Jericha plus plexiglass. All pictures Frank Ward 2011.

All three of my classes worked with the talented and skillful Jericha this week. She has a strong background in art making, art history and dance. Check out her thoughtful blog, Splitting the Light.

After Julia Margaret Cameron.

I’m uploading my pictures from the sessions because next week is the last week of classes and I probably will not have a chance to feature student work. I’m hoping their work will be ready for the final crit. I spend most of the studio session adjusting  cameras, lights and action. The studio is a new environment for most students and it takes awhile for them to get their settings tweaked.

Cynthia's rabbit mask.

I ask students to bring their own props. That is a big part of the fun.

Slide projection.

Jericha works with us doing portrait, fashion and figure. My favorite work is with projections. We take either a digital or slide projector and have the very improvisational Jericha interact with the screen.

The combination of studio and model is key to transitioning students from taking pictures to making pictures. I like it when their “directorial” mode kicks in and they see the potential in adjusting the situation rather than simply recording what is offered.

by Michael Lafleur

Last week, I read a Duckrabbit blog post called “Are Photography Degrees the Joker in the Pack?” It got me thinking about the art career conundrum. A joker is a valuable card if all the players agree that it is the “wild card”. Otherwise, it simply isn’t dealt. It seems that the art world is stacked with jokers with art degrees. Every artist needs something on a resume. What is often overlooked in the art school scramble is the real reason to go. Sure, a degree helps you get a job teaching and may get your foot in the door of some classy gallery, but the real motivation has to come from within.

by Joe Bordeau

Joe Bordeau just became a photography major. He has a visceral approach to making photographs, and he has a great feeling for what his visual universe looks like. He hasn’t made a great picture as much as he has made several strong groups of pictures. I think that portfolio consistency easily outweighs a couple of great photos in a mixed bag of snaps.

What art school really offers is the opportunity to make art, to show art, to eat art, and so on. It can be total immersion. I’m thinking about Michael Lafleur, top. He is currently one of HCC’s promising fine art photography students. And he is doing what everyone should be doing in art school– making art, showing art, eating art…

by Patrick Harris

Patrick Harris is also making art like an obsessed art student.  He throws all kinds of pictures at the wall and a lot of them stick. The pictures say something.

by Gretchen Drane

by Ciera Bilodeau-Cox

Gretchen Drane and Ciera Bilodeau-Cox approach art-making as a by-product of life-living. Their work comes right out of the Nan Goldin school of photography although I don’t remember if I showed them Nan Goldin’s work.

by Corrin Halford

During the first week of classes I usually ask students to talk about influences or photographers that inspire them. Ciera cited her friend, Corrin Halford, from a different section of my digital photography classes. Corrin is versatile and talented. That is a great combination for success for the working photographer.

I started this post thinking about why students should go to photography school. I think that every photography student should take a few courses. If fine art is what you want to make, then stay in art school. That is the place to get your vision together. If you are oriented toward photojournalism or some area of commercial photography, and those fields need vision too, you have to consider how much self-confidence you have. You need a lot of energy and stamina to make it on your own. Stay in school to build your portfolio, but jump into any photography situation you can find. The real learning takes place in the field or studio. Photography school is like a trampoline. Use it to bounce higher and higher until you can touch your dream.

Cherry Blue Ice by Hannah Macpherson

We are just about finished with mid-terms in my two classes of Introduction to Digital Fine Art Photography.  There are stacks of beautiful pictures. The above image is from Hannah Macpherson’s series of multiple exposures. When we critiqued her project we talked about Lorie Novak who makes similar work. Hannah was unaware of her.

From the series-Thin Skinned, 2004-2006 by Lorie Novak

Back to student portfolios, Corrin Halford’s Trisha (below) indulges my love of people pictures.

Trisha by Corrin Halford

I encourage students to photograph indoors. From my perspective interior pictures can be more revealing of the photographer, as well as what or who is photographed. The incursion into the subject’s private space is part of getting personal about picture making.

by Cynthia Consentino

Cynthia Consentino is an accomplished sculptor. It is a pleasure to have her expressive and woozy work as part of the class.

by Michael Lafleur

Michael Lafleur is influenced by William Eggleston. I like that Mike acknowledges his influence without actually taking pictures like Eggleston. See Eggleston via Google for an incredible array of pictures that look as fresh today as they did 30 years ago.

by Gary Thibault

Gary Thibault photographs friends in their rooms and Gretchen Drane photographs friends in their cars.

by Gretchen Drane

The following three pictures illustrate the more theatrical side of expression.

by Leah Avalos

Photo by Christine McCarron

Glow by Patrick Harris

Just so you don’t think all my students make portraits, below is a striking non-portrait from Texas by Ashley Graziadei.

by Ashley Graziadei

What got me thinking about modes of expression is a quote from Denis Donoghue’s review of The Letters of Samuel Beckett Volume II: 1941-1956 that was in the New York Times Sunday Book Review:

(Beckett) claimed to favor “the expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.”

The above quote makes a lot of sense coming from the author of Waiting for Godot. It also has a superficial kinship with Buddhism’s Heart Sutra:

“form does not differ from emptiness

emptiness does not differ from form

that which is form is emptiness, that which

is emptiness form, these same is true of

feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness…”

by Will Brock

I just wrote a long paragraph about Beckett’s “nothing” of expression and the unconditioned, choiceless awareness that is the heart of The Heart Sutra. Then I deleted it. As students of visual art our mode of expression is through pictures not words. Our obligation is to express. Our freedom is to embrace the known and the unknown. I told my students last week that when the shit hits the fan, see the beauty in the flying debris. As in the minimalist works of Samuel Beckett, the simplest pieces add up to an all encompassing whole.

Brussels Sprouts by Ahmad Taheri

I like Ahmad Taheri’s picture of Brussels sprouts. Our crop of sprouts failed this year so Ahmad’s photograph is a stand-in for what has been my favorite vegetable. It could be said that making art is like making food. Make what you enjoy and consume what you enjoy.

I am so pleased to be able to upload pictures from Central Asia after three weeks of blocked blogs. It is now my final week in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. It is amazing here, although I’m not sure I’ve been able to catch my amazement photographically. I will say that the cliches seem appropriate. For example, Ashgabat as a cross between Las Vegas, Nevada and Pyongyang, North Korea. Or, from my more optimistic perspective, Disney World and the Washington, DC Mall. Regardless of first impressions, I’ve learned from three consecutive years of visiting Tashkent, Uzbekistan that Central Asian cities get better as I get beyond their curiously inhospitable architectural posturing and get to know the people who breathe life into their vast expanses of concrete and marble.

Stan Sherer sent me this obituary of Jerry Liebling. We consider him the man responsible for creating a photography community here in the Western Mass. hills.

Jerry was my bucket of cold water. I would show him my newest work and, if there was the slightest lack in my pictures, he would throw that bucket of water in my face. He was my wake-up call. You didn’t get a pulled punch from Jerry.

I am posting from abroad and the server won’t let me upload any pictures. I’ll work on improving this situation later.

Below is an excerpt of the Hampshire College obituary.

In Memoriam: Jerome Liebling

April 16, 1924 – July 27, 2011

The Hampshire College community mourns the loss of Professor Emeritus Jerome Liebling, who died Wednesday at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Professor Leibling founded Hampshire College’s film, photography, and video program. He was already a photographer and filmmaker of international renown when he came to Hampshire from the University of Minnesota in 1969, before the College had even opened its doors.

He remained at Hampshire until his retirement in 1990, with a leave in academic year 1976-77 to serve as Yale University’s First Walker Evans Visiting Professor of Photography.

Images by Jerome Liebling tell a distinctly American story. He created intimate and deeply honest portraits, capturing the dignity of ordinary people living their lives. He documented both the urban and the rural landscape, remaining true both to the subject and to his artistic vision.

His former students, many of whom have gone on to be among the nation’s leading filmmakers and photographers, have praised Liebling for his humanity, intelligence, and perception as well as the power of his influence on their work. Ken Burns has said that his mentor’s “thumbprint is suffused on every frame” of his films.

“With Jerry’s death, the world has lost a gifted photographer and filmmaker, and Hampshire College has lost a beloved teacher, mentor, friend, and colleague,” said Sigmund Roos, chair of the College’s board of trustees. “He had a profound impact on Hampshire, and on the education of a whole generation of filmmakers. This is a personal loss for me and many others at the College. I will miss him dearly.”

“Jerome Liebling and his camera saw into the souls of America. He is irreplaceable. We all mourn his personal and professional loss,” said Alan Goodman, vice president of academic affairs and dean of faculty.

Leibling’s work is in the permanent collections of major museums throughout the world. His photographs have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Getty Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and many other museums and galleries. He received two Guggenheim Fellowships and had many monographs of his work published. Among his many awards and honors was first prize in the 1993 New England Film Festival for Fast Eddie and the Boys, a film he produced with two former students, Hampshire graduates Roger Sherman and Buddy Squires.

Bessie Young photographs the lives of senior citizens.

Bessie Young is a 2011 graduate of Amherst College. Beginning with a course on The Psychology of Aging her freshman year, Bessie has been working with the “old people” of Amherst, MA. When I saw Bessie’s pictures, first online and later in exhibition, I was wowed by her fresh view. Almost every semester at HCC, I have a student who works with old people, or photographs a grandparent, or simply does portraits of elderly friends. My students have often made beautiful renderings and heart wrenching illustrations of the world of the elderly. Bessie’s pictures see that world through the eyes of the aged.

Bessie Young brings her camera and her heart into the world of the elderly.

I want to congratulate Bessie for getting a Henry Luce Foundation Scholarship Award to continue her work in Japan for the 2011-2012 school year.

Tultsi, Siberia, 2010, by Frank Ward

Last week I was selected as a 2011 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellow. I have applied a dozen times over the years for this $7500 award bestowed upon Massachusetts photographers biannually. It is one of the few awards that have no entry fee and no strings attached. It is simply a recognition of work that the artist has created. I applied two years ago with work from the same series, my ongoing project photographing in the Former Soviet Union (FSU). I believe my good fortune this time round was in the editing. Applicants submit 5 numbered image files that are shown to the judges side-by-side on one screen. For years, I had sent what I thought were my five best pictures from whatever project I was working on at the time. This year I decided to consider my submission as one picture composed of 5 independent photographs from the past 3 years. I spent a lot of time comparing and contrasting hundreds of files deciding which combination adds up to more than the 5 chosen photographs.

Previously, I would compose a picture based on several compositional highlights. This is something I picked up from the work of Garry Winogrand, and the Italian Renaissance (where Garry’s influences originated).

Central Park, 1970 by Garry Winogrand

Giotto, 14 Century, Early Renaissance

You can see in the composition of both Winogrand’s 20th century and Giotto’s 14th century art that the structure is basically the same. Both present an assembly of people in the foreground that can be divided into smaller groupings of individual compositional importance, and a secondary ensemble in the background, or sky, that represent angels or other bystanders. The above two pictures illustrate the additive way that I have often structured photographs since Ben Lifson opened my eyes to the Renaissance and street photography during the MFA program at Bard College. Here is an example that can be viewed as a homage to Lifson and Winogrand .

Students, Tajikistan, 2009, by Frank Ward

In the past few years, I have been working with a subtractive approach to making pictures. See Tultsi above and Ice Fishing below.

Ice Fishing, Siberia, 2008, by Frank Ward

So much for Renaissance influence. The Renaissance is not known for its minimalism. It is known for filling the potential spaciousness of sky with as many angels as possible. For the MCC Artist Fellowship application, I incorporated emptiness, color, composition and line to suggest one panoramic composition balanced by a fulcrum.

Five pictures from the FSU by Frank Ward

The Social, 2011, by Gabriela Herman

I got blogged-out last month and skipped a post for April. There is so much blogging, tweeting and Facebooking going on that I just couldn’t bring myself to add to the torrent. Gabriela Herman just uploaded a portfolio of blogger portraits to PhotoEye Galleries. These computer lit views represent the reality of internet life. Social networking as contemporary contact.

I’ve been sitting around reading The New Yorker, roasting coffee beans and renovating the apartment in our house. I’m not really doing much work. I watch Rigden and Janelle sand and paint.

Rigden and Janelle, May 4, 2011

Janelle has made better pictures on  her cell phone than my portrait of them (above). More about cell phone cameras below.

Portrait by Gustavo Romero, 2011

This is also the last week of classes. My student Gustavo is legally blind and makes the most powerful portraits of his friends and family.

From Family Portraits by Gustavo Romero, 2011

I did want to remind people about the approaching deadline for the SocialDocumentary.net Call for Entries.

The life after 9/11 subject matter is both challenging and inherent in every picture we now make.

by Hin Chua

A good example of the all-pervasiveness of our post 9/11 world are the pictures in Hin Chua’s series After the Fall. This is a link from the NYT Lens blog. It’s funny that they make a fuss about how the photographs were made on a medium format camera. Photography is changing, but it is still true that much of the world’s “fine art” photography is being done on film with cameras bigger than 35mm. The reality of this is that the rest of us are using digital. My student Gustavo uses a small point and shoot. I’m using my iPhone.

Fuzzy-eyed river view by Frank Ward, 2011

Much to my personal embarrassment, I seem to be influenced by the romantic grip of my iPhone camera. There are about 1000 apps that make one’s photography look like it was made a century ago. Here is a recent NYT report on the best camera apps for iPhone.

After two and a half years of participating in the blogosphere, bloggo-fear is striking me. I’m not clear about whether it has something to do with the “it’s all about me” blogging process or if it is about something bigger. To paraphrase a concept from John Szarkowski‘s days as Photography Curator at the Museum of Modern Art, a photograph is either a mirror or a window. This is an idea he put forth in support of a 1978 show called Mirrors and Windows. The concept seems insufficient for the current century. I’m going to think about it in relationship to digital practice and get back to you.

Casta Diva by Emanuele Cremaschi-Beauty Pageants in Italy, 2010

If anyone is feeling like a bad photo student, I thought I’d make some suggestions for becoming better. I want my photo students, even the currently and previously questionable ones, to become photographers. There are lots of historically sound suggestions for improving your photography, such as, “F-8 and be there” and “get a good pair of shoes.” Yet, before you even adjust your F-stop, you have to have an impulse.  The attraction toward photography does not have to be a clear “why, what and where.” It just has to be a feeling beyond thinking that photography is easy and fun.

Kirkpinar by Pari Dukovic

Kirkpinar, in Turkey, is the longest sanctioned sporting event in the world.

Successful students have a more subtle intention than simply declaring, “I wanna be a photographer.” If you feel the pull or push to make pictures, or even just like to walk with your camera, that’s a start. There is another aspect, which is based on your interest in pictures that are not yours. Do you take the time to look at portfolios on line, other than Facebook? I’m talking about an interest in art in general, not simply photographs of fashion, friends and rock and roll.

Now for the question your family asks. “What are potential careers in photography?” I found a website that lists job postings for photographers. At present it seems to be mostly New York area opportunities, but I did not check listings prior to this week.

#1 from What Remains by Justine Reyes

Recently, PDN released its selection of 30 under 30; their choice of new and emerging photographers. Both Justine Reyes (above) and Pari Dukovic (further above and below) are on the list. Justine has some clear writing on her site about her motivations for making pictures.

From Venues of Immortality by Pari Dukovic

I am primarily interested in Dukovic’s work because of his use of grain and high contrast. The above picture, photographed in New York City, has the gritty, in-your-face realism of riding a NYC subway. Both Dukovic and Reyes have a personal vision and the ability to translate that into coherent personal projects.

Nicole, Brooklyn, NY, 2010 by Wenjie Yang

Over at the Verve Photo blog, Geoffrey Hiller introduces us to a “New Breed of Documentary Photographer” via a couple of posts a week. Wenjie Yang was featured a couple of weeks ago. I am really impressed by Hiller and other bloggers who have the energy to blog regularly. You may have noticed that I am sinking down to about one posting a month.

Via Pan Am by Kadir van Lohuizen

Emphas.is offers photojournalists the opportunity to “crowd fund” their documentary projects through viewer support. Yes, the online viewer decides what s/he wants to support by sending in as little as $10 toward a project’s realization. If a project gets enough backing, the photographer is off and making it work. For instance, Kadir van Lohuizen’s Via Pan Am is a 40 week journey from the southern tip of South America to Alaska documenting migration in the 15 countries of the Americas. So far, he has raised over $2000 toward that goal.

Anyway, back to the “Bad Student” concept. Leah Dyjak reintroduced herself to me a couple of years ago saying she was one of my “bad students” from a few years before, but she finally “got it” and now is an exhibiting photographer. I saw her work and it is fabulous.  She and a few other “bad students” taught me that planting the photography seed is enough. So, if you don’t feel the “fire in the belly” for photography, just wait a minute, or a year, or until you are ready. Photography, or any art, can be a tool for resurrection and affirmation. Whatever you learn and create in your early years of photography will get deposited in the library of your personal creative output to become a positive part of the story of your life.

Preparation for the toast, Siberia, 2010, all photos Frank Ward

My portfolio of travels in the Former Soviet Union from 2005 to 2010 has just opened at the Photo Eye Gallery and at SocialDocumentary.net

Some of the pictures in this post aren’t actually in either show. These first five didn’t make the final cut, but I like them anyway.

Fishmonger, Lake Baikal, 2010

The following statement from The Drunken Bicycle on Photo Eye is interspersed with my comments in parenthesis.

Occasionally, in the town squares of many cities in Siberia there is a man selling rides on a bicycle, a drunken bicycle. A conventional two-wheeled bike has been outfitted with a reverse steering gear. If one turns the handlebars right, the front wheel turns left. Of course, the operator demonstrates how easy it is to ride and offers bottles of beer if one can simply travel a few meters without falling. Crowds circle the action, and there is never a shortage of brave young men who attempt the traverse. That said, I have not yet seen a customer navigate the bike successfully.

Beach Bubbles, Vladivostok, 2008

The drunken bicycle is an apt metaphor for life in the Former Soviet Union (FSU). The bureaucrats appear to be swaying on a drunken bicycle; the hapless traveler spends his days confused by the swing of it, and this photographer is continually under its influence.

"I love you, I love you," the armed guard said as he threatened me, Siberia, 2010

My confounded expectations while photographing can be accompanied by some curious pleasures.  The security guard repeating, “I love you, I love you,” as he gestures for me to delete my pictures of a waterfront habitat destroyed by land moving equipment. Or the policemen who accused me of stealing strategic military secrets because I was photographing a World War II tank cemented into a pedestal in a city park.

Caught photographing military secrets, 2009

Or the graffiti scribbled in large block letters on a desk in a high school hallway: “Stalin is gay.”

Desk and chairs, Elista, Russia, 2009

It is difficult not to telegraph my bemusement of these incidences with my smile. The publicly dour Russians think we Americans have a foolish grin continually pasted on our faces. Well, I do, but it is not the former Soviets I am laughing at. It is the joy of seeing Marilyn Monroe represented in a wall-sized painting with Lenin looking up at her,

Marilyn Monroe lovingly observed by Lenin, Vladivostok, 2008

or my surprise at a grandmother who asks me to take her picture in a bikini at the beach.  The FSU is a paradise of paradox, where the landscapes are limitless and the people are full of passion and pain.

Babushka in a bikini, Odessa, 2005

The closing picture, illustrating an ancient mosque in Khiva, is actually a photograph of a soccer game where all but one of the participants have blurred into invisibility during the long night exposure.

Night soccer in front of a mosque in Khiva, Uzbekistan, 2010

The exhibit on SocialDocumentary.net is called The Great Game after the 19th century conflict between Russia and Britain over domination in Central Asia. I haven’t included any pictures from SDN in this post. Please take a look if you want to see more.

Gateway, Ossabaw Island, Georgia, 2011, All photos by Frank Ward.

I don’t know what to say about Ossabaw. It is a magical Georgia Sea Island where HCC professor Justin West grew up. For many decades it was an artist’s retreat where writers, painters and photographers, such as Sally Mann, went for inspiration. In fact, Sally photographed the Main House Gate several years ago. I tried to find the picture online just to make sure my version (above) wasn’t too derivative. Somebody let me know if you find a link to it.

View from the front of the Main House.

I willingly fell into photographing the mind-easing beauty of the island.

The Ossabaw dump

Fortunately, the first place that Justin brought me when he and his wife, Eileen, picked me up at the dock was the dump. He knows what I like.

Outdoor kitchen

At the Main House, I only had to walk around the grounds to find lots of “my kind of” pictures. Some may remember a picture I took similar to the “Outdoor kitchen” last year in Siberia. For some reason I am not attracted to the abundant greens of nature, but I am fascinated with man-made greens.

A photography book by Justin West

I was poking around one of the many studios in the Main House and found this still life. The photo reminded me of pictures by Robert Frank from his The Americans. It turned out to be a book by Justin that he made in a high school photography class. It is called Leader Dog School and is about training seeing-eye dogs. The pictures inside are wonderful and remind me of contemporary German photography by students of the Dusseldorf School.

Lula Belle in the entry hall

HCC professor Robert Aller has also spent time at Ossabaw. We had a conversation about the ghosts of the island. In the 1800s, Ossabaw was the location of three plantations and over 2000 slaves. Inherent in the Gothic beauty of the “old” South is the pain and presence of the ‘haints’ of history. The “haints’ are the apparitions and emanations of those who have come before. As a reminder of their presence, Lula Belle, a wax figure with human hair, greeted arrivals at the Main House.

Main House hallway

There are 3 or 4 long hallways that lead off the entry room. Opposite Lula Belle, the above hall leads to the dining room and kitchen. The Main House is a treasure with 15 bedrooms and even more bathrooms (all with elaborate wicker chair toilet seats).

Moose has been a presence at Ossabaw since 1924

I arrived on the birthday of Justin’s 98 year old mother. I saw the house as a living museum and Justin’s mom, Moose, as the curator, director and resident spiritual adviser. Not only does she live in paradise, she has “paradise inside of her,” according to a checkout lady at Kroger’s Supermarket on the Mainland. Sitting and talking with Moose is a life affirming encounter of the best kind.

South End Beach

Moose lives alone on Ossabaw. There are two other residents that live 10-15 miles away on the other side of the island. The distance in between is comprised of dirt tracks with names like Hell Hole Road and Mule Run.

Ossabaw has lots of wildlife including six wild donkeys, wild hogs, horses, a goose, seals, deer and alligators. We saw a six footer on the causeway after Justin assured me that they were all hibernating.

Not a great picture, but I did not want to ask it to turn around

Luckily, we did not see any snakes although Ossabaw has every kind of poisonous snake known to North America. Did I call this place paradise? Well, even Adam and Eve’s paradise had a snake.

On the beach

I traveled to the Island with Porgy and Bess. Here they are enjoying nature.

Bess on the beach

Porgy at Middle Place

Access to Ossabaw is by invitation only. It is mostly owned by Georgia. Moose sold it to them back when Jimmy Carter was governor. Incidentally, I slept in Jimmy Carter’s bedroom. I would have rather slept in Margaret Atwood’s, Annie Dillard’s, Ralph Ellison’s or Aaron Copland’s room. Maybe they all slept in the Jimmy Carter bedroom.

The Jimmy Carter Bedroom

Thanks to Justin, Eileen and Moose for inviting me. I’ll end with a couple of more views of the Atlantic.

Justin at the beach

Coastal view