Aaron Turner & Brandon Thibodeaux in Conversation

AT: What is one moment in childhood that sort of stands out for you that kind of makes you who you are now?

BT: My parents divorced when I was two years old, and between both of my parents, I've gone through seven divorces combined. As a result, both sides of my grandparents played a huge role in my upbringing. I think kids raised by their grandparents have a different outlook in certain kinds of ways. Thinking of going through all those divorces and navigating that emotional landscape as a kid. When you're suddenly not the man of the house at 10 anymore, you're having to deal with the complex relationship of a new man in the house, or a new stepmom, how do you deal with those social dynamics? Do you be quiet, or is this person really fun and engaging? Do they despise the fact that you're there? All of those things, right? 

You’re programmed to navigate these social cues in a way of figuring out where you fit. Looking back at how that emotionally or intellectually fits with, say, my practice, I feel like it was almost a boot camp. I can step into someone's house…that is, usually if I'm with somebody, they're in one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives, or they're in a state of celebration for some wondrous thing that’s happened to them, and there's a delicate disposition to navigating their inner world.

One of the absolute hardest things I ever did was an NBC assignment in Oklahoma to photograph several families who had lost children when a tornado struck their grade school, and a number of families whose children were spared. How do you walk into a living room with people reeling in such pain and confusion, and not overstep in the weight of them showing you their child’s bedroom, watch a mother touch a pillow or grasp a toy that just a week prior was a source of joy? Make yourself small and reserved, and build some sense of shared understanding, or at least an understanding that you recognize their vulnerability? And yet, hours later, witness the gratefulness of a father as he joyfully hoists his living son through the air in their backyard, holding him tighter than he likely ever has? It’s hard to comprehend such things.

Finding yourself in a space and figuring out how to make people comfortable with your presence. We use the word “work” a lot in describing the things we do, but what I’m talking about is more than an occupation, it’s beyond making photographs, those are the artifacts of a complex interaction, this is more about relationship building than anything else. It’s a very emotional process, there’s no supplementary college course offered on empathy and trust. It’s not exposures, or compositions, or narrative weaving.  It's something you strive for and every situation is different. Thinking of my personal work and the depth of say, focusing on something for a decade, only intensifies that idea. It’s not something you study. It’s simply trying to be a compassionate human being.

I think because of all of this and my history of illness, my personal endeavors photographically have consistently returned to the things that form and shape us into who we are like faith, family, and a sense of history. Those things that inspire us to continuously persevere against the unknown. That’s what interests me the most, these universal ideas that have stayed constant throughout all of humanity, no matter who you are. Our support structures, our legacies, our lore and myths, the ways in which we interpret our environment, our gods and demons, our strengths and sacrifices.

AT: And then to tie into that, what was your family's reaction to you picking up the camera?

BT:  Oh gosh, probably a bit of dismay at first, at least in terms of a career path. When you grow up in a blue-collar town built on oil refining, being a photographer isn’t exactly the first thought in your family’s mind when it comes to stability, let alone prosperity. My cousins and I were the first generation in either family to not work in a shipyard, or wake up in the morning to put on Dupont, Firestone, or Chevron branded coveralls. My dear mom who at one point was working two jobs to raise my brother and sister and I, was just happy I’d found something that brought fulfillment and direction to me. She helped me buy my first camera. Later, when things went digital my grandparents helped me make the upgrade. My dad, I think he was always proud of the things I was doing, he might not have understood the logic in it economically, but he offered support as he could when I was in trouble. Those first few years of freelancing in Dallas were volatile. I’d imagine most of our conversations were of me fretting over the amount of debt I was amassing, and contemplating quitting to move home to work in a refinery if I could. But, I distinctly remember a change in his voice when I made one phone call from my first trip for meetings in New York. I’d called to tell him that I’d been inducted into a program that Getty Reportage once ran called, Emerging Talent. It was the first time I’d heard this elated tone in his voice, Getty was a name he recognized. In reality it was a small stepping-stone but it must have felt like a big, “he made it, he might be alright” moment to him. 

AT: Yeah. I love that last story you just told, about you and that gentleman just talking about marriage and life, and I think you put it perfectly there as well about topics of race and everything like that, because that kind of goes out the window more than we know it does or more than maybe larger entities would like to admit. But I think your story, your voice sort of represents that better than any national publication of story ever could. Because in some ways... I don't really know how to explain it, but there's nothing like actually being on the ground and talking to people and interacting with people over a course of a long period of time. That can do more than some overall headline could ever do, in my opinion and in my life experience. Just talking to people.

BT:  It’s instances like that where you begin to truly learn about a place and a people but you gotta have the time, you have to give and put yourself out there. Reading a book, or a newspaper, sure, you can gain an opinion, or have a point of reference for your dinner conversation about a big broad topic, but it’s when you share some semblance of intimacy that you realize the world isn’t as black and white as we’d like to make it out to be. 

To pull it back a bit, Mook and I were taking a drive along the levee. He wanted to show me the Mississippi River. President Obama had just been inaugurated. Everyone at that time was on fire, Hope is the slogan, we’re leaving the Bush era and this is thought to be a turning point in the country on so many levels.

I turned to Mook and asked if he’s excited. He turned the radio down a bit and looked over and said, “Shit man, it don’t matter who’s sitting in that big chair. You think my life’s gonna change? That there’ll be more jobs opening up down the road all of a sudden? Sure, I’m happy my boy can see this and be inspired but it doesn’t mean things are gonna be radically different all of a sudden.” Not a year later he and his wife and boy moved to Florida for better opportunities. That’s not a conversation you were going to read in a magazine article back then. It was a time of celebration, not of discussing the practicality of how things might actually change. 

Reporting or short personal projects are often done with a concept in mind first and you set out to find the folks that can tell that story. Sure, you might not find what you expect and it changes slightly, but I’ve seen it, there’s usually some pre-approved framework. Hell, even good stories are pushed back because they don’t fit the national conversation of the week. There are varying degrees of nuance that shape and form your understanding in long-term pieces, just as there are in real life. 

AT:  On the occasions you and I have been fortunate enough to see one another in person, we always end up on the conversation of “how do we continue doing this things we love coupled with the realities of the industry?” (Realities like: an MFA, teaching, sustainability of freelancing and editorial work, selling prints, making books, and so on…) I don’t think there will ever be this perfect line or playbook to follow being an artist, but what are some of the ways you’ve sustained your practice over the years to present day, how do you keep it going?

BT:  I try to breach this in my workshops. It’s one thing to make great photographs. You got an assignment, or gallery show, but how do you maintain momentum, and how does that translate into raising a family, or staying out of the worst nursing home imaginable when the time comes?

I have a friend that waits tables and makes the most brilliant work, work I aspire to, they have reputable gallery representation, and they’re happy as a clam. My upbringing in the industry was different. I haven’t made a living from anything other than a camera since I was 20. I’ve had to diversify and the money I make from commissioned work or a print sale is what funds my personal endeavors. Editorial has always been my main source, there’s corporate work, a meager amount of commercial, then workshops and finally print sales and acquisitions. 

All of this with the hope that when combined they not only get me through the baseline year, but can be reinvested in personal work, which in turn helps feed a creative drive and maintain a level of visibility to garner the commissioned work that finances it. It’s not the best metric, it leaves a lot of vulnerability but it’s worked so far. 

The result of this creatively however is that I’ve operated in a multi-personality kind of way. I have catalogs of work that in my mind, if you only knew me through my personal projects, you’d never recognize it as being mine. That’s a sore spot for me. To know the quality or relevance of my personal work leads to museum acquisitions – which speaks to legacy and societal value - yet the work I spend the majority of my year doing is forgotten in the next day’s news cycle or destined to become the liner of a birdcage. My aim is either to have the two worlds collide in some harmonious and self-sustaining way or find the means to solely focus on the personal work that’s worth persevering and is seen long after I’m gone. I envy you in this. You made that decision.

I don’t think this is a conversation that was traditionally given as much attention as it deserved in either the commercial or art programs. You either had to pay a consultant to tell you about it or find a sympathetic mentor that’s already working. When you’re in your 20’s you’re just trying to make work, be seen, maybe pay for a date and cover bills. How many potentially great creators got burned out because they never found a sustainable path? Like today, if we’re talking about diversifying these creative fields, creating greater institutional accessibility, then these folks also need to be equipped to survive within them. Just opening the door is not enough. That’s a feel good hashtag, or ticking a box.

AT: We’re going to discuss the idea of lived experience more in depth later in this interview but I want to ask about your time in the Mississippi Delta and what drew you there. I’ve read several interviews you gave and you always mention being right off the cusp of a long-term relationship. I don’t have any specific questions about the relationship but can you talk about what it means to have a life altering or impactful experience like that but to also have in tandem the medium of photography to filter that time period through?

BT: The work we make, as in any creative field, is always relative to who we are. But, who we are, or who we believe we are at the time, is built not so much by life experiences alone but in how we interpret and react to those experiences. We create the paradigm through which we interact with the world. For example, in the first two answers of the interview I’ve taken a few major experiences of the past, parceled them out, and sewn them together in an attempt to make sense of the present – even though there are innumerable tiny fragments of day-to-day interactions that have refined or sometimes contorted that understanding.

In essence, what I’m saying is that, just like our ancestors created myths to explain an eclipse or some grand thing they didn’t understand, we all create personal stories to make sense of ourselves - the why we are who we are, and the why we’ve done what we’ve done. We look to things, to places, to faith or to the lives of others to find meaning and purpose, to inspire us or perhaps even to lie still in fear. So, in my mind, a life altering experience like the one you read about is what creates receptiveness for certain themes, feelings or emotions. It’s a filter if you will.

If I were in a state of needing hope then consciously or subconsciously I’d have looked for hope. Be that in the life of another, or symbolically in say the way the rays of morning sun pierced through the stormy sky, like a blessing or a promise of a better tomorrow. That’s not so much the reason why I went there in the first place, but it does create the mindset for seeing and listening in a certain way.

For perspective, that near decade long relationship dissolved when we lost a pregnancy. So, on my first weekend in the Delta when I walked into a tiny church for Sunday service, not to photograph but to simply attend, and the reverend announced, unbeknownst to me, that it was Father’s Day, I was struck, because I was living it, or the thought of it. I could have walked from the church broken and made photographs that fit my mood, some dark foreboding things, maybe slump into a depression and just rode my bike amongst the corn stalks being lost in somber dreaming. Or I, just as easily as it actually happened, could have left with a sense of reassurance and found myself surrounded by the boisterous joyful laughter of three generations of family gathered for Sunday supper when the Coffey family invited me into their home for the first time.

I didn’t have a firm grasp of what all these photographs were leading up to until I could pull back years later and identify specific themes like hope. In fact, you could rearrange all of these photographs and tell a completely different story. I have several times.

AT: Can you talk about the act of returning to the same place over and over in your work?

BT: I’ll start by framing this within the context of my experience in editorial photography. First off, what brought me there was, again, a curiosity about a place that coincided with a vulnerable moment in my life. I just happened to be a photographer. But what kept me there were the relationships that formed in those earliest days. Put it this way, I look back now, nearly 13 years later, and it’s humbling to think that I’m having conversations with teenagers that I once cradled in my arms. Children that raced their bikes for the ice cream truck are driving cars of their own.  Their parents are older, their grandparents frailer. We’ve shared birthdays, holidays, and as I typically say, every old regular day in between. 

That's the difference – at least for me - from the commissioned work, because I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been asked to spend more than a week with someone in that scenario. Those are almost one-off bite sized encounters that give you an intense interpersonal relationship. But as much as you share in that short time, it’s one-sided. You both know that after X amount of time that relationship is going to have run its course. You’re there for a reason. Even if you want to stay, the publication has a deadline, there’s a news cycle you can rarely fight, or an editor says, “Gosh, I wish we could but we just don’t have the budget,” and eventually the story is published.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been on an assignment and the writer and I both leave knowing the story has so much more potential, years worth, and yet you keep driving to catch your flight on time. You might keep in touch with people, for a month or year after, but then your lives just inadvertently go their own ways. That’s one of the greatest losses in the closing of community newspapers. 

In a long body of work like this there exists a completely different way of operating with an entirely different set of responsibilities, expectations and dynamics. Vulnerability develops on both sides, and the willingness and trust that is developed has a much greater cost or potential cost than simply going into a place for a week or a day, because now you're both ingrained in each other’s lives, emotionally and physically.

AT: Your book, In That Land of Perfect Day, in some ways comprehensively encapsulates your experiences in the Mississippi Delta, the pictures you made speak for themselves, what was the overall experience like to dedicate that amount of time to a project, what parts of yourself changed and evolved due to that experience?

BT: I was staying with Alex and Tiffany at one point. We’d stayed up too late in the night making hamburgers, talking, and cutting up. I needed to take the kids to school the next morning. Her daughter Maw Maw came and woke me up. I looked at the time and thought, "Oh holy shit, we're going to be late.” “Grab your backpack. You got snacks in there? Put them in there, grab your sister, let's go!"  I walked them to the door of the school, and the principal's like, "Maw Maw, who the hell is this white guy dropping you off at school?" And I'm like, "I'm just the uncle."  Instances like that are how long term work reinforced my perspective of the role and responsibility I have, not just as a photographer but also as someone now invested. I don’t even have kids but I sure wasn’t going to have Maw Maw and A’merical being late to school, or getting hungry in the middle of class. It’s a small example, but in photojournalism you’re taught that you should maintain a barrier from that sort of closeness.

These photographs aren’t just mementos, or some art project; they’re someone’s life. It’s both of our lives for that matter. It brings to mind, not just the idea of representation but also the gravity of being a good steward of someone’s likeness, which they have entrusted you to hold and protect. The depth of those relationships when working long term only adds to their gold-like weight. There’s an understanding that if they are released out upon the world then it’s your duty to defend and protect them.

That shared vulnerability. That shared experience. I remember there was a man who I always thought didn't care for me being around. I'd go to my buddy Nut's house and he’d always be sitting at the corner of our gathering, never really saying much. 

One day, Herman found out I was about to get married in the coming weeks and he's like, "You're getting married?" I said, "Yeah." At this point it’s just the two of us sitting on the tailgate nursing our last few drops of beer. Everyone else had gone to get more at the store, the wives were back inside, the radio was going, and the Friday evening sun was fading. He's like, "You know, I was married once before." And I was like, "Really?" He said, "Yeah, it's one of the biggest regrets in my life. I was young, about your age. I didn't know what I had. I'd mess around, or I'd drive my truck and be gone for months making a haul across the country. Then I'd come back and not give the marriage it's due." His life's moved on, he’s married to my God brother Lank’s sister today, but he was like, "Don't make that same mistake. If there's ever issues, just communicate."

From that moment on Herman and I have probably had the deepest conversations of anyone else. It's an example of a degree of communication that would come from just being there. Where suddenly these greater national topics of race or representation in the art community, all that stuff starts to dissolve and you realize you're just two guys talking in the bed of a truck about the throes of marriage. Like I would with my uncle or he with his nephew. You’re talking about real things with rich enough soil that you both can plant roots and grow together. That's where a real relationship comes from. A comfort and understanding. You don't start a relationship by saying right up front, "Hey, let's talk about how different we are, what do you think about that? How can we fix everything? Want to be friends?" You cross all those things when the time comes. Herman wasn’t quiet because I was there. He was quiet because he does the listening while everyone else is busy doing the talking. 

AT: You’ve been making pictures or been involved with photography since 2001 correct? And most recently you’ve been making these still life images. How does someone like yourself arrive at this place? Because like yourself, I began in journalism, and moved on to fine art still focusing on people. Now I mostly stay in my studio trying to figure out complex still life compositions that speak abstraction. I often think, how did I get to this point from growing up in a small Arkansas Delta town?

BT: I tinkered with still life images off and on for a few months during the pandemic. In no way was this Aaron Turner or Josef Sudek level stuff!  I think this was a common occurrence for a lot of folks during that time, at least from what I saw on Instagram, People weren't leaving their homes and they were suddenly exploring the landscape in their immediate vicinity, you know? 

I thought, "Well this will be something that I can feel accomplished with come bedtime.” I readied a darkroom for developing film at home, scoured my shelves for objects, went to the florist shop, and ordered a small backdrop setup on Amazon. I’m so accustomed to interacting with people, but in a lot of ways this was a breath of fresh air. The only puzzle to solve was in the lighting and positioning of objects. 

It’s funny, we haven’t spoken of this before but to stay afloat financially in my college years I freelance assisted product photographers for JC Penney’s at their corporate headquarters. We photographed anything from luggage and blenders, to freshly pressed underwear and shoes, even made fake bedroom sets for bedding images. This is the type of mail I typically throw straight in the recycling bin but if you knew the amount of attention that’s put into every meticulous detail you’d feel compelled to at least flip through them.  

I can say I learned more about the nuances of light doing tabletop work than I have in any other genre. How the slightest change could bring out texture or add depth to an object.  I loved that. It was problem solving on an entirely different level. I didn’t get very adventurous with that still life work but I do need to do more of it. It makes your brain work in an entirely different way.

It’s like this Louisiana work I’ve begun. It’s a mechanical departure from what I've traditionally done in my commissioned work or my personal work in the Delta. While I don’t have an exact definition of what the work will become, I started out using a Longfellow poem that speaks about the region as a sort of creative map for mood and defining elements in the landscape. I have a friend of mine that serves as the main character. Unlike my more documentary-based work there’s one big hurdle, my imagination.

I not only need to conjure up the scene or the location, but also the atmosphere, the body language, and all of the other narrating elements in the photograph. It's more difficult than I thought. Not just making the images, but then fitting them together in a logical way to actually make a narrative. Whereas in Mississippi, I had historical anecdotes, I had perspective through conversations, messages in church or other tidbits that informed a certain sentiment and defined the narrative. I could piece all those things together naturally, like a cake recipe. Now that I'm venturing into fictional work and building photographs from scratch I have to navigate an all-new kitchen. 

Though the poem idea has likely been tossed aside at this point, the beauty of this is that there are no rules. It might be a total flop but I’m enjoying the process and at this point in my life that’s what’s most important.