Photographer Doug Menuez stepped to the other side of the lens recently to appear in a new campaign for shoe brand Samuel Hubbard. The ad features a portrait of Doug at his home in Red Hook, New York, and copy that speaks to his peripatetic life as an award-winning image-maker…
“For most people, a day at work doesn’t involve a walk around the North Pole. Or a boat ride down the Amazon. Or a trek across the Sahara in scorching 125-degree heat. It also doesn’t involve embedding oneself in the lives of such people as Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs, and Joseph Stalin’s daughter.
So let us all agree that documentary and commercial photographer Doug Menuez isn’t ‘most people.’ When he takes on an assignment, he sets out to tell a story with his camera, and those stories have him traveling a good 100,000 miles every year. On the road (or river, glacier, or sand), there’s nothing more critical than packing the right equipment.
‘The camera is my tool, but my body is every bit as essential,’ says Doug. ‘So I think of my feet as the engines of my work.’
Shooting real life on the street, those engines often work overtime, with Doug being on his feet 12 to 14 hours a day. So choosing the right shoe is as important as choosing the right camera. In Doug’s words, ‘the comfort of the shoe is directly proportional to the quality of the work.’
While comfort is Concern #1 for Doug, he’s all in favor of style too. With a laugh, he tells the story of one of the young people on the set who let out the spontaneous compliment: ‘I’m digging your shoes, boss.’
For most of his 30 years behind a camera, Doug favored cowboy boots. But once he put on his Hubbards, he never looked back. ‘Simply the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever worn,’ he says.”
