What Hangs On Your Wall Says So Much More About You Than You Know…

(This article originally appeared in the September 9th, 2009 edition of the Century City News)

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words. What Are Your Pictures Saying About You?

By Michael Douglas Carlin

Bank of America in Century City has had numerous complaints about the art displayed in the back of the bank. Customers complain to Anthony, the branch manager, about the Bank taking TARP money while at the same time displaying art worth millions of dollars.

Too pricy of art might send the wrong message to your customers. Cheap art might also send the wrong message. The fine line that says community might be at your doorstep today. How about art that speaks to your clients and employees about the human condition? How about art that documents what is happening to animals on our planet? How about art that documents the changes that are happening to our MOTHER EARTH?

I grew up in a lighting and grip house in Burbank. My father was a lighting director and I spent many days working with photographers. I have worked with hundreds and I have grown to know the good ones from the bad just by being present at the photographing event. The bad ones often get occasionally lucky with a random shot that gets acclaim. The good ones don’t take pictures…they make pictures. I was never able to put this into words until I heard Colin Finlay tell me this over lunch one day. Taking pictures has the connotation of being a spectator at the event. Making pictures brings the photographer into the fabric of the event as a participant.

I knew there was something different about Colin Finlay and his work when I saw his photos. I have seen literally millions of photos in my lifetime and I recognized that a high percentage of his photos were exceptional if not brilliant. I only came to understand him as a photographer when I actually was present at one photographing event. I arranged for Colin to visit “Star Echo Station” in Culver City. I was introduced to “Star” by Stephen Nemeth at his birthday party a couple of years ago and grew to love the place. This is where animals that have been illegally brought into the country are confiscated and sent.

Star has the ability to care for wild animals and they provide a sanctuary that school children can visit to learn about the plight of endangered species as well as what we all can do to help heal our environment. I phoned ahead and talked to someone there and suggested that we visit to take some photos. I was informed about the rules and the documents that would need to be signed for us to visit. I suggested to them that they look up Colin on the internet. I got the feeling that being able to take photographs there was a common request and that there had been procedures established to minimize the number that actually followed through.

When we arrived they knew who Colin was and all of the procedure went out the window. They were grateful he had showed up to see what they were doing. The conversation was very genuine. Two great institutions were meeting for the first time. They abandoned all protocol and opened the cages of wild animals and allowed us to enter for a photographic experience I will always remember. I personally witnessed Colin transform into a quiet almost silent communicator of animals. The respect that he gave them from the moment he met them seemed to tell them that he was there to help others understand them. He seemed to ask them for their photo and they responded by giving Colin a performance. Each animal was different. I felt like I could almost understand what each animal was saying but I knew that Colin understood. In that moment I came to understand the emotion that each animal feels. I was always taught that human beings were the only life forms that can feel emotion. On that day this myth was forever shattered in my mind. I felt the enormous intelligence of the birds. I felt the longing of the cats for the days when they roamed free. I felt the sorrow that all animals feel at being pushed off of the face of the Earth.

I had heard Colin say that every time he made a photograph he left a little of himself behind and that every time he also took a little of his subject with him. I came to understand just what that meant, that day at Star Echo Station. I came to understand just how Colin got such incredible photographs of the Polar Bears, Grizzlies, Elephants and all other animals that he established this trance like connection with. Keep in mind that in the wild he often gets 15 feet or less away from some of the most dangerous animals. He told me about being less than 12 feet away from a family of Grizzlies. At any moment it could have gone wrong and he could have been killed.

Colin is no stranger to danger. He has documented, through his photos, both sides of the conflict in the Holy land. Colin has also travelled to Darfur, Rwanda, Northern Ireland and many other places documenting conflict. He has faced numerous situations that seemed hopeless with bullets flying but so far has managed to return with some incredible photographs. Colin has seen man’s inhumanity to man first hand. Colin has witnessed outright genocide. His book “Testify” brought awareness of the conflict in the Sudan where the Janjaweed are being hired by the Sudanese Government to drive the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit from their homes and lands, killing the men and brutally raping the women.

I met Colin at Bill Pruitt’s “Men’s Night”. This is a group of Westside men that meet to talk about the issues of the day. That particular night I was with my very good friend Sir Edward and he was sharing the floor with Colin Finlay. Colin spoke first and showed photographs of places Ed had been. Colin captured the images in such a way that evoked a memory response in Ed where he could actually remember the smell he had experienced when he was there. I watched as these men talked about these places…literally dozens of them where they visited hours apart. They talked about details that only someone who had been there would know. The conversation broke down into weeping and an embrace for two warriors who had approached the same issues and places from a different perspective and had drawn the same conclusions. To this day the two men are still very close and will forever share the bond of the inhumanity they witnessed. A part of both of these men was left behind at each place they visited and a part of that place will forever remain with them. Ed brought relief into these dangerous places and Colin photographed them but both men came to understand that we as human beings can’t allow this type of criminal activity to continue and both men are champions of ending it forever.
What you have on your walls says a lot about you…I suggest that you allow a part of Colin Finlay and the places he has documented to speak to your employees and clients that you join with all of us in ending the tragedies that have been allowed to go unchecked – until now.

The Century City News is hosting a VIP reception for Mr. Finlay on September 23, 2009 at 6 PM to be held at Cal National Bank on the corner of Avenue of the Stars and Santa Monica Blvd. (1800 AOS). The event is sponsored by The Century City News and Cal National Bank additional sponsorship opportunities are available. I am personally inviting every reader of the Century City News to attend the event. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet one of the world’s most active eco-warriors. Meet someone who has actually travelled to the four corners of the world to see with his own eyes what is happening to our planet and hear his message of hope that we can turn it all around before we reach the tipping point. Reach out to your friends from around the city and invite them out to hear first hand accounts of ecological disasters and recovery opportunities.
For more information on Mr. Finlay I refer you to his website at www.colinfinlay.com

What Hangs On Your Wall Says So Much More About You Than You Know…

(This article originally appeared in the September 9th, 2009 edition of the Century City News)

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words. What Are Your Pictures Saying About You?

By Michael Douglas Carlin

Bank of America in Century City has had numerous complaints about the art displayed in the back of the bank. Customers complain to Anthony, the branch manager, about the Bank taking TARP money while at the same time displaying art worth millions of dollars.

Too pricy of art might send the wrong message to your customers. Cheap art might also send the wrong message. The fine line that says community might be at your doorstep today. How about art that speaks to your clients and employees about the human condition? How about art that documents what is happening to animals on our planet? How about art that documents the changes that are happening to our MOTHER EARTH?

I grew up in a lighting and grip house in Burbank. My father was a lighting director and I spent many days working with photographers. I have worked with hundreds and I have grown to know the good ones from the bad just by being present at the photographing event. The bad ones often get occasionally lucky with a random shot that gets acclaim. The good ones don’t take pictures…they make pictures. I was never able to put this into words until I heard Colin Finlay tell me this over lunch one day. Taking pictures has the connotation of being a spectator at the event. Making pictures brings the photographer into the fabric of the event as a participant.

I knew there was something different about Colin Finlay and his work when I saw his photos. I have seen literally millions of photos in my lifetime and I recognized that a high percentage of his photos were exceptional if not brilliant. I only came to understand him as a photographer when I actually was present at one photographing event. I arranged for Colin to visit “Star Echo Station” in Culver City. I was introduced to “Star” by Stephen Nemeth at his birthday party a couple of years ago and grew to love the place. This is where animals that have been illegally brought into the country are confiscated and sent.

Star has the ability to care for wild animals and they provide a sanctuary that school children can visit to learn about the plight of endangered species as well as what we all can do to help heal our environment. I phoned ahead and talked to someone there and suggested that we visit to take some photos. I was informed about the rules and the documents that would need to be signed for us to visit. I suggested to them that they look up Colin on the internet. I got the feeling that being able to take photographs there was a common request and that there had been procedures established to minimize the number that actually followed through.

When we arrived they knew who Colin was and all of the procedure went out the window. They were grateful he had showed up to see what they were doing. The conversation was very genuine. Two great institutions were meeting for the first time. They abandoned all protocol and opened the cages of wild animals and allowed us to enter for a photographic experience I will always remember. I personally witnessed Colin transform into a quiet almost silent communicator of animals. The respect that he gave them from the moment he met them seemed to tell them that he was there to help others understand them. He seemed to ask them for their photo and they responded by giving Colin a performance. Each animal was different. I felt like I could almost understand what each animal was saying but I knew that Colin understood. In that moment I came to understand the emotion that each animal feels. I was always taught that human beings were the only life forms that can feel emotion. On that day this myth was forever shattered in my mind. I felt the enormous intelligence of the birds. I felt the longing of the cats for the days when they roamed free. I felt the sorrow that all animals feel at being pushed off of the face of the Earth.

I had heard Colin say that every time he made a photograph he left a little of himself behind and that every time he also took a little of his subject with him. I came to understand just what that meant, that day at Star Echo Station. I came to understand just how Colin got such incredible photographs of the Polar Bears, Grizzlies, Elephants and all other animals that he established this trance like connection with. Keep in mind that in the wild he often gets 15 feet or less away from some of the most dangerous animals. He told me about being less than 12 feet away from a family of Grizzlies. At any moment it could have gone wrong and he could have been killed.

Colin is no stranger to danger. He has documented, through his photos, both sides of the conflict in the Holy land. Colin has also travelled to Darfur, Rwanda, Northern Ireland and many other places documenting conflict. He has faced numerous situations that seemed hopeless with bullets flying but so far has managed to return with some incredible photographs. Colin has seen man’s inhumanity to man first hand. Colin has witnessed outright genocide. His book “Testify” brought awareness of the conflict in the Sudan where the Janjaweed are being hired by the Sudanese Government to drive the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit from their homes and lands, killing the men and brutally raping the women.

I met Colin at Bill Pruitt’s “Men’s Night”. This is a group of Westside men that meet to talk about the issues of the day. That particular night I was with my very good friend Sir Edward and he was sharing the floor with Colin Finlay. Colin spoke first and showed photographs of places Ed had been. Colin captured the images in such a way that evoked a memory response in Ed where he could actually remember the smell he had experienced when he was there. I watched as these men talked about these places…literally dozens of them where they visited hours apart. They talked about details that only someone who had been there would know. The conversation broke down into weeping and an embrace for two warriors who had approached the same issues and places from a different perspective and had drawn the same conclusions. To this day the two men are still very close and will forever share the bond of the inhumanity they witnessed. A part of both of these men was left behind at each place they visited and a part of that place will forever remain with them. Ed brought relief into these dangerous places and Colin photographed them but both men came to understand that we as human beings can’t allow this type of criminal activity to continue and both men are champions of ending it forever.
What you have on your walls says a lot about you…I suggest that you allow a part of Colin Finlay and the places he has documented to speak to your employees and clients that you join with all of us in ending the tragedies that have been allowed to go unchecked – until now.

The Century City News is hosting a VIP reception for Mr. Finlay on September 23, 2009 at 6 PM to be held at Cal National Bank on the corner of Avenue of the Stars and Santa Monica Blvd. (1800 AOS). The event is sponsored by The Century City News and Cal National Bank additional sponsorship opportunities are available. I am personally inviting every reader of the Century City News to attend the event. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet one of the world’s most active eco-warriors. Meet someone who has actually travelled to the four corners of the world to see with his own eyes what is happening to our planet and hear his message of hope that we can turn it all around before we reach the tipping point. Reach out to your friends from around the city and invite them out to hear first hand accounts of ecological disasters and recovery opportunities.
For more information on Mr. Finlay I refer you to his website at www.colinfinlay.com

Colin Finlay to Speak at the Annenberg

(This article originally appeared in the September 9th, 2009 edition of the Century City News)

COLIN FINLAY is one of the foremost documentary photographers in the world. He has been awarded the prestigious Picture of the Year International (POYi) honor six times.

For more than twenty years, Finlay has documented the human condition with compassion, empathy and dignity. He has covered war and conflict, disappearing traditions, the environment in both its glory and its devastation, genocide, famine, religious pilgrimage and global cultures. In pursuit of his passion, he has circled the globe twenty-seven times, in search of that one photo that will be a testament to the depth of human will and compassion, of hope and of an informed collective consciousness.

His work has been honored by prestigious organizations such as the Lucie Award/IPA, POYi (Picture of the Year International), New York Art Directors, Photo District News (PDN), Applied Arts, International Center for Photography, and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

His photographs have been featured in Vanity Fair, TIME, U.S. News and World Report, American Photo, Los Angeles Magazine, Asia Week, World Health Organization, UNICEF, Photographic Magazine, Communication Arts and Discovery.

Currently, Finlay is also a partner/collaborator at Definitive Stories, a partnership that produces and curates stories from around the world, using emerging technologies.

Finlay’s second book “Testify,” is a collection of images from seventeen years of photojournalism around the globe, and was published in 2006.

“Darfur: Twenty Years of War and Genocide in Sudan,” Finlay’s third book, was published in July 2007, by powerHouse. Co-produced with Proof and Amnesty International, this book brings to light the history of war by eight world-renowned photographers and writers. Established by Finlay, Proof is a non-profit organization established to create awareness on the issues faced by populations in post-conflict societies and to encourage social change through photography.

In 2007, Finlay also premiered 12°N x 23° E, 64°S x 60° E, a photo essay that features contrasts between photographs taken in Sudan and Antarctica. The essay, which is also produced as an art installation book, was curated by Definitive Stories. The book shows cause and effect and allows the viewer to explore and discover their own conclusions on climate change.

She came to be known by me and only me as the flycatcher. I photographed from within, as her soul slowly tore itself from her body. I sat with her in the suffering of her silence. There was no language between us. There never could be. Her name, yes her name. In her open wounds, of which there were many, flies would be drawn. Their tiny legs, swallowed, dragged down into the puss became trapped. The flycatcher would study one wound in particular. It was at the base of her inside right ankle. The place where earlier a three to four foot worm had been dutifully extracted. Although sometimes the parasite simply ate itself out of the body. She harvested from this hole two to three flies a minute. She would carefully capture them, placing one after another into her mouth. She sat alone in the black heat. Nobody came near her. They simply waited. For her next was the devils tail. Inevitable “Inconvenient Truth” I believe Al Gore would call it. This is where her essence would fall from within her. The rectum, the lower bowels, are simply no longer be held by the body, and what was once inside is now out. Death, I wish was quicker.

But now, she lies within me. Folded into my soul, her and the thousands of others. I do not reject. I now accept their souls as one within me. The courage to live with what I’ve seen.
- Colin Finlay

There was a time, when those who came to spawn were the only ones. They were soon followed by the fish who swim as rainbows, those who came to swallow the egg. Then came the bears with their dusted coats of caramel, all gathered for hibernations harvest. They dove out from the shores of the Kirkuit as brilliant acrobats into their shared river of life. All of them feeding a hunger that time alone and consequence has brought. As it has brought me. I am compelled however to speak of truth. I am here to witness beauty, sidestepping my stock and trade of tragedy. In these first days of fall, as the leaves of cottonwood turn to trees of golden fire I wade out into the water in my chest waders to swim with the bears. The camera I have brought with me lies at the fringe of irrelevant…I am now one with the water as they are. This river of autumn’s gold.
- Colin Finlay

You will die. Man will see to that. You have beneath your paws oil, and this is something we kill men, women and children for. And death, it will not discriminate and it will not be quick. You are to be protected under the endangered species act, but the caveat is that you are the only animal where your environment does not have to be protected. Inuit elder’s are said to be reincarnating into your very essence. To know what it is that you feel, to learn from within your soul. Inhabit your eyes, to understand your pain, and the hunger that consumes you, joining you in your plight.

The scientists that I have worked with, your brothers of great empathy, they have been studying you since 1969 and tell me that by 2015 half of the bears in my photographs will be gone and the entire population will be extinct by 2040. I have now heard that since our conversations that number has been reduced downward to 2035. The ice bear will be gone, bred in captivity and living in zoos of white paint and swimming pools so that we can go visit her polar majesty. I am glad that I saw you when you were once free. Where I stood with you in the deep silence that is the Arctic, your infinite horizon, the land that you walk upon, your home. I arrived into your winter, to hear your breath, to see your offspring and the mother that you are, to witness, with guilt, knowing that my species will usher your sacred lives down the vast unlit halls until the last flutter of your heart dies within you.
- Colin Finlay

I found the “Lords of Africa”, and they sleep there under clouds of guilt with their innocence. Ancient infants, caught between two worlds. One that wants them and one that does not. Refugees of the Great Plains, the savannah, limbs cut from the tree of life. They whisper now into the thunder and I am here to photograph their voice.

Drought, it has come to Tsavo, the worst since 1850 and the water, the commodity that it is, is now precious and fought over. Man triumphs here, bringing down the Lords because they drink too much water, leaving less and less for his goats and cattle who do not belong here in the first place. Felling grace, leaving the infants to die of starvation. At times the tusks are taken and the Ellie’s, as the babies are known, are driven off leaving the men to butcher in peace, these harvesters of the land whales. Leaving behind what they think is a lesser god to man.

And from this darkness comes 22 baby elephants, more than twice the number they have ever had since opening in 1975. Lula, the most recent refugee to arrive, timid to stand amongst the others keeps her red jacket on the longest. Eyes still withdrawn, sucked in, closed to what she must have seen as her mother was killed before her. I don’t know how she stands with her pain, how she could allow the touch of another human, another voice. I was gifted time with them, these “Lords of Africa” and in that time I would be changed forever. I couldn’t help but be as Lula and the others folded me into their world.

From this silence came Kalama, she dropped her head and gently pushed me. From side to side she rubbed against me, seeing just how much my body would give. An early assertion of her strength, her power over me, and once I knew my place, once I was approved, she broke, gently wrapping her trunk around my wrist and lower forearm pulling me towards her. The bond. She wanted to suckle from my finger and for a brief moment I became her surrogate mother. She raised her trunk, using it to anchor or balance herself against my chest as she continued to suckle. A few minutes later, her eyes closed and I felt more of her weight upon me. She was asleep now as I held her in my arms. I brushed a fly away from her eye and felt for the first time in my life what it must be to be a parent. Her silence now sleeps with me in my heart, this gentle “Lord of Africa” and I am grateful to have shared in a love so unique.
- Colin Finlay

September 23rd - 26th is Colin Finlay in Century City Week
23rd - VIP Reception at Cal National Bank 6pm - 1800 Avenue of the Stars
24th - Lecture 6:30-8pm at the Annenberg Space For Photography 2000 Avenue of the Stars
26th - Workshop 9am-4pm at the Annenberg Space For Photography 2000 Avenue of the Stars