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In this episode I talk with Rio Helmi, an Indonesian photographer and writer. Rio has captured Asia's diverse landscapes and cultures since 1978. His work has featured in major publications like Time and Vogue, and he has exhibited globally in cities such as Bali, Madrid, and San Francisco. Based in Bali for over 4 decades, Rio has spent years documenting the interaction between indigenous peoples and their environment. He has published several photographic books, including "Memories of the Sacred" and "Popo Danes – Bali Inspired," and has made many contributions to platforms such the Huffington Post.
In my conversation with him we explored his rich and diverse journey in photography, his unique teaching philosophy, and how his Buddhist practice influences his art. Rio shares compelling stories from his extensive travels, offering deep insights into the art of mindful photography and the importance of connecting with one's subjects.
What you'll take away from this episode:
Find Rio's work on his website: https://riohelmi.com/
__________________________________________________________
Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can also watch this episode on my YouTube channel (link below) where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as my social media, so make sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok or check out my website for my complete portfolio of work.
yoreh.
www.yoreh.co
discount code: moodpdcst.23
My FREE eBook:
www.form.jotform.com/240303428580046
My FREE Lighting Tutorial:
www.mattjacobphotography.com/free-tutorial-sign-up
YouTube:
www.youtube.com/@mattyj_ay
Website:
www.mattjacobphotography.com
Socials:
IG @mattyj_ay | X @mattyj_ay | YouTube @mattyj_ay | TikTok @mattyj_ay
Say hello via text message and join in the conversation!
In this episode I talk with Rio Helmi, an Indonesian photographer and writer. Rio has captured Asia's diverse landscapes and cultures since 1978. His work has featured in major publications like Time and Vogue, and he has exhibited globally in cities such as Bali, Madrid, and San Francisco. Based in Bali for over 4 decades, Rio has spent years documenting the interaction between indigenous peoples and their environment. He has published several photographic books, including "Memories of the Sacred" and "Popo Danes – Bali Inspired," and has made many contributions to platforms such the Huffington Post.
In my conversation with him we explored his rich and diverse journey in photography, his unique teaching philosophy, and how his Buddhist practice influences his art. Rio shares compelling stories from his extensive travels, offering deep insights into the art of mindful photography and the importance of connecting with one's subjects.
What you'll take away from this episode:
Find Rio's work on his website: https://riohelmi.com/
__________________________________________________________
Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can also watch this episode on my YouTube channel (link below) where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as my social media, so make sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok or check out my website for my complete portfolio of work.
yoreh.
www.yoreh.co
discount code: moodpdcst.23
My FREE eBook:
www.form.jotform.com/240303428580046
My FREE Lighting Tutorial:
www.mattjacobphotography.com/free-tutorial-sign-up
YouTube:
www.youtube.com/@mattyj_ay
Website:
www.mattjacobphotography.com
Socials:
IG @mattyj_ay | X @mattyj_ay | YouTube @mattyj_ay | TikTok @mattyj_ay
I wiped all the pictures. I swore I would never go digital. There was a period when I would liken a photographer to a samurai. You have to understand what you saw. You have to understand what attracted your attention.
Matt:Anyone can pick up a camera and take photos, but can you make real images?
Rio:You have a standard, and sometimes those standards are realistic. Sometimes they're your demons.
Matt:How do you see photography evolving or devolving?
Rio:Yeah, it's probably one of the most destructive things that's happened in terms of artistic creativity. We're just like pumping out the stuff.
Matt:How has Buddhism helped you be better?
Rio:You know, nothing really lasts or changes. We'll always be interconnected, and that's important.
Matt:How do you see us moving forward in terms of the spirit of photography? Our world is over why I love rio's presence so calm, collected, yeah not famous for it.
Rio:We're gonna get into that. Not famous for being.
Matt:I've obviously done a little bit of as much research as I can do on someone online, right? So I'm keen to explore a little bit about you, initially as a person and then as an artist, as a writer, as a photographer, as a teacher, um, and in order to do that, I wanted to touch first upon your photography, because this is photography, firstography, first podcast. We'll get into the other art forms. When I look at your photography and followed you for a while, didn't really have the guts to reach out, but I think we have a mutual friend in Michael. He put me in touch and I wanted to kind of try and draw a line underneath your photography in terms of the humanity and the documentary style that you portray in your images, specifically storytelling. So on that note, I wanted to ask you how photography links us as people and how it means to the discovery of self and the awareness of one another.
Rio:Well, if we have three or four days, we could do that we have as long as you have.
Rio:Well, I mean, you know, when I teach, when I do the masterclasses, usually the first day we hardly even shoot, you know. I mean I want people to sort of think about what they are, what they're doing. And uh, actually I struck on this the first time I started. I I discovered this. It was just by chance. I think it was early 80s.
Rio:Uh, the duisander university in dempasar just opened a uh, what do you call it? Communications faculty, and they really didn't have any idea what they were doing, which was to my advantage. But the dean who I knew came to see me and he said you've got to do this, You've got to be a lecturer. And I said look, I didn't even go to university, I dropped out. I didn't learn photography formally, I don't even know how to put a curriculum together. He says I don't, I didn't learn photography formally, I don't even know how to put a curriculum together. He says I don't care. He says I want somebody who's actually got experience, who's worked as a photographer, and so forth. So I said okay, you know, this is your, this is your dime, right. So it wasn't a lot of dimes, but it was okay.
Rio:It was. It was, it was a, it was a nice gig for me, and so I walked in the first day. I walked in and there were all these students, you know, and typical Indonesian students I guess maybe they're not like that anymore in the West, but they're all sitting there, they all had their notebooks out and their pencils and it was like you know, ready, set, go, you know. And I said, just put those pencils away. And uh, and they're like, oh okay.
Rio:I said now I want everybody to close your eyes, just close your eyes. This is a really interesting exercise. Close your eyes. I don't know how I got it, but I just had this idea. Close your eyes and I want you to imagine your world without photographs anywhere. No photographs of your parents, no photographs of your brothers and sisters, no photographs of, you know, president Biden. It's just when you think about it.
Rio:We are so impacted by photographic imagery. You know, our world, compared to 200 years ago, is such a totally different world as a human being interacting with community, interacting with other human beings, and we didn't really know how to interact with people from other cultures and other countries and so forth. We still don't, but it's less of an impact and I want you to sit there and just think about it. You know, there's no advertisement. There might be newspapers, but it's print and it's just text, you know, and they were like, okay, it's getting weird, just keep thinking about it. And after about 10 minutes it says okay, now reverse it and think about where all those images are and how your quote-unquote image or how your understanding of the world is so locked into all these images which have been impacting you your whole life. Long Advertisements, media, I don't know, tiktok, you know, TikTok, you know, and all that stuff and it's bombarding you.
Rio:So the question is okay, you understand that Now you have a little glimpse of that. What about what you're doing? What are you contributing to this? Are you going to just do more garbage, or are you going to think about what you're doing? What are you contributing to this? Are you going to just do more garbage, or are you going to think about what you're doing? And so that's how I started the course.
Rio:They kind of they liked it and I had 20 students, you know, and we went through this whole thing and we did. We did pinhole before long before anybody in Bali had known about pinhole. It was mad stuff. We were just goofing around doing all this stuff. We did some history and talked about what the impact was of people like Daguerre and people like Nipcha and people like Cartier-Bresson and all these people. They got a sense of the history. If you want to write these names out, write them down, whatever, I don't care.
Rio:They had a kind of unorthodox introduction or an academic introduction. I didn't really want to do it. I wanted them to understand what photography was about, and this is in answer to your question as well. That's how I feel about photography. I think photography is a very powerful visual sense. It's one of the most powerful senses we have. Visual visual sense is one of the most powerful senses we have. I and so at the end of that semester we had the exams and I walked to the room and there were 60 students and I'm like look at us. Who the fuck are you?
Rio:you know, because this is before denisia imposed a minimum amount of you know lectures that you had to attend I think, now it's like 80 or 90, but before there was no, there was no, just voluntary.
Rio:You just, yeah, you came. If you came, you know I'm looking I was like why are you sitting next to the people who came to all my lectures like? And they're like, you know, like or you can cheat if you want, but it's, there are no questions, it's all essay and they're just looking at me, like you know I'm going to die. So I flunked. That was my first exam that I gave and I flunked two-thirds of the class.
Matt:Wow why.
Rio:And I actually some of the essays were okay, but some of them I didn't care. It was just the fact that they had attended the lectures. They had actually, you know, put something down. They had, you know, put something together Because the mind was working. And the others, you know, they were just like, kind of like. And so I had a string of these students, these 40 students, coming to my house, you know, for the next two weeks, like one bought a crate of Coca-Cola and I said I don't drink Coca-Cola. And another brought a carton of cigarettes, and this is well, you know, I can give you a chance to do the test again if you want, but I don't think you're going to pass, you know. So the next semester somebody ripped off one of my, my rain jackets off my bike. Really, yeah, it might've been, it might have been one of them, but I don't know. So, yeah, it's.
Rio:You know, photography for me has I'm just going to ramble, okay Photography for me has, it's always had a pretty deep impact and I really believe, you know, as a documentary photographer especially, I think your experiences as a child and in your youth have a huge impact on what you do later. They're related. I tell you a very interesting, strange story. But in 65, my father, who was in the government, my father was in diplomatic service. Anyway, we were back in Jakarta at that time and there was something stirring and he decided that he should send us all back to Europe because he had been posted in Switzerland. And I was born in Switzerland. My godfather was a German who lived in Switzerland, fellow ambassador. So my godfather said was a German who lived in Switzerland, fellow ambassador. So my godfather said, just send them over and I'll look after them and figure it out and we'll get them to boarding schools and all that stuff. He was Catholic and we all live in Catholic boarding schools Anyway.
Rio:so anyway, how weird is it. But we arrived there in 65, and then two months later, all the stuff that happened in 65, the counter-coup against so-called communist coup, and so we had no news for about five months of my parents. So I was like 11. And it was like, oh, now we're orphans. You know, it was weird. And that Christmas we went to stay with my godfather and he had two daughters and a son. The son wasn't there, but the two daughters, one was a zoologist and one was a photographer, so Brigitte takes one day's.
Rio:I mean it's like, come on, come to this doctor. And I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah, 11 years old, that's weird. Okay, red lights, you know, whatever. And she said, okay, you just stand there and see this tray. Okay, when I tell you, you know, you shake it, okay. So she exposes this sheet of paper. I'm like, okay, that's cool, whatever it is, slips it into the tray and I start swirling it right Backs and forth. Looks like it starts coming out. And she's like, well, this is cool, you know, there's like magic coming out. And there it was. There was this black and white image of this people and I said, who are these people? They look like American Indians. And she says, oh no, they're Tibetans. And I'm like what are Tibetans? This is like 1965, right? What are Tibetan? And it was only later I found out that Switzerland was the first place to take Tibetan refugees, first place in Europe to take Tibetan refugees, really yeah, but Switzerland was the first place to take Tibetan refugees, first place in Europe to take.
Rio:Tibetan refugees, really, yeah. So I got really fascinated by photography. I didn't get into it seriously yet, but I was fascinated by it. So years later I started getting into it in a more serious way and stuff came back. And then a few years later I connected with a Tibetan. You know the Tibetan Buddhist, you know. So you know he's always the Dalai Lama as my teacher and, uh, when I was doing webcast I do webcast translating now I translate for him live. So there's this whole history of like 40 years of this. You know interaction that started actually in 1965. And these things, you know, they stay with you and you reconnect with these things.
Rio:And also Indonesia, you know, after about six years in Europe which I was very excited by, I'm going to be honest when I left I thought, oh cool, I'm going to Europe. You know this is going to be. You know going to get blue, know this is going to be. You know gonna get blue jeans and coca-cola. You know like, hey, come on jacarta, 1960s. You know it was really.
Rio:And after six years there and I graduated from high school, suddenly it was over. It's like I don't want to be here anymore. This place is for me. There was no connection anymore. It was like it was dead.
Rio:And I ended up, I left and I went, came back here to Indonesia and I had one place I wanted to go to which I had childhood memories of, which was Bali. So I'd come here in 1963 with my dad and just stayed with me. It was so magical, it was an amazing place. My dad was into doing Super 8 film I mean Super 8 film and he had a couple of cameras. So my childhood experience was looking at all his photographs from because he left from.
Rio:He left Indonesia first in the 30s to go to study, because there was a whole movement of Indonesians, you know, young Indonesians, who went over to the Middle East to study at Al-Azhar, or they ended up in Lebanon and, long story short, he was ended up doing his PhD in Istanbul, which is where he met my mother. So he had all these pictures, all his travels. Somehow he'd gotten into photography when he went to the Middle East. But they were cool. I mean, you looked at these pictures and they were just so evocative and I really realized how evocative photography can be and how you can touch people. It's like I call it the magic window. You take people through the window and you don't even have to really work too hard to create stuff. Sometimes the stuff around you is just there. So you know, when you ask me. That's a very long answer to your question. Love it.
Matt:Keep talking, please. I love hearing your story. There's wonderfully diverse and and culturally rich history and story that you have certainly moving into photography, but also your, your adult years as well.
Rio:Well, you know, I mean I just came back last week from my father's village in Lampung and that was very, it really touched me in a big way. But you know, I sat there and I looked at it and I thought, you know, here's this guy, 1930s, the son of the head of the Klan, you know, but my grandfather was a really nice guy, but he was tough.
Rio:Everybody worked, you know, everybody worked the fields, everybody. And then they would fill up the ox carts with all the produce. Take it three days to Tanjung Karang from, from where we were, you know, like sitting on an ox cart for three days with the stuff. You know hard work, you know, and you imagine this guy then, you know, insisting on going to school, and my grandfather had a lot of vision. He, yeah, okay, I'll pay for your school. You go to chaparta, you know, because you couldn't go to high school and I loved, and he went there. And then he said, you know, I'll help you a little bit, but you got to work your own way. And so he went then across to cairo and then up and and, uh, so he, you know that was his, you know that was his philosophy, you know, like you had to do your own stuff. And so he ended up when he married my mother, who was Turkish.
Rio:They came back during the revolution, because the first vice president well, there's an old thing in Indonesia between the Javanese and the Sumatrans, you know, because the Javanese is such a huge part of the population but Hatta was from West Sumatra and my father was from Sumatra and my father had his PhD in economics and Hata wanted somebody to work with. Anyways, I don't know if that's the only reason, because Hata was a wonderful man, he was really one of the most honest people in the world, unbelievable guy. But he worked with my dad, he got my dad to come, so he brought my dad back down and they flew the blockade, the Dutch blockade, with this American pilot, bob Allen. You can Google him if you want. They flew the blockade, landed in West Sumatra. My uncle was there, he was already in the army, and then they made their way down to the village. So just culturally diverse, okay. So they arrive in the village. So I'm just culturally diverse looking.
Rio:So they arrive in the village, you know, and there was a road but not much, and, uh, so my dad rocks up with my mom and she's this white woman and every she's turkish yeah, every single woman in that village, except for my grandmother and my dad's sister, hated her because she had made off with the most eligible man in the village and it was like she's like who is this person? She can't even speak, you know. So, yeah, it was a pretty wild story and so then they went, then they so so I'm just telling you the story as a background of my you know, my background is kind of mixed and then they went to Jogja to be with the first government set up. It was the first capital of Indonesia. So my older sister was born in house, under house arrest, actually Dutch, you know. So somehow, my father, he always drummed into me you know, indonesia, it's your country. You know, he never said right or wrong, he hated the wrong stuff, but he just said it's your country.
Rio:So I always had that thing, you know, I'm just so. I always had that thing. You know, I'm not super nationalistic, but it's my home and, uh, I don't know, yeah, I do have a strong feeling for it, more than I would for anywhere else. And so my photography, like my photography although I photographed in other places, obviously and stuff but I am really interested in showing to see Bali, because I think that a lot of people come here, even people who have been here for maybe 10 years or five years they really have no idea. They have no, they don't touch it, they don't touch the ground. And once you speak a language, once you speak a language, you enter a completely different level. And if you speak a local language, then you get into a totally different space. And I keep reminding my wife that Where's your wife from? She's Ukrainian. Okay, yeah, we'll just mix it all up.
Matt:Well, you speak five languages, is that correct?
Rio:How many languages Fluidly? Maybe only four, only four Well fluidly English, indonesian, balinese, french, german, so-so, tibetan? Very little, because I translate from English, not from Tibet.
Matt:Has the ability to speak fluent languages. I mean, I think I know the answer to the question, but I'm going to ask you to elaborate on it. Has that allowed you to become a better photographer and if so, why?
Rio:I've never really looked at it that way.
Rio:So why? I've never really looked at it that way. I think it certainly allows you to connect with people, but then I've been in places where you know. But the thing about languages is that every language has its own psychology, as you know. So when you speak a language reasonably well, you understand a little bit more about the psychology of the people you're speaking to, and that's helpful. For example, you know. Just look at syntax, for example. You know German syntax, english syntax, indonesian syntax, grammar. It's all very different than you have you syntax grammar. It's all very different. Then you have you know I don't speak Japanese, but you know Japanese syntax is similar to Tibetan. I mean, like in Tibetan you'll have a sentence and the verb will come. You don't actually know what's happening until the end. You know not delete, I'm going to go to delhi. You know it's the verb I'm going to, you know. So it tells you something about how people think, and maybe, maybe that's helpful with photography. I don't know, maybe it would make sense.
Matt:Yeah, it would make sense. Um, it'd be interesting to explore that, certainly from someone who's who's done places. I mean, when I go and do photography, nearly all the time, unless I'm in an English speaking country, which generally I'm not from doing photography then I have that barrier and I try, you know, with learning Indonesian as much as we can. But I wish, I think, I believe that would make me a much better photographer, or at least, should I say, make the process a little bit more easy. You know, to be able to connect with people, certainly as a portrait artist or documentary photographer, people in the frame, nearly all the time, having to connect with other humans I feel that that is an important skill that maybe gets overlooked sometimes, and it's an artist, because that's all we're doing with art anyway is connecting with other people, whether they're in front of us as subjects or whether they are behind another screen or behind another door, looking at images some other way, or reading a book or something we're trying to connect.
Matt:Aren't we that's all? Reading a book or something we're trying to connect, aren't we? That's all we're trying to do. We're trying to express and connect, and language must be another way that we can enhance that connected but I could well.
Rio:You know, imagery is kind of like language too, because you know it has some. You know all imagery. I mean you talk about semiotics and semiotics are not the same for different cultures. You know, people have different reactions to certain symbols. But I mean, if you could imagine a scenario when are you from England? You know where? Southampton, okay. So you're in Southampton, say it's like 1980. I don't know. Well, you know. And so suddenly a bunch of Japanese turn up who don't speak any English oh, the capucho. And you're like what this is weird. You know what this is strange. That's the context. But if the person speaks a little bit of english, tries to talk to you, it's possible you might appreciate that yeah and doesn't get the cap.
Matt:Put the camera in your face straight away.
Rio:Spend some time to try and yeah, yeah yeah, well, I mean there's, there's, there, there's language that isn't spoken to, that's, there's a whole kind of language. But in any case, language, I think, uh, obviously, I mean it's what we communicate with, but but uh, you know. It's also when you speak a language, how you speak a language also.
Rio:Yeah, because every like indonesian you know jakarta, east java, west, java, bali, it's all different, like, like you know, I hope I'm not going to get strung up for this, but Bali probably has some of the worst grammar in Indonesian.
Matt:Really.
Rio:Yeah, I mean, it's just they speak Indonesian like they're speaking Balinese.
Matt:Okay.
Rio:Not all. I mean that's unfair. Denpasar, obviously they're much more you know. But you go into villages, jakarta people you know slang is so you know it's so fast moving. I kind of keep up with you know, and there was one guy that would talk to people who were in the villages. If they use slang, nobody will understand Generational. So there's all that stuff.
Matt:Yeah.
Rio:But so there has to come a point, I think, where the language that you're speaking it not just words, it's body language, it's how strongly your intentions are conveyed.
Matt:So you need to have some sort of honesty speaking of language, what about the language with yourself and with? I see the way you carry yourself and through photography and you haven't been on any of your courses or masterclasses, but I've seen clips and read bits about you in talking about self-awareness, knowing yourself and your own personality, your own characteristics, your own purpose, before you even think about photography. Can you explain that a little bit more and why it's important?
Rio:There was a period, probably a much more aggressive period in my life, when I would liken a photographer to a samurai. You know you don't pull your katana out, just oh, wave it around. You know you pull it out when you need it and you get it done. You don't pull your katana out, just oh, wave it around. You know you pull it out when you need it and you get it done. You put it away because you're you're operating from a center. You know it's not the camera that takes the picture.
Matt:It's you, it's the person.
Rio:Yeah, yeah, it's quite obvious and you can see that with people using, you know pinhole. You can see it with people using, you know a pinhole. You can see it with people you know asking John Steinmeier. He did this book with a plastic camera. You know it's about vision and that vision comes from where and what is your particular vision? I mean, even if you look at you know what's his name the British, there goes the memory. The British photo documentarian what goes the memory? The British, uh, photo documentarian there, um, what's his name? Does very, very straight out seemingly oh God, what is his name? I can't believe. I always quote him and show him on my. But even if you're doing this very kind of supposedly straight style, you know, whatever is their photography documentary, you're still, you know you're photographing what you're interested in.
Rio:You're still choosing.
Matt:So, editing.
Rio:Yeah, editing is part of choosing is part of editing. So it is necessary sometimes to think about why am I doing this, what is it for? And you're very keen to ask about the communication aspect of photography You're very keen to know about. Why am I doing this, what is it for? And you're very keen to ask about the communication aspect of photography You're very keen to know about. You know how? This is exactly what. That's why. This is why we have to. You know, think a little bit, take stock. You know, because people come in and they say, oh, you know, I want to do. I learned photography and I see these guys doing these tours.
Rio:I will not mention names because that's, that's a no, no, I know, but you know, and they do these tours and I actually did a masterclass um with, I don't know, I gotta be careful give it away but somebody who had done one of these tours, right, and I, I generally asked to see a portfolio before and I thought the portfolio were quite decent. Travel photography portfolios, you know, they were good. Then came the time when we all met and we sat down and I said, okay, well, you know, what subject do you want to do? So this person, you know, I ask, ask people, what do you want to photograph? Because I don't. You know, I can assign you something, that's possible too, but I'd like to know if you have something you want to photograph, because I want to see your passion come out and play. You know, um, because people work harder when they, you know, into something, and so I don't really know. Okay, I want to do this subject, that's okay, you know. So we would discuss it. And I said, you know, like with documentary photography, anybody who does documentary photography knows that.
Rio:You know, 50 of the battle is access. You know, how do you get in? This relates to your question about language. How do you get in there? How do you, how do you set it up? How do you open the doors? How do you allow yourself to immerse in there? How do you not impose all that stuff? So she went off and she obviously you know she had set up contacts and all that kind of stuff, she was smart, but she was lost. She came back the first day with. It was excreble, it just wasn't happening. It was just wasn't happening, you know, and said like I'm looking at your portfolio here and I knew exactly what happened. You know, get the dancer there. Okay, come here, put that lens on. Okay, now take that picture. You don't really learn that way. So you looked at the photos. So that was, and it happens, it does happen, not all the time, but it does happen, you know, somewhat frequently.
Matt:Why is that? Do people want? I mean, in my experience, a lot of beginner photographers who and I remember being a beginner, right, and we all do you kind of want to get from zero to one in the quickest time possible. It's the learning process that's arduous, that's frustrating, you're making mistakes. It's just I can't do this, I can't do this, what am I missing? What am I missing? And people want that quick fix because in most other facets of their life they can get that quick fix. I want to watch a movie, turn Netflix on, I want a meal order Go-Jek or Uber, eber, eats, or I want a taxi order uber. I want this. Well, you know, we live in that kind of life of abundance. With photography, it's it. You can pick up, anyone can pick up a camera and take photos, but can you make real images? Phones, yeah, I mean you. I have nothing against phones, it's another it's just a different sensor.
Matt:That's all we're talking about, but the intent behind that is everything. That mindful photography process, how you enter the world of your own vision, is something that takes time and experience.
Rio:The word was mindfulness. You have to I always tell people you have to know, you have to understand what you saw, you have to understand what attracted your attention, you have to understand the dimension of it. I can look at this thing here. I can look at all black, black, black. This is dramatic, this is the fact. How am I going to do that?
Rio:But if you don't have that first, you see something, your attention's caught by it, but you don't sense the elements. What happened and what happened is nothing happened because you didn't work it, you didn't look at it, you didn't sit there and say, oh, this is cool, I like this, I like this kind of very kind of the high cheekbones and this and this. And then the light coming down, dramatic, dark, bang, bang, bang, boom. It's going to pop and I gun for it. You know I gun for it. But if I just take the thing out and go click, it's, you know it's a spray and pray kind of thing. You know, ba-bam, you know. But there has to be some element of recognition of what you saw and why it's important to you. I think that's important.
Matt:You need motivation, the why, yeah, why. Why are you here, right? Why? What is the intent behind it all? Why do people come to your masterclasses?
Rio:I've had some very interesting reasons.
Matt:So there's usually a wide array, array of reasons why people want to come to rio.
Rio:Homies, you'd be surprised, you'd be surprised, I mean, I think people come. Yes, they feel attracted, they want to, they want to convey, they want to convey. They come because they want to convey what they, what they're interested in and what they feel they do.
Rio:I mean, most of them do. But, um, you know, I actually I work with people who barely know how to photograph and sometimes they just knock me out. You know they really get something. That's really yeah, because they have. You know, they understand that, they learn to understand principles, that they're the ones taking. It's their idea, their vision, their thing. That's what I want. I mean one of my latest. I don't know if you follow my Instagram, but if you look on there there's one.
Rio:This woman, jasmina, she did a thing on a birthing in Bumi Sehat. If you run down Rio Helmi not documentary Rio Helmi and you should find it I put it together with an old friend of mine, robin Lim, from Bumi Sehat. Robin said, okay, this woman she had such a nice way of being this couple really took to her. She took a few shots I mean her first shots that she sent to me. I like I freaked out, I I got on my bike and I went over the clinic. It was like jazz, we gotta talk, you know. And she got it, she understood it and then she worked the angles more, but the most important thing was that she got the trust of this couple who were giving birth and this woman just basically gave her carte blanche.
Rio:I mean, there's some pictures in there that were just a little bit. You know, instagram would have gone.
Matt:This does not conform with our community rules Sensitive content.
Rio:This is life. It doesn't conform with our community rules. We'll take that. There were some powerful pictures in there and we used some. I used some of them on Instagram.
Rio:But she got an amazing portfolio and now she wants to work on she's working on I don't know if you know Bantal Gribang. Bantal Gribang is one of the biggest rubbish dumps in Asia and she's working with she wants to to do it sitting on school there and that's a much, much more different proposition. But she got, she got the courage from doing this and she also wanted to do that, and so she has this pulling here. And another person wanted to do portraits. She said she couldn't talk to people, she was too shy. She takes this and goes too shy. Came back the first day of shooting and she just put the camera down and said I've never talked to so many people in my life and she came back with some nice pictures. I mean, you know great stuff. So there's these things that happen, because when you just go out and say, take pictures and say, oh, this is the F-stop, and it just becomes a technical exercise and they don't really know what they're doing anymore and that doesn't interest me.
Matt:No, not me.
Rio:You know, and my wife has done a couple of my master classes and she's doing a thing on holy water and her last series of black and whites. There's a few of them that are just really very, very cool. You know, I mean not saying it's because she's my wife, but they are cool and yeah, so there's. Then there's this Hungarian woman who, in Jogja, who we did a remote mentorship and she did an amazing series on the holy springs and the whole scene, the midnight meditations and the whole. Really, I mean just so Because she was really interested and she said like after the third time she went, she decided she had to get in the water herself. And I mean just so, because she was really interested and she said like, after the third time she went, she decided she had to get in the water herself and it was like full immersion, literally. But you know, some of the stuff is very you know. So you know that. That I like that. You know I like being the, the doorway or whatever, helping people to get to that. Because it's fascinating that transformation. When people transform and see that they can do something, it must be fulfilling as well. It's very fulfilling to me.
Rio:Actually, I didn't really start teaching until about maybe five, ten years ago and then, very sporadically and suddenly, since the pandemic, I got much more into it. I teach other stuff, I teach Buddhism, but I don't teach. I didn't teach photography until later. But this thing of people breaking down, coming down to this thing that you're talking about, you know sometimes it's necessary because they have such an idea of you know how to take a picture of how this, and then you kind of like look, you know you got to break out of this and you know this is why we do this thing about. You know you gotta break out of this and you know this is why we do this thing about you know being comfortable with yourself and being you know, knowing how to put yourself in situation.
Matt:Otherwise it's just kind of, you know, it's pillage, you know how is, how has your spirituality, how has buddhism helped you be better in in respect, if at all? Or is it a journey that you took before?
Rio:Well, I think my teachers were hoping it would be better, but it's okay, slowly, step by step. Buddhism is a very practical, very logical, very honest yourself and you know consequences and so forth, and it's really based on a lot of things. You know these three or four things which are very, very you know cause and effect. Nothing happens without cause and nothing, you know, nothing really lasts until it changes and what your motivation is is very big part of the cause. So these things, you know they play a role in there and you know, it's just.
Rio:Look, I started off as a photojournalist and as a photo-documentarian. It was a bit of a tough world, you know. You had to really kind of push in there, but along the way I ran into this whole thing which really modulated. We had to really kind of look again at what I was doing. My thing early on in the beginning of my career was remote tribes and how these remote tribes would interface with the modern world that kept encroaching, and so my idea originally was how to give them some space so they could be heard and seen. You know and understood, and I had a very cool boss.
Rio:My boss, my mentor, was a guy called Titus Katoko, and Titus was my chief editor. It was a newspaper called Sina Harapan, which was the second biggest newspaper in Indonesia at the time, and he had created this tabloid magazine, but it wasn't like weird tabloid, but it was tabloid format, but it was all about culture and stuff. It was very interesting and we had some really cool people working there, and so he created this whole format that nobody had really thought about in Indonesia at the time, and he was a real outdoorsman and loved doing stuff and he was also a very intrepid journalist. He'd covered 65. He'd you know he'd done a lot of stuff and journalist, he'd covered 65. He'd you know, he'd you know he'd done a lot of stuff.
Rio:And he, you know, he just gave me. You know he said like, okay, you know, he, he actually uh, what do you call it? He plucked me out of uh what's the term? Again, the uh took me out of the Bali post. I was working for the English, there was an English language Bali post and I was editing that and he came along and said you know, you could do better. And he gave me this job as associate editor you know, out of nowhere, associate editor of this magazine and said look, you know, you just have to come to our meetings at least once or twice a month in Jakarta, otherwise you can write your own assignments, you can do whatever you want to do and we'll underwrite them. You know. What else could you ask for, you know? So I spent a lot of time in Eastern Indonesia.
Rio:So, that was cool. So coming from that where there was this, you know we would go. I would go in those days. You would disappear for two months. I'd come back and my kids wouldn't recognize me, you know. So you know I'd be out there chewing betel nut, whatever, coming back like, wow, these roads are really smooth. You know, I remember getting into this car once from the airport. I said to the guy and I still was stuck with this Eastern Indonesian accent I said what are you Lich in Scottish? And the guy looked at me. He's like, oh, this is weird. So I called myself my god, these roads are so smooth.
Rio:Now, after being like, you know, in those days, from the airport in Tambolaka and West Sumba to Waikou Wubak, which was only about maybe 50 kilometers, would take like 10 hours in the cheap. But it was wild and you know half the places you had to walk to or ride a horse to. So you places you had to walk to or ride a horse to. So you know it was tough and you had to be really you had to be, you know, tough. And there was a bunch of us who are older, who are now older, some are gone Indonesian photojournalists, photographers quote, unquote adventurers who were working there and you know, and and so that was our. It was not like now, you know it was. So we came from that our it was not like now you know it was. So we came from that. And then you know, and you segue into a more modern situation, and it was like that all over the world.
Rio:You know, and one of my, another mentor of mine, was a photographer called Rene Boury. I don't know if you know him. Rene Boury was Cartier-Bresson's kind of his protege, until they fell out. So Rene just said to me one day, I think kind of is protégé until they fell out. So René just said to me one day I think it was 1989, he said you know, ria, our world is over. You know, it's like you get all these guys with autofocus and this and this and that and this and that and this and that. And coming back to your question about Buddhism, about Buddhism, it helped me, you know.
Rio:It helped me roll with stuff better you know, to understand that and I, you know, I had the most hilarious moment with. I swore I would never go digital. It's, it's old school. And so I guess it must have been the year 2000,. The millennium. I was up in Ladakh, in a place called Kegompa.
Rio:Ladakh being northern India, Northern India yeah, kegompa, and I was covering something there and I was also there for a big teaching that His Holiness was giving and I was having an audience with him. And we sat down and suddenly he looked at me and he said, oh wait. And he called me to his attendant and he said I brought something for you from Dharamsala. And I said, okay, and he gives me this little Fuji digital camera. You know, so it's a terrible moment to like, oh, that's my guru just getting a digital camera. What does this mean? And I'm like okay, and I said I pull it out, you know, and it's charged. So, okay, it's a little dinky. You know, fujiwara, first early little things. Okay, you know it's, you know it must be right.
Rio:And I'd come with, uh, my friend at his mother, who was this crazy psychologist, interesting lady, so she was a Jungian psychologist, and they had wanted to meet him, and so they came for part of the audience and then, you know, they were going to leave and I was going to talk to him. So I pulled this thing out and I had my Contax G2 film camera with me but I decided you know, I'm so impulsive I'm going to take a picture with this. What do you think Sounds good. The menu is in Japanese so I'm scrolling through. I wiped all the pictures. They were so pissed off with me. His mother was like, hmm, he was so pissed with me, but you know, but he got over it. So that was my introduction to like a lot of digital.
Matt:We've all done it.
Rio:And that was really a sign of things to come. There was a steep climb going from oh, 20, uh, you know, 30 years almost of of analog.
Matt:When was this 2000. The year 2000.
Rio:I mean, it was about the time things started getting decent, you know, yeah, yeah, so oh, that was a steep climb, that was yeah, so yeah, I was trapped, I couldn't, I couldn't really curse the thing because I I don't know if I still haven't put it somewhere and you were buddhist at this time.
Matt:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so that allowed you to kind of adapt a little bit more, um, freely I think most people would be surprised to hear that.
Rio:Yes, I mean, I don't think I'm the model, as a friend of mine said to me. You have really good knowledge of Buddhism, but your practice is Questionable, lagging behind, Does it infiltrate into any of your photography teachings, your masterclasses? I mean there must be some stuff that you pull in, Absolutely. How do?
Matt:you teach. Then, going back to something you mentioned about one of your students, let's say you want to do portraits but you are shy of talking to other people. What is your process to teach them how to be more?
Rio:engaging. It depends on the person to be more engaging. It depends on the person. Um, I think, uh, you know, you have to sort of read the person first, see where they're coming from, you know, and then then you can find a way in. But a very important thing is to have empathy, you know, and empathy comes from understanding that actually that person sitting across from you or who's in front of your lens or whatever, is really not that much different from you. You know, there's some things that on the outside that look different, but basically the basic stuff is is, you know, is there? You know, we have the same basic needs, we have the same basic uh, problems in life, which, and we then we also a lot of our problems, you know, I mean, it depends on the person, but you need to kind of get people to understand that that's the fellow human being. And one of the things that's so important also is that you know people like to think, you know, they're independent, you know, and when you break it down for them, they kind of they go on a wonk, you know, because like, okay, I mean this glass of water, the simple glass of water, let's look at the process.
Rio:Where did it come from the glass. Who brought it up to you? The setup, you know? Did you do this all by yourself? Did you create the bricks? Did you create the cement? No, I mean, did you get? I mean, the amount of involvement of other living beings in our existence is insane. I mean, you look like a guy who does intermittent fasting. Maybe you only Intermitt intermittent fasting. Maybe you only intermittent fasting. Maybe you only twice a day. Am I misreading this? I'm kidding.
Matt:Sometimes fast, but not longer than a couple of hours.
Rio:But okay, so you eat a minimum of two meals a day. Yeah, so I don't know what your diet is, but you know you have different ingredients in the food and all those ingredients each one of those ingredients comes from somewhere, comes from somebody, goes through somebody else's hands by the time it hits your table. The process has gone through how many people, how many living beings, if you eat meat? You know are involved thousands, but who's independent?
Rio:yeah no one, you know. So when we start, you know that works for some people it works really well because it makes them kind of break out of their sense of isolation say, oh yeah, you know we are completely interconnected. We are completely you know, somehow or another, uh will always be interconnected and that that's important. You talked about the idea of photography, of touching people and communicating, and this is where it starts. It's that recognition. I think you can't really talk about being, you know, having empathy for people before you sense that they have similar needs as you do and that the problems that you experience other people experience as well the joys, the ups and downs. So it's really important.
Matt:That's the essence of empathy.
Rio:Well, yeah, and then once you have empathy, then you can start actually giving, because we don't want to develop pity Compassion is not pity. Compassion is not pity. Compassion is feeling with and understanding, and then loving kindness is to start to give, give back. And weirdly weird as it might sound, but in photography there is this process, there is this possibility of this process where you allow somebody to shine or you allow somebody to. You know, whatever, that's the highfalutin kind of aspect of it. The simple aspect is just respect.
Matt:Yeah, how do you tell a story through images, or at least how do you? What would be the elements that make up the skill of storytelling through photography? We were, you know you do these photo essays.
Rio:I mean if you, you know, if you just in general and in general thing, I think you know the simple. There's that simple formula like ed fat, you know, like environment, detail, timing, angle, you know focus and stuff. But it's really about. It's about if you're telling a story, you know these stories, what's the context of the story and then, in that context, what's the interaction of your subject?
Rio:and what's you know, what are you revealing and what becomes revealed? So it really depends. I mean some things you know. Some stories work better than others because sometimes you see people like, for example, with this, let's just take the rubbish dump, it's easy to go in there and you can spend. You know, I can do it, I do it. Sometimes it's just da-da-da-da-da. The old picture is a dramatic picture, such a crazy dramatic scene. But are you really involved? Are you actually letting something be revealed? Are you showing what these people are going through?
Matt:Yeah, you mean more. Become integrated, if you can, or at least have an element of integration. Well, you have to be in it to see it, which takes time, effort, research, work, language, all of that, samurai yeah.
Rio:That takes time.
Matt:Yeah.
Rio:And it takes time to know the timing too, because basically you know the picture is done in like a couple of seconds, or in one 15th to one 25th or whatever it is of a second. But that whole process to get there, yeah, I always talk about the 1%ers.
Matt:Actual taking the photograph is essentially the last 1% of an encounter.
Rio:But the build-up to that brings you to that point where that happens.
Matt:This is why there's an important question that actually was introduced to me a while ago by another photographer what's more important, the encounter or the photograph? And I don't always think they. I mean, it's a question that dictates they're mutually exclusive. But when you think about that, when you actually think about it, comes back to this mindfulness and what your intent behind taking a photo or a set of photos is and what story you're trying to tell. If you figure out the encounter and you figure out that story side of it that no one sees, that's behind the lens, that no one sees in an image, I believe that a lot of the time the image will reflect that will come from the important encounter.
Rio:I mean, it's the all that stuff you just said should happen before. When you're there. It's just, it's built in, it's integrated, it has to be integrated and you know when you blow it it means you're not on it. I mean, I still blow it. You know after what? 40 years, you know.
Matt:And that's okay. I think that's also something that we it's not okay, it just is. No, yeah, it just is, but it's, it's like it or not, sorry, it's important to be okay with that as a, as a truth, right as artists, I think that's kind of an important trait to have like, because then you always wanted to get better right yeah, well, you, I mean you, you have a standard yeah and you know you have a standard and sometimes those standards are realistic.
Rio:Sometimes they're your demons, you know, and it's always that give me an example I just did a shoot, uh, on saturday, with uh two of my colleagues, indonesian colleagues. Uh, bear, we have time, I'm gonna let him do it. They're both very good with two of my colleagues, indonesian colleagues, bear Wiharta and Angara Mahendra. They're both very good photographers. Bear's like he's about 60s, I guess. Angara I've been watching him and he's really developed as Angara Mahendra and he's really, you know, developing. I mean he's developed.
Rio:But it was this funny scene. We were there and you know it was a big kind of event. They had some priests in there and there was this one shot where I was I don't know what I was doing with this long lens, but I had this long lens in my hand and I was standing about that, far away from this priest and he starts to you know how to get dressed and the change, and he flicks out his cloth and I just saw it, you know, and I saw it billowing and I just like, and it was funny because it reminded me of a picture that I had done I'd done four years, about a month each year of reportage on the Dalai Lama's teachings with 20,000 people and there was a team of us and there was a Swiss photographer, manuel Bauer, who did a book on his own, and he had this fabulous shot that he got of Lingam Shri flicking his robe out and I saw this thing unrolling and I thought I'm holding the fucking wrong lens.
Rio:I was like, and I was like and I was like and ah, you know, and I okay, too late, you know you miss it and you roll it and I'm gonna, at that moment, cut in right in front of me. I mean it happens. They were like it's a tight seat, cut in and you got this. You got this shot of something else. Later we were at the water and we're saying, yeah, jeez, you know, I really felt like kicking you today and he said why is all? You know, I was just pissed off. I was going, I missed a shot and you got a shot.
Rio:I hate that feeling Right in front of me, you know, right in front of that whole scene, and we just laughed and laughed. It was just like, it was just so hilarious. But it was just this moment. And there's this beautiful kind of per change. It wasn't just a white cloth, creamy, it was like, it was a cream colored and it was. It was, you know, semi-embossed and it was like, and it was had the right, perfect weight and the wind caught it and it just rippled. You know, there I was.
Matt:This is too much yeah, looking like a lemon. Put that just down to a moment. It's just a moment in your memory.
Rio:It was like that yeah, because I was shooting something else. And I turned around, yeah, and there I was Too late, and then Angara cut in and the timing of the whole thing was insane. It was just, it was really funny. And then then something else happened. This woman came in and he was washing the priest was washing his feet and this woman must have been his disciple and she goes in and she just takes the water from his feet and she drinks it and I'm like, okay, you know, you know, things happen. Just they happen very fast. So when you kind of have that standard of being able to catch things as they roll and you miss them, you know it kind of. You know you, you have to get your rhythm back, you have to get back into. You can't dwell on it, you know, because it's like it's gone well.
Matt:So then, if people take photos, not cameras, and good example of you know the person being ready or spotting a moment how do you see us moving forward in terms of the spirit of photography, how, how do you see photography evolving or devolving over the next two, five, ten, twenty years?
Rio:ai is seductive, but it's empty. You know, it's, no matter how good it gets. I mean, I look at a picture that's done with AI and I go, you know, I don't feel it. I don't feel the, I don't get the spirit. It's perfect but it's like, you know, like looking at a woman who is truly beautiful from the inside and looking at a mannequin that's really well made. It's really like that for me.
Rio:I look at some pictures that are done with AI and it's kind of like oh, if I was in advertising, I could see the. I could see that, because it's a tool to sell things. It's a tool, it's, but that that tells you a lot about the, the, the, the work too. You know the fact that it's a tool for, for advertising, it's a marketing tool. It's, you know, selling something that isn't really there. You know, often it's like some sort of whereas when we're doing documentary photography, we're doing the exact opposite. We're trying to catch what's there, right? So that's a big. That's going to be, it's going to be interesting. I can't predict how that's going to pan out, but I think, you know, people, everything's cyclical. You know, like you know, how we's cyclical. You know, like you know, how we're all swinging back far right now and then we do this, this thing, and I think it might, I don't know, I hope what about?
Matt:how will role does social media play in that? Because, as photographers, we we have one eye on the ai landscape and then, almost daily, we have an eye on the social media arena and how we can propel ourselves forward as photographers, as artists, so that more people can see our work or we can say more or we can express more. Do you feel social media is a hindrance to that or it's a danger? And you know we're looking at the next, even five, ten years, and take ai aside but how people connect with each other these days, how people, you know, express themselves authentically, if at all, right that those essences of photography that we've been talking about, do you think it's going to be even harder for us to resonate with the younger generation or be able to, you know, maintain that authenticity through the lens?
Rio:I think it all comes down to why you use social media, how you use it. You know, quite honestly, I relate to it as self-publication, self-publishing and self-publishing is always a tricky thing. I mean, you need discipline for self-publishing and that's also a challenge. But I think you know print it's almost impossible. Now I don't think I could do the assignments that I used to do print assignments, you know. First of all, nobody's paying any money for it, you know. And second of all, I mean every, nearly every major publication that I've worked for has just been downsized and downsized, and downsized and downsized. It's all online, you know. And it's annoying because I'm, you know, like I said, I'm old school, I used to. I like broadsheet, I like opening the New York times or whatever it is. You know what I mean. I like opening up compass or whatever. You know it's yeah, it's interesting, but that's gone, that's gone.
Rio:And as a person who contributed a lot to that media, you know you have to. You have to think okay, do I continue or do I go something else? And quite honestly, I mean I can't remember who said it, but it was. Maybe it was Raghu Rai or I can't remember. You know, raghu was always quoting other people anyway.
Rio:But you know, like photography is my religion, if you like, you know, and it's something like that, but it's like it's that aspect of you know, photography for me is the way I interact, you know, with things that I see and things that I experience, not the only way, but it is a very big way that I interact and share experience, not the only way, but it is a very big way that I interact and share.
Rio:So, you know, social media is my media now, in a way, not my only media, I mean, of course, but it is very important in our lives and unfortunately it's also enslaving. You produce something that is of quality and two days later it's, you know. You know it's not being viewed. You know it's like if you produce a book, the book is always there, you know, and the book's on the shelf. I mean, I have hundreds of books, photographic books, some I've done, some other friends have done, and it's there. You pull it out, you know, I pull out Salgado, or I pull out Ragourai, and it's like a whole experience and you know it's a big thing, you know.
Matt:Do you know Sebastien Salgado?
Rio:Yeah.
Matt:He's here in Bonny.
Rio:Uh, I haven't. He hasn't been, for I haven't seen him for about a year here, but he has a house. He has a house in Sanro, but he's mainly in Paris. Okay, I think they're living here less than they're staying here, less than less. I'm not sure I haven't seen him for a while, Me him.
Matt:He's quite a character. Yeah, I'm sure I've seen a lot of his Sebastio. Yeah, I've seen a lot of his talks stuff. He's very charming. Obviously, his work is fantastic. Yeah, but an interesting character to talk to.
Rio:Behind every great man, His wife, Really. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean she's, she's a big part of it. I mean she's, she's a sweetheart, but I don't know, you know, I've never really worked with her, but she's definitely you, but she's definitely.
Matt:You know there's a team. He's the guy in front, but it's a team. Before we wrap up, I wanted to touch upon a few kind of value lessons we might be able to share. One is kind of the myths of photography. I think, speaking to someone who's I'll put this politely more mature, who's been around the block, I mean, I think I'm mature A lot of the time I speak to the younger people who have a completely different take and more, I guess, more present take on where photography sits in the world and where videography sits what year were you born?
Rio:82. 82.
Matt:40, just turned 40.
Rio:So it's yeah, on the edge of the digital version.
Matt:When you're sitting with your teaching hat on, do you ever talk about misunderstandings of photography? I think we touched upon them a little bit, but there seemed to be a just a maze of myths surrounding photography, certainly in the social media world. Is that great at you, or do you even notice those kind of things?
Matt:give me an example um well, the technical side. I mean, I've just done a course on how equipment should not matter really at all when it comes to photography. But there is a myth out there that I need the latest, this and you know we're sold that right. I'm not blaming the individual oh yeah, it's the next camera. It's this, it's this. You need this accessory.
Rio:You need this accessory I mean, sometimes I'm in the camera shop and I'm kind of lusting after this land, a camera or lens. And you know, and I'm the guy, well, I better, well, next month I'll have the money for this or whatever, and some kid comes in his life the whole shelf and they're like oh, daddy's rich, yeah, yeah.
Rio:But you know, I think to a certain extent you know, but I got some interesting lessons because I worked with some great photographers. I worked with Rene Boury, I worked with Bono Barbe, I worked with Rag, great photographers. I worked with Rene Boury, I worked with Bruno Barbe, I worked with Ragourai, you know, alongside them, you know.
Matt:Before you go on how did you get that kind of access?
Rio:Well, that I just lucked out, because in the 80s I was living here, you know, struggling doing photography. I was doing the stuff I was doing for Bali Post first and then for Mutiara and stuff. So, and then this, who became my publisher? This guy came up to me, a French guy, through a guy who became my business partner for a while, leonard Lueros, and he said, hey, would you like to work with us? We want to put some you know stuff together. And, um, so leonard was hot to do this book. Uh, he called I mean, leonard was always full of puns.
Rio:He called this book bali high. It was an aerial book, bali high. Okay, so there we were and we we got. You know, leonard was this guy, he still is around, but he was such a. You know, leonard was this guy, he still is around, but he was such a character. He I remember going into Tommy Suharto's conference room, you know, for Gatari Gatari was a helicopter company and Leonard's wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt with a pinstripe jacket like like a suit jacket on top of it and shades on.
Rio:This is in the conference room and this guy could sell. And I'm sitting there thinking, you know, basically we're screwed. He's just walked into all this and they're all fascinated by him and he sells this project and we got like something crazy like hundred helicopter hours and in those days an hour was $800. That's basic, you know. After the high, you know the aviation fuel, and we got this gig. You know we did this book from Java right through to Bali and later on I did. I did another one, but further. There's lots of stories there. But so I got in this book and so I was doing aerial photography all of a sudden and I loved it. It was just, ah, it was cool.
Matt:Is that the same photo essay that's on your website?
Rio:There might be an old one there, yeah, from that, but anyway. So then it progressed and DDA was very keen to do another book and it was called Bali Style. And by this time I was like I was such a snook. I said, oh, you know, I don't want to take pictures of rich people's houses. You know, I'm a documentarian, I'm a. You know, you have to do this real, you know, this is the book, you know. So I did it.
Rio:And then the next thing that unrolled from there were these books were like, uh, it was, we did, um, seven days in the kingdom Thailand with like 50 photographers from around the world. So I said I got into the circuit so I interacted with all the people. Uh, and then I, then we did, uh, I was chief photographer for the Indonesia book, where's the archipelago? And that's how I got to know Rene when he was come. And then there was all the Magnum guys, abbas and all those guys. So we, we, we, we retained our connection. So there was Abbas and a few and we had this, this, uh, underground club called the ABC, the Asian bad boys club. Abbas was, abbas insisted on being the president Every three months, you know, somebody would get fired, or you know there'd be a coup.
Rio:It was just ridiculous stuff, but it was a friendship, a real friendship. And then, you know, there were people like Raghu Rai who I had met in 1984, 85 in India, both covering this huge event, Buddhist event, so it was, you know, I somehow was lucky that way, you know. So I had all this contact with all these people.
Matt:And writing. Tell us a little bit about your writing.
Rio:Oh well that's the beast in the room, isn't it? Everybody's on my back, do your on my back, do your memoirs, your memoirs. But I had a good tip from a good friend of mine who's a writing coach shelly, shelly kensberg. She said, look, don't write a biography, write memoirs, just things that you remember, okay, clips. And so I'm going to try, I'm starting to do that.
Matt:Well, we can give you some video memoirs of the last hour and a half or so A couple of questions to end, then.
Matt:Hopefully they'll lead into a conversational ending. I think we for me anyway we talk about photography and artistry being subjective, and art is the, you know the craft that is purely subjective in many people's opinions, but for me there has to be a standard, there has to be a definition of good photography and not good photography, or good art or not good art. I mean, there is a technical aspect, but there's also a metaphorical and figurative and storytelling aspect that I think, in my opinion, can be judged to some level or another. First of all, do you agree with that? Second of all, what would be the difference between good and great? Two questions in one go.
Rio:I'm going to tick it off. I think you can't ignore aesthetic. Whatever your aesthetic is, you cannot ignore it. No, you can't. You know. It's not to say that everybody's aesthetic has to be the same, but there is always an element of aesthetic. And what does aesthetic mean? Aesthetic means that there's an involvement of harmony, involvement of contrast, you know, and so forth. You know, if you just took a really bland picture, like there was a movement there, the super, you know, hyper, whatever, the realism, whatever.
Rio:And I remember, you know, having a conversation with a good friend of mine, ferman Ferman Ixan, who was in Jakarta at the Institute, the Art Institute there, and we had this argument Because he was teaching and he was, I think he was dean or whatever. And we had this argument. I said, because he was teaching and he was, he was, I think he was Dean or whatever. And I said this is just crap. It's really it's a lot of crap, rio, you're just so crusty and old. It's like this is what they like and this is what, yeah, but there's no aesthetic there. I can understand, you know, straight out, documentary I can stand, you know. You know, like, you know, it's a guy, brody, who does that kind of really rough railroad stuff. But there's no aesthetic in this flat neon lit. You know it's just like it's like, so I think, but that's what they celebrate, right?
Rio:They see that the anti-aesthetic yeah, but I think there is an aesthetic to the anti-aesthetic.
Matt:Right, yeah, okay.
Rio:You know, and people have been exploring that for years. And then there's the other thing is content, and I think content really does matter. It's the message, whatever's in there, and I think without it it's just an experiment, it's just craft. There's a difference between craft in photography, craft and art in photography, and art can be in journalistic stuff. I mean, there's plenty of people who do, you know, very amazing journalistic work as well what's the future for for rio?
Matt:what do you work on? I hope there's still some left.
Rio:I'm. I'm a hit 70 now and I'm gonna like thinking that what am to do now?
Matt:Are you 70? Yeah, I'm 70 years old.
Rio:But I have to hang around because my wife's 31. So, anyway, what? Yeah? So I got to hang in there for a little while. She's 31? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's insane. It is insane. We kind of looked at each other and said what are we doing?
Matt:How long have you been married for? We've married, for we've been together for four years. We married for one cool good for you, so it's interesting what's the next two five?
Rio:so maybe if I can, if I can, get another 20 and that would be good so memoirs, what, what, what are you working on the memoirs I? Really want to, and I actually would like to have something done for my 70th birthday, which comes comes up in November.
Matt:Okay.
Rio:So I'd like to. That's one goal. I'd also like to republish my Memories of the Sacred book which I don't know if you've seen that or not.
Matt:Yeah, I've seen it?
Rio:Yeah, because I'd like to make it smaller and in small format.
Matt:A lot of your books large format.
Rio:Yeah, it's too big, I mean grandiose. Yeah, I always wanted to do a book like that. You know, like what does it feel like to have a book that nobody can put in their suitcase? You know what is it like? Oh bookshelf, oh bookshelf. Yeah, that's true, but but I love looking at it, you know. I mean, it's still nice to look at. So I would like to do that. And there's, I have another few projects that I like to do, uh, book projects on bali, and still I, I'm cooking. They're cooking, not necessarily all pretty pretty subjects, but still there's that. And I would like to write more.
Matt:What is it about? Can you tell us something about you that no one else might know?
Rio:That's why they don't know.
Matt:Come on, give us something I don't know.
Rio:I think everybody I'm a pretty open book.
Matt:Pretty open book. Well, you've been very open with us today. Thank you so much for joining us.
Rio:My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me here.
Matt:I know you're a huge inspiration to many people out there, including myself. So, um, thank you so much. Who, who is your? Do you still get inspired by people you know in your circle, outside of your circle? Who? Who do you look to to kind of?
Rio:look, I think, I think you know there's something about photography that a lot of people don't, and about photography that a lot of people don't, and art, as well, that a lot of people don't acknowledge. It's that, this language that we have of photography, this lexicon of photography. It's not something which was set and then we all learn it. It's something we learn, develop, pass on. We're all inspired by other things. We all are. You know, there's nobody out there who's like it's a genius on themselves. This is absolute bullshit.
Rio:And the fact is that once you're in that, then at a certain point it's your turn to give, it's your turn to mentor, it's your turn and it's just the natural flow. We call that civilization, you know, and the photography is something which is such a powerful movement. I mean you go back. Well, what was Nietzsche? 1811 or something like that, 1820 or 11. And the first successful prints, you know, I mean this guy made a print and you know and, and look where we are now, Look where we are now. I mean we're just like we're just pumping out the stuff. But then there have been some amazing and remarkable stories and books and photo essays and photographs. You're doing them, other people are doing them, doing them, other people doing them. So I really feel that I'm just trying to cover up the fact that I forgot the original question.
Matt:Your inspirations, my inspirations. We have not been drinking yeah.
Rio:I think I mean Henri Cotillabesson would be one of them, absolutely Kind of classic, but I am old school. René definitely, rené Boury, to some extent also Raghu Raghu Rai. These are people who inspired me, and you know when I say inspired, their work is inspiring. Sometimes some people don't like them, you know, but that's you don't always like the person who you. You know, when I say inspired, their work is inspiring. Sometimes some people don't like them, you know, but that's you don't always like the person who you. I happen to have met them, so I had some connection with them. But and in Indonesia, one person who I always feel inspired by is well, there's people like Oscar Motulo, who ran the Antara Museum. He has mentored so many young Indonesian photojournalists. You should look him up.
Rio:And Don Hasman, who used to be my colleague. Don Hasman is now. He's about 10 years older than me. He's still mountain climbing. This dude is like he's about 5'2" me. He's still mountain climbing. This dude is like he's about five foot two and he's like no fat at all and he's got lovely character. He's always like we used to call sounds insufferable no, he was great, he's great, he's really great.
Rio:I found him insufferable at first because we used to call him we used to call him the angel in the office, but then I realized that he really was he really was a good guy and you know his photography it's okay.
Rio:But he has such a spirit of adventure and, you know, keep on going. And he just this year or last year, I think it was just turned over all his slides to the National Archives. Wow, I mean, that's big heart. That's a big heart, you know, incredible. And he's just, and he's still like you know, he travels by Gojek or goes to you know, and he gets the guy's amazing.
Matt:I think it's important to understand that your inspirations don't have to be within. I mean, they're photographers, but they don't have to be photographers. Right, you'd be inspired by oh, I had a lot of people ask me.
Rio:In general, I've you know, I mean his own is the Dalai Lama, for sure. My teachers, some of the other teachers that I have that you probably never heard of, I mean they're amazing, absolutely amazing and inspiring to me as a human, you know, as a human being, and yeah, I have there's a lot of people.
Matt:Yeah well, this conversation has been inspiring. Thank you so much I'm glad um, I hope, the audience will take as much from it as as what I did. So once again, thank you so much and hopefully see you again back here one day. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. It's fun, yes.