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Guest Lecture - Miguel Gandert

Sarah Kintner

Summary

Miguel said he shoots film still because it is magic because the negative was there when the picture was taken. He takes picture of the community around him and has been asked to participate in many different photography shows and exposition displaying his work.

Cartier Bresson encapsulated the quintessential photographer to Miguel and Cartier had an impassioned view of his subject's emotion when he captured the photograph.

Miguel spoke of a graduate PhD student's defense where the student embodied the spirit of corn seeds and she found ways to weave a world web from the presence of corn.

He related his experiences of photographing the local communities in a quote: "Poverty in an age of affluence is being unable to write and having others write about you." Miguel wrote about the poverty through his photographs. He feels that though color has its place, black and white photography has more emotion.

He practice in all his classes it to follow three things: Describe, analyze and evaluate. He asks all his students to follow these simple tenets when composing any essay or artistic work.

He presented the idea "How to look at the past as progress" as opposed to remembrances of life in a negative view.

Three questions I did not ask

  1. How does UNM view his work and do they support him when he takes a more avante gard photographic style?
  2. Do you, Miguel, see the Albuquerque communities as distinctive as they were in the 60's and 70's or do you see a more blended community where more people cross over lines that used to be hard? Do you think you've captured that in your photographs?
  3. If you could go to any location or event and shoot photographs - where would that be and why?

Three Future Directions:

  1. In the future will you explore a more global theme or stay rooted in the New Mexico traditions?
  2. Where do you see photography going in the next 10 years and how can still photography compete successfully with the enormous animated film graphics?
  3. How do you see your teaching evolving in the communications and film classes you teach?