HR: Wow, that goes way back! I’d have to say it was when I was with my father in the darkroom. When I was a little kid I would go with him into the darkroom. I would watch him develop prints and I just thought it was magic. So, I bought my first camera when I was 16, which I still have. It’s a little GAF Instamatic. I was taking pictures, and that was when I decided to become a photographer.
ME: What does photography mean to you?
HR: I would have to say, for better or worse, it's my way of interacting with the world. It’s how I make my living, but it’s also how I get out my creative energy. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t talk about photography with someone or think about it or do it. So it’s really a very intrinsic part of my life.
ME: How did you arrive at your specialty?
HR: Well, I was doing commercial photography in the eighties and I had come from a fine art background. I graduated from MICA and after college I taught fine art photography and produced fine art photography. I started doing commercial work mainly because I wanted to make some money. What I found was that, because the art director was determining virtually everything about the image, I felt that I had to find some way to bring my own vision to commercial work. At that time, because we were shooting transparency film, it was much more difficult to do then than it is now, when we have Photoshop and so many postproduction techniques. I started playing around with light painting, knowing that it was the one thing I could have complete control over. I played around with small flash lights, experimenting with effects that I could get from them and how I could improve the look and dimensionality of my images.
ME: Did you discover light-painting, or were there other people doing it at the same time that you knew of?
Well I started doing it on my own with those small maglight flashlights. It was tricky because you would have to gel the flashlights to get them to match the daylight film. So I was probably doing that for a year or two, and then there was a photographer named Aaron Jones. Do you know who he is?
ME: I believe he was famous for using some device for light-painting.
HR: Yeah. He invented this thing that has an embarrassing name. It's called the Hosemaster. Basically, it’s a light with a fiberoptic cable attached. On the end of the cable you could put different light modifiers, probes, long thin wands, and I still use that today in my commercial work. He was a really good photographer, just fantastic, and it’s interesting... it’s very difficult to find anything on him now. He was a really big force in commercial photography back then.
ME: I had a really hard time finding any information on him and it’s really interesting because I’m sure he had a really great career with lots of great work.
HR: Yes, it's hard to believe, because his work was ground breaking and beautiful, and it really crossed the line between commercial work and fine art work. Gorgeous stuff! I took a workshop with him in New Mexico back in the late eighties or the early nineties, a really fantastic photographer.
ME: Who or what has influenced your work? Was there anyone else that had a huge impact on you?
Oh yes, absolutely! One of my college professors, Richard Kirstel (http://www.mrichardkirstel.com/). It’s very difficult to find anything on the man, but he was probably one of the best black and white printers I have ever met, and also he was an incredible photographer. He was probably my biggest influence. Then, besides him, Wynn Bullock influenced me a lot, Eugene Atget, Arthur Tress, Ed Weston, and Minor White. Those are kind of like the usual suspects!
ME: What took you to China, and what was your favorite part of the trip?
I participated in a portfolio review in Atlanta at ACP, which is the Atlanta Celebrates Photography month-long festival that they have every year. So as a part of that they have portfolio reviews. I went and showed my work to four or five people and two of the people were Chinese curators, Yan Li and Cai Huansong, who actually works with a very well known magazine in China called PhotoChina. It’s a beautifully done magazine. It’s an important magazine, probably the most important in China. So anyway, I met with them and they sort of (I thought jokingly) right off the bat said, "Will you come to China and exhibit your work?" I said, "oh yeah sure, of course, whatever." Then two weeks later they actually invited me! They invited me and 10 other American landscape photographers. Actually someone you mentioned on your blog, Lauren Semivan, her work was in the same show. But Lauren could not come to China for some reason, but she was supposed to.
ME: She is actually my professor.
HR: No way! She was invited to be a part of the same exhibit and her work was there.
ME: That’s really crazy! She was telling me before I left that she was supposed to be a part of the show, but couldn't attend. But I guess later she decided she could send her work. Wow, it really makes the world feel so small!
HR: I know! You look at flickr and you see 50 million photographs and you wonder how many gazillion photographers are there in the world. That’s crazy that’s she’s your professor.
ME: Yeah, she has been my teacher both this semester and last.
HR: Wow! So anyway for this exhibition, have you looked at my blog and seen the photographs?
ME: Yes.
HR: Ok, so they organized a Photo Week over there and this was the first one and so for a week, and don’t ask me why, they are going to have this photography thing in the middle of Inner Mongolia. In the winter, you know, it’s crazy cold there. This was the first one and it was a big exhibition. There were twenty or so Chinese photographers and eleven American photographers. My favorite part? Wow that’s a tough one. It was a lot of fun. I’d have to say photographing the camels and the guys who herded the camels; photographing them was probably my favorite part. I’m working on a series of black and white images of the camels and their herders. Some are on the blog, but I have been working them in black and white and they are much nicer. So that was my favorite part, I think, photographing those guys and interacting with them.
ME: Do you work all digitally now, or do you find yourself ever returning to film?
I work all digitally. You know I worked with film for a lot of years doing light painting. It’s just technically really, really challenging. Shooting polaroids...many, many polaroids until you get exactly what you're looking for on the polaroid, then doing it again on film, was just really demanding. So for me digital was a big relief. It makes things a lot easier and I can think a little more about what I want to say rather than going through so many hoops technically to say it.
ME: How do you like teaching and giving photography workshops? What inspired you to to begin sharing your knowledge?
HR: I’ve always been that way. I taught photography on the college level when I was young, just a couple years after graduating. I just love teaching. I’ve always loved to share whenever I can and I learn from my students too. So, for me it helps me to develop because I learn something from every student. It’s definitely a symbiotic relationship, as another example, I’ve learned a lot of stuff from your blog!
ME: Thanks! I completely agree with you... I’m constantly engaging with new work. I think that by going to school for art I was put in an environment where I could learn from my peers.
HR: You're in a pool of similarly minded people and it’s great. You know it’s really sad, but it’s difficult to maintain that when you get out of college. So you really have to try to keep those people surrounding you. I kind of went a different route and started doing commercial work, and now, looking back, I think it was a big mistake. I think commercial photography is actually harmful to your creative being.
ME: How do you advertise and promote yourself?
Well, number one, I have a website. Two, I do a blog. I have a Facebook page. I’m represented by one gallery right now and I am, of course, trying to increase that number. I guess just doing as much online stuff as I can, for example, the Behance Network, Photo Shelter, and blogs. Phase One has a gallery which I'm in, which is nice, and that gets me a lot of exposure.
ME: Kind of on similar lines, how do you feel about social media?
I think it’s fine and good, but I don’t personally have the time to stay on top of it. So I have an assistant, Roman Coia, with whom I've worked for 17 years, that works with me three days a week on marketing my art, and he has basically fed the blog into Facebook. Even though I don’t have time to go on Facebook very often, I’m still posting to it through the blog. You know, I just don’t have time. I’m so busy. I don’t have time to tweet. I have a twitter account but I just don’t use it because I don’t have time and I don’t have the right gadget. I don’t have an iPhone that I could take a picture or send a message on. So it’s harder for me.
ME: How do you keep your work fresh and inspired?
That’s a a tough question Eric. That’s really difficult. I think the main thing I do is I try to look at as much photography as I can online and I try to go to as many openings, gallery shows as I can. I guess that’s mostly it. Of course, I subscribe to certain publications, LensWork, Photo Review and others...
ME: What advise do you have for emerging photographers?
Don’t bother with commercial photography... I’m saying that kind of tongue and cheek. Hone your craft. Don’t underestimate the importance of learning the technical aspects of photography, but once you learn those aspects, let go of them a little bit. It kind of bothers me a little, because I come from a classical background, so it’s hard for me to connect with work where the photographer hasn’t used good technique to help get across his/her vision in an effective way. That could be a misunderstood statement. I’m not saying that unsharp photographs are bad or anything like that, but whatever you're going to do needs to be a conscious choice. At the same time then, be careful of letting the technique become the message. That’s a big struggle that I am always fighting in my own work. I know that you do a little bit of HDR stuff and there is a great example there of how some people take that technique and it becomes the message.
ME: Yeah I could go on about HDR for a while. It’s kind of a hot topic in photography right now. Is it right? Is it wrong? My opinion is, it’s just a tool, so use it for it purpose.
HR: Yeah.
ME: Which one of your photographs is your personal favorite and why?
HR: One of my very favorites, I guess, is the photograph of the anvil. The reason it’s my favorite is because in a way it symbolizes my grandfather, who was a Swiss blacksmith, a very very strong solid person, and still is. So that anvil represents him for me and I think in a lot of ways I photographed it thinking about him. So that would be my favorite.
ME: What are your biggest personal or professional challenges?
HR: Time-management is huge, absolutely huge. Finding time to shoot, you know those two are dove-tailed together. I’m so busy, phone calls and marketing stuff, social stuff, family, and just finding time to shoot is really hard for me. That’s one of the reasons I really enjoyed the trip to China. I photographed every day. You know it was great! I think that when you're thrust into a foreign environment like that, it’s like someone just turned on the lights and you see things you just wouldn’t see in your backyard.
ME: Would you say the longer you are in a country, just the more free and comfortable you feel?
HR: I don’t know. I guess so... as a child I lived in Germany twice for several years, so I of course I felt very comfortable there. I don’t know. That’s a difficult one. I guess you do. It’s hard to feel comfortable in China when you don’t speak the language, and it gets a little tiring. I have a new respect for people that come to America and don’t speak the language, because it is very difficult just to get on day to day with what you have to do, when no one understands you and you don’t understand them.
ME: How do you like working for yourself? and what advantages does it give you?
HR: I love it! I couldn’t work a regular job again, you know, a 9-5 job, I would have if I had to, but I probably couldn’t. The main advantage, is that you have freedom over your schedule. Well there are also some negative parts to working for yourself, one of which is that you yourself are completely responsible for your income. One thing that people don’t understand when they see a photography studio is the overhead that it represents, and it’s so much more than most people can imagine. You know, you have utilities, trash removal, maintenance, insurance...it just goes on and on, computers, software. And that doesn't include cameras or lighting! So it sounds great on the surface, but it’s a lot of responsibility, and you pay for that freedom by having to produce income.
ME: What big plans do you have for the future?
HR: Well, I want to continue my work in the night time landscapes and I need and want to delve even more into still life work. Taking into account the idea of not having any time, I’m going to start scheduling time to shoot, and I’m going to protect that time. So I’m excited about shooting more and that’s my big plan. I am also busy planning and giving workshops (www.lightpaintingworkshops.com), specifically about light painting, and I give talks to photography groups throughout the year. I love the gallery that am currently represented by, Gallery 50 in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, but I am looking to expand into galleries in other geographical areas.
Images All Copyright Harold Ross:
For more information on Harold Ross please see the following links:
http://www.haroldrossfineart.com/
http://haroldrossfineart.wordpress.com/
http://www.lightpaintingworkshops.com
