From Our Archives: The Risk of Conflict Photography - Ron Haviv

© Ron Haviv

This interview originally appeared in Musée Magazine’s Issue No. 21 - Risk

ANDREA BLANCH: You’ve just returned from the U.S.-Mexican border. What was the assignment?

RON HAVIV: The assignment was a self-assignment, to go in, explore, and understand the situation that's going on with immigration; specifically in regards to the migrant caravan that's traveling from Central America to the Tijuana border. It was like many other scenes of displacement and refugees that I've been working on for the last 30 years. About 100 feet from the border was a camp where most people were being put. The new Mexican government was just installed [on November 29] so people were waiting for direction on what they're going to do next. The Trump Administration's coming out continuously with mixed messages, so now it’s a waiting game. More people are arriving, some people are leaving, some are trying to cross illegally, and most, if not all, are being arrested.

ANDREA: Were there any differences between your recent trip to the U.S.-Mexican border, and other border situations that you've photographed?

RON: I'm going in a week or so to Greece to document the refugee camps. The people there came from the crossings between Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, and got stopped in Greece, unable to make it into Europe. Here, the people on the border are allowed to stay in Mexico, or [they] were [allowed to] based on the last administration. They also have the opportunity to go back home if they feel that it's safe enough, so it's a slightly different situation. I think that all people on the border are seeking asylum, but for various reasons; some for security because their lives are threatened, and others who want a better economic life.

ANDREA: Do you engage with your subjects at all?

RON: I have lots of conversations with them to try to understand why they're there, what their journeys were like, and to ask how long it took them to get to the border. You see people who are really trying for a better life, and some who are there for survival. The United States has a tradition based on trying to welcome these people; we’ve certainly had moments when we've closed the borders or treated people in a different way. But it is unfortunate, especially where there are farms in California and elsewhere that need workers, and we can't figure out a better solution.

ANDREA: How do you stay focused on your work while you’re in the midst of these heart-wrenching situations?

RON: I disagree with the premise that the camera is a protection from emotion. In reality, the camera's magnifying the situation. I think that if I feel no emotion when I'm taking the photograph then it doesn't come across in the photo, therefore it will have no impact with the viewer. For me, the key has been trying to find the balance between finding that emotion and not being overwhelmed by it to the point where I'm not able to work. The emotions become overwhelming for me when I'm back home. There have been many times when I've been upset in the field; I've cried in the field, and I've cried at home. The key for my work is to make sure that it doesn't feel robotic, that the work has an emotional element to it because I want to create a relationship between the image and the viewer so the viewer can't look away. The viewer has to, at the very least, remember the image, react to it, and learn something from it for it to have some impact.

© Ron Haviv

ANDREA: Out of everything that you’ve covered, did you feel that any one situation was more dangerous than others for you?

RON: I think it's difficult to determine which one is more dangerous than another. Let's just say there have been many situations; whether full-out declared war, civil insurrection, or even just a riot where my life or others’ lives were in danger. There have been times when pieces of shrapnel landed so close to my head that if I had turned a different way I’d be gone. Where people next to me were shot and killed and I somehow survived, or somebody decided not to beat me up for whatever reason. The risk in these situations is something that all of us have to understand and take into account and use in terms of deciding where, what, and when you're going to go and do something. You need to try to work as safely as possible with the understanding that you're putting yourself at risk.

ANDREA: Are there any projects you are reluctant to pursue because of the risks involved?

RON: I haven't been able to find a way, personally, in terms of security, to cover the Syrian crisis in the way I want to because of my passport and such. I think there are some limitations. This is one of the things that everybody has to decide for themselves; what their line is and what they're willing to do. Nobody can say, "Oh, that's right, and that's wrong." It's always a very personal decision. It was very difficult for me to get access to do the things that I wanted to do. It was very difficult to get permission from either the government or on the rebel side. Being American is not helpful in this conflict at all.

© Ron Haviv

ANDREA: Would you call yourself a war photographer, a conflict photographer, or a photojournalist?

RON: No, I wouldn't call myself any of those. I'm not even sure of the difference between a photojournalist and a documentary photographer. I'm documenting what I see. Many times it's involved with conflict, post-conflict, human rights, amplifying people's voices, and trying to have an impact. It's not always necessary for there to be somebody with a gun in the photograph to be able to do that. However, I have spent 30 years in conflict areas, but I'm not somebody who's like, "Oh, I can't wait to go to the next front line." Very quickly, getting shot at became uninteresting. It's not something that's very exciting or something that I cherish; I'm more interested in what's happening five minutes away from [where I’m being shot at].

ANDREA: How did your career in photography begin?

RON: It began by chance. I was studying to be a journalist at NYU without an understanding of what that meant. I was just looking for a job that would allow me to travel and not have to work in an office. I was very naive. I was working a number of different jobs and one of them happened to be for this woman named Elaine Corn. I became exposed to photography through her fashion photography. It was super interesting but there were too many people involved and I thought I’d rather try to do something else, and given that I was studying journalism at NYU, I decided to take an introduction to photography class for journalism. I graduated with no understanding of what to do whatsoever. I graduated and took out the yellow pages and started doing cold calls to all the media organizations in New York asking for a job, and everybody laughed at me until one small newspaper said, "Come on in for an interview." They said, “We have no interest in working with you as a photographer but we certainly need somebody to mop the floors and mix chemicals.” So I took them up on that. I started learning about the newspaper business and photography that way and then one day there was breaking news at city hall and nobody else was around. My first assignment was crawling around the office of Ed Koch, and the next day my first picture was published, and I showed my parents who were like, "Oh, well, maybe you do know what you're doing." That was exciting. I don’t think anyone even saw the credit. I started to get more assignments, still working for free, but I started to meet other photographers on the streets of New York and got welcomed into this community, which I still think is a unique one.

© Ron Haviv

ANDREA: Who was there at the time?

RON: There were photographers from The Times, Daily News, AP, and so on. I was 21 or so, and people put their arm around me and said, "Oh, this is happening, you should do this with me,” or “Let me introduce you to this editor to get you some work.” So I was introduced to AFP, which is a French wire service, and met the bureau chief there, Don Emmert, through another guy named David Canter, who was a well-known New York photographer. I started getting actual work and getting published in magazines. I was like, “This is really interesting." One day I was covering a parade and I met this guy named Chris Morris who'd just come back from the Philippines for Newsweek and this guy looked like he'd walked off a movie set about photography; super cool looking with the scarf, the long blond hair, the press credentials, and so on. We were talking and I asked him where he was going next, and he said, “I'm going to Panama next.” And I said, "That's amazing. I'm also going to Panama." So Chris said, "Great. I'll see you there." I had no idea where Panama was, or what was happening in Panama, but I figured if Chris was going then that was a place that a photojournalist would go. I was working for The New York Post at that point. I pitched them the story; it was 1989, there was a dictator in power in Panama who had once been an ally of the United States. He was going to hold elections to say that he wasn't a dictator. The guy was crazy and had really bad skin. The New York Post loved him, called him Pineapple Face. I got my first international assignment to go cover this election. Just before I was about to go, The New York Post was sold and my assignment was canceled, I had no money, and I couldn't afford to go. I still wasn't making enough money as a photographer; I was driving an ice cream truck and I was a bike messenger. I ran to Chris Morris on the street and told him what happened and he said, "I have an extra plane ticket. You can stay in my room. There's an extra bed and extra seat in the car." And off we went to Panama. Noriega, the dictator, lost the election and then canceled it. Then the would-be victors came on the streets and started an uprising. I took a photograph of the vice-president-elect covered in blood being beaten by a paramilitary. That was my first foreign trip and first everything; [that photo was on the] covers of magazines and newspapers around the world. Seven months later, when the United States invaded Panama, the president who just died [on November 29] spoke about the photograph as one of the reasons for the invasion. I was like, "OK, this is an interesting way to spend your time." That [trip and photo] was the solidification of my desire to travel to these places, to tell these stories, and to have the work be part of the conversation in order to have as much impact as possible.

© Ron Haviv

ANDREA: What characteristics do you think a photojournalist should possess?

RON: Curiosity. Passion. Dedication. Understanding that it's not about you, but about the people that you're photographing. And the desire to do good.

ANDREA: What is the criteria for deciding if a photographer has done well? What does that photograph look like?

RON: In the world of photojournalism, documentary has to have a combination of information and aesthetics; the information has to be important but the aesthetics have to bring in the viewer with a desire to engage with that photograph, not just as something that is a snapshot of something, but something where the photographer's vision comes across as an image without obscuring the actual value of the information from the photograph. It can't be just a fine art photograph from a new scene and it can't just be a snapshot from a new scene. It has to find the combination of both.

ANDREA: Why do you shoot in color?

RON: It's usually my choice or in discussion with the assigning publication and [most of the work of] my career has been color [photography], which has been my choice. Especially the ten years of my work in the Balkans where when you photograph there in black and white it very much looks like World War II pictures. They were even wearing the same uniforms. While I thought that was really incredible, I thought that it gave the viewer a sense of protection that you were looking at historical images, not current images and that it was important that people understood those happening today and therefore it was important to shoot in color.

© Ron Haviv

ANDREA: You want your photographs to have an impact, but what if they don't?

RON: At the beginning that certainly was a question, but now I think that not every photograph will land but certainly a number of them can. Now I'm doing a documentary called Biography of a Photo, and I’m co-directing it with a professor from NYU. We're looking at the Panama photograph and another photograph from Bosnia and doing a biography of the photograph and seeing what happened once it left the camera and what impact that photograph had. Over the course of the last 28 years, the photographs that started out as pure news appearing in magazines and so on have transitioned into multiple levels and had multiple effects. Both photographs have appeared in art interpretations, been banned, used in education, been used in foreign policy, been used in propaganda, and had multiple effects on individuals who then saw that photograph and acted a certain way based on their experience.

ANDREA: Can you give me an example of that?

RON: With the Panama photograph, the election was held in May, the people had been protesting for years but nobody cared. After the photo was on the cover of Time magazine, all of a sudden people were talking about Panama. The photograph was banned in Panama. The opposition would fax the photograph in from Miami and spread it out, and people were paying attention. The vice-president who was in the photograph became representative of the fight for democracy. It changed his whole persona and how he was looked at both internally and externally. Then the president of the United States, which I don't think has ever happened before, spoke about the photograph as one of the reasons why this invasion was taking place, so it’s pretty amazing for a photograph to play a role in that. We've been interviewing people in Panama, asking them what their experience was with this photograph. Everyone from the president of Panama who said that this photograph gave Panama back its democracy, to school teachers who were teaching it as part of the U.S. Panama relations classes. Then you have something on a very personal note. A lot of the blood that's on the vice-president is from his bodyguard, who was killed lying on top of him and saved his life. The brother of the bodyguard promised his dying mother to get his brother recognition from the government because this man sacrificed his life for democracy. So he's using the photograph to try to get justice for his family. He wants there to be a statue based on the photograph. He's still trying to fight to say, "Hey, my brother saved Panama." All based on that photograph.

© Ron Haviv

ANDREA: How did this idea come about?

RON: There's actually someone you should interview the co-director, Dr. Laura Walsh, about. She's doing a book called Conversations in Conflict Photography, which is coming out next year by Bloomsbury. She interviewed me for the book, and we were talking about this, like what kind of impact I know it had. For Panama, I knew about the president. For Bosnia, I knew that the photographs were used in the war crimes tribunal to indict and convict war criminals. Aside from that, I didn't know a lot of little details and we thought about it first as a book and then as a film. The guy beating up the vice president, we think we've found him. The guy who was kicking the body is now a famous disc jockey in Belgrade so we're just trying to get both of them on camera. Those are the last two people so we're almost done.

ANDREA: What did you enjoy about the experience of making this documentary?

RON: I was directing the crew and she was doing the interviews. The most fascinating thing as the photographer was seeing the power of the work, going back to your initial question, "What are the different lines here?" With the Bosnia photograph, somebody did a series of 24 paintings and it was in the Venice Biennial. Sometimes you see the power of what happens with photography. We've seen it recently with John Moore's picture from the border, the child on the beach. You have these moments where photographs just transcend and become part of the conversation and have an impact. It's not a lot but it does happen. It’s very reassuring that photography can still have power. With the Bosnia photograph, the daughter of one of the women waited for her family to grow up and understood that the photograph had already been used to indict the general, the president, and so on. But she wants the three people in the photograph indicted for war crimes. She's now using the photograph today, she's going to the prosecutor and saying, "Look at this picture. I want this done." The film deals with these two individuals looking for justice based on the photograph as well as the bigger picture of how the photographs played within society itself and beyond.