Scenes Seen and Unseen

"I’m ready to surrender into the idea that we’re all connected, and that I need to be of service somehow."

"The way we see things changes them, and the things we see change us."

-- Gino Miele

In this episode, Antonio and Ward welcome Gino Miele for an in-depth conversation about the delicate balance between being fully present in a moment and capturing it through photography. Gino shares his experience photographing a lowrider family in New Mexico, where he found himself both immersed in the vibrant scene and mentally juggling the technical aspects of getting the shot. This sparks a broader discussion about the challenge many photographers face: how to fully engage with the scene in front of them while also framing it through the lens. The trio reminisces about their own struggles with this balance, touching on the idea of "photo gods" and how sometimes the most serendipitous moments happen when you least expect them.

The guys continue to explore how photographers can sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture—literally and figuratively—when they’re too focused on the technical details. They discuss the importance of stepping back and really taking in the environment, rather than just capturing it piece by piece, highlighting how each photographer's approach can differ based on their experiences and mindset at the time. They also touch on how this awareness develops with experience, and whether it can be taught or is something that comes naturally with time.

Finally, the group dives into the evolving landscape of photography, particularly the shift from traditional cameras to smartphones. They discuss how this change has opened up new creative possibilities, with Antonio noting how his own reliance on his smartphone has grown as he balances photography with other pursuits like journaling. Gino and Ward reflect on how the simplicity and accessibility of smartphones can free photographers from the burden of gear, allowing them to focus more on the act of seeing. The episode wraps with the three photographers reflecting on how their experiences shape their work, emphasizing the importance of staying open to the unexpected and finding joy in the process, no matter the tools at hand.

 

Show Links:

Gino Miele's Website, Instagram, Santa Fe Photo Workshops

Jennifer Spelman's Photography Workshops

Antonio M. Rosario's Website, Vero, Instagram and Facebook page

Ward Rosin’s Website, Vero, Instagram and Facebook page.

Ornis Photo Website 

The Unusual Collective

Street Shots Facebook Page

Street Shots Instagram

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Episode Transcript

(00:02):
I'm ready to surrender into the idea that we're all connected,
and that I need to be of service somehow.
The way we see things changes them, and the things we see change us.
Music.

(00:30):
Hey, welcome to the Street Shots Photography Podcast. This is Antonio.
And this is Ward. And this is episode 212, 212, 212, the area code for New York
for the, what are we in? The end of July.

(00:50):
End of July. Wow. Summer half over. Summer's half over. And 212 used to be that
everybody would kill for that area code.
And now I think nobody really cares anymore for that.
So I'm not going to, believe me, I'm not going to make the episode title about
the zip code or the area code of Neon. I did last time. It's just funny to 212.

(01:13):
If we ever get to area code 718, you know, if we're ever at that show 718.
Anyway. All right. Well, hello, Ward. How are you?
Hey, how's it going? It's going. Yeah. You're, you're, you said you guys are
suffering from some smoky conditions up there.
Yeah. It's hot and it's smoky. The hot I'm okay with the smoky and that's making

(01:37):
nice sunrises and sunsets kind of thing, or just like balls floating on the horizon.
Yeah. It's the big orange balls floating. Yeah.
Excuse me.
I don't know. It's just, you know, you look.
You can get the sun and it's, you know, it's not blinding. It's just this big orange thing. Right.

(01:58):
I've taken, you know, I've taken a picture when we had the smoke conditions.
Last year actually only just have smoke conditions i've taken the sunrise
and and then i put it into light
room into the uh into the not light
room classic but light room light room cc and i
do a search for flags right because i'm looking
for flags it'll bring up that picture because i think it thinks that it's

(02:20):
the the it's a flag of japan because it's
a single it's a single round red orb
in a sort of a bright background and and i
was like no it's not a flag it's a sunrise but well
sorry you're getting all that smoky crap that's that's not pleasant
one day it'll rain with three whatever just
about four weeks without any accumulation of rain so yeah and the heat is it's

(02:46):
summer hot yeah it's summer summertime well used to be getting a proper summer
i don't complain about the heat i don't mind i don't complain either so i mean
it just i get hot and and slow and, and don't like sweating, but,
and have to go through multiple shirts in a day, but that's fine.
That's just what summer is like.
So are you finished with your, your, what were you shooting these days?

(03:08):
The, what was the last thing you were shooting? The Calgary Stampede?
In the last, this last weekend I went out to a, my aunt's 90th birthday party. Oh, okay.
And that went well. And it was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
it did. I was, I'm not much of an event photographer, but I think what I got was pretty good.
And there was a couple of artistic shots I got out of it.

(03:28):
So yeah, it was not. And, uh, and I, I created a smug mug album and I posted
it to the family Facebook group. That's always fun when you can do that.
Yeah. And people have really appreciate it. So.
And how did, how would you have, uh, encapsulated the whole stampede in terms of how you did and.
My hit rate has definitely come up. Yeah. I think. All right. And.

(03:51):
I'm glad I spent the time I did. I spent eight of the 10 days working down there.
Oh. And that's four or five, six hours a day walking up and down.
Yeah. And nobody's paying you to do that.
It's just, this is what you're doing. Yeah. And you're not likely to,
no one wants a picture of some strange person on a fairground,

(04:11):
you know, up in their living room.
That's true. Yeah, that's true. I've noticed that trying to sell street photography
in general, just, it's not quite, it's not quite happened. Yeah. So.
No. Yeah. Well, cool. All right. So you've been, you've got some photographs.
I've, I haven't been doing much in the terms of my camera, although I did buy,
I did get a new lens yesterday.

(04:33):
It was one of my. Look at you. Well, yeah.
And I just realized like, what was it? My Viltrox 56 millimeter doesn't seem to be working anymore.
I put it on my cameras and the autofocus, it just grinds away.
And it's such an inexpensive lens in the first
place and i was thinking well i could go get it repaired which would
probably cost me about the cost of the new lens yeah so

(04:55):
i went and i think tt artisans came out with
a new lens for for fuji and i put that on and it's really nice it's a manual
focus though no no no it's an autofocus it's autofocus no and it's an f 1.8
sorry we're talking gear here so if you can fast forward if you don't want to
listen to the gear fuji talk But right now it's a F 1.8 and it's,

(05:18):
and it's sharp wide open.
I mean, it is, it is very, very sharp. It's kind of goofy looking lens and it
doesn't have the, the aperture ring, which I'm, I'm.
Entirely keen on but that's okay that doesn't really
matter that much so and it was about
the cost of i think a repair on the lens so so

(05:39):
but i was only taking like 10 pictures with it and and
my first picture wasn't of a cat it was of a sunflower so
oh yeah that was this morning yeah well then
not macro it just it doesn't have a close focus but it was just walking i was
walking in the coffee shop this morning and saw a person and grabbed them from
behind and i saw a sunflower flower and i grabbed that and i was like okay i

(06:00):
got two pictures at least you know to take a look at and i brought them in the
light room and they look great so i think it's a good lens anyway,
enough of the gear i just haven't been i've been doing more phone
photography and i almost hate to say that because it's
like again distinguishing between
phones and cameras and i really think there isn't any but

(06:21):
in some way there is you know creative with either well
yeah and i'm actually different itches to scratch
and because i have it with me like i don't i don't feel like
i'm like i'm walking out without anything i can i can be
creative and so and the macro abilities in this on the phone are really good
because i end up photographing a lot of my pins you know i walk around with
a lot of fountain pens and then i post those pictures on facebook to talk about

(06:43):
oh look at this nib and look at this other thing and the ink you know the chromatography
of this I think, yeah, I'm geeking out. I'm sorry.
Anyway, so yeah, I'm talking too much.
We've bantered enough, but wanted to tell everybody we have a guest on the show,
my best friend, Gino Mealy, and he joined Warden and I. We had a really good

(07:06):
chat and I'm hoping you guys like it.
Yeah, I think the energy in this show is pretty infectious. I think,
I think we should enjoy it. I think it's good. It's really good.
It is good. And we'll have Jean Gino on again. So anyway, uh,
get prepared to listen to a ward and me and Gino talk.

(07:28):
Music.
It sounds like we're into the talk already. So we're good.
That's cool. Well, you know, as a confession, the discussion that we had a couple of weeks ago.

(07:51):
So, Ward, I don't know if you know that Gino and I talk via Zoom every Thursday morning when we can.
Most of the times we can't. Well, I kind of gather that you have a standing appointment.
Standing appointment, yeah. And a couple of weekends ago, I mean,
Gino, I do want you to talk about this.
But when we were talking about that class that you went out and photographed
the lowriders, that discussion that we that discussion we had prompted our last

(08:17):
show prompted some talk of. Whoa.
Yeah. So the thing that Ward wanted to ask you what I sent you before is kind
of what we want to follow up on a little bit, too. I'm assuming,
Ward, I'm talking for I'm speaking for you.
But no, I got here. I got your note. But would you tell me a little bit about
the last podcast? Because I haven't listened to it.
Yeah. I'll let Ward go.

(08:38):
Well, Antonio was trying to get it out of me and was having trouble.
Well, now's your opportunity to get it out. Okay.
I'm going to just trip over my words.
The rest of it is if you're going to photograph or have some experience of being
somewhere and being with people or in whatever natural environment you're in,

(09:01):
are you able to live in two worlds the
one of experiencing where you are and who you're with and and
doing the craft of photography at the same time can
you live in that split brain world yeah and we had we had two we we had two
examples well one ran a little bit too long before we decided to shift gears

(09:22):
that was me one was one was me doing the street work on the midway on the fairgrounds at the
Calgary Stampede, which is an annual thing that I do that is a through line
in my life now in my creative life is to go as many days I can and this 10 day
fair and photograph the strange people that I see.

(09:45):
And it's, it's impromptu, candid grab shots.
And, you know, I get, I'm getting better at it. I can feel, I can feel the,
the, the, the craft of it and the, and the competence of a grow a little bit
every year. I'm encouraged by that.
But for me, the experience of that is just the intense, like doing the actual work.

(10:07):
And I'm really only of one mind. I think we came to that conclusion.
The other example was last summer, I went to visit three women who I care for a great deal.
One, a woman that I worked with early in my, in my career from when I was 19
years old and I've known her for 40 years.

(10:28):
Another woman is my aunt. She's a little bit older than me. She,
you know, married up, married my uncle, who's a little bit older.
And there's my last visit with her and her care facility before she passed.
And then there was my mother. And I did this visit all on, I did these visits all on one weekend.
And so I definitely was in, and I, and I got permission from each of them to photograph them.

(10:53):
So i'm sitting on this these these
pictures of my friend vicky who i've
known for a long time my aunt rosemary who's
no longer with us and my mother and i photographed her home i never lived in
the home that she lived in and i was definitely able to be in their company
and oh by the way take these pictures and that was that was basically the upshot

(11:17):
of it that certain circumstances you You can be in the,
in that split mode and other times you can't, where I'm so looking for,
and that was sort of like that when I went to visit Tonya in New York,
I was definitely on the street and I was just eyes wide open trying to catch everything.
And I don't know that I appreciated, I mean, if, you know, I remember being

(11:40):
there and everything, but it was all about the craft, the thing that I was doing.
It wasn't about, Hey, let's, we'll do this.
We'll do that. So that was basically what the show was about.
And, you know, we were when we were talking about your experience with the lowriders
and the students was what sparked that idea,
because the sort of remembering that when you're new to the to this to this art that we're doing,

(12:08):
you know, you're going to be really focused on on like you were saying,
like capturing this event.
Right. And rather than stepping back and seeing the whole thing,
like, I don't know, maybe if you want to talk a little bit more about that.
That again, because I really liked the way you said that.
I don't know if I can dredge up what I said before. Right, right, right.

(12:31):
But I think what you were saying, Ward, begs a bigger question,
which is like, how much am I actually able to pay attention at all these days?
You know, being so addicted to my phone and with construction workers arriving
here at my house, which is a job site, like 7, 7.15 every morning.

(12:52):
It means I'm not sitting.
Usually, like for years, I've been meditating every morning.
And just the last four months?
No, not so much. Because I get up and immediately thrown into sort of this world
of construction and choices and management and making sure that they have the

(13:14):
fixtures that they need to install and enough tile and all this other stuff.
But it's a really interesting question, especially in light of that day that
I had when I was visiting with Jennifer Spellman's Santa Fe workshops class,
where she had hired a lowrider family to be models.

(13:35):
And so I'll tell you about that.
But also this thing about the students is what I often try to encourage people
who I'm mentoring or teaching to do is to look for the photograph,
not for the thing.
Right. And I think that's a nuance that not everybody gets. I mean,

(14:02):
even just saying that I get the feeling people don't always know what I'm talking about.
And so what I was telling Antonio is, is that I had the feeling that some of
these students were just looking to get whatever was there,
something that was there and weren't thinking about even,

(14:22):
you know, the difference between standing three feet to the left and three feet
to the right in terms of what the photograph would be.
It was just such an exciting subject that they were so caught up in the interesting
thing that they weren't necessarily looking to make the interesting picture.
Just whatever would happen would be the picture. Yeah.

(14:46):
So I had this really exciting day where Jennifer Spellman,
who's taught more workshops than anybody ever for the Santa Fe workshops and
who lives in Santa Fe but is rarely here because she's always in Cuba or San
Miguel or in Europe or somewhere leading a workshop because she's teaching constantly.

(15:07):
Unfortunately, you know, she and I have been getting to know each other a little bit.
And we went to one of the Monday night slideshows at the workshops because what
they do is every week, whoever's teaching that week gives a slideshow that's open to the public.
And it's spectacular because the lineup there is really fantastic.

(15:28):
Fantastic and so what i told reed calinan
who runs the workshops is that me and my photo
friends from town who all meet every monday night to
go to this slideshow it's like it's like the musicians are going to the blue
note to listen to the other musicians you know and i feel like we really get
the nuance of you know the level of craft that these people are engaged in but you know i saw

(15:54):
Jennifer at one of these, these slideshows and she said, Hey, you know, I,
I, the workshops hired some lowriders to model for my class tomorrow.
And we're going to be up at the Sanctuario de Chimayo, which is this church
with healing dirt in the middle of like lowrider country because Española,

(16:15):
Española, New Mexico and Chimayo and Los Angeles are like the epicenters of lowrider culture.
And so I was like, hell yeah. So I went up there and to make a long story short,
I had a really nice few hours hanging out with her class and with her and helping out a little bit.

(16:37):
And, you know, I didn't want to dive right in and start, you know,
teaching or anything because it's not my workshop and I didn't want to get in the way.
So I was just trying to help students. And after a while it was like,
I would see a picture and then I would be like, okay, you mind if I take a couple of pictures?
And it was really sweet. So that few hours was spectacular because the,

(17:02):
the models, the talent was a low rider family.
It's like you got mom and dad and three teenage daughters and everybody had their own car.
And these young women had been
like deep into cars and lowriders in particular since they were babies.
And so the whole family dynamic and half a dozen different cars,

(17:28):
because they had a friend there also.
And, you know, the family dynamic and then the tattoos and the huge eyelashes
and like the 67 Chevy Impala, like the whole thing was just great.
So I was really happy.
And what I explained to Antonio was, you know, with my photographic cup full,

(17:52):
I went to go home and the landscape was just insane.
I mean, we're talking about along the high road to Taos, classic northern New Mexico.
You know, San Francisco mountains to the east, Jemez mountains to the west,
just beautiful mesas and rolling hills and sandstone formations.

(18:13):
But the light was crazy.
And so I told my wife I'd be home in half an hour.
And, you know, I actually got home like three and a half hours later because
I kept just driving back and forth along this road, chasing the light because
there was this beautiful sort of thing happening and this beautiful sunset,
but it just kept escalating.

(18:35):
So it went from like, oh, there's really nice light to, oh, there's really nice light.
And there's a storm rolling in. Oh, there's really nice light and a storm rolling
in. And there's a sunset. Oh, and there's lightning.
Oh, there's this really nice light. And there's
this sunset and the mountains have of this atmospheric perspective and
it's getting better and better and I'm getting rained on and oh

(18:56):
there's a rainbow it's like oh there's lightning
in the middle of the rainbow it's like it I was
hand-holding and so you know I got the rainbow but I of course didn't get the
lightning but I I've been telling everybody that even if I had nobody would
have believed me it was like lightning in the middle of the rainbow it was just

(19:16):
crazy so I was by myself and I'm photographing and the wind is picking up.
And I didn't bring a super wide lens, so I'm shooting this rainbow using my
24mm and shooting panoramic frames left to right to stitch it together later.
But I'm just laughing. Like it was such a spectacle and I was having such a

(19:39):
good time that I'm literally like laughing like a, like a comic book villain.
It was just so over the top.
And then the moon comes out and starts to set. It was like, it had everything.
I was expecting like a unicorn to fly by or, you know, something.
Now it was just the best day. And then it was the best day multiplied by like a thousand.

(20:02):
And I was really aware to
get back to your question that while I'm standing on this sandstone formation
and I'm photographing that I wasn't a hundred percent present to what was happening
because there's still part of me that's processing like,

(20:22):
fuck, I left the 14 to 24 home.
Home, I'm going to have to shoot this 24.
Is it going to work? Am I going to stitch it together? Am I going to get anything
that does any of this justice? So there are two conversations in my head, right?
One is like, oh my God, it's amazing to be alive.
It's amazing to be in this place, in this moment.

(20:45):
And Antonio, you've often talked about like gifts from the photo gods.
I felt like This was like, this was the photo gods being really, really nice to me.
So I'm aware of that on the one hand.
And on the other hand, I'm also thinking like, what would it be like if I could
just be really, as Ram Dass says, here now and only here now?

(21:11):
So I keep thinking about that day in the context of the question of like,
how present can you be? On the other hand, the camera is also a great way.
To engage with the world, you know, it's, it's an invitation to look harder
and to turn around, right. And see what's behind you.

(21:31):
And so that was my immediate response.
Yeah. Well, cause you, you, when you're going back to the little writers and
the way you were describing.
The scene of the family and the, the, you know, like you could probably write a story about.
These this family from your experience of

(21:52):
photographing them and and i'm not
i'm not i want to sound like i'm bashing students or anything like that because
everybody's starting from someplace and they're learning but you're coming from
this i want to say 10 000 foot view but you are in a sense two minds you're
you've got a story to tell about this experience not only do you have the photographs,

(22:15):
whereas someone who's seeing something for the first time.
And, and, and what I was talking to Ward about the last time was like the first
time I went to Germany with my ex-wife, we went to Heidelberg or something like
that and, or, or anywhere actually.
And I was experiencing all these places for the first time.
And when I came home, my memories were only the slides that I had,

(22:37):
not, I'm sort of exaggerating in a way, But you know what I mean?
It's like I go to someplace new and I'm photographing it and I'm so enamored
by the the scenery or whatever I'm seeing that I have not.
I couldn't tell this. I couldn't tell you a story about Heidelberg. You know what I mean?
Or I'm just using that as an example. Whereas you're coming from this experience

(22:58):
of meeting a low-rider family, taking pictures.
When you feel the shot is right, and you've got this experiential story that you're coming out with.
So it's sort of an entire package, whereas people who are getting into this
for the first time don't necessarily do that.
They're doing like maybe the cataloging. Like when you were describing what

(23:20):
students are doing, I've seen it too in my classes.
It's almost like a cataloging like let me get the stuff so that
i have it right and then right and we all know those
photographers who are like yeah i i need a picture of
arches and i need a picture of bounce and i need a picture of right the bucket
list kind of a list which has kind of nothing to do with the pictures and their

(23:41):
pictures look like the prototypical pictures from those place those places you
know because they're looking for the tripod holes and they think that's what
they're trying to do. Right.
It's funny though, that you say that I could tell a story about that family
because that family has been photographed by a guy named Don Uster,
U S N E R since those girls were little, uh, Don founded photo,

(24:06):
actually a journalistic agency here in New Mexico called search light,
which you guys should look up because I'm just, even though I I live here.
I'm just a tourist when it comes to lowrider culture and even northern New Mexico.
I'm a newcomer, but Don Usner has done like, he did a beautiful book about lowriders.

(24:28):
And if you just do a cursory web search, you'll find articles about those girls
and that family when they were young because Searchlight does stories, like real stories,
particularly focused in northern New Mexico.
And yes, I could tell a story. I mean, I was, I was there, but what it also

(24:51):
brings to mind is how, when I teach a workshop here in the summer and it doesn't,
the sun doesn't set until eight 30 or nine,
I have to really manage students expectations about like dinner and going Going
home because I'm not going home.
And, and what I told Antonio was I was surprised that many of the students in

(25:15):
that class, like sort of felt like they got their pictures of the lowriders
and then they wanted to go back to Santa Fe and like go have dinner.
And that's when things started to get really nice.
And so, you know, I think part of the insanity of, you know,
being a photographer is, is this idea that we're chasing something, right?

(25:41):
And that that takes the priority when we're in that mode.
Like I said, I told my wife I'd be home in half an hour.
She was not at all surprised when I did not appear for hours and hours,
which is why when we take road trips, it has to be with each other.
It can't be with people who won't understand that I need to stop by the side

(26:06):
of the road and I need to hop that fence and I need to be here for an hour.
You were going to say something more. Sorry. No, no. I just,
well, like we're talking about the, the, the dinner thing.
So sort of on a lark, not really on a lark as I was invited to my aunt's 90th
birthday tea that was two hours east of here.

(26:31):
And, you know, I like to drive and everything. And I, I, I didn't really have
any intention of stopping along the way or anything,
but it was just sort of, you know, my cousin cajoled me into going and I'm like,
oh, by the way, could you bring your camera well sure i don't
really go anywhere without the camera and so i
had this wonderful time of photographing these
people who many of them i know very well family that

(26:54):
i see every couple of years it was about 120 of them
friends of hers from the seniors complex and all
that kind of stuff and and it
was sort of like well my plan was just to go there and leave at dinner
so i could be home here you know at a reasonable hour no
no no no there was a big buffet there and and
you know i sat down and and and i

(27:16):
it took me out of photo mode for a while and i
sat and i visited with my cousins you know for for a couple of hours and they
got back into it and the the grand the great grandkids were getting rambunctious
and jumping over the furniture and i got these wonderful impromptu like portrait-y
kind of images of them you know in the visitor area draped over the couch,

(27:38):
you know, and these, that moment would have never happened if I had stuck to my original plan.
First of all, that I went there in the first place and that,
that I did that, that the, whatever you want to call it, that the magnitude
of it just kept growing as, you know, as the day went on.

(28:00):
And so I like, I feel like I had a four day weekend actually after going there,
you know, and yeah, it was a restful and it was only a two hour drive.
It wasn't an eight hour drive. Very often I do six and eight hour drives to
visit family, but this time it was just two and it was, you know,
it was manageable. I think it was fantastic.

(28:21):
I think it was Bull Durham where, you know, Kevin Costner said,
you know, you got to respect the streak and it's like, if something's happening.
It's not going to be happening this way again, ever again.
It's like you've got to stay in that mode and be grateful. Like,
oh, thank you. I'm here for this.

(28:41):
To be fair, though, the distraction was Susan Sarandon, so you don't have to weigh that carefully.
I can put myself in a student's shoes or something like that.
You're there to experience an entire thing.
You might be, let's say, to New Mexico for the first time. It's the first time
you're seeing lowriders.
It's like a first of everything. And you can compartmentalize all these little experiences.

(29:07):
Whereas, Gino, you have some of us, we're in these places where we've been there
for a while. We're sort of ensconced in it.
And when we can take the time, you know, to sort of to do that 10,000 foot view
or be able to tell the stories and stuff.
But so I can sometimes put myself in their shoes. But I always wonder if is
it like with us? us, I mean, the three of us are of experience, I should say.

(29:30):
And so is that is the matter of experience or is that something that you can
instill into somebody right away, you know, to say, take that step back and look at the whole,
picture and forget that you're in a new place and, you know,
yeah, you might miss some things.
You're going to have a better experience. And I'm not sure if I'm making any sense here, but, uh.

(29:51):
And also just to piggyback on that, Antonio, a question I wanted to ask,
you know, both of you, because you're both of you have been instructors in some
form or another for years now,
I have seen like in my little beers and cameras thing that I go to,
you see these little epiphanies with people that are new to photography.
I remember, I'll never forget this young woman looked into a twin lens,

(30:13):
looked down into the ground glass of a twin lens for the first time.
And it was like magic to her.
It was bright, but laterally reversed the image and sort of like, how do you use this?
And like, and then every now and then you're out on a photo walk and,
and which we would also do at those little events and you'd see people making these discoveries.

(30:35):
And so I want to know if you've seen these kind of little epiphanies and discoveries
when people make a kind of a creative breakthrough or whatever you want to call
it and where Where they do kind of turn the corner.
They're not just taking inventory of what's going on.
They discover kind of an artistic or at least a craft-based competency.

(30:56):
And what that does, and if you kind of feel that positive energy,
because I think it's amazing to see people make those discoveries and make those artistic discoveries.
Breakthroughs sorry that my question was longer
than yours so so you describing
hanging out with your cousins and it getting better and

(31:18):
better and and what i was just saying
about this very special day i think it
relates to this in the sense that there can
be this feeling oh my god something's happening here right
like something special is happening right now and when
that woman looks through the twin lens

(31:39):
or when somebody
has a breakthrough like there is an energy to
it and and i think it's not
necessarily about the photography it's not necessarily about paying attention
but there is something about connecting up the act of photographing and being
in your body and being aware that something special is happening right now and

(32:04):
that this moment has this tremendous
potential or that something just changed and
that's the magic that i'm chasing and whether
photography is involved is just
a bonus like like i'm chasing though those special those special feelings those
special i don't want to say moments because it's really hackneyed that like

(32:26):
you know you capture the moment in a photograph but i will say that the photographs
that I decide are good enough to share.
I feel like I choose them based on whether they have even some little bit of
that energy of something's happening here, something special.
Do you think that's just a result of experience?

(32:49):
Because we've been doing it for so long that we've sort of evolved into this,
or is that something, you know, I'm not saying like we got the special sauce
sprinkled on us or something like that, but do you know what I mean?
Like it's cause you know, when I come across students, like I,
I don't have them for as long as you do Gino cause you'll have a workshop and
so you'll be there with them for a week or some extended amount of time.

(33:11):
And generally my classes are two or three hours and I don't see the people again.
And so my little breakthroughs are, are I think a little bit far in between.
I mean, they, they happen sometimes.
So I have to try to squeeze in, you know, as much as I can to them.
And when I do see a breakthrough, it's like if someone did pick something up
or, or crosses that line, you know, from, from recording to experiential or

(33:37):
something like that, it happens.
And it's a re it is magic to see like, wow, you, you, you, you got that from
like when you walked in the door, you didn't have that.
You know and then when you came out in three hours you've got a little bit like
you can see the doors opening in that direction that is pretty exciting but
and so that kind of makes me think maybe i'm answering my own question here

(33:59):
but maybe that makes me think that's not a it's not an experience thing you
know it's not like we've got to be being photographers for 30 years to get this.
Maybe it's something else so i don't know do you know if what if you can add
to that or whatever So, so I think you are answering your own question and I
would like to add to that.
And, and what this makes me think about is how, you know, I've driven down a

(34:25):
thousand back roads where there were no photographs.
You know, you go out and it's like fishing or playing golf or,
you know, you keep coming back because every time has the potential for,
you know, that big fish or that hole in one.

(34:47):
And so what I think is, even though I haven't been meditating much the last
few months, the photography is a practice that I've been doing for, God, like 40 years.
And so you're engaged in the practice and sometimes it's just like nothing.
But if you keep doing it, you increase the odds that something magical will

(35:11):
happen because you keep showing up again and again.
And I think it's the same for students. It's like they go to a class or they
come to a workshop or they decide they're going to photograph every day.
I think the photo gods reward that, you know, they reward that,

(35:31):
that willingness to spend the time.
That's interesting. I was, as you were saying, the photo gods,
I was thinking, how do you sacrifice the photo gods these days?
Because way back when your sacrifice would be like, by accident,
you open up the back of your camera and expose it, roll a film.
There's your sacrifice for the day.
This is really interesting because I was just talking today earlier to my friend,

(35:55):
Geraldine, who Gino, you know, in France.
And she teaches art in a private school uptown New York.
So she's getting ready to do getting her lessons together. And she actually
teaches a broad range of ages in the school.
But something that she said caught my ear in the sense of like her class is

(36:18):
sort of a respite in a way from all the other pressures that the students have
in their other classes. Right.
So she has to make an environment a little bit, at least initially when the
classes start again for for the kids to sort of relax and get back into,
you know, you know, doing their art or whatever the projects are.
And she said something about what did she say?

(36:42):
Oh, doing mark making, which which I sort of interpreted as doodling,
but not like because doodling feels mindless.
But mark making was intentional. But the idea of making mistakes,
like give them this these opportunities so that there's no pressure on them
to make mistakes, like do all the mistakes, get all the stuff out,
you know, draw however you're going to do it. It doesn't matter if the proportions are right.

(37:04):
It doesn't matter if anything like get those mistakes out. I was wondering about how to...
Get that into a photography class, because I always think that when you're a
student or you're taking a workshop, there's pressure, right?
You spent this money, you're taking time, you're doing all this under,
you know, someone's watching over you and whatever.
And so there is a there is a and then maybe there's a peer pressure as well

(37:27):
because you're with other people.
And how to then loosen that tightness that they come in with that tension.
And like, what would be the equivalent of making photo mistakes? mistakes.
Like, okay, like, well, you know, we're going to take a certain amount of time.
It might work better in a longer term classes.
I only have three hours, but I want to figure out how to do it in a small class too.

(37:48):
Like, how do you take the pressure away from a students where they're,
where, when you do the mistakes is where sometimes you find the creativity, right?
Like if we're, you know, I'm so, and I throw myself into this as well,
because I'm so, sometimes I go out even now taking pictures and I make sure it's in focus.
I make sure I'm holding the camera, right. I'm making sure my shutter speed

(38:09):
is right, you know, and it's become sort of this unconscious thing that I'm doing.
And therefore I don't do a lot of mistakes.
And therefore my photography sometimes feels like I haven't gone anywhere and
how to, you know, how to switch that around a little.
And I'm not sure this is, I mean, since we're all here together and we're sort
of exploring this, I thought it would be a good place to, to,

(38:30):
to bounce that off of you guys.
Ward, what's, what's the name of the fair that you go to that you've been going for 10 years?
The Calgary Stampede. so what's the feeling you have when you go like like okay
i'm gonna go to the calgary stampede tonight and i'm gonna go for the next 10
days it's like yeah like what's what's the feeling what's is there anything

(38:52):
like parallel to it or how would you describe it.
I would describe, well, I describe it, I often describe it to my American friends
as like a big state fair that has a rodeo, has a big concrete grandstand that
seats about 25,000 people.
They can watch this rodeo happen.
So there's that. And that's on the Midway on the, you know, and there's rides

(39:16):
and carnies and all that sort of thing.
So what I feel like as a human, as a person is it's a big tourist thing.
It's our biggest tourist thing of the year. I feel like a host.
I give, I help people on the train and on the grounds, they need directions.
They want to find out I'm, I'm trying to be as helpful as I can.
I feel like I'm participating in the culture of the city.

(39:39):
I'm also participating in the culture of Western, Western North America,
basically this Western cowboy hats and boots and all that stuff.
Although I don't wear any of that stuff.
I think a cowboy hat is part of a uniform for people who actually live on ranches and do that.
And my cousins actually are that, so it's for me, it's not for me to wear a

(40:00):
cowboy hat, but I go down there and I have this, this, this kind of host mentality
when I'm not photographing, when I'm photographing,
it's about the diversity,
and joy and interest and just the, yeah, the diversity of humanity that I'm

(40:21):
trying to capture there.
And I'm trying to be Winogrand and I'm trying to be the, you know,
I'm trying to be Meyerowitz, you know, and there's a whole bunch of things.
I feel like I'm participating in the history or trying to participate in the
history of photography from my quarter of the, of the continent.
And there's a half a dozen of us that kind of cover it.

(40:44):
And our styles are so different and it's so wonderful because we all got our
different, our different stick. Dick, I'm a largely black and white and those
guys doing colorful and cotton candy and lights at night and Ferris wheels and all that kind of stuff.
And I'm like at street level with black and white kind of starkish image,
bright daylight, that sort of thing.

(41:05):
And so there's a joy, the creative joy, you know, comes out from that. Yeah.
And I could feel that from you, especially when you started talking about the
other photographers who were there and sort of like the camaraderie and the fellowship.
And the reason I ask in the wake of what you were asking Antonio is because
I think my answer to the question is like, it's playtime, you know, it's like I get to play.

(41:29):
And I think adults in our culture, they don't play a lot.
I mean, you know, there's sports, but that has a really competitive aspect to it.
Although photography does also in some ways, but the,
you know, the way that I try to create an environment in a workshop is by making

(41:55):
it safe for everybody to be friends and to go out playing together.
Like, oh, let's all get in the car and go someplace and go play and have a picnic and like,
let's experiment and sit in front of the computer and play with Lightroom or
Photoshop and see what develops and see what kind of fun we can have the same
way like a bunch of kids would sit with a bunch of crayons.

(42:18):
And I think that playfulness gives permission for what you call mistakes or
for discovery or for some kind of magic to happen.
I mean, I realized that, that I've been using photography as an excuse,

(42:38):
not only for myself, but in my teaching,
an excuse to experiment with intuition
and playfulness and using your body as a gauge of what's working and what's
not and where you should follow and like all this other really cool stuff.

(43:01):
I mean, it's like the photography is an excuse to be embodied and placed.
Music.
Gives you that permission to be present uh you

(43:23):
often can't be distracted while you're
shooting i mean you can but i think in order to be safe you know to get what
you want successfully as much as possible you you have to be present i was thinking
i think you know the sort of the cliche thing about photography being a meditation
as well i mean you go out and and you know you're You're constricting yourself to,

(43:45):
you know, your world is narrowed down to this little window and these pieces
of glass and plastic that you have hanging around your neck.
And and how do you make yourself present by like your vision and being conduit
through this this device into the world?
You know, I wonder, like, you know, how how present were do you think?

(44:07):
Gary Winogrand was, you know, when he was photographing, I think he was definitely playful.
But he shot so much i mean
he was he was spending so much time with that camera in
front of his face between him and the world like i'm we'll never know whether
it made him more present or whether it was like that's a good question actually
and his you know whether he was in the conversation in his head i'm also really

(44:33):
curious what you guys think about i mean i often draw the analogy between
photography and listening.
And I think that relates to what you're talking about in terms of presence.
It's like, the more I can listen, the more I can receive, rather than try to
impose, I think the better the pictures are.
Can you... Well, it's certainly true of a moving crowd and we're shooting a moving crowd.

(44:59):
Like, you have to be... Well, for me, I am wide awake. I don't think I'm any
more focused, as it were.
Then trying to find arrangements, aesthetic arrangements of people,
of these people as they're moving, as I'm moving.
Yeah. And I shoot from the hip most of the time. Because, not because I'm trying,

(45:19):
well, I am trying to be sneaky, but part of it is I like to shoot from below
because there's some of my pictures, it's very heroic.
Like the poses end up being kind of heroic because you're shooting them from
beneath And that's, they're sort of like they're, you know, constructivist art
where they're like, you know, looking to tomorrow.

(45:41):
That's also a perspective that children have of the world. So,
you know, it's not just, yeah.
Yeah. That, oh, wow. That's a really good connection. And I always talk about that.
You know, it's one of the interesting things in my class. What I started doing
recently was introducing the idea of point of view to the students.
And and they like what are you talking about

(46:03):
i'm like think about this you know when you shoot down
on somebody when you shoot equal to somebody when you shoot from below and somebody
and and and there's a little bit of you know discovery when they hear that there's
this oh i didn't you know i didn't realize anyway sorry just like right and
then there's what is our there's also what our late great friend mel de giacomo
called the vocabulary of lenses how every lens has its own,

(46:28):
voice, its own vocabulary.
But Ward, I want to go back to what you were saying about photographing crowds and everything moving.
It's like this 3D puzzle, like you're, what I'm imagining is you're looking
and you're looking for the configuration of people, people, people,
background, lights, the light.

(46:50):
And all this other stuff, but you're also moving your body. And so you have
to be aware of whether you're going to walk into somebody, whether you're going
to step on something, whether you're going to trip over a trash can.
Or stop walking because there aren't enough people coming. So I'll wait, I'll go off to the side.
Okay, there's another clutch of people coming. All right, let's start over.
But it's this great exercise in expanded awareness.

(47:13):
Like how many variables can you be aware of at once?
You know, moving your own body and these other moving bodies and the light and
the focus and the exposure and, you know, the relationship of the subject to the background.
And it's like when you can really be aware of like everything that's happening,

(47:34):
that's really paying attention.
That's really being present. Even if you're sort of caught up in the act of
photographing, I still think that's a really, that's a really present way to be.
Yeah and i think that's what winogrand he said what
he really wanted was not to exist and in
those moments you feel like you're in

(47:56):
the pictures where i have this feeling like i got it i got it i don't really
like so i'm not much of a celebrator but every now and then when i shoot something
and i i you know i don't chimp that much when i'm walking up and down the midway
but But there were these times like, oh,
there was, it was sort of like, well, it's kind of corny, but you feel like

(48:19):
kind of all your experience had
kind of led to, I felt like that way about actually the trip to New York.
All your experience to that point has got you to this photograph.
If I hadn't done these hours or these miles on my feet, I would not have been,
this picture would not have been possible.

(48:40):
Or if I hadn't just decided to get my butt up to visit with Jennifer's class,
I would have been in the house, not out in the landscape when this stuff happened.
And I never would have even known that it happened.
But this idea of disappearing, that's really interesting.
Because i mean zen

(49:03):
buddhists talk about this i mean the idea of of
the person of the personness just
disappearing and just being pure awareness but back when i was in my 20s and
single i spent a lot of time at a bar in manhattan called the bleaker street
bar and i used to go there and And I had a whole group of friends who were regulars there.

(49:28):
And I would go there and play darts and drink beer.
And that was a pretty nice part of life in my 20s.
But I met a guy there who I became friends with, a photographer named Ezio Peterson, who shot for AP.
And Ezio was the prototypical photojournalist.

(49:50):
And so because of that, there was just lightning outside my house.
I just saw it on my window.
Because Ezio had the background that he had, it was all available light.
And he had an assignment where he wanted to light a room where a bunch of people
were going to be meeting.
And he asked me, since he knew that I had experience with strobes,

(50:12):
he asked me if I would bring my kit and light that room for him and just set it up and let him shoot.
And so of course i did that
and and i went and i set up a bunch of strobes and the
most amazing thing happened like ezio started to photograph and maybe three
or five or seven minutes in he disappeared like the people in the room became

(50:39):
completely unaware of him and just were themselves,
and it was like a superpower like this
happened i don't know 35 years ago and i still remember it because it was so
incredible it was like he had this this ability to do just what you're talking
about mel had that too i think i think he did well remember he he he photographed

(51:05):
my first wedding right and which oh my photographs are amazing sister's wedding
oh he did he did julia's wedding oh i didn't know that unfortunately i don't
think she ever got the prints or the negatives because the photographs were
so unusual that she was like.
Know what to do yeah yeah he

(51:27):
can disappear or he can fill he can either disappear
or fill up the the room completely right right it was both
yeah that that disappearing it
almost sounds like well going back to your experience with the low riders that
you were doing the same like you would appear and then disappear yeah in your
in your in your uh in your challenge to photograph the something that was new

(51:49):
to you and i think that's another awareness of like you know sort of.
How you're affecting the situation you're photographing and what the dynamic is with the people.
But I just want to say, it's funny. I'm remembering that the last time I was
on the podcast, I had also just photographed a bunch of lowriders.

(52:11):
And I think that's an interesting synchronicity. The other thing is,
I hope you'll put Melchiorri DiGiacomo's name in the show notes so people who
don't know his work can discover him.
And it's sad that he just died a couple months ago, and I miss him.
Yeah, we did talk about him after he died. We did a little tribute.

(52:34):
And, of course, I put up the pictures from the wedding.
Also, I had realized, remember that I'm doing all these photographs of dilapidated
chairs and stuff like that?
Yes do you remember that i had one
of his prints of a of a discarded chair on
our wall in my old apartment it was an upholstered stuffed chair
right yes and so i'd always wondered and i already

(52:56):
talked about this before but i'll talk about it with you now here but i
when after he died i was like i was
like i just got some of his prints and then i went and looked in some
prints that were on the floor here and i was like the chair
and i was like i wondered if that chair permeated into
to my like photo dna and and got
me into thinking about doing you know every time i see

(53:17):
a thrown away chair it has to be a certain kind of chair too so but yeah go
ahead sorry no it's just something can you guys hear the thunder in the background
like there's a light i'm brewing and i'm sitting in my studio looking out the
window which is behind the computer monitor and i've seen lightning twice.

(53:37):
This is a crazy magical place to live.
I've seen like four rainbows in the last month and lightning storms are really common in the summer.
And one of my students in the last workshop,
we were out in the field photographing together and we passed by this place

(53:59):
and I told them a story about how I had stopped at this particular place with
a bunch of students years ago,
and there was a lightning storm, and I was encouraging them all to get their tripods,
and to do a long exposure and like.
That's how you're going to get the lightning and you're not going to be able
to just handhold and click, you know, I got it.

(54:20):
And of course this woman walks over to me and she goes, look, I got it.
You know, she, she had just held the camera up to her face and got this perfect shot of lightning.
And I was like, Oh my God, that's, that's the kind of magic that,
you know, makes it all worthwhile.
But the student in the most recent workshop, I was telling this story and I
explained that, you know, either you can do a really long exposure on a tripod

(54:43):
or you can get a trigger. And she was like, what, what's that?
And so literally the day after the workshop, she went out and she bought a trigger.
And two days later, she sent me a picture of lightning that was beautiful.
And so those are the kinds of breakthroughs that I think that you were talking about.
Like, it's like, you know, just helping people realize what's possible.

(55:06):
And again, again i think it really helped her to have
a playful and satisfying experience it's
like oh lightning trigger that would be a really fun thing
to play with yeah yeah i think christian he's got
me wanting to go out and buy one right was it that pluto was it called pluto
i don't know if it was pluto or my ops or my ops is the other one yeah yeah

(55:28):
nothing else yeah you know as you're saying that well first of all what's the
what's the workshop but what What was the lightning?
That was the workshop. More lightning. There's a good workshop.
The workshop is called the New Mexico landscape and light room.
And so the title is always an excuse, but this is an excuse to go out to ghost

(55:54):
ranch or out into the landscape or just, you know, to some of the really nice
little local spots that I know and,
And spend half the time out shooting and the other half the time,
like introducing people to how to transform their photographs in Lightroom.
And so the focus was not at all on, on image management or importing or the logistics.

(56:19):
It was, it was really super focused on post-processing and taking a great raw
file and making it amazing.
And the analogy I often use is like, okay, we're gonna go
out and we're gonna to mine rough diamonds then we're going to take those rough
diamonds back and we're going to cut polish facet them and maybe even like you

(56:40):
know mount them do your students already come with the sort of expectation that
processing i mean obviously they're coming for light room but.
They're skilled enough to know that processing is an inherent part of the whole
image making process, right?
Like it's as equal to or no, or do they not?
It always surprises me that people choose my class, not knowing that,

(57:07):
you know, like I think post-processing is at least 50% of what it is.
And so I, I often end up with a couple of students who are,
sadly believe in reality and think that there should be like a strong correlation
between what's happening in front of the lens and the picture you make later.

(57:27):
And their goal is to make it as much like the thing that happened as they can.
And it's really fun to give those people permission to go further than that.
And sometimes that's the light bulb going on.
It's like, Like, oh, I can actually be a little bit of a fiction writer rather

(57:51):
than a nonfiction writer.
Yes. I remember that. I always quote you about that. The the the fiction photographer.
I've had I've had to use that a couple of times because in my class I had people,
a few people who were saying that occasionally.
And it's it's probably one of the best lines, short of like a line from The Odd Couple. Right.

(58:14):
So how do you go ahead sorry no i
was gonna say like remembering you said that to me
is is like the perfect way to
sort of i don't know why it's a quench that that misnomer that a photograph
is is is the way it comes out of the camera and i said well you know if you're
doing photo journalism sure it probably has to be that way everything else is

(58:38):
open to interpretation and And they did have one student who was like, well,
but they, I don't like when someone does Photoshop on the picture.
And then I said to them, well, think of that as, you know, do you get,
do you get angry at people who write novels? And she was like, no.
And, and, uh, you know, I quote you on that. It's like the best,
it's definitely one of the best things to, to, to, to go in with.

(59:01):
So yeah. Anyway, sorry, you were going to say something too, but. it.
No, I, I was going to ask you guys, you know, do, have you, I've,
I've had the experience of, of people saying to me, I, I don't want to,
I don't like to do too much to the picture.
And it's like, you know, I'm looking at the picture and it's like,
the tonal range is really flat.

(59:23):
And, you know, it's like, even if you did a little, you could do a lot. Yeah.
But I'm curious how you guys respond to that.
And I also just wanted to mention that part of that whole fiction writer thing
came from years ago when I was still doing darkroom work pre-digital.

(59:47):
I had this great composite landscape where I'd sandwiched two negatives together
in the enlarger. And it was one of my favorite pictures.
And I had a print on the wall. And my very beautiful German cousin discovered
that it wasn't a real photograph, and she got really angry with me.

(01:00:09):
And it was so surprising, because she had sort of fallen for the cultural myth
that the camera never lies.
So i don't know if you guys want to respond
to either of those two things i think that's fun well
i well good go ahead i've been talking too much where

(01:00:29):
do you go well i i have uh i wrote a blog article like eight years ago on my
website about a guy i used to work with who said the only picture you can get
or you can you should produce or ones where you click the perfect image and
i I remember in popular photography,
there used to be a spread called straight shot, believe it or not,

(01:00:53):
which was usually some color slide.
Right. And so, oh, this is look, look at all the, all the planets came together
to give us this beautiful picture.
Right. And there was a kind of a, I don't know if it was a humorous tone or
a mocking tone in the magazine about it.
Like, you know, it was not studio was some sunset over some field or something.

(01:01:14):
But, you know, I'm thinking of people.
I've had the conversation with who are newer
to photography that it's it's
not just a discovery and that that the analogy I
use is clay right or Ansel Adams and I
mentioned in the last podcast too about the negative
being the score and the print being the performance right that

(01:01:37):
you it's photography is a
creative act when we were in the dark room we did
whatever we could adjust to the the contrast and the exposure to
partly did to cover over or fix our mistakes but
also to make it what the feeling you had
the emotional impact it had when you were shooting it and
that is the reason or or to make it

(01:01:59):
at least that sometimes you can magnify that and make it more
emotional than what you were feeling at the moment at the
moment of exposure but also different writers have
different styles different painters have different styles movie makers have
different styles yeah it's so funny that there's this persistent idea but but
what I really love when people say things like you know I don't believe in Photoshop

(01:02:23):
it's really fun to point them in the direction of Gustav Le Gray Robinson you know.
Yeah, actually, I did that in the last class. I brought up Gustave Le Grave,
and these students don't know anything about photo history,
but I was like, you know, this guy in the 1800s did this thing,
and it was his version of Photoshop, and the woman was like,

(01:02:46):
her jaw was open. I'm like, yeah, people have been doing it forever.
I think, to answer your question also, Gino, was that I,
you know, when I photograph sunrises out of my window,
because they're beautiful and
i'm never satisfied with what comes out of the camera anyway and
the camera's processing it as well so there's no reality in in either the camera

(01:03:10):
and then there's me adding to it and inevitably i'll put it up on you know maybe
my local facebook group because i like sharing my sunrises with people in the
neighborhood it's a fun thing and then eventually Eventually,
I'll get somebody who says,
it didn't really look like that, did it?
And that's often where I get, there's a stuck part of me saying,

(01:03:30):
well, if I'm going to answer this person in a factual way, I have to say no.
It doesn't, you know, but I always say like, no, but it looked like that to me.
Like, this is how I see the world. And that's what photography is,
is, is not, is not necessarily me showing you the reality of things because how boring is that?

(01:03:55):
I need to show you how I'm going to see something and how I experience it.
And that's the whole point. And so, you know, Ward, I was going to say,
when you do process, like you're processing on your black and white pictures
is very, very much your style.
Like, like if I'm scrolling through a feed or something like that,
and I'm not looking at the names and I see a black and white picture,
I can tell that it's yours. because of the work that you've done on it.

(01:04:17):
There's, you've brought in detail and you've moved detail away and you've done
these things. That's very much your signature.
And that I think is incredibly important to have, you know, talking about Mel
with the language of lenses, you know, we have that same language.
The with the post-processing of a picture it's

(01:04:38):
it's the finishing of the sentences you know you can
tell that it's words but the question is can you tell what valley he
shot it in and what year the vintage was what do
you mean like no yeah there you
go yeah i mean that's like that's a fun game to play is is you know yeah so
so this idea of the straight shot believe it or not what But what I realized

(01:05:01):
just a couple weeks ago is that a lot of the pictures I've made in the last
couple of months that I really like are quote-unquote straight photographs.
Because of the same thing that you were talking about, Antonio,
with the sunset, over the years I've gravitated more and more towards composites
because they feel fuller to me.

(01:05:25):
I can make a picture that has what my friend Ruben calls, it's got that second beat.
It's not just a one-note picture. It's got bump, bump, or better yet, bump, bump, bump.
It's got a couple of notes rather than just that single note that falls flat.
But it's been a nice surprise to realize I've made a lot of photographs that

(01:05:49):
I like that are single frame, like pretty great with not a lot of post-processing.
And that's, you know, I'm listening to that and saying, oh, is this like sort
of a new development, something I should pay attention to the pattern recognition of?

(01:06:09):
Yeah. Good question. Yeah. Wow. And as you've been doing, since you're doing
all this construction, you're not getting out, you're doing most of your shooting
during, during workshops or you're going out sometimes on your own or with the,
you know, road trip or stuff like that.
Well, I mean, I did a couple of road trips. I mean, I went, I went to Antelope
Canyon with a couple of friends and that's like a whole other podcast.

(01:06:32):
The reality of that experience being crammed into this slot Canyon with 20 minutes
to shoot with a hundred other people in there,
you know, compared to the serene photographs of the sandstone formations that
everybody comes up with.
I was like totally unprepared for the reality of it.
So I've got a little aside on that. So when I went there in 2019,

(01:06:56):
she got better pictures out of her iPhone than I got out of my Fuji gear.
I had a cousin this weekend saying, I saw Marcy's pictures.
I want to find print. yeah so i'm
going back through her phone library to put together you know the color image
of hers to make a fine print for my cousin so it was like it makes sense i mean

(01:07:18):
the exposure conditions in there are heinous and the phone does a great job
opening up the shadows and controlling the.
Yeah, I've been having I've actually been having a good time with my phone lately
as well, rather than carrying my camera around with me.
Because when I go to when I go to breakfast at the Blue Star,
I'm now carrying a big bag with me with all my writing stuff because I'm doing.

(01:07:43):
So I schlep all this like my pens and my papers.
I'm already carrying a bunch of stuff like, so I want to carry my camera like now.
So, you know, the phone is becoming certainly something that I'm appreciating
a lot more and, you know, using it as that as that tool. And I think a bunch
of pictures I just put up recently.
I don't know where I put them up, but probably on Facebook.

(01:08:05):
Oh, you saw them, you know, the stuff, all that stuff, that last batch of stuff.
Those are all phone pictures. I didn't mention, you know, in the.
And we shouldn't. Right. We shouldn't. It doesn't matter.
But it's this this idea that. I mean, like, like, you know, again,
Jennifer Spellman, who I mentioned a couple of times, and I'd love it if you
put a link in for her in the, in the show notes.

(01:08:26):
I was really shocked to discover that, that she only shoots with her phone.
And she said, there's like a freedom to it that she really, really likes.
And that was really surprising. that's funny
that that that phrase came comes up i was you
know a photographer jack holling hollingsworth i know

(01:08:47):
his name yeah he's he's a he's also was
an instructor i think he still is but he posts up
his i think he's gone totally iphone and he
posted something today and it was a lot of
really great pictures i mean just the photography was really nice
and i know he's just doing phones and i realized when i
said to him i said this means freedom like having that

(01:09:08):
ability to not worry about the gear or
something like that like you just are are again funneling the world through
this device the your vision and then you're ending up again and it doesn't matter
what you're using but and you know ansel adams said the most important part
of the camera is the six inches behind you yeah yeah i mean dan burke holder's
iphone pictures are just phenomenal.

(01:09:30):
Oh i haven't seen this stuff in a while is he still doing his
iphone stuff well he does he shoots with an olympus also i think and there's
all kinds of fun stuff with that but but mostly his prints are relatively small
and he often does you know like gold leaf over vellum inkjet with platinum you
know like you know all this stuff and so because they're small all,

(01:09:52):
like the phone is awesome.
Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was in a situation. Calgary does the same thing with the
gold leaf and the vellum.
Yeah. It's fantastic. Really? Gold leaf and vellum.
Yeah. Explain that a little bit if you can. Do you know what?
I'm trying to remember. So he does a, I believe, boy, he prints,

(01:10:14):
he prints on the vellum and then he has, oh, I've forgotten.
I'll, I'll dig it up. I'll find his name. Steve Spear. It's just such a,
like vellum and gold leaf. I was like, what the hell is.
Well, it's like a, it, it, it's sandwiched. Like it's sort of like a.
Oh, okay. So instead of the darker part of the image being like inkjet, it's gold.

(01:10:40):
So when it folds together, you
have this kind of almost ethereal three-dimensional effect of this gold.
On this translucent paper. On the translucent media, yeah.
And you could do it with inkjet or with traditional wet processes or some combination
of both registering. during, you can do all kinds of crazy stuff.

(01:11:02):
I want to come back to the phone just for a second because I was,
I was, I went out for the day with a couple of friends shooting and we had a
really nice time. It was fun.
And I ended up at this place where there was a little waterfall and I was.
Delighted to discover, Oh, it's like, Oh, I went, I was at this place with Adam

(01:11:24):
Forgash, Forgash, which is, I mean, this place is about an hour from here.
I was at this place with Adam Forgash, maybe 25 years ago. And I made a photograph with my Mamiya 645.
That was a long exposure waterfall picture that I had printed and exhibited
and sort of stood the test of time.
And I, I was like, Oh, this is where that was. It was like,

(01:11:46):
I was rediscovering this place, but you know
the light wasn't really super great
to photograph a waterfall it was the middle of the day daylight
and you know no tripod
no neutral density filter but i
shot it with my phone in live mode and

(01:12:07):
then did the fake long exposure thing and converted
it to black and white and it was beautiful and
it was it was so fun to discover that
and then i made another discovery i was like even after
all that processing you could still put your finger
on it and the water would run it was like it was so cool it was like a harry

(01:12:29):
potter picture i think that's where it came from right yeah two or three seconds
of of animation to show the people looking around a little bit and then stop. Yeah.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's where it came from.
So that's, I got a siren going by here, so I'm going to let it go.
Well, I was going to, I was going to say too, with my experience of the iPhone

(01:12:52):
now that our daughter's gone to Japan for a couple of years and we have her
dog. And so we're walking this dog and I'm not going to carry around my Fuji gears.
I have my phone with me all the time anyway. So, uh.
The part of the city that we live in, we're quite up high above,
you know, we're 800 feet above the river, actually.
So we can see the weather come down the river valley.

(01:13:15):
And so I've started taking pictures of the clouds.
The mountains are 70 miles away. They're a little bit distant, but they're there.
They can be part of the horizon when it's not too humid or smoky.
So, yeah, and I've started doing equivalents now.
I'm Stiglitz. the cloud's got some texture to it then i'll take this picture

(01:13:36):
of the completely filled with a cloud pattern and posting those it's just interesting
and fun and freedom you know and free it's a lot of fun and it's the freedom
it's the freedom part that's the rest yeah yeah no it's it's great.
I'm gonna sort of say that we let's put a pause on this and uh come back because

(01:13:58):
we're at we're We're at time.
So can I, I want to add a little coda before we, before we do this. Yes.
There's a student friend who came to me last week and said that he wanted help
and he wanted help not with shooting or post-processing or anything technical.

(01:14:20):
He was like, I want help figuring out what the pictures are for.
And it really kind of threw me for a loop. It's like, what am I going to do with my pictures?
What are they for? Why am I making these? And where am I going to put them?
And I sort of thought about it for a while.
And the, I mean, of course, you know, there are many, many answers and maybe

(01:14:43):
I'll be able to sort of help him process this question.
But the best answer I came up with is I know all these people who play guitar
and the reason they play guitar is to play guitar.
It's like this brings us back to what we were talking about earlier with play
and with this childlike mind.

(01:15:10):
And so why is it that he even thinks there has to be something he has to do
with them rather than making them for his own pleasure or for the sake of making them?
Taking pictures for the act of just taking pictures, which is what I think Gary
Winogrand sometimes was doing.
Right, to see what they look like photographed. Right, yeah.

(01:15:33):
And he left us with so much. I'm definitely in that camp. But I have,
you know, I look over the years of how I think my work has gotten better.
I like the feeling that it gives me. I mean, I like just about every aspect
of photography from the excitement of going out to do something, even if it's crap.
Whatever i'm going to create and the weather's bad and nothing

(01:15:56):
works to going out the physical act of
shooting the thinginess and the the materialistic
comfort of having this heavy gear that
you're carting around using your body
and eyes to see what you're seeing and to
to capture that and then and you

(01:16:16):
know and my wife's after me all the time if you might come home late i'm
uploading onto the computer and i'm going to be there till
one in the morning doing some post processing i just got
to get five or six out i i just want to get five or six out and maybe post one
to social media like the whole the whole like i'm driven to do it um and so
you know for me the philosophical aspect is i'm doing it before the reason why i'm doing it is

(01:16:43):
to do it, is the act of doing it.
And yes, I get these spikes of enjoyment and dopamine as I go.
And then I can look back at any time. If I have to stop photography because of health or whatever,
I can already look back at the work that I've collected up to now and have some

(01:17:05):
bit of pride and interest and something to show somebody else or legacy you
want to use big ass words like that, that there's,
there's that, this is the thing I like to do.
Oh, what does Ward do? Oh, this is his hobby. This is what he does.
This is funny. It brings us back to Vivian Meyer.
I mean, you're going to go to the show tomorrow, Antonio, but it's like,

(01:17:28):
she didn't even want anybody to see her pictures and look how magnificent that work was.
And, and, you know, we can only imagine like why she did it or how it made her
feel. but I think we can imagine.
And how many more Vivian Myers are out there this day? So think about that.

(01:17:52):
Cool. Wow.
Gino, I don't know how to express my thanks to you so much for agreeing to hang
out with us tonight for so long. My pleasure.
I mean, this is just what we were talking about. It's like hanging out with
my friends and playing a little bit. Right.
And talking about the stuff that we love to talk about. So I really appreciate

(01:18:14):
it. Um, where are we finding you in the world here?
Where's the best way to, to hook up with your stuff?
At Jean underscore Mealy, J E A N underscore M I E L E on Instagram.
Although I certainly don't post nearly enough.
And my website is Jean Mealy.com J E A N M I E L E.

(01:18:40):
Cool. And you've got workshops coming up in Santa Fe?
Nope. Nope. We're done for the summer, right? We're done for the summer.
And, you know, I'm always open to the idea of people coming out to Santa Fe
and us doing a little mini workshop out in the desert.
That's kind of the really fun thing I'm doing these days. We've got to sign up.

(01:19:03):
Come on in. Oh, yeah. Tell us. Come on in.
Airfare. Okay. converge. We've got to go to South Dakota and we've got to go
to New Mexico, man. We've got these trips.
That's all one trip. Well, I mean, that's a long drive, but the Dakotas are
two of the six states that I haven't been in yet, so I'd consider that too.

(01:19:28):
I'm not working too hard these days, honestly. You've got your house to take
care of and build and move back into.
I just wanted to thank you, Ward, also just it's always such a pleasure to talk
with you yeah it's my pleasure too what about me,
you guys talk every week every week right it goes without saying you're one

(01:19:48):
of my best friends i like talking to board too he's got one of those he's got
that he's got that good voice for for radio so you got it you got the asmr i
got the face for radio too,
all right well have a good night and uh we'll get you on again and and uh for sure this is great.

(01:20:12):
Music.