Learning new things.

This weekend I attended the AzPPA Convention in Phoenix.I enjoyed myself but it left me tired.

I was cynical about going. The event was better than I expected. There were good speakers and really entertaining ones. There was motivating instruction and just so-so instruction. I came away informed, encouraged, pensive, and challenged.

One undeniable observation was that individuals, professional or not, view photography, digital or film, through different filters. The attendees and judges of the print competition did not always see with the same eye. And when I watched the slide shows of various speakers, who had been introduced with resumes full of accolades, I was happy to see some of there "lesser" works included as well as the "show stoppers". I left believing I could equal some of their examples.

Time to get to work, I guess.

Event Photography

Today's MLK parade.

I call myself an event photographer. That is, I prefer to shoot events. Events involve people, and I like the vitality that humans add to an image.

Event photography is a documentary process.  It catches memories as they are being made.

Events are activities: celebrating, participating, observing. Someone receives an award. Someone does something stupid. Rituals and incomprehensible events occur: birth, marriage, death, pain, suffering. The job of the event photographer is to help you remember, even in the midst of trying to make sense of it all.

One does not have to be a professional to do event photography, although some people get paid to do it. People usually pay when they cannot do it themselves or they want a certain quality or kind of image. (Remember your wedding pictures or the time you wanted a photo so you would not forget the beauty of your child as a baby?)

So, nowadays, I photograph events: weddings, funerals, baptisms, quinceaños, even something as simple as a young couple sitting on the couch and holding their first child. My job is to capture the memories that you make.

Memento Mori or Remembering the dead.

Funeral Pictures. Whenever I mention to people that I photograph funerals as one of my services, they respond with a grimace of uncertainty. I suppose people forget to acknowledge that a funeral is a dual event: a saying of goodbye to a loved one and the gathering of those who remain.  Sometimes, the reunion is just the prelude for another one's leaving, so it becomes a record of family unity and change. A third validation is to photograph the ritual and memorial. Sometimes a burial is accompanied by pomp and honors, as it was for our Border Patrol veteran.  In the old days, funeral photography included shots of the deceased, but now that is done only at the discretion of the family.  It was common and referred to as "memento mori", or remembering the dead. Finally, sometimes a family just wants images to share with others who could not attend but want to participate in their own way.

Funeral imagery is not created to be gruesome or to cause nightmares but but to document a reality of man's existence. One does not have to shy away from it.

Things just are not the same anymore.

Today's iPad, iPod, MTV, and wii generations have been cheated. I grew up in the era of Life and Look Magazines, National Geographic and the Saturday Evening Post. Their photographs and illustrations made me think and laugh, wonder and sometimes wince. I still use their images to decide whether or not a photograph I take is acceptable or not. They left lasting memories.

Last week I photographed the funeral of David Wright. He had only recently retired. His Border Patrol comrades honored his passing with respectful ritual and caring. I wanted my viewers to connect with the solemnity and respect at that event. Like it was in those old magazine images, there was a story to tell.

On Christmas day, I had the privilege of shooting Ken's family that has grown since he married Judy. It was a rare time when everyone was there. That circumstance demanded documentation and could tell a story.

Two major shots mattered:  one of Ken and Judy and everybody else and one with only the grandparents and grandchildren. Those two experiences created mental and physical memories for all of us. It was events like these that sometimes ended up on the pages of Life.

Framing grandparents and grandchildren together is a challenge. Parents try to get their children into some kind of position (not pose) that won't embarrass them in the final print. It works or it doesn't. The attempt is sometimes more photogenic anyway, but you really cannot shoot those struggles. It would not be nice.

It was the "everybody" shots that brought back memories of those old magazines. There are pockets of where visual storytelling is taking place. Other groups look like something out of a Norman Rockwell cover for the Saturday Evening Post. His pictures, with their down home Americana and innocent whimsy, made me want to be an artist.  The placement of some faces, interactions of bodies and individual expressions reflected what I saw in his paintings. They connected memories from fifty years ago to new ones that are only beginning to ferment in the mind.