Jon Kaplan

It started when I was six with a Polaroid camera. I went around the neighborhood and shot pictures of kids. My Dad was an amateur photographer and had a darkroom. I started to print in black and white when I was about ten. A big part of my life in high school was taking photographs for a little local paper.

After I graduated from high school, I went to the Rochester Institute of Technology for a couple of years. That was my first experience with color printing. I did color posterization. I made dye transfer prints. All of it was very complicated and technical. Yet, most of what I was showing was black and white!

It was pretty exciting to be exposed to technology and see how it affected the results. But, I was looking for inspiration and I didn't seem to get it there. Then I was exposed to Pete Turner's 40x60 African pictures. Really big. I haven't seen them since but they're still in my head. I was impressed by their impact, the simplicity, the boldness and use of color to make a powerful statement.

It was in the late 60's and after my two-year exposure to RIT. I went to school in California, Immaculate Heart College, the home of Sister Corita, (who, among other things designed the first “Love” stamp). It was an anti-war community. Tom Hayden taught there. Henry Miller lectured there. It was a chance to play around with an interesting faculty and students, a chance to be a real part of the Los Angeles community of that time.

It was also a chance to see that photography doesn't exist on its own. There is so much to learn from painting and sculpture. I took writing courses and that affected my photography. It showed me that there are other ways to communicate. It taught me how to focus on an idea.

I now do primarily art shows. I spend a quarter of my year shooting in the Third World, perhaps half the year doing the art shows and gallery shows and in what time is left over, making my prints.

In between my school years and now, though, I spent fifteen years running an auto repair shop. I hated it the whole time. I am not a car nut. Still, I've always wanted to know how things work. It was something I was good at. In some ways, what I do now is harder.

The driving force behind my present work is the diversity of culture that exists and is changing so quickly. Sadness…Every time I go back, it's less like it was the last time I was there. Many places I go people still wear traditional clothes, still maintaining many things we've given up. They value a sense of community and friendship more than goods. My work is about the life, the community, and the joy I see throughout the developing world.

Sometimes I feel a frantic urge to record what's there because tomorrow it isn't going to be there. What's hard is that people there sometimes don't value their culture the way I do. I'm trying to capture things that are vanishing and trying to show the richness of it. People here often have a misconception about the Third World. The view of the third world they have been exposed to is one of poverty and famine. On my travels I am constantly faced with people with an abundance of spirit, with strong communities, and with very strong families. I encounter children brought up with lots of love. They are curious and have not had to be told to be fearful of strangers. These people have a fullness to their lives that is missing in ours.

For me, color helps me capture the joy of the third world. It's something that black and white, for me, just doesn't do as well. Black and white seems really good for portraying the seedier side of life, the more painful part of life. The black and white images that come to mind are pretty gritty and emotional...sad for the most part. Somehow, I equate life and color.

The most joy for me, the most fun part is going back to these countries and bringing my pictures back to them. I always bring back lots of pictures. There are villages where it's hard to walk down the street without several people coming up to me and wanting me to come into their house to drink tea. Even in families where they don't speak English they want to repay the kindness by spending time with me. If there is a down side to what I do, it is all the production work. I make a lot of prints, cut a lot of mats, and put together a lot of frames. Being a fine art photographer isn't always about being creative. What's next? It feels fine right here for now. I love what I'm doing. I like where I'm at. I'm trying to put together future shows. I'll continue with this as long as I enjoy it.

Yes, I have a computer. In 1983-1984, I actually sold computers. I was one of the first Macintosh experts. On January 24, 1984, I was out on the sales floor. I resisted upgrading from my old Mac SE for quite a while, but about a year ago I finally bought a more powerful computer. The internet is why. One of the things that impresses me – and it's a love/hate thing-is that when I'm in Guatemala, I can check my email instantly. As a creative tool? One of the things that bugs me about computers is that it makes it easy for people to say something whether they have anything or not. I've consciously chosen not to manipulate my images with a computer because I want people to know that what they see in the photograph was an actual moment at an actual place. When you bring a computer into the process the image becomes part reality and part imagination. I'm trying to be an observer rather than a creator.

The intensity of my colors come from his choice of locale and my shooting and printing techniques. While I am a little tired of apologizing for the deficiencies of a computer screen for showing materials that began life as prints, in this instance I feel a real need to underscore the fact that the subtleties and richness of the actual images is an order of magnitude more than what you will see here! ~~