Archive for the 'dialogue' Category

no joke, i am now in a bit of trouble…

hurricane Earl , now updated to cat 4 is gathering strength …and headed for my town…this is a very different report than i had earlier today when we all thought Earl was going to pass 300 miles out to sea ….now, it appears we have been given advance warning of the worst possible news for those of us who live in the Outer Banks of North Carolina… all but permanent residents are being evacuated and almost everyone is preparing to leave…our island can take any beating , it is  supposed to move around and come and go,  but the structures on it are extremely vulnerable to wind and water at all times…everybody knows, nobody should live here…

yet i do, and i always knew the risks…grew up in this neighborhood, fell in love with photography in this neighborhood…

i now have about 24 hours to make some very major moves…i must do all i can to save my house and honestly there is not too much i can do except close the wooden hurricane shutters…what i really must do is round up all things of archival value…my negatives which i have here ready to make use of my darkroom …was just getting ready to print a few editions of my early family work…

my son Bryan and his girlfriend yoga maestra Michelle  are my neighbors…just by amazing luck we are all here now to lend each other a hand ….Bryan travels the world as a film maker but always makes sure he is here this time of year for the world class surf…Bry lives to surf and he has made it an art….film making is in second place in his mind, but his visual talent is clear….Bryan’s main tool,  the surf , was in its most majestic moment this afternoon…..alas, those beautiful waves from this afternoon might just come and try to clean out these overbuilt beaches by tomorrow…i just love those waves….they are the earth and the earth has rights… more than my personal property which i hope will survive, but it won’t be the end of the world if it doesn’t…

however, i am not idle, nor complacent ….if the projected path of the hurricane continues as is predicted , i will have no choice but to put my negatives/prints/books  etc into my pickup truck and drive away to safety…if it were not for the negatives etc i would be tempted to stick it out..and no my friends cannot come and get the negatives for me..already thought of that…they will not let anyone not from here to come here…i think …

hmmmm, story here?? maybe i can get permission from NatGeo to let me publish a picture or two here on Burn from what is going on…i mean wouldn’t that create buzz for their upcoming OBX  NatGeo Magazine story which they are contracting from me?? just thinking off the top of my head…more important things for me to think about now…

when things get dire , i feel my best…little things irritate me and i am annoyed too easily….but big things and major problems tend to make me calm and focused…..my problems are no more important than anyone’s,yet this seems to be a problem for many…every tv network on the planet is set up down on the beach…..anyway let’s not overdue this..all things relative and in the realm of natural fluctuations , this is the easiest to survive because of the advance warnings…..but i do know that you would be interested and mostly how ironic that we have been discussing archives, and digi and film etc etc…

ok, must move on this …i will keep you updated as best i can….

oh yes, almost forgot, much better and bigger news…Diego Orlando , Special Projects Editor of Burn, is in Perpignan, France at this very moment and is showing (and maybe selling) first edition copies of BURN 01 at Visa Pour L’Image …we must also talk Jean Francois Leroy, Founder and Director,  into at least a projection for the Burn audience next year..if you are in Perpignan now , just know i miss hanging out with  you and yes  please buy a book from Diego…this is a seriously cool book featuring 25 essays from photographers/artists published here on Burn , both iconic and from the audience here, two think pieces by Akaky and Bob Black, and  printed and bound by the best in Italy supervised by Diego and designed by Anton Kusters and researched by Anna Maria  Jester and yea i am in the mix too…  and if you are not published  in this edition,  maybe next….please try….best part of this is if my own stuff ends up underwater, at least i will have BURN 01 to show….i think this really might be the first seriously published book/magazine from the works from an online blog audience…

anyway, just to give you something constructive to do , i will do what i often do and ask you a question…

ok, here is a relevant one: if you were in my shoes , would you now concentrate on getting the old work/negs/prints off the island or should i spend my energies on taking new pictures of the catastrophe around me?

-david alan harvey-

Carl De Keyzer is a quiet man…one of the most prolific and intense photographers i know, is usually hard to find in a roomful of Magnum photographers…self effacing….unassuming….yes, classic Belgian….yet every time i see Carl he has a new book and 10 new exhibitions …i mean, who can keep up with this guy?  his books God Inc, Zona, and The Europeans show us a straight up shooter who does not let us miss his wit nor his ironic twists….

“Congo (Belge)”  and “Congo Belge en images”  are his two new books…the first , a color selection of his two year journey through this former Belgian colony and the second, black & white historical photographs from the colonial era…a powerful one, two visual and historical punch…i do not recall ever having seen a duo body of work quite like this one….as if these two books were not enough production , Carl simultaneously is working on a project of great magnitude, the coast of Europe…yes, the whole coast….i get exhausted just thinking about it…but, Carl in his most methodical way has raised his own funding, and is bit by bit literally photographing approximately 400  thousand of miles of European coastline….

rather than write any more about Carl now, i think it best if you chat with Carl yourselves…so, do a bit of homework on Carl, then jump in here and ask any relevant questions…Carl will be available to answer any questions you post here for the next few days.

Related links:

www.carldekeyzer.com

www.momentsbeforetheflood.com

is there anything better than a childhood dream?  9 year old Gracie Johnson dreams of becoming a photographer….she lives now in the Virginia town where i also dreamed of being a photographer at about the same age…Gracie and her family are part of my American family series Off For A Family Drive…Gracies’ father,  U.S.Navy Capt. Andrew Johnson was the Director of Medical Operations on the first wave of Haitian relief after the earthquake serving on the military’s largest hospital ship Comfort…

symbiotic stuff….

so here at Burn we are creating Circus Magazine  for photographers 18 and under…young Gracie will of course be a candidate photographer…. with less than 6  degrees of separation, we are also working in the kindred spirit of her physician father Capt. Johnson and will be using the fee many of you contributed as part of the EPF  grant award for Burn  to send approximately $6,000. to Doctors Without Borders specifically to be used for Haitian relief efforts….

this year the Emerging Photographer Fund grant will be given to one of 25 finalists…more than double the number of finalists as last year…this will be a very tough call for the jury that i will name next week….while i am very proud that the tenor of Burn has made it so that generous donors have made it possible to give out a $15,000. grant for 2010 for the completion of one photographer’s project, i still want to be on the leading edge of a wave that will help as many of the talented unknown as possible…

after allotting first for Haitian relief, then paying our fee to Slideroom for making the whole entry and judging process easy, Burn is left with a small profit from your entry fees…we had approximately 1000 entries…..so what to do with the profit?

Anton and i figured we had three choices: Do we?

(a) take a vacation in the Bahamas

(b) throw a helluva party in my loft in New York

(c) give the money back to the readers of Burn

those who know me, know the answer….and Anton is of like mind…yup (c), we are giving the money back to you….

starting on July 1, 2010 Burn Magazine will start paying for every essay and single published online in our magazine….

we will have to start with a token payment of $500. per essay for one time use rights on work that comes to us through submissions…more for a first time exclusive….we are confident this number will rise significantly as we seek outside support….now we are doing this with your money….a big circle….the right thing to do in this nebulous time in the world of publishing…

Burn will not last forever…Burn will always be small….we only care about one thing at Burn and it matches the way i feel about everything i do…i just want Burn to set high standards and live by example…and in this case hopefully stimulate the “big guys” to follow suit…the large media companies , even with advertising for support , are thinking of every way possible to keep from paying photographers for online content, and we at Burn are thinking of every way possible  to make sure the young photojournalists and artists of our time are compensated for their work….so, this is our brick in the wall…and oh yes, i am still working on assignments for Burn readers and icons as well…be patient, this is part of it…this is how it will happen….

photography has never been a professional choice either craft or art where people were expecting to become wealthy…photographers work from their deepest passions, either artistic or journalistic…yet, compensation so that they may continue their passion and yet feed their families seems to me to be fair enough….

i want to take this time to thank Andrew and Melissa Johnson and their beautiful children Critt, Cole, and sweet Gracie for allowing me into their lives….yes, i have made a few pictures with medium format film for my personal project, but what will be even better is if Burn gives Gracie a good digital camera so that she will have the opportunity to photograph her family from the real inside….soon to be published on Circus….

done…..

…dah….

it is getting cold here in Rio…fall has arrived…everyone complaining of the rain…temperature has dropped to a chilling 68F….i am wearing a long sleeved shirt, pants and shoes…beach days are over (pictured above from non-NG shooting)..New Yorkers may scoff, but i am freezing….besides,  my time is up on this National Geographic shoot…..i am coming home next week…

i have written before that i do  some of my best work in the first few days of an assignment and some of the best in the last few days…the first ones from raw energy and beginners luck and the last ones from “damn, i had better get something”…i have pretty much been on the case here in Rio since New Year’s Eve, with a short but busy one week break in january…mentally on it the whole time…and, of course, i shall return…perhaps on assignment , perhaps not…for i am not finished..

i was actually secretly hoping i would not fall in love with Rio….i assumed a romantic relationship, but figured it would be over when it was over….i have several other projects to complete and have no time to get involved with any long term body of work, but alas she has me…real love is of course often painful…despite the beach scenes you may imagine as pictured, there is another whole world here…full of intrigue, passion, hate, sex, death, light, darkness, despair, cruelty and kindness…the gamut of human nature all played out on a stage like no other …

i have been sick , scared, injured, and upset…long days turned into long nights often with no result…many moving parts and often with the gears grinding….it is very hard for me to look at the work…but, i must soon….i am not one of those photographers who come home at night and rush to the computer  to see what i have done…quite the contrary…i hate to look….deep deep down inside i am assuming some good work….but any long term results seem now far far away….on top of it all, i must justify all of this to the editors who commissioned me to be here….i need an Advil…

yet now my home front porch beckons….but, will my cat remember me?  has my electricity been shut off ?  battery run down on my truck?  yes, my “real life” has been on hold…even patient family and friends are fed up with me…no responses to emails….missed events…forgotten birthdays…major responsibilities undone…of course no woman can put up with me…i will spend the next week apologizing to everyone about everything…and so it goes…

is this any way to live? or, is this the only way to live? i know my answer…what is yours?

many of you have seen this book before, but i am sure many of you have not….my first work in print….i publish it again here now only because my friend Masaaki Okada, who was the designer/editor, died on December 21….Masaaki was a tremendous influence on me as a person and as a photographer….my first collaborator…

i met Masaaki my senior year of high school….he barely spoke any English, had few friends, and had come from Japan to help out his uncle who ran a gift shop in Virginia Beach, Va…Masaaki and i ended up as college roommates and close friends…Masaaki was the most talented person i knew at the time …a brilliant man with a sketch pad and painter as well…from Masaaki i learned about Eastern art and about the concept of not making anyone lose face…the single most valuable concept i know….later, i went with Masaaki to Hamamatsu, Japan and met his whole family when i did a story on the Japanese kite fighters….

just after undergrad school, when Masaaki and i did Tell It Like It Is , we were idealists….the $2. contribution was to go to the local church and intended to buy food for the residents of the neighborhood where i did this story… i lived with this family for the better part of a summer….our goal was to save this Norfolk, Va. neighborhood and eliminate poverty  with this book…Masaaki and i were both 22…

Bruce Davidson is leaning on me to re-print this book (it pre-dates publication of East 100th Street by 3 yrs)…for only 4 copies of this book exist…..Masaaki and i threw away dozens of copies of  Tell It Like It Is,  not thinking they were of any real importance at the time…we sold few….after all , we were not important…living in a small Virginia town and not sensing any “place” in the photography world…Masaaki did not think it even appropriate to have my name, or his, on the cover….small type on the back jacket was all he would allow…i agreed…this was not about us, but about the people in the pictures….eastern humility…

a few weeks ago, i stopped by to see Masaaki in Richmond , Va. where he lived, a retired photographer from the Richmond Times-Dispatch…….in recent years i saw him rarely, but we picked up right where we left off….he thanked me for coming and gave me another one of his paintings from the outer banks where i now live…Masaaki was an avid surf fishermen and often painted the land that surrounds me…we talked of him coming down …i knew he would love the house, the space…but, that is not to be….

Masaaki’s paintings will grace my home always…more importantly his influence on me is forever….i did tell him this many times….he always shook his head in disbelief…..i wish i had told him even more…

dreams, fantasies, and idealizations….all ethereal in nature….and hardly anything one can grasp or hold onto…yet, this is what i live for and form the basic building blocks for anything i have ever done….the starting point….and what always keep me going…my crazy ideas are usually just that…gone with the wind…however, sometimes and only sometimes , does something come out of it….

Burn Magazine is one year old today….i have no idea if Burn will ever be two!  but, i take things one day at a time, one idea at a time, and with a combo of fate and hard work will do all i can to keep this audience driven magazine alive and well…

2009 has been a year of surprises (like the Lucie Award) and born from a “crazy idea” that popped into my head for no apparent reason right from the table where i now write here in Durango, Colorado…yes, Road Trips conceived right here, and Burn first published right here on this date last year….from the very room where my father Alan died peacefully on a snowy Christmas morning with family gathered,  and in the house where my mother Maryanna now lives…a room with memories and conversations that speak of the future…of optimism and fulfillment and warmth…in our family, possibility is always the order of the day…

the dummy cover above is such a possibility….well, a bit more than a possibility, and much more of a reality….hard copy….to be published as an on-demand collectors’ print magazine within the next few weeks….Anton Kusters and i are both working  to make this happen….again, the above cover is dummy copy…the final edition could be a bit  different than what appears above, but this gives you an idea…..yes sure, there will be hurdles as usual…but, while the major print publications are scaling down hard copy production and moving to the net, we have already our presence on the net and will move now towards some hard copy production in both magazine and book formats….

any of you who have followed me from Road Trips days knows that i always start with a dream/idea and do my best to make it come true…some ideas fall by the wayside, but some move forward to reality….you can go back and read right through everything that was being talked about and all that has happened…

for our Burn birthday today,  i now announce  a $15,000. stipend for the Emerging Photographer Fund grant for 2010 to be awarded to a worthy young photographer….details and deadlines to be announced by early January 2010…Sean Gallagher and Alejandro Chaskielberg have both been recipients in 2008 and 2009…if you track their work and their efforts you will quickly see the grant has been well placed…a jury of peers from our craft will be chosen to pick the EPF recipient 2010 from a selection of 10-20 finalists…

since this time of year is for taking stock and thanking those who have helped, i want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all of you who have made financial contributions to either Burn or to the EPF in 2009…each of you will receive a personal letter from me if you have not already…our new contribution button will now include the option for subscription, but of course all is totally voluntary and we will work just as hard for those of you who enjoy Burn as a free option as for those of you who are in a position to kindly contribute….we appreciate you all just being here…Anton and i alone cannot do any more than we are already doing with Burn and your contributions have at helped us to survive if not thrive…

we have two grant writers now working to see if we can receive significant support to not only maintain Burn but allow for payment to photographers…this has been our biggest hurdle and going for this funding is a full time job in and of itself……for us to do this is not so much a problem of sponsorship or grants which may come our way, but a requirement for a full time general manager…

the main thing is this…neither  Anton nor i  want to drop our life as photographers…we both have major projects going…for Burn to move forward in a significant way with regard to sponsorships and photographer commissions  will require a  full time full on person to manage these funds and the work flow….we both realized that if even a part of what we are asking for actually came in the door, then our lives as photographers would be over…for Burn to be more than what it is would take full on concentration from a management standpoint, not from a creative one…

the editing and curating and designing of Burn both online and in print can be managed by Anton and me  with no interference to our photographic lives, but the one step forward now of managing significant funding is a full time job for someone…i am interviewing for that “someone” now….that someone is a manager, not a photographer…that someone is a biz person, not an artist…

this is of course exactly how we structure the biz side of Magnum…..and that model is a model that works….a model that most likely will include Burn as a part of the upcoming new online presence for Magnum…while Burn obviously features non-Magnum photographers from this audience , Magnum’s overall interest in the development of new talent, education,  and the endorsement of a wide variety of  authored photography, and the rights of photographers  , falls well within the arbiter role that Magnum has played in general for 62 years…my push is for Magnum to be larger than Magnum….our place in history dictates a magnanimous role …

in one year, Burn has made  its place on the net…we think we have earned it and we humbly pledge to keep it that way…we are a boutique shop and we will stay a boutique shop….we have zero desire to become something we are not…we simply know we can be better…..the Lucie Award was significant only in that it was an endorsement for an audience driven online publication in a world of print and, more importantly, a bit of merit for our educational imperative….my other awards are packed in cardboard boxes in the attic…unimportant to me….the only one sitting on my mantle is this one…and it does not have my name on it…it is your award….a Burn award…..so, Happy Birthday to you!!

-david alan harvey

Mike and Mike….yes, there they are…Mike Young on the left and Mike Courvoisier on the right…cold Coronas both and hanging out at my loft..as usual…some of the best late afternoon light that always floods my apartment has been shared by the two Mikes and yours truly…discussing life, love, and yes, books…Michael Loyd Young, the guy on the left, is nervous now…Michael Courvoisier, the guy on the right, is never nervous…Young is nervous  because his first big show, Blues, Booze, & BBQ, opens at the Powerhouse Arena  in New York on Thursday night…and Courvoisier is not nervous because he already printed and hung the show..

Mike Young was a student of mine three years ago..He told me at the time, what so many tell me, that he wanted to pursue a personal project and perhaps do a book…i have heard that before…most let it slide….not Mike Young…a Mississippi good old boy, Mike decided he wanted to document the Blues country which was not far from where he grew up…as a youth he slipped in and out of the Mississippi Delta and now he wanted to get his love for the people and the music down on paper….between two hard covers….he did it….busted it….lived it…Mike made sure this all happened by not only being a fine photographer, but by making sure he had an outlet for his books right off  the top…he convinced the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi to be a generous distributor for his book to be…smart move from a smart businessman ….

Mike Courvoisier came to me from Steve McCurry’s studio where he printed for Steve. He now makes collectors’ prints for me, for several Burn photographers, and he printed the Young show which i hope many of you will see on Thursday evening…Courvoisier is cool cool as a cucumber….focuses on computer tech stuff for me, runs my workshops,  and prints with a fervor…while i am throwing my hands up in the air every time i see the color spinning wheel on the computer, Mike stays calm, tells me to stay calm , and simply troubleshoots the problem….Mike does get a little overprotective of me from time to time, and while i have a generally open door policy on my time and my loft, Mike sees the reality….you gotta be nice to Mike to get to me…..a cold Corona helps…

this post is simply here to honor two very good friends….both men are like brothers….and i value my friendships in life as if they are family….if you do not know these two already, please come and meet them on Thursday evening….NYC photo crowd in attendance…Powerhouse Arena, Dumbo, Brooklyn…and if you are nice to Mike C then you can stop by my place for the after party to meet Mike Y and the two Mikes best halves, Maya and Ofelia, patient women both…and oh yes , blues giant  TModel Ford will be playing at the Arena for the show…might even get him over to the loft also….wanna make friends with him? just bring a bottle of Jack Black…….might just take a little nip myself….

No cameras allowed at the ceremony, but Kerry Payne managed to sneak out a tiny iPhone pic…

Needless to say, we are so very humbled by this award…Photography Magazine of the Year 2009

www.lucieawards.com

-david alan harvey (editor), anton kusters (creative director)