- [Announcer] The following program is available with audio description and closed captions.

(graphics clicking and reverberating) - You do street stuff with this baby.

- Listen, bro.

- You do street photography.

- Street photography.

- With a Mamiya RZ.

You walk around with this bad boy.

- Like it's a 35, walking around with that.

You know what, bro?

There ain't many like me.

I'm one of one, bro.

(laughs) One of one.

Yo, what's up people?

This is Russell Frederick.

- [Anderson] Yo.

And I'm Anderson Zaca.

- [Russell] Yo, we are here live from the darkroom in Brooklyn.

- [Anderson] We have some guests for you.

- [Russell] Every episode, really take it back and show y'all some culture.

- [Anderson] With photographers, masters, legendary printmakers, who are gonna come into the darkroom with us.

- [Russell] Tune in to Zaca and Russ, Live from the darkroom.

(hip hop music) - We here, baby.

(clapperboard claps) - [Anderson] We here one more time.

In this episode, hey, it's home, with the legendary Russell Frederick.

He's a self-taught photographer.

He's been shooting for about 30 years.

He shoots medium and large format.

He was a vice president at Kamoinge, which he's been a member since 2004.

His work has appeared in The New York Times, NBC News, Washington Post, and other publications.

He has lectured at ICP, School of Visual Arts, and taught many workshops.

And he was a winner of the Gordon Parks Award.

Russell, he's been going through a very hard battle with glaucoma.

And guess what, he's still out here, following his heart and doing his craft.

(relaxed music) I want to hear about how you started in the darkroom.

- Right.

It was 1997, bro.

- What?

I got in the US in '95.

- Yo.

Bro, shit.

'95 was the first time I ever picked up a camera.

I was reading Time Out Magazine.

They had a ad about black and white photography.

I said, "Yo, let me save up my coins and see what this is about."

I was in nursing school, and man, but I was working on the AIDS unit and like a cardiac unit, bro, and it was rough, man.

Yo, yo, bro.

- What?

- All I saw was like death, like every day.

It was hard.

So it was photography that was therapeutic for me, and I needed to see life differently.

- [Anderson] Took you to a whole new world.

- So the camera, bro, just opened up my eyes to see some things that I really wasn't seeing for the most part of my day.

I was used to seeing some people dying, but then with this, bro, I was able to see life.

And then I did that course at ICP, and I remember, man, my first day in the darkroom, I didn't know what I was doing.

I just remember Bernard Pillay, that was my instructor.

Yo, hats off to the brother, God bless him.

Gone now, he's with the ancestors, 80-something-year-old white guy.

He was a Vietnam vet.

And he was the first person on the first day of class who told me when he looked at my portfolio, looked at some of my pictures I brought in, he's like, "Yo, you will be a great photographer.

It would be a shame if you don't pursue this seriously."

From that day, 1997, bro, never looked back, and here is some of evidence.

My mission has always been to really show the world a more positive image of our people and to get more positive images of our people in spaces that don't normally show our work.

So it's breaking glass ceilings.

It is introducing and changing the way people of different races and ethnicities view us.

And you realize who has really controlled that visual narrative and who has been the authors of our stories, and it really, really has been us.

- Yeah.

(booming music) - And as I think about the various times I got published, and I think the biggest one, or one that was really a big springboard, was when The New York Times "Lens" blog published my work in 2011.

I think that right there was a major game changer for me, because then I went on to have exhibits at Photoville, then I showed my work in China, showed my work in France, and that was a big deal.

I had this digital projection on this insane, fricking wide screen, bro, that is bigger than a drive-in movie.

It is insane.

(laughs) And everybody just gathers there to look at photographs from all around the world.

And that was one of the most significant exhibits that I did have.

And I kept on building, kept on photographing Bed-Stuy aggressively.

And then 2014, I was invited to show my work in Ethiopia, my first time going to the continent and being there.

When I was in Ethiopia and I came back, and I just couldn't see clearly out of my contact lenses.

And I went to get a new set, and then she was like, "These contacts are fine."

I'm like, "But I can't see clearly."

And she was like, "I don't know what's going on."

And that's when I went to New York Eye and Ear.

- You're gonna place your chin right over here.

- When I first got this- - Forehead forward.

- [Russell] I started to think I was gonna have to teach myself braille.

Like I started to learn braille, preparing to go blind.

I may have had this maybe for more than 10 years and I didn't even know it.

- [Technician] Blink your eyes a few times and hold open.

- [Russell] You don't want to accept this as your reality.

- [Technician] Open wider if you can.

- I can't go much bigger.

- Okay, hold on.

- [Russell] By 2017, I was blind in my right eye.

So my right eye has just been a blackout.

I ended up having five eye surgeries with this glaucoma.

- This was your peripheral vision test back in November of 2017.

Essentially your entire upper half of your vision was gone then, and this is it today.

What's left of your central vision... is that getting smaller or darker?

But you're already looking out through the world, to the world through a pretty small aperture.

- Yes, yes, yes.

How come there hasn't been more public awareness about glaucoma, Dr. Van Tassel?

Because this was avoidable.

- Yeah.

- I've never seen one commercial my entire life about glaucoma, how dangerous it is, how serious it is.

With the surgeries we had before, you know I've always been in good spirits, but I don't know, I've been just nervous lately, feeling scared.

(jazz music) (birds chirping) (jazz music continues) - Welcome to kingdom, huh?

Yes, sir.

(Russell and Anderson laughing) (upbeat music) Yo, man, so.

- We here, bro.

- We here.

- We're gonna take you on a little walk with me.

- Nice.

- So, this is a Sunday school, Bed-Stuy.

I did that in 2011.

- [Anderson] Wow.

I love that light on his face.

- Yo, man, it's an image we don't see enough of, man, of the youth.

You know, man?

And when we get to that age of puberty, we get our first suit that our mom gives us and she tells us, "Boy, you know you gonna have to grow into that suit."

(Russell and Anderson laugh) - [Anderson] This image we don't see enough, but is a little more popular now.

- [Russell] I call that image "Protect and Provide."

That's the name of that.

- That one we don't see enough.

- Showing the fathers, bro.

I wanna show the father, single dad, taking care of his family.

"Three generations."

This is one... - There was a little dodging here.

- Yep, yep, yep, yep.

So, "Three generations" is one of my top sellers.

Mom, daughter, granddaughter, Santería church, right over here on Fulton Street.

- Class, man.

Oh I've seen this picture.

- Yeah, yeah, this is.

- This is one of your.

- Yeah, one of my kind of signature photographs over here, "Supernova Slum," the hieroglyphics, man.

Even like, you see, like, each of the feathers, the details and that with the beads.

This is 2006.

Now this was also too with the Mamiya, this is the beauty of the medium format, which I love, bro.

It just picks up details that the eye would miss.

- Oh yeah.

- This is.

- What's it called?

- "First Time," "The First Time."

- "First Time."

- Yep, he's teaching, Kareem was teaching his son how to tie a tie for the first time, and technically Tyshawn is like his stepson, but he was like, "Yo, Russ, I love being a stepdad.

A stepdad is a man who steps up to be a dad."

- Right.

- Fact.

And those brothers don't get enough love.

This is like my favorite photograph over here, "Mr. And Mrs. Brooks," was married 52 years, and their last picture they took together.

I had to really work to get this image.

Ms. Brooks wasn't really having it that day, but she ended up thanking me and apologizing to me a little bit later on, 'cause she said, "I would've never imagined that'd be the last photograph me and my husband took together, Russell."

She was like, "I should have been more supportive."

That picture, it represents what marriage is all about.

Your marriage is about trusting your husband even when you may not want to.

- Support, bro.

I mean, you know they both are carrying it.

They both went through it.

- 52 years, bro.

- Through so much, I mean.

- 52 years, bro.

- So you like to print big or you like to print small?

- I like to print big.

- Oh, you like to print big?

- Yep, indeed.

(Anderson laughs) I like to print big.

- Look at that.

- You know what, man, I've always thought about the future, right?

So the good thing is, in printing big, one, it does cost a whole lot more, but the good thing is you can have stuff for a collection or for a museum already in your possession, and you now can have a library of images, or archive of images, of prints, that are all just a asset.

When I'm in the streets, I always look to try to create one photograph that could tell a story for the day or really embody a person I'm photographing.

How can you tell a story with one photograph?

- Wonderful, man.

- Thank you.

- Your collection of work is incredible, man.

I love it, bro.

(hands clap) You know?

A fan.

- Bro, yo, bro.

- You know I'm your fan.

- Big fan of yours, bro.

Having to accept the fact that I can't do some things the way I used to, that's been the toughest part.

I have to work differently.

Like I can't photograph the same with my film cameras.

I've been pushed into the digital era more, to embrace digital, because digital photography has the auto focus, and that's been a gift for me.

I don't want people to think that I can't take pictures anymore.

Like losing my eyesight has just challenged me to see the world even more differently.

I got a new assignment now.

I think this other assignment I have is to raise awareness about glaucoma.

Glaucoma is a quiet, aggressive eye condition that steals your vision.

If your eyesight is like this, and glaucoma is going to attack it from the exterior, from the peripheral, until you got nothing.

Go to a ophthalmologist to get tested for a glaucoma, not an optometrist.

Optometrists are the people who are in your local eyeglass shop who cut the glasses, and may test your eyes to find out how clearly and sharp your vision is.

And if you got diabetes, you better go in even quicker.

I don't want no one to go through what I've been through.

Please.

I'm telling you, please, go get your eyes checked out.

It is not a game.

(low, booming music) (fast piano music) Who knows what the future holds for me in terms of my eyesight?

I've lost some of my sight, but not my vision.

Everything else I'm going to produce is gonna be of high value because I don't know what print may be the last one I may be able to make.

And with that, man, is being very intentional with making this work as well as passing the knowledge on to the next generation.

Doing my best.

Yo, bro.

(hands clap) Doing my best not to fucking give up, yo.

(upbeat jazzy music) (upbeat jazzy music continues) (upbeat jazzy music continues) (upbeat jazzy music continues) (upbeat jazzy music continues)