July 2007 Archives

Cheers: Andrew Hetherington

The bonus of any trip to NYC is meeting up with old friends and connecting with a few new ones; this alone, along with good food and drink, is what keeps me sane from the mind-bending onslaught of editorial meetings. On this last round I got to bend my elbows on a couple different occasions with a fine fellow Redux photographer and all-around great (and talented) Irishman Andrew Hetherington.

Andrew wrote a little recap of the occasion a while back, but I wanted to start a new little feature at DwaDM, in celebration of this being the 101st post, that will honor some of my friends and sources of inspiration in the business... starting with Mr. Hetherington.

So cheers to you, Andrew! Thanks for your humor, personal vision, good taste in pubs, excellent photography, friendship, great stories, and all around good nature!

This morning while making a re-edit on the travel section of my website, I found this picture from years ago that immediately reminded me of your great work. Of course, this guy has a shirt on so its not as cool as many of your own portraits, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless as a tribute. This portrait came from a small project that I did on the Cheap Seats (the upper deck) and the fans who inhabit that strange upper atmosphere of fandom at Bank One Ballpark, which I shot while an intern at the Arizona Republic in the summer of 2000.

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Kitchen sinks

Yesterday on an otherwise very interesting story for People, deep in the hot, sticky, bug-infested wilds of the Everglades, one of the guys approached me to start up a conversation about gear. The guy in question had a pistol and machete on his hip belt, but the equipment he really wanted to talk about was photo gear.

"So, what's that, huh?"

"Just a Canon."

"Yeah, but which model?"

"Nothing special, just tools. Pretty hot out here, right?"

"Is that tape over your cameras? Is it like a secret or something?"

"Nope, its just not important."

"Uh... Well. I have a Nikon D1x... (pause)... yeah, its pretty sweet."

That was the moment at which the conversation was supposed to explode into an exchange of mega pixels and anticipations for the next shiny new model coming out. Maybe we'd even have a light-hearted argument about Canon vs. Nikon. Guys talking about toys. Oh yeah! Oh no...

There was once a time, but somewhere I lost all of that. It's gone. A close friend asked me last week which zoom lens she should pick up next and I couldn't even answer. I just can't stand to think of photography through that focus anymore. It's all that aspiring photographers who send me e-mails ever want to talk about; their intense fear and apologizing for not yet having all of the sweet gadgets they feel that will signify their status as a professional. Then my long speech about how the gear isn't important, etc.

And I was thinking about all of this today when I began collating a list of a few accessories that I had jotted down possibly wanting to buy during the last dozen assignments. Shortly thereafter I was online at B&H, and an hour later there was another $1000 out the door to that retailer... the easy, well-marked trail between my wallet and their bank accounts that many thousands of other dollars have skipped along. Sigh.

The difference between my spending these days is that the purchases are anything but sexy, and I'm so not enthused when they get there that sometimes they wind up spending a couple weeks or months still in the shipping box. Now the buys are about trying to give my photography more flexibility and professionalism, making things safer and stronger, and creating less chance of ruining an assignment because of the malfunction of just one item.

Almost half of the money today went into 220 film, so that really doesn't count. The rest was spent on a mixture of new lighting stands (my old ones are just too unreliable and unstable) and a boom, sensor cleaning supplies (goodbye spots!), and sandbags (does it get any less sexy?). I don't really have an immediate need for any of it, other than the cleaning stuff, but I know that I want to step up certain areas of how I'm approaching jobs, and that these tools will help me focus more on the end result, and less on whether Donald Trump is going to wait for me to pick up my stand again that fell down because of wind and a clumsy foot before deciding the shoot is over.

There are a few other bits and bobs that I'll eventually pick up (esp. a new flatbed scanner), but for the most part its only the little stuff from here on out (fingers crossed). Hopefully I can keep my focus on documenting the world in an exciting way, and not on how many damn mega pixels I capture my subjects in.

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Jackson

Paul "P-Rod" Rodriguez, Jr. attempts a special trick for the climax of the movie "Street Dreams" during filming in Tampa, FL, in front of several hundred fans.

Another quick note before I zip over to South Beach for a portrait this afternoon... I've added a new section to my website to create a cozy little home for some of the action photography I've increasingly been shooting lately. This first edit will soon be updated as different bit and pieces are published soon.

Also upcoming will be some re-working of the portrait and travel sections. It's the constant cycle... filter out the old, bring in the new. Good times.

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Office space

After the Barbados trip its been a week of old to-do list items, cleaning, filing receipts, reading, planning, and general office stuff. Sure, its a lot more boring than being out there, creating; but spending time in the office, especially this new one, has its certain charms and rhythm.

Best friend and former roommate (many times over) Jason Bissey used to have this book of artists at work, with giant photographs of a couple dozen famous artist's studios and work spaces. And while the book was basically a gimmick, it was very cool to see some of epicenters of creation for people like Alexander Calder (hunks of scrab metal thrown everywhere). Now that the office at our apartment is finally done, DONE (only took 9 months), I decided to share it with you readers. Enjoy, and leave a link in the comments to a pic of where you make it happen.

JLPFL headquarters! Click for a much larger version.

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Racked, Vol. 1

My trip to the bookstore earlier this week started with a specific purpose (pick up a new clip) but soon transformed into a (now) rare occasion. Armed with a large cup of Italian roast I made a little fort and emptied the shelves of my local Borders to take a long look through a few dozen major titles to see what is out there, and perhaps even uncover a bit of inspiration. Following is the first such volume of what may (again) become an regular shuffle through the news rack.

July/August magazines can be a weird lot, since many of them are aimed towards vacationers (last minute stashing of the newly arrived Vanity Fair into a carry-on just before leaving for the airport). We all hope to tune out in the summer and the magazines reflect that dream with a big helping of escapism, similar to the Independence Day blockbuster. I can picture creative directors still wearing their sweaters on the 45th or 61st story of a Midtown skyscraper on the edge of spring, plotting out how to please summer beach goers (hoping also to eventually be among the throng).

First couple of magazine (sports-related) were true to form. Nothing really going on, with the slowest part of the year in the sporting calendar (baseball all-star game, pre-football, Armstrong-less Tour). ESPN's cover was basically an ad for their own award show, but I enjoyed the funny juxtaposition of co-hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Lebron James yucking it up (I could have done without the two more repeated giant pics from the same set-up inside).

Music mags are in full-swing during the summer because of the tour-ganzas going on everywhere, but I was more focused on the special edition, 40th anniversary Rolling Stone issue celebrating the 1967 "Summer of Love." What was more interesting is that RS kicked off an interesting trend from my rummaging that archive photography (used well) was far away the most interesting pieces in several different August titles. Grainy, big, mostly b/w pictures from another era drew me in and washed over me, telling me stories and giving me a glimpse into unguarded moments. There were portraits of famous bands all over the place, just being themselves, laughing or self-conscious; photography doing its job so well.

But then the reality of today's magazine portraiture was back with me multiple covers featuring a populist, charismatic presidential candidate from North Carolina looking none of those things. In the great John Edwards war, a heavyweight contest, Annie L. for Men's Vogue in one corner and Platon for Esquire manning the other (I wonder which one is wearing the blue trunks?)... the decision goes to, well, doesn't matter. OK, fine, Platon takes it because of the inside spreads, but both covers are lame. Actually, the real winner is The New York Times Sunday Magazine and the tag-team of Robert Maxwell and (friend) Ben Lowy, who did a much better job two months ago. (One wonders whether or not Men's Vogue will continue to tap Annie L., the Queen's bee, for every cover, or if they'll find that comfortable place of VF where Leibovitz simply shoots every other cover).

Snarky-ness aside, I moved on to New York Magazine and was immediately greeted with a cool surprise in an unusual place: the advertisements. As blogged in State of the Art earlier this week, Fage yogurt has been teaming up with a few high-end jewelry companies for a series of ads that are simple and very cool, showcasing its exceptionally thick new line. NY Mag. was notable itself, as always of late, for just being so well-designed and great to flip through. Like the New Yorker, there are parts of the magazine that I am completely disinterested in (because I don't live there, still), but the designers continue to pull it off in style.

Another trend (new and old?) that I saw a ton of this month was collages. In a spread on 50 Cent in XXL, a collage was used to really nice effect, and I was charmed just by the craftiness feeling, like the magazine felt more homemade and substantial, and less-pulp and fleeting. Yet another trend, seen in the above mentioned Annie meets John Edwards cover feature, was carefully produced blur in portraits. I'm not sure you could really say blur is a trend, but I saw it in several high end portrait productions, and though the effect didn't work for me, I saw the potential of creating the same sort of humanism as the collage.

Moving on I tackled a stack of business magazines, trying to flip as quickly as possible to limit the potential retinal scarring that can occur from repeated exposure to the insano-lit executive portrait. But wait... Business Week, Fortune, wut?? Where are the suits?! Did they stop asking for the same exact portrait?! Are we moving on?! It's probably too early to call this one, but big group hug anyway!! Lets have it! Instead I found interesting reports shot on location around the world, and a good deal of documentary photography (the highlight, of sorts, being Pellegrin's essay on Bill Gate's field trip to China). All in all, a big surprise in business.

And as luck would have it, my last stand out in this month's rack was Popular Mechanics itself (the reason for my trip), and their continued good design and use of interesting photography. Congrats Allyson!

And that is that. A whole bunch of magazines later and I am still in one piece and feeling pretty decent about the state of affairs in editorial photography. Though, having the time to look through so many titles does make me pause to wonder about the state of affairs at JLPFL.

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The beef?

An interesting discussion is popping up all over the bloggy-bubble about fine-art photographers shooting for editorial magazines. My buddy Andrew recently chimed in, in regards to a post from Liz Kuball, in reaction to an image by Todd Hido, and so on, and so on, and so on. (For more on this, just go to any photo blog; for example, here is a recent chorus from Mr. Soth).

For my own part, I don't care about Todd's picture and I don't care that art photographers shoot for the same publications as I do (as long as their work is held to the same standards, gasp). Even more I truly don't care for the semantics of photography and its infinite categories. There is a reason why I call myself just plain old "photographer," or when feeling Rococo, "freelance photographer." That covers it for me, though there once was a time when I gripped the term "photojournalist" very tightly, as if my white-knuckles would be a badge of some kind.

What I do care about, and am increasingly bewildered by, is how ego has taken center stage in the editorial marketplace. Everywhere I turn I see self-portraits, even when the photographer's mug, shadow, or reflection is not to be found. Millions of pictures that are little more than the evidence of a photographer making a stamp on their world, and mine, sometimes gleefully ignoring the subject altogether or representing them with such a pre-contrived awkwardness and mode that it's embarassing to reflect upon. (Of course these sort of pics have always been made, but I'm speaking about their current use and pedigree in the marketplace, not on Flickr).

All of this self-love used to be fine with me (I've certainly photographed my feet or reflection a few billion times, especially during college during tests with a shiny new holga), and is still to some degree, but now I feel as if this redirection is drastically dealing away something that should be very precious to all of us: content. And that lack of content is further degrading what I believe to be the chief use of photography and my greatest ambition: story telling.

This weekend I was driving north on Biscayne Boulevard with the girlfriend headed towards some errand on a sunny Sunday morning. I flipped on NPR and was greeted with the familiar voice of Ira Glass, which filled me with immediate glee. Though I don't listen as often as I used to, This American Life is a modern treasure. Ira began to introduce a story which opened with a droll, monotone female voice, laying out the parameters of a story about herself and her family. I recognized the form, its tone, its background music, and its pacing. I knew that it would be well-written and sardonic, with a few moments of poignancy. And then I got mad, and hastily flipped the radio off. Here was another 30-something, literary hipster delivering a well-produced story about themselves. WTF?! Have we all decided to stop looking beyond our own experiences for the substance of our art, craft, and interests?

This is a much more complicated argument than I'll give space for here. Yes, because I make pictures for a living I often am in a position much closer to illustration than to actual story-telling, which is part of the problem. Yes, everyone should be and is free to do whatever they want, and I'll respect and celebrate that. Yes, there is a whole 'nother problem on the opposite end of content with too much focus on war or fetish lifestyles. And yes, personal vision is an incredibly vital part of story-telling, and you can not, and should not, seek to completely separate ego and the photographer from the images, but a photographer can choose to focus on his subject instead of himself.

In closing, I simply wish all of us, as photographers of whatever ilk, would be a little more curious about the outside world and delivering real content, connecting people and informing us about each others' lives, and a little less passionate for making the same ego-driven drivel, and way less enthusiastic for those among us who do nothing but, who will hopefully clearly be seen as self-serving blips on the radar in hindsight (cough, Ryan McGinley, cough).

A couple last points that I'd like to throw in while I'm at it...

1 - Celebrating street photography and Garry Winogrand by going out and taking empty pictures of the street and rays of light is completely backwards. Look longer at Winogrand's incredible work and you'll see more humanism and interest in story-telling than just about anyone else. He did run around like a crazy wild man pacing the streets obsessively, but he was looking to document something fleeting about people, class, and the human condition; not just himself.

2 - Lately I've said to several friends, half in jest, how I just simply hate photography, and that's my real problem with these new trends (how come the new trends are so fuzzy that you can't even really describe what you like or don't like about them, but instead have to name the place that they were created at... like Yale). The half-jest part comes from how I do hate photography for photography's sake, and that I love and cherish photography used as a medium. I'll try to be more precise when bull-shitting in the future.

3 - Kathy Ryan is probably to blame for all of this, right?

4 - Sons and daughters of famous photographers seem to make really mediocre photography that the industry loves to celebrate. Maybe music is a better bet?

5 - What Andrew's post says about not judging photography in magazines without a knowledge of the circumstances is exceptionally important. There are dozens of factors out of the photographer's control, especially time and timing, that can lead to crappy imagery being used. Until you've shot several dozen magazine assignments you'll never really get how miraculous it is for a shoot to go off smoothly, resulting in great pictures that are embraced by the client, creating a really nice clip. Holy balls, it's rare.

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Introducing

Now its official... the girlfriend and I are pet owners! I would have thought we'd enter this category by way of a dog (we are both very much dog people), but dogs require a lot more attention and stability than either of us can offer now, or in the foreseable future (long hours, constant travel, etc).

And so I'd like to officially introduce Fish. His name is not really Fish, but we haven't found a good one yet. Any ideas? Seriously, please leave a comment if you got a good one... so far the front runners for this male Betta fish are Kappa, Pi, or Cap'n Pi. Something Greek, for the meta-ness.

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Backyard fliers

Back in April I shot a really fun assignment for Popular Mechanics, which was just published in the August edition of the magazine. PM is actually one of my favorite magazines to flip through during my quarterly trips to the bookstore (more on that in a later post), because I really love the vast scale of their photography and the clean, smart design that showcases it. Below are a few out takes from the Sun & Fun airshow assignment... enjoy (especially my "sock-tan").

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Sweet spot

The rough life... drinking premium rum and surfing the internet in a posh, air-conditioned airport loungue, waiting for my flight to be called to return from a fun and interesting portrait job in Barbados. I think I need a vacation.

The shoot was for a new client, The Guardian's Weekend Magazine, which always gets me pretty jazzed. But really everything has been going my way on this short trip. The flights worked out, and I was automatically upgraded to business class. The taxi ride was quick and cheap, and I found the location easily (not always that easy when you don't really have an address). The subject, a former pro horse jockey, was very cool to work with, and gave me a ton of time. I felt good shooting, trying a huge variety of set-ups and approaches, and ultimately I was blessed with some beautiful golden hour light just before sunset to finish the whole thing off. And Barbados itself was so charming... the cool breezes off the ocean, the incredibly blue water, and, well, the rum.

In short, I felt like I was in the sweet spot on this assignment. Even when things went wrong (I'm going to throw my 580EX Canon flash into the fucking ocean, the piece of shit), I was easily able to make something else work. I saw the angles, and opportunities clearly. I was able to make the subject comfortable, even though he wasn't that at ease in front of a camera. I found details to give the client more flexibility. And I found a way to tell the story that might please the three of us: me, the client, and the subject.

It's such a great feeling coming home from a job that the client has spent a good bit of money on, and knowing that they are going to be really happy with the images. I work hard to make sure that they have something solid, no matter the circumstances, but its that much better when things have come together to give you an opportunity to really kick ass. And on top of all of that, I made a friend in the subject. Looking forward to the next trip and a few more Carib, Lee!

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Monday poem: Wallace Stevens

My head is full... even as my calendar remains relatively calm and care-free. There has been a lot of really wonderful personal time spent lately that I feel very thankful for. I joined the girlfriend down in the Keys for a few days of sun, sand, snorkeling, and seafood to round out the holiday last week. She is in the middle of a 5-week family medicine rotation to begin her 3rd year of medical school. Meanwhile, I'm manning the fort back home in Miami, watching Deadwood, drinking my swollen collection of fine whiskies, shooting the occasional photography job, and thinking... about what and where is next, what I'm shooting and not, what my personal work and Blueeyes means to me, and to the industry, and generally about where the meaning is in a life.

A couple of weeks ago I read the first bits of Jim Lo Scalzo's upcoming memoir about finding meaning in a life spent on the road as a photojournalist, and from the abstract alone I was nodding my head up and down (I've already pre-ordered, you should too). Then I watched these two video teasers he put together and they had me in tears. Not sadness; but touching something deep inside many of us who are trying to create something more significant than ourselves, and feel lost or disconnected at so many points.

Maybe this is just getting older, maybe its just too much coffee or simply our modern world, but more and more I feel life speeding up all around me, the patchwork of realities and abstracted systems spinning 'round, my personal and professional lives increasingly at odds, and the industry I work in unfamiliar. It's not good or bad, its just more and different. And as I try to keep an ever tighter grip on the lines leading from and to the past and the present, I wondering how long I can hold on, or if letting go is what must eventually happen.

This morning I did some searching for poetry about the Florida Keys and immediately came upon this Wallace Stevens' poem that captured me. Stevens' believed that reality was verb, an active object instead of a static, one-dimensional thing, which required energy and imagination to make any sense of whatsoever (Amen, brotha). And even then he writes that we can only see the clear picture of our lives for a brief moment, before being awash in another wave of obscurity. On top of that complexity, I love this piece for its being a knowing poem from a place formed by of the sea, an outcrop of rocks in the its' void, always a wild place of Florida, unknowable.

Wallace Stevens | The Idea of Order at Key West

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.

It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

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Monday poem: Beth Ann Fennelly

Here's a poem I came across in an anthology recently that reminded me of the strange holiday (so many different emotions, meanings (patriotism? movie blockbusters?)) marking this week. And what better way to probe the meaning of being American than to dare suggest becoming more French! (Full disclosure: at this very second I have a tub of duck fat in my fridge, not to mention some extremely smelly cheese that our favorite French sushi chef, Julien, recommended to us). Happy 4th to all!

Beth Ann Fennelly | I Need to Be More French. Or Japanese.

Then I wouldn’t prefer the California wine,
its big sugar, big fruit rolling down my tongue,
a cornucopia spilled across a tacky tablecloth.
I’d prefer the French, its smoke and rot.
Said Cézanne: Le monde—c’est terrible!
Which means, The world—it bites the big weenie.
People sound smarter in French.
The Japanese prefer the crescent moon to the full,
prefer the rose before it blooms.
Oh, I have been to the temples of Kyoto,
I have stood on the Pont Neuf, and my eyes,
they drank it in, but my taste buds
shuffled along in the beer line at Wrigley Field.
It was the day they gave out foam fingers.
I hereby pledge to wear more gray, less yellow
of the beaks of baby mockingbirds,
that huge yellow yawping open on wobbly necks,
trusting something yummy will be dropped inside,
soon. I hereby pledge to be reserved.
When the French designer learned
I didn’t like her mockups for my book cover,
she sniffed, They’re not for everyone. They’re
subtle. What area code is 662 anyway? I said,
Mississippi, sweetheart. Bet you couldn’t find it
with a map. Okay: I didn’t really. But so what
if I’m subtle as May in Mississippi, my nose
in the wine-bowl of this magnolia bloom, so what
if I’m mellow as the punch-drunk bee.
If I were Japanese I’d write about magnolias
in March, how tonal, each bud long as a pencil,
sheathed in celadon suede, jutting from a cluster
of glossy leaves. I’d end the poem before anything
bloomed, end with rain swelling the buds
and the sheaths bursting, then falling to the grass
like a fairy’s castoff slippers, like candy wrappers,
like spent firecrackers. Yes, my poem
would end there, spent firecrackers.
If I were French, I’d capture post-peak, in July,
the petals floppy, creased brown with age,
the stamens naked, stripped of yellow filaments.
The bees lazy now, bungling the ballet, thinking
for the first time about October. If I were French,
I’d prefer this, end with the red-tipped filaments
scattered on the scorched brown grass,
and my poem would incite the sophisticated,
the French and the Japanese readers—
because the filaments look like matchsticks,
and it’s matchsticks, we all know, that start the fire.

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