What A Difference a Year Makes: What is working in you?

For the past year I have been a full time student!  Yes, a full time student at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) working on my MFA in Photography.  While I have been at SCAD for two years this year I was full time and on sabbatical from Columbia Theological Seminary.  This was the first time in my educational career that I wasn’t working full time and in school full time.  For all of my previous degrees I had to work full time to put myself through school.  I can’t tell you what a privilege it was to be able to dedicate myself to the work of working on my craft and me.  I was able to immerse myself in a visual world and as a resul I see totally different.

What I have found is that it takes giving yourself fully to something if you hope to be transformed.  I had to let go of how I saw the world through the viewfinder and allow the images and the work to find me.  I had to let go of trying to make a picture and let the picture make me.  I spent as much time studying photography as I did making pictures.  These two go together, doing the work and mastering the intellectual and visual history of the field work in tandum. If you don’t give yourself fully to understanding the field you want be involved in you have no base to work from and you need a base. 

As I have followed the transformation of Auburn Avenue I have been transformed.    I finished this year ready for my thesis exhibition, which will be:

Faith in Sweet Auburn: The Next Chapter

Friday, October 16, 2015 @ 7:00 to 9:30 p.m.

Apex Museum

135 Auburn Avenue

Atlanta, GA 30303

(404) 523-2739

http://www.apexmuseum.org

www.faithinsweetauburn.org

This was a lot of work and it was more about me than it was about the images, videos and blogs I produced.  I was transformed by doing the work, letting go and allowing the process of study and making work transform me into a photographer.  While this has been hard work it has been very rewarding.  What is that challenge you need to take on at this point in your journey that has the potential to transform you?  Where is the creator trying to develop you and grow you so that your work at this phase in your life will have a greater impact than your former work?  What is going in you that has the promise of re-inventing you?

What is Next in Your Life? Are you preparing for yourself for the next chapter?

Chester Higgins, Master Photographer

I don’t believe God calls us once but rather God progressively reveals God’s will for our life over our life span.  There is an initial call and then God builds on that call.  Early in life I was called to be a preacher / pastor / community activist and I pursued that call with all of my passion.  I availed myself of the training needed to be a great pastor.  Eventually I would hear God calling me to the academy and I went on to prepare myself for that work.  Let me say here, this is part of the journey.  When we are called we have a responsibility to develop the gift to facilitate the call.  What I am saying is that to be faithful demands hard work and intentional development of the thing God has put in you so that you will excel in that thing and therewith give glory to God.

If I had any success in life I attribute it to following the call God has placed on my life and then working very hard to develop myself in that area.  People ask me, “Why are you back in school?”  I am back in school because as God has progressively revealed God’s call on my life I realize that as much as I am a professor, preacher, activist and multi-media story teller, God has called me at this stage in my life to work on my craft as a photographer.

At the core of my multi-media story telling is my photography.  While I have been to tons of workshops and traveled the world making pictures I felt called to be formally trained.  To be formally trained has been expensive in many ways but well worth it.  I am much better at my craft than I was a year ago.  This has been hard work but I am firm believer that if you are not willing to work hard you will not fulfill your potential or be faithful to the God who has called you.

This brings me to Chester Higgins and his book Echo of the Spirit: A Photographers Journey in this book Mr. Higgins talks about his call to be a photographer.  He was trying to figure out what it was God was calling him to and he was sure it wasn’t the traditional pulpit.  Through a serious spiritual quest he heard the voice of God and in following God’s call he became one of the greatest photographers of our time.   I have been encouraged by his story because his story spoke to my story and confirmed my theological assumption about how God calls us and develops us over time.  I encourage you to watch the video below as Mr. Higgins shares his story.  I also encourage you to read his book,  Echo of the Spirit.

Echo of the Spirit

What is God calling you to at this point in your journey?  What is next for you?  How are you preparing for what is next?  What type of training or education will you need to be faithful to what God is calling you to be and do?  Are you willing to pay the price to faithful?

Don’t Wait On Others To Tell You How Good You Are – Tell yourself and do the WORK!

Photographer, Moneta J. Sleet Jr. 1969 Pulitzer Prize winning image.

Who was Moneta Sleet?  Moneta  J. Sleet Jr. was the first African American to win Pulitzer Prize Feature Award in 1969 for the image we all know but many didn’t know who took it.  Mr. Sleet was deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement and his covering of The Movement wasn’t an assignment but rather he was an activist.  He said, “I wasn’t there as an objective reporter….I had something to say.”

The story goes something like this.  As they were clearing the press core to cover the funeral of Dr. Martin L. King Jr., word got back to Mrs. Coretta Scott King that there were no African American journalists covering her husband’s funeral.  She sends word: If Moneta Sleet is not allowed into the church, there will be no photographers.”

In 1955 Sleet became a staff photographer for Ebony magazine.  It is interesting to me how the photographers for Life magazine are celebrated as masters in the field while the Ebony photographers are seldom if ever mentioned.  We know the names of the great Life photographers and they are standards in our field but not the Ebony photographers.  Why is that? 

Sleet covered our struggle as one who felt the pictures he was taking.  I have concluded that is difficult for people who don’t understand or appreciate you and your people’s contribution to then affirm you or see what you bring to the table.  This is why it is so hard to get organizations to see the asset in diversity.  They don’t realize the power of what different people bring to the table.  The masters still by and large overlook African Americans, women, ethnic minorities and persons of LGTBQ community.  The masters are still telling us who the masters are in our field and we are trying to be like them and the reality is we will never be them.

 

@Moneta Sleet Jr. 

While Moneta Sleet won the Pulitzer the real key to this story is that Mrs. King recognized his giftedness before he won. She knew he would be the one who would take the image we could feel.  She saw the gift before the world recognized it.  We have to look for our affirmation from those who love us, understand us and truly appreciate our work and us.  In too many instances we are looking for affirmation from those who may never recognize us. They can’t see what you see because they are looking through a different lens.  We see through a lens darkly and our images are those that Sleet sees.  Who are you looking to for affirmation?  How do you serve your community and stay in-touch with your people so that they can affirm what the creator has put in you and what you create?

To order the book:
Order the Book

To buy prints:
Buy Prints


To see more of Mr. Sleet's work see the link below:
http://www.pinterest.com/djk1312/moneta-sleet-jr/

To see the work of more Ebony photographers:
The Work of Ebony Photographers

You Can’t Pick Your Family but You Can Pick Your Mentors: Who are you picking?

Eugene Richards and Ralph Basui Watkins
October 9, 2014 - Atlanta, GA

Some of us are lucky enough to have families that we enjoy being around because we share a common set of values, goals and dreams.  There are others who have families that don’t embrace your worldview and as a result you don’t feel close to them.  They can’t nurture your dreams or celebrate your desire to constantly remake yourself.  In the case when our family members can’t be the supportive nurturing network we need it is up to us to find that network we need for support.

It is idealistic and unrealistic to expect our family to be this totally supportive network.  When it comes to family, it is what it is.  Don’t hate your family for what they are not.  Define your familial relationship in ways that are healthy for you and then move on.  I have found it necessary to draw close to people who see the world as I choose to see it.  I know that I am “different” and I don’t expect certain folk to get me so I get with folk I get and want to be like.

I think it is important to establish reference groups.  Reference groups are those people who represent what you want to become.  For example in my area of photography there are certain photographers I admire.  One such photographer is Eugene Richards.  I admire both his work and the person that he is.  Eugene is a person of integrity, moral character and he is transparent.  His work is about relationships.  He cares for the people he photographs.  He doesn’t tell their story but rather he becomes a part of their story.  

I had the chance to meet Eugene last week and talk with him.  While I have everyone of his books and I have followed his career that meeting was more than what I expected it to be.  He was humble, kind, gentle and patient.  He took time to talk with me, answer my questions and give me advice.  Everything I thought he was he turned out to be.  When I heard Eugene was coming to town I made it my business to be at the lecture, front row and to stand inline as long as I needed to talk to him.  I was going to press my way to make a connection that I was hoping would confirm who I thought he was and affirm who I am becoming.  It HAPPENED!  Who are the members of your reference group? Are you seeking them out?  Are you trying to meet them and connect with them?  Do they know you exist?

http://www.eugenerichards.com

Tell Your Story: The Legacy of Charles “Teenie” Harris

Charles "Teenie" Harris

“Embracing the gray area between objectivity and subjectivity, information and interpretation, journalism and art, the create powerful visual reports that transcend the realm of traditional photojournalism.”

Breet Abbott

Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography Since the Sixties p.1

While Brett Abbott was talking about the generation of photographers who followed Charles “Teenie” Harris I want to suggest that his definition of the “engaged observer / documentary photographer” fits Teenie and his work.  Tennie was a photographer who documented African American life in the Hill District of Pittsburgh from the 1930 through the 1970s.  Tennie Harris took over 80,000 shots over his career.  He chronicled Black life in the Hill District and throughout the city of Pittsburgh.  His work is considered the most complete document of urban life in American history. 

The Teenie Harris Archive - Take a Quick Look!!!

Teenie was connected to the community.  He felt what he was shooting.  While he was both a freelance photographer and employed by the Pittsburgh Courier  he wasn’t your typical photojournalist.   When I visited the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh this weekend to see his work his images moved me.  I was taken in by his work.  As you look at his work you can see the life of his subjects.  His subjects were not be captured by the camera but rather liberated by the camera.  His images are not still images but rather they are real images.  Teenie’s images are life giving, life sustaining images as his subjects appear to be connecting with you as you look at them.  There is life in the eyes of his subjects. 

Teenie made sure that the African American community of that time was not forgotten.  He took shots of the life of times and as a result of his work we remember as he memorialized the glory days of his community.  Of his 80,000 negatives there are very few duplicates.  “He did not take unnecessary shots and was frugal with his photographic materials, which prompted Mayor Lawerence to refer to [Teenie] as ‘One Shot.’ While other photographers were taking multiple shots, [Teenie] had taken what he needed and was off to another assignment.”[1]  Teenie was a “sure shooter” he knew he had the shot; he got it, and moved on.  He was sure because his work came out of a relationship with this work that assured a connection that transcended the viewfinder. In the end he has helped us remember because he connected.  As I look back at his work I ask what is it of my work? Will my work help us remember?

One Shot Teenie

Teenie Harris Photographer: Image, Memory, History

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[1] The Spirit of a Community: The Photographs of Charles ‘Teenie’ Harris (Westmoreland Museum of American Art), June 2001.,  P. 8