A Day for Photography, a Lifetime as a Photographer

Also published on my Substack today.

Model Composite (Go-See card), 1981. Photo for an agency in Phoenix, Arizona. This and all other photographs by the author. On various film cameras.

I don’t honestly know when exactly it was that I fell in love with photography.

It may have been when my dad let me into the darkroom when I was about 7 years old and we developed a black-and-white image in an old red tray of Dektol. I still have that old, faded, stained tray. It occupies a place of honor in my office.

Perhaps it was when my dad relented and let me use his beloved Voigtlander one summer on vacation. “Just for vacation,” he said. He never got it back.

Or that day I went to Bob’s Camera and bought my first Nikon F2 Photomic, one of the best cameras ever, with an accompanying 35–85 zoom, one of the worst lenses ever.

Or when I built my first real darkroom.

Or when I photographed my first child. Under the window light of a tiny apartment.

Or when I sold my first print.

Of the Grand Canyon. In black and white. For $10.

It was probably when I realized that I loved the world through a lens. Something about framing what I saw, eliminating the clutter, and focusing on what I wanted to see. And capturing it just so. Just as I felt it, heard it, smelled it.

I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.
— Garry Winogrand

Pat in the river bottom. For an ad for a local boutique.

I started into the commercial world late. Almost 28 when I packed up my stuff and moved to Los Angeles to ‘make my mark’ in the photographic industry.

My portfolio was full of models from Phoenix and Tucson — the best there were — and a passion to shoot everything I did as well as I could.

Hell, how could I miss?

Late seventies, I was a pretty big deal in Phoenix, so what was going to stop me?

Los Angeles NEEDED me!

(Heh… the fascinating arrogance of youth.)

I got to LA, built a studio in the little garage out back of the rental house, and hit the streets.

The streets full of photographers. Waiters had portfolios. Cooks had portfolios. The guy who parked your car had a portfolio.

Art Center and Brooks were flooding the world with graduates, and LA brought every shooter with a zoom lens calling to shoot models and celebrities.

I lived near Manhattan Beach and spent an excessive amount of time in the car. Clients in Orange County, in Malibu, in Pasadena, San Diego, Palm Springs, and Hollywood.

Mileage added up. Fast.

No cell phones for getting stuff done on the road, and a pocket full of quarters for checking in with the lady who answered my phones.

Heady days of location scouting, trips to the lab, modeling agencies, high board girls, beginners, studio maintenance, hiring assistants, firing assistants, juggling payables when receivables were late.

Receivables were always late.

It wasn’t a 9–5, it was a 5–9… if we were lucky.

Speakng of luck, I married a gal who put up with this nonsense.

For a publication for Motorola: Strength.

The gear began to amass.

Broncolors and Ascors.
Hassies and Toyos.
35, 6x6, 6x7, 4x5, 5x7, 8x10… and lenses for all.
Booms, cutters, silks, and clamps.

Lots and lots of clamps.

(Hey, how many stands does a photographer need?
One more than they have.)

I ate photography, breathed photography, dreamed photography.

Vacations were really photo adventures.

I shot everything.

One year my lab bill was over $140,000.

The clients got bigger, the fees got bigger, the stress became manageable because it was everpresent.

I traveled the US with my cameras. I photographed captains of industry, and high-board girls for Elite, Wilhelmina, and Ford. I shot the first-ever cell phone for Motorola and spent a week in seclusion with scientists from NASA.

I photographed Mohammed Ali.

Twice.

Calendar Shot for an agency; “The Little Black Dress”

And now, 50 years later, I still obsess over photography.

And photographers.

The most courageous and creative people I know.

So, here’s to us.

Shutterbugs to our families who still believe we make good photos because we have really good cameras, compatriots in the quest for images that engage and inspire, and fellow travelers on the sometimes rocky road that photography leads us.

I love you guys and gals.

Have a great year.

And keep on making the images that inspire the rest of us.

I’ll leave with this quote by the great Lee Friedlander:

That little tiny moment [in photography] is a beginning and an end and it has something to do with the same kind of mentality that an athlete has to use… The tricks that good tennis players use, especially what happens when the ball bounces and does odd things… You couldn’t predict what you’re what you’re going to do. Try to hit it back. Not only try to hit it back, try to hit it back in a weird way. Or in some articulate way. And I think photography is stuck with those same kinds of moments, especially if you’re not a studio photographer. You don’t have much control.

— Lee Friedlander

This photo of me is by Carol Rioux: light-painted in Calgary, BC.

Hi, I’m Don Giannatti, a photographer and mentor for up-and-coming photographers. You can find me on my website, Don Giannatti, and at my Substack site, where I also publish for creative people.