Jim Brandenburg

Woh.
Jim Brandenburg's story about his 90 day jouney was nothing short of inspirational.
Woh.
Speaking from the point of view of somebody who has a very short attention span and cannot wake up early, I completly look up to him and his focus and patience and commitment to his project. I loved how he needed work to rejuvinate him from all the working he had been doing. I loved how th epeople that were responsible forover working him in the first place could not help but fall in love with the reason he stopped working for him. How satidfying that must have felt. He had a very wise an experienced point of view to offer. As someone who has litterally seen it all, finding a new way to look at things and to not waste his time on earth. To be driven by an inner passion to find purpose in what you do and not just survival. He took only one frame everyday for 90 days in the fall in a forest outside his home in the North Woods of Minnesota. Visiting there in passing you might not be able to appreciate it as much as he. He was patient and waited for the perfect shot. He walked all over everytrail till he memorized the trees and the shadows.

While learning to take photoraphs I have sloppily just shot anythng and everything hoping that I would be able to get a feel for it, reaching for an understanding of the craft. I love his self control to be able to wait for the one and be so desicive. HE admits to not always being confident that the shot would be good, but an inner will to go on paid off genorously at the end of the 90 day project.

I also loved the bit of the film were he talks about coming home after walking miles for a day and gets his wife to shine a flashlight on the waterfall in there back yard and says sometimes you just have to make the shot. I don't know if that makes it better or warse, but there you go. Sometimes you just have to make the shot.

Lastly one of the things that made a big impression on me about watching the film on Jim Brandenburg was how he was able to make a direct conection between the subject of what he was photographing and the positive impact on saving the subject, which was this natural preserved forest area. That because of his photos he was able to ensure that the forest would stay the way it was untouched be people or abused by people because of the powerful story he was able to tell in the photos. A wide range and large number of people feel compelled to perserve nature and feel a connection to the outdoors through the photos that they might not have had before they saw the photos. I think that is just amazing. That is something I hope to accomplish with my photos. I want to be able to show people the things about themselves they might not see until lookinhg at the photos. I want to be able to change someones point of veiw or behavior for the better by seeing my photos, save life in a sense. It maybe overly ambisious for my first project ever. But like Brandenburg I won't get very far by doubting myself so I may as well try. :) Sounds cheezy, but it is true.

Graciela Iturbide at the Getty Center in LA, CA

So I know that the Getty Center in Los Angeles is not oon the list of place we are supposed to attend during this course, but it just happened that I found myself there a nd walked through a fascinating photo exhibit. The exhibit was called "The Goat Dance: the photographs of Graciela Iturbide".
The artist's media of choice was black and white photography. The prints were called silver gelatin, I think. There were quite a few pieces there that made a lasting impression on me. The first one that struck me was a photograph of what seemed to be a million birds exploding off of a telephone wire, in the middle of a bleak empty sky, in the middle of a bleak empty town. While looking a the photo, I couldn't help but think about the moment that it was taken. What the sound must have been to here all those hundreds of birds leap off the wire. Did the sky grow darker from all their shadows? What made them jump in the first place? What made them all gather there in the first place? Where could this be? Is this what the photographer intended to take a photo of? Or was she actually looking for something else entirely when it happened? Was entirely staged? I guess it would kind of have to be, in order to have the shutter speed just right.

The series of her photography I found the most interesting was about the cholas and cholos that belonged to a gang in East LA. They are candid shots of the gang members in their local stomping grounds. Shots of the women mostly. With their “family” and their children. They stare into the camera proud of what they are and what the represent. Brandishing their gang signs by contorting their fingers in such a way towards the camera. And through their pride and gang uniforms nd their hardness and caluosnesss behind it all you could see somewhere in there eyes a mourning. A mourning aloss of something. Mourning a loss of their identities. Though they are proud of what they represent for reasons I am not sure all of them were sure of, they did not know who they were. I don’t think they even knew who they were supposed to be. All they are sure of is that they are need be tougher, stronger, meaner, and better than the other gangs.

I don’t want to over labor that topic, but their was something I learned by soaking in this work. This is the kind of photos and truth and clarity that I want my photos to have. I want to be able to show the true condition of the drinkers and those around them. I want to show them in how they seem so proud of their state and at the same time I want viewers to be detect the things under the surface in the people and the characters are experiencing. Or I guess not experiencing in a sense… The things they are masking with the achohol. The feelings they are numbing while being drunk. I want people to ask questions when they look at the photos. I want people to ask something about the people they see in the photos. I want them to be able to detach from themselves in the other person’s story, and ask themselves questions they might be afraid to ask themselves about themselves. By the time they have gone through that process, they can find themselves seeing the similarities between themselves and the character. And in that moment they won’t have to lie to themselves. They will feel safe in being truthful with themselves for maybe a moment, and maybe in that moment it can change their lives.

That’s what the photographic exhibit of Graciela Iturbide made me think of. It was a fulfilling and inspiring lesson that gave me more drive and motivation to shoot photographs. It brought into focus what I have been looking for.

Richard Misarach

AS we are going into the project of photographing a panaramic of a landscape is work seems most appropriate. His work covered a broad spectrum of different styles of photography from people to clouds. He does an excellent job of really drawing you into every scene. He gave his landscape photos a very surreal effect, without using any photoshop effects. Though you know by the title what you are looking at you really have to take another look to tell right away what the photo is of. I like this about his work. I think that is my favorite kind of photography. The kind that makes you stop and think.

Collier Schorr

This photographer had some very interesting ideas. The last words in the movie I remember her saying were, "There is no moving forward unless you put something out there, unless you unveil something that has been repressed."
I thought this comment was most interesting when addressing the cultural enviroment in Germany now a days years and years after world war 2 and diary of anne frank. Putting yourself in the shoes of the people that film and photography have taught us to hate and look at as villians. Picturing as just another person.

I found this idea interesting because when you don't look at it in such straight rigid terms. Black and White, good and evil, victims and villians, even feminine and masculine....you are forced to think more about the things we have in common. How we are closer alike really than we are not. And it isn't just the way things are, but the way we are taught. There are more things in common in the human experience than we see what it is moving all around us. And she has put it on pause for us.



Her photography was centeralized around teenage boys. Capturing the thoughts, motivations, and experiences that these boys obtain while growing into men. What makes them mascculine? this question was asked and left to the viewer to answer for them selves when looking at the photographic work.

The thing I found myself asking, while listening to all the fascinating thoughts she was articulating was, would I be able to have any of these thoughts on my own? Would the photos suggest these ideas to me if I had never heard her speak? I think not. Is the reason I would not have thought that way by looking at these photos because society and culture has already imposed some other ideas in my mind? Is it a product of me knowing too little and not having enough culture? Or perhaps it is something much more simple than all of that. Perhaps things in my own life experiences cause me to think diffently.

Of all the work we have looked at together in class, I can say this is the first time I looked at it ans said, "Wow, you know, I really didn't get it. I really missed what the artist was try ing to communicate here."

Thinking about my photo book...

So after some thought and experimenting with the house pictures I have come to the conclusion that the photos of the house are going to be kind of boring. I don't have enough ideas that motivate me for this topic. I am going to move forward with my original theme. Studying the life of a drunk. What makes them tick, whats it all about, what the price is for addiction.

All this week I have been getting new ideas of things I want to try. Things I want to use in the book. One ideas is to take filmstrip series. quick shots one after another of stupid things drinking causes people to do. almost like quick little 5-7 shots that tell a story of a situation.

I also had the idea of using sobriety tests in a kind of black on black or light duo-tone for the backgrounds of the pages.

For text I might pull from lyrics about addiction. Or quotes I have heard people say about there addiction. Especially quotes that are perfect examples of the depth of denial involved, along side a photo of an apparent problem.

I was also thinking of setting up a tri-pod and tape and having an exact shot of before - clean -fresh and then an after - hung over-spent-depressed. I think there are lots of cool possibilities in photoshop for this. Basically I feeling a real strong pull to keep goin gdown this direction.