Group photographs are notorious for being breeding grounds of boredom. People tend to get restless while posing, and there is always the person in the back row giving someone in front of him antlers.
Photographer Robert Lightfoot of Des Plaines tries to liven things up before the boredom has a chance to kick in. With a mix of computer technology and unique ideas, Lightfoot is able to create portraits that aren’t exactly typical.
He has taken pictures of high school basketball players sitting in a computer-stretched Model A Ford. He has photographed a high school wrestling team dressed in construction uniforms. And Lightfoot has shot high school football players and girls basketball players at practice and in their prom finery.
Now he’s using these techniques in his work on a photo montage for the Des Plaines Public Library. The montage will feature patrons displaying how the library has assisted them.
Done with a grant from the North Suburban Library System, the library project has been quite an undertaking. Lightfoot plans to take pictures of at least 200 patrons. There is a woman dressed as Mary Poppins, a crossing guard armed with an easel to display her artistic interest and a woman straddling a computer-enhanced giant rabbit.
The only catch is that the subjects aren’t allowed to hold any books, Lightfoot said.
“I just felt that having books in the pictures would be the No. 1 cliche,” he said.
Not having books in the photos also encourages the library patrons to be creative about how they will be photographed, Lightfoot said.
“You can’t look at the sample he has come up with without smiling,” said library administrator Sandra Norlin.
Norlin said the montage mural will add visual life to the library. “For the people who are part of it, the mural will convey a sense of delight and excitement that people have for the library and what it means in their lives,” Norlin said.
The first photo shoot was in December, and the second shoot is scheduled for May 1 and 2.
In her photo, Donna McAllister, city clerk of Des Plaines, shows her love for the Chicago Cubs by wearing a Cubs sweatshirt and holding a wooden Cubs emblem and a Cubs mug. McAllister, who goes to the library to look at Sports Illustrated and other sports publications to get the latest Cubs news, said she was very happy with Lightfoot’s photo session.
“I think he has caught the essence of all the people’s hobbies, interests and why they go to the library,” she said. “He makes you very comfortable; he’s talking to you, and it’s not intimidating at all.”
Norlin said Lightfoot came to her and suggested the project. He said he often uses the library for business research and to check out novels. And both of his parents were librarians.
“I just think the library really does a lot of good things, and it doesn’t get any praise for it,” Lightfoot said.
The montage is scheduled to be finished by August, and the library will then find a suitable spot for it, most likely in the main reading room.
Lightfoot said his main philosophy behind group photography is for the finished products to be “celebrations of life.”
“I think, with really rare exceptions, that they have to be enjoyable,” he said “They have to be enjoyable for the people who are in it.”
Lee Balgemann of River Forest, past president of the Chicago chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers, has known Lightfoot for many years. Balgemann said one of Lightfoot’s main strengths as a photographer is his talent with lighting.
“He was very creative with his lighting as far as turning lousy industrial situations into more aesthetically pleasing scenes,” Balgemann said. He said Lightfoot even made a toxic waste disposal facility they were photographing in the 1980s look nice.
Balgemann also said Lightfoot is good at taking portraits. “He has a way of getting spontaneous humor out of people and therefore getting good facial expressions,” he said.
Lightfoot, 57, has undertaken the library project as an act of philanthropy.
He also photographed the Maine West teams for free. His son Andy, now a senior at the school, has been on both the football and basketball teams.
Andy said the players have enjoyed his father’s portraits because of the creative work put into them. For Andy, the photos serve as a documentation of his sports career.
“I can see my growth and development, and it’s kind of funny to look back and see it all,” he said.
“Everything he comes up with is extremely creative, and you’re almost in awe of how he would come up with it,” said Jim Sullivan, head basketball coach at Maine West.
Sullivan said that every year, the team members try to guess the portrait idea Lightfoot plans to use next.
“He’s trying to let them be the personality that they are, and it does come through in the pictures,” Sullivan said.
Lightfoot began his career doing photo production work for Time magazine. He then shot pictures for Highland Park’s Ravinia music festival for more than 20 years and also did work for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for nearly a decade. Lightfoot has also done assignments for National Geographic and Life magazines.
Now, as a self-employed photographer, Lightfoot has recently added a new twist to his professional title. “I started as a photographer, and the last few years I’ve decided to be a creative director,” he said.
During his years at the Ravinia Festival and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lightfoot worked with many well-known musicians, and his travels took him from Europe to Japan to central Illinois.
Jane Olerich, director of marketing and public relations for Ravinia, said Lightfoot did a wonderful job of documenting more than 20 years of the festival’s history. Several books and programs for Ravinia were published with Lightfoot’s photography. “He’s a terrific photographer, first-rate and very artistic,” she said.
Lightfoot now shoots promotional materials for Chicago-area businesses.
And though Lightfoot is by no means against making a buck, the not-for-profit work, such as the project at the Des Plaines library, is close to his heart.
“These are going to be memories,” he said, “and I really want them to be positive.”
