Sean Kernan runs a highly successful commercial photography studio in Stony Creek, Connecticut. Seventy to eighty percent of his work is still life, and a fair amount of his time is spent shooting on location. Kernan has several very impressive corporate clients. "Recently," Sean says, "we completed a big ad campaign for the New York Stock Exchange. It's a very poetic and evocative still life. We also just finished shooting for Tropicana, IBM Credit Corporation and The Ramada Inn. Crabtree and Evelyn has been one of our steady clients for many years. We have some nice accounts and some very nice people to work with."

Although commercial work is his mainstay, Sean Kernan began his photographic career in quite a different manner. "Actually," he says, "I started out as a photojournalist. I wanted Gene Smith's old job. I worked for Life and Look magazines--once for each magazine. But, they both `went under' right after I began. I don't know if there is any connection," he jokes.

"Back then, I did my own journalistic projects and hoped that I could make my way in the world. I sort of slid off into advertising."

Kernan's transition from photojournalist to commercial photographer began out of necessity. "That was in 1970, and what precipitated the career shift was lack of work. Magazines were folding and there were out-of-work photographers out there with established reputations, extensive portfolios and much more experience than me, and I really had to make a living!"

But Sean knew back then what he still knows now--that it is important to continue doing self-motivated projects that keep your creative juices flowing. That attitude keeps the work from becoming routine and helps one remember why one got involved with photography in the first place.

He says, "I always kept time and space for myself and my personal projects. I did an in-depth series in Alabama and West Virginia penitentiaries along the way and I continue to set projects for myself."

His most recent work is a series of still lifes composed of books, pages of text and objects in juxtaposition; the images evoke a magical feeling akin to the boxes constructed by the artist Joseph Cornell.

"Working on this series of images has gotten me back to art that I'm happy about," says Sean, "And after I began working on them I did look at the work of Joseph Cornell again."

He says, "The idea of doing a series of still lifes had been in my mind for some time, but the starting point had evaded me. Still, I must have had suspicions, for I kept coming home with rusty nails and glass eyes. I'd see an old book or a pitted clock spring and think to myself, `I could use that.' These odd things all made sense to me in a way I couldn't explain.

"One day in my studio I was looking at an old book and at the foxed paper and the way the type had bitten into the page. On an impulse I went to the closet and got out some smooth black river stones from Japan that I'd gotten somewhere. I walked over and placed them on the pages of the open book. This series grew, and continues to grow, from this simple event. It is far from done.

Sean says he doesn't intend any literal meaning to be assigned to any particular body of text. As he puts it quite lyrically, "I want the words to flow as an impression, like something half-heard as whispers down the hall."

However, he does recognize that the words themselves can color the viewer's perception of the image. He says, "The first photographs in this series were done using a book written in English, and the problem for me was that people started reading the words on the page and got caught up in their meaning. For my next group of images, I switched to antique books written in Latin and other foreign texts."

Sean frequents antique shops and flea markets looking for old books and quirky objects that may spark his interest and fuel his imagination. "At this point, he says, "I have a sort of compost--a slide file that you wouldn't believe! I have bird wings, bat wings, glass eyes, clock springs--an assortment of unusual objects I have collected for my work.

"I use Polaroid 55 P/N film. From the 4X5 negative I can enlarge as big as I want. I keep the edges of the film on my prints, because for me it makes it more of an artifact than a "window"--it carries the "thingness" idea out a little bit more."

The inspiration for this body of work came about in a circuitous manner. "I had always promised myself I would get back to creative writing," Sean said. "I stopped writing at the age of seventeen, vainly thinking I had said it all. Then, about four years ago I found this wonderful writing teacher, who just happens to be my studio manager's mother. She is a poet, and one of those wonderful teachers who, instead of saying, `This is how you do it,' said: `Sean, what have you got? Let's start working from there.'

"Concurrently," he says, I'm writing a lengthy novel set in an Eastern European city. Writing this novel opened me up to many possibilities. As a photographer I think in terms such as 1/60th of a second. Suddenly I am creating this intricate structure which I've been working on for over two years now. It's well over four hundred pages long so far. I took about three or four chapters to my writing teacher, and asked her if she thought I should work on this? And she said,`How could you not?' So, really that's the answer--a door opens and you're a fool not to walk through it.

"This series of photographs came about only after I began writing again. I was working with prose and then began writing poetry. One of the wonderful things I discovered in poetry is that you create a fragment--you make an evocation, and when someone reads it he or she completes it with their own sensibilities. It's a collaborative experience. This is very exciting to me and has changed photography for me. Suddenly, I found I could create images people could respond to with their own sensibilities. This makes my photographs a more collaborative adventure."

Sean went on to self-publish a calendar of selected photographs from the book series, which he uses as a promotional piece to send to prospective clients. In the calendar Sean included a written introduction. It reads, `Sean Kernan Studios makes pictures for advertising and corporate clients"..."We'll show you that work, but what you see here is the sensibility that sets our work apart, that lets us make images that touch those who see them. This is what we think that our clients need to know about us. If you're interested in these images you'll be interested in us." "The response," he says, "has been overwhelmingly favorable. The calendar has been my most effective self-promotional piece to date."

There are also plans in the works to publish a monograph of selected photographs from the book images along with some enigmatic stories that Jorge Luis Borges wrote about books. "We have a stunning dummy that is right now making the rounds and looking for its publisher. I don't know where it will end up, but it has the additional quality that comes from its being a labor of love, and I'm sure that will tell."

Another successful self-promotion piece Sean sends out to prospective clients is entitled "Character Studies." This is a beautifully assembled 16X20 portfolio photographed in black & white. The images of worn articles of clothing, including a shepherd's hat, a cowboy's hat, an artist's apron, a bullrider's glove, worker's boots, and a welder's shirt are all handtoned. Each piece is printed on a different paper surface. This project was cosponsored by Champion International Paper and Brodock Printing; it was designed by the Keiler Design Group.

Although his demanding schedule includes a heavily-booked commercial load, his commitment to his personal vision has paid dividends. "Although I always approached commercial work as paying for personal work, I've found that by adding more and more of my personal work to my commercial portfolio there has been much more interest in my career from art directors. My feeling is you have to put out there what you want to get back.

"As photography becomes more of a commodity the only niche that seems to be growing is photography with personal vision. In some ways, I think the poles are moving even wider apart. Photography has become merely a business to many people, but there are a few of us for whom it is still an art. I think this is true especially with the onrush of computer created pictures and digital imaging in general."

Do computers and digital technology fit in with Sean's commercial and personal work? He says, "I started learning about digital imaging because I realized that I have to be able to speak that language, to speak it well and to use it. I have found that the level I work at doesn't require very much work on the computer.

"Much of the computer imagery I see being done these days is not very creative. There seems to be more "stock picture gathering." For example, a client may say,`We have this picture and we need to mate it with another one.' In another era it would be like the King of Spain saying to Velazquez, his court painter: `Look, we already have the painting of the Infanta and we have that picture you painted of the Queen and I last year, so all we really need is a picture of the new kid. Another artist already did that so what we want you to do is mesh them all together on one canvas to create a family portrait.' Unfortunately that's what a lot of digital imagery looks like, although there certainly are some talented people who use it creatively. All in all, I admit that I'm fascinated by it, and find it an interesting medium.

"But one danger in computer imaging is that the pictures that are easily made don't place any demands on you. In other words, if you take a helicopter to the top of Mt Everest you'll get a great view, but if you climb to the top your life may be completely changed. I think a medium that is too easy lulls you.

"I've had people say to me, `Sean, I love that you don't use Photoshop.' I know how to use it, and I do use it at times, but when I do you don't even notice it.

"Actually, there is a certain crudeness about my photographs that I want to retain. I did the first few book images in Photoshop but they looked too smooth. When you look at some of the images in this series the first thing you may think is `Photoshop,' but they were actually all done on film by hand. I like to do it that way. I think it brings more of my presence to the work."

Teaching is also important to Sean. He sees it as a way to share what he knows about creativity with others. His course in "Personal Vision" has evolved over the years, first at The New School for Social Research in NYC, and then at week-long photography workshops in various cities around the country.

During the class, says Sean, he spends a lot of time with students doing things other than photography. He incorporates activities such as theater games, Tai Chi, and Japanese brush painting.

"The course is about "seeing," and getting the camera out of the way so that you can get the seeing thing going again," he says. "Then you pick up the camera--if that's what you want to do."

An exercise he often uses on the first day of the workshop is having students find someone who looks interesting, and then write a short biography without talking to that person.

"I want them to write what they know just by looking, and to make up a story based on that and their instincts. Students come back to class with these extraordinary biographies that are more about seeing and intuition. They are not observations like `this person has a big nose!' But rather perceptions like `this person looks sad.' Often there's a narrative, such as `He came from Hungary when he was five years old with his parents.' In other words they start to tell a story, and, I suspect they are probably very accurate."

In the past, Sean studied acting, and for one of his New School classes he brought in a friend of his--the actor Alan Arkin--to do theater improvisational exercises. "We started with a tug of war," Sean says. "And what was so interesting was watching the degree of involvement. Some people cracked jokes, others stood around and just wouldn't get into it, and then there were those who were totally committed to the process. Now, how does this relate to photography? Well, just imagine a photographer who doesn't show any involvement versus one who gets totally involved with the work.

"For example, look at photographers such as Mary Ellen Mark or Duane Michals--they are so focused, and that focus alone brings other people to their game--to their photography.

"Through this exercise, it was really amazing to see clearly and to say, `Who are you paying attention to? Well, not to the person who keeps braking the mood but to the person who is making the mood! This tug of war, which, ostensibly, is oppositional, is also cooperative."

Sean is known to have his students do Tai Chi, and more specifically the exercise known as "Push Hands," where two people stand opposite one another and use their hands in a kind of push and pull motion in order to sense the other's energy. It is an exercise in listening to others with all of one's faculties, physical as well as aural and mental.

"The value of incorporating exercises such as Tai Chi, theater games, observation and writing into a photography class is invaluable," says Sean. "It opens up so many other ways beyond seeing what something looks like. After all, the next thing a photographer needs to know is what a thing feels like. These are tools for investigating"

"We do a lot of photographing in the workshops as well. Photographers who attend are at all levels, from beginners to professionals. Interestingly, the professionals and the very practiced people have the hardest time letting go and putting their set ways aside. I find many times the best work comes from the least practiced people."