Editors Note:
This will be my first editor’s note, but not my last. I have been remiss in writing intros for many of the essays here. I cannot do much of an introduction for some of the essays where the photographer is unknown to me nor have I been a part of the development of the story. Interestingly and surprisingly most of the work published on BURN so far has been from photographers I have NOT known at all. Not them, not their work. But, I certainly can write a heartfelt intro for Patricia, Panos, Anton, Angelo, Kyung-hee, Victor and my old buddy from college days, Medford (damn right he is emerging..no joke!!)…Patricia and Panos are totally manifestations of online mentoring. We all met here. There could not be two more different photographers or personalities than these two. Anton, Kyunghee, Victor, and Angelo come from my world of personal workshops and well, Medford and I met when he tried to crash into my darkroom space back in grad school..enough said.
Yes yes , this is an intro for Bob Black (and appropriately long!) (and full of referencing!)..Bob does not match any of the groups above…I did not have Bob as a student, he is a teacher himself. Nor did I mentor him online. Bob is who he is just because. As with all of the photographers here, I rarely or barely edit. I want this to be a forum to let the photographers run free. A crazy concept in publishing, but the one set of words I absolutely do not want to hear are “he didn’t run it the way i liked…he did not run my best pictures”… So, I may not always completely agree with a photographer’s edit on BURN, but I will stand by photographer’s rights and creative freedom over all other things. You are always seeing basically the “directors cut”.
At the end of the year when we do our print publication, you will see a tight edit from me. Or, at one of my presentations at photo fests. Like Look3 in June where the Emerging Photographer Fund grant winner will be announced. But for here and now BURN is raw. Sure , I choose carefully the work. Some of you have already figured out that I do a bit of it just to see where YOU will take it. This is your edit after all. BURN is nothing without the comments. This way both the photographers and their audience have the ultimate amount of freedom. I do not edit the photographers nor the audience. Photographers show their work. The audience is the judge.
With Bob Black you have now an un-edited writer and an un-edited photographer. Bob thinks things. Bob knows things. Bob is a biblioteque. He writes to each and every picture or essay presented on BURN without fail. Nobody has been HERE more than Bob. Now since I have gone this far (BB style) I just have to mention Marina (Russian born wife) and Dima (well behaved polite teen-age son). Yup, cool family.
Ok, now I am running..Bob Black style.. and Bob Black style is where we go now…
- david alan harvey
PARTIAL EXCERPT FROM
BONES OF TIME
“What we see is not made of up of what we are seeing but rather from what we are.”–Fernando Pessoa
“I am a reflection photographing other reflections within reflections. It is a melancholy truth that I must always fail. To photograph reality is to photograph nothing.”–Duane Michaels
I
“The son remembers what the father wishes to forget.”–Yiddish Proverb
…and so this morning darkness spreads thin the winter light and soon the pliable silence is more limber with memory as it enters.
And what began as a small ache, a tap of ash and rough bone, soon morphs into a presence that fills the elongated space between the chair and desk at which I sit and the throat of the corridor that scaffolds the space between these words and the commonwealth where my wife and son now sleep. It is because of this tract, this early-morning quiescence, that specific beat between the rum of my ticking head-heart and all that has gathered between the un-counted clicks of thought and waking, that I am at unrest. Now with a receipe of words, as if counting upon alchemy and gestation, I try to make sense of a description, try to make sense of an arrangement of pictures (photographs I have taken and images pin-tacked in my head) that are born of a remembering. At the moment, I am sifting through all this and am failing.
It is six in the morning and my body is crowded by the sound of my sleeping wife and son: and all begins to drift. Then, the swallowing of their impressible, morning breath. As if my own. As if. As. And then.
We are, if nothing else, small bursts of memory.
And it comes like an avalanche. We are comprised of this, a negotiation. The moments between that which was and that which tumbled into an accolade of what is and what will become, vigilant. Pictures meant to speak of that which is here, the now of this quiet morning when I feel bereft, all that I am scrabbling to hang upon like beads on an abacus string. Without the sound of my wife’s hum or my son’s sleeping acuity, grounding disappears like vapor. Have the photographs that I spent the last six months making and wrestling with counted upon this morning impass? Is it possible to convey this doubt, the missing part of that which I am and all that I shall be as a simple thing? The description of that space housed by the corners of a morning, of the purloined arrangement beween solitary lull and what is bound. Seamlessly another thought pivots.
Between the silence and the space of their bodies and the lives apart that have shuttled into my own. The ‘we’ metamorphosed from the separated each. I ask myself a simple question: “Have you yet threaded the silence from which your life is built?”……
……
II
Our bodies carry, like flotsam and drift-wood upon the back of a slow-articulating river, the memories of those who came before us. Along the curve of our spine, tickled beneath the hinge of our jaws, along the fan of space between our fingers, from within the resonant sound of the shape of our teeth, memory seeds itself and grows with a fecundity we seldom acknowledge properly. What grows happens in the silent snap of a moment. That moment , however, may occur in the lick of a lifetime. We contain the entirety of the lives that came before us, bestowed to us along ligament and hair lick, tongue and tissue, wobbly vocabulary and vocal chord. We are, even in our muted silence, the spoken history of those lives lived gone, only too-often the songs written upon our bodies remain choir-less, the stories cast along our limbs unopened, the mythologies archived in the chambers of our cranial corners still un-categorized. Yet, we hunger to remember. But there still the faces and the traces, the sounds of the rounding of days, the pictures and tinctures of the already lived and lost, recomposed inside our own seemingly inimical lives. But are we unique or an amalgam? We grope to understand within the shape of our hunger to remember and to retrieve, to understand and delve, research and relinquish. We contain. We sift. We burgeon. It is, in fact, all there inside us though often at a loss of approximate distance. Remedy this, we tell ourselves, remedy this.
So, take into your hand something small and weave it into the movement of your thoughts. See how it enlarges all of you and all that you have not counted upon; see how a small artifact reminds you of what once was and what still resides inside: a book, a story, a pen, a signature, a piece of cloth, a word, a scent, a glimmer of a shadow or a speck of light, an imprint, a sound, a comb, a shoe, a tattered lace, an indent, a forgotten taste, a photograph: all the small things that trigger obdurate things. How much could be unbelted if what we longed to retrieved were unhooked. Those places and faces and spaces, ancestor and parent, that sit like an unadorned and unopened book upon the shelf of your gathering. If only we but reached out and opened, would we begin to recognize ourselves more clearly? To snap the spine that has woodened from age, the whelp into the world of recognition. Crack it. Shellack it. You were born of it: desire and duty. Look at the rings beneath your eyes, nibble upon the the carving along the back of your hands, focus on the nimble notes of your voice, take up the photograph of the woman standing on the bridge with her back turned and catch her, the curve of her hip suggesting the loss of love, wander over the TV screen in front of you as that unknown but somehow recognizable woman speaks to you of what has gone missing, distilling her life’s tale as if sung from Scherhazades, know not the name or the details of the forlorn awakening but speak upon them regardless. Arrest that which has rested too long. Remember what you had forgotten to remember while you see what it was that you were meant to see. The ache of a quick snatch gone fleeting. There, in that moment in front of you. Have you begun to remember? Picture this: a photograph as a map of your life pre-drawn.
Bones the size and shape of your once-remembered life.
,,,,,
IV
Time scatters like voices weaved about the autumn grass, small pebbles of hardened mineral rattling like a cup of teeth, bricking and bracking inside the circumfrence of each of us. How can I begin toe pass along to you all those small pockets of eves that now seem so often to make up the pitch of my waking thoughts and stumbles? How can I begin to give you all that has made me the person I am and because you are of me, in me, gone from me, have begun to kneed and wittlemade you the person you too are becoming. Shall I begin with a memory?
We fall into earth long before we begin our step into flight and we are transfigured. If we understand anything, anything at all, it might be this simple truth: we migrate, continually, inside and out. We are tempered and transposed and tampered with by land and sky and sea. It shifts and shapes and sifts inside us, sitting until it (the trees, the water, the dusty earth) becomes us: the metamorphosis. Though is it really us who are transformed or have we been, all along, the transformer. Maybe it is we who bewitch and beguile the land and sea and sky. Maybe we ensorcel that which is around us, shape and hex it so that it resembles us, is defined by us, elliptically wakes inside us because it, place, is of us. We stain the land. We scent it with our hopes and fears and memories; we carve out from this migratory and shifting path, something else. We mark place with our scent, bend light upon its slippery back until it alights. A sky is dampened with yellow because we dream it to life. A sea opens wide its hilly mouth, small dots of cyan and amber teeth, because we have instrumented its awaking. Do we sense this?
….
VII
“Does the world have nothing inside but sorrow?”–Andrei Platonov
Now, trying to finish this essay, these thoughts, scrambling to cull the photographs together in a way that makes sense, tossing them out into the world for others to see. Failure of the images to coalesce. Failure of the story to rhyme in a way that tints the head. Failure of the photographs to add up, to dream-catch the memories I ‘d had, the expectations for them I’d benchmarked along their ragged edges. A house of cards these images and I let them go. The words here have faired not better as I have struggled to pitch words against the silence of the photographs: ash and dust and bits of light and swatches of shadow, poorly calibrated exposures and thumb-stung negatives, dropped cameras and forgotten words. A mess, a wreck of pictures and a tempest of words. Back and forth between what I had seen and what I had remembered, coalescing. I am trying to offer something to my son and to my father, a gangway, a path, a constellation of moments that most likely only make sense to me, a double helix of words and images, of memories and calculations, or prescriptions and assides. I am lost to explain any of this but am trying to stitch my memories to the thatched stitching of my life’s body.
For the first time in years, I get out of my chair and walk to the store to buy a pack of cigarrettes. I smoke one and all, like a cornucopia of taste and sadness, of joy and illusion, of hope and despair, come funnelling into my body. How much time I have spent to say a simple thing to my father and to my son, how many words and photographs I have carved up to say a simple thing to my father and to my son, how, how to speak simply. Let me know, I ask myself in the dark coat of the winter night, how to tell them something simple: that I am made of them. That, beyond this, something simpler. The words and the photographs have failed and all along I had wanted only to say something simple.
Dad, of you I am made and without you I am nothing. Son, of you I am made and without you I am nothing.
A long, such a long time to understand a small balled thing, such a long time taken to enunciate a very simple thing. It is not DNA from which a family is constructed but time, bones of time enwrapped in the skin of a heart. This, the two of you have taught. Renegade pictures, grandiose, ineloquent words. All that banter. All that time. All those winged memories. Such a simple, fucking thing.
All that gaining and going. All that and all that I am
and so this morning darkness spreads thin the winter light…..
Bob,
I really liked it. As I said before, it is strong authorship that marks your essay. I like the scope of it and the fact that you were shooting for the stars, one might say. No denying the ambition of your essay. It had me thinking.
Bob..there is no way my thoughts can adequately translate into words where your images are concerned..so just a few thoughts..first, on the assignment level – congratulations..I know what a ride this was and you came through in one piece! As David says, it is no small thing to actually complete something..
I first saw this work in a wide edit at the loft..my body was tired, my head was in an odd space, sort of quietly zoned out, and I turned and there bones was. You were showing it to someone on the computer..there was music playing, but it wasn’t music you had chosen..and as I am looking over your shoulder I can hear just bits of what you are saying..and honestly what I was thinking was..who made this work?? It didn’t hit me that it was yours, despite your ’style’ despite your authorship..at that moment I could see it only as new from and to you, that it had grown out of you like a magic seed given to Jack.
I kept wanting to stop the slideshow..to sit with certain images..still there are singles that to me are magnificent, and then others that I feel are more relevant in the sense of a personal diary, a family album, maybe strong in the way Mann’s What Remains images are strong for me. meaning, I get them, but as singles, they don’t stand alone as incredible images. But then there are these others that completely knock me off my chair and I want to say in the colloquial way “SHUT UP! you MADE these??” because it isn’t easy at all to materialize what is inside. Yes, we can feel it, I can nearly describe it, what I would want to express in an image..but to be able to CREATE the inner as outer..that is a gift.
I know you aren’t all about lists, but here is the line up for me..9,11,13,22,31,32,33,53…BINGO
Rafal :)))
thank you so much. Ambition is a tricky thing and while i didn’t set out to make anything more ambitious that just a story about my dad, son, me, bones and memory, i guess everything that became unearthed tilted it toward that ;)))…and while i still see the essay as too clausterphobic, not enough ‘FUCK, WOW’ photographs, i think that at least it did what i wanted, which is go a long-winded string of words and memories about what it meant to see and remember and struggle…
I cant wait to see your Home Sweet Home or Pieces of Us story…that will be wonderous1 :))
cheers
bob
Erica :)))
thank you so much for taking the time to sit and swallow and digest and write about Bones. I COMPLETELY AGREE. I think there are a few photographs taht ‘work’as stand alone photographs, and most dont and maybe aren’t even interesting photographs so much as connections, tissue and lining and dna. I shot this work as an essay, and a connection to one another, to the text i was writing, to the thoughts I had. In other words, as you correctly point out, i think most of the photographs must be seen in their connection and juxtaposition to one another. If i do a book of the work of ‘bob black’i dont know that any of them, but maybe 1 or 2, would be included at all. And certainly, within the story, are pictures that make sense in either my Faces series or my series about invisible cities (all the pin hole stuff for sure). but, it is as a story, as a story for my son and for my dad, that i put this together. I photographed the story in a 3 week frenzy, confining myself to only 4 places (my home, the museum, NC and my son’s school): that’s it. The essay certaintly doesnt have the visual scope of other things i have done, so it’s kind of clausterphobic and hermetic. I was really happy and really surprised to see so many people enjoy such a personal essay…and one made over a short period of shooting time….
I too am a major fan of Mann’s…all the workd before What Remains, but especially What Remains (especially the portraits of her children) and Deep South. In the end, i wanted the essay to just be evocative of time and thoughts, a poem more than a novel…a poem about photography and memory and my life and the changing and collision and disappearance of that…
and yes, i hate lists, but thanks so much for giving me your BINGO….your bullseye means ALOT ALOT to me :))))
cant wait to see your portraits sister e!
hugs
bob
“i wanted the essay to just be evocative of time and thoughts, a poem more than a novel…a poem about photography and memory and my life and the changing and collision and disappearance of that…”
you did it perfectly!
David,
Safe travels. I’m in New York and will be renting a room in Williamsburg during March. That might be a good time to chat.
A round table discussion on photography, the web and publishing would interesting. With all the turmoil going on these days, it might be a good time for some innovative ideas…
peace,
Bryan
BROTHER BOB, you mad mad motherfucker! i love your brilliance. (and no i haven’t been drinking.. but i will now… will you please join me?)..
(no internet folks, just the coffee shops, thus the disappearing act)..
big hugs,
lance
Bob, I love the look à la Josef K.
Davin ;)))
yea,…though in life, my prints tend to have a sand-storm of grain…not just from the rodinol + trix combination, but how i shoot and then develop…it definitely aint for everyone, ’cause many many of the pics look like Newsprint, all that grain…but for me, it works, i like grain and the texture of grain as much as the content of the pics…but i guess that’s the painterly shit in me ;))
cheers
bob
hey, if this are bones, today I’m a dog… :)
man, when you come back to Lisbon you got to let me know, we must have serious fun!!
I think you should really develop the connection between your photographs and Pessoa poetry, they sometimes fell the same, like they come from the same source…
take care friend, Miguel
BROTHER SILENT-COWBOY! :))))))))))
yea, what else is a poor hombre to do but climb up in the saddle and ride like mad into the sun :)))…and i am ALWAYS with you drinking….and we’ll share some of that fine fine Tq soon enought: VA? :)))))…
thanks so much, cant wait to drink a fistfull of dollars with y’all :)))…and True Grit too :)))
miss u amigo
hugs
bob
Miguel! :)))
hope we return soon too…got lots of ideas for work and Pessoa…and he and Antunes and Lisboa are big parts of my work, the entire life work, not just bones….and I am happy that you were happy chewing on these bones….
and cant wait to have some serious fun in Lisboa again…for sure Miguel, for sure :))))
thanks so much amigo…means a lot to me :)))
hugs
bob
he-he ;)))))…but they are siblings ;)))))
hugs
b
Bryan/David:
important and essential discussing…:)))…and in NO WAY did i take offense, and i agree, it’s critical to think about editing and this should ALWAYS be in reference to the ‘goal’ of what the edit is related to….if this assignment were published in a print magazine, im guessing, i’d show 3-5 pics, tops. if it were for a submission (as i submitted it recently to a photo festical), it would be 15 pics. the thing is that my goal for Bones for Burn was to create a ’state of mind’ an incantatory piece about memory and lyrical sense….in fact, i dont even know if bones itself could stand up as a small book, a monograph: i really dont know as im moved on emotionally from it…but, i do know that some of the pics will be part of a bigger book that I am planning (and david i need help to chat about that, maybe in May?)…but, i think the critical thing is that we discuss editing and we discuss ‘audience’…
i think ‘audience’ must be defined by the intent of the photographer. An audience for work like my own (including it’s inherent length and verbosity) is small…and so, it doesnt matter if i show 10 photographs or 82 (the original director’s cut version) or write 100 words or 4000 (the length of the total essay), people will stay or not. I think the internet is defined entirely by WHO WATCHES/READS at a given point. I can sit and read or look at pictures for a long long time…and then other times, i have only 5 minutes (now)…so, the web is entirely open, entirely UNCONSTRAINED….and this is what Burn should exploit…
Burn SHOULD NOT be just another Web magazine but should bring to the table ORIGINALITY. By this i mean not only great photography, but also great IDEAS…i tried as best as i could to WRITE TO ALL COMMENTS AND WRITE ABOUT MY PROCESS/IDEAS, this way Burn becomes a portal for Discussion…how rare is that, for a magazine to publish the work (photographic and written) and also allow to have an EXCHANGE :)))….some people enjoyed, some continued, some ignorned…
but we must re-imagine the web….and i also thing a magazine that doesnt cater to a theoretical audience but instead CREATES itself will always draw….
Bryan: my work is the antithesis of a ‘tight-edit’..and that is true, perposefully, also in the aesethetics of how i shoot, how i develop and how i print…i am after and interested in something else….something more visceral, more internal…and that’s also why my edit was long, including the amount of text i offered David/Burn…
there part and parcel of the same idea….
now, was it too much?…for most yes…too boring, probably…but, i think the great editor understands that a great magazine devoted to work must encapsulate the entirety of vision that is out there….
good discussion
hope that makes sense :))
hugs
bob
hey there Bob,
thank you for your e-mail which brought me to burn. No comparisons, just a list for myself: dylan thomas, sylvia plath, bob black, ts eliot, and a touch of rilke somewhere in the wings. (we go to therapy to remember, then we go shopping to forget!)
Thank you for the journey, it was not one to step off because of the constant movement. Love the images, which I will return to many times.
-Ben
Hi Ben :)))
thanks so much for that my friend…i hope that all is ok with surgery and that soon winter will pass and that walking will abound….and please keep me abreast of stuff going on in your life: you showing at Contact?…i’ll be there to see u this time around….2009 has calmed down afer 2008! :))))….
thanks so much my friend, your words and support mean alot :))
cheers
bob
Bob…
Thank you for watching the 3 slideshows..
As I was saying over there..
When we are “full”.. We should
“empty”… and make it photographs..
Marcin and Pat and Reimar and Bob..( YOU ),
reminded me how important is to be spontaneous
and stay fresh by all means…
Right here right now..
Of course some might say:
Later is safer.. ! Could be !
You be the judge , por favor..!
peace
thanks for sharing bobo… beautiful… and [personally] painful. the blade just twisted a quarter turn further contemplating that i am made up of blood, and tears, and memory, and who the fuck knows what??? some of the strongest bones of my existence are those of absence, of negative space, of the unknown, the vast loneliness.. but they too can make for a strong foundation it seems… perhaps a stronger one. now to somehow embrace it not as a fragile weakness to hide behind, but as a scarred, and calloused and fortified bit of scaffolding to maybe even rely upon… to continue to fully embrace those objects, those glimpses, those deeply etched memories that serve as the mortar, but now, perhaps, to finally let go, and bear a little more weight, have a little more faith in the unbreakable blocks carved out of the chasm of my emotional existence…
BROTHER J1 :))))))))
even amid a sqwalking bar in DC it was lovely to hear your voice…marina, dima and I will be out all of today (family day holiday in Ontario! yeeee-ha!) and back tonight, if u want to call! :))))…
that’s it j, all that shit carved up for us from us and ‘who the fuck knows what?”….it’s all we have and then we squelch out whatever the hell dips inside and i dont know but the only thing to do is to squelch right back ;)))…our sin, our soul our song, it’s all we have, right…and those damn mollasses/brownsugar/whiskey licked steaks…..
thanks for taking a ride down memory lane with me, hope it was as sweet, if even tough, as a back ride in the ‘57 chevy with bobby avelon crooning something over a biting white moon :))))
your words soooth the smarted soul…..
means a lot to me :)))
hugs
love
b
hey bob
great to feel the snaps in context with the words.. very good indeed and much appreciation for the technique and time spent crafting both.. i guess it is the kind of subject which demands thought, time and emotional investment – congratulations on giving it your all.
looking forward to buying the book and perhaps hanging a bob black on my wall alongside other likely characters.
¨we migrate, continually, inside and out.¨
quite
:ø)
david
I have been away… and now I am just speechless… this work is so poignant to me its almost unbearable…
I don’t need to sing its praises, because that would be simply inadequate. I have only one thing to say…
When is the book coming out?
Wow. It took me awhile to make my way into reading/viewing this piece. Bob, you are obviously quite a thinker, and one who seems to live inside his head a bit. This I can relate to. It is often hard to articulate what we mean with the words we use, and to have someone else understand and realize what we actually mean. Now add eyes to the translation and we have images that we want others to not only see, but also to understand. This was a deep piece, one that I will have to view a few more times to get the full impact. But, that said, I really, really enjoyed your use of black and white film (keep the art breathing!), super high contrast, texture, grain, and soft focus…or, simply put, some of my favorite things ever about photography. I do agree with some others that it could be shorter, in text and imagery. But very, very cool. Love those dinosaur skeletons.
Hey Bob!!
Man, it sure has been a while since I’ve wrote anything on here(!), but your ‘Bones of time’ is the perfect timing – especially this early morning with the Berliner Messe! Great to hear, though I never ‘visualized’ this work with such a music. It works totally.
Lucky enough to have met the man (Cheers DAH), I need to ask: when will you and Marina grace us again in NY??
Hope it’ll be soon!
Take it easy up there in the cold ;)
Tanguy.
TANGUY :)))))))))…thanks so much much for taking the time to read and watch…yea, funny, the music sits inside me, and i always have very musical associations with seeing too…i dont know why…and i hope we get to see you again on our next trip down…dont know when, but i am sure someday before 2009 disappears….nyc as always beckons :)))))…thanks so much…and cold, yea, dont remind me ;)))))..hugs…
CARRIE :))…thanks so much for that. yea, my head’s pretty much over-stuffed…i guess that’s why i love and need the meditation, a way to quiet the disquiet….evyerhting i tend to do is always too…too many pics, too many words, too few money, too much internet, too much reading…someday, im gonna grow up and get it right: some simple loving silence :)))))))…thanks so much for wading through too many words/pics :))…it means a lot to bme :))))
DAVID B :))…thanks so much for that and especially for your endurance and patience will all my long-winded stuff…i cant wait to see your decade(s) long work in progress and eagerly await seeing it here….that will be cool-ass stuff! ;))))…kisses to the little lion cub….hugs, bob
SIS LIS :)))))))))))))))))))…thanks so much for that…yes, if if a book happens, you will get a special version, accompanied with a good long hug and a good long talk over wine :))))…maybe that’s what all these dreams of Oz of late have been about :)))))…not give us some of that MM stuff from Oz that you have so tireleslly and powerfully been stewing up…..hugs bob
precious words for the little monster – passed it on to him, (in a silly voice of course), and he smiled.
i´ve just put a few words and phots in yesterday for a work in progress blog, joining anton.. my hope is to make the most intelligent edit of my work possible.. with the help of you all.. keep em peeled as it may go up this month.. really looking forward to all feedback bob.. hoping that stoopid will have an opinion.. will be my edit, of course, although educated by respected scribblers.
you and i follow different ideals with our photography, to some degree, and in watching you produce bones i have begun to see the similarities in working method.. this has led to a greater understanding of art photography for me and i´m grateful to you more than most for that.
patricia and yourself in part inspired the introversion which led to my self portrait and the open attitude you and others lent to road trips encouraged me to try my best to pass on what little knowledge i have..
so..
a few kind words about our work is an easy task.. reading your work, while more difficult, is a rewarding pursuit.. instigating the kind of refection which can only progress us as human animals and perhaps as snappers..
i also believe that as a colleague teacher you probably have a love for corduroy jackets which is always respected by me.
love from the fam.
x
David :)))
I hope that lion cub understands my words, it’s good that you used a silly voice, to go with the words ;)))))))…
and i am excited to see the work up in Work in Progress and I will definitely be watching and will totally offer any help I can (audience groans ;) ). I’ve always loved your Journalism/Music Documentary work very much, not the least of which because it feels authentic and in-the-moment and drawn up with the sense that you’re in the middle of it all and that those you’d photogrphed were comfortable with that, even the strangers, which means as a photographer you’re both present and absent and that’s a great great thing! As while our work might look different, i have always thought the essence is the same: to speak about what passes before us and through us as testament to this weird and wild and shaping life. I’ve never ever been a ‘competitive’ (or jealous) guy and i guess i am still always amazed that there is so much enmity in the photo world, some of which we’ve seen here as well. For me, it just seems to be born of insecurity and the neeed for people to categorize or create hierarchies of quality…i mean, for me, i jones for all good photography, it doesnt matter to me whether it’s beautiful, technically powerful and carefully poetically observed work, like Michaels’ essay on Sakhalin, or classic, dispassionate (but incredibly passionate) Journalism/documentary like John Vinks, or conceptual stuff or abstract stuff or color, or b/w or digi or film or whatever. All interesting photography, for me, begins and ends with an authentic expression and a complete dedication to the vision of the work, whatever that may be and unfortunately too many, by dint of taste or education or orientation dismiss work that the either do not like do not understand or do not recognize. for me, when i dont ‘get’ something, i think to investigate why, if i dont like something, i try to figure out why, and in the end, it’s always a learning process. Because photography is a tool of visual technique and one obsessed with perfection (as we can see right here at burn), an art form and a form of communication that differs from many others (what constitutes a perfect painting or piece of music or dirty joke, etc), and I increasingly move away from all technical perfections for that very reason. And yet, your own very accomplished work deals with great technical skill and verve and that’s also a pleasure :))
so, whether people come from the same country or not, often they can communicate and also discover that the same joints mean the same, have the same value, only expressed totally differently…a pinhole camera STILL produces photots that LOOK AS MAGNIFICENT to me as all these super crisp, perfect digital photographs…..and yet, often to me, it seems we’ve lost our bearings in all the beautiful colors and precise detail…detail is seductive, but might be misleading, i think Holmes suggested ;)))
so, i can’t wait to see your decade project here and will jump right in and i think and expect it to be a magnificent project and a terrific book…
and those jackets…..totally….though my own i bought for $50 and is 50 years old….the life of the n.american artist…money goes toward the good and film and books not the clothes ;)))
cant wait until your up…
hugs
bob
BOB,
I have been away for the past 10 days, on a short vacation with the family with no computer or internet access. All I had was my Blackberry so I knew your long awaited “Bones” was up and could not wait to be back home to watch your essay… I had just put the kids to bed early and allowed myself some quiet time to look at it, get myself immersed into the mood, the dreams of Mr Black… As I told you before Bob, I was one who was skeptical initially but I have SO SO warmed up to what you did here… The music on top of the essay was a great choice… I felt transported into a very different place, started meditating… From my heart, well done Bob and thanks for having shared this very personal and unique piece of work with us….
A Bob Black hugs.
Eric
Eric :)))
i like receiving bob black hugs indeed :)))…thank you so much for your insight and patience to sit down and watch bones. i am happy that the work was ’successful’ in fueling your dreams or your memories or your initial skepticism….skepticism is not only good and healthy but i think a required elixir for each of us…im still very skeptical about the efficacy (can i use this word to describe an essay?;)) ) of the story, but i’ve had to live with it and put it out, and i’ve learned much from the failures of it…but, if you felt transported, then i am happy for that is always my hope for any work, that somehow it may speak to someone, take them on a personal journey that began as my own but somehow ended up their own….the collective sharing of memory….that’s all i could hope for….thanks so much eric
caint wait to see your essay here too!
bobblack hugs
bob
Bob — A powerful, beautiful essay. It immediately reminded me of a quote from Boris Pasternak:
“life too is only an instant,
only a dissolving of ourselves
into everyone
as if we gave ourselves as gifts.”
And while it is obviously a very personal piece, there is a certain mysterious anonymity to the photographs that make it very easy to see one’s self in the work.
Thanks for sharing it.
Adam
Adam :)))….thanks so so much…and especially for Paternak! :))))…a big big fan of pasternak, and long long ago, i once tried to court a young lady with the Hamlet poems from Zhivargo ;))))…and that is it exactly :)))…and if the piece became a part of you, that’s all i could ever hope for :))))…
and by the way, you can get a book now of Ruscha’s photographs (which include the 26 gas stations JOhn vink and I spoke of), i think you’d love the book :))))…and i loved your description of your projects :))))
thanks so much Adam for your sensitivity and insight :))))
cheers
bob
“”Quality doesn’t mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That’s not quality, that’s a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy – the tone range isn’t right and things like that – but they’re far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may … Read Moresay 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.” Elliott Erwitt
and… here is something to make you smile.. burn is actually quite the teaching aid.
note – not one mac on a website.. all on desktop, feet up on tables for the ride… no corn pipes allowed.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3487/3295409368_d7e1b766c5.jpg
i have wondered about insecurity and narrow vision frequently while a practitioner.. for me the insecurity was extremely localized.. worrying that colleagues could snatch a job from me, and therefore take a weeks worth of cheap pizzas from under my nose. it was never a concern that so many people photographed, nor that my job was fairly sought after, (by those too foolish to understand exactally how much sacrifice it entailed.. just like me in the dawning).
focusing on our own thing has a way of relieving us of the competition, no? doing our thing.. seeing our thing.. enjoying our thing.. it has no limits and it takes nothing away from others.. photography is in that way much less of a stable product and much more of a ramdon marketplace.. we’re all selling, or showing, different cakes and so why bother that someone else cake is a different colour?
what i did find over time that my work has gone something like this – mid teens i could not get enough of books.. other photographers work.. devouring all with equal passion and projecting myself into the photographs i saw.. always considering the photograph as a reflection yet also picturing the photographer within the scene.. and what scenes i enjoyed.. extremes from the greats. the first photo book i bought was tim pages nam soon after it was released in the early 80-s.. i must have been 15.. and then the family of man reprint for an antidote.. and on.. and on.. to the point that last week i could take a book in from a single photographer with each of my students in mind.. “here – you would enjoy this..+” and so on.
then my own projects began.. many little ones.. and it stopped.. i did not look at another photographers work after about 1997 when i finally graduated.. not because i was not interested.. because i was focused on my thing.. i did not want to mistakenly produce derivative work, and that was part of the reason, but also because there was so much i found before me of interest that in persuing it all i simply did not have the time to look into other peoples thing.. it somehow became prohibitive.
i’ve always enjoyed crisp photography of less than crisp events.. tough subjects photographed sharply.. and yet i took all kinds.. so now.. with the book.. i am looking at all kinds.. and the past year since i finished the music project i have started again – to look at photographers work.. and i see so much more than i did as a teenager.. i see photos and respect photographers who have aloowed me to challenge my own persception of work.. which will allow me to use photographs like this..
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_D7BO-iIFIl0/SI8_bGje6OI/AAAAAAAAAIs/i5mgsy9YarI/s400/renaissance.jpg
alongside photographs like this..
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_D7BO-iIFIl0/SJF5y16Y7MI/AAAAAAAAAUE/2Qhrc2aqJrc/s1600-h/01540011.jpg
it is exciting for me.. seeing things which i previously disregarded in a completely new light.. contextual texture which overall must only be a positive thing for this endeavor, and in part burn is responsible for helping develop my perception philosophically.
i, as do you, photograph every day without fail.. and i said to my students today –
“photograph everything that interests you every day.. pick up your camera with your wallet and keys when you go out.. and play the game.. if you see a photo, take it.. because in 10 years you may see your work diffrently and photos you thought were poor may well complete a picture”
(paraphrazed).
the game for me is about moments, shapes and layers.. the rules are simple – no cropping outside the camera and be close.. use the technology as it is needed to catch the scene.. stay away from the scene though and remain invisible as much as possible.. when interacting, be quick.. be quick.. smile with eye contact only afterwards.. or run from clenched fists and bottles if they are heading my way :o)
it’s great fun, this game.. just great.
any words in the work in progress will be well received bobus and so please tuck in.
i have the second post planned and the first is yet to go up :o)
and on the jacket.. i payed 30 usd from the sally army..
rock on.
david, beate and top catx
ahhh.. MAN – i just typed a long response and it’s GONE.
maybe the anti-spam pixies.. have it copied on a sticky so if it ain’t here later will post it again..
:o)
David :))))
just saw this now….thanks so much for the great thoughts…totally agree and yea, erwit’s got it nailed! :)))) and thanks for the link to the class washing dinosaurs :))))….
LOVE LOVE your gold-red angel-dream photo! :)))))))…reminds me of found 8mm film, shot by Stan Brakhage! :)))))…and im totally with you….
now, no energy to write….im taking a holiday from Burn for now…i’ll write u when your work goes up :)))….yea, that’s it my friend, the flame of the flamingo’s smile that burns the same for all of us :))))
yes, it’s a pleasure to write here with you and talk and i hope hope it’s been great for your students too :))))….cant wait to see your project in full as it gets whittled into history books :)))))
more in a few weeks, or when u come up :)))
hugs
bob
CODA:
“I’m always doing the same images. I’m always looking outside trying to look inside, trying to tell something that’s true. But maybe nothing is really true except what’s out there. And what’s out there is always different.”–robert frank, film ‘home improvements’
running
bob
strong images, great flow. i really like the sequencing, the repetition of motifs, the wheel of never ending reappearence. i can´t see how this piece as a whole could benefit by a tighter edit, actually demanding one sounds to me like to say david lynch had better made a 3:50 rammstein vid instead of lost highway. it´s a mindtrip, and the mind works according to patterns. it´s excellent as it is, moody, tripy, imaginative.
Superb editing, Bob. Finally reminded myself to look at it, and it’s a great piece of personal art. Yes, all art is personal, but yours call the adjective to mind more than for others here. And well, this is exactly what I mean: the P here is for personal, not photography, and it is for painter too, if one wishes, ie. Your hand is everywhere, not your index finger.
We need not go back to the genesis of the image, (the shutter opening and closing), that information is but become a mere shadow. This image is as much shaped, and kneaded from your own inner vision and strength as by mechanical reproduction. You do not trust the camera, of the facts it catches. Or rather, you have no use for it, no use for photography itself, dare I say. I am not sure the light you claim is what the medium is all about, is not actually coming from you, entirely.
HERVE :)))))))))
good god, you’ve just made me cry….literally…i guess i wasnt expecting to be very emotional today (just returned from shooting and now flying out the door) but good god, that’s one of the most people things anyone has ever written about my work, and you are one of the few people to ever understand that, or at least express it directly to me…
i hope that this year, will be the year we finally meet…always space (even in our tiny apartment) here in Toronto…
thank you so much my friend….
yes, the light comes from within…
big hugs
bob
It took me a damned hour to write this down, Bob! It is finally longer than your reply.
18 months after we first sparred on RT, I finally outworded BB. Not a slight task! :-))))
HERVE :)))
yea, we’ve come a long long road…and i’ve really grown up…sort of ;)))….
what a strange and beautiful trip it’s been…
not a slight task, indeed ;)))
b
When you feel alone and lost
Living in a world that seems so rough
There would be no cost
Praying for blessings is enough.
For the blessings we receive
Come in the small treasures we look past
Those that fill your heart, I believe
Those that will bring you hope at last.
Having hope will change your views
And will bring happiness to your soul
For it’s not something you have to lose
It is our ultimate goal.
-Kirsten Hutchinson
How are you. Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.
I am from Arabia and bad know English, give true I wrote the following sentence: “Just, one desists to the teens of the released to do at an synthroid mcg.”
Waiting for a reply :), Xerxes.