Nevada Rose Inside the American Brothel: A LF Project by Marc McAndrews

[D. Bryant]

Found this link on Facebook and thought I would pass it along. Good to see people shooting projects like this in LF.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1467437224/nevada-rose


Don Bryant

[El Topo]

Incredible project. Surprised that no one has commented on it yet.....

[Jim Noel]

After looking at excerpts from the book, I have to say he has done an excellent job of documenting these establishments w/o exploitation. This is a beautiful group of photographs.

[Marc McAndrews]

Thank you for your kind comments, it's been a long haul and alot of effort. Shooting 4x5 portraits can be very challenging, but are ultimately worth it. If you can, check out the link and pass it around. I need all the help I can get to defray the cost of scanning, every donation is a huge boost.
The book comes out in May 2011, so please check it out, I'd love to hear any and all feedback on the work.
Marc

[sully75]

Beautiful pictures, Marc. I made a small donation (job hunting right now so it's tight but wanted to help).

I (and I think probably a lot of other people) would be really interested in hearing about your working methods with the 4x5. Are you carrying another camera to test with? How many frames of each picture are you taking? The portraits are really natural and relaxed, I'm just wondering how you pulled that off with the big camera.

And also I'm interested in what you are travelling with as far as lights go.

I think we'd all be really interested in hearing about that kind of stuff in as much detail as you can provide. The pictures are awesome, looking forward to the book!

[Steven Tribe]

Good images and a worthy project. Don't like the 5 second (?) zoom, though.

I have a seen a film doumentary of the same establishments with a previous generation of girls over a period of weeks. Imperfect framing, but with events and sound that seemed to give more experience. OK, the Mona Lisa image is of the same type and still "bites".

[Marc McAndrews]

In regards to Sully's questions - 1st of all thank you for the donation, I appreciate every donation, especially knowing how hard work is these days.
As far as shooting style, it's been pretty consistent over the 5 year length of the project. I started shooting it on a Linhof Bi-kardan rail camera, but found myself needlessly fiddling with the rise/fall/tilt/shift so i switched to a crown graphex. The movement on the front element was enough. I was more attracted to the overall feel as well as the style of working.
When I began the project digital was still fairly young and expensive so I was purely film and Type 79 Polaroid. The last and final time I went out there I did bring a digital SLR just to speed up the initial light testing. I would always do the last few tests on Fujiroid (Polaroid obviously is no longer in existence). Even if it looked fine on digital, I just felt more comfortable looking at he final on Fujiroid (I'm just gonna call it all Polaroid from now on...) before I went to film. I have a better sense of how it'll translate and F-Stop/time remains the same. I usually shoot 2 frames for an interior/exterior and between 6 and 20 sheets for portraits, depending on the subject and importance of the image to me. Some people you shoot and you know you have it right away so after that it's just repetition. Or if it's something that you want to play with I'll shoot more and sometimes work through ideas with Polaroid.
In terms of working with portraits and the larger format....it's hard to say exactly what happens. I think alot of the naturalness comes from the interaction between photographer and subject, getting them relaxed, keeping them entertained or engaged and finding a position that they're comfortable with but also works within the frame. There's also tricks that I figured out that work for me. I think everyone needs to find their own path or tricks in terms of dealing with a subject. If I find them to look uncomfortable or have a funny look frozen on their face I'll have them close their eyes, breathe and on the count of three open their eyes and think of something (I know, not really groundbreaking, but it works for me). I also have them stand up and shake themselves out or sit in their place to show them (sometimes this makes me realize that how I'm asking them to sit is completely off). But I honestly feel that alot of the naturalness that comes through is from our interaction. I engage them in the process, show them polaroids, have them bring changes of clothes, ask them what they feel most comfortable in, what they like as well as just being open to them.
Lighting varies. When I'm shooting far from home for an extended period I tend to bring way more than I need. I light most portraits rooms included. Some of the portraits were taken in the middle of the night and made to look like daylight. I usually have on hand 2 or 3 Profoto Acutes and 3 Lumedynes, wizards and slaves. I'll use whatever works from bareheads to umbrellas at weird angles, beauty dishes, molas, octabanks. It really depends, I go through phases. At one time I was shooting alot with a beauty dish to add depth to the lighting then a few months later I was using a softbox and a negative fill. I try to be pretty flexible and malleable with that.
In the brothels I worked almost exclusively alone so I brought what I felt I'd need but tried to keep it as light as possible. Each image would take anywhere from 1 to 3 hours (hardly ever this long though).

I'm glad you liked the work, let me know if you have any questions or comments/suggestions/concerns, I love hearing feedback.

To Steven - The brothels are fairly transient in nature so there's not really any generations, they change every week to week. I don't know how valid it is to compare a monograph to a documentary film, obviously there's no sound or movement in the photographs so in that sense, yes, there will be more of an experience in the film. The video on Kickstarter is just a fundraising video, not the final product.

Speaking of which, please check out the work on Kickstarter
http://kck.st/dvAYTQ
I'm raising money to try to help with the cost of scanning 250 negatives for my upcoming book Nevada Rose and I'll need a lot of help to reach my goal. Any amount helps.

[Eric Rose]

What a great project Marc. People forget that these gals are someones daughters, wives and mothers. Good luck with the fund raising.

[sully75]

Thanks Marc, that's really helpful. I'm new to LF and LF portraiture, usually trying some sort of yoda/zen thing of only taking 1 frame, or 2 if I know I screwed something up. Perhaps I should give blowing a box of film on one person a try sometime. Gets expensive quickly though.

More nerdy questions: what lenses are you usually travelling with, and what are you using for film?

Those are some of my posing tricks too (take a deep breath, close your eyes and open them, blink a couple of times, etc). Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

I'll oftentimes crack a joke, get a laugh and then wait till the smile is almost totally gone and then snap it. I heard Martin Schoeller in a video saying that he likes to get a smirk. One wedding I was doing, the groom looked really stiff, and I said "huh, I just crapped my pants". Totally stupid thing to say but it made him laugh and then I snapped the picture. Can't use that with everyone though. I'm looking for the universal joke that can loosen everyone up. Not that I want smiling pictures, but I think people have a hard time being stiff right after they've laughed.

Anyway, thanks, that's really helpful!

All the best
Paul

[sully75]

ps Marc, what was your training in lighting? You seem to have a definite style, did you do a lot of assisting, or figure things out on your own?

[Steve M Hostetter]

I wish I could help out for the cause but unfortunatly I'm in a bad finacial state...

You really do these subjects justice with masterful taste and vision.

regards
steve

[Marc McAndrews]

In terms of shooting, my opinion is 2 frames for an inanimate object. For people, I try to put the idea of it being 4x5 out of mind. If you spend the time to set up, lighting, etc, you might as well make sure you get the shot. How you accomplish that is something you'll have to figure out for yourself. If you can do it in 2 frames then thats all you need and you don't need to blow a box of film. On the other hand, if you don't have the shot then keep working on it till you feel confident you have it - to a point, like you said, it does get expensive quickly.
I travel with a range of lenses - 90mm to 210mm.
I use(d) NPS overexposed a stop and developed normal.
While tricks are good and I definitely use them when shooting, I think trust is the most important thing for making people look comfortable. I always try to show them polaroids (I almost never show the 1st one cause it very rarely looks good, I tell them this before so they don't think I'm hiding anything from them.) I also act out whatever I ask them to do, if I want them to be animated and laughing, I do the same thing so they don't feel so awkward faking it.
I assisted for some really great people and picked up little tricks. That definitely gave me a solid base. The trick is to just keep shooting. It's one thing to have someone there for backup or direction, its a whole different story when its you on your own trying to figure out if you want sharp or soft or contrasty and what looks real and what looks fake. Then figuring technical stuff while entertaining them and holding their attention. Those are the real hard parts. You just have to keep shooting and make mistakes. So in that sense I figured it out for myself but relied on the technical tricks I picked up assisting.

No worries Steve. I'm glad you liked the work. t means alot to me when other photographers like and respect the work. If you can, pass around the link - facebook, twitter, blog or even email some people who may like the work. Kickstarter's great for raising money, but t's an all or nothing thing so it's a little nerve-racking.....every $5 helps

You can see some more of the work on my website:
http://www.marcmcandrews.com/work/nevadarose.html

[El Topo]

Ok Marc, I was the first one to react to this thread and said the work is so good that I was surprised no one had commented on it yet. I started a similar project in Spain a few years ago in medium format and left it for its complexity.....so congratulations man!

Anyway, to back my words I just pledged USD 125, so you better raise those bucks cause I want my 1st edition copy!!!

Good luck and remember impossible is nothing ;)

Ramon

[Marc McAndrews]

Thanks for your donation Ramon! The book is looking amazing, I'm really excited about it. Please keep passing the link around, every bit helps.
http://kck.st/dvAYTQ