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Michael h. Webster Photography

Michael h. Webster Photography

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Biography

The Rich Will Always Be With Us

July 2, 2016 by Michael Webster Leave a Comment

Picture of youth in jewelry store on Church Avenue in Brooklyn

Those who know me a little bit have probably noticed that I am often critical, or at least deeply skeptical, of the wealthy. This is true in relation to the wealthy as a class. Individuals, of course, are just that.

I’ve been accused of hating the rich, which is simply not true these days. I don’t hate anybody, and I consider no one an enemy.

I confess, however, that for many years I did hate the rich. I spent many of the formative summers of my youth and adolescence at a segregated country club where my father was a member. Mom would drop me off early in the morning for swim team. After practice, I’d usually play a round of golf with friends. Then I’d spend the rest of the day hanging out at the pool until mom would pick me up in the evening.

So I got to know the rich, or at least snobby people who considered themselves wealthy,  pretty well; and I really came to despise them. African-Americans could be neither members nor guests, and they were constantly referred to in racist terms. I don’t know if the club discriminated against Jews. I don’t recall there being any Jewish members, but I really didn’t have any concept of Jews being distinct from whites at the time, so maybe there were Jewish members. Thinking back, however, I kind of doubt it. None of the people I now know to be Jewish were members.

But it wasn’t just people of African descent, and possibly Jews (there were no other ethnic groups in our little town back then). The club members, particularly the older ones, were snobs towards anyone they considered “not the right sort of people,” many of whom were white folk with as much, or more, wealth than the country club snobs themselves. Looking back, I think that pretty much anyone whose work might raise a sweat was considered “not the right sort of people.”

I came to see these country club folk, those leading citizens, as little different than the criminal class who bought and sold drugs, committed petty thefts and vandalism, and generally hated the straight world; only they seemed worse for their hypocrisy. I figured I’d rather be a member of the criminal class than the country club. Fuck those assholes and the golf cart they rode in on. That was my motto.

Anyway, my close proximity and inevitable run-ins with these assholes gave younger me a generic hatred for the rich, at least for the country club variety, but as I quit going to the club in high school, and then went off to college and the world, all that mostly faded from mind. It would really only show up in knee jerk type reactions. While most people’s knee jerk reaction was to admire the rich, mine was always to question them. Not for a nanosecond did I ever believe they were better than anyone else, nor more honest or moral.

But then when I got to New York, I came to know a whole different level of rich. Part of it was working with CEO’s and top executives in my various jobs. Most of it was through my kids’ schooling, as both of them went to one of the better independent schools. For the ten years I had a child in an independent school, and also in the year-plus I spent researching them before picking a school, I came to know many wealthy people, several of whom are actual billionaires. I also came to know their children, their children’s teachers and have an intimate knowledge about the independent school systems in which they are educated.

In short, I met many good people, and was incredibly impressed with how the wealthy are educated. In many ways, the people I knew actually are better. Not for their wealth, but for their open-mindedness, high level skills, and genuine care for their children. Of course I know that a small sample of decent New York liberal rich folk does not absolve the whole class, which I’m sure is still better represented by country club assholes in the sticks; but it did help me let go of those old childhood hatreds.

Still, although I was able to stop hating the rich; my hatred  for the system that creates and perpetuates their wealth grew exponentially. I saw close-up how the advantages of wealth play out for the children of the wealthy. I experienced first-hand the incredible advantages kids get by attending the best independent schools, and going on to the choice colleges – not just for the actual educations, but for the networking as well. In the competition for good jobs, the odds are horribly stacked in favor of rich kids. Most regular, middle class people truly have no idea what their kids are up against.

I think that photography, especially documentary photography, has to be one of the worst professions in terms of favoring the wealthy. Photography is an activity that a lot of people really enjoy practicing. With the devastation of the old-time publishing industry and the ubiquity of high quality cameras, there are few photography jobs that pay more than diddly squat. And, if you take the most tried and true road to success, it costs a lot of money to fly all over the world and spend long stretches in war and/or poverty zones.

A regular kid with a passion, through study, hard work and skill may be able to pull it off, but it’s a hell of a lot easier for a trust fund kid to pull it off with the same hard work, granted, but with money not being much of a concern, and having been better prepared skill-wise through school and maybe workshops – and possibly knowing, or his or her parents knowing – editors, publishers, curators or NGO directors who can hire them or get them work.

So I try real hard not to blame the wealthy and connected photographers who benefit from the system. From what I’ve seen, they are for the most part decent, caring and talented individuals. But I do blame the system that gives them all of those unearned advantages.

Everyone should have access to great education. No one should be born a prince. We should all start out as commoners. Then, we’ll see who rises and falls. Then, we can feel much better that they truly earned whatever it is they got.

 

 

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Filed Under: Biography, Media Criticism, Photo Criticism, Societal Commentary

Jack the Vampire Slayer

May 29, 2016 by Michael Webster Leave a Comment

jack-vampire-slayer

I’d guess this was taken in 2003. That’s my son in Prospect Park. He graduated high school last week.

He’ll be starting college in California in a couple months. I’m looking forward to the drive out. We’ll stop in Tucson, where he was born, and I thought we’d never leave.

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Filed Under: Biography

Washington Post Botches Take on “Reality”

February 13, 2016 by Michael Webster Leave a Comment

Member of Washington Post Editorial Board considers different scenarios for the 2016 presidential race.

This should come as no surprise coming from a publication whose fact checker doesn’t understand the basic definition of the word “fact.”

In a what-would-otherwise be a jaw dropping failure to understand the meaning of the word “reality,” a new editorial by the Washington Post’s editorial board accuses Democratic Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders of launching an “attack on reality.”

Sanders’ alleged attack on “reality” took several forms. First, the Post’s Editorial Board objected to him characterizing Hillary Clinton’s claim that he had made personal attacks on President Obama as a “low blow.”

In the very first paragraph, the Editors write “while she made his criticisms out to be more personal in nature than they were…”

So, according to the Washington Post Editorial Board, falsely claiming someone made personal attacks does not fit the definition of a “low blow.” But if making personal attacks is a low blow, then falsely claiming someone made them is as well. At least in the moral universe most of us inhabit. That’s reality.

Then they proceed to the talking point that argues only incremental change is possible. Yea, tell that to Franklin D. Roosevelt, or Martin Luther King, or Lyndon Johnson, or Ronald Reagan, or thousands of others in the history of the world who have accomplished revolutionary change in a short time frame. That, again, is reality.

And although this particular anti-Sanders editorial doesn’t mention it, his plans for universal healthcare and access to higher education are also loudly deemed unrealistic by establishment Editorial Boards, right wing propagandists and the Clinton campaign, but a quick look at the western-style democracies in Europe, Canada and elsewhere show that their “reality” has nothing to do with actual reality.

 

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Filed Under: 2016 Presidential Race, Biography, Media Criticism, Politics

Out of Africa

January 19, 2016 by Michael Webster Leave a Comment

Photo from the Bunker Mentality Series

I’ll start with a bit of an update on my personal history, for both those who sort of know me, and those who don’t. After dropping out of high school in the late 1970’s, I moved around quite a bit, both in the United States and abroad. Eventually, and pretty much inevitably, I reached New York where I lived for about 13 years and rediscovered my vocation as a photographer.

Before New York, I’d lived eight years in Tucson, so I’d already narrowed my travels, preferring to get to know my current surroundings more deeply rather than always flitting off somewhere new and clawing against the surface for a year or two.

But although the time frame had grown significantly, after about 10 years in New York, I began feeling restless and increasingly confined and began looking about for somewhere new to explore, eventually settling on Gabon in Central West Africa. So I set about preparing for the big move, arranging for my son to attend the American University there, buying camera equipment, getting properly outfitted with jungle gear, a four wheel drive vehicle, and then arranging for a shipping container to haul all my junk over there. In the meantime, I’d spend a couple months in my hometown with my aging parents as it was very possible I would never see them again.

I’d been to Africa several times before, and knew without a doubt that everything would not go perfectly; but I did not expect for every single aspect of my plans to fall through. Yet it happened and I ended up staying in my hometown until my kid finished high school.

So I’ve been here for a little over two years now. I took a job as a small town sports photographer, then became editor, inevitably got fired for some combination of insubordination and pissing off the wrong people (circulation increased during my short time in charge), then started my own online publication.

Covering local politics got me  at least marginally interested in local politics. I am now on the Community Corrections Board where I try to ensure that people convicted of petty crimes do not suffer indentured servitude by ongoing court fees as is common in so many places these days (fortunately, the legal powers that be generally agree). I am also now an elected official, having been caucused in when the election winner resigned. It was an election, nevertheless, and I actually campaigned and won against a much more experienced candidate. Who would have thought? Anyway, without going to far into the weeds, I use my position to fight against drug testing of very poor people who need emergency, temporary, aid to pay for such things as electricity or prescriptions. I’m outnumbered by Republicans so have no real influence, but at least if future historians study our era, they’ll find that not every single person in the county was an asshole.

Lately, I’ve been working on creating a tourism website for the county, which has been fun and somewhat profitable by journalistic standards.

Between the journalism, politics, and website work, I know just about all the prominent people in the county as well as those who work for them. It’s far and away the most social I’ve ever been, which is both a gift and a burden.

Anyway, so here I am. My son graduates in a few months and I’ll probably be moving on again, but it’s not for sure. Life is easy here and I have incredible access for photo work. But I’ve made a lot of trips to Nashville and it looks like a place I could live for awhile. Or maybe Detroit? Or back out west? Or even back to Africa. We’ll see.

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Filed Under: Biography

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