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photography masters

Joe Rodriguez: the surprising experience (i.e. liberating) of learning from what he knows - what he has made himself, and his volume of work - rather than from what he teaches.
Retrospectively the same thing can be said for Natan Dvir, for Harvey Stein. Joe shows it to me.
Master.
This certainly takes me away from pedagogic tropes ('humanism', 'courage', 'emotion' are key, and they are weighted with something known with depth, quite unfacile).
It is, also, what the power of discovery in 2008 Arles was made of. There is knowledge here, and its forms are fresh to me. 

day #5

What is a decision? An action? What is a desire?
What is the desire in this "photography"?


The many people I am in a few days, churning churning with the variety of the meetings and the close time of improvisation; of letting things happen.
The chiding I'm getting about expecting little.

So many so many things I'm learning with this week.

--

Notes :
. "I am the master" (+ notion de "chess master")
. these men are teaching me. What exactly? How people.
Also : giving me. Moving.
. Bad teeth: notable in this country of perfect mouths and strong jaws.

day #5

La question avait pu être : où est l'image ici, qu'est-ce qu'il y a à voir, montrer? Comment y retrouver l'activité photographique, sa façon d'articuler ?
Les photos sans intérêt rencontrent encore cette question, sous cette forme.
Mais le grand plaisir de retrouver au près de la situation, quand je suis "dans la scène" (Susana), le sensuel intelligent de l'appareil ; la pratique de l'attention qu'il permet, l'écoute, l'émerveillement que ça-existe, que ça se fasse sous les yeux.

Je ne sais pas si je pourrai sortir ce soir. J'ai pourtant ce quasi-rendez-vous avec le master chess player fraîchement rasé, j'espère.

day #4

Has taken me to the South corner. It's raining just a little, the air is darker. Still quiet. Spent about an hour. Gave Nah-Shon a few pix, "you made me look like a star".
Talk with the player at the next table, also 20 years teaching and playing here. He's from Casablanca, we talk of Ramadan (after 8pm tonight, he spends the Ramadan nights at the chess shop of Thompson St.), of languages, of serial killers. People come up to play with him, a little knot of visitors with a client, $5 a game, pictures taken by several. I put up my camera when he first came to sit down, with a question on my face, "I don't know you". Later he walks past me in the park, "is that what you do? you take pictures?", I tell him I'll take some portraits of him if he likes, he says he needs a shave. We make a vague tentative plan that he will shave for tomorrow and I will come by to show him today's pictures in any case. A pleasant chat, going nowhere really, chilling out, time seems to be made of, among other things, such thin, loose, haphazard moments, here.
Unhappy and mixed feelings and incomplete tonight. Tomorrow I would like to talk of the photo work again. I wasn't quite sure what I was coming with today. Let things pass. Had a few refusals. Tentative, useless shots of the tree, stalling. (Not sure what there is to see with it. Its effect is not in itself.)
Sour with not saying goodbye properly to Nah-Shon, or properly hello to D. also met. Lacking in concentration. Losing the person-person connection there, which I feel sorry about - wonder why. Amount of emotion, overshadowing, possibly: distracting.

There'll be these déprises, these letting go of the thread, necessarily. Which will fuel determination and acuity of listening, likely.
Matter of keeping at it, through the fallow. 

Photographers - Getting Close

This - mentioned in class conversation - compiled for us by Allison Payne, at ICP Getting Close workshop:

Photographers:

Mario Giacomelli

http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/photographer/Mario__Giacomelli/A/

Larry Clark

http://www.luhringaugustine.com/artists/larry-clark/

Jim Goldberg

http://www.jimgoldberg.com/

Shelby Lee Adams

http://shelby-lee-adams.blogspot.com/

Regina Monfort

http://www.reginamonfort.com/

Eugene Smith

http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.PhotographerDetail_VPage&pid=2K7O3R139C2T&nm=W.%20Eugene%20%20Smith

Julia Margaret Cameron

http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/Julia-Margaret-Cameron.html

Raymond Depaurdon

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL535T16

Sergio Lairrain

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.PhotographerDetail_VPage&l1=0&pid=2K7O3R134343&nm=Sergio%20Larrain

Chris Bernsten

http://www.chrisberntsen.com/

Miguel Rio Branco

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.PhotographerDetail_VPage&l1=0&pid=2K7O3R13Q5JC&nm=Miguel%20Rio%20Branco

Alex Webb

http://www.webbnorriswebb.com/

Helen Levitt

http://www.lensculture.com/levitt.html

Jamel Shabazz

http://www.jamelshabazz.com/

Graciela Iturbide

http://aphototeacher.com/2007/07/03/graciela-iturbide/

Mariana Yampolsky

http://aphototeacher.com/2007/06/28/mariana-yampolsky/

Cristina Rodero

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL53Z0AE

Alexey Brodovitch

http://5000photographs.blogspot.com/2011/10/photograph-248-alexey-brodovitch.html

Adriana Groisman

http://www.adrianagroisman.com/index.html

Werner Bischof

http://www.wernerbischof.com/#

Malick Sidibe

http://www.lensculture.com/sidibe.html

Raymond Depardon

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL535T16

Sebastio Salgado

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/salgado/salgado.html

Richard Avedon

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/S/salgado/salgado.html

Irving Penn

http://www.photography-now.net/irving_penn/

Mary Ellen Mark
http://www.maryellenmark.com/

Gary Winogrand
https://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=1834

Jacob Holdt
http://www.american-pictures.com/gallery/index.html

Jim Goldberg
http://www.jimgoldberg.com/

Bruce Gilden
http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL53ZS6V

William Klein
http://www.artnet.com/artists/william-klein/

Moriyama
http://www.artitude.eu/?p=articolo&categoria=news&id_pill=249&language=2

Andres Peterson
http://www.anderspetersen.se/
http://vimeo.com/34125446

Larry Fink
http://www.larryfinkphotography.com/

Robert Adams
http://www.matthewmarks.com/new-york/artists/robert-adams/

Eugene Smith
http://www.leegallery.com/eugene-smith/eugene-smith-photography

Vivian Maier
http://www.vivianmaier.com/

Lillian Bassman
http://www.staleywise.com/collection/bassman/bassman_exhibition.html

Francesca Woodman
http://www.artnet.com/artists/francesca-woodman/

Christer Stromhom
http://www.stromholm.com/

Ed Van Der Elsken
http://www.edvanderelsken.nl/

Bill Burke
http://www.binhfoto.com/

William Eggelston
http://www.egglestontrust.com/

Sergio Larrain
http://todayspictures.slate.com/20120208/

Fazal Sheik
http://www.fazalsheikh.org/

Books:

On Being A Photographer

http://www.amazon.com/On-Being-Photographer-Practical-Guide/dp/1888803061/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344121283&sr=8-1&keywords=on+being+a+photographer

Truth Needs No Ally: Inside Photojournalism

http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Needs-No-Ally-Photojournalism/dp/0826209556/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344121365&sr=1-1&keywords=truth+needs+no+ally+inside+photojournalism

Radical Camera

http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Camera-League-1936-1951-Jewish/dp/0300146876/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344121577&sr=1-1&keywords=radical+camera

Truth Needs No Ally
http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Needs-No-Ally-Photojournalism/dp/0826209556

Witness in Our Time:  Lives of Documentary Photographers
http://www.amazon.com/Witness-Our-Time-Documentary-Photographers/dp/1560989483

The Other Americas
http://www.amazon.com/Other-Americas-Sebastiao-Salgado/dp/0394556682


Magazine:

(Interviews with photographers)
http://www.timeinturkey.org/


Documentaries:

BBC Genius of Photography
http://watchdocumentary.com/search.php?keywords=the+genius+of+photography&btn=

 Gear:
Portable Printer
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/542692-REG/Canon_1446B002_Pixma_iP100_Photo_Printer.html

Paper
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/480479-REG/Hahnemuhle_644572_30I_Photo_Rag_Paper_308gsm.html

Ricoh GXR- small camera
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=760786&Q=&is=REG&A=details



Extra:
One in 8 Million
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-million/index.html

Platon Interview
http://lightbox.time.com/2010/12/30/evading-police-capturing-a-spirit/

Charlie Rose interview with Avedon
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/3973

day #3

Went in more peaceful, for some reason. Later, more relaxed, the time of day itself more leisurely.
Met John at the Hanging tree, acknowledges me, no chess today, he's busy with a game of cards, we'll talk. Recommends that I go check out the chess players at the other corner : that's South West. The tables have boards ready-inscrusted onto their surface.
Meet Nah-Shon ("Hebrew name"), who has a set at the ready and an empty seat before the white pieces. Spent about 2h, talk, bullshitting, truthifying, but also weaving other strands, of exchange, soon interrupted with clichéd sequences in which we both play our parts, then open again, tentative, playful. Enjoyable. He too says "intelligent", that's worth it as encouragement. Also he says: "you're a photographer", having asked to see the pix. That's important.
Feeding the park's one black squirrel.
Game with a 7 year old, then with his super player brother of 11.
Nah-Shon tells me of Georgia and coming up to New York. Of 35 years playing the gem, of over 20 years in the park. Of the park's chess tradition since the 40s. Playing for money and getting income from teaching (he's lovely with the boys). Has two grown up daughters. "Nah-Shon?", "the prince, the comforter, the [prophet?], the chief ruler".
Things don't get shirked: women (God intends them to have children), and black men, whites knowing (more than blacks) the history of slavery,... The chess board is a strong presence also, with particular resonance, including in talk. Nah-Shon has a set with yellow pieces.

There are pictures today. I sensed a way with the intention of asking for help. He actually asked me to talk, about myself, what's going on. Talked of photography school, learning to tell stories of neighborhoods, communities. He mentions money, I mention contra, we leave the game open. He sits quite open to me with direct shots to start with, quite comfortably for us both, sitting across the table for one another. And then the camera seems to be unquestioned at the table, in the moment. The light and the time of day is becoming interestesting, the mood of passers by and hangers on shifts still, things adding to the peaceful bit of park and the astringent culture of chess.

I'll prepare prints for him of course.
"I'm here every day."

The photos come out very sweet. A surprise. This is what happened? It is. 

day #2

Well, there are 4 or 5 haphazard shots tonight, after 2h30, with actual people in them. They will tell of panic, and avoiding.
More meetings, one lesson in chess, and absolutely no way imagined to introduce photography. One tentative email contact project. Lots of anxiety also, made me quite sick and miserably restless ahead, despite yesterday's feeling of success.
Comical. But I'll stick with it.

Stories people are starting to tell, flashes, opinions, about other people in the scene. The chess table at the other corner of the square, gambling, you don't want to... This guy, he's a con artist / Man, don't say that.
John, Tony, talking about St Lucia, talking some "broken French" John calls it, rather than creole. Go & Ti, hurricane, gason, sékésafé? (from what I can pick up).
Tony comes up close (he got me into the sphere yesterday, had called out to me on a couple of occasions earlier, "lovely lady", that kind of thing), he's very tall, and gangly and embracey. "My girlfriend", wide smile, I have difficulty understanding his sentences, banter only for the moment. I think I would like to ask him for help with the photography.
John teaches me for one round of game. Well. He has a soft manner, tells me of St Lucia, the 4 Windward islands (St Lucia, St Vincent, Grenada, Dominica) , "near Martinique".

A second talk with D., I show him the Baron Samedi, and the Atis artwork online. He shows me more photos of this wood pieces, talks of his book project, for children possibly. Positions himself as the guide, the encourager: ideas about getting about finding a studio for myself in Paris. Mentoring.
He also makes installations, with collage, and words (print). Among the many pictures collected on his phone (there's a whole studio there, a whole body of work and workshop of projects), a series comes out of pictures of him with various young white women, taken at the park corner : interesting to have an (which doesn't mean the only valence of) image of my place here.

I say goodnight to the straggly group as I leave, I get a (not unfriendly) growl and some wishes.

Ask for help. 

Hanging tree, fieldwork day #1

ICP "Getting Close" assignment. Scary and motivating both. After the experience with Natan Dvir in the spring.

Also, a photo culture of the tree : google images collection.

First visit to the North West corner of Washington Square Park: the area seems to have a strong localized culture, men sat at outdoors tables playing chess, or cards, dominos - Scrabble?. They have been here in the colder months also. They appear to be their own group, their own society. I am unsure about their cultural or national situations, are they maybe Islanders and African Americans together? Are they spending so much time there because they are outside of the work structure, or have work that takes up time other than the 9 to 5 frame?

I walk up, am spoken to rather than myself starting to address anyone. I stay, am left to stay, the conversation comes. On a basis that has to do with the mood of leisure and chilling out and having time to spare and enjoying bantering, and with a very ritualised form of flirting, which is one mode of interracial possibility. I soon learn that the place is experienced as having an aura: several of the guys mention the Hanging tree (the 330 yeard old elm, dating back to Dutch times therefore?), and the old location of the police station opposite. And the old burying ground. It is implied, unquestioned, that this is part of slave history. The land here also has a long history for Af Ams : given over to slaves by the Dutch, for cultivation, and to function as buffer zone between them & the Native Ams (who had been driven out of this their land, naturally). Named then "The Land of the Blacks". Was farmland. Told that they were no longer slaves, but their children would be born as slaves.
End of 18th century, bought by the city to make a potter's field, burying ground - for unknown or indigent people. Common grave. Later used during the epidemic of yellow fever. 20 000 bodies.
The Dutch in America and slavery: see.


Oh, I'm reading this now :

A legend in many tourist guides says that the large elm at the northwest corner of the park, Hangman's Elm, was the old hanging tree^. Unfortunately for the legend, the tree was on the wrong side of the former Minetta Creek, where it stood in the back garden of a private house. Records of only one public hanging at the potter's field exist. Two eyewitness to the recorded hanging differed on the location of the gallows. One said it had been put up at a spot where the fountain is now, the other placed it closer to where the Arch is now.

Also : Archeological study of the Park, 2005. 
After 1820s purchased and made into a military parade ground, made available for volunteer militia companies. By 1830s, city's most desirable residential area.

Potter's field / "to be a burying place for strangers" (Bible, Matthew 27/3-8).

Sitting down at one table, engaged as spectator of card trick, then a time of being talk to, or at rather, both invited to listen and kept at an impression distance. Spiritual talk, magic,the world, the state of the world, now, power, what I can do, using power for good but not harm (can be used for harm: nuclear now, weapons of mass destruction).
I go where the openings come. I stay two hours.
The conversation shifts, slows down, focuses. Names and identities are gradually offered - having been withheld actively to begin with, Dee, father from Cuba, come to US at 7, Florida, a silence about his own children. He talks a lot, in multiple directions and meanders, listens little and keeps the space of my input reduced to expressions of I'm-listening, to start with. We exchange first names, it's his question. I tell about Haiti. I suppose I have an accent which frees me from a particular sociological fixed spot in American landscape, undertermined somewhat, possibly.
Dee begins to show me a couple of wood-cut objets, on the table with him - he sits with a chess board, a pack of cards, a pack of cigarettes which other members of the group at nearby tables buy from him for a dollar each. Tale about how he has made the eyes, melt from plastic? Gradually he shows me pictures (he has over 2000) on a phone, of his work: many woodcut figures, animal or human forms (he shows me the first one he made, which he wears around his neck, a small bobbin-sized human figures, head and mass-body, dark wood), with teeth, eyes, wearing things that remind one of ritual accessories (necklaces, nails possibly, large red tongues out of teeth-inscruted canine mouths).
His face changes. Or do I look at it differently. His teeth are fairly bad and I read the face initially as type, and then probably we start to look at each other as persons, features of dignity and strong personhood appear, transformed from something which I feel like pontificating (bullshitting, in part, fobbing me off) and authoritizing into something which I feel as une lenteur evocative of knowledge, experience (hard, instructive à la dure - "They let me down hard" is inscribed on his chess board, he says something about that being his name), and intelligence. At several moments I find his face very beautiful. I really want to photograph this.
He tells me of his father, come from Cuba as a child, narrowly escaped from something very nasty (falling overboard - of ? -, being picked up), he expresses admiration and love for him. He tells of a bottle of seeds that his father sent back to his village, snatched pinch by pinch from some employment (cut pockets, trouser legs), tomato seeds celery lettuce tomato celery.
Other fabulous stories, I only get scraps, between the scrap-like telling and my scrap-making, shredding ear for unfamiliar English dictions.
That he has traveled a lot. Been to Haiti in 1970s, Papa Doc, foreigners are safe. Has researched his family history - he mentions Cuba, African, American?, French, Spain. Are these strands of his tree? Not quite sure.
He wants "to publish" his work. When I leave and he asks me what I do (teach English), he says "I knew it", "intelligence", and says that he is trying to publish, trying to write, trouble with English. I think I caught that he works as a paralegal. We plan to meet again this afternoon, I want to show him the Baron Samedi shot from Haiti, and tell him about Atis Rezistans.
There's one photograph that I so wish I had been able to take: his hand, holding the ducklike head he has made out of a small bit of branch (he has collected one of the roots of the Hanging elm, on occasion of a recent maintenance, made it into a sculpture, "powerful"). The instant so beautiful, the hand, the birdwood, the holding (grip, intertwine, makes a block, the duck head nested in the fist; he's doing something with this gesture) the telling.

I take about four shots of the tree. They are "photos of", completely lacking in interest except as expressive of where I am: underphotographed, seeing nothing like an image, ultra-shy in bringing the camera into the situation, determined to bring back something from day 1. Anything but the.
My job today is to do that. Introduce the camera. I'm thinking possibly I could offer to take some shots of his work if he would like to have some. Although he has this regular practice himself.
The (amusing, laughable) anxiety about going out, day 1. Had set an alarm, to make sure to catch myself. Actually took a pill before hand, fretting for an hour. Set on, though.

Lieux photographiques

Avec la discussion en classe à ICP, motivation des projets. Efforts pour présenter, parler, faire sens de. Nécessité de cet effort y compris dans le travail de getting close, pouvoir en parler.

Pouvoir réfléchir aux lieux photographiques à créer, façonner, trouver et trouver le corps pour le faire ("courage", dit JR).

Les coulisses, toujours : travaux publics, la texture qui fait que, canalisations, squelette, fabrique, travail incorporé dans, vies et histoire et collectivité incorporées dans et en usage dans.
Le public. Les inscriptions urbaines des réseaux de gaz, égouts, chaussée, constructions. Les chantiers.
La colle, sociale. Ce qui.

J'en reste assez à l'idée du peuple ici, Boulevard. Ici et dispersé et ici.
Le bazar indien rue du Poteau
La boulangerie turque de la rue Versigny

Portraits dans Maisons. (photos et famille)

Photographie Haïti : Alex Webb

Photographie d'Haïti :
Paolo Woods,
Alex Webb also - Magnum, dans ses séries Suffering of Light : Hot Light Half-Made Worlds, Under a Grudging Sun, From the Sunshine State.
(Et Crossings, sur la frontière Mexique / Etats-Unis : il y est depuis 1975).

Travail photographique

Travail du documentaire : précisément ça, vivre ça, la pratique de l'entrée, du "getting close" (Joseph Rodriguez) et ses émotions. Y aller comme ça, avec ça, dans ces termes, dans la gueule de. Sur la force d'un désir/besoin qui prend ça dans son ordre, dans son ordinaire.

Ainsi que, appris cette année d'ICP : work, revisit, work, a lot of work. Qui éclaire des années plus tard la conclusion hautaine d'une des reviewers d'Arles, "il faut beaucoup travailler". Yeahmm.

Appris aussi le caractère intensément social, trans, avec, du travail photo. Avec en à-côté (consulter, montrer, écouter, demander des mises en parole et des accompagnements, y compris en publication), avec en opération (les institutions des situations et leurs acteurs leurs passeurs et fixers), avec en devant gen gens. Tous ces circuits, ces enroulements sociaux, chacun englobant l'autre et retours et passages.

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