838 thoughts on “Magnum Portrait”

  1. OK I must confess…
    My most colossal dream someday is to be part of the annual magnum portrait…
    Is that a dream just too big a bite to chew on?
    I don’t know, but I’m going do it somehow, because it should finally mean I’m capable of expressing myself with my photography…

  2. Michal Daniel

    Figures: Josef Koudelka is the only one not looking up. Always contrary. :-)

  3. PAUL..IMANTS

    the Magnum Classic ice cream bars really are good..too good…

    by the way, that picture is missing several that were at the meeting including Olivia Arthur and Cristina Garcia Rodero and Martine Franck

  4. ‘who is in charge here, god damn!’…

    this has to be my ALL TIME favorite Magnum quote ever…and should be the official BURN credo :)))

    and, well, what i said before about Rene Burri…he is the best dressed (always) Magnum photographer of all time…screw being in Magnum, i just want to be able to wear a pink scarf and pink silk shirt and make it work! :)))))))

    i’m not that interested in being in the Magnum Group pic, but i’d love to shoot it someday…but maybe, no one would be recognizable ;))))….

    i thought the guy on chris’ chest was Chien-che….

    who is he?

  5. oh, jeezzz…now i see it definitely isn’t chien-che…man, i must have been exhausted the first time i saw this vid….

    michal/eva: I’m not sure Chris is looking at the camera either, but rather snoozing a la Harvey!

    running

  6. p.s. last comment;

    NOTE TO MAGNUM from an unknown photographer, please:

    MORE MORE MORE WOMEN in the coming years!!!!…

    enough male photographers already ;)))
    :))

  7. BOB…

    Man on Chris’ chest is Pinkhassov

    i think you well know we are constantly seeking great women photographers for Magnum …door wide open for those with unique talent…

    this year we took in as a full members Alessandra Sanguinetti and Olivia Arthur and last year Cristina Garcia Rodero (all three missing from picture)…

    and we have the Inge Morath award for young women…still we need more to level the field ….yet our business in general has more men than women UNLESS you look at the very top ranks…my very best students are almost always young women who have an open creative and non linear way of working….EPF winner a woman this year Irina Werning with other women, Zhe Chen and Laura El Tantawy and Daria Tuminus in the finalists running (and Zhe winner of Inge Morath)…

  8. DAVID :)

    wow, funny, ’cause all these years such a big admirer and never knew what Pinkhassov looks like (and hadn’t met) him….

    as for women:

    yes, my comment is both a tease and a respectful admonition. i think that was the first comment i ever made that was our introduction (commenting under lisa’s post at LS years ago, about the paucity of female members at Magnum)….so i did not mean to imply that Magnum doesn’t want/try to recruit/take on women, but that it deserves to have more…i could never complain about Magnum awarding women photographers things, IM as a start (and so happy happy zhe-zhe won this year) and also, in no way was my comment about EPF at all, not to mention the fact I felt the best work was all produced by the women finalists), etc…

    what i mean is this David:

    A group as important as magnum (imho) has an obligation to make sure they’re composition is not as lop-sided as it is now…alessandra, olivia are great younger editions…and of course christina, susan and Lise are brilliant, iconic picture takers…. just as Martine is and Ingre was….

    but in an organization about photography that prides itself on social responsibility (picture wise), i just mean that 6 active women members is not enough….and man, who likes to go to a party with the odds so lopsided to begin with; )))…but that’s me, i’m not a jock/male bonding kind of guy ;))))

    considering the extraordinary photographic talent out there being done by women, i’m just always surprised …but i also understand this is more about the past than the current state of thought among the crew…

    anyway, just talking out loud….

    b

  9. and last thing, maybe my comment is more my general reflection about the often sorry state of documentary world….awards more often given to men…award juries often dominated by white men, etc….

    what i always loved and respected about you as a colleague (and a friend) is that you were not like that…but genuinely not of the ‘boys club’ mentality…your workshops reflect that, burn reflects that, your friendships reflect that….you’ve given back so much to women photographers in a world dominated by men, and i know how much you value women photographers and treat them equally…or rather, you treat men and women the same: what is the work?…..anyway, my comment in no way was about u.(and definitley not burn/epf etc)….who loves or gives female photographers (and women in general) more love/respect than you?….very few…

    anyway, the bigger picture: just the state of things…hope that makes sense…:))

  10. I don’t quite understand.. isn’t it the work that counts? What would gender have to do with this?

  11. eva: yes, it is the work that counts….always….but if it is ‘only’ the work that counts, your implication is that the better work is being done by more men…simply and unconditionally not true, not ever…anyway….just my observations…magnum can do what they want, and i do know that the members are sincere but many (at least the ones i know) are more than aware of that ‘problem’…but anyway…was begun as a tease to the Magnum members, but a sincere and heartfelt question…i personally, left a gallery for this reason, and as a photographer married to one with lots of women friends in the biz, this is a real problem…again, not reflective of david who always does his best to counter this (look at this year’s epf jurists, …that itself is so different than what most photo juries consist of…bravo to burn/david, but he knows my sincerely, as we’re friend and my wife respects him immensely for his position on this issue too)…but i just say: everyone worships magnum and rarely criticizes…so, i’m just point this inadequacy out..since it is so obvious in the picture….loving members as friends and photographers (as i do) doesn’t mean i won’t point to an obvious problem, especially when compared with all the other major photographic collectives…anyway, i know i’m sounding like an ass now, and don’t mean too…but, if even you don’t see the problem, then i’mm surprised….

  12. eva: take a look at vii and occuli and vu and panos and compare the male/female ratio….still dominated by men (which isn’t about work, but other realities of the profesional, like parenhood, societal pressures, etc), but at least the numbers are better…and see, it is the work that counts, one would hope this, always to be true…but it is not always true, really….with David, it is ALWAYS true, he cares only about the work and is an equal supporter of both men and women (look at his workshops, look at his staff, his assistances, his friends, his juries, his mentoring)..he treats all the same (except for Simone who gets top billing)…my point is about magnum..anyway, enough of my blather…

  13. Bob…

    you write:

    “your implication is that the better work is being done by more men”

    No. I don’t know the numbers, but I guess there are more male photographers out there actually finishing the work and submitting it to “whatever” they want to submit it, thus, more men are represented in the various “whatever” that is.

    Now, it would be interesting to analyze the why behind this.. ’cause I really don’t want to believe that whatever jury, whatever collective, whatever organization is choosing work based on gender, meaning that if they know it’s done by a woman it will be discarded vs. if ‘man-made’ it would have been taken? That would simply be stupid. Shortsighted. And stupid. And it does not matter what name or brand is attached to the jury, collectiv, organization or whatever.

  14. eva:

    “whatever jury, whatever collective, whatever organization is choosing work based on gender, meaning that if they know it’s done by a woman it will be discarded vs. if ‘man-made’ it would have been taken?”

    I’m not saying that. and I am not saying that Magnum discriminates, not at all. Let me try again. There ARE more men in the field of documentary photographers than women. At least that is my experience. There are a large number of reasons for this: societal, historical, familial, financial, etc. More men apply for magnum then women, yes. More men submit for publication/grants/awards, generally speaking, all true. However, another interesting phenomenon is that there seem to be MORE (much more) female photography students in art school/journalism schools/language schools (i’ve taught in all 3 places). There, clearly, are more men in a particular field (war photography, or travel photography) but even those are changing. Sure, visit any photofestival (arles, perp, look, houston, la, nyc) and the numbers (now) seem to be changing (not as dominated by men as once). Cure, some particular festival seem more male-oriented (arles seems much much more even in numbers of representation then, say other fests). The interesting phenomenon for me is why, in my experience, are there so many women studying phtoography (including documentary) and yet more male names seem to rise? I’m still trying to think about this and talk about this all the time with my wife, with female colleagues and friends. In the ‘art world’ (at least my experience with nyc, toronto and paris), the field is different: women have good representation, or rather ‘fairer’….

    my sentiment about Magnum isn’t that they’re trying to exclude or that they are prejudicial or that they’re not making an effort to support and encourage female photographers (especially younger ones) they absolutely are. My case is a simple one. why do other documentary collectives have a better ratio of male to female membership. This IS a major loss because while true the work counts, they might find the presence of more women thinkers a richer and more rewarding collective. i am still surprised that this doesn’t make sense to you?….men and women produce equally superior work…and since that is THE TRUTH then if more men submit, for me, an organization has an obligation to make sure their balance IS changed…

    100 men submit, 10 women submit, and i have 40 members (i don’t know how many) and 6 women….and there are say 3 outstanding men and 1 outstanding woman, i would take the woman..and do so every time until there is a reasonable balance so that this wasn’t an issue…..there does not have to be equality of numbers…but magnum membership does not reflect the greater world, let alone the great great work that is being done in the photogrpahic community….that’s all i’m saying…

    but i don’t spend time worrying about magnum…this was just an observation from one friend (me) to another (david)…

    nothing personal….

    gotta skype the most important female photographer in my life…who is now In Ukraine working on her project with Mikhailov…! :)…incidentally, even that fellowship has better male/female representation ;)))

  15. Bob…

    Seems I just have a different take on this.. I don’t care the least about gender composition of whatever group, if women are under-represented then it’s up to us women to do something about it, if we care enough, ’cause change can come only from within, always, cannot be imposed if it has to last. Making it easier for women to enter a collective, like the example you make above, BECAUSE of the gender, is discriminating both for the women and the men.

    Equality will be reached only when gender isn’t an issue anymore, in both senses. And when we can accept that men and women are different, it’s a fact, but when both are given the same possibilities. It is then up to each and everyone to decide to use the possibilities given or not. And if that means that more men decide to become photographers then more men will be in the collectives, you can’t blame them, no?

    All this is theoretical talking, and counts only for those (VERY FEW) societies where a free choice can be made, like the ones you and I are living in..

  16. About the numbers of students, you say there are more female students.. ok, and what happens then, when they’re finished their studies? How many actually go on and work? How many drop? And why?

    I agree, as a woman, if one wants to have a family with kids, it’s harder. But I believe that if one wants, has the passion, the talent, and again, REALLY wants, then she will succeed.. maybe work harder, maybe with a different timing..

    And thinking of this, could it not be that women simply do not want what men want, what seems logical and desirable to them?

    Too too much generical talking here…

  17. eva: no time left, must run again…well, i’ll just say this, based on long conversations with real women in the business, for many it is NOT about simply not wanting to accomplish…that’s a bit naive…and we’re not talking about success…anyway, this is silly, i’m sorry i brought it up…i don’t really care that much about magnum they can have all men…and magnum is not the definition, nor should it be, for people to aspire..it’s just a group of great photographers with a great history…and i’m talking more than just the societies we live in…i live/deal with this, with colleagues and with students (from other societies)…we have an obligation to understand, especially when we label ourselves as one thing, but are in truth another…anyway, whatever…gotta run….i regret bringing this up….cheers

  18. “magnum is not the definition, nor should it be, for people to aspire..”
    Well Bob don’t run off so quickly :)…
    Why not?
    Every so often I hear people talking about Magnum as if it was a little uncool to be part of it, why?
    I personally I don’t see the problem…

  19. “i just want to be able to wear a pink scarf and pink silk shirt and make it work! :)))))))”

    it is easy to make it work… you just have to not give a fuck.

  20. a civilian-mass audience

    BOBBY,

    I like your “analysis”…food for thought
    I have a friend… his a chef…
    similar situation..
    best in broken grecolandia…
    thanks

    oime…I don’t give a fuck …and let me tell you this…
    it’s not working:)))

  21. a civilian-mass audience

    he is a chef…and I am dyslexic

    readproof….i can’t make it work…
    I will blame IMANTS…(too much sugar,too many silents);)

  22. PETE! :))))))

    yea, that’s some sound advice :)))…probably being born in europe helps too ;))))))…i’m way too american ;))

    CIVI :)))))

    yea, the world is a weird place and we still have a long way to go to make it better/fairer, etc…by the way, we just hired a new teacher from Athens…she owned her own Language school for 15 years, and has now left greece, leaving her son and kids in athens to get established her…she told me horror stories…i told her about u and panos…and well, just sending my love out to u and the people of greece….hand in theire, have faith…

    running to see Marc….
    hugs all
    bob

  23. i meant she left her husband and kids…while she re-establlishes herself..having to start life over again at 50….

    life
    hugs
    b

  24. a civilian-mass audience

    BOBBY…oime…BOBBY…

    I see fear in the eyes…and I don’t like fear…
    we have to protect the new generation…
    WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE

    “We need to teach the next generation of children from Day One that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind’s greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.”
    Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

    we do have free choice…hmmm…or maybe not…

    Well,back to MAGNUM…and yes,in my civilian eyes…
    YOU ARE ALL MAGNUM !!!

  25. a civilian-mass audience

    or maybe not…hiii…

    come on BURNIANS…where the heck are you?…I hope you are shooting…or maybe not…

    blame the heat…I have been warned:))))))))))))))
    :)))))))))))))))

  26. a civilian-mass audience

    ok,then…you have spoiled me with all the warnings
    BUT
    I can take the darkroom excuse…:)

    I can wait
    as long as it takes
    ROSSY…
    same goes for you…;)

    VIVA!!!

  27. War photographers have my deepest respect. They are necessary and vital to the idea of getting to the truth of conflicts (to the extent that’s even possible). When they are injured or killed, it is a tragedy but I like to think they were trying to do some good, tell an important story. But there are times when I think, what a waste. Afghanistan has gone far around the bend as a war that has had any real meaning or sense of justice. We’re just time servers at this point. Trying to find that perfect confluence of events that’ll make it palatable enough to bail out. There is apparently no political will to simply call it a wash and bring home the troops. Nobody wants to be thought a coward, or “weak on terrorism.” Therefore we stay. For reasons that are just pathetic.

    And lives are destroyed.

    And soldiers continue to die.

    And photographers lose their limbs.

    Why, again?

  28. i did ask this question before and met two more prominent people who chose to do such:

    and such is:

    specifically picked up a name that was not gender specific…
    one with an initial – a poet
    another with ‘mel’ as a first name – visual artist.

    so if you had great advise to someone whom you are willing to take under your wing…
    and that someone had a choice.. would you advise to do SUCH…

  29. BOB…EVA…

    the profession in general is dominated by men in terms of numbers, but not in terms of great photographers…and there are many reasons why the numbers are skewed…ask the iconic women like Sally Mann and Annie Leibowitz and Nan Goldin and Mary Ellen Mark if they felt or feel discrimination…women have had a powerful position in the world of photography from the beginning…Arbus, Cunningham, Lange, Arnold, Bourke-White were icons in photography even when there was discrimination in the normal biz workplace..i cannot say for sure, i am only guessing, but my feeling is that women feel they must make a greater personal life sacrifice to survive in this business than do men…i have grown side by side with many women, Cobb, Avakian, Steber, Meiselas, and many others who have spoken of giving up family life in order to survive in the biz…i never heard of a man giving up family life to survive in the biz…big diff….as i have said many many times, it is the young women who are almost always the stars of my classes…with clearly the best essays..however, the young men in my classes tend to still be around ten years later, and i rarely know what happened to the most talented women….the exceptions are the icons we all know…

    PAUL…

    i suppose it is always somewhat “cool” to put down Magnum….funny actually…you really believe that? any outfit with such a place in the history of photography and clearly the largest group of individuals producing great bodies of work , undeniable by any standard, is going to be a big target…should be a big target…however, over the years i have noticed that those throwing the biggest stones in public are in fact trying to come in the back door…the best youngest brightest talents most often are applying to Magnum…for 65 years…if it all ends tomorrow, still impressive…but it is not ending tomorrow….even those in other agencies with established names will, if given the chance, beat a path to the door of Magnum..but of course putting it down is human psychology 101….again , the goal , the appeal, is not money, not fame, not public recognition, but a deep sense of a place at the table of history…but no point in selling Magnum…all you have to do is go down the list..look at who is producing what…of course great photographers exist in other agencies or photogs with no agency..but at this point no matter how much you want to knock it, Magnum is going to rock you back…track record….period.

    cheers,david

  30. MICHA: Josef Koudelka is the only one not looking up….. EVA: Gilden isn’t either..
    ————————
    His imitation of an hopeless Haiti, maybe? :-)))))

  31. DAVID…

    What you describe is what happens in other professions as well, it’s just hard to have and grow kids and at the same time to jump all over the place.. unless you do like Sally Mann, who has found the perfect balance (at least it seems so). Or you find a partner who takes over the mother role in the family. Question of choices, priorities and what you really want.. you wrote it the other day: hug a book?

    CIVI…

    While you patiently wait:
    http://www.slowemotion.it/home.htm

  32. David;
    Re Magnum: any success often brings out the “two-faced”. And the more successful (or desirable) the more the back-stabbing occurs… I used to watch it happen continually in the supermarket! People trying to climb the greasy pole to promotion and not caring how nasty (always behind people’s back) they were to get there.

    It was always interesting to see who eventually ended up being the most two-faced; usually it was those you least suspected… ;-)

  33. Has anyone else attempted to upload images to the WinePhoto 2011 contest today. I have been at it for the better part of two hours and have managed to only upload two images. Anyone have some tips?

  34. Kurt… it’s nearly midnight here.. have you tried to write them an email?

    winephoto dot staff at gmail dot com

    Don’t know what server Winephoto is hosted on, but know that one of the bigger ones over here had some issues today..

  35. Did not know if anyone has seen this….

    MAGNUM PHOTOS captures on film Magnum photographers Martin Parr, Larry Towell, Luc Delahaye and Donovan Wylie, the youngest member, in the field. Well-known photographers Rene Burri and Philipp Jones Griffiths discuss the history of this groundbreaking institution, putting its accomplishments into context. Filmmaker Reiner Holzemar was granted extraordinary access to the intimate workings of the agency. He is the first to have filmed the annual Magnum Photos meeting, where some of the world’s finest photographers decide upon the nominations of new members. Reiner was able to film Henri Cartier-Bresson, the camera shy founder of Magnum, shortly before Bresson’s 90th birthday.

    The video loaded slow for me… I suggest opening the link and pausing it while the whole thing loads before playing.

    Part One:
    http://www.vbox7.com/play:cc09c0dd?r=google

    Part Two:
    http://www.vbox7.com/play:a5adca47?r=google

  36. DAVID/PAUL:

    just returned from Sylvia’s memorial, no time or energy to write properly…

    however…

    if either of you think for a moment i was being cool or bashing Magnum, you are both entirely mistaken…..and that interpretation would be an incredible subtraction of both what i wrote and think…and, truthfully, would be even more unfortunate given my respect for what the agency has accomplished and accomplishes and my friendships with the members…shall i never speak a critical opinion about the agency?….

    if you think for a moment that my comment was an attempt to throw stones…if you think for a moment that my criticism vis-a-vis it’s male/female membership, if you think for a moment that i am trying to be a member or gain ‘friendship’, well, why don’t we end it here…my comments about that….surely, i thought we had a richer/deeper understanding and friendship…

    what i mean was a simple one, and i wrote this under John vink’s fbook page just last week when other commentators here was maligning the agency, that it is a simple thing to do and most often unfortunate. what i meant to suggest that NO agency is a standard by which to aspire: that is not only silly and euro-n.amnerican centric but dismisses the entire history and aspiration of other photographers/photography. Magnum is an extraordinary agency founded, built, and enlived by some of the artforms greatest practitioners. It continues to thrive and inspire and push. However, there is an entire universe of photographic practice that has no relationship to Magnum or it’s history. what i was trying to suggest is that IF a photographer defines her work, her aspiration, her practice by the idea of one organization (substitute, for Magnum, the name of museum, a gallery, a representative, a school), they will not only never achieve depth in their work, but spend their life pursuing a phantom. I know, since i’ve shifted my own photographic life closer to ‘documentary photographers’ (a la magnum), so so so many photographers who grave to be in Magnum, who grave to be around magnum photographers, who kiss ass, who bark at the moon and that act all nice, who hero workship and/or belittle others simply for the sake of appearance. What i suggested in my comment David/Paul was that magnum is not what one should aspire to, what one should aspire to is (in terms of photography) pursuing their vision of work, pushing themselves and their boundaries/beliefs and marrying that to the way they live and that defining any photography/photographic standard by the ‘name’ (for that is what others most likely think of) automatically vichiates great great work. I have immense respect for the agency, but more importantly than an agency, i have immense respect for the photographers there (history) and of those who I have met or know personally.

    honestly, anyone who aspires to history is seeking, again, a silly and superficial (but easily understood in that Psych 101 class) dream. History, if it matters, is a construct of back-looking….and then sometimes returns its gaze to those it had overlook…some remain, others don’t, most of us just disappear…and so what, who cares….

    that is all i am saying…

    and yes, i am surely disappointed in the reaction to what i have written…

    many of the best and brightest apply for membership, are interested in inclusion…and many many are not…and that is what i was saying…

    giacomelli had no such aspiration….Kiyoshi Suzuki, Fukase, Mikhailov, Jack Burnam, Mikhailov, Ginzberg, Seydou Keita, Timanns, Avedon, Frank, Kertez, Klein, Eggleston, Rodchenko, Sherman, Steichen, Uelsmann, Araki, Moriyama, Witkin, Goldin, Meatyard, siskind, vander elskan, Ronis, michals, Strömholm, Sidibe, Bechers, Calle, Raad, etc etc etc…i mean, the yardstick should never be Magnum/vii/MOMA/Louvre/Pace/Gagosian…the yardstick should be the work…period…

    that is all i am/was saying….period….

    why does an observation/critique have to be interpreted as throwing stones…or some attempt to be so hip as to denounce others (when do i frickin denounce other photographers????)…or as a sickly attempt to somehow kick ass for inclusion….

    LBM shows exactly the great truth about photography and especially contemporary photography: it is so so wide and so so exciting that anyone that defines ‘greatness’ or ‘interesting’ by any measure other than the work is just blind…and there are many photographers (especially it seems many young ones and many who tend to be oriented toward classical, social-documentary of the Magnum vein (of which, as an agency it is unmatched), who see only through their aspirations to be like/a part of magnum….that is what i was suggested for pitiful….

    what a major disappointment to be perceived as somehow cool or so shallow as to be perceived like that Paul/David…

    a sore disappointment…….

  37. Bob, that might be a bit of an overreaction there my friend. I believe you may be misinterpreting the response to your original post. But then, I may be an idiot for getting in the middle of this. Just saying, read again, I’m ducking back out the door. You’re all okay. I’m running. :))

  38. tom:

    i’m not angry (wasn’t when i wrote), just trying to clarify what i’d written earlier…and also reacting to the perception that a criticism doesn’t mean that an observation and a critique of a group, is not in itself a criticism of individuals. my students, daily, criticize my school (as they rightly should) and i never consider this as bitter or throwing stones or hypocritical, and i share many of their concerns and frustrations and that it just doesn’t serve the conversation to see an observation as somehow embittered or a suggestion of pining or disappointment….for me, i’m just always open (public and private) about my reaction, good or ill, never trying to say what shall get me somewhere…and again, just suggesting that if the reaction to a criticism is one of suggesting that the commentator suggests being too-cool-for-school, then we should end the dialogue, cause it doesn’t serve a purpose….agree to disagree kindofthing….but i am old enough to know (including my own oversensitivity, particularly today, this afternoon) that some things, because of their nature and reaction, just don’t provide room for chat….anyway…what’s the point…i’ve wasted y’alls time enough on this, my bad…..

    ross: no, wasn’t even referring to you…human nature: what else do we have ;)

    kurt: just write the Winephoto admin, they’re a fabulous outfit…more than likely, they’re being deluged by submissions and i’m sure will sort it out…hard to find a better group of folk…good luck, bring home some vino :))

    off to bed

  39. There are a heap of gold diggers out there who want that magnum connection why even the ice cream makers have one called ego, me I like the peppermint vesion

  40. Bob, :)
    lots of misunderstandings here in all levels..
    i believe you wished there should be more women in magnum and everywhere else right?..pilots, soccer players (love Marta from Brazil!) …and any other craft…

    we hope for justice for “illegal” immigrants/minorities/we are against police racial profiling..blah blah..
    but truth is…statistics say that there are more african american men in jail than whites for example..why? because they are targeted etc..blah bla..blah

    we all agree on that, but we also have to agree that the best of the ladies that apply in Magnum, eventually gets accepted..
    so its not Magnum’s problem if more men (yes yes its still a man’s world unfortunately..yikes)apply…but im sure we all know that…
    anyway…i see misunderstandings here..yes we all wish for gay rights too but status quo still resisting..but people will insist back and win…
    but it takes time..it takes lots and lots of time…for evolution and changes , will get there sometime, i dont think i’ll be alive, i hope i will alive… but it takes time..
    i dont think we disagree on all that…. maybe its all Utopia!..who knows..time will tell…
    but at this time i dont think that Magnum can or it is its job to “discover” women, men or anyone in particular…All, men, women, trannies etc should step out!All welcome, i guess!

    next beer on me
    USA vs France, women soccer WORLD CUP , Wednesday….
    DO NOT MISS THIS GAME..
    USA beat Brazil in the penalties …
    (going to pee!)

  41. Imants; I was in Kaikoura once and saw a bunch of tourists on the road, all clicking away. I couldn’t for the life of me work out what they were so excited about. I went up to chat to them; turns out they were from the US and were photographing the huge Magnum ice-cream advert on the side of the truck. They told me that they didn’t have (it was in the early 90’s) big advertising hoardings on the side of trucks at home!

  42. a civilian-mass audience

    “A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.”
    that’s for you BOBBY…
    hope vino was good…

    EVA…go back to the darkroom…good stuff happens in there…GO EVA!

    MYGRACIE…can you bring some peppermint (IMANTS loves it):)
    and can you find and bring KATIEEE too…
    my people!

    and talking about my people
    PANOS
    this is what I call …Reporting!!!

    “Teachers teach more by what they are than by what they say.”
    MR.HARVEY …you are MAGNUM !!!

  43. When we were kids in the oz country side we used to make an ice cream called “rats arse” funny how it never took off but ego did

  44. a civilian-mass audience

    oh,and before I go…

    MARC…we love you …sending good energy to you and your family…(thank you BOB)

    IMANTS…ice scream on you…:)!!!

  45. Bob…

    I wasn’t accusing you of anything of the sort, I was only asking your opinion on why one should not aspire to be a magnum photographer. The second was just me musing and asking generally anyone one round here and your view especially on why does Magnum produce such love hate reactions. But never aimed at you personally, only wanting to hear your opinion which I respect and listen to. I’m absolutely sure David didn’t think anything of the sort either…

  46. BOB…

    If I may.. and yes, I know, none of my business and I follow Tom right after this.. you call David your friend.. don’t you think that he’ll know you enough to KNOW?? Stop taking everything personally. By running off from the discussion yesterday you’ve wasted way more time and energy today to write the above comments.. would have sufficed to answer Paul’s legit question.. not everyone knows what you write elsewhere.

    The last person closed to criticism probably is David. And you know that. Criticism here on Burn has never been a problem, as far as I can recall. But that also means one has to explain, otherwise it’s throwing stones. And you’re not one to throw stones, just not. Just, please, take the time next time, no running, ‘k? :)

  47. why one should not aspire to be a magnum photographer………….because time is better spent taking the photographs

  48. Now that’s interesting! Please keep on… Maybe a risk of one’s personal style being too influenced by those one admires?

  49. ”When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.”
    Robert Frank

  50. But doesn’t one have to measure one’s progress by comparing with others?……..No, that’s not your domain the audience and critics are at play here. If you want to be a photographer so be it, if you want to take photographs then you have to work despite others. Why all this I want to be different, I want to be history?

  51. An unconfirmed number of casualties, about 50 wounded—only two seriously, extensive damages including one of the tree power stations of the island going offline. Cause seems to be a brash fire that reached a storing facility with ammunition that was confiscated a couple years ago from a ship in Cyprus’ international waters.

  52. IMANTS..

    one cannot not aspire to be a Magnum photographer except by making photographs…and your “place at the table of history” is determined by others….however, i think any serious photographer/artist will clearly see from whence they came and what influence their work may have…nobody does not care about this…at least nobody honest with themselves does not care…at least not anybody i know….

    PAUL

    you are fairly new in this craft..or at least, with the new zeal you have…early on everyone admires someone or some thing…maybe even tries to emulate or copy…this is normal…at some point however, one must break away from any emulation and find out the core of who they are…not who they want to be , but who they are….

    your only goal should be the work…i know in society most goals are attained by process of emulation and learning what went before…do this, and that will happen is the normal mantra…not so the case with the upper levels of photography…go now with the flow of your own juices… do not worry about an outcome or any place to be….

    only by being a truly unique person will you arrive on the level you want and even then it is a moveable feast…a fragile balance…rare air…you can do all of this by moving not one inch from where you are physically…savor the moments where you are and you will end up way beyond where you wanted to be…

    cheers, david

  53. Imants…
    So it should always be like that zen birdie…The birdie sings because she likes singing no other reason…One creates art for oneself, totally personal action… if the audience accept it… great, if they don’t… so be it…

  54. paul:

    i didn’t think you aimed ainy attack whatsoever at me….i was reacting to what david wrote and simultaneously trying to react to your question about my original statement that magnum (again, let us replace magnum with any other singular entity) should not be an aspiration, because that goes about the goal of work the entirely wrong way, etc…

    eva: listen, i was running yesterday because i had 2 things i had to do right then: 1) talk to marina and then run to prepare for a memorial for a friend who had died…as for david, yes, of course he knows me better and yes we are close friends and yes i know he knows me/my life, but i did believe that my comment may have been seen as an example of what he finds frustrating about others who do that meanwhile harboring ulterior motives…i always explain (way way way too much, too often) what i mean, and i didn’t throw stones….i stand by what i said about magnum vis-a-vis women, so be it, that for me, right now, this moment in time as a progressive organization, they should look toward balancing their numbes, but i’m not that important, and it’s an irrelevancy, my comment initially was an attempt to be humourous after watching the vid…and by the way, friends disagree, friends argue and friends do in fact get upset with what each other write, not in any grand way (i am not in the least upset with david for goodness sake), but we also write what we react….as for taking things personally…its about language eva…and i’m tired of explaining again…this was all my fault and as my wife would remind me, i should have known better than to get so involved invested in something not terribly important…i take responsibility…please just don’t lecture me though

    panos: ok, neext beer…gotta run, hugs
    b

  55. PAUL.

    there are two audiences..those who purchase your work, either by commission or by buying your prints etc., and your peer group…two distinct groups….for all of their commercial success, just look at Picasso and Matisse…they cared deeply about what the other one thought and at the same time tried to outdo each other…sure they were doing their own thing…singing their own song….this is basic…but you think either lived in a vacuum? don’t think so…no way….

    i do not think de Niro gives a damn about what his millions of fans think or the fact even that they have bought all those movie tickets…he is happy about it of course…but in the crowded premier of his movie , i am sure he only looks over to see what Pacino thought FIRST, then he bows to the crowd..

    cheers, david

  56. No one just does it, works hard at it and well some are accepted others miss out. I wrote a series of visual arts textbooks, not because I wanted to be an author it was about the books, content and education.

  57. I know David that it is not apart just trying to get Paul to do his work not that of others. Frank knew/ knows he was great at his craft

  58. David I will skype soon but early am start to catch a plane for Tasmania and hoping to buy some land to build a house on I am interested in,…………some where to live and die as Bob would say

  59. Bob…
    OK! :) what I don’t want is any bad feelings over some comment I made. I respect and honestly appreciate your view/words/feelings. Laughing and please upload Loomings to Burn soon or you’ll end up showing it all on Facebook! :))))

  60. paul;

    no worries, really. i wasn’t angry with anyone, not u and certainly not david…i was frustrated with the amount of time writing saturday (my fault) and debating my comment with eve (not with her personally at all, but frustration with having to explain what i said as not being any kind of an attack) and frustrated with what i’d written about magnum as a photographers focus (i see way too many young photogs and sometiems here too) as a bad thing (just as hero worship)…again, i should have just clarified by initial statement, or written it more clearly, but i suspect i’d be in the same boat, defending what i’d written…the better tact should have been not to write anything, as marina reminded me on skype….but well, that is my nature, to write and to write with passion and write alot…sadly, i can’t change this about my self though i try…as for loomings, i haven’t shown anything on loomings in a while after promising david not to, …all reason pictures at fbook are either part of a long standing project on russia, or new work (like the picture of the falls)…no one will see anything of it until david sees the whole thing…but, well..got some personal/family issues to resolve 1st before that day happens…but it shalll…

    running to teach and shutting down computer, just so no one things i’m cutting off….already late…

  61. Thanks Paul but that’s where we differ we are not interested in a deal we are after something that both my wife and I can grow and learn with.

  62. David…

    Been reading Robert Franks The Americans – extended version and I’m at last begining to understand, appreciate and enjoy that damn book :)! Seeing his earlier work, reading some of his letters and the contact sheets for The Americans has been extremely good. Thank god I’m a so stubborn… Yes, I agree Robert Frank calculated very, very well that work!

  63. Imants…
    Money wise I’ve never been up to much, never made a good deal in my life. Actually money means very little to me…i wish it did I’m sure my wife would probably be a little happier not that she really is unhappy!!…but can’t help it, friendship, honesty and love goes always first… Best thing in my life was losing it all…

  64. BOB BLACK…PAUL…ALL

    i never saw hero worship as being any part of the way any serious photographer would look at Magnum..

    should young photographers have a good look at Magnum and the spin off cooperatives? damn well they should…for their own protection and proliferation of their creative life…a way to friggin survive if nothing else…

    ok here is the deal…and it is pragmatic not romantic

    Magnum was set up to do one thing…protect photographers who by nature need all kinds of protection….to allow the member photographers a distribution channel for their work, to allow control over the use of this work, and to make sure ownership of the photographs was in the hands of the photographer..HCB et al saw that if they did not get a handle quickly on all of the above, the publishers of magazines would quickly take advantage of their “services”…this is a biz battle/war that goes on up to this minute…the model for photographer ownership (cooperative) has worked so well that Noor, VII, Prime, Luceo, and several others have totally followed, with minor changes, the Magnum model…safety in numbers if you will…

    Soth is sick today and cannot help to pay for the scanner, but Barbey can, and tomorrow when Barbey wants to go for six months photo sabbatical , Soth has gotten better and can carry the load…group marketing,group books, group shows…tried it alone? not so easy…everyone in a coop is an individual of course, but a group of individuals is hard to beat and at no point does anyone in a coop HAVE to do anything…….one can participate a lot, or not at all…one can make one dollar a month or one million a month and have an equal vote…read that last sentence again…

    this is why the selection process for Magnum and the other coops is so so tough…you want great artists you can trust to grow, not just somebody who did great last year…not easy to find a long term person..and we do not always find them either…but that is our goal….that is why we are 65 years old , have outlived all other agencies, all of our clients who tried to take our rights, exhibit in the best venues, have the most prestige publishers, and have the very best talents knocking on our door as never before…other than that, there is no reason to take Magnum seriously… :)

    cheers, david

  65. That was a very enjoyable video, and shows very well the slippery sense of humour Chien-Chi Chang has. I just bet he added some sound effects for fun. I’m not sure if Mr. Burri’s group portrait shows so much a “Men’s Club”, but it certainly looks as if the Magnum Agency is filled with wannabe fly-fishermen!!! ;)

    Like any fishing club or society, Magnum is a group which shares a common purpose; David speaks of the protection it offers its partners…there are other strengths inherent as well. The emphasis on photojournalism for sure – either straight or artistic – is one commonality, but a more broad, general shared interest would be their fascination with Man in the world. There is an obvious love for humanity, and whether the members’ work is approached through beauty or anger, the summit they attempt to reach is Truth. In that, we here on Burn share this passion. I cannot see any reason why the Burn editors wouldn’t publish an essay on landscapes, or still lifes, but for the most part it is our appreciation for humanity that drives us to this site. Keep in mind that not all photographers share the point of view and subject matter that we do.

    David mentions the relationship Matisse and Picasso had; it was based on profound respect for one another and the realization that, at the time, they were at the top of the game for their totally divergent approaches to art. It was a very peculiar relationship, and I don’t think it is accurate to say that it was strictly a friendship – there was much hen gossip spoken behind the back of the other, and sometimes quite bitter – nevertheless both realized that the dynamic rivalry between them was a positive force to their creativity. Again, something that Magnum shares…and maybe we, too? Picasso was also quite comfortable in borrowing techniques and styles from the past, as well as his contempories – he is famous for saying “I do not borrow…I steal” – and this should bring some comfort to those who feel imitation and emulation can be a positive force as they hone their authorship.

    Another thing: Sometime after the May workshops – led by Towell, Chang, Reed, Gilden, Barbey and David – it dawned on me that these particular photographers were so damned engaged with the teaching experience (in such an open, intimate and democratic manner) perhaps because they realized what was left now for them was to leave a heritage, a legacy; to pay back what they borrowed from whomever by giving it over to us in the present. Whether it is through the viewing of their work, their mentoring and teaching, or even by the moulding of some lucky protege, these photographers are well aware of the importance of their place in history, and the importance of how the dynamics of simultaneously open rivalry and assistance is to creativity.

  66. if you want to take photographs then you have to work despite others. Why all this I want to be different, I want to be history?
    ————————————————————

    why is it so “wrong” to want to be “history”? who put blame in “ysterofimia”?

    posthumous fame

    1 Greek (el)
    1.1 Etymology
    1.2 Noun

    [ ] Greek (el)

    s legacy
    general let’s reputation s legacy
    accusative a legacy s legacy
    vocative a legacy s legacy
    [ ] Etymology
    Posterity < late + reputation
    ————————————-

    "posthumous fame" is a higher deed. It is Not Ego, it is the higher path to Service (now as far as enlightenment goes, sign in/check with Dalai Lama;)

  67. it is Not very honest to pretend one should not care about reputation and/or legacy…
    it is an unfortunate assumption that “I do Art to please myself only, otherwise im a gold digger”…
    If i do a photo “exhibition”, am i an Exhibitionist?
    lol…didnt think so either;)

  68. and why putting so much guilt in everything we do? why “Ego” is bad? why “democracy” in arts?????
    No Equality in Arts. No seniority either..i was here first!!!!! hmmmm..in Art this does not count…Talent (some call it ego) does, though!

  69. In other words , Art shouldnt stay hidden in drawers waiting to be discovered like a hidden treasure..Art should be for all of us, art needs to be displayed…An Artist should not feel guilty to admit hers/his higher aspirations for legacy and the need for reputation..
    Its the same as hiding/pretending you are never horny!..
    really? try it!
    Since when “horny” mean low spirited, ego fueled instinct?
    well , since jesus and mohhamed took over….long long time ago!

  70. Panos…

    No democracy in quality, it just wont’t work, imo. Same basic rights to opportunity, yes, but that’s it..

  71. Bob Dylan paradox:

    “Bob always wanted to be Famous, leave a legacy and reputation and he DID”…does this (his EGO) makes his work any less????

    Kurt Cobain paradox:
    “Kurt never wanted to be famous (im sure Charles that knows more on this matter would agree), but he “failed”..In fact he became not only “just famous”, but an icon for a whole generation…does this diminishes his work? does that make his music any better? Does the fact of Kurt being way less “selfish” than Dylan or ELVIS makes him a better/bigger/more real artist?

  72. Eva exactly…
    Equal opportunities (to access) for ALL…
    may the most “intriguing” work survive…

    Im always fascinated with people do not understand the nature of motivation…
    We call it “MY home”, we call her “MY wife” , “MY checking account”, “MY new car”, “MY dog”, “MY beautiful daughter”…but when it comes to arts we have to be selfless and democratic ego-assassins..
    Isn’t it an Ego – crime against all other human beings when we choose our next lover and stay committed?
    Why not being self less and democratic and share love with all human beings…
    Ahhhh , why NOT democracy in LOVE??????????????
    why do i discriminate all men? why am i not democratic enough? why do i only choose women for lovers?
    what is wrong with my EGO?

  73. a civilian-mass audience

    PANOS…what are you smoking?:)))
    (to be perceived as a joke)

    ok,ALLL…
    who is going…Italy?
    July 24 – 30, 2011, Val di Chiana, Italy
    David Alan Harvey On the Road

    let me know…cause I don’t travel light

  74. Yea, but note that history almost always proves that members of excluded groups (women, blacks, italians, greeks, whaaa-t-evah) are capable of producing at just as high a level as any other group of humans once they are given equal opportunity. Speaking in general of course…

  75. other than that, there is no reason to take Magnum seriously… :)

    Absolutely true. Who would ever take a group named after a brand of condoms seriously in the first place?

  76. https://picasaweb.google.com/innerspacecowpanos/Desktop05?authkey=Gv1sRgCMzjvZjhv-PyowE#slideshow/5628127010974136514

    speaking of MAGNUM, i want to THANK in public, photographer ALEC SOTH for sending me this THANK YOU POSTCARD (click above, 2 photos/sides of POSTCARD) From the recent RV Magnum Road trip!
    (i received it about 10 minutes ago, but i need to mention that this is the second Postcard i get from Soth ..and also big thank you to and from JIM GOLDBERG for his POSTCARD that sent a month ago!)

    Let’s see when the second part of the trip starts!!!!!???

  77. Panos, cool postcard!

    And yes, Magnum PI did do serious work. He was even able to procure a patron (Robin Masters) that allowed him the use of a Ferrari and residence in a Hawaiian mansion :-)

  78. my personal experience from the recent POSTCARDS of America Magnum RV/ Road Trip project from SA to Cali etc…
    very intense experience..spending a whole day assisting Goldberg or Paolo or Soth can be very exhausting but rewarding…Jared assisted Michel Subotzky in Cali, im sure he can also verify, same as Nick that followed Paolo in El Paso, or Kim that assisted Jim Goldberg in his “veterans” story atc or Xavier driving Susan Meiselas around..
    Its a community with bunch of creative , “crazy” , fun people ..
    i dont know much more really…
    My only friend is DAH and i started a friendship with Nikos Economopoulos in greece too..very nice kids/guys/people et all… none of the above ever looked at me down..none told me that im nobody coz im not in magnum, nobody told me that i should or i should not be in magnum or anywhere.. but most agreed that its good to check, learn history, respect my peers, do not immitate nor follow, bring something new to the table and also do not rush and take your time and relax and have fun..
    therefore , ladies and gents i think that magnum is a bunch of cool individuals that , geez..what would we do without them? without Frida? without Kurt? without Dali? without AKAKY?????????????????????????????????????????????????????

    life would be boring … who likes life without ART?

    and according to Nietzsche : “Art is the Proper Task of Life”

  79. JUSTIN,

    yes yes im a POSTCARD / MAGNUM collector…but i worked hard for each card…he he..
    please sorry for bragging but see all my RECENT adds in my collection…

    lets start with a Paolo Pellegrin headshot of a “shithead” (my twin brother Spyros) here and as you click on next pictures u will find a surprise
    (two BURN.02 POSTCARDS )

  80. “yes yes im a POSTCARD / MAGNUM collector…but i worked hard for each card…”

    Panos, if you make available your mailing address i’ll shoot you a couple of my postcards
    Nothing to do with Magnum but,at least, you won’t have to work for them !

    Mark

  81. For people tied to endless repetitive work and a daily ‘struggle’ for survival, or those stuck in the drudgery of the mundane an icon a hero represents an escape from the dreariness of everyday life. Of course it isn’t a real escape, merely a symbol…

  82. a civilian-mass audience

    speaking of postcards…I received the coolest cards from AUDREY
    check them out:
    http://www.audreybardou.eu/blog/
    scroll little …
    she is MAGNUM…a silent one!

    oime…postcards exchange???…hmmm…oime…
    I have to think fast…
    I am sweating…and you don’t want me to sweat…:)))

  83. My son and I whilst walking to his private lessons were stopped by a lovely intense young woman. She’s told us Jesus is coming back very, very soon…
    As you can all imagine I’ve got enough on my hands with my Magnum icon adoring…
    So if anyone is interested in assisting Jesus in his latest roadtrip just be patient, he’s on his way back…

  84. a civilian-mass audience

    damnit…if I could only write…the way I think:)))))))))))))))))))))))

  85. ” why dont we all exchange postcards???????????? ”

    Sure. Send me the one you got from Soth and I’ll send you the one I got from my aunt :)

  86. Maybe we can get Burn to publish the new bible…if Akaky writes this version it will be the first bible i’ll ever read. Bob can do the extended version :)
    It will be a bestseller!! The EPF prize will be a million dollars!!!!!

  87. As it’s a Burn published book we’ll need images for the new Bible…
    May I suggest Panos and D’Agata :)

  88. Panos…
    Yes kidding!!!!
    Never read the bible in my life and don’t plan to either…it also gives me the creeps the whole subject.
    There is no need to believe in Christ or read the bible or go to church to be a nice person…

  89. true, nobody can enforce kindness .. fear never made the crowd “better”…but but..fear keeps the crowd relaxed/together so we all “obey”…
    funny thing about christianity is confession…u can kill your mother but if u remember to confess the last minute, u good to go!(of course – especially the catholics accept all payments/cash/stocks/all major credit cards etc-even travelers checks)

  90. Paul.. there IS a good reason to read it, to know what you’re talking about, and to know the difference of what’s written and of what we’re told…

    Panos… “the time Burn gets “serious”, thats the day we need to “destroy” Burn!” .. agree!

  91. Organized Religion is a web, very smartly built around fear and with guilt as ultimate weapon became the most profitable business through the centuries..tons of cash to be made from offerings from the poor, the sick, the desperate…”coolest” thing about this business is that anyone can start it and no inventory/ investment needed…u open a coffee shop u need to buy a refrigerator etc…start a church , u need a few chairs and a microphone…

  92. “Organized Religion is a web, very smartly built around fear and with guilt as ultimate weapon”

    Panos; I first thought you were talking about some of the crazed environmentalists and conservationists I’ve had the “pleasure” to meet. Not the ones who are actually out there doing it; but the ones who talk it only and then rush off overseas to convert the “un-godly” in third world countries etc…. They leave any fundamentalist missionary dead in their tracks! ;-)

  93. Ah man, are we back on bashing religion again…?

    One cannot judge Christianity based upon what was spoken by an old lady in the street, any more than one can judge Islam based upon a suicidal-bomber jihadist. People are people – and there will always be some who intend well but do harm others, or abuse the power granted to them for personal gain, or murder in the name of X.

    Burn is a positive place; let us not stereotype.

  94. Sorry guys, aint been around much – been working my project, been shooting street, and been going to various meetings (business) and events (happenings) – got some good plans coming up, we’ll see how they go. Met some wonderful new people bending my ear about things, love that.

    But know this, I’m down for my fellow Burnians who grind like me, holler and we’ll fix up something.

    Big love to all,
    Peace xxx

  95. a civilian-mass audience

    I believe in the Spirits…I believe in my Gods…and I will second all of you…cause I do believe!

    EVA,VIVA…ANTON’S book is on the way…
    thank you,simply thank you!!!

    Be healthy,be safe,be confident
    BE YOU
    the rest is simply…BURNING history

    MR.HARVEY sending love and hugs to SOCRATES…
    WHAT NOT TO LOVE !!!

  96. PANOS,

    Just back from a weekend of aya ceremonies so just now catching up.

    Re: Kurt and being famous: I think he totally wanted to be famous, but to be famous on his own terms, which was (one of) his downfall(s). It all got away from him. One has to be secure with their boundaries in order to survive the elevation of fame with a normal ego remaining intact. Important to be comfortable in saying no as much as yes. Kurt didn’t have the time/maturity to deal with the pain inside of him and the pressures of being famous didn’t help. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t want to reach where he did. Really, who doesn’t want to be well known and well paid for what they do best?

    Charles

  97. Really, who doesn’t want to be well known and well paid for what they do best?

    Well, off the top of my head, I might have answered “Kurt Cobain” But thinking a little less superficially, I realize that my thought was always more that he didn’t want to be idolized by people he didn’t respect for reasons that weren’t what he was really about. Not that he didn’t want success but that he didn’t want success that was phony. But I suspect we all play our own little games of transference with celebrities? probably dead ones even more so. Still, it does seem he got a world class shit load of the kind of success that he normally associated with failure. Number one hits. Industry adoration… Or is that tale as totally ridiculous as most of the rest? Most likely, eh.

    BTW, since we’re on the subject, Charles, what do you think of the Van Sant film? I haven’t seen it, have kinda been savoring the wait cause I expect it to be great, figuring it must be in the same league with Elephant?, which is one of my favorites.

  98. “What I’m searching for is two totally conflicting things: to be totally alone and content by myself, but loved and adored by millions of people. And I know it.”

    – Alec Soth

  99. tom!!!!!!!

    yea, what Alec said!….

    had i simply written something that, i would have avoided all that mass and undue stress for everyone….that’s the basic truth (for me too)…but, i’ll be satisfied by less than millions…i guess i’ll take a couple of hundred, …and now, for 7 weeks, totally alone :))))))))))))))

  100. a civilian-mass audience

    “I am totally alone and content by myself,BUT I love and adore millions of people.And I hope they know it”

    ~Civi:)

    Thank you TOM for BIG AL’S quote …

    Love you ALLL…and Thank you
    I am out of coffee…why,why?…:)))

  101. a civilian-mass audience

    BOBBY…you are loved by MARINA,DIMAS and MASS AUDIENCE…you better be satisfied:)
    I am coming over for coffee…

    You have been warned…

  102. CIVI! :)))))))))

    I couldn’t ask for more :))))))…believe me!….that is all i need….but trying to be honest, i guess i crave love/attention more than just that, so not trying to lie….

    but, in the end, they are all i need :))

    just got home from the airport…

    hugs/kisses across the sea to greece!

  103. a civilian-mass audience

    “hugs/kisses across the sea…”
    oime BOBBY…
    I need some coffee…hiiii…I am not trying to lie:)))

    safe travels if u aretraveling,safe sex if you “traveling”…
    BUT
    risk it all…if you dare…

    i will be back…to check on you…may the journey resumes!

  104. ‘risk it all’….well, for good and ill, i always do… sometimes, leads to wonder…on bad days, well to rocky bottoms….but, u’ll have to get a report from the other 2 to see what it yields….running, ;)))

  105. Cobain was long dead by the time I really began to appreciate his music. Not that I wasn’t aware of it throughout his short career, quite the contrary, I was busy transcribing his music for my teenage pupils whilst watching the X-Files!. I remember being pretty surprised by ”smells like teenage spirit”, when one of the kids asked what I thought of it…so primal and raw…but there again I was busy inmersed in my heavy metal stuff. Smiling Cobain and the other grunge groups killed in one foul swoop all the hair metal groups and they’ve never recovered even though they are sort of ‘alive’ still. I probably also reacted slightly against it because it was the ”in thing”, as usual it had to all quieten down for me to really enjoy their stuff…

  106. Hmm, to crop or not to crop your pictures…laughing always seems a prickly subject…looking through Robert Frank’s contact sheets he didn’t seem to have any problem at all with cropping… As Imants said the other day Frank was more interested in photos than being a photographer..

  107. Paul,

    IMHO, cropping is like exposure: it’s best to get it right in the camera, but no shame in adjusting in the darkroom or post-processing in order to make the image better.

    But, please – no HDR :-)

  108. Justin…

    I agree exactly with your view, it’s better to get it right in camera… always. But I’m not going to sacrifice something special by chucking it in the rubbish bin, just because it needs cropping either…

    BTW your Spanish is not at all rusty :)

  109. “Mntn biking w young generation my fam 10k ft Colorado rockies.Lung sucking grueling mud blood, God proceeding to punish me for all my sins”
    ——————————
    dont worry, its a bike “thing” .its just hallucinations from dehydration plus colorado lack of oxygen/elevation…
    you’ll be fine in couple of hours!

  110. DAVID…

    leave the lungs in the mountains, you don’t need them over here anyway, so darned hot you can’t breath… just bring a smile and a hug over here :)

  111. ” “I am totally alone and content by myself,BUT I love and adore millions of people.And I hope they know it”

    ~Civi:) ”

    Yes.. fully agree with the first part, not capable to do the second part.. that’s why you, Civi, have my respect :)

  112. @ Mountain Bike lovers:
    Two quotes of a great biker, Gary Klein, who made high quality bikes:

    “Anyone who rides a bicycle is a friend of mine”

    “Biking is about rhythm and flow. It’s the wind in you face and the challenge of hammering up along hill. It’s the reward at the top and the thrill of a high-speed descent. Biking lets you come alive in both body and spirit. After awhile the bike disappears beneath you and you feel as if you’re suspended in midair. ”

    P.

  113. MW,

    Never saw it. Couldn’t really stomach it at the time despite being a Van Sant fan (yeah Elephant was great). Maybe I should check it out. A must see is “Kurt Cobain: About A Son”, which is a documentary of Kurts’ life in his own words (I have stills in the film). Really moving stuff and a nice respite from talking heads style docs (the footage is all contemporary NW landscape ala Baraka, etc). Beautifully shot.

    Best,

    Charles

  114. Yeah, Kurt totally wanted to be a rockstar, just not an asshole one. He didn’t take into account the massive amount of responsibility that would come with stardom though. A real shame….

  115. Eva,
    “not capable to do the second part.. that’s why you, Civi, have my respect :)” yes, and the respect of millions of Civilians! Never alone!

  116. a civilian-mass audience

    “One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap.”

    never stop fighting…

  117. a civilian-mass audience

    “Love is the only cement that can hold this broken community together.When I am commanded to love, I am commanded to restore community, to resist injustice, and to meet the needs fo my brothers.” (and my sisters)
    Martin Luther King, Jr.

    damnit…what was he smoking…?

    ok,enough said…RESPECT…and goodmorning from beautiful BURNING grecolandia!

  118. a civilian-mass audience

    P.S…COBAIN is upstairs…he is playing guitar …so many friends up there too…

    damnit…what am I smoking?:))))))))))))))))

    life is here.life is now…Be original,shoot whatever you feel like(even if you are on assignment)
    every minute is a miracle…
    let’s be the best we can be
    don’t settle for less

    cause it takes soul and sweat to be…MAGNUM !!!

  119. More sun and heat for the next days.. get them chicken a kiddie pool filled with water.. no, wait, if they go in there you’ll get a pool full of chicken brew by tonight.. hmmm…

    Original? Best?.. don’t think so, but life, yes:

    http://www.slowemotion.it/home.htm

    Thingy got two teeth, working on more.. and a good day to all..

  120. A little advice, please:

    One of my blog readers just informed me, with great pride, that a picture of mine appeared on the BBC website today.

    As much as I like the idea of being in the BBC, it greatly jarred, as the BBC did not seek my permission or contact me, period. By my reckoning, they have violated my copyright. I am very guarded about who I let use my whaling photos, and these guys didn’t even ask.

    Anybody have any experience with such matters? Any advice on how I might respond?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14141261

    As to the Magnum portrait, I originally missed this due to my very limited internet access on my last trip. Taking this photo could be very intimidating, but Rene Burri is not intimidated at all.

  121. Bill…
    I don’t know much about copyright…but your photo is yours and without your permission I think at the very least it’s a little rude…perhaps you should contact the other photographer Craig George featured in the article and see if he’s in the same situation…the fact that they’ve added your name in the image does make them less guilty, however why not a link to your blog? Money wise I’vd no idea but I’m pretty sure the BBC and the gentleman who wrote the article don’t work for free all out of the kindness of their heart :)

  122. Thanks, Paul. I will talk to Craig. He is a wildlife biologist who lives in Barrow and is a friend of mine for over a quarter century and he is attending the IWC meeting. I suspect that since they were at the same place, maybe the reporter got those photos directly from Craig, but I will ask. As to your other statements, you are right and more and more people who should know better think we photographers live so that they can publish our photos for free. Not so long ago, one of the more famed writers in the US who will shortly publish a book on Sarah Palin got ahold of the current mayor of Wasilla and told him to send a photo that I had taken of him to his publisher. The Mayor then got ahold of me to get the photo and I told him to have the author get ahold of me directly. Then, without every seeking permission, the author then sent me an email with instructions on where to send it and a form that he told me to sign that gave them unlimited rights to use the photo from now until forever for free.

    I refused to do it, of course, and he said his publisher – one of the world’s biggest publishing companies – said that if they had to pay for it then they would not use it. I responded that if my picture was of no value to them, then they were of no value to me.

    This all gets very aggravating. The author agreed that he, too, gets aggravated when people want to use his writing for free.

  123. Bill…

    The day my local bank doesn’t charge me interest when I pay late or forgive me a months pay on my mortgage, the same with my taxes and the local supermarket lets me take home food without paying I may give the idea of giving a photo free to someone. But until then they are mine and only mine. If the BBC do get silly with the whole subject all it takes is perhaps a couple of days of every Burn comment to begin with the same negative phrase on BBC and copyright and google analytics will get hold of it and everytime someone google the words BBC the negative comments will be at the top the google search…

    Bill… go into this subject of copyright infringement like the first Spanish bull who understood human speech in 2025 and who just before entering the bullring overheard someone in the public comment on the only reason all his ancestors died in that same bullring was because they got distracted from killing the matador and were too busy following the red cape keeping the public and matador entertained…
    If that gentleman on the BBC wants images of whales where you live either pays for them or starts saving up for a very warm anorak…

  124. PANOS:
    organized religion: tons of cash to be made from offerings from the poor, the sick, the desperate…”
    —–

    Mmmm… Like organized drug dealing? 65 billion $$ business, just in the US. I have no idea, I’ll say I doubt organized religon makes a 4th of that in the US. Talk about a web smartly built around people. And priests did not kill 34 000 souls in the last 5 years in ultra catholic mexico. Less bothering than organized religion maybe. I suppose what’s a few dozen thousands deaths when drugs are so much more cool and fun than religion.

  125. Bill, I’d use the “contact” link on the website and also contact the author of the article; Richard Black. I’ve just Googled him and he seems to work, primarily, for the BBC as an environment expert.
    I’m pretty sure that this is him

    Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

    With luck it may be the beginning of a beautiful (and lucrative) friendship. I noticed some of the comments from viewers of the article are anti-whale hunting: a pretty easy stance when your food is in a package at the supermarket just down the road. Perhaps you could offer Richard (and the BBC) further articles and photographs that illustrate the reality of living in such an extreme climate?

    Love your blog, Bill; I check it out every day.
    Best,

    Mike.

  126. Panos…

    Tour de France!!
    At some point today someone should crack or attack. Let’s see who really is bruised or just using it as race tactics…
    Contador can’t wait too long to start pulling back some time lost if he can with Schleck not having to attack or anything…

  127. Bill…
    Good old trick when I was in music was to send yourself a registered parcel with a CD with your music and written lyrics… So when someone was blatantly copying your music,lyrics, or melody you took them to court with perfectly legal proof that at so and so date year you had already written/composed it and no need to copyright or anything… Could do exactly the same strategy with images.

  128. The other day I recieved a comment on my blog asking me in if I would post my images on the web at correct printing resolution because they had tried printing them at 72dpi and they didn’t turn out properly… !!!!!!
    :))))))

  129. Bill

    First thing to do before contacting the offender,BBC in this case, is to ensure you have an archived
    screen grab of your image in use on their site.

    Beyond this you have basically two approaches.

    1-contact them,state your position, and request adequate compensation for the use.
    Some add a 100% surcharge as a way of making a point others are content with the space rate.
    It’s up to you.
    2- contact a copyright attorney and launch a suit. If the image is not registered with the U.S copyright
    office the liklihood of getting a significant settlement is,prbably, a long shot.

    A good primer here:
    http://www.jeremynicholl.com/blog/2011/06/13/the-10-rules-of-us-copyright-infringement/

  130. Paul,

    I don’t but I do think often about where my career would be if events hadn’t tragically transpired as they did. I’ll say no more…

    Best,

    Charles

  131. Bill, Send them an invoice plus a little extra. I’m guessing they will pay up when asked. I don’t think it would be worth taking them to court in the UK. Don’t let them take the piss though they will probably expect to pay 30 quid.

  132. I have learned how this happened and I think now that everyone was acting in good faith, somebody was just careless under time constraints. I don’t have any time myself to explain right now, but before this day ends, I will.

    I will also go back and read all the links that you gave me and follow up on the suggestions.

  133. “I’ve been trying for some time to develop a life style that doesn’t require my presence.” -Garry Trudeau.

    There’s something to that, I think.

  134. “I’ve been trying for some time to develop a life style that doesn’t require my presence.”
    ———————————-
    Akaky also achieved this!

  135. a civilian-mass audience

    FROSTFROG…I am ready to take action…
    I am in a “fighting zone”
    I might have no idea about copyrights,laws and legal systems
    BUT I have my ways…which you don’t really wanna know
    cause…” it takes a thief to catch a thief”:)))

    To All of you out there…who don’t respect “my BURNIANS property”
    this I have to say:

    “If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.”
    Yogi Berra
    cause Civilian will come after you…you have been Warned!

  136. a civilian-mass audience

    Last night…when I returned back to your civilian’s house…
    next to my chickens…
    YAKUZA was waiting for me…

    YES,YES…EVA,VIVA…MY BURNIAN EVA…THANK YOU
    ANTON’S book is here …
    no much to say…I will second all of you
    I wanted to cry…BUT I didn’t want to make a mess
    MR.HARVEY…you are a freaking master
    oime…MY BURNIANS…
    I have seen you going through a painful process:)…
    many of you …like my chickens…struggling,pushing,sweating
    you are breaking your cells…
    and you are coming out…
    I am the proudest civilian in the Universe…
    keep shooting
    keep BURNing…damnit…I will be here waiting

    P.S…EVA…check e-mail…
    simply
    your civi

  137. a civilian-mass audience

    Happy Birthday JARED…please,send me update regarding your chickens…

    Goodmorning MY BURNIANS!!!

    I am requesting reports from many of you…I know where to find you:)))
    u have been warned…

  138. EVA…

    yes Sally did find the perfect balance i think…and she would be the very first to thank her husband Larry for being such a great father, business success etc and allowing her to do her work…we have to be very very honest here…i think most know that many photographers like HCB, Frank, Riboud and Sally as well never had to think about how to earn a living…they just put all of their energy into work and the potential conflicts of art and commerce never came up…but this is nothing to dwell on..we are all dealt a different hand in life…we must play our own cards….one must know what is what and how to best make the most of what you have, but you cannot change the hand…so, look at it, and get on with it….enjoy things for what they are, not be bitter for what they are not…

    ROSS..

    yes, you are correct…we see that sort of thing everyday in every way…but again, people do confuse the myth and glamor of Magnum for what the agency was set up to do, which had nothing to do with myth making..it was a totally practical thing….i might point out again that any photographer on this planet who owns the copyright on their commissioned material should at least tip their hat towards Magnum who without any doubt has fought this battle for photographers rights more and better than anyone…the models have followed…that is why i tip my hat to VII, Luceo,Prime etc for continuing and helping all of us to maintain the clear ownership of our work…i know some do not care about this, and that is fine …but for those who do care, good ole M clearly did lead the way for all…

    BOB

    Alec does say that with a wry smile, but surely it is the secret dream of many

    cheers, david

  139. FROSTFROG…

    a clear violation by BBC…the fact that they gave you credit is no excuse……they stole your picture, plain and simple…you might have given permission of course, but they should have asked…BBC is one of my favorite news gathering organizations and i am surprised this happened to you…you should do a bit of homework and find out how and why this happened..unfortunately the nature of the net has everyone assuming that pictures that are on the net are just out there for all to grab….and an element of this is true..the pictures posted here on Burn are copied and re-posted every day…mostly with at least credit to Burn and the photographer and usually with no commerce involved…but BBC sells advertising and that is the big diff…

  140. MTOMALTY

    yes…you are correct..one thing that should be noted , is that you can batch copyright your work..take a whole years worth and in five minutes have it all registered….

    you do have the legal copyright of your work when you push the shutter button UNLESS you sign it away as many do to get paid for their work…..having it registered is just a plus, but not the only measure…

  141. Frost Frog – you were ripped off, even if it was by a bloke with a clipped oxford accent in brogues and a blazer, it still is not good form …if your pic was registered you could well show those chaps the door.

    Charles Peterson – Dude, I was riffing over your work 20 years ago before I even started looking at bylines.

    Anton – Yakuza arrived yesterday , still in wrapping paper, awaiting appropriate herbage and a nice bottle of Rioca for appreciation.

  142. DAH, yes, a clear violation by the BBC and it shouldn’t have happened but the BBC does not sell advertising space. It is funded by the public via an annual licence fee paid by every household who own a television set.

    Being funded in this manner makes the unauthorised use of Frostfrog’s photograph even more bemusing.

    “we are all dealt a different hand in life…we must play our own cards….one must know what is what and how to best make the most of what you have, but you cannot change the hand…so, look at it, and get on with it….enjoy things for what they are, not be bitter for what they are not…” – you have said this before David and it is surely worth repeating: I remember your words often.

    Mike.

  143. “DAH, yes, a clear violation by the BBC and it shouldn’t have happened but the BBC..”

    Yes, as it was initially presented but, in a later post,Bill,mentioned that he got to the
    root of the situation and that it was the result of miscommunication.

  144. David,
    as a member of ASMP (American Society of Magazine Photographers) I take issue with your statement
    “. . . should at least tip their hat towards Magnum who without any doubt has fought this battle for photographers rights more and better than anyone…” in my opinion ASMP (one of the biggest photographer organisations worldwide) has been in the forefront in educating both their members and the users of photography about issues of copyright.
    Magnum may – last but not least – look out for the interest of their members. –
    Among the battles fought in Washington – including photographs becoming public domain after a certain time – ASMP and APA were also there to make the case for photographers.

    The aspect of making a living with photography, and those blessed with not having to worry about paying the rent . . . it’s good that this matter appears on BURN.

    Hope to shake hands with you in Perpignan.

    Gerhard

  145. I am perplexed and I hope for some direction in the midst of my perplexity. I wrote the following six years ago:

    “One of the great, unsung heroes of World War II died this past week. Todor Kupov died in his sleep at the age of 97 at this home in the little village of Krmumol, a few miles outside the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. Surviving him is his wife of 76 years, Elena, and 12 children, 47 grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren, two great-great grandchildren, and an octogenarian gerbil named Stalin. Mr. Kupov’s great contribution to the Allied war effort came in the years 1942-1945, when Mr. Kupov, a farmer and well-known author, was able to subtly maneuver Adolf Hitler into decisions that ultimately led to the Nazi dictator’s downfall.

    Before the war, Mr. Kupov was one of Europe’s most outspoken vegetarian and homeopathic activists, publishing articles on the positive benefits of vegetarianism in the most of the leading Bulgarian newspapers and journals, articles which led to a popular, if temporary, vegetarian movement in the Black Sea and Balkans regions. German vegetarians translated many of Mr. Kupov’s articles and his ideas found a popular audience in the Third Reich, especially among the Nazi elite, who sought to curry favor with Hitler by adopting the Nazi leader’s vegetarianism. Among the more avid of Mr. Kupov’s disciples was Theodor Morell, Hitler’s personal physician, who gave the Fuhrer many of the natural homeopathic cures that Mr. Kupov championed. One of the more unusual of these cures became the focus of an intensive Allied intelligence effort that eventually forced Mr. Kupov, who enjoyed his celebrity status in wartime Germany, to pick and choose which side he was really on.

    Mr. Kupov’s writings do not indicate when he discovered that the encapsulated feces of healthy Bulgarian peasants had some medicinal value, but Mr. Kupov advocated such capsules with such vigor that Dr. Morell began prescribing them for Hitler. The German leader suffered from chronic gastrointestinal complaints and Mr. Kupov believed that encapsulated Bulgarian ordure helped alleviate such problems. And for his greatest believer, Mr. Kupov made sure that Dr. Morell had access to the freshest and healthiest ordure available: his own.

    Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of German military intelligence and a man who loathed Hitler and everything Hitler stood for, tipped the Allies to the importance of Mr. Kupov. In 1942, a highly trained team of Allied nutritionists slipped across the border from neutral Turkey into Bulgaria disguised as Turkish yogurt salesmen with the name of a secure contact provided them by the former head of the British Press Office in Sofia, Sir Steven Runciman, the great historian of the Crusades and Byzantium, hidden in the aglet of the team leader’s left shoe. The contact, a short, fat, bespectacled man with a wart on one side of his nose and a bad limp in his right leg, was a former student of Sir Steven’s at Cambridge University and led the team to Mr. Kupov, who was at the time visiting relatives in Sofia. The team leader then proposed one of the boldest plans in the history of nutritional warfare and asked Mr. Kupov for his help. Mr. Kupov, a man who always knew his own mind, agreed to this campaign of intestinal sabotage immediately.

    The plan, devised months earlier by the senior medical staff of British intelligence, called for Mr. Kupov to subtly alter the content of Adolf Hitler’s fecal capsules by changing the content of Mr. Kupov’s diet, a plan which, if successful, would change Hitler’s mental state at crucial points in the war. While many military luminaries like Sir Arthur Harris called the plan stupid beyond belief and predicted that it would never work, the plan, codenamed DUNGBEETLE, succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. After some small experiments, Mr. Kupov found that he could best effect the Nazi leader’s mental state by changing the red pepper and lentil content of his (Kupov’s) meals. For reasons that are still a subject of scientific inquiry to this day, red pepper caused mistaken decisions on the Western Front, while lentils caused catastrophic decisions on the Eastern. In his greatest triumph, Mr. Kupov had a dinner of dried red peppers and rice in late May of 1944 and two weeks later, Adolf Hitler went to bed with an upset stomach and a sleeping pill and no one dared wake him up while the Western Allies successfully invaded Normandy.

    Mr. Kupov did poorly after the war. The Soviet Union arrested him for collaborating with the Nazis and spying for the Allies and shipped him off to Siberia; only his great good luck prevented him from standing in front of the firing squad. After his release in 1956 during the Khrushchev thaw, Mr. Kupov returned to his now collectivized farm and lived there for the rest of his life, still advocating vegetarianism to anyone who would listen. In later life he received some belated recognition for his war work and his works are now available in English; many modern American vegetarians and vegans point to Mr. Kupov’s work as the major reason for their own conversion to the meatless cause. Mr. Kupov was philosophical about world history and his role in creating it. “I did nothing no ordinary Bulgarian does not do,” he said once, “nothing less and nothing more.”

    Todor Kupov, dead at age 97.”

    What perplexes me is that anyone would take the above seriously, but apparently someone is, because I’ve just gotten a very nice email from a Bulgarian vegan wanting more information about the imaginary Mr. Kupov, whose name I arrived at by taking a two-door coupe and adding -ov to the end. Apparently there is some discussion of Mr. Kupov’s alleged contributions to the war efforts on Bulgarian vegan sites and my piece is being used to support one side’s claims versus another’s. I don’t want this guy to feel stupid, so should I answer this or just ignore his email and just hope he goes away? Advice, anybody?

  146. Akaky… That’s funny. But to be honest, it’s difficult to tell when you’re having us on. OK, the original essay is a bit of fiction, but how do we know the “Bulgaria vegan” is real? ;^}

  147. And what if the “Bulgarian vegan” isn’t from your imagination but someone else’s? What if it is a creation of Panos’ or Bob Black’s and they’re really have you and all of us on!?

  148. Ok – here is what happened:

    My biologist friend, whose pictures also appear on the BBC site, gave a presentation on Eskimo whaling at the IWC convention, built on his slides and a few of mine. I am told that the presentation went well and reporters there, including the BBC, wanted to use some of the pictures and deadlines were looming. My friend and the whaling captains there thought it might be helpful, so they provided some of Craig’s pictures along with the one of mine which appeared in the article. Craig forwarded an email to me and it included his instructions that reporters should contact me for permission before using my picture.

    Somehow, that never happened. Perhaps because the deadline was pressing and the reporter felt that the face that the picture had been passed to him was permission enough. Now that I understand the circumstance, I am not so upset as I was, because the original intentions were all good. Still, any media outlet – let alone the BBC – has a responsibility to obtain the photographer’s permission before publishing his work. I have written to both the BBC and the reporter and have let the know that at the very least, I would have insisted that they include links both to my blog and to the NYT Lens blog piece, but so far I have heard nothing in response.

    Akaky – I agree with Michael. In fact, I strongly suspect that you are setting us up, because, given your delight in creating delightful absurdity, it seems to me that if the scenario you now present were true, you would happily jump back in, lead that Bulgarian vegan on, and give both sides in the argument more ammunition to fire at each other.

  149. FROSTFROG…

    it is a full time job managing your work…and you must take it very seriously…i do take it seriously and still occasionally end up in grievous situations as you have here…i can see what happened ..neither the reporter nor BBC saw anything here but a scientist presenting work..they were not looking at it as coming from a pro editorial photographer with a knowledge of their rights…scientists usually do not care about photo use since their agenda is different and often give away photos to help promote their work…again, just a bit careless all around, yet i do think you will most likely hear from BBC eventually..

  150. GG

    oh yes ASMP has fought very well for the rights of photographers….this whole discussion stream was more about what Magnum is than a discussion about photographers rights, yet i humbly give my apologies for not mentioning the ASMP who over the years has clearly done so much for so many photographers…

    you may or may not be aware of very specific cases, at NatGeo for example, where Magnum quite literally changed the playing field for photographers rights there…not just Magnum member photographers, but all photographers shooting at NatGeo…details at some point if you want…we even referred to it as the “Magnum deal” even though at the time there was only one Magnum photog shooting for NG and this affected dozens of NG shooters who had no representation.. i and many others were very grateful to Magnum for saving our rights, particularly on clear ownership of published originals, yet i was not in Magnum at the time…

    yet there is no doubt the ASMP also has many examples of where they were most influential in maintaining and securing photographer’s rights..THE most important rights organization for the most photographers hands down.

    neither of us should take exception with the other however, since we indeed are on the same page and have the same values.. i do indeed looking forward to shaking your hand as well..thank you for mentioning the value of ASMP as an instrumental organization for photographers rights…a big high five and big hug to all at the ASMP

    cheers, david

  151. David; I got caught last year when a mag publisher re-used one of my articles that had been previously published in one of their “sister” publications without payment; not even a 65% second use fee. Their excuse was that since they had paid for it originally (all my copyright, not commission!); it was theirs to use for nought!

    Also this poster (of an old nature image of mine) has been floating around for years. Neither of my agencies ever sold it to these companies. Trying to sort it out has been like trying to shadow box!
    http://www.amazon.com/Bumble-Dahlia-Photographic-Poster-Print/dp/B0033X896I

  152. Yea it’s about 45 minutes south of Hobart near Franklin overlooking the Huon River ………….. this area has been the battleground of ferals v loggers v greenies for over a generation. There is a small pickers hut, a heap of blackberry bushes and we will probably build in about 4-5 years time. Meanwhile Linda will use the place and knit and I will make up bullshit

  153. ROSS…

    well this was my original point as a reason for either creating or joining a coop…as a group you can fight this sort of thing easier than alone…again pragmatic not a myth…real time real attorneys who can fight your case…go after publishers who literally steal your pictures and make money for themselves without compensation to you…

    IMANTS

    nice….one can always see your stone mason background…you build stuff

  154. strange to read the comments about Cobain and fame and what he (might) have wanted/tried…..

    in the end, for those from a distance, know nothing but what a person carried inside them and how they expressed that…sometimes through the way they barked out…sometimes only through their voice out, and even that is but a part….

    i give a shit about what people think what kurt wanted…only he knew and we’ll never guess that, except that we have, sadly, not him (fortunately for him) but his music…

    it must be enough, from afar to have what other give….the rest, is private …period…

    as much as i try to give my own family all of me, some must comes out only in the howl….or the silence…

    is it not enough to wear what others gave, without having to chew upon what you think they wanted….

    and Leadbelly can only be heard on steel, scratching tin….

    on the tin-stapled small rooms more darkened that light-splattered….

    a chat with a father from somalia amid the pretty faces of Yorkville this evening ,over a cigarette, reminded….

  155. Imants…

    doesn’t look like the worst job you could have picked.. now I know absolutely nothing about the place, there could be all sorts of weird beasts in that water, but it sure looks like a heavenly place to have a swim!

  156. last thing before going to bed and away….something that happened to me this evening after teaching that I shared with marina in Ukraine…

    so tonight, after a long long day at schoolc and then taught ’til 8 i walked to the rocks in
    Yorkville to sit and have a smoke, alone, away…so, i’m sitting there
    and a crack addict comes up to me…after typical Yorkville people on
    a friday night avoiding him and he asks me for a light….at first i
    was a bit nervous….he was shaking and white froth/spit on his
    lips…so, i gave him my lighter…he lit his small
    cigarette…fingers/hands trembling…looking at me and my bag like he
    wanted to steal it, to attack me…i could hardly understand him, but
    he sat beside me…smelled from not bathing…shaking..his words like stones in his mouth, looked at me, as if a carving, then looked at me as if frightened…..and he asked ‘where
    are you from’ (i asked him 3 times ‘what’ before i understood
    him)…and i told him…then ‘what is you genes’….(again, after
    asking him 5 or 6 times)…a pipe fell out of his pocket…for a moment i hesitated, then picked it up and gave it to him, then said, ‘i don’t know, a mix of irish/german/american, but i lived in asia as a kid…who knows…and i
    told him about marina and dima (he asked if i was married, had
    child)….then he told me he was from Somali…and that he wished his
    son had a crazy background like…’but,all the say, know’….so i tried to
    talk to him..people passing….we ‘talked’ for 20 minutes, people looking at us like
    we were crzy….white boy dressed well talking to street guy, whose been avoided…
    guy, 2….i had a cigarette with him, tried to talk and understand…asked him if he was hungry….more words i didn’t understand…he asked me to tell him about my mom…about my wife and son…another light….and in quick order: money, genes, job…where i was going….before i left, i gave him some money and my cigarettes (later felt guilty for that, not for giving away, but for giving out of pity)…walked for 30 minutes and then cried in a park…just thinking
    of him…of the people looking at him…of how lucky i felt….of how
    guilty i felt at first (thinking he would try to steal something or
    hurt me, since he looked so crazy/aggressive)…and i thought, who
    cares about him…who knows his life….and i thought, well he won’t
    remember me, but i will remember him…i talked to him…shared 20
    minutes and talk….and cigarette…..came home, read, worked on
    pics….and just sat on the porch and smoked….

    thinking where he was….then wrote marina to cheer her up….worked on pic, which seemed stupid in comparison…

    who knows him…i didn’t ask him his name, fuck me…..

    i wrote marina that the thing is that no matter what, most
    people act like they are something…like they know better…like what they do is important, necessary, like what they do matters (this award, this thing, this do-ing, this belonging), like they
    are something…and here was someone who was something, a man, a person without claim, a
    father, now on the streets, far from his country…high and trembling in
    the most rich and pretentious neighborhood in this Toronto…
    ….overlooked…

    and i sat later, tonight, scoring…the luxury to sit, alone, safe, thinking of him….my father….my wife and son…and all the ridiculous grammar to which we yarn our lives….all so silly that we vault ourselves and accomplishments…

    and later, after writing marina again, i wept…

    a swansong to write here…

    i’m not sure yet….

    time shall tell…

  157. a civilian-mass audience

    ADMIN…
    can we have BOBBY’S post …up on the Dialogue aisle…?

    “BOBB shares…”

    …and can someone provide EVA’S address(in private)?…

    simply
    your needy civilian :)

  158. a civilian-mass audience

    IMANTS…

    we are expanding…bravoooo…remind me to send you a lucky chicken leg with garlic…
    just for the good spirits…

    EVA…just for the good spirits…what the heck:)))

  159. CIVI…

    wrote you yesterday in the other aisle.. please wait a second or a month, not home much, will answer you, promise, and will go after anyone giving out info without permission, also promise!!!

  160. a civilian-mass audience

    oups,sorry EVA…my apologies…

    ATTN:no EVA’S address to be given…oime…
    don’t we all love our BURNIAN ladies…

  161. I hardly ever quote someone/something, but this seems appropriate.. read it after the post above:

    “We must generate courage equal to the size of the difficulties we face.” Dalai Lama

  162. a civilian-mass audience

    MIKER…saves the day(and civi)…again!!!

    safe travels…focus on the road…we can wait for your reply…
    or maybe not…:))))))))))))

    lunch break in grecolandia…I have fish…
    hmmm…did cat eat the fish…?
    oh…noooo

  163. a civilian-mass audience

    EVA…hmmm…
    I am too small to generate that kind of courage…
    but
    since cat ate the fish…I will have beans…
    maybe they will help me generate…something:)))

    ok,back to our regular program

  164. Ok well so I do have my iphone but this is no way to write.. Panos loves this but not for me.. Need new laptop.. If u saw my laptop it would be a shock to think that I have an online life with such a beat up antique..weird .. Cannot write much today anyway .. Traveling Colorado to home..off to Italy in a few days.. Will try to replace computer soonest..

  165. BOB

    i want to answer but just cannot do it with this little iPhone keyboard.. And I do have a response because I think exactly what u think here all the time..remember this thread started w a magnum portrait.. But those photogs do spend their lives with the man u met way way more than with each other at an annual meeting.. Easy to get confused about overall intent purpose and mission..did you by any chance photograph this man? Would make a powerful post

  166. a civilian-mass audience

    maybe I can sing…this way,who knows …maybe our support system will work…

    DONATION BUTTON…SUPPORT BURN…
    we can do it
    all together…we can do it…!

    ok,ok…I am out:)

  167. But, Civi.. if we don’t generate the courage, what remains to do?.. ‘sides, the quote didn’t say it was an easy thing to do..

  168. IMANTS,

    From the pictures it looks like the east side of the Huon Channel or somewhere thereabouts… south of Hobart and to the west of D’Entrecasteaux Channel anyway…. Yes???

  169. BOB
    what a beautiful soul you have……
    thanks for your words under current essay…
    helps me see better :)
    and
    david…..
    safe travels…..
    go go GO!!!!!!!!!
    have a great weekend BuRNIANS…….
    ***

  170. DAIVD:

    hey amigo, no i didn’t photograph him, just sat and talked….though i felt terrible that i hadn’t asked him his name….and don’t worry, i wasn’t implying any connection to Magnum…i was actually thinking of my own efforts at making photographs/writing in comparison to his life…and all those people in that hood focused on ‘being something’ while ignoring him…but now, thinking about it, yea, comes full circle, and the Magnum folk i know personally and love (you, john v, alec, chris) do indeed spend more time caring about people in their lives …no doubt! :)

    must run

  171. Bob B,

    A very humbling experience you have shared with us, thank you. Such moments often come so unexpectedly, and with a jolt bring us down to earth and remind us of the luxuries we have in our lives compared to so many.

    It is a very different experience to yours, but a recent visit to my old farmer friend Eric Wortley who is now 101 was equally moving.

    All the best to you my friend,

    Justin

  172. Oh since Paris!
    Friends and family are astounded by a metamorphosis which has begun, they see it and so do I, I especially feel it… If photography and happiness possessed an odour my breath would reek of it. I dream at night and summon without my usual frustration my nightly chimeras… I see images wherever I cast my gaze, my intent has changed I am beginning to see. The thorn which was an ache, a gash in my seeing has now turned into the most luminous of lanterns…
    I think I’ve begun to throw out the trash and beginning to see with my “voice”.
    I thank you Eva, Anton, Sarah, John Gladdy, all Magnum Members.
    and above all…
    David.
    :)

  173. JUSTIN :))))

    yes, i love Mr. Wortley from afar…feel like i know him from your book and pictures :)))))…that’s all that matters, the life among our loved ones….and got your email, will write you tomorrow :)))

    PAUL :)))

    so happy to hear your electric life re-charged…our friends and companions do that…and david and anton can do that to folk :)))…(i’m sure eva/sarah/mr. G too…will share wine with them all too someday: with eva, it will be on her turf, when marina and i travel to italy early next year….

    hugs
    bob

  174. Just visited Visura – which also my second favorite web zine. Congratulations, Patricia. While I was already familiar with this imagery and the story behind it, somehow, it struck me anew with full force. And while it caused me to feel badly that you must deal with what you must, it did not cause me to feel pity, but rather admiration.

    Some day, I must share with you the never-to-be completed but irrevocablu finished essay that I shot on my brother, after he broke his neck in a motorcycle accident and then spent the remaining 11 years of his life living in what they called “tetraplegia” – although he did have limited use of both arms and hands, so I was never quite certain where the term, “tetra” came from.

    After he died, I put the essay for 20 years and did not even look at it. Then finally I looked at it, then set it aside for another four years, and it still sits aside.

    And congratulations to Visura – for having the vision to post your essay.

    Carsten – thanks for the link. I haven’t watched it yet, but I will soon and I look forward to the experience.

  175. PAUL
    So good to hear that you are finding new ways to look upon the world; that is a beautiful thing indeed.

    I am tiredly happy. Got home yesterday.

  176. No need for that complexity Sidney as that covers a large area…… as I stated it is at Franklin ……………west side of the Huon River

  177. Panos… lol yeah it was the same for me – I was thinking it was slooooow but somehow I couldn’t stop watching!

  178. PAUL…

    Very curious to see the visual translation of your words!

    I do miss John Gladdy, badly..

  179. Eva…

    I’m just as curious to see where this “journey” takes me!

    Yes I miss John Gladdy’s presence on Burn just as much as you do…

  180. David, I’ve just been looking at your portfolio on the Magnum website and found that the most recent photograph shown of yours was taken in 2002, John Vink, 2002, Alex Web 2003. With regard to the Magnum website; is its purpose to generate print sales or just a window for the agency? Where do you (Magnum) generate most of your income?

    Mike.

  181. Eva – where is John Gladdy? Did I miss something? Gladdy has done more for me than I can say. I hope his absence is only temporary.

  182. Lassal asked me to post on BURN on her behalf that she will be putting information concerning the Collodion workshop she is doing with Scully & Osterman on her Facebook account (St Lassal) and on her website. If anyone is interested, they should have a look. Lassal doesn’t have her BURN password, (as she has everything set up at home) Her workshop starts tomorrow.

    http://www.collodion.org/workshop.html

  183. Mike R.: the Magnum website is maybe the worst place to see the latest production of its photographers. That should be changing soon. Something is cooking and hopefully it will respond to the minimum requirements both for us and for you.

  184. John V, yes, I did read something in the British Journal of Photography about a revamp but that was some time ago. It needs a tight edit (laughing).

    Mike.

  185. An odd question, I know but…
    If I was to say ”tell me three, four or five defining elements in for example Pellegrin, Koudelka, DAH, John Vink, etc and etc which were particular to each one of them…signature traits in their images, by this I don’t mean themes… I want obvious elements like the way they frame an image or always slanting horizons etc… which make their photos personal…or is it something you can’t define and it is just pure intuition which makes you recognize their work?
    I’ve seen and read many books on famous painters which really study up close and probably ”scientifically” visual traits of certain painters…you can tell these experts without any doubt can recognize a Picasso or whoever by certain repetitive stylistic traits…

  186. Paul, an interesting question, especially following my post about the Portfolio pages on the Magnum site. I’m not familiar enough with Pellegrin’s work to be able to recognise his photographs but I am able to recognise the author of many a magnum photograph ….. or do I?
    I recognise many of the older, classic photographs but could I, or you, recognise newer work by the same photographer? The closest that I could probably get would be with the work of Salgado; and that because he has not changed his style much (some would say he has not moved on: some would say that he has maintained his vision). I look at his work and am reminded of the phrase “Biblical Epic”.

    For DAH, I see (in my mind) Nat Geo in its heyday; but David is about to publish two books and I’m betting that they are different in style from Nat Geo. Koudelka is known for his photographs of Eastern European gipsies but in reality he has been photographing panoramic landscapes for years etc. etc.

    It would be interesting for a “known” Magnum photographer to publish under an assumed name, just to see how he / she fared and how the experience compared with the normal Magnum one.

    Mike.

  187. Mike…

    A Magnum member under an assumed name published on Burn… It would be great fun to see our reactions and comments as innocent Burnians and then being told it was so and so Magnum photographer…

  188. Conversely Paul, you could publish some of your own images using the name of a famous
    Magnum photographer and contrast the resulting feedback.

  189. ALL. I am still here. Do not worry! Reports of my demise are somewhat premature. Been a little preoccupied lately. Many things to do. Vegetables, red-bush tea, exercise and non smoking amongst them.
    Doctors are the bane of ones life. Everything that is pleasurable (okay, nearly everything) is snatched from ones reach by these killjoys. And tests! tests tests tests. the lung people send me to the heart people who send me back to the lung people with little charts who send me to the xray people who send me to the echo cardio people….and so on AD NAUSEUM.
    But no worries…I still have some cognac hidden.

    PAUL. Make the pictures and you have a shot.

    EVA. I am touched. Truly.

    SARA. Got your email, I am shit with replying to these things( ask my ex or my mother), but when you are in london, anything you need just holler.
    BILL. Never more of a pleasure. Anytime at all. I would like to visit Wasilla some time, would be honoured if you had some time to show me around.

    DAVID HARVEY. You come into my hotel room, you drink all my champagne, eat all my peanuts, drink up all the beer and you leave before I get a chance to say thank you properly for putting up with us all here.
    Downright rude Amigo. :)
    ANTON. Got the book. NICE!. Works so much better than interweb presentations.

    Been working on a proof copy of Speakers corner book. Sending to printer in the morning. Single copy.
    If it looks good….who knows what then??”?

  190. PAUL:

    i like Mark (tomalty) idea, alot :)))))….but the opposite for me interesting too…this must be quick as i’m skyping marina:

    1) David: bold use of color, particular use of ‘dark’ colors and tonality, vibrant colors but alot of shadow in his colors (blacks, dark hues). But, more generally is a great use of ’emptiness’ in his frame…often solitary people (children and women). children: isolated in landscape or shadows with lots of ’empty’ space…but the mis-en-scene is really lyrical, almost as if a moment from a book….david’s frame is not ‘overly’ eye’d…not stylized or geometric per se, but with a lyrical sense of space within the fame…

    2) Vink: Vink’s work is always painterly, even b/w. what i mean is that he really has composed frames, beautifully so. His work reminds of haiku in it’s simplicity and great great sense of position of the subjects/objects in the frame. He used foreground objects very much (fans/poles/hands/arms/faces) to differentiate the foreground/midground/background…i can’t imagine a Vink image (especially since he’s been in Cambodia) without this foregrounding image in the foreground: face/child…fan/tree/pole etc…great great sense of visual space, and his frame looks often like it was painted or carefully composed…his work is among the most ‘simple’ (never busy) but with a great, poetic sense of composition…like Bonnard, only with an asian sensibility…

    3) Paolo:” deep deep darks, little middle range of tonality, except with highlighted faces…a swelling of blacks (or in color, of shadows) to highlight the subjects nature: very existentail and dream link, most often nightmarish…he’s of the d’agata/ackerman school (visually) but has a less abstracted nature for people/faces/places…in other words, he uses blacks/shadows the way Klein does or Giacomelli does, but he never (or rarely) looses sight of the truth of the subject: very subjective, interpretive, but still anchored by reality (where as, for example, D’agata’s work is much more about the existential question of using pictures to pursue an idea (my own idea too), paolo uses the abstraction of photographic property to hone in around the verite of the people and places he shoots…his frame is rarely ‘composed’, but his frame is more physical, an extension of his body and movement rather than the famed Bresson mis-en=scene for example…

    4) Koudleka: early: lots of white space and extraordinary power of a moment that looks much more cinematic than real: his pictures seem like stills from a film, in both their composition (slants/horizontal working of frame) and their use of light…later when he went to wide-angle landscapes, they appear more like paintings, as he works the entire plane of the rectangular frame…his space in the frame is flattened and the center grounding is what works (no real realationship between fore/background: just this huge linearity of form in front: the scale of the land, daunting….whether that is from Greek filmmaker or e.europe or the desert: the land stands firm and large in the middle and runs powerfully from right to left…not much lyricism or that ‘decisive moment’ (as his earlier work) but the beauty/power of the images now come from the power of the shadlow/light and that austere powerful center line of the land in his frame….

    ok, enough….

    how do describe my own? ;))))

    MOST, but not all, of the Magnum photographers (to me) have a very clear ‘voice’…this does NOT mean style…style is an illusion…just a technique that many share, a way of describing…the key, for me, of voice: how to use one’s one choice of style with the content to tell a story, whatever that story might be…..real or abstract….

    cheers
    bob

  191. JOHN G:

    sounds like a lot of fun indeed ;)))…but really, sending you love and thoughts from around the corner to hunker in whatever stuff is going down……..and listen, if you have get it in your body/head to cross the sea again, u can have all my peanuts and bourbon (not much of a champagne guy)…..i hope u r ok…and well…just know u r missed…even by those who never stole anything from you ;))

    bob

  192. btw, does the photo on above link offensive in any way?

    Panos, I’ll give you a line from an old carnival barker I met recently. Bet you can use it some day. Here goes:

    “If I said something to offend you, I’d be happy to repeat it.”

    badda bing…

  193. http://instagr.am/p/H-OIL/?ref=nf

    Maybe the example above photo was kinda “strong” although appropriate (conversation with Bobus about docu Marwencol ) and current essay…
    You see, Bobus, docu regarding, i didnt notice the most important: “the condition” of the photog after the accident..u were right..make sense now..

    now this above photo is to demonstrate the neew phone app (the LOMO conversation)..
    i can try some b&w’s too just because u r the expert of LOMO- tography here
    peace

  194. panos :)))))))))…what mw, lenny and above all, michael k said :)))))))))))….

    aint nothing wrong with that pic :)))))….state of war, state of life :))))

    and glad u looked at Marwnecol again…that guy returned from the grave…still wearing pink high heels, pretty remarkable, indeed! :))))

    running
    hugs
    bob

  195. a civilian-mass audience

    Up in the mountains…trying to release some spirits Upstairs…I need time to connect with spirits downstairs…
    can’t check your posts…you know me…slow BURNER…
    BUT …I do love you ALL…

    BRAVO OUR PATRICIA…bravo my BURNIANS…

    JOHNYG…don’t forget your civilian’s house…I have a raki bottle under the sofa
    keep fighting

    All of you…keep fighting…as MICHAELK and PANOS said before me…:

    WE ARE ALL ABOUT LOVE HERE…MAKE LOVE NOT WAR…

    I will be back to call names…EVA,SIDNEY,HERVE,LASSAL,THOMAS,SAMMY,AUDREY,KATIEEEEEEEEE…

    running now…MR.HARVEY, rock on

  196. “I have a raki bottle under the sofa”

    I have just discovered green ginger wine! Where have you been all my life? And this from a (nearly) non-drinker! :-)

  197. a civilian-mass audience

    ROSSYYY…we are lucky,aren’t we?…shhhh:)))))))))))

    COME ON BURNIANS…show me what you got…

    I will be back to check you out…

  198. a civilian-mass audience

    DAVIDB…you promised wine…waiting
    MYGRACIE…ice cream…

    ok,as BOBBY says…running now

  199. John Gladdy…

    So very pleased to hear you’re fine and just busy with those damn witchdoctors!!

    Yes I’m out everyday making pictures with an idea or essay in mind!
    Thanks for opening my eyes showing me which was my very own chasm or abyss, currently leaping sometimes successfully across and of course usually falling head first deep into that gorge called failure…
    But now that I’ve seen the other side I can’t help trying again and again…

  200. Bob…

    Thanks a million! Now that was a very interesting read!!
    Do you think any of those who have such a clear voice, feel sometimes or find themselves tied, bored to that way of seeing? Does moving on mean altering some of those points you’ve mentioned consciously or is it something unconscious that just happens…

  201. MIKE R

    my own website and my work on the Magnum site is definitely in need of repair…unfortunately i have found it impossible to do everything…i can always see what needs to be done, but alas i run out of time…damn..energy in one place, means no energy into another place ..and so it goes…i am shooting all the time, or working on Burn all the time, which means that the organization of my own work oftentimes goes neglected..i can either shoot or i can edit, but i cannot do both simultaneous…the other reality for me of course is that i do “disappear” from print for years at a time…this only means i am working..like now….i am totally in awe of photogs like Martin Parr who seem to publish about 4 books a year…this is not me ….next year i will look prolific but it is actually the result of about three or fours years of work… you will see both RIO and OBX and maybe even Family Drive and You Made Me Leave…you are right…these will be different than anything before…lots going on, maybe too much going on, and none of it on either the Magnum site or my own website…

    income for those of us at Magnum depends on the photographer of course, as with any freelancer…generally i would say that it is either from commissions or from library sales…library sales does account for 50% on the income at Magnum…there are collector print sales, book commissions, special group projects, grants, editorial assignments, ad work , etc etc…i think ideally everyone would love to have most of their income derived from library sales and then just do their personal projects and hope the income from prints or books or library will follow…it is always a struggle…a truly sweet beautiful struggle that has never left me with a day i would call boring or lackluster…the feeling i had when i picked up a camera as a kid is with me now….that alone is enough…that alone sets me apart..forget institutional recognition…my friends always tease me about exaggerating a bit a situation in the telling or repeating of something that happened…i think this might be true..why? no need to exaggerate the telling of my life because it is exciting as is…i think i “spin it” a bit because frankly i think i actually see things in some sort of exaggerated form…what looks like a glass of water sitting on a table to most , looks to me quite honestly like a GLASS OF WATER SITTING ON A TABLE!!!

    this help?

    cheers, david

  202. a civilian-mass audience

    “what looks like a glass of water sitting on a table to most , looks to me …like a GLASS OF WATER SITTING ON A TABLE!!! ”
    DAH

    …that alone do set you apart…Wowww!!!:)))

    PAUL,
    you smell to me …like another optimistic photophilosopher…hmmm…
    so,you do exist…:)!!!

    VIVA BURNIANS…spread your cameras…move those fingers…take photos with your souls…
    not with your eyes…
    I can wait…

  203. a civilian-mass audience

    Viva la Vie…oime…
    the journey is all I see
    this I know
    BURN is the place to BE…

    this alone does set me apart:)!

  204. Paul:
    Check this : http://www.blurb.com/books/2233369

    It is a little exercise in showing that, as far as I am concerned (and not pretending it is the same for everyone) nothing much has changed in the way I have been taking pictures over a 15 year timespan.

    That sort of ‘unavoidable picture taking’ makes me nervous though. Trying to break it all the time, by tweaking those internal ‘rules’. Not easy. Using another camera to do it is just a gimmick I feel. It has to come from within. Spontaneously. Nothing should be etched in marble.

  205. a civilian-mass audience

    ” It has to come from within. Spontaneously. Nothing should be etched in marble.”
    THE J.VINK

    don’t we all love …our MAGNUM friends!!!

  206. David, yes, thanks for the information. Your appetite for life and photography come across as exhilarating!

    Foe me, if I don’t photograph for a while I get fidgety and rather desperate to press the shutter. As you have said, we all have to deal with the cards that we have been dealt and I’m struggling somewhat at present (well, for quite some time). I like an essay or theme to follow and the one I keep returning to involves travel; which I can do, but it would be good to have something close to home too. I’ll email you privately if that’s o.k.?

    Your way of working is well documented here (chaotic creativity!) but I have been reading Abbas’ book Allah o Akbar again recently and that, along with looking at his Magnum portfolio which shows his other work on Judaism, Buddhism etc. has had me thinking about the logistics of travel that such projects must entail. I’d love to see him interviewed here on Burn just to ask him that question.

    With your own work e.g. Rio, you just seem to go there and …. take photographs but I’m sure that much planning takes place. Do you have a “fixer” when in Rio or use connections to arrange visits ahead of your visit or do you just turn up and hope for serendipity?

    Anyway, greetings from a dull, cloudy, windy U.K. – at least I have Burn to light my way,

    Mike.

  207. John V, as David says; nice work. One thing that is noticeable about your work and about photography outside of the West in general is the vibrant street life that is missing over here: partly due to climate and partly due to the developed infrastructure that keeps us cosy but sucks the life force out of us (or is it happening to just me?). Hardly anyone walks around anymore, just drive around in a traffic jam? Am I starting to rant?

    best,

    Mike.

  208. Regarding Panos’s war recreation photo which, btw, I thought was the best of the genre so far, and the one liner attributed to Lenny Bruce, it got me wondering if there was any Lenny Bruce connection with Coney Island. Bruce was a Jewish comedian who played in Brooklyn and Coney Island back then was rife with Jewish comedians. The guy I got the line from is Bobby Reynolds, a legendary sideshow guy, and Jewish comedian. Funny though, when I googled Lenny Bruce + Coney Island most of the hits were for Lou Reed’s “Take no Prisoners” album which coincidentally is the comic masterpiece by one of Brooklyn’s more famous Jewish comedians. Hmmmm, I know some historians, will have to ask the Lenny Bruce question. He must have hung out there. Maybe he got the line from Reynolds barking out in front of the sideshow. Or vice versa is certainly possible. There’s no line those guys won’t happily steal.

  209. MIKE R…PETE

    hey amigos, i am off to airport and to Italy..please send those emails, but better if you do them so i see around August 1…my net in Italy is always sporadic and a two week old email is lost forever..

    Mike , i am sure things look pretty chaotic with the way i work..and for me i also think, damn what would i do if i were ‘organized”…well, to do what i do professionally i actually MUST be organized..cannot do this with actual chaos…nobody pays me to be disorganized…in other words, like Fedex, i do DELIVER…and the biggest weakness i see in most photographers has nothing to do with pictures, but just in being able to complete the task..finish…deliver…at Burn we really see it….ask Anton, ask Diego..they will tell you, few can just get it done….but yes my way of working is totally different from many..one of the reasons i use so little gear i am sure is that i can keep track of a little bit! smiling..yes, in Rio i have a fixer…two in fact..Roberta Tavares , who i met right here on Burn, and Beto Mello who i met 10 years ago when i was in Rio for a French magazine…and another little team of helpers for downloading, street wise stuff etc etc..we are all bonded beyond belief…they are into into into the project..yes, they get paid, but they have an incredible sense of mission and purpose…and i treat them as collaborators….not as assistants or workers….

    ok gotta move boys..take care..will do my best to communicate from Tuscany

    cheers , david

  210. a civilian-mass audience

    and all the eyes …in Italy…!!!

    EVA,ALL ITALIANS…attention…our MR.HARVEY is coming over…
    yes,he is crossing the waters (again) !!!

    safe travels and may the wine be good and may the spirits be with you
    ALL OF YOU…

  211. David, thanks; really. Organised and Deliver makes perfect sense. Redoubling my efforts to finish something. Won’t be easy; I HATE being organised, I like being a goldfish (oh look …. oh look …) I don’t even want to know what’s for lunch until lunchtime … and then there is no lunch because I wouldn’t think about it (laughing).

    Enjoy Tuscany!

    Mike.

  212. a civilian-mass audience

    MIKER…no worries…your right brain is stronger
    or maybe …you are a pirate too…(it’s in the family)

    yo,yo…the pirate’s life for US…:)

  213. MIKE R

    well, i am on the edge of disaster all the time…i am barely barely on the line of professionalism…at least in terms of organization…of course this creates jobs! what would the young people around me do if i were so so organized??

  214. a civilian-mass audience

    MR.HARVEY…you better go now…enough revelations for a day…

    hii…oime,my apologies,respect,what do I know,I am just a civilian;)
    THANK YOU DAHHHH…you are right brained pirate too…

    WHAT not To LOVE !!!

  215. Back from some refreshing time away, good to hear Patricia’s news and all the rest, sounds as if DAH is rolling, rolling…gave a little nod to burn and all you here who educate me everyday in an interview by Peter Nitsch at http://www.getaddictedto.com/interview-erica-mcdonald/ See the part where he asks me “How has the internet changed your perception of photography?” So really, just a word of thanks to you ALL.

  216. JOHN.. Gladdy that is.. so happy to hear, uhm, read you.. and happy I didn’t kill you chasing you uphill the city.. book, if looks good? I want one.. and yes, I remember your last words when leaving your room.. ;)

  217. JOHN G
    No worries guv’nor, wasn’t expecting a reply, just thought it worth letting you know you were being missed is all. Will buzz you when I’m in London next (maybe first 2 weeks of August, we’ll see).

    ALL
    Sorry I’m quiet at the moment – did London-Paris-London-Liverpool-London and now back in Liverpool but also locked in full day meetings all week. Then possibly back to London. Am photographing. Lots. Am also working projects for people – great things I wish I could announce but can’t right now.

    PAUL
    Keep photographing!! And send me some of it, too. I want to see! I’ll steal the internet if I must, just to make it happen.

    DAH
    Bonjourno! And hope you enjoy Italy! Seems that’s a popular place right now for photo people…

    JOHN VINK
    You, sir, are awesome. And an education. Big big thanks. Still think John Davies is a bit miffed that when he showed me a group-book he was in, I picked out your images as my favourites. But sshh, let’s not tell him I said that… ;-) Still blushing that I lacked the good sense to say hi to you in Paris. Bygones maybe?

    CIVI
    Ouzo FTW!!

    FRAMERS
    Go back to photographing, damnit! It’s been five minutes already! Tsk, tsk… ;-P

  218. John Vink…
    That’s a lovely set of images in that book of your’s… I found it interesting how you seem very aware of how you frame your images so much so you’ve made a book on the idea! Wouldn’t changing of focal length open up something new in your way of framing?
    BTW the Tour de France images were brilliant, it’s probably one of the only sports which the public still can get up close.

  219. Mike R…
    I saw your comment on the difficulties you find these days with street photography…
    I can only say you should hop over to Spain…street life is still a very important part of life here… I’m right now sitting in a large park resting after spending most of the morning limping all over the city taking images with my youngest son. I’m quite sure someone with your experience would have the tine of their life here… If I was to recomend a region I think I’d choose Barcelona… Must be quite good because I’ve read Alex Webb does workshops over there…

  220. Paul,
    Old habits die hard!! That 35mm is glued to my eyelids. The challenge (and fun) to renew one’s repertoire is even bigger when the gear stays the same.

  221. DAH landed Venice.. women and glass doors, watch out!

    Me driving home.. I hope.. meeting tomorrow.. I hope..

  222. Paul, yes, city streets do offer opportunities for-sure. Never been to Barcelona, or to mainland Spain; surprisingly. We are all told that the exotic location we long to visit is someone else’s backyard: their home turf, their … normal.

    So how to photograph our own normal? It can be difficult as “home” often gets in the way. When we travel we don’t have to go shopping, feed the cat, wash the dishes etc. Plus, everything is seen afresh. To my mind, photographing suburbia must be one of the most challenging of subjects. It can be done, I tell myself, and I could do it and do it well, I tell myself ….. it could be the most interesting of subjects, I tell myself … it is the life of almost everyone, I tell myself.

    John V, 35mm is my lens of choice; in fact my only lens at present; by choice. One camera, one lens, thinking of adding a small flash and a DAH band-aid …. maybe.

    The sun has come out …. gotta run …

  223. Mke R, rather than telling yourself all that stuff, you might consider asking yourself what you find so interesting about it? With that, or hopefully those answers in mind, perhaps the photography will work itself out without much intervention.

  224. MW, that’s the point; to me it’s not so much interesting as, well, normal. The point and the challenge: I found my last post quite challenging. There is a group of photographers of have a website called “Preston is my Paris”. It has cleaned up since, but I did read that Charles Dickens used Preston as inspiration for his book, Hard Times, after passing through by train and seeing the Industrial Revolution in full-swing.

    Preston is my Paris: you have to admire their chutzpa.

    Sun still shining, still haven’t run but running soon.

  225. Mike R…
    I was utterly desperate lost with my photography couldn’t see a theme anywhere round me, as I headed off to Paris one very hot and sweaty June afternoon… Mixing, chatting, drinking and especially listening with the fellow Burnians and Magnum photographers somehow made something click in my mind. I arrived back one Saturday night changed and now my home turf is interesting and extremely important to me. Maybe I managed to understand that any theme, essay or subject can be boring or interesting it really just is just up to the photographer, to create it into one thing or another… MW is totally right, find out what is it that attracts you to a certain subject snd there is the key to your personal photographic bliss. Your home turf, your everyday views can be just as important as Paris, Barcelona or NY…

  226. John V…
    I’ve never felt comfortable with a 35mm lens, rarely do I use anything else but a 50mm. Even more so now that I’ve found one I really love! Oh I think you must of noticed it as we all sat together that night in Paris, it’s huge, it looks like a short zoom :)
    But do these old habbits/ways of making your photos actually bother you or are these challenges just necessary to keep your way of seeing fresh?

  227. a civilian-mass audience

    Evolution…Revolution…
    it happens every second…
    my BURNIANS are evolving…
    the Universe is conspiring
    MAGNUMS,PHOTOPHILOSOPHERS,SILENT READERS,DONORS,CIVILIANS…
    we are ALL here together…

    the journey is personal BUT in the end …we are all one…!!!

    P.S…if any BURNIAN accidentally stuck in grecoland and needs help…I can be reached on my usual
    email…cause nothing moves around here.My sincere apologies for the neglegence of the greek gov.
    ouzo…on me…FWT:)))
    I LOVE YOU ALL

  228. a civilian-mass audience

    FROSTY…see you around mate…enjoy your journey…

    take care my cats and my kiddos up there…all my good energy to Wasilla people and YOU!!!

  229. a civilian-mass audience

    VIVA ITALYYYYY…

    to all our Italian people…DIEGO,EVA,LAURA,FRANSESCO…and others,I forget as usual
    please,take care our MR.HARVEY…
    he is coming from far away…lands…:)!!!

  230. Civiiiiiii!!

    A very angry teenager has just informed me I’ve stolen his soul!!
    So I sat with him and showed him the picture where he’s standing about 15m aways from the subject I was actually interested in…
    I’ve offered to erase the image but he says it’s too late :))

  231. a civilian-mass audience

    PAUL,PAUL,PAUL…in Spain ,you do as Spaniards…

    oime…we do love you…:)))))))))))

  232. Paul, yes, sound advice, anywhere can provide an essay although with some places you have to work hard. Some places are more conducive to one’s personal style or, as DAH may say, more favourable to the cards that we have been dealt.

    Good to hear that you enjoyed Paris. What essay(s) are you working on, if you are at liberty to say?

    Michael K, flash, band-aid, DAH; nice one.

    Mike.

  233. Paul; “A very angry teenager has just informed me I’ve stolen his soul!!”

    I was photographing at a party on Saturday night and was talking to a young guy (17) about playing guitar and harmonica. He was telling me how he was now listening to the old blues masters; Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf etc….

    Then he said “I’ve been getting into this country dude who plays guitar and harmonica; but I don’t know his name” I answered “It’s not Bob Dylan is it?” “Oh yea; that’s it!” For a moment there I felt REAL old! :-)

  234. Now that phot of the cute little polar bear next to the dead kangaroo may seem to be about global warming but is really about the bear stock market …….. A bear market should not be confused with a correction, which is a short-term trend that has a duration of less than two months. While corrections are often a great place for a value investor to find an entry point, bear markets rarely provide great entry points, as timing the bottom is very difficult to do. Fighting back can be extremely dangerous because it is quite difficult for an investor to make stellar gains during a bear market unless he or she is a short seller.

  235. Ross.. you’re welcome :) .. as for Bob Dylan, you know you’ve done at least ONE thing right in educating your kids when you can pick and play any CD lying around in the car and not jump out the window, but sing along to the tunes ;)

  236. It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

    -Theodore Roosevelt

  237. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

    -Helen Keller

  238. FOR AKAKY
    —————

    Writing, at its best,

    is a lonely life.

    Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.

    -Hemingway

  239. “.. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer(photog/story teller) he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed…”

    that Hemingway quote also reflects our craft imho!

  240. This relates to this conversation and the viv(r)e one even if it’s in a weird way:

    there are 3 parts but they can be seen as separates.
    Enjoy.

  241. a civilian-mass audience

    Euro will survive…
    bank system will survive…
    my people will die…

    surgery was a success
    just we lost are patients…

    but I am optimistic…when there is a vision…there is a way
    BURN
    BURN
    BURN

    oime your civi

  242. a civilian-mass audience

    Greece is under Euro “protection”…

    shall I dance or shall I cry…?

    I am optimistic…I better go back to work…olives and chickens on me…
    ouzo is not on the menu…:)))
    BUT
    as JOHNYG said…I hide it under the sofa!!!

  243. there are 3 parts but they can be seen as separates.
    Enjoy.”

    …………. boring as……. donate some money to make it interesting

  244. And Panos, since I’m giving you such a hard time lately, thanks for the Venice by air video. Now I’ve added a remote control helicopter capable of lugging around a small video camera to my list of things I simply must have to accomplish my myriad projects. My wife will not be amused. Well, maybe… I’m starting to think of some possibilities…

  245. CARLO , awesome… collective consciousness is what evolves…and its so popular nowadays to give credit to anyone as the ultimate “originator” or the absolute inventor..well , there’s NOT such a thing, otherwise god would “exist” too…

  246. MW, if u noticed at that “flight video” u can purchase/donate for “flying scenes” from the guy if u need a filler movie scene or something of this nature!
    Although trust me, venice from “below” is way more interesting than venice from “above”;)

  247. Imants,

    Boring…really?
    I think the guy does a nice job researching all of that stuff.
    I know its “popular” culture but still interesting.
    The idea of originality in that context is worth noticing….and in the bigger picture more so….specially in the learning phase.

  248. a civilian-mass audience

    ANTON’S book is SOLD OUT…

    and because of EVA,our EVA,VIVA EVA…I am able to hold the book on my hands…

    thank you,thank you ,thank you again…

  249. a civilian-mass audience

    and LUCIAN FREUD is traveling Upstairs…oime…

    he is carrying brushes and colors…Viva!!!

  250. Civi…

    Wrong. You got Anton’s now SOLD OUT book not because of me, but because of WHO YOU ARE.. so you gotta blame yourself :)))

    Off to Cortona… will report if I can..

  251. a civilian-mass audience

    I had plans to travel to Italy…
    BUT
    few days now…nothing moves in grecolandia…no taxis…roads are closing…
    with no warning…
    I am lucky though…
    i will receive a partial refund…
    oime,oime…

    MR.HARVEY…we will meet sooner or later…sending good energy

    EVA…please report if you can…be safe…and I can wait…;)

    Peace… to ALL my BURNIANS

  252. a civilian-mass audience

    and happy B-day to our THODORI…with raki and ouzo …κουραγιο!!!

  253. traveling from Venice to Cortona today…my American Family exhibit opening…Burn portfolio reviews….if you in the area, please stop in with your work…we also have one opening my workshop class starting on sunday…Tuscany almost always one of my summer “musts”…come by and hang out if you like…Anders Peterson, Antonin Kratochvil also on hand..great pasta, wine…as Civi says, what not to like?

  254. a civilian-mass audience

    WHAT NOT TO LOVE…
    what not to like…goes to face book area…BUT for BURN,OUR BURN is
    WHAT NOT TO LOVE…pasta,HARVEY,wine,KRATOCHVIL,olivesPETERSON,chickens,panakotas…

    Student spot open…

    ATTENTION…there is an opening…oime…I am running but I am still here…:)(

  255. Attention!!! Entrance to DAH exhibit is from via Nazionale 42, not via Coppi! At least as of now..

  256. Civi.. exhibits run through September, 4th.. and do I get it right, we would have met here if you found transportation???

  257. a civilian-mass audience

    the best I can do…is Rome…
    I am waiting till the strike is over
    daydreaming…
    sometimes I tend to forget…where I live…
    i think I am Universal

    BUT I am optimistic…

    maybe a BURNIAN coffee in Rome?…
    will MR.HARVEY be in Rome…
    EVA…give me dates,hotels,coffee shops,squares…

    I can do miracles…and I do swim:)

  258. Civi.. usually do have a kid in Rome, but think he’s still in Sheffield (not answering phone), I’m here in Cortona, do not think I can do also Rome.. leaving for holidays midweek, husband would NOT forgive a Rome trip.. DAH to arrive Cortona with Diego, no idea when exactly, no idea about his schedule, but think he’s stuck here.. if I’d known before then perhaps, I do crazy things ’cause of burn.. if you make it to here look for a camping car in Piazza del Mercato!

  259. Sitting on a rock, in the highest point of Cortona, overseeing the whole plane with the lake embedded in the middle of the Tuscan hills.. absorbed the exhibitions, a few photographs burnt into the brain, some into the heart as well.. the first time sine March 2008 that I have three days for me and myself only, not squeezing visits between biz meetings, no driving thousands of miles, no watching the clock.. the first time in more than three years where I can just sit and listen to the grasshoppers, the flies and the wind.. three years in which my life has changed, where I have achived much, and grown.. but not grown up.. still dreaming, even more than before.. touching the sky with a finger, softly..

  260. a civilian-mass audience

    MY BURNIANS…this is what I call… Reporting !!!

    EVA,for you…I am gonna sit next to my chickens and as SAMMY says…I am gonna smoke a fat one…!

    I will be back…let’s see:))))

  261. a civilian-mass audience

    DAVIDB…please,report ASAP…
    BJARTE…same goes for you…and for all our BURNIANS up there…

    sending good energy to the Norwegian people…

    I have to second MICHAELK…!

  262. Civi
    Just checking in.
    Got back yesterday from a week off the grid on Lasqueti Is. This included three days at an intensive life drawing workshop with Heather Spears. The workshop was inspirational and affirming for me, and has re-kindled my love of drawing. http://www.pbase.com/glafleur/image/136605017

    Off to Nova Scotia at 6am tommorow to attend the Boxwood wooden flute festival. What not to love!

  263. a civilian-mass audience

    GORDON…oh,GORDON…check this out…

    I was talking to some greek civilians…taxi drivers on strike…
    about the philosophy of economics and I used…your famous…”I LOVE MY LIFE”…
    oime,oime…
    I am still running…:)

    safe travels…hugs to MOM and MARTHA…!!!

  264. 7.11pm: The New York Times has more on the claim of responsibility by an Islamist group (thanks to Marta Hernandez Salvan for passing this on):

    A terror group, Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami (the Helpers of the Global Jihad), issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, according to Will McCants, a terrorism analyst at CNA, a research institute that studies terrorism. The message said the attack was a response to Norwegian forces’ presence in Afghanistan and to unspecified insults to the Prophet Muhammad. “We have warned since the Stockholm raid of more operations,” the group said, apparently referred to a bombing in Sweden in December 2010, according to Mr McCants’ translation. “What you see is only the beginning, and there is more to come.” The claim could not be confirmed.

  265. a civilian-mass audience

    PANOS…safest place…only upstairs…

    Come on BURNIANS…risk it all…
    easy for me to say…
    i am still running…

    P.S…VIVA ITALYYYY…and Norway…I am waiting for report

    stay safe…risk it all…PEACE,PHOTOLOVE and BURN !!!

  266. a civilian-mass audience

    goodnight from grecolandia…
    euro will survive…civilians will die
    but
    we are optimistics…or maybe not?

  267. horrible and slightly bizarre.
    mostly horrible.

    it’s best to wait for the facts to emerge before saying much more, i think..

    norway is an astonishingly open country..
    has fought to remain an open country with a successful and rewarding culture of social democracy..

    we’re going to keep it that way.
    yes.

  268. DAVID – good to hear you’re okay.

    I have no words for this. I was in Norway, in Oslo, for a time a few years back and I have various friends from there. Spent all day checking in with them and their families. All are, thankfully, safe.

    From reports in Britain (largely unconfirmed)
    (Confirmed) One mand has been arrested and death toll on the island is currently at 10 but looks set to rise. (Unconfirmed) reports says it is more like 30 or so dead on the island. All Labour Youth members are 15-25. Seems to be a lone gunman.

    My own impressions – the bomb was subterfuge. PM was due to speak at the island but cancelled last minute – that info wasn’t made public, nor were any attempts made to protect the people (again, all this unconfirmed). Looks like the bomb was a decoy and distraction – a way to divert energies there and also to make the fake cop look legit when he turned up. Does seem to be a lone gunman, now arrested. Looks like an assassination attempt on the PM with various casualties due to either ideological madness, an attempt to make it look like something else, or just plain frustration (re the kids on the island, not the bomb which was just insane, even more so than everything else today).

  269. hmm.. 87 dead and rising..
    a massacre..
    and nothing to do with the war on terror.. a lone, lunatic, rich 32 year old, psychotic right wing bastard.

    i’m so glad there is restraint and the police arrested rather than killed him.
    87 families suffering deeply today..
    thoughts for them.

  270. a “christian fundamentalist” no less, as the toll reaches 91.
    2 people from our village were on the island.. and are thankfully safe.

  271. BBC is saying he’s a fundamentalist Christian and at least 91 dead so far.

    Norwegian gov spokesperson is saying it won’t cause them to change how they work or the values and policies they commit to.

    32 yr old Anders Behring Breivik has been charged with the attacks.

  272. a civilian-mass audience

    Singer Amy Winehouse, 27, has been found dead at her north London home.

    hmm…going upstairs…hmmm

    I better take it easy with my ouzo…of,course,I have long passed the 27 …
    but symplegades are everywhere…

    PAULT…left is right…BRAVOOO!

    VIVA …with green detox tea…oime,oime

  273. a civilian-mass audience

    and VIVA for the BURNIANS in Italy…

    and VIVA for our Norway people(thanks for reporting DAVIDB)

    and …hmmm…PANOS easy with the vodka…although, you have long passed the 27…too:)))))))))))))

    Keep shooting,keep reporting…BURN is the place to be!!!

  274. a civilian-mass audience

    and according to IMANTS and MICHAL…

    there are always two sides to every coin…

    Peace,love and photography…!!!

  275. there is only 1 side, civi, but since we’re human and disappearing losing always we need to see it as 2….only 1 side, the side sight-up upon our eyes as we leave this belted, buckled world….

  276. spent last night listening to Otis’ BLUE….writing…and awake talk to Marinka, and open the news and see…..as i just told Brother Akaky:

    none of us wants help….we all have the foot on the pedal….we must see the death of any as the death of each of us, and not relegate it to the ‘told u so’….

    with each, go we.

  277. J.Hendrix
    K.Cobain
    J.Joplin
    JIM Morrison
    Brian Jones
    J.M.Basquiat
    AMY WINEHOUSE

    27! years old!
    (and thats just the “famous”/”big” names)- imagine the not so famous!..that all joined this Club , called the
    “27 CLUB”

  278. anyway, all jokes aside, this is a sad and glorious day.
    A Legend Is Born!(not just a fake pop Idol but a Real Voice)
    Strangely i dare to reverse it and say: this a Great Day!
    Another LEGEND is “arrived”

    (well., what do you all expect me to say? i feel sad and thats all)

  279. Recent set lists and encores have included “Like a Rolling Stone,” “Ballad of a Thin Man,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Highway 61 Revisited,” “Things Have Changed,” “Tangled Up in Blue,” “Summer Days,” “Thunder on the Mountain” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”
    “My (most famous protest songs) were songs. They weren’t sermons,” Dylan said in that “60 Minutes” interview.
    But what makes Dylan such a compelling, if mysterious, singer-songwriter is that his most recent studio albums — “Time Out of Mind,” “Love and Theft,” “Modern Times” and “Together Through Life” — have ranked with his best and most playful work.

  280. a civilian-mass audience

    my boy,my boy…DYLAN…another BOBBY…

    VIVA BOBBYS…and PANOS and MY BURNIANS

    “They all fall there so perfectly
    It all seems so well timed
    And here I sit so patiently
    Waiting to find out what price
    You have to pay to get out of
    Going through all these things twice
    Oh, Mama, is this really the end
    To be stuck inside of Mobile
    With the Memphis blues again”

    i am dancing…

  281. “anyway, all jokes aside, this is a sad and glorious day”

    Panos; it’s never glorious when anyone dies at 27. The difference is that if you are a “star” the “public” try to glamourise the death. I’m sure it’s not very glorious for her family. Cheers man.

  282. you missed out Robert Johnson, who started it all.

    I’m not surprised by the news, only surprised I didn’t hear it earlier. Also surprised she was only 27. But her family would no doubt trade all her talent and her success to see her one more day. But then she wouldn’t be she. The conundrums of existence. RIP AW.

  283. I’m 27 and born on the 27th, I swore if I made it through this year i’d breathe easy. As it is, I type this with Baileys in one hand and a smoke in the other. Maybe I haven’t learned a damn thing afterall.

  284. Do not forget that more than 91 people, children mostly, are dying everyday in/from/out of Somalia.

    Also, I just wish to put a link up where a little donation, which can be texted (or in UK only?), may go to save a poor kid, one of the thousands of innocents whose life has been made a hell by the Burmese Junta, but this one is struck down by a creeping disease, on top of tyranny. I know the NGO, it is a trustworthy one. Thanks:

    http://thaichildrenstrust-news.org.uk/t/67W-HCUA-E23ZJ1ZJ7E/cr.aspx

  285. “But then she wouldn’t be she.”

    Maybe; but the poor girl would be alive; still able to pursue music; or not if she wished; ala Dylan etc. Cheers

  286. DAH yesterday during an interview for Italian magazine FOTO CULT, which will be published in the November issue.. if you set the slideshow to 1 sec it’s better.. hate taking pics with a phone, shutter lag is one of the worst thing I can imagine when taking pics.. I know I have the best pic on film..

    https://picasaweb.google.com/eva.mbk/Cortona?authkey=Gv1sRgCMuTt5eyyZem8AE#slideshow/5633203825816511842

    The interviewer’s words to me, after she finished: the man is like quicksilver..

    Very intense days in Cortona, going back for David’s presentation tomorrow night, then taking a break..

    (btw. managed to kill my iPhone 2 screen yesterday, any way I can export messages? Have been able to save pics by synchronizing the library with the laptop, cannot find a way to do the same with messages?)

  287. Eva, nice slide show and good links; thanks. Looks like you are having nice Italian light in Cortona.
    Some very nice Northern European light around today too. Not the intense colour saturated Cortona stuff, more diffused, softer. I’ve had a good morning shooting and out again soon – on a roll.

    Mike.

  288. EVA,
    when you do the backup of your iPhone, it should contain everything. including messages.
    had to replace mine a few days ago, since the firm wanted theirs back and I had to get a private one.
    backup also brought back the text messages, after restoring the backup.
    only some passwords needed to be re-entered.

  289. Mike..
    actually it started to pour like crazy, that’s why at the end of the interview we were inside the bar.. on a roll.. hope that has two meanings?

    Thomas…
    thanks, backup made with iTunes.. do I just plug in the new phone (when I get it) and it does all automatically, or must I do it manually?

    Francesco..
    piacere di averti conosciuto.. Mike is right, nice light up there.. see you tomorrow night!

  290. Thomas..

    thanks again.. I’m just not sure I want to spend all that money on a phone, the one I killed was a used one, slow but cheap and I knew the previous owner..

  291. Eva, I’m shocked! Well, not really – my roll was that the light was (is) right and I’m shooting lots. Is your roll cheese or ham?

  292. Mike.. mine mostly Tri-X, but Neopan 1600 as of late, since I’ve started my new project.. uhmm.. the other ‘on the roll’ I was referring too was the one you write about.. but methinks there are other meanings to that?? Ops if so!

  293. Thodoris.. I know, and I have.. but if somebody wants to get rid of it I’ll buy it.. and there seems to be an US store who still has it, but they do not ship overseas.. anybody willing to help me out?

  294. G+ gives you Circles, but PLUS gives you a Revolution! http://st84photo.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/gives-circles-but-plus-gives-a-revolution/

    A new system for tracking image use, announced today through EPUK. I’ve blogged about it, with links to the relevant groups involved in it, the idea is to make it easier for photographers to track their images, for “orphan works” to be reunited with the creators, and for the organisations who use images to be able to find the photographer, so the photographer can BE PAID and GET CREDIT for their work.

    A MUST READ. I rarely say that.

  295. EVA. Why not push HP5 to 1600? Looks great, especially 120. Or pull tmax 3200 to 1600. also looks great [dev at 3200]. Grain like iron filings. Gritty and dark.
    I have a freezer full of both and I owe you for the fuji color neg, so if you want some I can ship you a brick or two.

    john

  296. John..
    Thanks, those two I find easyly even in town.. will try both suggestions (what soup?), do not like Tmax.. but perhaps treated as you write it is different. I should have enough of the Neopan though.. it prints so nice and easy..
    If you don’t mind I’d rather have a small print of that colour stuff, once you’ve shot it and given it’s still any good!
    Oh, and will ask you for info, need to rent a place in London September next year..

  297. Eva…
    Nice pics of David!
    BTW I’ve not forgotten your print for one second! Still waiting for the paper to arrive and August coming up and Spain practically stops for summer hols :(
    Is there anything desperately wrong with developing Tmax 3200 or Delta 3200 shot at 1600 like I did this morning and developing it all in HC 110?

  298. Hey Paul,

    I sent you a PM… Sorry we didn’t meet at the MP party in Paris last month.
    Glad to read that you had an ‘enlightment’ moment while in the city of lights. Good for you! Would like to know what changed -or which is the path to nirvana ;) I’m guessing the champagne magnums had to help too! ;))

    Best, T.

  299. a civilian-mass audience

    AMAZING light…from EVA…and FRANCESCO…

    Amazing inside/outside…keep reporting BURNIANS…

    I am a busy civilian…oh,yeah…summer is my time…I follow the sun…
    and I love penguins…!!!

    MICHELLE…sending good energy…
    EVA…I might be able to bring some…when I will cross the waters…
    AUSSIE friends and NZ…enjoy the snow

    be strong my BURNIANS…wine on the Italians…(JOHNYG ,we will have tea)

  300. a civilian-mass audience

    THOMAS…thank you for the link…

    who can tell me that MR.HARVEY is not Greek?:)))
    pay close attention to his hands…
    he looks Greek to me…(maybe Italian,Spanish…)

    BURN is under EAGLE’S wings…
    What not to LOVE !!!

  301. Tanguy…

    Well Nirvana seems to be always right in front of our noses! Just go back to David’s and Imant’s kind posts they sent me on Burn last week and you’re know all the secrets which really aren’t anything else but the utterly obvious, which as usual many of us are blind to!! I suppose in my personal experience so much reading and looking at other photographers work is great and probably the best way to learn, but in my case it also made me lose my connection with myself. I sort of wanted to do my version of Pinkhassov’s “Sightwalk” or Robert Frank’s “The Americans”, DAH’s “Divided Soul”. But it doesn’t work that way! Each of us must walk the path set out for each of us, because as much as I’d love to go out as RF did, my personality is not up to that dance/photography. His work will probably influence me in some way but it must all be in the subconscious, if anything at all. So just forget our favourite photographers and everytime we pick up our cameras let us be for a little while the centre of our little universes and be the fav photographer. If you’re really serious about your art the only way to calm that burning flame which roars in your soul is by following your own path however poisonous and bad it probably tastes or how you’re hated and loved for it. What the hell it may be something really just nice and cute! But as long as it’s something in your life which honestly means something big to you, you’re on the right path!
    Just look at Amy Winehouse and how she wrote and sang songs about herself…maybe her only way of finding a little peace?
    Take a look at this vid of Amy if you look and listen carefully she’s singing for HERSELF, the public are their enjoying themselves, but they are secondary…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbVp09E1LRg&feature=related
    or
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgfrxZlrYR4&feature=related

    and now all we’re left with is Duffy!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr5KsKiTJ_8

    BTW we did comment about you in Paris! I was wondering where and when you would turn up! Where did you send that PM? I’ve never seen it :)!!

  302. a civilian-mass audience

    “But as long as it’s something in your life which honestly means something big to you, you’re on the right path!”
    PAUL PARKER (a BURNIAN)

    and before I go…
    credit to ANTON…he saves the day

    VIVA MY BURNIANS…ROCK ON…we are HOT,HOT,HOT and we are rocking…

  303. a civilian-mass audience

    ohhh…and today we celebrate…DOUBLE

    AKAKY and AKAKYIRL…
    now
    if this isn’t the best time for wine and souvlakia…then,I don’t know…

    LOVE U AKAKIE

  304. BTW…

    Just to make it absolutely clear, I’ve got nothing against Duffy’s music. When we head off this afternoon to my sister in law’s house and my little niece takes me and my sons to her bedroom and they start dancing to Duffy’s tunes, I’ll enjoy her music….
    It’s I just can’t listen to Duffy AFTER listening to Amy. Slightly like Elliot Erwitt on Ansel Adams and Robert Frank…

    “The quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he’s doing, what his mind is. It’s not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It’s got to do with intention.”

  305. Paul…
    do not worry about the print, and please do not send anything in the next few weeks, on the road again starting tomorrow!

    Civi..
    not sure what you gonna bring.. light, energy or penguins.. all three are well accepted :)

    Thomas…
    thanks for the link to the DAH talk, picked up a few things I missed out on at the live talk.. but one thing the video is missing is DAH dancing along the tunes while watching the vids!!!

  306. Paul, sounds like you have a plan since Paris and yes, intention is everything i.e. do you have anything to say? Most of us do have something to say but feel that we must travel to exotic of different places to say it. Wrong.

    A friend of mine told me recently that he often thought that he would photograph a nearby town if it were further away. He needed the distance to see the “new”. I keep thinking of his words.

    Good light,

    Mike.

  307. Mike R…

    Smiling, I honestly believe we all have something to say! It’s the way you say it, which I’m convinced will make others listen, look or hear your “voice”. Most people have fallen in love and their heart broken at sometime in their life and if they haven’t they’ve either got water running through their veins or just haven’t begun to live. How many brilliant songs have been written with love in mind? Just look at any great twentieth century novel by any great American writer and usually it’s a simple recurring fact about an everyday occurrence which most of us will look past without giving it any thought. But those writers celebrated the usual and added that something extra, which we glorify, because they managed to magnify and shine in a very special light something very mundane…

  308. Mike R…

    Well your friend has got a point! But the problem is can he afford with time, perhaps money or sacrifice family obligations and go and photography a nearby town which is a little further? Or he can just wait till one day circumstances change and maybe he can try out his theory…
    I’ve personally always led life extremely urgently, I don’t want to wait and I’m going to use what pisses me off or perhaps what makes me fall in love in my town to try and tell a story which will perhaps calm MY spirit a little. Then perhaps at home they can all take a little rest from the husband and father who is so extreme and intense whilst he feels good and happy for perhaps 24 hours :))

  309. FRANCESCO!!

    David’s show in Cortona has been moved to tomorrow night, sent you a mail also, just in case..

  310. just a quick hello…i know that you know that i have a class this week in Tuscany and just cannot be here on Burn much if at all…during a workshop, i owe my students all of my time….back home over the weekend and will try to catch up with comments etc….and write a new dialogue post of course…many thanks for your patience…

    cheers, david

  311. a civilian-mass audience

    EVA,
    I was talking about Fuji Neopan…maybe I can bing some…if and when I will cross the
    Big waters…other side of the Universe:)))

    give a big feather hug to all the BURNIANS …and safe travels…
    VIVA EVA…!!!

    ALL,
    “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.”
    Swami Vivekananda

  312. Paul, interesting; my take on it is that my friend didn’t have a point. The story was too close and he couldn’t see it.

    I’m photographing near to home and it has been so hard to begin the essay because where I’m photographing, unlike e.g. a busy city, you are noticed immediately. I have no problem with being noticed; I don’t “sneak” photos but I do have a slight speech problem (the least of my problems (laughing)) so interacting (talking) to subjects is not the easiest of things for me to do. Ironically I have had some really interesting conversations with total strangers and have taken photographs that I would have missed if I hadn’t gone the extra mile.

    With regard to your comment about photographers wanting to do their own version of known photographers (as you say “I sort of wanted to do my version of Pinkhassov’s “Sightwalk” or Robert Frank’s “The Americans”, DAH’s “Divided Soul”) – don’t you find that when you photograph, when you are actually taking a photograph, that all you can think of and are concerned about is the photograph and not missing the photograph? That’s what I find. The influence, as you say, is probably subliminal.

    Mike.

  313. a civilian-mass audience

    MR.HARVEY …I just skyped JIMMY…
    he said…hmmm…he can wait for the new essay :))))))))))))))

    ok,I need more reports…from many,many BURNIANS…
    don’t push me…I know how to find you…;)

    PARTYYYYYYYYYYYY…wine on AKAKY!

  314. a civilian-mass audience

    MIKER…initiates conversations…
    civilian reads posts…
    OURPATRICIA travels around the Universe…
    PAUL runs all over…

    oime you are so many…BUT ALL OF YOU…ALL OF US…we are determined…
    and this is sexy and this is magic and this is passion…
    RESPECT,LOVE and PHOTOGRAPHY…

    WTF not to LOVE…!!!

  315. Civi…
    oh, I see.. thanks! What I’d need SOONEST is place where to let them send my order to.. someplace in the US.. before they run out of it.. and before I run out again.. getting over here later whenever.. so if you or somebody else can give me that I’m all ok! Email addy should be under my name, if I’ve done it right..

  316. Mike…

    I’ve been off work for the last 20months due to my foot injury and so the days are extremely long and it’s brilliant waking up at 5:30am and knowing the day is practically all yours for photography! But there is a limit to how many things I see everyday I can or want to take images of. So when I’m off photography I’m usually with my two sons supervising homework or sitting in the park watching them whilst I read a novel or this is where my problem has come from … reading/looking at photobooks. I’ve got so many photography books I like I usually choose 3 or 4 per week and just go through them whilst sitting at home after dinner, the bus, at the hospital or at the park. Of course that is a huge and heavy influence which is good and bad! I’ve found myself just sitting and thinking more about others photography than my own!! Of course it’s not a problem when I’m shooting but it is also a bad influence planning and deciding on a good theme or essay! Rio, Cuba, NY will always sound better than home :))!! But just remember NY, Cuba and Rio are also home to many who probably find it just as boring as we find ours.

  317. Paul.. Mike..

    I think place doesn’t matter, you gotta be in love with what you do, that’s all..

  318. Paul,

    Damn, I almost burnt my kitchen down while flying through the previous comments you mentionned (so many I forgot about the stove)! Not to worry, my cubano sandwiches (best in NYC) are still delicious ;)

    Anyways, yes, I do feel you’re in a good place mate! As they said, focuss on what you wanna immerse yourself in, on the work, and forget about the icons and the ‘public’… It’s kinda like the ‘deNiro -Pacino’ analogy DAH used when talking about peers vs public… And it reminded me of what Dworzak told me in Paris, someting like: if you think too much about the response on what you do, the prizes, you can lose your way and the images won’t be truly your own. (it was near midnight, we were laughing with his lovely wife -drinking wine as the champagne went dry- so it’s not an exact quote… :)

    About that parisian night, time flew-by (great company does that. you know). Chatted with friends working at MP paris, shaking hands and meeting a few photogs in the agrden, next to the bar, and met new friends on the staircase (shout-out to Maro in her yellow dress).
    DAH said hi, but I think the woman I was talking to that night was the reason he came towards me in the crowd ;) Nonetheless, I wish I did make it to you all… By the time I went to the pub, you were gone.
    No worries, we all had a wonderful time!

    PS: sent that PM on your photoshelter contact form…
    Best, T.

  319. Mike…

    5:30 am is very early morning round where I live! :) Anytime after that and it’s a bad news and I felt I’ve overslept!!

  320. Tanguy…

    I must of brushed past you a couple of times that night on the steps as I made my way back and forth with champagne! We were sitting at the first table on right as you entered the garden, opposite Antoine D’Agata. I hung around a little on the steps talking with Sara and Bruce Gilden, pity we didn’t meet!

    BTW it must be another Paul Parker I’ve never been on photoshelter in my life!! :)))))))))

  321. Paul,

    We probably even said what’s up as you passed-by on the crowded steps… Bruce and I talked for the longest time there (can’t stop when he talks about his 3 cats, and I love a funny NYer ;) Then again, if you remember my friend Maro (tall beautiful armenian girl in a yellow dress), you saw me.

    Parker-bis: hahaha -funny! Yes, I’ll write on your blog ;)

  322. @ Thomas,
    danke schon for the link. Interesting master talk or interesting talk of a master… Did not know about “You made me live” images/story.

    @ CIVI, I appreciate the quote. That’s the aim of life… one crazy/mad idea and then just do it!

    OK, I’m watching my scans and my panoramic pictures, need to do a re-selection. New stories on the way. Will post when done. Soon.

    P.

  323. Mike R, no, IRL doesn’t do the presents thing, unfortunately. And Panos, check out akaky says in the dialogue box.

  324. Paul; It’s good to see you’re still so enthused! Nothing like an epiphany to enliven the spirits and motivation! I’m with you; photograph what you want and how you want; satisfy yourself and if others see what you see then that’s a great bonus.

    It’s too easy to slavishly copy others to get “recognition”; mind you it’s easier than trying to find your own voice. ;-) Like great music; most significant photography is created from within the photographer; rather than by jumping onto the nearest populist bandwagon….

  325. “Rio, Cuba, NY will always sound better than home :))!! But just remember NY, Cuba and Rio are also home to many who probably find it just as boring as we find ours”

    Yup; that’s it in a nutshell! Learning to “see” at home is the goal. I’ve always liked this Freeman Patterson quote; “Even when my feet are placed in footprints I made previously, and even if I stand there at precisely the same time I did the day before, the angle of light will have altered slightly and the sky will be deeper blue or paler with dust. And I will be a day older. So every time I gaze upon the whole, it will be from a unique perspective. And each of my unique perspectives will be different from each of yours”.

  326. Thanks all US Burn readers for the help with the Neopan.. none.. oh well..

    Paul..
    nothing wrong with Tmax or Delta in HC 110, I just don’t like the tones of either.. or better, have not been able to get what I want out of it..

  327. a civilian-mass audience

    I copy and paste from FB area…and AUDREY…
    here we have OUR SAMMY HARRIS…
    http://headon.com.au/blog/sam-harris-postcards-home

    EVA…THANK YOU …August is almost here;)

    LOVE TO ALL MY BURNIANS…keep shooting,backyard,frontyard,exotics…
    i don’t care
    BUT
    I wanna see YOU,your “story”…therefore I do care…
    Bring me magic

  328. Eva…

    Thanks for the link! It’s amazing after so many difficulties I’ve found in understanding Robert Franks work, but I’m at last really beginning to appreciate it intensely.

  329. Ross…

    The link you just posted on Ralph Gibson is also the same site which has an interview with Freeman Patterson I was telling you about the other day.

  330. Eva…

    My doctor isn’t sure Paris and my new enthusiasm is a good idea!!
    Of course he’s absolutely wrong!!
    Once again I’m going this afternoon for a little surgery on my foot…
    If everything goes well, I should be sleeping at home tonight.

  331. This is probably an impossible task knowing how busy David is this week with the workshop, but an interview for Burn with Anders Petersen would really be something amazing :)

  332. Paul…
    best wishes with your surgery.. and of course your doc is wrong!

    Tonight in Cortona is HARVEY and PETERSEN show.. so so miffed I miss it.. and so looking forward to what will come out of the encounter :)

  333. “Really, I want every image to be a kind of self-portrait,’ he says. ‘If I take a picture of that apple on the table, it can be a self-portrait.’ How? I ask. ‘By using whatever is necessary to be true to myself: the light, the darkness, the hunger I have and the innocence. By not thinking. By being as primitive as possible, as raw as possible, as horrible as possible. Using my nerve and my heart and my gut. Then, only after shooting, I will use my brain to select and edit. This is the beautiful and fantastic thing about photography.”
    Anders Petersen

  334. Paul..
    home since Sunday.. got family stuff to sort out, you know how that is, right? Do not complain though, only for tonights show, that really is a pity.. guess you know how much I like Petersen’s work, and viewing that together or better opposed to DAH’s, now that’ll be something!

  335. Eva…

    The Anders Petersen book you gave is brilliant, I appreciate the fact that it’s small and I can carry it around me with me in my rucksack. Pulled it out the other day waiting for my son at summer school and I suddenly turned round and noticed some very strange looks from two horrified mothers :)
    I suppose I’ll have to buy French Kiss next week!! :)

  336. Paul..
    Frenchkiss is same size.. the one you already have is tame compared to FK.. watch out for those moms getting after you ;)

  337. Mike.. thanks!

    Paul.. thanks also.. posted a link to the Petersen video a while ago.. ‘photography is not about photography’…

  338. Paul…
    exhibits run through September 4th.. but sure the first days were special, running into the authors of the photographs all over the town, literally bumping into them..
    You get to see Kratochvil’s ‘Galapagos’ prints.. and Majoli’s exhibit is simply great, the photographs, the location (desecrated church) and then the disposition of the photographs, great great sense of kinda dark humor..

  339. Thanks for the link,Paul

    Has a somewhat similar feel to some of the early images that were shown a couple of years back
    at the start of Salgado’s Genesis project.
    A little more ‘edge’ in Kratochvil’s take, i think, though he’s gotta get his inner ear checked.

    Far too many way crooked horizons :)

  340. Ross your farm series is looking great…………..I am off for a 1000 k trip to pick up a composting toilet as we do here.

  341. Funny; John (who owns the farm) looked at all the pics yesterday and said “You know it might take you a year of shooting, and another year of “bits and pieces” shooting to finish the story” Was my thoughts too; but didn’t want to mention it in case it scared him off! Best thing was he also said “I think you’re onto something special here”. That made me feel that I was on the right track; because I haven’t compromised at all in the shooting; warts and all…

  342. EVA, if ugot chrome, hit google translator;)

    Snapshots from Cortona
    Small diary and personal impressions from the festival of travel photography “Cortona on the Move”, which these days has driven the Tuscan village with great photographers and photography experts from around the world
    Marco Pinna

    The photographer of Reggio Emilia Simona Ghizzoni, an award-winning World Press Photo of the protagonists of the festival in Cortona. crowded with tourists is the ancient town of Cortona. Americans, Germans, Japanese and other vacationers in shorts and slippers sweaty trudge on medieval streets that climb to the fortress overlooking the town. But these days the crowd seems a bit ‘more lively than usual, there is a ferment particular ; bars in the center of the tables sit eccentric characters, travelers of a different species consumed by the usual, wearing scarves, ethnic styles, were lively and attentive eye, are armed with cameras in some cases even bizarre, that link him to anyone moves, and their talk has focused on a theme: photography. They are the opening days of Cortona on the Move, the festival of travel photography that will liven up the Tuscan town until the 4th of September with exhibitions, talks, readings portfolios, debates and workshops given by some of the most important photographers and photography experts worldwide, who have already invaded and continue to invade the streets of the medieval Tuscan village, turning it into a small farmyard Perpignan.

  343. mtomalty…

    Yesterday afternoon trying to take advantage of an afternoon without kids as I was due to go into hospital for surgery, I asked my wife if she would like to see a Steve McCurry exhibition at one of the local galleries. So we were walking round the extremely crowded rooms looking at the iconic images and I noticed my wife was unusually quiet. I asked her if she liked the show and she basically said she found the images were of course wonderful, extremely well executed but just too perfect. Square, a little sterile and these days although she had initial hangups much preferred some of the stuff she glanced at whilst passing by as I was viewing essays on Burn or just links. She mentioned Salgado’s work and said although the Galapagos work I had showed her had little to do with Africa, thought it was time perhaps Salgado and McCurry moved on style wise. Commenting on the images in general she said she was missing some of DAH’s crooked horizons and the usual very free kind of imagery others on Burn were producing!! :)) This comes from a person who has no real interest in photography although she did used to paint very well before the kids were born.

  344. Jeff, thanks for the link: David did mention this book some time ago but I had forgotten about it. Contact sheets are very interesting to view and I’m particularly looking forward to this set. I’m hoping to see a few well-known photographs and see what was taken just before and just after. Fascinating.

  345. Akaky…wow…
    thats not the Akaky of 3 years ago!..Akaky u evolved tremendously! i see you playing for the NBA soon!
    Now also shooting from the hip, clint eastwood style…akaky u are hooking it up brotha!

  346. PAUL,

    I missed somewhere that you are going back to surgery. Wishing you all the best!!!

    ALL,

    Anyone else having problems with the posted link to DAH’s speech on the World Press Photo site?
    http://www.worldpressphoto.org/videolibrary I’ve tried it on 3 different PC’s, to no avail (please, no “get a Mac” jokes :-) I e-mailed WPP, and received a prompt and kind reply:

    “Hi Justin,

    Thanks for letting us know about the problem. We have noticed that for many people the videos work, and for others they don’t. No rhyme or reason, but we are checking into it and will hopefully have it working smoothly next week. Will keep you posted!

    Kind regards,
    Carly

    —————————

    Carly Diaz
    Online Editor

    World Press Photo”

  347. “…The changing wisdom of successive generations discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom: to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition–and therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity and beauty and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation–to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear which binds men to each other, which bind together all humanity–the dead to the living and the living to the unborn…’–Conrad

  348. and the only internet presence i have (other than F$#@!-book) with some minor record of my pictures and my publications, Lighstalkers, has been deleted….as my son would tell me now if he were beside me:

    ‘dad, i told you so’….

    all our vanities, tear down….

  349. Justin…

    Thanks!
    Yes went off for some more surgery on Wednesday…
    Absolute failure!! But no worries I was warned there was a chance it wouldn’t work :)!!

    I also had the same problem with the video. I’m also a proud owner of PC and have no plans of crossing over to the dark side :))))))))

  350. Mike R…

    It’s also a mindset this essay/theme concept we are talking about. I find if I go out with doubts like I’ve been doing the last two days I see very few or practically no interesting images wherever I look.
    So doubts are prohibited today!! :))

  351. Akaky…

    I know it’s very late but Happy Birthday!!
    Nice images there…
    You’re either smaller than the average American woman or you’re shooting from the hip :))

  352. Justin,

    The only way it worked for me was to view it full screen. Did not manage to see it all….hopefully tonight…but that was the only way.

  353. for whoever MISSED IT , watch the amazing work here (A film by Drea Cooper & Zackary Canepari)

    “As you can imagine, regular practice of synchronized swimming is a great way to maintain health and strength — and a great way to meet active and fun women! We have many members who have had arthritis, joint replacements, and other health challenges — and they stay active with the Aquadettes.” — Leisure World

    Margo Bouer is seventy five and has been an Aquadette for over fifteen years.

    A film by Drea Cooper & Zackary Canepari

    “Aquadettes”

  354. Paul, sorry to hear the surgery didn’t work out, and thanks for the wishes. And no, I am not a dwarf; I hipped some of those shots.

  355. Akaky…

    Can’t hip photos with my limp, always looks like Mallorca is about to join Atlantis in the bright blue Mediterranean!!

  356. BOB BLACK

    by the way amigo, all of your writing here is not for naught…we are archiving all this work from everyone here…separating some of it out…the best of the best will end up somewhere somehow besides a fast day of exposure here…book….oh yes, books always on my mind…as you well well know…

    cheers, david

  357. Hey these “Instagram Twitter Posts” are great, Anders Petersen and Julia is truly one beautiful image.

    So there we have David with his iPhone and Anders Petersen with his trusty Contax T3 no need for anything else…
    All eyes and soul :)

  358. Sidney Atkins

    DAVID

    While you’re apparently present on the Comments section and while I still remember it, I recently watched the video of your presentation at the World Press Photo meeting in the Netherlands and was quite taken with the cumulative power of the entire presentation, even though I had seen 95% of the photos before.

    However, one detail gave me pause… in your “Dream Hotel” segment, despite being described as a project from Bangkok, 4 (at least) of the 12 images shown were from Seoul… Now, I know that you called this a ‘work of fiction’ and as such you can mix and match anything you like.. but I wondered if you yourself remembered that those four photos were from a different time and from South Korea… Maybe no one but me and a few others would notice, and maybe the “Dream Hotel” is a state of mind independent of location or cultural milieu, but to my eyes it was a jarring note since it was described as a Bangkok-based fiction in your talk. And to me anyway, Bangkok and Seoul are not only very different places but very different states of mind, different universes in fact. Your thoughts?

  359. PAUL,

    So sorry to read that your surgery was not a success. As ever, I greatly admire your continuing optimism and positive outlook on life :-)

    CARLO:

    Thank you for the tip on the videos. Watching full-screen allows me to stream audio, but it seems I’m still having some problem with the video codec (i.e., video is playing, but very blocky and colors all wrong).

  360. Paul, if Mallorca ever joins Atlantis you’ll be ahead of the game; you’ll have exclusive pictures of the event before it happened! I’m sure the National Enquirer would be interested.

    And now, on to other things…

    You may not have noticed this, but the English collective noun is a wonderful, often beautiful thing. For example, Anglophone crows travel in murders, whereas larks travel in exaltations, while below them float rabbles of butterflies flitting over clowders of cats as they hunt mews of capons, said capons no doubt mewing over their lost gonads, for which collective, I am sorry to say, I am unable to find a collective noun. Perhaps a scrota of gonads might work; I should propose the idea to the good folks at the Oxford English Dictionary and see how they like it.

    There is another group that, unlike a capon’s gonads, are all too familiar to anyone who drives the highways and byways of this our Great Republic and, like the collective of missing gonads, do not have a collective noun of their very own. I am referring here to the slowpoke, the person who invariably in front of you when you are already late for work and insists on treating his need to lollygag and check out the barely descript scenery as somehow equal to your right to not have the boss cut you a new one for being late for the third day straight. You may not think so, but it is very important for slowpokes to have their own collective noun, given that slowpokes, like Japanese tourists, find it more congenial to travel in groups than to travel alone, thereby amplifying their power to make your morning commute nothing short of a living hell.

    We’ve all had that experience, I think: no sooner have you gotten away from the senior citizen toddling along to the nearest drugstore to refill their prescriptions for damn near everything than you are stuck behind those good folks from Minnesota who’ve decided to slow down and take a good hard look at our happy little burg and see if there’s anything here that we don’t have back home in God’s country [we don’t; take my word for it and get moving. The only difference between Minnesota and the Vampire State is that we have uglier license plates.] , who will then leave you stuck behind someone trying to discipline a child, comb her hair in the rear view mirror, and hold a cell phone conversation simultaneously and doing none of the above very well. If you do not believe that this is important then clearly you have not been on the roads recently. Having their own collective noun makes it possible for the rest of the motoring public to know which profane, blasphemous, and/or scatological adjective to attach to this collective noun as we grind our molars into dust waiting for these people to make up their minds as to whether or not they are making the right or the left, going straight, or do 25 miles an hour in a 40 mph zone.

    I thought at first that I would simply borrow a collective noun from an appropriate animal; it seemed a good idea at the time; and the number of appropriate animals seemed to promise a good return on the psychic investment. For example, I enjoyed learning that asses congregate in paces and droves, but in the end both nouns did not really work for me. While fully conceding the moral assitude of slowpokes, both nouns suggest actions at odds with those normally associated with the species. Slowpokes do not keep pace with the rest of traffic; the vile dolts do their best to disrupt the pace of traffic to the nth degree, thereby rendering the very meaning of the words pace and traffic moot; and slowpokes are, almost by definition, incapable of being drove anywhere, at least not without someone sticking a rocket up their backsides and lighting the fuse. No, clearly the asses will not work in this situation.

    One may follow an ass with a run of salmon, but here to the adventurous lexicographer again runs into trouble, since running to and from any place is not high on the slowpoke’s list of priorities. I prefer the tortoise mildly, which gathers together in creeps; this works for me and creeps binds well with any number of expletives, but it does suggest that slowpokes are trying to advance a low, vile, and possibly contemptible agenda involving whips, chains, and the ingestion of large amounts of natural peanut butter, among other things. This would be unfair to them, because to my observation most slowpokes appear harmless in and of themselves; they are largely obtuse creatures and not at all creepy in the classic sense of that word, although they do come with a large amount of cranial sawdust, and for those of you keeping track of such things, yes, I am paraphrasing George Ade there.

    Other nouns failed the test as well. Slowpokes cannot, like foxes, travel in skulks, since slowpokes do not really skulk as they slowly poke around the roads driving their fellow motorists up the wall; they commit their asininities out where everyone can see them, a trait the rest of us hate them for. Nor can there be a clattering of slowpokes, as there are of jackdaws, as clattering implies movement, and the one thing no slowpoke will actually do is move at a reasonable speed. And so I sat, stunned by the utter slowpokiness of my own imagination, when a word blazed across my mind with comet-like intensity, blazing with a white-hot heat, a word filled with subtlety and power, a word that might revolutionize the very meaning of collective nouns should I choose to unleash it on an unsuspecting world. Unfortunately, the word was coxcomb, a word that has nothing to do with speed, motion, traffic, or anything else relevant to the subject at hand, and so I instantly rejected it.

    And then the word came to me in a blaze of glory…well, maybe not glory, but something like it, I think, unless that was my meatball sandwich repeating on me. Slowpokes, you will happy to know, travel in dumbasses. Dumbass works well with any expletive you care to mention, it is short and easy to remember, and it plays well with others. Having come forth with this miracle, I am thinking of copyrighting it and make a fortune off all the people who will use the word dumbass in a fit of road rage. I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of this before; it’s a lot easier than winning the lottery.

  361. DAH:
    BOB BLACK….by the way amigo, all of your writing here is not for naught…
    —–

    tell him, David, he won’t listen to me, even called me silly and told me BURN was just a home, not his “office” where all his most important work was deleted….

    PS: Bob, either you tell DAH he is silly too, or… Got you! :-)))

  362. Akaky,

    Miami is full of dumbass motorists. I come across them day in day out.
    Looking up the word coxcomb I found popinjay….and straight down the rabbit hole…..

  363. More seriously, I recommend everyone “a cruel radiance” a book by Susie Linfield, which is mainly about the relevance that photographs exposing the cruelty of man, usually thru war, genocide and totalitarism must never loose despite the assault launched against it by post-modernist critiques, who have conspired in their scathing writings (whom James Nachtwey, she reminds us, was often the target of), to equal the viewing of them as being but the continuous tormenting of the victims (the memory of, that is) depicted in the pictures.

    She also makes the point (damnedyly obvious, but people forget) that far from desensitizing people that much, in the whole, they achieve a lot more than if the world was derided of photography, as it was before the medium was invented, a period some of the critics quoted above claim we should get back to, war, genocide, totalitarism without any visual representation.

    Most interesting is how she talks and introduces to us the different photographers who were to shoot (or will..) these harrowing times, finding out sometimes the most telling, uncovering photography was not always done by the concerned photographer, but by the tormentor (a nazi visiting a jewish ghetto on a day off, the jerks taking snaps at Abu Graib, etc…).

    Her chapters cover WW2, the Chinese Cultural revolution (I am right in the midst of this one), Sierra Leone, Abhu Graib, then 3 chapters on Capa, Nachtwey, and Gilles Peress.

    I borrowed it from my local library. Can’t get much better than that!

  364. Akaky…

    Another great comment, but if you don’t mind if we ever get round to making our grand American Roadtrip I’m sure all the Burnians in the wheelbarrow will agree that it’s better that I, a slow and limping Burnian piloting the wheelbarrow, will be a lot better than seeing you, suffer once again some idiot slowing our Burn wheelbarrow…:))

  365. a civilian-mass audience

    Thanks to the spirit …I speak some Greek (scatological,cranial,lexicographer, …cause I can understand
    …our Academians(AKAKY,BOBBY,SIDNEY and many others…!!!

    PAUL…sending good energy…BUT you might not need it…cause you are the ASTERIX …holding the magic
    potion
    oime…CACOFONIX is my boy

    can I sing now?:)))

    P.S I am traveling Inside/Outside…please keep reporting…and I would love to have more of
    MY BURNIAN LADIES…in the BURNING wheelbarrow !!!

  366. PAUL , AKAKY:

    I prefer the view of the world viewed slowly, preferably by walking or bicycle (or wheelbarrow :-) And, I must admit, I am usually a slowpoke. As the current owner of two (yes 2!) gas-guzzling SUV’s in our household, I am the guy coasting to a stop and driving 5 mph under the speed limit – but only if there is no one behind me. (Hoping to trade my Montero for a small pickup or station wagon :-)

  367. My misgivings about Susie Linfield’s writings is her disregard for the rights of others and that the author dislikes others encroaching her space.

  368. david:

    i know, and i’m here in forever and a day ;))

    herve:

    you totally misunderstood me….this is just business…my LS page is my ‘de facto’ site…for god’s sake, there is nothing more important on the web, to me, than BURN…but i can’t use ‘BURN’ as my page, because BURN is not only my home where i write the most about pictures (and other things) but also is a magazine…i put BURN above all else for my internet presence…but it is more than that….i was simply saying that i used LS as the place as my bio web identity for publications etc….but who cares….i could leave all behind and if all i had to footprint was what I published (pics) and wrote was at BURN, i would be more than happy…BURN is,outside of my life, the only place i really want any of my presence, not only as a family but as an artist and writer…if all disappeared but BURN, i would still be happy and counted myself lucky….u misunderstood….when editors, as they are want, ask for a ‘web page’, i used that….same as when i published Bones and if i’m fortunate to ahve Loomings to, i will use that….

    anyway…whatever….no need to explain more….

    my love/dedication to david/BURN is unflinching….how can you not get that?…

    anyway, cool…:)))….I once thought of using BURN as my webpage, but i worried that people (editors/readers) would infer that I was ‘behind’ burn…i’m just a writer, photographer here…and a suporter and a guy who loves to write about the great work than david/anton/diego publish…

    please don’t quote what i write without understanding the heat-tug behind it….

    hugs
    b

  369. a civilian-mass audience

    whatever BOBBY said…And I CAN take the HEAT…anytime…:)))

    LOVE YOU ALL BURNIANS…

  370. ROSS,

    Now you’re talkin’! I told my wife I was going to have to get a second job to pay for gas :-)

    IMANTS,

    Left you a link under Chloe Matthews’ essay yesterday. (Just wanted to make sure it didn’t get lost in the shuffle.)

  371. ”A wife can stop loving you: photography? I loved it, spent my talents on it, I was committed to it; but when respectability and success became part of it, then it was time to look for another mistress or wife.”
    Robert Frank
    Nothing like being born in a well heeled family!

  372. AKAKY ;)

    heat-tug….

    a poem, like a gallant person after a night spent in the arms of another, never tells what lay behind something….

    my invented word…give it whatever meaning you wish ;))….

    it is strong enough :))

    hugs
    b

  373. HERVE ;)…just clarification, i hope you didn’t feel my comment last night was filled with anger..often when i write here it is as much about the act of writing (creativity) as about what I am trying to convey…..wanted just to make sure what i write (engined usually by the heat-tug of language and ideas) is clear: losing my ‘webpage’ (ls) stung for simply practical/professional reasons…but BURn is my internet home…make sense?…but only david/anton/diego etc should use it as their ‘website page’ :))

  374. A heat-tug, therefore, is a boat from which I can throw the brain dead in this building, and there are an awful lot of them here today, into boiling hot volcanic springs and watch them and their manifold stupidities melt away to a vile and sickening broth of interest only to flies, ants, and the IRS, among other pests. Well, I feel better now.

  375. Bob the lightstalkers caper may be a error, it has happened to a few people probably the start of the alphabet until someone noticed it was a problem

  376. And if you are near Brindisi Montagna go and see ‘La Storia Bandita’, open air theatre play, great story and great location!

    Travelling.. cheers..off..

  377. A link (courtesy of John Vink on FB) to an I-Phone essay ..
    —————————————
    aint it funny? tech industry is pushing for 100 megatrega-mamapixels but artists resist and covering some of the most major assignments with 2 or 3 MP on a phone!???!
    Artists bored of the “same” japanese/zoom-LENS “look”?
    Coincidence?
    but, but then why when a 18MP Rebel is so affordable nowadays , folks prefer a slow, low resolution tool to cover/express their work, like a phone???? it almost feels like the “loss in detail” and the “surreal color palette/atmosphere is so so needed/desired!???? im very curious to find out why…
    why , getting rid of gear is almost more important than collecting it , nowadays???

  378. IMANTS :)…yea, Shinji is looking into what happened now…

    JIM:

    Well Jim, as a paper guy, you sure haven’t done your homework…jesuss……Balasz is one of the finest working PJ’s in the world, period. A multiple WPP award winner. 2 years ago his pics from Afghanistan were photos of the year…Balasz pinoneered the use of the hipstomatic app in war and he made this a DELIBERATE choice because of his relationship with the soldiers..not to mention this body of work is extraordinary…….and even though he used the iphone for that body of work, he made ‘classical’ photography and photographic technique sing….ever think he might have done this because of his relationship with the soliders, with whom he has spent the last few years, nearly continuously….not to mention he is a deeply thoughtful intelligent and caring person. He and Teru are heros…period……now, some education is in the works Jim: have a look:

    http://www.balazsgardi.com/

    you should be ashamed of yourself with your nonsense….RESEARCH before you blabber….

    all the best
    bob

  379. Panos…

    Apple should start making cameras. They’d get it right the first time. Simple, common sense and attractive. On seconds thought Steve Jobs is too bright to get into the world of cameras :).
    Ahh the iPic!!

  380. paul ;)

    i don’t want jobs to do anything else…i’ve fallen out of the church of apple (even though all our computers are Macs)….it is not apple that made the iphone pics important (otherwise we’d be making all that shit that jobs promotes in his speeches to the converted), but its the people that took an existing technology and made it theirs….5 years from now hipstomatic will looked as retrograde as a leica m3 or big box on wobbly wooden tripod legs….its the story…and the idea that drives the use, not the machine….

    sometimes this is what i want to do to apple (let alone iphones):

    how ironic that Jobs et all have become Big Brothers in themselves….

    tear down your iphones, tear down…

  381. Bob…

    I know it’s the people who make the stories. I can’t fall out with Jobs because I’ve never ever owned a single apple product in my whole life. But you and I have to admit the iPhone is capable of very good images, don’t try the same stuff with any other mobile up until this year because the others were useless.

  382. a civilian-mass audience

    Embrace the new…times are changing…
    embrace the old…everyhting changes

    BUT life is a circle…and here in BURNLAND we do love circles…
    circle of friends…blah,blah…

    sending good energy to those who are traveling…EVA,MR.HARVEY,MASS…
    and strength to those …who are just “traveling”…:)))

    August is almost here…

  383. Bob says: “Well Jim, as a paper guy, you sure haven’t done your homework…jesuss……Balasz is one of the finest working PJ’s in the world, period.”

    I know who he is. And a good photographer can get good results with just about anything. The problem is that these phones are now so common, and cash strapped newspapers so willing to compromise, and newspaper publishers so bottom line oriented, photographers like Balazs (insert name of any famous photographer whose Iphone photos have been published) using these phones to shoot these photos are simply shooting themselves in the foot. It kinda plays out like this (and this isn’t completely hypothetical).

    Photo editor tells publisher, “I need another staff photographer.”

    Publisher says, “Why would we want to pay somebody a salary and health insurance when (insert famous photographer here) picked up a POY last year with an Iphone?”

    Editor to Publisher, “Well, because (insert famous photographer name here) doesn’t happen to be in our newsroom and we have a four alarm fire and no photographer free to shoot it.”

    Publisher to Editor,”Hell, man, just give the friggin janitor $10 to run over there with his Iphone and snap a couple of photos. I kinda like that whole square vibe, anyway. Four columns, Page 1. POY, here we come.”

    Here in the real world, we deal with this all the time. Let’s not pay a pro a salary, just call over to the organizer of whatever event needs to be photographed and have them get someone with a cell phone to snap a photo and email it to us. The quality is mediocre, you can barely make out who the folks in the photo are because the subject is a tiny part of the photo, blah, blah, blah. But, man, it didn’t cost us anything! The readers won’t care, the advertisers won’t care. What’s the difference?

    We’re killing our industry. And worse, we are killing it with our own “cleverness.”

  384. Well, Ross, what we do might be “mediocre, by some standards” but someone, making barely a living wage, gets up every morning and works silly long hours to put it out there.” With apologies to Joni Mitchell, “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

  385. “making barely a living wage, gets up every morning and works silly long hours to put it out there.”

    Sounds like what I have to do every day….

  386. Well I think Jim is right with ”killing the industry”…of course not the ”big” guys, I mean the local news photographer will be hurt…

  387. But what is the truth about photography?
    Chuck out all the romantic crap and gear obsessions and marvelous far away destinations every young kid gets sidetracked with…
    And then it’s basically whatever camera you can get hold of…use your eyes, fuck all rules which hamper your vision/voice…learn from all those who came before you…remeber everyone has a good story to tell…never forget to studymake sure above all You believe in your power to weave something special…
    But of course this truth would probably screw most magazines, online websites/forums, schools… Burn would probably be the only one to survive…
    And that’s what I’m going to teach my students next fall. No doubt the school will chuck me out but I’ll have 20 kids who won’t be wasting their valuable time learning the zone system, the rule of thirds, vomit rule three and puke rule four…

  388. But of course this truth would probably screw most magazines, online websites/forums, schools… Burn would probably be the only one to survive………..you must live in a small world.

    The iphone mediocrity irks a lot more people than one expects especially those who are continually exposed to the images but then most of these images are there to be viewed, processed and discarded. There is no need nor time for evaluation

  389. The readers won’t care, the advertisers won’t care. What’s the difference?…….that is a real problem as they do care but the share driven industries don’t as long as the market yields a profit for them. Something to live with for now and watch it slowly change and evolve as we come to grips with social media technology and processes.

  390. Here in the real world, we deal with this all the time. Let’s not pay a pro a salary, just call over to the organizer of whatever event needs to be photographed and have them get someone with a cell phone to snap a photo and email it to us………………….the idea has merit maybe the execution and editorial control is not up to scratch

  391. Jim, I do understand what you are saying but to a large extent I think that has always been the case, especially in small markets and especially in small market newspapers. Even the stories are to fill space between the ads. Not always but often, and the smaller the market the larger the percentage of that being true. In fact, the more local the news, the more “community” the publication, the more imperative to lede the grip and grins, the fires, the awards, the sports, and all those “must haves” that fill the limited news hole and suck the marrow out of budget and staff time.

    With the downturn in newspaper budgets, and the seemingly endless alluvial spread of advertising markets coinciding with both the rise of the internet and the shrinkage of advertiser’s budgets, the imperatives of the “must haves” in a newspaper have taken over even larger publications, now leaving little room for in-depth anything. I cannot tell you how many times publishers at larger newspapers just shook their head at my emphasis and insistence on spending money for the best quality newsprint I could get (in part to showcase photos) and the time I spent on in-depth stories and investigative pieces (and how many times my little paper kicked the asses of the bigger dailies, and how it burned me out but that’s not the point). Was it good business? I would argue yes, they would argue no because our definitions of value differ. But I like to think we took on the issues others wouldn’t. I once lost nearly 40 percent of my revenue from one story. It nearly put me under. I nearly lost everything. Probably not good business but it was good journalism. The problem isn’t Iphones, the problem is an industry that refused to change, got complacent, was corrupted and like much of america and certainly Wall Street, put short term profit over long term sustainability. Look, I am, or was third generation newspaper and magazine on both sides of my family. I love newspapers but times change. My father, a newspaper editor who quite literally died with a newspaper in his hand even though in his final days he was blind, was incredibly relieved I sold and got out. He saw the end coming years ago. He spent his entire career life in newspapers, and for one owner. Those days are certainly gone. I’m off track here … my point, my point is …

    There will always be publications, publishers and editors that neither understand nor value quality. They are, in fact, the rule, not the exception, and so it has ever been. But, and I will admit I am a romantic when it comes to good writing and good photography and the pursuit of a good life well lived, there will always be people who value quality and always those who aspire to more than just making a living with what they do, those to whom the imperative is not profitability, or the nicest car, or house, or lawn, or perfection of the ephemeral, and all those entrapments of great expectations; rather, the personal pursuit of happiness through care and feeding of the soul. For some, that may be ever trying to think, or see, differently, and I would argue they are the same, and in the process shine some light on what it all means. Leading the way does not, in fact, screw it up for the rest of us unless, perhaps, you are content to feed on the scraps of their passings.

    More to the point, you are correct that good photographers will make good photos with anything, and the converse certainly holds true. The issue isn’t good photographers, the issue is bad editors, publishers, and the god of short term profit. I truly believe, though, that while the economics of photography is wounded, we are entering a new golden age of photography itself. There are amazing poignant photos everywhere, great, great photography all over, and a huge exponentially growing audience for good photography. And even if that audience is other photographers, the rising truth that “everyone is a photographer” now only reinforces my point. Will they pay for it? I think so, likely under a new emerging model, but certainly only for the best of it, and so it has ever been.

    Can photography continue to be monopolized, commoditized and monetized? Honestly, I don’t care. I just want to make good photos. The rest will sort itself, or not, but I won’t be pointing cynical fingers at the innovators, I’ll be cheering them on – folks like Allard and Harvey who rewrote NG visual language some decades back, or like the folks appearing on Burn today who may be doing the same thing. I do know this – if you aspire to do something “great,” and it can be great just to you, you’ll never do achieve your goals with a cynical, negative, throwing stones, laying blame, making excuses shitty attitude. I tried once, it didn’t work out for me.

    Thanks Jim for bringing your perspective to the table. I honestly do wish you the best ’cause I know well from where you hail.

  392. a lot of this is not about photography it is our ways of communication that are up for grabs big and small…….. how one goes about it is linked to social conditions etc

  393. On the subject of technology. I have the pleasure of testing a Fujifilm FinePix X100. Fuji sent me one to play with for a month. I have just started to use it and I am posting images and impressions on my website if anyone is interested.

    I just posted some initial test images. Nothing very exciting.

    I will be updating the post as regularly as I can with more images and reviews.

    Direct link to the post is below.

    http://petemarovichimages.com/2011/07/31/fujifilm-finepix-x100-testing-and-review/

    If anyone else has one and wants to share info, feel free to email me. pete@petemarovichimages.com

  394. Mr. Hyde:

    I walked into the bar, had a glass poured, read what you’d written, topped over to the corner of the bar, passed 4 $20 dollar bills in your name, and asked the bartender to pour as much of this that you need for the night to ease itself over the lovely cornices of your heart. Heat-tug. You deserve this, as does your head and humming heart, after that corner rhyme:

    for you my friend, as I slip out into the freckled rain:

    http://www.whiskylink.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/IMG_1203-310×413.jpg

    i scribbled this on a keybad

    hugs
    b

  395. a civilian-mass audience

    yeahhhh…I didn’t know that OUR TOM HYDE/YOUNG is an academian too…
    BRAVOOO…

    and yes,I will second JIMMY…”you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

    risky safe travels BURNIANSSS !!!

  396. a civilian-mass audience

    according to BOBBY’S photo link…oime…

    1968 vintage???:)))

    VIVAAAA!!!

  397. “I don’t believe in photography as art or a job or anything. I think of photography as a language and I think a language should be used to speak, to say what you have to say. So the only things I have to say about my life and what I know about the world, is the way I see it. So, it’s not about photography … I think people should just use photography to say things and not just photography for the sake of photography … the world is full of talented photographers. The problem is just so many of them just don’t know what to say, they think life is one thing and photography is another but they don’t realise that photography is just a way to reflect what you are.”
    Antoine D´Agata

  398. “Seeing, yes. Everything. Give me Tom Waits, a good pair of shoes, a rainy day in the city, or a foggy one, an Irish pub midday, and, well, that is heaven on earth. I don’t even care if the pictures are any good .. mostly anyway. It’s the process of altering perception, slicing through the veil of familiarity, to see again for the first time with wonder that which is in front of us but we no longer perceive, or feel. The camera is just a tool to shave time and reality down to its essence and an attempt to render unique one single possibility in an infinite sea of energy. Photography is spinning in place, barefoot in the grass, on a sunny day. Or, at least for me, so should it be.”
    Tom Hyde
    :)

  399. YOUNG TOM HYDE…ALL

    thanks for this Tom…and yes yes and yes…and your quote from Paul above and d’Agata exactly my belief….isn’t that why were are all here on Burn? our whole philosophy repeated many many times? it sure as hell is why i am here and have tried to create an outlet for both the icons and the young at heart photographers who want to have a “place’ to express themselves and for the viewers to just feel all the good karma and see some damn good stories…

    anybody who knows this magazine and who is not producing like hell to either get here online or to get a space in Burn in print, and who know damn well they have access to me or any of us here at Burn , and at this point do not fully take advantage of the opportunity here to honestly make a name for themselves or just get down on paper what they say they want to do is simply and totally remiss and negligent..

    in other words , if you are not doing it now or cannot do it now with this format, this outlet, then i just do not know where you would do it…01 proved it, 02 will nail it again…i sure as hell wish those kinds of opportunities existed when i was a young photographer or at any point actually….of course there are other ways…Burn is just one thing..but hell , it is one thing you know…if you are a commentator here , you friggin know..and if you cannot get your act together enough to put your name on some valuable work which ends up going to an international audience, gets paid for, is a virtual development of talent wing of Magnum, and then can end of up in print to boot, then heaven help you…

    iPhones got nothing to do with anything…there have always been easy ways to get news pictures…there have always been photographers who were willing to give it all away…what people are thinking about iPhone today is almost the same exact conversation as when the old guys at my newspaper who were using 4×5 Speed Graphics to do their job and all these whipper snappers using these 35mm cameras were just shooting random (they thought) and yes yes even back then the same refrain “well now anybody can be a photographer”…

    well truth has always always been , anybody CAN be a news event photographer…look at all the Pulitzer Prize news pics shot over the years…every heard of any of these photogs before or since? no, of course not..they shot one amazing picture of the Hindenberg in flames and that was that…coulda been done today better with an iPhone and by yet another person who was in the right place at the right time..THAT has nothing to do with the nature of the real photographers…the icons in photography are thinkers..long term essayists…long term producers of work that means something to them and to their audience…and now today with the very best opportunity to reach THEIR audience and not an audience created by a advertising regime in a particular demographic…

    there always have been, and always will be, the masters of the craft…the folks who take a common language and speak it better than the others..human nature….they might do it with an 8×10 view camera, they might do it with a iPhone or both…who can care about what type of camera somebody uses? this is the most wasted discussion of all time for anyone serious about their work..a waste of the valuable time you have to go make some truly great work…

    i am not speaking to you specifically Young Tom, but to all…you DO get it…but for everyone, just do this…just go get it..

    DO what you SAY you want to do….that is it…the ONLY it!!

    with whatever philosophy and wise words and inspiration from others you have in your back pocket…make those words/pictures work for you…as in right now…

    if you do not get it done now, with this opportunity before you, then someone else will…someone with exactly the same fortunes and misfortunes as you….pretty simple…please do not try to make it more complicated than it is by focusing on meaningless distractions….just do the damned work…i promise you if it is powerful, poignant,sad, funny, newsy, artsy, we will publish it…..no ad guys to mess with ….no restrictions…except for one: and that is you…you are your only restriction….

    door open…please walk through…

    the more common the language, the more celebrated the ones who speak it best…..

    cheers, hugs, david

  400. IMANTS

    well, my cats are out..roam wild…had to keep the windows closed cause the damned racoons were getting in my house…of course they would probably make good pets too…so i do see your point…

  401. IMANTS

    you know my friend, and you are a teacher so you do know , it is always always very rewarding…the circumstances of teaching vary, and there were some logistical problems in cortona…but the energy derived from watching someone grow from where they are to even a tiny piece of being enlightened is why we teach..and i am looking forward to working with you in Sydney this spring…let’s talk later this week..i need a few days to get re-organized around the house..i have been moving all summer ….talk soonest…

    cheers, david

  402. PETE

    yes, i have been playing with the Fuji as well…files great, but it seems way slower to use than my GF1…for all the great reviews on this camera, i just cannot believe that it does not focus quickly….folks who test cameras are i swear not real working photographers…but you are, so what you think?

    also ready to work w you on your two stories

  403. THODORIS…

    of course..interested…we want that kind of outlet….we are scrambling to have 02 finished by end of this month…ONLY problem is that Europeans are basically on vacation the whole month of august..a tough time to get things done..BUT Diego Orlando is on the case in Italy and i think we will start printing within two weeks….Diego, Anton and i had a good meeting in Venice…we will be working all this week, night and day, to make this happen..many thanks to you in advance…

    cheers, david

  404. a civilian-mass audience

    Thanks for the love MR.HARVEY :
    “To learn and never be filled, is wisdom; to teach and never be weary, is love.”

    your wise students !!!

  405. DAVID

    Still fiddling with settings and trying to get a feel for it. Of course it is nothing like my DSLRs. Find I have to be a bit more deliberate. Will keep updated with posts to my website.

    But I will say that it shoots better in low light than any other small footprint camera I have seen. The files at 3200 are as good as my D700 or the D3.

    I will share more setup info in a upcoming post.

    Also… Somewhere in your emails is one I sent about the Circus work. Just want to make sure you see it. Sent it yesterday.

  406. Paul:

    Thanks for your quotes above (D’Agata, Hyde); in yesterday’s Toronto Star, a review of Umberto Eco’s “This Is Not The End Of The Book” tells of his “riff on the mysterious connections between inner and outer, real and fictional”. I thought there might be some overlap here between literature and photography, and have been looking at it as some sort of XY graph, in which a photographer can find a comfortable position on or around that axis. I’ll be looking at the (0,0) co-ordinates.

    David:

    Burn can be viewed as a floating university of photography, sailing right round the world, offering all sorts of insights, experiences and wisdoms. Your rallying cry is a reminder to us all, and for the record, I’ve not been totally “remiss and negligent”!

  407. The post from Tom Hyde then Paul quoting D’agata and finally David’s post!
    Very inspiring…so inspiring!
    Have been lurking here for sometime looking at burn essays but never posted before until a few weeks ago…maybe a few months ago?
    finally got the courage to start saying something….and started doing something too.
    Gives me more fuel for an upcoming story I have in mind…I feel jacked up!
    Thank you ALL! and specially David for this opportunity and “opening the doors”

  408. Oligarchy preferred?

    AT Apple, one is the magic number.

    One person is the Decider for final design choices. Not focus groups. Not data crunchers. Not committee consensus-builders. The decisions reflect the sensibility of just one person: Steven P. Jobs, the C.E.O.

    By contrast, Google has followed the conventional approach, with lots of people playing a role. That group prefers to rely on experimental data, not designers, to guide its decisions.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/technology/what-apple-has-that-google-doesnt-an-auteur.html?WT.mc_id=TE-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M212-ROS-0811-PH&WT.mc_ev=click

  409. David, your post “if you are a commentator here , you friggin know..and if you cannot get your act together enough the put your name on some valuable work which ends up going to an international audience, gets paid for, is a virtual development of talent wing of Magnum, and then can end of up in print to boot, then heaven help you…” is a call to arms if ever there was one.

    You have written before that many photogs just can’t finish a project – well I’m just starting one that I’ve struggled to begin for a long time and I hereby promise to send a Work in Progress essay to Burn by my birthday in November – no-matter what the progress or lack-of progress is.

    Mike.

  410. a civilian-mass audience

    Welcome home CARLO…

    nice to see you MATTHEW…

    hmmm…since when do we have …doors…:)))I thought we are still living …in the tent:)))

    EVA…safe travels…

    IMANTS…when are we moving in…???

    GORDON…where are you?…can I say …I love your life…!!!

    come on BURNIANS…walk through the doors…YOU CAN DO IT !

  411. a civilian-mass audience

    MIKER…you promised…and as you know…
    you never promise to civilian…
    I am gonna come…after you

    hereby yours…:)

  412. a civilian-mass audience

    JEFF…EVA…ROSSY…and many others…you did promise too…

    I can wait.

  413. Civi.. I promised and I will keep the promise, working on it.. or better on it and it and it.. get sidetracked every now and then.. but good things come out of that too, so not complaining, at all :)

    Drinking Metaxa.. any idea what that is?? Oh.. August is here, sooo what’s up?

    DAH.. great comment above, thanks..

  414. JEFF…

    ahh yes, glass doors!! i do not know if i told the audience here the final outcome of my broken nose in Paris…i had been putting off a deviated septum (sp?) for many years…night time breathing problems..sinus problems, headaches etc etc….well , guess what? HEALED yes HEALED by the accidental broken nose..natural surgery !!! this is the second time i have had “natural surgery”…another time, having severe knee problems i fell off the steps (yes, i am clumsy obviously) of NatGeo and landed hard on my bad knee…instant HEALING….ok, i will not count on anymore of this…but the doorways of NG and Magnum both seems to have at least “fixed” a couple of physical ailments…the wrong way, but the right way..hmmmmmm

    cheers, david

    p.s. my old VW Beetle i had in college used to “heal itself” too…wait long enough and the the damn rough sputtering engine would start running better than ever…

  415. Eva, here in the U.K. Metaxa is something the Chancellor of the Exchequer does to every citizen.

    Civi, a promise is a promise.

  416. check out my Facebook page…just published picture number two of a three picture story..yea, yea, too much time on my hands..laughing…on the other hand i might be inventing a form..ha ha

    only problem i am publishing in actual chronological order , and i shoulda published backwards…well, for people watching it happen , it works this way….don’t worry i will probably get over this

  417. GORDON…

    i drink lots of water….and Lauren has been my assistant off and on for a year…she is a university student specializing in Latin America…just spent last semester in Chile…her parents friends of mine…she busts it, and can deal with me…no small feat…she gets a good recommendation from me for having intelligence and a terrific work ethic…and willing to have her picture taken with me saying something like “Lauren , stop what you are doing, for heavens sake , the light is great, and i NEED this picture”…like most people around me, she puts up…nice woman, Lauren…

    cheers, david

  418. MICHAEL…

    on Twitter too amigo…or, well, if i knew some way to make it technically possible here i would…hey wait, yes Twitter…you can click front page Burn and see the sequence on Twitter…you ARE connected dude, you are connected…smiling.

  419. Re Facebook and twitter: I fell like the guy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers when he finds that yet another of his friends has succumbed to the evil pods. I guess it’s a good thing, I should quit resisting and join too… painless delivery of advertising, excellent way to monetize my reading habits, I should join too, painless… advertising… monetizing… I should join too… painless…

  420. MICHAEL K.

    you know damned well i am teasing and you also know damned well i am not connected!!

    GORDON…

    beautiful photograph of your bride..yes, the light…the light, not the LIGHT

  421. MW

    for me both are relatively new..and recommended by everyone..hated idea of either..but Twitter is good for one thing…its a diary for me..otherwise i would never totally remember…the photo part is like shooting for a newspaper…or you can make stuff up as did i…helping me w Amer Family…not all bad, but no real need for you to participate either…

  422. Imants:
    My misgivings about Susie Linfield’s writings is her disregard for the rights of others and that the author dislikes others encroaching her space
    —–

    I have absolutely no idea who she is or what is her space to be encroached, Imants (save the little info on the cover flip). As the book is concerned, she covers a lot of ground, and the issues and positions are clearly defined and discussed, including the rights of others (I suppose you mean the victims photographied), in which so far(1) she lets Capa talk about rather than her.

    (1)I am a slow reader, haven’t finished it yet.

  423. Re; getting out and doing the work… That’s all that matters in the end. Trying to do good work that will please yourself as the intended audience; and hopefully if it’s good enough it may attract the attention of others. But I still think the audience of one (yourself) should be the one you most want to satisfy…..

    It’s a bit like fishing; it’s so easy to say I can’t go because it’s not high tide (etc etc). It’s so easy to procrastinate; but the thing is you don’t catch anything without a line in the water.

    Now just swap the word “fishing” for photography; and “high tide” for exotic location/perfect light/ nothing interesting round here to shoot; and you sorta get the gist… So; the first step (quite literally) is to pick up the camera and use it! Quite simple really! ;-)

    There’s nothing like getting home; downloading the pics, and seeing the (very) occasional one that smacks you between the eyes. Just have to learn how to do it more often!

  424. As I said last weekend, David’s Instagram images are lovely and I’m enjoying every single one of them.
    BTW Lauren is beautiful I hope she’ll be included in “You made me leave” :)

  425. a civilian-mass audience

    THOMAS…saved the day…

    YOU ALL ROCK…
    I will be back to check you later…oime…

  426. Mike.. somehow our way of metaxa-ing sounds like more fun ;))

    About Twitter.. can be a great source of information, headlines you can explore or not, depends on how you use and organize it..

  427. “I was a Czechoslovakian, I was photographing in the country whose language I spoke, whose problems were my own problems. And I was working for myself. Too often people with some talent go where there is some money to be made. They begin to trade a bit of their talent for a bit of money, then a little more, and finally they have nothing left to themselves. In Czechoslovakia we didn’t have many freedoms, and particularly not the freedom to make money. But that led us to choose professions that we really loved. I always photographed with the idea that no one would be interested in my photos, that no one would pay me, that if I did something I only did it for myself.”
    Joseph Koudelka

  428. “Actually, I’m naturally kind of shy. I’m not inclined to just walk up to someone and put a camera in his or her face. But to take photos of people, you have to get out on the street, out of the hotel room. You need to push yourself a bit. It’s kind of ballsy to walk up to people with a 50mm or wider lens. They see and acknowledge you”

    “One thing that will happen is that you won’t always want to take pictures. Sometimes when travelling you can be in a good mood, but just not for photography. I don’t have that luxury on assignment, and for anyone interested in getting great photographs, they have to be out there taking pictures. Sometimes you just have to force yourself to get out and get started. One foot in front of the other, take a few frames to get started, then things will start to flow. You’ve got to go for it. Don’t hold back”- Steve McCurry

  429. “Forget about witnessing. Say to yourself that photography is a little everyday job. Stick to your curiosity, live it as a passion, nourish it by giving up as many ties as possible with your home place, because ties make you worry, and when you worry you don’t see so well – which is why children see better than grown-ups and why illiterate people have a better visual memory. I don’t think about witnessing.”
    Marc Riboud

  430. “I have trouble with the idea of catching : people are not for catching. This was my big argument with Diane Arbus, and also with my (and her) teacher Lisette Model. They both thought they had the right to do anything, to anybody, for the sake of their “art”. I don’t believe that, it may be my particular bias, my reaction against certain people in my life, to whom their needs as “artists” took precedence over almost everything else, whatever the cost to others. To me human beings are more important than art. And what I know about Diane convinces me that when she photographed these people, dwarfs, nudists, freaks, she always took a little more from them than what they had offered her freely – a little pound of flesh more – and this gave her power.”
    Eva Rubinstein

  431. I’m off to take photos and get a new smart phone, I dropped my old one while trying to bath my son and read David’s inspiring words!! :))

  432. Easy for me, since I’m not a photographer, but this Koudelka bit has always been and is my thing:

    “I always photographed with the idea that no one would be interested in my photos, that no one would pay me, that if I did something I only did it for myself.”

  433. Re facebook, don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing people who like it or use it for their business. There’s a lot that’s great about it, particularly the way it allows far flung family members to communicate when they otherwise wouldn’t. Virtual families included.

    But on a more critical level, I bemoan it as an atrocity for commoditizing and monetizing content and providing the delivery of advertising to a community that is something akin to fish in a barrel. I like to think that when every single salesperson at every single business executes a plan to capitalize on social media, then real people will move away from it in droves to some new thing that has yet to be so totally fucking exploited. Could be wrong about that, no doubt. But here’s hoping…

  434. MW

    sure , i get that sentiment…i mean NOBODY looks at FB or Twitter or the new Google deal as anything more than the way we used to view a good biz promo….it is what it is…i DO however think that, like any media, it can be trivialized or turned into something better than what it appears to be…no doubt of the impact of Twitter on recent world events, strange and odd as it may appear….it is all just conversation…chat that used to take place around a campfire now happens in other ways…all tribal drum gathering..nothing new in the human nature aspect of it..just a new “tool”….of course it will go away/ should go away…and just as surely replaced by some other “drum”…

  435. EVA..

    just also know that Koudelka has very carefully “crafted” this image…i always heard the stories of him sleeping on floors, a sort of gypsy himself…well, let’s just keep it all in perspective by acknowledging whose floors exactly he slept on and careful marketing of his prints etc…Joseph has very carefully put his work “out there” all along..and great work it is….careful marketing in no way is being implied as not having the material most deserving of “marketing”…just know that the work was not sitting in the corner waiting “to be discovered”…simply put, you would not know him otherwise…or any artist…if you know them, then they put it out there one way or another….

  436. I’ve been reading the recent off-again on-again photography-related discussion about the difficulty finding projects and subject matter and debating whether to offer this humble comment. Perhaps it could be of help to some? Would be curious what you think as well, David, if you’re inclined to comment.

    When I’m not working on a project or assignment, I try to practice shooting solely for light, form and abstract composition. I’ve mentioned elsewhere all the hours I’ve put into working with dappled light on harsh sunny days… but I’ve also spent a lot of time photographing parking lots and empty fields and strip malls and woods and sidewalks and whatever else happens to be in front of me. Because just about no matter where you are, there is always light, form and elements ripe for composition. Few, if any, of those pictures are worth anything in and of themselves but they have a great value as practice. Now when I work on a project or assignment and actually have a subject, I deal with all that background stuff, the stuff that makes an interesting photo, pretty much unconsciously. So that’s my humble advice to those struggling with the big stuff. Practice the small stuff. That’s the only way you’ll ever get to Carnegie Hall.

  437. David…

    yes, of course, he’s put it out there and I guess lived of it, but as I understand what he says is not that he’d not put it out or make money of it, but that money was not why he did/does photograph.. as opposed to someone taking assignements with the precise intention of getting paid for the work.. his idea more like do the work first and put it out later.. like your ‘American Family’.. or perhaps I just understood it wrong..

  438. When it comes to showing / promoting my work I’m my own worst enemy. I shoot for myself and somehow don’t feel the need to show to others – but I’m going to send something to Burn in November. If you don’t see it then it didn’t make the grade and that is how it should be.

  439. Michael I’m glad you like the quotes I also appreciate them. Why so many quotes? Well I’m an absolute expert in generally fucking my life up! When I’ve been pretty down and out for whatever the latest reason was, these little quotes I copied from books, podcasts, internet and people I’ve met, usually saved my butt and helped me believe there was another chance in screwing up; let alone recovering!!
    “When I travel, I don’t even know where I am going to sleep, I don’t think of the place where I will lie down until the moment I roll out my sleeping bag. It’s a rule that I’ve set for myself. Because I told myself that I must be able to sleep anywhere, since sleep is important. In the summer I often sleep outdoors. I stop working when there is no more light, and I start again in the early morning. I do not feel this to be a sacrifice, it would be a sacrifice to live otherwise.”

    “I am the slave of my mind. I travel alone, I sleep outdoors. Even when I get a lift in someone’s car, I separate myself from that person in the morning, and only join up again in the evening.”
    Joseph Koudelka

  440. Mike.. basically same for me.. I do give away prints though.. and still happy about the swap we made!

  441. OK here are some more!! Just pulled out my old quote book :)

    Another Koudelka quote, straight out of “On Being A Photographer” by Bill Jay and David Hurn. Last one for Koudelka for a couple of days :)

    “It reminds me of a remark by Joseph Koudelka who was shooting images around my cabin. I couldn’t understand what he was seeing, as the images seemed to have no connection with his known work. He said: ‘I have to shoot three cassettes of film a day, even when not ‘photographing’, in order to keep the eye in practice’ That made sense. An athlete has to train every day although the actual event occurs occasionally”

  442. This one’s for you Panos! Reminds me of your comment about shooting directly into the light, breaking the rules and subsequently learning….
    “It is important to do what you don’t know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos.”
    Carlos Casteneda(American author, 1925-1998)

  443. DAVID,

    My earlier question to you seems to have fallen through he cracks during your week in Cortona, so I’ll repost and ask you again:

    DAVID

    While you’re apparently present on the Comments section and while I still remember it, I recently watched the video of your presentation at the World Press Photo meeting in the Netherlands and was quite taken with the cumulative power of the entire presentation, even though I had seen 95% of the photos before.

    However, one detail gave me pause… in your “Dream Hotel” segment, despite being described as a project from Bangkok, 4 (at least) of the 12 images shown were from Seoul… Now, I know that you called this a ‘work of fiction’ and as such you can mix and match anything you like.. but I wondered if you yourself remembered that those four photos were from a different time and from South Korea… Maybe no one but me and a few others would notice, and maybe the “Dream Hotel” is a state of mind independent of location or cultural milieu, but to my eyes it was a jarring note since it was described as a Bangkok-based fiction in your talk. And to me anyway, Bangkok and Seoul are not only very different places but very different states of mind, different universes in fact. Your thoughts?

  444. “Dear I want to be an Author,
    By now you’re probably ready to give up. You’re past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You’re not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end, when words and images tumble out of your head sometimes faster than you can get them down on paper. You’re in the middle, a little past the half-way point. The glamour has faded, the magic has gone, your back hurts from all the typing, your family, friends and random email acquaintances have gone from being encouraging or at least accepting to now complaining that they never see you any more—and that even when they do you’re preoccupied and no fun. You don’t know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you’re pretty sure that even if you finish it it won’t have been worth the time or energy and every time you stop long enough to compare it to the thing that you had in your head when you began—a glittering, brilliant, wonderful novel, in which every word spits fire and burns, a book as good or better than the best book you ever read—it falls so painfully short that you’re pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.
    Welcome to the club.
    That’s how novels get written.
    You write. That’s the hard bit that nobody sees. You write on the good days and you write on the lousy days. Like a shark, you have to keep moving forward or you die. Writing may or may not be your salvation; it might or might not be your destiny. But that does not matter. What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat”

    Sorry! Forgot to write down the author of this one, only know this is an old quote, must of been one of the very first ones :(

  445. “What matters right now are the words, one after another. Find the next word. Write it down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat”

    God, I hate writing.

  446. SIDNEY

    i was teaching in Italy last week, and I guess i missed a question from you regarding locations of pictures in my Dream Hotel essay….you are quite correct, Seoul and BKK are two totally different cultures…but , also as you say, this is a work of fiction based on my state of mind living at the real Dream Hotel in BKK…it is a BKK based piece of fiction, but yes there are several Seoul pictures in the mix…so i shoulda coulda woulda described to the Amsterdam audience to be technically correct that there are literally pictures from both BKK and Seoul, although the Dream Hotel is about a BKK experience ..or fictionalized experience…my mistake..i speak from the hip, no notes, and often make a variety of slip ups i am sure…cutting short a full explanation probably happens to me all the time…i tend to abbreviate the experience in a public speech…i have never taken a speech making course , so my execution should certainly be more perfected…….by the way, i am on my way to Seoul…..BKK later in the fall….more fiction? maybe..thinking short film with Dream Hotel title…location?? surprises await!!

    cheers, david

  447. I can never really see the problem in finding ideas for projects. The biggest problem for me is what NOT to do; there are stories/ideas everywhere. However time and money is limited so the problem is trying to work out which project/s you MUST do…

  448. a civilian-mass audience

    PAUL…rock on
    maybe Neil Gaiman’s …http://www.nanowrimo.org/node/3699304

    MICKAELK…your book is overdue too…
    let’s get ready to rumble those fingers
    (to be perceived as a compliment)…:)))

    BURNIANS…safe travels …wherever you are going
    and yes, make me proud…and come back to share…YOUR VISION…

  449. a civilian-mass audience

    ROSSY…”there are stories/ideas everywhere”…”The biggest problem for me is what NOT to do”
    no worries…it might be ADHD…

    What not to Love…spread “your vision”

    BURN is the place to BE BURNED !!!

  450. a civilian-mass audience

    BURN is the place to BE BURNED !!!…to be perceived as a compliment …

    not running…no taxis for 13 days (imagine NY with no taxis…oime)

    stuck inside grecolandia with no taxis …again:(

    spread YOUR VISION
    BURN

  451. ROSS

    i feel the same as you…i always have too many ideas…but so many of my students seem to always struggle finding an idea…and many here the same….i always wonder about this….

  452. David,

    “more fiction? maybe..thinking short film with Dream Hotel title…location?? surprises await!!”

    short film, surprises….no good spilling the beans but maybe a little more info?!?!
    sounds awesome!

  453. CARLO…

    well if you see the Dream Hotel slide show, you will sort of see it is a sketch for a movie…you have to have a really good imagination!!! i see it, but i will have to see if i can make it comprehensible to others and still have the subtleties i want…

  454. I think the key is that practically everyone has an interesting tale to tell. I have often thought about approaching 50/100/whatever number; strangers and asking to tell their particular story. Or phone a bunch of random numbers and try to do the same thing. It would sure be a test of your own inventiveness; and probably the ultimate test in my theory that everyone is interesting… Just another idea to add to the list! :-)

  455. Paul, I have James L Stanfield’s book The Eye of The Beholder, in which he describes the first month of a Nat Geo assignment by saying that he may as well not have film in his camera as it takes that long to get tuned in to a story (the Nat Geo Glory Days) so Joseph Koudelka’s remark makes some sense.

    For my own part; I once went to Scotland with members of my extended family and, after an early morning foray taking photographs I was asked by my niece’s daughter “Was the light right uncle Michael?”.

    Being of a certain age and having taken a fair-few snaps, I resist taking a photograph that I am already subliminally consigning to the trash. Could be missing some surprises.

    DAH “I have never taken a speech making course ” – took me back to school. My class had to take turns in saying the School Prayer at morning assembly: I used to watch my name move to the top of the list. Having a speech problem/impediment/stutter I dreaded the experience. My prayer began with “…. Dear………..God……. (I wanted to laugh). Eventually I rebelled – no more School Prayer for Mike.

    Today I made the equivalent of the School Prayer; approached an organisation to request photographs. Looks promising – your fault. Thanks.

  456. Civi, I used to drive a taxi – I used to jam the airwaves until I could speak. If I couldn’t say the call-sign of the cab I drove (Echo was not easy) I would be “Thingy” ….”Thingy over, Thingy back”.

    You would have free taxi rides from Thingy.

  457. I too enjoy some of the quotes but I wouldn’t get too caught up in that kind of thing. What people do is almost always much more important than what they say.

    Most successful people practice a lot and work hard. You’ve probably heard the old joke about Carnegie Hall. And most great artists have great visions, practice a lot and work hard.

    So apropos of that, here’s a quote from a Lou Reed song in which he quotes Andy Warhol:

    Sometimes when I can’t decide what I should do
    I think what would Andy have said

    He’d probably say you think too much
    That’s ’cause there’s work that you don’t want to do
    It’s work, the most important thing is work
    It’s work, the most important thing is work

    Funny New Yorkish story, one time trying to persuade my daughter to practice her guitar I asked if she knew how to get to Carnegie Hall. She said sure, take the F train to 57th. Unfortunately, that shortcut mentality doesn’t work. The answer will always be practice, practice, practice…

  458. So I got my blurb proof book of speakers corner back.
    102 Pages
    Slick paper.
    Nice end sheets.
    Stupid money.

    So So So utterly dissapointing.
    looked great as an indesign project, and even as a PDF.
    proof though is just mainly flat and dead and lifeless……and i think, naturally, that “of course it is” “the pictures were always shit” “you just wanted them to be great” “you idiot” ….and I hear Davids words ringing in my ear “none of us are feeling this john”, and I think “yeah right. what a pile of shit, who did you think you were kidding???” “Burn the lot of it and start again..harry crews style”

    …..and then I have to remember that I love these images.
    Have defended them against very strong opposition.
    Believe in them.
    Will Redo.

  459. John I made one blurb proof book, chucked it in the bin not worth the effort, there is a need for a great printer of books so it is a matter of saving and biting the bullet for quality.

  460. DAH “i feel the same as you…i always have too many ideas…but so many of my students seem to always struggle finding an idea…and many here the same….i always wonder about this….”. I think that it is the burden of photographic history; the books we have read etc.

    I remember reading Eve Arnold saying that when she saw Robert Capa’s contact sheets she cried (disappointment) until someone pointed out that history was not so clear cut.

    Look at any book by Salgado, Jones-Griffiths, DAH etc. and what you are seeing are their successes: the wonderful light, the moment that it all falls into place – and this is not taking anything away from them – what you don’t see is the hours, days weeks and months of effort to get to that moment when it all falls into place. Photography looks easy; buy it’s not: it’s a labour of love.

    Mike.

  461. Mike R; but that probably applies to every art endeavour. Take a classic music album for example; you’re only hearing the distilled best. You don’t hear the hours of practice, the different variations of a song that have been worked through, the songs that have been worked on for days and weeks, and then discarded etc. Mind you; I love listening to the demos that now come out; a bit like looking at a contact sheet!

  462. John, it probably has to do with color profiling… you could still get acceptable results from blurb (or any other POD service) with a trial and error approach… throw a few more pounds in the trash and order another copy, only this time choose 5 pictures and print 5 variations (tonal wise) of each—making notes which is which… by the way, for my book (printed the “traditional” offset way—read expensive) I did 2 print tests with the first printer I chose and been unhappy with the results I changed printer (the first was using cheaper inks, it turned out, which was messing up my tonalities)… so, there is no magic bullet… think of printing in the darkroom… tests are needed… as for the work itself, no need to defend it really… it holds its own against anything presented here or anywhere else…

  463. “I remember reading Eve Arnold saying that when she saw Robert Capa’s contact sheets she cried (disappointment) until someone pointed out that history was not so clear cut.”

    The someone was Janet Flanner.

    AKAKY IRL: Pedantic today, aren’t we?

    AKAKY: Give me a break; I’m stuck in this dump until 8.

    AKAKY IRL: That sucks.

    AKAKY: Yes it does. Big time.

  464. In the mean time, here’s something you might find interesting…

    Now, you may find this a little hard to believe, but gentrification has had some fairly unusual effects here in our happy little burg. In the years since our economic turnaround began, we’ve had an influx of people from the metropolis to the south. Most of these folks are artists of one sort or another, the type of people who refer to well-known holes in the wall as spaces and who often wonder aloud why they can’t buy their favorite coffee here. Their favorite coffee often has a very long name, which causes no end of confusion hereabouts, as most of the indigenous population thinks of coffee as a beverage that either comes black or with cream and sugar. But what really sets the gentrifiers off from the gentrified is the worldview of the former. They are a well-traveled, cosmopolitan lot, on the whole, dropping the names of obscure Parisian restaurants in conversation in much the same way as our stout yeomanry drop dollar bills on the lottery and nodding knowingly at the mention of artists whose work is so obscure that their parents haven’t heard of it yet. With all of this sophistication, you may well wonder why these people would want to spend any amount of time with a provincial yutz like me. The answer, I’ve found, is that for all of their worldliness and sophistication, most of these people have never actually met a Republican.

    Yes, it is a good time to be a Republican here in our happy little burg; I know that my party registration has improved my social life immeasurably these past years and I am positive that being a Republican can do wonders for your social life as well. Rock-ribbed Republicanism will help you get girls and be the life of any party you attend. It won’t help you clear up your skin, of course, but in the main, you will be a more exciting, more fascinating person when you finally stop procrastinating and register in the GOP.

    You are probably asking yourself, but Akaky, how is this possible? I’ve tried everything from industrial strength Clearasil to online blind dating with Filipino transsexual lesbian dwarves to improve my social life, how will my being a Republican make me a more interesting person and help me score with chicks, which, as we all know, is the main purpose of any male’s social life, no matter what their party affiliation. Let me explain what happened to my social life.

    The vast majority of our gentrifying influx was, as mentioned, from the metropolis, a well-known one party state where Republican are few and far between, and when they do win elections, they have to compromise on vast swathes of the GOP agenda and pretend that they meant to register Democratic when they were filling out the voter registration form but that the form was confusing and the guy in front of them in line farted loudly and so they accidentally checked the wrong box. So most of our gentrifying influx has never actually met anyone who fundamentally disagrees with just about everything they hold near and dear to their hearts. Your average cosmopolitan knows that Republicans exist, of course, but they know that they will probably never meet one in the course of the day and so long as they remain ensconced in their island home they need never think about such people. So they ignore them, and by them I mean people like me, in much the same way that a Cairene ignores the Great Pyramid of Giza or a hungry dieter ignores the food pyramid with pepperoni pizza. But when the siren song of modern art calls to the cosmopolite, they must follow, even if it leads to our happy little burg, which hasn’t gone Democratic in a presidential race since Zachary Taylor won handily here in 1848. This was an anomaly, of course, and one the local historical society usually attributes to Taylor’s enthusiastic support among local Mexican War veterans. Faced for the first time in their adult lives with the much dreaded Other, many a curious cosmopolite will seek to grasp just why it is that the natives believe in the odd things they believe in and so they often ask me to explain the hows and the whys of what is going on here.

    I don’t mind, of course; many of these people are quite sincere in their curiosity, although I am also quite sure that many others invite me along merely to shock their friends and add a bit of a political frisson to their dinner parties. It seems a strange fate for any Republican to be a suces de scandale, but it seems I have managed this difficult task on more than one occasion. I am not sure how I managed to get the job as token Republican in the first place; I suppose that some of my Democratic friends recommended me as someone who was reasonably intelligent, reasonably knowledgeable about what’s going on in the world these days, and could be trusted not to blow my nose in the tablecloth between the soup and the main course.

    In some ways, of course, I am a bit of a disappointment. I am not, for example, a member of the National Rifle Association. In fact, I do not own any firearms at all—I am, however, like a good many other civil servants, a dangerous man with a rubber band and a paper clip—and I have experienced my share of crestfallen looks from people who thought that I must, like the Republicans they’ve seen on television, have several years worth of canned goods next to the arsenal I have stashed in my own personal bomb shelter. I don’t actually have a bomb shelter, either, and this and the fact that I believe that if you wish to possess0 a 155mm howitzer of your very own, then the government ought to take a polite interest in what you intend to do with the thing (you might, for example, be planning to overthrow the constitutionally elected government of our happy little burg, or worse, plan to do a little target practice on Saturday mornings when I am trying to get some sleep), has led more than a few people to believe that I am not really a Republican at all. Nor am I an evangelical Christian and I am not completely sure I could identify with any degree of certainty the significant theological points of contention and agreement between Fundamentalists and Pentecostals, except for a somewhat unfortunate taste in hair styling. I suppose I am not atavistic enough.

    Still, I’ve learned over the years that one mustn’t completely dash people’s illusions, and I have managed to epater les avant-garde on more than one occasion. There’s nothing quite like the reaction one gets from pointing out to some cosmopolite with a home in Vermont who has just spent an hour expounding on the racial problem here in AmeriKKKa that the reason many white liberals love living in Vermont is that it gives them the opportunity to decry AmeriKKKa’s racist treatment of African-Americans for hours on end without having to live anywhere near actual African-Americans. The sound made on one of these occasions is a sort of a low moan, similar, I think, to the sound one makes when you step out of a car wearing brand new shoes and step right into a pile of fresh dog crap. Your average host or hostess loves this sort of political spat; it livens up the conversation in what, in other circumstances, would have been yet one more dull dinner party. They’ll denounce my obvious idiocy—this simply goes without saying, naturally; they have to keep their Vermont friend happy too, you know—and it almost certainly means another dinner invitation in the not so near future so that I can politely mock the shibboleths that they and their friends hold most dear. Hearing someone praise Karl Rove can be a mind-altering experience for some people, however common such praise may be in some GOP quarters. I guess everything sounds a bit shocking if you’ve never heard it before.

    My perplexing adherence to what these folks often refer to as the Repugnicans, the Rethuglicans, etc. causes no end of cognitive dissonance among the cosmopolitan population—they think, of course, that by all rights, I ought to be a Democrat, the same as them, and they will often ask, in their confusion, if there is anything I wouldn’t do for the GOP? To comfort them I say, yes, there is: I will not give money to a candidate for political office, even to a Republican candidate. You may not have noticed this, but campaign contributions only encourage politicians, a particularly noxious breed of peculating parasite, to run for political office in order to do whatever it is they do on the public payroll, and to continue to run for office long after the rest of the population has gotten tired of listening to them and wish that they would simply go away and leave the rest of us alone. Our Great Republic will only survive if and when vast numbers of American citizens treat running for public office in the same way that they treat jury duty: as an onerous task to be avoided whenever possible, and if political office becomes inevitable, to be gotten out of as soon as possible. I mean, really, would you want the leader of the Free World to be someone too dumb to get out of being President? I didn’t think so.

  465. Paul, great set of quotes, and honored you included one of mine in that fine mix. One in particular resonated with me because I have always worked to do what I did not know how to do and, often, what people told me I could not or should not. But as soon as I “figure” it out, as soon as it is rote, when it becomes “easy,” I lose interest. One of the great things about photography is the infinite possibility; that, and the fact that it will never be easy.

  466. JOHN GLADDY…

    i think you may remember the entire Burn crew in your room in Paris and seeing some wonderful images from your Speakers Corner and all agreeing you had some beauties…we were all there…a missed moment to sit down and edit cleanly…choose the best, leave the rest…so so simple…amigo that was your moment to capture…it got lost…your pictures are just fine, we just needed a way to narrow them down…frankly, i do not think i have ever seen the same set of these images twice..there is no opposition at all to your work..read that sentence again please…think very very carefully about why this work has not been seen here..please do not be a martyr without a cause…you of all people would not put up with that in someone else…many thanks John for thinking on this again…love you bro…

    cheers, david

  467. DAVID,

    Thanks for your reply, mostly I was curious if you yourself were aware you had mixed Bangkok and Seoul pictures together. Apparently yes.

    “…if you see the Dream Hotel slide show, you will sort of see it is a sketch for a movie…”

    More and more I am seeing not just slide shows but individual images… photographs, paintings, whatever… all as “sketches for a movie…” Only, the movie is in my mind, it is my imagination spinning scenarios out of fragmentary visual suggestions. Probably always been true, but I am more conscious of this than ever. And while I love the cinema, it may be that in many cases the movies the imagination builds from still fragments are better than the ones that are actually made into finished films.

  468. a civilian-mass audience

    MIKER…you are an “essay”…just by yourself!
    love you bro

    MICHAELK…”hopeful”…niah…I don’t want to hear “hopeful”…
    I am hopeful…the rain will come…
    from you I wanna hear :
    “civi, I am on it”…i am getting there!!!…
    love you bro

    now,I have to read AKAKY…as HERVE says…I am a slow reader…

    yes,I copy and paste…”love you bro”…LOVE YOU ALLLLL MY BURNIANS

  469. THODORIS. Yes ‘acceptable’. many of the images in the proof are ‘acceptable’ (which of course is unacceptable). But at least half have printed dull and flat and lifeless. a half stop darker than they should be. a half grade flatter. All were set up/changed to the same profile(from many different scan settings over the years though). Not something I could show to anyone.
    I think I will just do it the old fashioned way and print/cut/glue the thing together myself.

    …Coming to Cyprus in the next couple of months to make a little film. Brett coming along for the ride as well i think. probably there a couple of weeks. Was sorta hoping I had seen the last of limmasol…oh well. Be good to hang out.

    DAVID. Of course. I was just using that little snippet as an example of what goes through my mind.
    Its the quality of the Blurb book that got to me. Looked so sweet as a PDF on the computer screen :) Was looking forward to shopping it around to some people with a view to getting it published properly. Back to the drawing board I guess :) Goes hand in hand with that little poem I wrote ages ago.

    John

  470. John…

    Yes “print/cut/glue”, handwritten cognac and red wine stained beautiful sort of A4 moleskin notebook.

  471. Yes by book five everything will be ordinary, except the handwritten dedications which will make an attack with Anthrax and Ebola appropriately mixed together look like a mild Sunday summer afternoon loafing about in Paris with the Burn crew drinking gallons of champagne besides the Eiffel Tower…

  472. Gladdy, of course it looks better on a computer screen. Come on over to the dark side… Make an ebook. Put it in an app. Then you can kill some trees with the enormous profits from the app store.

  473. John, well at least you’re not coming here in the middle of August with 40+ temperatures and regular power cutouts because some morons stacked a hundred containers with confiscated explosives next to the biggest power plant of the island… let me know when you’ll be in the neighborhood…

    As for the print/cut/glue thinking, I know you have a good inkjet printer… there are some interesting papers around that can be printed on both sides… maybe for your purposes (showing a sort of dummy to the right people) you could go that route… binding the signatures is a bit tricky though—I’m trying my hand on this myself at the moment… if you need any tips let me know…

  474. mw some things just don’t work electronically and work better as a book blanketing all as another app is just a recipe for mediocrity…….. but that is the choice you have made so be it

  475. Imants, not everything in this world is grim and humorless and evidence of the grand failings of others.

    ps stop being so fucking literal.

  476. what was my grim part ..the part that some things look better in books than on your treasured monitor that you rabbit on about? or is it just your two faces that come out in in those retrospective statements of yours….the olde when it doubt I was being funny again caper of yours……………thus is leaves me with no option but to treat you as one big joke

  477. ps stop being so fucking literal…… see that good olde mediocrity as humour a speciality of yours , I forgot that all the stuff you write is supposed to be funny

  478. Dude, you sit around all day combing through these comments just looking for ways to insult people. I know you think it’s clever, and often it actually is, but it comes across as extreme self-loathing.

  479. Prints, darkroom not printer, glued on sheets held together with paper tape, folding like a harmonica, captions handwritten and signed by as much people as possible futured in the photographs.. that is what I’m going to do, taking pics since 2006..

  480. “well at least you’re not coming here in the middle of August with 40+ temperatures and regular power cutouts because some morons stacked a hundred containers with confiscated explosives next to the biggest power plant on the island”

    Thodoris, I’m sorry, I know that being without power in the middle of a Mediterranean summer must be absolutely miserable for you and everyone else there, but I have to tell you, the above is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a very long time.

  481. “Mine has rarely left my side since I got it. It is changing how I photograph.”
    The same here, of course I’m talking about my crutch :)

  482. Akaky, I know… if only this was a cartoon… one of roadrunner’s schemes gone wrong… but 12 people got killed in the blast (could have been WAY worse if it hadn’t happen at 5 in the morning…) and the damages to the newly constructed (!) power plant are estimated to 2B Euro—which could very well lead Cyprus’ economy into the hands (claws really…) of the IMF and the World Bank, a prospective that could make the current annoyance of power cutouts a fond memory of the “good old days”…

  483. No need to sit around all day to make a short note on your stupid comments like “Dude, you sit around all day combing through these comments …” only insulted you after you decided swearing at me was your best tactic……….was your last comment another joke?

  484. Ross, ” that probably applies to every art endeavour” yes, absolutely, my point is that when looking at the retrospective book or exhibition it is easy to think that photography is easy; forgetting the years of hard work that produced the work you are admiring. You know what I mean.

    “You are an “essay”…just by yourself! Civi, a ramble, maybe: love you too.

    John G, Speaker’s Corner; looking forward to seeing the essay here.

  485. GORDON

    Email me if you wish with your observations about the camera. I am curious how others think as well.

    So far I am giving the image quality an A, interface a C. Still thinking about the usability but I think as long as I don’t expect it to behave like a high end DSLR, it is great.

  486. Akaky, I’ve given free copies of my book to anyone who’s offered the tiniest bit of support along the way… how is it fair that you, who sent me some of the best pieces of text don’t have one? You’re one of the smartest guys I know… please think of a way I can send you one… maybe at your god-awful place of work, addressed “care of John Smith”?)

  487. Seriously dude. Why do you sit around all day looking to launch personal attacks in a comments section on the internet? I don’t entirely mean that as a rhetorical question. Have you ever actually examined yourself, asked yourself why you act that way? I know, I know, your answer is always that I am — or whatever billy goat passes over the bridge is — a failure, a joke, a dishonest person without merit of any sort and rife with bad intentions. But try… try to step outside your torture chamber and contemplate the liklihood that you are really projecting your own insecurities onto others. Deep down, or probably not so deep, you consider yourself a failure, a joke, a dishonest person rife with bad intentions, but you are unable to face it, so you direct your scorn outside. Well, I suggest you face it. Then perhaps you can begin to like and respect yourself and stop launching so many personal attacks on others. You’d be glad you did.

  488. Mike; Yip I know what you mean. :-) That’s why I like listening to those old demos that often get released on re-issued albums; it’s interesting listening to the development/transformations. Cheers :-)

  489. mw another anonymous blogger who makes all these assumptions about others as if he knows them first hand. You know jackshit about me and just make up stuff on the and then retract it later by calling it humour. Laughing at your feeble cat calls

  490. mw what I love is you have a go at someone for being what you consider nasty and then launch into a verbal attack……… sounds pretty stupid to me

  491. Yea I better stop responding as mw is really a 14 year old kid having a lend of me because someone closed mw’s facebook account.

  492. a civilian-mass audience

    ok…reporting from grecolandia…

    I lost 2 chickens,some of the best…oime…
    can I blame the IMF ?…
    no.
    I will blame IMANTS and MW…instead…
    cause I got distracted…:)))

    ok,mates…you don’t want me to get angry …do you?
    therefore, I suggest to bring some wine on the BURN table
    and let go of the rest…

    P.S…and when you will come to visit your greek home…rest assured,you are not gonna share the same room…VIVAAAAAAAA…we love you mates!

  493. a civilian-mass audience

    I know,I know…civi does the blah,blah,blah…again…

    ok…I will not submit …
    or maybe not?
    shall I bring “the Mass Audience” self-portrait… on the BURN table?
    hmmm…

  494. CIVILIAN-MASS AUDIENCE!

    Y-E-S

    double YES (for the Portrait submission)

    please…

    if you don’t submit your portrait, I shall never write again!

    (feel the pressure!) :)))

    (ok, ok, threats are usually empty/taken back)…but you get the picture!

  495. i meant MY threats are usually empty/taken back ;))))..but i would still love to see a BURN02 with a Civilian mass audience image in it!!!…plzzzz!

  496. a civilian-mass audience

    oime…I was just got distracted by the mates above…
    oime…what was I thinking ?
    oime…always read proof…
    oime…can someone save me by the bell?…
    oime…I feel the pressure
    and it’s HOT
    and BURNING

    EVA,MIKER,BOBBY…I will try BUT…I have to find a camera first…hiiii…lol:)))

  497. a civilian-mass audience

    I DID IT…

    YES,YES,YES…I submit…cause I love me BUT I love you too:)))))))))))))))))

    ouzo on me…!!!

    P.S EVA…August is here…I will be back home soon

  498. Akaky, you are pulling my leg, right? with the exception of a few local bookshops who carry my book (none of which is marketing their titles internationally, as far as I know), I’m still the sole distributor… so, unless David gave you one of his, I don’t see how you could have one without me knowing…

  499. CIVI… on top of a mountain, tirreanean sea(???) to the left, ionian sea to the right.. flies, grasshoppers and tons of cow poo all around.. need something?

  500. a civilian-mass audience

    where the heck are you? can you see me ?

    I am across…I just killed a fly…wow…

Comments are closed.