David Hay Jones, Climate Change Photographer

DHJ: I do all of my professional work in Europe, especially the sub-Arctic. America is where I get to photograph for pleasure, non-professionally for my own enjoyment. America is an open, democratic, and peaceful society, which makes a photographer's life considerably easier than if he or she is taking photos in a dictatorship, war zone or area of conflict. America has some of the finest universities in the world. and they have always welcomed people and ideas from outside, have encouraged brilliant people from abroad to study and work there. It's a pleasure to photograph with American scientists and their work. They are very keen to inform the public about their research. Americans across the board are warm and enthusiastic.

Question: Have you noticed changes in the country after 9/11?

DHJ: Big changes. Americans are much more cautious these days, less willing to take risks, less wiling to travel abroad, not so trusting of strangers and foreigners. I'd advise all photographers to get permission before snapping away at anything remotely sensitive: power stations, hospitals, skyscrapers, federal buildings. I'd also advice foreigners to speak clearly and simply in all conversations with law enforcement officials. Answer the questions, don't joke, don't embellish. I completely understand the American reaction and response to 9/11. They were subjected to a mindless, meaningless act of violence by murderers who want to drag us back to the middle ages. We can disagree about tactics, but we should all be on America's side in this.

Question: Tell us about American landscape.

DHJ: The country is huge, with a range of landscapes from Arctic to sub-tropical. Of benefit to my work, there are universities and researchers from Alaska to Florida, South Carolina to Hawaii. It's such a service-minded country too; you can get what you want when you want it. It's easy to find a bed for the night while driving around. You can eat good food in the middle of the night. It's by far the best country I know for hitting the road and just driving and driving.

Question: Do you have any favorite states or landscapes that you would recommend?

DHJ: Louisiana: the swamps; the moss-covered trees; the music, Blues, jazz, cajun and zydeco; the food; the climate; the French and Spanish influences; New Orleans; the Gulf coast. Louisiana is such a contrast to my usual landscape of the sub-Arctic and the Arctic. There's a feeling of resistance in the state, a strong desire not to be turned into a theme park or become a pot of the standard stew. I love the entire deep south, the southwestern deserts too, plus Wyoming and Montana, northern Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, the Appalachians. Flat farmland is not really my bag, so I don't spend much time in places like Kansas and Indiana.

Question: Can you describe any favorite photo shoots you have done in America?

DHJ: There's a Wim Wenders book of photographs from the American west called 'Once' which has the atmosphere I find myself slipping into while traveling in America, a feeling of someone who obviously loves the landscape (just think of his movie 'Paris Texas') and yet is slightly bemused, doesn't quite get it, who's an observer rather than a participant. Like Wenders, I am fascinated by American landscape, all of the various scenes and backdrops that are exotic to Europeans. I love the Interstate system but am eager to leave it and drive along minor roads, even dirt tracks. Park the car wherever the landscape gives me a buzz and stroll the streets or fields. Hours later I'll realise I've spent an entire unscheduled morning or afternoon photographing a water tower, or a silo, or a bizarre arrangement of poles and pylons. All the while, there's an inner conversation going on: a creative one about shapes, colors, composition; and a picture agency one that keeps asking, "What's this about?", "Will this sell?", "How can this be linked to science?".

Question: Were you drawn to America before you went there?

DHJ: Yes. When we were reading Milton and Chaucer at school, I wondered why we couldn't read Hemingway, Steinbeck, Dos Passos. In music lessons, I wondered why we couldn't listen to the blues and jazz instead of the European stuff that was forced upon us. Wasn't Louis Armstrong the black Beethoven? When friends banged on about Thomas Mann and Herman Hesse, I responded with my favorites, every one of them American, and the biggest of them all Henry Miller because his was such an anarchistic, joyous cry for freedom. All my favorite photographers were American too: Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, William Christenberry, Harry Callahan. And my enthusiasm continues today: Nan Goldin.

Robert Frank

Question: When you visited America for the first time, did it live up to your expectations? Was it just as you imagined it?

DHJ: Europeans imagine that America is an ultra-violent and ultra-conservative country, somewhat prudish and intolerant in matters of sexual preference and choice. The violence is there but I have never come across it. My experience is of helpful and open-minded people.

Question: You seem overwhelmingly positive about America. Aren't they any problems?

DHJ: I see America as a wonderful experiment, a largely successful attempt to build welfare without the welfare state. There's a belief, a little naive perhaps, that individuals in free association can do without big government, high taxation, a national health service. And it works well for those who don't fall through the cracks. I belong to an enormously privileged group: white, middle-aged, relatively affluent men. If we look no further than the ends of our noses, we can drift through life imagining the world is conflict-free. But I know full well that America has its own serious heartaches and ills, such as racism, inner city poverty and violence, homophobia, drug abuse, suburban malaise, depression, obesity.

Question: Can you do anything about those problems in your work?

DHJ: Not really --- and remember I'm a foreigner, I am a guest who has been allowed into, welcomed into, the country. No host wants to be rubbished by a house guest. What I do try to do, and I know it's not earth-shattering, is include women and people of color in my photographs, make them the subjects of my photographs, and I do that in any country. There are far too many photographs of white guys like myself doing all the interesting stuff.

Question: Have you personally ever experienced any problems photographing in America?

DHJ: Nothing worth mentioning. I was questioned by security once while walking around a power plant trying to find angles for a future shoot. It was all sorted out within half an hour. I can prove I am an innocent British guy without an agenda, just someone who loves taking pictures. The most unpleasant thing to have happened was that my wife and I were refused service in a restaurant in south Mississippi. The management didn't seem to like that we are a mixed race couple. That made me sick and angry for a while. Racism is such stupidity and it's so tedious. What else? Once, my rental car got sucked into a swamp in Texas. I had no cell phone and it was out in the wilds, but after a few hours, when it was dark, a guy in a truck came and dragged me out.

Question: Is there nothing you dislike about the States?

DHJ: There is plenty to dislike in any country. On a not-so-serious note, I am mildly annoyed by American television, which is difficult for me to watch because there seem to be more commercials than programs.

Question: Tell us about some pleasant surprises in America, the better-than-expected.

DHJ: Washington D.C. was a tremendously pleasant surprise. You can walk around the city, the sidewalks are wide; the restaurants are good. The city's diverse. It has a relaxed, tolerant vibe. New Mexico is heaven: the climate, space, mountains. And the entire Appalachian mountain chain from Maine to Georgia was everything I had wanted it to be. The only disappointments have been Los Angeles, Hollywood and Beverly Hills because of my own unrealistic expectations based on movies, books and magazines.

Question: Is it easy to get permission to photograph in big companies, in industry? How does it compare with Europe?

DHJ: It is easy to get permission to take pictures in the corporate world, but there you are up against the concept of 'corporate image'. Businesses want to know how you are going to use the images. Are you going to criticize the company or industry? For obvious reasons, industry only wants good stories to be told about it. But generally speaking, businesses will help any serious journalist or photographer to get the information they need. I think Europe, especially Scandinavia, has a more relaxed corporate atmosphere, doesn't take itself quite as seriously. I sometimes think that work is the state religion of America. Corporate life is worshipped. And why not? It creates a lot of jobs and gives a high standard of living.

Question: As a climate-change photographer, are you seen as anti-business?

DHJ: I hope not, but the risk is there. I am not a politician, nor am I politically active. I'm interested in covering the research and the public debate as fairly as I can. If there is serious science that calls into question the idea of global warming, I will cover that too. I don't work with pre-conceived ideas.

Question: Do you notice any difference between American and European perspectives on climate change?

DHJ: Not in the academic world, where there is consensus and no discernible difference between the views of American and European scientists. But there is a difference between the position of the Bush administration and that of the European Union. President Bush doesn't seem to fully trust the science and he's very pro big business. But I am sure he could be persuaded if he found time to listen to the country's scientists. I am not one of those folks like Michael Moore who thinks the president is an idiot.