Enter title here
In which I dive into the process of writing and looking, and in which I talk about why titles don't matter
Every once in a while I get commissioned to write a piece for a magazine (or book). This doesn’t happen all that often — possibly in part because I don’t actively approach publications. But, yeah, you can hire me to write something.
My newest commission piece is one I wrote for FOAM Magazine #56 (there’s a preview here). The editor, Elisa Medde, had given me some broad parameters and the freedom to fill them out as I saw fit. The piece was to focus on the Other and how social media and other technologies might actually re-enforce othering — instead of doing the opposite (which is what all those tech cheerleaders would like us to believe). Having worked on a larger piece on censorship on Instagram last year, this was right up my alley.
My research and thinking quickly led me down a real rabbit hole, and I ended up connecting a variety of photography-related issues to show how there’s a continuum between Shirley cards, racially biased facial-recognition software, and the incessant censorship on Instagram.
Quite unusually, the piece ended up being quite a bit longer as originally planned, and it could have been even longer. I even ended up using a large number of footnotes, something I usually avoid, simply because there was so much background material and information to be shared.
The piece ends on a very pessimistic note, which is not all that surprising if you’ve paid any attention to the world of social media and algorithms. Instead of liberating people, the opposite is the case: anyone who’s not a white, heterosexual male can easily find themselves inside a Black Hole: information can get in, but whatever you say — or photograph — cannot reach the outside world. And that’s where the title comes from: you’re stuck behind the event horizon (a concept I borrowed from astrophysics). I hope you’ll read the piece.
There also is a plethora of other great material in the magazine, all related to otherness, exclusion and inclusion. So get yourselves a copy, you won’t regret it.
There was what looked like a bug on the site I’m using to write these missives. Usually, one of the last things I worry about is the title of something I’m writing (unless it’s either very obvious, or I have a good idea already). A few weeks ago, I left the title unfilled when I started writing a piece. When I came back the next day to continue the work, there were literally dozens of saved incomplete drafts. Luckily, the most recent did exist. I figured it must have something to do with the title, so now I fill in the title first: Enter title here. And I change it at the very end to what it might actually be.
This time, however, I didn’t. This email was originally planned to be something different. Coming back to what I had produced a week ago, I looked it over, and I deleted a few hours of my work (actually done over the course of two days). It’s not that it was terrible. It’s just that I didn’t want that to be what would reach you (at least for now).
Writers frequently gripe about the process of writing and about how terrible it often can be. And it is. I don’t think that writing is more difficult than any other creative endeavour. But somehow, writers seem to have got away with making their struggles a publicly known thing. There’s “writer’s block” — painters don’t have “painter’s block”, and photographer’s don’t have it, either. Well, they do have it, but it somehow hasn’t become part of their life style.
I know a thing or two about writer’s block, and I also know a thing or two about how to overcome it. For me, there’s nothing more terrible than to be stuck with a piece that came along OK, but that somehow doesn’t want to get finished. If you ever need to see a master procrastinator in action (and I’m talking about some very high level of aptitude here), watch me when I have to finish a piece that doesn’t want to get finished.
All in all, though, I tremendously enjoy the process of not just writing but of various other things that I have been doing over the course of the past decade. Every time I send out one of these emails, I have to remind myself that as much as I enjoy seeing reactions, putting this together is part of my enjoyment.
These days, I’m also working on a photobook, this time someone else’s. This is also something that I have done every once in a while. Part of the reason why I started my own photography again was to experience this process as someone whose picture are on the line. I really don’t want to sound like someone who knows how this works, but when I worked on Vaterland much to my surprise that didn’t feel all that different than working on other people’s books.
There was one moment that I remember that was different. It happened a little more than a year ago, when I stayed at a really amazing AirBnB apartment in Berlin’s Neukölln. I had had my prints on the floor of the space the entire time, and I did the editing this way. In the evenings and nights, I’d have a beer or two and remove or move pictures.
One night was different, though. That one night, the thought popped into my head that the three years of hard work I had put into the project had been in vain: I couldn’t see the book. It just didn’t want to come together. You might be able to imagine that that wasn’t the greatest feeling. I felt so infinitely crushed.
A night or two later, I assembled the beginning sequence of the book, which ended up what’s going to be in the book (with some very minor modifications). I did that in ten minutes. It just happened. And I finished the book back home, adding the remaining section in just the same way.
With other people’s pictures, the creative struggle to put someting together is the same. The only difference is that when it’s not taking shape yet, then, well, there’s always another day. There’s none of the anxiety over maybe having wasted all that time.
When someone whom I had met a couple of years ago approached me with pictures for a possible book, I took on the job. I truly enjoy that process: looking at cheap prints, moving them around, putting them into sequences, seeing the whole take shape. I also think I have a fairly good nose for whether or not something can be put into a book, whether, in other words, there is enough material. I couldn’t explain how I know that, how I see that.
With my teaching job nearing its end (long story, I’m not going to bore you with that), I now have to think about what I’m going to do next. This obviously is not the greatest time to look for a job, but what other choice have I got? One of the things I thought I want to pursue is to work with photographers to make their books, in particular to bring this skill of mine to the table: I’m a pretty good editor for the format book. And I enjoy that process very much.
So if you or someone you know needs someone who has plenty of experience conceptualizing and editing photobooks, send me a note.
All the material that I deleted earlier had a lot of pictures, and now I feel bad about sending you something that doesn’t. Well, here’s a picture I took the other day, simply because I thought it would make for a good picture. I still like it. On my computer, I put it into a subfolder of my “Life Under the Virus 2020” folder: “Trash Pictures.” So far, there’s only one picture in that folder. As you can imagine, my trash doesn’t look picture worthy most of the time.
I’m hoping that reading more about my own process might be interesting for you. All too often, we only get to see the finished product and maybe some sort of polished presentation about it. There are photographers who are more adept at serving stories than others. Actually, if you think about it, some of the most successful ones today are actually better at telling their funny or endearing stories than at making pictures (nope, won’t give you any names — that’s for over a beer).
Especially in the day and age of social media, where all you see are success stories (book shortlisted here, award won there), I find it disheartening to not see the more human side of how something was made: how can all these other people be so successful, how can all their stuff come so easy — when that’s not happening to me? Am I the only one struggling with this? Well, no, I’m not, and if you feel or at some stage have felt the same way, then you know what I’m talking about.
No art comes out of a vacuum. Instead, it comes from everything that has somehow reached its maker’s brains (movies watched, books read, advertizing seen, chats had, etc.), and it comes from trying to shape it and then failing oh-so many times. It comes from deleting hours of one’s work. It comes from sitting with one’s failures and dead ends, sitting with the mockery of it all.
I’ve often told my students that the actual goal of art is not whatever comes at the end — pictures or a book... It’s the making it, the process. The pictures are just the bonus. On top of that bonus then sit the shortlists or awards (should there be any). And I’m telling myself the same thing. Funny enough, it’s one of those things that I need to remind myself of, even as so many other things now come easy.
Seen that way, my title problem isn’t even a problem. To be perfectly honest, I don’t care much about the title. I’ll do it last, when everything is done, when, in fact, I’ve moved beyond the task at hand and I’m already thinking about the next one.
It really feels like this pandemic is going to last forever. I hope you’re staying safe and well!
Thank you for reading my emails — I know there are a lot of other things vying for your attention. I really appreciate it!
— Jörg