A few thoughts from Sam Abell.
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under Uncategorized
I made the 6 hour road trip with Travis, Kainaz and Jenn down to Western Kentucky yesterday to hear Sam Abell speak. 12 hours of singing(OK shouting) at the top of my lungs for 2 hours of inspiration. Not a bad deal.
I posted about Mr. Abell and one of my favorite pages in The Photographic Life earlier this year. It was great to finally hear the story of the letter and about his work in person.
A few things I took away from Sam:
Hold yourself to the photographic greats. The people we all idolize. Hold yourself to that caliber of work. (No excuses.)
Fine tune the setting not the subject. (Sam is big on working the setting hard.)
Sam approaches his photos with three things in mind. (He approaches it in reverse order too with the setting being the element he regards first. He’ll find his composition first and just wait for the elements to fall into the place. He stresses the importance of setting a lot. I like to call it setting the stage and waiting for your characters to complete the set.)
1. Expression
2. Gesture
3. SettingLight matters.
No education for seeing. You either see or you don’t. Who teaches you how to see?
First love is black and white. Which will last longer color or black and white? (Was surprised to hear that black and white is his first love since his color palette is always stunning.)
Color or black and white? Which is more compelling? More involving? He hasn’t answered the question yet. It’s a lifetime question.
Why did you hire me as an intern? A question he posed to Bob Gilka at Geographic after being hired as their summer intern. Gilka’s reponse? Promise.
As the intern there he didn’t know what to do so he did the only thing he could do and that was work hard. (Something all us summer interns should strive for.)
He talked about photographer’s block, being lonely and not being able to leave his hotel room for 3 days straight. (I could relate to that one after having gotten my first taste of it out on my magazine shoot. The only thing I wanted to do at times was just stay in the comforts of my room and eat Red Vines.)
Everytime a photographer takes a picture they’re saying stay this moment.
Why live the photographic life? Cause if you’re faithful to photography you’ll become yourself.
Do you live the photographic life?
A photograph of Sam’s wife Denise Myers taken on the summit of Mauna Loa in 1978.
Denise and I were married in 1978 and this picture symbolizes the life we wanted
and had together as travelers. It was not always mountain top experiences but this
picture does not overstate the spirit of our life together.
Find more of Sam’s work here along with a nice interview and more of his thoughts.
Tags: books, inspiration, photojournalism
Xmas Book Wishlist for ‘07
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under Uncategorized
This list doesn’t compare to the ones I’d come up with as a kid compliments of the JCPenney catalog, but at age 7 books aren’t high on the list unlike the Monster Truck PowerWheels Santa never came through on. This might also explain why all the books on the list have pictures and very few words.
My Photo Book Wishlist:
Ninth Floor by Jessica Dimmock
MediaStorm recently produced a piece on the story.
Driftless: Photographs from Iowa by Danny Wilcox Frazier
Magnum Magnum Out of my budget and at 13.3lbs I’m not even sure I could lift it
Image Makers, Image Takers
Fashion Magazine by Alec Soth
Just in time for my flight home Alec will be at the Minnesota Center for Photography on Saturday signing his Dog Days Bogota book.
The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings
Tags: books, photography, photojournalism
A flip book for 8 bux.
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under books
Looks like these would make a cool little stocking stuffer.
15 seconds of video in a flip book for eight bucks.
Back to school with advice from Sam Abell’s dad.
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under books, school
School is in the second week here at OU and I found this advice from Sam Abell’s dad, Thad, as I was flipping through The Photographic Life. (nice stuff at that link if you haven’t seen the book)
On page 48 of the book Sam writes about having to get a D in linguistics to meet the minimum requirements for graduation. On the following page there’s a copy of a letter his dad sent Sam with some advice.
Here are a few I liked:
Show more than average interest at all times.
Lean forward from the hip line toward Prof.
Scout the opposition.(other students) Be more dynamic than they.
Most Profs will not fail a student whoin their opinion really tried to pass the course.
Consider the course a challenge. Cope with the challenge.
Take notes or pretend to be taking notes.
Ask to sit closer.
Give him a bottle of liquor as a going away gift.
