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Every Picture Tells a Story
Are commercial photographers make the 'vision thing' a profitable reality
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Business New Haven
9/3/2002
By: Melissa Nicefaro
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It has not been a very good year for many media professionals. Advertising budgets continue to contract and many print advertisers have taken ad design and production in-house. Scandals enmeshing the likes of domesticity diva Martha Stewart and Enron have executives thightening their hold on the checkbook.
In spite of the trickle-down effect of an un-peaceful world and corporate mismanagement, four local commercial photgraphers remain firmly footed in their ever-changing profession.
Bruno Ratensperger, an affable Old Saybrook commercial photographer, says obstacles are to be expected every once in a while - not just in the photography business, but in general.
"Business has dropped since 9/11," Ratensperger acknowledges. "The stock market in general has had an effect, and companies are withholding budgets for advertising. Travel has also been a real obstacle." Ratensperger regularly travels across the world for his work.
For 25 years, he has been shooting "metal" for advertisements and catalogs - fancy cars, guns, tools, anything reflective. Automobiles are his speciality. He makes car wheels, hoods, headlights and side-view mirrors look like something from another galaxy. Granted, most are on fancy sports cars like Rolls Royces, Ferraris, Mercedes and the good old American Corvette, but Ratensperger has a way behind the camera lens to make a inanimate object seem full of life.
Part of Ratensperger's art is that he knows his limits. "If someone comes to me and says they want a Hollywood production, I tell them they have to go to Hollywood. There are limitations in certain types of budgets."
Commercial photographer Stan Godlewski has a studio in North Haven. Like Ratensperger, he has logged a quarter-century in the business.
"I was home in my parent's house one Saturday afternoon when I heard this whine and a terrific crash," Godlewski explains of his entree into photograph.
A small plane had crashed into the back of a house a block away.
"I grabbed my dad's camera, ran down the street, straddled the wing, shot the firemen putting out the flames and sold the picture for $15," he recalls. "I've been doing it ever since."
Head shots of celebrities such as Liam Neeson, Cindy Adams, Jimmy Smits and Matt Damon undoubtedly brought in more than $15 a pop.
But, like most photographers, he paid his dues at newspapers then rose through the ranks to photo editor for a few years. In 1987, his business took off and he began working for magazines, corporations and agencies. Now he plies his trade mostly between Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, taking images of people on location.
"I used to shoot fashion for a client in L.A., which was fun while it lasted," says Godlewski.
Fun as it may be, the photography business is not without challenges.
Godlewski says the business is going through an incredible change. "Everyone thinks digital is, one, the answer, and, two, easy. It's neither."
He is also feeling the effects of advertising sales tightening at most major magazines, which translates to fewer pages - and fewer assignments for him.
"Magazines are also negotiating deals," he says. "Annual reports aren't the glossy extravaganzas they once were, either. But there is always a market for good work, and putting yourself out there and risking rejection and making the cold calls has always been the biggest challenge of all."
Yale graduate David Ottenstein says he has no regrets about putting law school on hold for what has amounted to 20 years. He picked up a camera when he turned 14 and has barely put it down since.
Now his work consists mostly of architectural and interior photography. He also photographs weddings and bar mitzvahs in times when corporate business is lagging.
"Sometimes it drives me crazy trying to promote different areas of my work, have equipment in all these areas, but I really enjoy the variety of doing something one day and something completely different the next day," Ottenstein says.
He also does a good deal of work for non-profit organizations such as the Jewish Community Center of Woodbridge, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and hospitals in Connecticut and throughout the northeast.
"The biggest challenges I face are maintaining clients and the level of work one wants and balancing or evaluating what to do with the move to digital work," Ottenstein explains. To date he has elected to work with film and not digital capture.
"I can't see where from a business standpoint it would [justify] the investment for digital equipment," he says. "Scanning gets the photos into digital format just fine."
Where is the industry going? "From a strictly visual standpoint, there will be major changes," Ottenstein says. "But for the industry as a whole, I don't predict major changes. People are going to want to see images."
In the end, says New Haven commercial photographer Bob Feather (a regular BNH contributor), his business comes down to whether a photographer is likeable or not. "We all do basically the same thing," he says. "So it comes down to relationships." In other words, Feather says clients will work with photographers they're comfortable with.
Feather's bread and butter comes from magazines such as American Iron, Road Bike, Easy Riders, Biker, Hot Rod Bikes, Motorcycle Cruiser.
He says the further he is from a subject, the closer he can bring his client. "If I start putting too much of myself or too much art into it, it gets away from what the client's vision is. Art directors have a very specific vision. It's my job to handle the technical aspects of making their vision a reality."
Feather agrees that the photography business is changing with digital cameras and computers playing a more prominent role. Between the effects of the digital revolution, the terrorist attacks and the Enron scandal, Feather is closing his studio at the end of September and continuing to work on location for motorcycle magazines.
"Because the work has basically dried up, my work is off 60 percent from last year, " he says. "A good number of my clients were companies that relied heavily on investment dollars, and they're not getting them now. But at the same time, the motorcycle business has grown dramatically, so I'm focusing on that," says Feather.
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