Wanderlust

After taking the Camp VJ workshop, I’ve been thinking a lot about the limitations of being a still photographer and working on the stories I want to tell. I fundamentally believe in Cartier-Bresson’s Decisive Moment and the power of a still image to have a lasting effect on a person. I think of Eddie Adams’ image of the execution of a Viet Cong Guerilla. Stuart Franklin’s photograph of tanks about to run over a man in Tiananmen Square. I think of Dorothea Lange, Lewis Hine, Weegee, Robert Frank and on and on and on. [I almost feel guilty listing names because I could fill and entire page of people whose images have affected me in a big way.] And I don’t doubt that I will always be a still photographer. But I must admit that there is something truly spectacular about hearing the inflections in someone’s voice as they share a story, seeing the movement of someone across your frame of vision. There is just some wonderful thing about moving pictures. I think I may have found my new favorite medium. And this is very confusing to my brain.

So this back-and-forth confusion in my head came to fruition when filmmakers Adam Snow and Steve Albertson, of Horns and Tails Productions, recently asked me to help them shoot a documentary. It’s currently called Democracy in Chicago and it investigates the various roles patronage, pay-to-play politics and a variety of other systems/interests influence Chicago politics. I’m also probably not doing it justice with my one-line ‘review’ but I promise to link to the film when it’s done and explain more as time goes on.

AND, I’m actually getting the chance to see if this is really what I want to do [too].

So, for the past week or so, I’ve been helping shoot a bunch of b-roll, or non-interview footage, around town. I’ve also been shooting a bit of stills. Here’s the team at breakfast:

Steve Albertson, left, and Adam Snow

I also discovered that a perk of filmmaking is that the directors tend to feed you!

A few days ago, we spent some time at the old Meigs Field and around Northerly Island.

Today, we headed downtown to the Millenium Park area where I took my essential photo of the “bean” among other things…

I also learned the art of how to film using a ‘homemade dolly’ and Adam and Steve have been nice enough to snatch up my camera and take some shots of me working.

So, I am officially exhausted and extremely happy. I’m not sure how long I will hold out with a full time photo gig, shooting weddings and now working on this film, but that’s what caffeine is for, right? And I’m feeling pretty inspired and hopefully that will help me get out of bed tomorrow morning.

Forgot to add this to the others from the wedding day. A self portrait in the bathroom at the reception…

Since my cameras are out of commission for a bit, I’ve been going through a bunch of recent work, editing and looking for things I missed the first time around. A friend of mine recently asked me to do a headshot of her and I came across some outtakes I really liked from the shoot.

At the paper, we’ve been doing a lot of interviews of local candidates for the upcoming election. It’s usually about an hour long Q & A session that we videotape and put on our site. I’ve had the pleasure of covering the 10th district race, one of the most contentious in the state. After our interview with democratic hopeful Dan Seals, I managed to get a candid of him. Hopefully I’ll have the same luck with his rival for the position, incumbent republican Mark Kirk, during our shoot tomorrow…

I just finished recovering from the 3-day Camp Video Journalism workshop [and pulling my hair out watching the debates] with Robb Montgomery at the Chicago Sun-Times. It was the most “official” training I’ve had in video, minus my video installation classes at Columbia and the self training I’ve done at the paper. Basically, besides shooting, it was heads down, non-stop-eyes-bugging-out video immersion. And it was pretty fun.

The first day was pretty basic, shooting b-roll and editing. Day two was spent with tv and print journalist Carol Marin who had some great advice about interviewing:

#1: Shut up and listen.
#2: Get out of the way of your interviews.
#3: Ask leading questions.
#4: An interview is a conversation, not a Q & A.

We also heard from video journalist Mark Scheffler who added about 10 more names I need to research, NYU Film grad Aaron Cahan and Northwest Herald videographer Danielle Guerra. If you haven’t seen her video Jeff’s Last Delivery yet, you should stop reading this and check it out. It is an amazing piece and I was glad to see such a variety of work shown in class.

Once we got down to actually shooting, I headed for the south loop in search of a story. Luckily enough, I stumbled across Chicago’s own Cecil Locke, owner of Touch and Go chess, a 30 ft. table of chess and checkers boards south of the Art Institute of Chicago. Locke was quite a character and I had a great time working with him. And here’s the piece I did for the class:

Find more videos like this on Camp Video Journalism

Any feedback is more than welcome. I think my video excitement has returned so hopefully you’ll be seeing some more of these soon…

One of the special features we have been doing at the paper is choosing a town to cover a “Day in the Life” in. It’s pretty much an assignment photographer’s dream day since you can shoot however you want and not have to worry about upsetting your editor or making sure you get a shot of so-and-so.  This time around was Libertyville, a northern suburb of Chicago and our last one for the year. Here are my favorites from the day:

I know I have been the worst blogger known to man. I’ve got no excuses. So in an effort to make up for lost time and lack of material, I intend to bombard you with copious amounts of photographs with the intention of actually blogging more often. Here goes.

Thanks for looking.

a.

On my last day in Mexico, my roommate, comrade and partner in mischief Ana Manzano and I headed to the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacan to see the pyramids. We had a fantastic bus ride due to our drivers insatiable love of 80’s/90’s pop ballads and we sung our way in and out of the city.

The ruins are a stunning sight, even at a distance, and we walked along the Street of the Dead towards the massive Sun pyramid. [Apparently I was having a "minimalist day", so I apologize in advance if the negative space gets overwhelming.]

After an extraordinarily long and hot trek, we made it to the base of the Sun pyramid. As we looked at it looming above us, Ana joked, “I’m not trying to do the second one [pyramid].” Glancing over at the moon pyramid which looked about another mile away, and then looking at the massive structure next to me, I just laughed in agreement.

As we neared the top, massive rain drops started to fall and Ana looked back at me wildly grinning. Tourists pulled out their umbrellas and ponchos, but having neither, I just let myself get drenched and took in the view.

After the pyramids, we did a bit of wandering and found a little side street lined with shops, restaurants and endless picture possibilities.

We decided on a little cantina and instantly fell in love. While sipping Manzana Lift [an apple flavored soda], I suddenly heard, “Béseme, Béseme mucho”, in my ear and I turned to find two charming men with guitars singing their hearts out.

After finishing our enchiladas, Ana ran over to talk to the women who ran the place and found out that three generations of women were all cooking together. They taught her how to make tortillas and shared some stories.

Back in Chicago, I’m still processing the trip and everything that has happened. My only coherent thought at the moment is that I need to figure out a way to get back to D.F. as soon as possible.

a.

After Juan Luiz had disappeared, I had a day to kill at the workshop to photograph whatever I wanted. I had been in contact with numerous NGO’s and decided to photograph the Monólogos de la Maquila performance at Teatro Coyoacán in Mexico City’s Colonia Coyoacán. Los Monólogos de la Maquila is a play and collaboration with the theatre group Costureras de Sueños and the Mexican Society for the Rights of Women. The performance is meant to bring awareness to the injustices experienced by women maquila workers [assembly line workers] by acting out the lives of the women who work in an area of large denim factories also known around town as El Rey de la Mezclilla [which directly translates to "The King of Blue Jeans"]. The women who work in the factories suffer physical abuse and rape and are exposed to harmful working conditions and have little to no rights. Clothing made in these maquiladoras are usually tagged as “made in the US” or “made in Italy”.

Hopefully these photos give you some idea of how intense the performance was. Even though my Spanish is mas o menos, I nearly burst into tears at the end of it.

I followed them backstage and found out that one of the women actors is from one of the maquila towns and offered me some contacts there to do some work with them. Needless to say, I plan to head back to Mexico City, spend some time working with these women and try to illuminate the issue and do their story justice [photographically speaking].

They also have a blog which you should check out. And if you don’t speak Spanish, I highly recommend using my favorite online free translator because it is definitely worth the read.

a.