Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Google+ conference.

Thanks to a nice friend at Google, I am attending the first Google+ Photographer's Conference which is happening here in San Francisco, less than 1 mile from our place! It's 2 days long and jam-packed tons of speakers, workshops, and connecting with interesting people.


At the end of today's events, I heard Jeremy Cowart speak, who is an incredible photographer & human being. His life and work is clearly inspired by his beliefs and I was teary-eyed for about 70% of his presentation. In addition to making beautiful images of famous musicians & actors, Jeremy also makes a conscious effort to photograph people who are often forgotten, especially in terms of photographic form. He has used his fame for the name of love & goodness.


Here is a project he did in Haiti just after the earthquake 
in an attempt to give the utterly broken a loud voice to speak. Read the 
captions of what the people say, it's amazing.

Or have a look at Help-Portrait, which was started by Jeremy. 
It's a movement of photographers giving the gift of portraits to those 
who have never been photographed as individuals or as families. 
Read all about it here


Personally, the presentation was hugely encouraging. Jeremy is creative. His ideas for shoots are dreamlike and weird. He puts glitter on lenses. For one project, he followed around this kind homeless man who prays through drawings and made a beautiful film set to this song about it and it turned out great! Often times I secretly feel like my peculiar hodge-podge of skills or interests are too specialized and strange to make art or things that people will like. That notion was challenged tonight, which felt freeing. Jeremy's work resonates deeply with a huge audience and he's just making what he loves, wild & all. I'm so happy I stuck around for the last session. It was a nice little hidden treasure that I didn't expect. 


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