We were lucky to catch up with Alan Holben recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Alan, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about a time where you or your team really helped a customer get an amazing result?

I was photographing girl’s barrel racing at a youth rodeo a few years ago. The riders started from behind a barrier where I couldn’t easily see them. In one case, it was taking a long time for the young girl to get going and they are only allowed a certain amount of time before being disqualified. I stood up to see what the holdup was and noticed about 8 adults trying to help get the reluctant horse moving into the arena. There was just time to grab a quick photo before I had to get back into position for her run. With the help of those other parents, the girl was able to get her run in. Her mom stopped by our booth later that evening and burst into tears when she saw the photo. She said that it just exemplifies how close-knit and helpful the rodeo community is. All those people were helping out someone they may not have known, just to help her compete.

As photographers, we often don’t know what kind of an impact our images will have. It could be something as simple as helping out a rider or as meaningful as the last photos before someone passed away. I’ve had several people get in touch with me about photos from many years ago, because their loved one had died and they hoped for photos to remember them. It’s one of the reasons that I never delete photos from my website.

Alan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born and raised in Michigan and started taking photos somewhere around age 8 or 9. I really don’t remember not taking photos. My parents, especially my mom, were very supportive of me burning through film as I learned. I became the lead photographer for our yearbook and school paper in my senior year of high school before heading to our local community college to pursue a degree in photojournalism. Though that didn’t pan out at the time and I put the cameras aside for a few years to work as a software developer, the availability of digital cameras piqued my interest again. It was a long process of learning again but digital photography makes it pretty painless to experiment. I began taking photos of family members who participated in high school sports and gradually discovered a talent for that kind of photography.

For about 10 years, I ran a pretty successful business outside of my day job, taking action photos of just about any high school event that came along. However, after a vacation trip to Utah, my wife and I realized that we belonged there. It took a couple of years to get all the details worked out but in August of 2016 we made the big leap of moving across the country from Michigan to our new home in Ivins, Utah. High school action photography didn’t seem to have as much demand here as it did back in Michigan so I shelved the idea of building a clientele. Since the area around here is so beautiful, I began hiking and exploring with the plan of building a portfolio of landscape photos. That’s led me to some spectacular places, both nearby and across the state.

Aside from the landscape work, in 2017 I also began photographing the events being held at the brand new theater at Kayenta. My wife was on the board of directors and volunteered me to take photos. Since then, I’ve photographed well over 200 events at the theater, including plays, musicals, dances, concerts, and lectures. Some of the performers at those shows liked my work and subsequently hired me to cover their events at different venues. My clients now include multiple theater companies, both adult and youth, dance companies, operas, and symphonies. This kind of work requires similar photographic skills as I developed with the sports photography: fast action, unexpected movements, low light. I get the same rush photographing a great moment during a play or dance as I do for catching a great sports action shot.

And not to leave out sports photography, I still do a fair amount as a contract photographer. I’m part of a crew that covers the Huntsman Games each year, not just the action but the human interest side as well as the non-competition events like the opening ceremony and concert. I also contract with a couple of national photography companies to cover events like The Ironman, other various running events, and a few ultra distance trail runs that take place in some amazing scenery. I’m also partnered with another St. George resident and we cover various rodeo events throughout the area.

All in all, I’m as busy as I choose to be and life couldn’t be better. In my heart I know that I was meant to be a photographer and that the southwest is my home.

Have you ever had to pivot?

As my sports photography business grew, and more schools and sports teams asked me for coverage of their events, it began to consume me. I didn’t know how to say no to anyone and eventually I was committing to something almost every evening after my day job, along with many Saturdays. It put a strain on my marriage and I missed a lot of time with our grandchildren because I was either busy shooting or processing the photos.

When we moved from Michigan to Utah, I decided that I wasn’t going down that rabbit hole again. Though I still planned to cover high school events, I chose the local high school as the only one that I would cover. Gradually it became apparent that there are a lot of parents taking photos at high school events and as most of them gave the photos away for free, it wasn’t worth even trying to cultivate that business. That made it pretty easy to step away from high school sports completely and free up a lot of time.

I have quite a few clients now but generally I’m only busy a few nights a month. That keeps my days wide open to enjoy life in general. And I’ve learned to say no to jobs that don’t suit me.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I think the biggest thing is to always produce quality, timely images regardless of the event and/or venue. My clients know that when they hire me for a show, they’ll get what they need when they need it. Quite often the photos I take will be used to promote a show.

For example, as often as possible I’ll cover a dress rehearsal so that I can get the photos to the client the day before the opening of the show. Rehearsals also offer me more freedom of movement to get unique angles and shots. Then, immediately after a photographing the event, I’ll normally select a handful of photos that seem to properly represent the show and email social media sized images to the client so they can be published right away. Then I get the rest done the next day.

One of the challenges of covering theater events is that the lighting is used to create the mood of the scene. Photography is not part of the equation when setting up the lighting. And that’s as it should be. However, it creates challenges for getting photos when the lighting is dark or multiple colored lights are used on the performers. It all looks really great during a performance but can look really bad in still photos. My role as photographer is to balance the intent of the lighting with the need to produce photos that are pleasing to the eye. Sometimes that means changing the color to better reflect skin tones or brightening a scene that is meant to be dark. Ultimately, I have to capture the mood of the scene and though I try to respect the work of the lighting engineers, there’s usually some tweaking being done to the photos.

Something else that I do is ask the director if there is something specific that they want highlighted. I also ask if certain scenes will be occupying a specific area of the stage and I’ll position myself to take advantage of that location. Knowledge is definitely power since there is often no time to shift positions during the action.

It all comes down to giving them what they want and need. I think I’ve built a solid reputation for doing that each and every event.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.alanholbenphoto.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alanholbenphotography/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlanHolbenPhotography

Image Credits
Photo of me is by Elizabeth Fortney Photography