Today we’d like to introduce you to Gary Logan.
Gary, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I grew up in the Kansas City area and studied commercial photography at the University of Central Missouri. Graduated with a B.S. in Psychology and a minor in Photography. New York, L.A. or Chicago were the primary advertising markets at the time. I thought NY was scary, LA to far away and Chicago too cold. I decided to try out the Dallas market, with being a 10-hour drive straight south from Kansas City and poof, you’re here. I freelanced assisted for a year and then took a full-time job at Greg Booth and Associates in Dallas. They primarily shot upscale catalog work, including Neiman Marcus, Horchow, Harry & David, William Sonoma and others. Mostly 4×5 and 8×10 view camera work, which is what I loved.
After another year, I took a shooting position at an established commercial production studio in Fort Worth that was transitioning to film and video. They needed a still photographer and that was me. That studio ended up moving to Dallas after another year, but I stayed in Fort Worth and opened Gary Logan Photography. I found an old empty ballet school building in the mid 1990s, renovated it and have been operating a commercial photo studio in it ever since.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As a young photographer, you’re competing with seasoned shooters so there is a pretty high bar. So I tried to have a really strong portfolio when I met with new prospective clients. I always subscribed to the “chain” theory; Your portfolio is only as strong as it’s the weakest picture. Never apologize or make excuses for an image. If you need to, get that image out of your portfolio. Ten strong images alone will always show better than ten strong images mixed with other weaker ones. Thin the herd.
I constantly browse for images that I think stand out. Specifically, I will break apart an image and think about how it was lit or set up. With film, it was relatively easy to spot a light source, look at the shape of highlights and decipher the setup. Digital imaging is infinitely more complex. Light sources can be altered in post-processing, even the direction of the light can be changed. Compositing layers makes the “how did they do that” difficult. On the positive flip side, there are usually multiple ways in digital to achieve the same look.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
I operate a full-service commercial photography studio producing digital images for advertising, marketing, print and web. I shoot both in-studio and location for a wide variety of clients, including BNSF, TCU, Bank Of Texas, EECU, American Airlines, Arundel, Quorum Architects, Ridgemont and others. I shoot architecture, interiors & people on a daily basis. I also specialize in adapting different lighting techniques and rigging sets. We have a metal lathe, vertical mill, welding equipment and basically a full shop to build or fabricate set requirements. I thoroughly love building and lighting sets to create images. A good percentage of my time is behind a computer monitor working in Photoshop and the like. I’m a tech nerd and science geek, so I love digital imaging. My current workstation is a PC beast I built myself with an AMD Ryzen 9. Nerd speak: it’ll Cinebench a 7002 without overclocking. I enjoy shooting and playing everyday. Hopefully, that enthusiasm is infectious and spreads to my client. It’ll be a sad day in Who-ville if I can’t make an image that blows them away. It hasn’t happened yet.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I’m not only a science geek but also a motorhead and a packrat with all my old toys. I still have most every toy I ever had. I grew up with motorcycles, go-karts and hot rods. My dad built me my first gas-powered go-kart when I was three years old. I still have it and it currently hangs on the wall in the studio. Here’s a picture.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3211 White Settlement Road
Fort Worth, TX 76107 - Website: www.LoganPhotography.com
- Phone: 8178701143
- Email: gary@garylogan.com
- Instagram: #GaryLoganPhoto
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