Spirit Catcher

The Spirit Catcher

Brenda D. GlassĂŠ

Brenda D. Glassé Photojournalism Workshop Empire State College, NYC Final Project Professor Melvyn Rosenthal Summer 2006 “My photographs confront stereotypes. My mission is to redefine the visual document as it relates to people on the margins of society. I document potential: what it means to be decent, dignified and virtuous. I search for the signature of the Spirit.” — Chester Higgins Jr. (1946- ) “…he (Higgins) follows the maxim of his mentor Cornell Capa that the “role of photography is to show…things to be appreciated and respected.”

— Eddy L. Harris, The New York Times Book Review

The Spirit Catcher: Chester Higgins Jr. Chester Higgins Jr. was reared in a small community in New Brockton, Alabama, in 1946, with positive men and women who had a strong sense of who they were.

Mr. Higgins entire life seems to have been led by the Spirit. When he was a young boy he received his first understanding of spirituality. He awoke early one morning to “a low, constant sound” in his head and a “supernaturally, bright light coming from the wall diagonally across from my bed” (2). After the light cleared young, Master Higgins saw “the image of a man draped in a garment as in ancient times” (5). He became hysterical as the image began to speak to him because he thought that death was coming to get him. His grandfather, the Reverend Warren Smith, interpreted the experience as his calling to ministry. So at nine years old he “preached at different churches and recruited members into the Southern Baptist Church” (2) and he did so for over a decade under the guidance of his grandfather.

The Reverend Warren Smith was one of the strong forces in Mr. Higgins’ life giving him his first driving lesson at eight years old and teaching him how to knot a tie. An accomplished tailor, owner of the family’s dry cleaning business, and minister of three churches, he led by example. Fighting for the rights of African Americans in Alabama, Reverend Smith “withstood racial slurs and threats and had even had his house burned down during his struggles to secure voting rights and schooling for African Americans in Coffee County” (9).

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was also a powerful influence in Mr. Higgins’ life. African Americans were terrorized in the 1950’s and 1960’s in Alabama with Jim Crow laws. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. took a stand and took up the cause of fighting for civil rights in the racist south. Mr. Higgins experienced racism in the south as a child. He had a traumatic experience when his neighbor, Andy, a young White boy beat up another White boy as a way of protect-

ing young Chester. He was so panicked that the boy who was beat was going to come after him with a band of boys that he never spoke to Andy again.

He said that living in Alabama during his early days “was like being in a cage with a rattlesnake and not knowing when the snake would attack” (13).

Blacks had to always be on guard in the presence of Whites because many of them had unpredictable behavior that would lead to heinous acts or even to the death of a Black person. Like the case of Aunt Jessie’s pretty, little granddaughters who with her son came from Detroit to visit with her and Aunt Ola, her sister. The girls were not accustomed to being cautious in the presence of Whites and went to a restaurant owned by a Klansman to buy ice cream cones. They had no idea that Blacks were to be served only at the back door. Before they could get back to their grandmother’s house they were followed by the owner who was also the town policeman and his son in a police car, sprayed with tear gas, attacked with their batons, thrown in the back seat and carried off to jail while helpless Blacks watched. Aunt Jessie knew that her son would try to kill the policeman and risk being killed and would not let him go to the police station. Instead, for his own protection, she and eight other women locked him into a circle and would not let him go until they were satisfied that he would remain at Aunt Jessie’s house. She then went to the police station and returned with her granddaughters.

It was during these highly charged times that Mr. Higgins received his inspiration to be a photographer. Marching against George Wallace while a college student at Tuskegee Institute in the late 1960’s, Mr. Higgins was disappointed at the negative depiction of African-Americans that the news photographers made for “outsiders” to see. They were portrayed as “thugs and potential arsonists” (18). Certainly his photographs did not represent African Americans that way. They represented decent and dignified “American citizens exercising our constitutional right to petition our government for change” (18).

Inspired by Mr. Polk’s thirty-five year old photos of rural men and women crookedly lined on the inner walls of his studio at Tuskegee Institute, Mr. Higgins’ photography career began. Like Mr. Polk he wanted to make photos of “the treasures” in his life like his Great Aunt Shugg and his Great Uncles March Forth, John, and Bougg Harris. He was impressed with how the photographs of revealed the subject’s dignity and character.

Mr. Polk made picture making look so easy but Mr. Higgins soon found out that it wasn’t as easy as it looked. Nevertheless, he was hungry to learn and Mr. Polk, the college photographer, official photographer for Booker T. Washington, and the only photographer that Mr. Higgins knew at the time became his mentor. He believed in Mr. Higgins’ talent and his right to make pictures.

Mr. Higgins found Mr. Polk an easy man to love. He had great insight and knew how to make his subjects feel comfortable. After his first roll of exposed film produced two out of twenty-five pictures Mr. Higgins’ first lesson was how to read light, which Mr. Polk showed him how to do in spite of his 1960 Pentax not having a flash. One of the best lessons that Mr. Polk taught him was that no camera, lens, or light can make a picture. “Only your eyes can make a picture” (76).

After Mr. Polk’s training and the experienced gained making photographs at civil rights demonstrations at Tuskegee Institute, Mr. Higgins used the summer vacation before the start of his senior year to go to New York to “learn to make pictures as compelling as those published by the best photographers” (80). That is when he met his next mentor, the director of photography at Look magazine, Arthur Rothstein. Mr. Rothstein gave him guerilla photography training, a summer intensive, if you will. There was the Metropolitan Museum and the Frick Collection to visit to study the visual concepts in the paintings of a list of artists. Then, off to the Museum of Modern Art to study the works of Farm Security Administration photographers Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. Seeking to know more he discovered the works of Gordon Parks, Marion Post Walcott, and to his pleasant surprise, Arthur Rothstein. As part of his training Mr. Rothstein directed Mr. Higgins to put down his camera and to “use his thumb and forefinger on both hands to frame images and to practice until he learned to compose his pictures right in the camera” (84), which was his lesson in pre-visualization. Last, Mr. Rothstein wanted Mr. Higgins to know that there had to be a message behind his photos—the photos should reflect what he is trying to say.

Summer ended and it was time to return to his senior year at Tuskegee.

Equipped with sixty rolls of film Mr. Higgins and Mr. Rothstein continued their relationship by mail. Mr. Rothstein’s influence personally and professionally positioned Mr. Higgins to be a strong contender in photography and prepared him to receive the lessons of his next three mentors: Cornell Capa, the passionate founder of the International Center of Photography (ICP) to whom he is forever grateful for inviting him to the photographic seminars at New York University to listen to the likes of Ansel Adams, Jerry Uelsmann, W. Eugene Smith and who helped him to become “aware of the evolving trends in his personal work” (88); Romare Bearden, an excellent storyteller and a “celebrated and politically inspired artist” (88), who taught him “the greater the limitation, the more creative you must become to overcome it” (92); and Gordon Parks, an accomplished photographer, musician, filmmaker, writer, poet, and painter who told him that “great photographs are made with the heart, not necessarily with the eye” (95). He even would spend days talking to photographer James Van Der Zee who he considered a grand old man.

Family is important to Mr. Higgins as he so lovingly expresses in his stories and photographs, so when faced with divorce and a “court-imposed estrangement from my children” (103) he could not think of any other way to ease his separation from his family but to take his life. Emotionally distraught, he remembered the gun that he kept hidden to assist him in alleviating his pain. After loading all of the chambers and raising the gun to his head to end it all, he granted himself a last request “to look into the face of the sun” (103). He went out on the terrace and was met by light and an internal voice, “Have faith; it’s not over. There is a future for you” (103). I am happy to say, he is still with us and sought the help that he sorely needed.

The most beautiful thing that came out of his near-death experience was that he stayed connected to his children.

One of the ways of connecting with them was through ceremonies such as

Jukebox, Atlanta, Georgia

Window, Tuskegee, Alabama

the rites of passage ceremony that he performed with his son, Damani, in Egypt. Not growing up with his biological father, he wanted to have a strong relationship with his children. When Damani was twenty Mr. Higgins hired him as his assistant on his first trip and Mr. Higgins’ fifteenth trip to Africa to share with him the land of his heritage. They both share a love for His Majesty Haile Selassie and the Rastafarian lifestyle so one leg of the trip was to photograph the re-interment of what would have been his 100th birthday.

To their disappointment, but not their discouragement, the new Ethiopian regime postponed that activity before they arrived. Traveling to Ethiopia to celebrate His Majesty’s birthday was an annual trek made by thousands of Rastafarians so Damani blended right in, locked hair and all.

The other leg of the trip was a stopover in Egypt for Damani to experience the pyramids, temples, and tombs. It was on this leg of the trip that Mr. Higgins had a dream while in the ancient, sacred city of Lalibela of a father and son facing each other against a backdrop of temples and pyramids as the father was speaking to his son and anointing him with a dry substance.

Satisfied with the idea of performing a ceremony he shared it with his son who agreed to do it. Sand was chosen as the dry substance because, “Sand represents the Sahara, and sand also contains the remains of the ancient people of Pharaonic Egypt” (137). Using a 35mm film canister Damani filled it with “sand from the desert in the shadow of the pyramids in Cairo and from around the remains of the Temple of Karnak—one of the largest, oldest stone temples in the world” (137). Facing his son in front of an enormous wall painting of Osiris, the deity of resurrection, inside the tomb of an Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh, Mr. Higgins performed the rites of passage ceremony. Looking into Damani’s eyes as he anointed the top of his head with sand he said, “I, your father, anoint the crown of your head with the soil of Africa.

This piece of earth is a symbol of the lives of your ancestors. It is a bonding of their lives to yours. Like your father, you too are African. We are Africans not because we were born in Africa, but because Africa was born in us. Look around you and behold us in our greatness. Greatness is an African possibility; you can make it yours. So here, in the company of those great ones who have waited patiently for your visit, you are loved, you are encouraged. Our faces shine toward yours. Go forward; may you live long, may you prosper and have health.” (138) The ceremony undoubtedly strengthened his relationship with his son and made him stronger as a father, as well.

When his mother, Mrs. Higgins Smith, passed away, through his granddaughter, Shaquila, the youngest member of his family, he made a connection with his daughter, Nataki, with an African burial ceremony that he remembered from 1994 when photographing at the African burial ground that was discovered in lower Manhattan. The baby was passed three times across his mother’s casket as his children stood on one side and he stood on the other.

The first pass was for the ancestors, the second for the living, and the third for those who will come after. The ceremony was the fusing of his family’s spirits with that of his mother’s.

During Mr. Higgins’ healing process from his divorce he noticed that he had

Concentration, Macon County, Alabama

become scattered, was losing enthusiasm, and had “lost clarity in his artistic direction” (107). Discussions with Cornell Capa helped to put him back on his professional path and Feeling the Spirit: Searching the World for the People of Africa was born. Mr. Higgins’ had twenty-six years of photographs reflecting Africa and the African Diaspora. In his life’s work he came to the realization that his photographs “reflected his search for African identity” (109). He also noticed that even in between the fifteen working trips to Africa when back in the states he still “sought out Diasporan cultural links” (109).

During his sophomore year at Tuskegee he needed guidance from his favorite great uncle March Forth who at that time was in his seventies. He was sharing his fears about his future and his uncle listened attentively and then offered, “It is important to make a mark on life or else you could very well die, undeclared.” Remembering those words, after the launch of his book and traveling tour that accompanied Feeling the Spirit, Mr. Higgins felt that he could die now not because he was disappointed or distraught but because that was his best work. He has left his mark and great uncle March Forth left his mark on Mr. Higgins. He died right before his 108th birthday and Mr. Higgins chose the end of his funeral as the time to marry his love of fifteen years. Before the casket was lowered his children, his soon-to-be wife, her daughter, and one hundred of the townspeople gathered together for their wedding. He wanted, “Uncle Fourth’s spirit to share my happiness and for our union to be blessed by his spirit” (55).

On his many trips to Africa Mr. Higgins has been able to research his African past and study African religions. He yearned to know the real story of his heritage. While in college he read the works of Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Leopold Senghor (Senegal) and although excited about one day visiting the continent, was fearful about Africa being primitive like the articles from the periodicals in 1950’s and 1960’s repeatedly stated.

The black educators in his life, including his mother who was a schoolteacher, pieced together, with the limited information that was available to them, a balanced diet of history that included African American heroes and martyrs, i.e. Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Denmark Vesey for the young Chester and other students, instilling pride and confidence.

A professor, Michael Ryder, of industrial studies told Mr. Higgins an African tale that set him on a life long mission. A father tells his son a story about a hunter who stalks and kills the king of the jungle. The young boy didn’t understand why the lion, who is stronger and has sharp claws and teeth, did not win. The father’s response to his son was, “The lion will win when he writes his own story” (117). Through photography Mr. Higgins writes his story.

His first trip to Africa threw out the notion of African’s primitiveness and he could finally learn the truth for himself. Mr. Higgins has visited many countries in both East and West Africa but he feels most at home in West Africa where he looks more like the people and where “the red clay of the earth reminds me of the hills of Alabama (118).

His Majesty Ramesses the Great, Abu Simbel, Egypt

As a student of Egyptology he spends much time studying the similarities of Egypt, Ethiopia, and other African cultures. In Africa Mr. Higgins broke a prohibition enforced by his mother of wearing loud colors, especially red. At the Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia while waiting for a glimpse of dignitaries his attention was broken by a commotion surrounding His Majesty Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia. He was a small man but had such a powerful presence that Mr. Higgins was moved to lower the camera “so I could see with both eyes (129).

Mr. Higgins needed to know the history behind His Majesty and dug into research about his life. The daughter of His Majesty’s Minister of Defense told him that the emperor “held court while standing on a red cushion at the foot of his throne” (129). That was all he needed to hear he ended his prohibition and started wearing red socks and still does in honor of His Majesty. What was his mother’s real fear about the color red? His great-great-grandfather was distracted by a red banner while he was alone in the African forest performing an initiation ritual that was demanded by the village when a boy his age reached puberty. Upon investigation, he was seized by a band of slave hunters who shipped him to the Americas and until slavery ended all of his descendants were born slaves. After many unsuccessful attempts he was finally freed in the Civil War when he joined the Union Army.

His mother had never told him the story but he felt that she may have been holding back for another reason, as well. She did not want her son to stick out in the racist South wearing loud, bright colors, so she never encouraged it.

For Mr. Higgins red is a color that “represents a direct connection to my past” (131). The color red is represented in each flag of every African country.

What makes Mr. Higgins so successful as a photographer is his ability to capture the Spirit of his subjects from the famous i.e., Susan Taylor, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Queen Afua to the unknown i.e., Muslim young lady in Brooklyn and the high voodou priestess’ hands.

Chester Higgins, Jr. is a Spirit filled man who has had powerful visions in his life that have given him confirmation along the way that what he is doing is right. He believes in ritual and his life has been filled with it. From the child minister preaching to the masses on Sunday, to the young photographer making photos of the Civil Rights movements and the special people in his life, to the father taking his son through a rite of passage in Egypt, to the grandfather passing the granddaughter over his mother’s grave, to the husband getting married at his favorite uncle’s grave site. His camera is his ritual and his calling was not to lead the flock in church but for Chester Higgins to “set out to record all things dear in the life and culture of people of African descent—the same people to whom I had once ministered”. How did Mr. Higgins become a Spirit Catcher? Because the Spirit won’t be denied and what he captures in his subjects is only a reflection of him. It takes one to know one.

Interview with Chester Higgins Jr. Brenda D. Glassé, July 06, 2006 Talking with Chester Higgins Jr. is just like talking to an old Spirit and just like Spirit, Mr. Higgins is present at all times and knows just what he is here for.

I had the good fortune to spend the day with and interview Mr. Higgins Jr. as he prepared for his assignment at the MSNBC studios in Secaucus, New Jersey for the New York Times. A staff photographer for the New York Times since the mid 1970’s, he likes the daily challenge of going “up against what is visually appealing.” (Video, Dr. Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., interviewer) Mr. Higgins is a dynamo. At sixty years young I could hardly keep up with him as we dashed across Fifty-sixth Street to the Daheesh to see a movie on Napolean in Egypt, which was our next to last stop of the day before returning back to Brooklyn. The last stop was picking up his wife.

He greeted me at the door with red socks on against white slacks which later became a white suit. I was tempted to ask him about the red socks but it was better that I discover it in his memoirs. We did several things that day starting with lunch on Layfayette Avenue in Brooklyn, dropping in to a photography studio in Forest Hills, Queens to pick up prints, visiting a gallery in midtown Manhattan to drop off the prints and to another gallery to look at his work on a photo exhibit about love. We then went to an Egyptian restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen to sit and talk over chai tea and a very delicious appetizer and from there to Secaucus, New Jersey for the photo shoot.

Mr. Higgins like his first mentor, P.H. Polk, makes photography look effortless. He unpacked and packed his equipment so efficiently and the photo shoot, which was done in several locations in the studio, was seamless. The photos which he showed me were phenomenal, catching every facial expression of Keith Oblermann from the program, Countdown. The entire time he was talking and laughing with Mr. Oblermann keeping him relaxed and at ease. Before we actually got inside the studio he bonded with the security woman who was initially taken aback when he told her that he knew what part of Africa that her ancestors were from. She had very distinct features which allowed him to make that determination. Interestingly, when we reached the second guard he had very similar features.

Chester Higgins Jr. has a way of bonding with people because although the security guard was seemingly put off by his observation, by the time we left they were joking and laughing together. She was waiting for him to return from the studio so that they could talk further. He gave her his postcard photo of a Ghanaian king, the Asantehene, or King of the Asante (Ashanti), as she talked about a girlfriend who was also from Ghana. Both amicable and gregarious it’s understandable why people connect to him.

Q: Which of your books was most celebrated by the media?

A: Feeling the Spirit. It resonated because of the art and it showed the larger immigrant Black population but did not sell well because Black people are conflicted about their heritage. Non-Blacks appreciated the travel value

His Majesty Asantehene Osei Tutu II, Manyhia Palace, Kumasi, Ghana

of it. It was an economic issue because the book was priced at $50. We did everything to create the best product and the publisher went out of its way to promote the book, but it did not receive the response that I expected.

Today, on the rare-book market, it sells for $100.

Q: Which book was the most rewarding?

A: All of my books are rewarding for different reasons, i.e. Elder Grace is an extension of love for my favorite aunt and uncle; Black Women I paid homage to the women that I grew up with especially my mother, grandmother and aunts; Drums of Life is the follow up to my Black Women book; and Echo of the Spirit is my memoir and about the process of photography and so on.

Q: When did you know that you were the Spirit Catcher?

A: The Spirit inserted itself into my life in a vision in the middle of the night.

What we see is not everything. Spirit is underlying. In order to capture Spirit you can’t humanize or egotize feelings and emotions. Spirit never dies, it resides in everybody and everything, existing within its vibration. Always manifesting itself the Spirit shows up inside everything and everybody, and whenever I make photographs, I try to capture the signature of the Spirit.

Q: Do you make pictures of someone whose Spirit is low. If you liken Spirit to light. What happens when someone’s Spirit is dull like a 40 watt-bulb instead of 75 or 100 watts?

A: My job is to observe. I accept the reality of things and do not judge, to observe clearly without judgment. “Value judging” offends. I try not to have an agenda. I strive for clarity so that each day is not a waste of time.

Q: If you could no longer take photos what would you do?

A: I would write.

Q: If time and money was no object how would your life change?

A: I’d leave New York and travel extensively to different parts of the world.

I would rotate my living spaces from Egypt to the Sudan, to Ethiopia in East Africa and to the West Coast of Africa, from Ghana, Mali, and Senegal and to Brazil in South America and, of course, New York.

Q: What do you suggest as a way to get started in photojournalism?

A: Find out who the (editors) gatekeepers are in media or electronic media where you want to have your work appear. Show them your work, which represents your skills and passion. Find out if they have ideas and needs that you can do for them. You must convince them to the value of your ideas and ask that they consider you for future assignments.

Q: Do you have any formal training in photography?

A: No, in the late 60s there were no schools for photography. I trained my eye through mentoring. Some of my mentors were Arthur Rothstein, Ansel Adams, Romare Bearden, Gordon Parks. My first mentor was P.H. Polk the only photographer at Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, and the official photographer for Booker T. Washington. From each of them I

learned some of the following techniques: mastering techniques, esthetic vocabulary, and marketplace of photographic ideas. The mentors were experts that you could ask questions or could refer you to someone who could answer your questions, write a recommendation for a grant, pay you to do a job or invite you and your family over for dinner. I went to lectures to hear seasoned photographers and their talks validated what I was doing. They helped to operationalize the photography process and of then, of course, there is the final product.

Q: Where did you get your inspiration to become a photojournalist?

A: When I became politicized. During the Civil Rights movement Black people were projected in the media as thugs, rapists and murderers. A camera held potential to correct those negative images projected by the media. I learned to be adept and competitive in New York where those negative images were given in daily doses. That is where I wanted to make change in New York City and what better place than the New York Times where I had the audience and credibility. I thought that I would be more effective as a photojournalist on the inside than a complainer on the outside. The mass media images from Katrina depicting people of color, is a reminder that the fight against images of marginalization is still one that must be fought and eventually won.

Q: Do you have siblings?

A: I was the only child for fourteen years and then my mother and stepfather had three more children.

Q: When you make pictures of an African Chief, a voodoo priestess, or other sacred people what is the process?

A: Getting access to the person is problematic because they are protected and because you have to create a bond with their staff before you can just walk in and start making pictures. You have to let them know that you like them, respect them and will portray them in the best light.

Q: How long did it take to make the picture of the Ghanaian king, on your postcard, or the voodoo Priestesses hands that are exhibited at the “Engulfed in Katrina” exhibit at the Nathan Cummings Foundation?

A: It took four years to bond with the king and five years working among the Asante to make the picture. There were about twenty people in his entourage at the photo shoot to protect him, the sacred stool, and all of his gold jewelry. My son was the only person assisting me and he handled the lighting. Making a picture of the Priestesses hands took a few days. You have to let people know you appreciate them and that you are on their side.

Q: Do you teach photography anywhere?

A: No. In the early 1970s I taught a class on visual thought at NYU. Now, I give lectures about my photography in settings similar to the ones that I went to when I was learning photography.

Q: Have you made the shift to digital cameras and what was it like?

A. Yes, now I only use digital but I was the last person on The New York

Times staff to change from film to digital. Digital sensors are a bit flat, by using side or back light you can enhance the effect of depth.

Q: How many pictures do you make for one subject?

A: Until I have it. Until I have captured its Spirit and represented the subject in a compelling way.

Q: What do you do at The New York Times?

A: My schedule is from Sunday through Thursday and I either have one assignment or sometimes two assignments a day and I wrote a series of articles for my Lens series that appeared in the Wednesday’s Metro section.

Q: Do you watch television?

A: Mostly news, including French news.

Q: What websites do you go to for photography?

A: I am interested in the business of photography so I look at www.pdnonline.com, which talks about the changing business trends in photography and about the latest visual trends in photography.

Q: What do you do for fun?

A: Hang out with my bride, listen to music, read books from my extensive library on Egyptology, do yoga and travel.

Q: What is your logo and what does it mean?

A: It is the Egyptian eye traveling on a cosmic sailboat looking for the eye of the spirit.

It is cruising on the cosmic wind stalking the spirit of things that exist.

Q: Do you have any rituals?

A: I study world religions, culture and Egyptology. Maintaining a real relationship with my wife, my children, and my stepdaughter is important. I stay focused, constant, and disciplined and do all that it takes to make those things happen.

Q: What you working on now?

A: I have an ongoing project about the evolution of religions. The inventors of religion were Africans. I am a student of Egyptology, which is a nature-based theology system.

The evolution has gone from the naturalism of African belief systems to sacred ancient Egyptian Religion to Judiac, Christianity, Islam and Hindi.

Q: Where do you see photojournalism going in five to ten years?

A: For the past decade, photojournalism seems to be experiencing a shrinking market in the print world. I see a lot more journalism on the web, in photographers’ websites of web magazine sites. Photographers are still in love with the need to tell the story in photographs, but the delivery systems have changed. It is so expensive to make a magazine survive in the marketplace. Television eclipsed magazines and now the web is even eclipsing television. Photojournalism will always have its appeal, but can you make a living at it, is the question. Answering that question and finding a way to make it pay for itself, is the challenge.

Auburn Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia Works Cited: Higgins, Jr. Chester. Echo of the Spirit. Doubleday, 2004