The quote behind me is from the introduction
to my second book: Under a Grudging Sun, and it pretty much sums up what I do which when
you really think about it is really pretty simple. I mean I just wander around with a camera,
and I've been doing so for many years now. I'm gonna give you as Leslie suggested a brief
overview of this new book, The Suffering of Light that acompossases some thirty years of
my color work, so that there's a context for Max's and my conversation. I am gonna try to keep it brief, so I am going
to move fairly quickly through the thirty years, but hopefully it'll be enough to give
a sense of the work and suggest some of the possible issues that Max and I may discuss,
but before I do this, I wanna thank some people because I've learned over the years that books
really are collaborations. I actually wouldn't mind having the light
on for just a minute longer. First of all, I want to thank everyone at
Aperture who was involved in the making of the book. I want to thank Geoff Dyer for his essay,
but I particularly want to thank four people: Leslie Martin who is the editor, Matthew
Pim who oversaw the production of the book, David Chickey the Designer of the book, and
finally Rebecca Norris Webb my wife and creative partner. She was the photo editor of the book, and
this is the sixth book that Rebecca and I worked on together. Three of mine, two of hers, including another
upcoming book, and one joint book. In 1975, I reached a kind of dead end in my
photography. I worked in black and white then, and I was
struggling. Somehow, the work wasn't going anywhere. I was photographing the American social landscape
sort of, big empty parking lots and strip malls with unhappy looking people, and I really
didn't know what I was doing with my photography, and I picked up Graham Greene's novel, The
Comedians, a novel set in Haïti, and it kind of, it fascinated me and kind of scared me. I read some articles about Haïti, and I decided
to go, and that first trip to Haïti really transformed me as a person and as a photographer. I saw a world, a raw world, a tragic world,
but also an incredibly vibrant world full of life. And I started going to other places
far removed from New England where I'm from. I started going to the U.S.-Mexico border
as in this picture, and began a project that ended up lasting 26 years that started in
black and white and ultimately ended up in color, but the other thing I realized as I
worked on the border and in some other parts of the Caribbean is that there was something
missing. Something about the searing light and the
vibrant color of some of these places and the emotional resonance that came with them
that I was missing, and so I ended up turning to color. And that's where this book starts. This book really is, it's an exploration of
an obsession, an obsession that's, you know, started in '78 '79 a way of seeing in color
in certain kinds of places. The book is organized chronologically, so
it really reflects the somewhat chaotic and often mysterious process of creation. Projects pop up at certain times in the middle
of other projects. The book starts on the border, an arrest in
San Ysidro, California. Borders have always been really important
to me. This is also from the border, from Boquillas,
Mexico. I've been continuously drawn to borders and
edges of society, places where cultures come together, sometimes easily, sometimes roughly. This picture is from Grenada from the Caribbean. And some of those same qualities exist in
the Caribbean. I became fascinated with the feel of these
places. Where an indigenous culture is overlaid by
a northern intruding culture. This is from Haïti, from my first trip to
Haïti; my first color trip to Haïti in 1979, spending time in the Caribbean urged me, provoked
me to go to Uganda in 1981, Dominican Republic and India, but you know a photographer's life is often peripatetic, erratic. I spent time during those years also working
in urban Texas and Dallas. During the summers, I photographed on Coney Island, and I also returned to the border in '82, Ysleta, Texas, Monterrey, Mexico many of these first pictures I'm showing you come from my first book, Hot Light/Half Made Worlds which was my first effort to sort of bring this particular obsession with working a certain way in color together. Just to make sense of it because really, in
many ways, I kind of photograph to be able to understand what it is, and why it is that
I'm photographing. Barbados from the same book. But as the 80s rolled on, I began to work
more and more in Mexico, and I actually thought this might be my next book. This is from Ciudad Madero. Something about the lyricism of the world
of children in Mexico. Something about the specific nature of the
mystery of Mexico fascinated me. Some pictures began to deal with modern Mexico
like this one, others like this one from Tehuantepec, more traditional Mexico, but this project was interrupted by Haïti. In 1986, the 30-year regime of the Duvaliers
fell, and I returned to Haïti for the first time in six years. And I kept going back, and then my initial
pictures in Haïti during this trip really are pretty comparable in many ways, pretty
similar to my first book: an ongoing photographic dialogue with the streets of Haïti, pictures
that are fairly timeless. This is from Bombardopolis, a small town on
the northwest of Haïti, it got its name because the French "bombarded" it when the slaves
revolted. But even in '86, though I was enthralled with
working in Haïti, I still sort of was drawn back to Mexico, so these next two pictures are
from '87 in Mexico. I was still toying with the notion of maybe
Mexico is the next project. What's interesting, I think also about these
two Mexico pictures is that they are much darker emotionally than the earlier Mexico
work. I suspect this reflects the fact that I was
spending my time in Haïti cause as '87 rolled around, I returned to Haïti again and again
to photograph the violence of the '87 elections. Haïti in late, the fall, the summer and fall
of '87, it ended in kind of a cycle of violence where provocateurs setup burning barricades
to destroy elections. There were memorial services for people killed
by the army or by the para-military. There were dead bodies in the streets in the
early morning. I mean this for me, you know, I mean captures
something or another about the true strangeness of Haïti. This sort of, you know, combination of horror
and beauty, something I on some level never entirely be able to understand. And so in '89, I brought out my second book
Under a Grudging Sun, a book on Haïti. This last picture from Haïti is from a sacred
waterfall in the central plateau of Haïti called Saut-d'Eau. It's a pilgrimage spot. People go there often for fertility. The voodoo goddess of love, Erzulie, and the
Virgin Mary who are basically the same in the voodoo catholic Pantheon and are supposed
to inhabit it. And now we go somewhere very different; we're
going to Florida. During the period of time that I was working
in Haïti, I kept finding myself stuck in the Miami airport. The airport in Port-au-Prince was closed,
and I began looking at this really strange state of Florida. Florida is really sort of like the American
dream gone mad. I first started photographing some of the
new immigrant groups, but I rapidly realized that I wanted to photograph dancels like this
one. This is a convenience store in Fort Pierce. I mean Florida is a place where, you know,
everyone comes with their own fantasies, you know, they come for youth, for sun, for sex
or some version of the American dream. I think most people don't really find what
they're looking for. These are Guatemalan children in Indiantown, Florida. This is Daytona Beach, Miami Beach, I'm sorry, Miami. This is Miami Beach. But you know in 1990, I found myself returning
again to Mexico, to Mohaka. So you know, Mexico remained and remains as
an ongoing project. I also started working deeper into Latin America,
into South America. These next few pictures come from Paraguay. Fascinating, Isolated, landlocked countries
in the Middle of South America. It's a project that I did for a magazine,
but ultimately, I also put a book together called The Mouth of Night which is a local
term for dusk. Needless to say, considering the vast interest
in Paraguay, I haven't tried really hard to get the book published. I also did some work in Puerto Rico. This is Ponce, Puerto Rico. Then I began doing a little bit of work in
Europe. This is Munich where people surf on the river
near the Englischer Gardens. And in '92, I was back on the border in Tijuana. This is a model of the '68 Mexico City olympic
games on top of a building in Tijuana. '92 I spent some time in Spain; did a series
of arts commissions and magazine assignments. Part of what was fascinating for me to go
to Spain was to go see the country that had colonized so many of the places that I had
ended up spending time in. Such as Nicaragua, this is the Caribbean coast
of Nicaragua. Again, you know I mean the Caribbean coast
of Nicaragua, this is also from the same place Puerto Cabezas. You know it's one of these places where a
variety of different cultures come together and mix. It's indigenous, it's hispanic, and black. It looks towards the sea. It's very much a Caribbean culture; the kind
of place that consistently is fascinating me. And in '93, I did a large project in the Amazon. I went from the mouth to the source of the
Amazon river. It was an assignment for National Geographic. But I was allowed tremendous freedom to do
what I wanted and ultimately, I wrote a book out of it. This is a mirror vendor in Palma Pampa, Peru. He's waiting for a plane to go back to Lima. This is earth day in Iquitos. You know the lowlands of the Amazon in Brazil
and Peru and Columbia almost felt like I was entering the background of a magic realist
novel. Such strange fascinating things seem to happen. This is a festival in Tefé, Brazil. Looking at the Amazon from a boat. Manaus, flooding on the outskirts of Manaus. And in '94, I went back to Haïti. I went back during the U.S. invasion. These people are being bowled around by dust
from U.S. Military helicopters. And in '93, I made my first trip to Cuba. This is from Caimanera across the water from
Guantanamo. Also Cuba, in the back of a baseball stadium
at dusk. I'll talk more about the Cuba work a little
later. And then again, back on the border, Nuevo Laredo. Outskirts of Tijuana, I have no idea why these
shoes were there. I asked some people, and no-one could tell
me. Oops sorry. Atlanta from an arts commission that I did
for the High Museum. And Costa Rica, this is my son. My son, when he was five, was fascinated by
the notion of the Amazon Rainforest, and I didn't really feel ready to take him there,
so when he was eight, I took him to the Costa Rican rainforest. Ethiopia. Istanbul from 1998. This is from the first trip that I made to
Istanbul, and this project ultimately turned into the book that came out in I think 2007, I think. From that same trip in Turkey. Panama, just at the time of the canal being
turned over from the U.S. to the Panamanians. This the U.S. military jungle warfare training,
and that's the ubiquitous third world dummy that they shoot at in the foreground. Panama city. Again, Panama City. Bocas del Toro, Panama. And in 1999, I made one of my last trips to
the U.S. Mexico border, it was the penultimate trip. And this for me, sort of sums up something
about the border. The border sort of attracts all kinds of stuff
to it, from both cultures. You know, so this has got Christ, Santa Claus,
the Backstreet Boys, and a prostitutes legs. This is also from the border. I mean I think many Mexicans and North Americans
view the border with some sense of distaste. I find the border fascinating in the way these
two utterly different cultures come together and mix and produce something else, another
culture. France, I did an assignment in France and
this was the picture I walked away with. And my last trip to Haïti in 2000. And now we're back to Cuba, and really the
last decade had been dominated by two major projects. Both of which become books. One Cuba, and this is also Cuba. This is Havana from 2000. And the other, Istanbul. I think the thing about Istanbul is that I
think Istanbul, discovering Istanbul and getting excited about working in Istanbul enabled
me let the U.S. Mexico border project go. Because Istanbul's another kind of border. It's, you know, it's ancient and modern, eastern
and western, Islamic and secular. Very different than the U.S. Mexico border,
but still has that strange, slightly unsettled quality of the times you don't quite know
where you are. This is 2001. And of course, as is this. This is September 11th. This is one of the first things that Rebecca
and I saw as we headed in from where we live in Brooklyn to try to get to ground zero on
that day. Cuba, Havana again. Also Cuba, along the Malecon. Thessaloniki, Greece. From a project I did where I criss-crossed
the Northern Aegean. Mexico City, again, Mexico recurs. I don't know whether I'll ever complete a
single project on Mexico. Mexico's changed in many many ways since the
early days that I was there. I'm not sure that the lyricism that I found
25 years ago in Mexico is, seems like the Mexico of today. I don't know. And then we're back in Cuba, in Rickla, and
this project, you know, I mean I've done a bunch of books, and I really wanted to do
something different, and Rebecca, my wife, spent time going to Cuba with me. She was working on another project totally
separately. She had been photographing basically the relationship
between man and nature in Cuba. Particularly people and animals, and we hit
upon the notion, and it was really partially thanks to Leslie Martin of combining the work,
and we created a kind of photographic duet out of it which I think created a sort of
multi-a different kind of book- a sort of multi-layered portrait of the island that
I think makes it different than other books on Cuba. This is also Cuba along the Malecon. Thats a painting in the foreground for those
of you who were wondering. And then, some pictures from my last few trips
to Istanbul in 2004. Also Istanbul. From Panama, I had an assignment in Panama,
and I was able to spend time in a fascinating little town on the edge of the jungle called
Yaviza. The Dominican Republic. This is from a Haïtian sugar workers camp
Abate in the Dominican Republic. And then this is Mexico again, right near
the southern border in Tenosique. This is a murder on a quiet Sunday afternoon. And then some of the last pictures that I took in Cuba for the Cuba project: Havana, Barrio Chino, the Chinese section of Havana, Hurricane Tape, and we sort of go from the sort of slightly crumbling, post soviet world of Havana to the post Soviet world of
Azerbaijan to a project that I did in the Caucasus in 2009. And from the same project in Georgia, this
is actually riding a train, and the last picture of the book comes from Erie, Pennsylvania from 2010. You know, part o- I struggled with the last
picture because I, I really didn't want it to end sort of on that train in Georgia that
didn't feel like the right place to end, and Rebecca and I have been making some road trips
through the U.S. particularly through some of the ruspelt areas, and fortunately in
the summer of 2010, this picture happened. And, you know, I think that, you know, that
Becca and I are going to continue making road trips and we may, we may do another another
collaborative project. This time on the U.S, but we'll see what happens. Anyway, so that's the last picture. [applause]
