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?
I don’t claim to know Rev. Jeremiah Wright well.What I do know is the times I have bee in his presence I have been mesmerized by his brilliance, his love for a liberative God in Jesus and his love for people. He is so accessible.Anyone can walk up to him, talk to him and you can see how he cares for them.He gives them his full attention.He listens and looks with a pastors heart.
Rev. Wright isn’t into celebrity he is into to people. This image represents how I see him. As I was taking pictures last Wednesday night at Ebenezer Baptist Church Rev. Wright took time to greet and talk to everyone in line. He gave special attention to each kid that came through the line to shake his hand. He bent down and talked to them and he asked, “Do you want a picture?” The kids would smile, because they had felt the genuine love Rev. Wright had for them. He would take time to pose with them and take the picture.
Above all Rev. Wright is a pastor with a pastor’s heart. He cares for people and it shows. You can feel the love when you are around him. I thank God for pastors like Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright. When we love God by definition we are called to love people. How do you know what know about Rev. Wright?
While we react to the horrible criminal act of violence by Ray Rice, as we should, lets us not miss what we don’t see everyday.
The camera caught Ray Rice but what is it that the camera does not catch
that happens everyday / night? A few
facts:
1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence
in her lifetime.
Women ages 20 to 24 are at the greatest risk of
becoming victims of domestic violence
Every year, 1 in 3 women who is a victim of
homicide is murdered by her current or former partner
Every year, more than 3 million children witness
domestic violence in their homes
Domestic violence is most likely to occur
between 6 pm and 6 am.
More than 60% of domestic violence incidents
happen at home[1]
What happened to Janay Rice is happening in the homes of our
families and neighborhoods every night; in homes, after dark and both females
and children are victims of this horrible crime. There are no video cameras posted to record
the events of violence / abuse but the data is clear the crime is occurring. Do we see it?
Do we act?
@Donna Ferrato from Living with the Enemy
While we should be upset about what we saw on video when Ray
Rice committed a violent crime against Janay Rice let us continue to be equally
outraged about what is happening in homes around this country, night after
night. We have to talk about it and hold
these violent criminals accountable for their actions. While Ray Rice must pay, all the other
criminals must pay and the victims need our support as they seek freedom, justice and healing.
@Donna Ferrato from Living with the Enemy
This isn’t new as much as it is news. I am reminded of my life growing up and
seeing violence in my neighborhood. I
remember seeing this story on the big and small screen. Who can forget that
movie from 1991 Sleeping with the Enemy that
made us all sit in the theatre in horror.
Or the 1984 movie The Burning Bed , based on a true story of Francine Hughes,
that was so hard to look at but once again it told the story that we needed to see
and as a result call us to action.
I am also reminded of the 1991 book by photographer, Donna
Ferrato, Living With The Enemy, a book that makes us look at domestic
violence for the evil that it is.
Ferrato’s works makes us stare at the horrible affects and effects of
domestic violence / abuse.
As we react, accordingly to the violent criminal act of Ray
Rice, let us come together to continue to call this criminal act out in our
communities, families and faith communities.
Ray Rice being banned from the NFL and the CFL sends a message and that
message must also be translated at the grassroots level that we, you and I, will
not tolerate or be silent when it comes to the crime of domestic violence / abuse in
our midst. What are you, what am I,
going to do to make sure that there are no Ray Rices in our /my midst? How will
we see what the camera is not capturing, but we know is occurring, and act accordingly?
We live in a world that demands conformity. We are rewarded for being average, for
fitting in and simply going along to get along.
To be average is to be mediocre; it is to be in that big hump in the
bell curve. I don’t think it was in the
creator’s intent for us to be average when we were created.
We are each a designer original.We were designed differently to live do that
unique thing we were created to do.Over
time we are taught to stop being us and be like everyone else.When you choose to standout teachers will
say, “You aren’t like the rest of the children.”Our reply should be, “We weren’t designed to
be like the rest of the children and I am not going to allow you to put me in
that box.I am going to be the unique
and different.I am going to be the me the
creator created me to be.”
As we get older it doesn’t stop.We go to jobs on the daily that demand we fit
and do what is expected of us.If we do
what is expected we will never do the unexpected, the unusual, or the
extraordinary. If we always follow the rules we will never change the rules of
the game.I refuse to fit in!I refuse to do what you want me to do but
rather I will do what I was created to do the way I was created to do it.
Don’t expect people to understand you or what you do.You have to understand you and what you
do.You have to make sense to you.When you dare to be different people will
look at you funny, they will talk about you, they will not understand you and
in many cases they will not respect you.Their disrespect comes from their disdain for you because you have
chosen not to play the game they are average at playing on the daily.
Today I say to you dare to be different.Dare to express yourself?Dare to do that thing that others said you
couldn’t do or shouldn’t do!Do that
thing that when you tell people you are doing they look at you like you are
crazy.What is it about you that makes
you standout?What is it about you that
you need to amplify that says “I’m different and my difference makes a
difference and makes this world a better place; more just, more loving, more
kind and more creative? What is different in you that society has talked out of you?
Yesterday, after worship, one my fellow church members who
sits next to Vanessa and I asked, “So where have you been this summer, we’ve
missed you.”I replied, “I have been
shooting pictures and making videos working on my degree at Savannah College of
Art and Design (SCAD).”He replied, “I
thought you already had your doctorate.” “I do but I am doing an MFA in
photography.” It was as if he were implying that I should be done with school
because I have a PhD and DMin. Degree completion(s) are only a part of the
journey they are not the end of the journey.I firmly believe that we should be life long learners.This doesn’t mean we have to keep enrolling
in degree programs but it does mean that we should continue to advance our
knowledge, skills and passions in some kind of formal sustained process.
Tonight I will present my summer work for my class at
SCAD.This will be the official end to
my first year of studies at SCAD.Being
trained as an artist has been both challenging yet very rewarding.When I think back over the year I am reminded
how I have grown as an artist.From the
very first quarter I have been pushed.The professors at SCAD have made me look inward in search of my creative
sources.It has been an inward journey
to produce art that is created with the intent of being shared publicly.
At SCAD we are constantly creating art to be critiqued by
our peers and professors. This isn’t writing the paper, turn it in and get the
grade.The private dialogue between
professor and student is not what happens at SCAD.What I appreciate most about SCAD is that leaning,
developing and growing, as an artist is truly a communal project.I have enjoyed being apart of my new
community because in this community I have found new life, new energy and an
excitement about the demands of my work.
I would wish that everyone could experience what I have
experienced this past year.This isn’t
new to me because I have committed my life to navigating my journey. This thing
is about the journey; the joy of the journey is challenging you to become
yourself.This is a process of constant
discovery, hard work and never resting on what you did yesterday.What we did yesterday is a part of the
journey and informs the next leg of the journey but if we stop to long to read
what we wrote we might never write again.
I choose to continue to write my story.The journey isn’t over yet and I thank God
for leading me to SCAD.Where are you
being led?What is that next stop on
your journey that will help you see more, be more and do more of what is in you
that is trying to get out?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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:
What are you passionate about?
What can are or you doing that has the promise
of making the world a better place?
What is that gives you a sense of joy?
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!
“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.
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?
