Robin's House

A project I have been working on for a long time is a book. This book is a horror story. Maybe I should rephrase that. It is a ghost story.

As I have been getting to the core of the incidents that take place in a small town called Mercy I am developing sets of photographs that capture (for me anyway) the texture of the place. A mood.

This is a photo where a young woman lives alone. Her name is Robin Hunter. Her life is begining to get slippery. Being a visual person I find this really helps me.

This has been a very fascinating project. It won’t be presented until March 2011 but the preparation is ongoing right now. Once I get the photos edited the way I want them I will print them no smaller that 20×24. I think larger. I am thinking that the B&W photos may be done on silver gelatin and the color printed with inkjet technology. The way I’m leaning is toward making them like competition prints. That means they will be mounted on a mat board or other material to a specific thickness then hangers added to the back.

I like the idea of the photographs not being in frames and mats and all that. When people buy them they will just reframe them anyway. This way there is no framing treatment competition going on with the piece. For a show I did during my college days I mounted all the prints and put them between two pieces of glass with a hangar. I’ve not done that since so I think minimalist is the way I’m going.

To get a preview and help out if you wish click HERE.

Well, it has been awhile since I have updated this blog and for that I’m sorry. I have been deeply involved in a book and photo project called Uplift for the Uplift Organization. My wife is writing and we are trying to capture the stories of the homeless in Kansas City. I want to put a face on this issue. We have been making great progress. This project will commemorate Uplift’s 20th anniversary and take place sometime in March of 2011. The location will be Cafe Trio. That may seem like a long time from now but not to me. I plan a full photo exhibition with a book to go with it and small portfolios too. All will be for sale to benefit Project Uplifit.

From all this my wife and I will seek publication of a broader book.  I’m the kind of person who loves to run over and show you my latest picture but in this case no one will see them except for Patti and me as we work on this project. I did include here a photo of one of the Uplift vans. To learn more about Uplift click HERE.

Okay, I’ve been missing in action.  Posts weeks apart.

Wood and I are writing a book.  It is a celebration of twenty years of Project Uplift’s outreach to the community of the homeless in Kansas City.  It is something that we are both passionate about.  Wood is taking the photographs and I am sitting down with the homeless and writing the narrative that comes out of that time spent.  We have met some great people and shattered just about every stereotype we began this project with.  I originally thought I could write the narrative of the book and then condense some of it here on the blog.  It’s not working.  I can’t do that.  I don’t now how.  It’s a skill I don’t have.  There is no condensing.  I have immersed myself in this project, and all of it is important.  Excerpts wouldn’t do the people or the lifestyle justice.

This is a steep learning curve for me.  Four Ordinary Women is only one-fourth mine.  This is all of me on the page.  The time I am spending with these new friends of mine has some days emotionally wrecked me.  I have cried.  I have altered my perceptions.  I know how blessed I am.  Oh, I always knew I was blessed, but now I experience that feeling in a very different way.  I know how sometimes shallow my life is.  I have had to face myself in this writing.  Challenge a lot of my beliefs.  About justice, about the disparity we have in this country between the haves and the have nots. And sometimes that is difficult.  Okay, mostof the time that is difficult.

I now know that handing a homeless person a stryrofoam plate of food and a pair of socks is very different than sitting down in their camp and hearing about how their lives led to life on the street.  To see where they sleep, cook, eat, where their teeth chatter from the cruelty of winter, and where they live when the mosquitoes, thousands of them, hunt for their food. I am in their shoes.

These men, these women trust me.  Trust me to tell their story with dignity and honesty.  I am trying very hard to live up to that and making sure that this story is their legacy.  For many of them, it will be their only legacy.

Spending time thinking about how the world effects your life is maybe the most important of these. To learn to allow yourself to be vulnerable to these emotions may be hard but a photo like any other form of art is a reflection of the world mixed in with your paradigm.

Also looking at as much work by others as you can is very important. I’m not talking about the Flickr what a bees but truly talented photographers both of the past and present. There are several excellent magazines that contain compelling photographs and I mean that even if you don’t like them. Some I would recommend are PDN, Photo Eye, Aperture, Lenswork, B&W, and Silvershotz. These are just a few. Most are available at your local Border’s or Barnes and Noble or online. Some have extended content on their websites and offer contest opportunities.

Spending time with these publications can spark a lot of thinking and push you to try new things even though they may be very difficult to accomplish. Most of us fine art photographers have other “day jobs” and that does impact our growth but even during that time you can work on your seeing. I’m sure that you already have plenty of books on the how to do things. Work flow, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc so now look for books on how to look for photographs. How to see. Some of these books can cover the standard “rules” of how to shoot a picture but they will also force you to look past the rules.

I fully agree you must understand the rules before you break them. In some cases looking through books of great painters is very helpful.

When you are standing with your camera thinking there’s nothing to shoot here, STOP. Move into a more Zen like state and absorb your surroundings. Feel them and build an emotional bond. Open your eyes and look very carefully. The photo is there. Let your emotions guide you.

Many times I go out to take a specific photo and to look at what I’m doing one would think I was nuts but the truth is I “see” something more. I have a concept in my mind of what I want the photograph to be when it is finished with all the post processing. I relate to the emotional elements I’m trying to portray. Like a poem.

What I shot.                                                 What I saw.

Today, even with the glut of drug ads for depression medication, we don’t except people with mental illness like we would any other sick person. We still want to shut the insane away or just abandoned them to a life of homelessness.

Asylum Door

It is still a work in progress but check it out sign up for an account and let me know how you think it looks and works.

Now the ones that haven’t been torn down lie shattered like many of the lives of the residence who once lived there.  A stark reminder that as a society we have yet come to grips with mental illness or its treatment.

Asylum 1