State of the Union...

It’s the first week of October. For me this has become my de-facto State of the John Boal Photography Union address. The Eddie Adams workshop starts this week. Without me… again.
So there it is. I’m Oh for three. You can apply 3 times and that’s it. It's supposed to be for young and/or developing photojournalists. Although I think there is a caveat. I think you can apply as many times as you want as a student and then only 3 times as a pro. I can’t remember if applied as a student the first time or not. Maybe it’s irrelevant. I’m starting to get used to being rejected—current FT employment notwithstanding.

I think it’s a good thing to self-evaluate periodically. Hopefully during these moments I can look back at the past year, or several months and see progress. The first couple years of doing this, I was so concerned with seeing better pictures for my portfolio. Now, I’ve found I’m less concerned with having better pictures than making sure that I have an emerging vision on how I see what’s around me. I find that the good pictures tend to take care of themselves this way. I’ve stopped being concerned with how to win contests and get into workshops. Finding a personal voice in my photographs is more important to me now.

Something I’ve always held important is how we come to find pictures; that is, the ideas behind them. I believe it’s important to create images that mean something. In 30 years hopefully I can look at an image and see it’s value, even when perhaps the composition or the lighting may not have been ideal. Many times the value of an image lies in it’s ability to reflect history at that moment.

A year or two ago when the election campaigns were heating up, I emailed a well-established photographer friend of mine to ask the best way to go about getting to Iowa and New Hampshire…etc. And he simply said I’m better off covering what’s in my backyard. Save your money, find what’s in front of you and shoot that. And I did. It was the best thing I could have done. And so far, it’s been the best work I’ve done.

Committing to a decision usually will yield far better results than when you’re second guessing yourself. When I decided I wasn’t going anywhere I couldn’t drive to and take time off to go cover, my photographs became better.

So in the short run, maybe my photographs weren’t so compelling to judges of portfolios to various workshops. But I learned my backyard is just as often more compelling than what can be found thousands of miles away. And if everyone is so eager to find something somewhere else, then perhaps what I’m shooting here becomes more interesting because of it’s exclusion by the rest.

Money is drying up across the board in print media. To me it only makes sense to spend my time finding stories closer to home. The process has taught me that it’s a mutually rewarding experience. People like to feel that they are interesting. And as a photographer, I’ve found that I’m less reliant on some sensational event carry my photographs and instead I’m forced to make them compelling by knowing their stories and conveying that visually. Anyway, who is going to pay for me to travel to far away places? National Geographic hasn’t called yet.