true Freedom

I was born with a pale face in a culture that lacks strong ceremonies, traditions, and rites of passage. It is an arrogant, unseeing, unfeeling culture that is closed off to the beauty inherent in what I refer to as ‘the human experiment’. The past week has caused me to confront this in painful, unsettling ways. I’ve been trying to catch-up to where I should have been in class-I didn’t have stories lined up for at least three assignments that are due next week and I had already committed to shooting two weddings. I submitted something after the assignment was due and my project was 14 minutes long, not 2-3 minutes. I’ve also had to balance work into the equation, but it’s been short-changed between me missing hours at ETC and turning down assignments for Reporter, and not shooting for SportsZone.

It’s all working out, for better or for worse. I have one assignment left to shoot, Day in the Life, and I have a lot of processing, editing and printing to do, but that happens every assignment. This week I struggled with timeliness, sleeping, eating right (paydays and burritos aren’t really substantive), professionalism, socio-cultural views (ethnicity and race), and religion & spirituality.

I stepped on the wrong photographer’s turf today in a calamity of miscommunication and me doing too much. I was almost sick to my stomach because of it, but what else can I do? I wasn’t trying to upset him, but I definitely succeeded. He’s won multiple “photographer of the year” accolades and is published. He produces good work, but we come from two very different backgrounds and we’re two very different people. I learned though, don’t leave anything up to other people to settle during stories. Every detail inside the frame is your responsibility as a photographer and every detail about shooting the event is also your responsibility. He probably had no idea that I was going to be there. It’s no wonder he was offended. No matter how hard I tried to be inconspicuous and still shoot, it wasn’t going to be good enough. I learned a really painful lesson through that. It was the most humiliated I have ever been as a photographer.

 I spent two hours in the home of Burmese refugees for a project today. They’re phenomenal people from my first impression. That could make telling the real story difficult, like it usually is. Tomorrow I’m photographing another Islamic man and his community for my “Day in the Life” assignment. It’s their new-year celebration too. And tonight I photographed Dances for Universal Peace, which draws from the Sufi traditions, and Dandiya, which is an Indian social dance night during Navratri. The latter was amazing. I used to struggle with Indian culture-they were social anomalies in the United States, seemingly holding onto an alien culture and speaking a different language. God’s been working on that slowly, to break me of my inhibitions and prejudices as a person. Dandiya was mind-blowing-the music, the dancing. When you see a few hundred men and women in ornate Kurtas and Saris, it’s a spectacular flashy sight. When they dance, it’s moving on a level absent in contemporary American culture. The language I used to hear, it’s not just one language. It could be one of almost two thousand. They’re really a beautiful people, and like anyone, they have stories to tell.

I’m at the difficult point where I can start to read more into people, and that means I can read more into myself. I’m so incomplete and flawed. I too quickly have an answer for something or I’m dismissive. There’s no contemplation, no inquisitive thought. I jump and go, and when that doesn’t work I try to rationalize it. That’s changing in profound ways-I hope.

*In retrospect, my cultural background isn’t lacking in symbolic events, more it is generally lacking in its foundation. I guess that’s why our quarter assignment is Rites of Passage, the social landscape.