International photographer David Burnett visited Milwaukee's VP Gallery of Fine Art Photography last weekend. While officially signing his recent book Soul Rebel: An Intimate Portrait of Bob Marley Friday and Saturday night Burnett mentioned that he grew up in Salt Lake City, the home town where he discovered that he knew he would become a photographer. This stemmed from his experiences working on a yearbook at Olympus High School. Now with a home in Virginia and a New York studio where he stores his famous negatives in a file cabinet, Burnett speaks to how he still loves his profession and chatted briefly about his long photographic career.
Q: How did you get started in photography?
A: My mother was saying I needed to do something in extracurricular activities so I would be accepted at college. I looked at the yearbook staff. There were four choices. I choose the photo staff. On my first day in the darkroom I waited, watched in the developing pan. How magical this was to see the white turn to black…and a picture emerge. I knew then I wanted to be a photographer, and that was 47 years ago.
Q: Did you study photography in college after high school?
A: There were no photography courses at the time. I went to Colorado College in the mid-60's to study political science because I promised my mom I would try and get a real job. But I took pictures all the way through college, the drag races in Salt Lake City, sports pictures. With my prints that I sold for one or two dollars each I would make 10 or 15 dollars a week, which was good money at the time. I was very mercantile.
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Q: After college what came next?
A: I had a college internship at Time Magazine in photography so I knew magazine work. I was working in Washington, D.C. at 22, which was great. Then the more I learned the more I realized what I didn't know, and what the real world was. I was a self-taught photographer, but still believe that same philosophy today.
Q: What have been some of your favorite shoots?
A: I love the traveling. Traveling was welcome for me. Discovering the food, culture, and art. The art of the everyday. That's why I enjoyed my time in Vietnam for a few years, along with the 2002 Olympics. I had been at the summer Olympics, but never the winter. I discovered ski jumping. It's eye opening and a wonderful way to get pictures.
And in 1973 I photographed Sri Lanka's civil war, which is ground to a halt. Peace is threatening to break out. I also still love getting in a car with a camera, doing a road trip. Those pictures mean the most.
Q: Could you speak to your time with Bob Marley?
A: I went to Jamaica and this was a quick study. We [Marley and I] had an instant connection because he was an incredibly warm and welcoming person. I was allowed to be an observer. I love the hands [his photo on exhibit in the gallery of Marley's hands]. There's a beauty in those hands. A poetic sense of himself. A sense of the tough neighborhoods he grew up in, Trench Town. From all the pain and difficulty came this great poetic voice.
Q: Any advice for new photographers?
A: If you want to be a photographer, then be sure you start in a darkroom, learn the old fashioned way. Otherwise there's no magic that comes out of the developing tray, the dread of the unknown if you're getting it right. Then move to digital. I don't ever want to stop doing this [photography]. It's like a shark moving in water. If I stop, it'll eat me up.
