Being There

Pho­to­jour­nal­ist Tyler Hicks addresses the School of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Boston University.

At a party the other day, another stu­dent told me “I like you, but you need to be less intense.” She was right, too: if were I to go on work­ing with­out relax­ing and tak­ing care of myself, I’d have a heart attack one day.

At no more than five feet tall, Dr. Gru­ber was dwarfed by the large glass podium on stage. In the world of pho­to­jour­nal­ism, though, she is a giant.

Going to the Infin­ity Awards!

The more delib­er­ate you can be about that think­ing the bet­ter. Hav­ing a sys­tem helps. Focus­ing on the process can take away the psy­chic ten­sion inher­ent to cre­at­ing. And when you do feel that appre­hen­sion, its prob­a­bly a good sign. A sign that you’re on the right track. Basi­cally, in order to cre­ate you have to do your home­work and then trust your gut.

The pho­to­graphic goal flows from the nature of the medium. Pho­tog­ra­phy is the only medium that orig­i­nates in and is caused by the real, his­tor­i­cal, time-space event of a col­li­sion between a man [or woman], a cam­era and real­ity. But the pho­to­graph itself occu­pies its own time and space and is a sep­a­rate thing from that real-time collusion.

How do you see in images? Here’s the process I use to get myself into the head­space of see­ing like a pho­tog­ra­pher. How to take pic­tures, in a dozen easy steps.

“Inspi­ra­tion is for ama­teurs, and the rest of us just show up and get to work,” said Chuck Close “a like­ness is an auto­matic byprod­uct of what I do.”

Being a pho­to­jour­nal­ist is a tremen­dous priv­i­lege. Peo­ple expect, and some­times even want, you to look at them. Jour­nal­ism is essen­tial for a func­tion­ing democ­racy, and jour­nal­ists are empow­ered by this need. As a pho­to­jour­nal­ist, you are sanc­tioned by soci­ety and pro­tected by law to do your job.

Your port­fo­lio doesn’t mat­ter. What does mat­ter is mak­ing pic­tures. Like James Starks when he says, “I play this game for the fun of it,” release your­self from the lit­tle coach, teacher, or man­ager in the back of your mind that tells you to worry. There are enough anal peo­ple in the world already.