Pack Journalism

Yesterday, I got a call that there was a "big fire" at the ministry of finance and that people were leaping out of the building to escape. I went, but despite my mental preparations of modern-day scenes from Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, it was nothing of the sort. Nonetheless it was interesting even though my photographs were not. If anything it reminded me how much I do not miss chasing spot news. When I was younger and starting out, I used to love doing that sort of thing and enjoyed the adrenaline and outdoing the competition. It had been a long time since I'd been in that type of situation maneuvering around police, crowds and other photographers and I was surprised how I just snapped right in to newspaper photographer mode like I had never been away.

Another factor was watching how the other photographers and press worked. I was always very critical of the way some press tended to work particularly when they got in the pack mode of which this was a classic example. Everybody was in a big clump behind the police lines. Nobody was moving around working the scene looking for the drama or the reaction from spectators aside from the action. If they were photographers working for me, I would have liked to line them up and slap them in Three Stooges fashion.

Ansel Adams: Documentarian

Yesterday, I gave my first class here to beginning photographers in Maputo. I started out with a little photo history-camera obscura and view cameras– and talked a bit about Matthew Brady and Ansel Adams. I told my students that I was going to have a photojournalistic/documentary slant since that's what the base of my experience, knowledge and interest. So why Ansel Adams?

As a native Californian, I've always had strong leanings toward my home state. When I was a kid, I favored television shows that were more West Coast-centric (The Brady Bunch; Adam 12; What's Happening; The Love Boat...). I was a big surf music fan (Dick Dale, The Ventures, Beach Boys), the whole San Francisco-Sunset Strip thing (Mamas & the Papas; The Doors; Grateful Dead...), then later with the L.A. punk scene (see Decline of the Western Civilization; Sublime and No Doubt...) and with Jazz, Dave Brubeck. John Steinbeck books were special for their California leanings. I've always hated Hollywood's tendency to lean toward the East Coast and became a big fan of Quentin Tarantino for breaking that mold with movies often set in the area of L.A. I grew up in. So with photography, there was Ansel Adams.

Ansel Adams was somebody that I looked at when I was first learning photography and trying to figure out proper exposures and black and white printing. The whole zone system was somewhat of a puzzle to me. Since he was the first marketed fine arts photographer, his work was everywhere (calendars, posters,museums), and he's usually one of the first or only photographers to pop out of a non-photo person's mouth because of his popularity. So to some, he's gained a bit of a cliché tag.

I was fascinated by a documentary that I checked out from the library on VHS about him. There was a scene when he was making a gigantic print with roll paper sprawled out on a darkroom wall that I found incredible at the time. But more than anything was how elequant he was speaking about photography and how-being a trained classical pianist-he often compared photography to music. Over the years when I've come across his quotes, read his writings or seen other films about him, my affection for him has grown. Much of what he says applies perfectly to documentary photography. Over the years instead of seeing simply pretty pictures, beautiful prints and exposures, or familiar western scenes, I've seen him as a documentarian.

He was obsessed with the United States wilderness and a big conservationist. Along with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, his own book This Is the American Earth which released that same year was quite influencial and ultimately had some impact on the modern green movement. But more than anything, the scenes that he documented helped raise their profile and helped save them from eager developers in the post-World War II boom years.

That aside, I was surprised that I had never known about a project that he had done about Japanese-Americans in an internment camp in Manzanar, California during WWII. While I was gathering images to show, I came across them and was taken aback feeling a bit silly and ignorant. I knew that he had done some portraits–although he didn't enjoy doing that type of work– and was friends with folks who did photograph more people like Edward Steichen, Paul Strand and Edward Weston, and had much respect for photographers like Cartier-Bresson and their work; however, this project caught me off guard.

It's not the most wonderfully executed story in comparison to W. Eugene Smith or Walker Evans, but it helped me understand him more as a photographer, and made me feel more justified in being a fan of his. Here are links to the project:

Zeitmaschine review

U.S. National Archives

Trusting You With My Cute Kids

In Perpignan, I had a sort of rude awakening when I introduced Silva, Anna, Rhian and Maria to my kids-virtually of course. They were all eager to see their pictures on a blog I created when my one year old, Charles, was born. "Why didn't you show this to us before?" I was asked. "I didn't want to bore you all with pictures of my little kids. "You don't trust us," said Rhian with agreement from the others.

It's a little sappy and much more of my softer side than I thought anyone needed to see, but since I made everybody pancakes, i guess my soft side is exposed. Here's the link to my kids' blog. Don't expect any breathtaking photojournalism: it's mostly snapshots and often poorly composed or out of focus. I still feel it's a bit like boring friends with hours of vacation photos, but here it is: http://charlesbarrientos.blogspot.com

What I Learned In Perpignan

I learned that I'm not as big a lightweight as I thought by going out drinking more than I have in years. But it wasn't so much about partying as it was about getting acquainted with my classmates, meeting people, networking, getting acquainted with my classmates, former LCC students and discussing photojournalism and all the issues around it from photo gear to computers to software to politics to travel logistics to marketing and much more. There of course was the festival programming, exhibits, nightly screenings and presence of agencies, photography collectives and vendors that was the center of my week.

One significant fact--perhaps not so flattering--was that I only took out my camera once during the week. Perpignan's somewhat of a picturesque town certainly with lots to photograph but with so many photographers and cameras, I figured we had it covered. I can remember my early days in photography and going to photo gatherings in the U.S. such as the National Press Photographer Association's Flying Short Course or the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar and sort of thinking that the guys (usually students) running around with a couple of bodies and a long lens to go to a seminar were a bit over the top. There really weren't those types of photographer there.

My main objectives were mostly achieved: 1.) to spend some time with and get to know some of my classmates; 2.) to connect with a new agency (Polaris in this case); 3.) to see some excellent photography (much was excellent); 4.) to gain some new clients (this one I sort of struck out on but got some great tips).

Being in Africa, I feel a bit isolated at times from others in the class, so it was good to spend time with part of our group. Our common bond is the LCC MAPJ. Having gone through projects, papers and sometimes rough tutorial sessions, I think we all felt a certain badge of honor for having gotten through our first leg of it.

There were several agencies represented such as Getty, Corbis, AP, AFP, Reuters, EPA, Sipa, Zuma and others. The collectives area was interesting mostly to see the ways that these groups of photographers promoted themselves with cool postcards, lots of Blurb and Mac books, and lots of interesting work.

As far as the photographic exhibits there were several very good ones but a few that were just okay. My favorites were by Paolo Pellegrin's project in Iraq and Stanley Greene's story (more the whole story) about the Silk Road being transformed into a drug route. The evening screenings were good but many of us thought a bit uneven at times and are too loosley edited. They did, however, get progressively better as the week went on, but unfortunately the Saturday show which in theory should have been the best, and the big festival party were both scrapped because of rain (don't worry there were LCC reps protesting).

At the Hotel PAMS, there were continual critiques and editors that I wanted to meet (I was told but only ran into the one I used to work for-Michelle McNally). They did have free wifi and drinks, so it was an active place. It's also where we registered. Despite not getting some of the connections that I wanted, I did get great advice, much of it from LCC graduates. Most of that happened at La Post (I'm sure Perpignan's most popular bar during the festival). It's where we had the pleasure of meeting our very own Homer Sykes.

What I liked most out of the trip was primarily getting to know Maria, Dean, Silva, Chris, Jono, Mark, Anna, Rhian, Morag (my favorite LCC grad) and Homer. It helped me realize that we have a rich and interesting group and that being in an online course gave me more of a connection than I thought I'd have. On the festival side, I most enjoyed an impromptu session by Brian Storm about multimedia and a hard-hitting film by Christian Poveda called La Vida Loca about gangs in El Salvador which I got through with French subtitles. My favorite brush with greatness was meeting John G. Morris. It also was kind of cool that David Alan Harvey remembered my name, but I'd much rather have people remember my images.

Dean is going to keep in touch with the apartment owners that we rented from to see if there can be LCC Does Perpignan Redux.

Here's Jono's slideshow if you haven't seen it.

http://www.jonathanlewisphoto.com/mapjPerpignan2008slideshow/

Perpignan