SWEATY AND DELIRIOUS Jeff Antebi
Jan 16, 2012
The photojournalist shares his Fever Dream.
BY RANDY HARWARD
"I did sort of drop out."
In order to become a photographer, something he never intended to do, Jeff Antebi had to abandon his successful 15-year-old label/management firm Waxploitation (Gnarls Barkley, Danger Mouse, Broken Bells) and just shoot. It began as an impulse buy en route to China for a business trip. With his "simple camera" Antebi was the usual tourist shutterbug for a few minutes before wandering into deeper, darker places. "I would get onto buses and get off at random stops and continue to purposely get farther away from my starting point, very much wanting to become lost before taking photographs."
Captivated by the scenes inside alleys, doorways, and cul-de-sacs, Antebi braved the hard stares of strangers and kept clicking the shutter. "The more lost I felt, the more enjoyable it was," he recalls. "Something about the experience made me feel closer to people, more in touch with life around me. It's hard to express what a life-changing thing it was for me."
That feeling led Antebi deeper into the rabbit hole. He bought better gear and booked more trips. After a 2009 trip to Haiti, he realized his heart wasn't in entertainment anymore. "The non-entertainment world seemed to have more urgency to it. Every time I read about something compelling happening ‘out there,' I wanted to [go]."
After much soul-searching, Antebi boarded up Waxploitation and split for Afghanistan. There, he shot scenes of strife like those of photojournalists Sebastião Salgado, James Nachtwey and Paula Bronstein. In Juarez, Mexico he snapped shots of drug cartel murders (pictured below) and elections; in Thailand, Malay holy war. Similar pictures developed from shoots in Havana, Cuba and Los Angeles. Together, they comprise Antebi's debut photography book, Fever Dream (JeffAntebi.com).
The gorgeous, strikingly composed shots evoke compassion, anger, fear and joy in a way that creates that titular feeling. Antebi puts you in his subjects' shoes, then his own, back and forth until you're sweaty and delirious. How does anyone live like this? How could Antebi go from music big shot to risking his life documenting people in such dire straits? That's an easy one: Once you see it, you can't forget it. Antebi shares these photos as catharsis.
Now back in the States, Antebi has revived Waxploitation. "It was impossible to stay away for too long." One reckons he feels the same about photography. No matter how hard or harrowing it was in these poverty-stricken or war-torn places, "the hardest part was knowing that I'll be leaving, and the people around me usually can't. It's very hard to be face-to-face with anyone's suffering. There's so little you can do, but as a photographer, I think you can hope that a photograph might somehow create more positive outcomes."
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