Making Portraits In Your Own Back Yard and then Half-a-World Away
In Conversation with Andy Vernon-Jones
A master of powerfully humane portraiture, Andy Vernon-Jones is a photographer, educator and artist, based in New York. He previously worked as a counsellor at a school for former dropouts in Red Hook and taught photography and art at a small high school in Brooklyn. Vernon-Jones’ is author of the acclaimed photobook Here in Red Hook. He recently successfully crowdfunded his second book Invitations, Encounters (March, 2016) which features images from India. In the lead up to the release of Invitations, Encounters we talked to Vernon-Jones about photographing strangers, his New York inspirations and his experiences shooting abroad.
Red Hook has significantly in recent times. Your portraits appear to show a real strength in adversity. Do you feel that the conditions of the area come through in your work?
The Red Hook community has certainly been through a lot. In the second half of the 20th-century much of the shipping industry moved from the Brooklyn waterfront to larger ports. That led to terrible unemployment. Crack and the violence surrounding it had a brutal effect on the neighborhood in the 80s and 90s. By the time I was living and photographing there (2006–2011) some of the economic boom in Brooklyn was starting to trickle in to the neighborhood but so many people were still without jobs.
The effects of this history are definitely apparent in my photographs, but I think they focus more on people’s resilience than on their suffering. I was working at a high school in the neighborhood at the time, so I got to know the community through the young people. I think their openness and optimism shows in many of the portraits.
In 2013, “superstorm” Sandy hit the neighborhood hard. It flooded most of the neighborhood, destroyed businesses and shut down heat and hot water for weeks and sometimes months for many residents. I was involved in some relief work after the storm and I know that the community’s resilience served it well (while the city’s Department of Housing and other agencies were not serving them well).
All of the photographs in my book were shot in the era before the storm.
What is the most powerful moment you’ve had behind the camera?
Very early in the project I photographed two brothers smoking Black & Mild cigars before school. It about 7am and it was sad to see these boys doing something I knew was toxic to their young bodies, but there as also something so beautiful and strong about them.
I really liked how the photograph turned out and it was part of what inspired me to continue shooting in the neighborhood in this way… later it was included in an exhibition in the Brooklyn Museum. It became this very important picture to me, but I hadn’t gotten their contact information so for almost two years I was always keeping my eye out for them when I was out on the street.
One day their was a big snow storm and they closed school, so I went out to shoot. It was freezing and almost nobody was around and then I saw these two young men walking through the projects carrying coffee cups.
As I approached them I realized that one of them was Raheem, the younger brother from the smoking photo. I was so excited to see him and tell him about the picture and how it had been exhibited and everything. He couldn’t believe it. I got his info and met up with him and his brother several more times, gave them prints and all that. The picture I took of Raheem with his friend Javier on that snowy day (they were actually drinking hot chocolate) became the cover for Here in Red Hook.
The photographs have a lightness to them that seems out of place in such a setting, is this something you’ve cultivated as a photographer?
If my art can be honest — not frivolous or phony — and still offer some sense of hope or some belief in humanity, then I think I’m succeeding. It’s easy for things to feel discouraging or alienating, but if I’m able to be open and really pay attention, I can almost always find evidence of growth and connection and I think that’s much more interesting.
Red Hook is surrounded by water so at certain times of day the light there can be like in Italy or in Cape Cod. I love that light. It can bring a literal lightness to the photos.
Moving on to your new project Invitations, Encounters. How were your travels in India?
Hospitality was a huge part of my experience in India because my spouse, Avni, has dozens of aunts, uncles, cousins and other family members there who have been so welcoming to us. One challenge has been visiting family and having them cook an amazing feast for lunch. I have to have self control and not eat myself into a food coma so I can have energy to go out and photograph in the afternoon.
It’s almost a cliche to call India vibrant, but I will say that the combinations of tradition and modernity, spirituality and practicality along with the sheer number of people are really amazing — at least to someone like me who didn’t grow up there.
India is definitely a country to be experienced with all your senses. One sense I tried to use was my sense of self — to be aware and respectful of the fact that I was an outsider but always open to new experiences and connections.
Did you find the transition between localities affected your work? Or was the bond of humanity just as strong regardless of GPS?
I’ve really enjoyed the connections I made with people in all of the parts of the country I’ve visited, but people in the south — in Kerela and Tamil Nadu — were especially enthusiastic with their welcome. Outside of tourist centers, I was treated like a celebrity. There are troubling implications to being treated like you’re special just because you’re tall and have fair skin, but I think there’s also something genuine about people wanting to welcome visitors and make a connection outside their daily routine.
I definitely enjoyed having grown men approach me on the street just to smile, shake my hand and ask my name. It’s so different from the guarded culture of the sidewalks in New York City. And it certainly created many opportunities to shoot portraits.
Some great photographers have shot in India and some found the conditions difficult, was this the same for you?
The privilege of traveling as a westerner with more resources than most people in the country meant I could usually avoid any conditions I found too difficult. If I didn’t want to squat over a hole in the ground I could do my business back at the hotel or Avni’s cousins house where there were western toilets. One thing I did suffer from somewhat was the air pollution. In 2012, after two weeks in Mumbai, my nose started running constantly and wouldn’t stop until I’d spent three days in a small beach village away from the city.
As for the great photographers who have shot in India, I’m interested in acknowledging the ones who are from there. My partner’s Mother recently gave me a copy of Raghubir Singh’s River of Colour, and I’ve become a big fan of his work.
Can you tell me a little about you inspirations? Why did you choose photobooks as your medium?
Becoming part of an Indian family and getting to visit India multiple times provided the initial inspiration and opportunity to create Invitations, Encounters. I’ve been so inspired while I’ve been in India and photography is one of my primary ways of connecting with and understanding places and people. After my first trip I knew that I had made some pictures that I believed in and wanted to share but that I needed to go further before I had a finished body of work, so I kept shooting on further visits. This past summer I started editing the thousands of images I’d shot down to what I really wanted to put out into the world, and it started to become clear that I wanted to make a book.
I’ve landed on photobooks as a way to present my work because they’re so accessible and easy to share, while also giving me a chance to really curate exactly how someone experiences the pictures. I love looking at big photographs hung on a wall, but such a small percentage of people go to galleries to see art and even fewer people can afford to buy art. A $30 photobook is affordable to so many more people and I love that when I mail out a copy of one of my books, I never know who will end up looking at it.
Of course the internet is the other great accessible way to share photography, but I think people slow down and take more time with a book than they’re likely to do on my website or with an Instagram post.
So what are you plans after this project?
After the release of Invitations, Encounters, I’m going to continue working on a series of photographs of friends and family closer to home. It’s a much more open-ended project that I’ve been shooting for several years. It includes some documentary style photos and some that are more staged. No title for that work yet, but I’m imagining it as a book as well.
Do you have any advice for the emerging or new photographer?
Be as open-minded as possible about how choose to share your photographs with an audience. You don’t have to get a show in an established gallery or a commission from a big client to be on your way to a very interesting a fulfilling photographic journey — notice, I’m not using the word “career”!
Wolfgang Tillmans first “show” was enlargements made on a photocopy machine hung up at a local cafe. You can do a Powerpoint presentation at the neighborhood library, or make a zine and send a copy to all your second cousins.
Stick to making photographs that you like, not what you think other people will think are cool.
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