Photographs by John Dolan How be Au ty feels John Dolan captures human frailty, joy, love and the good life in poetic photographs By Lorna Gentry 112 myclickmagazine.com myclickmagazine.com 113
Last September John Dolan experienced for the first time the vortex that is Fashion Week in Paris. The chaos didn t rankle him. John takes it in stride. In fact, the more anxious people around him become, the calmer he gets, a personality trait that perfectly suits his profession as a wedding, editorial and commercial photographer. A fashion show is like a wedding, he observed recently on the phone from the New York City loft he uses as his studio and office. Instead of a bride you have a designer under pressure. It s the same amount of chaos and beauty together. John was in Paris for Fashion Week to shoot behind-the-scenes photographs for Belgian designer Dries Van Noten, whose six-month retrospective premieres at Les Arts Décoratifs museum in Paris in February. Equipped with a few film cameras, John calmly metabolized the electrified, hurly-burly atmosphere and translated on film the feeling of being there. Many of John s photographs invoke emotion and genius loci, a feat he has perfected over the years, and he credits the idea to a German photo editor. Twenty years ago when he received an assignment from Marie Claire magazine to photograph a gathering of cowboy poets, the editor advised, Don t shoot pictures of what it looks like to be there. Shoot pictures of what it feels like to be there. It has been my mantra for 20 years, he says. If you are shooting a wedding in a ballroom, it doesn t look all that interesting. But what it feels like at that very moment is thrilling and that is the core of what [the couple] hopes to remember. John began his career as an editorial photographer and glided into wedding photography by photographing the weddings of photo editors and celebrities, among them Ben Stiller and Jennifer Lopez. Soon his work attracted the attention of magazine editors who started calling with assignments, including Martha Stewart Weddings, Real Simple, Self and Travel & Leisure. And it wasn t long before he was booking jobs for corporate clients like American Express, Tiffany, Sundance catalog and Merrill Lynch. Now John maintains a healthy, balanced diet of 30 percent each editorial, wedding and commercial work. He likes the diversity, applying what he learns from shooting weddings, like, human frailty and interaction, he says, and applying it to ad jobs. He has a soft spot in his heart for weddings, though. Weddings are a high wire act, which makes it all the more precious. I m trying to capture something elusive. I don t give them exactly what they re expecting. The most important person to please at a wedding is not the bride but yourself; if you don t aim high enough you re going to hit mediocrity. My wedding pictures succeed when they reflect the memory of the wedding, the heightened moments. The good life John shares a home in the Berkshires with his artist wife, ceramicist Michele O Hana, and two of their three children, ages 16 and 14. Their eldest, Olivia, 114 myclickmagazine.com myclickmagazine.com 115
The most important person to please at a wedding is not the bride but yourself; if you don t aim high enough you re going to hit mediocrity. 116 myclickmagazine.com myclickmagazine.com 117
Don t shoot pictures of what it looks like to be there, Shoot pictures of what it feels like to be there, said his editor. 118 myclickmagazine.com myclickmagazine.com 119
John calmly metabolized the electrified, hurly-burly atmosphere and translated on film the feeling of being there. Portrait photograph by Holger Thoss 19, attends college in Connecticut. He takes a train to his Manhattan loft a few times a week as work dictates. Mostly, though, he stays on the road. I don t sleep in the same bed for 10 nights in a row very often. And I ve been doing this for 20 years. Last September was particularly busy. In addition to flying to Paris for Fashion Week, he flew to Montana to shoot Kate Bosworth s wedding for the cover of Martha Stewart Weddings; photographed a destination wedding in the South of France; flew to Chicago for a client ad shoot; took a portrait of a college professor in Northampton, Mass., for a design firm; and photographed a wedding in New York City for an old friend. It s a good life, he says, but it s not for everyone. I think a lot of people idealize the life of a photographer and it s important to shatter that a little bit because, unless you like uncertainty, it s not a perfect life. I don t know what having a paycheck is like or a paid vacation. And when the phone stops ringing you have to create new needs. He shoots film and digital. Sometimes I take a hybrid approach where I shoot a little digital and film, and sometimes I shoot all one or the other. I have a cabinet full of cameras, 10 or 12, and I have distinct relationships with each of them. I think it should be up to the photographer and not the client what camera is used for a job. Some of my clients buy that and some don t. For ad work I shoot primarily digital, but I often take a film camera and shoot some film. John is expert at film. In the 1980s he worked in the darkrooms of New York fashion photographers before going to work as a printer for New York photojournalist Sylvia Plachy. I didn t start making money until I was 30. I spent 12 or 14 years diving deep into the film world before I made my first dollar. Consequently he has internalized his technical skills to the point that he never thinks about it when he s shooting. I heard this guy on the radio recently who interviews grandmothers about cooking, John says with a chuckle. They never measure anything and don t have recipes, which is great. It s like me and technical stuff. I kind of ingested it so it s deep inside of me. That frees him to be completely engaged and observant on a shoot, he says. How I am [affects] people. If I m tense the images reflect that. If I m having fun and I m part of the party then I break the wall between photographer and subject, observer and observed. It s how I interact with people that really makes a big difference. As a young photographer I d arrive intense and wanting to get to work. Now it s more of a dance to make it relaxed. It should be fun. It shouldn t be so serious, like brain surgery. My goal is to make it a positive experience for everybody. C To see more of John Dolan s work, visit johndolan.com. john s Tools Camera : Rollieflex 2.8 E2 Lens: Pentax 67 105mm f/2.4 lens Film: Kodak Professional Portra 400 & TRI-X Bag: An old leather satchel with a Tenba foam insert. 120 myclickmagazine.com myclickmagazine.com 121