Jack and Oden Mathew, The Watering Hole, Poughkeepsie, NY, 2018 © Caleb Stein

Tell us about your approach to photography. How it all started and how did your research evolve with respect to those early days?

Caleb Stein (CS): I think my interest in photography came first from my fascination with movies. My whole family is movie-obsessed, so I grew up watching all sorts of old school film noirs. In hindsight, I think what drew me to these movies was not so much the stories or the scripts, or even the acting, but the cinematography and these cinematographers’ ability to distill a narrative into an image. Also, my then-step-mother gave me a bugs-bunny camera when I was four. The film canister only contained enough for twelve images, but I kept ‘photographing’ for months.  Then, in high school, I took a darkroom photography class with a wonderful, kind man named Andrew Stole. One day I came out of the darkroom with a print and he told me it looked like something Ray Metzker or Harry Callahan would have made. He pulled their books off his shelf and I completely fell in love. Callahan and Metzker, in my mind, were a photo-equivalent to film noir. I started photographing and printing all the time. Andrew left me with the key and said I could stay after school to continue working. I’d clean up and lock up after myself, and that initial period in the darkroom, and with Andrew’s book collection, cemented my love of photography.

That was almost ten years ago, and at this point I’m interested in photographs that can function on two levels. I want the photograph to carry a strong energy that can be registered viscerally, the moment someone begins to engage with it. And I also want a photograph that can hold up over time – that reveals itself in stages. In order to do this, I’m looking for photographs that hold a radical vulnerability, a mystery, and a sense of poetry. I’m interested in photographs that exist in a state of grace, in photographs that somehow ‘get away’ from their maker and take on a life of their own. At the same time, I’m interested in placing my work into a context that acknowledges the complicated history and power dynamics of the medium in an effort to eschew those issues and open up new spaces for utopian and critical uses of photography.

Down by the Hudson © Caleb Stein

Down by the Hudson © Caleb Stein

What about your educational background and BA in Art History at Vassar College. How did it impact your journey both personal and professional?

CS: I was lucky to study with some extraordinary people at Vassar. My thesis advisor was art historian and critic Molly Nesbit. Her book on Atget has been a major source of inspiration. Molly taught me to couple my love of photography with a skepticism for it. Also, I studied with Andrew Tallon, a medievalist who showed me that it was good to discuss a TV show in the same sentence as discussing a stained glass panel or a sky scraper. He wasn’t afraid to break down all the barriers and labels, and he advocated for seeing art as one big flow.

And I took two classes with the writer Amitava Kumar. He helped me to understand that images must function independently, but they must also cohere as a group. In his classes, he tells this story of a blind newspaper editor. Every time a reporter comes into his office to share their work, the editor cries out: Make me see!

Last but in no way least, I spent time with Mary-Kay Lombino, the curator of photographs at Vassar’s museum. She was very generous with me, and she let me look through hundreds of vintage prints made by some of my favorite photographers. Having this sort of intimate contact with those prints was deeply inspiring. These formative relationships have grown over the years and the conversations have continued.

And most importantly, I met Andrea, who is by far the most talented and intelligent person I have ever met. I’m lucky to live with her and to work with her.

Down by the Hudson © Caleb Stein

You have then worked as Studio Assistant of Magnum photographer Bruce Gilden from 2015 to 18. What are your best takeaways?

CS: Bruce taught me the importance of working from the heart. He understands that an artist’s work is a part of a larger conversation, and because of that it is important to look widely and to try to understand photography’s history. On top of this, Bruce made me realize that the most important thing is work. That’s what it’s all about.

I’ve realized with time that, as artists, but maybe also more generally speaking, we can only be ourselves. It’s best to embrace this and get to work.

How important is this type of experience for students and aspiring photographers?

CS: I think it is very important but it is not the only way. There are artists who develop strong work with little contact with other artists or mentors. I was privileged to have all of these brilliant mentors who were willing to share their experiences with me and to engage in a dialogue, but unfortunately this sort of interaction is not anywhere near as accessible as it should be. These interactions are tied up in all sorts of power structures.

As I’ve gained some experience and developed my own work, I’ve started to take on the role of mentoring a few photographers. That has been a rewarding experience and I want to find ways of giving back to the community that has helped me so much.

One day, I would love to teach. I think it’s clear that there have been some very influential teachers in the history of photography. Lisette Model taught Diane Arbus. Alexey Brodovitch, who was an art director and also made brilliant photographs, taught Louis Faurer, Richard Avedon, and Robert Frank (among others). And Tod Papageorge oversaw the MFA program at Yale and some fascinating artists have emerged from that program included Sam Contis and Curran Hatleburg. Also, I found it interesting to hear from Bruce that when he was a young photographer he spent time with Leon Levinstein and was very fond of Ed van der Elsken; although Bruce has developed his own voice, these were undoubtedly important relationships for him, especially with van der Elsken.

Overall, I think this sort of mentorship experience is possibly less important than it used to be because it is possible to meet so many interesting artists, curators, editors, writers, thinkers, etc through social media. So you can start a dialogue without having to be in a major city, and then with time as you develop your work you can begin to think about how to come to city centers to translate these online contacts into in-person interactions. Many people have done this with great success, and it gives me hope that photography and art can become less elitist.

In your long term series 'Down by the Hudson' you approach the small-town American life. What drove you to Poughkeepsie?

CS: I studied in Poughkeepsie for four years and after graduating worked in a restaurant as a waiter and then for Bruce who lives nearby. I grew up in big cities, and I was drawn to this small American town in large part because of the romantic, mythologized notions of ‘American-ness’ that I had inherited from things like Norman Rockwell illustrations and Grant Wood paintings. I wanted to photograph Poughkeepsie as a way of understanding my relationship to it. I think a lot of my work, in this and other bodies of work, is about understanding my relationship to the U.S., which is my adopted home.

Down by the Hudson © Caleb Stein

Down by the Hudson © Caleb Stein

Emily and Belinda, The Watering Hole, Poughkeepsie, NY, 2018 © Caleb Stein

What kind of relationship have you built with the place and its community?

CS: I walked Poughkeepsie’s Main Street every day for three years, and after graduating I lived right off Main Street, so I know a lot of people as neighbors that I saw on a daily basis.

All of the photographs I make are the product of a relationship, so there’s always an exchange that comes with the act of photographing. Some of these exchanges are only a few minutes, and others span years, but in all cases the photographs come from a place of love, out of a desire to celebrate this small town. I try to approach my work with care and tenderness, maybe especially because this is the town where I fell in love.

When I approach someone, I share an overview of my work with them and explain my intentions. And afterwards, I always send photographs to the people I work with. I want my work to be transparent. I’m inspired by what Glissant once said: “I can change, through exchange”.

Down by the Hudson © Caleb Stein

Down by the Hudson © Caleb Stein

Down by the Hudson © Caleb Stein

Down by the Hudson © Caleb Stein

Down by the Hudson © Caleb Stein

What lesson have you learned from Poughkeepsie as a photographer?

CS: That working from a place of love is the best and only way for me to work. And that repetition and time are critical aspects of my practice.

'Long Time No See' explores the memory of the Vietnam-American War and the ongoing legacy of chemical warfare. It also introduces a brilliant space for a democratic interaction of the audience with the work. This project leads me once again to reflect on methodologies in the field of reportage or social documentary. Or rather on the ethical aspects that underlie the narrative practice. Can you tell us a bit more about how you developed this interaction in the process? Tell us more about the timing, and local collaborations, as well and the methods you adopted.

CS: Thank you, Steve. That’s kind of you to say.
We developed this process over a two-year period with Vietnamese veterans and younger generations. The initial desire was to find a way of creating an environment for a collaborative visual exchange to explore the memory of the war and the legacy of the chemical weapons used by the U.S. in that war, but we had no preconceived ideas of what that might look like. We went in and asked how people wanted to collaborate, and they told us, and the process grew from those conversations.

We worked with residents at Làng Hữu Nghị to bring together a constellation of paintings, photographs, and video that explore the memory of the war. Our process challenges the rigid divide between ‘subject’ and ‘author’ and seeks the radical vulnerability and dignity that comes from engaging person to person with our collaborators. Paintings that appear in Long Time No See were created by younger-generation Làng Hữu Nghị residents in a workshop we facilitated. With no previous artistic experience, these teenage residents use self-portraits to contend with inherited memory of war. Our photographs follow many of these same teenagers over two years at Làng Hữu Nghị; reflexive and collaborative, the photographs often picture residents with their own artwork – and at times, the people photographed contribute by drawing directly on photographs. Videos, dream-like vignettes co-directed with Vietnamese veterans, blur the lines between memory and reality, dreams and wish-fulfillment. Through a series of freely associated images, the videos in Long Time No See emphasize firsthand experience and strive to redress some of the traumas of official narratives. We’re also bringing together a number of texts and working towards a book, with the exceptionally talented designer Brian Paul Lamotte. This will feature essays by editor, curator, and photographer Brad Feuerhelm and artist and writer Hannah Mezsaros Martin for Forensic Architecture, along with curator Đỗ Tường Linh’s interviews with Vietnamese artists, veterans, and academics. Long Time No See offers a complex reckoning with a conflict that lives on not only in American and Vietnamese cultural memory but in the bodies of survivors and inheritors of Agent Orange.

Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Làng Hữu Nghị. Drawings by Khoi. From the series 'Long Time No See' by Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein

Phạm Văn Mạnh, Untitled, from the series 'Long Time No See' by Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein

Mạnh at Làng Hữu Nghị from the series 'Long Time No See' by Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein

Allegory of War, from the series 'Long Time No See' © Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein

The above-mentioned project is also a collaboration with Andrea Orejarena. Can you tell us more about this mutual creative process?

CS: Andrea and I have helped each other with personal projects for several years now, but this was the first time we worked together as an artist duo. Andrea was born in Colombia and came to the U.S. on political asylum as a child, and a lot of her work, like mine, is an exploration of her relationship to her adopted home. It makes sense for us to work because we respect each other’s work and we know that we can be totally honest with each other when we’re giving feedback. We will continue to work as an artist duo on a new project currently in pre-production.

I want to share a small note on artist duos and collectives in this section…so much of the history of documentary photography, and the art world more generally speaking, is filled with disturbing power dynamics, often between a male photographer and a female ‘muse’ or manager who receives little to no credit. The point of ‘Long Time No See’ is to produce work in a democratic visual exchange. This means that although sometimes Andrea made the photographs and other times I made the videos, and visa versa, the project was truly formed as a collaboration - in the spirit of the Bechers, but multi-media, and made as a sort of collective with our Vietnamese collaborators. The idea of a collective or an artist duo is something that many photo and art institutions continue to struggle with (and often, reject) – probably because it is anti-ego and anti-individualist and therefore not as easily placed in a marketplace. And that’s part of the point of our approach here.

Allegory of War from the series 'Long Time No See' © Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein

Tân & Duc at wedding with ink drawing by Nguyễn Tiến Hưng from the series 'Long Time No See' by Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein

Bùi Thị Hóa, Untitled from the series 'Long Time No See' by Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein

Tân in pool at Làng Hữu Nghị from the series 'Long Time No See' by Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein

Làng Hữu Nghị, with ink drawing by Đinh Thị Hương, from the series 'Long Time No See' by Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein

Is black and white a definitive choice in your way of describing the world, places, and people? What about your approach to medium in general?

CS: I’m drawn to black and white because of its relationship to memory and myth-making, but it is not necessarily the only way I would want to make work. Our next project will most likely be a mix of color and black and white work.

How much does the digital age affect the way you communicate and disseminate your stories. What relationship do you have in general with these media, and how do you relate to your narrative?

CS: Instagram is a helpful tool for sharing work and talking with other people about art, especially as we’re in this semi-perpetual state of alienation, and, even before Covid, I’ve been outside of big cities for several years so it has been a useful tool for keeping in contact with artists, curators, editors, etc.

I think Tik Tok is great, and probably a much better algorithm than Facebook or Twitter. It doesn’t choose to show something on your feed because of an inaccurate assumption about social circles. Instead, it looks at what you’re interested in and provides you with similar content. That feels more democratic and less elitist, and it puts power in people’s hands. No wonder Trump wants to ban it!

Could you recommend us three books (not just photography)?
CS: ‘Immigrant, Montana’ by Amitava Kumar; ‘The Journalist & The Murderer’ by Janet Malcolm, ‘Mom’ by Charlie Engman (designed by Brian Paul Lamotte, published by Editions Patrick Frey).

Although it's hard to plan anything in this period what are you up to in the near future? How are you facing challenges?

CS: We’re currently developing two new projects, although it’s too early to talk about this because they’re still very much in their nascent states. We’re also making ‘Down by the Hudson’ and ‘Long Time No See’ into books.

Finally who would you recommend us for the following interview?

CS: Efrem Zelony-Mindell. They are one of the most passionate, talented, and critical curators/artists/editors/publishers/writers working with art and photography right now. I highly recommend contacting them.

Dayanita Singh – I don’t know her but she writes so beautifully about photographs, and how a photograph isn’t necessarily a ‘finished work’. Instead she argues that a more developed work is the sum of the photograph, the sequence, the artist text, the context, the way it’s positioned in the work, and critical thought. Some old-school purists might be averse to this eclectic approach, and it’s not to say that I feel that individual photographs should rely on context, because I don’t, but I think that we all need to be critical about how we make work and how we put that work into the world.

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LINKS
Caleb Stein personal website 
Andrea Orejarena personal website