Here is the amazing part:
“You’re a very good photographer.” That, Dear Reader, is very nice to hear. Especially when it comes from Dionne Thornton, Jed Root’s Director of Exhibitions and Publications and she says it to me (yes, I just high fived myself). Like everyone else at the third floor bar of The Norwood Club at Tuesday night’s Jed Root Portfolio Review I want to be a very busy photographer. I’m hungry for it. I think about it pretty much always and at the review I’m standing in the midst of some obviously like-minded individuals. e.g. I met a photographer that flew in from Singapore just for the review.
Here’s the drinking part:
I had a Campari and soda before showing my work… which, I was thinking while ordering it, could be a bad idea. Turns out (so far) a Campari and soda is never a bad idea.
Here’s the weird part:
I watched a lot of photographer’s look at other photographer’s books. I even showed my work and looked at books as well. It amazes me how quickly portfolio pages turned… like freakishly quickly (like Big Blue on Jeopardy quickly). I imagine authors write for other authors. I imagine directors make films for other directors. I imagine photographers make work for other photographers to look at (actually I know I make work in hopes that other photographers might look at it). So why so fast, photographers? There is so much to learn by looking at other photographer’s work (I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent looking at Horst hoping it just sinks in and becomes a part of what I know about photography). Obviously Horst wasn’t in attendance, having died in 1999, but I met Billy Kidd and his work is really good.
As an excuse, yes, the light was terrible and thus the books were hard to see but… Here’s another amazing part: Paul Moakley once, while looking at my book, said he should be able to tell if a photograph is good on a one inch black and white xerox.
Here’s the realization part about why the night was so amazing:
We are all there for a reason and the reason is because we want to be better photographers. We all need more work, more agents, more contacts, more… Campari and sodas. Maybe it’s because we turn the pages too fast. I’m a pretty bad judge of fashion photography but I can tell Guy Aroch is a genius, and to be less Jed Root-y about this post, so is Enrique Badulescu, Alasdair McLellan, etc. I can also tell that Mr. Aroch and Mr. Badulescu work their asses off… and I can tell that the whole review was basically a big heads up to let us all know that we should be working harder to: one, make better work, two, look at other work harder and more thoughtfully, three, think more, and four, use every opportunity to learn something and become a better photographer. Instead of flipping through other photographer’s books too quickly we can spend our time actually engaged which I imagine leads to better work and thus more work… which is awesome because the reason we all do this is because we love taking photos. And that means we get to take more.
A big thank you to Mr. Hetherington for the heads up on the review. I never would have known about it otherwise.
