Peter Frank Edwards photographed Douglas Padock for an article on what to do when your retirement savings are gone for the May 2009 issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.
Jeffery Salter photographed Bruce Berkowitz for the May 2009 issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.
Robyn Twomey photographed Wayne Salk, an avid birder looking for a franchise, for the May 2009 issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.
David Butow photographed BrightSource’s Jack Jenkins-Stark and John Woolard, along with Berkeley’s chair of Environmental Engineering Lisa Alvarez-Cohen, and a traffic scene for the April 2009 Green Economy issue of U.S News & World Report.
Kevin J. Miyazaki chats with Andrew Cutraro
Kevin J. Miyazaki: Andrew, I love this photo from your series, “Americans Photographed From My Passing Car.” The pictures are both poignant and fleeting, and they feel very American – a bit like Paul Fusco meets Google Maps. Can you talk a bit about how they were shot?
Andrew Cutraro: Those are both the primary inspiration and motivation for this series. Funeral Train has been burned into my memory from the very first time I saw it. Seeing that book was one of those transformational moments in my life. It transcends words, so out of respect, I won’t even try to define it. I wasn’t around in 1968, but collectively, as Americans, we are steeped in its imagery and sounds. I came of age looking back at that era. So, when the parallels between 1968 and 2008 stared to surface, I became consumed with the urge to record it somehow. Naturally, I was looking at a lot of work from that period, in particular—Fusco, Eppridge, Glinn, but also I had I had been spending an unhealthy amount of time on Google’s newly-launched Street View—which, in its complete mechanical blindness, was producing a wonderfully unbiased record of our time—until they started ruining it by blurring out people’s faces. So, I started to put the two concepts together; this idea of shooting from the car, but with more focus and fidelity. All of these photographs (and the yet unedited accompanying recordings of local radio broadcasts) were made on a week-long drive to the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August. There was no other motivation other than to explore, collect and preserve.
Technically speaking: before I left, I had been experimenting with mounting cameras on cars and driving around DC to test it. I tried using electronic flash, video, time lapse—but none of it seemed to work. It didn’t have any magic. It took sometime to realize what that magic was: In this case, it turned out to be the singular, hand-held capture of the moment when you make eye contact with a passerby—before they have time to present themselves. It is a moment of purity. The passing car is the perfect facilitator of this. The rest was fueled by a concoction of panic, self-doubt and wanderlust. My good pal Frank DiPiazza served as driver, hunter of interesting people, and counselor. Among other things, he introduced me to one of the great, simple pleasures in life—a cold beer at lunchtime.
After I shot this, I put it away for a few weeks to let it ferment. (In all honesty, it probably needs more time to mature.) When I finally got to looking at it, I realized: I’d never met any of these people; in some cases didn’t even see them and yet, somehow, I feel like I know them even better as a result.
Cutraro: Totally. Jubilation was not the true sentiment that day. It was the obvious one, but it was not the most accurate one. It was much deeper than that and because of the historical significance, there is no real frame of reference for it yet. I think we’re all still processing it. There was a tremendous, palatable, collective weight being lifted that day and that’s what I was trying to capture. It was bigger than jubilation.
I sensed it before; on election night in Grant Park in Chicago, but I ignored it and wrongly focused on jubilation. It was a huge mistake that I was not going to repeat photographically. So, this time, I tried to work towards the middle of crowd where regular folks were congregating. If you were near the Captiol that day, you either had influence or the means to wait all night in line. I wasn’t interested in those people; I was interested in those who might have never been to an inauguration before– the ones on pilgrimage– that’s where the sincerity was.
There was a moment at the end of the ceremony when departing President Bush’s helicopter passed over the crowd along The Mall. Where I was, everyone just watched… and, let him go. No cursing, no swearing, no disrespect. I was blown away. It was just eerie. It was the opposite of what I expected. I think everyone wanted to put that era to rest and in some bizarre, puritanical way, the first step of that was to try and forget it. So, as he passed overhead, people were already, figuratively and literally, looking forward. It was unscripted, unanimous, and unrecognized. The hair on my neck was standing up. I’ll never forget that because I knew what I was witnessing was a uniquely American thing and it filled me with pride.
Miyazaki: You began your career in newspapers, and worked on staff at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for seven years. The industry is in such a bad way – still, was it a hard decision to leave in 2006 to pursue freelance work? And would you say you now interject more of your own point of view into your pictures, as opposed to when you worked on a publication staff?
Cutraro: I have always loved newspapers. I grew up in Milwaukee at a time when there were two competing daily papers that had robust and unique voices. It was a strong, blue collar town and there was an age when you got your first paper route as a kid; you had to get up before sunrise, and on Sundays you had to “collect.” It was a rite of passage– like getting a black eye. So, newspapering seeped into my blood at an early age.
Working at newspapers was a great education. I say this not only in a photographic sense, but in a broader sense. The range of ideas, places and people you’re exposed to when working for a daily paper is hard to match and that experience is deeply tied to who I am as both a photographer and a person. It was an incredibly rewarding job and it is painful on so many levels to watch what is happening to the industry, the community and my friends. I think my career path had always included leaving to pursue freelancing at some stage, so the descision wasn’t “hard” inasmuch as it was “sad.” Change is messy sometimes, and I think we all just want to get it over with. Quickly.
Regarding the injection of point of view: I think I always tried to have a point of view in my photographs. What’s changed is my editors. At newspapers, there’s a broad audience you’re trying to reach, so there was a tendency want to simplify things. It’s the opposite for me now and I am happier about that.
Miyazaki: Even though we just met via email recently, I now know we share similar Milwaukee backgrounds (I never had a Journal route, but helped neighborhood friends who did), and that your folks live about 10 blocks from me. Next time you’re in town, I hope we can continue this conversation over a cold Sprecher Amber.
Cutraro: You bet. However, I’m told the Amber is to be served at a temperature of 50 degrees. So, what is that then? A warm one?
Miyazaki: As you know, warm is a relative term here. Hope to see you soon.
Erika Larsen photographed sex education teacher Karen Jordan and student Jewels Morris-Davis for an article on teen pregnancy for the March 30, 3009 issue of Time magazine.
Mark Peterson’s image of Lil Wayne was featured in the April 2, 2009 issue of rolling Stone.
Lorenzo Pesce photographed Florence, Italy for the Style Map in the Travel Spring 2009 issue of The New York Times Style Magazine.
Ben Baker photographed Harvard historian Niall Ferguson for the April 2009 issue of Money magazine.
Erika Larsen photographed the Trinity church, and the administration behind it, for an article on the different ways the church is embracing God in these hard economic times for the premier 2009 issue of Purpose Driven Connection.