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Could there be a photo-columnist? This week on the National Press Photographers Internet discussion list there has been a lively discussion thread about whether certain equipment influences a photographer’s "vision." The first of the year must be an idealistic time because a thread similar to this this gave me an idea two years ago that has since seriously changed the way I look at my photography and my career. The thread at the start of 1997 was also about "vision" - whether photojournalists could adopt a personal point of view and still remain objective observers. Photographer Greg Mironchuck wisely pointed out that a writer at a newspaper with a point of view was called a columnist.
The idea caught my imagination. I liked the idea of one photo a week that was all my own. Since I can write, I would not have to rely on a reporter for assignments. And I thought that after all my blabberings on the Internet that it was time to put up or shut up. I stepped away from the modem and started pitching the idea to the editors.
As the column has developed, I’ve tried to make photos that are perhaps off-beat or quirky and certainly not what I would normally shoot on assignment. For this feature, the photography comes first so I follow whichever direction opportunity leads me to find an interesting image. I’ve learned many things while meeting the artists and entertainers who are in A&E Gallery. I’ve also learned something about myself and my work.
I’ve also learned that when you take a personal approach, not everyone will like it. Although the feedback I get is vastly supportive, I have gotten phone calls and letters from people quite angry with my work. The problems come most often when they don’t understand that the feature is not "artist-of-the-week." I’ve come to understand that creative, dedicated, passionate artists have many things in common, even if they work in different disciplines. They all talk about the "essence" of their mediums and of personal work. They also talk about the difficulty of making a living and the constant desire to create their art. I realized that, without planning it, I was prepared for this kind of assignment. My father is a painter and I grew up around a studio. For 10 years I’ve covered theater and dance - both areas my wife studied in college. I played trumpet in jazz and symphonic groups as a kid and I minored in English so I could read literature for credit. This background doesn’t make me an expert in anything but it does give me enough of a background to recognize the things that are special to a life in the arts. And for the first time in my career, I have a true body of work rather than just a diverse, strong portfolio. Each of the photos from Gallery relates to another and as a group, they seem to have message. A photo-driven column is an idea I wish was more common. Any photographer could adopt the format but instead of copying the work of another photographer - something that’s very easy to do with other photo projects - the photographers would have to develop their own vision. Photojournalism would become more diverse and photographers would be known for their own unique approaches.
I think about this advice and smile when I remember the prototype stages of A&E Gallery. We hadn’t come up with a name for the feature and the design director kept calling it "Burtonville." We’d all laugh but I was nervous about taking that big of a risk with the name. After all, that would be waaaaaay out there. But I see that the feature, in some ways, has become Burtonville. It’s the things I’m interested in and a place for me to publicly muse on the process of art and the workings of creativity. It’s the kind of stories I would cover every day if I didn’t have a newspaper job that still required me to shoot mug shots of frying pans, burned out cars and people-on-the sofa portraits. By trying to make a different kind of photo once a week, I’m wondering if at my center, I might not be a photojournalist after all. But I know I’m lucky to have both a newspaper job and this assignment once a week. The column is a kind of raft that’s built stick-by-stick and week-by-week. It helps keeps my idealism afloat. Tom Burton |
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Tom
Burton
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Contributor
since 1998
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Behind
the Viewfinder - A Year in the Life of Photojournalism |
