I made a decision at the beginning of this year that I was going to put my energies to pursuing the process I love most. And shooting is what it is. My critique of photography is as great as my love for it. “What kind of photography am I going to do,” I’m often asked.
I choose to stay away from classifying it cause I just love to shoot. When I first started to take my interest seriously and build my book, it was half fashion and the other reportage. I would show it around to people and the funny thing was that the fashion people really loved my reportage and not my fashion. And the photo-journalists thought my fashion was good and my reportage work, not so good. This lead me to the conclution that they are all full of shit! This absurdity pushed me to taking a break from trying to produce more fashion shoots, which for me fashion just seems for me the most natuaral and only conceavable route to pursue, I just do not have the acedemic nature that I find in most photo-journalist.
During my break I made an effort to improve my illustration skills which I have achieved a moderate success in making a career out of it. My conclusion is that the only way to succeed in a creative field that boarders art is to have deep passion for it. Your love for it is the only well you can draw upon to keep you motivated in doing it through the failures and rejections. And you better love it’s process because it will shape how you live. My love for the process of photography is so powerful that it’s greater than my interest in it’s results. For me the results will always have room for improvement but not a reason to stop. My success are a treat and more importantly the process mobilizes me to change how I live by engaging the world around me.
So after a two year break from producing and shooting a fashion shoot the results are a click on the picture above. And although I took a break, doesn’t mean that I stopped shooting. I always shoot and will continue to.
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I’ve just completed the first comic I’ve drawn using the classic comic book procedures; A page breakdown; Penciling; And inking with a brush. Practice is good and it’s worth doing. Drawing in my sketchbook is good practice. But I think that I have to take it beyond that. The real practice is the actual doing. If I actually worked on carrying out the ideas into completed projects I think that I would improve faster and get much better. Sketch book practice lacks commitment to the completed idea in my head. It’s hard to focus in the sketchbook. And when I draw, I want to draw for keeps. It reminds me of playing pool. To get better at pool, I felt that I had to gamble. And it’s true. Gambling gives winning a pool game value and therefore evokes a greater personal effort to succeed. The same is true with drawing. It’s always a gamble as to whether I can execute the idea in my head on to paper!
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As I walk along the river’s side. The sun begins to set for the days early departure. My imagination wanders as a cool breeze stimulates a sagacious feeling in me that I know that I am alive. I am but a pilgrim alone that can do little, but to try and share the scope of my appreciation for this experience of the things around me. And if my only mark upon this world is the idea that I’ve carried the message. I have succeeded. I do not know who creates these sculptures but I feel as though we share the same autonomy.
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Title: The Lesson
Duration: 00:05:25
This was my first semester film from my first year in film school at S.V.A. I shot this in the fall of 1991 with a Bolex 16-mm movie camera with 300 ft. of B&W reversal film and an Arri lighting kit in Mammoth Billiards on 26th street NYC. The pool shark is played by my father and the kid was my classmate Neil Collogan. I had just recently got a telecine transfer and had not viewed it in about 14 years since I had lost a VHS tape that was of poor quality to begin with. Also I put it to the track “What is Soul” by Funkidelic. It is the same track that I played from a CD as I presented it to my class.
The titles and credits I recently added. I cleaned up a couple of the edits but left most of it untouched to preserve the RAW film school quality. Working with reversal, one has to remember that it’s the only print that you have that is being spliced up. And all is cut with a hand operated reel to reel and a plug in viewer to light up and magnify the film so you can see it. Avids and nonlinear digital off line editing were only available in the state of the art professional arena.
In classic DK style I did not get a grade for it cause I refused to follow the assignment and cut it in 10 edits which did have the coverage for. My money, my cut is the way I thought. I was allowed to present it to the class and although I did not get the grade the professor shook his head and said, “wow great story!”
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When I am alone, I walk the streets. I am a voyeur. I was born and raised in NYC and the city’s grit is its beauty for me. This city is tough and often unforgiving. As a teenage kid I had some difficult times. I didn’t like my options and one summer a few nights I chose to sleep in the streets. I was down and out. It’s difficult to find a comfortable spot to rest your head. It’s even more difficult to find a comfortable spot in your head. You close your eyes and ask, “am I safe?”