no motorcycle license requirement, just a lot of caution on my part.

So who was this Craig Lassen? Like me he grew up in a working-class family. We both went to Tappan Zee High School. We both were on the baseball team,(I pitched, he was a catcher). He was not terribly Catholic, I was not terribly Jewish. We both went to RPI in Troy, NY. We were in some ways so similar, in others so different. I was on a track to be a physicist (which I would never have been any good at, at all), Craig just dreamed about living. He wanted to go out to Montana and just sit on a mountain and look around. We never got to Montana that previous summer, but just talking about  was like the first bit of light seeping out of an opening door for me. New possibilities, unprescribed by the past. He opened up my thinking about life. His influence broadened me in ways I didn’t realize for years. So I think back to Craig and a motorcycle mechanic, “Bultaco” Barney, and thank them for turning me into a photographer. I jumped track, so to speak, and decided to do something I loved. They gave me the advice and the courage to try. It was the same message that Steve Jobs gave people.

Back to my passionate night with Ellen. At 7:00 in the morning, my parents called to tell me that Craig had drowned the night before. My other close friend, Jonathon Adams drowned with him, in 6 feet of cold Hudson River water.

I think of Craig and Jonathon often, and I thank Craig for having been the best friend I would ever have.

I was never able to see Ellen again. Guilt is a funny, and powerful thing.

I have a long history with cats. Just can’t say “no” to cats. Funny, someone once told me that the difference between cats and dogs is that dogs say “yes” all the time, cats say “no” all the time. Well, whether that is true or not, I just can’t say “no” to a cat. That’s why at one time our family had about 45 cats. Yes, all had names, all came and went as they pleased, all had distinct personalities. Many contributed to my on-going project, aptly named, “Death By Cat”. What they brought home, I recorded. Not for everybody, for sure, but a way to memorialize the victims. The opening photo is of Ying, one of my main collaborators.

But really this is about another cat. Grey Cat. He showed up at our house many years ago, a big, grey tom cat. He hung out and slept in our barn at night. He wouldn’t let anyone near him, but was very willing to eat whatever we fed him. Slowly, he became more friendly but wouldn’t come into our house. He also got bigger and bigger. And by bigger I mean fatter. In fact very, very fat. He was like a grey basketball that had no bounce. Since he seemed more and more vulnerable to the other outdoor night creatures, I had a studio meeting to see if anyone objected to a studio lump…I mean cat.

At the time I had a great bunch of people at the studio. Jana was the devilish ring-leader, with Jonathon, Colin, Dominic, Alex, and several others cycling through. Jana said “sure why not” and everyone agreed. So I caught Grey Cat and brought him in. Everyone freaked out! Jana couldn’t believe his size, his belly actually dragged on the floor. And of course, Grey Cat freaked out. He ran, I guess it was sort of like running, into the prop room and disappeared under the shelving. He never came out. You could look under and he’d just be watching you. He was fed every night and every morning his food bowl was empty. Still he never came out. One day when we weren’t shooting, we were just working away, which meant hanging around Jana’s desk bullshitting when Grey Cat came out of the prop room. No one could believe their eyes! He was thin and svelte, muscular and about 10 years younger. He was socialized as well. He spent the rest of his life watching over the studio and sleeping in my office.

So that was Grey Cat. But really this is a post about the wonderful people who have been part of my team over the years. Many, many more names should be mentioned and will be down the road. I owe much of my success to them. I’ve been lucky to know them, to work with them, to travel with them, to learn from them, to teach them. My life is richer because of them and I want you all to know it.

Speaking of Paris, let me just say, I love Paris. And, here’s the surprise, I love Parisians, in fact, all the French. Parisians to me are New Yorkers who: 1-speak French, 2-eat better, 3-know wine, and 4-get four weeks vacation in the summer. They are not falsely polite, not one checkout person at my local supermarket ever asked if I had any nice plans for the afternoon. Not one! Not one in five years! Going to my local Boulangerie was like an undercover mission, hoping not to be discovered by the horrible woman who owned it. Aah, but the baguettes were worth the risk, to say nothing of the croissants! I was born in The Bronx, but I sort of grew up in Paris.

I often worked for a magazine group which included “Decoration”. Everything was run through the Director of Photography’s studio. Studio Astre. It was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Astre, and they specialized in shooting wedding dresses. He was the photographer, she was the stylist. By this I mean, he told the models exactly where to stand on the permanent X painted on the floor, while she pinned the gown to the seamless paper in a perfect circle. All of this went on while they engaged in a furious, shrill, loud argument. Most of which I could never understand, no matter how good my french got. Yet I learned a lot when I shot there. This was because on day #1 Mr. Astre talked with me about the “system” at the studio. I was often hired to do the tabletop stuff for the magazines. Sometimes it was beautiful home accessories, but sometimes it was horrible wedding gift ideas. The stories that had gifts often meant 3 spreads, each with 15-20 gifts. Hopefully, artfully arranged. So far, so good. Then Mr. Astre told me the policy of shooting just 3 sheets of 4×5 per shot…and only 2 sheets of b&w Polaroid. His fee for running the show didn’t include film expenses, so the less film shot, the more profit for him! OK, the challenge began. Next he showed me the 20,000 watt/sec ancient Ascor strobes. Now Ascor strobes of that vintage looked like a weapon of mass destruction, and they were! Many stacked metal boxes with immense connectors joining them in some combination who’s secret was known only by Merlin and Niels Bohr, neither of whom were around for consultation. So I could see this would be an up-hill battle. Then he told me that the model lights hadn’t worked for years! The studio had no windows, no daylight. That was a plus. I would turn off the house lights, look through the camera under the dark cloth and fire the strobes. The more I did this the better I got at seeing what the whole mess was going to look like. I never used more than 3 sheets of film and dared not to ever ask for an extra polaroid. So studio Astre taught the 28 year old me many things. Don’t waste film, some vulgar French expressions, and Cootie Williams. They had a record player with about 6 records. I must have listened to the Cootie Williams album 100’s of times. I still like it, and I still love Paris.