Jayson Carpenter shares his worldly views on: people, danger, experiences that have transcended to moving subjects for his photography.
“I think when I’m shooting in a foreign country,” Jayson Carpenter said, “it gives me purpose. It gives me a reason for letting myself become more of a culture. It frees up a lot of inhibitions about going into a barber shop and get a really funky local haircut.” After an hour of sitting down with Jayson, in the middle of Dolores Park in San Francisco on a beautiful Californian day, it becomes inevitable to gain as much respect for him as he does to the variety of cultures he embraces.
Growing up in Sacramento, California, Jayson started his career in assisting photography jobs then moved to New York. When he turned 21 years old, burned out from assisting commercial photographers, he sold everything he owned and ventured in South Africa. In 9 months, he also traveled to: Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, India, and Thailand. “I always wanted to go to Africa, I always wanted to do difficult travels when I was younger.” He shares candidly, “When you’re younger, 16 hours on a bus isn’t a big deal. When you’re older, 16 hours on a bus is a very big deal.” When he landed in Johannesburg, he was immediately asked to provide $500 at the customs for not having a return flight ticket. Although the deposit turned out to be a scam, it was soon overshadowed by some of the most astonishing experiences: Overland Tour, witnessing malaria, and shark diving to face menacing intensity of the Great Whites three times. To this day, he still remembers his first trip to Africa as an extremely visceral experience, “Everything was amazing. I was a 20-something-year-old kid, who had never left the country, who didn’t know what he was doing. There was a lot of stress. I was still getting my sea legs out, I wanted to get to a place where I was good at traveling and felt more comfortable.”
Returning home from his 9-month intrinsic journey, Jayson realized that, not every travel story could be shared. He remembers being at local bars back in the States, people would ask where he had been, “trying to tell everyone that I shark dived, rafted in Zambezi River (the hardest commercially drained river in the world,) took a boat from Mombasa to India and got smuggled there, went to the Kumbh Mela and bathed with 20 million people on the most soul cleansing day, then went to Nepal and trekked for 30 days,” he explained, “the average person just thinks you’re full of it. The average person thinks that’s not even possible.” By not sharing all the details of his voyages, Jayson began to recognize the defined separation between a travel life and the American life.
Maybe such a separation wasn’t necessarily a repulsive component to reflect upon, maybe it’s such a separation that blossomed him into the photographer that he is today, a photographer whose work is of: people. He unfolds layers of inspiration from people who may be culturally different, then often finds unique connections with his subjects. “The other part of shooting is being completely inspired by the human conviction to create something,” he continues, “whether it’s artwork on trucks, temples, or inspiring cultural monuments that express a passion which cannot easily be described in words. It’s probably why I gravitate toward photography.”
In 2008, Jayson again, sold everything he owned and embarked on a 14-month trip that combined his talent in photography with an unwavering humanitarian will. The voyage began in India, where he spent 4-5 months working with the Make A Wish Foundation by visiting hospitals in Delhi and Mumbai, capturing photographs of terminally-ill children receiving gifts. Then he worked with the OXFAM organization and traveled through Pakistan, where bombings occurred and elevated his philosophy: all human beings are the same, solidified. “In Pakistan, I realized that it doesn’t really matter where you go, we all have the same desires, we all want better lives for our children. We all want love. We all want to be safe and secure. It doesn’t really matter where you are. There’s a lot of places people put stigma as being dangerous and that people are scary there. But the reality is, there isn’t a place that’s scary, because we’re all the same.” In Pakistan, he came to the conclusion, there aren’t any dangerous places in that country, and most of its people are truly beautiful.
On the same trip, from Pakistan to China via the Karakoram Highway, Jayson worked on a movie in Urumqi in China during the Summer Olympics in Beijing then visited: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Japan. “When you get older, you discover that life is more about helping others and seeing actual impacts happening. I tried to leverage that impact somehow so other people can be a part of the experience. So this became more meaningful to me.”
When tsunami hit Japan in 2011, Jayson expressed to a friend that he wanted to be an international volunteer. To raise funds for the trip to Japan, he created an email campaign that aimed for a goal of $2,400. In 2 weeks, he raised $5,000. “I think I have an appreciation for people who are struggling and trying to help them,” he says, “calling yourself a humanitarian sounds kind of superficial and grandiose in a lot of ways. But I have a lot of empathy for people who are suffering and I want to do everything I can to help make a difference.” Clearly, this is a man who believes in the overall good of the people.
“Most pictures are reflections of yourself, when you get really close with somebody and you take their picture.” He says, “most of it, is the reflection and the space you create for them to experience the moment with. I live a lot of the pictures that I’m shooting by being in the moment.” He wears the same clothes, he eats the same food, he spends a lot of time with people, he hangs out in villages, he plays soccer with them so shooting becomes secondary to living their culture. At the end of the day, photographer or humanitarian, traveler or adventurist, Jayson sustains an appreciation for the connection that we, as humans, all share.
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