‘You don’t do video???’
‘Man, your work is dope, do you do video?’
‘You’re missing out on some bread’
Oh, you only take pictures’
—
A few months ago, I was rapping with my good brother (and filmmaking is among his incredible array of talents) outside his house on a rainy spring morning in Auburn Gresham. In truth, it was cold as shit and we had no business being outside as long as we were. but good company makes it all worth it.
Our conversation settled into a groove revolving around his deepening love (and transition towards) for the craft of filmmaking and my commitment to the land of stills. It wasn’t a contentious conversation. We agreed that there’s a general cheapening of image-making (and in turn image makers) as the prevalence of image-making soars. Everybody and they mama think they’re a photographer now. While we both acknowledged that some of that was dope and even desirable — people wanting to tell their own stories and be seen — we both are critical of the extent to which that created space has been a product of conflating visibility with power.
I mentioned to him how often I’m asked if I ‘do film’ when I mention to people that I’m a photographer. Clients are most guilty of this, but I also have noted over the years a continuity of the subtle disappointment and confusion on people’s faces when I inform them that I don’t do film work. It’s almost as if choosing to photograph represented some naïveté, some lesser calling. I mentioned that I was curious about how common this notion has become in the communities I’m in.
Don’t get me twisted. I have a deep love and respect for filmmakers as well as the art and craft of filmmaking. Some of my best friends are filmmakers… lmao. I taught film and video editing for 3 years in Baltimore. I know film can be a great tool for mass education. But the gap between can and is is always determined by our knowings, commitments, orientations, relationships, and actions. The same is true for photography. I don’t photograph to make business sense, or make our conditions intelligible to white and white-aspiring audiences. My comrade doesn’t film for the ‘business sense’ of it — though we both generate an income based on these skills. Our primary motivations aren’t oriented towards what so many of us are encouraged to do — to ‘make it’ at any cost. The costs matter. We’re also clear that while documenting Black life is an important contribution to our communities, we aspire to use these works to do more than merely recognize or celebrate ourselves. In that sense, He’s more in the traditions of Haile Gerima or Ousmane Sembene and I’m more in the line of photographers like Roy DeCarava and Dawoud Bey.
Nonetheless — we returned to this discussion of filmmaking and photography as crafts. I likened the larger conversation to one I see in another creative world fucked up by capitalism; architecture, the built environment, and two of its constitutive elements; architects and carpenters.
Architects are socially positioned in our collective imagination as awkwardly brilliant, uniquely artistic, and intelligent — some even acquiring celebrity-esq status (hence—’starchitect’ as a concept). Whether they design school buildings, prisons, military bases or skyscrapers is not emphasized. Remember, Real Estate is essentially a service industry too— in service of capital. Carpenters, while not the polar opposite, often exist in that same imaginary as racially brown, poor or working-class, and even when deemed exceptionally skilled, are not associated with a noteable intelligence in the western employment of the concept. Where architects design, carpenters furnish and build. Their craft materializes the vision of the architect which itself is the product of a design brief or proposal. What’s important for us as media makers, and as service providers is the be clear about who and what we’re serving. In life, Who’s asking, who’s giving, who’s paying and towards what ends? Further, What do I say yes to? What do I decline? These are the terrains that I’m inviting readers to interrogate in relationship to creative and cultural workers.
In this framing, architects are more akin to filmmakers, while photographers fall more in alignment with carpenters. The structure of capitalist society provides the parameters of the design briefs. Adherence to the brief becomes synonymous with progress and success. Divergence confers confusion and attempts at absorption. Fancy, poly-syllabic overtures notwithstanding, the instructions are but iterations of the same for-profit impulse. Profit is not neutral. Success is not neutral.
What is the value of photography to you outside of its marketing potential?
What is the power of filmmaking to you outside of the mainstream industry?
How can architecture again become a people’s practice?
How can we be in better relationship with the makers and crafters of living?
Entire volumes exist dedicated to an architect’s artistic and intellectual praxis. Architectural students can study the works of a single architect — never mind the team of people underneath them in the firms they work in. Awards such as the Pritzker Prize have no meaningful equivalent in carpentry — Please don’t take this recognition as some endorsement that such a prize organized in this way is desirable or should be advocated for, it’s not and I don’t. Books on carpentry mostly fall along the lines of ‘how-to’ guides and rarely work through the relationships of making-to-living as thinking and doing cultural exercises.
One of my guiding lights, Paul Robeson offers incredible wisdom towards this end —
Every artist, every scientist, every writer must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers. The battle front is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear.
The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. —Paul Robeson
Back to my comrade and I — We’re both quite mindful of what we’re invited to, and whose invitations we accept — Cameras fly over festivals, hoods, and warzones alike, but we don’t have to — Without a radical impetus and connection to collectives, our creative efforts can easily be redirected towards the same status quo direction.
We’re clear that that direction is not our direction.
So yes, make films.
Yes, make photographs.
Make buildings
Make everything.
Make everything you make
for the people.
