September 2006 Archives

Wrap-up day

Fits and spurts.. that's what freelance is all about; or at least has been for me, even in my fourth year. Last week began with plans to work on a couple of different personal projects, including the Everglades essay that I began describing. But within 24 hours that totally changed, and I ended up shooting for 5 different clients over 8 days of work in 3 states. It's all finished now, and I'm excited to have ended up shooting for a couple of new magazines through my agency in the process. I also wrapped up work on another story for People Magazine that I've shot bits and pieces of for more than 2 months -- and quite honestly, am glad not to shoot anything else connected to that particular story for a long, long time.

And so after the quick burst of work in the last 10 days, today is a wrap-up day, in which I mostly just bang away getting the rest of my files captioned, JPEG'd, transmitted, and archived; get my new invoices squared away, receipts collected, and faxed to Redux; and get my apartment and life back in a little bit of order; remembering to buy presents for family and flowers for the girl.

For some reason, I get a strange sense of pleasure in the wrap-up day. Its the same sort of sensation as crossing off the last items on an especially long to-do list. And that weird ambition that I have in getting the business and logistics end of this job done is something that I've come to appreciate and nurture more and more. You learn as a freelance photographer that everything but the shooting is really what you spend most of your time on, and having the drive to be efficient and professional in getting on top of all of that other stuff, is an easy and smart way to put yourself a step ahead of other photographers who are slow and lazy in finishing off their assignments.

While away this week, wandering through Houston's giant grid of highways and shopping malls, I meant to write a bit about doing out of town assignment work, but never got around to it. There would not have been much to share about my time in South Carolina and Texas this week, as I really didn't do much other than get what my clients needed, and lay low. I was reminded, once again, how exhausting business travel, with all of the gear and logistics, hurry up and waiting, can become. And I feel this way despite having worked really hard to get to a point when some of my clients are convinced of my skills enough to send me out of your own backyard. But after a long weekend of work, very little sleep Sunday night, and a early, early flight up to Charlotte on Monday morning, I was totally exhausted by the time that I got to Houston later that night and found my hotel.

And as my 3rd set of gold DVDs get burned this afternoon, I'll look forward to the new egg timer on waiting for the next spurt and call from my agency and clients. It's OK if it takes a bit of time... I have the 3rd season of The Wire to get through.

Ha ha. Well, that was premature...

Not 20 seconds after I wrote that last paragraph, I got a call from another client. I'm heading to Minneapolis for the next few days for ESPN the Magazine...

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4x4

File under: Pictures that make me smile.

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Waiting for the Man

In my opinion the long-term project, documentary or otherwise, is the most important and difficult form of photography. Hence my passion for them, and Blueeyes, etc. etc. But as hard as I believe projects are to create and work on as a freelancer -- getting access, finding the time, the money, the motivation, getting solid feedback, pushing yourself to go back again and again, not giving up, making images that mean something, etc. -- what has been consuming my mind lately is the arguably even more challenging/frustrating task of pitching your ongoing or completed project, your labor of love, to a client for publication.

What makes this a huge sticking point for me is that I don't believe photography is valuable unless it is seen by as many people as possible. Photography as a means of mass communication can only be powerful if it completes its role as such. And I'm not interested in being involved with photography outside of a role where its effects are powerful... fuck that. Photography shot and then never shared is worth absolutely nothing to anyone other than the photographer, who may have learned something from the experience and journey taken. Strictly speaking, and I think we've gotten further and further away from this as there has been so much less editorial space given to long-term project work in magazines and newspapers, photographers must and should do everything they can to get their images seen.

But what does that entail... how many compromises, or absolute injustices, can be allowed for until the project, finally published, is only a shadow of its original form. If we all want as many people to see our work as possible, does that mean we should all pitch everything we have to the Associated Press? The New York Times? To People? To some internet zine who may allow for the most editorial control, but pay nothing? What is the fucking answer?

These questions make my head spin, but what I've come up with for myself is a varied approach that allows for the project to remained focused, but its parts to be used in multiple ways. That sentence probably doesn't make sense -- but what I mean is that when I begin working on a big project (which is pretty much the only kind of projects that I'm doing currently) I immediately break that project down into pieces that represent different segments and issues. Within each of these segments I often find that there are specific stories that may be very pitchable to one of my clients, even if the entire project would get no attention at all because the idea is just way too big for them to consider. With the Everglades project there are more than a dozen different segments that I'm working on, and I've broken each part further down into a couple of specific story ideas that can be spun in any number of ways to a business magazine or a lifestyle client. The sum result, if this is done smartly, I hope, is to create ways for your personal projects to be supported and profitable (at least in some small way) while also becoming a resource for interesting new story ideas for your client.

And that's the name of the game. As I've come to see it, the currency in the photography industry is not talent nearly as much as it is relationships... and relationships are often flamed and formed based on unique and well researched story ideas. Instead of waiting by the phone for someone to call with a really great story to shoot, finally, many of us decide that we will find our own ideas.

Over the past several weeks I've been pitching several story proposals, both through my agency and by my own efforts, connected to segments of my personal projects which are newsworthy because of an upcoming event or anniversary. I wish that I could report that I've found a home, or multiple homes for each proposal... but that is not the case. However, finally this week I was able to land one of my ideas with Newsweek and will be shooting it for them as the story develops. I knew that pitching stories was hard, but I was shocked to hear one of my editors at Newsweek, who helped me pitch it, tell me that mine was the first pitch of his the editor has ever accepted that came from a photographer. Holy shit. I would feel proud if that idea wasn't so depressing. I know the reasons have way more to do with the role of writers vs. photographers (staff vs. freelance) and who is expected to come up with the stories that fill each publication... but its obvious that photographers at large need to be more serious and more determined to find stories that are smart, timely, specific, and original for their clients. Maybe then it will be easier for all of us to get our projects some love and respect.

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Correction

In an e-mail from my mom this morning (Happy 35th birthday, ma! wink, wink), I have learned that some facts from my previous post about my Everglades project need to be set straight.

Here is my mom's corrected version of the events of my childhood and our family's long history in Miami as it concerns my interest and connection to the Glades, from her e-mail:

As a kid growing up in Miami......and into early adulthood......[Denise] went to the Everglades quite a bit. Both with school fieldtrips.....and with family, we would go to the everglades......often times to the Miccosukkee Indian reservations, where I was
fascinated by the people, the colors, the smells and the art. I always remember feeling somehow connected to this culture since, even then, I knew that part of my distant heritage was American Indian (although at the time I did not know what tribe). I also certainly remember our jaunts into the Everglades on airboats,
fascinated by the wildlife in abundance there.....so close in proximity to my home (the big city....or so I thought). I remember the alligator wrestlers, the roadside stands where back then you could buy almost anything made of alligator hide. So, the Everglades was a part of our lives growing up.....we knew it was always there......different but very much a part of our Miami.

Leave it to mom to set the record straight! Well, my mom's passion for the Everglades is surely in my blood... and there is even more reason for my project.

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In progress: Everglades I

South Florida Water Management District scientists drive along the Southeastern rim of Lake Okeechobee on the Hoover Dike, which was constructed around the entire lake to control water levels and flow. Scientists test the water at different stations every day around the lake.

Of all the long-term projects that I'm currently working on, none of them is as ambitious or logistically daunting as the Florida Everglades. Not only is it huge physically, but its politics, restoration efforts, and history is so immensely complex that its nearly impossible to figure out where to begin trying to understand it... other than actually just running head on into the monster and starting, which is exactly what I've done.

But why? The River of Grass is like no other place on Earth, and the history of it, as I've come to learn through a lot of research, is really the history of not only the state of Florida, but also metaphorically of man's dominion over nature, and fight to bend all lands to their "good use." As a kid growing up in Miami, I don't think my family ever went there (it was then, and is still now, thought of mostly as a barren and strange other world) but I fostered a fascination about the Everglades that was heightened during the 90's when Clinton passed the historic deal to try and save it for all future generations. And that is what is so amazing about the Everglades to me... it has this incredible story arch... from waste land that stood in the way of the riches of progress and development to an international environmental treasure that must be protected and returned to nature at any cost.

So, where to begin then? Having already learned some lessons from my ongoing work documenting the development boom in Miami (a project which is also deeply connected to Glades politics and restoration), I decided to begin by looking at the current efforts at restoration, and then work my way back to the actual park and how its being protected and enjoyed by millions each year. In short, I decided to basically go at the ugly end of the stick first -- far from alligators and air boats -- and make some friends with the many different organizations who are committed to restoration. My first call was to the South Florida Water Management District.

At the very beginning it was VERY slow going. Proposing a big story is hard almost everywhere, and doing so as a freelance photographer is much harder even still. But trying to get people to take me seriously that I wanted to do a multi-year, long-term project on the Everglades and the many different aspects to the current state of restoration... well, it wasn't easy. Eventually the best way to prove my seriousness was to show up in person. I kept in touch, and did whatever I could to be professional... and when I was given access to a media event early on... one that was several counties away and very early in the morning, I showed up and proved I was willing to make a big effort to do this work. That was my ticket.

Since that morning, in which I photographed one of the hundreds of ground-breaking events that celebrate a new phase of construction in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERN), I've been steadily moving towards trying to get access to the major systems and projects that are being undertaken by a coalition of Federal and State groups, (SFWMD, Army Corps of Engineers, State of FL). But again, even now with some good contacts... its slow going. And here is the problem that I've now discovered with working on BIG projects: in order to create a body of work that looks at the whole issue and explains the complexity in an interesting way, you have to become an expert. Becoming one takes a lot of time.

And that's where I'm at now... I'm learning everything that I can. I get access to different sites to photograph different restoration efforts (different both in kind, and in visual scale and type... dirt is dirt, swamp is swamp; and you have to find ways to make things separate visually) and I ask a ton of questions about how this thing is related to that thing, how the amount of water flow here affects there, what each scientist thinks is the most interesting part, and the most visual part. And then I ask more questions. When photographing I let my mind wander and explore how to make each single piece as visually arresting as possible because I know that it'll be combined with a lot of other "process" images that need to engage the sense in order to move the viewer forward.

SFWMD scientist Pat Essex examines a sample of water for its phosphorus content at pump station S-2 on the Southern rim of Lake Okeechobee. Phosphorus is a critical indicator of health in the Everglades, and has been a major focus of restoration efforts.

Next week I'll head back up to Okeechobee, this time on the north side, to take a first look at one of the most fascinating single projects involved with the Everglades restoration: the re-crooked-ing of the Kissimmee River, which feeds into the lake and was once one of the most winding and confusing bodies of water in the nation, absolutely teeming with wildlife, until the Army Corps made it straight as an arrow to try and control its water flow and flooding, much as they have with the Mississippi. After spending millions and millions to make it straight, they are spending billions to make it crooked again. And amazingly, as the project reaches its second stage, its already working and the wildlife has rebounded in an incredible way. A crooked to a straight to a crooked river again... god I love Florida.

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Project bullshit

I went to journalism school... and in journalism school, especially at Missouri, everyone was always working on something.

"So what are you working on?"

"A year and a half ago."

That's basically how it went. I know this because I've said something similar dozens of times... while in school, later to friends and family members, and now during my trips to NYC to meet with my editors and clients. I haven't spent much time in other journalism schools, but I'm relatively sure that they teach the same art of bullshit everywhere. This happens in orientation... way before the first day of class.

Here is a short list of projects that I've been "working on" previous to moving down to Miami in the beginning of 2006: Baptism and religion in America's South, the legacy of Tobacco in rural North Carolina, a long-term project on fatherhood, a long-term project on Superfund sites, a portrait essay on Day Laborers... I'll end it there because its already depressing enough.

So, after learning or otherwise becoming capable of trying to fool myself and anyone else who cared to listen while in college, its taken me a long time to beat the shit out of myself enough to wake up and focus my efforts. Part of it is just the natural process of becoming more mature and responsible about finding meaning in my life and work. Part of it is truly getting so sick over the images I desperately wanted to make, but didn't know how to start. A lot of it has been over coming my fears that I wouldn't be able to do well the kind of work that I deeply loved. But on the other side of all of the project bullshit I've heard and spoken, I'm now finally beginning to create a life for myself that is actually dedicated to doing the work I care the most about.

This year I've been able to push the needle somewhere closer to 50/50 (personal projects/work) for the first time, and to that end I'm currently in the middle of shooting more than a half-dozen major projects of various types. The results have been very slow in coming, but they are starting to build up, and I can already see the enormous peace and pleasure that I'll have created for myself on the other side of completing the work I've begun.

Tomorrow morning I'll be waking up early again and racing the dawn as I head North into the mouth of the Everglades to continue my project focusing on the River of Grass and the restoration of the 'Glades. Later this week I'll be writing the first of many posts discussing my interest in the project and my journey in trying to photograph a large and complex photography project.

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Cloudy

I subscribe passionately to the simple mantra of seeking and following the best light -- and where ever possible on my assignments I routinely can be found pleading with my subjects the day before a shoot to allow me into their lives very early or late into the day (sunrise or sunset) so that I can take advantage of the amazing light in South Florida. The cool part about this exchange has been sharing my reverence for these Golden Hours, as my former professor Kim Komenich used to say, with my clients, and finding out that some of them really get it for themselves and are awed.

But, that's not what this post is about. (See every Nat. Geo. book or DVD special on photographers for more information...)

I took this image through the giant windows of my loft early in the morning while I was getting ready to hit the road for an assignment up in central Florida a few weeks ago. The image is not really that interesting in any compelling way that I normally advocate... but there is something about it that has transfixed me. Part of it is simply the blessing of my life to have been witness to so many sunrises and sunsets as part of the regular course of my job. But another part is connected to a recent type of personal photography that I've been trying to create.

To explain, the whole thing started with the purchase of a new medium format camera -- which should sound as dumb to you as I promise that it is to me. Usually, I call all cameras of any brand, digital or film, simply a "tool." That's all it is... to paraphrase another college professor and mentor, David Rees, "a camera is nothing but a light-tight box with a hole in it that can be opened and closed."

However, medium and larger format cameras can produce very powerful results, on a personal level, for a photographer, especially one who has used 35mm nearly their entire professional life, when, upon looking at their first pictures shot with the new format, they find an incredible depth and clarity, and almost spirituality to the images. There is a whole lot of physics behind this, of course... larger negative sizes, smaller apertures, more detail, more depth, etc. But its a really powerful feeling, especially in connection to the early history of photography in which people sought to perfectly capture life in every detail and fold.

Anyway -- I bought a new camera, replacing a square format Hasselblad I had used for a few years, with a 6x7 rangefinder. Over the course of several months I shot with the camera here and there, to break it in and see how it wanted to be used. And off of every few rolls I'd find a picture that I didn't know why I even took, that just made me smile. Every month or so, there would be a new picture, and I'd immediately want to have someone make a giant fucking print of it for me so I could put it on my wall and just look at it. And like this cloud picture above, all of these images were extremely simple, often totally without people in them, and painfully direct. What I mean by direct is, and this is very obvious if you spend anytime looking through my work, especially recent work, that there is nothing between me and the subject, no compositional elements to frame or obscure the scene. Just the thing, right there, waving hello.

I guess the point is that sometimes it becomes really hard to make pictures for yourself. You should always be trying, no matter fucking what. But its difficult after you've been doing this for a long while to surprise yourself, especially with a kind of work that you've never been interested in before, and I'm excited to be slowly pulling together a group of pictures that have only one criteria: make me happy.

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Dead Man 2.0

Drinking with a Dead Man was first published in the spring of 2004, and, after enduring a short run of abstract rambling, it quickly joined the half-dozen other blogs (There is Water at the Bottom of the Ocean, Attention Must Be Paid, Shine, Blueeyes, 6'1, etc.) that I've enjoyed pulling the plug on since the beginning of college. And now much like Jesus, who, funny story, I recently met, and after way more than 3 days, I'm excited to bring this old blog back to life and perhaps learn a few new tricks with its help.

Dead Man 2.0 will be a lot different than its previous version -- especially because there will be absolutely no stream-of-conscious writing, fiction or otherwise. What I will be focusing on is creating a collection of my thoughts and difficulties surrounding my life as a freelance photographer living in Miami, Florida. I'm making this effort in an attempt to organize and find meaning and motivation through my experiences -- and If I happen to share a bit of advise to anyone else, super duper.

As a starting off point... this is who I am and what I'm doing:

John Loomis is a 26-year old freelance photographer based in his native Florida, working primarily for international magazine clients such as Newsweek, ESPN the Magazine, and People. While he works very hard to cultivate a list of clients and complete assignment work in as professional and interesting manner as possible, he is not nearly fulfilled by it, and dreams of bigger and better photojournalism assignments he hopes to land in the future. He is not nearly alone in this dream. John's main outlet for his deeper passion within photography is his work on long term documentary projects focused on social, political, and environmental issues. Also connected to his love for project work, he is the creator and editor in chief of a small but important online photography magazine called Blueeyes Magazine.

John lives in a swanky loft apartment in Miami's warehouse district with his very cool, supportive, and beautiful girlfriend. They remain petless. When not working on assignment or personal projects, John battles with immense boredom... often spending entire days watching old DVDs, obsessively checking news sites, his e-mail, and website stats, drinking coffee, bemoaning his lack of work with other freelance photographers, listening to music, going swimming, and reading novels and non-fiction works of various stripes. He recently re-read the complete stories of Sherlock Holmes for the 4th time.

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