savannah photographic workshop

Robert Capa supposedly said, “If your pictures aren’t strong enough, you’re not close enough.” While the phrase might have reached cliche status through repetition, it is still no less true. Most photographs suffer from too much information. (I know you were anxious to have my opinion on that.)

Plein air painting and street photography have some things in common–leaving the comfort and control of a studio, and focusing on ordinary, pedestrian subjects, but there is one fundamental, foundational difference, and I’m making no argument for either being superior, just different. Painting is additive. One starts with blank paper or canvas or …, and adds elements to build the composition.

Photography is subtractive. One starts with a given scene or situation and has to find ways to eliminate everything non-essential in that scene. A big first step (pardon the pun) is to get closer.

For more of Bill”s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index/all

We left our bush camp pre-dawn for an early morning game drive. As the black sky became orange, we could see where the sun would break the horizon. There was this Acacia tree just standing there doing nothing. Sometimes a photograph is a gift from the universe.

Of course, you have to be there when it happens, and you have to see it in time to catch it, but other than that, nothing to it.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

Borneo is the third largest island in the world. Politically it consists of portions of Malaysia and Indonesia, and all of Brunei. It is also one of the only two places in the world to find orangutans in the wild.

Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice.” I’m more inclined to think it is “detrimental” rather than such an absolutist position as “fatal,” but I do think it offers perspective, if you seek it.

There are many and varied reasons for traveling. An important one for me is the expectation that I will see something that I am unlikely to see at home.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

This is a view from my front porch. It doesn’t always look like this, of course. You would need rain, and oak re-leafing season when the leaves on the ground are so thick you could ski if they were snow flakes. And it’s been a while since the City planted this luscious tulip array. I’m sure that is at least partly a budget issue. Having gone through four City budget workshops, I’m well aware of the difficulty trying to fund everything, and that priorities must be set.

This also is my favorite time of day in downtown Savannah. In the mid 60’s, as a staff photographer for the Savannah Morning News/Evening Press, I noticed that starting around 5 PM and lasting until about 7 PM, downtown acquired a quiet stillness, as if the City had collectively taken a breath, and then held it. Back then that was largely due to the end of the work day and everyone emptying out of downtown, and then, exhaling, the City began evening social and civic activities after supper.

It’s been a while since we were that small town, and downtown doesn’t empty out anymore; quite the opposite. But I still feel that pause in the late afternoon, sitting in the square with the dog, and maybe a neighbor or two. And more times than not there is pretty or interesting light filtering through the trees and defining the old homes, and it feels like I have fallen into a fairy tale.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

In an A.I. world, the pleasure of a simple irony, found and photographed, will be diminished. Oh well.

Why did several generations who grew up on the Magic of Hollywood, from early Disney to CGI, ever presume any image was documentary to begin with? And all efforts to control A.I. will be modest, and ultimately fail, because technology always outruns regulation and, sometimes, evolution.

This photograph, however, is a real scene. I was driving through the Blue Ridge and Smokies, playing with one of the early (new then) point and shoot digital cameras (a little over a whopping 1 megapixel) as I made my way home from a company meeting in Virginia, and saw this along the road. The only changes I’ve made to the image are to trim some blank sky and parking lot off the top and bottom, add a little contrast and sharpening, and a black border. Trust me.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

The Marquis de Sade as a theme for a cafe seems odd to me. Maybe they have a wonderful menu, you order something that sounds really good, and then they show it to you from a distance but refuse to serve you?

Some years ago I use to drive I-95 down the Georgia coast into Florida regularly, for work, and there were billboards along the highway advertising a topless breakfast cafe, apparently a strip club’s efforts to expand their business. I was a little curious, and considered stopping a couple of times, but could never contort the mix of eggs, bacon, toast, and titillation into something that wasn’t off-putting, or just sad, and it seemed unlikely they would let me photograph there. On a recent drive to Jacksonville, I noticed the billboards are gone.

In Prague, the de Sade cafe around the corner was pretty bland looking. Maybe it was a disguise for a backroom with alternate menus, but I thought their ad here was a nice cross-marketing effort, placed between a head shop and a lingerie store.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

We were in the Lake District for part of the photography trip/workshop, and our busload of students, staff, and instructors had all piled into the lobby of our “home” for the next few days, along with all photo gear and personal luggage. While waiting for everyone to get their room assignment and key, I decided to take care of business in the lobby Men’s Room.

As soon as I stepped in, I saw this and immediately stepped back into the lobby, grabbed my camera, and hustled back into the Men’s Room. I suspect a couple of eyebrows may have been raised, but sometimes you just know a picture is a photograph, even if you can’t explain it.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

“No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.” Dr. David Livingston

The Falls are at least as spectacular as you may have heard. The Zambezi River is the dividing line between Zambia (on the right here) and Zimbabwe. About five miles above the Falls the river channel starts widening, a little like a river delta, and calmly (deceptively) winding around small islands until it finds the gorge and tumbles in thunderously, then to follow an eroded meandering channel, on through Mozambique, and into the Indian Ocean.

There is a walking path on the ridge line opposite the Falls, and the views are worth the continuous shower from the mists billowing up, but for a photographer it was a little frustrating. I could not find an angle that came close to showing the volume and power of the flowing water, and even when I did see a potential shot, the ebb and flow of the heavy mist-clouds always obscured some portion of the scene.

We took the boat ride on the river above the Falls, but, as pleasant as it was for a way to enjoy a sunny afternoon, obviously there is no Falls photo from above the gorge, unless you go too close to the edge. No thank you. I quit thinking that holding a camera made me invincible sometime in my 30’s, a very long time ago.

For getting something close to a comprehensive view, a helicopter did the trick, but with little feel for the thunder, the pounding reverberating through your body, in your bones, when facing the cataract, soaking wet; an aural battering negating any other sound or sensation.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

One of the great pleasures of photography for me is fleeting, found images. It’s the challenge of not only seeing possibilities converging, but reacting fast enough to catch the shot: getting the right camera position, lens, exposure settings, the peak moment; all done more with fluid muscle memory than conscious thought. It’s my version of sport hunting.

I had a free day before our workshop started and spent hours just walking the city, from breakfast until after midnight. Several times I stepped into a shop to ask for directions and was usually encouraged to catch a cab. Maybe Romans don’t walk, but it was easy, like Paris, and it was the best way to experience the place, even the hazardous pedestrian crossings on some of the busy roundabouts.

Going back to the same location several times during the day (Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, The Forum) offered different takes as the light moved and redrew the description of the spaces, plus, in the morning, local foot traffic; later in the day, tourist hordes multiplied by lots of tacky trinket street vendors; late at night, lovers. My favorites: The Forum for people watching, and Galleria Borghese. I could sit and study Bernini sculptures for hours. I am in awe of how he could create flesh and flexing muscle tone under clothing, from stone.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted….” Ecclesiastes 3, 1-2; King James version (or The Byrds if you prefer)

Savannah has an extensive urban forest, dominated by old oak trees. These trees have survived wars and hurricanes, the invention of the automobile and the airplane (and help protect us from some of the side effects of that). Many of them were planted when it would have taken less than 30 minutes to walk across the City, a city that is now over 100 square miles in area.

So, it is not frequent, but not surprising to spot the sad green tag, an obituary, posted on a tree, informing a neighborhood that damage, disease, or just age requires the City to safely remove it. I understand, I accept, but for a while, walking through that square, I will see the gap and have a visceral sense of something elemental missing.

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” Greek proverb.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index