An Open Letter To Nick Turpin

Hi Nick,

Perhaps it would've been better to write you this letter in private. But your recent public statements regarding iN-PUBLiC and myself —in particular your interview with Blackkamera— have brought this dispute into the open, into the public streets, as it were. So I thought it would be best to respond in an open letter.  

Your statements have helped me understand some of the motivations behind your actions, but I believe they misrepresent several key facts. What follows is a chronology from my perspective. I hope it will set the record straight for you and for all interested parties. The events below can be corroborated by any other member of iN-PUBLiC, who've all witnessed it first-hand from within the group.

The photograph which kicked off this whole thing was my candid of a busy corner in Manhattan, shot with an iPhone in Pano mode. I posted this on my Instagram page in early August, shortly after taking it. Some viewers were curious about the process and I was open about my methods. I explained that I was experimenting with Pano in fluid situations. I was intrigued by the way the camera stitched together scenes, with glitches and normality mixed in happenstance. The possibilities excited me, and that entire week I posted similar iPhone Pano photos to Instagram. 

I don't expect you to show interest in my Instagram account or my photos generally. I'm merely providing context, to point out that the troublesome photo lived freely online for three weeks without causing much of a fuss. 

At month's end I submitted the photo for iN-PUBLiC's August Photo-Of-The-Month (POM) consideration. A majority of members voted. You were not one of them. In the Blackkamera interview you explained that "I was away for my son’s birthday during the vote and didn’t take part." Within the group your excuse was "I was too busy with teaching." Whatever the reason, there was ample time for everyone to contribute. The vote began in late August and lasted until September 3rd.

Your decision not to vote was typical, as you have not voted in any POM selection in recent memory. I believe this was because you considered yourself above the fray. In your mind iN-PUBLiC was essentially a crew of underlings for you to manage, through which you could boost yourself by association. iN-PUBLiC founder: a notch in the belt. I am indebted to you for creating such a wonderful group, but its daily operations had long ago fallen below your pay grade. No need to dirty your hands in the messy mechanics, unless of course something went awry.

Which in August it did. My photo received one vote more than the runner up, enough to win POM. I'm sure the irony of your decision not to vote was not lost on you. No need to rehash that. But questions did arise within the group about the photograph. After I more fully explained how it was made, you and Nils protested the photo's qualifications, calling it "computational" photography. In various threads then and since, you and Nils have maligned the photo with other labels: "composited", "computational", "digitally manipulated", "invented reality", "CGI", "compromised", and "computer generated". 

I was initially taken aback to hear my photo described this way. As I wrote to the group at the time, I considered the photo a valid expression of the moment, and its methodology quite benign. It was made on a public sidewalk, an unplanned glimpse of a fleeting scene, and it depicted exactly what the camera recorded. I did nothing post-exposure beyond cropping and slight color correction. Yes, the iPhone had stitched its own mistakes into the scene, but for me that was something to be treasured, not banished. Every camera sees the world in its own way, and that way is often different from what the eye sees. I believed at the time and continue to believe that dissonance to be very exciting. It is, on some level, the root of why I photograph.

Of course people too see things each in their own way. For you the photo was computer generated, a close cousin to Peter Funch, and a threat to everything iN-PUBLiC had stood for over 18 years. You threatened to resign if it became POM: "If you post this POM the doors are open to any kind of photography from now on." What followed was a computer generated discussion within the group about the photo, iN-PUBLiC's history and philosophy, and the way forward. For the next several days we were essentially at an impasse. Some of us wanted to respect the democratic process. You requested a revote. At one point I offered to withdraw the image for consideration for the sake of group unity. But no firm decision was reached for the next week. We were stymied, and I believe your ultimatum had a chilling effect on any course of action.  

Something had to give, and finally it did. On September 10th (the normal posting date is around the 1st or 2nd) the photo was finally published as POM by David Gibson. In your Blackamera interview you misrepresented this event as a premature curtailment of the discussion, as if undertaken furtively in the dead of night. In fact our deliberations had dragged into a stalemate by this point, and they had reached a critical juncture. 

Looking back on it now, David's action was probably the most reasonable way forward. But for you it was a tipping point, and your behavior became increasingly unhinged. After following through on your threat to resign, you floated the idea of a general vote among  iN-PUBLiC members about "digitally manipulated" photography. If this vote did not turn out how you wanted, you threatened to "permanently archive" the site. Since you'd gone silent within the group, we had to learn about these developments second-hand via The Phoblographer. We were surprised to read there that you were "now deciding whether or now to take down the whole site," and that "the iN-PUBLiC project may have run its course." Translation: the iN-PUBLiC project may have defied your wishes.

This was a scary moment for the group. But in the end nothing came of it because you never proceeded with that vote. I think you realized it was futile. The group's majority did not share your views, and we were in fact eager to put this entire episode behind us. 

Unfortunately that task soon became difficult, because your next step was to shut down our access to the iN-PUBLiC admin page and make yourself the sole gatekeeper. You made this decision unilaterally, without input from any other member. We found ourselves cut off from the site one morning with no communication or warning. In the Blackkamera interview you explained, "I suspended the site so we could have time to try and find a resolution and agree on some guidelines for the future".  A less charitable interpretation is that you were desperate to exercise power over a group which had slipped from your grasp, from which you had in fact resigned. 

Fortunately we were able to salvage the Instagram account before you could seize that too. But on the primary site our work was preserved like bugs in amber. They were trapped like the colorful denizens of a night bus, your helpless plaything. Rumors flew on the discussion board. We wondered if this might be the permanent archiving we'd heard about. Would we ever regain access to our photos? Perhaps you were just flexing your muscle to remind us who was in charge? None of us knew for sure. We only knew we'd put a lot of work into a site whose future was in limbo. For me there was one more certainty. I resolved at that point never again to be in a collective with you.

I believe you felt you'd drawn some line in the sand, and that others might take a principled stand with you. "If iN-PUBLiC doesn't stand for something, it stands for nothing!" The battle cry of an ancient horse-drawn army. The enemy you faced would be the dregs of iN-PUBLiC, hurtling toward an unmoored future of computer glitches and other blasphemy. On your side would stand proudly team canpubphoto. But as it turned out only you and Nils fell on your swords by resigning. To prove what point? It's still unclear to me.   

Friends who wouldn't resign were gladly thrown under the bus. "I am surprised and disappointed that photographers like Matt Stuart, Richard Bram, David Gibson and Jesse Marlow no longer valued the ethos with which iN-PUBLiC was first established," you told Blackkamera. On FB: "...a lot of the In-Public guys valued their membership of in-public over and above their personal integrity as photographers." In the same Blackkamera interview you falsely claimed that you and Nils were the only iN-PUBLiC members with professional journalism backgrounds, as if that were some measure of general integrity. This week you've launched yet another smear against one of Matt's photos, in a private FB group.

Have you no shame, sir? I understand you don't like my photo. But must you attack the group's integrity? I can vouch for every member of iN-PUBLiC. We're ethical, talented, good hearted. If you cast aspersions on our photographic honesty, that's your choice. But anyone who knows us and our photos will realize the absurdity of such a claim. 

Here we are a few weeks later. In your mind iN-PUBLiC's good name is permanently corrupted, its members doomed to the hellfires of CGI heresy. If photos like mine show up iN-PUBLiC in the future, "we as viewers will not know if they are straight photographs or not." Seriously? Is it that hard to tell? My photo has now been on the iN-PUBLiC site for a few weeks. Trust me, it has deceived no one. The world goes on, at least on one side of the battle line.

IN-PUBLiC's turmoil is a tragedy, on that we can agree. But you've reserved special disdain for me. I've "caused all this trouble." I've deprived you of a source of revenue. I've muddied the canpubphoto waters. "It is the photographer's intention that matters," you write, with me firmly in the crosshairs, "Intention to document or intention to deceive." Nick, do you honestly believe I intend to deceive anyone with the POM photo? Do you think someone will look at my photo and mistake a seven-armed woman for reality? Might that same person also confuse an Ansel Adams monochrome photo for a world oddly bleached of color? 

To avoid confusion, let me clarify my intentions. I have been making photographs for roughly a quarter century, generally in candid unplanned situations. My methods are simple and I'm open about all of them. I generally prefer to hunt pictures in the wild, unposed. But if I preconceive an image I won't hide it. I may be curious how things look photographed, but I have no expectation of fidelity. And if my photos contain any intentional deception, it is through visual ambiguity, hard-earned by careful observation, not Photoshop trickery. 

"I am only against practices in street photography that shift the photographers intent away from creating a faithful record," you write. But what exactly is a faithful record? You've claimed at various times that flash photography is not faithful. That a photo with someone looking into the camera is not faithful. That hip shots are not faithful. That any interaction with the scene is not faithful. That the only true religion is to act as a fly on the wall, with no impact on anything. I consider this outlook ridiculous. 

In the Blackkamera interview you cited Robert Capa's Falling Soldier photo as an example of a troublesome photo. Perhaps a better example for our situation would be Capa's D-Day photographs. They're distorted with motion blur, grain, and development stains. Does that invalidate the photos? Of course not. I believe the flaws —their unfaithfulness, if you will— make them stronger. But what do I know? I don't have a background in professional journalism.

Here's a photo by Christophe Agou from iN-PUBLiC. Is this a faithful depiction of reality?

What about this one by Trent Parke?

Or this one by Saul Leiter?

What about my POM photo from March 2017, showing sprocket holes from misdevelopment?

Or my portfolio of Instax photos, now retired from the iN-PUBLiC site, but which once showed several examples of Clayden effect reticulation? 

I don't recall any protest about these photographs appearing on the iN-PUBLiC site. But somehow my Pano shot crossed the line in the sand? Why? 

News flash: All photographs are translations of reality! All photographs mediate content. Faithful recording is a false standard. Instead of clinging to that one, I recommend a higher standard: Curiosity. 

I believe the central job of a photographer is to be curious. To wonder what's around the next corner, then wander into the next moment. What will this person do now? What will the photo be? What will happen if I shoot from here, or there? Or misexposed? Or lightleaked? Or flawed? What about that weird iPhone Pano mode? What if it shows me a new way? 

Curiosity is the gold standard of photography. It is nearly impossible for a non-curious person to make good photographs. I hope that you are curious, Nick, but I'm not entirely convinced. I wonder how much you really enjoy walking and looking and being surprised. I can sense it in some of your photos, sometimes. But for many of them, no. They're the faint scratchings of someone trapped by rules, stuck in a small box of their own creation, cramming for a purity test. Pedestrians isolated on a bridge. Red doubledeckers. City walls lined up just so. Captions describing the artist at work, struggling to fit static scenes into this or that grand project: "You have to try things like this sometimes if we are going to expand our idea of street photography." True enough. But a fly on the wall is more expansive than this. A fly on the wall has more impact. 

I don't say all of this to be cruel or judgmental, but to point out to you that your rules have you in a straightjacket. 

I sincerely want you to experience the joy of escaping them. I encourage you to open up. Open yourself to other approaches. Let the rules go. Embrace mistakes. Wander. Wonder. Put curiosity above purity. Enjoy the simple act of observation on your own, no clients, no assignment, no project, no preconceptions, no payment plan. Skip and shout as you hit the shutter. If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. If you see the line in the sand, erase it.

The good news is you are now free. No more iN-PUBLiC to anchor you. Don't worry about us, we're good. You're on your own. Fly. Possibilities beckon. The future's looking up!..

Yours,

-B