Photographer Wanda Benvenutti aims to tell “the story of America through a different pair of eyes”
A week ago I attended a Biznik event where I ran into photographer Wanda Benvenutti. A funny thing happened about halfway through the class - she glanced out the window and, on the side of a passing city bus, saw one of her pictures for the first time on public display. As someone who used to be a photographer himself, I can imagine that was a pretty gratifying moment. We all interrupted Matt Hanson, who hosted the event, for a few minutes to gawk out of the window at the picture - which featured a bunch of naked guys. Well, that left enough of a question in my mind that I figured it was time to interview Wanda to find out more about her passion: photography. It turns out that photography isn’t the only thing she’s excited about.
Q: Tell me about yourself, and how you got started with photography.
Well, I was born at St. Claire’s hospital in Denville, New Jersey in the 1970’s. My mother was this strawberry blonde working class hippie who was the first woman in our family to attend college. My father had arrived from Salinas, Puerto Rico a few years earlier. He left school in the eighth grade to cut sugar cane with my Grandfather in Puerto Rico. He worked in all kinds of skilled labor jobs, you could do that without even a High School education back then. So you can imagine how weird and funny it is for him to wrap his head around the fact that his only child went to graduate school. Which is interesting because Columbia University sits in the middle of Spanish Harlem (a neighborhood in Manhattan) and there I was, a working-class Boricua in this convoluted environment. (Boricua is a term of endearment Puerto Ricans use for one another.) It was like this experience I hear many people from the states have (I know I did) after living in another country for a while, of realizing you actually possess an American identity. In my case, suddenly I was Puerto Rican again after kind of forgetting about it for four years of college. It tripped me out, that only ten years ago as a society we still have so many barriers, and I was living in literally two worlds at once. This turned out to be a gift, because having the chance to tell stories of our experience as human beings was why I went to train as a journalist in the first place.
Part of my childhood was in Rochester, New York, otherwise known as world headquarters of Eastman Kodak. I remember dragging my Mother to openings at the Eastman House when I was about 12. There are great photography exhibits there and its quite a museum. I remember having this list of careers at that age: Journalist, Writer, Astronaut, Veterinarian. The work that allowed me to travel and meet people who knew things I was curious about won. I think I’m allergic to offices, ha ha ha…but that’s when I started shooting film, at 12. (Kodak was actually the first to reach out when I let them know I was working on “American Boricua.” I have to give them props because they came on board with sponsorship when this was in its earliest stages. I shoot Kodak black and white film, I’ve always liked it, so it was a natural partnership.)
We spoke Spanish at home until my parents divorced, and I was in bilingual school until about the second grade. I like to surprise people when I tell them English was not my first language, in addition to being born in Jersey. Because what is more American than New Jersey?
I have been a working photojournalist for nine years and started out as a newspaper photographer. I’ve been freelance for five years now.
Q: What newspapers did you work at, and what led you to go freelance?
I worked at The Seattle Times, Seattle P-I, moved back East and briefly worked at the Allentown, PA newspaper, The Morning Call. My first job out of school was at a tiny daily in Aberdeen, WA. I think I was shooting something nuts like six assignments a day. Despite the unrelenting rain, the experience forced me into really getting to the meat of how news is gathered, edited, and printed every single day into a newspaper. It turned me into a reporter, and I have always been grateful for that.
When I started out, I made a pact with myself to learn as much as possible in the newspaper world, and after five years, get out to do my own projects. That’s what I did, and it’s a good thing too because I think I would have burned out otherwise. I need variety in the stories that I shoot, I like to mix it up.
Q: How would you characterize your style and approach to photography today?
There is a specific style that as a photojournalist my work would fall into because your first task is to tell a story. You happen to have this camera, this machine, in your hands to tell that story, but that’s just the first tool. Most creative people are hesitant to characterize their style because that can take away from how they work. As in, let’s analyze this to death so we can try to understand it. So honestly I don’t really think about style, that’s for someone else to worry about. (Like Editors, ha ha ha…..) I’m just here to make pictures and not think too much while I’m doing that. The flow stops otherwise, you’re not in the present moment. My approach is pretty straightforward. I had this great teacher once who said, “Put the damned notebook down and talk to people!” The idea being, hey, be a person, be real, be yourself and always, always be honest. You cannot develop relationships and trust if you are not aggressively in your integrity, especially in the world of journalism. So when I photograph people I have this opportunity to be with them in a way that is genuine. That experience should honor who they are AND tell their story as honestly as possible. People will not always be happy with the work you do, (and that is just as it should be, your first commitment is to your reportage) but if they can say that you were fair and honest, heck, you’ve done your job well. I try to approach my work with a beginner’s mind - it allows magical things to happen. Someone I was photographing in Idaho last year told me at the end of the day she forgot I was there with a camera. I nearly cried, that was the highest compliment I’ve ever been given.
Q: What’s the story behind those naked bus guys!
Ha! The naked guys. Well, that day was a good day, yes. I remember laughing so hard with my client as we mapped out that ad campaign. I got paid to photograph something fun that had a solid message I believe in. Kismet!! (I am on the leadership team of BALLE Seattle, which is all about living and working in a way that is sustainable, in alignment with your values. The tagline was, “Choose your wood responsibly”, and the client was the Environmental Home Center. They ran three different ads I photographed in 2005, and we’re right in the middle of planning the 2006 campaign. Its been this wonderful expansion of what types of work I can do, because my approach was exactly the same as with the editorial work. Except that I got to tell people exactly what to do for hours during that commercial shoot. In their underwear. Maybe I should consider directing…..
Q: Tell me a bit more about BALLE, and your involvement with that group.
BALLE Seattle is the local chapter of an international organization, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. I’ve been on the leadership team for four years now. What we do is connect, promote, and educate locally owned businesses in order to provide an alternative to how business is typically run. The is a strong environmental stewardship mission, as well an emphasis on the triple bottom line theory. Triple bottom line being people, planet, and profits, in that order of importance. You can do well financially in business and not at the expense of natural resources. People think that sustainability means low profits. That’s just not true. BALLE offers a different, and conscious choice. Are you interested in running your business in a more sustainable way? Buying local? BALLE exists as an invitation for people who want to do the right thing in their businesses. And I do believe most of us do want to do the right thing, its just a matter of having a real conversation. So we have several events we put on every year and our membership comes together as a community to network, help, and support one another. Its great to have a place to go where you know there are people with values that align with your own.
If you had told me when I moved out here ten years ago that I would be so passionate about working toward living on a sustainable planet, I would have dismissively called you a hippie. I had always thought that the entire environmental movement, the sustainability movement, were very elitist, very white. Lots of self-important people who liked the sound of their own voices. Then I was invited to an Amory Lovins lecture. The man was trained as a physicist, he had a red laser pointer and powerpoint slides. Boring, right? Then I saw the numbers, I saw hard science shown in a way that was very clear and convincing. I was hooked! Suddenly it became very unimportant that I was the only Latina in the room. The way things are run now, its just not sustainable. The small changes Lovins showed that were actually implemented at many enormous companies, they made such a difference. Check out his book, Natural Capitalism. It’s a good read.
Someone else to check out is Ray Anderson. He’s the CEO of the largest carpet manufacturer in the world, Interface. He’s guiding his company to 0% landfill use. Its inspiring. Imagine what we can all do in our daily lives, small things that have such a huge impact. Take the bus the next time you go downtown. Carpool to work. Recycle. These are very small things. Turn off the lights if the room is empty, or better yet, get energy efficient light bulbs. You certainly don’t have to hug a tree to care about what a tree represents. Which is this, do you give a shit if your grandkids breathe clean air? See, at this point it’s just a matter of survival for this planet. It is a moral issue. Are you in this family of human beings or not? Because the way we live, in this moment as a society, is so wasteful. And if we are all willing, just willing, to make small changes in the way we live, we have a chance at preserving this home, this place we take for granted. Earth. Okay, I’ll climb down from my soapbox now.
Q: It must be the dream of almost every professional photographer to do a book someday. And you’re actually doing it! Tell me all about your project came into being, and where it’s at now, and what your vision for it is.
I think it is a very American fantasy, to publish your own book. We are still such a young country that somehow declaring your right to personhood is validated in the form of publishing a book. This makes me wonder about who we are as a group of citizens, because “American Boricua” is about recognizing just how elastic the meaning of what being American as become. The project, “American Boricua: Puerto Rican Life in the United States” is the first visual history of the Puerto Rican Diaspora throughout all 50 states of the U.S. For the first time in history there are more Puerto Ricans on the mainland than on the island of Puerto Rico. This is significant because we are the only Latino group in the U.S. that has citizenship status from birth, so we’re just as American as Joe Smith and have been for nearly 100 years.
Yet there is still this enormous gap in understanding that needs to be filled in just how much Boricua culture has influenced American culture. Why would someone who isn’t Puerto Rican care about this? Because this is the story of America through a different pair of eyes. Because we are more alike as Americans than different. Because Latinos are now the largest ethnic minority in the United States. Because salsa has outsold ketchup as the #1 condiment in this country for over five years. Because you know you want to see what life is like for a Puerto Rican in Idaho!
But I digress. See, I don’t really care so much about the “It’s a book” piece of this project. Yes, it is important, but my purpose, that thing that keeps me going when I’m raising money to be on the road and in a weird hotel room and I’ve been eating power bars for days because I can’t find anything organic or wheat-free to eat (how Seattle has spoiled me) and I need new tires for my car and dang, what time zone am I in, is that this work is not about me. It’s about filling the need that exists out there, the need to say, hey, here is a really important piece of who we are as a society. Check it out. It’s never been done before and I still can’t believe that, five years into this. I’ve been working on the project full time now for over a year and will be a third done by the end of the summer. The actual book will be this fabulous piece of a very rich experience that I’m still swimming in. Ivonne Coll, an actress I photographed in L.A., asked a very profound question while I interviewed her last spring, “Why is it that we know everything about your American culture in North America, but you don’t know about ours? About Puerto Rico?” Why not indeed.
So the vision for the project is that all of the funding will be in place by the end of this year and I’ll be on the road for all of 2007. It’s looking like the release date depends on things beyond my control, as in, are we going to release the Spanish Language edition first? I don’t know yet, and that’s okay. I’m learning that some uncertainty is part of the process. Six months ago I had a meeting with a very prominent and connected member of the Puerto Rican community and we’ll be having another meeting to connect this project with people and groups that want to see it done and done right. I’ve been given the green light for funding, it’s just a matter of logistics now, and of course the actual check arriving in the mail! I’ll be shooting a documentary while I finish the book, interviewing the people I photograph. I already have several I have to go back and film from last year’s travels. There will be of course more content on the website, video clips, a cool interactive map, and eventually an e-commerce site so people can shop for things that will help pay for the start of the next project. (Calendars, postcards, limited edition prints, posters, maybe t-shirts, anything that will both tell the story and establish a visual presence. There’s been talk of a compilation of songs too.) After we publish I’ll be on a four-month book tour media blitz, speaking in schools, and attending, gulp, exhibition openings of the traveling photography show. We’ve already been invited to show in several venues and the project isn’t even complete. It’s so freaking cool, I say “we” because I’ve been working closely with a photojournalist’s best friend - their agent.
My photo rep in New York has been on my case to edit what we already have, so before the next road trip, in July, I’ll be editing sample chapters there and meeting the book folks. I am very blessed to have people in my life who are willing to help nurture this project and get me into see the right people. I just keep asking, and eventually it all comes together. It’s amazing what you can do if you just ask for help. God knows I could not do this alone.
“American Boricua” came into being at a very vivid and specific moment. The building where all of my grad school classes were held was next to a very tall, wrought iron fence. It was nearly two stories high, and had very sharp points on the top. It looked very elegant. Yet those sharp points always made me wince a little, the purpose of a fence is fortification. What exactly is that fence protecting? I asked myself this almost every day when one day I was coming out of the subway and walked toward the entrance. I stopped just outside of the fence. I stepped in to the campus, then stepped out again, asking myself, “Am I crazy, or does each side of this sidewalk feel very different?” So I did this little two-step again until I realized that the world I was leaving and the world I was stepping into were very different. Then my purpose was clear, I knew I’d be doing a national project about Puerto Rican culture at some point. Thankfully, here I am ten years later, documenting it.
Wanda’s website is www.wandabenvenutti.com. You can view her American Boricua project online at www.americanboricua.com, which also contains her blog, which she’ll resume posting in when she’s back on the road in July.
