This week is a round up of newsstand covers addressing the topic of climate change in a variety of creative, graphic and portrait driven executions. Climate Week NYC is an annual event that takes place every year in New York City. Started in 2009 this has become a global movement with greater awareness largely driven by our youth. The summit takes place alongside the UN General Assembly and brings together international leaders from business, government and civil society to showcase global climate action (or inaction).
Who designed it?
The Promo was designed by my dear friend who’s been designing for me for about a decade now. His name is Nicolas D’Amico he is based in SLC, UT. https://www.designbydiamond.com He also made my logo and design identity for my website.
Tell me about the images?
The images were shot this time last year for a client of mine Nutrien Ag Solutions. The creative agency was Osborn-Barr https://osbornbarr.com
Creative Directors: Zach Arnold and Dan Brindley. Agency Producer: Tammy Cheatham. We shot these images over a series of 3 days in a very rural area of Kansas near the city of Garden City. On this shoot I had help from my go-to assistant Alex Igidbashian @alexigidbashian and my very talented drone operator Rudy Lehfeldt-Ehlinger @rudy.le
Rudy and Alex are key people in the creation of my AG work. Rudy flys an Alta 8 Free-fly drone up in the air with my Canon 5Dmk4 so I can capture the iconic agriculture aerials of combines working harvest. I love putting up full-frame or medium format cameras into the air so I can grab the best possible files for these aerials. This gives me the best latitude with the files to push these images in whatever direction needed to give them the look and feel I’m going for. Alex basically reads my mind and somehow always knows which lens I’m going to want next.
How many did you make?
I printed 500 of these promos.
How many times a year do you send out promos?
I have initiated a new business strategy this year and will now be sending out promos quarterly. Before this year I only sent them out when I felt like I had the time or bandwidth to do so. I worked with my Designer Nic and he created a years worth of Promos for me. I printed them all at the same time so they are here and ready to go each quarter.
Do you think printed promos are effective for marketing your work?
I am a firm believer that printed promos are an effective marketing tool. The way I see it is, yes many of these promos will likely end up in the recycling bin. But many don’t. I have talked with many creatives at agencies throughout the country and consistently I hear that they appreciate a well designed and thought out promo. Many file them away, many creatives have them pinned onto giant walls in their office and reference when they need to find a photographer to match the agencies creative. I like to try put myself out there as much as possible. How can you be hired for a job if you’re not constantly on the radar of agencies around the country and the world.
He’s originally an East Coaster, like me, and now works as the security guard at the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, where my “Party City is the Devil” show opens today.
Last week, while I was installing, Keith hung around a bit, and we got to talking. As the show took many hours to put together, over three days, it allowed for quite a bit of chatter.
In all honesty, when I first saw him, I did ask myself why he was the one protecting the joint. Not that he’s fat, old, or unimposing, (because he’s not,) but his look doesn’t scream dangerous either.
Keith has had an interesting life, filled with different phases, and confided he once spent years as the private chef for the CEO of Reebok.
Only after we’d gotten to know each other a bit, and he judged me cool, (I gather,) did he open up his jacket to show me his massive gun and even scarier knife.
Turns out, Keith knows some martial arts, but is a highly trained weapons specialist. A master marksman, he is quick off the draw, and is as familiar with handguns as shotguns and AR-15 rifles.
Yesterday, he showed me another knife, just as nasty, and a baton that can break bones faster than John Bolton is gonna get a tell-all book deal.
And he let me handle his Smith and Wesson .45 caliber hand cannon.
Truth time: it scared me shitless.
For most of us, guns, as objects, are terrifying. I don’t know how to use them, nor how to shoot, so to me, they emanate violence and misery.
I know they’re just a tool, (which Keith confirmed,) but man, are they unpleasant.
So you might be surprised to know I asked Keith to teach me how to shoot, and handle weapons properly. And he agreed.
Say what now?
Why would an artsy, hipster liberal want to know how to use a killing machine?
Because it was about as far out of my comfort zone as I could imagine going.
Over the years, I’ve come to dispense advice here, along with the art criticism, and doing things you find scary and difficult is one of the very best ways to grow as a human being. (And by extension, as an artist.)
That’s what it means, the phrase “get out of your comfort zone.” It’s about challenging yourself, and running towards the fear, and your weak spots, instead of away from them.
Another habit I think is undervalued, (or at least underutilized,) is knowing how to admit you’re wrong, and accept accountability and responsibility for your actions.
It may be the most Un-Trumpian thing a person can do, saying sorry and backtracking, but I believe it’s super-important.
Right now, I’m thinking of a particular incident that happened last April, when I was at the Photolucida festival in Portland. (We’re going to wrap up the series this and next week.)
It was on the last evening, at the closing party, when all the people from the festival were thrown together, artists and reviewers alike, and everyone was as worn down and low-functioning as they could be. (You try talking, looking, thinking and partying for 4 days straight.)
I wrote in a previous column that the photographers at this particular festival were too pushy and aggressive, for whatever reason, and that last night, people were approaching me left and right.
Someone even chastised me for removing my name tag, as if I’d broken the law.
I was grumpy, and spent, no question.
It took about 10 minutes to get from the front of the room to the back, and when I finally made it, Carol Isaak, a photographer I’ve since published here, approached me.
She asked, over the din, if I’d go outside with her for a private chat.
I was so tired, and burnt, that I was rude to her. I know I was.
“No, I said, I won’t go outside right now. But I will listen to you. Whatever you have to say, just say it here.”
Again, she implored me to go outside with her, and again I said no.
“Whatever you want to say there,” I grunted, “you can say here instead.”
I believe I mentioned in that last article that Carol is married to a Rabbi. I was courting some seriously bad Jewish karma by speaking to her like that.
So she looked me square in the eye, and took out a hearing aid. She held it up to my face, without a word, and watched me dangle on the hook like a dead hit man in a meat locker.
My face fell, I apologized profusely, and followed her to the front steps of the venue. (Sheepishly.)
As it happened, I’d asked Carol about the connection between her Buddhist-seeming India photographs, and her Jewish spirituality, and after a day or two of thinking about it, she had an answer for me. (She also accepted my apology graciously.)
Needless to say, I felt awful, but managed to salvage what I’d made of a potentially bad situation. (As a known good-guy, I really didn’t want people to think I’m an asshole.)
But now that we’re on the subject of Portland, it’s time to show the rest of the best work I saw. (This week and next week.) As usual, the artists are in no particular order, but as we have a lot to get through in the final two installments, I will be showing slightly smaller segments than I normally do.
Let’s get going!
Weldon Brewster is a successful commercial photographer based in Pasadena, who recently decided to focus more on his personal projects. He’s hardcore, for sure, as he sold his house and bought a new one with a studio, once he decided to commit.
Weldon is interested in Pictorialism, the style that was en vogue at the turn of the 20th C, before the group f.64 crew made it unfashionable in the 1920’s and 30’s. As such, the images he showed me of the California coast were intentionally soft and lush.
I liked them immediately, and later learned, (courtesy of Andy Adams,) that one of the images looked very much like a photograph on the cover of a famed Wynn Bullock book. So in our follow up, we discussed how one can stick with a project, and develop work more deeply, to move away from associations with things that have been done before.
Dawn Watson was one of several artists I met for a second time, as I’d reviewed one of her projects, (and published it here,) after the LACP Exposure portfolio review in 2017.
It was fascinating to see how it had evolved, as she clearly took some of my advice to heart, and it was strange to hear myself saying things that I’d clearly already said 2 years earlier. (Dawn and I both have good recall, I guess.)
Rather than showing the same work, though, we’re going to share a new, in-progress series she’s working on in the studio. The constructions, nature in an unnatural environment, are experimental, and very cool.
Marian Crostic, to lean into the theme, was also an artist I’d met at a previous LACP Exposure review. And she too had heard my critique, and then pushed herself much further. In particular, Marian, who lives on the West side of LA, and walks on the beach frequently, worked hard to imbue her imagery with more of a sense of Zen wonder.
They don’t need much of an explanation, (as you’ll soon see,) but are quite beautiful and lovely. No doubt you’ll be smitten, and wish that summer wasn’t 11.5 months away.
Cable Hoover is a fellow New Mexican, and was born and raised in Gallup. Anyone who’s driven through the West along I-40 might have passed through, and it presents as a dusty, hardcore Wild West town. (Not unlike Taos, but with less tourism, and no skiing.)
Rather, Gallup is in the Four Corners region, adjoining the Navajo Nation, and is known to be a properly tough town. These days, everyone likes to see “true” stories from inside a culture, rather than from without, and these images are about as raw as it gets.
Dynamite (and tragic) stuff.
Martha Ketterer, like Marian, is also smitten with the ocean. She presented a series of photographs made on the beach in Cabo, and explained a rather complicated technique she employs to create the panoramic effect.
I wasn’t sure the dividing lines made the pictures stronger, and told her so, but really, what’s not to like here?
Jesse Rieser was visiting from Arizona, and we had several friends and colleagues in common from the Phoenix photo crew. (Arizona, though I like to mock it as a place, does have a great history and tradition of photographic excellence.)
While he definitely presented me with my favorite single image, a young hipster woman wearing a unicorn hat and smoking a bowl, overall, I thought his series on Christmas in America was fucking awesome.
And now that it’s mid-September, Xmas is right around the corner, right?
Jean Sousa was one of several artists who showed headache work, as I previously mentioned. (At least I think I wrote about the phenomenon. After 5 months and six articles, it’s hard to be sure.)
They’re obviously blurry on purpose, via a lack of focus, and you’ll either love them or hate them. Personally, I’m working on some Op Art ideas myself, and didn’t love the headache these pictures induced, but still thought they were worth publishing for you.
Last, but certainly not least, we have Nate Gowdy, a documentary photographer/ photojournalist who’s spent a ton of time on the campaign trail. Given that I write about politics so often, I’m going to abstain from editorializing on the subject right here.
The work is properly excellent, and particularly relevant, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Nate is also working on something called “The American Superhero,” so be sure to check it out on his website.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
In America’s current climate of divisiveness and moral outrage, how does one respond with something better than a tweet? How do we stand up for the powerless? How might we reverence, honor, and dignify those who are often vilified and marginalized in 45’s America?
Perhaps it’s time to answer these questions with something other than words. In my own quiet way, these images are my response.
I spent several months listening to and learning from the friends depicted here. I had to ask myself: what do I, a hetero, cis-gender, middle-class, white male, have to say about transgender people, Muslim women, Latina farm workers, young black men, or Native Americans? The answer: that we are one. That each person has a rightful place as part of the beloved community. I wanted to show that love trumps divisiveness, apathy, race, gender, politics, class, ignorance, fear, and hate. That when we take the time to know one another, to listen and learn, we become more.
So we collaborated to create images that celebrate their history, identity, humanity, and courage through traditional symbolism. In spite of its religious undertones, iconography remains a valid way of speaking about that which is holy–that which we care deeply about, hold dear, consider beautiful and sacred. This type of language is deeply needed today.
This set of 5 large photo-encaustic panels together create one body of work. They are crafted of layers of wax and metal, wood and paper, ink and paint: many different elements that create a whole. E pluribus unum.
These people are my brother, sister, mother, father. And they glow from the inside out. As Michael Golz explains, “The subject of the icon is a person transfigured by…love.”
Each of these pieces is a 24×36″ photo-encaustic assemblage. They are composed of metal leaf, gold leaf, paint, ink, and paper, on a cradled 1.5″ wood panel. Each piece is unique, requiring many days to create.
Many thanks to the Pine Meadow Ranch Residency program for their part in bringing this project to life.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
Art Director: Miles English
Photo Editor: Susie Forman
Photographer:Alexis Berg (running imagery)
Heidi: The race course itself isn’t easy, how did you manage to shoot the athletes?
Alexis: The Barkley is a very unique race. Special to run, special to photograph. Laz, the fascinating organizer, wants to leave a mystery on the experience awaiting competitors outside the camp. What happens out there only concerns the 40 starters. It may sound strange, in the world of images that surround us, but it’s the only sporting event where it’s not allowed to go on the course to take pictures. The exceptions are minimal, barely 1% of the course. This leaves a lot of room for the imagination, and therefore, as photographer, you have to look for a different and creative way to tell the story.
What was some of the challenges you faced with this project? The Barkley takes place at the end of March, the week of the year when it rains the most in this part of Tennessee. The trees don’t yet have leaves and the park itself appears very austere.The light is often rather mediocre. There is a dramaturgy, but we are far from optimal conditions for taking action shots. The race lasts three days and the only way to stay in the mood is to sleep in your car, a few hours when you can. Nothing is very comfortable, but it’s part of the experience.
I know you shoot a lot ultra running, what made this project different?
The Barkley is a mysterious and unusual event. More fascinating than an ordinary race. The Barkley is a bit of a tale, and just being a spectator makes you a character of the story. Like a lot of photographer, I try to make deep pictures. Photos that are not consumed in a second. Photos that require a caption. At the 2017 Barkley, I made a photo that has been published a lot. We see a man lying on the ground, in a fetal position. His wife touches him and seems very affected. Around them, there is a little void and a dozen spectators, whose only feet and legs are visible. This is of course a photo a little aesthetic, that can be read directly. But, she hides a long story. This man’s name is Gary Robbins and he just failed the biggest challenge of his life, in the most cruel way possible, falling for 6 seconds after 60 hours of struggles. And this is just the concise version of the story. As a result of this photo, I made a 20 minute film to tell the full depth of the story.
https://www.alexisberg.com/labarkleysanspitifilm-zkh3
How much did you the course did you cover and did you have to run at all?
As I said, the Barkley remains a race that can not really be photographed. The highest point is accessible, in less than an hour’s walk. It is strictly forbidden to follow the runners. When I photograph an ultra, I run only downhill, to reach my car faster. I must say that I photograph with two big cameras and quite heavy lenses. You have to make the right choices to get to the right place at the right time. This requires a very precise study of the maps and the passage times.
What draw you to these types of events/ultra running?
I’m not a runner. I started by photographing ultra-running by accident, the chance to follow my brother on a race. It’s pretty strange to run twenty hours in the mountains. This strangeness, this distance that I maintain with this sport, I believe, feeds my photos. My relationship to images is so, they are not a mirror for myself, but rather a window to the outside. I live in Paris, but I never do a picture in Paris. But facing the otherness in front of what I don’t know, photo became my language. That’s how I started to photograph people running.
Did you always plan on doing a book out of this body of work for the magazine?
Yes. The Barkley is a unique race because almost no one can finish it. In 30 years, only 15 people managed to finish the 5 loops. Who are these 15 finishers? Some are a bit famous in the community, some are anonymous full of mysteries. All are legends. Last April, with a friend journalist, we found them all. And we met, interviewed and I photographed each of these men, who live all over the US. It was an exciting journey, because everyone is a pretty incredible person. The book will prove it.
Tell me about the images?
These photos were all made as part of a personal project this past spring at the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships in River Oaks, Texas. I was pretty determined to shoot here as I knew I wanted to shoot on red clay for color and textural reasons. I initially made a few editorial pitches focused on the event, all of which failed to gain enough traction. Fortunately, one of those editors was still willing to help me secure credentials to pursue the project on my own.
I spent every day at the tournament chasing light and photographing anything that caught the light nicely. Aside from the tennis, I was rather intrigued by the spectators as many of them seemed to be more worried about seeing and being seen or gossiping court-side than the event itself. Overall my goal was to come away with a set of images that made the viewer experience the beauty and uniqueness of this particular event.
How many did you make?
I had 100 printed.
How many times a year do you send out promos?
I don’t have a schedule set in stone at this time however it is certainly something I would like to do quarterly.
Do you think printed promos are effective for marketing your work?
I’m not sure. Obviously some people like to see printed photos while others don’t care, but I do think prints have the potential to be effective in a world where most email inboxes are overflowing with junk mail. Having said that, a friend from a particular Boston-based footwear company sent me an Instagram video of him opening my mailer, thumbing through a page or two and then walking it over to the recycling bin. I’d call that pretty decent engagement in the digital age ; )
A week ago exactly, I stood on my front porch as our Antidote event broke up, and I watched a newly formed community, people who hadn’t even known each other a few days before, split with sorrow, as if parting with family.
One student stayed a little longer, so I could set her up with a cool road trip around Southern Colorado.
Now, I’m the first to admit that our program, set in the hippie Mecca of Taos, NM, is rather progressive in the ways we teach creativity and open-mindedness.
Hell, I write about this every week for you guys, so I have no doubt you can imagine the ideas that get kicked around the breakfast table.
But a week ago, I stood there with Christina, discussing future possibilities for her art, when a red-tailed hawk began screeching loudly from the sky.
At first, I smiled and kept talking, but the hawk kept it up, so finally, I paused.
“Hey Christina, let’s go see what the hawk wants,” I said.
“Christina” photo courtesy of Hillary Johnson
So we did.
Immediately, I saw two in the sky, and began theorizing as to what they might mean for the two of us, symbolically.
Then, Christina saw a third bird, forming an upward-triangle-vortex in the deeply blue sky.
Her photographic art, both past and (potentially) future, revolves around her triplet daughters, who after some health scares are now successful young women, out in the world.
Three girls, three hawks.
The symbolism for both of us was unmissable.
Three birds.
Free.
Alive.
Glorious.
I looked at Christina and said, “Out here, on this farm, we choose to believe that the things like this can mean something. They are symbols, with power, as opposed to random events in the natural world. I know that can sound new-age, so feel free to think that’s crazy.”
But Christina lives in California, and was embedded in a very positive, life-affirming, artsy group for the weekend, so it was clear she saw those hawks in the sky, and her girls in her mind’s eye.
Photo courtesy of Hillary Johnson
In a normal year, that would have been one of the craziest moments I’ve had, fraught with metaphysical essence.
But it’s 2019, and many of you have been reading along, so you know it’s been one wild fucking ride.
Part 2. The sermon about San Francisco
I mentioned California just a few paragraphs up, and of course that’s where we’re headed today. But it won’t be a long, rambling visit, as we’ve had many of those.
I’ve tried to take you on the deep dive into contemporary New York this year, and New Jersey. Portland and London too.
That’s the East Coast, West Coast and Europe.
As to San Francisco, I don’t think I have it in me to drill into the core of the myriad problems.
It’s just too sad.
It’s easy to pile on San Francisco these days, but sometimes where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
I used to live in the city, from 1999-2002, back when booms were met with busts, and artists could still afford an apartment.
And I’ve reported on the growth and change here on APE since at least 2013. Year by year, we’ve discussed the rise in homelessness.
That’s what I called it at first.
Then, I reported on the rise of tent cities, and the sense of hopelessness that the problem could ever be solved, as income inequality grew to absurdist proportions.
Finally, we’ve settled on the term street class, which I wrote in last week’s book review, as the trend solidified into something normal. Something regular.
Something permanent to be tolerated.
Much as Trump’s America has given us kid jails, and ever-more-rampant spree killers, it’s also seen the final blow dropped on what was once a truly cool, vibrant, special American city.
Now it feels like one big tourist trap overlaid on a tech-bro landscape.
City Lights Bookstore
Part 3. Visiting a gallery in the old neighborhood
San Francisco is getting killed in the media, regularly, so it gives me no pleasure to write this. But as soon as we got to the rental car place, in Oakland, the nice Haitian woman who helped us swore that SF was so dangerous she didn’t go there anymore.
She even warned us off of the visit, if you can believe it.
But after leaving the airport only to land in Bay Area morning rush hour, with an 1.25 hour drive to go a few miles, (little did we know,) the only thing I was worried about was how long it would take to get my pupusas.
I’d promised the family some great Salvadoran food, in our old neighborhood, the Mission, and desperately hoped we could make it there before food crashes, or traffic, undermined us.
After a few close calls, in all the chaotic traffic, we made it, and stuffed our faces on masa-stuffed goodies, served with spicy salsa and a vinegary slaw.
La Santaneca de la Mission, right near Mission and 24th, is so fucking good. Try it, but make sure to bring cash, as they don’t take plastic. (Note that, Europeans.)
Thinking back, the meal was perhaps the highlight of the visit, as it resonated of the Central American immigrants who used to dominate the neighborhood, back in the day.
And then then we went on a short walk, and saw several local institutions in the midst of being replaced by gentrification. (Like the old school Locatelli Ravioli, which seems to have shut the day before we got there.)
I did a loop of the old haunts, and even Mission Street, which still looked the same, felt like a zombie. Somehow, I recognized the places, but the soul was gone.
That’s the best way I can describe it.
I split off from the family, and headed to Euqinom Gallery, where I was meant to hook up with Philip, an artist I’d met in Portland. We both wanted to see “Present Objects,” curated by Emily Lambert-Clements and Monique Deschaines, which featured 5 female artists who worked in very different ways.
But just before I got there, not 100 feet from the gallery, was a tent, sitting there, in the middle of the sidewalk.
By itself.
I stopped dead, but decided I would NOT take a picture for you, so I didn’t.
My heart sank.
The gallery is about 1/4 of a mile from where I used to live. My old home. The stomping grounds.
And now people are living in tents in the middle of the sidewalk.
I mentioned it to Monique, who said it happens constantly these days, as once residents call the police, the squatters still have 3-4 days before the cops come roust them.
Sometimes, Monique says, a few tents will join once one pops up, and they’re harder to move. She mentioned a story she’d heard about someone pouring water on a tent from above.
Again, this is normal now.
As to the exhibition, the work was strong overall, featuring a variety of processes, and fairly or not, my favorite were the paper-based wall sculptures by Julia Goodman. Totally textural and sumptuous, I was told the artist makes them with composites of old t-shirts, among other things.
There was also an installation of fake detective novels by Rachel Phillips that was clever, but not something over which I’d swoon. The other three projects were more photographic in nature, and featured a fairly disparate set of styles. (All of which I liked, for sure, but did not love.)
As we were wrapping up, I asked Monique if there was a theme to the entirely-female group, as it didn’t seem to be “about” feminism.
She told me the gallery will always have 2 female artist for every man, and then she turned the tables on me.
“You would never have said that, if it were five men in the show.”
“Yes, I would have,” I replied.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” she countered.
“You don’t know me very well,” I said. “It’s 2019. I absolutely would have noticed if it were five men, because that would have seemed out of step with the times. Not only that, I think a lot of people in the photo world would notice, after the last few years.”
Don’t you agree?
Part 4. Pier 24
We spent the night in a fancy hotel on the Embarcadero, a few blocks from Chinatown and the waterfront. In retrospect, (and having just watched “Warrior,” which is set in 19th C SF,) I guess that part of San Francisco, the Barbary Coast, has been dodgy for a long time.
Hotel View, on the EmbarcaderoThe Transamerica Building, from the Financial DistrictThe Ferry Building at night
But while I had seen a lot of hard-core poverty in the Tenderloin, over the years, what I witnessed by the Bay, in late July, was several degrees worse.
I knew better than to take my kids out after dark, but Jessie and I took the briefest of walks to the Ferry Building, and almost got mugged once or twice.
No exaggeration.
The collection of desperate, down-on-their-heels people would have been darkly mesmerizing, if the natural human instinct wasn’t to get back to safe harbor as quickly as possible.
In order to avoid an alley, Jessie asked that we take Market Street, and in only one block, there was a woman wailing for anyone to help her move her wheelchair, several people sprawled out on the ground, and I swear it felt like we’d descended into Hell.
I know that stories like this fit Trump’s narrative that America’s cities are in bad shape, but as I’ve reported constantly over the last year, I don’t believe that’s the case.
Desirable cities are booming, but the income inequality wave is drowning more and more people each year.
It’s a horrible set-up, I know, but part of why we stayed near the Ferry Building was that we wanted to visit Pier 24, the very excellent, free photo museum/gallery that we’ve profiled here several times before.
I’m going to avoid editorializing right now, and state only that the museum, as I’ve previously reported, houses the collection of the Pilara Foundation, which runs the space.
They allow a very limited number of people inside, and the space is enormous, so they’ve created an excellent, boutique experience for viewing some truly exceptional contemporary and vintage photography.
It’s owned by a very wealthy patron, and in the past has featured an exhibition ABOUT the collector class.
The 1%.
But the wealth is put to the benefit of the public. (If you know about it, and can reserve a space online.)
The people who work there, though, are regular folks like us. They’re neither rich, nor Upper Class.
So when I took my family, (again, for free,) we walked along the waterfront, as people slept on the sidewalk, or leaning up against the sides of buildings.
The tourists were everywhere, creating side-walk passing lanes I hadn’t seen outside of New York.
Inside, Pier 24 was celebrating its 10th Anniversary, and the first space, which was filled with the Sugimoto wax royals, set the scene nicely.
As I said, the place is sprawling, with so many prints by so many famous names. Amidst all the great work, one mini-gallery felt so subversive, I did a double-take.
There, together, were a set of original Dorothea Lange images, and as she was a Bay Area photographer, they packed an extra punch.
BOOM!
The past few years, as I tried to explain to people what this new street class looked like, I would say, “It’s like those photographs from the Great Depression. It’s happening again.”
And there they were.
In my mind, I imagined some of them were hung on walls shared with the exterior. (It’s possible.)
Maybe, some nights, while the photos hung on the inside of the walls, sad, lonely humans slept on the other side.
(Whether it happens literally or not, it happens metaphorically every day.)
Major Kudos to curators Christopher McCall and Allie Haeusslein for sharing that gallery in the middle of a city in crisis.
Three photos by Adou
There was plenty of other great work on display, including Adou, a Chinese artist I’d never heard of before, but only one thing knocked me on my heels.
And it takes us back to today’s beginning.
Symbolism.
Meaning.
Synchronicity.
Because one little gallery was filled with vintage Robert Adams images, which were clearly from Colorado. (His old stomping ground.)
The looked so familiar, but I was sure I hadn’t seen them before.
My brain was whirring, one more mystery in a crazy year, when I saw it. Things clicked.
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
“I think for me this project started in the back of my head a long time ago. Being a young black boy with no pops at home you become a stereotype. No father son day for you… no pops at your football games cheering you on. Then the questions of “is your dad still alive” always were around.
When you are young you only believe what you see and to me, at that time (5-18 years of age).
I didn’t see black fathers… mainly because mine wasn’t around. Fortunately like people say… the older you get the wiser you get. I’ve learned that stereotypes aren’t always true and that even our government perpetuated most of the so-called absent black father myth (welfare, Vietnam and drugs). This project shows that black fathers are present in droves and are here for our youth just as abundantly as any other ethnicity or race.”
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
I did run into a couple of obstacles with this mailer. Moo offers a ‘finish’ option; which turns out to be really beautiful and velvety. However, my background color was black and so it took a bit of trial and error to find the right pen that would be visible and also write smoothly on the surface. I made a mistake with the last mailer and got these paint pens which didn’t work well. This time, I used metallic Sharpies.
The other obstacle I ran into is that MOO.com requires all files to be uploaded in CMYK. For some images, it’s not a huge deal to color correct on my own. However, for this one, I couldn’t get the colors to look true to the original- the blues practically disappeared in CMYK. So, I had to hire a Retoucher to do the job.
Who designed it?
I did.
Tell me about the images?
The images of Cardi B that I used for this promo were taken at this year’s Summer Jam in NJ for HOT97/Emmis Comm.
How many did you make?
250
How many times a year do you send out promos?
3-4 times a year. I try to get one out a quarter.
Do you think printed promos are effective for marketing your work?
To be honest, I’m not sure. I haven’t had anyone reach out to me directly after receiving any of my promos. I enjoy the process of designing them, finding the right stamps and envelopes, receiving them, packing them, and taking them to the post office. I put a lot of thought and care into the process. I did hear from a colleague of mine that he saw this promo at his agent’s office, so that was pretty cool. My philosophy is that you never know who’s going to see it and what that might inspire. It’s a rather minor expense that could lead to a major opportunity.
I was six years old when Ronald Reagan was elected.
And 10 when he got another four years.
Ironically, it wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned my parents were staunch Democrats. For whatever reason, they didn’t discuss politics much at the dinner table, and in a pre-Internet era, it was hard to know as much about the issues as we do now.
These days, my son watches Hassan Minaj and John Oliver on Youtube for his news, and recently opined about Boris Johnson with one of our Antidote students.
He’s 11.
But back then, when Reagan wiped the floor with Walter Mondale in ’84, winning 49 states, I assumed everyone liked Reagan, including my parents.
I was no Alex P. Keaton, (though my Mom did dress me like him occasionally,) but as a 10 year old, a 49-1 victory looked pretty convincing.
Nancy Reagan was up on TV all the time saying “Drugs Are Bad,” so I assumed she was telling the truth. (But maybe that’s another story for a different day.)
What I’d rather emphasize is that in 2019, imagining America as that united on ANYTHING, much less a presidential election, seems quaint, quixotic and antiquated. (Three q words. Not bad.)
How could our country have ever agreed to that degree?
It’s gargantuan, and diverse in its local cultures, landscapes, and populations.
Iowa is to Hawaii as Poland is to the Philippines.
Catch my drift?
This morning, while I’m barely recovered from my crazy August, my mind drifted to the millions of miles of highways that knit this massive country together.
As the future is uncertain, I wonder if some of these places, different in so many ways, will ever again cohere around anything beyond a shared language and currency?
Is there hope for us?
Will we ever be one country again, like when everyone watched “The Dukes of Hazzard” or “Fantasy Island” on Network Television on their small cathode ray tube monitors?
I remember being at Pine Forest summer camp in 1984, chanting “USA, USA, USA” in the dining hall on July 4th with everyone, in unison, and there was no irony in sight. Patriotism was something regular people believed in, not just Red State Republicans.
Why am I feeling so nostalgic for times gone by today?
Or perhaps wistful about the majesty of America?
I’m glad you asked.
I felt like looking at a photo book, but didn’t want to leave the Portland series behind, so I picked up “Somewhere Along the Line,” by Joshua Dudley Greer, published by Kehrer Verlag in Germany.
Alexa Becker, a friend and Kehrer Verlag representative, gave me a copy of this book at the photolucida Blue Sky photo book night I mentioned in last week’s column.
She had it specifically set aside, assuming I’d like it. (As word of my taste might have gotten out over the last 8 years, she was spot on.)
I was smitten.
That a German publisher decided to run with such an exhaustive, almost categorical view of the American “on the road” landscape, along our highway system, is not surprising, really.
Not if you’ve heard of the popularity of American road trips among Europeans in the past, and now tourists from all over the world.
(The German filmmaker Wim Wenders made “Paris, Texas,” for heaven’s sake, and that may be the best American on-the-road movie ever made.)
The drawn line on the book’s cover first made me think of a county line, or state line, or even the Mason Dixon line.
But after the first few titled photographs jump from Arizona to Maine, Alabama to Alaska, you get the sense this book means business, and likely presents the title metaphorically. Photo geeks will recognize, in the sharpness and clarity, the likely use of large format cameras.
And probably film. (The end notes confirm.)
Perhaps its inevitable that Red and Blue State Americans hate each other more than they do our outward enemies.
60% of the country roots for Trump to fail, so he can be ousted before he goes for the lifetime Presidency he’s always joking about.
And Republicans hated Obama just as much.
But for me, a book like this, even with its sad photos and clear depiction of America’s tragic contemporary street class, somehow feels a bit optimistic.
The book, through the artist’s many miles, unites the country.
Literally.
He went all over, and recorded everything as one in this book.
I’m not being hokey.
It’s true.
Here is the South and the North.
The West and the East.
And it’s awesome.
Fuck all the haters.
America may be a declining empire, but we’re still cool as hell.
Bottom line: Elegiac, razor sharp look at all of America
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find.
NOTE: if you have a personal project that feature people in cities doing good for others in their city, please send them to suzanne@suzannesease.com for consideration. Thanks!
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
Heidi: The assignment was to photograph this beauty project with a documentary approach, did you find that difficult? Vikas: I agree that the documentary approach is something that lent itself naturally to this story, considering the faces we were photographing weren’t your typical fashion/beauty models. So no, it wasn’t difficult at all.
How did you combine your documentary work with your portraits previously? Were they lit or was it all natural light? I think my documentary aesthetic is something that seeps into almost everything I photograph, whether its an editorial portrait, a fashion story or a commercial campaign, the hope always is to visually blur the lines between the two. When it comes to the lighting, I don’t usually follow a set technique, so some of my portraits are natural light and some artificially lit, depending on what the mood and space calls for. Although, over the years I’ve tried to simplify the technical and lighting part of it as much as possible so that I can concentrate on the person in front of me.
Was it difficult to get that feel in the studio, it’s a different energy. Getting a documentary feel in the studio wasn’t difficult at all, as I just follow my instincts and react to the face in front of me.
Usually before a shoot I always have an elaborate plan of action, which more often than not goes out of the window once I walk onto the set and meet the model, because both the model and the space posses a certain energy that is always important to be receptive to and harness in order to create something that’s greater than the sum of its parts, but on off days when I don’t feel that energy, I always have my initial plan of action as a back up.
What did you enjoy the most about shooting this portrait project? The most enjoyable thing about shooting this project were the models, to begin with, as each one had a unique face and was a unique character which made it extremely exciting, And also, of course, the team itself, everyone working in sync and motivated towards a collective vision, which is one of the most important things you need to create great images and to make shoots effortless.
Who printed it?
Ex Why Zed in the UK. I’ve used them a few times in the past. I like them.
Who designed it?
I did.
Tell me about the images?
This is a series I’ve been working on for a while. It’s a visual study of the motifs of of construction. The title, Esthetique Chantier, is French for Building site aesthetics.
I’m interested in the temporary/permanent nature of building sites: They change all the time so it calls for documentation. Even though they are generally perceived as short term, they are also a permanent feature of large cities, always and everywhere around us. Both my father and sister are architects so there is a family interest.
I started taking pictures of buildings and construction sites from the street. I wanted to get access to some sites but this took a while. I contacted developers and building firms. The architects I knew didn’t have anything interesting in the building phase at the time. My sister put me in touch with some people and I got to photograph a couple of great projects. These discussions for access meant I was showing the work to a lot of various people, it was good networking.
How many did you make?
150. I use it as a promo piece and send it to prospects but it’s also a photo book in it’s own right and is sold in a few bookshops in London and Paris.
How many times a year do you send out promos?
Twice on average. I don’t do big campaigns. Generally personalised postcards. I have been doing a book or zine every year/18 month. Each has been used as promo as well as sold in a few bookshops.
Do you think printed promos are effective for marketing your work?
I think so. It’s definitely more memorable than emails or galleries on websites. I think people look at printed work in a different way than on screens.
Denver, New York, the Jersey Shore, Albuquerque, Portland, London, San Francisco, and Monterey so far, with Philly and Chicago up next.
Just writing that, no wonder I’m so tired.
Antidote starts up again tomorrow, then my daughter turns 7 a few days later, and I hang an art show the next week.
It’s easy to give in to negative thoughts, when the exhaustion sets in, I admit.
And after being in Peak-Fitness-Shape back in June and early July, now I’ve got so many niggles and out-of-whack muscles, I feel like I just went two rounds with Mike Tyson.
(Of course in reality I’d barely last 3 seconds…)
I’ve been whining and moaning, feeling sorry for myself because I’m wiped out. I’m even writing it here, two weeks in a row.
But…
Yes, there’s a but…
Just yesterday, separately, my wife and I came to the same conclusion. The negative thoughts follow exhaustion, true, and we even have a term for it: tired brain.
You can battle it, with exercise and sleep and rest, but at least one of those is always hard to come by for us, this time of year.
You can also fight it with a mental re-frame, which is what Jessie and I realized yesterday.
My family is healthy, our retreat is thriving, I’m super-lucky to have the chance to show my work on the walls of the Harwood Museum of Art, and in a new book.
And here I am complaining.
So right now, I’m sitting on the couch, typing on a computer, and I’ve got a smile on my face.
I’m doing it on purpose, sure, but it works. Smiling.
It’s easy, in 2019, the era of Trump and Climate Change, to succumb to a near-permanent hysteria. Social media, traditional media, and even hanging around the wrong people can lead us to believe the end of the world is imminent.
If we don’t fix Climate Change in the next 6 years, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE.
DIE, DID YOU HEAR ME?
DIE!!!!!
That’s the level of discourse these days.
No wonder everyone is so fucking stressed all the time.
(Me included.)
One of my favorite things about doing Antidote, and attending all the festivals I do, is that when creative people get together in one place, ideas happen.
Every time.
You can’t predict what will come of it, but you’re guaranteed something will.
2019 is a tricky time, so if you have any additional opportunity to get out there and hang out with your favorite people, or meet new ones, get it done.
I know I had fun in Portland, and even though the early spring seems a long time ago, I’ve got a good memory, and I take notes too.
So why don’t we check out some more of The Best Work I saw at the Photolucida festival in Portland earlier this year.
Jennifer Bucheit, from Wisconsin, showed me photographs that were printed on packaging, which feels of the moment.
She recycles the value of worthless things by incorporating them into art.
I think it’s important that art pieces like these have a strong connection between the object and the image, and I could maybe quibble here or there, but really, this is a cool project.
These jpegs show front and back, obviously, but IRL you can’t see them simultaneously. It makes the digital experience inherently different from the real.
Sunjoo Lee, from Seoul, Korea, had some of my favorite work. (If I’m allowed to say such things.) It’s just so up my alley.
Zen. Spare. Beautiful. Haunting. Quiet. Austere. (But not in a bad way.)
It feels silly to stay too much about these, though I should clarify that the subtle nature makes the prints a different thing than the digital experience.
Do I sense a trend?
Yes I do.
Jody Ake, whom I hadn’t seen at a portfolio review since 2009, was at the festival showing work, as he lives in the area, and had a new project.
I knew Jody back then, when he was making wet plate portraits of people, and there wasn’t much work like that then. Now, it’s all over the place, so perhaps he was ahead of his time.
(Maybe he still is, as Jody owns a marijuana edible company.)
His new work features analog, old school images made of computer-generated landscapes in video games. These scenes, all ones and zeroes, were made for and of color, so stripping that back makes them eerie indeed.
Quinn Russell Brown, based in Seattle, had some pictures made of digital equipment from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s personal collection, which he considers a visual obituary to the deceased mogul. (I swear, I didn’t plan this theme today. It just happened.)
The images were made at Paul Allen’s personal museum, and are super-cool. Pictorially, they’re very different than everything else today, even if they fit with the others, thematically.
The color and design elements are fantastic. Great stuff.
Lori Pond and I had a difficult conversation, at first, because I really didn’t like some of what she she showed me. I was nice about it, of course, but art is subjective, and it was not to my taste.
But we kept calm, and she had many other things to show me, including this really cool group of pictures, which marries text and imagery so well.
Like Jennifer’s work, it’s of the moment, with museums around the world having to reckon with the Colonialist past that brought in all their best loot.
Sage Brown, who’s based in Portland, had pictures made locally that reminded him of the vibe in his home state of Virginia. (He grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains.)
We discussed that there is something of a trope, with pictures like this, especially in Portland, with the whole Portland-street-dude phenomenon.
That said, I like these pictures a lot.
They feel lived in, real, and authentic, and lacking in pretension in any way. They’re well constructed, and use the color palette to communicate the sadness.
We’ll finish with Soraya Zaman, whose Daylight book, “American Boys,” I saw at Blue Sky Gallery during the publisher’s night.
People lined up outside to get in, by the way, and I saw a ton of books being sold. (Good things happen when people get together.)
As to the images, I remember telling Soraya that they were way too edgy for the NYT Lens blog. (It was still going at the time.)
She asked me why and I said, “That’s their taste, not mine. I think they’re badass, and I’d publish them in a heartbeat on A Photo Editor.”
The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
Last year Phil Johnson at @agencypja reached out to ask if I’d be interested in working on a pro-bono project for College Bound Dorchester, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing systemic, generational urban poverty and violence by helping formerly gang-involved individuals go to college and start a new life. I had the honor of meeting many of these students and capturing their resilience as part of College Bound’s “Uncornered Photo Documentary” project. The project reveals the power of choosing something different and the universal experience of what it means to be Uncornered, whether you’re a powerful public figure, an athlete, a business leader, a celebrity or gang involved.
Now through August 25, my portraits and the stories of these students and many of Boston’s prominent public figures, including Mayor Marty Walsh, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, State Street’s Chief Diversity Officer Paul Francisco, Emmy-winning journalist Andrea Kremer, and Boston Police Commissioner William Gross, to name a few, will be on display at the Boston Common.
WHERE: Boston Common, adjacent to the Little League Field. Enter through the Charles Street entrance, midway between the corners of Boylston St. and Beacon St.
WHO: Photographer John Huet donated his time to photograph more than two dozen people including the following public figures:
Martin J. Walsh, Mayor of Boston
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, (D) Massachusetts
William Gross, Boston Police Commissioner
Steven Tompkins, Sherriff Suffolk County
Andrea Kremer, NFL Hall of Fame sports broadcaster
Miceal Chamberlain, Massachusetts President of Bank of America
Linda Dorcena Forry, Vice President of Diversity, Inclusion and Community Relations, Suffolk Construction
Jim Rooney, President and CEO Boston Chamber of Commerce
Paul Francisco, Chief Diversity Officer, State Street Corporation.
Karen Kaplan, Hill Holiday Chair and CEO
Callie Crossley, WGBH Host
Claude Dielna, Portland Timbers
Photographs of several Boston Uncornered students, staff and leaders will also be part of the exhibit:
Mark Culliton, College Bound Dorchester CEO
Michelle Caldeira, College Bound Dorchester Senior Vice President
Conan Harris, College Bound Dorchester Vice President of Policy and External Affairs
Raul Morales, Boston Uncornered student
Irvin Woods, Boston Uncornered student
Paul Burns, Boston Uncornered student
Alex Diaz, Boston Uncornered student
Kismauri Pena, Boston Uncornered student
Brittany Baldwin, Boston Uncornered student
Quaknesha Garvin Johnson, College Bound Dorchester
Elias Perea, College Readiness Advisor
Will Dunn, College Readiness Advisor
Francisco DePina, College Readiness Advisor
Luis Rodrigues, College Readiness Advisor
Lealah Fulton, College Bound Dorchester staff
WHY: The journey Boston Uncornered students make from the corner to college has the power to transform Boston, where the one percent of young people (those who are gang involved) occupy the five percent of city’s street corners where nearly 75 percent of the city’s shootings take place. Those with the charisma, influence and ingenuity necessary to form and run gangs are natural leaders. They know how to get others to follow. Boston Uncornered is turning these leaders of gangs into respected members of the city who will lead others toward education and well-paying jobs rather than lives of crime.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease. Instagram
Success is more than a matter of your talent. It’s also a matter of doing a better job presenting it. And that is what I do with decades of agency and in-house experience.
Nine photojournalist were featured in the award winning book Witness/Kashmir 1986-2016. A book that spans thirty turbulent years that have shaped Kashmir. As many know Kashmir, also knows as “Paradise on Earth” was under a clamp down for the past 14 days. No mobile phone, no internet and many land lines are just now being restored. This book designed by Itu Chaudhuri Design was meant to reflect a casefile, a collection and evidence during those three decades.
Mark Hanauer who had spend time in Kashmir shooting Huemn stories which is an ongoing project with the brand. in 2018 also photographed several of the photojournalists that contributed to this book. Despite Kashmir being on clamp down, today we are sharing images from his trip that remind us of this paradise.
Makhdoom Sahib, a shrine at the top of a hill was extraordinary. Climbed many steps to the entrance. We met a holy man, he smiled at me, took my hand, gave me a blessing and two almonds. I was taken by his warmth and kindness. I still have the almonds, they always remind me of that moment. In the shrine only men are allowed into the inner chamber, the women pray just outside.
“I recall exiting the airport after arriving in Srinagar. The moment we stepped outside, I was hit with a very bright, blue sky, a number of heavily armed soldiers making their presence known, barbed wire and and a fighter jet flying menacingly low overhead. Driving toward Srinigar, I was surprised how different the architecture was to that of anywhere else I had been in India. Many Swiss chalet type structures in the foothills of the Himalayas, very surprising. We arrived in Sriningar and quickly met a few of the people that we were going to work with. I felt welcomed by them and everyone that I met in Srinagar. We drove to a small village to photograph a girl who at the age of 14 was peering out of her window and was shot in the face with rubber pellets by government security, rendering her blind and disfigured. When we met her, she was 16 and had just passed her 10th grade exam and was going on to Delhi Public School, a top school in Srinagar.
Parveena Ahanger, the ‘Iron Lady of Kashmir’ Her son ‘disappeared’ along with many other Kashmiri’s. A lawyer, she started the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, to search for those who are missing. The names behind her in the photo are all missing persons. She has won numerous awards for her human rights work.
Hokasir Reserve just to the northwest of Srinagar and the longest rifle ever! For shooting birds.
Dal Lake. Urban lake in Srinagar, stunning place, 3500 or so houseboats on the lake as rentals. Tourism is normally huge here.
Who printed it?
I printed with PIKTO based in Toronto, Canada.
Who designed it?
My rep and photo consultant Monashee did the image selection, layout and pagination – https://monashee.org/
Tell me about the images?
The book was created around the concept of “summer”. Given the time of year and that one of my ideal clients is swimwear, we wanted to showcase this through imagery and capture the dreamy feeling of summer. The packaging was chosen to echo this feeling with a reflective and shiny blue bubble mailer to elicit the feeling of diving into a pool, having it open onto the cover of the woman in a pool.
How many did you make?
I made 30 and sent them to a very targeted and specific sector of my list. It was meant to be special and tailored to them.
How many times a year do you send out promos?
This is the second promo I’ve sent out this year. I’m planning on sending one more this year, making it three total.
Do you think printed promos are effective for marketing your work?
I do. I think it’s important to show printed work to really showcase a theme or body of work. It’s also important to me to create an experience for the person receiving it. I think it helps guide them in how I want them to experience my work – that’s my favourite part.
But I’m always honest, and keep you apprised, so the issue is that I’m super-exhausted.
Good things, like bad things, sometimes come in threes, and we wrapped our first session of Antidote this week, I’ve got a big museum solo show coming up next month, and we’re working on my first book as well.
I’m as cooked as a lobster after an hour in the pot.
But deadlines are not forgiving, and Friday looms just ahead.
So I tried everything I knew to boost my creativity.
I drank some coffee.
Did some stretching.
Ate some sweets.
And then I went for a walk. (The best trick of all.)
Out there, in the fresh air, with the sun on my face, I remembered that we can’t force our creativity.
It doesn’t work.
With this weekly column, 8 years old next month, I’d say I’m an expert in keeping the creative juices in regular, working order.
No column, no job.
No job, no money.
And if I’ve learned anything, it’s that the creativity is the boss, and we’re the vessel.
The worker bee.
I often tell my students we don’t have an art boss, but as I sit here writing, on this day when my creativity is so battered, I realize that’s not entirely true.
The creative energy, or the force that makes it, is really in charge here.
If you want to tap into it, long term, you have to nurture it, and respect it.
That’s why I went for that walk, knowing it was my best chance of communing with the writing gods.
And idea would come, I hoped, as I couldn’t motivate to revisit London, or Portland, and the first two books I looked at weren’t right either.
London, 2019
Out there, in the sun and the breeze, I thought of how instinctual creativity really is.
So much comes from the subconscious, or through happenstance and coincidence we take to “mean something.”
We imbue things or experiences with heft, believing that certain objects, places, or days, are just THAT MUCH MORE SPECIAL than everything else.
As photographers, we believe that some things can step out of time.
Out there, on my walk up the hill, I remembered the moment, in July of 2016, as my family and I spent a little vacation on California’s Central Coast.
My wife’s family live in/on the Monterey Peninsula, so I’ve visited many times, and think it’s about as ideal a California lifestyle as I have yet seen.
Public park, Monterey
I’ll write a cultural-critique-travel-piece about California sometime soon.
I promise.
But for today’s purposes, we’re going to focus on the drop dead beauty, and the impossibly lovely feeling of the ocean moisture on your skin, in the air, no matter where you are.
Back in 2016, we were in Carmel, headed South to Jessie’s Aunt’s place in Big Sur, and the traffic, now famous, was about to REALLY get going, when I saw a sign for a historic Mission.
I wanted to pull over.
Jessie and the kids were fried, so they tried to veto it.
“Five minutes,” I said.
“Five minutes,” she growled.
My daughter, who would have been three, came in with me, while the other two stayed in the car.
Maybe because it was a wedding, the courtyard was open, and we walked right in.
A fancy photo shoot was going on, and people seemed happy. I felt a pull into the courtyard, and then further still into the limestone church.
It was an energy I can’t describe, but it said, “Things of incredible weight happened here. This place matters. It is beautiful, so very beautiful, but it is also important.”
I had five minutes, god dammit, and I marched into the chapel, and peeked around.
It felt like I’d stepped back in time.
Like I was in Zorro’s California of the late 18th or early 19th Century.
I felt like Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones were going to leap out from an alcove and challenge me to a duel.
“Señor, you did not pay the entrance fee. You have offended me, and I challenge you to the death.”
“I’m sorry, Antonio Banderas. I didn’t know there was an entrance fee. The gate was open. I only have five minutes. You really were great as Zorro. Can I go now?”
I was sure there was something special about the Mission, and when I saw the name Junipero Serra, and what appeared to be his grave, or tomb, it burned into my brain.
Look this man up.
Come back to this place.
So I got in the car, and told Jessie, “I’m going to figure out what the hell is so important about this church. And we’re going to come back as soon as we can.”
As it happened, there was a big, deadly accident on Highway 1, maybe five minutes down the road, in the direction we were headed.
Did the ghost of Junipero Serra save my family’s life?
I don’t know.
I don’t think I’m that openminded yet, even though I did once write here, in this column, about talking to Garry Shandling’s ghost through a medium via a Subaru’s bluetooth.
When I got home, I hit up Wikipedia first, and then read a biography on Junipero Serra that I purchased for my Kindle.
I read it in stages, and admittedly, this was an obsession from 3 years ago.
But the short version is that Junipero Serra, a Franciscan monk from Majorca, was an incredibly powerful, and seemingly power hungry dude.
He used to whip and flagellate himself, and walked around with an open wound on his leg, and also, he was a witch hunter for the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico.
It it undisputed that he colonized voraciously for the Catholic Church and Spanish Empire in the New World, and essentially enslaved native people when he ran things for the religious wing of Colonialism’s power.
Serra, who was recently Sainted, badly wanted to colonize California, as there were only rudimentary Jesuit missions in Baja California, and nothing but the native people up above.
After machinations, the Jesuits were removed from power, kicked out of Baja California entirely, and Serra was given license to take Alta California, with military guards for his relatively small operation.
This man, whose tomb I discovered, was the Religious Conquistador of California.
The boss of bosses.
Junipero Serra
His first mission was at San Diego, just as a beachhead, but the next, and the most important, was at Monterey and Carmel.
The 18th Century power center would be the Monterey Bay, with its proximity to fertile lands, and the abundance of the sea.
San Francisco would become bigger and more important after the gold rush in the late 1840’s, and of course Los Angeles would be the 20th Century mega-city of them all.
(Running on cars and optimism.)
But it’s in Monterey and Carmel that you can feel the 18th Century vibe, and see the best, elegant beauty of that era of Spanish Colonial art and architecture in North America.
So when my family and I were in Monterey late last month, we went back to the Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, in Carmel, and I paid the $9 entrance fee, which as a journalist I rarely do.
It was so, so worth it.
I know it’s silly to say that, as its a church, not a museum, but in this case there’s little difference.
The Carmel Mission was finished in 1797, rebuilt over the years, and recently underwent a major renovation, so it’s certainly looking its best these days.
I told my friend Ed about the hour we spent there, as a family, and the way my wife and two children were equally seduced.
The gardens, the fountains, the bougevvilla, the tall trees.
“Be careful,” he said.
“That’s how they hook you. Ever since Junipero Serra was out there making converts and crushing skulls. They know what they’re doing, the Catholic Church.”
Is it true? Were they using beauty, the limestone, the paintings, the history, to whitewash the original sin of Colonialism?
I guess, on some level, they were. It’s like a mini version of going to the Vatican, instead of the Prado.
It’s why my references, as an artist and occasional art historian, go to Madrid, or even Rome.
Junipero Serra lived at the Mission, and is buried there. Whether you’re a fan, or think he was a character from a horror film, either way, this was seismic ground.
I knew that something important happened there, back in 2016.
My gut was screaming, and in this case, it was totally right. The history of California ran through the walls, and by trusting my creative instincts, I had the most wondrous experience three years later.
(I even made a little promo video for you guys below. My first time in front of the camera)
My wife, kids and I were all entranced, so as a place to visit, I’d say this spot comes highly recommended.
Everyone else staying at our motel in Monterey was from Europe, or another continent, so this advice applies to all of you.
Next time you’re in the area, on your way to photograph like Weston at Point Lobos, stop in at the Carmel Mission.
