ok, i might have a good idea….but, i will leave it up to you to decide right here and now…
it is based on the premise that all of us on this forum are struggling with how best to showcase your work…yes, we do a lot of talking and there is some brilliant writing here always, but why not really "show our photographic hand" in the most provocative way…
this idea also does not conflict at all with my own photographic work which will flow right along with yours…that has always been the potential danger of this forum, that either i would "lose" myself to you by sacrificing my work to on-line time, or you would get lost in the same way by not shooting because you were spending too much time here…..i think this idea solves both potential problems…it should also ramp up creative vibes for all..
so, here is my idea:
i give out short assignments or projects….on an individual basis …..maybe i choose two or three photographers per week or per month or whatever…at the end of the week or month (we can decide) each photographer presents this work right here for us all to see and critique…
for example, i ask Erica if she has time to shoot 5 portraits of people next week that somehow reflect the election process in the U.S.; i suggest to Glenn that he give us whatever he can on a "ringer" bar life; find out if Katia can follow just one of her "lost" teenagers for a few days to see a parent; have Rafal do something very special with his wife and new son; see if Marcin can photograph his wife with her work; make Panos stay in one place for a week, like Venice Beach, and do self-portraits either literally or figuratively….
these are just examples, perhaps not viable ones, but i think you get the idea…and the photographer would either agree or modify or choose not to do it or whatever…but each assigned photographer would go out for several days, personal time permitting, and do something as per announced to this group in advance..sure, the pressure would really be "on" because we would all be waiting and, more pressure still, we would all know the intent of the photographer in advance…….anybody up for this??
we would all be doing this just as an excercise…no dinero for any of us…an all volunteer army….my fund for emerging photographers is growing, but i want to figure out the best way to distribute these funds among the photographers who are members of this forum…this seems like a great way for you to get to know each other better and for me to see you produce in a relatively short period of time..but quantity of pictures would never be the yardstick…one truly fine photograph is always enough..
in the coming weeks i will be selecting members of my jury of peers to help me select future photographers to be funded here by EPF….this will be a way for all of us to get to know you better and in a realistic way…this is not a contest…there will be no "winner"… ..all of you will see all of the work just as it is presented by the photographer…the only burden will be on the photographer personally….
any photographer who thinks i do not know their work can send me a web link….since i would only assign perhaps two or three photographers at a time, i would have plenty of time to see incoming new links, as would all of you as well…
i can feel it in my bones already that some of you may suggest the old tried and true notion of giving everyone the same assignment…this is always a nice little "game" but does not really tell a curator or an editor what you can really do with a subject that really "fits" you individually… my inclination is not to go for the "group assignment" concept…
when the time comes for me to be able to give funded projects here and also continue an annual Emerging Photographer grant , all of us will have a very good idea of the "pool of resources" from which jurors chose…various details will need to be worked out later…now i just want to get your opinions on the basic concept…
i think this sounds like fun….i would want it to be fun for you…otherwise there is no point to do it at all….i cannot see any downside to it, but maybe you do…i will only go forward with a full fledged mandate from you….
please let me know….good idea??
hey david,
i may have missed it somewhere in the 300+ threads to this blog, but did you say when you will be showing slides at Look3? i have a trip to nyc coming up by way of ashville, NC…so it may work out that i could get to charlottesville for the show. oddly enough i worked on a movie there the entire spring and summer of 2006, so i know the town pretty well….
also have a project in mind that’s been brewing for awhile which i would like to talk to you about, finding time for it in my schedule may be tough though for a little bit.
natan
Hi Natan, how are you,
David, you gave me something to mull over, I just rolled back in to town from Carmel, Weston Country, California. I tell you, that kicked the ass off any dishwashing job I’ve ever done.
(and i done alot)
(as previously mention, will do dishes for the right price)
Wrobert Angell we should combine our skills and open a restaurant. All we need is some investors and a manager to keep everything straight. Oh; perhaps an accountant to manage all the money we will make. With my experience as a waiter and your dishwashing skills i think we have a master plan in the making.
Looks like I am little late with over three hundred comments…
Interesting idea and I think it works.
Happy to say that this morning I am getting ready for a Magnum workshop with Chris Anderson and it seems it will be pretty much the same idea as the one you propose. Show your portfolio…do a shoot based on your work. Really doesn’t get much better than that…
Happy Monday it will be a busy week…
@ Ross Nolly , while you are there go check out the KIWI outpost , just past PIG bridge and one block back on the way to JRH’S house,
a couple of kiwi’s in a sandbagged Mg position in the middle of a chook pen – guaranteed, that pic will help pay for your trip!
NANCY…
you will enjoy your workshop with Chris…say hi…he and i will soon be next door neighbors i think…
yes, show portfolio, get assignment, is pretty much the reality of workshops and the reality of reality….
show us your week of work with Chris when you have it…i would love to feature some student work here as i always do when i have it in hand…
cheers, david
Jay:
wonderful comment and important questions….im also a fan of Carter’s work…and much of Kenna too…for me, it’s a pretty straight forward…at some point, that which lasts comes from photography into which and through which we sense a vision…this is a stupidly loaded word, but in the end photography and photographers whove meant the most to me, who sit inside by belly like a warm burn, are those who’ve had the ability and luck to harness some personal expression (and i dont just mean style, for style is really nothing more than a language of expression and on its own is never enough) of what this world or this place or whose people meant, or expressed or reflected, or better: what those places and moments and people brought forth from inside you…questions and hunger, above all…
a particular “style” can shift given story/moments/time, but some elemental thing does not…i personally have never cared that much whether or not a photographer’s body of work is “coherent” (in the sense of theme, style, content) so much as it seems to suggest a questioning, a hunger to express or to attempt to understand or to reveal something that i had not thought of, encountered or seen before…
it’s like Love: you know it, but who the fuck can express how to discovered it or describe it…
the burn, the disappearance, the bewilderment and the wonder….
look at Frank’s book Storyline (from his show at the Tate): it’s all there: madness, sadness, incoherence, and yet: it is all of the same….
from Americans to this:
http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/frank.sickofgoodbyes.jpg
hugs
running
b
Just get busy for one week, come back and…. 307 comments since now!!!!! I’m really late.
I’ve tried to read the most, from this morning. Wonderful idea, and I’m in as the 306 that preceded me.
So I’m ready for 2012 spring assigment!
In my web-page there is the previous work but…. I have no time now but before january 31, 2012 I’ll tell you all about my project (Restlessness, working on different aspect since 2001) and my most recent work… Be prepared. :)
…
But most important, Nancy you’re lucky! I was in the last Chris Anderson workshop in Oslo. We learn and enjoy a lot. Give us a daily diary.
Baci
Laura
This sounds like a great idea! I am new here, but very interested (if a little intimidated).
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to each and every one of you reading this now for not taking the opportunity to apologize to each and every one of you on a previous occasion. The opportunity to apologize does not come around often enough—the recent spike in gas prices may have something to do with that, what with most apologies getting more or less the same mileage they did back in the 1970’s—and it was a truly unconscionable lack of judgment on my part not to have apologized at that time. One cannot apologize often enough these days, I think, and so I wish to reiterate my apologies for not having apologized when I should have apologized. As apologies go, of course, this isn’t a very good one, and I apologize for that, but then again, I am not a professional apologist with an advanced degree in apologetics, for which lack I would like to apologize at this time. I am an entirely self-taught apologist and so my apologies tend to be a little rough around the edges, and so I would like to again apologize for my inexcusable apologetic autdidactism.
I wanted to be an apologist when I was a boy; all of my childhood heroes were apologists and I would have collected apologist bubble gum cards had someone manufactured them in those days. No one did, the times being benighted as they were, and so I had to settle for collecting the baseball cards of players having bad years. If there was a pitcher on a last place team who couldn’t find the strike zone if he was standing ten feet in front of it with a half-blind umpire behind the plate, I had his card; if there was a hitter who couldn’t hit the broad side of a fat babe’s butt with a 2 x 4, I had his card as well. Sometimes I collected good players, but only if they were on the disabled list with a pulled hamstring or a torn rotator cuff. I kept all of my baseball cards in an old shoebox my father called the litany of woes, because everyone in the box had an excuse for why they weren’t playing as well as they might that season.
As you’ve probably surmised by now, I did not get to be an apologist. My parents opposed the idea out of hand, pointing out that apologists, however well they did the job, got paid squat. This was true, of course; apologetics did not pay very well then. In addition to the poor pay, most people in those days regarded professional apologists as little better than sob sisters, PR men, and Red Sox fans. Mindful of these facts, my parents insisted that I find some more remunerative line of endeavor like dope peddling or swindling little old ladies out of their life savings. I apologized for not living up to their expectations, whereupon my father threw a fit and a Fig Newton at me and told me to shut up, he was sick of my apologies. He was like that sometimes. I remember one Christmas where he dressed up like Santa Claus (say what you will about him, Pop could do a mean Santa impression) and came down the stairs to his waiting children with a sack of toys thrown over his shoulder and then threw cans of string beans he’d gotten for half price at us. That was a wonderful Christmas, or so my brothers tell me; I had a pretty bad concussion so my memory of that day is a little fuzzy.
Now, at this point you’re probably wondering why I’m apologizing for just about everything under the son and, I’m sorry to say this, I’m wondering why you’re wondering. Explanations are so last century, after all; there hasn’t been a truly reasonable explanation for anything ever since Calvin Coolidge’s press secretary, C. Bertram Slemp, invented the cardboard tube that toilet paper comes wrapped around in 1897, but this hasn’t stopped people from looking for them. The modern apology, unlike many other art forms, and definitely unlike the classical apology, is about nothing at all. It is, in short, Seinfeldian in its philosophical provenance. You do not need to have done something wrong in order to apologize for it in this our postmodern Great Republic. Politicians spend a lot of time apologizing for one thing or another, especially during an election year, where if pandering for votes won’t work, a pol will grovel for them. I’m especially fond of pols apologizing for events that occurred years, sometimes centuries, before any of us were born. Still, it’s nice to know that their hearts are in the right place, even if all that and a couple of bucks will buy you is a ride on the subway.
In any case, I don’t think I would have made a very good professional apologist. In listening to my apologies on tape, I can tell that I lack the one great gift of the true apologist: sincerity. Yes, I can apologize all day long, and as a part of my work, I’ve often had to do just that, but the people I’m apologizing to can tell it’s all form and no substance. They can tell I am saying, I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience, sir, but that I’m thinking, buzz off, dumbass, and take your ugly wife with you. Sam Goldwyn had it right: if you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made. I just don’t have that in me, I guess.
Apology excepted.
apologize… here in Italy there are two cases:
- It doesn’t pay at all
- It pays a lot….the risk is to became major or prime minister.
akaky–
u know damn well, as a good catholic, you should have delivered that in Latin! ç)))))))….
no, you~re allowed to have a lovely daliance with a high-priced lower-manhattan escort…since u got the apology out of the way…and i~d vote for u!
hugs
bob
p.s. u~~re gorgeous rants always remind me of this flickÇ rent it my friend–
A CHRISTMAS STORY
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085334/quotes
http://www.fast-rewind.com/
Bob…
Yes…style is not the correct word, vision is somewhat better. Even though I think style in its purest form, as opposed to an affectation, can be a very pure reflection of the vision.
It’s good to hear that others are not as concerned with coherency.
To me, photographers who have a strong vision and are able to let me see that, make me stand in awe. They stir in me a childlike quality of amazement or beauty or sense of rightness. It is such a magical quality that I want just a little of it…I want that too. This has been my personal quest lately, to better understand why some photographers’ work touches me and some, who others may praise, simply leave me unaffected.
While there is no magic formula, there is magic that happens sometimes and that is what makes me keep trying…like some feel about golf…the one shot in a round that keeps them trying and trying amidst the frustrations. I go through so much mediocre work trying to get to those little keeper gems that it’s easy to question too much.
I have to learn to listen more to what resonates in me and less about checking off an image for a project or story. I get into that mode so easily when shooting for pay…art director’s shot list, check em off…click click click. Just like it seems to take time to get back into the rythym of shooting after a layoff, it takes me time to get back into being looser and shooting from the heart after doing paid work…not that I don’t put my heart into it, but when you owe the client you have a responsibility to them as well as yourself.
I am familiar with Frank’s The Americans but not Storyline. I look forward to seeing that work. Thanks!
Jay
Akaky, I’m so sorry …
Akakay,
You said some bad words!
An apology is in order as well as 10 Ave Maria’s for your penance.
Please don’t call me “Father” for I am not… but I am a father of 2 small children.
I have always wanted to be called “Father” but I missed that opportunity.
Instead I am called daddy and I have very little patience with myself.
Please forgive my ramblings.
Non sum dignus,
Jason
BOB AND JAY…
you boys used the word “coherent” when i was using the word “cohesive” in describing photographs in essay form….don’t misquote me boys, don’t misquote me!!
what i was trying to say is this: photographers should strive for coherent or incoherent photographs stitched collectively in a cohesive way which could in fact provide coherence to an otherwise incoherent assemblage of cohesive photographs in at least a more coherent way than this run on sentence with little or no cohesion….
got it???
peace, david
ERICA
I was touched by your response. Thank you! Your suggestions have inspired me to think of new ways to manifest the ideas I’d brought to the table. I have noticed (from previous posts over time) that we do share a lot in common + agree that it would be nice to have the opportunity to talk/meet sometime soon. And, a couple years working with dolphins ( ! ) … THAT must have been so soothing. Would love to hear more. I haven’t seen Children of Ceausescu, and will make it a priority to get my hands on a copy. One of my favorite visual narratives is Paul Fusco’s Chernobyl Legacy. Brutally painful to watch, but such an important/poignant story to share.
Anna B.
Hi David.
I would love to do one of your assignments. After joining James and you in Bangkok and experiencing the enthusiasm and insight you and James blessed us with I would love to experience that again.
Just bring it on. I am ready for a challenge.
Hope we can meet again some day.
Best wishes
Erik (The norwegian with some pics about thaiboxing kids)
ERIK…
yes, of course, i remember you and your work…do you have something specific in mind?? and how did we miss in Norway just a month or so ago???
david
I have been informed by the good people at the Slemp Foundation that Calvin Coolidge’s press secretary was not C. Bertram Slemp but C. Bascom Slemp, C. Bertram Slemp being the alias of one Marvin Perlstein of Poughkeepsie, NY, who is wanted in that city for his involvement in a plot to kidnap the Smith Brothers’ beards and hold them hostage until the brothers handed over the secret recipe for their world famous cough drops. I apologize for the error.
David,
I have been a silent observer here for far too long, THIS is too exciting to pass up! THIS assignment proposal, THIS challenge; Embodies Excitement, Uncertainty and the Drive that keeps us searching within ourselves and our surroundings for “that one truly fine photograph”. I especially like the idea of a “tailored” assignment to help each photographer tap into their individual projects, passions and strengths! This IS Great! Count me in. -Jeremy
Yes, it’s a very good idea!
Hi David,
I love your work, but I have to say that I don’t like the lighting you are using these days – that lighting that makes the foregound so bright that the background becomes underexposed. It’s not good. Sorry if that’s not what you want to hear.
I have your book on Cuba, and it is a gem. Lovely images. It’s what made me want to go to Cuba too. I’m just starting out regarding portraits. Anyway, all the best – I think you are an inspiration, but please get rid of that lighting rig you are using. And please return to film as well. Digital looks so plastic compared to film.
Regards, Bruce.
hello david.. :)
you wrote:
“find out if Katia can follow just one of her “lost” teenagers for a few days to see a parent;”
david, this is an INCREDIBLE idea – i would truly love this as an assignment. i cannot believe i haven’t thought of this myself! it opens up a whole new world to me – to see a youth reunite with a parent – WOW!
i’m in school until mid-june but am free for the summer. (did i tell you that the street kids have inspired me to return to school to pursue social work? that credential will also help me get ‘behind-the-scenes’ in many places that i now cannot access. great perk!)
the best months for me to be assigned this would be july or august since i have those months completely to myself.
thanks for lifting me UP with this idea.
things have been so very sad around here since noel’s murder and XIII’s incarceration. this is the ‘lightest’ i’ve felt in at a month – THANK YOU!!
big ((((hug)))) to you and
be well, dear man.
:)
katia
Hi David.
I have an idea.
It is going to a bar where people at the lower end at the ladder of society hang out. I have a particular bar in mind, and at this place they hang out all the time. They drink for breakfast and they celebrate New Years eve there. The upcoming weekend we have our holiday where we celebrate the constitution and I guess these guys are going to celebrate it in the bar. If I can manage it would be nice to spend some time with them in advance, and celebrate with them on the 17. of may.
Could this be an assignment you could give me??
I would really try to make it happen during this week, but i might need some more time (busy schedule, blah, blah, blah….)
Take care, Venice Beach sounds nice….
Erik