My Four Eyed Fantasy

Peaks and Valleys

Emily — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:01:21 +0000

Rainbow, Somewhere in Scotland, 2001 © Emily Shur

This weekend marks the end of summer and what most people in our industry tend to think of as the start of a new season in business-land. The past couple weeks have been the typical up and down roller coaster of emotions regarding work…excitement, disappointment, excitement, disappointment. At this point, I can honestly say that I am almost too familiar with those two extremes and somewhat numb to both. Sometimes I think about what would have happened in my life had I not been able to take a risk in my early twenties and attempt to become a photographer. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I never left New York. Well, I would not be married to my husband. I would not live in this house or be dog-mommy to The Baroness. I wouldn’t have made the friends I’ve made here. I also may not have had such tumultuous recent years, professionally speaking, if I had just stayed in one place and continue to build a career. Then again, it might have been lackluster either way due to the economy and who knows what else. If my career had not been so disappointing at the time, I may not have put so much energy into my personal work which, in my opinion, has been the best thing to happen to my photography in the last five years or so.

Last week I photographed filmmaker Davis Guggenheim and had a really nice talk with him during the shoot. One thing that stood out to me was his acknowledgement of learning the most during the really, really low points in his career. I agreed with him wholeheartedly. As unpleasant as the bad times are, there would be no growth or change without them. When else are you forced to really look at yourself, your path, your decisions, and what could be possible? When everything is awesome, you’re just floating. When you’re stuck, you have to make a conscious effort to get un-stuck. It’s not fun, but I think it’s important.

Things have definitely been way better this year work-wise. They aren’t perfect, and I’m assuming they never will be, but I think having a couple of shitty years actually really helped me. Humility is an extremely underrated virtue. I read a lot of blogs and tweets and Facebook updates about what people are up to, how busy they are, what shoot they just wrapped, where they’re traveling, etc. Hey, I’ve done these things, too…I do it all the time (I think I just did it in the paragraph above this one). However, I think it’s refreshing when I read or hear something truly honest and not just a series of typed and/or audible high fives.

I’m writing this post with someone in mind, and I want nothing more than for this person to get past the shitty time they are having with work. There’s only so much an outsider can do other than be supportive, but I do feel like there is value in misery. For one, when you’ve been miserable you really appreciate when you are no longer miserable, and two, you are forced to make your situation better. And then you do. And then it is.

I’m Not Sure How I Feel About This.

Emily — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:22:28 +0000

All Images © Joel Sternfeld

A couple of my all time favorite and most inspirational photographers have published or are about to publish books straying far from their roots as large format film shooters. The above images are from Joel Sternfeld’s iDubai. When I first heard that Sternfeld was doing a book project on Dubai, I was super excited. Of course I was picturing American Prospects in Dubai. Amazing. When I saw some of the spreads on the Steidl website, after learning the book was shot entirely with Sternfeld’s iPhone, I have to say….I was less excited. I’m not criticizing the man for trying something new. I mean, I get it. The iPhone is cool. (I’m a Blackberry girl myself, but I admit it’s cool.) It’s got a great camera for a cell phone, and I also see why it makes sense for a body of work shot in Dubai. I’ve never been, would like to go, and have watched many a travel show about the place. Dubai has become a symbol for all things progressive and futuristic, realistic or not, regarding Arabic culture, and what is more ‘future’ than the iPhone (hello, FaceTime)? My issue is not with the medium, but the images. Let me say that I can only aspire to do in my life with photography what Joel Sternfeld has done in his. I treasure the books of his that I own and often look to them for inspiration. In my opinion, there are few people in the world that do what he does as well as him. But when I look at iDubai, I see pictures that a lot of people could take.

Now Richard Misrach’s Destroy This Memory is about to come out, and when I looked at the preview images on the Aperture site, I thought to myself, “Huh….those look….different.” I read on to learn that the book is entirely comprised of images Misrach shot with his “4 MP pocket camera”. I think it’s lovely that all artist’s royalties for the book are going to charity, and again, I get it. Who doesn’t have a point and shoot in their pocket to shoot alongside their more serious camera? Richard Misrach can almost do no wrong in my book. I have a signed Desert Cantos book and poster from a lecture I attended in Houston when I was in high school. High school! I own almost every Misrach book there is to own (including On The Beach). I have nothing but gratitude and respect for his work, and his photography I can truthfully say has changed my life. I’m curious to see Destroy This Memory and am not immediately writing it off because of the medium. I just want to see the same level of imagery from all of these contemporary masters of photography that I’ve grown to love, admire, and frankly expect.

These are just things that make me go Hmmm. That’s all.

UPDATE: Review of Destroy This Memory on Conscientious is an interesting take on dwelling on tragedy rather than moving forward. Doesn’t speak to the technical aspects of the imagery so much, but I hear what he’s saying…to me, it’s like to producing book after book or tv show after tv show about 9/11. While history needs to be recorded and preserved, we also should remember to record progress because the present and future will eventually become a part of history as well.

Coooooool.

Emily — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 21:28:11 +0000

Nice little post with a good edit of images on BOOOOOOOM! today. Thank you!

People Who Work

Emily — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:39:45 +0000

Thirteen Year Old Sharecropper Boy Near Americus, Georgia, July, 1937

Part of the daily lineup outside the State Employment Service Office, Memphis, Tennessee, June 1938

Toward Los Angeles, California, 1937

Jobless on Edge of Pea Field, Imperial Valley, California, 1937

Crossroads Store, Person County, North Carolina, 1939

Migratory Cotton Picker, 1940

Dust Bowl Farm, June, 1938

Hoe Cutter, near Anniston, Alabama, 1936

Power farming displaces tenants, Texas Panhandle, 1938

Mississippi Delta Children, July, 1936

All Images © Dorothea Lange

A couple nights ago, I finally finished a book I’ve been reading for a while about Dorothea Lange called Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon. Here’s a review I found on Conscientious if you want a little more background on the book. The book was very good. I could take this post in so many directions because the book made me think about so many different things…some having to do with being a woman, some having to do with having a family, and some having to do with being passionate about what we do with our lives. I couldn’t help but notice that this book came out at the time when we as a country are/were experiencing the worst economic situation since The Great Depression. Lange’s images, along with the other FSA photographers‘, are such an invaluable record of what the country went through. It’s hard to imagine how bad it was back then, and their photographs give us a glimpse. While reading this book, I pictured Ms. Lange traveling back and forth, back and forth, across the country several times, with one goal in mind…documentation. The book speaks about her passionate captioning of her photographs (so I was sure to include them above even though that did take an extra ten minutes) and the time she took to talk with her subjects and get their story on record. The book also speaks about the fact that all of this happened at the sacrifice of many relationships in Lange’s life, mainly those with her children. I think I will probably need a completely separate post to discuss my feelings on that matter, but…well…I’ll leave that for another time because I think it warrants some thought and some words.

What I really wanted to get into today was the current Levi’s campaign and how it clearly is influenced and inspired from the FSA photography program as well as imagery from The Great Depression in general.

All Images © LEVI’S

I wonder what Walker Evans would think. I wonder what Dorothea Lange would think. Since she started her career as a more commercial photographer, making commissioned portraits of the bohemian elite in San Francisco, I wonder if she would get it or be appalled. I wonder if fashion advertising can be taken seriously as a sociopolitical statement. I mean, in my opinion, it’s no easy feat to make people look cool and make you want to buy jeans and make you think about how shitty things are all at the same time. Clearly, the campaign is meant to be empowering to the “American Worker”, and I think it definitely looks good. Would there ever be a government funded program like the FSA photography program again? Probably not. And if not, I guess we need to find other arenas to make statements (you can see some shorts on the Levi’s site focusing on a few individuals and their stories). I’m not sure if Levi’s has the answer or not…it’s just interesting to see how things come back around, how imagery is appropriated, and what type of imagery might become the new “record”.

More on Dorothea Lange another time in the near future. I do recommend the book if anyone wants an indepth look at an interesting person and excellent photographer.

Summer Movies

Emily — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:43:13 +0000

This weekend we saw a couple movies…just like last weekend and the weekend before. We see a lot of movies. I love movies. So far, this year in general has been disappointing for movies, with a few exceptions. (I recently heard an interview with a movie critic who claimed that 2010 has been the worst year for movies ever….dang.) One exception is definitely Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Not only is this movie extremely well cast and well written, it’s also surprisingly innovative. Two thumbs up for sure. Way up.

Another movie I really loved, but a very different movie altogether, was The Kids Are All Right. Oscar nominations for sure for the main cast, or at least for the slightly lost Julianne Moore and the lovably neurotic Annette Bening, who were both really wonderful. There’s a scene in the movie that brought me to tears, and I rarely cry during movies. Having said that, the movie was mostly very witty comedy, shot in all the right parts of LA, and I just loved it.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how many photographers are transitioning in to filmmaking and directing and whether or not that’s something that interests me. As much as I love movies, you’d think I would be dying to make my own Lost In Translation, but I’m not. At least not right now.

Two New Covers

Emily — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:26:01 +0000

Eva Longoria for L’Optimum © Emily Shur

Rashida Jones for Bust Magazine © Emily Shur

Calling All LAers

Emily — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:56:50 +0000

Come out tomorrow night to Space 15Twenty for a slide show extraordinaire featuring the work of many awesome Giant Artists…um…artists. If you want to come you have to RSVP to summerseries@luciefoundation.org. See you there.

Let the Fist Pumping Begin

Emily — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:15:01 +0000

Yesterday I started seeing some Jersey Shore Soundtrack posters around my neighborhood. Yep…I shot that. Just to prove it, here’s a picture of me shooting that.

If you want to see more BTS pictures from my shoot, you can go here. This was one of the most challenging shoots I have ever done strictly in terms of battling the elements. Shooting on a rooftop in South Beach, I was prepared for heat. As you can see, I’m pretty pale…only made more noticeable by the striking difference in skin tone between myself and the cast. I brought lots of sunscreen like I always do to every outdoor shoot. I’m also totally down to sweat. It makes me feel like I’m gradually losing those stubborn five pounds, and that makes it all worthwhile. What I didn’t count on were the multiple torrential downpours that crept in at random times through the day. See below.

When I say it started raining…I mean, it started RAINING. We had to move our lighting under little umbrellas on the roof that you’d normally use to shade yourself while laying out. A couple lights under this one, a couple more under that one, etc. Thus, breaking up the entire set up. When it stopped raining we’d move everything back into place. Then it would start pouring again, and we’d have to move everything out. Then it would stop. Then it would start again. I realized we needed to adapt to the rain. We eventually rigged a 12×12 silk to use essentially as a canopy over the corner of the pool in which we shot the cast. It was pouring all around us, but we had the lights, myself, the digital tech, and the cast under this silk that was slowly getting weighed down by the amount of rain water that was collecting in the middle. By the end of that part of the day, we were all soaked. My poor assistants…completely soaked. Myself…completely soaked. Then onto the second location…

Can’t wait for Season 2 to start. Those of you who know me know I loooove TV. I think the only person I know who trumps my television watching is this guy. So, this shoot was very exciting for me. Sometimes, shit gets hairy and you realize that this shoot is probably not going to turn out exactly how you anticipated or hoped. We are not miracle workers. Part of my job is problem solving and getting the job done the best I can regardless of whatever is going on with the weather, with myself personally, physically, etc. I finished that 14 hour day with the bottoms of my feet fully blistered because of the wet/dry action that was going on down there. It hurt. Sometimes things get hurt, things get wet, but what’s most important is that they get done the best way they can.

Moving Donuts With My Mind: The Adam McKay Story

Emily — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 22:02:50 +0000

What I think might be my favorite shoot of the year so far has just come out in the August issue of Maxim. Back in May, I had the pleasure of photographing Adam McKay, whose new movie The Other Guys opens August 6th. These are my two favorite set ups from the shoot, and I wanted to write a little bit about why.

It’s not everyday that I pitch an idea like “What if Adam was levitating donuts with his mind?” and get a positive response. It takes a special kind of person to see the good in that, to not be afraid of doing something different, and to trust someone they have never worked with before enough to say “Great idea!”. The other important element to a concept coming to fruition is that the magazine must also say yes.

I’ve been having a bit of an inner battle with editorial lately. As much as I want to pour my heart out about it, I realize this blog might be read by people who might want to hire me, so I will keep it short, sweet, and politically correct. I don’t think it’s breaking news that editorial shooting has changed significantly. I, along with many other photographers, have had to adjust to the smaller budgets and amount of shoots. The shoots that do happen are more work for everyone (photographers, photo editors, producers, etc.) because no one can afford to do things the way they used to, therefore we all have more work to do ourselves. There comes a time to take a step back and make sure that the work and time we are putting into the shoots bear some fruit. I love magazines so much, and it saddens me that so many good ones have died slow and painful deaths over the past few years. However, sometimes when I do editorial shoots nowadays (and I have no interest in naming names or getting into any type of specifics), I realize why magazine land is having such a hard time. It’s a circular problem where magazines operate out of fear – fear of folding, losing advertisers, whatever many number of things they should rightly be afraid of today – and that fear translates into not very interesting artwork.

I want to continue to shoot editorial. I’m fine to work hard and have it be worthwhile. Good pictures are worth working hard for. Thank you so much to Adam McKay and Maxim for allowing me to make what I think are good pictures.

Yeah!

Emily — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:57:51 +0000

It’s this guy’s birthday today! I love him a lot, and for those of you out there who love him too…let him know. Perhaps by embarrassing him on your blog? Happy birthday to the best husband I’ve ever had! You are very loved.