Do You See You? The Revolutionary Artist!

“You should be able to look at me and see my work.  You should be able to look at my work and see me.”

Roy DeCarava

Thru Black Eyes

In sociology we have something we call reference groups.  Reference groups are those groups of people you look up to and aspire to become.  As a budding photographer I have found it so important to find those photographers whose work can inspire and inform my work.  What I’ve found in my studies, just like in my former academic journeys, there are few African Americans put in front of us in the classroom.

When the roll of great photographers are called they very rarely look like me or see as I do. The eye of the photographer is focused via his or her socialization.  The background from which one comes informs how he or she views the world through the view finder.  Moreover when the world of photography has primarily been defined by the eyes of those who don’t look like and don’t see as I see then the question becomes how is the work of the African American photographers viewed in a world that is defined by the “masters”?

When I think of the roll call that is laid out in photography programs we get all the usual suspects. The Life  magazine photographers and the  Magnum photographers and VII are the names we here.  But if I were to call the names:

The Kamoinge Workshop

Louis Draper

Thomas Askew

Jim Alexander

Albert Fennar

Moneta Sleet

Michael Cheers

Vandell Cobb

Kenneth Coleman

Lacey Crawford

Todd Duncan

Bill Gillohm

Bob Johnson

Herbert Randall

John Shearer

Ozar Muhamad

G. Marshall Wilson

Just to name a few….the room would go silent. These names aren’t called.  The work of these photographers is not on the contact sheet of important photographers.  How do I see the group I want to be part of when the group isn’t presented to me in the classroom?  As an African American who holds a camera and views the world through the viewfinder how do I connect with those who have been socialized as I have, especially those, who like me, considers themselves activist photographers?  When the work of those who look like me and see like me have been ignored by the institutions that shape photographers the question becomes how are these institutions teaching me to see and can I see myself and my work in a world that doesn’t see those who came before me?

The answer to my dilemma is it is up to me, it is up to you to find your group.  Your group is that group of artist, thinkers, game changers that you want to be part of and you have to study them. Follow them and find out how you might become part of that group.  Don’t wait for or expect others to show you the road to artistic freedom and expression.  It is your responsibility to find yourself.

Required Reading - Not Assigned - This is my reading list over the winter break.

Let me be clear this is not a personal attack but rather an institutional critique.  This is not about the teachers in the classroom but rather I am talking about how institutions systemically embrace, nurture and support systems of oppression. Masters aren’t trained to nurture revolutionaries.  Masters are trained to break revolutionaries. Institutions that award you master degrees aren’t preparing you to become a master but rather to submit to the master. You have to reflect on Audre Lorde question:  “Can we use the masters tools to dismantle the master’s house.”  The master will never give you the tools for freedom.  The tools to secure your freedom is constructed in the heart, mind and eye of the revolutionary artist.  Go find your group and in-turn you will find yourself and create revolutionary art.  Where are you looking?  What are you seeing?  What are you creating?

Who are you looking at? Looking at Euguene Richards

One of the many things I have learned in school at Savannah College of Art and Design is the importance of finding artist who you admire and can also inform your work.  To look at their work and to follow their careers has away of influencing your work.  Your eyes are trained to see in new and different ways as you engage their work.  You are not inclined to copy them but rather to see your work in new ways as your work engages their work in the process of your creating work.

Eugene Richards inspires me in so many ways.  One of the things I really enjoy about his work is his sharing his journey as he creates his work.  He allows you to walk with him as he creates because he so transparent.  His images are paired with his writings and his writings are a combination of diary, commentary on his pictures and his engagement with his subjects.  

Richards takes time with his projects and builds relationship with his subjects.  One thing I have learned from him is to take your time.  I am always in hurry, trying to accomplish as much as I can in the time that I have. Richards has taught me to slow down.  Take time to see the light; be conscious about your composition; think about what you are seeing and what you want to show via the image you create. I hear Richards as I seek to see what I hope to capture as I make photos. Who are you listening to?  Who is guiding you?  Whose in your head and eye?  Whose is inspiring you not to recreate them but to become you? 

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

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

I Do What I Do Because I Love It: The Vivian Maier Model

Vivian Maier

Why do you do what you do?  What do you do for most of your day?  The answer is probably work.  We spend most our day at our job, doing what we do to make a living.  Our motivation for what we do might be mixed as to why we do what we do.   I have always strived to do what I love and pray that I could make a living doing it.  So far it’s working out for me.

I have never done what I’ve done looking for fortune or fame but rather for fulfillment.  As I approach my 52^nd birthday this month I am once again retooling and retraining myself to do what I love. I love to tell stories via the written word, photography and videography.  My time at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a time of molding.  I am slowly becoming a photographer and as I am on this quest I want to remind myself that I am doing this because I love it.

One thing I have done at SCAD is search out the artist whose life and work I connect with.  For me it is more than your work it is your life that I also have to connect with.  I have major connection with Vivian Maier.   Vivian Maier shot non-stop her entire adult life.  She shoot not to show her work or sell her work but because she loved her work.  She died in 2009 and there is no record that she showed her work to anyone. Her work was discovered by John Maloof  in 2007 and he brought her work to the  public and began to promote her work (see story below).

When I first saw her street photographs I was hooked.  I was moved by her work.  Every artist has that person, that artist who they connect with and that person becomes their mentor (directly or indirectly).  For me Vivian Maier has become one of my mentors. While I love her work I am even more attracted to what appears to be the motivation behind her work.  I believe she did it because she loved it.  She couldn’t help but shoot pictures, create images, and she did all of her life.  She walked with that Rolleiflex camera around her neck and she created images. 

Vivian Maier

She didn’t shoot to show or to sell but now her prints are selling like hot cakes for hot prices.  Her motivations were pure and the reward still came. Some debate whether she would want her work being shown and sold.  Ms. Maier died in 2009 and by the time John Maloof realized whose work he had discovered all he could find of her was an obituary.  We don’t know how she would feel about her posthumous fame.  What we do know is that her work is being received by the world with rave reviews.  She is inspiring a new breed of street photographers like myself.  Her work has made a difference because I believe she loved what she did, she was good at it, and she worked hard at her craft.

In the end I believe we must do what we love.  We must work hard at it, get the training / education we need and never look back.  We must love what we do so much that if we never made a penny from it we would still do it.  I don’t want to do what I do for the show or the doe but rather for the love.  In the end I do hope that my work will make the world we live in a more loving and just place.  For my work to make the world a more loving and just place I must love the world and the work I do that I commit back to the world in love.  What do you love?  What are you becoming?   How are you preparing yourself to do what you were created to do?   Do you believe that you were created on purpose to make a difference?

Vivian Maier

Spending time With Martin Parr

Martin Parr

Atlanta shut down for approximately three days as we were weathering a winter storm.   While we were stuck inside my shooting schedule had to change.  I had planned to shoot all three days we were locked up.  I had to reschedule my shooting for after the storm so the question became what will I do during the storm?

One thing I am learning from is the study of great photographers.  To study their work inspires me.  To see them do what they do and talk about their work gives me ideas and makes me look at my work and the creative process in new and exciting ways.

During my time of being locked up I spent time with Martin Parr.  You can pick your mentors.  Where I may never meet Martin Parr nothing can stop me from spending hours looking at his images and scouring over Youtube and Vimeo videos that feature him and therefore he becomes a mentor.  I spent three solid days in my self designed Martin Parr workshp.  Spent hours looking at Martin Parr’s books:

Martin Parr: Home and Abroad

Home and Abroad

Marin Parr: The Non-Conformists
The Non-Conformists

Martin Parr: Life's a Beach
Life's A Beach

Of Parr's work these three (above) are my favorites with Martin Parr: The Non-Conformists being the one that is presently in my bag.  The life he brings to the mill town of Hebden Bridge is simply amazing.  He took five years to document this town.  Simply amazing work!

I watched twenty-five videos that featured him.  The one that I liked the most was:

No Worries: Martin Parr – FotoFreo 2012

You see Martin Parr going about his work.  He is cool, calm and collected when he does what he does.  He walks, is patient and spends time literally in the midst of those he is connecting with as he creates images.  This moves me to be more patient.  It isn’t about how many images I take per day but how many connections I make each day.  It is through seeing and connecting that the images will emerge.

Parr connects with the spirit of the people and the experience he is photographing.  I have to connect.  To get the story, to get the image, to capture the spirit it takes connection.  Parr understands the backstory to the story he is photographing.  He helps me see the key is not so much the bigger picture but rather the details. He says, “My job as a photographer is to turn those details into images that can communicate to a larger audience.” While not disregarding the bigger picture, it is those small details, those thing the average person would miss that the photographer must see.

To see him interact with those he was photographing and sometimes even coaching them “not to smile” was something that I don’t do when doing street photography.  Parr showed me the need to engage and talk with those I am photographing and not be afraid to set up the photo.  If the set up is true to the setting and you are using props that bring the image alive then use it.

Parr records what he calls “normal life.”  This was good for me to hear.  We can record “normal life” because life as lived is worthy of being recorded by the professional photographer.  This “vernacular” photography is worthy of what we do. Thanks Martin Parr for depositing in yet another way of seeing and creating.  Now off to shoot…..the storm has passed and I must go and create.  Who are your mentors?  Who are you listening to?  Whose is inspiring you to take your craft to a new level?