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Master Photographers Tell You How

Justin Guariglia - Photographing a Foreign Locale From the Inside by José M. Gonzalez National Geographic professional shooter Justin Guariglia has gone all over the globe to cover his stories.  Here, he provides insight in how to get to the heart of a location from an outsider's perspective. Article rating: 8.51

Serene and moving editorial photography was the byproduct of being twenty-one years old, in a strange city. In 1996, learning the Mandarin Chinese language and history in Beijing’s Capital Normal University, Guariglia’s street photography began as a way to get to know Beijing and would become his unique asset in the world of photography. Working with impressively layered images, through time and his involvement in the Eastern cultures has brought his work to a peaceful environmental photography, both reflective and Daoist in approach.

In 1997, Guariglia, after landing an internship at Magnum Photos in New York, learned the value of the photography that he took in China. He was encouraged by a Magnum photographer to go back and continue the work he was doing. It was in 1998 that he returned to Asia, eventually settling in Hong Kong and working as a freelance photographer for National Geographic Society, Smithsonian, Fortune, the New York Times, and Newsweek, as well as a slew of editorial magazines.

The freelance work made it possible for Guariglia, like many great photographers that came before him, to fund his own projects, such as “Personal Journeys” that explores feeling in Asia. Guariglia not only documents the stark reality of the hard lives that many people face, but their religious beliefs that ground them, and their moments of joy in life and work.

Guariglia’s focus as a photographer is in total cultural immersion. He uses the available colors and light of a scene to document and capture the emotional essence of a space within its cultural and social contexts. It is this instinctual knowledge that lends his photographs the well layered lushness that they possess. This comes only through his knowledge and experience in an instinctive way, as it is the only way that it truly can. To truly know a place is the only way to truly photograph it.

Guariglia’s Daoist sensibilities are a product of his genuine interest in Asian culture and schooling in China. The work he has done is exceptionally complex and interesting because the images themselves are not from an outsider’s perspective. Each piece is grounded in Asian culture and philosophy. Guariglia is not an outside observer; he is a photographic sociologist, photographing from the inside. As a documentary photographer he doesn’t just try to report what he sees, Guariglia attempts to move his viewers; and does so because his images are not taken through a western eye.

This work brought Guariglia much acclaim. Between 1999 and 2000, he was nominated for the International Center of Photography’s “Young Photographer of the Year” Infinity Award, received an Eddie Adams “Newsweek” award, and named by Photo District News as one of the top “30 Young Photographers Under 30,” who compared his street photography style, at the time, to that of Garry Winogrand.

In 2001, incorporating the eastern philosophies of Zen Buddhism into his work, in an attempt to counter the artifice of media in the modern world; Guariglia uses his immersion in space and culture to photograph pure moments. Not just to understand, but to gain experience through images, be moved by the images, and carry that experience out into the world; the experience of balance, inner peace, and internal oneness.

Born in Livingston, New Jersey in 1974, Justin Guariglia has come full circle as a photographer. After a decade of work and education around the world, in places such as Venice, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo, Guariglia now lives and works in New York City. He still goes on assignment for National Geographic Traveler, but his primary focuses are on his fine art photography projects which allow him to take a more conceptual approach to the many ideas that he is interested in communicating. His first exhibition will be at the Fotofest Biennial in March 2006 in Houston, Texas, where Justin was named a “Discovery” in 2004. The work is a series of images designed to calm people, images which gently coerce people to be more reflective, and perhaps more spiritual, and enlightened, in a secular way. His work can also be viewed at the Spurlock Museum in Urbana, Illinois.

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