'Landscapes aren't my thing, I prefer people' — Q&A with Martha Mickles

PORTLA ND — Cape Elizabeth photographer Martha Mickles, 63, came to her chosen career late in life, earning a degree in photography from University of Southern Maine a quarter century after taking her first degree, in English, from Colby College in 1971.

Since then, however, she's canvassed the state for her art, first as an multi-award-winning photojournalist for the Maine Times, and now as a traveling school photographer for Lifetouch National Studios. Mickles has seen a lot of Maine for someone who, since 1987, has lived less than two miles from where she grew up, on South Portland's Meeting House Hill.

Mickles' latest freelance project, undertaken for the Maine Bar Association, is entitled "Justice for All: The Faces of Legal Aid in Maine." On display in the Lewis Gallery of the Portland Public Library though mid-July, the exhibit profiles the many types of Mainers, including teens, the elderly, immigrants and the impoverished, helped by the free and low-cost legal aid clinics offered by association members.

While reviewing those photographs recently, Mickles took some time to share the story of her art with Current readers.

Q: How did you get your start in photography?

A: Well, after being a housewife for several years, I really realized that I had always been the family photographer and said, you know, I want to learn how to process film. I took a few classes at USM and was encouraged, because apparently I had some talent, to go ahead and take another degree, so I graduated in 1996 cum laude with a degree in photography.

Q: How did you turn that degree into a career?

A: Miraculously, I saw an ad in the Casco Bay Weekly. The Maine Times was looking for a photographer with darkroom experience. I had a darkroom in my house and applied for the job. Amazingly, I got it and was really happy there, well, until it died, which was in 2002 or so. The paper changed ownership and it was sad to see the old, venerable girl go down the tubes, but that happens. It's part of the evolution, I guess.

Q: What about photojournalism appealed to you?

A: The thing about the Maine Times is that it was a weekly, and we were often working a week, sometimes two weeks ahead of time, on issues rather than events. That kind of story gave me more of an ability to do documentary-style photography, which is what I enjoy. I might like to go back to news photography on a case-by-case basis, but only on a weekly paper for those types of assignments. The thing with a daily paper, the assignments are like, there's been a car accident, go get a picture of the car, or, it's rainy today, go get a rainy-day shot. Oh, my God, not my thing.

Q: How did your career evolve, after the paper shut down?

A: I did some freelance work, but got really tired of beating the bushes. I really hate self-promotion. For the last 10 years or so I've been the person who goes into the schools to take the kiddie pics. I do sports and proms and yearbook photos, the whole thing, and I love it.

Q: What, in particular, do you like about that job?

A: I love working with the kids. I never had children of my own and it was a total revelation to me that I like kids. I never knew!

Q: Is working with kids harder than news photography?

A: You know, the challenge is, you're given 30 seconds to bring out the best in the child. That is an incredibly wonderful challenge. I love it, I really do. You develop a spiel, you get a sense for the age group and what's going to make them respond, and every 30 seconds it's a brand-new challenge.

Q: What age-group do you enjoy working with the most?

A: You know, of any age, I love especially the children with developmental disabilities. I will take as long as it takes to get the best picture of them, consulting with their ed techs and stuff. I love those kids. I think I have a special affinity for them, I really do. In fact, if I were a young woman and had it to do all over again, I might go into special education.

Q: How do you bring out the real person on the inside, when they may be damaged, or unresponsive, on the outside?

A: Like people who are not handicapped, it all depends on the person. There was one young man I photographed for the Maine Bar exhibit who recently won a lawsuit against DHHS, and I didn't have to work very hard with him at all. He was so excited to have his story come out, he was just like, "Here I am." But, in general, I just try to be as natural with them as possible and not be fake, because they know fake. I try to be outgoing and overlook the physical disability and be one with the subject and see what happens in the moment. But really, it all depends on the kid. Sometimes they can be extraordinarily helpful and sometimes they can be extraordinarily difficult. I mean, like anyone some can just be, well, jerks. A lot depends on the aides, which depends on the school.

Q: How so?

A: Well, I love traveling around the state. I get to go to all these different places and different schools and different administrations. It's very interesting to see why some schools maybe aren't doing so well, and others are doing very well. I know it's just parenthetical, from my viewpoint, but even as a photographer in for the day, you can get a sense of the leadership. You can sometimes get a sense that the faculty isn't really happy and the kids aren't very happy.

Q: What makes you happiest about your work?

A: I just love to tell stories. Given a perfect world, given enough money and time, I would make photo books, I would tell stories with my pictures. I don't think, necessarily, one picture is worth 1,000 words. I think it takes a series of pictures to really tell a story. Some people can take one picture and that's it. That's not the way I work. Even if it's a cocktail party, I like to find the narrative. I take a series of pictures, building up, with the climax and then the denouement. 

Q: Do you have an idea what the story is going to be going in, or do you figure it out along the way?

A: Sometimes, I may know a little bit about it going in, but a lot of it is totally a discovery process. That's what makes it so enjoyable.

Q: For each picture in a series, what elements make a good photo?

A: Well, energy, engagement. There are lots of technical elements that go into a good picture, but the best ones have an indescribable quality, something that makes the viewer want to keep looking at it, to keep going back to that one photo.

Q: How was photography changed since you entered the field?

A: I used to think of myself as a black-and-white photographer back in the dark ages, before everybody was printing in color. And by dark ages we're talking the late-'90s. Things have changed so quickly since then. I finally disassembled my darkroom last summer. I gave most of my equipment to USM. I do still have one film camera, but I've made the transition.

Q: What, if anything, do you miss about film?

A: I miss standing in the dark, looking at the tray and seeing that image come up – that moment of birth, if you will. I also miss the moment of taking the spools out of the can and holding them up to the light for that moment of discovery, when you almost want to shout out loud, "Oh, good one! Good one!" Instead, with digital, you get it instantaneously. Sometimes, that's good. It depends on the situation, sometimes that's very bad.

Q: Are you not a fan of digital photography, then?

A: I do love digital, there are a lot of advantages to it. The one disadvantage though is that everything is so sharp and clear. I don't think I like that. That's one reason why on this [Maine Bar Association] project, with the exception of one picture, I used film. I used black-and-white film and scanned the negative images onto a computer. 

Q: A modern way of going back to your roots then. Why was that important?

A: Depending on the film, it softens the image a little bit, which I thought was important given the subject matter. Film is more human. Digital can be so cold sometimes I think, because it's so reality-based, so perfect to every little pixels. With film, depending on the film, the speed, the processing, it's softer, it's more warm in scale to my eye.

Q: What subjects inspire you most, as an artist?

A: Landscapes are interesting, but they're not my thing. I prefer people, because people change from moment to moment. They blink and they put on a completely different face. Take a picture of rocks, even in different light they're still just rocks. Boring. But as to what inspires me, I don't know, it's all in the moment. And, this may sound backward, but a lot of what inspires me is in the editing – when I get back home and take a look at what I've done. That's when I decide, "That's nice, that's a keeper, that's not a keeper, that's boring."

Q: So, it sounds like you take a lot of pictures to find that perfect shot?

A: I do, I take a lot. That's just my style. For each subject in this exhibit I took at least one entire roll of film. For example, with this one woman, we went into a hallway where the light was best and I was telling her a little bit about the project and she was telling me about her experiences and I was asking questions, and all the time I was just snapping away. I was just trying to get to know her, to bring out whatever person was inside, but it's when I go back and process the pictures that I found out who she really was.

Q: Is the editing process simply finding the one picture that reveals the subject, or do you have to manipulate the image at all?

A: You can do a lot more with digital post-editing than with film, but I don't do a lot. If it's a really nice expression, for example, and the background may be a little bit too bright, I might tone it down to bring out the expression, but I don't like to do that very much. I like to depict really, to capture the moment. That's the old film thing in me, because it was a lot harder in the darkroom to do tricks like that. I'm just a creature of habit, I guess.

Faces of justice

The faces that gaze out from the walls of the Lewis Gallery in the Portland Public Library are young, old, black, white, handicapped and healthy, but they all have one thing in common: their need for an attorney was beyond their means.

They are the faces of "Justice for All: The Faces of Legal Aid in Maine," an exhibit by Cape Elizabeth photographer Martha Mickles, sponsored by the Maine Bar Foundation and on display now though mid-July.

The purpose of the traveling show, according to M. Calien Lewis, the foundation’s executive director, is to show people there should be no stigma attached to asking for legal help. Mainers from all walks of life take advantage of the free and low-cost services provided by foundation members, including the Court House Assistance Project, Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, Legal Services for the Elderly, Pine Tree Legal Assistance and Maine Equal Justice Partners.

“My hope is to help people understand that people who need these services look pretty much like the rest of us,” Lewis said. “These are not deadbeats, they are not living under bridges. They’re ordinary folks who need advocates to help them navigate the system.

“Through this display, we’re hoping just to get people to engage a little bit,” said Lewis. “If they stop to look at a compelling photo, they may read about the services that person received and they may have an ‘a-ha moment’ if they know of someone in need.”

That need, met on the website helpmelaw.org, can range from simple advice to class action representation, all given free thanks at this time to attorney trusts belonging to foundation members. The popular misconception, Lewis said, is that the courts provide a lawyer to anyone in need, but that’s only true in criminal cases, and only if jail time is at stake. If you have a civil case, say, a dispute with a landlord, a spouse or even the government, and you have a meager income, you could be out of luck.

Even with organizations like the Maine Bar Foundation, only about 1 in every 5 people who seek aid receives help. Association members help more than 10,000 people each year statewide, but they can’t get to everyone.

“It’s kind of a perfect storm right now,” said Lewis. “There are more and more people in need and we have fewer and fewer resources.”

That’s another reason for the exhibit, which took almost a year to stage, between arranging photo permission from foundation clients – some of who still have pending cases – and the “countless hours” Mickles put on capturing the images.

“What we need is for people who see this display to call their congressperson, to call their senator, and to say we need more resources,” Lewis said. “People have lost faith in Congress, they’ve lost faith in the administrative branch, if they lose faith in the court system in this country, we’re done for.”