Interview with Dan Doucette

Meet up-and-comer Dan Doucette. Since graduating from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design three years ago, Doucette has been working as a full-time freelancer photographer. The majority of his work reflects a documentary style yet he still finds time for weddings, nature and commercial photography.

		PHOTOGRAPHER Dan Doucette Even when he's not looking through the viewfinder, Doucette is always looking for interesting compositions. With a camera in hand, he's willing to take thousands of photos of any subject to get the perfect shot, try new things and continuously learn. Read more on the Nova Scotia bike tour, photographed by Doucette in the Canadian Geographic Fall Travel issue. Visit Dan Doucette's website for more. View his photo gallery of the bike tour. Photo: Sherisse Doucette
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Q Did you follow the family for all five days that they were on this bike tour?

A There were three families on the trip. The writer for the story, Christy Ann Conlin, and her family plus two families from the New York City area. In order to preserve the quality their vacation and not have it turn into a full-time photo shoot, I focused 60 percent of my efforts on Christy Ann and her family and 40 percent on the guides and the two other families.

Q Describe what a typical day on this trip would be like for you.

A My alarm went off about half an hour to an hour before sunrise and I headed out, sometimes with my driver and sometimes not. We looked for good spots that we could shoot later in the day when the cyclists would be coming through. At the same time, I would take some scenic landscapes to add context and fill in all the layout requirements while the light was nice in the morning.

On other days, I would go in a car and jump ahead to get to the locations we planned during the morning drive, set up and wait for the cyclists to come along. I would often shoot the cyclists as we slowly passed them I the car; sometimes I would be on bike with them. The group would always arrive at their final stop somewhere around four or five in the afternoon.

In the evening, I would photograph the locations where they were staying overnight. I took the towns, the beaches and the scenery all into context mostly landscape shooting. Then once it got dark, I'd go back to my hotel room, start downloading photos from the memory cards and copy them onto my external hard drive. I'd be in bed by about midnight or one, sleep for a few hours and do the same thing the next day.

QWhen following this family, were they always aware of your presence or were they able to relax and carry on normally?

AI eventually got to know them really well when I was biking with them. I'd have the camera attached to the bike frame so it wouldn't be in front of my eye all the time. I guess at those times I'd be just like anybody else biking alongside them. At other times, when I would jump ahead in the vehicle and set up and wait for them to come through, they often didn't even notice me until they were right on top of me.

Q Did you find it makes for better pictures and a more natural setting when they forgot you were there?

AWell, they were definitely much more natural in their setting, but I don't mind having people recognize my presence. Actually, when they make eye contact with the camera, it makes for a whole different context of picture where the subject is making contact with the viewer. So it can work well either way.

QHow did you attach the camera to the bike? Was it something you've done before?

A I played around with it before. I've done some mounted remote work where you take your super clamp and you attach it to almost anything. You then put a tripod head attached to the clamp and mount your camera. I tested it before I went on the trip just to see what it could handle. I tested the different angles to see what would work and what wouldn't in terms of giving a nice blur of pavement going past the cyclists that was my goal. I figured out which shutter speed would be good to work best to freeze the bike but still get the pavement in the background blurred, it took a few hours testing that setup.

QIn this case, you had to use a fast shutter speed because people were moving so quickly on the bikes?

AYes, if I wanted to freeze everything then I would use a pretty fast shutter speed. It would depend on how close the cyclist was to the camera because they'd be moving different, relative to the camera's sensor. If a cyclist is moving past you 30 metres away, it's not going to take as fast a shutter speed to freeze it compared with when the cyclist is moving past you five metres away. Obviously the lens you use has a lot to do with it too. For a longer telephoto lens, you're going to need a faster shutter speed (a) to hand-hold it without getting a blurry shot and (b) because you're magnifying something quite a bit with a telephoto lens, so it's therefore moving more relative to the camera's sensor.

Q How much direction were you given by the magazine's creative director and photo editor before starting the shoot?

A First of all, they gave me a huge amount of freedom they didn't really give me too many requirements. They did specifically say try to get shots of cyclists where you can see their faces because so often on something like this, because the cyclists are moving forward, you tend to always fall behind them when you're shooting. It seems obvious, but it was actually good advice and something I thought about and tucked into the back of my mind the whole time.

Q You've taken some beautiful night photography shots ' can you share some details on how they turned out so clear and well lit?

A We ended up in Lunenburg, N. S. I wanted to get some shots of the town and there was a beautiful full moon. I shot with the light of the moon and whatever ambient light I could get from street lights and car headlights. You need a tripod to do that properly. The image with the Bluenose II was challenging because you need a long exposure to gather enough light when it's so dark. The ship was bobbing during the exposure which made the image blurry. I made my exposures as short as possible and shot many different frames in an effort to get a sharp image. I also set the camera up on a floating dock, I was hoping the dock was moving at the same speed as the ship. I took about 30 exposures and I got maybe three that were smooth, at the perfect same speed. The night shots on land were easier because most things are stationary.

QDo you take many risks on your photo shoots?

A Sometimes. It's funny; the two little girls on the trip were calling me "Dangerous Dan" at one point because I was hanging out the car photographing them as they biked along. That's a pretty low-risk activity. There were times, such as at the beach, where I could've photographed the body surfing from the beach, on land with a long telephoto lens. Instead, I chose to put on a wide to moderate telephoto zoom lens and actually wade out into the waves with everyone to get better close-ups. I ended up completely soaked. The gear got a little wet, but I wiped it down and it was fine. But anytime the waves hit, I had to take the camera and hold it up over my head to make sure I didn't get it swamped.

Q You say much of your work can be labeled as 'documentary.' Was this shoot reflective of your documentary style or was it reflective of your inner perfectionist?

A It's a mix. As much as I can, I try to photograph things from a fairly unposed point of view. Sometimes, it was frustrating because the cyclists that were doing the tour would only bike through the hours of nine or 10:30 until about four. That's really not the best time of day for photography. It's harsh contrast, bright highlights. I didn't want to ask people to bike through the route earlier in the day just so the pictures would be better. So I just left it as it was, worked with the light that we had.

Q With the harsh light, was there anything, technically, that you had to do to ensure you got a great image?

AWhen it's really bright you just watch that the highlights aren't overexposed. Once the highlights are blown there's not much you can do. You can't save them like back in the film days. So I would watch the camera's histogram (a graph on your display screen that shows the tonal range of your image) and make sure the highlights weren't clipping. If they were, I would lower my exposure a little bit and then compensate later when processing the image.

QWhat is it like being involved in documenting people's memories?

AIt was pretty exciting actually. I really enjoy working on a project where you have a goal you're looking for a body of images that say something. It's interesting because it seems the value of many photographs go up as time passes. So, when you look back at them after, say 40 years, you'll see something unique, special, like a snapshot of what some people did on vacation at this point in time. You can compare that to what people 40 or 100 years ago did for a vacation. It'll be interesting all the kids will be grown up and be completely different by then.

Interview by Sheri Gagnon.