Lumix GH5 Leica 42.5 f1.2 Nocticron Portraits Jessica Rose
Charles Maring’s love of imaginative photography started growing at the age of 7, working alongside his father in the darkroom developing photographs “the old fashioned way.” Now at the top of his game, Maring has been the grand award winner of the International Photography Awards, has photographed presidents and celebrities, shot fashion campaigns and runway, had billboards of his work in Times Square, shot the covers of some of the most renowned magazines, and photographed entire books from cover to cover. We find him using his LUMIX GH5 and the Leica Nocticron 42.5mm f/1.2 lens for a very special photo shoot, for a young lady almost the same age as he was when he first stepped into a darkroom.
Maring’s fresh approach is rooted in his intuitive understanding of how to engage his subjects. In this case—creating a children’s portrait session in a rose garden—he knows that often the key to having kids bloom in front of the lens is to spark their imagination: "sometimes pretend brings out the best in children, and they’ll spin in circles, or be more playful than when we try and pose them for the camera.” So he and his partner, fellow LUMIX Ambassador Jennifer Maring, asked their young subject to pretend she was a fairy named Rose. The resulting photos make this garden magical indeed!
The combination of the LUMIX GH5 and the Leica Nocticron 42.5mm helped give the session its special aura: “with its shallow aperture the 42.5mm f/1.2 has unique characteristics that helps make our work stand out as different . . . I turn to this lens often because of its incredibly tight depth of field. It really separates the subject from the background and allows us to lead the viewer's attention where we want them to look, towards the emotion in the photograph.” He often points this lens into the sun because its F1.2 aperture helps create the soft elegant glow that you see.
This shoot proves itself a case study as the perfect marriage of task and tools. “Every lens ever made was created with a purpose in mind—I think of them as brushes—and each one allows me to paint life, and paint my canvas, a little bit differently. As I looked through the viewfinder, I felt connected and I could feel that joy of childhood imagination flowing right out onto the paper.”
Maring’s insistence on quality, his innate creativity, and his vast experience in portraits, weddings, events, and films and photo stories makes him a singular curator of people, places, and things. Speaking of the rose garden shoot, Maring muses, “Every childhood should be blessed with imagination, and if we’re lucky, that imagination continues to grow throughout our life.” As both a workman and a creative spirit, he sets the perfect example.
Charles Maring
In an illustrious 25 year career as a professional photographer and filmmaker artist Charles Maring keeps his mind wide open to the creative possibilities creating images, and telling stories for corporate clients that range from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies and private clients ranging from high school seniors to celebrities and Presidents from around the world. Maring's body of work transcends being typecast with well to do clients tapping him to create everything from billboards in Times Square, to magazine covers, editorial stories, celebrity weddings, fashion shoots, and more.