Business Profile: Ballpark Prints, White Plains
Growing up two blocks from Yankee Stadium was the catalyst that jumpstarted a career in photography for Paul Plaine, despite the fact that his working life began in a New York bank.
While his career in banking was short-lived, his experience in the world of custom printing, graphic arts, photography and advertising formed the basis of his life. But after 37 years, Plaine felt it was time to move on, and 11 years ago, he established the company, Ballpark Prints, located in the ArtsWestchester building at 31 Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains.
The company produces fine art giclee prints, also known as archival inkjet prints, which are sold in art galleries and auction houses. Plaine’s real passion, however, involves taking pictures of ballparks all across the country as well as restoring old photographs of baseball players, such as those taken by legendary photographer Ozzie Sweet, famous for his candid shots of sports stars and various other celebrities.
“As a kid growing up, he was an inspiration to me,” said Plaine, referring to Sweet’s ability to make his subjects look real.
When Plaine first purchased Sweet’s collection of photographs at a New York auction, they were in dismal shape. Using the modern techniques that PhotoShop and other digital image editing programs provide, Plaine has been able to recreate the traditional look that Sweet first developed. Plaine calls that particular project a “work in progress,” but it’s one that’s especially important to him and is his way of recreating a period in American sports that has long passed
You could say the idea for Ballpark Prints has been rolling around Plaine’s head for a very long time. The original idea came to him in September 1973 after attending the last game of that year’s baseball season. “Shortly after getting the slides back that I shot that day and viewing them, I started thinking about a project along the lines of Ballpark Prints,” recalled Plaine.
What Plaine has achieved over the past six years is the realization of a dream that got “sidetracked” for a while, but one that now combines his love of photography with a deep knowledge of printing from his years in the advertising world.
While Plaine, a Greenburgh resident, loves the convenience of digital technology, he admires the way photographers from the 1940s and ’50s captured images using various types of color film.
In a testament to the talents of those photographers and their ability to capture the soul of a subject, Plaine has made a concerted effort to turn his modern-day prints into something special. “I don’t want every shot I take to be a PhotoShopped shot; there has to be a naturalness and artistic quality to it,” he says.
In addition to retouching old classics, Plaine spends much of his time in ballparks all across America. In fact, he just returned from a 40-day, 8,700-mile trip and is in the process of going through the hundreds, if not thousands, of shots he took.
Getting the right image is an involved process, to be sure. Traveling with his wife, Nell, an avid baseball fan, Plaine often stakes out a setting in advance, walking around stadiums and chatting with vendors and concession stand workers to get a feel for the environment. That process, he said, helps him “see it the way I want to get it.”
To capture the “drama” of a baseball park and to provide the kind of details that might be missed by the casual observer, Plaine will often revisit the same location over and over again. Perhaps it’s his love of the game or his commitment to detail, but Plaine feels it’s important to bring out something special in his photographs, especially for the baseball fan who purchases them.
The all-encompassing shot of the upper deck grandstands at Yankee Stadium or the last pitch of 2008, both shots that Plaine took before the former stadium closed, are priceless mementos to a baseball devotee and are just a few examples of Plaine’s best work.
On his website, www.ballparkprints.com, visitors will find a slew of classic images that Plaine has retouched, including shots of center fielder Mickey Mantel; Ted Williams, the former left fielder for the Boston Red Sox; Leo Durocher, an infielder and manager in the National League, and others. There are also shots from National and American League baseball games, a category called “Extra Innings” that show different perspectives or views of the games, as well as photos of spring training sessions in various locations across the country.
All of Plaine’s prints are custom reproduced and printed on Hahnemuhle cotton rag art paper, with every image created from custom, high-resolution scans of original negatives, transparencies and original photographic prints.
There’s no doubt that Plaine loves the freedom of being able to travel and to combine it with his love of photography and baseball. Having visited 46 states so far, he has found much camaraderie and friendship in America’s ballparks.
“I wear my Yankees hat when I visit them, and it’s never been a detriment,” he chuckled.
While Plaine admits that digital imagery can be “soul-less,” it’s a medium he’s learned to embrace and indeed thrive in. There’s also the joy of creating and working with photographs that he believes can bring a sense of joy to their owners. “All I can hope for is that when somebody sees an image from 1975 it will trigger a memory for them, a moment that reminds them of a past, perhaps joyful time in their lives.”
Colette Connolly is a copywriter and p.r. expert. She owns Connolly Communications, which is based in Bronxville, New York. Colette specializes in providing content-rich, SEO-optimized press releases, articles, newsletters, brochures, and customer success stories.
