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  • Michael Ezzell: Akers describes Ezzell, a ceramics artist, as another...

    Michael Ezzell: Akers describes Ezzell, a ceramics artist, as another mad scientist type. Akers says he shot the artist in his studio, which is only about 250 square feet, with a ton of artwork inside. “So when I arrived he had all his art and stuff outside in the driveway so we'd have room to shoot,” Akers laughs. Once inside, Akers immediately focused in on the horse head and decided to go uncharacteristically symmetrical, positioning Ezzell directly below it. He also had the artist fire up his kiln, and later added even more flames to make the shot that much more colorful and dynamic.

  • Stacey Van Hanswyk: Van Hanswyk is the other jewelry artist...

    Stacey Van Hanswyk: Van Hanswyk is the other jewelry artist Akers shot, and this shoot was challenging because it was at her home, says Akers. “I had to try to find a way to make it look different,” he says. To do it, he not only went in for a close-up, but also played with lighting and color. “I used very dramatic lighting and reserved the color for only her jewelry and her eyes,” says Akers. “It made for a more intense mood to the picture.”

  • Roger Folk: Folk is a plein air artist and the...

    Roger Folk: Folk is a plein air artist and the only artist Akers photographed outside. He chose a small, quiet beach in Laguna and shot the artist in various poses. Those shots, the originals, had a blue sky with no birds. “I got to working with the photos in the computer and thought, ‘I've got this whole blank sky,'” says Akers. It didn't take him long to fill it with the birds from Folk's painting.

  • Russell Jacques: Jacques is the only artist that Akers shot...

    Russell Jacques: Jacques is the only artist that Akers shot twice because he wasn't happy with the first. When he went back, he got creative. “I posed him in front of one of his paintings, then told him to hold his hand like it is in the photo. Then I told him to run in the other room, paint a painting on your hand and come back and sit in that exact position again. He was like, ‘Cool!'” says Akers. The result pleased them both.

  • Pat Sparkuhl: Akers says he had trouble finding mixed-media artist...

    Pat Sparkuhl: Akers says he had trouble finding mixed-media artist Sparkuhl's house and by the time he did, Sparkuhl had only 20 minutes before he had to leave. “I said, 'Let's just see what we can get,'” says Akers. He shot Sparkuhl standing in front of this piece and they both ran out the door. Akers says he knew what he'd get in the camera, but it wasn't until later, on the computer, that he decided to merge the black and white image of Sparkuhl with the color image of his art. “It conveys that he is his art,” says Akers.

  • Paul Bond: Akers says that what made this local painter...

    Paul Bond: Akers says that what made this local painter easy to shoot is two things. First, he's a good-looking guy, says Akers. “And his works are really big so they're easy to use as a background,” he says. So Akers showed up at Bond's studio, sat him in front of one of his paintings, and soon “I had enough to do three or four portraits of him,” Akers says with a laugh.

  • Thomas Swimm: Swimm, one of the more famous Festival artists,...

    Thomas Swimm: Swimm, one of the more famous Festival artists, loves to paint boats, and that gave Akers the idea for this photo. In fact, before even going to his studio, he drew on paper exactly what he wanted to shoot. But that boat Swimm is sitting in? “Not there,” says Akers. “That's my wife's model of a boat. I photographed it in my studio, matching the light and angle from the Swimm photo, and [digitally dropped] Swimm into it.”

  • Marcus Thesing: Thesing was the very first artist Akers met...

    Marcus Thesing: Thesing was the very first artist Akers met from the Laguna Arts Festival and he made an immediate impression. “I actually bought some of his work and asked if I could photograph him with it,” says Akers. Thesing was eager to work with Akers, who wanted his photos to convey Thesing's specialty, which is shaping holes into his vases. “On this one he didn't want to look through the hole, he wanted to show his whole face, but I convinced him to look through the hole and we both liked the result,” says Akers.

  • Lindsay Buchman: "Lindsay is 25 years old, really talented, and...

    Lindsay Buchman: "Lindsay is 25 years old, really talented, and on fire, man,” says Akers. He says her schedule is packed tight and Akers is excited about the fact that he photographed her early in her career. Akers says he shot her looking at various angles but decided to have her staring straight at camera with her painting's type running across her face to draw the viewer's gaze to her eyes. “Everything is slightly blurred, except for her eyes, which are in sharp focus, and that's where I want your eyes to go,” he says.

  • Jon Seeman: Seeman is a very well-known sculptor who does...

    Jon Seeman: Seeman is a very well-known sculptor who does large works. But he's also not very enthusiastic about photographs of himself, says Akers, so it was a challenge. Akers was excited to add color to this photo but every time he tried it became overwhelming, he says. “And I didn't want the color to overwhelm Seeman's work or how he is conveyed in the photo,” says Akers. “In the end, he loved this photo. It's not flashy, it's not exciting, but I think it's very telling as to him and his work.”

  • Hannah Harris: Akers says Hannah Harris, a talented young artist,...

    Hannah Harris: Akers says Hannah Harris, a talented young artist, is very quiet and soft-spoken and he wanted to convey that side of her. When he saw her huge painting of a boat, he saw his opportunity. “I like her quiet, relaxed position in front of this painting,” says Akers. “I think it really conveys who she is and shows off her work at the same time.”

  • Gerald Schwartz: When Akers met Schwartz at the painter's studio,...

    Gerald Schwartz: When Akers met Schwartz at the painter's studio, Schwartz was wearing a shirt with paint all over it and this red bandana. “He asked me if he should take the bandana off, but I said, no, because I saw a painting that would work well behind it,” says Akers. So putting Schwartz in front of his work, Akers used lighting and varied focus to draw the viewer's eye to the artist's eye.

  • Adam Neeley: Neeley is one of the few jewelry artists...

    Adam Neeley: Neeley is one of the few jewelry artists Akers shot, and he has the utmost respect for Neeley's creativity and talent. “He's a magician to me,” says Akers. “I wanted to show that.” Akers told him to cup his hands as if presenting an incredible work. “He said, ‘If I was a magician, I'd do it like this,' and he did it just like in the photograph, so I said, ‘Stop! Do that again!'” says Akers. "And I got it."

  • Self portrait, Charley Akers

    Self portrait, Charley Akers

  • Murray Kruger: Kruger is a talented digital artist and created...

    Murray Kruger: Kruger is a talented digital artist and created the background photo in this image, says Akers. “I saw this image, and I thought, ‘I want to get him falling through the sky too,'” he says. So he matched the lighting, then had Kruger get down on the floor with a computer mouse and act as though he were falling through his painting while Akers stood on a chair above him. “He was grunting and groaning, straining to look up, but it was really fun and the photo came out precisely like I wanted it to,” says Akers.

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Terence Loose

In 2012, award-winning photographer and art lover Charley Akers took on the ambitious goal of photographing the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts artists, striving to showcase each artist’s true nature in Akers’ own dramatic photographic style. His results were impressive. So much so, The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel displayed the work in a months-long solo exhibition. This year, Akers is back, with new photographs of Festival of Arts artists and their work, again on display at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel through September.

Akers’ passion for photography came at an early age; he started taking pictures as a young boy growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina. “In fact, I still have my first camera, a Kodak Instamatic 304, the one with the little film cartridges in it,” he says in his good-natured Southern drawl.

And Akers’ creative streak is all his own making. He jokes that though his dad took pictures, he was strictly by-the-book. “He did it exactly like Kodak said: sun over his right or left shoulder, so my sisters and I were looking directly into the sun, tears just running down our faces. He actually got some okay shots but we were blinded for hours,” Akers laughs.

Akers was anything but defeated by mediocrity, however. He kept at it and later got into Santa Barbara’s Brooks Institute, then went straight into a job as a photographer for New England’s biggest studio of the time. That led to an impressive career, shooting on assignment for Fortune 500 companies all around the globe and now, three decades later, onto even more artistic portraiture.

His passion for creativity has also led him to ditch the studio and shoot almost exclusively on location. “Shooting on location is a real challenge because you never know what you’re going to run into. A little tiny room or a giant space. You really have to think creatively,” he says. That was certainly true of the artist photographs he has on display at the Ritz. Some of the spaces were so small Akers was pressed up against walls or helping artists pull things outside to make room for a snap or two.

Another signature of Akers is the creativity he brings to his images through the use of computer manipulation. It’s his way of mixing his classic photography skills with the advantages of the digital age. His strongest influences, however, have been from the work of the master photographers in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, such as Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh and the Vanity Fair photographer Edward Steichen, Akers says.

It’s all resulted in Akers’ unmistakably unique style. “If I were to describe my current portrait style, it would have to be: “Yousuf Karsh meets Steven Jobs,” he says. And as the images of Festival of Arts artists illustrate, Akers is keeping their legacies alive and well.

SEE THE PHOTOS
Akers’ work can be seen in The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel’s Art Hallway through September. Admission is free.
:: 949.240.2000
:: ritzcarlton.com
:: charleyakersphoto.com
:: Facebook page: charleyakersphotography

SEE THE ARTISTS
Laguna Beach’s Festival of Arts runs through the end of August.
:: 949.494.1145
:: foapom.com