2024 10 01
Notes From a Podcast (a semi-regular ongoing series??)
PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf episode 82 - Matthew Genitempo
While editing an endless pool of images, I often listen to Sasha’s great podcast full of interviews with fine art photographers (is there a better label than fine art photographer? photographer, I guess?). I feel the need to specify: not commercial photography, which is what I’m personally more familiar with. This was a standout episode and very much worth a listen, however the following things stood out prominently.
One: Matthew said he gives himself a geographical boundary and then goes out to make work and see what comes back; see what the pictures are telling him, instead of going out and trying to illustrate a picture he has in his head. His recent book project (Dogbreath) was made in Tuscon, Arizona because he was drawn to the distinct sunlight quality and unique urban setting (you see things that are new to you and it sparks your imagination). He visited a school and found the local photo students were not as excited about their own familiar city as he was. Each morning, he’d begin his day with a jog and use it to scout the territory and even meet people that became subjects in the book.
I love all of this and strongly agree with the sentiments. My own personal project began this year with “Illinois outside of Cook County” as my boundaries. Quickly, I’ve learned these boundaries are likely too large, however, I’ve also been listening to what the images are telling me, and themes and ideas are slowly emerging and my approach is adapting. Hopefully next year I will have more time to dedicate to this project, but I loved hearing and learning from Matthew’s experiences in his existing book projects.
Two: Sasha made an amazing baseball player slump analogy. When a player isn’t performing, usually either their mechanics are off or they are pressing. They are trying to hard and overthinking it, instead of going on instinct. An artist works best under the same circumstances. Let the ball come to you and make contact. Don’t force it.
This analogy is amazing and I strongly agree with it. The other day, I was discussing my approach with a friend and explaining to him how, on my smaller shoots, I operate mostly on feel, while doing everything myself. Lights go up, find an angle, find a power setting to match some settings on the camera, ambient lights are considered, emotions of the subject are considered, etc, etc, all mostly on auto-pilot. Comparing this to approach to my commercial jobs, where the final direction and style are usually pre-determined and there is a crew constantly awaiting your direction isn’t always an easy task for me, because my intuition is to feel it out first, then act.
Three: There’s a quote from Judith Joy Ross that Matthew loves and thinks of as one of the formative ways he looks at photography and helped open him up: “I have a large beautiful wooden camera. I’m a quick talker and I can convince people in a few seconds because I’m sincerely interested in them, but I am more interested in capturing what I see in them. It’s not that I want to be their friend, it’s that I see their life and it’s amazing and I want to put it in an image. It’s a short but deep connection. Then I go back to being alone, but have one more lighting bug in a bottle. One more piece of evidence as to who we are.
This is beautiful and I aim to internalize this sentiment and allow it to help me in my process. Often, my instinct is to make photographs of people without them being aware of it. This is an approach which is increasingly frowned upon my a society sensitive to a constant and over-bearing surveillance. I love the idea of better connecting with my subjects and then lowering the barriers to allow them to be themselves. This is my approach on every commercial project I undertake and there’s no reason I can’t also bring it into my personal work. Even if it takes more effort and won’t always work, I think it’s worth the effort.
Two final details that I jotted down and enjoyed:
Robert Adams talks about “the gift picture” … one image that sort of ties a project together and you can work off of.
Sasha: “There’s drudgery in every dream job” … on packing books into boxes all, day, long. Or, in my case, committing to write daily about it all.
-Clayton
Moonlight over the horizon. St Germain, Wisconsin. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Notes From a Podcast (a semi-regular ongoing series??)
PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf episode 82 - Matthew Genitempo
While editing an endless pool of images, I often listen to Sasha’s great podcast full of interviews with fine art photographers (is there a better label than fine art photographer? photographer, I guess?). I feel the need to specify: not commercial photography, which is what I’m personally more familiar with. This was a standout episode and very much worth a listen, however the following things stood out prominently.
One: Matthew said he gives himself a geographical boundary and then goes out to make work and see what comes back; see what the pictures are telling him, instead of going out and trying to illustrate a picture he has in his head. His recent book project (Dogbreath) was made in Tucson, Arizona because he was drawn to the distinct sunlight quality and unique urban setting (you see things that are new to you and it sparks your imagination). He visited a school and found the local photo students were not as excited about their own familiar city as he was. Each morning, he’d begin his day with a jog and use it to scout the territory and even meet people that became subjects in the book.
I love all of this and strongly agree with the sentiments. My own personal project began this year with “Illinois outside of Cook County” as my boundaries. Quickly, I’ve learned these boundaries are likely too large, however, I’ve also been listening to what the images are telling me, and themes and ideas are slowly emerging and my approach is adapting. Hopefully next year I will have more time to dedicate to this project, but I loved hearing and learning from Matthew’s experiences in his existing book projects.
Two: Sasha made an amazing baseball player slump analogy. When a player isn’t performing, usually either their mechanics are off or they are pressing. They are trying to hard and overthinking it, instead of going on instinct. An artist works best under the same circumstances. Let the ball come to you and make contact. Don’t force it.
This analogy is amazing and I strongly agree with it. The other day, I was discussing my approach with a friend and explaining to him how, on my smaller shoots, I operate mostly on feel, while doing everything myself. Lights go up, find an angle, find a power setting to match some settings on the camera, ambient lights are considered, emotions of the subject are considered, etc, etc, all mostly on auto-pilot. Comparing this to approach to my commercial jobs, where the final direction and style are usually pre-determined and there is a crew constantly awaiting your direction isn’t always an easy task for me, because my intuition is to feel it out first, then act.
Three: There’s a quote from Judith Joy Ross that Matthew loves and thinks of as one of the formative ways he looks at photography and helped open him up: “I have a large beautiful wooden camera. I’m a quick talker and I can convince people in a few seconds because I’m sincerely interested in them, but I am more interested in capturing what I see in them. It’s not that I want to be their friend, it’s that I see their life and it’s amazing and I want to put it in an image. It’s a short but deep connection. Then I go back to being alone, but have one more lighting bug in a bottle. One more piece of evidence as to who we are.
This is beautiful and I aim to internalize this sentiment and allow it to help me in my process. Often, my instinct is to make photographs of people without them being aware of it. This is an approach which is increasingly frowned upon by a society sensitive to a constant and over-bearing surveillance. I love the idea of first better connecting with my subjects and then lowering the barriers to allow them to be themselves. This is my approach on every commercial project I undertake and there’s no reason I can’t also bring it into my personal work. Even if it takes more effort and won’t always work, I think it’s worth the effort.
Two final details that I jotted down and enjoyed:
Robert Adams talks about “the gift picture” … one image that sort of ties a project together and you can work off of.
Sasha: “There’s drudgery in every dream job” … on packing books into boxes all, day, long. Or, in my case, committing to write daily about it all.
-Clayton
EPISODE LINKS:
podcast link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3jMjkuu3kPl0N8GxX3tEZZ
photographer’s website: https://www.matthewgenitempo.com/dogbreath-1
to read: Core Curriculum https://books.apple.com/us/book/core-curriculum/id949942181
2024 09 29
Up against the deadline, yet again. I’d love for this space to be a bit more photo-centric, to give me a break from writing something each and every day, even though that was sort of the reason for doing this in the first place. Maybe we take the website in a new direction next year. I was thinking wordpress might be the move, however, apparently wordpress is a mess these days as well. The internet is really losing its charm, isn’t it? I miss the days of pageview counters and blogrolls and animated gifs. Simpler times.
I’ll get back to posting things maybe worth reading one of these days…
-Clayton
A night scene. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Up against the deadline, yet again. I’d love for this space to be a bit more photo-centric, to give me a break from writing something each and every day, even though that was sort of the reason for doing this in the first place. Maybe we take the website in a new direction next year. I was thinking wordpress might be the move, however, apparently wordpress is a mess these days as well. The internet is really losing its charm, isn’t it? I miss the days of pageview counters and blogrolls and animated gifs. Simpler times.
I’ll get back to posting things maybe worth reading one of these days…
-Clayton
2024 09 26
You miss posting one day, and that turns into two days, which then turns into a week. I missed posting yesterday, as I was busy working and then immediately connected with friends for dinner, which turned into an all-night celebration. I’m allowing myself grace by posting this image, today, under yesterday’s date. Let’s see if I can get around to making a post happen today, now.
-Clayton, a busy boy.
Night in the Northwoods. St Germain, Wisconsin. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
You miss posting one day, and that turns into two days, which then turns into a week. I missed posting yesterday, as I was busy working and then immediately connected with friends for dinner, which turned into an all-night celebration. I’m allowing myself grace by posting this image, today, under yesterday’s date. Let’s see if I can get around to making a post happen today, now.
-Clayton, a busy boy.
2024 09 23
Last night, we watched Ren Faire, the three-part mini series on HBO, and I was kind of blown away by the project. Going in, I’d assumed it was a documentary and my brain was primed for a good doc-viewing experience. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that I categorize it in a new still-developing genre of filmmaking that blurs reality with narrative forms of storytelling, and I’m not yet fully sure what to think of it. Much like news has largely become a facts-optional landscape of entertainment-minded-viewer-pleasing content, the genre of documentary filmmaking is going through a similar transformation, with modern tools of moviemaking allowing for some clever new approaches. Stylistically speaking, Ren Faire was one of the best films I’ve seen in recent memory (also, I’m such a sucker for the anamorphic lens work they used).
Today, I came across this quote from Stanley Kubrick:
“A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.”
While I’m not sure the quote ties in with my thoughts on Ren Faire, I will add that oftentimes I find movies pay too much attention to style and not enough attention to story. While they did some amazing work on the project, especially with editing, audio, and cinematography, you started to get the sense that this crew could make damn near any group of people interesting, so what’s the point of spending so much time learning about this specific group?
All that said, if you are into film at all, give Ren Faire a watch. And now I’m off to try and find a reasonably-priced anamorphic lens.
-Clayton
Preparing for dinner at the Northwoods lake cabin. St Germain, Wisconsin. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Last night, we watched Ren Faire, the three-part mini series on HBO, and I was kind of blown away by the project. Going in, I’d assumed it was a documentary and my brain was primed for a good doc-viewing experience. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that I categorize it in a new still-developing genre of filmmaking that blurs reality with narrative forms of storytelling, and I’m not yet fully sure what to think of it. Much like news has largely become a facts-optional landscape of entertainment-minded-viewer-pleasing content, the genre of documentary filmmaking is going through a similar transformation, with modern tools of moviemaking allowing for some clever new approaches. Stylistically speaking, Ren Faire was one of the best films I’ve seen in recent memory (also, I’m such a sucker for the anamorphic lens work they used).
Today, I came across this quote from Stanley Kubrick:
“A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.”
While I’m not sure the quote ties in with my thoughts on Ren Faire, I will add that oftentimes I find movies pay too much attention to style and not enough attention to story. While they did some amazing work on the project, especially with editing, audio, and cinematography, you started to get the sense that this crew could make damn near any group of people interesting, so what’s the point of spending so much time learning about this specific group? It started skewing into style over substance territory.
All that said, if you are into film at all, give Ren Faire a watch. And now I’m off to try and find a reasonably-priced anamorphic lens.
-Clayton
2024 09 22
Writing is hard. I woke up this morning with a great story playing out in my head. Often, I’ll awake in the middle of the night, in the midst of a dream which seems like an amazing story, only to wake up hours later and reassess the dream in the light of day as not very interesting after all. That said, today’s story was formed in my waking moments, while fully conscious of what I was crafting. Excitedly, I rushed downstairs to my laptop and began to jot down my thoughts on the screen before immediately hitting a wall and losing all momentum. The sentences sounded fantastic in my head but proved impossible to get onto paper. Likely, my conscious brain began to over-think and harshly judge the words once they existed in the actual world, where other people might end up reading them.
All that said, I’m considering this a step in the right direction. Writing is not easy, art is not easy. I know this, but I’m optimistic that continued effort to translate these thoughts into real-life words will eventual pay off, much as my decades-long efforts into photography have given me a more comfortable approach to turning my ideas into photos.
-Clayton
Allison at the cabin in the Northwoods. St Germain, Wisconsin. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Writing is hard. I woke up this morning with a great story playing out in my head. Often, I’ll awake in the middle of the night, in the midst of a dream which seems like an amazing story, only to reassess the dream in the light of day as not very interesting after all. That said, today’s story was formed in my waking moments, while fully conscious of what I was crafting. Excitedly, I then rushed downstairs to my laptop and began to jot down my thoughts on the screen before immediately hitting a wall and losing all momentum. The sentences sounded fantastic in my head but proved impossible to get onto paper. Likely, my conscious brain began to over-think and harshly judge the words once they existed in the actual world, where other people might end up reading them.
All that said, I’m considering this a step in the right direction. Writing is not easy, art is not easy. I know this, but I’m optimistic that continued effort to translate these thoughts into real-life words will eventual pay off, much as my decades-long efforts into photography have given me a more comfortable approach to turning my ideas into photos.
-Clayton
2024 08 29
Ten minutes prior to deadline. Although, technically, I’ve missed the deadline since it’s passed midnight in my current location on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. I’ll give myself a pass since it’s not quite tomorrow yet in Chicago. But I’m walking on thin ice around here. This image, made in upstate Wisconsin, reminded me of my week here on the waters of coastal Maryland. I always love making images of water and waves, especially when beautiful lighting is involved. It’s cheap, sure, but look how mesmerizing this is!
See you tomorrow (today).
-Clayton
Lake waves. St Germain, Wisconsin. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Ten minutes prior to deadline. Although, technically, I’ve missed the deadline since it’s passed midnight in my current location on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. I’ll give myself a pass since it’s not quite tomorrow yet in Chicago. But I’m walking on thin ice around here. This image, made in upstate Wisconsin, reminded me of my week here on the waters of coastal Maryland. I always love making images of water and waves, especially when beautiful lighting is involved. It’s cheap, sure, but look how mesmerizing this is!
See you tomorrow (today).
-Clayton