I just discovered slides that document how I photographed high school seniors in our Santa Rosa home at the end of the last century. These are copies of prints, unretouched, absent Photoshop embellishment, but they represent how I spent much of twenty-six years of Julys, Augusts, Septembers, and Octobers when June graduating classes want to create the “Memories that Last a Lifetime.” Or not.
Our backyard. Stump, autumn leaves, barefoot girl, photogtapher.
This is pretty much how it worked. I'm behind my manual focus Mamiya RB67 with a lens hood, Kodak film, tripod, kitchen stepladder, and significantly more hair. My assistant is holding a white fabric reflector, taking ambient light and reflecting it into the face of the victim, or subject. Whatever. I will take ten different images of her outside, and ten in more traditional clothes, usually a drape or a tuxedo, inside. She’ll receive twelve 4x5 color prints from which she’ll choose her portrait package.
Photographs were presented in folios made by Art Leather. Available for purchase.
Seniors could include friends or relatives for a couple of the images. This is typical of the lighting I used inside. All strobe lights and film. Strobes were measured with a light meter. It was like flying with instruments. I had to rely on the light readings, knowing that each light was producing a predictable amount of light balanced with the others. I didn’t see this image (or any other) until the film was developed, the prints made, and then returned to 1524 Dutton Avenue.
A main light through an umbrella (soffbox) provided the main illumination. A fill light, again through an umbrella, lightens the shadows cast by the main light. A third light with a colored gel strikes a black background. A fourth light in a boom over the heads of the subjects illuminates the hair. A fifth light strikes an edge of illumination on the girl’s hair to the right.
If he plays the drums he brings his drums. If he raises pigs, he brings his pigs. If he drives a Ferrari he brings his Ferrari.
And if he’s a volunteer fireman, her brings (what else?) his dalmatian.
Most people chose Sitting 3. Ten shots indoors, ten outdoors. Always hoping for good weather. Hey, it’s California in the summer. Not a problem.
Sittings were Tuesday-Fridays. I often photographed weddings on Saturday. Sunday and Monday off. Working from our home brought its own problems. Clients figured that they could come whenever they chose “because you live there.”
None of this could have been done without Jadyne She answered the phone, booked appointments, greeted clients at the door, helped them with clothes, makeup and hair, dressed boys in the tux, helped girls in the drape, sorted through proofs, created folios, sent postcards, encouraged orders, took checks, credit cards, and endured both ill-mannered students, parents, and animals. She did all without complaint, recognizing that David Buchholz Photography was providing us with the ability to pay for three college educations, take one international trip a year, and save enough money to pay for the life we’re living today in our seventies.
DBP photographed high school proms, homecomings, winter formals, and father-daughter events (where I photographed Joe Montana). Eric Sedletsky, an airbrush artist, sold me on painting trompe l’oeil airbrushed backgrounds on 16’ x 8’ muslins, and a new business was born. I not only used these backgrounds, but Jadyne and I created a business that still exists today. I knew that they were unique and desirable, and that other photographers would like them as well, so we rented them and made more copies of popular ones. Eric quit. Enter Uttiya, my connection in India. We went to Delhi twice. At the turn of the century we recognized that the background rentals could support us in retirement. They did. We have about 600 backgrounds in inventory.
One of Eric’s best. And most popular.
I have nothing to do with the day-to-day operation of the business. Jason runs it. I just own it.
Running a business from home had its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, with Jadyne as the office manager and the studio at home, we saved on two of the biggest expenses. The downside can be summarized in this episode on Thanksgiving.
A student came to our door while we were celebrating a family Thanksgiving dinner. He asked, “Are you open?” I replied, “It’s Thanksgiving”, giving him the opportunity to answer his own question. Time to leave 1524 Dutton Avenue, Santa Rosa, and David Buchholz Photography behind.*
*Footnotes. Memorable moments that I’ve taken with me. Photographing Walter Mondale, the Democratic nominee for President in 1980, Joe Montana and his daughters, an evening with Tommy Smothers, and having the only camera permitted in a memorial service for first fatality of the Gulf War. I met and mixed with people who were in different social strata than I was, a mixed bag, especially when I was stiffed by Fred Furth, an attorney and winemaker, who insisted that he would only pay me if I gave him the original negatives. I didn’t. He didn’t either.