Interview by Ann Roylance and  Olivier Duong for Inspired Eye here

- Lynn, please tell us about yourself

Born in North Ogden, Utah, I moved to Los Angeles at 13. Currently I live New Mexico with my wife Ann, and I have two sons who still live in Los Angeles.   I studied photography at Cal State Northridge with Roger Brown, who taught me to see more deeply what is included in a frame, and then received a BFA from Cal Arts . Photography was for a long time only a means to document my artwork, until one day I picked up a digital Leica (a camera that is not encumbered with a lot of settings), and remembered the pleasure of photography. I did use a Leica and a Ricoh GR an now I use the Fuji X Pro 2 and the Fuji XE 3 in my daily explorations.

- What inspired you to be a photographer?

Photography was basically a means to document my artwork, until a friend died and my studio filled with his treasures to sell for his family. I no longer had the space for painting or sculpting, but had just picked up a Leica D-Lux 4, so I started carrying a camera on my daily dog walks and shooting whatever caught my eye. Then a used M8 found its way into my hands, and I fell in love with its simplicity. Before the D-Lux-4, I had a Cannon that had way too many menus, so it was just a tool to document my art. In the months that it took to sell all my friend’s things and empty the studio, photography had taken on new and seductive role. 

Really I just take snapshots, images taken in response to an impulse…  independent and unconnected.

- What purpose does it serve for you?

Simply to see what I’ve seen. Capturing fleeting moments and feelings, just what catches my eye. Perhaps at the moment where attention is caught and the image captured, I come closer to some truth in regards to the transitory nature of life and my perceptions.

- Please describe your Saigon project


I arrived in Vietnam early in 1966 and was there for fifteen months, stationed at MACV headquarters in Saigon as a draftsman. As I was not in a combat situation I was able to explore Saigon. The people, their dress, their food and the city, all were new, amazing and wonderful to a young American, even in that time of war. Wanting to record these memories, I bought an Asahi Pentax Spotmatic, shooting mainly slides. 


"Saigon 1966" is a look back in time, resurrecting old slides and memories.

- What does it mean to you on a personal level?

At first it was a way to preserve my old degrading slides by scanning them. But then as anyone who has been in a war situation, I was impacted on a very deep level. Viewing and processing the images brought feelings and emotions to the surface to be viewed and processed.

Memories of the people I had worked with and met during my time there enabled me to begin to come to terms with what I had experienced and felt: I wondered about what had become of Tom, our unit's driver who had family in Hanoi. Then there was the Pedi-cab driver who picked me up every morning to take me to work; if he couldn't make it, he always had another driver waiting for me. I was head of the drafting at J34 and we always had visiting officers coming through our section, signing in and out. I started signing in and out characters from the book "Catch 22," just to keep the Sargeant Major on his toes. Every few months we had to pull overnight guard duty and keep a log stating what was happening every hour, and every hour I would write ‘nothing happening’. Until I got so bored, I started making up stories like Turkish solders rolling barrels of monkey milk down the street, anything to pass the time. The Sargent Major never said to stop and I later found out some of the officers would come in and read those logs. Driving VIP's to Saigon, getting lost in a very dangerous zone outside the city, and still making it back alive.

- What photographic wisdom did you gain from rediscovering this project?

With digital everything is instant, we shoot, input the images from the day and process them. We seldom take the time to review what or how one sees, to chart one’s own eye. It was valuable to review my older work and get a sense of how my style, my vision, had developed over the years. Reviewing my work allows me to be more aware when I shoot now. I find I slow down and am more deliberate in my subject choices instead of over-shooting and then having a larger number of images to weed through.

- Normally, photographers usually choose one version of their work, either BW or Color, you seem to put both on equal footing. Why allow such dual interpretations?

Black and White for me strips all the coding away and leaves you with the bones, which I love. 

Color can be more poetic and lyrical, so I find color more difficult to create a focus in, but in "Saigon 1966" it was all about discovery, and for me the color may bring a more immediate sense of what it was like to be there.


- What attracted you most to shoot when you were there?

Small town Utah, suburbs of Los Angeles...20 years old, and I'd never been outside the United States. I joined the Army to see Europe, but after a year at 3rd Armored Division Headquarters in Germany, I received orders to go to Vietnam.  I had always been intrigued by Eastern culture from an early age (perhaps it started with my mom’s red and gold Buddha incense burner), and in Saigon, the people, the sounds, the traffic, the food, the very air were so different from what I knew, I wanted to capture those differences and make them into memories. 


- Did you ever return to Saigon? If so, what were your reactions?

I have not, but I would love to walk the streets again and see what has and has not changed.

- What camera and film did you use?

I bought an Asahi Pentax Spotmatic at the PX and shot slides. 

- How were you and your camera received?

I shot with a 50mm on the streets and used a telephoto from roof tops. I respected the people and their privacy, and would like to think they felt that. 

- Any anecdotes you can share?

There were more millionaires in Saigon than any city in the world at that time. I asked a bar owner why he charged $5 for a Coke (remember this was 1966), he looked at me, smiled and said “Because you will pay it!”  He must have thought all American GI's were wealthy.

- Any closing comments? 

Don't get hung up on gear, it’s not the camera that makes the image. Going back and reviewing and selecting images you shot in the past is very valuable process as you can start to perceive direction and reoccurring themes in your work. Shoot what you know, what makes you look twice, and shoot every day.