Saturday, March 05, 2011

An Open Letter to Ibarionex Perello

Squawking Seagull by Iguanasan
Squawking Seagull a photo by Iguanasan on Flickr.
A couple of month’s back I stumbled into The Candid Frame and specifically your interview with Joe McNally. It was the first podcast that I listened to that was not aimed so much at the gear and techniques of photography as it was the “journey” of photography. It was this interview that drove me to explore your podcast further and start listening to all the previous episodes.

Each and every episode had something to offer when I took the time to listen. The conversations with various photographer’s about their art, their passion, their lives, moved me in ways I had not expected. No longer was I concerned about f-stops and shutter speeds but I was driven by the need to understand what drove these photographers to create their images and it was all thanks to the amazing way you handle the interviews.

I had fallen in love with photography with my first 35mm film SLR in 1984 when my mother had given me my father’s camera after he had passed away. I had just turned 17 and, while I had used other cameras before, this Canon TX-1 gave me the control that I had never had before with a fixed-focus point and shoot. I bought some film and started shooting. I burned through a lot of film over the next few years and read a lot of books on photography. The cost of buying and developing film soon slowed my passion and the camera sat in a closet only coming out on special occasions.

I now have a digital SLR and shooting thousands of frames costs me just about nothing and so I shoot with a passion. A passion that I don’t understand and have no words to express. I am a geek and not an artistic type that appreciates colour, shape, and texture, yet I still feel the need, I’d even say craving, to photograph.

As I continued to listen to your wonderful podcasts I began to understand more and more about my passion to shoot. When I found the episode where you interview Stephan Oberhoff, a jazz musician, I wondered, what the heck were you thinking when you choose to do this interview? What has this got to do with photography? I am very happy to say I was not at all disappointed. In fact, wow! All I can say is WOW! That episode blew me away and put many, many things in perspective for me.

I don’t throw these words around lightly, I feel that particular interview had a profound impact on me and it also drove me to write this letter. I had intended to email you directly but then I felt that I really should share this with everyone. Your podcasts teach me about my photographic path in a way that no other has done and while I still don’t completely understand what drives me to photograph the way I do, thanks to your interviews, I have better tools with which to comprehend my motivation and I believe you have inspired me in ways I still haven’t fully realized.

Thank you for making the time to create this wonderful podcast and sharing it with me and your other listeners.