Ivan & Karla
From the book "Historias Minimas" by Ivan and Karla. © Ivan Kashinsky/Karla Gachet
(UPDATE: Feb. 20, 2010. Both Karla and Ivan won awards in two of the most prestigious photojournalism competitions in the world for photographs they produced for this book. Karla won a third place for stories in World Press Photo and Ivan won an award of excellence in the Pictures of the Year International competition.)
Ivan Kashinsky and Karla Gachet are special people - gifted, dedicated and focused. I had the pleasure of working with them as they traveled through South America from their home in Quito, Ecuador, to produce a body of work that became "Historias Minimas, de Ecuador a Tierra del Fuego."
What a daunting venture. I challenged them to make it more than a road trip book, which are too often simple accountings of the traveler's experiences. Tell stories along the way, get deep into the lives of people and places, I encouraged them. They did.
They posted photos to their blog as they progressed week after week and I'd give them feedback, both specific and general - you're not close enough to people, you should get deeply into the life of one person or place ... That type of advice lead to an essay of the Inca and a story about a couple who make their living from Tango and more. Karla's photos of the tango couple were just awarded Third Place in World Press Photo's Arts & Entertainment picture story category.
Once they returned to Quito, after nearly a year, we worked on the beginnings of a final edit for the book. Ivan and Karla had ideas for chapters based on the stories they set out to tell. We refined those ideas and I began to create pairings that created sequences that created chapters. It's the most fun you can have as a picture editor. Good friend Pablo Corral Vega then helped Ivan and Karla finish the edit, wrote an introduction and worked with the publisher.
A photograph from the chapter: Ceci, Meme y el tango
There are surprises in the book, gems of images that can take your breath away, make you laugh or throw your head back in wonder or twist your torso in awe. What a joy.
Ivan wrote to me in a copy of the book: "You have been huge in my journey to understand photography at a deeper level. Thanks so much for making this book what it is." And Karla: "You are a great editor. We are lucky to have you in our lives."
And I am lucky to have had this experience with Ivan and Karla.
Addendum: Being able to read and speak Spanish at a conversational level helped with this project, as it has when helping with the Somosfoto workshops that Loup Langton and Lelen Robert create in Spanish-speaking America, while working on the book "Discovering Ecuador" and even when I was on the South America story idea development team at National Geographic magazine.
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