In the 35 years I’ve been working as a photographer, many of the events I’ve photographed are things I can’t personally do.
--I’ve shot more major league baseball games than I can count, yet I can’t throw a hardball, laser-beam straight and without a hop, from right field to second base; and I can’t hit a 95-mile-per-hour fastball (both are impressive enough skills when you watch a game on television, but they are freakish -- and also poetic -- when you see them, as they say in sports, up close and personal.)
--I’ve covered political campaigns, though (thank gawd) I’m not a politician. I've seen the passion that human beings bring to the free exchange of ideas.
--I’ve even photographed food, beautifully prepared and artfully arranged for the pages of gourmet magazines, yet my own cooking abilities in the kitchen don’t extend much beyond scrambled eggs.
Empathy is what matters in photography.
If you can feel it, you can photograph it.
Several days ago, however, I did pictures of something I have actually experienced firsthand, something I know and personally enjoy doing, and I could barely contain myself and stay on my side of the camera. Kids from the Seattle-area Tibetan community were taking a rock climbing class, and I photographed the event (on a volunteer basis) for the community’s web site, as well as for my own long-term documentary project.
Watching the movements and faces of the novice climbers, I could see moments of grace and exhilaration, but also expressions of anxiety and even fear. I took pictures reflecting the range of emotions that I myself have experienced when tied onto a rope and moving up a rock.
Yes, it might have been fun for me to join the kids in the class and do a little climbing, but the truth is that over the years I’ve learned to “participate” by watching and seeing. Antsy though I might be sometimes, my best role most days is to be the man behind the camera, not up on the rock.
