Taking Your Craft to the Next Level: Steal Like an Artist

“What good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before.  Nothing is completely original…You are, in fact a mashup of what you choose let in your life.  You are the sum of your influences….The artist is a collector.  Not a hoarder, mind you, there’s a difference:  Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively.  They only collect the things they really love….Your job is to collet good ideas.  The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.”

Austin Kelon from Steal Like an Artist

There are books I go back to over and over again, and one of those books is Austin Kleon’s book Steal Like an Artist.   This little book affirmed for me what I have been doing my entire career.  What I have been doing is picking from those people whom I love, whose work I love, whose work inspires me and moves me.  I realized that if I was to create work that made a difference I had to know what came before me and then ask how do I extend this work.  The work that inspires me is not to be copied but extended or taken to the next point on the continuum.  Whose work are you influenced by and how is their work inspiring your work?  How are you taking what they have given you and moving it along?

I follow some great documentary / street photographers and photojournalist, I am totally inspired by them but my goal is take their inspiring work to that next spot on the continuum.  Recently I began to ponder aerial photography and it’s role in my current work, Faith in Sweet Auburn: The Next Chapter.  I found that a small drone could take my work to that next spot / level.  I have access to a tool that many of mentors did not have.  I have something to add to the work I am immersed in. I purchased the DJi Phantom2  Vison +:

I have been spending the last view weeks trying to learn how to fly the Phantom so that I can use it for both aerial video and photography. I am spending time everyday learning how to fly, how to control the camera, how to compose shots from the air.  Is it hard work? YES!  It looks easy but it isn’t.  While it isn’t easy it is what I am called to next in my work.  The question for you: what are you called to next?  How are you pushing yourself to extend the work of those who have inspired you?  What are you working on that has the promise of taking you and your work to the next level?

Here is a sample video of what I am working on:

Austin Kleon’s TED Talk:

The Poetic in Street Photography: Living in the Moment

I love the challenge of street photography.  You go out into the streets and you don’t know what you are going to get, if anything.  You walk the street; connect with people and you keep your eyes open.  You are looking for a shot, always composing, always thinking. It is a poetic dance one does as they walk the street.  You can’t control what you see; you can’t move that red truck out of the way.  You have to make the picture as it comes to you in a split second.  There is a thrill in the moment you make a picture and it appears that the stars have lined up. 

This poetic image of street photography has inspired me and Alex and Rebecca Norris Webb have affirmed my metaphor in their latest book.  Their new book On Street Photography and the Poetic Images is a book I have been waiting on.  I received it in the mail last week and fell in love with it right away.  It isn’t your usual photography book.  This book is unique in its format, composition and approach to the subject.

The format of the book is one of a picture on each page with a very short topical reflection.  This isn’t a book composed of how to do what you do but rather it is a book this structured in such away that inspires you to find your why. That “why” that moves you out into the street.  The book turns the artist inside; it calls the photographer to look at themselves in the viewfinder, as they go outside.  Alex and Rebecca make you think about how your worldview influences what you put in your viewfinder.  They don’t approach the subject of street photography as something that can be taught but rather as something that has to be lived and experienced.

One of the many things I love about street photography is that is rooted in the experience.  You experience the streets.  Your feet have to hit the pavement and you have to move, sit, talk, engage, think, act, react and always be in the moment if you have any hope of recording the moment.  It is the experience of the moment(s) that make what I do so exciting.  The work changes me and I hope as others engage the work it moves them.  What moments are you experiencing in your work?  Is your work changing you as much as you hope your work moves others? 

http://aperture.org/shop/alex-webb-and-rebecca-norris-webb-on-street-photography-and-the-poetic-image-books

What is it about you and your work that makes you UNIQUE?

I like to assign myself reading.  I love to read and a big part of my creative process is cerebral.  I have to wrap my mind around what it is I am trying to do.  While I read a lot I am very selective on who I read.  My reading is also complimented by my looking at the work of those who inspire me.  In the world of photography there is a group that I consider my mentors.  They don’t know me but I know there work. 

I work at finding those mentors and this comes from my reading and looking at images.  This summer quarter one of the books that I have assigned myself to read is Image Makers Image Takers by Anne-Celine Jaeger. The book “systematically examines what motivates and inspires today’s photographers and what makes them succeed. It reveals how the world’s leading photographers, from the field of art, documentary, fashion, advertising and portraiture, actually work, and explores what it is that picture editors, curators, gallerists, agency directors and publishers are looking for when they choose an image.”  From cover to cover this book is simply inspiring.  I have learned so much from the diverse voices and points of view in this book.  One voice that has spoken to me above the others has been Eugene Richards.

Eugene Richards is known for his compassion and his ability to confront difficult subject matter.  He, like me, is one of those photographers who likes to get close, no long lens for us.  When he talks about developing your style or personal way of seeing, he says, “In order to develop a personal way of seeing, you have to study the work of people, look at where you fit into your own society, and work to develop your own vision out of all of this.”  So the questions for us is who are you “studying”?  To study the work of an artist is to fully immerse yourself in their work and their life.  You have to know their story to understand and fully connect with their work.  As you study, where do you fit?  What is your story and how does your story inform your work?  What resources do you pull from inside of you that brings something new to the table?  We are not to copy our mentors but rather we are to extend the work and take it to the next level or point on the continuum.  Where are you and your work taking us?

Eugene Richards

Image Makers Image Takers

Don’t Forget to Remember: Museum to Movement

“Atlanta’s most notable tradition is that we have no traditions, or at least that we are not bound by traditions and reverence for the past in the way that some other communities, especially in the South have been.  Like Rhett and Scarlett, we don’t look back.  Instead we look forward to the future with courage and confidence and one eye on the cash register.  We’ll try anything once, and if it works, we’ll keep it until something better comes along.”

Clifford Kuhn

Living Atlanta: An Oral History of the City, 1914 - 1948

I continue to document the transformation of Sweet Auburn Avenue.  It is my hope that my work will do what William Stott says good documentary work does.  William Stott said, “Social documentary work can depict how a situation feels and not just how it looks; it can convey factual information about the world compelling by delivering it in emotionally charged ways, harnessing compassion and sentimentality for persuasive ends.  It can sensitize our intellect and education our emotions.”[1] Stott gives us the potential of good documentary work.  The work has the potential to do more than document what is happening in a factual way but rather it has an emotional component. It moves those who engage the story to a point of connection.  I invite you to enter this story, Faith in Sweet Auburn: The Next Chapter.  This week I want to introduce you to, two of the many people who have a stake in the past, present and future of Sweet Auburn. Last week I had the privilege of interviewing two people from two different sides of the street, Mr. Dan Moore of the Apex Museum and Jennie Rivlin Roberts of ModernTribe. 

Dan Moore has been on Auburn Avenue since the late 1970s and he is a historian who is passionate about the history of Sweet Auburn.  Jennie Rivlin Roberts is a native Atlantan who has opened up a new “popup shop” on Auburn Avenue.  While Mr. Moore welcomes the new shop owners he is concerned about the history of Sweet Auburn being forgotten and he struggles with how the new Auburn Avenue will be connected to the foundation upon which it stands. Jennie on the other hand sees here presence as a continuation of the history of this great Street and great city.  She respects the legacy and history of Sweet Auburn while she and her colleagues write the next chapter.  Listen to their interviews and tell me what you think:

 

What does it mean to remember?   What does it mean to pay tribute to the past?  How do changing communities and city streets remember from whence they have come?  What does the present owe the past?

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[1] Stott, William.  Documentary Expression and Thirties America. (Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 5-63.