Bob Krasner Photos Glow @ GAS Gallery

Maplewood resident Bob Krasner lives and breathes photography. In his current GAS Gallery show, Flowers, Etc, Krasner plays with color, contrast and cropping—shooting the show's photos under atypical light conditions, simply lit by the fading daylight found after sundown. Krasner was able to capture the images' intense colors, especially violets, by taking photos at the last possible minute of daylight. Join him for the artist's reception on Saturday, April 17, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at GAS Gallery and Studio. The show runs through April 30.

Krasner and his wife Debra Trebitz comprise Krasner/Trebitz Photography, known for capturing events, corporate portraits, weddings, interiors and still life. Krasner also teaches the popular "Taking Better Pictures" class at South Orange Maplewood Adult School. Krasner and Trebitz are the parents of Jesse, 17, a student at Columbia High School and Ava, 10, who attends Tuscan School. 

Tell me about yourself: Well, I grew up in Springfield, Mass., and attended Syracuse University and I've been a professional photographer for over 20 years. I first started taking photos as a teenager, shooting concert photos for my high school and college school newspapers. NRBQ was the first band I shot. Tom Waites was one of the more memorable assignments from those days.

I met wife Debra when we both lived in New York City. She was a professional concert photographer and the music editor for the magazine Hit Parade. We did photo sessions together for heavy metal bands like Megadeath, Soundgarden and Metallica. That was like the movie This Is Spinal Tap – they were heavy metal dudes—big hair bands. We were living in the East Village, and then later Brooklyn, Windsor Terrace.

Occasionally, we even got to shoot bands we liked. We 'shot' Wynton Marsalis, Sonic Youth, Pere Ubu. We started picking up weddings, corporate work, shooting a lot of events and corporate-type portrait work. The music photos appeared in Rolling Stone, Newsweek and People. The wedding photography in Town & Country and Vogue. That's the kind of work I'm doing now. I don't really shoot musicians any more. My work is more corporate, celebrity parties, annual reports, book covers. I just did a cover for Penguin Books: John Grisham's latest book—Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer. I also took photos at Natalie Cole's birthday party recently and at a private dinner for Bill Clinton in Manhattan. He was guest of honor at a small gathering.

What's your favorite kind of camera? I only use Nikon cameras. Over the years I acquired a lot of lenses, so when I switched to digital I stayed with Nikon so I could use all the manual lenses. I use a D-300.

The photos in your GAS Gallery show are breathtaking – really showing flowers in a different light. The show is of abstracted flowers. Everything I shoot, whatever I take pictures of—people or still life—all has to do with light and composition. I'm constantly looking for the right kind of subject matter in the right kind of light. A lot of these pictures were taken in low light, late in the day, after the 'golden hour,' when everything is lit by the sky. Others were taken in full daylight. I like softer light. Almost all of the photos were taken in my yard or in the neighborhood.

When I shoot I try to take the photos differently than what I've seen before and I've seen a lot of flower pictures. I tend towards abstraction, interested in the shapes and forms and dynamic in the picture. The pictures need to have some kind of rhythm. Don't want them to be static, even though they are peaceful. One photo is of a magnolia tree leaf sitting on a backyard picnic table. I spent about a half-hour trying to find the just right angle to make the image really interesting in shape and form. More than a picture of a leaf. The negative space in the picture is as interesting as the positive space. It's beautifully composed. I try to approach things in such a way, so that I don't take the same photo that hundreds of people have taken before.

What is your SOMA photography class like? My main class at the adult school is for beginners. It's on understanding how the camera works and taking better pictures. The whole idea is that you take better photos when you better understand your camera. I start off with a lecture and from there I give weekly assignments. Everyone emails assignment and we talk about what is right and wrong, about composition and cropping, why the entire frame is important. A lot of times, you should avoid putting a main subject in the middle of the picture or the horizon in the center. What's going  on around the subject is as important as the subject itself. We explore why one picture works and another doesn't.

Name some of your favorite photographers. I'm a big fan of Arnold Newman. Actually, he is a major influence. I use his work as an example of how to do a portrait. He really knew how to use negative space. Robert Frank, Elliott Erwitt, William Eggleston, Ray Metzker. Cartier Bresson, Lee Freelander, Lucas Samaras, Duane Michaels. Ralph Gibson, are a few other influences.

Your photos are beautifully printed, any tips for us amateurs? Don't print on your own, it's really more cost efficient to print 'outside.' Pick any three online sources, like Snapfish, or someplace like Costco, and have the same image printed by all of them.  Decide which one you like best and then stick with them. If you try to print everything yourself it'll cost you a fortune and you'll wear out your printer.  I tell people to make a habit of making prints. Too many photos are trapped on a computer and never see the light of day.

The same thing that's great about digital photography—you can easily take thousands of photos—is the problem about digital photography. You can take thousands of them that will never see the light of day, you look at them on the computer and send them to friends, and then one day the computer crashes and they're gone.

You've had the opportunity to take photos of a lot of amazing people, what's one of your favorite experiences? Oprah Winfrey flew me to Chicago, once, to shoot a party for her boyfriend. There was a blizzard going on in New York, and the plane was late—we arrived with just enough time to set up and shoot. When I arrived, Oprah immediately greeted me, made me feel at ease. 

On that particular shoot, I brought a friend along as an assistant. This person had a habit of calling me early in the morning and waking me up. Sure enough, the phone rang early the next morning. Instead of saying 'hello' I yelled "do you know what time it is?" The voice on the line said, "Bob, it's Oprah, You did a great job."