Joe McNally

NEC Camera & Photography Show (03/03/2014)

Joe McNally photography career spans over 35 years, he was born 27 July 1952 in Montclair, New Jersey (New York). He started work as a newspaper reporter for United press International. Joe has been with national geographic as a photographer since 1987 and has also published three books.

The Moment It Clicks (2008)
The Hotshoe Diaries (2009)
Sketching Light (2011)

He is also well known for his usage of Creative Lighting Systems (CLS)

Joe classes himself as a generalist photographer and is currently sponsored by manfrotto.

For this one hour brief Joe had put a series of slides together, which consisted of various parts of his work but was mostly based around the last 18 months.

To make this one-hour brief easier to read and write I have bulleted the topics Joe spoke of in a list including some of his comments bellow.

First up Joe displayed several pictures from a recent trip to the Philippines.
He spoke of his time in London (Docklands), during the initial building works carried out on the sky rise buildings at Canary Wharf. Also photographing the local people and current building works in the late 1980s.
Joe showed us a Medical series of slides for an article with National Geographic where he had done a story and shoot on a three-year-old girl who had half her brain removed.
Joe also showed various pictures of a telescope station named V.L.T., which stands for very large telescope that has now been superseded, by a much bigger telescope station called V.V.L.T which he joked on as it stands for very very large telescope.
Amongst these slides were some of his better known work, known as the ‘Faces of Ground Zero’ a collection of more than two hundred giant ‘Polaroid Portraits’ photographed over a three-week period just after 9/11.
He also spoke of his trip to India ‘the streets of Mumbai’ His visit was to capture the changing people and their new ways of life. His pictures captured bars, local TV shows, gambling, general street life and the way it’s now evolving. A country that is no longer what it was.
Joe also showed us several photos of night scenes of stars in the sky at night, he spoke of the way he sleeps for one hour at a time in the car, and then checks his cameras. He runs six cameras simultaneously each with the shutter held open for this duration, which he uses as his bracketing method.
We were also shown a series of slides of the SR71 stealth bomber, which was for national geographic.

During the talk Joe gave several of his own quotes, which I have listed below

Photos have to speak and establish a connection with people.
As photographers we speak with images not words.
Human emotion beats everything in a picture.
My persistence with the camera doesn’t stop until I get the picture and the shot I want.
It doesn’t matter who you are shooting for, or even if they don’t publish, you have to be happy with your work. Otherwise you will never be happy in yourself, I love the sound of the shatter it keeps me going and also alive.

Joe then went on and spoke of various people, who he looked up to as a budding photographer. Danny Farrar, David Alan Harvey, Gordon Parks, were to name but a few.

As a photographer Joe prefers to be out in the open shooting and on location rather than in the studio his comment was ‘studios are not for me.’

My reflection

Whilst the slides were running for some unknown reason the laptop that Joe was using decided to just freeze which was a temporary hiccup, some of the audience were under the impression that it was all over but Joes professional approach and cool head got us back up and running again. The material that Joe used in his slide show was first class, well what do you expect from a master of his craft, some of the images of people from the shoots of India where very colourful whilst other slides like the USA (Faces of Ground Zero) or the three year old girl who had the brain operation where a real hard hitting visual shock. His natural ability to talk either photography for the enthusiast, places and location, hardship or light-hearted humour was spot on as on several occasions the audience were very amused by certain circumstances. One such event that Joe told was of the time he was in London where he met several male people who would after a hard days work take a communal sauna and steam room session, Joe was invited and asked if he could bring his camera to which the guys eventually and begrudgingly said yes. His humour was based on two things one was the event of being naked himself he had no facility storage to carry extra film, the other was from National Geographic who told him that its fine to film women naked but in their eyes men were a complete no – no.

Also amongst the slides were several of the classic Joe McNally pictures at height where if you have no head for heights (like me) just looking at them frightens you and one in particular is a picture of his feet, where he is looking down at the ground from the top of the Burj Khalifa (that’s the tallest building in the world – 829.8 m / 2,722 ft.). All I can say to that is “thanks. But no thanks“ it’s not for me!

There were approximately 300 people in the arena and after a full on forty-five minute talk Joe then took questions and signed various articles.

A really terrific person who knows more than a thing or two about photography and is still hungry for new adventure and excitement, not forgetting a long time photography hero of mine. I thoroughly enjoyed his company and seminar.