Profile:
Michael Ray
A Self- Described Generalist
by Wendy Scheanin
When MICHAEL RAY was a boy he used to peer in the window of the camera store on the way to his trumpet lessons. He didn't know anything about the Canon F1's on display-just that they were "sexy" to him.
He's since put down the trumpet and picked up the camera. Twenty years after he graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, he's a successful commercial photographer who enjoys his work so much, he still can't believe he gets paid to do what he loves.
This shot was done for a graphic design firm's promotional brochure. The "fire" was created by combining strobe with tungsten light. The flash froze everything, and then while the shutter was still open (the flash modeling Lights off), the man (model) moved. The tungsten light was pointed only at the trumpet bell so that the model wouldn't blur along with the instrument. Image made with a Hasselblad camera and 15Omm lens. Shutter speed was about 1 second.
Lunch time Learning
"My whole idea is to do the creative work you want to do and show it to people. Then you'll get hired to do that work," Ray says. "I have to push myself to keep doing that over and over. It's a heck of a lot more interesting than shooting Sears catalogs." He knows what he's talking about. Directly out of school, Ray began building his portfolio by working for 2~ years as an in-house photographer at a fast-paced Lexington, Kentucky design firm, where he illustrated the firm's local magazine.
Then he spent a year at a catalog house in Chicago large part to add to his resume the door-opening address of a city known as a Mecca for photographers. The catalog house was so large that it had 21 staff photographers, 12 assistants and 6 set stylists. Despite the factory-like setting perhaps because of it-Ray considers this job to be pivotal in his career.
"I learned more at the lunch table at that place than all though school and my first job," he admits. "There were people there who, for 20 years, only shot bathrooms. You sit down at the lunch table with them and you really learn a lot about lighting."
Armed with catalog experience, lunch time lessons and valuable 8x10 transparencies in his portfolio, Ray returned to his hometown of Pittsburgh and set up shop. He slept in the living room of his apartment, and used one bedroom as a studio, the other as a darkroom.
When he first opened his own studio, he wanted to do more catalog work. "I had experience and thought it was a good niche for me," Ray says.But he found the pace too grueling and artistically compromising. He recalled his catalog days when he arrived at work in the dark, worked in the dark all day, and left in the dark. As time went on, Ray discovered that he preferred to shoot people, locations and food-three venues in which he can exercise his creative license and retain as much control as possible.
A self-described generalist, Ray shoots "anything he can get his little grubby hands on." That adventure-seeking attitude has landed him and his camera in operating rooms and mushroom mines, steel mills and helicopters. "It's just so a great life being a generalist. I like the variety of it. I can't tell you how many places I've gone to do location photography and I said to myself, 'I am so glad I don't work here."
Originally shot as a test to build his portfolio, Ray used his Toyo 8x10 with a 360mm Schneider lens. Lighting was accomplished using a homemade "sail-type" device which gives a box like effect. With the lamp head in close to the material, you get a "soft, but quickly graduating" type of light."
Control Freak
His preferred work day involves several hours of prep time leading up to one or two shots. "I'm sort of a control freak," confesses Ray "Food is my favorite because it's so deliberate, so controlled. You can do two nice food shots a day, and it offers the least compromise. It's not like catalog work where people routinely settle for 'good enough.' You can spend six hours making food beautiful. I do the lighting, and the food stylist does the rest.
"The first hour you spend eating donuts and selecting plates," says Ray whose clients include Heinz, Del Monte and Ocean Spray. "If you can talk your client into the right plates, that's half the battle right there.
According to Ray, a big part of the job is finessing the clients into letting you make pretty photos; "My main concern is that I want a portfolio piece," Ray says. "I've never had a situation where a shot goes in my portfolio when the client didn't love it. That's the nice thing about food-you can make a pretty picture." While he strives to make every shot "a pretty picture," Ray acknowledges that there's always a tightrope to walk in order to satisfy his client and not compromise his vision. He prefers when clients articulate the. kind of layout they want and allow him to develop the concept artistically.
"I like to be given a beginning, a direction, but I like my clients to be flexible," Ray says. This negotiation can be tricky when the two visions clash. He recently lost a steady client when they wanted him to do something that he disagreed with aesthetically-a situation that makes an artist reevaluate the nature of compromise.
"I think we need to lean in the direction of trying to keep the client and not make bad pictures. But in reality," he acknowledges "I still need to pay the rent."
He shoots everything from 35 mm to 8x10. In general, if his subject moves he shoots 2 1/4, if not, 4x5. His equipment includes Canon, Hasselblad, Toyo with Schneider lenses, and Norman strobes. He opts to use Polaroids instead of a meter and sums up his preference by saying, "If I can't take a Polaroid of it, I don't want to shoot it. That's my philosophy"
Lighting remains the key element of Ray's pretty pictures.
"Lighting to me is really what makes most photographs. Back-ground choices and lighting. The photos I tend to like are because of really cool lighting. That's what trips my trigger."
http://www.michaelray.com
mray@michaelray.com
Another test shot with a different stylist, this image was made using Ray's favorite light, a Norman 10-inch Fresnel that was diffused with a textured piece of glass that he found at a stained-glass shop. Ray used his Toyo 8x10 with a 480mm Schneider lens.
R&D
After 20 years in the business, Ray, who just turned 40 and was depressed for a week, continually experiments with new techniques to see what else trips his trigger.
"Chicago taught me how to be a' technical photographer," Ray recalls. "The way I think I've improved the most as a photographer is by studying The Work Book and The Black Book." In his spare time, he goes through them page .by page, analyzing works he likes, not so much for technique as for what he likes in general about them. Is it warm light? Soft focus? A specific background? "If you question what you like enough times," he says, "you'll find out what really trips your trigger."
"In this business, you really have to do a lot of R&D up front and sell that," he says. "It's a good way to create the 'kind of business you want." Ray, who's day rate is between $1000 and $1200, advises that "if there's something you think is really cool, don't be afraid to study techniques, that interest you and personalize them in your own work because no one is ever going to hire you for something that's not in your portfolio."
He attributes his success in part to his personal research and development process. Having spent time trying to imitate work he likes without knowing precisely how the shots were taken, he's developed techniques that work for him-both artistically and monetarily Ray often asks the modeling agency below his studio to send up some models "with interesting faces" whom
he then shoots without having to satisfy anyone but himself. He pays the models with a print. .After showing images from one such session to a magazine, he was commissioned to shoot the cover in the same style for $2500.
Further, by continually updating his portfolio, he has a steady supply of new shots to show potential clients who have seen his work but haven't hired him yet. "It's all about relationships in this business. New photos mean another chance to meet a potential client, to shake his hand. Every time I've' done an' R&D project, it's really paid off," Ray says.
Ray 'works primarily by himself, but hires freelance- assistants to help him with different assignments, and in order not to take the sting of rejection personally, he has used a part-time employee to set up sales calls.
These days he aims to shoot 2-3 days a week and spends the rest of his time working on his marketing pieces, making sales calls and putting together his web page, which highlights his favorite images. you can reach his web page at www.michaelray.com.) It's an ambitious goal he doesn't always achieve.
"I've been coasting for a while. I've gotten on this tangent on the computer. I think it's a idea for me personally" he says. "I'm doing less R&D than I used to because I'm spending my down time, on the computer. It's a great marketing tool, but I still need to do photography."
The End
Wendy Sheanin is a freelance writer who lives in San Francisco.
Learn more about Michael Ray's photography
General Commercial Photography
Food Photography
Photography Blog
How's He Do That?
