I’ve done a lot of looking and watching on this trip and a lot less image making. For me it has been very healthy and I certainly hope the images I have come away with are more than just snapshots but communicate some kind of understanding about this interesting place and its people.

See you on the flip side…

I came across the funky homosapian in Barcelona last fall at a demonstration. He seemed to be a solid, middle class kinda guy (note the sport jacket) who was just walking by and decided to join in the fun, at least that is the sense I got. So I hung around for a while because, well just look at him. That is a photo waiting to happen.

And as happens quite often whether you are photographing a birthday party or a night out on the town you are stuck with lots of very similar photos! Oh what to do you ask? Well the first thing is you cut out any photos with major defects (blurry, closed eyes, weird angles, unless of course, that’s the look you’re going for, God help you). Being at such a high level (insert laugh here) my photos have few glaring defects but some are stronger than others. The first photo is pretty good but it has too much depth of field for my taste and the background is a little too busy and not quite interesting enough, again for my taste. Others might see the image and fall in love but then look at the second image. The depth of field is handled a bit better, the background is kinda interesting. In this case the background serves to aid the subject, something we are always aiming for at Damaso’s school of cooking and photography.

If we were doing a photo essay on this guy this is what we would call the establishing shot, or the first shot in a series. Note the shallow depth of field which allows the eye to concentrate on our funny fellow here. The reason I include this image is because when you are shooting it’s important to try to capture different views of the same subject even if you end up not using them. In this case the photo is well executed enough but is kinda dull. Especially when you consider the following image…

A nice tight shot. We have some drums and tambourines in the background for added spice but they are not enough to seriously distract us. And look at his face! There is a man who knows how to have a good time. For me this is the most interesting image. Of course in six months or six years I might change my mind. That is what editing is all about. I hope this gives you a little bit of insight into how this photojournalist works. That will be all…

Building on your dreams takes time

Before I began work on The Europeans I struggled with my doubts. Can this project possibly be realized and more importantly am I up to the task? Do my abilities match my ambitions? For more than a year I pondered this dream on and off. Do you know what finally set me in motion? It was the idea that if I didn’t at least try I would spend the rest of my life wondering what if. What if I had not listened to my doubts? What if I had trusted myself more? What if I had just taken a risk? There is no shame in trying and failing but I knew I could not life with myself if I did not even make an effort. Five years later I feel as though I made the right choice, as hard as it has been…

How can you truly live if you don't dream?

So stop making excuses and follow your passions, pursue your desires!

Joe Gould’s Secret

Photography is a jealous mistress. It wants all your passion, attention and energy.

The truth of the matter is that most workshops are a scam. Most, but not all, photographers do them to make a quick buck. Some have portfolio requirements but many if not most do not. As long as you’ve got a pulse and the check clears, come on down! Sure you get to rub shoulders with a great photographer and maybe you pick up a trick or two…

Rabbi and Student. Hameln, Germany 2007 © Damaso Reyes

But what happens when you get home? How do you put into practice what you just learned on a daily basis? The photographer is long gone onto the next great assignment or workshop. You however are stuck right where you were before, a few thousand dollars poorer and not much more knowledgeable.

Here’s a good time to point I that in addition to teaching I also offer workshops. Why, you ask? Quite simply some people don’t want to put in the time to really learn how to improve. They want a day or a weekend session and that’s it. I don’t just teach for the money (though it is nice); I teach because I remember what it was like to just start out and struggle with trying to turn my vision of the world into something tangible. I wish I’d had access to a professional who was willing to work with me over a long period and help me grow.

Schoolgrils in Zanizibar 2006. © Damaso Reyes

But all I had was University and the freelance world. I learned in classrooms full of people who didn’t really want to be there and from teachers who had either been stuck in the classroom too long or just needed the extra money (there were of course several notable exceptions).

So when I began to think about teaching classes it was important to me that they be one on one so that I could really help the photographer I was working with grow. When you’re in a classroom or a workshop with six or eight other people (if you’re lucky) you have that many different skill sets, that many different interests to try to satisfy as an instructor. Needless to say it is impossible to do. All you can hope for is to give everyone something that they can take away from your classes.

Drill Instructor. Parris Island, SC 2006 © Damaso Reye

So yes, I offer workshops but they are one on one. I figure if a student wants to try to learn something in a day or a weekend the least I can do is give that person my full attention. Most of these exotic locale workshops should just stop the pretense and say what they are: vacations that are photography themed.

Maybe you’ve done a workshop with a great photographer and it has changed your life. Great! But I feel like most people pay for something they won’t end up getting in these settings.

Photography, especially documentary and photojournalism, asks a tremendous amount from you as a person. Time, commitment and passion are just the start. In order to tell stories you have to learn a new visual language and that is hard to do in a day, a week or even a lifetime…

Perpetrator of Genocide. Rwanda 2004 © Damaso Reyes

A missionry seeks souls to save during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. © Damaso Reyes

Carnival in Cologne, Germany. © Damaso Reyes

I tell my students when it comes to street photography there aren’t a lot of rules and not much that you can teach. This kind of work is the culmination of everything you learn about photography. More than that street photography is incredibly instructive. It teaches you patience; it teaches you how to see the world with new eyes.

Arguing for peace in London. © Damaso Reyes

How do you capture a street you walk down every day? More importantly how do you make it interesting, not only to yourself but to someone who’s never walked down that street? These are but a few of the challenges the street photographer faces.

A wall of emotions in Vienna.

So how do you do it? What is the secret? The answer is there isn’t one. Every photographer has to discover how to negotiate the street for themselves…

“This exhibition focuses on the visual appearance of, the manifestations of, or the individual explorations of God. Works should address what is the visage of God? How do we search for God? What do we find? And what do these findings reveal? This exhibition is open to traditional and non-traditional systems of belief and also seek those beliefs that challenge the notion of God and religion.”

February 15 – March 18
Reception: Monday, February 22; 4-6 p.m.

The Kuhn Fine Arts Gallery is located off the main lobby at the east entrance of Ohio State Morrill Hall.
1465 Mount Vernon Avenue, Marion, Ohio 43302

The gallery is free and open to the public Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

-Robert Capa

That quotation has become a truism, cliché and whatever else you want to call it but that doesn’t stop it from being true. Perhaps the biggest single problem I see in the photographs of amateur photographers is that of distance: most of the time people just don’t get close enough, they don’t cross the critical distance.

A Marine recruit faces his final test. © Damaso Reyes

What do I mean by critical distance? Essentially it is the amount of space that we usually keep between ourselves and other people or objects. In the case of street photography it is the view that we might have of a scene as we walk by. Most photographers, especially when just starting out, feel uncomfortable getting close and crossing that critical distance.

Anti-war activist Brian Haw loses his election bid to Parliment. © Damaso Reyes

But as the phrase implies it is critical to put yourself in that space. As photographers our job is to go places that the viewer never would. In large part this is what makes many images interesting or different from a simple snapshot. Part of going there is getting up close and personal. Often one of the first assignments I give to my students is one where they shoot at or near the minimum focusing distance of their lens. By forcing yourself to get closer you change your relationship to the subject even if it is an object and not a person.

A child receives treatment for Malaria in Tanzania. © Damaso Reyes

Filling the frame is just part of what I’m talking about, an essential part to be sure but more important is the idea that you as the photographer are occupying the same emotional space as your subject. By doing so you understand more about what you are photographing and hopefully can better convey what you are experiencing to your viewers. The photographer is the bridge that spans the gap between subject and viewer. The gap is the critical distance and the only way to make good photographs is to fill that space.

Cancer survivor. © Damaso Reyes

It’s also important to remember that the critical distance is not a static amount of space, it changes just as the situation you photograph changes. In reality the critical space is that feeling inside of us that we are close to something, regardless of physical distance. The critical distance is not a measurement of space but of emotion.

But what is the “right” photo? It’s a question my students often ask. Like everything else about photography it is subjective. The “best” photo is not always the loveliest, or the most direct. What makes a photograph good, at least when you are editing, is how the image conveys the information you are trying to communicate. How well does the image balance its visual elements? Something which is often overlooked is how well does the image work within the context of a photo essay or larger group of images? This is one of the most important issues because even if you are just posting your images on Facebook or Flickr nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to see ten nearly identical shots of the same thing, no matter how pretty you think that sunset was or how lovely your new kitten is. The inability to edit, to make a choice and stick by it, is the hallmark of an amateur.

For this personal project I’ve been working on I have faced the time honored problem of what to do when you have a lot of good pictures of the same thing. My subject, the wonderful Paul “Spazzy” Winston, is a pianist and composer. Naturally he spends a great deal of time tickling the ivories and just as naturally I spent a lot of time photographing him doing so. Here are a few images, all of them great in their own way.

And these aren’t even all of them!

See my point? Including even three of these images in a 15 or 20 image essay would be incredibly repetitive although they all have some interesting points. My challenge is to find one or perhaps two images which are interesting enough to represent everything else the other images convey.  This is where I use criteria like composition and visual beauty to narrow the field down. Some images are nicer than others while still having the same information. Other images carry more emotional or metaphorical weight. Using that reasoning these three images make the cut.

There is something very pure about the first image. It is nice, simple and spare. At the same time I feel like it can be anyone’s hands. The photo while nice is not that intimate or compelling.

The second photo is a lot more interesting, at least to me. It is up close and personal; we can really start to see the hairs and veins that make this hand unique. Also the position of the fingers make for a lovely form themselves and begin to transform the hand into a kind of metaphor.

The third image is the one I like the best. I don’t think it is the most visually appealing but look at those hands, those veins! The crossed hands upend our sense of what a pianist does and creates a very dynamic image, one that we really have to spend time with to understand all the nuances. This photo does what I think all good art does; show us something we think we know in a new and interesting way.

And that’s our lesson for today! Thanks for coming!

Our dreams are rooted in our fantasies and our aspirations. Our dreams embody all that we hope for and sometimes what we fear, don’t forget dreams can be bad too. But dreams are never meant to be real. Our dreams are where the impossible is commonplace; where that which we don’t fully understand becomes real, at least in our minds.

People kill their dreams when they try to force the laws and rules of reality upon them. But what is a good night’s sleep without the release of our dreams? What do we live for except our dreams? How can we hope to become more than we are without the reckless belief in that which is not yet tangible?

Dreams are always unfinished.

When I talk to people who are just starting down the road of photography I try to relate how important dreams are to your vision. If you want to make money, become a banker I say. There are many more ways to earn a living, almost all of them less frustrating and more secure. But if your dream is to change the way that people see the world around them then you should become a photographer.

At a certain point in life most people walk away from their dreams. Often life intervenes but sometimes we say to ourselves “this is impossible” and close the door to what might make us happy. The thing about a dream is that you never know how it is going to end. Some people can’t live with that kind of uncertainty. Some people would rather lead a circumscribed life and feel safe in the belief that something more fulfilling or interesting just could never be. Others want to feel the roll of that uncharted sea and steer the ship of their lives on a course that may not be plotted but will be interesting…

Composer and pianist Paul G. Winston in his Manhattan studio.

Sometimes a story is not in the grand sweeping visual statements but in the small quiet details. The pause, the moment between the moments or the notes between the notes if you like. Our lives are made up on many such moments and capturing them has become increasingly important to me as I’ve matured as a photographer.