Concerned Photographer
Henry Hornstein & Russell Hart
Excerpted from the book:
Photography: Photojournalism
© Henry Hornstein and Russell Hart Prentice-Hall, 2001 Chester Higgins Jr., lives a dual life. Workdays he makes a living as a general assignment photographer for the New York Times, photographing news conferences, fires, and society events (“Anything but sports,” he says.) Nights, weekends, and vacations he spends on his own long-term projects. His bestknown personal project, Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa, took him to over thirty countries, was eventually published as a book, and traveled as an exhibition worldwide. These days a degree in photojournalism from a school of journalism is a virtual necessity for a newspaper job. Things were a little looser when Higgins started his career in the early 1970s. His training was in business and sociology and, while he learned photography in college, he never studied it formally. Coming to New York City after graduation, he taught for a while at New York University and worked as a freelance photographer. His success freelancing eventually led to a full-time job at The Times. Most photojournalists use automated 35mm SLR camera systems. These are quick and flexible and allow the use of a wide variety of lenses and other accessories. However, Higgins prefers more basic equipment. For generalpurpose work, he uses a 35mm rangefinder. When he needs an SLR, such as when using telephone lenses, he shoots with a manual-focus 33mm SLR. While many photo-journalist carry a lot of equipment, just in case they’ll need something, Higgins prefers to keep it simple - one camera body (maybe a second as backup when traveling), three lenses, flash, battery pack, and reflective umbrella. “For me, the greater the limitations, the more I need to be creative. Besides, too many options breeds insecurity, “ he says. Newspaper photojournalists almost always use color negative film. Negative film offers more latitude; if the exposure or lighting situation is a little off, it won’t matter quite as much as it would with transparency film. And using color gives photo editors the option of running the image either in color or black-and-white. Higgins uses color negative film on assignment, but prefers black-and-white negative film when photographing for himself. Film is processed at the newspaper using the same type of machine used by mini-labs (so-called “one-hour labs”). Newspapers rarely use prints anymore. Instead the photographer (or photo editor) edits the negatives on a lightbox, then scans the chosen images directly. The designer drops the scanned (and reversed) files into the page layout on computer and sends it off to the printer. The right equipment is important, of course, but perhaps a photojournalist’s most important tools are good judgment and a sympathetic soul. Photographing strangers, for example, can be awkward, as many beginning photographers know. “Immediately reach out,” Higgins suggests. “If you like people and reach out, they’ll reach back. Everyone wants acceptance and the fastest way to get it is to give it: Be human, direct, honest - no bull. Ask your subjects what’s going on, and mean it. Be a good listener.” Higgins believes that
Royal Court Official, Kumasi, Ghana
if you listen, people will lead you to other subjects and ideas. “Turn people into teachers,” he says. “Exchange information and build a bridge of trust.” Higgins often finds himself working in areas where he is not known and doesn’t really know anyone. This can be dicey and sometimes dangerous. He tries to meet and enlist spiritual leaders as allies—for example, priests and other pillars of the community. “This is an efficient way to work, especially since I usually have a limited amount of time to work. These people know everyone - good and bad - and they know how to direct me.” Most photographers work freelance; in fact, working for a newspaper is one of the few jobs in photography that actually offers full-time employment. On a large newspaper staff photojournalists sometimes specializes in one area—for example, sports events or city hall activities. Most, however, are generalists. Higgins likes it that way. It’s fresh—“I don’t know whose face I’ll be looking at tomorrow,” he says—and it helps break the monotony of his long-range projects. The fact that Higgins works on personal projects as well is relatively rare among newspaper photojournalists. The projects vary somewhat, but they all share certain common themes, frequently focusing on the state of African Americans. “Western media often lacks the ability to see and show three basic aspects of my people,” he says, “our decency, our dignity, and our virtuous character. The view all too often presented in the media concerning people of African descent is a limited one, focusing narrowly on pathological and deviant behavior.” Preparing for his projects is a true test of Higgins’s powers of perseverance and organization. He spends whatever time he can find researching areas where he plans to travel. He reads the available books, talks to people who have been there, and even subscribes to newspapers and magazines from that country or region. He photographs when he has vacation time. (What most people call vacations he considers a waste of time.) The personal projects are all financially supported without the help of The New York Times, with a combination of grants, publishing advances, print sales, and personal investment. On the surface, much of Higgins’s work is about African American issues. Yet in a broader sense his photography is about the human condition. A current personal project, a book titles Elder Grace, focuses on the perception of age in our society. Having grown up in a community where age was revered (the small Alabama town of New Brockton), Higgins finds it disheartening that “cultural wisdom is not valued anymore.” Another reason Higgins is so focused on age may be his gratitude to older photographers who helped and influenced him - from Arthur Rothstein, who was best known for his work with the Farm Security Administration and later picture editor at LOOK magazine, to the great African American photographers and teachers P.H. Polk, Gordon Parks and James Vanderzee, and to Ernest Cole, an African photographer who documented Apartheid in the 1960s. In a similar way, Higgins is leaving his own legacy. Over the years, he says “I have seen more willingness on the part of the media to report positively on our diverse cultures.” Such progress is a testament to individuals like Higgins who see their jobs more as a mission than just a means of making a living.
Figure, Brooklyn, New York