Pierre Edouard Leopold Verger, born on 4 November 1902 in Paris, was a photographer and self-taught ethnographer who devoted most of his life to the study of the African diaspora, the slave trade, African religions in the New World and the resulting cultural and economic flows to and from Africa. At the age of 30, after losing his family, Pierre Verger embarked on a career as a photojournalist. For the next 15 years, he travelled the four continents, documenting many civilisations that would soon be erased by progress. His destinations included Tahiti (1933); the United States, Japan and China (1934 and 1937); Italy, Spain, Sudan (now Mali), Niger, Upper Volta, Togo and Dahomey (now Benin, 1935); the West Indies (1936); Mexico (1937, 1939 and 1957); Philippines and Indochina (now Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, 1938); Guatemala and Ecuador (1939); Senegal (as a conscript, 1940); Argentina (1941), Peru and Bolivia (1942 and 1946); and finally Brazil (1946).
Veger's contributions to ethnography are embodied in dozens of conference papers, journal articles and books and were recognised by the Sorbonne University, which awarded him a doctorate in 1966, a feat for someone who dropped out of high school at the age of 17. Verger continued to study and document his chosen subject until his death in Salvador at the age of 94.
My name is James but I’m known as One Kindred Spirit. You’ll find me on Tumblr, which is pretty much my home and haunt.
I’ve been an analog photographer since the 1970’s. I took a break somewhere along the way but my interest was revived in the early 2000’s. At the time there was this sense that film photography was coming to an end. Charles Bukowski advised us to look at where the crowd goes and run in the opposite direction. I ran towards film and alternative process photography. I guess I wanted the experience of losing myself in a process, once again. Film photography is my way of getting lost.
I would describe my photography as lo-fi, impulsive and orientated towards my internal life. I don’t try to fit into any particular style or area of photography. I rely on feeling. If I respond to something I will want to photograph it.
Part of my pleasure in taking photos is interacting with vintage cameras. I’m not gear orientated. Maybe “object sensitive” would better describe the feeling. If I said “Plastic flowers don’t die” a good number of people would respond “They were never alive.” I avoid the literal life. Vintage cameras have a life and soul of their own. It is a privilege to interact with them and maintain them. Each one has developed its own “eye” during its life, just as a photographer does.
And then there’s the darkroom. I have my own space. It is part retreat where the music is good and the armchair comfortable and part workroom. I think it was the memory of my darkroom experiences in the ‘70’s that helped inspire my return. I loved that red glow and I was sentimental about it but instead of recreating the past, I found I was building a future.
Lately I’ve been working with cyanotypes, salt prints and dry-plate 4x5 photography. I’m also an inveterate shooter of Polaroids. I call them “Beautiful Lies”, fully aware that Wim Wenders once said “Polaroids are truth.” There is truth in being unique but Polaroids are much too subjective to be the literal truth, and that’s why I love them.
The “Golden Age” of film photography should, by rights, be back in some misty, romanticised past. It’s not. Today is the Golden Age of film and alternative process photography. I’m enjoying this moment.