Corporate photographer is not leaving for greener pastures, but he is leaving
by Dave Kratzer

Dan Moore, a commercial photographer in Wichita for nearly 25 years, is packing his camera bag and setting up shop in Des Moines, Iowa, Aug. 21.

The photographer who made a career out of making local chief executive officers look warm and friendly on the pages of their corporate reports is relocating to be near his girlfriend Julia Talerico, former executive director of Wichitaís Roots and Wings.

She moved back to her hometown of Des Moines last year to open a restaurant. Moore decided to follow her, and the Internet is to make that reunion possible.

Moore and his long-time friend and colleague, Junebug Clark, have forged a partnership and launched a Web site that showcases their work and makes it easy for regional and national advertising agencies to look at their photography...and contact them.

For years we've been trying to find a way to work together. I think we've finally found a way to make it work. Our entire portfolios will be on the Web site, Moore says. The Internet is a great device. It's an international phonebook and more.

The worst entrepreneur

Moore recently got an assignment from a national business magazine that needed a portrait of a Koch Industries executive. The magazines editors were able to look at the Moore-Clark Web site--www.mooreclark.com--and see the kind of people photography in which they specialize.

Moore met Clark when both were combat photographers in the U.S. Marine Corps in the early 1970's. Clark, a prominent commercial photographer based in the Detroit, Michigan area, made a national reputation for himself shooting distinctive people-oriented ads for Jack Daniel's Whiskey of Lynchburg, Tennessee.

Many times Moore would fly from Wichita to the famous Tennessee whiskey company to assist his friend with a photo shoot. Now they fly all over the country to meet and shoot photos together and tackle assignments for regional and national clients.

I'm the worst entrepreneur in the world, says Moore in his characteristic self-deprecating way. I'm not going up there because I'm seeking greener pastures. I love it here in Wichita.

CEOs and truck drivers

However, the Internet allows Moore to retain his Wichita accounts and connections plus branch out into new markets.

The worst part about leaving is that I will miss schmoozing with my friends, Moore says, referring to daily late afternoon get-togethers with members of the city's creative community at Red Beards Saloon.

Jim Kandt, an independent creative director who operates James Kandt Studios, met Moore in 1980. Kandt worked at SHS at the time, and Moore was shooting for the ad agency. They've worked together ever since.

Kandt calls Moore Wichita's gentleman photographer.

The minute Dan meets a client, he becomes that person's friend, says Kandt. He has an incredible talent to warm people up and get them to be themselves. He can sit down wit the CEO of a large company or a truck driver and get along well with both of them.

Meanings of the human face

It's the end of an era in a way, says Jim Siebert, a video producer who's known Moore since the photographer first focused his Nikon on Wichita in the mid-1970's.

Wichita's losing the greatest black-and-white artist in town. Nobody shoots black-and-white better than Dan, Siebert says.

John Brown, one of the city's most successful freelance writers, who has worked frequently with Moore, echoed Siebert, saying Moore is the best black-and-white photographer he has ever known.

He knows the meanings of the human face, and he has a rare ability to dram out of his subjects everything that's best about them, Brown days.

In a fast-paced world where color photography rules--digital color photography, that is--Moore prefers to shoot black-and-white, and still prints his portraits on paper, the old fashioned way.

I still love that darkroom stuff, Moore says. I've got a black-and-white reputation.

Moore's darkroom, where so many Wichitans came to life in baths of swirling chemicals, will be dismantled Aug. 15 to prepare for the move.