"at home with david alan harvey"

my little "experiment" in my loft last fall having 8 young emerging photographers come and hang out with me for a 9 day workshop had to be totally "crafted" from the beginning.....it later seemed like the most important thing was who i was going to have as guest presenters, but really it was all about which students i had chosen in the first place....no amount of teaching can replace raw talent….i have been teaching workshops forever, but this was the first time I had chosen the students personally....and, the first time I did a workshop at home. thus the title for this web/ blog….

eventually i will try to show you the slideshow we produced from the student work….“we” being marie arago, workshop coordinator and denise mangen, workshop assistant and yours truly as the “we gotta get this just right” tyrant that I am when I want things to go just so tweaked-out perfect right !!! “just right” being, of course, my way!!! the students final show followed the respectful showing of work by chris anderson, samantha appleton, ed kashi and the “you could hear a pin drop” show by james nachtwey....

since you can probably tell i have so many tech things to fix with this blog and the whole thing is  a “work in progress”…. you may have to wait a week or so before i can get films and slideshows up and running….be patient please, because i am not!!!!

in the meantime, i will introduce each student one by one and show their work….most importantly, each will give his or her description of how their thinking evolved so they could photograph the essays
they wanted….i will go into all of this in more detail later, but basically I look at a photographers portfolio and then try to get them to “dig inside” and work out an essay that is a “mirror” of themselves somehow….in other words, authorship, authorship and authorship….

there is one thing that all of my colleagues at magnum have in common regardless of subject matter or style and that is authorship…..so, whether the photographer works in black and white or color or medium/large format or with a shoebox pinhole camera, does not matter at all to me….i am just looking for photographers with “something to say”…...

jake pritchard is an all-american guy...colorado backpacker, nice, polite, easy to be around and a low-maintenance student if you can imagine what I mean….newspaper photographer somewhere, not so long ago…now, trying to make it freelancing in new york…. his portfolio was mostly “workmanlike” but with a few little “edges” that i found interesting...but, he still needed to cross the line from being the kind of “good” that I see in so many portfolios, to having a “special touch” a “style” and again authorship...

i know from experience that a portfolio is definitely not a 100% guarantee of who is going to “produce on demand” which is what a workshop is all about....it is what professional photography is all about too....in other words, great work NOW!!!

please take a good look at these few pics from his essay that he photographed during my class….his slideshow “surrounded” cast a spell over the audience that final night of the workshop. … you will see something very special in jakes’s work….his work is by definition “quiet”...but to be subtle and yet have power is no small artistic feat….now we will read jake's words and we can hopefully chat and give our opinions on how/ why jake prtichard went from colorado space and air and big sky to “surrounded”….

 

"Surrounded" by jake pritchard

It started in an e-mail: “This workshop is not for the faint of heart, but for the strong who want to get stronger.” The letter came from David Alan Harvey. A couple months later David opened the doors of his Brooklyn loft to me and 7 other young photographers.

I came to the workshop with a project in mind: I would spend the week photographing ABC No Rio, the former squat turned community center on the Lower East Side. It seemed promising for a photo story—a fringe culture (though not so on the fringe that I couldn't get in), plenty of action, and hopefully some fluorescent mohawks for visual relief.

Early in the workshop, David established the concept that the workshop would revolve around: authorship. That is, the process of making photos that tell as much about the photographer as they do about the subject. David was asking for soul searching as much as he wanted great photos. I quickly realized that the project I had planned wouldn't work at this workshop. I was doing what I had been trained to as a newspaper photographer—looking for a situation that I could enter as a detached observer to take photographs. In David's workshop, that wouldn't cut it.

I scrapped the squat story, and spent the late night hours of that week wandering blearily through the trains and streets of lower Manhattan. I wanted to tell my story. It was the story of moving to New York a few months earlier with a suitcase and a camera. The experience of arriving in the center of a bustling metropolis—and being completely alone.

Taking those pictures was an almost therapeutic experience that reminded me of the reasons that I had picked up a camera in the first place. Photography had begun for me as a way of self-expression, but that inspiration had been lost in the grind of journalism school and making pictures for newspapers. Today, months after the workshop, I realize that the week at David's home still influences the way I think about photography and the pictures I take. David had promised that his workshop would take his students to the next level. For me, the next level was about going backwards to look at the reasons I started taking pictures.

Comments

[Lance Rosenfield]

the only way to get these pictures is to be completely tuned in.... jake was tuned in. he must have had his antenna on one single frequency which led him to those pictures.. i think when you're tuned in like that, you can't miss.. the trick is to get to that point, which jake obviously did. love the work.

[David]

lance...yes, yes and yes.....i wish i could tell people how to get "on" in the way jake was "on" for this essay...i pushed him , but he did it....got in the "zone"...it is such a great feeling when you are in this mode....it is rare....i try regularly and fail regularly...but i do try to describe it to students to think like a "method" actor...get into the part....study character......look for subtleties.....hey lance, remind me please to get into the whole discussion of how photography is like a combo of acting and painting.....and you gotta love music too!!! david

[Lance Rosenfield]

man.. you nailed it.. i love that description of acting, painting, music.. reminds me.. what is your favorite music to get you into the mood of shooting? i guess each day is different.. but for me, bobby mcferrin and chick corea have an album called "play" that is incredible.. hear it right away if you haven't already.. it is sound that is the ballet that reminds me of good and rare shooting.. the moments that make up the ballet.. love it.

[David]

well, the most amazing musical experience i have had lately was the senegal shoot.....when i was looking for the roots of "rap" and , of course, discovering the roots of blues, jazz, gospel and rock n' roll....all related...all artistic result of black cultural experience...anyway, cruised around senegal in a van with my friends bobby model and laura el-tantawy and the driver omar and lamine (fixer) and the most important character of a lifetime ...jally, the griot, the african storyteller....with his kora (and i will do a whole piece on him later) he sung the whole trip...hours and hours everyday....he was a musical journalist...because he sung, "rapped", "spoke" about what was going on around us...african history is an oral history...jally spoke to us with music in a very literal way...i can hear him now...hey, remind me to publish a picture of jally soonest and the whole story...don't forget!! d

[Lance Rosenfield]

you have to tell that story.. i want to see jally.. and i'd love to hear him.. what a great story man...

[David]

yes, ok, i will post it...but let me wait until i do hiphop story...have to wait a bit longer until natgeo story comes out....they get very sensitive about material published or shown before they publish...fair enough i think.....hey, what are you shooting now??

[eric beecroft]

that wouldnt be bobby model, the climber/photographer, would it ?

[David]

eric...yes, THAT bobby model.....we met in nairobi when i was doing the portraits for natgeo.....we worked well together...so, i brought him to senegal...he did some nice audio and video footage which is soonest seen on the natgeo website

david

[Krassimira]

Helo, I am seeking for the personel e-mail of David Harvey.

Thanks in advance!
Krassi Hristoforova
Bulgaria

[Krassimira]

Helo, I am seeking for the personel e-mail of David Harvey.
my e mail is kristoff@abv.bg

Thanks in advance!
Krassi Hristoforova
Bulgaria