To pursue something we love, or to do something that is good for the world? Ahh, a universal dilemma – for most of us, at least. Some – such as photographer Alejandro Cegarra – manage to turn the or into an and. The skeleton of this artist’s career is equal parts artistic passion and human empathy. Using his identity as a Latino man, his native tongue of Spanish, and his impeccably trained eye, Cegarra documents the lives of migrants and victims of political violence spanning Latin America. Studying a Cegarra photograph, his scrupulous eye – for both light and shadow as much as human emotion – presents itself unmistakably.
Nearing only the halfway point of his fourth decade, the arsenal of awards and recognitions the Venezuelan artist has accumulated is really quite impressive. With photos published in the New York Times, National Geographic, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Time Magazine, it is abundantly clear how sought after Cegarra’s camera expertise is. But, despite this acquired fame, he has remained steadfast in his commitment to one area of interest: Latin America, and the humans thereof. He describes the fulfilment of using his “Venezuelan slang” as he interacts with his subjects, people who share many facets of his identity, but, in a sense, exist a world apart.
This month, his collection The Two Walls is featured in New York City’s Latin American Foto Festival at the Bronx Documentary Center. The series highlights Mexico’s regression from a country that welcomed immigration and served as a sanctuary for asylum seekers, to one that, now, cooperates with the United States and its terrorising anti-immigration policies.
Alejandro Cegarra joins us today to discuss, among other things, his part in the Latin American Foto Festival, the moral guidelines that define his career, and the power of the candid vs the posed photograph.
You are constantly exposing people (across cities, countries, even continents) to novel phenomena – places, people, policies, world events – that they could, if unexposed, ignore. You are also giving a voice to those whose experiences you are documenting. I’m curious in which direction you conceptualise your work: To the extent that they can be separated, do you see your mission as giving subjects a platform or voice, or forcing or allowing removed audiences to reckon with new truths?
I believe it is a bit of both: our work takes us to places that others don’t go, allowing us to witness and document events that are otherwise unseen. In doing so, we also amplify the voices of different groups or marginalised people who may already have a voice but are not heard widely enough.
All of your projects thus far have taken place in Central American epicentres of hardship and violence, and feature people who’ve been thrust into horrible situations. Of course what you do is inherently political. That being said, do you have an explicit political agenda behind your work, or do you conceive of your job as pure documentation?
My only agenda, if I can call it that, is all rights for all people. From that starting point, I work on topics that I believe can contribute to achieving that goal. Photography needs to be born from a desire for change. It may never fully achieve the change I hope for, but for me, it must at least originate from that desire.
I am particularly in awe of the work you did in the Tower of David in Caracas, a building unlawfully occupied as a primary residence for around 1300 people who’ve been generally ostracised from society. You say that the tower “has a reputation for harbouring the most dangerous criminals.” What did it feel like to enter peoples’ private spaces, and more generally, to find yourself in a site of such tension and fragility?
When I think of the tower, or as I call it in the series, my dear tower, I remember the feeling of being honoured with access to someone’s home. I believe that’s one of the greatest honours any photographer can have: to be trusted and invited into a home. For that project, I had to work in small and private spaces. It was a slower process, and I remember taking barely 1200 pictures in six months. However, each one was special because it involved a personal connection with an individual family.
You very often photograph people in particularly distressing moments — political protests, street fights, sleeping and eating in unsafe and unclean encampments. Though I understand it must range enormously, what is the general range of reactions you get from people when you approach them with the intent to document?
It quite depends on the moment. For protests, street fights, or political clashes in public spaces, the urgent task is to capture the photograph, to seize that peak moment that summarises the emotion, distress, or intensity of the scene. In calmer moments, I engage in a lot of talking and listening so that people can consent to being photographed. In these situations, I try to be gentle in how I go about photographing them.
Do you ever feel wary of intruding on your subjects’ privacy? Is there ever a photo you don’t take, though it would be a good or even great one, because a moment feels too private?
Yes. That’s why I approach my subjects as a human being, as another human being myself, and ask for permission to be there. I often say “I’m sorry we are meeting in this situation rather than a safer or happier one.” I don’t take photos when I’m asked not to. If a moment could come across as degrading of a subject, my intention is to dignify my subjects, but at the same time stay attached to the truth. I try to not romanticise poverty or hardship – there is a fine balance and it is a balance that changes depending on the situation.
Your recent series The Two Walls, featuring photos taken of migrants in Mexico, is, again, an archive of extreme hardship. In the majority of the photographs, the most salient emotions are pain, sadness, struggle, fear, etc. But you also include a couple of happy photos. I am thinking of the image of the couple smiling into each other’s eyes lovingly, and then of the one where a crowd is immersed in a sea of bubbles, and peoples’ faces are momentarily alight. Can you talk us through the decision to include these joyful glimpses?
It was important for me to add those because it opens a back door in people's hearts. It makes them feel the rest of the project more deeply and empathise with the subjects more deeply on the whole. Not every person has been in such dire situations but everyone – I hope – has felt love and joy.
While you do account for the joy that sometimes shines through in horrible conditions, there are only two images tainted by said joy — in a collection of thirty. Is this a deliberate choice? Do you try to make a photo series representative of the general moment it captures, and thus, in this case, avoid over-representing happy blips in an experience that is mostly terrible?
I don’t want to romanticise the plight faced by hundreds of thousands of migrants every year. I want people to understand how hard it is, but at the same time let them know that universal, human, feelings – including joy, love and happiness – have a place even in these situations.
On your website, you show your personal projects – all shot in Latin America, with themes of political and economic struggle – as well as the photos you’ve taken on commission. Your commissioned photos, though venturing slightly further out – like with Xin Xin, the Mexican Panda, shot for National Geographic – largely share this theme. Would you also be open to using your expertise to work with other topics, or do you foresee immigration and political turmoil in Latin America remaining the central themes of your career?
I try to be as versatile as I can be while staying true to myself and what matters to me. Some projects are topics that sparked my curiosity and thus became a pitch, like Xin Xin, or the macaws in Caracas: that one was about a feeling of saudade (melancholy or dying from melancholy) that I felt for my home city. My personal projects are about what makes me mad, about situations and realities I want to change for the better. This is a compromise I chose to make willingly.
Your most recently published project, The Two Walls, was shot in Mexico, where you currently live. You’ve shot most of your other projects in Venezuela, where you were born. How do you conceptualise the relative proximity you have to your subjects (in terms of geography, ethnicity, often gender), and the fact that your life is, ultimately, quite different from theirs?
It is a hard moral dilemma for me. My subjects and I share so much but at the same time we are in different situations, which is something that haunts me and makes me realise how fortunate I am. Honestly, there is no straight answer to this.
I feel like this is generally true with truly great photographers' work, but I’ll say it anyway: In most of your photos, it’s impossible to tell whether a shot was candid or if your subject knew their picture was being taken. Are most of your photos indeed candids? What is the value of candid photography?
They are candid. The way I capture candid photos is by showing that I’m trustworthy, which often makes my subjects forget I’m there. No matter what, I let them know that they can ignore me if they want and get back to their routines. The mere fact of seeing a new presence changes their behaviour, which is why introducing myself and chatting with them first helps a lot.
A few of your photos are clearly posed. I'm thinking in particular of the man in the Other Side of the Tower series whose arms are crossed in front of his chest, and whose fingers are positioned so as to form little guns. What is the value of a posed photo? Do you feel like a subject has more power since they’re choosing how they want viewers to see them? What makes you elect to incorporate some posed shots into a series of mostly candids or candid-adjacents?
The portrait is a dance and an agreement between the photographer and the person being photographed. It is both about how the subject wants to be seen and about the idea the photographer has about how that person should be seen. It’s a beautiful moment to look into someone’s eyes through the camera. It’s one of my favourite moments because it can be a vulnerable and intimate moment for both [photographer and subject], and that vulnerability, which is ultimately an act of trust, really adds to a photo series.
Will you be attending the Latin American Foto Festival, of which The Two Walls series is a part, in person in NYC next week [running 11th to 28th July]?
Yes, I’m on my way there right now!
What is it like to be surrounded by photographers sharing your area of interest? I imagine photography is most often an individual process. Can you speak on the role of collaboration in your career, to whatever extent it exists?
It is beautiful to share ideas and thoughts and to belong to a community. It can get quite lonely out there and you are in constant risk of feeling like you’re in an echo chamber.
How do you feel about having your own picture taken?
Most of the time it just feels awkward. I know that many times it happens with the intention of keeping a memory alive, so ultimately it depends on the moment and the person taking the picture.
Why do you tend to photograph in only black and white?
Two reasons: the first is that it adds a layer of timelessness. Time is photography’s worst enemy. Second, and more important: it is my native artistic form. It feels similar to speaking Spanish with my Venezuelan accent and my Venezuelan slang: comfortable, and true to me.
