The Locusts is one of those photobooks where images speak for themselves. They do not need captions or accompanying texts. They do not need to
Indeed, the first major monograph by photographer and publisher Jesse Lenz, published by Charcoal Press, portrays his children immersed in the rural setting of Ohio and depicts a world made of contradictions, where brokenness and imperfection of life are rendered through vanishing black and white images.
But there’s nothing rational in this work, except for the awareness of accepting life for what it is, a temporal gap that extends between birth and death. And so if I were you I wouldn't immediately jump to the last page to look for an answer or an explanation. This work is like a dream, and dreams don’t need to be explained—don’t believe anyone who tries to. They just need to be experienced—and accepted.
In these images, children run wild in fields, build forts in the attic, and fall asleep surrounded by lightsabers and superheroes, creating a brooding landscape where dichotomies of nature play out in front of Lenz’s growing family. The backyard becomes a labyrinth of passages as the children experience the cycles of birth and death in the changing seasons. We take part in this exploration of the world as observers, intruders who dig into memories that do not belong to us.
The Locusts fits into the context of a long tradition of photographic projects about family, and a skeptical reader may be wondering if we really needed another one. But looking closer… are we really sure thatThe Locustsis a book about family? As the author himself suggests at the end of the book, this is not really a work on his children, but for his children. Lenz didn’t make a photographic project about family, he wrote a letter—without using a single word—about the dichotomy life is made of. A letter for his children, and for himself. And also for us, or at least for those who are not compulsively trying to decode the enigmatic nature of dreams and memories.
Jesse Lenz speaks about the project, and his vision of life, in this long and heartfelt interview. Alert: you might get emotional.
Let’s start with the title.Where does it come from?
The title is subtext. I want the viewer to immediately be in a mythological state of mind before even opening the book. To hear a buzzing, to be anxious, not sure if the plague is headed your way or not. The title also shows an interesting dichotomy of nature. Locusts have plagued humanity since before prehistory; devastating crops, causing famines, and forcing human migration. According to the book of Exodus, locusts were one of ten plagues God inflicted upon Egypt as a demonstration of power. Yet, locusts are also said to be the food of prophets and holy men during times of pilgrimage and exile in the wilderness. Loss transformed into sustenance for the voices crying out in the desert. The dualities of nature.
I see your kids as the protagonists of a story set in a kind of uncontaminated world—the countryside of Ohio. At the same time, the setting resembles a post-apocalyptic world, where they look almost like survivors. After all, the whole book is focused on the multiple and subtle nuances of life. Can you tell me more about it?
As the son of a missionary, much of my life was steeped in mythology and prophecy, angels and demons, life and death. I had always taken pictures of my children but never thought of it as a "body of work" as I have never been drawn to work about family. My mind was still in a very photojournalistic / documentary place after years of producing and publishing the traveling art journal, The Collective Quarterly. The final year of which my family traveled north American in an airstream. I was looking for a place to belong, a place that was full of magic. I thought it would be a great adventure for us all, but it was very difficult. Full of danger and stress. When we decided to move to Ohio, to the house my wife grew up in, I was disappointed and felt like a failure. I did not want to move to the midwest. The Midwest was subtle, passive-aggressive, and the opposite of epic. When we settled down, it began an entire deconstruction process that impacted my thoughts, process, practice, and beliefs about art and life. I began looking for grace in the brokenness of life.
Children easily find pathways to the magic buried in a landscape, and I let mine become my guides. Spending time watching them play, listening to their ideas, being bored with them, watching them walk through portals into magical realms. When I did this, the magic in their world came alive to me. You begin to see the world for what it really is, magic. I think at a certain point, as an adult you have the choice to either remember this magic or to decide it does not exist. The natural world has always been full of mystery to humans. It runs deep in our blood memories. It is the only place as humans we are still confronted by the veracity of life, both beautiful and terrifying. The cycles of life, death, and rebirth are on full display. Without nature, it's too easy to think we are in control of life. It is where we discover how fragile life is, it is also where we go to find ourselves, to find strength and courage in the face of fear. Without this connection to nature, it is all too easy to think the magic is gone.
Looking at the images, I had the feeling that this book is not really about your children, but rather about you. You’re always present, learning to know your children and the land where you settled down. It’s like you’re learning to understand yourself. Is this feeling correct?
Absolutely. All art is autobiographical and my artistic decisions are a reflection of an internal landscape that I am trying to navigate. I wanted to live in a world full of magic, where prophecy was real and forests were enchanted. I can remember the first photo I took that really stopped me in my tracks. It seemed like it was from a different world, a parallel universe. It looked like the world I wanted to live in. Images that felt like scenes from a Steven King story or something directed by Terrence Malick or Andrei Tarkovsky. At that point, I realized I could make the surreal, dark, gritty and emotive work I wanted to make in my own back yard if I could find a way to see that parallel universe by looking through my viewfinder. To see magic everywhere like that, you have to become a child again. When magic is an accepted part of life. Childhood is the time in life we are fully present. Before anxiety, both internal and external, intensify. When everything around you is deserving of your unlimited focus and attention. When you are the most free to let your curiosity run wild. When you love freely and cry openly. When boredom is a constant state of life. You believe in magic because you experience it everyday. You see a caterpillar become a butterfly, entire mushroom villages sprout in your yard overnight, you discover entire, microcosmic worlds existing under your footsteps, your mom is pregnant one day then wake up and your baby sister is crying in the room next to you. Magic is all around you.
When I am taking photographs, I am just wanting to show people things I would point to and say to my kids, "hey look at that". When I am editing pictures and working on sequences it’s more about what is harmonizing with my internal world. It's intuitive. When an image, for some reason, strikes a chord that resonates it gives you goosebumps. You can't explain why it does, but it does. So even though the photographs are of my children and nature, the reason they end up in the sequence in the book is because they haunt me in some way. They strike a cord in my bones. They speak to the desires, fears, and hope that is inside of me.
The resulting themes of a body of work are an extension of the themes / problems I am wrestling with in my own life. Searching for grace in brokenness, hope in uncertainty. Trying to find meaning in the absurdity of life. Embracing uncertainty and the anxiety of existence. As humans we are forced to live in the space between knowing and unknowing, needing to act but not knowing how, knowing what’s to come while being powerless to stop it. Art teaches us to embrace the allusive and the ineffable. Photography is the practice of searching for light, pointing at it, but never grasping it. It’s always allusive. We observe it yet can not hold it in our hands. Evidence of the transcendent. To always be searching, and never obtaining completely. There are a lot of parallels to life that can be pulled from making art.
Many other photographic works about family, like the ones by Emmet Gowin and Sally Mann, are shot in B&W, and so it’s yours. Do you think there’s a reason for that? Is B&W somehow a technique used in order to express particular meanings or feelings?
I shoot B&W film for many reasons. First, it's what made me fall in love with photography in highschool, the magic of the darkroom. My brain works in monochrome. Even in College I would paint mostly in BW and use charcoal for drawing. Color has always been difficult for me. Second, I can control the entire process of developing and printing myself, no need to send film away or have someone else print it. Third, it helps blend the beauty and ugliness of the real world into shades of grey, both poetically and literally. My children are normal kids, they often were clothes that are hideous in color. One of the images I always think of that was saved by black and white – it’s an image of my son holding up a dead owl and he's wearing a bright orange shirt and green sweatpants, the most awful colors in the world! But, in black-and-white it is rendered beautiful.
I shoot many different cameras, but always film. No matter what camera I am using I am shooting Tri-X 400 pushed two stops. This is a classic photojournalism technique to help give you as wide a range of latitude for different situations. As my subject matter is always moving fast, in and outside, at all times of the day or night, I can't afford a slow shutter, a tripod, or confusion of what film I have loaded. On a more aesthetic side there is poetry to black and white film. I personally feel it is the true language of photography. I also think it helps put the viewer in a state of suspended disbelief. Today, we are exposed to more images than ever before—especially photos of family—but in a social media / lifestyle / advertising context. I think BW helps to signal a break from this "regular programming".
Ultimately, B&W helps me see the world around me the way I wish it was. It renders my surroundings in a kind of fantasy, sci fi, parallel universe full of magic.
I have to confess that when I looked at your images for the first time, immediately I thought about Terrence Malick’s movies, as they reminded me ofthe suggestive and evanescent scenes directed by him. The visual sequence of the book looks like a memory, a parallel universe where one can finds himself, just likeThe Tree of Life. What are your visual references? Where did you get inspiration from?
I tend to fall into deep wormholes as I am in full sprint in a project. I don't have many references before I start, I find them on the way. I didn't actually discover Malick, Tarkovsky, or even read Stephen King until I was deep into this work. I love the magic of finding harmonizing work while working on something completely different, like collage art. Sequencing images and listening to Nick Cave's Ghosteen and feeling like it was a soundtrack written for my book. Reading IT by Stephen King 2 years into this project and realizing I had photographed scenes and details that he was describing in words, or watching The Tree of Life after the final draft was finished and being brought to tears as it felt like a movie that was based on the work I had just finished. Parallel worlds harmonizing.
I am glad you said the sequence feels like a memory, that was the goal. My intuition is to sequence images so they feel like they are melting into each other. They are sequenced by intuition and not logic. The only narrative thread that is constant and linear through the book is the changing of the seasons.
This is your first monograph as aphotographer, and you’re also a publisher. How did you feel to be on the other side? How do the souls of thephotographer, the editor, and the illustrator live together in you?
It felt pretty natural. In all fairness I had been editing and publishing my work and others for about a decade in magazines and such so it wasn't completely new territory for me. At this point of my art career I've realized that there is a common process that every single project goes through, whether it's a book, a business idea, or an event. I know I'm really good at building, coming up with ideas, shaping them and taking them 90% of the way to completion. And on the other end, I am really good at knowing when the project is done and getting it out into the world. Micromanaging, critiquing and fine-tuning the details is where I always need help.. I have a few long-term friends and collaborators that I strategically bring in after the 90% is done to slow me down and ask tough questions. In every project you always have to submit yourself to some authority that you trust. That’s where magic happens.
One thing I found uniquely terrifying and exciting at the same time was being the only one on record if my book failed or succeeded. Since a monograph is such a uniquely intimate presentation, if any part wasn't perfect I would be to blame. I actually spent about a year considering publishing with someone else instead of doing it myself. I changed my mind because I started realizing that no one cares about my work as much as I do. Jack Woody from Twin Palms Publishers has been a great friend and mentor for me since starting Charcoal Book Club, one day I was talking about my fear of screwing up my book. I told him, "what if I fuck it up, there wouldn't be anyone to blame", with a laugh he answered, "yeah but if you don't fuck it up, you'll get all the credit". That was it, all the convincing I needed.
What are your plans for the future? Will you continue to photograph your children?
I have never stopped. I don't like the idea of "photo projects" that are finished and moved on from. This work is the first chapter in a lifelong fascination of the people and natural world around me. It won't end until my life does. I want these images to come full circle. To see my children's children, and maybe someone picks up the mantle. My children have new ideas and new interests everyday, so they are constantly changing. There's so much room within the work for new obsessions and fascinations between nature and animals. For instance I really want to spend more time finding owls and observing them, but with 4 kids and twins on the way...I don't have much time and I need to sleep!
That said, I am already about ⅓ of the way through a new book and hope to have it out in about 3 years. I am also currently working with Sergio Purtell from Black and White on White in Brooklyn, NY making very large silver gelatin prints of some of my work. I have many other “projects”' that entertain me in the meantime. I founded and direct Charcoal Book Club, the subscription service dedicated to photobooks. We select and deliver the most essential photobooks to a worldwide community of photography enthusiasts. Through the imprint, Charcoal Press, we publish photobooks examining our connection and estrangement to the natural world. I also founded and host the highly esteemed Chico Hot Springs Portfolio Review, an all-inclusive, seven-day retreat with the most respected and influential artists, bookmakers, gallerists, and curators in contemporary photography. And next year we are launching Charcoal Editions, which is very exciting and a bit secretive right now. All I can say about it is that it will change the way our members collect analog prints.