Ed Kashi Interview Transcript

Mia: Hey, nice to meet you.

Ed: Good to meet you too. I’m in a dark hotel room in Los Angeles so.

Mia: My name is Mia and this is my fellow member Xander. Ella actually couldn’t make it so he’s just filling in.

Ed: Okay, where are you guys?

Mia: I'm in New Jersey actually.

Ed: Okay cool, where in New Jersey?

Mia: Like central in Middlesex county.

Xander: I’m in California.

Ed: Where in California?

Xander: Near LA.

Ed: Alright, cool, so we’re not far from each other. Alright.

Mia: So just my first question, can you tell me more about your story and about your life?

Ed: Okay so my story from what aspect, like in terms of personal or professional or both?

Mia: I think both.

Ed: Okay, wow where do we begin? Well, let's see. I’m a first generation American, so I was born in New York City and my family, my parents, are both from Baghdad from Iraq and they came over in 1942 to America. But you know I was raised in New York as an American kid in the 60’s and 70’s and in many ways growing up during that period of time really informed who I am and is clearly linked directly to the work that I ended up doing. Because I grew up in a time of great [change], similar to what we’re experiencing now, of great social and political upheaval and you know sort of progressive movements, whether you know it was civil rights, or women’s rights, or awareness about the environment, you know all these issues that percolated into the American consciousness in the 60’s and 70’s. Unfortunately we then backslid and now we find ourselves where we are still having to fight these fights in some ways more than ever there's still so much work to be done. So my work as a photojournalist as a documentarian was informed by what I grew up around. I knew I wanted to be a storyteller by the time I was maybe 16 or 17 years old, but I didn’t know what that would look like, who does know at that age what it would look like, and anyway that's kind of a shortened version of my history. So for the last 40 years now I’ve been working around the world and around the United States as a photojournalist and a documentary photographer and now filmmaker.

Mia: So how did you get into photography and specifically photojournalism?

Ed: I wanted to be a writer originally when I was in high school and then I got to college and realized I wasn't a very good writer and in a moment of panic, I was at Syracuse university where the course book of oh [no] what am I gonna do now that my dream of being a great novelist was vanquished, for some reason I decided to look at photography. I had never taken a picture prior to going to college, I wasn’t like the high school yearbook photographer or had even thought about photography, but I ended up at a great university for photojournalism. The Newhouse school of public communications at Syracuse university so I was very fortunate that when I pivoted to photography I ended up being at a great institution for learning photojournalism. And I would say in 3 months, I mean we’re talking 1976 now, you know so this is black and white, wet/dark room, analog form of photography, I fell in love with photography. Just you know hook, line, and sinker I was taken by it. And I remember learning about this great American photographer, Emma Jean Cunningham, who was then in her 90’s already and she was still making photographs and I was like wow if I could live into my 90’s and still be doing this, it's like I’m in. So anyway that was kind of the beginnings of falling in love with photography and then as I learned more about photographers like Mary Ellen Mark, W. Eugene Smith, and some of the greats, you know Robert Frank, I just fell in love with the idea of social documentary. So then in a sense it was like it fused my political and social selves who had grown up with all this political ferment around me, you know the anti-Vietnam war and all of these things from a very young age. Just to give you an idea when I was 10 years old I volunteered for the Humphrey campaign against Richard Nixon. I mean before I could reasonably understand what I was doing politically I felt this internal compulsion, and you know the friends I had around me were politically engaged before we could even understand what it all meant, we just knew that it felt right. So photojournalism was able to synthesize all of these parts of me into one directed path. Once I realized that’s what I wanted to do and then I graduated from university and I moved out to San Francisco in 1979 because I wanted to get away from New York, and that was really where the path began for real. I started to become a professional photographer and since then, well you know the rest is history. Always working on personal projects, it took me years of course to mature to the point, I wasn’t in my late 20’s really until I was mature enough as a person to properly delve into the lives of others.

Mia: So what inspired you to create your Rising to the Call series, and how has documenting it changed your perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic?

Ed: Okay so it's like the first week of March I had just come back from Nicaragua, it was the last foreign work I had been able to do before everything shut down, I sort of realized that I was in the epicenter of the pandemic at that point and I knew I have to stay engaged. Also one of the driving forces for me behind doing this work is to stay engaged in the world and stay relevant. When I looked around first, second week of March and I was like oh [no] what am I gonna do with my life, I have lost all this work that was scheduled for the year, the phone is dead, im essentially forced to quit here. So I thought, okay what’s happening around me, I wanna work safely. I don't wanna get sick and die and I was taking all of these factors into account. I can't travel, I need to protect myself but I want to stay engaged. So what’s the big issue of the moment, well the pandemic. How can I engage with it? When I looked around I thought, I have this free time I normally dont have so I volunteered at a local food pantry, Tony’s Kitchen, in New Jersey where I live, 12 miles west of manhattan. As I started to volunteer there a couple of times a week I decided, why don't I do something on volunteerism and this idea of all these individuals and businesses and organizations that are rising to the call. That is pivoting in terms of what they normally do in order to contribute. I love the idea, the last 5 years or so I’ve tried to shift into what I call more like solution journalism, you know more advocacy work where you might spotlight a problem in the world, but then also show a solution. Whether it's an individual, an organization, whatever it is trying to address the problem. I felt this was a great opportunity to deploy that approach through hyperlocal storytelling, which is critically important with this idea that I don't need to go to Afghanistan or Nigeria to tell a story, I can do it right in the state of New Jersey where I live. That's where the idea came from and then for 2 months most days I was working with my studio manager researching ideas and then just going out and photographing, telling these stories and meeting these people and going to these companies. There was the YMCA or individuals, or an engineering school making protective shields for local hospitals. What was so great about that is it was inspiring, you know. The thing we must remember about America and Americans regardless of all the negative stuff that we’re shown and we’re told about our country and about our people, is that most Americans are good people, and when it gets down to it they will do the right thing. I wanted to show that, at least in the state of New Jersey as an example it could not just be New Jersey that behaves this way, that we can really come together both individually and collectively we can do the right thing. Those were the sort of inspirations for doing this, and as has been a hallmark of my career, I have always self initiated my ideas, it's always something I've done and this was another example of that. I come up with my idea and I engage and I just go do it. Invest my own time, invest my own money, and I just do it, and then try to get it published. Thankfully, the New York Times op ed section picked it up so it was published in the New York Times.

Mia: Out of this collection, do you have a favorite photo, and why?

Ed: That's a hard one, I always say that's like picking a favorite child but it's so hard to say. I think one of the most inspiring subjects and an image I'm quite fond of although the New York Times did not publish it was of the Nutley Volunteer EMS crew. Again, even in a normal time it's pretty cool that people volunteer for free to save us, to respond to the 911 calls. But during a pandemic where they are truly risking their lives, pretty amazing. It's the best of us, it should be inspiring. I don't care how cynical you are, you should be inspired by them, the fact that there are people in our midst that are willing to work for free to take care of other people. In a sense that spirit that the EMS volunteer crew embodies I feel was a part of almost all of the subjects, all the institutions I photographed that were either pivoting or adapting to this new reality.

Mia: How has working in photojournalism given you a platform to speak up about issues you care about?

Ed: Well, that's an interesting question. Because things have changed so dramatically, especially in the last 10 years, first with the digital revolution and the with social media, concurrently with the evolution of the media industry, particularly in the world I come from which is magazines, the editorial world, it's been so eroded both economically and in terms of its influence, so it has been a very difficult period. Photojournalism whereas, before I got started in the 80’s with it and before television in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, even through the 70’s photojournalism was one of the few platforms in which you could learn about the world, and it was the beginning of the use of visual image and recording to tell us about the world. Whether it was LIFE Magazine or National Geographic, now we scroll to the moment where now I would be surprised if you look at National Geographic, I don't know where you guys get your information but things have changed so dramatically so while photojournalism and visual storytelling have tremendous impact on individuals and on the world, it's really changed. In some ways it has become decentralized, which is a good thing, I might be straying from your question so you can stop me if i'm digressing, but you know the other beautiful thing that's happening that is long overdue, like some of the conversations and the protests and are happening now, is that there's a greater diversity of voices. Now you have more women, more racial ethnic diversity, more international diversity in the voices that are speaking in the world of photojournalism. That is a very exciting and overdue change. I kind of lost the thread of your question but I hope that answered some of it.

Mia: That was good, so what is the overall takeaway that you want people to have after seeing your work?

Ed: In general, or rising to the call?

Mia: I think more specifically rising to the call.

Ed: Rising to the call, oh that there is hope, that there are people and organizations in our midst that are doing the right thing, that are responding in this moment in a rational way, and in a fact based way, and they are coming from a place of wanting to help other people survive, help us survive this moment, and that I hope visual storytelling not only instills hope in people, but that it inspires people that there is support, and there are good things happening in a moment that can feel so hopeless and scary depending on your position in life.

Mia: And what would you say you have gained from completing Rising to the Call?

Ed: Simply I am inspired. Every day I went out and photographed, whether it was a bunch of moms in New Jersey making thousands of masks, or the YMCA in Meadowlands that were distributing 40,000 meals a week to the needy, from the small to the large acts that I was able to witness and document, it reminds me again why I love doing what I do, which is on a personal level by engaging and learning, I am reminded that things will be okay, and that we will prevail. And on the larger level, that I might have some small small role through my work in showing that to other people.

Mia: My last question will just be do you have any final message or messages for anyone that is looking to get involved in their communities or in photojournalism?

Ed: I think the message would be that you should get involved in your communities one way or another, especially during this time where we have more time on our hands then we normally would, whether you’re a student or you’re a professional, or you’re retired, whatever your position, is get involved with your community, look at how you can help, whatever it may be. This is a time of great need on so many levels, whether it's talking to an elderly person that's stuck at home, or shopping for our elders who can't get out, or volunteering in some way. Please get involved and engage with the world, and also media literacy. Pay attention to the facts and learn how to decipher good information from bad information, because we're living in a moment where we have political leaders that are nakedly giving out bad information, just for political purposes. We are living in a time where we have leaders who are dividing us for their own political gain. The only way we can circumvent that and ultimately prevail for the good of our nation and the good of our people is to pay attention, and learn to decipher good information from bad information so that when we act, we are acting from a place that is fact based. Ultimately we will prevail.

Mia: Thank you so much, that was all the questions I had, and thank you for taking the time to be interviewed.

Ed: Of course of course. So how old are you?

Mia: I’m actually a rising freshman in high school.

Ed: Oh my god, okay so you see this gives me hope, that someone in your age and stage, and I mean that respectfully, that you know it’s inspiring that you care enough to do this, right? Because that’s our salvation, is people like you.

Mia: Thank you!

Ed: Oh my god, I’m gonna cry. Alright, are we good?

Mia: Yeah.

Ed: Alright, stay safe guys, and thank you for doing this work. If you post anything send me the link so that I can project it out there as well. Alright bye guys, take care.

Mia: Bye, you too.