Yesterday afternoon, author, photography futurist, and professor Fred Ritchin challenged me (and others) to recall any iconic images since 9/11 that weren’t celebrity-related.  I couldn’t do it.  Millions of images are generated around the globe every hour – Jimmy Colton at Sports Illustrated told us he reviews 10,000 images each day – but try to bring to mind ONE image representing the war in Afghanistan.  Or Iraq.  Or Iran.  Say “Vietnam” and the images immediately appear in your head.  “Civil Rights movement.”  I bet we’ve got the same pictures in mind. 

So why is it in an era of instant communication via images, we don’t have that shared visual history? Has not enough time passed to declare the icons?  Are we not keeping news magazines on our coffee tables for a week or more, causing the picture to get seared into our gray matter?  Are we scanning online too quickly, or do the images move too fast on the television screen?  I’m told by the experts here that there are just as many photojournalists out there taking photos as there were in past years – yet the images we MAY recall are cell phone images and videos, like that of Iranian teenager Neda.  

Fred contends that journalists are not providing us with reference points –that there are fewer and fewer images that explain to us how the world works.

Fred Ritchin speaking at the Hall of Philosophy.

 His students, he points out, tell him that CNN and the New York Times aren’t needed in a world where we can all upload our own images to flickr. But try to learn about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by typing “New Orleans” into the search field on flickr, and you’ll find scores of images of young people partying in the French Quarter.  Ritchin contends that we’ve moved from “a consideration of life to a consideration of ‘me’” – that there are so many images we can no longer see outside of ourselves. 

Hyperbolic?  Alarmist?  I’m not so sure.  I’ve spent the last 12 hours or so thinking about this, and also about something David Friend said yesterday.  David is Editor of Creative Development at Vanity Fair , and author of the book Watching the World Change:  The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11.” Yesterday he asked the question, “What would be different if 9/11 happened today?” Can you imagine the proliferation of twitter feeds, youtube videos, and photos on flickr that would have emanated from inside the towers?

That’s what I went to sleep thinking about last night. 

 David Friend listening to a 9/11 story

So this morning’s talk by Billy Collins, former poet laureate of the United States, about the relationship between photographs and poetry, provided much needed lighter moments. 

Why, you ask, end a week on photography with a lecture by a poet?  Well, Billy Collins connected the dots for us all.    

Poems slow time down.  Photographs manage to stop time.  Poetry asks us to come back to a metronomic slowness, but images are lifted out of a stream of time. 

Photography is silent.  Poetry wants to talk.  The power of the photograph is its silence – the strange quieting of the noise and commotion of life, whether it be the powerful silence of a western landscape, or the personal silence of Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother. 

According to Billy, you can choose not to read a poem, or to stop reading a poem, but you can’t stop the green-eyed Afghan girl from coming into your head. 

 Eastman House Director Tony Bannon and Billy Collins on stage in the amphitheatre at Chautauqua Institution.

Billy Collins started his talk by stating that he’s a bad photographer, as he found himself taking a picture of overturned colorful kayaks, which he realized was actually a picture he’d seen before.  Hmm.  Took this one this morning before hearing him…guess i am a photo plagiarist, too!

Today marks the 82nd Anniversary of the now famous Kodacolor party,  in which George Eastman and Thomas Edison announced “home movies in color” to the world.

One of the more frequently asked questions at the George Eastman House is about the relationship between Eastman and Edison. Were they friends or just business associates? Answering the question usually includes a description of the July 30, 1928 Kodacolor party— as it is one of the major press events both attended.

Eastman regularly used his own home and garden as a site for major press announcements but this was one of the grandest he ever orchestrated. Everyone who was anyone in the media at the time and scientists, educators and community leaders were invited to George Eastman’s Terrace garden to learn about his company’s new product Kodacolor (the first amateur color home movie system).

Eastman and Edison, who collaborated on the invention of motion picture film, stood side-by-side in the Terrace Garden filming their guests during the event. After dinner, screens were erected and the new Kodacolor images shot earlier that day were projected. The impact of the screening made headlines around the world. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, click here to roll it again!

Day Four and I’m starting to understand what this place is all about.  The Chautauqua Institution is a kind of cruise ship on land for smart, interested people.  Each of nine weeks in the summer has a theme – this week’s, of course, is photography, and Museum Director Tony Bannon has designed the morning amphitheatre lecture series as well as the afternoon interfaith lecture program on ethics.  But it’s not just people who are interested in photography that are here.

Since the Chautauqua Institution began more than 120 years ago, people have gathered here to explore, discuss, learn, appreciate, and be moved to action.  Some come for the entire summer, some for just one week.  There are scads of fifth and sixth generation Chautauquans – it’s clear this place gets in your DNA quickly.  And I’m guessing that once you start spending your off-time in this kind of retreat, nothing else quite compares. 

There is an insatiable curiosity here.  Every lecture, every talk, every performance, every event seems filled to capacity.  This morning astrophysicist Margaret Geller spoke about using photography to map the universe, and the audience was rapt.   She closed her talk with the following statement, which just about sums up why Eastman House is a partner here this week:

“The images we make are a measure of the reach of our curiosity – of our ability to ask remarkable questions.  Even more remarkable is that we can answer them by taking photographs.” 

This seems to sum up the Chautauqua experience,too.  Exploring our universe.  Asking questions.  Searching for answers.  And at least for this week, using photographs as a tool for understanding. 

 Chautauqua also seems to be about recognizing and appreciated the gifts that make our world better…the arts, education, culture, the beauty of nature. So, in the spirit of Chautauqua, here’s a little photo essay of what some of us have been able to experience here in just the past 24 hours! 

Walkways of ChautauquaCurator of Technology Todd Gustavson speaking at an early morning chat on cameras in the Eastman House collection.

Crowd gathering and then taking a ‘Colorama’ image in Bestor PlazaAttendees at Wednesday’s talk by Sports Illustrated Picture Editor Jimmy Colton looking at the illustrations for the talk in photo books created by Kodak. 

Part of the Eastman House display of cameras here at Chautauqua this week.

Eastman Young Professional Rachel Pikus and Eliza Kozlowski, Director of Communications and Visitor Engagement for Eastman House, share a moment with the Babe.

purple martin houses….these, combined with bat houses, keep the mosquito population at almost nil.

looking at Chautauqua Lake at sunrise

Margaret Geller sharing photographs of galaxies.

More later….great speakers this afternoon that I’ll be anxious to share with you. 

I’m a film girl.  I say this shyly, quietly, but pointedly.  Aesthetically, I love the look of film.

But three weeks ago I bought a digital camera for the first time in my life.  I am now hooked on its simplicity, ease, and instant gratification.   And to think I have Steve Sasson to thank for it.

Yes, Steve Sasson.  Not a household name like Thomas Edison or George Eastman.  But at least the 3,000 plus attendees at this morning’s amphitheatre talk at Chautauqua now know it.  Steve and his wife have been in Chautauqua all week, which has given me an opportunity to think a bit about the impact of Steve’s work.  How different this Week on Photography would be if Steve had not pursued this rather small and secretive project at the Eastman Kodak Company during the 1970’s.

Steve Sasson during his lecture this morning

The who’s who in photography here in Chautauqua are fully aware of how digital technology has transformed their work in one way or another.   And I’m not just talking about Steve McCurry and Ed Kashi, photojournalists who transitioned from film to digital many years ago, and whose clients insist on digital capture.

Commercial photographer Ross Whitaker is here giving portfolio reviews and teaching courses in how to take great photographs.  Not sure anyone who brought photographs for Ross to review uses film….and no one in his class brought a film camera.  Ross’s own work now incorporates multimedia digital elements of movement and sound.

Ross Whitaker taking a picture of George Eastman House Director Tony Bannon

Jeff Dunas, fine art photographer and founder of the Palm Springs Photo Festival, arrives this afternoon…I’ve talked to Jeff about this digital transformation previously — he shoots digitally for commercial work but uses film for his fine art. (I’m not the only one who loves the aesthetic of film!)

Jimmy Colton, long-time Picture Editor for Sports Illustrated is here talking about faux-tography, and while Jimmy cites darkroom examples of manipulating images, there’s no question that photo manipulation has become more pervasive with the digital revolution, raising interesting ethical questions about truth in photography.  Jimmy’s work as a Picture Editor (and Jennifer Gregory’s job as Picture Editor at the Washington Post, pictured below with Jimmy) has shifted significantly due to digital…allowing him to almost instantaneously choose images beamed to him from across the globe.

Jennifer Gregory and Jimmy Colton

I’m not completely naïve – I recognize (as does Steve Sasson) that the advances in the way we communicate and connect with images would not have been possible without advances in personal computing and video technology.  But without Steve’s work, I probably wouldn’t be sending images directly to facebook from my blackberry, and I sure wouldn’t be able to share photos on a blog 10 minutes after I’ve captured them.

So, thanks Steve Sasson.  You’ve helped meet our need for instant gratification.

…satisfying my need for instant gratification

Ed Kashi considers himself a long-form visual storyteller involved in advocacy journalism.

Huh?  Wait, let me get my brain around that…I get the storyteller part, and using visual as the adjective tells me the stories are in pictures.  For Kashi, “long-form” means the projects take place over a longer period of time than typical photojournalist projects allow.  His Aging in America, project, for example, was an eight year labor of love.

What about this advocacy journalism bit?  Is that an oxymoron?  If it is, Kashi’s not worried about it.  He believes in the power of the photograph, and wants to create pictures that instigate passion to affect change in the world.  He has seen evidence that a single image can call someone to action, and creating more of that action has become his mission.

At the morning’s lecture, Ed shared a number of his long-form visual stories with thousands of enthralled Chautauquans…his work in Madagascar, the Niger Delta, the Kurds in Northern Iraq.

His latest form of visual storytelling includes sound and voice and movement…creating multimedia pieces bringing the voices of his subjects to a wider audience.  He believes the more we can tell people’s stories, the more chance we have at change.

There is an unspoken power to the still images Kashi makes.  Pairing those photographs, then, with voices and music, moves me from sitting quietly with a picture of a landmine victim (Kashi tells us there are more landmines than people in Northern Iraq) toward a more contextualized understanding of what I am seeing….I can no longer be a dispassionate observer. I am hearing the voices of the people living these stories, and I feel their anger, their frustration, their cries for justice.

A number of years ago Kashi felt compelled to turn the camera on our own culture – and specifically on issues of aging in America.  These photographs are a marked contrast from his work in developing countries…and for some reason I hope to find out before the end of the day, are in black and white.  They are moving, glorious, heartwrenching celebrations of life and death, capturing deeply personal moments that are universal to us all.

Kashi’s work has clearly shaped who he is…he says that in his twenties, he realized, “I didn’t need to become a better photographer.  I needed to become a better human being.  That made me a better photographer. “

And now he hands his work to us – in hopes that we become better human beings with him.