Interview With Eli Reed

I had the pleasure of meeting renowned photojournalist Eli Reed while teaching at the Maui Photo Festival. Eli is a Magnum Agency photographer and Olympus Visionary and has photographed everywhere from war zones to the White House. Photofocus is proud to have Eli Reed as our October interview subject.

1. Scott Bourne: Please tell me how and when you got into Photoshop.

ELI REED: I first got involved with Photoshop relatively late. I am fortunate enough to have my agency Magnum Photos or an assistant work on my images at the appropriate time. Recently I have come to realize that I have to enter the fray because my impatience in wanting the photographs to be realized in the manner of my choosing means I have to do it myself.

2. Scott Bourne: What is your favorite photographic location or subject?

ELI REED: My favorite photographic location is where the light is interesting to me. That pretty much is everywhere. I always have a camera with me all the time because I love shooting all the time.

3. Scott Bourne: Can you recall the first photograph you made that caused you to think WOW – that’s a good shot and if so, what was it?

ELI REED: The first photograph I remember that excited me was of a hot dog vender working out of a cart in downtown Newark, New Jersey. He was smoking a cigarette and gazing into the distance with a thoughtful expression on his face. It was the first photograph that I ever made of someone’s interior world.

4. Scott Bourne: Do you have any formal training in photography, Photoshop or a related field and do you think that’s important for aspiring serious photographers?

ELI REED: I am self taught but I had a wonderful mentor, Donald Greenhaus, who pointed me in the right direction I should go in. I believe that the more formal education you can receive, the better it will be for you if you have good teachers.

5. Scott Bourne: Are you more of a technical or an artistic person?

ELI REED: I am definitely more of an artistic person and have always been that way.

6. Scott Bourne: Who has inspired or influenced your work?

ELI REED: I have been inspired by many of the great artists in history such as Leonardo DaVinci, Monet, Rembrandt, etc. I’ve also been inspired by a number of photographers such as W. Eugene Smith, Gordon Parks, Ernst Haas, William Allard, Leonard Freed, Henri Cartier Bresson, and Alex Webb. These are just a few of the photographers who have influenced me in color and black and white photography.

7. Scott Bourne: What has been the most interesting or surprising thing to you about how people react to photography?

ELI REED: Many people believe that it is so easy that anyone can do it because of the ease of making images with modern day cameras and have no understanding about how difficult it is to make meaningful images.

8. Scott Bourne: How would you describe your style of photography?

ELI REED: I search for interesting images that intrigue, surprise, or inspire me in some way or another. I try to keep myself from photographically interfering with the content of the image. I, like anyone, will often fail but it just makes me work harder to make images that are interesting to me.

9. Scott Bourne: How do you decide what to photograph?

ELI REED: I basically try and get near the photograph so that it can take me.

10. Scott Bourne: Of your many projects, which is your favorite and why?

ELI REED: My favorite project is and will always be my next project. Some projects are short in duration and others take years to complete but I am always looking toward possible ones for the future.

11. Scott Bourne: Is there any photographic discipline that you wish you knew more about?

ELI REED: More and more, I find myself looking for the time to learn and master Aperture and Photoshop in order to have more control of my images. I also wish I could have gotten some experience with an 8X10 inch camera.

12. Scott Bourne: After all these years as a photographer/teacher and author, do you ever find it hard to remain passionate about your work?

ELI REED: I will always be passionate about making interesting photographs. I live for that always.

13. Scott Bourne: Everyone will ask me why I didn’t ask this question if I don’t – so here goes – What cameras/lenses do you use and why?

ELI REED: I mostly use Olympus DSLR cameras and lenses because I prefer the color resolution of the lenses along with a number of other aspects that I like including the speed of the lenses which are often smaller then what you would expect. I have used Olympus cameras since covering Central America and Beirut in the eighties. I use the Olympus E-3, E-30, EP-1 (I always have this new camera with me at all times now because of its size and what it does) with 14-42mm, 12-60mm F2.8/4, 7-14mm F4, 14-35mm F2, 100mm F2, 35-100mm F2, 150mm F2, and 50-200mm F2.8/3.5.

14. Scott Bourne: What’s the biggest mistake you made when you first started out as a photographer?

ELI REED: I wished I had jumped into photography earlier but I would have had difficulty in getting any kind of useful camera to work with. I didn’t have any money and my father didn’t either but I believed somewhere deep inside I should have found a way. Perhaps that is why I often feel that I am still trying to catch up with myself.

15. Scott Bourne: Would you like to give any final words of advice to photographers who want to improve their photography?

ELI REED: Please stop talking about it and start shooting it until you run out of space either on your card or analog film. It is easy to try and talk a photo into existence and it won’t be very good. I have watched so many beginning photographers try and do that only to fail because they never made the commitment to fully work at the craft of making photographs that mean something. Without the commitment – there is the zero of the perfectly boring image boring the hell out you. If you start shooting for the enjoyment of exploring the light with your camera, you are already ahead.

You can find out more about Eli here. Thanks Eli for agreeing to be part of the Photofocus interview.

Alex Meraz: From Wolf To Vamp

In an awesome new photoshoot, Alex Meraz gets to show his vampire side! LA Confidential has all the info.

 THIS FALL MTV debuts the new reality series Styl’d, in which young, aspiring stylists work for famed celebrity stylists—Jen Rade, Eric Archibald and Julie Weiss—as they vie for a contract with Los Angeles’ renowned Margaret Maldonado Agency. As is par for the reality- show course, there will be backstabbing, hookups and plenty of daunting challenges in which each cast member tries to prove his or her innate styling abilities. During the months of filming, one of the challenges was an editorial fashion shoot with Los Angeles Confidential, featuring The Twilight Saga: New Moon actor Alex Meraz. On the following pages, see the hauntingly beautiful shoot that took place at the Grand View Cemetery in Glendale as part of the show. Make sure to tune into Los Angeles Confidential’s episode when it premieres and catch the much-anticipated second film in the Twilight series when it hits big screens next month. We think you’ll agree when you look at the stunning photos that it’s truly “scary” how much talent these young stylists have.       

See all the cool pics HERE!

Gisela Hoyle

Poet and novelist Gisela Hoyle was born in Barkly-West, in the Northern Cape of South Africa.

She attended Kimberley Girls High School and graduated with an M.A in English from Rhodes University.

She taught at Rhodes University and then at various schools in South Africa.

Currently, she lives and works in the UK .

The White Kudu (Picnic Publishing, 2010) is her first novel.

Related resources:
Interview
[Interview] Gisela Hoyle, author of ‘The White Kudu’ Conversations with Writers, October 3, 2009

[Interview] ‘I don’t know how music can be Christian music. If someone covers our music, won’t it still be a Christian song?’

At the back of a dark room filled with 19 musicians we find Josh Scogin checking his mails. Far from home, yet he doesn’t miss anything but his toothbrush. ‘We’re now a few days in our tour and I still haven’t been able to buy myself a new one. ’ Brushing his teeth with his fingers, he starts about his albums and music, and his odd way of pulling everything in contradictions.

‘I don’t strife for long titles. I do make sure that every single title has purpose and meaning.’ You apparently said this not that long after the release of your first album.
Josh Scogin: The first album’s title is pretty much just breaking away from all the dying and bleeding. I had basically reached a sort of time in my life when I thought that every music put out in the heavy genre was so negative. So almost in some satirical way I wanted to do the complete opposite. Everything is alive, everything is breathing. Nothing is dead, and nothing is bleeding is the perfect example of that.

Your first album had pretty long song titles. Your second displayed a poem when reading the first eight tracks through. How do you come up with such things?
Josh: Well. I don’t know. They sort of make themselves. The Fiancée started as simple as a little remark by our bassist. It’s some folklore thing which was about to be just one title. But at the time I didn’t want to do that all over again. So I made it a change for myself to not do the same and we broke it up in different titles. We put the songs under the titles and not the other way around.

You therefore matched the lyrics to the titles so it would fit. The lyrics made whatever the title should be.
Josh: every song title just sort of stands apart. It’s not something you plan in advance to call this song like this and another one like that. The Fiancée was the cornerstone of the whole album. When we came with these titles, the whole album just built itself up. One line after another contradicts itself. It’s everywhere, even in the lyrics. One line contradicts the next, or there might be a twist in the plot. It all sort of builds on each other. And we could just watch the pieces fall in place.

It also made the cover as well.
Josh: I told the guy who’d do the artwork about the whole contradiction thing and he had the great idea of putting in old pictures, so old that they couldn’t have had technology in there. Yet at our version of the pictures, we put in little technological things, having contradictions all over.

‘Creating something out of nothing is a basic concept of art.’
Josh: where did you hear that one? But it’s true. You always take something that doesn’t exist. It can be literally nothing or a pile of junk when you first see it. But then you go and create something with it. We take songs that don’t exist and we write them and make them. If it doesn’t match the eventual record, we drop them. Imagining and putting a piece of yourself together with whatever other things you’ve found is what art is.

Then even your music is a piece of unique art. Do you plan on making a certain kind of music? Or do you make whatever you want and see at the end what it eventually became?
Josh: People have a need to classify everything. They even tell us we’re metal, but we’re not. We’ve toured with metal bands, but that’s something completely different and doesn’t make us the same. It’s more like the punk rock genre. They also do what they want to do. There’s no set pattern and we can expand our boundaries. Making sure everyone knows we do what we want to do.

As a perfect example: you used a guitar riff from Nirvana, had a song with harmonicas on it and invited Hayley (Williams from Paramore) to be featured on your album. Those are three completely different things.
Josh: The Nirvana riff was more of an homage than anything. We could have used any riff but we figured that short riff would be enough. Then one day, Aaron Weiss from Mewithoutyou appeared to be around when we were recording and I thought it was pretty hilarious to have such a lyrical genius featured on our record in a way nobody would expect. So he grabbed his harmonica and played. I can tell you he’s actually not even an amazing player.

The Nirvana riff is hard to notice and the harmonica thing is just hilarious. But with the rising popularity of Hayley and her band Paramore, it could even be seen as a promotional stunt to have her featured.
Josh: Absolutely not. Hayley is just a friend of ours who we invited to the studio. There was a part on the album we wanted to do something different with. To let the listeners hear something else than just my voice. I bet that after about eight songs you’ve heard the best of me and you want something else for a change. To contradict my voice we wanted something pretty with notes and an actual melody. Raspy screaming contradicts Hayley’s singing voice. In the beginning we never thought lets have this, this and this. Just ride the train and go with it.

You’re a Christian band, Paramore’s not. Do your beliefs influence your music a lot?
Josh: As with any great art you take what’s inside of you and you put it out into the world. It’ll be part of you and represent who you are. Come out as yours. I don’t try to make others feel uncomfortable. I just talk about my experiences and my life and I’m not forcing anything upon others.

To the Europeans the Christiancore label is something typically American. We don’t have many religious bands out here.
Josh: Well, I don’t know if it’s American, I don’t know the genre either. (smiles) I think the media spins it like that. I don’t know how music can be Christian music. If someone covers our music, won’t it still be a Christian song? I don’t know. I never understood that. But it seems people have to have their titles. It’s not hardcore, it is post-hardcore-metal. Whatever man, it’s just music. To me it’s heavy or not heavy and I think we fit in the heavy part.

Labeling is common. Everyday people invent new names distinguish them from the others.
Josh: I’m a Christian but it’s not that we hear other people’s beliefs through their music. There’s not something like Buddhist pop. (laughs) The media just noticed we shared our beliefs. But it doesn’t affect me personally. If people want to label me like that, they can. Although I’ll never understand how a set of notes and chords can be anti-or pro-Christ.

The Chariot on MySpace

Layoffs Denied in Omaha, Nebraska?

  

The 50 Over 50 Project is a “community of career coaching” for 50 people over the age of 50 over a 50-week period.

 

Yesterday in Omaha, Nebraska a hi-tech company did a round of layoffs. While people getting the axe is far from new news these days, this firm had a history of fast growth, steady employment, and long tenure.  So this event is a shock to our community and an even bigger shock to those who were cut. Some of those layoff victims fit the demographical focus of this blog–they were over 50. Many had been with their firm for a long, long time. 

Their pressing question then is:  

What does a long-term employee, who is on the older side, who may have a narrow skill set for their local market, who maybe hasn’t kept up with newer technology, and who has above average earnings, DO NOW? 

The answers are many so we’ll address things over the next several posts. 

The first thing which might help these laid off Omaha folks is to realize their situation has some similarities to cancer. I have been very close to cancer’s worst impact so I am not trivializing it. And, I admit few people DIE from being laid off. So what is the similarity? It is this: How victims react.     

Here are the “Stages of Grief,” from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ book, “On Death and Dying:”

• Denial (this isn’t happening to me!)
• Anger (why is this happening to me?)
• Bargaining (I promise I’ll be a better person if…)
• Depression (I don’t care anymore)
• Acceptance (I’m ready for whatever comes)

Do you see how these grief-related steps have heavy overlap for a person who has just been laid off and is nearly frightened to death? 

If you do, tell others who might benefit about these steps so they can start their process of “vocational healing.”

I’ve been laid off many times and have interviewed or led seminars with hundreds of others who have also been cut. So, our next few posts will explore this “teachable moment” we have right here in River City. Circle the wagons with your laid off neighbors or friends and we’ll work through these phases together…

As always, PLEASE offer your thoughts to keep this a ”community of career advice.”

Paul David Madsen
Author: Laid Off & Loving It For 2010

 

 

Class of 2k9 Author Interview: Lauren Bjorkman

Lucky us! Class of 2k9er Lauren Bjorkman is hanging out at Shelf Elf today, celebrating her awesome debut, My Invented Life. Every minute of her book is a romp. Every minute of her book made me happy. Welcome Lauren!

If you had to sell My Invented Life to a potential teen reader in two sentences or less, what would you say?

Ack! I hate selling anything—trauma from trying to unload newspaper subscriptions in middle school. That said, here’s my attempt:

If you have a sister that drives you crazy, if you’ve ever dreamed of being on stage, if you enjoy cursing in Shakespearean, if you’ve ever kept a secret, read this book.

Tell us about your journey to publication and the moment you learned your book would become a book.

The first step was all about overcoming fear. What if I had nothing worthwhile to say? But after I finally dared to write and finish a novel, I was hooked. Still, it took a few years of tapping away on my computer, getting critique, and going to workshops to learn the craft. During that time, I submitted my first (yet unpublished) novel to editors.

Later, after writing a second novel, I moved onto querying agents. In the midst of preparing my submission, a happy event shortened the process. I took a novel writing course taught by an author and MFA instructor. He referred me to his agent based on the piece I brought to his workshop. And his agent wanted to represent me.

A few months later, Henry Holt offered on my book. I think I hyperventilated because the whole memory has a dream-like quality. After I hung up with my agent, I paced around my house, calling family and friends who’d supported me over the years (the ones who kept their questions as to why I kept writing after so many rejections themselves). Thankfully, we live in the era of cordless phones, or I would’ve tied myself up.

Best writing advice for aspiring authors: To thine ownself be true.
Best cure for writer’s block: Sit down and write anything, even if it’s tripe and entrails. Eventually something good will come out of you.
Best snack while writing: Things that go crunch—popcorn, nuts, tortilla chips, even carrots. And large doses of chocolate for when you’re feeling blue. I feel very sorry for writers who don’t like chocolate.

Tell us about your writing process. Do you outline? Are you a post-it person? Do you have any secret writing tricks that are “uniquely Lauren”?

Usually one idea keeps coming back to me—sort of like a haunting—and I go with it. After that, I begin to imagine my main character. I love to people watch, so the spark for my protagonist often starts with an incident I observe. In the case of Roz, the incident happened at a craft fair. A (very tall) young woman crossed the street to join a group. She danced, flung her arms around, talked animatedly, and then bounced away like an overgrown Labrador. After she left, some of her friends shook their heads and whispered, as if to say. “What was that?” Thus Roz—the one girl tornado—was born.

I’ve never successfully used an outline. This translates into beaucoup revising. Not that I haven’t tried outlining, but it sucks all the joy out of writing for me. As I get ideas for character and plot, I scribble them down on bits of paper I happen to have handy. Later, I transcribe my “notes” at the end of the manuscript. Recently, when I sent the second draft of my work-in-progress to my agent, I forgot to delete these notes. She wrote back, very puzzled about my “ending.” Oops.

One of many things about your book that I loved was the wonderfully rich cast of characters. There are so many cool and complicated people on these pages. Come on… who’s your favourite? (Or if you can’t bear to pick, who do you find the most interesting or who could you imagine taking centre stage in another novel?)

I worship Eyeliner Andie for many reasons. She’s quiet, but unapologetic about who she is. She sews fishnet stockings under the holes in her jeans. Her mysterious nature and prickly temperament are a bit scary, which I like. She forces Roz to really think. In the end, she’s a good friend.

Roz is perfectly cast as Rosalind in As You Like It. If you could cast in her other plays, Shakespearean or otherwise, what roles do you imagine would be perfect for her?

Roz would choose Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing for her witty banter and the intrigue. I think she’d avoid any goodie-two-shoes type roles. Adelaide, the gambler’s girlfriend in Guys and Dolls, maybe. Or Conrad in Bye Bye Birdie, as long as she could look attractive. And she would want to direct the Laramie Project, of course.

I noticed in your acknowledgments that you thanked Taos High drama students for letting you sit in on their rehearsals. How much if any of this made it into your novel? How did getting a sneak peek into a real high school drama group at work help you out?

In high school, I was a part-time theater geek by association. I didn’t dare try out for anything, but sometimes sat in on rehearsals to watch my friends. When I started writing My Invented Life, I thought the drama crowd might be different now. Going to the Taos High rehearsals proved that things hadn’t changed much. Still, it helped to see it all with fresh eyes. It reminded me how hard everyone works to make a play happen. And how nervous the actors are under all the bravado. One girl on the sidelines kept saying another girl’s lines for her. I used this in my story. And I borrowed an incident involving contraband gum.

I’d love to eavesdrop on a group of teen readers talking about My Invented Life. If you could do that, what are some of the discussion topics / themes you’d hope to overhear?

It would be great if they were talking about what made them laugh and the parts they loved.

But I also hope they would discuss our (human) tendency to label everyone. When it comes to sexual orientation, many women I know don’t fit the obvious categories. What do you call a woman who’s married to a man, but had a “lesbian phase” in college? Or someone who is essentially straight, but has occasional crushes on someone of the same sex?

And I hope they’d talk about the kinds of secrets we keep from each other, and when it’s helpful or harmful to do this.

What’s up next for Lauren Bjorkman, author extraordinaire?

I’m revising my next teen novel, Miss Fortune Cookie. It’s the story of friendship and an advice blog gone awry, with fake IDs, Mini Coopers, teen pregnancy, and fortune cookies.

I cannot resist… what is the best Shakespearean insult you know?

There are so many to choose from! I especially appreciate the weird ones:

You embossed carbuncle!
You mad mustachioed purple hued maltworm!

But then again, it can be pleasing to insult people so they understand what you’re saying:

You foul indigested lump of stale mouse-eaten cheese!

Note: When applying insults to bad drivers, it’s best to mutter under your breath to avoid unnecessary physical violence.

For more cursing fun try:

this

Thanks, Kerry!

Thank you Lauren! Now readers, get out there and get your hands on a copy of Lauren’s book. You won’t be disappointed.

time time time

I am lacking many things at this point of my life, but time is not one of them.  How does an unemployed recent grad spend her days, probably doing the same as other unemployed people.  I email resumes, and if I am lucky some of those will garner a phone interview, or even an in person interview.

During the rest of the day I read about SEO, local news, and everything in between.  Just like employed people when I need a break I go to Facebook or Twitter.  I have become adept at finding all the FREE things to do around LA – movies, art openings, hair cuts (low cost).  It is difficult at times for someone used to working to be unemployed, but as long as I have the time I try to learn as much as possible and interact with friends online and offline.