 You go to the sea where it's beautiful and you you want a part of it and I guess you want to Get let somebody else know about it. I think I much felt the same way with Eleanor How's it how's it could you photograph the same subject the same face that you see every day for 15 years straight Harry Callahan can and he did he photographed his muse his wife Eleanor For a 15-year period and in doing so created one of the most Memorable photo series of all time Harry Callahan was an American photographer celebrated for his mastery of capturing Interesting and amazing photographs of seemingly everyday objects He experimented with various photographic techniques and themes, but there is one Project that has cemented his legacy as one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. It's that project that is the key to understanding how to remain fresh and vibrant as a photographer and I would say I guess I had to do it more than anything else and I think I produced a Tremendous amount of photographs in the time, you know that I worked at him just because I was driven so hard to do it I don't take any credit because I liked it There's desire to see the world in a distinct way through the lens of a camera is of course common motivation for many photographers including Harry Callahan and yet Conforming to conventional rules and expectations of what should be photographed can often curtail creativity and photographic exploration You end up stuck in a world where the gatekeepers are Standing tall those people who decide what is a worthy subject for a photograph and and it can really you know It can drag you down But every now and again someone comes along who helps a photographer radically Expand their horizons and for Harry Callahan that photographer was Ansel Adams with whom he was lucky enough to spend a weekend I don't think it was the it was a great pictures or the ones that are considered great of his that really Made me excited it was the Close-up pictures near the ground which I felt that from then on I could photograph anything I didn't have to go to well Yellowstone or Grand Canyon I could photograph Footprint in the sand and it would be like a sand dune and I think this was probably the most freeing thing That's could have ever been for me and of course free He was Harry started photographing everything and anything many different ways He was constantly Interpreting with ideas and different techniques Everything seemed to hold some aspect of fascination The world was a treasure chest of shape and form light and shadow just waiting to be photographed But none of these hold a place in photography like his most famous subject I was the methodist, you know brought up to believe that you didn't expose yourself like that and then when I saw How he shot the pictures That completely freed me because there wasn't anything obscene about them or pornographic like Back now. I think they're quite beautiful This was to be the project that most people who are familiar with Harry Callaghan in some form have seen 15 years of photographing this same person an object lesson and how to remain creative in photography Using a unique approach which ensured that Harry never ran out of ideas on how to photograph Eleanor in fresh and unique ways the photos of Eleanor range from simple portraits to Abstract images and everything in between We often taking pictures of Eleanor in in private unguarded moments In fact Eleanor herself recounts a story where she was busy making dinner You know pots are on the stove lots of stuff and and Harry comes in because look the light the light is perfect We need to photograph now. So of course she had to put everything to one side This is the case before microwaves and all those kind of things and and to commit to the process I love this idea of two people fully engaged in creating photographs There is an idea that has been suggested by a variety of Photographers in in many ways over the years that when you photograph something especially people That you should fall in love with them a little bit. There's a bit of that fascination. You can't take your eyes off somebody These days long-term photography projects are reasonably commonplace But they always seem to focus on the passing of time Rather than the fascination that continues with the person So if you look at those commonplace ones, it might be the same picture on on every day for over a number of years But with Harry's photographs, they are an exploration of Eleanor They're not just simple snapshots. I get tired of photographing one way for a long time And I think this is fundamental in all of my photography that I photographed Let's say the landscape when I first started and then I got tired of photographing the landscape And but I didn't want to stop photographing. I didn't want to wait until The you know it was winter or summer or something like that So I started photographing in the city and then when I got tired of that then I'd go back to The landscape where I'd call photograph my wife The system want to call it system if you want to call it that that Harry employed is so deceptively simple Seems crazy, right that he would take the things he's photographing out there in the world What he's finding fascinating by moving on to something new And apply those concepts to the images that he's taking of Eleanor Oh, that's genius. Look at these photographs. Here's a picture of you know, some sort of Whispy piece of grass and then there's here's Eleanor There are these very strong pictures of buildings and then here's Eleanor Not one of these photographs of Eleanor feels like they're just a quick snapshot just to Make a little checkbox in the progression of the process Each one is playing with an idea and an approach. It's creating something new and often unexpected From the familiar side of his wife each time he presses the shutter We can do this in our own photography that we take one idea and it informs Into another when we place it in a different context It enables us to start seeing images all around us to bind them in new and different ways For 15 years or so the images harrowing Eleanor created together put paid to the argument That so many photographers often lean upon that. Oh, there's nothing to photograph that I need to go somewhere fancy to take pictures Nothing could be further from the truth All you need is an open mind and a willingness to experiment In addition to the photographs of Eleanor which eventually had to come to an end because She went back to full-time work and they just didn't have the time anymore Harry Callahan was also a long time photography teacher helping generations of photographers find Their visual voices and often would keep his own creativity going by embarking Also on the assignments that he was giving the students Now to see how you can take some of those ideas to continuously find new things to photograph Check out this video over here. Thank you ever so much for watching and I will see you again soon