What is the relationship between the for-profit gallery owner and the exhibitor? It’s a question that’s been bugging me for a while and my conclusion is that for most of us the answer is not much. I’ve had several experiences with gallery owners who’ve exhibited my work where things went from enthusiastic conversations prior to and during the shows, to aloofness or not being interested in talking at all shortly after the shows had come and gone.  It’s all right, as my interest in pushing to exhibit my work has been on the wane for some time, although I’ve been in three shows during the past year and am scheduled to be in several more during 2023. All of these have been with the Monalog Collective, and we are now working on a group project that hopefully will find its way into an institution’s holding and get a show.

Nevertheless, my gallery experiences over the last few years have been somewhat discouraging, if not unexpected. Why? Because, gallery owners are not photographers, and in most cases not artists/creatives at all. They’re business people and their biggest concern is to keep the lights on and make a profit. And that’s fine, but the problem is in the end unless you’re seen as someone that will be a revenue stream, then you’re yesterday’s news. And if they don’t “get” your work then you will never get the time of day to begin with.

So, what does this all mean for me at least?  Well, increasingly I’m becoming more and more convinced that the whole gallery thing isn’t very important anymore, unless of course art is your livelihood and you must exhibit. Look, most gallery owners could care less about you or your art and the likelihood of getting your work on their sacred walls is low.

What do you do then?

Keep making photographs that are meaningful to you and become the best you can be!  Improve your vision and your craft. What else? Get a website up and running and maybe write a blog. How about self-publishing your work? That’s the direction I think I’m eventually going to be headed. But even if I don’t, the older I get and the more I do, I really care more about self-directed projects and just being out there as part of living my photographic life.

The friends I’ve made are not the for-profit gallery owners, but other like-minded photographers, students I’ve taught and those I’ve met along the way when photographing. These are the relationships that truly matter.

Maybe I just haven’t met the right ones, but time is too short and I guess certain things don’t seem as important anymore compared to those that really matter.

Stay safe,

Michael

At the end of my list in a recent entry entitled To Become What We Can Be I wrote “Identifying and removing what is distracting and preventing me from becoming what I can be”. Just so you know I’m not saying that I plan to quit my day job … not yet anyway … and I am not suggesting you do either.

So, what can we do to address what I believe is a major problem we all face from time to time? News flash: 1) While getting that new camera or lens may make things a little more pleasant or even easier, they will not make you become a better photographer; and 2) Obsessing over this is one of the greatest distractions and time wasters there is. Trust me, I know of what I speak!

Here’s what to do. Sit down and think hard about what really is preventing and/or distracting you from becoming what you could be in your photographic life. I’ll bet items 1 and 2 above are major contributors for many of you. Hell, they consumed a lot of my time and money over the years.

So, what about all the underbrush in your life that’s been getting in the way but can be cleared out by simply identifying what it is and dedicating yourself to getting rid of it?

I’m sure it will be different for everyone but do take the time to think about this. Get a pad of paper and start writing things down. The answer may be more complicated than you think and not be as easy to solve as you’d like.  It may also take a little bit of time. After you have jotted down your thoughts let things percolate for a while. Don’t stress it, and be prepared for an epiphany or two if you’re patient!

So. while I can’t figure out what is preventing and distracting you from becoming what you could be I am confident if you commit yourself to identifying the problem(s) and doing all you can within reason to solve it/them you will be well on your way to fulfilling your photographic dreams.

Oh, and one other thing … don’t think too much about when and how to do what I suggest. Just go ahead and do it. It will take a lot less time than scouring the forums and YouTube for true the answer, and cost a lot less money than paying for an expensive workshop to try to discover yourself.

Good luck and stay safe,

Michael

Last week I celebrated my 68^th birthday. Not a major milestone in the cosmic scheme of things but it was important to me for reasons that became more important with each passing year.  It’s hard when you lose your Dad at a young age and it was hard on me because despite my best efforts I was not there at the end. Not being there has always bothered me and even though it wasn’t my fault it will always be a sore point in my life. Dad passed away of prostate cancer when he was 67 and I’ve been biopsied three times, thankfully without any issues. But I have suffered with a nagging fear all these years that I might not get to 68 and make it to the beginning of the rest of my life.

Coincidentally, this past week I also went back home to Buffalo to visit my parents at the cemetery and do some other things, including making some photographs of at the Tops grocery market where a horrible mass shooting occurred earlier this year. I never put my self-imposed birthday milestone and communing with my dad several days apart together. It wasn’t planned and just sort of happened. All of this has made me think about how important Dad (and Mom) were in getting me off to a great start in life and my photographic journey.

Dad took me on my first visit to Delaware Camera Mart and helped me buy my first serious camera (Mom and Dad had previously bought me a Kodak Brownie and an Instamatic), an Argus C-3, and finally a Konica rangefinder.  I still remember what it was like being there. All those wonderful mechanical cameras and lenses in the glass cases, not to mention the mystery of what was in all those boxes on the shelves behind. After that my Dad would take me to camera stores to buy film and to sometimes just to just hang out and look around. I miss those times.  Most camera stores aren’t what they were all those years ago, but whenever I’m in one I check to see if there are any used film cameras to look at.

I remember when I asked Dad if it was all right to build a makeshift darkroom in our basement when I was fifteen. Both he and my Mom thought it was a fine idea and I was soon off to the races. Equipped first with a rickety second-hand Omega B-22, and then and old Omega D2V, it served me well through college until I went off to grad school and marriage.

I miss my Dad and all we could have shared together if the doctors knew then what they know now. Sometimes it takes a while to realize just how important someone in your life is, and even when you do it sometimes takes even longer to understand the full extent of that importance.  Dad thought I should be a writer and it turns out I’ve done a fair bit of writing during my career, not to mention a little blog entry every week for nearly the last seven years.  Great parents can make all the difference in your life and I was lucky enough to have two of them! I appreciate what my dad did for me, and how much he believed in me. Like a lot of things though, I didn’t recognize the fullness of it until much later.

Thanks, Dad, for everything. I’ve had a great life and now I’ve made it to the beginning of the rest of my life. I’m sure you knew I would!

Stay well,

Michael

Last week my wife and I sat in Yom Kippur services for the first time in three years due to the pandemic. During that time, we like many others were restricted to live streaming and now it was good to be back. There were many things that struck me, but thinking back upon it there was a particular verse in one of the most important prayers that asked for forgiveness for not becoming what we could be.

I’ve thought about that quite a bit; it’s that important. In a broader sense we could ponder the thought with respect to the entirety of our lives and we should, but for now I would like to talk about the portion of our lives we spend or should spend on the art and craft of our photography. Are we doing all we can to become what we can be?

I know there is much more I can and should be doing to become better. Why? Because it is important to me and my life!  And when it really comes down to it, other than my family, there is nothing I love more.  The problem is that things get in the way that are not really important at all, or I decide to do something else that is easier or a waste of precious time. While I’m fortunate to work for myself and my time is more flexible than most others I know, my non-working time is precious and there are important competing requirements for it beyond my dear wife and family.

So, what can I do to become what I can be in my photographic life? First of all, use my available time better to become better, be it in the field or in the darkroom. That means taking a long look at what free time I have available and become determined not to waste it. But what else can I do to become what I can be? Be ever mindful that I will never be like all the greats I admire so much, and that I should never want to. Instead, I should strive to become the best of what I can be as me. Why? Because me is who I am!

What else? I need to reaffirm my love for what I get out of photography beyond the act of making the photograph itself. There is so much more. It’s the entire experience … the journey itself.  Even if you don’t get any keepers when you’re out there, or don’t even make a single exposure. Finally, there is the aspect of Living a Photographic Life and all that entails for me. I’ve written about this many times before, about maintaining the important personal relationships we make during the course of our photographic lives, as well as all the many other things we can should be doing to keep our heads in the game and keep learning, even when not in the field or darkroom. To me this is just as important as the making of photographs and we must not squander the time we have been given to do this. So, moving forward, some of things I will be doing more of include:

1. Carefully examining my proof sheets and making prints of only the best images.
2. Going through my old proof sheets and making images of keepers I somehow missed.
3. Reading books about photographers.
4. Studying monographs I own.
5. Learning about photographers I’m not familiar with and obtaing their monographs.
6. Utilizing the Internet for good ideas.
7. Visiting museums and galleries in person and online for photographic and other art exhibits.
8. Identifying and removing what is distracting and preventing me from becoming what I can be.

I intend to keep trying to learn, be productive and to continue living a photographic life. I also intend to do my best to do whatever it takes to keep my photographic spark alive and not to squander the opportunity I’ve been given! In short, I going to rededicate myself to do everything I can to become what I can be.

I hope you will think about doing everything you can do become what you can be in your photography and photographic life!

Stay safe,

Michael

Unbelievable …two train rides up to New York for two landmark photography shows in two weeks!!  Is this the good life or what!  This type of opportunity doesn’t come up that often, but when it does you have to jump on it, otherwise you’ll cry later. And next week is the annual Zombie Walk in Asbury Park that I will photograph again. Damn!

I was a little on the fence about talking the time off to go back to New York so soon when I heard about the Arbus show called Cataclysm – The 1972 Diane Arbus Retrospective Revisited. I had the well-known Aperture monograph derived from the original blockbuster show and to be honest it wasn’t in my power rotation. Nevertheless, something inside me said go. There might not be another chance in my lifetime to see what this promised to be – a complete reproduction of the MoMA show organized by John Szarkowski fifty years ago – down the exact number of prints show – 113! And if the recent Klein show taught me anything, it’s that sometimes standing in front of the real thing can be an experience you simply can’t be prepared for that can have a dramatic impact on your photographic thinking and seeing.

The show is on view until October 22nd at The David Zwirner Gallery at 537 West 20th Street, conveniently about 15 minutes of brisk walking from Penn Station. I need to take a moment here to mention that the West 20^th Street location (he has more than one gallery in New York and others in London, Paris, and Hong Kong), may be one of the most impressive private galleries I’ve ever been in … more like a museum than a gallery. Very large with a number of rooms on two floors.  This allowed the photos to be given ample space between each other to breath.  The black and white images were beautifully seen and printed, framed in simple white metal and hung on matching white painted walls. Simply exquisite.

So, what about those prints? Fifty years ago, these pictures turned the photographic world upside down; they mostly depict people viewed by the mainstream as different or in other ways odd. Transvestites, nudists, stripers, dwarfs, giants, tattooed, twins, triplets, socially awkward teenage Viet Nam War supporters, children with downs syndrome, aging women trying to hang on to what was and people hiding behind costumes and masks. Most of the pictures were what I think of as environmental portraits, as well as some very compelling close-ups made with both 35mm and medium format twin lens reflex cameras. Two pictures, though not next two each other seem to form a compelling pair. A head and shoulders portrait of a newborn and the same type of photo of an aging socialite … what once was and what now had become?

All the famous images are there, and yes that picture of the little boy holding the plastic hand grenade and glaring at the camera is still frightening – all the more in person! In short, the show is as fresh and important today as it was fifty years ago.

If you’re nearby or even not you need to see it!

Stay safe,

Michael

Two weeks ago, I wrote about a spectacular exhibit I had seen several days earlier at the International Center for Photography called William Klein: YES: Photographs, Paintings, Films, 1948-2013. The retrospective of Klein’s life work was a real tour de force and it will be something I’ll remember. This past week Klein passed away in Paris. He was 96 years old.

I’m not going to write an obituary; I am quite certain there are or will be plenty available online, written by those more learned of Klein then me. And I’m not going to rehash what I wrote two weeks ago. What I want to say is that with Klein’s passing the number of remaining great twentieth century masters is one less. Klein was certainly a giant and will be sorely missed, as is the case with all those of his stature that are now gone. His work, while not as well known in his native America as it was in his adopted country of France influenced new generations of photographers just like that of other controversial geniuses like Robert Frank and Diane Arbus.

My question is whether there are new giants to step in and fill the shoes of Klein and all the others from Adams to Cartier-Bresson? I not so sure. That isn’t to say that good work is not being done, but I believe there was a golden age of photography, especially concerning street, documentary and landscape in the twentieth century that doesn’t exist anymore and may not be matched anytime soon. If you think I’m wrong go ahead and let me know!

Klein was a trend setter even though he fought all the existing trends and conventions of photography. Just like Frank’s masterpiece The Americans, published several years later, no one in the US would touch his ground breaking first book affectionately known as New York for short. Thank goodness for the French! It was only after these seminal works were published overseas did it become possible for Americans to eventually get to see them first hand.

So where is photography headed in 2022 and beyond. I really have no idea. That having been said, I am grateful that I was finally able to see Klein’s work first hand, and while his approach is much different than mine, with a look and feel that is also different, it has cast a spell upon me that’s likely not to be lifted in this lifetime.

Prior to seeing the Klein show I didn’t own any of his books, but have since ordered one and will be getting the show catalogue book as soon as it’s published. Now, do yourself a favor.  If you’re not familiar with Klein’s work, or for that matter any of the other great twentieth century masters, get their books or at least borrow them from the library if they’re available. They will blow your mind!

Stay well,

Michael

Not if its content is of equal greatness.

I become mesmerized every time I look at a print by my good friend Jim Fitzgerald. They’re that beautiful! I feel like I’m transported to a different place and I can actually see deep into the three-dimensional carbon transfer contact print surface. When I look at his work or day dream about it, I sometimes think about something I read almost fifty years ago. In a 1976 Newsletter, Fred Picker wrote:

“When Strand or Adams or Caponigro spend hours or days printing a negative they are following a linear path to the end. They know where they want to go, they visualize the print without getting sidetracked, and finally they produce.  Good photographers are almost always food printers …. I once read an asinine review of a very beautiful Paul Caponigro show. The headline read, ‘Making Jewels out of Jewels’ and the reviewer stated that ‘Caponigro is fighting a battle between technique and esthetics.’ Why? Because ‘the prints are so beautiful that he must be over-involved with technique.’ Nonsense: The truth is that no photographer is a better or worse printer than he is a photographer. The same ability to see photographically comes into play in the darkroom as existed in the field at the time the photograph was made.”

Yes, yes and yes … incredibly well said! What’s more boring than a technically perfect rotten photograph? And what’s worse than an overly dramatic and obviously grossly manipulated digital print? The finely executed carbon transfer print made by a true master like Jim is a meaningful piece of art because the content itself is as engrossing as the striking beauty of its presentation.

There are a lot of photographers that obsess over owning the finest lenses and perfect technique, but their pictures are not worth a damn. There are also other photographers whose technique leaves a lot to be desired but their vision is pure. I’ll take one of those photographs over a technically perfect boring image any day! William Klein’s work is fascinating case in point (last week I discussed his show at the International Center of Photography). It doesn’t emphasize technique and even goes out of its way let you know that, but it is nevertheless incredible!

Back to Jim Fitzgerald and his sublime images. Can an average photograph be visually improved through technique and processes like carbon transfer? I suppose, but only to a limited extent. It will never be great.

So, what can we do? It’s pretty obvious – work to be the best we can be in the field and in the darkroom! And here’s the thing, it’s a lifelong process, often filled with frustration. Why? While technique can be learned and improved upon with continued effort, it’s the seeing that’s hard. Adams famously said, “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.”  Think about that for a moment.  Adams made thousands of images most of us would die for, yet very few made the cut.  We all want more than a dozen significant photographs a year but let’s be honest with ourselves; are they really good, or in other words are they truly what we had in our mind’s eye when we made them? And then if we are lucky and they are good, do we make the requisite effort to create the best print of our ability? Jim does and it inspires me to keep working to be the best I can be.

My 35mm and medium format negatives will never yield the clarity and depth of a large or ultra-large format-based carbon transfer print, let alone an enlargement made from a large format negative. They just won’t and they don’t have to! If I put in the effort the keepers I get will be visually and esthetically beautiful. What matters for all of us is that we work as hard as we can and give the entire photographic process our best shot.

Stay well,

Michael

Last week I decided to take the train to New York and visit the International Center for Photography for its exhibit William Klein: YES: Photographs, Paintings, Films, 1948-2013.

Let’s start with a bit of a conclusion – WOW!!!!

I was familiar with some of Klein’s photography but not of his other work. I don’t own any of his books (that will hopefully change soon … they’re expensive!!!) and I had never seen any of his work in the flesh, so you could say that I wasn’t prepared for the visual explosion that awaited me!

As indicated by the name of the exhibit, the show covered all aspects of Klein’s incredible and varied career, with over 300 of his works covering his photography, filmmaking, painting and publishing. While I studied the entirety of this unbelievable smorgasbord, my primary focus was aimed towards his photography. But let’s be clear – Klein is a multi-talented genius!

While there were a few smaller images, and some in color, the vast majority were large black and white pieces. There were even large blow-ups of his so-called painted contact sheets. All of his famous images were on display in groupings that tracked his books and other work – Moscow, Tokyo, New York, Paris, fashion and abstract. By the way, I learned that all of his early books besides containing his photographs were designed, edited and include his written captions. Everything was done by Klein … everything … incredible!

While I’ve vented plenty in past entries about needlessly large prints that masquerade mediocre subject material, these oversized and grainy images didn’t seem to bother me … probably because of their incredible content!  And the 35mm grain was amplified further with the use of Tri-X or HP5 film. Even the Plus-X and Tmax images were grainy.  How did I know that? By looking at the painted contact sheets!  But you really don’t notice the grain until you move in close. So how were these pictures meant to be viewed … from a distance or up close? Not sure, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Strangely both ways worked for me. Again, the content. Well there is a first for everything!

And what about the content? I guess the way I would describe it is intense, almost in your face street work, made up close with a wide-angle lens (mostly the 28mm which he considered his “normal”). Unlike the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson made primarily with a 50mm lens that isolated the subject matter, Klein moved in closer and captured more of the scene for a completely different view and a completely different viewing experience for those that would see his images. While it’s not an approach I plan on taking the pictures shook me pretty hard! Truly great work! Klein’s approach is completely different from HCB’s, but the results are equally spectacular!

Bottom line … Klein is fantastic. A true master, right up there with HCB, Robert Frank and others that I’m more familiar with. Klein seems a little overlooked in comparison to the others, but make no mistake he is a giant! Seeing this show was a possible life altering moment. I had not thought about Klein very much, if at all. That’s changed now and he’s become an instant favorite!

If you are not familiar with Klein and his work do yourself a favor and change that … soon. Study his work and learn from it. I certainly intend to!

Scheduled to close on September 12^th, the exhibit has been extended through September 15^th. So if you’re in or nearby New York do check it out!!

Stay well,

Michael