i am not a cat person….never had a cat as a pet…never wanted a cat…..i was always a dog man ….dogs were always happy to see me, followed me around…dogs responded to commands…..cats always just seemed aloof to me….now, i have a cat…..
on the fourth of july, a hot summer night, little Simone just showed up….my son Bryan and his love Michelle and i were sitting on my porch having a glass of wine and pretty much minding our own business , when along came little homeless Simone (sometimes Lulu) who just jumped into my lap….end of story…..or, should i say, beginning of story…..
now i am dealing with raccoon proof cat doors, dry food vs. wet food, auto feeding machines and worse, yes, AFFECTION…damn!! ….the last thing i need in my life is a cat….i do not have time for a cat….i travel too much to have a cat or any pet….but, now i have a cat….or, rather she has me….she now owns the place….runs the show….wants affection sometimes, and shuns it other times….does what she wants when she wants to do it and my job is just making sure she is happy …and i now trip all over myself to make sure this is so…..hmmmmm….
it is always the unexpected in our lives which seems to govern….all of us work so hard to plan plan plan and then , well, the “plan” becomes whatever “just happened” with perhaps a very slight twinge of the light of original agenda….most of us i think then take whatever circumstances evolved and then turn it into our “plan” as if we had thought of it all along….pure justification or acceptance or , well, what else can we do???
certainly there must be adjustments in our creative spirit as well…if we all did what we started out to do, then i am sure that the results would be a whole lot less exciting then if serendipity rules…..yet, we also know from experience that not having any kind of plan in the beginning usually leads to no action at all…so, strange as it seems, we need a plan or a thought or an idea at the beginning that we know surely with change as we move forward…we should not be surprised that we become surprised with what actually happens , yet this is the ultimate surprise!!
perhaps we all have different proportions of planning vs. serendipity……and , of course, this is all related to being able to FINISH what we start out to do…i think many of us do not finish what we start because a Simone shows up….changes the equation….priorities get scrambled……what we want today, may not be what we want tomorrow….
i do spend a lot of time with young ambitious photographers or photographers who are trying to make a mark….the single biggest difference i see between those who “do it” and those who do not is simply the ability to finish what one starts….
yes, of course, talent is a must…visual acuity, sensitivity, spacial awareness, timing, balance….but, given two equal talents, the one who can actually complete a body of work is the one who will rise….sounds simple, but it is the most complex compound of all things facing any creative person….i see it over and over with photographers i mentor…..i have fought this with myself all along….i suspect a solid 80% of what i start goes unfinished….folks know of the other 20%, but i coulda shoulda woulda done more….blame it on Simone??
what about you?? do you finish most things, or sooner rather than later give it up?? be honest…we are all in this together…
ok, while you take on this question, i have to go feed the cat…..no joke…she is an hour away , and i am going to go feed her instead of taking a picture….woe is me….
“If the terms are interchangeable, then we can’t even talk.”
Jim, don’t know what you’re saying here. Who said that success and failure are interchangeable? Not I.
Patricia
ERICA,
about your question, I would quote Nina Berman: ““I don’t believe in the notion of the objective photographer, that somehow a photo is balanced and you’re dispassionate,” she said. “I don’t think that would have value. That’s like a security camera.” “That doesn’t mean I have an agenda,” she was quick to add. “But I do have areas of interest.”
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/showcase-3/
I basically agree with such position, I would even be more radical admitting that the photographer has a more or less expicit agenda while shooting.
REIMAR
“Maybe I find some other action at sea which is worth photographing.”
Jean Gaumy comes to mind…
ABELE
i would agree with Nina….objectivity , pure objectivity probably cannot exist…however, this does not preclude integrity…
REIMAR…
i am always surprised Jean Gaumy does not come into more conversations…his work on the high seas is so remarkable….
JIM…
funny…hey, i hope you know i like you…i keep seeing my old original newspaper boss in you….i liked him too, Joe Colognori, even though we did not agree for one second on anything to do with photography…..here on Burn we all wait for the Jimisms, albeit almost always negativity personified… ……however, even when i get seriously upset with you, i would still go out and have a beer with you in a heartbeat…still hoping that happens this fall…
cheers, david
David, cynicism goes with the territory I guess. Better then old investigative reporters. They end up cringing under a desk certain that everyone they’ve outed is trying to hunt them down and change their gender. ;)
I am a cat,dog,horse,snake,monkey,fly,lion…person.
I like them all …
I just blinked my eyes and we have new dialog…new essays, photos…new BURNIANS
old BURNIANS …what a beautiful rainbow of “strays” :)))
WHAT NOT TO LOVE !!!
Is it time for a drink ??? Can I have beer with Jim too???
LOVE YOU ALLLLLL…I miss you ALLLLL…
Civi, got some cold Sam Adams Boston Lager in the Fridge. You’re welcome to all you want. :)
Is that you JIM???
Am I dreaming???
THANK YOU, I am still wearing your silver pan on my head ,facing west,
and I am still traveling…Keep this beer cold in the fridge…I am bringing ouzo :)))
VIVA!!!
Patricia –
I’ve never quite understood Eddie Adam’s issue with that photo, it’s always bugged me and I could never look at his pictures the same way again.
It’s like he was telling people how to react to a photo most found horrifying, a pretty straightforward, truthful execution photo that people saw as repugnant…
I know what you’re saying, Jared. Adams’ public dismissal of that shot doesn’t sit well with me either. But I’m hardly objective about the Vietnam War. Man, I was for ANYTHING to get the U.S. out of that misguided war. And his photo helped, so it’s always been important to me.
David and Burnians, I’ll be away from the internet until Monday night. Going to a writers’ retreat to work on my text for Falling Into Place. Happy to say, I’m feeling good about the draft I have now. I’m sure Anya and Demetria, the excellent authors who are facilitating, will help me tweak it but I think I’m almost there. Yippee!
Patricia
as soon as i saw the kitty laying on the book. i knew it was your photograph. meow:)
Hello All – I’m sorry for the downer post I’m making now
How many of you have photographed the act of or the aftermath of a suicide?
I’ve done two in the last two years.
Today at about noon, a student accessed the roof of the Cofrin library, the tallest building on my college campus at eight stories, and leaped off. I was notified by family that works in the library and headed over to get some photos – when I got there, no other news crews were there, however I guess some light news coverage had been there closer to noon.
I did a couple of blogs about it first on my iPhone blog
http://iphonephotojournalist.blogspot.com
And the next at http://www.jasonhouge.com/Blog.html
On a slightly happier note
JIM I was thinking about you when I took this shot
http://www.jasonhouge.com/uploaded_images/DSC_6451webA.jpg
(can be found farther down in my blog)
serendipity?.. what is?.. I wonder if its more a matter of simply , being aware.. the amount of incidences in one’s life is enormous , so surely if one remains aware then discovery happens.. Science is made up largely of staying being aware of the outside, the unforseen. Science is the same as the arts in this respect… Creativity.. having the imagination to go further with something up until then, undiscovered.
David.. thinking further about your thoughts on why some people succeed and why others don’t, you suggesting it coming down to being able to complete a project… I think its also a matter of reward… One can feel a sense of reward purely by participating.. one may need reward from others.. or maybe our sense of reward changes..
How much pain do you associate with something versus how much pleasure you associate. how I understand it – Some people find a reason not to want to finish something, not to succeed, because they’re afraid of that next level. They would rather the immediate pleasure of playing a video game, or putzing on another project. Probably because they have never experienced that intense pleasure of having something completed, it seems too distant and too much work. If people associated enough pain – as in if they NEVER did finished, they would have wasted all that time, they would never succeed, they would never make their mark, and they associated intense pleasure to having it complete, they would get it done faster and better than anyone could imagine.
Success – is it always completing everything a person starts? I don’t think so – When I worked on sculptures or paintings or what ever and it just wasn’t coming together the way I planned, either I modified my intentions, or I gave it up and moved on to something else. Eventually I might return to complete my prior project because I have a fresh mind, plus sometimes I’ve found a person just doesn’t have the skills to complete a project they begin and over time they gain those skills and that knowledge and return to complete their project.
If completing a project is success then J.R.R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion was a failure as he died before he completed it, even though it was the first book he wrote. Yet it has been published due to his son’s efforts. It is terribly hard to read, but it is done.
David – I just sent you an Email – please read?
David, one of your wonderful gifts is the ability to ask such provocative questions.
I was struck by your your comments about mentoring photographers who were trying to “make a mark”. It got me thinking about the difference between us. “Making a mark” is not something that interests me very much. Like you, I love mentoring young people, and I love our craft. Just in the past two days, two young women have come to my studio for advice and I have happily given them my time. Neither is intersted {I don’t think}, in becoming famous or “making a mark”. Both just love making photogaphs and are exploring the possibility of making photographyy a career.
Yes, there will be those individuals who, through a combination of talent and timing, ego, luck, and yes, hard work, will become the superstars and “make a mark”. But there will also be the troops in the trenches, who just do their work, do it well, and will love what they do.
I appreciate people who love what they do.
Erica, Thanks for explaining. “I was suggesting that it may be impossible to create a neutral/fair story that has a personal perspective..that although the story could exist on some level, it would be devoid of the qualities that would make it significant in terms of connection/authorship/voice/vision, and would thereby be devoid of substantive meaning…”
If I understand you correctly, I believe Heide Smith does this. On the surface of it, her work looks like fairly standard photojournalism – no tricky sylistic stunts, authorship is in the background. But the humanity that shines through, the balance and fairness and her curiosity and interest in the people shows there is definitely a lot of Heide in those pictures. That’s my opinion anyway. That said, I don’t think she is highlighting anything that is not there. She is bringing out the best but that is because its her way. That’s what I think.
If someone wants to focus on the gloomy side of things, they will find it. If someone wants to find fairness they will find it. In process, voice can be a process of selecting rather than stylistic choices. I tend to think that many photographers in Cartier Bresson’s ilk were of this kind.
The inclination to use stylistic processes to emphasise authorship is probably a way of stressing the subjectivity inherent in the way pictures are made. But its worth asking how loud does one need to shout “look at me” to get the point across.
For me, I just like it when the authorial signifiers underpin the concept and feel a bit annoyed when they seem to have little purpose except to shout “look at me”.
re Gertrude Stein (no wonder I didn’t get it). I figure she meant when all the people she knows have left town and the buildings have been torn down and rebuilt, the old has been replaced with the new and different, then the place she holds dear in her memory no longer exists in reality. Its pretty hard to erase all the signifiers of a place though isn’t it.
DAH you must have been camping near a cane field south of
Townsville ,We’ve no cats but have a 3 yr old who insists he is one so I guess that takes care of the pet thing for a while v, but recently FINISHED an exhibition/instalation and it feels pretty good to get a body of work up dosen’t give any sense of closure though , finishing something just gives you a taste for finishing some more?
Jason, nice shot from the playground.
As for shooting suicides, I will not put a story or photo of a suicide in the newspaper. Suicides are personal tragedies for the individual and family, and unless a very well known figure, there is no public interest served in publishing it. I can’t think of many more exploitive things we can do as a newspaper than publish a suicide.
GORDON…
i am with you 100% on this one…when i sit down to spend time with an emerging photographer, one of my main objectives is to find out how the photographer sees herself/himself in the context of the larger world of photography…i certainly do not push for anyone to be more than they want to be, or want to know, or beyond their ability…however, one of the joys of teaching, and i am sure you have seen this, is how so far beyond the original portfolio one can be taken by just mixing a tutorial cocktail of “relax and enjoy and think like hell”….
for sure “making a mark” is in and of itself quite subjective, but most photographers i meet certainly want to grow….this of course means different things to different people…for whatever reasons, i did have a “fire in the belly” from a very early age…but, i also realized early on that not everyone felt the same nor should they feel the same…that was my particular bent, but not the intent of most photographers by any means…
Maria Carusi is a very successful attorney showed me her work about 6 years ago…see had/has no intention of leaving her law profession…she did however find photography to be her “escape” her love her passion…we got her going on a project that lasted about three years and she subsequently published a modest book and had an opening of her work in the town where she lives and several shows followed in larger cities…as far as i am concerned, Maria “made a mark”….i have similar stories for Ann Henning, Kyunghee Lee and Michael Lloyd Young…all photographers with published books, photographers who are “making a mark”, yet have no intention of giving up their respective professions/businesses….
yet, other emerging photographers are on fire to stake out a space among the legends and do so because of exactly the combination of elements you so suggest….these photographers are rare…naturally i owe whatever i can give to fuel their aspirations as well…
most importantly, just as you wrote, the appreciation should be for those who love what they do….
this alone is THE GIFT….
cheers, david
Good on you Jim…
David;
Are you stil contemplating swinging past Aussie later this year?
Cheers
—In Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin writes of driving two indoor cats crazy by flicking a laser pointer around the room. They wouldn’t stop stalking and pouncing on this ungraspable dot of light—their dopamine system pumping. She writes that no wild cat would indulge in such useless behavior: “A cat wants to catch the mouse, not chase it in circles forever.” She says “mindless chasing” makes an animal less likely to meet its real needs “because it short-circuits intelligent stalking behavior.” As we chase after flickering bits of information, it’s a salutary warning.– Emily Yoffe, Slate, 08/13/09
Well it seems relevant.
Abele, David,
thank you so much for directing me to Jean Gaumy! His work is absolutely remarkable indeed!
Of course I have heard of him, but I wasn’t aware that his focus is on the maritime world. I certainly overlooked his work. Sometimes the obvious is so close and you just don’t see it.
You definitely got my brain going. Thanks for that! I will try and find Jean Gaumy’s book about the fishermen somewhere in a library and perhaps I can get a hold of his film about submarines.
Everybody, enjoy the day!
Reimar
PETER…..
yes, i think you are right…”reward” is subjective….
JASON…
your whole cell phone effort is quite interesting…i too have been photographing lately a lot with my cell phone…perhaps ironically because it balances the more methodical work i am doing with medium format film….i did skip your more graphic cell phone coverage of the campus suicide…
however, one of my students, Kerry Payne, did an amazing essay on suicide at our Charlottesville workshop….she is the victim of a family suicide herself and photographed suicide survivors, the families who had to cope….very strong portraits…the whole story in her subjects eyes….she told us it was a catharsis for both herself and for the families she photographed, so i see this essay as quite different than photographing a suicide scene…
JIM…
when i worked for the Topeka Capital-Journal right out of college, i was assigned by the editor to cover a bridge jumping suicide…to this day, i am sorry i went…i did not see the point then or now… i applaud you for taking this stance at your newspaper…
cheers, david
ROSS…
i will be in Cambodia later in the fall…if i have time, i will make a move to Australia for a very short visit…lots of old friends to see….
i do have your link, but cannot take a look until monday or tuesday…if you think i forgot, which is totally possible, please do not hesitate to send me the link again…
GLENN…
yes, i owe you an edit…on the case this week…you have some amazing new work my friend….i would like to publish your essay in september if this is ok with you…
cheers, david
DAH Jim, I suppose we are all suicide “survivors”. It becomes a bit personal for me for a few reasons but most recently I’ve lost two people in my life to suicide both within a month of the other. A cousin and a roommate. My roommate was the most… I can’t find a word. I had brought the police to the apt because I thought he might be suicidal, and as the police went into the apartment he pulled the trigger on his rifle, I was just outside the door in the hall.
With my roommate, he only had one living relative left and she wasn’t even blood related.
Jim, that’s very respectable of you not to publish. I admire it. However I feel too though, it’s not something society should turn its eye from. Somehow photos of the scene must be helpful, since suicide is often encountered with adolescence and college age groups.
How we deal with a suicide and think about it seems very different from those in the middle and far east. So it’s a bit interesting to understand why and how people conclude this is the only way.
DAH, the bridge … Each and every experience we encounter shapes us. Something about that experience may have motivated you to get out of daily news. And perhaps it goes deeper than that. I’m glad you’ve built Burn and attracted so many good people to it… It’s so nice to hear the point of views of others more experienced.
Jim – play ground – thank you! It was a fun reminder of childhood. I spun on that thing for a while and took more photos. Everyone used to get sick of it before me as kids so it was fun to whirl around myself. :)
DAH – September , Great! I’m still getting my head around the whole sound thing at the moment so I should be right to put something together by then after we get an edit.
Cambodia in the fall ? Not so far from Darwin ,Uncle?
Well, I think, until I can learn to understand these situations better, it’s best to just not do any photography of any sort of tragety. I’ve removed the posts from my site. Thank you all for your input and guidence.
Andrea..
I see what you mean about Heide Smith’s perspective in each of her photos, but my point was more about the impossibility of having a sort of neutrality in the photo essay (as opposed to a collection of singles) and still being able to make a poignant personal piece that communicates..to tell a story powerfully I think -maybe- you need a stance beyond showing what is..
Success and failure, apparently can go together. Especially when you are only as good as your next picture… And that you insist being the judge on that, not just the public acclaim.
For an artist, the 2 sides of the same coin, IMO.
Though, a photographer has no claim to how his/her pictures are interpretated. It is simply not the way the medium works (regarding Adams, but also, fortunately here, Atget, and so many).
Ross, the point I was making yesterday is that a photographer can make a body of work, and a life achievement out of only unfinished, even shoddily planned projects, because of the “tyranny” of the single(s) shot(s), which is still the basis of how photography, and its history is seen, appreciated and written about.
All the artists who have tried to voluntarily escape that tyranny (Franck, Man Ray) can almost be said to have shot (if they shot at all) denying, turning their back on, photography, single or essay/project.
Or maybe in the case of Eugene Smith (And Winogrand, in a smaller measure), went into more compulsive tyrannies using a camera, than even the single shot would impose. With the sens of over-arching failure (to go round on my post) that often comes with compulsions that carry the sting of uncurable addiction, therefore unfinishedness. Then they die, and we pick up the pieces, that’s when unfinished becomes…Everlasting! ;-)
Dear David,
Thanks to the help and advises of you and José Azel, eleven years ago I began to work for National Geographic. Now, after 18 years of experience (as a teacher and a photographer) let me tell you that, your words, are exactly the key behind the success.
See you in Perpignan!
All the best
TINO SORIANO
http://www.tinosoriano.com
Greatest Hits are usually singles that were originally a part of a project. When we see them collected in books and gallery shows later, we tend to forget this.
My point, Jim. In the end, save the raret exceptions like “Les Americains”, all people see (and want to see) are singles. Matters little if the project is finished or unfinished as long as it’s only the “idea of” that went, so to speak, to the trash, and the images are kept available.
I just read Allard’s book “the photographic essay”. So telling when we come to him speaking of that “everlasting” shot of the kids running down the country road in France, and he says, roughly from memory: “if I shoot a picture half as good as this one in the next 5 years, I’d still consider myself blessed”…
“if I shoot a picture half as good as this one in the next 5 years, I’d still consider myself blessed”…
interesting comment, understandable, but if I let myself think this way I don’t think I would keep shooting. must be some image..Herve, can you link to it?
Singles..sometimes images that were taken as singles make the series later. Think of Arbus..each was a butterfly in her collection, but each was taken for itself and contained a full story within.
My copy of Allard’s “The Photographic Essay,” is extremely dog eared from the many times I’ve read through it. Excellent book.
can you link to it?
———————-
I have been looking for it, Erica, for the last 15 minutes!!!!
Of course, you understand that the point is that such things can be uttered by a photographer, moreover universally known as ZE essay/ptoject photographer (courtesy of Natl Geo), not that it is justified or indicates his only goal.
I mean, since you mention it, do you really go out shooting to get that “great” picture? I know not. It sounds awful, really is. and see how just saying this makes photography a chore, not the epiphany that it is for all of us (shooting as when not shooting, rtemember the camera-less walk in your neighborood?))?
Great photos are a by-product of something great already, which for being felt only in our heart/soul and not that of any other, is not less both magical and life-affirming.
sometimes images that were taken as singles make the series later
———————–
Probably most photobooks are done in this fashion. The essay being done/planned after the images were shot, long after sometimes, not before.
“…which for being felt only in our heart/soul and not that of any other, is not less both magical and life-affirming.”
thanks for that Herve, you just inspired me to go out and shoot for the project, which is saying something because I just yesterday dropped off 50 rolls of film for processing, am a bit worn out, and just finished the arduous editing of a 1,000 digital images from last weekend’s job…a mind and spirit numbing experience
Jim;
I’ve got two copies of that book. I picked my second copy up at a library sale. They were getting rid of it because nobody read it, I couldn’t believe it. Picked it up for 50c!
David;
Thanks for that, but every time I remind you I feel bad for bugging you!
Cheers
Erica;
Just scored 26 rolls of 800 asa Portra on an auction to use in my new Holga. I’m planning to take a week off mag work and work specifically on my youth project, so the film cropped up just in time! I’ve got two more articles to get out by the 28th and then i should be able to take the week off.
I uploaded 2 shots from my first Holga roll to the project edit. They’re numbers 75a & b. Just a couple of simple portraits, but I really like the images this Holga is putting out. Those two shots were meant to be square format, but dozy me had left the 645 mask in…
I’m trying to save up enough film so I’ve got plenty for summer, only 4 months away, when all the kids will be out and about!
Ross :)) Just shot 10 rolls of chromes in a day in my beater rangefinder with no light meter (but a good lens) and I’m waiting for processing … my hands are shaky and sweating, afraid I got too cocky doing that on film with so little latitude … what the hell is shadow detail and who cares? ;-)) … or maybe it’s just digital crack withdrawal. But it’s good to be working on something focused cause I can’t be a singles dude forever, and serendipity just smiled big. It really is amazing what providence shines when you just do it, roll with it, and become part of the story … but lord almighty, I will never, never drink Seagram’s straight from the bottle again with Corona chaser.
Erica, a thousand digi’s? You? I feel your pain. I’m looking forward to seeing your latest work.
that sort of happened to me TOM when I was in China with my sort of first experience using a camera where the light meter stopped working in an old Minolta 101 with a bag full of chrome film, well, a dozen rolls was a bag full for me back then, and used the general principles illustrated on the film package. Yes about a third were off but still came back with some good images. Certainly they could of been better exposures but I was so naive about technique, still am, that I had no worries!
These days I’d have much less confidence especially how expensive chrome film is these days.
Tom; “afraid I got too cocky doing that on film with so little latitude” But that is where the “happy accidents” often happen!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ighu4gGlaUE
Killing me softly – Fugees
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMn2cCBwH18&feature=related
Nas
Panos;
How about this? One of my favourite Stones song ever…
Nas – Ether
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlF8kJvMEvg
( parental advisory )