Category: Life

I’ve been shooting at one of the homeless shelters and giving prints to the people I photograph. I have trouble seeing fancy new houses and office complexes being built when these people have no homes at all.

He told me god gave him the Turkey Feather as a gift. He also told me that the land we were on, downtown Minneapolis, belonged to the Indians, therefore him, and that I was there because he let me. I told him I understood and thanked him.

Shot today.

Blue Wall

Processing photos from homeless shelter. photo mechanic, iview, photoshop. I see the irony.

Lake of The Isles, Minneapolis.

Digital Kodachrome?

Catalog No. 100529053

The May Day Parade on May 2 had everything in it.

Catalog No. 100502170

Much has happened in the last three weeks, since I said I would post every day.  First, I have been posting on Facebook. Second, I’ve had communication from three of my most trusted critics/advisers to the effect that my “people photography” is stronger than my “landscape photography.”  I have heard that before and was, in fact, coming to the same conclusion, myself.  This doesn’t mean I’m abandoning all my color work or all my cultural landscape work, but I will be concentrating much more substantially on people and black & white.  It feels good to be home.  Third, home is getting a jolt – my closest friend is moving away.

Back in 2000, when I was on my way to Pine Ridge to start work on a photo project, I was advised to take tobacco as gifts, the rationale being that any member of the tribe who accepted such a gift would then feel obliged to do me a favor.  It was a way of bonding.

Tonight, while attending my first meeting of a camera club in Minneapolis, I got to meet this man.

Sean Higgins is an impassioned photographer who is also somewhat of a loose cannon.  According to his introduction by noted photographer, Tom Arndt, Sean started shooting professionally in Ireland at age 16 and has been shooting ever since.  He joined the military as a war photography so that he could learn to shoot in conflict situations.  Sean told us that he worked for Nat Geo for six months before getting fired and that he joined Magnum for another six months but quit for personal reasons.

According to Sean he has been working on assignment for years for Paris Match and Stern.  Several years ago he was beat up so badly while shooting in Kosovo (I think), that he ended up with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Epilepsy, and a myriad of other life changing ailments.

Earlier this month he found himself on the Gaza Strip after the Israelis closed it to journalists.  When they tried to arrest him to make him leave, he started fighting, smashed his camera over one of the soldiers’ heads and woke up 4 days later in a hospital.  Some of his photographer buddies paid his way back to Minnesota where he has family.  Paris Match, for whom he was shooting, is paying all his medical expenses and paying for him to have live in nursing care.

He told me most of this during two trips outside to smoke.  Part of the damage to his person was to his brain.  One of the effects is that he can’t sit still, so outside it was.  I can relate to the brain problems, having experienced similar damage from past experiences.

After getting off the elevator to come back to the meeting, we met up with a young ROTC man who wanted to ask his advice about being a war photographer.  Sean made a major point that working on assignment for a major international magazine was not romantic.

I will be getting together with Sean in the next few weeks, and we have discussed working together on my project with the African refugees.  It will give him something constructive to do and provide me with valuable insight. I hope to learn as much as possible from him .  Beyond that, all I know is that Sean has a long row to hoe, and I hope I can be of some small assistance.

       

I’ve been intending to keep my promise and post something “fatter” since the last post in June, but here it is August. I’ve been busy but not in the way I planned. About six weeks ago I found out that Blurb was hosting a book contest to be judged by Darius Himes, the owner/editor of the new publishing house, Radius Books. Not having any plans to make a book just yet, I still managed to pull together a cohesive 80 page book of 95% new work. I was impressed when I saw a finished copy. I must thank Betsy Dollar for her incredible editing and sequencing work.

Since moving to St. Paul, I’ve been doing a lot of street photography, including buildings, alleys, and people. Often, I shoot for design with people as elements. It seems as if there is a street dance always in progress. Sometimes it is a slow dance, sometimes fast. Occasionally, there is even a break, but it is just between dances. Beyond that, I’m working on portraits and on my cafe series.

Sad News: MCP (Minnesota Center for Photography) has closed as of July 31. There were budgetary problems that seemed insurmountable to the board of directors. I sincerely hope that George Slade, the center’s creative director, continues to make his presence known.

I was fortunate to see the Friedlander show at MIA a couple weeks ago. It was inspiring and permission giving. Lee is certainly an icon in the history of photography. Hmm, MIA, no permanent photo curator, George Slade…?

Anyone interested in previewing or purchasing a copy of the new book, Culturescape I: City Clicks, may do so here.