What they left behind
March 8th, 2008
A Drive
February 28th, 2008
A Walk
February 27th, 2008
2008 - The Year of the Paperweight
February 14th, 2008
Yesterday, while discussing The Digital Age & the plummeting value of Hasselblad equipment, my friend, Ed, told me, “I need to sell my Polaroid camera before they discontinue Polaroid.” Today, the front-page of the business section proclaimed the death of Polaroid. That kind of foresight would be handy in, say, traffic situations or politics but is of no value in the current world of photography. Things are changing too quickly!
But it’s not good enough. Have we been so desensitized by the glut of images that, deep down inside, we really don’t care anymore? Like all things American, we just don’t know when to stop. We just do it, mindlessly, constantly. It’s good enough because it’s cheap and fast and it’s all too much and most images are mediocre anyway. We all take the same pictures; the only question is who’s going to print it with the most saturation. Anyone wanting to keep up with the pace of production these days had better get a digital camera with as many frames-per-second as they can afford. Output is everything. Craft, introspection, and purpose are obsolete. We will be content if Photoshop CS4 has a “Polaroid” filter. It’s the future, Buck Rodgers, and it’s good enough.
Winter in a Japanese Garden
February 9th, 2008
Once Again, Life Imitates Art
June 28th, 2007
Adam and Eve at the Louvre. © 2005, Donn Anning Jones
I Am the Future
June 4th, 2007
Recently on a business trip back to the States I found myself in a suburb of Philadelphia. By coincidence, my father grew up a few blocks away. The houses were 130 years old and it had an inner-city feel of decades gone by; I could easily imagine my father as a boy running down the sidewalk; passing cars now classic and men comfortable in suits. The kind of men that could change a tire in a white shirt and not get dirty.
No one ethnic group appeared to claim ownership of the neighborhood; white and black seemed to mix in a general acceptance of each other and I wondered what it was like in 1945. Though perhaps better than the South for that era, it’s true my grandfather was a racist and I knew a few stories. Many of the shops could’ve been the same but I wondered what the few Korean stores had replaced and why there weren’t any Koreans mixing with us in the street.
One building stood out with a more colonial feel, reminding me of my childhood history books and the Bicentennial images I thrived on when I was 10. I took out my camera—because pixels are cheap— to show my budding historian this quaint, Independence Hall wanna-be. As I sprinted to the island in the crosswalk that faced it, I pulled out my digital SLR. My wife waited at the side walk and approached a group of ladies to ask directions. They were all staring at my peculiar behavior as she approached, “Well, that’s the way the world’s going, I guess.” My wife interrupted the response.
“Well, that’s the way the world’s going, I guess.”? I’m not sure what that means. I’ve thought about it for a few days and all I can come to is that I am somehow the future, and it’s not an entirely positive prospect for some people. In 1976 Johnny Rotten threatened the British public with the refrain, “We’re the future; YOUR FUTURE” but I’m much nicer than Mr. Rotten, my shirt was tucked in and my teeth brushed; I don’t quite understand the concern. I don’t think the women in question appreciate the demise of film and the on-slaught of the Digital Revolution, and were therefore, not cringing at my DSLR. To that threat, I would lament with the loyalists, “Well, I guess that’s the way the world’s going.”
It seemed instead that I was, simply, clearly not from around here and, consequently, didn’t fit their references. I imagine it is the same sense I had recently when I heard two Americans discussing French wine…and comparing it to Coke and Pepsi. It’s only my opinion, but I guess that’s the way the world’s going.
April 26th was the opening of my exhibit, Essential Elements, at the National Museum (or Musée National as we call it in the business) in Nouakchott. Photography is not yet viewed here with the same acceptance it enjoys in Europe and America. One of the staff told me I was the first to do a show there entirely in black and white. “We’ve had black and white before, but never an entire exhibit.” Similarly, the most common question from Mauritanian nationals was, “Why did you photograph in black and white?” It reminded me of a time in Australia once when a man looked at my photos and said, “Gee, mate, couldn’t you afford color?” The most common comment from French nationals assured me “J’adore le noir et blanc!”
Without any history of photographers like Ansel Adams or Henri Cartier-Bresson, in a place where visual art is scarce and narrowly defined, they were honest attempts at understanding a very esoteric choice by their culture. With one in particular, I felt his real question was, “Why did you strip the little bit of beauty we have from your photos?” A poor, desert country, there is a sensitivity to how they are seen. As I explained the graphic qualities and palette of black and white, his face softened. My own photography is primarily a response to moments of significance in my daily life and in the end, the show seemed to receive a positive response as Mauritanians saw their country portrayed favorably through foreign eyes.
Photo by Elizabeth Jones
Below is an excerpt from the Artist’s Statement.
Photography is, for me, a discipline; a meditation of existence. I delight in moments of recognition; the discovery of form, beauty, and balance in the artifacts of our daily experience. All we value in this world, we have rescued out of a process of decay or state of chaos. Inherent in what is imperfect, is the remnant of what was intended. I work from the premise that man intrinsically needs the intangible qualities of truth and beauty and these are found, not in the markets where they are sold, or the schools where they are taught but in the peaceful awareness of qualities that are necessary and intended for us by design. My photographs are my moments of recognition; my response to the gifts of a good and beautiful Creator.
Photo by Christopher Clark, 2002
As a confirmed silver printer, the show itself was a first for me in that all but one of the prints were digital prints. The images were shot on all kinds of equipment, from 8×10, to digital point-n-shoots, from a Leica O designed in 1923 to a digital SLR. Virtually all were digitized one way or another and printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag.
Date Farmer © Donn Anning Jones, 2007
I found this man manually impregnating trees! He wanders through an Oasis taking white sprigs from male date palms. He ties them to his stick and places them in the tops of female trees. Talk about a trained eye! When the Gaetna (date harvest) comes around, there will be many more dates than if things had been left to the wind and the birds.
As he explained this in an alcove of palms, I asked if I could take his picture. Mauritania is culturally very closed and I’ve been refused more often than not– much more often. “No problem,” he said. “God made everyone, even tourists.” I wanted him to understand that I lived in his country but I quickly gave up and got my camera. He continued to explain to me how some people pay to take pictures—and how some people don’t. As a photographer, I have a philosophy against that idea, fearing that the whole anthropological aspect of environmental portraiture will come to a screeching halt in response to everyone’s hand extended for a few coins. Or, that with payment will come “the standard pose”. What he was talking about is as unsightly as the power cables that scratch the skylines of millions of 20th century, Western photographs. I let his words hang as I began to work. In the back of my mind I searched for the right explanation as to how it was in everyone’s best interest for photography to progress, unprostituted and to document some aspect of Rashid, Mauritania, 2007.
I put the camera to my eye and saw the man staring back at me through the lens and focusing screen. All my thoughts were replaced by an immediate realization, “That’s it!” I pressed the shutter even before I had a chance to glance at the settings. [This is a classic example of intuition (and luck!) in making a photograph. I usually use either a view camera or Leica rangefinder. (Both are cameras where everything is set manually and I am very comfortable with their straight forward processes.) I recently got a digital SLR – not because I’m sold on digital, but because of the difficulty getting chemicals here and the absence of any decent color labs. I am still getting used to the myriad of possibilities offered (but not necessarily needed) in a modern, electronic camera. I’ve been in the habit of ignoring most of the technology I purchased and using it in aperture priority mode similar to my approach with the Leica; chose the aperture and monitor the shutter speed.]
This was an instance where I just had to press the button and think about the details later. Afterwards, I saw the camera was set to one of the myriad of other possibilities and the picture was taken at 1/15th of a second at a smaller aperture than I would’ve preferred. I changed settings and kept shooting but it was over. He realized perhaps I wasn’t going to respond and his gaze transitioned into slight discomfort as I continued to “work it” beyond what the average, divinely-created tourist might do.
I put my camera away and got a bottle of milk from the cooler in our car. Most Maures love milk. He seemed pleasantly surprised with the milk solution and photography inches forward in N.Africa, relatively unadulterated.
© 2007 Donn Anning Jones
Stop looking for what they promised
you would find here-
That stone, whose color is not stone,
Reminds you of all you love in life—
and that all other stones are nothing.
That form, in breast or cloud or stem—
Saying what you can not about your desires.
And after which you despise all that is chipped and injured.
That light, whose clarity makes you believe in unseen worlds,
Or that where you stand is somehow different,
Comes always on the edge of darkness.
Exhilaration, too quickly fading
leaves you tired, wondering
what is love more than disappointment.
Stop looking. I know they promised you,
but it is no longer here. Just
be glad you have grown up and
have acquired a taste for bitter things.
© 2005 Donn Anning Jones
