Eternally Conflicted

I wrote and shot this story over the course of two years. Not to make it sound like a bigger deal than it really was; it just took a while for the whole thing to unfold.

Anyway, I finally was able to get it in the paper a couple of weeks back. The lake and its future use has been a hot topic on and off around here for a while. It will probably be that way for a long time to come as the lawsuits make their way through the courts and the vacation mobile homes slowly disappear.

Bourbon Point Memories Run Dry

As the last few boxes get packed and cement blocks are pulled from underneath cobwebby axles, Chris Krzywicki grabs the cordless drill, his eyes on the steel Art Deco nameplates adorning his father’s old vacation mobile home.

“I’m keeping these,” said Krzywicki.

For more than 30 years, the Krzywicki clan, along with their extended family and friends, made Bourbon Point — at the mouth of a cove at Lake Berryessa’s Pleasure Cove Resort — a gathering place on weekends, vacations and holidays, traveling from as far north as Redding and as far south as Los Angeles.

For a long time, it was just Stan, Barbara and the six kids. But as time moved on and neighbors moved out, sons Ted and John Krzywicki and daughter Carol Krauthamer, all got mobile homes there, making Bourbon Point virtually their own.

“When we were kids, we loved water-skiing so much we would sleep on the deck or in the boats and get up at the crack of dawn to ski,” said Ted Krzywicki, the eldest son. “(Lake Berryessa) is what’s kept our family together.”

“It’s like your own church. It’s grounding,” said Krauthamer.

Late last summer, after crossing their water-wrinkled fingers and wishfully thinking the Bureau of Reclamation would decide to let the mobile homes stay, the Krzywickis were forced to take out their trailers and pack up their belongings.

With the Bureau of Reclamation’s Record of Decision for Lake Berryessa banning the lakeside mobile homes in June 2006, the Krzywicki family finds itself with a boat full of memories and no lake to float them on.

“We were hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” said Chris Krzywicki.

Two of the last three mobile homes still in the family were given away once cleaned out, one going to a Napa Valley ranch and the other to a contractor to be used as an office. But Ted Krzywicki stored his, keeping open the possibility of dropping anchor somewhere else.

“I’ve been looking all over the place to go with my trailer, but nothing out there gets you (as) close to the water,” he said last year. “My boats have been sitting in the driveway all summer. At least I can sit in them and turn the stereo on.”

When I was in grad school at SF State, the topic of truth and photography came up regularly, in both my photojournalism and graphic design classes. Context, fleeting moments that happen in a fraction of a second and the power images contain were all part of the discussions as we tried to figure out what made a picture “truthful”.

In the last six months, a couple of high profile discussions have brought the topic to not only the general public, but the subjects in the photos themselves.

The first photo was a shot taken by Thomas Hoepker, a Magnum photographer who, while making his way to lower Manhattan on 9/11, took a few frames of a group of people talking on a sundrenched patio overlooking the river with the smoke billowing from the Trade Centers. Hoepker didn’t include it at first in a book Magnum made on the event, but found it later for a retrospective in Germany and it jumped out at him. Frank Rich, a New York Times columnist, wrote about the shot, then Slate magazine countered and eventually two people who were in the photo weighed in on what happened. Everybody has a different view of it. Even I see it differently now; I first saw it after reading Frank Rich’s column and only just today read the Slate article and the links inside it.

The second example come from the World Press Photo contest that recently picked its 2006 Photo of the Year. Spencer Platt’s picture is from the war between Lebanon and Israel last summer and shows a fashionable Lebanese group of friends in a red convertable touring the ruins in Beruit. Photo District News published a translated interview from a Belgian newspaper with the people in the car providing their take on the whole thing, as well as Platt’s view. This, of course, makes for a slight difference of opinion.

I think these discussions prove, if anything, that people bring their own perspective of the world around them to any picture they may see. As long as photojournalists are documenting what’s out there without the intention to decieve and without altering photos to make them look like something other than what was there, you can’t really blame the photographer for what a picture is saying to you. The problem the subjects of the photos in the above examples have is the perception people might have of them. That’s not the photographer’s fault.

Like the old saying goes, “If you ask 10 different photographers what they think of the same photograph, you’ll get 10 different opinions.”

I think the same goes for everyone else as well.

It’s nice and long too. He offers some cool insights into not only his background, but also his approach to long term projects and balancing life as a father with that of a photographer.

 http://www.aphotoaday.org/apadnews/

Couple of video game dudes who are going to Hawaii for the Madden Football championships.

Don’t ask me why, but I like this.

Anthony Delaney of Brown Bums

Shot a couple of assignments at local public libraries this past week and was surprised to discover how gung-ho they are on model releases.

Almost the first thing both libraries asked was if I used them or if I minded if they used them.

I’ve had to deal with institutions who are gung-ho as well with the whole model release thing, but at least for them it made some sense. I took pictures at a public elementary school once and they made sure that, once I was done shooting, anyone I asked for names of had a model release on file. And I get that. Kids at school can’t really answer for themselves, so having parents give the thumbs up or thumbs down at the beginning of the school year makes the administration’s life much easier.

But a library? I tried to explain that I ask for permission from people either before or after I get a picture I think might be used, and if anyone says “no thanks, I’d rather not be in the paper”—provided it’s not an important news event—I’ll respect their wishes.

They didn’t really care. Well, I shouldn’t say they didn’t care at all. One of the administrators at one of the libraries understood my job and first amendment rights, but said she needed the release for her files anyway and would get it from people once I was done shooting them.

Keep in mind, all of this is taking place over the phone before I go there. I’m already sorta dreading the fact that the story topic is not exactly inherently visual. Now, on top of this, I’ve got administrators worried that I will not get permission from people.

So I do my best to put them at ease while also working cooperatively and come to find out once I’m there that staff members around both libraries police photography like skyscraper rent-a-cops. People would approach me from both branches asking who I was and if I had permission to take pictures from the administrators.

Damn, I get less static at the park! I thought a public library was a public institution? Didn’t the librarians go to court over the lists of books people check out?

Anyone have an asprin?

Honest and insightful. Take the five minutes to read it. You’ll enjoy it. You’d be foolish not to.

http://www.aphotoaday.org/apadnews/

By the look of my blog at this point, you would think all I shoot is kids.

Richard Koci Hernandez’s multimediashooter.com is fully operational and fully loaded. I haven’t had a chance to check everything out yet, but it looks great. Tutorials, product and software reviews and inspriational work everywhere. You could seriously spend days on this site.

I saw his presentation pre-launch at the SFBAPPA multimedia workshop in December and have to say I’m kinda blown away by what’s happening in photojournalism right now. Using video and stills in flash presentations is something I didn’t think would fly, but when done right, it looks amazing.

Maybe the still camera will be replaced by the high-end video camera for the daily news photographer? Who’da thought.

Couple of weeks ago, on what was the longest night of the year, homeless advocates, social workers and a few homeless people themselves held a vigil honoring those who had died over the years while still on the streets of Napa. The ceremony was small but serious and considering that it was held in small town USA, well attended.

The problem was the miserable weather. The kind of weather that makes you want to curl up on the couch with a cup of soup. The rain was steady, not pouring, and it completely through me off. I’ve only had to shoot in rain a few times, so I have no practice and should keep that in mind while I berate myself. But it bugs me that I couldn’t think straight enough to really work the situation.

Well, I take that back. The ceremony was short and I was able to work a couple of shots at least a little bit. What’s bothering me is my lack of clear thinking re: my exposure. If I had just made a small adjustment in my shutter speed on a few of the frames, I could’ve come away with at least more to choose from. It may not have made a difference in the end as to which photo got the nod, but you never know.

Funny how I’m writing about the weather again. Guess I know what I need to work on. Anyway, this is what I ended up with. Could’ve been better.