 My name is Jay Fidel, and I'm with Think Tech Hawaii, and this is Community Matters. We'll be studying the community because it matters, don't you think? And our guest right now is Ed Greavy. He's a photographer since 1822. Am I right, Ed? 1820, actually. But he's more than that. He's a philosopher, and he's a traveler. So we're going to examine his work and his view of the world. Welcome to the show, Ed Greavy. Thank you. Ed's the father of a friend of mine, Huala Greavy, who runs Pow Spam and Pow Box, and is doing tech things in Silicon Valley in San Francisco. Great guy. I know him 20 years, but this is the first day I've ever met Ed, his father. He has good things to say about him. Yeah, I about him. So Ed, what have you been doing in photography? How did you get into it? When did you get into it? How has the process been for you? Well, all through college, my dad was a carpenter. He most listens in California. I graduated from Long Beach State. And I always wanted a good stereo and a good camera. I couldn't tell you why I just did from early age. But I couldn't afford either one, actually, until after I got out of school. And in my sophomore year at Long Beach State, there was a group of surfers getting ready to make a trip in December to Hawaii. I didn't surf, but I was athletic at the time, and I was interested. So I went with them, and once I got here and caught a few waves, I was hooked. On which one? A photography or surfing? Here about a year or so here. I worked in restaurants, saved money, and went, I got a boat. In those days, you could take a boat to Japan. I don't think they have any more like that, but it was an inexpensive way to get there. And I figured, well, that's where I'll get my stereo and my camera. Of course, everybody did that then, I remember. So the end rate at the time was 400 to 1. So it was definitely, and I didn't know one camera from another. So I went from shop to shop in the Ginza, getting the clerks to show me everything they had. And I finally settled on Nikon F. Not because I knew anything about it, just seemed to be a better camera for the money. And I wanted to be a surf photographer at the time, so I bought a long lens, came back. But I needed a job, and since I had a degree, and I'd surfed a lot, I went back home to LA, and I couldn't, I was in January. And big companies used to recruit in those days from colleges, but they would come around in May, but in January, there were no recruiters. I couldn't find a job. And so, and I majored in political science, I mean, that's a hard major to find a job for. So my sister lived and worked in New York with her husband. And she said, oh, come on back here, company I work for hires every year, about 12 to 15 management trainees, they'll hire you. And by the way, they'll offset your law school, because I was going to go to night, I went to night law school for a while. So I went back there, drove across country, surf in USA was number one. Those were the days. Every radio station. Oh, and those were the days, those were so, so fine to grow up and be in college or trying to, you know, get integrated in the world in those days. The 50s are hard to replace. Yeah. So how did you, but how did you, how did you get from there to here? And once here, how did you get to be a professional? Well, I had had a distint in Hawaii when I was in college. I went back because I knew if I stayed in Hawaii, I wouldn't finish school. And finishing school for my father, my family was a big deal. So after I went, got the degree, spent another year here surfing mostly, went to New York and I went to work for Mutual of New York, it's a life insurance company. And I had bought the, by that time I had the Nikon and I would, and my brother-in-law who was married to my sister, he was an art director at a major agency and a photographer. I learned he was older than me and he was a mentor to me for sure, like an older brother. So he was looking for a side business that he could do to protect himself from being laid off as an art director, because that would happen to good ones and bad ones. Well, they come, they go, right, just no longevity in that job. So I had brought, I didn't bring my surfboard because I didn't think there was any surf on the East Coast, but I brought surf magazines and he's, I was showing him to him. He was born and raised in Redondo Beach, but he wasn't a surfer. So he just, he said, gee, there's no East Coast magazine, no, they're all on the West Coast. So he started, became competition surf, specialized surf meets for, we did five issues before and you got the money. Yeah, I was this editor and staff photographer in the beginning, because we didn't, we didn't know anything else. And you were here when, no, no, it was in New York, New York, you were doing the photography in New York. Yeah, population wise, in the surfing world, the East Coast, has it like a tent over the California, it doesn't have as good a surf, but it's got miles and miles of sandy beaches that California doesn't actually have, I mean, the beaches are kind of rare. So demographically from the standpoint and surfing in the country was just on fire, like surfing USA was number one across the country. Those are the days of Gidget, of course, you remember. Yeah, I hated Gidget. They popularized the sport and then everything got crowded. Most surfers don't like the Gidget movies. But it popularized it indeed. And then there was music, the Beach Boys, was it? The Beach Boys went to my high school. That's right. They were like freshmen and sophomores, and I didn't even know who they, I didn't know about them. So the days up and coming, well actually what it sounds like is, you know, you were, it was a perfect storm, you were in exactly the right place, knowing exactly the right people and having exactly the right background and interest to get into photography, especially surfing photography as an occupation. Well, when we started the magazine, my brother-in-law was the art director and my sister did interviews on the beach, and my then, my first wife was the fashion editor, so she would gather up clothes and people would give us stuff and we would do a spread on the clothes. I was the editor and photographer and space salesman, I sold the ads. Anyway, so I started taking more and more pictures, built a darkroom in the apartments that we lived in. I used to make carts, put my enlarger, which was very large, on a cart, and rent a place that had a bathroom that had a nice, evenly boxed window that I could make a cover for, knock the light out, wheel in my stuff, put the print washer in the bathtub, and I closed the door, put a towel along the bottom to keep light out. I had a number of darkrooms here and there, like that. Who knew about digital then? Not even a thought. So my brother-in-law, while I was still working for the insurance company, I was doing sales promotion, so I was using a camera for that too. He called me up when 90 says, I need a picture of a big computer early in the morning. Do you have access to your company's computer? And I did, because at the time, I was not in sales. I was in the programming section, 32 women, all programmers, but they had a cycle that they ran on their computer, an IBM 707, I don't know if you ever heard of those, giant tape drives and the raised floor, the whole works. But because I worked in kind of a related department, they locked up, but they let me in. So I had a camera, and I lived within two blocks from the office, went over, took some pictures. I got paid about 200 bucks, which was pretty good for the time. And all I had to do, oh, I just took the, shot the film, took it to a commercial lab, and I never saw it again. They developed it, sent everything over, and he picked out, it was for an ad. And it had cropped it, all that. And I thought, that's pretty good, that's pretty good pay. Then we started the magazine, and we never made any money, and we had a, it was a bad, a bad summer one year, and a lot of our advertisers didn't pay for their ads, because the kids didn't come in to buy boards, unless the weather wasn't good. And that's when I developed my, and I started doing some street photography at the time, but I always wanted to come back to Hawaii. So my first wife and I, we came back in 67, and I would build these rollaway dark rooms. Were you earning a living in Hawaii from doing photography? Not from photography. So when did you get to be where photography was your number one interest? Well, that's a good question. I used to count the quality of a day and how many hours I was in the surf. If I was in the water eight hours is a good day. Anyway, I worked briefly for Pan Am for about a year, checking in people. And my wife was an RN, but she didn't want a nurse. So she went to Liberty House, ended up there top buyer a few years later. And I got a job at Camera Hawaii, no, what was his name? It was a famous, at the time, family-oriented photography business that catered to business. They didn't do things that I like to do. But I didn't last long there. I wasn't really skilled at handling a four-by-five camera. Well, you did start to develop interest in special kinds of photography. What special kinds? Was that surfing? No, political, social stuff. Wower had the magazine in New York. We met this guy who was a teacher in Florida, and he was hooked on surfing. But he also had a lens that was pretty good. And he could write a complete sentence. A lot of our contributors couldn't. So we were always looking for somebody that could send stories and pictures, because I only had so much time. And he moved to San Diego and became an editor of Surfing Magazine, which is the second biggest magazine. So he sent me a letter by 1971 saying surfers were becoming more concerned about the environment because they were losing surf sites to boat harbors and things, pollution. And he said, we've heard of something called Save Our Surf. Could you look into that? I said, sure. So the next day, I'm in an old camera store that's going now, Lawrence Hottos in Waikiki. And there's a poster, a handmade poster for Save Our Surf with a phone number. So I said, well, this is my chance. So I called up, and it was John Kelly. And I told him, well, I was calling, and he said, oh, you know, they were meeting here two nights an hour, and come on down. This was at his house in Black Point. So that's how I got started. I come into this atmosphere of about 15 or 20 teenagers running around planning for a big demo at the Capitol. And at that time, there hadn't been a big demo at the new Capitol. It was the first major mass demonstration. On what issue? The main issue was widening the beach at Kuhio Beach. The state wanted to widen it for the tourists. And John showed through some research of his own that if you measure the usage of the beach, dawn to dusk, not just the middle of the day, but dawn to dusk, there are about as many people, surfers, fishermen, swimmers, whatever. Be there early in the morning, whether the tourists are not. Anyway, he showed that it was just as important for others, other people, other than tourists. This was an intersection between your work, your surfing, your passion for surfing, and your work on the camera, and your training in political science. Absolutely. All three came together. Absolutely. We had a short break. This is Ed Greavy, a photographer, philosopher, you begin to see, and traveler, and we come back. We're going to see some of his work, and you will see the juncture of all of those things together in his work. We'll be right back. We're talking with Ed Greavy, a photographer, a philosopher, and traveler. He's told us about, you know, the strange in his life that brought him to Hawaii in the late 60s and early 70s, that gave him an opportunity to surf, an opportunity to take pictures, an opportunity to get involved in demonstrations with John Kelly, his mentor at the time, who was also a photographer. And from that point forward, he's taken a lot of pictures, and I think we ought to punctuate the show at this point, Ed, by taking a look at some of those pictures, and trying to understand you better. Let's look at the first one. Can you tell us what this picture is? That's a houseless person named Barbara Avelino at Makua Beach in 1996. This was shortly before the state evicted and arrested the people that were living there. And she was homeless. She was homeless. Well, houseless, homeless. Yeah. And this was in 1996, that's 20 years ago. Yeah. Makua had been a long time place where people went to get their life together. Yeah. They were kind of out of the limelight. And most of them were very shy about being photographed inside their makeshift homes, but she was not. Well, this is the challenge of the photographer, to get into a position to have people accept his photography, to let people, to have people let him take their picture. And everybody does. No. I developed a rule as I started, as when I started going out, mostly for John, he published a lot of leaflets and he would need pictures. So he would tell him, he would make an arrangement and he'd say, go meet so-and-so and such and such. There's going to be an eviction struggle. And that's how I started why Holy Wai'kana went out and toward the neighborhood with one of the residents there. But I developed the understanding, as far as doing that kind of documentary work, I worked with people that invited me or knew me or whatever, because otherwise, you know, I'm just a stranger with cameras. Well, they will let you do it. Okay, let's look at that picture more carefully now. I'm going to hold it up and see if we can get a good shot of it. There's much more to the picture than you saw a minute ago with Barbara. What was her name? Amelino. Amelino. So you see now the extensions on the left and the right, from the smaller, cropped picture to the larger one. So you can see a container, which is a home, over on this side, and somebody is in there. This is really, this is an amazing piece of art, because it tells you so many stories. Can you tell us some of the stories that— Okay, well, the people who lived in Makua at the time were mostly temporarily there while they get their life together, so to speak, and there was no rent, so—and then in the background here, the other part of this picture, this is—these are Japanese visitors or tourists who would come out to Makua on these kind of small bus excursions. So, at the same time, you see this homeless setup, which she was very proud. Most of the people that I photographed were hesitant to be photographed inside their homes, but she was not. She was very proud as she looks in this picture. I really—the composition of this photograph is extraordinary. The stories it tells, the technical perfection of it. You could count every leaf on those trees. Well, it's—if we're in the techies out there, it's shot with a two-and-a-quarter by four-and-a-half panoramic camera. Yeah, you caught it all. It's medium. So, it's so interesting to see that the smaller version, the 4x3 version that we saw a minute ago on the screen, is only a small part of the larger panoramic photograph, and you cannot possibly appreciate all the information in this photograph until you see the panoramic one. Let's go to the next—let's go to the next photograph and try to see what's happening with the evolution of this photograph. Okay. This was one of my earliest ventures into political—social political work. John Kelly sent me to Kauai for a week in 19—around 1970 or 71, and I had started taking pictures locally, surf-related pictures, but there came a time when SOS told the kids, we've won most of the battles, and we're going to get a sewage plant. You can go back to your life before this if you choose, but there is a big—there is a big eviction struggles are propping up everywhere, and the other side of that is the same people you've researched for the surfing problems of beach widenings and things, the bankers, the developers, all of those people you'll find the same ones are behind a lot of these evictions. Somehow somebody in Kauai, probably Stanford Achi, got a hold of John to make a presentation at a land use commission hearing. The developer for this particular piece of land needed rezoning from the state and Kauai County in order to build this big, but he had to evict people on a small Hawaiian estate called the Kanoa State. Well, everything was in transition in those days. We were moving to a state, a state mentality. The plantations were closing down. People couldn't be sure of their occupation or their income. They were in between and in betwixt economically, and thus you had people who essentially didn't have a home or a job. This community, and Neymalu and Wili Wili lasted, they got so good at fending off developers that when the new one would pop up and buy the rights from the prior outfit that failed, there were big scandals. There was a huge bribery scam, or a protest, too. It was one of the only places in Hawaii at that time where people actually got arrested and there were … So you were documenting history at the time. You were documenting the protest. I mean, I surmise that you're a bit of a protestor yourself, Ed, am I right about that? Well, I agree with it. It's my way to contribute to people who have a cause that I agree with. You were advancing the cause, essentially, by documenting it. I'm not good as an organizer. I have a camera and I have some experience, and I have learned how to do certain things. But these pictures that you're taking, you know, in the 90s, the one we saw and the one just now back on Kauai, that they had published in the newspaper, they looked certainly worthy of newspaper publication. Well, the two news … at the time, there were two daily papers. They did not … unless there was a special circumstance, the photographers in those days, and I think they still have a union that's very strong. They don't allow the paper to buy pictures … That was a non-union photographer. … non-union, unless there's an event they want to cover, and they don't have staff to get to. They'll have a choice. Yeah. Because on Mokaway Island, that happened, and they paid me to go take pictures for a full-page article on those evictions. But for the most part, no, I've been in many magazines to supplement articles about the Hawaiian movement and some other things. But for the most part, I have two books out. This is the one that … Well, we have one right here. Let's look at that for a minute. Let's take a shot at that. This is a book that Ed put together. It's called Kauai, and it's got a bunch of his photographs. Where can I get this book, Ed? I think the only place … that's 12 years old. What can I get? Can I go to Amazon and buy it? Can I go to the bookstore and buy it? I don't think they carry them on bookstores anymore. What was that right? I have a supply that I sell at a discount. You can contact Ed, by the way, at ed.edgreavy.com, and also at Ulukau. Ulukau.org. Just has a website. You can see his portfolio there. And let me add that when Ed came to the studio today with our mutual friend, Malcolm Makaru, who is here behind the lights, and who has been a friend of ThinkTech from the beginning, really, they brought a portfolio box of Ed's photographs that weighs about 50 pounds. If we had eight hours to do a show, Ed, I'm sure we could cover them all. But the point is, there's a lot of photographs. And if you want to see Ed's photographs, not only for the art of Ed's photographs, but for the historical value, you know, the documentary value, they are powerful, because he is … Edgreavy.com. Edgreavy.com. Okay? There are 3,000 pictures there. 3,000 pictures. I have about … in black and white negatives, I have about 60,000. Yeah. And, you know, it's important to document Hawaii that way, to see Hawaii from Ed's eyes. So you said, this is Kuwait book is one. There was another book, too. What's that? It's a more recent book. Duke University has something for Indigenous people. So they have a whole department there. This is Duke back in North Carolina. Yeah, of course. And it's kind of complicated to explain. Where can I see that book? That is available at Barnes & Noble. Barnes & Noble. Okay. It's called A Nation Rising Hawaiian … the struggle for Hawaiian land and sea and sovereignty, I think. Important. It's a long title. How long ago was it? That's a textbook. This is a photo essay. So you wrote the copy for that book? No. There were like 28 different authors. Oh, essays. Ikaika Hase. I don't know if you know. Sure. He's been on the show a number of times. He's the one that put the thing together. He produces, he publishes Summit Magazine, Summit Magazine. I was approached several years ago by an editor at UH Press who had seen my pictures because she edited books where people bought my pictures and so she had seen some of my work. So she called me in and said they wanted to do a book similar to what finally got published and I said, wow, that's great. I would never have thought to call you. But then I needed somebody to write the book and Hanani and I had planned to do Hanani Trask in the early 80s but she got busy and I approached her and said, well, we've got to publish her. We only have a minute left and I want to show the picture of Hanani Trask. Okay. Can we find that one? It's a woman sitting at a table and it's Hanani Trask when she was, what, 15 or so? And we all know her differently now, but this is the picture of the essential Hanani Trask later became famous at the university for activism and protest. Oh, she was famous. What's the circumstances of this photograph? We wanted, we, I had met her through from political people before, but I had decided to enter a photo show, but I needed captions and I was pretty sure she could write well. So I already knew her and I approached her and I said, I'm going to be in this show at Alamoana Center and I need somebody to write captions because my pictures are not that meaningful unless you know what's going on. She said, yes. Yeah, well, she's very enthusiastic. This was in the 80s. Oh, in the 80s that night. The first hurricane, we had two, right? We had Aniki, but there was one 10 years before that. Yeah. What was that called? Eva. I know what you mean, but I can't remember. It was right around that time, so it was early 80s. And so we went and then we were planning a show, an exhibit, and we were, that was taken at the coffee... Eva. Eva. Eva and Aniki. It was taken... This picture was taken at a small gallery at the YWCA across from the UH. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forget the name of it. Anyway, so we were just scouting for a place that would allow us to show pictures and I just had to show them. She was. Well, that's really significant. It's really a very interesting portrait of her, especially in light of all that has happened since that time. Sometimes you take a photograph of somebody and you're not only looking at the person and into the person's soul, maybe in a funny way you're looking into the person's future. And I think that's a really special photograph. There are so many more. There are so many more we have on electronic slides and there's so many more in this huge 50-pound box you brought. Thank you, Malcolm Makaro. And we don't have time for more, but I can only urge people to check Ed Greavy out. His work spans, what, four decades, five decades of Hawaii. It's early from 71. Yeah, it's a long time already. And I still shoot digital for the techies out there. And that's a whole new show to talk about your digital experience. Edgreavy.com and also Ulukau, Ulukau.org. Thank you so much, Ed. It's great to see you. You're welcome. I'll spend the time with you. Aloha.