By Frank Van Riper
Special to Camera Works
Friday, March 3, 2006; 5:52 PM

To the next generation of journalists, especially those who will be working with a camera to record, to document, to bear witness, and--God willing at times--to foment change, go right now to Baltimore, to the new Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, and see the riveting, compelling and ultimately infuriating work of photographer John Francis Ficara.

"Distant Echoes--Black Farmers in America" is a beautifully mounted exhibition of just part of the photographs from Ficara's four-year book project to document the plight of African-American farmers. In decades past these rural entrepreneurs and their families formed a significant part of America's agricultural workforce, yet today they face financial ruin and extinction caused in no small part by the ill-disguised racism and glaring incompetence of the state and federal agencies meant to serve them.

Consider:

"Today, black farmers call the US Department of Agriculture the 'last plantation,'" notes journalist and author Juan Williams in the introductory essay to Ficara's book, Black Farmers in America (University Press of Kentucky, $49.95). "In 1982, the Civil Rights Commission concluded that decades of bias against black farmers by the Agriculture Department threatened to kill off the few remaining black farmers."

"As recently as 1997," Williams goes on, "an internal audit conducted by the Agriculture Department concluded that in the southeastern United States, loan applications from black farmers took three times as long to be processed as loan requests from white farmers. It found that blacks in need of financial support [like farmers everywhere--Ed.] met 'bias, hostility, greed, ruthlessness and indifference.'"

So bad is the situation in the Ag department's field offices, Williams reported, that black officials at departmental headquarters in Washington in the 1990s were quoted publicly as calling the Agriculture Department a "hotbed of racial bias and harassment."

"My first introduction to the dilemma of black farmers came from a Newsweek assignment, in 1996 I believe," John Ficara told me. "The story was bumped from the magazine on a weekend breaking news event. It went off the editor's radar screen after that and was considered but never brought back as a story. After spending a week with a family in Georgia witnessing first hand the family's struggle to keep their farm operational, I saw the odds that were stacked against them. I also saw this as a great injustice to black farmers in the treatment they received by government and financial institutions. Looking at the statistics it was clear that black family farms were leaving the agricultural landscape three to four times faster than their white counterpart[s]. Also, looking at the numbers of young farmers deciding not to continue farming left a stark picture for black family farms. When you looked at mainstream media, they always reported the story in tangible terms: land loss, financial loss, and profits down, farm costs up. I saw this story in humanistic terms, a way of life disappearing, and the end to traditional family farming."

Ficara went on: "Large corporate farms are now becoming the norm and driving the prices, challenging all family farms. Also, for me I saw this story in a historical context: that someone should be recording this tradition that is leaving the agricultural landscape in this country."

It's hard to know from what source inspiration will come. John Ficara, both of whose parents are Italian, is not black. He was born in Brooklyn 54 years ago. He is not a farmer. Sure, he has the instinct for a good story, something that anyone in the news business develops--or should develop--after years in the trenches.

I venture the guess (because he and I share an Italian heritage) that what motivated John to document the story of America's disappearing black farmers was an emotional attachment to a people long marginalized by American society. An attachment that also helped him bear witness to the egregious failings of government, especially the federal government, in providing fair and equitable treatment to this minority.

A good story. An emotional story. An angry story.

In the right hands, that's a killer combination.

"Gaining access was not difficult as I explained my book intentions up front to all," John declared. "Letting them know that I had no firm commitment from a publisher. I honestly presented my aspirations for the project, and told them that I was funding the project with my own monies in the hopes of getting a body of work together that would hopefully bring in some grant monies that would propel the project. All of the farmers were very open to the project (only two declined in the four years) and [just] as I was curious to learn of their lives and farming routines, they were interested to know why a guy born in Brooklyn who lived mostly in urban areas was interested in them. Within the first day they were very accepting of the process of me just hanging around and talking with them in between their chores."

This process of "just hanging around" is the polar opposite of the job of most daily news shooters, whose mandate often is to cover an event--or more likely a series of events--and then transmit pix as quickly as possible. It's the difference between photojournalism and documentary photography. Documentary photography done right means getting to know your subjects well enough so that, given enough time, you become non-threatening to them, and therefore invisible.

"A level of trust had to be built that first day," Ficara declared, "and by day's end we both usually felt very comfortable with each other. One farmer, Ervin Bell of North Carolina, at first was not sure he wanted to participate, [so] we agreed that at the end of the day if he was not comfortable we would abandon the idea."

At the end of the day, Bell not only felt comfortable with Ficara, he acceded to the photographer's request that he hang around for another three days.

"[As] I was leaving; we were shaking hands when he confided that he was really glad that he participated with me in this project."

"We had overcome all of the stereotypes, the barriers and saw each other as two human beings being able to deal with each other openly and honestly. Skin color was never an issue; it was always a matter of mutual trust. I was really pleased to see Ervin at the opening of the exhibition in Baltimore."

What makes Ficara's book so gorgeous, aside from the stunning printing job done by Stinehour Press in Vermont, one of the country's premier fine art printing houses, is its consistency. Still, Ficara said, "I used an abundance of equipment....When I took the project up with a book in mind I made a decision to use [medium format] Mamiya 6x6 cameras in the field and Hasselblads for the tight face images of some of the farmers." When the project was in full swing, John switched from the Nikon SLRs that he had used earlier to Leica M-series rangefinder cameras for their superb optics and quiet, unobtrusive operation.

"All of the images are on [Kodak] Tri-x film, choosing only one type emulsion for the entire project to have a consistent look throughout."

Ficara used flash rarely, if at all. "Once again I wanted the look of natural light on the Tri-x film to be consistent. I only used the strobe when pushing the film too far would create too much grain and thus lack consistency with other images. All of the metering was incident light readings, Tri-x rated at 200 with normal processing for the most part, with some slight pulling and pushing development according to scenes."

If working in the field and making great images was technically and artistically exhilarating, it didn't pay the bills.

"The lowest point of the project for me was about a year and a half into it." John said. "From the beginning, I had started an account for the project putting in funds myself, after not being awarded a few grants that I had sought. I had by this time sunk a considerable amount of my own money into the project wondering if anyone shared my conviction or passion to see this project undertaken. As a journalist, in my gut I knew this was a story that someone should be documenting, but there I was driving around the country with only support from family and friends. I certainly wondered if any of my work would see a magazine, let alone a book."

But, after making hundreds and hundreds of images and slogging continuously uphill, things finally changed.

In 2001 Ficara won a documentary photography grant from the White House News Photographers Association, followed shortly thereafter by a grant jointly funded by the National Press Photographers Association and Nikon. "This was the strongest sign that I was doing something important," John said, noting that this was the year of the September 11th attacks. "Having been a big news year with dramatic photographs inundating us, this quiet story about the demise of black family farms had shown through."

"The grant money was welcome to pay off bills from the project and also fund the project, allowing me to finish."

With the project done, and with at least most of his bills paid, Ficara then set off to find a publisher for his book--the equivalent of emerging from a car wreck into the path of a train.

John still grimaces telling the story of the hoops he had to run through for one big commercial publisher when it was considering his book for publication. First, John said, the publishing house wanted a commitment of a major museum show before it even would consider taking on the project. Happily, John was able to hook up with folks at the Lewis Museum in Baltimore. Their commitment for a show made John assume all was fine--until his ostensible publisher then decided to ask John also to bankroll a huge chunk of the printing costs.

Frustrated and angry over these demands, Ficara fired off eight e-mails to eight different University presses.

"I received responses back from five of the University presses the same day. The University Press of Kentucky called me within hours; they were very enthused and wanted to see some of the work and asked if they could see something the next day. I pulled together a presentation of twenty digital prints from scans I made at home, and added the first draft of text by Juan Williams and a book jacket design and sent it overnight. I was called the next day late afternoon and told they wanted to do this book.

"The following morning I got a call from the Director of the University Press of Kentucky, Steven Wrinn, himself an author of a civil rights book, convincing me that they were the ones to do this book...The enthusiasm over my project shown by the people at Kentucky convinced me of their desire to produce a first class photography book, keeping the dignity of the farmers' stories foremost. Kentucky indicated that they would like to move quickly as they would like to have the book finished in time for the opening of the exhibition in Baltimore. This was about seven months out; normally they put a book together in one year, and they were striving to cut that time in half without losing any quality."

Thus began the final, much happier, if also frenzied, chapter of John's book odyssey. "Originally I was going to have gelatin silver prints made for the exhibition. What I saw about to happen was that the Press and the lab would be clamoring for the original negs--the Press for scanning [them] for the book, and the lab for printing [them] for the exhibition. What I decided to do was to make digital lambda prints for the exhibition, which Infinite Imaging introduced me to. I had the original negs high-res scanned at Infinite Imaging and sent off a set of scans to Kentucky. [I then] made a set for the digital printers, Dodge Color. So the idea of digital prints was a result of trying to have both places have scans so that they could start their production."

And produce they did.

I confess a personal attachment here. I have known John Ficara for decades. We have covered God knows how many presidents and politicians together. I saw him at the start of his project and told him I thought his work had the stuff of greatness. For months thereafter, we would meet for lunch and look at prints.

The fire never left him, even when the path was hard and end was distant. And now you can see why it was all worthwhile.

"Distant Echoes - Black Farmers in Amerca." Photographs by John Francis Ficara. Through April 30th (and possibly beyond). Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, 830 E. Pratt St., Baltimore. For information: http://www.africanamericanculture.org/

"Most good photographers are good people," Gordon Parks told an audience at the Corcoran Gallery some 14 years ago.

He was as dapper and eloquent as ever then, maybe even more so since he was looking like a proud father at the next generation of African-American photographers who would take up the mantle that he had worn for so long. The occasion was the opening of a wonderful show, "Songs of My People -- African Americans: A Self-Portrait," and many in the audience that day were the people who took the pictures that lined the gallery's walls.

Though I was only one of the minority of white faces in the crowd, I still shared the warmth of this remarkable man: so talented, so giving, so inspiring. I only could imagine the nearly electric feeling that must have existed between the young black photographers in the seats and the old black photographer on the stage.

Parks, who died this month at the age of 93, paved the way for these men and women, too long marginalized, not only by society, but for many years by their professions as well. Parks's trailblazing career, as a fashion photographer and later as a news shooter for Life Magazine, proved that talent is not confined by race, that compassion is not a function of skin color.

"No other art form has more diligently recorded our painful metamorphosis than the camera," Parks wrote in the thick exhibition catalog to "Songs of My People."

"In the proper hands, it burrows deep into feelings of human beings and into the true nature of their conditions."

As he stood on the stage in the Corcoran auditorium, beaming at his colleagues, Parks postulated that those who free themselves of their limitations, their prejudices, their perceived shortcomings (in themselves and others) tend to reflect this wisdom and compassion in their photography.

"Most good photographers are good people," Gordon Parks said.

By any measure, he fit his own description

-- Frank Van Riper

Join me this Spring for several events at Photoworks at Glen Echo Park, Maryland. From multi-week workshops to a one-day seminar on using your flash, there is bound to be something to pique your interest. Photoworks is a unique learning center providing a personalized atmosphere for students to develop their visual talents in photography. Small classes, a variety of courses and a professional faculty of commercial and fine art photographers allow all students to develop their technical and aesthetic skills in a relaxed, supportive atmosphere. For information, check out http://www.glenechophotoworks.org/

1. Documentary Photography Weekend, March 18th, 10a-4p; March 19th, 10a-1p. ($200) On Saturday I will be joining other professional photographers at Photoworks to talk about our long-term documentary projects. In the afternoon, there will be a field trip with photographer Nancy Lipson. On Sunday, we will gather again at PW to critique the work.

2. Seeing with Light (Master Class Workshop) Saturdays, April 8-29; 9:30a-12:30p, with Rhoda Baer, Frank Van Riper, Sheila Galagan and Karen Keating. ($250) Each Saturday a different photographer will discuss his/her work. (My session, April 15th, will concentrate on studio/portrait lighting with and without flash)

3. Flash Photography Demystified with Frank Van Riper. Thursday evening workshop, May 11th, 7p-10p ($80). Tired of having all your flash pictures look like mugshots? I will show you how to use even the smallest flash to advantage, and how to make any flash picture look more natural--unless, of course you want to create bizarre effects. We'll do that, too.

Frank Van Riper columns before 2005 -->