Reblogged from naturestage:

I may be going out on a limb here, but this baroque harpsichord piece, Les Barricades Mistérieuses (which I recorded for the above sequence), and which features twice in Terrance Malick’s masterpiece, The Tree of Life, represents by its title, the heart of the film’s multi-layered message. The film, which is deeply personal and strives for universality, has struck a nerve or a chord, causing some people to walk out midway, dismiss it as corny or overreaching, and others, like myself, to see it several …

In honor of this film’s nomination for an Oscar, I am reposting this review which has been by far, the most read post of all. Enjoy!

One of my friends has truly the most extraordinary collection of books of anyone I know, and I confess, I’ve photographed her books (with her permission). I thought maybe you’d be interested in some of the books lining my shelves, covering topics from fundraising in the arts, to empathy and compassion, economics, essays by naturalists, poetic writings on nature and animals, etc.

What are some of your faves?

illustration by Lief Parsons

Connecting the presidential pardon of a turkey on Thanksgiving to the need for a educational focus on empathy for other species, might seem a stretch. Then again, after reading much of David Livingtone Smith’s fascinating book, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others, I’m not so sure.

It seems that, according to Livingstone Smith, humans in all cultures and throughout recorded history have prepared for war through dehumanizing their perceived enemy, often equating them with some type of animal or insect. As Smith points out in detail, recent examples of this abound in war reporting and in the language used by people involved in genocide. Inhumane treatment of prisoners of war seems closely tied with animal references – dogs, vermin, rats.  Jane Goodall has said that humans are the only animal capable of conscious cruelty, which makes this use of animal imagery to justify cruelty all the more ironic.

In a recent interview which I highly recommend reading, Goodall says “It simply doesn’t make sense that the most intellectually smart creature that has ever walked on planet Earth is destroying its only home, and destroying it so heedlessly. So how do we mend the damaged connection between brain and heart? Through the youth.”

Human activities are causing the sixth greatest extinction known on the planet. It seems as if there couldn’t be a more important moment in history to take action and stop such needless suffering and extermination of other species, whether willingly or unwittingly. Take, for example, the impending extinction of tuna due to overfishing and trawling in the oceans, the impending extinction of the Asian elephant in the wild, great apes and big cats on the decline, countless species that are less familiar to us but are dying from hunger, pollution and dwindling habitats. Although extinction is a part of the unfolding of life in its fluid and ever-shifting forms, it has never happened so quickly and pervasively due to human activities.

Goodall affirms the power of stories and of children’s hope and ability to change their parents but says that behavior change requires a multi-leveled approach. Most importantly, she emphasizes nurturing the hope that children naturally have about the world and giving them tools to implement their compassion. She also makes clear that she is not fighting for animal rights, per se, but for human responsibility. This is also my aim with Naturestage – to create connection and empathy that make audiences and students want to protect other species and ecosystems.

A recent column in The Stone, one of my favorite blogs on philosophy in the New York Times, discusses the link between the practice of pardoning a turkey on the eve of Thanksgiving and the “strange power vested in politicians to decide the earthly fates of death-row prisoners.” If we were more empathic and sensitized to the needs of other animals, might this not extend to how easily we could be manipulated into becoming dehumanizers of other humans?

David Brooks, regular op-ed contributor and author of The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, has also written a thought-provoking post on the new buzzword, empathy. In his October article, “Empathy versus action: Don’t just feel – lend a hand”, Brooks suggests that feeling empathy is not enough; that for empathy to be connected to positive social action, it must be connected to moral codes. As Brooks points out, peoples’ codes often conflict.

He writes “In the early days of the Holocaust, Nazi prison guards sometimes wept as they mowed down Jewish women and children, but they still did it. Subjects in the famous Milgram experiments felt anguish as they appeared to administer electric shocks to other research subjects, but they pressed on because some guy in a lab coat told them to.”

Guernica by Pablo Picasso, 1937 Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid

Examining one’s moral values and talking about social codes is a thorny path to pursue as an educator. Enter art, the great means of forming empathy and simultaneously questioning our individual moral codes. Some of the greatest art causes you to examine your own inner limits of where your feeling urges you to act and why you do or don’t follow through on that urge. Picasso’s Guernica depicts the horrors of war, but does it turn the viewers into peace activists? Do people understand it without knowing its context? The painting did indeed raise world attention to the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Picasso scholar Becht-Jördens writes,

In his chef d’oevre, Picasso seems to be trying to define his role and his power as an artist in the face of political power and violence. But far from being a mere political painting, Guernica should be seen as Picasso’s comment on what art can actually contribute towards the self-assertion that liberates every human being and protects the individual against overwhelming forces such as political crime, war, and death.

I discovered through my current interest in incorporating animation for The Elephant Project films, that a fellow artist, animator extraordinaire Ed Hooks, has coincidentally read and written about the same article by Brooks. He has this to say, and I agree completely. The most crucial element of the following is that humans can imagine what others are feeling based on what they see others doing. This naturally extends to how other animals behave. He writes,

This wonderful animation is part of a new consciousness in which many artists are devoting their skills to the human/animal bond. Thank you Jim Cummings of Acoustic Ecology (and board member of NatureStage) for passing this on!

On the eve of Thanksgiving, I’m feeling especially thankful for the gift of time to read, to create, to have meaningful discussions with people. I feel thankful to have enough to eat, to be literate, to have the cultural city of Boston at my doorstep and to be able follow my passion with naturestage. Thank you for reading this blog and for doing your part to stay informed, heart-centered and empathic.

In light of NatureStage’s mission, I thought many of you would find this article on “playing God with endangered species” particularly fascinating and thought-provoking. Make sure you read the comments!

http://responsibility-project.libertymutual.com/blog/save-the-pandas-who-decides-#fbid=gx8lWsAiNji

http://www.filmcourage.com/content/making-your-film-matter-introduction-social-action-campaigns

I followed a few of the links and found three others which you should check out if you are an artist looking for collaborators to create social change

http://www.loveinstereo.com/

and if you are a charitable organization looking for other places which might promote your work

http://www.takepart.com/

and lastly if you are interested in how filmmakers are meeting in a new forum called The Good Pitch which has the potential to work worldwide on the TEDx model as a way to specifically ask for funding (TEDx doesn’t allow for this) from the organizations who need filmmakers to make films that help them as well. The stories we tell can make the world better, but as we all know, it takes money.

Naturestage is ready to benefit from all of the above. If you have any ideas along these lines to share to help our work, please drop a line to miranda@naturestage.org

On another note, we have been fine-tuning our vision and sending it as part of our project proposals to various foundations and want to share it with you!

Mission:

Through multi-media performances, stand-alone films and educational arts-based curricula Naturestage uses the emotional power of art and film to explore our relationship with other species and inspire action to become global stewards.

Vision:

Within the next five years, Naturestage aims to become the platform for creative collaboration for developing arts-based projects which highlight the complex human role in global stewardship taking the needs of other species into account.  The collaboration between artists –visual artists, animators, installation artists, filmmakers, composers, choreographers, musicians and actors–can be brought together with partnerships through organizations which are looking for more potent ways to achieve their own mission, whether in conservation, animal protection, and natural resource protection. With adequate funding and a designated studio for rehearsals and meetings, Naturestage can develop timely, innovative and art-centered projects that can be used in a variety of settings and by teachers across disciplines to engage students with their emotions and their creativity to explore and develop solutions to how we interact and care for other species.

Why Naturestage is Vital:

At this point in human civilization we have the technology, funding and knowledge to make life much better for more people on the planet in addition to the miraculous other species alongside us that depend on us to take their needs into account. On the flip side, we have the technology and capacity to make life worse for other beings as a by-product of our out-dated systems of consumption and energy use.

Naturestage is at the vanguard of a growing awareness that we need to help foster imagination and out-of-the-box thinking in tandem with understanding and caring about the sensitivities of other species as part of our successful flourishing as a human species. Although social change is enormously complex, it can only happen when the values of global stewardship are made real in what we teach the next generation of leaders – those students and audiences who will either create new systems or reconfigure old ones. There is a balance we need to find between unnecessary consumption and consumption based on the essential needs for healthy food, water, beauty, safety, and meaningful relationships, not only with one another but with the natural world.

The arts are essential in education. They help build empathy, self-knowledge, and this vital out-of-the box thinking that will make the world better. Creating and experiencing ideas through an artistic lens gives gives us tools to handle the emotional complexity of today’s world. Education is still very human-centric, yet surprisingly unfocused on teaching students about human nature.

Naturestage addresses this need to focus on the richness of the arts in education in educating tomorrow’s leaders. Our projects create spaces for connection, communication and deeper listening to one another and to the natural world.

Phil Zimbardo – psychologist, founder of the Heroic Imagination Project

(excerpt) Heroes make personal sacrifices for the good of others. What I’ve been doing is creating a program that tries to train, coach and produce heroes. In california I have a hero factory. Heroic action is behavior that is:

• engaged in voluntarily
• conducted in service to one or more people or the community as a whole;
• involves a risk to physical comfort, social stature, or quality of life;
• iniated without the expectation of material gain; and
• is learned, taught, modeled, not inborn

Heroes become special by doing that heroic act. We believe heroism can be trained, coached, taught, especially with the next generation.  Each of us has the power to influence unknown numbers of people.  When we do the opposite we can become a model for evil.  We should be aware of the ripple effect we have. The important thing is to speak up.

Bill Strickland - President and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation and its subsidiaries, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild (MCG), and Bidwell Training Center (BTC).

Strickland is nationally recognized as a visionary leader who authentically delivers educational and cultural opportunities to students and adults within an organizational culture that fosters innovation, creativity, responsibility and integrity.

Throughout Strickland’s distinguished career, he has been honored with numerous prestigious awards for his contributions to the arts and the community, including the coveted MacArthur “Genius” award. The past several decades have been dedicated to maintaining successful relationships with prominent national foundations and political leaders who share his passion and vision for a healthier future. To see more http://www.manchesterbidwell.org/ncat/index.php

“Entrepreneurs are, by definition, visionaries. The use of art to change students’ attitudes is at the heart of my vision of education. I see a connection between the creativity instilled by a love of the arts, and the skills needed for business success. Artists are by nature entrepreneurs. They can visualize something that doesn’t exist, to look at a canvas and see a painting. Entrepreneurs and artists are interchangeable.”

(Excerpt) People are born into the world as assets not liabilities.  So, I built a training center for poor folks in my neighborhood. I wanted the kids to know that you could bring the world to you. I built a center with a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. The whole theory is if you want to get people to perform like world class citizens you have to treat them that way. This is my vision for what a center should like like for training poor people. (photos of beautiful interiors of the centers he has built)

In 26 years we’ve never had one act of theft or vandalism in the highest crime rate area of Pittsburgh. We have no metal detectors. Environment drives behavior. Beautiful environments create beautiful kids.

Children deserve fresh flowers in their life. I figured out the cure for spiritual cancer – it’s sunlight, flowers, hope. I manufacture hope in this center. We take poor folks and make them gourmet cooks in ten months. We bring in chefs from all over the world . We took the design from a kitchen at the Ritz Carleton. We’ve made a fascinating discovery…

It’s how you think about people that drives behavior.

We subsidize a gourmet lunch for people in the school every day of the week. This is our dining room and our idea for how to treat people. One of my goals in life is to build one of these in every city in America. You come to Pittsburgh and I’ll show you welfare moms who are doing logarithmic calculus.  I got the welfare moms growing orchids because it’s good for their spirits as well as their pocket books. We took first and second prize in the orchid symposium.

I believe we can create these centers in every major city in this country and I hope I’ve given you a sense of what dreams can do. To read more about Bill Strickland, find his book http://www.randomhouse.com/book/174770/make-the-impossible-possible-by-bill-strickland/9780385520553/

Eddie Bocanegra – from The Interrupters and CeaseFire, Chicago

(Excerpt) We were fortunate enough to be filmed for a bit over a year. We allowed cameras to be in the communities we serve and expose some of the issues we deal with. If it wasn’t for cease fire I wouldn’ t be doing the work I do now. I’m an ex-felon. I served 14 years in prison. Cease Fire took a chance on me. All three of us put our dirty laundry out for everyone to see and I can tell you that we don’t take pride in the fact that we went to prison and did time. We are proud of the work we do now. It’s embarassing to share our past. But this film is about redemption, sacrifice and how one individual can make a difference in their community. There’s a scripture that says Jesus healed ten lepers and of these lepers only one came back. I want to be that leper. I want to come back and make a difference in the communities I serve. I’m in a position where I can help and spend the rest of my life serving others.

I came from a pretty good family, two parents that worked hard. My sisters have worked for the government, the military, but yet I still went to prison. I went to prison because I didn’t have an identify or know who I was and I believed in a false creed. It was at a high cost and I’ve pledged to make up for what I’ve done in my past.

CeaseFire has hired over 300 ex-offenders. I’m grateful for our staff. This is a combined and team effort. But in that team I include you as well because we are part of society and we do have to be held accountable for how we help our neighbors and our own kids.  It’s easier to pass judgement and criticize than it is to give a compliment. Thank you for everything.

Jerry Mitchell- Investigative Reporter, the Clarion Ledger

(Excerpt) Great to be with you. This is a poster, fbi poster, of three missing civil rights workers, one is James Chaney. I happened to visit his grave in Mississippi and brush away the leaves:

“There are those who are alive that have never lived and those who are dead, yet will live forever. Great deeds inspire the living.”

I’m here to talk about Medgar Evers and Bernon Damon. Medgar Evers fought the nazis, came home to Mississippi and turned around and had to fight racism all over again. On the same night that president Kennedy talked about how people still aren’t free Medgar Evers was shot in the back and his wife cradled him, his kids saw the blood and screamed.

I found Evers killer. Here he is.

I wanted those records. I was obsessed. A couple weeks later the jackson police cleaned out a closet and found the photographs of Evers’ murder and the prosecutor found the murder weapon in his father in law’s closet and Beckwith’s thumbprint on the murder weapon.

I was interviewing Beckwith without him knowing that I was opening up the case again. he was spewing one racial rant after another. As I left him he said if you write negative things about white people, god will punish you. In 1994 when a jury convicted Beckwith of Medgar Evers’ murder and the word guilty rang out, waves of joy cascaded down the hall.

It made me realize that the impossible IS possible. There were hundreds of these kinds of killings that took place that were never prosecuted.

Before hate there is fear and before fear there is dishumanization. I’ve had threats and yes that’s frightening but it’s given me a gift as well which is the gift of living fearlessly. we all can live fearlessly. It’s not about living without fear at all. It’s about overcoming those worries and fears that keep us from living lives that matter. It means standing up to hate. It means standing up even when we know we’re going to be ostracized for doing the right thing.

It dawned on me, each day we are etching the words of our lives. What will your headstone say?

Photographer Jim Richardson speaking at Chicago Ideas Week 2011

Chicago Ideas Week hosted four award-winning photographers, giving them a platform to talk about their work and share some of their spectacular photographs from the National Geographic, Chicago Tribune, and others. I transcribed much of what they said, although without the images to accompany their words it obviously has much less impact. What struck me about all four was their focus on relationships, whether between human and non-human animal, people of different cultures, men and women, people and the earth. Their images are stunning. I encourage you to check out each of their websites and google them to see more of their photographs. A picture says a thousand words.

Jim Richardson: Everyone is a photographer and it’s the language we speak. Out in Kansas, my wife and I have a gallery and every so often people come through and they walk down the wall and they see all the images I”ve taken from around the country and I can see one of two questions coming. The first one is easy to answer – do you actually go to the places you photograph? Honest to God, that is the question. And I go, yes, that’s the way it works. We actually go there.

The second question is more difficult because they say “what’s your favorite thing to photograph?” They mean do you do sports, weddings, nature, wildlife, culture? I often puzzle about that because I do all these things. I do what is necessary to tell the story and particularly I like unsung stories. I like stories no one else would pay attention to if I didn’t. The stories are the leverage by which I take the photography and hopefully do something that in some remote way might move somebody and provide that fulcrum point to help leverage the pictures into action and impact.

I want to start out our presentation today with how pictures tell stories and how they transmit from one place to another. He shows pictures from the Edinburgh Festival and Fring (National No-Smiling Day)

Image: Jim Richardson

I thought, let’s do this out in Kansas. Then the story grew. It became part of what was in Edinburgh’s culture became part of our culture here as well. That is how pictures work. If you think that pictures can do little things like this in great mass movements, they can. I like to put my energy into images and stories. The images together with the stories are the real leverage points.

I remember going to market on saturday and was entranced by this house on the north coast of Brittany because it tells you the bit of mystery. Who the HELL thought of putting a house there between the rocks? Same with who was putting up the statues on Easter island, or what happened when Mendelssohn went to Fingal’s Cave and it really changed our view of the natural world (he shows these extraordinary events in his photos)

So those are single picture story telling…

What I really have gravitated to in my life is things like this, (multiple photographs)
A Town Dying (story in Nat Geo)

Hunger, food, soil. I learned I had to adapt each story to the content. The first one I did with nat geo was on soil. So what I really had to do was make soil interesting to folks in urban areas and show them there was beauty and drama beneath their feet. What really worked in that story was the connection between the soil and the people. The other things that worked was that we took a forty foot long plant and we photographed it all the way down into the soil, 9 feet below the surface! It really changed peoples’ minds that there was something going on there. The second part of that was heirlooms, saving the seeds that we need to save our agriculture. What I really wanted was that relationship–the kind of relationship they have up in the Andes where they have 1300 varieties of potatoes. What does that have to do with us and why we should save these things? the fact that the irish had only two varieties of potatoes is why so many died. And the wheat blight. I loved being with these guys as they sang, harvesting out in the fields (in Ethiopia) and particularly to be allowed into peoples’ kitchens as they were cooking.

This story on the foothills of Kansas needed drama. Unloved Lands. It really needed drama. I talked with people in Kansas who said “I never knew it was something.” It’s my job as a photographer to put it up on the wall and say look, it’s something. Going out over texado hill in Kansas and chasing the fireflies on the plain. I knew that the pictures needed a flow, graphics, drama and give us a sense of where we were.
greenwood country flint hills Kansas. I lit the tree up with a flashlight in the middle of the night

That led me onto another story, The Death of Night. I had been an armchair astronomer. Eighty percent of the world’s population will never see the milky way again. It’s like putting up a billboard in front of the grand canyon. He shows images of Natural Bridges, national monument, Chicago, Illinois
These pictures had to speak to what we are doing and why. This was up over chicago at 10,000 feet (Chicago awash in man-made lights) or seeing the way the St. Louis Arch is lit up at night. That you could from 100 miles away see the glow from Salt Lake City, or how it is that birds fly around buildings and die from exhaustion. To end, here is an image of a turtle that I photographed which returned to this beach to lay her eggs. I was given the opportunity to name her and I named her after my wife Kathy. Now that she has returned again to the beach, her story has become our story. Thank you for letting me share these stories with you.

For more information on Jim Richardson, please see http://ipad.nationalgeographicassignment.com/?source=photobios

Ami Vitale:

Thank you so much that introduction. Jim, that was terrific. I think some of the things I have to say are similar. I worked in the Balkans, Angola, Palestine, Kashmir and even some places that nobody’s ever heard of… and my job was to show the brutality that was going on. That’s what the audience and my editors wanted. You might think that our job is to illuminate the dark corners of the world, but I believe our responsibility and obligation as storytellers and journalists is to illuminate and emphasize the things that unite us as human beings rather than accentuate our differences. I think it behooves us as journalists to not keep producing horror books. Who goes into a bookstore just expecting to see Stephen King? Our motivations are pretty similar, love, lust, greed or simply joy. I think highlighting the commonalities encourages empathy. But I’m here to tell you that the world is not such a scary place. Here is is one of my first assignments in the middle of gaza. in the upper right corner is a building being blown up. I actually would have been in that building if the batteries hadn’t fallen out of my camera. I was encouraged to get up close and bring back the most sensationalist images of the violence going on. There were literally several hundred photographers only photographing this because that’s what the editors wanted. That’s what they wanted to show. I think it was dishonest because there were other things going on, plenty of stories of love and courage that inspire empathy. I think our role as journalists and storytellers can’t be through one lens. we have to work harder to tell stories with a multitude or narratives and viewpoints.

I applied to a grant from the Alexia Foundation and got it to my delight and horror. I was allowed to work without deadlines. My sister and I spent time together and after my sister left I ended up living there, learning pular for half a year and trying to carry water on my head and eating rice. When the food ran out we all went hungry. The women embraced me and accepted me because they loved my sister. The best stories come from trust. The other important thing is listening to your subjects. Once I started to learn their language, they told me way more interesting things than I ever would have thought to have asked them. I think sometimes we think as journalists that we know what the stories will be before we’ve even left. We need to take time and let our subjects speak for themselves to let the stories unfold.

On my last night I was sitting with these kids under a sea of stars, and they were asking me, do you have mango trees and cashew trees in America? Then Alio asked me, do you have a moon in america? I can’t believe he would think America is a separate planet and we don’t share the same moon. This is the difference in storytelling rather than simply reporting. With all of that I moved to India and I quickly realized the scars of partitions (India and Pakistan were divided in 1947 and they haven’t really healed).

Almost as soon as I arrived rioting erupted between Muslims and Hindus. it was one of the most horrific moments of my life. it was like out of the Bible. i still have trouble talking about it. People were being killed in front of me and being burned alive. It still haunts me today with the suffering–how people could do that to one another.

It’s exactly in that moment that you don’t run away. We have to give a broader view and search for the humanity. There are so many other stories that deserve to be told, the humor of every day life. Some are pieces that help us understand complex political puzzles. It’s not in the headlines as much as other stories. It captured my heart and I stayed. It’s always been described as a nuclear flashpoint that could ignite war. But this human story and long forgotten conflict is destroying an ancient culture. It’s like poetry to me there (Dao lake in Himalayas). These are little boats made for honeymooners and tourists and now look at the reality. The military are using them. Every Kashmiri I talked to only wanted peace.. Their voices were never heard, totally drowned out by the political situation. In Kashmir we weren’t allowed to have mobile phones. Every day I would get a beep about military attacks. I met families on the border and yet there were always tender moments like these that showed humor. (photo of baby in a bucket) When we understand each other’s stories we are transformed. We can empathize.

I went to friday prayers and every day I was invited to a different home to have lunch. It’s really important to tell the stories that aren’t being told. This is Mr wonderful who came every day with flowers to my houseboat. I think we have to see ourselves in the faces of other people. Everybody wants the same things. Everywhere we go people want the same things. I believe we cannot afford to see the world through an optic of fear and hate. I’m doing film in Bangladesh due to the mass migration of people due to rising waters. Climate change is happening now. Every year half a million people move to Dacha. It was raining and all of a sudden these hands lifted me up on top on the train. What I love about this image is look at the joy on their faces. No matter where we go, our emotions remain the same.
Ami has an exhibition at the Chicago Field Museum. You can read more about her through myriad sites on the internet and see her photos on her website www.amivitale.com

Our next speaker is Alex Garcia. He has one of the most popular blogs in Chicago. Chicago Photography. Please welcome Alex.
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/assignment-chicago/about.html

Ami’s comments are so well put. The necessity of thinking in a universal way.

The secrets of storytelling – archetypes and symbols. (title slide)

Malcolm Gladwell says if you want to master something you have to spend 10,000 hours doing it. When it comes to photographers, about 20,000 hours. Why does it seem there are some photographs that become more popular and ignite the imagination? What is the secret of great storytelling? As a photographer working at a newspaper, my colleagues at National Geo may spend 500 hours on a single assignment but as a news journalist I may spend 500 hours on 500 assignments. As I gathered information for this lecture I realize a lot had to do with heroes.

Joseph Campbell talks about the prevalence of the hero archetype across cultures. I’m going to talk about how those heroic archetypes get manifested in the daily newspaper. In addition to those hero archetypes there are victim and character archetypes. I want to talk about how these get manifested in some of the long term projects I’ve worked on. We often talk about sports in militaristic terms. I don’t just see sports. I see heroes but conquering heroes coming back from war. Perhaps the epitome of heroes are astronauts. An archetype can become symbol.

I was working on a story in Texas and my editor told me to turn on the tv and I saw the news about the space shuttle columbia. I walked into the backyard of a home of an elderly couple through remains of metal and he showed the soul of the boot from one of the astronaturs. Another symbol is a clock (photo).. the exact time is when one of the buildings fell. it is a reminder that tomorrow is promised to nobody. A building fire represents our worst nightmare especially when it represents a monster. The symbolic concept of the storm common in literature and music and embodies the upending of the natural order. How fragile we are as human beings to the movement of weather.

The question is, if Campbell is right and archetypes are the way we communicate between cultures then if you have a hero of a thousand faces, you have a victim of a thousand faces and that’s why we need heroes.We have the poor and the homeless for whom the american dream is just a dream. There are two things you see at 6 am. You see the beautiful light in Chicago but you see the dark horror from what has happened the night before. We have victims of disease around the world. This is a woman dying in Rwanda
…and we have victims of injustice. I spent a lot of time in the cases that helped lead to suspension of capital punishment in Illinois. The thing that’s interesting and shocking to me as a newspaper photographer is what is behind the scenes. Illegal immigration. This is a problem so complex that it surpasses the idea of the hero. We accompanied the deportees all the way from Chicago to the border of huarez. This was his last view of Chicago before he got on the plane. When they get deported they are pulled out of night clubs, their homes and deported through the fifth most dangerous city in the world. Can you imagine being deported with pink pumps?

I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies and it’s something you never get used to doing.

characters

In addition to heroes there are a lot of characters you find. In Chicago you have those old-style politicians. We have the teen heartthrob. I had less than five minutes with Zack Efron. But with a face like that it just makes it so easy. This was a film director Kevin Smith. This was his idea (sitting on the toilet). Then we also have the good mother, the mom who fights for the good name of her family including her son. we have the unusual neighbor. Who has an unusual neighbor? I love artists because they can’t help but create things, works of beauty. Then we have the loner, sometimes we just want to be alone with our thoughts and the clouds.

So why do some photographs and projects have a greater hold on us? why would you spend 400 dollars or more? For me it is the idea of the Forbidden Island.

My father is from Cuba and I was told that it was illegal for me to visit my aunts and uncles. Year after year I was brooding on that growing up. So after 1994 when people were going on rafts in to the ocean to cross the divide, Ii thought I want to be a bridge. On my 30th birthday i found myself on a plane to Havana. I wanted to know my grandfather and my uncle. He actually was still living on the same property where my Dad grew up.

As time passed and I came to the Chicago Tribune, the first year I spent three months in cuba because the Tribune was the first to have an office in Cuba. That isolation from the U.S. has impacted cuba’s ability to care for its elderly. Some of these photographs were taken in cuba at a nursing home. I sympathized with their situation. This woman was suffering from demenstia and they don’t sell those medicines in Cuba. I saw they were becoming victims but there were also glimmers of heroes too. People who were able to take care of themselves through a variety of ways.

olympic hopefuls

I want to leave you with this story. It leaves you with archetypes of hero. This is a boxing gym in Cuba. If you want to be an olympic fighter this is the place to be. I related to them. Maybe I could have been one of them if my father hadn’t left Cuba. I’m rooting these kids on.

With archetypes, symbols and metaphors, I think they are our friends and ways we can teach the universals. I want to leave with a thought. I encourage you to tell the stories of the heroes around you. Whether it is for your family or the publication you serve it will inspire you in the process. This is a world that needs more heroes.

Superhero Christopher Reeve had this to say. “A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

Our last speaker is Vincent J. Musi – Photographer, National Geographic Magazine
He’s the host of Look 3 in Charlottesville VA every year. Great place to go. Top photojournalism festival.

Taming the Wild
thanks mike, alex and ami. it’s a real honor to be up here with you guys and hosting this mega talk. The national geographic has specialists in everything from bugs, underwater…under no circumstances do they play the theme song behind me
i like to take the readers inside our hotel room for a great view of the parking lot. if i had previously photographed an animal it was make believe or paper mache it came with a cherry coke and a side of fries. so the notion of me becoming an animal photographer is all mike hughes fault. so with the unwavering support of national history editor kathy moran pitched me a story on animal minds, smart minds. you know, i’m thinking, lassie a was a smart animal and good thing for little timmy because he was always getting in trouble. so here i am on this story of animal cognition. to do these portraits of animals. now i don’t know a damn thing of animals. most animals are food motivated. you can do this. well mistakes were made. never never feed feed a pig right before you photograph them. if you’re going to photograph an animal you pretty much need to know where its head is. i think you ought to know cuz he knew where my head is. the screaming of animals is deafening, even under water. this marmoset is s. this prairie dog was rescued after he was hit by a car. his name is speed bump and he’s screaming of me for four hours. this is the one where i got desperate. i started talking to him. mr. bump, how does it feel to be living in wabash after. i got into this doolittle thing and they started to pay attention. animals will poop on everything. elephants have self awareness. they have self awareness. we wanted to create a set of photographs with eye contact and make it look like they were shot on the same day. betsy knows over 300 words. she is an extraordinary dog in vienna. this is whack a new caledonian crow. he spent two days trying to poke my eyes out. they are extraordinary animals and use tools. what i learned is that just like dealing with animals, body language is crucial. if i never looked at the lemur
this ape lives in des moines and communicates with laminated mats and can ask question respond to things. he wanted some starbucks grande drinks for him and his bonobo friends. in the scientific world these animals are more colleagues than subjects. they in every case they are truly the super stars of this world. this is alex born in chicago in 1977 and when i went to brandeis to photograph him they just gave him to me to photograph him in a hallway. i sat with him for three hours and at the end he said why don’t you tickle me. would you tickle me. and i said sure. these animals teach us the boundaries of human. we’ve learned so many things..maya the dolphin. i want to show you another body of work. they gave me this story about the domestication of plants and animals

we know nothing about it and i’m fascinated by this to how does an animal go from being hunted to being raised for food or from the dining room to the living room. this whole relationship with animals. there is a genetic marker that explains why some animals can domesticate.. these rats are friendly and nice and in the other room they have these rats that are not so nice. now, i adore dioramas in museums. they’re frozen in time and theatrically lit and that was my approach to this. to set up dioramas in everyday life. my assistant had a big light to create daylight wherever we went. we look at the differences in what’s happening with dogs. dogs are evoking more quickly than
we went to khazakstan to photograph horses. probably the most domesticated animal in the world is the chicken. 24 billion chickens worldwide. some of the purest ones are in the united states. what are we breeding for and what are we after
this is a story that will run in december on big cats and it will be a pull out in the magazine. this is a clouded leopard a jaguar. none of these animals are under our control. they are in a zoo, a cheetah and siberian tiger. are they stressed out should we go. it’s