by aaron joel santos
I could write a thousand words about each of these people, but probably better just to leave you with links to their work, which is leaps and bounds better than anything you’ll see on this blog. My teammates from the 2010 Eddie Adams Workshop, in order of appearance:
David Wright. Unnikrishnan Ravendranathan. Stephen Reiss. Jason Greene. Louisa Marie Summer. Austin Mann. Matanya Tausig. Nicole Franco. Julie Glassberg.
I’m trying hard to think differently about the way I photograph, to become both more restricting and more creative in my style and method. My images have been feeling a bit stale lately and I’m almost trying to move backwards in order to progress again. I’m trying to shed some of my baggage and see if I can’t stumble upon something new. Part of this process was buying a small Fuji “Cheki” instant film camera during a recent layover at the Tokyo Narita Airport in Japan, to facilitate more image-taking during seemingly mundane moments of the day, at times when I would normally either not have my larger digital camera on me or when it would be buried beneath zippers and Velcro in my bag. It’s not that I’m necessarily a fan of the snapshot aesthetic that was all the rage a few years ago, but it is a great way/excuse to take new images.
These pictures are all from New York at the beginning of this month, while I was attending the recent Eddie Adams Workshop. It was nice to not think too much about the photographs I was taking, nice to see a print show up immediately before I could erase it on my card. I took about 100 pictures with the camera while I was away, so obviously there’s a bit of editing done to get to these very few, but still. I like it. The camera had its own quirks that needed to be figured out as well, which added to the newness factor. I don’t think I’ll be shooting assignments solely with instant film from now on, but I do think there’s a lot to take away from the experience/exercise. And I bought another 100 sheets on the way back home to Hanoi, so I’m definitely not done with the camera yet.
