All right, let's do this. Peanut, if you're staying in the room, no talking. Hello, and welcome to the Photo Work podcast, the talky and touchy feely version of my book, Photo 40 Photographers on Process and Practice. Hello, everyone. This is Sascha Wolf recording from Woodstock, New York, and joined as usual, by my friend and producer, Mr. Michael Chovin Dalton. Hello, Michael.
Hello there. You know, someday we'll put out a blooper reel.
Yes.
Because this isn't the first time we've tried this this morning.
No.
Now, let me pick up from where we were before. Sasha, there's something you wanted to say.
About flow at work. This will make no sense to me. So natural, so natur. Oh, man. Cat is way out of the bag. I just wanted to say that due to an error, Photo Work was listed as out of stock on the Aperture website for quite a while. And it wasn't out of stock. And so, no, they've corrected that. And so anyone who's looking to get a copy of Photo Work, the book. Yeah. Head over to Apple.
The start of it all.
That's right.
Exactly.
Yes.
Okay. So, yes, this has been a blooper morning, and we have no excuses. It's just the way it is. It just happens. It happens. It happens. How are you? How are you doing?
Doing all right. Doing all right. I have some good news from some people will remember this from a couple years ago. I started rehabbing an old fiberglass sailboat that a friend of mine gave sl. Sold. According to New Jersey records. Sold to me.
The old one.
Yeah, that's right. And it took forever to figure out how to register the boat because it was never registered before. So it didn't have a proper paper trail for New Jersey's records. And I finally got it registered.
Congratulations.
I know, it's very exciting. So, yeah, hopefully we'll get that on the water soon and I'll finally name it after I find out if it's successful. I don't have a captain's hat. No.
Okay. Note to self.
Gift, gift for Michael Photo Work foundation branded skipper hat.
Exactly. That would be such a big hit. I have to tell tower to stop working on the stickers.
That's right.
Stickers. How boring. So congratulations. That seriously is exciting. And be careful.
Can't wait.
Be safe.
Yes. Yes.
All right. And you have a show opening or did a show that just opened, actually. Tell folks about that because that's super exciting.
Thank you. Yeah. I have a solo show at Fordham University, the Lincoln center campus. It is work that I made in New Jersey in the 1990s, long before many of my students were born.
But it'll look like the 1890s to them.
That's right. That's right. Yeah. No, it's work that I made in the 90s in New Jersey. The show is up. It looks fantastic. There is a friends and family, so friends of the show, you are invited. July 12th from 3 to 5pm Just send me a message or just show up if you want to come. So, yeah, really looking forward to it. There'll be a regular reception so that Fordham students can attend in September.
Wonderful.
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
All right, well, why don't we.
I got nothing other than my continued. I think I'm on year five of apologizing for how awful I sound in the summer. Blame it on the rat.
That's right. Yes.
And, yeah, we have a wonderful show today. I got to talk with Dana Lixenberg, the incredible Dutch photographer who's most known for. It is not an exaggeration at all to say the iconic project Imperial Courts.
That's right.
And a lot of other things, such as portraits she did of both Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls that are also just really iconic. And incredible amount of other work. Work that we discussed. And it was a real joy to talk with Dana. I hope you enjoyed listening to the conversation.
Absolutely. I mean, Dana's ability to make this iconic work in different ways, whether it's, you know, starting with editorial work, spending a short time with a group of people or community, or spending a long time.
Decades.
With the community. Yeah, decades, exactly. And having such incredible success with that work is, I think, a fascinating listen. Like, there's a lot to learn, different ways that you can approach and.
Well, it's professionalism. Right. Being really going in and being ready, understanding your equipment, your process, how to interact with people, how to be engaged, or I should say, when to be engaged, when to sort of stay out of the way and still get incredible results. It's really fascinating.
Yeah. I was thinking negotiation. Negotiation with the community, but also negotiation with maybe the people you're working for at the time doing editorial work. Dana's just gave a masterclass on it.
Yeah, absolutely. Without a doubt. Well, it's going to be a continued good summer, I think, for our listeners. We have a lot of great guests coming up, so keep listening, everyone. And that's it. Michael, if you don't mind, please take it away.
My pleasure. And here is your conversation with Dana Lixenberg.
All right, here we Go.
There we go.
Dana Vixenberg, welcome to the Photo Work Podcast. I'm so happy to have you on. This is so thrilling for me as I am a huge fan of your work and have been for so long now. Although I'll tell you something funny, but first, I'll let you say hello before I just keep talking. So. Hi.
Hi. Hi, Sasha. Thank you for having me. I feel honored.
Yeah, well, it's a total joy. I was thinking this morning that it's so crazy to me that, I mean, you've put out so many incredible books, and I want to talk about as many of them as we can, but my first real awareness of you and your work came from your seminal book, Imperial Courts. And I realized this morning that it's, I believe it's just 10 years old. And it's just so crazy because, I mean, I guess if you're really young, probably if you're in your 20s, 10 years sounds like a really long time. But for me, it doesn't seem that long. And what's amazing is how much that book feels to me like just one of the most. Like it's taken its place for me anyway as sort of in the canon, like a book that has just existed forever, you know, and yet it's only 10 years old. But it's just. It's made such a huge mark for me personally. And I really feel like I can say for so many people in the fine art photo community, because it comes up all the time in conversation. So, anyway, that was just my spiel, but let's start with thank you. Yeah, the way we always do. And tell folks about yourself, where you're from and your journey into photography and whatnot.
Well, I'm from Amsterdam, born and raised, and my parents were both creative. My father was an artist and my mother taught art classes to children, and she was also a kindergarten teacher. I grew up right in the center of Amsterdam, where I went to elementary school, high school, And I always thought that I was not going to do anything in the arts. And I didn't see myself as very creative. And I thought I was going to go to university and possibly study psychology, even though the idea of really going kind of going to a university didn't really appeal to me too much. So I guess deep down there was something. There was something else that I needed to explore and that really exposed itself or I don't know how to say, but I mean, I was always a child, probably through my, especially my mom. She was always observing people and analyzing people, and I Was very observant child. Is that how you say it? Always looking, checking situation, always feeling, having one foot in, one foot out, always standing back and kind of looking at people's situations. So I watched a lot of films when I was young and after high school I decided because I wasn't convinced about going to university, I decided I was also quite young to go a year abroad. And I went to New York as au pair nanny. And I worked with this Dutch family, they were musicians and they were going to live in New York for one year in the West Village. And during that year I decided to take a night class, evening class course at Parsons beginners class in photography. And I think I was always drawn to making pictures. On holiday I would argue with my father, like who would, you know, who would man the camera, like take the camera. And I always wanted to take pictures. I would always sit next to him in front of. Because my brother is eight years younger. So my mom would be in the back with my little brother and I was reading the map and I was really sort of always, you know, wanted to look over the next hill and I wanted to make pictures. But I thought at high school that you had to be, I don't know, I thought you had to be technical. There were some boys in the class that knew how to measure the light or the light reading. And I thought that was a big deal. And then of course later you realize that's the least of it. I mean, anyone can learn to use, operate a camera. And it's really not about that. But I decided to take this class. I was working all day and took this course and it was kind of love at first sight. I mean, when I did my. I borrowed a camera from a friend of my parents in Nikon FM 2. And I still remember that first role I did in developing it and making my first prints. And it was magic.
It's magic.
And I fell in love with New York and photography. And it ultimately took me six years to return to New York. And it was still, you know, when I decided, okay, I want to pursue this. I did an intermediate course, another course after. And I can't say work I did then was very interesting, but it was more that it suddenly gave me license to, you know, I don't know, I was always a curious person, but somehow it gives you license to step into situations, to engage, to kind of, kind of do something with what you see or to process it and to. It just made so much sense. So. Yeah, but then the idea of like, oh God, like how Am I ever going to make a living with this or how is it? I mean, that was still such a long trajectory ahead of me. You have no security. And that's the whole thing. There's no. But I grew up with that. My dad being an artist is no. So I felt, I guess I've always felt comfortable with that, not having security.
So you moved to New York. How did you get your first gigs? You've had a really different career trajectory than a lot of folks that I work with or talk to know in that so many of your most known work and even work of yours that's less well known, but in my estimation, incredibly important, has started from assignments. And you've been. You've had an incredibly successful career as an assignment photographer. And the way that that sort of seamlessly rolled into having a fine art career is really fascinating. So yeah, tell people about that sort of path.
Well, you know, after spending. I spent two years in London at art school, two years at the Rietveld Academy. When I came back to Holland and I didn't finish there, the photography department was not very inspiring at that time and they changed the whole program after, but decided to come back to New York. And of course I felt I really needed to shake this whole sort of art, you know, school experience and sort of. I was someone who always had a lot of self doubt. I still question what I do a lot. But over time I've learned to not let it, you know, not let it obstruct me or block me. But it was definitely at art school. I don't know, it was really good for me to come to New York and to kind of get out of my own head and get some work experience by assisting. So the first two years in New York I assisted different photographers. And there was a really good start. I found a place on the Bowery, shared it with a friend who actually still lives there, who has the lease now. We were subletting. So for two years I was sort of doing mostly editorial work for Dutch publications. It was very difficult to, you know, to really be noticed by American publications. And I worked with some Dutch writers. And because people were noticing my work in Holland, I was invited to be part of a photo festival in Holland in a show that also included Rineke Dijkstra. Ines van Lamsweerde. It was just before she worked with her partner Vino. So it's where Rineke showed her the beach series for the first time. And I wanted to make a new body of work, new series for that and where we get to Imperial Chorus. Because really with that project, I would say I found my voice as a photographer. I mean, before that I was doing all my work, 35 millimeter medium format. But I started working more and more from a tripod, like having these sort of quiet, sort of composed images. You know, that's. But so it was a kind of natural progression to kind of move to large format. But I had just done a story for a Dutch magazine. It was after the Rodney king uprising in 92 in Los Angeles. Yeah, in Los Angeles, after the four LAPD officers who were, you know, recorded beating up a motorist, Rodney King, so severely. And they went on and on. And I think a lot of people know about this, although the younger generations often have not seen the footage. But anyway, so the. When the non guilty verdict was read, uprising, riots, uprising erupted. And I did a piece for Dutch. More like a traditional, I would say somewhat traditional journalistic story. Like, I drove around, I went with a Dutch writer. We did different stories. We did also a story on Ima Sumac, the singer, and different stories. But the big story we did was about the rebuilding of South Central LA after the uprising. And specifically we met, you know, in the story we featured Black Carpenters association. And they were contractors and activists and they were protesting job sites where they felt, you know, there were only white contractors hired to rebuild. And they were sort of challenging that. And they were really wonderful guys and men. And I stayed a little bit in touch. You know, that was really, really impacted me seeing what happened in la and the way the media was sort of portraying South Central LA was very much like kind of mythologized in the media. Also the gang war between the Crips and the Bloods and, you know, the red and blue bandanas and the kind of the whole. I felt like, you know, I wanted to come back and kind of look behind the news. And initially I thought maybe just to make a series of portraits of gang members, but without sort of all the visual tropes that I managed to get a grant in Holland, which is, you know, it is a lot of support for. It's diminishing a little bit, but there is a lot of support, which is wonderful. I could not have done this project because. Because I was able to buy a 4x5 camera, spend a month in LA getting film, and making the first series in Imperial Courts. And before that, after the other story, I went back because I had to have contact there. I had to try to meet someone who could provide access to their community. And introduce me to people. And so through the Rodney from the Black Carpenters Association, I ended up. It's such a long story, so I'm going to do it, really try to. Whenever I talk about Imperial Courts, I can go on for hours. But I ended up meeting Tony Bogart, who was the leader of the P.J. watts Crips from Imperial Courts. And after a sort of. Well, a little bit of challenging courtship, you know, where he was sort of questioning my intentions and. And asked some very valid questions. The main one being like, what do we get out of this? You know, which I sort of was. Was difficult to answer clearly. But I. I said, I can only show you how I'm going to approach it, so. And maybe try to present a different image. But it's. It was very hard to explain, but I had rented a camera on that visit and I did a. A test shoot. He let me do a test, not with him, but with one of his guys that was going around with him. And they. So I did two different portraits and he kind of liked the mood of the portraits. And that was really the first time I started after art school, that I was working with the 4 by 5, but I really felt I needed. Yeah, that ultimately, you know, when I started the project, that was in March 93, when I made the first series. March, April, yeah, everything fell into place. It was the perfect tool, and it still is the per. Perfect tool for me. I still work with the same camera, same lens. It lends a kind of formality to the process you set up the camera. It's somewhat slow, even though I can sort of also work quite fast with it. Especially in the early days, it was kind of slow and it's very deliberate. You really have to work with someone. The person you're photographing, it's very clear what you're photographing. You're not sort of swinging a camera around and the people don't know what you're, you know, getting. And Tony didn't think that. So when I came back, you know, with the camera, rented a place for a month in the car, and I felt I had to win him over again because he felt a bit reluctant to bring me to Imperial Courts. He was living in a small house in Watts that was his mom's. He was living there with his girlfriend Becky. And Becky was very supportive of me. And she sort of nudged him and said, you know, you promised her. And to this day, I mean, she's become a really good friend. And I still see her. And it's been now what, 32 years. But my last publication, Polaroid 54, 59, 79, is of my test Polaroids. That was really a celebration of that medium day, the Pela part. When I did that first series in Imperial Court, it was such an important tool that the Polaroid 54 didn't have the negative, but it processed quite fast. And I would be able to shoot a test and immediately also leave something behind and give people an image or. I mean, I only have two Polaroids left from that first year because I would always give them away. And so slowly I started, you know, making, you know, I was making this portrait and this was during a time that the retrial of the four officers was going on and the city was worried there would be violence and riots again. And that didn't happen. But during that time when I was working on this, the media would come in buses, media buses would drive into the neighborhood, shoot an item, you know, the presenter sort of walking very dramatically towards the camera with a microphone in hand. And it portrayed the community in a sort of very pathetic way. You know, while the reality is. Yeah, the reality there is. There's a lot going on, there is violence, drama, but there's also a lot of community. There's also many days there's not much happening. I always feel like reality is at the same time, way less dramatic, but at the same time also there is a lot of, of course, undercurrents, but I could see by watching the news in the evening and see how the community got portrayed. I mean, it was. It was completely understandable that they mistrusted anyone with a camera, anyone white, anyone not, you know, the outsider. And I think by the approval I got from Tony and that I would come every day or every other day, I would bring the contacts back. And that sort of helped build the trust initially. And Tony was the last person I photographed. He let me do his portrait, portrait at the end of the period. And then he actually got killed in Imperial Courts by one of his own people less than a year later. So, you know, I never intended to do, you know, continue that project. It was sort of. I did this series in a sort of pivotal time for the community and that was it. But over time, because I would visit, I stay in touch, I brought back prints and. And someone else also got killed. Spider, who was very popular, loved in the community. And then the picture, the photos took on more weight, you know, of course, and more meaning for the community. And people were, you know, I think some people went to jail or other people, you know, Things started happening and people would ask me, are you gonna, you know, come back and do more pictures? But I sort of didn't want to, you know, do this sort of seven up kind of thing. You know, a few years later, the same person. I mean, we could get to that later because it took me 15 years to return and continue the project. But in the meantime, I did this series and this really. You were mentioning my editorial practice and that really, in America, started with Imperial Courts, because I showed after the show in Holland. I did the work in March. The show was in very quickly, like in June in Holland. I came back to New York and then someone told me, oh, there's this new magazine that's launched, or that they're launching. The first issue hadn't even come out yet. And that was Vibe. And my roommate knew someone who worked there. So I met up with this guy who was a fashion editor, and he called in George Pitts, who was a photo editor and became later a very dear friend. And, you know, I think for many people in the photography community, a mentor and inspiring person. And then the art director. And they all came in, the editor in chief, and they made me wait outside. And they, on the spot, I mean, decided that they asked. They said they really want to run a portfolio of this work. And, you know, before that, if I would drop off my portfolio, you had this drop of this. And magazines I had already tried. You pick it up the next day and they're like about 30 portfolios, 40 portfolios. You see them, you take yours back, and then when there's a note in it, like, great work, keep in touch, then you're really happy. But often there's nothing. So this was quite amazing, this very unexpected encounter that it was very much something that immediately they connected with this work. And then I said, yeah, honored. But I didn't, as I made it very clear I didn't want it to be presented in a journalistic context because I really felt that the sort of. I don't know, I feel very protective of the people I photograph. And I don't want. Ideally, I don't want to ever photograph someone as an illustration of something, you know, so to present it, you know, I didn't want a journalistic context. And then they had a brilliant solution and they had Nitazake Shange, the poet wrote this poem, People of Watts. And it became such. It was such a. Was a beautiful poem and it was such an elegant presentation. And that was really. Yeah, that was a sort of perfect. But then they also. That's when they also asked me to become a contributor or to do work with them. And my first feature story I did for them was a shoot with Tupac.
Shakur, which became very, very, very famous. And the images of Tupac that you shot are iconic, really to this day.
Yeah. And that's, it's so surreal. It's like quite incredible. Now I meet 15, 16 year olds and they look at me. They can't believe I made those photos. Also the ones the one of Biggie counting the money. So. Yeah, but of course I did not know that at the time. And actually I was doing. It was a cover shoot, but they did not end up using my portrait. It was used in the story. And they had another photographer at the shoot where Tupac was in straitjacket. And sort of, I guess they wanted a bit more like an image that sort of illustrated something. And that's not how I like to work.
Well, it's more sensational.
Yeah. And that sometimes works and that sometimes makes sense, but it's just not how I work. But I ultimately, I mean, with Vibe, I feel like I've been extremely fortunate that I really did. They gave me a platform and that there was a room for subtlety and that often we really saw, you know, from the shoot I did with Prince or also Al Green, who always is very, you know, when you sort of dive into bitch's life. He's a complex, complex guy. But he, he's always sort of comes across a bit happy. Go lucky, you know, dancing and singing. But the portrait that I felt was the most interesting portrait became the opener of the story where it's much more inward looking and introspective portraits. So I feel really. Yeah, I owe Vibe a lot. And I think someone like George, who was, I think, an exceptional. He was an artist himself, but a really amazing photo editor because he knew exactly, he knew what someone could bring to the table. And he would work also with Dave LaChapelle and you know, like very different voices, but he would think, like, what would make sense, who, you know, who should I, you know, connect with this match up photographer. And, you know, so they really gave me tremendous opportunity and that really started for me. I've always felt, I feel like you want to give your best when you do editorial work or any commissioned work. And I have to stay kind of true to myself and really close to myself. So I've always treated the editorial work also like personal work. You know, I saw it as personal work. I did very little advertising, so people often talk about It's a bit confusing. They say commercial practice. To me, editorial is not really commercial because I don't have anyone saying what I should do. I have a lot of freedom. And of course, sometimes there are collaborations where there's a bit more direction given. And if it would be too much or, you know, sometimes it would just be like, yeah, but. Yeah, then it would be more frustrating if it. Like, for me. But sometimes you do stuff and it doesn't work out so well because it's really. Yeah. If you have to sort of. Of fill in the blanks, that's not interesting for me. I also always wanted to also speak with the writer and to get a sense. It's always very. In America, very separate departments. You have the art department and then there's the editorial. You know, like the. It's often very separate, so there's not that much interaction. But I felt like ideally I worked separately from the writer, but it was nice to, you know, to hear what they know, if they've already done the interview or the other way around and kind of what. And ideally, the two things, you know, the shoot, the photos and the text complement each other. Let's say you're doing a portrait of a writer and the journalist is sort of describing the workroom. And it's not so interesting for me to photograph the writer in front on his dad, his desk in the work. You know, it's always about the portrait, about the person. For me.
Well, you've said many times that it's extremely important to you that all your work lives beyond the sort of original context, that it may be a story for whatever, but that it has a life, a rich life of its own, beyond its sort of original usage.
Yeah. Ideally that at least I make one portrait that I can pull out of that context. Because, of course, there were shoots where you do a whole series with someone, and sometimes it was at the surface of the publication, but as long as there was sort of one like my portrait of Whitney Houston, that's in my United States book, my first publication, it's an outtake from the album cover shoot I did with her. So that was a commercial shoot in the sense that, you know, there were parameters and, you know, like it's album cover, so it's also paid. Was paid very differently at that time. It was still very well paid. Later that completely collapsed. Like album covers, there's, you know, no money in it. But then it's still. I still feel like I want to be inspired and pull some. Like, for me, that the portrait that is in the United States book, really, for me, captured her maybe a bit more, her emotional state and which I find usually more beautiful. Like, you know, that's always the concept.
I want to talk about that. I want to get to that, how you draw that out of people. But before we get there, I just want to ask you about something you said. I have the Tupac and Biggie book that you did, and there's some text in it that's really fascinating, but I just want to talk a little bit about your process here. I didn't mind waiting for hours. I was very serious. Tupac came late to the shoot. I didn't mind waiting for hours. I was very serious, and I didn't let myself get distracted by all the noise surrounding Tupac and the entourage. He did show up with a lot of people. There were people hanging around the shoot as publicist and a stylist, but I was so focused on what I needed to get. I didn't waste a lot of time trying to be all friendly with the people. And this is. Is the interesting part to me, you then go on to say, I'm always happy when you can kind of win someone over by just being really professional and being really focused. I love that. Because, I mean, what you're. What you're saying indirectly is, or directly and indirectly is you're not going in to try and be best friends with everyone. But the part that's really interesting to me, it's that the sort of more active part of that, which is I do try and win them over by just being very professional and focused. So, I mean, I understand what you're saying, you know, but I think most people, in some ways, like, I read that, and it's like, really obvious, right? It's like, yeah, of course, but it's not obvious to a lot of people. So can you talk a bit about that, about that sort of attitude? Because I'm sure that they. It sounds like when you were in Imperial Courts, sort of the same sort of thing. It's like you just are patient, professional, you know, you know, you have good intentions. There's no conflict within yourself about what you're doing there. So I feel like all of this, plus the camera and what it means to use a large format camera, that takes a certain kind of patience. And as you say, you're not just inadvertently snapping away with a 35 millimeter where people don't have a sense of where they are in relation to the camera. Like, this whole picture that you put together feels like really the Dana Lixenberg method. And. Yeah, talk about it. Because I really think it's a great and valuable lesson for people who are listening.
I do feel a tremendous sense of responsibility when I photograph someone because I. I really feel that strongly like the position when someone is in front of the camera. I think you have to be really. How do you say that? Take that serious. And for me, it's very much about creating a sort of. Yeah, I mean, now we talk about the safe space. It's so overused remark, but it is a little bit. I'm trying to create a space where someone feels that they can let go a bit, that they can feel safe or feel comfortable. And it's not about that. They have to engage with me. I mean, especially when either you're very different people. Like, I come from a different world and someone I photograph. I mean, I've done shoots in other countries in the world where we don't even speak the same language. But it's really. I think for me, it's very much about opening all my sensors and being very present. It's always a struggle not to be present in your life, in your own life, in the moment. But when I'm shooting or when I'm photographing someone or working with someone, that cannot not be. So I'm always dreading it because it's very intense. Like, I'm always. Some people, they look forward to a shoot, and I'm always dreading it a bit because I. It's almost a bit like a sort of stage fright or you're building up to this moment. You don't know what you're going to encounter. I mean, I'm at heart a kind of, I would say, a documentary photographer. I'm not a celebrity photographer. I've had the chance to photograph many prominent figures in pop culture, and I've really enjoyed it because I enjoy pop culture and I enjoy, you know, music, books, film or whatever. And also what, you know, it says so much about society, who are our cultural icons and why. That's why the cutting, like with Tupac, for example, I mean, it was an industrial area. I found this location. I had to come up with location. The shoot was postponed one day because he had toothache. He had some dental work done. So we were there at one assistant, like in this no man's land on the edge somewhere in Atlanta. And there were so many people. And then I have to really. I'm not interested in being sort of part. That's why I also could not like, go on tour with someone and be documenting a tour or being in that sort of of traveling circus too much. So I can sort of step into it and then I completely give out. That's why I say I don't mind. The waiting is all part of it for me. It's all about like getting to that moment and then having the space to hopefully create an image that's worth their time, worth my time. And, you know, there are photographers who photograph a lot of hip hop artists because they're really in the scene and they are, you know, and that's also really valid because they maybe do the album covers. I never did hip hop album covers. Even though those pictures of Tupac and Biggie have now become very, you know, you see them sort of everywhere. They're referenced a lot. But at the time, those artists would not have put that on their album cover. But I wasn't sort of just like, you know, I made that book, the Tupac Biggie book. I decided to do after settling a really big court case, copyright infringement case, surrounding these images because they were used on a massive scale without my permission, which at some point I discovered. And then, you know, got an attorney involved and it was a fascinating. But we can easily fill an hour talking about that case. But to make a long story short, we settled that. And that's when I decided, you know, what, after most people have, over the years have engaged with these images through copies and copies of copies. And there's, you know, the counting money. There's a Bart Simpson counting money, even with the Trump hat on it. You'll see that in the book centerfold. If you pull it out, you see all those. This is a small selection of the images that I downloaded from Internet where people have posed as these. So I wanted to make a publication to kind of really go back to the source and do on the COVID like show the complete contact sheets from the shoots. And then also the book came out when I had a show at my gallery in Amsterdam. And the photos have been shown in quite a lot of places. And it's nice to see people's reaction to the work. Especially when it came to New York. It was really. The gallery also has a space in New York and they showed it and a lot of people came to the gallery who never go to art shows and who posing with the pictures. And it was really. I love it. And it was a really extension of Tupac portrait is sort of. You can see that in the style that it connects to Imperial Courts.
Well, that's what I was about to ask you about is the way you shoot, the way you connect with people. Your patience, your professionalism ultimately produces these incredible objects, if they're an object. But anyway, an image that is extremely formal and hits on those. That genre of formal aesthetics that you would see with, you know, August Sander or some of Arbus's work or, you know, like a Judith Joy Ross or. Tell me how you think about your own portraiture, which is what you are known for and what you seems to be your great passion, how you think about portraiture from an aesthetic perspective and what. What that lends or doesn't lend the portrait in terms of objectivity, subjectivity, and what a portrait means to you. It's a big question.
Yeah, that's definitely a big one. There's always something unresolved in my. Maybe a little bit unresolved. The thing is that it starts with a sense of. I think every photographer has a different way, that every voice is different. You project a lot of yourself onto the person you're photographing. You're looking for something that you connect with, or at least that's for me, it's like that and that I see. And I think it's really about seeing the person fully trying without necessarily fully understanding them or know what they're about or I don't need to know everything about them at all. But it's like I do prepare, like, of course, like when, especially with my own projects and you know, and especially when I photograph people for editorial assignments. I prep by reading about them, by listening, looking, whatever at the work. And then I let that go because at the end, it's for me, at that moment really about the person I encounter. But I think the sort of. What I love with the large form camera that each image then you almost can read like a story because there's so much texture and detail. So I'm really, you know, enjoy the way people hold their hands or skin texture or, you know, there are sometimes the decision I'm not so methodical. And when I photographed, that's the same when Imperial Court. When I continued the project 15 years later, the biggest challenge was for me was like, it's almost like, okay, but the fact that I made a beautiful portrait of, let's say Waltisha in 93, doesn't mean that 20 years later, the new portrait is just going to be as powerful. And it's for me, not enough that it's just. It is interesting to see the same person so many years later. But I try to approach it not thinking, okay, it has to have the same composition as, you know, 20 years ago. I treat it as a fresh, new portrait, you know.
Okay, that's interesting.
Yeah. And I also feel as soon as you've made the portrait and it becomes a print, it's somewhat separate from the. It's not the person anymore. And in that sense, it is. I do think it's a fiction. You try to. Try to. I find language really difficult to use in my words.
No, it's very difficult in this context. I feel like the best you can do is sort of honor and preserve your subject's dignity and some sense of truth, of emotion. And beyond that, what can you say? It's a moment in time. I mean, it's. How can it be more than what it is, which is just this brief moment? And to try and put too much on it is unfair and inconceivable. It's not possible. But I feel like. Yeah, go ahead.
No, that sometimes you don't learn even that much about the person. It also becomes an image. And sometimes there are situations, or with group portraits I've done, or a shoot I did once for New York Times Magazine about the Christian praying ministry in Florida. And one of those images. Two of those images were in my United States book, and one of them is going to be in the show in Paris. But in that sense, it's less about the individual portrait, but it's a tableau, and it almost looks very staged. But I'm staging what I find, and out there is always so fascinating. And I'm always interested in people, and I'm always very moved by people. And I have photographed people who have, in my eyes, pretty appalling views. But even then, I still try. Then it's. I find it important to come from a place of respect for that person. But maybe it's a little. Sometimes a little more challenging to be moved. But overall, I do feel. And it's. It's very. It's a sort of. Maybe a bit corny, but I do feel a lot of love and affection. Like, affection for when I'm. No, I've had people, and it's. Especially in the projects I've done, like Jeffersonville, which also, you know, series of portraits of homeless people in Jeffersonville, Indiana, that I did.
That's an extraordinary project.
Thank you so much. And I'm still in touch and I've still visited, but at the end, I always. You know, it's always a weird thing because you're presenting the work to the outside world, but at the same time, for me, it's also really important that the experience also for the person you're photographing, the encounter has to be meaningful or ideally. And it doesn't. Of course, it doesn't always happen, but there is some value in that. And even if it's not, you know, later the photo finds an audience and it's more removed for me from the person I photograph. But it's that the encounter that to me is ultimately. Yeah, it's so inspiring and beautiful. These meetings that I have, there are people. For example, a woman I photograph, Darla Rutier, she's on death row in Texas, and she recently popped up in a story in the New Yorker. I photographed her in the 90s, and she's been there all these years. And it's. It's. Yeah, I. You know, and I still remember so clearly being there and doing this shoot. Yeah, there's a lot you absorb. You know, there's photographers who've done projects where they really stay. They engage with the subject is stay in touch with that one person, and then you become also a little bit responsible for that person and you have to fulfill that promise or that expectation. And I try to be as consistent as I can and also to be honest, clear about what I can and can maintain. But in the case of Imperial Courts, it's for sure become a lifetime, a big relationship in my life with the community because I'm still making new work there and I'm still. It's the thought of not going there anymore, and that's. I can visit and without my camera for sure, but in time, that's kind of. It's a bit. My role now there or my position in community photographer. Well, yeah. And then when I'm with people and they on the phone with someone and say, I guess who I'm with. I'm here with the picture lady. The picture lady. And I was like, let me just.
Jump in and ask you about. First of all, I want to. There's two projects I want to just urge people to learn about, which we may not get to talk about in depth because there is a question I have for you. But I really do urge people to everyone who knows Imperial Courts to get out there and look at Jeffersonville, Indiana, the project you mentioned about homeless folks. It's really a beautiful, very moving project. And the other is the Last Days of Shesh Meref, which is really an incredible. I really love the book itself. I love the design of the book and the way the whole thing's put together. We haven't really talked about the fact that you are really a bookmaker. You have six or seven books out, and they're all quite extraordinary. But do you want to just briefly tell people about the Last Days of Shishmareff? And then I want to ask you a question, a larger question, about being a photographer. But tell folks about this project.
Yeah. The Last Days of Shishmarev came about with an invitation by a Dutch filmmaker, Jan Lauter, who was working on a documentary about the community of Shishmarev. And it's an island off the northwest coast of Alaska, and it sits on permafrost. And as a consequence of climate change, global warming, the permafrost is melting, the island is eroding, and houses have been. The island becomes narrower and narrower, and houses have dropped into the sea. They had to move. Some houses, they've built new seawalls. They really should move. At some point, they have to leave. Making them, actually, I guess, the first community in America that really will cease to exist because of.
And these are indigenous.
Yeah, it's Inuit community. Yeah. So it was a really great opportunity because there's no. It almost feels a bit. Even though I didn't go there on an assignment, but it was by invitation. But I started realizing that a lot of my projects take place in a very small geographical area. Geographical areas where I, you know, like, say, Ms. Shishmere. Now, Jeffersonville is in a small community, and I could have traveled around America to address this topic, but by just being in this really small area, you can sort of start peeling some layers and you start to see more. And on this island, it helped being introduced to the. Having the introductions to the people that were featured in the documentary. But I had my little. Like, in the winter, a little sled, and in the summer, a little cart that I was able to pull around and. And sort of just meet people and be in their homes. And it was a little bit. Well, I wouldn't say a departure, but a slightly different. I always feel like, oh, my God, should I not change more in my work? But because I'm very consistent that work that I did 25 years ago can match what I do now. But I do make decisions like, okay, how am I gonna. Like, you know, like, in the case of Jeffersonville, I. I didn't want to photograph people in the shelter or show that environment directly or so concretely, because I didn't want the people I photographed to be defined by these circumstances that are often temporary, and I don't feel they should be defined by that. And while in Shishmaref, people are so connected to their environment and the history of that land where they've been for over 2000 years.
Customs and traditions.
Yes. And they're losing a lot of that because they're also Americanized and there are definitely some issues, but there's very connected environments. So those portraits, I would say, have a bit more of, I don't know, a little more filmic or like more horizontal portraiture where I really feature the environment. Yes, there's more narrative in it. And also I did a lot of still life, which I started a little bit in Jeffersonville, where I started doing some landscapes. And then for this project, I definitely did a lot of still lifes and interior landscapes to accompany the portraits. But it was really intense because there was nothing to do in the island and not drinking, which is very healthy, but bingo. For entertainment. But you can kind of constantly working or moving around the island and meeting people. And it was two periods of three weeks, so really only six weeks. So that's a pretty short period.
Well, for you. Yeah, yeah.
I think you could do a lot of work, but yeah, no, and that's also. We didn't even talk about that. For me, was always an interesting thing about combining because, yes, my. I feel like my editorial practice has really helped hone my craft and I'm very interested in the subjects that I was exposed to through assignments. And I really got to know America really well through commissioned work and moving around the country and stepping into all these different communities and sort of meeting different people and that I also then bring to the projects I work on because. Because it's all sort of pieces of a puzzle. But what is nice with editorial work, sometimes you go out and you do the work and it gets published and it gets out there and you kind of got to move. And then for other projects where you can really take your time and sometimes work with open ended, like I did with Jeffersonville and when I started Imperial Courts again when I returned, I quickly realized this is not a one time. Okay, 15 years later, one month, I have to really open the project. And I also did video. Made a video installation for the first time. And she'll fill, you know, like that. It really expanded that project. And then Shishmarev was kind of in between. I mean, it was a lot of work, but it was a very compact period.
Yeah. I just want to point out for people to make clear what we sort of mentioned briefly, which I think is really important when we talk about narratives. In a lot of your other work, particularly Imperial Courts, there isn't a lot of context in the photograph. So you are always shooting people outside, and there aren't a lot of markers or clues for what their home life is like. And so there's that lack of information sort of lessens the narrative quality to the point where it. It basically isn't there. And in some of the pictures from Shishmaref, you might see someone preparing meat after an animal has been harvested in their home. And that's what we would refer to as a more narrative type photograph, because, first of all, you're in their home and you see them doing something, and it is a process, and you get a sense of what came before the photograph and what might be coming after the photograph. So that just want to be clear to people what we're talking about. I want to. Before we wind down, I want to talk to you a bit about something that I think about a lot. I'm sure you think about a lot more than me, but we haven't touched on it, which is, you know, we've sort of touched on what your obligation is to your subjects and what a collaboration looks like and what it means to be an honorable photographer where you have possibly a lot more power than the other person being the one who's got the camera. But I do want to just touch on why the work is so important, even if we struggle with that concept. And, you know, obviously many people have tackled this, maybe most famously Susan Sontag, but a lot of people, and it's something that we talk about a lot more now than we used to, this sort of power imbalance. But I want to talk about the gift of the work to the world and how you think about that, because as someone who is a viewer, I, of course, am always sensitive to whether or not the subjects seem like they were treated fairly well, whether they were collaborators or not. But I have to say that as someone who grew up looking at photographs from the time I was very young, for various reasons that had to do with my family life, I feel my life has been greatly improved and who I am as a person has been. I've benefited tremendously by all I've learned along these journeys of looking at work. And I would include Imperial Court right up there. Some of the most important work that's helped me open up my understanding of the way people live that may be different than the way I live and shared humanity. So how do you think about that, the viewer's experience, and what gift you might be offering to people?
I hope people that it's sort of Something touches them or that something resonates, but everybody will see something different.
Well, you leave room for that.
Oh, really? Well, that's. I appreciate hearing. That's nice to. To hear.
All right, well, Dana Vixenberg, thank you so much for spending time with me today. I so was looking forward to talking with you, and it's just been a total joy. So thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Sasha. I enjoyed it. It was painless. This is what good people always tell me. That's the biggest compliment I feel I could get from people when I ended the shoot and I said that was actually painless.
Yes, I feel that way too. When I. When people are. They're not sure they want to come on, and then they're like, huh, that was kind of fun. I'm like, oh, thank God.
Well, it is. It's a really treat when people take an interest in your work and think about it and happy to talk with.
You about your work anytime. I really am seeped in it and really love it and it's meant a lot to me, so. All right, well, until next time, get back to work on your shows you've got planned and we'll talk to you again. So thank you.
Thank you. Bye, Sasha.
Okay, bye.
Bye.
Photo work with Sasha Wolff is a production of the Photo Work Foundation. Executive producer is Sascha Wolff and the associate producer is Taylor Selsbach. The show is also produced and edited by me, Michael Chovendalt in a real photo show. Music is by J. Walter Hawks. If you like the show and wish to find out more about the foundation, please visit PhotoArch foundation and be sure to subscribe and review with all the stars on your listening platform.