America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956.
I can’t stand my own mind.

These are the opening lines from Allen Ginsberg’s poem “America” written in 1956. I’ve read this poem hundreds of times and I love it. I couldn’t help but think of myself as I read it again recently.

You see, I’m a self-employed artist — a photographer, to be exact — with a fledgling business, a mortgage, a wife, and two young children. I’m constantly hustlin’ for new work and think way too much about every single one of these things. And, oh yeah, it’s the holiday season so add credit card debt and those dreaded Christmas songs to the list.

Boo-fuckin’-hoo, right? This sounds like most people in the U.S. Let me be clear, though: I’m not bringing this up for your sympathy or as a way to hustle up some work. I don’t need the former and have more definitive ways to get the latter.

Back to the poem and where I relate.

Thanks to inflation and fifty years I have a little more than “two dollars and twentyseven cents.” Yet I can’t stand my own mind because some nights I lie in bed and can’t get it to stop running the numbers, or the lack thereof, can’t get it to stop thinking of the future, the past, responsibilities, opportunities. I keep trying to slow it down, make it stop for the day, make it rest. But it rages on and eventually I get up, looking for something to do or stare at to keep it from being so damn pragmatic.

Yet this mind is also the one that gives me great ideas to develop and photograph, comes up with ideas to help wrangle up work, fills my head with good thoughts of my wife and kids, and offers up glimpses of life with a little less of a struggle.

It’s funny because as I think about it, my mind races like “America” does. So many questions, observations, resignations, declarations, insults, confessions, tangents, and, ultimately, resolve, and perseverance. Ginsberg ends the poem with the line

America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

While my shoulder is queer in different ways than Ginsberg’s was, those words bring me back to the realization that this is what I do, it’s what I do well, and I’m damn well going to make it work. I”m reminded of a blog post from photographer Thomas Broening where he relates some good news and bad news about it all.

The bad news is that I am qualified to do nothing else. I have no skills outside of photography . I couldn’t even work at Starbucks. When I worked at the country club I was known as the surly bartender.

The good news is that I am qualified to do nothing else. I will have to ride this all the way down or learn to adapt. I have no other choice.

I may be qualified to do one or two other things, but the point is I don’t want to do anything else. I have to and want to make this work. That’s pretty damn clear. So each morning I get up (because I eventually do fall asleep, even if just for three hours or so) and put my shoulder to the wheel. It’s exhilarating and exhausting and I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do.

© Armando Bellmas

I stopped into a local lab today to drop off a few rolls of film. I hadn’t been to this place in a while and since I shoot mostly all digital these days trips to any lab are few and far between.

I had two rolls of C-41 and one black and white. All 120. The lady behind the counter took the two color rolls but told me they stopped processing black and white a few months ago. Too bad. But no problem, I know of a couple of other places in town that can handle it.

After a few minutes of back and forth with her about how little film they see these days and how digital has taken over — you know, the same things all labs are going through and talking about — I told her that I still like to shoot film and will continue to do so, if not for work, mainly for pleasure.

Then she says to me: “You’ve got to get with the times and get yourself a digital camera.”

Classic.

I love digital, I really do. I actually prefer it most of the time. So do most of my clients. But I also love film and can make a place for both in my life. It’s just going to take a little longer to get the damn rolls processed around here.

© Armando Bellmas

This is John. He works in IT for one of the big banks here in Charlotte.

I wanted to do something different with his portrait, somehow combine the conservative banker wardrobe that is so common here with an offbeat location or pose. I was dealing with quickly disappearing daylight and a lack of the right location. Then I asked myself, “What would Chris Buck do?” I thought about it for a few seconds, got myself together, and pressed on.

John and I walked for a few more minutes, looking for the right spot for him to stand in. We crossed a parking lot and came upon this brick house (which is a business and not a home). I asked John to stand over there and close his eyes. Sized him up, framed the shot. Got it.

I’ve been thinking a bunch lately about style. Specifically, making photographs that I want to make instead of the photographs that I need to make to land editorial, corporate, and advertising clients.

Since Chris Buck had been on my mind I went to his website to get inspired. (Buck is one of my favorite photographers.) As if put there to make me think more about style, I came across this photo Chris made of entertainer Andy Dick.

© Chris Buck

In the accompanying story about the photograph Chris talks briefly about his curiosities and instincts as a photographer and how photographing Dick helped nurture them. He writes:

A lot of what [Andy Dick] was playing with [during the photo shoot] was of particular interest to me though we played things out in different ways. The instinct to express our curiosities and openness, combined with a taste for extremes, created an instant bond between us.

It was very exciting to have ideas that were relatively extreme and yet have a subject embrace them. Most people in the public eye work so hard to hide those vulnerabilities and those fantasies, whereas Andy really was excited to put that part of himself forward.

It’s so reassuring to read that. I feel kind of weird when I ask a subject to do something that breaks down the fantasy, exposes a vulnerability, or is seen as “relatively extreme.” For instance, putting an IT guy for the bank up against a brick house with his eyes closed. There’s nothing bankerish about that yet it felt like the thing to do.

There are dozens of photographers in Charlotte — hell, anywhere — that can make a banker look like a powerful person. It’s been done to death and it’s an archetype that will continue to be beaten into the ground. I want to be the photographer that does it differently, that explores the curiosities and extremes, and is ultimately hired because of it. Much like Chris is.

Yeah, it may not be what the market wants or demands. Hell, I’ll shoot it straight if the art direction calls for it. I do have two young children to think of. I also don’t want to imitate Chris Buck or anyone else for that matter.

My intention is to develop my own style (which, admittedly, I’m still working on), build up the confidence to shoot my vision consistently, and get hired because of it and my ability to make the photograph the client wants.

I will get there. I’m sure of it.

© Armando Bellmas

My photograph of Elisabeth is featured at wan.der.lust.ag.ra.phy along with images by fellow photographers Jennifer Loeber and J.M. Giordano.

Wan.der.lust.ag.ra.phy curator Amy Elkins on the set of images:

Interesting that none of these women are being photographed to be made sexy. None of them have tons of make-up on. None of them are seducing the lens or holding themselves in ways that tell how they feel about being a woman. They all feel fairly natural. Simply.. they are women being photographed.

Much like Elkins’ own work in Half Way There and Beyond This Place: 269 Intervals.

© Armando Bellmas

Each photo session is a collaboration, at the very least, between subject and photographer. There’s a point a little further beyond where that collaboration becomes a creative partnership of sorts, regardless of formalities or intents, stated or otherwise. Reaching that point is a wonderful thing. Sometimes you don’t even realize it’s happened until you create something — hell, a few things — that you’re really, really jazzed about.

Like this photograph.

© Armando Bellmas

I rarely shoot black and white anymore, film or digital. Work never calls for it and, really, I love colors and color photography so much that it’s what I prefer to shoot. However, this monochrome beauty of a photograph was made just a few weeks ago on a bustling Friday evening in the NoDa District of Charlotte. It captures the scene perfectly.

I believe that making the time to see and shoot in different ways — black and white if you shoot color, large format if you shoot digitally, digital if you shoot large format, studio if you shoot street, strobes if you shoot natural light, etc. — only makes your vision and your work better. So sometimes what I prefer gets put on the backburner for a bit while I push myself ever forward by seeing and shooting differently.

When was the last time you tried something different with your work?

© Armando Bellmas

This is an outtake from a shoot with Natalie. A different photograph from this shoot graces the main page of my portfolio website. They’re both beautiful images. The natural light coming in from the right side of the photograph couldn’t be better. However, the reason I chose the wider view for the portfolio is a result of focus and creative vision.

A few months ago I started to diligently focus on the things that tie my work together and, ultimately, tie my photographs to the kind of clients I want to work with. I keep in mind a visual frame of reference that guides my work: what a person does or interests them, specific editorial styles, natural light, intimacy, and capturing a genuine emotion. Sure, there will be times when a client or project calls for something a little different from my vision, but the guideposts are always there to zone back in on. Even if only one of them applies to the shoot at the moment.

As a result I believe my photographs are stronger, focused, and more compelling.

© Mike Newman, Image courtesy of Wikipedia

A few weeks ago the folks at BLDGBLOG wrote about the term Ancient Lights in English law, or what is referred to today as the Right of Light. In essence, it means that

the owner of a building with windows that have received natural daylight for 20 years or more is entitled to forbid any construction or other obstruction that would deprive him of that illumination. Neighbors cannot build anything that would block the light without permission.

I love natural light and use as much of it as I can in my own work. The idea of having a law to protect it seems valiant and somewhat archaic, but I love the notion nonetheless.

© Chris Jordan

I’m on the road in Durham, North Carolina making some photos for a magazine and, having a little time to myself this morning, I stopped by the North Carolina Museum of Art just down the road in Raleigh. My top reason for going was the BIG picture, an exhibit that just opened featuring “twenty-three large-scale photographs by a diverse group of thirteen contemporary photographers who are expanding the size and pushing the boundaries of their medium.”

One of the artists featured in the exhibition is Chris Jordan. Three of his images from the Intolerable Beauty series are on display and they are nothing short of amazing in their size, scope, and execution.

There were groups of field-tripping pre-teen schoolchildren wandering about the museum. While I stood and gazed at Jordan’s photos, three separate groups of children approached the photo pictured above, titled “Cell phones, Orlando 2004″ (and measuring about 44×82 inches).

Their reactions were as interesting and poignant as the photo itself.

The first group of kids wondered if there were any Razr phones in the fray. The next group got excited when one kid spotted a Nokia phone just like his own. The third group pointed out the phones they thought were cool-looking or liked best. It was as if they were looking through a catalog instead of a trash heap.

There was an innocence in their appreciation of Jordan’s photograph that I envied. The kids looked at the photo and saw fun and cool gadgets. I looked at the photo and was overwhelmed by guilt, irresponsibility, and a desire for responsibility.

© Mitch Epstein

My son Nick and I spent some time this morning looking through the photographs on Mitch Epstein’s website. This photo, Dad And My Daughter, Lucia 2002, must have interested him the most since he kept asking to go back to “the picture of the man and the girl.”

He asked questions like “why are they just sitting there?” and “why is it dark in the corner?” and “who are they?” I told him it was a girl and her grandfather spending some time together.

When I asked him what he saw when he looked at the photo he paused for a second and said, “love.”

© Armando Bellmas

Just got back home from a couple of days in Georgia on an assignment. Spent the first day shooting in the town of Washington, GA. The tiny town square had some of that old Southern charm and tradition with a bit of bohemian color and influence lurking around a couple of corners. Think Athens at about a fraction of the size and without a music scene. It was a great shoot and a neat place to spend a few hours with a camera and creative license.

After the sun went down it was time to drive to Atlanta. Checked into the Highland Inn, locked up the gear, and set out to get a burger at George’s in the Virginia-Highlands neighborhood and many beers at Manuel’s Tavern. Always good to be in Atlanta. It’s one of my favorite cities.

The next day started with some shooting in the morning followed by time well spent at the Marcia Wood Gallery for the Jason Fulford exhibit.

© Jason Fulford

© Jason Fulford

I’ve only seen Jason’s work in books and on the web so I was in awe of (and fell completely in love with) the beautiful 24×24 inch prints on display. Jason’s work makes me want to go out and see differently. It makes me want to explore what’s around me a little deeper and subsequently explore what I’ve discovered a little deeper still. It’s truly inspiring work and I’m so very happy that I caught the exhibit in its final days.

Now I just need to get back down there sometime in the next month or so to catch the Harry Callahan exhibit at Jackson Fine Art.

© Armando Bellmas

Nick has had a camera in his face since the day he was born. I think he’s used to it, although he complains about it more often than he used to. Christie encourages him to say “paparazzi go away” sometimes. Ha ha. Yeah, funny.

Most of the photos I or Christie take of Nick are done so with a digital camera. The instant his photo is taken Nick is asking “can I see?” Hence the confusion when I take a photo with a film camera and the inevitable “can I see?” follows. He doesn’t understand why he isn’t able to see the photo right away, but I’m working on it.

I let him watch when I load a roll of 120 into the film back. I try to take him to the lab whenever I drop off or pick up rolls. I show him my contact sheets. I tell him that sometimes the pictures are so good that we have to wait for them (and many times it’s actually true).

Nick is only three years old so I won’t let him handle the 5D or a Hasselblad. However, three year olds and plastic medium format cameras are made for each other. He didn’t even ask “can I see?” after he the took a shot.

© Armando Bellmas

This is Anna.

What I love about this shot is that it exists somewhere between a real moment and posed one. A moment almost cinematic yet unforced.

I don’t remember the exact circumstance too well, if I told her to stop and look back or if she just did it on her own, but there’s an intimacy in the moment that makes this photograph so interesting to me. There’s a closeness in that split second just long enough to give it a sense of meaning, but short enough to wonder if it means anything at all.

The truth is that it is posed, sort of. I did guide Anna through the vision I had in my head for the shot. Then I told her to stand around the bushes and began shooting. I don’t recall any exact direction on my part (as alluded to before), but there were some suggestions. However, leaving the subject to act on her own disclosed this moment. (Anna isn’t a pro model, by the way.)

It’s those moments, right in there between real and posed, and capturing them in a photograph that excites me most about my own work of this kind and people photography in general.