Ed Kashi
All images are copyright Ed Kashi from the book "Abandoned Moments: A Love Letter to Photography" published by Kehrer Verlag.
https://www.edkashi.com
https://www.kehrerverlag.com/en/ed-kashi-abandoned-moments-a-loveletter-to-photography-978-3-96900-044-1Ed Kashi comes from the world of photojournalism and documentary photography and filmmaking. His work often calls out for us to act, while making us aware of difficult situations. But the subjects of his photographs are never without hope. Strength can be found in the resolve of the human spirit in the face of tragic circumstances. From that strength possible answers surface.
Using the camera as an extension of his body, Kashi reveals moments that move from the periphery to the foreground in a subtle dance. It is through his act of letting go, of relinquishing control of the viewfinder, that Kashi captures those abandoned moments.
His current book, Abandoned Moments, can be seen, in part, as an autobiography. But its true purpose is to free those moments, those photographs, of their previous context. For it is with this work that Kashi examines the photograph for what it is at its essence. These are fleeting moments captured in a world that pulses with energy and color. A world made up of elements that ebb and flow as Kashi moves through it. This book is Kashi’s “lover letter to photography” and to that world of abandoned moments.
Bill Finger: I want to begin by looking at your beginnings and background in photography. Especially looking to the way in which it relates to your new book, which takes a broader look at you as a photographer. It extends back as opposed to focusing on one specific project.
Ed Kashi: Well, thank you. I got my start in photography when I studied photojournalism at Syracuse University. Initially, I wanted to be a writer. But it was with photography that I found my calling. I never picked up a camera before I went to college.
Once I got out of college I moved to San Francisco. It was there that I launched my career.
BF: It is my understanding that when you moved to San Francisco you began exploring Street Photography. When did the notion of the “Abandoned Moment” come into your practice?
EK: The idea for Abandoned Moments began in 1977, when I was a newbie, not really knowing what I was doing. I was playing with flash and ambient light. That was where the idea for the abandoned moment was born. I started to stalk the streets of the city, district by district. There I began using the approach of the abandoned moment specifically playing with combinations of flash and blur. Shooting at dusk when the light is low. I was looking for a different approach to street photography.
Then over time, as I started to do more and more serious documentary and photojournalism in areas of civil unrest, conflict zones, this approach of basically shooting from the hip became a form of capturing the abandoned moments. It is a very useful way to photograph in situations that are tense or tricky in terms of my security. Shooting from the hip does not change the situation too much. It is only when you bring the camera to your eye that everything changes and the moment can be lost.
BF: As you were using or exploring this idea of the abandoned moment in your photography, as a young street photographer, how present in your mind was Cartier-Bresson and the idea of the “Decisive Moment?”
EK: The Decisive Moment is a canon in photography. As it should be. Bresson was amazing.
For me the abandoned moment was not so much consciously trying to push back on the decisive moment. A lot of my photography makes use of the decisive moment.
But the abandoned moment was more of an organic, visceral discovery as a young photographer. This idea that I could be, in a sense, out of control when I pressed the shutter. That I was not looking through the viewfinder and not being sure of what I was going to capture in the framing and in the moment. And yet, these magical moments would present themselves and be captured.
One of the many loves and fascination that I have for the craft of photography is this idea that you can almost recklessly – that is why I use the term abandoned, moving through the world with abandon, and sort of viscerally react to the things that I see. Capturing characters and juxtapositions while not thinking about it.
The decisive moment is a part of my approach where I have made many pictures in which I have been very precise in my composition, very conscious of everything that I am including and excluding in the frame as a storyteller. Foreground, middle-ground, background, all the principles of photography.
BF: I have noticed that the use of foreground, middle-ground, background is very important to you compositionally. The sense of depth almost gives the images a cinematic quality. There are always differing activities occurring on each of the plans. But the juxtaposition of those activities creates a new sense of the whole. Are those images through the viewfinder or do you capture them from the hip? It seems like it would be very difficult to achieve without using the viewfinder?
EK: I think it is the latter. If you were to watch me work, you would see a very different approach, as opposed to when I am composing carefully. The camera is not just at my hip, it can be at my ankle, at my chest, over my head, it is like a dance with the world. As a photographer, when you are really attuned, which does not happen all of the time, you are using all of your senses – your vision, your hearing, your touch – all of those senses are alive and you are scanning and observing. You might see an interesting person, an interesting facade – you might wait a moment. Or you might walk through it – you might photograph your way through it.
So, it is a very different physical approach as well as a different visual and mental approach than working very carefully and with precision.
BF: As a young photographer, was there an image that you either saw from another photographer or that you created that made you realize that you wanted to go into photography?
EK: It was less of images that I was making and more about the work of others. It was in seeing the book by Mary Ellen Mark, Ward 81. It is a book of black and white photographs of a women’s mental institution in Oregon. She had done that book after doing the stills on the set of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Afterwards she realized the strength of the subject matter and decided to spend three months with these women and making incredible pictures. When I saw that book, I thought, that is who I want to be. That is what I want to do!
The other aspect to becoming the type of photographer that I became was because I was raised in New York in the 60s and 70s amongst the time of progressive movements. I had instilled in me a very strong sense of social justice and an interest in social issues.
There was always a part of me that wanted to be in the mix, to be in the nitty gritty of things. So, when I saw that book I realized, “Oh my God! You can be a photographer, and do that!”
BF: It is a matter of not only if photography can tell a story, or report a story, but it can also enact change in society. By bringing awareness, you can change people’s minds or perspectives.
EK: I have come to realize this now through teaching and mentoring, that there is a kind of person that is attracted to this kind of work. That is why so many photographers are immigrants, misfits, outcasts, people that are used to looking in from the outside, and that in some way they don’t fit in. So, we are made to be observers. I was drawn to the human drama, the human pathos that resolves around these situations.
BF: Can you speak to the difference of your advocacy projects compared to your work for a publication such as National Geographic?
EK: My first project for National Geographic was on the Kurds. I proposed it to them. Also, this was a project for which I had received a grant. So I was going to be doing it anyway. But with them, I was able to do it on a whole other level.
Through this I became what I call the unwitting advocacy person. I went there to do work on the Kurds. In my mind, I was going as a part of the media. I was there to do this large project on the Kurdish people and to tell their story. After I completed the project, we published the book When the Borders Bleed: The Struggle of the Kurds. It was while traveling around to places like London or Berlin that I began meeting people who told me, “Oh, you did that book! That book taught me so much about the Kurdish people.” That was when I had the light bulb moment. There is the careerism – you get the cover of National Geographic, there is that aspect of it that you hope leads to more work. But then there is this other side where you can palpably feel that you have touched people. And you have created something that contributes to something that is greater than you, your work, and your career. You have created a valuable document that others can use to educate and advocate.
From there, the work in Nigeria was consciously done with an advocacy element. At that time period professionally, in terms of the way in which the media landscape was changing for the editorial world, there was less support for long form visual storytelling. But you could still get that support and collaboration from NGOs and nonprofits.
At this point I began consciously working as an advocacy journalist where the idea is to shine a spot light on a problem. But at the same time you can highlight a solution that can give the reader a sense of hope that something is being done about this problem. Because too much of journalism can leave people feeling hopeless and powerless.
BF: This reminds me of your essay from Time magazine where you discuss the detrimental effects that working in crisis zones can bring to those who are covering them. Was this about that same time?
EK: Well, that essay was quite impactful. It went viral actually. It is real, you know. Like so many things that we talk about now, these were things that were not talked about when I was getting started. This idea of the toll that this work takes on you is important. It is an idea that in the past was romanticized, which is an idea that is so false. We are all human beings. Otherwise, it means if you go into this work you are destined to have broken families, and no relationships, and substance abuse problems.
BF: How have you been able to address those issues on a personal level – for the sake of your own mental wellbeing? Does you advocacy journalism help you manage and deal with these personal stresses?
EK: Yes, to some degree there is a healing that can come from doing advocacy work. Generally, you are working with partners and collaborators. You are going into it with the mindset that they bring, that you are not going into it to dig up the dirt, so to speak. You are trying to educate people. So, it is not as emotionally charged where perhaps you would be scarred on a personal level.
BF: I find it interesting how much you use the word “hope” when talking about your advocacy imagery. How do you feel that by sharing this view point, by sharing your photographs, that hope can be fostered and embraced by others?
EK: Photography has the power to compel people to get involved, to get engaged. Whether that is by volunteering, giving donations, or telling others about this thing that they have learned about. And that is real. I know that “hope” is one of those words that a lot of people will pillory or make fun of. I guess we could look up synonyms for the word “hope,” but it is a very real human emotion or trait that helps keep us alive, quite frankly. It implies having a reason to live and a reason to act.
BF: How has your approach to photography changed over the years? You have used the word “invisibility.” This is where you try to photograph your subjects objectively, without influencing their behavior. Do you now find yourself spending more or less time working with an individual subject?
EK: Whether I go into a story or project doing advocacy work or doing a straight journalistic documentary approach, it doesn’t necessarily equate to the depth to which I go or how much time I spend.
Because in some cases, where I have been commissioned, my client, which is usually an NGO or a foundation, has set up everything. So, in some ways, I might actually go less deeply or have less time, because it has all been prearranged. For a lot of the organizations, their main goal is to protect the subjects. Not to exploit them or put them into any potential harm or danger, because of privacy or security. So, in a way I become part of a process that is much more careful. This is good on the human level but there is a trade off in the depth of the coverage where I am not in the position to ask the question I may normally ask.
When I do advocacy work, like my current project where I am looking at chronic kidney disease around the world, that is a mixture. Regardless as to whether I am working for National Geographic or the Guardian or an NGO, this is an issue where I will be digging deeper and asking many more questions. This project differs in that it is my own personal project.
There is often a difference where it is a gig or commission where you want to do a great job obviously. But generally you are not going to push it beyond whatever it is that your client expects of you.
BF: I’d like to bring this around to discussing your new book, Abandoned Moments. It is my understanding that you have been working on this book for the past ten years. You have published many other books, but this one is different. What has drawn you to create this particular book?
EK: In actuality, this book is a culmination of 40 years of photographing. 40 years of observing and capturing those abandoned moments. These are the moments that I embrace. They are what originally caused me to fall in love with photography. Over the years, because of them, I have maintained that passion, that love affair with this craft and medium. The abandoned moment is all about the energy and keen observation, the reacting.
BF: In the past, you have mentioned that you wanted to keep the use of text with images to a minimum. On looking through the book there is a page toward the beginning that contains a number of phrases. I would like to read them off.
“Chaos of Reality”
“Hit the Road”
“Fear of People”
“Wonder of the World”
“Unconscious Offerings”
Now, I first saw this as a list of ideas that you perhaps made for yourself, of things that you were looking to represent in photographs. I spoke, a couple years ago, to Richard Misrach, who created such a list of shooting prompts, which he taped to his steering wheel when he was working on a project. Was this list created originally for you to organize in your mind around how to structure this project?
EK: In creating the book, we purposely did not want to create chapters. That is not the nature of this book and this work. It is much more free-form in that way. It was a desire to share these expressions, these feelings, these thoughts that I’ve had. These were ideas that I have had over the years of the Abandoned Moment. We didn’t want to do chapters, but it would be nice to organize the work, however nonlinear it may be. One of the great enduring qualities of photography is its ambiguity. It gave me a chance to express some of these ideas. That is really where I was coming from.
Hopefully, as one works through the book, these ideas, these phrases connect with the imagery.
BF: I am fascinated with this idea of using your archive for source material. I believe that you have explored this approach before with your book, Three. Also, I believe there is an element of that in your book Witness No. 8.
In looking at all three of your books (Abandoned Moments, Three, Witness No. 8) there is a very personal aspect or story to each of these works. Do you see them working together as a trilogy, and in part, as an autobiography?
And I have to ask, how do you approach working with and editing down from your archive? It must be a massive undertaking. How do you go about approaching and organizing a book from your past photo imagery? Are you looking for specific moments and specific gestures?
EK: I do believe that Abandoned Moments is the last book in a trilogy. In some ways it can be so hard to be viewed as a photojournalist. It makes it so hard to gain traction in the art world. In some ways, these books are a reaction to that. I believe my work has a lot more to say than say, the story of the Kurds, or the story of oil in Nigeria, or about aging in America.
By de-contextualizing the work, there is a richness in the archive. I believe that would true for anyone who has been working for 30-40 years. One of the beautiful things about that is when you can look back on your work, out of context, and appreciate them for just what they are, as photographs, as opposed to asking, does this serve a story, does this serve a layout.
BF: In finding images for your book, how much of the original context is still present? Or in choosing the images did you prefer that they were distant or even free of their original context?
EK: The whole idea is that the context is not relevant anymore. Abandoned Moments is really different than the other two books because this is about a feeling, and a process, and an approach when the image was made. So, there are images that I would love to have included in this book, but they were too composed to be abandoned moments, in their creation.
With the triptychs (Three) and the Photojournalisms (Witness No.8), those books were much more specific. Photojournalisms was based on journal entries that were matched with images that formed a connection to those entries or that place when I wrote it. Three is really about looking for the dance between three images, whether they were from the same project or not.
So, each book has been created with a different approach, a different process. But they are all the same in that they are about decontextualizing the work from its original purpose.
BF: You have mentioned the changes we have seen in a world that has gone from analog to digital. How have these changes affected you and the way that you work? How has this changed photojournalism in general, in the way that images are used and distributed? Do you think that the work can be seen as carrying less weight because of the way in which we quickly scroll through images? In the past, perhaps more time was afforded to considering the printed photograph.
EK: In some ways it is easier to create images in the digital workflow, especially in photojournalism. It is very well suited to improve our practice. We can now write more fully realized captions. Metadata allows us the ability to assign notes to the context, which can be critical for journalism. This was much more difficult before, when we were relegated to writing on a slide.
As far as the deluge of imagery and the way that we consume imagery, there is no question that we run the risk of becoming numb. You are scrolling through and jumping between say, nature-porn, and then skipping over to serious images from Ukraine, and video clips from TikTok. It becomes this mélange of content. You quickly lose sight of what is important. What is relevant anymore? So, there is this worry that concern has become an infotainment industry, where there is this blurring of the line between what is news and what is entertainment. It has become even more important to focus attention on what is important.
BF: I know that with the changes in technology, it has opened up other avenues for you to cover stories. In the past few years the access to digital filmmaking equipment has allowed you to become a filmmaker. Is this a practice that has become widely adopted by photojournalists?
EK: Digital video has definitely become more pervasive. While there are still photographers that are only photographers, the majority of the profession is shooting video. It is kind of expected. And your really are at a deficit if you can’t capture in video and audio. Also, it opens up a lot more opportunities for you to work and to express yourself. So, there is a practical and a creative side to it.
BF: Was this a natural transition for you?
EK: In 2000, in the middle of the Aging Project, I was invited to participate in a digital video workshop. I immediately wanted to apply it to our Aging Project, so that we could bring some of our subjects to life using their own words. From there it just took off. And now it has become a predominant part of my practice. With social media, video has become ascendant. It is a great vehicle with which to reach more people. It has now reached a point where half of what I produce is video.
Also, at this stage, when I am proposing a new idea or conceiving of a new project, I am thinking about what I want to do for it as a film and what I want to do as a photo essay.
BF: In this world where there are cameras everywhere, where we as a society are beginning to resent their intrusion, has this made your job as a photojournalist much more challenging?
EK: Doing this kind of work, I feel more exposed than I ever have before. Depending on the situation, in terms of security, but also in terms of people not trusting or questioning where is this going to be used. There is a heightened sense of privacy, which is ironic, seeing that everybody is displaying everything on social media on their own.
In a practical sense, when I am out photographing, in some ways the world is more closed to photography, but in most cases it is mostly the same as long as you behave and treat people decently. Then, most people are ok with being photographed. When it comes to situations that are a little trickier and security is involved, there are definitely more restrictions.
BF: You are very well known for mentoring young photographers. Do you have a specific piece of advice that you find yourself repeatedly imparting to those who you have mentored?
EK: It would be that you have to find what you are genuinely interested in. That will be the greatest source of your creativity. It will be the source of your passion. It will give you the strength to deal with any disappointments that you encounter and all the gut punches that you are going to receive. That will give you the fortitude to push through it all.
So, what do you care about? What are you interested in? What stories do you want to tell? That is more important than how you are going to do it.