Rose Garden Resident

Cover Story

Photograph by Carien Valdepape

Paul Tumason specializes in taking portraits from his studio on The Alameda. The longtime photographer says he tries to tell a story about his subject through his portraits by including a lot of information about a person in his photographs.

Full Exposure

Portrait photographer Paul Tumason reveals life stories with his camera

By Mary Gottschalk

Respected portrait photographer Paul Tumason remembers exactly when he found his calling.

"I took my first portrait on Aug. 9, 1969, at the San Jose Flea Market," he says. "It changed my life."

Tumason says he'd never done a portrait before. It was his friend George Bumb who suggested he try his hand at taking photos and converting them into posters at the Flea Market, which Bumb founded in 1960.

It was a "while you wait" operation with a minimal investment in equipment, Tumason says. More important, he made a profit from the first weekend.

Those 20-by-24-inch posters sold for $3.50 each.

"It was so much fun doing portraits. I thought, 'This is cool, I'll open a studio,' " he recalls.

Tumason, who now has his studio at 1342 The Alameda, opened his first one in 1972 at Sixth and Santa Clara streets on the ground floor of the Art Deco Medico-Dental Building.

"I had a darkroom, and I did passport photos, both overnight and while you waited," he says.

"I continued to take classes in portraiture from professional photographers and developed skills. I learned a lot from going to one-week schools. They are still being run, and I get to teach them now."

Tumason jokingly refers to his profession as his "habit," and he jokes about the cravings he gets when "I haven't done a portrait in two days."

Yet, he's serious when he says, "I never tire of it, even now. It's a disease."

Born in Chicago, Tumason grew up in Campbell, graduating from Bellarmine College Preparatory and San Jose State University, where he earned a degree in industrial technology.

"My father had a machine shop and it was the right kind of major for that kind of business, but it didn't last for me," Tumason says.

After his father's death in 1968, he sold the company.

He now lives with his wife, Kathy, in Los Gatos. They have five grown children and one grandchild with a second one expected momentarily.

Over the years, Tumason has had several photography studios. One was next to the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown San Jose, and another was in Los Gatos until the Loma Prieta earthquake knocked much of it down.

He moved to his current studio almost a dozen years ago.

"I wanted to get back to San Jose and be part of the big city," he says. "I saw where it was growing. Everything's in San Jose.

"I know everyone doesn't live here, but when I go out and give a talk, if I say San Jose, everybody knows San Jose."

Additionally, he says his current 3,000-square-foot studio "is such a great facility, with lots of space. There was never enough space or room to grow in Los Gatos, and it was confining with rents going up constantly."

Tumason's work is familiar to patrons of the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, where his portraits of symphony conductors, musicians, ballet dancers, actors and arts board executives are on almost constant display along the ground floor corridor.

His first set of 30-by-40-inch portraits of musicians with the San Jose Symphony in 1982 created an immediate sensation. The only clue as to their origin was his signature.

"I didn't want it to be a commercial venture," he says of the photos he took at no charge. "I wanted it to be like an art show. It's an ongoing exhibit, and some people pay attention.

"Early on everyone thought they were paintings, and I could never figure that out at first. But the lighting was good and the compositions were really provocative. People had to look a second time to see what was in there. They had a lot of information about the subjects themselves; they might have a wife or a family in the background.

"It's about them, not just what they look like, but a story about the subject.

"That's the goal of all my work."

Wendell Rider, principal horn player for the symphony when the first photos were taken, remembers his session well.

"Paul had a clear vision of what he wanted to do, which was having us pose in some way representative of our life. Not in a corny or kitschy way. He allowed us to bring in props or he went to our homes," Rider says.

For his portrait, Rider says, "I dressed in my tai chi clothes, and I was seated at a desk with my horn, the I Ching in front of me and my little bust of Mozart."

Rider, a professional photographer himself, says, "It's a tough job photographing people. I don't know that anybody is totally comfortable having their photo taken, but Paul does a great job. He's low-key, he's friendly, and he looks you right in the eye.

"I've seen him work, and he knows what he wants. Although he doesn't yell or demand you to do things, he has a way of bringing it out of people. I felt perfectly comfortable.

"I wish I could take portraits like he does. That's not my thing, but I consider him a standard. He has great skills, he's not just a technician."

Dennis Nahat, artistic and executive director of Ballet San Jose, has been photographed by Tumason several times.

"Paul is such a natural guy. You walk into his environment, in his studio, and we just talk. We don't take pictures. He just snaps when he's ready," Nahat says.

"We talk, we sit, we lounge around and we talk about what's going on, and he's taking photos and you don't know he's doing it.

"He doesn't tell you to pose, he doesn't tell you to stand in a certain manner. He captures people in a natural stage, which is a very rare thing. People are usually posing.

"Paul is unobtrusive, he doesn't get in your face and tell you what to do. He just does what he does and then adds his own art, which makes it ever more beautiful."

Tumason says that while many professional photographers specialize in landscapes or travel, "for me it's people. I've always enjoyed taking portraits.

"Maybe it's the challenge of coaxing people to show something they don't think they have. I like the challenge of getting that positive side of them and having them like the image they see."

Tumason says that while photographing someone famous might seem intimidating, "I overcome it. I just like people, and I like to get the best out of them. It's a psychological event to con people into agreeing with me that they can look good.

"I used to think the movers and shakers wouldn't be regular folks, but they are regular folks."

Tumason's own sense of humor is helpful.

"I get people to laugh a lot. It's more like entertainment for them. I'm entertaining them," he says.

He attributes his ease at entertaining to his experience as a professional banjo player.

The places he has played include Bay Area institutions, most of which are gone, such as the Awful, Awful Saloon, the Red Garter in San Francisco, the Moffett Field Officers Club, Straw Hat Pizza in Campbell and the Garden City Hofbrau in downtown San Jose.

Tumason says he still plays occasionally, "not for money, but for fun. I love Dixieland music."

Active in the Downtown San Jose Rotary, Tumason says he played "God Bless America" on the banjo one week at the request of fellow Rotarian Randy Hall.

Now he plays that song or "America the Beautiful" on piano for the group nearly every Wednesday.

In addition to his work with Rotary, Tumason is generous to Silicon Valley charities and schools, often donating gift certificates for 16-by-20-inch interpretative portraits valued at $2,900.

Recently Tumason has been using computers as well as his camera to create his portraits.

"I start with a portrait I take with good lighting, good composition and the right expression, and then I manipulate it in Photoshop a little bit and I put it into a painter program. You can actually paint. You're brushing and adding new paint, adding, subtracting, and losing edges to make it look more like a painting," he says.

As people have long thought that many of Tumason's portraits were actually paintings, he's enjoying being able to now say they are.

"I call it mixed media. I'm putting paint on the canvas. Everyone is hand done. That's the direction I want to go," he says.