Manuel Rivera-Ortiz

“The Jeff Farias Show Interview with Manuel Rivera-Ortiz (15 June 2010)”

“The Jeff Farias Show Interview with Manuel Rivera-Ortiz (15 September 2009)”

“Thoughts on Photography with Paul Giguere Interview with Manuel Rivera-Ortiz (23 July 2009)”

“Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Official Website (with image galleries)”

“Manuel Rivera-Ortiz's Cuba series, is like a cinema verité journey, through a landscape both accessible and mythic. His panoramas capture a connection to an environment that prods the senses. One feels enveloped by a familiar, primal place. It is this place which will hopefully anchor a vibrant social order, as it braces itself for the tremors gathering momentum on the horizon. The engaging photograph of two little girls holding each other, surrounded by lush vegetation, workers and family members speak to the continuity and bonds of love and vision of one’s own paradise.”

“The amount of time it takes to provide is threefold for families whom have to make due with very little. … Children from poor households learn to have very low expectations of themselves and their future because they believe that the world around them doesn't expect much from them either. In India, children of the lower castes are taught still today that once poor always poor so they don't think to become doctors or lawyers because their last name may not be Gupta or whatever other typically higher caste name there may be in India.”

“Maybe by doing this work and putting my name on the front line, like a science project, will also afford me the opportunity to embarked into a very special opportunity to show that growing up poor doesn't have to mean being unworthy or forgettable. This is a very important lesson for those who propagate such narrow minded universally accepted inaccuracies about poverty.”

“Showing poverty is such a large part of my work because another thing that I am finding is that for me personally, doing this work helps me in trying to come to grips with my own upbringing and all that occurred during that time. Basically, this work to me is a sort of time for reflection, a pseudo inventory of "this is your life," a way to try to accept the concept of what was so inevitable.”

“When I am in India I gravitate to the poor and forgotten; in the fields I love photographing the workers who eek out a living and a little bit of food from the earth. All of this has everything to do with this area, as Western New York has many people working in the fields as migrant families.”

“I make images of the living for the living. I try to celebrate life. Iconic photographer Dorothea Lange, once said ‘I too have come to lend my voice to those least able to have a voice of their own.’ I agree.”

“There can never be too many of us doing this type of work … The work that we do is necessary beyond accolades or honors. In fact, to do it for accolades or honors alone is criminal. I am my brother’s keeper, may I always behave as such!”

“I'm more likely to come in after the newspapers and television cameras have long disappeared from the scene post-disaster. The people I gravitate to are neither rich nor popular. They do not have the power to boost or end careers at the flick of a pen; nor do they own fancy things or drive fancy cars. These people live in slums and muddle trough piles of waste and trash on their way home to a little shack, which they share with a throng of other family members. Outside the cacophony of worldwide charitable organizations, their struggles are rarely suitable topic for common everyday talk.”

“I don’t need them to tell me what it feels like to be poor … I already know how this feels, how it smells and how it tastes! When I talk to them … I want them to tell me about their hopes and aspirations, about their dreams… about the road ahead and how they imagine it will shape up out in front of them to make the dreaming and hoping come true. I ask them about assistance, about the health, and about their families near or far.”