The Legends of Photography

A graduate from Brooks Institute, Tim Mantoani is now a commercial photographer with clients ranging from Sports Illustrated to Newsweek to Coca-Cola. After Mantoani graduated, he considered how to make his athletic photography unique. To do so, he decided he would shoot the athletes with a 4 x 5 view camera—a method that lent the sessions a certain gravity, which offered his subjects another dimension.

Today, Mantoani’s typical assignment is executed using digital cameras, a change that he has embraced without hesitation. However, a part of him still longs for the day when craftsmanship was  pinnacled. He sees, in certain niches of the industry, a tendency to make do with images that are already available rather than to craft an image that hits the mark.
Mantoani also recognizes a trend toward snapshot-style pictures rather than artfully lit and composed ones. And even in assigned work he identifies a mindset oriented toward seeing how a shoot will evolve rather than relying on preproduction to design an image.

Mantoani also notices that photographers seem to get less respect in the digital age as some clients seem to have the attitude that, since they can buy a similar camera at their local Costco, they can do similar work to that of a professional.

All of this caused Mantoani to pursue a personal project that not only allowed him to pursue a direction that was the antithesis of the convenience and economy of shooting digitally, but also allowed him to explore the roots of photography through the eyes of photography’s distinguished veterans. And, on top of this, the project also sheds light on some important historical events of the 20th century.

How does one do all that with a personal photographic project? With a stunningly good concept! Mantoani used a Polaroid 20 x 24 camera to photograph an A-list team of photographers with their most famous images. Interestingly, to Mantoani, it was not at all important that the photographer be a household name, only that he considered them an important photographer—someone who influenced the industry or created an iconic image.

The project allowed Mantoani to get back to his roots of large-format portraiture—super-large with the Polaroid 20 x 24 view camera. With the Polaroid 20 x 24 camera the process entails viewing and focusing through the view camera—which, even at f/32, has only three inches of depth of field—and then mounting the film-holder, exposing the image and processing it. “It’s interesting that this technology, when it came out, was thought of as instant photography. But now instant photography is really digital because you shoot it and it’s right there. That 90 seconds seems like forever now,” Mantoani says.

Included in the project are Al Wertheimer with his photo of Elvis kissing a girl (pg. 16); Charles Moore with his image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being arrested (pg. 11); David Hume Kennerly with his photo of five U.S. Presidents gathered together (below); Douglas Kirkland’s picture of Marilyn Monroe (below); Jeff Widener with his photo of the lone man standing in front of four tanks in China’s Tiananmen Square (pg. 18); Mary Ellen Mark with her image of the elephant tamer with his elephant’s trunk spiraling around his head (pg. 12); and Henry Grossman with a Beatles portrait, complete with four moustaches (pg. 10).

“All these people are tied together by a common passion for photography and the individual interests of each person has driven them to pursue and document their subject matter,” says Mantoani. “So, while someone like Leroy Grannis was shooting surfing in Southern California and Hawaii, someone else was shooting fashion in New York and someone else was shooting a rock concert at Woodstock and someone else was shooting a war and it was through the eyes of these photographers that we got to see a lot of the world.”

Mantoani pointed out that many of the images these photographers chose as their iconic images are the result of personal work. Some of the work may have been done while on assignment but nonetheless can be thought of as personal work because of the photographer’s unique point of view and interest in the subject. “These people weren’t doing this because they got paid,” he says. “Most of these people were doing this because it was something that they loved.”

A good example of this was Charles Moore’s photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (pg. 11). Moore was a newspaper photographer in Montgomery, AL, and had heard that King would be visiting. Moore had not been assigned to cover the event but went of his own accord. This photo shows King being booked and about to be escorted to a jail cell.

Mantoani uses a 20 x 24 Wisner camera when he goes on location, as he did when he photographed architectural photographer Julius Schulman (pg. 11) at Schulman’s home studio. He found it one of his more interesting shoots. “He is 98 and still shoots!” Mantoani says about Schulman. “He did a full day’s shoot in Palm Springs the day prior to me shooting him. He used a 4 x 5 from his walker! When we brought in the background he said, ‘Wait a minute, don’t make a production out of this. I don’t have a lot of time.’ He clearly didn’t understand what I was up to and the process involved in shooting 20 x 24. It is a production. So I told my assistant that we needed to get the camera up ASAP and it would be a make it or break it deal. The camera is so big that he would either be amazed or shut us down. As soon as he saw the camera, he said, ‘Look at that box, how wonderful.’ ”

“We ended up having to set up the Polaroid processor in a blacked-out tent in the garage and wrap the Polaroid back in black fabric to keep light leaks to a minimum. When we shot our first frame, we had stray light coming in from the top creating a blue streak in the image. He loved it. ‘It’s perfect, I am all about letting in the light!’ he said. So that was it, one shot. He wrote on the image that Benedict Taschen calls him ‘One Shot Schulman’ because he would shoot only one frame of each image. He told me that’s all you need, that you should know when the image is right and then shoot it.”

Mantoani shared an amusing behind-the-scenes story about a shot captured by Jeff Widener, who was in Beijing during the protests in 1989 (pg. 18). Widener was framing what he thought was a dramatic shot of four tanks lining up in Tiananmen Square. As he was about to take the photo, a lone man stood to block the lead tank and Widener thought to himself, “Get out of my shot! Get out of my shot!” But, of course, it turned out that that was the shot!

Mantoani mentions the photo of John Filo, in which he is holding two prints (pg. 14). Filo was a student at Kent State University during the Vietnam War protests. He was there when the infamous riots broke out. He took the first picture of a man waving a flag with a crowd in the distance. Filo told Mantoani that he worked hard to get the photo as he wished and was excited to have captured it. He began to run across campus to go process his film when he heard a gunshot and there, right in front of him, was the scene that he captured and has become emblematic of the era—the famous photo of the girl crying over the body. Filo wanted to show that sometimes photographers are just offered a gift, one that is important to share with other people.

Mantoani says that he learned from his discussions with these photographers that all seem to share a “voice in the back of their heads” that drives them to explore and photograph these subjects. And Mantoani confirms that it was such a voice that impelled him to begin his project documenting these photographic luminaries.

The Internet was a helpful resource Mantoani used to research his potential subjects. At the same time he finds the photographers themselves are excellent sources of referrals. He says that most photographers he approaches are interested in participating in the project.

I asked Mantoani whether photographers make good subjects to shoot. “Some photographers are not comfortable in front of the camera, while others are very comfortable with it,” he answered. “Timothy Greenfield-Sanders said he likes being photographed from time to time, because it allows you to better understand what your subject may feel when they are in front of the lens.”

In addition to his Wisner 20 x 24 camera, Mantoani also rents a Polaroid 20 x 24 camera when he is in New York or San Francisco. Only six of these Polaroid 20 x 24 cameras were ever made and only five remain in use. The camera’s rental fee is $1500 per day (technician included) and when he began the project he was paying $75 per sheet of film. But, as the film availability dwindles and the shelf life of the chemicals used for development starts to become an issue, market forces have driven the cost up to $200 per sheet. Of course, Mantoani works to book several sessions back-to-back in order to make the rental fee worthwhile. Fortunately, he is already booking shows to display and sell the work.

Mantoani set out to “feed his creative soul” by going back to the roots of photography—large-format portraiture and to do so in Polaroid, a medium that requires specialized knowledge and a slow, meditative mindset. He sought fulfillment in the process but his true rewards came from the inspiring people he chose to put in front of his camera.

Larry Brownstein is the photographer of the books Los Angeles, Where Anything is Possible and The Midnight Mission. He is represented by Getty Images, Alamy and other agencies. He has a growing wedding and portrait photography business. He also offers stock photography consulting and career coaching for emerging photographers. See his work at www.larrybrownstein.com or contact him at 310-815-1402.