Shards of sunlight scatter across a battered wooden floor. A century’s worth of heel marks, scrapes and gouges awaken. They are ghostly impressions, made long ago by pool hall hustlers and factory workers. Now award-winning Batavia photographer Karen Woodburn adds hers.
“There’s something magical about this place. I sensed it the first time I saw it,” Woodburn said.
She’s referring to her studio, housed in one of Batavia’s renovated limestone factory buildings. Two rows of tall windows flush the studio with continuous natural light. High ceilings and exposed wooden supports add interest to what was once the town’s pool hall.
But the magic inside Woodburn’s studio isn’t just spatial. It is spiritual. Dozens of spirits live here. Their haunting faces fill the studio. And Woodburn, a vivacious woman with probing amber eyes, is the one who brought them here.
“Faces fascinate me. I’ve gone up to perfect strangers and begged to photograph them because I didn’t want their face to get away,” Woodburn said.
A professional photographer for the past 10 years, Woodburn, 41, humbly gives these faces much of the creative credit. But her clients feel Woodburn’s images are compelling because she not only captures their images, she captures their souls.
“Karen took pictures of my kids in 15 minutes. Yet she captured their personalities perfectly,” said Chris Cudworth of Geneva.
Cudworth also believes Woodburn’s talent takes her pictures way beyond portrait photography.
“Karen’s photography is art. I believe she has the artistic capacity of Georgia O’Keeffe,” he continued. “For instance, she did a Christmas card of a Hispanic woman. It’s much more than a photograph. It’s like a timeless image of all Hispanic women.”
Vicki Bont of Batavia agrees. That’s why she chose Woodburn as her daughter’s photographer.
“I was so tired of seeing those traditional Howdy Doody grins on my daughter. Karen is different,” Bont said. “She treats children like little people, not like infants. As a result, Karen captured the real Kristina.”
Before photographing them, Woodburn first spends some time getting to know her subjects. She encourages them to bring personal items. But if they have nothing to share, a look around Woodburn’s studio usually provides them with the needed inspiration.
Wide stone window sills display her unique collection of rocks, minerals and green plastic lizards, a favorite with children. And then there are her prized animal skeletons.
“Bones amaze me, the way they look, the way they move, the way they hold living things together,” she explained.
But the window sills hold only a fraction of Woodburn’s favorite things. Scattered around the room are also antique lamps, old wooden chests, costumes, vintage jewelry and handpainted chairs she has collected. And above an overstuffed sofa hangs an antique quilt Woodburn uses as a photographic backdrop.
“I’m a compulsive collector,” Woodburn admitted. “I really need and love these things.
The intimate atmosphere Woodburn has created helps clients relax and reveal their true selves. As a result, Woodburn’s images never appear staged or posed. In fact, at times they are startling in their realism.
“Karen photographed me just after I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. Those pictures are so special to me, so intensely private,” Bont said. “People close to me had difficulty looking at them. Karen brings out the real you, the way you are with people you know intimately.”
Yet not everyone appreciates Woodburn’s honest representations. Some people are disturbed by them. Woodburn takes that as a compliment.
“If someone is upset by my work or tears up looking at one of my prints, it’s worth more to me than all the gold in the world,” she insisted.
Woodburn’s images also have another intriguing quality. They don’t resemble photographic images at all. Like an impressionistic painting, Woodburn’s images are soft and sensitive. And that quality is what attracted Krystyna De Duleba to Woodburn’s work.
“Karen’s work crosses the line between illustration and photography. It is very romantic, very rich and full of interesting texture,” said De Duleba, art buyer at Harlequin Enterprises Limited in Toronto.
After seeing Woodburn’s work, De Duleba commissioned her to illustrate several book covers for a line of Harlequin romance novels involving brides. Woodburn was elated.
“I started out years ago doing glamor photography. This job allowed me to do that again. It was fun. I was hired, essentially, as the stylist and the photographer,” Woodburn explained.
Being chosen to do the series was not luck. According to De Duleba, Harlequin has a large budget. They could have chosen from a worldly pool of photographers. The reason they chose Woodburn was simple. She was the best choice.
“Since we’re a large publishing house, people often think our art is computer generated. It isn’t,” De Duleba said. “We’re not a conveyor-belt operation. We use only the best artists. And Karen is one of the best.”
Woodburn’s first book cover, “Marriage by Design,” is already out. The second, “Tempting Eve,” is due out in September. A third is on hold for editorial reasons.
Woodburn’s stunning images involve the use of two unusual techniques. Her black and white prints are created by a process known as abrasion toning. These images have a textured, dreamlike quality similar to a silver etching or pencil drawing.
Her color prints, done in rich Rembrandt tones, use a technique known as metal chrome. Here Woodburn applies color dyes directly on top of the black and white abrasion toned print. When completed, these images are practically indistinguishable from a painting.
“Absolutely no one, unless I am blind, is doing what she is doing. I’ve shown Karen’s work to other photographers. Their response was, `’Wow!’ ” De Duleba said. “But I don’t care how she does it, just that she does it.”
New technology provides many shortcuts for photography these days. Yet Woodburn will spend up to 16 hours on a piece. Her techniques involve manipulation of the print, not the negative. And though she makes it sound simple, this delicate procedure involves a patient, steady hand.
“Basically, I (enlarge) a black and white print through a texture screen onto rag paper. Then I scratch it all up with a razor to define contours and planes in the face. That’s abrasion toning. To turn it into a metal chrome print I use a series of chemicals and dyes until I think it has the right color and feel,” Woodburn explained.
Woodburn’s exact procedure is a secret. You won’t find it written up in technical manuals. But any good photographer knows what’s involved just by looking at her images.
“It’s hard to explain. A lot of it is feel. I can just touch it and know that it’s done,” Woodburn said.
It was in 1970, in Chuck Hagen’s photography class at Elgin High School, that Woodburn first sensed she had that touch. Today there’s no doubt about it.
“I had visions of things I knew I could capture,” Woodburn said. “That was my lucky break in life. I was always able to capture a moment or expression.”
“I had visions of things I knew I could capture,” Woodburn said. “That was my lucky break in life. I was always able to capture a moment or expression.”
For many years, Woodburn captured moments, and she was more or less content. Then, in 1990, she met Carl Anderson of Geneva. According to Woodburn, he changed her life.
“Carl is my mentor. He’s the most genuine person I’ve ever met. He helped me so much,” Woodburn explained.
On an evening in 1990, Anderson attended a Batavia Moose Lodge dance. There he met Arlene Malmborg of Batavia, owner of Arlee M, a Batavia fashion boutique. They hit it off and talked about photography, movies and Malmborg’s sister, actress Kim Novak. Malmborg also mentioned she used to professionally retouch photographic negatives. That’s when Anderson, a photographer, really lit up and offered to teach Malmborg his unique photographic techniques.
Malmborg, who had little spare time, declined, but she suggested Anderson make the same offer to a photographer who had taken wonderful pictures of her famous sister. That photographer was Woodburn.
“I was getting tired of doing glamor shots and standard portraits. I was ready to move on. For me, Carl’s offer came at just the right time,” Woodburn recalled.
The techniques Anderson offered to teach Woodburn were created by the late Hollywood photographer William Mortensen in the 1940s. After Mortensen died, the techniques nearly died out. But Anderson, a former student of Mortensen’s, wasn’t about to let that happen.
“It took me 17 years to perfect them. I couldn’t just let them die,” said Anderson, who had a strong following of his own until his retirement.
According to Anderson, the first step was to get Woodburn to develop her own black and white film. Woodburn happily complied.
“It always bothered me that I had to send my work to a lab for developing. When Carl told me I had to develop my own work, that just did it for me,” Woodburn explained.
Woodburn’s husband, Jim, built his wife a home darkroom. Then Woodburn set to work, learning and re-learning her craft. As the months went by she realized the magnitude of her undertaking. Instinctively, she knew it would alter the course of her career forever.
“All summer long I worked with Carl in his darkroom. We became great friends. And I remember telling my husband I knew this was changing my life,” Woodburn remembered.
And so it has. Three years after mastering the techniques, Woodburn’s name is now synonomous with another style of photography.
“Every now and then, at competitions, I’ll see a print and hear someone say, `Look, they’re trying to do a Woodburn.’ That’s just amazing to me,” Woodburn said.
“I’m very proud of Karen,” Anderson said. “She has the touch. Of course, there’s still so much more I could teach her.”
But Woodburn’s work has already had a profound impact on the field. No one knows that more than her friends at Focal Point Studio in Arlington Heights.
“Karen’s images draw you in, command you to look,” said co-owner and professional photographer Mark Johansen of Arlington Heights. “It’s practically impossible to ignore them.”
Johansen and his partner, Joseph A. Weber, met Woodburn through the Professional Photographers Association of Northern Illinois (PPANI), the largest and most active affliate chapter of the national Professional Photographers of America (PPA). Johansen is the chapter’s current secretary. Weber is the executive secretary. Both have judged Woodburn’s work in the past, and both are constantly impressed with it.
“Karen has refreshed and revitalized a process that was in danger of extinction,” Weber said. “Yet she’s done it in her own unique way.”
Both men agree Woodburn’s success stems from her confidence in breaking the rules.
“I really don’t know the rules,” Woodburn said, “but I understand composition and balance. When I do a piece, I turn it sideways, upside down. It has to balance from every direction.”
Still, some people question Woodburn’s approach. She doesn’t hestitate to crop pictures where other photographers would never dream of cropping. And she may not crop others at all.
“One judge told me I should have cropped off the bottom of a picture, taking off half the little girl’s hair,” Woodburn recalled. “I was nice, but I told her she was wrong. If I had wanted to crop her hair, I would have.”
That picture, titled “Saya,” won Woodburn a Best of Show award at the 82nd Annual Print Judging held in Springfield at the Associated Professional Photographer of Illinois Convention last March. The portrait also won her a Fuji Masterpiece Award.
“Karen is a very free spirit, but she is also extremely modest,” Johansen said. “She’s tough on herself. That’s why I love to embarrass her (with praise).”
That is easy to do, considering Woodburn’s list of accomplishments. To date, she has won seven consecutive Best of Show awards at PPANI-sanctioned competitions. According to Weber, this is a first.
Woodburn was also awarded a PPANI Fellowship Degree, the highest earned honor for a chapter member, and three of her images were selected by Eastman Kodak Co. to be exhibited at Disney World’s Epcot Center in Orlando. Those pieces have been added to PPA’s permanent Traveling Loan Collection.
In addition, out of the 27,000 entries to American Photographer magazine’s last contest, Woodburn’s black and white print “The Torso” was chosen for publication along with 22 others in the Style and Glamor category.
Woodburn’s studio is strewn with these ribbons and awards. But she is quick to stress that winning is not what it’s all about. Improving yourself, in essence competing with yourself, is.
“I have to go further. There’s so much more to do,” she said.
But Woodburn’s impact has already been significant. Thanks to her, a whole new generation is being exposed to Mortensen’s photographic style.
“Though Mortensen was absolutely brilliant, he wasn’t appreciated at the time,” Woodburn said. “Now there is an upsurge of interest. People call me from all over the country just to talk about Mortensen.”
It is possible there are one or two other photographers doing what Woodburn is doing. Woodburn, however, is regarded as the expert. And that reputation earned her the experience of a lifetime, an invitation to visit Mortensen’s California estate.
Woodburn is probably Mortensen’s biggest living fan, but she has fans as well. Two of them live with her. One is her husband, Jim, an engineer.
“I’ve seen quite an evolution in her work. She’s gone from transforming models with glamorous makeup and clothes to transforming the prints themselves. She’s always been busy, but it’s great to see her even more fulfilled these days,” Jim Woodburn said.
In addition to emotional support, he has given his wife practical help. Though she was confident about her artisic talents, the technical aspects of her art intimidated her. Then one day her husband went through a stack of technical manuals with her.
“It was kind of funny. Karen had this incredible insight about composition and balance, but because she was technically intimidated, she shot all her images with the camera on automatic,” Jim said.
After their intensive day-long lesson, Woodburn was never intimidated again. In fact, she remembers turning to her husband and saying, “And that’s it?”
“It was like a lightbulb went off. Suddenly, everything made sense,” she said.
Woodburn’s other live-in fan is Jesse Phillips, 17, her daughter from a previous marriage. Phillips is also proud of her mother, especially the changes she has witnessed in her work.
“Her photography is natural, more like art. I think it’s really cool. In fact, all my friends want her to photograph them,” Phillips said.
Woodburn is flattered by the kind words, awards and support. But for her, the motivating force remains the same.
“I just like taking pictures.”
