Blake and Bridget

I’m in the early stages of a series of portraits of kids with their babysitters. These are three images from today.

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

I’m not sure if this’ll go anywhere, but I’m going to try a few more shoots with a variety of people, and see if anything crystallizes.

Stephen K. Schuster: Kelly

Copyright © Stephen K. Schuster

Last week, photographer Steven K. Schuster, a curator for Humble Arts Foundation and director of photography at Mass Appeal magazine, e-mailed me and let me know about his new self-published book and asked if he could send me a copy. Like Amy Stein, I love getting gifts in the mail, so I wasn’t about to turn him down. Plus, I liked his simple description of the book: “a limited-edition photography book on a past relationship. It’s called Kelly. . . .” Given my past few days of thinking about a photo project on my relationship with S., it seemed serendipitous.

I don’t think it’s easy, photographing a relationship. I could see some photographers using the camera as a barrier between themselves and their partners. There’s that whole idea that if you’re photographing something, you’re not really experiencing it—you’re thinking about the camera instead of engaging in what’s happening around you, or you’re objectifying the person on the other side of the lens (like, some would say, Harry Callahan did with his wife, Eleanor—as Jon Feinstein alludes to in his introduction to Stephen’s book). And yet, to really photograph a relationship that you’re part of, I think you have to be all in—you can’t hold back any part of yourself. It seems like it could be a delicate balancing act. And if it is, Stephen has managed it without a misstep.

These images give me a real sense of who Stephen is (or who he was with Kelly), as well as a sense of who they were together. I keep looking through this book trying to figure out how or why I feel this way . . . and I don’t know if I have an answer yet. I just know that this little book is one I’ll return to again and again, and that’s no small thing.

For what it’s worth, I think that I experience things more deeply when I’m photographing—there’s a level of focus that I don’t have otherwise. And that makes me want to photograph my relationship with S. even more.

Thanks, Stephen, for sending this my way.

Favorites

For a variety of reasons, I’ve been spending a lot of time on Jon Feinstein’s site the past few days, and this photo, which I first saw months and months ago, grabs me every single time.

Copyright © Jon Feinstein

It’s one of my all-time favorite portraits, right up there with this one from Rachael Dunville. I can’t get enough of either of these.

Copyright © Rachael Dunville

Interview: Michael David Murphy

Today’s interview subject, Michael David Murphy, is the guy behind 2point8, a great photo blog with an emphasis on street photography.

Liz: When I first found your blog, I fell in love with the Ways of Working posts that you did. I was terrified of photographing people, especially strangers, and you laid it all out there in a way that made sense to me—almost like a playbook. Have you always been a street photographer? Or did you have to work up the courage to photograph people on the street?

Michael: Ways of Working came about because I didn’t know anyone in San Francisco who was as fired up about photography as I was, so I figured I’d shoot and take notes and share my thoughts with whoever might find them valuable, and maybe I’d learn something myself along the way. I was hoping they’d read like a playbook, of sorts.

Photography guards its secrets, and I’m pro-transparency, especially when it reveals failure. So I was photographing a lot, and failing, and that led me to textually explore the hows and whys of what worked and what didn’t. I was teaching myself how to photograph in two ways: on the street with my camera, and after, in words (and at the library). Each helped me grow, equally.

On the courage front, I’ve fabricated a kind of bluster, which works in a pinch. Courage implies a fear of something that needs to be conquered. If you don’t think things are scary, there’s no fear. So generally, I don’t consider any of it scary, so I don’t have any fear. This did not come naturally, though.

I like people enough, I suppose, but I came to photography via big love for Ross McElwee, the Maysles, Chris Marker, Les Blank, and Barbara Kopple. I like dealing with people when they’re filtered by incredible editors, be they filmmakers or photographers. Up close, we’re a difficult and squirrelly bunch. The rub is, to get gold, you have to get in there and at least try to play the social game, even if you’re dressed like Joel Meyerowitz. [Michael provided a link to a post in which he pointed to a video of Meyerowitz shooting. I liked the video so much I’m posting it here. And if you’re a real Joel junkie, you may be interested in listening to an interview that Ibarionex Perello did with him.—Ed.]



L: What is it about street photography that you like? What are you looking for on the street? Which street photographers do you admire most and why?

M: Street photography is sport. Not like duck hunting or archery, more like soccer or basketball or even boxing. At its root for me, it’s a physical exploration. I may not run all over the place bobbing and weaving, but the success of street photographs has everything to do with getting your body in the right place at the right time so that your skill as a photographer can do the rest of the job, whether it’s a perfect-moment kind of picture, or something slower, borne of conversation with a stranger.

It’s about your eye, but it’s also about your ability to haul yourself through space so you can use your skill, dumb luck, and foresight to get the picture. It’s like catching a pass—you plan it out, predict where the ball’s going to be, make last-minute adjustments, and hope you’re not going to run smack into the fullback.

Accordingly, I started photographing on the street after sustaining three concussions playing soccer. I think there was a bike wreck in there, too. The concussions slowed me down, and my little Nikon digital was beginning to interest me. I enjoyed photographing, but I wanted to push myself to shoot more than the typical photo fodder of dogs, flowers, and fireworks.

My favorite pictures from then (2001–2002) were from photographers who’d begun publishing on the Web. (This is the first round of “photo-bloggers,” who will always be the real photo-bloggers, to me.) Eliot Shepard, Lucas Shuman, Todd Gross, Mark Powell. The more I looked at Eliot’s and Mark’s work, the more I knew what I liked, and the more inspired I became to take a wide look at the whole history of photography.

I’m most impressed by photographers who’ve cut their teeth on the street, but have “graduated,” like Mitch Epstein. My favorites shoot like I do (vice versa, most likely), and embrace the imperfections of flux. Lars Tunbjork, Tod Papageorge, Mark Steinmetz, Martin Parr (at times), Rosalind Solomon, Larry Fink, Brian Finke, Susan Meiselas. I look at Garry Winogrand’s Public Relations more than most. Some Meyerowitz. And then there’s Joel Sternfeld, whether or not he fits that mold.

Copyright © Michael David Murphy

L: I think I read that you were working for Atlanta Celebrates Photography. Do you want to talk a little about what that is and what you do there? How do you fit in your own photographic work with the day job?

M: We put together a city-wide, monthlong photography festival in Atlanta at nearly 200 venues during the month of October. We have lectures, openings, public-art projects, portfolio reviews, a film series, educational programs, and more. I’m the program manager there. We’re a two-person nonprofit, with volunteers and a fantastic board of directors. October’s an exhilarating whirlwind. Ya’ll should come down, or over!

As a photographer, I’m lucky to have a schedule that allows me to shoot when I need to shoot, which is a luxury after a corporate career. I owe it to Jason Fulford, who curated the public-art project Paper Placemats (ATL) for ACP last year. He chose a picture of mine for the project, and gave me the heads-up about the organization. I was new in town, came aboard, and it’s all worked out nicely. Check out ACP Now!, our corner of the photo-blog universe.

Copyright © Michael David Murphy

L: Where are you going with your photography? What’s on your wish list in terms of your photo work?

M: Street photography is a hamster wheel. It’s a limitless game of limitations. I’m as fascinated by it as I was by poetry, because it’s both proscriptive and infinite. It’s what you make of it. Because it’s fairly prohibitive here in Atlanta (pedestrian culture: slim to none), I’m heading in other directions, which has been a surprise bonus since leaving San Francisco.

I’ve been shooting the campaign trail here through the South, since November. I have a few Atlanta-specific projects in process that I’ve been shooting with a 4 x 5. Portraits, even!

Wishes:

• Find a unique, original space to hang So Help Me. . . on election eve in November. I’ve been recording speeches on the campaign trail, while shooting. I want to hang a show of all the campaign work I’ve been shooting, and flood the space with swirling audio, red/white/blue bunting, TVs showing election returns, all held together by fantastic prints. My inner military brat might rupture after an evening like that. Go, team!
• Publish the book version of unphotographable.com.
• Build a new project called blinding.us.
• Long term and impractical: Write the book that needs to be written about Winogrand, with or without permission.

Copyright © Michael David Murphy

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

M: Cancel the credit and spend it on home or renter’s insurance! Take an hour and write down each and every serial number for every item of equipment you own. When we were robbed a few months ago, I wished I had one sheet of paper with all that info, so I could get on the phone with insurance and start demanding replacement cash, stat.

If not insurance, get Sternfeld’s On This Site. There are good books, and then there’s that book, which is so good it’s frightening. That book’s a long, satisfying punch in the face. Every time I have a copy, I give it away to someone and have to find another. It’s my photo-book hot potato.

Interview: Justin James Reed

Batting cleanup is Justin James Reed, just about the nicest guy in the world and a damn fine photographer to boot. His responses were so good I smiled the whole way through reading them. I hope you do, too.

Liz: You were Shawn Gust’s best man, right? How or why did you end up living in Idaho?

Justin: Ha! That is pretty great that you found out I was Shawn Gust’s best man—you jogged my memory there. Idaho has always been a special place for me. My family is originally from Spokane, Washington, which is right across the Idaho border from Coeur d’Alene, where I lived for a little more then a year. I had been visiting Coeur d’Alene for my entire life, spending every summer out there, and ended up living out there really by chance. After I graduated from college, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, I had a number of jobs and they helped to solidify my interest in attending graduate school. When the opportunity came up to live at the family lake house on Lake Coeur d’Alene in the middle of the woods, I couldn’t pass it up. I knew that at no other point in my life would I be able to just up and leave, and to do something so spontaneous. On top of that, I also felt that challenging myself to create an entirely new body of work (my Westward series), with which I planned on applying to graduate school, would push me, and my photographic practice. My work had always inherently been about traveling, and by taking this chance I was consciously testing myself. This is something I picked up working with Alec Soth, that you had to have conviction and a strong belief in yourself, otherwise you didn’t stand a chance.

L: I read somewhere that you worked as a printer for Alec Soth. What was that experience like? What did you learn about your own photography working for Alec? I’ve always wondered if, after working so closely with a photographer whose work you admire, you end up sort of imitating them, consciously or not. (When I was in high school, my handwriting changed from one class to the next, because I was actually imitating the teacher’s handwriting on the chalkboard, without even realizing it.) Did that happen for you, and if so, how did you work past that?

J: Working with Alec was undeniably a major defining experience in my life. I had originally seen Alec’s work at my college in a faculty show. I initially approached him about possibly TAing for a large-format class he was instructing. Over the course of the class, we developed a rapport, and he eventually asked if I would be interested in helping him print at his studio. This was right around the time that he was finishing his Sleeping by the Mississippi project.

Printing for Alec was a pleasure. It was always a relaxed atmosphere, and not at all intense. I started by making contact sheets for color proofing purposes, and then making large prints for his gallery, then Yossi Milo, and shows. He had a color processor right in his studio, so throughout the printing process we would work closely together, talking about color and other techniques.

But probably the best part of working with Alec was just being able to talk to him on a regular basis. As everyone now knows from his blog, Alec is not just a great photographer, but also probably one of the most inspiring voices in contemporary photography. I was struck by how closely his blog mirrored just spending a few hours interacting with him. He offered me not only some of the best advice about my own work I have ever received, but also, by far, the most critical. Alec had a way of getting right to the crux of the matter, and asking questions about my work that still haunt me. I learned that photography is not just something you do, it is something that comes from inside of you. It is a singular experience that requires patience, dedication, and, above all, a belief in yourself. Seeing how Alec worked, how dedicated he was, made me push myself that much harder. Seeing his evolution and success also solidified my interest in not working for another photographer, and pursuing it for myself.

Before I met Alec, or had even seen his work, I was shooting landscapes mostly but had been interested in portraiture. When I saw how easily Alec oscillated between portrait, interior, and landscape, I knew that is what I wanted to do. He encouraged me to start taking portraits, and offered me some of the best advice I have ever gotten regarding portraiture: He suggested not approaching a subject with the camera, as it can be too intimidating, especially when shooting with a large-format camera. However, the large format affords something incredibly unique when taking a portrait. It forces the photographer to take their time, thus allowing the subject to relax and appear more natural. You get to interact with the person for a few minutes while you set up, and under the dark cloth you can closely scrutinize them without them knowing you are staring! However, the advice that I still cherish today, and share with all of my students, is how willing and giving people can be, that you will always be surprised how often people will say yes to having their picture taken, as I know you now know from your recent “portrait-a-day” project.

In terms of influence, I think it is the most important factor in any photographer’s career. I encourage all of my students to seek out the photographers they admire, figure out exactly what it is that they like about these other photographers’ work, and then try to use this understanding to create a unique body of their own work. My aesthetic is less an influence of Alec, and more a similarity that we both share. Hopefully, my work is distinguishable enough from his work, but I won’t deny that I don’t sometimes think about it.

L: I love your South Philadelphia project, the mix of portraits and landscapes. You said in your HHS work statement:

I moved to South Philadelphia about two years ago from rural Idaho. It was quite a shock to be in an urban inner city again, and I was surprised by how put off I was by the environment. It was only until I started exploring this specific part of Philadelphia at dusk that I was able to approach it as a photographic subject. Exploring streets and finding isolated moments of serenity became my way of coming to terms with this city. I became interested in the relationship between evacuated spaces, and contained lives in the cityscape. Focusing on the young people that live here is another way of revealing quiet beauty under a rough exterior. Through juxtaposition of portraits with the lived environment a more personal vision of this hostile terrain presents itself. By focusing on South Philadelphia’s individual aspects I am documenting the place that I see, and am now proud to call home.

I really relate to that feeling—that sense of finding your place in a neighborhood or a city by photographing there. Do you find, now that you’ve lived there for a couple years, that your photographs of South Philadelphia are changing in some way, and if so how? How do you know when a project like this is “done”? Or will it continue as long as you’re living there? Also, what other projects are you working on now?

J: First, thank you for your kind words about the project. As I mentioned before, traveling has always been a large part of my photography. It took me a while to realize that I could photograph my immediate surroundings, and as I alluded to in this artist statement for HHS, it took me a while to even consider South Philadelphia as a subject. I was so put off by the environment that I didn’t take a picture there for about a year. However, my photographic curiosity got the better of me, and I found myself bringing the camera along because I was seeing photographs everywhere.

Copyright © Justin James Reed

Copyright © Justin James Reed

In terms of having it change as a photographic subject, I think no matter what, as you continue to shoot something, it changes. You develop a new understanding of it, and no longer approach it in the same way. This is a double-edged sword though. On one side, you gain a deeper understanding of your subject, and how to approach it in order to make strong, meaningful photographs. On the other side, you are more aware of what you are doing, and the initial thrill of discovery can dissipate.

So, how do know when a project like this is done? One of my good friends, who is a painter, once told me that he knew a painting was done because he felt like it was. I think that is a good description. Inherently, I believe you know when a project is done. Sometimes, of course, it is a change of location, but most of the time I think you can no longer approach the same subject again and again in a fresh and exciting manner. I make lists as I drive around of photographs I see, in order to go back and shoot them later. As the list starts to feel more like a chore, then you know it is time to stop. The South Philadelphia series is at that point. I believe I am close to having shot the rest of the series, and am in the process of editing. On top of that, I am planning on moving this summer, so all of the signs are there.

I am glad you asked about my new work. I have been shooting a lot and am focusing more on landscapes—no portraits for now. I am planning on updating my Web site soon but am more than happy to share some of my new work with you here. I see this work not so much as a continuation of my New Cities project, but as a continuation of the subject matter. I am approaching some of the same subjects in a new way, stepping back, and looking at their striking presence in the contemporary landscape. This project has become a new challenge for me in terms of light and composition. I hope you like them!

Copyright © Justin James Reed

Copyright © Justin James Reed

Copyright © Justin James Reed

Copyright © Justin James Reed

L: You were a Hey, Hot Shot! in May 2007. (Congratulations again!) I’m curious about the whole HHS experience. Had you applied before, or did you get in the first time you applied? Has being a Hot Shot opened any doors for you that you’re aware of? What’s your take on contests like this in general? Do you recommend applying to them?

J: HHS was a great experience. Jen Bekman is awesome, and it gave me a ton of exposure. My Web site and blog traffic exploded, and I think it helped me get my name out there to a certain extent. It is impossible to gauge if it “opened doors” for me, but the exposure and experience was irreplaceable. And, of course, it is always encouraging to receive recognition for your work.

This was the second time I applied, however with different work (the first time was with my Westward series). I definitely felt ready and more prepared the second time around, which I believe came through in the work and statement. Jörg [Colberg] was a juror, and had just been kind enough to feature some of my photographs on Conscientious. So, I also knew that he was aware of and liked my work. All of this goes into my feelings about these kinds of contests. They are incredibly necessary for beginning photographers to get exposure—I kind of look at them as the initial testing grounds. However, they are very subjective, so knowing who the jurors are, and applying with the appropriate work, will increase your chances of success. Of course, because these contests are so subjective, I think it is important to not give up and keep applying if you do not succeed at first. This is something I have to remind myself of all the time. There are so many amazing photographers out there that being a juror must be so hard. However, if you believe in your work, and keep plugging away, you will prevail. And hey, if you don’t, well at least you had a blast and made some damn fine photographs!

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

J: Oh man, just one? Well, I will use this as an opportunity to drop a few of my favorite names.

I noticed that you could back-order Katy Grannan’s new book The Westerns. This body of work from Grannan is stunning, and I feel pushes her to the top of new contemporary photographers.

If you were willing to throw out a couple of more dollars, you could pick up Richard Renaldi’s Figure and Ground. Renaldi’s portraits kind of sneak up on you, and the sheer amount that this guy shoots is insane. I also think he is the new August Sander.

And if you were feeling flush, you could throw down for one of my most recent acquisitions, Alessandra Sanguinetti’s On the Sixth Day. This body of work is touching and poignant. It features some of the best portraits of animals, and our relationship with them, I have ever seen.

Interview: Kate Hutchinson

Second up to the plate is Canada’s very own Kate Hutchinson.

Liz: I came across your work via Conscientious. Do you know how Jörg found out about your work, and what was your reaction to being mentioned on his blog?

Kate: After reading Jörg’s blog about bookstores in Massachusetts I felt compelled to e-mail him about a bookstore in Maine that I love. It’s a huge place called Big Chicken Barn. I also included a few photos that I had taken there. Jörg kindly e-mailed me back, and then two days later my work showed up on his blog. I was completely surprised and very excited.

L: So what’s your background or history with photography? How long have you been doing it? Is this how you make your living?

K: When I was 10, I got a point-and-shoot camera for Christmas. In two days, I shot all four rolls that were included with the camera. From then on, I was addicted to the process. I was a yearbook photographer in high school and got my first SLR when I was 16. Then I took the safe route and did a biology degree in university. I really didn’t think that it was feasible to work as a photographer at the time. There are no artistic types in my family, so it was not something that seemed possible or was encouraged. Toward the end of my biology degree, I decided that I didn’t want to pursue the sciences after school was done, and so, in my last two years of university, I took every photography and art-history course that I could. At this point, I knew that photography was what I had to do. And so after university, I did Dawson College’s photography program. I finished that four years ago and I am very proud to say that I have been making a living solely off of my photography (and some photography teaching) since then.

L: My favorite project of yours is Why Am I Marrying Him? Did you start this project as a way of answering, for yourself, that question? You didn’t title the project, “Why I Am Marrying Him.” There’s a question mark there. Questioning relationships is completely natural for me—probably for most people. I think you’ve really hit on something truthful with the question and your photographic answers. I can tell from looking at the photos—where your fiancé is hanging out, being goofy, being the way with you that people are when they’re in love—why you’re marrying him. (There’s a question in there somewhere, I think.)

Copyright © Kate Hutchinson

K: The Why Am I Marrying Him? series started out somewhat accidentally. When I see an interesting setting or beautiful light, I usually throw the nearest person into it and try to make a good portrait. Often that person is Chris, my fiancé. And so I ended up gathering a lot of good portraits of him. Then last summer I started putting these images together and realized that, through these photographs, I seemed to be trying to understand who he was and why I had chosen him. Since becoming conscious of this project, I have photographed Chris a lot, in an attempt to answer some of the questions I had. In the end, most of the images in the series come from this period where I was consciously photographing him with the intent of answering the question, “Why am I marrying him?”

I am definitely someone who constantly questions relationships. I think that any relationship is a balancing act, and I wanted to make sure that I took a good long look at our relationship and our motivations for getting married before jumping into it. I feel that the images reflect this. There are the funny moments when he definitely makes me laugh, and, in contrast, there are the moments when he is sullen and quiet and nothing can change his mood. I wanted to show all sides of his personality and see if this was what I wanted in life. Just so you know, the answer was a resounding yes, but even so there are still parts of him that I don’t necessarily love and I think that that’s only normal and that it’s healthy to recognize this. The wedding is in May, but I’m hoping that this series won’t stop there. I think I will constantly be learning new things about Chris through the photographs, and in living our everyday lives, and so I will probably always photograph him.

Copyright © Kate Hutchinson

L: I love your blog because it’s so apparent from looking at it—and this could be especially true because I read the entire thing, from your very first post to your most recent one, on one Saturday afternoon—is how much you love photographing (verb, not noun). Do you carry a camera with you everywhere you go, or does it just look that way?

K: I do love the act of photographing. Recently, I decided to enjoy the moment and the act of taking the picture as much as seeing the resulting print. In a way, I need to do this because often the results are not what I am looking for, so it is important to me to enjoy the journey as much as the end result. I think that this is possibly one of the reasons (but not the main reason) that I still prefer film. With digital, seeing the results right away takes away from this process. As for having my camera with me all the time, unfortunately I don’t, mostly because the projects that I am working on right now are deliberate and somewhat thought out before the shooting. I do bring my camera whenever I go somewhere interesting or do anything out of the ordinary, and that can often lead to good images and occasionally start me going in a whole new direction.

L: Where are you hoping to go with your work? What’s your photographic dream? Museums? Galleries? Books? World domination? Only making it big after you die?

K: Right now I just feel happy that people like my work and are willing to pay me for it. In the future, I know that I will always want to pursue personal projects and would definitely like to exhibit more and eventually be represented by a reputable gallery. In the fall, I will be having a solo show of my Why Am I Marrying Him? series in Montreal at an artist-run gallery, and I’m really excited about that. Although I would love to make a living solely off my personal work, I think that that may not be possible, or at least would take a very long time to happen. And so I will always need to supplement my income with other work. This other part of my career can go in one of two directions: Either I’ll teach more and do less commercial work, or I’ll do more commercial and editorial work and, therefore, teach less. I think I’ll have to see what comes up and what ends up stimulating me and my work. And, of course, I share every photographer’s dream of publishing a book someday. Either self-published or through a publisher, I know that I’ll make that dream come true at some point.

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

K: Well, my all-time favorite photographer is Sam Abell. (I hope to take one of his workshops sometime soon.) I bought my first photo book at the age of 16 and it was Sam Abell’s Stay This Moment. Anything by Sam Abell is always a must for me. His quiet but powerful imagery is what I am always striving for. But right now the next photo book that I want to buy is Josef Sudek’s The Window of My Studio that just came out this year. In a similar vein, the last photo book I bought was Laura Letinsky’s Hardly More Than Ever: Photographs 1997–2004. [I couldn’t find that exact title at photo-eye, so I linked to another Laura Letinsky book that seems to contain photos from that project. If you’re interested in the specific book Kate mentions, you might be able to get it here.—Ed.] Both are very different interpretations of still life taken in the artists’ personal spaces, something that has been a recent interest of mine. I’m glad that you brought up photo books. They are a constant source of inspiration, and they are always furthering my photographic education.

I’m back

In early January, I attended Review LA, a portfolio review sponsored by Center and held in conjunction with photo la in my old neighborhood, Santa Monica. This was my first official portfolio review, and I came away with concrete advice on places to send my work, images to cut from my portfolio, approaches to take going forward—it was everything I hoped it would be.

And yet, since then, I’ve been stuck in the doldrums. Just in the past few weeks, I’ve bemoaned my apparent inability to get anything done, thrown in the towel (at least temporarily, on my In Store project), tried to get going on something else, all with lackluster results.

Today I realized that I haven’t been wasting time these past couple months. I’ve actually been processing everything I’ve learned—I just didn’t know it.

I went out this morning on my second shoot for a new project I’d been thinking about for a while (and on which I’d gotten some strong encouragement at Review LA from Kristine Wilson of Ogilvy & Mather). It’s the kind of project that looks good on paper but doesn’t hold as much promise in the execution. I may give it another try, but I identified some critical issues with it that just aren’t going away, so if you’re placing bets, I’d bet against my resuming it anytime soon.

The good news is that, while working on this new project, trying different approaches, thinking about why it wasn’t working for me, I defined more clearly for myself what my In Store project is about for me and why I am (present tense, not past) passionate about it. I’d gotten some feedback from people that they wanted to see more images of the items in storage, images with people in them. In fact, Portrait Month was all about my getting comfortable with making portraits, in an effort to prepare myself for incorporating portraits into In Store. I had so much fun in December, and I’m really pleased with some of the portraits I made. But I don’t think portraits belong in In Store, and here’s why: That project, for me, isn’t about the people who have stuff in storage. It’s about the places where we put our stuff. I say in my project statement, written before all this talk of portraits began, that for me it’s about “imagining what’s behind closed doors.” Imagining. Not literally finding out. For me, the magic of these places is more real when I focus on the buildings and structures themselves, telling myself stories about what’s there and why.

When this dawned on me this afternoon at coffee with S., I could feel the wind pick up and my sail caught that wind, and that was all I needed.

I went home and took a fresh look at the images in the project, and I could see that, of the 45 images on my site right now, only about 15 of them are ones I consider good. The rest are lacking in some way. But that’s okay—I’ll keep working on the project, swap out the images that aren’t working with new ones that do, until I have the project where I want it to be, until it’s done.

Another agenda item: Read more poetry. (Who doesn’t need more poetry in her life?) Step away from the television and PDN, and pick up a book, something that has nothing at all to do with photography. David McCullough’s 1776 has been on my shelf for a long time. So have Pablo Neruda and Coast of Dreams. Maybe I’ll start there.

I’m back.

When you least expect it

Ever since my Slut post, I’ve been thinking a lot about the parallels between relationships and photography. I was e-mailing with Shawn Gust about portraiture, and he said, “I would say not to search out subjects so much, but keep your eyes open. They’ll come to you, trust me.” And in a comment on the post, Ben Huff said, “Deep down, we all want to progress from being sluts into a long-lasting relationship with our own beautiful style. It will come.”

Any girl who’s ever been single has heard, “The right guy will come along when you’re not even looking” or “It’ll happen for you—trust me.” The implication: You should just wait and it’ll happen, through nothing you do or don’t do.

For someone who’s neither patient nor passive, this kind of advice is bunk.

It’s not that I think Shawn and Ben are wrong; their photographs alone are proof of that. It’s just that I can’t do anything with their advice. I agree that keeping your eyes open, as Shawn advises, is critical, but most of the time I don’t know if a picture will be good until I take it. (I often know in the few seconds between the time I first look through the lens and the moment I release the shutter. But that’s long after I pull over the car.) And Ben expresses beautifully what we want as photographers, but trust isn’t innate for me, and having faith that “it will come” isn’t easy.

My answer in the years that I spent between relationships was simply to be happy on my own. But I’ll never be happy with photographs I don’t love; hence, my conundrum.

My solution: Be a photographic slut and work hard at figuring out which photos I like and why, which photos I don’t like and why, and what I can do to increase the ratio of like to dislike. In time, after making many, many pictures and really thinking about what works and what doesn’t, I think I’ll be better able to trust that it’ll come.

Farewell, 2007

When I was a kid, a year seemed like forever. But in the past decade or so, every year has seemed to move faster than the one before, one year bleeding into the next. I always thought this was because, when you’re younger, one year is just a larger percentage of your life—a relativity thing. But 2007 has been the longest year I’ve had since I was a kid, and that’s forced me to revise my theory: I think the reason time seems to stand still or move much slower when you’re young is because you’re learning so much; every day is full of possibility and excitement and there’s none of that days-running-into-each-other stuff. And that’s why 2007 has been so long for me.

I love a year that seems to last forever.

I spent 2006 taking photography classes, learning some of the technical stuff that I needed to know, and though that was important, it wasn’t until I made the decision in December of 2006 not to return to school in January that things really took off for me. Suddenly I was in charge of my own education, and in my opinion, there’s no better way to do it.

I had no idea then that blogs would become my greatest teachers, or that so many of the photographers I’ve met through blogging would become such good and true friends. I went from starting the year without any real sense of what I wanted to photograph to ending the year so full of ideas that the trouble is, I don’t know how I’ll fit it all in.

My work appeared in A Field Guide to the North American Family, and online at the Humble Arts Foundation, FILE magazine, White Wall Collective, and a variety of blogs. I was part of three group shows (in New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit) and had my first two-person show, in L.A. I received Honorable Mentions in the International Photography Awards and the Hey, Hot Shot! competition (and was featured on the HHS blog twice). After being afraid to go out and make portraits, I ended the year with my own self-proclaimed Portrait Month. And best of all, I got to hang out in person with Shawn Gust, Shawn Records, and Amy Stein, all of whom I met through blogging.

All in all, 2007 was a wonderful year for me and my photography. Not one to be easily satisfied, though, I’ve spent the past few weeks looking ahead to 2008 and trying to figure out what I want to do differently. I recently read Stephen Shore’s letter to a young artist (excerpted from Letters to a Young Artist, published by Art on Paper magazine, and available for purchase here). Here’s the bit that gets me:

I’ve been teaching at Bard College for more than 20 years. I’ve also had the opportunity to meet graduate students at several institutions over the years. More and more, I see students who are driven by a desire to have a show in Chelsea and be a successful artist. Certainly not all students, but I’ve seen a definite shift.

This is understandable, of course. However, for me, it has little to do with why I make art. I believe that art is made to explore the world and the culture, to explore the chosen medium, to explore one’s self. It is made to communicate, in the medium’s language, a perception, an observation, an understanding, an emotional or mental state. It is made to answer, or try to answer, questions. It is made for fun. In short, it is made in response to personal needs and demands.

A student might see a great work of art and say to himself, “This is a great work of art. I want to make a great work of art, too.” And so, the student sets out to try to do so. And if he has some talent, he might produce something that looks just as though it were a great work of art—almost convincing. If one didn’t know any better one might actually mistake it for a work of art. The only problem is that the great work of art that the student so admired was not a product of these same motives. It was the by-product of these same motives. It was the by-product of the artist’s personal quest.

And so my goal going into 2008 is to carry these words with me: to ask myself over and over again why I’m a photographer, and whether what I’m doing is in keeping with the answer to that question.

Although I got a kick out of looking at people look at my work on gallery walls, that feeling doesn’t begin to compare to the feeling I get when I’m photographing. So I think worrying less about who’s seeing my work and concentrating more on the work itself will be key to my happiness in the year ahead. It won’t bother me one bit if, one year from now, I’ve had no other gallery shows. But it will bother me if I don’t make significant progress on my In Store series (if not complete it), if I haven’t started working on one or two of the other projects I have in mind, if I haven’t better defined for myself what I’m trying to say, if I haven’t discovered the work of photographers I hadn’t known about before, if I haven’t spent time with some more of my blog friends, if I haven’t grown as a photographer, and most important, if my photography has not improved.

There is so much to try, so much to succeed at, so much to fuck up. Attention for my work would be great; but I can live without that, easy. What I can’t live without is photographing.

On portraiture

Five days left in December, and Portrait Month is drawing to a close. Initially, the challenge was simply to ask people if I could take their picture, but that was only a challenge for the first few days. Since then, the test has been to make a good portrait, and if I had to grade myself so far, I’d say a C would be fair. I’ve made some photographs that I’m really proud of (here, here, and here), but the majority are boring.

I see a few reasons for this: Most days, I’ve felt the pressure of the clock and settled for whomever I found. If you believe Alec Soth’s explanation of how he chooses his subjects (likening it to the way you’re attracted to certain people across a crowded bar), just settling for whoever’s around is pretty much a recipe for disaster (or at least a rough night). One solution would be to wait for the right person—and that’s probably the ideal approach. But it isn’t lost on me that editorial photographers rarely choose their subjects, and they have to make it work under time constraints and less-than-ideal circumstances. So no excuses here: Even if I couldn’t find the ideal subject or the ideal situation, I could’ve—and should’ve—made more of an effort to get a better image.

Another issue is that, on more days than I care to admit, as soon as I found my person and made the photograph, I called it a day. It would’ve been one thing to do that when I knew I had the shot I wanted (like the three I mention above), but that’s only happened a few times. Some days, I truly didn’t have any more time—but that was rare. Most days, I could’ve spent more time driving around looking for people. And if I had, I might’ve eventually found the right person.

Finally, so often I felt the pressure to not keep the person too long. Rarely were my subjects just hanging out; they were usually on the move somewhere, and I was aware of the fact that I was keeping them from getting where they were going. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all three of my favorite photographs from the month were of people who were just hanging out. In each of those cases, I felt free to take more time to get the shot, and it paid off.

I still don’t really know what makes a good portrait. I know what I like when I see it, but I don’t know that I can articulate it. And I don’t think that my favorites from this month even come close to registering on the Rachael Dunville yardstick. I like the process, though—that moment when the person is waiting for me to make the exposure, that intense feeling that the person is giving me something in that moment and that I might be able to give him something in return. I can see this experience continuing on past the end of the year, even affecting my choice of projects going forward.

Simon and Cesar

Some days, going out and trying to find people to photograph has been a pain in the ass. And yet, without exception, every time I’ve found someone who’s said yes, I’ve been so happy—and thankful. The best part about it has been talking to people I wouldn’t otherwise have met. Two examples of this are today’s subjects, Simon and Cesar, who were sitting in exactly this position when I saw them. They asked me whether they could show their signs when I took their picture, and I said they could do whatever they wanted, but when I told them I was ready, they put their hands down and just looked at the camera.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

Felipe

After I took Felipe’s picture, I told S., who was patiently waiting in my illegally parked Jeep with Sally and Boo, that although I’m often excited when I’ve taken a picture of a building or a storage facility or some inanimate object that really grabs me, I don’t think it compares to having gotten a picture (that I really like) of a stranger. Photographing people is much harder, but the payoff, for me at least, is exponentially greater.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

Mythology

I posted a few days ago about the death of someone from my hometown in Michigan, and I deleted the post the next day—not because I said anything I regretted, but because it didn’t seem relevant to this blog. As more time has passed, the relevance is becoming clearer. The details about her life or my trying to make sense of why her death mattered to me weren’t so important. What is important is that when something pulls me in—intellectually, emotionally, or, preferably, both—that’s something I want to pay attention to, because that’s the nucleus of who I am.

I used to tell myself I was shy, and I used shyness as my excuse for not approaching strangers to take their portraits. In one week of confronting that fear, I found that I wasn’t shy at all. In fact, if you watched me approach strangers, you’d see someone confident and friendly, able to put people at ease and make them laugh. And I’ve done this without a struggle. It’s been fascinating to step outside myself and see me doing these things. But what it’s left me with are questions: What else am I telling myself that’s not true? What other myths am I perpetuating? And what are these myths keeping me from doing, keeping me from being?

This all comes together with the death of Mrs. Wyngarden in this way: I wasn’t close to her on a personal level. I hadn’t talked to her since high school, and though I knew she was ill, I didn’t expect to feel anything when I heard she died. Yes, it would be sad. But sad in the way it’s sad when you hear about the death of anyone. Instead, I couldn’t get it out of my head all week. Like a movie reel running through my mind was a string of memories from my hometown, my childhood.

I was stunned not only by my sadness over her death, but by the sense of connection I felt to that place and the people who live there. I love Southern California—I think I’ll likely live the rest of my life somewhere between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. But an essential part of who I am is where I’m from. It’s in the bio I wrote for myself (“and raised in the same town in Michigan where her parents grew up”), and as I edited that bio, I thought about deleting those words because they didn’t seem relevant, but the bio didn’t sound right without them.

I don’t have answers right now, but I think this is important—not just reexamining the things I tell myself, but looking at what where I’m from means in terms of who I am and what interests me.

What are the things you tell yourself about who you are? Are they true?

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 50-50 doesn’t cut it.

Garage sales and barking dogs

Got out the door earlier today and found a garage sale with one girl eager to pose. Another girl stood right by my side as I set up my tripod—yes, I used it—and made the photographs. (I can relate to that preference for being behind the camera.)

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

Next door, a woman had been talking on a cell phone, while her little dog ran around the front yard barking at me. I asked her if I could take her picture, and three teenage girls came running out saying they wanted to pose. Their mother was like, “Why don’t you take them instead?” and I said, “No, I’ve got teenagers—I don’t have anyone like you,” which was the truth and had the added bonus of putting her at ease. She talked dogs with me and wished me luck and I was on my way.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

The approaching-people thing is a thousand times easier than I thought it would be. It’s making a good photograph that’s the challenge. Seems like I should’ve known that all along, but I was so focused on how hard it would be to talk to people that I couldn’t see beyond that. Turns out I’m not as shy as I thought I was.

Kickoff

Portrait Month kicks off today, and honestly, this morning there was a part of me that was kicking myself for making this a public declaration. The thing is, it was only because it was a public declaration that I got my butt out the door and forced myself to start looking for people to photograph.

I drove around for a good 20 minutes before I approached anyone. There were people I thought would make good photographs, but I was too freaked out to pull over. Finally, I was driving by a park and saw a kid taping his ankle near a basketball court. I parked, walked up to him, and asked if I could take his picture. He didn’t speak much English, so I think at least something was lost in the lack of translation, but he wasn’t all that interested. His friend, on the court, came over, and I asked him, but he said no, too. Off to a rip-roarin’ start!

On my way back to the car, though, I saw a father holding his little girl on a swing. I asked him if I could take their picture, and he said sure. One of his other little girls asked, “Me, too?” and I seemed to be a hit with them. The kids were really agreeable, happy to pose, but it was hard because they were obviously used to having their picture taken. They kept saying, “Cheese!” and so it was hard to get a shot of them where they looked a little more natural and weren’t hamming it up for the camera. I got a few, though, and now I need to make some prints and take them back next week at the same time—the father said they’d be there.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

More driving around, and then I headed to Salinas Street, which is the main street near my house. I found a group of kids—they were a little older, and the girls were totally into having their picture taken, especially one of them, Jessica (the one in the red shirt). I got her e-mail address, and I’ve already sent her the pictures I took. She mentioned something about wanting to use one on her MySpace page.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

So, here are my thoughts so far: It was easier to approach people than I thought it would be, and somehow, the initial two rejections actually made it even more so. After they said no, I figured, what the hell, I had nothing to lose. Also, I think it would be better if I slowed down. I didn’t use my tripod for either shot, and it wasn’t necessary from a light standpoint, but from a take-things-slowly standpoint, it was hard not to feel snapshotty about it when I was handholding the camera. (Why this would be the case photographing people when it’s never been my feeling photographing buildings, I have no clue.) I fully intended to use the tripod, but I was also nervous and just wanting to get it over with. I’m thinking that, with time, this feeling will go away, and then using the tripod might be more feasible.

The day isn’t over, and I’m taking my stuff with me everywhere I go, so if I make any other exposures before it’s through, I’ll post again.

Portrait Month

I’m a big fan of FDR’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” bit, and so I hereby announce that December is Portrait Month on my blog. Throughout the entire month of December—no time off for Hanukkah, Christmas, or Kwanzaa—I’ll be approaching at least one stranger every day and asking to make his portrait. I’ll post the daily results on this blog, for better or worse.

If time allows, I’ll also do some posting about portrait photographers whose work I respect, admire, dislike, or otherwise have a strong feeling about. No guarantees about that part, but I do guarantee a portrait a day.

Tune in, sports fans, to see the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Can you think of a more appropriate way to spend the holidays? Neither can I.

Shawn Gust

It worked out: I met up with Shawn Gust tonight in Los Angeles, and although I knew he’d be a cool guy, he was even cooler than I thought he’d be.

He was driving from Idaho down to San Diego, with his brother Thor and Thor’s 2½-year-old daughter, Leila. When they got out of their van, I immediately recognized them from this image.

Copyright © Shawn Gust

So here’s what it’s like to have dinner with me: I’ll offer to pay for you and your traveling companions, you’ll say I don’t have to, I’ll insist, and two minutes later, I’ll see the sign on the wall that says cash only, and I’ll be like, “Um, so the dinner thing . . . actually, I’m not buying—I don’t have enough cash.” Jesus.

Dinner was Philippe’s: French-dipped sandwiches on paper plates, peanut shells on the floor, Corona for Shawn, Coke for me. We talked about their trip and then, of course, photography. What he’s working on, what he’s shot so far on the trip, people he’s met. We walked outside afterward, and on the way back to their van, we passed a security guard who was watching the parking lots for the restaurant. Shawn said the guy would make a good picture. We talked for a little, and then he said he was going to go ask the guard if he could make his portrait. I went along to watch, because it’s a well-established fact that I’m terrified of taking people’s pictures, and I wanted to see how someone who does it so well would work.

We walked up to the guard. Shawn said, “Hey, how’s it goin’?”

The guard said, “Fine.”

Shawn said, “I’m on a road trip from Idaho and I’m taking pictures of people I meet along the way, and I’m wondering if I could take your picture.”

The guy sat there, silent. Then he said, “Of the cars?”

“No,” Shawn said. “I can see cars anywhere. I just want to take a picture of you.”

Again, the guy sat there, with a look on his face like, “What the hell does this guy want with me?”

This is the point at which I would’ve started babbling, filling the silence, trying to defend myself, explain myself, blah blah blah. But Shawn just stood there and didn’t say a word. My mouth was hanging open.

Finally, the guard said, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Shawn said. “I’ll go get my camera.”

We walked back to the van, and Shawn got his equipment together. Again, this is when I would’ve been rushing, scrambling, feeling like, “Shit, I’d better hurry before this guy changes his mind.” But he took his time. He moved quickly, but he didn’t rush.

When we got back to the guy, Shawn introduced himself, and then he started setting up his camera. While he took a meter reading, he let me look through the lens. I’d never looked through a large-format camera before—such a different experience from a 35mm. The meter said he needed a two-second exposure, so he told the guy that he needed him to hold very still and to just do his best. On the first shot, when Shawn told him he was ready, the guy nodded for the entire two seconds. The second shot, Shawn waited for him to stop nodding, and then he exposed the image, and I can’t wait to see what it looks like.

He wanted to take my picture, too, and I obliged. We talked a little longer, and Thor and Leila caught crickets in the parking lot. Crickets in a parking lot in downtown L.A.? It was as if Idaho had come pouring out of that van with Shawn and Thor and Leila, and though Los Angeles is always beautiful and magical to me, it was even more so tonight.

My only regret was that S., who so wanted to meet Shawn, had a class to teach and couldn’t join us. He would’ve been thrilled to be there. And I would’ve wanted to see the picture Shawn would’ve made of him.

It was a remarkable night in so many ways, but most of all in this realization: As I watched Shawn talk to the guard, set up his camera, and take the picture, I was in awe. But when I got into my car and headed down Grand Avenue, back to USC, it hit me: I could do that. I don’t mean that I could be as good as Shawn is, or that I would interact with people in the same way (I couldn’t, even if I tried). But I could do that. I could approach strangers and take their pictures, and if I did it a lot, I think I could eventually do it well.

Prints and frames and portraits

I got the proofs from West Coast Imaging, and I’m pretty sure I’m going with the Crane Museo Silver Rag. The Hahnemühle FineArt Pearl is another serious possibility, and the Hahnemühle Photo Rag is close in line behind that. (The two Chromira prints on Fuji papers—the Fujichrome Supergloss and the Fujiflex Crystal Archive—weren’t right for me at all.) I’m generally a fan of matte papers, and I thought the Hahnemühle Photo Rag would’ve been my favorite, but there’s a texture to it that I find distracting. The two pearl papers are really nice—the Crane one is slightly creamier, so the whites aren’t as bright white as they are on the Hahnemühle, which is sort of the only question in my mind: Which do I prefer?

I haven’t gotten in touch with any framers yet. I have a list of a few places in L.A. I need to visit, not only to see what’s out there, but to get price quotes. I can’t afford to be any more in debt than I am right now, so I need to find someplace that’ll do a good job for as little money as possible. At least one place on my list is, I’m sure, beyond my budget. They make beautiful wood frames, though, with equally beautiful shipping crates to send your work in. For now, cardboard boxes and lots of bubble wrap is going to have to do.

Meanwhile, I had the opportuni