THE CONVERSATIONS |
|
TONY BONANNO
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Edition ONE Gallery
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Pilar Law, Edition ONE Gallery Owner and Curator, welcomes LEICAS & SCOTCH to the gallery for Mark Berndt's conversation with fine art photographer Tony Bonanno.
All images © Tony Bonanno | All Rights Reserved Images may not be reproduced without written permission from the photographer.
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Edition ONE Gallery
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Pilar Law, Edition ONE Gallery Owner and Curator, welcomes LEICAS & SCOTCH to the gallery for Mark Berndt's conversation with fine art photographer Tony Bonanno.
All images © Tony Bonanno | All Rights Reserved Images may not be reproduced without written permission from the photographer.
Pilar Law: Welcome, everyone. Thank you for being here on this snowy Sunday afternoon. My name's Pilar Law, and this is my gallery - Edition One, and we are very excited to host first in a series of photographers' conversations with Mark Berndt, called LEICAS & SCOTCH. Today Mark's going to talk with Santa Fe photographer Tony Bonanno about his new book: The White Horses of the Camargue!
Thank you for being here. And I'm going to hand it over to Mark.
Mark Berndt: Welcome everyone, to the first installment of Leicas and Scotch, a series of conversations with photographers which I hope will offer some insight into the lives and images of creative image makers.
First, I want to thank Pilar for hosting us here in her beautiful Edition ONE Gallery. This is the perfect place for this. Thanks, Pilar.
Next, I want to thank YOU all for coming out on a snowy afternoon. Since we haven’t done this before it seems your curiosity, and our guest’s notoriety, has gotten you here. We’ll try to make it worth your while.
And now, although as I look around this room I’m pretty sure Tony needs no introduction, I want to welcome Tony Bonanno.
Tony has had a number of careers in his life, the latest as a professional commercial and fine art photographer, teacher and printmaker. He has traveled and photographed all over the world, photographed presidents, politicians and celebrities for international publications, and won a ton of awards, He has also given back to the photo community through affiliations with ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers), APA (American Photographic Artists) and SPE (Society for Photographic Education), and is a long-time instructor at the Santa Fe Workshops.
But like many of us, his expertise goes beyond commercial photographic endeavors, and today we’re here to talk about his fine art photography, and specifically his new book “Horse of the Sea” which, by the way, is for sale here if you haven’t already got yours - and Tony will happily stick around to sign books after our little talk ends.
Tony’s book - The White Horses of the Camargue - offers a unique and thorough insight into this unique breed and the culture that surrounds them. I’m going to ask him a few questions about the origins of the project and the process of creating a book. And we’ll have time at the end for questions from you.
I can’t wait to get into this, so… here’s Tony Bonanno.
MB:
So I want to just get a little background about you and photography. You’ve had a bunch of other careers - I can't even remember all of them. How did you become a photographer?
Tony Bonanno:
My father was a photographer during World War Two. And my siblings and I, by the time we were 12 years old, we all knew how to take photographs. I mean, you know, for Christmas, we’d get a tripod. Of course, this was all roll film cameras,120 film and everything. My dad had a big darkroom down in his basement, and I grew up in the city of Washington, D.C., - in the city, not in the suburbs. So we learned the basics of photography, my sisters and I, when we were pretty young. And then as I got older, you know, college and graduate careers, it was a hobby.
But after a divorce, I found myself on Cape Cod in a new role. I was the chief Ranger, Cape Cod National Seashore from 1986 to 1992 when I came to Santa Fe. And while I was there, the area where I lived, on Nauset Marsh, the light, the birds, the clouds - it was incredible. And I was feeling really inspired to try to capture this a little bit somehow. But I can't draw, I can't paint…
And matter of fact, after my wife and I split, I didn't have any cameras either!
So I made a trip to Hunt’s Camera Store in Boston and I bought a camera and a couple lenses and I started taking photographs and I had a party one evening at my house and a lot of the artists on the Cape came to my house and there were a couple of photographers - River Carmen and Linda McCausland - that were at the party, and they were roaming around the house and they saw a lot of prints and photography I had laid out in my work room, and they came in and they said, “Are these your photographs?” I said, “Yes.” And they said “You need a show.” And the next thing you know, I had my first show called Backyard Landscapes, and it was 50 images basically taken with 100 yards of my back door, and it was successful. And I have to admit I had a little bit of help because being the chief ranger, I was having to deal with the media all the time. So I knew all the reporters - the Cape Cod Times, the Cape Codder - and they wrote everything up really nice for me. So that got me started in the photography and I kept doing it. And then I finally made it look like part time business. It became a passion.
MB:
I think you just get hooked and start by trying to find a way that you can do it all the time and put that on your tax return as your occupation.
TB:
Yeah.
MB:
So it sounds like you first went to the Camargue in 2015. This project took place over a bunch of years. And I think that documentary and photojournalistic kinds of projects only take place when you get access. It's more about access to start with than anything else. You've got to be able to get in and have them be comfortable with you. How did you gain access for this work?
TB:
Well, I was doing a workshop on Cuba, for Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, and one of my students was a lady named Jody Willard. And Jody Willard was a photojournalist based in Santa Barbara. And she knew that I had done a lot of horse photography and she was very interested in going to France to photograph the Camargue horses. So she approached me about going with her the following year and the two of us co-leading a workshop together, and that's how it all started. So I went with her. I had never heard of the Camargue prior to this, to be honest. I mean, I've been to France a number of times but I had never been to the Camargue. So it turned out to be a great experience. And the access - we worked with a fixer, a gentleman named Patrice, and he had actually worked developing relationships with guadians and herders. So people like Jody and I could get him to help us make the contacts. And at that point in 2015, there weren't very many people doing what we hoped to do. There were maybe six or seven photographers, mostly based in Europe and maybe two or three of them based in the US that were doing, like, a workshop and working with the herders. And Patrice latched onto that. And then Jody and I wound up there and that's how it all started.
The herders and the Guadian, we were just very fortunate in developing a good relationship with the people we were working with. It was their show. We were sort of like flies on the wall for a while and then everything just got better and better year after year.
MB: And then when you go back, they know you. And you can pick up where you left off.
TB: Absolutely. But just working on this book, the idea, after my second time over there, I started really recognizing the passion that that Guadian culture was exhibiting. And I realized it was genuine and it impressed me a lot. And the more I went over there and the more I watched the herders work, I could see that love they had for the horses. And then combine that with the traditional way of their culture - the hats, the tri-tip staffs, the thatched cottages - everything they did, I realized this was a story I would like to share.
And, you know, I thought yeah, I can make prints - big prints - but, you know, how many people will get to see the big prints? But if I could write something, put together a book that you could actually sit down and see the story flow in terms of photographs and text - that would achieve my goal. And to me, a book's a lot more intimate anyway, than looking at a website screen or your TV. I think a book conveys a lot more feeling.
MB:
You mentioned before that you have a fear that the culture is disappearing with the younger kids that are coming up. And so the book sort of preserves a moment or an era and becomes a kind of historical document, really.
TB:
I hope so. I hope the book doesn’t just preserve a moment in each photograph, but it also conveys a feeling - a feeling that I had when I was taking the photographs. And to me, that's what this book is trying to accomplish.
And I have to admit, it's my first book. I mean, I've done a couple of blurb books and a little on-demand books, but this book’s turned out to be one heck of a learning experience. I made a few wrong turns along the way, but I tried very hard to make it as good as I could.
MB:
Okay. We're going to get to that. But I wanted to take a little bit of a left turn. In a world where we seem to have gotten to a point with photography where it's about the gear you buy, where everybody needs to buy new cameras, like, once a month, and all the stuff you bought last month is out of date now, I'm a firm believer in the fact that the photographer takes the picture. That's where the picture comes from. Not the camera. But this is kind of specialized photography... This isn't just walking around town taking pictures of flowers and doorways. Is there any special equipment that's required from a from a gear standpoint, from a technique standpoint, just observationally, to be able to make these kind of pictures?
TB: Yes, Well, that's an interesting question. What kind of gear works best for this kind of work?
I've had students with me that have used every kind of camera, including their phones, and for many of the subjects and many of the moments, it works fine. But it's true, in my opinion, that to get photographs similar to the one that's up there on the wall, where the horses are running fast and the water's exploding and so forth, I find that there a certain type of a gear and a certain technique which helps you achieve what you're trying to achieve with those photos. At least more often than not.
One of the things when you're shooting fast moving action, whether you're shooting Grand Prix racecars or whether you're shooting fast-moving horses, or you're shooting fast moving action, you don't want to try to compose in the viewfinder. That’s too slow. If you went to Brooks School of Photography like David Michael Kennedy did, and maybe some others here, you’re taught to compose in the viewfinder, right? And that's great when you're dealing with a setting that you can control like in a studio or a landscape or a portrait. But if you got a horse running by you like that, or you're in Monaco shooting Formula One…
Remember, composition is what really, really makes a difference in terms of how good a photograph is to the viewer. When a viewer looks at the photograph, you're hoping they're going to feel something or they're going to be challenged. But if you're shooting a fast moving horse, or horses, you don't have time to compose in the viewfinder. So what I tell my students is SHOOT WIDE. In other words, you shoot a wider field of view than what you really want for your final composition. And then we do some creative cropping in post to create that final composition.
That photograph over on the wall with those five horses coming through the water, that photograph started out somewhat bigger than it ended up. So you want a camera that has a lot of resolution, relatively speaking. Enough resolution that you can create that final composition by cropping and still have enough pixels, enough resolution to make your print. And if you're making big prints, you obviously want to add as much resolution as possible. Most of these images were taken with at least 20 megapixel sensors and many of them were taken with 45 megapixel sensors. Okay? Now that's overkill for a lot of photography, but for this kind of work, it helps to have as much resolution as possible. And you want to be able to use a camera where you can shoot ten frames a second if you need to, at least five frames a second. Not essential, but in terms of maximizing your keepers.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Are you on a tripod when you're shooting?
TB:
No, I'm not on tripod. That's another thing that would slow me down and it slows my students down. If you're trying to follow these horses, Yeah, if you have a big set-up with a big gimbal you can probably do it pretty well, but actually, it's not necessary. We're not shooting in real low light. We're not shooting Milky Way shots. We're shooting in reasonable light. So a tripod is not really essential and it would slow you down with this kind of subject matter.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Are you on land, or are you on a horse in the water?
TB:
Good question? No - I am a terrible equestrian! I can make my horse go backwards. That's about it. I mean, my mom had a horse when I was growing up in the country and my sister had horses and I've ridden horses, but I'm not an equestrian. All this work is taken with me standing on the ground. Now, I have ridden a Camargue horse, but not to photograph.
MB:
So, cropping is post-production. I'm a firm believer coming from film and darkrooms that half the picture is when you take the picture, the rest of the picture is when you deal with it after the fact. Post-production. So in addition to cropping, I noticed, especially on the color images, that you've got a color palette that is not just reality. It seems to be a little muted. There's an artfulness to it. And if you've been shooting these pictures over the years you've been shooting in a lot of different circumstances, a lot of different weather, a lot of different times of day. You’ve got to bring that all together to put together a series of images like this that work as a series. Right?
TB:
Actually, I try to keep the color fairly accurate in the color images. Different times of day, different color temperature of the light. I might manipulate the color temperature a little bit, but most of the images in the book, the color is very much the way I recall seeing it. Now I shoot what's called RAW files. That’s all I shoot - just RAW - which gives me a lot of data so that if I do have to make some changes in contrast or exposure or bring the highlights down or bring up the shadows a little bit, with RAW files I have a lot of latitude to do that. But truth is, those final images are very much the way I recall seeing and feeling that moment. Now, when you shoot a raw image, as I tell my students, raw images need to be loved. They need to be worked to get the most out of them. Like you remember seeing it. So, yes, I do some things, but I don't generally change the color per se very much at all. Now, with white, black and white, it's a different story. I don't know how many of you have actually seen the book yet, but you notice there's a lot of black and white images in there.
So I want to just get a little background about you and photography. You’ve had a bunch of other careers - I can't even remember all of them. How did you become a photographer?
Tony Bonanno:
My father was a photographer during World War Two. And my siblings and I, by the time we were 12 years old, we all knew how to take photographs. I mean, you know, for Christmas, we’d get a tripod. Of course, this was all roll film cameras,120 film and everything. My dad had a big darkroom down in his basement, and I grew up in the city of Washington, D.C., - in the city, not in the suburbs. So we learned the basics of photography, my sisters and I, when we were pretty young. And then as I got older, you know, college and graduate careers, it was a hobby.
But after a divorce, I found myself on Cape Cod in a new role. I was the chief Ranger, Cape Cod National Seashore from 1986 to 1992 when I came to Santa Fe. And while I was there, the area where I lived, on Nauset Marsh, the light, the birds, the clouds - it was incredible. And I was feeling really inspired to try to capture this a little bit somehow. But I can't draw, I can't paint…
And matter of fact, after my wife and I split, I didn't have any cameras either!
So I made a trip to Hunt’s Camera Store in Boston and I bought a camera and a couple lenses and I started taking photographs and I had a party one evening at my house and a lot of the artists on the Cape came to my house and there were a couple of photographers - River Carmen and Linda McCausland - that were at the party, and they were roaming around the house and they saw a lot of prints and photography I had laid out in my work room, and they came in and they said, “Are these your photographs?” I said, “Yes.” And they said “You need a show.” And the next thing you know, I had my first show called Backyard Landscapes, and it was 50 images basically taken with 100 yards of my back door, and it was successful. And I have to admit I had a little bit of help because being the chief ranger, I was having to deal with the media all the time. So I knew all the reporters - the Cape Cod Times, the Cape Codder - and they wrote everything up really nice for me. So that got me started in the photography and I kept doing it. And then I finally made it look like part time business. It became a passion.
MB:
I think you just get hooked and start by trying to find a way that you can do it all the time and put that on your tax return as your occupation.
TB:
Yeah.
MB:
So it sounds like you first went to the Camargue in 2015. This project took place over a bunch of years. And I think that documentary and photojournalistic kinds of projects only take place when you get access. It's more about access to start with than anything else. You've got to be able to get in and have them be comfortable with you. How did you gain access for this work?
TB:
Well, I was doing a workshop on Cuba, for Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, and one of my students was a lady named Jody Willard. And Jody Willard was a photojournalist based in Santa Barbara. And she knew that I had done a lot of horse photography and she was very interested in going to France to photograph the Camargue horses. So she approached me about going with her the following year and the two of us co-leading a workshop together, and that's how it all started. So I went with her. I had never heard of the Camargue prior to this, to be honest. I mean, I've been to France a number of times but I had never been to the Camargue. So it turned out to be a great experience. And the access - we worked with a fixer, a gentleman named Patrice, and he had actually worked developing relationships with guadians and herders. So people like Jody and I could get him to help us make the contacts. And at that point in 2015, there weren't very many people doing what we hoped to do. There were maybe six or seven photographers, mostly based in Europe and maybe two or three of them based in the US that were doing, like, a workshop and working with the herders. And Patrice latched onto that. And then Jody and I wound up there and that's how it all started.
The herders and the Guadian, we were just very fortunate in developing a good relationship with the people we were working with. It was their show. We were sort of like flies on the wall for a while and then everything just got better and better year after year.
MB: And then when you go back, they know you. And you can pick up where you left off.
TB: Absolutely. But just working on this book, the idea, after my second time over there, I started really recognizing the passion that that Guadian culture was exhibiting. And I realized it was genuine and it impressed me a lot. And the more I went over there and the more I watched the herders work, I could see that love they had for the horses. And then combine that with the traditional way of their culture - the hats, the tri-tip staffs, the thatched cottages - everything they did, I realized this was a story I would like to share.
And, you know, I thought yeah, I can make prints - big prints - but, you know, how many people will get to see the big prints? But if I could write something, put together a book that you could actually sit down and see the story flow in terms of photographs and text - that would achieve my goal. And to me, a book's a lot more intimate anyway, than looking at a website screen or your TV. I think a book conveys a lot more feeling.
MB:
You mentioned before that you have a fear that the culture is disappearing with the younger kids that are coming up. And so the book sort of preserves a moment or an era and becomes a kind of historical document, really.
TB:
I hope so. I hope the book doesn’t just preserve a moment in each photograph, but it also conveys a feeling - a feeling that I had when I was taking the photographs. And to me, that's what this book is trying to accomplish.
And I have to admit, it's my first book. I mean, I've done a couple of blurb books and a little on-demand books, but this book’s turned out to be one heck of a learning experience. I made a few wrong turns along the way, but I tried very hard to make it as good as I could.
MB:
Okay. We're going to get to that. But I wanted to take a little bit of a left turn. In a world where we seem to have gotten to a point with photography where it's about the gear you buy, where everybody needs to buy new cameras, like, once a month, and all the stuff you bought last month is out of date now, I'm a firm believer in the fact that the photographer takes the picture. That's where the picture comes from. Not the camera. But this is kind of specialized photography... This isn't just walking around town taking pictures of flowers and doorways. Is there any special equipment that's required from a from a gear standpoint, from a technique standpoint, just observationally, to be able to make these kind of pictures?
TB: Yes, Well, that's an interesting question. What kind of gear works best for this kind of work?
I've had students with me that have used every kind of camera, including their phones, and for many of the subjects and many of the moments, it works fine. But it's true, in my opinion, that to get photographs similar to the one that's up there on the wall, where the horses are running fast and the water's exploding and so forth, I find that there a certain type of a gear and a certain technique which helps you achieve what you're trying to achieve with those photos. At least more often than not.
One of the things when you're shooting fast moving action, whether you're shooting Grand Prix racecars or whether you're shooting fast-moving horses, or you're shooting fast moving action, you don't want to try to compose in the viewfinder. That’s too slow. If you went to Brooks School of Photography like David Michael Kennedy did, and maybe some others here, you’re taught to compose in the viewfinder, right? And that's great when you're dealing with a setting that you can control like in a studio or a landscape or a portrait. But if you got a horse running by you like that, or you're in Monaco shooting Formula One…
Remember, composition is what really, really makes a difference in terms of how good a photograph is to the viewer. When a viewer looks at the photograph, you're hoping they're going to feel something or they're going to be challenged. But if you're shooting a fast moving horse, or horses, you don't have time to compose in the viewfinder. So what I tell my students is SHOOT WIDE. In other words, you shoot a wider field of view than what you really want for your final composition. And then we do some creative cropping in post to create that final composition.
That photograph over on the wall with those five horses coming through the water, that photograph started out somewhat bigger than it ended up. So you want a camera that has a lot of resolution, relatively speaking. Enough resolution that you can create that final composition by cropping and still have enough pixels, enough resolution to make your print. And if you're making big prints, you obviously want to add as much resolution as possible. Most of these images were taken with at least 20 megapixel sensors and many of them were taken with 45 megapixel sensors. Okay? Now that's overkill for a lot of photography, but for this kind of work, it helps to have as much resolution as possible. And you want to be able to use a camera where you can shoot ten frames a second if you need to, at least five frames a second. Not essential, but in terms of maximizing your keepers.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Are you on a tripod when you're shooting?
TB:
No, I'm not on tripod. That's another thing that would slow me down and it slows my students down. If you're trying to follow these horses, Yeah, if you have a big set-up with a big gimbal you can probably do it pretty well, but actually, it's not necessary. We're not shooting in real low light. We're not shooting Milky Way shots. We're shooting in reasonable light. So a tripod is not really essential and it would slow you down with this kind of subject matter.
AUDIENCE QUESTION: Are you on land, or are you on a horse in the water?
TB:
Good question? No - I am a terrible equestrian! I can make my horse go backwards. That's about it. I mean, my mom had a horse when I was growing up in the country and my sister had horses and I've ridden horses, but I'm not an equestrian. All this work is taken with me standing on the ground. Now, I have ridden a Camargue horse, but not to photograph.
MB:
So, cropping is post-production. I'm a firm believer coming from film and darkrooms that half the picture is when you take the picture, the rest of the picture is when you deal with it after the fact. Post-production. So in addition to cropping, I noticed, especially on the color images, that you've got a color palette that is not just reality. It seems to be a little muted. There's an artfulness to it. And if you've been shooting these pictures over the years you've been shooting in a lot of different circumstances, a lot of different weather, a lot of different times of day. You’ve got to bring that all together to put together a series of images like this that work as a series. Right?
TB:
Actually, I try to keep the color fairly accurate in the color images. Different times of day, different color temperature of the light. I might manipulate the color temperature a little bit, but most of the images in the book, the color is very much the way I recall seeing it. Now I shoot what's called RAW files. That’s all I shoot - just RAW - which gives me a lot of data so that if I do have to make some changes in contrast or exposure or bring the highlights down or bring up the shadows a little bit, with RAW files I have a lot of latitude to do that. But truth is, those final images are very much the way I recall seeing and feeling that moment. Now, when you shoot a raw image, as I tell my students, raw images need to be loved. They need to be worked to get the most out of them. Like you remember seeing it. So, yes, I do some things, but I don't generally change the color per se very much at all. Now, with white, black and white, it's a different story. I don't know how many of you have actually seen the book yet, but you notice there's a lot of black and white images in there.
MB:
The story of the Guadians is black and white, mostly, right?.
TB:
Yes. A lot of the Guadian images are in black and white. I love black and white. Black and white, to me, emphasizes the elements of composition. Color is very often an important part of that composition. But color can also detract from composition.
So depending on the image, I love black and white, and if black and white will work well with that particular element, and will really emphasize the compositional elements - shadow, the lighting, the texture, the pattern, you know, then I like to do it in black and white.
There are times, though, when the color is just irresistible. Also, my black and white images are toned. You'll notice they have a slight brownish tint to them. My students call it the Bonanno signature brown tone. But it's a little formula I have that I use in my post-processing software, which is mostly Lightroom. Lightroom and Photoshop. And I feel that little hint of brownish tone added to the black and white, to me, increases the depth and gives the black and white image a little more feeling.
MB:
So how many years total were you there shooting the images that went into the book? Maybe five or six altogether?
TB:
2015 to 2021.
MB:
You must have shot thousands of images. So we all want to know, how do you pick the best images? Especially with - how many images in the book?
TB:
72.
MB:
And that includes the Guadians. So there's maybe 50 horse images or something like that.
How do you choose which images to include?
TB:
That's a good question, because I do have enough images that I could have used different images in many cases, and the story would have been just as strong, I think. But there's only so many pages I was going to do in the book and and how do I pick? I pick the images I think integrate with a total spread of images, the flow from beginning to end. In other words, when I'm talking about the Guadians, I'm obviously going to use images which express photographically what I'm trying to say. It's still a photo essay. And so obviously you want images that are saying and conveying the story.
It's true. I could have used different ones than I did, but I just had to go through it and at some point I have to say, okay, enough’s enough. I would lay out 200 5x 7 photos on the floor of my house and try to figure out which ones really fit and go together. And after a while you start pulling your hair out, you say I don't know, maybe I shouldn't use that one. Well, this one would work. And at some point you have to say, okay, enough’s enough.
MB:
That kind of segues into how do you design a book? So, you print out small prints, lay them out and you do what we call sequencing. Right? And so what about the other design aspects? You've got text. You've actually got text in two languages, right? You’ve mixed black and white and color. So how do you go about the design process?
TB:
Well, there's a couple of things I required of myself. One is, when you go to the book, you'll notice the two page spreads, as we call it, which is the left and right side. No spread has a black and white and a color on the same spread. They're either both black and white or they're both color, or there's just one image on that spread. That sounds like a minor detail, but to me it helps the inclusion of black and white and color in the same book. It helps it flow better. And the color is not conflicting with the black and white and vice versa. That’s just in my head. I don't know if that makes a lot of difference, but that's the way I feel about it. The other thing about the design - the text, for example - the text is in French and English, obviously. I was very fortunate to work with an incredible translator, Audrey Bariad. She's a Yale graduate. She was on staff at Ohio University. Now she's in Michigan. And her main expertise and what she's known for is her ability to translate the fine points. And she's an excellent translator. And she was French, and she knew the Camargue. She knew the subject matter. So she turned out to be a real gem for me because she related to the subject matter. She could write in a way that was a little more romantic than just a standard translator, and certainly better than Google. I mean, she has great.
The other thing about the book, I wanted it to be travel size. I was hoping this book would have a real presence in Provence, in the bookstores in Arles, for example, the venues in Saint Mary's de L'Mar and Avignon and other places. Now, that's still the biggest challenge lying ahead of me at the moment. I still have not got a real plan in place to get those books over there in different venues, but that's on my calendar right now. But I do think the market would be better, and I think that tourists who visit those areas could learn a lot from this book about those horses and about their herders, and in my research, I've not found another book that does it the way this book does. So we'll see where that goes.
MB:
So do you have a publisher, per se? Or that's what you're trying to work out is your own distribution, right?
TB:
I'm the publisher. That wasn't what I intended.
Now, any of you know Tony Stromberg? Some of you know Tony's work. Incredible horse photographer. Incredible. One of my first horse books was one of Tony’s. My horses are more about their power and motion and everything. His horses are like flowing manes and graceful beauty, you know? So, Tony and I happen to be pretty good friends, so we talked a lot. When Tony did his first few books, he was approached by publishers who said, we want to do a book with your work. We want to publish your book. And they paid for everything and it was successful.
Today, forget it.
Tony told me he threw out an idea to his publishers just last year. None of them would even talk to him. If you're a congressman or criminal? Maybe both! If you're a celebrity? If that publisher knows they'll sell thousands of copies, yeah, they'll pay to do your book. They'll pay you an advance. They're going to make it really nice. But if you're doing a fine art book, something like this, you might find a publisher that's happy to publish the book, but you're still going to pay for it, right? And then then you have no control over how they distribute, how they market. So I found one publisher that wanted to do my book in Milan, Italy, but they wouldn't market it anywhere outside of Italy. So that wasn't going to work for me. My market’s France, and my market’s here. My market is horse lovers, French, Francophiles and my 50 best friends.
So I found that actually self-publishing, as much work as it is - I mean, I've learned a lot. I made a lot of wrong turns. It's taken me three years to get this thing done. And yet I think in the long run, with today's market, as far as books go, this has probably worked out the best for me now.
MB:
You printed the book in the United States, you printed it in Phoenix. And you were on press?
TB:
Yes.
MB:
So for those of us who are thinking of doing our own books, what happens on press? Were there changes that you made there?
TB:
That's very important. A lot of people - many of you perhaps have done your own books - they get printed in Singapore,they get printed in Korea, they get printed in China, they get printed in Italy… And your designer, you know, or maybe you, you go on press, you go to that press and you are there with the press operator and they're removing signatures off the press. A signature is, like, eight pages on a big sheet, And you look at them together and you try to dial in the color. You try to dial in the black and white. You don't want green color casts. You don't want magenta color casts. You want that color, and you want those black and whites, to be accurate. You want those black and whites to show the dark shadow detail. When you look at the pictures in this book, the shadow areas, you don't want them all blocked up to where they're just black. You want to be able to see the shadow detail. You don't want the highlights all blown out. All of these things can go wrong on a press. Okay? Somebody has to be there making sure it's right. So usually if you're printing overseas, your designer, I mean, you have a lot of good people here in Santa Fe that manage making books. Joanna Hurley at Hurley Media, you have Lou Bruno with Bruno Creative. You have others that do this and they will go on press, and if your designer is printing in Singapore you're going to be paying for his trip to Singapore and his hotel, his food, his daily rate to go on press. And if that works for you great.
For me - Lou Bruno is the creative consultant that walked me through my book. He’s in the back of the room there. And he was terrific. So, we decided to print in the U.S. And of course, with everything that's been going on in the world, this seemed to be a more reasonable choice as every day went by. So we have a press in Phoenix called Panoramic Press, and they have a new type of press. They had the big offset press, which is as big as this building, but then they have a new kind of press called a KM1 press. It's a new technology and it was terrific. So we went to Phoenix and I go on press with the press operator and sure enough, we could get the shadow detail exactly where it needed to be. We could get the tone, without any color cash. We could get everything the way we wanted it. But it took several tries to do it. They would print a signature. They’d bring it into a big viewing booth where the color temperature of the light is industry standard, usually around 5000 K, and that way we could look at the color and the black and white under a standard kind of viewing light source, and then we would punch in the computer changes to create or correct anything we thought needed correction. Now originally we tried to do that by just FedEx-ing and signatures back and forth from Phoenix. But that didn't work. We got very close, but not close enough for me. And I have to admit I'm pretty picky, you know? So going on press? Yes, I think that makes a huge difference. If you're doing a book where you have artwork or photographs and the color and so forth is critical, then I think it's really important that your designer should go on press.
MB:
So you said the process of this book start to finish was about three years and you must feel pretty good now being at an end of that. So what else do you want to tell us? What's next You're doing another book?
TB:
No. At my age, I don't know that I’d make it through another book. I mean, this thing was a huge learning experience. It was expensive, I have to say. But I think if you have a passion about something you want to talk about or tell a story about, if you want to do a book and you're passionate about that subject matter, I think that's the first thing - you have to feel strongly about your subject matter. I don't see how people can do books like this if they don't feel a real passion for what they're doing.
MB:
Well, now you're an expert in it, too - in the Camargue.
TB:
Yeah. The first couple of years I went there, I never really was thinking seriously about a book But I found myself feeling so strongly about that culture and about those horses, it just sort of took over. So I think if you have a passion and you have a story you want to tell, don't be discouraged. You can start out with on-demand books. You can find people that can help you with books. A lot of people right here in town, they can do that. And I think it's a wonderful exercise to immerse yourself in. It's time consuming and you make some mistakes along the way. I made a number of them. I made several wrong turns, but thank God for some people that helped get me on the right path. And I, I would just say, you know, follow your DNA, follow what you love.
MB:
I think that one of the things that I'm taking away from this today is - you said that you felt like like a book was a more intimate experience. I think with the price of prints, and we all love to sell fine art prints if we can sell them, but people find books are more affordable, more accessible. It's a way to be able to have more of your work seen by more people. And I think that kind of validates that as probably one of the primary ways to distribute photography and get our photography out there for people to enjoy.
TB:
I agree. Yeah, I’m in four different galleries in two states and all the galleries want a book. And of course, Edition ONE, here where we are today, they were the first ones to get the book. And I think the book does give a lot of people an option. They may not be able to afford a fine print, but the book is relatively affordable and it's a very easy way to lay out the whole story.
The story of the Guadians is black and white, mostly, right?.
TB:
Yes. A lot of the Guadian images are in black and white. I love black and white. Black and white, to me, emphasizes the elements of composition. Color is very often an important part of that composition. But color can also detract from composition.
So depending on the image, I love black and white, and if black and white will work well with that particular element, and will really emphasize the compositional elements - shadow, the lighting, the texture, the pattern, you know, then I like to do it in black and white.
There are times, though, when the color is just irresistible. Also, my black and white images are toned. You'll notice they have a slight brownish tint to them. My students call it the Bonanno signature brown tone. But it's a little formula I have that I use in my post-processing software, which is mostly Lightroom. Lightroom and Photoshop. And I feel that little hint of brownish tone added to the black and white, to me, increases the depth and gives the black and white image a little more feeling.
MB:
So how many years total were you there shooting the images that went into the book? Maybe five or six altogether?
TB:
2015 to 2021.
MB:
You must have shot thousands of images. So we all want to know, how do you pick the best images? Especially with - how many images in the book?
TB:
72.
MB:
And that includes the Guadians. So there's maybe 50 horse images or something like that.
How do you choose which images to include?
TB:
That's a good question, because I do have enough images that I could have used different images in many cases, and the story would have been just as strong, I think. But there's only so many pages I was going to do in the book and and how do I pick? I pick the images I think integrate with a total spread of images, the flow from beginning to end. In other words, when I'm talking about the Guadians, I'm obviously going to use images which express photographically what I'm trying to say. It's still a photo essay. And so obviously you want images that are saying and conveying the story.
It's true. I could have used different ones than I did, but I just had to go through it and at some point I have to say, okay, enough’s enough. I would lay out 200 5x 7 photos on the floor of my house and try to figure out which ones really fit and go together. And after a while you start pulling your hair out, you say I don't know, maybe I shouldn't use that one. Well, this one would work. And at some point you have to say, okay, enough’s enough.
MB:
That kind of segues into how do you design a book? So, you print out small prints, lay them out and you do what we call sequencing. Right? And so what about the other design aspects? You've got text. You've actually got text in two languages, right? You’ve mixed black and white and color. So how do you go about the design process?
TB:
Well, there's a couple of things I required of myself. One is, when you go to the book, you'll notice the two page spreads, as we call it, which is the left and right side. No spread has a black and white and a color on the same spread. They're either both black and white or they're both color, or there's just one image on that spread. That sounds like a minor detail, but to me it helps the inclusion of black and white and color in the same book. It helps it flow better. And the color is not conflicting with the black and white and vice versa. That’s just in my head. I don't know if that makes a lot of difference, but that's the way I feel about it. The other thing about the design - the text, for example - the text is in French and English, obviously. I was very fortunate to work with an incredible translator, Audrey Bariad. She's a Yale graduate. She was on staff at Ohio University. Now she's in Michigan. And her main expertise and what she's known for is her ability to translate the fine points. And she's an excellent translator. And she was French, and she knew the Camargue. She knew the subject matter. So she turned out to be a real gem for me because she related to the subject matter. She could write in a way that was a little more romantic than just a standard translator, and certainly better than Google. I mean, she has great.
The other thing about the book, I wanted it to be travel size. I was hoping this book would have a real presence in Provence, in the bookstores in Arles, for example, the venues in Saint Mary's de L'Mar and Avignon and other places. Now, that's still the biggest challenge lying ahead of me at the moment. I still have not got a real plan in place to get those books over there in different venues, but that's on my calendar right now. But I do think the market would be better, and I think that tourists who visit those areas could learn a lot from this book about those horses and about their herders, and in my research, I've not found another book that does it the way this book does. So we'll see where that goes.
MB:
So do you have a publisher, per se? Or that's what you're trying to work out is your own distribution, right?
TB:
I'm the publisher. That wasn't what I intended.
Now, any of you know Tony Stromberg? Some of you know Tony's work. Incredible horse photographer. Incredible. One of my first horse books was one of Tony’s. My horses are more about their power and motion and everything. His horses are like flowing manes and graceful beauty, you know? So, Tony and I happen to be pretty good friends, so we talked a lot. When Tony did his first few books, he was approached by publishers who said, we want to do a book with your work. We want to publish your book. And they paid for everything and it was successful.
Today, forget it.
Tony told me he threw out an idea to his publishers just last year. None of them would even talk to him. If you're a congressman or criminal? Maybe both! If you're a celebrity? If that publisher knows they'll sell thousands of copies, yeah, they'll pay to do your book. They'll pay you an advance. They're going to make it really nice. But if you're doing a fine art book, something like this, you might find a publisher that's happy to publish the book, but you're still going to pay for it, right? And then then you have no control over how they distribute, how they market. So I found one publisher that wanted to do my book in Milan, Italy, but they wouldn't market it anywhere outside of Italy. So that wasn't going to work for me. My market’s France, and my market’s here. My market is horse lovers, French, Francophiles and my 50 best friends.
So I found that actually self-publishing, as much work as it is - I mean, I've learned a lot. I made a lot of wrong turns. It's taken me three years to get this thing done. And yet I think in the long run, with today's market, as far as books go, this has probably worked out the best for me now.
MB:
You printed the book in the United States, you printed it in Phoenix. And you were on press?
TB:
Yes.
MB:
So for those of us who are thinking of doing our own books, what happens on press? Were there changes that you made there?
TB:
That's very important. A lot of people - many of you perhaps have done your own books - they get printed in Singapore,they get printed in Korea, they get printed in China, they get printed in Italy… And your designer, you know, or maybe you, you go on press, you go to that press and you are there with the press operator and they're removing signatures off the press. A signature is, like, eight pages on a big sheet, And you look at them together and you try to dial in the color. You try to dial in the black and white. You don't want green color casts. You don't want magenta color casts. You want that color, and you want those black and whites, to be accurate. You want those black and whites to show the dark shadow detail. When you look at the pictures in this book, the shadow areas, you don't want them all blocked up to where they're just black. You want to be able to see the shadow detail. You don't want the highlights all blown out. All of these things can go wrong on a press. Okay? Somebody has to be there making sure it's right. So usually if you're printing overseas, your designer, I mean, you have a lot of good people here in Santa Fe that manage making books. Joanna Hurley at Hurley Media, you have Lou Bruno with Bruno Creative. You have others that do this and they will go on press, and if your designer is printing in Singapore you're going to be paying for his trip to Singapore and his hotel, his food, his daily rate to go on press. And if that works for you great.
For me - Lou Bruno is the creative consultant that walked me through my book. He’s in the back of the room there. And he was terrific. So, we decided to print in the U.S. And of course, with everything that's been going on in the world, this seemed to be a more reasonable choice as every day went by. So we have a press in Phoenix called Panoramic Press, and they have a new type of press. They had the big offset press, which is as big as this building, but then they have a new kind of press called a KM1 press. It's a new technology and it was terrific. So we went to Phoenix and I go on press with the press operator and sure enough, we could get the shadow detail exactly where it needed to be. We could get the tone, without any color cash. We could get everything the way we wanted it. But it took several tries to do it. They would print a signature. They’d bring it into a big viewing booth where the color temperature of the light is industry standard, usually around 5000 K, and that way we could look at the color and the black and white under a standard kind of viewing light source, and then we would punch in the computer changes to create or correct anything we thought needed correction. Now originally we tried to do that by just FedEx-ing and signatures back and forth from Phoenix. But that didn't work. We got very close, but not close enough for me. And I have to admit I'm pretty picky, you know? So going on press? Yes, I think that makes a huge difference. If you're doing a book where you have artwork or photographs and the color and so forth is critical, then I think it's really important that your designer should go on press.
MB:
So you said the process of this book start to finish was about three years and you must feel pretty good now being at an end of that. So what else do you want to tell us? What's next You're doing another book?
TB:
No. At my age, I don't know that I’d make it through another book. I mean, this thing was a huge learning experience. It was expensive, I have to say. But I think if you have a passion about something you want to talk about or tell a story about, if you want to do a book and you're passionate about that subject matter, I think that's the first thing - you have to feel strongly about your subject matter. I don't see how people can do books like this if they don't feel a real passion for what they're doing.
MB:
Well, now you're an expert in it, too - in the Camargue.
TB:
Yeah. The first couple of years I went there, I never really was thinking seriously about a book But I found myself feeling so strongly about that culture and about those horses, it just sort of took over. So I think if you have a passion and you have a story you want to tell, don't be discouraged. You can start out with on-demand books. You can find people that can help you with books. A lot of people right here in town, they can do that. And I think it's a wonderful exercise to immerse yourself in. It's time consuming and you make some mistakes along the way. I made a number of them. I made several wrong turns, but thank God for some people that helped get me on the right path. And I, I would just say, you know, follow your DNA, follow what you love.
MB:
I think that one of the things that I'm taking away from this today is - you said that you felt like like a book was a more intimate experience. I think with the price of prints, and we all love to sell fine art prints if we can sell them, but people find books are more affordable, more accessible. It's a way to be able to have more of your work seen by more people. And I think that kind of validates that as probably one of the primary ways to distribute photography and get our photography out there for people to enjoy.
TB:
I agree. Yeah, I’m in four different galleries in two states and all the galleries want a book. And of course, Edition ONE, here where we are today, they were the first ones to get the book. And I think the book does give a lot of people an option. They may not be able to afford a fine print, but the book is relatively affordable and it's a very easy way to lay out the whole story.
MB:
So again, I want to thank everybody for coming today. I remind you that there are still books for sale and Tony's still going to be here for signing. Does anybody have any questions for Tony?
Q&A1:
Can you talk a little bit, Tony, about motion blur or bracketing. Are you bracketing shutter speeds when you're shooting?
TB:
No, I don't. I don't shoot with bracketed shutter speeds. Bracketing shutter speeds meaning when you push the button it takes like three different exposures - one slightly under, one slightly over, and one right on.
Q&A1:
But you're shooting slow shutter speeds to get that bit of blur?
TB:
Yes. This was probably shot at 20th of a second, whereas most of those other images were shot at an 800th or a 1000th of a second.
Q&A2:
Well, I’m not a photographer and I’m mostly interested in the Camargue and the horses and I wanted to know how some of them are owned by the Guadians and some are wild.
TB:
Great question. Yeah, all these vast expanses of land that the horses are found on - sometimes that land is owned by the Guadian, but other times it's owned by someone else maybe living in Paris. And the Guadian manages a ranch and manages the herd for someone.
The Guardians, they're herders, they own the land and their herds. They're making their money off the beef and the cattle, and now tourism. They'll take a certain number of geldings and they'll set up and ride charge. And that's become a big thing just in the last decade.
Tourism's really getting to be big there.
MB:
Thank you Tony, for an enlightening talk. And thank you, everyone, for coming to this afternoon's Leicas & Scotch!
You can find out more about Tony Bonanno at his website here.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
So again, I want to thank everybody for coming today. I remind you that there are still books for sale and Tony's still going to be here for signing. Does anybody have any questions for Tony?
Q&A1:
Can you talk a little bit, Tony, about motion blur or bracketing. Are you bracketing shutter speeds when you're shooting?
TB:
No, I don't. I don't shoot with bracketed shutter speeds. Bracketing shutter speeds meaning when you push the button it takes like three different exposures - one slightly under, one slightly over, and one right on.
Q&A1:
But you're shooting slow shutter speeds to get that bit of blur?
TB:
Yes. This was probably shot at 20th of a second, whereas most of those other images were shot at an 800th or a 1000th of a second.
Q&A2:
Well, I’m not a photographer and I’m mostly interested in the Camargue and the horses and I wanted to know how some of them are owned by the Guadians and some are wild.
TB:
Great question. Yeah, all these vast expanses of land that the horses are found on - sometimes that land is owned by the Guadian, but other times it's owned by someone else maybe living in Paris. And the Guadian manages a ranch and manages the herd for someone.
The Guardians, they're herders, they own the land and their herds. They're making their money off the beef and the cattle, and now tourism. They'll take a certain number of geldings and they'll set up and ride charge. And that's become a big thing just in the last decade.
Tourism's really getting to be big there.
MB:
Thank you Tony, for an enlightening talk. And thank you, everyone, for coming to this afternoon's Leicas & Scotch!
You can find out more about Tony Bonanno at his website here.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.