Richard Misrach: Cargo

Richard Misrach: Cargo by Linda AlterwitzJune 8, 2025

Richard Misrach’s publication Cargo (Aperture, 2025) is a timely collection of photographs that explores the evolving presence and significance of cargo ships. Captured on the San Francisco Bay between 2021 and 2024, each photograph includes at least one cargo ship—sometimes clearly visible, other times partially or completely obscured by fog. While the photographs beautifully capture the changing weather and light on the Bay, they also invite reflection on the shifting dynamics of global trade and labor.

In many images, the cargo ships appear almost playful—animated by color, light, movement, and atmosphere, as omnipresent as sailboats drifting on the water’s surface. Yet this playfulness gradually gives way to a deeper awareness: beauty becomes a veil, exposing these vessels as the mere functional tools of commerce they are. Misrach’s photographs become potent symbols of transformation, tension, and interdependence in the contemporary world.

Paired with an essay by Rebecca Solnit, Cargo is enriched by her evocative, grounded language, moving from personal moments in the San Francisco Bay to a global and historical view that reveals the deeper meaning of cargo in our world.

Below is a conversation about Cargo with Richard Misrach and Linda Alterwitz .

LA: I was thinking back to the time when my daughter and I visited your studio, and you showed us several incredible projects that haven’t yet been published — some taken decades ago, and others still in progress after twenty years or more. The photographs in Cargo are dated from 2021 to 2024. Why did you choose to publish this body of work now, in 2025? What made this the right moment?

RM: When Sarah Meister at Aperture saw some of these cargo images she wanted to rush to publication; I actually am still making images from the series, but I am pleased the book is coming out now. Super timely!

As I was beginning I was very aware of the cargo issues in Long Beach because of Covid (back then my friend even said I should call the series “The Long Haulers” as a play on an aspect of Covid…)

Then Houthi rebels attacked cargo ships as protest to the Israel/Hamas war…
Then a Cargo ship rammed and destroyed the Delaware Bridge…
And now Trump is implicating cargo in his International Tariff wars…

The point being is that these ships—omnipresent and by their omnipresence, invisible—are loaded with HUGE impact and significance. They are worth serious contemplation.

LA: Every photograph in Cargo captures ocean and sky in different stages of light and beauty during day and night. Each image includes at least one ship, emphasizing scale and movement. Yet, one image stands out — it features a tiny figure windsurfing, dwarfed by the surrounding sea and ships. Can you speak to the significance of this photograph within the broader context of Cargo? How does this human presence shift the narrative?

RM: I had several other images in a similar vein—introducing 1) human scale and 2) human engagement/dependence/use of the ships’ waters, aside/along with, trade. Other unpublished images include groups of paddle boarders; helicopter rescue operations: a tugboat with skateboarders on it; sailboat races, etc. I didn’t think those images were quite strong enough or would shift the book’s emphasis, so I pulled them.

LA: On the last page of Cargo, I followed the QR code which led me to the Live View of Ships on San Francisco Bay: https://boatingsf.com/ships-on-sf-bay/. It provides a really interesting perspective to the ships. What was your reason for including that QR code?

RM: I think the QR code provides a number of items, for example, it unpacks details about each of the ships. It tells what the ships are carrying, where they came from or are going, etc. And in real time. And by looking at the QR code, at any given moment, you realize how this activity is non-stop, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

LA: In the Live View of Ships application, the tiny colored ships appeared playful, like a video game—but after seeing your photographs in Cargo, my mind went to a haunting place in our world, one that is vast, interconnected, and often unseen, bringing out feelings within myself of distrust, fear, and tension that exist beneath the surface of our global systems.

RM: Interesting, not sure how you got to there. Can you explain?

LA: These feelings have to do with healthy and unhealthy forms of dependence. Trust is the invisible backbone that holds everything together. I think about my daughter and granddaughter—the ultimate trust and love between a mother and newborn. I think about you teaching your grandson to surf, you were right there by his side, and he knew it. Trust – love – dependence.

The emotional weight of Cargo makes me think of an unhealthy dependence at this time in our world. Cargo can symbolize more than just goods — like the history of human behavior – both good and bad. I fear the disconnection that comes when we treat people or resources as things to be moved and used. How do we move from the world of cargo — where things and people are handled so impersonally — to the world of surfing with your grandson — where presence, trust, and love define our intentions and interactions?

RM: I believe these cargo ships are worthy of a deep consideration, a deep meditation if you will. They are remarkable engineering feats of humankind. They are profoundly important—they literally represent a revolution in world trade—and yet at the same time they pose serious threats to the environment. And yes, they provide jobs, but many of the workers are being exploited with long hours, poor wages, and unhealthy working conditions. These chess pieces as Rebecca calls them, or pieces in a video game like you describe them, are worthy of a deep unpacking….

These cargo ships represent the challenges of this historical moment. I am hoping the pictures are strong enough, compelling enough to make us stop, look and think about all this.

LA: It’s given me a lot to think about, and I am grateful that this work has made me feel a deeper awareness surrounding cargo ships and our world of trade. Is there anything else you’d like to share about Cargo?

RM: On a recent plane back from Hawaii I was reading Alexis Madrigal’s book on Oakland, and he talks about the cargo industry polluting Oakland and poorly paying/treating its workers. And then the next night I had a dream that the Cargo Ships are like the Great Pyramids—examples of extraordinary vision, engineering and architecture…and yet built on the backs of the poor. The point is this work functions like a Rorschach test. Folks bring to it their knowledge, their concerns, their bias. I like that ambiguity with this work. The cargo ships represent the complexity of our world, of this historical moment.

art; science; nature; technology; medical imaging

For over 50 years, Richard Misrach has photographed the dynamic landscape of the American West through an environmentally aware and politically astute lens. His visually seductive, large-scale color vistas powerfully document the devastating ecological effects of human intervention, industrial development, nuclear testing and petrochemical pollution on the natural world. His best known and ongoing epic series, Desert Cantos, comprises 40 distinct but related groups of pictures that explore the complex conjunction between mankind and nature. Otherworldly images of desert seas, rock formations, and clouds are juxtaposed with unsettling scenes of desert fires, nuclear test sites, and animal burial pits.

Tags: Conflict, Culture, Photography Book, Photography Books, The West, Water