hard to believe it’s been over 3 months since an update.. apologies to any brett’s blog aficionados. it’s been a busy time of my life for a few reasons:
- I quit my job at the Austin Business Journal, as my freelance work continues to dominate more and more of my time
- I bought a house in Austin! and moved. it’s a tall modern box of a house and i’m enjoying being a homeowner so far, although it seems like another full-time job at times.
- I’m continuing my work and studies for my masters in photojournalism through the london college of communication
- i recently landed a contract for central college to photograph 6 of their european abroads over 3 weeks (paris, wales, vienna, granada, netherlands, and london)
i’m currently in granada and will share some images shortly.
so don’t fear, the updates will continue once again. stay tuned for some of my recent work and travels.
a while ago i found an extremely well presented and powerful illustration of consumption in america, the story of stuff.
i was reminded of it while going through some of the photographic work of chris jordan, who put’s our consumption into a visual scale. one of his huge prints shows almost half a million cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day. others illustrate breast augmentations, plastic bottles, cigarettes, incarcerations and more.
if you haven’t already, check out chris’ running the numbers and watch the story of stuff here.
With the opportunity to shoot some spot news, I tried to find some interesting relationships during a restaurant fire. Apparently, the Short Stop hamburger joints are prone to grease fires. The manager later told me that one started 8 months ago but they were able to put it out quickly. This time the flames and smoke forced everyone out and eventually caused the hood vent to drop through the building. I arrived before the firefighters to find the manager’s daughter, who was working at the time, and a co-worker taking pictures with a cell phone and holding a piece of chocolate cake they rescued from the fire.
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The 2nd relationship I focused on was a group of homeless people near my neighborhood. It was a mixed reaction when I approached them with my intent. Fortunately, I started speaking with the woman first, who was originally from Honduras. (She left her country with an American man who quickly kicked her out upon arriving to America 20 years ago) Since I had spent some time in Honduras, she was enthusiastic to hear about my travels in her country. One man wanted cash, the other didn’t “give a f*&$” if I photographed them. I offered food, but no money. The greatest concern from them seemed to be that they didn’t want it published in a newspaper, I was told that hypothetically some homeless people are on the run from the law.
I was grateful that they let me shoot, and they quickly continued on with their conversations, trips to the gas station for beer and cigarettes, and toilet stops behind the bushes. They all were talkative and friendly toward me, telling me some of their history and daily struggles. The shoot ended when another homeless man ran up and told us a hamburger joint was on fire. It was 20 yards away and that fire turned into my 3rd relationship exercise.
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Our 2nd exercise for the masters program was to visually explore 3 different relationships.
The first relationship I found was a former high school teacher Steve, who visits his mother Betsy a few times a week at her assisted-living facility. The resident cat, Wink (who has one eye sewed shut), has made Betsy’s room her permanent residence.
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The final installment in this person-at-work series is Teather, who I spotted while driving across south Austin. She was amazingly friendly and genuine in spite of the fact that she was working as an advertisement.
Teather Pangarakis works as a human billboard for Liberty Tax Services. As a deaf woman, she mouthed to me with a smile, “My job sucks.”
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Little Miss Austin Beauty Pageant was in full effect this morning. It was a new experience for me. But I thought the unique nature and culture of the pageant would make for an interesting Person At Work set of images. I was focusing on Miss Annette, the owner and emcee of the pageant.
There were two difficulties for me while shooting:
- I kept wanting to document the whole event, the variety of people, reactions, details, etc. It was counter-intuitive to focus on one person and one style of image.
- It was difficult pacing myself. We’re expected to spend a few hours on each subject and have a total of around 72 images. I’m used to shooting as much and as quickly as I feel comfortable with and editing later. I realized that I had to keep slowing myself down. I think this will be helpful, as I was learning to be more patient and creative in trying to find those decisive moments.
And so ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for our latest contestant, Miss Annette:
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The first masters assignment has been a helpful exercise in getting back to the fundamentals of the classic editorial photojournalistic piece. The assignment is to document three different people at work. Our equipment is pretty limited–fixed focal length, manual focus & exposure, black and white, no flash, 400 asa. So it’s been refreshing getting away from the technical aspects and exploring the image making process a little more. I’ve realized that I’ve gotten out of the habit of putting sufficient time into my newspaper assignments. Once I get a decent picture I’m usually ready to move on. But this assignment has helped me appreciate the art of patience. And developing a composition and an idea.
So the first subject is Matt Boyd of the Blood and Tissue Center of Central Texas. As a phlebotomist, he was extracting blood at a local drive.
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Muhammad Yunus was speaking at Bookpeople yesterday about his loaning practices that led to his Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
Yunus started his bank after a long stint of frustration. He found village after village of poor people in Bangladesh being taken advantage of by loan sharks. There was one case of 40 people who were loaned a total of US$27 (all loans under $1 for mostly emergency needs) but the ridiculous interest rates of the loans kept them in a stressful financial situation. There was no hope of bettering themselves or creating their own business. Banks do not loan to poor people. Yunus tried to convince the banks to give it a try but the system is too well established for only loaning to those already rich.
And so Yunus created his own bank, the Grameen Bank, that believed there could be a new model for business–not just to maximize profits, but also to do good. Since opening, the bank has issued millions of micro-loans (usually $100-$200) to the poor for starting a business, improving a house, bettering their lives. They have maintained a 98% repayment rate and have allowed millions of poor families to escape poverty, while requiring the children of the families to attend school.
It’s a system that works and should be adopted by other businesses–a form of social business, where the bottom line is not the only driving force. Because as humans, making money should not be our only goal in life. There are worthy causes and needs outside of our own self-interest, but they will only be addressed if we can look outside of ourselves.
Yunus was a humble, cheerful man who presented his discovery as a process of seeing a problem and dedicating his efforts to fixing it.
His new book is entitled Creating A World Without Poverty, and he truly believes this is possible. He believes because he has seen first-hand again and again that people are living in poverty not because they can’t offer anything, but because the system we’ve created never allowed them the opportunity.
It was a moving and inspiring hour to hear him speak–and made me want to be even more active in my own personal microloaning through Kiva.org.
I’ve incorporated giving back in the form of making Kiva loans with 40% of the profit from my exhibits.
The Masters in Photojournalism at the LCC has begun.
This blog will now also serve as a musing on the courses, assignments, and my life and thought process throughout the program.
(If you’d like to see only the LCC related postings, you can view them here)
The first informal webinar was a good kickstart. I’m looking forward to pushing myself and my photography–developing a style and a visual voice; and gaining more clarity on the what/why/how I shoot. I feel less experienced in photojournalism compared to the broad range of the other students, but am looking forward to getting to know them and gain some insights from their experiences.
One thought Paul mentioned that resonated with me was the idea that this program should create reflective practitioners who understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it–practitioners who are critically aware and self aware, who are curious enough to tirelessly explore and engage themselves in a story.
David Hurn‘s name was brought up as the man who essentially structured the classic magazine photo essay in his 1970′s Newport program. The concept is to break a story down into building blocks of relationships, scenes, portraits, items, etc. and to photograph those building blocks. Then you begin to build the story back up with a visual pace, sequencing, editing, packaging, presenting. The presentation would include a variety of shots–wide, medium, close, horizontal, vertical– and a variety of content, but with common elements and threads to tie the package together.
I’ll plan on using this approach for my upcoming assignment from Austin Monthly, which wants me to shoot a feature on the variety of cultural restaurants in Austin. My last editorial for them was a behind-the-scenes look at the chaotic kitchens in the best restaurants–so I hope I’m not being pigeon-holed as the restaurant-guy.
