PAST

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: In your early years of high school, were you involved in the yearbook ? What sparked your interest in photography? Do you recommend all the weekend photographers out there to initially stick with the subjects they know and build from there? Do you have any suggestions on how to build that progression? How did you progress to where you are today in photography?

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
I always liked photography and were doing it as an amateur for many years. I started as a professional in the New Years day of 1970, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
I think we should photograph what we understand better. In jobs I try to know about the client work before. This way you have more chances of make a good work and avoid surprises. If you go to a war you have to be prepared.
I worked with all camera formats from 35mm to 4×5” in studio or location. Most of my work was advertising and industry.

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: Do you still have photos taken from the early years when it all started? What were your subjects? Are the pictures online to share with everyone to compare with your work today?

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
I have prints and almost all negatives from those days. Since the beginning I had a preoccupation with archival methods. I have good prints made then. I keep all my negatives too.

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: What books did you read at the beginning of your photography career that helped you prepare for today? Title of book, author and price of book please…just messing around, the title of the books should be fine thanks to google search. Do you recall any other resources that you referred to heavily to help you prepare for the photography business? We want to know what the must have resources are to fully equip ourselves when and if we ever plan to take that leap of faith.

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
I read all that I could but some books were classic like Neblete, Ansel Adams, Michael Langford, Kodak-Ilford-Agfa-Ansco-Adox manuals, Photo-Lab Index, magazines like Popular Photography, Modern Photography, USCamera, Swiss Camera. The fact is that photography is a big and complex medium. Lab work was not easy. You need to study a lot and I like to study so, this was a pleasure.

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: What was your very first professional photography job? Was this purely out of luck that you were at the right place at the right time? Was there a hidden plan to penetrate the market from within? Would you recommend it to new photographers trying to break into the market and that are having difficulty breaking in? Once you had your first job under your belt was it difficult to get another gig? What did you do to acquire more work besides providing awesome images? Have you ever considered being agency represented? If you are agency represented how did you attract a photography agent?

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
I was hired for my first job and the client do not paid…started well.
I do not had any plan for nothing. I just wanted to do photography and started to visit advertising agencies. Met some people and some of them helped me and started to call. You had a lot more work then and there were not so much professionals like today. But the photos were difficult to do, you do not had the resources you have today.
To get work was difficult and it still is difficult. In Brazil we do not have agents, I never understand why.
Today there are more competition but with the digital media you have much more chances. With sites like LinkedIn you can reach a famous art director easily. I had a friend, an Italian chemical engeneer, that in 73 go to New York to work as a photographer and had to work as a Garson(waitress) in a restaurant were advertising people frequented. He desisted and returned to Italy.

The pro now have control of all this. Home pages, blogs. It easy to make a good portfolio. More information. You work on an International marketplace. Emails, Skype, video calling. It easy to correct for errors with digital. A 4×5”chrome had to be perfect. There were very few retouchers and extremely expensive.

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: After your first job, What was the next photography gig you obtained and how did you go about your execution? Did you apply all that you’ve learned in all the books you’ve read ? Did you buy more books or accessed any more resources to help you jump to your next big step in the game of photography? What tools do you recommend that are a must have that helped you get to where you are present day?

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
You always apply what you learn. I never get a job I could not done. It could be not pretty or something but the client would receive what he paid for. One of the reasons that many clients call me was that I was and still am a problem solver. I can do a lot of improvising.
I study about anything I get involved and many times things I study because I like and in a way or another will use that in the future.
I always done my lab work with chemicals I mixed from formulas, done my color processing since Kodak E3 to E6 with equipment I planed and temperature controller I build with knowledge I got from my days on my chemical lab (better than of my school). Had done color print for some years.
The problem was that outside Labs were unreliable and most completely incompetent. If you wanted a good processing you had to do it yourself. I never had the amount and contaminations that outside Labs do. I had energy failure in the middle of processing and Gralab stopped ( I had a spring watch in Lab too…), water stopped and I used aquarium water to wash chromes. All this kind of failures never gave the amount of errors and color contaminations Labs produced.
I am saying all this to emphasize that people should never stop learning. Knowledge do not occupy space and is never superfluous.
The amount of stupid incompetent and ignorant professionals that exist today thinking they are great professionals just because Canon/Nikon make a good auto exposure system and the lens is sharp is enormous. Industry automated stupidity and incompetence. And clients paying less get less qualified people. Brazil is a mess to work now.
There are and will always exist fantastic professionals, but they are a minority.
In those days, pre-computer, the result of your work was evident, now it is not so. It easier to copy. Use ready made filters and effects. We have to educate clients.

PRESENT

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: What keeps the money rolling? Your brand is possibly a huge factor to your longevity? Am i right? Do you have any recommendations on brand building for weekend photographers and/or Photographers in general.

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
Unless you are a very famous star you have to fight to get work. Clients change. Most are ignorants that have no conditions to evaluate what you are showing. To most any photo is a photo…
The huge factor to my longevity is that I have to eat, I like what I do and have to find ways to sell what I do. I am always restarting. This is my 40th year as a freelancer.
As for weekend photographers I recommend they stay as weekend photographers. Amateur should be amateur and professional medium is for professionals. If you what be a professional BE ONE.
I do not like the curious that “do not fuck and do not leave the place to others do”.

This is one of the reasons that this profession is a shit now. The auto everything cameras and programs gave access to every idiot and artistic blind in the world. “Look ma, my photo is on TV”. Know that?

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: What is currently in your photography bag? Please be as detailed as possible for those starting out photographers that want to be just like you. From your photography equipment arsenal, what do you bring most of the time for your commercial shoots?

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
I carry two camera bodies, a superwide, wide, macro50, 100 and 300 lenses. There are never a job like the other so carry your good will and knowledge too…
With the cost of the equipment and the lousy prices of competition today a digital 4×5”is out of reach. Contrary to what most think the biggest advantage of 4×5”was not film size but camera corrections.

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: What is your favorite image in your current portfolio and why? How did you approach the execution? Give us a glimpse on how you construct an image from scratch.

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
I have many favorite images and each one have a good story. I like what I do and only work to clients I like so, most of what I do I like. Obviously that some jobs are more important than others. I can tell many stories about images.
Minor White used to say that there are two kind of photographers, one that make the images and one that find the images. I have both, some I made others I found.
Today I do photography, graphic design, some web work and photo illustration. All my sites and brochures (Acrobat versions on site) there I did. I can attend a client alone and do most of the work he needs. Can go to the printer machine and “put my finger” on the color corrections. I do that in Photoshop too and all my effects were done by me. The only thing I do not do is good money.

You can see what I do in photography, graphic design and some illustration at HYPERLINK “http://www.photoindustrial.com/”http://www.photoindustrial.com/ – HYPERLINK “http://www.apoiocultural.com.br/”http://www.designdeimagem.com.br/
HYPERLINK “http://www.apoiocultural.com.br/” – http://www.apoiocultural.com.br/ – HYPERLINK “http://blog.photoindustrial.com/”http://blog.photoindustrial.com/ – HYPERLINK “http://fotografo-designer.blogspot.com/”http://fotografo-designer.blogspot.com/ – http://www.flickr.com/photos/photoindustrial

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: Is having your own studio space essential for any commercial photographer. Do you have a photography studio of your own? If so, what do you look for in a photography studio?

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
I really think so. Many time you are not on the mood or decide to do it at night, next day etc. client cancel that day etc. You have to leave all set there to do later. A studio is a must. Like a Lab you should get used to it.
I had one studio that was all 18% gray. I could meter on the wall! Had other that was one side white and the other black. Size depend much on what you do. Of course that bigger is always better here, in studio the problem is little space. You ca use longer lenses, illuminate better etc.

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: What types of commercial gigs are you currently involved in now and how did they surface? What are your recommendations on how we photographers diversify their product offering from Commercial and stock in today’s marketplace?

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
Stock is dead to me. I started to do stock in 73. Was stoled and used by big stock banks for years. It was a big source of problems because most of them are dishonest. You give them 5000 photos and they use 5, the rest go to a box. You have no control of nothing.

There is only one option for me now that it is to sell what I already have. To do work just for stock as I did before, never more. The prices are ridiculously low now. You can not think about how much that photo will give you but on the other thousands that are being rotten by fungus on your files. My advice is sell it yourself or do not shoot. Or those vampires will suck your blood.

FUTURE

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: What are your immediate goals as a photographer and artist? Are you planning on releasing any how-to books? What are your recommendations to people thinking about starting a photography book?

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
I have many book projects in view or ready to print. The problem is to find a sponsor. You can see at HYPERLINK “http://www.apoiocultural.com.br/”http://www.apoiocultural.com.br (Portuguese…)
A Rio favelas book, glass artisan work, artisan fishing on sea. All are social projects.
I am the coordinator of a project with wide public health, medical and veterinary reach, the Brazilian Snakes Project. In Portuguese and English, it is composed of a website, book, DVD, child book and photo exposition. Will be utilized for efficient and quick identification of vipers, snakes, spiders, centipedes, scorpions, caterpillars and as help in the initial measures of accident handling with venomous animals. This will certainly be the most important, and dangerous, work I ever done. This project will really save people. The statistics involving snakes accidents are scaring, not only in Brazil. We need a sponsor.

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: A lot of professional photographers are starting to run workshops. Will you start offering workshops in the future? I know TIME is not your friend, but there are ways to get around that maybe offering internship opportunities to intern with you for a small fee during one of your paid shoots. Or maybe provide an opportunity to be a spectator for one of your weekend shoots?

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
I have lectured lab work one time in MAN Rio. Have taught about that but I am a firm believer that to teach is a gift that very few have. I work by instinct I can change the way of do a photo in the middle of the work. I do not know how to teach this. As to let others near me when I am working I can not do that. I will not concentrate. They would put me nervous. I am not a show man. I could prepare a set and show all the steps but not on the real thing.

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: I am sure you’ve read many articles discussing how in the future videography and photography will be one? What are your thoughts on that and how will you evolve to the new morphed medium?

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
Video and movie deals with moving images and photography with still images. Both are about images but require different languages and approach. They are two different instruments. In one you can work alone in the other you need a team.
You can see people playing many instruments in fairs, shows etc but you will never see a one person concert of piano and cello by example at the same time.

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: Ok so thinking about the future and how it is very important in any endeavor especially the photography business. What do you suggest photographers do in the future to solidify their presence in the industry? What will you do to ensure that you remain on top, not taking into account your photography niche?

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
I sell difficult, complicated to do work. I have a lot of experience and this have value. We have to be creative. We should learn the basic and most difficult of photography, or any image related profession, that is photo language. How to communicate with images. That is what separate the pro from the curious and that is the main reason any good client will pay you. To communicate an idea or feeling about their product. No auto-everything will ever do this. There will always be a marketplace for this. To create.

LAWRENCEATIENZA.COM: Thank you again for your time and giving back. What would you like to leave for us photographers to think about when moving forward with photography for the future? If you have any words of wisdom will be appreciated.

FERNANDO BERGAMASCHI:
Be honest with yourself. Do what your heart says. Follow your instincts. Work for clients you have an affinity, you can not make good work for someone you do not like or respect.
Remember that if two thirds of your life is spent in your work try to make those 2/3 valuable. You can make good friends in this process. Life is short and the only thing you will take from here is the life you lived. To live this way is tough but in the long run you will not regret.

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