Page 10 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 3 #2

EGINNINGS. It isn't at all clear as was summed up by the expression: "Technical
to why we started doing architectur- excellence + artistic vision + emotion = Fine
B al and construction photography. Commercial Photography." We had already
In fact, we never intended to do commer- established a reputation for using highly un-
cial photography. Starting out, we focused usual angles, and we knew how to use those
on fine art photography—hence our first tag angles to create emotionally powerful images.
line: "The Fine Art of Photography." But the Finding interesting angles in the realm of ar-
volume of print sales was low—apparently we chitectural photography wasn't a problem for
didn't create images that "fit" the culture here us at all.
in Greensboro—so in fall 2003, we decided to Thinking we were on top of our game, I
modify our focus. asked our new client what she thought.
I still remember my conversation with JD. While the architects liked the photographs
We agreed that the compa- in general, and while every-
ny needed more revenue one agreed that they were
and at the time, weddings emotionally powerful, the
seemed to be a good fit. images weren't what they
In the Triad area of North had wanted. Architects pre-
Carolina alone, there were fer parallel lines and images
nearly 15,000 weddings that are square and straight.
taking place every year. In To be honest, I really didn't
2004 we did our first wed- know how to respond to
ding, and for a while, it our client’s feedback. True,
looked as though wedding we had made little effort to
photography would keep keep lines parallel or rect-
us busy. angles looking like rect-
While shooting a wedding angles. I was under the
in 2005, we met someone impression that we were
who consequently connect- hired because of the emo-
ed us with a local architec- tional power of our work,
tural firm. (We would go on not because we could keep
to work together on Grand ABOVE: Center City Park, Greensboro, NC. lines straight and parallel.
Turk—our first overseas as- To me, the two were clearly
signment.) Initially, architectural photography antithetical. Square and straight images were
seemed like it would be easy. To our credit, we’d anything but emotionally powerful as far as I
learned to work well with ambient and natural was concerned.
light, and as a result, we were able to work very As always, JD took a different tack. And,
quickly. By this time we had mastered working after conducting a thorough examination of
in manual, and this enabled us to work effec- architectural photography, he made a case for
tively with very little light. We’d evolved our square and straight. We argued, as was often
methodology and were able to produce consis- the case in those days, and he won. However,
tently dramatic images that were emotionally being the rebellious man that I am, I was still
powerful because of our ability to “see things determined to find a way to produce emotion-
like no one else.” ally powerful images even if they were square
We set off to work on our first assignment, and straight. Now, getting all those lines
eagerly applying what we’d learned by way of straight and parallel, well, that was a daunting
the fine art end of our practice. Our approach task. We struggled to fix perspective distortion

10 | the art of convergence