Sitting Still
Taylor, 2009
Twelve weeks ago I was lying on a table in a drawing room at Pratt staring up at the ceiling. I was cursing the camera standing next to me vowing to never touch it again. It was my first time shooting with an 8 x 10 view camera. It was heavy, time consuming, and the film was incredibly expensive. A few hours later I met a friend for lunch. I was still fuming. “Everything went wrong. Now I have a headache. People can’t sit still. Why is it so heavy? Why would anyone ever touch that thing?” His response: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry.” One week later I was lugging the camera to Brooklyn yet again. This time for something a little more intimate. A series of closer portraits. Fast-forward one hour and I’m boiling again. I’d never worked with a subject who acted so rudely. I wasn’t given the time I needed and I could almost imagine how blurry and horrible the images were going to turn out. Something tells me I persevered because I knew I wasn’t getting something I wanted. Perhaps I enjoyed the challenge. I decided to shoot someone closer to home. Someone that would give me the time I needed. Someone I cared about. It worked. The first time I walked out of the darkroom holding a 16×20 print of the image my stomach lurched. I hadn’t felt that proud of something since I first started shooting in high school. It was beautiful. It was tac sharp. It was like real life.
I’ve finally discovered a medium that captures the detail and presence of a human being. I have a strange reverence for film for these somewhat spiritual reasons I’ve mentioned before… That it actually captures the energy of a person. It becomes a little treasure. A piece of someone to keep and remember and hold onto. Everything is a transfer of energy. The light that caresses the details of our faces is transfered to an 8 x 10 inch negative. It’s an artifact. A large and tangible imprint of a living thing. When I’m holding up the negative I feel like “this is you.” These feelings are only exacerbated by the fragility of the thin sheet that is susceptible to scratching and deterioration throughout every step of processing.
For a while I was back at square one. Relearning the technical aspects and basic optics of the camera. I was working at speeding up the process. Learning the idiosyncrasies and perfecting my developing. I still have so much to learn. I’ve only been shooting with one lens. I haven’t moved the camera from standard position. I haven’t experimented with different films. I haven’t done anything but “straight photography.” But I’m actually more happy with my work than I’ve ever been. Which is why I need to figure out what it is that I’m doing and why it is that I’m doing it.
Jack, 2009
The funniest part of the 8 x 10: I never see the image I’m taking. Sure I compose it. Sure I direct the subject. But that 30 seconds between announcing “I’m focused” and snapping the image is filled with me jumping around the camera and double-checking my exposure. I always cast my eyes down when I say “1, 2, 3″ and click the shutter. I think I’m in love with the element of surprise.
What goes into every image? Tremendous expense. The time it takes to lug a suitcase, wooden tripod, and backpack full of image holders to the location. The hour(s) of shooting. The hours of developing. And the hours of scanning and working in the darkroom. All of those hours are therapeutic. I feel like I’m working towards something. It makes me care so much more. It feels like there’s a basic breakdown: with digital for too long I was trying to “get” the image. I would shoot until I thought I “got” the image. With the 8 x 10 I’m making an image. Creating it. I’ve usually only got 1-2 shots. It feels like a skill rather than a stroke of luck. It’s more careful… more precise. And I’m more passionate.
Emily and Jake, 2009
Many of the shots have been on the street. I was taken aback by how much attention the camera gets. I started to keep track of how many people stop to have a conversation. The record is 16.
There’s such an anticlimactic element to the shot itself. So much preparation for a little “click.” That’s probably why I always go “woo!” after every shot. I want to install some fireworks.
I currently have a list a hundred miles long of techniques I want to try and people and locations I want to shoot. It will probably be a year before I embark on any coherent project. I’m too much of an experimenter to lock myself down.
My friend Peter gave me some good advice. I’d just finished a shoot and was folding up a piece of paper on which I’d sketched image ideas. I was on my way out of Tisch when I asked him his thoughts on an image. He basically told me I too often know precisely what I want. I have an image in my head and I try to force it out. Fortunately the spontaneity of people in reality is often much more interesting than whatever my brain can come up with. Psychology would probably say that the image in my head is just a combination of past images anyway. “Let your subject come up with their own interpretation of your direction.” Let them make it their own. After all, an image is a collaboration. That was one of the most important lessons I received from the Model as Muse show at the Metropolitan Museum. The photographer-subject relationship is a tug-of-war of ideas and egos that gets lost in translation and results in some static image that is either revolted or cherished on a hundred different levels that vary from person to person. Something else to add to the list. A new way of working.
“Never think photography is easy. It’s like poetry in that it’s easy enough to make a few rhymes, but that’s not a good poem.” -Perkins
Rob, 2009
Somehow I’ve found myself focusing on portraits of other artists. The energy levels and personalities are so very different across the board. I’ve found the positivity and passion inspiring. Of course that’s the problem with an arts school and New York City in general. There’s so many people doing such great things. It’s impossible to digest it all or find the breathing room to complete your own body of work. A life in the theater, a life in the dance studio, a life behind a computer inventing the next great iPhone application.
“The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don’t belong.” -Meiselas
Addison, 2009
Since this entry long ago lost track of its main focus I’ll end with a short exploration of ideas.
These are quotes and my reactions that were extracted from a talk I attended between two genius wordsmiths: Zadie Smith & Jonathan Safran Foer.
- JSF: “What do you want?” ZS:”What I want changes every day.” | I imagine it changes every day because we accomplish something and what we want is always contingent upon what we have. If we weren’t hard-wired to want something more then progress would dissipate. Of course then we have the classic question: Can we ever truly be happy? I’ve decided happiness is surrendering. Tripping into the pool of optimism. Finally giving up on worry. Which, honestly, feels like an impossibility.
- ZS: “Family you cannot change.” | It’s the one thing in life you are seriously and sometimes tragically stuck with. I recently saw August: Osage County and experienced a mix of laughing until my gut hurt and sudden knife-stabbing realizations that this was my family being acted out on stage. It’s both frightening and comforting when something hits so close to home.
- ZS: “I can only write the way I write.” | When will I stop trying to please others with my most personal work?
- JSF: “I write so that when you are exhausted in your own world, you can escape to another.” | How generous.
_______
Someone once told me, “you love being a student.” I’m still not sure why that was like a slap in the face.
Finally, here’s a question I was posed that I’m still having trouble answering: “What to you is a failed photograph?”
Michael George :: Jun.23.2009 :: My Photography :: 5 Comments »
