“But I almost feel as though shooting with the D700, I have too much control. I can make exactly the image I’m trying to make within a few tries. Whereas with film, you don’t get that feedback. You don’t know if you got exactly what you were trying to get. Sometimes that’s great because maybe what you were trying to get is a really dumb image, and the one you made kind of by what felt like a mistake is really quite beautiful.
I find when I look back at negatives. I’ll see one and think “Why didn’t I scan this? It’s beautiful!” but at the time it wasn’t exactly what I was trying to do, so it felt like a failed image. I go back years later and I realize it’s an incredible image, a really beautiful photograph, and I was dumb back then, I didn’t realize it, I didn’t see it. So if the tools give you too much control, you might end up doing exactly what you were trying to do, and that might not be very good.”
Ezra is one of two people who initially inspired me to pick up a camera with any kind of purpose. His documentation of existence, with its frank honesty and beauty has had a profound affect on who I am today. It’s strange that someone on Flickr, who lived half a continent away, could leave such an indelible impression on your soul. But that’s just the kind of guy Ezra is.
Ezra’s story is both inspiring and heart wrenching. A Dancer, Bicycle Fabricator, Sous-Chef, Photographer, Husband, and Ass-Cancer veteran. Yep, cancer. His story reminds us to not waste a breath in vain, to rethink our priorities, and to live our lives to the fullest.
In addition to opening up the photo essays to submissions today, don’t miss a photo essay we put together. Dan splits his time between the UK and sunny South Florida and has captured lovely shots in his travels.
The submissions page on The Photographic Journal is open for business.
Following our first photo essay Like an Origami Crane by the fantastic Matt Fry, we’re opening our Photo Essay series up for submissions. We’re looking for previously unpublished photo series from amazing photographers on a range of topics.
Rich Burroughs: I don’t’ honestly listen to that much music lately. It’s kind of strange. I used to be very into independent music especially. There were a few years in the late 90’s and early 00’s when I ran an internet radio station that was fairly well known. It got mentioned by like Spin Magazine and Playboy.com. It was really one of the only places to listen to independent music online at the time.
Over the past few years I’ve just sort of lost touch with that. I was playing a lot of indie pop stuff. Bell & Sebastian, stuff like that.
I listened to a lot of Portishead, which is actually my go to music for a lot of shoots. I’ve probably played some portishead at like 90% of my shoots. I feel like it just sets the right tone for a lot of the images that I’m looking for.
Yesterday we published our first photo essay titled Like an Origami Crane.
The essay is a collaboration between Matt Fry and Mika Mae Jones exploring the introspective time Mika spent after her mother passed away. We’re humbled to have a fantastic start to our Journal’s new feature.
“She found strength in her pain and never let herself be defined by it; even when others tried to judge her for her fragility or inability to do certain things physically, she only showed love and acceptance in return to their harsh outlook. She fought many invisible battles; her greatest weapon was her heart, that ability to bring compassion out of the most bitter being.” — Mika
TPJ: Do you think that shooting women was a way for you to explore something in yourself though? Was it more than just the obvious?
Rich Burroughs: I grew up in a very conservative area. In some ways I had a very repressed view of sexuality. I was very ashamed about sex. I was shy about it. That has sort of turned around in the last few years.
I don’t think of myself as an erotic photographer. I don’t go out of my way to portray that in my work, but I think there’s a level of eroticism that’s there. I think that’s part of what’s been going on, this opening up with me.
[…]
The images I tend to like are the ones that are more introspective, the ones that look almost like candids. That’s really hard to do - To get a model to be that open and comfortable where you really think that there’s not a photographer in the room. Those are definitely the kind of images I aim to create.
- Our interview with Rich Burroughs, a fine art nude photographer based in Portland Oregon, will be published December 20th.
An excerpt from Interview 004 with Patrick F. Tobin.
“For me to make changes, it’s kind of a big deal. My personality does not like change. I always talked about moving to New York — always talked about doing it. For years we put it off, but then, we just did it…
I don’t think I had as much confidence in my photography before we moved to New York City. I’ve been able to make a lot of contacts. There’s always so much happening. Being in New York has lead to meeting far more people I might not have met otherwise.”
Photographs, very simply, capture moments in time.
A place; a person; an event immortalized in the resulting image. As we look back through the past 100 years, certain combinations of camera and film have created iconic images whose aesthetic is burned into our collective memory. Nostalgia is a powerful tool.
Patrick F. Tobin is a Brooklyn based photographer originally from Boston. By day, Pat works in the marketing department at Impossible USA, making photographic history with his small team. We’re proud to publish our interview with him on December 6th. Here’s an excerpt from his upcoming interview:
I’m not alone in this sentiment but I really feel at times that I was born in the wrong era. This really speaks more to who I am. I’m a very nostalgic person, very sentimental. Growing up I saw a lot of photos of my parents as kids, and I always wished that I had been part of that time.
![TPJ: Do you think that shooting women was a way for you to explore something in yourself though? Was it more than just the obvious?
Rich Burroughs:I grew up in a very conservative area. In some ways I had a very repressed view of sexuality. I was very ashamed about sex. I was shy about it. That has sort of turned around in the last few years.
I don’t think of myself as an erotic photographer. I don’t go out of my way to portray that in my work, but I think there’s a level of eroticism that’s there. I think that’s part of what’s been going on, this opening up with me.
[…]
The images I tend to like are the ones that are more introspective, the ones that look almost like candids. That’s really hard to do - To get a model to be that open and comfortable where you really think that there’s not a photographer in the room. Those are definitely the kind of images I aim to create.
- Our interview with Rich Burroughs, a fine art nude photographer based in Portland Oregon, will be published December 20th.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/cd4cc61c05300f2e927c2ff7bddfb5fc/tumblr_mf6wiwJOhf1riscj8o1_1280.jpg)
