Brooklyn

“Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.”- Barack Obama


Hope. © Damaso Reyes

There was a time when those who managed our newspapers and television news divisions saw what they were doing as a public service. Today almost every major media source in America, and many in Europe, is part of a larger, multinational corporation. These companies rarely have media, let alone journalism as their primary focus. Last year I tried in vain to get a major newspaper to support a trip to Kosovo, one that would be paid for entirely by a journalism foundation. The response was unanimous: “We’re not interested.” So to address a comment on Tuesday’s post it’s not that a few commercial stories won’t help it’s A.) selling stories that do not focus on the media obsession of the moment is very difficult and B.) this approach is not a long term strategy for funding a project like mine.

So, which way forward? What is to be done? These are the questions I have spent the last few weeks and months thinking about…

What I have learned while embarking on this journey, besides that the commercial world isn’t interested, is that there is only so much you can do on your own. Often people would ask if I was the only photographer on the project and I would always say yes. There are many good reasons for this, the most important of which is that I think that seeing one person’s view through space and time can help bring together the disparate elements of a visual narrative that is as broad as The Europeans.

So I always thought of this as a one man show. But early on I had a desire to engage other people with my work. In fact that lies at the very heart of what I am trying to do: to bring people together and inspire dialogue through photography. But as a solitary artist it is very difficult to do that.

What I never wanted to do is have a cult of personality. It’s one of the reasons I don’t promote my work as fully as I should; I never wanted to make it about me. But how to bring people into this project was a question I wrestled with. So I started a blog. But this is not enough because it again only offers passive participation. As much fun as it is to read about my adventures it doesn’t offer a lot of opportunities to involve yourself other than posting comments.

So, what is to be done?

I have decided to form a non-profit corporation. In Europe and elsewhere you would be more familiar with the term NGO. For me this offers not only the opportunity to raise funds that I wouldn’t be able to as an individual it offers the chance to expand the scope of the project to include the participation of more of the public.

At the heart of this organization I envision a website, a kind of European Forum where visitors can come together and discuss the changes that are happening in Europe and the challenges it faces on a daily basis. Photographs would be the starting point, both mine and others that I, and the moderators would find. I also would like users to post their own images and even have their own galleries on the site. The idea is to give people a space that they can reshape as they see fit.

The organization would also be active not just in presenting exhibitions but organizing panels, debates and discussions around the topics that matter most to Europe: immigration, EU expansion, foreign relations and more. The idea is to engage the public on many different planes: through art, through conversation, through the internet and thereby expand the reach of the project.

It is an ambitious goal and I will spend a good part of this year settling up the organization and launching the website in addition to my duties as a photographer. To be honest it is all a bit daunting. As when I began my journey in Europe more than three years ago I can’t tell you all the twists and turns it will take but I do have a clear vision and as always I ask for your support.

Your advice, your expertise and yes, even your money will help me bring this idea to fruition. I look forward to taking this trip with you!

I've been waiting for this moment for all my life...



Can you believe it?

Yes, I can...

Brooklyn

Shaft:
Sorry, I can't make it

Ellie:
You got problems, baby?

Shaft:
(Laughs) Yeah, I got a couple of 'em. I
was born black and I was born poor.

From Shaft (1971)


© Damaso Reyes

Right now I am standing in Brooklyn, where it all began. I’ve been around the world from Asia to Europe and once again I find myself in the borough of Kings. All in all, not a bad place to be all things considered. But before I address the issue of where I want to go it is important to look at where I am.

For the moment I will address this topic from the perspective of The Europeans. So far I have photographed in eight countries in Europe. Not bad but considering there are more than thirty on the continent there is some distance still to travel. I have shot several hundred rolls of film, pretty good once you accept how anachronistic it is to still be shooting film. If you take the time, and it does take a while, to explore the website and look at the images I feel like the outside viewer can see something of a theme, at least a visual one, emerging from the disparate elements. Of course this is not the final presentation of the work; nevertheless one can imagine what a book or an exhibition might look like.

In my head I feel as though I am about one third of the way through the project, at least in terms of time. It began three years ago with money out of my own pocket. No grants, no fellowships; just money I earned through photography and journalism. The few articles I published along the way helped defray some of the costs I incurred that first year but in no way paid for my adventures.

Realizing this I decided to apply for as many fellowships and grants as I could. While this was certainly a great idea, the problem is one of time. Most grants of any substance have a long waiting period between when you apply and when you receive a decision. Usually a few months but sometimes it’s the better part of a year before you get that email in your inbox. And that doesn’t mean that you can start right away. It could be another six months before you receive any money. So 2006 was a fallow year with only a few days of shooting on the project.

Finally in 2007 I began to reap the harvest of filling out all those applications. I spent eight months total as a fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart and then another two months as an Arthur F. Burns fellow in Berlin. For ten months last year I did little else but shoot, traveling all around Germany as well as to France and Switzerland documenting the changing face of Europe. Earlier this year I spent several months in Austria as a Fulbright scholar where I continued my work.

I learned a few things. First: I really enjoy working for myself. It may seem obvious but I like setting my own pace, deciding on my own what is important to photograph and when and most importantly how. Second: this requires money. Again, it may seem obvious but money is what makes this world go around and in order to do as I please I need the funds to do it.

The reason I mention this point is that it has become increasingly clear to me that the marketplace isn’t going to provide those funds. Journalism as a funding course is a dead end. This article I did for the Christian Science Monitor from Kosovo paid less than $400. That doesn’t begin to touch the airfare and on the ground expenses that I incurred let alone compensate me for my time. Now I didn’t get into journalism to get rich but I did expect it to pay my way. That has become increasingly untenable. Magazines and newspapers are cutting back on their foreign coverage, closing international bureaus and increasingly relying on the wire services. All this means that there are fewer dollars, or Euros for that matter, for freelancers like me.

Perhaps more importantly the main-stream media has a notoriously short attention span. Right now they only thing most editors care about is Iraq. Now when I went to Iraq in 2000 no one was interested in a story. When I went to Kosovo in 2005 it was all I could do to sell the story that I did. I have decided that I am not interested in letting the marketplace decide what I should cover and when; history is too important to let middle managers who never leave their desks to choose what is important to pay attention to.

So what does that leave? There are too few substantial grants for individuals out there to rely upon and they take far too long to get. The marketplace has other interests and nuance is not among them. So which way forward?

I will address that on Thursday…

Brooklyn

Time sure is going by quickly! It’s hard to believe that I have already been back in New York for two months but I most certainly have. I have always felt like the danger of being here is that I start to become too comfortable. Being in the city that I love with the people I love doesn’t motivate me to leave. At the same time the longer that I am here the more I miss being out in the field and working on The Europeans. It’s two sides of the same coin, a push and pull that I have experienced ever since I first came back from Indonesia in 2003.

Well I have been trying to use my time in New York wisely and I will tell you all about it next week. Until then, here is your HCB Quote of the Week!


A tombstone in Vienna's Jewish cemetery.

There is no closed figure in nature. Every shape participates with another. No one thing is independent of another and one thing rhymes with another, and light gives them shape. - Henri Cartier-Bresson

Brooklyn

The Brooklyn Bridge just turned 125!

And you don’t look a day over 100…

This was a beautiful and warm Memorial Day weekend here in New York. I was a bit under the weather for some of it but by Sunday I was smiling and sitting in the sun like thousands of other New Yorkers.


The view from below. © Damaso Reyes

The anniversary of the opening of the bridge serves as a reminder of what we can accomplish when we work together for something greater than ourselves. It is a testament that the space between us can be bridged both literally and metaphorically and that is what we should strive for as a society.


Shadows. © Damaso Reyes

For me that is what The Europeans is: a bridge. Images can serve that function in our society and I hope that this project can serve as a bridge both among Europeans as well as a link between the present and the future. Time, as it always does, will tell…


We can’t leave out the Manhattan Bridge! © Damaso Reyes

Brooklyn

Cornell Capa is dead.

He did more than perhaps anyone else to promote the cause of photojournalism in the second half of the last century. He was a great photographer and a visionary who founded the International Center of Photography. He will be sorely missed and in his honor we will turn the HCB Quote of the Week into the Cornell Capa Quote of the Week.


The Wall, Vienna. © Damaso Reyes

Images at their passionate and truthful best are as powerful as words can ever be. If they alone cannot bring change, they can at least provide and understanding mirror of man’s actions, thereby sharpening human awareness and awakening conscience. - Cornell Capa, Collection, Use, and Care of Historical Photographs by Robert A. Weinstein

Brooklyn

I am not what they would call a “first adopter.” For me the worth of technology must be proved, it is not tacitly accepted. I remember when mobile phone first became affordable enough that everyone was getting them. I held out. I didn’t see the value. After all, I had a pager so people could get in touch with me, or at least let me know that they wanted to get in touch with me, and I was fine with that. After a while I began to see the value of having a mobile communications device and I relented.

Last week I finally set up a Facebook page.

Now many of you probably already have one but for a long time I didn’t see the point, after all, if people want to know what I am doing they could read my blog I argued. Well after reading an insightful piece in the Atlantic about the Obama campaign’s use of the internet to bring people together I decided there was value in this idea. I realized much like the value of having a mobile phone it is not just about being accessible; it is about lowering the bar of accessibility and making it as easy as possible for people to get in touch with you and to know what you are doing.

So I signed up and found a lot of people from high school and college and my work life that I have been out of touch with. I can also share with those very same people what I have been up to. So it’s all good as the young people say…


Three Women in Vienna. © Damaso Reyes

I almost forgot to tell you that I have added images to my gallery on asylum seekers in Austria as well as a gallery on the Ute Bock Center. This work took up the second half of my Fulbright Fellowship and I think there are some really great images there, please let me know what you think!

Brooklyn


I’m done!


Berlin by night. © Damaso Reyes

And it feels good!


Dancing in Vienna. © Damaso Reyes

So I have finished updating my website. If you go online you can see brand new galleries including images from Vienna’s traditional balls, Berlin at night, the Ute Bock Center for asylum seekers as well as from the German Cancer Research Center and one of Vienna’s oldest Jewish cemeteries.


Remembering the past © Damaso Reyes

You can also see updated galleries with additional images from Vienna and Berlin. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, until then here is your HCB Quote of the Week!

I went to Marseille. A small allowance enabled me to get along, and I worked with enjoyment. I had just discovered the Leica. It became the extension of my eye, and I have never been separated from it since I found it. I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung-up and ready to pounce, determined to "trap" life - to preserve life in the act of living. Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes. - Henri Cartier-Bresson

Brooklyn

Sometimes you just have to listen to the photographs.


The writing is on the wall. © Damaso Reyes

All photographs speak, the question is how well do you listen? Since I have been back in New York I have started doing yoga twice a week. I had wanted to do yoga for a couple of years now but I had always found an excuse. Now that I am cooling my heels in NYC for a while, I figured it was a good time to start.

More than anything I just want to increase my strength and flexibility. Sitting in front of the computer for hours and hours and then walking around with a heavy camera is not so good for you body, especially when you aren’t 18 years old anymore. Of course yoga also gives me time to clear my mind, which can be pretty hard at times. If you haven’t tried it I highly recommend it!

Meanwhile I finally finished editing about an hour ago! So over the next few days you will be seeing some new galleries as well as new photographs in existing galleries. You can already visit a gallery from my trip to the DKFZ here. I feel really good about this latest round of images, I hope you do too…

Brooklyn

So the scanning is done! Hold your applause because there is still editing to do but that will fly by but for no other reason than there aren’t that many images to go through. So this time next week there should be some new galleries for you to check out. In the meantime here is an image from Vienna to tide you over.


Freedom of Speech. © Damaso Reyes

So right now I am in limbo. When I was in Vienna I met someone who said that they were interested in doing some fundraising for The Europeans. Promises were made, hopes were raised and of course, much to my dismay, things didn’t work out. Perhaps it is because of my childhood on the mean streets of Brooklyn but I am not the most trusting of people. I did however make an exception in this case and my worst instincts were perversely proven correct.

Now I didn’t lose anything except some time and a little faith in my fellow human beings. But the past few weeks did reinforce something I already knew: I need money.

Now this seems obvious. But it has become increasingly clear that in order to do my project properly I need the kind of financial freedom that does not come from small grants or fellowship. I need enough money to be able to plan months in advance without having to worry if I can afford to go to point A or rent a hotel in point B.

So over the next few weeks I will be asking various people in the world of high finance and with experience in fundraising for their advice. I clearly need to take things to the next level in terms of raising money so I can buy the equipment I need as well as set up a base of operations and have just a little piece of mind. Feel free to contribute some concrete suggestions or ideas!

Until the money starts pouring in here is your HCB Quote of the Week!

There’s a particular kind of painting that is no longer practiced, that of portraiture, and there are those who say that the discovery of photography is the cause. It does seem apt to credit photography with the abandonment by painters of this painterly form. A subject wearing a military coat, a cap, and sitting on a horse can discourage even the most well-schooled painter, who feels overwhelmed by all the details of the costume. We, as photographers, are not bothered by all these details. Rather, we enjoy ourselves, because we can easily capture life in all its reality through our camera. - Henri Cartier-Bresson

Brooklyn

I have been pretty quiet, at least on the blog, the past few weeks. There’s been a lot, or not, depending on how you look at it, going on and I will fill you in on all of it in the coming days. You will be happy to know that I have started editing and scanning the last rolls I shot earlier this year both in Austria and Germany so you will have some additional images to look forward to.

I’ve received a lot of rejections in the past few weeks. The Guggenheim Foundation, NYFA and various other grants, festivals and awards have all told me NO, no thank you, not really interested. Of course rejection is part of the game but it doesn’t get easier, especially when you feel like your work is getting better and especially when they seem to come all at once, as they all too often do.

So I am trying to keeping my head up but it’s a bit hard these days. Hopefully Mr. Sun will come out from hiding next week and say hello. Until then, here is your HCB Quote of the Week!


A smoke break in Wien. © Damaso Reyes

Sharpness is a bourgeois concept. - Henri Cartier-Bresson

Brooklyn

Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important. - Henri Cartier-Bresson



Dawn at Borobudur. © Damaso Reyes

Brooklyn

Photography is nothing--it's life that interests me. - Henri Cartier-Bresson


Life on Zanzibar. © Damaso Reyes

Brooklyn

So it was three years ago today that I boarded a plane form John F. Kennedy international airport here in New York and started on the long road that has become The Europeans. Three years later it is hard to believe all the people I have met and the places I have been.

What began as a dream is now reality.

As I have mentioned to some of you in private, when I began this project, when I conceived of it and when I boarded that plane I had absolutely no idea of what the images that I would take would look like. All I had was a few hundred dollars, a one way ticket, and an idea that somehow I could photograph the ways in which Europe was changing. Honestly I wasn’t even sure that my skills would be up to that task. After all, as a photojournalist my job up until then was to impart information, not make the abstract real. I wasn’t a philosopher or a historian, just a man with a camera and an idea.

The past few years have been filled with adversity. Mostly it has been a struggle with myself to live up to my own ideals and the possibilities that only hope can provide. I feel like I have taken a few good images here and there. I have certainly managed to travel, though not as much as I would have liked.

I’ve seen a new nation beginning to form in Kosovo.


© Damaso Reyes

I photographed the powerful in The Netherlands.


© Damaso Reyes

I spent most of last year in Germany.


© Damaso Reyes

I found my future home in Spain.


© Damaso Reyes

I documented passion in the United Kingdom.


© Damaso Reyes

I found beauty in France and science in Switzerland.


© Damaso Reyes

I saw how the other half lives in Austria.


© Damaso Reyes

I’ve made good friends and had good times. As I prepare to return in the coming weeks it is with the knowledge that I am on the right road, though I still don’t know where it will lead or exactly when it will end. Right now I feel like I am just starting to hit my stride…

Brooklyn

Waiting…

Sometimes it seems like that’s all we ever do.

Waiting for a call. Waiting for a check. Waiting for approval.

I’ve been doing a lot of waiting this week.

But that is what photography is all about. Waiting for the right moment. I guess I have learned that waiting can also be valuable. It gives you a chance to observe your surroundings, to think about what you are doing and why you are doing it, two things we don’t do enough of in life.

So I wait. But you don’t have to wait any longer for your HCB Quote of the Week!


Midtown Buddha. © Damaso Reyes

I find that you have to blend in like a fish in water, you have to forget yourself, you have to take your time, that's what I reproach our era for not doing. Drawing is slow, it is a meditation, but you have to know how to go slow in order to go quickly , slowness can mean splendor. - Henri Cartier-Bresson