Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Watch on YouTube
John Rosenmiller has done a lot of things in his life. He worked in feature films and corporate finance, built and renovated houses, and got involved in the stock market. But later in life, he realized there was something he hadn’t really done: something purely creative.
Photography filled that gap, and an unexpected connection with Cuba gave him a place to explore it.
In this episode, John joins Bob Patterson and me to talk about the many trips (more than two dozen!) that have taken him deep into Cuban life and eventually led to his striking Carboneros de Cuba series. When John first arrived in Havana, its chaos, characters and raw energy reminded him of the New York he knew in the 1970s and ’80s. He returned with a camera and kept going back, building relationships and following his curiosity from one project to the next.
John is refreshingly candid about learning photography later in life. It took years before he felt comfortable calling himself a photographer, and he says realizing how bad some of his early photographs were was actually when he began to get better.
That led us into a topic most of us struggle with: editing your own work. John has a simple theory. Show someone ten strong photographs and they’ll think you’re a strong photographer. Show them those same ten mixed among 30 mediocre images, and suddenly you’re an okay photographer who occasionally makes a good picture.
It’s something we see at Street Photography Magazine, too. More isn’t necessarily better when submitting your work. A small group of photographs that immediately makes an impact can be far more powerful than making an editor search for the good ones.
We also talk about how John creates his nighttime portraits with surprisingly simple lighting, accepting criticism without taking it personally, and the ethics of photographing strangers. John has developed his own rule over the years: he doesn’t want his photography to hurt someone. Sometimes that means recognizing that the best decision is not to take the photograph at all.
Reflecting on our conversation and the quality of John’s work, it’s interesting how little he ultimately measures the value of photography by the photographs alone. Years of returning to Cuba have introduced him to people and communities he never would have known otherwise. He talks about the generosity he’s experienced there, how photographing another culture has challenged the way he sees, and why genuine curiosity about other people has become such an important part of his work.
Near the end of our conversation, I asked John whether he finally feels creatively fulfilled. He said he calls this the “gravy period.” He’s made photographs he believes have merit. People whose opinions he respects have responded to his work. Everything beyond that is a bonus.
And yet, he’s nowhere near finished. John still wants to photograph, experiment, meet people and find new little worlds to explore. Maybe that’s the real creative fulfillment: not reaching the end, but finding something that keeps making you curious about what comes next.