portraits – Riveted

What I Do When I’m Home

Laura Domela — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 18:42:32 +0000

One of the things I can't take with me when we're traveling is my Portland photography studio, so when we're back home for a few weeks this usually means scheduling photo shoots. I do have a compact, portable setup for doing location work, but nothing beats my nice big studio space for ease of use.

Just for something different, I thought I'd share a few photos from a couple of recent studio shoots!

This is my incredibly talented friend Storm Large (yes, that's her real name). She is an amazing singer, and you can learn more about her here and listen to her here (scroll down and watch/listen to her version of "I've Got You Under My Skin" … it's SO GOOD!) I've been shooting her publicity photos for over ten years now, but we still manage to come up with new things in the studio each time.

(Storm's hair by Tuesday Teal.)

There are several more shots of Storm on my web portfolio here if you want to see more.

These next few are of Lily and Maya. They're both super-talented young ladies and we did an all-out editorial model photo shoot last month…for fun mainly, but also to add some different looks to their portfolios.

Hair by Tuesday Teal. Makeup by Lydia Anderson

Anyway, just thought I'd share a little of my professional home life with you guys. We'll be heading back to the boat this weekend, so more on that front in the very near future!

Filet-O-Fish® and Portrait Photography

Laura Domela — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 03:17:38 +0000

Yesterday on our way to pick up some groceries in Port Townsend, we walked past a McDonald’s. In the window was a large poster advertising the Filet-O-Fish® sandwich, two bucks on Fridays. Admittedly, I’m not the target demographic for McDonald's (at all), but I was mesmerized by this photograph.

I said to Kevin “Could that food look ANY more processed!? The plastic bun, the machine-cut square of fish, the crayon-orange cheese, the marshmallow tartar sauce with perfectly placed pickle bits….”

“You know It took a photographer, a huge team of food stylists and art directors (and likely an enormous budget) to make that Filet-O-Fish® photo happen.”

As an advertisement, this felt like a total fail. I couldn’t imagine a Filet-O-Fish® looking any less appetizing than it did on this poster in the window of its maker. I assumed that the photography/money/art/food styling team would have instead aimed for creating an image depicting…well, something more appealing, organic, delicious, and less processed, plastic, precise.

On the other hand, as an editorial photo (or art!), this photograph of the Filet-O-Fish® sandwich was PERFECT. The factory-fabricated Filet-O-Fish® in this photo looks exactly like what it is. The photographer had somehow managed to even amplify the synthetic reality of the Filet-O-Fish®. You can almost picture the factory workers in white bunny suits extruding perfectly square fish filets from gleaming stainless steel industrial machinery.

It’s like when I take a portrait of a cool character with an interesting vibe and I’m able to show a heap of his personality in my zillionth of a second shutter click and subsequent print. This Filet-O-Fish® photograph oozes its processed personality perfectly.

I decided if I were the photographer, I’d be super proud of getting it “just right.”

As a professional portrait photographer, my philosophy centers on connecting with my subjects by creating a comfortable, casual environment where they feel open and at ease. I want to listen to their stories and study their mannerisms. I’d rather focus in on capturing a person’s unique characteristics than take a “pretty” or “flattering” photo that has no personality.

A few years ago I was hired to create a portrait of the (now defrocked) pastor/leader of the Mars Hill Church for the cover of a magazine. We were invited by his PR guy to attend (and photograph) his hour-long sermon before photographing him in the “green room” of his Bellevue, Washington megachurch. The original plan had been to set up in the green room during his first sermon, and then meet for his portrait quickly between his two sermons (my preference, since I was not so keen on the whole megachurch thing), so this was a bit of a departure.

His sermon began (picture spotlights and giant TV screens and a rock band opening act) and we found him to be a very engaging and charismatic speaker, but he preached values that I find highly offensive (misogyny, bigotry, and intolerance), and hearing him encourage this way of thinking so eloquently and persuasively to a stadium full of mostly young people was very disturbing.

After the sermon we set up in his green room and I felt pretty nervous as we waited for him to arrive. I find it so important to connect with the subjects I photograph, but I felt less than enthusiastic about trying to connect with this one. Turns out he was not a “connect with you” kind of guy anyway, at least not for the 15 minutes I spent with him. He was detached, dismissive, and not engaged at all (perhaps because I was a woman). There were about 20 people in the smallish room (including his whole family) and it was far too crowded and lively for me to do much but try to get the best “surface” shot of him as fast as I could (and by "surface" I mean "good photograph of this guy, but without having the normal photographer/subject rapport that I usually can cultivate during a shoot").

Back in the studio as I was editing down the work, there was one photo that stood out to me. It might not have been the most flattering portrait of him, but it felt by far the most honest. It accurately represented how he “felt” to me in person. He had a bit of a smirk. He was making was eye contact, but there didn’t seem to be any real connection with the viewer. His expression felt kinda like a shrug. This shot was definitely my favorite and felt the most genuine to me, so I submitted it to the magazine’s art director along with the other shots I thought were probably more flattering.

Guess which photo the magazine put on the cover? The Filet-O-Fish®!

Airstream Photo Studio: Barry

Laura Domela — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:28:12 +0000

Barry, Yachats OR.
Fuji x100s, sunset, kung pao strobe-on-a-stick (with umbrella)

Airstream Photo Studio (Stub Stewart)

Laura Domela — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 13:42:24 +0000

We busted out the portable photo studio yesterday for some photo fun. Thought I'd show you a few of the portraits we made. (I really need to do this more often.)

Advice given should be advice taken

Laura Domela — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:10:51 +0000

When we were camped last summer for two nights at Clear Lake, CA, we met an older couple who was camped next to us. I can still picture them perfectly. Edgar was probably in his mid to late 70s, slimmish, with swoopy white hair and a tan craggy face. He had a little red scooter he would ride down the hill to the edge of the lake with his fishing pole a few times each day. He’d crawl out onto the rocks and occasionally come back with a small catfish or something. He could walk fine, he told us, but that hill was pretty steep and the scooter made it easier for him to go further. One day he had taken apart the scooter and had parts spread out all over the top of their picnic table. He said that there was some broken something-or-other, but we suspected he just wanted to take the thing apart and tinker with it. Having a problem to solve made him feel useful and relevant. He wasn’t just a guy riding a scooter down the hill to fish, he was a technician again – debugging a loose connection or a faulty switch.

This guy had been a mechanic all his life and after he retired he got deep into ham radio stuff. He told us about several generations of enormous ham radio antennae that he put up in his yard at home (just to repeatedly have to take down when his neighbor complained…but we assumed that was the whole point). He wasn’t much for letting you get any words in yourself, but he was a pretty good story teller.

I wanted to photograph him so badly.

His wife (his second wife…the first one broke his heart, he said) was soft and a little pudgy in that warm, baking cookies kind of way. She was quiet and spent a lot of time inside reading. Her name was Mary and she was probably a little younger than Edgar. I imagined photographing them together: him sitting on his red scooter (if it didn’t make him feel too old or handicapped in any way…it was such a great addition to my mental photo), and her standing next to him with her arms around his shoulders. Beautiful.

She was a nurse and I think semi-retired and worked part time at an assisted living facility. She liked to read, and liked to photograph people. She asked what we did for work and I told her we had a publishing company, and also that I was a photographer. She asked me all sorts of questions and if I had any photos I could show her. I did. I had my iPad with several portfolios and projects on it, and she went through them all. She said she loved photographing people more than anything. She said she noticed all kinds of amazing details while people-watching, but that she was always too shy about asking permission to take someone’s photo (she felt like she needed to be a “pro” in order to go there), and asked me if I had any advice for her. I told her that she had a very nice manner and she should just approach people she was drawn to and tell them she was “a student of portraiture and would very much like to make a portrait of them. Some people will say no thank you, and some people will say yes please. Making them comfortable is (to me) step one.” It was like a lightbulb went off for her…she just needed the right sentence in her head like a cheatsheet when she was feeling nervous…that she could be a student of portraiture hadn’t occurred to her. She was so thankful and so excited.

As we pulled out of the campground (after walking down to the river’s edge and saying goodbye to Edgar and his catfish), I knew I’d completely failed. Here I was giving such great advice, and I was not taking any of it for myself. For two days I’d been imagining the portrait I’d make of this couple, and I never even got close. I can’t tell you how many times this has happened. Oh…they’re right in the middle of something. Oh…they probably will say no. Oh…I don’t want to interrupt their whatever it is (or isn’t). It’s ridiculous.

I’m a good portrait photographer when people come to me, in my studio. Really good. I make people feel comfortable and they have fun (even if they normally hate having their photograph taken). When they are having fun, their personality comes out and that’s what makes a special image. This is a strength of mine and I know it. But outside of the studio where people come to me, I really could use some cojones, or something. Seriously, already.