News & Articles

EN: After leaving your position as president of Como Oil & Propane you chose not to seek another job in the corporate sector and focused on your passion for photography. How did you first become so smitten by this desire to do photography?

John Heino: I was an aspiring artist before I was a photographer. As a freshman art student at UMD, I discovered fine arts photography and was immediately hooked. I’m a walking advertisement for the horizon-expanding value of the “Introduction to Art” course.

EN: Photography is usually perceived as a solo avocation, yet many of the projects you have become involved with (such as 3N6D, Red Interactive and your upcoming Zenith City Lines) are collaborations. Where does this collaborative spirit come from?

JH: In college, I developed a zeal for performance art and the unpredictable power and glory of creative minds rubbing against each other in some sort of aesthetic framework. With Zenith City Lines, it was much more pragmatic. I can’t dance. And, even if I could, it would be almost impossible to get a leap shot with a timer.

EN: What is Zenith City Lines about? What will people experience from this show?

JH: Zenith City Lines is our take on Ballerina Projects done in cities around the world. The idea is to photograph dancers in the city’s iconic locations. We took it a step further, creating a dance performance that incorporates the photographs.

The dance performance and photo exhibition blend the lines of the city and the lines of the dancers (hence the title). Our audience will get a multi-faceted look at the visual delights of our area. With this iconic beauty as a backdrop, choreographer Megan Abel Schmitt and our dancers, Nicole Sippola, Lindsey Wittkop, Jesse Davis and Sze Leung created stunning poses and dance numbers that highlight the human form. When that all works together, it’s pretty powerful.

EN: Zenith City Lines was two years in development. Where did the idea originate?

JH: I had done a photo exhibition in collaboration with Megan’s “Radiance” show at the Playground. I really enjoyed that experience it jacked my appetite to do more with dancers. Megan and Nicole introduced me to the Ballerina Projects and I immediately saw the potential for a similar take on Duluth. Really, who has a more scenic venue that we do? It was frighteningly easy to talk each other into this mega project.

EN: What have been some of the challenges of sticking with it and seeing it through?

JH: Speaking for myself, I totally underestimated the time commitment--shooting, processing, editing, writing and recording music and putting it all together. Don’t get me wrong, I love this project, but I also have an innate drive to get out and shoot--often. I’ve been spending way more time at the computer than I normally would, so I’m looking forward to reclaiming some shooting time.

For all of us, it was gut-check time when we were turned down for grants--twice. We adjusted by cutting back on some planned costs, self-funding the rest and hoping we sell enough tickets to at least cover our out-of-pocket investment. I don’t know if that will happen, but I’m proud of the tenacity of my comrades and excited to see it all come together November 22.

Also, midway through the project, Megan moved to Florida. So that required some ingenuity, video technology and social media. I’ve been fascinated by the way Megan and Nicole have used video segments to put the show together with the dancers.

EN: Your nature photography work is riveting. Can you share a few secrets here as regards what you do? It is obviously more than just having a good camera.

JH: The two critical aspects are mindset and enough photographic expertise to be an orchestra conductor of light.

The mindset I recommend is receptivity and anticipation to capture whatever comes your way. Some shooters are very intentional and walk around with a picture in their mind’s eye of exactly what they want to photograph. That’s never worked for me. If I’m fixated on some ideal, I tend to miss the gifts all around me. I like to get to a location a good 45 minutes before sunrise and spend a few minutes relaxing and noticing what the universe is showing me before I ever click the shutter. When you attain that sort of Zen state of mindfulness, the images tend to rush at you from every direction. You just need to capture the ones that really move you. Most of the time, they will move others, too, because human wiring is pretty consistent when it comes to beauty.

Anyone with a cell phone camera can wander down a trail and get lucky. But to consistently get great images, you have to get as many things working in your favor as possible. The best light for landscapes is going to be the 1/2 hour or so on either side of dawn and dusk. For wildlife--especially to freeze flight or other motion--the best light is usually going to be mid-morning to mid-afternoon. And you’ll need some open sky, not bulletproof clouds.

You don’t need an expensive camera, but you have to understand how it works to maximize available light. For example, if I had my choice, I would always shoot at ISO 100 or lower because the image is virtually grain-free even in low light. But when motion is involved, like a bird in flight, you have to boost ISO high enough to get a shutter speed fast enough to freeze action.

I could write a book on the technical aspects of light and digital photography, but hundreds of others have already done that. I’m not a technical fanatic, but I advise any aspiring photographer to learn enough about your camera’s capabilities and photographic techniques to get comfortable using light to your advantage. Eventually, the technical side becomes almost automatic and that frees you to pay more attention to composition and the finer points of capturing whatever delights your eye.