one of a kind....

photograph of Mary Ellen Mark by Michael "Nick" Nichols

 

she was always a "star"....in high school she was the head cheerleader for the football team and super student....in college she received a Fulbright Fellowship in photography and went off to Turkey to first make her "mark" as a pre-eminent photographer...i cannot think of any photographer who has consistently produced for an entire lifetime in quite the way as has Mary Ellen Mark...at times with a coy and "girlish" personality, and other times as  hard as nails , Mary Ellen has always had her "eyes on the prize", knows what she wants, and goes and gets it...

using the now extinct 20x24 inch Polaroid camera to make spectacular, literally "one of a kind", black & white prints, Mary Ellen has been photographing high school prom night since 2006....she has three more proms to photograph this year and then that will be it...over for her project...over for the the super big Polaroid...end of an era...please read a story on MEM prom work by Francine Prose in the summer 2007 issue of Aperture magazine...last weekend Mary Ellen came to Virginia (seen above) to shoot a high school prom and will have prints in her retrospective "legend" exhibition  from this local event....MEM only had 15 assistants with her...  i ended up grilling steaks for all of them, at a dinner hosted by Look3 producer Jessica Nagle,  therefore becoming number 16!!

Mary Ellen joins Joel-Peter Witkin and James Nachtwey as the "legends" to be exhibited and on hand  at this 2nd annual Look3, Festival of the Photograph, from June 12-14 in Charlottesville, Virginia...please check the link to see all that will be presented by festival  maestro Michael Nichols ...last year he put this photo fest on the "international map" and this year promises us even more....see this YouTube video...

added this year will be one week shooting workshops (June 7-12) being taught by Eugene Richards, William Albert Allard, and , yes, your own DAH...i think we have a few spaces left, so click the link if interested in a challenge...these workshops will segue right into the festival...

i believe you already know that many of you will have work from our forum here (entries from Emerging Photog Fund) presented in a half hour slide show as a special feature for the festival...this could become an annual feature, this will become at least one outlet for you here....as you know, i am trying for more....the good news for me is the workshop will be over by the time the festival starts, therefore giving me some "hang time" with those of you who show up, and some shooting time also with some local families...

ok, the logical, and perhaps soul searching question for all of you.....do you have dreams of being recognized as a "one of a kind" photographer?

 

Comments

[David McGowan]

Mary Ellen Mark?

[Jean-Sébastien Bréault]

Mixed couple moves me (not sure it is the good word). My wife is black, I'm white... We are both... metis children... Not black, not white... metis. Two peoples, two souls or maybe one soul, two parts.

[Herve]

David, just to be mentionned as...Kind of a photographer will be plenty for me ;-)

I am probably one of a kind in other matters, though...

Mary Ellen Mark is indeed one of the greats, I bet she hates the word legend though.

[Jarle Kavli Jørgensen]

thanks for your personal into to Mary Ellen Mark, David. very nice insight. explains also why wrote in the last post that you were off to the prom...good times!!
Look3 seems like a great event, and it would be a great experience to be able to partake, at your or any other of the photographers workshops, see their work and hear their talks, mingle and socialise, and last but not least, see of DAH emerging photog fund slide show...won't be able to prioritize this event myself, but wish all of you going there a great time.

i realized something today, thinking about what was reflected upon, in an earlier post, with regards to home environment, that this has been holding me back...don't know what or why this is...but bla bla bla...my conclusion is that i gotta make portraits of the 2 neighbours one story below...why them? have contact with them, and their lives have for some reason changed...and they are now enjoying the sweetness of alcohol...i'd love to get their story...maybe even film them...what attracts me to homeless and drunks, i don't know...anyway, time for me to get off the soapbox...too much herb...don't know...a great day and night to you all...

sweet dreams,
jarle

[Jarle Kavli Jørgensen]

thanks for your personal into to Mary Ellen Mark, David. very nice insight. explains also why wrote in the last post that you were off to the prom...good times!!
Look3 seems like a great event, and it would be a great experience to be able to partake, at your or any other of the photographers workshops, see their work and hear their talks, mingle and socialise, and last but not least, see of DAH emerging photog fund slide show...won't be able to prioritize this event myself, but wish all of you going there a great time.

i realized something today, thinking about what was reflected upon, in an earlier post, with regards to home environment, that this has been holding me back...don't know what or why this is...but bla bla bla...my conclusion is that i gotta make portraits of the 2 neighbours one story below...why them? have contact with them, and their lives have for some reason changed...and they are now enjoying the sweetness of alcohol...i'd love to get their story...maybe even film them...what attracts me to homeless and drunks, i don't know...anyway, time for me to get off the soapbox...too much herb...don't know...a great day and night to you all...

sweet dreams,
jarle

[John Fulton]

I went last.year and it was terrific. Don't wait until last minute - they do sell out.

[Jarle Kavli Jørgensen]

sorry about the double posting...so here you'll have a third...don't know why..again..but had to put in the security code twice, so that would explain the double post..

peace...

[John Fulton]

I went last.year and it was terrific. Don't wait until last minute - they do sell out.

[John Fulton]

sorry about my 2x too. 'trying to do this from iPhone.

[David McGowan]

I've got my ticket to the festival. Curious who here is going.

[bobblack]

david......

it's been an awful day....and today decided: sadly, cant come to charlottesville....found out today our tax accountant totally messed up my taxes, i owe $$$ (still in a state of shock as i type, listening to Preisner to calm down.......from part of what i sent you and michael yesterday.....

as for MEM: last year, work from her Ward 81 was shown at Stephen Bulger (the dude that represents some of Magnum folk like Larry T, Jim G, Susan M, your buddy Alex W and of course Mary Ellen M)....

after the exhibition (marina was in russia), i went outside, drank....and wept....went back with a friend 1 hour later...wept again...but also depressed by the prices of the prints (well, she is greatness)...i've loved MEM for a long long time...but also, was pissed 'cause Bulger wasn't at first very "friendly" to me, when i tried to get him to see John vink's projection...then when he re-met me, knowing i was doing a magnum photog, he was nicer to me....the usual bullshit of the art world...ditto, when he learned who'd showed our family show ;))...anyway, her exhibit here, was the highlight of my 2007 for documentary work in toronto...

I digress...(fucking taxes)...

"do you have dreams of being recognized as a "one of a kind" photographer?"

I am dreams that my wife and son are safe and calm and happy and that i can make photography and write without constantly running into obstacles...fuck it, no that aint right, 'cause being a photographer, being known, being anything is nothing compared with the days and ways of what others have to ordeal...

i dont want to be anything: only to write and snap pictures and help my family and friends and live simply...

im grisly today...i'll i'll leave a long, obnoxious comment...from something i finished writing last week...

how can we know...

exhausted...

hugs
bob
============================================

Our bodies carry, like flotsam and drift-wood upon the back of a slow-articulating river, the memories of those who came before us. Along the curve of our spine, tickled beneath the hinge of our jaws, along the fan of space between our fingers, from within the resonant sound of the shape of our teeth, memory seeds itself and grows with a fecundity we seldom acknowledge properly. What grows happens in the silent snap of a moment. That moment , however, may occur in the lick of a lifetime. We contain the entirety of the lives that came before us, bestowed to us along ligament and hair lick, tongue and tissue, wobbly vocabulary and vocal chord. We are, even in our muted silence, the spoken history of those lives lived gone, only too-often the songs written upon our bodies remain choir-less, the stories cast along our limbs unopened, the mythologies archived in the chambers of our cranial corners still un-categorized. Yet, we hunger to remember. But there still the faces and the traces, the sounds of the rounding of days, the pictures and tinctures of the already lived and lost, recomposed inside our own seemingly inimical lives. But are we unique or an amalgam? We grope to understand within the shape of our hunger to remember and to retrieve, to understand and delve, research and relinquish. We contain. We sift. We burgeon. It is, in fact, all there inside us though often at a loss of approximate distance. Remedy this, we tell ourselves, remedy this.

So, take into your hand something small and weave it into the movement of your thoughts. See how it enlarges all of you and all that you have not counted upon; see how a small artifact reminds you of what once was and what still resides inside: a book, a story, a pen, a signature, a piece of cloth, a word, a scent, a glimmer of a shadow or a speck of light, an imprint, a sound, a comb, a shoe, a tattered lace, an indent, a forgotten taste, a photograph: all the small things that trigger obdurate things. How much could be unbelted if what we longed to retrieved were unhooked. Those places and faces and spaces, ancestor and parent, that sit like an unadorned and unopened book upon the shelf of your gathering. If only we but reached out and opened, would we begin to recognize ourselves more clearly? To snap the spine that has woodened from age, the whelp into the world of recognition. Crack it. Shellack it. You were born of it: desire and duty. Look at the rings beneath your eyes, nibble upon the the carving along the back of your hands, focus on the nimble notes of your voice, take up the photograph of the woman standing on the bridge with her back turned and catch her, the curve of her hip suggesting the loss of love, wander over the TV screen in front of you as that unknown but somehow recognizable woman speaks to you of what has gone missing, distilling her life's tale as if sung from Scherhazades, know not the name or the details of the forlorn awakening but speak upon them regardless. Arrest that which has rested too long. Remember what you had forgotten to remember while you see what it was that you were meant to see. The ache of a quick snatch gone fleeting. There, in that moment in front of you. Have you begun to remember? Picture this: a photograph as a map of your life pre-drawn.

http://www.bulgergallery.com/dynamic/fr_exhibit_invitations.asp?ExhibitID=143

[jay nowakowski]

everyone is already a one of a kinder weather they recognize it or not. and the photos they make , weather it be of family and firends or stories from their own lives are probably much more meaningful than some "famous " persons photos. i think there 2 aspects to becoming recognized as a one of kind photograper....skill and marketing! yes marketing! and marketing is huge piece of it. by the way are portfolio reviews still being done?

[Rafal Pruszynski]

I think everyone wants to be one of a kind. Maybe it isnt to be recognized, but atleast to know that what you are doing, even if not "recognized" is original and new, different in some way and not just a copy of what came before. call it authorshop or what you want. Being recognized would ofcoure be a great thing but how many artists are recognized in their lifetimes? Van Gogh was your typical unsuccessful starving artists when he was alive....I bete he never dreamed how big he would become.

[Panos Skoulidas]

....do you have dreams of being recognized as a "one of a kind" photographer?

i wouldn't call it a dream DAVID....
it's more of an OBSESSION....

hey Bob... tax wise you are not alone....
if i tell you my story... you will probably go out and party all night long...

[Herve]

tax wise you are not alone....
if i tell you my story...
-----------------
That's 3 of us. Though I think on that account I do fit as "one of a kind"...

[Jean-Sébastien Bréault]

Dream of being... recognized, known, famous. It sounds now for me like science fiction. I've realized that last week. I must dream of doing... greats photographs, great shoots. All I'm dreaming about now is doing. Shooting. Que sera, sera. What will be, will be.

[Eric Espinosa]

DAVID,

I plan to make it to the Festival, although ... shame on me, it looks like I will only be able to get there on the 13th and 14th which would make me miss the actual talk/ show of Mary Ellen Mark. I do however look forward to see the show from your friend Jim and I am glad to see that you are also "on" now to talk "off for family drive".... Let us know where you plan to hang around....presumably this festival might also be of a dimension that makes it easy to bump into each other....

On your question of being recognized as "one of a kind" photographer.... Obvioulsy who would not dream of this but somehow, maybe because I am not a professional, my initial modest dream has been to do a few "one of a kind" photographs to start with...Rather than the fame of being recognized, what is more exciting than capturing that one very special shot or photograph that creates a real emotion, having your eye recognize that 1/125s moment in time when something magical happens.... There are only few of these photographs that I see, even in the main photographers that have inspired me. Most have got lots of great pictures but there are very few that somehow are the very very special photographs. I can look at these for a very long time...They just seem so intense, so intimately talking to me... If only I could do a few of these before it is over, I will be a very happy man! It reminds me that, when I was last in Antigua, there was a shot I was trying to get of a statue of an angel at the end of a day with clowdy sky...I loved the light, the angle, I was missing something to make this shot more special...all of a sudden, I see this little girl with a wonderful colorful dress coming from a distance and I wait, wait for her to get there, hopefully, worried I was not going to get the shot and then, at the last second, after passing by the angel, she just turned her head to look back at that angel, straight at his eyes...I got that one shot... I was so excited...I did put it in my edit that I shared with you...After the moment is gone, who knows whether others and you liked that particular shot but anyway, I continue to try to work at getting a few of these magical moments....

Come to think of it, I guess this may be how it all started with you as well....making more and more one of a kind photographs and then slowly coming to realize that you could also become one of a kind photographer...NIce dream for all of us!

Have fun in Charlotte and hope to see you there. Eric

[asher]

"do you have dreams of being recognized as a "one of a kind" photographer?"

I used to, for a while. Then those desires and feelings started detracting from my enjoyment of the art, to the point that I stopped shooting altogether for a couple of years.

I can honestly say that now I shoot for myself. Period. I'm enjoying it just like I did when I was discovering photography at the age of 12 years, and shooting with my grandfather's 1933 Leica, oblivious to all the pressures, demands, and expectations. Now, any external recognition is pure gravy.

Incidentally, I've been a Mary Ellen Mark fan for about 15 years. I have studied her book "The Photo Essay". Enjoy Look3.

[David McGowan]

I don't know that I'll feel it in my lifetime, but if I happen to have children, and I pass on negs, prints, and several terabytes of data, I'd like to think that I was a one of a kind photographer to them.

And if I don't have children, I'll settle for having a handful of pieces in museums here and there.

[david alan harvey]

BOB....

i was sitting here with my son Bryan when i made this post...we both agreed that we could not wait to see what you would write in response!! figured it was the perfect "trigger' for you and, lordy lordy, you did not disappoint!!!

JAY...

you are basically right, but i am not quite sure what you mean by "marketing" ???? i.e. showing a portfolio??? exhibiting work?? publishing work???

i mean, the world is full full full of marketeers....but Jay, bottom line, you gotta have something to take to market or else there ain't gonna be anybody buying!!!

yes, of course, any photographer must make his or her work "available"...you cannot hide your work in a closet and hope to be "discovered"...but, i have seen many photogs with mediocre work and very slick slick marketing campaigns and the work remains sadly mediocre...

i do notice a lot of photographers who will see the success of another photographer and automatically say "oh, well, he/she just knows how to sell himself/herself"....anybody smell sour grapes????

RAFAL....

Van Gogh is always used as an example of the "starving unknown artist" whose time did not come until death...great story ...but, Picasso , on the other hand, was very well aware of his surroundings, circumstances, did very well financially, commercially etc etc and was the epitome of the very good calculations and "marketing" to which Jay was referring....he MADE SURE he had his place in history....

in any case, when i said "recognized" i did not say by whom or by how many...you could be recognized as a "one of a kind" photographer by your mother or your wife or your son and couldn't that be or shouldn't that be enough ????

PANOS...

i am surely obsessed on many levels to be sure...and i did certainly have at a very early age a strong strong feeling that i had been "given" something special...that i needed to "take care" as one would take care of a garden....

but, "recognition" is something over which none of us has any control...either in small quantities or large....surely, everyone loves a "pat on the back"...and the best way to get this "love" is not to seek it too too much...you cannot "try" to get respect etc...you get respect by being who you are and IF someone else "gets you" than fine, nice, enjoy...but to be obsessed with seeking only this "pat on the back" is i think potentially destructive....there is a fine fine balance and difference between self aware and self absorbed....

i would however like a little bit of love from the IRS!!!! oh Bob, Herve and you Panos...you have no idea how my idealistic romantic subjective way of looking at life has cost me cost me and cost me some more...although i wish i could direct my tax payments away from the war in Iraq etc. and into the areas where i want my dollars to be spent, i realize that for things "to work" taxes must be paid...we need roads, schools, fire depts etc etc etc....i get it....but, i do live in a very abstract world when it comes to personal money management...but, the IRS must love me more than i love them, because i have been one of their better customers and pay even more than i owe in late penalties etc...

hey, can we please get back to obsession, recognition, "one of a kind" etc etc????

peace, david

[Rafal Pruszynski]

Welll...

yes it should be enough but really its tough to make money recognized only by your wife or mother vs being recognized by a lot of professionals or art people:) Yes, while a lot of people make porr work but are good at marketing we cant forget that different circles of people have different tastes and whats crap to one circle may be great to others. Its a matter of finding a niche and exploding within it, and marketing yourself is important, I guess.

And yes, van gogh is a great example, maybe overused but a great example....its such a contrast between his life and after it.

[Rafal Pruszynski]

Getting back to van gogh for a minute, I wonder how much his tragic life has contributed to his posthumous success....would he be the same giant if he was a boring guy who died married of old age with some success in some French town? Is being a poor, penniless and failed crazy guy who cut off his ear for a woman and klled himself part of the package? So, is there not a bit of marketing there? Not on his part, ofcourse he's dead, but on the part of the art industry?

[Panos Skoulidas]

...Birds( Politicians) keep singing their annoying prayers....

... in the meantime.... Blood ( Soldiers ) are wasted , spilled...
sacrificed........................

Ladies and gents.... my first POLITICAL ( 3 minutes) FILM...

Who are YOU gonna vote for...?

ARE YOU GONNA LET THEM SPILL MORE WATER ??????

http://web.mac.com/innerspacecowpanos/%22MOVIES%22/Dripping.html

[Panos Skoulidas]

DAVID....
I GOT SO MOTIVATED FROM MAGNUM'S PODCASTS....
TO CREATE LITTLE CLIPS.... WITH SOUND... AND MUSIC...
THATS THE NEXT STEP....

EARLY STEPS...though... I STILL NEED TO WRITE MY OWN MUSIC...
AND I NEED TO... USE ONLY STILLS...
BUT, I'M NOT TRYING TO COPY
"MAGNUM" PODCASTS....

I'M JUST TRYING TO EXPRESS MYSELF, LET IT OUT, SPEAK IT UP...
OTHERWISE I WILL BURST INTO PIECES....
I'm not trying to entertain,
I'm trying to stay alive...
peace

[Patricia Lay-Dorsey]

Bob, I'm really disappointed that you won't be able to make it to LOOK3. I was looking forward to meeting the man whose words consistently give me chill bumps. Your latest post was exceptional. Such a gift!

But David McG and Eric, I sure hope we meet up in Charlottesville. I'll be in DAH's workshop. Hope to see some of you there.

Regarding your question, David, I've been mulling it over since I first read this thread hours ago. I guess I'd have to answer it in several ways. Like Eric, I'm more interested in taking one of a kind photographs--even a few in my lifetime--than being "recognized" in any public way. Sure it would be cool to have my work seen by more people but that has nothing to do with why I do what I do. I do it because I can't NOT do it. But once in a very long while I'll click the shutter and know I've captured something special. That is a glorious feeling, having nothing to do with its being "recognized as one of a kind" or not.

But isn't each of us one of a kind? So doesn't it figure that our photographs or poems or paintings or music is unique? No one does exactly what we do because no one sees, hears, experiences the world like we do. I used to teach art to adults who would come into my classes saying "I can't draw a straight line." I always told them they were in the right place because there wasn't a straight line to be found in nature. And I never had a student who didn't end up making art. Pretty damn good art at that. And it was always unique because they were unique.

Such a long answer to a short question...

[mike]

David,

In my case... I'm still working things out. I am trying to make photographs that precisely register with the pictures I see in front of me... if not one of a kind, I am aiming for something very specific... precisely imperfect... I want to get things exactly wrong, if that makes any sense. It's not easy, and is probably a thorny way to recognition of any sort...

I've got my ticket to the festival, too... hope to have a chance to say hello to everyone.

[Herve]

Well, David, Rafal has a point, Van Gogh is movie and lore material because of his wretched life, not his paintings. Chances are he wouldn't have been able to bear the pressures of being famous while alive. I do not think, unlike Picasso, it would have made much difference to his own self-esteem and doubts, except for the worse, like quite a few others.

Picasso was truly a whore, when it comes to recognition. But talk about one of a kind!

Photography, I dunno, all these figures we admire, you too of course, it's all within the craft and people passionated with it, and of course peers and collegues. You say "VIRGINIA" is your best selling book so far, the one book you'd rather slip under the carpet (after tearing off the picture of your kids!).

Doisneau, famous for one shot, Hotel de Ville kiss, not 1/100 of people know who made the iconic Che picture. Myself, I often think Burri before Korda (I promise to remember for now on)...

Cartier-Bresson just simply does not have the recognition, outside the afficionados of the craft, he deserves. Avedon says he is one of the 5 greatest artists of the last century. But Avedon is a photographer. A peer.

I mean, recognition within one's craft is no mean feat, but I think we all understand recognition beyond that, where at least your work has taken a life of its own, has been established for future generations.

As it's quite confusing this idea of recognition. There are guys out there who make big bucks, selling fine art prints, that the world will never give a hoot about. The golden age of photo-journalists and street photographers is behind us, say some. We are a million a day making quite passable shots, but will get closer to the trap (ie. no food on the table) when we start "authoring".

Just stirring things, what do you guys and gals think?

BTW, Not being pessimistic at all. My father was never famous or recognized, and he will have meant much more to me than Picasso, or whoever. There is such stuff in life that has no barometer, no measuring. You can't never beat true love. That, I do recognize! ;-)

[Ana Yturralde]

Usually I love this world because it is big with so many treasures to find, so many distances to cross.... but right now I wish the world were smaller and time more elastic.... Yes, I just took a look at the Look3 site and watched the youTube video.... Amazing! I wish I could make it and be there!! but instead I also have something big to do at the same time. And that is a constant in life: sometimes we are forced to choose our next step. And I already have a "festival" to attend that for me will be "one of a kind".
Hope you record the half hour slide show presenting some work from the entries from the Emerging Photographers Fund and show us later here.... Will you include all the selected works or only a few?
And about your question, just reading about Mary Ellen makes me dream of keep on learning, keep on walking just to become what I want to be. One of a kind? maybe not for the rest of the world, but at least one of a kind just for me, to finally be confident with myself.
Peace, love and photography. Yeah....

[jay nowakowski]

I sometimes reflect on the power of marketing. one of the most successful artists out there who has stores in malls across this country and who definetly has a unique style that one could identify as one of a kind is thomas kinkaid often called the "painter of light". the power of marketing? call it what you will but there is a genius there.

[bobblack]

DAVID, HERVE, PANOS:

yes, afer a morning of horrendous sleep and nightmares, i return shaggy-haired and sleepy, but at least i can commisserate in knowing i aint alone...it all came as just as major shock yesterday because i had our accountant do our taxes and i was told i owed $0...broke even (and i have a very low income salary for a family a 3: go figure, 2 artists) only to get my notice from the govt yesterday with payment do TODAY...crushing and angering and frightening, but as marina reminded: we have each other and will see throughit, aint nothin' nobody else aint have howed before (as my grandmother might have said), and there are families in much more dire straits...if anything, it was a reminder to the ego...i'd hoped to be at Look3, to see the projection of the work (since some of my pics i've chosen, blog members havent seen) and most importantly to drink and talk with david and lance and all the rest of y;'all, since most of us know each other only through this...maybe it's better this way, waiting until its not as hectic, though i am still very disappointed...digression....

as fro Mary Ellen Mark, i should have added how brilliant her work is and as a photographer how much i admire her. I already wrote that her Ward 81 pics (old work/early work) ripped my heart last year, but what i admire about her (besides her brilliant photograhy) is that she has courage, big courage (athletes call this "big balls") to tackle square on other luminaries...her book TWINS to be a straight on dialogue with ARbus: i mean, who the fuck get's beyond Arbus and that iconic twin pic, and Mark did an entire book: a direct and transcendent act of huzpah and brilliance..add it all up: gypsies, circus work, prostitution in india, coney island, recent big format shit...it's mad and brilliant and she's a giant, period...

but we are each both: one of a kind and all of a kind, and that's always been, at the end of the day, good enough..it doesnt mean i, (who doesnt) dont harbor heart-thumps of grandeur (i want to be the best husband, best father, best son, best brother, best friend, best photographer, best writer, best thinker, best reader, best sleeper I can be, though its a continual failure on all those parts: failure of perfection, achievement, not failure of humanity)...but in the end, its just the simple pursuit of what arrows the heart....for all this "greatness" shit is all usually retrospectively earned and for most, who remembers us...surely no one past our grandchildren...

hark the heart with hath not music in its soul, disappearing...

Patricia Lay-Dorsey : i will be there next year...since i've missed now 2 years running...

hugs
b

p.s. last nigh, from shock, i went to bed at 9:00, only to awaken at 4:30 from a nightmare: in the woods of North Carolina with some old man (as if from Faulkner's Go Down, Moses) and suddenly we were chased by a black bear...the crackle of his breath, the stretch toward the old cabin...and before the door, i fell and awoke my heart like a fucking John Henry's hammer against an anvil...

how does one begin to explain their interior life to the world....fucking one of a kind, all of a kind....

[Joni Karanka]

Hum, but isn't it annoying to be recognized by many other photographers, and your flatmate, mother and cat? (Sort of following from Herve.)

Btw, is anybody planning on going to Rencontres d'Arles or Visa Pour l'Image? If time and budget allows I might try to do one of those for a couple of days. Maybe try to subsidize the drinking by selling wetprinted 5x7'' prints for a fiver or something...

[Pete Marovich]

David:

I was wondering how Mary Ellen Mark was shooting her project, I had not heard about it until you mentioned it in an earlier post.

Isn't there an even larger polaroid that someone did portraits of 9-11 rescue works with a few years back?

I will be at Look3 and I am enrolled in your workshop. Looking forward to it and I am definitely up for a challenge.

As for being recognized as a "one of a kind photographer", I would say if that happened it would be nice if it was because the work meant something to people other than just being a photographer that made really pretty images or one that just happened to be in the right place at the right moment to capture an event that became an iconic photograph.

For me I just want my photography to bring about awareness or change. I am not interested in fame. The only use for it in my opinion is to be able to take whatever recognition my work may attract and turn that into opportunities to create more meaningful work. Lets face it. Photographers that create moving and important imagery end up having more doors opened through funding, access and other means.

I just want to work. My goal is to move beyond newspapers and have the ability and time to pursue more projects of my choosing. I have one in particular that I have been working on for a few years off and on. Maybe we can talk about it at the workshop?

[Akaky]

"Do you have dreams of being recognized as a "one of a kind" photographer?"

No. For the most part I dream of being chased along the bottom of the chocolate ocean by a large mollusk dressed in a nun’s habit who wants to hit me upside the back of my head for not knowing my multiplication tables or the proper way to discuss the Summa Theologica while eating a ham and cheese sandwich. You’d think that getting away from a mollusk, especially a bivalve mollusk (I’m assuming that this particular bivalve is an oyster—it seems too big to be a clam or scallop) wouldn’t be all that much trouble, but it is exceedingly difficult to run anywhere on the bottom of the chocolate ocean without scuba gear and a spoon. Taking pictures doesnt even enter the equation.

[Panos Skoulidas]

"No. For the most part I dream of being chased along the bottom of the chocolate ocean by a large mollusk dressed in a nun’s habit who wants to hit me upside the back of my head for not knowing my multiplication tables or the proper way to discuss the Summa Theologica while eating a ham and cheese sandwich. ..."

AKAKY...
are you sure that the "LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS" lyrics,
are NOT yours...??????????

Good morning everyone...

[Tom Hyde]

i just assume everyone here wants to be a "one of a kind photographer," to realize or express their own unique individuality and concept of reality through their work, to reach that pinnacle of combining subject, photographer, and viewer in one shared mind space, to make their own unique "Mark" ... I hope to grow into that ...

But I am just as interested in exploring new avenues of communication in convergence with photography, both artistically and economically, and perhaps making a one of a kind mark there (same thing really). And I can't help but swing toward editorial in some fashion ... genetic i think ... But the old models of print are broken, at least from an economic standpoint (i.e. print media, it's so depressing to look at Time now ... thin, sputtering, increasingly bereft of meaningful content, more like "People," shudder). But this leaves everything wide open now ... there is a vaccuum and i have always believed that people DO WANT meaningful content, even in America ...

Nobody has yet figured out the new economic model for "print" or really even a perfected convergence of media and communication forms, that right mix of layering of formerly separate forms of communication. It is wide, wide open now ... both troubling and exciting times for photographers, great hardships for many but also great possibility as yet unrealized. When somebody does figure "it" out, i think there will be a big leap in the evolution of communication. And by god, please do not let it be Rupert Murdoch!

I was intrigued and inspired after seeing Stephen Dupont's winning submission for the Eugene Smith Award (thank you David for that opportunity at workshop!). He combined stills, moving film, sound, narration and music into a moving piece thereby layering the best of all into a cohesive whole that was arguably much more than the sum of any of its parts. I think he may have also driven himself crazy trying to serve the two masters of both moving and still pictures.

So for me, having an evolutionary goal of becoming a "one of a kind photographer" is as much about message and delivery, and exploring emerging avenues, as it is about having an identifiable and unique style. And this is why, at 41, I am ... gasp ... going back to college to study in an interdisciplinary way (it's a unique school) sound, film, video, animation, art, color theory, painting, drawing, art history, culture, literature, writing, etc .... oh, and photography too. Not a bad way to finance personal projects either.

Too ambitious? ;-)

[Jonathan Hanson]

"do you have dreams of being recognized as a "one of a kind" photographer?"

My dreams, my obsession is to be the best I possibly can and to do work that full fills me and gets me to places not many people get to see; to do something I feel is important for people to see. I think in order to get really interesting assignments and see these places you have to be recognized as a "one of a kind" photographer or at least a photographer that can offer more than the next guy. So I guess my response to your question is yes, I want to be recognized as a one of kind photographer because of what it rewards a working photographer. I am at an interesting cross roads in my young career, I am finishing up my first newspaper internship where I learned an immense amount, and will have two picture stories published by the time my internship is completed and now I really have my eyes on the prize. The prize, do what my heart is telling me to do and its not in newspapers, its in magazines. Being recognized would make it easier to do that, but I guess you have to just go out and do it before anything else can happen. So in the next few months, I will save some money, work on a couple personal stories and try to make a plan to make that happen.

[Joni Karanka]

"He's a unique photographer. Awfully bad as well, but unique."

[Preston]

I don't care whether or not I am recognized (though that would certainly be nice). I just want to continue to be able to take pictures.

My photography is important to me, and in many cases it's important to the people I photograph. Whether the influence spreads beyond that really doesn't matter to me.

The most enduring sites for your photos to reside are family albums and the walls of living rooms. When a home is on fire, the first things people try to save after themselves are the photo albums.

[JChance]

Hey David, long time!... Made it to the first leg of our "adventure" and am finally able to get my heels dug into our first project which I am excited about.

Personally, i'll just keep doing what i'm doing and have faith that one day I will have honed my skills to be more (if not truly) "one of a kind". I mean you can't force this stuff can you!?...

Its when you hit that..."zen" and everything else falls away bar that little rectangle, that what is produced is raw and and truly "you". So me, I just keep looking for that and have faith that all the other stuff will fall into place... I'm enjoying myself at least!!

Hey there to Tom H too, sorry I didn't ever get back to you last email, you caught me just as I was leaving. Hope you are good!!?

Regards to all,

James

[Tom Hyde]

Hey James! No worries and good travels! Someday I'll have a print for you when you settle down again (take your time!) In the meantime, drop me a line sometime about your travels if you get the chance and you're a little drunk ... Cheers!

[Tom Hyde]

Hey James! No worries and good travels! Someday I'll have a print for you when you settle down again (take your time!) In the meantime, drop me a line sometime about your travels if you get the chance and you're a little drunk ... Cheers!

[guido]

Ambition and dreams of great recognition are important because they can help to improve, but they should never turn into obsession.
If you become obsessed for your art to be recognised, the lack of success can turn into generating a frustrated artist and frustration is the worst thing for an artist to live with.
Success depends on so many things, talent of course, being in the right place at the right time, perseverance and.. a little luck and a little help from those who made it before (that's why i think what DAH is doing is so special. Not many people in his position are so willing to help).
On the previous thread i posted a link from the new york times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/nyregion/thecity/27jill.html?_r=1&ref=thecity&oref=slogin
I hope some of you read it.
It's the story of photographer Jill Freedman. Despite her talent she was not a very lucky person. But maybe now she's finally getting something back.
Did you ever hear about her David?

cheers

[guido]

Ambition and dreams of great recognition are important because they can help to improve, but they should never turn into obsession.
If you become obsessed for your art to be recognised, the lack of success can turn into generating a frustrated artist and frustration is the worst thing for an artist to live with.
Success depends on so many things, talent of course, being in the right place at the right time, perseverance and.. a little luck and a little help from those who made it before (that's why i think what DAH is doing is so special. Not many people in his position are so willing to help).
On the previous thread i posted a link from the new york times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/nyregion/thecity/27jill.html?_r=1&ref=thecity&oref=slogin
I hope some of you read it.
It's the story of photographer Jill Freedman. Despite her talent she was not a very lucky person. But maybe now she's finally getting something back.
Did you ever hear about her David?

cheers

[guido]

JAY N.
sorry to disagree with you but that thomas kinkaid is exactly
"the power of marketing" if he managed to make big money with such paintings. I had a quick look at his website and i can assure thousands of such boring "geniuses of light" prosper (or starve, according to their luck and ability) in every country around the world.
Nothing personal though...

sorry about the double previous posting...

[Akaky]

"...fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of Noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious dayes..."

Milton, Lycidas

[PaulB]

BOB, PANOS, HERVE, DAVID ...

"Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes."
--- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).

However, Mr Franklin was not talking about the Income Tax. What is "certain" is that you DON'T have to pay it. Take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N331kGvh0U0

I regret that my first comment on this amazing blog (it's the first website I open each morning - yes, I've been one of those "non-contributing lurkers" for almost a year now) has little to do with David's latest post, or with photography for that matter. But if it were possible that we could all worry a little less about our financial situations and more about creating wonderful art, then perhaps we could all become, each in our own unique ways, "one of a kind."

Keep up the good work people.

Peace,
PaulB

[David McGowan]

That's heavy PaulB. Personally I'm a proponent of a consumption tax, like Fairtax (H.R. 25) that will eventually be on the ballot, and I've always wondered how other photographers feel about something like that—perhaps that's best for another blog.

[Paul Treacy]

To your question, David, absolutely yes. Hence my branding effort, Photohumorist.com. I will be rolling out a brand new, fully functional e-commerce site by the end of May. It'll be a point of sale for open and limited edition prints, personal use downloads, books and licensing. I have some video project ideas I'm fleshing out and they too will be available as downloads eventually.

It will also serve as a vehicle for my assignment services.

Now, to read the various posts above...

Paulyman

[PaulB]

Cheers for your comment David McGowan. Yes, I agree. Mine was a reluctant post (after all, it has only taken me a year!). I didn't want to drag David's latest post on what is an absolutely fantastic blog on this thing we love called photography reluctantly down the path of such (often) mundane topics such as politics and taxes. My apologies. I'm just weary that the weight of such topics on our daily lives can sometimes stifle our creative and artistic juices. Just look how down the usually bouyant and inspiring "running" Bob sounded with a mere mention of the IRS! Definitely topics for another blog, though.
Cheers,
PaulB

[Herve]

if it were possible that we could all worry a little less about our financial situations
------------------
Paul, all I can say is that anyone worrying less than me is definitely bordering on the insane.... Unless they are loaded, of course.