Fantastic Journey

Allen Birnbach’s life in photography includes a ‘curse,’ a gift, and an ability to make the most of the breaks

Slaying dragons and rescuing princesses are not part of the picture, but Allen Birnbach’s life in photography does include such fairy-tale elements as an unusual curse, a wonderful gift, and fortunate coincidences at key forks in the road.   Allen’s unusual curse (most of us would call it a blessing) was that he could ace an exam in virtually any academic subject without breaking a sweat.  That ability got him into Queens College in New York at the tender age of 16 but once there, he didn’t know where to focus his talents.  ‘First I was pre-law, then pre-med, then I switched to philosophy and art.  But by my junior year, I was still just bouncing around.  If you can do well in any exam, how do you decide what to do with your life?  It was actually kind of a curse.’

In the midst of Allen’s perplexity, along came a kindly uncle with a wonderful gift.   ‘My uncle Sam loved to travel,’ says Allen.  ‘He had been to 100 countries before he died and he usually brought back a souvenir for me.  After a trip to Japan, he gave me a really cool little camera.  It was an early Canon point-and-shoot with a windup handle on bottom that powered a little motor drive.  I was around 18 and became completely enamored with it.’

‘I Realized This Was Going To Be My Life’

Allen started taking photography classes with Neal Slavin, a fine art and editorial shooter well-known for his group portraits.  ‘After a couple of sessions of in his class,’ says Allen, ‘I realized this was going to be my life.  I was very fortunate in that Neal became a friend and mentor.  I worked with him as an assistant during my senior year and after graduation.’  After a couple of years of assisting for Slavin and other leading photographers in New York, Allen headed West to launch his own career.
 
During more than two decades as an advertising, corporate and fine art photographer, Allen Birnbach has won many coveted honors.  His work has made the cover of Communication Arts and earned recognition by The New York Art Director's Club One Show, The ARC Annual Report competitions, Print Magazine and DoubleTake Magazine.   His all-star client roster includes American Airlines, AT&T, Boeing, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Champion Paper, Charles Schwab, Chevron, Colgate, General Electric, HP and IBM.  He has published two books: Colorado, Photographs by Allen Birnbach and Colorado Aspen.  In his fine art projects, such as Discovering Eden, Allen often focuses on the beauty of nature and the human body.  He has had a long-term photographic love affair with dance and dancers.  He now divides his time between studios in Denver and Los Angeles.

Breaks Good And Bad
 
Making the most of the breaks (good and bad) has been a hallmark of Allen’s career from the start.  Influenced by his mentor Neal Slavin, Allen headed West in the early 70s intending to document the rapid transformation of Telluride, Colorado from a two-fisted mining town to a toney ski resort.  ‘I could see a culture clash brewing between the miners who had been there for generations and the trust-fund babies who were jetting in from the East,’ he says.  ‘I had lined up funding through a federal program to document contemporary America the way they did back in the dust bowl.  But when I moved to Telluride with all my gear, there was a letter in my Post Office box informing me that Nixon had vetoed the whole program.’

On his way to Telluride, however, Allen had made photographic contacts in nearby Vail.  An avid skier who still ‘has dents in his knee-caps from the blue ice of Vermont,’ Allen began to shoot advertising assignments on the slopes.  Moving to Denver allowed him to branch out.  ‘I had to be a generalist to survive in the beginning and fortunately, I had trained with good people in New York.  I could do food and liquor, location work with people, even large-scale productions with an 8x10 camera, models, props and wardrobe.  I worked that way for years.’

Pulling Solutions Out Of The Air

Allen’s career really took off when he began working with Jim Miho, an innovative and influential graphic designer.  Miho had convinced his employer, Champion Paper, to showcase their gorgeous specialty papers (and his graphic creativity) in their annual reports and brochures.  Wanting top quality photos to put on his beautifully designed pages, Miho hooked up with Allen.  ‘He came to Denver and hired me for a couple of projects, and suddenly, I could see that my world would open up tremendously by switching from advertising to annual reports,” says Allen.  ‘It’s been a great experience that let me travel all over the world, meeting wonderful people in business, medicine and technology.  I had been working in my studio and annual report work threw me in situations where I really had to think on my feet and pull solutions out of the air.  I work best that way.’

Allen rode the wave of lavish annual reports through the booming 80s and 90s but eventually business scandals such as the Enron meltdown and the bursting of the Internet bubble led to corporate cut-backs and more modest communications with shareholders.  Just when he was confronting the collapse of his favorite market, Allen got another big break.  He submitted a single image (of an iconic Rocky Mountain landscape called the Maroon Bells) to a competition run by Communication Arts. and it ended up on the most coveted cover of in the graphic arts world.

‘Friends ask me how it happened, and I really don’t know,’ he says.  ‘Certainly, I felt I’d had a unique morning when I made the image but that location has been photographed countless times and for my shot to end up on the cover of CA was a really a wonderful situation. Suddenly the advertising world opened back up for me, and my work has been mainly location/production advertising ever since.’

Infectious Enthusiasm For Digital Photography

Allen has been teaching photography workshops at UCLA since opening a studio in Los Angeles, and believes his own creativity has been benefited from ‘a strong, symbiotic relationship with his students.’  He feels the small classes and workshop environment at the Digital Photo Academy will stimulate the same kind of creative growth for all concerned.  ‘I’ve been very fortunate to have wonderful people in my career who have been there to encourage, teach and nurture me,’ he says.  ‘Now I feel fortunate to be able to do that on the other side.’

Like every veteran photographer, Allen has stories to share about his own transition to digital.  ‘Seven years ago, I built a $40,000 darkroom from ground up,’ he says.  ‘It was my fourth darkroom and I did everything. I went so crazy as to put in foot pedals so I wouldn’t get my hands wet going from one bath to the other.  I knew was digital coming but I was really attached to darkrooms from all the years I’d spent working with film.  Yet now I think it’s even more exciting to work in the digital environment.  You have so much more control, and there are all these possibilities that just didn’t exist before.  What an amazing time to be a photographer.’

www.allenbirnbach.com

Photo Blog www.abetterphotograph.com

Bio written by Mark Lapin