In this Eyeshot 50mm interview, American photographer David Alan Harvey explains why he could never be the photographer who waits on the corner. He grew up in a small Virginia town with no war, no celebrity and no spectacular scenery, which is what drew him to Cartier-Bresson, a photographer who needed nothing but a Leica and a 50mm lens, and then he found that his own character pulled the other way, inside other people’s houses. He describes what it took for Callie Liggins to let him in, the two-bedroom apartment with seven children where he slept on the sofa, and the first book that came out of it. He talks about the three months he spent in isolation at six years old with polio, and the window he watched the street from. He talks about the colour he learned from Goya, which is why his pictures usually carry one dominant colour and nothing else, and about one camera and one lens as a way of being honest with the people in front of him. He remembers a telegram from National Geographic telling him his pictures were bad, and agreeing with it. Sixty years on, he says the luck was never the assignments. It was keeping the enthusiasm.
Photographs © David Alan Harvey. Interview © Eyeshot.
ABOUT EYESHOT 50MM
An Eyeshot conversation series
Eyeshot 50mm is a long-form conversation series with photographers working across street and documentary photography. Each episode is recorded in dialogue with a guest, expanding on the questions that move their practice. The series is part of the editorial work of the Eyeshot team in Italy.
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