interview KRISTIN WINTERS
photography KEN FOTO
Ken Foto has traveled the world, stationed in ports, drifting through highways and wandering wherever life takes him. Along the way, Ken has captured sprawling landscapes, people’s interactions, and candid moments through the eye of his camera. He has created prolific bodies of work throughout four decades, from the late 70’s when he took his first photography class as a high school student, to the present day as a Fine Artist. Despite a previous nomadic lifestyle, serving 20 years in the United States Navy- Ken has retired and settled in the Coachella Valley for eight years now, documenting young musicians and artists in their element. Ken’s images capture a fleeting moment in time, a scene that I was a part of in my formative years as a young artist in the desert.
Ken became immersed within the youth culture himself, he went to shows, befriended and supported many of the young creatives – our joys were his joys, and our sorrows his sorrows. These images reveal friendships forming, loved ones lost, and the fierce passion in which the desert kids drove their art and creative force, and how we lived our lives. Ken’s photos reveal the beating heart and spirit of the desert youth. As a documentarian and an empathetic friend, his photography celebrates the lives of local artists and continues to inspire the ever evolving culture of the Coachella Valley. I am honored to present my dear friend, and eminent artist Kenneth Geiger, known to all as the truly one of a kind — Ken Foto.
KRISTIN WINTERS: Introduce yourself to the world Ken!
KEN FOTO: I’m Ken Foto, I take pictures and I’ve been doing it for a long time.
KW: When did Kenneth Geiger first become, “KEN FOTO?” Tell us the origin story!
KF: In 1986 I heard about a photographer named Ken Geiger who won a Pulitzer prize, he now works for National Geographic, so I started thinking about changing my name, as other artists had done- like Man Ray and Bob Dylan. That’s when I came up with Ken Foto. In ‘88, I was the photo editor for the Ohio State University newspaper, and I started a weekly series of non-journalistic images called “Ken Foto’s Misguided Tour,” a play on the name of a series from the Village Voice, “Sylvia Plachy’s Guided Tour.” I guess you could say this is when I became, KEN FOTO. I also started to graffiti my name around Columbus: “Ken Foto 88 Lives.”
KW: What’s in your equipment bag?
KF: Yeah, I use a digital SLR, and I use Adobe Photoshop as my doctrine. I shoot a Canon 5D Mark II, which is an excellent camera.
KW: Can you tell us your background and how you came to the Coachella Valley?
KF: I came to the desert the last time in ‘08, that’s when I retired from the United States Navy. I came here because my children were still living here and it’s like, “Where should I go?” It made sense to come here and I had always liked the desert even as a kid driving cross country. The desert has always intrigued me.
I’m from New York City originally, but then my dad went on active duty on the military, so I spent my whole youth traveling around from New York to Kentucky, Texas, Louisiana and North Carolina, to California. I lived in Tehran, Iran for two years and in the Panama Canal zone for two years and that’s where I graduated high school.
Then I went to college in Louisiana for a year and a half studying photography and then in the spring of ‘79, I moved to Columbus, Ohio to study photography at the Ohio State University. I ended up being in school there for nine years, but of course, I never graduated. I’m not the world’s greatest student, but I do enjoy going to college and I learned a lot. In Columbus, that’s when I started making the art scene series, hanging out with writers and artists, musicians and other creative people. I really got into documenting the scene.
KW: You have been documenting the Coachella Valley for several years now — How would you describe the people and the place?
KF: I’ve been in the Coachella Valley for the past eight years, which is the second longest place I’ve lived. So far I’ve lived in DHS, Palm Springs, Indio, and now I’m moving to Rancho Mirage- So I’ve had the opportunity to meet many people in the arts and music scenes, from Shurpers, the gay community, to the east valley hardcore scene. The Ace, JDs, the Hood, and the backyard shows were all good, [although] I’ve never been to Coachella Fest. The Coachella Valley is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural place so it’s hard to say one thing about the people, I search out the creatives. I do like the young people 18-30ish, they are filled with energy and angst, I tried to provide a space for them when I was an artist in residence at the Coachella Valley Art Center, by hosting such events as “Acoustics Sounds” and, “Office Hours.”
I have always liked the desert, even as a child, driving across country with the family, the American Southwest intrigued me. Recently driving back from Florida, when I saw the first yucca plant and red earth, I felt like I was home. The Coachella Valley is a visually stunning place, from Mt. San Jacinto always looking down at us, Whitewater, the Thousand Palm Oasis, and of course the Salton Sea.
KW: Your Columbus scene series that you created in the ‘80s while attending Ohio State is similar, almost like a precursor, to the desert scene from ‘09 to 2015 that we are featuring. How did you immerse yourself in that scene at the time?
KF: In Columbus, there was a lot of alternative music. The punk, the new wave thing and also toward downtown, there’s this area called the Short North that was in the process of being gentrified. I was involved with two galleries in Columbus that I helped run. One was the Red Cat Gallery at the community center on Northwood and one was Artreach Gallery that was a cooperative gallery and I booked shows there for awhile.
KW: Were they shows that featured younger artists as well?
KF: Yeah, definitely. At that point, I was 21-ish. Yeah, it was the people I knew, young artists. Yeah, that’s a good question, because over the years, even after Columbus and in ‘88 I joined the military, but I found, in the military, it never stopped me from being Ken Foto. I always worked on my art. Whenever I got to a duty station, I’d find out where the independent coffee house is, the community arts shit and that’s how I had worked my way in.
Usually, I hung out with the younger sailors, 21-ish, again, that’s because the people at that age, they’re, in some ways, the most creative. They might not have their work ethic down, but they’re just very energetic. I realized even after I moved to the desert a lot of the artists and musicians I met to begin with were friends of my kids, Gabe and Sarah. I started going to see these bands or these art events.
“It’s about being in the present; a jam at someone’s house can be the most exciting because it’s the moment of creation. It’s not overworked. It’s not over thought. It’s just being there.”
Ken Foto
KW: At that point your subject matter changed to the young art scene in the Coachella Valley happening in 2009. That’s more my generation.
KF: Yeah. Again, that 20s crowd is what I’m interested in. I’m much more interested in music and art by people that I know. It’s fun to go to museums and whatnot: they’re like temples of art and you look at stuff and you think about it. [But] it’s about being in the present; a jam at someone’s house can be the most exciting, because, again, it’s the moment of creation. It’s not overworked. It’s not over thought. It’s just being there.
KW: A lot of photographers will just be documenting, as an outsider looking in, but you on the other hand, participated in this music and art scene. You know everyone. You get out there and dance. You talk to people. You’re involved in people’s lives. How do you think that impacts the photos you take, and do you consider it essential to your art form?
KF: That’s a good question. I used to photograph strangers a lot and I still do that if they’re at a club or something and they’re interesting. Photographing random people on the street, I don’t do that anymore. You know how we say, “the Indians say,” that when you photograph someone you’re taking their soul. If I’m being present with them, and we’re hanging out or whatnot… in some ways, I am taking their soul, but they’re not leaving anything, they’re not losing anything. Without their presence, I can’t create my work. Now you said, in some ways I’m not an outsider because I participate, but since I was a military brat and even did 20 years in the military myself, I always feel like I’m an outsider. When I started to make the scene in Columbus, I used the photography to maybe ingratiate myself. It was just my way to be involved.
KW: Do you think the relationship with your subjects goes both ways then? Maybe when you were photographing us, you were taking a piece of us — but you were giving something back and maybe that’s what’s captured in the photos.
KF: It seems like I’m able to portray people in interesting way. Or maybe I’m just lucky, I don’t know. It seems like I have some ability to represent a visual kind of truth or something like that. I’m sort of like a celebrity photographer in some ways, so imagine …
KW: Yeah, like a local paparazzi. A little bit.
KF: I’m a Paparazzi of the people I know, the people in the local art scene.
KW: Are there any famous art photographers that have inspired your approach to your work?
KF: Larry Clark -he photographed his scene in Tulsa, Oklahoma and all his friends were speed freaks. This is back in the late 60s and they’re just hanging out, but he photographed them. That influenced me, but it didn’t actually influence me to make the decision to do my photographs, but it was something that I saw someone else documenting their scene.
Then later on, almost a contemporary, is Nan Goldin who did that whole series on transvestites and drug addicts in New York City. The scene I documented… Okay, there could be some meth addicts in our scene. But my photography is not completely down and dirty.
KW: What do you think it is that brings young people together in the desert?
KF: Well, it’s the music. It’s almost more you know, the local music versus the local art. The music I follow is youth generated between, you know, Desert Hot Springs and Palm Springs. Now that I live in the East Valley, the visual art is more varied than the musical art.
KW: I’m interested in what you think the spirit of the youth in the Coachella Valley is- What qualities do you see, because you seem to capture them in your photographs?
KF: What I like … Okay. What’s charming about the Coachella Valley one, is it’s just smaller, and as a… You know, New York, LA, San Francisco you are just one of many. I’ve noticed when I was stationed 29 Palms, or even in West Virginia it’s in some ways easier to find other creatives.
KW: This seems to be a valid point, you are saying in larger cities like LA and San Francisco you are only one of many- Does the Coachella Valley, in spite of it’s small size, allow more opportunities for young artists and musicians to flourish?
KF: [As opposed to] where you have to pay to play or something. Right, there’s room for us to do what we want. Potentially, in terms of the music in the East Valley, house shows are a good way to do it. Now, one thing though, because venues are somewhat readily available out here, is that you can show your stuff maybe before you are ready to show it. Either your visual art, or your music, which is okay- that could be true but it’s not necessarily bad. How else do you learn how to play or paint besides by getting out there and doing it?
KW: Do you have an interesting or crazy story you documented and can share with us?
KF: [I photographed my wife after] I delivered my son in an adobe house in Albuquerque, the mid-wife showed up ten minutes after he was born — nothing will ever compare to that.
KW: Do you remember the first time you picked up a camera and started taking pictures?
KF: My first camera, I was 13 years old. In 1972 my family took a trip from Monterey, Ca. To San Diego and Guymas, Mx. I shot 5-10 rolls of film on the trip. In early ‘73 I got my first 35mm camera, a Canon FT QL. I used to shot wild flowers, resting a magnify glass on the lens as an improvised macro.
KW: Digital cameras and digital media have greatly impacted photographers today — How did you transition into this new digital landscape?
KF: In the 90s I did a lot of color xerox work, which is sort of digital. It took me six years to completely transition from analog to digital. I got my first computer in 1997, I had traded a photograph for it. It came with photoshop and I purchased a photo-quality printer and negative scanner. Eventually photo labs would scan your negatives, when developed, that was useful.
In ‘04 I got my first DSLR, a Canon 10d, and stopped shooting film all together. One of my favorite parts of shooting digital is that I have complete control from shooting to printing, like the old “black and white” days. I enjoy processing my images with photoshop, and it’s a lot easier to spot the pictures digitally, than with the old paint brush. Of course chimping is useful and I get to shoot as much as I want. But on a basic level I’d say, I shoot the same, just a change in tools.
KW: How do you feel fine art photography compares to other art mediums?
KF: Not all my work is about people creating a scene. I do non-representational work. I do pure abstract work that doesn’t even start as a photo. Along those lines, many painters paint from photographs. That’s interesting. If you’re making a photograph that looks like a painting, one might say: “Oh, did you use a filter?” (Laughs). But if you paint a painting from a photograph, that’s more okay. With some photorealist painters, it’s like their painting from bad photographs. That makes me sad.
Photography gives me a way to interact with the world around me. Some people have religion, I have my art.
— Ken Foto
KW: What do you think about photography apps like Instagram? How does a photographer function in the new social media environment where everything is so accessible?
KF: There were snap shooters before [social media] and I wasn’t in competition with them because we were all taking pictures. We’re doing it from a different perspective. Social media allows everyone to share. I like to share… For me, social media has really worked because I like to share my photographs. The problem with that though is now I don’t print as much.
KW: What advice would you give to emerging photographers and documentarians?
KF: You just got to do it! Don’t talk about it. Don’t tell me what you are going to do, show me what you have done. Look at lots of photographs, to take a good photo you have to know what one looks like. Learn some history of photography. Read lots in general, it will add depth to your experience. Network.
KW: What do you love most about photography?
KF: Photography gives me a way to interact with the world around me. Some people have religion, I have my art.
KW: When all is said and done, how would you like to be remembered as an artist and photographer?
KF: I guess I just want to be remembered like: “You’re that Ken Foto dude!” and “He really did some shit!”
flickr www.flickr.com/photos/kenfoto
instagram @KENFOTO