By Keith Walsh
Arizona-based software salesperson John Gluth has an alter ego –he recently dressed up as Santa for a series of stylish photos. It started innocently enough, with the growth of some modest facial hair early this year, but as Gluth’s imagination got carried away, he found himself at the helm of a very impressive Santa Claus-themed photography project.

As Gluth explains: “It started when my wife started calling me ‘Santa Claus’ as my beard got a little beyond the ‘tidy’ stage.  Then, I was listening to Social Distortion while showering, and ‘Anti Fashion’ came on…which led my mind to wander from Santa Claus to anti-fashion to Fashion Santa (mall ad campaign up in Toronto a few years back)…and then in the semi-conscious bliss of a hot shower – they blended together into ‘Anti Fashion Santa’…what would that look like?’

The styles in the photos range from cool stylish Santa in a shiny red jacket, to ‘The Most Interesting Santa In The World,’ to Horror Show Santa, Coal Miner Santa, and finally Mr. And Mrs. Claus posing with their new sleigh, a shiny red Mercedes. I asked Gluth how he planned all of this out. “My first move was to go back to my college punk identity,” Gluth told me, “and try doing some ‘liberty spikes’, but in the beard, and don my old leather and go down in the photo studio and do some self-portraits.  I shot tethered, so I could see what things looked like.  Setting the lighting up was kind of a pain – I used continuous lights for that shoot (Dracast LED panels, and a couple of Lume Cubes – one through a gridded snoot to get the catch light in the dark eye, and one handheld (just out of frame) to add light to various parts.  I started with high contrast Rembrandt lighting, then played around with the handheld light.  After looking through that first set, I got the idea for trying again with the ‘horror lighting’, etc.  I also found that for these shoots, the serious look just seemed to work better.  You’ve known me for longer than either of us probably want to admit, and you know that’s not my norm – I’ve got resting ‘stop me if you’ve heard this one…two wombats walk into a bar…’ face.  I spent some time working on my anti-fashion-Santa facial expression in the mirror, and in some more self-portraits while I worked out the lighting for each shoot.”

I ran into a clean-shaven Gluth at our 40^th high school reunion last September, where he modestly told me that he had taken some bearded photos in a red jacket, explaining that he had followed the lead of Billy Zoom, guitarist of the punk rock band X, in painting his jacket. This December, after Gluth revealed the extent of the Santa project on Facebook, I asked him about the jacket. He wrote: “I had seen a mention on Billy Zoom’s Facebook page about how he got his epic silver leather jacket (I thought I read ‘spray painted’, but he corrected me later to ‘leather dye, or it gets on the seat of your car ;-)). I thought, ‘well, what if I got a cheap leather jacket, sprayed it silver, then sprayed candy apple red over it…that’d be a Billy Zoom inspired anti fashion look that was Santa appropriate and within my old punker sensibilities,’ so that led to the shiny red jacket shoot.  Then I got to thinking, ‘might as well come up with a few more before I shave,’ and found the paisley jacket (which actually is super cool for a < $40 new jacket)…found some vintage polyester double-knit red pants, etc.  Kept looking around for more red pants/shoes/Santa stuff, and came up with a few more ideas (when I found red plaid Bermuda shorts, and remembered I had some red PF Flyer high tops, Skater Claus was born, etc.).  After doing a few shoots, somebody said, ‘a few more and you could do a calendar.’  Thanks to whoever said that…you know what they say about the last 10% takes 90% of the time.  I had started in March, and by the time the wardrobe arrived, we were in triple digits, so it was kind of hard to get motivated to do the outdoor shoots.”

“Anyway, trying to come up with enough shoot ideas led to some brainstorming – I’m sure my wife and kids helped with some of them, too.”

Gluth had more to say about the red jacket. “That really got the ‘try a bunch of wardrobe/themes’ thing going (and I think that’s one of my favorite shoots – I was really happy with how those turned out – and that actually led to the ‘most interesting Santa in the world’ shoot theme later – just kind of had that Dos Equis ad look.  (Somebody tagged me on Instagram with the local dairy whose milk bottles I used for the ‘I don’t always drink milk…’ shoot and they even responded.)

“A funny part of that jacket is, when it showed up, it ended up being ‘pleather’,  it smelled of perfume…and the zipper was backwards…I had searched for a ‘Euro-look’ jacket, and ended up with a woman’s jacket (seller didn’t say that – I told them they needed to be more careful, but it was ok for my purposes).  Once I got it painted, though, I really dug the way it looked.”

Despite the Arizona heat, Gluth went ahead with his project, using the same camera gear that had served him well doing shots of the phases of the moon. I asked him exactly what equipment he used. “Canon 5D MkIV and an assortment of their amazing prime lenses.  Lighting was mostly Godox for the strobes, and Dracast panels and Lume Cubes for the continuous lighting. Light modifiers were mostly from Cheetah Stand (some really great stuff at good prices, and spec’d out by people who use them – easy to set up/take down, cool features and innovations).”

“Jenn used to be a wedding and portrait photographer back in the film days.  I started with her old lighting, then moved to battery powered strobes that were controllable from the camera (wow, that’s a cool feature!  Set all the lighting ratios from camera position without walking back and forth.) With digital, I build the lighting one light at a time.  Figure out the kickers. Figure out the key.  Figure out the fill.  Find where accent lighting is needed.  Then put it all together and tweak it.  Back in the old days, it was all based on light meters and using Polaroid backs at $1.25 a shot.  This would have been really hard/expensive back in the film days.  It’s fun to play with the lighting when it’s free to shoot and you can see what it looks like immediately.”

As Gluth tells it, the project was rather affordable. “I already had the photo studio, so it was just props,” he writes. “At first, I spent a couple hundred bucks on eBay for pants, jackets, etc.  Then I had to buy a coal miner’s helmet and lamp…Mickey Mouse Christmas slippers…I borrowed my daughter’s long board…used an old t-shirt and a Sharpie to make an old school punk rock t-shirt for Skater Claus (found an old Social Distortion sticker that I had on my college skateboard and adapted it to make the “Santa Distortion” t-shirt – got a red trucker hat with a light grey under brim (that was surprisingly difficult to find for under $30 – black brims are easy) and found the Suicidal Tendencies font – bent the brim up the way the rat rod/suicidal guys used to, and used a Sharpie to put the ‘Santa AF’ under the flipped up brim.  I’d driven under this cool pedestrian bridge while delivery flowers for a wedding nearby (my kids each own flower shops ;-)) and had filed it away mentally for a portrait shoot location – thought it would be a good look for Skater Claus – you’d be surprised how much traffic a pedestrian bridge between two suburban neighborhoods over a freeway gets at 6:30 in the evening when it’s 107 degrees outside…I know I was!  Kinda like playing ball in the street as a kid – only instead of “Car!” and moving out of the road, it was just moving me/the lighting out of the way whenever a pedestrian or cyclist went by.  Got a lot of smiles and laughs though, so it was fun….I’d say I probably spent around $500 on wardrobe/props (and will put most of them back on eBay after Christmas).”

How did you shoot? Using a self-photo trigger, or with help from your wife Jenn, and kids Doug and Melody?
“Probably 25% with a remote trigger,” Gluth said, “and the rest, it was just a lot faster for me to use the trigger to get the lighting the way I wanted it, then ask Jenn or Doug or Melody to run the camera.”

“It’s quicker for them to coach me, than me shoot, then look at the laptop to see how it looks, then get myself repositioned so I’d be in focus, etc.  I used strobes for most of the shoots after the first shoot – the continuous lighting isn’t really bright enough without having the lights really close, which makes them hard to use for full length shots (and if you get lights that are bright enough, they’re no fun to stare into ;-))”

The red Mercedes in the classic Mr. And Mrs. Claus shots are a nice touch. I asked if it was his. “He said: . “I just bought it for the shoot, then took it back.  (just kidding – I got it a while ago – my previous car had held its value amazingly well, and I got a great trade-in on a barely used GLC with 740 miles on it)”

“I originally meant to use my wife’s (also red) hot rod 1946 Dodge, but it was having a fuel-delivery issue and I didn’t want to push it out of the garage and turn it around in the driveway…then I remembered the Mercedes Santa commercials from a couple of years ago, and thought, ‘Hmm…'”

It turns out that Mrs. Gluth was initially set firmly against John’s beard: “She hated it,” He wrote. “As I told you at the class reunion, she told me she wasn’t going to a 40 year reunion with someone who looked like they were going to their 50 year reunion….that gave me a deadline on the shoot…had to be clean shaven by mid September.  That actually helped a lot, because I tend to be deadline driven…I’d probably still be working on this series now without the deadline.”
“That said, she’s enjoyed all the comments the photos have gotten on Facebook and Instagram, and as people have been getting their calendars, and today, she shocked me by saying, “are you going to grow it back and do some more photos?”  I asked her if she was serious…she said she’d support it.  Not sure if I want to expand on this series, but who knows?”

I asked Gluth which were the most challenging, and most fun, shots to get? “Most challenging?  The dogs on the couch (in the calendar, but not on Facebook/Insta – trying to get 7 dogs that aren’t normally allowed on the couch to look happy/comfortable while lights keep flashing and Jenn was in a ‘let’s get this done’ mood…”

“The Skater Claus shoot was physically challenging – 107 degrees and I had to skate downhill, then back uphill on that bridge a bunch of times (really only got one shot per run, because the flash didn’t recycle fast enough to shoot a series of frames in a row – it’s surprisingly dark inside the ‘tunnel’”

“Most fun – probably the shoot with Jenn and the milk and cookies, because she looked so great in the photos that she was happy to be patient, I got to sit next to a hot chick for a long time, and I got to eat some of Mrs. Claus’s fresh baked chocolate cookies at the end.  I didn’t tell her I’d gotten her some wardrobe when I ordered a few outfits for her, but when she saw what I ordered, and saw how good she looked in them, she got a lot more cooperative about participating in the shoots.”

“The most fun, though, has been the reactions as I’ve posted the pics (check them out on Instagram @jgluth.  Everybody seems to really enjoy them, and that’s gratifying, as a photographer (well, more of a lighting designer on this set), and as the reluctant model – when we did location shoots, I realized I really preferred being on the other side of the camera to being ‘the model’.  This was also the first time I used a real print shop to make photo calendars (saddle stitched, not spiral bound, and on 100# glossy paper, not color copier or photo paper.  Big thanks to Melody for helping me get all the photos into the template the print shop used – I’d never used Acrobat other than as a reader, and had procrastinated too long to learn it in time to get them back in time for Christmas.  Now I know how to do that, so I learned a bunch of cool stuff.  It was great having Jenn and Doug and Melody pitch in and help on the project, too.”

I asked Gluth where what he envisions next for his Santa photography project: “I don’t think I’m ready to be a mall Santa…but a spokesmodel for a local dairy or cookie maker?  🙂 Mostly, I’d like to build on the things I learned this time around for my future projects.”

He adds: “It’d be fun to do some projects like this with some other models down the road…so if you’re in the Phoenix metro, hit me up on Instagram!”

John Gluth On Instagram
John Gluth On Facebook

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