Rangefinder Magazine
February 2006

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Profile: Todd Yarrington Larry Singer
Experimenting, Taking Risks, Breaking Rules and Having Fun

Creativity,” said author and artist Mary Lou Cook, “is inventing, experimenting, taking risks, breaking rules and having fun.”

If Cook had examined the cutting- edge graphic commercial art of Ohio photographer Todd Yarrington, she might have also declared, “Now, that’s what I’m talking about.”

Working out of a 1300-square-foot studio next to his home just outside of Columbus, Yarrington has been both a highly successful commercial photographer and graphic design artist for over two decades. But, had Yarrington not signed up for a photography course shortly after graduating from high school, his career might have flown in an entirely different direction.

“I was a freshman at Ohio State University studying aerospace engineering,” Yarrington explains, “and I took a photography course on a whim. After about a week, I changed my major, became a photographer, and I’ve never looked back.

“I ended up transferring from Ohio State,” Yarrington continues, “and because I have as much interest in graphics as I do in photography, I started classes the Columbus College of Art and Design. I left school before graduating, at age 21, because I was impatient. For the next two years I managed a studio, overseeing about 30 photographers.”

On what he refers to as his “liberation day,” Yarrington, at age 23, declared himself to be a commercial photographer and opened a 3000- square-foot studio in downtown Columbus.

“I pretty much have done everything with complete faith that I can make it in this business,” Yarrington explains. “So I dove in and shot just about anything that came along.” For the past 15 years, however, Yarrington says he has spent much of his time producing marketing pieces and large art projects for hospitals.

Keeping It Real

“I think the one thing all photographers have in common,” Yarrington says, “is we see photography as a reflection of something, and we can see the power of photography when, at its best, it’s a reflection of something real.

“I think I was drawn to creating work for the health care industry because it allows me to make a living conveying images and messages that are very real, as opposed to shooting potato chip bags (which I have also done in the past).

“Another reason I like doing medical photography,” Yarrington continues, “is because much of it is pretty straightforward. I try and craft an image that tells the story, expresses the humanity of the situation, and is technically proficient. It gives me a real rush when I do that well.

“Although I do a lot of work for hospitals, I really don’t believe you can specialize too much while living in Columbus, Ohio,” Yarrington explains. “You need to be a generalist in terms of being a photographer.”

Both Sides Now

It was when Yarrington discovered Photoshop, however, that his creativity and career took flight.

“About 12 or 13 years ago,” Yarrington says, “there weren’t that many people in Columbus that were doing digital manipulation of any kind, but I just felt that it would be my future.

“There’s that part of my intellect that still has a strong interest in aerospace engineering,” Yarrington admits, “and I can bounce back and forth between the left and right sides of my brain pretty easily. I can do the technical and the creative kind of thing simultaneously. For instance, I enjoy sensing the limitations of a piece of software, then jumping in and asking, ‘Well, here’s what it’s supposed to do, but can it do this?’ Then I proceed to figure out how to get it to do what I want it to.

“The projects I usually find myself getting involved with now, as well as being the most gratifying,” Yarrington says, “are those where I’m doing the design as well as the photography. I have to be careful though because when I work for people who run advertising agencies and marketing companies, I have to bill myself pretty much as a photographer. I don’t really go in there waving the flag saying I do design as well as photography, but design, in actuality, is a good chunk of what I do. In fact, I sometimes get into graphic design projects where there isn’t any photography involved at all.”

When photography is involved and he’s shooting film, Yarrington generally uses a Mamiya RZ 6x7. If he’s shooting digital, he shoots with a Fujifilm Finepix S2 Pro. Only occasionally will he call upon the services of his 4x5 view camera.

Baby, Baby, Baby

Despite his love of digital graphic design, one of Yarrington’s recent projects that gave him a great deal of satisfaction is a wall filled with traditional baby photographs.

“At Morris Hospital near Chicago,” he says, “I just installed a 30x12-foot mural that is a collage of babies I photographed for the maternity wing, and I think it’s truly breathtaking. It’s on a wall that’s curved and tipped out. I started the project around February 2003 and hung it nine months later.

“I can also write copy,” Yarrington continues, “but it’s kind of like pulling teeth for me, and I’d rather not. However, if you have a message, an idea or a concept you want to communicate, I can translate that concept in something visual.”

One From Many

On his website, several of Yarrington’s digital creations perfectly illustrate his unique talents in the area of transmitting complex concepts in a single image.

One, (page 91) featuring a man in business attire, with chemical and digital symbols zipping by him, illustrates the possibilities of SciFinder software produced by Chemical Abstracts, Inc.

“When I created that,” Yarrington says, “I was somewhat well known around Columbus for producing these types of images. I didn’t have a whole lot of direction. They gave me the elements and basically told me to just fly with it.”

Another Yarrington creation seamlessly combines three separate images of man smoking a cigarette, putting it out, and then rising from his chair a happy non-smoker, to illustrate the emotions involved in successfully completing a smoking cessation program.

“That image was created for one hospital’s quarterly publication, for which I’ve been doing the design as well as the photography for about 15 years,” Yarrington explains. “They write the stories and email them to me, and it’s up to me to take it from black-and-white type on a page to illustrating pretty much the whole magazine.

The Yarrington image that perhaps best illustrates his ability to create technically excellent non-digital photography, that catches the viewer’s eye and conveys a striking visual message, is a picture of a medical technician monitoring a patient entering his MRI machine. Although it appears to be naturally lit in vibrant blue and yellow hues, Yarrington reveals that it took an elaborate mixture of lighting gels to get the desired effect.

Unforgettable Dates

One of the images Yarrington admits to being most proud of is called “The Four Seasons” (page 91) and was done not for a client, but as a self-promotional piece.

“It was actually a calendar blown up to 24x36 inches,” Yarrington explains. “I worked with a printer on that, and we printed it in seven colors stochastically, which means rather than having a halftone screen, which is like regular dots in a regular pattern, they’re randomsized dots in a random pattern. It’s basically the same principal of how an inkjet printer kind of spatters or sprays ink. When you put a loupe on it, it looks like film grain, not like a half-tone dot pattern, and the image has extremely fine detail.”

Paper Dreams

Three years ago, a series of self-directed photos Yarrington shot for a local charity wound up becoming a 8x8-inch multi-paged publication called The Little Book of Dreams.

“This project evolved very spontaneously,” Yarrington says. “I volunteered to shoot the job for free, as well as design the piece, if I could do it the way I wanted. The Boys & Girls Club of Columbus agreed, so I made some calls and managed to get the paper and the printing for 5000 copies donated as well.

“We had a contest in which the children drew pictures and wrote about their dreams for the future,” Yarrington continues, “I picked ones that had very visual themes and scheduled them for photos.

The following year Yarrington designed a new fundraising package featuring a book to illustrate the theme “Super Heroes.”

Wingspread

By surviving and thriving in Columbus, Yarrington has proven that one does not necessarily need to operate a studio in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles to succeed in commercial photography. However, he says, getting new clients is a never-ending task.

“I’m starting to feel the need to spread my wings,” Yarrington explains, “and meet some people outside of my regional market.

“When the phone stops ringing, I start making phone calls and introducing myself to new people. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been putting together email lists of different kinds of potential outlets, and sending them messages crafted for who I think they are and what I think they want to see, and then sending them images.”

A Common Outlook

When asked what he feels sets him apart from other photographers, Yarrington partially credits his philosophical outlook.

“I consider myself, above all else, a humanist,” he says. “I like to resolve issues and think of things in terms of what is common to us all. I tend to look at commonalities rather than focus on differences. If you focus on what makes people different, then that’s the first step towards finding a reason to segregate them or segregate yourself from them.

“I still cry at Disney movies,” Yarrington continues, “and I could watch The Lion King again for about the billionth time and still be moved by it. I consider it a gift that I’m still in touch with who I am and what affects me.

“That’s what makes me passionate about photography: It still has the power to move me even though I’ve been making a living at it now for 22 years.”

Visit Todd A. Yarrington’s web site at www.toddyarrington.com.