How Marc Gagnon became an Accomplished Photographer

LOOKING BACK – THANK YOU TO MY MENTORS

No one in life is an island. Obviously, there are different mentors for different purposes. I have had mentors with regards to helping me to create a foundation as a person. Obviously, my parents, some specific teachers and particular friends have helped me with respect to this. I have been in the photography field for some 29 years. A girl I almost married, actually motivated me to buy my first camera. On the most part, I stayed within a small area from Nashua, NH. This girl was from England and was visiting the USA. We started making trips far outside my comfort zone, which is where I began my photography.

One year later, a prospective model who was working at the Manor IV in Nashua, NH asked me to take some pictures for her portfolio. I really had no idea what I was doing. I started reading books and started experimenting. She introduced me to 5 other people who believed that they had something to make it a career. Although they gave me a lot of credit in marketing them to NYC based agencies, I think it may have been a lot of luck. I contend that they did far more for me than what I did for them. They introduce me to the top fashion photographers of NYC (See Attached List) and most definitely the world. I met them through their forum which was usually at the RCA Building, The Cadillac Bar, and a number of other places. I began to sit in on sessions and observed. They began putting me on the spot and I would plug in my camera to take a couple of images at their shoots. I even took a couple of images for actually assignments that were published. They included me on their mailings and I was invited to industry events such as the invitation attached to Studio 54.  Some of events were fashion shows, premieres, and just parties. I actually accumulated a huge file of candid images of celebrities and people who were the operators of the business such as Ad Executes, Camera people, Producers, and Music People.

More important, I learned what I see so many photographers lacking in South Florida; which is the ability to take the right model, with the right clothes matching with the right environment. My main area of photography these days is the COLLAGES.  Although the COLLAGES are a series of images that make a story, still, the individual images making up the collages are critical to make it work. Some of these photographers are long since gone, but some of these people are also now educators and give presentations. I recently communicated with Jack Reznicki and expressed my appreciation to him. I now sell me artwork in some 26 stores, with a future one in William, AZ and negotiations with a large store chain that are in all of the commercial airports. Much of my work is tourist based and I sell in many merchandising forms (see attached pictures). I have begun also publishing my own Coffee Table Books.

I have attached a couple of pictures of an Indian shoot which I will be creating a Frontier Collage. In this collage will be images of the Old West (ghost towns), Little Bighorn, and re-enactments of the old west, stage coaches, OK Corral, Log Cabins, and some other historic sites.

Photographers that influenced me:

1. Francisco Scavullo
2. Richard Avedon
3. Jay Maesel
4. Steve Meisel
5. Jack Reznicki
6. Annie Leibowitz
7. Bruce Webber
8. Marco Glaviano
9. Gilles Bensimon
10. Greg Gorman
11. Toscani
12. Albert Mackenzie Watson
13. Jean Renard
14. Douglas Hopkins
15. Tom Hooper
16. Patrick DeMarchelier
17. Peggy Sirota
18. Harry Langdon
19. Joyce Tenneson
20. Lynn Goldsmith
21. Michel Comte
22. Andrea Alperts
23. Peter Lindbergh
24. Herb Ritts
25. Tom Lohman
26. Harry Benson
27. Bill King
28. Jennifer Baumann
29. Andrew Eccles
30. Robert Farber
31. Giacomo Giannini
32. Les Goldberg
33. Lee Page
34. Michael Pateman
35. John Pemberton
36. John McDonough
37. Paul Lange
38. Jacques Silberstein
39. Arthur Algort
40. Eric Bowman
41. Rudolf Von Domele






42. Marc Baptiste