Vision
I used to tell my photo students: "The world doesn't need another picture of a waterfall. Or a basket of kittens. It needs your vision."
Tell me the story of you. Make it magical. Show me your life. Don't just talk, create a conversation with the universe with your pictures. In a way, photography is a way of jamming with the light, with your life.
One of them was listening, because the following week she showed up with one of the greatest images of Las Vegas I've ever seen. You see, a few years before, somebody in the city planning department decided to put a 50 foot wall on the north side of the interstate. They're keeping people safe you know, keeping the cars from flying off into the neighborhood on the other side. They hired "artists" to decorate the side facing the cars. The kind of art deemed appropriate by a council of people who've forgotten to believe in magic. They went with some Indian type symbols. I bet the Native Americans are so proud they're being represented in such a beautiful way on a cinder block wall by the interstate! This more than makes up for stealing their children and trying to whiten 'em up!
Anyway, the other side of the wall-- people live there, in the dark now. That huge wall blocks their sunshine about 7 to 9 hours of the day. My student lives there, in the dark. Her little brother plays by the wall. She photographed him, standing there by the enormous wall, shining a flashlight into the sewer grate beneath him and looking down into the abyss. Or the poo. (Yanni or Laurel)
I was flummoxed. Sometimes an amateur makes a photograph that makes you want to give up. Anyone, at any time, can make the photograph that says it. All of it. Describes the nature of life in a profound way. Brings picture lovers like me to their knees. But mostly people prefer to stick with kittens in baskets. It's safe. It's society approved. It's borrrrrring.
I've spent my life, every dime I've ever made, trying to make a picture like that. It's a novel in 1/125th of a second. Everyone who comes to it will create their own story, see it through their own experience. It doesn't matter if they know about the city council, the interstate wall, the cheesy art on the other side. It doesn't matter if they've ever been to Las Vegas. An image becomes its own world.
We stick ourselves in it; we're all that boy, trying, oh trying, to shine a light, to see what's out there. Because what's out there-- is of course, what's in here. *points to her heart*
My photograph, from the series, Race Kids, 1995-2004
Tell me the story of you. Make it magical. Show me your life. Don't just talk, create a conversation with the universe with your pictures. In a way, photography is a way of jamming with the light, with your life.
One of them was listening, because the following week she showed up with one of the greatest images of Las Vegas I've ever seen. You see, a few years before, somebody in the city planning department decided to put a 50 foot wall on the north side of the interstate. They're keeping people safe you know, keeping the cars from flying off into the neighborhood on the other side. They hired "artists" to decorate the side facing the cars. The kind of art deemed appropriate by a council of people who've forgotten to believe in magic. They went with some Indian type symbols. I bet the Native Americans are so proud they're being represented in such a beautiful way on a cinder block wall by the interstate! This more than makes up for stealing their children and trying to whiten 'em up!
Anyway, the other side of the wall-- people live there, in the dark now. That huge wall blocks their sunshine about 7 to 9 hours of the day. My student lives there, in the dark. Her little brother plays by the wall. She photographed him, standing there by the enormous wall, shining a flashlight into the sewer grate beneath him and looking down into the abyss. Or the poo. (Yanni or Laurel)
I was flummoxed. Sometimes an amateur makes a photograph that makes you want to give up. Anyone, at any time, can make the photograph that says it. All of it. Describes the nature of life in a profound way. Brings picture lovers like me to their knees. But mostly people prefer to stick with kittens in baskets. It's safe. It's society approved. It's borrrrrring.
I've spent my life, every dime I've ever made, trying to make a picture like that. It's a novel in 1/125th of a second. Everyone who comes to it will create their own story, see it through their own experience. It doesn't matter if they know about the city council, the interstate wall, the cheesy art on the other side. It doesn't matter if they've ever been to Las Vegas. An image becomes its own world.
We stick ourselves in it; we're all that boy, trying, oh trying, to shine a light, to see what's out there. Because what's out there-- is of course, what's in here. *points to her heart*
My photograph, from the series, Race Kids, 1995-2004
If you and Anita Webb haven’t yet talked photography, I hope you get to do so one day. :)
ReplyDeleteME TOO!!! I can't wait to meet her one day!
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