A funny little comment made really made me think a little last night. We needed a picture of a statue to go with a story and I came back to the office holding my iphone. 'Did you shoot the statue with your cell phone?' "I did?" "C'mon, this isn't a game ya know!" All of it was kidding around and I did shoot pictures with my real camera as well...pictures that possibly showed the details of the statue important to the story. But that idea of it not being a game. I take photography seriously and its because of this that I find it compelling to use my cell phone as a tool and not a toy. I know the phone camera has certain style to it, especially using the hipstamatic app and I'm trying to learn to use this in a way that isn't joking around at all. Not everything needs to look the same....sometimes we need to force ourselves to see the world a little differently and this is what I feel is important about trying new things. I think the still photograph is one of the greatest tools of information (and expression) that we have. So when I make an image that has the information needed to convey the story--the apparatus really doesn't matter.
Another old lesson was relived in me today. I went to a discussion by a local newspaper photographer back in Providence RI and the thing that was repeated is to listen. Photographers are known for their eyes, photojournalists are known for their ability to listen to be in the right place to use their eyes. One line he said is 'listen to everybody--even the janitors, I've gotten great stories from the janitors!' Last night as I was stopping to make a self portrait in the shiny surface of a storage trailer behind the high school, a man came out to throw some boxes away in a nearby dumpster and was asking me about what I was seeing. He then asked if I ever looked on the back side of this and we went around to see this wonderful corrugated shiny surface reflecting the colors of the late sun hitting the bricks on the building. If I dismissed what this man was saying to me, I would've missed a pretty cool thing. I'm actually hoping to go back tonight and try something else with this spot hoping the light is just as good.
One of the things I love about this cell phone thing is the immediacy of recording a thought. It has a different focal property to my dslr and its square--so I see differently when using it. I saw this reflection in my friend Jim's outdoor table and just thought it was a nice abstract image...not a great work of art, but noteworthy to me--a thought to record and remind myself that pictures are everywhere if you just look.
Pictures of pictures. Most nights as I'm readying myself for bed I look around my house and think about making an image or two before I go to sleep. I have this print from a show I had of some of my early newspaper photographs. It is hanging in this dark little corner of the room and I thought I'd make a square frame out it to see what it looks like. Its a picture from a library pet show that I took back before digital--probably around 1998 or 99 I'm guessing. Photographs by Richard Sayer