“AMERICA, AGAIN” | CHAPTER 5: American Myths

July 27, 2020

“America, Again” is a year-long project by the photographers of VII, an exploration of some of the most important issues facing American voters as they head to the polls on November 3rd. For this chapter of *America, Again, we invited photographer Joshua Rashaad McFadden as guest curator, essayist, and photo editor.***

What to the oppressed is the American dream? A modern-day query echoing the words of the magnificent Frederick Douglass in 1852 suggests a centuries-long truth of America that has not yet changed, and that the American dream never existed for the marginalized, especially Black Americans.

The following photo essays will explore these truths; it will only begin to examine this country seeking to identify the superficial promises made to its people, the hidden borders and boundaries drawn by the founding fathers to make step-children, and even bastards, of its offspring. These words may seem harsh to some, but no more harsh than the realities of the disparaged who take residence here. These are their stories, offered to the world, to reveal the power of photographic portraiture against injustice.

As a Black man and maker of photographs, much of my work aims to excavate this land and its fabricated laws, in order to dig up the myth of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness or freedom. A photographic portrait is a powerful tool that can be used to dive deep into the lives and experiences of a people that often go forgotten. Frederick Douglass has shown us that the written word, coupled with strong portraiture, creates an undeniable narrative of one’s presence and place in the world and that the local newspaper is a way to accomplish that. The photographic series of Amir Saadiq confirms this notion, highlighting the Final Call publication and its message of unification within the Black community and against racism.

Walking the streets of any major U.S. city, one can easily deduce that its people have never all lived the same existence, nor had equal opportunities afforded to them, despite some damaging claims by the Majority population. Evidence proves that true equality and justice has yet to be realized. Legal, residential, and educational systems, to name a few, have been skewed in their application since the country’s faulty establishment. As identified in the work of Sara Terry, those who are unable to navigate these classist, and historically racist, networks fall prey to homelessness, underfunded schools, and little to no access to proper healthcare.

It is no surprise that a country whose legacy hinges on this type of division began with violence and assault on Africans and Native Americans. It continues the tradition through police brutality, now with Black Americans as the primary target. Senseless murders of the oppressed by the very leaders sworn to protect and serve have been the irony glossed over by mainstream America, that is, until its recent influx of candid visibility on national and international platforms, causing national protests to ensue. My work, consequently, reveals a country in a state of unrest, and the aftermath of hurting Minneapolis and Atlanta communities following the high-profile police murders of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks. The images of Laylah Amatullah Barrayn, then, juxtaposes this threat with portraits of Minneapolis communities, also fighting a global pandemic, COVID-19.

The health crisis, racism, and permeating xenophobic ideals in this country generate physical and societal barriers between residents of varying beliefs, lifestyles, and origin stories. A steady rise in the Majority mistrust of migrant workers, coupled with the rescinding of the DACA program, strain relations with the very groups in search of a better life, who work diligently to support their families while supporting the country’s economy. Photographer Ed Kashi uncovers the plight of immigrant laborers in Freehold, New Jersey, as they, too, grapple between the unacceptance of their presence from a resentful community, and the effects of a pandemic keeping them out of work.

To numerous races, cultures, and subsects, the American dream has become just that: an imaginative ideology existent only in the subconscious of a slumbering country, unwilling to wake. The United States, with its glorious monuments and symbols of greatness, has become its own symbol that it must live up to, to be the land of freedom and equality it boasts of. This collection of photographic essays invites the voices and visuals of our true and fullest America to be amplified in the contexts of the Nation of Islam (Amir Saadiq), the COVID-19 pandemic (Laylah Amatullah Barrayn), immigrant laborers (Ed Kashi), people experiencing homelessness (Sara Terry), and a country in protest (Joshua Rashaad McFadden).

Now it’s time for a call to action. Let’s end the superficial calls for diversity and put motion into our words. As we view these photo stories — two from VII Photo Agency, an agency with little to no Black representation within its membership, and three invited Black photographers sharing work on topics to which they are no stranger — we have to begin to question the gatekeepers of the industry who control visual narratives around the world. At a time when Black photographers are at the forefront, telling these stories, let us continue to witness this systemic restructuring the industry with equality in education and training, an increase in professional opportunities, a narrowing — rather, closing — of the wage gap, and greater grant and scholarship offerings for photography students of color, Black LGBTQ+, and especially Black and trans women. This country is woven with all our stories, and as a Black man, I should be able to stand firmly on this ground to declare the words of Langston Hughes: I, too, am America.

We all are America.

— © Joshua Rashaad McFadden 2020

View “America, Again” | Chapter 5: AMERICAN MYTHS here.

Federico Martinez Xochmitl, 66, photographed in Freehold, New Jersey on June 24, 2020, used to upholster cars in Puebla, Mexico. He has not been able to return to his landscaping job at the raceway in neighboring Englishtown since it closed for the … — Federico Martinez Xochmitl, 66, photographed in Freehold, New Jersey on June 24, 2020, used to upholster cars in Puebla, Mexico. He has not been able to return to his landscaping job at the raceway in neighboring Englishtown since it closed for the pandemic. In March he was infected with COVID-19 and hospitalized for five days, followed by an extended quarantine for over a month, alone in the room he rents in a house owned by a Mexican family. He recalls feeling isolated. Even sharing the single bathroom in the house with his landlords was stressful because of fear and stigma associated with having contracted the virus.
He has been in Freehold for 12 years, since 2008, leaving behind his wife and four children in Puebla. He has not been back since. Like many other Hispanic laborers, this is not his first time in the States. He first arrived in West Virginia in 1998, where he lived for two years. The pandemic left him with little more two days of work over a period of three months. He now relies on food donations and pays rent from his savings. He hopes to return home to Mexico by the end of the year.

Freehold’s Pandemic

Photos by Ed Kashi, words by Mary Ann Koruth

An abandoned railroad runs through the heart of tiny Freehold Borough in New Jersey, bearing markers to a historic American past — the Battle of Monmouth was fought here in 1778, pitting George Washington’s army against the British in the longest war of the American Revolution. A giant electronic sign on Route 9 announces the cancellation of its re-enactment due to the coronavirus pandemic; far less visible, but more rampant and relentless is the impact of this virus on Freehold’s Hispanic laborers and their families, a small but mighty population that makes up nearly half of the town’s nearly 12,000 residents. The parallels are unmistakable. COVID-19’s onslaught has manifested in different ways across the world; in Freehold, New Jersey, it has leached into and crippled an ad-hoc but highly functional labor ecosystem that has existed and operated for years.

The town centers of Central Jersey have long been a destination for migrant Hispanic workers to gather and look for work. Freehold, in particular, came into prominence in the late nineties when workers flocked to the town, attracted by its walkability, availability of housing and the promise of plentiful work in farms and land awaiting development in and around Monmouth county. Many head to Freehold directly after crossing the border from Mexico. At nearly any time of day, you can see these men — they are almost all male — walking along the railroad into the center of town where they wait to be picked up by contractors. They call it La Via — the way.

In the early 2000s, Freehold’s townsfolk began to resent the presence of Latino laborers who gathered daily in a shady patch called the Muster zone. The incumbent mayor adopted a fiercely anti-immigrant platform and began enforcing it after his re-election. Local laborers organized to protest this. When negotiations and entreaties failed, they joined hands with the National Day Laborers Organizating Network to file a federal lawsuit against the town. In 2004, the court ruled in favor of Freehold’s undocumented laborers, awarding them the right to gather in the Muster zone and look for work on grounds of their right to free speech. Today they spread out across the parking lot of a 6/12, a bus station, and a Rita’s Ices in downtown Freehold. As the city comes back to life after the lockdown, the workers have begun to appear too, in small groups, trickling in.

The CARES Act, the federal government’s financial relief package for those affected by the pandemic, excludes even tax-paying undocumented workers. Local activist groups have teamed up with national organizations to bring the government to recognize the essentiality of these workers, who make it possible for us to quarantine, by cleaning our houses, mowing our lawns, working in warehouses and restaurant kitchens. In Freehold, the lack of this legitimacy and empowerment has resulted in workers suffering from wage theft and extreme loss of work. As businesses closed for the lockdown, undocumented laborers were the first to go because employers feel no obligation to keep them on. Many have been infected with the virus because employers are not willing to provide PPE or observe government guidelines for safety. Those who survive are faced with ostracization by their fellow workers; some have been asked to leave their living quarters by landlords. Growing anti-immigrant rhetoric and detentions under President Trump had already made America’s migrant labor population vulnerable; the pandemic has pushed Freehold’s immigrant workers so deep into the shadows as to lose sight of them.

— © Mary Ann Koruth

Angelica Espinal-Garcia, 36, is a health educator with the Freehold area health department in Freehold, New Jersey. As president of the board of Casa Freehold, a local non-profit that advocates for immigrant laborers, she has been conducting outreac… — Angelica Espinal-Garcia, 36, is a health educator with the Freehold area health department in Freehold, New Jersey. As president of the board of Casa Freehold, a local non-profit that advocates for immigrant laborers, she has been conducting outreach and education sessions about the virus and organizing the food drive in collaboration with Freehold Borough and other organizations. Here she is seen preparing to deliver supplies and helping set up food distribution at Casa Freehold, in Freehold Borough on June 9, 2020.

Mario Rodriguez, 52, was a farmer in Puebla, Mexico. Photographed in the backyard of the house where he rents a room, in Freehold, New Jersey, on May 29, 2020, he represents the classic undocumented day laborer who does construction, landscaping, pa… — Mario Rodriguez, 52, was a farmer in Puebla, Mexico. Photographed in the backyard of the house where he rents a room, in Freehold, New Jersey, on May 29, 2020, he represents the classic undocumented day laborer who does construction, landscaping, painting — almost anything needed by local contractors. He typically earns $20/hour but as a daily wage worker without a steady job, has no access to health benefits or any control over getting hired.
The pandemic has impacted him severely. He lost two months of work in March and April, and work has been scarce since then. He has eight children and a wife back in Mexico who rely on him to send money; before the lockdown he was able to send home at least $400/month. Now he can barely muster $250/month, on top of paying his bills and rent. He has had to bike one hour to work and back because employers are afraid to pick up laborers for fear of contracting the virus.
After years of struggle, the pandemic is the last straw. He plans to return to Mexico later this year. “Trump hates Mexicans,” he said, regretfully. And, he misses his family. It’s been 14 years since he saw them. “American is a beautiful country,” he said, but he can no longer afford to stay here.

Alicia Valriano, 43, is from Mexico City and has three children, two of them American citizens. She is a tax-paying undocumented immigrant, photographed at her home in Freehold, New Jersey on May 21, 2020. Prior to the lockdown, she worked nearly 80… — Alicia Valriano, 43, is from Mexico City and has three children, two of them American citizens. She is a tax-paying undocumented immigrant, photographed at her home in Freehold, New Jersey on May 21, 2020. Prior to the lockdown, she worked nearly 80 hours a week and had three jobs, as a waitress, painting tiles for a local company and as a shift supervisor at CVS. She is also pursuing a GED. Though she has paid taxes for 18 years, as an undocumented taxpayer she is not entitled to social security benefits from the government. She immigrated to the US in 2000 for economic reasons and began working on her first day in America, at a travel agency.
When the lockdown hit, she lost two of her jobs, but kept the full-time position at CVS. Her husband, Manuel, is a day laborer. In March, he fell ill with COVID-19 and recovered at home, while Alicia went to work.
She is currently renting but wants to buy a home. Her 23-year-old daughter has DACA status and volunteers at EMS in Freehold. She dreams of becoming a nurse. After saving for years, Ms. Valriano had completed a loan application and was ready to move forward with buying a house, until the pandemic, which put her plans on hold. The lockdown has made it even harder for undocumented buyers to purchase a home.
As a family with mixed immigration status she is unafraid to speak out on behalf of others like her and is disappointed at having been left out — from receiving financial relief through the CARES Act, and from fulfilling the universal American dream to own a home.

Eleazer Hernandez, 45, is undocumented and has been in the States for 16 years. He has worked as a cook in local restaurants in Freehold, New Jersey and is photographed here outside his rental apartment on June 12, 2020. He was infected with Covid-1… — Eleazer Hernandez, 45, is undocumented and has been in the States for 16 years. He has worked as a cook in local restaurants in Freehold, New Jersey and is photographed here outside his rental apartment on June 12, 2020. He was infected with Covid-19 but survived with the help of Angelica Espinal Garcia (featured above), who intervened on his behalf to local doctors and even fellow workers who discriminated against him even after he recovered.
Fear and stigma are common in the immigrant Hispanic labor community. He has suffered wage theft from quitting his job due to falling sick and was unable to send money back to his family in Mexico until recently.

Gregoria Ramirez, 52, is from Puebla, Mexico. She cleans houses and was photographed in Freehold, New Jersey on June 9, 2020. She came to America in 1992 and has been in Freehold since then. She has three children, two of whom are American citizens.… — Gregoria Ramirez, 52, is from Puebla, Mexico. She cleans houses and was photographed in Freehold, New Jersey on June 9, 2020. She came to America in 1992 and has been in Freehold since then. She has three children, two of whom are American citizens. She came to Freehold following her father and cousins, who were already living here. Her first job was working in a greenhouse in a local farm, then at a restaurant as a busgirl, then the dry-cleaning business for several years.
She has been a house cleaner for the past ten years. Since the pandemic hit in March, she has had to stop working. None of her clients, most of whom are orthodox Jewish families in the neighboring community of Lakewood, were willing to risk having her clean their homes during the pandemic; as the lockdown has begun to lift, she has found a little work, but is struggling to support her children and pay rent. In 2011, she missed a court date for a possible visa due to work.

Rising To The Call in The New York Times

May 20, 2020

Rising To The Call
Opinion
May 18, 2020

*Jamel Dobbins, 31, handing out food at Hillside Elementary School in Montclair, N.J., on March 17.*

Amid the pandemic, New Jerseyans are finding creative ways to help others.

Life has changed drastically in New Jersey in the past six weeks. The state has reported more than 146,000 cases of Covid-19, at least 10,000 people have died, and Gov. Phil Murphy’s stay-at-home order has been extended indefinitely. In the state with the most cases and deaths after New York, residents are volunteering time, energy and money and businesses are using their resources to help others, and ensure that the needy in their communities are fed.

Restaurants are donating meals. Volunteers with Toni’s Kitchen, the food ministry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Montclair, bag and deliver meals to their neighbors. Volunteers with Umbrella, a company that connects older adults with nearby neighbors who can lend a hand, shop for groceries and provide contact-less delivery to seniors.

In East Rutherford, the Meadowlands Y.M.C.A. hosts a food bank that brings in over a mile of cars weekly; it is also hosting blood drives with the Red Cross and running an emergency day care center for front-line workers. Eva’s Village, a Paterson social service organization that aids people struggling with poverty, hunger and homelessness, has adjusted to treat patients who are also battling with coronavirus.

Engineering students at Rowan University in Glassboro work with their professor on intubation boxes for local hospitals, and Nauti Spirits Distillery in Cape May has teamed up with a local pharmacy to produce hand sanitizer. Doctors are offering telehealth services and social workers are volunteering their time by calling older people in hopes of easing anxiety and loneliness.

“This is a game changer for all of us,” said Jonathan Arredondo, the president of the Nutley Volunteer Emergency and Rescue Squad. “It’s the passion and personal belief of helping others that keeps us going. It’s a huge sacrifice that we make so we can serve others.”

*Susan Diaz DeSantis, with her 20-year-old daughter, Jillian, delivered meals from the food ministry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Montclair on March 28*

In Clifton, volunteers with SMILE for Charity prepared food packages at the Palestinian American Community Center on May 9. SMILE for Charity has been providing more than 400 meal packages a week during the pandemic.

“We didn’t have the funding in place, but we decided that if there was ever a time to meet the challenge, this was it. We just pushed ahead and then the community started to donate money and food so we could meet this pandemic’s challenge. The true essence of giving is that you continue even when it seems impossible.”

— Salim Patel, 41, founder and board member of SMILE for Charity.

*The Newark restaurants La Cocina and Robert’s Pizzeria are now devoted to getting meals to people in low-income housing and retirement homes.*

*Lisa Alexander and Shaun Ananko of Grow It Green in Morristown, which normally focuses on education but is now concentrating on providing food for the community during the pandemic.*

“At the end of the day, the most important thing is to be humble and grateful that we can serve the needs of people both out on the front lines and within our own company by keeping them employed.”

— Jeffrey Mayer, chief executive of LBU, in Paterson

*Jeffrey Mayer of LBU, a Paterson company that usually produces customized promotional items like tote bags. Its factory is now making face masks and gowns.*

*More than 40,000 meals have been distributed at the Meadowlands Y.M.C.A. in East Rutherford since mid-March.*

“I am committed to the nonprofit industry. While this pandemic has been terrible and challenging, it has provided the clarity of my mission. To see everyone coming in everyday and giving of themselves shows me that this is the right path.”

— Amy Costa, executive director of branch operations at the Meadowlands Y.M.C.A.

*A blood donor at the Meadowlands Y.M.C.A. on April 28.*

*Meals at Eva’s Village, a social-services nonprofit in Paterson, are now served outside.*

*Kevin Bascom, left, and Brad Ransom of Nauti Spirits Distillery in Cape May, which is producing hand sanitizer instead of its usual gin, vodka and rum.*

“By each of us doing our part, we will get through this together and come out stronger and better than ever. ”

— Patti Goyette, marketing and events manager, Nauti Spirits Distillery.

*Vicki Beckerman, a social worker who lives in West Orange, has been volunteering by reaching out to elderly people by phone.*

Rising To The Call in the New York Times, May 18, 2020

“AMERICA, AGAIN” | CHAPTER 4: INTERRUPTED

May 20, 2020

“America, Again” is a year-long project by the photographers of VII, an exploration of some of the most important issues facing American voters as they head to the polls on November 3rd. This is *Chapter 4: Interrupted, a global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.***

Not just interrupted. Brought to a standstill. By something that can’t even be seen by the human eye, so tiny it is measured in microns and nanometers — millionths and billionths of inches.

The coronavirus, or COVID-19, has wreaked havoc across the globe. As I write this on May 14, 2020, the official number of confirmed cases worldwide has just topped 4.5 million. There have been 303,345 deaths and 1,703,744 million people who have recovered. Economies have been devastated, unemployment levels in the U.S. have risen to levels not seen since the Great Depression, and structural inequities everywhere have been laid bare on a daily basis.

Still, like millions of people around the globe, the photographers of VII Photo have struggled—and continue to struggle — to make sense of this upside-down world, to define our humanity, to help frame the portal that is opening into a new world and all the choices that lie ahead. Some of us have been able to venture out into our communities; some of us have stayed at home.

“Chapter 4: Interrupted” is a moment in time in the middle of all this, a blink of an eye, and yet also an act of witnessing.

Text by Sara Terry/VII Photo.

View “America, Again” | Chapter 4: INTERRUPTED here

Ed Kashi, New Jersey, March 22, 2020: On a rainy day, an elderly woman walks slowly to receive a food handout in a local school parking lot. I’m slowly adjusting to this new reality. I wake up every morning and perform the following checklist: Do I have a sore throat, can I breathe easy, can I smell, do I have a fever? I then get out of bed and face the day. Sun makes it easier to face this pandemic, but on rainy and gray days, the mood is heavier and more somber.

Ed Kashi, New Jersey, April 6 and 7, 2020: (left) One of our neighbors died two days ago from the virus. He was in his 60s and had two grown kids. At noon today, about 30 neighbors on our block came out to recognize him. His wife came out on the front porch and addressed us about how they’ve lived here for 27 years, he was a friendly guy, and everybody loved him. The virus is too close for comfort. I must create a new mental discipline to focus my energies and avoid depression. (right) Today, literally on the same ground that the two days earlier we were standing in vigil for the death of a neighbor from the virus, there was a birthday party for our neighbor’s 4-year-old son. He’s a Star Wars fanatic apparently and his parents got a Darth Vader impersonator to come to the party. Life’s cycles have never felt more apparent and visceral.

“AMERICA, AGAIN” | CHAPTER 3: AMERICAN DREAMS

April 01, 2020

“America, Again” is a year-long project by the photographers of VII, an exploration of some of the most important issues facing American voters as they head to the polls on November 3rd. This is *Chapter 3: American Dreams, which includes an essay by author John Edwin Mason.***

This chapter includes six photo stories by VII’s Ed Kashi, Christopher Lee, Maggie Steber, and guest photographers Endia Beal, Zun Lee, and Griselda San Martin.

Excerpted Introduction by John Edwin Mason.

“‘America, Again’ comes along at a difficult moment in our history. The essential divide is between those who desire a more open and expansive American democracy and those who defend an older, narrower vision. It’s a story that goes back a long way. Perhaps it starts with Thomas Jefferson, the slave owner who proclaimed, in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal… [and] from that equal creation they derive rights… among which are the preservation of life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.” He didn’t want to be taken literally. Rights, liberty, and equality were not for the enslaved people to whom he owed his wealth and status. Nor were they for Native Americans, on whose land he built his plantation, or for women of any color. They were not even for poor white men. Jefferson’s Virginia, like the new nation as a whole, was largely the preserve of a white male elite.”

View “America, Again” | Chapter 3: AMERICAN DREAMS here

“BOXING IS BADASS…AND IT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE”

Photographs and text by Ed Kashi

Mike Steadman, originally from Texas, founded IRONBOUND Boxing in Newark, New Jersey in 2016. Steadman is a former Marine Corps Infantry Officer, with deployments to Afghanistan, Japan, and the Philippines. An impressive boxer, he is a three-time National Collegiate Boxing Champion from the United States Naval Academy.

When he opened IRONBOUND Boxing, the intention was to bring much-needed support to local inner-city youth, specifically in Newark, New Jersey. His vision expands beyond the physical practice of boxing, working with both male and female youth, which in Newark means African Americans, LatinX and a large immigrant population. The Academy harnesses real-life discipline and communication skills, building a community of individuals with confidence in their own unique strengths. Steadman’s mission for the Academy is to spread love, passion, and appreciation for boxing within both larger companies and organizations as well as low-income communities. The humble beginnings of the Academy began with original boxing equipment donated by fellow veterans and Naval Academy classmates.

Watch the film FIGHTING CHANCE

His introduction to boxing began in Annapolis after his mother suffered a stroke, offering him a way to channel his emotions and find his sense of purpose after serving in the Marines. Steadman is inspired to flip the script on the commonly held veteran narrative emphasizing PTSD in those who have returned from serving. This informs his desire to challenge the belittlingly low expectations he sees towards young men of color from Newark. Steadman believes in the power of community and unwavering support, which translates to the ethos of his academy and is embodied in his approach to his students. Inside the facility, the wall graffiti features inspiring quotes from Toni Morrison and Mark Twain.

Steadman became involved with St. Benedict’s Prep, where many of his boxing students attend, as the overseer of a residence hall. The renowned Newark high school has a 91% nonwhite student body with nearly 100% graduation rates, surpassing the citywide rate of 73.5%. In 2018, he left that position to start his own company and is now traversing the stressful and new reality of being a young entrepreneur in the New York, New Jersey area. Steadman now coaches some of his academy youth to work as personal trainers in his growing business of corporate and small business boxing and physical fitness training.

Listen to Mike Steadman’s podcast “Confessions of a Native Son”

IRONBOUND Boxing Academy is free, funded by the for-profit arm and donations raised from veterans and other donors all across the United States. Today, Steadman’s coaching clients include WeWork, Spotify, and Next Jump, taking him around New York City and Newark. Steadman’s remarkable drive propels the mission forward, widening the scope of boxing and in turn, supporting the original facility in Newark, NJ, where he still coaches dozens of youth two full days a week.

“AMERICA, AGAIN” | CHAPTER 2: THE ENVIRONMENT

February 07, 2020

“America, Again” is a year-long project by the photographers of VII, an exploration of some of the most important issues facing American voters as they head to the polls on November 3rd. This is *Chapter 2: The Environment, which includes an essay by author Simon Winchester, reflecting on some of the global and political complexities of environmental issues and America’s role in it all.***

This chapter includes five photo stories by Zackary Canepari, Ashley Gilbertson, Ed Kashi, Espen Rasmussen, John Stanmeyer, and Sara Terry.

Excerpted Introduction by Simon Winchester

Four years into the Trump presidency and the environmental needs of the planet are shuddering under a vast raft of American policy changes, both international and domestic. Coal mining is being encouraged again. Oil drilling is restarting in the pristine ranges of Alaska. International agreements on limiting emissions are being repudiated. National parks are losing protections that have been in place for decades. Clean air and clean water standards, once strictly applied, are being relaxed. And poor Greta Thunberg, trying to preach the realities of human-induced climate change to a generation that is either insouciant or ignorant about the crisis, is told by Trump and his allies — who utterly deny that man has anything to do with global warming — to quit grumbling and go back to school.

View “America, Again” | Chapter 2: THE ENVIRONMENT here.

A River Runs Through It by Ed Kashi

Shortly after America’s founding, New Jersey’s Passaic River became a cradle of the nation’s fledgling manufacturing industry. Alexander Hamilton declared that it should be the center of the newly formed country’s industrial revolution, mainly due to the Great Patterson Falls, which he saw as a source of hydro power to fuel the young nation’s industrial development.

The Passaic, if you were to follow the water, travels some 90 miles. But if you hopped from start to finish in a straight line, you’d be going only 30. Mountains block the Passaic, but it finds a devious path around them eventually, dropping more than 70 feet into a narrow cataract between walls of rock. The falls are surprising, beautiful, and powerful.

It was this power that led directly to the river’s degradation. In 1791, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton supported a plan to harness the falls to run factories, attempting to turn America into an industrial society. Paterson was the Silicon Valley of the 1800s, with locomotive, silk, and cotton industries thriving. The first Colt revolvers were made there. John Holland perfected the first motorized submarines in the Passaic River at Paterson.

The environmental price from this decision over the past two centuries has proven to be catastrophic for the Passaic/Hackensack river complex, which faces one of the toughest environmental cleanup efforts in the country. The increased manufacturing in the state turned into an acceptance of waste dumping into the Passaic. Sewage, debris, and industrial junk has built up over centuries of pollution in Paterson and Newark. It’s taken years to rid the Passaic of dangerous chemicals — and it has cost billions.

Dozens of companies share responsibility for the industrial pollution on New Jersey’s Passaic River, and several Superfund sites dot the lower portion. Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Company, formerly known as Diamond Alkali, manufactured pesticides and herbicides, including those constituting “Agent Orange,” along the Passaic in the mid-20th century. In turn, the highly toxic chemical contaminant dioxin, linked to cancers, diabetes, birth defects, and other disabilities, was released from burning waste, diesel exhaust, and other chemical manufacturing. The Passaic River has seen over two centuries of pollution, but its 20th century industrial history led to the area’s addition to the National Priorities List, becoming a Superfund site in 1984.

To date, two cleanups of the river have been completed. The plan for a third, bank-to-bank for the lower eight-mile stretch of the river, was issued in March 2016. Diverse partners continue to work with parties responsible for the pollution to complete the investigations and river cleanups for the full 17 miles of the river. Residents, local governments, community, and environmental groups are working to bring residents back to the river through park creation, education, and cultural events. One of the few bright spots has been the creation of Riverfront Park, along the Passaic River near downtown Newark and across from the Major League Soccer’s Red Bulls stadium, a small sliver of green in the midst of urban blight.

While there are efforts to clean up these rivers, mainly driven by people like Bill Sheehan, head of the Hackensack Riverkeeper, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, there is much work left to be done. The fight continues to save our rivers against the strong headwinds of the current administration that is dismantling so many of the protections that had been instituted by the Federal Government to protect and preserve our waters and air.

As Captain Sheehan positively reminds us, “the President can make all the proclamations in the world, but we have a strong set of defenses through the legal system to stop these rollbacks.”

“AMERICA, AGAIN” | CHAPTER 1: IOWA

February 07, 2020

Exactly one year before voters go to the polls on November 3, 2020 — and three months before Iowans gather for their caucuses — we at VII Photo are launching the first chapter of our year-long collective election coverage, “America, Again.”

Introduction by VII Emeritus Member Sara Terry

Every election cycle is an opportunity to revisit America, to consider again what defines Americans and what they aspire to, how far Americans have come and how far the country has yet to go in achieving “liberty and justice for all.”

We believe this election cycle, more than any in recent memory, finds America at a critical moment in choosing a path that may define it for generations to come.

And so we launch our coverage today, with the first of seven bi-monthly installments on some of the most important issues facing Americans as they prepare to vote in 2020, including race, the environment, inequity and the wealth gap, and labor and the economy.

Over the course of the year ahead, these issue packages will be supplemented with campaign coverage and reportage about other critical issues, including gender and gun control. In addition, our coverage will include a series of video interviews done by VII photographers outside the United States, bringing perspectives from citizens around the world reflecting on what matters to them in elections that have an impact far beyond America’s borders.

Chapter One, “Iowa,” is a look at some of the national issues that will play a part in the 2020 elections, as seen from Iowa, where voters in the state’s February 3 caucuses will help determine the Democratic front-runners for president. The work was done by VII members Danny Wilcox Frazier, Ed Kashi, Maggie Steber, Sara Terry and VII mentee Nolan Ryan Trowe.

View “America, Again” | Chapter 1: IOWA here.

Iowa farmers are being heavily impacted by Trump’s trade wars, yet support for him at this point has not eroded to any significant extent. Lindsay Greiner is a former president of the Iowa Corn Farmer’s Association and he reflects these sentiments. He wants to see the trade wars completed, so he can work with prices that support his corn, soybean and pig farming. Iowa farmers represent a significant portion of this crucial first state in the electoral process for 2020.

Lindsay Greiner, a corn, soybean and pig farmer, and his son Keaton in Keota, Iowa

Brothaz Barber Shop is in Waterloo, Iowa, a city that the 24/7 Wall Street said, “no U.S. metro area has larger social and economic disparities along racial lines than Waterloo-Cedar Rapids, Iowa.” I spent an afternoon in the Brothaz Barber shop, a local hangout for both blacks and whites, to get a sense of how the African American community feels about race relations and the position of blacks in this city of 68,000 in one of the whitest states in America. What I found was a sense of pride, desire to see an even playing field for housing, education and better policing.

Orphans of the Universe / July 25, 2017

December 20, 2019

Throughout their history, the Kurdish people have been the victims of geopolitics. Consistently entangled by conflicts in the oil-rich territories along the borders of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey; exploited and betrayed first by colonial nations and Cold War superpowers; and suffering the genocidal campaigns of Saddam Hussein, the Kurds have endured decades of displacement.

While I was photographing in Northern Ireland in early 1990, I met a British artist and his Kurdish wife. Over the next year, I spent time with this couple learning about Kurdish ancient culture, their seemingly never-ending fight for survival, and the atrocities committed against them, which were mostly unreported by Western press. I became fascinated with their history and drive for a homeland. The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without a nation due to the breakup of the modern Middle East after World War I and the Kurdistan region’s division into what is now Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and the former Soviet Republic of Armenia. Thus followed decades of oppression and even chemical warfare.

Left: Dancers celebrate the Kurdish New Year in London, England in 1991. | Center: Refugees preparing to make a journey in Iraq in 1991. | Right: Kurdish women dancing at a wedding in Van, Turkey in 1991. ©Ed Kashi/VII

The Ey Reqîb is the Kurdish national anthem, written by poet and political activist Dildar while in jail in 1938. The title is translated to “O Enemy!” or “Hey Enemy!” referencing the torture Dildar suffered at the hands of the prison guards and indicates a revolutionary socialism. Translated into English, the first verse reads: “Oh, enemy! The Kurdish people live on / They have not been crushed by the weapons of any time / Let no one say Kurds are dead, they are living / They live and never shall we lower our flag.”

*Kurdish refugees sit by the side of the road in Zakho, Iraq on May 4, 1991. ©Ed Kashi/VII*

Having become increasingly interested in the Kurds and their history, I finally headed to the ancient city of Diyarbakir, Turkey in 1991; and with the support of National Geographic, I had the means to cover eight countries in six months. By the time I returned to the states, I had shot over 1,100 rolls of film. This body of work became a book entitled When The Borders Bleed: The Struggle of the Kurds including an introduction by acclaimed political writer Christopher Hutchins. There was a brief period after the Gulf War that brought the Kurdish story to global attention, but it was not long before it became overshadowed. The Kurds fight daily to maintain their lives, their land, and their language. When The Borders Bleed, published by Pantheon Books in 1994, is a tribute to the strength and dignity of the Kurdish people.

Left: Kurdish wedding in Cazak, Turkey, 1991. | Center: Scenic view of Kurdish shepherds in northern Iraq, 1991. | Right: Members of a Kurdish youth gang, the Sioux, roughhouse with each other in the streets of Berlin, Germany, 1991. ©Ed Kashi/VII

Newroz or Nowruz, is the Kurdish celebration of New Year’s Day, falling on March 21st, the first day of Spring. The holiday originated in Zoroastrianism in Persia and is celebrated by Iranian influenced cultural regions. The holiday partly recognized the Kurdish plight as well as hope for the future and the new beginnings that spring represents. I had the opportunity to photograph the Newroz celebration in Diyarbakir, Turkey in 2003; the same location that I began my journey over a decade prior. That year, the celebration was marked by over 10,000 passionate Kurds and heavy Turkish security measures with some anti-US and anti-war sentiments.

Kurds gather together to celebrate the Kurdish New Year in Diyarbakir, Turkey on March 21, 2003. The Kurdish New Year, called Newroz, is celebrated by more than 10,000 Kurds in Diyarbakir, Turkey. This annual event takes place on March 21, the sprin… — Kurds gather together to celebrate the Kurdish New Year in Diyarbakir, Turkey on March 21, 2003. The Kurdish New Year, called Newroz, is celebrated by more than 10,000 Kurds in Diyarbakir, Turkey. This annual event takes place on March 21, the spring solstice. This year’s Newroz celebration was marked by heavy security measures and some anti US and anti war sentiments. ©Ed Kashi/VII

Today in Diyarbakir, according to a recent New York Times article, the oppression of Kurdish culture and identity remains, and under the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it appears a new war against the Kurds has sadly begun. “Since the founding of the Turkish republic in 1923, which enshrined a monocultural national identity, the country’s sizable Kurdish minority – around 20 percent of the population, numbering close to 20 million – has often been banned from expressing its own culture or, at times, from speaking the Kurdish language.” (Patrick Kingsley, 6/29/17). According to the same article, over 140,000 people have been fired from their jobs and up to 50,000 have been arrested. The individuals targeted were apparently promoting the concept of a “unique Kurdish culture.”

To know that the Kurdish plight for a homeland continues still 20 years after I first began documenting their struggles is heart wrenching. The Kurds will hold an independence referendum in September in Iraq, where many are located along the borders; along with locations in southeast Turkey, northeast Iraq, and northeast Syria. The current administration, led by President Erdogan, fired over 80 elected mayors and replaced them with state-appointed trustees. In Diyarbakir, which is known as the spiritual capital of Turkish Kurdistan, the municipal department promoting the teaching of the Kurdish language had to deal with the firing of 80% of their staff. The only Kurdish-language newspaper in Turkey was closed last summer in addition to 10 television channels that broadcast some Kurdish programs. Erdogan claims that the firings and jailing’s are about terrorism, not Kurdish identity eradication. Critics believe that the government’s tactics are clearly attempting to end Kurdish culture.

Left: Members of a Kurdish youth gang, called the Sioux, on the streets of Berlin, Germany in 1991. | Right: Students study Kurdish history in a classroom of a bombed out school in Penjwin, Iraq near the Iranian border in 1991. ©Ed Kashi/VII

In 2005, I spent another seven weeks in Iraqi Kurdistan on assignment for National Geographic, making thousands of photographs capturing the daily lives of Kurds spanning the gamut of human experience. The Iraqi Kurdistan Flipbook film I created offers an alternate perspective on a changing culture, one different from the destruction and discord that dominates so much of media coverage of the region. I discovered this mixture of old techniques and new technology while editing my first digitally shot project for National Geographic magazine. The story focused on the Kurdish region of Iraq post 2003 American invasion. The mountainous, verdant, and magical land about the size of Switzerland is home to bitter and tragic history. Between 1975 and 1991, more than 4,000 of the Kurds’ villages and cities were destroyed. After the American invasion, the Kurds have enjoyed freedom from the Iraqi Arabs and continue to strive for a thriving democracy of healing and rebuilding.

Captured in the film are policemen seated in the floor, eating lunch and laughing, old men taking care of their fields, and young girls celebrating at a suburban birthday party. The Iraqi Kurds endured generations of brutality under Saddam Hussein, and the 200,000 lives lost take a toll on the people as a whole. The film explores, despite these immense hardships, the growing autonomy and equality that a free Kurdish people dream of creating.

- Ed

Gold Mining in Ghana / Aug. 16, 2016

December 20, 2019

Just two weeks ago I had the tremendous privilege of witnessing what can happen when a small, poor, and, in the eyes of the modern world, underdeveloped community confronts a large, multinational mining company. The small, remote and rural community of Tanchara, Ghana rejected an Australian gold mining operation and kicked that company off their lands. I learned about this and more while working on an eye-opening film project in Ghana, a small West African country, with the New Media Advocacy Project. This story takes place in Tanchara, which is near the border with Burkina Faso in the Upper Western region of Ghana. It is the story of a remote community that successfully repelled a huge, multinational gold mining company from exploiting their land and resources. Tanchara’s story is inspirational because it is a model for communities around the world to stand up to extractive companies who wish to profit from the exploitation and potential destruction of their land and ways of life.

Tanchara was guided through this process by a local NGO, CIKOD (Centre For Indigenous Knowledge & Organizational Development), which has created tools to help communities in Africa and around the world to mobilize when confronted with extractive industries who want to come onto their lands. CIKOD teaches these communities to use their cultural and environmental assets more effectively, which in turn allows them to manage and direct their own affairs without perpetually relying on external agencies or organizations. In a nutshell: CIKOD tries to get rural communities to treat their untouched land as an extremely valuable resource. The extraction industry is focused on what’s underneath the ground. But for communities such as Tanchara, their way of life is totally dependent on keeping their land from being destroyed, which means keeping the gold in the ground.

I strongly encourage anyone who is interested in this subject to go read more on CIKOD’s website. Much of what I have learned about the mobilization of small, rural communities in Ghana is thanks to them. This post is based on my experiences in the field and what I have learned from their staff and literature. I have paraphrased from some of their research, so if you want to learn the specifics of their policies and strategies, I urge you to head on over to their website. You can click here to see a summary of what CIKOD has accomplished.

I have noticed that in my work on extractive industries, and when you look at the long, destructive legacy of colonialism, a pattern becomes apparent. The colonizer comes in, undermines the cultural traditions and structures that exist and replaces them with poorly adapted systems that allow for maximum exploitation of resources. This is almost always devastating to the local people, their internal structures, culture, spiritual beliefs and ways of life. Extractive industries are often only a form of corporate neo-colonialism, rarely working in concert with the people whose land they gain riches from. The landscape in Tanchara contains fruit and nut trees (including shea), small farms and sacred groves that are preserved by the community because of their cultural and spiritual significance as well as their abundance of medicinal plants. The entire region is ecologically fragile, with low rainfall and low soil fertility. Communities are heavily dependent on the land remaining intact for their livelihoods.

Despite Ghana’s relatively modern and functional political system, the majority of the population, especially in rural areas, still look to traditional institutions to make important decisions. There is a disconnect between the government and rural communities because the reality is that most communities put their faith in these traditional institutions much more than they do in the formal government. Hometown associations and clan networks are the political institutions of rural communities, not the modern political system. Because of the disconnect between these two institutions, the government will often sign off on development deals without consulting these local communities.

For example: The Tanchara community in Lawra, located in the Upper Western Region of Ghana along the border with Burkina Faso, consists of approximately 4,000 people who are governed by intricate traditional governance structures. These structures consist of the Divisional Chief, the Pognaa (also known as the ‘Queen Mother’), and the Tingandem (spiritual leaders). We interviewed representatives from each group and I was struck by the unity of their voices.

For more than a decade the Ghanaian government has been allocating licenses to foreign mining companies to prospect for gold in the Upper Western Region of the country. In 2004 the Azumah Resources Limited mining company were granted these rights in Tanchara. The government never consulted or asked for consent from anyone in Tanchara before they signed off on the deal. Thus far, this story is typical of how a lot of ‘development’ happens in countries like Ghana. What is not typical is how this community managed to stand up to both the government and Azumah. The community has now wholly rejected gold. The mining company had come in and started to dig exploratory holes which looked like small scars on the landscape: a foreboding symbol of what could have happened. The operations began to poison their streams and remove foliage from the surface, which affected both forests and crops. Stories of people falling into the holes and drowning spread through the community. People worried about their livestock and children falling in as well.

Soon after the deal in 2004, gold prospectors started showing up in the region and many illegal miners came to Tanchara to dig small open pit mines. Their activities provided a taste of the kind of destruction that would come to pass if Azumah were allowed to go forward with their plans to extract as much gold as possible. Tanchara was successful in banishing gold mining from its land in a large part because of CIKOD. The NGO provided them with ways to quantify the resources they already had and measure them against the value of what mining would bring. CIKOD also helped them to mobilize. They pushed for Tanchara to draft a community contract and community by-laws that effectively prevented any further mining. They brought the community together and helped them to develop the tools to stand up to Azumah.

Each time we entered this community I was struck by its natural beauty and bounty. The people have nature working perfectly for them. Farmers use a healthy variety of crops, they seem to have enough clean water from local wells and they understand how the trees on their lands can work in concert with the crops they grow to provide maximum output, conserve water and provide food. When I asked why a particular tree was bare and looking dead, even though it was the rainy season and everything else was lush and verdant, they explained that that species blooms during the dry season and provides shade for certain crops as well as producing oils from its leaves that help their bodies during the drier, colder weather. All of this was put in jeopardy when the government granted Azumah the right to mine for gold. It is truly miraculous what this community has achieved. They have banished the extraction industry from their land for good, even in the face of their own government.

I have seen the opposite happen in Iraq, Nigeria, India and many other places in the world. Poor communities in developing countries face the constant threat of exploitation, particularly of their resources. This exploitation almost never leads to development or wealth for these communities and usually necessitates the destruction of their land and an uneven creation of wealth that only benefits the few and the elite. I have immense respect for how these Ghanaians have taken their own fate into their hands and formulated a workable solution to what seems an incessant problem for developing communities, particularly in Africa.

The work of the New Media Advocacy Project is to highlight these initiatives through video storytelling, with the purpose of showing the results as an instructive tool to other communities around the world facing these multinational behemoths. The hope is that this will better prepare communities to either enter into a more balanced and healthy relationship of development, or to reject these companies outright, as Tanchara has done.

Nicaragua Unbound / April 14, 2016

December 20, 2019

My first time visiting Managua, Nicaragua in 1983 was only my second trip to a country in the developing world. I traveled with a group of American doctors from San Francisco who were going down to provide medical support to the newly victorious Sandinista government, which had overthrown the dictator, Anastasio Somoza, in 1979. When I arrived, I was greeted by an energy that I had never felt before or since. There was a palpable joy in the air, a feeling that the people had actually freed their country and regained control of their destiny. Tragically, that was a short lived dream, mainly due to the cold war proxy fight that the Reagan administration prosecuted through the illegal Iran/Contra affair. Basically the Reagan administration covertly sold arms to Iran, and the money the CIA received was used as a slush fund to support the Contra rebels, who were fighting the Sandanistas. What transpired was a protracted conflict throughout much of the 1980’s. Whether the Sandinistas would have ever made good on their promises, it’s impossible to know given the drain on their energy, treasury, and good will, in having to fight a tough war against US-backed rebels. Here is an image I made during my visit back then, which represented a massive education in what it meant to cover conflict and how difficult it can be to produce work that makes a difference.

*Boy soldiers play chess with bullets at a military outpost in Matagalpa province in Nicaragua during the war with the Contras, four years after the 1979 Sandinista revolution. 1983. ©Ed Kashi/VII*

This past Sunday I arrived in Managua for the fifth time in the past 4 years to continue a stills and video project on CKDnT, chronic kidney disease of unknown origins, which has sickened or killed approximately 20,000 sugar cane workers in Nicaragua and throughout Central America over the past 20 years. I am now working with a great young filmmaker, Tom Laffay, in conjunction with Talking Eyes Media and Julie Winokur, on a feature length documentary about this issue.

This time, my arrival was marred by the confiscation of my equipment under the guise of a new law that was recently enacted, requiring foreign filmmakers and journalists to register at least 2 weeks prior to their visit for permission to bring equipment into the country. When I came here last year there was no such law. While the people were pleasant enough, this stressful experience cost me 2 days in the field. I am left feeling bereft of any hope that the current government, which is facing elections later this year, is making life better for it’s people. This new rule also smacks of censorship, or at the very least, undue control of foreign media during an election year. The standard of living in Nicaragua is the second lowest in the Western Hemisphere. Development has been stymied and the spirit of the people, while beautiful and in some ways gentle and positive, is depressed by the lack of hope or opportunity.

Isaac Valdivia Real, 64, poses for a portrait in front of his wood and plastic shack that he calls home in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua on Jan. 9, 2015. Real started working in the sugar cane fields in 1966 and continued for 34 years before he contracted … — Isaac Valdivia Real, 64, poses for a portrait in front of his wood and plastic shack that he calls home in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua on Jan. 9, 2015. Real started working in the sugar cane fields in 1966 and continued for 34 years before he contracted CKDnT in 2000. He now receives dialysis 3 times a week through a catheter in his neck. As he says, “the treatment is a sacrifice but life is too beautiful to die.” ©Ed Kashi/VII

Having seen the lack of labor protections through the specific work I’ve been doing over the past 3+ years here, I can’t help but feel that the revolution has been a failure and the same power structures of oligarch families and a corrupt government only serve the few and leave the masses behind. One would hope that a socialist political movement, which is what the Sandinistas were founded on, would at the very least protect their workers!

*Sugarcane workers begin their morning commute to the fields before dawn in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua, on Jan. 7, 2015. ©Ed Kashi/VII*

Doesn’t this sound familiar in the USA and many other places in the world today? There is no question that the income gap and the failure of our governments to protect the common good, and moreover a prevailing value system that many politicians, companies and individuals seem to increasingly be living by, feed into a culture that works against the common good.

– Ed

*A young boy tends to his heard of water buffalo under a modern, massive bridge that now extends over the sacred Ganges river in Muratganj, India. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII*

Part I: An Unreasonable Profession - Photojournalisms / Feb. 7, 2017

December 20, 2019

Soon after I moved to the East Coast from San Francisco in 2005, I scheduled a meeting with a well-known curator. I was eager to expand the scope of my work into the gallery world, so I showed up to the meeting with a portfolio of prints. By this time in my career, I had had many meetings with editors, designers and other creatives who routinely judge and hire photographers. But this was the first time I was meeting with a famous curator who ran a prestigious New York gallery: someone revered by photographers and artists.

We sat down across from each other – the respected art curator and the hopeful photojournalist. I handed him the prints I had brought with me and we both fell silent as he began to leaf through them. After the third or fourth print, he stopped.

“You know when I look at work, I really want to feel like I want to fuck it,” he said.

Then he smiled. But it couldn’t have been clearer that he didn’t want to fuck my pictures, which is a rather crude way of saying that he wasn’t interested. I had been in enough good and bad meetings to know that this wasn’t the kind that leads anywhere.

*People on the street are reflected in mirrors in the Citadel Frame Shop, opposite Arbil’s historic citadel, in Arbil, Iraq on April 17, 2005. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII*

The name of this piece has been, somewhat cheekily, adapted from an essay by British photographer Paul Graham entitled ‘The Unreasonable Apple.’ If you haven’t read it already, please do so. Graham argues that ‘straight photography’ is valued less in the art world, partly because it is not perceived to have a process that is demonstrable – unlike other forms of photography where the photographer’s approach and technique is as important as what is in the picture. His words are elegant and concise, but it is the sense of exasperation he conveys that I most wish to amplify here, because I too am exasperated. In my case, it’s with the dialectic that exists between the worlds of photojournalism and the art photography. In my mind they are different parts of the same world, and the boundaries that have been drawn up between them nonsensical and artificial. These borders conveniently preserve a ‘precious’ place for the art world, away from the reality-based work of photojournalists, reportage and many documentary photographers.

Before I continue, I wish to acknowledge that writing this essay may give the impression that I am an aggrieved photographer who has been denied something he wants and is thus writing to hit back at those who have denied him. This is not at all my intention. My concern here is less about the acceptance of my work, but rather the attitude that so often excludes reality based and ‘of the moment photojournalism’ from garnering the same kind of respect and appreciation as other kinds of photography deemed “fine art.” This isn’t an attempt to set photojournalism apart: rather, it is an attempt to point out that it is no less deserving of recognition – in this case as it pertains to its value alongside photography that is more conceptual, engineered, directed and constructed. I believe the best of photojournalism can simultaneously be used to convey information while also capturing beauty and challenging the viewer’s mind.

Local villagers fish for saifotsy in the Anony Lake, which is an estuary fed by the ocean. These villagers usually farm, but due to a lack of water, they must resort to fishing. They are fishing using a trawling method with mosquito nets provided by… — Local villagers fish for saifotsy in the Anony Lake, which is an estuary fed by the ocean. These villagers usually farm, but due to a lack of water, they must resort to fishing. They are fishing using a trawling method with mosquito nets provided by USAID. Trawling is destructive due to the amount of by-catches which further deplete the lake’s fish stocks. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII

The frustrating part about the meeting I had with the curator was that I didn’t know what to take away from it. As a documentary photographer I was bewildered. What was I supposed to make of what he said? Does he want work that is sexier? What do sexier pictures even look like? It really threw me and it still makes me feel uncomfortable about the photography world he belongs to. I understand the desire of curators and gallerists to explore technique, materials and innovative approaches. I’ve also come to understand the need of gallery owners to pay rent, so they must find and push work that they feel will sell. Obviously, much of photojournalism is too raw and frankly depressing to expect people to pay money for something they would not want to live with on their walls.

I appreciate the thoughtful and conceptual work of visual artists who push our boundaries of perception and creativity. Yet there is something transcendent and deeply meaningful when a photographer observes the world and captures images of real people in real time. There is almost an athletic aspect to this kind of work, which often must overcome imperfect visual scenes, unfriendly situations, poor light and unruly subjects, to produce images that reflect a certain version of reality that has been witnessed and captured. Photojournalism can be truly beautiful and thought provoking, but it also must be based in reality.

*A roadside food stand along the Karakorum Highway in northern Pakistan. The Karakorum connects Pakistan to China, and is the highest paved road on earth. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII*

I am a pragmatic person. I always try to figure out what I can take away from an experience: how I can improve, what I can do better, what worked, what didn’t work. I do my best to operate from a place of sincerity. But when you enter these other worlds, that’s not necessarily what they’re looking for. This essay is the first part of a two-part series on photojournalism’s place in the art of photography. There is no question that art photographers have been influenced by how photojournalists view the world, and vice versa, yet I still find myself confronted with the notion that photojournalism is somehow lesser, even among current and former practitioners. I’m writing to disprove the antiquated notion that “straight” photojournalism is somehow too simple or without intentional process, or too obvious to be allowed a place at the table that is the world of fine art photography. There is something magical about observing the world with knowledge and purpose, so that you might take on the difficult task of using your reflexes to make a picture that goes beyond the literal and the obvious. While much of photojournalism is predictable and serves a very defined and narrow purpose, the best of photojournalism transcends purpose, place, time, application and usage, creating imagery that is at once timeless and powerful.

- Ed

*Fishermen lay a net on the beach, with the Indian Ocean behind, near the village of Balliputtuga, India on Jan. 27, 2016. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII*

Part II: The Perfect Play - Photojournalisms / Feb. 14, 2017

December 20, 2019

I’ve been a fan of baseball since I was a kid and my son now plays in college, so the game is firmly engrained in my head and heart. It is the ultimate strategic game. The players must be able to jump into action at a moment’s notice, which they practice to perfection, balancing a complete understanding of the situation in the game at that moment, which could determine what split second decision they must make if they get the ball. To the untrained eye, baseball is boring and slow. Nothing much seems to happen, someone throws a ball and another tries to swing and hit it. Each individual player has a task that is assigned specifically to them, and the success of a team depends on how well each individual link supports all the others, with each situation requiring a different action. I love baseball because when a player and a team execute a perfect play, where all the elements of strategy come together seamlessly, it’s like poetry or ballet. It is a beautiful thing to watch. But the reality is that it is rehearsed to perfection, which makes it more impressive than if it were all happening by chance.

This baseball example is a good analogy for the process behind great photojournalism. There are those who suggest “straight” or documentary photojournalism is simply a matter of ‘snapping your surroundings.’ Considering that Apple suggested the world now has 7 billion photojournalists, I want to be clear that there is nothing wrong with snapping your surroundings, but that is not what my cadre does. We take issue with this attitude because it implies that straight photojournalism is somehow devoid of real process. For photojournalists who also want to market their work as artistic, the implication of this outlook is that because what they do is so easy, it is not as valuable or unique as photography where the process is more visibly complex or where it is reliant on technique, direction and manipulation.

*Sheets fly in the wind near the barbed wire fence that surrounds the Bat Ayin settlement. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII*

There is absolutely a process to the kind of pictures I make. There’s a process of research to understand what I’m looking at, there’s keen observation once in the situation, there’s anticipation based on my knowledge and then there’s quick and decisive reaction. The work that goes into making a great photojournalistic picture goes far beyond ‘snapping my surroundings.’ It’s disappointing to me that there’s so little appreciation for great photographs made in the unpredictable chaos of the world, as they are absolutely the product of a rigorous process. You learn to look for visual cues that have meaning, and the ability to translate those cues into great imagery that also conveys important information requires a tremendous amount of training and practice. You have to be able to make the right decision in the right moment. Just like in baseball, it is possible to create something beautiful when in the midst of either chaos or boredom, to approach perfection through practice and instinct.

*A local women’s group meets in northern Pakistan circa 1998. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII*

When I work I’m not looking to manipulate materials. Having a strong understanding of my equipment, though it may be considered simple, allows me to be ready to catch the ball. I use my knowledge, perception, anticipation and reaction to tell a story that I think is important. To me, the higher calling is a wider and broader appearance of images that can be the most impactful. As a photojournalist, it has always been my goal to convey the stories that need to be told, which is why I believe in the importance of this discussion.

What I would like to see is more of an appreciation of what goes into the process of journalistic image making. There are many photojournalists who have successfully crossed the boundaries I am alluding to, whether you look at the work of early pioneers like Robert Capa, Henri Cartier Bresson and W. Eugene Smith, or more contemporary greats like Eugene Richards, Sebastiao Salgado, James Nachtwey and Gilles Peress. The list is endless and ever growing – as demonstrated by the new crop of emerging talent. These individuals also reflect the evolving nature of this craft, where work is increasingly produced with a greater sense of authorship and conceptual complexity.

*Scenes during Friday prayers at the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII*

Despite this, photojournalism is consistently overlooked and undervalued in spaces reserved for art. The different approaches to photography are symbiotic: they are equal and interwoven. If everything becomes interpretive, it blunts meaning. The same is true of work that is literal – if all photography were straight photojournalism, it would be predicable and uninteresting. The diversity of photographic processes provides the medium with its beauty and power, as well as it’s dynamism. When I see photojournalism denigrated because of its perceived simplicity, it leaves me hungry for a more robust and inclusive dialogue, because I see it as no more or less than an essential component of an incredible form of expression. We must not forget that people still believe that images convey reality and truth, and while it’s important to play with and bend the truth in the pursuit of greater authorship and creativity, there is still a responsibility for visual storytellers to inform and illuminate our world with images that can be trusted.

*A local man dries off after a dip in the Kaduna River in Kaduna, Nigeria on April 3, 2013. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII*

Forging Relationships: The Challenges of Long Term Projects / Dec. 13, 2016

December 20, 2019

In 1995 I published this piece in Salon about photographing messianic Jewish settlers in the West Bank. At the time, Salon was a pioneer in the world of online journalism. It was one of the first digital media outlets that focused solely on online distribution, so I felt as though I was entering new and uncharted territory for journalism and visual reporting. I had returned many times over a period of three years to photograph two specific communities: one militant enclave in the Arab city of Hebron and another called Bat Ayin – a newer, smaller settlement five miles from Bethlehem. I gained their trust and they let me into their lives. I lived inside their houses while I was there. One man even moved his daughter out of her bedroom so that I would have a private space of my own – sometimes for weeks at a time.

These were people to whom privacy was extremely important, but they let me see things that most other journalists were never allowed to see. Although I had been working on this project intermittently over three years, I was far from finished. It was a finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Grant in 1996, which only strengthened my resolve to continue traveling to Israel and Palestine to make the project deeper and more intimate. I was confident that a story as important as this one needed to be pursued. So confident, in fact, that I wrote this in the aforementioned article: “I plan to return to the West Bank at least twice a year for the next few years to record the settlers’ reactions as the West Bank is relinquished to the Palestinians. No matter where the peace process leads, the ‘true believers’ of the West Bank will remain a community with a powerful story to be documented.”

Things did not work out as I predicted. The West Bank has not been relinquished to the Palestinians, quite the opposite, and the peace process can no longer be described as such. But those weren’t the only things I was wrong about. One day, a few months after the piece in Salon was published, I arrived back in Hebron to continue my work with the settlers. The same man who let me sleep in his daughter’s bedroom met me outside the settlement. He handed me a printout of the article I had written for Salon and said: “You’re done here. You cannot work with us anymore.” And just like that, my project was over.

This is what I wrote that so angered the settlers: “As the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has shown, militant Jewish settlers in the West Bank present a formidable obstacle to the country’s quest for peace with the Palestinians. While Hamas and other Arab terrorist groups wage war on the peace process from without, a group of extremist Jewish settlers, unmoved by their government’s policies or public sentiment, are waging war within.”

I stand by those words. Their truth is reflected in what has happened over the past 20 years, and they also accurately reflected my interpretation of what was, and still is, happening. My frankness destroyed my access and I was left at a standstill. Not only would the work remain forever incomplete, I also felt disgraced. They accused me of being cheap and of selling them out. They thought I was a liar, and I couldn’t help but dwell on this most personal feeling of shame.

I still feel torn about my decision to publish those words in Salon. The benefit of hindsight has not been much of a benefit at all. While part of me wishes I had been more circumspect about publishing my personal opinion, there is another part of me that stands firm behind being candid about my beliefs, particularly on an issue such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My point in recounting this story is not, however, to draw conclusions about what I should or shouldn’t have done. Rather, it is to point out the inherently complex nature of human relationships – in this case as it pertains to my role as a photojournalist and documentarian. What happened to me is a prime example of what can happen when people let you into their lives, which is my overarching goal with potential subjects. At the time, the feeling of having been bitten by the internet seemed cruel and novel. The ability to see everything an individual publishes anywhere in the world has created a system where we now have to assume that our subjects will see everything we publish. I welcome this development, even if it sometimes puts a crimp on our ability to work as freely as we had been able to in the past. It has made relationships with subjects even trickier to navigate than before, but in general, more accountability and transparency in our process is a positive development.

As you get closer to the people you photograph, the process become more complex – something we don’t seem to talk about enough in our field. I’m in the early stages of developing a new project that will require intimate access to a married couple who have been separated for the past 12 years while the husband served a 25-year prison sentence for murder. He was released only two months ago and we’ve been spending time getting to know each other. Forging a relationship of mutual trust and respect is without question the most important aspect of making this project succeed.

This process of intimately connecting with your subject is near impossible to teach. If you are someone who wishes to delve into projects, themes, issues or stories of any kind, it is critical to remember that you will only succeed if you maintain the trust of your subjects. The world of journalism, to say nothing of the world as a whole, is badly in need of people who are willing to do this kind of in-depth work. It is impossible to include every detail and point of view in the stories we tell, but the subtleties and nuances of these stories have a much better chance of being understood if you spend extended periods of time fleshing them out. It is an incredibly rich part of being a visual storyteller, and it is one of the main reasons I continue to push forward. It has arguably never been more challenging to do this kind of work. The disruption within the editorial world caused by the digital revolution, the advent of the 24/7 news cycle and, most recently, social media mania, have all contributed unique obstacles to documentary storytellers.

When you are successful, the results go far beyond a meaningful photo essay. It is an incredible privilege to witness so much of life, to explore, and become a part of the vastness of the human experience. A profound illustration of this in my career is Aging in America: The Years Ahead. It was a project about how a society is growing old, so it involved finding people who were willing to let me into their most private and at times vulnerable situations. Many powerful events happened between the moment I met a new subject and the moment their story ended. I was privileged to photograph four deaths for Aging in America, but I was only able to do so because I developed trust.

In 2000, I met Maxine and Arden Peters, who were living in a farmhouse in rural West Virginia. They were both ninety and had been married for seventy years. Maxine was a tough lady who was fighting the end stages of Parkinson’s disease. With the deterioration of her body, the quality of her life had become abysmal, so Arden’s dear friend Warren de Witt came to live with the couple in order to help care for her. I had been staying with the Peters’ for a few weeks in October of 2000 when one morning it became apparent that it was Maxine’s time to pass. Arden seemed to be struggling with how to handle his wife’s suffering, so I took him aside and assured him it was okay to tell Maxine that she could let go. I’m not sure what his exact words to her were, but she passed away an hour and a half after he shuffled into their room. My head was swimming and my heart was pounding the whole time. I couldn’t help but wonder: ‘What gave me the right to intervene like this? Who was I to tell Arden what to do at such a pivotal moment?’

When you make the commitment to develop and maintain a relationship with your subjects in order to get access, it is essential to create trust, cooperation and collaboration. However, in a case like Aging in America, you’re also taking on more than that. You need to be prepared to stand up when these kinds of moments happen and act as a human before acting as a photographer. Later on, Arden invited me to the funeral to speak to the church congregation. He appreciated my intervention in that crucial moment. Being welcomed into the church by this close-knit community was one of the most powerful moments of my life.

The message I wish to convey is that you take on a tremendous amount of responsibility when you do this kind of work, but therein lies the importance of being a visual storyteller. If you have the ability to assume this responsibility, your work will benefit on every level. It will be more powerful to the people who look at it because it will be deeper, which also holds true for your personal experience. Our lives move at a blinding speed now, so it is crucially important that we as visual storytellers take the time to slow things down: to notice the details and stay in it for the long haul. We must listen to our subjects and give them time to express their voices, which sometimes means being a companion to them. A lot of life happened before I was able to get to that most intimate moment with Maxine and Arden. Much of the time was spent going on drives, photographing her being cared for, sharing memories and stories late into the evening, and just hanging out in the house doing nothing. These moments were precious and they showed the Peters’ that I cared for them and understood their dignity. It was a privilege to spend time with Arden and Warren and to witness the care that they provided Maxine and how beautifully their community supported them. I became part of that community for a brief period of time, which allowed me to photograph them in ways a complete outsider never would have been able to do.

In today’s world our lives are increasingly being played out in real time on social media. But there is another parallel universe where life moves slowly: in actual real time. It is important, perhaps now more than ever, to inspire more people to pursue the kinds of long-term projects that reflect the intricacies of human life. It is crucial to understand that learning how to maintain relationships with your subjects is an essential component to making this kind of documentary and photojournalistic work. Accessing private moments in other people’s lives is magical. But more importantly, it is what leads to memorable, intimate images that go beneath the surface and reveal a unique part of the human experience.

- Ed

Edited by Gabriel Ellison-Scowcroft

Imperfectly Invisible / April 28, 2016

December 20, 2019

For those contemplating the life of a photojournalist, beware the personal challenges and questions that await you. I have spent a lifetime trying to become invisible. As a documentarian my goal is to disappear, to observe without disturbing the world I’m trying to capture. It is obviously impossible to actually achieve this, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying. Disappearing into the background is an effective strategy to bear witness to moments that would otherwise be inaccessible. Candid intimacy is the term I’ve used to describe my work, and my vanishing into nothingness is the imperative.

*People congregate at the Gare St. Charles – the main train station in Marseille, France on Sept. 24, 2010. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII*

But what happens when you become so expert at this that you begin to disappear in your own life? After more than 30 years of perfecting this routine in my work I am now confronting the residual impact on my personal life. It’s as though I am nothing without my work. Over the last three decades my energy has been channeled into forging my identity as a documentarian, in the process becoming very good at slipping into the mentality that has led my career to where it is today. So much so that I now feel solely defined by the roles of photojournalist, filmmaker and mentor. A work machine.

Yes, I have two beautiful and incredible children that are my lifeblood. And a mate who gives love and commitment unconditionally. But most of the time I’m alone perfecting my disappearing act. The result is a deep sense of loneliness and abject uncertainty. I have been exposed to pain, suffering, violence and death, the cumulative effects of which have posited me into voids of nothingness more often than I ever could have imagined, and more often than my wife deserves to have to live with. I am also disturbed by how every reentry into my personal life with friends, family and colleagues, invariably begins with questions that I have come to dread: ‘how long are you home for this time?’ or ‘where did you just return from?’, or ‘where are you going next?’ While they are innocent enough questions, they reinforce my sense of alienation. Even those closest to me always expect me to be gone, absent, disappeared.

Brian Crothers, a teenager from Belfast’s working class Protestant neighborhood of Tiger’s Bay, keeps his night-time protection safely within reach in Belfast, Northern Ireland on July 11, 1989. He lives within two hundred yards of a Catholic estate… — Brian Crothers, a teenager from Belfast’s working class Protestant neighborhood of Tiger’s Bay, keeps his night-time protection safely within reach in Belfast, Northern Ireland on July 11, 1989. He lives within two hundred yards of a Catholic estate that staunchly backs the IRA. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII

Losing myself in other people’s lives, whether in their dramas of joy, pain, or transition, has turned into not being able to find myself in my own life. I now have to relearn how to be with others and relax in joyful and calm moments. I now have social anxiety and it can be difficult, sometimes overwhelming, to engage with others outside of prescribed and controlled situations. I know veterans of war, survivors of trauma and sensitive souls that life has trampled on who experience similar and often far worse symptoms.

The Wounded Warrior Project is run by American veterans of war to help returning veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq adjust to life at home. Through confidence building group activities, these vets are sharing experiences, problems and is… — The Wounded Warrior Project is run by American veterans of war to help returning veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq adjust to life at home. Through confidence building group activities, these vets are sharing experiences, problems and issues that continue to haunt them and keep them from living healthy lives and reintegrating into society. Vets share a group hug and moment of unity. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII

The cliche of wanting to be a “fly on the wall” is necessary for journalistic documentary work. When I was first starting out I didn’t understand how to do it or what it required. I worked on gut instinct and through trial and error. The stress and frustration was nearly constant, but I did my best. There were countless situations in the Middle East or Africa where I wanted to capture some element of daily life, only to find myself loitering in the lives of people in a small village. It was awkward and frustrating to feel I was constantly standing out and being so far from the fly on the wall I was hoping to be. I can remember trying to capture a family meal only to encounter the generous expectation that I would consume their carefully prepared food with them. I tried to explain that they should eat without me, but soon realized that I had transitioned from being awkward to being just plain rude.

It took me many such encounters to learn that it’s much better, from the human graciousness of a guest to the naked ambitions of a photojournalist, to go with the flow. My pictures started to come much easier and connections with others developed with more harmony and soul, and with the intimacy I had strived for in my work.

Maxine Peters finally passes away at home, surrounded by her family, friends and hospice aides. In rural West Virginia, people still live – and die, the old fashioned way. The Hospice Care Corporation sends health workers into rural homes to make su… — Maxine Peters finally passes away at home, surrounded by her family, friends and hospice aides. In rural West Virginia, people still live – and die, the old fashioned way. The Hospice Care Corporation sends health workers into rural homes to make sure that people can meet a dignified end, surrounded by their families. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII

But through all this shape-shifting, however genuine and heartfelt, I lost myself along the way. I have become accustomed to experiencing the graces of those who have excruciatingly less than I do. When I’m in my own milieu I feel uncomfortable and anxious. It’s not that I feel guilty: I just don’t feel comfortable in my skin. Certain questions have become too unsettling to ignore. Has my camera become my protective skin? Am I no longer myself when I don’t have a recording device? How can this be? My life is rich, entitled, some could say even spoiled. Is this another ‘first world problem’ and I should just shut up? I often joke, although sometimes I don’t actually find it funny, that Descartes’ famous saying for me would translate into “I record, therefore I am.”

As a photojournalist, you can have the privilege of expansive knowledge of the world, cultures, the processes of technology and business, and the small yet magical moments of daily life. You can experience exquisite beauty, both of the natural world and within human nature. You will also witness pain and suffering, hatred and violence. It is an intoxicating mix and I urge you to jump in. But as you shape yourself to better practice your art and your work, be mindful of what can be lost when you let that consume you. Or you might lose yourself.

– Ed

*Nguyen Thi Ly, 9, who suffers from disabilities because of Agent Orange contamination, in her home in Ngu Hanh Son district of Da Nang, Vietnam on July 9, 2010. Photo ©Ed Kashi/VII*

Freehold’s Pandemic

“America, Again” is a year-long project by the photographers of VII, an exploration of some of the most important issues facing American voters as they head to the polls on November 3rd. This is Chapter 4: Interrupted, a global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“America, Again” is a year-long project by the photographers of VII, an exploration of some of the most important issues facing American voters as they head to the polls on November 3rd. This is Chapter 3: American Dreams, which includes an essay by author John Edwin Mason.

Exactly one year before voters go to the polls on November 3, 2020 — and three months before Iowans gather for their caucuses — we at VII Photo are launching the first chapter of our year-long collective election coverage, “America, Again.”

“America, Again” is a year-long project by the photographers of VII, an exploration of some of the most important issues facing American voters as they head to the polls on November 3rd. This is *Chapter 4: Interrupted, a global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.***

“America, Again” is a year-long project by the photographers of VII, an exploration of some of the most important issues facing American voters as they head to the polls on November 3rd. This is *Chapter 3: American Dreams, which includes an essay by author John Edwin Mason.***