Response to Borrowed Dogs

"Portraiture is performance."

Richard Avedon wrote this piece called Borrowed Dogs in 2002, and it is an essay that begins with a story of his family when he was younger. Richard tells a story about how when he was younger, in every family portrait, his parents wanted to make the family look more "whole" and they decided the best was was by borrowing someones dog, and putting him in the picture as - as though it was their own. He said in one family album he looked through, over only one year, his family was posed with 11 different dogs. The family pictures were there because his parents thought people would think the Avedon family would have dogs, so he should throw that in there.

I really found this essay interesting, the concept of portraits being staged is very obvious, but I have never really thought about how every aspect in a photograph can be completely de-personalized, how each and every detail can be placed there on purpose, and how you can show a person without actually showing a person. I have always tried to let my subjects act themselves, I have staged things in portraiture, you kind of have to, but every bit of it can be changed, and every part of it can be shaped a certain way. Richard Avedon describes that there are really 3 types of results that photographing someone can give you; A. the story is better than the photograph and your results won't necessarily be that good, B. you use the subject outright and might get good results but you won't have any real emotion touching the subject, and nothing connecting him to reality, and C. you can have a collaboration, or a unity, and your subject will be comfortable, trust you, and more importantly, act natural. The last one obviously gets the best results, and while option C is the hardest one to achieve, it comes with an extensive ability on the photographer's part to connect with people, open up, and make themselves trustworthy.

What I got most from this writing are some very interesting ideas, "Photography is a sad art. It's sad but it remains." Richard used to shoot death a lot when he was a younger photographer, although he says it's too close to his heart to comfortably get away with shooting. I feel as though this is a very true statement, that photography is sad although ever-present.

"Leap, don't look." What I learned From Kareem Black

The other day, my photo class went on a journey across campus to see a photographer I had never heard of before, someone that I figured I didn't give half a shit about, and for reasons that, like many things that happen in school, I would probably never get a decent answer to. Once crammed into the crowded lecture hall, and after we all took our seats, a short introduction was given by our program chair and a younger-looking man stood up to the podium. This was an interesting moment, as the man who introduced himself as Kareem Black, the guy we had all gathered to see and hear speak, said he had nothing planned to say, and that he only had one thing to ask of us. He asked for a picture so that he could give it to his mother back home.

I was very interested in the kinds of things Kareem was saying after his initial walk to the mic. To be honest and not to sound cliche or anything, the comment about Kareem's mother made me miss my own mother, so I was ready to listen to anything he told me. As I was writing down some of the normal things he was saying; you know, the kind of things every photographer, every professor, and every art-douche out there says, "Connections connections connections." I noticed something real about the man talking to us. In a story he told about a shoot he was doing of Spike Lee, he said "Spike Lee was a dick. I thought I could charm him---- but it didn't work."He wasn't acting, he was not at all trying to inspire us to study harder, and he was not afraid to throw out a "Shit." Or a "Fuck I forgot what I was talking about." The man was speaking from real experience, from his heart.

Kareem has shot an obscene amount of advertising campaigns, and he has worked with a lot of the biggest names in the industry. He started in 1999 when there was a .com boom and more money than you could ever need, especially for photographers, and he has had an extreme amount of experience with people on every side of the industry. So when he started talking about standing out and being on top, I listened very closely. He went to say that one of the defining moments in his career was when a company wanted him to shoot for their magazine, and when they asked if he knew any other photographers (of which he knew many) he said no and took all of the business. Kareem's personal experience shows that it truly is a cut-throat world in the field of photography, and you cannot always be Mr. Nice Guy.

"Everything is the photographers fault. If the makeup artist fucks up, it's the photographer's fault. If the model tears everyone a new asshole, it's the photographer's fault. If you don't get a good image, it's the photographer's fault; and, that's the way life goes." This statement Kareem said made me realize finally, well, exactly what he said. The kind of life I want to pursue, the career that I am trying to attain, and the kind of life that I am reaching toward is based on my ability to work well with people, to have a professional stance on photography and myself, and it is based on the fact that I can't miss let any opportunity pass me by. Because when I am in the studio, and I have my own crew of makeup artists, wardrobe experts, lighting crews, and I have to take a photograph of Spike Lee, my career could immediately end from just one slip, one miss, one bad comment, or one smug remark. Literally, a photographer could have his career slip away just from letting himself lose focus for just one moment.

Kareem said a lot of things I have heard before, but no one has ever given me as much motivation to be better than he has, because if I want to be anyone, I need to realize that being the best in the business is, as he put it "A combination of luck, skill, and balls.... And you have to leap before you look." Or you probably won't ever make it.

My family Reflection

My Family reflection

Over the break I had for christmas and the new-years season, I travelled back to my hometown of Anchorage Alaska. While I was there I photographed my family, and my friends, and saw what life had given them since I had left for college. Time has gone by enough that I assumed my friends were going to have completed goals or pursue some of their dreams, but I do not have the right to say that any of them have made any actual progress towards making their lives better. My best friends seemed like they were in limbo, not where they were, and not yet rock bottom, but just floating through time and space, just slowly degrading, and waiting to pick what to do with themselves. It seems like without any kind of guidance or anyone helping decide for the, some people just cannot complete life on their own, they cannot make any real choices on their own or say what is good or bad for them on their own. As happy as I was to see my friends, it was too much to stay very long, and I left a few days early just to get out. I noticed how much I changed while I had been gone, and how little everyone else had.

Although I cannot give very much praise to my friends, my close family being together was a great thing, as my brother lives in southern California as an engineer, and my grandmother lives in southern florida where she does old people things. My family was extremely happy to see me, noticed how much I had grown, saw my new talents, and was very interested in everything I had to say. Although they were so intent on getting every last detail about my life, I had my own thoughts about their lives, and what they had ben doing since last time we had been together. I quickly found out that my mother and father were in the exact place they had left off when I left. Their relationship seemed a little bit improved, but when I walked into the house I noticed that everything looked the same, I was greeted the same, and we ate the same food as before.

As the holidays rolled on, I noticed a lot more cheer than the christmases before, and I felt like there was much more spirit associated with the actual coming together of christmas, which was a new thing for me to experience. As the days wen on though, it seemed like my family was back to their normal lives, when the excitement of me being there left then it was time to move back into the empty-nest life. And it was peaceful.