In Focus Vol. 2 No. 8

Points of Reference

How Marc Muench has successfully created photography that transcends genres for multiple print media, from magazines and coffee-table books to wide-format prints.

As a third-generation photographer, it would be easy for Marc Muench to fall under the shadow of his talented parents and grandfather. Instead, Muench has emerged as one of the nation's premier photographers in his own right through a combination of innate ability and a unique style that blends landscapes, action, and other photographic genres, depending on the scene and the assignment.

Like his father before him, Muench was immersed in America's landscapes. Both his grandfather, Josef, and his father, David, specialized in landscape photography. His mother, Bonnie, is also a photographer and painter. A keen eye for color, light, and composition is second nature to the Muench family.

Muench estimates that his family has archived 250,000 individual 4x5 transparencies over the years, which is the primary statistic that drove the family studio to a digital workflow. Muench explains that their first foray into digital photography was to hire an employee to run the drum scanner they had purchased and digitize their work. Since that time, Muench Photography has fully embraced the digital workflow, from capture to print.

The Great Outdoors and More

Working alongside his parents at the studio, Muench Photography Inc., Muench has collaborated on and published several landscape photography books with his father, and has had a number of solo landscape photography books published, in addition to extensive publication of his work inside and on the covers of magazines like National Geographic, Skiing, Outside, Time, and Reader's Digest.

Muench is widely sought out for his work, not only for his technical and artistic excellence, but also for the subtle additions he brings into his photos that help set them apart and draw primary interest to what appears to be a secondary element.

In Muench's ski photography, for instance, he does not typically capture the Juicy Fruit moment where the skier is bursting out of the powder and taking up the majority of the frame. Instead, Muench's skiers are usually dominated by the landscape around them. But in an almost counterintuitive sense, the skier, the mountaineer, and the kayaker, as the case may be, become the point of dominating interest. "It's their position in the landscape that makes them significant," says Muench.

"You have to closely study what's being done in photography now to find out how to differentiate yourself. That doesn't mean to become an amphibian and turn into something you don't want to be, but rather to define what you want to photograph while keeping in mind what's being done so that you're not assimilating someone else," says Muench. "I also look at other fields like fashion and industry to derive different ideas and techniques to apply to my landscape photography."

Muench also brings this sensibility to his commercial work, which accounts for about a third of his business (landscape and outdoor adventure represent the other two-thirds). Muench says that though he enjoys commercial photography and engages it creatively, its primary purpose is to help provide a financial foundation for pursuing his coffee table book photography.

Printing Perspective

The Muench family is preparing to launch a fine-art reproduction studio about 20 miles from the photography studio called Northlight Italia. Here, they'll bring their expertise in color, light, and composition, along with their experience in wide-format printing.

Muench Photography was among the first to embrace wide-format printing as they were anxious to bring the process under their control and have the flexibility to print what they wanted on the material of their choice at whatever size they required.

"We found that getting consistent quality from someone else who was using a chemical process was difficult and relatively expensive," recalls Muench. "But having it in-house is not easy; there is definitely a learning curve. As simple as they are to set up and run, getting a nice print and maintaining the printer is not as easy as it sounds, but now we have the workflow down."

The studio's first printer was an early Roland. Since that time they've added an Epson 9800 driven by the ImagePrint RIP and the 60-in. wide Canon iPF9000. Muench has used ImagePrint since they started printing with the Roland, and has found it to be indispensable.

"We met John Pannozzo of ColorByte (ImagePrint's developer) about six years ago, when we were giving some of the first digital printing workshops using the Roland. The only thing that made it work the way we wanted was ImagePrint. Since that point, we've used ImagePrint with everything," says Muench.

Muench describes his principal color-management system as the Eye See Profile, developed in conjunction with all the tools of a modern color workflow setup. Furthermore, for wide-format printing, Muench says the bulk of the work is in file cleanup.

"You have to look at a file with continuous tone areas at 200 percent to get all the little specks and flaws out because they will show up. We use a sharpening technique where you sharpen just the parts of the file that need it, and then go back in with a history brush and paint away the sharpening effects within the continuous tone areas. There are some actions in Photoshop you can use that to do it okay, but we find that at that large size there's nothing better than hand-sharpening sections of the file. The actions may work well on one image, but not on another," explains Muench.

For their printing media, Muench says they've "rediscovered" LexJet through its Sunset Photo eSatin Paper. "We wondered why we weren't using it before. The other comparable papers we were using were too thin, didn't have good enough tooth, and were too shiny."

A recent print was output at 54 in. x 94 in. on LexJet's Sunset Select Matte Canvas. The canvas was coated with ClearStar's spray and gallery wrapped before being shipped. Over the years, this type of project has become more typical at Muench Photography, thus the time is ripe to open its new printing studio.

"We're going to do collaborative printing, where the artist will sit down with me or another Photoshop guru to guide them in obtaining the print they desire. We're planning to use the Canon, Roland, and Epson printers. Each printer has its own look, so we'll also use some of the older printing technologies to capture that certain look," says Muench.

For more information about the Muench family's work, go to the Muench Photography website. Plus, make sure to check out the studio's workshops, including information about Marc's upcoming photo workshop Oct. 15-19 in Shenandoah National Park, at www.muenchworkshops.com