Test Your Skill

with

Film Photography

One of the major differences between talented people, and the not so well skilled, is the willingness to spend countless hours on practice. Practice developing the foundation of skills that later on give them the ability to create such great art. I read in the brilliant book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell that people considered to be experts or masters in any particular area by their peers is roughly 10,000 hours of practice. Now Gladwell isn’t talking about thoughtless practice, where you’re completely mindless and not even processing what you’re doing, meaning just going through the routines. He’s talking about progressive, present-focused  thinking about what you’re doing, the outcome, the process, and what could be done better, faster and more efficient.

It’s important, moreso these days with the expanding abilities of digital photography, to maintain the integrity and purity of our craft in hairdressing.

Those interested in photographic styling will need to practice there technique and cleanliness more and more during the next coming years as it will separate those who deserve success and from those who cheat it. The art of digital photography allows you to create images that are unlike any other art created in the past, due to the ability to manipulate, create, draw, fill in, expand, shrink, erase any and every little detail that does not fit. Is this a bad thing? Certainly not! It allows you to create the most beautiful images imaginable, with minimal effort. You can build sets and backgrounds that would normally cost thousands, adjust lighting, highlight and shadow to create drama. Endless opportunity is possible with digital photography. That’s it’s fame

But the downside therein is found in the technical ability required by the team creating the photograph. I have witnessed, and participated in having the option to erase those fly-aways, to slack off in make up application, to change the silhouette entirely, to shadow texture that is unpleasant. Having seen poor effort in preparation and application early on in my career, I turned my attention to practicing the foundation of our craft. The classic techniques. Fingerwaves, pin curls, marcel-work, clean blow-outs, clean sections, precise cutting, smoothing, controlling, etc. There is a HUGE difference in the high quality original, than the altered final image.

There’s a level of respect, mainly to yourself, when looking at a photo and having the ability of saying that YOU created the entire image, and it was not the result of a click of the mouse.

Judges won’t care. Peers won’t care. Your employers won’t care. Cause if manipulated well, you can’t tell a difference. Only you and the photographer will know. What false personna are you creating for yourself and peers if you continue to alter to fix poorly done work? And let me say that this is of no negative attack to digital photographers. If they’ve mastered the craft of photo manipulation, then great! It’s a talent. But they should be able to focus on the photography, and not waste time fixing skin blemishes and correcting hair and clothing. You either respect your craft, or don’t participate.

I have to hand it to Jake Garn, the photographer of a great portion of my portfolio. Jake is a digital photographer, and a very talented one at that. He’s is a genius at creating scene setting backgrounds, insane digital overlays over skin to create awesome texture, and also believes in creating strong work during preparation from his team. I’ve worked on shoot with him before where I’m creating a big, textured shape and it’s not working the way I want it to. So to give in, I would ask Jake, “can you just adjust this corner?” He responds with a big ‘ole NO! Is the make up not looking so pretty? He asks you to fix it. Jake is one who wants to spend time creating his art on the photo, and not wasting time with something I should have been correct in the beginning. Fly-aways? Fix them. Hair in the face. Get it out. No mouse clicking to fix it.

Antoinette Beenders, Vice President of Creative for Aveda, recently said in an interview that if you want to see the purity of your work, and test the strength of your technique, then shoot with film or polaroids. Neither can be digitally altered. Wanna see what you would change; look at a polaroid. Wanna get better; see what you can do on film, as you can not see how anything looks until it’s processed to prints. Here are some recent photographs I did with Ryan Muirhead, a film photographer in Utah, who is great with natural lighting and a photographer that is currently dedicating his 10,000 hours of practice to film photography.

The photographs with the black outlining are simply scanned polaroids. I’m happy to say that I’m very proud of the outcome of these photos. They’re clean, interesting, clean make up (by Danielle Carlsen), clean hair, and great lighting from Ryan Muirhead, all taken on the back porch of the photographers apartment against the white wall of the building.

I continuously take charge of mastering my craft in different areas, and please encourage all of you to do the same, as it’s the only way to ensure the growth of the hairdressing craft, and maintain the respect to ourselves and of our peers for putting in hard, quality work!

Best,

Steven