January 2008 Archives

Ground level

A week ago at dinner in a sushi place I got a call about yet another photo essay assignment from The New York Times that was tangentially related to the campaign trail (what isn't these days). The idea was big and juicy and hard and stupid, and I was all over it like, uh, well, white on sticky rice. About 10 hours later I delivered myself to the airport and flew to Nashville to begin a two state, 1200 mile effort to create a thematic collection of images that measured the "pulse of the South," as part of a new NYT project called Ground Level that will look at five regions of the country.

I'm too tired and busy to play the back and forth game of why I have been lately accepting jobs for a client that has me racking up much higher expense tabs than day rate fees. But the trip was a pretty intense kick start to my head and heart, and I again had the incredible fortune to meet and photograph several very real and very amazing folks in Columbia, TN, and Yell County, AR. To all of you, very truly, thank you for allowing me in and sharing your lives with the readers.

Published today in the paper (a larger and different edit is online), the "photo essay" was supposed to document some of the many issues that people in these two small communities will use to vote next week on Super Tuesday. I was supposed to wander about and take images of race, the economy, polarization, immigration, etc. Say what? Yeah. Obviously I could work on an idea like that for the rest of my life and still not get even close. But I only had 3.5 days to make it work, and it was an exhausting and challenging trip to say the least. I'm proud to say that I left nearly all of it on the field (as they say in sports), and came home in some serious need of sleep.

The hardest part of the trip was trying to balance logistics with luck; trying to plan ahead but keep my eyes open and in the moment. And also, of course, trying to distill something so big and complicated such as "the South" into two small dots on a map. From a photographic standpoint this was the first really hard core documentary assignment I've done in a while that stretched over several days and was filled with freedom (and pressure). I felt pretty damn rusty actually, but it started to wear off near the end a bit. Hopefully the Costa Rica trip will benefit. And to end, here are a few other frames that I liked:

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Strike 3

Keen blog readers will have no doubt wondered where the promised "On Assignment" post went this week. Heading up to South Carolina early last Saturday on assignment for The New York Times there was a lot the potential for a good one, and in a perverted way its fulfilled that ripe status, despite my never snapping a single frame in 4 days.

Say what? No pictures? What exactly is it that you do again? Yeah, we (my editor and I) ended up being shut out, shut down, and ultimately sent packing, twice. I flew up to Columbia to begin what was supposed to be a full-fledged photo essay for the Sunday Business section of the newspaper, a new effort that the Times is making to spice up the section and focus on something other than portraits of CEOs. We were interested in taking a look at the financial impact of campaigns on primary states, and I was to find and photograph the small business vendors who benefit from the whirlwind of politics sweeping through the state. Everyone agreed that it was a really interesting idea, but that was not enough. Access is the key.

It's a strange thing to dig and dig and dig, making contacts, call backs, e-mails, getting references, having friends drop a name, and editors make repeated pleas, and still to get no where, especially when you are dealing with organizations who are otherwise screaming for attention and coverage. Sometimes this can happen when working on a difficult story for an unknown or disrespected client. But this was for The New York Times, and love them or not, if you are running for something you probably want their attention.

The way that campaigns are run, with schedules being made and broken before breakfast each morning as the tide turns on a dime or newly important issue, makes it incredibly hard to cover the set-up or aftermath of events. All you can really do is keep with the pack and photograph the daily slate of town halls and meet and greets. Rush in with cameras a-blazin', get your snaps, run to the bathroom if you dare, and get back on the bus!! I was trying to stay away from the bus, away from the press corps, and ultimately away from the candidates. Just the vendors, folks. But alas, no.

If you sense a hint of regret present you are not mistaken... I don't like making money not doing my job. I worked hard to try to make the story happen and so did my photo editor, but it fell a part. I'd have much rather it didn't. If I'm going to sit on my ass, I'd rather do it in my own house instead of in a hotel 600 miles away. I did get a chance to hang out with my buddy Rich in Columbia, and had ample opportunity to get the new issue of Blueeyes Magazine on its way out the door. But the return flight home early on Tuesday morning was disappointing.

The silver lining in this cloudy week was that my editor, feeling regretful herself, has already given me a helluva second chance in the form of a week-long assignment down in Costa Rica coming up in early February. Trading Columbia for Costa Rica is basically like bringing in my tried and true Saturn for a tune-up and having it swapped out for a shiny new Audi instead. And I say that even with the vaccinations and malaria medication that I had to spend this week getting fixed up on.

So a toast to the ones that got away, and to the editors who are gracious enough to allow you a second chance at wrangling them to the ground.

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Baby Ruth

Upon landing late last night at Fort Lauderdale airport after a short day in Birmingham on assignment for Mother Jones (hell yeah I fit in lunch at one of my top 5 favorite rib joints: Dreamland), I reflexively checked my watch and immediately realized I would have to be back at the airport in less than 8 hours for this morning's trip up to South Carolina for The New York Times (the complicated details of which I'm probably going to record in an On Assignment post this week). Already pretty on edge from lack of sleep, I literally did a cartoon-like gulp at the thought of returning to Atlanta (I'm here now) en route to anywhere.

After a frenzy of charging, packing, editing, transmitting, e-mailing, booking, reserving, and just a little bit of chatting with the Fiancée (she's very busy and sleep-deprived too these days), I got about 4 hours of sleep before adding some washing, folding, zipping, and driving back to FLL.

Lost in the details of all of this moving around is the why. I know that Robert would really be asking WHY?!, and here is my most recent answer:

Yesterday I had the honor of meeting and photographing an amazing woman named Fonza Luke. I was there because she had been wrongfully terminated after 30+ years of service to a hospital in Birmingham, and after welcoming my assistant and I into her home we both immediately were charmed to pieces by her warmth and perspective. Just meeting her made all of the airport hassle and balancing act shit completely worthwhile.

Before we left Fonza we sat down for coffee with her at the kitchen table and she honored us by showing off a book of pictures of her beautiful family to us. It was incredible because we had just heard a story from her during the shoot about how her only memory of her mother was when she was a very little girl sitting on the front porch of their house. Her mother gave her a Baby Ruth candy bar and then left the house and her family behind forever. Fonza told us that her grandmother spent every cent she ever earned trying to find her and understand why, but they never did.

On the last flight of the day home I finished editing the images of Fonza for my editor and was really excited about a couple of frames. They really felt like authentic portraits of Fonza; they felt rare and beautiful. Though they didn't capture her warmth and joy (they weren't supposed to), they did show the pride and respect she has for her family and herself. I just sat there with the computer in my lap and stared at the screen thinking that I had perhaps managed to make a connection that counted through my work. That's all the reason why I ever need. Thank you, Fonza.

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Master class: Pleine mer

Anyone who has spent much time reading this blog knows that I hold the photographic essay and its presentation in book form as the very apex of accomplishment. My passion for long term documentary photography projects and the books that follow is what led me to create Blueeyes Magazine, which was the direct result of having my world rocked as a student at Missouri in Kim Komenich's incredible "Photo Essay" class.

In my last post I talked about trying to refocus and devote my vision back to my own work in this new year, and I can think of no better way to do this then to return once again to my bookshelf and the masters who have come before. So I'll be writing a series of "Master class" posts that will try to explore for me personally what is important and inspiring from a few of my very favorite photo books. As always this is a conversation I'm trying to have with myself and the work, but maybe there is something in it for you too.

Pleine mer (Men at Sea) by Jean Gaumy

March 1984 - I've been photographing now for fifteen years. Sometimes hard pictures, difficult moments. Combine them one day with other pictures: moments of rivers, winds and shores. They belong to the same world. It'll come on its own. I don't know how. I want to go out to sea and the desire already contains this seed. It can't be about reporting. It's about something else. I don't really know what. I'll have to describe. Simply describe. Avoid deception, the heroic vein. Stick with just man. -Jean Gaumy (introduction to Pleine mer).

Simply put, Men at Sea is a photographic tour de force. Its incredible simplicity of focus and passion for life and work at sea is overwhelming, as is the discipline that Gaumy forecasts in the introduction above when he talks about seeking to just describe (and in doing so honor), instead of "reporting." This intensity of thought and process has in time seared these images into my brain to the point that in closing my eyes I can see the wet, slimy, hot and freezing, scales rough, ropes worn and tight, air thick with stew and men, nervous fingers over maps, omni-directional rain, eyes wide, sea all. Every several months I can see one of these pictures so clearly that I return again to the book and try to retrace its steps.

Like photography itself, not moving or sounding, Men at Sea, published in 2001 after trips taken out on trawlers over more than fifteen years, is most notable and stronger for what it is not; for what it was not allowed to become because of a personal vision by the photographer. Foremost I don't think the book seeks to be an expression of authority about its topic, even if its photography is masterly and content dripping in knowing experience.

By including his personal thoughts through journal entries Gaumy is almost trying to show us that we are on a journey with an unreliable narrator, doing something bigger than himself, who is also trying to figure things out, both on the water and in his craft (that this time we are together is sacred that it is his own). Like other exceptionally talented photographers I've heard speak about their work, they are uncomfortable calling their results anything but fragments, fleeting and gray. This has always struck me as a deeply important distinction of integrity that the aims of journalism school and broadcast media always either ignore or fuck to hell.

Moving on to an aesthetic level the next important thing I think a lot about with Men at Sea is the decision to reproduce these images like giant contact sheets, so that each full-frame image (and its black border with sprocket holes) butts up against the next frame, emphasizing the attitude that the sea, these boats, and this work can not be contained here (again "fragments"); that there is so much more just out of view. Within the images the repetition of exercise mimics the grueling work that spins in circles. By pounding away at image after image of these fishermen working Gaumy is himself metaphorically filling the hold of his book with catch, stacking layer upon layer. Instead of shying away and trying to do the editors' trick of moving in and out, leaning on variety of scene, we are instead shown the very heart of it over and over.

Interrupting the work though are studies of the ocean, catch, birds, and weather that are just plain stunning (long live film grain!), much in the same way that fellow Magnum photographer Alec Soth broke away from the portraiture in Niagara with his powerful visions of the falls. Other double-page spreads go back to the contact sheet idea directly (again playing with the notion that this will never be over and final) to show long sequences of the men on the deck doing maneuvers. I love seeing the sequences here but always find it difficult to create them in my own project work as effectively as they were used in yet another book that will certainly be in this series: Luc Delahaye's Winterreise.

By the end of the book Gaumy follows the fish and men into the belly of the trawler and digs deeper inside. We are shown more of the group meals, cramped living quarters, and private moments, before spitting us back out as quickly as the rush of the next wave, crashing back to the open deck and the living history of these all but vanished vessels. The book draws to a close almost as if this had all been one dark and powerful day. In the last images we see yet another crush of water sweeping over the sides nearly obscuring the men and their work, again emphasizing the true main character.

In closing I am deeply inspired by the way that Gaumy steals the atmosphere into his pictures. Men at Sea is truly a visceral experience, as are all of the great photo books, and its something I've struggled and thought hard about as I try to document stories. Among many other things, I love the imperfections that are made perfect through time and process; the many blurred images throwing us off balance as are the men. And I love the very idea of documenting men in this one moment and place, where time stops and the water and wind is everything and everywhere; the themes common and grand at once. By choosing something so personal and specific to his life and background, we are made witness to such a huge personal vision that it extends beyond its borders and expands our understanding of our own lives. Its a vision that is big and bold but also inviting and inspiring. Thanks to you Jean Gaumy for these many lessons.

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Six

We had a great time up in north Florida with my family over Christmas and back down in Miami with my older brother Ryan last night to ring in the new year. There was much celebrating and food and drink and joy and it was the end to a really wonderful year. Thanks to all who helped to make it possible, and cheers to all of you that 2008 is even better!

The new year begins my 6th year in business as a full-time freelance photographer (still a spring pup, eh), and I'm celebrating by taking a hard look at my priorities and goals and starting out with a better sense of who I am and what I want as a photographer. Planning is really in the air in our household: multiple upcoming major trips, marriage when, where, and hows, medical residency applications, potential cities to move the JLPXX show on the road, and in general huge work/life decision making going on left and right. For some all of this is incredibly scary stuff, but to me its an opportunity to create lives and careers that are both happy and rewarding.

As far as the blog goes I'm going to be starting the new year appropriately enough with a new feature focusing (again) on documentary project photography. Basically this is just a reason to dig back into the JLPFL photo book library (and kick start several leads I've been turning over) and find fresh inspiration about creating important larger bodies of work. For those who might be interested, first on the list is a favorite from several years ago that I recently have been pouring back over: Jean Gaumy's superb Pleine mer (Men at Sea).

Looking across the office at my dry erase board on the wall I see a list of big ticket items that I'm going to be tackling to begin my 6th year. Most of them are practical (eg. boring) items. Some of them are a bit more abstract. But one that is missing (though is certainly stamped into my brain) happens also to be that my friend Lisa Krantz just expressed in her first 2008 blog post: make pictures that matter!

When I think about what that resolution means, I can see that it truly frames the last five years and what I've learned about the industry and myself. I think that ultimately what happens is that you get bent into making the images that are useful to the clients you have and want to have, and lose a lot of yourself in the process. Its a natural thing to happen and I'm not ashamed about it, but starting this 6th year I don't want to simply "make pictures that matter" anymore. What I really want is to make the pictures that matter to me.

For of whole a lot of reasons there hasn't been nearly enough of the "me" in my work over these five years. Here and there it peeked through, on assignments where I had the passion or time to really try stuff. But as I expressed in my recent post about becoming a portrait photographer, I want to be in control of the single sentence that sums up my contribution to photography. And to be in control I've had to come a long way personally to get to a point where I truly care less about my clients than I do myself.

I'm not sure if some of you will get that, but its clear now that I've spent so much time deeply caring and worrying about every little need and penchant even the smallest of my clients might have that I've largely help to undermine the growth of my own vision. Clients matter, sure. But no one ever truly found their path by constantly looking outside of themselves.

Now at the beginning of the 6th year I honestly don't care if the phone will ring. If I miss calls and jobs because I'm busy working at finding my pictures, then that's just fucking how it is. If I've "gone fishing," then they are shit out of luck - better luck next time. And though on individual basis I really do respect my editors and colleagues, when I see them under the wider umbrella of "clients" I'm completely tired of their shit. It's time to do things my way and that's what matters. On with 2008!

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