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Don Emmerich’s 30-plus years in photography have been punctuated by the early adoption of new photographic technology and tempered by his mastery of analog techniques.
Don Emmerich is a photographic pioneer. Having cut his teeth in commercial photography some 30 years ago, he spent the subsequent years as an early technology adopter, while never losing sight of photography’s essential foundations.
This image marries the best of digital and traditional photography. While in Jackson Hole years ago, Emmerich had a Fuji 6x9 Pan Camera and was using Ilford’s FP4 black-and-white film. After capturing the image, Emmerich made several scans for tonal differences. Emmerich then merged the best from each scan onto one file and printed this out on one of his inkjet printers.
Emmerich describes himself as a minimalist who relies on the basics for the outstanding images that have inundated him with awards, acclaim, and recognition: posing and lighting. His portfolio runs the gamut, from his early commercial work to studio portraits, wedding photography, and stunning landscapes.
This image was taken right after sunset on a Canon 10D with Canon 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS lens. It really shows how incredibly sharp digital capture and inkjet printing is. “I have prints starting at 44 inches up to 90 inches of this shot and you would swear it was taken with a medium, if not a large format camera… Or, in more modern terms, a 39-megapixel back. But, it was taken with my Canon using a cable release. I was extremely fortunate to hear a car door slam and find these two surfers heading out into the surf for a late night romp. They walked where I could easily see their reflection and, presto, Surfer Sanctuary was captured and preserved forever with inkjet printing.”
Inkjet Connection
Digital photography and its essential partner, inkjet printing, have allowed Emmerich to utilize the strengths of each for a well-rounded and expanded business model. Though he sends much of his portrait and senior package work to American Color Imaging, Emmerich is surrounded by a battery of six Epson printers, which range from an EPSON Stylus Photo 1280 to an EPSON Stylus Pro 9600, to produce custom, rush, and extra-large prints.
Here’s a shot that combines the best of traditional and digital photography. The image was captured after sunset of Pittsburgh’s skyline on a Fuji 6x17 panorama camera with 100 ISO speed negative film. The film was process and scanned in on Emmerich’s Epson flatbed scanner and printed on an Epson 9600.
“Inkjet has given us a lot of leverage. If we could deliver everything to the client with inkjet, we would, because it’s a far superior product. But when you have a lot of volume, the RA-4 machines are faster,” says Emmerich. “For about two years we were printing everything in-house, but it got to be somewhat overwhelming because business has been very good. When we send something to the lab, and the client wants a few more prints right away, LexJet’s eSatin is perfect because it will match what we get from the lab. Plus, we love the thickness of it and the way it prints on the Epson 4800; it’s a beautiful material.”
Emmerich adds that, “without a doubt,” black-and-white inkjet printing surpasses silver halide output. Emmerich started printing as soon as the first wide-format inkjet printers hit the market. Over time, Emmerich found rising demand for larger prints, including canvas wraps and fine-art photography on Sunset Textured Fine Art.
Emmerich was teaching a Photoshop/digital camera class for a PPA school in New Jersey called MARS last May and took the class out every morning at 4:30 for sunrise photography. Actually, says Emmerich, you don’t want the sun to rise as there is so much more color and controllable contrast just before the sun rises. On the last day, most of the class slept in and Emmerich and two of his assistants got up and captured this shot on a Canon 5D with a 24-105 f/4L IS lens.
“We’re selling a lot of prints that are 20x24 or larger. Since we can project the images onto the 60-in. plasma screens we use in our projection room, clients tend to buy larger prints. When clients see the images projected at that size, they’re more comfortable ordering something that’s appropriate for their wall space,” says Emmerich. “And, with inkjet, I know the prints will last 40-50 years, even uncoated. We coat our prints with the Hahnemuhle spray, so if’s coated and behind glass, it should last anywhere from 75-125 years. It’s a win-win with inkjet.”
Projecting proofs and having the ability to print at gallery sizes has helped elevate the average senior package to around $1,500. It’s simply a lot more effective than presenting 4x5 proofs, and the proof of its effectiveness is in the printing.
Experience Plus
Emmerich runs Studio Art Photography in Oklahoma City with his wife, Nancy and her two children, Rose and Micah. Emmerich moved to Oklahoma City from Denver about ten years ago to make the partnership permanent, blending the two photography businesses into one.
Bridal portrait taken at the studio of Emmerich’s stepdaughter, Rose, using a Canon 5D and a 70-200 f/2.8L lens. Emmerich’s wife, Nancy, who is a Painter expert teaching all across the country, took this file and worked it in Painter to create this lovely portrait of her daughter. “My favorite paper for printing this image is LexJet’s Sunset Textured Fine Art paper,” says Emmerich.
Emmerich still maintains a studio in Denver with his brother, Steven, that’s more focused on his landscape, nature, travel, architecture, and stock photography. “I fly back and forth a lot, but I fell in love with my wife, and after a long-distance relationship, I decided to move to Oklahoma City,” he says.
Though settled in Oklahoma City, Emmerich is far from settled. His extensive teaching and lecture schedule requires him to log about 70,000 miles per year.
Emmerich has been a featured speaker across the U.S., and the world, with a comprehensive program that condenses his accumulated wisdom for thousands of photographers looking to improve their images and workflow.
“The basics of photography have not changed at all, just what we’ve recorded the image on,” says Emmerich. “People just getting into digital don’t know what film photographers used to have to struggle with, and film photographers coming into digital have a head start because they have a better understanding of lighting and exposure. I’ve found that there’s a lot of unnecessary post-processing that could be avoided with proper exposure.”
Emmerich captured this shot of the mountains surrounding Leadville, Colo., as the sun set. “I have to give credit to my wife, Nancy, for seeing this spectacular sunset and scene. We all stopped and got our cameras out and took a picture. I knew I wanted mine to look as if I used a panoramic camera, so I took about 10 vertical frames and used Photoshop’s Photomerge to create the final scene. So with my Canon 10D and Canon 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS lens I basically turned my 6 megapixel camera into a 50 megapixel camera.”
Emmerich relates that in the pre-digital days, particularly when shooting transparencies in low-light situations, capture was time-consuming and fraught with the tiniest technical details. Now, “life is good,” he says, recalling commercial shoots that required 20-30 lights to properly light a long hallway for the intricacies of film photography.
As a Canon Explorer of Light, much of Emmerich’s reputation has been built on his knowledge and production of images that maximize available light. “The basic trick is to expose the image for the highlights. If worse comes to worse, just take a white board, photograph it, and look at the histogram where the light spike is. Just before it goes off on the right side, if it comes in about an eighth of an inch (at 245), you’re probably good to go. You’ve got details in those whites, and everything else falls into place.”
With a solid film foundation and portfolio, Emmerich immersed himself in the digital world in the early 90s, even before digital was a truly viable alternative. He began experimenting with Photoshop 1.0, a Sony Mavica, and one of Kodak’s early 1.3 megapixel cameras.
“Nancy and I were fortunate to go and speak in the Philippines this past August. What a lovely place and oh-so-wonderful friendly people. We went out of Manila to a location to have lunch on the water when I took this Infra-Red image with a Canon D60 converted to IR with a Canon 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS lens,” explains Emmerich. “I took several vertical frames and used Photoshop’s Photomerge to combine the seven files into this one. The final file size was 105 MB. This is a shot that I particularly love the look and feel when it is printed on LexJet’s Sunset Textured Fine Art paper. The paper really brings this image to life.”
The digital immersion was an expensive one at the time, with $75,000 cameras and more than a $1,000 for 1 GB hard drives (with the same price tag for RAM). But as Professional Photographer magazine’s technical editor, a position he filled for about 16 years, Emmerich was afforded the opportunity to test the latest products coming through the digital pipeline.
“At the same time, the output has gotten so much better. Shooting 35mm 100 ISO film and making the same enlargement with digital is like night and day. We’ll make 90-in. prints off the 9600 of cheerleader groups, and there’s no way you could make 35mm hold up as sharp as digital at that size. The two technologies work beautifully together,” says Emmerich.