Doug Menuez: The Story So Far
You get the feeling that 25 years into his career, Doug Menuez is still trying to figure out what he's going to be when he grows up. A photographer for sure, but what kind? Fine-art? Commercial? Advertising? A photojournalist? All the above? When you mix ambition and curiosity with restless energy, you get a photographer who will turn his talents in a number of directions and find success in all of them. Doug's been a sports photographer and a fashion shooter. He's photographed for corporate annual reports and upscale catalogs. At heart he sees himself as a fine-art photographer, but he also says that what he really wants to do is...well, more on that later.
Right now, Doug is balancing commercial and fine-art work with an ongoing book project about the relationship of tequila and Mexican culture. "I'm trying to do a book that explores Mexican culture at a much deeper level than Mexico reveals to a tourist," Doug says. "You say 'tequila,' and people think parties, shots and spring break. But I read a novel by Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, and in one scene in the book there are naked men in tequila vats, and I thought, that must be real, it's just too weird to have been made up. I went to a Mexican art director I was working with and asked him about it, and he said no way it was true."
For most people that would have been the end of it. But not for Doug. "I felt that even though he was raised in Mexico, he didn't know about it. I did some research and found that it was true. They're in the vats to pull out the pulp of the blue agave plant, and they're naked because the acid from the plant will eat through their clothes. It's part of the ancient way of making tequila, and it goes back to the Aztecs. I thought, sounds like a picture to me, I got to go see this. So I went to Mexico and found out that the place that was still doing it that way was Herradura, a tequila distillery in the town of Amatitan."
What Doug ultimately learned was that the traditions and rituals of tequila were ingrained in the culture of the country. He's been working on the book for three years, and many of the photographs here and in the Portfolio section are from the project. He shoots exclusively in the town of Tequila, "the only place where tequila can be made legally." He's documenting how the lives of the people center around the product and how its production has shaped the culture.
"Someone told me that the only thing all Mexicans have in common is tequila. Mexico is a mix of Indian, Spanish, German, French and American culture—there are so many influences. It's a complex place, but tequila is one thing everyone has. Tequila is entwined in the family; in Mexico, if there's a serious family discussion going on, you bring out the tequila, the way you would wine in Europe."
Doug tries to bring the same passion, curiosity and interest to all his photography. He learned long ago that if the work doesn't come from his heart, it won't please anyone. "I realized that I'd have no value if I didn't figure out what I loved." He found that the more personal he made the images, the more fun he had, and the more he pursued what he wanted to say, the more the work was appreciated in the commercial world.
The technical part of photography was never a problem, perhaps because at the start of his career he was a newspaper photographer, a field in which you nail the skills early or you move on to another line of work. Later he applied the feel of photojournalism to his commercial and advertising work. When he shoots fashion, for example, he does it with the sensibility of a photojournalist. "I may be directing, setting up a scenario," he has said, "but then I let it roll. The models get caught up in what they're doing and forget I'm there. I tell them, 'Don't run the poses. I want to photograph what you're like as a person—just be you.' It's not your typical fashion shoot."
About seven years ago he created a special portfolio in which every picture was exciting to him. "None were made to impress anyone," he has said, "and there was no thought that this picture will get me a General Motors campaign." Doug had the portfolio printed and bound—"which most agents will tell you is an insane move because you can't add new work to it. But I'd created a portfolio that was a statement of the kind of work I wanted to do. It said: this is me, take it or leave it."
Clients took it, and Doug's business took off. "I got Chevy and Coca-Cola and Disney. I got hired for my eye to do advertising." Ultimately the operation got too large—too many people, commitments and distractions. Now it's pared down to the essentials as Doug pursues personal work and fine-art documentary photography and seeks advertising assignments that will allow him to express his ideas and his vision.
Doug's wide-ranging interests and his restlessness come, he has said, not from dissatisfaction, but rather "a craving to always be excited, challenged, even nervous about what I'm doing.
"I'm trying to be an artist and make a living. I'm trying to merge art and commerce."
Lurking in the background is what Doug really wants to do, and that's to direct films. "I'm a film fanatic," Doug has said. "I'm obsessed with film, and I know that someday I will be a director. I have stories...that I want to tell in film, but I'm kind of a late bloomer." He says that he's just now starting to figure out where to put all his energies. "I could definitely see in five to ten years that I would really start pursuing film with a vengeance...."
The Collected Works
In 1986 Doug began a two-year photo essay for Life magazine, documenting the start-up of Steve Jobs' computer company, NeXt. When Jobs withdrew support for the project, the story was killed, but Doug published a book, Defying Gravity, a chronicle of the development and introduction of Apple's personal digital assistant, the Newton.
During the mid- and late 80s he also did a series of corporate reportage assignments in Silicon Valley. Recently Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, acquired Doug's work to create the Douglas Menuez Collection, an archive of the images of that period as well as Doug's other work. "They asked for everything, going back to work I did in high school. They asked for all the originals, the film and prints; I keep copies. Corbis will be distributing it all as stock images as well.
"Stamford is in the heart of Silicon Valley, and they want to protect that history. And my other work has a lot of historical value, too—there's everything from the AIDS crisis to the Clinton presidency. Eventually the tequila project will be there, too."
Doug says that it's a strange feeling to have his work collected this way. "I mean, I'm only 46, and usually these archive collections are for...well, older guys. I feel my best photos are still ahead of me."
On the Web
Doug's site, www.menuez.com, features photographs from all the phases and fields of his career.
In the Bag
There's a story Doug tells when you ask him about Nikon cameras. "The first thing I would say about Nikon is that a Nikkormat makes an excellent weapon." The intended victim of a mugging, Doug swung the camera at his assailant, who was carrying a knife. "I hit the guy in the head...and got away."
He tells the story to illustrate one of the reasons he carries Nikons—their durability "under any kind of circumstances. I've crossed the Sahara, I've been to the North Pole, I've been up the Amazon, I've been in horrible situations. And it's true. They're just durable."
Doug is currently using D1X, D100, F5 and
