All language subtitles for 15. The Evolution of a Photographer

I remember going to my grandmother's
house and on her piano would be

fifty photographs framed on top of the
family pictures on the piano.

And you know, one of the most important
photographs that I remember

growing up was the

photograph

of my mother's family lined up on The
Atlantic city board walk.

And my mother was one of eight children,

and all the children were lined up on
the boardwalk

with the grandfather, my grandmother,
flanking the children.

And it was taken by an anonymous

boardwalk photographer.

Just a beautiful,

simple portrait family picture.

It is probably

one of the most important photographs
to me

when I think about

doing portraits and

taking photographs.

When I first picked up the camera, and
I didn't think I was a photographer,

that I was going to be a photographer,

I picked up the camera, and my father
was stationed in the Philippines.

And I was in between the first and
second year of school.

And I went to Japan and bought a camera.

And I went out to the edge of the

base and took photographs of this
tribe, the grito's

living off the garbage of the base.

I look at it now, this is photograph of
this tiny little woman in between two airmen

standing very much like a family
portrait.

It's simple.

It's as simple as it gets

a person

or people or a family presenting
themselves in front in front of the

camera, and it's

been there since the beginning.

Photography.

I didn't really start taking
photographs until

I went to school

to the San franciscar institute as a
painting major.

I was trying to be a painter.

I had this idea in my head that I would

go to school at the art institute and
get my bfa, and then go on over to San

Francisco state and get my teaching
credential.

And in the first, and I was a painting
major, and the first semester I was

here, I

had a class with Fred Martin, who was

teaching art history.

And he made it quite clear that you
could not be a teacher

of art unless you were an artist.

And

I mean, I was very young, very
impressionable,

seventeen years old, right out of high
school.

And that sort of blew everything for
me, because I realized, oh my god, you

mean I have to be an artist before I
can actually teach.

I think that the photography department
was sort of a hotbed of communication

and community and friendliness, and
photographers had their photographs on

the wall.

And also, just think about it.

If photography just got you outside, it
got you walking around, and it got you

out there

it's actually a wonderful medium for a
young person

to just go out and discover

themselves

and discover the world around them.

And it gives them permission to go out
and

look and have a purpose

and observe.

I took a night class in photography,

and what I found compelling about the
photography classes was that you went out,

you took photographs,

you came back, and you put the
photographs on the wall, and you

discussed them.

I mean, you printed them, usually
printed them, developed them, and

printed them the same day,

and they would be on the wall.

And can you imagine how

is almost how current that is.

It's not like it was three days later.

It was like you went out and you shot,
and you

came back, you went into the dark room,
and you printed, and it was on the

wall, and you were talking about it
with your

fellow

students.

And that was pretty powerful.

So yes,

we weren't being more or less directed
of what to go out and photograph,

but it came back in

onto the walls.

What I did learn

from the art institute

was how to look

and how to frame your work

in a 35 millimeter rectangle frame.

The framing idea, the idea of shooting
through the viewfinder with the camera,

and you're using either a square frame
or a rectangle.

It could be 35 millimeter.

It could be like a hustleblad, like a
fast square.

I do like the restraint and the
structure of the frame, but I also like

to push.

It's

such a misconception to go out and use
a bunch of different lenses

when you first start off, because you
just

all over the place.

You should stay with one lens

and see what it does.

You don't call it journalism.

You call it repertage.

It is personal repetage.

And that is

what I learned here.

I learned here.

By doing it,

I create my own independent study
program here at school, there was a

class that was called the family,

that you're supposed to go

embed yourself as a photographer inside
of a family and study them for

the semester.

And I basically said, my family is
going to be the kibutz.

My boyfriend at the time, Christopher
springman,

has sent me a subscription to rolling
sun magazine

on the qabuts.

And I read it cover to cover, and

I imagined what it might be like to work

for rolling stone.

And I came back to San Francisco.

The artist never even knew I was gone.

It was pretty loose here.

So I went out one day to anti war
demonstration, down in front of city

hall.

And I took all these photographs and
came back and printed them to the art

institute.

my boyfriend at the time said, oh, you
need to take those to rolling stone.

And I said, ok.

So he literally just dropped me off in
front of the offices.

And I was like, you know,

I was like, obviously scared

scarce it is.

And I went up and show them my work

from

the anti ward demonstration, which was
literally the day before.

They were really impressed that I

just shot it the day before and I had
it there, you know, they were impressed

with that.

With that,

it was so immediate.

And then they saw all the work from
Israel,

and they started putting me to work.

When you were an artist, you
photographed what you're compelled,

you're moved to photograph.

And

it's a very different

animal to

go somewhere

to go into an assignment

and

find something in it.

I think that what I have done is
carried forth

that

idea of still looking for something
that interests me.

When you walk into each world that I
walk into to take a photograph, I'm still

thinking about what interests me,

what is compelling to me

as an image.

And I think that

was such an important

idea, to

translate from school to

the big work, to learn to

trust what you see and find a way to
tell a story by,

to find a way to tell the story that

means something to you.

The years at rollingstone,

I had the opportunity to

just work and photograph all the time.

I had a camera

with me all the time.

You can underestimate

what it means to be young,

to have all that energy,

to

be obsessed

to the point of

you really have to go,

you know,

out there on some level,

and not be afraid of it, and

just work.

And

it was my life.

I mean, there were no two ways about it.

When you actually decide to be a
photographer

is such a different experience.

You can be

really creative artists using
photography.

I'm never tired of going to work,

of going to take photographs,

is an adventure.

Part of

the exercise of looking back and
understanding how you work.

And what matters to you

is

understanding

what really has influenced you on some
level, besides

all the many photographers I've
mentioned,

I still think about

that simple

boardwalk photograph of my mother's
family lined up and taken by an

anonymous photographer.

You should go back into your life and
see

what

image like that

has affected you, and what made that
photograph so impactful, and

what mattered

they're simple things like

when I finally photographed my mother,
I didn't want her smiling, because she

made us smile in every single one of
our photographs growing up.

So I was interested in what my mother
looked like, not smiling.

those early

what you grew up with

being photographed, and

the photographs of yourself and
photographs of your family, look back

at that work and see what really,
really matters to you.