Photographer profile: Robert Caplin
An early interest in photography, a sense of entrepreneurialism and the ability to maintain relationships steered photographer Robert Caplin toward a full-time freelancing career in Manhattan, shooting for publications such as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
By Steven J. Barry
If Robert Caplin had simply given up when he was denied entry into a high school photography class, he might never have seen famed actor Alec Baldwin show up on his porch in New York City for a photo shoot this past summer.
Of course there’s no way to say that with absolute certainty–some other turning point might have propelled his photography career and somehow landed the “30 Rock” star in Caplin’s office in his Manhattan apartment–but Caplin mentions sneaking into his high school dark room as an important point on his journey toward his current career as a full-time freelance photographer.
That he was initially rejected from the class had nothing to do with his photographic ability; the class was simply full. Just the same, it blocked him from the sort of access he needed in order to learn the nuances of developing film, and to process rolls he had been shooting with a Nikon N50 he had purchased from his sister in law.
“I started sneaking into the darkroom stealthily, with one of my friend’s help,” Caplin said. “I guess I took one picture that caught one of the teacher’s eyes.”
When the two photography teachers realized none of their students had taken that shot–it was a close-up of his little brother’s eyes–Caplin’s friend confessed that he had been helping him sneak in to develop film.
Perhaps not surprisingly, there wasn’t anything too harsh awaiting him in the way of retribution.
“They had to let me into the class because I actually wanted to be there and was doing something productive,” he said.
Caplin, now 25, had started exploring photography years before with a 110 film camera, a style he remembers as, “those long, narrow cameras that grandmas used to have.” He upgraded to the Nikon N50 after being able to use one at his brother’s wedding and becoming captivated by it. After enough time with that camera and after entering the photography class, he upgraded again to a Nikon F100–a film SLR that shoots about 4.5 frames per second.
He started photographing high school sports, and quickly found there was money to be made in it: Parents would pay him $20 per roll to take shots of their kids during the games. He would shoot, they would develop. Eventually, he had enough business that he was able to bump that up to $50 a roll–not a bad chunk of pocket change for a high school student.
He began to develop a reputation for himself in his hometown of Athens, Ohio, as a capable sports photographer. He carried that reputation on into college–he attended the University of Ohio, which sits there in Athens. He eventually began shooting sports for a local newspaper, the 10,000-circulation Athens Messenger. As the world went digital, so did Caplin. He bought a Nikon D1H and opened a Shutterfly account.
“Eighty percent of what I was doing was sports; every night or every other night I was shooting a game,” he said.
Between shooting for the paper and taking shots of local athletes for parents, he eventually started getting more work than he could handle on his own. Confronted with this conflict, Caplin employed a character trait most full-time freelancers need to succeed: Entrepreneurialism.
“I got so many requests from parents to shoot games that were at the same time, or when I was in class, that I actually ended up starting a little agency,” he said.
He called it Caplin Photography, and soon he had five other contract photographers shooting games throughout Athens. Impressively, it brought in enough money to cover his room, board and tuition all through college.
An education from experts
At Ohio U., Caplin majored in photojournalism. He continued shooting for both the Athens Messenger and for campus publications, and he capitalized on his summer breaks. His freshman year, at just 19 years old, he landed a prized internship with the Columbus Dispatch, a 218,000 circulation daily.
The following summer, he headed off to Scotland through Ohio University’s Field Documentary School for a six-week program. He had to produce a photo documentary for the course, and elected to do his on the postmen of Scotland. He followed an urban carrier in Glasgow, a carrier in the fishing village of Anstruther, and an island carrier on the one-mile-wide Isle of Iona, which has a resident population of just 125. The postman there used a bicycle, and Caplin rode along with him through the island’s wind-swept grazing land as he delivered the mail.
“He gave me a bike and we just sort of hung out, and I went with him on his route,” Caplin said.
While those two experiences alone might seem to comprise a complete enough list of summer activities for a photojournalism student, Caplin didn’t stop there. He applied for internships with papers all over the country, among them the Los Angeles Times.
They were the first to get back to him. He was sitting in his mother’s restaurant in Athens when he took the call. He accepted immediately.
“I just said yes on the spot not knowing how I would do it, how I would get there,” Caplin said. “I remember getting off the phone and literally jumping up and down.”
He was able to orchestrate the 2,300-mile, temporary move. Among other assignments in Los Angeles, Caplin was given the chance to assist photographers on celebrity portrait shoots–something that gave him a crucial introduction to the often rushed, intense environment surrounding snapping shots of A-list stars.
“I got a lot out of the L.A. Times–got to work with a really amazing staff of photographers,” Caplin said. “Every one of them was pretty top notch.”
As fantastic as his experience was, Caplin said one thing about L.A. made him pretty certain he wouldn’t set up shop there.
“The photographers there joked that they were actually full-time drivers who occasionally took pictures,” he said.
Spending hours a day in choking traffic to take one set of images wasn’t for him. Thus, he set his sights on New York City.
New York City
He was back in Ohio for the 2004-2005 school year, seeking out internship opportunities. Coming out of an internship with a daily circulation of more than 800,000–one of the largest papers in the country–he decided to shoot for the editorial moon. He applied to Time Magazine, Newsweek and The New York Times.
He got calls back from both Time and Newsweek. This time, his reactions were a bit more stayed–they were editing internships, and Caplin wanted to shoot. He asked for a few days to think about the offers.
Facing pressure to make a decision or lose those opportunities, he decided to put in a call to a friend working for The New York Times to ask whether he could check on his internship status.
Caplin was sitting in a magazine production class when the Times called back later that day.
“I ran out of class when I got the call,” he said. “It was just exhilarating.”
Those transitions–going from a small Ohio city to Los Angeles and celebrity portraiture, and then to the largest city in the nation and The New York Times–all gave Caplin understandable pangs of anxiety. But he was comforted, he said, by arriving at the papers and learning that his co-workers and mentors were helpful, friendly and down-to-earth.
Also, he started to feel like he was in a crowd he belonged in.
“Getting the internships, that helped me realize that I was at least a decent photographer, that at least I was solid,” Caplin said. “You don’t have to be the best of the best of the best to get these internships–you have to be solid.”
In New York City, Caplin had found a home. The constant activity, the fathomless options for paid photography work, the large community of photojournalists and the easy mobility there won him over. He never left.
Using the relationships he forged during his internships, Caplin transitioned into full-time freelancing directly out of college.
His internship at the Los Angeles Times led to celebrity portraiture work for the paper. Though some of them have been hurried–he once had to talk one actress back after he had snapped just two frames–Caplin has done shoots with such noteworthy performers as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Uma Thurman, Paul Giamatti, Sascha Baron Cohen, Amy Poehler, and Tina Fey.
And, of course, Alec Baldwin.
Caplin stays busy these days, shooting as many as five days a week and dealing with the scads of administrative work inherent in freelancing. He said he loves the variety of a freelance career. His work could have him shooting a billionaire in the morning and a homeless man under a bridge in the afternoon.
“I have this career where I can enjoy life and then document what I enjoy,” Caplin said. “You couldn’t ask for anything better.”
In the future, Caplin hopes to do more commercial assignments and delve more deeply into international documentary work, a facet of photojournalism he first sampled in Scotland. Since that trip, he’s taken a three-week photography trip to Cuba and a trip to Ecuador. Those were primarily for his own growth and education, he said, but eventually he hopes to do that sort of work on assignment. And it’s not as though those trips aren’t already paying off: He recently learned that his work from Cuba will be displayed in a gallery at a Cuban restaurant in Manhattan called “Amor Cubano.”
Caplin repeatedly stressed that the doors that have opened for him never would have been there had he not focused on building and maintaining genuine relationships with co-workers and editors.
“When they can put a face to a name, they can tell a story about you, they have an experience with you, they’ll remember you in a different way,” he said. “That’s the kind of relationship I’d rather have than, ‘Let’s get this Caplin guy, he does good stuff.’”
Caplin has one other piece of advice for aspiring photographers.
“Never stop. Always reach out to those who you admire. Surround yourself with talented people and just immerse yourself with it, and it’ll come. If you’ve got a real passion, you’ll make it if you just keep practicing. It’s one of those careers where there’s a lot of need for photography; there are a lot of pieces in the photography pie.”
Robert Caplin is a full-time freelance photographer based in New York City. He is a regular contributor to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News whose work has also been published in National Geographic and Sports Illustrated, among others. He holds a photojournalism degree from Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication.
Robert is available for any range of assignments globally on a moment’s notice. Learn more about his work at www.robertcaplin.com.
Great story, thanks for bringing Robert to our attention. He is now one of my new favs.
Thanks!
Leo
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