20 thoughts on “San Pietro”

  1. Paul

    Hmmm… I get the sensation perhaps it’s better to hedge one’s bets with this BurnDiary. By this, I think I’d personally go with a theme. This going out willy nilly hoping for luck and inspiration is daring to say the least…but anyway that’s just my opinion.

  2. Diego Orlando

    Paul, the intention of BurnDiary is the opposite of hedge. Being a diary we want it not focused on something. As the days are made by work, food, meetings, sensation, rain, sun, love or whatever.. the pictures of this diary reflect the same. Some will be more personal, some will be less, some will be backstage of a week on assignment. What it is supposed to show is how photographers see their days beside their work as a photographers.. and the sensation of having them willy nilly hoping it is just part of it.. naturally..

  3. Diego Orlando

    in addition, in these times of huge confusion, where everything can be read as art, journalism, personal interpretations in a way completely unrelated to the reality, i – personally – think it is good and important to give back to snapshots their value as snapshots. Nothing more and nothing less, but surely enough.

  4. mw

    Don’t know about the rest of the world, hopefully its more enlightened, but here in the U.S. one of the most effective ways to clear a room, much like farting, is to bring out a stack of snapshots. People generally like the smell of their own, but have no patience for anyone else’s.

    Just chatting, don’t mean to be negative in any way towards Burn Diary. I like the general concept and very much like what I’ve seen so far. And I’m keenly interested to see how it plays out. Though I guess I missed the part that it’s supposed to be snapshots of how photographers see their days outside of work as photographers. I now realize I expected it to be a week in which a photographer goes all in trying to make the best photographs possible about whatever the hell he or she wants in a week of intense shooting. I suspect that given the platform that’s what a lot of people will do. Certainly hope so.

    I have nothing negatively critical to say about the choice of Instagram, either, especially given that I have no knowledge whatsoever about selection criteria and possible alternatives. I explicitly trust that the burn folk made a wise choice for their purposes.

    That’s not to say, however, that I don’t have some thoughts about Instagram. Perhaps they are a bit premature since I only signed up a few weeks before Burn Diary came out and only followed a lot of people after. And I haven’t posted anything beyond a few tests, which it’s safe to say are not in the spirit of the endeavor. And I admit I came into it with a somewhat negative attitude. I’m pretty sure it was Eva who used to refer to it as “Instacrap” and that nickname stuck in my mind. That’s a bit harsh, and I think I’ve managed to look at it with new eyes, but it’s definitely possible that with more knowledge I’ll come back around to that same position.

    Instagram reminds me of “Harrison Bergeron,” a short story by Kurt Vonnegut about a future in which anyone with any kind of special skill that makes them in any way better than average is forced to wear a handicap of some sort. For example, people who can run fast has to wear weights around their ankles or people who are very intelligent are forced to get implants that interfere with their thinking. I think Instagram works as that kind of handicap for photographers. With it’s reliance on tiny-sensored fully automated cameras, crappy filters, and ugly aspect ratio, it herds the less-skilled and more-skilled alike towards a mean of mediocrity. Scrolling down my feed without really focusing, I find it blurs into an indistinct mush of garish faux-polaroids. Surprisingly, the ones that most often catch my eye seem to be “real” snapshots from people I follow who are not professional photographers. Perhaps there is some subliminal authenticity that shines through?

    But of course some people do manage to thrive in spite of the handicaps. The two Burn Diarists so far have done well. David is an exemplar. Alec Soth has taken ownership of the medium. So we’ll see. It’s an interesting challenge.

  5. john gladdy

    But that is exactly what you are NOT doing here. These are not mere snapshots made as visual notes for the taker only. These are ‘pseudo spontaneous’ images that are made knowing that an online community is there waiting to view them. Unless the photographer is already a blogger/diarist and we merely tap into their natural ‘feed’ for a while, as is obvious, say, when you look at davids work, then the work is always going to be outward facing.

    Actual diaries seldom are.

    So then they run the risk of looking/feeling contrived or forced…and whats the point of that?

  6. john gladdy

    on a slight tangent; If you like the light in this place so much why have you shown us a very badly lit snapshot of what looks like a guy caught in a cars headlamp to illustrate it?

  7. Carlo

    Here is something I read the other day that made sense to me…perhaps it will not make sense to others but here goes. It seems appropriate after reading MW’s comment. It sure made me recollect the article…
    This is from Jorg Colberg:

    Whenever I have the opportunity I like talking to non-photoland people about photography. Not surprisingly, pretty much everybody I talked to takes photographs, usually with their cell phone. Just as an aside, one of the best photo presentations I’ve had in a while was courtesy of the twelve-year old daughter of a (photographer) friend of mine, who was happy to show me all the photos from a recent trip on her cell phone. People usually love talking about their photographs, and they love telling you what is in those pictures (even if most of that is not apparent to a stranger at all – we’re certainly all photographers in the sense of believing there are things in the pictures someone else simply can’t see, given her or his lack of background knowledge).

    At the same time, I yet have to meet someone outside of photoland who believes her or his photographs are in any way comparable to the photos taken by professionals. As it turns out, from my admittedly hardly representative “research,” most non-professional photographers have a better understanding of the differences in meaning, use, and even quality between their pictures and those of professionals than many professionals themselves!

    Maybe it’s time to stop all the hand wringing now, and to go back to making pictures, and to exploring what the medium photography has to offer. We’re all photographers now. Fine. Whatever. Plus, we’re really not. Now might be a good time to stop pretending that we are all the same kinds of photographer, realizing that making distinctions does not mean that one is better or more valuable or more desirable than the other. Add context to the debate, and things get even more interesting.

  8. Paul

    Diego…
    Do you really believe a young hungry emerging photographer, hungry for fame and glory whose given the once in a lifetime amazing chance of being in the spotlight, will go out without a theme or an idea? Do remember, this work can make or kill an emerging photographer.
    But anyway perhaps my view is wrong and the only way to create something meaningful is by not “trying” to hard.
    But above all thank you all at Burn for creating BurnDiary.

  10. eva

    mw..

    I’ve done a quick search in comments, from what I can see it was not me using “Instacrap”.. would have surprised me, “crap” is not a term I normally use.

    I do have my beefs with Instagram’s TOS, that is the reason why my feed is private.. I do not think there will ever be problems, mine is a question of principle.. I would not feel comfortable if Burn would have similar TOS.

  11. bob black

    oh, I dont know…seems that the criticism is a bit, well, overly critical in truth….;)

    i use Facebook as my own kind of Diary, a kind of Instagram…not to showcase my work, per se at all, but to post a picture that is a kind of note, or an entry to offer to myself (and often to those for whom i’ve written) and someone else some moment….for example, today i posted a very simple picture from taiwan…as a kind of note, a scribble reminding….

    the intent of a diary is just that, (often private), to scribble upon a page something from the day that had scribble upon us…i enjoy the BURN diary ’cause i see it as that..and dont read too much into it…even Alec’s embrace of it is just that: a kind of playful creativity, a note taking, that can yield something else, refreshing…

    overly thought out, seems to me, takes away from its humor and its specificity and its beauty:

    beautiful or sloppy, ornate or broken, self-conscious or spontaneous, it is what it is, a talk out into the world…

    so be it :)

  12. Imants

    After a while it all becomes blasé and we tend to move on.

    As for me I am not sure if I am that interested in too many people. I have 7 friends on face book and that includes 4 family none of which are direct. I have imiogram on instacrap changed my tact on how I will use it after a few days got bored in a hurry. But that is probably because i am doing a lot of non net stuff

  13. Brian Frank

    “Don’t know about the rest of the world, hopefully its more enlightened, but here in the U.S. one of the most effective ways to clear a room, much like farting, is to bring out a stack of snapshots. People generally like the smell of their own, but have no patience for anyone else’s.”

    F’ing brilliant.

  16. Frostfrog

    I sure got the impression that Kerry went all out, judging both from her comments and the quality of work she produced. As for me, I gave into the Instagram madness a bit less than a week ago, in part because Burn planted it in my mind and in part because I never let a passing train go by unsnapped, but I had forgot to put a card in my “camera” and so had to turn to my iPhone and then I figured I might as well try it.

    So I have been experimenting with it now for just under a week, focusing primarily on the visit of my youngest grandson, and it has been great fun. Speaking of Eva, she has been a great encouragement to me throughout this experiment as have other burnians on Instagram. I think I am one guy, Burn or no Burn, who will use it as true diary since it allows me to put up a short blog post anywhere I can connect at any time, in a lot less time than the old way I was doing it just one week ago.

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