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?

Motivating Yourself to Do Your Work: What works for you?

@Ralph Basui Watkins

I am involved in a three-year project documenting the transformation of Auburn Avenue in Atlanta Georgia.  I am nine months into the project.  At times it is hard to get excited about my work. I am trying to find new things to shoot, write about and people to connect with, week after week. Going down to Sweet Auburn every week for the next three years is my life now.  So the question becomes how do I keep myself excited about my work and what are those things that motivate me to keep going?

1. I am passionate about my work.  I care about the work I am doing and the people I am connecting with.  This is central to what I do. I have to care about what I do.  I can’t do it for a grade, money, tenure or some external reward.  My motivation is intrinsic.
2. I have to believe that my work has the potential to make the world a more just place.  My work has to make a difference that transcends the work and me. It isn’t about me but it is about the cause that I have been called to connect with in the process of doing the work.
3. I have to find a sense of joy in doing the hard work.  I have always said that the key to success (however you want to define success) is founded on good hard work.  Not just hard work but good hard work.  I have to make good pictures, tell quality stories, not just take pictures and tell stories.  At the root of this is getting up everyday and putting the work in. You can’t just talk the talk but you must get up and make the walk to that place where you put the work in. Discipline is as simple as doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, as well as it can be done.
4. Finally, to enter my work and creative space I have to read to open my mind up to that creative space.  I have to look at images, read and watch stories and while doing this I make mental and written notes / drawings that inform my work / creative process.

This week I am reading three books:

I am looking at the images of Charles “Teenie” Harris:

I am watching On The Road with Charles Kuralt:

1. What are you passionate about?
2. What can are or you doing that has the promise of making the world a better place?
3. What is that gives you a sense of joy?
4. What is it that puts in that creative space that starts you on the creative process?

These are my four questions.  What are yours? What are those things that move you to get it done?  What motivates you and moves you to do you?  When you identify these things and ignite them in your world your creative output will increase ten-fold!

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

Photojournalism 2014 Style: Getting the Word-Out & Getting the People Involved

Wilson Hicks

“Its elements used in combination do not produce a third and new medium.  Instead, they form a complex in which each of the components retains its fundamental character, since words are distinctly one kind of medium, pictures another.  Of various dissimilarities in the mediums the one most pertinent to understanding of the photojournalistic technique is to be found in the ways in which they activate certain subjective responses in the reader.”

Wilson Hicks

 Photographic Communication: Principles, Problems and Challenges of Photojournalism  p. 19

 Wilson Hicks was the photographic editor of Life Magazine  from 1937 to 1950.  It was Hicks who built the photography staff at Life Magazine  from 4 to 40. He was also a professor of photojournalism at the University of Miami from 1955 to 1970.  In many way Hicks can be considered one of the fathers / mothers of photojournalism.  He understood this delicate marriage between the still photograph and the power of the printed word.  The picture didn’t stand alone in the context of the story but rather the picture served as a key component of the story; the picture took center stage while being surrounded by a caption and written copy.  As Hicks says in the quote above these two mediums weren’t melted into a third medium but rather they were two distinct mediums that serve to “activate certain subjective responses in the reader.”  It is interesting that he calls the subject reacting “the reader.”  Isn’t the reader also a viewer?  The subject that engages these mediums are viewing and reading, reading and viewing, while being moved as the story is constructed in such a way to provoke movement.  The work of photojournalism is to achieve a “subject response” from the viewer / reader.  The goal of my work is to take this principle of “provoking a subjective response in my viewer / reader”  specifically in response to social stratification and gentrification in the Atlanta area.

Hicks and his team of photographers and editors were very intentional about their work.  They had a   They constructed their “picture stories” in such away to advance their cause.  I look back on this time with romantic rose-colored glasses. Once I clean my glasses off and situate myself in the present I ask myself, “How can I do what Hicks and his team did in the time of Life Magazine?”  I answer myself by saying:

point of view, they didn’t claim some unachievable objectivity.

       1. You must create / make images that are so moving and compelling that they demand that the viewer stop, look and ask questions.

       2. You must create a community conversation around the issues you feel passionate about and that need to be addressed.
    3. You must use the tools you have at your disposal in this age to get the word-out.  The magazine as we knew it no longer exist but in an age of social media / multi-media you can and must communicate in new and timely ways.  The community of concerned activists citizens can be developed and sustained via virtual mediums.

      4. You must become an activist in regards to the issue(s) you feel passionate about.

The model of Life Magazine and Wilson Hicks was founded on iconic  images arranged in the format of story that served to move the reader.  It is this story format that will work today.  We are wired for story and the power is in the story as told via the images and multi / mixed media that both informs and moves those who engage the work.  What is the historical foundation your work is built upon?  How are you updated that foundation to work in a changed world?   

BBC Documentary on Life Magazine

The photographers who did the work!
http://life.time.com/photographers/

Take Time to Develop You!

Take the Time to Develop You! From Vision to Image

OK I am about to complete my first year of my MFA at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Well, not really because the final term for the year just started and I am in week two of a ten week term but I can see the end.  The class I am taking this term is Digital Craft. It is a class that teaches you how to develop your images in the digital dark room.

What is interesting about this class that bookends this first year of my course work is that my very first class this year was focused on developing film and doing our work in the old skool darkroom.  I appreciate both the old skool process and this new skool process and what they have made me think about is how am I developing me?   Or how are you developing you?

To develop images old skool or new skool requires a lot of time.  You have to learn how to use all the tools at your disposal.  I think about what it takes to learn how to develop images in the dark room using chemicals or in Light Room (a software package) in both cases it is hard work.  You have to learn how to use the tools you have to get the image to look the way you see it.  It requires an artistic vision as you have to see what you want to develop before it is developed.  You have to see the image in your mind before it is developed or printed on paper.

Now, back to us.  What do you see in you? What is the image of you that you have in your mind that you needs to be developed in order to be printed?  Are you using the tools you have to produce the image of you that the creator had in mind when the creator framed you and composed you in your mother's womb?  Are you putting the work in to get the output?