Paul D. Van Hoy II, an MFA in Fine Art Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology, is a professional photographer who won the Grand Prize in the Microsoft Future Pro Photographer Competition in 2007. A wedding photography specialist, he co-founded Wedding Photography Workshop, a web portal where he shares his expertise in the field of wedding photography to new and veteran photographers for them to improve their businesses.
His work has been featured in numerous high-profile publications including Brides and Bridal Magazine, Wedding Style, PDN, Digital Photo Pro, and Professional Photographer, just to name a few, and has worked for several well-known clients such as Forbes, Fossil Inc., Food & Wine Magazine, and Adidas. Paul was very kind to discuss with me about his entry in the competition, his work and his thought on some issues on photography. Starting with his winning entry Apocalypse.
The photo ‘apocalyptic summer’ was an image made in Rochester near the end of summer in 2006. While driving around in the city I observed a group of young children playing in a fire hydrant. Initially, I was ambivalent about pursuing a subject matter that has been so heavily exploited by others, so I challenged myself to represent this scene in a way that replaced cliche with intrigue.
Instead of contributing to the continuation of this subject’s sentimental posterity, I, chose to subtract and isolate the subject from its context/environment and make my image at an awkward moment of digression. The retreating gesture of the child combined with the sublime beauty and chaos of a scene abstracted by its stillness portends or implies rather, a consequential peril and undermines the playfulness otherwise, classically, associated with photographs of children playing in the rain or beneath the misty canopy of a geysering fire hydrant.
Do you still remember your first interaction with a camera?I grew up poor. I was a free lunch kid and part of the ‘Coat-A-Kid’ program that provided low-income families with clothes for the winter months. Weekends were usually spent with my mother, scouting out rummage sales and sifting through other’s orphaned possessions. My first camera was the Polaroid One-Step. I was six years old at the time, and discovered the camera near the bottom of an antique latch-trunk filled with old issues of TIME magazine and vintage cookbooks. Rarely did my mother splurge on items that weren’t rudimentary, i.e. clothes, shoes, school supplies. It was a memorable occasion marked by exception; one that stayed with me for sentimental and nostalgic reasons but now one that stands distinct as a pivotal point in the development of who I am today. We couldn’t afford film for the camera, so I was content with just framing scenes and subjects and activating the flash.
Tell us how you established your first photography business when you were only 16.
I wasn’t like most other children who wanted to be presidents, police officers, or super heroes; I wanted to be a photographer. I started working at the age of 13. I mowed lawns, bussed tables at a local diner, and did telemarketing for the Indiana State Police Alliance on the weekends; by the time I was 16 I had saved a substantial amount of money. Some people chance their money in the stock market or gamble it away at a casino, I chose to bet on myself. I bought a Nikon F5, an assortment of 2.8 lenses, a portable lighting kit, and a few ad spots in a few regional bridal magazines. My age was a bit of an impediment; as it called into question my experience and competency. However, the challenges it presented me with only hastened the rate at which I excelled and outperformed my competitors. In order to win the favor of brides I had to be better than the best, and that’s precisely where I put all of my focus and energy. That ethic and awareness has never left me.
Running your own wedding photography business, what do you find most challenging about being in this industry?Being a professional wedding photographer is more than just a full time job; it is, essentially, a lifestyle. Our job description encompasses many roles, from being our own business’s CEO, Marketing and Advertising Specialist, Accountant, Public Relations Officer, Consultant, Customer Service Rep, Art Director, Graphic Designer, Digital Archivist, Webmaster, to Shipping Clerk. For anyone seeking to have a career in professional wedding photography, they better be ready to sweat and bleed for it because this is a highly competitive industry. The biggest challenge is not only getting to the top – it’s being able to maintain that position once you get there.
When doing photojournalism and I suppose wedding photography as well, do you prefer your subjects to be posed or unposed?I’m a subscriber to Judith Butler’s ideas on ‘performativity’; the concept that we are all performing the conventions of ‘reality’ i.e. gender, race, class, etc. at all times – so philosophically speaking there is no difference to me between a posed and an unposed subject. Unless you’ve mastered the art of invisibility – subjects are always camera conscious and subsequently self-aware. However, to more directly answer your question, I prefer making images of my subjects that appear to be unposed or ‘candid’.
How has the PPA membership from the award’s prize enhanced your career?I was actually a member long before winning the Microsoft award, and have absolutely nothing but great things to say about the PPA – anyone who is even the slightest bit interested in professional photography stands to benefit tremendously from the wealth of resources the PPA offers.
A lot of your gallery images have reduced saturation. What part does color (or lack thereof) play in an image’s emotional appeal or artistic expression?We revere black and white images as being more voracious medium than color since the first photographs made were monochromatic. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the Pete Turner’s work strikes me as dishonest or inauthentic in any way. However, black and white possesses a poignancy that harkens to a history of contrived actualization. Simply put, photography has unequivocally determined and defined us and our ‘reality’ – this began not with color imagery, but with black and white.
Personally, I was never really interested in color. I dream in black in white, which I found out isn’t all that rare or unusual. Black and white, resolves the distraction that color creates for me. I am most interested in shape and form and black and white allows me to meditate on these basic, but yet defining attributes.
If there is a common theme or message among your photographs, what would be it?Making images is a very peculiar thing. As image-makers we re-present something already present in the world. We don’t take (as in taking photographs) we replace and re-present what already is. What we do is completely irrational when you stop to think about it. I consider myself an existentialist whose intentionality as an artist is fraught with contradiction. I hold firmly to the belief that man creates his own purpose and that meaning is owed entirely to construction —it is an arbitrary advent of consciousness.
The contradiction begins with having any intention/s if, in fact, it is my belief that all intellectual contributions are, in fact, equally arbitrary and meaningless. This is not an attempt to obfuscate my motives or evade the apprehension of my audience. I find myself equally perplexed and confined within the shrinking space of my own incredulity.
I am beset with beliefs that undermine my artistic passions and impulses. I attempt to make sense while all the while I am mocking sense-making. I use a constructed system of language and meaning to apprehend an existence that is entirely owed to construction. The cycle of contradiction is endless. My work for example, is never conceived for the purpose of telling my audience anything at all. The intention of my work is not to wipe away obscurity but to contribute to it.
What new and upcoming technologies in photography (e.g. camera equipment, digital workflow, etc) excite you the most?I absolutely love digital photography, as it allows me to capture images almost as quickly as I can discern or conjure them. I’m obsessive and carnivorous when it comes to image consumption and image conceptualization; every word, sound, taste, color, scent, and remembrance exists as an image to me – without images I would be unable to speak or ascertain meaning at all. Image is my consciousness.
The new technologies that are most exciting and impressive to me are the advancements camera manufactures are making with image sensors and the incredible reduction in noise at expanded ISO’s. With acceptable ISO’s reaching 102,400, we’re suddenly seeing an aesthetic within photography that more closely resembles how the human eye sees.
Do you still work with film nowadays? Anything about film photography that you miss with digital?I used to be a staunch formalist who mixed my own chemistry and slaved in the darkroom until my pupils practically popped – there was no question about it, I was totally enraptured with film. It’s been seven years now since I last exposed a piece of film, and I hadn’t even thought about film until I read this question. I can’t say that I’m sentimental about film, not one bit.
Have you considered exploring other forms of art medium like videography?Before I completely turned myself over to photography I was an illustrator, I loved to draw. However, I couldn’t create images as quickly as they came to me so I switched to photography to satisfy my need for instant gratification. I love motion picture – I own over 2k movie titles and watch at least one movie every day. I can’t stand television however. Movies provide a lot of inspiration for many of the still images I make, but I’m not at all interested in making films. My memories, attachments, and association are all embedded in frozen moments of time, not linear motion. Even while I’m watching a film, I make photographs of what’s moving in front of me.
Do you think documentary photography and fine art photography are mutually exclusive?No, to me there is absolutely no difference – every photograph ‘documents’ and I have yet to behold a photograph that possesses any scintilla of objectivity.
The discipline of photojournalism is a process of indoctrination. The photojournalist, if formally educated, is taught to believe that news can be reported without bias, as ‘objectivity’ and detachment are the photojournalist’s core values. Subjectivity is entirely antithetical to the aims of the photojournalist, because, for the photojournalist, news is not subjective nor should it be. Those who are fundamentalists and purists vehemently believe that a single photograph or series of photographs can represent the objective and unadulterated truth.
However, since the advent of digital photography, the genre of photojournalism has been in crisis, as the role of the photojournalist has been co-opted by every civilian in possession of a camera phone and an alert sense of interest. Digital photography has, no doubt, revolutionized the way we see, record, and report news, but it has also helped further blur the lines of distinction between, art, advertising, editorial photography, photojournalism, and even the pedestrian photograph.
I have many dear friends who work as photojournalists and, for a brief stint, I worked as a photojournalist as well. I certainly took great pleasure in challenging my friends and colleagues about their beliefs, but reserved, for my own beliefs, a degree of scrutiny from which they were spared. I have always been, and still remain, most critical of my own ideas and beliefs, which accounts for my fascination with photographers who fail or refuse to question their beliefs with regard to their medium.
One particular conversation I’ll share with you took place between a co-worker and myself while hovering over a light table at a daily paper in central Illinois. I said to my workmate, “If the objective of photojournalism is to tell the absolute ‘truth’… then why do we make images with cameras that observe and record monocularly?
I mean after all… (unless you’re a Cyclops) don’t most of us see the world with two eyes?” Additionally, I said, “We should stop shooting monochromatic film, unless our readership is predominantly color blind. And, oh yeah, we should probably sell our wide angles and telephotos and shoot exclusively with 60mm lenses?” (the focal length that most closely resembles the human perspective). The list could go on and on, but you get the point…
As successful as you are now, what is the next level that you are aiming to achieve?I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. Last year I signed a publishing agreement with Amherst Media and will be releasing my first book on wedding photography this fall. Additionally, my close friend, and now business partner, Brady Dillsworth, and I have just recently launched a free online resource and sharing community catering specifically to wedding photographers. Wedding Photography Workshop (WPW) www.weddingphotographyworkshop.com was created with the needs and interests of aspiring professional wedding photographers in mind. It is, in my opinion, the most comprehensive and relevant online resource for those new to or already established in this profession.
Beyond my professional endeavors, I would like to get back to what I love most, creating art. Graduate school was a cruel tease; two years of immersion and total freedom and privilege to play with pictures and words day in and day out. Well, now I’ve got to pay the tab, so that means putting all of my energy and present focus on commercial work and abandoning ‘art’ for the time being. Ideally, I would love to have a career as an artist, but the reality of that hasn’t yet and may never be realized. The reality is that people would rather buy my wedding photographs rather than my art.
End of interviewThanks Paul for sharing your thoughts and your time here! I’m sure readers will appreciate the story about your winning photography and the photography knowledge you have shared here.
Paul’s story - his other works Coney Island Alchemist
This may sound funny coming from me, but…
this image, for me, is very spiritual… It’s as if the woman in the paper-bag colored coat is summonsing a celestial force – an inversion of the genie in the bottle myth, if you will. To me, she is not the product of theories; ‘big bang’ or biology.
Rather, she is the punctum of all creation…and with each
gesture of her arm outstretched, birds and boardwalk pour
from her wind rippled cuff. I like to imagine that her bag
possesses magical powers, not unlike mary-poppins when
she pulled the most inconceivable items from her purse.
And, like a weight used to keep important papers from
scattering in a wind, her stance and gate are solid and absolute.
To her right, further down on the boardwalk, a once patriotically
painted trash receptacle stands faded and anchored in the
illusion of this accidental allegory. This image reminds me that
god (the god concept) is real, but no less a construct than man himself.
I suppose with the parking lot photo (which was shot through the glass window of my hotel room) I was confronting the symmetry and banality of a life without a view – the constancy of yellow lines indicating the ‘parked’ status of something stationary… I was full of
fear and sorrow, self-loathing and loss. To me, the photo was about construction and complacency – about the way we build walls…
Unremarkable walls, walls that could easily be destroyed or scaled, and how we literally park ourselves outside of those walls (most, for the entirety of our lives) gazing at obstruction as if it were a scenic view or vista, some sight to behold, something sublime. But, the only thing sublime in the view is the lack thereof, the imposition of our own confinement, self-incarceration…
You can learn more about Paul at Wedding Photography Workshop.
The land mark Smart Studios is closing here in Madison. Wendy Schneider is under way with her project highlighting the journey of the iconic studio and it’s historic musical contributions here in Madison.