Adapted from the documentary "Picture Nebraska"
Produced by Michael Farrell, Cultural Affairs Unit

[Larry Ferguson:] "I want you to turn your head this way just a fraction -- there. Right in there. Yeah."
Narrator: Omaha photographer Larry Ferguson has chosen to create a series of portraits of one of his early supporters, Norman Gesky the former director of Lincoln's Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery.
[Norman:] "I keep photographs in this hall as much as possible."
[Larry:] "The best thing I can try to do to try to get closer to somebody is to be very friendly, warm, receptive, responsive to them."
[Larry and Norman looking at earlier print:] "That's a really gorgeous print. I think you got the last one that I've actually printed."
[Larry:] "Positive reinforcement is a wonderful way to be able to photograph somebody intently. But as the portrait photographer I have to be in control of the situation. I can't be intimidated by somebody. It's a matter of being aware of what's going on and realizing that you can be in control of the situation just by doing certain things."
[Larry with Norman:] "Are those photogray glasses, Norman? They darken up in the light? Do you have any others that aren't photograys? No. Well, we'll have fun then."
[Norman:] "You mean I'm going to appear to be wearing shades."
"Well, yes."
[Larry in interview:] "Norman's a real beautiful person. He allows you to do what you want to do. I think that's one thing that's helped him be able to help promote other people's careers through the years. He has believed in other people and in his own judgment about those people."
[Larry directing Norman:] "Just look right in here for me and don't smile. It's going to be too long an exposure for you to smile for me here yet. And hold on. Good job. Let's go process it."
Larry uses a large, antique 8x10-inch view camera for many of his portraits, and he will use Polaroid 8x10-inch print material as photographic sketches before exposing real film.
[Norman:] "Oh, I don't know whether I want to see the results or not."
[Larry:] "Yeah, you do. You definitely do. There's always an initial shock."
Early view cameras used glass plate negatives that had to be coated in a portable darkroom just before exposure.
[Larry:] "It's a far cry from working out in the field, isn't it? Glass plates that you had to coat in the field. It's all gone. We'll try a couple here and then we'll try some maybe in front of the window. Some in the kitchen perhaps. Here's what it would look like."
[Norman:] "Well, I guess I can't deny it. That's what we look like."
[Larry:] "Smiling's something that's real ephemeral. It comes and it goes. And it's usually a surface sort of characteristic that's very lightly taken. I've gone through that with other clients also, and it's like they always sort of like the smiling ones. I go, 'Yeah, but that's really not the most powerful picture to be working with in through here.' What I really needed to do was make a really powerful picture of Norman."
[Larry, showing the photograph to Norman and his wife Jane:] "It's very contemplative, don't you think?"
[Norman:] "Yes, I suppose."
[Jane:] "But you're not looking like you're down in the dumps terribly."
[Larry:]. "You mean when he gets real serious?"
[Jane:] "Yeah, mm-hmm."

[Larry in interview:] "See this is the typical problem that happens with people who have their portraits made is that those who have it made really don't like it a lot of times. But the other people around them love it."
Larry Ferguson identifies himself as an artist. He lives directly above his studio which is in an old two-story store front in Omaha's south side. In recent years his interest has turned toward creating a reputation for himself as a serious studio portrait photographer.
[Larry showing portraits:] "These were just up at the Joslyn and a gallery out in western Nebraska."
Today Norman and Jane Gesky are here to view the portraits Larry took of Norman in Lincoln and to have some in-studio portraits made.
[Jane:] "Now that's nice because it has that smile."
[Larry:] "You like him smiling a bit more, don't you?"
"Yeah."
[Larry:] "Basically what happened that day is exactly what I set up in my mind that morning to have happen. And I've learned that's a real key factor for me in being able to make things work now. Thinking through thoughts about how I'd like to make a picture of Norman that would fit into my new series of the in-studio portraits and how I wanted to make something that would be very close so that Norman could be just enormously large in the picture. I'll probably end up just a few inches away from him."
[Larry talking to Norman:] "Part of it is just getting focused when I'm up this close, Norman."
Norman Gesky recognized Larry's talent early in his career and offered him a show at the Sheldon when he was just starting out.
[Larry:] "When I first started making the work and it started to be successful I couldn't figure out why, why people responded to it. And it first started off, you know with wide open landscape work which was all about my bringing up as a child out on the farm and being familiar with the land and wanting to be able to utilize that.
"Then I went in to photograph environmental portraits of people where all of their surroundings would help to identify what the person was and what they did. Lately within the past two or three years it's all been in-studio portraits which are all real close.
"I think that it was a natural progression from going from not really understanding very much of who I was, not being able to relate very much to myself and the outside world at that time. That's why I had a lot of distance between me and the people when I made the pictures. Now that's all dramatically changed. Now I can be very up-close with people, and I can be real comfortable with them and I think it's a result of my being very comfortable with myself now."
As a student Larry Ferguson was torn between becoming an actor or pursuing a career in photography. But he's always thought of himself as an artist.
[Larry:] "Certainly, I know I could turn around, and in six months time I could be heavily involved in commercial photography. If I wanted to I could be making a quarter million dollars a year. That would not be unrealistic within one year's time. At the moment, though, I'm choosing not to do that, and it's a very conscious decision. If I can't sign my name to the print, I'm really not very interested in doing it. I don't really do things just for the money."