Personal Background:
Sam Kaplan was born in Boston, MA. He majored in Studio Arts with a concentration in photography at Wesleyan University. At Wesleyan University, he studied both traditional photography and conceptual sculpture. Now Sam is located in New York and has been shooting for 9 years. Some of Sam’s clients include New York Times Magazine, Fortune, New York Magazine, Budweiser, and Men’s Health, just to name a few. On his website, you can look and find some of his photos that are for commercials he’s assigned to. When Sam was in high school photography was the one thing that was totally satisfying. He states the he “...was never really interested in portraiture but he would spend hours in the darkroom making photomontages.(http://www.thisisthewhat.com/2013/05/10-minutes-with-sam-kaplan/)” Before Kaplan started his own solo career, he assisted many photographers. In the 3 years that he assisted he worked with about 40 photographers. Each photographer that Sam worked with specialized in something different. This meant that Sam got practice with a lot of different art forms before he started taking his own photos.
Style:
Sam Kaplan’s style is very unique as he takes pictures either in the most natural way, like in his food photos. Or, his pictures are crazy organized, as seen in his still life photos. Being that Kaplan works with very high end clients such as Google and New York Times Magazine, he must take every photo in the way the client wants and is something that he is happy with displaying under his name. A quote from an interview with Sam explains more, “I try and take away as much from the picture as possible until I get to its essence. I think when you start adding a lot of elements to the picture, you’re often detracting from whatever the picture is trying to say. It’s a reductive process. I want to get to the root of the problem. For example, I photographed a black sea bass for a New York Times Magazine assignment to illustrate a recipe. The fish itself was so graphic, the image didn’t need to be garnished with extraneous objects.(https://www.digitalphotopro.com/profiles/sam-kaplan-the-problem-solver/)” Kaplan is a genius at taking photos in very natural and organic ways. This makes his work very unique and makes it stand out from the crowd.
Philosophy:
Sam Kaplan believes in a one word philosophy: simplify. The quote of “less is more” truly summarizes what Kaplan believes in. If the object is adding clutter or is not needed in the shot, it is taken off of the set. Kaplan has been relatively open about his philosophy and what he thinks about while taking photos. Here's a few quotes, “I try to shoot for myself as much as possible. Trusting my instincts at all stages of a shoot is very important to me. I feel that doing personal work and pushing myself in that way can really inform my assigned work.(https://aphotoeditor.com/2013/11/07/art-producers-speak-sam-kaplan/)” “A musician named Starlite, who also attended Wesleyan University, cited as an influence Strunk and White’s grammar-usage guide, The Elements of Style, in an interview he did for Rolling Stone Magazine about his songwriting: “I like this idea in The Elements of Style that style is not embellishment, that if you try to say something as simply as possible, your personal style will come through… The simpler you get, the closer you get to something.” That’s what I’m trying to do with my photography. It’s about making everything matter. I think of Irving Penn like that, Mitch Feinberg, as well. He’s an amazing still-life photographer who divides his time between the U.S. and France. He’s definitely an inspiration. His work is as close to fine art as a commercial photographer can get.(https://www.digitalphotopro.com/profiles/sam-kaplan-the-problem-solver/3/)” From these quotes, we truly see Kaplans very interesting yet straight forward view on photography. Personally, after learning of his philosophy, if you go back to look at some of his photos, you can see the intricate planning of the shot.
Influence:
Kaplan has always said he takes in influences everywhere he goes even in a dollar store(https://www.commarts.com/fresh/sam-kaplan). This is truly seen in this quote, “There’s not one specific person that inspired me to get into the business, but I was definitely influenced by many of the photographers I assisted.(https://aphotoeditor.com/2013/11/07/art-producers-speak-sam-kaplan/)” Kaplan constantly talks about that if he didn’t assist as many photographers as he did, he wouldn’t be the photographer that he is today.
Sources:
- https://aphotoeditor.com/2013/11/07/art-producers-speak-sam-kaplan/
- https://www.digitalphotopro.com/profiles/sam-kaplan-the-problem-solver/
- https://www.commarts.com/fresh/sam-kaplan
- http://www.thisisthewhat.com/2013/05/10-minutes-with-sam-kaplan/
- https://www.connectionsbylebook.com/ny2019/nominee/sam-kaplan
When recreating this photo by Sam Kaplan, I needed to take the photo in its most natural state while still having an organized background that lighting. The photo to the left is my "recreation" photo. I tried to maintain the very natural look of his photos by not moving the object much but instead moving the camera more than the object. In Sam's picture, each and every detail of the burger is visible. This was very hard for me to get in my picture due to the lightly that I had at my disposal but, I managed to get my camera at the right angle to showcase as much of the details as I could.
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When recreating Kaplan's still life photos, I had a real challenge ahead of me. Kaplan's still life photos are extremely organized. This was a huge challenge for me because I thought I had the paperclips in an organized formation but after taking some pictures, I realized not all of them were. So, in the picture on right, you can see the little imperfections compared to Kaplan's. I think the biggest part of this photo is the larger yellow paperclip that stands out against not only the "regular" paperclips but also the turquoise background. I tried to achieve this in my photo but I was unable to get a large yellow paperclip yet, the affect is still present.
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This cinnamon stick photo combined both of Kaplan's many talents of taking food photography along with having a very organized photo. The hardest part of this photo was actually not the placing of the cinnamon sticks but actually it was the lighting. In Sam's photo you can see each individual shadow of the sticks. This became a huge challenge because at certain angles, certain sticks casted shadows. There wasn't one angle that made each of them cast a shadow. So in turn I compromised, Instead of focusing on the shadow of the cinnamon sticks, I tried to light the background so that the cinnamon sticks became the true star of the show.
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