Spreading Light

Twelve years ago, a warehouse fire in Chicago consumed an entire city block. “It took the fire department a day and a half to put the fire out completely,” recalls John Gress, M.Photog.Cr., CPP, who ventured out to the site the morning after in five-degrees-below-zero weather.

“They had been spraying water all night on this massive fire that was still burning … and everything was covered with ice. It was crazy to see.”

Gress’ image of the frozen scene (below) was named a finalist in the reportage category and the Best of Nation image for Team USA in this year’s World Photographic Cup, which takes place this month in Ecuador. Gress, a lighting expert, photography instructor, and commercial photographer still based in Chicago, spoke with Professional Photographer about his career journey and his inspirations.

Professional Photographer (PP): How did your photography career begin?

John Gress (JG): I started borrowing my mom’s camera when I went to summer camp and I realized it was a great way for me to make friends. Also, around that time, my grandma looked after me every day while my mom was at work, and she was always watching the news, so I started to think about becoming a photojournalist. I wanted to photograph sports and breaking news events.

My high school photography teacher in Portland, Oregon, was also a freelancer for the Associated Press. He introduced me to some photographers who worked there, and they took me under their wing. After high school, I ended up going to Portland State while working 30 hours a week as a freelancer for AP.

After college, I applied to about 70 different newspapers all over the U.S. and took a job at the Topeka Capitol-Journal [in Kansas]. But it was hard being 2,000 miles from home and not making a lot of money. So, after a year I went back to freelancing in Portland, photographing for the Associated Press and The New York Times, USA Today, People magazine, anyone that wanted to hire me. I moved to Chicago in 2003 to work full time as a freelancer for Reuters and continued [at Reuters] until about 2010.

PP: What were your most exciting photojournalism experiences? 

JG: I photographed the cast of “Twilight” when the movies were coming out, and that ended up on magazine covers all over the world. In 2008 I also photographed the [presidential] campaign of Barack Obama. One of those photos ended up on the cover of Time magazine. One fun experience was when I got sent to the University of Illinois Chicago to photograph a master’s level music composition class. There were only about 30 people in the room—just the students and maybe three video people and me. It was a total surprise to the students when a guy walked through the door with a guitar and said, “Hi, I’m Sting.” He basically did a master class with these students for MTV. He answered all their questions and played songs. At one point he said “OK, grab your instruments. We’re going to improv ‘Every Breath You Take.’” It was a lot of fun seeing this whole experience unfold and seeing the students go through it.

PP: How did you transition from photojournalism to your commercial and portrait work?

JG: Around 2009, the housing recession caused my photojournalism income to decrease, so I started to spend time on lighting portraits. When I did portraits of people for the news, they wanted me to do my job in five minutes and move on, but I found that aspiring models or actors would sit there for a long time and let me play with the lighting and develop the shot. I found that was something I really like doing, so I spent a lot of my downtime doing model shoots with people I would find on [the modeling platform] Model Mayhem. By 2012, the majority of my income came from personal and commercial shoots instead of photojournalism. Those collaborations also led me to some of my biggest commercial clients, and I extended my offerings to include video.

PP: How did you start educating other photographers?

JG: In 2015, a friend talked me into getting onto Instagram. When I posted behind-the-scenes photos, they would get a lot of attention. I set out on Instagram thinking that I would have a following of businesspeople who would hire me to take pictures for them, but I ended up with a lot of photographers asking me to teach lighting and other workshops. Now I teach about a dozen workshops a year in different cities and speak at conferences, and I also generate YouTube content and have a membership site where people can subscribe to get more education online. … I love online education because I can help more people. But there’s nothing like helping people build their skills in person because you have the ability to see things in three dimensions, ask questions in real time, and experience moving lights and seeing the results in real time. It’s those small nuances that you’ll only get from a hands-on experience.

PP: How has your photography style evolved?

JG: About 10 years ago, I saw a Joel Grimes video on YouTube where he was talking about using a square soft box to create Rembrandt lighting, and that was very influential for me. I started thinking about recreating natural light in three- or four-point lighting. For instance, noticing how the sun comes through the window, and that becomes our main light. Light bounces around the room, and that’s our fill light. And maybe it reflects off a cabinet or a mirror, and that can become our kicker. When I started out, there wasn’t YouTube or blogs or the other things people have today to learn. I just had to look at images to try to decipher what the photographer was doing, and then try it out on my own and see what happened. Now, a lot of my content generation is challenging me to change how I think about things and experiment with new ideas. I feel like I’m constantly learning and trying something new. In the process of making content about gear or teaching people how to use equipment, I’ll go down a rabbit hole where I’m testing all the things I know to be true to make sure it works before I teach it to other people.

PP: You do everything from Rembrandt to colored gels to Old Hollywood lighting. How does that happen?

JG: I bought a Fresnel modifier just because I thought it looked like something fun to experiment with. The Fresnel lens was invented for lighthouses and then trickled down to movie lights. The old Hollywood masters were shooting with those movie lights. And now we have this modifier that we can put on our flash or put on an LED and we can create similar lighting. So, I ended up buying one of those because it looked like something fun to experiment with. I took a photo with it and posted it, and someone said that looks like Harcourt. I looked that up and it’s a French photo studio that’s done this style of photography since the golden age of Hollywood. I found some behind-the-scenes photos and I saw they’re using six different lights and two reflectors. I can do that. So, I set out to do the same thing. It’s just interesting where the evolution comes from, whether it’s emulating a style or emulating some other art direction or a pose or playing with swapping out backgrounds, using AI to generate backgrounds, or wherever the road takes you.

PP: What do you do to get the best out of your photography subjects?

JG: I tell them, “Go ahead, get your ‘America’s Next Top Model’ on. Just try different things. And don’t worry, if it doesn’t work, I’ll guide you on what needs a little correcting.” If they try that and it doesn’t work, I’ll just grab my phone and start showing them photos and pose them more like a mannequin. But I try to make it organic at first and see if that works out. Then, I practice something called “talkesthesia.” I just talk to them to distract them from what’s happening. I try to engage them in conversation the entire time so that they’re not thinking about what they’re doing.

PP: With all the lighting options in your repertoire, how do you determine what will work best for your clients?

JG: When clients book online they immediately get a questionnaire. I ask them to describe what they want and give them the option of uploading pictures or sending links. It helps to automate the onboarding process so that it’s more scalable. They might send me 12 of my own photos they really like and that makes the process really easy. Or they’ll describe what they want, and I’ll come up with an idea for it.

When they show up for the session, I’m usually drawing from 12 to 15 setups that I can execute very quickly to give them a lot of variety in the shortest period of time. I might come up with something new, but most of my experimentation is done on my own rather than with paying clients. … I feel very grateful that I’m in a position now where I get to experiment and try to push my work to a new level all the time. At the same time, I feel lucky that I get to share that with others and help people along in their photography journey. 

Janet Howard is a photographer, author, and coach based in Atlanta.