Michael Dakota

The Beginning

I was about eight years old when I got my first camera. Tiny, it was loaded with miniature black-and-white film. Even then I had a glimmer that isolating a moment in time made it special. Looking through the viewfinder, I could make an image - even an ordinary one, like a woman leaning out of the window hanging wash on the clothesline - seem like an extraordinary one.  

My love affair with photography deepened during my first year at college, when I picked up my first real camera - a 35mm SLR.

I worked nights in a bookstore, but after school I liked to walk in Central Park, observing people. Couples in love, an old man sitting on a bench, mothers and children playing, and loners who seemed oblivious of their surroundings, lost in private thoughts.

One day I came upon a beautiful blonde-haired little girl in a perfect black velvet dress with a lacy white collar. She held an American flag in her hand. She looked at me with the innocence of a five-year-old. I caught her at a perfect moment, or so I hoped.

With the help of a friend who was an assistant to a fashion photographer, and already my hero, we developed the film in his darkroom. The image of the little girl slowly emerged, and with it, the experience of how I felt in that moment of my life. I was hooked on the power of the camera's eye.

After that, I began spending all my free time roaming the streets of New York City, watching and waiting for moments to capture. I studied the work of great photographers, hoping to master the art and craft of photography myself, hoping to learn how to make the camera do exactly what I wanted.

Over the next year I traveled the country, from coast to coast, eventually arriving in Haight Ashbury during the "summer of love." By this time, I was in awe of the medium. By putting a frame around a subject, it became important and begged for close attention.

When I returned to NYC, I took classes at the New School, devoured books on the work of great photographers, and set up a darkroom in my kitchen. The living room became my studio. I now added friends and girlfriends to the list of my subjects. I loved photographing people. A good portrait caught just enough about a person to arouse curiosity and make you want to discover more. I started shooting nudes and studies of the body, the curves, the angles, how light played off the surfaces.

The evolutionary process from shooting to developing the film through to the final print in the darkroom gave me a heightened level of meditation and concentration. I knew now that this would be my life's work. By putting a frame around a subject I could focus into the isolated moment and see what the naked eye missed.

I left college to pursue a career in photography. I shot small jobs for local clothing stores and product shots for companies. I got a job as a house-to-house baby photographer. All I needed was a twin lens reflex camera, a light, and a car. I had a Volkswagen bug and bought a used camera and strobe. The company scheduled appointments for me every thirty minutes. In just a half-hour, I had to set up the background and lighting and shoot. The job consisted of one roll of 120 film with ten prescribed poses, including one frame as an ID for the shoot, and one creative frame. I got paid $2.25 per shoot as long as the customer bought prints.

I became good at getting the children's attention, making them smile or laugh. I had a bag of toys, horns, and whistles. I learned how to work under pressure and get the shot.

In the spring, after six months of baby shots, I moved to Woodstock, an arts community in New York State. I had a small cabin in the woods. The kitchen became my darkroom, the woods my studio, my girlfriend my muse. I tried new photo techniques, met many artists, and my vision as a creative photographer began to evolve and expand.  

When I returned to the city, I enrolled at The School Of Visual Arts, where I enjoyed being around other students who were yearning to learn. I studied with incredible and world-renowned teachers. Then, a few months into my second year, I spotted a post on the  bulletin board. One of the hottest fashion photographers in town was looking for a third assistant. I was out the door in an instant with my portfolio in hand.

After looking at my portfolio, the photographer told me I was too good for the job. I told him I wasn't afraid to mop  floors and clean bathrooms. I would do anything to get the chance to work with him, a top fashion photographer who shot most of the editorial for Harper's Bazaar. With that he left the room and returned with a mop and bucket and pointed the way to the bathroom. I guess I cleaned it pretty well, since he hired me. My career had begun.

Fashion: A New World

I spent many, many hours in the darkroom developing film and printing, and many weekends getting the previous Friday's shoot developed: printing contact sheets for delivery to Harper's Bazaar on Monday mornings. On many nights, I slept under the conference table - all for $40 a week and usually seven days a week. But I would have paid this photographer for his remarkable mentorship and the opportunities I had to work with him on the set with top models, legendary fashion clients, and editorial for Harper's Bazaar.

To my good fortune I was next hired by two photographers connected with Richard Avedon: one was his studio manager for fifteen years and the other an assistant. Jim and Earl's studio produced advertising and editorial spreads for magazines. At my interview, Jim asked if I was a good printer, and of course I thought so. He responded, "After you print five thousand prints for me, then you'll be a good printer."

It was a great environment to work in, with gorgeous models and high-profile accounts. Jim was gracious in mentoring me, inviting me to sit in on client conferences, assisting him in the darkroom, and in editing. I was learning what made one frame better than others. After some months, Jim invited me to shoot the last roll of film on his assignments, for practice. He had already got the shots he'd wanted, and generously gave me the opportunity to get used to working with the top models. He also let me use the studio to create my own shoots with models for my portfolio.

I was on my way to the mastery of photography.

Striking Out on My Own

I felt I was ready to strike out on my own. I opened a studio on 23rd Street in Manhattan. Enthralled with the world of fashion, but still young, I went after the pre-pubescent magazines such as American Girl, Young Miss, Co-ed, etc. Within a few months I was shooting fashion spreads and covers. At night I continued producing new work with models to keep my portfolio fresh for presentation to art directors with whom I wanted to work.

Eventually I did campaigns for Harper's Bazaar, Psychology Today, and an award-winning team from Daniel & Charles Agency. They wanted to create a new look for the new times. The creative director took me under his wing and taught me how to achieve outstanding images. I won three Addy awards in three years with them.

I moved to a more prestigious studio on Fifth Avenue and added music companies to my growing list of clients. I was shooting all the time and traveling quite a bit. My dreams were coming true. I began planning to spend a year or two in Europe to get more high fashion editorial work.

Tropical Light

Then, on a vacation in Florida, I was offered a contract to shoot for Burdine's, then the largest department store chain in the state, and one of the most successful.

Burdine's wanted to change the look and perception of its stores, and gave me free rein to shoot fashion advertising and collateral. I came for ninety days, but wound up staying for more than thirty years. Before long I was working for other advertising agencies, frequently traveling to Europe, and promoting Miami as a great location for shooting European fashion catalogues. I had assignments for five-star resorts and international cruise lines and for clients as diverse as DeBeers Diamonds and Bud-Lite.

I shot for clients in Italy, Germany, and from Istanbul to St. Tropez and Cannes, but Miami's beautiful weather and incredible light drew me back, inspiring luminous transparency as well as a new clarity in my style.

Coming from the grayness of New York, the locales and settings were dazzling, exotic, and magical: Sparkling oceans and white beaches, Art Deco buildings with fabulous soft pastels, South Beach street life, the fast growing city environment, rural ranches, and the lush and wild Everglades.

Miami gave me everything I had dreamed of: To photograph beautiful people in beautiful places doing beautiful things. This was the passion and gratitude I brought to all my commercial work. I loved creating the world as I wanted it to be in my images. Warm, sunny, and loving. I became known for the color and warmth of my images, of capturing the essence of a person's being in portraiture, and for my personal projects: from shooting Harley Davidson bikers to Halloween revelers, from rodeo cowboys to street girls.