 Interview
with Marc Romanelli
Marc Romanelli has been successfully shooting stock for over twenty years. He
is based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico where he lives with his wife and baby
daughter.
Marc, I know you have been shooting stock for a long
time…and that you don’t currently shoot assignments. Can you fill us in on your
early career; how you came to be a stock shooter?
I started
out painting, drawing and sculpting as a kid and only picked up a camera at age
17. I began by shooting found objects...crushed cans, tree bark, rusted
metal...the world was revealed to me through the lens of a 55mm micro Nikkor .
Seeing that close up for me was a revelation, to be followed by wide-angle
lenses that distorted reality in other wonderful ways.
I began
shopping my portfolio around Manhattan and eventually pestered Life Magazine
into giving me a few assignments. Got a cover of Modern Photography at 23, and
then signed to Image Bank at 24. Early on realized that the freedom afforded
with stock was the way for me to go. I traveled extensively on very low budgets,
maintained very low overhead while at home, and plowed profits back into travel
shooting.
About 20
years ago made a choice to concentrate on shooting people, getting comfortable
with directing people in recreational sports shoots having (then) recently moved
to the mountain west...Santa Fe.This eventually morphed into shooting lifestyle
and whatever else struck my fancy including some fine art stuff.
Do you license your own stock, license only through agencies, or do both? What
agencies handle your work?
I don’t
license my own, rather I am represented by Getty for stills and motion, Corbis
(motion), Creatas (motion), and Workbookstock, Hola, Blend, Bluemoon, and Alamy
for stills.
RF, RM or Micro?
I shoot
RM, and RF. I have not shot Micro and probably will not in the future.
You shoot motion as well as stills.
How long have you been shooting Motion and how did you happen to move into that
arena?
I first
began shooting motion back in 1997. I call it the “second wave” of Image Bank
guys who got their feet wet shooting motion. I had an intuition that I'd take to
it naturally. I've owned an Arri 16s, an Arri BL2 3mm, and currently a Panasonic
HVX200 camcorder (for sale cheap).
Do you find you need a different skill set for shooting motion?
Different
skill set...absolutely with motion you must create an arc in time, maybe 20-30
seconds and tell a story. You are responsible for moving the camera and or
subjects in time and space and not relying on a decisive motion that
crystallizes in a single frame.
How does motion fit into your future plans?
Motion is
an integral part of my imaging business, and an increasingly important part. The
Tech rush is forcing still shooters to acknowledge that hybrid cameras capable
of shooting stills and 1080p motion files are here to stay. The world sees
motion as the most natural, emotional and effective way to communicate.
How do you approach a stock shoot? I.e. ideas, plans,
casting etc.
Concentrating on what you do best seems to work (in an increasingly volatile
environment). A key that I try to tap into is the question "does it feel real,
authentic"? Easier said than done.
Particularly now, as the visual paradigm experiences a sea change from excess,
expansion, and self-centered focus...to reality, community, shared
responsibility, and contraction.
I work very intuitively...I cast friends and people I
meet that I have a sense about; I rarely work with models.
I also
don't shoot in a studio. My preference is to find real locations. This can
present challenges but I prefer the authentic feel of a working location.
Are you involved with the fine art world?
I have
dabbled in the fine art world, having had a one-man show of my black and white
personal work shown in Santa Fe and a group show as well.
What do you find most satisfying about your work?
I enjoy
photographing my 3-year-old daughter. She keeps my photo chops razor sharp, and
my photo intuition on high alert...try capturing mercury visually!
Anything else you want to share?
I find
that my decision to do a stock shoot is determined by matching talent to
location, while keeping an eye on how I might differentiate my images from
what's out there.
I tend
towards what I call” situational" shoots, lifestyle shoots that are reality
based, and subscribe to the notion that end users of my images are essentially
looking for uplifting, inspirational, positive imagery. Actually, sometimes the
most positive thing that comes out of a shoot is the relationship; interaction,
and communication with the talent whether they are friends or acquaintances.
It is as if there exists a kind of "charged, positive
residue" that has been created by the action of the photo happening. Usually if
this is experienced I know I've done a good job capturing something.
The industry is in flux. What do you see as currently
the biggest challenges for you as a stock shooter?
How are you dealing with those challenges?
Our
business is evolving at warp speed and the engine is the digital revolution, the
massive democratization also called "crowd sourcing", availability of
exceptional and now affordable digital cameras, and new portals and selling
platforms creating a surplus, a glut of images chasing ever fewer buyers. This
is particularly true now considering our fragile economy.
What to
do? I choose to shoot what I know, shoot what feels right, diversify by shooting
motion, as well as stills, finding new agencies that want to build their
collections quickly as Workbook did, loading them up with images but not
forgetting the "girl that brought you to the dance" in the first place...that
would be your bread and butter agency. In my case that agency is Getty.
Marc, thank you for sharing that with us!
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