Portraits from the Edge

Photographer Lynn Blodgett has a demanding day job: He's president and chief executive officer of Affiliated Computer Services, Inc., a Dallas-based Fortune 500 company specializing in information-technology outsourcing that employs some 58,000 people worldwide. But he has been avidly pursuing his avocation of photography for several years, a passion that eventually led Blodgett to study the craft with renowned celebrity portraitist Andrew Eccles.

In his most recent project, with Eccles's encouragement, Blodgett has focused his lens on people with whom he might appear to have little in common -- homeless citizens in various cities throughout the nation. His series of black-and-white portraits resulted in a remarkable monograph, Finding Grace: The Face of America's Homeless (Palace Press, $55), which American Photo included in its January/February portfolio of the Best Photo Books of the Year. (Proceeds from Blodgett's volume will go to a charity called the Finding Grace Homeless Initiative.)

"I hope we can see beyond the myths that all homeless people are lazy, addicted, or crazy," Blodgett says. "These are real people, and we can learn from them." Many of Blodgett's photographs were made in cities where he was conducting business; he often sought out people to photograph after a day of corporate meetings. When American Photo recently caught up with Blodgett, he had spent the previous days dealing with fallout from a big shakeup on the board of directors of his corporation -- and also touring to promote his new book and campaign on behalf of the Finding Grace charity during Homeless Awareness Week. Here he talks about the genesis and evolution of his photographic work.

American Photo: It seems you have had quite a full schedule in recent days...

Lynn Blodgett: It was busy, and fun, and very exciting. There were lots of people interested and involved in the homeless cause, and quite a bit of money raised, so it was thrilling. We had photo exhibits in several cities, and people were very complimentary of the pictures, which as a photographer was fun to hear. And I hope it actually is helping people to see that there are lots of different kinds of homeless people. It's not just one type of person, and maybe that will help break some stereotypes.

AP: Did you ever expect to be involved to this extent in this sort of cause?

LB: No, I didn't, but it is very rewarding. You know, in Los Angeles, to stand up there on a big stage with thousands of people out there getting ready to walk [to raise charity funds] -- I certainly had not anticipated that when I started making these photos.

AP: You've said that this project came about during your studies with Andrew Eccles. Could you explain?

LB: I had taken a class at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, and they sent me a catalog and I noticed a wonderful portrait of Ashley Judd, and it was on a course for editorial portraiture and Andrew Eccles had taken the picture. It caught my eye and I read the thing, and you had to submit your portfolio and it was for advanced photographers, so I figured I wouldn't even get into the class. But I was lucky enough to get in and I met Andrew. He's a terrific teacher. Everybody in the class was a professional photographer except me, and Andrew asked, "What do you want to get out of this?" I said, "I would just hope that someday somebody like you would think that some of my pictures are good [laughs]. Not great, but at least good."

AP: Did you hope to get published?

LB: No, I just wanted to take some pictures that somebody who was good would look at and say, "Yeah, that's a good picture." And I had this idea later on to work on a book about poetry with photos to go along with the poems. Classic poems, like Robert Frost or whatever. So I began to work on that and I put together about a hundred layouts that I thought were pretty good, and I took them back to a man in New York who is very much an expert. And he thumbed through them and said, "Yeah, they're good -- for an amateur." And it just killed me. I thought, "What a brutal world." And I was upset for a few days and then I thought, "I just need to get better." And I had so enjoyed Andrew -- he could be very direct but he wasn't mean about it. He could help you without you feeling dismantled. So I called his agent and said, "I'd like to hire Andrew, not to take pictures but to teach me how to take pictures." And after several weeks Andrew agreed to do it, and roughly once a month I would go back to his studio in New York with my photographs and he would critique them: "This one's no good, this one's no good," and then, "that's pretty good." Nothing ever got into the "very good" pile! And then he would teach me. He'd say, "Here's what you did wrong, you got lazy on this shot," or "the light was wrong." And over time, a few pictures got over on the "really good" pile.

One of the poems I liked was about a homeless person, so I went to a shelter and photographed some people. And one of the first people I photographed said, "I'm a poet." And he recited his poem about the Iraq War that was just stunning. And I thought, "There's more to these people than meets the eye." That's what really got me going. And then Andrew, as the portraits got better, he said, "I think you should forget the poetry book -- but these are strong enough that if you keep working at it, these might affect people and they might make a wonderful book." So Andrew gave me the courage to approach a publisher.