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Darton Drake is a self-described "weird person," a former anti-social type, Harley rider born again
as a people-loving portrait photographer. He emphasized the importance of capturing the spirit of the sitter, not just their likeness. He pointed out, "People buy emotion."
Darton photographs mostly high school seniors and children. He said he does the seniors mostly "for fun," because they will have their own children in 4-10
years, and he wants them to think of him as "their" photographer.
Darton says he doesn't use props other than chairs because he feels they are unrealistic (especially cutesy ones like giant
crayons). He often paints his own backgrounds.
Darton likes very simple lighting to emphasize the subject. In his studio, he uses a very large window he constructed in his building as a single source. If he
is on location, he will use just two large soft boxes together (to get the effect of a very large source) with perhaps a reflector.
He tries to have a clothing consultation, but if subjects show up in ugly
colors, he simply shoots B&W film.
On learning to take portraits, Darton described his toughest assignment: use a single person as your subject with a plain background, no props and one light-and make 100
different photographs. He said he learned more from that single assignment than from any other source.
Outdoors he may use a reflector, but normally takes just his camera, tripod and camera bag with several
lenses, relying on natural light. Darton says he uses all the lenses in his bag and would hate to be restricted to just one lens. He told of an inexpensive way to direct sunlight at some distance. He uses a large
piece of Celotex home insulation that has aluminum on one side. This creates an instant spotlight.
Some of his high school senior photos he showed were moody and dark, because that's what his seniors
really want. He said he makes a pact with the seniors - if he take the kind of trendy photos they want, then they will let him take a couple of "smiley" pictures for mom. Darton showed a slide show that he
described as for seniors, which he won't show to the parents. He said it was 100% successful in getting students to choose him as their senior photographer. Darton commented, "I'm not from this world,
I'm just passing through."
When photographing children, Darton uses a 35mm camera with 3200 speed film, and makes very big enlargements with lots of grain. He uses either his big window light in the
studio or the 250-watt modeling light with a soft box. He said he much prefers working that way to using strobes, "the constant flashing is very disturbing to the kids."
His next slide show was done
for Darton's local March of Dimes organization. They gave him Polaroid shots of a tiny preemie baby taken soon after birth (many show her in an incubator), and he combined them with his portraits of the 5-year
old young lady as she looks today. He said by showing the slide show before their auction, they sold a record-setting number of items.
The next tray of slides was of a dancer. He mentioned that the young lady
was not happy to be his subject, and so without warning, he suddenly started taking exposures. At first, she became angry, but then started to smile, and finally got into the spirit and performed the dance. Darton
used shutter speeds of 1/15 and 1/8, which gave considerable blur to the photographs.
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