I took a week off. Between visiting with friends in the Asheville area, preparing for our upcoming Savannah workshop, and redoing a lot of the website images, there just wasn’t time.
Reminiscing
Our visit was fun and brought up a lot of reminiscing and chatting about photography. Arnie and Michael go back a long way. They both started out at one of the Chicago papers during the era of civil rights, the infamous Democratic Convention and the Days of Rage, went on to LIFE, Time, and other magazines — Michael as a staff photographer, Arnie as a contract one — moving on to the corporate world while their kids were in school, and both changing lives and moving to North Carolina within a few years of one another. Michael returned to the area near where he grew up in the mountains, while Arnie and I moved not all that far from where his grandparents lived in the Triangle area.
Their life parallels are uncanny, and at times, really bizarre. One nearly bought the house the other ended up buying. Both have sons-in-law with the same first names and both of whom are in the food industry. I could go on…
While Michael’s friend Elizabeth was teaching an advanced writing seminar, we poured over many of Michael’s photographs. I heard comments from them such as, “Wow, we must have been standing just about shoulder to shoulder!” “What ever happened to…?” “Do you remember…?”
We talked shop. Michael had run tests to compare prints he had done from negatives with ones he had done from scans of those same negatives. We were amazed that the digital versions were so much sharper. We had all shot medium and large format before “going digital,” and we all marveled at how the clarity of digital has surpassed our low-ISO films of yesteryear.
There were discussions on digital workflow and programs we each used. We poured over what are now historic photographs. The faces of Louie, Bobby, and others were brought out from this or that box. There were old photographs of Michael and Elizabeth from when they knew each other back in the 60s.
One box held the series Michael did on a local Asheville artist who makes the most fantastical and comfortable furniture out of metal scraps. Many of these pieces adorn Michael’s loft, from the wrench chair with the back made of rollers that invited mimicking a bear rubbing his back on his favorite tree to the whimsical tables that often served as a platform for a piece of art.
As I was listening, I heard Arnie and Michael saying that they looked to the “now” in photography. That said, I heard their incredible pride in what they had done in the past. I have been after them both to make a show, a retrospective, a presentation of their past work. Yes, now is important, but contrary to what a lot of young photographers think, there is a lot of value in what came before.
Some of us “old farts” wonder about what happened to the appreciation of what went before us. Think about the great painters. They would apprentice, sit before a Rembrandt or Van Gogh or Chardin, and replicate what they saw on the canvas. This was not to stifle their creativity, rather get them to master the techniques that would lead to better showcasing their vision.
I often liken creativity like being a clown. Don’t laugh!
A clown has to learn how to do something “right” before he/she takes off and does an individual interpretation that makes us laugh. What they do evokes a response; it is effective, because they have learned from the masters.
Maybe I’m a snob, but in the art world, a lot of what I see is ho-hum. Sure, it is bigger, different, catches my eye, but it that a reason to like it? For me, not necessarily. Yes, there are many current photographers whose work I love. You can look at the links on our blog to see some of them.
For example, I love the work of Edward Curtis and J. Walker Evans, but I can look at the work of Stephen Wilkes and admire it just as much. I adore the work of Ernst Haas, but I am also drawn to that of Eric Meola with his use of color or Frans Lanting who took inspiration from Ernst’s The Creation in his Life, a Journey through Time. There are, of course, many other examples I could cite.
Going back to Arnie and our friend Michael, I look at both their work, current and past. Yes, they are both more interested in the present, but their past work has more than a lot of merit. They can both talk extensively on “the masters” and the history of photography, but, like Edward Weston, they both question their work as Weston did in his The Day Books of…
As artists, we all question our work, but there is a time to question and a time to be proud of what one has done in the past. There is a lot to be gleaned from the past, for in acknowledging the past, we can better move forward and grow as artists. We cannot create in a vacuum.
It is ironic that it takes knowing the past in order to present a fresh view. If you haven’t seen what has gone before, you cannot avoid clichés.
For us., it is wonderful when we can reminisce with someone with a comparable number of gray hairs. We’ve been through the proverbial wars, we’ve paid our dues, but we do look forward, ever striving to improve, to present a unique perspective.
We take off tomorrow for our first workshop of the 2009 season in Savannah. We are looking forward to meeting our participants, sharing what we know about photography, inspiring them to seek their own vision and unique perspective.
Make Your Dream Assignment
Many of you have received an e-mail from us regarding our effort to stay in the top 20 and preferably get into the top ten for a Dream Assignment contest. We have long had a dream of doing a photographic book on Beautiful Bourgogne (Burgundy), and we are asking everyone for help, not only to vote and comment but to pass the word on… and on… and on. The link is at http://www.BCphotoadventures.com/DreamAssignment.php.
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Meanwhile, check out our Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures calendar of workshops, and if you are considering joining us, do as others have already done ... make your room reservations. You can always cancel later if necessary! We have added a Wish List section to our Calendar. Some of our alumni have expressed interested in our putting together workshops both in Spain and at Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks. If we get enough interest, we will add one or both to our schedule.
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