Color Blind Camera

Sep 4

some days are better than others.

Aug 26

the last american cowboys.

their job is to help people.

a lost art.

a rare breed.

adrenaline junkies.

Aug 22

sometimes I think too much.

Curiously looking at my camera, holding it at it as if it were a silly little box at show and tell, she asked me, “Do you look at things differently when you look through this?”

The simple yet deep nature of the question coupled with the hint of intrigue in the manner in which it was asked stuck with me for some reason.

I didn’t know the answer. I don’t know why I take the pictures I take. I danced around the question, explaining that there is a transcendental element I feel when taking photos. But I could not explain the metaphysical nature of why I take the photos I do. Perhaps because it is, in fact, unexplainable; something I could not explain, only something I could feel. Thus, the characteristics of it being definable only by being undefinable and being understood only through feeling, put in the same category of… “love.” Therefore, I believe, making it a passion, one of the most powerful intrinsic human motivators. If we are to say the love of something, anything, means it is one’s passion, is that to say then, that love inspires creativity? Or more so, “love inspires greatness?”

I digress.

Aug 7

a reason.

“I love that perfect shot of catching fleeting moments of joy, despair, rawness, tediousness, everything and all of it. Snapshots of things that were real once, and only once in an instant because before it had been different and after it all changed.”

-a friend

Aug 6

“Poor doesn’t necessarily mean, miserable.” -Gary Knight

Today, I had the fine pleasure of listening to, meeting, and buying coffee for Gary Knight, cofounder of the VII Photo Agency, arguably one of the premier photojournalistic agencies in the world.

Projected on the giant screen in the Harvard News Office was a frame from a scene in the streets of India. Knight was documenting poverty. On the one side of the two tone frame was what appeared to be a hooded man of lower class, and on the other side, what appeared to be a couple, smiling at each other. To paraphrase, he said that in his earlier days he would have only photographed the lower class man, but now he includes both poverty and sparks of happiness in his photos. Knight would later say, “Poor doesn’t necessarily mean, miserable.”

Knight’s black and white compositions are simple. His style, or lack there of, removes him from the equation of viewer and photo, and thereby allows the subject to garner the viewer’s full attention. Something he believes is very important.

I found this all too appropriate as I had recently edited some footage Kristyn Ulanday and I had shot at a homeless shelter as part of our AmericanPoverty.org grant. The video was, more or less, one of my Two Minute Portraits of a homeless man who said he was happy.

Poor doesn’t necessarily mean, miserable.

Let me present to you, Mr. Reginold Beckford:

Aug 1

Chapter V: Outside the Classroom

Let me ask you something. When was the last time you sat and talked with someone. I don’t mean sat and talked while texting, or driving, or drinking, or while watching TV, or distracted by any number of things our generation is easily distracted by. And also, not talking about materialistic things, or the exchange of different memories from the past night—putting that puzzle together. What I mean is when was the last time you sat with someone and spoke with conviction about things that mattered to both you and them?

I believe our generation’s interpersonal skills are suffering drastically from our inability to focus on something important for a long period of time.

American poet Taylor Mali believes our generation has an inability to speak with conviction, and that our conversations are but fluff filled with, “like’s, umm’s, and you knows.” I agree with him and have made an effort to speak more passionately, and converse more seriously with people.

This blog is a stepping stone for that, and the earlier posts about the homeless shelter were my first examples of truly writing with passion. And a recent afternoon of photographing Ospreys with a former professor was a good experience of meaningful conversation.

I spent three or four hours sitting on a milk carton next to my old professor, on the edge of a marsh, cameras in front of us, watching a family of Ospreys through lenses—creatures of nature that could see us better without lenses.

We waited patiently for the father Osprey to come home with food. The mother and three offspring—so far, a miracle in nature—waited patiently, too. We talked continuously while the Ospreys squabbled only occasionally.

In the grand scheme of life, what was said is less important than the experience of conversing with someone whose done it all before. And more importantly, building a strong and long-lasting relationship between teacher and student, craftsman and apprentice.

I can only imagine the satisfaction he gets from watching former students evolve, both as people and photographers. He attested that watching a personal style develop over the course of years, from graduating from point-and-shoots, to graduating college, to the first photo job, to the first big photo story, and the first big photo publication, is all unimaginably rewarding. And, moreover, that sharing these afternoons with former students is immensely fulfilling.

It is these strong relationships that are invaluably important in life, yet, I believe, our generation lacks them.

The Ospreys appear content, watching us watching them, resting next to each other, with no distractions but the beauty of the marsh. Perhaps they appreciate nature. Perhaps they are perturbed by man’s noisy impedance on their once serene home. Occasionally they spread their wings, never going far from those they share strong relationships with. And perhaps, there is something to be learned from them. That afternoon, sitting on the milk crates next to a former professor, was a good place to start learning.

Jul 30