Jeffery Saddoris

Lately, I’ve been thinking about our connection to objects and how, at least for some of us, certain objects can represent a specific time in our lives or evoke a particular state of mind or, in the case of artists, inform the type of work we are able to produce. Painters often have a favorite brush or two — I still use a couple that I’ve had since 1988. Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt used the same Leica M3 for decades and in 1963 Cormac McCarthy spent $50 on a Lettera 32 Olivetti manual typewriter that he used to write The Road, No Country for Old Men, All the Pretty Horses, and seven other novels. Objects can become more than the raw materials used to create them. They are somehow imbued with hope, with possibility, and something greater than ourselves. On Monday, we were reminded just how much one object can mean to so many.

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Kenneth Clark’s landmark documentary Civilisation is a thirteen part series produced in 1969 for the BBC that looks at the history of Western art, architecture and philosophy since the Dark Ages.

Here’s a fascinating interview with Martin Gran about what it means to be a holistic designer and the idea of looking beyond aesthetics into the deeper meaning of design and how collaboration often results in stronger work.

Vice takes a look at seven photographers who are rewriting street photography’s rigid rules through clever shooting techniques, staged scenes, and a variety of digital manipulation.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

One of my favorite photo documentaries is Darkness & Light, which is a fantastic look into the mind and work of Richard Avedon. A lot of people know Avedon from his photographs in the American West – bold monochrome portraits set against stark white backgrounds or “that poster.” You know the one – it features a nude Nastassja Kinski lying on a concrete floor entangled with a massive Burmese python. Originally shot for Vogue, the poster went on to sell millions of copies.

Avedon’s career spanned six decades and his work bridged the gap between art and commerce in a way that few others managed to do – either before or since – and yet still he felt dissatisfied with all that he had accomplished as a photographer.

“I’ve never been able to put all I know into a photograph,” he said. “A photograph can be an adjective, a phrase. It can even be a sentence or a paragraph, but it can never be a chapter. So it’s been a lifetime of frustration in terms of expressing myself because of the limitations of the visual image. I believe in it-but it’s limited.”

Avedon has been at or near the the top of my list of favorite photographers for the better part of three decades but honestly it’s still hard for me to articulate why I feel such a connection to his work. There’s an obvious technical mastery of the medium, but I could say the same for dozens of photographers whose work doesn’t hold my interest in the same way or resonate as deeply as that of Avedon. So what is it that makes his work so compelling to me? Does he deserve the accolades and if so, why?

I was talking to my friend Hugh Talman and happened to have my little Zoom H2 with me and asked if we could hit the record button since the odds are pretty good that at least one amazing story will emerge. Hugh recently retired from a 33-year tenure at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, first as a darkroom tech and then as a photographer. Before that, he spent 12 years at the National Archives where he printed many of Matthew Brady’s glass plates from the Civil War as well as the work Timothy O’Sullivan did as part of the Western Survey. His knowledge and experience in all things photographic is staggering and if anyone could answer the question, it would be him.

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I’d love to hear from you. Email me at [email protected] or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.

You can catch up with Hugh on Instagram @hughtalman.

Music in this episode: Gloom (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

One of the struggles in making, regardless of what it is that you make is the tendency to compare ourselves to the artists who inspire us. But what do you do when the work you produce isn’t even close to the work of your creative heroes? Some give up, while others see slight missteps and outright failures as necessary components in the creative process. Disappointment with what we make can be creative fuel. Being creatively off balance can lead us to new ideas and directions that we never could have planned. Our appreciation of the work we do in the wake is often directly proportional to effort we put into it.

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I’d love to hear from you. Email me at [email protected] or connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris.

You can catch up with Jon on Instagram @jonwilkening or on his website at jonwilkening.com.

Music in this episode: Take Me Higher (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

I had a realization recently that the type of photography I was pursuing really didn’t hold much interest for me. I enjoy the process of making pictures, but the subject matter is leaving me feeling disconnected and frankly disappointed with the pictures I was making. I was talking about it with Jon the other day and he asked me how the work I want to create differs from the work I think I should create? It turns out that answering the question wasn’t as easy as I thought because before you decide on the what, you first need to know the why.

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I’d love to hear what you think of the show. Connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris or email me at [email protected].

You can catch up with what Jon is up to on Instagram @jonwilkening or on his website at jonwilkening.com.

Music in this episode: Take Me Higher (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

I’ve been frustrated with my own photography for quite a while, and I think that frustration played a big part in the whole “which camera should I buy?” saga. Look, I think I am a good photographer — sometimes maybe even really good — but lately I’ve been having a hard time connecting with the photographs I make. Many of them are interesting from a technical perspective, and I love the experience of seeing the world through a viewfinder and the challenge of finding an interesting composition. But, beyond that, there’s something missing and the work just doesn’t land for me. It doesn’t grab me and I think it has to do with my connection — or specifically the current lack of it — to the subject matter that I photograph.

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Here’s an amazing behind the scenes look at the stunt driving in Mad Max Fury Road. It’s incredible to see just how much of that movie was done practically, rather than CGI.

From the real to the unreal is the work of 3D artist Josef Bshara whose work is just fantastic. I did a little 3D back in the day in Lightwave and 3DSMax, but nothing as complex or realistic as this.

And I meant to put this in the last episode but it slipped my mind. On Taking Pictures listener Josh Eikenberry has managed to cull six years of OTP show notes into one monster list. So if you want to see what we talked about over the course of 325 episodes, Josh has you covered.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

The other day, a friend of mine sent me a text message asking why I haven’t set up a Patreon for my podcasts.

“Why would I do that?” I asked.

“Asks the person who has wondered how he can get paid for the podcast he puts out,” he replied.

There were a few more exchanges after this, but you get the idea.

This was being asked by one of my closest friends and I know that it was absolutely from a space of love and out of the belief that what I do has value – monetary value – and he wants to see that value acknowledged in dollars. And to be fair, he has a valid point. I do too. But it’s not a simple as if/then – as in if you produce a podcast — or any creative work for that matter — then you’ll get paid for it. There are a lot of moving parts, so to really unpack it, we have to have an honest conversation about podcasting and money.

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Arnaud Sagnier is a terrific collage artist who publishes under the name @Grafikstreet. His work is a mashup of vintage and modern aesthetics and the way he combines source material is just fantastic.

Tom Crouch is a British singer songwriter who I found through a collaboration he did with the band Joseph, who Adrianne and I saw with Dawes and Shovels and Rope a couple months ago. You can find Tom @liminalofficial

Tim Okamura is an incredible painter who blows me away with every new piece. His technique is tight but loose. His subject matter is powerful and he just seems like a super cool guy.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

My introduction to the work of Richard Beaven came via a text message from Jon Wilkening, which read simply “you need to talk to this guy” with a link to his Instagram. I think it took all of two images to realize he was right. Richard’s latest project is called
All of Us. It’s a beautiful body of work — 275 portraits made over the course of a year in the town of Ghent, New York — that manages to capture not only the soul of the town but also the people who call it home. Richard’s work is centered around connection, both to his subjects and their environments. And whether he’s immersing himself in
Trump Country or spending time on small family ranches in rural America, the stories Richard tells through his photographs are in many ways the stories of us all. They are about belonging and being seen for exactly what and who we are.

CONNECT WITH RICHARD
Website: http://richardbeaven.com/
Instagram: @richardbeaven
Twitter: @richardbeaven

MUSIC
Please Listen Carefully
 (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

A number of you have asked why I am selling what review after review calls the best APS-C camera on the market today to buy a two-year old Micro 4/3 camera that I’ve already bought and returned once before? Well, it’s complicated, but if you’ll give me a little bit of rope, I’ll promise to try and wrap it up without hanging myself.

What camera should I buy? It’s a question I get asked a lot. And I try to stay pretty consistent with my advice. If you were an On Taking Pictures listener, you know that I could answer the question for everyone but my myself. My search for a new camera became an epic saga and the butt of jokes for years on the show.

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Here & Now recently posted an interview with climber Alex Honnold and adventure photographer Jimmy Chin and his wife Elizabeth on their Oscar nominated documentary Free Solo, which follows Honnold as he climbs the 3,000 plus foot sheer granite face of El Capitan without any safety ropes to catch him.

Also, if you dig seeing how the special effects in your favorite movies are done, follow movies.effects on Instagram. The feed features side by side photos and before and after clips so you can get a sense of what it takes to bring these big budget fantasies to life.

And this is either really cool or really creepy, depending on your perspective, but Ukranian artist Olga Kamenetskya transforms overly made up toy dolls into hyper realistic looking figurines. According to the article on My Modern Met “Kamenetskaya strips the dolls’ makeup and opts for bushy facial hair, freckles, and even wrinkles in their skin. The results are so lifelike that you’d expect to see these people walking down the street.”

Em1 Mkii vs. PhaseOne IQ3
Josef Müller Brockmann
My paintings

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

Kristopher Matheson is one of my favorite people to talk to. Not only is he a terrific photographer, he’s also funny as hell. We don’t talk often, but when we do, I always come away inspired and wanting to dive a little deeper into my own work. Not too long ago, Kristopher started posting images from a series he calls “Behind Glass.” I love pretty much everything Kristopher posts, but there was something about these pictures that really caught my attention. I called him up to ask where the idea came from and since Kristopher is a pretty fastidious journaler, I expected a detailed explanation citing influences and connections to other projects. Instead, he said “I have no idea.” Wait, what now?

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If you’ve listened to In Between before or listened to recent episodes of my other shows Iterations, and Process Driven, you’ve heard me mention my “Jeffery Saddoris: Everything” feed. Over the next several weeks, I’m going to be phasing out the individual show feeds and instead using the Everything feed for, well…everything. If you’re enjoying In Between and Iterations and you’ve been waiting for new episodes of _Process Driven—_which I promise are coming soon—please consider subscribing to Everything so that you don’t miss anything.

You can connect with me on Instagram @jefferysaddoris or email me at [email protected].

Connect with Kristopher on Instagram @kristopher.matheson, on Twitter @krismatheson, or by visiting his website at krismatheson.com.

Music in this episode: Take Me Higher (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”

– William Arthur Ward

I have been drawing as far back as I can remember. My mom used to tell me that I could draw before I could talk. I’ve spoken on previous Iterations about my childhood love of art supply stores, which is still kind of true. All I ever wanted to be as a kid was an animator at Disney and I drew constantly. That changed a bit in high school when I was introduced to photography, but I didn’t stop drawing. In fact, I wanted to go to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena to study photography and illustration. As it happened — and this must have been my sophomore or junior year — Art Center was awarding scholarships for weekend classes, and one of them was being taught by a real Disney animator. All you had to do to be considered was submit a portfolio of your work. I told myself that I didn’t have a shot, and even if I did, there was no way we could afford the $40,000 a year that it cost to go there. On top of that, there was my dad and his repeated “artists are a dime a dozen” speeches echoing in my head. So I didn’t even try. In fact, I went the other way and started making up excuses for why I no longer even wanted to go to Art Center. To borrow from The Book of Pressfield, it was Resistance plain and simple. But my high school art teacher, Mr. Andrew, didn’t agree.

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The new issue of Time magazine which is called The Art of Optimism – 34 people changing how we see our world. The editorial that begins the issue is called “Why art is the antidote for our times” by Director Ava DuVernay and the issue includes articles by Laverne Cox, Bill Gates, and Guillermo del Toro. There’s also a terrific article called “12 Leaders Who Are Shaping the Next Generation of Artists” which features interviews and commentary on where art is at and where it’s going.

Flashbak posted a really great series of photographs of New York taken by Too Papageorge in 1966-67. One of the things that makes them so special — other than capturing New York in a way that many of us have never seen it — is that the photos were all taken on Kodachrome and they just show what an amazing film Kodachrome was – the colors, the shadows – and for many photographers that film stock was what defined their style.

In honor of Black History month, the New York TImes has launched a terrific new project called Overlooked, which begins “Since 1851, The New York Times has published thousands of obituaries: of heads of state, opera singers, the inventor of Stove Top stuffing and of the Slinky. The vast majority chronicled the lives of men, mostly white ones. Now, we’re adding the stories of other remarkable people.” The site is really well done and new obituaries will be added weekly. There’s also a form to allow users to nominate candidates for future entries.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0