The Art of Gregory Rademacher

Many of you have probably wondered about Greg's background and education. The following article was written about Greg in the September 1993 issue of the "Currents." It May give you some insight as to how Greg's style of photography began.

He looks as though he should have been one of the Beach Boys, but he thinks like one of the Old Masters. In Fact, it is one of the Old Masters who have strongly influenced him in his quest to produce portrait photography worthy of being called "art." The signature Rademacher work is strongly reminiscent of Reynolds, Sargent and Gainsborough. It is portraiture in the classical style, but Greg Rademacher has combined the skill of the brush with the immediacy of the lens to create work which "pulls you in." The walls of his studio in Prior Lake are testament to one of his professional goals of "Making art available to everyone." There life-sized portraits of Minnesotans and their families hang in the atmosphere of gallery presentation rather than commercial display. They are presented in the "classic style" with soft lighting and framed with distinction. And they should be for these are no frozen images captured when the shutter snaps. These are "the windows of the soul" begun on film and enhanced by brush, proving that "art does mirror life."

The story might end there were it just a chronicle of a master of the lens preserving famous faces for the pages of history. But this work is not done on New York's Fifth Avenue or a trendy studio in London or Paris. It comes from the heart of the Minnesota River Valley and it is a story about the people of the Valley and two families separated by 3,000 miles.

While Greg Rademacher was growing up in Minnesota, another "master of the lens" had already been acknowledged in California. Phillip Charis pioneered techniques of photographic artistry combined with stretch canvas techniques that brought the rich and famous to his studio in Pasadena. His work had earned his name by the time Greg Rademacher went shopping for his first 35mm camera. Charis seemed to have little in common with an apprentice Minnesota photographer who was 30 years his junior. In fact, it took over 12 years for their first meeting to occur, but when it did, they would find something in one another that would spark an enduring personal and professional relationship. It was in 1975 when Rademacher first saw the Charis style. "I was struck by the three dimensional quality and the stretch canvas techniques," he remembers. "I had never seen anyone do work like that." He was determined to produce work like that himself.

Determined is something that Greg Rademacher appears to have been all his life. It may even have been the quality recognized by Phillip Charis which set Greg aside from so many others who have attempted to duplicate the Charis Touch.

Rademacher's love affair with the camera began in Brainerd, Minnesota at the end of a rural driveway. It was there that an eagle perched one day, still for so long that Greg remembers it was as if the scene was inviting capture of film. But there was no film. That's when the campaign for the first 35mm camera began. While other teenage boys were buying cars, Greg was camera shopping. Financed by after school jobs, he finally managed his first camera purchase only to learn that would be the least of his expenses. He learned as he went, but the learning was producing a roll of film a day. As each roll was developed, Greg says "I figured out what I did wrong."

His training, he admits, moved slowly because it was financed on a shoestring, teenage income. "I had little money," he says. With growing expertise, he became more addicted, but not satisfied. "In those days, one out of 36 was nice- today it would hardly be acceptable." He went on to Brainerd Community College where he had access to a darkroom and a photography class, and now the dye was cast. Resisting parental pressure to go on to a "real job", Greg knew he had to pursue photography. For months, he carried a picture of a $1,200 camera, "the kind I'm going to have someday." "In those days, that was the price of a car," he remembers.

At Brainerd, Greg made another decision which would become a part of his life and career. He met his future wife Sally who was also a student at that time. She recognized something different, more intense, about Greg. Almost from the beginning, she became a part of his photographic ambitions. "It was he and I from then on." she says. In fact, at his first wedding shoot, Sally tagged along to hold cameras. If Greg was intense, Sally was enthusiastic. She remains today his biggest professional fan, the "people" person who makes work and family all come together in a rare, single-minded dedication.

Abandoning her own ambitions, she and Greg made plans to go to California so Greg could attend the prestigious Brooks Institute. Just on the verge of trekking across the country, a local photographer advised Greg to learn his craft from a working photographer. "Learn the real world," he told Greg, "and get paid while you are doing it." In retrospect, Greg believes that was the best advice he could have received and soon, the decision was to abandon academics for a kind of photographic apprenticeship. It was about this time that Greg bootlegged his way into a Professional Photographers' convention where he saw outdoor photography for the first time. Later, this unique style would become an intrinsic element in the Rademacher style, though that "look" was still years away. Years of working for others were still ahead.

Bouncing from Brainerd to the Twin Cities to New Prague, Greg photographed high school seniors, weddings, engagements, anniversaries, once a funeral, and ultimately, his own wedding to Sally. Sally tolerated two delays of her own wedding because two others needed a photographer. By the third time, Greg figured "I'd better show up." In a typical Rademacher gesture, he choreographed the shots of his own wedding so that he could set up the angles and cameras, and then jump in. By then, Sally was no longer surprised that this wedding would be a "Rademacher" like so many others.

Learning his trade, Greg sought technical perfection, looking for the equation of lights, camera, and film which would create the unique. When he finally met Phillip Charis, Charis would challenge him as a "technocrat." But the development of intense human perception was at work too. He learned how to work with peoples perceptions of themselves. His challenge was photographing "average" people and finding the real person to capture on film. The experiences of his career taught him much about styles and techniques which created portraits with that "special look", but capturing peoples personality was not so easy. It was an especially difficult task for an admitted introvert, but just another endless contrast of the Rademacher nature. To "produce the best I can," Greg can turn into an engaging conversationalist in a minute to catch an expression or a personality flash, the once-technocrat photographer can entertain, coax and demand. "I can never have an 'off' day," he asserts. "I'm always trying to make this one better than the last."

Sally believes that Greg was never meant to work for someone else. "He's too much of a renegade," she says. Perhaps that is why their marriage works. Sally is the enabler, creating the environment which stimulates artistic trial and error. She is the number one fan, but more important, the number one partner. "our portraiture is not like anyone else. Greg will always stand out."

Sally is so busy promoting Greg's talent, she often overlooks her own contribution. Like other women in the 90s, she has learned to balance home, three daughters and a business. She worries that she isn't home enough, but then, she worries about her next project for the business. Her emotions run close to the surface. She is quick to laugh and just as quick to absorb every emotion from Greg. But Sally Rademacher has earned success in her own right. She has budgeted marketed and designed a studio to excellence. Like no one else could, she reflects Greg's intensity and believes "we have to be the best." Interestingly, neither Greg nor Sally compare themselves to others in their efforts to be the "best." They both only get the best from themselves. Sally seems keenly aware that it is almost at hand.

All of this could easily add up to an outstanding portrait photographer whose work be recognized far beyond a small studio in Prior Lake. "Rademacher" became a signature for style and uniqueness, but still something was missing. By 1987, Greg Rademacher knew he had gone as far as he could on his own and remembered the strength of his impression of the Phillip Charis work just 12 years earlier. Now it was time to seek the "master." It took months to summon the courage to make the first phone call, but finally by September 1988, he phoned the Pasadena studio. He was asked to call back "after the first of the year." He did just that... on January 2nd! He also sent information about himself and a month later, the invitation came. "Mr. Charis will see you for two hours." Greg took the "red eye" to Los Angeles and at 3:30 the next morning, he was standing in front of the Charis studio. "Two hours" stretched into an entire day and began a mentoring relationship which would go on for years. With mentoring, also came mutual respect and affection. The technocrat encountered the ultimate artist and came away learning that excellence cannot be measured like teaspoon in a recipe. From the other side, obviously came an appreciation for the vibrance of the Rademacher work and recognition of that characteristic Rademacher determination. Perhaps Phillip Charis also loved his craft so well that he knew the time was right to share his special skill and technique. "I'm very flattered that he chose to share his knowledge with me," Greg says. "He hasn't done that for anyone else."

The Charis touch was too full of intangibles and intuitive technique to be stuffed into a briefcase and taken away. For once, Greg Rademacher had encountered something that could not be achieved with a light meter or lens. It needed to be absorbed a piece at a time, and every year since the first meeting, Rademacher has gone West again. Every year, the work is better and the relationship deeper. For the last two years, the bonds between two men at different ends of their careers have expanded to include two women who care deeply about their work as well. Sally Rademacher and Mrs. Charis are now part of the annual visits and have built a special relationship of their own.

And what is so special about the image on a piece of emulsified paper that could cause a man to travel thousands of miles and spend countless hours to produce "the right look"? At the simplest level, Phillip Charis and Greg Rademacher have created a method of enhancing photographic images with hand applied artistic touches and canvas stretching techniques resulting in timeless portraits nearly indistinguishable from oil paintings costing thousands. With brushes, pencils, lacquer, canvas, and an unerring flair for lights and lenses, their work brings art to every family who, perhaps unknowingly, seeks their own contribution to the future. Perhaps they freeze today for tomorrow and accomplish the impossible -- they make time stand still. Perhaps they capture the shades and texture of every man's soul. The irony is that their technique so long being perfected may not even be the most important accomplishment. As Greg Rademacher works for the endless hours it may take to create a final portrait, he brings to canvas a very human story of his subjects, the woman who cared enough to give her life to his dreams, Phillip Charis, and himself. From the Minnesota River Valley to Pasadena, California, the real story is about people and relationships.

It is a portrait in contrast but always signed simply ...Rademacher

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