The Selfish, Unconcerned Photographer...

"A blog is a means of sharing your pet peeves and off-the-cuff theories of everything with the entire planet."

-Louis Menand in the New Yorker

I have a confession to make. Though I love Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eliot Erwitt, Robert Frank and any number of others in their tradition, I am not, as Capa's brother Cornell termed it, a "Concerned Photographer." The main thing that concerns me is making a picture ... and making a living at it.

This confession was finally triggered by a number of things, most recently this Tweet:

@magnumphotos: Just launched, the Magnum Emergency Fund site, supporting photographers with a commitment to documenting social issues.http://bit.ly/9yUtSl

My first thought? "Damn, wish I had some 'meaningful' (done with those finger quotes) social issue thing."

Okay, so maybe I'm old and cynical, though I think I've always felt this way. It's just that I'm not in journalism in general and photography in particular to change the world. As a matter of fact, I think it's pretty freaking rare for either journalism or photography to change anything in any significant way.

So, if I'm not here to change the world, just what do I think I'm doing? Mostly, satisfying my own curiosity. I like to know.

And I like to make pictures

I don't know if it comes across here, but I do feel a bit guilty about this. It's like that debate about if there can be a thing as true charity, or if we still do it, in the end, because people thank us and act like we're so good for being so generous. As a matter of fact, this posting is the product of days of work, not because it is such finely crafted language, but because I have struggled over what it is I mean and what it is exactly that I mean to say.

I asked my wife (who is now more than used to my guilts), telling her about what I was writing, and she (as always) explained it for me instantly. "I don't think it's a good thing to be a 'concerned photographer,'" She said. "That implies there is something to be concerned about, that you find some part of the story right and some part wrong, that you're biased. What you are is a curious photographer." I'm not, she explained, going in with a point of view, just a desire to see what is.

Former AP Director of Photography Hal Buell seems to agree. "To take a position of hate or love in order to be a war photographer," he told News Photographer editor Don Winslow in a piece in the November issue about war photography, "is to be an advocate, and advocacy leads to spin and distortion. For the advocate, one side is right, one side is wrong, and the pictures must show that in order to validate the photographer's reason for being there."

Don's piece starts with Robert Capa's premise that "In war, you must hate somebody or love somebody; you must have a position or you cannot stand what goes on." Buell dismisses Capa's thought as "romantic." It was Capa's brother, you'll recall, who coined the term "concerned photographer" -- apparently romance ran in the family. I'll have to ask Don to get Buell's thoughts on the Cornell's ideas. (And, by the way, if you're a member of the NPPA, you're in for a real treat -- Don's article is a work of art as good or better than pieces in the New Yorker.)

So what am I? Curious? Definitely. Concerned? Apparently only about myself. Typical? I dunno'. Maybe all that counts is whether I make a decent picture...


NOTE: This one took a while to crank out. As I discovered with the election pieces, apparently the blog places them as they were started, not finished, so it may appear this was written longer ago than it was. As I post, it's Dec. 5.

Once again, I promise to do more, more often...

Meanwhile, During the Election...

This is Morgan Griffith, Republican candidate for the 9th District of Virginia, campaigning in Pulaski, deep in the Southwest of the state. It's the Saturday before election day, and I was filming the rally -- which seems a rather grand term for what it was, truly, a gathering of about 30 or 40 people at a landscaping company, standing about amidst bins of gravel and mulch -- for WDBJ. My reporter, Chris Hurst, can just be seen behind Griffith, between him and the garden shed. He's holding a radio microphone, so we can get better audio of the speech.

Griffith was a long shot. Although he was the majority leader in Virginia's legislature, his opponent, Rick Boucher, was a 20-plus-year veteran of the US House of Representatives. As anyone with a passing knowledge of American politics takes for granted, an incumbent is difficult to dislodge. A 20-plus-year incumbent is all but undefeatable. It's a "safe seat."

However, this year, the tide was turning, and Griffith sensed the flow. As he said during this speech, if others in Virginia -- like Tom Periello in the nearby 5th District, a one-termer -- lost their races, pundits could say that the seat was traditionally Republican, and thus the election just a readjustment to the norm. (Periello defeated longtime veteran Virgil Goode, riding on the coattails of President Obama.) But, Griffith said, urging his followers to action -- specifically the action of voting -- if Boucher lost, then it would be a real sign, a symbol that the recent liberal actions really were rejected by all the voters.

This is Rick Boucher that same day, just a few miles away and a an hour or so later, being interviewed by the competition after a rally. The chairs were all full when he and Sen. Mark Warner spoke, and the followers enthusiastic. As I left, I overheard one say, as he walked out the door with a friend in front of me, that he couldn't understand the polls. From what he saw, Boucher should win by a landslide.

However, the polls -- especially WDBJ's Survey USA poll -- showed a dead heat. Our most recent results actually had Griffith ahead by a point. Boucher was adamant, in his speech (when he pointed out our camera) and in an interview afterwards, that his poll results showed him ahead. It was just bad methodology.

That was Saturday. On Tuesday, as the results came in, the "shellacking" -- as the President would later term it -- became clear. And in the 9th District, there was a double surprise: Griffith not only won, he won by a margin large enough to have that election called before the long doomed Periello race in the 5th. As Griffith predicted, I think, his race is symbolic. There was more than a pendulum swinging back to the center here.

and that's how election day went. Welcome to my world...

Excitement on order...

This is what election night looks like, literally behind the scenes. You can see the teleprompter there, in the center of the scene in the background, Behind the prompter, of course, is a camera.

Election night is an interesting phenomenon in the news business. It's breaking news, but breaking news you can plan for. Usually, breaking news is unplanned, something that just happens, like a plane crash, but an election is constitutionally scheduled. You've known it's going to happen for 200 years.

All the same, it's exciting.

Here we see Producer Cara Stein working with the anchors Jean Jadhon and Keith Humphrey. As you can see from the pile of papers, there's a myriad of details and information to work out.

Of course, if you're the weather guy, it's just another night. Jay Webb, the meteorologist on duty that night, filled his time with texting.

I was the "night shooter," basically on duty in case something unexpected -- actual breaking news -- happened. This year it didn't, so I had some time to make pictures on the set. They've gotten used to me and my Leicas at WDBJ now -- even looking forward to the pictures -- but I had some extra insurance that night: in the background of this image, back behind the desk and slightly to the left, you can see Lawrence Young (no relation), the chief photographer at the station, with his digital Canon also making still photos on the set.

Back in the newsroom, the Assistant Producers gather data and deal with the detail work. If you watch News 7, you'll know that you actually can see the newsroom in the background during the show. Again, this is the view behind the scenes, so it's a reverse view. You can see the lights and set in the upper left corner of the picture.

And here, we're on the air. Actually, we're just about off the air; the floor director (in the center) is indicating to the anchors that there are only seconds left in their cut-in. This is a rather remarkable picture -- everyone on the set gets a little uncomfortable with people wandering around the cameras and stuff while we're live on the air. Trip over one cable, drop something with a loud THUMP! and out it goes, live, to everyone who owns a TV.

It's only my known position -- and some trust that I know what I'm doing -- that let me make the picture...

And now's the moment to confess: I've taken a small liberty with the pictures -- or rather one picture -- in this post. The first image is actually the last. It shows the anchors, Producer Cara Stein, Assignment Editor Dave Seidel and News Director Amy Morris meeting after all the cut-ins, late in the night, reviewing what they did and how well it went. (It did go well, aided by the results quickly indicating the elections' trend.)

But it was the best picture of the bunch; one I'm rather proud of. Stepping aside from the subject of the election, it's one of those pictures where everything falls into place: the legendary Cartier-Bresson "Decisive Moment." (I read recently he came to dislike that term; it drew away from what he really meant to say.) And look at how the lens -- a Zeiss 21mm Biogon -- reacts to the lights shining into it. It's just a ... nice image. Welcome to one of my tiny pleasures ...

A Short One...

So I pull out of the station with the reporter on the way to a Kidney Walk -- that's a fundraiser for kidney disease research and patient assistance -- when I look into the vehicle's side mirror as we come onto the highway. Back, at the intersection of the branch road we're pulling onto (581) and the main interstate (81), some two or three miles away, I see a big, black cloud of smoke.

Now, a range of thoughts flash through my mind. Black smoke is bad. Aside from indicating there's no new Pope, outside of the Vatican it indicates a petroleum product burning, like plastic or rubber ... as in a car or a plane or something. (Houses tend to burn white -- wood and fabric -- until it gets to the furniture and stuff, and fires being extinguished put out white smoke, from the water.) So my first thought is this is something bad ... and newsworthy.

Then I remember that sometimes heat plants and diesel generators (petroleum still) often put out black clouds when first fired up, sort of like that big black cloud from the tractor trailer when it first accelerates. So I hesitate.

But then I decide to say something. "What the hell is that?!" I say, still looking at the cloud in the side mirror. The reporter, seated next to me, answers with a tone of surprised disdain. "An Escalade," he says, naming the car passing us. I realize he can't tell I'm looking in the mirror.

"No, behind us." He sees the cloud. "Turn around," he says, and we do. An RV was burning on 81. Traffic had just begun to stack up; we skipped around it on the shoulder. Good footage.

Welcome to my world...

Private Lives ...

So it's been a while, and the New York Times has an article today that reminded me of something. It's about web privacy and how the new HTML5 provides more opportunity for data tracking with cookies, etc. And I've heard these worries before with other systems, like Facebook, and -- with concessions I'll get to in a moment -- I'd like to say: I don't care.

That's right, I don't care. They can follow my boring shopping and reading habits until their eyes bleed, for all I care. As a matter of fact, it's worse than that. I actively hope they follow me. If they can do stuff to more quickly and accurately bring me stuff that I want with less effort on my part, good! My life was just made easier.

I'm tempted to go off on a short side rant about how, when these stories come out, they so often are written in a breathless tone of horror that a business should want (God forbid!) to encourage people -- actively encourage them, by use of all means available -- to buy their products. (Long pause, á la Jon Stewart.) Really? This is a moral crime of some sort?

But instead (that was sufficient, I think, and any more would draw us off in some tangential direction), allow me a short aside on the actual moral crimes possible. The ability to muck around in my life and personal data is not something I want anyone to be able to do with reckless abandon, but I don't mean to say this in contradiction to the above. Rather, what I mean to say is that there are indeed bad people out there: those who would steal identities, blackmail, steal assets, pry into stuff that's none of their business, etc.

Now, this is the very argument that many "privacy advocates" would make in answer to my opening statement, but I think that is a red herring. The bad people are just that ... BAD people. They are engaged in activities that are morally wrong, and generally illegal already. If we didn't have computers and the internet, they would still be doing whatever nastiness they do by whatever analog means available. There was fraud in the 19th Century -- check out Huckleberry Finn -- and even, I venture, in the time of Christ. Some caveman probably ripped off another by lying and saying he knew Ug from the next cave over, when he really didn't.

Evil and theft, like the poor, shall always be with us. The Eeyores of this world can kill any idea by pointing out the ways it can be misused. The fault is not in our technologies but in ourselves; we can't legislate behavior and we can't prevent, by technical means, badness.

So track away, dear businesses, and bring me those obscure products that I just can't live without, but would otherwise live in ignorance of.

Then again, it would help if I had any money. Maybe they'll figure that out, too, and leave me alone ...

The Autumn that Wasn't ...

"Have mercy on me, God, have mercy..."

-Psalm 57

This was going to be the Perfect Autumn. The Center for Civil War Photography planned their annual seminar to be at Gettysburg, with the main attraction being the reclusive William Frassanito, the dean of Civil War photography analysts. A former photo intelligence officer during the Vietnam war, Frassanito was the first to apply the techniques he learned to pictures shot by Brady, Gardner and others, exploding dozens of myths.

Then, the Leica Historical Society of America scheduled an epic trip to the heart of Leica: Wetzlar, Germany. Factory tours, seminars and the general atmosphere of the town where the Leica was born in the 1920s and is still assembled today, just one year after the premiere of the game-changing digital M9.

Naturally, both would be of great interest to me, just as a general principle, but it was more than that. I think I've mentioned Camera Aperta. It's a Grand Idea -- the equivalent, for me, of the Great American Novel that every journalist is famously working on. However, it's not a novel; it's nonfiction, a work in the first-person tradition of Tom Wolfe, or newer works by Michael Pollan or Jennifer 8 Lee. It's a history of photojournalism by way of the equipment and my personal experience with it. So, for example, when the Leica rangefinder came into use in the 1940s and (particularly) the 1950s, how did that affect news photography, and its style and content, and thus news in general? Where did it come from, and why do people still use it? Why was it important? I plan to deal with these kinds of questions, but in a firsthand, conversational sort of way, a way the makes it more like the chats I have with people who stop me at work and ask advice, or are curious about photography.

But now, they're over ... at least for me. LHSA's Carl Merkin is posting his pictures from the German trip on Facebook (a particularly agonizing one was a view of happy fellow travelers gathered around a table of tall glasses of lager in a tiny cafe, a view of the Teutonic village through the neighboring window), and I await the updates from the CCWP. The seminar doesn't start for a couple of days, but it has been sold out for weeks.

But, as you may know, there's no money (let alone time), so no conference. On top of that, I thought I had the perfect situation when NewsTilt arrived. I would be able to write the chapters and sub-chapters, send them out as articles, and thus provide some income as I ground away at the book. Or at least have an outlet. Not so much, after all.

So, the Perfect Autumn evolves into a disappointment, a reminder that I can't just blow through the drudgery of common life, that a great idea isn't enough -- logistics are required -- that just because I've been able to do stuff, I can't always do whatever I want. A little humility is in order. And a great idea deserves a little bit of effort.

I'm not letting go; someday you'll be seeing Camera Aperta, even if it's a soiled, wrinkled typesheet I force into your hand. But, I guess, it's gonna' take some work...

"I will turn their mourning into joy.

I will console and gladden them after their sorrows ...

and my people shall be filled with my blessings,

says the Lord."

- Jeremiah 31:13-14

Remembering NewsTIlt...

It's dead, and even my early thoughts of continuing my content somehow have been lost in the chaotic life I've been living lately, but one of the founders of NewsTilt blogged a post mortem.

It's interesting how he sees it, and explains a few things. For one thing, it turns out their plan was nothing like what I thought I signed up for. They thought they were building a great commentary site for each individual journalist -- post the story and wait for dialog with readers. I thought that's what this is. If I wanted a glorified blog, I'd rebuild Cat Typing into that.

I thought they were building something that could perhaps be described as an online catalog of stories available for resale to other outlets. I was very excited about that thought. I produce material enthusiastically and often, but am a terrible marketer. If someone was going to do all the marketing (and incidentally, all that complicated internet coding crap, which I could learn but don't want to), then great: a perfect match. But in reality, not so much.

I've got to say, he raised my hackles a bit with the comment that the journalists weren't "hungry to succeed," but I think he's just choosing his words poorly. I think his idea of product is just different from mine, perhaps most sharply shown by his frequent admission that he isn't a big news reader. I am a constant news reader. I am a journalist by definition; it's not my job, it's what I am. I am one of those people who, as Christiane Amanpour described it, will run towards the big scary thing everyone else is running away from.

He is a computer guy. He clearly thinks that short stories, delivered quickly and frenetically online, with lots of reader commentary and interactivity is journalism. I thought NewsTilt was an opportunity to work on some of those big think pieces that I had been meaning to get around to. I wanted to do New Yorker, while he was building Gawker or TMZ.

And, apparently, they were expecting me and my fellow contributors to drive readership to NewsTilt, where I expected NewsTilt to drive readership (or rather secondary outlets, and thence readership) to me. See above: I thought it was a marketing scheme. If I could somehow create vast legions of readers, why would I need NewsTilt? Again, I'd just monetize this site somehow. (And, by the way, thank you once again six followers. I know where my readership is...)

The pity is I'm back at Square One, still with product and no outlet or marketing scheme. When I finish moving and various other things, I guess I'll go to Word Press or some such place and rebuild my site with the former NewsTilt content, but then what? How do I go about monetizing this stuff?

Anyway, I forgive him for implying that I wasn't willing to produce product and wasn't hungry for success. But am I the one he mentioned as an Emmy winner when speaking in the same breath as a Pulitzer winner?