Here’s how it began. I had been wanting some kind of a project. Something that would make me a better photographer. Lots of ideas starting swimming around my head and not very many of them were any good or very practical. I mean, come on. Where was I going to get a life-size chicken costume?
I’d worked on photography projects before, including a huge 5 year project where I took a self portrait every single day. Never missed. And it was all shot on film and collected in binders. It marked my days as a single guy, included my marriage to Amy, and the birth of our first child. Good days, indeed. And I have a record of every single one of them.
So when I saw Bill Wadman’s 365 Portrait project, I realized what a huge undertaking it was for him to make a portrait a day for an entire year. That got me thinking about what I could do and I came up with the idea of making a portrait a day for 30 days of total strangers. 30 portraits in 30 days of 30 people I had never met before. So there you go. The idea came from Bill Wadman and his remarkable 365 Portrait project.
Check it out here.
Because the seed of this project came from Bill, I thought it would be great to interview him while I’m doing the 30 Strangers project again and ask him about his own process, his reason for doing it, what he learned, and other such things. He graciously agreed. And so, here is an interview, conducted via email with Bill Wadman. My thanks to him.
AN INTERVIEW WITH BILL WADMAN
In your description of the project, you say “Some will be in the studio, some will be in the wild. Hopefully they will all be interesting.” How do you think you did on that last part? Do you think they are all interesting?
Overall I was extremely happy with how the whole thing came out. I don’t think I repeated myself very much which was really the point. Plus it was all about experimentation, so you’re going to have a few days where you think, “ok, that’s not the best work I’ve ever done, but there’s always tomorrow” But you also can’t guarantee perfection. I tended to think of the whole project as a marathon.
Who are the people you photographed?
Can you talk about little bit about how you managed the project? How you got people to be a part of it. How many of them were friends or people you saw on a daily basis. How far in advance did you line everyone up? That sort of thing.
Most of the people were strangers to me, probably about 90% or so. Over the course of the year I shot a good number of my friends and family, but certainly not all of them, but ones I thought would interesting to shoot. Except for the first week it wasn’t for lack of volunteers. I was getting an average of around 10,000 unique visitors a day, and between them and their friends they suggested I had plenty of people. I’d estimate that I had well over 1000 volunteers over the course of the year, so 3+ people or so for each day of the year. Some were lined up months in advance, some just hours. Once I selected people I’d have them look at a public google calendar I had up and pick a day, which I’d then pencil them in for. And then a couple days before I’d email them to schedule specifics. There were late cancellations and other challenges, but I always seemed to make it work in the end.
You also said on your site when you invite people to be a part of it, “If you don’t get a response, please understand the nightmare which is trying to schedule this thing and shoot and process and post everyday.” I’d like to know more about that.
Well, there was the shooting and editing and posting each day, all while scheduling for the future, so I couldn’t take the time to write back to each and every person saying “sorry, I didn’t pick you” It was more a matter of people putting their name in a hat which I pulled from. Sometimes people wrote me earlier in the year and I didn’t get around to setting up a shoot for months.
Why did I do the whole project? It was a challenge. And it gave me an excuse to practice taking portraits. A whole lot of portraits.
For me, one of the most compelling things about 365 Portraits is that each one seems so fresh and interesting. Did you ever feel like things were getting stale?
Yes, but sometimes it was more the commenters who had those opinions. I remember a bit comment fight about an image in early march. You can read them here: http://www.365portraits.com/index.php?date=0406 So the next day, I purposely picked a picture that wasn’t traditionally flattering. Thought the subject ended up loving it after looking at it a few times. As I went along though, I realized that I couldn’t worry about what people thought. I was shooting for me, not them.
In what ways did working on this personal project effect the kinds of work you do for paying clients?
Personal projects are where you get to experiment and try new things. This stuff often trickles down into your more conservative client work. I did a project called drabbles (http://www.billwadman.com/drabbles/) recently and took pictures I never have taken before. But now I’m excited to get some work making pictures that are a bit more fantastical. I think that if you want to not become a stuck artist, you’ve got to try new things, especially when there’s no client or boss to tell you ‘no’
Your project is truly monumental. What kinds of things did you feel on the last day? Happy it was finished? Sad to see it end? Or what kinds of things were you thinking about?
The last day was very satisfying and fairly sad. It was only year, but it felt like I had taken the first picture I lifetime ago. Though not shooting and posting every single day makes me feel like I’m not doing enough with each day.. so I feel a little guilty sometimes. But doing a project like that it so consuming that you’ll burn out if you don’t take time away between them. Plus with portraits, it’s not just about taking pictures each day, it’s about dealing with new people all the time and the logistics of all of it were in some ways the toughest part.
What did this project do for you (personally or professionally) that wouldn’t have happened without it?
Oh I’m sure I wouldn’t be a photographer if it weren’t for the project. I wasn’t before I started. It was just a hobby. Plus it gave me so much work for my portfolio that I started getting magazine shoots and the rest. It was the catalyst for my whole career up til now.
I don’t even remember how I first heard about 365 Portraits, but what things did you do (if any) to promote it? Did you actively promote it, or did you just let it grow organically by word of mouth?
I didn’t do too much to promote it. I did write one craigslist post in the first week looking for subjects, but didn’t have to do anything after that. People started noticing and I ended up getting interviewed by a bunch of people, and it was chosen as Yahoo’s site of the day and that kind of thing. There’s a natural cycle to publicity like that where some gets you more. Though mostly I was worried about taking the pictures, the rest was an afterthought.
I’m sure you’ve been interviewed a lot and asked questions about your project. Are there any questions you wished someone would ask and no one ever did?
Yes, “Was it fun?” And the answer is “Yes, terribly fun.”
Image by Bill Wadman
Image by Bill Wadman
Image by Bill Wadman
Image by Bill Wadman
