Where did you grow up? Tell us about your background. What kind of place it was?
Adam Reynolds (AR): I grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. It’s a typical Midwest college town, home to Indiana University (where I eventually studied). And while the state of Indiana is traditionally and typically a fairly conservative red state in the United States, Bloomington (because of the university) was always a very progressive and liberal town… and island of blue in a sea of red.
And then photography. How it all started? What are your memories of your first shots?
AR: I got into photography back in high school when I began shooting with my father’s old Minolta SLR camera from back when he was in the US Marine Corps. I’m afraid I can’t share any of my first shots because I ruined the film… I was on a family vacation to South Dakota visiting relatives and we came across a big grain elevator engulfed in flame. We pulled over to the side of the road so I could shoot the scene. I was so excited that when I finished that first roll of film, I forgot to rewind it before opening the back of the camera to put in a new roll.
Tell us about your educational path. Where did you study? Any take aways? Any meaningful courses? Any professor or teacher you remember well?
AR: I went to college at Indiana University in my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana where I majored in journalism and political science. At the time I had dreams of being a globe-trotting foreign correspondent, and my academic advisor told me to study abroad for a year to get a real taste for overseas life. I wound up choosing to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for the simple reason that Jerusalem is always in the news. And that decision more or less set the course for where I am at today. I arrived in Jerusalem in the summer of 2000, just prior to the outbreak of the Second Intifada, and for whatever reason Indiana University didn’t cancel the program and I was able to continue my studies for the entire year as the situation spun out of control, and I pretty much became hooked on the history and politics of the region. I returned to Indiana University for my final year of studies and then immediately returned to Hebrew University for a Master’s Degree in Islamic & Middle East Studies which afforded me the opportunity to remain in the region, gain regional expertise, and to begin working as a freelance photojournalist here and there on the side. After graduating I continued working as a freelance photojournalist between the United States and the Middle East for about seven years before going back to school once again. This time for an MFA Degree in photography from Indiana University which has led me to pursue more long form documentary photo projects. Looking back, I’m surprised that my entire academic career continues to inform my work in photography to this day.
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'Architecture of an Existential Threat'. Conference room/bomb shelter at the Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem.
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'Architecture of an Existential Threat'. Public bomb shelter, Haifa.
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'Architecture of an Existential Threat'. Pub/bomb shelter, Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
What do you think about photography in the era of digital and social networking? How is the language evolving and impacting daily life of people in your opinion?
AR: Today’s era of digital and social networking has greatly democratized photography – both in terms and the creation and dissemination of images. I think it’s safe to say that collectively we are the most visually literate we have ever been because of this, which can be both rewarding and challenging to the individual photographer working today.
About your work now. How would you introduce yourself as an author or described your personal methodology? Your visual exploration...
AR: I am a documentary photographer whose work focuses on contemporary political conflict, with a particular emphasis on the Middle East. I pursue visual research projects that balance photographic creativity with a journalist’s thematic fidelity. My work contributes to the conflict photography tradition, but by exploring conflict beyond the headlines and through a broader cultural and historical inquiry, it deviates from the current-event driven images associated with traditional news photography. Prior to art school, I worked as a freelance photojournalist in the United States and the Middle East. This experience continues to infuse my work with a research-based, analytical approach towards image making. In essence, I am a conflict photographer who works outside the war zone to explore the underlying causes and effects of political conflict.
© Adam Reynolds from the ongoing series 'A Visual History of the Arab-Israeli Peace Process'. Site of a bus bombing terrorist attack in Israel/Road Map for Peace, 2003. Proposed plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian proposed by the Quartet for the Middle East: the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations.
Your documentary photography focuses on contemporary political conflict, with a particular emphasis on the Middle East. Why?
AR. I became fascinated with the region when, as an undergraduate student, I spent a year abroad in Jerusalem amid the Second Intifada and couldn’t get enough of the politics and history of the Middle East. I subsequently returned after graduating to gain regional knowledge by pursuing a Master’s Degree in Islamic and Middle East Studies from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. And because of this educational background, the Middle East is the region I feel most comfortable and competent exploring photographically in the documentary style.
About the series 'Area C: Taxonomy of An Occupation'.
AR: This series explores the political degradation of a landscape. Under the Oslo Accords the West Bank is divided into three separate areas: A, B, and C. Within Areas A and B the Palestinians retain a certain degree of autonomy under the Palestinian Authority. But Area C, which accounts for about 5 percent of the Palestinian population, yet is over 60 percent of the entire land in the West Bank, remains under full Israeli control. Can you describe us this experience and how you developed it... With this project, I wanted to show aspects of the Occupation as a whole rather than as a series of individual issues and events, which is mostly how we relate to it in news headlines. Then I wanted to show the seemingly arbitrary (yet controlled) division of the landscape itself by maintaining a square grid pattern in the presentation that is held together at the four corners with representations of the military occupation, and the two competing nationalisms at odds with each other in the middle represented by the images of the flags. One of my reference points for the project was New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape. But where these images mostly looked at the environmental degradation of a man-altered landscape, my focus was on the political degradation of the landscape.
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'Area C: Taxonomy of An Occupation'. Weekly protest outside the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh.
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'Area C: Taxonomy of An Occupation'. Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba.
Israel is a battle ground. Your attempt reveals contradictions with different visual approaches as in 'Postcards' or 'a Visual history of arab-israeli peace'. How do you chose?
AR: I do my best to allow the subject matter itself to dictate not only my creative approach, but how the images are presented to the viewer as well. That way the viewer’s attention remains squarely focused on the subjects and content of the images. But, my time in art school has made me keenly aware that no matter what, who I am as a photographer will affect the way people interpret the meaning and intentions of my work. Having no personal ties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict myself, I am much more aware that I am a Western interloper and want to acknowledge that reality. The West has a long and tragic history with its own relationship to the Middle East and I’d like my future projects to explore this fact. The Postcards series touches on this a bit by comparing and contrasting the West’s oftentimes romanticized view of the region with the political realities on the ground.
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'Postcards'. The seperation wall between Sho'afat and Pisgat Ze'ev with David Robert's "The Golden Gate".
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'Postcards'. Sunset at Damascus Gate with David Robert's "Damascus Gate".
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'Postcards'. The Western Wall and al-Aqsa with David Robert's "The Dome of the Rock".
You have travelled to Yemen. What country you have discovered?
AR: The majority of my international travels have been to the Middle East. In addition to Israel/Palestine (I lived in Ramallah for about a year, but the majority of my time was always spent in Jerusalem) and Yemen, I’ve lived in Cairo and have visited Morocco and Jordan. But my very first experience of foreign travel happened way back in high school where I took a Church sponsored trip to a Sister Parish in a small, indigenous Mayan village in Guatemala. This trip affected me quite a bit because at the time I had wanted to go to university to study Mesoamerican archaeology, but this trip opened my eyes to current affairs and social justice and directly led to me studying journalism and political science at university rather than archaeology.
My time in Yemen was fairly brief, only about 10 months. I was there in 2010... about a year before the outbreak of the Arab Spring and the fall of President Saleh. When I was there Yemen was embroiled in three separate political conflicts. Not only was there the fighting with the Houthis in the north, but also al-Qaeda in the remote western portions of the country, and a separatist group in the south agitating for independence known as the Southern Movement. Even back then there was this ever present feeling that Yemen was teetering on the brink of catastrophe. Although I haven't been able to return to Yemen in close to a decade, I still constantly follow the tragic news as the country continues to unravel.
Three books (not only of photography) that you recommend?
AR: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield; The Documentary Impulse by Stuart Franklin; The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence by Susie Linfield.
Is there any show you’ve seen recently that you find inspiring?
AR: At the end of September I participated in the Filter Photo Festival in Chicago where I attended a series of portfolio reviews. It’s always fun and inspiring to share my work not only with the reviewers, but with fellow photographers as well, and to get their feedback. Plus, these kinds of events are a great way to reconnect with old friends and to make new ones in the world of photography.
What are you up to?
AR: At the moment I am working on promoting my latest project, No Lone Zone, which explores Cold War era nuclear missile silos in the United States. I am working with another photographer, Jeanine Michna-Bales, who has her own project that explores Cold War era fallout shelters in the United States. The two projects complement each other very well and we have put together a two-person exhibition proposal that is being shopped around to various venues. In addition, this past summer I began work on a new project called Special Field Orders No. 120. This project will explore ideas of American militarism and the American way of war as evidenced today along US Civil War General Sherman’s historic route of the March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah in the state of Georgia. Alec Soth’s work is a big influence on how I am approaching this new project, and in fact I kind of look at it as a militarized take on Sleeping By the Mississippi in terms of a conceptual approach.
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'No Lone Zone'. Elevator to the underground Launch Control Center Delta-01 at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in South Dakota.
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'No Lone Zone'. Deputy Crew Commander Chair in the underground launch control center in the Titan II missile silo at the Titan Missile Museum near Tucson, Arizona. Operationally known as complex 571-7, it is the last remaining intact Titan II missile site in the United States. The red safe, secured with two locks, contained the launch keys.
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'No Lone Zone'. Crew quarters in the underground launch control center in the Titan II missile silo at the Titan Missile Museum near Tucson, Arizona. Operationally known as complex 571-7, it is the last remaining intact Titan II missile site in the United States.
© Adam Reynolds from the series 'No Lone Zone'. RFHCO (rocket refueling) suits for the propellant transfer technicians hang outside of the cableway tunnel that leads to the missile silo at the Titan II missile silo at the Titan Missile Museum near Tucson, Arizona. Operationally known as complex 571-7, it is the last remaining intact Titan II missile site in the United States.
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