The Original Chuck Kuhn

I discovered today that Chuck Kuhn, a good friend of
mine, had passed away. To say Chuck was the greatest
photographer that I had ever worked with would be an
understatement. I remember the last time I talked to 
Chuck I was upset that another photographer with his
same name was SEO optimizing his work so much that
the "original" Chuck Kuhn photography couldn't be found.

Chuck just laughed and said he hoped having the same 
name gave the guy some work. He wasn't bothered at all
that you couldn't find him on the internet, he was retired
and enjoying life on Bainbridge Island off Seattle.

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Chuck, along with Tony Scott (Director of Top Gun), was
the most down to earth and nicest guy I had ever worked
​with. That is Chuck on the left next to Lee Van Cleef.
When I first worked with Chuck I was in St. Louis working 
on Budweiser, and based on Chuck's work for NIKE (he
shot the famous Air Jordan shown above), I hired
him to shoot a series of images to be used on a new 
billboard campaign. That was the start of a life-long 
friendship, multiple shoots around the world, and fresh
​salmon from Washington every Christmas.

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His poster series for NIKE is famous now, the Air Jordan
logo was created from his photograph and his reputation
will live on as long as people have heard of Michael Jordan.
The campaign that he shot for me is now listed as one of 
the greatest outdoor billboards of all time and can be found
in several books including The American Billboard 100 Years.

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For the campaign we traveled to Maui, and on the day we
were scheduled to shoot the waves were small. These 
were the days before photoshop where to make this image
you had to cut the film, paste them together and paint/
airbrush on top of the dye to blend the images together. The surfer image was five separate photographs cut together.

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For the water skier image, the guy we were supposed to
shoot didn't show up. Luckily the surfer had a roommate 
that he said could water ski, so we went to his house and woke his hungover roommate up, put him on a boat and shot the image. If you looked closely enough at his face you could see he was feeling miserable. I'll never 
forget the look on Chuck's face when the guy came walking out of the house that morning, he had an amazing chuckle and would end every question with "huh". "What you think about that, huh?"

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In advertising your work fades away, brands come and go, famous people become someone that
no-one has ever heard of. Or like Chuck, someone with the same name comes along and SEOs the heck out of his name and website and you are pushed to page six of Google searches.

No one buying Air Jordan gear today has probably heard of Chuck Kuhn, but they love the image he created, and I'm sure Chuck is just fine with that... huh?