Comments on: Michael Webster – Too Many Black People in One Place https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/ burn is an online feature for emerging photographers worldwide. burn is curated by magnum photographer david alan harvey. Sat, 18 Jun 2016 13:14:45 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.4 By: Jeff Hladun https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766877 Wed, 13 May 2015 10:34:45 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766877 No problem, Sidney. I came across the term years ago in John Kenneth Galbraith’s book, “Anatomy of Power”.

Here’s a quote from the book which I hope explains it best:

“Condign power wins submission by the ability to impose an alternative to the preferences of the individual or group that is sufficiently unpleasant or painful so that these preferences are abandoned. There is an overtone of punishment in the term, and this conveys the appropriate impression. It was the undoubted preference of the galley slave to avoid his toil, but his prospective discomfort from the lash for any malingering at the oars was sufficiently unpleasant to ensure the requisite, if also painful, effort. At a less formidable level, the individual refrains from speaking his or her mind and accepts the view of another because the expected rebuke is otherwise too harsh.”

It’s one of three types of power Galbraith wrote about, the other two being Compensatory and Conditioned power. Michael co-incidentally covers conditioned power in his photographs by the way we see so many American flags on the crowd’s clothing. Compensatory power is tangentially covered in the the Artist Statement when referencing the developers and speculators in the Coney Island neighbourhood.

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By: Sidney Atkins https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766851 Tue, 12 May 2015 14:57:54 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766851 JEFF,

I had to look up ‘condign’ in the dictionary, and I still don’t know what you mean or why you chose that word…???

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By: Jeff Hladun https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766826 Tue, 12 May 2015 02:10:09 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766826 It’s an intimate essay in a roundabout way, in that it’s an exposé on the use of condign power. The presence of so many police at a peaceful gathering serves the crowd a reminder that they had better behave, otherwise their alternative, preferred act of protest will be met with some sort of punishment. I don’t know if the crowds in the essay were intent on protest, but why else would the police be there in such numbers? That’s the mystery of the essay: when too many black people converge in one place, why do the authorities have to make such a show of power?

The police on horseback in Webster’s essay are reminiscent of the Plantation managers ensuring the slaves kept toiling as an alternative to the whip. Night-time crowd control at Coney Island is an unnecessary and offensive act of authority; like Napoleon’s “Whiff of grapeshot” just…without the grapeshot. It’s the indignity of the impotence of silent submission (Image #6) that makes the essay succeed for me; square one as an historical document of against-the-man use of power.

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By: david alan harvey https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766803 Mon, 11 May 2015 11:25:55 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766803 MICHAEL WEBSTER

i don’t have any “rules” in my head about establishing shots nor repetition…all things work when they work….The Chain (Chien chi Chang) works because of the repetition for example…and Crewdson is all about “establishing” shots….in a traditional magazine you probably would have had one less mounted cop shot…yet for this essay, and for here, i think your point is well made….

cheers, david

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By: michael webster https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766763 Sun, 10 May 2015 14:45:02 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766763 Thanks David, Bill, all.

David, yes, I think the tweaks, which were all in the direction of a purity of sorts, made it much stronger. On one hand, it really took me a long time to get past the issue of the noise and trying to do something about it. On the other, limiting it to pics from just one camera and focusing on a much more compressed time frame gave the piece a cohesiveness that was somewhat lacking before. Always tough to kill your darlings, innit?

I also appreciate you giving me the space to tell the story my way. I know you generally don’t like narrative strategies such as repetition and establishing shots in photo essays, both of which I feel are very important (in my own work, at least), yet you have always respected my choices in those matters. Still, I figured you’d think I had at least one row of mounted cops too many, to name just the most egregious example.

And speaking of repetitive elements, I also need to thank Mat Fraser and my friends at Coney Island U.S.A. for allowing me to shoot his act at the Burlesque. Mat is a great performer and Coney Island U.S.A. is a great place on a lot of levels. Anyone in New York should check it out.

John, yes, the blue tint is an aesthetic choice. I use it in two other essays as well, so I guess it now qualifies as part of who I am. In this one, I think it best communicates the feel of Coney Island late on a summer night.

Bill, I spent a lot of time watching those Belugas at the aquarium. They never seemed unhappy, but how could they not be considering the confines? I think they closed the exhibition for good soon after the eldest died, but it’s possible they are just building them a new tank. On a related note, one of the most beautiful things I ever saw in my life was a pod of 50 or 60 Belugas swimming up the Saguenay fjord in Quebec as a lightning storm was rolling in ahead of them. I sure envy you the sights you see on regular basis.

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By: david alan harvey https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766759 Sun, 10 May 2015 13:49:51 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766759 MICHAEL WEBSTER

nice work my friend….i think developing your original idea further worked….there is always that original itch and desire to publish right away…you had that last year…yet by waiting and thinking and tweaking, you made another whole statement….

nice!!!

cheers, david

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By: Frostfrog https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766739 Sun, 10 May 2015 01:54:17 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766739 Mike, this is a SUPERB piece of work. I did wait until my return home from the field because I did not want to look at it on my iPhone for the first time but instead looked at it on my 27 inch iMac. Yes, the noise could be a bit of a distraction I suppose but I looked right through it at the content and found it stunning – number 3 alone with the title would have said it all, but I am glad you posted 22.

Do they still have belugas at Coney Island? I always felt kind of bad for them. I’ve seen a lot of belugas these past three weeks.

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By: john gladdy https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766690 Fri, 08 May 2015 21:55:42 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766690 Oh yeah, The Blue look cold tone colour temp thing. Stylistic choice? Interested to hear your reasoning.

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By: michael webster https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766670 Fri, 08 May 2015 10:56:15 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766670 Thanks for the comments. You know I always appreciate them, positive or not. Thanks also to David and the burn staff. The photo world would be a much poorer place without them. And special thanks to Roy Edroso for the intro. Roy is what one might call a “consummate New Yorker,” and I greatly appreciate the consideration he gave my work and the nuanced piece of writing that came out of it.

Regarding the extreme noise in some of the images, it was dark and I was shooting wide open at the highest ISO with, as Gordon notes, an original Fuji X-100. I spent many hours trying different de-noising techniques in post, but could never get it right to my eye and ended up doing nothing, figuring the noise and banding would just have to be a feature rather than a bug.

The situation on the night of the massive police action and near riot was very volatile. It would have been nice to use a strobe, but flash does not go over well in Coney Island on the best of nights, so it was not really an option. I probably wouldn’t have gotten away with using a professional-looking DSLR, either. The police seemed less than thrilled with my presence as it was. It’s a sad comment on the U.S. that I was in the middle of a large crowd of African-Americans from the New York projects and it was the police I was afraid of. Especially for my son.

Of course it is much sadder for all those African Americans (and Africans, West Indians, Dominicans, et.al.) who come out in public and get hassled by the cops for no good reason. The most poignant part of the essay, for me, is how many people in the photos were wearing clothing with American flags.

Strange, how projects sometimes go. I worked on this one for years, but ended up using photos from just a three week period in this essay. I can tell precisely the same story with an entirely different set of photos, which is sad as well because what I witnessed on that fourth of July, although larger in scale, was far from an isolated incident. Ethic cleansing, of sorts, has been happening there for some time.

I go back to a comment made by Mayor Bloomberg back when the Coney Island redevelopment projects were just beginning. He said “nobody goes there anymore.” Well, I went there a lot and knew that it was regularly packed with people, up to a quarter million on hot summer days. Thing is, most of that crowd consisted of low income minorities. It seemed clear to me what kind of nobodies and somebodies the billionaire mayor had in mind when he made the comment.

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By: UNOISM https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766662 Fri, 08 May 2015 07:55:06 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766662 @michael kircher, no doubt this is powerful and excellent. but i dont see anything intimate! its really great though

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By: Gordon Lafleur https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766656 Fri, 08 May 2015 05:23:16 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766656 Hey Michael. Congratulations and thanks for this. First of all, your essay, the written one, is amazing. I read it first, as is my habit. It’s probably among the best I’ve seen here. You paint a vivid picture. Never have been to New York, but I feel I know it a little more after reading this. After reading this I also pain a little more and feel a little more disturbed by the things that seem to be festering in your country.
I like some of your photographs a lot. 1, 3, 6, and the panos stand out for me. As John G points out, the noise and banding in some of the shots is problematic and distracting. This is a problem with my X100 as well, when you dig in to an under-exposed file in post. Doesn’t seem to happen with the later sensors.
I must admit I don’t care for your black and white conversions. Are these done in camera? In any case, it seems to me that this essay screams for colour.

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By: hharry https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766631 Thu, 07 May 2015 17:25:54 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766631 Like this. I like the high noise. America is fucked up at the moment (perhaps it always has been) Lots of things need a bottom up rethink which I can’t imagine will ever happen.

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By: john gladdy https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766628 Thu, 07 May 2015 16:37:38 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766628 Really nice pictures Michael. A giant leap forward. My gripe is with the super high iso noise patterns visible even at laptop size. A trade off I guess so as to be able to shoot available, but that repetitive pattern banding really intrudes into the images.

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By: Thomas Bregulla https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766627 Thu, 07 May 2015 16:05:24 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766627 Very good Michael. I like it very much.

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By: michael kircher https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2015/05/michael-webster-too-many-black-people-in-one-place/#comment-766623 Thu, 07 May 2015 14:41:37 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=28216#comment-766623 Excellent work, Michael! Intimate and powerful.

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