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April 2007 Archives |
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Monday poem: E. E. Cummings |
April 30, 2007 |
Something short and sweet for the season and my friend Erin, who knows a lot better than I (eg. Prague vs. Miami) what the long-awaited joy of Spring means. E. E. Cummings | in Just- in Just- whistles far and wee and eddieandbill come when the world is puddle-wonderful the queer from hop-scotch and jump-rope and it's goat-footed balloonMan whistles |
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In Progress: Miami Boom I |
April 26, 2007 |
From deep within the affordable housing crisis in South Florida, a group of homeless people living in Miami's dangerous Liberty City neighborhood banded together to create an illegal shantytown on a vacant lot. The encampment, named Umoja and located on the northwest corner of NW 62nd St. and 17th Ave., celebrated 6-months of independent living from the city, along the way defeating several attempts to shut it down, last weekend with a block party and rally. What began as a protest to demonstrate the massive shortage of very-low and low income housing despite the incredible boom in development that Miami is experiencing, became a home to at least 4 dozen people, with a waiting list to boot, contrasting the thousands of new high-end condo units lining the Biscayne corridor. However and sadly, early this morning a candle accidentally started a fire amongst the tarps, trash, plywood, and shopping carts, and completely burnt the village down, again reuniting Umoja's residents with the more than 5,000 other homeless living in Miami. No one was hurt in the blaze, which rose nearly 100-feet high according to police. Many residents cited the complete lack of water as one of the reasons that the fire destroyed the small shantytown.
A Umoja resident (top) sleeps between discarded telephone poles that have been gathered near the shantytown after an early-morning fire burned the illegal encampment to the ground. Community members gather (above) at the scene of the fire and watch city crews begin to remove the burnt out remains with construction equipment. (Click on images for a larger version) After reading some of the NYT headlines early this morning online, I visited the Miami Herald homepage and saw a news alert about the fire... then quickly put on some shoes and headed over to Liberty City to see what had happened myself. In the early morning light the scorched earth was still steaming when I arrived and things were pretty tense between the media and the displaced residents of the shantytown. So I waited and listened to stories. I talked a bit with the small group of other media members there (a surprisingly small number... I was expecting a scene). And finally it was OK to start taking some pictures, even though I ultimately only made a few dozen (a nice relief since I've been lately burning up my shutter). I first read about Umoja months ago and immediately recognized its potential importance within my Miami Boom project (very much still in progress). I am still struggling to document the darker face of the development explosion, but this morning, and my subsequent return trips I plan to make in order to watch as the residents rebuild their camp (they seemed completely unified about this), was a step in the right direction. Knowing that upscale condos are helping to destroy the middle class of the city and push us further and further out into the Western suburbs (which of course shouldn't even exist because they are destroying the Everglades) still doesn't make it easy to figure out ways to photograph that slowly decline. Its much easier to photograph the giant new high rises and cranes filling the air, and that is what I've mostly focused on thus far with the project. My hopes are that I can get some of my clients interested in the "progress" part of the story, and fill in the "reality" part as I can.
What this morning teaches me is that you can't just wait around and be lazy because the opportunities to tell the human stories within a project like this can literally disappear overnight if you aren't careful. It also reminds me that I need to form a lot more connections in the community to learn about these issues as they are happening, not in the next day's newspaper. My main interest in the Miami Boom project is in connection with my frustration at how the business magazines report on financial news. Economics is what makes the world go round, and I've always felt that the business magazines should be filled with so much more than glossy, lit pictures of white dudes in suits. Who are those fuckers?, and how is it possible that we've continued to publish the same image over and over again? Why don't we spend more time actually looking at what their companies are doing and making, and how that is affecting millions of real people all over the world. Fortune does present some very cool stuff from time to time, and sometimes reporting on certain types of companies make anything but a CEO-approach impossible. But a lot of time, the difference is really just in ad revenue and laziness. How much easier is it to live with a format that just requires a new big face of a smiling CEO on your cover each month? Burnt remains litter the former site of the village (above), leaving only a hand-painted sign at the edge of the block reading "Take Back The Land" left to start over at Umoja.
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Monday poem: Billy Collins |
April 23, 2007 |
It seems appropriate to start with a poem by one of my favorite contemporary poets, writing about poetry, the trouble with creative acts that have no end, and stealing from others, for the inaugural post of a new feature I'm swiping from Alec Soth, whose Friday poems I've enjoyed for months. Really, its only borrowing, Mr. Soth, because you see these will be Monday poems. Monday. Not Friday; not the end of the week. Totally different. This selection is especially apt because Mr. Collins' incredible and simple (meant in the very best and most grateful way) work has lately re-energized my attention to poetry, which along with photography was one of the things that made my life in high school infinitely brighter.
The trouble with poetry, I realized the trouble with poetry is And how will it ever end? and there is nothing left to do Poetry fills me with joy But mostly poetry fills me And along with that, the longing to steal, And what an unmerry band of thieves we are, the bicycling poet of San Francisco |
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Peeling |
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I managed to get home from Cuba without scorching all of the skin off of my face, arms, and neck, but 2 long days at the Sun & Fun air show this week in Lakeland, FL, finally did me in and began the long, snake-like process of peeling. The air show was a lot of fun, but logistically challenging and not really that much up my alley photographically. Over the past few years I've grown ever more curious how some editors come to the conclusion that I'm a good pick for assignments including skills I don't really have in my tool box. We need a white seamless portrait on location... hmm, call Loomis. We need to shoot air-to-air beauty shots of ultra lightweight planes at an air show... yep, Loomis is our man! We need to photograph some thug rapper guy... see if that white guy, Loomis, is available. I love a challenge and have done pretty well on most of these left-field-jobs, so its been really fun, but the old joke "jack of all trades..." has never been that far out of my mind. In all fairness, Sun & Fun (which I shot for Popular Mechanics... directly as a result of my NYC trip!) was supposed to include more "reportage" of the air show itself but due to how difficult it was to get up in the air with some of the planes (too windy) I never had much time to poke around. Last week I received a survey in my inbox from a photography student somewhere abroad who was doing research on different careers. It was just a polite request to respond to a list of questions, and I had a few minutes so I was happy to oblige. That is until I started reading the list. It wasn't so much that they were bad questions or inappropriate, but the format and type made me angry. They were all very technical and practical... what kinds of equipment, what kind of schooling, what are 4 duties you perform in each day's work, etc. In short I didn't see my job within this survey at all. The kicker was the last prompt... "what do you enjoy about your job?" What is wrong with school that questions like that aren't first on the list? Especially surveys on creative fields! If that had been the first question, if the survey had been aimed at exploring passion and drive, then it would have been worth the effort. But as it was, I really don't think that photography is a worthwhile choice for a career unless there is a whole love of love involved, and even if I'm wrong a kid who loves photography doesn't need a survey to find it, or me for a little advice. Last week Judy and I finally got the apartment (and my business) back online after almost 2 months away. I'm not a Comcast fan, but I damn near hugged the technician when he came to the door for installation. Consequently, there will hopefully be a bit more posting going on at DwaDM... including the premier of a couple of new features that I'm stealing from my colleagues. Stay tuned. Posted to Misc. |
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On Assignment: Guantánamo Bay |
April 15, 2007 |
By definition, working on a military base as a journalist is pretty weird. Same with prisons. And also Caribbean islands (in my experience). But add those three together and you've got a very short list of places that are truly strange and surreal. At the very top is Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the oldest continuously used overseas naval base of these United States, covering 45 sq. miles of desert and water in Fidel's giant backyard, home of the famous holding cell for our war on terror, and the location of my assignment this last week for ESPN the Magazine. First the obvious question and answers. What in the hell does ESPN have to do with military prisons? Guantánamo Bay is a large base with a very small detainment camp, which I had no access to and was no part of my story. So it doesn't have anything to do with that. But the base itself, like every base, plays host to entertainers and athletes of every stripe for the troops to give them some relief from the stressful and confined work that they have signed on to complete. I was sent to Cuba to photograph a group of professional wakeboarders, one of which has a brother stationed in the Coast Guard at Guantánamo, who came down to put on some demos and spread the gospel of extreme water sports to some very excited fans. The week before last I got a call from one of my editors at the magazine, who has previously sent me on some very fun and challenging shoots (Goodyear blimp crew, Metrodome transformation) which began with the question: "So John, how is your criminal record?" Once the location “Guantánamo Bay” was spoken a few seconds later I was already sold no matter what, even though it meant re-scheduling a small portrait job. Sure, I thought it was an interesting story about two brothers and a very cool young sport, but I was really just thinking how fucking cool it would be to get the opportunity to see Guantánamo Bay in person. How many people get to do that? Very few; so I immediately started spitting out my personal stats to get the required clearance forms filled out. Getting to Cuba is not very easy these days. But getting to Guantánamo Bay is predictably an order of magnitude more difficult. There are only 2 large flights there and back each week, and to get there (even though I was already pretty close from my house in Miami) our group had to assemble in Jacksonville, FL, and fly out from the Naval Air Station. Our directions were to arrive to the base by 8 a.m. (0800) the day of the flight. So when we were still sitting on our thumbs at the crappy airport hotel 30 miles North of the base at 8:10, I was pretty nervous. Here is a good tip for other travelers in Jax: the taxis there are a complete joke, even when they are called 90 minutes ahead of time. By the time it did arrive, over an hour late, we were at serious jeopardy of missing Cuba altogether. Thankfully our group (5 pro boarders, 4 media members, 2 marketing dudes) made it to the base and onto the plane, and we began to form our little tribe which immediately, due to clothes and hair styles, stuck out wildly and elicited questions from other passengers like, "what's the name of your guys' band?" The flight down was on a large commercial jet that just like every other one you've ever been on, including the vaguely horrible in-flight movie, but as we banked very hard in our descent (because of a Cuban air space issue) and landed on an empty runway on the edge of the sea, it started to become real just how different Gitmo is, and isn't. Our days were filled with tours, meet and greets, and demos, shuttled in and out of the oppressive heat by our incredible go-to man Jaren. We saw all kinds of giant guns mounted on Humvees and viper boats on constant patrol and un-inviting layers of razor wire fencing interrupted by spartan observation towers. There was plenty of other, most of which I was not allowed to photograph (which I completely expected). But there was also a lot more same than most people know... McDonald's (Cuba’s only), cold beer, friendly bored people, rap music, beaches, recreation, cable television, bad jokes, relationships, decorative shot glasses in gift shops, etc. My editor joked about me enjoying my cot in the barracks, and that would have been just fine, but instead we were each put up in great little apartments that were truly a step-up from the La Quinta in Jacksonville. So the assignment was filled with this tension between "what the fuck" and "sweet, this is nice." Nearly each day the boys did their thing on the water (incredible and not just a little challenging to shoot) or spent time surfing or snorkeling on several of the local beaches, and each night we retired to a different restaurant or galley, kicked back and got to meet a lot of troops ranging from privates to the General, most of which could not have been more welcoming and thankful to have us there. Though we only saw a small and well-managed corner of the community, our contact with everyone was extremely rewarding. GTMO is a large place defined by a single small camp that has only recently been added, and may soon be gone again. For every Marine whose job it is to shackle and transport a detainee back and forth between their cells and an interrogation room, there are at least a dozen other Coast Guard, Army, Navy, and civilians who are primarily concerned with the state of the surfing or fishing that day. And all of them are pretty much just like you and I. I know it’s insanely obvious to even write those words, but having been there it's important to me to spell it out here. (Breaking News: Again life proves to be more complicated and rich than expected). Myself included, our whole group was extremely gratified to have the opportunity to connect with the soldiers out there. Dispite my respect for those stationed at Gitmo, and in addition to the us vs. them tension, as a journalist there was this strange pull about photographing a very different story in a place known so well, and so poorly, by newspaper readers. I was happy to do it and at the same time a little sad that my ticket to Gitmo was via wakeboarding, a sport that until I got this assignment I had almost no clue about. My attitude is conceited and dumb, but its how I felt as our van slowly passed (there is nearly a base-wide speed limit of 25 m.p.h.) camps and checkpoints. And at the same time the trip was really fantastic. The pros and other media members, including a writer for ESPN I worked with for the first, but hopefully not the last, time, were amazing to get to know and share laughs and a lot of sun with. We meshed in a special way over the week, creating a tribe with our own in-jokes, and on Saturday as we packed our bags we already had plans on how and when to come back for more days at Windmill Beach and nights at the Tiki Bar. It was one of those rare assignments that was as rewarding personally as it was professionally, and I am honored for the experience and connections made. To everyone: Alyssa, Tony, Matt, Jack, Keith, Mikey, Billy, Zane, Andrew, John, Justin, and all who helped us... thanks! Photographically I feel that I shot pretty well, not to mention a friggin' ton (3000+ frames), and was able to figure out the sport better each time we went out for a demo. Though I once did dream of becoming a big-time action sports photographer (yep), it was a challenge to get back into those shoes (and reflexes) to try and track the explosive energy of the boarders ramping off the wake a dozen feet or more into the air. My biggest regret was that I didn't have an underwater housing to use, because there was a very cool opportunity to shoot the wakeboarders from a tube pulled by the boat, on a longer cord than the wakeboarder, that I would have loved to try. The bigger difficulty of the assignment was ultimately trying to find the right context (considering our access) that showed we were in fact on a military base and not just somewhere like Costa Rica. Beyond my work for ESPN I hoped to bring back a sense of the community beyond the headlines, but as is often the case my time was too short and my job too specific. Maybe (and hopefully) next time. Posted to On Assignment |
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Dollars & sense |
April 7, 2007 |
Like a lot of other freelancers I know, I didn't enter into the editorial fray with a clear picture of photography as a business. It was everything else still when I left college and started my professional career... a calling, a mission, a refuge, freedom, an art, a passion, and a friend. Luckily, it’s still some of those nice things for me at various times, but first and foremost it is a business and I, as owner and president of John Loomis Photography, LLC, am the head of a corporation. That still doesn't sound quite right to me. So fast-forward past a lot of the growing pains shit with the first couple of years of freelance. You can picture the Disney/Bruckheimer montage of the struggling artiste knocking on doors, pockets turned out, trying and trying, paying for coffee with found change from his Aunt Linda's couch, nervously anticipating each measly check for $700 as if its a wind-fall fortune, borrowing money just to accept an assignment from a new magazine client. This post is about what comes next. You are comfortably in a place where you are shooting 60-100+ days a year editorially. You are being paid for your services and customers are satisfied and returning for their next jobs as well. You are traveling more, extending your geographic range of potential commissions. You have built enough flexibility into your finances to accept short-term debt fairly easily when assignments require it (last minute trips to very expensive French islands, perhaps). You are saving money, paying off old debts, planning for the future. You are running a business! But at the same time, from month to month, you know that if a few checks don't come when they should (should: cynically calculating they will only be late by 30 days), and if, God forbid, your car needs any significant repairs or you get sick, you are right back to the dramatic, wind-swept edge of the cliff, nervously looking at the impending due date for your Platinum business AMEX (a bill swollen by the up-front expenses of your clients) and rent check. And this is the big rub... in photography, wealth (or even being comfortable), seems to be an illusion. If you are working a lot, getting paid handsome fees, selling a few stock images here and there, and not blowing your cash or working within a ridiculous amount of overhead, you should be making some coin, right?! Well, maybe. It all depends on cash flow and diversification of income streams. No matter how much you are making on paper and how many invoices are 60 days out, if you aren't getting a regular stream of checks you will fail. Being owed $30,000 or $100,000 doesn't mean a fucking thing when you can't afford your $1500 rent or $3000 mortgage. And when you add the sometimes insane cycle of being paid late (or very, very late) to the all too frequent instances of photographers (like me, fresh out of college) starting their BUSINESSES with a pile of debt (and incurring an even larger pile while trying to get things rolling in the first few years), then not getting paid is the edge of the world, and if you aren't very very careful, you will fall off. The solutions are several folds, but most of them sting or require a lot of patience. First of all, we are all trying to provide for ourselves and families from a very volatile and increasingly distressed editorial market (which already has fallen way short of compensating even the established freelancers, let alone the dozens of rookies who join the ranks every week). Counting only on the editorial market right now for your mother's milk is the epitome of high risk. And thus the rise of wedding photojournalism, corporate photography, multimedia production, and any and every little other way to get paid well for sort of doing what you love. The friends of mine who are truly doing well are the ones who have taken a conscious step away from relying on editorial work for the majority of their bottom line. Turning down calls about 1-day portrait jobs requiring them to drop everything and shuttle themselves across the state or country, they are being paid a lot more for similar work in advertising or commercial fields (which admittedly is really hard to get), and loving life (though their expenses are also rising, so its not perfect I don't think). On the other hand, here's me, who is still trying to figure out how to carve out just 10-15% of my annual income into the advertising/commercial bread basket, but failing fantastically thus far, while still relying on magazines for 98% of annual income. I've been lucky and have worked really hard, and as a result have been very busy editorially for the last 9-10 months. But from October '06 until just a few weeks ago I was in some pretty bad financial shape, simply because despite my ever-growing stacks of invoices I was not getting paid in a reasonable period of time. 3 days before Christmas I received my bi-monthly check in the mail from Redux and found inside only $75.00, less than 1% of my invoiced billings at the time. Ho ho, mother-fucking ho. (It should be pointed out that though the check comes from my agency, they have nothing to do with me not being paid - they want to be paid as badly as I do). Since that dark day I've been able to ride the storm and come out on the other side is solid shape, having finally been paid a large percentage of what I had been owed for a few (too many) months. I've put that money into the last of my debts and into savings, and also invested in a new set of portfolios and a NYC trip aimed towards getting future work. But in an industry where you regularly don't get paid for 60-90 (to 180!) days, and incur a lot of upfront expenses that must be accounted for within 30 days, it takes a long time of patient and hard work before you are in front of the giant wave of death/money. Long-term, the editorial market is heading straight towards the biggest wave anyone has ever seen. Any editor who can actually dress themselves in the morning is scared, as they see their colleagues being laid off left and right, and their budgets dwindle (can anyone say stock photography?). There is this concept out there that we all believe will save us... this shining cross of a word, the Internet... but when, how, in what way? Until the industry shifts its business model and/or shooting for online becomes something more than a footnote on my annual report, we are all going to be hard-pressed to find a real solution for continuing to earn our livelihoods as magazine photographers. My own footnote on this very cheery topic is that recently I've been hearing a lot of discontent and fear coming from the newspaper photographers who I know (the ones who still talk to me). They are wondering how much longer they'll have jobs, and some of them are seriously starting to save money to make their transitions into freelance easier. Um, guys... seriously. I'm not sure you've thought this through, not that you really have another choice. Maybe its time for places like Blueeyes to really step up and see what can be done online. Posted to Misc. |
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Reimbursed, Vol. 1 |
April 5, 2007 |
Over the last 12 months I've been doing a lot more traveling and eating out, and in the process have begun to create a pretty solid food map of my hometown. About 90% of the thanks is due to various expense accounts, but after a celebratory dinner last night with the girlfriend at a newish restaurant near us in Miami Shores I've decided to create a new feature that records my food finds. Feel free to add to the conversation with your own opinions. Unfortunately, several of these places are actually just too expensive for me to feel OK expensing a dinner for 2 (me and an assistant, etc. - maybe its just me?) on most of my editorial jobs... but lawyers, doctors, lobbyists, etc., who may be reading this and are tired of another fucking steakhouse, have at it! In Miami there are a lot of great restaurants, but most of them do seem to fall into the expensive to über-expensive range, with the mid-range places being squeezed out by the insane amount of chain restaurants which pop up in each new strip mall and sub-division.
Notes: Miami's development boom has brought a wave of new restaurants over the last 5 years, mostly located either in South Beach (Collins Ave. south of 30th St.) or on the Biscayne Blvd./Brickell corridor. A lot of the new places are in that vague New American/French/Asian fusion/seafood-y genre that blends together everything from traditional bistro standards to spicy takes on Peruvian ceviche... a good example of the Miami scene is Michelle Bernstein's newest shop Michy's (6927 Biscayne Blvd.) which could just as easily be at home in one of the boutique hotels along Ocean Drive. Miami has its specialties which are widely available and not worth trying to find the best of in my opinion (because there are so many good places). So, if you are looking for great seafood while in South Florida, its a no-brainer... drive towards the water and buy whatever was caught that day locally. Same with Cuban food. If you see a sign that says "Cuban food" stop there and get some ropa vieja... it'll probably be great. 8 1/2 - $$$ - 821 Washington Ave. / South Beach Cacao - $$$$ - 141 Giralda Ave. / Coral Gables Capital Grille - $$$$ - 444 Brickell Ave. / Downtown Duo - $$$ - 1421 S Miami Ave. / Downtown Les Halles - $$ - 2415 Ponce De Leon Blvd. / Coral Gables Lost & Found Saloon - $ - 185 N.W. 36th St. / Wynwood Michy's - $$$ - 6927 Biscayne Blvd. / Miami North 110 - $$$ - 11052 Biscayne Blvd. / Miami Shores San Loco - $ - 235 14th St. / South Beach Shoji Sushi - $$$ - 100 Collins Ave. / South Beach Sushi Samba Dromo - $$$ - 600 Lincoln Rd. / South Beach Talula - $$$ - 210 23rd St. / South Beach So that’s a small glimpse, unfortunately skewed towards the upscale end of the spectrum. There are many other places that I’ve neglected to mention or that we just haven’t gotten to yet. A few places that I’m eager to try soon are: Nemo, Bond Street, David Bouley Evolution, and Ola. Posted to Download |
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April showers |
April 2, 2007 |
Again at the beginning of another month, I'm shocked at how fast 2007 is speeding by, peeling off days and bringing Miami to the doorstep of our 7 months of sweaty summer. Almost every state in the U.S. gets really hot for a couple of weeks, a month, or through July and August. But we do hot and humid right down in South Florida, from April all the way until my birthday in late October. I haven't been blogging much lately because I have very little to say, even to myself. Things are good. I shot jobs last week for two new clients (one from Croatia!), and both shoots went reasonably well, even if they didn't produce something memorable. Out on the golf course for Condé Nast Portfolio on Friday, trying to keep a look out for alligators so that my subject, Dale the professional golf ball diver, wouldn't get eaten alive before I shot more portraits of him, my Canon speedlight crapped out again. It’s so much easier to try and make do with the little flash units, but I really need to drag out the Hensel Porty's on each shoot. Karate, my assistant, won't be that happy. A new issue of Blueeyes was published and has received some nice feedback thus far. Issue 15 also premiers the addition of comments to the magazine, but people haven't really been taking advantage of them yet. Hopefully the comments will be the beginning of a much larger push towards creating a better dialogue about photography through the magazine. At home I've finally been putting my Big Green Egg through its baby grilling steps (burgers, steaks, cedar plank fish, grilled veggies, smoked pork loin) to some very tasty results. After having her parents over for a cookout on Saturday, Judy and I bought 2 full racks of pork ribs that I'm going to soak overnight in brine for a Tuesday smoking. The Egg was a Christmas present from Dad and it's a beautiful, low-tech beast of a grilling/smoking/roasting machine. After a successful ribs test drive, next up will be some beer-can chicken and then the inevitable upgrade to a standing prime rib! All in all I've been taking it slow. Lots of reading, lots of relaxing, lots of thinking. I've reached out to a few new contacts with my personal projects over the last week and am trying to re-invest myself back into the heart of works in progress. (I'm going to be pushing the blog towards the projects as well). Following NYC, so much of my effort back home is directed towards taking stock and asking myself what I want to be spending my energy on. A little spring-cleaning of the mind goes a long way. Posted to Misc. |
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