Hi I'm Tamara Lackey and on this part 2 episode of redefine show for AdoramaTV
I continue my discussion with fine art portrait photographer Brooke Shaden and
we dig into the details of her post processing work.
She shares that even though she starts with things like props and wardrobe etc.
she can still spend up to 50 hours and a thousand layers in Photoshop just
finishing one image. Check out why.
Your work has a really... I'm not sure of the easiest way to say this.
Obviously it's fully finished and post-
processed but it's post processed in a way that, for me, seems like it really is the
element where you're telling the story. Like you obviously shoot and you
are the model. Are you the model all the time?
Well, you know, I moved a few years ago and I
made a vow not to meet anybody, isn't that horrible, so I moved...
You made a vow not to meet anybody to the point where you had just moved to, ok.
Because I was feeling so overwhelmed by all this creative collaboration that
I was doing that I honestly just wanted to be alone.
I would travel, I would meet people, I would shoot models so now when I'm
home I only photograph myself and if I'm traveling I photograph other people so...
But it's about eighty percent self-portraits, yeah.
So you're doing the self portrait, and then, and we can show some of those images of you
doing self portraits because they're very interesting, especially in some very
very tight spaces where you're being really creative about getting these shots
so you, you've shot it, you know what you're going for
but the post-processing is where you're like, okay, I'm going fill in the rest for
you guys. Would you say that's accurate?
Definitely. I mean I'm a very simple person in a
lot of ways, like I'm not a technical person. I don't learn very well I guess,
like all through school I was just really bad at school. I never
really found my footing in something that I was really good at
so when I went into photography I was like, you know,
I'm just, I'm not good at learning this. I would watch videos and I wasn't able
to take it all in.
So I just said I'm going to do this in the simplest way possible, the most
logical, simplest way. So for me that was creating in the environment that I
wanted to shoot in as much as possible, so that I didn't have to worry about
compositing if I didn't know how to do it and I would bring all the props there
and the wardrobe and everything and then when I got in to post, it tends to be
simple in that I'm never creating anything in Photoshop. I'm never creating
something that wasn't actually there but I'm using a lot of very simple tools to
enhance it in a way that it feels like what my imagination feels like. So when I
look at a forest I don't just see trees and dirt and stuff, I see this creepy,
dark background with maybe some smoke and I just visualize things in a
certain way so I edit until it looks like exactly what I imagined it to be.
That's interesting, so you're saying I'm not really putting anything
in there that wasn't there in my mind?
Right. But also, like in terms of people who have this amazing ability to
create something from nothing in Photoshop, I have never been able to do that
So you are definitely starting with core.
Exactly. I've got the props, I've got the wardrobe. It's all there and then it comes together.
And then how long would you say you spend in Photoshop on
an average image where there's a heavy amount of compositing?
Well I would say... if it's heavy
probably 10 hours is average. If there are a lot of little components that have to
go in, upwards of 30-40 hours and if it's, you know, a little bit less with the
compositing, at least two hours but usually about five is normal for me and
I just find that if it's less than 2 then I haven't given it the attention it
deserves. I kind of feel like it's my little child and if I haven't read it 10
bedtime stories then it's not okay yet.
so I'm just always thinking okay well I have to hit my two hour mark
and maybe it's a simple picture and that's great but usually I can go further with it.
And the longest you've ever spent on one?
Probably 50 hours or so.
50 hours on one piece.
Yeah, on one piece.
And how many layers is that?
A thousand.
Yeah there's a particular image where I created a
dress for myself out of keys but I only had one little key so I photographed
that in about a hundred different ways or so and then started cutting the key
out,
layering it on my body with compositing until it looked like a full big dress made out of keys
Layer by layer by layer yeah.
What are you feeling when you're doing that? Do you feel like 'oh my god' or
I mean or are you just lost in it and seeing if...
Both, yeah if everything is going smoothly, I'm lost in it and I'm not one of
those people who can sit and have a TV show on or music on. I sit in dead
silence when I edit so I just sit for hours and hours just moving those keys
around or whatever it is but I remember with that particular picture, I was on an
old PC that my husband, it was like his hand me down laptop-computer that I
was editing with and I remember it would take at least 30 seconds just for
a key to move across the screen because it was freezing so then I was not so calm.
Have you ever had the horrible crash and loss of thousands of layers or hundreds of layers?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, yes. I don't... not anymore because now I save my work but as
an artist starting out I remember I had the worst month. I lost two files that
had taken me forever,
just from crashing, I didn't learn my lesson and then my whole computer
crashed and then I lost all the first three months of my work and that was like horrible.
That's so cringy. So nowadays you're doing...
tell us about your work in India because you're doing work with... to help other
people and and bring attention, will you tell us about this?
Yeah so it started I guess four years ago now I think or maybe even more.
A woman had approached me. She was friends with somebody who took a workshop of
mine and this person and said you should look at her work. She does some
storytelling things that you might like and she did and she said you know I work
with girls in India,
mostly survivors of sex trafficking. She thought maybe that if I could teach that
method of creating, then that might help them out in some way. So I went over to
India for the first time and started teaching workshops that were supposed
to be about photography but I realized very quickly, couldn't be, because it's
kind of worthless to walk into somebody's life for two days and say
here's a camera, okay go have fun with that.
So instead we... I just said well you know what, I'm going to teach about storytelling and
self-expression and how to, I don't want to say heal yourself through art, because
I'm not a therapist in any way, but just how to express yourself in a way that
feels nurturing to you.
So I started teaching workshops like that and I did that for a few years and
going back and back and back again and then I just said
this feels awful in a way, because I'm leaving after a week every time
and what am I really giving and so that's when I said, let's just start a
school. Let's do something bigger.
So last year we finally raised enough money to start a school and it's called
the Light Space and it is a school that caters to sex trafficking victims but
also victims of abuse and sort of young women going through the shelter home
system in India.
Is it very much for women?
Not anymore. We had catered it that way and the first round was, and then we had a
few boys who were applying and saying but we really want in too and it's like
how do you say no to that when they've had this really, really difficult past so
I think next we're going to start mixing boys and girls together, but we just had
the first session I guess and they actually loved it so much that now we've
extended into an advanced class for them, so they're going to keep going and it's
really great because now you know it's going to provide them a living wage
and they can move out of the shelter homes that they're in and really start a life.
And what's the name of the website?
thelightspace.org.
Okay well that's a perfect name for it. That's wonderful, though, because it's interesting. You
kind of put the condition there like 'I'm not a therapist' or 'I'm not...'
but what you are doing is giving people the tools they need
and the instruction on how to use the tools and the space to do that
and letting them heal themselves.
Exactly
Which is amazing.
I mean some days I wish that I could go back to school and train and
be somebody who could be there and really help in a more significant way
but then at the same time that's, you know, we all have a role to play and
this has been mine so far, so I have to be okay with that, even though it never feels like enough.
Yeah. No, I know that feeling. You're like
but I've been doing so much but it's still... there is just so much.
But yeah, you're obviously doing more than your part.
Thanks.
And lastly you obviously, along that, you educate around the world and you do
this here. You had a conference. I was lucky enough to join you at your last conference.
I was so grateful.
I loved it. I had such a good time teaching and you have another one coming
up soon in Colorado?
Yeah Colorado Springs. It's at the end of September, it's, you know, I was going
to a lot of conferences, photo and otherwise, just doing different speaking
events and I kind of realized that every single time I would go I was
always the really strange one going to these events, like everybody was like why
are you here again? I'm like I don't know, I don't know...
Yeah I'm not really sure and then I kind of realized that even though I was like
the oddball at these events there was always like a little group of people who
I fit in with and they would always say I feel like I don't fit in here and so I
said I want to make an event where you do fit in and where it's, you know, all
about creativity and sharing and community and loving one another and
just really being a nurturing place
so that's what I did and it's been awesome so far.
Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because I think there's so many people
who feel that way all the time.
Yeah like especially, I think that's an elevated feeling
for creatives.
You know, you just kind of... there's that there's a level of self-consciousness
and I don't know if I fit in. Yeah and the more I kind of open up and try
something more that you could hurt me.
Yes, yeah exactly.
So it's wonderful to feel like you have a place to go and have that community.
It's just like creating a little home.
Yeah and it's the Promoting Passion?
Promoting Passion Convention, yeah.
Okay and that website is connected to brookeshaden.com?
Yeah it is. It's also just promotingpassion.com.
Ok perfect. Alright, and where can people find out more about you online on the
Facebook and the Twitter?
Everywhere. @brookeshaden most places. On facebook
it's Brooke Shaden photography but it's all in my website, BrookeShaden.com. I hate saying websites.
Check it out because there is also...you show not only your work but you also
give overviews and there's just a lot of community and it's really cool.
I do try.
You do try and you succeed. Thank you, Brook, I appreciate it.
Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Brook, for that wonderful discussion.
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