all anybody ever talks about down here in the Outer Banks of North Carolina is the weather… wind and the direction thereof is on everyone's mind and it is cause and effect of the changing patterns affecting fishermen and surfers who make up most of the population..and, oh yes, there are a few photographers …and all they talk about is the weather too…
yesterday afternoon was summer warm and i had a good swim (with a stranger's dog above) right at the perfect hour for shark shore feeding.. well, there has been only one fatal shark attack here in the last 6 years, so i enjoyed the hour….anyway, today is colder and gray….but, i will swim again right after i do this post….we all know a swim in the surf seems to heal the body and soul….a natural "massage" for our bodies and the salt water, from whence we came, seems to balance us both mentally and physically….
in my experience and friendship with so many photographers, "balance" does always seem to be the number one problem for most….either too much work or not enough work or too much of one kind of picture and not enough of an other kind of picture seem to plague many…we have talked before about the personal life/professional life conundrum, but i am writing now about the delicate balance within the world of actual picture taking itself…i am assuming in this conversation that everyone's personal life is just fine!!!
Gayle Tiller (below) is a local photographer , who happens to be a single mom, and has raised her three daughters alone now for the last 9 years…she mostly photographs families right here on this beach where i have photographed her as part of my family project (weekly postings now under "work in progress")….
Gayle spends lots of time with her daughters and the locals say they rarely see one without the other during the summer months..she says "i love just hanging out with the girls…they are my favorite people to be with and we are all really good friends"…so, Gayle has her personal life worked out and she totally enjoys doing her beach portraits….she does not want for more…
i am curious about most of you and your "balance sheet"…do you photograph mostly the things you love or do you have obligatory shooting to do??? which way does the wind blow?
ok, i am off for a swim…camera along with me of course….i never know what i will run into along these shark infested shores…
Hi Karim,
I would like to write you an email but I do not seem to get on your site to look for contact information…
Cheers,
Lassal
YES! woo hoo! Now, getting down to serious stuff, here is my latest mind bomb:
You can’t, much as you may want to, sue God, something I am sure the Lord in His infinite wisdom is almighty glad to hear. This bit of Good News comes to us all courtesy of a Nebraska judge, who tossed out said bit of legal silliness filed by an Omaha legislator who wanted God to pay up for all the trouble, terror, and other not nice things done either by Him directly or by others in His name. The judge, obviously a man of Solomonic wisdom, dismissed the case with prejudice, stating that since God had no address, the court could not serve Him with the papers necessary to inform Him that someone had filed suit against Him. Friends of the legislator, who must have a very safe seat or has decided to end his political career in spectacular if very silly fashion, countered the court’s legal reasoning, calling it specious in the extreme, pointing out that as the Lord is both ubiquitous and omniscient He has no need for a fixed address and already knows about the lawsuit without needing a process server to inform Him of that fact. Nevertheless, the wheels of justice, being essentially bureaucratic in their nature, dictate that the process server must serve the defendant, whether that defendant is the dumbass who ran his car straight into your garage door after a St. Patrick’s Day party or the Supreme Being. The state, after all, is paying the process server to serve legal paper and the state expects the process server to do something for the money, unlike, for example, the state’s expectations for the people at the department of motor vehicles, which is the bureaucratic equivalent of the island of lost souls and from whom nothing is expected except a prolonged case of agita.
Still, an appeal seems likely at this point as trial lawyers and insurance companies begin to square off for what promises to be the steel cage legal death match of the eternity. The financial stakes for the insurance companies could not be higher. For as long as there has been an insurance industry, there have been those events that we all know as acts of God, events so rare and so unlikely that that no one in their right mind, a classification that immediately eliminates most lawyers and all Red Sox fans, would expect an insurance company to write a policy on. Everyone understands that no insurance company has ever calculated your chances of having your pancreas ripped from your body and eaten raw by a gray-bearded schlirchher bird-fungus from the planet Grokklesnorp as you head off to your nearest Dunkin Donuts for your morning cup of coffee. This is just something that does not appear on any actuarial chart that I am aware of and, as far as the insurance company is concerned, not an event that they can assign a dollar amount to. Should this admittedly unlikely event occur to you or to someone you love, it would be one of those acts traditionally ascribed to the Almighty, like earthquakes, avalanches, and that little old lady who doesn’t bother to check for oncoming traffic as she makes a left turn onto a major highway, which I know is definitely an act of God from the way I screamed, Jesus Christ! I am sure if you are not a Christian you would have used the name of your conception of the Divine in vain as well. If God suddenly becomes liable for the acts traditionally ascribed to Him and the workings of His Divine Will, many insurance companies will go through the legal boilerplate on all of their contracts to make sure that none of these acts require them to part with so much as a red cent. Worse even than this, insurance industry lobbyists are already hard at work in Washington, trying to make sure that Congress does not pass legislation requiring the Almighty to take out some insurance if He wishes to continue going about His mysterious ways His wonders to perform. Wonders are all very well and good for your average insurance company, so long as they are not on the hook for the damages.
Trial lawyers, by contrast, regard the Lord and all His works as the biggest potential payday since the invention of asbestos, an event that any good lawyer will have no trouble connecting with the Almighty. Indeed, there will scarcely be a major or minor disaster anywhere in the world that the trial lawyers will not try to pin on the Lord. And given that the Lord is eternal, the number of billable hours a smart lawyer can generate will be truly astounding. Had the option been available to them, the wrongful death class action suit for the citizens of Pompeii killed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. would still be winding its way through the courts, with the descendants of the original lawyers still getting rich off the case. Yes indeed, there’s nothing like a volcanically active planet with no written warning sign stating that living on this planet might be hazardous to your health to set any personal injury lawyer’s eyes aglow with a selfless desire to help the insulted and injured of this earth, and, of course, to make out like a bandit without any of the attendant risks.
DAVID
I was not first one here but maybe I asked first irritating questions you may answered. :)
All, I have to sometimes express what I have in my freak mind in my own chaotic way.
Conclusion, more photography, less bloging.
peace
I can be contacted here… ryan@ryansharif.com
This blog is amazing and is growing so fast! PATRICIA – yes, add text, very moving and pitched just right.
ERICA “honestly I don’t think i could carry on as a photographer if, sometime soon, the work itself isn’t going to move me in the same way that work of others i deeply admire does ” – I’ve just been looking at a few photo books and thought I’d share a few comments / observations with you (and everyone else). Dark Odyssey by Philip Jones Griffiths: a fantastic monograph of his photographic career, 180 photographs. All those years and only 180 photographs.
A quote from Bill Allard’s book The Photographic Essay “Although there was work I admired – Gene Smith, David Douglas Duncan -I didn’t see any gods walking around in the magazine photojournalism profession. I felt I was capable of working at that level. Not right that afternoon. But eventually”.
From Jim Stanfield’s book Eye of the Beholder; “The first month, for the most part, when I’m on an average assignment, I’m not making great photographs. I’ve probably been off for a month or a month and a half……. I think we are a bit like athletes. Believe me, you get rusty in your movements, in your rhythm and in your confidence”.
And now from me: many years ago, when I was buying my first supplies of chemicals to process and print my own black & white photographs I asked the retailer “Is it (b&w process and print) easy”? he replied “It’s easy to do badly”. I’ve always remembered that and have used it as a metaphor for photography (and, indeed, life) in general. It’s easy to do badly. It’s hard to do at the highest level. I believe that Eve Arnold cried when she first saw Capa’s negatives – she expected perfection in every frame. Someone reminded her that life is not (I’m paraphrasing here) not perfect. Henri Cartier Bresson is supposed to have remarked that if he got one exceptional photograph every year then he was happy. Photography is hard to do at the highest level, everyone. So let’s cut ourselves some slack and enjoy the challenge.
Best,
Mike.
MICHAEL RAWCLIFFE
What a pleasure to have you back here, and what intelligent things you have to say! I was just thinking about some names of people whose presence on the forum I have really missed in the last couple of months and your name was among them. We get some new blood among the posters here, but it looks like 80% of what gets written here is more and more by “the usual suspects” and it feels a little claustrophobic at times. Glad to hear from you.
LUIS
Yes, David is holding a workshop in Oaxaca during the day of the Dead..this workshop runs from October 27 – November 3..then they are, I believe, heading over to Puerto Escondido for a little while after..
Lassal, OCTOBER never took off, because, the day it was to start, a very simple question was asked and though the blog had its usual routine of “look at my link”, ” your essay is great!” and “see how deep I feel” posts , no one had 5 seconds to answer that question. It was obvious to me then that to ask a collective effort of evryone here, was beyond the scope of our….Smirk…. Family!
Bob, thanks for the answer. I still think that seeing the reason for all of us to behere based on self-obsession, attention catching and self-aggrandizing, is maybe a bit of a projection onto others of your own, which you kindly tell us about.
If I was and did all that, I would just not share thoughts here, I would scheme and manoeuver as well…
Thanks Sidney, saw your photograph on the 37th frame – good eye.
Hope this blog morphs similar to 37th F (i.e. frequent updates of photographs instead of having to wait a month for a refresh e.g. The Digital Journalist).
Mike R.
ERIC
I second Gina’s sentiments about your work WOW! Gorgeous images, just gorgeous!!
ERICA
I really enjoy your posts to this blog — your writing is thoughtful, intelligent and sensitive. Your photographs are the same.
Your post of the other day spins in my mind and I know I’m a little late to this discussion, but nonetheless…
If a portrait you’ve made makes a man appreciate his wife a little more today, or inspires a woman reach out to an elderly aunt she has not called in some time, or makes any one of us better appreciate the lives we have right here, right now… who is to say this is not as important or meaningful in the grand scheme of things as say, Nachtway’s fine, fine coverage of TB?
Personally, I believe that capturing and preserving history (with a small ‘h’) is equally important and meaningful as documenting History (with the big H)…
Your work is beautiful and sensitive, and probably more important to some than you yourself will ever realize. Keep going, don’t lose heart. I want to see what comes next!
ALL
To those of you who contribute intelligent and thoughtful discussion about photography, photographers, their/our motivation and the passion that drives all these things — I thank you.
Your contribution is helping me get an education in photography without going back to school!
DAH
Safe and happy travels to Mexico — I look forward to seeing the student work from this workshop.
Immerse yourself in the blissful thing that is photography and think not of the circus that’s been in town these past few days. Soon the tents will come down and the village will return to normalcy… whatever shape and form that may take.
Herve, October’s not happening? When did this happen, or not happen, as the case may be? And Sidney, I think I object to being called one of the usual suspects. AKAKY IRL, on the other hand, couldnt care less. I know that’s so because he told me so.
Patricia
This i s a link VII agency Ron Haviv
http://www.viiphoto.com/showstory.php?nID=761
Saludos
ALL
Last night I attended the launch party at vii for the new dispatches magazine;
“Each quarter, dispatches examines a crucial topic in its full context, with seasoned writers whose experience is firsthand and with photographers who have shown an exceptional ability to capture human reality. Its bold design in a book-sized format is meant for people who savor the printed word and the long form photo essay.”
Founders are Mort Rosenblum, Simba Gill and Gary Knight; while some of the work presented is by vii photographers, this is not a vii affiliated magazine. The magazine is commissioning semi-longterm new work, and to that end I would especially encourage you to subscribe if it is in your budget; it is well printed and hopefully will continue to impress. Gary spoke about more than anything, wanting to work with photographers that have authorship, and an individuated perspective. The initial issue was In America, the second Beyond Iraq, and the third will be on Russia..
Several MM pieces were shown, including
The Dear Leader, by Christopher Morris
http://www.rethink-dispatches.com/visuals/the-dear-leader/
ирак by Yuri Kozyrev
http://www.rethink-dispatches.com/beyond-iraq/photo-essay/
Godville by Antonin Kratochvil
http://www.rethink-dispatches.com/issue/in-america/godville/
I had a chance to speak with Yuri for the second time, and both he the person on his work have had a strong effect on me. His work isn’t always easy to sit with, but for me, his willingness to persevere and tell a story that is difficult to tell with diligence and heart makes me able to digest that which he reveals.
The founders plan to supplement the physical magazine with online content, which is already rich and filled with both written and visual essays..here is a link to the first issue http://www.rethink-dispatches.com/in-america/
enjoy!
Hey Panos Thanks for answering my post, you said: (the last 3 days from the workshop… let’s have beer) , thanks… Can you, or anyone please let me know what days and the location of the workshop in Oaxaca?. Thanks again and Keep the good humor… Peace
LASSAL,
I was very touched by your comment to Erica. You are Erica are so articulate! I like your writing as much as your photographs… Two very fine ladies!!!! It was great to hear from you and to continue to follow your journey with this fascinating project of yours!! I would love to send you a postcard but doubt that you will come all the way to Ohio…
Please keep us in the loop often.
Cheers,
Eric
LUIS
answered you 7 posts up..
Have to write everyone else soon..busy..xo
ERIC,
Love your boxer series!
I’m curious, how did you get in to this series? you might have written it earlier but I’ve missed it. Do you come from that background? you seem to connect very well with your subjects and that might not be easy for an outsider. Connecting with people is probably the most important aspect for documentary photographers working the way you do and you seem to do that really well. Others asked for shots of the surroundings, details etc. I don’t know about that, depends on how you want to do the project. Maybe it’s more of a portrait project?
Cheers,
Martin
Luis..
Yes, Erica wrote all the info above..
See you there..
Yes.. thank you for appreciating my
sense of humor.. You definitely don’t
belong to the “serious” 2% of our
religious fans here..
I promise you, more to come..
You have seen NOTHING YET..
Laughing!
Beers on me
;-)
I tune in here to try to learn something more about photography and the process of becoming a better photographer. Angst seems to be a common thread within artists, striving to find our vision or version of the truth, having something meaningful to say and the technical proficiency to say it well….
I am just one individual searching for something deeper, it is personal as well as professional. Emotional roller coasters seem to come with the territory….Through the Blog Smog I pick and choose what is pertinent to me and empathy is felt for those struggling. In some ways it is a comfort to know I am not alone in my self imposed angst. Geographically isolated, I don’t know many photographers and all of your personal experiences and photographic work have enlightened me these past couple of months.
Most of all I appreciate the links to other sites and photographers.
One thing leads to another….
I learn so much from seeing and reading the honest critiques of your work, mostly from David’s perspective, but others as well. It takes a lot of courage to put your work out there whether there is a response or not….
DAH, ERICA, LASSAL, BOB B., DAVID B., CHRIS B. & PATRICIA~
Thank you for putting so eloquently into words the things I feel and do not have the ability to say. Your projects, processes and perspectives are deeply inspiring to me…
Hillary
Erica Mcdonald, thank you for the info about Oaxaca,,, Best Wishes
Akaky, what I forgot to say is that I made sure that OCTOBER project did not belong to me, everyone was welcome to butt in and offer to collect pix or set up a site to collect them. It was very easy for anyone to take it over from me.
Hillary, frankly, we need to be honest with ourselves. None of the blog’s emotional roller coasters has anything to do with artitic angst rising to the surface.
I’d hope that anyone thinking this about themselves would quickly realize the ridicule in such pretense and give it a good laugh.
HERVE~
I was referring to each individuals emotional roller coaster as the process of artistic progress ….not the blog itself.
It was mostly in reference to Erica’s post about feeling momentarily lost and evident in others comments that we all go through it, and well…. it helps to know we aren’t going through it alone… especially if someone reaches out.
To me it has reference to photography as that it is what we have chosen as our art and form of expression. It is my feeling that through this process that great art is created and I do see it here rising to the surface.
Peace,
Hillary
ERICA
thank you for the dispatches-links above … !
I am preparing to move over to multimedia here and there, too. Collecting audio now for my “Wishes” project … Seeing what is possible to make by following your links is very valuable to me now.
KARIM
ditto for the link to “the places we live”. I had planned something quite similar for “Wishes” with a navigation around a map showing where I took the portraits … Because it is getting more and more … and there are so many additional infos to the project I would like to share, but my site would just burst. At present the pictures are falling a little behind because I cannot but put them up this small … So I am preparing a separate site for this project – and for “Meaning” too – to serve the project better.
ERICA
I would have never imagined that this project would get so … intense … It is really taking over my life at the moment. So I understand a little of what you mean.
You have to scan and I have to edit. But… have not managed to do much more than some backups. I have weeks of editing still ahead of me …
ERIC
thank you for your kind words. If you only knew how much I struggle for each word! If you only could sense the enourmous differences between what I want to say and what I end up saying… Well …
But it is good to be making some sense at all. Sometimes I doubt I manage that.
That is why I prefer to take pictures. Very simple actually. It is the language I feel most comfortable in.
I read everyone commenting on your latest edit. Could you please post the link again, Eric?! Do you have a separate link for every edit? Or do you have a separate Gallery for the “rejects”. I would love to have another look … I missed a month here now and I fear this means I missed a couple of edits. I remember your photos quite well … I am very curious what became out of it.
And please … Do have someone write me a postcard from your place, I’d love to come to Ohio! I am going all over the place. Will be visiting Gina and Nacho in Washington, will be in NC, Charlotte to visit some old friends, in San Francisco too, will be in NY, will maybe travel around by car, everything is open! And I probably will not manage to do it all in one go anyway. Or I will have to take my hardware to do some bread-job from there for my German clients … Whatever … I’ll figure it out somehow.
But please write!!!
I have had so many people from the blog announcing postcards, but none have arrived until now. Even if we still have plenty of time for whatever, I am really hoping to hear from all of you soon. Things can change very fast and … sometimes windows of opportunities just close in front of us. So I prefer to plan tight and keep things going as fast as possible.
Even so I feel all is going much too slow …
Sounds melodramatic, but … I’d like to get a couple of things done before I die. And as I do not know when this will be I keep running as fast as possible. Because… at the end it could be … tomorrow. Or next month. Or next year.
That is what keeps me going. That is the way I tick. And even if it sounds strange, I actually like it. I like it because I now know what I am doing and why. This was not the case until recently, so I felt awful running for “nothing”. “Wishes” was not really in the plan, only the other project (”Meaning”) was. Amongst some other things that do not belong here. So now I have to really hurry to get it all done in time!! :))
HERVE
sorry to hear about OCTOBER …
PANOS
thanks amigo!!! :)))
Same for me.
BOB
can you imagine… The Giacomelli book has not arrived. It had an absurdly long delivery time. And apparently now it got lost in translation… in transition… whatever.
And they do not have a second one so now they are refunding the money.
Guess I will try the less expensive approach over amazon UK now. I hope they still have a copy.
My oh my … it is sure hard for me to get to this book. :)
Thanks for your mail ….
It helped me a lot, you know? It gave me some answers I needed.
I owe you.
Thanks again and all my love to Marina.
Will write as soon as I can. Have to finish some deadline work now again. As it goes …
Love to all of you!
Lassal
HILLARY
yess… emotional rollercoaster is a good description. I allready had quite some set backs with “wishes” and everytime this happenes I get more or less into despair.
Not long ago I wrote DAH about it. Unfortunately he was running and out of time, but it helped to read his comforting words telling me that he felt he was in a very similar situation than mine at just that moment …
Yeah… for me it helps to talk about it with someone… then I manage to see it with more distance. There always are some kind of alternatives and solutions. The trick is to find the solution that makes the project even better than it was before.
So… considering this I really hope to find further pitfalls along my way. And I know I will probably not have to go far for the next one.
Some of them … I can smell them already.
:)
Cheers,
Lassal
Wow! the f..k was that all about ?!?
At first, I thought to just come and take a look, then had to really put aside the day’s work to get back to it all…
I just don’t wanna get into all that… “let bygones be bygones”, let’s got back to what this blog’s all about ! Back to a “family” full of love/hate relationships that can manage to just take a step back and breathe. BREATHE people !
I agree with DAVID B about one thing (and to try and follow HERVE’s “short guidelines” to BOB B): let me say this :
LESS TALK, MORE ROCK !!!
So, back to rockin’…
Erica,
Thanks for the links. I especially like Chris Morris’ MM piece that I saw a week ago.
As I couldn’t manage to get my sorry arse there yesterday, I’d like to know why you said that Yuri Kozyrev’s work “isn’t always easy to sit with” ? (A guy I admire for such a consistency in covering Iraq).
Nothing intented, just your point of view…
By the way, here’s another point of view well worth seeing, especially about a country too rarely covered nowadays: Rwanda.
I saw Patricia’ link to M. Bleasdale’s awesome work of my childhood coutry so… here it is – “gift” for PATRICIA : http://mediastorm.org/0024.htm
“Rockin’” out,
Tanguy.
Tokomónono na nsíma !
HELLO ALL…
i am exhausted from today’s shoot but feel compelled to do a post…..maybe tonight i hope…
stay tuned….
cheers, david
Yeahhh…
Let’s do a post about the
“day of the DEAD”.. Or the
“day of the GUILTY”… Or the
“day of the BORING”… Or the
“day of the lazy”…
I’m not kidding .. Look at my face
;-))))
I’m DEAD SERIOUS…
LOL ..
LASSAL~
I like your style….You Go Girl!!!!!
Hillary
DAVID~
To finally answer the question of this post, the only obligatory shooting I have done is that from which I feel a moral obligation. I feel compelled to tell a story, help a cause or organization with my images. Another obligatory job was a good stint as an aerial photographer, hanging out of a helicopter with a Hasselblad. The subject boring…the job so much fun…
Mostly it has been pro bono work as the people who needed the images were non profit organizations concerned with environmental & conservation issues …I still want to do this, my problem is choosing what to photograph and dedicate a large percentage of my time to it….There are so many issues I feel passionate about but none compare to some of the great documentary work I have seen this year.
Up until this year, for the last 6 years or so, I’ve helped raise 2 stepdaughters…and have basically only taken my camera out when I have been traveling, which has been about 3-4 months out of the year, to some amazing places on this planet. Purely for my own enjoyment, thinking I would do something with all the pixx later.
This year, for several reasons I needed to take things to a higher/deeper level and I am trying to re-educate myself, pushing my own boundaries. The problem is I want to make a living as a photographer, create fine art, and document some very important issues too…A bit out of whack…hopefully I will find the balance…the thing I care least about is the money, although making enough to support my photography addiction is necessary.
ERICA~
I too at a very young age thought I would be in Africa helping orphans…only the furry kind….I still think one day I will be there…
First time I came across your posts and pictures .. enjoyed reading it .. the language and images together kinda gave me this urge to get to the beach