Turning Stories Around

I recently got to see a friend who's a brilliant visual artist that - even though she can produce just about anything she wants - simply uses pens now with a particular, unique, Southern-gothic theme and style. We hadn't seen each other in nearly six months; it seems that happens more and more now the farther out I get from college with most people.


In college, everything was so laid out and easy for lives to blend together seamlessly. Regardless of what we studied, our communities had a central-point, and we each experienced similar things, had common goals and complications. And especially in Charleston, social circles were incestuous, and it was impossible to really go anonymously on the street for more than a few days.


So I met my friend up at this restaurant and started talking art and photography and found myself exploring questions about why I shoot and - as importantly - why I shoot what I shoot.


The person I consider my mentor recently contacted me to see if I'd maybe be interested in starting to shoot more professionally, doing events and weddings. I think that before I actually started taking photographs - and especially before I shot my best friend's wedding this Spring in PA - I would never have considered it as something I'd be interested in. But because of that wedding, I realized that there are so many more scenes to capture photographically than I'd previously given credit in the events and rituals of our lives.


For instance, at Jeff's wedding, I could work behind the scenes, not doing the standard wedding thing but trying to eye it more from a photojournalist's perspective, seeing the communal dynamics playing out around this one event. People come together, in celebration, typically (though there are those few that want to make it about them). And that's the story, seeing the reaction of this event on the faces of people who matter to the couple.


And in some ways, these events aren't completely about the couple themselves; the couple is what brings together the array of family-quarrels, the lover's hanging up their spurs, the friends they haven't seen in years and the ones they saw last week. The couple is the conduit for stories to be brought to light in a forum that never would have happened without them. They're mirrors, reflecting the people they love, the ones they feel complicated about, and those they felt obligated to invite.


What it takes then, is for the photographer to turn around and find these stories coming out. We can find a story in everything. I was telling my artist friend about a small tool-shed that I pass everyday on the way to work. It's sheltered into the side of a hill that's being overrun with kudzu vines, and they've also started taking over the exterior of the shed. This shed's probably been there 20, 30, 40 years maybe, and in that single image, there's a story about Appalachian America that needs to be told. So maybe next time I post, I'll stop doing the Torres del Paine pictures and have that one instead.

Something Like Serenity

I do this online podcast thing where you shoot based on a particular theme and then submit a photograph into a pool for viewing and maybe you'll win a book or something. Generally I don't actually get around to shooting that particular theme until its time for the next theme and then I can't compete. So yesterday, I felt really proud of myself for taking the initiative and setting up a composed shot about 'gear' where I had hung an orange jumpsuit (like the ones prisoners wear) in a window, backdropped by really lovely afternoon light and a number of objects like a shovel draped with a cobweb and a dirtied hat.


I was thinking of a photograph from a few years ago in National Geographic covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina where a child's soiled, Sunday shirt with a tie next to a soiled blue blazer were hanging in the remains of someone's home, hanging "to show how quickly life can change," the caption read. It wasn't going to be amazing, but I was excited because I don't usually think about photography in a staged way; I usually walk around and come upon something.

I lack a degree of intentionality in that I guess. I'm not really the person who constructs things and experiences in their mind, but more someone who observes. I don't create in an extremely conscious way, I don't have that burn to always say something with intentionality through art. Usually I play with vague ideas or concepts, play with words in a poem, and through the process of tinkering, I find something useful that is of - I hope - great depth, and not with that great intention, but through the process of finding it and identifying it.

So back to my story: I took out my camera after staging this scene in the spare bedroom and turned it on. Everything seemed fine, I focused and shot; the exposure was way too long, having shot candles a few nights ago. I turned the command dial to change the shutter speed and - dun dun dun - nothing happened. And then again with aperture-priority, nothing. The camera won't do its primary function. Needless to say, I'm a little freaked out.

So I spent 40 minutes on the phone with Nikon today (25 of which were holding to the most god-awful music), and I have to send it in... send it in to Nikon, not known for great customer turn-around, during the most photographically important month in Western North Carolina. My favorite time of year and I may not have my primary camera. Hell, I don't even have a secondary. Oh the horror.




But then, some days you just have to smile, say serenity, and - even in those simple ways - let the changes come.

Beginnings Again

So I've decided to start a new photography blog, a place to update the things I've been working on. While I continue to use Smugmug for storage (www.wtaylorwoods.smugmug.com), it's not really helpful for getting shots out there to be seen (I'm also not very good at self-promotion).


I've recently been going back through photos from my seven month stint in Argentina, especially shots from Patagonia, which I still think are some of the best photos I've done.What was always frustrating though was that I couldn't get them in post-production how I had seen them in my head. I always "see" a photo before I take it and yet I've always struggled in editing. I had assumed it was because my Photoshop software is older and wouldn't allow me to do what I wanted but very recently, I've come to understand so much more about the post-side of shooting.


So anyway, this will be another way of updating my work and holding myself accountable to shooting and working consistently.


These shots are just a few I finished a couple of nights ago that I really liked... enjoy.


- T