Tuesday Toolbox:Theresa Ortolani

Theresa Ortolani hasn't gotten much sleep lately. The New York City based photographer is one day away from the launch of Endurance, her first book that covers Shock Doctor KTM's Nate Kanney's rise from privateer to factory rider over three years through stunning photographs and interviews. Ortolani gives us an in-depth look into what went into the book and how she fell in love with off-road racing.

I bet you are really busy getting ready for the book launch! How crazy is life right now? Insane... I had a total of 7 hours of sleep in the past three nights and I'm not sure I'll get any tonight. I've been so busy organizing the event and preparing for the launch I suddenly realized, "I have an exhibit to install in the morning and I haven't even made the prints yet!"

So where did this all begin? Did you know much about the world of off-road when you started?
I didn't know a thing about off road. My husband, Ian McLaughlin is a stuntman and is involved in all sorts of extreme sports, including dirtbike racing. Through the New York racing scene, he became a friend of Nate Kanney and the Kanney family and was going to the Unadilla race in 2006 in support of Nate, so I was invited along. I had zero interest in racing and I was actually shooting fashion at the time, not sports, but I decided to bring my camera, just so I wouldn't be bored. Ha! Little did I know....

I had a blast. By the end of the weekend I was covered in mud. So was my camera. It had been pouring down rain for two days straight and we were sleeping in our SUV. I fell in love with the physicality and the energy of the race. After the Unadilla race, Nate was racing the Vegas Endurocross, and I spontaneously bought a ticket just a few hours before I had to catch the plane. I had never been to Vegas before, so what better reason than to go to a race? After the race, Ian and I cancelled our flights back to New York and ended up driving cross country with Nate - so that's when I began to develop a friendship with Nate. And that's when the project really started coming together. I came back from Vegas and saw the amount of film I had shot, and realized there was more than a short editorial story there - and certainly more than just shooting for fun.

After you saw all the photos you had shot what was your next step? I shared a selection of images with a designer friend of mine who agreed that it would make a good book and he helped me layout the pitch to powerHouse books - who is the publisher of Endurance. I come from a fine art / portraiture background, so it's a very different style of shooting than sports photography. I was shooting with big, heavy, medium format equipment, typically used for still imagery or controlled environments. It's meant for shooting a different kind of subject matter, so that's why the images have a different look than sports photography - where the equipment is light, fast, sharp and durable.

I actually took the book home to my parents, who have a hard time understanding what I do for a living and I saw that you took a lot of interesting portrait shots of the riders, how did they feel about you working on a book that would feature them? I had a mixed reception. Everyone was very welcoming, except Nate! (laughs)  He's a good friend so he'd bust my chops about it and make my job even more challenging, which is probably why I gravitated to it even more. I think I had a warm reception from the industry because I'm a friend of Nate's. I travelled with him in Europe for two weeks and was literally living with the Husqvarna team in their apartment. I developed friendships with the racers so they let down their guard and trusted me - and I think many of them even liked the attention.

You started working on this in 2006 and it lasted for three years, where else did you travel with Nate? I began shooting in Unadilla. I went to Vegas after Unadilla, and then I went to Portugal and Italy in '07 while he was racing the WEC.  Then I did quite a bit of the GNCC series when Nate was signed to KTM - Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and New York in '08 and again in '09.

Were you still working at the same time you were working on Endurance? Endurance has been a side project for me, actually.  I'm a full-time photographer and I shoot for editorial and commercial clients. This past year, though I've pretty much been working full-time on the book. Between wrapping up the shooting segment of the project and then editing thousands of images that were shot over the course of three years, I've been busy. I shot the images using different cameras and formats, transitioning from film to digital, so I had to make sense of it all technically while creating a story line. The editing process felt like it took longer than shooting the book, but Ian spent months editing and sequencing with me, so that was a huge help. Once Ian and I edited and sequenced the book, processing and retouching the images and then designing the book took several months as well.

Out of the thousands of photos you took, not all made it into the book. What was your criteria for photos to make it in? I had different groups of photos and the first group were the iconic images that are just simply beautiful, like the starting line image. Another image I like a lot is of Nate completely covered in mud and riding without his goggles on. That image says a lot about racing, but is also just really beautiful to look at. And then there were images that I chose that helped to tell Nate's story which is basically that he won a couple of GNCC races as a privateer and was signed to the factory teams. So from the fortuitous Unadilla start it was a really good timing and was a positive experience for me. The energy was really high at Unadilla in '06 and then he was signed to the factory teams, so the book is loosely in three parts with Nate's career as a privateer, his year with Husqvarna and his Husky teammates and finally with KTM and his KTM teammates.

What I called the B shots were the supporting images, like his teammates or the spectators. They tell the story about the surroundings and what goes on around the race. There are many images of David Knight, Kailub Russell and Cory Buttrick because that's who Nate was travelling with in '08. I wanted to represent his road family.

The third group was really about the lifestyle, like the Grand Canyon sign or Nate passed out from exhaustion after the Vegas race. Those shots showed the behind the scene images.

And you had interviews as well to help tell the story. The interview with Carrie was especially informative. I didn't know a lot about the GNCC history and I was just along for the ride. Carrie was wonderful. It was ironic that that was the last interview I conducted at the last race I shot - finally learning about the background of GNCC after I lived it for three years. There's so much work that goes into organizing the GNCC's and the passion everyone has for it is phenomenal. I'll definitely check out the GNCC museum when I'm

in Morgantown this weekend.

So perhaps your opinion has changed of off-road racing? Well, I didn't really form much of an opinion in the beginning, other than that I found it entirely uninteresting and quite frankly, didn't even know it existed. I had no idea there was this lifestyle and other world out there until I began shooting it. I thought only guys rode - and that they only rode in their back yards or at a small, local track. I dad no idea off road was so competitive and structured - like Motocross is.

Was that perception hard for you then when you started to shoot the photos for the book? I think that was the beauty of it. After the Unadilla race, I was pleasantly surprised with the shots I got. I was shooting from a different perspective because I didn't know anything about the sport or what makes a good riding shot, so I looked elsewhere for the images and also the racing shots aren't typical of sports photography. That naiveté worked to my advantage early on. Then, I got to spend some time with a lot of great sport photographers. So it's kind of interesting because toward the end of the project, I became concerned with different aspects because I learned more about the racing along the way.

How did you get into photography to begin with?
I studied Fine Arts at Boston University and majored in sculpture and figure drawing. The University offered a photo class as an elective and I really gravitated towards it. After I graduated I found that I loved traveling, and it was convenient for me to travel with a camera, so I drove cross country a few times, and went on kayaking trips, and rock climbing trips and I took a lot of pictures. I'm largely self-taught, but my fine art background trained me in composition and color. Later, I taught at the Ansel Adams center for photography and at a few universities and I assisted many great photographers in NYC where I learned a lot about studio lighting. It was really an evolution over the years.

The book doesn't officially launch until the 3^rd, but have you gotten any feedback yet on the book?
I have! There were some advance copies available and there was a review in DMX Canada, that said something quite similar to what you said earlier - that you can show your family and your friends Endurance, and finally they'll get it. You can try to describe the sport and even show them the magazines, but the magazines aren't always necessarily about the lifestyle. Generally speaking, the industry mags show incredible racing shots, and it's about who's racing or what kind of bike it is. It may be a beautiful or informative image, but it rarely tells a story about the lifestyle - and never in 160 pages of photos. Dan also said something about the book being a good b

ridge between the mainstream and the moto world.

I would definitely agree. My parents understood a little more about what weekends are like in GNCC Racing after seeing the book. Do you have any other reviews out?
Jesse Ziegler did a review that will run in the upcoming issue of Dirt Rider and he said some great things about it too. He pointed to how strong the portraiture and landscapes were, and what's surrounding the race, not just the riding. I've also gotten a lot of feedback about the images on the website from friends and "fans" and it's being really well received. We already have close to 300 RSVPs for the party. We also had a great write up in the City Magazine newsletter today. City magazine is a NYC-based urban culture and fashion magazine, so it's interesting that they picked up on a project about dirtbikes. I'm thrilled they chose to feature it in their newsletter. Of course, Alexander Wolf, the Art Director at City Magazine, who designed Endurance may have had a little something to do with that!

Tell us about the Book Launch Party, it's on the 3^rd in NYC right?  What's going to be happening at the launch? It's going to be off the hook! It's an exhibit and installation that will run through the weekend and there will be about 25 mural size prints, including a few images that aren't in the book. Ian (McLaughlin) is a stuntman and stunt rigger, and he also has a sculpture background. His company, IMstunts.com is going to be suspending about 7 bikes from the 20 foot tall powerHouse Arena ceiling to give the illusion that the bikes are doing motocross jumps. Nate's 2010 Factory KTM bike and Mike Stryker's motocross race bike will also be on display. There will be beer and wine complements of reBar, a great DJ (James Mulry), and then there's an after party at rebar - a cool lounge voted "best new bar" by Time Out magazine - that will be serving food and drink specials. They'll be creating specialty drinks with names like the Holeshot and the Harescramble and Mudslides. And especially, cool is that we'll be screening MOTO the Movie, produced and directed by Taylor Congdon of motoXcinema.com It's going to be a trip to recreate the GNCC for NYC!

And you're even going to make it to the GNCC banquet! That's a lot to accomplish in a week.Then I think the following weekend I'll be in Toronto for a bike expo! There are quite a few signings coming up.

You'll have the books at the banquet for people to buy?

I will! And if people can't make it to the banquet, they can buy the books from the official website www.theresaortolani.com I'm selling a signed book, including an 8.5 x 11 print for $35. Meanwhile, the book alone retails for $39.95, so it's a pretty great deal.

Anything else you'd like to mention about the book?
In the acknowledgement section of the book, I said Nate "taught me the meaning of endurance." I pulled so many all nighters along the way, and made this with zero sponsorship, yet I received a lot of encouragement and had friends pulling me out of ditches when I was stuck, so I kind of feel like my experience making the book was a metaphor for what these guys are doing.... just pushing until you have nothing left and relying on your friends to help you out of rough spots. It's very much like a long enduro. Needless to say, I gained a great respect for these guys and women. Many people were involved in a lot of ways and this was my first book so I've come to learn that a book is by 100 people, not one. I really received so much support from Carrie, and the GNCC racers. They fueled the project. If they didn't encourage and welcome me along the way, I probably never would have stuck with it this long. Pretty much everyone at GNCC, Racer Productions and Racer X were a huge help, and I found that wherever I traveled at either the GNCCs or the motocross events, people just really opened their doors to me - and even let me shoot them in their muddy armorwear! I just kept getting these green arrows after a crash, so it was something I was compelled to keep going with. Well go get some rest! You have a busy week ahead of you and Congratulations! We'll see you at the banquet!

 

Learn more about Endurance or buy the book: http://www.theresaortolani.com

Want to go to the book launch? http://theresaortolani.com/launchevent/index.html

also check out IMstunts.com.