Picture Perfect: Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson

In this episode of Picture Perfect, VICE visits photographer Christopher Anderson at his studio in Brooklyn, New York, to talk about his work and his life-changing experience aboard a Haitian refugee boat that sank in the Caribbean. We then follow him on assignment for his current project of photographing New York City. Anderson explains that he’s not just focused on the task at hand, but also interested to see how his photographs build upon each other over time.

Bonus Footage

Chris Anderson takes us to an exhibition of portraits of New York-based war photographers, giving us a glimpse into this tight-knit community after the deaths of photographers Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros in Libya. The show opened as a benefit to RISC, an organization started by Sebastian Junger, which aims to make things safer for photographers and journalists on the front lines.

About Chris Anderson

Born in Kelowna, British Columbia Canada in 1970, Chris Anderson grew up in Abilene, Texas. He first gained recognition in 1999 when he boarded a handmade wooden boat with Haitian refugees trying to sail to America. The boat, named Believe In God, sank in the Caribbean. In 2000, the images from that journey received the Robert Capa Gold Medal.

Anderson's photographs from conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the conflict in Israel have also received international acclaim. In 2004, he traveled to Venezuela to document the self-described "revolution" of Hugo Chavez. The resulting book, Capitolio (RM 2009), was named one of the best photographic books of 2010 at the Kassels book festival, and has since been turned into a groundbreaking app for iPhone and iPad. His current work is noted for its genre-crossing from documentary to art to portraiture and even fashion.