OAXACA 2023
Pre-workshop journal
September to February
OLD SAN JUAN, SEPTEMBER 7TH
I left the hotel at 6 am yesterday and today with camera in hand. Yesterday, it was simply because I couldn’t sleep, and the light was beautiful; this morning, I went out with more intention. As I walked, I asked myself what I was searching for. What lights me up? I thought about abstracted humanity, the details that show human intention or interruption. Not portraits, but people doing things and the evidence of their doing. More the evidence than the people, of course. Implements. Signs of life.
When I got to Old San Juan, I decided to walk down to La Perla. At first, I hesitated, but then I dove in. I immediately felt unwelcome and uncomfortable, so I left in a hurry. I left without taking many pictures though there were dozens around me—it seemed everywhere I looked was visually interesting.
I walked through the restored beauty of Old San Juan, feeling less connected to the brightly painted streets than the memory of the same places just a few years ago when the paint was dull and peeling. I asked myself, why this interest in the degraded, the broken down, the discarded? Is it the closeness of humanity in these things? In some ways, a more palpable “abstracted humanity”? I want that to be the case. I want to find my true intention. And I want that intention to guide me to my voice.
“You just have to live, and life will give you pictures.”
— Cartier Bresson
OLD SAN JUAN, SEPTEMBER 8TH
This morning I hesitated to get up, even though I was awake, because of the dejection I felt yesterday. The discomfort of La Perla, the failure of making interesting photos. What? One day and you’re done? What about finding your voice? What if you haven’t even taken your first real photo yet? What if everything up until now, and up until years from now, is simply stumbling toward self-understanding? Isn’t that worth something? Today the surfaces; tomorrow, the depths. Or a little deeper each day.
I left the hotel with the quote from Bresson on my mind. My first reading of it was literal: not looking for photos, but letting them come to you. I guess my second reading is still a little like that, too, but it’s slightly different. I put more emphasis on what it means to live, to be in your life, not separate. The more I am in the work, the better it will be.
“I take photographs in my neighborhood. I think that mysterious things happen in familiar places. We don't always need to run to the other end of the world.”
— Luigi Ghirri
HOBOKEN, SEPTEMBER 20TH
Yesterday, I was accepted to the workshop in Oaxaca. My first reaction was to think, well, this wasn’t on merit, it’s just because I can afford it. But as I thought more about it, I realized that it just doesn’t matter. That way of thinking is about external accolades, feeling ‘special’. If this is not about growth and individual development as a person, then it’s empty. Oaxaca, and the general advancement of my photographic practice, can’t be about outward acknowledgement, it needs to be about internal growth and fulfillment.
“If the purpose of looking is only to make, then there’s nothing to look at.”
— Wolfgang Tillmans
JERSEY HEIGHTS, SEPTEMBER 25TH
Looking out the window, the sky was clear and shadows long so I went out. On potentially missing a shot, I thought, it’s fine, this is only practice. But I quickly corrected myself: the point is that everything is practice. All of life is practice. We’re not practicing for ‘the big game’ nor is all of life ‘a game’—fraught with the stakes of winning and losing. It’s practice. It’s trying something over and over again and getting only a little bit better each time. It’s being conscious and curious. I was thinking as I walked about what captures my interest, the qualities of what I ‘see as something there’. It occurred to me that ‘finding my vision’ is about how that changes over time. I might feel today that I’m drawn to cliché and the same subjects over and over, but over time, I will evolve.
I went out with a quote I’d seen earlier in the day from Wolfgang Tillmans on my mind: “If the purpose of looking is only to make, then there’s nothing to look at.” At first I interpreted this as whether I would be there without a camera or not, but later I took it to mean that there needs to be a certain degree of curiosity toward the subject. I also have the quote from Ghirri on my mind, “I think that mysterious things happen in familiar places.” As I was stopped by scenes to photograph, I had the idea of mysteriousness in mind. I asked myself as I shot, is there mystery here? I think a few of the images might.
I also had on my mind the reminder from Puerto Rico, to ‘get closer’. Today I reread the quote from Robert Capa, “If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough.” I’m curious about what he might have meant by that, and while I do think proximity is a part of it, there are larger interpretations such as having empathy for the subject. Magnum photographer Olivia Arther, says, “Being close for me is about being inside someone’s world, when they feel relaxed about my being around. I try to let people have their space.” Both meanings are important for me, I feel. I think I prefer the images that are tighter.
“But isn’t part of photography about finding the exotic within your own life and landscape, and recognizing the power and importance of it; the extraordinary of the ordinary? When I get stuck, I tell myself, relax, it’s everywhere and everything. It’s all around you and you just have to let it speak to you.”
— Paul Graham