Table of contents for Issue 62 in Huck

In 2011, a box of old photographs changed my life. I spend every summer in South Africa but this particular one was difficult because I experienced a lot of violence, including a carjacking which caused damage to one eye. People in New York wanted me to come home but I knew from experience that something good usually happens in the last week of every visit. I had bought a stack of photographs in Cape Town and my friend’s daughter said,“You know what? I have this collection of negatives I should give you.” They’d been sitting in a garage for 15, 20 years. I pulled out a few, held them up to the light and started freaking out. They were so strong, even in that form. We’re so familiar with the…

I first encountered Gordon Parks’ work when I saw his American Gothic portrait of Ella Watson from 1942. That was the moment I realised photography is more than just taking pictures. I learned that, through one dignified image, you could speak about your position as a black woman and how the value of your labour is viewed in society; you could show what inequality does to humanity while also capturing the strength shown in the face of it. Gordon’s autobiography A Choice of Weapons helped me understand what I could be as an artist with a camera. After all the racism that he had been through, all his encounters with the police, all those assignments photographing gangs and murders and segregation, he realised he was using his camera to correct…

I first started taking pictures while racing BMX bikes back in the 1980s. Like any kid doing tricks, surrounded by friends in the neighbourhood and at weekend competitions, I wanted to capture key moments. My initial impulse to pick up a camera was just to document something that was part of my life. Early on, I became conscious of finding my own voice within the medium quite organically. I had a good teacher at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Kent, Ohio, who noticed something in my work and submitted it to a couple of scholarship-based competitions. Lo and behold, I won. The surprise of that achievement is part of what got me hooked, but I also just loved making art more than anything else. Even at such a young age,…

I’m an attorney who never really took pictures until 2013, when my law firm issued iPhones to its staff. At first, most of my images were abstract but colourful compositions that often featured deteriorating walls and trash. Friends suffered through my over-sharing of these snaps and dubbed them ‘shitpics’. But after seeing a documentary about street photographer Vivian Maier in early 2014, my focus shifted to people. When you reach a point where you are undeniably invading other people’s personal space on a daily basis, I think you have to decide if what you are doing is well-intentioned and meaningful enough (to you) to justify that invasion. The day I answered that question affirmatively, photography became a part of my personal identity. My Instagram account @powercorruptionandlikes was created in the…

Shortly before I was released from prison, my counsel turned to me and said, “There are a lot of people outside waiting to hear from you. You better start drinking some sugar.” I’d been locked in a room for the past 30 days, on hunger strike for six. But the week that followed my release would somehow be even worse. Every photographer who works in Turkey knows the country has changed, that the job carries risks. I was first detained in January after police at Gaziantep airport found photos of Kurdish PKK soldiers on my Instagram and accused me of producing ‘terrorism propaganda’. From that point on, my name was marked and my press pass renewal stalled. I told the authorities that I would continue working throughout the renewal process.…

There’s a point I always return to when thinking about what photography means to me. I was studying journalism and political science at the University of Georgia when I took a photo class as an easy credit, just to have fun, and fell in love with it. One of the first assignments was to photograph movement. I went to a dance performance, just playing around with my camera settings, not really knowing what I was doing. But one image that came out of that was so impressionistic that, looking back, it feels perfectly in tune with the path my work eventually took: finding moments of beauty and optimism, even in the darkest places. When I went for newspaper jobs early on, however, there were always certain boundaries. It felt like…

Photography came to me at a point in my life when things were really rough. I was frustrated, I needed therapy. I had some friends who said to me, “Just try this, you’ll feel better.” So I used photography to heal the person in me, to heal the wounded soul that couldn’t be fixed by a shrink or anybody else. In photography, I found a special medium that really helped articulate issues that tormented me. I’m able to make photographs with people who might have experienced their own personal pain, who have their own journeys, who are seeking a community in which to speak. I call myself a visual activist. That means taking action: you see something, you don’t complain, but you do something to make a difference. You want…

“If the world can see, the world can change.” © 2017 Huck Magazine. Licensed TM by Bullitt from KODAK: KODAK, EKTRA The Kodak and Ektra trademarks, Kodak logo and trade dress are used by Bullitt-Group under license from Kodak The world has never been so challenging. And in this age of deepening divides, photography has never been so important. With more images being made than ever before, photographers who choose to place themselves at the pivot points of change – capturing grassroots movements as they form and rise – help us all bear witness to the stories that really matter. By placing themselves out on the frontlines, they undergo a metamorphosis of their own, taking invaluable lessons from every story they experience, capture and share. Pivot Points: Stories of Change…

Before this project, I wasn’t using photography: photojournalism was using me. I often think about how I ended up on that street in Misrata. I think about how – to the microsecond – fate put me in that position. These forces of drive and determination, wanting to be the best at something: when you’re covering conflict, there’s a culture of having to be the first on the frontlines. You put yourself at insane risk. This project in Turkey was about redressing that balance, representing people in a different way and taking back some power. I was doing okay at these things – covering war, protest, revolutions – but was frustrated that publications weren’t interested in nuance. I was beginning to pick up on things that alluded to a deeper story,…

In 2013, the Spanish government proposed a change to the abortion law that would make it more restrictive. Luckily, they didn’t succeed. But when I realised my rights could be jeopardised at any time, I started looking into abortion access around the world, exploring the repercussions for other women. Presenting my project, On Abortion, for the first time as an installation was a huge challenge. It’s not an easy topic, people don’t want to spend too much time reading about it. I wanted to make the exhibition as interesting as possible so people wouldn’t leave before getting the ‘bigger picture’. By using video installations, audio and objects, I found that I could trigger uncomfortable and complicated stories, thanks to the power of suggestion, in a way that gave the viewer…