Robert Golden

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When I give a critique of pick people's pictures, I say to them, There is nothing in me that wants to hurt you.
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There is nothing in me that wants to show that I'm superior in any way to you.
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What you do is up to you.
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I have no right to tell you what to do.
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But I can tell you what I do, and I can tell you what I think and what I believe.
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And if you show me your pictures, I will tell you exactly what I think about them.
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Trying not to hurt anybody's feelings or put anybody down.
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But I think it's absolutely vital, particularly as teachers, that we tell people exactly what we understand and tell them why we understand it.
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Here is today's host, W.
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Scott Olson, with another fascinating conversation.
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Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to another podcast from Frames Magazine.
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My name is Scott Olson.
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And you know, folks, one of the real pleasures, one of the real honors of doing this gig with the podcast, um, is when you get to talk to somebody, and frankly, there are people that I talk to that I am, I feel humbled as a photographer.
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I feel proud to be a photographer when I talk with them, because not only are they doing extraordinarily good work, they are doing extraordinary good with their work.
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These are people who take the voice they have and they apply it in a way to make just to use a simple explanation, they try to make the world a better place.
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We are a troubled planet in a lot of ways, and we are also a beautiful planet in a lot of ways.
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And there are women and men out there who take the talent they have with film or with photography or with anything else, and they say, I'm going to add my voice to making the world a better place.
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Which means today we're talking with one of the very best.
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We're talking with Robert Golden.
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Robert is not only, as some of you may know from the frames community, the author of a book called Transient Light Fleeting Time, which I'm proud to say I've got right here on my desk.
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We're going to talk about that a little bit later.
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He is a filmmaker, he's a video maker, he's a writer.
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Um speaking to just every bit of artistic output I think you can possibly have.
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Um on the writing side, he's written three plays, a poetry cycle, he's got a novel out there called A Forgettable Man About a Photojournalist.
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You know, of course, the photojournalist is forgettable.
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He's got an epic poem, eight feature film scripts, four books about photography.
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Um, he's got collections of essays out there, a role for artists in troubled times, he's got a role for artists post-COVID.
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You can start to hear some of the magic that's going on there.
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He is third year of university.
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He went to the London School of Film Technique.
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The advertising world got wind of his talent, and they started using his images and his video work for um commercials.
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Finally, he became the director of photography for over 900 commercials, winning all sorts of awards and awards.
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Not only the short form, the commercials and stuff, there's feature films out there.
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His very first feature film called Beg won the best of the festival at the Edinburgh Film Festival.
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He went to Sundance.
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I mean, we've got a talent here that is just remarkable.
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But we're talking today about photography.
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And I mean, it would take me an hour and a half simply to go through all of the credits, all of the merits on Robert's uh resume.
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Just exhibitions alone, the Half Moon Gallery, the Serpentine Gallery, the Photographers Gallery, little places like the VA Museum, Victoria and Albert in London.
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Uh it's just all over the place.
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He is a documentarian, he is an activist, he is one of these people that you simply say, I am glad that your intellectual output is public.
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It's out there, it's part of our conversation, and I cannot wait to talk to Robert today about not only the merit of his work, but the merit that his work is doing.
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Robert, welcome to the podcast.
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How are you doing today?
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Thank you, Scott.
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Well, I have to say that from the outset, I feel very humbled by your introduction.
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So I hope I can live up to some of that whilst we speak.
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I I I I have no doubt.
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This is just really remarkable work.
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And I remember when I got the book, Transiat Light Fleeting Time, um, the subtitles Fifty Thoughts About Photography.
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The images in there are all remarkable.
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Um, but this is you have facing every image, a short essay that takes on a different theme, a different idea.
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And I felt not only moved by the images, but I felt provoked in the very best way by the essays.
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You are taking on the ideas behind what causes us to either press the shutter release or hit print and say to somebody else, look at at what I saw.
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How can this make us uh more of a community?
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But uh I want to talk to you a little bit more.
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You let's start with sort of a Genesis story.
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I know when you you were in school, you were studying intellectual history, European intellectual history, this kind of stuff.
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And what I don't know is how in your life the camera of any sort first came into your hand, and and then how that morphed into saying this is the voice I'm going to use to participate in the world.
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Well, that's a big question.
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Um and I'll I'll try to be as careful as I can be about describing it because it starts in childhood.
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Um I was uh a normal student in uh public school, and for some reason or other, and it's truly unbeknownst to me why, I was nominated with a small group of other children from around Detroit, which is where I grew up, um, to attend art classes at the Museum of Art in Detroit every Saturday for a number of weeks.
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And um it was extraordinary.
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It was very beautiful what how those young teachers took control of us and showed us how to see the world and how to use our hands and our eyes to coordinate and make another image of the world.
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Fascinating.
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Um and at the end of every period, they would then take us into the museum and show us a work of art.
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And I don't remember what whether it was the first or second time, but one of those two times, there is a huge um um uh gallery filled with paintings from floor to ceiling uh by the Mexican revolutionary artist uh um not Roscoe, um uh Rivera.
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And um I was standing there looking at them, and I remember I started crying.
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I was, I think, about eight or nine years old, and I was overwhelmed by looking at these images that were really from floor to ceiling, and they were of um basically of men and women working very hard under the sun uh to try and make a world that that they could live in, that could they could bear.
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And it was it told this huge story about you know people planting seeds and the seeds growing into into plants and the plants being uh picked by the women and turned into food in the camals, the pots that they used, and the men sharing the food with them, and the men then going off and working in the mines and uh working on the docks.
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And they filled the uh ships with uh various insundry iron ore and so on.
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And those ships then went across the Gulf of Mexico and up the Atlantic coast of the United States, up to New York Harbor, through New York Harbor and uh up the um uh uh East River and t into um the lakes and across the lakes to Lake Erie and therefore then to uh uh Detroit, which was a deep port city.
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And they offloaded uh the materials uh out of which they made steel.
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And there you and there you saw all that was happening, and the steel turned into an automobile and a production line.
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It was the whole story of Detroit.
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It was extraordinary.
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And I was terribly moved by it, and uh, one of the teachers came up to me and said, Why are you crying?
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Are you okay?
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And I said, I think I know what I want to do in my life.
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And he said, What do you mean?
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I said, I think I want to tell stories with pictures.
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And that that set my brain, not about photography, but about painting.
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And uh a couple of years later, I was my parents, like most parents, had Life magazine delivered to the house um once a week.
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And I was absolutely fascinated by looking at the pictures all the time.
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And uh so I was born in 1945.
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1955, 10-year commemoration of the end of the Second World War in the Pacific.
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Um, there was a there was a series of celebratory images by W.
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Eugene Smith.
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Now, I didn't know who W.
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Eugene Smith was, but I looked at these pictures and I thought, these are the kind of pictures I want to make.
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Not necessarily war pictures, but the beauty of his images and and the and the the sensitivity he expressed towards people suffering, both both American soldiers and also Japanese um people on the on, I think it was on Okinawa, i I was moved by that.
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And at that point, when I was ten, I decided I wanted to be a photographer.
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And when I was twelve, I was given a camera, a little box camera.
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And by the time when I was thirteen and and got into high school, I I was able to attend a a class on photography.
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Not many people chose it.
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It wasn't popular.
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Most of the young people of my age chose to go into art classes with painting and sculpture.
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So there was just a small handful of us, and uh and a teacher named Mr.
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Ormersby, who basically taught me photography, along with the fact that from the age of ten I started reading magazines, photo magazines, American photographer and so on, to uh understand what this thing was about.
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And I read even the ads about cameras.
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I read everything I could get my hands on.
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And at that time, photography wasn't really very popular.
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It was very odd for somebody to be interested in photography, uh, which I paid no attention to.
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I just I was I fell in love with the medium.
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And so that was the beginning, really.
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And then high school gave me a boost.
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I was extremely lucky because um in the last the you know the scholastic contests that probably they still go, yeah.
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They still go on there?
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I have no clue, but yeah, I you know we're roughly the same age.
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So yeah, I I know those.
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So, okay, so they they they had photography as well as poetry and painting and so on.
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And uh for the last three years of my high school education, I entered photographs and I won more than any other student in the country for three years and in the third year, I entered a portfolio and I was awarded two scholarships uh to two different universities.
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In I think one was in Miami and one was University of Miami, but that was in Ohio, I think.
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But both of them for um uh photojournalism.
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But my parents had no understanding of why I wanted to go to university and simply refused to help me.
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Um so I had to stay in Detroit to go to university, which I did.
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Um in some ways, sadly, but uh I uh who knows what would have happened had I gone to one of those universities.
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Yeah, or or or I I mean, staying in Detroit certainly led to a hell of a career.
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Um so you know, may may it might have been detrimental too.
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But a couple of questions.
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When you took those photography classes um early on, was it just, you know, here's your trix and here's your developer bath, or was it composition, was it voice and learn to say something?
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Aaron Ross Powell Well, it was interesting because Mr.
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Armsby really liked having me in his class because by the time I was in his class, by the first time I was what I was 14, I had read endless amounts on photography, and I had read histories, and I had looked at Edward Weston and uh Paul Strand and Assel Adams.
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And so I knew a lot.
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And he he loved me as a student.
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Um, and he was incredibly generous towards me.
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I can't remember quite, but it wasn't just about technique.
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It was also about the look of the picture.
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And I remember him saying to me once when I was thinking about entering one picture or another into one of the competitions, um, I said to him, I don't know if I should enter this.
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I don't really think it's big is strong enough.
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And he said, Robert, there's a rule here, which is if you can't make it good, make it big.
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And I made I made a very large and it won an award.
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Oh there's a a story, a similar story from E.
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B.
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White when he was doing um Elements of Style with Lee Strong.
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Um he said, if you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loudly.
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Um if you don't understand, shout.
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Yeah.
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Um you tell a story in in another interview about seeing a picture of Woody Guthrie with a sticker on his guitar.
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Tell me that story, but was that really a sea change for for the activism coming into your work?
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When I when I teach people, I talk to them about how we make ourselves.
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And you know, we make ourselves through having experiences and responding to them, as well as uh from my point of view, from my life, reading a hell of a lot and looking at pictures and admiring uh culture in every way I can.
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So I love theater, I love poetry, I love painting.
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I I mean, uh, you know, looking at, not not making.
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Um I think the thing is that I grew up in a very strange household with with with unloving parents and a brother who was a brute.
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Um and so I grew up uh really, really detesting uh bullies.
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And it didn't matter to me if the bully was my brother or the bully was a policeman or whatever.
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I I just had contempt for bullies.
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And I'd tell you a strange little story, which is that when I was um, I can't remember, probably nine or ten in elementary school.
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And um I at that time, the uh American Congress changed the um salute to the flag, you know, I pledge allegiance to the flag, um, where which at the end said one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
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Um and they had changed it to one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
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And I refused to say it.
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Um and so I refused to say the whole thing.
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And and I eventually they realized I wasn't saying it.
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And the I a teacher came over to me and said, Why aren't you saying, are you are you um not a good American?
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And I said, No, I am a very good American.
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The thing is that America was established on the basis of not um mixing religion with uh with the state.
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And this actually mixes it, and I won't take part in that.
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They were shocked.
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And I, you know, when I look back at thinking, what was I doing?
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Um but they were really shocked, and so what happened was I was taken by the ear and and into the principal's office, and my mother was called to come in, and she said he will never do this again.
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Of course, of course, I did the next day.
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But yeah, but um in that way, in those constructions, we were brought up, well, probably you were brought up in the same way I was, which was to believe that Americans were the white hats, that we won the Second World War, which wasn't the truth, and that that um we were the good guys who believed in liberty and freedom for all.
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And you know, if if you're my generation, you know that we turned around and we said, well, hold on, why are black people being treated the way they're being treated?
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Right, right.
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Um and you know, that meant that it was I was a natural for the civil rights movement.
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And also the question is, why were we killing people of a different race around the world?
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You know, in other words, in Vietnam.
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Um and and I think I was naturally antagonistic towards the bullies um who were creating a very, very un-American way of living, as far as I was concerned.
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And I think, you know, my generation, which may be your generation, said, you know what, this isn't right.
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And we're going to change things.
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I think that was the promise we made.
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We didn't do very well, unfortunately, but certainly it was the promise we made.
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And that's of course, those those kinds of events set me up for being a natural to be um selected to go to the South by the Students for Democratic Society.
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But now again, tell but tell the story of seeing that picture with the sticker on Guthrie's guitar.
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I'm trying to think of where I saw it, actually.
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I think I saw when I when I was about 16, 17, I started going down to the folk clubs in downtown Detroit.
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Um and I think I saw it there.
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I saw uh I I met um Mike Seeger, Pete Seeger's brother.
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Yeah.
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And um I think he he may have showed it to me, I'm not sure.
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But they they sort of the new the what were they called?
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The New Lost City Ramblers, they instinctively understood that I was a kind of radical kid.
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And there are various other stories.
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I mean, there are numerous stories about having worked with uh a group of people who had been engaged with the in in the uh Spanish Civil War.
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And they told me the stories of the Civil War, and of course it made me very sympathetic to anti-fascism.
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Um and whilst being involved with them, they asked me if I would work as a as a postboy, as it were, to take the books that that the books that they were selling, which were basically books about uh the left and communism, socialism.
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Now, I didn't know what any of those things meant at the time, but I knew that those people that I was I was with were really lovely people and believed in in freedom and democracy.
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And so I became, you know, a kind of l uh employee of the bookshop, and I r re remember being followed down the street by men with fedoras and sunglasses and collars up into the post office.
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And and, you know, I that happened a couple times, and I mentioned it to the guys in the uh shop, and they said, Oh, yeah, yeah, it's probably FBI, they want to know who you are.
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Incredible.
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I mean, really incredible.
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I was only like 16 or something.
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Um, but also there was a final moment which radicalized me.
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I was in Wayne University in Detroit, studying intellectual history, set up by a group of uh, I think socialists from the University of Chicago who were fleeing the University of Chicago because that had become the center of neoliberalism in the uh Department of Economics.
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I I never knew their story, but I uh afterwards I began to realize they must have left because it must have been intolerable for them.
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Any rate, they were wonderful professors, and they turned the whole system of teaching on the head, on the on its head, where you were lectured to by teaching fellows, and you were uh and you were in class twice or three times a week with the professor.
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So ten of us would be sitting there discussing ideas with the professor.
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It was wonderful, really wonderful.
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And they taught this thing called intellectual history.
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I read history all my childhood, history and and the Greek myths.
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And it opened me to a reading of history, which allowed me to understand that it wasn't just about kings and queens and generals and battles, but about what people ate at a different time at different times, how they kept warm, what kind of labor they did, and so on.
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And and it it that opening was wonderful.
00:20:24.319 --> 00:20:27.119
It it made my world much bigger, much broader.
00:20:27.920 --> 00:20:35.920
Any rate, at the end of the first year at Wayne, I was in a lecture listening to a professor, another professor talking about something.
00:20:36.240 --> 00:20:44.160
And um I was it was in an auditorium which um was it you weren't supposed to smoke in.
00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:45.359
I didn't smoke.
00:20:45.519 --> 00:20:53.759
I was sitting behind somebody who did, I was sitting in front of somebody who did, and a man came up next to me and he said, Who's smoking here?
00:20:53.839 --> 00:20:56.400
And I paid no attention because it was obvious that I wasn't smoking.
00:20:56.559 --> 00:20:59.359
It was light enough to see, you know, who was or wasn't smoking.
00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:00.720
And he said it more aggressively.
00:21:00.880 --> 00:21:06.799
Now, this is the only time I ever wore a tie to school, because I was going for a job interview, and uh, he said it more aggressively.
00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:10.480
I looked up at him and he's looking at me, and I thought, I thought, why is he looking at me?
00:21:10.640 --> 00:21:12.000
I mean, how clearly I'm not smoking.
00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:19.359
I got my both hands are filled with notes and pencils, and and uh I said, Well, it looks like everybody's smoking.
00:21:19.519 --> 00:21:22.000
And he said to me, Oh, wise ass, huh?
00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:26.720
Lent down, grabbed me by my tie, punched me in the throat, and threw me across several chairs.
00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:27.599
Oh, Lord.
00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:32.079
At which time I lost my temper, and I did have a short temper, I have to say.
00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:47.599
And to his surprise, I went straight into him and we had a little bit of a tussle, and we were separated, and uh taken I was taken to the dean's office, and the dean said to me moved up from the principal's office to the dean's office.
00:21:47.759 --> 00:21:47.839
Okay.
00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:48.480
Exactly.
00:21:48.720 --> 00:21:52.000
And the and the dean said to me, You're out of here.
00:21:52.240 --> 00:21:54.799
And I said, But he attacked me.
00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:56.720
And the dean said, It doesn't matter.
00:21:56.880 --> 00:21:58.640
You hit somebody who's an employee of the university.
00:21:58.720 --> 00:21:59.759
And I said, Yes, but I was defending.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:00.400
Myself.
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:01.359
He attacked me.
00:22:01.599 --> 00:22:06.559
Any rate, as it turns out, I had been nominated for the Woodrow Wilson Scholarship.
00:22:07.119 --> 00:22:11.759
And the school was known to be anti-Semitic.
00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:12.319
Okay?
00:22:12.799 --> 00:22:20.960
They, for instance, had limitations on the number of Jewish people who could be in the in the law depart the Department of Law and the Department of Medicine.
00:22:22.480 --> 00:22:30.480
So, you know, it was known to be anti-Semitic, and of course, Henry Ford wasn't exactly un-anti-Semitic who supported the university.
00:22:30.799 --> 00:22:32.640
So I was I was thrown out.
00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:36.319
And I didn't get the scholarship, of course.
00:22:36.559 --> 00:22:39.359
They were able to give it to somebody who wasn't Jewish.
00:22:39.680 --> 00:22:41.440
And that was shocking to me.
00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:45.119
That was totally, completely rocked my life.
00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:51.920
Because I came from a background that was lower middle class, not much money, always quibbles about money between my parents.
00:22:52.160 --> 00:22:56.480
And there I was being offered a free pass to Harvard.
00:22:56.720 --> 00:22:58.640
So Yeah, exactly.
00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:08.720
I think it's it's those kinds of things that of course radicalize you because you suffer those things emotionally deeply in your own life.
00:23:08.799 --> 00:23:10.240
And you think there's injustice here.
00:23:10.319 --> 00:23:11.200
This is not right.
00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:13.039
If it happens to me, it can happen.
00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:14.880
It happens to other people all the time.
00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:21.759
And in fact, I felt it was up to me as a as a decent human being to stand up for other people as well.
00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:31.279
Just to do to go back a half step and go forward, the image I was referring to on the sticker on Guthrie's guitar, you know, it says this machine kills fascism.
00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:33.359
Um I may have misquoted that a lot.
00:23:33.599 --> 00:23:34.559
No, that kills fascists.
00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:34.720
Yeah.
00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:35.279
That's what it says.
00:23:35.920 --> 00:23:40.880
Okay, but it it it dawned on me the machine, of course, is the guitar, and the machine in your hands is the camera.
00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:47.440
Yeah, and and you've got that same um yeah, you you cited that as a kind of scene change.
00:23:47.680 --> 00:23:53.519
Well, what's interesting, listening to you talk, uh you you've got three what you describe as core life missions.
00:23:53.759 --> 00:23:58.000
And and you've all you've given examples of the first two already.
00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:04.319
Um the paintings that you saw in the museum, your first core mission is giving a voice to those left unheard in history.
00:24:04.559 --> 00:24:12.160
The story you just told is is an example of the second core, uh, which is making invisible forces like power and wealth visible through metaphor.
00:24:12.319 --> 00:24:21.599
Um I mean, I I can see how these formative experiences are really become the headwaters of of what you're doing with your photography.
00:24:21.839 --> 00:24:27.359
But uh explain a couple of, I mean, so you're in university and you go off to the London School of Film Technique.
00:24:27.519 --> 00:24:30.720
It's not the London School of Film, it's the London School of Film Technique.
00:24:31.200 --> 00:24:46.720
Tell me about that change in your life, because that leads to the commercial work and the food photography and and you know, a lot of stuff that if I were to put some of the early food stuff next to some of your other stuff, um, it'd be difficult to see the bridge between the two.
00:24:48.079 --> 00:25:02.079
Okay, so um the reason I went to the London School of Film Technique was because um uh I had grown up with a friend named Bruce Rubin who did who wrote Ghosts.
00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:03.759
Oh, really?
00:25:04.079 --> 00:25:04.240
Okay.
00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:16.400
Yeah, and and um Bruce was studying film at Columbia and invited me to come to New York and to photograph the his um working on his uh film for graduation.
00:25:16.720 --> 00:25:22.960
So I went along and um there I was crawling around on rooftops in New York with Bruce.
00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:33.440
And uh because of course there are a couple of very beautiful young women uh involved in this film, I thought I thought film, maybe film's a really good idea rather than photography.
00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:36.720
But but yeah, I mean the most noble of motivations.
00:25:37.200 --> 00:25:37.440
Okay.
00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:44.079
So I became interested in the idea of film.
00:25:45.039 --> 00:25:57.440
And because when I was thrown out of Wayne, because of my grades, um they I applied to University of Michigan to carry on studying history.
00:25:57.599 --> 00:26:02.160
And they couldn't say no to me because A, I was in state, and B, I wasn't actually a criminal.
00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:04.400
I hadn't actually done something that was criminal.
00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:04.799
Right.
00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:10.960
Um and because I had top grades, you know, they they had they really had to accept me.
00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:17.200
But on the very first day I was in school, I was called to the dean's office and told that I didn't belong in the university.
00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:20.240
Um and they had it, they had it in for me.
00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:22.319
I mean, it was it was extraordinary.
00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:31.680
Um and that you know, it's when you're an average student, they figure they can get rid of you, they can treat you badly, they can do whatever.
00:26:31.920 --> 00:26:38.640
But when you're a kind of you know high high grade student and they see you as a troublemaker, they don't know what to do with you.
00:26:38.720 --> 00:26:40.640
They really don't know how to handle you.
00:26:40.880 --> 00:26:44.480
Um at the beginning of this, you said I should tell stories.
00:26:44.559 --> 00:26:52.480
I'm gonna tell you a quick story, which is that they in order to get into the U of M, I had to take a psychology test.
00:26:52.640 --> 00:26:54.799
And I deeply resented this.
00:26:55.039 --> 00:27:02.079
Um and so there was a three-page test, and it was yes, no, yes, no, you know, uh, on each of the three pages.
00:27:02.319 --> 00:27:09.519
And so the first page, I I answered all yes, second page I answered all no, and the third page, I answered yes, no, yes, no, yes, no.
00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:18.400
And I said to the dean, he said to me, you, you know, you you really looking at your psychology test, you really shouldn't be in university.
00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:23.920
And I said, Well, let me tell you, sir, let me tell you what I did so that you understand.
00:27:24.079 --> 00:27:25.359
And I told him that.
00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:35.440
He paused for a long moment, he looked at the page, he looked back at me, and he said, Well, the very pattern you made is obviously psychotic.
00:27:35.839 --> 00:27:36.559
Oh, Lord.
00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:40.480
And so anyway, they couldn't kick me out, but I wasn't really much in favor.
00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:42.319
And what happened was that Mr.
00:27:42.559 --> 00:27:47.119
Ormsby, my high school teacher, I went back to, because he was the only person I could speak with.
00:27:47.279 --> 00:27:49.839
And I said, You know, they don't like me at U of M.
00:27:49.920 --> 00:27:52.319
Uh, it's really problematic, I don't know what to do.
00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:56.720
And he said, Robert, you should be in the art department, not studying uh history.
00:27:57.519 --> 00:28:01.599
And um, I mean, I loved history and I still love history.
00:28:01.839 --> 00:28:05.039
Uh but I thought, well, maybe, maybe this is the way out.
00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:17.039
And so I was introduced to the head of the photography uh unit at the University of Michigan, who was a lovely man, and looked at my portfolio, and he said, Look, Robert, I don't know what you want to do, but I want you in my course.
00:28:17.359 --> 00:28:21.200
And that was the first real grace moment I had for a long time.
00:28:21.920 --> 00:28:22.240
Very cool.
00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:23.279
And yeah, it was.
00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:32.799
And um, whilst I was in his course uh and learning some stuff, he told me about London School of Film Technique.
00:28:33.039 --> 00:28:43.759
And I looked it up and I thought, okay, uh, now here's me, bad-tempered late teens who worked on the good humor trucks every summer to make money.
00:28:43.920 --> 00:28:48.240
I was really the last person to be working on a truck called Good Humor, but any rate.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:52.319
Okay.
00:28:53.119 --> 00:29:02.480
I um I looked up the university, I had I made enough money during the summer, uh sorry, not the university, the the London School of Technique, and went.
00:29:02.720 --> 00:29:09.519
And again, because I knew photography, I was very much ahead of a lot a lot of the young people there.
00:29:09.920 --> 00:29:14.960
Because you know, I didn't have to have an explanation of how cameras work and exposures work and so on.
00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:17.359
So, what was what was the curriculum there?
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:20.480
What was it technique or or was that also having something to say?
00:29:20.799 --> 00:29:22.960
No, it was it was storytelling as well as technique.
00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:23.680
Okay, good.
00:29:23.920 --> 00:29:24.559
It was very good.
00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:28.160
I mean, I I have to say I learned a huge amount in a very short time.
00:29:28.400 --> 00:29:34.559
And uh, you know, I took it very seriously, and I was very serious, and there were very interesting, serious people.
00:29:34.720 --> 00:29:37.279
Like, for instance, you know Mike Mann, the filmmaker?
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:38.480
No, but okay.
00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:40.480
Uh Last of the Mohicans.
00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:41.839
Oh, okay, okay.
00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:42.000
Yeah.
00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:43.279
Fine filmmaker.
00:29:43.440 --> 00:29:47.519
Mike, Mike was a grade above me, uh, sorry, a year above me.
00:29:47.759 --> 00:29:56.559
And I got to know him, and he was a very, very nice human being, um, and turned out to be a wonderful filmmaker.
00:29:56.799 --> 00:29:59.200
Um so there were interesting people there.
00:29:59.839 --> 00:30:03.200
Any rate, I went back to university, I got my degree.
00:30:03.359 --> 00:30:06.319
Well, I got two degrees, actually, one in design and one in history.
00:30:06.559 --> 00:30:11.279
And um, two days later, with$60 in my pocket, I moved to New York.
00:30:11.839 --> 00:30:19.359
And I stayed with a friend from the London School of Film Technique who who was uh from New Hampshire and he was down in New York trying to make a living.
00:30:19.599 --> 00:30:23.039
Had an extra space in his loft and he gave it to me basically.
00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:24.640
We were we were very close friends.
00:30:24.720 --> 00:30:27.759
I mean, it was it was it was very kind of him to do that.
00:30:28.319 --> 00:30:39.680
And the second day I was there showing my portfolio, I was given a commission to do a whole set of um photographs for uh published uh music publishing.
00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:42.640
And Robert, it's not supposed to be that easy.
00:30:42.960 --> 00:30:43.279
I know.
00:30:43.440 --> 00:30:45.119
I believe me, I know.
00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:53.200
Um but it was, I mean, I was doing experimental color work, I was doing documentarist work, and I had this portfolio, which was mix and match sort of thing.
00:30:53.279 --> 00:31:04.799
But um but I think people looked at me and they saw this, you know, 22-year-old or whatever I was, you know, very young photographer with an accomplished portfolio, and I think people wanted to help me.
00:31:05.119 --> 00:31:05.440
Okay.
00:31:05.680 --> 00:31:07.440
Um and people were very kind.
00:31:07.519 --> 00:31:13.680
And also the New York Times uh uh review of books picked me up as well, and I did a number of things for them.
00:31:13.920 --> 00:31:15.839
Again, very illustrative.
00:31:16.160 --> 00:31:30.799
And uh by the time I I was in New York for two years, two and a half years, uh, and I decided actually I really didn't like New York, and um I wanted to go back to London.
00:31:30.960 --> 00:31:37.119
But I thought I'm gonna go to Spain to this little island I heard about called Ibiza.
00:31:37.599 --> 00:31:46.079
And at that point, Ibiza was still a prison island, the unknownst, unbeknownst to me of of the Franco regime.
00:31:47.039 --> 00:31:47.519
I know.
00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:55.119
Um so uh I decided to go there and um and just spend a couple of months in silence.
00:31:55.200 --> 00:32:02.000
But the very last project I did in New York was uh a Diamond Is Forever campaign.
00:32:02.079 --> 00:32:12.799
And I was one of twelve photographers, including Art Kane, um uh uh Sterling Pen.
00:32:12.960 --> 00:32:14.240
Yeah, I my brain.
00:32:14.480 --> 00:32:14.960
Yeah.
00:32:15.279 --> 00:32:16.880
All of them and me.
00:32:17.759 --> 00:32:21.920
And and you know, I mean that was extraordinary, and I got paid an awful lot of money.
00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:27.440
So I had money to cruise on, you know, a little bit, and the and the island was very inexpensive.
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:32.400
I mean, it wasn't a tourist island because of uh the fact that it was a prison island.
00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:34.079
So they let people on.
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:44.400
But you you know now it has an airport, but then you got off the boat that was rocking, and you walked across planks that were rocking um and carrying a bag was very uncomfortable.
00:32:44.640 --> 00:32:52.160
And there were uh three, four guardia civils standing uh just on the land side of the of the uh quay.
00:32:52.640 --> 00:32:59.200
And as people got off, they looked them up and down and they would hit them on the chest with their two fingers and say, Back on the boat.
00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:00.799
You back on the boat.
00:33:01.039 --> 00:33:03.680
And they looked at me and they said, No, fine, go.
00:33:04.079 --> 00:33:06.400
So I I was very lucky.
00:33:06.559 --> 00:33:08.720
Um I I didn't have long hair.
00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:13.440
I mean, I had long I had slightly longish hair, but anybody with really long hair was not allowed on.
00:33:13.759 --> 00:33:14.799
They wouldn't want hippies.
00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:17.440
Okay, but I I'm still struggling.
00:33:17.519 --> 00:33:24.960
I how do we get from I mean, here you've got this wonderful progressive upbringing, you know, all sorts of interesting drama.
00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:32.559
But you're the guy who also did Savoring the World and Savoring Europe, which have been described as good time stories looking at food and culture.
00:33:33.200 --> 00:33:35.599
Was this just a commission that came along?
00:33:35.839 --> 00:33:39.519
Was it how do we get to there and then how do we get from there to the good earth?
00:33:39.839 --> 00:33:52.319
Okay, well, uh I'll uh I have to go back because uh from Ibiza, uh whilst in Abiza, I wrote a hundred-page history of photography and and and included that.
00:33:52.559 --> 00:33:56.160
I mean, as I did it because I wanted to understand where I was and where I was going.
00:33:56.559 --> 00:33:59.039
And and so uh that's when I decided.
00:33:59.200 --> 00:34:24.480
I mean, there was a moment in Spain, which I've uh uh I I have uh at the end of my first film or my first three films in uh my website uh about photography, that there's a story told there, which is that there was a street called the Rumblas and a big cafe, and I would go and sit there in the middle of the day having endless espresso and reading the uh New York Times.
00:34:24.800 --> 00:34:30.400
And slowly but surely uh older men came and started sitting around me.
00:34:30.800 --> 00:34:42.639
And we all had our papers up so that somebody on the street, like the Guardia, could not see that we were talking with each other, because you were not allowed to sit or be with more than two people at a time on the street or in public.
00:34:43.199 --> 00:34:46.559
Um because that meant they were plotting.
00:34:46.880 --> 00:34:47.199
Yes.
00:34:47.519 --> 00:34:50.079
So at any rate, uh, we were plotting.
00:34:50.239 --> 00:34:56.559
They they they you know, we uh I had learned a little bit of Spanish in order to go to Spain.
00:34:56.800 --> 00:35:03.760
I had spoke I had learned German in high school, and I was I was pretty it was pretty fluent, not great, but it was pretty fluent.
00:35:03.840 --> 00:35:04.960
I was easy with it.
00:35:05.280 --> 00:35:09.840
And uh a lot of the Spanish had worked in Germany before the war.
00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:11.360
Any rate.
00:35:11.519 --> 00:35:20.079
Um so uh between hand gestures, my little bit of Spanish, a little bit of French, and German, we spoke and English.
00:35:20.159 --> 00:35:31.199
Uh we spoke with each other, and I learned from them the story about the island and about the the uh way in which the island was run by the fascists, and I thought this is extraordinary.
00:35:31.360 --> 00:35:36.559
These people were they were lovely human beings, and they had all had tragic stories.
00:35:36.960 --> 00:35:54.480
Anyway, one day I was up at the top of the town uh near the uh uh cathedral, and um I came out of a bar and one of the old men who was uh there by chance took me by my arm, and I always had a house of blood hanging off my shoulder.
00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:55.119
Okay.
00:35:55.519 --> 00:36:02.239
He took me uh down to um a wall that had bullet holes in it.
00:36:02.400 --> 00:36:19.840
I mean, I recognized what it was, and he told me this story about how uh on the la in the last days of the Civil War, his family, including all his young siblings, were taken there, amongst many other people and shot by by uh Francoist firing squads.
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:21.440
Horrible story.
00:36:21.760 --> 00:36:44.559
And then he told me that at the end of the day w all the bodies were piled up, and the priests, young priests, would come out of the uh church and take the bodies down to a place where the wall was lower and throw them over the wall, and the bodies of the people who sometimes were still alive bounced down all the way down to the sea.
00:36:44.800 --> 00:36:54.559
And the priests said that the bodies had to stay there and be eaten by the insects and the fish and the birds because they were communists, which wasn't true.
00:36:54.719 --> 00:37:02.159
Uh they were what they were was anti-Francoists, but they were uh um uh left left there to rot.
00:37:02.559 --> 00:37:05.440
And then I mean I was terribly moved by that.
00:37:05.760 --> 00:37:12.639
And the next day I walked down uh to the that beach, I found a way down to it, and I sat there for a while.
00:37:12.880 --> 00:37:15.199
And I felt like the ghosts were around me.
00:37:15.360 --> 00:37:19.760
And I thought that's when I made the decision that I knew exactly what I wanted to do as a photographer.
00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:25.519
I wanted to give people without um a voice in history, a voice in history.
00:37:25.679 --> 00:37:32.079
I wanted to give them I wanted to picture them in history and for them to to see those pictures.
00:37:32.400 --> 00:37:34.559
So that that really changed my life.
00:37:34.639 --> 00:37:36.559
I I definitely made that decision.
00:37:36.639 --> 00:37:42.159
And and all the time I was in New York working, I was working as an as it were a photographic illustrator.
00:37:42.480 --> 00:37:56.400
But um I was trying to convince people to let me do photojournalistic work, um, which probably I would have been trained in had I been able to take up the opportunity of these scholarships.
00:37:56.719 --> 00:38:03.039
Any rate, so there I am uh in Spain, and I think, okay, I'm gonna go back to London and see what happens.
00:38:03.440 --> 00:38:08.480
And I thought, uh you know, I'm happier in Europe than I am in the States.
00:38:08.719 --> 00:38:11.679
And um I decided to stay and see what happened.
00:38:11.840 --> 00:38:17.920
And uh really uh again, very, very I mean, I had a uh, you know, the Diamond is forever ed.
00:38:18.480 --> 00:38:18.719
Yeah.
00:38:18.960 --> 00:38:20.639
Uh amongst uh and amongst the things.
00:38:20.880 --> 00:38:30.800
When I was still in Detroit, um I was asked by Barry Gordy from uh Motown if I would uh photograph the four tops for their first album, which I did.
00:38:31.039 --> 00:38:40.320
And so I had that and a couple of other uh Motown covers, and uh also the pictures from you know, uh different pictures, still lives and so on.
00:38:40.480 --> 00:38:44.000
So I started getting work right away, but particularly for book covers.
00:38:44.159 --> 00:38:46.320
And I became like the book cover king.
00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:56.079
I was working for every major publisher in the in the country, doing book cover after book cover after book cover, but was unhappy because what I really wanted to do was photojournalism.
00:38:56.880 --> 00:39:19.199
Um and so I decided, okay, um, I was I was known by Penguin Books, um, because I did a lot of their covers for them, and I could speak to people there, and I had come up with the idea of a collection of books called the People Working Series, where in the end I made ten books with a writer.
00:39:19.440 --> 00:39:33.760
We co-wrote it, and I did the photographs, I did the layouts, and they published ten of them, and they were very successful, and they won the first English non-sexist, non-racist uh award for for children's publishing.
00:39:34.320 --> 00:39:44.239
In that time, I also uh decided that I wanted to do a photo essay, a major photo essay on the lives of black people in Britain.
00:39:44.719 --> 00:39:45.039
Right.
00:39:45.440 --> 00:39:56.559
And I got into the community, and I think my experience, really all around the world, is that people look at you and they say this guy's all right.
00:39:56.719 --> 00:40:00.320
This guy's not a racist, this guy's not going to look down on us.
00:40:00.559 --> 00:40:03.360
They there's this now, you know, people just sense it.
00:40:03.440 --> 00:40:16.239
Um I think because in my history, I you know, I might be brighter than or more educated than, but I'm also less educated and less bright than others.
00:40:16.480 --> 00:40:20.719
And and for me, everybody absolutely has the right to to equality.
00:40:20.880 --> 00:40:23.440
I don't care who or what they are, they have that right.
00:40:23.840 --> 00:40:29.519
And I think um that people understood that uh in me.
00:40:31.119 --> 00:40:35.280
At this point, when you started that that project, had you already done the autism clinic?
00:40:35.599 --> 00:40:37.599
Well, yeah, that was I did that in New York.
00:40:38.159 --> 00:40:38.559
Oh, okay.
00:40:38.639 --> 00:40:38.880
That's it.
00:40:39.119 --> 00:40:40.480
That was done in New York BBC.
00:40:41.119 --> 00:40:47.760
That that is a couple of places I've said that was like your first um you know self self-proposed project.
00:40:48.159 --> 00:40:49.039
No, no, no, it wasn't.
00:40:49.119 --> 00:40:50.400
I did it in the BBC.
00:40:50.719 --> 00:40:51.360
Oh, okay.
00:40:51.599 --> 00:40:54.960
Well, what for people that that don't know what that is, w how did you get access?
00:40:55.119 --> 00:40:57.039
Just describe what you were what you were trying to do there.
00:40:57.199 --> 00:40:59.760
Because it's it's a it's a gut-punching series.
00:41:00.159 --> 00:41:00.400
Yeah.
00:41:01.360 --> 00:41:08.320
Well, um at the London School of Film Technique, I got to know uh got to be quite friendly with a couple of people.
00:41:08.480 --> 00:41:21.119
One of them named Gavin McFadion, who eventually became an extraordinarily um brave uh photo um documentarist working for a British BBC program called World in Action.
00:41:21.280 --> 00:41:25.039
At any rate, Gavin was in uh New York.
00:41:25.519 --> 00:41:32.000
My friend Charter, who would uh who had let me stay in his loft for a while, was in New York and several others.
00:41:32.239 --> 00:41:33.920
We formed something called Chicago Films.
00:41:34.159 --> 00:41:36.960
Chicago Films because Gavin was from Chicago.
00:41:37.280 --> 00:41:43.360
Okay and uh Chicago Films was connected one way or another to the BBC.
00:41:43.679 --> 00:41:48.800
Various people knew various people, and uh and so that's how it's done, you know.
00:41:49.440 --> 00:42:04.079
And um, we were we all had gone to film school, and they trusted us with commissions in in the States, and one of those commissions was to film uh that's that uh school teaching autistic children.
00:42:04.480 --> 00:42:10.400
And because they knew I was a photographer, uh they had, you know, several of them could run the camera.
00:42:10.559 --> 00:42:12.559
So I said, well, I'll do the stills, it's fine.
00:42:12.639 --> 00:42:14.880
Because BBC wanted stills as well.
00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:18.400
So I did the stills while the film was being made.
00:42:18.719 --> 00:42:21.199
And uh I mean it was shocking.
00:42:21.280 --> 00:42:22.400
Uh it was absolutely shocking.
00:42:22.559 --> 00:42:26.480
I think anybody who sees those pictures are shocked by the horror of it.
00:42:26.800 --> 00:42:28.800
This is caring for children.
00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:31.199
Um, well, yeah.
00:42:31.440 --> 00:42:31.840
Yeah.
00:42:32.320 --> 00:42:36.320
Um Tell me about the reception to those images when it came out.
00:42:36.559 --> 00:42:37.039
Well, I don't know.
00:42:37.119 --> 00:42:40.960
I have no idea because I was in New York and they were shown in in London.
00:42:41.199 --> 00:42:43.599
So I have no idea what the reception was.
00:42:43.840 --> 00:42:44.559
Um Okay.
00:42:44.719 --> 00:42:51.519
Well, like I said, for me, it it was gut-punchingly sad and and um you know anger-making in in sort of the best way.
00:42:51.599 --> 00:42:54.480
Like we need to change this, even though it was quite some time ago.
00:42:54.800 --> 00:42:55.920
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:42:56.480 --> 00:43:07.119
Um you say in in um a different interview, you s you make the claim that everything an artist makes, consciously or or unconsciously, is a reflection of their historical moment in community.
00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:13.199
Tell me how that informs not only the work you've done, but the work you're gonna do tomorrow.
00:43:13.599 --> 00:43:14.079
Yeah.
00:43:14.320 --> 00:43:22.639
Um well, like I was saying earlier, that you know, we are what what the experiences that we encounter make of us and what we make of them.
00:43:22.960 --> 00:43:30.960
And and I think that um if we say to ourselves, who or what do our pictures represent?
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:32.480
It's a good question.
00:43:32.639 --> 00:43:35.440
Does it represent a class, a class point of view?
00:43:35.599 --> 00:43:43.360
Does it represent uh a religious point of view or a moral point of view or a club's point of view or a team's point of view?
00:43:43.519 --> 00:43:44.559
What what do we represent?
00:43:44.719 --> 00:43:46.159
What's our what is our voice?
00:43:46.320 --> 00:43:47.760
To whom does that voice belong?
00:43:47.920 --> 00:43:51.199
Does it belong only to me or does it belong to a community as well?
00:43:51.519 --> 00:43:54.320
And I I think that that's what we have to consider.
00:43:54.559 --> 00:43:59.360
And uh I got a lot of um hot water in um in London.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:09.760
Because uh when I was first here, um I was taken under the wing of people who ran something called um the Half Moon Gallery.
00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:10.159
Okay.
00:44:10.480 --> 00:44:21.920
And that was a lefty group in London who were bringing feminists into photography and socialist ideas and so on.
00:44:22.079 --> 00:44:27.360
And because in my background and my reading and my history, they were very interested in in me.
00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:33.599
And I became sort of like a counselor because uh to them, because I had done all the reading.
00:44:33.679 --> 00:44:39.679
I mean, I had read Marx and Trotsky and and and Lenin and um Daskapital and so on.
00:44:39.840 --> 00:44:48.239
And so, you know, and I had studied uh modern European history, so I had a fairly good idea about you know what all that led to.
00:44:48.400 --> 00:44:57.039
I mean, so I mean, just to be clear to you and to your what your uh listeners, that did not make me pro-uh Soviet Union.
00:44:57.280 --> 00:45:03.039
If anything, I was contra the Soviet Union because, in fact, they had destroyed all the freedoms of the working people.
00:45:03.280 --> 00:45:10.480
They were they were a horror show, including the gulags and so on, and the oppression of Jewish people, for instance.
00:45:10.719 --> 00:45:15.440
Um and so in no way was I in favor of the Soviet Union.
00:45:15.679 --> 00:45:20.159
In no way did I see their form of communism working, and I wasn't a communist.
00:45:20.239 --> 00:45:28.079
If anything, I was some kind of, you know, like Mandami, a kind of socialist who believes that, you know, everybody needs a fair shake.
00:45:28.320 --> 00:45:36.880
Anyway, uh with with with the half moon, um I I was asked to r uh be interviewed in in great depth.
00:45:37.039 --> 00:45:50.639
And one of the things I said, which really upset people, was that middle class photographers have to stop and take stock of what their views are of working class people, because uh Britain is very class-oriented.
00:45:51.039 --> 00:45:51.280
Right.
00:45:51.599 --> 00:46:02.320
And mostly the c photographers were middle class, and their subject matter was um perhaps quite often working class, because the 70s was a period, late 60s and early 70s.
00:46:02.480 --> 00:46:11.760
Well, 70s was a period of great politicization in Britain, uh, with trade unions and a failing economy and lack of modernity and so on.
00:46:12.159 --> 00:46:15.119
And uh that seemed to really upset people.
00:46:15.360 --> 00:46:23.920
The uh the idea that I suggested that people should stop and take a look at their own attitudes, because I think they were prejudicial and I think they looked down on people.
00:46:24.159 --> 00:46:29.519
And I felt that wasn't exactly what they should be doing as photojournalists.
00:46:29.840 --> 00:46:33.360
So you could see that it would perhaps not go down well.
00:46:35.760 --> 00:46:46.960
Um but you know, I I I really think that uh when when I give a critique of pi people's pictures, I say to them, There is nothing in me that wants to hurt you.
00:46:47.199 --> 00:46:51.199
There is nothing in me that wants to show that I'm superior in any way to you.
00:46:51.440 --> 00:46:52.800
What you do is up to you.
00:46:52.960 --> 00:46:55.039
I have no right to tell you what to do.
00:46:55.599 --> 00:47:00.000
But I can tell you what I do, and I can tell you what I think and what I believe.
00:47:00.159 --> 00:47:04.000
And if you show me your pictures, I will tell you exactly what I think about them.
00:47:04.159 --> 00:47:07.920
Uh trying not to hurt anybody's feelings or put anybody down.
00:47:08.239 --> 00:47:17.039
But I think it's absolutely vital, particularly as teachers, that we we tell people exactly what we understand and tell them why we understand it.
00:47:17.280 --> 00:47:18.960
Let's take just a quick break.
00:47:19.119 --> 00:47:21.840
We hope very much that you're enjoying today's episode.
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:26.960
The very fact that you are listening to this podcast suggests that photography means a lot to you.
00:47:27.039 --> 00:47:33.119
And if that's the case, you might want to have a look at Frames Quarterly Printed Photography Magazine.
00:47:33.199 --> 00:47:36.960
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00:47:48.960 --> 00:47:51.440
And now back to today's conversation.
00:47:51.840 --> 00:47:58.079
Everybody needs to go look at your website um and and the rest of your work because the breadth of your work is tremendous.
00:47:58.239 --> 00:48:06.320
We were talking before we hit the record button, you know, just like on portraits, you've got headshots, you've got environmental, you've got you've you've got you know everything out there.
00:48:06.480 --> 00:48:10.400
But I was taken by um a difference that you called out.
00:48:10.559 --> 00:48:26.239
Um you once said that documentary work is very different from painting or or anything, any other art, because the painter can go witness something, but then retreats to a studio and recreates on canvas whatever she or he saw.
00:48:26.559 --> 00:48:30.960
The photographer, you've got that moment and only that moment.
00:48:31.280 --> 00:48:41.119
Um talk to me a bit about that, you know, that moment, that that being able to see and then capture as a documentary photographer that fleeting moment.
00:48:41.519 --> 00:48:42.639
Well, there are two things there.
00:48:42.719 --> 00:48:46.719
One is being present and the other is not generalizing one at a time.
00:48:47.280 --> 00:48:54.079
In other words, when when we are there, we are documenting what is in front of our cameras.
00:48:54.400 --> 00:48:59.039
And we cannot document anything other than where we are.
00:48:59.360 --> 00:49:01.840
So we have to be there to do the documentation.
00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:12.000
Whereas, for instance, uh a painter could could do some sketches or actually just watch and go back to his or her studio and paint.
00:49:12.159 --> 00:49:19.679
They don't need to have acquired the information in its semifinal form whilst being in front of the event.
00:49:19.920 --> 00:49:20.800
We have to be there.
00:49:20.960 --> 00:49:23.840
Documenters, anybody using the cameras has to be there.
00:49:24.159 --> 00:49:24.639
Right.
00:49:24.880 --> 00:49:26.159
Um, so there's that.
00:49:26.239 --> 00:49:38.559
It's the and and it's it's the thing about understanding your presence and appreciating the meaning of pr of your presence in any place at one at any one time, and how we, with cameras in our hands, actually affect the moment as well.
00:49:38.880 --> 00:49:46.559
And the other thing is this that we all, well, all of us who know about photography know about Katier Bresson in the decisive moment.
00:49:46.800 --> 00:49:46.960
Right.
00:49:47.280 --> 00:49:50.320
And I think that that is incredibly important.
00:49:50.559 --> 00:50:01.679
That we understand that we must release the shutter at the point where the key emotion is expressed by the key of uh composition.
00:50:02.239 --> 00:50:09.519
Obviously, what that means is you can't have the key emotion being shown at the far end of the picture.
00:50:09.760 --> 00:50:12.719
It needs to be near the center of the picture so you can see what's going on.
00:50:12.960 --> 00:50:20.639
So it means it means that the combination of content and form have to be joined together at that moment of releasing the shutter.
00:50:21.039 --> 00:50:32.639
It's something else as well, which is I see people's pictures snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, and I think the motorized camera was the death to a lot of good stills photographers.
00:50:32.880 --> 00:50:43.679
Um and uh in fact, uh a uh a once uh w um one-time friend of mine who was a photojournalist showed me a picture of some Africans dancing.
00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:49.440
And they're they were leaping in the air and then landing on the ground and then leaping again.
00:50:49.679 --> 00:50:55.119
And I said to him, I don't I you know, I don't get this because you don't have them at the key moment.
00:50:55.199 --> 00:50:57.920
At that you don't have them at that peak moment where they stop.
00:50:58.079 --> 00:51:00.079
You know, you go up, you stop, and you go down.
00:51:00.320 --> 00:51:00.639
Right.
00:51:00.800 --> 00:51:04.320
Um and I said, That's because you're using a motorized camera.
00:51:04.400 --> 00:51:10.559
So that you didn't actually release the button at that precise moment, but you just took a bunch of snaps, basically.
00:51:11.119 --> 00:51:23.440
Um I think that you have to be aware that all emotions reach their peak, all conversations reach their peak, all greetings reach their peak, all actions, all violence reaches their peaks.
00:51:24.400 --> 00:51:34.800
So that idea is I think people need to keep with them, which is do not generalize, do not say that one expression is as good as another.
00:51:35.039 --> 00:51:45.599
Uh I mean, for instance, if you're if you're covering an event, like say a meeting, uh it couldn't be one of the most boring things you could do in life, but but it gets quite quite close to it.
00:51:45.760 --> 00:51:50.800
I mean, meetings, you know, people stand up at a podium, they talk to other people, and other people listen.
00:51:51.440 --> 00:51:57.199
There's not much happening unless you say to yourself, Is this person expressive when they speak?
00:51:57.440 --> 00:51:59.360
And what kind of expression do I see them?
00:51:59.599 --> 00:52:01.119
Do they do they use their hands?
00:52:01.280 --> 00:52:03.119
Do they use their mouth to pucker?
00:52:03.519 --> 00:52:07.679
Do they look up at the at the the the sky above?
00:52:08.159 --> 00:52:09.760
And what about the listeners?
00:52:09.920 --> 00:52:10.559
Are they bored?
00:52:10.639 --> 00:52:11.360
Are they interested?
00:52:11.519 --> 00:52:12.159
Are they laughing?
00:52:12.239 --> 00:52:13.360
Are they clinching themselves?
00:52:13.519 --> 00:52:15.679
Are they s shrieking back in horror?
00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:22.960
All of those things, if you show those things, you say, okay, I mean, you learn in filmmaking, wide shot, midshot, close-up.
00:52:23.199 --> 00:52:28.559
Yeah, of course, wide shot established, midshot, this is the subject matter, and close-up as you're emphasizing it.
00:52:28.800 --> 00:52:40.079
Um but um I think that that for each of those moments, you have to wait until you can release the shutter when something is about to happen.
00:52:40.320 --> 00:52:41.280
Well, that's the other thing.
00:52:41.599 --> 00:52:45.440
Something about to happen that is very telling about about emotion.
00:52:45.679 --> 00:52:49.199
And I, you know, and I say to people, you're not shooting the event, you're shooting the emotions.
00:52:49.360 --> 00:52:51.039
That's what you should be concentrating on.
00:52:51.280 --> 00:53:00.880
And that will make a very rich set of pictures, something that is far, far more interesting than the looking at watch, just watching the lecture.
00:53:01.199 --> 00:53:01.679
Right.
00:53:02.000 --> 00:53:07.679
Um this is I'm we're gonna run out of time here in a few minutes.
00:53:07.760 --> 00:53:09.920
There's just two other things I want I want to talk about.
00:53:10.159 --> 00:53:16.960
You have a wonderful and and and complicated answer to a question that you know you you actually pose on your own website.
00:53:17.119 --> 00:53:21.440
Um the question is what is the most important motivator to pick up a camera?
00:53:22.800 --> 00:53:24.239
Sorry, you're asking about the question.
00:53:24.719 --> 00:53:28.159
Well, no, you asked the question on your website, and the answer, of course, is curiosity.
00:53:28.400 --> 00:53:28.559
Yes.
00:53:28.880 --> 00:53:37.760
Um so t tell me what curiosity because I love this phrase on your course trailer, the little video you've got there, and we're going to talk about the course in a second.
00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:42.559
You say curiosity embraces the polite fog of convention.
00:53:42.719 --> 00:53:45.760
Um, and then you go on to talk about two different kinds of curiosity.
00:53:45.920 --> 00:53:51.440
But okay, tell in in your world, how do you understand curiosity as a photographer?
00:53:51.599 --> 00:53:53.119
How do you understand curiosity?
00:53:53.199 --> 00:54:07.920
Aaron Powell The thing is that we we grow up surrounded by opinions that are not ours, that are imposed upon us, and that our family will have certain opinions, our friends, our schools, et cetera, will all have certain opinions about things.
00:54:08.159 --> 00:54:10.880
We will learn certain things and not learn other things.
00:54:11.039 --> 00:54:18.159
And now, unfortunately, I was brought up with um the aim, and probably you were as well, with the aim of teaching us critical thinking.
00:54:18.320 --> 00:54:35.039
But at a certain point, it was decided that that was dangerous, and uh both in the United States and in Great Britain, papers were released, and Nixon actually made a speech, about how critical thinking is dangerous and that we should be taken back to reading, writing, and arithmetic.
00:54:35.199 --> 00:54:44.639
Um and, you know, we're we're surrounded by all that, and uh the only way to break out of it is by actually saying, well, wait a minute, what is this?
00:54:44.960 --> 00:54:46.880
In other words, being curious.
00:54:47.440 --> 00:54:53.519
And and what allows some people to continue to be curious and others not, I don't know.
00:54:53.760 --> 00:55:15.440
But I think it's the difference between the children who have within them, for whatever reason of parentage or experiences, they have we all have creativity as children, but those are the ones who maintain the creativity throughout the educational period and actually come out of it, still being curious and still saying, what is this and what is that, and why is this and why is that.
00:55:15.679 --> 00:55:19.840
And I think I think that's what's important, is maintaining that lightfulness.
00:55:20.159 --> 00:55:24.480
And actually it's the playfulness as well, mental playfulness.
00:55:25.039 --> 00:55:29.119
Um you mentioned two curiosities, both of which can generate fear.
00:55:29.280 --> 00:55:40.320
You say we should be curious again, mostly as as documentary photographers, but as any kind of photographer, really, um, in the outer world, but we should also be intensely curious about the inner world.
00:55:40.559 --> 00:55:47.360
Um when you've got the hassleblad in your hand and you're raising it to your eye, or you know, putting it to your belt, tell me about that.
00:55:47.920 --> 00:55:52.400
How does curiosity manifest itself in something like composition?
00:55:52.960 --> 00:56:00.159
I think, for instance, when when I'm looking, I mean, uh my my wife says my eye is a camera.
00:56:00.320 --> 00:56:08.400
Uh when I'm looking at things, I sometimes will stare at it for for a while to say, there's something grabbing me here.
00:56:08.480 --> 00:56:10.880
I don't know what it is, but something is interesting me here.
00:56:11.119 --> 00:56:16.159
Maybe it's this open space, maybe it's that fountain with the backlight through the sun setting.
00:56:16.320 --> 00:56:19.760
I'm not sure what it is, and the silhouettes, and so on and so on.
00:56:19.920 --> 00:56:26.559
And eventually the camera comes up because I've been curious enough to stand and look at this thing and to say, that is interesting.
00:56:26.800 --> 00:56:31.280
Now, I won't know necessarily why exactly it's interesting, right?
00:56:31.440 --> 00:56:33.760
Because I'm not at that point pursuing a project.
00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:35.920
When I'm pursuing a project, it's totally different.
00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:38.320
I will have done storyboards of imagined pictures.
00:56:39.440 --> 00:56:40.559
Oh you do.
00:56:41.119 --> 00:56:41.519
Absolutely.
00:56:41.599 --> 00:56:46.880
I mean, um, do you remember that picture of mine of the of the mining town with the two children in the road?
00:56:47.119 --> 00:56:47.920
Did you see that?
00:56:48.000 --> 00:56:48.159
Yes.
00:56:48.239 --> 00:56:48.400
Yeah.
00:56:48.480 --> 00:56:49.840
Okay, I drew that picture.
00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:57.920
I mean, it was amazing when I was sitting standing um on a hilltop during sunset and I saw the I saw the picture that I had drawn.
00:56:58.159 --> 00:57:04.000
I mean, uh, but it's it, you know, because of tri film training, you know, you learn you learn to do storyboards.
00:57:04.079 --> 00:57:10.880
And so whenever I did a uh an article or a a story like this ten of stories for my my books, I would storyboard it.
00:57:11.119 --> 00:57:16.800
I would imagine how I could tell that story with a wide-shot, mid-shot close-up.
00:57:17.119 --> 00:57:20.960
I would draw those pictures out and I'd put them together and I'd see what it would look like as a layout.
00:57:21.039 --> 00:57:27.440
And then, of course, I'd go do it looking for those pictures, but also saying to myself, be open to anything.
00:57:27.599 --> 00:57:29.599
Whatever happens, be open to it.
00:57:29.920 --> 00:57:41.440
So, you know, I'm not actually strictly ruling myself by my own imagination, but actually trying to be persuaded to shoot something that's in front of me because it really is inherently visually interesting.
00:57:42.000 --> 00:57:44.320
Do you still storyboard when you go out these days?
00:57:44.639 --> 00:58:01.920
Well, no, because uh I'm I'm these days, uh, unless I'm actually doing a uh a job which I'm not anymore in terms of stills, I'm doing it, I'm shooting three sets of images at the moment, which I will turn into something.
00:58:02.159 --> 00:58:02.400
Okay.
00:58:02.880 --> 00:58:04.639
And it's all about alienation.
00:58:04.800 --> 00:58:12.880
Uh I'm fascinated by the fact that people sit next to each other in close quarters uh with phones in their hands and never say hello to the person next to them.
00:58:12.960 --> 00:58:13.280
Yeah.
00:58:13.519 --> 00:58:19.440
Um and it and just looking at people's faces and how disconcerted people are and unhappy people are.
00:58:19.599 --> 00:58:25.599
And part of that is because we have been taught to be we have been atomized by our neoliberal society.
00:58:25.920 --> 00:58:30.079
And I and I think that the phones are a perfect um machine to do that.
00:58:30.239 --> 00:58:35.280
Yes, they're convenient, yes, they help in safety and so on, but I think they also atomize us.
00:58:35.440 --> 00:58:37.199
They keep us one from the other.
00:58:37.440 --> 00:58:38.800
So I'm I'm doing that.
00:58:38.880 --> 00:58:43.280
I'm I'm doing pictures on trains and metros and so on.
00:58:43.840 --> 00:58:46.239
And my wife keeps saying, don't do it now.
00:58:46.320 --> 00:58:47.760
You're gonna be caught.
00:58:49.199 --> 00:58:50.880
And I yeah.
00:58:51.519 --> 00:58:53.360
You know, I I I have said this before.
00:58:53.760 --> 00:58:59.440
There are two things in a photographer's life that we need to pay uh or give give awards to other people for.
00:58:59.599 --> 00:59:04.880
Um the first is that it's it's a blessing that we've all not been arrested for trespassing.
00:59:05.119 --> 00:59:08.400
Um being in places we shouldn't be.
00:59:08.639 --> 00:59:19.519
But if you are with a photographer and you are not a photographer yourself, God bless you, uh, the patience required of our friends and and our spouses is gargantuan.
00:59:19.840 --> 00:59:20.159
Absolutely.
00:59:20.320 --> 00:59:25.119
My wife deserves very large awards, and I can't tell you she's so tolerant.
00:59:26.320 --> 00:59:26.800
Oh, man.
00:59:27.199 --> 00:59:29.440
But no, she also sees it's made of life for us.
00:59:29.840 --> 00:59:42.639
Briefly, before we get to the to the courses that you're offering, to go back to curiosity, tell me about the curiosity of the inner world, of the of curiosity about yourself as artist while you are doing documentary work.
00:59:42.960 --> 00:59:47.760
I mean, this goes back to your suggestion to the middle class to look at the working class.
00:59:47.920 --> 00:59:52.719
But are you actively doing a kind of self-analysis when you're out in the field?
00:59:53.119 --> 00:59:53.440
Okay.
00:59:53.760 --> 00:59:57.840
Um yes or no?
00:59:58.880 --> 01:00:01.360
Well, I I would say so and so.
01:00:01.679 --> 01:00:08.480
It's all kind of because you know you're preoccupied with what you're doing, but you're also, you know, you're you're paying attention to your storytelling.
01:00:08.639 --> 01:00:20.559
Um I think you have to be incredibly open and aware and and tender with people and things, and understanding that the surface of reality is not the same as the inner reality of things.
01:00:20.800 --> 01:00:30.239
And that and getting back to your question of portraiture, uh, I would I would argue that uh what I try to do is photograph the inside of people, not the outside.
01:00:30.480 --> 01:00:30.719
Right.
01:00:30.880 --> 01:00:34.159
And I think that comes from the mood that you set with people.
01:00:34.320 --> 01:00:38.559
And they realize you're you're really serious, you're really interested in me.
01:00:38.719 --> 01:00:47.440
And I could tell you with all the documentaries I've done and all the interviews I've done with people, what's interesting is that that you could throw the first ten minutes away.
01:00:47.679 --> 01:00:55.119
Because basically, if people don't know you and you're interviewing them, what happens is for the first ten minutes, they're guarded.
01:00:55.360 --> 01:01:06.079
But but instead of me just using my shopping um list uh of questions, what happens is I listen to what they're saying and I asked into their questions.
01:01:06.320 --> 01:01:09.440
And what I mean is that I don't just go on to the next question.
01:01:09.519 --> 01:01:11.519
I listen to what they say and I respond to it.
01:01:11.679 --> 01:01:14.960
And it creates a dialogue rather than simply an interview.
01:01:15.199 --> 01:01:27.039
And I think that at some point, people say, actually, on some subconscious level, they say, this guy's not interested in me as a character or a caricature.
01:01:27.199 --> 01:01:29.679
He's actually interested in me as a human being.
01:01:29.920 --> 01:01:33.519
And when that happens, their facial expressions change.
01:01:33.599 --> 01:01:35.679
And you see the differences in their eyes.
01:01:35.840 --> 01:01:39.519
And and if it's not a relaxation that occurs, it's a trust.
01:01:40.960 --> 01:01:41.760
I like putting it that way.
01:01:41.840 --> 01:01:43.840
Yeah, because you can see the muscles in their face change.
01:01:44.079 --> 01:01:44.559
Absolutely.
01:01:44.800 --> 01:01:45.440
Absolutely.
01:01:45.599 --> 01:01:46.719
And and it's very real.
01:01:46.800 --> 01:01:54.480
And if you're interviewing rather than just only just photographing, you can actually see the thoughts going on within their eyes.
01:01:54.559 --> 01:01:56.159
It's an amazing process.
01:01:56.320 --> 01:01:57.199
And people love it.
01:01:57.360 --> 01:02:00.079
People, people really like being interviewed by me.
01:02:00.559 --> 01:02:00.880
Okay.
01:02:01.119 --> 01:02:05.760
You have a course on intentional photography, photography making meaning.
01:02:05.920 --> 01:02:09.199
And it's it this is unlike other photography courses out there.
01:02:09.360 --> 01:02:20.159
So, you know, for the hundreds of millions of people that are now sitting there uh as potential audience, tell me first, I mean, tell me about the the course that it is, because it's really fantastic.
01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:24.400
But what you what are you trying to do that's different from every other course that's out there?
01:02:24.800 --> 01:02:24.960
Okay.
01:02:25.119 --> 01:02:32.639
Well, uh the first thing is that the course would be composed of 12 films that've come out at uh over four batches across how many?
01:02:32.719 --> 01:02:34.239
I don't know, maybe 18 months or so.
01:02:34.400 --> 01:02:37.199
The first three have just come out, first three films.
01:02:37.360 --> 01:02:47.840
And along with that, we've made a manual because the films are really an evocation of beauty and of loving and of caring about visual stuff and so on.
01:02:48.159 --> 01:02:56.480
But I thought it was necessary for people to be able to stop and understand certain technical questions and how was something done and why was it done.
01:02:56.639 --> 01:03:02.159
And so we made a manual out of out of the uh using the uh script as the basic text.
01:03:02.480 --> 01:03:07.360
But it's it's enlarged, engrossed with more pictures and and other thoughts.
01:03:07.599 --> 01:03:13.679
Because some things you just can't talk about in a film that's supposed supposed to be an evocation.
01:03:13.840 --> 01:03:18.000
You know, you can't talk about lens coatings, it's just not that interesting.
01:03:18.320 --> 01:03:42.320
Um so um yeah, the films are an evocation, and it's to m hope to bring people to the point where at what happens is that they begin to understand that there is a mission for them, that there is something that they can do which is meaningful to them and meaningful to those whom they love and care for, um, and meaningful to the general society.
01:03:42.719 --> 01:03:55.679
And in order to get to that point, they have to go through many different things about learning about curiosity, beginning to understand uh the decisive moment um and uh understanding pre-visualization.
01:03:55.840 --> 01:04:03.840
And I take people through all these things so that and and show them um what I've learned from other photographers and from painting.
01:04:04.000 --> 01:04:18.880
I mean, there's a very key moment in history when the glassy-eyed images of uh the Byzantine painting gave way to Leonardo and the most beautiful images of drawings of faces.
01:04:19.119 --> 01:04:21.280
I mean, they're really stunningly beautiful.
01:04:21.519 --> 01:04:31.679
And the difference is that in the Byzantine images, what you're seeing is simply a vacant face, supposedly with God reflecting in it.
01:04:32.000 --> 01:04:32.159
Right.
01:04:32.719 --> 01:04:39.679
What you're seeing with Leonardo is a human being with internal uh understanding of life, with emotions, etc.
01:04:40.079 --> 01:04:50.960
And that is so significant, not only in terms of the development of the notion of individualism in Western history, but also in terms of the way in which pictures are made.
01:04:51.199 --> 01:04:54.400
And that's so I I like to take people through those things.
01:04:54.639 --> 01:04:59.519
It's not a kind of strict art um history lesson.
01:04:59.760 --> 01:05:11.360
It's actually taking people through to beautiful images and for me to explain to people how those images touched me and what they did for me and how they helped me to develop as a photographer.
01:05:11.920 --> 01:05:23.199
You know, I I think this course you've got here is is ought to be required for every photographer at every level, because you you're getting at the the heart and soul um of what in the world we're doing.
01:05:23.360 --> 01:05:33.840
And you know, it's very much like the book, Transiate Light Fleeting Time, where you've got the image, but then you've got the essay sitting right next to it, which puts it in a kind of philosophic or or practical context.
01:05:34.159 --> 01:05:37.920
It it it is at every level really meaningful work.
01:05:38.079 --> 01:05:41.039
But but now I I have the impossible question for you.
01:05:41.360 --> 01:05:41.840
You ready?
01:05:42.079 --> 01:05:42.320
Yes.
01:05:43.679 --> 01:05:52.000
In one of the videos that I watched, Transient Light Fleeting Time, you the subtitle was 40 Thoughts about photography, and the book says 50.
01:05:52.239 --> 01:05:52.880
Oh, really?
01:05:53.039 --> 01:05:55.199
Well, that's where where did the last 10 come from?
01:05:55.599 --> 01:05:57.280
That's well no, the last 10 were always there.
01:05:57.360 --> 01:06:00.960
I'm sure there's a something, there's a there's a typo or something.
01:06:01.679 --> 01:06:03.920
It's it's it's handwritten on a piece of paper.
01:06:04.000 --> 01:06:06.079
And I thought, wait a minute, that's different.
01:06:06.400 --> 01:06:09.920
Um Robert, this is fantastic work.
01:06:10.000 --> 01:06:11.199
I like, you know, I'm a fan.
01:06:11.280 --> 01:06:20.719
I am as I said at the beginning, I am humbled when I look at your resume, but also really, really proud to say, you know, we share a passion.
01:06:20.960 --> 01:06:26.639
I hope everybody goes and looks at your work and then they look at this course because it is important for all of us.
01:06:26.880 --> 01:06:27.360
Thank you very much.
01:06:27.679 --> 01:06:27.920
Thank you.
01:06:28.000 --> 01:06:43.920
Uh, can I say I'd just like to say one other thing, which is I think also Tomas deserves real credit for what he's doing with his website, with uh frames, because uh he shows such tenderness and such love towards just about everybody he touches.
01:06:44.000 --> 01:06:48.400
And I think it's a really wonderful project that he's he's he's done.
01:06:48.800 --> 01:06:50.320
I I couldn't agree more.
01:06:50.480 --> 01:06:51.039
Thank you again.
01:06:51.280 --> 01:06:52.480
Lovely, thank you.
01:06:53.039 --> 01:06:53.760
Frames.
01:06:54.159 --> 01:06:57.519
Because excellent photography belongs on paper.
01:06:57.679 --> 01:07:01.519
Visit us at www.readframes.com.
01:07:01.679 --> 01:07:04.000
That's readframes.com.