Inspiration in Analog
Q & A with Monica Denevan
I first fell in love with Monica Denevan’s work from an old copy of The Sun magazine I picked up at a public library. Soon after that, I got a subscription and it was always a pleasure to see her photographs whenever they were on the cover.
We first connected in person over a year ago at SF Camerawork where she was giving a talk on her photography. Denevan has been photographing the same Burmese village and people over many years, and now decades.
Her work is currently part of the summer show at the Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco, on view through September 3rd.
C: People come to photography in different ways. What led you to your own interest?
MD: I took my first photography class when I was at Mercy High School here in San Francisco. Later, a friend was taking photo classes, when we were at San Francisco State University, and she asked me to model for a few of her projects. I enjoyed the interactive process and the following semester I took my own photo classes. But before all that, I was photographing my friends, at school, at camp, and was fascinated by how people look flattened out in a picture. I remember waiting with great anticipation to pick up my 3 ½ x5 prints from the drug store. It always took so long.
C: Mechanics will talk about their first car. Jockeys about a first horse. Can you tell me about your first camera?
MD: The first camera I ever used was my mother’s Kodak Instamatic. I photographed friends with it in junior high school. I needed a 35mm camera for my high school photography class and borrowed my mother’s Voigtlander. However, by the time I started classes at SFSU, I needed my own camera and got a Nikon FE2 as a birthday gift. After it was stolen at a party, I replaced it with the same camera. I photographed with my Nikon until I bought my Bronica in 1999. I’m not obsessed with camera equipment.
C: I really like your gear list: a Bronica medium format camera, one lens, a few bags of film. Why is this short list your preferred equipment?
MD: For one thing, I don’t have a lot of gear to bring with me when I travel. Also, photographing with the medium format and film is a slow process. For me, it would become even slower if I were to constantly change cameras and lenses. Of course, that limits what I can do but I like having parameters.
C: This is always a perennial favorite in analog photography, but why film? Without getting into the debate about whether film is superior to digital or vice-verse, what is it about film that attracts you?
MD: Film is slow and it makes me look closer and engage better with my subjects. I also print my own work, from negatives, in my darkroom. I enjoy printing very much and don’t want to have to give that up.
C: Your photographs are beautifully composed. Can you describe your process in balancing the subject of a photograph?
MD: Thank you. I’m not sure there is a process, but everything has to look correct in the space and make sense to me.
C: Do you have an image that didn’t quite work as a rough draft, and which you reshot to get the final version? What were you looking to correct?
MD: Yes,” Pendulum, Burma 2007.” I planned this image is great detail at the time but was unsatisfied with the way it turned out when l got home and finally saw the contact sheets. I knew it could be much better and more to the way I had envisioned it, so I reshot it the following year. And, the weather cooperated.
C: Do you have an example of a serendipitous image to share? Some happy accident that was supposed to come out some other way? What was it about this image that saved it for you?
MD: Matador, Burma 2003. This image wasn’t supposed to happen at all but was a happy accident. We were in the boat ready to cross the river when the man pushed off and stood in the boat just as the wind whipped up his longyi. Somehow I was able to make the photograph in that moment but I was not prepared and was scrambling. I remember pleading with the photo gods to allow what I had just seen translate somewhat to my film. But, it’s rarely as good as in real life…
C: You mention on your website that you try to keep a version of early 20th century images in your head as you photograph. What does this mean?
MD: Because I photograph in small villages away from cities, the areas are rural and my images are mostly in basic settings without many indicators of 21st century modern life. Although I enjoy looking at early travel photography from all parts of the world, and believe that we are influenced by everything that we come into contact with, I don’t intentionally think about other artists when I make my pictures.
C: Something I really admire about your work is its intimacy. Though the majority of the images are posed, the viewer gets the sense of an assured and relaxed relationship between the model and photographer. From what I understand, you have been going to the same area of Burma for more than a decade. This may be too much of a question for a short piece — and a silly sounding one at that — but what keeps you going back? Why do you return so many times to photograph the same spaces and people? And what has changed over time in your relationship(s)?
MD: I continue to go back because the landscape and the people inspire me. Despite things seeming to be the same all the time, there are always changes, subtle and overt, and, those changes are challenging to me. For instance, people die or move away, favorite trees get cut down or hit by lightning, and the boundaries of the river are never consistent.
