mary ellen mark

Went to the ACP Mary Ellen Mark lecture last night. I was amazed by how many people showed up - they had to turn some people away at the door I think. A packed auditorium and an interesting array of images. One thing that stood out was she kept using the word 'relentless' to describe how to achieve the images she made. Going back, time and again, facing rejection and just turning up the next day to eventually get the acceptance and access she wanted to make the images. I'm already looking forward to the Alec Soth talk on the 4th of June. You can see more of Mary Ellen's pictures in the USA Character project. The rest of that body of work is also fantastic, with some great portraits by 11 photographers. Some really arresting images.

ideas for lunch

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

Howard Aiken

A while ago, I pointed towards a link suggesting ways to become a successful entrepreneur by having lunch with people who've already done well in business and listening to what they have to say. I took the idea and started applying it to my creative development. Over the last few months I've taken a few friends and acquaintances out to lunch and pestered them with questions about 'how they do it'. So far it has been great and well worth the time. I've had lunch with a couple of writers and photographers and received some really valuable perspectives. I also explored some of the projects I'm working on with them and got some great feedback.

One of them did ask me if I was concerned about sharing my ideas before the projects were finished. I think there are two approaches to this; one is to treat everything as a secret. The other is to shout the ideas from the rooftops and let as many people give you input as you can stand. I've found every time I involve another person in my work, I learn something new or get some insight that I'd never have thought of if I'd kept it all to myself. Often I think we are worried that someone will steal our ideas—but really the ideas aren't what is valuable, it is the execution of the idea that matters. Getting help there is what you need. There is a great creative energy that bounces back and forth when you get another person involved in your process. Also I've found that sharing your hopes and dreams with other people can often help you towards them. Someone will know a person who can help you, make a useful connection for you, move you forward.

All for the price of lunch—good value if you ask me.

$20 lessons and other links

A mix of links and ideas for this post.

• This idea, gave me the thought of trying it with artists, rather than entrepreneurs. I'm back to trying to work out why I take pictures, what I want to do with it, where to go. I'm thinking maybe I can use this lunch idea with a slight spin to generate some inspiration. Will see how this goes. I have a few people in mind.

• I've read the 2point8 blog on occasion and really enjoyed No Flash Corner in the past. Recently found this series of thoughts on ways of working and doing street photography. A different approach to what works for me but certainly worth reading and thought provoking. What I like the most about No Flash Corner is that it is all about seeing and using great light. That really appeals to me.

• Mark Tucker mentions wanting business cards with the job title of face collector. That also appeals to me. It's rattled around in my head for about a week now. The vast majority of my photography in the last year has been just that - collecting and studying faces of all types.

• Another fine face collector is Platon. Strobist pointed out an interesting interview with Platon for a Russian TV station.

happy hour

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the candid frame

Ibarionex Perello keeps plugging away with his excellent series of interviews over at The Candid Frame. He has been producing these interesting and in depth podcasts for almost two years now and is on the 49th episode. Well worth dipping into the archives if you haven't heard them before. He talks to a wide variety of photographers, working in different styles and with different goals. There is a lot of insight into the process and working life of these creative people that I've found inspirational and entertaining. He's had a few technical hitches in the last couple of months but things are back on track with a great interview with Erin Manning that delves into her approaches for working with people and interacting and getting the expressions and shots that she wants. Good stuff if you are interested in getting better at that aspect of photography. A great podcast and worth the download. I always look forward to the next interview. You can stream interviews from his blog, or subscribe to them via iTunes.

What makes a great portrait ?

A busy week and a quiet one, photographically. I did just spend an enjoyable few minutes reading this post on Conscientious about What makes a great portrait. Particularly interesting was how many responders were quite dismissive of portraits as a style of photography. Maybe not dismissive, but perhaps disappointed in the fact that a portrait really can never capture a piece of the sitter's soul. Avedon said quite famously that Every photograph is accurate. None of them is the truth. At least I suppose, not the whole truth. Though the reality that a lot of portraits are perhaps more often lies. From the basic admonition to smile to the more posed or controlled expressions in formal portraits, it doesn't always or often reflect the real mood of the subject. For me a lot of this doesn't really matter. If the viewer doesn't learn something about the subject of the portrait, that is secondary for how I'm taking pictures just now. The big change and contribution from taking portraits, for me, is the interaction between the photographer and subject. I get to meet people I wouldn't normally meet. I approach people and talk to them in places I wouldn't normally. The experience of taking the pictures changes me as a person, expands my horizons and the end picture is just a side-effect.

the westway method

A couple of readers have mentions the ads that have recently appeared on this blog. I'm not getting in to advertising in a big way, but I am helping to sell a product that I was involved in developing, over a period of five years. There's an instructional DVD available now and an e-book coming in the next few weeks. The Westway Method of Photography is a DVD created by a good friend of mine, Randy Kerr. Randy is a very successful wedding and portrait photographer, working at the highest levels in Austin, Texas. I met Randy about 5 years ago through a shared acquaintance and we've hit it off ever since. I have never met anyone with such an innate understanding of light and photography. Nearly everything I've learned about natural lighting for portraiture, I've learned at classes taught by Randy and that I now help him teach. He's also a bit of an unusual character, developing his portrait business in a field in Bastrop, Texas - about 30 miles outside of Austin. Living in a tent and working the land, he carved out a portrait studio, cutting back trees to suit the light in particular seasons, building features to use as backgrounds and planting wildflowers to provide foreground elements throughout the year.

The Westway DVD presents Randy's 10 step approach to photography, describing it in a very down to earth and non-technical way. There's a clear description and demonstration of camera basics along with some rarely documented fundamentals on finding and using natural light for portraiture. The subject matter ranges through landscapes, portraiture and wildflowers, with an ecological bent. The 1 hour DVD also touches on using lighting modifiers and teaching you how to work within the limits of your camera equipment, to get the best from your photography. I have to admit I also make a brief appearance in the DVD, working through the effect of depth of field and aperture on final images. I think this is a great instructional DVD to introduce the fundamentals of photography and light and really presents some hard to find information on natural light portraiture, in an understandable way. It would also make a great Christmas present! You can see an example chapter from the DVD in the video link below, at slightly reduced quality for web display. I particularly like the visual way it teaches how to identify mid-tones in a scene, to help evaluate exposure.

The DVD also recently won a Telly award for an educational product and was very well shot and produced by Bradley Helgerson. If you are interested, you can order the DVD here. There are also reviews of the DVD available from other owners, here.

more keith carter

I finished watching the AnthropyArts documentary on Keith Carter last night. I really enjoyed the whole thing and if you are interested in his work or process I'd highly recommend it. There is a 1 hour documentary and then another hour with Keith describing his favourite images and the back story to them. You can tell that he really loves photography and is really taken with the people and stories that he captures.

At one point he talks about getting out of slumps in his photography. Firstly, acknowledging that they always happen but that you just have to work through them. Inspiration doesn't come if you are sitting around waiting on it, you have to just keep on working and then eventually you'll find it. Productivity as a means to being creative.

The second thing that struck me was how he finds his project ideas - it'll just be a phrase or a comment or something that catches his attention - but then he'll work on it for years. Just simple ideas taken further than most people do. A song with the word mojo in it spawns a 2 year project. A casual comment about a blue man creates a trek across Texas, little triggers changing the direction of his life, because he's open to them. He mentions Joseph Campbell and the idea that small chance events can become major stories and he seems to live by that.

The documentary also gives good insight into his shooting techniques and equipment choices - he describes landing on one camera body and one lens and just sticking with it for almost all his photography. There's details on how he achieves the style and look to a lot of his images. A really well made documentary all round. Recommended if you like his work.

just ask

I'm currently watching a really enjoyable documentary on Keith Carter, from Anthropy Arts. There's a lot of gems in this documentary, including his search for symbolism when shooting and how he got started, staying in New York, going through to collection at MoMA. He comes across as a genuinely pleasant and interested person, with a deep passion for photography and art.

One quote stood out for me, given my current preoccupations with portraiture. Keith is shown shooting in Mexico, working with some people playing basketball. After, he talks a bit about that process:

When I go up to people, I'm always nervous. That never goes away. I figure they are going to tell me no. I mean, why should they give me their time. So I just go and I just do it and I smile and I ask and I get right there. Sometimes they are so startled, they say 'sure' and sometimes they don't.

witnessing war

I just recently listened to an arresting, harrowing interview with Paul Watson. He is a photo-journalist that won a Pulitzer prize for a photograph he took in Mogadishu of a dead American soldier's body being desecrated by a mob. His description of the effects of war photography on his life and the guilt he has over those prize winning images is hard to listen to but harder to ignore. You can hear the interview on NPR's Fresh Air at this link

In particular, the guilt he seems to carry that he is somehow to blame for the lack of American intervention in the Rwandan genocide shows some of the power and impact photography can have, both for good or ill. Powerful stuff. I was also struck how much he sounds like James Natchwey when speaking. The same very matter of fact, emotionless delivery, striped of all empathy, or as he describes, trust. A hard life and a hard way to live. The documentary, War Photographer, about Natchwey has a generally similar horrific but unmissable quality. Paul Watson has a new book coming out about his experiences, called 'Where War Lives'