Not married, never have been, and no kids, so this doesnt pose any problems for me.

David,

You picked a great topic, something that I wrestle with often and wonder how I will make it work if I am fortunate enough to live “the dream”. For the time being, family and marriage not something that I have considered because I want to stay focused and continue to push forward. Having a family or wife requires a lot of responsibilities that I am not ready for. At the moment I am able to live off of what I make through photography, but if I were responsible for someone else, I don’t think that would be possible. For me, I need to develop my career and myself before I commit to someone.

Keep shooting on the project, what snapshots look great.

DAVID:

Don’t forget TRENT AND NARELLE :))))…and um, Sally M, Alex S, Jonas and Laara, etc etc ;))))….

and most of the Russian photographers i know (male and female) have families……

just sent chris a note…had no idea…so happy for them….

ok, will write later about this, since, um, well, it’s been pretty obvious over the last year and a half my perspective on this topic ;))))

and yes, i love love snaps…many senses, prefer Family Albums to most photograph books…and yea, we make have them too, most of the snaps are shot with either disposable camera or dima’s digital camera…but, i can’t not, not ever, get enough family albums…be prepared when we come to break yours out too ;))))….

as for the career/family bit…well…im gonna wait to drink before writing something long, but…as a happily married couple, at times photography and all that this entails has been a test, a push, a weight, mostly when i lost sight of perspective (like the projection project i ran, where i sadly prioritized the projection and the photographers over time with my family, something i shall never do again, for no one)…as two working photographers it’s been a learning process and a remarkably enriching and challenging one…

we’re both fortunate, we’ve learned along the way (about photography and a marriage and a marriage with 2 artists) and fed and nurtured and supported one another…there have been moments of great difficulty in this kind of life (2 working artists dealing with the same art form, etc, vanities, hurt feelings, silence etc), but what i feel so fortune is that Marina and I both recognize that as a couple we are one, as photographers each is an individual and needs space and silence and effort, but above all the family is pre-eminent…

for me, as i’ve written often, photography which is an essential part of my life, is one compartment among the many compartments of my pulpy heart-chamber and what bears and bares and beams in my life and drives the greeny fuse of the photography all comes from the same place that led directly to my family…in other words, my wife and son are the source of my being…and that being is what illuminates the work…and i could survive kissing off my cameras…i would be more hard pressed if my wife and son kissed off me as a part of their lives… ;)))…

career?….to survive in tact, to provide some kind of nourishment for them, to write and to photograph and to live as simply and as safely and as nourishing, for them, for us, as possible…that’s my career…that rest, just dross and covering… ;)))…

oh, and yea, i dig snapsnots big big time… …

but marina and i came late to this dog and pony show call photography, and we came late (sort of) to each other (well, compared with couples who marry/meet in their 20’s), so the tide turned in a more directly navigable direction ;)))…

running
b

I have 2 children under the age of 3 with twins comming in the next 5 months so I can relate to the difficulties of business travel.

My wife and I turn down business trips when we can. It makes it easier on the family.

Right now my wife is in New York while I attend to my business plus caring for the kids after day care. It can easily be done but in moderation. Moderation.

Speaking of snap shots… thats about 90% of my photography these days. No more fun photography trips w/ friends or personal projects. However I occasionally shoot a portrait and do some product shots for a company to break out of the mundane though.
Even though I have never been a “photographer” in the professional sense… I still NEED to fulfill my creativity with a camera. Part of the balanced lifestyle.
Peace,
jason

Thanks for this post and opening up the discussion.

As a photographer and mother of two girls–one who’s four and the other who will turn two at the end of August–I have definitely struggled with the balance between my creative pursuits and being a stay-at-home parent, certainly. I think for me it’s a continual learning process, and a subject I tackle quite often on my blog which you can see here: http://elizabethflemingphotography.blogspot.com

I have to say writing on the blog over the last few months has really helped me to figure out, as best I can, where the balance lies, and to share both the difficulties and the absolute beauty of being a parent and an artist.

I think too for me because my photographs center around documenting my life, my children are part of my creativity, and so they feed and nurture each other. When I was getting back into my work it was difficult at first, but slowly as I’ve gotten into a routine I’ve realized, as is often the case, that in order to be a good mother I need this creative outlet. I’m happier when I’m involved in something I’m passionate about, and I feel lucky that I can explore the day-to-day rituals of my family through my camera. But I also was willing when my children were newborns and when they were really young to just shoot when I could and put the more promotional part of work aside.

I’m also lucky because my work is not responsible for paying the bills, and I have a very supportive husband who understands my need to pursue my art. He’s a photographer as well, but is involved in the commercial editorial world, and I’d say he’s my biggest cheerleader. So as far as relationships go I guess it’s important to be with someone who will understand (for the most part, no one’s perfect) when the laundry piles up or the house is a mess because you’re deep into shooting or editing, etc. But I can understand how it could be much more difficult if one’s work involved travel, or if both parents were responsible for making money. I guess it’s probably obvious and maybe a bit cliched to say it, but every family is different, and it’s all about finding what works for you, often through trial and error.

Elizabeth
http://www.elizabethfleming.com

autch… this post is very personal to me… in the last days i “arrived” 4 months late to my love and life. now i have to getting a new life and dreaming with love that i have lost. now the photography is not a priority (but of course i will continue my photography work), it was thinking in photography/career/moneySurvive that i have lost my love.

cheers,
nelson

autch… this post is very personal to me… in the last days i “arrived” 4 months late to my love and life. now i have to getting a new life and dreaming with love that i have lost. now the photography is not a priority (but of course i will continue my photography work), it was thinking in photography/career/moneySurvive that i have lost my love.

cheers,
nelson

autch… this post is very personal to me… in the last days i “arrived” 4 months late to my love and life. now i have to getting a new life and dreaming with love that i have lost. now the photography is not a priority (but of course i will continue my photography work), it was thinking in photography/career/moneySurvive that i have lost my love.

cheers,
nelson

autch… this post is very personal to me… in the last days i “arrived” 4 months late to my love and life. now i have to getting a new life and dreaming with love that i have lost. now the photography is not a priority (but of course i will continue my photography work), it was thinking in photography/career/moneySurvive that i have lost my love.

cheers,
nelson

autch… this post is very personal to me… in the last days i “arrived” 4 months late to my love and life. now i have to getting a new life and dreaming with love that i have lost. now the photography is not a priority (but of course i will continue my photography work), it was thinking in photography/career/moneySurvive that i have lost my love.

cheers,

nelson

Hi there David,

greetings from sunny Cairns, Australia. I’m great mates with your pal Kerry Trapnell and I’m sure he gets a laugh looking at me trying to balance my life with my family!

About 6 months ago my wife decided to go back to work – she’s now a stewardess and takes off overseas for days on end while I look after two little boys of 3 and 5.
I’ve gone from a life traipsing all over the planet to a housebound one but it’s enabled me to concentrate more on my local area and I’ve seen some things in the last 6 months that I hadn’t seen in ten years of living here.
For documentary photograhpers there’s always a story to follow. If you’re stuck in one place then you just find the story close to your heart and your home.

cheers

Paul Dymond
http://www.dymond.com.au

time, that is.. i’m not calling him tim..

i bought a pram today.. and took photos as well.

whoopwhoop.

DAVID,
Interesting topic!
Joachim Ladefoged spoke about this in a recent interview a swedish magazine did with him. He said..

“I want to be a good dad. I myself haven’t had my dad as a part of my life when I was little. I don’t want to go to Afghanistan and take the risk of leaving my son without a father.”

Another quote..

“It’s not possible to become the best photographer in the world when you have a family. You have to choose. Behind every successful photographer stands a damaged child. And I prefer to be no. 10 in the world, and have a real family. James Nachtwey, one of my old idols, has bet it all on the work and doesn’t have a family. Do you know what he said about my decision, whit a glimpse in his eye: When I grow up I want to be like you.”

I’m assuming he’s speaking about photojournalism and documentary photography.
Maybe taken a little out of it’s context and poorly translated, but some interesting words.
Interesting interview overall with some not so positive words about Magnum thrown in there too. Today he’s with VII agency..

Cheers

Martin :))…

Joachim rocks, but i’d take some umbridge with Joachim on the:

“It’s not possible to become the best photographer in the world when you have a family….”

what is “best photographer in the world”, as I have no idea in the world, not a clue (is there one, ever??)…i know some extraordinary photographers who’ve a family (some named above) and some who’ve not had or lost a family…and i know bad photographers who have a family and dont/had ;)))…no relaitonship whatsoever to whether a photographer is good/interesting/challenging or not…though, MAYBE being a PJ constantly on the road is a different issue…

“..Behind every successful photographer stands a damaged child…”

and behind most of US (all of us, once we were warriors/children) is a damaged child and so, im not sure that photogs have a lock on that ;)))))…damn, what about Professional Basketball/Baseball/Hockey/Football players ;)))))))))))))))

so, though as a dad and as a photographer (and as a son), I totally understand what Joachim is saying, im not sure so much if this is about being a photographer/choices…

i think some folk can be successful photographers (however they define successful) and have a family and other photographers cannot, i don’t think there’s a realtionship there, …except when it comes to separation (for example, PJ’s)…that question (traveling away from the family) is another matter…that’s i imagine at the heart of Joachim’s idea and David’s :))…

As for Jim’s family, well he’s left a legacy (and not only the photographic work) of humanitarian act that is as large of an idea as family i know :)))…it has to be awesomely lonely for Jim too sometimes, for sure, but hell so too can any life we’ve chosen…

I cannot imagine my life without marina or dima, not for a blazing second, but nor do i think the choices i have made are more rich, more real, more authentic, more loving….the key, for me: as a personn felt the worth of their life in connection with another human being…and i’d say Jim has that too…he’s got a family too :))))

thanks for the quotes :))

cheers
running
bob

It is a bit different if one wants one’s life centered around photography as a bread maker, a total pursuit, whatever the cost (a la Van Gogh), or rather a passion, however absorbing, that takes a step back to one’s job in life, day (of the week) in and day out.

Maybe one way of asking the question is: could photography be so much one’s goal in life (and it must feed you) that one would sacrifice/postpone having children, being a parent, or even a BF/GF/spouse?

Elizabeth, I think #30 is very special. It is very trivial and evocative at the same time. The little one is rolling on the floor, but the carpet design is almost like an angel’s wing coming off his back. Just wonderful…

I have two kids, teens, and am their only parent. It’s been this way for exactly 7 years as of next week. I do not photograph as my main income, I came to that even later. It’s a struggle to get the time and space to learn over any sustained period — but I spend a lot more time learning how to parent, and am getting two of the best relationships of my life out from it.

I took a one week long workshop (MPW) that expanded my mind, and provided the total luxury of being surrounded by people who lived and breathed photography, amazing; but it was very hard to get that week away, out of town. I think it’s important, though, that the kids are seeing me reach for something that I want to learn, that they see me trying and failing and trying again.

They slow me down, definitely…but then again, they slow me down…Something to be said for that.

Joan

BOB – I’ve got an issue with that whole lone Warrior bullshit , I’t never quite worked for me – We started having babies within 6 months of starting our new life as a freelancer , Miles was happy accident as my wife Jude and I had literally spent about 5 weeks of the previous 12 months in the same country ( but when your on a good thing you just know it )and then 2 years later Stella comes along .
The thing is it’s working for me to have something to come home to , an impetus to arrive do my job well, collect my pay , leave !Before I bacame a family man ,I worked partied ,travelled and spent far too much time on the piss! Since I became a family man , I’m working a lot more on things I enjoy and am good at , filled 2 passports using our little town in the North as a base – This time has been the most fulfilling time of my life ,both personally and professionaly ,
I remember covering a Royal Tour a few years ago sitting around a table with some photographer mates from the UK ,talking about a colleague who worked out that he had been in the country for 4 of his daughters 21 birthdays – He quickly took a redundancy and became a fulltime carer for his grandkids – There’s a lot of cautionary tales in our biz.
The absence thing is an issue only when the jobs draaaaag on with no end in sight , but at the end of the day we both agreed that this was how we were going to support our family and that when I am home I am 100 % home and when I’m out a phone call would be nice.
I wonder who the best photographer in the world is?

KELLY

I just finished “Evidence of my Existence” book – great read. I just mailed it to Lance….

this is an interesting question that DAH has asked. i decided a long time ago not to have kids. i love my life and do not see children fitting into that. don’t get me wrong – I LOVE KIDS – and am one kick-ass Auntie – but it’s just not for me. I love to travel, watch 9 hours of football on sunday, see 3 movies a week, take naps, and I have VERY little patience.

there is a new NG book out by Annie Griffiths Belt, “A Camera, Two Kids, and a Camel. Annie took her 2 kids on her assignments and made it work.

then again – i truly admire the Nachtwey’s of the world who sacrifice “family” for their work, vision, and passion.

Heh, I guess I’m the not very family person here. I don’t have pets (not allowed in the flat), no girlfriend, all my relatives live in different countries, and even the plants that I had accumulated with time (and via girls) have died. I didn’t share a house with my siblings since I was two years old, and I didn’t share a country with them since I was four. They live in Finland, my mother lives in Spain and I live in Wales. Right now I miss my cousins in the countryside the most because it has been more than five years since I met them the last time. At least I do have friends everywhere…

GINA – Interesting that Annie can bring her kids away non assignment with her – I Think DAH did th – Our first family assignment resulted in concussion , a black eye and a mouthful of Kangaroo Poop! We will try again in September!
In retrospect I think The whole Uncle/Aunty experience is what prepared me for starting my own family – But why do many think you can’t have a family and still live a creative life following your vision with passion? The support that my family give out allow me to work harder,smarter and more creatively than ever before – I honestly could’nt work the way I do without the support from home.

BOB – sometimes imperfect parents make for make for an interesting childhood – My Dad was a non stop traveller when he came back from Vietnam – we just went along and did’nt know anything different from playing on the side of a dirt road while Dad Bulldozed it flat and making freinds with any kids we could find at outback roadhouses , small towns etc – probably prepared me for a career in getting to know strangers and taking their picture.

John Fulton, love the remembrances but you must throw in something just a little embarrassing on occasion ;-)

where i live the biggest money earner is working away from shore on the oil rigs..

i’ve yet to hear of an oil worker, who spends 3 or 4 in ever 8 weeks out in the north sea, say it would be unfair to have children.. because they want to be the best oil worker they can.

it is not suitable for perhaps a very small section of photographers – however i don’t think that has anything to do with dedication or ambition.. i think it’s as lisa says above.. as others say.. i think it must be a personal choice.

it’s a cliche which many photographers use – and i’ve used in the past – that work would prevent a family. when i think on it further i wonder if photography was a great excuse for me to live without responsibility, hiding behind my profession..loosing relationships..

everyone is different – astonishingly different.. and to meet a lover on the same life curve and want to progress that lifestyle is an amazing thing.
the sweeping generalization that it is not compatible with any profession is daft, i think.. cliched and easy.

bob is right i think.. basketball ‘stars’, sports people.. oil rig workers.. shift workers.. my dad, infact.

my father was a london taxi driver.. he’d be awake and leave the house by 5.30am, to return of an evening at 8pm.. not so that he could be ‘the best taxi driver he could’, but because the job demanded it.
he was not a selfish man, nor was he a bad father.. he just had his job to do.

the children we look after adapt to our life choices and while not wanting to give them too much to cope with, there is no way i would want them to face the resulting resentment built up over martyring my career for them.. i do not think having kids is going to turn me into a wedding photographer.. i’m david and beate is beate.. our child will be XXXX and have his own ways and ambitions.

parents have a right to continue a life they love.. which may be much much more inspiring for a child as well..

big respect here for photographers with families.. continue your passion and your family with dedication and i have no doubt that your children will be injected with some rare experience, independence and, when they are old enough, real pride and love for your life choices.

David B., all, I think we can quite accept that some can juggle the 2, and some can’t. No one is the same. different backgrounds, different demons, or felicities, the best is probably keeping from “it can (‘t) be done” generalizing, and listen to personal experiences that may have gone one way or another.

Oil riggers, taxi drivers? Hmmm, I see the point, but what if we ask the taxi driver to fetch people in a different country, or even city, every week. What if we ask him to do nightshifts an dayshifts indifferently, what if he makes peanuts working 12 hours or more, or clients won’t pay the fare (but leave your phone #, we liked your driving)…

As david likes to say, if evryone could be a working photographer, it would be easy. After all, there are a lot more employed taxi drivers than photographers.

If photography was a 9 to 5 job, with skills merely learnt, same ones for everyone (when it is 9 to 5 as can happen, parenting or not is most likely not an issue) , I am pretty sure David would not have introduced the topic.

Even small children will become grownups one day. So you better do a good job preparing them for just that.

I just did a small project with my now eighteen year old daughter…her making the soundtrack, me making the images:

http://www.pix.dk/sal

I am also blessed with a son. He is eight years old and live in Turkey, with his mother. Whenever we meet down there, we travel around the country together. He is the perfect fixer. With his energy and fluent turkish, he’s kickin’ up doors. And we make good memories.

I am lucky; I never had to chose between becoming the best photographer in the world or having a family…but I’m constantly trying to be the best father in the world.

ELIZABETH

I really enjoyed your pictures and your attitude towards photography. In particular many shots of “Life is a series of small moments” reminds me of Arthur Tress’ photographic mood.

bob, glen, davin.. all quite right for me..

this thread is getting me passionate.. i already love my son and i am as determined as ever to continue to grow my practice.. apologies if i have sounded a little defensive in my responses.. it will all fall into place soon enough..

baby boy will have a unique life.. i had one.. beate had one.. all will be well..

every child is neglected at some point.. every child is loved..
the extremes, (relatively) have happened to us all.. and we’re okay.. yeah?
we are okay.. aren’t we?
hmm..

David,

Interesting post! Esp. to hear the wide and varied responses so far… Many locations, ages with varying marital and family status. Quite the wide wide demographic here!

Personally, I do look forward to having children, but I do not plan—although these things can just happen!—to do so until I feel I am on more solid ground professionally.

Jessica and I celebrated our two year anniversary (on separate continents unfortunately) a week ago, so it is only natural that we start moving in this direction. Shit, we are a ways off now though… we don’t even have a home! So first is deciding where to settle… On the positive side we have a good starting off point as we have no professional commitments to a specific location and no property tying us down :)) …

Of course it is a struggle juggling career with family and this industry does have a bad reputation for failed marriages, but for most life & career is a struggle, whatever you do. I think David B mentioned Oil workers for example, 3 weeks away etc. There are many professions away from the 9-5 that put pressure on relationships. Most not as wonderful as this!

Life is about balance in every respect. Providing you can keep that balance and not get too selfish career wise the odds are in your favour… Therein lies the challenge. It is very difficult to be successful within a competitive field without a certain personal drive.

I just don’t see myself able to give the time (and money!) I would like at this stage in my life to raising a child as I feel I have to be driven (and selfish in many respects) to establish myself. I hope if/when this ever happens I will then be able to take my foot off the gas a little, find some balance, and reap the rewards of some relative security and enjoy raising a child.

Separate note: emailed you David regarding current work, Know you are busy, but thought I would try you one last time for a bit of feedback on the new portfolio.

Cheers all!

James

Hmmm It is probably different for a woman than for a man…

Yes, there are good examples as Annie Griffiths but usually kids don’t stop, they’re always arguing, touching everything and getting on the nerves of whoever is with them. In a beautiful and perfect world, I would love the idea of working, shooting and travelling for assignments with my kids, but in the real world I don’t think it is possible and really admire and envy the people that can do it.

I do think that being a mother restrains professional and photographic aspirations, at least during the first years where kids need so much care.

saludos

Ana

Hello all!!!
interesting but also the previous topic it was.. I am two weeks late with your blog.
Talking about this one..

DAVID
give my congratulations to Chris, he talks about the waiting for Atlas in Oslo…I really love that picture!

On topic I remember I already give my opinion on that in one of the past forum.
I said something like It’s really hard especially for a woman to became mother and go on photographing… may be it’s hard beeing a mother… going on doing anything else than looking after a child, especially in the first age.
Enjoy tuscany wine!!!!

David B, we all agree that good parenting does not depend on the job itself, and the hours of work. My father was often away from home, and to me he will always be the greatest man I met in my life….Bar none (if that’s ok with Bob, ahahaha).

What I meant is that for photography, as you start, there are a lot more uncertainties, especially income wise, but also career wise, that could affect a choice or a relationship. I do not think the reasons for striving a photographer or a taxi driver, are the same. Hoping this is not too cliche to say! ;)

Maybe I misread, but do I get the slight impression that answering DAH, the men seem to want/OK the P career, the companion and the children, ie. working it out, and a few of our female friends would only stick with the passion/career and not deal with motherhood at the same time, and for 2 or 3, never. Interesting as far as genders are concerned.

And if men were actually from….Venus! ;-)

ERIC and ALL…

Love the new Little Warriors work, especially the portrait you have on your home page. The subject (kids) does fit with what we are discussing here.

Your comment also brings up another subject for me that I’d like to see discussed here at some point…off topic for now but…

I happen to agree with your take on children fighting. You were there photographing them, being intimate with them and yet to some degree not in full support of what was happening…although I’m SURE you did not make your feelings apparent to anyone. It reminds me of myself at Rodeos… I am the biggest animal lover in the world and just do not buy the crap that people tell me about how rodeo animals are treated humanely. It kills me to watch it on one level but at the same time this is THEIR culture, their way of life and no one is asking my opinion. If I don’t like it I can leave but I choose to stay and accept and drop my opinions as best I can while cheering for the bullriders and bronc riders and calf ropers.

Sorry all for the change of topic! Hopefully there will be another opportunity to discuss this more fully.

David B said “oh – and wear the suit you want to wear tomorrow, today.
whether with work or with family.. it is happening now and waiting for either will lead to a let-down.”

Wise words. And a lesson reinforced by my son, who was 4 at the time.

He had just gotten a sheet of stickers of some type that he thought were very cool. Now, if I had suddenly been surprised by something that I thought were as cool as he thought those stickers were, I would have “saved” them for a good time for use…

He took them, opened the package, and stuck the one he liked the best on my shirt, saying “here daddy, you wear that one, it’s the coolest”. And then he stuck another he liked on his own shirt, grinned, and skipped/ran out of the room….

children: experts at living in the moment.

Regarding snapshots, I am very glad I enjoy them, as that’s pretty much where I am in my photographic development at the moment :)

good light to all,
A.

andrew..

thanks for the tail.. moments like that must be wonderful.. unprecedentedly humbling.

living in the moment has been a necessary lesson to learn i have found.. instant decision and availability has been important, to say nothing about the actual clicking of the shutter.
beate does it beautifully – having spent 10 years running a nursery.. i have done it through my work.
baby boy will do it naturally..
i think work will be better than ever.. more importantly i think free time spent dedicated to making a balanced, funny, good and healthy child will be time better spent than some of the more potion dependent ways i have coped with free time over the years.

okay.. i’m going to be quiet for a while now.
BIG UP YER KIDS xx

I always thought the equation was:

1. become a photographer so you can
2. get a woman and
3. have babies

…It hasn’t worked so far…

I read Erica’s words and see/hear/feel this strong, creative, open, honest, intelligent woman who happens to be one of the most gifted and committed photographers I know, and something deep inside whispers, “Stay true to your work for it is your work that is needing all of your generative energy, especially now.” I know it’s hard when you hear your biological clock tick-tick-ticking, but that is no reason to decide to have a child.

I’ve never had a child, never even been pregnant for that matter. Yes, we wanted children in our younger years. Yes, it was hard for me when I entered menopause at the young age of 43. I had some grieving to do for what would obviously never be. But at 66, I see things very differently indeed.

While my friends were birthing and tending children, I was birthing and tending my art. I was 32 when I entered art college to study fine arts. For the next ten years I lived, breathed, ate, slept my art, which involved painting, sculpture, mixed media and performance art. I showed, sold, wrote art reviews, collaborated with other artists to create environmental installations and “happenings.” I had a studio in a funky unheated space downtown where I spent hours every day. I was as driven about all of that as I am now about photography.

OK. If I’d had children at home, do you think I would have taken this path? Not a chance. Maybe I would have dabbled in art, but, knowing me, I would not have had the time or energy available to become as serious and committed as I did.

And now? Well, most of my friends are ga-ga over their grandchildren. Most of their discretionary time is spent baby-sitting, visiting, playing with, buying for the little ones whom they adore with a purple passion.

And me? Well, most of you know where my time and attention goes! Forget grandchildren. I’ve got photography!

Now everything I’m saying is all about me, not about anyone else. I’m sure there are women who can do it all. I’m just not one of them. And there is NOTHING I’d rather be doing with my life right now than EXACTLY what I’m doing. Hell, how many women in their 60s get to be called an “emerging” ANYTHING???

And I want to say that Erica is an amazing woman, one whom I love and admire greatly. We sat and talked last night for HOURS and would still be there now if they hadn’t needed our table for a line of other folks! Here’s a portrait she took of me on the streets of Greenwich Village:

http://www.pbase.com/windchimewalker/image/101389012

Erica, the portrait I took of you was too blurry to post. Sigh. Feel better soon, sweet one.

BYW I’m at a motel outside of Rochester, NY halfway through my 700-mile drive home. Passed through about six heavy showers today but they didn’t last long. All is going fine…

Patricia

Just talked with my dear bud, Spencer. Oh my, you folks have a treat in store! He just gave me a preview of his Demolition Derby series and IMHO it is fabulous! Spencer has a unique eye, superb technical ability and his own artistic aesthetic that comes through in every shot. He’s still scanning his images but hopefully will soon post a link here. Besides being a wonderful photographer, Spencer is such a sweet man, and the PERFECT companion to see the City with…especially the East Village which I loved!

I know this is totally off topic, but what can I say? I’m still full to overflowing with enthusiasm over my two magical days and nights in NYC! Big thanks to Spencer & Erica for making it so special.

Patricia

GREAT PORTRAITS… SPENCER…!
PATRICIA LOOKS SO PRETTY…
peace..

ps: i want to write SO MUCH… and share a lot…
but i have to “WAIT”…
There is some “stuff” i need to “share” with ALL…
but i know.. its not the “right” time.. not yet…
be back in a second !!…

oh and about “babies”, “kids”,…”children” …!!!
oh my , oh my…
ok… be back in a second !!!

LANCE,

Amigo…just spent some time looking at your “Thirst for Grit” essay. This is progressing well… I am sure you are eager to hear what the man thinks…. I particularly liked your closer shots/ portraits and would love to see more of these. I really liked picture 29 even though it could be something else than rodeo….

Are you planning to carry on working this subject? Seems to be a topic that suits you well… By the way, as I went back to your site, I saw once more the colour work you had done in San Miguel…I tell you…I also very much like the color work you did…Have you stopped shooting colors for your personal projects?

Eric

Cool, Eric. In Thailand, they have tons of kids training too, girls too, in many Muay thai centers. I suppose there’s an interesting essay possible about kids striving to excel in such sports.

But the story about parents pushing and pressuring kids, that makes me sick in my stomach. Sport wise, It seems very american, but maybe I am wrong.

Patricia, are you playing “harmonica” in the first picture, or are you just realizing you forgot the battery spare for the Patmobile?

:-)))))

ALL … please read below ….
how the CATHOLICISM IN MY COUNTRY…USA
blames the ” Columbine massacre ” ON FRIEDRICH NIETZCHE… on ONE PERSON… one philosopher… and one
philosopher ONLY… and it goes like this :

“… The Children of Nietzsche

by Roberto Rivera ( ????!!! )

Really Enjoyable, Useful Commentary. Sign up for Catholic Culture Insights today!

Few years ago, a pair of suburban teenagers named Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold turned the word “Columbine” into a synonym for “massacre.” In the year since the shootings, there has been no shortage of explanations for why two middle-class suburban kids would set out to annihilate their schoolmates.

These explanations have focused on, to borrow terms from criminal law, means and motive. By means, I’m referring to the role that our nation’s gun laws may have played in the massacre. The past months have seen repeated efforts, at both the state and federal levels, to close what gun-control advocates maintain was a loophole that enabled the pair to arm themselves.

By motive, I’m referring to things such as uncontrolled anger, bad parents, and bigotry. In other words, psychological factors.

The Other Factor

What’s noteworthy is the lack of attention given to the factor for which we arguably have the most evidence: the role popular culture, and the nihilism it breeds, played in turning suburban kids into monsters. If you’re looking for evidence for this contribution, you need look no further than what a December issue of Time magazine dubbed a “Special Report.”

The report, which generated a lot of criticism from both the victims’ families and segments of the media, was based on a set of videos shot by Harris and Klebold just before the shootings. In these tapes, the duo swigged Jack Daniels, brandished their weapons, and tried to explain why they were about to do what they did. While the tapes had nothing to say about the role of guns—an issue I suspect we’ll never settle—they did a good job of undermining the psychological explanations proffered by the punditocracy.

While Harris and Klebold were angry at the way they had been treated, you can’t label their anger as uncontrollable. On the contrary, it’s clear from watching the tapes that they had bided their time, waiting for the ideal moment to act.

And while the pair’s performance on the tapes was filled with racial hatred and invective, it’s also clear that they were equal-opportunity haters. They hated everybody: athletes, minorities, Jews, and other whites.

Well, how about their clueless parents? You know, the ones who were unaware of the bomb factory in the house? The pair absolves their parents. Klebold tells the camera, “There’s nothing you guys could’ve done to prevent this. . . .” He tells his mom and dad that they are “great parents,” and that he appreciates what they’ve done for him. As consolation, Harris offers a quote from Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “Good wombs hath borne bad sons.” They then say goodbye to their parents by saying, “It’s what we had to do. . . .”

What the tapes do tell us about is the role that American popular culture played in shaping Harris’s and Klebold’s worldviews. I’m not talking about the attempt to place blame on movies such as The Matrix or The Basketball Diaries. The role played by popular culture was both subtler and more invidious.

Take the name that Harris chose for his shotgun: Arlene. He named it after a character in Doom, his favorite video game. Doom is a violent and gory game where the strategy is simple: if it moves, shoot it. And in case anyone missed the reference, Harris told the camera that the “shooting [is] going to be like . . . Doom.”

Can anyone seriously doubt the extent to which the hyper-violent world of video games had shaped the pair’s worldview?

Not Merely Imitating

An even more important indication as to how American popular culture shaped the pair’s understanding of the world can be found in their stated reasons for doing what they did. Harris and Klebold wanted the world to be clear on one point: They were not merely imitating other school shootings.

Harris says that we should “not think we’re trying to copy anyone.” He and Klebold had thought of killing their classmates “before the [other school shootings] ever happened.” What’s more, their motivations were entirely different from the likes of Kip Kinkel in Oregon, or the shooters in Paducah, Kentucky, who, according to Harris, “were only trying to be accepted by others.”

No, Harris and Klebold weren’t looking for acceptance. They were originals. They couldn’t be concerned with such trivial matters as whether people liked them or not, or even considerations of right and wrong. They were after much bigger game. They wanted to be remembered as “revolutionary” figures, people who did something that changed the world.

And, finally there’s the tone of the tapes. The word that comes to mind is banal. Yes, Harris and Klebold are angry, but they also approach their intentions with a matter-of-fact attitude. They were clearly tired of life, and convinced that there was nothing worth living for. So, they reasoned, “why not stage our own Götterdämmerung [Twilight of the Gods]? At least we will be remembered for the audacity and originality of our final actions.”

If there is a word to describe the pair’s “performance,” it’s Nietzschean. For instance, the pair didn’t deny that what they were about to do was wrong. They understood that their actions would bring grief, not only to the victims and their families, but to their own families as well. But that knowledge of right and wrong didn’t dissuade them, because they considered themselves as transcending such considerations.

As Nietzsche might have put it, they considered themselves beyond good and evil. Likewise, their desire to be seen as doing something original brings to mind Nietzsche’s idea of the artist as a self-creator who is unconstrained by antiquated moral norms.

The question is: How did Klebold and Harris come to fulfill the predictions of a philosopher who died a century ago? They may have read his work, but the most likely answer is that they absorbed Nietzsche—whom Harvard’s Harvey C. Mansfield calls “the philosopher of our times”—secondhand through our popular culture.

Shows About Nothing

And the best way to understand the influence of Nietzsche on popular culture is to read a new book by Thomas Hibbs, a professor of philosophy at Boston College. Shows About Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist to Seinfeld (Spence Publishing, 1999) chronicles the trajectory of popular culture, in particular movies and television, over the past 25 years.

According to Hibbs, the worldview that best characterizes contemporary movies and television is nihilism, which Hibbs defines as a “state of spiritual impoverishment and shrunken aspirations.” This nihilism grows out of the belief, unstated in the case of American culture, that God is dead. Not in the literal sense, but in what Hibbs describes as “the growing sense that no religious or moral code is credible.”

This sense, which Nietzsche calls “pessimism,” is a “preliminary form of Nihilism.” Nihilism leads to the belief that all definitions of good and evil are “arbitrary,” which in turn “deprives us of any common vision.”

As Hibbs tells us, Nietzsche foresaw two possible responses to the knowledge that God is dead. The first is a “despair” which leads to a “stagnation of the creative will.” The second is an embrace of “creative boldness” that declares its independence from outmoded notions of right and wrong. According to Hibbs, both responses are present in much of today’s television and movies.

In the case of “creative boldness,” the past 25 years have witnessed the emergence of an unprecedented character whom Hibbs calls the “demonic anti-hero.” Examples of this type are Cady, the character played by Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear, and Hannibal Lecter, the role in Silence of the Lambs that won Anthony Hopkins his Oscar.

Unlike the classic hero, or even the flawed hero of film noir, the demonic anti-hero revels in his freedom from moral restraints and invites the audience to celebrate his liberation. Recall Lecter’s last line in Silence of the Lambs. Looking at his old nemesis, he tells Clarice that “I’m having an old friend for dinner”—in other words, “I’m gonna kill him and eat him.” I bet you laughed. I did.

The demonic anti-hero is the emblem of a worldview increasingly portrayed in movies where, as Hibbs writes, “ultimate justice is elusive, where we are tempted to see the underlying force as malevolent and punitive. . . . [This world sees] violence and ineradicable guilt as the underlying truth about the human condition.” In other words, no one cares, no one is in control, no one is innocent, and even if someone is, there’s no one around to vindicate his rights. This is the worldview not only of the two films I’ve already mentioned, but also of virtually every horror film, and of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files.

Spiritually Impoverished Seinfeld

The other response, that of “despair,” is subtler, but no less corrosive. As Hibbs’s subtitle tells us, this response is best embodied in the definitive comedy of the nineties: Seinfeld. Have there ever been four more spiritually impoverished people than Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer? Did you ever see four people who aspired to less?

From the start, the writers of Seinfeld followed two important rules: no hugs and no learning. The result was a world without any pretense to virtue, or even sentiment. A world where earnestness was nowhere to be found and where the surface was all there was. In such a world the only posture that makes sense is detached irony, that is, to be like Jerry. (And like all successful shows, Seinfeld spawned its imitators. Shows like Friends are basically “Seinfeld lite.” They are trivial and superficial, but they lack the guts to go all the way and embrace the “no hugs and no learning” rule.) Which is exactly the kind of world you’d expect to find if God were dead and people didn’t have the ambition to be Hannibal Lecter.

Since the shootings at Columbine, this trend has accelerated. If anything, the aspirations displayed in movies and television, especially those aimed at teenagers, have gotten even smaller. Shows like Dawson’s Creek and Popular depict a world where teenage preoccupations with sex and popularity assume mythic proportions. You can expect an endless run of movies aimed at teens where the raison d’être is getting laid in time for the prom.

Meanwhile, the creatively bold crowd has come out with what may be the ultimate in demonic anti-heroes: Patrick Bateman, the protagonist of American Psycho, a film about a yuppie stock trader whose real passion is serial murder. The film, based on the controversial Bret Easton Ellis novel, purports to hold out Bateman as an object of loathing and disgust, but by making him rich, good-looking, and oddly charismatic, the odds are that audiences, especially kids, will respond to him just as they did to Hannibal Lecter.

And even shows without any “objectionable” content—in fact, no discernable content whatsoever—such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and its imitators, reinforce the nihilistic streak in popular culture. The audience is expected to passively watch a total stranger answer a series of questions, nothing else. In its own way, Millionaire, which abandons the pretense of plot and narrative altogether, is just as morally empty as Seinfeld.

Two Choices

The nihilism of popular culture matters because, in a world where the influence of institutions such as the family and the church has diminished, popular culture has become an important source of values for many kids.

Which brings me back to Harris and Klebold. If what you watch and what you listen to leads you to believe that life is meaningless, then, as Nietzsche might have told you, you’ve got two choices: You can be Jerry Seinfeld or Hannibal Lecter. Which would you choose?

Any discussion of the role of popular culture always produces the rejoinder: “I watched Seinfeld. I saw Silence of the Lambs. I’ve never even thought of harming my classmates.” That’s usually true, but it’s important to understand that the Nihilism in pop culture affects different people in different ways.

Many people are temperamentally incapable of perpetrating violence. Instead, they manifest the effects by becoming depressed and indifferent. Or they adopt a posture of irony—what Hibbs might call “the Seinfeld syndrome”—where they embody the superficial and passive creatures, always seeking to be amused, whom Nietzsche called “the last man.”

The antidote to nihilism is, of course, faith. And, in an ironic way, Harris and Klebold themselves proved how powerful an antidote this kind of belief is. When they stopped to ask prospective victims, “Do you believe in God?” it was as if they were saying, “If we did, we wouldn’t be here.” Even having embraced darkness, they recognized light when they saw it.

And it’s this light that’s our best bet against what happened in Littleton, Colorado. In the end, believing in something—in particular, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—is the best way to not succumb to the nihilism taught by shows about nothing.

Roberto Rivera is a Fellow at the Wilberforce Forum at Prison Fellowship. In addition to Touchstone (“Darwin’s Brave New World,” in the September/October 1999 issue), his work has appeared in Books & Culture and the web magazine Boundless, where a shorter version of this article appeared.
Copyright © 2000. The Fellowship of St. James. All rights reserved.

This item 3479 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org

ANYWAYS… FUCK THE CATHOLICS … AND LETS GO BACK TO VENICE TO WATCH THE ” CHRISTIANS ATTACK ”
once more… ( i know most of you already seen it.. but really, who cares… )
so, once again:

WEST vs EAST in ( where else )… venice, LA, CALIFORNIA…

http://web.mac.com/innerspacecowpanos/%22MOVIES%22/West_vs_East_in_Venice….html

ok…
“… dont do anything at all…”
i warned you..

don’t EVER DO cali mushrooms… from topanga… in topanga…
coz it sounds like this:

kids? what a topic David :)
as I am not married and have no kid I really don’t know what gonna happen for my work life when I’ll have responsibilities of a family life too. first thought is it could be destroying! but maybe not. it’s depended to my reaction but I couldn’t guess what it could be now. but I love having kids and after that to have grandchild :)

I am thinking more and… funny but it seems my life is so depended to photography, I am with friends taking pictures I am in party taking pictures I am dancing but still taking pictures, I am in cafe taking pictures … my camera is every where!
I really want that grandchild then I’ll remember to show a good reaction about having a child, better be a girl but it gonna fun to have a son too :) It’s not a post for me but you were wrong David seems so many photographer here have children and doing a great work too. very impressing

Patricia I love love your picture from MEM :)) yes Herve I am with you. photographing women is more fun.

http://noushin.noushinography.com/my_free_space.htm

new pix in “my free space”. I did a mistake in developing my new negatives and it effected the quality of pictures in last ones …

patricia.. looking sharp.. nice work spencer..

babies.. kicking..

this thread really tapped into my fears of fatherhood, comming from where i have..

it will all be fine.. i know it will.

working hard as ever..

you shoot b&w David?! Only kidding :) I know you just converted your digi files. Maybe I have missed a post. . . but what about color vs. b&w for you?! I mean Koudelka claims he can’t shoot color and others like yourself, Webb, Bendiksen only shoot it. . . while Sobol carries on in b&w and on film no less!

I guess you’ve seen the news…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/09/georgia.russia2

“Georgia today declared itself at war as invading Russian forces said they were in control of the South Ossetian capital. Moscow claims heavy fighting has killed 1,500 people since Georgia began bombarding the separatist region on Friday and Russia responded with tanks, air raids and ground troops.

Saakashvili accused Russia of being the aggressor, but the assault seemed timed to coincide with today’s launch of the Olympic games. “Most decision-makers have gone for the holidays,” he told CNN. “Brilliant moment to attack a small country.””

Lee,
thank you super much !

GEORGA/RUSSIA/SOUTH OSSETIA:

1) http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/08/09/world/20080809-GEORGIA_index.html

2)http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/world/europe/10ossetia.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

It is an horrendously complicated and ultimately profoundly tragic situation once again, much much of which has to do with Stalin’s mass forced migration of people and ethnicities…A sense of what’s going on in South Ossetia can be glimpsed if you read Kapucinski’s IMPERIUM….ironically, at the moment im reading Tom Bissels CHASING THE SEA about the Aral Sea disaster and Uzbekistan…..but much of these “countries” are not countries at all but regions defined and carved and created by Stalin, on top of which lay 100’s of years of ethnic and religious conflict centered around Christianity and Islam and Turk vs. russian ethnicities vs. other Caucasian ethnicities…it is so bloodly complicated…much of still which definies Russia (as in the nation, not her people) lay at the heart of what happen during the Golden Horde (when most of Russia was conquored and ruled by the Mongols)…their fear of invasion or losing parts of her body….the problem is that South Ossetia is dominated by Russian ethnic though it’s a part of Georgia: Georgian’s live there do (as do other ethnicities)….again: what is land, whose land is it…Russia clearly needs this as its relationship and access to the Caspian…by the way Gosprom has a pipeline there which is critical (my wife’s mom worked for 30 years and was a manager at gosprom)…so….once the south ossetians decided to revolt Georgia got incensenced, and mother russia came to the rescue of “her people”…

marina and i were talking about it all day and im anxious to talk to her parents and dima this morning to see what’s being broadcast in Moscow….

will keep u up to speed…

BUT, if you want an inkling into all this read IMPERIUM….

and were about to go to armenia, georgia, azherbajiani next year (fingers crossed) to visit and hope to do a photo projec there, Caucuses, central asia, etc…

As Marina said, in the end, the people that always always suffer are the civilians…not the government or the armies…

running
b

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/08/08/world/200808_GEORGIA_SLIDESHOW_index.html

Joni

Many of this “ex-soviet repulics” was independent coutries many centuries. I could agree with that there is just “difficult” ethnic situation if I don’t know how russia see everything around. russia have only one rule “you are with us or against us”. After five centuries of wars their goverment don’t know how to stop treat small countries as a Ownership or property. I don’t understand why geaorgia start shoot to ossietia autonomy, but I know that georgia could have no problems with separatist if russia not sending them weapon or prompt to fight.
The same “problem” russia have with chechenya or ukraine, lithuania, or Estonia. In this countries lives many of russians citizens but this countries could exist only beacuse their are closest to eu than georgia and chechenya are.
We as a nation just love russia nation, but we will never understand why russian govermant just have to be “World-power agressor”. We have very bad relations with russia mostly because russian govermant always try to treat poland as a servant or enemy because we say “good bye” in 89.

I apologize for this politycal commnent and like I said I love russian nation…
but my heart just crying because it proves that we live in middleages still. where strobger take everything.
this is sad day…

PANOS and DAVID
Yes we have a young Koudelka there, a friend, Olga, David you know her, you met her in Oslo. I was a little bit worried for her she was there to work on a project since one month, and already moved to the war zone but I just received an email that everything is Ok.

ERICA
you always have to pursue your best dream, whatever it is, also if I think you are strong enough to reach more than one!
It easy for me to say that.. I don’t have children… :)

MARCIN
about your question in the last post on the scanner if you buy by ebay from U.S. to an european country you have to pay taxes. You can arrange without, loosing the Europen warranty. But be careful because for having a present (and it was half a present!) from N.Y now I have a SIGMA DP1 broken after two weeks and serious problem in reparing or having one running back… :(

Laura,
Thank you..
OLGA..
Shoot shoot shoot shoot

Laura

Thanks for info. I will probably ask someone from my friends who will go to us to buy me this scanner. But this will be at the end of year with good winds. Now I want buy some more films and shooting shooting shooting…
scanner must wait for better times.

peace for all

Basically, I want to have babies, but the next thing is the fear about the ability to raise and educate the children.

With the commitment for being a photo journalist, it would be a choice for not being rich, it’s a choice for being rich with lessons. I haven’t seen a rich photo journalist in my country, Indonesia. The value of a photo journalist is not much, and with the development of digital photography, it’s become less. Some of the photographers have unhealthy competition with each others, and the value of photographer in front of the community decreased since most of us behave like gunmen pointing their gun ignoring the feelings of the subject. The subject of photo would only be an object. And therefore, the photo journalist are not really well paid, because of the competition and the decreasing values.

The inflation grows and grows every time. How should I feed a baby with a monthly wage of $180 (wage for a photographer in a local newspaper)? And later to send them to a school?

The second thing is: could I be a good father when I’m always away when my children need me?

Maybe other photographers from Indonesia have another point of view…just correct me if I’m wrong.

and thanks to David and the other members of this forum for sharing their thoughts.

regards,
suryo

david,

great post. i think this is a topic that could go on and on for some time with much insight from many people. lots of people have their own views on it and many have different “relationship” status… i myself have always believed that you should find someone who lets you be you.

look at rebecca and alex webb. they have it… ed kashi and his wife have it as well… ed’s wife is said to be his secret weapon and rebecca edits most of alex’s work with him. its hard to find someone lie this. a team… a powerhouse … someone that supports you no matter what and wants what you want just as bad… but this is always hard to find.

when children come into play then its different… i remember christopher morris speaking in new york and getting very emotional over shooting wars with his children still at home… i was very moved by this because chris was making a very open decision to stop photographing wars and take more time to be with his family as he felt it was more important to him that he be home.

its interesting as well how this can change and or benefit work in some way… being home and photographing different things can help you grow in new directions… new styles… things you never thought or saw before…

but i am young… so what do i know…

Mike B, you know a lot. Having grown children with their own kids has enlightened me on the subject of relationships with offspring. And how your work fits into the equation. Photography came into my life late, after my children were grown, but I worked hard when they were young.

In retrospect would they have been better off if I had stayed home and played house and daddy went off to work every day? No. Because I would have been so bored I would have probably opened up my own personal opium den. Your work is as much a part of you as your family. The trick is to find a balance; and it isn’t by one person in the relationship devoting their whole life to the pursuit of the other’s dream.

It is a tightrope act and we come into this world ill equipped to perform. Children are so important, as are parents. In the family is where ethics and cultures of nations are built.

When families recognize the joy and fulfillment of working as a cohesive unit they prosper. When too much emphasis is put on one individual, such as a dad who is always gone due to his work, then the family suffers–regardless of the worthiness of what keeps his away.

This is true of the larger family, nations and their governments. The irony of China’s display in the opening ceremonies is evidence of the breakdown of a society and makes me wonder about the personal lives of China’s citizens–how they find a balance with family with such a burden on their shoulders.

Lee

lee,

thanks for your post. i know what i know i guess… and yes the work is as much a part of me as my family is. i am only 22 so i do not have any real expirence with relationships… at least i dont think so… not enough to be giving advice… so i can only give my thoughts on the subject. however i have seen allot and from seeing i have learned allot… what to do… not to do… if that makes sense… so i try to make the best decisions that i can with what i have.

as for china… i think allot more is going on that we do not know about there… i was reading a newsweek article that said we (the united states) are over 2 trillion dollars in debt to china for funding for the war… i think allot is going to happen in the next while… and russia just makes me depressed…

by the way… i think we met at a workshop with david in mexico… san miguel de allende… i hope i spelled that right… i was the youngest one there… i think i was 18 at the time…

ANNA
yes I remember that. We also thought it was an interesting topic for a post. And that there were different answers from men or women. But if I tell that I generalize too much. There are different situation. is difficult to grow up children if you work.. if you’re alone, if you in general don’t earn too much as Suryo correctly said, if your family, parents etc.. are far from, …if you’re not enough.. committed :), if your healt is not going well, if .. …. but I can think about at least a couple of friends in all that situation that are wonderful mamma and papà anyway!
I decided not to have, for a lot of reason and I’m peaceful about that.
I also said that is difficult to go on with a relationship.
But difficult is not impossible.
Have a nice saturday evening!

worbetangell,

you are more than right. in some countries it is a much much differnt situation. i think we need to celebrate that fact that we are more than lucky to be able to share ideas and thoughts freely amoung eachother and as well have families with out the worry of war or injustice… i think it is fair to say that we have won the lottery in a way… to be living were we are living and not having to worry about life or death…

Mike B, I do remember you. I will get the photos out from then and find you again.

At first I thought you were the kid that did the work on the skateboarders but that was in Santa Fe. What was your subject in Mexico?

Lee

WROBERT

I’m an Olympic junkie. I was a gymnast growing up + at UCLA and have played my share of beach volleyball since (though I’ve been off the sand for the past year nursing a shoulder injury)… so I am glued to the TV when those two sports come on. Go Kerry Walsh! Kerry is seated to win another gold in beach vb and is one of the nicest + most humble people I’ve ever known. I love listening to the athletes’ stories + their ways of overcoming the challenges they’ve encountered.

Will you come out and shoot with Panos and me one of these days?? It would be nice to meet you.

LAURA

Yes, interesting to read the posts in response to this [baby] thread — the replies from the guys and girls are very different. Guys are concerned with being away too much/too long. Girls are concerned with being sidetracked completely from the work. It’ll be especially tricky for me, as I have a heart for the developing world, which is where I have been working to spend more time. I have come to realize that I am in control of so so much of my life, while at the same time, I am in control of nothing. Such a strange dichotomy. If the RIGHT opportunity presents itself (a guy who is interested in sharing these experiences with me/a family), I’m confident I’ll know it when I see it… Otherwise, I dig what I am doing!

… Yikes, I cringed after writing the last sentence. It WOULD be much sweeter sharing these experiences with someone who enjoys being there as much as I do!!! I think I write what I write as a way of dealing with what I don’t have, even though it scares the beejeebers out of me to consider juggling both.

DAVID B.

«wear the suit you want to wear tomorrow, today»

LOVE IT.

a while back someone wrote about the difference between men and women (fathers vs. mothers) as to the responsibilities, or rather, the different perceptions/attitudes toward this question….im not sure, in this day and age, that that actually applies, for for the families that still cling to older ideas of family…marina and i share equally in the responsibility of the raising of our son and more than that share equally in the sacrifice of photography: in other words, all the times we want to shoot, or travel, or develop or print or buy film, whatever, that gets back-burnered because of family or money or things attendant to the raising of a child…though i make more $$ (and this is depressingly small amount by n.american big-city standards) it is only because we chose as a family to make certain decisions…my salary as a teacher (with the hope of photographic/writing augmentation) would be a primary income while marina’s income (from her job and photography) another addition, but ultimately there is no division of responsibility (materially or otherwise), and photography as often had to take a back seat…and so too income….

the fact is that both of us are fortunate in that we see both our practice as parts of the wholeness of our family, seldom pushing one or the other to the fore of center stage…

mike’s anecdote of Morris decision is an important and salient one for both of us too…both of us have changed what and where we shoot because of family obligations and family decisions…at first this was a difficulty both of us struggled with and later, one simply acknowledges and (hopefully) grows to understand that the rhyme of one’s life is the same musical skeleton that defines all the living notes of it, the everyday shit and the artistic shit…most of the struggle we’ve endured has to do with material questions, particularly as to how our son deals with this living in a city and a culture that values and promotes material accumulation, promotes values as defined by material and societal success (neither or which marina or i have nor crave), struggle with his feelings of inclusion amid friends and peers who all live him homes while he lives in a small 2 bedroom apartment, struggle with the fact that not everyone goes on family trips to disney world or can afford to go to the cineplex everweek…fortunately, we seemed to have been blessed, as for the most part Dima has peeled away most of the material worries he had as a young boy (the desire to have cool/hot expensive sneakers or to live in a cool house or not ot have parents who budget and struggle over groceries, etc)……as we’ve simplified our life and focused more each other, on the simple expressions of living as a family, his fears (mostly) seem to have lessened (though he still wants a house ;))) )….

when i shoot something, i still use film (as does Marina) and i must make a calculated decision about what i can afford as both a photographer (to buy, to complete) and as a husband and a father (budget)…sometimes on my bad days it aggrieves but mostly i feel fortune that i must accept and shoot within the limitations i have as a person…Bones of time, in total, is only 12 rolls of film….the story on Immigrant Students for David’s EPF last year was only 2 rolls…from this kind of austerity, including the austerity of time when i can shoot, married with my own sense of “how” to photograph has, i hope, just made me more creative with time and tools and availability….

much of the photographic world, like much of the western world (o god, please forgive me the upcoming gross generalization) swims in a n ocean of access……access to unlimited shoots (digital, innumerable frames), access to money for traveling, projects, jobs, workshops, festivals, time…access to things that much of the rest of the world doesn’t…in a stupid sense, i am happy to have to work under the major constrictions that define my and marina’s life….

in this sense, we are no different from the majority of people and how most people simply struggle from day to day to make ends meet and to countenance what and how it is they can live their lifes amid the silent shadows of distress and doubt….

one thing i have, the greatest fortune, is that, my world is as resplendent as the buildings of Sammarakind because of the presence of my wife and son…and that means more to me than any photograph or book i may produce…for that keeps, late at night when the world is asleep and wrecked, the wolves from the forrest at bay….

running
b

ELIZABETH, Your work is stunning! It is powerful and inspiring. (read thought provoking in an art sense) It is the trace and allegory work that I like the most.

In what part of the world are you?

Ciao

Michael

Also, Bob, I assume you have submitted writing samples to The New Yorker Magazine before?

David,

I wpuldnt give up my family for a career. Maybe because I dont have a “career” but I think my family is the best thing that ever happened to me. And they are a good subject for photos anyway:)

Herve,

I cant agree with you on the snapshot thing. Or maybe on the snapshot aestehtic. I love it. I think that snapshots are easily photography as they are nothing if not honest. And some of the best stuff around is snapshots. I read Sobol did the whole Sabine project on a small point and shoot as snapshots. Billingham did his work on his family as snaps, cheap film, printing, even the typical snapshot “mistakes” Im trying to channel the snapshot look in what I do with my project. Including the mistakes associated with it (harsh flash, oof, etc)

Re:Russia

It makes me laugh and also cry when I hear Russians claim the role of peacekeeping. A country that has for centuries attacked its smaller neighbors, killed off millions of people, moved entire nations and subjugated others….I have no willingness to accept Russian claims of anything peaceful in their motives. The man running their country is a criminal, hardened KGB murderer. Russia never had peaceful intentions and never will.

from SEAN GALLAGHER
……………………………………………………………………………………….

“…Dear All,

Re:Family
I think this is an issue that every photographer faces at different times in their lives and deals with in completely different ways. The trend seems to be that it is difficult to balance a (traveling) photography career and have a successful family life but then I have met and read about very successful photographers who juggle and balance everything. Personally, when I was 18, I thought by the time I was 28 I’d definitely be ready for kids, or even have them already, but now I’m 28, I’m thinking I’ll be ready when I’m about 38!

Re:Family/Life/Kids in China
Family in China has a completely different dynamic to that in the west. China’s one child policy has thrown many a social issue into the mix an hence family life is a little different. If you have any interest in the life of children, families, the school system etc please watch this wonderful program by the BBC on school elections in a Chinese school

Re:Olympics
Anna, I have to admit I am also an Olympic/Sport junkie and am glued to the television watching every random sport I can get a glimpse at. I just watched Holland win the women’s 4 x 100m freestyle relay final and found myself just being really happy for the Dutch. Random..but that’s why I love the Olympics.
If anyone is interested, I’m shooting around the Olympics, focusing on the fervor and excitement amongst the Chinese public whilst the games is going on. I’m updating it throughout the games and distributing it to my agencies. At the moment there are a few images in my archive but I’ll hopefully turn it into a small feature by the end. If you’d like to see it evolve, please keep an eye on it.

http://archive.gallagher-photo.com/gpgs.aspx?pgid=18009645&e=0&p=0

Best to everyone,
Sean…”

________________________________

davin,

i think if bob ever switched to digital…. that would be much the same as larry towell switching to digital… the man is a film guy… or so i think… i could be wrong…

bob… tea or coffee this week? when you have time let me know.

Off topic for just a moment: does anyone know what’s going on with LS? I havent been able to log in for the past three or four days.

RAFAL

cant agree with you on the snapshot thing. Or maybe on the snapshot aestehtic.
————–
Rafal, you misread me. I was talking about what I feel around me, not my opinion,even asked: who loves their snapshost TOO… (meaning like me)

But I really meant snapshots, everyone’s snapshots, not snapshots books/essays, or used as an essaying technique, a concept or a better way to tell a story. this is fine there too, but a different topic, IMO.

One of the defining mark of the common man’s snaphot is that they are always single shots. You can take one after the other, same event, but they stay single shots, and people show them as single shots. This is also the same quality David brings to his blog snaps, BTW, and a perfect example of what i mean.

Also, to paraphrase David, If all it took was taking snapshots, we’d all be inducted into Magnum like Sobol (not all his shots are snaps, though, IMO).

sean good to hear from you and panos thanks for posting this. its great to see it!

i was wondering how sean was doing while in china. must be busy there with the olympics… probably more cameras there than any were else right now.

panos… i have not talked to you since the festival… how are you?

sean i hope you are well man.

lee,

sorry to hear things have been a bit rough… but we all need to be shaken a bit i think… reminds us of what we have. i hope things get better for you. i am working on a personal project as well.

shooting lots of work as well. not much work here but i am getting more…. slowly… staying busy…

CHINA TODAY..
(in the meantime…. today : )

“…11 killed in China’s Xinjiang attacks
18 hours ago
BEIJING (AFP) — The death toll from bombings and the aftermath in China’s northwestern Xinjiang province on Sunday rose to eleven, with five injured, state media said.
Ten attackers and one security guard died in the attacks, which started when bombers drove a tricycle laden with explosives into the yard of a police station in the remote city of Kuqa, Xinhua news agency said.
Two police officers, two civilians and a security guard were also injured, Xinhua said.
Police said they were aware of 12 bombings in the city, according to Xinhua…”

GEORGIA in the OLYMPICS… TODAY…

“…The decision, which was announced following a meeting between the Georgian Olympic Committee and the IOC this morning, comes after bombing attacks by Russian jets following the invasion of South Ossetia, the breakaway region of Georgia.
IOC communications director Giselle Davies said: “I can confirm the decision of Georgia’s national Olympic committee, athletes and officials, supported by their government, that they will continue their participation at the Olympic Games here in Beijing…”

BACK IN HISTORY..
IN ANCIENT GREECE… IN OLYMPIA…
ALL COUNTRIES WOULD STOP “ANY WAR”… TO PARTICIPATE AND HONOR
“PEACE”… BECAUSE THAT WAS IT ( the olympic games ) ALL ABOUT…: “PEACE”…
motherfucking peace…

today.. in the year of 2008, we have to deal with a country ( mighty RUSSIA )
that
ATTACKS AND INVADES ( 1968-Prague style ) a small country…
as a “peacekeeping” operation !!??????
same shit, different day…..

Think about it… and Georgia resists…
still participating in the Olympics.. still believing… still hoping…
more people died in Georgia today… literally…

peace

Off topic 2

I feel that i’m missing my buddy ANTON…
hey ANTON,
i just poured a “SLOEBER ALE”…
just for you… ( and me )…
peace

and again…
pleaseeeeeeeeeee RUSSIA, please i love you… the most beautiful
people… please, please , please…
withdraw your TROOPS… stop bombing civilians …
south Ossetia is evacuated already…
please go back home…
f****g please !
go back home…
watch some olympics… watch some porn… get involved….
do something… but plaaaaeeeeeeese !!!!
stop the “massacre”…
do it for the “greek olympian spirit”….
please

ok:…
Vampires are up…
Rushing to Venice Beach !!!!!
peace and love to all of you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)))))))))))

My tattoo:

http://www.pbase.com/windchimewalker/image/70557036

peace
Patricia

HELLO ALL….

my apologies for being “off” for so long….

i am just now back in New York after a very very intense week with my students in Italy…i had very limited net and phone access and only had time for the one post which i had to do in the 15 minutes before the net cafe doors closed for the day…hence, the mis-spellings, clipped writing etc…

i will go back to “xxx” and catch up with the links and comments i missed there and also read everything here as well just as soon as i possibly can…

by the way, speaking of catching up on reading, my in-flight book for my round trip to Tuscany was Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel”…not a new book, but i had never read it…just scanning a few of the comments above, thinking about the book, and looking at our world situation, makes me fantasize a simpler social structure…

well, i am too jet-lagged to think about anything more now than unpacking and a good night’s sleep which has eluded me for a week or so..

i do miss “hanging” here with all of you, so back soonest….

cheers, david

DAVIN….

my new family project is almost all Tri-X medium format film….and so was all my “early work”…never shot a color picture until i was over 30…you may never have noticed my first b&w book …in the “gallery” section here off the “home page”….i still think color is just too damned hard!!!

cheers, david

My passion for photography started when my daughter was born…not being a professional photographer, Claudia became my everyday assigment and then 5 years later came Pablo…with them I had the opportunity to explore and learn and my photography became better… a never ending photo essay that became my best and free photo workshop for the last 14 years…

I admire Sally Mann a lot..her children became her most valuable and famous work…and if you see “hat Remains” you’ll also see that she have been and is a superb mother.

saludos.
Carlos

DAH -G G & S is a great book – I read it on a trip though the Inland over the 99-00 period, wondering if there were any tips on how to form a new civilisation if the Millenium bug wiped out civilisation as we know it, won’t give away the ending but although it’s an older book , it’s themes are still current – It was a hard ask the first time round but I took it away with me on that journey as the only reading matter I had with the determination to finish it,Good luck man!!!
NO TATTOO ,But have some neat scars!

PAULA…

so nice to see you here!!! i miss you as well and i still remember our “samba nights”..i plan to get back down to Brazil as soon as possible to continue our work with the samba schools etc etc…

your words are words of wisdom….

SEAN….

i am not sure there is ever a time when you would FEEL “ready”…i do know this…when children enter your life, you WILL be ready!!

and i have said this before, and i will say it again…children really are THE LIGHT….they add, do not subtract…help you to FOCUS…whatever perhaps imaginary struggle is associated with helping to bring in a new life is way more than matched by the unparalleled rewards…

besides, be practical…just think of all the “kid pictures” you will have for your archive not requiring model releases!!!

cheers, david

Before I leave let me just mention something Joe Rodriguez said to my classmates and me at ICP in 1999, he said if you have kids you’ll most likely be successful as a photographer because you’ll not have a choice.

I hear his words screaming in my head at the moment. I only hope I can prove him right over the coming months.

Thanks Joe.

PAUL…

your bio says it all….”husband, father, photographer”…

come back when you are ready….

cheers, david

LANCE….

you have several new powerful images for “Thirst For Grit”…

but, please do not stop and smell the roses just yet…you have a summer of rodeos….just keep living it…

please come to see me later in the fall and get this work printed and “up on the wall” to see where you stand…we can do this at my place….

are you writing?? is someone writing?? audio track???

book here for sure, but shake off that thought for now and just keep working…you do not need to edit much now either…

eyes on the prize….

abrazos, david

DAH – Jared Diamond explains that part of things well enough – The facts that islolation on a large …no, huge continent and no tradition of long distance sea faring caused the first people to turn inward , to find solutions to their questions about the universe from their surroundings, clues to lifes meaning can be found in a gentle rise of earth on the desert floor, or a cleft in a rock face ,the path the water takes after rain reenacts the path of the rainbow serpent the creator spirit – If any one gets a chance to fly over the desert ,compare what you see with the work of the desert artists at Papunya Tula or Tijikala you will see that those old men could really fly. sometimes I dream that I’m flying like those old men.
http://www.digitalrailroad.net/glenn/Production/PhotoGroupView.aspx?pbid=4&msa=1&pgid=11843652&ipp=128&sort=0

David,

So nice to have you around again ;-) Really hope to see you in Perpignan!! have new things to show you.

A big kiss

Ana

QUINTON…

i liked your site, but for the life of me i could not find your portfolio about Molly…

cheers, david

HEY PAUL – GOOD LUCK..

i’m up to 500 give or take on PSC… with one sale in the first few months..

everyone – well worth uploading with them.. great rate (photo keeps 70%) and nice peopel to deal with.
http://psc.photoshelter.com/user/bophoto

mornin, harvey :o)

Oooohhh I really hope you can finally make it and be there. It will be soooo nice to see you! Luis told me that he plans to go aswell. In fact I was going to call him and decide the exact dates.
I’m still preparing the portfolios for the reviews. First time to do it and have no idea of how :-D (don’t have any hope to get somebody interested on my work, but sure I will learn a lot from the experience).

Oh, at least you have a room reserved! I still don’t!! :D

Cheers

Ana

ELIZABETH….

i enjoyed your comment as much as i enjoyed your website…yes, we all have different circumstances and yours sounds very much like the life of Sally Mann..she had very strong support from her husband Larry who never wavered in making sure she was able to do her work…

your work is quite eloquent…particularly “small moments” and “traces”….you have been able to take the little vignettes of everyday life and give them special meaning ….just a light touch…almost a visual caress…

cheers, david

Hello,
I just uploaded some new pictures of Beijingers watching the Olympic opening ceremony on a screen in the streets on my website… ( new: Watching )…. It was quite a surprise to run into a group gathering that was not sponsored by xyz big foreign company and not really controlled either….

Bravo, Katharina..
Keep it up..
More, more.. More

KATHARINA

Zhen de Hao Kan le!

Since these are all in square format I am curious about your equipment… 2 and 1/4 film? And do you have your own darkroom in Beijing?

KIDS. CAMELS. CHAOS.
Back to marriage and kids…i didn’t think i wanted them, because i wanted to be free and had no idea what i’d do if i could do anything.
I became a photographer..am a photographer with two adult daughters and thank whoever i learned responsibility when i was younger. but…that old gypsy wanderlust spirit was just waiting for something and now that i have this career, i am not only happy, sometimes very frustrated that i can’t do all i want to do, but what i have learned is how to be disciplined and focused and learned that this is what i want. it won’t go away. i think i’m a better person because of being a parent. my photography however is just mine to work on and i never stop breathing it.
there are only a few magic people in the world who can do the kind of work nachtwey, chris are doing. whatever our needs of the soul are. kids won’t stop those needs from becoming reality.
because of the sacrifices and patience it’s taken to raise my daughters, i now use those skills to explore photography. i’ve done a book, have another one in the works, it’s been hard, but how lucky are we to be photographers…and know other photographers..this blog being the finest example. as david said,kids are ‘the light’ the passion i feel in life,about life, about music and dance come from still being a kid myself.

Katharina,

I very like your photography, I said that many times but your website working very slowly for me especially this china part. Your b&w are moving and color have very strong mood.

peace

sorry…I meant SIdney !

Beautiful, Katharina!

DAH : in your post to laredo u mentioned that some of your contemporaries whom were free free free ended up squandering there freedom and ended up with much less freedom.

could you elaborate ? do you mean that they didn’t put there time to good use and failed to produce when asked or on demand ? just curious..

KAT:

:))))…absolutely love it…more like a howl…eternal, really, about our own human natures…both desires and expectant…especially in light of all the colorful pagentry, love this more elemental take :)))

hugs
b

PATRICIA…

same thing is happening to me when i try to comment…will check out this error…

ROBERT…

yes…it is easy to squander anything…money…time…etc etc…particularly time…

because i had so much responsibility at an early age, i think it helped me to use my time wisely….some of my contemporaries, figuring they had all the time in the world, just did not go out and produce and use their talents and craft wisely…then along came the “magic big three zero” and they wondered what went wrong…meanwhile, while i had been in their view “saddled with a wife and two children”, i managed to constantly be doing stories on my own etc etc and ended up being in very good career shape by the time i was 29…

cheers, david

DAVID

When you will have some free time… I upload finished hometwon story few days ago.

http://marcinluczkowski.com/hometown.html

katharina

really intense images… you certainly captured the moment there… wow great

a

Katharina….Scary…. Maybe your dramatic treatment.

PS: Have you watched Einsenstein’s Potemkin” lately? ;-)))

Herve,
nope… only watched a country for years that usually ” keeps face”…but suddenly forgot about it for a second last week.

Katharina–

I LOVE your photos! Your photos of the people watching the olympics are amazing and I really love the Punks in China. I’d like to see more of those. So great. I have more to look at. Beautiful work!!!

sl

ANGELO….

you made me laugh out loud!!

my ex-girlfriend is not laughing however…she really does hate me!!!

Angelo, please never think it is too late to enjoy a life in photography…just imagine if you had not discovered it at all…

the most important thing to remember is not to have any goal other than using your eyes and your camera to discover a world you would not have seen otherwise…isn’t that enough??

let’s try to meet the next time i am in Brazil…i am usually there at least once per year….

cheers, david

DAVID and MICHAEL C.:

A bit off topic, but the link on this site (at right) to William Albert Allard is no longer viable… it leads to an error message, and a subsequent search of the enormous Nat Geo site gives Bill Allard’s text bio, but no pages featuring his work except in little tiny ‘teasers’ for exhibition ads or articles. Personally, I think this is simply outrageous- one of the greatest living photographers, and they can’t showcase his work on the web in a semi-permanent fashion? Scandalous… and further ammunition for David’s repeated contention that photographers must own and control their own archive… shame on you, NatGeo.

DAVID

[I’ll try dividing my message in two to see which part sets off the anti-spam filter.]

Welcome home!!! You were missed.

In response to your earlier message, yes, I look forward to the time when I can participate in a shooting workshop where I have to create an essay on demand but, you know me, I NEVER stop working on my own essays.

Speaking of which I extended my trip so I could have a couple of days in NYC. Spent Spencer’s birthday with him at MoMA & in the East Village, and then spent hours by myself the next day pouring over the amazing Japanese contemporary photographers’ exhibit at ICP. That evening I met Erica for dinner at La Esquina in the Village where we celebrated HER birthday. As you already know, our so-called “virtual” friends are the real thing!!!

MEM’s workshop was rich & informative. As you’ve already read, she responded very positively to the tight edit of my Self portraits/Daily Life project. She wanted to see more so, at the County Fair on Sunday, I showed her the 62 prints (4×6) I’d showed you when you’d visited Ed & me. Where you’d picked 18, and I’d picked 10 from that 18, MEM picked 30! But don’t fret, I’m staying true to my 10. Maybe as things evolve I’ll add some of the others, but for now, this tight edit says what I want to say and how I want to say it.

Of course I took lots of street shots in NYC, including a few more SPs. And after getting home on Saturday night–1300 miles roundtrip driven by myself!–I took a couple more SPs on Sunday when I went to swim laps here at our community park. You can see these “possibles” by clicking on the following link:

http://www.pbase.com/windchimewalker/for_review11

And, as a reminder, the link to our recent tight edit of my Self Portrait/Daily Life project is:

http://www.pbase.com/windchimewalker/daily_life

Looking forward to seeing the contact sheet with your portraits of Ed and me. Be sure to indicate which are your favorites. But, again, there is NO RUSH! Let yourself settle into things as gently as possible…

Patricia

Hello Katharina,

I just wanted to say the same Marcin posted to you.
Your site looks very interesting, as well as the photos. But the site is working very slow. Maybe you want to check out with the people who gives you the service (although my internet is not the best in the world).
Saludos,

LES….DAVID BOWEN….SURYO

your signed print, your signed book and your signed bag are being shipped to you today…

please pardon the delay….

cheers, david

SIDNEY….

you are right on!!!

it gets worse….

Natgeo let Bill Allard and Jodi Cobb “go” just a few weeks ago…shame, shame…they were close to their own retirement anyway…

this is always the danger of being an employee of any large company…you and i have discussed this before and i will not say “i told you so”, but this is the ultimate manifestation of photographers going for “security” over copyright….

i do not know this for sure, but i doubt any of the many Natgeo vice presidents lost their jobs….

Natgeo is primarily known for one thing …they sell only one thing in the minds of most people…..PICTURES….

yes, too bad that two of the best no longer have a home….

cheers, david

I can’t believe i have to agree with Sidney ??!!!!
( either getting too old or too soft …:))))) )..
but , yes…
fuck natgeo…
i was saying the same shit last year… but i was getting slapped
left and right…
corporate america 2008…
there is no difference between natgeo, PEPSI, or GMC…
same shit…
corporate shit…

but what to expect from a business based in Washington DC????

david,

sorry to hear about the natgeo news. i mean i know it has not effected you personally but it is sad to hear some of the finest have been let go.

i have herd the argument for some time that poeple “do not read” anymore. with the internet they log on… take one look and then they are done with it. now you can do it on your phone as well. or watch it all on tv.

are people buying magazines as much anymore? i personally invest in them because i like the feeling of holding a magazine in my hands… images mean so much more.. than looking on a screen, you get to hold them.

do people really invest in magazines as much as they used to?

mike

7 client magazines folded on me in 5 years.. my longest standing client has a pitiful circulation compared with a decade ago..

collectors, photographers, the larger (?) percentage who do not subscribe to the inter-web as we do.. there will always be a market for magazines, i am sure.

just waiting for the ripples to settle a little… and for websites to begin paying what photography is worth, if they ever will..

DAH

on pitching a book – would you say it was something like pitching to a magazine, although with longer time frames and more legwork?
trying to psych-up to it in order to keep the motivation bubbling for the ‘decade’ idea..

indebted.
d

PANOS…

yes, i know you were saying the same thing last year…and you never read me slamming you on that issue…

i certainly was able to get a significant body of work out of so many assignments for Natgeo…and at one time Natgeo was really a family…for this i will always be grateful….

but, i saw “the handwriting on the wall” many years ago and knew that i just could not stay on the staff for many reasons…yes, i had to leave despite the health benefits, monthly good salary, nice office and retirement benefits????????

i am sure both Jodi and Bill will be given freelance assignments…and i really like so many of the editors who work there…some lifetime friends among them..and i will never knock for a minute those old friends…but, yes, corporate America 2008…

there is actually a good excuse…circulation has been plummeting for many years now and there is just a fraction of the photo budgets of yesteryear…but, what an irony that the top accountants see fit to cut the photo budget first….it is always the photographers that are an easy mark for accounting…they just have no way to measure and account for the genius and talent that create the very product they sell…

yup, the Federal Village…what else to expect?? hmmmmm…well, i lived there for many years and had some very happy days..for one thing, my son Bryan lived just down the street for 7 years…good times…..but since i have moved to New York i do not cry for Washington…something changed at Natgeo around 2000 or so …

anyway, i have no regrets about my long time association with Natgeo…and i also have no regrets about distancing myself the way i have…i have a very positive relationship (at least before i wrote this note!) and i would happily shoot another assignment some day for the right story…but, i would not have been able to take what Jodi and Bill just took…

to end positive:

my real friends there will always be my real friends there…

cheers, david

KATHARINA AND SEAN,
So interesting to see the street tales of the olympic games…Katharina, I love image #10…the light and the expressions of anticipation and excitement are wonderful.

I love seeing how people find new ways to capture heavily photographed situations. You guys both have interesting projects there…

and on the topic at hand,
I love the new people (and websites) that have popped up with this topic…

welcome back to nyc David!

anna

MIKE BERUBE…

paying for images on the net is surely a whole new post to come…i hope it is obvious to you that is exactly what i am trying to do here with EPF…by raising as much dinero as i can to help fund at least a few of you…surely, only a minor drop in the proverbial bucket, but a brick in the wall is a brick in the wall…

cheers, david

Of course Mike B! Sorry if my comment sounded otherwise. Loved them.

Regarding magazines and fewer opportunities…in every airport book and magazine shop there were walls and walls and walls of magazines. Someone has to be buying them. I buy them.

Hope to meet again Mike.

Welcome home David and if it isn’t a love story then a break up story?

Lee

lee,

cool. and yes people must be buying magazines indeed. but for natgeo to make a decision like this… well it only translates that someone is not buying magazines as well… glad you liked the work. i checked out your site its really cool. i hope we do meet up soon as well. if you are ever in toronto give me a ring!

LEE….

yup

cheers, david

.. well put for 2am on red wine..
muchas tanks..
and sorry for lee’s news..

onwards and upwards for us all..

david b,

ya it is really easy to focus on the bad things in life…. things are looking up i know its just an issue that i think many people and photographers and anyone in the industry have to think about.

but i will wait for davids thoughts on web based selling of images. there are allot of open spaces on the web that images can make it to. and i am sure we cannot keep track of it all. trust is a factor i am sure. but yes hopefully advertisers will wake up and commission real work and real essays that have real depth.

on the other side the internet provides a great new way of presenting work and showing work i a new and exciting way… all good things… just changes…

great advice… thanks so much!!!

i think we’re all nervous .. because we all care about our contribution whether to a magazine or to our own blogs and websites..

feel confident .. people here do not ridicule and it’s about the safest place to start peeling your layers away..

let that ‘rosemary’ name shine with clickability

ROSEMARY…

i know no sweeter classier woman than you…you are a great lady in my opinion..please give yourself a “no limit” pass…and yes yes yes, just do it “because you want to”…

cheers, david

DID I WRITE

DAVID BOWIE…??????
sorryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, i meant DAVID BOWEN…

but since i mentioned Bowie… there you have it :

bed-time..
http://bp2.blogger.com/_D7BO-iIFIl0/SJgSDod-PZI/AAAAAAAAAmE/12JqcpxSfDg/s1600-h/09420026.jpg

david B.,
… if this ( above photo ) is your bed…
i dont wanna see you getting old…
peace :)))))))))))))

and now, MY FAVORITE SONG OF ALL TIMES:

panos hollywood
(i lied.. still awake… still dreaming)

too late..
i is old, innit..

gonna b a dad
gonna b a dad
gonna call him XXXX
see i’m gonna b a dad.
(35 & 3/4)

PANOS

“…I can’t believe i have to agree with Sidney ??!!!!…”

Don’t worry, mon ami, it is unlikely to happen again!

PATRICIA….

is the end of this movie really really going to be Sydney and Panos walking off the right side of the screen, sun going down center, as they stroll into the local pub all buddy buddy…yuk!!!

well, let’s move on…

i like your self portrait on the bus, the book on the seat, and you sitting on the bed….no to gallery shot (mood does not fit) and that picture in bad light at the table…this is no time for you to lose control!!! by the way, i think you can do a better sitting on the bed picture..give it a try please if you have time…

the book on the seat may end up as the most interesting of these three…mystery, odd,dreamlike are a few keywords i might use to describe this picture…

what about your bicycle??? time to deal with this???

missing you…

hugs, david

DAVID

Missing you too, buddy. Strange how bonds can form so quickly. Regarding pics, I respect your choices. Only thing is the shot on the bed was in a NJ motel so that particular one won’t be redone anytime soon. I do have an unclothed side-of-the-bed shot that might work. Check out

http://www.pbase.com/windchimewalker/image/92509695

The bicycle shot is on hold until Eddie removes some junk he piled up in front of it. But it will happen. Have some other ideas too. This project is now at the forefront of my mind!

BYW at MoMA I bought a DVD of Sally Mann creating “What Remains.” I’m sure I’ll learn a lot from her.

Good luck in getting back in our time zone! Those six hours can be tough to reclaim.

Patricia

ALL

I’d promised to share what I learned from Mary Ellen Mark in her workshop at the Center of Photography at Woodstock, NY. What follows are some quotes I jotted down during the day of portfolio reviews. Much of it is REAL familiar to us DAH bloggers, but it never hurts to hear things phrased a little differently.
………………………………………………….

QUOTES from MEM’S WORKSHOP

“I’m a purist. I’m reality-based, only use film and never crop. You must understand your frames.”

At the start of the workshop, she asked each participant the following questions:

1. Are you a photographer? If so, what to you shoot?
2. Do you use film or digital?
3. How long have you been taking pics?
4. Where do you live?
5. Did you go to school for photography? Did they teach film and darkroom techniques?

MEM is very film-oriented but said you can take great pics with a point & shoot. If we shoot digital she recommended we tape over our LCD screen so we won’t “chimp,” ie., look at our shots after we take them. In her opinion, B&W images should ALWAYS be film whereas color can be created with digital. But if you start a project in color, stay with color. Film gives a different quality to a print: “It is timeless.”

In street shooting, you’re either after “caught moments” where the subjects don’t know you’re there, or “atmospheric” in which they do but might have forgotten your presence. A photographer is either a participant or an observer. To be a street photog you have to “think on your feet, have great instincts, see things before they happen. It’s fast & hard work!” One way to do it is to find a spot you like, manually focus ahead of time, and wait for subjects to cross your path. Spend hours if necessary. “Erase from your mind any fear of invading someone’s privacy. TAKE CONTROL!” How you present yourself is important; there should be “a feeling of OKness about you.” It may be a man’s world but in photography, being a woman is an advantage. You feel less threatening to people.

Don’t worry if you follow a school. “Everything is derivative,” but “you are yourself,” an original.

“You have to be hard on yourself.”

Some photos have too much going on. You need a “sense of space & to use your edges.”

When working on a series each photo must be able to stand on its own. There needs to be a feeling of one photographer throughout the work. “It’s how you see the world that establishes who you are” as a photographer. “Find one thing and go there. Don’t complicate your life. Keep it simple.” You want “an original idea that’s yours.”

“I really like photos that have a mystery to them, an otherworldly quality…a photo that becomes a world in itself.”

“I like to look at photographs that move me.”

“Just do great work! Be passionate, obsessive, neurotic about it.”

“Take risks with your camera. Be spontaneous. Bend the camera. Bend the frame.”

“I’m totally NOT a joiner. I couldn’t even join Magnum.”

“My pics are totally non-commercial. I never listen to trends. You have to listen to who you are.”

“If you want to be a conceptualist, be a real one! Cindy Sherman is the real thing.”
……………………………………………..

I also took lots of pics during the reviews. They are in the following gallery, but be forewarned, this photos have a real similarity. I made & posted them so the other participants could download pics of themselves with MEM reviewing their work.

http://www.pbase.com/windchimewalker/mem_workshop1

PASSWORD patricia

My baby sister Patricia,
thats what happened to me last time i came back fro greece..
i was throwing up for three days…
not even weed would help… !!!???
or any other “crutch”… but… the 4th day…
oh my, oh my , the 4th day…
everything went back in order…
fucking jet lags…

Did, someone said… MAGNUM ????

I LOVE “MAGNUM”… “magnum” is this blog…!
its more “magnum” than the “REAL MAGNUM WEBSITE MAGNUM”…
… “magnum” is here…
thank you David !!!!

EVERYONE…catching up…

Speaking of Bill Allard, I just bought his Portraits of America book Friday night! Had a 40% off coupon at Borders and that was the best book in the store IMHO. Seeing this book I was reminded of LANCE’s comment to me about others before us who have shot rodeo and shot it well. Bill is a great example of this.

No rodeos for a few weeks (ERIC) but that book gave me such STRENGTH and motivation that the next day while shooting a fiesta I went from Day One out on the street along with everyone else to Day Two in the living room of the family who was sponsoring the Fiesta! So great to be welcomed in by strangers and given such access. I was used to that in India but haven’t had it here in the US much.

On the subject of KIDS there was a husband and wife at the fiesta, both photographers who are absolutely the poster couple for this topic. There were processions as part of the fiesta and Sunday the husband was pulling a wagon with his two daughters in it WHILE shooting the procession. This morning his wife had one kid on her back and the other holding her hand while she was shooting. They made it look totally fun!

Cathy;

I have the book too, it’s wonderful. I also have a copy of an early book of his work from the Basque country. Another great book…

If you can find a reasonably priced copy of “The Photographic Essay” grab it! It’s a workshop in a book!

Cheers.

Cathy;

ACDC i think….

for the record, I didn’t have a headache :))))))))

ROSS…

You DA MAN tonight! That’s the song. Angus, not Axl…I should have known. Even better…I’ll listen to it to inspire THRILLING shots…yes, I know the song isn’t about photography :))

Should I get the ringtone? There’s one available :))

I see The Photographic Essay at Amazon and Albris. Will get it asap. Thanks!

Dear Angelo’

I have no idea why you wrote this comment to me, I’ve just read your post “I hate David Alan Harvey” I see no problem that you are 37, I’ve started when I was 27, there is only 10 years differens and seven to salgado. So I hope you quicky find your photography. If you start so late you should not quit that.
I am not hate DAH larry towell or alex webb only myself.
Age can’t be excuses, because on the world live many photographers who started when tey was 7-8 and they did nothing special.
So now is start to hard work.

peace
…………..

Dear Marcin Luczkowski,

The post “I hate David Alan Harvey” on my blog was just a different way to say David is a great photographer and an inspiration to me, to all of us.

But I do envy the way he portrays people. I’m just not that good yet at photographing people. :-)

By the way I love the pictures he’s done on his assignments here in Brazil. Check them out.

Posted by: Angelo de Assis | August 11, 2008 at 03:29 PM

shoot to thrill
PLAY to kill

PATRICIA

Thanks for the link on the MEM workshop. Er… “Robert” reminds me a bit of Steve Mc Curry, if taller…

OLYMPICS:

Thanks Katrina for taking my remarks in good humour. If I agreed with everyone else, it wouldn’t be me…. ;-)

Eric, the difference between most french olympians and US is that the french find getting the silver is not that bad after all, and the US hate that metal. So, If “after all”, then “before the race”, too… It’s like photography, good enough is not just below good, it’s….Defeat!

I found a FREE microsoft software (silverlight) that does broadcast LIVE competitions. not the super mediatic sports, but more arcane stuff, like fencing, judo, weightlifting, etc… kinda cool.

CATHY, how come rodeo is not an olympic sport!……

OK, guys, talk amongst yourself, I am going to watch some Canoe now!!! :-))))))))

Ok, so I haven’t quite left yet. I thought since this post is about FAMILY, I thought I should post some NEW WORK…

A hand full of images that were recently uploaded to PhotoShelter in no particular order can be seen here;

http://www.photoshelter.com/gallery-slideshow/G0000R7MJuB3I3UE/

I’ve got loads more to get through over the coming weeks. I think there’s some good material here. Hopefully in October I can knock it into some shape as a feature in it’s own right.

‘Till later then…
Paulyman

photo@paultreacy.com

PAUL…..MARCIN…

it must be my computer or whatever…nothing is loading with any degree of speed…loading at about the speed that makes you want to throw your computer out the window!!!

so , be patient gentlemen…i will look at your work as soon as i can see it …..

cheers, david

You’ve got a bad connection. Maybe your machine is also suffering jet lag.

Ok, back to my two lads. We are waiting for two more white products to be delivered. It could take hours which will drive me bananas as I really want to go out and play. Our stuff still hasn’t arrived from the States so we are camping in our flat. The echo is terrible and it just makes the boys even more frenetic.

Rest easy David, if possible.

…”or a “visual novel” representational of a collapsing culture…”

Wow! There’s food for thought.

DAVIN…

didn’t you ask the freedom question before and didn’t i answer it before???? hmmmm, maybe it was someone else..in any case, my use of my time in my mid twenties , BECAUSE i was suddenly married with children , took me from a potentially “disadvantaged scenario”, with regard to becoming a serious photographer, to an “advantaged scenario” because i was forced to either “sink or swim”…i am not by nature always a good “time manager”, but i did do it then…

changed diapers, went to class, shot my own work in between…

a few of my talented friends, assuming they had all the time in world, squandered their time, went to the party, played, and when one in particular hit thirty had almost nothing to show for the 8 yrs of “freedom” he had from college to his personal “day of reckoning”…

i am in New York only today…later this afternoon i head down to the Outer Banks of Carolina for my annual two weeks with my family at the beach..yup, it was during last year’s “vacation” that i came up with the EPF idea and therefore gave myself a whole lot of work for the rest of the year!!! this year, i will just relax and play on the beach…no “good ideas” to come!!!

i do have a room reserved in Perpignan…but, my schedule is so so tight, i may have to back out at the last minute…Perpignan this year bumps right up against my NY loft workshop and i will not leave NY if Marie and Mike need me to help with last minute prep for the students coming in from everywhere to take my most important class…

Davin, you may call me anytime….i will be in New York and more or less free from say sept 6-12 and again the third week in sept too when i will be taking a break from the two workshops we are doing…

oct, nov, dec i will be in and out…mostly out on the family project…

i would like to meet with you and i am not at all intentionally elusive (just the opposite), but i just get really really busy….so, you just have to “stay on my case” …those who want to come in my door, do manage to get in my door…

wishing we meet soonest….

cheers, david

Wow! David you are do travel A LOT!!!!

How can I get to do a loft workshop with you???

Hmm, well that’s where I am today–30 years-old and up against my personal ‘day of reckoning’. . . literally! Mom is a pretty upset that ‘it’s taking so long’ for me to launch my career and I am going crazy reading articles like here on a Photoeditor.com about how to prepare one’s portfolio, to use plastic sleeves or not??? (ha ha ha just kidding):

http://aphotoeditor.com/2008/08/07/chris-mcpherson-stopped-by-to-show-his-portfolio/

and on PDN about ‘modernizing the photojournalism aesthetic’:

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/features/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003833926

I guess I just got to go meet the NYC editors and get it over with since that’s the only way to get jobs and not fret too much about the portfolio as long as it is as tight as possible.

ANA….

yes, there will be coming up “instructions” for applying for EPF funding….mostly, however, it is from the links and assignments here and general knowledge i have of all of you that will “set the stage”…

this year i will appoint a jury to look at all links …. but, i am still trying to figure out exactly how i want to do this…it could be that i will just give out an EPF at any time..or, i could come up with a specific date as i did last year…since there is no “big organization” behind all of this, i can pretty much set it up as i see fit depending on many factors including my time to make it all happen…anyway, i will do my best to make sure i have a good idea of everyone’s work, projects etc…

the best thing for everyone to do is to make sure i know their work….anyone who has their link up now in the “student work” section of this forum will be viewed carefully….that was the only space i had for people to put their links and i may come up with a better place, but for now that is THE PLACE….

cheers, david

DAVID et all:

It’s nice to see you up before America awakes;-)

I think you might have missed my posting yesterday as it was the last post before moving to a new page. In any event I want to bring two recent articles to your attention.

One, today in the NY TImes, “Photography as a Weapon” by Errol Morris. Sound familiar!

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/photography-as-a-weapon/index.html/?th&emc=th

Two, today I posted on my blog about the “conceptual” vs. “tried and true” photography debate you brought up last week. I hope you’ll make that a separate topic some time when you have some time.

Also, I hope you don’t mind me reposting your comments in my blog posting entitled “More Consolidation”. If it is a problem, let me know and I’ll take it down. The link to my blog posting is here:

http://dokumentaryfotografr.blogspot.com/

On a related note to the style debate, also mentioned in the blog posting, Martin Parr seems to be in full agreement with you. Here’s the article from PDN Online with an interview regarding this topic.

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/features/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003833926

Enjoy! As always, a pleasure.

best,
Charlie

DAVIN:

Sorry, I missed your posting on Martin Parr. I just saw it now. In any event we think a like.

DAVID:

I just saw your comments to Ana. I was awaiting further instructions on the plan of a second assignment, but I have to admit I haven’t had time to follow all your postings of late, so I’m a bit in the dark also.

Has the second round of assignment dissolved away or evolved in to a just work on your own, post when you want feedback type of thing?

cheers,
Charlie

AUDREY…

please do not worry…i PROBABLY WILL go to Perpignan…i just cannot say 100% for sure..i certainly hope we will meet because i like your work very much….

cheers, david

morning ALL

just catching up on the reading during my rainy vacation..

I am taking a ‘middle way’ to experience photographing while with family, and it has been fun as a break from the project which I will be back to next week..am shooting with 35mm as I would if I were still 6 years old. basically am having fun remembering the things that made me smile at that age..I even put color in the camera, it’ all just to stay loose and see differently for a break..

DAH

I should wrap shooting for the assignment the first week in September, and then will spend some more time getting audio. Shall we plan to get together when you are home the third week in September for me to show you what I have?

hugs to all..

DAVID

As always, your review of the work of one of us helped us all. I’m referring to your in-depth review of Spencer’s “Mangled” project. So much to think about in relation to ALL of our projects! BTW Spencer lives in NYC so when a window of time opens & you’re home, you’ll be able to do a person-to-person review of his work.

Thanks for taking the time to check out my latest SPs. I’ve added the bus & book on seat pics to my tight edit, but the motel shot didn’t fit…at least not yet. For now it will stay in my back-up files.

I’ve been trying to stay open to ideas for a title and found one possibility in the introduction to a book on Magnum photographers that I bought at ICP. “The Poetry of Life’s Reality,” a quote by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Have a wonderful time at the beach with your family. Yes, it’s time to settle down to some serious sun ‘n surf!

hugs
Patricia

ERIC….

go ahead and vent!!! believe me i know the frustration….it is just as hard for me as it is for you…

photography appears easy….particularly in the digi age…anybody can take a “nice picture” without any historical references or even any tech knowledge whatsoever…

taking photography to a higher level is just like taking anything to a higher level…HARD…..period.

but, you are working on it and i admire your guts and gumption for doing so and always in your “spare time” from your normal happy job!!!

when you have taken the boxing essay along a bit further we should meet one on one…

i am actually trying to figure out some way to get Lance and Bob and Erica and Jonathan and James and Patricia and Panos and Chris and Andrew and Katia and David and Kyunghee and Marcin and all the others who are doing essays here on the forum in one place at one time…a seminar for all of the essayists here…can you imagine??? we would need a sponsor for these expenses etc. but anyway a nice thought…i will think on it…

anyway, just keep going…that next level for you is the hardest one of all…and , by the way, that particular struggle is never over!!!

the good news…you ARE going somewhere my friend…you and the others are creating bodies of work of which we will all be very proud…it may not look like it just this minute, but i am confident in the final result…just as in our workshops together , i can see the collaboration starting to “work”…the choreography of all of this coming together…

ok, you go work….meanwhile, i am going on vacation to the beach!!!

nice guy huh????

cheers et al, david

PATRICIA, DAVID, ALL..

Regarding the quotes from MEM..

” “I’m a purist. I’m reality-based, only use film and never crop. You must understand your frames.”

MEM is very film-oriented but said you can take great pics with a point & shoot. If we shoot digital she recommended we tape over our LCD screen so we won’t “chimp,” ie., look at our shots after we take them. In her opinion, B&W images should ALWAYS be film whereas color can be created with digital. But if you start a project in color, stay with color. Film gives a different quality to a print: “It is timeless.””

I’m glad I wasn’t at this workshop.
Pay to hear that crap! I thought top photographers were over the whole film and crop thing. I shoot both digital and film, but I guess my converted digital b&w images are not the real deal then… Not Katharinas images either? Even Pellegrin and Majoli b&w pics are not the real thing?
I thinks it’s all down to the mindset when you shoot the image.

Cheers

DAVID,

A seminar for all of the essayists together would simply be AMAZING….Thanks for your words of encouragement….Helpful to know that this does not come easy to anyone…. After cheering me up, I have to agree that you are a nice guy :):) and you are allowed to rest at the beach :):)…

Have fun there and bring us back some cool family pictures!

Cheers,

Eric

david m

i had some prints done for my exhibition and they were done with a all black and white printer. inkjet though… but it was a total of 8 print heads all printing different tones of black and white and grey… but this is pretty cool stuff…

DAVID:

ok, this will be brief…BLOG is full blown, so you got your hands filled now ;))…just some quick notes:

1) finished final version of ORDINARY THINGS..sent it to foto8 (we’ll see what they say)…sent you a copy to read (at the beach) at your leasure…

2) will finish (i hope) the writing part of Bones this weekend …

3) marina and i will call u next week…plans changed for end of august (dima comes home that weekend from Moscow)…plus, this means you dont have to run back from family reunion/beach to meet us…will call you: i have some thoughts about when to come down..

4) PERPIGNAN;…i want to introduce you to 2 people: 1 photographer who will be there and 1 person from VU…both will be good friends and good contacts for you :))))…

5) flat out exhausted….

6) will write Michael next week, im guessing i can dump my essay (pics and essay) to him via FTP so you can see some of the pics and we’ll discuss when i come…i’ll be ready to feed you something in 2 weeks…

7) hugs from marina…

8) going away now for a few days…

hugs
running
bob

MARTIN BRINK, DAVID & ALL

Regarding MEM’s assertion that ONLY film should be used for B&W, this was her MUCH REPEATED mantra. No, she was not just talking about HER work; she was talking about EVERYONE’S work. Trust me, I did not misinterpret what she was saying. She is a FILM photographer and that’s the bottom line.

But to put things in perspective, MEM is a great photographer, a gifted teacher, totally present to her students, accessible & available, good at working with amateurs and professionals alike, and has an exceptionally keen eye. She is also highly opinionated, set in her ways, and tends to hold grudges.

So Mary Ellen Mark is a complex individual like so many of us. When one takes her or ANYONE’S workshop for that matter, you don’t buy the whole of it. You listen carefully, watch for the nuggets, and take in what will be of value to YOU. The notes I shared are not THE TRUTH, they are simply what I heard Mary Ellen Mark say on one day in August.

I only shoot digi myself. Don’t even own a film camera. When MEM looked at my work, she was NOT concerned with that fact. She responded to my WORK, not to the camera I used to create that work. In her review she said nothing to me about film vs. digi; it was ALL about the work itself, the photos, where I was coming from, where I was going, the meaning behind what I was doing.

Personally I found her workshop valuable on many levels. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world actually. Part of that was due to MEM, but part of it was just being with this amazing variety of serious photographers. We formed a close, supportive community in two short days. I know some of us will remain friends for life.

This whole trip, including MEM’s workshop, two days in the Catskill Mts. with my niece & her partner, two days in NYC meeting up with my blog friends, seeing amazing photos at MoMA & ICP, & doing some street shooting, and four days by myself on the road changed me, both as a photographer and a person. And I’m grateful for it all…

Patricia

And yes, it is time yet again for another pointless screed from me bearing no relationship whatsoever with anything anyone is interested in! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Yes, the times, they are a-changing, even here in our happy little burg, even though you wouldn’t know it to look at the old place. We don’t think much of change in this neck of the woods; what was good enough back in the day is good enough nowadays, that’s what most folks hereabouts think, and we prefer that people with new-fangled notions about how to do things keep their notions to themselves and let the rest of us be, thank you very much, or if the urge to go a-fangling their notions becomes too great, and let’s face it, sometimes it does and no cold shower will turn your mind to other, more uplifting subjects, that they then have the common decency to go across the river and fangle their notions on the unhappy inhabitants of the slough of urban despond that lies directly across the river from us. Living in any kind of slough is depressing enough and those people could use a good laugh every now and again. We dislike change so much here in our happy little burg that many of us refuse to change our moods if we can help it, and those people who can’t help but change their mood every so often will compensate for their distasteful lack of self-control by not changing their socks as often as they might, which often makes our town a bit easier for the confused motorist to find, especially during the summer months.

Faced with cultural recalcitrance on such a massive scale, how do I know that the times are a-changing even here in our happy little burg? It’s the little things that give the game away. I was eating my lunch a few days ago in the Gnocchi Deli, something I do every day of the week, primarily because I hate change as much as the next person here and also because I lack imagination. The Gnocchi Deli is basically a hole in the wall you couldn’t force a pig to live in without half a dozen animal rights organizations and the municipal health department trying to close the place down posthaste, but they have the best mortadella sandwiches anywhere in town, and, in addition to this, the deli is the only Italian-themed eating establishment within the city limits actually owned by Italian Americans; Albanians own all the others, except for the two places owned by Mexicans (there’s great pizza at the Mexican places, though). As I sat there chewing upon my cud of miscellaneous pig parts, ruminating on the role pistachios play in the making of the perfect mortadella while listening to the radio emit the sound of a heavy metal band cacophonously smashing their instruments over the head of a stoned and semiliterate teenager from Shaker Heights, Ohio, to the tune, I think, of Cole Porter’s Night and Day, although it could have been J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #6 in B flat major; I don’t follow popular music much anymore, sorry—my tastes here are still more or less frozen in 1975 and Springsteen’s Born to Run album; our happy little burg’s music teacher came in and bid me a good day.

I am not a very sociable person, in the main; people who knew my father or know my younger brothers are often surprised when they meet me—they simply assume that gregariousness is the standard operating mode for all the male members of the Bashmachkin clan—and they seem somewhat perplexed to find that at least one member of the clan in not at all gregarious, but rather something of a dour, uncommunicative stick in the mud with better things to do with his time than sit around all day chatting with you. But if I am not a hail fellow well met, I do try to be civil to all and sundry, and then I surprised myself mightily by inquiring how her day was going, a question I don’t ask all that often, since, to be honest, I don’t really care how your day is going—I usually don’t care how my day is going, so long as it goes with minimal effort on my part. The other reason I don’t ask this question very often is that some people will take the opportunity that the question presents to tell you, often in excruciating detail, just how their day is going, up to and including the details of the colonoscopy they endured that very morning and all about the frightening thing the doctor found lodged in their viscera. You may provide your own drum roll here, if you feel the need. Suffice it to say that unless your gastroenterologist found glow in the dark Obama for President campaign posters epoxied to the walls of your large intestines, I don’t care what your doctor found stuck in your guts and I would just as soon not hear about it while I am trying to eat my mortadella sandwich. But our music teacher, a very nice and cheery lady known to one and all as Miss Susie, said that her day was going well for the most part, the even tenor of the hours complicated only by the need to get back to her studio and tune a dulcimer before one of her students arrived.

There may have been more to the conversation; I don’t know. If there was, I’ve forgotten it completely. In that moment, in that smallest split second of time, to say that all of my gasts took an extreme flabbering would be to make the understatement of the millennium, a fairly easy trick at this moment, given that we’re only seven years into the new millennium, but the principle is the same: I was stunned. I don’t believe I had ever contemplated the possibility that someone here in our happy little burg would ever use the word dulcimer in a sentence outside a high school English class discussing whether or not the Abyssinian maid in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Kubla Khan’ was angling for a record contract. And yet there Miss Susie stood, in about as nonpedagogical a setting as you can imagine, waiting patiently for her chicken salad sandwich, not only using the word in a normal conversation, but with an actual dulcimer stuffed somewhere in her tiny Main Street studio waiting for a tune-up and a tire rotation, along with, no doubt, a lute, a gamba, and an electric psaltery with iodized stereophonic amplification, the better for her students to blast out heavy metal covers of the greatest hits of 1139 at their graduation recitals.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Our town is changing, whether us old-timers like it or not. Thirty years ago, the word dulcimer would not have come up in any context in any conversation you could think of. I doubt that high school students would have known what the word meant, as most of them didn’t bother to read the poem for their 9 AM English class the next morning, choosing to spend the evening watching the prodigiously jiggling racks on Charlie’s Angels jiggling prodigiously instead. Today, dulcimers not only come up in everyday conversations, there’s someone in town that actually knows how to tune one. Now, I don’t expect that Main Street will suddenly fill with dulcimer repair shops run by medievalists named Lenny who spend the day discussing the comparative virtues of the Guelph and Ghibelline causes before they shake their heads apologetically and tell you that not only will your dulcimer not pass the mandatory state inspection, it will cost you $500 in parts and labor just to put the damn thing back together again, but I do expect that this ongoing gentrification will continue apace, and our decidedly blue-collar happy little burg will never be the same place again. I don’t think that new vegan restaurant is going to last, though; change is one thing, but having our sensibilities assaulted in this fashion is quite another. The side order of smug that comes with every entrée in that place leaves a bitter aftertaste in our mouths.

Hi everyone,

kinda back from Tuscany – physically at least. In short: an awsome experience! So intense – all of the students agree that we need some more time of reflection before being able to make a qualified resumee …

Noticing, as we are mailing now across the world to clarify our thoughts about last week: David announced at the very beginning that he wanted to use this one week to make a family out of us. He managed that in 2 single days. And to call our group of 14 people “divers” would be an understatement! How he did it we do not know, but this is a family for life now. And I do not use these words ligthly.

I started to pick out some (private) pictures I did, which I will put on my website. So if you are interested, you might get a little insight.

It will not be an overall impression, because even though we were in this breathtakingly beautiful place, the hardest work was the mental part. The exhaustion comes less from the 3-4 hours of sleep each night, and much more from getting all this stuff, DAH confronted us with, into a neat own mental image.

As a direct result of that: I have never since I started photographing taken less pictures in a week!! And I was on a photography workshop … I think this sais it all.

By the way, this blog is a constant topic. Everybody seems to know about it.

And I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Nacho personally! (Hi Nacho, are you there?!) A wonderful guy. I hope you all get the chance of meeting him too.

Cheers!

AKAKY MY MAN

One of the few longish poems that in my youth I committed to memory was Coleridge’s “Kubla (sic) Khan’, and to prove it, I will transcribe here without referring to any text (I haven’t seen it in print in over twenty years) the last part of the poem wherein the ‘dulcimer’ appears: (You will notice that I also took the gross liberty to insert the word ‘softly’ into the third line which is not in the original, but in reciting it out loud over the years I became convinced that it scanned better, sounded better with that addition… blame it on the folk process)

“A damsel with a dulcimer, in a vision once I saw
Twas an Abyssinian maid, and on her dulcimer she played
(Softly) singing of Mount Abora
Could I revive within me, her symphony and song
To such a deep delight twould win me, that with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air- that sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there
And all should cry Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.”

BUT, the question you left UNASKED (and consequently UNANSWERED) of your music teacher friend, and a crucial one (says I), is this: was it a hammered dulcimer that was waiting to be tuned (European and akin to the zither with many strings), or an Appalachian dulcimer (strummed and plucked, looking like a flat violin that has been stretched out and slimmed down, normally with only three strings). Because Coleridge was undoubtedly referring to the former, while I suspect (though of course I could be wrong) that the music teacher meant the latter since it has become quite a popular folk instrument in America, popularized by Jean Ritchie in the 1950s and early 60s and then later by Joni Mitchell. They are completely different instruments, in shape, sound, playing style, and the kind of music usually played on them. Now I suppose that if I could add the word ‘softly’, then you or someone else could change the ‘Abyssinian maid’ to an ‘Appalachian maid’… but that is artistic license that I for one am loath to grant even you dear Akaky.

martin..

i think it’s a good thing to play about full-frame.. i believe it helps in some way.

re- film versus digi..
whatever floats your boat.
different people get different things out of photography and peoples relative opinions don’t matter too much.. i’ll wager there was still a lot to be gained.

you know – i much prefer using film .. it’s ‘better’ for me…

MEM is suggesting her opinions and not telling people what to enjoy..

DAH–

David, thanks so much for looking. Yes, I know what your critiques are about and that’s exactly what I was looking for. I’m hoping the site slowness was just a temporary problem with your connection. And yeah, I know I’m all over the place. I live in NYC and would love to meet you and talk about motives and goals. I mentioned in an earlier post that I feel like I’m starting over right now. Learning everything like it’s all new. Actually very exciting.

I’ve been to two Demo Derbies so far. The first was the introduction. I had no idea when I went that it would turn into a project. Did a few portraits and took a few photos of the cars but that’s it. It wasn’t until after the action that I realized what could potentially be done. So a couple of weeks later I went to the NJ State fair for my second Demo Derby. I actually called ahead to get permission to be on the track during the action. I took many photos of cars crashing, but this is definitely something I need to work on. I think first of all, the hasselblad is not built for action shots. And my vantage point was not good. I think I need to be higher shooting down. I tried to do some slow shutter shots to show motion, but… not so good. It might take a few Derbies before I figure out how to convey the action.

I took several photos of the crowd. I actually turned my camera to the crowd and waited for the sound of a crash and the following cheer. Unfortunately all the real rowdies were in the back. I’ll learn with each event.

The drivers and their crews have been great. They’ve all been really nice. They’re proud of their cars and the work they’ve put into them and they love to talk about it (and no, I haven’t recorded any of this!). And they do put a lot of work into their cars. The question is why does someone put so much work into something that will be destroyed in minutes? The prize money is nothing. And really, the actions lasts minutes.

The Derbies for the most part seem to take place in the summer months and mainly at County and State fairs. Some speedways have them occasionally. It looks like I’ll get to three or four more this season. I definitely would prefer to go the “visual novel” route. It might take a few seasons to get that done, but man it’s fun work!

Thanks again so much, and let me know if we can meet sometime.

sl

marcin…

you’re having a heavy one.. try not to get hung up there.

your work is as valid as anyone elses and thinking about the money from a project might not be the best way about it… you have to do the work for the sake of love and need and enjoyment and satisfaction.

i’ve organized editorial work and been paid 5 USD per photo.. it has cost me to do shoots on more occasions than i can mention.. everyone here, as you say, has our own relative worries..

if you love your photography do not let it beat you.

if you sometimes feel that the work will get you no where – join us all in singing a song about it.. :o)

something DAH has mentioned before in a round about way..
over time people fall away.. people either cannot stand the frustration, the lack of money or the lifestyle and disappear.. give up.
the rate of attrition is high enough that if you stay doing your thing – enjoying your thing – for long enough, it cannot fail.. you will get satisfaction and you will feel success..
most of us may not receive monetary success for the work we do.. the rewards are far more sublte, i think.

keep on.
i’m reminded of the song ..

‘How many times have
You heard someone say
If I had his money
I could do things my way

But little they know
That it’s so hard to find
One rich man in ten
With a satisfied mind’

Herve ;)))

dont worry, i usually dont follow “should” anyway ;)))))…(ask my wife, she bears the brunt of my wayward ways ;)) )…and, im much less obnoxious in real life and definitely much less preachy.. :))) (i think, you’ll have to ask Berube, as i think he’s the only blog member (at least the writers) that know me in real life :))….its probably a combination of wine (when i write here often) and masterbatory writing (blogging) and electronic silence (no faces, no voices) that make many of my rants/ravings look so supercilious or self-centered…

“but im just a girl, living in captivity..:” ;))

little ole me ;)))))

ok, running…before i cant control myself from writing a long, circuitous riff on this sillyness that still plaques photography/photographers about digital vs film…the old “timelessnes” nonsense…if there is 1 art form, as you correctly pointed otu, that IS ABOUT INNOVATION/TECHNOLOGY, its photography…shit, photography IS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY (by definition)…how a photographer can refuse (out of hand) the idea of technological development just because of that develoment is beyond me…im totally with you…

ok, gotta fly, gotta fly…

running
b

bob

david bowen,
I somewhat agree, but if I want to get a more square format or I want to crop out 2-5% due to using a rangefinder or not 100% finder I’ll do that..
Also if someones produces great work that’s cropped I couldn’t care less. It’s the FINAL RESULT that counts to me..

Cheers

SIDNEY,

I dont have a damn clue what kind of dulcimer it was; I was in a state of complete befuddlement caused by the word’s sudden appearance in a normal conversation and I didnt think to ask about its orientation, although in our politically correct times such a question might constitute a violation of the instrument’s civil rights. I (and my employers, I think) would just as soon not be in the middle of such a controversy.

Hi DAH and all,

I’ve been a bit MIA on the forum though I do check in and read through a bit every now and then. I was finishing up my new book and then off to Europe for a month long honeymoon.

Timely topic as I will be a new dad come February. It will change my life as I know it. Fortunately my wife is the breadwinner, though that also places extra burden on me to be the primary caregiver. But ultimately I think it will make me and my work stronger and more personal (ala the last couple of topics). I am worried about my freedom to travel, and my age (I’m 44) but like anything those are challenges, not necessarily walls. I may need to find subjects closer to home, which is ultimately something that could be very positive.

Speaking of my babies, my new book just arrived in the post! Once again powerHouse does a top notch printing job. It’s called “CYPHER” and is my series on contemporary breakdancing, almost all shot on medium format b&w. I’m esp happy as I made all the scans with my Imacon, and it actually turned out really good! No stinky darkroom! Anyway, here’s the link:

http://www.powerhousebooks.com/book/437

Anyway, I’ll try and stop in here more often as it’s such a great community of people.

All the best,

Charles

PS: Hi Panos! I like the new work….keep it up! (yes, pun intended).

To all-

Well there no real shooting for me today but I actually went to the GYM to watch with my “boxing crowd” the first fight of Rau’shee Warren. You may have seen him but he is a kid from Cincinnati who started in the gym I have been going to recently and who was representing the US at the Olympics. All his friends were here to see the fight. Rau’shee is the first American boxer to compete in two Olympics since Davey Lee Armstrong in 1972 and 1976. This 21 years old “kid” took the gold at the 2007 World Championships. He actually was the youngest American on the 2004 Olympic team, but lost his only bout in Athens. He has been training very hard for the past four years to go again to the Olympics and this time win and achieve his and his mother’s dream…come home with the gold!! Unfortunately, he has LOST his very first fight…worse, he screwed up big time, being also blamed for “un-sportsman” conduct as he virtually stopped fighting during the remaining 40 seconds of his fight after listening to someone in the crowd and wrongly thinking he was in the lead while he was actually one hit behind… stupid mistake….never listen to the crowd…all this had work to come to this…. What’s more, the poor kid has since been subject to blame all over the internet…. Americans likes winners and there is little recognition for the one who screws up… I felt sorry for this kid…I know little about boxing as I have just discovered this sport but I have seen the sacrifices, the pain these boxers endure to compete…I think the guy deserves a break and should keep his head up and be proud….

Anyway, was a sad moment at the GYM…probably should have taken some shots but I was there like all of them not believing what happened…

Eric

ERIC

I’m so sorry to hear about this sad occurrence and how it affected the folks you’re photographing and getting close to at the gym. One of the most gentle-spirited men I’ve ever known was a boxer here in Detroit. He was African American and had grown up in a poor family in the inner city. I gather boxing helped give him the self discipline and ambition to dream big and lift himself out of poverty. When I knew him, he had a wife and three young children and was in the last years of his career as a boxer. I was honored when he and his wife asked me to be their daughter’s godmother, but now I’m sorry I never saw him fight.

Anyway, your excellent essay is bringing back memories of a dear man and his family. Thank you.

HERVE

Thanks so much for your feedback on my idea for a title for my essay. What you say rings true. I’ll keep looking…

Patricia

cathy

i can empathize with you there.. guess many will..
i’m tough on myself although that (and poverty) are the only things which have ever been detractors..
i’ve never felt the competition or had trouble showing and doing my work.. i think that comes down to just doing what you do.. so long as we are all doing our own thing and pleasing ourselves, then the competition is hardly noticed as an issue.

charles..

hi – good to meet you and look at your work. your grung work is very strong – like it – and congratulations on your book.. trying to achieve that myself – i have been photographing electronic music.

eric..

i think it’s great that you are going along and really caring about the gym.. no problem to not take photos every time, IMO.. sounds like you have a good bond going on there.

Cathy,

In my humble opinion, self rejection is the hardest of all hurdles to overcome. Rejection, whether by a loved one or your self, drills holes in our heart that ego must step up to fill.

And, in my humble opinion, ego is at the root of all of the evil tilts of this world.

Sometimes, Mr. Harvey, people just take a while to float to the surface.

This blog helps me see that I am not the only one that struggles with the sharing of themselves.

Recently I realized, “it is extremely easy to take photos of other lives, documenting the tics of someone else’s world.” How easy it is to seduce others to expose their lives to your will.

To do your own is very difficult; even the cosmos tends to play games with you, making you think maybe you aren’t supposed to show certain photos. Hiding things, turning maps the wrong way, sticking a finger in your hard drive, in general having its way with you.

This essay that is working its way out, of the past 2 years, at times still seems totally self-centered. My ego is really working to keep the me that was rejected hidden. That’s why I can speak up about self-rejection on this blog.

I am glad Mr. & Mrs. Black are taking a few days.

On Maui time, six hours behind NYC,

Lee

DAVIN,
Right on..
Let’s meet in Venice and let’s kick it with
“jim” one more time…
peace

Interesting commentary on photography as a weapon….

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/photography-as-a-weapon/index.html

works for me..

SPENCER

Your site comes up fine for me too, not too slow & beautifully designed.

I love your Demolition Derby series & look forward to seeing more. To my eye it works wonderfully well in B&W. When you use slow shutter speeds to show action, that is quite effective. Your portraits are good but now I’d like to see more candid shots of the drivers & the crowd…and more dirt-flying crashes! It’s such a crazy event yet your treatment is practically serene. That adds an interesting ironic touch but now I’d love to see more flat-out craziness! Go for it!!!

Patricia

ALL

I just discovered a poem & photo posted on Sunday by my dear friend in San Francisco, Dorothy Walters. Although it is dedicated to me, I believe this poem speaks TO & OF us all…

http://kundalinisplendor.blogspot.com/2008/08/photographer-poem.html

Patricia

P.S. Dorothy took the photo while visiting Ed and me here in Michigan last May. This is the wharf where I go to center myself and think things out. It’s just a 3-block scoot from our house.

patricia – good poem.
maybe there is a title in there?
‘turning life over’..

“But just like in the darkroom where one needs to delve into making a print with three hands (I mean dodging and burning) one needs to maintain the same amount of control/manipulation/work/call it what you will. I think a lot of people are missing that step(s) with digital and it will go a long way to making your images more film like.”

————-

right on CHARLES, that is EXACTLY the problem… almost everyone skips the steps and then ultimately gets disappointed… it is NOT easy, in fact i find it harder than darkroom work… because of the ‘limitless-ness’ of a RAW file, and the sheer amount of data it contains

essentially, nowadays people are expecting the level of expertise of a pro lab in a photographer… and the strange thing is, the photographer is slowing starting to expect this from his/herself as well… why? i guess the accessibility of computers and software makes a devilishly strong case here… and lots of people fall into the trap of not learning enough about it… i mean, how many years does it take before one perfects his darkroom technique? if ever? i know, even after sooo many years, i always learn again and again, no matter how many times i get into the darkroom… and to expect that developing “digitally”, which is infinitely more complex, will be a snap, moving some sliders and looking at a screen, is imo a huge error of judgement.

and yes… obviously the medium doesn’t count, only the result.. i guess that’s a given

and i want to add… the archival qualities of inkjet papers have surpassed that of silver gelatin.. even though we can’t “prove” it as archival inkjet prints aren’t around for 100+ years yet :)))

but…….. they have one thing going for them, and that is a BIGGIE: in its life cycle, archival inkjet paper will never be exposed to the corrosiveness of chemicals (developer, stop bath, fixer, toner…) in a way that traditional prints will… and that alone already is a HUGE advantage in terms of optimising the archival quality of inkjet paper…

and another thing: printing (traditional or digital) and judging a negative (traditional or digital) are two separate things… ever since digital photography came around everyone thinks digital negative equals digital print.. which is certainly not necessarily so…

hence i understand David when he says turning digi negs into “real” ones so he can print silver gelatin…

love to y’all

anton

CHARLES

How did you manage to read my mind??? After seeing the prints–especially the b&w prints–last week at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, all I’ve been able to think about is the wondrous beauty of those film prints. As a digi photographer who can’t imagine trying to learn film or to buy even one more camera (I have two), I thought the look of film was beyond my grasp. And then you post your comment, I checked out your web site (WOW!!!), and googled “Alien Skin Exposure” software. That was all it took! I’ve just ordered Exposure 2 in hard copy. I am beside myself with anticipation!! Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom born of experience. When the time comes I’ll also invest in the paper you recommend. I own the Epson 2400 printer and have been very pleased with its performance thus far, especially with b&w prints.

Now regarding your work, I am in awe of how you’ve captured both break dancing and riding the mosh pit! As a longtime Detroiter I’ve seen my share of terrific break dancing. I’ve even tried to photograph it, so I know how challenging it can be to capture the incredible energy of this amazing dance form. But, man, you NAILED IT!!! And I’ve ridden a mosh pit myself, so know that feeling from the inside. Your photos from “touch me i’m sick” are RIGHT ON!!