You have not truly seen the world until you have witnessed the illuminating photography of Howard Schatz. The internationally critically-acclaimed, award-winning photographer is one of the most prolific artists of his time. His new two-book set, Schatz Images: 25 Years, (Glitterati, June, 2015; www.schatzimages25years-glitterati.com) captures breathtaking images that will fascinate those who love original, cutting-edge photographs.
Perhaps Vanity
Fair Editor-in-Chief Graydon Carter says it best: “Howard Schatz is so
versatile that this volume at times seems like the work of a dozen
photographers, Weegee, Avedon, Penn, Beaton, Newton, and Goude, among them. He
has affection for his subjects—athletes, dancers, models, actors, pregnant
moms, and interesting nobodies—and it shows in every remarkable image.
Sometimes funny, often dramatic, he is a master both of the quiet portrait and
the explosive surprise.”
Schatz’s work
ranges from world-class athletes and dancers to actors acting and portraits of
homeless people, from stunning images made in light and pattern to studies of
pregnancy and newborns. There is no other photographer in the world who has explored
such an enormous range of subject matter and no other book like Schatz
Images: 25 Years. The elegant
and luxurious two-book boxed set includes work from the course of the last 25
years. Each of the volumes is 12x12 inches, and together they contain 832 pages
and 1083 original and sumptuous photographs. The beautifully bound set is
stored in a custom slipcase, limited to 500 signed and numbered copies.
His work has been
published in 20 books and exhibited in numerous galleries and museum
exhibitions worldwide and is contained in innumerable private collections. His
images are regularly featured in illustrious publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair,
Time, Sport Illustrated, Vogue, GQ, and
The New Yorker. Schatz has worked with such prominent clients as Ralph
Lauren, Escada, Sergio, Nike, Reebok, Sony, and Mercedes-Benz, and he’s won
nearly every award in his field.
Some of the
subjects featured in the set include:
Dance , Underwater Studies,
Athletes, Fashion & Beauty, Actors, Models &Their Moms, Motion Studies,
Botanical, Pregnancy, and Liquid Light Studies.
This is the second book of Schatz's that I have helped to promote to the media, with the help of the PR firm that I work for. Getting to know his work is a tremendous honor.
Below is a Q and A with the legendary, masterful photographer:
1. 1. The pair of books that make up the retrospective
cover an array of topics, from Hollywood celebrities and professional athletes
to portraits of homeless people and studies of pregnancy. Which subject
matter proved to be the most challenging but rewarding to shoot? Why? Every project I did was an exploration, a
treasure hunt. I photograph to surprise and delight myself. I am looking for
wonder. I worked creatively to capture something special in every subject.
Finding something I had never seen before was my bar, the metric by which I
would judge my work. The hard work we put into the creative process is a
marvelous journey that brings great satisfaction and joy.
2. To
what do you attribute your success of generating amazing images that capture
the human spirit, a feeling, or a moment? I am interested in people,
motion, and the human body; in dance, sports, as well as the veracity of a
great face. I think my curiosity and passion to find things I hadn't seen
before informed the finding and making of these images.
3. A
large number of famous actors and award-winning actresses came to your studio
and you were able to direct them in a one-on-one improvisation, allowing them
to create a whole range of characters for your camera. How did Michael Douglas,
Colin Firth, Jane Lynch, Sissy Spacek among a hundred others come to
participate in this project? I initially did an interview with each
actor about ideas and creativity. The long interview allowed each actor to
become comfortable with me as a director, so that when we worked on the
character improvisations, they really gave it their all. I asked each actor to
use his/her imagination --as well as his/her bodies and voice -- to develop
each character. They then worked hard, improvisationally and extemporaneously
to make images that were fantastic.
4. Do
you set out to capture iconic images on every shoot? What is it
that you strive to achieve? It is a treasure hunt. I set up my
studio in such a way that I am open to anything that happens. There is no
ultra-control of things, I let ideas flow freely, coming in and out - I'm
willing to try anything. This is the creative process; it is not a preconceived
notion that I am trying to get but rather an idea I wish to explore. I talk
about the creative tree: one climbs the tree and sometimes goes out on a branch
that seems promising, but it cracks and one falls to the ground. But the grass
is soft, so one gets right back up on the tree trunk and finds another
branch. Occasionally, there is a branch with many pieces of fruit to
pick. We look for these gold veins, we look for these things that happen in the
studio that seem to yield magic and wonder and surprise and rapture.
5. One
of your trademark approaches is to distort your subject. You seem to get close
up and make parts of your subject look larger and out of proportion. Why? Sometimes
I want to emphasize something and will place the camera and use a lens in such
a way to emphasize or diminish specific characteristics. I am
interested in motion and use both stroboscopic flash as well as ambient
available light and leave the camera open to see what happens over the course
of time rather than shooting a picture every time at one 1000th of
the second. This is the study of a particular kind of motion and I
apply it to dance and sports. I find it extremely fascinating and
interesting; it seems that almost every picture comes out differently. Always a
surprise.
6. How
do you go about making images that surprise us? My goal is to make pictures
that are surprising to me. I am looking for that which is wondrous for
me. Casting is also very important in photography; I need subjects
that can follow directions. A photograph is as good as its weakest
part, and therefore having great subjects for whatever idea is being
photographed is essential.
7. B
& W or color? How do you know when to use which and for what effect? Black-and-white
leaves more to the imagination than color. Color is more literal. Nowadays we
shoot everything in color and if I feel an image would be stronger in
black-and-white, I simply convert it in post-production. Today, technology
allows anyone to make a pretty good picture. But to make a picture that’s
spectacular, rare, unique, magnificent, fantastic and long-lasting is extremely
difficult and takes great effort, generally a fair amount of experience,
certainly tremendously hard work and a great amount of luck.
8. Howard,
you left behind a successful career as a world-renowned retina specialist to
turn your eye towards photography. In either role, were you seeking to heal us,
to help us to see things in a better way? In medicine it is important
to get it exactly right, but in art it's often about making mistakes. The two
are very different. In medicine, it's important not to take chances, not to get
wild and creative; but in art it is very important to take chances and to go
into the unknown. Medicine has taught me a great deal. I've learned
to make strangers comfortable as I did with my patients. Medicine taught me to
study things scientifically, which I applied when learning various technical
challenges in the studio. The two seem to overlap in many ways, but they are
mostly extremely different.
9. You
have photographed prisoners and club-goers, fashion models, and Cirque Du
Soleil, and featured the brutality of boxing alongside the innocence of
cherubic babies. How do you reconcile your divergent, sometimes conflicting
tastes for subjects? I am interested in everybody and
everything. I am as interested in great successes as I am the
opposite. I have done many projects searching to learn something
about humanity.
10. Why is the
human body an inexhaustible source of interest to you? There are
so many ways of seeing the body, of capturing images of the body, of doing
things with my camera and lighting with great bodies. I want to continue to do
this as I feel that although I am way beyond just touching the surface, there
still is a long way to go.
11 Your
chapter on body knots is unreal. Tell us what went into that. I was
photographing dance one day when the dancers were together resting after some
trampoline work. They were very comfortable with each other, holding
each other close. I had a wide angle lens in my hand, and I came in
close to look at them and I saw something I had never seen. This is
something that only bodies can make: a sculpture of form. I began to
study the body knots generally with pairs of dancers. The project was
fascinating and fun.
DON’T MISS: ALL NEW RESOURCE OF THE YEAR
A BUDDING
PHOTOGRAPHER?
My son, who is
just 10 years old, is always thinking of ways to express his creativity. He is
curious about a lot of things. I want to encourage this. He recently set upon
photography and put together this fast-paced slide show of photographs that he
snapped off from the past two months. He would love for you to view his work,
and if you feel so moved, to "like" it. The whole thing takes three
minutes and I think is worth the time. I hope you enjoy it: http://youtu.be/ZERbhc4yYE0 --
thank you.
DON’T MISS: ALL NEW RESOURCE OF THE YEAR
2015 Book PR & Marketing Toolkit: All New
Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2015
