Ethan Lovell — a photographer based out of Venice, CA — is able to combine his passions for traveling, surfing, and creating art with a deep desire to help people. He works all over the world providing disaster relief and (along the way) explores the beautiful landscapes he finds himself in, meeting people, traversing unique terrains, and taking striking images of lives torn asunder by crisis.
Lovell works for Waves For Water, a non-profit organization that provides clean water to people around the world. Waves For Water has been among the world’s first responders in times of crisis for nearly a decade now, and Lovell is often with them. He doesn’t just go as a passive observer, though. He feels a strong need to combine his photo journalism with the actual nitty gritty work that will better the lives of the people he meets. Rather than following the traveler’s mantra of “taking only pictures, leaving only footprints,” he takes photos, and leaves behind infrastructure and hope.
I had the opportunity to speak to Lovell just before he set off for his next project in Chile. We spoke about his life as a photographer, the most powerful places he’s visited, and how to be a tourist who leaves the world a better place.
What inspired your interest photography?
My interest in photography was sparked by growing up around the arts. I grew up around it and was always surrounded by it. My dad had dark room in the house and was in advertising. He was a big influence on me. Then I got into traveling abroad a lot when I was in college and I spent a couple years away. I think it stems from there.
After that, I ended up in Los Angeles doing a lot camera work within the commercial world, mostly video stuff. Then, I just decided to take it into stills and incorporate that with travel and lifestyle photography. I was based out of Venice Beach. Had a really good support team. This was pre-social media and everything, so it was a really good place to live and work as an artist and it’s been a really good home base to work out of. It’s easy to travel from. And having a lot of friends who support each other in this place is also kind of an inspiring thing. Everyone travels a lot, gets around, and does cool things. I think that was really inspirational about taking it to the next level.
Can you talk a little bit about the differences between shooting commercially and then shooting the portraits that you do?
Yeah. In commercial shoots you have a big crew. You have a ton of equipment. The space is different. And basically, you have to direct the shoot as a director. A lot of the times we’ll hire actors instead of models just because they know how to flow better. But you’re working in a large space that you need to tie in. And it’s not real. It’s staged, you know? What I prefer, I mean you can do that for work here, but where my heart is or my passion is in capturing real life subjects. In their element.
But you learn a lot about composition and lighting through commercial work, so then you take that into the field where it’s just you and the person whom you’re filming or photographing. There’s cultural boundaries, there’s language barriers, there’s all sorts of different aspects to it that make it difficult. But it also makes it interesting. That’s what I’m really passionate about doing. It’s not shooting smiley faces. It’s more about shooting the human spirit.
For example, like in a disaster zone when you’re working with people who have had everything taken away from them, you see all the beauty in it at the same time because you see how all these people are able to overcome these hardships and work together. You really get to integrate your own artistic view into something. Not that I’m there to exploit anything because I’m really, I’m passionate about shooting these people, but I’m also helping them at the same time so that really brings out a light in the subject as well because you’re not just showing up with a camera and sticking it in their faces. You’re providing them access to clean drinking water.
Why do you think it’s important in a disaster to take photographs? What does that do for the people there?
Well, in all of our work, we document everything to bring awareness to it. For example, we document to show people who donated where their money goes to and that we’re actually out there doing things. It’s basically to raise awareness, to raise more funds, to do more work.
Can you think of some specific photos you’ve taken while you’ve been traveling that were really powerful for you?
A couple from this year stood out. I worked over in Liberia. We went over there after the Ebola epidemic and we were doing hand washing stations and water filters. We went out into the more rural areas to orphanages and caught (photos of) families. Some of them were more difficult than others but they do speak English over there so it was a little bit easier. We got a lot of moments.
One of the great things was, for example, last year when we were in Nepal. You’d see these people who are just picking up bricks of their house and then they’d stand up to you and see you and then smile at you and go, like, “Namaste.” It’s like, how can this person be smiling at me so calmly, with so much grace? It’s almost overwhelming. You sit down in what used to be their living room and then they let you photograph them for a while.
A couple images that stood out, I shot this guy on a horse in Ecuador that just kind of rode up to me. I talked to him, I rented a horse from him before so he already had established a relationship. I’m really big on not taking advantage of my subjects and I’m big on not … What’s the word? Taking them out of their element? I don’t know.
Not staging them?
Yeah. I’m really big about respecting them and not invading their space. Because some people just walk up and they stick a camera in someone’s face. I just think that’s not the right way to go. We were working up in Ecuador. Took us two days to get into this one area. We had to take a bunch of four-wheel drive vehicles out to this one zone where there had been road blocks for a while and everyone’s like, “Oh, there’s this old woman living up in the mountains. You have to find her.” It took us like two days and we ended up finding her and she was living up in this little house on stilts and she had to be probably 100 years old.
I got a pretty powerful image of her in her house looking out through the blinds, just seeing who was there. We were also giving her some water filters and stuff because she didn’t have anything up there. That was a good one. That one stood out. There’s a bunch of them. Their eyes will tell a lot of stories and that’s my main focus is just to capture that. That’s the whole photo journalistic aspect of everything. Another photo I got was these kids that were in Lebanon. We stopped and these kids were climbing around in a Syrian naval base that had been bombed out. This was up in the Beqaa Valley where all the refugees were living. Saw these kids playing there. They were just using the whole bombed out naval base as a playground. We pulled over and shot some photographs of them climbing on the walls, throwing stuff around. I think I got some pretty powerful images from that spot as well.
What’s are some of the places you’ve traveled to that surprised you in some way? And what are your favorite places to shoot?
It’s funny because I’m a surfer but I’d say that a lot of my favorite places to shoot are far from the coast. You know? They’re places in Africa. Or Ecuador is amazing because you literally drive there and the landscapes and the cultures can change from night to day environmentally and culturally in a half-hour drive. That’s a cool spot. I never get bored shooting in Ecuador ever. There’s so much amazing beauty there. You know, whether you’re up at the volcanoes or you’re in the Amazon, there’s just so much amazing stuff. It’s all pretty condensed into a small geographical zone so it doesn’t really take too long to get from one zone to another. Nepal is also one of my favorite places to shoot too and for the same reasons.
Do you have a philosophy that you follow when you travel?
Well we have a philosophy at Waves for Water, “Do what you love and help out along the way.” Which is pretty much Jon Rose’s mantra, which we’ve been pretty much going by the last couple of years. That’s proven to be pretty useful and pretty inspirational.
That’s an interesting aspect of Waves for Water — making a difference without taking the enjoyment out of travel. Kind of that interplay between helping and enjoying the country.
Yeah it’s kind of like if you’re going on a trip somewhere, you’ve got to lift up the rug and see what else is there. For example, a lot of these places that I went for the disaster stuff I’d already been to. I never even knew that (that impoverished) side existed. Then when you go further you’re like “these people need so much help.” They all live on the other side of the tracks and those are the people that are suffering in the case of a natural disaster. You need to go out and get to them. Then you really get to see what it’s like actually. What the underbelly looks like of each place you go. You get to see both sides of it, which is a really unique way to get to see most parts of the world.
How can other people get involved in Waves for Water? What are the ways that people can help?
We started as a DIY program, do it yourself, so we began starting to promote people who are going on trips to follow our recipe for helping out in the areas that they go to. We have on our website, a clean water courier program, where people going on trips can sign up and raise the funds to get filters. Then they take the filters and do their own personal projects. It’s very DIY oriented.
