Life, driven by the projects that sustain it

This has been a think­ing vaca­tion. We’re here on our annual pil­grim­age to Chau­tauqua, New York, and the Chau­tauqua Insti­tu­tion. It’s a place of learn­ing and inves­ti­ga­tion, teach­ing and debate. And last week, as it hap­pens, great introspection.

Each week here at Chau­tauqua is mea­sured in by a dif­fer­ent theme. Here’s the descrip­tion of last week, week 5, the first week of our time here:

Pic­ture This: Photography

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with Kodak and George East­man House, this week will cel­e­brate the his­tory of pho­tog­ra­phy, its con­tri­bu­tion to and rela­tion­ship with sur­round­ing cul­ture, its place in the art world, and its reflec­tion of tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tions that have reshaped the indus­try. We will meet pho­tog­ra­phers prac­tic­ing their craft, and SEE this nexus of art, sci­ence, cul­ture, biog­ra­phy, and history.

So, that’s the set-up. As a pho­tog­ra­pher, obvi­ously I have some inter­est in this stuff so I was look­ing for­ward to get­ting schooled by these whomever they invited to take the stage.

Steve McCurry. McCurry? This dude’s images have been danc­ing around in my head for as long as I can remem­ber. I felt like I was going to a job inter­view just sit­ting in the audi­ence. If you aren’t famil­iar with McCurry’s work, the image at right will hope­fully stir the mem­ory banks: Afghan Girl was a cover on Nat­Geo 25 years ago and sets the bar for iconic cul­tural por­trait work.

Ed Kashi. Kashi has been trav­el­ing the globe cap­tur­ing the tur­moil of world events for decades. Only in the most recent decade has he turned his cam­era on issues affect­ing our own coun­try; in one of his most pow­er­ful dis­plays, he played a short film of his work cov­er­ing the aging pop­u­la­tion in Amer­ica, a piece that evolved from his very per­sonal efforts to care for this aging father-in-law.

Mar­garet Geller. Geller has devoted the bet­ter part of her career as a sci­en­tist to tak­ing pic­tures of the uni­verse. The pho­tos from her team help to map the stars, to give us a bet­ter pic­ture of where we are in space, and per­haps of equal impor­tance, to fur­ther the devel­op­ment of wildly advanced elec­tron­ics in dig­i­tal photography.

I’ve been strug­gling with how to frame my own intro­spec­tion this week. These are remark­ably hum­ble peo­ple given what they do. I’m struck by this feel­ing that they have come to a level of inti­macy with their work that has sur­passed the short term results, the quick glance at the LCD screen on the back of the cam­era, to be sup­planted by the grander scope of their place in the world, and their role in report­ing on it through imagery.

Kashi told this story, talk­ing about shoot­ing in Iraq last year. A father approached him as he was ask­ing per­mis­sion to take a pic­ture of this fam­ily as they were strug­gling to buy food in a mar­ket. The father said, “why should I let you take my pic­ture? Ten years ago, a man was here just like you. This man said I should let him take my pic­ture because these pic­tures would help me change my life. It’s been ten years and my life hasn’t changed. Why should I let you take my pic­ture now?”

Kashi was stunned. After tak­ing a moment to col­lect him­self he said, “I’m not impor­tant. I’m here to take your pic­ture because what you’re going through is impor­tant. And if you don’t let guys like me tell your story through images, you’re going to loose the drum­beat of this issue. The world will lose the drum­beat of the issue. Your life might — or might not — change because of this one pic­ture. The one thing I can guar­an­tee is that if you don’t let us take your pic­ture, noth­ing will ever change at all.”

What peo­ple like Kashi and McCurry and Geller do so beau­ti­fully is illus­trate the incred­i­ble sim­plic­ity that get­ting up and going to work can have, if you are one of the lucky ones that has dis­cov­ered the path to best apply your unique skills to change, to bet­ter the world around you.

For me, it’s made me eval­u­ate the projects I take on, and those I don’t. It’s made me reflect on the clients with whom I part­ner. It’s made me dou­ble down on my own efforts to increase out­put on per­sonal projects — the things that are impor­tant to me-and-only-me — and apply my own voice to the sto­ries I’m pas­sion­ate about, crit­ics be damned.

We all have a role in this place, and a unique set of skills to sup­port it. Whether we’re copy­writ­ers or pho­tog­ra­phers or accoun­tants or plumbers, what we do has the power to change the lives of those around us. What I’ve learned from this week of dis­cus­sion: my job is to live up to the poten­tial of my own craft. Do you?