Can Photography be used as a Zen Practice? And Why Rubin Only Makes ONE Print!
This interview with a podcast host, a workshop leader, and the founder of the modern photography movement NeoModern, M. H. Rubin! He will discuss Zen Photography and why he only makes one print of his works!
Time Stamps
[1:20] Introducing HM Rubin
[3:14] Talk with Rubin Starts
[5:04] What Rubin Makes
[6:13] How NeoModern Started
[10:34] Rubin’s Website
[12:58] Rubin’s Photography Experiences and Career
[13:36] Reflecting on His Photography
[15:20] Other Zen Arts
[17:35] Rules of Photography
[19:05] The Balance of Emptiness
[20:42] Rubin’s Classes
[22:40] Products and Rubin’s One Print Policy
[25:48] Debate About Limited VS. Open Editions
[27:31] Online Usage of Rubin’s Images
[28:17] More on Having Just One Print
[31:54] Trends
[33:00] Picasso
[34:05] Hardest Thing About Art
[36:26] Intermission
[36:48] End of Intermission
[37:23] Rubin’s Father and Managing The Items of Others
[38:42] The Meaning of Printing Photography
[40:25] Rubin on Printing Photos
[41:10] Editing, Photography, and Moments of Time
[42:30] Dealing With Test Prints and Photo Iterations
[45:14] Educating Rubin’s Audience
[50:04] Amplifying The Audience?
[56:00] Luck Vs. Persistence
[1:01:36] Licensing and Contracts
[1:07:06] Measuring Success
Biography:
Michael Rubin has been a photographer and collector for more than 40 years, currently residing in the Bay Area. A young protégé of Jerry Uelsmann, his images are both surreal and documentary. Rubin embraces the passion of the amateur and evangelizes photographic exploration for consumers. He manages a photo collection of thousands of classical works of midcentury modernism and has spent the past years developing a new curriculum in photographic education.
Concurrent with photography, he has had an entrepreneurial career that has spanned industries such as publishing, consumer retail, entertainment media, and technology. Career highlights include Lucasfilm, Netflix, and Adobe, as well as a number of startups. He has had editing and post-production roles on a number of television and feature projects, including the CBS miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” Paul McCartney’s concert film “Get Back” and the Bertolucci feature “The Sheltering Sky.”
Rubin has a degree in neuroscience from Brown University. He is a colorful storyteller and entertaining educator, the author of hundreds of essays, and a dozen books primarily on filmmaking—including a history of Lucas and Pixar titled Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution.
