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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 21, 2002)
juna 21.2002 PEOPLE 1 1 1 refer to myself as a mas- j ter of symmetry because everything has to be I orderly,” photojoumalist John Gress admits. “All the lines have to be even and everything has to match up or else it will bug me.” With little formal training, this 24-year-old gay man’s career has developed quickly from student newspaper to national media. Gress grew up in West Linn and began shooting pictures as a teen-ager. His big break came in 1996 when he met a repre sentative from The Associated Press while taking pictures of local flood damage. He submit ted examples of his work, and the suburban kid soon found himself free-lancing for the news agency before even fin ishing high school. Since then, his pictures have appeared in publications such as People, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times Magazine and USA Today. I Get the pic Photographer focuses on people and places in Portland t \ m 111 always knew I wanted to e Sl6nature unconventional sports photo: G ress shoots a wrestler at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado unprocessed film, developing negatives and medalist Bill Johnson, Portland Police Chief I be a photographer,” says Gress, who stud- scanning prints. “The other great thing is that I Mark Kroeker and the Portland Trail Blazers. lied political science at Portland State U ni The perfectionist in Gress calls out the tech can shoot an entire project and then upload it versity and continues to free-lance out of his to a client’s Web site for them to view.” nical elements, pointing to pattern, lighting and Pearl District studio. “My favorite thing to do color. He recalls the composition of each shot, is to shoot portraits, but it’s gratifying to shoot rabbing his notebook computer, Gress loads a sports and really nail it. And I get a lot of intel revealing how much preparation went into set cover shot he’s ting up what looks like a spontaneous event. lectual satisfaction from covering politics.” prepared for a It’s more than just being at the right place at As he flips through his portfolio, familiar corporate annual the right time, he explains. For a typical photo faces appear. His subjects have included, among report. A colorful shoot, for example, he’ll drag along about 15 other notables, President Bush, Olympic gold composite image pounds of equipment and shows nine people some 75 pounds of lighting staggered among accessories. power-generating About three years ago, windmills against a he began working with twilight horizon. digital photography, which “A group por now constitutes the bulk trait can be the of his work. His state-of- worst thing to take the-art equipment includes a picture of,” he Canon EO S-1D and D-30 claims, but here he’s clearly pulled off just the cameras. Each holds more opposite, weaving nearly a dozen images into a than 100 high-resolution dramatic and cohesive picture. images and has a display “What I want to do is to put a person in that allows Gress to review their environment,” he asserts. “I want to his efforts immediately. organize the scene so that it accentuates the “I know exactly what’s connection. To me, the environment and the there,” he says, noting that a digital format elimi person are equally important.” While portraits rely on a mix of personality nates handling John Gress loose backstage at Darcelle X V li G and setting, Gress finds action in sports. “I don’t like sports from a fan standpoint, but I love to shoot it because it’s a chal lenge,” he says, joking that the high level of testosterone does n’t hurt, either. “Most of the time, I’m looking for emotion, ball placement and conflict." To tell a larger story, howev er, Gress enjoys editorial assignments that center on cur rent news events happening around Oregon. He looks for aesthetic images that also illus trate what’s going on. Sometimes he gets to set up a shot; other times he just tags along, capturing whatever visual elements are present. The latter can be frustrating, though, when he spots a more potent arrangement that could have greater influence with viewers. “You could make people look so much better by just hav ing them be in the right spot to take their picture. You could make them look a lot more powerful than they are just by . positioning them differently,” he pnngs, o. noteS- “if corporations or politi cians would just set things up so that what they were doing actually made a great visual, it would get people to read stories about them.” When asked to imagine a photo essay illus trating the Rose City’s sexual minorities com munity, Gress pauses to consider its range of identities. “I’d want to shoot an older cou ple that had been together for a long time,” he begins, “because so much of the time the focus is on what’s in your face. Putting drag queens on cars, les bians on motorcy cles and strippers on floats doesn’t really represent the broad array of the community. In an essay, you’d include all that, but I’d also want to include things you don’t often see.” J H Contact J o h n G r e s s at 503'939'7228 or visit him and his work at www.johngress.com. TIMOTHY K r a u s e is a writer and editor in Portland. 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