ยฉ David Seymour
A Collective Is Born from a Problem
You think of the collective as a brotherhood, a group of people who see the world the same way and decide to stand together. It is the comfortable version, and it is almost always false. The collectives that last are not born from a shared way of seeing. They are born from a concrete problem that no one could solve alone.
Magnum in 1947 is the clearest example. The photographers who founded it, from Capa to Cartier-Bresson, did not work the same way, and had no wish to. They came together to keep their negatives, to decide where and how the images ended up printed, to deal with magazines without depending on an editor’s agenda. What held them together was ownership of their own work.
The same is true of the groups that formed around street photography, back when galleries and magazines did not consider it worthy of a wall. They came together to give themselves a platform no one would grant them, to exist as a genre in the eyes of those who decided what deserved to be shown. There too the glue was a problem of legitimacy that no one, alone, could shift.
When the problem is real and shared, the group holds. When it comes instead from the pleasure of being together, it dissolves at the first serious disagreement. You hear the difference in the way the work is talked about. In the collectives that work, someone tells you your series does not hold, and you listen, because you are there for something bigger than your friendship. In the others, people cover for each other until there is nothing left to cover.
Before founding one or asking to join, stop and name the problem it is meant to solve for you. More distribution, a harder critique than the one you give yourself, a weight you do not have on your own at the table. If that problem is there, a collective can truly change your career. If the only answer is to feel less alone, what you want is a phone call away, and you spare yourself years inside a group that falls apart. A collective is a tool, not a home.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibรฉ’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.