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 work. 40 photographers on process and practice. Hello, everyone. I'm Sascha Wolf recording from Woodstock, New York, and joined as usual by my friend and producer who I've missed a lot. He's been rather jet setty. Mr.
I've been busy.
I said jet setty. I haven't gone anywhere. I have been busy, but I.
That's true, you've been busy in place, in situ.
Mr. Michael Chovindal, everyone. That's Michael Chovend Dalton. Hello, Michael.
Hi. Yes, I know it's been a minute since we've been able to see each other or have a nice long conversation.
Yeah. So. But you were just in Montana last year we went to Chico Revue together. And this year I stayed at my desk while you went west, young man. So how was it?
I did. It was lovely and beautiful and I hung out with all of our mutual friends and some really familiar, fantastic attendees. And so many people asked about you and for you. So it was really nice. Just really nice.
Well, I miss the gang, but just couldn't swing it this year. But I also miss you. And you too.
Yeah.
To our listeners, I guess we should sort of just explain and apologize for not being on air more. Yeah, we've had a really weird street. It's not for lack of trying, but.
Let me just say, as a producer, it's been a little frustrating.
Oh, yeah. You have a spreadsheet, an actual spreadsheet? I do.
I had to start a spreadsheet filled.
With way too many not nows and nos.
Yeah.
I guess just to explain to folks what's been going on. We've always, you know, sort of had it in mind, but particularly the past year, year and a half, we've really been trying to get sort of the older guard of the photography canon. That word is so annoying. But anyway, the elder states people. The elder states people on the podcast, we feel that that's a bit of a, you know, an area that it's not that we haven't always wanted to have the sort of foundational folks who are still with us on the show, but it's become sort of primary for us and we've been trying really hard. And as I guess we shouldn't have been as surprised as we are. But those folks who we're talking about it don't want to name names, but, you know, just imagine A lot of the folks who have paved the way for a lot of the people who we have been talking to, they are very. They're proving to be very difficult to get on the show.
I know. Either we're building up a bunch of recordings for later in the year, or. I don't know.
Yeah, either we're building. We're gonna be super busy later in the spring, or.
Yeah.
Or we're going to be very disappointed later in the spring. But folks keep putting us off.
We're all in this together, everyone.
And so we thought we had a lot of folks lined up who I think our listeners would have been really excited about, and then to a person, they all postponed. So I think people are really busy. I think some people are not that comfortable with the tech part of it and the way we record remotely, which is. Is confusing for folks. And you always have to give a lesson to people once you ship the recording equipment to them, et cetera. So, anyway, this is sort of long and boring, but just to say we've been trying, and the show may just be on sort of more sporadically over the next few months or continue to be on sporadically as we. We're going to persevere and keep trying. It's very important to both of us as we consider the podcast an archive that we're building. It's extremely important to us to have these people as part of that. And so I don't think either of us are ready to walk away from that just now. So just bear with us and hopefully it will pay off and you'll get to your conversations with some incredibly influential and important people.
Absolutely. And of course, we have one today.
We do. Yes. Today's episode is a conversation with the great Jamel Shabazz. And for me personally, it was truly an honor to speak with him. He is a very special person. What did you think, Michael?
Well, this is one of those conversations that goes beyond photography. It just goes beyond photography because Jamel is not only a photographer, but somebody who is actively engaged in the communities that he photographs. He's had one of the most interesting lives of all the guests we've had, for sure, on the show, and that has informed his work and his life. And it all sort of comes out in the episode, and it's just a different kind of conversation in that I wasn't thinking so much about photography that I was thinking about, you know, a really just beautiful life and someone who photographs that life. So that's what I was thinking about when I was listening to it.
Yeah, absolutely. I'm with you 100%. This was about a life beautifully lived, someone who there were many different paths open to them and the path that they chose and how it's slowly blossomed into something really incredible and extremely moving. There's a lot of emotional content in this episode.
Absolutely. Yep.
Anyway. Well, why don't we get to it, Michael? I don't think we have any announcements other than our long and rambling apology to our audience. So let's get to this episode. If you don't want to mind, please take it away.
My pleasure. And here is your conversation with Jamel Shabazz.
Jamel Shabazz, welcome to the Photo Work podcast. It's so wonderful to have you on. I've really been looking forward to talking with a fellow New Yorker and getting into it with you because you have one of the most amazing archives and have had just an incredible career documenting primarily New York black life. And you're just extremely important figure in, you know, what I think of as street photography and work about culture and respect for people and love and humanism and just. Oh, things I have just so much respect for. So, anyway, it's wonderful to have you on. Thank you so much. And please tell us about yourself, your journey, and how you became the great photographer that you are.
Sure. Well, first of all, thank you so much for extending this wonderful invitation for me to be on your show. I salute you for all of the great work that you are doing to elevate photographers. My journey began in 1960. I'm proud to say I'm a product of the 1960s. I was born and raised in Red Hook section of Brooklyn. I was fortunate to have a father who was a professional photographer who served in the United States Navy back in the 1950s. He was a photographer on the USS Intrepid, which is a museum now.
Yeah. Amazing. Incredible.
Yeah. So that was a joy to grow up with him. And my mother was a nurse. And my photography career started really, at a young age, before I physically even picked up the camera. You know, it was through the family photo albums that really introduced me to the beauty of photography. My father had them on the coffee table, along with his vast library of photography books. And what made the photo albums so special was the fact that I knew the people in the albums for the most part. You know, my grandfather or his brothers, they had served in World War II. And I was fascinated as a young child with these photo albums. And I remember watching my father put these albums together, you know, very meticulous, you know, he would have his jazz on, and he would sit at our dinner table organizing these albums. So at a very young age, I saw the value of photography. And then I had an uncle who was also in the Navy, and he used to do slideshows all the time. You know, he was constantly taking photographs. And during family gatherings, he would get all of the children together and show these incredible slides of his journey, but also the family itself. So at that very young age, I was introduced to photography. And then my father, he used to always come home for the photography magazines and books, and most of my peers were reading comic books, but I was looking at these photography books, and for me, they allowed me to time travel outside of my community and see the world outside my neighborhood. And it just blew me away. And one of the books that really captivated me at a young age was a book by Leonard Freed called Black and White America. And what made this book unique to me, it was signed, and unlike the other books, they weren't. And this book sat prominently on our coffee table next to the family photo albums. And as a young child, about eight years old, I would find myself looking at the photographs. And then as time progressed, I got the dictionary and I sat down with a notepad, and I would start dissecting words that I was not familiar with, unbeknownst to our family at the time.
I chuckled because it's really amazing. First of all, it's an amazing way of, you know, learning vocabulary. But this is so formative. Like, it's so clear how this etched itself into your DNA. It's really amazing.
It's an amazing journey, you know, because that one book would just change my life, you know, so here I am, eight, nine years old, looking at it, and now it seemed like the book was tailor made for me because it was dealing with, you know. You know, I think about the young, iconic photograph that Lennon took of Muscle Boy. That represented me coming of age. And this book introduced me to communities outside of my community. You know, I'm seeing Harlem for the very first time in images. I'm seeing the south for the first time. And I was so moved behind this book, it inspired me to start going to the library more. And I remember going vividly. And I would get stacks of National Geographic and put them on the table next to Life magazine because the war in Vietnam is now going on. And I had a lot of questions that weren't being answered in school. So I found in these publications, I was learning about different countries and places and conflicts in addition to beauty and Life. And I became fascinated with the library. And I would stay there. And when I read all of the Time magazines, the Life magazines, the look magazines, I started to venture into the foreign publications that were in our library, like German Spiegel and French Match. And those publications further enhanced my awareness of what was going on in the world, particularly in Vietnam, so that love was always there. As I elevated, the library became a safe haven for me throughout my life. And I always had an appreciation for photography at that young age. It wasn't until I was about 15 years old that I picked up my first camera. And, you know, my father had his Nikons that we didn't touch. You know, he had all the equipment and he would convert our little tiny apartment into a studio and he would photograph the neighbors on the holidays. I watched him set up the lights and I was fascinated behind that. But it didn't. It seemed complicated looking at the light meters and the numbers, the average and all that. So I looked at my mother's Kodak Instamatic camera she had lying around, the 126 to 110. I started to take those cameras to school and play around with it. And having looked at so many images, when I started to photograph my peers, I understood composition. And I was able to really compose images at a very young age, at like 15 years old. I remember back in the days, I would partner with one of my good friends, and after the film was processed, was done, we would take it to the local drugstore and we would put it in the shop for developing. And when it came out, I was fascinated with what I was able to do, that first roll of film. And it immediately allowed me to see through my third eye and look at life from a whole nother perspective and see beauty in life around me. And from that stage, I started carrying that camera everywhere. I went to school and just photographing my friends. And it gave me purpose. You know, I was the only photographer. All of my peers, for the most part, embraced graffiti, and I wasn't good at that. So photography gave me a greater voice and it allowed me to speak to people and tell them how beautiful they were. And that stayed with me for a couple years until, you know, my parents divorced and I ran out of money and I had to find a way to survive. So I enlisted in the military at the age of 17 and I was stationed in Germany. As time would progress and I took a slight pause on my photography, I redirected my energy towards music. But while in Germany, I continued to go to the Library and research constantly. Photography books. And I vowed that when I returned back to the States, I would never be without memories. So when I returned back to America during the summer 1980, I now have a Canon AE1 with a 50 millimeter lens and a 28 wide angle. And now my father, I'm living with him now and an adversary who became a friend gave me an enlarger. And now my father converted our laundry room into a dark room. And he started to teach me the wonderful graphic photography. Instructed me to read the entire time Life Photography section. From great things to fine art photography photographers. I had to read the whole entire collection. And then he. He gave me back Black and White America by Leonard Freed and said, this is photography. Then he introduced me to Tri X film. And he sent me on assignments where he would tell me to go around the neighborhood and doctor document the neighborhood. Mainly the structures, cars, buildings and things of that nature. And I found it kind of boring at that time and I decided to do my own thing. I respected what he said and I did it. But I was now drawn towards young people within the community because I came home to a war zone and a lot of young men were dying at the hands of other young men. And I got word when I was in Germany that they were passing away. So I came home and I wanted to know more about that. So I would take my camera to the local high school that I went to and I would start photographing young people. But more importantly, before I photographed them, I engaged them in conversation. I explained to them who I was. Some of them knew me because they were like representing. They were my friends, little brothers and sisters. And I started talking about life and choices and the need to love and respect one another. And then I would photograph them as almost like a visual diary to have memory of them. And I would make copies of the photographs. I would develop the prints and give them copies. And it built friendships. And then I started taking this journey throughout my community, you know, because I wanted to just find out what was going on. And I would photograph friends and enemies. And it gave me a name amongst young people because I didn't want anything in return. Only thing I wanted in return for them to do the right thing, to go to school and just prepare for your future and give back and teach the younger ones. And I became an instant success and big brother. And one of the things my father gave me to stay with me was he said, carry your camera everywhere you go. I don't want to see a cap on it. I want it to be set at 125th of a second, 5.6, give or take. And I want you to master light. And he used to just drill me on light conditions, you know, without a light meter, like, how would you shoot this? And it stayed in my head. And then he taught me about the importance of having themes. So I went out every day. You know, when I first came home, I was pretty much free for about two years. So I had two years to kind of, like, wander the streets of New York and just photograph things that interest me. And then I would bring the photographs home after they would develop, and then my father would critique them. And that pretty much started my journey in terms of my career. What's so amazing about that one book, Black and White America? I never got a chance to meet Leonard Fried and tell him how that book really impacted my life. But I would develop a relationship with his wife, Bridget, and we had really good friends. While I've gone to his home, she had a chance to tell me that she did all the printing for him, and she broke down his history. And it moved her because in all of my interviews, I spoke about the impact that that one book had on my life, and I believe that it caused the book to be republished again. I inspired so many people to read it, because I always spoke about how that one book served as a roadmap that put me on the path that I'm on right now. And the camera was accomplished. The book was the roadmap. And it led me to this path that here I am, friends with this woman after all of these years and been to the home on so many occasions. And I owe so much to both Leonard Frieda and my father for building this foundation for me, which I stand on to today. And during the course of my journey, I've had a chance to travel extensively around the globe, showcasing my work. There was this personal work. I wasn't trying to really be a photographer. I just wanted to have a visual diary of my life. I never wanted to be without memory. I must go back and speak about my career, too, because I became a correctional officer in 1983 to supplement my income. And that was an assignment that was very necessary. And photography became my therapy. That helped me deal with Those very difficult 20 years of my career. And I've been retired now for 22 years. And in the process of my journey, I've been able to produce 12 books of my life.
Tell me who else? I mean, I have so many questions just from that introduction, but tell me who else after Leonard Freed was instrumental. Do you think of as being really foundational for the way you photograph or even. Even work that you really loved, that didn't translate into your own language, but somehow was just very, very important for you in thinking about photography?
That's a great question. And one of the very first photography books that I picked up was Heart to Darkness by Don McCullen. And that really blew me away in terms of just war photography. And it had great admiration for those men and women that put themselves in harm's way to document the horrors of war. And that was my very first book that really introduced me to the power of photography and photographers. And then I would go on to learn about Philip Jones, Griffin Tim Page, Eve Arnold, James Vanity, Gordon Parks, you know, but they were some of the main ones. But it was the war photographers, even Robert Capa, going back early on, because my father was a big World War II buffalo, so he had a vast library of that war. And I remember the images that Robin Capa took on D Day. So I was really fascinated behind that. And really war, any war photographer, it really grabbed my eye. But those are some of the main ones that really captivated me early on. Today, it's Steve McCurry, James Natchway. Those are two of the main ones that inspired me today. Living artists who I had a chance to meet and learn from.
Tell me about the decision, whether it was conscious or unconscious. I'm just really curious about the decision to engage with your subjects. Always, as a rule, for the most part. I think there are some exceptions. But rather than being a classic sort of run and gun street photographer, it was curiosity.
I had a lot of questions, you know, and I had themes that I developed for different situations and I needed to find. And I believed again that the camera was a compass that led me to people that I felt I was meant to meet. So in everyone I met, I felt it was meant to be. So we had conversations. When I first came home from the military, one of the first self assignments that I gave myself was the Vietnam veteran. I wanted to know about the war, the draft, and what it was like to be in combat or just go to Vietnam. So that really started the process. You know, I was really curious. I used to roll with my tape recorder in a lot of situations and just interview people first because I had a lot of answers. Being a veteran myself, they were always open to engage me in conversation.
Yeah, of course.
You know, and I think about the song Marvin Gaye did called what's Going? What's Happening Brother? That Was pretty much my life, you know, because when I came home, I wanted to know what was happening. So I had a lot of questions, and that allowed me to engage people. And then the photograph became evidence of the conversation. But it was about respect at the same time. I just didn't want to take a photograph of a person. I wanted to let you know that your soul was more important, to meet an image. I want to know why we met on this path. And then after, we would be involved in conversations, and I would. I would take your photograph and build the relationship. So that was very vital for me to build relationships with the people which I photograph. And it amazed me that that was the process in which I implemented back then and now look at all the friendships that I made taking pictures over 30, 40 years ago in doing that. Even in my documentation of prostitutes, when I first started doing it, matter of fact, it was all about. It was always about conversation. I want to introduce myself to you and let you know my intentions. You know, I showed you my business card and let you know I was curious. And the work I'm doing is to help other people. So with the prostitutes that I would speak to, it was about using their voice and their images to take to the high schools and share them with young women about the dangers of prostitution. And despite the world in which they were living in, they were always open to speak to me because they knew that they were on a negative path. But they wanted to get balanced. And by engaging me in conversation, allowing me to photograph them, they knew they were making a difference. The same with the pimps. So I found the conversations interesting because when I was traveling back then, as I think about it, my professor always told me to keep a journal. So as I documented, I had a moment of pause. I would sit in the park or at the train, and I would write about my experiences that I had with people. And I felt that those conversations. I believed in angels. And I felt that certain people I met were there to give me enlightenment, to help guide me along the path. And they did.
What was it like? And I know that this is more recent, although I don't know exactly, sort of if you can point to an exact time. But what was it like moving from having photography be a part of your life, an extremely important part, obviously your great passion, your great love. But you have another job, as you said, to getting to the point where you actually could just photograph. You're shooting on assignment. You're being hired to shoot for whatever it is, whether it's fashion or you Know, editorial or whatnot. But what is it like for you when you know that you realize that's starting to happen? I mean, I'm asking you this because I think it's so important for people to hear you talk about maintaining this incredible passion and love and not just that discipline and this incredibly rigorous practice while you are a corrections officer. I mean, I talk to young artists all the time who think that they're going to get out of school and somehow make a living as an artist. The bubble I'm constantly bursting, you know, because it's so unlikely, you know, also trying to explain to them that it's okay to have another job, and it's very difficult to make a living as an artist, but maybe it will come in time, but to keep working at your craft and. But I'm curious for you, you know, when you start to be able to transition financially and the way you've structured your life into actually work, being a working photographer in the financial sense.
That's a great question. The idea came to me in 2000. I had three years left before I was about to retire, and I vowed that I would never work for anybody again in life. You know, this 20 that I did in corrections in my time in the military was enough. And I believed that I had a gift in photography. I spent a lot of time going to galleries when I worked in lower Manhattan. I would go to galleries in soho. Often I would go to Roselli Bookstore and study books. And I really felt that I can do this. And I knew that the gallery world was the world that I needed to kind of like get into, because I looked at work on the walls and I said, I might have something here. So in 2000, I developed a really comprehensive plan to kind of like, allow me economic freedom. And I started to go to different publications. You know, Source magazine, Vibe magazine, Trace magazine. I introduced my work. One of the first things I matter of fact, I did that. And to my surprise, they all welcomed my work and they started to give me free features. And then I realized that there's an audience for what I'm creating. And I came up with another plan in 2001, and that was to take my vision to a publisher. And at that time, I learned about a small publishing house called Powerhouse. And I said, let's take a chance and see where this goes. So I went on my lunch break. I was still in uniform, and I went with a bunch of laser copy prints, no appointment, knocked on the door. They seemed to be taken aback by my presence, but I was Called in by Craig Cohen, and he looked at my work, and to my shock, he says, this is what we've been looking for. He says, we'll do your book and it'll be out next year. And I was, like, shocked, you know what I mean? I was like, wow, this is pretty easy. So, sure enough, approximately a year, September, right, September 2001, back in the days, dropped, and it became an instant best seller. And I was stunned because there was no Photoshop, there was no color correction. I dismantled a series of photo albums that I had. I put them together and I sat with Craig and we did an edit and we produced a book. And it sold out in like, the first edition sold out in two months, and the second edition sold out in two weeks. And at that point, I had two more years left on the job. Matter of fact, my career picked up at that point. To my shock, immediately, galleries are calling me, companies are calling me around the country and the world wanting me to showcase my work. And it was a very interesting time for me because I had survived 9, 11. I was dealing with trauma from both that and my time in corrections. And now immediately, I'm being asked to do interviews and speak about my work and exhibit my work almost immediately. And that was a shock for me because I had no mentorship to help me get through this very difficult time. I was still traumatized, I'm trying to figure out, But I did it, and I weaned it to the very best of my ability. And that's when I realized that I can do this. So now it's about 2002. I retired the summer 2003, and I've. I've said I can do this here. I had. I had so many opportunities. It kept me going for a number of years. So I realized that I can do this. I have a pension coming to me now. I have health benefits. I have time on my hands. Let me give it a shot and make this happen to the best of my ability. It was trial and error because, like I said, it was all new to me, but I made it right, you know, so that was that. That was at the point that I realized that I can do this officially when I retired.
It's really incredible and, you know, such a wonderful example of, you know, what can happen if you just stay dedicated. And it can take a while. We all know it's can take a really long time, but great things can happen at any point. I mean, give a million examples of people who have sort of burst onto the scene after toiling away for a very, very long time. So I also think that people are really drawn to people who have shown that dedication, you know, that says so much about a person and their devotion to the practice of whatever their art is. You know, nothing shows more dedication than someone working their butt off when they're not being compensated for it. Right. Either financially or with pats on the back, you know, so well, things really picked up for you. I know. In 2018, you were the recipient of the Gordon Parks Award for Excellence in the Arts and Humanitarianism, which is amazing. Congratulations.
Thank you so much.
The 2022 Award Awardee of the Gordon Parks Foundation Steidel Book Prize. And you published a really beautif book with Steidel, which is really an incredible. I don't even know how to describe it. It's so dense and so beautiful and so all sort of consuming. When you open it up, it just really brings you in. This book, the albums. Can you tell us about that book and working with Steidl and what that sort of recognition around that time must have been like?
That was truly one of the highlights of my career because I have never really been awarded anything in photography. So, you know, I learned about the Gordon park foundation many years ago, and I supported it and I believed in the vision, you know, so when I received that award, it just really moved me that I'm being recognized for my many years of hard work and dedication. And then I connected with Peter Conhart and my good friend Mikhail, who designed the book. And they want, you know, for me, I wanted a traditional black and a traditional photography book. Something I always dreamed about, that coffee table book. But when Mikhail came out of my house and she noticed in a lot of my photos, when I told her that I used to carry a photo album around with me for, like, 30 years, and that was like the magnet that drew people to my work. I always had a series of albums with different themes that fascinated her. And then she started to see photographs I took of people looking at my albums. And then when she came out of my home and then she saw my vast collection of traditional photo albums, it blew her away. And she says, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do. We're gonna put your album together. And I thought that was a great idea. When I started to analyze it and the range of the work, and that's when the idea was born. And, you know, it really blew me away because it allowed me to revisit the albums that I carried around and why. And just the sequencing. Cause I learned that from my father too. Cause again, back in the old days, I would watch him put these albums together and it meant a lot. You know, poking up the horizontals, the colors, having a flow, you know, having them design seasonal. So that was passed on to me. And so I thought it was a really great idea to just put these albums and just show the world what the process was like. You know, back in the days. It's interesting, I never really went to a professional lab being I worked in Chinatown, I would go to a one hour photo and get the work done. And I was pretty happy with that. You know, back in the early days, I didn't use professional film. So to me the images is all right. It was suitable for me and for people that I view. But I kind of felt it wasn't my best work. But nevertheless, I thought it was a really important story to be told, to show the viewer the range of my work in my eye as just a young photographer and the people I met. For me, what was interesting about it was the people in the photographs because it was a visual diary and in most cases, people looking at the camera and it was a conversation. So it kind of like took me back, you know, to revisit, you know, my experience and all the people I met throughout my. Not even all, just a small portion really representing those albums. So that, that was the process and that's the impact that it had on me. And it means a lot to so many people I photographed over the years. You know, I look at my work as frozen moments in time. And now so many people have access to these albums and they able to share the experience with me, see themselves and see their loved ones, because that's what it's really about. I have the work here, but it's about getting it out to the people at an affordable cost. So by doing various books and that book in particular, I'm able to share this work, you know, with my community and people I photographed over the many years.
You said something in there, and I'm not sure if I'm getting it right exactly, but you said something like, it may not be my best work, but. And how do you think about. Because you have published 12 books and I've got the book A Time Before Crack sitting here right on my lap. I have many of your other books spread out in front of me, but I'm holding on to A Time Before Crack, which is really extraordinary and I want to, I want to talk about that. But how do you think about your various projects and what Your best work is. What do you think your best work is like when you say that, what do you. What are you thinking? I know it's tricky for you because the relationship with the people and how not just your relationship with them, but affording them their. The respect they deserve. Dignity, camaraderie, community, kindness is all obviously paramount to you, just as important as making a picture. And so those two things, you know, have to operate and stay in balance, which is really incredibly moving to me. And I'm filled with, you know, respect and really deep admiration for that and understand why you won the Gordon Parks Award for excellence in the arts and humanitarianism. But how do you think about what your best work is?
I think in terms of really the quality, in terms of the printing aspect of it, you know, the color enhancement and just really fine tuning, you know, because again, I use inexpensive film that sat in the sun. So, you know, the subject matter relates to me definitely, but the quality could be a lot better. So when I look at the work I'm doing today, going to professional labs and getting things color corrected, it has that oomph. Now. It pops at you, right? And that means a lot to me because the developing aspect is very important. And with those machine shots that were done in the one nano photo, you know, it creates the images. But I know that it could be so much better. And that's being done right now in a lot of my newer projects where I have the opportunity to get work, you know, to get these negatives scanned and color corrected. And now you really see those images look kind of like pop at you. So same subject matter, same photographs, but just color corrected. Where. Where you could just see the real deep quality of those images. That's pretty much what I mean by that. Just quality.
Okay. You're not talking about composition?
No, not composition. I think the composition. You know, a lot of that, really, with the albums in particular, those are pretty much snapshots. I have other bodies of work that has not really been shown before, and that's a lot of my traditional street and documentary work that's not really featured in the book. And I think that will shock people as time goes on, because I'm really determined to kind of like, share that work too, because a lot of my traditional work has been shown, and it has become a signature style. And I'm happy with it because it means a lot to me. But it's been shown a lot, and I love it. It's very personal. But there's other aspects of my work that I haven't shown as of yet, like my veterans, my time on Rikers island, and even some of my international travel, which I would like to share as well. So it's all very relevant to me and close to my heart. But I'm really eager now to show more the work I've been doing. Now, one thing about albums that is very interesting, it represents the early stages of my career. So the majority of photographs in there, I was in my early 20s, and it was throughout the 1980s, but I've done so much work. I've elevated in the 1990s, you know, I did more traditional black and white work. I had a better camera. And you can see the distinct difference between the work I did in the 80s and 90s. Again, it's all relevant, but my eye began to be more sharpened and you can see the elevation, you know, of my, you know, my growth over. Over the decades. And that's important for me to show as well, because, again, I'm pigeonholed right now with just that body of work. And there's so much more that I've done, and I'm really determined to now more than ever to get that work out. And this year is important to me because it's my 50th anniversary, and I have two major books coming out on two different subject matters that are very unique. One is called Drama and Flavor, and it's based off urban and traditional fashion that's being published by Powerhouse. And I'm really excited behind that work because it takes you back into the 80s, but it also brings you into my most current work. And then I've been documenting Prospect park for over 40 years. And that body of work is extremely important to me because that became the place that my father directed me to go to learn photography, and it was a very special place for me. So within Prospect park, there's portraits, there's fine art, there's environmental portraits, a little bit of everything. There's a mix, and it's diversity. You know, what's important to me with that work is the diversity. It's my most diverse body of work ever. And it goes back into the early stages of my development when I was shooting, shooting and developing black and white film. So I'm happy with that book. And I think it's going to surprise people who are accustomed to looking at my traditional street portraits. And what's interesting about the early parts of that book, the eighties, is that when I look at the contact sheets, you see pictures at the high school with the kids and on the train. But there's also images of Prospect park of, like, scenic shots, you know, that no one would expect from me. So I'm really excited would have an opportunity to present that work. Because I have so many different bodies of work. I stay with themes. I have thousands upon thousands of images of the subway system have not been shown before. So I really want to kind of, like, get out of the pigeonhole and introduce other bodies of work that represents, you know, my greater eye.
And do you have a publisher yet for the Prospect park book?
Yes. Prestel reached out to me last year, to my surprise.
Oh, great.
And they asked me, what are you working on? I mean, it came out of the blue. It's like, you know, I was already working on Drama and flavor with Powerhouse, and they approached me and said, you know, you know, we're very interested in publishing one of your book ideas. So I had a number of them on the table that I could have presented. But I started to think about Prospect park, and what was important about that park for me was the diversity of the people that I was able to capture, because I'm best known for shooting communities of color. But within the Prospect park book, it's a wide range. And I said, I want to do that book. And to my surprise, they agreed. And we just finished the final edit, and that book will be released in the fall of this year. So I'm really happy.
Oh, that's so exciting. They do beautiful books. So that's. Congratulations. It's really wonderful.
Thank you.
So, going back to the book, A Time Before Crack, one thing that just sort of strikes me immediately, every time I pick that book up is the title. Tell me about the title being so exact, you know, being so sort of almost like, didactic in a way. Like, just. This is what it is. It's not lyrical. It's not poetic. It's not. By the way, this isn't a criticism. I'm just truly curious. Like, it's like you want to make sure that you know what you were thinking about. And this. The concept, the subject matter is not lost on anyone. And tell me about the importance of that.
Yes. That title came about from working in a jail, and I witnessed so much hardship and pain and misery because I became a correctional officer during two epidemics, the AIDS epidemic and the crack epidemic. And I was a witness. I was there. I saw the devastation, the impact, you know, the mass incarceration, the war on drugs. I was there. I worked in one of the worst facilities on Rikers Island. And in my mind, I was always Saying there was a time before all of this, it was a different time. You know, when I grew up in Red Hook, we all had parents. You know, most of our fathers were veterans. There was community, there was a sense of love. The music was positive and inspiring. And I wanted to address that because those young people come in and those didn't understand that history, but thought that this is how it was. And I want to remind people that it was different. And then I looked at the idea of the title as being a form of visual medicine because so many people in the books fell victim to the epidemic, both selling or using. And I was witnessing people being incarcerated and going upstate for 20, 30 years. And even with some of the young women and young men and women alike, they were once going to school and productive and had goals and aspirations. They fell victim to drugs, and I caught them at their best. So the book became a mirror to how they used to be. So I would bring the images into the jail, and it would spark up a lot of conversation, and people would say, yeah, that's so and so. And they used to look how they look, now look how they look in the picture. But they fell victim to drug, and you should see what she looks like now. So it was a conversation piece, and I want to remind people of the crack epidemic and what it did. Initially, the idea for the book was strictly old school, and it was like a part 2 to back in the days. And it's like, that wasn't good enough for me. I wanted to get away from the fashion and the posing and all that. I wanted to create a title that was profound, that made people think, you know what I mean, and reflect and. And that was it. And initially Powerhouse, kind of like they didn't really care for the idea. But I said, no, I'm standing firm on my. On my square about this one here. And it has to be a time before crack, you know, and so the only. Only problem with it was my writing. You know, I doubted my ability to really get deep into it. And that's the missing element. My personal story of crack and why I put the book out. That was the only part really missing out of the book, but the images for those that know it speaks. Because every photograph was strategically put in that book for a reason, to make people think. A lot of people have died, a lot of incarcerated. Some people have changed their lives over. I wanted to bring the conversation back. And even to this day, when we look at what's going on in the community today, you know, crack changed everything. And One of the things that I wrote is that the impact of crack is going to last us for a lifetime. And I'm witnessing that today because it broke up the family. You know, a lot of kids went into foster care, kids that were born with crack in this system, you know, women that. Men and women alike that were psychologically traumatized behind using the drugs. I want to bring that conversation up and that. That's. That one book has done that. And again, it serves as a form of visual medicine to help people because a lot of former crack addicts came forward and told me that was me. And now, you know, due to social media, they are confined to me and telling me what the photographs meant to me and what happened shortly after. I took the pictures, to my surprise, because I might look at a beautiful photograph of a couple, a husband, his wife, and young child. And then just recently, a young lady reached out to me and said, that's my husband. And a couple years later, we both fell victim to crack, and he eventually got murdered. And I went through my struggle, but my daughter went on to do well for herself. So I'm getting a lot of backstories behind the photographs.
Yeah, that's incredible.
And it's helping people. Even kids are reaching out to me, saying, you have a picture of my father that died. And it means a lot to them, you know, to see photographs. Of course, some people lost hope with maybe a relative that fell victim to crack and they disowned them. But now, in looking at a photograph where your father is clean and he's at the prime of his life, but crack changed him. It helps to give the child but the family member a better understanding of who this person was before they fell victim to that world.
Well, I would also add that, you know, we think of the crack epidemic and that time I was in New York City then, so I remember it quite well. We think of it as sort of in these, like, general terms, where it almost has the effect of, you know, depersonalizing it to the point where there weren't individual people. It was a thing. It was like a monster. And what's so wonderful about the book is, you know, it says, hold on a second. These are actual people, individual people, and take a second or more and really connect with the communities and the people who make up the communities that were affected by it. And I think that it's really valuable, and it's a really beautiful book. I mean, I really love it.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
It's filled with really poetic imagery, and so it Was very moving experience to spend time with it. So thank you.
You're so welcome.
So tell me about working with kids. That's something else I'm really interested in. You've done a lot of work at the Studio Museum and Schomburg and Bronx Museum with young people. Tell me a bit about that.
That's important to me because it takes me back to my life and what I was going through at the same age in which a lot of those kids were going through. And I think about the impact that divorce has on an individual. You know, again, I had a father, photographer, mother. We moved from Red Hook into a house and we were on the rise, you know, middle class community, the whole nine. And then all of a sudden my parents are getting a divorce. And it was a very traumatic situation because my father like threw us out the house. And we went from having our home, our own room, to now living in some very harsh conditions. And none of the aunts and uncles at that time understood the importance of speaking to these kids and explaining divorce, you know, to us. So there was a lot of trauma and I kind of like fell off at that point. You know, I once went to privacy school, you know, Catholic school, when I was excelling. And then all of a sudden with the divorce, you know, I'm in public school and I'm losing my interest in school because I don't have money to go to school, I don't have money to buy film for my camera. And I'm going through struggle. And the way I'm balancing out my pain is through alcohol, like a lot of my peers. What was very interesting about that time is that practically all of my friends, parents were going through the divorce. I don't know what it was, you know, but all of my peers, they were dealing with that, that situation. And no one got treated for it. So when I think about what I was going through at that stage, I needed direction and guidance. And thankfully there was a young guy who went through the same thing that kind of like pulled me under the wing and saved me and redirected me to the library and, and helped me to build my character and get some type of guidance. And I was thankful for that. And he said, only thing I want you to do in return is do it to the next person. Because, matter of fact, a few years earlier his father had died, so he was able to kind of like save me and point me on the path. And then I realized that a lot of kids are going through it. I thought about when I came home from the Army. The amount of kids that a lot of my friends, that their little brothers got murdered and nobody got treated for it. All right, your little brother gets murdered and that's it, you move on with your life. What I start to find out that a lot of my peers, they were falling victim to alcohol and drug addiction as a form of self medication to cope with the death of their young brother, you know, and nobody, there was no psychiatrist on deck to help these kids. So I took it upon myself to be that voice to try to help kids. Because when I saw kids, I saw me, I saw suffering. I didn't want them to suffer like me. So from the time I came home from the military, I brought a lot of kids into my home. I learned how to play chess in the military. And I looked at chess as this game of life that kids need to understand, to navigate. Because when I learned how to play it in the military, it changed my life. It helped me to understand purpose and sacrifice and challenges. So I started to teach chess to kids. And I told them that I'm teaching you both the physical game, but I want you to understand the mental game too. How to make the right decisions, you know, and have purpose. So I just, I just took it upon myself because I wanted to make a difference in my community. I felt if I didn't take time to talk to these kids, they might roll on me one day because they have a. They don't have respect for elders, you know. So I became a big brother to the kids in my neighborhood. Everywhere I went, I became the big brother. And people referred to me out either as big brother or uncle. And I look at that as an honor even to this very day.
Yeah, of course.
So I wanted to go into. So. So when the institutions reached out to me, the first one, you know, when I first retired, which is very difficult, I was asked by Rush Philanthropic Arts foundation to teach at a school called the Friends of the Island Academy. And these were kids, which was a great honor for me because these were kids in the middle of incarceration. They were given alternative deal with this program or go to jail. So for the first three years, I dealt with that very effectively. And I fell in love with these kids here because I realized that these were the children of cracking AIDS epidemic. And to my surprise, you know, my conversation with these kids, like one kid used to always see me in the street and he would cry, he would say, why did she leave me? And his mother just left him, left him and his daughter, his sister in a building and left him so.
Yeah, so, yeah, it's. It's. It's unbelievably painful. And, you know, you are. You know, you spent a lifetime absorbing other people's pain in many, many instances. And that is really. I mean, this is both the blessing and the curse of being extremely. Which is an understatement, but extremely empathetic. And, you know, the ability to place yourself in other people's shoes is you can go to sleep at night, obviously, knowing that you've done your best to be a good person in this world and also go to sleep at night with a lot of other people's pain. And, you know, I think everyone owes you a debt of gratitude for that because it's so unbelievably important to feel heard and understood. And what's more important than feeling understood by another person? So incredibly. I mean, just admirable, but I'm sure it's just extremely painful. And that story of children, it's so many.
It's like being on the battlefield and everybody's wounded and everybody's calling you because so many broken kids. It's like, my God, it's so many. And I was doing it, and it became overwhelming. I started to encourage my students. I need you to help me. Anyone who wants to study under me, I said, this is deeper than photography. We need to do community service. You have the ability as photographers, you have this person in front of you to tell them they're beautiful, they're special, because there's a lot of broken souls out there. And it's very painful because I'm hearing it, and it's like, so much trauma. And that's why I go back to a time before a crack. Things was different when that crack hit. It produced a lot of fractured kids, and. And all of them are just good kids. You know, when I was working in the program, I could not believe that these were all really good kids. Some of them were stealing for survival because they didn't have anything to eat. And I made a difference because they gave me testimony. You know, a lot of them have written me over time because I was. I did my best to try to save them. And photography was that, too, for a lot of them. You know, I mean, so these programs were great because I was able to go into the schools and show them images of a time before crack, break things down to them, tell them about my journey and put them on a path. And to my surprise, a lot of them went on to work for icp and they elevated their lives, and they stay in contact with me right now. But it's very painful because it's just so many of them. And you're just haunted because you can't save everybody because it's just that many. So I had to fall back a little bit and heal myself because, yeah, you know, I went through a deep depression because I started to blame myself on the people I couldn't save, but I just couldn't save everybody. Jail is a very hard place. You know, when you just visualize you working in the area, and it's 60 inmates, 30 on each side. You have the A side or B side, there's one officer behind the gate, and you. You're on the other side. You're with them. And now you're dealing with these harsh conditions. You got. You know, when I think about the Central Park Five, you have a lot of people telling you that they're innocent. You got people that can't pay their bail. You got people who are dealing with mental health issues and the study, getting mental health, getting treatment. They incarcerated. I have to stop kids from killing themselves because they can't take the pressure. And it's. It was just a task, you know, But. But I. I felt. I said, this is my assignment. I accepted it as my assignment. It's meant for me to be here, to be a light. And today I feel good because, you know, I was beating myself up for years. But through social media, so many of my former inmates are writing me, telling me the impact that I had on their lives, Even the ones that I would send photographs to that were upstate during 30 years. They said, it's your photographs that gave us hope. It's your books that gave us hope. Because the idea of doing back in the days and a time before crack was to get those books into the jails and prisons so those individuals could now. Now be empathetic, you know, I mean, to reflect on their lives and the things they might have done and what. What. Who they used to be. And it really made a difference for the drug dealer to now look at the book and say, wow, I contribute in the destruction of this community, you know, and it made a difference. And they wrote me, imagine you doing 30 years in prison, and all of a sudden this book comes out. And the books meant the world, the people that were incarcerated. Because now you're looking at a train and you're looking at the streets that you're not going to see for a long time. And it helped them to heal. And I felt good in making it and making a difference on that end.
Well, that is really incredible, to put it mildly. And thank you so much. I think that's a lovely place to wrap things up. But thank you so much for sharing this incredible story. It is so unique and so inspirational because of everything obvious that we've talked about, but the work you've done with people and your big heart, but also, you know, the way you've just kept making pictures and you've contributed so much to the arts and to humanity as the Gordon Parks foundation recognized. So thank you for everything you've done and thank you for being with me today. And I'm really just so appreciative.
Well, thank you for those kind words and I again, I salute you for all the great work you're doing. I will. I have a few things coming up, so hopefully our paths will cross one day. I would love to pass on a copy of my Prospect park book to you. It's called Prospect Park, My Oasis in Brooklyn. That book is very important to me because Prospect park became the place that I would heal myself. It was my healing spot. And I found that by leaving the jail and going to Prospect park, you gave me a space to kind of like just decompress. So I look forward to it.
It's a magical place and I'll definitely take you up on that. I mean, we will definitely connect in the city and I would love to see that book. It would be such a pleasure for me. So thank you.
Okay. All the best to you. I look forward to seeing the exhibition that you curated with Raheem Fortune in the coming days. And I look again. I look forward to meeting you.
Shoot me off a text or an email when you see it and let me know your thoughts. And again, thank you so much and be well. Take care of yourself, okay?
Likewise. Take care. Thank you again.
Okay, bye.
Photo Work with Sasha Wolff is a production of the Photo Work Foundation. Executive producer is Sasha Wolf and the associate producer is Taylor Sellsback. 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 PhotoArk foundation and be sure to subscribe and review with all the stars on your listening platform.