New Website focusing on my Alicia Patterson work.

Superb, Jon. Looking forward very much to delving deep into this project. But not right now. Rather I’ll linger longer later with a glass of whiskey while enveloped by the darkness of the wee hours.

Just one point, the green backround is a little intense.

Looking forward to the multimedia.

Best,
Paul

The green is intense for a reason. I live in an intensely green place.

I appreciate that.

O…jon, GREAT GREAT GREAT! :)))….just spent quick 20 minutes….

i’ll spend Wednesday on it (as im running out the door now)…will give lots of feedback :)))

first glance it’s that is just wonderful…and the kind of candy cane that makes me weepy :)))…wanna see it as a book too! :)))

more words later amigo…

hugs
b

Yes, a book.

Jon -

I’ve very interested in this site, especially because I am in the process of embarking on a similar endeavor in Long Island. I’ll be documenting working-class and immigrant life in the Hamptons, then building an interactive website using Omeka software, which will allow the subjects to become participants.

Re: Ritchin’s article/site, for me one of the most important concepts is that photos are more powerful when put into context, along with historical and other information, and that the dialog is richer when more than simply the photographer participates.

Nice work and I’m interested to see where it goes. What additional functionality are you going to add in the future?

“functionality” I dont know from Adam. If you are talking about interactivity and the Omeka software I’d like to know more — it’s all new to me. Though I will say that I dont necessarily buy into the whole thing about giving voice to others via these new media, which is the argument behind recording their speech for multimedia pieces. I dont think you can or should escape authorial control. But I definitely buy into the idea as you state that photos are stronger in context. The problem about concepts of “dialoguing” is that it depends on the subjects and their understanding of what it means to participate. With braceros and the like, that is pretty much impossible to achieve. THough what they have to say about themselves is of course very often eloquent and penetrates to the heart of the matter. For the Caña Brava multimedia piece I want to mix in text from the historical players — right back to the king of Spain for the colonial period (you see some of the textual material on the Mosaic History page) .. as well as the contemporary people, so there will be little snippets from the braceros and others. But there is no reason why these should not appear as text rather than recorded voices. Though of course there is no reason why there should not also be recorded voices. There will be a mix of things, but I dont want to become prisoner to an ideology about representation that I find rather ill thought out, though apparently pretty much accepted by everyone these days.

But enough about that, tell me more about your concept, which sounds really interesting, and the means whereby you will execute it. I will google Omeka in the meantime . . . .

Posdata: in fact, I am with Proust — the more authorial control one exercises, the more one allows the reader to drift, with the natural lassitude of reading, into a narrative channel of one’s own, in which the story being read is reinvented . . . . .

Books are passé. Gutenberg has handed the ink over to Gates.

Yeah, Jonathan, had a look at Omeka, and I am guessing as to how you are thinking of using it, but I dont see how such things could be of any use to me given the population I am dealing with. Talk about the digital gap, the bateys are wholly outside the socio-digital system that enables communication via this medium and are more worried just about getting enough to eat, rather than communicating their woes to the world at large. Course you see on the Batey 6 webpage that I link up to, that internet communication is not wholly beyond them, but that page was facilitated by Yacine Khelladi and would not otherwise have been possible. Those who live in Batey 6 have no connection and cannot really interact any more beyond what that one static page offers. THis is one of the key problems defining the bateys — lack of connectivity to the society at large, in every sense. Bateys were in fact built as false communities with no connection to the outside society, thus enabling the sugar companies to isolate and dominate their workers in a way that other industries never could.

Still you have given me much food for thought and now I want to know more. Fill me in on your concept some more, . . . I know eventually I am going to brainstorm this thing in some way, I just have to let the ideas percolate a while in my unconscious, and I am worn out from putting together this first phase and trying to feed the family at the same time . . . . life is tough here, even for those of us who do not live in bateys . . . this aint NYC. Down here the ugly realities of life are all too present — or rather, with Yeats, I would call it the terrible beauty of life.

interesting stuff

Jon :))

read a bit today too :)))))…agree with the proust sentiment: the richer the authority of the author, the greater the freedom of the reader ;))….

promise u a well-earned comment after wednesday…but have been digesting slowly :)))…im with u on mr. G handing over the ink to Gate, but there is still interesting tactile experience of a book: i mean, like an artists book (think of Imants brilliant books) which lends metaphoric and materiality to the essence of this story…something made from the same material…it’s a terrific website, and im only 1/2 through with the reading and connections, but dont toss out the idea…i’ll write more ;later :))

im happy to see you’ve been working ur b off not just nipping on sugar cane hooch ;)))

hugs

b

oh believe me I prefer books, but that form of distribution is still in the hands of the establishment. Screw em. Nonetheless I will be publishing a book eventually, though not on the cane fields. The sugar story was only supposed to be one part of my Memories of Underdevelopment project, which is still the only real reason I am here. Went over my negs recently and I realized that I may be nearing completion — bummer.

Jon -

I’ll send you the project proposal I wrote, though much of it is grant-speak and skimpy on specifics. More later.

-jl

Jon,

I’ve put a few ideas on the presentation side in a PM that I think may help in advertising the plight of the braceros in the Republic.

Good luck!

Jenny

Thanks Jonathan, I am very interested. It occurs to me to mention in passing (I am a bit brain dead at the moment -not just from getting this thing up but also covering the elections): The site itself is by its very nature an interactive narrative. and you will see from the table of contents that there is no real order to anything, it is a hodgepodge, electic, and the viewer can click and go anywhere he or she wants to. That is what interests me in part about this web publishing - while I dont disparage books and I dont think they are purely linear, despite the pagination, etc — still they are definitely a stricter format than a website, which allows for quite a bit of freedom on the reader’s part.

Right now my problem is rather mundane — some of the panels are rather large jpg files that download too slow with dialup connections. I wanted to avoid this because people here mostly work with slow connections, but this means I would have to break up the panels even more. I am too tired to tackle this now, but maybe later. There are also at least five slideshows or multimedia pieces coming. Yikes.

Books are passé. Gutenberg has handed the ink over to Gates.

yeah books are passé when you don’t publish them yourself, otherwise they are quite cool and by the way, they said 15 years ago that in 15 years people wont buy books anymore, that they’ll read everything from the web, didn’t happen, wont ever happen as most of the people like to hold something in their hands. and Jon i think you are over rating the possibilities of internet. only thing that matters is how good your photos are. interactivity, availability through internet, web, net, bullshit, gutenberg is live and kicking like hell. gates is just overrating himself as in printed matter there’s a strong tradition, unlike in gates’ fast and fast and fast and shallow world. looking a book is personal, it’s like the photographer/writer tries to say something you personally, but on a site it feels like million people are watching/reading the same thing with you and after that writing their stupid fucking opinions about whatever we are reading or watching. i prefer gutenberg.

As usual, Jon, absolutely lovely work. Particularly like the writing & photography both being high quality/top notch; just read the border piece and felt that the two worked great. Left with a distinct impression I need to alter my plans for an upcoming Haiti trip & add the DR, esp the wild west, as it were.
Its the history & photo-j teacher in me (primary source of income) but I love the historical connection; brings it from the realm of news to documentary, long term, connections through the decades & centuries. It also brings up more real, deeper understanding of multiple facets of the issues, lifeways and soul of this group of people. You were AWOL on here for a long while; now youre back with a vengeance. I see the time away was well spent!
Technical wise, I like the webs abilities- it is a bit more shotgun for me, but thats just because I like linear I suppose. I do like the fact that your project can be so wide ranging and both broad and deep; I also like the fact- love the fact- that youre designing the site for the actual persons and group thats documented in the (I almost said book) work; and sharing with the rest of us- it make it feel very personal, not just another piece from one world (developing) made for consumption in another (developed)-
Keep rocking it in the jungle. Oh and DO A BOOK OF THIS WORK. Even a Blurb book would be awesome, and Id buy it ! Its too hard to look at in the damn bathtub without fear of getting electrocuted. I need tactile…

True Jukka, absolutely. I am being a bit provocative and hyperbolic. you know one of my favorite books and the one that basically prompted me to stay down here and work on my Underdevelopment project is Abbas’s Return to Mexico, which is a simple, straightforward kind of thing, but powerful as hell — at least in my view. And what could be more powerful than K’s Gypsies,a book that will forever haunt me. But I do think that there is something to be said for striking out on our own, taking command of the means of production, which the web allows us to do. Books are the result of a production process that is vetted by ideological gatekeepers and financed by an establishment that I find entirely, how shall I say, antipathetic to my goals. And while I agree that web publishing can indeed be “fast and fast and fast and shallow” (I like your phrase Jukka), it can also be slow and meticulous and profound — which is why I took the time to provide bibliographies and well thought out essays which I spent a HELLUVA a lot of time composing (years really if one stops to consider that this site is the fruit of years of work in the bateys and years of reflection). Moreover, do you really believe that the establishment would allow me to publish all this material in this manner? Do you think they would even understand it? No way. So I would be forced to self publish, as did Gene Richards with his brilliant and subtle Dorchester Days book. OK, no problem there, but that is what is called the Vanity Press, and there are distinct problems with going that route — mainly in terms of distribution. By opting for the web, i can ensure that my work will be seen by more people and be more accessible, as well as perennially available. Those are important considerations for me. I am first and foremost an educator, I want students to have access to this thing, and since, even here, students all resort to the web for their information, it makes sense to present the material in that format.

By the way, for me, “how good your photos are” is not the primary consideration nor is it in any way shape or form the “only thing that matters”. My words matter equally, my ability to cover the story fully in any way possible, matters equally, my viewpoint on the whole thing matters equally, and my ability to get the material out there without having to deal with the limitations imposed by necessity on that material as a result of (1) market considerations; (2) ideological assumptions; (3) outmoded and very limiting distribution patterns matters very much to me and that is why I have labored so mightily on this thing. I am not sure I consider myself a photographer at all really — I am just an essayist with a camera and a vocabulary. But I do understand you Jukka — all the multimedia flashy stuff is just fluff if the photos do not stand up to scrutiny and in that sense yes the only thing that matters is the photo itself. But remember, on the Face to Face with the Batey page, I actually write about this and I mention the fact that not every photo is necessarily a good one, but by being linked in a narrative that ties various motival themes together they gain power that individually they might not otherwise possess —a nd I dont see any problem with working that way. Why should not inferior photos be put to work and lent power by being inserted strategically in a chain or web of imagery? Just as with a novel, which has its longueurs, not every bit of prose you find is “great” or moving, but inevitably serves a larger purpose in the overall narrative. And Overall Narrative is what most concerns me. The photos are just pieces of something much bigger and more important. But then my ideas about narrative are mostly derived from Proust, not from photography.

Finally I am not sure I agree about books being more personal and the web being a crowd scene. Maybe. I do agree that the experience of holding a physical object like a book is certainly an individualistic experience and the tactile quality is very important to us as sentient beings — but I am not sure that the intellectual and emotional qualities that accrue as a result of reading a book are necessarily superior or all that much more distinct. With technological change comes change too of our psyches — read Walter Benjamin’s famous essay on photography and you will see what i am getting at. (Photography in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction). Moreover, one could just as easily argue that books are part of a bourgeois socioeconomic structure that privileges the “individual” and partakes of a system of property and ownership that mitigates against the free flow of ideas. Remember too that no one down here is likely to buy or even see a book version of this work — books are prohibitively expensive, a luxury really, and so if I am to communicate with the people here (who to some degree must be my principle target audience wise, because after all I am trying to dispel their prejudices vis a vis the Haitian braceros), then I am forced to consider other means of production and distribution.

Most of us as photographers dream of regularly publishing in the magazines; but let’s face it, that medium is moribund and we are not the communicators we once were, particularly if we stick to that historical pattern. We need to branch out to new media and we need to exercise some control over those media if we are to remain relevant and retain our value as communicators. I am sorry but that is inevitable. Most of the AP recipients spend their year shooting or writing and then publishing the results in a few articles in some magazines, and there’s an end on it. I opted for something different, something more in line with what I see as the future of our profession, and I felt compelled to experiment a bit with the possibilities afforded by the net. I think we all need to do so with the utter seriousness and intensity that a child brings to play. As Nietzsche put it, “A man’s maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.” And why not, right? After all, play is serious business, but it is fun too. So let’s have some fun while we are at it . . . .