Master class Archives

Master class: Vanishing Breed

I had the idea that I wanted to use the second book in this series to try and reconnect with a body of work that I had somehow lost track of along my way. Bill Allard's testament to the West and cowboys immediately leapt to my mind on a recent plane ride home, as did the way in which I had heard a lot about in college at Missouri it before I ever found the full project in my hands at my friend Susie Post Rust's house (herself also a very talented NGS photographer). A search on Amazon recently found a ton of first editions in relatively good shape for far, far too cheap for such a book of grace. My copy even included a couple of prints that had been tucked that will find a place of honor on my office wall once I get around to finding a frame.

Vanishing Breed by William Albert Allard

I once knew an old hand, now no longer around, who used to muse about earlier times in Montana, when the country was more open, with fewer fences and gates to slow a man down - restriction in the land of the free. I suppose we all feel more restricted today, regardless of our region. There seem to be gates in our lives that we never get open. But if we're lucky, we have a place, each of us, that is special. Others my see that place differently, of course. They can change it, and they probably will; they can even take it away. But if we love it deeply enough, there is a part of it within us to the end. I guess that's how I feel about this place we call the West. And that is why this book exists. -William Albert Allard (introduction to Vanishing Breed).

Published in 1982 from 10 years worth of assignments and long, dusty trails through the West, stretching from Mexico to Canada, Allard's masterpiece is the documentation not only a fading way of a life, but of a past world altogether; an America "with dew still on it" to steal from Maclean. Like every book that I'll talk about in this series, Vanishing Breed is a deeply personal project that is illuminated from within by the photographer's respect for his subjects. With this integrity the book is lifted above and over the shoulders of the other Western tour de forces, such as Avedon's In the American West, as a project which seeks to record on its own terms and for its own subjects, as opposed to the anthropological collection of "different" for a New York City gallery wall.

Though Allard tells us himself in the early pages, it is immediately clear that this is the record of a "love affair" between a photographer and his subjects and the West. Capital "w" West in the romantic sense of that idea from time past in this country. The West as a place of unbridled life, opportunity and freedom from whatever held you down or back. And with that passion Allard strikes back and forth in the book in a careful dance between reverent simplicity and dizzying compositional mastery, with a whole lot of beautifully lit portraits in between that reveal these honored worn faces. In this dance of editing the photographer is asking us to know these men well as both a metaphor and also individuals whose lives are important.

Grouped together in multiple spreads at a time the portraits are then broken on cue by another explosion of sky and open land. In these wider visions I am enthralled both emotionally and technically by the incredible depth that Allard captures. These are pictures that never end and that a viewer nearly falls into trying to find the point at which the focus fades into the smallest detail. Making the depth possible (along with the photographer's skill of course) is this incredible emotion found in the light. Because there will be some confusion here I want to clarify that this isn't just golden hour, Nat Geo light I'm talking about... its something else entirely. This is light that sings and bounces and exalts and sighs like something rare and filled with grace. Allard's light is a gift whether you believe in such things or not.

Flipping through Vanishing Breed for the first time you will be shocked that so many images that you already know by heart are all here together. The lonely cowboy in the empty bar, the ears of the photographer's horse in front of a rushing sea of cattle, the knife with blood still on its blade, the boy with a piece of bread and honey in each hand, the horse in a blizzard. Seen together they melt into each other and the larger story in a way that is almost disappointing that images this rich could ever be a part of a whole. And to me if there is one problem with the project its that Allard goes too far to show the full lives of the cowboys, taking us home with them, years later and with their wives or competing at the rodeo. It makes me miss the focus of Men at Sea, where we are trapped on the boat and all the stronger for it.

By the closing of the book we have gone full circle in the seasons and are trudging through deep snow which both hides the vibrant colors of the rest of the volume and forecasts the increasing division of the open spaces of our country. The last image is of a young boy next to a fence line and I wonder if he became a cowboy later. I hope he did.

Nothing that Allard has done since Vanishing Breed hit me the same way, and to these pictures I owe a great many lessons of depth and respect. The book is a festival of color and detail that is almost hard to look at at anything less than billboard size, but it is contained within a personal narrative and passionate record that both honors its subjects and converts its readers.

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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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