I’ve gotten to meet a couple of my photography heroes.
One was awesome, the other not so much.
I got to see Daido Moriyama in Portland Oregon in 20(12?). It was a complete waste of time.
He’s still 900-feet tall in my eyes and one of my all-time favorite photographers, but the experience of seeing him was…
Well, it was a letdown certainly, but one has to ask what other outcome I could have possibly expected. As far as I know he doesn’t speak a word of English, so the presentation was someone else talking about his work while he sat on the stage looking uncomfortable. When the book-signing began, I handed him my copy of Stray Dog and tried to express my deep admiration in my deeply fractured Japanese. He just kind of looked at me and then it was time for the next person to get their book signed…
Thing is though, photographers, especially street photographers, are often very shy people. Not always, but often. It’s a field that is attractive to what Cosmo would call “outsider” personalities. As a college student I found parties excruciating until I started bringing a camera. At least that way I had something to do while the other guests were, well, enjoying life and being good people. One could also make the case that by turning a social event into a shoot all I did was make everyone else feel as awkward as I did. But please don’t…
The other meeting was with documentary photography überkommando Eugene Richards. He spoke at a conference in Texas and he was obviously the only reason half the attendees were there. When the book-signing feeding frenzy began, he had this remarkable ability to make it feel like he’d gotten out of bed that morning for the sole purpose of talking to you… and then, when your 40 seconds were up, he gently let you know that there were 300 other people in the room who wanted their moment and it was time for you to go. But he did so with an Aikido-like grace that didn’t make you feel like you were being brushed off (and of course you were being brushed off, but there really were 300 other people in the room…)
Sidenote: when I left the hall he was being swarmed by people who wanted him to sign their Leicas. He didn’t seem to think this was a good idea and I thought it was flatly ridiculous (‘Mr Richards! Can you sign my spleen!?!?! I take it with me whenever I go photographing! But… but… I’m losing a lot of blood here so… I mean… if you could just speed this along….”).
So, in that regard at least, I’m just like my hero Eugene Richards.
It’s hard to say what I thought I would get by meeting either of these people. It’s not like they could whisper into my ear some arcane secret that would make me brilliant (“set the awesome switch on your camera to ‘very’….”). And perhaps the best thing about meeting your heroes is the inevitable disappointment. They don’t have a mystical secret. Or at least, whatever their ‘secret’ is, it’s non-transferrable. You have to go find your own secret knowledge.