Martin Trailer Productions » people

Hold It!

Martin Trailer — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 16:25:05 +0000

I posted this for the Daily Photo Game on August 2, 2013. To see the whole body of work, go to http://DailyPhotoGame.com

So I am watching the trend and see patience, waiting, compression, color and so on.

I decide to go exploring downtown looking for patience, waiting, thinking people, traffic lights symbolic things. I walked for sometime, sometimes stopping in the middle of the street for a shot, couple of horns, screeching tires to show their impatience, missed that one and ended up at the train station. Lots of people waiting, right?

All those yellow lines and with a long lens sometimes you miss things, well, I was told in no uncertain terms, HOLD IT!. I nearly walked into a “live area”.

Wha’la ! Apropos, done.

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Authentic Portraits – Red

Martin Trailer — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:00:12 +0000

Red Baron, the man with the most "helmet tickets" in the country with his new bike, wearing pink SDPD and yellow CHP no helmet tickets. ©Martin Trailer

This authentic portrait is of “The Red Baron”. I was to make a portrait of a “biker” and private investigator working for a national law firm that defended motorcyclists who refuse to wear a helmet, for Blvd Magazine as a feature story. Red has the record for the most “no helmet” tickets in the country and rode a custom Harley Davidson chopper, with his red hair in the wind. Unfortunately, it had been recently stolen and replaced with a new stock bike. The only customization was the skull face on the headlight, so far.

Prep included creating a suit of tickets he collected, pink on the top issued by San Diego Police Department and the yellow on the bottom issued by the California Highway Patrol.

When preparing for any portrait, the interview of the subject or review of the story line is important, so all the elements come together and to insure their “buy-in” to the visual solution. This will begin the process of creating a safe space for them which is one of the keys to getting an authentic portrait.

Your pre-visualization needs to happen well in advance of the shoot time, not when your subject is there in front of the camera. Shoot time is when the photographer makes them comfortable to insure an authentic look and feel.

Authentic, cool and confident.

Comments welcome.

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Authentic Portraits – Jay

Martin Trailer — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:56:53 +0000

Jay Ahrend, photographer and all around good guy. © Martin Trailer

This is the first of a series of blog posts about portraits depicting interesting people, be it faces, their work or general character of the individual. Portraits can be shot informally on the fly or full blown productions outside or in a studio and everything in between.

Portraits are made from both a point of view and with a point of view. If the client is the subject, then the client will likely want the best of their assets highlighted. The case of a business portrait, the client being a business entity, would want the subject looking good, but also reflecting the professionalism and brand of the business. Editorial portraits will illustrate the subject, but also tie photograph to the story. Unconnected generic editorial portraits typically look out of place and have the potential of undermining the credibility of the story and publication.

Jay Ahrend with his favorite hat. © Martin Trailer

Anyone can photograph a person, but the style, essence, comfort and situation of the person illustrated in the final photograph takes time, time to develop a safe space for the subject being photographed. Without the safe space, it is unlikely they will allow their emotion or personality to come through so the viewer feels connected to the person. When photographing people, creating a safe space for the subject being photographed is a learned skill. It is not something that is learned quickly, but developed over time and practiced countless times. It is one of the skills that separates both photographs and photographers from good enough, to illustrative and knowing what needs to happen to consistently make a photograph that connects to the viewer.

As with any endeavor, knowledge, practice and perseverance will prevail. With enough practice and focusing on the ends, as with any pursuit, you too can get the connectable images. For those familiar with the theory of “10,000 hours” understand it takes time to develop any skill set.

Getting to the connected look and feel is my style of work where part of the personality comes through and convinces the viewer of the sincerity of the person portrayed. The complexity of each of us, serious, sad, mad, happy, on and on in the final photograph is what clients expect.

Stay tuned.

Comments welcome.

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Nosing around for fun!

Martin Trailer — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:07:33 +0000

Only a couple of days are left in the month of January of 2009, and I was thinking about marketing and promotional ideas for the new year. I considered some Happy New Year print or email campaign, but it just did not gel for me with some thing trailerish and decided to just stew a little more.

I decided to nose around people I have worked with and find out what they are seeking and not finding. While that might seem to be obvious, it not always top of mind when your thinking about how to promote yourself.

This blogging business is new to me and what to write about. It needs to be something interesting enough for others, but also needs to be relevant to myself since I am writing. I have journaled off and on for several years which I can see some similarities with blogging. However, the journaling is more personal than most would want to read and boring too.

So here I write, blogging and I am just going to have some fun, playing with words and images.

With the economy in its current iteration, keeping serious but light enough to laugh a little. What comes to mind is “Happy Camper” which I just happen to have a image that reflects that term.

Amy Heath, depicted here is “normally” a hair dresser and a great sport too! When I asked her to have some fun with a bottle of wine with a name of “Happy Camper” and a little trailer on the label she was game. As you can see, Amy took off. I think she is a closeted actor, really. She had a blast as did I, there was no holding back her once on a roll….. Typically, subjects are less willing to just let go getting into a character that them have in their own mind, but having a camera capturing that is quite another story for most folks.

Photographing corporate executives whether CEO to Senior VPs to middle managers it is the job of the photographer to coax out the personality of the subject. Paid talent in most cases is much more relaxed and coaching is more like, here is the personality I am looking for and they might offer some feedback and much more productive images are created. Real people like corporate execs or just plain folks, takes much more since they normally do not act out let alone in front of a camera or audience. There is a reason actors get paid well and I believe we all have it in us, we just are not able to get passed the “what if someone sees me like that” mind set.

So back to the nosing around and what I found out so far…… well the answer is not much yet. Mostly what is going on is new business pitches. Those that are or say they are busy are doing projects outside of not only the area, but the country.

Martin Trailer

PS— Busted, I used this same images earlier, but I find it a image that I come back too……

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