De Cajon Gallery
New York, US 2010
® Benjamin Chambers
In this workshop that we did in New York city with Ernesto Bazan we were able to work the images using a photographic language that allowed us to explore and emphasize its poetic dimensions. I’m convinced that to SEE needs to be learned and that Ernesto taught us quite a bit about this art form. To the city of New York and to Ernesto goes my most profound respect and appreciation.
Benjamin Chambers
® Juliann Petkov
“Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as a artist, in understanding as in creating. In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it only comes to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lays before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain. I’m grateful for: patience is everything.”- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
I first encountered this opening quote from Ernesto’s book, Cuba, hanging on the wooden panels of my friend’s attic. In going through the adventure of Ernesto’s workshop, I think I can say that I understand what it means. On the first day of class, my initial apprehension that came from having absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into, met with immediate validation. I was the youngest and least experienced member of the group- a liberal arts undergrad with only a class in darkroom photography to my credit. I entered Ernesto’s home impatient, vexed, and fearful of all that I did not know about photography. However, Ernesto and the four other students in the workshop treated me with warmth and respect from the first day. I could not have asked for a better teacher. Ernesto taught me patience. Throughout the workshop, I meandered the Cony Island boardwalk, waiting, looking for that “photographic moment,” reminding myself, as Ernesto instructed, not to take a picture unless “it makes my heart beat.” At times, especially in the beginning, I would walk for hours and hours and find nothing, or feel the moment, but miss the shot, or poorly compose. Upon finally taking my first “good” photograph, Ernesto shook my hand and said congratulations, time for more. He is an honest, demanding critic who believes in the potential of his students. From Ernesto’s workshop, I learned to be patient, and to be fearless; ultimately I learned to take a good photograph.
Juliann Petkov
® Karen Hayes Thumann
® Marlaine Glickman
Through ten invaluable and inspiring days with Ernesto I grew to re-envision not only how I look at photographs but how I see through the lens; to discern the fine line between photojournalism and poetry—and how to cross it in my pictures.
Marlaine Glickman
® Pablo Cozzaglio
What a life’s experience this workshop: has been: get to know the marvelous person and maestro Ernesto Bazan. He showed me that the most beautiful photographs transcend technique and editorial interests. I learned to work from the heart, to create simple but beautiful moments. I’ve learned that each photograph is a story by itself, that it doesn’t have neither time nor place. It wasn’t an easy task considering that as a passionate photojournalist it was difficult to divorce myself from the obsession of perfect technique, of the usefulness of content. But Ernesto and his passion for life and for purely human instants, with his absolute simplicity, guided me, moved me and above all, I used him as an example to begin, just begin, what I consider so far the most important process within my career as a photographer: to take images with my soul, looking at life with my heart. It had to be this way! Thank you Ernesto!
Pablo Cozzaglio
