welcome to the confessional - may I come in?

 

 
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The doubts swirl. I'm still a week away, and already the questions and turmoil is keeping me awake at night. Perhaps you, dear diary, can ease my mind and give me some peace.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, the concept of signing on to join the William Allard workshop that is to commence next Saturday. It is something going on here in our home town so I don't have to fly across country to participate. It's with a fabulous photographer whose work I have enjoyed in the past when I've looked at it in the C&O Gallery and last year through the window at Les Yieux du Monde . No requirements to sign up for the workshop, and a full pass to the Festival of the Photograph at the end of the week is included in the price.

Second thoughts now have me wondering about the validity of my original motives. I've been reading Allard's The Photographic Essay. It's become clear now that he is primarily a people photographer. One who works in color, who is a fabulous designer, who has a keen compositional eye. But still, all his subjects are people. In case anyone has taken the time to notice, I on the other hand, do not photograph people. It wouldn't surprise me if he has no interest in my type of work.

Third thoughts buoy me back up. I've also received a new copy of Robert Adams' The New West. The prints are entirely too small, but I can feel the intensity of the light, smell the dirt swirling in the air in these pictures. This is much more the direction I typically go with my photography. There is a massive tradition to non human photography - I don't need to make excuses for the dearth of humans in my photographs. Their works and remains are everywhere I turn my lens.

I read a little more Allard, and his supposed impatience with students who can't picture other people. So the past few days my mind is swirling with ideas of who and how I could go about photoing people. It's got to start with people I know. To that end, I'll try something today during CLW's graduation. The conditions may not be ideal, but I've got to make some kind of attempt.

I've also looked at a recent Eggelston book, 5 x 7, photographs he took in a TGIF in the mid 70's, as a companion piece to video work he was doing at the same time. Neither got shown until recently. They're fabulous pictures of people and places, obviously much more posed, much closer to the way I see myself working with the 4 x 5. The ultimate question is whether I can indeed make myself talk to people and ask to take their picture.