please come to my new online magazine: burnmagazine.org
December 21, 2008
October 14, 2008
colorado family....
Jeff and Anne Babcock
struggled in Sumatra, Indonesia as Christian missionaries. After all,
they were in a Muslim country with a message nobody wanted to hear.
"We realized we were not going to convert anyone. So we just tried to be helpful" says Jeff.
Married now for almost 20 years and with four children, Jeff and Anne
live within 20 miles of all of their relatives on both sides in
Denver, Colorado (all shown above). Devoutly Protestant, both decided
to be missionaries right after marriage. After a year in Indonesia,
they returned to the U.S. and suburbia to raise their family.
"I do not read the newspapers or see the news" says Anne. "I put all of
my energy into raising my family. Jeff keeps me informed about what is
going on in the world".
Potentially hard economic times do not worry the Babcocks much. "God will show us the way", Anne says
November 13, 2007
Living Proof
i always forget what a mountain to climb publishing a book can be....from the germ of an idea, all through the often grueling shooting process, editing, finding a publisher, doing the layout, to the final moment of realization that a book is actually finished....for me the living proof of publishing is when a book sits on my mother’s coffee table...
only then do i know the process is over, and i am free to move on to new horizons....new ideas.....other mountains...other valleys....and back again to the acts of discovery that gives being a photographer real meaning...
“Living Proof” is not really a “photo book”....not a collection of my best photographs at all....more of a “photo record” or diary during my short but intense journey through the world of hip hop culture...or rather, i should say, as a visual representation of all the lyrics of rappers that i read who are at the end of a long chain of african storytellers (griots) who spun their tales, became enslaved, shipped to the americas, and whose lyrics are manifested in gospel, blues, jazz, rock n’ roll and finally rap.....
a cultural chain linked around the world...from the south bronx of new york to the wall slicing through jerusalem to the ghettos in paris and the favellas of brazil and on and on and on...oppressed people everywhere using rap as a way to “get it out”, “get it down”.......words as mirrors, words as swords....
yet, while the pen may be “mightier than the sword”, unfortunately the words often reflect “real world”...my “main man” Uptown, who you may remember from other posts, and whose prison based poetry graces “Living Proof” and who has been my friend for three years , lies tonight in a hospital bed with multiple gunshot wounds (four i think) and a bullet still lodged somewhere in his 32 year old body...
with weak voice he called me on my cell phone as i was having noodles here in Bangkok ...Uptown has spent a third of his life in jail and was jailed the night of my opening exhibit back in june when i had fantasized him being the celebrity of the evening...jail or death are the most likely ends for men who live Uptown’s lifestyle....men who are unlikely to have been dealt a winning hand....
i hope Uptown is around to sign books whenever i have a book signing...but, my white middle class fantasies of what should be or not be for Uptown are over.....actually, they were over long ago.....if you can find a copy of “Living Proof” somewhere, skip the pictures and go straight to the last page....read Uptown’s poem “The Struggle”....he says it all right there....
October 08, 2007
mexican cowboys
just a few pictures from my shortest NG assignment of all time.....one day and a half of actual shooting time, with two days prior for research on this quiet little story ...it is all about cowboys from Guanajuato state who all converge near Guanajuato city in a large cabalgata, or religious pilgrimage on horse back...some ride for several days, camping along the way, to reach a statue of Jesus on top of a mountain nearby.....
August 29, 2007
which one??
ok...three pictures taken at the same time...elapsed time about 45 seconds....if i were at home , i would make three little prints, thumbtack to my wall, have a cup of coffee and make a decision...but i have to pack for my trip back to new york in the morning....so, i am giving you a little job to do...choose one of these two or the one now posted in the sequence below...now mind you, i may disregard your "vote"!! all of us should march to our own drummer....but since i cannot decide right this minute and since i am going to be editing some of your work, it is fair enough to get your opinion...
August 28, 2007
July 22, 2007
June 22, 2007
June 17, 2007
up on the roof.....
i started to put pictures up on the wall just as i said i would in the "recycling" story....out of nowhere my friends who had flown here from spain arrived at my home...hospitality won out over work....after all we had totally bonded when i was in valencia recently for a workshop....we all headed for the roof..pictures always come when i go to roof...the dog (above) was from a trip up yesterday i think.....and the dancing women (below) were entertaining one of my neighbors for his birthday tonight....
i will crash early tonight...magnum portfolio revue tomorrow morn, so i must sleep early.....but i always have to edit sooner rather than later, so i pulled these two out after a super fast edit....
May 30, 2007
still life
many of you have asked how books get developed in the first place......there is a curiosity if one takes a stack of photographs taken over a long period of time and decides to put it together as a book or if one thinks of a concept and then goes out and shoots....
i have done it both ways....i was at least 8 years into shooting the spanish diaspora before i realized maybe i should do a book ("Divided Soul"- Phaidon)..i then worked five years more...but i was 8 days in cuba and i realized i could do a book immediately ("Cuba"-National Geographic)..i then worked 3 years more....it is impossible to say how any particular book develops, because there are too many variables....i have also had some "amazing" book ideas, done the layout and then dropped the whole idea....and i have done a few commissioned books which really end up being nowhere near on the level of a personal book and ultimately not as rewarding....the hip hop book coming now ("Living Proof" - Powerhouse) is a direct spin-off of an assignment from National Geographic...i did some personal shooting on this after the assignment was over, but the bulk was funded by the magazine...
every photographer i know does it differently and possibly differently with each book he or she does...abbas, for example, for his "Islam" book must have done dozens of short self assigned essays until finally he had a book in hand...susan meiselas was working with grant money to do her epic "Kurds" book which was a complex project making her as much curator and editor as photographer...alex webb combined assignments and personal work together over three years to do his new "Istanbul"..most photographers who do significant books just flat out figure out a way...some way....any way...and each "way" is a whole new experience....most also put significant amounts of their own finances into books....and books generally do not directly bring in income...to do a book you must drop everything else....which is why i had cheerios for lunch and yesterday's pad thai for dinner this evening....
now, you can see i am fooling around my building...starting to think that maybe this building is some kind of microcosm of new york...a changing new york...not many places like this left here in the city and this one will change drastically soon or could be bulldozed into dust...a symbol of urban development....i love to photographed things which are changing....icons that will not be around or not be the same ever again....
so, i am sketching....thinking.....not working too much....i just shoot a little on my breaks from doing so many other things...i have to hang my show tomorrow, so i am in total panic mode...so, this work is just my little "hobby" or stress release for the moment..maybe that is all it will ever be....
today i just shot these "still life" images....i hardly ever do either landscapes or still life pictures but sometimes i am in the mood...in this case, i am thinking to mix "building " pictures with "people" pictures....so, if you want to know how i think about projects you are witnessing it right now....
