Final Project Second Works

I showed some of these images in class yesterday, but neglected (forgot) to post them until now.

CPOY: Individual Multimedia Story

In the individual multimedia story category, two key issues near and dear to my heart stood out to me: access and focus. These pieces made it this far largely due to these two factors. Access, obviously, is necessary, but the photographers in these stories are all but invisible. Gaining the subject’s trust to such a degree that you can photograph them in the midst of intimate, often embarrassing situations is our ultimate goal as storytellers. Yet that trust is so hard to find. It takes them saying yes for long enough to give us a chance. Then it takes time. Lots of time. It also takes a great measure of courage on the photographer’s part. I don’t want to ask to follow someone into their bedroom. It’s awkward and I feel invasive, yet I might need an image that can only be made in those last moments before sleep, or in their nightly or morning routine. More importantly, I need my subject to feel comfortable enough to allow me into their bedroom. The more I’m there (everywhere), the more invisible I will be. This has been a major struggle for me because I always want to express respect and understanding for my subjects. I fear that they will tell me I am overstepping my bounds, and then our trust would be irrevocably damaged. However, if I am to do their stories justice, I have to ask. I have to be wise and ask at the right moment, but I have to try and get closer.

The depth in these stories is made possible by the photographer’s impressive access. In For Better or Worse, we see the couple in their most private moments, and our hearts are broken. The man must dress his wife and straighten her diaper as he pulls her up from her toilet-chair. We know it must be hard for an elderly man to care for his ailing wife, but in those images we see the tragedy that his life has become. This couple has 62 years of memories together, and the husband alone is left to safeguard those. He cares for her in love and devotion, remembering who she was before and how much she forgave him for in years past. He tells us all this in the interview, but without the images yielded in the all encompassing access given to this photographer, this story would be limited to an audio piece and an environmental portrait. Again, access is basically miraculous in the Outsider story. Following him at school and getting the footage of kids bullying him is amazing. Despite our best efforts as photographers not to change the lives of those we photograph, our mere presence does affect people. The fact that the journalist was there with a video camera and the kids still made their critical comments seems to make their offense that much more severe.

The other primary topic brought up in the category is that of story focus. My other weakness. During their final critiques, the judges discussed which stories held together best in terms of their focus. One of the Boys, a story about a man and his unplanned daughter, started out strong, but petered off after the storyteller began highlighting other areas of his life that, though relevant, quickly became rabbit trails to the heart of the story. I know all too well how easy it is to do this. I become so enthralled with my subject that I begin to see every area of their lives as something that needs to be shown. I want people to know them and understand them like I do. I think that the more they see, the more they will understand. But I am not trying to make my subject everyone’s friend. I am trying to tell their story. Contemplating that story's focus and continuing to consider it every day that I shoot is paramount if I am to avoid the tangents and instead show that one tiny bit of soul that can be viewed through their story.

CPOY: International Picture Story

Attending the judging of the international picture story category proved to be a new CPOY experience for me. Never before had I seen the judges struggle so much to place entries. First place was swiftly awarded, but after that they felt the remaining entries were too similar to choose one over the other. I agreed wholeheartedly with their choice for first place – the story of the overwhelmed, overworked mother was beautifully and intimately shot. The images showed her struggle as a single parent trying to provide for her children and hinted at why she stuck with it.

I was also pulling for the Irish gypsy story to be recognized as a more successful picture story than the Burry Man. While I felt the gypsy story had unnecessary redundancies in its images (namely, the many pictures of kids just hanging out around their homes), the images were clearer to me than those in the Burry Man story. Without hearing the captions read before viewing the images, I honestly thought the latter was part of a wedding festivity. I was confused as to why he would have to walk so far to get to the ceremony, but the photo of the Burry Man standing with the wedding couple, bunched with the images directly before and after it made me think this man’s job had something to do with a wedding. Then the last image (which would have profited from a shallower depth of field or a more deliberate composition) looked like it could be at a wedding reception. In the Burry Man entry I read the story entirely wrong from the images and I really didn’t care why this man was at a wedding. The interaction images showed little enthusiasm. The elderly and young many have been eagerly waiting for the Burry Man’s arrival, but I did not get that indication from the picture. The bride and groom shot was obviously someone else’s posed shot. I feel that image weakened the entire story immensely. It was not a genuine moment and it was the image that confused me into thinking this was all about a wedding. I suppose this critique is a bit harsh for since it is really more of a 1-day story than anything else. With the time limitations, the photographer did obviously work hard to obtain visual variety within the story. While this was similar to the Eye Bank story in that they were both more about the process than the personal impact, I think that Burry Man was the more successful of the two because it did not have the apparent potential to become personal that the Eye Bank story had. The Burry Man is a lighter story about an intriguing tradition. A woman regaining sight after losing it in one eye all but screams for intimacy.

In the Irish gypsy entry I was confused about who these people are and what they seemed so sad about, but I wanted to know more. I think the carriage picture was actually the most successful at summing up the gypsey identity and struggle that the photographer wanted to convey, so I would have suggested reordering the images so that it would show up sooner in the story. I also would have like to see more contrast images (as the judges were calling for) where the divide and lack of acceptance was more apparent. It’s a subtle, hard to photograph concept, but it would have made the story volumes stronger.

I have to say, I wish the judges would have discussed the story done on the group of middle aged synchronized swimmers. I know it was probably voted out for having a loose edit and not enough variety, but the images were stylistically sound. I was drawn into the beauty and grace of the sport by the compositions. I with the photographer had decided to either pursue the idea as an essay or a story. If he or she had portrayed the sport through a greater variety of angles (not all underwater, differences in focal length or distance to subject) and showed the preparation that goes on before and the interaction and healthy exhaustion that follows, they could have had a unique essay. Had the photographer chosen to focus on one swimmer and what the team and the sport mean to that individual, he or she would have had some great underwater shots to show the aforementioned beauty and grace that the sport highlights (which would be likely reasons for the swimmer to pursue it).