road trip

timing

now is the time......i just sense it.....the most amazing summer storm is just rolling through right now 6:30am my time....inspirational!!  great light , but the whole family is asleep , so i was forced to shoot one of my rare "landscapes"...but, it is not the storm  that i am talking about..

everything in life is always timing, timing and timing....knowing when the "time is right" is a sense that perhaps some people have naturally , but surely is a skill to be developed....

i sense that NOW is the time for all of you who are interested to start photographing something for this site ....now and until  the first week of september...i am interested in  your work from july 1 - september 1...(i will of course link to your past work).....

this "something" should be an essay of your choice that would ideally be a subject close to you both physically and emotionally...and i am interested in publishing here all types of photography....now is the time for you to  show me and our respected audience  what you  can do....

i well know  the writing skills of many of you.....now i would like  to see your photographic skills....most of my students and emerging photographers i know WANT a good portfolio review.....most of them NEED to just go out and work....

all of us must put our past work in the "back of our minds" and go out and create a new body of work....this is difficult, because most photographers get "married" to their portfolios....and this is totally understandable..but, experience with working almost every day  myself and critiquing the work of so many students over the years proves to me that the  best thing any of us can do is to "start over" each and every day ....

so, please start thinking.....and start working.....you may want to begin a new project or continue with an existing one.....i may publish single pictures from some of you or essays from others.....

please do not worry now about where all of this will be uploaded....i am working on this now....we have many choices, so this will be no problem....by mid-september we should have something magical to "put on the table"...

please start your thinking process from the heart.....give yourself the "assignment" that you would dream of receiving from a "mythical" editor ...your best work will be something so so obvious... you do not have to catch a plane or a train to do good work...

i want to see how you see....i want to feel how you feel....i want to know how you think...i want to "read" you  as "visual authors"....

you cannot "say something" if you have nothing to say....and remember, the best stories you have ever read, the best films you have ever watched  and the best photographic essays you have ever seen have usually been personalized visions of what could have been a casual observation or not  noticed by someone not attuned...

i simply want to provide you with a new venue.....a sophisticated photographic venue for others to see what you are able to do in a specific time frame....please trust me in on this one...the magazine editors i know value this more than anything you can ever show them in your portfolio of "greatest hits"....

so, let's give this a try....none of us have anything to lose....this is exactly how i teach my workshops.....i throw my students "out into the cold" and make them produce...it works....i have seen it over and over again..

details for submissions  will follow of course.....but, please forget these kinds of  "details" for right now....

just think...but do not over think....relax.....enjoy.....play....work harder than hard...have no fear...be instinctive....get "inside" yourself...get "inside" someone else...be a mirror....be a window.....

you now have total freedom!!! ....please use your time wisely....

your work

this afternoon i  had a "crazy" idea....i get crazy ideas sometimes...spontaneous...ideas for me  come from being  happy and "playful" or they can come from being  "down"....this one comes from the afternoon sun streaming through the window and lighting up the room....good light..happy...great light....

i  am chatting with some friends and i literally jump up in the middle of the conversation  to come over here and get this thought "down on paper"...sometimes ideas that come to me this way go away quickly...other times they "stick" and i act upon them...

ok....so how about if i were to  start "publishing" some of your work here??  as i do with my workshop students....maybe on a new page...

so many of you are asking for online portfolio reviews, but this is getting impossible for me to do properly ...simply, there are a lot of you....opening a website and navigating through takes so much time if i am really going to give a photographer an honest appraisal...besides, this online review concept  will best be done through the upcoming Magnum program...

surely we have an astute audience ...just read the mail..magazine editors, established photographers from all the best agencies, some gallerists  and a plethora of emerging photographers.....we have a sophisticated international community....not hobbyists....not "gearheads"....but thinkers, conceptualizers

again, this is part of my overall concept of letting the "readers collaborate".....the "inmates in charge of the asylum".....yes, crazy just like i said....

well, this will not be a contest.....because there are no prizes  and i will be the only "judge".....and i will publish randomly either one picture from a photographer or an entire essay.... i promise to pay you nothing,  because i simply have nothing to pay....at least, for the moment....so, this would be just an "experiment"....to see how this audience really "looks" ....we already have a pretty good idea of how we think with words...

i must now work on submission parameters and create or use an existing  uploading site..something that makes it relatively  uncomplicated to view large quantities of work....PLEASE  do not send me anything yet....and i have no idea from a practical standpoint how much work this will draw or how much work it will be for me.....so maybe  i will  just try this once and see how it goes...after all, i am only  "a one man band"....this  could be daunting or it could be fun....i will only do it if it is fun....

what do you think???

summer vacation

i will fly back to new york tomorrow and will almost immediately launch into a very heavy schedule of beach vacation with my  family...so, for two weeks my friends, i think it fair to say that there will be fewer postings here....

for one thing, i cannot imagine there would be of much interest to most of you the doings of the harvey family at the beach...and for another thing, there is an unwritten  family rule that anyone spending too much time on the computer gets properly chastised by the rest of the family....

however, even on vacation, my camera is not in the bag....documenting my family has been my "job" since childhood and i try to produce a music "slide show" at the end of our time together as the "grand finale" of our precious time together...

do all of you document your families in a real way??   are "family snapshots"  taken as seriously as your "serious" work??  and lastly, how many of you have published pictures of your family??

flying with martin

i suppose it is not so unlikely that I would , quite by accident , run into martin parr at the airport in London yesterday…after all, we were both headed for the Arles Photo Festival…

However, it was quite fortuitous to share an exit row seat (more leg room) for the hour and a half flight to the south of france with martin...particularly given the discussion going on in this forum now about “style”….martin parr personifies “style”…..so much so that he is one of the most “copied” photographers of our time…

martin is prolific to say the least...the man has 40 books...nobody has 40 books...while the rest of us are mulling over ideas, perhaps spending years shooting on a project, endless editing days, and with many projects ending up on the "back burner", parr just "does it"...he does not look back...he only moves forward...

martin says "this means not all things work out equally...some books are better than others...but i have a short attention span... two weeks is the most time i can stay in one place shooting"...

so, martin's collected works become kind of a "sketchbook" or "diary" of the thinking process of an iconic photographer...in their "whole" lies the mind of an artist...

but martin is not only a photographer....he has become quite the curator, collector, writer and teacher...as a matter of fact, martin was a full time teacher long before he came into Magnum...

please post quickly any questions you may want to ask martin and I will try to pin him down here in Arles…..i have more to say about martin, but this keyboard is stuck in the french mode, and is not allowing me to write or think freely....

LATER:

ok, i found martin wandering the streets alone last night ... he was kind enough to answer the first posted questions from you...so, go into "comments" and martin speaks...

underwater photography

all of us wrestle a bit with experimentation.....when i see a student portfolio with too many different styles of photography in it, i invariably suggest that they stick to one thing...one theme...one style...jumping around from one thing to another too quickly usually connotes no personal development.....and yet, perhaps there does come a time in a photographic life  when sticking to "one thing" becomes overly repetitive and it is time to "move on"....

joseph koudelka went from shooting people in "Gypsies" and "Exiles" to shooting landscapes in "Chaos"....was this evolution or a total change in style and interest??  henri cartier-bresson gave up his "street photography" altogether at the end of his career and went back to his original passion for drawing..did he think that photography was just "not enough"??  alex webb's masterful and complex color compositions have stayed with him for 20+ yrs. from "Hot Light Half Made Worlds" all the way to his current "Istanbul"....should he change, or is this his trademark for life???  will bruce gilden always be on "the attack" with straight hot flash and the surprise element or will he "soften" and do moody warm portraits???  sally mann's current work looks nothing at all like her early family portraits...are some people nostalgic for her "Immediate Family" or do the galleries push her for something new and different or is sally just letting her mind roll on ???

we can all think of so many examples artists staying the same and artists ever changing....surely, artists must stay "in one place" long enough to have "finished what they started".....

generally speaking photographers do best when they "specialize"....the best sports photographers only do sports, the best conflict photographers only shoot conflict, the best landscape photographers only do landscape, etc etc etc....but does this "commercial success" inhibit change and growth??  does it reflect more about the "market" than what a photographer may want to do??...

i do not think anyone should change or try to adapt  for the "commercial marketplace"...this is an artistic  death sentence...

so my question to you is this..... at what point should one change for "growth"  and at what point does change mean lack of artistic commitment???

by the way, you will be pleased to know that the photo above represents my  first and last attempt at underwater photography....david doubilet, paul nicklin and brian skerry need not fear.....they should just keep on doing what they are doing!!!

at home and abroad

we have talked about so many things that go into our psyche for getting ourselves "set up" to make photographs....few photographers  just "jump up out of the chair" and take an interesting photograph....seemingly , a whole set of parameters must be in place.....

we must be in the right mood.....the right place.....the right light......the right subject.....why do so many things have to be "right" before our creative energy can kick in??.....given a certain skill level, why can we not take a good picture anytime, anywhere??  or can we ???

one of the pre-requisites for many of my students for even taking the camera out of the bag is,  yes, you guessed it...travel....many give me "travel" and/or "adventure" as their primary motivation for working at all...well, wait a minute, not only students, most of my professional colleagues as well!!..

bruce davidson and sally mann made their reputations by not traveling at all..they work in their own "back yard" ..however, most photographers prefer to leave home and travel "abroad"  or go to a "far away place"  before inspiration kicks in...

first of all, is this true for you??  and , if it is, why do you think you must "escape" where you are in order to "create" where you are going??  after all, wherever you are going is someone else's back yard....

dancing

i always pride myself in being kind of a "specialist" at having my camera in my right hand and a cold beer in the left,  and gliding around the  dance floor shooting....after all , it makes no sense to  look like you are "working" when you are working....my theory has always been that to get spontaneity you must be spontaneous...  and get  "inside" the subject...

but all photographers work in different ways and have their own philosophies on how they do what they do....for those of you who are interested in getting "inside" the heads of various Magnum photographers in a workshop or seminar setting, i am now your "go to" person....somehow at the Magnum biz meeting last weekend,  i was officially "elected" or actually  "drafted" to organize our new education program...Magnum's first "minister of education" as someone joked....

my goal is to produce quality international workshops etc. to fit the needs of  those of you  who  so desire such a program...it will take some time to do this....but, within the next two  months i  should be able to  have  a schedule  for you....and, of course,  now is the perfect time  for you  to  express  what you  want and need....

i personally prefer week long workshops where the emerging photographers pick a subject of their choosing, shoot intensely, and receive equally intense daily critique's resulting in  a final  group slide  show and exhibition...but, in some cases,  a  one or two day portfolio review or seminar approach could work best...the First Impressions portfolio review we just did here in new york worked extremely well by all accounts, so we may use that model in other cities ....

please let me know what you would like best....week long workshop with one Magnum photographer or seminar and portfolio reviews with several of us...i may also try to tie in these programs with the existing photo festivals in perpignan, arles, and charlottesville...right now the door is wide open for suggestions, so please let me know...

in the meantime, my loft workshop in new york ("at home with dah") is rushing at me like a freight train...we are scheduled for the last week in september and are reviewing  portfolios now...there will be a 10 student limit .... this workshop is for advanced photographers only  who want to take a serious "next step"...

you may contact my coordinator marie arago (mariearago@mac.com) for details....and check out lance rosenfield's piece on "Digital Journalist" to get some idea of what happened last year...i will have a link to the slide show we produced soonest...and , given my new job, i will try to attach a multi-photog Magnum component to this existing workshop....perhaps a one day seminar inserted into this  program for photographers who do not have a whole week to spend shooting, but would like to get their "feet wet"...

my whole philosophy is to work very very hard and have a good time doing it....join me if you feel the same...dancing techniques to be discussed.....

community

it has always been curiously interesting for me why photographers seem to automatically form communities....of course, gathering together is a primal aspect of human nature which guarantees survival of  our species...all of us speak constantly about, and set demands for, our independence and individuality ....and yet we usually do this is in the secure warm company of friends, family, or a peer group....

there are a plethora of organizations for every type of professional group...in any city there are dozens of "conventions" daily for dentists, engineers, teachers, mechanics, farmers, mountain bike racers, wine makers , stunt pilots,  etc etc etc and on and on and on....so on the surface, there is nothing particularly unusual about a gathering of like minded souls...

i have just spent four days at our Magnum annual meeting in new york, which this year celebrated 60 years of community...there have been literally thousands  of hugs and kisses and handshakes and expressions of love and friendship and speeches and reverential moments of silence for those passed on and moist eyes and invitations to "please come to my home"...i have never quite witnessed anything like it in any peer group that i know of.....it cannot just be "survival" alone that has created this community....

for me , this has been particularly apparent at Magnum, but a sincere gathering of the "tribe" and a general comaraderie  has always been there from my days in grad school, newspaper staffs, National Geographic,   group photo book projects, workshops, seminars, etc etc...

the basic curiosity for me is that photographers actually seem to "like" each other...i cannot imagine a room full of writers, for example, spending four days and nights with each other....photographers are often rivals for the same magazine space, the  same galleries, the same book publishers.....yet, we tend to  "high five" each other at every opportunity.....

so, my question to you  is  simply....why???   why do these  disparate personalities  find  comfort in  a  group ??   i have been trying to analyze this conundrum for years....maybe some of you have the answer......

   

family influences

most of us recall being influenced by an iconic photographer...

but i have a feeling family members play a very large role for us regarding  a life in photography....  either positively or negatively....

after talking with many students over the years i hear stories of  parents sort of  "looking  at the ceiling"  when their son or daughter tells them that they have a photography career in mind....

perhaps their parents  had visions of their best and brightest offspring going into medicine or law or business or any kind of "real job"....in addition,  many husbands or wives wish their spouses had a more secure career...

in other cases, a parent or spouse literally "makes" a photographer's career and becomes a real "partner" in their development....

what role have family members or "significant others" played in your work and your career???

recycling

resources....energy....waste....depleted....renewable.....

am i speaking of the environment??  yes, i am...the environment for creativity....and just like the environment on our fragile planet, the "environment for creativity" is always in fragile balance or imbalance....it can never be taken for granted....and it does not come without a price....it must be garnered , cared for, protected, and otherwise cherished for what it is...it is both a gift to  and a creation of our "self"....let it slip away and it could be lost forever....

in my often helter skelter apparently disorganized way of going through life, i do try to stay totally focused, zeroed in on, nailed to the wall hard,  on this one thing...creative environment...there is no "right way", and surely sometimes  i totally feel that i do it the "hard way".... but it seems to somehow "work"...barely..

you must find your way....and there is no way that i can tell you what that is....everyone has a different resource for "lighting the fire" inside....the conflict photographers i know are fueled by situations that many people would run away from and a desire to "show" the world the dark side of mankind in an effort the "curb" some of our darkest instincts.....the natural history and landscape photographers i know are fueled by a sense of peace and serenity and often a concern for the fragility of land and wildlife....the purely art photographers i know are fueled by a need to express inner thoughts which are manifested by an ingestion of life experience and an esoteric way of expression ....the humanistic and street photographers that i know are fueled a sense of caring and celebrate the common existence of either the ordinary or the ordinary turned extraordinary by exterior forces not of their choosing....

i have totally oversimplified, but i hope you get my drift....simply put, you should figure out what "fuel" lights your fire, starts your engine.....then fill up your tank and drive very very carefully....or another way to look at it is you start life  with a full bottle of wine....do not spill any on the ground...

right at this moment i am totally exhausted....two years of shooting  and recent weeks of show and book preparation all manifested themselves in my "Living Proof" opening thursday evening....i doubt i will ever have as rewarding an opening ever again....the right venue, my family present, my friends from the "hood" honored, my magnum colleagues and peer artists  giving me "my turn",  and so so many of my students and friends from this forum (including two who flew from spain and one from france)...the night was clearly "the big warm"....it was an "event" rather than a "gallery opening"...as larry towell told me, "it was a happening"...and the few hours of celebratory "joy" was absolutely worth every drop of sweat that went into it....big price...but full value....(check out new "magnum in motion" piece)

but now what??  vacation???  beach time??  family time?? or back to the "drawing board"??? i would say all of those things....in my experience, i think all will lead to a recycling of energy...for without energy none of us can move any of the pieces on the chess board...without focused deep concentration, none of us can do what it is we say we want to do...and yet this effort cannot be forced....there must also be a zen relaxation......a peace....a harmony.....a flow.....serendipity....and a knowledge that you must go with the flow of "nature" and not try to fight it.... and accept this fact.... the road you start on can twist and turn like a rattlesnake , but could end up leading you somewhere so much more interesting than what you expected...

so, protect your creative environment...it is a renewable resource, but you must "harmonize" with your surroundings....amazing, something just happened while i write so so strange and perfect... the perfect song for this mood just came on...bob dylan is  singing "Knocking on Heaven's Door".....bob says use your time wisely.....i think i will start right now sticking some new pictures up on the wall...no time like right now to start thinking about the next book!!!

p.s.  it is now 5 hours later from this original post...just posted two new pictures from rooftop ("work in progress")...see what i mean about serendipity!!