D65: A Story in a Still
Holding back tears as I write. Been holding back the floodgates all day, an apt metaphor since I took a photowalk in the upper and lower 9th ward of New Orleans. Four years later, the devastation of Katrina is still larger than life. It IS life for some. And it has been death for others—literally and figuratively.
The images I captured today covered a wide range of areas, but there was only ONE story that so compelled me, captured my attention, and would not let go. It was a story in a still. 10 stills to be exact. You didn’t have to be there to hear the story. You can find it in the details, the light, the eyes. Look for it. Don’t miss it. It’s there waiting for you to uncover it.
One message I’ve been hearing over and over at the PartnerCon photography conference is the power of capturing a story in a still. Today’s images tell one story. A man—Robert Wilson. A home—owned 18 years. A life—forever changed. A story—in a still.
Manual: Page 104—Lighting. Everything today was natural light. Shooting with the Canon 5D Mark II really increases your options for what you can capture with available light.
Images: I was given an absolutely astonishing and unexpected gift today by the owner of the gallery I mentioned in my blog post yesterday. Okay, here come those tears again. I’m really not a crybaby, but something has just grabbed hold of me today.
Joshua Mann Pailet is the owner of A Gallery and I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with him last night at the gallery showing. He’s a New Orleans native and the gallery has been open since January 1975. As a photographer himself, he has worked closely with many of the world’s greatest photographers and the majority of the prints he displays and sells come directly from the photographer.
Apparently Joshua read my blog post from yesterday. How incredible is that? So today when I bumped into Rachel LaCour who was instrumental in planning the gallery walk, she handed me an out of print copy of the book, Gordon Parks: Half Past Autumn. She told me it was a gift to me from Joshua. Wow. Speechless. And a reminder to me that when you go boldly in the direction of your dreams, it is not in vain.
It’s a gorgeous book and Gordon Parks is an inspiring photographer (among other things) who endured countless odds to create. In his retrospective he writes, “A musical theme vibrates in my sleep. I get up, go to the piano, and jot it down. A blustery sky, a crescent moon, or the blazing sun can hurry me to poetry, or to the camera. When the doors of promise open, the trick is to quickly walk through them.”
Start walking. Keep walking. Never quit.
On a side note, I’ve been saying I wanted to find out who I should be studying and I found the answer in the FAQ on his site:
Beaumont Newhall’s History of Photography is widely considered the bible of fine art photography. Naomi Rosenblum’s World History of Photography is extensive and comprehensive. The Getty Museum’s Handbook to Photography is dictionary-like, short and concise. The Waking Dream is an excellent catalogue for the Gilman Paper Company collection and gives a supurb overview of the medium.
