i hate to admit it sometimes, but i must be "results" oriented….i see myself as outrageously "freewheeling"….independent and free at all costs…reckless sometimes…loving loving the journey…..BUT, in seeming contradiction, i am also a "results" person…theorizing that no philosophic discussion at the end of the bar is worth much without "end results"….
so it was with my students last week….i let them know early on that we could hang, we could chat, we could bond, and perhaps become friends, but that as a mentor i expected them to actually produce an essay of their own choosing in just a few days…change their portfolio??? yes, of course, but perhaps send them on a course to change their life….i try to get into their psyche one by one, pushing each in a personal direction relating to where they want to go "next"…
at some point, early in the week when frustrations run high, the students realize the class is more about philosophy than "photography"… however, the final student slide show and print exhibit will be presented to a group of their peers in a "new york event" (about 100 invited guests) …since this particular class is geared to young emerging professionals, this is exactly what they bargained for…this is what they know will "happen"… result..
not incidentally, during the week, i got a lot of help from my friends Gail Fisher , Ilustrations Editor,National Geographic; Sara Rosen, Director at Powerhouse Publishing; Chris Anderson, Magnum; Mark Lubell,Director and Danielle Jackson, Cultural Dept, Magnum; Lorena Ros, Panos; and Rob Clark, National Geographic photographer….all of them generously gave their time for the students…thank you friends…
with friday night comes final presentation of a week of hard hard work…to set the mood and establish a high level of cred for the evening, i bring in a "warm up band"….last year it was Nachtwey, Anderson, Kashi and Appleton….
this time the lead-in presenters were, Alessandra Sanguinetti showing her masterwork "On the Sixth Day" and Paul Fusco showing his heart wrenching "Chernobyl"…and as a surprise "jam", walked in Eugene Richards kicking off the whole evening with a moving new film "War is Close"…
yes, yes, of course there was a party!! 5am i think….but we lock the doors at 9pm to allow for a respectful showing of work by both iconic guest presenters and the student show following….the no run out of beer what did i do with my purse party is later..
now normally i would put this post over in the "student work/workshops" section, but i will reserve that space to show you some of the student work (by tomorrow i think)…i will also do short stories on Sanguinetti and Fusco under "friends/family"….i put this short "results" description of our loft workshop here now just to explain where i was last week!!
By now, all of you know me so so well, that you totally anticipate the question….right?? ok, yes, the question is: are concrete "results" important for you or is the journey fulfilling in itself???
dah :))
(no rhyming couplets here, but i’ll keep it less than 15 words):
for me: the journey IS the result. Keeping that in mind, my hope is the end of something (a story, an essay, a project, a body of work for an exhibition, a lifetime of work (and Im just starting) will itself be the result….
the result: thoughtful, interesting, hard-worked photography/stories…that, for me has to be enough,
like a relationship with someone: the journey of the relationship is the hoped-for result: the deepening….
it is disingenuous for me to say its only about the “journey” but in the end, i find that the “result” (what ive made, what ive learned what ive fucked up, what i’ve liked and what i’ve been disappointed by) is the ending of something…
the real result: i hope which each thing and at the end when i decide to let the camera sit for the last time that I feel this: it was worth the struggle and that I am proud, not of the work, but to have been engaged and that it was a part of my life and that I did my best to value it and this passing life….
fuck, i broke the 15 rule ;)))
hugs,
b
you know, like the Pound Canto that that Sally Mann uses for her final part (pics of her children) from What Remains:
“What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
What thou lov’st well shall not be
reft from thee”
as she wrote, we’re all Matter Lent….
b
Yin and Yang. Chiaroscuro.
Please credit me 11.
Results, results, results! And what is a result? Sometimes for me just the glimmer of better seeing…it doesn’t have to be the cover of NG. Baby steps… Subtle is fine. I’ll take anything…
Thank goodness for the journey because sometimes there is ONLY the journey. Seeds are sewn but they can take a while to grow.
As much as I LOVE and cherish the journey, it’s sure nice to have something to show for it. A souvenir.
Like right now…(I’m not a baseball fan but…) my husband is watching the Padres lose to Colorado. Colorado is going crazy over the results (they won) and all the Padres have to show for their season is the journey…
Better to be a photographer than a baseball player…More to photographic life than just winning and losing.
Gee David,
You start the day with the first of the East Coasters and end it with the last of the West Coasters!
The energizer bunny has nothing on you.
If the journey was the sole fulfillment, would there need to be film/memory in the camera? Or a camera at all?
CATHY…
i said nothing about winning and losing, nor any mention at all of any other so called “achievement”…
you are absolutely right, the journey is everything…i was only talking about doing something (anything) as opposed to theorizing…and the journey is certainly “doing something”…
i am sure you know at least one person who rhapsodizes quite well and lays little on the table….and perhaps another who articulates and yet “produces” too…
i love love your thought using “souvenir” as having something to “show”….yes yes, photographs are souvenirs at their best…touchstones for memory…..
thanks….
david
Nothing like results, David, and i think more in terms of what people do to alleviate sufferings in the world, than artistic production.
Yet, I have to say the journey is the most important, this is what sets the example for having obtained results, and if no result, then having lived in the “now” rather than yesterday or tomorrow, is the surest path/journey to any kind of happiness on earth. one
I think this was the instant lesson I received as soon as I set foot in Asia: There is only now. Don’t plan too much, just make the next second following rightly the one before, if you can do that, your life will be a journey indeed. Not saying I am that good, though. But who knows, when all is said and done?
From everything you tell us since you first wished to have a camera, I think you have done just that. The results only came, and will, because you journey unfolded not according to plans, but according to your heart first and foremost. I feel this is something many of your Magnum colleagues share with you.
I have to say I live for the journey but the results… I need to get results by the end of the day. Not every journey is the same… some are more contemplative and introspective than others, but some part of me expects that change will happen, inside or out. Maybe is a matter of definitions, but that change (whether in tangible form or not) is the result I seek to get, a transformative change that move me a few step further in knowledge. In the end it’s all memories, and shadows on the walls of the cave.
Giancarlo
I have always been a ‘journey’ person..
I noticed that I now have learned that the succes ratio after a good journey is higher..
I also have learned to enjoy the ups and downs of a creative process..
With experience the journeys become more interesting and I am more confident of a good result.
David, have you ever gotten good results without a journey, or had a good journey and no results?
Joost
Obviously getting good pictures isn’t the most important thing in my life but it is the third most important thing in my life. I feel like I’ve been to the cross roads and done my deal this year and I have to say I’m actually happy with my work for the first time ever (not that it couldn’t be much better) For me trying to get those good results drives a lot of my journey.
Harry
What result?
Ken
I wish to understand every single word in english, so your question will be easier for me… unfortunatelly it’s not my firsth language…
as far as i understand your question (after comments i understand it more :-)) the pictures are for me always the reason to do a journey (even it’s across the street, still it’s a journey)… and photographs are more “REASON” than “RESULT” probably… but if i will not go there to take pictures i will not see many things… looking as photographer is different than looking as average person… so the photography change a journey… makes it more “rich”
i enjoy the journey as much as i can, and than i enjoy the result – the result and reason became memorys.. i can always go back to this journey having pictures in my hand…
my favourite writer (Kapuscinski) was used to say that the journey begins before we go out from home, country ect (we make plans, we prepare ourselfs, we dream about journey) and it’s never finished, because even we are back it’s still in our mind, we came back to that places when we read a books, when we see pictures…
what i want to say is… that for me results are same important as journay.. because for me “results” of journey are still part of journey :-)
Aga,
That is very beautiful and very deep. Thank you!
Sidney
For me the journey is important. I learn new things and do new things and meet new people.
Only my results can show that journey to the outside world. The people who were’nt there can’t see what happened except through my results. So thats important too.
The journey is mine, the results are for those who care to look.
the process of talking with new people, be in new places, look at life around me through my camera and save some moments is an endless journey which attract my soul completely.
pictures have the feeling of people and places are more important for me or just being there?? you see I am in a less level of good pictures or showing time. sometimes just be in the follow of the life and taking pictures could give all my attention.
I know my english is not enough good but I will right more here
Noushin
David,
For me it depends on whether you look at each journey as part of one bigger journey.
If yes then the journey continues and the (concrete) results serve both to map the journeys course and modify its route.
The journey can provide us with everything but the results can show us what we missed.
Andrew
for me, results are the remains of the journey. while the journey is always amazing, difficult, exciting, hard, unexpected… i need some results; good or bad, but something to make me remember the journey and to give me some clues for the next journey.
hi everyone,
i think that both are equally import, just in different ways. the experiences we have or journeys we, as individuals take, are ours alone. no-one can experience them in the same way. all of those nuances of character, that makes each of us unique act as a filter that the world is perceived through. this invariably shapes our work. whether the journey is a fulfilling one, is again, down to the individual. sometime the ideal day at the beach with blue sky and rolling surf, where life seems so good, can lead to complacency and bad work. then there are those days of high stress where all seems lost and life is hell, yet the work at the end is something special. those end results, when they are something special, are what allows us to share that experience with others. it allows others to share in our thoughts and dreams, our hopes and our fears. this is, ultimately, what makes us all human.
thanks
Jason.
Thinking about a project then getting to work on it is the real rush. And there is a certain satisfaction that comes with a completed project, but that is always quickly followed by the desire for more. Kind of a dopamine high, then crash. Must have more!
david…an artist like alberto giacometti said that there are no results possible with he creation process….just failures….so the journey for him was all that counted, because he knew that no results was possible….he worked just to see if there was a possibility to express himself, not to actually express himself…the important word here is “possibility”…
arie
The journey is what goes on in my head and is all I’m left with to take with me, much more than the photos. They go out into the world and other people have ideas about them and you just have to accept they have a life of their own. But to communicate and get a response is the second half of journey, so you can’t separate the two.
i think we should always do “next step” for selfs. if “journey” is easy or usual for us we should focus on “result” on doing something special, if “result” is something what we can do easy we should focus on “journey”. how to say it? braking walls. doing against nature, go higher, or deeper in this what we are doing. do what we can’t, learning what we don’t know, serching what we can’t find.
always do best, not for others but selfish.
i don’t know the word… supreme your self?
ok, i have not my dictionary… my mind is usless
conclusion: always do your best on 100%, life, love, work.
even if after our death nobody will build a monument for us.
ok. that all.
peace
Martin
ARIE….
the fact that you even KNOW alberto giacometti proves that he is a results man.
he got up every morning and worked…period…got it on canvas ..did it …and the amazing physicality of his sculpture (my favorite art form) does not happen without hands on “work”
giacometti may have “failed” in his own mind, as we all do….but his journey was the result….surely there are thousands of thinkers and potential sculptors out there that you do not know..maybe they even gave it a small effort and then quit for many reasons…giacometti gave it a pretty decent try !!
cheers, david
In order for me to be whole and balanced, there must be some external result, some doing, because if not my creative being remains on the level of the concept. In many cases I would be content to live in the realm of the mind, and I often think about how my life may not vastly different if my physical body prohibited me from action.
But I find that when it comes to the creative mind, there is a necessity for the concept to birth on the material plane, or the concept becomes like the snake eating it’s own tail. I have chosen to believe that it is important to move beyond the self pleasure of concept, and to make something earthen, manifest, as this is part of the gift of human incarnation in a physical form.
About that snake eating it’s tail, to clarify why the creative act saves me from this..from Plato..
The living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. Of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself.
HELLO ALL…
damn!! i just spent about an hour writing comments to each of you and lost the whole thing when i went to check on another page!!
i do not think i can quite re-create what i said to each of you…this was like opening up the back of a film camera and losing all the pictures or accidentally re-formating a flash card…
the writing journey i just took went up “up in smoke”…no results!! computer stupidity on my part!!!
and worse, now i have to go to bank and deal with stuff i hate….bummer!!!
maybe it was bad karma to write about results and then lose my very own results because now they are not results!!!
while walking to the bank, i will try to calm myself….try to at least re-create some of my thoughts to you when i come back home…or, maybe they are lost forever..
my intent was good..ideas good..i even put in the time…BUT i did not “make it”…maybe the best illustration of all of journey and result needing to be in harmony….
david
Hello. Mr. David
How have you been?
I’m Kyung hee Lee in Busan, Korea
I smiled on a sudden memory of tiptoeing to look at you when we first met, you being twice as taller than I am.
I guess you are taking pictures now somewhere in this world.
I bet there’s no place you haven’t set your foot on.
I began to study english after the Seoul workshop.
I study 3times a week for 2hours each in a continueing ed program offered at a local university.
I really want to beable to share my thoughts with different people from different cultures.
I’ll send you my greetings time to time.
Hope you have a nice time.
Last weekend wass the Korean thanksgiving by the way.
May God bless you.
Bye.
P.S. My daughter helps me to write this letter. ^^
David, maybe it’s there, somewhere. Are you certain you don’t have an auto save/draft feature? maybe ask Michael for help on this? so sorry for your woes, esp. in that you are doing a very dear thing here..
If you have a result, the journey would look better also. And the journey could be no fun, but the result could be ok, and the other way. I would be most happy with a bad journey and a decent result:) At least after a some time.
Gunnar
Cooking is fun but at the end savoring the meal provides an enhanced perception of achievement that justifies the effort.
What ever the purpose, what ever the intent, in photography there is “that image/s” that closes the circle between looking for and achieving. How to get there depends on circumstances, character and approach to life but the end results are the necessary final critique of the value of our journey.
Funny that most times in life we actually don’t know what we are looking for to achieve … we just follow the path searching, sometimes with the heart, sometimes with the brain … and the end results end up justifying the journey.
Miguel
David,
If you’re going back and re-reading the comments you weren’t able to respond to maybe you could look at mine again too…Glad you liked the souvenir part but (probably because the baseball game in the background was distracting and I did not express this clearly) what I said about winning and losing I think was misunderstood… I should have had this sentence earlier in the paragraph rather than at the end…
“Better to be a photographer than a baseball player…More to
photographic life than just winning and losing.”
What I was TRYING to say was that regardless of how great their journey was, the Padres lost and (I’m guessing) for them that somewhat negated the journey because for the athlete results are all about “winning” whereas we as photographers don’t have to measure our lives in wins and losses. Hope that makes more sense…
We all seem very mature about the need to enjoy the journey and not to think the resultd override it all, but what happened to self-doubts, angst, sense of worthlessness, feelings that only very few artists (and others) can do away with, and which can help create from the edge they drive us to.
Has expressing oneself in the post post-modern age changed. Are we all so perfectly zen-like about it all?
I am primarily a results person, a condition forced on me by my refusal to go anywhere. It is very hard to journey while standing still.
Makes me think of Cartier-Bresson. On 1931 he left for a year trip in Africa. When he returned to develop the film it was mostly all lost due to moisture. 1932 and 1933 in Europe were a masterpiece after another for him.
Kyung… wonderfull! i am sure soon you will speak english very good because you have big motivation! :-)
Hey Herve,
All those feelings are part of the journey, aren’t they? There’s no real human journey without angst or without elation.
Giancarlo
Kyong Hee ssi,
I am so glad someone from David’s workshop in Seoul has written to this blog! Oso oseyo!
I will try to write in Korean, but I don’t know if it will work on this blog, Let’s see…..
경희씨에게
이블록에는 어서 환영합니다! 데비드선생님이 가르치신 서울워크쇼프에 참가하던 한국사람이 이블록에문장을 써 보내 주신것에는 정말 반갑습니다. 나는 옛날에 한국에 많이 다녀 왔던 미국놈인데, 한국을 언제나 그립게 생각하는데요. 앞으로 사진촬영도, 영어공부도 힘 많이 내 주십시요!
그럼, 이만… (안씨돈)
Sidney
In editing, is’nt it neccessary to ‘forget’ the journey to analyse its results?
The viewer was’nt there so misses out on the memories the photo evokes. They only get the imagery contained in the frame.
Neil
I’m fully engaged in my own new journey right now, simultaneously tired, excited, exhausted, curious and inspired every day, so I’ll be brief and rely on a quote from someone much more insightful than I: John Lennon: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
When I shot last year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, the journey…. nevermind.
it’s the journey and i think most here will agree. results…well very few have results like making a living off photo, i think. it’s like all those golfers out there on the weekend, very few are results oriented like making a living doing it ..it’s about thier persoanl best and expressing themselves in ways that make them happy.
photo is like that for me. i have a day job in public health but my passion is photo. i could do other stuff when i’m not working in in the day like getting more work doing my RN thing instead of photo and make more $ but not like it nearly as much. will i ever be the tiger woods of photo, like you and others probably NOT… actaully definetly NOT. but it’s about curiosity and discovery and seeking and… and that’s really good.
i did some freelance for our local paper and was getting stuff published and making a small, really small fee and then was furloughed on that. that hurt, that was like the best job i ever had because it never felt like one and then i thought why am i doing this anyway. i love to make a living at this but there are other levels of satisfaction. just because that happened i don’t have to stop…actually i cant.
so it was really great finding this forum, because it does give a goal on to climb on this life hike…let’s see if i can make it to this hut..
winning, loosing, it’s about trying to do my persoal best, tell my life story…kids, family grandkids, etc and with that, well, “I can get some satisfaction!”
pour your heart into the journey, for the results will open the hearts of many.
(aren’t we still on the 15 rule?) :)
Lance… it’s short and 100% true
I hope so. My heart is all poured out. I need a refill.
nevermind that heart business, I’m still busy refilling my sleep from last week. now I see why Dave always has a coffee cup in hand (until it gets replaced by a beer that is).
dave, maybe try writing your posts/comment replies out in a text editor before putting them on here. then just copy-paste them over. no more lost ‘results’ and it’d be easier for you to review them before posting.
Yeah, yeah, the journey . . .
But we all know that the journey is considerably improved if the results are spectacular,
None of us would rate our photographic travels, experiences, relationships, adventures, love affairs, wanderings, musings, etc. very highly if, when all was said and done, the pictures weren’t very good.
Hi David & all of u, sorry to hijack for a little the topic, but to just concretize the final project for the grant to be ftp I need to know if you just need only the pictures or if it’s needed a word.file explaining the project and bio. thanks a lot x your answer
None of us would rate our photographic travels, experiences, etc….. if the pictures weren’t very good.
—————————–
Why not? Preston. They often are not very good, after all. I think definitely the pleasure is doubled (as Cathy mentionned about the memory aspect of photography) when reliving the trip thru the pictures, as you have 2 passions put together, travel, love, etc… and photography.
It’s an interesting point. I must say that the pix I prefer from my trip have less and less to do with a special and personal emotion or moment I want for keeps. The influence of looking at so much photography from the masters of that art. It really sets you out to look beyond the personal.
Quíbole compadre David!
To me, a journey won’t feel complete unless I get the results. I usually take good pictures accidentally, or without feeling they’re going to be as good as they result in paper. But this only happens whenever I feel connected to a place. The hardest thing to do is to actually be a part of what your photographing, the rest comes by itself. So whenever I begin an endeavour, my first aim is to enjoy being there, regardless of the camera. So then, I guess I’d have to change my answer: results won’t be satisfying, unless I enjoyed the journey on the first place. And if I DO enjoy the journey, everything else will come naturally, as if by magic.
PS David, if you’re not too busy, I’d be flattered if you could take a peek to my pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lombardini