Home > Culture > Mentor Showcase > The 2006 Best-of Series: Rick Olivier
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.
Portraits of New Orleans soul queen Irma Thomas and post-Katrina blues musicians in New Orleans
While his studio was undergoing post-Katrina renovations, Rick Olivier was forced to go with the flow, forgoing heavy strobe lighting for mixed-light studio portraits and environmental location shots of “the Soul Queen of New Orleans,” Irma Thomas. Olivier’s stripped-down approach echoed that of his subject, who recorded sparse but powerful tracks on her return to recording with After the Rain.
Portrait of Rick Olivier © Marcelle Olivier
All other images in this article © Rick Olivier
ASMP: How long have you been in business?
RO: 25 years
ASMP: How long have you been an ASMP member?
RO: 13 years
Amedee at side door of Richard’s Club, from the book Zydeco!
ASMP: What are your photographic specialties?
RO: Portraits that tell a story.
ASMP: Please summarize the equipment used in this work.
RO: Camera: currently Canon 1ds Mk II (35mm and medium format film cameras until 2002);
Lighting: strobe, quartz practicals, reflected daylight
Process: RAW capture, edit, keyword, rename files, post Web gallery, convert RAW files and deliver. Maintain awareness, emotional stability, creative flexibility, passion and determination.
The Uptown Plowboys at Union Station from Bluegrass Goes to Town cover shoot
ASMP: You’ve done a lot of portrait work. What do you consider to be the most important aspects of a good portrait?
RO: An image that speaks, that crystallizes all the myriad aspects of another’s experience, an entire story distilled into one image. The two best elements in a portrait are evocative lighting and a subject with character. If you have a lot of both, the portrait will work no matter where it’s shot.
Blues musician Johnny Adams
ASMP: What do you do to prepare for a portrait session?
RO: I do the following: Try to get the subject’s story if I don’t already know it. Pre-visualize setting, location, lighting, props, wardrobe and other pictorial details and direction. Brainstorm ideas (with others or alone). Make sure my batteries are charged, both the ones in the camera and the ones that charge during a good night’s sleep.
Aaron Neville with tiger the cat
ASMP: Do you approach studio portraits differently than location work? Do you have a preference between the two?
RO: I like both but, in many ways, studio portraits are more difficult. I think the ultimate portrait book is Irving Penn’s Worlds in a Small Room where the studio is the location and the location is the studio.
Fashion shot inspired by the legend of Marie Laveau
Clothes: Kano Branon; hair and makeup: Glenn Moseley; models: Giovanna and son.
ASMP: You have shot stills that have been used in a number of videotaped TV commercials. How did you become involved in this work?
RO: I became involved in this work by associating with “budget-minded” clients who wanted to make a different kind of 30-second TV spot and not pay for an entire video crew to go shoot it. Seriously, though, some of the spots are pretty good (especially those edited by Steve Wegmann). They catch your attention because the images on screen are NOT moving, which breaks the brain-haze of constant motion while tubing.
Poet Ralph Adamo
ASMP: Please describe your production methods, Has the production process been consistent throughout?
RO: Digital has reduced the amount of lighting I carry, and on most jobs I mix strobe, tungsten, available daylight and practicals. I’ve been seriously studying lighting techniques since I was 15 years old, so by now I just sort of know where the lights need to go. I can only hire assistants and stylists that I like as people, because creating a fun and positive vibe on the shoot is essential to successful pictures, and the enjoyment we take in production always shows in the final images. I shoot about 90 percent RAW files and can have Web galleries up on my site within 10 minutes of shooting. The leap in productivity from digital is tremendous, but it requires a very tight workflow. I did a lot of testing and research a couple of years ago on various software packages and have arrived at a combination of tools that fit my style and don’t get in the way.
Legendary musician Alex Chilton
ASMP: Post-Katrina, did this assignment take on different or a greater significance for you?
RO: Yes. Irma Thomas lost her home, her nightclub, and most of her possessions. But she ain’t called The Soul Queen of New Orleans for nuthin’! Her After The Rain CD is a creative triumph over extreme adversity and it was quite a challenge to provide images that reflect her inner strength and invincible character. Fortunately for me, she brings so much spirit to every shoot (I’ve done her last five covers) that all I have to do is be there and stay open and let it flow. My studio also took on a foot of Katrina-water, and while renovating I decided to have the plaster walls sandblasted which produced the warm textured backdrop I shot the cover against. The sunlight that day was clear and strong, so I had the assistant stand in the doorway with 4’x8’ foam core, which mixed with some quartz practicals on the ceiling. Things were (and in some ways, still are) so very messed up here that you just have to not fight the difficulties you’re faced with every day; you just gotta roll with ‘em. I guess that flexibility and looseness comes after many years of experience and the confidence those years produce. It doesn’t always work but I’m amazed how often the pictures are successful when I don’t worry about it too much. I always try to stay open to unexpected possibilities. “Instead of putting up a big softbox and a fill card, let’s just see what happens from daylight and this funky thing on the ceiling” is how I’m thinking these days. While my heart aches for those who lost everything in Katrina, catastrophes can have that effect where you don’t have much to “lose” anymore in the psychological / philosophical sense. Good riddance; for me it was just baggage anyway.
New Orleans’ Soul Queen Irma Thomas for her newest CD, After the Rain
ASMP: Post Katrina, what has been the most significant financial effect on your business?
RO: I’m kind of amazed at how much more work I have since Katrina. I guess the herd’s been thinned somewhat down here. The painter Edgar Degas said, “New Orleans is a place for men of nerve.”
Patrick Winton for Institutional Investor magazine
ASMP: Are there specific coping strategies you have used that could be of benefit to others facing adversity?
RO: My own strategy was to deal with the fear (of not having a job here anymore, relocating, etc.) and develop a plan to overcome the hardship. I built a new Web site and let people know I needed work. I tried to only freak out in private. I leaned on friends and family, but you realize pretty quickly that no one can really understand the pain and fear of a major catastrophe unless they’re in it. Some things in life you just have to tough out.
Bluegrass singer Bradley Walker for Highway of Dreams CD cover
ASMP: Given the infrastructure damage that’s been done, have you had to make technological or process-oriented changes when working locally?
RO: Not really. When you live in a swamp, survival skills aren’t that hard to come by. I keep my Honda generator nearby.
Blues guitarist Rockie Charles from cover of Living Blues magazine
ASMP: Are you still marketing yourself in the same way that you would have previously?
RO: I had put off upgrading my Web site for more than five years. Since the new one went up, it’s really paid off in assignments won, especially in concert with ASMP’s ‘Find A Photographer’ portal.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis
ASMP: Have the types of your assignments or inquiries changed?
RO: I’ve gotten more local advertising jobs, but otherwise had the same mix as before the storm: magazines, CD covers, direct-to-business type stuff, people pictures. I still have to decline assignments from half-million-circulation magazines that want me to shoot two-page spreads for 500 bucks, and I still encourage my colleagues to do likewise.
CD cover image from Oh Sister II - A Women’s Bluegrass Collection