Now and Again

Each time
The leaves hesitate but finally they fall.

- W.S. Merwin

(From the poem Now and Again, by W.S. Merwin.)

Photo: ©2007 David W. Sumner

Lost in Thought

Without a net, I catch a falcon
and release it to the sky, hunting

You. This wine I drink today was
never held in a clay jar. I love

this world, even as I hear the great
wind of leaving it rising, for there

is a grainy taste I prefer to every
idea of heaven: human friendship.

- Rumi


Photo: ©2009 David W. Sumner

Annie Leibovitz At Work

I never cared much for Annie Leiboviitz's commercial work. It always seemed to me to be nothing more than big budget, formulaic, churned out product.

Then I saw her retrospective show at the Legion of Honor here in San Francisco and I was truly impressed by her photojournalistic work: mostly B&W work from the early part of her career and the work she did in the 1990's in Sarajevo and Rwanda.

I had heard that her most recent book, Annie Leibovitz At Work, was quite good and finally decided to pick up a copy and read it. I have to say that the first half of the book is quite interesting, but from page 113 on I struggled to find anything compelling in either the text or the images.

Frankly I found her discussion of digital photography absolutely dreadful. Leibovitz is actually pleased to be telling the reader that her pictures of Queen Elizabeth are digital fabrications. For her session with the Queen she had 25 minutes. All the photos of the Queen were shot in a single room in front of a gray seamless. Four costume changes in 25 minutes, that was it. The background scenes of beautiful rooms in the palace and the stormy sky above the gardens, those were all separate digital photographs that were Photoshopped together with the portraits of the Queen.

For me the book was a disappointment. In my opinion, Annie Leibovitz is at her best with a Nikon F, a 35mm lens and a roll or Tri-X.

A One Picture Story

Photo: ©2009 David W. Sumner

The one-picture-photo essay is a worthy achievement for any photographer. It is never easy to do and is seldom seen. The image that comes to mind as the best example of this is Gordon Parks' image American Gothic. There are no words capable of matching the powerful expression conveyed in that image.

In the photo above I use the flag an a way similar to Parks' use of the flag in American Gothic. The flag establishes location and a sense of the social and political values that may or may not square with the other elements in the image. But it begins to tell a story. It doesn't tell a complete story, however it does provoke many questions, and on that level it is a successful image.

American Gothic uses the flag to point out truth and not as a symbol of truth. It is the power of Gordon Parks' image that moves me to search for the truth in any image that incorporates the flag.


Photo: American Gothic, 1942, by Gordon Parks, courtesy Masters of Photography.

It's Not A Job, It's An Adventure

Many years ago I realized the way to make photography completely dull and boring was by making it a job. I don't like taking pictures for other people. The business of photography has little to do with making images. I feel the same about blogging. If I had to do it I wouldn't like it very much. If it was a job, I'd hate it. And I don't want to hate it. I want to do more of it. So as with my photography, so with my blog. I shoot what interests me and what I think is important to document, I will treat this blog in the same manner.

I use Facebook to point out shifts in the photo industry, copyright issues and the like. I also use it to communicate with a few good friends.

Most of my current work can be seen on my Flickr page.I sometimes post five image photo essays there, and my complete Alcatraz project can be seen there.

I also use Twitter, which is linked to my Facebook page, to spread information about photography issues.

So I think I'm going to save this blog to just talk about making pictures and photography that I think is good and or important. That will interest me and hopefully keep me going in the blogosphere.

The photo above is from some recent work I've been doing while sitting in public places.

Photo: Union Square, San Francisco. ©2009 David W. Sumner

When it All Comes Together.

It pays to always carry a camera. It doesn't always pay, but there are times when everything comes together.

I was walking home with a bag of groceries when I came to this corner and stopped to shoot a few frames of this caution tape wrapped around a power pole and stop sign. The yellow and red against a blue sky was quite nice. I made about three images and picked up my grocery bag and was about to cross the street when I saw this taxi coming into the intersection. Damn! I just pushed the camera in front of me and banged off one shot. This is it.

Photo: ©2008 David W. Sumner

Digging Up the Present

When I graduated from the University of California Riverside I had completed 76 units in Anthropology and 32 units in Sociology. I needed only 36 units for my BS, but I was a bit of a social science zealot. It's probably obvious the extent to which that education has influenced me.

I'm beginning to look at my work as a sort of visual archaeology. Rather than digging up the past, I'm visually recording the arti-factual evidence of a contemporary society. In some cases I manage to photograph things as they are about to disappear forever or become rarer that they already seem to be.

Photo: ©2009 David W. Sumner (Dry point on copper plate and printing press, Dale Erickson's studio, San Francisco, California. 2009)