Ground Glass on Mentors: The Power of a Teacher

This is quite a nice post on mentorship and the meaning of teaching. I recommend you read it as soon as possible.

Joel Sternfeld on Robert Frank « Ground Glass: "I remember with perfect clarity the day he brought Frank’s book to class and told us how he used to sleep with it every night and return to its pages over and over to decode its secrets. So reading his essay, I recognized the emotion in Joel’s voice about being present for the last printing of The Americans under Mr. Frank’s supervision. It must be pretty incredible to realize you have accomplished your dream and reached the level of your mentor. To me, American Prospects sits shoulder to shoulder with The Americans as a seminal photographic body of work. The same way Joel poured of Robert Franks images, countless numbers of photographers have obsessed over his images. What makes photography a wonderful medium, is that when you see Joel’s photo’s, Frank is there, embedded in the the Sternfeld photographic language. But Joel’s vision is also his own."

When I was in music school, I had the opportunity to work with an egomaniacal jerk who felt totally intimidated by any one who didn't regard him as a compositional god. He wasn't, so I didn't. And seeing as he was chair of the Music Dept., it really caused a PIA. A wonderful man, and quite a good composer, named David Cohen let me study composition independently. While our compositional styles were incredibly at odds, it didn't prohibit him from the encouragement and friendship. I didn't write music like his, but he wanted me to write music like me. It was an incredible 2 years and we remained friends for many years after.

I remember he would kind of twist his head, get that impish grin and ask me..."Is that what you wanted? Is that what you hear in your head?" We would be working on the score and he would leap to the piano and play a few bars... then look at me and force me to come to terms with, and defend what I had written. The guy was uncanny in picking some of the passages that had given me fits, so the challenges were uncomfortable, heated and, in the end they made me push harder and harder to be sure of what I had written.

I have always tried to be like David when I teach. I don't want photographers to shoot like me. I want them to shoot like them. Support and encouragement toward developing a style that is unique is so much more important than sitting as a guru that knows 'the way.' I distrust anyone who tells me that they know 'the way.'