PHOTOGRAPHERS SPEAK

2011-05-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Goss: The Familiar Unfamiliar
A revealing insight into the creative approach of Benjamin Goss is that he takes “thousands of images a day without the help of a camera. Faces, situations and moments weave together in my subconscious, then eventually form themselves as negatives when I am out shooting.” This helps account for the deeply personal slant that informs his portraiture and off-kilter urban documentary work. By internalizing the imagery he sees every day, Goss allows it the time and space it needs to germinate and eventually blossom into something dark and wonderful. Atmosphere is predominant in all of his series—mysterious, dramatic and slightly surreal. Instances of puckish, disorienting humor often crop up to balance the darker overtones. Goss also succeeds in evoking a timeless, poetic quality, abetted by a sure command of darkroom craft and a taste for pushing his visuals just slightly beyond.

Benjamin Goss

I understand you got a late start in photography.
I began taking photographs at the age of 21. I happened upon the medium haphazardly, although I have always been a visual person. After years of experimentation photography developed into a valid form of communication for me.

Where do you come from?
I was born in Houston, Texas, but grew up in New Jersey and worked in Manhattan. After living for two years in Barcelona I moved to Karlstad, Sweden, where I have now been for the past few years.

What formal training have you had?
For the most part I am self-taught, although I have had some influences along the way. In 2004 I completed a three-semester fine art photography program at Broby Grafiska [a cross-media college] here in Sweden. Up until that point photography was something I did on my own, and the only feedback and inspiration I got was from myself. It was here that I came into contact with others speaking my language. I have also had a great deal influence from Mary Ellen Mark. I have participated in many of her workshops, and worked as one of her assistants for a brief period.

Does your work bear the imprint of your formative environments?
I’m quite sure they have had an effect on me. I grew up in a city setting, and at an early age developed a distaste for urban sprawl and overwhelming metropolises. Later I came to appreciate the energy and pulse of people who live in large cities. These contrasts show in my work.

Anders

Jenny

New York City is obviously very inspirational to you. What aspects of the city resonate most strongly?
The question I like to ask New Yorkers is “Why do you live here?” I get many different and engaging answers, but never a “I don’t know.” The people in New York resonate and vibrate on a different frequency that’s addictive.

Have you been influenced by anyone in particular?
Many photographers have had an influence on me, and it changes as I grow and develop as a photographer. I admire Diane Arbus for her uninhibited bravery. She challenged herself by taking risks that most other photographers would have been embarrassed or afraid to attempt. I admire the gift that Richard Avedon had in unmasking and revealing his subjects’ true selves. And Mary Ellen Mark for her technique and undying work ethic, and for her extreme intuition and sensitivity towards her subjects.

Can you explain your statement there is no right or wrong when it comes to photography? Are you talking about content? Style? Technique?
In a sense, all three. Everyone expresses himself or herself differently. Photography is just one medium of expression. There are many styles of photography, and one is not necessarily better than the other. Art is in the eye of the beholder, but the most important beholder is you.

Mind

Dionysios

How did you arrive at this perspective?
By believing in my work and myself.

Do you make your living through photography?
Yes, I work as a commercial photographer in Sweden.

The Intuition series seems very much about the uneasy relationship between people and the urban environment. They don’t seem to embrace it as much as put up with it.
Photographers can shape things to fit a certain personal perspective, whether we do it intentionally or not. This was most likely my subconscious intention based on my uneasy perspective on urban surroundings.

You have a knack for revealing ominous urban spaces that seem to trap your subjects, as in the image “Closing Time,” in which all we see is a pair of disembodied feet about to completely disappear behind a metal shutter.
No matter how much I love the vibe and energy of the urban atmosphere, it also gives me the chills.

Man in a box

What?

Your framing choices often reinforce this effect, as when you cut your subjects off in pictures like “Man in a Box” and “What?”
I am always looking for a bit of uneasiness or tension in my images. I like this choice of framing because it doesn’t give away the whole story. It leaves room for the imagination to make up the rest. Then the viewer becomes involved.

The visual contrast adds a lot to the work’s impact. In fact, some of these images might not really work without it. Have you always used high contrast as an aesthetic tool?
This style came to me over many years spent in the darkroom. By printing a bit harder and controlling the image with dodging and burning I can increase the drama of the image.

The people you photograph often seem drawn from the margins of society, yet you don’t exploit that to make overt statements. You simply present them as possessing the complexities, strengths and weaknesses common to us all. Where did this perspective come from?
I think it’s always been with me, even before I turned to photography. I have always rooted for the underdog. I can identify something in everyone with myself. We are all humans going through the same thing called life.

Antlers

India

You often play with unusual juxtapositions—a young boy holding a pair of antlers in the series Breathe; a young man with fox furs draped over his shoulder from your more recent work. I like that you don’t insist on literal interpretations of these odd and unsettling tableaux.
Yes! I want viewers to be fully engaged by challenging them to translate any feelings that they might recognize in themselves. For the image to succeed, it must inspire a kind of unspoken communication with the viewer.

All of your work evokes a certain Alice in Wonderland strangeness. And your portraits betray a dark intensity both visually and emotionally. Are you by nature optimistic or pessimistic?
I have my moments of pessimism and doubts like everyone else. For the most part I am a cup-half-full person. I believe in humankind, even though we are strange.

Rose

Closing time

(Please visit www.benjamingossphotography.com to see more of his unusual and compelling work.)

2011-04-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

Walter Chandoha: City Streets
Numbers don’t lie. And the numbers for Walter Chandoha add up to an enviably successful freelance career: Four-plus decades in the business. More than 300 magazine covers. Thousands of advertisements for hundreds of companies. More than 200,000 stock images of animals and gardens, his twin specialties. But Chandoha’s comparatively small number of vintage New York City photographs—about 200 all told—hold the greatest fascination from a fine art perspective. Made without commercial imperatives from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s, they catch the city’s street life with and a graphic elegance and power reminiscent of the famous New York Photo League photographers, although Chandoha was never affiliated with that organization.

Walter Chandoha (photo: Paula Chandoha Amaral)

Let's start at the beginning.
I was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1920.

How did you become interested in photography, and what formal training, if any, did you have?
I was initially self-taught while attending high school by reading books and magazines on photography at the local library. I also got help and advice at the Lens Club of Bayonne from more knowledgeable members and from lectures and demonstrations by visiting experts. One of these lecturers was J. Ghislain Lootens, who was a friend of Leon de Vos, a New York City commercial photographer who was looking for an apprentice with some skills in developing and printing. By this time (I was now out of high school), I was a fairly good printer and some of my pictures were winning camera club competitions. Lootens thought I had promise and suggested that I show some of my work to de Vos in his New York studio. He liked what he saw, and I got the job—at 12 dollars a week! I was ecstatic.

Madison Avenue

Did your environment influence your photographic development in any way?
Not my home environment, although my immigrant Ukrainian parents were supportive of my efforts. They even allowed me to convert our cellar coal bin to a darkroom when they converted to gas heat. However, my work environment influenced my photographic development immensely. I perfected my skills at black-and-white printing under de Vos’ sharp eye. So much so that after six months of working with him I was making carbros. These color prints require very critical black-and-white precision printing to ultimately convert the images to color. And I learned how to light a picture both in the studio and on location. To this day my trademark backlit cat and dog studio pictures and my best garden photographs have their origins way back in Leon’s studio.

Did you know right away what kind of photography you wanted to do?
No. I enjoyed and tried everything—still lifes, portraits, animals, people, scenics and, because I worked there, New York City scenes.

Was it important for you to develop a distinctive personal style?
No. I probably did not have a personal style until many years later as a freelancer; backlighting sort of became my trademark. Initially, I was unaware I was using backlight, but because the pictures looked better with it, I used it more and more. Later, when I was freelancing, I realized most of my published cover pictures were strongly backlit, so I then consciously tried to get it in my pictures whenever the subject warranted it.

3rd Ave. el curve

Although you’re perhaps best known in fine art circles for your New York street photos, I understand that garden and animal photography are closer to your heart.
They are. These have been my co-specialties in all the years I have been freelancing. But let’s go back a bit to my apprenticeship with de Vos. I worked with him for about two years. We shot a wide range of subjects: product still lifes, models, location work in offices and factories. We used strobes, flash bulbs and hot lights (incandescent) for illumination, depending on the assignment. It was a superb learning job, but even after a couple of years, still at learners’ wages. So I made a change. I next worked for a commercial portrait chain headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. I also worked in their Camden and Trenton studios. I did mostly head-and-shoulder portraits, plus location work at high schools and colleges—yearbook-type pictures of sports teams, various clubs, plays and other stage events and architectural exteriors of their buildings.

Then came WW2. I was drafted into the Army. Because of my photography experience I was immediately assigned to The Fort Dix Post as a press photographer. Assignments on this weekly newspaper were the usual flash on camera (Speed Graphic) newspaper stuff: personalities, spot news, cheesecake, picture stories. After about a year on the paper I finally got some basic training in Louisiana and then was shipped out to New Guinea, where I was assigned to a Signal Corps combat photo unit. Then Borneo, Leyte and, later, Luzon in the Phillipines. I flew into Japan with the first units of the 11th Airborne prior to the peace signing on the USS Missouri in August 1945. I continued doing press work in Japan until my discharge from the Army in early 1946.

Boys cooling off

I enrolled in the NYU School of Commerce, thanks to the GI bill, and majored in marketing. Did the four-year degree course in three years by taking extra credits and attending summer sessions. I got married between semesters in January 1949 and got my degree in the fall of that year along with the first of six kids. A brand new degree, a brand new kid, and no job! I panicked. So rather than face starvation I took a job again with a college yearbook outfit, was sent to an Ohio college and hated it, even though the money was good.

But again, let’s go back. While in college I augmented my GI Bill subsistence allowance by shooting weddings and entering photo contests and sometimes winning cash prizes. And during one winter I found a homeless cat in the snow, gave her a home and sometimes used her (and later her kittens) as a model. Most of the winning pictures I entered in contests were of cats and kittens. In addition to entering contests with my cat pictures I made feature picture stories involving cats and sometimes sold them to New York newspapers. These efforts were so successful that once in a while I got requests for cat pictures from magazines and ad agencies. More of my stuff was published, and I was getting a minor reputation as a cat photographer. Then I made my big decision—I quit the job I didn’t enjoy, drove home and started freelancing as a specialist in cat photography. We starved for two years, were happy and although I did not realize it at the time, we were building a stock picture file that is still yielding today, some 50 years later.

Horse cop, Coney Island

Ironically, many of my NYC photographs were made when I was a student at NYU. There was no thought of making the pictures to preserve the present for the future. I just enjoyed creating pictures and parts of New York appealed to me, so I made pictures. Had I realized how much New York would change I would have cut more of my NYU classes and made more pictures.

What do you enjoy most about taking photographs?
Even today with digital images I marvel at the magic of photography. To look at a subject, visualize its potential in your mind, then squeeze out an exposure and capture what you’ve seen to be preserved forever—on film or digitally—is instant gratification.

Does it provide you with emotional or intellectual satisfaction?
Sometimes with both.

5 cent subway

The New York pictures were taken decades ago. Do you still feel a connection to this work?
Very much so. Especially now that many of the images are scanned and minute nuances in the original negatives can be emphasized or subdued.

Have you done similar work since?
Yes. A few years ago while at a garden writers’ symposium in Toronto I made pictures of many of the buildings there in black-and-white 35mm. And rather than make individual prints of each frame I made a 16x20 enlarged contact sheet of each roll. Looks great. Another ongoing project is in Puerto Rico documenting the use of brilliant colors painted on both private homes and public buildings.

What years do your New York photos encompass?
Mostly 1946 to the mid-’50s.

Did you look at the work of other New York street photographers at that time?
All the time.

Did you get to know any of them?
No I didn't know any of them. Living about 60 miles from New York City limited my opportunities to meet them.

Thom McAn

What was your take on the members of the New York Photo League?
I always felt they were far above me. They were big names. They were the movers and shakers in photography. I was an upstart, trying to eke out a living doing my thing with animal photography.

How many street images did you make back then?
My NYC pictures? I’d say 100 to 200. I’m still searching through my negatives for forgotten images.

Did you have any particular challenges in getting the kinds of pictures you wanted?
Mostly waiting for the right light or weather, especially for some of the night shots. Fog is a great picture enhancer.

Did you have an underlying conception for these images?
Mostly deciding whether to include a person or people in the shot, then waiting until they were properly positioned.

El through city canyons

I find this work very incisive and engaged with the rhythms of the city, yet at the same time it feels somewhat emotionally detached. People are often photographed from behind, or at a distance, or even out of focus. Is it fair to say that you utilized the city’s inhabitants primarily from a graphic rather than emotional perspective?
Sometimes, but in some of my New York pictures people are dominant elements.

Put another way, were you more inspired by the physical character of the city rather than its inhabitants? I’m thinking of the picture of the El train dwarfed by the concrete canyons, which really emphasizes the city’s outsized sense of scale.
Yes.

You don’t focus so much on the hustle bustle nature of the city as on its quieter, more muted moments. Is it fair to say your perspective is more in line with someone like Berenice Abbott, say, than a Sid Grossman?
I have long admired Abbot’s work, but never saw much of Grossman’s.

I also note an emphasis on means of transportation: taxis, buses, trains, ships, even a policeman’s horse. Why this fascination with modes of urban transport?
I was unaware of the transportation angle in these pictures, but now that you brought it to my attention, maybe it can be exploited.

Subway entry at Macy's

What do you think these photographs tell us about New York in the late 40s/early 50s?
Mostly that NYC is constantly changing. I realize that now that I don’t visit the city too often. I see something today that is picture-worthy, make a mental note to bring a camera next time I visit. Next time may be two or three months, and when I go there to make the picture, what I saw has been torn down.

If you were to photograph urban New York today, would you approach it any differently?
I still make NYC pix and I still look for the right light at the right time of the day or the right weather conditions. One of my to-do projects in is to re-shoot my 1940s-’50s pictures from the same vantage point of each shot.

What relationship do these vintage photos have to your other work?
They are entirely different. The NYC pix have never been a major project; they were a “busman’s holiday” sort of a thing. Flashback: When I made the choice in late 1949 to freelance I concentrated on cats using a 4X5 SPEED GRAPHIC and a 21/4 Rolleiflex. Many years later these were replaced with Hasselblads and Super D Graflexes. My “studio” was every room of our three-room apartment in Astoria, a subway ride from Manhattan. A pair of strobes was the extent of my lighting equipment. My late wife was my partner, my assistant, my secretary, my creative director. Without her I could not have succeeded. We struggled in Astoria for a little over a year; our second baby’s arrival prompted a move to larger quarters. We bought a three-bedroom house in Huntington, Long Island, where we lived for 10 years.

Penn Station cabs

At the promptings of some editors I expanded my photography to include dogs, then farm and zoo animals, still mostly in black and white, but toward the end of the 1950s magazines were going to all color, as was my shooting. Initially, one of the bedrooms was used as a proper studio, but the arrival of two more kids required that bedroom, so an even more proper studio was added to the Long Island house where we lived until 1960. The impending birth of our fifth child necessitated still another move. Buy now I was fairly well known for my animal photography—primarily cats and dogs—and getting good assignments from magazines and ad agencies. So we decided we’d move to a farm, which we found in New Jersey. A barn on the property was eventually converted to a proper studio.

Cat and dog photography requires an animal handler; my wife Maria was my handler and assistant. Sadly, she died in 1992. Without her, I had to give up my cat and dog photography in the studio. Flashback: With a bunch of kids and the uncertainty of freelancing income, I grew berries and vegetables to feed my family when nothing was coming in, i.e., no accounts receivables and nothing on the horizon. Even when finances improved I continued to grow edibles organically to feed us. With lots of solid experience in growing stuff I got published with both text and pix in various publications, including many stories in the New York Times. So after Maria died I did more and more garden writing and photography. So much so that now most of my photography is of gardens and to a much lesser degree of animals.

Queen Elizabeth I docking

(My profile of Walter Chandoha appeared in issue 57 of B&W. Be sure to visit his website to compare his personal and professional portfolios: http://chandohaphotography.com/about.html.)

2011-04-06T20:09:00.001-07:00

Seyda Deligonul: Whispers Within
Turkish-born Seyda Deligonul initially started out as a painter, working primarily in an abstract mode for the better part of two decades. But his growing fascination with the passage of time impelled him to eventually set aside his brush and pick up a camera, a machine ideally suited for chronological exploration. A longtime resident of Rochester, New York, Deligonul often focuses his attention on what he describes as nature’s “homeless” —flowers, weeds and shrubbery that are lost, ignored or trampled beneath hikers’ boots. This humble wildlife is for him a kind of prism through which he can give expression to time, memory, motion and beauty.

Seyda Deligonul

You developed a keen visual sensitivity at an early age. Did your parents encourage your artistic development?
Absolutely. When I look back I realize that they were very deliberate in the way they provided an environment for me, with the tools of the craft and the opportunity to enjoy them. I was never “pushed into” pursuing art, but art was in my life, very naturally.

Did you tend to "fix" images in your mind's eye from childhood on?
How did you know? At this age I still play games in business meetings; I look at someone’s face and compose it around an anchor. I try to develop a wholeness, as if I will mentally go back and reconstruct the imagery later. I play similar games even while driving my car. Jokingly, I say I will come as an owl in my next life. Supposedly, owls can turn their heads 360 degrees with a very keen sense of sight. Once I wrote:

i walked away with a face
stolen from a corner of the minute
a contour
raw on my eyes,
in my brain a glimpse
the tilt of a head
pale lipstick
i finished the rest: aletheia.
the unknown

Rolling Hills

You were a painter before becoming a photographer. How long did you paint?
About 20 years.

Why did you transition from painting to photography?
It wasn’t planned. I started about 15 or so years ago. It was an experiment to better understand depth and flatness.

What differences have you noted, if any, in how the mediums communicate?
In photography, we flow in the moment and our perceptions traverse us in the opposite direction. Photography is temporal in nature, in that things present themselves to us and our interpretations of them vary continuously. Even in the studio, where the photographer supposedly has full control, no frame is the same as the previous or subsequent frame. As such, a photographer is given only once chance in that moment. On the other hand, painting is not temporal; its discourse is based on superimposing perceptions. In that sense painting as an art form removes the element of time from the equation. To put it bluntly, photography is a live conversation with a moment, and painting is a series of conversations within our sphere of life.

Was your painting always abstract?
I started in the figurative mode and later turned to abstraction. In one sense, all paintings are abstract. Even a die-hard realist strips the reality from its moment and delivers it with new phrases and language. That is also true for photography.

Letchworth, NY

What attracts you to abstraction? And how do you feel photography as a medium lends itself to it?
Abstract work requires not only expression of content but also producing the building blocks for the architecture, inventing the grammar, and creating the structure. Moreover, none of these can be random; they have to be harmonious and communicable. What a wonderful challenge that is! This challenge is real in any form of abstraction in art, be it painting, photography or something else.

Your work tends to direct attention toward the kaleidoscopic beauty of the organic forms in our environment. What other themes do you try to express?
When I look at a toddler’s block pyramid what I am presented with visually is a triangle from one side and, with the slightest turn, from the top, a square with two diagonal lines, and a perfect square from the bottom-up angle. These renderings, with our wonderful capacity, are interpreted as a whole. That is, we are presented with a square but we construe it as a pyramid. This leap from what is presented to what we interpret involves many things, including time, motion and an entire language. I am fascinated by everything related to time (and I sway into nostalgic renderings in photography, for instance); I am fascinated by motion (and I enjoy the challenge of expressing flow); and I am delighted by conversing beauty with imagery.

Water Mirage

I’m struck by the phrase “whispers within” that you apply to your photographs. You seem to be saying that the natural world has much to teach and inspire us if only we would pay attention. Why do you think we don't?
This is the whole point. Perhaps one reason we feel that the vocabulary and grammar of the natural world is partly intelligible to us is because it’s like a second language, not our mother tongue. Since we are hardly fluent in it, it becomes very convenient for us to silence the nature. It feels hard to use the second language while you have the convenience of your mother tongue.

Is it more important for you to elicit an emotional or intellectual reaction from viewers?
Art is not only about production, but also about consumption. From the two a wonderful conversation emerges. I love to draw out emotional and intellectual reactions from viewers. A monologue is not the best way for art that is innately two-way.

What do you think gives your work its individuality?
I think being simple in phrases, and being sensitive to emotion are typical in my work. I try to adopt a soft and peaceful, almost mystical approach to abstractions. The spontaneity and innocent look are also traits I value. There is some laciness in my photos that some people say makes the imagery very soft, romantic and sensuous.

Spanish Dance

You reference nostalgia, and your work does indeed resonate with that emotion. What is this nostalgia rooted in?
Fascination with time. We are what we are because of an experience in which we flow. Perhaps the time is constant we flow.

What compels you to photograph nature? Do you work with other kinds of subject matter?
When I do nature photography I focus on the “homeless” inhabitants of nature—those things that are lost or ignored, the things that get crushed under the boot of a hiker. My subject matter will hardly make it to a tourist book. Nostalgia, motion and unrecognized beauty comprise my favorite subjects.

Is it more challenging to express complexity (visual/emotional/intellectual) with simple subject matter? Or, as your statement seems to imply, do you feel that complexity is inherent in everything?
“Tristan and Isolde” begins with a wrong chord. Recognizing Wagner’s intention, musicians, I think, call this opener Tristan-chord. After the first chord Wagner proceeds with a beautiful harmony to bring the off-chord intrigue to resolution. In such complexity, I think, the disharmony becomes the genesis for the simple but beautiful consonance. Put bluntly, complexity is the source of simple beauty. In chaos (also in disequilibrium, or broken patterns), there are multiple opportunities to express the beautiful, repeatedly and in the most simplistic ways.

Through the Garden Fence

With regard to visual complexity, there’s something simultaneously intimate and expansive about these images. Do you consciously strive for this effect?
That is the magic I am trying to be part of. The tension between nature’s complexity and the minimalist expression of it fascinates me. That is my playground.

Certain of your images, like “Mendon,” call to mind Cy Twombly drawings, especially his images of curving white lines on a dark background. Do you recognize this affinity?
You are very perceptive. He is very much influenced by Paul Klee and Franz Klein as much as I have been. We have tons of parallels. I have some abstracts from broken window displays with a duct tape holding the pieces; they display a remarkable resemblance to Franz Kline’s black-and-white expressionism. These were shot in run-down neighborhoods in Buffalo, New York with no intention of arriving at parallels with Kline’s work.

Mendon

Are your images made digitally or traditionally?
They are digital.

It looks like you’re using a telephoto lens to flatten the image plane and push things further toward abstraction. Is this your preferred lens?
That is exactly what I do. I also play with the focus point. First, I create sense of flatness, and then, holding the focus on a particular anchor within the narrow depth of view, I compose. Within the flatness of a composition there are layers. This is the only way I know of to transform the magic of three-dimensional world into flat imagery.

Would it be fair to say that your pictures express a kind of visual tension between what we think we see when we look at a plant or flower or tree and what that plant or flower or tree actually represents?
Expressionism in photography may sound like a misnomer, but it is possible. And I think to a degree, I can identify myself with it. Often, nature presents itself in complexity that in most ways does not look much different than a painter’s extremely fast work on canvas. It reveals feelings and emotions, expressing gesturally, sometimes with large brush strokes, sometimes dappling with dripping paint onto canvas. The end result is characterized by a strong dependence on what appears to be accident and chance. It is up to the photographer to spot and seize the opportunity. As a side note, my work differs, perhaps, from the typical expressionism by its anchor where subject matter firmly establishes itself. There is no effort on my part to escape from the representation of the subject.

Waiting in the Storm

(I profiled Deligonul for B&W magazine's issue #51.)

2011-03-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

Justin Borsuk: Manifest Destiny
Borsuk is a San Francisco Bay-area photographer and digital artist who creates images with a unique layering technique that plays with notions of time, place and scale. He combines traditional film capture with digital processing, and shoots in both black and white and color. His personal work is visually and thematically dense and challenging, often bordering on pure abstraction, yet is imbued with a surprisingly emotional resonance.

Justin Borsuk

Easy questions first. Where and when were you born?
I was born March 19, 1982 in Sacramento, California. My family moved to the Bay Area when I was two.

When did you first start taking photographs?
I first learned how to make a black-and-white print from my grandfather in his basement in Seattle at a very young age. Photography was one of his passions, and I remember him showing me how to mix chemicals and the correct process for printmaking. I was always interested in other mediums of art before becoming involved with image making myself. I was a good illustrator in school and started woodworking with my father at a very young age in our garage/shop. I learned how to turn exotic wooden bowls on a lathe and took woodshop in junior high. I took art classes in high school: painting, drawing, ceramics, etc. But photography didn’t really interest me as a medium until I got my first digital camera in college. I started taking pictures of my friends and various activities we were all involved in, like sports, skateboarding, social settings, etc.

What attracted you to digital imagery?
In college (Trinity University in San Antonio) I was really involved with computers, Photoshop, video, film and digital editing. I ended up majoring in communications and worked on a few short films and documentaries. I did take one black-and-white photography course during my last semester as a senior. I started shooting with an old Nikon 35mm camera that my parents got as a wedding present and had hardly used. That was my first real introduction to the medium, and I instantly fell in love with it. Photography meant that I didn’t have to rely on anyone but my own creative power and myself. I took a lot of documentary-style photographs of my friends, fraternity brothers, the places I was living…my whole environment.

American Slaves

Were you primarily self-taught?
I read a lot but I’ve mostly learned by doing and just trying everything once to see what the result is. I shot with a handful of different types of cameras before finally settling on an old Hasselblad. I enjoy slowing things down and making an image step by step. Taking the time to capture a single frame really relates to the concepts I explore with my work. I’ve tried printing on almost everything and have been very involved with experimental and historical processes. I sometimes enjoy shooting with a Holga and even built my own pinhole camera out of Legos. I saw Wayne Martin Belger’s work and hand-built cameras at Varnish in San Francisco and was blown away; his work and cameras are unbelievable.

Has growing up in the Bay area, with its history of experimental photography, influenced your aesthetic approach?
Absolutely. Being exposed to such a rich artistic community and all the culture of the Bay Area has definitely influenced who I am and the work I produce today as a result. I spend a lot of time going to museums and galleries. The Bay Area is full of amazing work, from the most obvious places like the De Young and SFMOMA, to the hidden, one-room gallery on almost every other street. I live in Berkeley and pretty much walk or ride my bike everywhere. I am constantly exposed to great, experimental imagery and art everywhere I go. It’s actually really hard to avoid! One of my favorite things to do is just zone out on BART listening to music and staring out the window at all the graffiti and the world happening around me. I constantly think about how to stand out and be a unique artist in this oversaturated world of art that I live in.

Albany Bulb

Much of your work exhibits an impulse towards abstract, highly graphic imagery. How and when did you begin to see this way?
I think that I have always seen or viewed the world in this way; it has just taken me a few years to finally manifest this in a physical form to show others how I see. I have spent many sleepless hours trying to find my vision, and never thought that my single images truly represent the way I see things. I am definitely my own worst critic, like many artists and photographers, and it has taken me a long time to find a style that satisfies me. Even now, I really can only look at a few of the images I’ve made over the years and say to myself, “Wow! Did that really come from me? Did I really make this?” I am proud of the work I am making, but it takes a lot to blow me away or feel like I have really accomplished something.

Who are some of your influences, photographic or otherwise, and why?
John Gutmann. His style of street and documentary photography really relates to the way I shoot and compose my individual photographs. I admire his eye and I feel like if he were a photographer of my generation, we would be drawn or attracted to similar subjects. His attention to detail and the unique is why I am influenced by his compositions. His early photography of San Francisco prior to WWII is an amazing body of work that speaks to me as a photographer. Gutmann’s perspective influences my work and the way I view the world around me. If I were to do only black-and-white urban landscapes, my work would show a lot of similarities to Gutmann’s.

Jerry Uelsmann. This single photographic artist convinced me to start experimenting with a surrealistic photographic style. Jerry is the master of combination images. I have immense respect for his skill, especially since he creates his work with traditional darkroom processes instead of digitally. I really began to explore my passion of combination or constructed landscapes after viewing Uelsmann’s amazing body of work. This unique genre of photography has had a dramatic influence upon my creative evolution.

Bike confrontation UCB

Idris Khan. He is the main influence for this body of work and this is the first person I have seen develop the multilayer technique I am interested in. Idris often appropriates images and creates a series of photographs representing “every” image of that particular subject. This style can become more painterly than photographic when too many images are combined. I have taken this idea and created something very different by developing this style. Khan says that words and music unfold successively, while photography is about an instant. He also says that photography can ask the impossible and questions what something will look like as a composite or single manifestation of itself.

Picasso. My final images tend to look more like illustrations or paintings rather than just photography, and my favorite painters, including Picasso, influence me. His cubist style of painting, deliberate line work, and bold colors drive me to explore these aspects in my photographs. Picasso has an extensive body of work based on landscapes, especially in the Mediterranean. This work means a lot to me and I try to reference painting with my layered work.

Artemio Rodriguez. An amazing Mexican printmaker/illustrator/artist who creates graphic and extremely intricate imagery. Although it isn’t photography, I take a lot of inspiration from the small details and social commentary in his work.

What was the initial inspiration for your “Manifest Destiny” series?
Sometimes the single image just doesn’t really satisfy me and what I expect from photography. When I started graduate school I was known as the guy who always changed his project and subject matter from week to week. I guess you could call it Art ADD, but I always felt like something was missing with my individual images. I came into my program thinking that I wanted to try everything, every process, every camera, every film type, every presentation method. But I realized that I couldn’t keep up this pace and had to focus on one unique style until I exhausted all of its potential. I became a fan of Idris Khan’s work after seeing some of his images at the Fraenkel Gallery and the SFMOMA. His layering technique appealed to me even though he uses a lot of re-photography of other artists’ work. I thought that I could successfully develop my own style from what I saw using completely original photographs of things and places I was already shooting at the time. I have to say though that I believe my work is totally different than Khan’s, but I have to give him the initial credit for at least planting the idea in my brain.

LDS Temple

Is the layering done in camera or in the darkroom?
I shoot all of the images individually with my Hasselblad and 120 film and compose everything entirely in camera. I begin to see the final image develop in my mind and try to shoot while thinking about how the individual photographs will work together to create the final piece. It has taken me a long time to perfect this process because I never really know what I have until the last step of the layering process. This is what keeps it exciting from start to finish, and I really enjoy every step. I use about 5-10 photographs for each final product. I scan the film on a Flextight drum scanner and then use a layering technique I have developed using Photoshop to create the final images.

What criteria do you apply in choosing what and where to photograph?
It should have some historic value, but I also look for something that simply catches my interest and has repeating shapes or elements that would work well with the layering technique. How do you decide which constructions will be in black and white and which in color? Do they signify different thematic intentions? For this series, I usually make different versions of each image and then decide on the best one. This includes making black-and-white and color versions of each photo. I like both, but the work is totally different in both forms and some images are stronger in color, and vice-versa.

Does focusing on historical places allow for a richer philosophical and visual metamorphosis?
Yes, but I feel that the actual place does not necessarily need to be recognizable to the viewer. It can have the same affect or impact on the viewer if that person can connect what they are seeing, to something that they have experienced in their own lives.

Boy Walking Downtown Soufriere

Combining historical settings and such contemporary elements as cars, telephone lines, signage, modern dress, etc., establishes a tension between past and present, tradition and change. What else are you after here?
I think you describe this perfectly. There is definitely tension between past and present, tradition and change, and everything that has happened in these particular places over time. Some of my favorite photographs have subject matter related to just normal, everyday life, like street scenes or urban documentary. I love seeing old cars, old dress, signage, products, etc., from a time that I could never have experienced…the past. I enjoy period photography from the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s. What intrigues me is that these normal scenes describe so much culturally, technologically, and politically of the times they represent. I don’t expect people to be excited about or interested in such elements as cars, signage and modern dress in my imagery now, but I’m thinking long-term. Maybe in 50 years people will look at my images and think that they are the perfect representation of the overwhelming and chaotic times that we live in. Those same cars, signage and dress may accurately portray the fast-paced, technology driven, war- and oil-fueled world that exists in the 2000’s. I guess time will tell.

The people in these images invariably project a sense of isolation, even (or especially) in crowd settings. Does this reflect an attitude about contemporary urban life?
Sure. In some ways they are trapped in time. I find that a lot of people are just oblivious or inattentive to what is happening right around them. I see the images as a series of smaller moments in time. Everyone is moving at such a fast pace, so catching individual moments and then combining them into a single instant is a sort of cultural commentary on the desire for constant progression and doing things as fast as possible.

Port of Oakland

The layering seems to be a way of deconstructing traditional notions of place as well as identification with place.
Yes, but I also want to challenge the viewer to see a place as a single manifestation of itself. I want the viewer to see this place and identify with me as I witness it, how I capture various views and angles, and how all of those mix together to create the personality of the place. It is a very different way to see things, but it is also a series of memories compiled into one instant.

The layering sometimes verges on complete abstraction, giving the viewer few clues with which to navigate the thematic content. Is this a calculated effect?
The layering of the images definitely obscures detail in the smaller versions such as the ones on my website. The photographs are meant to be viewed on a larger scale and I really try not to print anything smaller than 12x12. The series eventually will all be printed 24x24 in order to really exaggerate all of the intricate detail. Shooting with medium-format film allows me to blow up the final product with great detail and minimal grain so the viewer can really explore the images. The smaller scale tends to condense and detail is unfortunately lost. I think the imagery can work at various scales, but it has a different feel to it at every size.

These images have a kind of emotional neutrality; they’re neither warm nor cool. Do you deliberately try to strip them of emotional content, or does the layering automatically do that?
I think the layering automatically does that and it is hard to identify with any individuals in the images, but it is more about connecting with the idea of the place.

Protest Crown Praying UCB

Or is there an emotional level in these images I’m not seeing?
Yes I hope to achieve some impact on an emotional level. I at least want the viewer to feel like they need to be closer to the work, to really explore the images for small detail and have some tension trying to dissect what they are seeing. I want there to be an overwhelming feeling sometimes because this is what I experience when I take the photographs.

Your website states that the images both reveal and obscure essence. Can you talk about this in a little more detail?
I am referring to both the essence of place and the essence of time. In some of my images the place or time may be obscured to the point that it cannot be identified. I want the images to help reference a specific time and place for each viewer…to elicit certain memories, even if the actual place is easily recognizable.

What other specific themes or ideas are you trying to express in this series?
I have always been fascinated with American history, specifically with regard to the conquering of the West. There is a certain allure that surrounds the concept of sacrifice and the idea of venturing into the unknown. My concept of history leads me into a realm of photography where I feel it is necessary to document a place in a way where I can represent the time that I spend there, and its influence on me. It is unfeasible for me to take only one photograph or choose one image that I truly believe captures the essence of that place. It just doesn’t happen that way for me. I want to be able to show others my time and exploration, and conclusions. I want people to see everything that I see in an instant. Exploration and curiosity are essential to building a relationship between the viewer and my images. Each of these places has gone through some sort of evolution based on cultural transformation and events happening throughout history. The images carry a wealth of information all at once and represent a complex history of activity.

North Beach

(I profiled Borsuk for B&W magazine several years back. In addition to his personal work, he operates a post-production studio that offers digital editing and retouching services for photographers and designers. Be sure to visit his website: www.theflytrapstudio.com.)

2010-11-11T13:47:00.000-08:00

Markéta Luskačová: A Photographic Pilgrimage
One of the Czech words for photography is “zvecnit,” which literally means “to immortalize.” Although old fashioned and colloquial, it’s somehow appropriate when discussing the photographs of Prague native Markéta Luskačová. Since taking her first pictures in 1963—inspired by a chance meeting with pilgrims traveling to the medieval city of Levoča—she has devoted herself body and soul to documenting cultures and traditions under threat of being consigned to history. Another, less welcome influence on her photography was the 1968 Soviet invasion of Prague, a brutal expression of state power that enhanced her empathy for those living outside the boundaries of government approval. For the next several years she concentrated almost exclusively on photographing religious pilgrimages. While not exactly banned under communist rule, they were characterized by a kind of semi-legal status, in which participants were directly and indirectly persecuted by the state. When Luskačová emigrated to London in the mid-’70s, however, she expanded her focus to include religious pilgrims in Ireland, the homeless, children from various walks of life and, most evocatively, London’s Brick Lane Market, a Dickensian enclave teeming with gritty atmosphere and hardscrabble realities. Yet Luskačová strives to highlight basic human values like compassion, tolerance, integrity and solidarity. Such values may seem out of place in our impersonal technological world, yet her work suggests that they hold the greatest (perhaps only) potential for personal salvation.

Markéta Luskačová

I first came across your work in the August 1969 issue of Camera magazine, in which the writer Anna Farova, described as an autodidact. She also wrote: “Marketa Luskacova is not in the least concerned about the traditional rules of photography and she unashamedly neglects the technical side in her pictures.” Looking at your images, however, it seems that you are very much in control of photographic technique. Do you know what Farova meant?
I met Anna Farova for the first time in 1965, when I was a student of sociology. I was writing my end-of-year essay on the link between sociology and photography. She had an extensive library and kindly lent me books on the Farm Security Administration, Dorothea Lange, Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis. On that occasion, I showed her my photographs, and she understood that I could expose the film, develop it and print pictures, so she could consider me an autodidact. But in 1969, when she wrote the piece for the Camera, I had already graduated in sociology of culture at Prague’s Charles University, and I was a second-year student in a postgraduate photography course at Prague FAMU. I am not sure that she knew that. She also wrote that I was a student of political science, which I certainly was not. But I remember that she wrote quite nice things about my photographs.

Men with a cross, Kalvaria Zebrydowska, 1968

Can you talk a little about your beginnings as a photographer?
During my first year at Charles University I took part in a field exercise, the aim of which was to assess the cultural awareness of the residents in a small village near Prague. Each student had a questionnaire to fill out with 10 different people. One villager I questioned was a young girl, a factory worker. I was showed her five postcards as part of the survey: a still life, a 19th century portrait, a landscape, a kitsch birthday card and a modern painting. I then asked her which she liked, disliked, objected to, etc. She looked at the postcards for a very long time, then she laughed and she said she liked them all very much. And she had such a beautiful smile and such an amused expression that I wished I could photograph her—I felt that the photograph would be far more valuable than any statistics I could come up with. I wanted to be a photographer. Later that year I was hitchhiking in Slovakia and I met pilgrims going to the medieval pilgrimage city of Levoca. Then and there I made the decision to become a photographer and to photograph these pilgrims. In communist Czechoslovakia the pilgrimage was something very rare and contrary to state ideology. I wanted to record the pilgrims’ way of life, because I thought that it would not survive for much longer.

Funeral of Janko Adam, shepherd, Sumiac, 1971

Did your childhood and/or the political and cultural environment of Prague have an impact on your photographic concerns?
When communism began in Czechoslovakia there was a big upheaval in my family, during which my grandfather broke both of his hips. He and my grandmother became homeless and went to live with my parents. My grandfather became a housebound invalid. As a young man he was an artist, and art remained his lifelong love. I was his only companion, and he very generously shared this love with me. What was a sad ending of his life for him was a very good beginning of life for me.

You photographed the Soviet invasion of Prague in 1968. What effect did the invasion have on you personally?
My photographs of the Soviet invasion in 1968 are a very personal testimony, an expression of bewilderment, despair and unspeakable sadness. When I decided to go live in the West, I left my best negatives with a friend in Prague, because if the negatives were to be found in my luggage at the airport, I would not have been able to leave the country. I also left with this friend my negatives of the Soviet invasion. Unfortunately, his home was raided by the secret police, who were looking for anti-government documents. They did not find my negatives. However, after the police left, my friend, out of fear that they might return, burned my best negatives of the invasion.

Mr. Ferenc singing, Obisovce, 1967

Have you ever shown those pictures?
For years I searched in vain, trying to find at least some prints. Only recently did I find some photographs from the 1968 invasion in a box of my letters to my father, which his second wife gave to me after he died. He lived in the country, and I had sent him some photographs so that he could see how it looked in Prague in those days. I had totally forgotten that I sent them. About 20 of them were exhibited for the first time in the spring of 2009 at Michigan State University. Four photographs were exhibited and published in a catalog of a large show mounted to mark the 40th anniversary of the Soviet invasion in Prague.

Czech photography has a rich history of innovation. Do you feel kinship with other documentary photographers like Josef Koudelka or Milon Novotný? And did you associate with any Czech photographers?
I used to visit an old and famous Czech photographer named Josef Sudek. He described my questions about his photographs as “picking his cherries.” Josef Koudelka is an old friend. We became friends in 1963, when he was working in a Prague airport designing aircraft. Milon Novotný was a friend of my husband, and once a week we would go to the pub together.

On death and horses and other people, 1998

Is there such a thing as a “Czech” photographic aesthetic?
I don’t think so. But Czechs and Slovaks take photography very seriously. The Czech avant-garde art groups in the early 20th century included writers, painters, photographers and sculptors. And even during communism the official state body “The Artists Union” had departments of painting, sculpture, printmaking and photography. I became a member of The Artists Union in 1969, and in my identity card, in the column “profession,” was written: “visual artists—photographer.”

What year did you leave the Czech Republic, and why did you settle in London?
I left very late; I think it was seven years after the Soviet invasion. My reasons for settling in London were several. Let’s name one: I love London.

How do you typically choose your projects?
There is no typical way in which I choose my themes. Sometimes it almost feels as if the theme chooses me, sometimes irresistibly so. Sometimes one theme leads to another, or evolves. For example, when photographing the pilgrims in Slovakia, I noticed another, very distinctive group of pilgrims coming from the mountain village of Sumiac. When I went to visit them, somehow the theme of the traditional mountain village took over, and for the next seven years I photographed that village.

Two women with a cigarette, Chesire Street, 1977

You seem drawn to marginalized groups of people.
I am quite often photographing people with a way of life that I think might not last for much longer. I want them and their way of life to be recorded. Photography is a great tool for remembering.

Do you spend a lot of time with your subjects before photographing them?
I spend a lot of time with people while I am photographing them. This is because I almost always take a very long time. By the time I finish photographing them, they are my friends. Take the picture “People around a Fire, Spitalfields.” I regularly stopped there for a month, and only took pictures when those men invited me to.

People around a fire, Spitalfieds, 1976

I’m struck by the graphic power of your work, especially the strong contrast and pronounced grain. How did you arrive at this visual aesthetic?
In Czechoslovakia in the 1960s high-speed 35mm photographic film was not available. We used high-speed cinematographic film, which we bought on the black market from film cameramen. When pushed, the film was quite grainy, and I liked it very much. The style was born out of necessity, but I like the grain, I like the texture, even the faults in the emulsion. I don’t mind them; I consider them part of the image.

Do you enjoy working in the darkroom?
I consider photography pure magic, and I enjoy working in the darkroom very much. Unfortunately, in the past few years I get sick when printing for a long time and inhaling the chemicals. So I do work prints and the first print, which is used as a guide. My modern prints are usually made by a professional printer. My early vintage prints were all made by me. Once in Prague, when I was printing, I heard my neighbor’s little girl crying outside. Her mother was not at home, so I invited her to wait in my darkroom. She was watching me dodge the prints under the enlarger and then put them in the developer, when suddenly she said: “Markéta, you are a witch.” And I said, “Of course, didn’t you know?”

Man singing in Brick Lane, 1982

There’s an artlessness, or perhaps an innocence, to the way you frame your images that almost seems to transcend the notion of composition. Do you find yourself in a particular mood or mindset when you press the shutter?
I often stay in one place for a long time, or I walk for hours on end. Hours, days, even years. You cannot take a picture unless you are there with the camera. It is very lovely to find myself in a particularly exalted mood when pressing the shutter, but this is the reward, not a vantage point. From Josef Sudek and Josef Koudelka I learned how long it takes to get a good photograph.

Do you find that the apparent visual simplicity of the images better serves to amplify their emotional complexity?
I like the simplicity of the images; that way I can say things more clearly. But not all my pictures are simple.

You have a way of confronting your subjects directly, but making it feel like a collaboration rather than a challenge. They don’t flaunt their emotions, but they don’t hide them, either. Moreover, the almost stylized intensity of their expressions and gestures sometimes makes it seem as if they are performing for you, even if they’re unaware of doing so.
The art of posing the photograph is different from that of taking things as they are. I think my best pictures are not a result of a “decisive moment,” they are done in a “moment of trust.” No picture of mine was staged or posed by myself. Sometimes people spontaneously posed for me and I simply took the picture, which they offered.

Sclater Street, London, 1975

You often group subjects in threes. Do you attach any significance to this number?
Good spotting! I never thought of it. Three is a beautiful number.

Your work is rooted in documentary tradition, yet the emotion and visual drama take it into another realm beyond documentary. How would you describe your photography?
I never liked the label documentary photographer. In a visual arts context the expressionist style is the one I feel closest to. But I consider myself simply a photographer.

There is something strange and familiar, comforting and disturbing about your photographs. Are you aware of this dynamic?
Yes. I like the tension, the ambiguity, the mystery in the pictures.

Your work has a visual poetry that seems perpetually balanced between light and dark.
Since childhood I have been an ardent reader of poetry. In London, in order to keep my Czech language, I would read Czech poetry every night before dropping off to sleep. If you sense it in my pictures, it comes from inside. Yes, I very much try to achieve a certain balance.

Edward with clock, off Cheshire Street, 1978

Even the objects in your photographs are weighted with character and significance, like the clock in the image “Edward with clock, off Chesire Street.” There’s an ambiguous yet tangible relationship between man and machine. He seems to be holding it up for inspection to an unseen customer, yet the gesture can also be read as if he were acknowledging the passing of time, or contemplating his irrecoverable youth. Is this an intended effect or the result of serendipity?
Sometimes it is intended, and sometimes it is a lucky accident, spotted only in the darkroom.

So much of your work has focused on religious rites, and how they emphasize a recognition and acceptance of mortality. Why are you drawn to religious imagery? Are you a religious person?
Yes, it appears that I am drawn to religious imagery. But my early Slovakian photographs should be viewed within the frame of time and place in which they were taken. In communist Czechoslovakia the expression of faith of any kind was against official Marxist ideology and was oppressed. In my childhood the communists raided the monasteries at night, arresting nuns, monks and priests. They spent their prison sentences working in uranium mines, which destroyed their health. People who practiced religion were called “reactionary elements.” They were often able to work only as unskilled laborers, even if they were university-educated. Their children were often denied education, being labeled “undesirable backwards elements.” My photographs are not only of people practicing religion, they are a testimony to human integrity.

Funeral, Sumiac, 1970

One month after the democratic revolution in December 1989, the director of the Levoca Museum called me in London and offered me a show in the summer of 1990. He had been aware of my photographs of pilgrims from 20 years previously, but told me that his museum would have been closed had he exhibited them. When I went to the opening, the curators recalled how they used to attend such pilgrimages late at night, wrapped in black scarves for fear of being discovered. Had they been recognized by the communist secret police, they would have lost their jobs.

You also focus on people living outside of the mainstream—mountain villagers, homeless people, battered women, disabled children, street musicians and peddlers. What kind of universal qualities do you try and capture in these diverse subjects?
I just try to photograph people as individuals, rather than universal qualities and subcultures. Sociology is gone from the radar.

Close to Prague, 2009

Have your thematic intentions changed at all over the years?
I think the mood of my pictures is changing. I would like my photographs to be more upbeat. I am not sure that I am succeeding.

What projects are you currently working on?
I take a terribly long time with my photographs. I still photograph in Brick Lane when I am in London. I have not found in London any other better place to comment on the sheer impossibility of human existence. In Prague I still photograph carnivals. The photographs are part fairy tale, part horror story. I have photographed them for over a decade. The carnivals were banned during communism, because they were considered part of the Catholic calendar. There was a certain Renaissance when democracy returned to the country—many of the old customs were resurrected. At the moment I am calling this series “On Death and Horses and Other People.” I think it will be good.

The widow Ila Krivanova, sumiac, 1972

[I wrote about Luskačová’s work in issue #73 of Black and White magazine. Check out more of this extraordinary photographer’s work at: www.marketaluskacova.com.]

2010-08-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

Myron H. Davis: The Last Photographs of Carole Lombard
When Carole Lombard took the stage of the Cadle Tabernacle during a war bond rally in Indianapolis, Indiana on the evening of January 15, 1942, no one present could have foreseen that it would be her last public appearance. The Academy Award-winning actress, famous for such classic comedies as My Man Godfrey (1936), had embarked upon a three-day fund-raising tour at the urging of her husband, Clark Gable, following the United States’ entry into the war in December 1941. Lombard helped raise more than $2 million in support of the war effort as she charmed crowds in her home state with her beguiling blend of Hollywood glamour and unassuming nature. Prior to leaving the 10,000-seat auditorium she addressed the crowd one more time: “Before I say goodbye to you all, come on and join me in a big cheer! V for Victory!” At 4 AM the next morning, Lombard boarded Transcontinental and Western Airlines Flight #3, accompanied by her mother, Elizabeth Peters, and MGM publicist Otto Winkler. Approximately 23 minutes after refueling in Las Vegas, the plane slammed into Table Rock Mountain (located 32 miles southwest of Vegas) a couple hundred feet below the peak, killing all 22 people aboard. Lombard was only 33 years old. Of all those who attended that final rally, perhaps none has a more vivid recollection of the actress’ last hours than the man who took her last photographs. Myron Davis was then working as a stringer for Life magazine, and he would soon become the magazine’s youngest accredited war photographer, covering several amphibious landings in the Southwest Pacific. Davis documented Lombard’s official activities during her tour, and his picture of Lombard leading the crowd in singing the national anthem appeared in the January 26, 1942 issue of Life under the headline: “Carole Lombard Dies in Crash After Aiding U.S. Defense Bond Campaign.”

Myron H. Davis working on a troop train story for Life during World War II.

Can you talk about the context in which these images were made?
Well, you have to remember that there was a huge amount of patriotism at that time. People were shocked about Pearl Harbor and believed that we were an innocent country that had been viciously attacked. Lombard was very patriotic herself, and was, I believe, the first big Hollywood star to sell raise money for the war effort. Later, of course, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were noted for traveling to overseas bases and putting on big stage shows for the soldiers. But this was the first war bond rally in the country, and I think Lombard’s death inspired other Hollywood stars to follow her example.

Take me through some of her activities on this tour.
Lombard didn’t like flying, and had taken a train from Los Angeles that was bound for Chicaco. The train made a brief stop in Salt Lake City on January 13, where she spoke to people waiting on the platform and sold some war bonds. Then she got back on the train and proceeded to Chicago, where she sold more bonds and did some interviews. From Chicago she flew to Indianapolis on Wednesday evening, and met her mother at the train station the next morning.

Her first official appearance that day was at the Indiana statehouse. Also attending were the governor [Henry F. Schricker], the publisher of The Indianapolis Star [Eugene C. Pulliam] and Will Hays, who was responsible for the notorious Hays Code of film censorship. The governor made a speech while Lombard stood on a stepstool and personally performed the flag-raising ceremony. She was wearing a fur coat, on account of the cold weather, but she was very down to earth. She didn’t have any “actress” airs about her. After the flag-raising, she signed the first shell fired by the United States in World War I, gave a short speech and then signed autographs for the crowd. I remember that she and the governor and Hays stood in a row at one point and gave the “V for victory” sign for a newsreel camera crew.

Lombard raises the flag as Indiana Governor Henry F. Schricker addresses the crowd.

Then everybody went inside the statehouse building, where Lombard sold war bonds for about an hour or so. She was very good with the crowds, and very spontaneous. She handed out special receipts to everyone who bought a bond. These receipts had her picture and signature printed on them, plus a special message. I still have one, in fact. It read: “Thank you for joining me in this vital crusade to make America strong. My sincere good wishes go with this receipt which shows you have purchased from me a United States Defense Bond.”

She was then driven to the Claypool Hotel, where she was staying, for another flag-raising event. I think it might have been to commemorate the opening of an armed forces recruitment center. After that she went to the governor’s mansion for a big formal reception — busy day! And then that evening, she appeared at another war bond rally at the Cadle Tabernacle, where she gave a patriotic speech to get the crowd fired up. The last thing she did was to lead the crowd in singing “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Did you have much personal interaction with her during the tour?
I was with Lombard for three days, traveling all around. She put in a lot of long hours, and I tried to go wherever she went. We passed a few words here and there, but she knew enough about photography to just let me do my job, and I just let her do her thing and documented it.

Your most famous shot of Lombard is the one in which she’s singing the national anthem onstage.
I knew that the Cadle Tabernacle was the last place that she was to perform publicly before heading back to the West Coast. It was this huge auditorium that was standing room only and filled with patriotic signs put up everywhere. When I got up on the stage I saw way back on the far wall this big sign that read, “Sacrifice, Save and Serve.” That pretty much summed up the mood of the country right then, and I said to myself, “Wow. I’ve somehow got to get that sign as part of the image.”

Lombard leads 12,000 patriots in singing the national anthem.

What equipment did you use for this image?
I used my Speed Graphic and Eastman Kodak Double XX film. I had a battery-powered Heiland flashgun on my camera fitted with a reflector and a #3 Wabash Superflash bulb, which was the most powerful one on the market back then. I framed the shot to illuminate both Lombard and part of the audience to her left. I also had a couple of stagehands point flashtubes with #3 flashbulbs at the front and middle rows to help light what was a really large crowd. Fortunately I got a pretty good negative, but when I had to make an 11x14 print for Life magazine, I had to dodge and hold back some of the sign in the background to make it legible.

I understand you had a close encounter with Lombard at the airport before she got onto her plane.
I was pretty doggone tired after taking that last picture of her, not realizing what a historical moment it was going to represent. I had to catch a plane at the Indianapolis airport at around three or four in the morning. I took a cab there and arrived early. I was practically the only passenger there. So I’m sitting on this wooden desk, half-asleep, when I sensed somebody come in and sit next to me. I felt a fur coat pressing against the side of my leg. Well, of course I knew it must be a woman, but I was so surprised when I opened my eyes and here was Carole Lombard sitting right next to me! We were so close together it was almost like we were boyfriend and girlfriend. I was so startled that it made her laugh, and then I laughed, too. I guess both of us were the kind of people who tried to see the sunny side of life.

Davis captures Lombard’s ability to connect with people from all walks of life.

I had sensed from the start of working with her that she was a wonderful, down-to-earth lady. Being in Hollywood and being a star and being married to Clark Gable hadn’t gone to her head.
So we just sat there and talked about a few of the day’s events. I thanked her for being so cooperative and letting me follow here around and do my thing. And she said, “Well, I was happy to do it, Myron.” I don’t think I called her by her first name. I probably called her Miss Lombard. Being the kind of lady she was, she said early on, “Just call me Carole.” It was a very sincere personal exchange between the two of us thanking each other for working on a job that we both thought was necessary for the country at that time.

Her mother and a Hollywood press agent were also there, standing in front of me. Neither of them spoke much. Carole and I were doing all the talking and laughing until they called her plane. We weren’t there together very long. I would say I talked to her for about five to ten minutes. Her plane was called shortly before mine, and then I got on my plane and fell asleep right away.

Did she talk about her fear of flying?
Yes. She told me she was really afraid of flying, but that she didn’t want to spend three days — and she used this expression — on a choo-choo train to go back to California. So this is another tragic part of it. It was almost like she had a premonition of some kind.

Ever the professional, Lombard held this V for Victory pose until Davis could make the shot.

You didn’t take any photographs of her at the airport?
No, my equipment was checked in, except for my Leica, but I wasn’t going to bother her any more. I’d been following her around with my camera for three days and nights, and it was obvious that she and her mother were tired, like I was. I always tried not to impose on people.

So your Cadle Tabernacle pictures are the last ones that anyone took of her.
Yes, I’m convinced that’s true. I don’t remember seeing any other photographers at the auditorium. And I don’t think anybody else was at the hotel waiting to take her picture after the event wrapped up. I’m certain that the “Sacrifice, Save and Serve” picture Life ran was the last one taken of Carole Lombard while she was alive.

It must have been quite a shock to hear the news about her death.
I was married at the time and living on the south side of Chicago. We hadn’t been married all that long. I was still in bed trying to get some sleep from all this round-the-clock stuff, when my wife comes in, shakes me, wakes me up and says, “New York is on the phone. They want to talk with you.” It turned out to be Life magazine calling. They said, “Myron! You’re sleeping? Where are your Lombard pictures?” I said, “Well, they’re here with me. What about them?” “Oh, you don’t know? There was a plane crash and she was killed. We want those pictures here. Go downtown, develop the negatives and make four 8 x 10 prints. We’ve arranged for you to go to the Associated Press offices, and they will transmit the pictures to us. We’ll look at them and tell you which one we want. Then go back to the darkroom and make an 11 x 14 print, and then go down to the Donnelly printing plant—which was on 22nd Street just off the lake—and deliver this personally. And you’ve got to do that as fast as you can.” So that's what I did.

Lombard puts on the charm at the governor’s mansion prior to her final public appearance.

Once the editors in New York knew that the plane had crashed and that Carole Lombard, her mother and her agent had all been killed, they stopped production of the issue they were working on. At that time the editions for the entire country were printed here in Chicago at the R.R. Donnelly printing plant, and then shipped to the New York and the East Coast and the West Coast. They stopped production on that entire issue until I did what they wanted me to do. That may be the one and only time that Life stopped production on an issue.

As it happens, Life ran just the one image of Lombard. Did you try to do anything else with the pictures you took of her?
Some time after it had happened and after I had gotten over the shock of it, I went to the Life darkroom on the fifth floor of the Carbon and Carbide building on Michigan Boulevard. I spent hours making 11x14 prints that I had taken during her tour, maybe 25 or 30, boxed them up and sent them to Columbia Studios with a letter addressed to the top executives. The letter read: “This may not be the time to deliver these to Clark Gable. There may, in your opinion, never be a time to deliver these pictures to Clark Gable. But I’m leaving this up to your decision. If you think he might want to have these sometime, please deliver them to Mr. Clark Gable.” I never found out whatever happened to them. I never got a response, not from the studio, and certainly not from Gable. But I don’t believe these shots would have been tossed out.

[This interview was conducted in 2009 for a B&W magazine story. Myron H. Davis died on April 17, 2010 from injuries incurred during a fire at his apartment in Hyde Park, Chicago. He was 90 years old. Signed vintage and modern prints of Davis’ Lombard images can be ordered at: www.davidphillipscollection.com.]

2010-08-09T14:03:00.000-07:00

Philip Ringler: Darkness Ascending
Philip Ringler likes to get at the deep dark center of things. His photographs, while rooted in tangible objects and settings, seem drawn from the depths of a starless subconscious. They might be images encountered in a nightmare, disorienting glimpses of subterranean memories, emotions and experiences. Intriguingly, the darker the visuals, the more truth is revealed. Ringler affirms that he photographs states of mind, but his work is less about himself than about such universal issues as alienation, abandonment, suffering and, perhaps most important, a kind of redemption. For Ringler, form and content are inextricably linked. His high-contrast black-and-white photographs are created in the darkroom on textured silver gelatin paper with a homemade developer; the prints are hung using rare earth neodymium magnets without frames or glass to encourage and assist viewers to pass through into the other side. The organic, labor-intensive nature of the process itself evokes the struggle to find meaning within ourselves, our activities, and our place in the world. Born in Walnut Creek, California, Ringler currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he maintains a photography studio, and further contributes to the medium as an instructor, lecturer and associate curator. He recently took time to discuss some of the thematic implications of his Nocturnal Sunrise series.

Philip Ringler

What made you want to become a photographer?
When I was young my family would go on road trips to different tourist attractions across America. I remember standing in front of numerous famous monuments in order to have the rigidly posed “here’s the proof that I was here” photograph taken. Although I understood the basic idea of “capturing the moment” and the sentimental quest to preserve memory, I didn’t feel that those kinds of images were particularly exciting to look at. So I made a decision during one of these vacations to take a plastic disc camera and photograph things I found interesting that had little to do with the specified “points of interest.” I made pictures of chipmunks, feathers submerged in puddles, rusted garbage cans, bent signs, tiny plants growing out of cracks in the sidewalk, etc. I found this new way of interacting with my environment to be really exciting. The act of looking through the viewfinder and composing the world gave me a feeling of creative and personal empowerment. It was like photography gave me permission to care about and examine things that most people considered to be irrelevant.

Refuge

What specific aspects of the medium appeal to you?
I’m a fan of the photographic medium in all of its myriad permutations, but I am strongly interested in the philosophical aspects, especially the idea of questioning photography’s relationship to consensus reality. I approach photography from a non-documentary perspective, where the things and places in the images are not intended as representations of the outside world, but are like sets and characters from a film or play. The images may be derived from things that exist in the world, but they are transformed by the nature of the medium. Quite simply, photographs are not the things themselves. So questions like, “what is that” or “where is that” somehow become less important than the emotional and visceral responses that a viewer may experience. I attempt to further de-contextualize images by exploring scale, composition, tone and titles, all in an attempt to move the reading of an image away from the literal and closer to the poetic.

What kinds of things helped determine your creative direction?
I grew up in a relatively affluent suburban community where the dominant worldview seemed to be concentrated on the material and superficial, a version of life that I chose not to relate to. I always felt lost in this environment, but fortunately I found solace in things like photography, drawing, poetry and music. I wanted to live my life differently and find a more creative community. In college I became involved in the San Diego, and later the San Francisco, underground music scenes as a journalist, photographer and musician. There was a sense of freedom and unbridled creativity that I hadn’t experienced before. It was a necessary experience for me, but not a place I needed to live in forever. After entering graduate school I drew from my past experiences and found ways of translating them into more universal forms.

Black Sun

The phrase Nocturnal Sunrise evokes a seeming contradiction, and signals the viewer to prepare for an unsettling or destabilizing visual experience. How did you come to choose that title?
The title Nocturnal Sunrise is a direct reference to the image of the Black Sun, the darkness that emanates its own source of light. It is an archetype that corresponds with a crucial and difficult stage of personal transformation where you may face unresolved issues, latent fears, trauma, sickness, depression and mourning. The idea is to examine this emotional terrain in order to accept and integrate it. It is about letting go of attachments to suffering and learning to navigate the darkness armed only with compassion and an open mind.

Where were these images taken, and what are your criteria for choosing locations?
I travel to various locations across the U.S. and beyond. I am drawn to certain types of places like amusement parks, decaying urban environments and similar areas where I’m likely to find evocative imagery. I wander around in a state of heightened awareness looking for interesting graphic and metaphorical elements to figuratively punch me in the stomach. I choose not to reveal the specific locations where I photograph, not because I am afraid that people will steal my ideas, but to emphasize the importance of the image itself. For me, these photographs are not tied to specific things or locations, but contain an opportunity for the viewer to create whatever narrative or meaning they want. The photographs themselves function as self-contained realities that are separated from the medium’s assumed ties to documentation.

Chrysalis

You seem to favor urban wastelands and dilapidated interiors — a comment on modern civilization, perhaps?
“Dilapidated interiors” is an interesting phrase because of its implied double meaning in my work. Interiors in my photographs are visual equivalents for the mind and spirit, the inner landscape of the human condition. The dilapidated qualities of these interiors suggest a possible commentary on the nature of the mind in relation to modern civilization. We live in a fast-paced age of information overload, and without slowing down every now and then our minds may resemble these entropic states of disarray. The images can serve as tools for contemplation and deep introspective work.

There’s a subtle, yet definite feeling of claustrophobia in this work. Sometimes it’s manifest in a physical sense, as in “Chrysalis,” and other times it’s expressed on a metaphysical plane, as in “The Great Destroyer,” in which time seems to have stopped. Is this a fair interpretation?
Yes. Your interpretations are thoughtful and honest and totally valid! I have heard similar responses to these particular images before, but I have also had some entirely unexpected interpretations. Several viewers described “Chrysalis” as an outdoor landscape with a large cliff and a low horizon, creating a feeling of openness. One viewer reached out to touch “The Great Destroyer” because they thought it was a 3-D piece (why they wanted to touch it, I do not know, but they were somehow compelled to reach for it and were confounded when it wasn’t a tangible thing to grasp). Other viewers thought that “The Great Destroyer” was a train coming straight at them, which created a kind of anxiety. These are great examples of how the viewer is the co-creator of the work, meaning that I create the images with certain intentions, but the viewer recreates them with their unique perspectives and feelings.

The Great Destroyer

Some of the compositions seem to be arranged; others seem to be scenes you’ve documented without altering anything physically. But even in images like “Refuge,” which belongs to the latter category, there’s a feeling of instability, both physical and otherwise. The viewer is continually made to feel the precariousness of human existence, or perhaps the futility of ambition.
Actually, none of the images were arranged aside from my composition choices. They are all images that I made out in the world, using a 35mm camera, tripod and available light. Of course, I found some really unusual things that may feel arranged, but I look for that kind of serendipity. As far as these feelings of instability and the idea of the precariousness of human existence, these are perfectly valid readings of the images. I did compose many of these images to suggest a particular direction, but the viewer’s responses have been all over the map with “Refuge” and other similar images. I’m just excited to hear what my viewers come up with.

Is there an autobiographical resonance to this series?
Yes and no. I began this series long after a very difficult time in my life. The work was created as a reflection of my experiences with deep suffering. Nocturnal Sunrise is a collection of images that are inspired by my own experiences, but are not about them. I created this series during a state of redemption and healing, not in the grip of suffering. I believe that work made from an authentic, personal place can ultimately become universal in the right context.

A Thousand Lonely Suicides

“A Thousand Lonely Suicides” is a pretty despairing image. Like Celine’s famous novel, it depicts a journey to the end of the night. For me, in fact, there’s a strong literary sensibility at work here, inclusive of Celine’s moral despair, J.G. Ballard’s use of visual metaphor, and the Gothic atmosphere of Poe.
There is definitely a literary sensibility in this work, but I am unfortunately not familiar with Celine or Ballard. Poe is an important influence for me, as far as his lush atmospheric descriptions and ability to illuminate the darkness with a tinge of romanticism. In particular, Poe’s short story “A Descent Into The Maelstrom” had a profound effect on me and I have tried to merge that subtle, yet frenetic energy into my visual language. William Blake’s poetry and etchings also move me deeply and have infused their influence into this series. In Blake’s poem “Auguries of Innocence,” there is the line “some are born to the endless night.” That idea always sends chills down my spine.

Do you feel the overall tone of this work is optimistic or pessimistic?
I like to think of the work as neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but paradoxical. The images may be read as light emerging from darkness, darkness overtaking light, light infiltrating darkness, etc., but ultimately all of these ideas can coexist together. It is my hope that paradox and ambiguity in the images will allow the viewer to determine whether they feel the work is optimistic or pessimistic or perhaps both.

What Goes On

Do you perceive the world and/or people as fundamentally mysterious and unexplainable?
Ha-ha! Yes! Yes, I do! It’s the mystery and uncertainty that adds vitality and excitement to being a human being. Try as they may, scientists cannot compartmentalize the human condition into a nicely wrapped, rational package. The arts are the closest we can get to these whispers of truth, and even the arts ultimately fail to fully explain the vastness of what it means to be alive.

Many of these photographs are enigmatic to the point where meaning is something negotiated between the visual tableau and the viewer’s own emotional or spiritual baggage. I’m thinking in particular of “What Goes On” and “Severance.” Is this something you aim for?
Yes. Again, this ties in to my philosophy of the viewer as co-creator of the work. I strive for this sense of visual ambiguity in order to let the viewer’s conscious and subconscious mind find its own meaning.

Severance

You evince a strong interest in geometric urban patterns — telephone wires, metal scaffolding, intersecting shadows, etc. While interesting on a purely visual level, they also seem to induce a sense of foreboding and entrapment.
For me, these graphic elements serve several different functions. First, they are designed to break up the picture plane with horizontal lines in order to create a sense of ordered chaos. Second, the crossed lines form archetypes that the mind may pick up on and respond to on a somewhat primordial level. For example, the archetypal symbol ‘X’ is loaded with paradoxical meaning, both obvious and subtle. Humans use the ‘X’ to denote when something is going to be removed, going to be put in, to mark something that is already there or used to be there, etc. There are thousand of interpretations within a single archetype, and I like to utilize them as recurring themes, both aesthetically and symbolically.

Is there something about the extra time and effort required to make photographs with traditional materials and processes that affects your approach?
Everything about this project took a lot of time and effort, including finding the right film, paper and developers; traveling to make the photographs; editing, printing, determining the correct presentation method, titling, and installation. I enjoyed all of these challenges as a process, not just as a means to a goal. I love the darkroom because it allows for a kind of mystical experience that you just can’t get sitting at a computer. I adore the arcane instruments illuminated by soft red light, the isolation from the outside world, and the joy of witnessing the genesis of an image from an ethereal source to a tangible object.

Gemini

Have you been influenced or inspired by particular photographers? Or artists in other mediums?
I’m drawn to artists whose work emanates a kind of raw, guttural energy that pierces me to the core. Specifically, I love Stephen DeStaebler’s enigmatic sculptures; they are simultaneously unnerving and gorgeous, and unveil their mysteries over a period of time. I dig Sally Mann’s glass-plate photography series, “What Remains” because of its haunting atmospheric utterances and its overarching themes of impermanence and fragility. I’m heavily influenced by Anselm Kiefer and Antoni Tapies; two painters whose works are at once epic, graphically stunning and loaded with ambiguous metaphysical symbolism. Films like The City of Lost Children, Dead Man and Blue Velvet influenced my compositions and choices of lighting for this project. Music in general is a huge inspiration for my photographs, but musicians like Godspeed You Black Emperor, Nurse With Wound, Three Mile Pilot and The Black Heart Procession had an effect on the psychological undertones of Nocturnal Sunrise and also influenced some of the titles. I like the idea that art is interconnected and that photography isn’t all that different from music, painting and sculpture. Although I choose photography as my preferred means of expression, I have always been baffled by the separatist mentality that places one medium higher or lower than another. In my opinion all artistic mediums are paths to the same goal, whatever that may be.

The Great Depression

Are there any other themes or ideas you’re trying to evoke in this series?
I think that pretty much covers it. On a side note, it is difficult to gauge the scale and energy of this work in a magazine or a website. Something gets lost in the translation that can only be experienced by viewing the prints in person.

Is this an ongoing series, and do you have any other projects/series on the horizon?
I plan on continuing Nocturnal Sunrise as an ongoing series, but unfortunately have to find a replacement for the luminous textured paper that was discontinued by the manufacturer. I am working on a new series entitled Fierce Absurdity, wherein I am using the same high-contrast/full-tonal-range process as Nocturnal Sunrise, but focusing on more ridiculous subject matter. I’m hoping the synthesis of sinister tonalities and silly imagery will facilitate a paradoxical commentary on the absurdities of life.

[This interview appeared in Issue 77 of B&W magazine. Spend some time in the dark at: www.philipringler.com.]

2010-06-02T17:23:00.000-07:00

Bob Witkowski: Rust Never Sleeps
“Straight” or “realistic” photography in some way or another usually points to the passage of time, either subtly or overtly. Not so with abstract photography, which generally has little connection to the real world. This is just fine with Bob Witkowski, who has a passion for shooting macro images of rusting junkyard automobiles that evoke both physical and metaphysical metamorphoses. A one-time law student and Yale graduate, Witkowski also studied at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and began taking photographs in the early seventies. A chance opportunity to photograph an oil refinery led to a flourishing freelance career, during which he has worked for major news magazines, film studios, television networks, tourist boards, corporations and record labels. As fulfilling as this work continues to be, his real joy is making personal images where the only client he has to satisfy is himself.

Bob Witkowski (Photo by Hannah Witkowski)

Where were you born?
I was born in January 1948 in New Britain, Connecticut.

Was there room for creative aspiration during your formative years?
New Britain in the 1950s was a prosperous industrial city with three distinct social classes: upper middle (professional, management); blue collar/lower middle (factory workers, union); and lower (the rest). My Dad was a factory worker. I was a bright and precocious kid, and because of that my family pushed relentlessly for school success and a career as a lawyer. Creative development? Dad was a prodigy musician, but left it all behind for the security of a factory job, marriage and a kid. I went to prep school on a scholarship and was lucky enough to attend Yale on a scholarship as well—all the time geared for a law career and being my family’s great white hope. I played piano, but I had no idea I would ever be a photographer or any sort of artist. Go figure. What I did know early on was that I never was comfortable living in the East. I would be depressed from November until Ash Wednesday, when I felt the hope that warm weather and the colors of spring were not far away.

Rust Macro 6, Missouri, 1974

How did you become interested in photography?
I was unhappy at Yale, although I did okay academically. It was 1966-1970, so I learned to drink and enjoy pot, acid, etc. I still did the shuffle to a law career, but I was completely disconnected. I got so many concussions playing rugby that I was 4-F, so Vietnam wasn’t looming on the horizon. I applied to law schools but don’t even remember or care if I got accepted. But what did happen in May of 1970 was the May Day Riots in New Haven. My suite mate was a stringer for Time magazine, and when the gassing came one night, he tossed me a Pentax Spotmatic, showed me how to load Tri-X and how to focus, set the camera at 125th at f5.6 and said, “Go shoot!” That was it for me. For the first time in my life I felt alive and connected. My head and my heart finally worked together, and my life made sense. The next day I called my poor Dad and told him that I knew what I wanted to do with my life, and it wasn’t law.

Rust Macro 2, New Mexico, 2007

Do you find any points of intersection between your commercial and fine art work?
When I arrived in DC after a year’s graduate work in photojournalism at the
University of Missouri, I found myself in the position of having to survive while trying to stay committed to my “art” at the time. My first break was to get access to the Gulf Oil Refinery in Philadelphia through the aegis of the American Petroleum Institute and its Director of PR, Robert Goralski, one-time correspondent for NBC News. I was paid nothing! I had little money at the time as well. I spent everything I had on several bricks of Kodachrome 25 and drove up to Philly and spent six days in paradise shooting 20 hours a day. It was at the refinery that I discovered I could be true to making images I loved while making industrial images that were sensuous, beautiful and a complete sellout. So I finally had something to drag around in a slide projector to show to industry trade groups and corporations around the DC, Baltimore and Richmond areas. It wasn’t an easy sell at first, and I paid my dues like anyone else for several years, but eventually it paid off for me professionally. I was fortunate to shoot in the golden days of corporate annual reports before Reaganomics altered everything.

Early Rust Abstract

Aside from your “Roses” series, the “Rust” images are your most abstract work. Do you enjoy pushing further into non-representational imagery?
Yes. Actually, I took a long hiatus from shooting rust abstracts. For some reason I couldn’t “find” any great junk cars or I just was no longer able to “see” the patterns any longer. I don’t know what happened. But in the past three years, I began looking again…and I began seeing again. I believe it has to do with the depth of my grief over the death of my wife and the resulting realignment of my relationship with my two young children. I didn’t expect to be a single dad at age 62. Yet, something very powerful has happened to me, and some of it has been reflected in the resurgence in my work. It’s all equal, however, with my suddenly intense and close relationship with my daughters.

Was your decision to shoot these in color in part to provoke a warmer emotional tone?
Yes. When I came home from France earlier this year with a vast number of new abstracts of both rust and chipped paint, I actually converted some images into black and white just to see how they would look. Didn’t work at all. Not even when I used the Alien Exposure plug-in and toyed with infrared, Rodinal developer, Tri-X, etc. Grayscale just didn’t convey the emotions I experienced when I saw and made the original images.

Are these colors as you find them, or do you modify them any in Photoshop?
Since I’m slightly color blind on the low end of the spectrum, I’ve found that a little tweak for me in Photoshop is a good thing. When I feel comfortable with the final colors, I find that viewers like you respond very positively to them.

Rust Macro, Arizona, 2003

Your colors are beautiful and sensual, never harsh. Is this a philosophic as well as aesthetic choice?
No matter how I “see” the original colors, I’m responding to them on some deep emotional level. It’s all relative. Throughout my professional career I was known for the almost Technicolor intensity of my color work. And that was way before Photoshop. I always bracketed like crazy, I shot under all sorts of lighting conditions, and I used 81A and Polarizer filters exclusively.

One characteristic of abstract imagery is the way it challenges people to reassess their visual environments.
I’ve never really thought like that, Dean. I have never thought in terms of having an “objective” when making abstract images…or more precisely, while searching for these little pieces of abstractions found in rust patterns. I crawl over junk autos on bright sunny days and cold overcast days, totally absorbed by the infinite intricacies I see in the viewfinder. The process of the shoot is a source of intense joy for me. And it’s quite simple, although if someone’s watching me I must be quite a sight. If I’m shooting analog, it’s just me and my Leica R4 with a motor drive, a Leitz 60mm macro with a Leitz extension tube fully racked out, and Provia Pro 100. The meter is usually set to aperture priority at f8.0. I don’t manually focus the lens; I move myself. I hold my breath while I shoot and then end up gasping for air in between takes. This goes on for hours and many rolls of film. The process is the same in digital, where I use a Nikon D-300 and D-300s and a Nikkor 105 macro with and without the extension tube. Not only do I experience the joy of seeing and making these images at the location and in the moment; I get to feel the same joy and intensity again when I scan the slides or work the RAW images on my computer. In what other art form do you get to experience that creative discovery moment over and over?

Rose, Portland, Oregon, 2004

Are you more interested in stirring the emotions or the intellect?
Either one. If my work elicits an emotional or an intellectual reaction, I’m honored. I don’t shoot with that in mind. My greatest mentor was my high school English teacher, Thomas Chaffee. He taught me many things that shaped me then and influence me to this day. First among them is this quote from D.H. Lawrence: “Never trust the teller; trust the tale.”

Would it be fair to say that your work is primarily concerned with the transformative effects of time?
Yes. But again, that’s a verbal concept that I would not have come up with.

Okay, so do you find beauty in decay?
I see beauty in evolution, in growth, in aging, in change, in transformation. There is the same beauty of transformation in my portrait of a street chef in Borneo. The drop of perspiration on his upper lip will transform to nothingness if we just wait a little bit. The petals in one of my flower still lifes will fall or wilt naturally through age if we just wait a little bit. Or maybe they won’t if they’re artificial. Who knows? In the end, does it matter?

Rust Macro 1, New Mexico, 2007

Although rust is a state of deterioration, the feeling I get from these images is one of organic growth or rebirth. Which state do you try to evoke?
Rebirth. And from that, hope.

One might almost take these photographs for life forms evocative of other planes or dimensions of existence. Do you get any feedback along these lines?
I do. There are several other Rust images that invite all kinds of interesting, wild and imaginative—comments. I love that. Again, these images provoke mostly emotional responses that range from whimsical to serious to the vintage yet valid “Oh, wow!” syndrome.

Is this an ongoing series?
Yes…as long as there’s rust, junk cars, peeling paint, rotting textures, and surly yet lovable junkyard owners who aren’t threatened at what I’m doing when I show them samples of my work and ask permission to shoot on their property, I’ll do it as long as I can hold a camera. The process and the results are a source of continuing joy and fulfillment for me.

Rust Macro 4, Missouri, 1974

Your work is wonderfully varied—you can’t be pinned down to a particular genre or approach. How do you see your photography developing in the future?
This is the highest compliment I’ve received about the breadth of my work. This comment is one of the first that shows someone gets what I do and what I see. For my entire career clients have seen me only as a corporate shooter; gallery owners, museum photo directors have seen this “varied” style as a weakness rather than a strength. The feedback I’ve always received from the art side has mostly been one of frustration because I haven’t been able to be “pinned down to a particular genre or approach.” It used to hurt and frustrate me.

Now it no longer matters. No matter the image I see and create, whether it’s a color rust abstract, a stunning black-and-white portrait, a portfolio of boxers in gyms in Watts, street photography, architecture, whatever I shoot….it’s all processed by the same brain, seen by the same eye, felt by the same heart, embraced by the same soul. At age 62 I feel like I’m more alive and more attuned to my world visually and emotionally than I ever have been. I feel that I’m at a newer and different stage in my life. I can be awed and excited and moved by the images of the life around me in a much different way today than I was 10, 20 years ago. I never expected this to happen quite this way. Actually, I never expected any of this to happen. So, yes, my photography is evolving and growing in ways I could never have imagined. Most of my friends are retired. I’m just hitting my stride…I never planned any of this. I’m having a ball and I’m very grateful.

Street Chef, Borneo, 1990

(I profiled Witkowski for the July 2010 issue of COLOR magazine. You can check out more of his intriguing color imagery here: http://atwitsend.org.)

2010-05-31T09:48:00.000-07:00

Alan Henriksen: Contrapuntal Vision
Balance is the keyword of Alan Henriksen’s intimate and elegant imagery, from his black-and-white landscapes of Hawaii, Maine, California and New York to his recent color photographs of an antique dealer’s establishment in Bar Harbor. Henriksen takes pains to ensure that no single element dominates the frame, and that each piece of the composition carries equal weight. It’s an interesting approach, one that’s well suited to his exploration of natural terrain where growth often coexists with decay. Born in 1949 in Richmond Hill, Queens, New York, Henriksen began taking photographs at the age of nine, and has found frequent exhibition outlets for work that combines acute visual clarity with a highly personal emotional impressionism.

Alan Henriksen

Tell me a little bit about your background.
I am employed as a software engineer. From 1974 through 1983 I worked as a sensitometrist and software engineer at Agfa-Gevaert’s photo paper manufacturing plant in Shoreham, Long Island—which was formerly Nicola Tesla’s laboratory. One of the papers we coated was a contact-printing paper called Contactone. This was a paper once used by Cole Weston to print his father’s negatives. One perk I enjoyed was that I was permitted to take outdated paper from the lab, enabling me to spend countless hours printing my 8 x 10 negatives without having to be concerned about the cost of the photo paper.

When did you start taking photographs, and what provoked your interest in the medium?
Although I began photographing in 1958 and making prints on print-out paper in 1959, photography was just one of my many hobbies until 1964, when I discovered the photography of Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and Paul Strand during a visit to my local library. My response to the Weston photos in Peter Pollack’s The Picture History of Photography was so overwhelming that I knew at that moment that photography would become my lifelong passion. In retrospect, I feel that my previous experience with print-out paper prepared me to appreciate the beauty I saw in those photos.

What other influences helped direct the course of your work?
Early on I read every photography book and magazine I could get my hands on. During that period, the greatest influence on the development of my seeing and on my ideas about photography was Edward Weston, which he communicated through both his photography and his writing. One line from his Daybooks—“Whenever I can feel a Bach fugue in my work I know I have arrived”—led to my interest in the music of J.S. Bach, and I would often listen to recordings of Bach’s music while looking through books of Weston’s photographs. Weston and Bach have been, in a sense, lifelong companions, and I hold each of them in the highest esteem. One side note: To my mind many of Weston’s finest works don’t seem fugal at all, but instead have the transcendent sweetness of a Bach aria.

Rock, Point Lobos, 1998

I took great interest in the work of many other photographers, including Brett Weston, Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Paul Caponigro and Ansel Adams. I was honored to know Adams not only through his photography, but also as a friend and mentor. In 1967 I did a very brash thing by mailing him some of my photos and asking for advice about pursuing a career in fine art photography. He replied with a two-page, single-spaced, typewritten letter expressing his opinion that it was unwise for anyone interested in photography as an art to pursue a career in photography merely to earn a living. After praising my “seeing,” he said he would like to follow the progress of my work and invited me to send him more prints whenever I felt I had made some progress. He concluded by saying, “You have something to say, and world needs all it can get of creative beauty.” I continued my correspondence, as well as occasional phone conversations, with Adams until 1970, when I attended his Yosemite Workshop. I kept in touch afterward, and from late 1977 through mid-1978 got to work with him and with Paul Caponigro on David Vestal’s project for Popular Photography magazine concerning the declining quality of photo paper at that time. During this period I also became acquainted with a truly great photographer, William Clift, with whom I have since had countless engaging conversations on photography.

How would you characterize your own work in terms of music? I feel that it has a chamber music quality.
The music of Bach is what I’m really closest to. I think my work could be called contrapuntal. I don’t have a single element that stands out as being “the” subject. In contrapuntal music, every part is important. That’s what I like to do in my photographs. I don’t make images of an isolated subject with a background supporting it.

Leaves and Rusty Can, Super's Junkin' Company
Bar Harbor, Maine, 2008

When did you start shooting color?
My color work began in fits and starts in 2005, after I acquired my first digital SLR. Then in 2008, right before I left for a trip to the Maine coast, Bill Clift and I were discussing his color work, and he asked whether I had been doing anything in color now that I owned a digital camera. That was enough to put the wheels in motion, and I decided soon afterwards to visit Super’s Junkin’ Company in Bar Harbor, a place I had driven past but never visited, and to work in color as well as black and white.

Not that it’s all that important, but do you work with film or digital? Or both?
I work in both film and digital, although most of my recent photographs (including this series) have been made with a digital SLR. In the past I’ve worked with 8x10 and 4x5 view cameras, as well as a medium-format SLR. I plan to use the view cameras again in the not too distant future.

What was your thinking in terms of shooting this series in both color and black and white?
I enjoyed the challenge of deciding on the spot whether to organize each composition in terms of luminance or color. Of course, since I was photographing with a digital camera, I was free to change my mind afterward, during the editing phase. Ansel Adams was fond of saying that the photographer should visualize compositions in chords of tones. I have found that this notion, extended to color photography, is perhaps even more closely aligned with the idea of a musical chord. Chords of colors can create feelings equivalent to the experience of consonance or dissonance in music. And, as we all know, colors can clash, which can be a good thing. I’ll never stop working in black and white, but color opens up whole new dimensions. The kinds of moods you can get in color are impossible in black and white. And vice-versa.

Leaves and Trash, Super's Junkin' Company
Bar Harbor, Maine, 2008

I love the color palette. It’s full of strange tonalities that evoke both growth and decay. Is this intentional? And are these found colors, or do you tweak them slightly in Photoshop?
To answer your second question first, many of the colors in these photos were altered while editing in Photoshop. My goal is always to produce a photograph that is true to what I feel about life as a whole. When working in black and white the photographer manipulates gray values and contrast, globally and locally, to achieve the ultimate expressive print. By extension, when working in color the photographer can also manipulate hue and saturation. I like to paraphrase a line from Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style: A change to a photograph, however slight, produces a corresponding change in meaning, however slight.

Although I wasn’t literally thinking in terms of growth and decay, those terms do approximate part of what I was feeling when I made these photos. I accept without sentimentality the idea that ordered systems, such as living things and manufactured objects, are a temporary bulwark against entropy.

The images are very tactile; you can almost feel the dankness in images like “Leaves and Trash” and “Leaves and Rusty Can.” I don’t think black and white would impart the same effect.
The tactile quality of my photographs no doubt stems from my early experience working with large-format cameras. The rendition of texture and substance is still central to my visual “language,” even when working with a digital SLR. When I chose the images to include in this series, it was important to me that the color relationships were vital to the overall feeling I was trying to communicate.

Kelp Seawall, Maine, 2006

You seem drawn to subject matter that’s in a state of decay. Even your black-and-white landscape images are often evocative of a sense of things breaking down, whether organic or inorganic in nature. Why does this type of subject matter resonate so strongly for you?
It may be coincidental, but just days before I began photographing this series, I finished reading Alan Weisman’s excellent book, The World Without Us, which speculates upon what might happen to various manmade systems were mankind to suddenly vanish. Although I was not consciously reflecting upon the book while photographing, newly processed ideas sometimes have a way of insinuating their way into my compositions.

Put another way, you make decay very seductive from a visual perspective. Any comment?
I’ve been photographing along the Maine coast for over 40 years, principally in Acadia National Park and its environs, a region whose natural scene is at once idyllic and harsh. In any given patch of forest one will typically see young saplings and healthy trees intermingled with storm-toppled trees, some still leaning, others lying on the forest floor in various states of decay. And the coast is lined with storm- and surf-battered rocks, whose forms and textures speak of their primal past. So it’s a good place to contemplate the cyclical nature of both living and non-living things. In my photography I am devoted to trying to communicate my sense of the world, colored, no doubt, by my idiosyncratic history of photographic encounters.

Pond Foam, Somesville, Maine, 2007

The natural environment seems to be your primary focus. When you do photograph a location that bears the imprint of people, it’s an antique shop full of castoff, obsolete items. And it’s interesting that you photograph it in such a way as to show nature gradually reclaiming this space. Is there an implicit commentary implied here?
If there is, it’s purely subconscious. I don’t actually think that way at all. In fact, if you were to tap into my brain while I’m photographing, you’d find it pretty boring. I’m not thinking philosophically while I’m photographing. An important point that Bill Clift has driven home over the years is that when you photograph you really need to be completely innocent. That’s something I believe. Words tend to get in the way. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t these other influences. Any number of photographers shooting the same scene will come back with different images, completely different perspectives on life. I believe that keeping the verbiage out gives all of my unconscious equal access, equal opportunity for expression. I find beauty first of all in the combination of textures and forms and lines. I try to think in terms of the overall experience of the photograph, and to get as much of who I am into the image. Having said that, I think there’s a mixture of hope and dread regarding the future of mankind. I think that’s worked its way in there.

You pack a lot of visual information into each frame, but somehow avoid making things feel claustrophobic. Are you conscious of these kinds of pictorial dynamics when you’re composing an image?
It is important to me that every compositional element contributes something to the overall statement. An artist in any other medium, whether it be painting, sculpture, music or dance, would never permit extraneous, distracting elements to remain in a composition, and I feel the same way about my photography. Aside from that concern, I admit that I greatly enjoy the challenge of working with complex, visually dense subjects, puzzling out what I hope are meaningful compositional solutions along the way. I realize that in so doing I am walking a knife’s edge, the other side of which lies the dreaded specter of multiplicity.

Weeds and Junk, Super's Junkin' Company
Bar Harbor, Maine, 2008

Certain of the Super’s Junkin’ images—through a symbiosis of color, framing and perspective—are suggestive of hidden depths, spatially and metaphorically. It’s as if there are stranger and perhaps more abstract dimensions lurking just beneath the surface.
Thank you very much for that observation, and you are absolutely correct. For starters, the photographer can play with appearance of space and scale (which, after all, is always an illusion) by the degree to which context is either included or excluded. Ansel Adams was a master of creating a sense of physical dimensionality, which he called presence. But these aspects of apparent space are, for me, subordinate to the overarching goal of consciousness-raising. I like to say that as photographers we are limited to the two spatial dimensions of the print, but there is no limit to the number of dimensions of experience.

When you say consciousness-raising, are you referring to yours, the viewer’s, or both?
I think in some ways the goal of the artist is similar to that of a scientist; the artists that are preserved throughout history are the ones that actually added something—a new concept, a new of looking, a new perspective. They weren’t simply rehashing what came before them. Even in traditional photography, I think there will be new things happening several hundred years from now, if people are still photographing. Even though they will be going to the very same places that we go today, the same subject matter, and so on.

Is this an ongoing series?
Yes. In fact, in 2009 I returned to Super’s Junkin’ Company and other nearby antique shops, and made additional photographs for this series.

How do your see your work developing in the future?
I hope to continue photographing the landscape, naturalistic details, and modern-day cultural artifacts of the Maine coast and Long Island. Once I retire from my current career as a software engineer, I expect that I will begin to seek out other venues and projects.

Ice and Puddle, Nissequogue, NY, 1976

(Pay a visit to Alan Henriksen’s fine website to see more of his work: www.alanhenriksen.com. I profiled him in issue #8 of COLOR magazine.)

2010-05-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

Gordon Parks: A Voice in the Mirror
“I have never gloried at being the first black photographer to enter those closed doors at Life magazine, Vogue or any of the other places. I like to feel they were opened for my race as well as me. I did realize that I making fresh tracks, but I never carried the responsibility around on my back like a sack of stones. I simply did my best without asking favors because I was black. Time and time again those tracks have been filled, and this is reason to rejoice.”

Gordon Parks (Photo by Steven A. Heller)

These words were written by Gordon Parks (1912–2006) in the third of his four autobiographies, Voices in the Mirror, published in 1990. The convictions they embody were manifest in every facet of a remarkable life in which Parks made big tracks in numerous creative arenas. He was the first African-American to join the staffs of Life and Vogue magazines, and the first to direct a major Hollywood film. But breaking racial barriers was only part of his story. As a child growing up in rural Kansas, he suffered extreme poverty and racism without succumbing to bitterness or prejudice. On his own at 15, he played piano in a Minnesota brothel, cleaned up in a Chicago flophouse, worked as a railway porter and played semi-pro baseball. He discovered photography at 25, and demonstrated a quick and lasting affinity with the medium. Sensitive photos of Chicago’s rugged South Side earned him the first Julius Rosenwald Fellowship and work as a Farm Security Administration photographer alongside Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. Parks went to work for Life in 1949, and for the next two decades produced eloquent and hard-hitting photo essays on poverty, racial segregation, and civil rights leaders Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. He also excelled at sports, fashion and portrait photography. His restless creative spirit eventually led him to Hollywood, where he made history with the groundbreaking films The Learning Tree (1969), Shaft (1971) and Leadbelly (1976). When I interviewed Parks in 1991 for Camera & Darkroom magazine, he had just finished Voices in the Mirror and was working on a new novel and screenplay, finishing a book of poetry, planning another photo book, giving lectures, and spreading good vibes wherever he went. Although our conversation took place almost two decades ago, Parks' plea for tolerance and understanding between people of all ages, races and walks of life remains as relevant as ever.

Red Jackson, Harlem Gang Leader

You’re busier than most men half your age. How do you manage to keep so many irons in the fire?
I’m using energy left over from my youth [laughs]. The projects give you energy. I get it from my work, from my typewriter when I sit down to work on my novel or screenplay or poetry. Actually, I don’t feel too well when I’m not working, maybe due to a fear of depression from inactivity. It’s actually easier for me now to keep up the pace. When I experiment, I do so with more confidence, and I work with more confidence.

Why did you decide to write another autobiography, and are you satisfied that this is the definitive version?
I don’t suppose anything’s ever done to your complete satisfaction, but it’s getting fabulous reviews all over the country, so I suppose it’s satisfying to some. I wrote it because people I met through my lectures felt there were a lot of unanswered questions about my successes and failures, things not addressed in my previous books, so I decided to write another.

What’s the most important message in Voices in the Mirror?
One must take a look in the mirror at himself, at those around him and at his past and see what they meant to him. In this particular book, the message that comes through to me is that people from all walks of life, all colors and races and religions, helped me get to wherever I got to, and that I must always look at what they are, not the color of their skin.

You’ve had significant success in not just one, but several artistic mediums. Do you feel there are still worlds for you to conquer?
Well, I don’t feel like I’ve done anything. I think of myself as just working very hard to survive, and that’s what it’s all about. I never thought about being a success. I always thought of survival. If survival turned into success, well, all the better. What I strive to do is come as close to perfection as I possibly can in whatever I do. I want to compose music better, I want to photograph better, I want to write better, make better poetry, paint better—do all those things better.

American Gothic

What are some of the projects you’re currently working on?
Right now I’m busy composing a lot of music as well as writing a screenplay and novel about the English painter J.M.W. Turner. After I finish the screenplay, I hope to be able to film it in England. But first I want to finish the novel, which I’ve been working on for about four years. It’s very difficult, because here I am, a Kansas kid from the prairies trying to put myself into the world of a young English painter in London in the 18th century! I’ve also got a book of new poems coming out that will deal in part with the recent Middle East war, and there are plans for a new photo book.

What type of photographic subjects interest you today?
I only do very special things. I don’t photograph that much unless something really excites me. I’ve been doing some experimental color work with fruits and vegetables, and was recently commissioned to photograph the prairies of Kansas. But it’s very difficult for me now to find inspirational photo essays for magazines the way they exist today. They don’t have the same depth that they had when I worked for Life magazine. I think it must be very difficult now for young photographers starting out, since they don’t have the spiritual or financial backing that we had in the old days.

What do you think of Life magazine today?
Well, it’s good for what it is, and it has some exciting color and unusual photographs, but what I’m saying is that when Henry Luce [Life’s original publisher] was alive, the photographer was sent out on a story and allowed to work on that story until he was finished, no matter if it took ten days, ten weeks or a year, because Luce believed in photography, and in giving the photographer what he needed to get a good story. If you needed an airplane, you got an airplane. If you needed a ship, you got a ship. With that kind of backing, you were not rushed and were able to give your subject matter full respect.

For instance, when I approached a sensitive story like Flavio or the Fontenelle family [two of Parks' photo essays on poverty in Brazil and New York, respectively], I didn’t even take my camera out for a week, because I wanted the people to get to know me and gain some respect and knowledge of what I was trying to do. And after doing a story on a poverty-stricken family, I could never just forget them after the story was published. I always felt like a part of that family and somehow or other kept in contact with them long after the assignment.

Flavio Da Silva

You have been one of the few photographers to actually make a difference in your subjects’ lives. For instance, your 1961 story on the Brazilian boy Flavio and his family, who lived in a notorious Rio de Janeiro slum, generated a tremendous response in letters and money from Life’s readers. Do you feel the same depth of response is possible today considering how images people are continually exposed?
I doubt it. With the Flavio story almost $30,000 came in one week from the magazine’s readers and thousands of letters asking about him. I doubt seriously that you can get that kind of response today. There seems to be a blanket of callousness over the universe. You see a lot of news on TV, day and day out, with images of children starving and being abused in different parts of the world, so people become sort of calloused, and would probably not react as fully as they did back in those years. Yet I still feel photography can be a useful tool for change. I think it can help and can point up issues and things that will make people question what’s going on.

Which of your colleagues at Life made the biggest impression on you?
I was good friends with and admired Carl Mydans, Alfred Eisenstadt, Eugene Smith and David Douglas Duncan, among others. I also knew Robert Capa very well. He was very talented and courageous. I remember when I was a young man working as a porter on a train Capa was traveling on. When he got off the train, I handed him his bag and told him I would be out to join him at Life one day. He gave me a silver dollar and said, “Okay, I’ll leave a locker for you.” Years later Robert and I were frolicking half-drunk down the Champs-Élysées in Paris, and I turned to him and said, “Thanks for saving me that locker.” He replied, “What locker? What the hell are you talking about? You mean that was you?”

Mother and Child, Harlem

What are the most important qualifications a young photojournalist needs today?
First, you have to believe in yourself. And you have to find stories in which you can assert yourself and say something about the world around you. If you don’t have anything to say, your photographs are not going to say much. You should also read a lot, be able to do research, and study all art forms—not just photography—so you become thoroughly aware of what exists around you. Otherwise you’re just out there aimlessly shooting pictures. You also have to create situations for yourself. Look around and generate ideas. Sometimes magazine editors don’t tell you what to do, but sit back and wait for you to bring them ideas.

When you worked for Life, how much control did the editors exercise over your work?
There was always a control; there had to be some sort. We would send our stuff in from Europe or wherever we were traveling, the lab would make the contact prints, the editors would select the best pictures and hand them over to a layout man who understood the story. You could insist upon certain shots; sometimes you won, sometimes you lost. But overall, I was very pleased about the way Life handled me and my photographs. They did not shuttle me off onto just black stories, and I didn’t go anywhere as a black reporter or writer. I went as a reporter from Life magazine, period. That attitude was very helpful to the magazine and myself.

You often landed tough, gritty assignments. Did you seek out these types of stories?
Well, I suggested some of them, and the editors suggested some, perhaps because of the success I’d had with my story on gangs in Harlem and the crime stories I’d done. Since I was a person who had suffered many of the same things I encountered on those stories, the editors felt I would be more adept at getting good coverage. I had been trained in the worlds of poverty and crime and so forth. I understood it because I’d been through it and knew where to look for it.

Muhammad Ali

Did you attempt to imbue such stories with a political subtext?
Not really. I always thought in terms of humanity. If my work had a political aspect, it came from others’ reactions to it. All I tried to do was to open people’s eyes to the worlds of the underprivileged. I worked out of my concern for individuals. When you’re doing the work, you are thinking of the individual, not the political impact that work may subsequently have.

You wrote articles for Life as well as took photographs. Was your writing edited much?
Oh, yes. Sometimes for the good, sometimes not. I had to watch it, especially when I was covering the black militants back in the 1960s: people like Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Seale. When I first started doing those stories, Life was not sure that I would be as objective as they would like, because I was black and I had a common interest with the black revolution. And I’m sure that the black militants, realizing that I worked for a big, conservative white magazine, were not sure that I would report in their favor. So I had to keep a close eye on the editors so they wouldn’t change things or use a word I didn’t want to use. In the end, both sides greeted me with understanding.

You spent a lot of time with and became close to Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver. Did their philosophies influence your thinking in any way?
I went in with my own attitude. I’d seen enough and heard enough to know that I had to follow my own course, not theirs. Eldridge Cleaver asked me to be the Panthers’ official public relations person when I was with him in Algiers, but I refused. One of the Panthers asked me if I would still write A Choice of Weapons the same as I had written it years before. When I said yes, he replied, “You mean you feel the same, even with all these white honkies following us around here with machine guns?” [The Panthers were under police observation at the time.] I said to him, “You have a 45mm automatic pistol on your lap, and I have a 35mm camera on my lap, and my weapon is just as powerful as yours.”

Malcolm X

Assess the degree of progress in social gains since the civil rights protests of the 1960s.
You can’t deny that there’s been a lot of progress. Blacks and other minorities are in very responsible positions. There are a lot of young people being educated now and going on to achieve positions in politics and the corporate world that wouldn’t have been able to do so back then. Yet there’s still a great underclass developing. With all the progress, it still isn’t enough. It’s not swift enough.

Do you see any present-day Martin Luther Kings or Malcolm Xs?
I don’t know. I’ve noticed certain young leaders and I hail them when they do something particularly good. However, most of our strongest leaders have been destroyed. King, Malcolm, Medger Evers—all shot away, assassinated. There are some young people who seem to be on the move, and I think they will emerge as responsible leaders. We have more black mayors and politicians and so forth, and that’s encouraging, but I don’t see anyone rocking across the horizon. Some of them are trying, but they don’t seem to have the magic to stir the populace the way King or Malcolm did.

Do you still feel yourself to be part of the civil rights struggle, as well as effective voice for change?
I’ll always be a part of the struggle. How effective I’ve been and will be, history will say that. I will not attempt to say something like that. I like to think of myself as part of the struggle for all humanity. I think in terms of universality. And I think if I have achieved certain things a lot of people haven’t, it’s because I think that way. I’d like for a woman in Russia to understand my poems and photos and paintings as well as a woman in Harlem. I’ve been successful to the extent that I have not allowed the anger and the hatred that I could have had for certain people bottle me up and let me go to bed with stress every night. Instead, I used that anger in a forceful, creative way, rather than in a self-destructive way.

Ingrid Bergman, Stromboli

Where does society look for answers to the some of the evils that afflict it?
I’m afraid racism is always going to be with us. Unfortunately, we can’t rid ourselves of it. Poverty is always going to be around. Violence will always be here in some form or another. I think the answers lie with younger people and with education. Yet, you have to be optimistic about the future. There’s no sense in going on if you think that everything is going downhill, if you have no reason to connect with the world around you.

What would you most like to be remembered for?
I don’t particularly care about being remembered, but I do want my work to live on. I’d like my work to be remembered for its universality. I’ve written an Irish novel called Shannon, and am now writing this novel on Turner, and I’d like to make films of both. It’s best not to get stuck in that black world. Duke Ellington, one of my favorite composers and a good friend, advised me to listen to Ravel and Debussy and Beethoven and so on, because they would help me to broaden my musical horizons. And so I don’t just write black poetry or paint black pictures. I think blacks should find out as much as they can about their history and where they came from and so on, but not allow themselves to shoved into a corner just to do black things. If you put yourself in a corner, it’s nobody’s fault but your own.

Children with Doll

“I trust time. It has been my friend for a long while, and we have been through a lot together. Now I ask only that it lend enough of itself to say a proper goodbye; to thank it for giving me faith when others chose to doubt me; for refusing to let me hate those who chose to hate me. It taught me that triumph or failure can be hypocritical, and that both should be looked at with beseeching eyes.” — Voices in the Mirror

(All photographs by Gordon Parks. To learn more about this great American and artist, please visit http://gordonparkscenter.org, and http://www.gordonparksfoundation.org.)

2010-05-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

Barry Underwood: Metamorphoses
Photographer Barry Underwood engineers audacious transformations of wilderness landscapes by synthesizing elements of film, theater and land art into unexpectedly moving hybrids. Having scouted suitable terrain, he creates light installations that often exist apart from their visual documentation. While the works blur the line between installation art and photography, the unifying factor is light: dancing elegant arabesques in dark woodlands, emerging mysteriously from watery depths, or darting around trees like some alien vessel in a science fiction film. Ultimately, Underwood’s light takes on a life of its own as it shapes fleeting meta-narratives of energy, beauty and transfiguration.

Barry Underwood (with Sophie)

What influences shaped your thinking about photography?
The first photographer to make me think about constructing images instead of taking images was Robert Frank. There’s a piece he made for his daughter Andrea that’s a kind of combination of painting and photography; it showed me that you could apply an image into a photograph as opposed to just taking it. I also like the way that Francesca Woodman works with environments, and how she works with the idea of photography, even through something as simple as positive-negative processes.

What was thinking behind this body of work?
I was a theater major, and used to build sets, so I think much of the theatricality of the work comes from that. The early images in this series essentially channel set design: the natural objects function as set dressing, the sky as a cyclorama, and the lights as the performers, if you will. I had been looking at my photography and noticing lights in the background that were perhaps incidental, just part of the atmospheric or visual background. From there I started thinking in terms of how to incorporate that light as the main subject matter.

So you’re treating these natural locations like stage settings.
That was the original idea. Over the years I started thinking more about land art and installation art, and about how these objects interact in the landscape.

Orange, 2007

Environmental issues are implicit in this work as well.
They are actually now pushed more to the forefront. I was dong a residency in 2009 at the Headlands Center for the Arts outside San Francisco, which included a discussion on eco-visual criticism, and so I’ve started thinking more about environmental issues. Wondering about the kind of damage that photography is doing, the damage that even I as an artist am responsible for, and how can I help change things. I’m trying to say in a subtle way how these natural settings can be altered with these installations. Putting a blue line across several redwood trees, (in the image Blue Line), instead of being a magical thing that’s happening in the environment, became something that points more towards an issue that could be a problem.

Can you clarify how you see photography damaging the environment?
Chemicals for one. E-waste for another. Like, where do the sensors come from? Where do the computer chips come from? Silicon Valley is toxic because of leakage from underground tanks. Photographers think: Well, we’re not pouring chemicals down the drain as much anymore, which is good. But electronic manufacturing and electronic waste is a very bad thing, and might actually have a greater impact than traditional chemistry, and on a bigger scale. What does it mean to be an environmentalist as a photographer? It’s almost in contradiction. So I think about the footprint that we leave, and in that sense the images might be a little persuasive or subversive in order to get people thinking in a different way about these things. It’s literally like putting a spotlight on something.

Blue Line, 2010

Do you think this theme comes out in the images?
That’s kind of where I’m headed now. Some of these images are a couple or five years old, so I’ve been slowly going from these ideas about theater to ideas about one’s photographic footprint. I’m trying to make these images function in the way that photography functions in a vernacular sense. Being referential in some way, or documenting an event subjectively. I think about all that and try to make these images very subjective, kind of hyper-real, or surreal, or a kind of heightened activity or performance. That’s kind of how cinema plays into it a bit. It’s an exaggeration, a stylized way of looking at something. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, that’s definitely an extreme to the everyday.

How does the light play into the notion of the footprint we leave behind?
The work that I was making wasn’t so much about that. The light was more about how photography functions, about the kind of vernacular that photography has around it. It was just being a little more heightened. Looking at the environment around me from a photographic perspective, and doing these kinds of installations, helps me relate to the planet, as in, how can I interact in this landscape? So the landscape becomes more than just a field or hill or mountain.

Can we get into a bit about what goes into these images, how you make them?
I’m working with film, because these images require long exposures, anywhere between 15 minutes and four hours. With the light being applied to the film over a period of time, what starts out as a simple small line becomes broader as the light bleeds onto the emulsion in that area. I’m kind of playing with the process of photography as much as the vernacular of photography.

Blue Ice, 2004

What do you use to create the light patterns?
I use a variety of party objects: balloons, LED lights, glow sticks. I try to keep them as battery-operated as possible, so I can recycle the batteries, and I can re-use the LED lights themselves. Using LEDs allows me to try things again, whereas with glow sticks or anything chemical-based I have a shorter window in which I’m able to photograph these things.

Not all these images are done outdoors. Blue Ice, for example...
That’s a diorama.

You built that.
Yeah, I totally built that one.

That one looks totally artificial compared to the others.
A few of the pieces are dioramas, although I haven’t finalized any in the past couple years. They wind up being almost like maquettes at this point, which is kind of where they were originally. I would have certain ideas and that needed to be interpreted on a grander scale. For this image I had an idea for a piece of ice just kind of pushing through one tree and into another one. I used that idea as a maquette, and I liked it a lot, so I kept it as a final piece. I see them almost as drawings. That’s where everything really starts, with a drawing. Every piece has a drawing companion to it.

Trace (Yellow), 2009

Even when working with actual landscapes, you’re altering them, so they are congruent visually with the artificiality of the dioramas. Any differences in how you work with each?
I’m more anal-retentive with the dioramas. I scrutinize every detail. The ones I do on location I have to be very open to problematic issues about availability of light, and of whatever might come my way, either an animal or a person.

For images like Pink and Trace (Yellow), are you creating the light during the exposure, moving it around, painting with light, so to speak?
No, those are actually static pieces, in which you can walk around. Pink is probably ten or 12 feet high. Trace (Yellow) is about 350-feet long. For these kinds of things I build a suspension system in the trees; I’ll climb one tree, tie a rope, then climb another tree and wrap it around or tie it to that tree. And from that rope I could drop down, I use this stuff called spider wire, so you can’t see it. These are actually suspended lights. You’re right, there is a little bit of movement in Trace (Yellow), but it’s there to raise a question about the provenance of this light.

I realize that you probably don’t like to focus too much on how these are done.
Right. It’s more about calling into question photographic realities. The way we understand things in terms of photographs. That’s where I’m being referential. I’m pointing back to the process of photography and pointing back to the language that’s used and the theories that are around photography to conceive these pieces. Like the pumpkins can be pointing back to other photographers, like the Joel Sternfeld pumpkin piece, right? Some of the work points back to land artists and painters as well. I think about contemporary abstract painting. I think about historical landscape painting, especially the Americans from the Hudson River school. We have these kind of grand skies and magnificent illuminated landscapes. And the two of them coming together in some sort of crash.

Pink, 2008

What factors into your choice of locations?
Availability. In recent years I’ve been making work in residencies. In 2008, I was at a place called I-Park, in East Haddam, Connecticut. That’s where I made Trace (Yellow), Blue, Pink and a few other pieces. What was nice about that place was that I could build things, and I could come back to a particular location day after day, and take up to a week to create something. Trace Yellow took four days to build. When I was at the Banff Center in Banff, Alberta, it was more of an in-and-out approach. I was limited to temporary structures that could only be up for one evening, which means I had to be more creative.

I need to find places where I’m able to have time to myself to think about the environment around me, and to have time to construct these things. Wintertime is when I have these things scanned, and then clean them up in Photoshop. As far as how I handle Photoshop, I think in terms of traditional photography. For most of the older pieces, say, until 2007, everything was done in the darkroom. I wasn’t even scanning these except as reference images. So with Photoshop I work in terms of dodging and burning, adjusting color, and spotting. I try and keep it as minimal as possible. But I have been thinking about continuing the construction: starting with the construction on the film, i.e., the application of light, and then constructing a little bit further in Photoshop. Not too much, but just a little subtle addition or shifting of something.

Miwok Trail, 2010

Besides availability, what else do you look for?
Wildlife is always a concern. Not doing any damage to them, first of all, and not letting them do any damage to me. Weather conditions are a major factor, so I’m always paying attention to what the weather’s going to be like, and hoping that I can get the right conditions. Moisture is a big problem. This past summer the Headlands had a lot of moisture because it’s right there on the Pacific. I pay attention to the lunar chart to make sure that the moon is out if I need it to be out, or not out. I try to align myself with any ambient light popping off of the city. San Francisco is great in this respect because of the fog, and the way that ambient light bounces off the clouds and the fog. I only have so many hours to work with, so I can’t set these things up a day ahead of time. I might only have a couple of hours before sunset, so it’s a mad dash to get the installation up, get everything focused, and get the camera shutter opened in time. Once I begin the exposure, this weird kind of tranquility sets in.

In terms of aesthetics, do you look for certain types of locations from a visual perspective?
Yeah. I think working at the Headlands Center was the trickiest, because there were a lot of buildings there and I had to make sure they weren’t going to be in the shot. Like I said, I usually start from a drawing, but that’s just to get a thought moving around about a piece. I’ll do a lot of walking around the environment, or I’ll just sit in the space. I’ll do test shots with a digital camera and try to figure out how I want to compose the shot. Then I’ll maybe go back and do another drawing or draw on the computer how I want to line things up.

Headlands, 2009

So when you’re looking at a new space, it’s almost like collaboration between you and the landscape.
It is. The pieces also draw from the energy of the people who assist me. It’s not really there in the read of the work, but it’s definitely there for myself. Sometimes a composition might shift a little bit depending on who is helping me. Some people have made suggestions that I’ve incorporated. For example, the staggering of lights might be a little dependent on who puts them there.

Once you’ve taken the image, what do these installations look like? Would they resemble the photographs if you hadn’t taken the photographs? Do they have a life of their own apart from their photographic representation?
When I talk about documentation, it’s in the context of how installations are sustained and understood through photographs, like Richard Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. I think about the way land artists, like Andy Goldsworthy for example, document their work. Some of his work actually functions through the lens, so that’s how I kind of think about my installations functioning, through the lens. But some of them do have a bit of a life of their own as installations. The people who assist me can come and view them. I’m on residencies with other artists, so they can also come and see them, depending on their size. Trace (Yellow) was something that we could all walk around and walk through while it was being exposed, because the exposures were so long that the film didn’t pick us up. Norquay (Yellow) was another installation that people could access and view. And I sometimes send out announcements, so other people can experience them.

Norquay (Yellow), 2007

Sometimes the pieces work solely on the photographic plane. Sometimes they will be successful as a photograph, and sometimes they won’t be successful as a photograph, but they’ll be successful as an installation. That’s something I’ve been trying to figure out how to do on a more permanent sense. It doesn’t have to a permanent piece, but something that’s up in a location for a while. I’ve been thinking about how to shift gears a little bit more towards that. Especially here in Cleveland Heights, where I live. I’d like to do a piece in the neighborhood.

I imagine these pieces exert a kind of trance-like or meditative effect on viewers.
I wish I understood that a little bit more. I can never get into somebody else’s mind. I usually get responses like: This looks beautiful, or How did you do it? But I do sense that people consciously try to figure out what the images are saying, which is nice.

The otherworldly forms and colors evoke a kind of alien presence, especially images like Blue and Aurora.
Yeah, I like sci-fi too. My mom calls them that. She calls them my alien shots. It’s a heavy influence. There’s some Close Encounters of the Third Kind inspiration there. It’s like when the little star kind of moves across the sky. It’s very subtle. There’s also the Dr. Who-inspired, something that’s bigger on the inside that it is on the outside kind of thing.

Blue, 2006

You’re an Assistant Professor and Head of the Department of Film, Video and Photographic Arts at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Does your work there influence or impact your personal work in any way? And vice-versa?
One of the beautiful things about working in an academic setting is working with brilliant colleagues and sharing ideas back and forth. The students are always hungry for knowledge, and they also come up interesting ideas and concepts, so it’s a very reciprocal and rewarding environment.

(Further exploration may be undertaken at www.barryunderwood.com. This interview was conducted in late 2009 for a Color magazine article.)

2010-05-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

Veneta Zaharieva: Urban Instability
Cultural and personal dislocation are at the heart of Veneta Zaharieva’s photography, which frequently makes use of layering—visual and otherwise—to transcend objective representations of the urban environment. She offers up her thematic conceptions and obsessions through a complex visual code designed to unsettle rather than reassure. This is particularly noticeable in her “City Fairytales” series, a kaleidoscopic conjunction of commercial and residential buildings seemingly on the point of collapse, the result perhaps of unseen fault lines destabilizing the urban terrain. A licensed attorney as well as a photographer, Zaharieva knows the importance of communicating complex visions with clarity of expression, while ensuring that the end result resists easy interpretations.

Veneta Zaharieva

Where were you born?
I was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in a quiet neighborhood (or at least it used to be that way, during my childhood). My mother had me at the age of 40, despite the risk that she might lose her life or me during birth. I have a sister who is 14 years older than me, so that made me the “istursak,” which means “unexpected baby” in Bulgarian. I grew up mostly with my father; my mother had to work from early morning until late evening. My father was very sensitive man with plenty of old-fashioned manners. There was a very old woman in the building we lived in. She was the wife of a famous Bulgarian painter, so every time we met her on the stairs my father saluted her by lifting up his hat and calling her family name. I remember that pretty well because I never saw anybody else doing that. Looking back, I realize that my father lived in a time he didn’t belong to—he had an aristocratic childhood, but lived as a working class fellow after the socialist revolution. That drastic change made him extremely sensitive, with nothing but beautiful memories about the times he used to be happy and carefree, along with my grandmother, grandfather and uncle.

City Fairytales, 2005

Did you develop a visual sensibility at a young age?
I spent some time writing about my father because of this question. Being mainly with during my years of growth, I realized how painful life was for him, how much he missed the “old times,” and how disappointed he was with his everyday reality. I have my father’s sensibility; I know what pain is by looking at the faces of people. My intuition never lies, and I gradually developed the ability to see beyond surface appearances. There were times when I was frequently left alone for long periods of time without toys to play with. I developed an ability to see in ordinary things imaginary toys and to play with them in a self-created reality, invisible to all but me.

Did your environment help steer you towards a creative path?
I’m not sure, because I grew up with the dream that I would one day become a lawyer, as my grandfather was. I never had the chance to meet my grandfather; I knew his face only from family pictures, but I know he was a great man and I wanted to be just like him. Looking back at that time, I cannot see anything that stimulated or suggested “artistic development,” even on a primitive level. After my first year at school (at the age of eight), my parents signed me up on a competitive swimming team. My life became very predictable: classes, swimming practice, homework. Only the weekends were different. I’ve never been good in drawing or singing, but I was good at writing, an ability that appeared after high school. I improved my writing skills during law school at Sofia University.

City Fairytales, 2005

When did you begin taking photographs?
Fairly late, compared with most photographers. After graduating from law school in Bulgaria, I applied to the University of San Francisco, School of Law, to continue my education. Before my acceptance, I moved to the United States to see what it was like to live there. I was 24, and that’s when I had my first camera. I knew nothing about how to use it, so I took some photography classes at the City College of San Francisco. I became hooked on the medium, and spent two semesters studying photography.

What formal training have you had?
After my graduation from USF, I returned to Bulgaria and practiced law for about two years. But during that time I never stopped taking pictures. I also read photography magazines and attended every photo exhibition in Sofia. I wanted to learn more, so I applied to the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and was accepted in Illustrative/Fine Art Photography.

Have you been influenced by any other photographers? Some of your “City Fairytales” images evoke certain Harry Callahan composites.
Everything influences us or evokes certain thoughts or dreams. I respect artists who go beyond the mainstream and conceptualize their visions through unusual moods and tones. I’m amazed by the Pictorialists. I find the work of the Dadaist artists striking even today.
During my time at the Academy of Art University I discovered the images of Alfred Stiegltz, Josef Koudelka, Alexander Rodchenko and Harry Callahan. More recently I have been inspired by Michael Kenna, Simon Marsden, Misha Gordin and Stanka Tsonkova-USHA.

City Fairytales, 2005

What’s the photographic scene like in Bulgaria?
Unfortunately, we do not have a photographic tradition comparable to the Czech Republic or Poland. Photography was always subordinate to other forms of art (like music and sculpture) during the Communist era. Today, there are many digital artists who share their work on the Internet, but most of the critiques come from people who don’t have a clue what photography is all about.

What gave rise to the “City Fairytales” series, and what led you to the layering effect?
I used to frequently encounter statements along the lines of: “Photography is merely about the reproduction of reality,” and “There is no creativity to photography because the camera does all the work.” I have always found such attitudes to be narrow and reductive. The “City Fairytales” series is my reaction to such statements, and with these images I have tried to create alternative realities. My intention is to “sound” their echoes beyond the obvious, and to encourage viewers to see and think beyond the image itself. Even more, I want them to be able to feel the image, even if they do not understand it. I try to evoke controversial emotions and imaginary in each viewer’s mind because I believe in the subconscious world and the power that resides within it. The layering technique is done in camera, and is utilized to achieve a more complex and ambiguous vision. It is also proof that photography need not be limited to simply pressing the shutter and capturing “reality,” but that it can also be about imagination and pre-visualization.

In other words, you find straight images confining?
I believe that the straight images can be expressive if the photographer has the vision and the ability to make a unique statement.

City Fairytales, 2005

So you find a greater “truth” in a non-representational approach to the urban landscape?
I cannot say definitively, but in general, yes.

What themes or ideas are you trying to communicate with this work?
Most of the houses you see in this series are already gone. Developers indifferent to their beauty destroyed them in order to build modern, sterile buildings. My reaction to this process was to visually preserve as many as possible while conveying their story, so that people might discover what they blindly passed by every day.

Do you work with silver-gelatin, digital, or both?
I work with silver-gelatin, cyanotype, salt process, gum dichromate or digital, depending on the message I want to convey. The “City Fairytale” series is full of symbols, signs and perspectives, so I find it expressive enough to print it with digital inkjet. Alternatively, there are series that I find it necessary to print with a cyanotype emulsion. In general, the final presentation is part of the process, and it depends on what I aim for in terms of statement and vision.

What symbolic representation is the layering meant to convey?
It allows me to present in visual terms a different kind of reality, not one you can necessarily see or touch. I view reality in line with Einstein’s general theory of relativity—that is, not in an absolute, literal way. Just because one cannot see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The layering also symbolizes how a particular issue or problem might be best addressed through multiple perspectives.

City Fairytales, 2005

In addition to imbuing the images with a lot of visual energy, this layering projects a sense of instability, both literal and metaphorical.
I totally agree. Although truthfully, I do not care what the reaction is as long as there is a reaction of some sort. Basically, the interpretation is left to the mood and intelligence of the viewer.

The visual distortion also conjures a Gothic atmosphere, casting the city as a kind of foreboding, unstable environment. Is this your perception of the urban landscape?
Yes, it’s fair to say that an “unstable environment” is implied in my images. We are generally comfortable with the urban places we grew up in; however, we sometimes also fear them due to the unpredictable ways in which they change. For example, I grew up in a neighborhood of Sofia where many creative people lived—artists, journalists, university professors and the like. After democratization, wealthy people from small towns began buying property there, and that old neighborhood spirit went away. The new arrivals seem to care only about money, and don’t realize the potential for community. There is no “hello” when you meet someone on the stairs, no smiles. In this regard, time moves fast and brings many, often unwelcome, changes.

This is a depopulated vision of the city. Why have you excluded people from it?
I find the depopulated approach as an unexpected solution to an understanding of the urban environment. For me, people are the ones who suggest what the time frame is. I see the time frame as the key ingredient to this series: The lack of it pushes you into asking questions, into exploring your feelings and imagination.

City Fairytales, 2005

This approach contributes to a certain dreamlike atmosphere.
Absolutely. However, I believe in the subconscious world and the great power that resides in it. In my images I constantly provoke the conscious part of the mind, so that the subconscious one arises and expresses itself. I think people who look carefully at my work are capable of their own interpretation, which I find exciting. I would rather provoke unexpected interpretations than underestimate the viewer’s intellect by presenting only a single, unalterable point of view.

(I profiled Zaharieva in the April 2008 issue of Black & White magazine. Visit her work at: http://www.venetazaharieva.com.)

2010-04-25T13:46:00.001-07:00

Russ Martin: Beauty in Abstraction
Although he was born to a part-time professional photographer in 1949, Russ Martin initially contemplated a career as an engineer, architect or scientist. He even entered college as a chemistry major before changing his focus and earning a BS in Art/Photography from SUNY Brockport and an MFA in Photography from SUNY New Paltz. Thus equipped, Martin became a photography instructor in the early 1970s and simultaneously produced a series of pioneering color imagery that synthesized visual tropes from abstract painting, sculpture and photography. He exhibited this work at the Alonzo Gallery in the early ’70s (a time when few New York galleries were receptive to showing anything beyond black and white), but was unable to follow up his initial momentum when the gallery closed. Since retiring from teaching in 2008, however, he has found new gallery representation, and in addition to resuming his exhibition career, has won several prestigious awards. He’s also switched from film to digital in the interest of greater image control. Martin feels he is making the best images of his life, including recent color abstractions that reference his early work, and a compelling monochrome series on unusual plant life. Intriguing visual juxtapositions and an emotional-intellectual duality are present in everything he does.

Russ Martin

Your wall and torn-poster images were created not only from the perspective of photography, but also painting and sculpture. Was this an attempt to transcend differences between the three mediums?
In a sense, yes. I borrowed from both painting and sculpture to create something that I believe hadn't been done before. For instance, there is the subject material on the wall that is reminiscent of various painters, and other material, either in front or to the side, that is in juxtaposition with it that creates three-dimensionality and new meaning. In another sense, nothing is really new. However, back when I was making these wall and torn poster images, I hadn't seen anything similar. Yes, some borrow from painting, but they aren't paintings. They are photographs, but they aren't exactly photographic. They are somewhere in-between. In the ’70's that was new and it foreshadowed some work that has appeared since then.

The first wall picture that I made was the one of the rust and rope. I call that one "Homage to Peggy Guggenheim." I made it the day after having seen an exhibition of her sculptures at the Guggenheim Museum. They were very strange. Some were groups of ropes hanging from the ceiling. I saw this piece of rope and the rusted metal, and thought of her. Next, I made “Hard Edge with Crane” and “Hard Edge With Tires” in the same area. About a year after that, I made “Homage to Rauchenberg” and “Porthole”—all in the same place.

207, 1974

I understand this work attracted considerable notice when it first appeared.
I was one of the first color fine art photographers, showed in a good gallery in New York (the Alonzo Gallery at 30 W. 57th St.), and was on my way when the gallery closed, and I was forgotten. To quote my good friend Allan Ludwig, who was showing his photography in the same gallery at the time: "You are smart to be pushing yourself as one of the first color photographers on the art photo scene. That is the key to everything. Critics and historians like to find moments of origin for trends and movements, and here you are waiting to be a discovered as one of the first but somehow overlooked at the time. It is the key to your brand. I was there in the old days and I saw these very pictures being created."

He isn't kidding. I lived in his house and shared his darkroom. He saw me making many of these images, some of which were Cibachromes. The stuff was so toxic and corrosive that I wore a respirator while processing them. I'm sure he remembers that very clearly. I had red marks on my face for a week.

What kind of qualities does photography have that the aforementioned mediums don’t?
Most paintings are flat. Most of my photographs suggest a three-dimensionality that paintings do not have. In addition, the sharp focus that a lens produces is usually not an attribute of painting.

Homage to Peggy Guggenheim, 1973

Do you find any limitations using photography, for example, when it comes to rendering textures?
Generally speaking, photography is the best method of recording textures. It records minute detail that the human eye may miss or not resolve. There have been times though when the distance between objects, or the depth of the subject, is too great to render in sharp focus. I usually stop the lens down all the way, or almost, to produce the depth of field required, but it sometimes is not enough. When photographing textures, I want them to be as clear as possible. When I started photographing these subjects, I hand-held the camera. That did not produce the sharpness required. Subsequently, I used a tripod and cable release and whatever shutter speed was required. Sometimes, it was necessary to wait until bits of torn paper stopped moving in the wind.

Have you ever been tempted to work directly in sculpture and painting?
I occasionally considered making both sculptures and paintings, but never got around to either. For instance, I once thought about going out into the woods in the Adirondack Mountains and creating sculptures on the large rock deposited by glaciers. However, I never studied sculpture and didn't know anything about stone carving. It would have also required time and money that I didn't have. Then there was the question of who would see them! It was more of a conceptual project than something I probably would ever have done. Regarding painting, I once had a vivid dream of a scene in upstate New York near where I grew up. I could see it clearly and even sketched it when I awoke. Later, I bought canvas and paints to make the painting, but it was around this time that things started happening for me photographically and I've been concentrating on this medium ever since. Maybe someday I will create that painting. But I know my limitations; I am a much better photographer than I would ever be a sculptor or painter.

Action Painting, 1979

What was the inspiration for this series? Why the specific focus on walls?
Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention! When I was in graduate school, at SUNY New Paltz in 1973, I took a course in color photography. It started in the winter. Winter is a very monochromatic season in New York. The only color I was attracted to was manmade color that was either painted on walls or on signs and posters. When I photographed this material, it went through a mental filter created from seeing numerous postwar paintings in art history courses, and also from having been exposed to the photographs of Aaron Siskind. He, by the way, was also my advisor's thesis advisor. So abstraction, and modern art, was a big part of my education. It just seemed to come out in my photographs. Once started down that path, and finding success with my images, I have continued.

Your website references such as influences as Aaron Siskind, Piet Mondrian, Willem DeKooning, Elliott Erwitt. Can you briefly specify the qualities in their work that you respond to?
Each one had a different influence. When I was first studying art, it was easy to understand how Mondrian composed his images and used different amounts of color and space to create balance and movement. For some reason, I also liked the geometry and rigidity of the compositions. I have frequently told people, "Mondrian taught me composition." I also like juxtapositions. Margaret Bourke-White's image of people standing in a bread line under a billboard of a happy family in a car was a big influence. That made me realize that putting two unrelated subjects together could create a powerful statement. Erwitt frequently juxtaposed imagery, too. In fact, he is a master of it. I love his sense of humor. Siskind did abstracts that were reminiscent of postwar paintings, only in black and white. With all the other painters, their imagery was in my head and I seemed to see similar things in the urban landscape.

Porthole, 1974

These images play with conventional notions of what is beautiful and otherwise in the urban landscape. Was this deliberate?
It wasn't a conscious intention, but it’s true that that is part of it. I have evaluated my photographs over the years and have noticed that they function on many levels. Regarding the image "Crane Duality, Kingston 1973," I was attracted to the saturated red of the crane and the hard metal forms. At the same time, I was attracted by the shapes on the wall, which imply compression. But yes, I love beauty, and color can be part of that.

This work (especially the torn posters) addresses a surprisingly wide thematic range, inclusive of cultural, political, sexual, religious and other matters. Do you find that many viewers pick up on these undercurrents, or do they tend to focus on the surface, abstract qualities?
I have had viewers tell me both. Some like them simply for the textures; others, for the content. I think they are inextricably linked. Most of these images were made on the streets of New York. I walked everywhere and was looking mainly for juxtapositions of subjects that might create meaning. I was well aware of the sexual, political, religious, cultural and symbolic meanings that shapes, words, images and symbols could create. When I found compositions that seemed to work on some level, I photographed them. Later, I edited for the most successful, which usually involved the themes you mentioned.

Blue Guy, 1979

In what way does this work seem to resonate with viewers?
I have a difficult time answering this. I don't know. I think some of the images are very direct and easily understandable. Others may be more cerebral. Quite a few people identify with the strong use of color and textures.

For me, these images give off a vibrant creative energy specific to the urban landscape.
You may be right about them possessing an urban energy. I grew up in a much less populated area than New York, so I felt a lot of excitement and energy in the city. It was all new to me, and all kinds of things popped out at me. For instance, my poster images; I saw faces everywhere. It was like they were looking out at me. It was difficult not to see them. Then too, there were all the standpipes. I saw them as figures. They are everywhere.

On your website, your black-and-white Torn Poster series is headed: “They’re Looking at You.” Is this a subtle dig at the surveillance society?
Nope. Just that all these faces seemed to be looking at me from the walls.

There are no people in these images, outside of indirect depictions in some of the poster photographs. This also holds true with your other series, whether you’re dealing with an urban or natural landscape. Are you uncomfortable shooting people, or just uninterested? Do you find you can say more about the human condition through an elliptical approach?
You are getting deeper than I want to go. I just seem to gravitate to subjects that don't contain people.

Crane Duality, 1973

Your wall compositions and torn posters are primarily shot in square, although there are a number of rectangular compositions as well. How do you decide which framing to use?
Many of the square images were shot with a Rolleiflex TLR, which produced a square image. With some, it was necessary to crop to remove material that was distracting or didn't work with the composition. Recently, I have been using a digital camera, which produces a rectangular image. Generally, I use the format of the camera.

The space feels a bit more constricted in the square images. Would you agree? And is this intentional?
Not always. You would have to point out the ones that make you feel this way. Many times I feel the square format allows the eye to move more easily and harbors less dead spaces. However, I suppose the edges of the frame may produce a closed-in feeling at times. If I did that, it was not intentional.

You’ve said that you have been “liberated” by digital imagery. Are you talking about ease of image-making, expanded visual options, or both?
Both. I used to have a black-and-white and a color darkroom, and I was very good with each. However, I found it difficult to find the time to print, especially with color. Then too, film, chemicals and paper were costly. With digital, I don't incur any expenses until I want to print, and I can work for 5 minutes or 5 hours. I also have vastly more control over the image from the camera to the final print. For me, digital photography and processing has allowed me to produce the best images of my life, with little cost or hassle.

Has digital changed the way you “see” images or the manner in which you now conceptualize and capture them (apart from a technical standpoint)?
I don't think so. I'm an old dog, and we don't learn new tricks easily!

Concorde, 1979

(Russ Martin’s work lives here: www.russandmarciamartin.com. Pay it a visit, or contact him directly at mfaphoto@optonline.net.)

2010-04-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

James Fee: Darkroom Odyssey
I’ve decided to take this blog in a little different direction with this post. A bit further back in the past, to be precise. I conducted this interview with the late James Fee in 1994 for Camera & Darkroom magazine, where I worked as Managing Editor. It was the first installment of “In the Darkroom,” a department I initiated in which noted photographers like Fee, George Krause and Thomas Barrow discussed their developing and printing methods in relation to their work’s thematic implications. At the time, Fee was beginning to earn widespread acclaim for his “Photographs of America” series, which chronicled a country in decline through haunting images of abandoned factories, hardscrabble towns and neglected cultural icons. Fee was also a darkroom virtuoso, one whose Gothic visual style inspired many imitators but no equals. While it may seem somewhat perverse in this digital age to post an interview focusing on silver-gelatin processes, I like the insights Fee provides on how the time and effort required by traditional materials enriches the finished work. This conversation is definitely for old school photographers, but even digital diehards should find food for thought.

James Fee

What kind of negative do you aim for?
This may sound like a contradiction, but I try for a contrasty/soft negative. I filter in the camera to create a certain kind of contrast. Then, in the development, I knock that contrast down a bit. This achieves what a red filter does, but not so intensely. It doesn’t give me a bulletproof negative, as it’s a little on the thin side, but it still has contrast. I print almost exclusively on No. 4 paper, so my negatives need to be a little bit thin. If I had a heavier negative, I couldn’t use No. 4 paper, which accepts toner better than softer grades. Also, a heavier negative tends to block the whites. There are many times when I wish there were a No. 31/2 Agfa, because the 3 is too flat for me and the 4 is sometimes too contrasty. The photo of Ethiopian model Sahi Kadne from “The Bower Suite” series is a good example. It’s a very thin negative, one that’s right on the border of a 4 or 5 grade of paper. Grade 5 would actually be too much; it would have blown out the detail on the fingertips. I used a Grade 4 and then burned in the corners to create decent blacks.

What film do you typically use?
Tri-X 120 or 220. I like it because it’s a very versatile film. I like to have a slight grain structure in my prints, and you can get that to any degree you want with Tri-X. You can get a lot or a little, or you can get none. It’s probably the most versatile film in achieving a grain structure without changing the quality of the film, meaning the contrast. I give it a standard rating of 320, and tend to overexpose and underdevelop a little bit. I pre-rinse my film; I don’t really soak it for any length of time. I process in HC-110, which still gives you a little bit of grain. I use the straight Dilution B, with no additives. If I want more contrast, I’ll just agitate a bit more or bump the temperature up a little. My standard temperature is 70°, and I process for about five to seven minutes, depending on the lighting during the shoot. If there’s bright sun or mixed sunlight, I’ll develop for five to six minutes; it it’s overcast or I shot in the shade, then I’ll go the full seven minutes.

Sahi Kadne

How much and what kind of agitation do you use?
This is going to sound a little abstract, but when I’m developing my film, I try to think back to what kind of contrast was available at the shoot. If I think I need to bump the contrast up more, I’ll agitate a lot more—pretty aggressive up-and-down agitation. If it’s a normal shoot, I’ll just agitate through inversion every 30 seconds.

Can you take me through the other film-processing stages?
After development, I use a water rinse (instead of stop bath), followed by Clayton rapid fixer, the same as used for prints. I use hardener in my film fixer but not my print fixer, because I tone afterwards. I use hypo-clear and then wash the film for about 20 minutes.

Do you ever intensify your negatives?
I’ve tried just about every means of intensifying negatives, including the standard method of using selenium toner on them, and none of them have worked for me. I believe that’s a photographic fallacy; I think that maybe somebody played a dirty trick on us. I’ve never known anyone who’s had any luck with selenium toner. Chromium intensifier does work, but it creates a strange sort of grime on the negatives that I find really bothersome. Maybe I just haven’t used it right. Anyway, I have just about given up on overly thin negatives. I just get No. 5 paper and try to save them that way.

Plastic or steel reels?
I use steel. I don’t think there’s any difference, except that room temperature affects metal more than the plastic. For instance, if your room is very cold and you load your film in a steel reel and tank, then put 70° developer in it, the room temperature will probably knock your developer down to 65° real quick. That doesn’t happen with plastic.

How do you store your negatives?
I cut my negatives individually and throw away all the reject frames. If out of three rolls of shooting I have just one negative that I like, that’s the only one I’ll keep. I’ll cut it out and put it in a 4x5 Mylar folding enclosure, then put the Mylar in a 4x5 envelope. All Light Impressions stuff.

Westside Highway, New York City, NY 1995

Let’s move on the printing stage. How often do you print?
At least once a week. For about two days in a row I’ll go in and print, and that’s all I’ll do. I’ll try and mark out time when I think I won’t be bothered, because I think darkroom work requires a lot of attention and a lot of quiet time by yourself when you won’t be interrupted. Otherwise, you’re not going to do it right. I don’t believe in doing a little darkroom work, then running out and doing something else, and then going back into the darkroom. You just lose all concentration on whatever it is that you’re doing. I even lock the phone in the closet. Darkroom work is like Zen: You need to have a clearness of mind to go in and concentrate on it and it alone. I think with the way the world is today, with television and phone calls and everything, we live a very fragmented life. We’re constantly used to being interrupted, and I think that has a lot to do with how we function in the darkroom. It’s very hard to block out that time and concentrate on only that.

What are your favorite and least favorite aspects of printing?
Certainly the developer is a very exciting step. I think everybody’s favorite time is printing a new negative that they are really excited about. It’s kind of a high when you see it come up in the developer and it’s something that you know is going to be a great print; you know it’s an image that you’re really excited about seeing. With those kinds of images, the entire process, all the way down to toning, is very exciting. Regarding my least favorite aspect of darkroom work, it gets to be harder and harder to go back and print negatives that you’ve printed before. You just stop wanting to see that image again, because you’ve printed it so many times.

What enlarger do you use?
A Beseler 23C. There’s no specific reason why I use that model. In fact, I’ve had a lot of problems keeping it in alignment. I guess I’m kind of stubborn; I like to keep the equipment that I have. I don’t like to make changes. These things become like old friends. You get so used to working with them, you don’t want to get rid of them. Plus, I simply like condenser enlargers. I like everything they do, even when they’re not working. I like imperfections in optics. The whole idea of cold light or diffusion enlarging...I just don’t like the prints I get from them. I like the contrast of condensers and the ability to control the contrast.

Crossed Wires, Staten Island, NY 1998

Which papers do you prefer?
Over the years I’ve used several different papers, because papers come and go. Whether or not the manufacturers like to admit it, papers go bad. I use Agfa Insignia for almost everything that I do. I like the Grade 4, double-weight glossy surface. I like the “photographic” look of glossy paper. I don’t jump around to a lot of films, even. I started out using Tri-X in high school in the 1960s, and I still do. I guess when I feel I’ve fully explored a paper or a film’s potential, then I’ll stop using it and go on to something else. I haven’t done that with Insignia. I develop my prints for about a minute and a half in Clayton P-20M, which is a concentrate and can be mixed in a lot of different dilutions. It’s a warm-tone developer for the most part. If I want a particular print a little warmer and softer, then I’ll mix in a little Selectol with the P-20. I’ll also overexpose in the enlarger and pull the print a little quick, and that will bring the contrast down a bit.

I use all Clayton chemistry for my printing. I like chemicals, papers and films that are open-ended enough so that I can adapt them to what I want them to do. Just as I’ve found that Tri-X is the most adaptable film in as many different situations as I want to use it for, so too is Clayton chemistry. On some of the portrait work I do, I’ve been using a new paper—Sterling—which I’ve found to be an exceptionally good variable-contrast paper that’s made in India. I was kind of amazed at how good it was. One of the reasons I like it so much is that it accepts toner incredibly well. I had been using Ilford Multigrade for commercial purposes, but for everything I liked about Ilford, it had some things that I didn’t like. Mainly, it didn’t selenium-tone very well. Not only does Sterling accept toner very well, but it also holds the whites really well, even if you’re using a brown toner, which normally cuts your whites down a bit. You can tell that their production isn’t as sophisticated as other paper manufacturers—sometimes you’ll get a few sheets that are bent, and the boxes are not particularly sturdy, but the paper itself is really high-grade, and it’s very reasonably priced.

Broken Span, New York City, NY 1992

How much Selectol do you add to the P-20?
It’s pretty intuitive, based on the picture I’m printing at the time. It’s usually a 2/3 to 1/3 ratio. I’ll use 2/3 P-20 working solution and 1/3 Selectol working solution. I’ve never been one for following charts or development times. I kind of bend everything to what I like to see. I’ve never wanted to be burdened by charts. Charts and rules just get in the way. For instance, if you use Tri-X all the time, you know what it does and you know when to put a filter on to increase the contrast, and you know what that filter is going to cost you in ASA. Photography is very technical, but if you know what type of photographer you are, you can learn what you need to know very quickly and then make it do what you want it to. And then all of a sudden a lot of those rules don’t apply to you anymore, because you’ve developed your own work habits.

Do you make many test strips?
Not really. I just put a strip of paper across the crucial areas that I want to expose for. Since I do a lot of commercial portrait photography, that’s generally the face. I know that the first print is not going to be the print that I’m going to use, so I use a test strip to get the first ballpark exposure on the face, and then I’ll make a straight print without any burning and dodging and let everything else do what it needs to do. After that I usually do quite a bit of manipulating. I shoot with the idea of that manipulation. I know that when I get in the darkroom, I’m going to change a lot through burning and dodging. I also keep in mind the fact that selenium toner changes the print quite a bit. You can do a lot with selenium toning as far as controlling contrast.

Harrisburgh Storage, Harrisburgh, PA 1992

Do you tone all your prints?
Pretty much everything, even my commercial magazine work. Very rarely do you get asked for a straight print. The only client I have that always asks for a straight print is Vanity Fair. They always say not to tone the prints, though I’m not sure why. But I tone most everything, which also increases the contrast and luster of the prints. I do a lot of experimenting with toning. I’ve used a lot of different toners and have combined them with concoctions of my own. What I’ve found works well with the Sterling paper is a combination of Kodak selenium and Kodak brown toner. This tends to exhaust the brown toner rather quickly for some reason. It works real well for the first bunch of prints, but I can’t reuse it and get the same results. The brown aspects seem to go away quickly.

Do you put any additives in the developer?
No. If I want stronger blacks, it’s usually in one area of the picture, so I’ll usually burn that in on the print. That way I can keep the tonal range the same. I burn and dodge a lot on most everything, because there’s always stuff in the picture I don’t want there. Sometimes there are whole areas I want to take out, so I burn them down to black. I did a lot of burning-in on the Edmund Teske portrait. I didn’t like the pattern on his jacket, which I thought distracted attention from his face and hand, so I burned the lower-right corner below his hand quite a bit. I also burned the upper-left corner.

Do you print with the dry-down effect in mind?
I print a little bit lighter because of the selenium toning, but I don’t really notice a big dry-down difference. It’s a pretty miniscule amount.

Edmund Teske

Any differences in how you print your commercial portraiture and fine art work?
No. I basically print the same. These days, almost all black-and-white is color separated in the magazines, so you can get away with a really gutsy print.

How many prints will you make during an average printing session?
I end up making about 40 prints in four hours to get 20 good prints. That’s not counting the ones I throw away in the darkroom. I’ll usually try to print a double amount, just because when it gets down to finishing everything, there will always be some problems. A lot of times you can have damaged prints in the washing or toning, for example. Also, I think I have a lot of failures in my prints because of what I try to do with them. I try to push the negatives a lot further.

W. Eugene Smith would sometimes print for hours to get one print he could live with.
It’s funny you should mention him, because his work was really instrumental in me spending so much time in the darkroom. You can see that he worked very hard on his prints. I like to see prints that have a lot of work put into them. I can tell when a print’s been made quickly and when it hasn’t. There’s a certain amount of love that goes into a print, and it takes a lot of failures to get the right one. I completely understand his dedication. I don’t understand people who don’t put that amount of energy into their prints.

White Mound, Gary, IN 1992

Do you ever bleach your prints?
I used to ferrocyanide my prints, and it almost cost me a friendship. I used to print the whites down dark and then ferrocyanide them back up, but I underestimated the wash time for that process. I traded a print with another photographer, and mine is disappearing on his wall now. So I think that’s a pretty dangerous practice. I really like the effect, but I don’t know how permanent it is.

Do you print certain negatives differently now than in the past?
I think you do whether you like it or not, especially when you do so much manipulating, like I do, on the negative—the images are not always consistent with the original image. It doesn’t bother me, but it bothers galleries. My dealer in Chicago, Catherine Edelman, is very fanatical with me on this point. I think my prints are consistent, but one of the things I like about printing is that it isn’t a totally consistent process. I also think that the first print has something special to it—something that later prints, after the negative has been printed a lot, don’t have. That may sound a little mystical, but I think something happens when you’re printing the image close to when it was shot. Maybe you get too good at printing that negative later; maybe that’s what I don’t like.

Do you experiment much with alternative techniques and processes?
I do photo-illustrations as well as portraits for magazines, and when it comes to that I experiment in a lot of different ways—anything goes. But not with my personal work so much. I like the idea of pushing the image as far as I can within the constraints of what photography is. I try to start out with a kind of traditional basis. Recently I’ve been putting a lot of stains on my negatives for a series called “Photographs of America.” This involves shooting abandoned factories, military installations and the like. I’m using stains for mood and also to accentuate the “used” quality of the subject matter. As well, I’m beginning to explore the concept that stains are a natural part of the photographic process, and that sometimes you can make them work for you.

Pt. Mugu, CA 1992

You can see the stains on the Point Mugu shot from the “America” series. I achieved that by processing the film on unwashed reels. The blacks spots are due to fixer that was left on the reels and got transferred to the film during development. The thing about using dirty reels is that you never know where you’re going to get the stains, so the element of chance comes into play. I will also put ferrocyanide on negatives, but for that you need to print out your edition right away—Lord knows how long they’re going to last. They’re probably good for a couple of years, but not for too long. With ferrocyanide, though, you can pretty much control where the stains are going to go. I apply it in different ways, though mainly with my fingers. I usually work with 21/4 negatives, so a little granule of ferrocyanide appears really big once you blow the image up. I’ve ruined a lot of negatives with these processes, so I always try to make sure I’m willing to have them disappear. There’s a certain kind of excitement in thinking you might ruin your negatives. It’s kind of fun to put photography—which is a reproducible medium—into an arena where you can ruin a perfectly good image.

Describe your fixing, washing and toning.
As mentioned, I used Clayton rapid fix. I tend to over-fix and over-wash everything. After the initial print wash—before I selenium tone—I’ll let the prints sit in a balanced alkali solution in distilled water for anywhere from ten to 30 minutes. This solution seems to allow them to tone better. I’m not a chemist, but alkali seems to be important to the paper accepting the toner. After toning, I wash the prints for an hour. One final note: I mix all my chemistry with distilled water instead of tap water. I moved darkrooms once, and the place I moved into had a lot of iron in the water. I was using Agfa paper and Kodak selenium toner. This combination would tone all the dark areas, but stop at the whites. That would have been great if I were split-toning, because I could have gone back with the brown toner. But I wasn’t split-toning. The only answer I could come up with is that there was too much iron in the water. In the process of trying to nail the culprit, I started using distilled water for all my chemicals, and that cured the problem.

The Sign Says, Red Rock Lake, IA 1995

(Please visit www.jamesfee.com to see more of this amazing photographer’s work. And stay tuned to this blog for an upcoming, extensive interview I conducted with Fee—the last one he gave—just a few months before his tragic death in 2006.)

2010-03-17T16:25:00.001-07:00

Galen Schlich: Innocence and Transition
The home page of Galen Schlich’s website features an apt quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all.” Coming from a broken home, Schlich has been trying to illuminate a personal and artistic path through a lifetime of transition. He originally sought a creative outlet through landscape photography, but didn’t discover his personal voice until he began photographing people, as well as confronting the circumstances of his childhood. His twin themes of beauty and innocence — and their sometimes disturbing intersections — resonate throughout all his bodies of work.

Galen Schlich

Describe your first attempts at photographic visual expression.
When I first began taking photographs, my primary motivation was to put my love of nature down on film. I did that for 15 years or so. At that time I very rarely photographed people — most of my work excluded the human presence. Eventually, I picked up a book by the Czech photographer Jan Saudek. I had never heard of him before, but his work was so different from what I been exposed to; it was much more personal, and was profoundly affected by his childhood. Then, while I was working in the Antarctic for the National Science Foundation, my father passed away. After my employment there was finished I traveled back to Illinois to attend to family affairs. I also reconnected with some old friends there. I had never been around children much before, and they had two girls, Brittney and Brooke, who opened my eyes to the beauty and innocence of childhood. They were for me an expression of all that is pure and good in a world that, as we know, can be very cruel. They were an emotional oasis for me during a time of confusion and loss. They very much affected my soul as well as my work. Afterward, I traveled around the world and spent some time in Paris and southern France and consumed everything about painters and photographers that I could get my hands on. I’d spend hours in dusty little bookshops in Paris looking for new inspiration and wander the floors of the museums studying paintings.

How long did it take you to develop a personal vision and style?
I think it took a lot longer for me than perhaps others simply because I hadn’t been hit over the head with the substance of it soon enough. I really hadn’t explored deeply enough. There were a lot of things I was running away from, although I didn’t know what they were and I didn’t see it as running away at the time. When that “substance” finally did hit me, I was quite unprepared for where it would take me. Nevertheless, I dove into it and pursued it with vigor. The beginnings of this personal vision emerged from beauty. Just as I had photographed the beauty of nature, now I started photographing the beauty of women and children, but clearly with more of an idea of where I wanted to take it.

Untitled

What was the biggest challenge in doing so?
Impatience. I had these feelings and ideas that I knew I wanted to express, but at the same time seemed unable to produce any material from them. I took a sketchbook everywhere and would write ideas and sketch pictures to help me visualize these ideas. I would keep postcards, brochures, tourist leaflets or any other advertising material. If it had an image on it that gave me some ideas, it was mine. Sometimes I just felt like quitting altogether; it bothered me very much that I couldn’t seem to produce anything good.

Which photographers and/or other artists have influenced you? And why?
As I’ve stated, Jan Saudek is a big influence. His photography contains elements of dreams, fantasy, beauty, ugliness, humor and juxtaposition. I like the fact that he uses symbolism in his works that often tie into other pieces, such as a window or an old rag doll. The aspect of time in his work is also fascinating — he’ll photograph a small child and years later photograph her as an adult. He is captivated by beauty, but at the same time questions it and challenges our perception of it. Robert Demachy is another influence. His eye for composition was wonderful, and his portrait and nude studies are very simple but extremely striking and emotional. He also disliked the “straight print” and preferred to add another dimension to his work through alternative processes. His work has influenced me in that I also try to achieve a different look through alternative printing methods. Joel-Peter Witkin is another photographer that has interested me. He is constantly challenging the viewer into looking at the subject of beauty, ugliness, life and death. His pictures make you ask questions or they disgust you or they make you laugh, which is what good art is all about for me.

The Falling

The ethereal, dreamlike quality to these images calls to mind the Pictorialists, yet the mood and tone feel contemporary. Is this your intent?
It is and it isn’t. I have been heavily influenced by the Pictorialists and tried to emulate that feeling in my work, but I also realized that I didn’t want to produce the exact same thing. I’m also thinking that maybe my interest in fashion portraitists, such as Paolo Roversi, may be behind the contemporary feeling in the works; possibly something is slipping in there from that influence.

Your photographs are very sensual, yet they also project innocence, which creates a certain energy and contrast.
Yes, that’s true. I think my focus in many of the pictures was to create something very simple for the eye and at the same time very sensual. The subject of innocence is very obvious in my work because it has always captivated me. It’s a question for me, and also something that goes hand in hand with beauty in children. The innocence of a child combined with beauty is magical for me, but that innocence is fleeting, like the blossoming of spring flowers; you know that in the not too far-off future that bloom will be over. Children live in the moment and, unlike many adults, are constantly dreaming and questioning things, however simple. For me, it’s nice to be a part of that simplicity and innocence. I believe that beauty and innocence are two of the aspects that compel me in most of my work.

My initial read on many of your photographs is that they’re meditations on the transition from childhood to adulthood. For example, you have an image of a ballerina that's cropped so that the position of the hands and arms is that of a pregnant woman cradling her belly, yet the subject seems to be an adolescent.
They could very well be looked at in that light. Yes, the ballerina picture does specifically play with the idea of transition. When I started exploring the themes of youth, innocence and beauty these naturally brought up questions for me about time, birth, aging and death. Even the young girl in the image “The Dreamer” evokes the idea of life and death. On one hand we see a beautiful girl who looks as if she’s asleep, and on the other hand one may also perceive her as being dead.

The Dreamer

Your image of a young girl’s legs — bare, ghostly white, smudged and cropped at the knees, seemingly suspended in midair — has a disturbing elegance and surreal intensity that reminds me of similar imagery in some of Luis Buñuel films. Do you recognize this affinity?
Yes, this is one of my favorite photos. Although I’ve only viewed one of his films, there is definitely that surrealist element that I relate with. Your expression, “disturbing elegance” is exactly what I was trying to represent with this image. I like that it leaves the mind to wander a bit about what is happening here. It’s not so clear-cut to the viewer and yet it’s not an overly complicated picture.

The still life of the dead birds and fruit and the double-exposure portrait “Natalie Two” also project a subtle surrealism. Is this planned, or is it a spontaneous result?
Yes and no. The double exposure was shot on an 8x10 camera and I forgot to flip the film plate, thus the double exposure. When I exposed the negative and printed it, it became apparent that this was a far more interesting composition than it would have been had I not made the error. With the “Still Life with Dead Birds” I planned this to have the surrealist element. I wanted to override the traditional “still life” with something that would breath new life (or death) into it, something completely out of place. I messed around all evening with different variations of these birds, and the one I eventually came up with seemed to show a mixture of tranquility, the nice peaceful arrangement of fruit and wine, overlapped by the tragedy of these birds that look as if they had just dropped out of the sky onto this table. Sketching ideas onto paper is very important to me in the visualization of planned shots such as this. I can be spontaneous, but I find that if I already have an idea to work from, spontaneity becomes much easier.

Still Life with Dead Birds

Looking at the portraits on your website, I get the impression of very concentrated, intense shooting sessions, and of a sense of collaboration with your subjects. They seem to be full and equal participants in the process, at least in terms of their emotional involvement.
Participation is the one thing that I require. If the subject doesn’t understand my work or at least what I am trying to capture, then oftentimes the end result doesn’t work. I try and involve the subject into being an active participant in the creative process. I explain what I am trying to capture, be it mood, feeling, et cetera. I often find that the second shoot with a person is much better than the first, because they’ve had a chance to see the results and have a better understanding of what I’m looking for. The exchange between subject and photographer is paramount to realization. When everything fits there seems to be a unique stillness and unspoken conversation between us. I find this very calming; it’s like someone telling you a bedtime story when you’re a child. For most of my portraits I use an 8x10 bellows camera. This slows everything down and allows for that space to emerge. I try and set an atmosphere of tranquility and work slowly so there’s a very tangible calmness when it comes time for exposure. Children are wonderful to work with — anything that involves attention and imagination seems to compel them, although sometimes it’s hard getting them to be still for long.

It seems that portraiture is your preferred genre. Do you find it more expressive than, say, landscapes or documentary?
I find that portraiture is much more expressive for me. I mentioned that years ago I only shot landscapes. That fulfilled something in me at the time, but even then I felt there was something missing, and that basically I was just composing another “pretty picture.” I like the truthfulness and reality of reportage, but I have never been able to express myself or my vision through that facet of photography. Portraiture provides the unique opportunity to seen inside someone else, to get to know them, enjoy their beauty, and try to work together to capture that vision on film.

Natalie Two

What specific ideas, themes or attitudes do you try to express in your photographs?
I try to find beauty first and foremost. If the subject has a unique look, I might try something with a different idea in mind, such as the girl in the photo “Camille.” I wanted to capture her beauty, but also the feeling that if you stumbled upon her in the forest, your first reaction might be run away. Those piercing eyes evoke a sort of evil wood nymph image. I like to experiment with different themes in my work, so it depends on what kind of physical features my subjects possess. I like to depict children as beautiful, innocent creatures, but at the same time tip the other end of the scale and portray another side of them, which is their ability to be mischievous and sometimes downright mean. Youth is a wonderful way for me to contrast immortality. Everyone can associate with youth, the days when nothing seemed to matter. There’s something about the freshness, beauty and pureness of youth as opposed to aging and withering away of the body and mind that captivates me.

I also sense feelings of loss, regret, nostalgia.
I have also perceived that in my photos. Subconscious or not, it’s definitely a recurring element. Something that was totally unexpected for me in my photographic endeavors was that there would be questions popping up about my childhood and past in general. I come from a broken family — my father raised four boys alone. I definitely lacked a female presence in my life, being four when my mother left, and thus also lacking the nurturing and love necessary for a child at that age. My father went through an amazingly hectic life to ensure our well-being and safety, but lacked the ability to show affection. I often wonder if what comes out of my photography may in fact be tied to childhood issues. I believe that’s where some of those emotions you reference come from. I relate to the nostalgia of being a kid and feeling carefree, of yearning for an age when things weren’t necessarily easier, but simpler. Many children today have never had the chance to explore wooded areas or sit outside, stare at the stars and dream. Many can’t even see the stars because of city lights. Activities that children used to participate in and learn valuable life lessons from have been replaced by videogames, iPhones and television.

Camille

Is it fair to say your works more on emotional than intellectual levels?
Although I like to include a hint of something thought-provoking in my work, my favorite photographs and paintings have always been those that hit me emotionally first. I think a work of art should try and elicit both from a viewer, or at least attempt to.

What do you think gives your work its individuality?
I would have to say that much of it evolves from the way my images are cropped and the overall feelings associated with my subjects. One’s inclination is to photograph a whole object, or at least something the mind recognizes easily, like a face. It’s not standard to crop a visually vital element out of the picture, such as half of a person’s head. This disturbs some people, who are used to seeing the whole picture. Bu I believe this can be a positive first step for viewers to use their imaginations. In “Girl at the Gate of Time” one first wants to know what the rest of her face looks like. But as the eye wanders around the frame, the focus is soon withdrawn from her face to the other, more important aspects. Symbolically, there’s a lot happening in this photo. The cropping also draws attention to areas of interest that provoke an emotion — like the girl’s neck in “Devon.”

Has your approach to photography changed through the years?
Dramatically. I see photography as an avenue to express my ideas and myself, whereas before I wanted so bad to just make that “pretty picture” that would make it in a magazine? Photography, like any other art form, should try and raise questions and emotions, not just feelings of joy at something pretty to look at. The aim of art is to challenge. If one isn’t challenged, then one stagnates. I want to create images that one can’t pass by, but are forced to take a second and third look because they contain elements that won’t leave you alone.

Girl at the Gate of Time

(I wrote about Galen Schlich for issue 54 of Black & White magazine. Spend some time with his work at: www.galenschlich.com)

2010-03-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

Jeff Alu: Desert Dreams
Jeff Alu is a freelance digital artist and photographer who spends most of his free time roaming California's desert areas in an open-ended journey of personal and visual exploration. His black-and-white photographs play with lighting, scale and perspective to transform the mundane into something ominous and alien. Visual equilibrium becomes a tenuous concept, as the viewer tends to feel trapped between dimensions of reality and surreality. Yet no matter how unbalanced things become, one is invariably seduced by the dark poetry of Alu’s post-apocalyptic visions.

Jeff Alu

You studied to be a musician, but began taking photographs in 2000. What drew you to the medium?
I’ve always been attracted to photography, and even entered a few competitions in junior high school, but I was much more interested time in music at that time, so that’s where I concentrated most of my efforts. I’ve always loved the desert and hiking in remote areas. I bought a digital camera in 2000 to document some of my hikes, without any real intention of breaking into fine art. It was only after playing with some of these images in Photoshop that my love for black and white was reborn. And from there I just couldn’t stop.

People are largely absent from your work, with the exception of a couple of series. Are you more comfortable photographing unpopulated locations, or is this more of an artistic/philosophic choice?
I also do commercial work, which always features people. But for my fine art work, it’s true, I’m much more interested in shots without people, even when I photograph in densely populated areas like New York City. I try to project human emotions and feelings onto inanimate objects; I’ve done that ever since I was a kid. So when I come across a small bush or rock in the middle of nowhere, I feel like it’s trying to say something to me, like it wants to be photographed, to be noticed. I don’t hear an actual voice, of course, I just get a feeling that the scene has something to say and needs to be recorded.

Hill

You seem most at home in desert locations. Why do these kinds of locations speak to you more than other kinds of landscapes? Your bio references an absence of complexity. What else?
I think it also has to do with the difficulty in finding subjects in the desert. It’s not like the city, where everything is close together. I like to have to work for what I find, which turns it into an adventure. I think maybe it goes back to the work I used to do at the Jet Propulsion Lab, hunting for comets and asteroids. It took lots of time and patience, but when I found something, it was well worth the effort. I no longer do that kind of work, but my desert trips are a continuance of that mindset. It’s really all about discovery. Although, I must say, I’ve found city photography to be equally as rewarding.

You’ve written on your website that you now see the desert in a new way since you began taking photographs. What exactly do you mean?
Well, it’s not just the desert, but everywhere. Doing photography has taught me how to see in 2D. We’re used to walking around, seeing everything in 3D. Everything looks great in 3D. But stop walking and look at the same scene, from the point of view of a camera. It can become less interesting when seen that way. So, doing photography has really taught me to notice interesting compositions that I would normally just walk past. And these compositions are available to us all the time, everywhere. You just have to stop and look. Otherwise they fly on by unnoticed.

Floater

The digital manipulations you perform look as if they could conceivably have been performed in the darkroom. In other words, your photographs have a more organic feel to them than most digital images. Do such distinctions matter to you?
There’s no doubt that I look for ways to create an organic, and even traditional, feel to my images. My processing techniques in Photoshop are very basic, converting to black and white, using the dodge and burn brush, a little sharpening here, some blur there. I don’t work in layers when processing, I just do everything to the original image layer. I like to keep it basic. I think I would probably be doing the same kinds of things if I were working in a traditional darkroom.

Have you ever worked with traditional photographic materials and methods?
Back in junior high school was the first time. Just your normal photography class. The second time was while I was working at the Jet Propulsion Lab, We would go up to Palomar Observatory and use the 18” Schmidt Camera and make images of the sky. There was no room at all for art; everything in the darkroom was very procedural. I spent many hours in there processing those films, and listening to music was the only thing that got me through it. After that, I had no desire to go back into the darkroom, so the digital age is what brought me back into photography.

There’s a kind of artificial quality to many (but not all) of your photographs in that they look more like tabletop dioramas than actual locations, giving them a surreal aspect. Do you recognize this quality and, if so, is this intentional?
The tilt-shift style of focus that I use in some of my images brings that about. I was attracted to that effect ever since I first saw it, and I think using this technique is yet another way to isolate subjects, making them appear to be hidden away within something.

Come Out and Play

Surrealism is, of course, a route to the unconscious. Does your photography tap into submerged feelings and ideas that you’re perhaps not fully aware of?
I don’t believe that I have a full grasp of why I create the images that I do. I’m not exactly sure where my desire to create these kinds of images comes from. But honestly, I try not to think about it too much. I just go with the flow. I know that when I’m most happy with the way an image turns out, it usually means that I feel I’ve created something from a different point of view from which I’m used to seeing it, and that I’ve given it a new meaning of some kind. But what that meaning is exactly, is not always clear to me.

Your images tend towards harsh contrast. Why do you print this way? Is it to enhance the abstraction of the images?
I’ve always used the word “impact.” Not to be trite, but I think this gives the images more impact, at least for the kinds of things I’m trying to express. Indeed, it does enhance the abstraction as well, which helps to take the viewer out of reality, at least a little.

According to your bio, you don’t set out to photograph with a particular theme in mind. Do you sometimes unravel the meaning of your images after you have manipulated them digitally?
I generally take and image because I see “potential” in it. Sometimes it’s very obvious when I take the shot. Other times, I don’t see it until I actually start playing with the image. Many times, I don’t actually process the image until a couple of years later. I have a huge backlog of images, and every once in a while I revisit images which at first didn’t mean much to me, but only after a time have become important.

Sensuality

What kind of statement(s) do you want your photographs to make?
In my 3D animation work, everything is created from scratch. I can create anything that’s in my mind, even though it doesn’t exist in the real world. But actually, I’m much more interested in finding interesting, surreal scenes that are in the real world. Almost like they could have been created from scratch with a computer, but are in fact, real. I guess I’m interested in showing the kinds of fantastic things that do exist in the real world, that are often overlooked. Art is everywhere.

Photography seems to be a way for you to filter out the extraneous baggage of urban life and pressure, practiced in a kind of Zen manner in which you’re completely open to chance. Is that an accurate read?
Yes and no. That is to say in the final product, yes. But in going out and gathering my photos, even though in the case of the desert it’s an escape of sorts, it isn’t always especially relaxing. I usually like to photograph in extreme heat. I’m constantly worried about my Jeep breaking down, etc. The part about chance is right on. I usually photograph very quickly, and I don’t hang around in one location for very long. I find that the more I think about things, the less interesting the photographs become. Or the more I know about a location ahead of time, the less interested I am in photographing there. I like to “discover” as I photograph, and that’s when I take my best shots.

Border

Is mood always more important to you than subject? To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, is the mood the message?
Hmm, great question! Mood is certainly part of it. A big part of it. But I can’t create the mood without the subject. That is, it’s the subject that attracts me in the first place. The subject dictates the mood. I’m going to have to go with 50-50 on this one.

The mood your pictures evoke is typically dark and brooding, even Gothic, yet it’s also strangely inviting. Do you strive for this duality?
I don’t think I strive to make things inviting, but I always strive to make things interesting, if possible. It’s true, many of my images are dark. I think the darkness comes more from my interest in extremes, rather than my interest in creating a dark, gothic style. I’m just trying to create a more powerful image, and darkness sometimes solves this problem for me. Plus, darkness is a great way of getting rid of extraneous parts of an image and homing in on what I feel is important.

There’s a mesmerizing quality to many of the images. Do you find yourself in a kind of trance-like state when you make the exposure?
Sometimes I do. I have a certain way of putting myself into this state. Very little sleep the night before, very little food the day of, lots of caffeine, and lots of sun. Crazy as this sounds, it can get me into this mood. I’ve done this a few times when shooting in the desert, but in fact, I don’t find that I come back with better photographs. I haven’t done this in a while. I think when I’m shooting, it’s all about the potential I see in the image, and I don’t need to be in that actual state at the time of the exposure.

Neurons

Are you satisfied with your command of the medium, or do you feel like you can improve your technique?
My technique always evolves. If you look at the shots in “g1” on my site, and then “g13” you can see an evolution of sorts. Back in the beginning, my shots were cropped, sharpened, with perfectly straight horizon lines, and I was striving for “perfect” compositions. Now, I often use tilts, blurs, and I usually don’t crop at all. I find that without cropping, I sometimes discover interesting compositions. Just when I think I’ve found the perfect technique, I discover new methods. So yes, I’m always finding ways of improving or changing techniques, it’s all very organic. My actual shooting technique has always been the same though: default settings on the camera, no tripod, shoot quickly and move on, using $300.00 digital cameras. Basically point and shoot.

Your images leave lots of room for interpretation. Is this something you strive for? What kind of reactions does your work elicit?
I think that is something I strive for. I don’t want my shots to be too “obvious,” as in, “Oh, there’s a picture of a rock.” I want to try to give that rock some kind of alternate life, to make it more than just a rock, if possible. So when the viewer looks at the photo, they have to process it a little and think about it, and hopefully, that will bring them back to look again at a later time. As far as reactions to my work, they really have a wide span. From the very same image, I’ve gotten reactions such as “turbulent,” “calming,” “apocalyptic,” “inspirational.” I’m always glad when I create a photograph that brings out these kinds of diverse reactions, because I think then I’ve done my job.

Structure

This comment from your blog seems relevant here: “My idea of a gallery show is to hang the images on the outside of my jeep, drive at least 100 mph, and require the visitors to drive along side me to see the images. Then they would better understand my mindset.” Does the traditional gallery setting somehow impede full understanding of your imagery?
I don’t think it impedes understanding of the final product, but I do think it might impede understanding of my methods of getting these images into my camera, which I suppose, really isn’t all that important in the end. It’s just funny to me how these images can have such rough-and-tumble beginnings, and then end up quietly hanging on a wall in a nice air-conditioned room.

I like how you play with perspective to lend element of unreality. It’s somewhat akin to Bill Brandt’s approach to landscape. And the contrast and abstraction call to mind Brett Weston. What photographers in fact have inspired or influenced you?
Wow, lots, I think. Way too many to mention. I’m not one who dwells on a particular photo for too long, but I’m always looking at other photographers’ work. One influence was my friend and fellow photographer Greg Fisch. The first time he showed me his portfolio was a real inspiration. Another influence in the beginning was the work of David Fokos. His use of minimalism really opened my eyes to what can be done with incredibly simple subjects. Another has been Keith Carter, with his amazing way of defocusing his images. So many others.

Poles

Who or what else do you derive inspiration from?
My mother’s art has been a major inspiration. I grew up watching her paint in a mostly abstract style, and that really taught me to see differently than I would have otherwise. Cinematography is also a big influence. I’m a huge fan of black-and-white movies, Italian neorealism, etc., those old gritty movies that were filmed under harsh conditions with minimal equipment. I try to put some of that grittiness into my images. Modern cinematographic techniques have really influenced me as far as tilting the camera, and thinking in terms of my images being a single frame from a moving sequence. I really hope to break into cinematography at some point. And then there’s music. The expansiveness of the music of Sibelius, Bruckner, many others, has had a huge influence on my way of seeing, and has pushed me to see on a larger scale.

(You can see more of Jeff's unique work at his website: http://www.jeffalu.com.)

2010-02-19T14:32:00.000-08:00

Don Bartletti: Spotlight on Immigration
Los Angeles Times photojournalist Don Bartletti (a San Diego native) began taking pictures of undocumented Mexican immigrants towards the end of the 1970s, well before illegal immigration became a high-profile, hot button issue. He eventually expanded his focus to include immigrants from Central American and other countries. Bartletti’s tough, poetic images both comment upon and transcend the myriad social and political ramifications of immigration. His fundamental concern is to depict with unflinching honesty the basic humanity of individuals who feel compelled to leave their homelands in search of a better life in the United States.

Don Bartletti

This body of work originated as a series for the Los Angeles Times, but beyond the imperatives of the assignment, what initially drew you to this subject? And what compelled you to keep expanding it?
As a photojournalist, my job falls somewhere between a scavenger hunt and cultural anthropology. The hunt has taken me to wars, wildfires, earthquakes, funerals and rock concerts. Deadline images are important to provide something for the newspaper reader to appreciate every day. But even the big news events fade away to be replaced by the next buzz-weirdo event. By contrast, the cultural significance of immigration never fades away. It’s everywhere, it’s accumulative and it’s endlessly relevant. Foreigners are the seeds of societal evolution. Through my viewfinder, I’m showing newcomers as they assimilate, segregate, succeed and struggle. The steady exodus from failed Latin America nations is changing the face of America. Frame by frame, my picture stories are additional pages in the photo album of the United States. Although I now photograph foreign workers around the world, 30 years ago I didn’t have to go far to observe subtle beginnings of the greatest influx of foreigners in this nation since the era of Ellis Island. In the late 1970s I recorded undocumented Mexican immigrants on Tri-X film and fiber-based paper. I filed every negative with IDs and notes about the clandestine encampments in the hills around my hometown in northern San Diego County. It was an astonishing subculture of migrant farm workers living in handmade shacks without running water, electricity or sanitation practically in the shadow of wealthy suburbia. Over the years I concentrated on individuals who eventually crawled out of those farm camps to better jobs and, for one man, the road to American citizenship.

Is this an ongoing series?
Yes. One of my goals is to reveal the consequences of illegal migration. It’s not just the “theater” of people jumping over the border fence. For example, I’ve been photographing Willie Ramirez for 17 years. I first met Willie and his dad in 1989. Two weeks after they snuck across the border, they were living next to a tomato field in a hovel made of plastic sheeting and camouflaged with brush. In spite of their hapless circumstances, they were gentlemen. Every year or two I’d catch up with them, make new photographs and hand out prints. My wife Diana and I went to their pueblo in Oaxaca when they were visiting their family back home. After Willie got his papers through an amnesty program, his life changed dramatically. He learned English, became a foreman for a roofing company, and built a little house in Tijuana. In March of 2006 I was with him when he took the oath of U.S. citizenship. I wrote a cover story for the L.A. Times Sunday Magazine, accompanied by photographs from his 17 years of hope, loneliness, determination and, finally, rejoicing.

Underground House, Vista, California - 1991

Do you consider these images all one big series, or several discrete series linked thematically?
The body of work is countless individual pictures and essays that tell the larger story. “The Roads Most Traveled—Photographs of Migration” is a solo exhibit that was curated by Carol McCusker at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. Ninety-seven images became a photographic narrative in three parts: "Between Two Worlds"—chaos at the border and farm worker living conditions in San Diego. "Bound To El Nórte"—Central Americans en route to the U.S. atop freight trains through "Mexico: A Global Perspective"—six photo essays from a dozen countries around the world.

It can’t be easy eliciting the trust and cooperation of your subjects. What’s your approach?
With cameras dangling around my neck, I don’t blend in. Nevertheless, I choose to be in close with my subjects and working with wide-angle lenses. To those I’m interested in I usually say something like this: “Hello, I’m Don Bartletti, a photographer from a big American newspaper. I appreciate that your dream of a better life is important to you. It’s also important to the people in my country. If you’ll allow me watch, I won’t stop you from doing anything, but I can’t help you in any way either. I want Americans to see and understand your struggle.”

Do your subjects understand and/or appreciate what you are trying to accomplish?
Some walk away, some beg, others sense my sincerity and share their experience. One Honduran migrant on a freight train in Mexico was more revealing than most. He told me, “Usually the only ones who pay attention to us are police and priests. The police hurt us and priests help us.”

Can you relate some of the hazards and difficulties you’ve experienced over the years?
I set a tripod on the U.S. side of the 10-ft-high border fence with Tijuana. Through slits in the steel planks I bantered with men who admitted they would jump over when the moment was right. I stepped away for a few minutes when a passing Border Patrol stopped nearby. When I returned to the tripod 10 minutes later, the camera was gone. “Chingaderas,” I yelled through the cracks. “I can’t believe you guys would do this! You’ve taken my heart, my soul, my livelihood!” “We didn’t see who did it,” they said. “Okay,” I argued, “Keep the camera, just give me the film.” “We don’t know who did it.” God, I was frustrated. I offered one guy $10 bucks to help me. He countered with $40. “Olvida te!” I said. Forget it! Then I countered with $15. We settled on $20. In a few minutes, an arm appeared through the iron barrier with my Nikon FM2. As I grasped the camera I considered keeping the $20 bill. In spite of my humiliation, I passed the money through, preferring to end the standoff on a positive note. I ditched the tripod but hung around. At 1am the time was right and I made the image titled, “Too Hungry To Knock” with the same camera.

Too Hungry to Knock, San Ysidro, California - 1992

Have you ever run afoul of the border authorities?
In the late ’70s and ’80s the U.S. Border Patrol loathed the media. It took weeks to get approval for a daytime ride along. Night ops? “Too dangerous,” they’d say. Nighttime was anarchy. Legions of illegal migrants usually overwhelmed the B.P. and the agents weren’t proud of it. My reporter Pat McDonnell and I wanted to observe this for ourselves. Around sundown one day we went to the infamous “Soccer Field,” a no-man’s land on the Tijuana border where smugglers sold their “guide” services to migrants. We crossed the borderline and walked with a group of young men, a family with two children and three mariachi musicians lugging their guitars. The smuggler was suspicious, so we quipped, in broken Spanish, “We’re Polish.” After a mile walking on trails through the scrub, we crested a ridge overlooking the San Diego town of San Ysidro. Out of nowhere a helicopter roared overhead with a bright spotlight. The young men and the family froze. The musicians disappeared back south. When ground agents careened up in a Bronco they cursed at the migrants and demanded they lay down in the dirt. The little girl wet her pants. A young agent spotted me shooting photos of people illuminated by the spotlight. He went nuts. “Who the hell are you? Stop taking pictures! You can’t be here! You’re in violation of….” and such and such. I asserted my rights as U.S. citizen and a credentialed journalist. We raised our voices above the noise of the helicopter. Clearly the officers were dumbfounded by our presence in no man’s land. The next day the Border Patrol called a press conference, admonishing the media about a reckless and foolish “reporter and his photographer” who risked their lives among bandits and thieves and interfered with law enforcement officials. But they admitted we had the right to be there after all.

How have your photographs been received in Mexico? Have reactions there differed from how your work is perceived in America?
The Mexican council in San Diego lavished praise on me for telling the saga of his people. Emigration has become an inextricable part of Mexican life. During a series of lectures I gave in California farm worker communities, laborers and their U.S.-born children told me they appreciated seeing the things that have become legend in the history of their families. “The pictures were about my life,” one man said.

Interstate Pedestrians, San Ysidro, California - 1990

Can you share some of your personal motivations in taking these pictures?
I have no idealistic notion that my photographs can change the world. At the very least they present evidence of these turbulent days of anti-immigrant hate and pro-immigrant sympathy. I want my pictures to be evidence that the U.S. can be a tolerant nation in a world that often greets illegal immigrants with the muzzle of a gun. I look to show that immigrants are individuals capable of being just like us—some contribute mightily, others are a burden.

What effect do you think your photographs have had here in the United States?
Through the Los Angeles Times I reach policy makers who are in position to make changes. For example, the image “Interstate Pedestrians” was the inspiration for the California Department of Transportation to create warning signs on San Diego freeways alerting motorists to groups of people who run across the freeway near the border and checkpoints farther north. Hundreds were killed and maimed. The yellow signs, drawn from several published and unpublished photos I provided, as well as billboards and posters, helped reduce the carnage.

Do you think your images have helped Americans, even those opposed to illegal immigration, view illegal immigrants with at least a modicum more compassion and understanding?
I have received hundreds of letters and email messages over my career. Most congratulate me for revealing things they didn’t know about. Some say they are writing with tears in their eyes. Others ask how they can help reduce the suffering of hapless farm workers sleeping in spider holes and plastic shacks. Some have sent me checks to give to certain people I photographed. But more than a few have damned me for the essays on Central Americans coming to the U.S. through Mexico. I’ve been accusing of giving “step-by-step lessons on how to break federal immigration laws.”

Do you find it harder for documentary work to make a social impact due to the changed nature of media and the image overload in today's society?
Overload is the operative phrase, that’s for sure. TV, radio, the Internet, podcasts, blogs, docudramas—all provide competition for the print photographer. Ironically, the press is usually the point source for the rest of the media, which lack the investigative commitment of major newspapers and freelance journalists. Busy Americans are easily placated by the truncated talking head TV version, or the car radio personality spin on serious newspaper projects. The Web is a great tool to use more photos, narration and natural sound to tell my stories. The picture that’s worth a thousand words is a rarity, but a picture plus a thousand words is priceless.

Memorial to a Slain Companion, San Ysidro, California - 1992

What makes your work resonate so powerfully for me is its objectivity. For example, one of your pictures depicts a Mexican girl trying to rip the American flag. It’s not a flattering image, but it’s a truthful one. In other words, you don’t set out to make saints of your subjects, or even martyrs, simply human beings trying to cope with difficult circumstances as best they can. Is that how you approach it?
Although I try to be objective, it’s impossible not to formulate opinions when I’m so immersed in an issue. The experience of the protesting high school teen mangling the U.S. flag as her classmates waved Mexican flags still shocks me. It’s an unguarded moment that exposes a hypocritical notion of automatic entitlement for illegal immigrants. My editors declined to run the image. Nevertheless, it’s in my archive. Another image for the photo album of this nation.

Although you have referenced the influence of Dorothea Lange regarding your work, I also sense an affinity with Josef Koudelka’s pictures of gypsies, another marginalized group. You both create images of an unflinching directness and simplicity, coupled with an objective yet poetic visual representation. What photographers besides Lange have you drawn inspiration from?
I really take inspiration from Lewis Hine, who said that when he walked out of his flat, he was determined to make a photograph that would either change something, or make it appreciated. The satisfaction I get from doing documentary photojournalism is translating universal traits that speak to those far removed from the subject. Quite often it’s an unchoreographed dance between the subject and myself. But I’m not cavorting around looking for contrived compositions or radical angles. A powerful image has two characteristics: content and style. My use of lenses, shutter speeds, angle, light and timing all contribute to enhancing a subject of relevant editorial content. Style that’s trendy or enigmatic is unnecessary.

Many of your pictures, such as “Crossing the Tijuana River,” seem to transcend their time, setting and circumstances, and resonate with a universal recognition of our shared humanity. Are you ever conscious of this when you’re photographing in the heat of the moment?
I felt it in a huge way on that particular night. As I sloshed through the fetid Tijuana river channel with the camera smashed up against my face I was shaking with anxiety, sweating, mumbling to myself about what to include and what to leave out. Activity on the borderline is like high drama. It’s infused with uncertainty and hope that “crossing over” suggests. This is where life-changing decisions are played out.

Crossing the Tijuana River, Tijuana, Mexico/San Ysidro, California - 1992

In a similar vein, how conscious are you of the visual aesthetic when you’re making these images? How important is that aspect to you, if at all?
My primary objective is to tell a story with each image. A writer uses his notes, experience, quotes and adjectives to make a point and keep the reader’s interest. The main subject in concert with the background, foreground and edges are my artistic tools. I seldom look for close-ups of faces, as I believe the dichotomy of a person and his environment is a more revealing composition. It’s a jolt when I see that through the viewfinder.

Put another way, do you try to guard against making the images that are too pleasing from an aesthetic perspective?
In a newspaper it’s tough to arrest a reader’s attention long enough to get the message across. The photograph needs to be compositionally interesting. However, I loath techniques like tilted horizons, blurry subjects that aren’t moving, silhouettes, blown-out highlights, symbolic shadows, repeated shapes, chopped-off faces, etc. Those artsy crutches do more to distinguish the photographer’s skill than the importance of the subject. The subject should be the #1 author of the photograph, not the “artiste” behind the box.

The title of your catalog, “Between Two Worlds,” refers to the physical space that constitutes the border between Mexico and America, but also, and in a larger sense, to the cultural dislocation these immigrants must feel as they cope with all the differences between their native countries and the U.S. This cultural chasm seems especially apparent in the image “Suburban Lights.” Do you think this aspect of your work has been fully recognized and understood?
Sometimes my pictures take on a life of their own. Nativists and ultra-conservatives have used “Suburban Lights” as proof that “we’re being invaded” by people from countries that don’t care about the needy. Migrant advocates and ultra-liberals took the same image to preach about San Diego’s shameful policies that neglect the needy among us. As long as we debate in a civilized manner, the truth in polarized opinions is healthy. Like Dorothea Lange said, “I want people to look at my pictures and ask, ‘How can such things be?’”

Suburban Lights, Carlsbad, California - 1988

What have you learned from the immigrants you’ve photographed?
I recognize that migration for survival is as old as humanity, as unstoppable as the wind and frequently misunderstood. I’ve seen that emigration is often the only desperate solution to unpardonable social, political and economic corruption that cripples abandoned nations.

What have you learned about yourself?
In my own community, among people who feel threatened by immigration I sense a helpless discomfort heaped upon all of us. Benjamin Franklin is known to have felt that there were too many Germans here! As a boy, I remember my parents complained about all the Puerto Ricans in south Philly. Then again, when I’m in the cities and pueblos of Latin America, on the trails of migration, or in the barrios in the U.S., I gaze upon those for whom migration is a personal struggle of unimaginable uncertainty. This is not an easy subject. Migration is seldom the easy solution for anyone, but I vow to be tolerant.

(I wrote about Don Bartletti’s work in the June 2007 issue of Black & White magazine.)

2010-01-18T11:54:00.000-08:00

Lee Brumbaugh: Metaphysical Investigations
Lee Brumbaugh is one of those lucky souls whose professional gig dovetails nicely with his visual concerns. As curator of photography at the Nevada Historical Society, Brumbaugh oversees a vast image archive that provides a window onto the state’s rich cultural heritage. Much of his personal work is also focused on structures and artifacts of the past—the abandoned press room of the Eureka Sentinel newspaper, ghost towns, historical industrial equipment. However, while his photographic approach is grounded in objective representation, Brumbaugh subverts viewer expectations through his subtle exploration of the transformative effects of time. Like Alfred Stieglitz, he consistently reveals ambiguous thematic fissures lurking within commonplace subject matter.

Lee Brumbaugh

How did you get started in photography, and what formal training did you have?
I started photography as a child, in Hartsville, South Carolina, not with a Brownie, but with a “Blueie,” or blue plastic camera that my parents gave me around the age of six. I have very few memories unmediated by photography. Early photographs of my cat and turtle did not reveal a precocious talent; the process of becoming a photographer in a more substantial sense was very gradual. My father took vacation travel slides, and I started doing the same in high school. I also started looking at creative photography during this time. Paul Strand’s book, “Time in New England,” was among the first to make me realize photographs could be more than factual records. Although I never had the opportunity to meet him, Paul Strand’s work was the first I saw that made me want to become a serious photographer. His images, especially in his early work, capture everything I most love about photography, including its ability to capture not just the facts of scenes, but the essence of places.

I next ordered several Popular Photography annuals, as well as the book version of Walker Evans’ 1938 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Around 1966, I taught myself how to develop and print black-and-white negatives in the Coker College science department darkroom. My father was the chair of the art department and would later teach photography as the department expanded. Attending photography workshops with noted fine-fine art photographers, such as Garry Winogrand, Paul Vanderbilt and George DeWolf, raised both my ambition and skill levels. In 1974, I completed a bachelor’s degree with a minor in photography at Coker College. At the time, Coker was attempting to become a progressive Goddard-style school. Although that plan changed with the conservative backlash, I went on to complete a master’s degree in photography through Goddard College. I wrote my thesis on Alfred Stieglitz and his influence on modern photography. In 1981, I enrolled at Washington State University, completing my MFA in 1983. Working with Arthur Okazaki and Francis Ho, I consolidated my current medium-format technique and style.

Window, Goldfield Hotel, 2006

Did your environment influence your artistic development?
My personal style in photography came about from my experiences growing up in the rural South. As a child I collected arrowheads in the cotton fields near my home and along the larger rivers climbed the overgrown Native American temple mounds. Exploring abandoned tenant houses and ruined farm houses, still filled with the dust-covered remnants of their former occupants’ lives, added to a growing sense of the mystery of the past. Observing firsthand the lives of African-American farm workers led to an interest in the Farm Security Administration photographers. Summer vacations in the North Carolina Mountains also led to an interest in geology, mining and folklore. The desire to make photographs arose from my love for the land and ambivalence towards its past. The fact that my parents were from Indiana, combined with my own scientific or non-Christian persuasion, cemented a natural inclination to be an outside observer in small-town America, rather than an uncritical sentimentalist.

The conquest and displacement of the Native American tribes, the heritage of slavery and the subsequent well-crusted culture of denial seem to cast a near-visible pall over the Southern landscape. This guilt-based twisting of the collective psyche may well provide the core of the Southern Gothic style in art and literature, as well as, no doubt, that of the earlier version in New England, where the Native Americans were first betrayed and where the slave ships originated. Similarly, the rapid destruction of the primeval forests and swamps in the name of greed added to this guilt-based foreboding of natural revenge and sinister doom. To this psycho-cultural jambalaya was added the pattern of registering personal and family sins against the template of puritan perfection, all of which moved west with the frontier and was played out on more against a backdrop of remote deserts.

Train Wheel on Lathe, Ely, Nevada, 2006

Your work exhibits a keen understanding of the connection between man and his environment; the beauty and energy of man-made objects; a sense of place and history—all very Strand-like. Yet I sense in your work something a bit more abstract and enigmatic. How would you characterize your work compared to Strand’s? Or just in general?
At one level I agree with Walker Evans’ axiom that there is nothing more mysterious than a fact clearly stated. I am perhaps more like Paul Strand in that I often I find the strongest sense of a place in the smallest details. However, I probably go further than Strand in the direction of abstraction and what Stieglitz termed equivalence, or the capture of personal meaning and mood. The New Topographics of the 1970s and the so-called New Objectivity (1980s to present) have tried to eliminate the photographer from photography, except as a consummate technician. To me, photographs are most interesting when there is a tension between the personal and documentary elements of the image. Like Strand, I want my photographs to create not just a sense of place, but of time. I often use the darker tones and the contrasts of light and shadow to symbolize the passage of time and the fleeting nature of human existence. In this, Wynn Bullock’s images and Edward Weston’s Point Lobos series were additional early influences.

Do you try to communicate certain themes or ideas through your work, or do you feel that the interpretative responsibility rests with the viewer?
I feel that when photographs try to communicate a simple, clear meaning they end up becoming relicts of the past, rather than a commentary on the past and present. For example, Walker Evans’ work, which he personally regarded as a modern expression of Transcendentalism, remains as interesting today as it ever was.

Your approach seems to be one of confronting your subject matter directly and letting it speak for itself, while infiltrating your own perspective through subtle choices in framing and lighting.
Yes, I think photojournalism is the field in which the meaning and intent of photographs must be stated clearly. To me, fine art photography has a different appeal, one consisting of an ongoing and long-term interaction between the photographer, the subject material and the viewer. I agree with Garry Winogrand that photographs should be first and foremost visually interesting. I operate on the premise that it is most interesting for the viewer to discover layers of meaning in factual-looking scenes, rather than being fed simple, predigested visual messages.

Ruined Ceiling, Austin, Nevada, 2005

You have a knack for uncovering the mysterious in the seemingly mundane.
Alfred Stieglitz, in an effort to prove that good photography was not based upon inherently interesting subject matter, made a series of photographs of ordinary clouds in the sky. In these photographs he seemed to capture not meteorology, but the mysteries and moods of human existence. A number of documentary-style street photographers such as Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand found the visual equivalence of mystery in mundane scenes of everyday life. In my own work, I have tried to blend aspects of these two schools of photography. Winogrand saw photography as visual play or wit, while Stieglitz saw it something more profound. I don’t see why it cannot be both. I find photography to be both fun and something akin to my own version of meditation, although without any guruistic notions eternal truth.

There’s an astonishing amount of visual information in the “Eureka Sentinel Press Room” image. In addition to the wealth of purely documentary detail, there are numerous undercurrents of humor, irony, sexuality and representation of self. It’s as if you’re documenting the past, bringing it back to life and interacting with it all at the same time.
The Eureka Sentinel press room is one the most remarkable places I have ever seen. As I looked at the collage of show bills and flyers on its walls I seemed at one level to be drawn into the mindset of people from the past, but at another level I felt they expressed an understanding of the universals of the human condition that speak just as much to the present as the past. The original messages, if any, the Eureka pressmen were sending to the future have been altered by the passage of time. Fragments of text and image are now juxtaposed in ways that create entirely new associative meanings. My own selection of final elements determines the apparent meaning of the images as I have recorded them.

Eureka Sentinel Press Room, 2002

The faces in the show bills evoke a fascinating range of personality types; these “portraits” almost seem more vibrant than images of living people.
In some ways exploring this world of long-dead people may also be more revealing, in that the images can more directly address the issue of how portraits have been used in our society through time. Fine art and documentary portrait photographers face concerns over whether they are objectifying or even causing harm to real people. The people in these advertising images were objectified by American society long ago and are now quite beyond harm. I have the freedom to explore the symbolism of their original portrayal and to add my own interpretations, with relatively little chance of harming living people.

The pipe jutting into the wall has obvious sexual implications, especially given the “interaction” between the male and female figures in the show bills; R.E. Graham seems to be flirting with the young woman in the lower-right corner.
In recent decades, there has been a pronounced anti-Freudian trend in social science and art history. At the same time, the American advertising industry has been quite open in admitting that they study and apply Freudian theory as the core of their enterprise. The idea that sex sells is hardly new. The Victorian advertisements found on the walls of America’s ghost towns are full of sexuality and sexual repression in all its myriad forms. Many of the love themes on the Sentinel walls, both profane and ideal, seem to have been intentionally created by the workers in print shop, no doubt entertaining themselves in their spare time as early-day collage artists. I added my own obviously Freudian juxtapositions in the manner of Garry Winogrand, partly for the purpose of visual wit, and, secondarily, to let discerning viewers consider, if they choose, the possibility that sometimes Freud might have been more right than wrong. In the low light of the press room interior, it is impossible to read every caption and graffiti addendum. Often, juxtapositions not consciously seen or understood at the time end up being the most interesting.

The hyperbole of the printed advertisements is quite amusing, and analogous to current ad-speak, which gives the image a nice sardonic edge. By pushing these to the edges of the frame, are you adding your own attitude towards inducements to consumerism?
It seems hard not to be ambivalent towards consumerism in American society. We have young women literally dying to fit internalized, consumer-based models of perfection. Everyone is taught that they are imperfect unless they posses the right consumer goods to convey success or anti-establishment coolness. Zen workshops are just as much consumer goods as sports cars. The artist or photographer fears both being unrecognized and being turned into a commodity of the art market.

Advertisement, Eureka Sentinel, 2002

“Advertisement, Eureka Sentinel” provides a nice contrast in that you have scaled back the amount of visual information, yet it’s still a very complex image, especially from an emotional perspective. The girl’s expression is direct, almost challenging, yet somehow shy and withdrawn as well. Moreover, she seems to register pride in her beauty as well as resignation at being consigned to commodity status. And there’s something odd about how her face seems to be emerging from the wall, like a print in a developing tray, yet simultaneously be fading into the wall. Are these dichotomies what drew you to this particular advertisement? And do you typically look for these kinds of visual contradictions?
The young woman in this torn and stained poster seemed like the perfect archetype of the advertising model in consumer culture. At one level, she has achieved the immortality of personal fame, if only on a small scale; while at another level, she is not only long dead, but visibly fading from cultural memory. Her message that happiness and beauty can be purchased at the corner market has been belied by the realities of encroaching nature.

The details help support the mood, which I read as slightly mysterious if not foreboding. The dark mass of a cabinet pushing up into the frame and partially obscuring the poster, the torn edges of said poster, the enigmatic declaration scrawled on the wall, the missing adjacent poster. This seems to go well beyond pure documentary.
Part of the modern understanding of photography is that photographs are not facts, but questions, opinions and enigmas. Photographs are neither messages nor mirrors, but messages in a mirror. For me, addressing these contradictions through my work is part of the excitement of making photographs.

Hoist House Door, Tonopah, Nevada, 2004

In your images of a hoist house door and a rotary snowplow, you utilize the recurring visual motif of centrally framed circular objects with strong straight lines radiating outward. The pictures celebrate the functionality and aesthetic beauty of these objects, which is a tribute to the men who made them. But they also evoke an underlying energy and power of their own, apart from their intended use, that borders on the metaphysical.
Carl Jung’s archetypes, as well as the mandala concept found in Buddhism, became a part of American and my own visual iconography in the late 1960s and 1970s. I even took a workshop in Zen photography. Again, my interest was primarily in how such concepts might be applied to making interesting photographs. In the photographs of the carved wood on a door at Tonopah, I saw a tension between the quest for personal wholeness, symbolized by the mandala; and the dangers of totalitarianism and consumerism, symbolized by the radiating lines that reminded my of the computer matrix of movie fame. In my view, archetypes stem from the shared elements of human experience, not from genetic memory.

Again, they bring to mind Stieglitz’ “equivalents.”
The most important single influence on the style of my photographs is Alfred Stieglitz’s concept of equivalents. Stieglitz argued that the best photographs capture not just the facts of a scene, but their emotional equivalents as experienced by the photographer. The viewer then, if the photographer had done her or his work well, can experience not just what the photographer saw, but what she or he felt. Most of the photographers championed by Stieglitz in his modernist gallery, including Paul Strand and Ansel Adams, fall into this category.

Rotary Snowplow, Ely, Nevada, 2006

Has this always been your philosophy, i.e., finding more complexity and ambiguity in a straight rather than expressionistic visual approach?
I have always been drawn to the “straighter” photographic images that still have a sense of seeing beyond the surface, whether the social satire of the street photographers or the broodingly surreal cacti of Frederick Sommer. When I lived in New Orleans for a year and a half, I also discovered the straighter work of Clarence John Laughlin. I had found his more familiar and, to me, hokey double-exposure romances uninspiring if not offensive. Much more interesting to me is his “found” surrealism, such as his photograph of slave-cabin porches receding in the distance, like a tunnel into an alternate reality. My own photographs of a young woman’s face emerging from the press room wall and the seemingly multidimensional door in Tonopah were conscious tributes to Laughlin’s particular technique.

I’m also intrigued by the strong abstract quality of these photographs. Do you consider them abstracts, documents, or both?
I view my photographs as neither abstractions nor documents. A document attempts to provide unbiased facts about a place or subject. My photographs are more about my perceptions of a place. Abstract photography, especially that of the 1950s and 1960s, was about exploring the unconscious mind of the artist. I see my photographs more as details of a place that reveal material facts and my own interpretations of those facts. If the meanings of the images were entirely clear, the work would constitute a photo essay, rather than artistic expression.

In a sense, you seem to have liberated these objects’ hidden/neglected qualities through your photographs. Is this a conscious (and consistent) goal of yours?
The idea of revealing the animate qualities of inanimate objects is quite consciously drawn from the Surrealist photographers Frederick Sommer and Clarence John Laughlin. I personally agree with these photographers that such visual magic is a psychological phenomenon, rather than a matter of mystical revelation. However, I think such illusions of transubstantiation can be read as metaphors for the real mysteries of the universe. After all, when I was a child, physicists were looking for a unified field theory to explain the nature of nature, and of course, today they still are.

Wrenches, 2006

Are you primarily interested in man-made objects and environments, or do you also interact photographically with the natural environment?
I have included the natural landscape in all but my ghost town series. My landscape series on rural South Carolina examines natural areas, but as part of an inclusive study of place, rather than as examples of pristine nature in the manner of Ansel Adams.

As curator of photography at the Nevada Historical Society, how much time are you able to devote to your personal photography?
Being a curator is more than a full time job. I can still only devote occasional weekends and our annual three-weeks leave to my own work.

What are your current and future projects?
I am still working on my ghost town series, “Time in Nevada.” I am planning separate exhibitions and possible books just on the Eureka Sentinel press room and the Nevada Northern Railroad shops in Ely. I recently started taking photographs of burn areas. This series explores the interaction between wildfire, global warming and the human spread into fire-prone former wild lands. I hope to find a publisher for these various projects.

(I profiled Lee Brumbaugh in the June 2008 issue of Black & White magazine. For print information, contact him at leenvphoto@aol.com.)

2009-10-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

Nathan Troi Anderson: Shadows of Time
One of the most challenging and thought-provoking photographers on the contemporary scene, the Portland, Oregon-based Anderson frequently traverses time zones and cultures in pursuit of a singular aesthetic and philosophic vision. His book Shadows of Time brilliantly contrasted ancient cave art and modern advertising to explore issues of identity, myth, communication and consumerism. His latest book, Decay (a collaboration with photographer John Putnam), is a visual investigation into what Anderson calls “the living force inherent in every living thing.” Anderson’s richly metaphoric imagery provides ironic insights on our ongoing drive for enlightenment as we march towards an increasingly unstable future.

Nathan Troi Anderson

What was the impetus for the book Shadows of Time?
The publisher Mark Batty approached me to do a book on petroglyphs. I suggested instead taking various images, faces and scenes from our so-called modern world and then throwing the mud of the earth at them, ancient symbols and all. We would create a collage of ruin set among sleek futurity. It took about three months to shoot, four or five to print.

Obviously, the shadow of McLuhan blankets this work. You’re both concerned with the meaning and manipulation of media in relation to the collective consciousness of a society. What other parallels do you feel your work has in common with his?
McLuhan’s work was influenced enormously by James Joyce, in particular Finnegans Wake. This work changes your entire thinking; it is really a dangerous book. It could be described as a writing of all and everything at once. McLuhan commented on that “allatonceness” quality of today’s electronic age. In Shadows of Time I tried to add as many elements, disparate and related, as I thought I could get away with. It’s the influence of Joyce, but also society today, wherein everything is a layered collage of infinite, disparate, chaotic information. We seem to be facing in all directions at once without a linear path ahead, and our approach is now turning in on itself.

Twin Towers

I’m wondering if the writer J.G. Ballard is also a reference point and inspiration? I’m thinking particularly of stories like “The Subliminal Man,” which depicts a society in which advertising assumes an ever more ubiquitous and subliminal (hence sinister) presence in the urban landscape.
I don’t think advertising is subliminal anymore. At the beginning of my book we threw in a McLuhan quote about how advertising seeks to create a collective consciousness among consumers: “When all production and all consumption are brought into a pre-established harmony with all desire and all effort, then advertising will have liquidated itself by its own success.” This is the point where it is no longer “your” world and the world of commercial advertising. The two have become one. We are the advertising. I think the younger generations accept this now. In fact, in the current wired environment, it is completely natural for them to do so. I want to read that Ballard story, though.

The image pairings in your book are unique in that they present simultaneous contrasts and similarities. For example, the ancient petroglyphs and inscriptions find their equivalent in modern advertising symbols and copy; skyscrapers register as modern cave dwellings. The past and present thus seem to engage in a kind of metaphysical dialogue across time and distance that somehow brings both into clearer focus while also deepening their mysteries.
I saw the rock carvings as representation of the unknown. They are symbols of the night, the underworld, of darkness. We cannot define them. And so I wanted to take images from our imagination today and toss them within this “darkness,” like someone calling into a cave and hearing the echo reverberate back. I needed to create an environment in which our “modern” imagination could no longer feel secure.

Birth Spiral

The meaning of the petroglyphs has been obscured by time, yet they seem more urgent and “alive” than current advertising imagery and “inscriptions.” Is there an implied comment that today’s advertising message will be equally obscure to future generations?
I think the petroglyphs seem obscure to us today because we can find no use for them. They speak of things that provide no utilitarian purpose, no means of selling. If in the centuries ahead we lose the vision of materialism, then we will understand these fading carvings again and it will be our current media images that no longer make any sense to us.

It’s interesting that the ancient symbols require natural light for illumination, while much of today’s advertising landscape relies upon artificial illumination.
Yes, the stone carvings are inextricably linked to the sun and the moon. They are carved directly into this light, born of it. The same could be said of our incredible cities, but it is a bit more difficult. We have sort of buried the sun, or veiled it by our own excess. Whose light is brighter? As the children of Prometheus we could challenge the sun, but, no matter, we would still be the children of a thief.

Untitled

Some of the images in both Shadows of Time (and Decay, for that matter) speak to the gradual and inevitable erosion of our individuality and humanity.
I know many people who spend eight, nine, ten hours daily staring into LCD screens. What are we looking at? What could create this kind of living obsession? Is there some promise, something we hope is in this box of light, or is it a Pandora’s box? One of the detrimental effects of our continuing pop culture is the inability for the younger generations, myself included, to look at anything with depth. Yet we stare so much, blankly, into these screens. We flit along like moths right into the burning flame.

Another irony at play in your work: Prehistoric cave dwellers had no alphabet and used symbols to communicate, yet modern city dwellers, despite our alphabet and language, are increasingly reliant on visual, non-verbal communication modalities. We seem to be regressing on some level to a point far back in time.
You’re bringing up McLuhan’s notion of the electronic environment creating a “re-primitivization” of man. It goes to the idea of a prefabricated circle of our own interactive containment, where our sensory stimulation is coming from all directions at once and of which we are all taking part and feeding back into. It is in many ways the creation of a technological womb.

Mist

When you include images of people, they’re usually depicted as figures on billboards and posters. You seem to be referencing the increasing artificiality of human thought, discourse and emotions. It’s as if we are gradually dissolving into some kind of digital matrix in which our obsession with the artificial and inorganic takes precedence over our humanity.
Words like “artificial” and “ inorganic” are perhaps becoming meaningless today as we forge ahead into areas like cloning, genetic engineering, etc. Likewise, I think the images that we surround ourselves with are more real than ourselves. They provide for us a sense of identity. Our images are icons. They are our light; we are their shadows. One can also think of it like a spider spinning its perfect web. We are wrapping ourselves ever deeper inside the myriad folds of our mind. At the present, it seems safer inside there. We know where everything, everyone is. It has all been studied and mapped. We are recording and logging every moment, every angle of it. For me, this is all a symptom of the loss of faith in life. We no longer trust and we refuse to surrender. Our guns are loaded and the fortress is being built.

Are you ultimately optimistic or pessimistic about where we are heading as a species?
Forever optimistic. A world without man would still be a Christmas on Earth. I have not made us the exile we seem to pretend to be, but any return to life would be first met with a great catastrophe. We are following the “cold mad feary father,” as Joyce put it, and we must continue in this direction until not a shred of mystery is left. Everything must be exposed. I think we are intent on going towards the source of things. We shouldn’t turn back now.

Modern Figure

Your work is pretty challenging on philosophical, intellectual and emotional levels. Do you find that viewers generally get what you’re trying to communicate?
Maybe not, but the importance is to speak as sincerely and directly as possible. This is showing faith in ourselves and in each other.

(Shadows of Time and Decay are available through Mark Batty Publisher, amazon.com and other major distributors. For information on Anderson’s books or to order prints, contact info@markbattypublisher.com.)