AJ:
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"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'Ős 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.
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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."
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AJ:
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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.
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