letters to a young photographer (part one: edited for clarity)
- Question:
- What advice would you give me—as far as taking pictures goes—as I depart for Thailand on Friday? I am hoping to have minimal "should have" and "could have" moments when I come back, and to prevent these, I've been thinking ahead a lot about what I want to focus on…—Maria
- Answers:
- 1. I would suggest you reconsider using the phrase "taking pictures" and possibly replace it with "making pictures". In the final analysis, you are the author of your photographs and your personal viewpoint in a single image or series of images is of principle concern in the interest of effective storytelling value. Mostly, there are in between moments in photography and the division between these and the matter of successful evocative imagery may be the made up in the passing of a fraction of a second and in the movement of a fraction of an inch to the right or left, up or down.
- 2. Remember that light and all it's qualities are the basis of photography and without there are no pictures (or at least no successful pictures). Always consider the lighting; your subject(s) gesture and their rhythm; the relationship between figure and ground; the moment when these elements relate best in the interest of the story—with care.
- 3. Don't over think things. Simply witness, respond and calmly cover the scene from as many valuable angles as possible. Always find pictures from far away, near and in the in-between—this means many overall angles, details and medium-distance vantage points. Seek out all the visceral angles that might best tell a given story.
- 4. Work predominantly in even lighting situations and avoid distracting elements of formal dissonance or hi-key color such as blown-out highlights in your frame. Recompose to avoid items of stark contrast where they detract from the subject. First find the "safe" photographs and craft them well, then diverge from there. Always photograph using the full-frame and experiment copiously. Watch your edges.
- 5. Do not censor yourself. If you find something which captures your interest, slow down and stay with it for it may not be revealed again. Trust your intuition.
- 6. Be mindful of cultural ritual, influence and tradition. Learn the language and use it with respect and good humor. Work to portray your subjects with both dignity and honor—keep this in your heart and they should notice. Be patient.
- 7. Never carry fear or anxiety with you—yet be mindful and careful of your immediate environment—watchful toward what is to come. Find fascination in your surroundings, be curious about everything in the capacity of your senses and ask of your experience many questions. Slow down. Look to the periphery. Always remember to breathe deeply as this simple act will find you all the more relaxed and aware in your surroundings.—Seth Butler
Defining Sustainability: Homesteading
A homesteading party in Barnard, Vermont brought together many individuals focused on setting the foundation sill, knee brace and first floor joists in place for a new farming project founded this past year. A large group gathered to volunteer together during the course of the day, staging upon a new foundation in what once was a parcel of the founding homestead in Barnard’s rural agrarian community. A majority of the wooden structure for this timber frame was both locally and sustainably harvested with the guidance of a neighborhood forester and milled by the homesteaders’ hands on site.
These images are part of a long-form documentary project I have undertaken on sustainable living in Vermont with the working title: Defining Sustainability.
© Copyright 2012 Seth Butler. All Rights Reserved. http://www.sethbutler.com
…ya’know he was like something out
of a W.P.A. project like Dorothea Lange…
Walker Evans, James Agee an’them…
people who had this sense of America…
as a country under seige.
Undergoing a trial during the depression…
a society that… needed it’s dignity back.
Corlis [Benefideo] believed that in order
to effect any political or social change…
you had to know exactly what you
were talking about.
You had to know what the country itself…
the ground… the real thing…
not some political abstraction…
was all about… so he proposed…
Barry Lopez (via The Mappist)
Inspiration to Cultivate
The world is a miracle unfolding in the pitch dark. We are lighting candles.
—Barry Lopez
The Aurora Borealis shines in red with hints of green in the Western sky during the autumn of 2001 over Silver Lake in Barnard, Vermont, United States.
© Copyright 2011 Seth Butler. All Rights Reserved. http://www.sethbutler.com
Red Aurora Over Australia
Credit & Copyright: Alex Cherney (Terrastro, TWAN)
Explanation: Why would the sky glow red? Aurora. Last week’s solar storms, emanating mostly from active sunspot region 1402, showered particles on the Earth that excited oxygen atoms high in the Earth’s atmosphere. As the excited element’s electrons fell back to their ground state, they emitted a red glow. Were oxygen atoms lower in Earth’s atmosphere excited, the glow would be predominantly green. Pictured above, this high red aurora is visible just above the horizon last week near Flinders, Victoria, Australia. The sky that night, however, also glowed with more familiar but more distant objects, including the central disk of our Milky Way Galaxy on the left, and the neighboring Large and Small Magellanic Cloud galaxies on the right. A time-lapse video highlighting auroras visible that night puts the picturesque scene in context. Why the sky did not also glow green remains unknown.
one too many mornings & a thousand miles behind…
Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan
Chimes of Freedom features a diverse group of artists across the generational and musical spectrum. The performers, including many of Amnesty International’s longtime supporters, range in age from Miley Cyrus, 19, to folk music legend Pete Seeger, who, at 92, records Dylan’s poignant “Forever Young,” with a children’s chorus.
The diversity of the musicians and musical genres — from rock, rap, hip-hop to pop, folk, country, jazz and blues — attests to Amnesty’s depth of support in the music community, the universal appeal of the core message of human rights, and the breadth of Dylan’s impact on culture. Almost every track on the album is being released for sale for the first time* — except for the title song, Dylan’s original 1964 recording of “Chimes of Freedom.”
50 years ago, Bob Dylan started his professional career by picking up his guitar and playing at a coffee house in Greenwich Village. That same year, British lawyer Peter Benenson launched a campaign to stand up for those imprisoned for the peaceful expression of their beliefs. That campaign grew into a human rights movement, Amnesty International.
Through the decades, musicians have been among Amnesty International’s most inspiring and passionate allies in the fight against injustice. This is the concept behind the release of this very special album—Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan, honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International.
This album saves lives. Click HERE to Purchase from Amnesty International
in silent protest
Kham Province, Tibet. 2007.
A Chinese settler works to process recycled grain bags as two native Tibetans walk past. Due to oppressive government policy, ethnic Chinese have taken many of even the most rudimentary of jobs in Tibet, as well as much of the land the native population once used for it’s primarily nomadic culture. In an intervention document prepared for the United Nations, the Tibet Justice Center has stated “The massive transfer of Chinese settlers and soldiers has had a devastating impact on the economic, social and cultural life—and rights—of Tibetans. Tibetan farm and grasslands have been confiscated and incorporated into collectivized and communal farms. The rapid increase in settlers and soldiers lead to the first famines in Tibet’s history, with the death of over 340,000 Tibetans, because the land could not support the rapid increase. Ill-conceived efforts to boost productivity of lands suitable only for nomadic grazing or limited farming has resulted in widespread desertification.” Social unrest flared up in Eastern Tibet again in early 2011 when monks began to set themselves on fire as a form of silent protest against what they view as political and religious represssion. A total of at least twenty Tibetans are believed to have self-immolated since then, most of them either former or current Buddhist monks & nuns. © Copyright 2007 Seth Butler. http://www.sethbutler.com
Tibetan Buddhism in the Social Landscape
Excerpt from Human Rights Watch China World Report 2012:
The situation in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and the neighboring Tibetan autonomous areas of Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan province, remained tense in 2011 following the massive crackdown on popular protests that swept the plateau in 2008. Chinese security forces maintain a heavy presence and the authorities continue to tightly restrict access and travel to Tibetan areas, particularly for journalists and foreign visitors. Tibetans suspected of being critical of political, religious, cultural, or economic state policies are targeted on charges of “separatism.”
The government continues to build a “new socialist countryside” by relocating and rehousing up to 80 percent of the TAR population, including all pastoralists and nomads.
The Chinese government has given no indication it would accommodate the aspirations of Tibetan people for greater autonomy, even within the narrow confines of the country’s autonomy law on ethnic minorities’ areas. It has rejected holding negotiations with the new elected leader of the Tibetan community in exile, Lobsang Sangay, and warned that it would designate the next Dalai Lama itself.
In August Sichuan authorities imposed heavy prison sentences on three ethnic Tibetan monks from the Kirti monastery for assisting another monk who self-immolated in protest in March. Ten more Tibetan monks and one nun had self-immolated through mid-November, all expressing their desperation over the lack of religious freedom.
Excerpt from a JAN. 24, 2012 Statement by the Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues Maria Otero:
…I am gravely concerned by reports of violence and continuing heightened tensions in Tibetan areas of China, including reports of security forces in Sichuan province opening fire on protesters, killing some and injuring others.
These reports follow the self-immolation of four Tibetans earlier this month, bringing the number of reported self-immolations by Tibetans to 16—mostly monks and former monks, and two nuns—since March 2011…
…these policies include dramatically expanded Chinese government controls on religious life and practice; ongoing “patriotic education” campaigns within monasteries that require monks to denounce the Dalai Lama; the permanent placement of Chinese officials in monasteries; increasingly intensive surveillance, arbitrary detentions and disappearances of Tibetans; and restrictions on and imprisonment of some families and friends of self-immolators…
…We urge Chinese security forces to exercise restraint, and we renew our call to allow access to Tibetan areas of China for journalists, diplomats and other observers. We call on the Chinese government to resume substantive, results-oriented dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives to address the underlying grievances of China’s Tibetan population… READ MORE
examining our lives
An investigation of our human responsibilities commingles with a discussion of our daily perception of reality in the film Examined Life, a documentary which places some of today’s most influential thinkers in the day to day context of our world.
It takes tremendous discipline, it takes tremendous courage to think for yourself, to examine yourself…
—Cornel West
The film includes Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor.
