Charles Peterson
Photographer
EVENT: Vietnam Dep Lam (Most Beautiful) at the Little Theatre, through mid-January.
These photographs have an inherent exoticism since they were taken in a place that’s strange to the viewer, but they’re also very ordinary. How do you account for that? “It’s a work-in-progress, and certainly the first time I was there, I tried to capture nothing but the exotic. But going back to the same places, I was really able to look a little deeper, beyond the obvious. Using a medium-format camera, paper rolls of film, 12 shots per roll–you have to choose your moments more carefully. I think that maybe the compositions are very classical, on the square, and that gives it more of a timeless aspect. There’s something about the mundane that’s pretty timeless.”
Why are some of the images in black and white? “In the far north I’ve been photographing the ethnic minorities in black and white. Also, the way their civilization is in development lends itself to black and white. Their outfits are so colorful that it overwhelms the film. Also, a lot of times you think you’d be photographing in bright light, but when you go inside the hut or the fog rolls in… you can do a lot more with black and white in those situations.”
Your images of the grunge scene really cemented those years in a lot of people’s minds. What’s it like to shoot in a place where there are already so many iconic images? “You mean the telephoto shot of the woman with the cone hat in the rice paddy? It would be disingenuous of me to say I don’t know how to create those images. Because I do. I guess I want to be more of an artist than a journalist, even though my favorite photographers right now are journalists. I’ve made some recent friends who are other travel photographers, so we talk about the nature of travel photography quite a bit, and the aspect of having to go away to the ‘other’ is one that both is necessary and also kind of does your head in. The grass is always greener on the other side. But the grass is greener over there. And the robes are yellower. It’s such a vibrant place.”