Day at a time, I suppose

Where I am right now—in terms of my frame of mind—is the result of influences that read like the recipe for school-cafeteria goulash. The stock, the foundation of this recipe, is all about 2007 being a year of intense, exponential growth for me photographically. So much happened, in such a short period of time, that I wrote at the end of the year about it having felt longer than twelve months, and it did. So with that as the foundation, it’d be pretty hard for 2008 to come close. And so far, it hasn’t. Throw in some Dara Torres and Michael Phelps, some good old-fashioned politics, and a heaping dose of my recent viewing of The Wire, and that’s where I’m at. An intense passion for things as they are, for complex characters, for beauty in unlikely places, for never giving up and turning naysayers into fuel for the fire.

A project I’ve been dancing around for six months or so crystallized for me in two moments last week: a phone call with my mother in which I described where I live, and a walk down the street with Boo, where what I saw before me—the person, the car, the light, the scene—cut right to the heart of this place. And suddenly I knew what the project was about, why I was interested in it, what I was looking for.

I’m starting to see a path in the woods, starting to see where I want to go, and it’s making sense in a way that—despite all the joy that was 2007—I didn’t feel last year. It’s not as easy as all that, not as simple. But I think there’s more substance to it, more staying power. It’ll stick to the ribs.

Interview: Allison V. Smith

I’ve heard Allison V. Smith’s name in the blogosphere here or there, and I finally spent some time on her blog and ordered her zine, and I am officially a huge fan. She’s seriously good. I had some questions for her, and she was kind enough to let me post our conversation here.

Copyright © Allison V. Smith

Liz: So, looking over your résumé, it seems like you had your start in journalism, and you’re now working as an editorial photographer and doing your personal projects, too. What’s your background? What’s your story? Where’d you go to school? How did you get where you are today?

Allison: I’ve known I wanted to be a photographer since I was fifteen. I’m the youngest of five and it wasn’t very easy finding my voice within my large, active family. As soon as I discovered photography, I had my own way to communicate. My tenth-grade photo teacher exposed us to Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, Lee Friedlander, Walker Evans. She would give us assignments specifically based on photographers—“Go shoot a Cindy Sherman portrait,” etc. I could not get enough of photography.

Frustrated with college, I took a year off and studied at the Maine Photographic Workshops in the fall and then interned at the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald in the spring. It was a very important year for my photography. It was that year that I knew I wanted to make pictures for a living. Newspaper photography seemed to be the answer. It would feed my need to photograph daily and to be published. I finished college at SMU in Dallas and immediately started working for newspapers. I worked as an intern and full-time at seven newspapers over fifteen years. It was an amazing time to be a newspaper photojournalist—experience and knowledge that I will never forget! But I knew I wanted more.

In 2004, I quit to pursue freelance photography and my own personal artwork. Today my freelance work for magazines and newspapers supports me as a fine-art photographer. I’m represented in Dallas at the Barry Whistler Gallery, known for showing contemporary Texas artists. The Dallas Museum of Art and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, both purchased two images from my last show at the Barry Whistler Gallery in 2006.

Copyright © Allison V. Smith

L: Do you find that living in Dallas (i.e., anywhere outside New York), it’s harder or easier to get work? Does location even matter?

A: I am a half-breed. I am half-Texan, half-Maine. I hope to live both places someday. For now, Dallas is a wonderful place to live and work. I’m a laid-back Texan, and it definitely suits my personality—not to mention that the artists’ scene in Texas and especially Dallas is very supportive and a great place to be.

Copyright © Allison V. Smith

L: Do you shoot medium-format? Digital? Strictly film? Whatever works? Does that kind of stuff interest you, or is the equipment kind of ancillary? (I read an interview with Eggleston where he said he just picked up whichever camera was around when he walked out the door. Seemed really random.)

A: I shoot it all. I have digital for mostly freelance jobs. I shoot Hasselblad and Lomo and Widelux for myself. Occasionally, a client will ask me to shoot with one of my film cameras for an assignment.

Copyright © Allison V. Smith

L: I’ve been working a lot lately (in my mind, on my blog) on developing my vision (for lack of a better word), my style, my whatever you want to call it. I think this all relates to knowing what matters to me, figuring out what I want to photograph. It’s all tied together. Part of what I love about your zine is how cohesive it is. It includes a wide variety of photos, but they all hang together really well and seem to be talking the same language. Did that just happen for you, or did you work at it? Either way, how?

A: I think it is for sure something that has developed over time. I work hard at improving all the time. My ninety-six-year-old grandfather taught me that you never stop growing and evolving as a person or an artist. Part of my zine was an effort to loosen up my style, not worry so much about making the composition perfect. It has been a great exercise for me.

Copyright © Allison V. Smith

Copyright © Allison V. Smith

L: Do you feel like you get pigeonholed in a particular genre? I mean, are you known as an editorial photographer, or a fine-art photographer, or both? Do you feel like people are open to blurring boundaries? Maybe I’ve just been watching too much CNN, but I heard James Carville the other day talking about how if a politician doesn’t define himself, someone else will define him, so you need to control the message. I hate the way that sounds (Carville’s voice is ringing in my ears), but I think there’s something to be said for the fact that people do like to categorize and define each other. Is there a way to avoid that as a photographer? Or do you just say, “Fuck it,” and do what you want and screw what people think you are (or aren’t)?

A: I think about this all the time. You know people in the art world don’t quite appreciate newspaper photographers the way I think they should be respected. There are some amazing photographers out there—Damon Winter, Mona Reeder, David Leeson—all of whom I consider some of the best photographers in the country. Yet, you never see their names outside the newspaper worlds. Damon is hands down one of the finest portrait photographers there is, and besides seeing his credit in The New York Times, you never see his name. So this makes me mad and it kind of gives me the attitude of, “Fuck it.” I am just going to be who I am. I am going to continue working for clients who are wonderful to work for, who hire me for my vision rather than tell me how to shoot something. I am going to continue to shoot for myself, and I hope for more beautiful exhibits in the future. I am going to continue to make zines and postcards. I am going to continue to shoot for myself as often as I possibly can because, in the end, I love photography. I love photographers and photo books. It’s who I am, what I am.

Copyright © Allison V. Smith

A very vulnerable thing

Thanks to a late-night e-mail from Susana Raab, I caught Jhumpa Lahiri on Charlie Rose last night, and that led me to reading some online interviews with her this afternoon. In one, at The Atlantic, she said:

It’s easy for me to think, Why am I doing this? There are so many great writers and great books—what’s the point? I can get into that mindframe pretty easily, and the more I see that this or that book is coming out, the more easily I go into a very scared place. I know that about myself. I feel protective of my work. And the ability to stay focused is a very vulnerable thing.

Blew my mind. In another interview, she said that she doesn’t have Internet access on her computer and has only really been online looking over other people’s shoulders. (The interview was from 1999, so maybe things have changed for her in the time since then, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t.)

I love blogging, love that someone I met through blogging contacted me through e-mail to tell me about an interview with a writer I’d posted about here. But sometimes I read about other photographers and all they’re accomplishing, and I just want to shut down, forget the rest of the world, and live only in my own.

I haven’t yet ruled that out.

Bobby and Teddy

There has been some posting in the blogosphere today about the RFK photos by Harry Benson and the RFK funeral train photos by Paul Fusco.

I have spent the latter part of the morning in front of CNN, watching with increasing sadness the news of Ted Kennedy’s brain cancer. It doesn’t look good.

If you’re like me, and you turn to history for answers and for hope, you may want to revisit Senator Kennedy’s inspiring eulogy to his brother Robert. The following video contains a brief clip from the end. To listen to the eulogy in its entirety, click here.

Interview: Jennifer Loeber

Kicking off my interview series is quick-on-the-draw-and-always-accurate Jennifer Loeber.

Liz: I first saw your work, I think, on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog. (We’re both HHS blog alums who never made the final cut.) I really love your portraits—they feel really natural and easy-breezy, even the photos from your Zeig Mal (Show Me) series, where all your subjects are nude. How or why do you think this is? Have you put a lot of effort into making it look effortless? Do you think your natural charm just puts people at ease? ;-) It seems like, especially photographing people who are naked, it’d be difficult to achieve, and yet you do, every time.

Jennifer: I like to set the tone with the nude shoots by saying, “Nice to meet you! Remove your pants please,” within the first five seconds of meeting. It always takes a beat for people to realize I’m joking. So yes, it must be my natural effervescent charm!

Kidding, I guess it’s a combination of things. I’m not particularly precious about equipment so I don’t show up loaded down with unnecessary stuff. I shoot with available light and carry only my camera and possibly a tripod. The fussiness of twelve different lenses and endless gadgetry to fiddle around with doesn’t interest me. My own personal hell would be a conversation about lens speeds or metering sensors. I spent most of my art-school days shooting with a used Rolleiflex from the forties with a sticky shutter and no light meter. Being forced to make do and learn how to think on my feet definitely impacts how I approach work now. I tend not to belabor a shot or linger in a moment that I feel isn’t working. The moment I’m looking for presents itself to me and I know it immediately—if not, I move on, try something different. It involves a lot of fast creative decision making that I think results in a nice feeling of casualness to my subjects.

Copyright © Jennifer Loeber

L: Tell me a little about your background. You were a photo editor, right? For which publications? And you’re now freelancing as a photo editor to pay the bills?

J: Short version: art school, pro lab printer, paparazzi photographer, photo-agency worker bee, magazine photo editor, disillusionment, freelance photo editor. I’ve worked for some big names (Allure, Glamour, InStyle, Us Weekly, to name a few) over the years. I learned a great deal but eventually realized I was just not invested in photo editing the way I was in my own photography. I went freelance about two and a half years ago so I could focus more on my own work.

L: You seem to strike a great balance between business and art. I know you’ve been hitting the pavement and showing your book to editors and such, and your personal work continues on. I guess I’m curious how you seem to do it all. How do you make time for your photography and still have time to pay the bills?

J: Well first off, I love that you make me sound like some sort of modern version of Mary Tyler Moore. If you could see me now, I would be spinning around throwing my hat in the air to theme music while wearing super-cute mod flats. [Click here for sixty seconds of seventies flashback. To get the full effect, I recommend letting it play in the background while you continue reading.—Ed.]

In all honesty though, it’s tough. My husband is also a freelancer (writer), so we like to joke that what we really need to do is jointly marry a nice hedge-fund manager. I take freelance editing work for half of each month to pay the bills so that the other half can be spent shooting, getting my name out there and pounding the pavement. It can be incredibly discouraging trying to make a life in one of the most expensive places in the country and simultaneously starting a career as an artist. In times of exhausted frustration, I have been known to succumb to pity parties and declare I’m pulling up stakes to become a cheese maker or alpaca groomer or something. A recent bout of woe-is-me’s was interrupted by the purchase of some of my photographs by Adobe for a new product line. So that’s a really nice reality check that yes, someone out there likes what I’m doing and maybe this craziness will actually pay off eventually!

L: If you’re given a piece of cake (whatever flavor you like best—I choose chocolate), with frosting that’s to die for (again, any flavor—I choose chocolate, again), do you eat the cake first or the frosting? This isn’t as random as it sounds. My Aunt Nancy, when I was about ten, taught me how to wield my fork to chisel out the several layers of cake from my slice, eat that first, and save the frosting (the best part) for last. For all I know, she may have taught that to my sisters as well, but it was an approach that was perfectly suited to my little organized ten-year-old brain. I am big on the whole save-the-best-for-last bit. The problem with this is that, in the whole being-an-adult thing, there’s so much damn cake and not nearly enough frosting. So I spend all this time getting rid of the cake (working, paying bills, cleaning up dog shit, doing the dishes) that by the time I get around to the frosting (photography), I don’t have any more room. I think if Aunt Nancy had taught me to start with the frosting, my life could’ve taken an entirely different path. (Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but you get my point.) So which comes first for you: cake or frosting? And what does that translate into in terms of decisions you make or things you’ve accomplished.

J: Well, I’m not a big fan of typical birthday-party-style cake. Ice cream cake? Bring it. Pie? Definitely wouldn’t kick it outta bed. Sheet cake with chocolate frosting? Not so much. I think all this says about me is that sometimes I’m forced to wait until what I really want is more firmly in my grasp. Not many birthday parties feature pie, ya know? I would ultimately rather go without on occasion than live a life I am not excited by. My accomplishments in photography may come much slower than someone who can focus 100 percent on their own work, but I feel somehow more appreciative of them because of how hard I have to work to make it all happen.

L: I just got a US$37.50 store credit from photo-eye. What one photo book should I put that money toward buying? And why?

J: I think I’m going to have to suggest the Helen Levitt book. I was lucky enough to catch an exhibit of the images from Helen’s book while in Paris this past November. Her work is beautiful, quirky, so full of humor and just about perfect in my opinion. Had my need for a cafe creme not been so extreme, I may still be there, staring open-mouthed at her heavenly greens and oranges and chickens.

Wake-up call

While eating my Lean Cuisine macaroni and cheese, I watched one segment of 60 Minutes, a segment on the importance of sleep. I don’t have to tell you what it said: Sleep is important, get enough sleep, blah blah blah. I usually get six or seven hours a night, almost never the recommended eight. Not only do I like sleep, but I understand the importance of it. (I’m not one of those, “Eh, scientists—what do they know?” types.) And yet I never get enough sleep.

I also know how good I feel when I take an hour out of my day to go for a walk or get some form of exercise. I feel really good, actually. And yet I often have to struggle to make time for it. Even on a Sunday.

And I love photography, and I feel good when I’m doing it. Looking at Kate Hutchinson’s blog yesterday has left me with this incredulity that photography is not part of my daily life. (Reading blogs about photography doesn’t count; only photographing does.)

Why is it so hard to incorporate in my life—literally, “to put (something) into the body or substances of (something else)”—the one thing that means most to me? Sleep, exercise . . . whatever. But photography? Come on, kid. Wake up!

Anderson and I

I dreamed last night that I was walking my dog down the street when I ran into Anderson Cooper, who was covering a Breaking News story on the next block. His phone rang. It was a Major Magazine wanting to do a cover story on him and they needed it now. He said, “Well, your reporter is right here,” and suddenly a reporter with a notebook appeared, “but we don’t have a photographer.” [Insert Underdog cartoon theme song.] I said, “Um, Anderson, I’m a photographer. I can take your picture.”

“Oh, but have you ever done editorial photography before? Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Of course, I do,” I lied. And as if I hadn’t been ballsy enough, I added, “And it’ll be a picture of Anderson Cooper like none you’ve ever seen before!”

“All right then, let’s go!” [Insert CNN Breaking News theme music.]

Anderson and I walked back to my apartment, which had magically been transformed into a supercool studio where all kinds of students were learning photography. I made one exposure, and the whole thing was apparently brilliant, because A Photo Editor featured me the next day, and I was suddenly the darling of the editorial world.

My next assignment was to shoot Julia Roberts. Anderson was my assistant.

The girl in the gold Jaguar

Much harder to get a portrait on a weekday than it was over the weekend—that pesky day job got in the way. Plus, Boo Radley, the coolest dog in the world, tested positive for roundworms today. Disgusting. And how the hell can you make a decent portrait when you’re mired in Internet research about roundworms and worrying that you’ve caught it and will go blind, despite the fact that you’d pretty much have to be eating dirt to get it, and last you checked, though you do have the palate of a kindergartener, dirt is not on the menu? (S. says I remind him of the Anthony Edwards character from Northern Exposure. I’ve never seen the show, but I have a pretty good idea what a hypochondriac he must’ve been.)

I asked four people and got rejections before I found this girl, who talked on the phone while I took her picture and while her mother waited for her in their gold Jaguar. Nice girl, but not such a great picture.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

The picture I didn’t get was of two teenagers making out. (Do people still say “making out,” or have I just made myself sound as bad as my mom does when she refers to people “necking”? Necking? Jesus.) They were leaned up against a car, and they were interesting to look at and would’ve made a wonderful photograph, but there was no way to get them without asking, and when I asked, the boy said yes and the girl said no, and fifty-fifty doesn’t cut it.

The facts of life

I’ve been printing today, which means I’ve been swearing and smiling, loud and then silent. Pretty much like every other day, now that I think about it. I started printing partly because I’ll be attending a workshop later this month during which a portfolio review will occur, and partly because I couldn’t devote one more minute to my day job without doing more swearing than smiling, and the latter is preferable to the former.

Ben Huff’s post tonight mentioned wanting to “call in dead” to his day job and head up north with his camera. Someone asked me last night what my plan was, how I would ever do more photography and less other stuff if I didn’t have a plan. This is also the same person who takes pleasure in finding the one thing that will piss me off, and then doing that one thing every time she sees me. But she did make me think: What exactly is my plan?

I’ve been operating under the assumption that if I do the things that interest me, the rest will fall into place. But what exactly is “the rest” and into what “place” do I want it to fall? Do I have to know the answer to this question? If I were ten years younger, I’d say no. But I’m thirty-four and I have a boyfriend who likes to quote Andrew Marvell and talk of “time’s winged chariot.” I watched George Clooney on The Facts of Life; I can still sing all the words to the theme song (plus the theme songs to Diff’rent Strokes, Silver Spoons, and Good Times). I got spam from someone claiming to represent AARP the other day. I also get e-mails about how to enlarge my penis, so it’s possible the spammers don’t really know me. But somehow, though I delete the penis e-mails without any thought, the AARP one made me worry. I suppose that means I’m more confident that I don’t have a penis than that I’m not old.

Which brings me back to the question of a plan. All the candidates I care about are rolling out their health-care plans. “I have a plan” seems a common refrain; maybe Dr. King would’ve made an entirely different speech were he at the Lincoln Memorial in 2007. The thing is, I’ll take dreamers to planners any day. And so maybe that’s my answer. I plan every other thing in my life, from flights to finances to freelance work. Maybe photography, and whatever will or won’t happen with my future, should be left to dreams instead. Not the kind of dreams that never happen (i.e., “only in your dreams”), but the kind of dreams that do (i.e., “dreams realized”). Only time—and that goddamned winged chariot—will tell.

Meanwhile, I’ve ordered The Facts of Life from Netflix.

Tom Snyder, 1936–2007

The blogs are abuzz with posts about Ingmar Bergman today. I’ll take Tom Snyder. Anybody with the following catch phrase is cool in my book, and I can’t think of a better way to pay tribute to the man than to say it again right here:

“Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air.”

On gimmickry

I’ve entered a photo for consideration in JPG magazine, in the category of “Family.” To check out the image (and vote for it, if you like!), click here.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to my self-imposed routine of every day posting a photo I’ve taken that same day. Justin James Reed touched on a similar subject a few weeks ago, though he was raising the question in terms of the value (or lack thereof) of posting new work or work in progress. Justin’s blog, and the blogs of others whose work I admire (Ben Huff and Shawn Gust both come to mind), include recent photographs from ongoing projects. This sharing of work in progress seems, I think, to have a lot more value than the photo-a-day schtick I’ve been up to.

Why? Well, although posting a photo a day was a decent goal (and really the only one I had in mind when I started this blog on January 1), it’s also a bit of a gimmick. The experience of posting a photo a day becomes more important than the quality of the photographs. In fact, most of the photos I post here are not ones I’d want to use in any other context, and some of the photos have nearly caused me to cringe as I clicked the Publish Post button. The obvious follow-up is, “Why post anything you don’t like?” The answer: Some days I just don’t get a photo I like—some days I’ve been lucky to find the time to take any photo at all.

Which brings me to the questions I need to answer for myself: Have I accomplished what I set out to do at the first of the year? If so, has posting a photo a day run its course? Has my blog evolved into something other than what I thought it might be in the beginning? (Sometimes the photo-a-day thing feels, to me, a bit like CNN trying to fill those twenty-four hours. Some of what they report is relevant, but so much of it is just filler—and I often wish they would spend more time on one story instead of filling their airtime with crap because they’ve given the big stories such a cursory review.) Is it better to only talk or post when I have something to say or show—and then do that subject justice by spending the time it takes to get it right? Or is there value in forcing myself out there to shoot every day, and using the blog as the forum in which I hold myself accountable? Is it worth it to post photos I don’t like, photos without any real context or purpose? Or would I be better off posting less often, but posting photos that are part of something bigger? Are you able to discern which photos I like, which photos are part of a larger project, and which ones are just one-offs, sometimes even shots taken just because I had to find something to photograph that day? Does it even matter?

These are all questions I’m mulling. I don’t have any answers yet, but I’m open to comments or suggestions.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

Clamor and din

Charlie Rose interviewed Chuck Close Tuesday night for the hour. Close said—I’m paraphrasing here—that photography is the easiest medium for a person to become proficient in (anybody can take a decent photograph) but the most difficult for an artist to develop a personal vision in, because the photographer is not physically involved, is not touching the canvas, shaping the material. He said that if you’re standing across a room looking at a photograph and you can readily identify it as a specific photographer’s work (presumably never having seen it before), that photographer has accomplished something significant.

He also mentioned that, when he was introduced to Willem de Kooning, Close told de Kooning that it was nice to meet someone who’d painted even more de Koonings than he had. Charlie asked him what had become of those de Kooning imitations of his, and Close said he’d destroyed them all, that the artist isn’t responsible for anything unless he puts it out there. Of course, he also mentioned how he goes into museums and touches up his own work, adding to it when necessary, so maybe the responsibility doesn’t end even then.

Finally, when Charlie asked him why some artists make it and others don’t, Close talked about the artist happening to have what the art world was looking for at just the right time and place. Produce work the art world isn’t ready for, and they won’t be interested; produce work that the art world is already over, and they won’t care.

I’m enjoying the sense of community in this virtual world of bloggers, the discussion with people I might never otherwise have crossed paths with were it not for a series of hyperlinks—one link leading to the next, like synapses firing in the brain. But I am equally overwhelmed by it, frightened by it, wishing that I could hit the Pause button on the rest of the world while I spent a few months or years just trying to figure out what I think, what I want, what my own vision is. I’ll have to settle for finding these answers in spite of—and because of—everyone and everything around me. There is no other option, and if I can’t use the din to my advantage, I have no business even trying.

I’ll add a photo later today, but for now, I wanted to get these thoughts out there, while Charlie and Chuck were still on my mind, and before the clamor claimed me.

UPDATE (11:13 a.m.): Check out Shelly Lowenkopf’s post today about Zoe Strauss’s recent Guggenheim post. Both posts are brilliant, and seem, already, to have made me thankful I don’t get everything I wish for, Pause buttons included.

UPDATE (9:26 p.m.): Added photo.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball