“The series The Blessing of the Fox Hounds shows great storytelling of a centuries-old tradition shot in a modern era. It [bridges] the old and the new and how some things remain despite all other changes. The colors, composition and light underline the storytelling in an interesting way.”
—Beatrice Heydiri
“The tonal style of The Blessing of the Fox Hounds worked so well with the subject matter. It gave the images a very visceral, evocative feel, and the series really stood out photographically in its category for me.” —James Day
Photographer Michael Tittel documents the English tradition of the foxhunt that remains alive and almost unchanged at the Camargo Hunt club in the hills east of Cincinnati. No harm comes to the foxes, and pageantry and heritage are celebrated.
Comments by Michael Tittel:
How long have you been working in photography? I have been photographing for almost 40 years. Two things got me into photography: One was my father giving me his Pentax Spotomatic 35mm and my love of [our] family photos. The second thing was discovering Ansel Adams’s book Forty Photographs on a shelf in the mall bookstore. Seeing Ansel’s work in a before-and-after format documenting how he bent the technique of printing and developing film to help bring his vision to life was a breakthrough idea for me. From then, I’ve always viewed photography as a path to expression, not just a mere document.
I received a BFA in photography from Ohio University in 1992 and was a commercial photographer for ten years, shooting primarily fashion and product images. Eventually, I experienced a career shift into interactive design, branding and advertising, and I ended up having a 21-year career at ad agencies. I helped bring global B2B agency gyro to life and spent more than ten years as executive creative director there. I resigned last year from the agency world and am now a university teacher, teaching visual communication design, and I do photography, branding and design- consulting projects as well.
Tell us about this campaign for the Camargo Hunt, a nonprofit hunting club in Madeira, Ohio. The work for Camargo Hunt came about organically. I met Cynthia Lewis, my client contact, through the Cincinnati art scene, and I had noticed her equestrian event posts on social media. It was like seeing scenes from Downton Abbey in my feed. Sometime after that, we discussed having me document some events. Camargo Hunt has been around since 1924, so there’s a long history of sport, pageantry and tradition. The club functions very much like a committee, so the final approach had to be approved by the club’s current masters. The imagery is used for awareness marketing on social media channels and for the club members’ personal use.
How did you execute your solution? The process leaned on my photojournalistic training and decades of carrying a single camera and single lens with me. Covering broad-stroke visual narratives and details and always trying to do some compelling portraiture are the name of the game to create a visual story. The hunts are very fast-paced and only last two to three hours, so there wasn’t much time to think about what I had captured. It was very similar to photographing a sporting event or even a wedding: You prepare as much as you can for something unscripted, and you have to get it right the first time. There are no redos.
What kind of equipment did you use while shooting these photos? I have shot with Leica cameras since 1988. For this project, I primarily used the Leica SL2 with the Summilux-SL 50mm lens, which I can only describe as magic. It’s beautiful and cinematic. I also used the Leica M10-R Rangefinder, usually with a 28mm lens for some of the up-close action. For the portraits, I added a Westcott FJ400 strobe light with a medium Octabox to add some shape to faces and catchlights. I use strobe subtly on location as well as in the studio. I do a lot of post-processing, but it’s all to get the image to a state of realism and authenticity. I use the headroom and control of digital to make the images more like film, less detailed and more intriguing.
As a photographer, what are some of your favorite kinds of subjects to shoot? The kind of work I love to do skews toward things that feel like editorial or documentary work but are thoughtful and represent the subject in a supremely original perspective. I love coming into a restaurant, factory, farm or fox-hunt and photographing the people, the place and the products to bring out the beautiful originality that brands, companies and people have. In an era of AI-generative imagemaking, some brands and people will crave realism again. Regardless of what I photograph, I hyperfocus on whatever it is in front of me and try to bring out the invisible qualities that you can’t see—less gimmicky and more purity across portraits, landscapes, and food and beverage work.
