Robbie McBloggie

This oil spill in the Gulf scares me. While the slick hovers just off shore we can continue to focus our collective attention on more important matters, such as celebrity affairs. But soon, when it smothers the Louisiana estuaries, covers the powder white beaches of the Florida Gulf coast, cycles into the Gulf stream and moves across the Atlantic the scale of this environmental disaster will demand we take notice.

Apart from destroying the culture and cuisine of southern Louisiana and ruining the tourist trade in Florida we’re witnessing something of a biblical scale. The damage (we can’t even see now) from underwater slicks created by chemical dispersants, that are settling to the sea floor, will take centuries to repair.

In my work I’ve photographed many oil production facilities and seen the damage done. Our thirst for oil leads us into wars and incalculable environmental impacts. But I’m also an oil consumer. I drive too much, prefer my motorcycle to a bicycle and reap the benefits of living in an oil driven economy.

Perhaps continuing to develop and produce oil in sensitive habitats and the subsequent destruction of those same habitats, is just another price we pay. A cynic might even suggest the people of southern Louisiana who have benefited from the petroleum industry for decades are just getting a little payback. Live by the sword……If there was any real justice some kind of water spout would pick up the slick and deposit it on the skyscrapers in Dallas.

Suncor Millenium tar sand extraction plant site & tailing pond w/ earthen dam adjacent to the Athabasca River near Ft McMurray Alberta, November 2008

Syncrude tar sand extraction and upgrade plant near Ft McMurray Alberta, November 2008

Oil well outside Canyonlands National Park, Utah 2002

Oil sludge containment pond outside Canyonlands National Park, Utah 2002

Oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez in the Bay of Isles in Prince William Sound, Alaska – November, 1990

Oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez on a beach in Prince William Sound, November 1990

For Inc. Magazine. Below are a couple of outtakes.

Ken Jarecke’s excellent new blog post on Mostly True, on the odds a new photographer faces, rightly points out the difficulties we face in this increasingly challenging environment. His breakdown of cost of doing business compared to gross income and what might be left begs the question, why bother? If you hustle your ass off and still only make slightly more than a greeter at Walmart is this really a business worth doing?

I know many photographers who have asked themselves this question over the past couple years, some have answered, no. I’ve answered yes.

Over my career I’ve been fortunate to find a level of success that eludes many. Of course I’m no rockstar photographer, certainly don’t make NBA level money, not even NBA cheerleader money, but I’ve managed to support myself and my family reasonable well over the years. However, it’s never been more difficult than the current market and there are no signs that it will become easier. So why do it? Easy answer, the work.

I still love making pictures, I love the challenge of making something beautiful or compelling, of telling a story or describing a place. I love the characters I meet and the places I visit. There is simply no better job in the world, for me.

So while I might make out better driving a cab or pulling draft micro beers, I have every intention to keep hammering out pictures and finding clients to pay me for them.

Back to Mostly True and the notion that there are more people playing in the NBA than are successful as photojournalists and documentary photographers. My only guess why so many others try to buck the trend in the face of such odds is the same reason I keep going. We simply can’t imagine anything else. So of course it screws up the marketplace when hungry, not so business savvy, artists flood the arena, as is currently happening. Just take a look at guitar players, quite possibly an even less savvy, hungrier group than photographers. How many freelance guitar players make $50G out there? But the ones I know keep at it because they simply have no choice, they have to make music.

So here we are, music makers, treading water in an uncertain sea, hoping to last long enough to play a few more songs. At least a guitar floats.

Sunday April 25 The New York Times Magazine published an assignment I recently shot for their Q&A page, a portrait of Craig Robinson, head coach of men’s basketball at Oregon State University and perhaps more famous as the brother to First Lady, Michele Obama.

This is the most recent of many of these shoots I’ve done for the Magazine’s long running feature and I always enjoy them. For one the people are always fascinating, intelligent and sometimes controversial, which makes for an interesting sitting.

But I also enjoy the simplicity of isolating a subject on white. Of course this is the technique that Avedon made famous. He said “It isolates people from their environment. They become in a sense . . .symbolic of themselves.” For most of my work incorporating the subject’s environment or location is often as important as the subject themselves, but when shooting on white it becomes totally about the sitter.

I also like the challenge of creating a studio on location and I’ve done these shoots in parking lots, basements, hallways, hotel rooms and more weird places than I can remember.

Here’s a few more samples of my past New York Times Magazine, Q&A shoots.

Architect Brad Cloepfil

Washington Governor Christine Gregoire

(Former) Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin

Author Chuck Palahniuk

I’m pleased to join the ranks with 52 Selects, a new online gallery showcasing the work of photojournalists and offering prints for sale. My current offerings include the image above, an interior of the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale Mississippi made on assignment shooting an editorial travel story on the Blues Highway for the New York Times Magazine a while back.

The Riverside is a legendary location having hosted many blues legends, such as Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Nighthawk and Ike Turner. The hotel was originally a hospital serving Clarksdale’s African American population where after being severely injured in car crash and refused treatment at an all white hospital, Bessie Smith died in the room shown in the picture above. While there I also made this portrait of current owner and operator Frank “Rat” Ratliff, below.

Illustration by Aubrey McClaran

When I first saw those bunnies on the cover of the New York Times Magazine I sort of chuckled and of course my youngest daughter shrieked how cute they were. Then I discovered the images were made by Jeff Koons, and I chuckled again. I’ve always had a hard time taking Koons’ work seriously. Looking through his catalogue I always get the feeling he’s having a laugh at getting one over on the critics and pseudo intellectuals of the art world. Even more so when I learned he hires out the actual production of many of his works to artisans or assistants. I have also been very outspoken in my disdain for his and other post modern artists’ (Richard Prince, Thomas Ruff) liberal theft of the work of photographers to use in their work.
So I remain confused why I like these pictures so much. Perhaps it’s the context of the story, their appearance on Easter Sunday or maybe I simply agree with Aubrey, that they are really, really cute.
The Magazine has been publishing some fantastic photography lately, as it almost always does. Elsewhere in the same issue see Tina Barney’s fantastic portrait of Norris Church Mailer. Or Ashley Gilbertson’s portfolio “The Shrine Down the Hall” from a few weeks ago. It’s a pleasure to have such a source for excellent, challenging imagery in this world of shrinking print media outlets.

I’ve been tinkering with my website, perhaps you’ve noticed. The biggest change is the new edits, produced in collaboration with Mike Davis. Mike, who has been editing photography, as well as making his own images for over twenty years at places like National Geographic and The White House (yes that White House), brought his talent and critical eye / mind to bear on some 700 images I sent him.
One of the most difficult jobs a photographer faces is editing their own work. I’ve always felt I was reasonably good at it or at least I knew what I liked. Lately I’ve struggled selecting a body of work that showcases the full range of my work without being scattered, disjointed or diluted. Mike however, waded through a mountain of images and put together the tightest edit I’ve shown in years, featuring images as new as six months and as old as 30 years. There are two featured collections of images, the first showcasing photographs of people / portraits and a second grouping of landscape / places.
I can’t sing Mike’s praises enough, he truly got what I’m all about. Have a look and let me know what you think.

Friday’s entry in NPR’s series on color photography reminded me of cool story I was a part of. In 1985 I was hired to assist Joel Meyerowitz on a Sunday afternoon as he scouted locations for an ad shoot. When I picked him up at his hotel he told me he really just wanted to go to the Amon Carter Museum in Ft. Worth to see Avedon’s recently debuted “In the American West” exhibition.

While walking through the exhibit I looked on as a young man was setting up to take a picture of his young daughter in front of one the photographs. Almost immediately a security guard appeared, telling the young man photography was not allowed. I recognized the man as John Harrison, the subject of the photograph along with his daughter, an infant when Avedon had made the image and now appearing to be about 6.

John Harrison, lumber salesman, and his daughter Melissa, Lewisvile Texas, 11/22/81 by Richard Avedon

I quickly grabbed Joel’s attention, who asked if he might take the man’s picture, explaining he was friends with Dick Avedon and he would send Mr. Harrison the picture as well as give one to Avedon. The guard agreed as long as there was no flash, which Joel’s Leica was easily capable of doing.

So I looked on as Joel made a dozen or so exposures of Mr Harrison and his daughter smiling in front of the large mounted Avedon print.

Mr Harrison was genuinely grateful and seemed only to want a picture of his daughter and himself, no doubt unable to afford one of Avedon’s prints and seemingly oblivious to the fact that the two photographers he had been photographed by were Richard Avedon and Joel Meyerowitz.