From His Workspace: The Joe Ro Perspective

Originally published in TITLE Magazine.

Joseph Rovegno, commonly known as Joe Ro, stands in LAAMS—an apparel, art, and bookstore retail space with a screen-printing workshop—dressed in all black. The wood floor and black rubber steps leading to the upstairs, loft-like area is covered in colorful, whimsical doodles done with paint. A contrast to the collage of black and white photographs hung up throughout the space. The walls are full of framed photos and artwork.

LAAMS recently opened its doors in the Lower East Side this past summer. The space was founded by Scott Selvin and is a collection of vintage clothing, artwork, and books. There are three floors and even a workshop where LAAMS offers screen-printing services. LAAMS is incredibly community based and utilizes the aesthetics of the space to invite people in. Rovegno is the creative director for LAAMS.

Rovegno is known for his photography, particularly his black and white photographs. He has been photographing people and places around New York for years and decided to use his newfound free time in 2020 to take to the streets.

At the start of quarantine and societal panic, Rovegno took his Yashica MAT camera to places like Target and BJ’s to capture the chaos that took place in essential retail stores. Empty shelves, carts overflowing with groceries, and signs limiting the number of sanitary products that can be bought by one person are showcased in his photos. His imagery precisely depicts what every person was going through in March. There’s no denying COVID changed every person’s life when it hit, and quarantine was put in place. New York City, a usually very populous, lively, and loud city with thousands of visitors each day, is now the complete opposite. To capture the absolute ghost town that New York had become, Rovegno walked the streets, snapping pictures of empty roads and sidewalks. He photographed the Washington Square Arch completely empty with zero tourists snapping pictures and admiring its marble beauty. This sort of stillness was uncharted territory for native New Yorkers. Rovegno captured this new way of life through both color and black and white photographs.

Months later in September Rovegno held an exhibition and book release at LAAMS. This exhibition was a compilation of photographs he had taken during the Black Lives Matter and George Floyd protests in New York. The photobook is titled “003: Between Madness”. His photos captured crowds of people marching in the streets, smashed NYPD police cars, and police brutality. He was outside every day, photographing the people and events taking place around him.

“I shot countless rolls of film throughout the protest, sometimes 15-20 per day.”

One of his photos is another picture of the Washington Square Arch. Only this time there is hundreds of masked people holding signs, protesting and fighting for the inequality and injustice that takes places against Black people every day in America. Another photo looks as if it was taken in haste. The people are blurry but can still be identified as police officers with face shields and a sort of stick-like weapon. The photo is chaotic, similar to many videos and witness accounts of police brutality happening at protests throughout the country. In a video with Populist Magazine, Rovegno says, “The cops were fucking people up. They were tossing people around and—that’s one of my favorite photos.” His photo captures the pure force and rowdiness that ensued when the police arrived at these protests. In the photo, one cop has their arm around the back of a person’s neck. Another looks to be holding a blunt weapon. On the left-hand side, more protestors can be seen standing by. Every photo in his exhibition was printed in black and white which created a serious, heavy tone for the exhibition and book. The photographs taken during the protests are timely and exemplify historical moments that could only be captured because of his determination and drive to tell these stories.

Where do you do most of your work and how do you utilize your workspace to promote creativity and productivity?

A majority of my creative work starts out in the world and ends in my home darkroom. I try to cater my work around the type of mind state I’m in at the stage of whatever it is I’m making. In the darkroom, I am pretty bad about keeping all my negatives organized and archiving, but I have two areas that are split up into things I’m going to print and things that I’m storing away. When I make prints, I usually end up writing on them or stitching them together, but I like that my practice doesn’t have two of the same things. I prefer to be experimental; it keeps things interesting to me and I don’t get stuck in a rut of doing the same things over and over again. Then when something works it excites me and inspires me to move forward with that idea more. To promote creativity and productivity, things being clean and organized just enough to not feel like the world is stressing me out, but not sterile enough to feel like I shouldn’t just start ripping out pages and pouring bleach on things.

How do you get yourself in the mood to start creating? What kinds of photographs do you enjoy taking?

That’s a good question. And I wish I had a good answer. I’m very fortunate to be able to keep my professional work and creative work separately…When it comes to the first half of my process—going out and shooting—it’s more of an insatiable itch that I NEED to be outside taking photos. Well it’s less about taking photos, it’s more of a compulsion that I have a hard time being outside in the world without having a camera. I used to say that I thought the world was too harsh, so I needed to see it with a camera in the way. Almost as a way to shield myself from being more present than I would like to be. But I realized that was a cop out. It turns out I had to accept that I compulsively need to document the world around me. I used to be hard on myself and try to NOT bring a camera with me because I felt like it took away from my genuine experience of being present in the moment. I felt like I was cheating by being able to handle life by solely having this crutch with me to go outside. At some points in my life it was really hard for me to go outside at all…Now I’ve just accepted that is the way I am inherently, and I shouldn’t beat myself up over it. I do wish I had a better answer and hopefully in the future I can figure out cheat codes for myself to be better.

With the way 2020 has panned out, do you feel like you have been able to take on more projects and create more than usual?

The lockdown was an interesting time for creatives. I think a lot of us felt pressure to create things, which I think is unfair and it made a lot of my friends feel bad [that] they weren’t doing as much as they “should be”. I was fortunate to make new subject matter out of the world events going on. I was just getting into really engulfing myself in making prints in the darkroom and I was lucky enough to get an enlarger [projection printer used for producing prints] for making prints and setting up a makeshift darkroom in my parent’s basement. This led to making a photo series called “Moment In Between Madness” which was a homemade photobook of photos and prints I made during that first initial stage of lockdown. This was a challenge to take photos at first because I was used to being on the streets of NYC and capturing moments I saw. With everything shut down, the streets were empty and I kind of had to change the way I saw things…Then, of course, the George Floyd protests happened in New York (and around the country and world), so I was out documenting and dealing with a crazy amount of photos I made during that time… So, 2020 was kind to me in the sense I naturally got into projects I would have never gotten into before. But it did put other projects I have in my head marinating on the total back burner and I need to start being alone again and working towards making those ideas into reality (which is a lot of experimenting at first).

What are your favorite cameras to work with?

I work primarily with analog [cameras] for my photo work. I like keeping my options open, and not to be fixated to one camera or type of cameras. Different scenarios call for different formats. I like using my rangefinder for its low profile and how discreet it is. I like using 6X6 medium format film; the aspect ratio (square) is a limitation that forces me to approach things with new ways. I’m not limited to any camera and I really have to loyalty to one or another.

How are you maintaining your mental health? Picking up any new hobbies?

Mental health and mental illness is a big part of my story—as long as I can keep creating and staying sane, I’m good.