A la Harry Callahan

In the first few years of my dancing, there was a long winded on going debate over what constitutes as "biting" (copying someone's move) or "inspiration," which which still continues to this day. At the time the insult of choice to get a rise out of another dancer was to call them a biter. For us, being called a "biter" implied that a dancer was not creative enough to come up with their own moves, and had resort to stealing someone else's moves in order to express themselves. In short it was like saying someone has no soul. Although I now see this experience as part of the ongoing debate over intellectual property, just from a break dancing stand point, at the time it was very difficult for me to accept. As a new dancer, I really felt like I was being discouraged from learning this new art form.

Around this time, I came upon a quote by a famous dancer named Mr. Wiggles, who I thought just pure godlike at the time. "If you don't bite your first year, you'll starve" and in reading these words I found courage. I learned, that in order to learn, I had to be willing to put myself in a similar situation as those that I looked up to.

I look at creating artwork in a similar way. If you see something you like, try to replicate it. By replicating it you can begin to understand the creative thought process behind the object. Although you will never be able to create the exact same thing (as the world is constantly changing after all) you are also given an opportunity to do your own version. It is ok to be inspired by something, creativity does not happen in a vacuum. When in doubt, just call it a hommage.

So this is my hommage to Harry Callahan. I'm not exactly a huge fan of his works, but I greatly respect his skill and experimentation in regards to the medium of photography. This images is modeled after one of his most famous photos, which should need no introduction if you are a photo nerds like me (google "harry callahan, eleanor" if you're not). A good friend of mine tried to replicate this same shot when we were in undergrad. She said it was a lot harder to do than it looks, and she was absolutely right. My version looks nowhere near as intricate as Callahan's (in fact I still have no idea how he did it), but I still like it all the same.