A Small Voice: Conversations With Photographers

Ambiguity is at the forefront of Richard Kalvar’s photography. Richard, who describes context as the “enemy”, seeks mystery and multiple meanings through surprising framing and meticulous timing. He describes his approach as “more like poetry than photojournalism – it attacks on the emotional level.”

Richard has done extensive personal, assignment and commercial work in the United States, France, Italy, England, and Japan, among others, has published a number of solo books including Earthlings (Terriens) in 2007 and his most recent title, Selected Writings, published in 2023 by Damiani, and he has had important exhibitions in the US, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

His work has appeared in Geo, The Paris Review, Creative Camera, Aperture, Zoom, Newsweek, and Photo, among many others. Editorial assignments and even commercial work have given Richard an additional opportunity to do personal photography. He did many documentary stories that allowed him to disengage from documentary mode when the occasion arose.

Richard joined Magnum Photos as an associate member in 1975, and became a full member two years later. He subsequently served several times as vice president, and once as president of the agency.

In episode 221, Richard discusses, among other things:

• How he ended up settling in Paris
• His introduction to photography
• How humour is an intrinsic element of his photographs
• how he is playing with things he has trouble dealing with
• Why he called up Robert Delpire
• VU agency becoming Viva
• How he ended up in Magnum
• His favourite cities to shoot in
• The legal restrictions on shooting in public in different places
• Public attitudes towards taking photographs of strangers in public
• His new book, Selected Writings
• Why his interest is in single images that stand alone

Referenced:

• Jérôme Ducrot
• André Kertesz
• HCB
• Robert Frank
• Lee Friedlander
• Elliott Erwitt
• Robert Delpire
• Viva Agency
• Guy LeQuerec
• Gilles Peress
• Mary Ellen Mark
• Alex Majoli
• Jonas Bendiksen
• Paolo Pellegrin
• Olivia Arthur

Website | Instagram

“I’m most interested in having pictures stand alone, and each one is something you can get into and is a story in itself and is also an imaginary story. I’m working with reality, that’s what’s really interesting to me and it’s also what’s interesting about photography in general, that you’re doing something that looks like real life but obviously isn’t. that’s the edge I like to work on. Where you have the impression that things are going on and not necessarily going on. If I have to tell a story, I feel a certain moral obligation to respect the truth or respect the feelings of the people that are in it. I think that’s a noble thing but for my kind of work it’s a break.”

Featuring:

• Aaron Schumann
• Eugene Richards
• Martin Parr
• Gregory Crewdson
• Nick Brandt
• Emma Hardy
• Antoine D’Agata
• Igor Posner
• Stacy Kranitz
• Ivor Prickett
• Bertrand Meunier
• Curran Hatleberg
• Trish Morrissey
• Moises Saman
• Yelena Yemchuk
• Benjamin Rassmussen
• Ian Berry
• Luca Locatelli
• Corinne Dufka
• Max Pam
• Leonard Pongo

Leonard Pongo is a Belgian-Congolese photographer and visual artist. His long-term project The Uncanny, shot in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has earned him several international awards and world-wide recognition and was published as a book by GOST earlier this year (2023) as a result of Leonard receiving the ICP GOST First Photo Book Award in 2020.

Leonard’s work has been published worldwide and featured in numerous exhibitions including the recent IncarNations at the Bozar Center for Fine Arts and the The 3rd Beijing Photo Biennial at CAFA Art Museum. He was chosen as one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch in 2016, is a recipient of the Visura Grant 2017, the Getty Reportage Grant 2018 and was shortlisted for the Leica Oskar Barnack award in 2022.

Leonard’s latest project, Primordial Earth, was shown at the Lubumbashi Biennial and at the Rencontres de Bamako where it was awarded the “Prix de l’OIF”. It was exhibited at the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts for Leonard’s first institutional solo show in Belgium in 2021, at the Oostende Museum of Modern Art and is currently feartured as part of a group show entitled A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography at Tate Modern until January 14th 2024.

Leonard divides his time between pursuing long term projects in Congo DR, teaching and assignment work and is also a member of The Photographic Collective. His work is part of institutional and private collections.

In episode 219 Leornard discusses, among other things:

• Early creativity encouraged by his architect father
• His first experience with photography
• His early desire to go to the DRC
• His first trip in 2011 against the backdrop of an election
• Sensory overwhelm
• Playing with mood and ambiguity
• Winning the Unseen-Gost Books Publishing Award
• Editing down from 70,000 images
• His Primordial Earth project
• His short film The Necessary Evil

Website | Instagram

“I think behind all the constructions and expectations, right or wrong, that I might have had, there was behind it at the core a very intense need for experience... the only way I could create relations to the land and the environment itself - not the people because that was easy, that was natural - but to the rest, the context, was through experiencing it. It felt to me that was the only way I could ever have anything to say about it.”

Featuring:

• Andrea Modica
• Jesse Lenz
• Melissa DeWitt
• Todd Hido
• Kristen Joy Emack
• Anastasia Samoylova
• Mimi Mollica
• Mimi Plumb
• Jane Evelyn Atwood
• Christopher Anderson
• Tim Carpenter
• Sofia Krysiak
• Nelson Chan
• Tom Booth Woodger
• Silvana Trevale
• Gianluca Gamberini
• Gregory Barker
• Dewi Lewis

Max Pam is an Australian photographer born in 1949 in suburban Melbourne, which as a teenager he found to be grim, oppressive and culturally isolated. He found refuge in the counter-culture of surfing and the imagery of National Geographic and Surfer Magazine and became determined to travel overseas.

Max left Australia at 20, after accepting a job as a photographer assisting an astrophysicist. Together, the pair drove a VW Beetle from Calcutta to London. This adventure proved inspirational, and travel has remained a crucial and continuous link to his creative and personal development. As Gary Dufour noted in his essay in Indian Ocean Journals (Steidl, 2000): “Each photograph is shaped by incidents experienced as a traveller. His photographs extend upon the tradition of the gazetteer; each photograph a record of an experience, a personal account of an encounter somewhere in the world. Each glimpse is part of an unfolding story rather than simply a record of a place observed. While travel underscores his production Pam’s photographs are not the accidental evidence of a tourist.”

Max’s work takes the viewer on compelling journeys around the globe, recording observations with an often surrealist intensity, matching the heightened sensory awareness of foreign travel. The work frequently implies an interior, psychic journey, corresponding with the physical journey of travel. His work in Asian counties is well represented in publications as are his travels in Europe, Australia, and the Indian Ocean Rim cultures including India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Yemen, The Republic of Tanzania, Mauritius, Madagascar, the Cocos and Christmas Islands. The images leave the viewer, as Tim Winton said in Going East (Marval 1992), “grateful for having been taken so mysteriously by surprise and so far and sweetly abroad.”

Max’s first survey show was held at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 1986, and was followed by a mid-career retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1991. He was also the subject of a major exhibition at the Comptoir de la Photographie, Paris in 1990, which covered the work of three decades. He has published several highly acclaimed photographic monographs and 'carnets de voyage', including Going East: Twenty Years of Asian Photography (1992), Max Pam (1999), Ethiopia (1999) and Indian Ocean Journals (2000). Going East won Europe’s major photo book award the Grand Prix du Livre Photographique in 1992. In the same year Max held his largest solo show to date at the Sogo Nara Museum of Art, Nara. He has published work in the leading international journals and is represented in major public and private collections in Australia, Great Britain, France and Japan.

In episode 217 Max discusses, among other things:

• How he adopted the visual diary as his photographic approach.
• The influence of Diane Arbus.
• Why he chose such a specific period of his life to explore in his new memoir.
• How Arbus inspired him to shoot 6x6.
• How surfing in Australia introduced him travelling.
• How he ended up in India and why it fascinates him.
• The magic of film vs. digital.
• Working with book designers… or not.
• The time he failed to get into Magnum Photos.
• Surviving financially, teaching, and the importance of ‘marrying up’.
• Travel and family.
• Returning to Australia in a poor mental state, post typhoid.
• His wife’s Alzheimer’s and eventual death.

Referenced:

• Philip Jones-Griffith
• Don McCullen
• Larry Burrows
• David Bailey
• Diane Arbus
• Edward Weston
• Tina Modotti
• Roger Ballen
• George Orwell
• Bernard Plossu
• Ramon Pez
• Sarah Moon
• One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest
• Peter Beard

Website | Instagram

“I’m a very curious person and ultimately having the camera amplifies that curiosity in a really profound way. And it also gives you carte blanche to stick your head into areas where normally you’d think ‘ah, it’s a bit dodgy, maybe not, I could get my head cut off it I stuck it in the hole…’ But often then you think, ‘well come on man, you’ve got a camera there, isn’t this part of your self image?’ And so it’s like this ticket to ride on something that is actually quite dangerous.”

Corinne Dufka is an American photojournalist, human rights researcher, criminal investigator, and psychiatric social worker.

Following completion of her master's degree in social work, Corinne worked as a humanitarian volunteer and social worker in Latin America. She volunteered with Nicaraguan refugees during the country's revolution, and with victims of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. She then moved to El Salvador as a social worker with the Lutheran church. While in El Salvador, Corinne became close with local photojournalists, and was asked by the director of a local human rights organization to launch a program to document human rights abuses through photography.

Over the course of her subsequent twelve year career as a photojournalist she covered more than a dozen of the world’s bloodiest armed conflicts across three continents and was honored with the Robert Capa gold medal; a World Press Club Award; a Pulitzer nomination; and the Courage in Journalism Award.

In 1998 Corinne went to Nairobi, Kenya to cover the bombing of the American Embassy. She arrived hours after the blast, and was deeply frustrated by 'missing the scoop.' Later, upon watching the news coverage of the attack, Corinne realized that she had lost “compassion” for the subjects of her work, and resolved to end her career as a photojournalist.

After leaving photojournalism, Corinne joined Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization. In 2003, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, alternatively known as a ‘genius grant’, for her journalistic and documentary work documenting the 'devastation' of Sierra Leone and the conflict's toll on human rights.

Corinne left HRW in 2022 and is now an independent researcher and advisor, focusing on helping countries mitigate the risk of armed conflict. Corinne has a daughter and a foster son and lives in Maryland with her four dogs. Corinne’s new book This Is War: Photographs from a Decade of Conflict is out now, published by G Editions.

In episode 216 Corinne discusses, among other things:

• Her reasons for publishing a book of her photograhs
• The experience of revisiting her archive
• Her transition from psychiatric social worker to photojournalist
• How she learnt the basics of photography in El Salvador
• How her family history and a challenges in childhood formed her independence
• Getting badly injured in Bosnia
• The relative dangers of different types of conflict
• Her experiences of violence in Liberia
• The epiphany that led her to walk away from photojournalism
• Her work with Human Rights Watch
• ‘Curiosity and compassion’
• Making an impact

“I just don’t do ‘hopeless’. I constantly try to find a way of having impact. And photography has so much impact. Using people’s voices through testimony has so much impact. And one has to believe that people are inherently good and they inherently care and that they can be moved when presented with these images. People in positions of influence. So that is a given in everything I’ve done. That this work will have an impact. It may have to be repeated again and again and again, multiplied by other practitioners in photography or human rights, but it will have an impact.”

Italian photographer Luca Locatelli describes himself as an environmental visual storyteller.

For more than a decade Luca has aimed to open a debate about the environment and our future with his work by synergizing art, science, and journalism to explore the world’s most promising solutions to the climate crisis. As an artist, Luca is concerned with trying to translate complex scientific data into visually engaging images and distribute them on social networks, in publications and at events.

His work has been published in international media such as National Geographic, The New York Times, and TIME. It has also been displayed in prominent global venues, including the Guggenheim Museum of New York, the Shangai Center of Photography, and others.

In addition, for over two years, Luca has been working on a significant and immersive cultural project about the Circular Economy with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which is now an exhibition entitled The Circle at Gallerie D’Italia Museum of Turin, Italy, until February 2024.

Since 2004 Luca has been a founding partner of a non-governmental association that contributes to protect 600 thousand hectares of tropical forest in the Amazon.

In episode 215 Luca discusses, among other things:

• How it started with a trip up the Amazon
• Trying to do 2 things and failing
• How he discovered a talent for generating good story ideas
• Exploring his interest in ways that technology can help solve the environmental crisis
• His project about food, Hunger Solutions
• How he became interested in the circular economy
• The End of Trash - Circular Economy Solutions
• Stealing the idea of ‘Think Week’ from Bill Gates
• How he thinks about his own carbon footprint
• The problem of fast fashion
• Developing economies
• Future generations
• Hopes that his work can have an impact
• Creating ‘disorientation’ in the viewer
• The hope of nature-based solutions

Referenced:

• Kathy Ryan
• Che Guevara
• Bill Gates

Website | Instagram

“When we think about photography and changing the world we always think in one direction… we think that photography is about the last flood, about the last fire, the last tremendous things happening in the world with climate change. It’s not the only perspective. What if we can give to young people pictures that can show them solutions and a way of imagining and opening a debate about the future?”

In episode 214:

An audio clip from each of the top 10 most downloaded episodes of all time (as of September 2023).

• 10 - Tom Craig (Episode 130)
• 09 - Martin Parr #2 (Episode 197)
• 08 - Tom Wood (Episode 160)
• 07 - Todd Hido (Episode 103)
• 06 - Chris Killip (Episode 094)05 - Paul Graham (Episode 149)
• 04 - Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb (Episode 105)
• 03 - Stephen Shore (Episode 192)
• 02 - Mark Steinmetz (Episode 112)
• 01 - Martin Parr (Episode 091)

And a swift tour of the Bonus Questions which all guests now answer for the member-only podcast:

• What has photography taught you about yourself or life in general?
• What is your greatest strength and your main weakness as a photographer?
• If you could meet your 20 year-old self now, what advice would you give to her/him?
• What’s the one most essential lesson you would pass on to someone considering a photography ‘career’ today?
• How has a failure, or what seemed like a failure at the time, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favourite failure” of yours?
• Can you think of any ideas or beliefs - whether about photography or anything else in life - that you have now reversed or totally changed your position on?
• Is there a photobook that has a special place in your heart or a particular significance, or that has been especially influential or inspiring to you?
• Do you have a favourite photographer, if you absolutely had to pick someone? Why them?
• Are there any notable photobooks or photographers that you have only just discovered for the first time in recent years?
• If and when you feel creatively exhausted, uninspired or blocked what do you do to get yourself moving forward again?
• How do you deal with self doubt if and when it arises? Do you have any strategies or habits that you come back to?
• What other artforms or cultural output, either highbrow or popular, do you consume, enjoy or take inspiration from?
• What is the thing you like most about photography or about being a photographer? What is the thing you like the least?
• How do you deal with juggling the need to make a living with finding time to pursue personal projects that don’t necessarily earn you any money?
• How do you manage a work/life balance and deal with juggling career with relationship/home/family life?
• What do you think you might have ended up doing if you hadn’t become a photographer and would you have been good at it?
• What are you hopes for the future?

Ian Berry was born in 1934 in Lancashire, England. He made his reputation in South Africa, where he worked for the Daily Mail and later for Drum magazine. He was the only photographer to document the massacre at Sharpeville in 1960, and his photographs were used in the trial to prove the victims' innocence.

Henri Cartier-Bresson invited Ian to join Magnum in 1962, when he was based in Paris. He moved to London in 1964 to become the first contract photographer for the Observer Magazine. Since then assignments have taken him around the world: he has documented Russia's invasion of Czechoslovakia; conflicts in Israel, Ireland, Vietnam and the Congo; famine in Ethiopia; and apartheid in South Africa. The major body of work produced in South Africa is represented in two of his books: Black and Whites: L'Afrique du Sud and Living Apart (1996).

Important editorial assignments have included work for National Geographic, Fortune, Stern, Geo, national Sunday magazines, Esquire, Paris-Match and Life. Berry has also reported on the political and social transformations in China and the former USSR. Recent projects have involved tracing the route of the Silk Road through Turkey, Iran and southern Central Asia to northern China for Conde Nast Traveler, photographing Berlin for a Stern supplement, the Three Gorges Dam project in China for the Telegraph Magazine, Greenland for a book on climate control and child slavery in Africa.

Ian’s recent book, Water (GOST Books, 2022), brings together many classic images from Ian’s extensive archive with material shot over the course of 15 years travelling the globe to document the inextricable links between landscape, life and water. This new book brings together a selection of the resulting images which collectively tell the story of man’s complex relationship with water — at a time when climate change demonstrates just how precariously water and life are intertwined.

In episode 213, Ian discusses, among other things:

• How all the pics in Water came to be used as B&W
• How the project came about
• How he got into photography
• How he came to be the only photographer at the Sharpeville Massacre
• The importance of luck
• Getting into Magnum after a tea with HCB and a disasterous first meeting
• Changes in Magnum over the years - and photography in general
• The controversy over David Allan Harvey and the subsequent action by Magnum
• Everything being ‘too woke’
• Learining from other people and looking at contact sheets

Referenced:

• Stuart Smith
• Abbas
• Roger Madden
• Drum Magazine
• Tom Hopkinson
• The Sharpeville Massacre
• Michele Chevalier (Visa)
• Marc Riboud
• Reni Burri
• Henri Cartier Bresson
• Burt Glinn
• Peter Dench
• David Allan Harvey
• Steve McCurry
• Bruce Davidson
• Philip Jones Griffiths
• Gilles Peress
• Bruno Barbey
• Werner Bischof

Website | Instgram

“I brought along my contact sheets which Henri spent ages going through. And he said ‘great, good to have you’. And I went back upstairs afterwards and they said ‘fine, you’re in Magnum.’ And that was it…”

Benjamin Rasmussen is a Faroese/American photographer living in Denver, Colorado.

After growing up in the Philippines and studying photography at Ateneo de Manila University, he moved to the United States to explore contemporary American identity. His practice is research and photography based and centers on the intersection of law, history and sociology.

Benjamin works for magazines including Time, The New Yorker and The Atlantic. He is also the founder of Pattern, an exhibition and educational space in Denver, Colorado that works to spark dialogue and acts as a meeting place for the art and documentary worlds.

Benjamin’s debut photobook, The Good Citizen, which explores how American society came to be what it is today, was published last year by GOST books.

In episode 212, Benjamin discusses, among other things:

• His origin story growing up in the Philipines and then moving to the USA for college
• Growing up amidst his family’s deeply religious roots
• By The Olive Trees project
• Faroese hunting pilot whales - story
• Faroe islands being too picturesque
• The dark side of his American family
• The origins of The Good Citizen project
• The five chapter structure of the book
• Book banning in the USA
• Trump
• His optimism re. photojournalism
• The implications of AI

Referenced:

• Michael Brown
• Dred Scott
• Stuart Smith
• Frank H Wu
• Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Juan Fuentes

“I’ve survived largely off editiorial commissions for the past 10-15 years. It’s been really interesting.You have a lot more complex voices who are involved even in my short history of it. The reality is that in my entire career rates haven’t changed. It’s getting increasingly difficult to survive financially, but I think in terms of the conversations that are happening it’s gotten so much more interesting. ”