Home > Culture > Mentor Showcase > The 2006 Best-of Series: Gale Zucker
The 2006 'Best Of' Series
For the second annual Best Of issue of the ASMP Bulletin, we selected twenty projects from a field of nearly sixty candidates. It was a tough decision and we thank all those who submitted their work. We hope you will enjoy reading about the projects featured in print and here on the ASMP Web site.
Editorial assignment for the Yale University School of Medicine alumni magazine
Yale University’s School of Medicine alumni magazine hired Gale Zucker to shoot a Bible study group and other situations for an article on a diabetes health-outreach program. For Zucker, chosen for her ability to respect her subjects and capture people “as they are,” the assignment was a reminder of why she became a photographer in the first place.
Portrait of Gale Zucker from the family cam, New Mexico road trip, by
son Leo Engler-Zucker
All other images in this article © Gale Zucker
ASMP: How long have you been in business?
GZ: About 20 years. For a few years I was a regular stringer (at least 50 percent of my work) for The New York Times, and also shot for magazines. Over time I’ve kept shooting editorially but also do corporate and commercial projects.
CHOICE intensive social work intervention program, Baltimore MD.
ASMP: How long have you been an ASMP member?
GZ: I’ve been a member of the Connecticut chapter since 2001 and a board member of the chapter since 2005. I was a member of the New York Chapter for a couple of years around 1988-90, before there was a chapter in Connecticut.
From an institutional recruiting project , West Hartford CT.
ASMP: What are your photographic specialties?
GZ: Real people in real places: location photography in a storytelling style. Everyone and everything. From behind-the-scenes at American Idol auditions for TV Guide to innovative doctors for the AMA, from viewbooks for universities to youth in the judicial system in Baltimore. I like people and I like variety. I like quirky and I like animals, too. And kids, and executives, and sideshow performers….
Roberts Bros Circus: Robin rides Lisa the elephant
ASMP: Please summarize the equipment used in this work.
GZ: This assignment was photographed digitally with a Fuji S2 (my camera of choice at the time). I’ve since switched to shooting Nikon. I do my own custom image processing and deliver RGB TIFFs.
ASMP: Please describe how you were selected for this assignment and the estimating process involved.
GZ: I asked my clients how I was selected, and received this reply from the designer, Daphne Geismar: “… You were selected for the assignment because of your excellent work for Yale Medicine in the past and for your ability to capture people as they are. Your ‘portraits’ are direct, truthful and show compassion without a false sugar coating. It’s clear that this is a direct outcome of your affection for people. This project required shooting in multiple situations. We knew you could organize and orchestrate it all; that you would respect the subjects and make them at ease while you were there.” (Thanks, Daphne!)
Connecticut College student, New London, CT
My initial estimate for this multi-shoot, multi-subject project came in higher than they (the publication people at Yale School of Medicine) had hoped for, so we negotiated a lump total payment for the project. It was more than they’d started out at but not as high as my cover-all-bases initial budget.
ASMP: Were you given specific instructions by the client?
GZ: I was asked to watch for cover opportunities at every shoot for the story, and to shoot photojournalistically except for one subject who needed an environmental portrait.
Juvenile Diabetes researcher at Yale University, New Haven, CT
ASMP: Did you do any advance research before this assignment?
GZ: I spoke to the editor. The story hadn’t been written yet so I had nothing to work from. I had almost no information going in except the location and a vague description of the event: Bible study night with some diabetes health-education outreach preceding this. I spoke to the subject briefly by phone beforehand.
Research cholesterol screening procedure at Griffin Hospital, Derby, CT
ASMP: What was the duration of this shoot situation?
GZ: I was at the storefront church location one night for about two hours or so, although I was not shooting the whole time.
ASMP: What is your approach to putting your subjects at ease? Did your approach change in this situation?
GZ: I try to figure out who’s the leader or most influential person in the group, I try to connect with them in some small way and hope that they like me. I always introduce myself to as many people as I can before we start shooting, I smile a lot (unless it’s a somber situation) and I try to keep quiet to keep the stress level down for the subjects. Maybe they think I’m a grinning fool like that and therefore harmless!
Native American PowWow drum circle, Lawrence, KS
I can turn on personality and chat the subject up if I need to, but in this case it was most important to shut up and be appreciative of the access and try to understand the environment. The subjects were acutely aware of our presence (mine and the editor). We certainly didn’t fit in. We’re both white, the church is all African-American in a sketchy neighborhood, and they had mixed feelings about participating in the article. I’m not a very threatening person, so after a while most people get used to me and ignore me.
On this assignment, I wanted to shoot whatever was going on primarily with a photojournalistic style, and then at the end to get some posed images of Reverend Audrey Tinsley (in orange) sitting in front with her attendees behind her. I outlined that with the subject, so they knew what to expect as far as my “managing” the situation or intruding.
Connecticut College recruitment brochure.
ASMP: Please describe the specifics of the lighting used in this environment?
GZ: I kept it as minimal as I could. I used strobe, plus I made use of the existing, rather harsh, fluorescent lights that are part of the storefront-church ambience. I like shooting strobes with slow shutter speeds. I was lighting with a hand-held bounced flash that has a round reflector and a bare bulb on it. It’s an old NVS-1 conversion of a Vivitar 283 (so its double powered). I move it around off-camera as I shoot, bouncing it off walls and the ceiling. In this case it looks like I hit it off the wall/ceiling corner to the right of the subjects.
Sideshow artist, World of Wonders, June 2000
ASMP: How did you arrive at this angle of view and compositional structure?
GZ: The Reverend (in orange, below) was reading extremely dry medical information about the symptoms and dangers of diabetes. It was a small group on a cold night and the attendees were restless and tired. I started out in the back and kept moving around the room, making my way between the folding chairs, shooting the group from different angles, working closer to the front. The little girls were really very bored and came forward to help the Reverend read. I was shooting with a wide angle lens, at a slightly low angle (either sitting on a chair edge or squatting), right at the front edge of the leader’s table, so I could include the Bible in the foreground as well as much of the atmosphere of the church on the edges. I asked them to ignore me and just keep reading, which was exactly what happened. The woman at the lectern on the left, looking very tired, was pregnant and had gotten up to use the bathroom. She was resting there listening on her way back to her seat.
ASMP: Has this assignment given you any new insights to apply to your career?
GZ: It reminds me that I still love the way photography gives me a way to meet people and visit places I’d otherwise not encounter. That’s the reason I’d wanted to become a photographer. And not to prejudge the result of any assignment or what might happen before I shoot it. (Of course I know this, but it’s easy to fall into the trap.)
Connecticut College student, New London, CT
ASMP: Please describe how you market yourself and whether you have used this work in current marketing efforts?
GZ: I promote my Web site. I sometimes send promo cards. I contact existing clients and new people I would like to shoot for. I could use a bigger, better planned marketing approach! The image is on my Web site.
From a Scholastic Books marketing shoot.
ASMP: Has this assignment brought you other new projects or do you foresee this happening in the future?
GZ: Not directly, but I’ve received positive feedback about it. I’m always surprised at which images prompt someone to hire me for what, so I believe it’ll prove useful. I was sent to shoot behind-the-scenes at the White House, to a prison, and to an urban hospital trauma center overnight, all based on the same circus images in my portfolio a few years ago. Also my biggest hardcore corporate executive shoot was prompted by a promo card image of the last remaining Wizard of Oz munchkins, now octogenarians, posed in a garden!
Sideshow artist, World of Wonders, June 2000
ASMP: Please elaborate on the attention this coverage received and any results for the program.
GZ: The issue was well received in the medical community, but they haven’t tracked any direct results.
More important to me, ten months after the issue came out, I was shooting an annual report for a large health foundation that funds public health outreach projects, including this one. I was asked to arrange to shoot a group of African American women church lay leaders who had become community health activists. In preparing for the shoot, I was worrying that I’d see Reverend Audrey in the group. I fretted about how she felt about the image being a wrap around cover with herself so large on it, and the yelling child. I knew it was a feisty and vocal group of strong women, so I could see myself being chased out of the neighborhood before I even got my camera out of the bag.
Church leaders and group of community health activists involved in diabetes prevention education, New Haven CT
To my delight, when I walked into the meeting place, I was greeted warmly by the Reverend. She turned to the group and said, “This is who took that picture that was all over that magazine. Every time I went to the doctor, I saw it, it was in every clinic in New Haven, I kept getting calls about it, I felt like a celebrity.” Goodwill in the community is priceless. I was then able to persuade the group to pose in a freezing windy parking lot behind a city block, in a formation that made no sense to them at all but went with our design to suit the project I was there for.
