Listen right now to the original music.
Listen right now to the original music.
Welcome to the Creative Community.
I'm your host, David Starkey, and my guest this time is photojournalist photographer
John Goodman.
John, it's great to have you here.
We're catching you in between trips to Afghanistan, you're an embedded photojournalist, and you've
got some terrific photographs that we're going to look at here.
We are taping this the day after President Obama's speech about the 30,000 troops being
sent to Afghanistan.
I know you've got a lot to say about this as someone who's been on the ground.
So I'm going to talk to you as both a journalist and also as a photographer, because I think
people are going to just be wowed when they look at your photos.
They are really terrific.
Thank you.
Great pleasure to have you.
I'm always curious to find out how my guests found their way into their particular avenue
of expression.
So tell me, how did you get to this place where you were over there taking photos?
Well, it's been a long road that way.
It began with an interest in documentary film, interest in the storytelling process, particularly
stories that I cared about greatly.
And documentary film became stills because of workflow.
Okay.
So I created the process of producing a still image or a series of stills to tell a story.
I believe this spoke to me more than moving images.
I still enjoy film, don't I?
Well, and we're going to see that you tell a story in every single photograph.
That's clearly the narrative is embedded in that process.
So to actually get over there, to do this type of work, then took another several steps.
Of course, I had a show that I had some experience in this type of work environment.
It's fairly challenging and you have to get approved with the military.
The embed process requires you to basically get a clearance from the government and pitch
your story to them and tell them what you want to do.
Now, you work in freelance, basically, right?
Yeah.
I work with an agency at the moment called Zuma Press and they help represent me, but
more or less, I'm working freelance.
Well, you're over there.
These are recent photographs, right?
We're going to look at, what's the timeline for when you first get to FKS?
I basically spent the entire summer, this last summer, in Afghanistan.
Prior to that, I'd been in Iraq, photographing in Iraq.
These images end about August, 2009, right?
And July and August were the two most violent months ever in Afghanistan since the beginning
of the war.
And I kind of lucked out, lucky to be in the wrong place at the right time.
I was actually in the Kunar province in eastern Pakistan, as well as in Paktika.
These provinces are on the Pakistan border, one border's SWAT Valley in Pakistan, which
was a major offensive recently.
The other one was in South Waziristan, which is also a Taliban stronghold.
So these are very active areas in terms of military kinetic operations.
And I was lucky enough to be allowed to follow the soldiers along to see what they're having
to deal with on a daily basis.
Well let's take a look.
We've got a handful of black and white photos and then we'll look at some color ones.
So we go over to the first, it looks like something's happening.
Yeah.
So this was one of the moments that I reflect on it quite a bit, since this time I come
back to this photo and I think about it from a composition standpoint, I think there's
something to it.
But more importantly, I think what's in the photos is interesting to me.
And particularly if you see the plume of smoke there, that's a unique type of smoke that's
actually white phosphorus.
And this particular day, we had been on patrol in the Kourangal Valley when we were ambushed.
They had waited for us to get to a specific spot and they attacked us from this ridgeline,
exactly where this white plume is.
This is the response to that attack.
Exactly.
And then the close air support, this Apache helicopter came in and fired on this ridgeline.
What was interesting to me, though, was I had known a little back story about white phosphorus
and how it was banned as a weapon internationally.
Well the question then came to my mind.
What's it doing?
Why is it firing this white phosphorus at the target where we're getting shot at?
For me this kind of shows some of the complications of war.
So you call a timeout right there and go, oh, that's too close to the enemy.
We're not allowed to be doing that.
The claim was that it was being used as a smoke screen to stop them from being able to see
where we were at.
So we didn't get shot at.
So at the time, I was very grateful for the smoke screen, if you will.
But then I think about it, I go, well, where do you draw the line with the laws?
In addition to it, to that component of that story with that image, you can't see it because
it's out of frame, but we're actually taking cover.
Once we got fired upon, we ran to the closest thing to us.
So you snap the shot and then hit the decrepit button?
Well, we actually, we got fired at and you just run, the closest thing you can.
We were very exposed at that moment.
The only thing around was a building, which was a school, it was a school filled children.
And the enemies, the anti-government forces that were firing us, they knew what that building
was.
And they were trying to get us pinned down there and they're trying to make things challenging
for us.
And so what did you do?
Hid.
Yeah.
They called in the close air support.
They didn't want to get engaged with any type of firefight with the school around there
because obviously that's just unacceptable.
But it was this type of moment which made me realize that even with modern technology,
even with everything that we have and the efforts that we're trying to make to have
a clean war in Afghanistan, it's not a pretty, it's not a clear, clear cut case in any situation.
What's appropriate and what's not appropriate?
Let's take a look at the next one.
We have a number of photographs of American soldiers and what are we looking at here?
Well, this was another one of those moments where you lie awake at night.
We were ambushed on this particular day, I don't know if you'd call it ambush, our base
where we're at, which does not have too many people.
This is again in the Kourangal Valley.
We were taking attack from four different positions around our little combat outpost.
And we were actually receiving mortars, they're coming into us.
These gentlemen here were US mortarmen and they were sending out fire to protect us.
And as they were dropping mortars in their mortar tubes around, an enemy round, came
into the mortar pit and exploded right next to them and I was just a little bit away from
it when it happened.
So the explosion has just taken place?
It's just taken place and the amazing thing was these boys weren't dead.
And after it went off, we all ran into this bunker, this is a little bunker right next
to the mortar pit and they're just astounded that they weren't dead.
And me as well, I couldn't believe that these guys survived this blast.
And we were talking about your work from an artistic perspective, so the guy in the back
has just got this look of just being dumbfounded while the fellow in the front is reacting
in a much different way in this real kind of kinetic fashion, his hands on his head.
And there you are.
I mean, how many, I guess I'm curious, how many photographs are you taking to get something
like this that is so moving and striking?
Well I'm taking as much as I can.
I try not to rely on a motor drive and on my camera, I want to be precise in these moments.
They're very sensitive moments, there's a lot of emotion going on, and the last thing
that these guys want is for me to be in their face, you know, just firing away.
So there's a level of, there's a balance you have to walk, I have to try and get as
many images as I can without being in the way or distracting from what these guys are
going through.
And there's a couple ways I usually do that, it's usually, in this instance right here,
what I was actually doing was we're talking it through, we're just walking it through,
and I was just kind of showing them what I was going to do, I wasn't trying to be sneaky
about it by saying take a picture, you know, put it down, take a picture, put it down.
That allowed for them to know that I wasn't, I was part of the situation, I was part of
what they were going through, I wasn't trying to be voyeuristic, but I was engaging in them
personally.
You know, I knew this was going to happen, the photos are so fascinating and the stories
that go with them, I guess if it is okay with you, I'd like to have the folks in the booth
and fast forward to the first color photograph which is of some Afghani children following
a convoy, so we're moving through here and I think it might be the next one, this one
really catches my attention, tell us the back story for this.
Well, the back story was that we were on a patrol, what they call a key leader engagement,
we were trying to go to some of these small villages that usually only see U.S. presence
maybe once a month, even that, and so we had been going through on a little convoy of armored
vehicles through this village and every time that these kids had seen a convoy pass by
they'd realize the soldiers would throw stuff out, candy, toys, beanie babies were very
popular, so the children would just chase us for half a mile easily just hoping that
there would be one more thing that the soldiers would find in their turret that they could
throw out, but just the extent of excitement consistently, it wasn't just the one time
but every time they would come by these kids would get so excited about the possibility
of getting something, in addition to the barrenness of the landscape, you know there
is really nothing out there for these kids, there's absolute poverty, if we weren't throwing
something out there these kids would never get anything.
And again we look at your composition, you know the light shafted in from the upper right
hand corner, the little boy in white seems so intent on following and then that cloudscape
in the background, it was really an impressive photograph, it's something that you just took
from the back of a moving truck.
Yeah, you really have very little time in these situations, it's actually more challenging
than most other, almost actually any other situation that I've been in terms of photographing
because you're moving with a group that cannot stop, will not stop for you to set up a photograph.
You're almost stuck in one position and hoping something passes in front of you.
Interesting, and just being ready for it, let's take a look at the next one we got.
This is another one where, you know I couldn't have asked for this photo, it just passes
in front of you and you're kind of ready for it.
We had been going up to a mountain top observation post, they needed to relieve some of the soldiers
that had been out there, they'll spend two weeks on top of this mountain just observing
sometimes longer.
So these soldiers, we hiked up to the top of this mountain, spent a day hiking and this
helicopter was flown in to help us out, there's some people in a lot of pain, so they had
to, it wasn't going the way they wanted, so they called in some support, the helicopter
to lift some guys out of there, they're in a bad shape.
And that's sort of just beneath the helicopter?
Yeah, this is actually in the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan, the mountains there.
Take a look at the next one, soldiers playing cards?
Soldiers playing cards, right, this is a very large amount of time, the soldiers is playing
cards, they have about 1% of their time was actual intense excitement, a lot of the time
was just waiting around.
They must have been important.
Yeah.
Well now, they looked to be in a bunk house, did you climb on top of the roof?
I was actually in the rafters and they were laughing at me and it took them a while for
them to ignore me.
They're still back down.
Actually there's this guy, this crazy guy hiding in the rafters with the camera, they
knew I was there but I just had to wait for them to get back to their car.
Now this is interesting because this was an opportunity for you to really exercise your
skills as a photographer to go find that photograph that's not just from ground level.
So yeah, I love this one, different one, the silhouettes, kind of a classic military
photograph.
It was in a way and with this one, I went back and forth on it, I wasn't sure how much
I liked it, with the silhouettes it almost seemed too much of a military recruiting poster
but at the same time, this is the reality and this is what it is out there.
These are the guys on the ground, I think what they're doing is very challenging and
I always am reluctant to sound too gung-ho with military, I'm always very, but with the
guys out there, you see what these gentlemen are doing, they have such a hard task in front
of them and really, I come back to this photo, that's kind of how they are, if I could have
a photo of what they're trying to be at least, that's what it probably is.
That's really an interesting question, to what extent you obviously are going to get
emotionally bound to the people that you're with, they're protecting you and you said
you don't have a military background for your family, but you mentioned before the
camera started rolling that people asked you, you've been in the military, you're keeping
up with them, you're a young fit guy, so that's got to be an interesting thing and yet you
were mentioning the phosphorus, this is the right thing to do, do you have memories of
things that you witnessed, you thought, no way, I can't believe you just did that.
Well, yeah, there were points where I would go, what would the people back home say, I
mean if this was being, if people weren't here and didn't know the entire back story,
what would they say and do, there's one moment where an enemy, you're never really sure who's
shooting at you, you're not really sure if it's Taliban or some other foreign national
coming and shit, you see, lump them all together, it's just an anti-government force, just someone
who wants to do you wrong, so we had been taking fire from some anti-government forces
whoever they were and the commander at the time wanted intel, so they believed that one
of the enemy combatants had been shot, so they sent out a group of guys to pick them
up and to get some intel from them, well I'm listening to the conversation when the commander
is telling the soldiers and the medic, you know, the situation and what they need to
do and the commander tells the medic, keep him alive long enough to get our information
and then cut him loose, like send him on his way, basically means if this guy had been
shot he'd probably have died and I really had a problem with him, like are we really
doing this, but then again it's not really my place, I can't really step in, it's questionable
how much I could step in, how effective it would be to compromise my place as an observer,
well it ended up that we didn't actually find the guy, but we pushed down through the city,
it was incredibly dangerous, this village, we were getting shot at the whole time and
then it dawned on me that this commander, he knew how hard it would be to get to this
guy and then he knew how hard it would be to bring him back and all the effort and these
types of problems, the realistic issues of help me be a little more understanding of
what the military has to do on the ground.
So yesterday with Obama's speech, for example, when he's speaking about some of the problems
that the military is facing and the challenges and how thin they're stretched, I was able
to see this first hand, they don't have enough people out there.
So you think that those 30,000 troops are a good idea based on what you've seen over
there?
Well, see we need to escalate the war and win or just pack it up and go home, the status
quo is not working, that's what he said and when he said that, that really resonated
with me because that's exactly what I saw, there's these people, these boys and girls
out there that are working really, really hard every day, like they're putting their
all out there, they really need any help that we can give them and if that means sending
some more people out to help them, I think that's what we should do.
Let's take a look at another photograph where we've got so many people who would like to
see your photos, John, they can go on, what's the photo site that we are taking these from?
The link that people can go to is just johnjwhngphotos.com, they can see some of the stuff on there.
This was actually in Pactica, these people here are workers, the third country, actually
these people on the back of this truck are local nationals that were hired to do work
for the U.S., these people have a very dangerous job because if anyone finds out that they're
working for the U.S., they're dead, their families are dead, the Taliban will come in
and kill them as being collaborators but the people are so desperate for any type of money
at work, food, help that they're willing to risk their lives just to get a job and their
families' lives, they want to work for the U.S., most of them do, but it's just too risky.
And so this kind of murky, smoky background is appropriate for what's going to happen.
Right, I was trying to make this ominous, also I didn't want to, it's challenging because
most of them don't want their faces photographed, so this was a way I could try and show both
things.
This is one of the most striking photos in the group I think, you mentioned that Afghanis
dye their beards red, tell us about this one.
Well actually, this was the end of a very long operation, it took us a couple of days
to get out to this village to meet these people who had been recruited by military forces.
We do not want to have this happen, you know, he was telling them into Afghanistan at this
military base and these are Afghan National Army soldiers mourning the loss of, actually
there were two soldiers that died, but it was very challenging, not only for the Afghanis
but then for the U.S. because the Afghanis would turn, you know, when I went out there
I was of course with the U.S. Army and the Afghans were very frustrated, like why don't
we go after these guys, why don't we get these guys, we know where they're at.
But they're in Pakistan.
They're in Pakistan, so for political reasons they couldn't go in and do anything about
it, but that's very challenging, actually at the same place, because this is a border
checkpoint right here, this is the army base literally on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border,
they would have the Afghanistan flag flying, but if you're to look across the way on this,
there's a little dirt road that goes through, on the Pakistan side you'll see the Pakistan
checkpoint, but you will not see a Pakistan flag, you'll see a Taliban flag, they'll openly
flying, you know, that they are, they're Taliban, that's using control of that area.
And these guys are training, as simple as that, they're firing at the hill up on the
ground.
They're firing at the hill.
They had just come in to country, and I'm not certain if any of these soldiers had
ever fought before, I think that if I remember correctly they were all pretty new, and they're
running them through the ropes and they're just saying, they're trying to impress upon
them the urgency that they really know what they're doing, because so many people depend
on the artillery men to bring in the support and help, you know, when it gets down to it.
You've got about two minutes left, so I'm going to see as many photographs as we can.
This is an Afghani soldier, and we'll take a look at the next one.
Rocket attacks on a piece of wood.
I took this photo, this is actually on the door in a little guest room that I was staying
in.
I walk in the room, and I close the door, and I see this written on the wall, and on the
door itself, and I was like, all right, I'm sleeping with my body armor on, so.
Another great one.
Yeah, this is on the Pakistan border as well.
The black mountains in the back, that's Pakistan itself.
And this is, this was my attempt to demonstrate the idea of border, you know, the soldier,
and such a big open space that they're having to patrol and maintain, and it's incredibly
challenging.
Well, and again, you know, your work as an artist is on hand here, as he's looking away,
the main force of the composition is the bare land, the mountains, and of course the sky
to the back.
We just have about 45 seconds left, so as we come back to the studio, before you say
goodbye, any, what's your 30 seconds of thoughts about how different it is to be over there,
being shot at, sitting in a little studio in Santa Barbara, peaceful and quiet, and
what, how does that affect your life?
And can you sum that up in 30 seconds?
In 30 seconds, okay, I'll sum that up.
It makes me very grateful.
You recognize what you have when you are in Santa Barbara after going through these experiences,
and it makes me all the more eager to, to share these stories.
Okay.
It makes me realize the, the importance of them, you know, not only here and now, but
you know, for the future, that these things are documented and that we can take the time,
you know, with an image and mull over it and decide, well, how would I have done this if
I could do it again?
I think I'm going to have to stop you on that, John.
It's been a great pleasure having you on the shows.
Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Thank you for having me.
The creative community is produced by Santa Barbara City College in association with
the Santa Barbara Channels.
I'm David Starkey, and we'll see you next time.
The creative community is funded in part by the organizational development grant program
using funds provided by the City of Santa Barbara in partnership with the Santa Barbara County
Arts Commission and with a generous donation from the Diana and Simon Reb Foundation.
