By Mike Tedesco, Pro Photo Community

San Francisco...Haight-Ashbury district...the 1960's. It was a crazy time and place that became well known and frequently visited for its rock-n-roll and lifestyle. Musicians such as Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin all lived in and around the famed district. It was here that Phil Borges developed a passion for, and kicked off his career in, photography. "I was attending dental school at the University of California at San Francisco, and I took a work-study job with a sociologist who was studying people on Haight Street who were needle drug users." Phil's job was to do 90 minute interviews of the drug users and report back to the sociologist, but Phil found there was more to be told than just words. "These were some of the freakiest looking people I had ever seen, and words were just not enough to describe them, so even though my job was just to interview them, I felt a need to capture them on black and white film."

Phil's passion for photography quickly grew, and he reached a point where he almost left dental school. He decided to finish what he started, and went on to be an orthodontist for 18 years. "I actually quit photography once I graduated so I could focus on my practice. It was 21 years later when my son was born that I took my camera out again." Phil had black and white film that needed developing, and he needed a darkroom. He looked into the labs at Napa Community College, but in order to use their equipment, he had to take some classes first. "I was hooked!" Ron Zack, an instructor at Napa Community College, was an inspirational teacher and photographer for Phil. "Ron taught me that photography is the key to getting into another world. You use it as a reason to be in that world and use it to explore that world. He showed me how you can use photography to mine a subject." Within a year and a half of taking his first classes, Phil sold his practice and moved to Seattle to become a full-time photographer.

After making the journey to Seattle and declaring himself a full-time photographer, Phil struggled with the business side of photography. "I knew I had a good eye but knew nothing about how to make a living from it." Phil joined the American Society of Media Professionals, which was critical to his success. "I continued to do my own projects which eventually led to an exhibit at the Benham Gallery in Seattle, Washington called Afro-American Beauty." Phil's name began to get around, and eventually the Tony Stone agency, one of the major stock agencies at that time, approached him. From there, Phil began to pick up a number of commercial jobs for corporate annual reports, and oddly enough, romance novel covers. "It sounds strange, but my Afro-American Beauty exhibit prompted a major romance novel publisher to contact me about doing a series of cover shots. They liked the way my portraits portrayed the people."

As Phil's commercial work grew, he started advertising in a source book that cost $8000 per year. He finally realized that at that cost, he could take his own money and do his own book which led to his first project, Tibetan Portrait: The Power of Compassion. "I always wanted to travel for my work, so I went to Tibet for that book. It was my first project on a human rights issue, and I began printing the images for local exhibits and galleries and actually donated one to an AIDS charity in Los Angeles." Before he knew it, Phil began receiving calls for print orders, and it wasn't long before he had galleries all over the United States. This was Phil's watershed moment when he realized that he could focus on social work, and have the projects fund themselves. "My goal is to find non-profit organizations that have the same goals as I do, and I do the projects with them."

Phil's approach to his projects is to start with a story. "I hear about or see an issue, and I start there." Phil doesn't actually do a ton of destination planning from home. "I prefer just to go to the place and find a guide and interpreter. I do that when I get there as I want to get someone who can help me understand the people." Once he reaches the group of people he's focused on, he starts taking pictures of the local children and gives them digital prints to get them involved in the project. "The children basically become my mini-crew of assistants and it works well as they love to learn about taking pictures, working with the cameras, lights, and computers." Phil always starts with the kids as they will take the prints to their families and the families end up wanting to be photographed as well.

Phil's first exclusively digital project was for his recently released Women Empowered project. "I needed a camera that would give me files I could work with, so I purchased a used Canon EOS 1Ds. Although I had been editing my film scans in Adobe Photoshop for some time, I was so into the end-to-end digital workflow that I quickly traded up to the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II so I'd have even more to work with." In the analog days, Phil would spend hours in the darkroom bumping with filters, bleaching, and more. "With digital, all of a sudden I could do all of that to the nth degree." The problem at the time, however, was the output of the images. Phil felt there was too much metamorism in the prints which prevented him from doing traditional digital prints. "I had to use Dan Burkolder's method—take the image into Photoshop using CMYK, pull out the K channel, and print just the color information without the blacks. Then I'd make a digital neg and coat the paper, with the color, with platinum palladium, and put the digital neg down on it with the color registration information. Using this method I could get a platinum palladium print with the color information that I wanted." That process did not metamorize, but it was very time consuming. Fortunately, the current lineup of printers has improved in this area and Phil, currently using the HP Designjet Z3100, is able to obtain the quality from digital printing that he needs. With his passion for digital imaging and over 20 years as a photographer, Phil loves to teach workshops and pass his knowledge along.

When Phil talks to students, he tells them that first and foremost you have to know what you want to say with your work. "You need a story you can build your images around. A lot of students are hunting for that story. They know they love photography but they don't know what to do with it. There are so many issues and stories to be told." Phil also encourages photographers to partner as much as they can with companies and organizations to help further the backing and reach of their projects. "Find people who are in-line with your goals and you will create a win-win situation." That's why Phil formed the Blue Earth Alliance as well as Bridges to Understanding. "Bridges gives kids and indigenous groups an opportunity to tell their stories from within."