There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.
-Ansel Adams

I am a graphic artist.  That is to say, I express via imagery.  I don’t perform on stage.  I don’t write.  I am not a composer of music.  I paint.  I draw.  But mostly I take one of my cameras and go for these little strolls around my world.  I am a photographer.  Not a professional nor a recognized artist, but a serious amateur.  I have some galleries up here on the web site you can peruse if you like.  They’re typical of what I do.  Photography as been a passion of mine ever since I was in grade school.  I think I can say after all these years of doing it, that I have a distinctive voice.

I don’t like a lot of what I produce.  That is to say, I would rather be producing something a tad more cheerful, or sensuous maybe, or beautiful.  But I have this urge to produce a lot of this…

…and…this…

…and…this…

…that I can’t turn away from.  I have to make these images.  It’s what I do.  I take a camera, decide if I’m in a color or black and white frame of mind just then, and go for a wander.  Sooner or later something I’ve never been able to put words to tugs me over to something, and then I am exploring a subject.  Snap…circle it a bit…snap…circle some more…snap…snap…snap…  It’s what I do when I get a camera in my hands.   Oh yes…sometimes I get a chance to do a little of this…

I love this one…but even this, if you look at it carefully, has a sense of the other stuff in it just below the surface. 

For almost a decade I gave up taking photographs because I couldn’t stand to look at what was coming out of me anymore.  This is hard for some folks of a…shall we say…religious right persuasion…to get about the artsy tofu and brie types they just love to loath…let alone liberals in general.  It isn’t so much If it feels good do it, as You do what you must.  As a matter of fact yes, it is entirely possible to be consumed with a subject matter you don’t much like, and still feel absolutely compelled to approach it with fierce honesty.  But honesty is even less welcome then art in the mega-mall cathedrals of the heartland.

Via Sullivan…  It seems they don’t like looking at pictures of themselves at Patrick Henry College…

My first preview of at photographer Jona Frank’s book of portraits about Patrick Henry College occurred through Mother Jones, where it appeared alongside image galleries on phone sex operators, Aryan outfitters, and women in Afghanistan. (Mother Jones’ photo galleries reflect a wide variety of topics, but I’m mentioning the ones it promoted alongside the photos from Frank’s second book, Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League.)

The students of Patrick Henry College, the nation’s first residential college designed for young people who grew up as homeschoolers, looked awfully stiff and serious. I asked Ed Veith, a professor of literature and provost of the college, for his thoughts. Veith sent along a memo that he wrote to Patrick Henry students when he saw the book:

I was greatly angered when I saw the book Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League by the photographer Jona Frank. The book features pictures of many of you — portrayed in the [worst] way possible — with an accompanying text that plays to all the leftwing stereotypes about Christians and conservatives. The dishonesty of the artist is staggering: she posed you in stiff and awkward positions and told you not to smile; then she caricatured you as stiff, awkward, and without a sense of humor. In reality, I know that you PHC students are lively and interesting, with vibrant and highly-individualistic personalities. I think that Ms. Frank, who hung around campus for months and who even visited some of your families, betrayed your trust, violated your privacy, and distorted your identity.

Since writing to Veith, I’ve found another collection of Frank’s PHC images at Newsweek. That collection includes a narration by Frank, in which she speaks with clear affection for these students. Newsweek’s gallery is well worth a visit, as Frank’s narration is so warm and engaging.

If the photographer was any good…and Frank’s photos can put you in mind of another Frank in their straightforwardness…then her images are honest representations of what she saw, what she found when she went to Patrick Henry.  But you have to understand what Adams is saying in that quote I put at the top of this post.  The photographer is always present in every image.  But so are you, the viewer.  Frank didn’t set out to preach and not seeing the sermon he expected out of her, Veith got angry.  But not every negative review, is a bad review.

[Update…]  So I bought a copy of Frank’s photo book.  It’s good…but I wouldn’t put her in the same class as Robert Frank.  Most of the photos are posed.  Few are the kind of beautiful human moments frozen out of time shots that Frank did so astonishingly well.  But Robert Frank casts a large shadow over all of us.  He’s one of Photography’s perfect masters.  Jona Frank’s work here is good, she works well with her subjects and all her photographs are taken in their environment.  You get the sense of how they fit together, how the people and their environment are each expressions of the other.  But she is not a beachcomber searching for the stray seashell, the random pebble that tells stories of the open sea.  She does environmental portraiture and she’s good at it.  Robert Frank did moments in time.  Different stuff.