This was my grandfather’s “dinner bucket” from the coal mines. He worked for Eastern Coal Company in Pike County, Kentucky for 41 years. He passed away in 1990 from a number of illnesses, one of which was black lung. My father gave it to me on June 26, 2010. I can’t really put into words what it means for me to have it. I was 15 when my grandfather passed away. I didn’t really understand then how the work he did mattered so much to my family, to this country. He’s been gone a long time, but now I have a physical reminder of him and the work he did.

Phillip Toledano, Days With My Father
PQ Blackwell, 2010
Hardcover | 92 pages | $13.57 (+$3.99 shipping) | Amazon.com
A breathtakingly beautiful visual journal. I highly recommend this book. Here’s a video interview with Mr. Toledano on CNN.com.

GET OFF MY LAWN – Issue 1 (SOLD OUT)
Geoffrey Ellis, Noah Beil, Grant Ernhart, Alan W George, Liz Kuball, Sarah Lacy, Ian Lemmonds, Jennifer Loeber, Dalton Rooney, Andrew Martin Scott, and Justin Visnesky
Photo-zine | 48 pages | $10 (+$1.73 shipping) | sadkids.blogspot.com

Get Off My Lawn is a 48-page photo-zine, edited and published by Geoffrey Ellis. The zine features the work of eleven photographers who are 34 years and older. Get Off My Lawn is a tongue-in-cheek response to the calls for entry, contests and publications that require “emerging photographers” to be somewhere between the ages of 18 and 34. The zine showcases photographers who are working just as hard as those in the 18-34 range to produce great work. We can no longer be in your club, but soon enough, you’ll be in ours…

You may recall my post here about Daniel Shea’s print sale and the great opportunity to support his work. I ordered an 8×10 print of “Afternoon Laundry” from his 2007 series entitled Removing Mountains. You can follow the project on his blog, Digressions, and if you can, pick up a print to support his project while the sale is on.

I’m a horrible blogger. Just plain bad. Class ended about three weeks ago and I haven’t posted anything about it – or anything else – in eons. OK, now that that’s out of the way, on to the task at hand.

I’m lumping weeks 7 and 8 together as one was sort of preparation for the other. Our final class was the presentation portion of what project we plan to undertake. It was great to see and hear everyone’s ideas sort of start to come to life in such a short period of time. Some of us came to the class with an idea already in mind, while others weren’t sure of what they wanted to pursue. I found that the idea I had in the beginning changed over time into something I feel is more true, more refined, and will ultimately reflect the human element of my subject. I’ll write more about that later as the project matures.

To the three people that may even be reading this, I have to suggest Joy’s class to you. The Center for Documentary studies, through Joy’s class, does an incredible job of show and tell with documentary work. This class will help you think about things in entirely different ways, some more challenging than others, and hone your vision and ideas as a documentarian. I felt like I grew a lot in a short period of time and now it’s time to continue that growth as I plan and work on my project.

Do the work.

Lehman Brady Visiting Professor, documentary performer and playwright, Mike Wiley in the CDS Library performing Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till.

Our class had the pleasure of a visit from Mike Wiley last week. I’m sure I wasn’t the only student in class wondering what a documentary performer actually did. I mean, it’s not as obvious as film making, photography, oral history, etc. I’ll admit, I even had somewhat of a “really?” outlook on Tuesday’s class. That instantly changed when Mike began to share about the kind of work he does, how he works, does research and interviews, and ultimately performs his work. I was blown away by the whole process. We were then treated to a roughly 10-minute performance of part of Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till. It was incredible!

Mike’s work includes Blood Done Sign My Name; Life Is So Good; Tired Souls: The Montgomery Bus Boycott; Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till; Jackie Robinson: A Game Apart; Brown v. Board of Education: Over Fifty Years Later; and One Noble Journey: A Box Marked Freedom.

Mike’s Web site is here.

One of the things I’ve appreciated the most about this class has been our exposure to so many different forms of documentary study. As a photographer, it’s easy to have a narrow field of view on documentary work. I’ve always liked documentary films, so that was easily adaptable to my relatively short list of what documentary studies were. For whatever reasons (and I’m sure there are many), I never really evaluated all the other forms of documentary work (most certainly not documentary performance). Throughout the six weeks of class thus far, the variety of assigned readings, and the exposure to the incredibly generous visitors we’ve had (thanks to Joy, our fearless leader), so many doors have been opened and I’ve begun to see an interconnectedness I was unaware of. Perhaps I’ll write more about that later.

For homework this week:
“Knowing Your Rights” legal terms overview
“Is It Legal?”
“Concerning Releases”
Prepare a five-minute presentation about our project.

Left: The Web site of photographer Ava Johnson. Right: An untitled image from her series entitled “Good. Grief.” © Ava Johnson

Photographer, instructor, performer, and Center for Documentary Studies Public Information Coordinator, Ava Johnson visited our class in WEEK 5. I had the opportunity to meet Ava the previous Saturday when I attended the Ethics in Photography panel discussion at the White Lecture Hall (post here). Ava was one of three CDS instructors who facilitated the afternoon workshop with Duke students and a couple of CDS students.

Ava’s energy and passion for photography are evident as soon as you meet her. Just listening to her express her work and share her personal life experiences added a whole new dimension to seeing her work. That’s one of the beautiful things about getting to talk with artists while they share their work. Her enthusiasm was infectious and I couldn’t help but be motivated to go make pictures.

She shared some of her portfolio projects with us including “South of the Border”, a series of images made with Diana and Holga cameras that focused on the details of decay and disrepair of the classic freeway tourist trap. She also shared an incredibly poignant and genius series called “Recreations”, whereby she presented diptychs with family photographs on the left and recent photographs of her on the right in the same places, in the same poses. This series was especially great for me because it offered an intimate look into her family life. My favorite project is entitled “Good. Grief.” Ava shared that this series of images came about in the aftermath of a devastating apartment fire. Faced with moving to an area unfamiliar to she and her partner, she used her camera to document a time in her life where she was unsettled, both physically and emotionally. These images convey an amazing awareness of time and place and an almost haunting familiarity. Being able to listen to her describe these series of events was quite emotional for me.

Ava’s work is here.
Ava blogs here.

This week’s homework:
Glenn Hinson, “Crafting Fictions, Telling Truths: Creative Collaboration in the Photography of Roland L. Freeman”
Raphael Samuel, “Perils of the Transcript”
As told to Pamela Grundy by John B. McLendon, Jr., “‘A Position of Respect:’ A Basketball Coach Who Resisted Segregation”
Clarissa Sligh, “The Plaintiff Speaks” from Picturing Us: African American Identity in Photography

Also for homework, create an elevator pitch for our project.

March 20, 2010. Ethics in Photography panelists Gilles Peress, Bonnie Jo Mount, Corinne Dufka, Elizabeth Barret, Wendy Ewald, and moderator Thomas Keenan engage the attendees at the White Lecture Hall at Duke University’s East Campus.

In this week’s class, we watched Elizabeth Barret’s film Stranger With A Camera. I had heard of this film before, but had never seen it. It was incredibly compelling. On Saturday, March 20, I had an opportunity to attend an Ethics in Photography panel discussion and workshop hosted by Duke’s Center for International Studies, DukeEngage, Center for Documentary Studies, and the Duke Office of Research Support. Panelists included Magnum photographer Gilles Peress, Bonnie Jo Mount, picture editor for The Washington Post, Human Rights Watch’s Corinne Dufka, CDS’s Wendy Ewald, and Bard professor Thomas Keenan as moderator.

The scope of the discussion was as follows – Photography and film-making are increasingly integrated into many aspects of a student’s academic life. Even two decades ago, visual images of others were for private or small group viewing. This is no longer the case. We now have cell phone cameras, Facebook, blogging and other means of communicating images to a wide audience in a very short time. Many of these images find second lives, being shared in ever-widening networks or, even, picked up by news outlets. And this dramatic technical change raises questions that are not part of most students’ thinking. Now is the moment, when with the many service-learning projects and increased funding for undergraduate research at Duke and other schools, to examine what it means to take, own and share a photograph.

Panelists and attendees were presented with the following case study as a basis for the discussion:

Case Study [ETHICS IN PHOTOGRAPHY]
The goal of the following narrative is to provide all participants with a come “think piece” from which we can play off during the morning panel discussions and in the afternoon break groups. We have adjusted both Duke’s calendar and that of the world’s to accommodate this story.

* Where are the points in the narrative where one might talk about Amy’s responsibilities and, very importantly, responsibilities to whom?
* Does she have any responsibility for second party use?
* Do those users have any obligations to Amy or the photograph’s subject?
* Are there questions of breach of agreement (Duke’s Institutional Review Board/Human Subject approval that she needed to submit for her program in Chile) and breaches of conscience/implied good faith?

Panelist Gilles Peress addresses a question as Bonnie Jo Mount looks on (left). Slides presented by Corinne Dufka of Human Rights Watch (right).

Five pages of handwritten notes later, I was left with the notion that there are larger issues out there to consider when thinking about pictures. We certainly can’t process everything before we press the shutter release, but there will be a time to check your heart and your gut before distributing your images. This case study raised so many more questions that I initially thought it would. The rich blend of experience from the panelists made for excellent conversation and gave me lots to chew on.

Homework this week included:
Ruth Behar, Chapters One and Three, The Vulnerable Observer
Daryl Lang and David Walker, “Meaning and Interpretation: Inside a Controversial 9/11 Image” (from PDN, November 2006)
Wendy Ewald, I Wanna Take Me a Picture
James Agee and Walker Evans, excerpts, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Come to class next week with a one-page, typed narrative project summary to workshop.

On Thursday, January 21, I drove to Charleston, West Virginia to photograph a debate between Massey Energy’s CEO Don Blankenship (pictured above) and Robert Kennedy Jr. (pictured below), President of Waterkeeper Alliance. My goal was to drive from Raleigh to Charleston, shoot the event, then drive straight back to Raleigh, some 660+ miles round-trip. The debate, hosted by the University of Charleston, was titled Forum on the Future of Energy, and was intended to “advance the national discussion about U.S. energy policy and its impact on jobs, the environment, the economy, and national security.” The debate can be seen in its entirety here.

Having just driven this same route, and having a heck of time doing it (you can read more about that here), I was admittedly a little nervous about possibly getting stuck again. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Other than some freezing rain in Bluefield, West Virginia, the drive was uneventful. I arrived in Charleston with plenty of time to pick up my media credential and scout the location in the rain, where I met Jordan Freeman. Jordan is an independent videographer and primary shooter for the documentary film Coal Country. It just so happened that I’ve been reading the companion book to the film and had it in the backseat of my car. Small world.

The event was well organized and the staff were very helpful in answering questions. The only issue I had was that 99% of the media folks that showed up were only given access to the overflow gymnasium where the event was being fed live. The lighting was horrible and you can only imagine the way sound carries in a gym. The staff did, however, make sure we had access to both participants after the debate.

Most of those who came to listen in the gym were miners and their families. There were a few from the environmental crowd, but they were easily drowned out by the applause that followed Mr. Blankenship’s rebuttals to Mr. Kennedy. I talked to a couple of guys who work at Massey’s Boone County, West Virginia Progress Coal operation, Todd Agosti, a purchasing manager and Kevin Deaton, a safety manager. They shared that they had both spent years working other jobs. Mr. Agosti managed a bank in Kentucky for six years and Mr. Deaton worked at the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky for seven years. Both men turned to coal for better pay and benefits. Mr. Agosti’s father was an underground miner. I asked him his thoughts on the decline of miners, specifically in West Virginia and Kentucky over the last three decades. Some figures suggest there were more than 250,000 coal miners in West Virginia in 1975. Today there are fewer than 20,000. Mr. Agosti said he felt that improvements in technology and the efficiency of new equipment were the primary reasons for the decline. “Thirty-five or forty years ago, you also had a man on an elevator that would push the button for you. Times have changed,” he said.

It’s true that times have changed, but the landscape in Central Appalachia is changing too. It’s being changed on a scale that few people can truly grasp, much less think about. As our nation continues to rely on coal for half of its electricity, there are issues that have to be addressed. How can we make sure jobs are created and stay in Central Appalachia? How do we still mine coal without leveling mountains in the process? How do we strike a balance between renewable energy and using our natural resources? How do you tell a miner that’s providing for his family that you want to shut his mine down and take his job? How do you tell a mother whose well has been contaminated with toxic sludge that coal, under the banner of national security, is more important than the health of her family?

There must be a balance of stable jobs and environmental responsibility in this region. We have to be able to mine coal without destroying the oldest mountains in the world and we have to be able to provide work for one of the poorest regions of the country. I doubt I’ll be around to see that kind of balance in my lifetime, but while I’m here, I’m going to use my cameras to bring as much attention to this issue as I can. These are real people and real issues that affect us all. Think about that the next time you flip the switch.

I was on assignment in Tennessee last weekend and had the opportunity to take my wife, Wendy, along. Since the assignment likely won’t run until next year, I won’t post any specifics, other than to say it was an incredible blessing to be where we were and to spend time with the people we did.

I checked and rechecked my equipment, put four new tires on the car (which we needed anyway), and plotted our course. Wendy was excited to use our “new” vintage suitcase given to her by my Mom (thanks Mom!) and I was anxious to get on the road. Somewhere in the mix, we left the toiletry bag at home on the bathroom counter, which we didn’t realize until late Saturday night. To make matters more interesting, I came down with some sort of gnarly combination of head cold/sinus infection/allergy attack. Not the greatest time to get sick, but a quick trip into the local Food City pharmacy provided some relief.

Shortly after crossing into Tennessee and stopping to get coffee, I realized I needed a road trip  song. Something to do with Tennessee. I thought of the Grateful Dead’s “Tennessee Jed” and then Arrested Development’s “Tennessee” (circa 1992). Selected iTunes on my iPhone, searched for Arrested Development, selected “Tennessee”, and 9MB later, I was listening to my road trip song (“but I am still thirsty…Lord, allow me to drink some more”). I shot the rest of the day Saturday and, after realizing our bag was missing, headed to Walgreen’s to get toothbrushes, deodorant, and razors. Leave it to Walgreen’s to carry fashionable toddler clothing, like the “I’d rather be naked” t-shirt pictured. We headed back to our accommodations, which fortunately was on location, to call it a night. Perhaps the most interesting thing about where we stayed that night were the pictures on the wall, which I have to admit, were a little creepy (see for yourself).

We wrapped up shooting shortly after lunch the next day and began the trek back to Raleigh. Looking back, Wendy and I were both moved by the experience we had. A day hasn’t passed that we haven’t talked about or prayed for the folks we visited. Lord willing, we’ll go back sooner rather than later.