Thirty-five years after dabbling in photography, Michael Knapstein is fully immersed.
Earlier this year, Knapstein largely bid farewell to a 31-year advertising career to pursue his first vocational love, and he’s been quite an exhibitionist. Photo exhibits, that is, including the permanent collections of the George Eastman House Museum in Rochester, N.Y., and the Nikon House in New York City, and the forthcoming PhotoMidwest exhibit at the Porter Butts Gallery in the UW Memorial Union (opening Sept. 24).
His experience with permanent collections, solo exhibits, and juried exhibitions actually began back in his high school and college years, when contest victories, photo exhibits, and photo journalism work gave those around him the impression that photography was his career destiny. With his new venture, Knapstein Photography, he intends to go back to the future.
His early photographic work actually led to his u-turn into advertising, which concluded along with his tenure at Waldbillig and Besteman. While the Stevens Point native was working for the Associated Press and United Press International, shooting politicians with a camera, he started taking photographs for advertising agencies, and one thing led to another.
It was long his intention to make a transition at age 50, and although he stayed with advertising a few more years, life events eventually fast tracked his second career. “I guess in some sense that if I was every going to do this, now was is a good time, as opposed to waiting another 10 or 20 years,” he said. “I guess I’ve had enough friends who’ve had health issues and other concerns pop up out of the blue that it’s a good reminder that you need to do things while you can.”
Now, of course, photography is a digital art, but Knapstein has adapted well. If you’re going to start a second career in your mid 50s, it helps to win some awards at your new craft, and Knapstein has several he can boast of. The black-and-white version of Knapstein’s pastoral Before the Storm was one of 10 annual winners in Duckrabbit Digital’s 2010 Portfolio Project. Works were judged by a panel of New York-based artists, and the panel was chaired by Laurel Lueders, a well-known monochromatic photographer who splits time between New York and Berlin.
The photograph, taken in May of this year in rural Wisconsin, features a farm house with ominous storm clouds hovering overhead. The house almost seems too small to withstand the pending wrath, and the judges considered it a splendid example of the Midwest’s spring landscape. Before the Storm will be shown at two separate exhibits in Madison, including PhotoMidwest and Unsettled, which stared Aug. 30 at Sundance Cinema.
“The photograph is in three different exhibitions and a book, and so those are four places it’s been accepted,” he noted. “I’ve probably submitted it to another three or four that have not announced the winners yet. It seems to resonate with people.”
From a business standpoint, exhibits are resonating with Knapstein. They have been well worth the time and effort because they provide valuable exposure and generate print sales. Last summer, Knapstein exhibited in a one-person show at Taliesin, which led to decent sales of prints and books that feature his photography.
Thus far, Knapstein has excelled at pastoral and natural photography. One book, titled The Pond, contains beautiful nature shots taken near his home in Middleton. Perhaps the most visually stunning is a picture of Great Blue Heron landing on a pond that is imbued with a golden hue around sunset.
In its annual photography competition, the Nature Conservancy selected the Great Blue Heron image as one of 30 finalists from among more than 107,000 submissions.
Much of Knapstein’s nature work was done at two ponds in Middleton, Strickers and Tiedemans, and at the Pheasant Branch Conservancy. “Most of the photos in the book were taken within an hour or two of sunset, both because of the quality of light and the behavior of wildlife,” Knapstein explained. “That tended to be when some of these large birds would come back to the ponds.”
As somewhat of a nature photographer, his favorite Ansell Adams photograph is the iconic shot, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941), a beautiful landscape with dark, brooding skies over a Mexican village.
For several years, Knapstein has attended photographic events like the Palm Springs Photography Festival, where he had a portfolio review and an opportunity to meet some top editors from major national magazines. Now that he has started a photographic studio, there are a lot of different directions he could go, including executive portraits and other assignment work. “Photo journalism work,” he stated. “Shooting assignments for magazines, or annual reports [for businesses].”
Having started the consulting firm Compatico Group, which seeks to help business clients chose the right advertising agency, Knapstein still has his toes in the advertising waters. Such search consultancies are more prevalent on the coasts, and Knapstein intends to offer the service in the Midwest.
But there is little doubt that photography is Knapstein’s main focus. While he certainly hopes that a lifetime passion becomes a living, he knows that a little luck has to conspire with his skill.
“Certainly, I’m just capturing what’s out there, and the beauty of nature is the number one element in almost all of the photographs,” he said. “Hopefully, I’m there to have the skills and the eye to cut away the extraneous and highlight something of interest, whether symbolic or emotional or awe-inspiring.”
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