February 28 1998

"I think the first thing, it is important to consider that I grew up in a city environment --- New York City -- and what I remember are the city streets, the tenement buildings and skyscrapers of New York. The first thing that ever turned me on 'romantically', if that's what you'd like to call it, were the whistles of the tug boats that used to go up and down the East River. I used to listen to them from my grandmother's house in Astoria. I used to dream of faraway places. We moved out to Long Island in 1951 and first lived in a housing development on the edge of an established village, Seafurt, between the town and - what were - vegetable farms. It was quite attractive.

I used to spend a lot of time in the forests enjoying the nature. There was a lovely reserve park there -- they had a lot of lore about the indigenous Indian people there, and the types of trees and other vegetation. That got me interested in the outdoors. Unlike many other kids who wanted to go to the beach or have picnics and parties, I always wanted to get away to wild places. When I was younger, I joined the Boy Scouts and went on camping trips and enjoyed myself thoroughly when I was doing outdoor type craft things -- from cooking to tying rope knots. You know, things which Boy Scouts used to do. Living where I did, it was difficult to get around as a youngster, but from quite an early time I basically wanted to travel. It's probably because I used to look at magazines like National Geographic .

Look magazine I remember for photography. That was really the first thing that got me interested in photography. Then I developed an interest in railways and trains. There wasn't that much in our area to see but one day a steam engine went through our town. I hadn't seen one before - at least not in the conscious way in which I went out and chased after the thing on foot, and had quite a ride on it. I was gone for about three hours which caused quite a riot with my family. But all of that got me going.

[By the time] I was in high school, I was already doing photography. At first, I used photography to record trains, though I also photographed other things. But I somehow developed the idea that I wanted to be a photographer. I think it was more because I thought it would be a great way to travel . . . National geographic style. Tha'Õs basically about what it was all about.

I was able to apply to Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. I was accepted to R.I.T. and also Kent State to study Journalism. At that time, I did the usual thing that youngsters with my interests did. I worked as a reporter for the school paper . . . I think the majority of my friends had similar interests, although there were very few of them. I also used to do a lot of drawing. I was interested from an early time but my family was not particularly appreciative of that. Nor were they appreciative of the photography interest. They wanted me to become an engineer or some other professional. Anyway, my being accepted at R.I.T. was a kind of a watershed. Up until then I had never really been able to mix with many other kids because of lack of common interests. When I went to R.I.T. In 1959, for the first time I met people who shared my interest in photography. And the other thing I found, I was actually technically far more advanced than most of them. I had already been working part time taking photographs of weddings or silly things like that for a local photographer. And with the newspaper photography I had been doing, I already had a pretty good handle on technique at a time other kids were just going to school to try to learn photographic technique. That was important really. I mean, it's important to have the understanding and the technique, which was taught in school, but it was more important to run into other people your own age. In a starting class of about 120, there were probably a dozen I could relate to. The others were all going into photography for various reasons. Most of them didn't really know why they were going into it -- except that it seemed to be glamorous. Fortunately, at school -- at that particular time, there were a number of lecturers who were quite influential in photography in terms of education. There were three in particular who I remember. There was Ralph Hattersly; there was Charles Arnold; and finally, Minor White.

Minor White was the most unconventional of the guys. Most people used to think that he was totally crazy. Including many of the other professor and, lecturers at school. But he basically did what he was interested in doing. He was involved in Visual Communications Education. At the same time we learnt the technical side of photography with chemistry, physics, sensitometry . . . of course at R.I.T., that is what they taught you. Our education was not just just to take pictures, but to understand the photographic medium. At the end of the first year you had to decide if you were going into phototech or whether you were going into photography, as such.

I decided to go into Phototech, and to be frank with you, I should not have made that decision. I wasn't really ready to make a decision. But I used to think that most of the guys who wanted to be photographers were sort of pseudo-airy-fairy-arty types of people who basically bullshit most of the time and tried to look very, you know, 'Arty'. I tried to align myself more with the guys who were interested in photography itself but found they were interested in the materials, the processes -- the technical side of it. So I went in to Phototech. But I also managed in my second year to sit in on classes held by Minor and Ralph Hattersly. Plus, I studied formally under them. What I'm saying is that I didn't just take Phototech courses.

In my third year, it was really kind of a watershed because I decided that Phototech was not really where I wanted to be. I quit school. I had a real crisis of conscience . . . I nearly went into the army. I was accepted into Cadet Aviation Training. Had I done that, I would have ended up in Vietnam. Thank goodness I got out of it.

Then I went back to school part-time. I got a job with the University of Rochester as a lab technician [from which] I was able to help pay for my tuition. It was then that I got to know minor much better. I learned all about the people who had influenced him to the development where he had actually reached the type of work he was doing. For the first time, really, it motivated me in a very deep way. All the people who had gone before him who had been his influences - you know, people like Stieglitz and Steichen and Edward Weston . . . Ansel Adams to a lesser degree . . . I came to know about all of these people. I also studied graphic arts and sculpture -- I did many different things in a very unconventional way because I wasn't interested in a university degree so that I could hang the bloody thing on my wall. I was interested in taking courses for the sake of taking them.

Anyway, by this time I was already following 'The Doings' in South Africa of the events that had been taking place there with the black and white people. Apartheid and Sharpeville and all these things . . .I had been interested in Africa for a long time. At first I'd wanted to go to Kenya. I thought would be a great place to go. I think it was more the IDEA of going there like Hemingway - you know, the big hunter and all that bullshit. But the point just is, I developed a really keen interest in South Africa. I met people who were South African, both English speaking and Afrikaans. When I was at the University of Rochester, I some medical doctors who were South African and I got to know more about (the country). Mary McCabe came out and advertised her film Look Back Africa, I think it was. There was all this sort of thing about how terrible South Africa was, but it fascinated me. I was making plans on how I could get to South Africa.

In the meantime, my first wife, Michelle, and I had been married. Rather young . . in fact, we eloped. I think that we were both having problems with our respective families. We got married -- which was perhaps not the right thing for us o do, but it seemed right at the time. That's how everything is in life. Together we started planning how we could save enough money to immigrate. I wasn't worried so much about the coming Vietnamese war and all that crap, I was just interested in leaving the United States to find a place that was more like what the United States HAD been like before everything had been commercialized. I was looking for the type of adventure that Africa seemed to have in its roots.

We had an unfortunate car accident . . . a drunk driver went into the side of our vehicle when we were out taking photographs of farm houses. The accident put us both in hospital. Michelle was severely injured . . . eventually, we received a substantial pay-out from this. We used that money as the basis for immigrating to South Africa. What we didn't know at the time was how difficult it would be for the South Africans to admit us.

I was a photographer -- still a student really -- and they weren't interested in photographers. Because photographers were always (synonymous with -- to them) newspaper reporters who all the time said and wrote bad things about South Africa. When it came to my medical photography work, it was too sophisticated in terms of research for the type of thing that was required in South Africa -- and that was a dead end street. The long and the short of it was that I wrote to a number of professional and photographic organizations stating that I was interested in immigrating, and looking for a job. It's quite important because nobody was interested in having a young American come out there to compete with them.

But I got a hold of a chap who I will forever be indebted to. He wrote to me from Utenhague, a town just outside Port Elizabeth. He had read something about me in one of the photographic journals and he was an aspiring young photographer and was selling insurance . . . he was a deacon of a church . . . he was everything that a typical Afrikaner was in those days. 'Would I be interested possibly in coming and working with him? maybe buying his business or becoming a partner or something like that to help him learn more, because he thought that he had a lot of talent.' The name of his organization was La Belle Arte Studio. I'll never forget that . . .

So anyway, he was a very genuine guy. I wrote him a letter and said, 'Look Joseph, I am very interested, but the South Africa government won't let me in unless someone offers me a job'. Well, two weeks later I got a telegraph from him : EMPLOYMENT CONFIRMED. PLEASE ADVISE ARRIVAL DATE. With this, I went down to the South African Consulate in New York City who thought this was a a bit of a joke. He said, 'Is this for real?' and I said, 'Of course it is for real. How am I supposed to meet a guy like that and conjure something?' So he sent if off to Pretoria (S.A.) and two weeks later I had my visa. Quite amazing. After trying to obtain it academically and quite legitimately for months, I got it just like this.

Well, Michelle and I made our plans. Our idea originally was to outfit a camp vehicle and take it to Europe. We wanted to take it to Europe and spend a year traveling overland through Africa. That was our desire. But with all the delays, everything was screwed up and in the end, we were forced to take a ship straight from New York to Cape Town. It was a fantastic adventure at the time. Twenty two days on the VANGUARD with Captain Ian Branch. Unfortunately, when we got to Cape Town we had major problems. The customs people charged us duty on several things we had been assured we would not have to pay duty on. In the end, we were virtually left destitute. We didn't want to go to Utenhague or anywhere near the place, but I knew Port Elizabeth had a rather large concentration of car and tire industries -- Firestone and Ford, etc.

So we headed overland and tried to enjoy ourselves, all the time dreading the fact that we had virtually no money . . . which changed ( AJ says with a laugh). We got there and met Joseph. There was simply no other alternative, so eventually, I worked with him. We stayed first in Utenhague and then moved into Port Elizabeth, because Utenhague was a just a little bit of a nonstarter. I eventually developed contacts, set off on my own, and established a photographic business in Port Elizabeth. I also worked with another chap opening a restaurant which helped us to earn a little money at first. Michelle, along with the other guy's wife, waitressed there. It was exciting times for people in their early twenties. Port Elizabeth had a beautiful quality about it. It was light and airy. Totally unlike anything I had ever seen in the United States.

It's interesting, up until the time I got to Port Elizabeth I had been preoccupied with black & white photography . . . that was my principle interest. When I came to South Africa and started taking black & white pictures, it didn't really work for me. I wasn't satisfied. I then started playing around with 35mm Kodachrome film shooting landscapes and other various 'scenes' apart from what I was doing on the advertising side where I photographed anything from motor cars to trucks to tires to models. You know, everything that one has to do when one runs a diversified photographic business in a small place - which Port Elizabeth basically was. I did portraiture as well -- I did the whole lot. I did not, however, do wedding photography. That was not my interest.

I got very much into color photography and I realized for what South Africa looked like -- the light, the color and everything else -- this was a place to do color photography rather than black & white. Black & white, please, I am not decrying it or saying that it was wrong, but for certain things like if you were photographing people or for photo reportage, black & white certainly had its place. While . . . doing color photography, I must saysomething of my interesting railways and steam engines. . . Part of my desire to come here was to live in a place where one could go and see these steam engines still pulling trains, and not in museums. That's all I had seen of them in America really -- because I came just at bit too late to see most of the really good railroading. But here in South Africa I got more than I wanted actually. I concentrated my black & white photography on trains and my color photography on landscapes, notwithstanding what I did in commercial work.

We had our business in Port Elizabeth from the beginning of 1965 to the middle of 1966. But as with all good things, you get to a point where you must say: I have had enough and want to move on. I met some very important people. One I will mention is Alan Austin. We got on like a house on fire. He was moving to Johannesburg, other things were falling into place, so I decided to go there, too.

We moved up to Johannesburg. I filmed for a company for a while; I did every type of photography you could possibly imagine just to keep clothes on my back. Paul was growing up, we had to get some sort of food in his mouth so he wouldn't be stunted in his old age. Anyway. I was doing advertising photography, but I was unhappy with it. I wanted to travel. All I was doing was transferring an urban background in New York City to an urban background in Johannesburg. It wasn't my scene.

Opportunity came along through meeting people, to line up with a German chap by the name of Udu. In 1969 he and I bought a Land Rover and set off on what was, for me, my first really great adventure here in Southern Africa. We travelled for a number of months to the Cape, the desert areas, up into Southwest Africa and Botswana. This was the start of finding this sort of thing. I had previously been to Botswana and had met people up in Maun which was a fantastically interesting place back at that time. I absolutely fell in love with Maun. Our intention this time was to stay there permanently. Unfortunately Udu's mother died and he went back to Germany. Other things happened and he did not return.

Soon after, I had my first book commission. It was later published under the title Steam on the Veld with two other friends of mine, Charlie Lewis and Dusty Darren. I started concentrating on photographing steam engines again. I was caught very much between the desire to document the passing steam age in South Africa and my other more general interest to document people and places. It became apparent that steam engines were going to disappear quickly. I then concentrated over the next fifteen years, from about 1969 to the mid-1980's, on documenting steam trains in Africa.

I traveled to Asia, South America - quite a few countries . . . photographing trains. This took me to some wild out of the way places that not many people get to. So I have been quite fortunate in this respect. Because of my interest in photographing the trains I went to these places which were off the beaten track , Not tourist type places. I took a lot of photographs besides trains. In fact, I was for al the time trying to kick myself as to which one I should devote more time to. But you know, you've got to reach some sort of compromise on these things. Anyway, over the years I have traveled to many different countries and taken photographs of numerous subjects in a range of countries from Burma to Bolivia, hiked over mountains . . . done the most incredible things, traveled on the most incredible transport systems. It has been a lot of fun.

When it comes to photography, naturally I continued to operate as a professional photographer and became more diversified. I Became more of a specialist photographer doing industrial subjects. . . I also edited magazines, wrote articles for various magazines, everything from short histories to things about railways and transportation.

Of course, in the meantime, Michelle and I had parted in the late 1960's and I eventually remarried to Judy (1978). . . We had known one another since 1972 when she was an art director in advertising. She was full of spirit and go and we decided to get together. It was fantastic and has remained that way until today. Now we have two additional children, Adam and Claire, and of course, having a family naturally tempers what you can and cannot do.

Now, my commercial business in Johannesburg in the late 1970's and early 80's was based upon the reality that I had to earn money. But I wanted to earn money in the most enjoyable way as possible. I developed a good relationship with many clients who understood what I was about as a photographer; and I understood what they wanted. And it was very satisfactory without the inclusion of third party people, like people from advertising agencies who used to always try to dominate things. From that point of view it was always very enjoyable, the sort of work I was doing. But then a couple of things happened to change it all. First of all, steam engines were disappearing rapidly. In 1986, I was on a trip to Natal to pay my last respects to a railway between Port Shepstone and Harding that was being closed down -- a little narrow gauge steam operated railway. I spoke to some people who used the railway. They were very upset about how the government had been bulldozing them into accepting the fact that the railway had to be closed because it was uneconomical. The result of all that was an organized public meeting to protest it. One of the things I proposed was if the government did not want to run the railway, they should consider privatizing it. Now this was based upon the American (U.S) concept of railways, which are private anyway, of divesting themselves of branch lines and letting small operators take over these railways where they have proven that they can run them more effectively. And what we suggested or proposed to the government was completely foreign to them because no one had ever run private railways in this country before.

But to take over a railway line that had been a public railway for 75 years and run it by a private company was completely foreign to the thinking of the local people. The idea was resisted, but after one and one half years of hard work, and a partnership with my old friend, Charlie Lewis, in the end we managed to get an agreement with the administration. We floated a company and did a public share issue to raise one million rand. An agreement was reached in December 1987 and early in 1988, all of a sudden, we had ourselves a railroad. 122 kilometers of railway that was closed down . . . and had been closed down for a whole year. But we raised money through a share issue and threw money in ourselves. I moved Judy and the family down to Harding which is 80 Kilometers inland from Port Shepstone -- a very very nice area up in the hills . . . Charlie was (stationed) in Port Shepstone. The railway officially reopened in April 1988.

What has happened since then is history. We just celebrated 10 years of trying to run the railway, but the only reason for mentioning this is (our) involvement completely changed the direction of my life because I had to give up my photography . . . my professional photography that is. All of a sudden, I was in transport -- and all matters to do with transport -- transport economics, and such related issues. I have remained in transport to this day, but I have never stopped taking photographs of anything and everything that interests me. I travel as much as I can . . . although it is difficult when trying to run a business. So that brings me basically to where I am today: a person who is involved in transport, transport consulting work, and using photography as a support for my activities. Wherever I go I have my camera, naturally, and am still doing photography for myself and still following keenly the work of other photographers.

Like when I went back to America in October 1997, I met some of my old schoolmates from R.I.T. We got together in Washington D.C. the last time we had gotten together was 1977!! It was great to see some of these people who I still think very highly of. I met another dear friend in New York City and we went around to see Sandy Meek. Sandy used to work for Minor doing his dirty work. I was very pleased to find out that another book on Minor had come out and I was able to buy it. . . . I kind of really wondered to myself, after all of these years, you know Minor White is dead; Edward Weston is dead; Ansel Adams is dead . . . There is a whole new generation of photographers doing different kind of work -- but relevant things which are evolving as all art does. And yet, when I returned there and met people working at APERTURE magazine . . . I remember Aperture as something that was run from Minor White's house. A bunch of students, like myself, used to help publish because Minor was basically very poor. I think of all the years that have gone by. People regarded Minor as a kind of 'seer'. I am very very pleased that I have had the opportunity to have worked and studied under a person like that.

One thing that is interesting, When I was last in the States, I went to San Francisco. I had set up a meeting there, but my main preoccupation was to get down to o Point Lobos, Carmel and Big Sur. I spent part of the day at Point Lobos. It was sort of a religious pilgrimage. I then went on to Carmel and Big Sur. I did not have enough time there -- but I went. I sent back a postcard from Big Sur to Judy saying, "I have been to Land's Ended many other places, and I finally got to Big Sur".

When I got home, the first thing I did was to get some books out of my library by Henry Miller and the day books of Edward Weston . . . just to read about the area of Big Sur and what it was like in the days when those guys lived in the area. The days when Ansel Adams used to go up to Yosemite Park to do his beautiful landscape pictures . . . Edward Weston used to go to Point Lobos . . . and Minor White used to com out to hold workshops. There were many others all a part of that 'West Coast Art Photography Group' if you want to call it that . . . I don't really like such terminology.

What still intrigues me, and I've not satisfied myself yet, is that my favorite writer is Henry Miller ( followed by Lawrence Darrell). Henry Miller lived in Big Sur. Ansel Adams and Edward Weston lived in the area as well. One was a writer and the other two were photographers, yet they were all basically kindred spirits using different mediums for their own personal expression. Yet, I wonder if they ever met one another. I am sure if they did, they would have found some interesting common ground because Henry Miller in his book The Air-Conditioned Nightmare writes about Stieglitz because Miller visited Stieglitz in NYC in 1943 when he was living with John Lauren. You just have to read the chapter (in Air Conditioned Nightmare) to make you appreciate that a guy like Henry Miller must have somehow come across a guy like Edward Weston. Maybe they never met, but I am sure that they are together in spirit today.

So for me, it was a great thing to go to Big Sur and spend some time at Point Lobos. It also made me realize that I am very lucky to live where I do on the southwest coast of Kwazulu-Natal (South Africa). The beautiful rocks, the beautiful country. It kind of has that quality that that area of California had. Like everything else, it is changing. I am lucky that I am from a generation who has been able to witness that in South Africa which I missed in the United States, and that actually makes me feel quite good. I think that's basically everything."

When you came to South Africa, had you published books or articles in the United States of your work?

"When I came to South Africa, I had already privately published a portfolio of pictures. It was quite an interesting portfolio entitled 'Impressions of Steam'. There were twelve black and white photographs I had taken of steam engines, which were not documentary but impressionistic photos of the drama and the feeling of movement of these steam trains. I remember I was very proud of what I had done upon producing this portfolio. I went to see a local chap in Rochester, who I forever remember as Nathan Lyons. He worked at the Eastman House of Photography as a curator. I showed him these 'images' as I called them. He looked and seemed quite impressed and started asking me all sorts of questions. Afterwards he said, "You know Alan, I like your photographs, but if you had kept your mouth shut, I might have hung them in an exhibition I am doing ('Young American Photographers Under the Age of Forty'). But," he continued " just by opening your mouth and explaining to me what your feeling is for what you are doing, I realize that you a re a bit too immature." He put me down actually, but in such a good way that it actually taught me a hell of a lesson in terms of looking at myself a little more clearly . . to judge myself.

He then did a very good thing. He invited me to come and join in his workshops. I studied for two years with Nathan Lyons and he was an incredible influence . . . Because Minor White was basically involved with his own mysticism all of the time, you never got from Minor the sorts of criticism that you got from a person like Nathan Lyons. I think the balance of having the Ralph Hattersly and Charles Arnold's and Nathan Lyons and Minor Whites all there together at R.I.T. -- it was an incredible experience if you had the opportunity to mix with them all as I was fortunate to do."

So what is it in particular, what is the necessary message that they conveyed to you?

I could go out there. I had an eye for composition. I had an eye for drama when it came to lighting, contrast. But I think I was going out there and going through the motions more than understanding what I was trying to achieve. And that's the sort of thing where Nathan made me think more carefully. With Minor, we would read photographs, and were wrapped up in his own system. You thought very carefully about your photograph before you actually took it. Taking the photo was sort of the release coming to you after all of the build up to what you were trying to do. But Nathan made you think more about the subject -- the person, the event - -the totality of it. To make you really aware of yourself.

You can go out there and dress up like an artist. You can have long hair, a beard and all that crap. You can go around with a fancy expensive camera and act as if you are doing something creative, when in actual fact you are wasting your own time and everyone else's because you really are very shallow. That was the important thing. Nathan actually offered that extra bit of education to make you think more carefully about what you were doing. And what you were trying to come to. No, I am not saying that he was perfect. He was a difficult guy and he had his own set of preoccupations. But for me at that age, he . . . left a very strong impression upon me -- as a contrast to the other people.

If you combine all of things as I've said, it means that you now begin to look at a number approaches to things, but you think most deeply about 'What am I trying to achieve'? And not just going out and taking pictures . . . showing them to people and then trying to convince them that the photos have worth. It's really what you are trying to achieve. What are you trying to communicate? Who are you trying to communicate with? You may only be communicating with a very close friend. You may be communicating with a very large audience.

And it depends, again, on what sort of photography, what your approach is. But the point is, photography, like all other literary visual arts, is a form of communication. Therefore, ultimately you are not going to put it in a box in your own room and just keep looking at it yourself. You have to realize there is going to be some sort of audience and you must, very carefully, think about who that audience is, and are you really communicating with that audience? Are you getting something through to them?

And also, you have to think, are you generating an income?

You talk about generating an income . . . lots of people would only think superficially about going to work on a newspaper or a magazine or freelancing. A lot of people wanted to set up a business . . . a little studio in Smalltown-USA-type thing taking wedding photos and portraits of the local people. And that's fine, if that's what you want. But if you want to go out there, and you want to think that you're going to be a man of the world and you're going to do things . . . There's a lot of competition out there. There are many other good photographers; many good writers; many good visual artists. It's a very competitive area and it's not easy. Very few people actually make the grade.

So having left the United States and such a strong interknit group of artists and teachers to come to Port Elizabeth, South Africa, what was - or was there -the 'scene' like?

Look, Port Elizabeth . . . I went there aside from the practical side of the money situation because I knew there were the motor car companies, and I knew there must be some sort of photography being required. Now, I had never run my own business before. I had only worked at the University of Rochester. I had done lots of photography and had been paid for some - you know, ranging from still life to jewelry to sculpture . . . but I had never been in business for myself. I put together a portfolio and just went around seeing people at the different advertising agencies. One had the account for Ford; another for Volkswagen; another for General Motors. I literally muscled my way in by saying, 'Let me do a job for you and show you what I can do'.

The first commercial job I did was for Volkswagen. I was told to take a photograph of the new Volkswagen engine. It was only supposed to be for a company magazine. When I presented the agency's owner with an 8 x 10 print a few days later, he was amazed. He actually said, 'But this picture doesn't require retouching! The light is beautiful' . . . he continued, 'I 've never seen a photo of an engine as good as this before. Normally we need to get our artists in to retouch and airbrush . . . but this is perfect.' And that was my break.

I became very much involved in the photography/advertising scene and rapidly took over as the car photographer down there, doing some really interesting car campaigns. I was doing strictly commercial photography and was enjoying it at the time because it was also bringing in money. Additionally, I was running a restaurant and nightclub with another guy. I was even going out hiking in the mountains, and occasionally going out to photograph trains.

So it wasn't a case of an' arts community' of photographers or anything -- although I had met some people who were writers and painters who have become quite well known South African artists. We also had a very nice little group of musicians down there. That was the really interesting thing that was taking place -- the music. There was a strong movement of jazz, not township jazz, but a white interpretation of American west coast jazz. The music scene was the only real arts scene in Port Elizabeth was the only real arts scene that I interacted with.

When you came to Johannesburg, based upon the circles of influence of a lot of the people/artists with whom you were working, certainly the people I came into through you . . . many of these people were not natives to South Africa. It seems that there was a very strong art movement amongst the Europeans in this country.

You are absolutely right. Being a typical white person living in South Africa, I tended to meet and to mix with other typical white people who were living here. There was very little mixing with black people for a variety of reasons actually. There was a tremendous cultural divide, but there were enough interesting white people that I could identify with; who I found interesting to interact with. I met black people -- a number of black artists. I met coloured people. But I must admit, it is one of those curious things, there was very little mixing with them here. I think it was because, at that time, perceptions of the average black person were still rooted in a completely different background.

European art was very different from African art. African art, we tended to think, was more decorative or musical. And from the point of view of the music, that's where I mixed with people. I had a lot of musician friends from all sorts of backgrounds. But when it came to photographers . . . okay, I met a couple people like Peter Mugabone, a very famous black photographer. And others through contacts I had with various political parties -- which almost got me kicked out of the country on a couple of occasions!, but really I didn't interact with a variety of people. It's never been one of those things where I have to find myself mixed in with an artistic community. I met the Fleischers, and others in that group, but I tended to be very much a loner, with a few good friends. Genuine friends who I may not have seen regularly, but we could go for five years without seeing one another and then be bosom buddies again. I didn't find myself mixing with them socially, but neither did I find that I was craving an involvement with other people. I was doing what I was interested in doing for my own reasons. In that way, I think that I've been a pretty selfish person. I mean, I look at what other people do, but I had a pretty good idea of what I was trying to achieve. I didn't have to look elsewhere for inspiration, and to that extent. I suppose that I've been a bit unsociable(laughs).

You have published two books here in South Africa, can you tell us more about these?

Well look, over the years, apart from the books which I co-authored, I've written numerous magazine articles for a variety of magazines. Some were specialized, some were photographic, some appeared in art magazines. I even lectured occasionally at art festivals on visual communications and photography, and the interaction between photography and the other visual arts. I've done a lot of that over the years.

The railway books -- people tend to think of me as a photographer of trains. I think a lot of the things I've done beside train photography I have not really pushed down people's throats because I am not that way. But I've related with a few dear friends and enjoyed the company of other artists like Dolph Feddler, who is an animator still going strong today after thirty years . . . an incredibly talented guy. Many writers, as well. So I have known lots of people , but now that we live down on the south coast, we don't mix much with people because there aren't many of the people down there that Judy and I really enjoy. Judy travels to Johannesburg regularly. I travel to Johannesburg. We see friends individually and collectively, and we've got our own group of friends. I tend, however, to be very much a loner still, after all of these years. I mean, when I go out and take photographs, I don't think of myself as being part of a group. I see myself as an individual on his own. And I also find that I don't want to push it down people's throats, because like I've said, I am not looking for recognition like so many people are. That has never been my motivation. I've done what I've done for myself, which I suppose is selfish. But I look back at some of the photos I've taken and I realize that even today, after years of living in South Africa, that I have some very strong social statements on the situation here. I don't have a complete record, but I have gotten a lot of interesting things over the years. I have never put them together in a story to make a point about South Africa. The books on trains were purely a documentary on an era that was passing.

If you look at Great Steam Trek closely, it is more than just trains. Its says a lot about many aspects of South Africa that were unique to this country at the time, where trains had a sometimes essential and sometimes peripheral influence on the whole thing. From that end, I still want to do some other books on South Africa. For example, one I would like to do would be like a sort of essay that was done about Lake Powell (United States) when it was dammed up -- the Glen Canyon, as it was known. Dorothy Lang did a story about Glen Canyon and how the dam forced many people to move. In the end she philosophized and said well it was a bad thing that happened (to build this dam)because it destroyed and environmental masterpiece in this world, but it is going to help more people in the end.

Well I look at the situation in South Africa and I look at the places to which I've traveled, and the things that I've seen. I think a lot of the pictures I have taken over the years will, if we put them together, document a period in time in this country that is now just about one. And that was my life here in South Africa. That's it. It's my little visual biography of my years of travel through South Africa. I wasn't trying to make any sort of political statement. I was living my life in a very simple way for what was important to me. I think there's nothing much more that one should try to make out of it really.

Based upon their work, indicative of a time that they are in, do you feel that artists have a social responsibility?

You know, that's a loaded question because one can say that about virtually everything. If you take that thinking too far you basically will destroy that thing which makes most artists what they are. That's the sort of thing politicians are more involved in. Artists are kind of exploring and defining their environment in their own personal way. There are some who choose to be involved in creating social statements to help the society in which they live. Some are just reporting on it. There are many ways, but if you force them to feel that they should have a social responsibility because they are a part of a community, I think you will destroy a lot of what they are about. If it is something that they get from within -- if they have that motivation -- then let them go for it. But don't force them to do it.

If you look at most artists and you look at what they do, whether they are painters or sculptors, or whatever they are -- they are exploring their own inner world . . . and that's a very personal world. It is not a world which is all the time trying to explain what's wrong with the environment they are living in, but rather how they are adjusting to that particular environment and what they are getting out of it.

I do believe that everyone has a social responsibility to become involved and to use their talents to try to help the development of a community in which they live and that's one of the reasons I became involved in the railway project. To me, the privatization of this railway was basically an empowerment of the people. An empowerment of the community exercising their right to run a railway that had formerly been run by the government. When the government came along and said 'we're closing this down because it is not economical', the community had the right to reply 'hey, we're taking over here - and we are going to run it'.

That's what I have spent the past ten ears of my life doing and it has been more of a community spirited type of endeavor than any other thing I have done in my life. I think from that point of view, I have been doing my own little thing and I have also learnt a hell of a lot. When I was just taking pictures, it was a very private thing. And I wasn't always personally involved. I mean, if I went to District Six (a former black community just outside Cape town), I would see how people were. I would talk with them, sympathize with them, take pictures, and then I would go away -- back to my own little environment. My own comfort. I would have the pictures and say, "See, that's a strong statement' or something like that, but I did not have to live with them and face up to the difficulties that they faced every day. Now I have been facing up for the past ten years to the difficulties of trying to keep something that is necessary for a community going. And also realizing for future developments in South Africa, that what I have been working on could be looked at as a major contribution to other people in the development of this country. That's why I am involved in these things. It may not be as a photographer, but I am involved still, conceptually, in projects that are community based.

What are some of your thoughts on the 'new' South Africa?

They got rid of a lot of the old ways which were really terrible. There's no question that Apartheid, in practice -- not necessarily in theory, turned out to be an absolute monster. And very sadly, people were blinded and deluded by government propaganda for a number of years. Even I was to a certain extent . . . about the substance of what was happening. I welcomed the change. In fact, for years I said 'I wonder if I'll live long enough to see a change'. Then it changed so quickly it completely caught me off guard.

The idea of complete democracy for all of the people here, in theory, that was to follow was absolutely down my alley. But I am disappointed with the way it's been managed. It's actually turning into something I was hoping it was not going to. It has actually turned quite ugly and vindictive, and is out of touch with reality. What we need in this country is a real coming together of the people, and not only to identify what the current problems are and how we solve them, but how do we move ahead? Not by placing so much emphasis on who did what how when and where in the past. If we are going to have that sort of thing, all we'll have is a bunch of Nuremburg Trials. We don't need it. We can't afford it in this country. I'm just worried that the present government has high ideals in terms of total concept. There are too many individuals within the government who are grinding their own ax to try to get revenge against the people and the system that prevailed before. From that point of view, it makes me a bit uncomfortable because nobody is going to take away my individuality and force me to think any differently than the way I think. And nobody is going to come to me and tell me that just because I've got white skin, that I've been part of a privileged minority in this country. I don't have six cars in a garage and a fashionable house in Sandton, or anything like that. I'm basically very poor in comparison with most white people in this country and I owe no one any apologies for who I am and what I have done over the years. It just worries me that the way things are going right now, the continuing witch hunt is not a cleansing of the problems, it is just creating too much dirty linen. In the meantime, we got the job of getting the country kickstarted done. As long as we have problems with crime, labour productivity and all sorts of other issues, we're actually missing the boat. This is the real problem.

When I was in America, people even said to me that they prefer to invest in other countries in Africa. Not South Africa because South Africa hasn't hit the bottom yet. They are all convinced that it is going to go down the tubes - just as other countries, like Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi, Ghana, and Nigeria. If that happens it will be a terrible tragedy because a real opportunity to make something work -- that can work -- will have been lost. And I don't know if t will ever be regained. What is happening in Africa - in general - does not make me feel very positive at this moment. I only bloody well hope that I am wrong.

Time will tell . .

Time will tell, but the thing is, I am still working on things which I hope and believe will contribute towards the future of this part of the world. I am rooted here. I really am . . . and I don't really want to think about living anywhere else. When I get to a place like this ( motions towards the Magaliesburg mountains) I realize how much I love this area of the world. And it's not because I find living in South Africa comfortable -- having servants or all of the luxuries that so many white people in this country take for granted. I didn't have to come to South Africa to try to make a ,living or to become rich and successful. I could have stayed in the States and been far more 'comfortable'. But I came here and I have lived here. I have had tremendous experiences and I now feel that I also owe South Africa a little bit because it has given me a lot over the years. I only hope that I will make a contribution that 's going to be regarded as an honest contribution. But just now, I am a little bit concerned with the way things are going. I hope in the short term these things will change, nd in the long term things will come on-line again.

Could you share your thoughts on the internet and the new digital revolution?