Through a lens, Clark Dunbar ’74 sees the world for what it is. He can tell a person’s story by focusing on their eyes or the majesty and grandeur of Earth with closeups of landscapes. For the past 50 years, the Montana State University alumnus has made it his life’s work to showcase his subjects in their true form.
Dunbar grew up in California but moved around the country for his father’s job. When he was in high school in Alabama, his band played in a PBS telethon event and he became intrigued by the behind-the-scenes production of the program.
“I’d always been interested in visuals, and I had played around with cameras and stills, but never really seriously,” Dunbar said. “But as I was watching the production, I got fascinated by the television camera, how they were moving the camera lens, the shot selections they were making.”
Dunbar’s band was playing around 2 a.m. During the telethon, one of the crew members needed to take a break and asked Dunbar if he wanted to run the camera in his absence. He spent most of the night behind the camera, where the technical producer complimented him on his eye. By the end of the telethon, Dunbar was hooked and decided right then to pursue a film and television degree in college.
Dunbar initially went to Pacific University, a small school in Oregon. Within 18 months, he completed all the courses offered in the film and television program and was stuck. His professors recommended a switch to a larger school with more offerings. After some research, he found Montana State’s program to be competitive with schools in major metropolitan areas.
“I started looking up the staff, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a hell of a staff,’” Dunbar said. “I went to go sign up for all my classes and I couldn’t get into them, because a lot of the ones I wanted to take I had to take requirements that I would have taken freshman year at Montana State.”
Instead of taking courses he had already completed, Dunbar went straight to Rudi Dietrich, a department professor and legendary photographer, and persuaded him to allow Dunbar to enroll in upper-level courses.
While at MSU, Dunbar cited three professors who impacted him: Dietrich, Paul Jesswein and Fred Gerber.
Jesswein and Dietrich taught him two different sides of the photography business. Jesswein taught Dunbar how to hustle and grow in the field, while Dietrich explored the philosophy and art of the medium. Gerber was the department head and a scriptwriter. He taught Dunbar the importance of writing and communicating with clients.
“What I learned from him was how to listen,” Dunbar said. “He spent a lot of time saying, ‘You write with what people are actually saying, don’t write what you think you want to write. You write in real language.’ I learned how to listen to people. If you are dealing with a client, you have to know what they want and how to execute it.”
Over the past five decades, Dunbar has reinvented his photography career several times. From owning his own stock-footage company to taking photos of cadavers for the Department of Veterans Affairs and working in-house for Lockheed Martin, he has a client list that includes Apple, Wells Fargo, Volvo, Mattel and more.