D A V I D M E N D E L S O H N
Interview by "Zen Within The Frame"
Ken Brody Professional Photographer
and
Christopher Robinson Managing Editor
www.outdoorphotographer.com
www.pcphotomag.com
David Mendelsohn's work has a life of its own. It catches your eye, grabs hold of your soul, and pulls you deep into its framework, so that ultimately you feel as the image. You become aware if the rain splattering off your back as you strain to read the headlines on a taxi driver's newspaper. You can smell the characteristic aroma of the burning cigar, held perfectly poised in the wrinkled hand of a green-clad man with a white mustache. You marvel at how much this man resembles the stark white skull on the wall beside him. Or, perhaps, how much they differ. No matter, certainly they belong together.
Well known for his highly graphic, award-winning commercial photography, Mendelsohn did not start his professional career behind a camera. " I came to photography through a rather indirect path," he recalls. "I always had some interest in the medium after my dad gave me his old Argus C3, around my 12th birthday, I toyed with the camera and a makeshift dark room to some degree, but it was simply another one of my interests."
Mendelsohn's first dream was to be a forest ranger. He pictured himself "living in the Rockies, riding horseback along the Continental Divide, hunting down rogue bear." In fact, Mendelsohn had gone as far as transferring to the University of New Hampshire (UNH), where he planned to attend forestry school. Until that is, the department head "put his arm around my shoulder and gently pointed me toward reality. Seems that 20 years form graduation, I would still be planting pine trees." With his dreams temporarily dashed, Mendelsohn found work at the university photo labs, and eventually began to make a name foe himself in publications like, Communications Arts and Print Magazine. During his tenure at UNH Mendelsohn received a National Education Association grant entitled "Route 40," which allowed him to drive across the southern interstate for a month, photographing his impressions. "I found that I enjoyed being behind the camera a lot more than a straight edge, and that I would rather shoot than assign photography. After contemplating my next move, I sent what I considered to be a portfolio to the president of Magnum, Bert Glinn. About two weeks later, I received a call form China informing me that he was sponsoring me for membership."
This was Mendelsohn's chance to join one of the most elite photographic agencies in the world and to have his name associated with the likes of Henri-Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and David Seymour. But he would have to move his wife and child to New York. " For reasons involving business, politics, and quality of life," said Mendelsohn, "I respectfully declined." Instead, he took out a second mortgage on his house, resigned his position at UNH, and hit the streets with a camera. Living in New Hampshire countryside has not hindered Mendelsohn's career. He relies on electronic media to stay in touch with his customers, tow representatives to promote his work, and the local airport to kick off his location shoots in cities all over the world. Among his client list are many prestigious members of the Fortune 200 list, including Lockheed Martin, International Paper, Boeing, IBM, and Amtrak. Mendelsohn could be accurately described as a "driven" artist. "I am driven by fear of personal failure," said Mendelsohn. "Historically, all artists are. I tend to totally ignore the size of a budget or the complexity of a production. From experience, I know that one way or another, I will pull off the shoot. Rather, any anxiety I experience comes form self demand."
The comfort of knowing that the client is pleased with the results, your estimate was within 10 percent, you didn't fall out of the chopper, and your rep has you booked for another job are not to be discounted in an artist's drive for success," he continued. "More important, however, I am haunted by the question of whether or not I was able to build past this personal plateau. Did I create something more original that the last image? Did I manage to push a combination of perception and technique a little further than my last outing?"
The Art of Expression Mendelsohn's acute sense of graphic design and his use of color and balance are what makes work so intriguing. Although his commercial work is primarily color, he also has a love for Black and White. "When one shoots color and black-and-white, two distinct mindset are required," he observed. "Black and White is about pure form and tonality, and quite beautiful in its simplicity. To appreciate a black-and-white image, you are forced to remove yourself from this world and transport your perceptions to another. It borders on the surreal. As most of us see in color, you are compelled as both the viewer and the artist to see things in a different way.
Color, on the other hand, is all around us. There is color in foggy and monotone conditions. There is color underwater. There are significant variations of color in the same subject form dusk to dawn. "I used to avoid shooting until the "ideal" conditions were met. I no longer feel that way. I now feel that there is no perfect color. Rather, it evolves as we watch it and it is simply a matter of opportunities." "It is an easy 'out' to shoot color for color's sake. Our profession has been gelled to death; to overpower an image without consideration of the colors' relationships is to simply point and shoot," he observed. "I am not inclined toward magenta pigs. Rather, if I am to use color as an element of the final design, I want to think about how that shade of yellow on that particular object is going to influence the final 'feel' of the image. "Sure, gelling is important, be it over the flash heads or over the lens. I am however, more comfortable in choosing the light and then modifying it subtly. At that point, I have a palette or canvas I can work with. I might paint something with a car headlight gaffer taped to a stick. I might paint something with spray can. I might even shoot a paintball at it. In addition to paintball guns, Mendelsohn has been known to shoot Nikons, Hasselblads, Linhofs and Toyos. However, the majority of his commercial work is created with 35mm on Fujichrome film and Kodak T-Max. No matter what his approach to photography, Mendelsohn feeds his passion with the art and creativity. "It is an Eastern experience when I shoot," he said, "an attempt at Zen within the frame."
Interview by Christoper Robinson
What kind of gear do you use (both photo gear and computer/scanner/printer gear)?
My hardware consists of Nikons and Hassleblads. Although I have 4x5 and 8x10 formats, they are rapidly disappearing under a pile of dust. I recently acquired a Nikon D1, which amazes me. I tend to bracket both compositions and exposures alot, enough to actually be annoying as the light wanes. Now I have to find a way to use this camera as well. Utilizing the highest settings, the images are sharper than I ever expected, and combining the final TIFFS with Genuine Fractals has resulted in beauitiful prints.
My in-house scanner is an LS2000 and, when used correctly, yields very nice results. Once again, given a combination of Genuine Fractals and PS, I've had my output service folks provide film and proofs, which resulted in very nice offset images up to decent sized posters. As things go, the right desktop scanners will be close to to drum scans in the not to distant future.
We have two G3 Macs w/12 gig internal drives and about 400 megs of RAM (give or take). We have a a nine gig LACIE external disk, but must upgrade as we are now out of space. Can't wait for some of my client's to cut a check.
Our CD Recorder is a Yamaha, Read/Write/ Rewritable (sp ?) which has proved to be very reliable. Everything is backed up with DDS3 tapes, and not often enough.
We also have A G4 Laptop with a beefed up hard drive and substantial memory. That always comes on location with us, especially when we know that we'll be shooting with the Nikon D1. We also have another LACIE CD burner dedicated to that machine. I understand that there are very reliable, very small high capacity Hard Drives that I could have put in that particular chain but I still like to commit the days images to CD's once in the hotel room.
I am still using an Epson Stylus Photo for portfolio work and will be purchasing a 7500/9500 once they get their archival inks straight, as I like my artwork to reproduce in the 20 by 24 inch area. Those are currently being outsourced and printed to IRIS by a very knowledgeable group in Kennebunkport, Maine called Hunter Editions. As far as medium goes, I have fallen in love with Somerset Photo Enhanced, Radiant White available through Legion Paper in NYC. I tend to print on watercolor, rag papers and I have been very pleased with the results. What is interesting however, is that Epson has recently introduced their 2000P. This machine is using special, encapsulated pigmented inks, which actually have the color gamut of their dye-based mediums with the advantage of archival stability in the claimed area of 200 years. It will be only a short while before they adapt these inks to their larger format machines, so I am watching the newsgroups, tapping my fingers and buying lottery tickets.
2, If you could offer 2 tips of advice to the average PCPhoto reader as far as how to achieve the rich colors and striking compositions that you achieve, what would they be? (Okay I recognize that's a loaded question--mostly I'd just love a couple of quick tips for novice/amateur types--maybe a scanning tip, an image processing tip, a printing tip, a shooting tip--could be anything.)
I consider color and light as part of the composition. It is just as important as subject matter. I am intrigued with content, but content actually changes according to the mood you either observe or create with light. If I shot something at the same camera angle at dawn or high noon, in color or black and white, I would consider them to be four very distinct images.
Regarding composition............. Beyond the "rule of thirds" or making sure that trees aren't growing out of people's heads, I have no true formula for composition. I guess I try and just hone things down to their essence and float them in space until it feels right. Everyone has a way of seeing things a bit differently. Instinctually, you'll know when it feels good to you. At that point the journey begins. Your own vision is something to nutured, and consistently improved and your own voice something to be heard.
Regarding the richness in my colors....... Start w/observing light , both natural and artificial. Look hard at both their colors, their angles and their qualities. All light is different and will definitely add or detract from the intensity of your palette. Additionally, don't be afraid with what you have available to you. I no longer consider sodium vapor something that has to be corrected. Rather I look at it as a color of light that, if anything, can be enhanced. Don't be afraid to paint something either with light or latex enamel. Sometimes I'll use the bright beams on my car as tungsten fill on daylight balanced stock. Sometimes I just might go to my vast arsenal of spray paint. Have fun and mix it up. Additionally, film choice is obvioulsy important. I tend to prefer the saturation of Fuji's Velvia or Provia, but have recently been shooting alot of Kodak's VS and SW. Great stuff as far as resolution and saturation. And finally, there is always Photoshop. I don't hesitate to enhance an area a bit if I feel it could benefit.
3, You seem to do a lot with--for lack of a better term--ordinary/mundane object (the radiator, the broom et al). And yet for as drab as these things are, you make them into striking, vivid and dynamic images. Can you comment on that? Are you especially drawn to making the ordinary into something extraordinary?
In the end, I think that we spend too much time being taught what things "do" as opposed to what things "are". I believe that everything can and does have an intrinsic beauty. If it is three dimensional, then by essence, it is sculpture and worth a second look as far as subject matter. Sometimes, I simple take a visit to my local hardware store, Walmarts or Home Depot. It's amazing what you can find as far as props that may kick a concept into a different direction, or simply become the subject matter in and of itself. An open mind leads all to ideas. "How and where can I use this ?" is often a question I ask myself.
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