© Jack Dykinga

© Jack Dykinga

© Jack Dykinga

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Interviewer: You worked for the Tribune.

Dykinga: Yes, I went to work for the Times. Then when I quit that, I was gonna go back to college. So I wanted to get a job working the lab at the Tribune at night. So I went down there, and I guess I was about twenty years old, and I wanted to be able to go to school full-time, daytime, and work nights in the lab. Well, they didn't want me to work in the lab. They wanted me to be a photographer. And that was really a big honor, because most guys start off in the lab and work their way out. So I was like the youngest guy in the city shooting then, and went right into shooting all kinds of demonstrations, all the run of events in a major city — and then going to school the next morning! (chuckles)

Interviewer: So you were there for the big convention?

Dykinga: That was actually mid-to-late sixties. Yeah, '68, '67 riots. I was at the Tribune, I guess, then, 'til maybe '67. And then I quit and went to the Sun-Times, and the Sun-Times was a more liberal paper, and the photographers worked with 35mm, as opposed to the big ... the Tribune was still locked in the past, they had these big cameras, like two-and-a-quarter cameras, and four-by-fives —you know, "Press." And the Sun-Times was kind of doing more of a Life magazine approach to things, so I went there. And, you know, managed to cover a lot of events, and see the cyclical side of news, which is both good and bad. But after a while I guess I burnt out on it.

Interviewer: How did the Pulitzer come about?

Dykinga: That was an assignment, basically. My photo editor then was a guy named Ralph, and he wanted me to go with a couple of reporters down to look at these conditions in "state schools," as they were called, for mentally retarded. This was in response to a parent group that was complaining about conditions of warehousing kids.

Anyway, so I went down there and kinda did what I was telling people in the photo workshop to do: I kinda walked through the area, 'cause it was such a shock to your system to go in and see these kinds of conditions. We really had an open tour of the place. And something like that, that's so horrific, you have to see it all first to understand where the equilibrium is at, and what's normal and what's really bizarre, 'cause everybody's naked and smeared with excrement, and there's smells and screaming, and all the stuff associated with mental hospitals — very unpleasant. So I just basically went through it, and then documented what I saw. The whole idea was that the state government was gonna cut funding to these places, to these schools, and as a result of the series and the photographs, they reinstated the funding at a higher rate even, so it actually turned things around. So that's kind of, why I do journalism — to effect change.

Interviewer: So why'd you get burnt out?

Dykinga: Why'd I get burned out on it? Huh. I guess, it's a combination of things, but being in Chicago in the sixties, you got a whole lot of action. I mean, I covered King and I covered the Kennedy's, and "Clean Gene" up in the campaign in Wisconsin — Gene McCarthy — a couple conventions in Miami and Chicago, and astronauts, trash — lots of big events. After a while, [you] kinda feel like you've seen a lot, and things settle into kind of a cerebral pace where there wasn't as much action, really. And when you're young, you kinda like the action. The older you get, the more you think, "Ah, I could get hurt doing this!" And also, in order to get pictures you have to do some pretty obnoxious things, like push your way through crowds and kind of make yourself special in order to get into position to get a picture. And after a while it becomes, I think, more important to be a good person than to be special.

And the other part of it is, I had gone back to the Chicago Tribune after that, and was workin' their magazine section, and did a climb of Mount Rainier with a guy that wanted to do it as his life goal. So I think if there was any pivotal change in my life, two things occurred: One was in '72 I took a leave of absence and lived in Tucson for a year; and then I think in '74 this Rainier mountaineering school. It was a good class because it was in like April, which is still a pretty stormy time of the year, and we hit a whiteout and it was a near-death experience. Those are always good for kind of reexamining your life. In spite of the near-death experience, it was just an incredibly beautiful place. Along the same period, I was actually starting to look more and more at environmental issues, and read articles about photographers like Philip Hyde, who is a big hero of mine. And how he was really basically using his photographs as a wilderness advocate. So I thought, "God, you know, here's a guy that's really doing something." 'Cause while these other issues are very snazzy and sexy and have a lot of action, the real enduring things after a while, you start to realize, are incremental and very slow changes — i.e., the planet, what's happening to the environment, and they're not very sexy. So they're harder to sell people. But I think in the end they're going to be the most important, most critical. So that is why I do what I do.

I really do believe that. And I think when you're finally planted you have to say, "What was your life worth? What have you done?" And if Chuck [Bowden] and I can look back and say, "Well, we helped create a national park here," or this or that. I mean, that's as good as it gets.

Dykinga: Along that same period, I was reading Philip Hyde, some guy came up to me and said, "Hey, kid, try one of these," and I read "Desert Solitaire." And then I read "Monkey Wrench Gang." [Edward] Abbey's tentacles kind of just grab ya' and reel ya' in. He actually put things in words that I'd felt for a long time, and it was instant bonding there too.

Interviewer: I think we ought to talk about Abbey and Bowden for just a little bit. I mean, is that okay?

Dykinga: Can I swear? (laughs)

Interviewer: Sure.

Dykinga: Well, it's interesting — Abbey ... A friend of mine is a local attorney, wrote this letter, said, "You really should meet this guy Jack." Abbey just said nothing. (chuckles) Poof! Nothing. And then I guess I ran into him once at a bar. I think Chuck and I met him at the same time downtown in Tucson and had a beer, and he kinda looks you over. And, you know, he knew my work. Then I was over at his house a couple of times, and then we went on a hike together. Yeah, I can't say that we were the world's best friends. I guess it was probably because I was too much in awe of the guy. You're afraid to talk to him. Talking to a deity.

Chuck, on the other hand ... (laughs) Chuck and I met ... Actually, when I quit the newspaper in Tucson — I was going to start a wilderness guiding business and take people in through Paria and Aravaipa and actually climb Pico de Orizaba in Mexico. I had all these great ideas. So I did that a little bit. I took my brochures that I had printed down to Wes Holden at Arizona Highways, and I said, "You know, maybe you guys ought to do a feature on my business." (laughs) And Wes said, "Well, I know your work, but maybe you ought to do this assignment with this writer," and he handed me this copy that was written by some guy named Bowden, and it was a story on the Nature Conservancy preserve at Ramsey Canyon. So in the process of going down there and photographing it, I actually ran into Chuck down there. And of course we instantly insulted each other left and right, so it was a friendship made to endure forever. We continually insult each other, and rarely hold back anything. So that's probably why we're such good friends — not because of the insults, but because we can be brutally honest. Chuck'll ask me what I think of his writing (chuckles) and he'll tell me whether I want him to tell me or not (chuckles) about my photography.

continued: background to his books >>

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