Cameras

Photography: Robert Buelteman

Every photographer has a different vision of success. For some, life would be perfect if Time Magazine were to send them and their camera bag to Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. For others, sipping wine at a gallery opening while collectors battle to buy their art would be the ultimate sign that they?ve arrived. And for many, just being paid for a picture or winning a commission for a portrait would tell them that they?ve got talent, technique and an audience for their work.

But what happens next? What do you do after you?ve got used to phone calls from editors, when you?ve seen the red stickers on your framed photos or once sales and commissions have become a standard part of your life?

That was a dilemma faced by Robert Buelteman, a 51-year old landscape photographer known for his pictures of California. His black and white images had already been published in two books. His photos form part of the permanent collections of Yale University Art Museum and The Santa Barbara Museum of Art. And a steady supply of commercial assignments meant that he was able to earn a rewarding living from his camera.

Ansel Adams, Fiber Optics and Sculpted Plants

For most enthusiasts that would be the stuff that photography dreams are made of. But the death of a number of relatives and a desire for new challenges led Buelteman to look at a completely new way of creating pictures.

?It isn?t that I was running from dissatisfaction so much as I was seeking new possibilities for myself and for my art,? he explains. ?As a witness to the loss of four family members to cancer in the late 90?s, I had learned that life is short, and didn?t want the precious gift that my life is to be spent doing what had already been done by so many so often.?

Twenty years earlier, Sarah Adams (the granddaughter of Ansel) had shown Buelteman Walter Chappell?s Metaflora portfolio of flower images at her home in Lee Vining. As he searched for a new outlet, Buelteman recalled that meeting and an idea he?d had about combining photography with fiber optics.

The result was a method that draws on his studies in chemistry, physics and optics at Berkeley to create a new kind of Kirlian photography, a technique that involves passing an electric current through an object on an a photographic plate to generate an image of the corona discharged around the object?s edges.

Buelteman?s approach though is particularly difficult. He takes live plants and ?sculpts? them with a scalpel until they?re translucent. Working in the dark, he then prepares an ?exposure matrix? made up a sheet of 8×10 tungsten-balanced transparency film mounted on an easel. This is supported by a sheet of metal in a solution of liquid silicone, which itself is sandwiched between two sheets of Plexiglas. To create the image, Buelteman connects to the metal sheet to a spark plug cable, places the sliver of plant material on the film, and fires 80,000 volts through the metal ? and the plant. The current leaves a glow on the film in the shape of the plant. Finally, Buelteman uses strobe lights and fiber-optic cables to add extra light effects.

3,000 Exposures? 30 Images

It?s a process that can demand a great deal of time and experimentation. A single photograph can take anywhere from an hour to create to a number of months spread over several years. Calla lilies, for example, only bloom for a few weeks, creating a short window each year to get the picture of the plant right. The 30 images contained in Buelteman?s first portfolio ?Through the Green Fuse? took 3,000 exposures and 60 hours a week for two years to produce.

?This is not a technique that one perfects,? Buelteman told us. ?It reminds me of dancing.  Dancing is its own reward, and once you try to do it right, you?ve lost the rhythm.  This process, impossibly difficult with so many variables that it defies the traditional controls that we have come to expect as photographers, is a roll of the dice.?

The images though, shot without a camera and dependent on the corona created by the electrical charge are unique, and certainly very different to the traditional black and white photos Buelteman had produced in the past. The response though has been phenomenal. Galleries have snapped up his photos and the Santa Fe Institute invited him to be an artist-in-residence, giving Buelteman the freedom to continue developing his technique.

At the same time though, Buelteman has continued shooting and selling his black and white landscapes which he prints himself. Without those sales, he points out, he might ?you know, have to get a job or something.? And creating the pictures helps to keep him grounded and engaged in his art, he says. It?s something he predicts he?ll never give up.

It would be wonderful to say that the moral of Buelteman?s story is that it?s always possible for a photographer to change direction, branch out into new areas and succeed. But of course, that isn?t the case. There was no guarantee that Buelteman?s technique would work, that any of the images he produced would be attractive or that anyone would want to look at them or own them. But that wasn?t the reason he did it. Being a successful photographer might be rewarding and satisfying but the thrill of success itself is never a reason anyone ever picks up a camera. That?s always done for the pleasure of creating pictures that make you proud. Buelteman himself notes the most important characteristic he looks at to measure the success of his technique isn?t the number of exhibitions, print sales or media  interest the images generate but his personal excitement and passion to continue doing it.

?When, as an artist, you have tapped into that special place where you no longer feel separate from the rest of life there is a spontaneity and a beauty and a rhythm in your art that others respond to,? he says. ?While this is a place available to all of us, I find myself able to visit only occasionally.?

And, of course, if it turns out that people like your new images well enough to buy them as much as they like your old ones, then that really is the stuff of dreams.

Photography: Troy Paiva

It?s clear that the low cost of digital cameras and the marketing power of the Internet have created new opportunities for photography enthusiasts. Not only can almost anyone now use professional-grade equipment to create sellable images, they can also make those images available to buyers through stock sites, Flickr streams, Blurb books and a whole bunch of other avenues too.

But that creates a problem. With so many people shooting and selling, the supply is huge, the competition is intense and it?s harder than ever to stand out from the crowd.

One solution is to pick a niche. We?ve already seen that niche marketing can be a useful way to sell images through your website or even your own personal stock site. But it can also be a way to sell photography books and create a name for yourself in one chosen area.

That?s the route taken by Troy Paiva, author of Lost America, a collection of photographs of America?s abandoned spaces. Originally published by Motorbooks in 2003, the second edition of Troy?s book has already sold out and used copies now change hands for as much as $100 each.

Like many of today?s photographers though, Troy?s professional background isn?t in photography. When he started shooting film in 1989 (he only moved to digital photography in 2005), Troy was working as a graphic designer and illustrator.

?I was in a heavily art-directed job for Galoob Toys,? he told us. ?I was desperate to find a new artistic outlet where I could do what I wanted without anyone telling me to ?Make that blue, not red!??

When Troy?s brother, a photography student at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, told him about a night photography class he was taking, Troy was hooked.

?I saw that this technique was perfect to capture the atmosphere of the abandoned places I was already exploring?

Night photography is special because you are capturing a chunk of time that is measurable in human terms. Minutes-long exposures allow the stars to spin in the sky, and trees and clouds to blur in the wind. People moving through the frame never appear, while planes and cars leave trails of light. Night photography allows you to feel the weight of time in these timeless locations? I hit the ground running and never looked back.?

Shoot with Hand-Held Lights and a Full Moon
Many of the images that Troy has taken using the techniques he learned in the class can be seen at his website, LostAmerica.com, where he also explains how he creates his photos. Shot under a full moon in the ghost towns, aircraft boneyards and backroads of the western United States, Troy?s images use long exposures and gelled lighting to create lurid, atmospheric and genuinely unique images.

He describes his technique as low-tech. Hand-held lighting lets Troy travel with minimal equipment and nothing is synchronized to the camera.

?I just pop a few flashes or wash the scene with a flashlight. It?s a very unsophisticated and seat-of-the-pants thing.?

And clearly very effective too. But perhaps one of the most important reasons it?s so effective is that Troy clearly knows his subject. He has been exploring the desert since his mid-teens, knows where to find good locations (although he now has lots of help from other urban explorers) and understands how to shoot at night safely and legally. (On his website, Troy points out that he always tries to get written permission from the property owner and notes the risks of falling through the rotting floorboards of an old building. ?There?s a lot of ways to get hurt in abandoned places at night,? he warned.)

You?ve Gotta Love Those Ruins


Photography: Troy Paiva

But for Troy, Lost America is also a very personal project, and he seems genuinely moved by the ruins and rust heaps that he finds. Although he says that his work began as an attempt to chronicle the fading American roadside.

?the scope has grown into encompassing all places and objects abandoned, derelict and American. Like most urban exploration photography, it?s about history, but unlike most UE photography, it?s also about capturing and enhancing the atmosphere of these places as they are now.?

That?s especially true of the images of aircraft boneyards, whose epic scale Troy describes as ?overwhelming.?

It?s that love of the subject that?s really key to successfully marking out your niche. It means that although he?s been shooting the same subject for almost 20 years, Troy clearly isn?t bored with it, and that pleasure comes through in the dedication he puts into the images too.

You might not need to creep around abandoned buildings in the middle of the night to shoot sellable niched photos, but you do have to love what you?re doing.

Take a look at the Lost America photographs in Troy?s Flickr stream and keep an eye out for his new book ?Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration? to be published this year.