Profiles

From the Archive: Photo Review Dec/Jan 2003:

Photographer Martin Mischkulnig knows that great portraits are rarely accidental. And that's why he leaves very little to chance.

Portraiture is an exacting discipline. It requires patience, a well developed sensitivity to the varying emotional states of the subjects and, says Martin Mischkulnig, if you're working outdoors, an acute awareness of the background.


Genevive, Bronte beach, 2001.

"It's very important to me to get the correct background. I'm very particular on that point," he explains. "I will stop the shoot if I don't think that the background's right - even if I'm working well with the subject - and I'll start again when the background is right."

Given that virtually all his portraits are created in non-studio settings, many of which are outdoors, you might think that he'd frequently be plagued by backgrounds ‘not working'. But the fact is that Mischkulnig scouts his locations carefully before he touches the camera. Once he's happy with a setting, he ensures the variables are well controlled. "In fact," he says, "I even mark out the spot where they stand."

Although he is uncompromising in the approach he takes to placing his subject against the background, Mischkulnig is by no means interested in producing portraits that have an antiseptic and sterile artificiality. "I don't like absolute perfection in an image. I think there should be something that stands out somewhere... If their skin's a little bit wrinkly - great! If they've got a spot on their face - great! I like those little bits and pieces that make an image real, that make it true. I like flaws!" 

Mischkulnig's career as a professional photographer is comparatively young. He began moving towards it in the midnineties when, after returning from a decade of travelling overseas, he moved to Melbourne to pursue a six-month course on photojournalism at the private Photography Studies College.

During this period he mainly earned a living working as a waiter, but over time he gradually began to pick up practical experience in his chosen field by occasionally working as a photographic assistant. "Eventually I started to work for the people I really wanted to work for", he says. "After about two-and-a-half years assisting, Sandy Nicholson, the guy who I was mainly working for (and who was more my mentor), went away to Toronto. I was left with not much work and that's when I decided to start shooting."

He put together a book of his work with the idea of shopping it around. He didn't have to make too many appointments; "The second place I took my book gave me this really good job shooting a series of 10 portraits in Melbourne - and it just went from there as I kept getting more and more jobs."


Claudia's Party, Sydney 2000.

The kind of work he secured brought with it certain disciplines that continue to influence the way he approaches portraiture. Budgets were not extravagant. Referring to an early commission for a series of portraits, he says, "I was restrained to two rolls per person. I guess at that point I really refined what I wanted and was very critical of how much film I used. I tried to achieve it all within two rolls. I think now I'm accomplished enough to keep the budget low like that but I generally like to shoot more. I still can manage to get at least one good shot within the first two rolls."

Getting on with the task at hand is not just a matter of confining yourself to a couple rolls of film. There is a limit to how long subjects can put up with being photographed, too! A typical portrait session he says, "would never be more than an hour at maximum, probably 40 minutes. People then start to get restless and you lose the moment.


Paddy Hoboken, New Jersey 2001.

"I get really prepared for the very first shot because it could be the best shot." For much of his noncommissioned work (such as the portraits of beach-goers) he says, "I generally get a good shot within the first roll."

Commissioned portraits are another matter. Under those circumstances sitters can be more self-conscious and there is the undeniable influence of the commercial dimension. "The people are sort of prepared that I'm going to be paid money for this job and so there's a pretence there to start with", he explains. "Generally I get the shot after about three rolls. But," he adds, "I don't think there's a formula really."

He enjoys using psychology to work out how to get along with the subject and thus obtain a good portrait. This can be a particular challenge with high-powered corporate types who typically only have a few minutes for the portrait session. Then the task is as much about respecting the value of their time as it is about the photography. It's very important says Mischkulnig to "let them know that you know they've only got five minutes, and that it's going to be painless."

With no studio of his own - nor, it has to be said, a burning interest to be trapped inside one - Mishkulnig is compelled to keep his photographic toolkit pared down. His main system consists of a Hasselblad and a portable Broncolor flash kit. For many of his portraits he likes to use one big Elinchrom quad light and a Broncolor flash head turned up full. On the lens front he mostly uses a 50 mm, but from time to time pulls out a somewhat worse-for-wear 60 mm unit that gives him a very distinctive, almost vignetted result.

He doesn't do much in the digital domain and his work is all printed to a standard 12 x 12-inch format on photographic paper. But that doesn't mean that he's a digital sceptic; "I'm not against it at all. I think it's a fantastic thing, but I just don't find the need for it in my work."

Martin Mishkulnig can't imagine any other career for himself now. "Every time I look around, I try to compose things. And I couldn't think of a better job than getting paid to do that."

See Photo Review magazine Issue 8 for the print edition of this profile which includes additional images.

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