{"id":17362,"date":"2012-01-18T09:05:29","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T16:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.adobe.com\/jnack\/?p=5751"},"modified":"2012-01-18T09:05:29","modified_gmt":"2012-01-18T16:05:29","slug":"photojournalism-the-power-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2012\/01\/18\/photojournalism-the-power-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Photojournalism & the power of time"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the great pleasures of my job is getting to meet kickass artists of all stripes. This past summer I got to visit SWAT-cop-turned-photojournalist Bruce Haley<\/a> at his home at the bottom of Big Sur’s Bixby Canyon. When I asked his advice about photographing people during my upcoming trip, he pointed me to an interview<\/a> in which he provides some solid perspective. I’ve bolded a line that distills some of my hopes.<\/p>\n

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BH: \u00a0We spoke earlier about doing projects on my own dime\u2026 \u00a0what this buys me, in addition to the aforementioned freedom and independence, is time \u00a0– \u00a0the time I need to make people comfortable with my presence\u2026<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t sneak any of my images, I never use a telephoto, I don\u2019t do the \u201cspray and pray\u201d thing\u2026 \u00a0I spend time with the people I photograph, I hang out with them, get drunk with them, they invite me to their weddings, to funerals, whatever\u2026 \u00a0in extreme cases, like working in very closed societies like the most marginalized of the Roma, it took even more of that luxury of time\u2026<\/p>\n

First of all, I had to locate the camps or settlements that I wanted to shoot\u2026 \u00a0then I had to approach the camp, as a most unwelcome outsider, and not only try to convince them to allow me to shoot there, but to be relaxed enough with my presence that I could be that proverbial fly-on-the-wall that I aspire to be when I\u2019m working\u2026 \u00a0and with the Roma especially, all of this was difficult, and I had some failures, but in the end I found some places where it all clicked\u2026<\/p>\n

Once I had the initial permission, I would ease into the situation very slowly, hoping to raise the comfort bar as high as possible.. \u00a0I would show up without a single camera and just hang out\u2026 \u00a0maybe come back the next day with my camera bag, but never take a camera out\u2026 \u00a0next time come back and wear a camera around my neck, but not shoot anything\u2026 and all the while learning about the people, as individuals, so that my images would hopefully depict them as individuals, and not just as symbols of some sort of marginalized group<\/strong>\u2026 \u00a0then, finally, after all of this, beginning to shoot\u2026 \u00a0this easing in, getting extremely wary people accustomed to my presence prior to my making a single image, is a luxury of time, certainly, but better to have this level of trust and comfort as opposed to just walking into a situation, motor drive blazing, then beating a hasty retreat and hoping you got something\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here Andrei Codrescu & Bruce speak about Bruce’s Sunder<\/a><\/em> project:
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