Karsten Moran, Freelance Photographer, On Looking for What You Haven’t Seen
Perusing The New York Times app and online pages, as one in my generation is likely to do instead of sootying her fingers on broadsheets, it’s often a picture that gets me to click on a story. And so many times, the byline of that picture happens to be Karsten Moran. His photos jump out at me, there is something that appears brighter about them, there is motion, color, light, emotion, something surreal.
Yet Moran is, as one of The Times’ regularly contributing freelance photographers since 2010, an earnest disciple to the Times’ ethics and guidelines on integrity. A publication which prides itself on being a leader in standards of journalism, The New York Times follows some of the strictest photo-editing guidelines in the field, allowing minimal toning and no re-touching or editing.
He discussed this with me, among other photojournalism topics, on a bright Friday morning at the base of a hill in his Hudson Heights neighborhood. He does not make changes to photos for journalistic clients like The New York Times. For changes made to a commercial photo, Moran will make a note in the photo’s embedded metadata. He says, “I think transparency, especially in today’s shifting and global media landscape, is essential. I abide by the NPPA Code of Ethics.”
Moran has recently taken pictures for David Tanis’s “City Kitchen” column, and here, he explains, he doesn’t do any “doctoring,” either. What you see is what you get. Or rather, what he got, is what we see. The food is prepared according to the recipe at hand, and Karsten simply shoots the subject. Mussels to the Rescue, published September 18th, 2015, shows a steaming bowl of mussels that conveys the aroma of a dwindling late summer, and a close-up of the blue mollusks soaking in a serene water bath, seemingly untouched, glowing as if in their natural habitat.
They are beautiful. But Moran is dutiful to his subject. “A photo should be interesting visually as well as informative. I always try to illustrate something.” On what it takes to get a good photo, he offers, “I look for things that you have to look a little harder to see. Something unexpected. Something you didn’t at first see. Interesting light. Something normal next to something unexpected.” In the photo used in the title of this article, Moran was assigned to photograph a snow storm. “The temperatures increased and what was supposed to have been a snowy evening in the city, turned into a light wintry mix … I spotted the boots people were wearing and the bright lights of Times Square, and the wet city streets.”
Moran, his father a doctor for the CDC, was born in Germany. He grew up in Africa, Indonesia, Washington D.C., and Atlanta. His father often traveled for work, and brought picture slides to show Moran what he had seen on his travels. Moran was on the road to becoming a photographer from a young age. “At one point he let me use his camera. And then he bought me my first basic camera — a glorified disposable. I think I was about 10.” He thinks growing up abroad affected his sensibilities, but not necessarily the way he photographs. “It helps to have seen stuff,” he pauses. “At the same time, it can be beneficial for photographers to have not seen that much, so that they see things for the first time.”
His mantra is that you have to try something you might fail at, that’s when you get the greatest shot at success. It also helps to have people around you that get it. “I work with a lot of really great people and editors that encourage me, and appreciate my work.” It offsets the challenge of being a freelancer. But he is of the mind that it is the challenge that produces great quality. As the former chief photographer and photo editor of The Pulitzer Prize-winning Riverdale Press, he should know quality when he sees it.
Years of experience have made him up to any challenge. He doesn’t always get much time to shoot a picture on assignment, but he remembers when he got to spend three days with Michael Arenella, or one time he arrived early — a good idea as a photgrapher to do that, he says —after many hours working on a shoot of a carousel to finally get the shots the article used. “It’s rare to get more than one shot at something.”
The first photo I saw of his, was of the Norwegian comedy duo, Ylvis. The photo is light-hearted, funny. I ask him about it. “That was a five-minute shoot. I showed up early to look at the surroundings. When they got there, I took one picture of them standing, but it was a little serious.” The picture that makes me laugh (I’m not sure why — that’s what makes me laugh) is of the duo sitting on a couple of chairs.
Any memorable moments, favorite celeb shoots? “Matt Lauer, for the Business Section on the early morning show. He was just really nice. Low key. Hospitable.”
Moran has to move on, go to work, like the rest of us (he splits his time between news and commercial photography work). He offers to bring in my empty coffee cup, thanks me for making it all the way to Washington Heights to meet him, and enthusiastically recommends the nearby Riverside Park for my upcoming photo assignment.
For more about Karsten Moran, visit: www.karstenmoran.com
