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Monday, June 22, 2009
One-on-One
By Autumn Gray
Assistant Business Editor
Kim Jew and his self-esteem have been at odds as long as he can remember.
While he dated some in high school, he never had a girlfriend. He cringed when his mother had restaurant waitstaff sing "Happy Birthday" to him and everyone turned to look. School yearbook photos went into a drawer, with the hope they'd never be seen again.
"I grew up very shy," Jew says.
Photography would eventually change that.
Jew got his first camera, a Pentax Spotmatic 35mm, in 1970 from Kurt's Camera Corral when he was a senior at Highland High, where he also was a wrestler and a judo champion.
Sports, to that point, had been his everything. "I was a fanatic," Jew admits, remembering how he would plaster his room with images cut from Sports Illustrated.
He never imagined that he'd replace them with shots of fog.
"We had a little side room in our garage that I set up a little darkroom in, and I would be in there 'til 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning, 'cause it was magical for me — watching the prints come up on the tray there. I was addicted to it," Jew said.
"I would first kinda take pictures of my fellow classmates, but what I always remember back then was I would spend my summers in San Francisco 'cause my aunt had a shop in Chinatown, called the Wok Shop. ... Through high school, I'd go there every summer. But I remember walking around with my camera in the fog and taking pictures of churches and buildings and the wharf and things like that. Something about the camera and the fog really appealed to me. And then when I came back to Albuquerque, I developed the film and would process it and print it ... I would put them on my walls and look at them. I just thought, you know, I could create art with this."
Jew, now sitting in an oversized gold armchair on the second floor of his Northeast Heights studio, opened his first on East Central, six years after getting that original Pentax. Having carved out a niche in family and high school senior portraits, Jew's business has grown to three Albuquerque locations, employing about 30 people.
Jew has also taken portraits of celebrities and politicians, including Oscar winner Alan Arkin, talk show host Jay Leno, former presidential candidate Ross Perot and his family, and Olympic gold gymnast Mary Lou Retton.
Jew would not state his annual revenues.
Q: How did photography pull you out of your shell?
A: The camera gave me power. It was like a shield when I had that camera in front of me. It gave me access to places you never normally would go and people you never normally would meet. I liked the idea that I could tell a woman she was gorgeous, and that was my job.
Q: Why portraits when you could have done anything?
A: I knew in high school that a lot of our sense of self comes from the last pictures we had taken of ourselves, because that's how we viewed ourselves. And I used to think, gosh, am I that dorky, you know? ... So that was kind of a mission for me. A lot of people's self esteem ... it's a very fragile thing when we're dealing with people's portraits. ... You can really have an effect on someone's psyche.
Q: How did you get your start here?
A: I actually started doing commercial photography. This is kind of a funny story: When I came back to Albuquerque, I couldn't find a job. ... I ended up working back at my parents' restaurant (New Chinatown), and one of the waitresses there, she was married to a ... lithographer at the Tamarind Institute. His main client was RC Gorman. So, through her, I got to photograph RC Gorman. ... Long story short, Tamarind saw the pictures that I took of him, and they asked me if I wanted to be a part-time staff photographer. So every week they'd have me come in and photograph a new visiting artist. What was interesting is I didn't know who these artists were at the time — national artists. I don't know if you've ever heard of Louise Nevelson, well she's a big-time sculptor; Robert De Niro Sr. (abstract expressionist painter); Francoise Gilot, who was Picasso's mistress. Anyway, big names. But at the time, I didn't know who they were. I was just photographing them. But it got me into portraiture.
Q: The photos you take of young people have an awful lot of sex appeal to them. Are you ever criticized for that?
A: As a matter of fact, we are. It's a fine line. Absolutely, it's a fine line. We got a postcard from someone, or we have a mailer, and somebody wrote on it, 'How can you do this to young girls?' It's not like we do it to them; that's how they present themselves. One thing we're very sensitive, though, to is we take pictures for both the parents, the grandparents and the student. And again, maybe this will get me in trouble but the majority of high school seniors, they want to look sexy. And to deny that, I think, is a lie.
Q: Is that a style, though, that you've cultivated at your studios?
A: Well, I think it's a part of our style. I'm not gonna deny it. ... I think we photograph quite a few seniors, high school seniors, so apparently a lot of them like that. ... But kids are influenced by MTV and all the advertising out there, and advertising, quite frankly, is kind of sexy.
Q: Who are some of the photographers who inspired you?
A: First and foremost, Richard Avedon.
Q: About how many of your studios' clients do you personally take pictures of?
A: Good question. I would say on average that I would be photographing maybe three sessions a week. I couldn't tell you what the percentage might be, but lately I've been doing more commercial work again.
Q: Is there anyone or thing that you haven't photographed that you'd really like to?
A: I would love to photograph Salma Hayek. Angelina Jolie wouldn't be bad either. I would love to photograph Nelson Mandela. Those are the ones that come to mind.
Q: Are you still shy or have you gotten past that?
A: There's a part of me that's still shy, but I've gotten over a lot of that, yeah. ... But I have to admit, my self esteem issues still surface, even at this middle stage in my life.
THE BASICS: Born Melvin Kim Jew in Albuquerque on July 18, 1952; earned an associate degree in photography from the Photography Institute of America in Atlanta after two years at the University of New Mexico as a "pre-dental major;" married to Karan Sipe since June 30, 1993 ; daughter Chloe, 14, and sons Justin, 15, and Nathan, 26; no pets. "We've lost two cats and a dog."
POSITION: Owner of Kim Jew Photography
WHAT YOU DIDN'T KNOW: "I'm focusing a little more of my extra time on landscape photography, the fine art market. If push came to shove, I would go out of this business and go into that, a little more of the fine art market."
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