C’est Tout by Jan Smith
There is a certain glory in what is constructed being defeated by the forces of time. Void of human habitation, a patina of self-identity emerges from the structures and substitutes the original man-made baptism of name and function. These spaces anthropomorphize when they are empty.
When we enter them, they die. With our presence they become shells for the purpose and habitation of our consciousness, and their essence retreats and surrenders its intangible namelessness. Such structures exist for themselves only when they are abandoned. Without stewards, they achieve this transformation in exchange for mortality and disappearance from our memory.
They live in a realm that shows itself and at the same time withdraws from us. Their acquired consciousness is like a horizon that defines itself by what we see, but also more largely by what remains veiled. The threshold of our arrival in these spaces leaves them balancing between the resurrection of our memory of them, and the renouncing of their own identity. In between these moments what remains is a subtle taste of time because it withdraws just in approaching us.
Gunkanjima, Japan
Its name translates as “Battleship Island” and is the nickname for Hashima Island in Nagasaki Prefecture. It functioned as a Mitsubishi owned under-sea coal mine from 1880 to 1974, and was key in shaping Japan’s industrialization. It holds Japan’s first large concrete housing project. At its peak it was home to over 5,000 workers and their families. At 1,391 persons per hectare it holds the record for highest population density ever recorded. Travel to Gunkanjima is prohibited.
website: www.smithjan.com
Marcin..
Swear to god, if you go, i will not even lurk here…you have so much heart, soul and goodness without any posturing..it’s like, well it’s like a cocktail..everyone contributes a different flavor and DAH encourages this diversity. Heaven help us if we all sounded the same: a swarm of subdued, well-modulated voices all agreeably articulated, never stepping out of line or ruffling feathers, always having good days, spreading light and joy for any who happen to be hovering within earshot. BAH! Perfection is not nice. it’s not even worth aiming for. You achieve it and then what? Nowhere else to go. Just stuck in a frozen world of rigidly high standards. Or else you fall short of your aim and beat yourself up over it till you’re useless to everyone, most of all yourself. Marcin, this comment is not just for you. It’s for everyone. But mainly it’s for you! Your voice is as distinct an ingredient in the Burn cocktail as any other and when the mood calls for warmth and impassioned charm, your words are what’s worth savoring. Don’t go. For what it’s worth..please don’t go..
best:
kat~
yikes..i didn’t know i sent the first post..man i am always sticking my foot in it..damn!
sappho aka KF: your plea to Marcin although well intended oscillates between oblivious and disregarding to say the least. If after I took the time to ask for relevant issues to be discussed you still insist on hijacking the a) spirit of what this forum pretends to be, and b) my little perch on it (afterall, this is my image here and I am looking for constructive feedback), then you’ve only succeeded in antagonizing the participation of new blood.
For all and any who care:
By way of example as to the type of feedback I think we should try to give, I invite you to read what I posted for Brian Shumway on his essay La Chureca. I won’t be doing this for every post, but when I do post I will try to be as thorough as possible, but if posts get sand-bagged with other issues you will dilute the very purpose of wanting to share and give feedback.
Marcin
i’m jumping in here quickly because of something you’ve said
‘I have intuition’
this my friend is everything, i believe…
instinct over interlect any day
Jan, ok, tell you what, i do not have all day and all night to write paragraphs about your photograph. i have spent the last few days viewing it, i have read all 104 comments and spent considerable time looking at the work on your web page. This is YOUR forum, you are so right. I think you are arrogant as all get-out but that’s ok..you have a right to your voice. So, tomorrow i will comment on your photograph. I will do my level best to honor it with my deepest thoughts and impressions. I will NOT cow-tow to your prescription, or anyone else’s for how to comment. My unique viewing experience is my right. Comprende??? i will do it my way. You have submitted your photo to Burn for comments, you will receive mine. Tomorrow.
best:
Kathleen
I think I have nothing to say about the photography for a while.
I will wait for new post as usualy.
Personally, I don’t dislike the digressions (would never call them hi-jacks, but I understand that’s the name for it), and I do not think right to guide BURN participants into becoming more disciplined and selfless. Informality, silliness can very well go hand in hand with constructive discussions on the same page. If we were meeting in a room, a class, a hall, once a week to speak of photographic essays, yes, but on the net, never seen disciplining participation work. AS far as critical reviews, and sustained discussion BURN is one step above RT already.
Dear Kathleen,
Should you find the time and are willing to comment, it is most appreciated, and I realize that any time given is valuable, and in and of itself an imposition.
My intention is not to prescribe, instead I want to make it clear that if I suggest something, I am the first to submit myself to the same measure. I try to be consistent that way, and considering the question of how to communicate with the forum was posed, I seized it as an opportunity to reflect, speak, and act. I was hoping it would serve as a measure of the sincerity and consistency of what I was writing. It was by no means meant to offend, or antagonize, and in that sense it is good you were forthcoming so that I can modulate my tone better in the future.
I am not saying all feedback should be my way. I am only providing a concrete example of what I was espousing in terms of a framework for giving feedback and establishing dialogue that is best absorbed by the forum and those outside who may use it for education and reference. How, and if you present feedback, is of course your privilege.
Pleased to meet you y ojala me comprendas a mi. Gracias.
I have always greatly revered traditional Japanese architecture and woodworking. Deceivingly simple, refined and elegant at first glance but exceedingly difficult to replicate with incredibly complex and often hidden joinery and nearly perfect geometric, and human, proportions made by true craftsman who leave their own unique individual mark in subtle ways. It is soul boiled down to its essence. It is unpretentious and yet profound. Refined and yet organic. Balanced. Natural. Complex in its simplicity, humble and strong. Wabi-sabi. I think some of the best photographers are like this as well, both in their work and their personal approach.
Jan
Ok, my thoughts, my personal thoughts, right? I was honest when i said i have been looking at your photo for days. This along with “La Chureca”. I have strong feelings about “La Chureca” but have my reasons for not posting them. They have to do with living in a Central American country, Nicaragua’s neighbor to be precise. My take on “La Chureca” is colored by my intimate knowledge of life where i live which has many, many thousands of Nicaraguan immigrants. Several have worked for me and i have sent three dead young people back to Nicaragua for burial. So my impressions are radically different than everyone else here. Which is why i think it’s best to stay silent on that wonderfully captured and produced but problematic essay.
Your photo on the other hand inspires very little in me. Which is the reason i have stayed silent in this thread. However, having been caught with my pants down hijacking your forum (and had i known you were so testy, believe me i would have gladly seen Marcin march right out the door rather than risk your ire) i am now obligated to explain why. And perhaps it is a good exercise for me. To dig into a photo that does not move me particularly and explain why. I prefer to turn the page but here i am. So!
I think Bob Black mentioned Francesca Woodman. I believe his exact words were his “beloved Francesca Woodman” *smile*. I won’t go that far but i found my mind constantly being pulled by her spirit as i looked at your photograph/s. Francesca related very strongly to her surroundings for compelling emotional reasons that made her self-portraits an imperative form of self-expression. I felt/feel she was a ghost who literally had emerged from the walls or the floor and who was at any moment about to fade back into them. Which in fact, ultimately, she did. Now, i know you are not Francesca Woodman and i know that the cost to her for inhabiting her abandoned places at the cellular level would not be a price most of us would not be willing to pay. However, she is the gold standard for work like this and after being exposed to such heart-wrenching emotional honesty as hers i can only say your photo does not compare well for me.
I have a friend who owns many paintings by a painter from Argentina who works in this mode as well. Beautiful ghostly females fading in and out of a variety of urban contexts. He is marvelous with color, sublime in his paint strokes. His work sells like crazy and moves me not at all. And for the same reasons. I just don’t FEEL his gut, his heart in the work.
I do not know your personal reasons for creating this series. i read your text and my impression is that you feel quite strongly about these places. i feel you do perceive them at a very deep level. You have enormous respect for the identity that a structure acquires both because of and in spite of their human creators/inhabitants. This is intriguing to me because i sense a great appreciation for the sticks and stones and steel and glass, the patina of age, the disintegration. Yes, i do feel that. Like a deeply sensitive archaeologist feels when he handles an ancient artifact perhaps. But i feel you are not doing justice to your feelings by placing nudes in the scene. i feel (feel, ok? fuck what i think) that you are not confident that you can adequately convey the depth of your reaction to these spaces without the prop of a human being in the scene. Intellectually of course i understand why you are placing nudes in these scenes. And for most people that would be enough. Ah yes, a ghostly human form in a space once occupied by people, long since departed leaving their energies, the echoes of their experiences and human forms. Voila. And the package is tied up with string and the experience is over. But Jan, i feel, (feel) that you are frustrated in that you want to say so much more about your connection to these places. I am likewise frustrated because the models are a barrier to me that keeps me from penetrating your heart.
So, maybe i am way off base. Maybe i am barking up the wrong man’s emotional tree. Your photo/s are more than competent. Which is why i am not going to go into a bunch of technical bla-bla. I expect you to be a kick-ass photographer and editor. I don’t want to do that work for you. I want to get INTO your work and stay there half the day if that feels good to me, or all day as i did with “Love Hotels” for example. If you weren’t competent and your work was not engaging, it wouldn’t be published here. So i’m not going to second-guess DAH and dissect a bunch of stuff you already do quite well. What i have done is give you my very deep feelings about what i have seen and thought about all weekend. Tell me to go to hell, laugh at my impressions. You’ve already dismissed me as being oblivious and disregarding. haha. I’m glad we got the worst over with before i opened my mouth about your photograph.
As to your recommendations as to how this site is run, well, when DAH posts new rules, or any rules in fact, then i shall comply. Please forgive me for “hijacking” YOUR forum. If there was a private messaging system here or a way to send blind e-mails to Marcin, i would have done so.
Best to you, Jan
Kat~
correction:
would not be a price most of us would be willing to pay.
JAN…
thank you so much for this….you have hit the nail on the head…or rather, several nails on head…
surely, what this all comes down to is the issue which has been plaguing me all along…comment management….
or, for me, the even larger issue: do i want to manage a forum or do i want to publish a magazine?? two entirely different animals…
i reduced this down in my mind to either having comments or not having comments….and i have put this issue out to all several times expressing the pros and cons of comments, and the general consensus from the folks who do comment here is quite naturally “keep the comments”….
so much of what you are suggesting is exactly what i do in my workshops or with photographers who join me in my studio or in behind the scenes discussions with readers here…i think if you really sift through the archives here you will find many times even here on line this has happened…but, not enough…and you are so right the threads just get hijacked to the point where i then again start thinking , hmmmmm, should this really be open to comments….
it is interesting to read you because right off you see BURN as an educational tool…you and i do not know each other and have never met as far as i know, but you have gone right to the heart of why i started Road Trips in the first place…it was an online version (or close anyway) to much of what i talked about with a handful of students in a room with me for a week or so who were at the very same time going out and working on new material every day..real people in real time with real new photographs everyday to be discussed in the manner you so describe…
i am sure you can clearly see that i embrace a photographer like you right along with a photographer like Brian Shumway….so my “real life” classes are delightfully eclectic with different types of photographers sharing ideas , critiquing work in a civilized manner, and most importantly producing either a “set” or an “essay” which would lead them to book publishing or gallery representation or perhaps in the direction of magazine assignments…since all three of those areas are areas of my own personal interest, i try as best i can to make this a valuable experience….this program is also supplemented by bringing in gallerists, book publishers and magazine editors to share their real life experiences and thoughts as well..trying to match this online, given all of the variables you describe, would i think lead to Burnout..it is like trying to teach a class in a room with the windows open next to the playground or trying to get to a point of seriousness in the back corner of a cocktail party….very difficult….
the material coming to me now on BURN is growing in quality by the day….it would at this point in time be a real shame to let it all slide away…
for example, when i went to the first day of my class yesterday at EFTI in Madrid and all those young faces were looking up at me and 90% percent of them referred to BURN, i knew i could not stop now…there was a big screen, great sound system , online connection…i showed the work of Patricia, and Panos, and James, and Chris and Mike etc etc…you, of course, were on the front page…and yes i showed my own work as well…this whole presentation took about an hour….the combo presentation of BURN and my own work left the type of silence that i know so well…the silence of real reflection..the silence that comes before a photographer really goes out and tries to do something special….but, here is the interesting point…I SHOWED BURN AS A MAGAZINE NOT AS A FORUM… these students just saw the work, not the comments……even for me it was surprise to see BURN as a real life presentation…..i just wish that all of you could have seen what has happened here is this context…seen as it was last night BURN readers would really be, well, wowed!! it was simply BURN finely edited….or actually BURN in its original state….
please help me to think about this….should BURN be school or should BURN be shown in school…
if i can figure out a way to implement your suggestions i certainly will do so..Patricia is right..we need you here…for i really do only want to have whatever i do have a certain class and style…at the same time freedom of expression is important to me too..at times there has been a clash..i do not want clash….maybe with just a little tweaking as you suggest, we can have a BURN of which we can all be proud…
now, i am late for meeting my students….i will tell them it is all your fault!!!
back for more on this soonest…thanks…
cheers, david
Jan
damn, i am going to be a total wash-out tomorrow in pilates, not to mention my, er, my job..i am utterly brain dead now as it is..okkkkk…listen, guy..it’s ok. I read your long comment and i really liked a lot of what you said. You were earnest, thorough and articulate as all get-out. But i have not been “here” for days after getting seriously pissed last week and embarrassing myself with my own snarkiness. eeks..makes me turn red just to remember. So i have been tip-to’ing around reading comments (which was really great to do) and looking at photos and thinking a lot about them, all the while being verrrrry quiet. So after reading your long post here and then Patricia’s i thought nobody’d notice if i just kinda snuck in and urged Marcin to stay. i know when someone’s hurt and upset and wants to leave that a little encouragement can make all the difference in the world. Gracie and Civilian were the ones that kept me hanging on by a thread. DAH and the rest dragged Bob Black back by the short and curlies. (sorry to be vulgar but it’s almost 2am!). It wasn’t that i was being dismissive to your comment or your photograph. I have just tried to stay out of everybody’s way and not upset any more apple carts. Which, damn, one word out of my mouth and there went Jan’s apple cart. hehe..hey, i’m laughing, i’m not bitching…
And si, comprendo mucho..las palabras no son necesarios..te comprendo bien..y lo siento mucho tambien. Somos amigos? :)))
best
kat~
Hi Jan..
guess i’m going to be a little more tired tomorrow but as i re-read my words, some thoughts occurred to me..Francesca’s photos were all about her and that her inhabited abandoned spaces. Your photos are about the abandoned spaces and the figures are wavering spirits melding with what surely you perceive as the earthly beings who have passed on, either literally or merely to another place. If i understand your text, the humans in these photos are really not the subject which is why after reading the text and truly understanding the depth of your respect and attraction to these old places that i couldn’t help but wonder why the people were there. Not WHY exactly, but how they enabled you to express the depth of your feeling for these buildings. And that’s when i got hung up. I really feel that these places go somewhere inside you that you aren’t getting at yet. The humans are interesting, the way they float up staircases, appear through holes in brick walls, float gracefully over littered broken floors. But they still seem superficial to me. Am i asking too much? Expecting too much? Jan, i don’t know. They are wonderful photographs but forgive me, i feel more something deeper between you and these structures. Something old, something ancient maybe. A respect that..ok, wait..you said you are the model in most of these..ok..maybe that IS your way of expressing this tremendous hold over you that the buildings have..ok, i need to think more about this. Even if they are you, Jan, i don’t think you are showing us enough. Yes, i am greedy :))…there’s a darker place you can go that you haven’t gone to yet.
Please, i would like your feedback on this..if you don’t feel comfortable talking about it here feel free to write me at kathf@racsa.co.cr
sincere regards to you
kat~
Kat : Thanks. This gives me much to chew on. You touch a chord regarding the intellectual justification for the nudes. I hadn’t considered it this way, but it would make sense knowing myself. I tend to intellectualize emotions, and if this comes through in the work on the one hand I am pleased that I’ve managed to push myself into the image even if by fault and default, on the other I need to evaluate if this detracts too much.
I’ve debated with wanting to use anybody but myself in the pictures and your heartfelt comments help cast more light on why I’ve had these misgivings. In this sense the self portraits are not an intellectualizing of the connection to the places, but a very real integration into them. I do harbor a sense of urgency in wanting to improve this series, because I am nearing its end. One place left to go, and as such this has to be better then those before–yet at the same time I am growing sick of myself. I doubt I will end the use of nudes in this series, but the next series will likely abandon them all together. I feel I’ve been exploring the world of emotions for too long and need something more tangible.
(now hijacking myself)
Costa Rica. Cafetales. Remesas. In another life I learned that 24% of immigrant workers return because they miss their family, less than 5% because they can’t find a job. I knew, made, and delivered the statistics. But I also broke bread with them. contact@smithjan.com
David. I’m easy, any place in Chueca will do, next time I’m in town.
hmmm… i went back to your picture and your website again. read your writings again. read all the 115 comments, (especially your exchange with kat) reactions, hijacks, suggestions, responses, everything, etc.
so i come up with this word: (definitely not pretentious) but
GRAPPLING…
only you can answer this…
you have a lot of technical know-how, definitely something that is valuable here… especially for me…
but you also have a reluctance to your intensity and maybe i tasted that on my tongue when i first saw your pictures and read your piece…
“the man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection”
- johann wolfgang van goethe
Jan,
i think you tend to be extremely demanding of yourself. More so in fact than you are of other people though sometimes they also get a smackdown. Still it is nothing compared to how tough you are on yourself. It was not until the end of my second comment that i did finally understand that your presence was your way of expressing how you feel about these spaces (i know, i’m a little slow :)..i.e. “a very real integration into them. ” Yes, i see that. And no i didn’t really get the models’ immersion in those places. Perhaps it would have been better to have selected a self-portrait for Burn. Closer to your more heartfelt experience (?)…having said that and seeing how you are thinking and your doubts..”"One place left to go, and as such this has to be better then those before–yet at the same time I am growing sick of myself. I doubt I will end the use of nudes in this series, ” i will be the devil over your left shoulder and whisper seductively in your ear that now, more than ever, exactly at the moment of your deepest self-contempt, now is when you will produce the best part of the series. Why? Because you are so intimate with it, have run the gauntlet of travel, models, accessing these places and now, the last part. Your loaded, cocked and have taken aim but your focus is a little fuzzy and you will grapple with this, tear your hair out, go deeper and demand more than before. And you WILL pull it off with aplomb.
And yes, i can well understand why the next series needs to be a little more chill. Though don’t you think maybe that if this series caused you to go all the way down to the basement of yourself to get at “IT”, that once you’ve plumbed those depths, that your vision will be much more intimate than ever before? Hell you could start shooting epidermal cells through a microscope but you will do it in a way never before possible for you.
Just a question/suggestion..for the last part of the series, what if you came in closer to yourself, made yourself more the subject? I know it would be difficult but you’re ready to ratchet up the difficulty factor as high as it will go. Just curious. Would that break the look f the series? hmm…anyway, ok, almost 3am..yikes..take care Jan and hey, thanks for getting me to come out of myself and talk to you about this. I really feel i have grown from this experience as well.
Gratefully
kat~
Gracie
grapple..
*smile*
hugs
kat~
i shall hijack…
grappling… grapple.
kat, you are a kindred…
okkk… zzzzz
Gracie:
:))
yer the best..
zzz
JAN
DAH seems to like your ideas about comments, so maybe I should keep this to myself. But in the spirit of the Burn that attracted me in the first place I’ll just let fly, before the rules come hammering down. ;)
Jan,
I appreciate your thoughtfulness in critique and in answering the responses to your own photo. I’m sure some photographers published on Burn have felt the same. Some, though, seemed to quite thoroughly enjoy the low-brow back and forth.
Adding to the presentation what the photographer desires from the audience might be a less heavy-handed way of keeping the comments somewhat in check, but that’s the only part I agree with you about.
Burn has personality, it’s why we keep coming, not just for the photography.
I’m assuming you were aware of Burn’s personality before you submitted, are you really that surprised that there are some superfluous comments? Didn’t you check out the site before submitting.
Dah,
On whether this should be shown in school or be school:
It’s already both for a lot of people and doesn’t need a whole lot of help. I’m assuming when you showed Burn to the students in Spain, you didn’t have to do anything for them NOT to see the comments, Burn already exists as a simple gallery of strong work.
It can be much more or much less, depending on a an individuals taste, if he/she decides to click on the “136 comments” button below the work. But that’s up to them, as it should be, in my humble opinion.
Opening up topics under dialogue for things that get off track would probably help the comments underneath stay a little cleaner, if we could get everyone to agree to taking off-topic conversations to that area. That would be a respectful request that would likely be followed the majority of the time, again without the heavy-handed approach Jan seems to be promoting.
Some of us just aren’t so serious, or just don’t write so seriously…
Giving Bob, Panos and a handful of others dedicated dialogue pages might help too.
Anyway, good to pop back in after a hectic week to find really interesting discussions, and good photos as usual.
Off to check out Joe and Michael’s new edit and sleep.
Ciao
Apologies, Jan, for hi-jacking the thread even more…
Having jet lag has some advantages…I’m still awake.
JARED
For the most part I only browsed the essays and glossed over the “fine print” taking in comments in smatterings. The first time I came across the site was when I was exploring funding opportunities. I was aware of the personality–to an extent–and I am not surprised by any of it, considering the nature of forums. Heck, for years I was actively editing a newsletter of my own. Low brow is expected and it is wise to have thick skin, but not too much or some good tid-bits get blocked. I simply responded to what I felt was an off-topic but very legitimate list of issues, and the response was what I hoped for. Call it a calculated insertion if you will, and no reason to be shy about it I guess. Not meaning to be heavy handed, simply a bit louder than I would be on other photographer’s threads. Cheers.
KAT & GRACIE
Grapple is a novel adjective. Unsure if you mean I am hooking others or hard to hook.
It’s been a while since I updated my site, mostly due to lack of time. In many ways what is there is quite old by my standards. The reason I mention this is because some of the points you allude to, particularly the issue of strength and presence were troubling me since the first image of this series. So much so in fact that I returned to Namibia to complete/add to the first series, first I went to Gunkanjima though and chose a model for one logistical reason and for one sentimental reason. Logistically I had no idea how to get onto an island that was far away and forbidden. Self portraits would take too long, and in the end this was a good choice because I had less than three hours to scout, experiment and shoot. Sentimentally I sensed the place was too delicate and fragile for a masculine presence and therefore that ruled me out. I wanted something more delicate.
Having completed the island however I felt very distant from the work and decided to return to Namibia to complete the first shoot. A key self-criticism was the lack of “power” and “presence”, in addition to loose composition and amateurish concern for detail. Looking at the prior work it felt shy and disjointed. (the second series, Mexico is exactly that, but worse and I keep it posted to remind myself what not to do until the entire series is completed). What came of that return is enclosed within a new brochure I am working on. It needs polishing, and based on the very helpful comments here, I now know exactly what images will be edited out. The comments to date (72 hrs) have really helped me with the notion of what to cut, not only in the brochure but the site, submissions, etc. Thanks to all (even those who never intended it) for helping sharpen that.
I’m not expecting to convert you to liking these pics, but seeing as you both picked up on something that concerned me as well, you are likely able to give an impartial assessment and see if you sense I’m on the right track. If and when you get a chance.
http://www.smithjan.com/pdfs/AyA1_lowrez.pdf
DAH, although a complete turnaround for me, as I said earlier, I think you should either kill the comments and make this a place to strictly showcase photographers, or make it Roadtrips II, a teaching tool and social gathering spot.
Will it work as the former? I don’t know. But I really don’t think it’s working very well as the latter. It’s clearly, to me, better as a magazine than as a forum, though. I’m not sure from what you’ve said that you really want to invest your limited time on a forum.
Jim, you change your opinion frequently, why are you so confident with this one?
People need to come to grips with the key success criteria for the operating model.
1.) Does this place attract talent with regards to photographic submissions? Is that increasing?
2.) Does this place attract readership? Is that increasing?
3.) Does this place attract a community of contributors in non-photographic ways? Is that increasing?
4.) Do the people that submit work wish for comments to be switched off? Is that attitude changing?
No one knows the secret to success, but the secret to failure is trying to please everyone.
Sure not all commentary is perfect, no one starts off perfect, but everyone learns from practice. People need to learn to speak about photography, that’s not going to happen any other way than the way its happening now.
this constant toggle of ‘to comment’ or ‘not to comment’ is absolutely exhausting. Unless the success criteria changes, or i don’t understand it, then i don’t see easily an alternative.
i am responding to the above in the ´dialogue – times and timing´thread
:ø)
d
Jan:
I apologize that I haven’t had an opportunity to write anything more substantial or lucid that my initial comment on Friday evening. I was mired in another post and frankly quite Burned out…still am, so take this with a grain of salt please. I enjoyed reading your responses to the discussions born of your photograph and technique, be that a direct relationship or an ancillary one. And herein lay the crux of the problem when people (and you are not the first one) attempt to create an architecture for how Burn should work. But that architecture, as sound and as wise and as generous as you’ve articulated, is bound to fail, from the entropy of discussion/dialogue, but also from a more simple truth about conversatio. (more about that in a second).
first, about the photograph and the series. This photograph, above almost all of the pics from your ‘decay’ series (that’s my name/thought for it), is the most powerful. Primarily because the iconography is filled with lots of beautiful collision that doesnt rest upon one motif (the body in movement or an apparition). Here the tension between her body’s movement (the soul-wing tail of her evaporation/decay) in tension with the stillness of her face, her expression, her pieta way of holding herself is not only delicate but haunting. I’m in the throws of re-reading Master and Margerita, but the image has tremendous resonance for me: the thin line of yielding tension between the body in movment and her caught/trapped/enraptured face is equisite. Most of the other body pics which photograph you or women in movement do not have the same emotional or tactile tension for me, because the exposure and movement seems to prioritize itself over the visual tension. Moreover, the relationship between her (especially as a nude) and this rain-licked, time-chewed, dust-lapped building evokes even more lush and visual associations. Strangely, this collision, this pairing makes more sense to me than some of the other pairings. It’s an example of:” when something works, all the gears click, and it doesn’t all the gears gring.
Moreover, this image, and a few others, take both Woodman (as I wrote initially) and Bacon and update, removing the body to the exterior to set up another relationship. Woodman’s entire work is about her physical presence articulating and encorcelling space, the way her older male model (henry?, i forget his name now, as im typing at school and dont have her books in front of me), articulated and shaped the glass box and mirror he was draped over. Her work is about negotiated landscapes: the imposition of her own inner logic against the confinding exterior: we shape the land. I’ve written about this before (for Patricia) but your work it seems to me is the exact opposite, maybe born out of your Travel photography. I see your bodies (you and the models) as being shaped by the space around and a feeling or negotiation of that. Your bodies enliven the space or make it more vacant, ironically. when it works, it’s sublime. for me, not all the photographs work as either an extended metaphor or as imagery. Mostly because sometimes the long exposures seem less emphatic but more a gimmic. Notice Bacon or Woodman, we ‘remember’ them strangely as blur often, both both use movement or disheleved movement very sparingly. That’s the thing about having bodies with movement and exposure rates: it often hits us in the gut, but it too can undo us. I would love to see more of a variety, a balance between both stillness and disappearance. Entropy impacts so much because we know it came from solid forms and will again return to solids…make sense?? :))…
as for the note about hijacking/contribution/providing feedback/dialogue. Well, I respect tremendously what you have written but disagree with almost all of it with regard to Burn. I spend a lot of time talking about photography with photographers (way too much, if truth be told): with my wife, her self a great photographer, friends, colleagues, students etc. I also spend a lot of time looking at photo books with people and sharing with people who come over to our apartment and not one time as discussion born of a particular work been linear or ‘clean’ or ‘managed.” the truth is that conversation, like photography, is an elipse, a river that meanders and circles back upon itself and breaks out into a hundred tributaries of thought and conversation and idea: the way the internet spreads and fans connectivity and ideas and connections. We CAN NOT manage or prescribe how a photograph or essay is discussed. It not only is an anemic prescription but it is not truthful.
some people are able to articulate how they feel and why they feel (good or bad) about work. some cannot. some have the background or training or experience to talk about work, both the specifical technical and process issues as well as the metaphoric or ideological or icoonographic elements in work. Some people cannot. some people are older, younger, have worked longer, worked less, some have a wider familiarity with a wider range of photography/photographers some do not. The fact is that dialogue does not depend on symmetry but upon communication, upon expression, upon articulation and difference. If people discuss the same and provide the same feedback/ideas, all becomes stilted. More importantly, photography inspires and gives rise and birth to different things. Conversation is infectious and it IS NOT A DISSERVICE to you or your work if people talk or chatter about other things or get sidetracked. It is the fecundity of photography and BURN that allows for this free and freeing flow of ideas and words and thoughts.
I try my damnest to address the merits of each essay/photograph and provide my own thoughts. also, I am not always sure that anything I have ever written has helped a single photographer here. When my own essay was shown, some of the things people wrote made me re-think (both reinforce or reject) some of my own ideas for the essay, but much much of what i put into my work, in terms of the projects and the thinking about them, goes long and hard. All work is a failure but that failure is the nature of our learning and our expanding. I think a photographer learns only when they are open, not jsut to comments on a blog or a magazine or teacher or friend or colleague, but most importantly, when they are open to their own sense of failure and learning. They’re attempt to understand how and why things happen, especially as they work and live.
Yes, it might serve a purpose if photographers have a little box of questions they wish to be answered/discussed. But then what? the questions get answered in a myriad of ways and then a different discussion bubbles up, like the opera diva’s dying bubbles….see, you cannot define or constraint conversation and discussion.
I don’t know, Maybe, as a photographer, i place the importance of my own work and working habit in a much simpler box. I work. I think, I share and I have conversation. Publishing at Burn, like publishing anywhere or having gallery exhibitions (both of which i’ve done), remains the same. It’s fun to engage your work, it’s fun to allow people to have at it, but seriously, your and all of our thoughts for the work cannot live or die based on what others say or the response from others or whether or not they meet your prescribed notion of pedagogy or analysis or respect. That must live, in the end, with yourself, in the quiet of night, when no one else on the planet gives a fuck about the work except you.
I totally am exhausted with the nay-sayers and for the people that put up boundaries and definitions of Burn. I think the brilliance of this magazine is that it allows for all folk, all perspectives, all mannter of doing things. I do not understand why time and time again Jim questions the legitimacy and efficacy of comments. How abut this: the comments are instructive for those who see/view them as and they are not for those who see/view that as not. They, at least to me, are simply conversations. As in a home, a bar, a class, a loft, when people gather to talk about work, period. and guess what, that includes photographers and non-photographers alike.
that this pictures’ comments have frun the gambit from discussion of your work (including the technicalities of it) from ‘wow, cool’ to an evocation of Foucault (god damn, and I thought Herve and I were the only ones ever to evoke him at Road Trips ;)) ) to the praise of Marcin (hurrah!) to the argument between you and kathy and the love fest between kathy and gracie is just that:
IT IS LIFE…and photogrpahy is about that…the narrative of our lives…
i hope that makes sense….people, let us stop managing the curvaceous rhyme of the talk and allow it to flutter in all it’s beauty and blistering obnoxiousness….
otherwise, for good or ill, silence = death…..well, at least at burn ;))
running
bob
Joe, I’ve only changed my opinion once on this, after seeing the way it is evolving. This could easily get to be way more than DAH wants to deal with. It will be interesting to see where he goes with this.
Jan, Burn is a brilliant concept. We’ll see if a working photographer that also spends a lot of time doing workshops, really wants to do this very long. Removing the comments would make his job much easier, I suspect.
Opps, sorry. That was Bob I was responding to.
JOE….
i think there are many alternatives…but, yes yes the dialogue on WHERE/HOW to have dialogue might be “exhausting” for you, but i think it part of the process of tweaking this out just right…it is actually more of a tech problem than a philosophical one because the dialogue when edited down a bit turns out to be quite amazing…by year’s end we just need a dialogue editor…the compiled best will i promise you will be substantial in nature….incidentally, everything we do as photographers (editing, layout, shooting in the first place) is “exhausting”…or, rejuvenating depending on your point of view , personality etc…so, please just bear with this topic just a wee bit longer..thanks…i want it over too…
you said it right…trying to please everyone is the secret to failure…am i supposed to be some kind of customer service representative trying to please customers??? ouch!! even in selling my work, i do not do that, so i will not do it here either…however, constructive ideas are always welcomed…and you have come up with one of the very best..should have been obvious to me, but it took you to kick it off…now i will go look at your edit of Michael…i will comment on your edit under his essay…i am looking forward to you as being one of the guest editor/writers…
cheers, david
JIM….
my participation in the comments is totally voluntary…i can skip them if i want, and i often do….but, like everyone else i have curiosity….and , as i said yesterday, the comments do make me write more than i might otherwise and hopefully some of it is helpful…good comments create other good comments….as i mentioned above to Joe, i think it is more a matter of where they are and/or how good they are….an easy alternative is to have a comment editor as would exist in any print magazine….but, this leans towards censorship (or, does it?) and may be counterproductive to the online experience…what do you think?? would this help?? would this hurt??
cheers, david
Jim:
I agree with you 100% on that one! :))…and i think Burn is still evolving…and eventually the comments will take care of themselves, as they do know…the REAL need now is to lighten David’s Editorial/Selection process time…and with the eventual advent of guest editor/writers, that will go a long way….im a working photog too (though not the world traveler/workshop extraordinaire teacher david is), and there is still time to write, look, read burn and then on to business…and i’ve a wife and son ;))…it’s time management ;))…for me, that means: morning before and breaks..
plus, Burn wont last forever….but while it lasts, let it ignite and burn ;))
running
b
JIM :))
I agree with you 100% on that one! :))…and i think Burn is still evolving…and eventually the comments will take care of themselves, as they do know…the REAL need now is to lighten David’s Editorial/Selection process time…and with the eventual advent of guest editor/writers, that will go a long way….im a working photog too (though not the world traveler/workshop extraordinaire teacher david is), and there is still time to write, look, read burn and then on to business…and i’ve a wife and son ;))…it’s time management ;))…for me, that means: morning before and breaks..
plus, Burn wont last forever….but while it lasts, let it ignite and burn ;))
gotta run…
b
at the least the comments have built side contacts with many of the contributors here..
to me the most important thing here is associations.. companions.. like minds.. connections..
thats where the hidden value of this site is..
as a new photographer, the longer you spend here the more possibilities arise..
i wish somewhere more like this had existed many years ago.. there is a tangible head-start for people willing to connect with the comments sections.
BOB….ALL
as per our e-mail discussion, i really want you Bob to be the Editor of guest writing/editing for the essays…you can pick and choose your team….some of Jim’s fears that i will Burnout with overload have some merit…shifting a bit of the work load to others who are so inclined to participate would not only relieve me a bit, but would simultaneously add to what we can do here….
a combo of work now coming into Submissions and the incredible work coming in for the EPF have given us the most amazing amount of potential content….i swear we have more content available now than do most print magazines…no joke….i could update five times a day or run BURN for two years at the current pace even if nobody else submitted anything….but it takes editors to make it happen…and one of the primary questions i have is exactly that: how often should we update? one essay per week? two? or, just whatever works?? and i have not even begun to tap into the world of the so called iconic photographers who also want to participate on BURN..it is just a matter now of hours in the day for me to work on BURN…the potential is actually quite staggering…we have created a monster!!! i need an aspirin please….
i see for POTENTIAL(i have not asked them) editors, besides yourself…Young Tom ,Erica, Joe, Akaky,Patricia….Anton is already my right hand man….some editors could be primarily for text, some more for pictures, some for both….there will be a bit of trial and error, but why not give it a try??? salaries for these editors are at the low end!!! with me being at the lowest!!
anyway, let’s see how it feels…and please raise your hand if you feel i missed you or you want to help us out….nothing set in stone…just talking off the top of my head…..
cheers, david
always the offer here david – hour or 2 a day if needed..
d
DAVID BOWEN..
yes, yes and yes..you have just made the most OBVIOUS POINT that many of us know, but many do not….the number of photographers i have met here and then met in person is, well, quite amazing….with a whole lot of seriously good times thrown in there….i mean lots…..as a matter of fact, i cannot even now travel anywhere in the world without someone here from BURN joining me for dinner, helping me with my work, me editing for them, shooting together, in short becoming real friends…Patricia, Panos, Bob, Erica, Rafal, Audrey, Herve, Anton, Cathy, Jason, and who else??, who many think were my friends before Road Trips and Burn, were all folks i met right here and later met in person in various parts of the world…and dozens of others who i meet casually just about everywhere and at photo fests etc…i will soon meet you David, and Ben, and Joe, and Paul and Marcin and Jim and Katia and Sidney…Akaky refuses to meet me!!!….i love the camaraderie.. not the “nut” of BURN, but a very pleasant “spinoff” indeed….
thanks for the reminder….
cheers, david
p.s.
you posted simultaneous….can we Skype tomorrow???
it´s an astonishing thing – took me years to build up a network internationally and now.. offers from everywhere..
a mate and i are hoping to set up a few flat swaps for summer times.. swap countries..
offers abound from europe to the u.s. and now even have a place in calcutta through bodo.. a great guy.
without comments we would be unaware of each other..
:ø)
d
dah.. more working going on here.. and probably more to talk about.. a new link was sent with a further 125 photos for you to enjoy.. anytime you can .
pea´s.
d
yes please on the skype tomorrow – i will be scanning all day and stuck in front of the screen..
excited..
i have an idea or three.. many actually..
:ø)
Sorry to be part of hijacking Jan’s thread for this discussion but don’t know where else to go. I’m afraid “times and timing” and “welcome to burn” have become the primary platform for one person’s originally-funny-but-now-tedious Greek play. So I’ll simply say what I need to say here…
I love Burn. The quality and diversity of work shown here intrigues and often stretches me. Exploring the websites of the photographers whose work is chosen has been a real learning experience. There are lots of people here whom I am delighted to call my friends, including DAH. From the start I have been a vocal proponent of the comments section being placed under each essay and selected photograph. Now I’m not so sure that is working.
More and more of late the discussions are dominated by a handful of individuals who seem to have their own agendas and needs. The same topics crop up in almost every set of comments, no matter what the photo or essay that is supposedly being discussed/critiqued. Because these topics are introduced in provocative, often confrontational, ways they seem to trigger the same angry responses from the same people time after time. And there it goes…into circles of unproductive back-and-forth postings between two maybe three people. Occasionally there might be a jewel or two hidden in the mix, but trying to find it is an exercise in frustration. Besides which, it takes an inordinate amount of time.
And then there are the insults. Well, I’ve posted my feelings about these personal “critiques” before. Suffice it to say, they are not only nonproductive but disrespectful to all concerned, including the general readers on Burn.
So what to do? How to make Burn the world class online magazine it deserves to be? The work shown is, for the most part, world class but are we? And if we aren’t, how to remedy that?
I don’t know. I personally have taken to being primarily a viewer of the selected photos and essays but not a reader of the comments. Until this morning, I’d read only two comments here since last Saturday, one by DAH and the other by Jan Smith. So that’s an option.
I guess another option would be to have a comments moderator. David Bowen has offered 1-2 hours a day of his precious time to help Burn and he certainly has the maturity and balance to handle such a job. Maybe we should try it and see what happens. But first we’d need to develop a set of clear, concise guidelines for posting comments. And those would need to be posted in the menu so everyone could read them.
I close by saying that I hope we can work out this comments business in a way that respects the photos and essays, each photographer whose work is published here, and all who visit whether or not they ever post a comment. We all know that online communication is an evolving medium and one that each of us is responsible for making ever more effective, honest and respectful. Burn is a good place to try to get it right.
Patricia
David :)))
yes, of course, i will do this for you :)))…and i dont need a salary as you know :))…when u get back, let’s figure out a way to make this happen…i think a list to include would also be Tom, Chris, Joe, David B, Erica, Akaky, Patricia, HERVE(!!!), Sidney…and i would like to see, believe it or not, Jim do some of the lifting, bring to the table that experience, would pay off :))…
ok, will write u this afternoon…
running
David:
sorry, im still having trouble with this Spam stuff….and each time i post something new, it gets filtered….i guess i’ll have to use Anton’s signon…anyway
yes, of course, i will do this for you :)))…and i dont need a salary as you know :))…when u get back, let’s figure out a way to make this happen…i think a list to include would also be Tom, Chris, Joe, David B, Erica, Akaky, Patricia, HERVE(!!!), Sidney…and i would like to see, believe it or not, Jim do some of the lifting, bring to the table that experience, would pay off :))…
ok, will write u this afternoon…
running
dimas dad.. love it… avoid that..
spamspamspamspam
spamittyspaaaamspamittyspaaaaam
:ø)
David B
think you have been sucked into the vortex of scanland
happy travels
ian
Jan:
I used “grapple” as a verb to mean the issues you are struggling with. Grapple is just visually a bit different for me. Not hook, no, never hook. But more like wrestling with something in a deeply personal way. I can’t speak for Gracie’s use of the word. I just found it significant that she and i used the same word within moments of each other. I will look at the link you attached but it will be later as i am really busy all day, k? It is enlightening that some of the work on your site that guided me in my comment to you is “old” and yes, seeing an update would be very interesting, especially since i invested pretty much every scrap of myself in my comment to you and have woken up wondering, doubting if i did your work justice. Always a problem for me, second-guessing myself, wondering, worrying if my comments were born out of enduring observations or my mood at the time. That’s why i usually comment on a published work way down in the thread. i take a lot of time to mull it over, weigh my own impressions against the influence of other stresses, energy levels, even the natural invigorating light of morning versus the somber artificial light when i process my photos. My impressions have to survive temporary states of mind and mood. Sometimes my impression is solidly pro or con and i go with that. But usually the work here is so layered and complex that i would not do it justice if i just let fly with my initial gut reaction.
Bob Black:
Jan, i don’t know if this constitutes “hijacking”, please forgive me..i don’t even know anymore what hijacking is or isn’t..:((
I agree with just about everything you said here about comments/conversation. I used to go to another blog that featured really good photography and photographers. But there was no conversation to speak of, just five word grunts in reply to most photographs. It was so stifling that i considered it more like a duty than a joy to visit that site. Burn was/is a joy but the sense i get that some would very much like to polish or moderate the comment function is worrisome. Be that as it may, i have zero to say about how this site is run. If rules are made or those who wish for more “productive” (whatever that means) commenting cause such significant changes that the atmosphere becomes stagnant then, like water, i would simply flow elsewhere. As would others more inclined to spontaneous styles of interaction. We all will go where we feel most comfortable and where our voices are met if not with agreement, at least not by hostility. I could not possibly stifle the way i interact with photographs. I could moderate my tone i suppose but i would not compromise the integrity of my viewing experience to accommodate a restricted commenting protocol.
As far as the “love fest” between Gracie and me…huh? Gosh, i see you guys falling all over each other on a daily basis, making plans to meet here, share drinks there, back-slapping each other from here to China and it would not occur to me to use the expression “love fest”. I think women here might, aside from Patricia, tend to feel a little left out sometimes, which is why i bonded with Gracie. It’s heartwarming to receive a nod, a wave, a few warm words from someone while negotiating these rather complicated and sometimes treacherous Burn waters. Crap, you folks think it might be daunting for a new photographer to submit work here?!? Well try to be a new writer at Burn! Especially one without a five page PJ/photo editor/author/newspaper editor published a thousand times/professor/Magnum cum Laude resume in her hand. Bob, I get that you are lobbying for free expression and for that you have my heartfelt appreciation as a kindred voice. But if Gracie and i want to high-five each other in a somewhat more girlie way than you and DAH, i don’t really see that as a love fest.
And as for the fight between Jan and me. We didn’t fight. He was up front about his objection to my aside to Marcin. I met him more than halfway by seriously involving myself in his work and responding to it. Fair is fair and he and i have established an extremely fertile ground for future communications. So, if that’ was a fight, oh man, well it makes some of my other altercations look like the clash of the Titans.
But yes, i think Burn should accommodate interaction that is not cookbook perfect and that occasionally erupts because of the significant creative/intellectual/life energy that flows out of every single person here. And i TOTALLY agree with you in philosophy and practice. But please don’t pigeon-hole my interactions here as some sort of extreme. Crap, i am having a difficult enough time acclimating to things here as it is.
Kathie
BOB….
your choices sound fine to me….i am for whatever works…what is not working is whatever blocks are on your computer or our system…let me check to see if anything is being held up in our filter, but i do not think so….so weird that only you get blocked here …..
cheers, david
BURN
1) To undergo combustion
2) To feel or look hot
3) To inflame
Of course there needs to be boundaries to prevent wild fire but a thorough dousing by rules and protocol can make for pretty soggy combustion.
best
kat~
DAVID,
a Burn editor, i have no idea what that means, but it sounds like it will take loads of my time up, put me at the risk of crisism and ridicule, and not pay anything, hmmm… sounds interesting, please count me in.
:-)
edit ‘critisism’ :~)
Guys, why can’t you put what you say in a few lines? This above is one of the most boring bunch of posts ever on BURN. I can’t for the life of myself, ask Panos to stop ranting and start doing serious reviews here, same for Bob, telling him that his elliptical style veers way off from the essay, or that he has no business bringing constantly his family in as if they were BURN’s Holy trinity… :-))))
No one has to read the comments, or every comment. Maybe in the welcome to B, we can remind readers that, but talk about patronizing. I tell you something, myself, I never read long unparagraphed texts. I just did with these above and it confirmed to me it’s, well, it’s mostly unedible! Like too much food, but being chewed up in front of you….
Paragraph your texts, for Godsake! it will help you see what is pure verbose or going-ons, what should be shortened while saying as much, and get rid, hopefully, of the superfluous.
Love you all!