Maine Media Workshop day 1

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Very interesting first day.

Fran first. Last night, before the first class, Fran was having real doubts. Talking about what she thought was going to happen in her class she was frustrated. Pabulum is the word she used to describe what she thought she’d be facing. I counseled her in my most gentle, loving way, “dear, be patient, give it a chance, be open to new ideas.” “I will be,” she said with love and affection in her big brown eyes. But underneath it all, I thought her ADHD would doom her. The class was toast.

She started at 8:15 this morning. By 12 she was in LOVE with the teacher, in LOVE with the class. She was challenged but the teacher got Fran and Fran got the teacher. The teacher’s name is Cig Harvey. You can Google her. She’s British and cute as a button.

I wasn’t with Fran today but she took 500+ pictures in a couple of hours. She put together a little piece that’s terrific. Can’t put it on the blog but don’t forget to ask her about it.

Tonight at 8, Cig gave a lecture and slide show about her own work. She started by saying that she had a big moment when she learned that photos could be about something not of something. She talked about photography as an escape. As she developed from a snapshot taker to a photographer, she began to previsualizing the photo (her term) and she began to use it to tell a story.

Her technique is to read a lot and to write stories, sometimes even using landscape photographs as metaphor for how she feels. Her early works were about betrayal. Just by looking at the work you can tell the guy cheated on her or ran for the hills. But there are two sides to every story. Cig is intense and that is the understatement of the day. We didn’t even hear even her side but saw the photos. Whoa. This is/was one pissed off lady. She says that art is cheaper than therapy. Clearly she needed a lot of art. She says she made pictures instead of drinking too much or doing drugs. Great if it works. Wonder if it’s as much fun. She says that for her it’s about creating order out of chaos; beauty out of pain. She learned that through photography, she could represent something much bigger than herself.

She also writes and she read some of her commentary on her photographs. My conclusion, she's a better photographer than a writer. Does she know it?

She said a couple of other things I think might be worth sharing. “The camera allows you to stare.” And, “art doesn't have to be happy or sad, just felt.”

All in all she’s clearly an incredible teacher. Her passion and her vision are infectious. Fran’s in heaven. See what I know.

Now my day, if you’re not already too bored. My class is about its title, the “Colors of the Maine Landscape.” To start we did an exercise. Each of us paired up with someone in the class that we didn’t know. I got Nancy. Nancy is a “woman of a certain age” from rural Virginia. She’s worked as a postal carrier for 30 years, now “retired.” She does not like people. She did not like me. I assume it's because I'm a person, but it could have been something amiss with my personality this day - maybe everyday. She says likes the land. She travels a lot to remote areas to take pictures of nature. It rains a lot where she takes pictures. Maybe it's because the land doesn't like her. I told her I liked Dianne Arbus. She looked at me like I was nuts. My job was to talk with her for 15 minutes then introduce her to the class. Her job was to do the same for me. It was a lovely exercise and Ruth and I really had a lot in common; not. We bonded. I guess that was the point. Again not. But we had the good manners to introduce each other to the class with pleasantries galore. Fran was thinking pabulum in her class? She got real and our class got all the pabulum. Next on our agenda, after everyone said very nice things about their partners we proceeded to look at everyone’s favorite 20 pictures. Everyone would introduce his or her own work and talk about it. Some went on and on. Interestingly, the people that talked the most had the weakest photos. I was determined not to talk in the hope that my photos would look better if I kept my big mouth shut. The exercise turned into a critique, but again, this is a sensitive group and everyone said nice things about all the work. I'm sure nobody believed anything that anyone said except for all of us that heard the nice things about our own work. Humans are so gullible. One photographer took exquisite photographs of Maine Buoys in all their magnificence. Boring? You betcha. But they sure were well done. Another talked about the texture in the doors that she took pictures of where the paint was flaking off. Another liked the colors of the moss on the rocks and used a tripod to make it perfect. She used long exposures and macro zooms to look so closely I swear she saw the electrons revolving about the nuclei. Oars in boats, lilies in ponds, cacti in the west, and most of all, lobster pots; broken lobster pots (working ones were mostly underwater). Our group really liked this stuff. We have some really good photographers and if you like pretty pictures it’s all here. At the end of this exercise we put our hands together and sang Kumbaya. Please!

I’ve lived with Fran too long. I was looking for gang colors and opium dens or meth labs in the fishing villages without much luck. Even a dead fish on the cutting board or lobster detritus on the wharf would have been interesting. We went to Port Clyde, an hour or so south and the best I could get were pictures of broken lobster pots, oars, and buoys. We all took the same boring pictures. I almost had a good one. There was a sea gull that crapped on a red car. I liked that but missed the photo of the actual crapping though I saw it in process. The lesson there is that we must have the camera ready at all times. There’s a light house, but at midday, the light made it possible only to take a post card picture, and you could buy the post card right there. On the post card they Photoshop out the big electrical cable that carries the electricity to the light house and allows it to actually work.

This class isn’t for me. I don’t have the vision. I can’t see what’s exciting about these pretty pictures and I know that I’m definitely still alone at the Workshop.

So, tomorrow, after our 5 fucking thirty AM shoot at the flower garden - really - makes me want to scream or barf or something worse - I’m probably going change classes. More on that later.

Getting sleepy. Bye all.

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