In Our Backyard

Wednesday November 17th, 2010

Our Dallas-based photographer Van Ditthavong has recently emerged from an ”unbelievable assignment,” which involed traveling over 5000 miles, working 21 days, and shooting 18 subjects—all to produce a 16 page essay for Texas Monthly on the “faces of immigration.”

This essay, which appeared as an article called “In My Backyard,” features a school teacher, a pastor, a border patrol agent, a sheriff, a doctor, a contract worker, an undocumented worker, a produce grower, a rancher, an activist, a public defender, the wife of deportee, the kids of deportee, a mayor, a land owner, a dream act student, and a non-profit director. That’s quite a list.

Van was in Washington DC when he got a phone call from Leslie Baldwin, the photo editor at Texas Monthly, about the assignment. He immediately agreed, because, as he wrote on his blog, “there’s nothing like being on the road, going to new places, and meeting people from all walks of life—even it is for thirty minutes or an hour or two.”

I asked Van if this experience gave him any insight into the debates in this country about immigration—after all, since he himself is an immigrant, he speaks on the matter with some experience. “After talking and hearing so many different opinions about the issue,” Van replied, “I learned that everyone is involved in some way. The need for immigration reform is definitely there… but it all begins with education and understanding. Understanding why people want to come over, risk their lives… ”

To understand why Texas Monthly chose to use Van for this issue, I got in touch with photo editor Leslie Baldwin. She gave an in-depth explanation that’s a perfect illustration of the creative process at a magazine:

Before we assigned a photographer to our immigration photo essay,  there were a lot of details to be discussed: would the photo essay be more effective as a series of tight portraits shot against a seamless backdrop, or better as a series of environmental portraits – or maybe a mix? Should we use one photographer, or several photographers? If it’s one photographer,  is it even feasible to have the same person shoot all 18 portraits all over the state? And, of course, most importantly, who would love the subject matter?  Who would love the challenge of documenting a variety of people from both sides of the immigration debate? We felt it was really important for whoever did the photo essay to have enough energy and interest to last throughout the project.

We quickly thought of Van Ditthavong. We already had a great relationship with Van, and in thinking of his “American Dream” series, which touches upon the topic of immigration, we realized he could be  the perfect fit for the job.  We also knew he was flexible and quick and wouldn’t be intimidated by being in a new environment for each portrait. We reached out to him and, indeed, he was very excited by the project. Although I never knew the details of what formed Van’s interest in immigration, he explained to me that he came to the States when he was four as a refugee of the Vietnam war, becoming a US citizen at nine. He made it quite clear that the subject matter was dear to him.

In the beginning we had Van shoot both environmental portraits as well as seamless variations, but it quickly became clear the environmental shots were the way to go. Van managed to put all the subjects at ease, which we feel really comes through in the piece. Add in Van’s great sense of color and composition; we felt he created a powerful body of work.  Even though the piece is 16 pages, we never got bored looking at the portraits. We were drawn in to each and every portrait, which is really a testament to his skill as photographer.

Take a look at the full series of photos on Van’s website.

-Asad