Barry Schneier Photography

“In the Zone. Winthrop, MA 1972”

When I was a student of photography at Emerson College we were taught the zone system. Made popular by photographers Ansel Adams and Minor White, the idea was through optimizing exposure and negative development you could capture to it’s fullest, all the tonalities availabilities of the black and white negative. Though it was a system based on science and chemistry what it really provided was a methodology between visualization of the photographic subject and producing the optimum final result. To capture all that was in what you could see, was the ultimate goal of the zone system.

Many photographers struggled with it. It wasn’t easy. A slight variation in exposure of your negative or the temperature in the developing bath and you missed it. I think I might of got it right once, with this photo of the woman on the commuter train. But, when you did achieve it, when all the right pieces came into place, you took your photographic skill to a new level. You were…in the zone.

We’ve all used this term before. And I believe we have all lay witness to the experience of someone, or ourselves. being “in the zone”. It’s that singular moment when everything that’s there, that could be there, is there. We see it in sports when the team’s power forward is draining three pointer after three pointer. We see it in music when the members of the band on stage seem to be so locked into each other that the music takes off to a place one can only imagine is reserved for the heavens. But what is most important, I believe, is that we recognize it as human beings. We all know, that down deep inside all of us is a place where it can all come together. Whatever it is, in the end we become locked in with what we believe is how good it can be. How we get there is different for everyone. It takes practice, hard work and great faith. But the beauty of it is, is that you know down deep inside it does exist and you know this to be fact. The zone is always there, it’s up to us to find it.

10/19/12

Patti Smith, The Boarding House, San Francisco 1975

I always thought the road to becoming an artist is a road of discovery. You forge ahead, never really knowing what’s next, but that’s not important. Your passion drives you, reason takes a back seat. I was once told that the path to becoming an artist can be a lonely one.

Patti Smith never set out to be a rock and roll singer. She tried art school, loved making mixed media collages and then decided on poetry. She stayed in New York, slept on friends couches and sometimes even doorsteps. Occasionally the thought of a return to the safety of her family’s home in New Jersey entered her mind but it never took hold. She remained an artist, even at the expense of sometime finding herself alone in the largest metropolis in America.

Her book “Just Kids” is the best testimonial I’ve read on what it is to become an artist. Here’s how Amazon describes it

“It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation.

Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Bound in innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed the city from Coney Island to Forty-second Street, and eventually to the celebrated round table of Max’s Kansas City, where the Andy Warhol contingent held court. In 1969, the pair set up camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a community of the famous and infamous—the influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness, when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, and sexual politics were colliding and exploding. In this milieu, two kids made a pact to take care of each other. Scrappy, romantic, committed to create, and fueled by their mutual dreams and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during the hungry years.

Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late sixties and seventies and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists’ ascent, a prelude to fame.”

Patti Smith today is 65. She’s as committed and enthusiastic as ever. Her innocence has grown into wisdom. She has a way with words and still commands an audience. Thankfully, she’s chosen to stay on her road and we are all better people for it. She’s the same artist, seeking, exploring , never tiring. The desire never goes away. There is no end in site, the road is the way. The way is the spirit of the artist in her. Listen to her stories, drink in her words, and you may just hear some of your own life in hers.

10/11/12

Caffe Trieste, North Beach, San Francisco 1975

When I first moved to San Francisco, a writer friend of mine insisted we make a pilgrimage to the city’s North Beach area. To him, this was hallowed ground. At the Caffe Trieste writers of the Beat movement in the late 50’s and early 60’s would spend their time here. It was the meeting place of choice for Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsburg, Richard Brautigan and Gregory Corso among others. Years later, Francis Ford Coppola wrote much of his screenplay for the Godfather while sitting here. It remains today a popular destination for writers, artists, musicians and actors. Perhaps all wanting to soak in the great expression that had been born here before them.

For me shadows always provide a different frame of reference in a photo. To some they present a challenge to control instead. In portraiture, you seek to control them, in landscapes, you look to calculate the detail in them. I say why fight them. Let them be what they are. Embrace them.

These shadows in the late afternoon at the Trieste conjure up a feeling of pause and quiet. A brief moment of solitude. Maybe holding a place for the another group of great minds waiting to take their seats.

10/9/12