Balance
There'll be no reinvention for Steve Vaccariello, no chasing of trends, styles or fashions. Many of the commercial and advertising photographs he made a dozen years ago are still in his portfolio today. "They're as effective and expressive as they were back then," Steve says, "because there's nothing that dates them—no fashion or make-up trend, no period look."
Over the years Steve hasn't changed his mind about what's important to him. "I created a style for myself that wasn't about fashion. It was about form, composition and lighting. And about simple beauty and capturing a moment of personality on film."
He'll bring his style to bear on just about anything that interests him, and by promoting the photographs that reflect those interests and that style—"you put in your portfolio the kind of work you want to get"—he has, for the most part, attracted exactly the kind of clients he wants to work with.
"Clients can come to you with a storyboard of specifics," he says, "or, essentially, a blank sheet of paper. Most of the time I get the blank page because most of the art directors and ad agencies that work with me know my work and my style. I get a lot of clients who come back to me because they know the kind of spontaneity and creativity one of my shoots can generate."
Steve's work is very straightforward. "I've always been a literal shooter," he says. "I shoot what's real, what's there and what I see. It's all very simple, and it's really all based on impulse and emotion. Walking down the street there's something that catches my eye. Even in the studio, something happens, something looks interesting, and I'll go with it. My pictures aren't made to make statements; they're made to visually stimulate. The eye is made to see, not to think.
"Sometimes someone will ask me, 'What did you mean when you took that photo? What was the thought behind it?' The thought behind it was, I want people to look at this and think, this is a really interesting photo. There's nothing else attached, just the image for its own sake."
From the photographs you see here and in the Portfolio section, it's obvious that Steve is also an avid travel photographer, and that Africa is his favorite place to visit. "I've been there three times and visited five countries," he says, "and I'm in love with the continent and the people. There's no place I've been in this world that's like it. It's a magical place. There are so many amazing things to see there; at every different turn there's something else. I trekked in Uganda and saw a mountain gorilla ten feet away from me—in the wild, no bars, no cages. The first lion I saw stared me down like he wanted me for lunch. I thought, this is really amazing. If I could, I'd live and photograph there for the rest of my life.
"For me, the photography I do in Africa is a release and a balance to my commercial career. I take my cameras and go on a trip to Africa, and it's just me and the world. I point my camera at whatever I like, with no demands or expectations. I look at things and soak them in. I take little pilgrimages and meet people and see places I've never seen before. I love that—to discover a place and photograph it. That's my way of getting to know a place, by exploring it to photograph it."
Steve's travel photographs are definitely more passion than commerce, but he does market some of them as stock images. "But when I take these photos I'm not thinking of sales," he says. "I'm thinking, okay, this is a beautiful shape, a beautiful composition. I'm shooting things to visually please myself, to stimulate me as an individual, not for a client."
The travel images have an effect on his commercial work. "The trips all blend themselves into my psyche so when I come back to the city and produce my imagery, it's all reflected—all my travels and all my experiences get into my work back here. If I didn't have those experiences and those pictures to balance me out, I don't think I'd be as good and as fresh at what I do commercially."
In the Bag
Steve shoots film with his N90s and F100, digital with his D100. Currently on order: the top-of-the-line SLRs in both film and digital—the F6 and D2X, respectively.
The lenses he uses most frequently are the 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S, 24-85mm f/2.8-4D AF and 28-70mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S Zoom-Nikkors, plus the 85mm f/2.8 PC Micro-Nikkor and the 300mm f/2.8D ED-IF II AF-S Nikkor.
