Monthly Archive for September, 2008
the slide show for At Home workshop 2008 should be up now (under Movies
..my home page) and loads in about 15 secs on my computer..we had it
down for awhile trying to get out the flicker, but it is such a big
file , i am not sure we can do better..but still trying..
anyway, i do hope you enjoy the show…these students did the impossible to get this work done in just a few days…
most of you know, but not everyone, that this is all ORIGINAL WORK shot last week..could the final show be better?? of course… but this show is being produced right up until a half hour before show time…so, it is RAW, but reflects the sensitivity, timing, aesthetic and dedication of these emerging photographers..
some may not understand the workshop "ritual", so i will give you a little "brief"..
the whole point of this workshop is to allow emerging photographers a chance to totally develop artistically and realistically….i push each student in her/his personal direction based on THEM , not me…..or maybe "stretch" is better than "push"..in any case, i study
the portfolios even before they are accepted into the class….class
limit 12…as soon as possible, i spend an hour with each student
one on one to get "into their head" and figure out what they really
want to "say"….as you will see most are quite conceptual while still bearing witness…
my daily critiques of the previous day’s shooting often leave
blood and tears on the floor…while this is definitely a philosophy
class perhaps more than a photography class, we do have REAL PRODUCTION in
mind…we knew at the beginning of last week we would be following the
shows of Gene Richards and Bruce Gilden and with a live audience of New York photo world…
do you think there is any pressure??
but, i find that by throwing people in water over their heads, they swim like hell….
do the photographers have to be strong.. affirmative.. do they have to be tough??
absolutely… do they have to be more sensitive and open up their
hearts more than they have ever done in their lives?? necessarily…
i put just as much effort into the teaching of these workshops and into the final production as anything i do …period….my class knows i am asking them to work no harder than i am working myself….
nobody actually shoots for all of the 6 shooting days
allowed…theoretically they can, but they stumble..re-think…start
over…mucho time is spent researching, re-working ideas, tapping the
subconscious, and reaching out into new visual territory by just
"letting go" of all that "binds" ..i show my work, sometimes contact sheets, to help the photographers think about approach etc etc..
besides the obvious gratitude to Gene and Bruce who headlined the final show, i had "hands on" guests throughout the week…i want to thank Alex and Rebecca Webb for jamming with us
one morning and showing us their new book on Cuba…many many thanks to Melissa
Harris who gave us a personal tour through the Koudelka show, Invasion Prague 68, currently at
Aperture Gallery, Melissa gathered the students around her on the floor of the gallery and told us of weeks of work to hang this
show….Melissa is the editor of Aperture Magazine and has been the editor of so many books…Song from Magnum advertising department told us about
the realities of shooting for ad agencies and selling stock..many
thanks Song…suffering a serious thug induced brain injury while a photographer for
the Sacramento Bee, and now a NY freelancer, John Trotter came by and
showed us his amazing new book on a treatment center for major head
trauma..he did it while being inside as a patient…silent room…gracias amigo..
my biggest thank you goes to Michael Courvoisier who
really ran this workshop and will run the upcoming one in Mexico…. Oaxaca:Day of the Dead (see story under "student work/workshops")…Mike stays calm in a storm…handles both students and me with equal aplomb…we lost Marie temporarily right before this workshop nor did we have an intern, so
Mike and i had to do everything ourselves…from inner working organizing to making coffee and
getting the morning bagels to mopping the floor…i love to mop…
intense week?? more than intense…. day and night and night and day we were shooting, editing, listening to
music , discussing directions to move and just flat out busting it… and when we weren’t doing that, we were seeing a
presentation from one of the above or showing my works.
party??? not until the last night my friends, not until the last
night..and by that time, all of the suffering over, and the room quiet
and the lights down and a buzz in the crowd from the Gilden/Richards
show comes, yes, my student show….so proud ..and can’t believe we
actually did it again "against all odds" from where we were even the
night before..
show over….credit slides…applause long and sweet….i introduce
each photographer to the crowd telling about their story..more
applause…warm tears this time…this time blood pumping warm and
flushing the faces…hugs, kisses, and ok one more hug….
now, finally, finally..time to PARTY DOWN……(and we did!!)
we have read quite a bit in the "comments" about the "a good time was had by all" at this year’s Visa Pour L’Image (Perpignan)…and surely this was true….at least by most…however, this year’s photo fest, which celebrates conflict photography above all, was in fact, in itself, a scene of violence and death…
Jason P. Howe (above) author of "Columbia:Between the Lines" and veteran war photographer in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, was beaten senseless by five men as he left an evening slide show … he was heading to have a beer with us at the very Cafe Le Poste in this picture…he said "they just kept yelling "money, money, money" ..i would have given them whatever i had…but they did not give me a chance..they just attacked…all they got was my cell phone..it was all i had on me"….Jason also told me that in all of his years being in and out of ridiculously dangerous situations, this was actually the worst thing that had happened to him….
worse, 48 hrs before, and ironically in the very spot where Jason stands for this picture, a local teenage woman took her own life by jumping from the top of the Castillet crashing to the ground in front of the merry festival goers sitting at this most popular "people watching" spot…
war photographer Bruno Stevens who has covered conflicts in Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon etc. said to me "i have seen everything doing my work…dismembered bodies, death all around, yet what i saw right here at Cafe le Poste was far and away the worst thing i have ever witnessed in my whole life..i cannot get over it..i am truly shaken"…..
by all accounts , Perpignan is a quiet, charming, peaceful town in the south of France by the sea…friendly locals who will remember you from year to year….good food and wine…and home of surely the very best photojournalism festival in the world…i would recommend it to anyone who may want to have documentary photography in their life…and i will return and walk without fear in the streets day or night…
but this year was a grim reminder that LIFE HAPPENS everywhere, all the time…ironic and tragic that these events happened at this event, but none of us can be spared from the realities that surround us at all times…we cannot have the PROTECTION from life that we may fantasize…all of us try, all of us fail…
this is not the first irony for me involving life around Cafe le Poste…all of the best war photographers in the world were gathered on this very same spot on September 9,2001…i remember "shooting" a couple of tequilas with the war photographer of all war photographers Jim Nachtwey and all of the VII crew since they had just "launched" their agency…laughter, hugs, merriment….48 hours later Jim watched the second tower of the World Trade Center come down on top of him and i watched it from 15 blocks away…the weather that day was perfect….
life is fragile…fleeting….never to be taken for granted…no matter how sunny the day or how good the wine….does this story sound pessimistic coming from me?? i hope not….i am always optimistic by nature….my optimism comes from knowing about the fragility of life….knowing that i should always enjoy every moment given to me and that every moment is special…i do not live in fear….
what about you?? where does your "reality check" kick in?? do you "fear the worst" or do you "expect the best"???
so many topics get discussed here, that it sometimes makes my head spin…but, it all pretty much centers on "the photographic life" and how we can all best "live it"…yes, the photographs themselves are indeed our final "net worth", yet getting to these photographs , this incomparable journey, is an entity in and of itself…
this is not exactly "news"…but, i never cease to be inspired by this simple simple fact that this journey is unending and leads us down paths we would never go down without our cameras in hand….seeing something, being a part of something "for the very first time", just gets me BUZZING in way that unfortunately i cannot really put into words…
last night was such an experience…the owner of my building in New York is an Hasidic man …Nachman…a man hard to know, hard to "figure out", rarely speaks, and seems mostly to want his rent check on time…i have never signed a legal piece of paper in my three years in the now almost famous "kibbutz" building and my "business" with Nachman is all eye contact and a hand shake…it works….i pay my rent on time and that is that….i have asked Nachman from time to time if i could photograph is family…he always says no…three years worth of NO..
just one day before i went down to the beach to be with my family, Nachman stopped by to get his rent check….he sat down….for a long 20 minutes or so….even smiled…he invited Mike and Marie and me to his daughter’s wedding….nobody else in the building was invited and we were the only non-Jewish guests to be…this wedding was last night and i had absolutely zero time to go, but i went anyway…with ten rolls of 220 Tri-X (not enough)…
i will get to the point….i think most of you know that i have been blessed with being able to make photographs almost every day since i was 12 or so… some might think by now that i would have "seen it all"…maybe even bored with having seen it all…surely i have "been around the block" a few times…however, even i continue to be amazed at being amazed…
what i witnessed last night, or rather what i was a "part of" last night at the wedding , was definitely a "for the very first time" immersion ….
a brand new never saw this before didn’t know this happened before what is going to happen next i am not prepared and i am missing everything kind of experience…do you know this feeling??
if only i had any kind of insight or knowledge or "guide" or anything, but i had to take it "straight up"…no clues…no "map"…Nachman smiled watching me "work"…and all i could think of was that i had better get something "good enough" to make Nachman happy…
i was not thinking about you or my Magnum mates or anybody to "satisfy" except Nachman….somehow i was working for HIM…..yet, he did not ask me to take one single picture of anything in particular and i offered to do so ….he has seen my "work in progress" on my walls, has never commented on any of it, and yet he seemed to know exactly what i was doing and what i would do and he let me roll roll roll…
when Marie and i sat down briefly last night to "review the evening" we commented to each other…."now THAT is what photography is all about…." to be so so INSIDE and to bear witness to something that you would NEVER have seen otherwise…even the other Hasidics did not see or experience what i did….i moved freely from the "men’s side" to the "women’s side", so NOBODY actually experienced the wedding in quite the way that did i…
ENERGY comes from these moments….our "raison d’ete"…all of the other "stuff" that we all have to put up with in our often frustrating craft , totally disappears when we slide into the warm arms of real discovery and enlightenment….
don’t tell anybody, but i only left the party (yes, Hasidics party!!) when i RAN OUT OF FILM!!…but, i think the moment was over anyway…at least, that is what i keep telling myself….i do not even want to know what happened later…regrets?? oddly , no….
oh yes, did i get any good pictures?? quien sabe…i made all of my usual mistakes…i only hope i have something that Nachman will like…
i would just like to see him smile one more time…
this is just a quick hello and goodbye…i just have no free time
to be here with another workshop just started etc….this could be the
last workshop i do here in my New York space for any number of
reasons…in any case, and you know me by now, i will put everything i
have into this one..as i do in everything i do connected with my
work…other matters are often a disaster, but whatever i do regarding
photography, i am all in…whether it is my own work or my mentoring of
others…two different "bodies of work" but both equally important and
both with an equal piece of the "whole"
so, allow me please this brief break with our forum so that i may
focus on your colleagues who are here in my home…by the way, everyone
in my home right now is a reader of this forum…most silent non
writers, but they know all of you who write and can recite me various
incidents, paragraphs, and all kinds of things from right here…
point is, we are all having an impact on each other..yes, yes , the
power of the net etc etc etc…well, by fate, or whatever, our online
community has turned into reality so many times, from my first meeting
with Rafal in Seoul to hanging with Patricia in Detroit…and a whole
bunch of stuff going on in between at Look3 and Perpignan and just out there on the highway..you know who you are…you remember
the good times and the truly sweet reality of what it feels like to
know someone before you meet them and then take off on another whole
new side of the friendship..and, you must admit, it has turned into
real friendships…i am sure we all agree that our beleaguered world
can use every drop of good spirit we can squeeze into it..but all any
of us can do is just make your immediate environment as good a place as
you can make it…
my life set of rules for myself: set up good vibes within a 20 foot imaginary
space created around me….give everyone in that space as much room as they want….make whoever is
right next to me laugh..
this weekend upcoming will be another one of our "forum family reunions"….i hope there will be many more….in that spirit it might just be the right time for me to show just a piece of my Off for a Family Drive work at the finale fiesta this friday night..seems like maybe we should look at some of these American families i met cross country just because of our times, not because i my pictures….i will think on it….Alessandra Sanguinetti and Paul Fusco will precede the student show, but i just might stick "family drive" in there somewhere….what do you think??
after all, it will be a family night…