The Creative Habit

Currently dance artist, with a keen interest in photography, Hannah Buckley, has been helping out in the gallery. Hannah works with her photographer twin sister to combine the two art forms, and you can see their work at the negotiationofspace website, which is really worth looking at
The other day she told me about a book by Twyla Tharp called The Creative Habit, and it sounded pretty fascinating, so I asked her if she would mind writing something for the blog about the book, so here it is:

"I don’t give to charity very often, and a compensation for this if I read a good book I like to buy it for the people I care about and who I think will benefit from that particular book. My books for giving so far have been Og Mandino’s ‘The Greatest Sales Man In The World’, Patrick Holford’s ‘Low GL Diet Cookbook’ and Twyla Tharp’s ‘The Creative Habit’.

Twyla Tharp is an American dancer and choreographer, but so far, as well as a dancer, I have given it to a musician and a photographer. I also have a jewelry maker and fashion designer in mind as future Twyla receivers. The Creative Habit comes from the perspective of the dance world but it is a creative manual for all anyone involved in any art, and the world outside art for that matter.
In a nutshell Tharp believes that creativity, is not a gift from God but the product of hard work. She believes through structure and habit, the very things that people label the creativity killers, you can achieve the most freedom, be creatively productive and work your way out of blank spots on uncreative days. In The Creative Habit she shares her own creative experiences, methods and exercises that have helped her achieve running, and choreographing for, a dance company from 1965 until the present day, choreograph more than one hundred thirty-five dances, five Hollywood movies, direct and choreograph four Broadway shows, receive one Tony Award, two Emmy Awards, nineteen honorary doctorates, the Vietnam Veterans of America President's Award, the 2004 National Medal of the Arts, the 2008 Jerome Robbins Prize, a 2008 Kennedy Center Honor and become a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Even if you disagree with the fundamentals of what Tharp writes about, (habit breeding creativity), I think every creative person, young or old, could learn something from her informative book. It is well written, with passion, intellect, experience and integrity dripping from its pages."
Hannah Buckley

One of the things this reminds me of is David Hurn in his, and Bill Jay's On Being Photographer talking about how it is so important to be strict when one is researching and shooting a body of work. He goes on about making check lists, in order to almost know what your going to shoot before you go out into the field. I think its often forgotten that being "Creative" can go hand in hand with having very strict rules....

Quick Rant II: How Dare You!

Quick Rant....: How Dare You!

I sometimes do not understand why photographers don't have their phone numbers on their websites, it is really frustrating, why would one not?
Admittedly it's also an excuse to use these picture from the artwork for 10cc's record How Dare you !..... Which is a great record

Perpignan Now #11

Day Seven:6 September. 8p.m, London, England

Back in the rain, back home…
Is our mission, our search, completed?
Seems like it’s hard to tell…
Will the superiors be happy with this report? We don’t know...

But, one thing is certain, we will never forget the kindness of the Greeters of Maine in Paul Jeffers’ photographs, or the extraordinary story of Vissarion by Sergey Kozmin…

And so in that sense, the many photographs and stories we have seen here in Perpignan, have affected us after all… And maybe a few others along the way…
Stories we will never forget…

That was Perpignan 2010…..

Perpignan Now #10

Day Seven:5 September. Perpignan, France

Perpignan is quiet now as we stroll through the streets…the accredited have left, flown home to follow the chase, both on their own turf and across the globe…

Now the exhibitions are open to the public, the civilians. We head back to the Couvent one last time…

It’s busier than expected, packed with locals and tourists…Surely that is exciting…that the work of photographers such as Stephanie Sinclair and Craig F. Walker is being seen on the walls of public spaces deep in the South of France…
The photographic stories, the photojournalism, that is on display here, in Perpignan, are studies of people and places, beauty and horror, and, like any study of this kind, they may not show the full picture, the whole story….

Hearts and minds....

They may even open a few Doors.....
To be continued...

Perpignan Now #9

Day Six: The Party. Perpignan, France Upadate: Counvent des Minimes

We return to a transformed Counvent…
A few days ago we were here considering the stories that hang on every wall… and now…tonight…there are just bodies, writhing, pulsating to a music that we both agree and thought had been dead for a long time…
And everywhere Mojitos…

Yes Mojitos…The smell of that tropical drink hanging in the thick air…

We try to stay calm, collected…
We try to speak to people we have met during our stay…But the music is too loud, the dancing too fast…
And then the Mojito paranoia kicks in…

…Everything is moving…



Faces from the week, whether known or unknown dance in front of us…

The Wolves dance with the Shamans, the Pioneers seduce the Hungry….

We no longer know what time it is or why we are here…

The questions and answers…the search is slipping away, into what? Where? Another Mojito?…

Maybe there is an answer here, at this party…Maybe, in order to move this world forward we all need to dance together more…Maybe that’s it?…Or, just maybe, that’s the Mojitos...
To be continued...

Perpignan Now #8

Day Six: 4 September. 4 p.m, Perignan, France

Today, we continued our mission, our search, whose goals are becoming more confused and blurred as time goes on…
Photojournalism is alive here, we know that, we have seen it with our own eyes, but here it seems trapped…not able to move on….

The simple question is: Why has it not changed here at Visa Pour L’Image?… In the search of clarity, of answers, we decided to head back into the old buildings of this town where the pictures hang.
To be Continued...

Perpignan Now #7

Day Five: 9p.m 3 September. Perpignan, France

So.. The Wolves…

Looking back at this journal.... This diary, we realize we may have been a bit harsh on these fellow pilgrims…

Yes, they hounded us at the Café de la Poste, but that’s because we have access to a portal... We have white walls, and blank pages... And they are hungry for all of that, and frankly, that’s just fair enough…. Today we sat ourselves in the burning sun of the Hotel de Pams, sweating not just from the sun but from the endless espresso’s that kept us going as we met photographer after photographer, one story teller after another…

A few things struck us as we sat there: yes, it may be true that many of the stories we saw today have been told previously….
But, nevertheless, we saw a lot of work that took us to places and introduced us to characters we hadn’t met before….

Paul Jeffers took us to Bangor Airport in the U.S State of Maine. Bangor is often the first or last port of call for U.S troops on American Soil before they head out to the war zones of Iraq or Afghanistan.
Paul’s photographs focus on a small non – profit organisation called The Maine Troop Greeters, who are based at Bangor Airport. These greeters’ role is to act almost as family to the troops that pass through the airport (whose real family, more often than not can’t be with them) offering phones, food, a shoulder to cry on and a cheerful face.

Vissarion is the title of a body of work by Russian Photographer Sergey Kozmin. Vissarion is also the self given name of an ex traffic cop formerly known as Sergey Torop, who after being made unemployed decided he was definitely the second coming of Christ….
Jeez! We thought, now here’s a story! Vissarion and his Church Of The Last Testament lies deep in the Siberian Mountains and he currently has over 5000 followers, many of whom gave up their lives and apartments in Russia’s big cities to live as disciples in the villages that populate what Vissarion calls The Promised Land.

Moving on. We know many a photographer has visited and documented the utter devastation that Hurricane Katrina caused to both the landscape and people of New Orleans on August 29th 2005. One of them being photographer Jason Andrew , whose project Jazzland is a study of a specific place in New Orleans; a place that used to deliver happiness and sunny days out to families that have probably long moved on…This Place is Jazzland, New Orleans Six Flags Amusement Park.
Shot on square format film Jason Andrew captures this place of fun slowly becoming prey to the ever-growing swamp. Although there are no people in these pictures, there is poignancy in fact that one can almost hear the laughter that emanated from this site up until that fateful day.

So even after a long day, we feel refreshed, awakened…and it wasn’t just the espresso, we have seen some great work, some great stories by photographers, young and old…
And the above is only a small selection.

There is something new though: Multi Media…Sure it’s only another way of showing work but that is just it, it’s another outlet, and possibly an empowering one for photographers in this day and age….

But sadly the question remains… There is this great work, but who is it for? Who is going to publish and exhibit it?

We have no doubt that the general public, the civilians want to see these stories, but as the saying goes:
"If a tree fall in a forest and there is no one their to hear it, does it make a sound?"...
As we rest back at base this question stays in our thoughts, the taste of something unresolved…

The wolves are hungry but the hands that can feed them are tied…

To be continued...

Perpignan Now #6

Day Five: 3 September.10 a.m Perpignan, France

Yesterday afternoon was spent searching and then grilling the inhabitants of the Palais Des Congres. We mentioned earlier that, in terms of agencies, many friends and acquaintances are missing, or are, sadly, dead….
The last ten years have been tough for many of them, and we just hope, some day, this war is going to end…

But we stayed positive and happily met some old vets of the field, albeit that their role here, down in Perpignan, has somewhat changed…
A lady now working for L’agence Vu, told us that in previous years they were here to be told the stories, to see photographers work….
But now their presence is just for their clients, to sell the stories of their signed photographers, to meet new costumers and to meet the faces behind the emails….

Click here to see some footage we took along the way...

An Aside: When we headed south we were expecting change in Perpignan, but that change is proving hard to find. The Walls that surround us, enclose us even, in the numerous exhibition spaces look and feel exactly the same, the frames… Those endless frames…the same.
Back home there are ongoing discussions on where photojournalism meets documentary meets art photography, and these discussions take place on the pages of magazines, limited edition books, on blogs, on the walls of galleries and even in the decisions of photographers on how to show their work…
And all this because of the sad death of the extended photo story in newspapers…
Photographers back home have to re-invent what and whom their photographs are for…
And yet here, in Perpignan, the walls are unchanged. There are no conceptually crafted installations, there are no handmade fibre prints in beautifully constructed frames, varying in sizes to make ones gaze glide across a body of work…

There is just uniformity…but that is the point…
Visa Pour L’image do this on purpose, and in some ways it makes sense, maybe Visa isn’t trying to be part of that discussion, they do what they want to do…and what they have always done…
And lets not forget that uniformity brings equality and makes one look under the skin…to search beyond the frame…(and price)…
And that brings us back to that old, established friend Magnum. Maybe Magnum isn’t here in this Catalan town, deep down South, because Magnum is busy exploring the different avenues mentioned above and discussing and arguing where they now belong?
Maybe Magnums haunts are now the exclusive galleries of New York, Paris and London, and on the bookshelves of art collectors…. Maybe they just didn’t fit into their Visa Pour L’Image uniform anymore….
To be continued...

Perpignan Now #5

Day Four: 12a.m. Perpignan, France

This morning, at the Couvent Saint Claire, we were offered a very close insight into the life of Ian Fisher, the young American GI, by Craig F. Walker. The intimacy of this project is touching, and makes one think about the informative and educational nature of such a simple, yet thorough body of work, similar to Sinclair’s.It reminds us of the great words of Henry Luce, when he founded LIFE Magazine:
“…To see man’s work – his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women men love and many children; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed.”
But then one has to remember that those great words were written quite some time ago…

As we continue with our mission, it strikes me personally that nothing much has changed since ten years ago.

It’s still alive, for sure…
But thinking about it that worries us, surely it should have changed? Matured? Evolved even?
But then again it’s only day four…
This afternoon we continue our search, our investigation. One thing that strikes us is that someone seems to be absent. An old friend, drinking partner and even neighbour back in London: Magnum, you probably know him too…

With this in mind and the worries mentioned above, this afternoon we scale the Palais Des Congres to corner and question the Getty’s, the Corbis’s, the VII’s,…
The Dream Makers’…
The Shamans…

To Be Continued…

Perpignan Now #4

Day Three: 6p.m., Perpignan, France.
We have spent the day wandering the streets, seeing the many exhibitions, which take us temporarily out of Perpignan into other territories and cultures. Tomas van Houtryve's Behind the Curtains: Stories from the Last Communist Holdouts investigates the contradictions of Marxist ideology across the globe from Cuba to Moldova and from Laos to China...

But from these more exotic countries we turn to what can be a more familiar place, although often stranger than fiction, the USA with a photo story on the plight of the Californian redwoods by Michael Nichols. What’s staggering about this work is the one, immense composite photograph of a 300 ft redwood that’s over 1500 years old. After closer investigation we learn this work was shot for, and published by, our old friend, The National Geographic... Although physically walking across town to the Couvent Des Minimes, our minds and attention stay in the U.S. We see Stephanie Sinclaire's study of Polygamy in America, a body of work she has obviously spent a lot of time on, and also the access she has been given is astonishing considering the subject. In terms of looking "Behind the Curtain" this ripped the damn blinds down...

Next we are in the Bronx with a set of pictures by Antonio Bolfo. One can't help thinking of the T.V series "The Wire" when looking at Bolfo's photographs of young and discontented cops of the NYPD's Operation IMPACT. These officers are sent into the most dangerous and violent areas of New York, the Bronx, at the earliest stages of their careers, talk about Trial by Fire...
We have seen a lot today but it's too early to draw any conclusions. We also must remember what we saw and heard last night tells us that Perpignan is not just about the photographs, there is more... Something that brings people back…
There certainly is something that is alive here, but what it is we have yet to pin down, yet to fully understand...
It's familiar but let’s not forget we are on foreign ground...

But as mentioned already, it’s late, and there seems to be a place where our questions may be answered. The city is now dark and we are about to head into the heart of the town,.. One could almost call it The Heart of Darkness...The Cafe de la Poste...

To Be Continued…

Perpignan Now #3

Day Two Update: 1a.m, Perignan , France...
Having just returned from the Bar De La Poste, The memories are flooding back fast. The characters; the pioneers and the figures that can make a photographers dream come true. And then these wolves. The wolves that surround them...

That part of this war is still raging...

Strangely many people seem to be here for the same reasons we are, hunting, or rather searching, albeit each for their individual reasons...

We met a young photographer who was told Perpignan can be a lonely place if you don't know what your here for. You have to find your targets, research them and hunt them down.... She mentions her need for a mentor, she mentions a name, a prominent agency director but insists that they are not ready yet. What worries us is that she was referring to the director rather then herself...

We leave early as for some reason we don't feel part of the gang, the pack, almost like right now we don't have the right accreditation. But I'm sure the morning, and a new day, will change all that...

We digress, but what we can report is that there is definitely still a hunger here, and a thirst... A Thirst of the kind that I don't believe the Bar De La Poste can ever quench...

To Be Continued...