Photojournalist Stephanie Keith on documenting ICE and capturing a moment that became the cover of New York magazine

 I felt that just taking photos of a single detention of someone, them grabbing them and taking them was not doing it for me. I felt like it's important to show these people, it's important to witness what's happening to them and witness their humanity, and it's a sign of respect, too. But I wanted to do more of a story, to get people more involved rather than just detention, detention, detention. I wanted to have more going on. So when this family arrived and they were already crying and hugging, they seemed like a very close-knit family. I was like, okay, I'm just gonna stay here and see what happens with this one family and just tell their story — what happened on this day. I wasn't going to be distracted by other agents on a different floor and their different detentions. I just want to see what happens to this family. 

 My personal belief in photography is that it's super important to show the emotions of what people are going through. Because you're there to show the world what's going on, because not everyone can be there. So I want to show the emotions so that the people looking at the photos can feel the same emotion. They can feel that outrage, they can feel that sadness, the humiliation, all those things, so that they can relate to what's going on. They can relate to the people who are experiencing this.

I always thought I was going to be a documentary photographer and do documentary stories. I have a degree in anthropology and I thought, “Oh, I would just be like an anthropologist with a camera.” But that's not really a thing, it turns out, and in order to make money, you have to work for newspapers. I was very fortunate that when I got out of photography school, I was able to start working for newspapers right away. And I pretty much learned about photojournalism on the job. I always had this thing like, “I'm there for the underdog.” If there's an injustice somewhere, I want to be there to show it, because I feel like I have a very strong moral code, and I feel that I want to use my camera to show what I think is right and what I think is wrong.

When you photograph, you’re really photographing the truth. You're not setting things up or anything, so it's important to — even if things don't change right away — it's still important to create a record of the truth. 

For example, on January 6th. If there had been no photojournalist there, can you imagine what the narrative would've looked like? Photojournalists are so important. People don't understand how important they really are for creating a history of just the truth of what happened in these situations. So I'm happy to be a part of that narrative, creating that narrative. And I hope that things change, but I'm also a realistic person. I know that we're living in the Trump era and it's going to take a lot for things to change. But inaction is a cop-out, you have to do what you can if you want to be invested in having a better future. So, I feel like this is my way of doing my part.

 When you're a photographer, you're not in the courtroom. You could go in the courtroom if you put your camera away, but then you don't have your camera. So the reporter doesn't have the camera. The reporter goes into the courtroom and can really hear the case, can hear what this person says, why they need to have asylum. And a lot of these asylum cases are very important and very real. As a photographer, we're in the hallways and we're not hearing that. We don't know about what's going on in the courtroom, so we're kind of cut off from that. 

So when you work with a reporter, the reporter can be inside the courtroom and can find out what is going on with these people. They can find out the names, they can find out all this information. For me, I love that because I think it's important to know the backstory.

To photo edit a large body of work and be able to pick out the strongest photos and the quiet moments and then be able to string it together in a story, I feel like that is a whole art form, you know? I am not a photo editor, although I think if I did it more, I'd probably get better at it, but the photo editors who do that, that is their art form and they are so good at it. And I think [New York magazine creative director] Jody Quon is just an absolute master at that. And her edit of the New York magazine [feature] was fantastic and I felt so lucky and privileged to be able to have someone who's such a photo-editing artist look at my work and edit it. Her edit was definitely different than the edit that I had done, and I felt that her edit was definitely stronger than mine. So I felt like I learned a lot by looking at her edit. 

Any of the projects that I've done really successfully, it's because I went all in on the project. I didn't do it like a little here, a little there, I went all in. Like Occupy Wall Street. I went down to Zuccotti Park every single day for months. At Standing Rock, I lived in North Dakota for six weeks straight. And for Federal Plaza I went down almost every day for like four months. So I think it's the all in aspect that really produces results. You learn all about the people. You get into a rhythm, and it's not something that you can just drop in and out of.

You have to do this continuous coverage to get good results. So I think if you are really into a project, don't let any naysayers hold you back. Just believe in yourself and just go all in on your project.