Richard Misrach

© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco; Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles; and Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

The cover of "Richard Misrach: On The Beach" (Aperture, 2007)

© Richard Misrach

Richard Misrach

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Even though they look like they could be different places, they’re all taken from virtually a single spot on the planet, which I really love.

The relationship between photography and its location is a core interest for you, isn’t it?

The book I did before this one was Golden Gate (2001). That book had a very simple premise, which was to take the photographs all from the same spot—my front porch—with the same lens and the same perspective. I never moved the camera. Because everything else is fixed, the spectacle of weather and light becomes my subject.

This new project has a similar idea. I’m shooting from the same spot, but I’m letting the camera search out new subjects—further down, or further to the right or left. Even though I’m shooting from a fixed place, the fact that I’m moving the camera changes the view. The pictures are completely different because of that. Most people assume that they were made in a dozen different locations.

But you haven’t always worked with a static camera.

For the “Desert Cantos” project, which is still ongoing, and which has been at the core of my attention for almost 30 years, I get in my Volkswagen bus and chase the light looking for photographs. On the Beach is the exact opposite. Being fixed in one spot, I have to wait for the photograph to come to me. A lot of it’s about waiting and trusting that something of photographic interest will end up coming into my frame. On a personal level, it’s a revelation that that happens, because I used to go for three weeks at a time: drive all day, day after day, looking for images.

You’ve been working as a photographer for several decades now. How have you seen the medium change in that time?

The 1970s saw a sea change when a bunch of us started working in color—in the ’60s there was virtually no one working in color. And as far as photography as a whole was concerned the marketplace was almost nonexistent. The galleries that did exist didn’t want to deal with color. It was seen as a temporary little experiment, and the materials were fugitive. But something happened somewhere in the ’80s and color just exploded. Now something like 99 percent of all photographs are shot in color.

In the last decade or two the art world has truly embraced photography. However, we have this bizarre two-tier distinction: the photographers who make art and the artists who use photography. The traditional photographers are marginalized as part of the "photo ghetto," while artists who are photographers try to avoid being thought of as photographers. In time that distinction will collapse. It’s already started, but it’ll take another decade for people to fully realize how silly it is. But a lot of people still make it. There are two tiers of galleries, and there are two tiers of spaces in museums, one where photography is shown and the other where art is shown. It’s embarrassing.

But surely it’s different among artists nowadays?

Not really. Most artists do not want to be thought of as photographers—the stigma that it's a B-level practice remains with the art magazines, the art writers, the galleries, the museums, the collectors, and even other artists. It's the elephant in the room of the art world. Photographers want the respect (and the economic returns) that painters receive. The irony is that photography has been at the forefront of art practice in the last decade, but people are still afraid to call it photography. It's changing—time will correct this folly. 

The practice is so eclectic, it’s so broad-based, and it just gets richer and richer. Obviously the whole digital component is kicking things to a whole different level, with so many new ways to think about things. The medium of photography is so provocative as a conceptual medium. It’s a remarkable way of making sense of the world.