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By Susan Elise Campbell
Some people say that if you follow your passion, everything else in your business will fall into place. Thomas Stock, a Saratoga-based commercial photographer for 30 years, believes the adage works better when you flip it upside down. “First, get really good at something, then you’ll get passionate about it,“ he said.
And that’s what he did a few years after graduation from Syracuse University where he studied graphic arts and majored in photography.
“Syracuse had an art photo studies program but they also had a ski team,“ Stock said about another of his passions. He had skied in Germany for the U.S. Army and later received a veterans administration scholarship to help cover the cost of tuition and supplies at art school.
After graduation, he worked in Wilmington, Del., as a staff photographer and lab manager for several years before starting his own business in Saratoga as the sole proprietor of Stock Studios Photography.
Stock was raised in Gloversville and had cousins in Saratoga Springs who he visited in the summers for many years.
“It always felt like a second home to me. My first apartment, on Lake Avenue, backed up to the lot where my cousins’ house was.The trees we used to climb were still there,” he said.
In the early years of his photography business, he built a lab to process film and do his own printing. The studio relocated in 2002 to a location which did not support the lab, so he took that opportunity to go completely digital. He relocated again in 2010 to the studio he now occupies at 216 West Ave. in Saratoga Springs.
The value of his services to his clients, Stock said, is how well he can listen to their needs and understand the assignment. Talking through what the product does, its uses, or why it’s different, will help him create a better photo to represent that product.
“When your name is on the photo, you want to get it right,” he said. “Anyone can snap a picture with a smart phone. But will it say those thousand words you wanted it to say? I spend a lot of time researching and scouting a location ahead of time to choose the best time of day to shoot. That can be the difference between a good picture or a great photo,” he said.
He fashions himself a problem solver, figuring out the best ways to produce an image for his clients that gets to the essence of the product, people, or location that he is photographing.
“In this business, you’re only as good as your last job. If you don’t meet the client’s needs, someone else will,” he said.
Stock said wherever he goes, he has fun and gives everyone his best. Some clients have been with him for over 25 years, one is the Saratoga Business Journal. Other clients include local banks, hospitals, SPAC, Stewarts, GlobalFoundries, Beechnut, GE, Saint Gobain, as well as New York state, several regional colleges and national product lines.
From his aerial drone photos, studio portraits of local business professionals, promos for regional manufacturing facilities and national brands, Stock has photographed them all in his 30 years.
A few memorable moments in his career have included Scuba diving to get underwater photographs for a client in the Florida Keys. He has also climbed a 100-foot tower to shoot high divers for the Great Escape’s marketing department.
Additionally Stock remembers his experience photographing three childbirths to be used in a text book for a publishing client.
Stock recalls a number of celebrities who have been before his lens including: Paul Newman, Alec Baldwin, Pat Riley, Buzz Aldrin, Marcus Luttrell, David Hyde Pierce, Jewel, Bo Derek, Steven Wright, Digger Phelps, YoYo Ma, Frank Abagnale, The Temptations and The Four Seasons.
He loves to go to work every day and figures he still has many good years left in him. “I’m not quite ready for the pasture just yet,” he said.
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