Interview with Michael Hyatt

Michael Hyatt

My interest in photography began in 1968 after seeing the documentary work of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Henri Cartier-Bresson. This led to a very active eleven-year period doing street photography in Boston and Los Angeles. Portfolios from this period focus on the Italian neighborhood in Boston, and the residents and transients in, and nearby, the Chapman Hotel at the corner of 5th & Wall Street - Los Angeles. In 1979 I spent a month photographing in Ireland. While there I photographed the all-female Irish punk rock band The Boy Scouts, which inspired me to pursue the Los Angeles music scene upon my return. Within a month I began documenting the performances and backstage activities of the prominent punk rock and roots rock bands of the era, including X, The Blasters and Los Lobos. The fascinating and visually stimulating audience for this music was also documented. Between 1986, when I moved to Arizona, and 2002, I photographed a variety of subject matter. Then in October 2002 I began documenting the efforts of Humane Borders, the volunteer organization that places water stations in the desert to help prevent migrant deaths, and lobbies for more humane border policy. A year later I began photographing the humanitarian work of Samaritans, and then the efforts of the No More Deaths coalition when it formed. During this period I was invited to photograph Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument west of Tucson on the U.S./Mexico border for the Desert Places book series published by the University of Arizona Press. In August 2004 the book Organ Pipe – Life On The Edge was published. It is exclusively illustrated with fifteen of my photographs, mostly landscapes and wildlife. Publication of the book led to a commission from the University of Arizona Special Collections, associated with The Center For Creative Photography, to produce a limited edition box set of photographs. The Center was exhibiting box sets by Edward Weston, Paul Strand and Ansel Adams at the time. My limited edition set, titled Along The Migrant Trail, contains thirteen gelatin silver prints sized 4” X 5” displayed in a jewel box with a cover sleeve, list of photographs, and a booklet describing the work illustrated with three more photographs. In May 2007 Cultural Geographer Juanita Sundberg and I were awarded a University of British Columbia Hampton Research Fund Grant titled Documenting New Cultural Landscapes of Immigration in the United States-Mexico Borderlands. Also in May 2007 Great Circle Books in Los Angeles published my monograph Migrant Artifacts: Magic & Loss in the Sonoran Desert. In April 2008 the book, in the category of Art, was an award winner in the annual Eric Hoffer Independent Book Publishing Award competition. The book's cover photograph was included in Photographer's Forum Annual - Best of 2009. Calendars featuring my photographs have been self-published periodically since 1982. Two of my photographs were winners in the Los Angeles Center of Photography’s 2015 Street Photography Competition. One of those images plus the work of eleven other LACP winners will be featured in the 2016 Street Photography & Dates of Interest Calendar. Since 1969 my work has appeared in newspaper and magazine articles and reviews, Gallery 1331 calendars, music collections, catalogs, on postcards, in the Lucky 13 Box Set of X Postcards, and in the 1986 documentary film about X titled The Unheard Music. Books that have included my photographs are Beyond and Back – The Story of X by f Stop Fitzgerald and Chris Morris (cover image), The Pleasures of Jazz by Leonard Feather, Tough Company by Tom Russell and Charles Bukowski, The Practice of Global Citizenship by Luis Cabrera (cover image) and A Voice in the Box – My Life in Radio by Bob Edwards. Numerous one-man and group photography shows in Arizona, Mexico, California, Maryland, Nebraska, Montana, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Colorado and Ireland have included my work. The Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona purchased four photographs included in the monograph Migrant Artifacts: Magic & Loss in the Sonoran Desert. Photography portfolios are available at www.michael-hyatt.com.