Gale Zucker Photography the blog

verrrry pinteresting*

2012-02-20T18:38:00.000-05:00

I'd like to be the braggy early adopter, but in truth, I am more of a 2nd waver. I joined Pinterest in late 2010. It was quirky, below the radar and totally visual. I liked pinning what made me happy, not what might be good for my so-called social media presence: DIY projects, typefaces, places I want to visit, images with light that made me swoon, and over-the-top craft gestures.

This image of mine is all over the boards on Pinterest, with nary a photo credit.

Baaaaad pinning. (and punning.)

On the downside are people who pin to blatantly promote themselves, or a political agenda (esp, ahem, one I disagree with), or scary points of view, like praise for anorexia. There's also, sometimes, a downward spiral of conformity. Witness the many many weird naked newborns photoshopped heavily and wearing ginormous knit headgear. (And I say this as someone who loves all of these elements but please god, not together.)

Anyway, now Pinterest has hit the big time, commercialization is imminent. Word is out. And you know what else is out? Linking credit to the creators. You can diligently (but not always reliably) click back to the source, but face it, how much diligence is going around these days? Watermarks (yuck) aren't the answer if our work is being pinned from a publication, like a book or magazine or website that isn't our own. The answer? I don't know. But I'm trying my best to give credit, and to pass it on.

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see more sheep & farm & wool & fuzziness on my website, in the she shoots sheep shots portfolio

*yes! the title is a Hogan's Heroes reference.

peace conflict

2011-12-22T17:37:00.001-05:00

I want to choose the perfect photo for you. Something for the season. Something with some meaning, maybe unusual. Or funny. Or, though it's not usually my thing, breathtakingly beautiful. Something just right.

I've been saving this image all year but, now that it's the right time, I'm thinking it's a little odd.

Wishing you a season of love, a new year of prosperity, and a clarity of vision.

P E A C E

tooting my horn: Best Books 2011!

2011-11-13T16:36:00.001-05:00

When I was thinking about starting my first blog, way back in 2005, I asked a few people what they thought about this new form. "Nerdy." "Needy" "Really narcissisistic", were the replies I got.

(Not that I heeded them).

Anyway, I'm going to be a nerdy narcissist and announce, proudly, that we made Amazon's Best Books of 2011 list!

3 students- from Knitting for a Cause section

In my defense, some of the content in the book is about making the world better and helping others. Here's a free excerpt with knitting pattern (value! added!) on the subject.

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actually I shoot for many non-profits--see some of that work on my Gale Zucker Photography website

collaboration: a beautiful thing

2011-10-11T00:14:00.001-04:00

You know what aspect of my new book Craft Activism (Random House/PotterCraft) I might be proudest of? My title. I'm the photographer but I am also co-author. That's CO-AUTHOR!

The two of us, uncharacteristically on the same coast.

Not that I mind coming in to shoot & illustrate a fully conceived project. I'm fine with being "just the photographer". But it is very cool to be co-creator of the whole shebang. Especially with Joan Tapper as the writer.

What's a new book without it's own blog? www.craftactivism.com

Stop by there for list of events/booksignings.

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(If you're in CT, you can stop by and see me at RJ Julia Oct 11, 7pm. )

about time

2011-09-23T10:25:00.001-04:00

in which I talk about me talking about myself. So meta. So narcissist. Be warned.
It is astounding how one can miss the forest for the trees. Especially on one's own website. For years, there's been no live link on my home page.

Somewhere along the way I lost sight of that fact that, you know, the most important function of the website is for people to contact me for work. All the while fiddling with little details within the portfolios. This is why working for yourself can be such a humbling experience, you can not blame the Media Relations department or the head of Communications for this kind of stupidity.

As of today, I am live linked to my email and to my Flovors.me page, which takes you to me all over the intertubes. Go ahead, look & click.

ps. Here's my new book, out Sept 27. I'd like to own it even if I didn't spend a year working on it. Pre-order now, in stores Tuesday, book signings and talks coming soon. I'll list them here next week.

northward bonus

2011-08-10T18:59:00.002-04:00

This is my favorite place to eat in Montpelier Vermont. It's tiny and delicious, with cooking as artisanal as food can get. If a client hadn't taken me here earlier this year, I'd never have found it. So if you're up that way--don't overlook the little side street storefront. Thrilled to have a shoot in Montpelier as an excuse to see what''s on their menu. Extra thrilled to do so more than once this month, as I'm back north for a corporate portrait / annual report client. I heart location photography.

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see more of my signs, storefronts & Hipstamatic images on my here, there & everywhere portfolio

what it takes

2011-08-07T21:32:00.004-04:00

An awesome crew to make a woman's mag shoot day with sucky weather in Darien CT turn out fine.

(L to R: Laren Clark for hair/ makeup, Susan Falzone photo asst, our good sport subject, and stylist April Spicer)

and lots of encouraging words....ok 90% are them are "good" and 8 % are "gooooooood!" (thanks Susan Falzone for grabbing the video)

A porch with a chair or two at the end of the day. Maybe with some wine. Just saying. (later in the week, in Montpelier VT)

and a wonderful client to test stand in for the CEO. Jazz hands, optional.

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see more location photography, indoor & out, at my website and Dripbooks

tearsheet

2011-07-26T18:38:00.003-04:00

In one of those weird synchronicities some call coincidence, I photographed Ran Vann, a refugee from Pol Pot's Cambodia, on Holocaust Remembrance Day in May, for Miller-McCune. The violent lime green of early spring in Connecticut was stark contrast to Ran. She's delicate; a sad petite woman living in a small basement apartment. She speaks of the ghosts who live with her. Her loneliness is a presence in the room.

While we talked and I tried to figure out where to make her portrait, I couldn't put aside memories of the Holocaust survivors I knew growing up. In my suburb in western upstate New York, everyone working at the bakery had tattoos from Hitler on their forearms. Each July my grandmother visited from Brooklyn with her 3rd husband, Harry. He'd had a horrific childhood in the concentration camps of Europe, surviving as a teen by feigning death in a mass grave while camp guards shot down into his pile of bodies, as the liberators approached. Harry felt it his personal responsibility to retell this, in a chilling heavily accented narrative, once every summer. I'd spend his visit avoiding eye contact but knowing at some point he'd corner me, and I'd hear it again. Bearing witness, I guess, but I was too young to get the importance to him.

a wall in Ran Vann's apartment

With all that in my upbringing, it bothers me that while Pol Pot was destroying Cambodian culture and lives, I was oblivious. Roughly 2 million people died, and many more, like Ran Vann, are suffering in the shadow of his reign, still. It was in the newspapers but I was busy being a teenager not noticing the details, hearing about Kampuchea but not understanding that a genocide was going on. Didn't really get it until the movie The Killing Fields came out. (It's worth a watch, still, if you haven't seen it).

There's not much we can do about history but try not to repeat the parts that went horribly wrong, and to acknowledge the needs of the Ran Vann's and their ghosts, in our midst. That's what the Miller McCune article does. (You can read it, from the link.)

So very glad and honored to have had the opportunity to meet her.

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You can see more of my portraits of people with stories to tell on my website and over at my Dripbook.

editing when you're very happy

2011-06-22T17:13:00.000-04:00

is actually harder than when things are just plain old good. Because, it is SO hard to edit out the ones you don't like as much when you remember how much fun you had with the subjects, and are very very pleased with the whole take.*

These are some fresh portraits for a private girl's school, from a location photo shoot of some students, teachers and trustees. And to say I overshot is...um..yeah. Gotta go. Several hundred images to narrow down and a very patient designer waiting.

* for those of you also waiting patiently for the Rhinebeck Project, this is precisely the problem, minus the designer drumming his fingers with a deadline. (And, more volume.)

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see what I've edited into my portfolio at Gale Zucker Photography & more from this shoot over on Dripbook

clearing your vision

2011-06-06T09:14:00.009-04:00

Why is it so hard to see our own vision?

Last week I had the honor of judging for the Rhode island State Council on the Arts Photography Fellowships in Providence. Me? Invited to be judgemental ?

I was psyched, but wondered how I'd know which portfolios to select in, and which out.

Turns out it was manifest. A portfolio with a consistent vision, and a commitment plus passion for the subject was obvious. As opposed to those with a grouping of strong images, with good technique; a portfolio anyone would respond to as "really nice work".

Even more damning: the weak photo(s) in a strong portfolio, images the photographer threw in ... why? to fill out the fully allowed 10 ? because they weren't sure? How quickly the weak ones brought down the excellent work in the same portfolio, no matter how we judges tried to put it aside mentally, or talk it through.

Did I learn something there? oh yeah. But it's not a new challenge for me. Or, I guess, for any of us in this world:

He who knows others is wise;
He who know himself is enlightened.
Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531 BC)

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The two RISCA fellows we selected won't be announced & awarded till the end of the month so I'm not blabbing, I still only know the work, not the names of those we judged. We narrowed it down to six, then three, then debated for a long time for the final two. It was not easy but it was very, very, cool.

want to see if I've attained any self knowledge from this ? click on over Gale Zucker Photography

sweeeeet

2011-05-19T21:25:00.001-04:00

Deep in the heart of New Jersey (Ok, in Princeton) is an ace baker with a handcrafted cookie business. She's switching her etsy shop, and her corporate gifts business onto a beautiful new fancypants website at www.ImperialCookies.com . So I headed down to the Garden State to do some photography for it. These are peanut butter chocolate chunk and they.taste.amazing. FYI, so do her biscotti and her ginger cookies, and let's not forget oatmeal raisin and chocolate chunk..... the website is live now, if you're inspired to sample luscious old fashioned cookies & biscotti, and dense rich cakes.

I was thrilled that the creative direction included a portrait of the baker, Arline Conigliaro, as well as "real life" product shots. (What , you weren't aware of my sub-motto: "real victuals in real places" ? )

We wanted something fun, but not fake-jokey: no clouds of flour all over her face and hands, or cookie ingredients run amok, or Lucille Ball-in-the-factory. You just don't see things like that in a professional kitchen. But with Arline as the subject, there's no shortage of enthusiasm, so we ran with that.

ps. She sent me on my way home with a care package. One sweeeeet client.

pps also, full disclosure, her hubby makes the best pizza in New Jersey at his place in the center of Princeton, Iano's Rosticerria. Not exaggerating. Try it if you're by there.

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altho I most often shoot real people in real places,

you can see more real food photography at my website Gale Zucker Photography

the B side shot

2011-05-16T21:36:00.002-04:00

When I shot the Kenney sisters in March for USA Weekend magazine, as part of the Make A Difference issue, the art direction was a specific set up, perfect for the article. (You can see it if you scroll down from the issue link.)

But I always do at least 2, usually 3, set ups on a photo shoot. Choices are good, right? Call it giving editors something to edit, call it my pants-and-suspenders personality making sure my clients are covered, call it an excuse to indulge my curiousity and poke all around a location.....OK, call it neurotic. But it's what I do.

So in nosing around, I found this divine divan in the sisters' bedroom. Then their mom let loose the Buggs from their basement canine hideaway and I'm calling it a B side hit.

If you're wondering what I am talking about, as 17 year old just said to me "oh, it's a seventies thing. " Yup. Its all about the vinyl.

Examples (gee thanks Wikipedia, you always have the answers):

"I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor (originally the B-side of "Substitute"), "I'll Be Around" by The Spinners (originally the B-side of "How Could I Let You Get Away"), "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart (originally the B-side of "Reason To Believe"), and "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" by Beyoncé (originally the B-side of "If I Were a Boy"). More rarely, both sides of the single would become hits, such as Queen's "We Are the Champions" and "We Will Rock You".

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want to see more of my B sides? they're in the portfolios at Gale Zucker Photography

bright ideas

2011-05-02T20:41:00.002-04:00

It's taken me a month--a month!- to digest the brain-filling weekend I spent in Chicago at the ASMP SB3 photographers' conference. S for Strictly B for Business. There was none of that silly what-lens-didja-use photo talk. Instead, much vision, humor, creativity, mutual respect, talent, a little supercool futurist stuff, some local 312 beer, friends, SEO talk... ideas and more ideas.

Maybe what I liked best was the tone set by keynote speaker Colleen Wainwright. You read her, right? (I mean you read her, Wainwright?) She's online as the Communacatrix.

Her mantra for us, to be successful in marketing ourselves by being true to our passions and vision is a simple list:

• be useful

• be specific

• be nice

A good recipe for being successful as a human as well as a photographer, yes?

If you're wondering about the lamp posts, they're an art installation outside the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Driving by last year after a long day of shooting, I wasn't sure what to do with it. But couldn't not stop, get out and make some photos. You know how that is.

ps This link to the museum takes you to their online archive of public domain artworks, available for your personal non-commercial use. Go forth and artify your blog!

see more of my photos from here , there and everywhere
at my website Gale Zucker Photography

pecha kucha night New Haven

2011-04-24T23:34:00.003-04:00

Above is the first of 20 slides I'll be showing at Pecha Kucha Night New Haven, Thursday April 27th at 7:30 pm. Curious? Come by.

Each presenter shows twenty slides for twenty seconds each, while talking about their passion, in a night of multi-topic show & tell.

In my case, the subject is "In Search of Craft Activists" , telling the story of the book I photographed last year, visiting crafters, makers, artists and DIYers all over the country.

As for the book itself, it's (fingers crossed, knock on wood) in its very final design review before we send it off to press, for publication by Random House/PotterCraft in late September.

(Immodestly speaking, it's looking pretty fabulous. I can't wait to have the whole thing to show in the fall).

see more of my work at GALE ZUCKER PHOTOGRAPHY

last frame, Port Jeff shoot

2011-03-22T09:10:00.004-04:00

Stuck on our magazine shoot set after school, watching their mom (our subject) at the end of a long grey day. As avid Top Model fans, they knew how to take over art direction ! Smize, everyone.

contrast

2011-01-28T00:19:00.001-05:00

Gotta say this about Bobo, he exposes well.

Our old dog has so much long black hair, he sucks in all the light. No shadow detail at all. Photographer's nightmare.

everything auld is new again

2011-01-08T17:19:00.006-05:00

This image so says 1970's to me. Tri-X push processed to 1600, with corners burnt in. While opening the enlarger Fstop all the way. I can practically smell the fixer.
If it wasn't for the laptop, which wasn't even invented then.
Gotta love post-processing.

Happy 2011! Here's to a year full of new, old, pushed and pulled, reprocessed, rediscovered and newly adventured.

in which she really does shoot sheep

2010-10-25T21:35:00.005-04:00

If you've poked through my She Shots Sheep Shots portfolio, or seen my book Shear Spirit, you know I am smitten with the woolly. So you know I was happy last week in upstate NY for a personal project, where I bartered bed & breakfast for photographing on Gansvoort Farm, a grass fed sheep & cattle farm.

Two days later, in Athol Massachusetts on a magazine assignment to The Farm School. Sheep, locavore food, communal harvest. Farming's a lot of work, but shooting it? That's my kind of labor.

take me out to an upgrade

2010-08-22T20:56:00.000-04:00

When I get a call from a university alumni magazine, I never know what I might be photographing. Celebrities, brilliant scientists, explorers, authors, could be any kind of subject. Unlike consumer mags these days, I often see images run full page, in spreads and as photo essays. How much do I love these clients? Much.

That's how I found myself photographing a Vintage Fantasy Baseball League game in bucolic Sandy Hook, CT. The shoot was fun, the subjects passionate about their slightly eccentric hobby, the editor and designer are happy.

Custom replica 1860's baseball gear for the game

My MVP wasn't on the field though. It's my upgrade to a faster newer computer and Aperture 3.0. Mostly the Aperture 3.0 I forgot that image processing didn't have to be a teeth grinding, computer-freezing annoyance. Suddenly working on images is fun again. When I got finished processing the big TIFFs for the magazine, I changed the files to look all faded and vintagey, as you see here. For funs. Because I felt like it. It's not that I'm using their presets for vintage (although I think they have one, it's just not that look I wanted). But I have more speed and the new adjustment and filtering tools in Aperture. Home run. Score! And, lots of other sports metaphors.

timeline

2010-08-15T23:20:00.000-04:00

One of three images I'm exhibiting & donating to the Arts Council of Greater New Haven fundraiser, Somewhat Off the Wall. I like supporting local arts organizations. Used to be I'd spend a whole day or so in the darkrooom making just the right prints for this annual event.
But this image was made simply. I'm not even going to talk about how simply. I was feeling guilty about how little processing & fussing went on. Then I thought, maybe it's not the time in front of the monitor today but the years getting ready to see this moment.
Oooooooooh. Only Zoltar knows.

on saying YES

2010-07-12T12:46:00.001-04:00

A few years ago I read a life changing interview. It was, improbably, an interview with Tina Fey about switching from being a writer to a performer. What it really was about, was letting yourself go and saying yes to opportunities, no matter how odd or challenging or curious they appear when presented. Since then, my photography, my business and my life are a lot more fun.

So when a neighbor asked if I wanted to drop by and photograph her chickens in their new hats, there was only one way to answer: Hell yes!

mixed feelings

2010-04-22T21:57:00.004-04:00

San Antonio TX street, fiesta April 2010

There's a point where you realize that a good image is a good image, and a mediocre one isn't going to become a good image. You can (in the olden days) tone, burn, hand color, or lift the emulsion & transfer it to watercolor paper. Nuh-uh, it's just not going to become a good image.

Or you can (nowadays), photoshop the bejeepzis out of it: liquify, sketchify, desaturate to black & white, watercolorize- and , yeah, same result.

So that brings me, guiltily, to my beloved Hipstamatic app. I can't stop shooting this. I admit, it's a gimmick. I instantly mimic the artsy plastic cameras with light leaks, and the polaroid transfers and the emulsion lifts from the past. No yucky chemicals or complete darkness or time wasted working up the process.

San Antonio TX, wall at Titos, April 2010

Truth is, making an imitation arty piece most times only looks like imitation art.

But it sure is fun to keep trying.

H2 Ohhhhhhhhhh

2010-04-05T23:56:00.006-04:00

So, a magazine asked me to photograph an accomplished MIT hydrogeologist, preferably in some water. I thought-bingo!- those crazy monsoon rains battering us last week were so in my favor.

you have to keep in mind the water is cold. very cold. he should be wincing.

My subject suggested we go out to the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, where a walkway normally crosses a full open pond. Except, the pond is so full, it has taken over the parking lot.

Ok, what care we? It's water. We are there for water. We wade in. First on the rocks, then straight in.

Our subject puts on waders, I'd asked him to go waist deep, he's game. My asst and I roll up our jeans and follow to stay close, on the edge of where the scientist steps down to chest level. Fabulous! Sun, blue sky, good natured professor. We take out strobes and shoot some fill, handing them back & forth above the water. Joking, heh heh about electrocuting the marine life if we fumble and the HV pack goes into the pond. But we really don't need the juice. The gold reflector is perfect.
Seeing as I like a low angle, I squat down, just grazing the water. I hear a splash. Right near my pocket. My compact flash card wallet, taking a dive 2 feet down. Nooooooooo! Filled with 10 compact flash cards.

No lost images from this shoot , they were all in the camera on a large card but, still, that's a lot of sodden gigs. Having an MIT hydrogeologist (dude knows water) advise me to soak them in rubbing alcohol and then seal them in a bag with dry rice was, if not reassuring, at least a plan.

And it took my mind off this fella, who first joined us on a rock.

And then hissing at us, in the water.

Moral of the story: if you have an asst who is over 6 feet tall carrying a secure bag for you into water, place the compact flash wallet in his care. Also: watch out for snakes.

a little imperfection is good for the soul

2010-02-08T12:11:00.001-05:00

on a shoot for the new Random House book project in VT last week

You know you're taking photography seriously when you first want to control the light, instead of having the light control you. * I started my professional photo life in the days of exposing finicky chromes, so I got very very good at controlling light. Good enough that the Photo District News

wrote about me & my lighting. No highlights without details! Flag that flare!

Last year I noticed enjoying my visceral reaction to blownout sky and skin without pores. And then an art director asked me to shoot a project with intentional lens refractions floating over the subjects-and used it full page. Astoundingly, the earth continued to spin on its axis . I had some fun breaking the rules.

So for 2010 I'm letting the imperfect exposure creep into my work in a serious way. Any thoughts?

* if you're amongst those yearning to learn to control light, Strobist is an excellent place to start, if you haven't popped by there already.

the view from the other end

2010-01-15T13:12:00.002-05:00

When Real Simple said they were sending a photographer to shoot me with my family, at home, I felt like I was falling down the rabbit hole. It's just the kind of magazine assignment or commercial shoot I usually get. I've been her a zillion times. But I've never been them.

So, yeah, every cliche response I've heard from subjects flew out of my mouth:

"Oh! Our house isn't , um, magazine worthy."

"Do I have time to lose 10 pounds?"

"I'm having, like, a bad hair week"

At least I didn't go for "heh,heh, I might break your camera".

The photographer, Sam Contis, was sweet, and arrived right on time, shooting 4x5 film, available light. Cool. She did the scouting walk-through, you know, when you seem to be making small talk with the subjects but you're actually sizing up their space while also trying to gauge their personality and style, and any physical issues to work around. I could hear what was running through her brain, I swear it.

She posed us in a spot we don't usually gather, I know I do that to people all the time. Only this time I felt the weirdness. Truly, it's odd, you're in your own space, but in a new way.

Love the image. It looks just like us. And, I learned a lot from the experience. I'm taking it along now everywhere I go.

why i want to marry my iPhone

2009-12-23T11:27:00.000-05:00

Sunday morning in Brooklyn, enroute to a photo shoot. The night's snow storm had slowed me down, climbing through the mini mountains at every curb and draggng my case over wasn't helping me be on time, either. But what photographer could pass up this magic?

I love my iPhone cam.

seasonal sighting

2009-12-17T09:26:00.003-05:00

Saturday, downtown New Haven CT 12/09