Review: 2009 New York Photo Festival

Editor's Note: The 2nd Annual New York Photo Festival was held in Dumbo, Brooklyn on May 13 – 17, 2009. The following is a review of the festival as seen through the eyes of independent curator and writer Lisa Henry - you can read Lisa's bio at the end of this post. The opinions expressed in this post are not necessarily those of the editor.

In describing it’s premiere last spring, the NYPH website states "The inaugural New York Photo Festival (May 14–May 18, 2008) delivered a dynamic, high-quality event in what is arguably the photographic capital of the world." While I was busy working on a photography exhibition of my own – I kept hearing about the festival in DUMBO and sorely regretted the inability to be in two places at the same time. It seemed like the East coast photo community was abuzz with excitement about this event, so I vowed not to miss NYPH’s next installment.

Now I can speak from experience and say that the NYPH is indeed a dynamic and ambitious program. It provides something sorely needed in NY, namely, a celebration and exploration of photography by artists, curators and art writers that is not primarily focused on the marketplace. I have been to many photo fairs but not many photo festivals, and while there was certainly work for sale, the focus seemed to be on contemporary art and trying to make connections (some of them tenuous) between current artistic practice, historical figures and popular themes, such as environmentalism, war, personal identity, and image appropriation.

There was a distinct air of celebration and a bit of excess to the event as a whole. With three main pavilions and a number of affiliated and satellite shows, there was more than enough photography to go around. One exhibition in particular, William A Ewing’s All over the place!, was literally just that. But no matter it’s excess, it was wonderful to see so much photography in one place and to contemplate the possible connections.

© Matthieu Gafsou, Surface #2, 2008, from All over the place! curated by William A. Ewing, New York Photo Festival 2009.

The three main exhibitions this year were I don’t really know what kind of girl I am curated by Jody Quon, Jon Levy’s Home for Good, Gay Men Play curated by Chris Boot and "All Over the Place" by William A. Ewing. All shows were photo based with a smattering of video, slide shows and installation for good measure. In addition to the curated pavilions, there were many opportunities for the public to hear artists and critics discuss current themes during a full series of seminars, lectures, book signings, workshops, and live performances. So if you only had one day to take it all in (like me) it could be quite overwhelming.

All over the place!, curated by William A. Ewing, was the perfect example of the type of expansive display that required at least a second visit. It included an enormous variety of works by over 15 artists. In addition, Ewing attempted to integrate classic photographer Edward Steichen acting as curator, representing him with installation slides from his landmark MoMA exhibition The Family of Man (1955).

Ewing’s sprawling curatorial project was spread over four different DUMBO locations. Works by older photographers such as Ernst Haas, Jacob Holdt, and Steichen mixed and mingled with that of younger artists such as Manolis Baboussis, Oliver Godow, Tiina Itkonen, Philipp Schaerer, Joni Sternbach, and Patrick Weidmann, among others. This created a dizzying urge to try to see and absorb as much of the eclectic group as possible.

In the end however, it was hard to pull a cohesive theme from Ewing’s choices, even though there were some standout individual works. Sternbach’s tintypes of surfers, Itkonen’s cool; icy landscapes, and Schaerer’s straight images of architectural whimsy were all exceptional and rewarded careful looking.

What could possibly unite Edward Steichen’s seminal, if controversial exhibition, The Family of Man, with Jacob Holdt’s unblinking, unsparing view of American life a decade or two later?

What are the lessons to be learned from unearthing early Ernst Haas color imagery?

What do Haas, Holdt, and Steichen have to do with younger talents on our roster?

These were some of the questions Ewing asked himself in the process of curating his pavilion, and though I tried, I can’t honestly say that I saw all the connections or learned all the lessons.

At the other end of NYPH09’s grand spectrum was Quon's I don’t really know what kind of girl I am. Fairly straightforward in it’s combination of modern and contemporary images grappling with the complexities of female identity, this exhibition included works by only 10 artists many of whom were represented by one piece or installation.

“Red Head, 1967”, 2008-2009, by Carlos Ranc, from I don’t really know what kind of girl I am curated by Jody Quon, New York Photo Festival 2009, Courtesy of the artist and Nina Menocal gallery.

Rene & Radka’s dreamlike images, Mondongo’s giant doll house, Hank Willis Thomas’ multiple appropriations of Ebony and Jet images from the 1970s, and Sam Samore’s mysterious close ups, all drew me in and made me wish I had come to the festival a day earlier. Finally, the blurry digitally manipulated Playboy pinups of Carlos Ranc (shown above) left me intrigued but wanting more. Appropriation and the ripple effect caused by the abundance of digital technology were in evidence throughout the entire festival but Quon’s exhibition, though thematically tight, seemed to rely very heavily on these two elements.

Home For Good - an exhibition spread over two spaces and curated by Jon Levy and Foto8, was memorable for a gem-like image by British photographer Chris Killip and truly standout work by fellow Brit Tim Hetherington.

Hetherington’s Sleeping Soldiers was represented by both still images and a three-panel video of young soldiers alternating between sleep and combat. By the end of the day Hetherington’s work was what stayed with me, playing on my thoughts during the subway ride back to Astoria. Hetherington captures young men sleeping and fighting, arguing and then resting - many, many miles away in an armed conflict that is far from being resolved.

More than anything else I saw that day, Hetherington’s work elicited questions beyond the confines of curatorial statements and artistic ambitions. His approach, direct yet lyrical, enfolds the complications of current U.S. foreign policy within the changes that have occurred in photojournalism over the last 40 years, and draws attention to both history and our current moment, as we approached another Memorial Day.

Lisa Henry
Independent Curator, Writer
An independent curator and writer based in Los Angeles, Lisa has written profiles on documentary and conceptual photographers such as Ingrid Pollard, Laura Aguillar, Glynnis Reed and Gerald Cyrus. Lisa was formally Assistant Curator for American Art at the Newark Museum, where she oversaw the rotation of prints and photographs on display in the permanent collection galleries. She also increased the museum's holdings of contemporary photographs by working closely with their collectors group, The Friends of American Art. Since 2004 she has worked as a guest curator for The Amistad Center at The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, CT. She is one of the curators of the exhibition Young Americans: Photographs by Sheila Pree Bright, which premiered at The High Museum of Art in 2008 and is currently touring the country. Since relocating back to Los Angeles, she has worked as a consultant for The Japanese American National Museum, The California African American Museum and the MAK Center for Art and Architecture. Past exhibitions include Connections at Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco & New York, Double Exposure, MoAD, San Francisco, CA, and I'm Thinking of a Place, UCLA Hammer Museum, CA. She is interested in artists who use photography as a conceptual strategy, photographers exploring landscape, land-use and architecture, and extended projects that are intended to be completed as photographic books. She is not interested in nudes, fashion, advertising or commercial photography.

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Film Explores Pysche of the Contemporary African: Relentless by Andy Amadi Okoroafor

Andy Amadi Okoroafor was born in Bauchi, Northern Nigeria on February 8th 1966. He pursued his education and a successful creative career in Paris. He is returning to Nigeria to fulfill his lifelong ambition of making films about contemporary Africa for a world audience. He is an acclaimed Art Director in advertising, fashion and music videos based in Paris. His clients have included Xuly-Bët, Jean Paul Gaultier, Kookaï, Virgin, Galeries La Fayette, to name a few.

Andy is also the founder of Clam Magazine, a quarterly magazine focusing on African creativity - distributed in France, Africa, US, UK, Japan, South Africa and Germany. Source: Igbo People

Thanks to photographer Jenny Baptiste for sharing this project.

RELENTLESS from Fortproject on Vimeo.

The following explains Okoroafor's vision for the film, taken from the director's statement on the Clam Films website:

Though set in Freetown Sierra Leone and Lagos Nigeria, the story could easily have been anywhere in Africa; Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Congo, Rwanda; It is an African story, but also a universal tale. An African story in its landscape and particular circumstances, but a universal story in its characters, its heart and theme.

Relentless deals with the consequence of wars on the psyche of the contemporary African. From Rwanda (genocide), the Congo (the African world war), Burundi (ethnic struggle for power) to Cote d'Ivoire and Darfur. Wars with different ramifications, and brutality, Liberia and later Sierra Leone was at the vanguard of these brutal conflicts of the biafran war into which our hero Obi was born is one the first in a long list of conflicts that has distorted Africa.

The film has the ambition of exploring Africa beyond the news headlines, sound bites and statistics. It is about looking at Africa from a contemporary point of view. It's about the little people; the ones nobody reports after the satellite transmission dishes have been folded and moved to another cliché. I want Relentless to also be a mirror for African society to look at itself, criticise itself, and celebrate itself.

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Photographer Interivew: Brian Y. Sato

The following is an interview with photographer Brian Y. Soto by curator Lisa Henry.

Lisa Henry: Is this a nationally touring exhibition? Jane Nakasako at the Japanese American national Center mentioned that it was not originally organized by JANM. Is JANM it's last stop?

Brian Y. Sato: It could be, but no, it isn't a nationally touring exhibition. It began at the JCCH (Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii), in their gallery and sponsored by their organization and private sponsors. Being that the exhibition is a means of expressing our gratitude to the Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) we then wanted to travel it to other islands in the State of Hawaii so that surviving Nisei and their descendants would be able to view the show.

I photographed Nisei on the six major islands of the Hawaiian Chain: Oahu, Maui, Kauai, Big Island, Molokai and Lanai. As I mentioned, it first opened in Honolulu at the JCCH, then traveled to the Lyman Museum in Hilo, HI. It then moved to JANM, and will travel back to Hawaii to the Kauai Museum in June. We are working on getting Gokurōsama to Japan and other cities in the U.S. and Canada.

LH: What was your inspiration for this series?

BYS: The abbreviated explanation is that I realized that I was no longer happy living in the world of commercial photography. I felt a need to do work that was more meaningful to myself and also of benefit to others.

One day, while perusing photographs of Issei (first generation Japanese immigrants) in a library, it dawned on me that many of the photographs seemed rather impersonal and unrevealing. Often, the photographs of Issei sugar plantation laborers depicted them in their work clothes, covered from head to toe to protect them from the scorching sun and dusty conditions. How unfortunate, I thought, that they are equally covered in a cloak of anonymity. What are their names, where did they come from, what are their stories?

It was then this thought creeped into my mind: Is anyone photographically documenting the Issei's offspring, the Nisei, the first American generation of Japanese ancestry in Hawaii? I did a bit of investigating and it seemed that no one was documenting the Hawaii Nisei in still photographs, so I decided to dive right in and do it independently.

LH: Do you work in other genres? Is portraiture where you feel you are making your strongest work?

BYS: Living in Hawaii, it's difficult not to be drawn to photographing forests, volcanoes and the ocean, but I most enjoy creating simple still life images and portraits. I was always bad at portraiture; and that is probably one of my motivations for attempting this project - I relished the challenge.

For me, it was not only a matter of seeing, with regard to creating a successful portrait. To my surprise, I discovered that during the course of photographing my Nisei subjects, my personality has undergone a gradual transformation toward being more gregarious, more patient, tolerant and generally more sensitive to people's feelings.

LH: What kind of camera do you shoot with and why?

BYS: I've used camera makes and formats from 35mm to 4X5, including a multitude of medium format systems. For the Nisei project I use a Fuji GX 680 6X8cm tilt-shift camera and black and white film. Well, I certainly didn't use the Fuji GX 680 because it's small and lightweight! It is bulky and heavy but it offers great control in camera movements and yields high quality images. I worked for 15 years in a commercial black and white lab, so self-processing of the negs was not a mystery, just a chore.

LH: Now for a fluffy question - how would you compare LA w/ Hawaii?

BYS: I don't quite understand exactly in what areas that you want me to compare LA with Hawaii? Well, I could compare LA with Hawaii in a dozen different subject areas, but let's pick food, since I am sort of a foodie. It's probably not exotic by LA standards, but we don't have Peruvian-Japanese food in Hawaii and I must say that the meal I had at Don Felix was upper-level comfort food!

Browse more photos online or read more about Sato's journey while photographing the Nisei of Hawaii.

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Photographer Interview: Jesse Wright

It's no surprise that scientists make great photographers. Folks like Jesse Wright with the tenacity to research how things/life work could only naturally gravitate to using the camera as a discovery tool.

Engage with Jesse Wright's photography online and follow him on Twitter @jessewright.

D&B: Where are you from?
JW: I was born and raised in the blue-collar city of Allentown, PA. I currently reside in New York City.

D&B: How did you get started in photography - any "formal" training?
JW: I have absolutely no formal training in photography or the arts. I have a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Virginia and I spent half a dozen years studying bacterial communication as a postdoctoral fellow.

I loved making things as a kid – I would draw or build things with Legos – and I liked art class. I really enjoyed the process of starting with an idea or vision and trying to realize it. But, I discovered photography only recently, about 4 years ago during my postdoctoral fellowship.

At the time, my girlfriend and I got a camera together - just a little digital point and shoot. I thought maybe I could use it for work, photographing my experiments with bacteria communities. I found that to be very satisfying, because the images I took told a story that couldn’t be explained in words, graphs or tables. That’s when I realized that photography could be creative, powerful means of communication.

Of course, it didn’t stop there. I got obsessed with taking pictures. I would fiddle with the settings, try various techniques, and I began shooting outside of the lab. Like a scientist I was using the camera as a means to explore and understand my environment. The camera evolved from a tool into a vehicle of expression. That’s when it struck me that photography could serve as a way to show how I see the world.

D&B: What cameras or techniques do you use?
JW: I photograph with a Canon 5D, but believe it or not, most of my favorite images are taken with a little point and shoot or iPhone. I love the ultimate control of all elements of the camera’s operation. But, sometimes the lack of control can actually be a blessing – allowing you to really be creative and explore the spontaneity of the moment. Though I can be very deliberate about lighting and composition, some of my favorite images have been taken when I didn't have time to consider these things and I just acted on instinct or whim.

I love shooting manually and I love the effects one can “manufacture” with a lens. Like creating or compressing space, using shallow depth of field, shooting in focus, or out of focus. I especially like the ambiguity of shooting things out of focus. The resulting images are abstract and dreamlike – you can kind of see what’s going on, but the details are blurry. It makes the photo more interpretive – anyone can look at it and find in it what they want because it’s more like a memory than a reproduction. Shooting this way allows me to focus on the moment and not be distracted by the details.

When I choose to shoot in focus I tend to use the camera to extract meaning from a fragment. I’m consciously trying to eliminate distraction and focus on one subject. I’m attempting to elevate the subject to another level. I'm trying to take an Oreo cookie and make it more than something you shove in your mouth.

This is a very scientific approach, in a way; In science you can't control every variable, so you try to eliminate the things you can't control. You can't study a whole system en masse – you just study one part, and ask “what does do?" or "how does it work?" You isolate it and examine it apart from the other pieces. For me, that's when i realize how elegant that one part can truly be. There can be beauty and elegance when you take in the whole vista, but it doesn't always resonate with me personally. Instead, I find myself wanting to subtract things to get down to something essential.

D&B: Who are your mentors (in photography)?
JW: Even though he was not a photographer, my graduate school mentor Bob Kadner had an enormous influence on me. I was free to find my own way, come up with my own ideas, make every mistake in the process, and develop something that was truly my own. Not once did he force me into any particular project – instead, the implication was, 'come up with your own project.'

I floundered in this state for a couple years because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I thought I needed to be taught how to do science – how to design an experiment, how to ask the right questions, how to go about solving problems the proper way. It was a lot like learning how to swim by being tossed into the deep end of the pool. I find myself replicating that approach now in everything I do. For instance, instead of relying on a template, I taught myself HTML so I could build my flickr, jpgmag, tumblr, and via twitter.

I also find contemporary art inspiring: Sol Lewitt, Mark Rothko, William Eggleston and Andy Warhol have had a profound influence on me. I like learning what their influences were, the “why” behind a piece or a series. That resonates very strongly for me as a photographer. My decision to take a picture means there's a story behind every photograph I take – sometimes I think taking a photograph is just a means to that experience. That's why I really like to know the stories behind these artists' works.

D&B: When did you realize you could make a living at photography? Describe your journey towards becoming a pro.
JW: I am not a pro, yet. Being paid to photograph in a steady way – that’s how I define being a pro. Once I started to receive complements on my photographs from friends, family, and colleagues it dawned on me that a career as a professional photographer was attainable. I can’t overstate how important that feedback was because it reinforced the fact that my perspective holds value.

At the same time, I really tried to be objective about my work and my progress, asking myself if I was really offering something different and unique with my photography. I knew that even if I was pretty good at it, if I was incapable of offering something new or innovative as a photographer, I wouldn’t want to do it.

As a person, I need that challenge. I need to know that I am entering uncharted waters. That’s the kind of risk that excites me, and that’s what I’m seeking in a career in photography. I hope at some point that someone wants to hire me or collaborate with me because they appreciate the risks I’m willing to take, and they like my vision.

D&B: What do you hope to achieve with your photography?
JW: I want people to stop and linger. I love those pauses in between the moments we are all conditioned to remember. I love in the movies, when a shot lingers longer than is necessary. I love when you just stand there at the refrigerator with the door open, staring inside. I enjoy those quiet pauses within conversations. Those are the moments I want to capture, because although they are easily erased from our memories, to me they stand out as powerful and moving.

Taking photographs to me means stopping. Someone stopping to look at my work means they’re doing just what I did before I pressed the shutter. That is how I think my work connects with the viewer. I don’t really take a lot of pictures of exotic stuff – I shoot stuff that’s pretty mundane, things you may come across every day and don’t notice, like bus logos, a street sign, or a trash can.

So in a way, the most flattering thing for me would be for others to stop and ponder what I’ve made. I want them to get stuck on it. Maybe they’ll find in it the same meaning that I do, or maybe they’ll find in it something meaningful to them, or maybe they’ll just think it sucks. The outcome is irrelevant to me, because, if they linger, it means that somehow I’ve drawn them into my world and that’s what I’m really trying to achieve.

D&B: What's your dream photography project?
JW: I'd love to go on the road with truckers, and just take pictures of them and their trucks. Truckers, to me, seem like modern day cowboys. A dream project is to be like Hunter S. Thompson – to be able to both document and experience a situation – really be a part of it and not be an outsider.

I’d like to be with these truckers, ride with them, go to the truck stops with them, eat and drink with them and become part of their circle. And then I wouldn’t be shooting as an outsider, but as a member. I could achieve something genuine and organic because I had their trust.

I traveled to India last fall, and it was there where I learned the importance of building a relationship with my subject, no matter how fleeting the moment. I was traveling with my brother and we would wander the streets of Delhi at night. There were a lot of street vendors near where we were staying, and they got used to seeing us in the neighborhood.

One night I asked this one guy if I could take his picture. He became embarrassed when the other street vendors started to make fun of him a little while I was shooting. Even though he was smiling, his discomfort was captured in my photo which made it better. I wouldn’t have gotten the same effect were it not for his relationship with those other guys and their relationship from seeing us around.

D&B: What are you shooting now?
JW: I’m developing a photo essay of Allentown. On the surface, Allentown seems so much less interesting to shoot than New York, but that’s why it’s so interesting to me. Because I grew up there, I know where to find the elements in Allentown that are much more raw than New York.

Here in New York, I find myself working very hard to scratch and pick and peel away all the layers that hide the city. New York also has a different feel because it is a destination – millions of people come here to work, or visit and see the sights.

Those things are absent in Allentown which makes it ready-made for the type of photography I like to do – the kind in which I extract things. In New York it can be tough to extract things from the surrounding clutter. In Allentown, I can focus on a subject without having to work as hard to extract it. I guess it may be part of some larger personal journey that I don’t quite understand yet, but through taking photographs there I eventually will.

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Sammy Davis, Jr. aka Photographer

Did you know that the legendary actor, musician, comedian/entertainer, singer Sammy Davis, Jr. was also a photography enthusiast?

A quick browse through the photography book, Photo by Sammy Davis, Jr. shows that the reach of his marvelous talent also extended through the photographic lens. Documenting his personal life, Sammy shot photos of his fellow Rat Pack crew members Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra; Hollywood icons like James Dean, Nat "King" Cole and Marilyn Monroe; plus politicians like Robert Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The book's co-author Burt Boyar writes that "Sammy's camera often served as a shield" to gain access to places he couldn't because of his color. Again quoting Davis, 'Nobody interrupts a man taking a picture to ask... 'What's that nigger doin' here?' "As an entertainer and photographer, Davis was able to enter into many worlds." - From Publishers Weekly, Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

And in case you didn't know... Sammy, a convert to Judaism, was born to a Puerto Rican mother and an African-American father - talk about a multi-cultural American!

See sample photographs and buy the book, Photo by Sammy Davis, Jr. on Amazon.

Thanks to photographer David W. Sumner who tweeted this book to my attention today - follow him on Twitter @davidwsumner.

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Photographer Interview: Diane Wah

On April 24, 2009 I met Diane Wah at The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation's Space Program Open Studios reception where she was one of 17 artists who were granted free studio space in DUMBO - the artists were selected from a pool of 900 applicants. Diane's work "explores various notions of gender, racial coding and cultural theory."

View Diane Wah's photography online and follow her on Twitter @dianewah.

D&B: Where are you from?
DW: I was born in Queens, NY. I lived in Port Au Prince Haiti for a while and I moved back to the United States when I was about 5 but I’ve spent most of my life living in and around NYC

D&B: What kind of photography do you shoot and how did you get started - any "formal" training?
DW: Ha ha! Whenever anyone of my students ask I always tell them to “when in doubt always go back to Photo 1”; in fact I took photo 1 three times as an undergraduate in order to continue to get access to the darkroom. I majored in Cultural Studies and Post Colonial literature at the New School. While I learned the fundamentals of black and white darkroom photography, it didn’t really sink in until after I had graduated and started taking pictures on my own.

I then got into the photography program at Columbia University where I got my MFA. The photo program there was pretty small (4 students a year) and the learning curve pretty sharp. Because we were all from very diverse backgrounds in practice and training I learned a lot from my colleagues. The program was very open but we spent a lot of time in the darkroom as monitors and as Teaching Assistants. We learned like the old photographers did: from each other. I also played dumb a lot at B&H (a photo/video mega store in NYC) and asked a lot of questions. I read books and got tips online.

However the best learning came from shooting with available light, be it lamps, candles, the moon etc. etc. I definitely learn best by doing and I shot A LOT of rolls of film. If you really want to learn, just keep shooting.

D&B: What cameras or techniques do you use?
DW: I mostly use a Pentax ZX-7 35mm camera that I’ve had since I first started shooting. I also shoot with a Mamiya 645, A Graflex 4 x 5 with Polaroid and my Nikon D200. I’ve always shot with wide zoom lenses but I’ve since switched to prime lenses. They are just better.

I’m in an interesting situation because I still have access to some darkrooms so its actually cheaper for me to shoot film. I get a lot more information out of my negatives then I do out of my d200 and film is more forgiving to low and natural light. Sometimes I do my own printing up to 11 x 14 or 16 x 20 because its cheaper or if its bigger I scan my negatives and print them digitally.

Using a combination of film and digital processes gets me the best of both worlds. There are simply a lot more options when it comes to digital printing however the cost of really good printing can be prohibitively expensive.

D&B: Who are your mentors (in photography)?
DW: My mentor was Brooklyn photographer Thomas Roma. He was my professor at Columbia and an accomplished street photographer. I had been his teaching assistant through out my time at Columbia. While I had taken classes before him I never really connected with anyone that I was able to talk to about photography. He helped me find myself not just as a photographer but helped me develop my voice as an artist.

Interestingly enough most of the people that I was influenced by were filmmakers. I learned the fundamentals of composition by watching Alfred Hitchcock, Francois Truffaut, Spike Lee and Stanley Kubrick, however when I started getting more into still photography I was really moved by the works of Roy Decarava, WeeGee, Diane Arbus, Josef Koudelka, Flip Schulke and Franciss Wolff and Jamel Shabazz.

D&B: Have you experienced any setbacks or different treatment along your photography career that you would attribute to being a woman and/or photographer of color? (this question is optional)
DW: Well the first is pretty obvious. There aren’t that many black photographers period, even fewer working in the realm of fine art, even fewer women working in black and white, even fewer working as photojournalists.

Someone (white) once told me that photography was "the hobby of rich white men" and at the time I didn’t really understand what he meant but what I found out later on is that photography is a business supported by amateurs. What I mean to say is that most sales of photography equipment are not to professionals but to the average consumer and even 'professional' equipment is not bought up my professional photographers but by those who have the money.

I never had the money so I never felt like I belonged. I never thought that my stuff was good enough but I bought my Pentax ZX-7 for 200 dollars new, you can now get it for under a hundred bucks on eBay and I’ve made beautiful art with it for the past 8 years. I’ve since added other pieces of equipment to my repertoire but its still my main camera.

During my time at Columbia while I wasn’t in the minority as far as the male to female ratio, I was definitely the only woman at the time shooting in B&W doing stuff that was less staged. I think working in the world requires a certain obnoxiousness and aggressiveness that women are taught not to do but look at Obama: Just because others haven’t done it doesn’t mean you can’t.

When did you realize you could have a career in photography? Describe your journey towards becoming a working photographer.
I took pictures for a long time, mostly in my work as an ethnographer or as an aspiring filmmaker. I didn’t really believe that I could have a career in photography until my second year of graduate school at Columbia and even then it was less a belief and more of a decision.

Being where I came from (immigrant parents from Queens) a career in the arts much less in photography was not practical and while I tried to find other ways to MAKE it so, it became clear that I had no choice but to do what I loved. When I wasn’t working I was shooting, eventually I just stopped focusing on everything else. Right now I do a combination of teaching, doing fine art and working freelance.

What do you hope to achieve with your photography?
I ask myself that question every day and every day the answer changes. Sometimes I want to reveal a greater truth or a hypocrisy. Sometimes I want to tell a story and sometimes I simply want to make something beautiful. Ultimately, I want to discover the world and discover myself through photography. Through my photography I try to compel the viewer to not just ask questions of my subjects but questions of themselves as well.

What's your dream photography project?
My process is pretty intuitive and I’ve learned not to do “projects” anymore. For some people that works but for me it kind of cramps my style so I just shoot whats around me and if I get an idea for something I do it and think about how I’ll present it later. It might take up to a year or two for it to turn into something I like but yeah I generally don’t do “Projects" anymore. Shoot first, ask questions later.

COMING SOON TO DODGE & BURN

• Photographer interview with Jamel Shabazz
  
• Photographer interview with Jesse Wright
  
• Photographer interview with George Pitts
  
• Coverage from the 2009 New York Photo Festival

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Get updates on new photographer interviews plus news on contests, art shows and informed commentary on what's happening with diversity in photography. Subscribe to Dodge & Burn Photography Blog: Diversity in Photography by Email

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