The world according to photographer Garfield Hall

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ephotos: Tell us a little bit about where you are from and where you’re based now.

GH: I immigrated with my family to the states from Jamaica, at the beginning of 1981. We settled in New Jersey.

ephotos: When did you realize that photography was where you were going to focus your energy?

GH: In my recollection I realized that while interning with the University Photographer at the university magazine, gave me the experience and training that made me a solid photographer. I learned skills that a photographer should possess: printing, studio lighting, and how to conduct myself professionally. It is where I learned the ethic of photography and how to respect the medium.

But what really made me realize that photography was where I was going to focus my energy was, when I realized the true power and beauty that photography offered. Photography gives us the power to freeze a moment in time, with an image. It is immediate and persuasive. It allows you to put a perspective to any subject matter, and to relate it as a reality or a fantasy. The fact that photography was a great tool to study a subject with, really appealed to me. Ultimately, my decision to become a photographer was a natural progression of the culmination of my high school and college experiences.

ephotos: What type or what style of photography do you shoot?

GH: An exercise, I used to do with my camera was to look through my viewfinder at a scene to study composition. A lot of times, even when I saw a beautiful scene, I would walk away without making the image. I was learning to practice restraint and to develop a discipline about my approach to photography. This exercise made me realize what values were important to me in an image. Identifying these values helped me to quickly define my interests. This practice has made me more deliberate and discriminating. Now I choose to carry a camera only when I know that I am going to use it. I would say that my style, which is more of an approach, is fixated on being narrative and simple, no matter what subject I approach, but steeped in graphic drama. I cannot begin to try to characterize my style. I leave that up those who are interested in style to say.

ephotos: Give us some insight on how being from another culture influences your work.

GH: For me, this is my distinction; it is from where my voice is derived. I came here at an early age, but old enough to have carried a set of values with me, and I had already began to develop and to form my personality .I also had a strong sense about how I wanted to conduct my life in this new, adopted home, because I already knew and felt the difference of being an outsider. Growing up in America, I too have been influenced by popular media, which gave me a sense of the importance of imagery. Being from another culture however, has not been a major influence on my photography, as far as I know. I learned photography here in the states, if I had carried the art with me when I immigrated here, I could maybe say, comparative to the work I did there, versus here I can see an influence. But this is not the case. My true influence was that of the popular media in America. It is not my intention to be the voice of any particular culture by using photography. I enjoy using photography as an exploratory tool, to explore the subjects that I am interested in. I sometimes use it to document situations and environments. I seek ways to express facets of who I am through image making. This pursuit keeps me interested and always excited about my work.

ephotos: Is there a photographer that has inspired or influenced you?

GH: The photographer that has inspired and influenced me the most is, Nick Romanenko. He is Rutgers University’s Official Photographer. He taught me how to respect photography. When I was his intern at Rutgers Magazine, he taught me many things. To date he has influenced me the most and we remain friends to this day. There are other photographer’s whose work I respect, Albert Chong’s work with narrative assemblages. Also the works of pioneers like Weston & Madotti. Henri Cartier Bresson’s idea of the “decisive moment” impressed me a lot. It made me question what a split second meant and how being quick on the draw meant a lot of dead guns, at one point in my career. Ha!Ha! I do remember the first photograph that moved me to an impressionable point. It was an image published in an early edition of Studio, an image by William Albert Allard. It was an image of a Bolivian or a Peruvian boy in what I think was the Andes, who was the victim of a hit and run driver that killed his family sheep. The boy teary eyed, face soiled by tear lines and cold burns, his sweater and pants patchy and old, stood barefoot looking at the camera with a sense of being lost, and the carcasses soft focused lay still in the background. It was the first image that moved me to such a deep level of emotional response. It was disturbing. That imaged changed my understanding about the power of photography. I later learned that because of that image, the photographer was able to raise enough money to give that family the opportunity to replace their lost sheep and have a better life. That impressed me immensely.

ephotos: What equipment do you use (cameras, formats)?

GH: I use Nikon D2xs cameras. I also maintain a selection of Medium format and large format film cameras with lenses and accessories. My digital lab consists of Mac Powerbooks and a G5 8 core with 27” Plasma Apple screen, with Photoshop CS3 and Aperture and Intuous 3 Wacom tablet. And an Epson P4800 printer, Spyder 2Pro and PrintFix Pro Software.

ephotos: Do you have a site? Is it flash or HTML?

GH: Having a website is essential. In fact, In the process of developing a website, I agonized and went through several runs with different designers before settling with the one I currently use. My main website, is again up for reconstruction, I no longer feel that it represents where I am today and I cannot take it down fast enough. However, in the meantime, I am directing people to two other sites that I have. My blog in time, will emerge to become my main website. I direct folks to the following sites:
www.creativeshake.com/portfolio/garfieldhall
Here I have an updateable portfolio of images and the ability to email that portfolio as thumbnails to an art buyer or potential client. I love this feature. I recently have given much time to developing my E-commerce site at Photoshelter, my online storage.
http://pa.photoshelter.com/c/garfieldhall
I have used this site to store my digital files for the latter four years. This site is unique in that it is an interactive community; a storage site that offers the unique ability for the photographer to market their entire catalogue for license. They also provide features for individual photographers to come together under a virtual agency. I have been successful there so far, selling work as far away as Europe. It teaches you how to be effective with keywording and also provides an easy way to price imagery, based on an established international standard system, called “fotoquote”. Both of these sites use a HTML and Flash platform.

ephotos: Do you have a rep or an agent?

GH: I do not have a rep or an agent. For this reason I have had to really hustle to make a name and get work. But I have noticed an increase in invitations to “Invite Only” web galleries and online portfolios, which I have been taking full advantage of. I feel that the exposure that I am getting from these select online galleries is getting me the exposure that I need and it is starting to pay off.

ephotos: Do you travel much for work?

GH: I have been traveling a lot for personal work, but not for assignments. I have certain projects in the works now that require me to travel and so the last year was a busy travel year for me.

ephotos: Where have you been recently?

GH: Recently, I spent about almost 4 months in Jamaica. I am shooting a project on farming there and I suspect that it will be ongoing until I am satisfied that it is a wrap.
I am also working on another project there that takes place on the lands on which I was born. This project will be a very revealing project for me I expect a lot of surprises.

I have most recently made trips to St. Maarten and Aguilla to shoot stock imagery. I have also made trips to several others, but am looking to my next trip, which may be to China, sometime in the next couple of months. Most times before I travel, I have months to prepare and usually have already made connections there ahead of time. I fit that into a small project or use that as a resource to maximize my shooting when visit a new location.

ephotos: Do you ever just shoot for fun?

GH: That is an interesting question. I am afraid that I do not know what that means anymore. I think it is a matter of how to interpret that question. Every time that I shoot, I am having fun. So I am unsure of any distinction between shooting and shooting for fun. I also carry model releases and property releases when I carry my cameras. I am not bashful about getting signatures. Ha!ha!

ephotos: Do you deal with any stock agencies?

GH: I deal with several stock agencies, including: DKStock; Alamy; Gekko Images; MyStock and a few others, but most recently, Photoshelter Collection, under which I was licensing my main body of imagery, ceased operation in October, 2008. I have since been concentrating on my own stock Imagery licensing potential, based on the same photopshelter platform. Photoshelter has allowed me the same potential of a stock agency. It allows me to maximize my image search potential, through the use of keywording. And they advertise the site and make sure that they are providing a platform to assist photographers in the marketing process. They have a very active blog and online seminars that teach photographers how to be more effective with how they think about the industry and how they approach marketing and how to target markets.

ephotos: Do you feel like you’re being treated fairly by your agency?

GH: When I decided to go stock, I had a pretty good sense of the types of contracts that I was looking for and the type of model that I was attracted to. I knew that I would have to be selective and take my time to understand the models and what the contracts look like. In recent years, Getty and Corbis had emerged as the two giants and they were buying up agencies left and right. The first Agency that signed me was Solus Images and for whatever reasons, I just never was enthused to contribute. I think that this was not due to anything related to my contract, but more due to that fact that I was working in film and it was hard to supply the demand. My move to digital has made this easier and I am able to take more control over my production and image catalogue.

With this understanding, I would say that I have chosen relationships with stock agencies wisely and I feel like I am treated fairly in all of those situations, although not equal degree in all of them.

ephotos: Do you use a resource site or publication?

GH: Over the years, there are many resources that I have made sure remained at my disposal: I have a subscription to PDN (Photo District News ) and its online companion site: www.photoserve.com, Communication Arts Magazine, Picture, Studio Photography, Digital Photo Pro, American Photo and National Geographic Magazine. From these publications, I have access to information about the business and the art of photography. I also learn who the icons are and see what they are doing. I stay abreast of technology developments and what is happing in the world of photography. I always have access to the worldwide web, which gives me my broadest exposure to what is happening on the business side and otherwise. Other sites that I visit a lot are: www.altpick.com .

ephotos: What are you working on now?

GH: I am working on the monumental task of cataloging my work and making them all ready to be uploaded and keyworded. This is one dimension of establishing my e-commerce online. In itself, this is a daunting, never- ending experience. It involves scanning, editing, old film work, mixed in with new digitally shot work in large volume. So resource management is what I am busy with all of the time. In between all this, I must find time to run a studio and attract assignments. I juggle this along with family responsibilities. I have also been busy with setting myself up with the preparation for publishing my first books. I am also always in the process of upgrading my knowledge base where software usage is concerned. I constantly research and try to find better ways of managing my assets and running my business, while mentoring others around me. I always try to help those who I can as I go along daily. But the project that I am doing now that really excites me is a partnership that I recently entered into with Insidefilms. We are busy marketing a production house and services at our 3,500 sq ft location. We offer services for productions from videos to still shoots in our fully equipped facility. Visit: www.insidefilms.com to see what we are about.

ephotos: What do you think will be the next big trend in the photo industry?

GH: I see a trend towards individual photographers becoming more empowered about the handling of their stock catalogue. With sites like Photoshelter.com, more photographers will have similar marketing capabilities of stock agencies. This might help to break up the monopolies. But I think photographers will have to up the ante tremendously, in terms of professionalism and also the quality of their work. The trend of the rapid advancement of digital technology, is making better and better equipment available to just about anybody and now, consequently, microstock has arrived and is now competing with he rights managed licensing model. Which means that photographers everywhere are being put in the position where they must elevate their standards to make any meaningful contributions to stock. The arrival of a time when blogs will play a bigger role in a photographer’s career and the way he markets himself. Finally, the trend of photographers taking a more generalist approach will continue.

ephotos: What do you think about what we’re doing at ephotos?

GH: When I first saw the ephotos site, I immediately recognized its potential. It was still in its infancy and was not as populated as it is now. Immediately, I recognized its ability to attract some of the more noteworthy and successful photographers in our region to place ads. I was impressed. I find the site to be very clean, well organized and moving with the times. The interview series, in which I am now participating, is a brilliant idea. I have followed all of them so far and it is a great way of getting support vicariously and literally.

ephotos: Is there anything else you’d like to say about yourself or your work?

GH: Finally, I cannot overstate what looking does for me. That is why I am a photographer. I love to just look…Sometimes I stay on the web and just look. It humbles you and forces you to push the envelope and to develop your craft and skill level. You must pay your dues. I would advise anybody to do the work that you love best and that will bring its rewards. It keeps me interested and motivated to work and to go on.

Recently, I have noticed that I am shifting towards revisiting my original work ethic. I am very mindful of how much I produce and how I organize my daily work life. I am excited about the direction that I am moving in now. Visit my websites for my daily updates and also see my blog for more information about my upcoming projects.

Thanks to ephotos for the opportunity! I appreciate what you do at ephotos. Keep up the great work!

ephotos: Thanks a lot for spending some time with us, we appreciate your commitment and experience. As always, keep the focus!

Read past interviews