By Mike Daniel / The Dallas Morning News. 03/17/2000
The most noticeable thing about National Geographic photographer David Alan Harvey isn't his imposing stature, or his unassuming body language, or his boyish gaze. It's not his black-framed reading glasses, or his gray heather photographer's vest, or his prickly balding head.
It's his black nylon knapsack. It seems almost a part of his 6-foot-4 physique. It disappears below him as he seats himself for lunch and magically materializes as he rises. It's as good as a fifth limb.
His life and livelihood depend on that sack, which contains his cameras, lenses, film - and anything he might need for unexpectedly long trips out in the field.
In his 26 years as a photographer for National Geographic , Mr. Harvey - who some have called the inspiration for the photographer in The Bridges of Madison County - has traveled to countless countries, many of which aren't exactly luggage friendly.
His photographic style - capturing "a little slice of humanity," in his words - requires that he move about relatively unencumbered, his small Leica viewfinder cameras notwithstanding.
He must blend in, a daunting job in the diverse cultures in his geographic specialties of Latin America and Spain.
Recently in Dallas for an exhibit of his photos of Cuba at Boyd Gallery in Deep Ellum, Mr. Harvey, 55, only separated from his sack during the show's reception.
It presumably was in safe quarters as he shook hands, signed pages and reminisced about his three-year Cuba project, which has culminated in a recently released book, Cuba (National Geographic Society, $50), that has already won major photo book awards.
"I went originally for Time magazine, for a story on the biomedical technology [in Cuba]," Mr. Harvey says. Patients throughout Latin America travel to Cuba for its state-of-the-art medical facilities, still formidable despite years of economic stress.
"I really found out a lot about the Cuban culture just by photographing those scientists; how self-deprecating they are. For example, they refused to be photographed by themselves.
"Here's the top guy from the top lab in Cuba, and he would not be photographed without his assistant. It's the opposite of the American 'me, me, me' mentality. Nobody wants to take total credit for anything."
The ethic of teamwork, magnified in Cuba because of Fidel Castro's socialist policies, is one of many that has attracted Mr. Harvey to the Spanish-speaking world. Initially enthralled by his first National Geographic staff assignment - to Guatemala to shoot the Mayan Indians in 1975 - he has
found camaraderie, sympathy and a niche in capturing Latin American and Spanish peoples on film.
"That forced blending of culture has fascinated me for 25 years," he says of the Spanish colonization of much of the Western Hemisphere, beginning in the 17th century. He says his four favorite assignments have all been to Spain and three Spanish-influenced regions: Cuba, Chile and
Oaxaca, Mexico.
"They had the drama, they had the history, and most of all, they had the people," he says. "It's the warmest area of the world, people-wise. You're never alone."
His nomadic career has not completely focused south of the border, though.He mentions his trips to Vietnam and Cambodia in the mid-1970s as just as memorable, but for horrifically different reasons.
"I grew up with 'Nam on my mind, so Vietnam was to me then what Cuba is to me now," he says. "They were unearthing the mass graves in 1977 [in Cambodia] after the Khmer Rouge massacres. It was dangerous there; a lot of land mines were still around, and the Khmer still controlled
the countryside.
"The smell of those mass graves is something I will never forget."
His photojournalistic focus, though, has always been on so-called "street photography" as disconnected from political events as possible. His aim is to shoot "invisible" photographs, as if a man with a camera was never there.
"I like to do that more than anything else," he says. "I like the idea that I can sensitize people to other people.
"But it's hard to get something special on film. . . . Experience is the least important tool that you can have. If you're charged up and eager, that's better than experience. I still get a big kick out of taking off on a National Geographic story. I've been doing it for a long time, but
you know you're going on the adventure of a lifetime."
His interest in photography started at age 10, when he took pictures and read photography texts voraciously. Later, his parents implored their rebellious son to try college, and he immediately zeroed in on photography as a vocation. By age 21, he was excelling in the University of Missouri's
graduate photography program, after which he worked in newspapers before his break at National Geographic.
The San Francisco native's work first appeared in the magazine in November 1973 in a story about the fishermen of Tangier Island, near his boyhood home of Virginia Beach, Va.
He soon won the prestigious Photographer of the Year award from the National Press Photographers Association for his work on the Maya, and joined National Geographic full time in 1978. He quit the staff in 1985, before returning last year.
"To be creative, you've gotta throw everything up in the air once in a while," he reasons, adding that he wanted total control to form a body of work, which is "the goal of every photographer, really."
In his second go-round on the magazine's staff, his increase in clout is evident. Mr. Harvey resisted the society's habit of adorning its texts with its trademark yellow rectangle by demanding the icon be absent from the cover of Cuba. He also insisted the book be printed in Italy, where most
serious photograph book publishing is done.
Not that he wasn't a maverick during his first staff stint at the magazine. Against editors wishes, he says he frequently took his two sons and, later, his parents on assignments.
"They said, 'You're going to miss pictures by taking [family members],"' he says. "I messed up a lot of things, but I'm so glad I took my family with me, when my kids were little in particular. I would definitely have regrets had I not done that."
Those kids - Bryan, 33, and Aaron, 28 - are both documentary filmmakers today, with projects for National Geographic Explorer and PBS on their resumés.
Mr. Harvey's lifelong yearning for people has even garnered him a reputation of sorts - he has been tagged as the inspiration for the transient, romantic character in Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County, later made into a film.
"I think that character is kind of a composite character," he says, "but there were lines in that film that hit really close to us," referring to the magazine's staff, which he says watched the movies as a group in 1997.
Mr. Harvey is plainly relishing both the success of Cuba, which has sold well with its depictions of Cuban optimism in the face of Soviet abandonment, American economic sanctions and booming European tourism. He's also eager to start his next large project, which, of course, will be in Latin
America somewhere.
"I really want to work in Brazil," he says, adding that he'll be there later this month as the magazine introduces a Portuguese version in Sao Paulo. "I'll wander around and check it out. I have no ideas beyond the regular cliched ones. That's why I want to explore."
With, it's to be assumed, the black knapsack in tow, stocked with all he needs to eventually melt into and record the culture.
"People obviously notice I'm taking pictures - I'm a big guy," he says. "Then they realize I'm harmless, or they realize I'm dedicated. Crazy, but dedicated."
DETAILS:
"Cuba," photographs by David Alan Harvey, is on display through March 31 at Boyd Gallery, 2936 Elm St. Hours are Thursday-Saturday from 2 to 8 p.m. and by appointment. Free. Call 214-747-1917.
2000 The Dallas Morning News |