All images © Barbara Bordnick
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Andie McDowell, in an ad for Cognac |
From her
fashion photography to portraits of jazz singers and lyrical images of
flowers, Barbara Bordnick's elegant work has been published
internationally over the past 35 years. She has also been the recipient
of numerous awards, and last year, her portrait of lyricist E.Y. Yip
Harburg became a commemorative U.S. postage stamp. She has published
volume I, II & III of a series of books entitled Searchings, and states, "I think creative people are always searching."
A native New Yorker who was born in the Bronx, Barbara Bordnick first
discovered photography in a roundabout way. "My background is in
fashion and fine art," she explains. "I went to Pratt Institute, but
really didn't like fashion design. However, I was on a scholarship and
had to stay in the program." It was also during her college years when
Bordnick got married to a very creative industrial designer.
"One day in a fashion class," she recalls, "friend and I were looking through Harper's Bazaar.
We were looking at one page, saying, "how beautiful," and it
occurred to me that she was talking about the clothes and I was talking
about the photograph." The fashion image that the girls admired was
taken by Richard Avedon, and Bordnick credits this experience as �the
very first time I noticed photography." She enrolled in a very basic
photography course at Pratt during her senior year, in which students
learned "how to load a camera and take a light reading. It was all I
knew for a very long time."
Almost Famous
After Bordnick graduated from Pratt, she and her husband traveled to
Europe, and her husband quickly found work in Copenhagen. "It was
September and it kept getting darker outside. We were living in a
country where I didn't speak the language, and I was a wife with
nothing to do," she recalls. Armed with some her photographs that
illustrated Haiku poetry from her senior year, she approached several
photographers. "Of course, everyone was willing to see me because they
thought that if you were an American photographer, you were Richard
Avedon or Irving Penn," she says. Bordnick was offered a job and was
sent to a Scandinavian magazine called Danske Fotomagazinet,
much to her surprise. When the publication bought her images for $7 per
photo, "I thought I had died and went to Heaven! To pay me and do a
story about me, I couldn't believe it."
Soon thereafter, she and her husband left Copenhagen and traveled to
other European countries. While in Rome, Bordnick received a package
from an American Express office one day. "I opened it up to find these
magazines with a double-page spread that read, "Barbara Bordnick:
Poetry and Photography." She adds, "I felt absolutely famous, like
everybody must know who I am." She came running out and announced to
her husband, "I'm going to be a photographer, because it's easy." She
says that she enjoys telling this story today to students to illustrate
how important it is for a young person to have an initial positive
experience. Nonetheless, "It's anything but easy after that," she
asserts.
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Ad campaigns for Canon Cameras |
Building a Career
She and her husband settled in Paris, "where I had the nerve to go to the French office of the American Harper's Bazaar."
The editor took Bordnick under her wing and introduced her to other
photographers. "Quite honestly, I didn't know what I was looking for. I
didn't know what a job in photography was," she remembers. They left
Paris after a year and a half and came back to the U.S., where she
sought work as an assistant, but found that American photographers were
hesitant to hire a woman. Bordnick finally served an apprenticeship
with a photographer whom she met through a former classmate. He told
her that he "desperately needed an assistant, but only did editorial
work and couldn't afford one."
In about six months, the photographer closed his studio and left the
photo industry. Faced with few options to assist or become a Girl
Friday, Bordnick asked her husband to build a studio in their home, and
she began shooting and building a portfolio. "When I had a book that I
thought was presentable, I went to see the art directors of Harper's Bazaar
and told them that the French editor sent me–which was sort of true."
They told her to do more work and come back, and her tenacious nature
paid off. "Finally one day, they called me. I started shooting for Harper's Bazaar, and that was the beginning. As they say, the rest is history."
Since then, Bordnick's extensive client list includes fiber companies
such as American Viscose and DuPont, and she's photographed advertising
campaigns for DeBeers, Saks Fifth Avenue, Daytons ("one of my favorite
clients ever"), JC Penneys (for whom she did Clio award-winning T.V.
commercials), Polaroid, IBM, Clairol, and Revlon. Her editorial work
appears in magazines ranging from French Vogue to Newsweek and Geo. She is also a member of Canon USA's prestigious "Explorers of Light."
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Nude photographed with 8x10 Deardorff |
A Lucky Accident
Although Bordnick started out doing fashion, portrait and nude
photography, her passion for shooting flowers came about after a
serendipitous experience. In 2001, she was scheduled to photograph an
Alvin Ailey dancer with the Canon EOS D30 camera. But some
miscommunication ensued, and the model didn't show up for the shoot.
Faced with having to find a subject on short notice, she went to the
nearby Union Square market, purchased a bunch of flowers, and quickly
changed her backdrop. "I took one shot with the D30 and looked at the
back of the camera and said, "wow, what's this?"" After shooting more
images, she viewed them on the computer, "and realized I had stumbled
into a place I had never been before."
Not wanting to be a tabletop photographer originally, still-life images
hadn't been something she had planned for her portfolio. "But because I
was hypnotized from the very beginning by what I discovered, it became
a book," she explains. To date, she's done three books on floral
subjects, and her series, Searchings: Secret Landscapes of Flowers
was the inspiration for Jennifer Muller's ballet entitled "Flowers." She remarks, "The whole process was so magical for me,
so complete, that there were weeks when I would shoot during the day
and work on the computer at night." She says that her passion for
photographing flowers has added a new aspect to her career. "I was
getting a little tired of shooting fashion, and was looking for
something new."
Being Involved
In addition to her photography, Bordnick is a sought-after lecturer and
teacher. "At the moment, I'm traveling a lot," she says. She's recently
returned from a trip to China, where she was invited by a professional
photographer's association to present awards to winners of an
international photography competition, as well as giving lectures and
showing her work. During this trip, she went to Bei Hei and Duyun in
the southern region of China, as well as Beijing, where she met the
bureau chief of Reuters. "I was one American among nine photographers
from other countries," she says.
Bordnick was the self-described "very controversial first woman
president" of American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) in 1977,
and is a lifetime member of the organization. She says that when she
first joined ASMP, she hadn't attended photography school, and didn't
know anyone in the photographic community. However, the organization
allowed her to meet professionals in her field who have been very
supportive, and eventually became her photographic family. "I've always
been very active in supporting photographers' rights," she points out.
She is currently a member and formerly the President of Advertising
Photographers of America (APA).
To See A Gallery of Barbara Bordnick's Images, Click Here
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Tulips from "Searchings: Secret Landscapes of Flowers" |
Beyond the Obvious
"The interesting thing about my career is that I�ve been extremely
fortunate," Bordnick states. "Some people have believed in me much more
than I've believed in myself." She cites one experience early in her
career when one company took her out to dinner several times to talk
her into doing a television commercial. She says, "I didn't know a
thing about film. And it wasn't just one commercial–it was a campaign.
I had to be convinced to do it, but it was one of the most wonderful
things "I've ever done." Polaroid also asked her to introduce the
company's large-format film. They talked her into doing the 8x10
promotion, and taught her how to use the camera. She now attests, "I
fell in love with the medium." This also led to a calendar project, "The Great Women of Jazz," sponsored by Polaroid. Geo magazine asked
her to shoot figure skaters, another diversion from Bordnick's fashion
work. "They gave me the job because they wanted to see what I would do
with it, because it wasn't something that I did. I have enormous
respect for these people, because they didn't go for the obvious."
Advice
"Competition today is fierce, but it was also fierce when I started,"
Bordnick says. "It was the 'Blow-Up' era, when everybody had a 35mm
camera." She describes it as a very "up and down" business because of
our fickle culture. She says that the good people last, while others
may fall through the cracks. "I think for photographers who are just
starting out, it's not only important to do what you love, but to find
your own truth in it. Your library is your life's experience–and that's
the only thing that no one else has. Then your work will become
entirely your own."
Inside Barbara Bordnick's Camera Bag
• Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II digital SLR.
• Canon EOS 50mm 100mm macro lenses for shooting flowers.
• Canon EOS 70-200mm zoom (she sometimes uses longer lenses for outdoor fashion shoots).
To learn more about Barbara Bordnick, visit http://www.barbarabordnick.com.
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Last Updated: Aug 11th, 2010 - 13:36:44
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