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?
We can’t choose our parents, family, community we are raised
in or the schools we go to as children but we can choose our mentors. We can choose to find those who speak life to
us and show us who God has created us to be.
I look for those who have done something like I want to do.
They can’t do what I want to do because what I do is unique to me and how I am
designed.I don’t want to be like my
mentors but rather I want my mentors to inspire me to be me.
Many of my mentors don’t know me.They don’t know me because I only know them
because I have read their work or watched their videos online or spent ours
looking at their work or their websites.As I look at them and their work I allow their work to inspire me to do
my work.
By looking at them and through them I see a reflection of
me. I am not trying to become them.To
try to be like someone is to become a carbon copy at best.We were not uniquely designed to repeat what
was done. We were created to do our thing, some new stuff, some never before
seen stuff.
We should rejoice when people call us weird, unusual or ask
that famous question, “What is that?”“It
is me and my work. It is me being and doing what God has called me to be and
do.”People may not get you and that is
OK!As long as you get you, understand
and appreciate you, then it will be OK.
I want to shout out one of my many mentors today.Bruce Davidson inspires my photography.I love his work but his work is not my work
and I am not trying to be like Mr. Davidson but rather I invite him to inspire
me.
Develop a list of people who when you look at them they
inspire you.Buy their stuff, bookmark
their website, add their YouTube videos to your favorites.When you are looking for inspiration look to
them!Who is on your list?Who do you look at on the daily to be
inspired?
Recreating Yourself One Day at a Time: A SXSW Reflection
This year has been really new for me. I have stretched myself by engaging in a number of new activities that by definition will change me. If you don't do new stuff you will not become new. To do what you did yesterday is to live a life on repeat. When you intentionally make your routine one of change, innovation and recreation you will be recreated into being the creative design the creator had in mind when you were created in the divine womb of your mother.
Starting a Masters in Fine Arts in photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), attending the Society for Photographic Educators, presenting at and attending SXSW. these have been all new to me and touched me in different ways. The key to all of them is that they helped me see myself, the world and my work in the world differently. To use a photographic metaphor, these experiences have helped me reframe what I see God doing in the world in a liberative way and to hear God calling me to engage in this liberative work in new and exciting ways.
This has also been a time of anxiety. To put myself in these situations where I don't know what to expect and how to engage was scary. The most trying of these was to go back to school. To enter SCAD at the tender age fo 51, having completed my PhD in 1997 was the biggest stretch. A new way of learning and being assessed was a trip. I am used to reading and writing and then turing my paper into the professor and getting my grade. Not at SCAD! It is go and do your work, put your prints up on the wall and have your colleagues and professor begin the process of a public critique!! What was this? I was so intimidated but I persisted. The key for me was to allow the process to do it's work.
Now to SXSW..this place is like no other gathering I have ever attended. I am used to academic conferences where things are very linear. Sessions are easy to find. The map is easy to follow and the papers are presented in sessions. There is little time for questions, you proceed to the next room, sit and listen and then move on. This is not the case at SXSW. This is truly an interactive conference that is a true live event. All kinds of stuff is happening simultaneously. You move from the interactive, to the film, to the music, literally to the street. It goes from early in the morning to late at night. Twitter is the best way to keep up with what is going on and what is hot. Things are buzzing and moving around you all the time. Every sense in your body is being touched as you engage in conversations and connections that are life changing.
SXSW has the energy of real-time, it is planned but not staged. I walked around in awe of all that was coming at me. The conversations, the panels, the speakers, the trade-show, the films, filmmakers, artists and overall creative spirit that fed the atmosphere. I have been effected and affected in ways I am sure I can't quite make sense of right now. I am different because I have invited different and new into my life. What are you inviting in your life to make you new? What new things are you doing on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis that has the power to transform you into what the Creator had in mind when the Creator created you?
I had the privilege of attending the Society for Photographic Educators conference this week. I was inspired by so many wonderful artist who graced us with their presence, their work, their stories and their inspiring presentations. As an artist you need to vibe with other artist and feed off of the energy in the room. Two artist standout as I reflect on this weekend. The two artist that are new mentors of mine are Cristina Mittermeir and Zoe Strauss. I knew the work of both of these artists but I'd never been in their presence.
Cristina Mittermeir
Thursday, March 6, 2014, the unassuming Cristina Mittermeir comes into the hall and opens up her talk by telling us her story. How the objective photographer, taking pictures and documenting an experience got involved. She was becoming attached to the people and stories she was telling. She cared. She cared enough to act. She couldn't take pictures, submit to the magazine and move on. She was moved to act by the images so she created a movement.
Cristina convinced me that the photographer has to care enough to act, our images can't change the world but our images can be a part of the change we want to make. For change to occur the photographer must be a storyteller, a character and an activist.
If we hope to make change with the things we do in life we have to be passionate about them and be willing to speak up. We must be an activist. We have to be that character who is a part of our story. We have to allow the story to affect us, we are to be drawn in and dismiss the antiquated notion of being the objective photographer. If we are honest we are never truly objective.
Cristina also convinced me that we have to form partnerships with organizations that care about and serve them with our art. Cristina said she simply volunteered to use her camera to help tell the stories of these organizations and those they work with. She took their pictures, told their stories and in the process she became part of the story. As artist the people we capture with our camera also capture us if we allow ourselves to enter the story. In this capturing process we can also be freed if we partner with those we look at through the viewfinder. It is through the viewfinder that we actually find-ourselves as we connect with what's on both sides of the camera.
Zoe Strauss is just pure! She connects with those she partners with as she does her work. What I love about Zoe is that she is just down to earth. She is the kind of person you want to sit down and have a beer with. When you hear her tell the stories about the people she connected with as she does her work you can feel the connection. You can feel how she has fallen in love with people. I want to love the people on Sweet Auburn the way Zoe loves the people of Philadelphia and Homestead. Thanks to the Society for Photographic Education for planning a great conference. Where do you need to go? Who do you need to hear? Who can you connect with in your field that will help you hear and see in new ways?
Gentrification (or
urban recycling) is a process of community change through which old, dilapidate
housing is bought, refurbished, and then either inhabited by the owners or
rented or sold for profit.It is
socially significant because it often displaces the original residents who tend
to be lower-or-working-class and replaces them with middle-and-upper
middle-class residents who can afford to pay higher price that the property now
commands.It is a particularly acute
problem in large U.S. cities where there is a chronic shortage of affordable
housing.[1]
Urban renewal
…Often called “Negro removal” by
critics, it provides countless examples of the interconnection of racial change
with local policy.Urban renewal
systematically destroyed many African American communities and businesses and,
for most of its history, failed to safeguard the rights and well-being of those
forcibly relocated from those homes and businesses.[2]
Another days journey on Auburn Avenue. It was Saturday
morning, March 1, 2014, and I wanted to shoot at sunrise.I got up around 5:00 a.m., got my stuff
together and off I went.I arrived well
before sunrise. Parked my care at Hilliard and Auburn Avenue and took off down
Sweet Auburn. I was surprised to see so much life on the street so early in the
morning.Workers were working.The workers were removing parts of the cobble
stone street to be replaced by the asphalt and black tar that was to become the
new Auburn Avenue.
The workers were African American, Latino and White.They were going about their work and I was a
going about my work.We didn’t talk much
but our eyes caught each other’s eyes.It was as if we were asking each other what are you doing?One asked me, why do you want our picture, or
why are you taking our pictures?As
always I handed him one of my cards and began to tell of my desire to document
this transformation.He nodded, took the
card, and returned to work.
As this process continues I am deeply moved by what I see. I
see the street being transformed before my eyes and I am seeing more and more
for sale signs popping up on the buildings.Buildings that are vacant and occupied are now for sale.The dramatic rise in the number of for sale
signs has been a bit jarring.What is
this all about?Who will the new
tenants be?Who will own and run the new
business?
As the morning proceeds I spend most of my time camped out
between Bell and Fort Street on either side of Interstate Seventy-Five.The construction activity and the foot
traffic this morning is around the under path of Interstate Seventy-Five. Many
people live under Interstate Seventy-Five; this is their resting place. As the
workers shift change the activity moves from the Bell and Auburn side of the
under path over to the Fort Street side, where the park is and where the large
sculpture of John Wesley Dobbs, the man who named this street, sits and watches
the construction / deconstruction / reconstruction.Across from the park is Thelma’s Barbecue that
is still open but the building recently was put up for sale.
What I am witnessing is gentrification / urban renewal. This
is a take over and a push out.Most of
this morning I spent talking with Roy. Roy he is an entrepreneur who lives on
Sweet Auburn and operates his mobile car wash.Roy says to me, “This is over.They about to get us out of here.This thing has changed.” Roy is right…it has changed...it isn’t
changing…it has happened.Do we care
enough for those who live on these streets as residents and business owners to
at least pay attention?Where will they
go? How will they live? How will we journey along beside them as they struggle
to survive? How many more times will this happen in our city?When does progress mean oppress?
[1]The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology by Alan G. Johnson(Blackwell Reference, 1995), p. 120.
[2]
Manning Thomas, June and Marsha Ritzdorf (editors) Urban Planning and the
African American Community: In the Shadows(Sage Publications, 1970), p. 8.
As I continue to work on my Faith in Sweet Auburn Project I
am focusing on the destruction, construction and reconstruction process.As old histories are being paved over new
histories are being built.As the street
of Auburn Avenue is being torn up and tracks for the Atlanta street car are
being laid, new manhole covers are being installed, new electrical lines are
going up, the workers who are doing this work are literally laying the
foundation for a new / renewed history for Auburn Avenue.Do these workers realize that their work is literally
going down in history?Their
work is the foundation for the future of a street whose time had passed and
these workers, who routinely go about their work on a daily basis, are the
breath that will breathe life back into these streets.
As these workers go about their work I try to engage them as
I take their pictures.I always ask,
“What are you doing? What is this?” I ask because I’m naturally inquisitive and
I am trying to build a relationship with them.I am trying to connect with them and their work.As we engage in conversation their reply is
about the task they are completing at the time.They tend to ask what I am doing: “Are you a photographer?”I respond yes and then I tend to go on about
my project.They are interested in my
project but for them they are simply doing their job.They are not like me making more out of this
than it might warrant. They are doing their job and in reality I am just doing
my job.We are connected in some weird
way as we dance around each other.I am
try to capture what they are doing in time and they are trying to move on and
get the project completed.
At times it appears that they are peaking at me as I am
peering at them through the viewfinder.That separation between them and me as I put the camera up to my eye to
frame the shot is more than symbolic. We see the work they are doing very
differently.They are just doing their
job.This is what they do everyday.They are great at what they do.They are doing a great job.They don’t appear to be asking the types of
questions I am asking, and I don’t expect them to, as I am not asking the
question they are asking.As I reflect
on our roles, the construction workers and my work as the photographer /
storyteller, how far apart are we?I am
doing my job.I am doing my job as a
sociologist who has been trained to ask question about gentrification.As a photographer I am being trained to
capture this story in pictures and pray that someone cares.I am trying to preserve the old story while
recording the new story that is being written.
We are doing our job!We are all called to do our job or follow our calling.Some want to suggest what others should be
doing.My reply has always been if you
do what you are supposed to be doing it will hold you and others
accountable.I am going to take some
prints to my colleagues who are doing the work on the street this week.I am going to invite them to visit the blog
and engage me in dialogue.I want to
take some them to lunch. I want to get to know them and their work and I want
them to get to know my work and me.At
the foundation of this project are relationships.How will we grow together as we build
together?As we are all players in the
destruction, construction and reconstruction how do we play together?
The building sitting on 143 Auburn Avenue has been sold and
approved for remodeling. William
Alexander Scott II founded the Atlanta Daily World Newspaper in 1928. This weekly paper became a semi-weekly in May
1930, and a tri-weekly in April 1931. In
1932 the paper became the first black daily in the United States in the 20th
Century. The building of this great
institution still sits on Sweet Auburn.
Atlanta Daily World Building, February 19, 2014
When it was announced in 2012 that the building, this
historical landmark was to be sold, and the building to be demolished there was
an outcry in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood.Another historical landmark gone! The Martin Luther King Jr. Historic
District launched an online petition to save the building.After protest, outcry and fighting Alexi
Scott Reeves in a joint statement with the developer Integral Group announced
that the façade would remain but the building interior would have to be demolished.
On January 8, 2014 the building was sold to Atlanta-based
Gene Kansas Commercial Real Estate.Plans are to construct a mixed-use development.Kansas has said that he plans to keep plaques
on the door that recognize the Atlanta Daily World’s 86 years of print
journalism.Can you imagine at one point
this company printed more that 40 separate newspapers at its plant on Sweet
Auburn and these papers were distributed around the United States. The first
chain of African American newspapers has been reduced to a plaque on a door!
On February 12, 2014 a hearing was held at 4:00 p.m in the
Council Chambers on the second floor of Atlanta City Hall and the plan to
transform history into a plaque was approved.I get it!I understand Mrs.
Reeves selling the property. I get the redevelopment / gentrification of Sweet
Auburn.I understand what is going on
but it still bothers me.When I see my
brother sleeping in the door of the building that is to be redeveloped I have
ask where does he sleep in six months?When the mixed-use development is build who will live there (right next
to the Apex Museum)?Will those who move
in realize they are sleeping on holy ground?Will they read the plaque?
John, sleeping at Atlanta Daily World, February 16, 2014
This week also marked the delivery of the first Atlanta
Street Car.On February 17, 2014 the
first street car was securely placed in the vehicle garage at the corner of
Auburn Avenue and Fort Street, right under Interstate 75 and across from the
park where the John Wesley Dobbs Sculpture sits.It was something to see the streetcar backed
in under the highway as The Dobbs Sculpture and the resident of Auburn Avenue
looked on. I was there all afternoon. Reporters came and went.They spoke to few who had gathered around,
got their sound bite and picture and the story was over.Not for me.I am living this story.
The Atlanta Street Car Arrives
I went back the next day and the next day.I will continue to go back!I am talking to my brothers and sisters who
are sleeping on these streets and I am asking what does this mean for
them?What does it mean for Thelma’s
Barbecue where the building out of which the restaurant operates is for
sale?
John Wesley Dobbs Sculpture
Once again I get it but I have still have questions about
justice. I worry about losing historical landmarks.I worry about people in the streetcar and
riding by our history, stopping at the King Center and then eating and drinking
themselves merry on ancestral ground.I
worry about us forgetting to remember.Will African Americans forget that on this soil the foundation was laid
for the prosperous life we enjoy in this city?What do we owe our ancestors to make sure they aren’t forgotten?How will we insure that there story is told
again, and again after the gentrification has occurred?
No Parking on the Dance Floor: The Dance of Gordon Parks
“I chose my camera as a weapon against all the things I
dislike about America – poverty, racism, discrimination.”
Gordon Parks
You can choose your mentors and I choose Gordon Parks.Gordon Parks was the first African American
photographer to work for the famed Life
Magazine.He started at Life
Magazine in 1948.Prior to going to Life Magazine Mr. Parks had turned his
camera to the South Side of Chicago and he chronicled the poverty that African
Americans were suffering under in Chicago. While Chicago was called the
“Promised Land” and millions of African Americans were migrating from down south
to up north, or what some called up south, looking for a better life they found
themselves suffocating under the weight a race based and class based city that
was segregated.In 1941 Mr. Parks
exhibition of photographs telling the suffering of his people in the ghettos of
Chicago won him a fellowship wit the Farm Security Administration (FSA).
American Gothic
At the FSA Parks worked with the well-established
photographer Ron Stryker.It was Stryker
who Parks was warned that his
work was to strong of an indictment of America.His most famous image American
Gothic when first seen by Stryker he said to Parks, “This is an indictment
of America, and it can get all of my photographers fired.”Parks did not back down, he continued to
push, shoot, write and ensure that his work got out and America was forced to
look poverty, racism and discrimination in the face!
was both a mentor to Parks and a person who reportedly told Parks to tone
his work down.
Parks didn’t park with pictures.As Life
Magazine closed it’s doors in 1972 Parks didn’t sit on the steps and cry.
He had already written a best selling book The Learning Tree and
produced and directed the movie adaptation of his book. In 1971 as Life was preparing to pack up because it
hadn’t caught up with the new age being dominated by television Parks was finishing
up his next movie project.That movie
project was Shaft.Yes, I am talking about Shaft! Parks was a bad mother ….shut my mouth! I don’t think so..I
am talking about Gordon Parks.
Gordon Parks on set of Shaft with Richard Roundtree
Parks was an artist who understood how to navigate the
changing times, adapt his art and continue to be relevant and make sure he was
heard and seen.He was a writer,
composer, moviemaker and photographer.As the landscape around him was shifting he adapted and succeeded.He didn’t cry about yesterday and how the
times had changed but rather he changed with the times while not losing his
soul.As the photographic world and the
world in general is going through massive change today what will we do?Fred Ritchin put it this way in his book After
Photography
Gordon Parks
“For those of who think of digital media as simply providing
more efficient tools, what we are witnessing today is an evolution in
media.This is the more reassuring,
business-as-usual stance, probably held by the majority.For those who see the digital as compromising
a markedly different environment than the analog, what we are currently
observing is no less than a revolution.” P. 20
We are in the midst of a revolution.How are we going to make sure we are seen and
heard during this time?Will we change
with the age without losing our soul or will we huddle and darkrooms and reminisce
about the time when film was king / queen?Will we adapt to the world fueled by virtual relationships, virtual
spaces and the democratization of the creation and sharing of art?Will we find our American Gothic, shoot it,
share it, write about, grow a following and make change?Will we learn from artist like Gordon Parks
who was relevant and productive until the day he died?
To learn more about Gordon Parks I offer the following:
A nice slice of Mr. Parks work is in this four minute video. If you want to see his work, take four minutes and be AMAZED!
This 90 minute documentary gives you the best overall look at Gordon Parks and his work.
