With the next interview in our ongoing series we’re talking to photographer Donald Weber who is based in Eastern Europe and is with the VII Network. You should quickly see why he and I have connected, given our overlapping interests with a certain part of the world. Many of the questions I asked, frankly, were bent to my own personal interest in what it means to move halfway around the world to photograph stories you’re personally passionate about. I’m sure some of you can relate. But more importantly to most of you, he is producing interesting and important work much on his own terms and is rising his profile, and has had an interesting life so far. And has interesting things to say about what he is doing.

Amongst many accomplishments Weber has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lange-Taylor Prize and a World Press Photo award. He was a 2006 winner of the Photolucida Critical Mass review which just published his book Bastard Eden, Our Chernobyl (which I previously mentioned here). Before becoming a photographer, he worked as an architect with the world-renowned Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. For his full biography have a look at the about page on his website.

What is your background, in interests and academics? Where do you come from?
Well, Canadian, from Toronto, downtown, which may have influenced my outlook. Taking the subway at 12 years old to school everyday definitely gives an impression on a youngster, glad I was able to see what I did. Anyway, my academic background is not so academic, I studied at an alternative high school that offered an intensive arts education, from the age of 16 until graduation in grade 13, I studied art all day everyday. We had four hours of life drawing two days a week – that would be nudes, thus lots of people were jealous of us, plus an 8 hour day of art history and then we would major and minor in two artistic practices. I wanted to be artist, not really sure what that was or how I would do it, but initially that was my goal. I then went on to study at art college, the Ontario College of Art & Design, where I majored in – I forget the complex phrasing of the subject, something like Art and the Environment. Basically, making massive intrusions into the public landscape. Great! But I totally wasted my time, as far as I’m concerned, education is wasted on the young! It was a conflict in my youth of what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it. I loved the idea of creating something, anything, I didn’t care how as long as I could. Then I had this interest in photography, and in particular photojournalism, which went against all the grains of an artistic education that I was brought up on.
So it was an interesting education, for almost 10 years I was schooled in very sophisticated forms of visual education that certainly influences me to this day. The practicalities may have changed, but the essence of being visual are always the same. Line, shape, form, colour, mood, tone, conceptual processes, etc., are all linked at the very core, and I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to have had an education that grounded these roots into my young head.

Tell me about your time with architecture.
Well architecture came about rather haphazardly. in order to understand my time within that field, you have to understand first how I ended up there; it’s a rather convoluted process but one that is inherent as to my position today.

Back to my high schooling. As I stated before, I had an interest in both art and photojournalism. My passion, in my final year, was won out with photojournalism. It was in November of that year before graduation where in Canada we make our applications to post secondary institutions. I wanted to apply to two – Rochester Institute of Technology for PJ, and a smaller college just outside of Toronto for a basic three year photography course. I asked my photography (and I quote verbatim the following conversation):

Me: Robert, which school do you think I should apply to? RIT or Sheridan?
Robert (the teacher): What? Why would you apply to either? You suck as a photographer!

Thus, I literally brought my cameras home and put them in a drawer, not to be touched for about 10 years. It was then I decided to find a different path. I replaced photography with ceramics; my mother was not so pleased. Anyway, while studying at OCAD, I developed an interest in architecture, planning and landscape design and was captured by the writings and designs of the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. So, I set my sights on working for him. When I graduated in 1996, I headed overseas to Rotterdam where his practice was based, and promptly got a job, precisely because I was not a trained architect. I worked there for about three years. It was a great experience, but certainly soul crushing. I found architecture to be a rather drab profession and nearly impossible to do anything of interest, save for the exception of Rem Koolhaas and a few others. But I learned about ideas, how to think in a conceptual manner and to find ways to bring those ideas into fruition. It also taught me on more practical levels things about budgeting and planning and just being professional; things I think we take for granted that all go into the realities of being a working photographer.

Anyway, it was not a highlight of my life but I think a necessary step.

What brought you to photography? Was there a specific event that made you say “I am going to be a photographer”?
Yes, very specific event! My whole life has these cascading elements that when all put together certainly illuminate what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I was born in 1973, thus when the events of the late 80’s and early 90’s came around, I was at the ripe age to start taking notice. For me, these were the most historical and important times of my generation. The collapse of communism, the events in Tiananmen Square, the first Iraq War. These were all events that were shaped and played out in magazines and television. I was a teenager and just discovering more than my backyard, it was an awakening physically, mentally, socially, everything, for me. I remember clearly watching hundreds of thousands of Eastern European refugees fleeing their countries for elsewhere, the Wall collapsing, the Ceaucescu’s being executed, Boris Yeltsin on top of a tank. All these events were seared into my mind, and those events shaped what I wanted to do with my life. I had always been aware of news images, but never before did I connect that somebody actually went out there and made those pictures until I was older. It was a massive lightbulb that went off and I wanted to be a part of it.

Anyway, that was event number one. The second event was my diversion to architecture for awhile; I listened to closely what my high school teacher had to say; never again! Anyway, it was while I was living in Europe that I remembered what photography was all about. I wanted to remember living in Europe, so I bought a camera – it was great! I couldn’t put it down, all I did was take photos. Crappy, but they were photos. It was then that I said okay – I’m going to be a photographer – but how was a much more difficult question. It wasn’t until March of 2000, a few days before I was to leave on a year long trip to ride my motorcycle across Africa (something I had previously done in 1998) where the jump was finally made. I had just quit my job as an architect, not really knowing what to do. I was taking the bike out for one last tune up spin when I got hit by a car. I just remember sliding across the hood of some old Chevy, sliding on my back seeing my crumpled bike and thinking, okay, now’s the time to be a photographer. So I never did the bike trip to Africa; I “became” a photographer. That summer I got an internship at the Toronto Sun, a tabloid.

Vorkuta, Russia: Vorkuta, regional centre of one of the largest concentrations of Gulag camps in the USSR. Founded by prisoners, the region is populated by descendants of former zeks and prison authorities.
What were your early interests as a photographer? Influences?
I don’t really know, for me it was such a long battle to finally start taking pictures that influences and interests were a secondary thought! But, as a teenager, photojournalism was a very powerful force in me. I remember Kenneth Jarecke’s burned Iraqi soldier from the first Iraq War, Chris Morris’ Panama photos, Don McCullin – it was important because what they were photographing was important – and that was important to me! So I’d say my interests were in the realm that photography could act as a document; the total opposite of my art education. to me art had become superfluous, something dilettantes dabbled in; it had lost it’s meaning. Photography was the opposite. As I grew, my more literal influences was the photographer Raymond Depardon, still is. To me he has managed to encapsulate perfectly what a photographer is and should be. Bridge influences and ideas from all facets and present them in his own manner. That is something I strive to do, to take what I see but also to take what I feel and make my own story of it.

My interests are always morphing; there was a time when I thought Chris Morris could do no wrong (still do). But my art training definitely influenced me in the way I see; not what I see, but how I interpret that. I used to really enjoy the old masters and specifically religious paintings of the 15 – 17 centuries. So much blood, red, white, gold, colour, pain; totally terrified me.
Read on »

One of the books I’m currently rereading (in paperback, since M. Scott still has my original copy. jerk.) is the masterpiece Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski. If you follow this blog or know me, you probably know of my fascination and obsession with the Russian story and myth. This book captures it better than anything I have read: a real, terrifying, heartbreaking, insane and beautifully personal diary of what traveling and interacting with the Russian/Soviet imperium was like, by one of the most astute, brave and poetic journalists who has ever lived.

If you have never read him, go out immediately and grab a copy of Kapuscinski’s The Soccer War as an introduction. This book came recommended to me by M. Scott, who was turned on to it by Antonin, who apparently knew Ryszard (who, sadly, passed away just last year). I’m also reading his newest, posthumous book Travels with Herodutus, the overview of his life as a man and as a young Polish international correspondent. Check back with me later for my thoughts on that.

In one chapter of Imperium (coincidentally, the one I was just looking at and thinking about before seeing these pictures) there is an epic account of the monumental environmental disaster that is Central Asian water policy, centered on the Aral Sea.

“The airplane delimits a wide circle, and when its wing dips, one can see sand dunes stretching down below, wrinkled by the wind. It is the new desert of Aral Kum-or, more precisely, the bottom of a sea that is disappearing from the face of the earth.”

Since Khruschev and Brezhnev of the 1960s, Russia pursued illogical and catastrophic pet projects in re-engineering the major rivers of Central Asia to irrigate new crops and expand residential areas beyond the natural resources of the region. The result was a 20ft drop in river depth and the sea breaking in to four separate bodies of water. If you are interested, you must see this outstanding update on new Aral Sea issues at top Central Asian resource Registan.net. The money quotes, explaining how locals and the government could pursue such disastrous policy (of draining the sea, and eventually leaving themselves with no water to use for anything):

“There are perhaps better things to grow [than cotton], and if there were free markets, perhaps the farmers would chose to grow something more profitable and more sustainable. The fact remains that when the state says they will put a stop to this mismanagement, it’s important to remember how much they profit from the status quo.”

and

And before I finish this rant, might I remind the reader that water is free to farmers in Central Asia, despite the fact that precious little of it is coming from the sky. Free resources exist in free markets only in instances of absolute abundance. Scarcity necessitates a price, and until that happens, water will remain a wasted resource. Key example – the subsidized free gas available in Turkmenistan has led to people leaving their stoves burning all day to save money on matches. Matches. This isn’t exclusively natural gas, as gasoline is likewise free to the consumer. These practices, if not the root the problem, certainly make it difficult to come up with effective measures to improve the situation.

It is a story that has become, amongst others in Kapuscinski’s books, a dream of mine to see for myself and photograph, to try and capture something of the mystery and epic myth that his words paint these places in my mind. So with some twinge of jealousy I share with you a wondrous set of pictures by Carolyn Drake that I just saw over at the Time Magazine photo page: “The Politics of Water in Central Asia”.
As far as I can tell this edit of a story comes from a few different projects on Drake’s website. It is stunning, as usual, and hits squarely on my (adopted) Russian heart. I’d be willing to publicly guess that she has read Kapuscinski’s account of the Aral Sea; I think I can feel his presence in her pictures. Though this is, like others have done before, a story taken straight from my own dreams, before I can live them myself, I am glad Drake pursued this issue and covered it so well. Hats off, beautiful work on a very interesting and important story.