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TITLE: JOHN HARTMAN TALKS A LIFE OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND RECEIVING AWARDS   SUBTITLE: With a half a century under his belt this photographer has never “worked a job” or “had a paycheck” in his life.   By Chris Rugowski   John Hartman is a distinguished name in the photography world, and many know him from the numerous light painting photos he is known for, but his history goes back 50 years and to think, originally it wasn’t even a career he thought about.   What does winning your Hall of Fame Award mean to you? I was completely taken aback by the award. I went back and took a look at who had received it in the past and they’re all mentors and friends of mine. Starting recently with Ken Martin and Carl Caylor, and even going back to Walter Rowe who gave me my very first speaking assignment at WPPA in 1983. Some of the other people include Rick Trummer who I’ve known forever, he worked with Lee Larsen, also a Hall of Famer. I can’t forget Dan Stoller who was the guy who printed all my prints that got me my master degree in the first place. There’s a lot of history in this group, and it’s a big honor.   How long have you been in WPPA? I joined in 1976, I’ve been a member for 48 years. I joined two years after I started my business. June was my 50th anniversary of being in business.   What is your history in photography? For starters, this is the only job I’ve ever had. Like I said, I started my business two weeks after I graduated high school and have been going ever since. I learned early on that photography is just part of it. The big part of it is being able to make a living on the business end of it. I learned that very quickly and started studying with some people outside the industry about marketing and that sort of thing. That was my earliest introduction to visiting with other photographers.   I started doing programs about marketing, which was uncommon, back then it was all about posing and lighting. The programs were in Las Vegas and called Marketing Boot Camps. I had been doing speaking gigs for years before that but I got tired of the travel and the lack of interest from the audience because of where I was speaking, which was usually conventions, so people were coming in and going out constantly.   Being tired of the travel I decided I was going to have one per year and have people come to me. The courses were expensive, and yet I found amazingly that when people spend a lot of money they pay attention, and not only do they pay attention they do what was prescribed. We found people were getting really good results, and we found that year after year at least half of the audience was returning attendees. I learned I had to come up with new things every year because of that.   That’s what kept the creativity part of it going, and I was dialed into that part of it, because there had to be some other reason other than just marketing to bring people back. Around the early to mid 2000s I started getting into very new, and cutting edge technology and techniques, such as Infrared (IR) Panoramic HDR Photography, and ultimately IR Panoramic Tilt Shift HDR.   I was involved really early on with things like high speed sync, and using video lights instead of flashes. It’s all mainstream now, but then it was cutting edge.   Part of the reason I think I’m still around right now in this photography world is simple, I get bored easily. I figured if I can stay un-bored that’s how I can stay with it. That’s how I got into the light painting thing. I thought it was interesting and then all of sudden it became an obsession, and pretty soon a business.   John’s thought on digital vs film Digital is better. I think it’s fun to watch these newer people who have never shot on film before discovering it and they think it’s the coolest thing. Maybe they start an exclusive line of film photography for their clients – I always chuckle at the answer when I ask them how long it took to stop looking at the back of their camera.   The main difference between what was going on back when film was the only thing you had versus now is that everytime you click the shutter it cost you $1, there was no “I’ll try another and eventually I’ll get it right” because you’d go broke if you did that. You had to learn the game, and if you didn’t you were doing something else, you got a “real job.”   I remember when color photography was the big thing, people said it’ll never last. There was a lot of controversy back then about how color film was too modern and it wasn’t going to work and it’s too expensive – there was an overwhelming idea that people will never go for it, that they only wanted black and white. If they wanted color, they can have their prints tinted. It was a literal black and white thought process back then, but then at the same time my parents went with black and white prints because it was a third of the price.   Do you have any notable moments or mountaintop achievements that you’ve had in the 50 years in business? Some of the big “aha” moments were discovering people who really understood the concept of marketing. People like Don Feltner and Charles Lewis. I also studied with people outside the industry, one example is Dan Kennedy who came to speak at the Boot Camp for the marketing industry.   As for photography, one of my biggest achievements is the Fellowship Degree from the ASP (American Society of Photographers). This is a degree where you have to submit a portfolio of 25 images that are judged as a complete unit. You have to write a paper explaining your whole process and how you got to where you are right now. It’s a big deal, and there’s only been 134 awards given out since it started in 1970.   It’s a lot of work. I actually submitted four different times before I got it. It’s a pretty rigorous judging competition. The judges all knew who I was, because I’ve been in ASP for a long time. They were able to give me some really good suggestions along the way, and mainly I didn’t give up.   Jon Allyn is really who got me going to submit for the fellowship. I’ve got all the other things that PPA has to offer, but this was really something I never thought I’d have because I never really thought of myself too much as a photographer. The prints that were submitted were all light paintings, so I was happy about that.   Light Painting is unlike another other kind of photography. Compared to portraits, most people can easily understand the image by looking at it. You see a blurry background must be f2.8, catch lights in the eye, there’s an umbrella or beauty dish, and it’s a long range lens, maybe a 70-200 – I could do that picture, anyone could. However with light painting people look at it and I say “OK there’s 106 pictures here show me where they are” and people have no idea. In judging that can be a problem because typically if a judge can’t figure it out, they don’t like it.   What got you into and kept you in photography? I was a Junior in high school and they called me down to the guidance counselor’s office and said I had an empty spot in my schedule in my senior year. The high school I attended had a large student body and therefore a long list of elective courses from which to choose. So overwhelming was this list, in fact, that I could not make a rational decision. So I closed my eyes and randomly placed my index finger on the page.   “Hmm, Photography 101. That sounds like fun.”   I had no camera. No experience. And certainly no interest. But I thought it might be a nice blow-off class to have as a high school senior preparing to major in math at the university. Some people spend their whole life trying to figure out what they’re going to do and I just put my finger down, and that was that.   My photography teacher, who also did weddings and portraits, took me under his wing and showed me his stuff.   Since the school did not have cameras to use, we were required to provide our own. My dad had a ’50s-era Zeiss-Ikon camera with a fixed lens and a collapsible bellows that used 120 film. I immediately became the outlier in the class, as most of the others had modern 35mm SLRs with interchangeable lenses. Mr. Halverson assured me that the camera would be perfect for the projects he had planned in the syllabus; in fact, he said, the larger film size could allow for even better photographs than the SLRs. It was here I learned an important concept that has guided both my business and personal life:   “Find out what everyone else is doing and then don’t do it.”   Early on I got involved in workshops. The first school I ever went to was the Nikon school, and then I joined and started attending the WPPA in 1976. I was at the one in 1975 because my teacher referred me – back then you had to get a referral from somebody to be there and join. What’s changed about the industry over the years? The industry in general has changed. I think what’s really admirable to me is that WPPA is still around, because there are so many state associations around the country that aren’t. That falls to the efforts of Ken and Jamie who pulled it all together when it was really struggling. Wisconsin was its own affiliate, which was different from most of the associations, if you got a merit here it counted nationally. It was a big deal for a lot of people.   How has your experience with WPPA benefited you through the years? A lot of my good experiences with WPPA involved getting to know some of the movers and shakers in the photography industry early on. People like Fuzzy Duenkel, Lee Larsen, Bob Zetler, Chris Carlson, Jeff Walters, Gary Haas. We were in a group and we called ourselves The Amoeba. We’d meet at each others studios quarterly and just talk about how things were going, the business – it was an early round table sort of thing. That was a direct result of being active in WPPA.    It helps that we were all of a like-mind too. The big thing at the time was the senior business. We’d share marketing ideas, we’d share things that we were working on in the sales room – very detailed things too. We’d get our staff involved and get them hooked up, doing training, role playing…all that kind of stuff. It was really helpful.   I encourage anybody to do this, it could be an ad hoc thing, three to five people get together and just try it. Put it on your calendars and do it, you’ll find a way if it’s on your calendar. Let the meetings happen naturally, because it pays for itself, and you can benefit from it, you’ll want to have it. It won’t be a task or a tedious thing. One of my mottos is, “all of us are smarter than one of us.”   Keep benefitting from the knowledge of the group. You’re going to

Kavita Goski George Greven Teri Groth Jennifer Smith Kayla Smith Rick Spehn Tammy Strebe Michael Szymczyk Steve Tudhope Erin Wolff John Craemer Jonathan Roob Brittany Roob Wendy Roob Gretta Luedeke Tiffany Gurholt Mary Coates Katie Court Priscilla Brock Michael Pucciarelli Steven Coates Nathaniel Flauger Brittany Miller

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The WPPA Awards dinner will be on May 18th during the convention. Reception starts at 5:30, and Dinner will start around 6:00. The awards will start at 6:30. Please register for the Dinner tickets by May 15th. if you are only coming to the Awards Dinner and Ceremony. If you are not attending the programming, please consider attending the Awards Dinner, or come at 6:30 to attend only the awards and Social/Roundtable. You can bring guests also. WPPA will be starting out by presenting the Image Competition Awards at 6:30. Congratulations to all of you who participated in the 2024 WPPA Image Competition. Fellowship Degrees Presentation will follow. WPPA will be honoring members who have served on the board, and committees, and participated in the Image Competition that have earned either their Hornoray Fellowship Degree, Full Fellowship Degree, or attained service bars. WPPA is a 100% Volunteer Organization and it takes the assistance of all members to grow this organization. Grand Awards Presentation will be the highlight of the evening. The Grand Awards are the Members/Board Choice Awards. WPPA members get the opportunity to nominate a fellow member whom you have seen make a difference for WPPA as an organization. This member has been volunteering, and/or participating on the board for many years, and/or has given so much to WPPA. As a WPPA member receiving any of the Grand Awards, truly is a great honor. It is a thank you coming from YOU the members! Please remember that nominations for the Grand Awards are only open until April 25th. Visit the website and learn more about the awards.https://www.wppa-online.com/grand-awards/ You must be a member to nominate a WPPA member.https://form.jotform.com/…/2024-wppa-grand-award