Is this photograph going to be boring? And why boring might be good.
Some thoughts on the journey to a photograph
Fatherly stuff, first.
Our three-year-old is probably going to be a famous actor or artist. Or the next Amy Poehler. But, like, a half-Mexican version. She’s spunky and hilarious. She has comedic timing. She dances but as if she has a worm crawling on her back… and it’s by design, meaning she derives insane movements from the depths of her imagination. Maybe all kids do this, but I’m nurturing the hell out of it.
But she also goes to bed at 10pm. We have to stay in her room to monitor her rambunctiousness. She yells. She cries. She tells us 40 times that she’s just going to “get one more thing.” Like a pencil. Or a piece of paper. We end up staying in her room, sunken into a beanbag, playing half-dead but taming our other half that is half-ready-to-explode. She reminds us not to leave. I mentioned this to a former colleague who has kids and she said, “Oh shit you stay in there?”
Yeah. Bad move. It’s like parenting 101 to never ever do this.
And the other night I kinda had enough and stormed out. In my defense, my ass really hurt from the beanbag. It was the culmination of almost two hours of these small battles, fought valiantly, without anyone giving an inch. So as I stormed out, I immediately left for my calm place. You know what I did to calm down? I watched Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan’s 100-minutes-of-100-percent-tense-war-and-survival movie. To calm down. At 10pm. And it struck me that there are moments in our lives when what we seek may not make complete sense, and to not overthink these episodes. If I had paused to really ask myself, “Dude, you’re watching a war movie at 10pm on a Wednesday after your daughter whooped your ass in a standoff?” I think I would have reconsidered and rewatched The Office. Or gone straight to bed. Or had wine. But, no. In retrospect, Dunkirk was the perfect antidote to my frustration because as I watched Harry Styles’ oil-drenched-lifevest, I realized I was nowhere near real calamity. What my guts were telling me is that I needed to chill the hell out because there was far worse out there. And apparently, movies with a lot of tension, especially horror, can ease anxiety. Go figure.
The banal of it all
I usually set out with my camera anxious about “missing” the shot. I create scenes in my head around places I walk around, even if they are new. I’ll think about the settings. I’ll think about composition. I’ll think about being fast enough.
Most of these initial feelings come from a fundamental excitement I have when I photograph. There is a rush of adrenaline and microexplosions of giddiness. It’s the same feeling I get when I’m trying something new that I know I’ll enjoy, like singing Shaggy’s “Boombastic” for the first time in public or visiting a new city, with all kinds of new grime and shadows and angles to discover.
But then, almost like clockwork, every fucking time, I get this overwhelming sense of dread. I’ll miss the shot. It won’t “live up.” Ya’ll, not only miss it, but I’ll completely ignore the interesting thing. That’s the dread. But why?
I recently told a friend that I’m growing a lot more comfortable in my life appreciating that whatever I capture is satisfying enough. It’s just meant to be. Destiny, maybe. It’s not the most ideal artistic endeavor, but it frees me a bit to be more constructive with myself about what went into the moment.
Most of the time I capture fairly insignificant scenes, and it pisses me off. But it doesn’t make me stop.
Other times, I discover peculiarities in scenes I hadn’t really understood or observed while I was taking a photo. Like, I thought there was a laundry basket on the sidewalk, on a gorgeous early Spring day in Seattle. But as I look closer, I realize I missed the part where someone is actually dragging this thing. I hadn’t noticed a person at any point and didn’t walk down the hill to investigate.
But there’s a wire. A leash. Why? Did I capture someone’s tragedy in motion? Or maybe it’s a college student being a lazy ass. Is this art? Is it photojournalism? Is it completely insignificant either way? Will all photographs cease to exist except this one and now you’re seeing the most valuable scene ever? Ha.
I observe a bit more in that photo and notice there are people enjoying their day and a monstrous crane blocking majestic views in order to expand Seattle’s narrative of a city undergoing growing pains. And then there’s a laundry basket, on a sidewalk, tethered to someone going somewhere in a state of mind that is a complete mystery. But all of it seems so insanely normal.
Work in Progress
My style, or lack thereof, is still a very large work in progress. I’m not sure what is it I do with a camera, even when I’m capturing my family. The shortest version of phrasing I most often arrive at is something like “I document.” But I don’t want something more substantial that elevates the “normal” or "atypical.” Recently I read Noah Kalina describe photography as suffering, and that resonates because the act of creation is so volatile for me.
I’m usually in hot pursuit of capturing something I find meaningful, and meaningful, to me, is both delightful and agonizing. Sometimes a photograph is intriguing, but most often it’s freezing a scene I presently, today, in that exact time and place, find meaningful. And maybe the act of freezing time at that moment is my desperate attempt to recall that feeling. Or maybe it’s to experiment and see if I can extract an element of that feeling to make you feel something…similar.
Apologies if this entire paragraph is suffering.
I think the best photographs are those that come completely unscripted. This perspective is why I struggle as a portrait photographer or even a landscape photographer. I treasure light but am at my best when I “go with the flow.” I don’t see picture-making as creative direction; I see it as a hunt. And a lot of times there’s a lot of banality gathered in that hunt, like a crab fisherman potentially snagging an abundance of seaweed.
Recently I came across an article reviewing 11 photographers that broke through to elevate the banal, like suburban life, modern life, the trivial, and the drab, and this short curation felt like a magical revelation. Every photographer listed seems to speak a language I understand. Delightful and agonizing. Meaningful suffering. Sensational banality. Because in the end, maybe our pursuit to be so unoriginal is the most normal thing of all. Let “banal” just flow.
Photographers, too, looked beyond city streets to explore the landscape and faces of suburbia—and continue to do so today. One of the first was the legendary William Eggleston, who found beauty in the banality of his Southern hometown in the 1970s; more recently, photographers Larry Sultan and Laura Migliorino have challenged the suburbs’ stock depictions in the media and popular culture. The picture-perfect, if superficial, suburban stereotypes have also inspired a slew of horror flicks and suspenseful dramas—think Disturbia, Desperate Housewives, and Stranger Things—and chilling cinematic images of domestic life by Gregory Crewdson and Holly Andres.
What was top of mind this week?
I binge Smartless. The Kerry Washington episode was top of my fave list this week:
I watched NOPE, Dunkirk, and The Irishman in the last two weeks because of Smartless. Christopher Nolan, Jordan Peele, and Martin Scorcese. So. Good.
We’ve moved on from “quiet quitting” to “loud quitting”, which means employees truly give no fucks and it’s very liberating: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/28/employees-are-now-loud-quitting-heres-why-its-worse-than-quiet-quitting.html
I wanted to see Sofia Kourtesis at Capitol Hill Block Party this weekend but she had a visa snafu and [insert fart sound]. You should listen to her stuff:
Happy Sunday. Thank you again for reading. Much love.
"I think the best photographs are those that come completely unscripted". I thought about Jeff Wall when I read this. For years I believed most of his photos where taken "unscripted"... how wrong I was, he is the master of staging. Street photography is tricky.
PS. You should film one of Astrid's performances so we all get to enjoy her talent!