IMAGINATIONS

Retired photographer Klein looks back on his years of work in commercial photography.

This story of one man’s picture-taking career, which includes advice for those who aspire to same profession, begins in earnest in 1948. In that year, the teenage author took a photo that, after it was published as part of a newspaper competition, wound up earning him $10—an event that led to his making photography his calling. He went on to be part of a fledgling photo unit in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1950s, and, perhaps most importantly, worked in advertising in the late 1950s and ’60s. Then he started making real money, as advertisers always “need picture ideas” to sell their products, and the creative Klein proved his worth. The author walks readers through different assignments he had during his career, such as a 1965 ad for bathroom rugs that featured a Siamese cat, and helpfully includes the final photos at the beginning of each anecdote. He stresses that a lot of work would go into an assignment before any pictures were taken: “No one walked me into a completed room set and said, ‘Here it is, Ray. Shoot this!’ ” He provides some helpful pointers on making inroads into the business, as he knew it, but also stresses that one should never be afraid to “Experiment!” (He later sold his own abstract images via gallery showings in 2008.) The brief book moves quickly and flows easily, often pausing to impart insider tips, as when he details how the illusion of a setting sun was created for a camcorder ad. In another portion, he goes into how, exactly, one makes a light switch look good in a photo. These moments, in which he reveals how to create an appealing-looking scene, remain the most relevant, even if the technological aspects are sometimes outdated. Also, the book also includes several images of the author’s various awards and certificates of merit, which add relatively little to the text as a whole.

A concise and often informative account of a successful career.