The MOOD Podcast
In The MOOD Podcast, Matt Jacob, renowned cultural portrait photographer, dives deep into the world of photography and the visual arts, with guests from all around the creative industry, across all parts of the globe, sharing inspiring stories and experiences that will leave you wanting more. With years of experience and a passion for storytelling, Matt has become a master of capturing lesser-told human stories through his photography, and teams up with other special artists from around the world to showcase insights, experiences and opinions within the diverse and sometimes controversial photography world.
You can watch these podcasts on his Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@mattyj_ay.
You can also follow Matt's work on his Instagram @mattyj_ay and his website: https://mattjacobphotography.com.
The MOOD Podcast
The Healing Power of Photography: Jimmy Nelson on Trauma, Connection, and Truth, E052
In this episode of The MOOD Podcast, I talked with a huge inspiration of mine, Jimmy Nelson. Jimmy is a British photographer renowned for his work capturing indigenous cultures around the world. Much of his work aims to document and preserve the unique traditions, rituals, and appearances of various indigenous tribes through striking and evocative portrait photography. His work has been celebrated for its artistry and his photographs are characterised by their meticulous composition, vivid colors, and deep engagement with the subjects' cultural contexts. All on a large format film camera.
So when we spoke it was fascinating to hear how his purpose, photographic voice and inner process has emanated and evolved over the years from deep childhood trauma. Imagine escaping a traumatic childhood only to find solace and redemption in the heart of remote, untouched landscapes.
We have the privilege of listening to Jimmy open up about everything - an important listening exercise for us to empathise and understand what makes a photographer an artist. Jimmy reveals the therapeutic power of creativity in fostering human connection and self-worth, emphasizing the importance of laughter, warmth, and inclusivity in a world increasingly dominated by technology.
What you'll learn from this episode:
- How the therapeutic power of creativity fosters human connection and self-worth.
- What nature teaches us about enriching personal relationships.
- How indigenous communities provide wisdom on living harmoniously with the environment.
- What photography - and analog photography - reveals about capturing the raw essence of humanity.
- How to balance artistic integrity with commercial pressures through dedication and creative freedom.
Find Jimmy's incredible work here: https://www.jimmynelson.com/
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Wow, big question. At the age of seven, I sent to this institution. They indoctrinated me you are not worthy, you are not beautiful, we are going to make you suffer and it's your fault. So an institution and a group of people that were meant to protect me, meant to educate me, the opposite happened. Perhaps their humanity is something that we're seriously losing.
Speaker 2:What is your process in this and kind of finding yourself almost and finding that beauty in yourself? What has it taught you about collective humanity, as a society, as a global population, my beauty.
Speaker 1:I don't think I ever will see it, your normal projects.
Speaker 2:Where you go, you know all over the place and some of the most remote places in the world. Do you feel?
Speaker 1:like that's a form of therapy. I am beginning to start feeling again. I'm obsessed with that creative journey.
Speaker 2:Do you not think that we have a responsibility to be integral, to be honest, to try and promote a good message? The only thing that matters is Mr Jimmy Nelson. Mr jimmy nelson, thank you so? Much for joining me today on the mood podcast. It's a privilege to to be sat across the other side of the world having a conversation with you also perhaps we should admit to your audience this is the second time.
Speaker 1:This is a sort of. We sat opposite each other a few days ago and I wasn't in the best of moods and I as I've just apologized to you and I think it's actually a good beginning I wasn't actually listening to any of your questions and I was giving sort of pre-recorded answers in my sort of my excuse was, uh, time difference, but to be honest, I wasn't actually quite in the zone. So here we are again, so perhaps this is going to be honest. I wasn't actually quite in the zone, so here we are again, so perhaps this is going to be even a richer experience as we get to know each other.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it is. I think that's a good point to kind of segue into how that might apply in terms of our own mindset, being comfortable in our own skin, and how that translates onto the paper, onto the screen or, in our cases, through the camera. Is that something you think about a lot? You've got to be in the right headspace before you even start the day and think about picking up a camera.
Speaker 1:Good question. I think the way I described to you a few minutes ago, before we started recording, was that I didn't give you my all. I didn't give you my best. I didn't, as I said, I didn't listen to your questions, I didn't focus on the original answers that I was aspiring to give. I think that goes the same for making a pincher. If you don't, if you're not obsessive about striving for perfection, I don't believe you can be successful in 2024, 2025, or 2020.
Speaker 1:I was having a very interesting conversation, challenging conversation, here with somebody the other day. Perhaps that's why I wasn't in the best of moods when we last spoke to one another and they were challenging me. They said you know, do you need their attention? Is your drive, is your search for that perfection, do you need somebody to clap for you, and from which audience do they need to clap? Obviously, the competition is somewhat broader.
Speaker 1:Again, it's not about I need somebody to clap. It's about I, you or we, the listeners, don't aspire to make beauty. We don't aspire to go beyond where anybody else has ever gone or, for the simple case, it's, it's not sustainable as an artist, as a photographer. So there's this inner urge and we can investigate what that is in the next few minutes, maybe hour. But there's also an existential urge with the five I always sort of speak broadly and I know it's an exaggeration five billion other photographers on the planet nowadays.
Speaker 1:If you don't aspire to a picture nobody else has ever made, you won't be allowed to indulge in that creative journey. I'm obsessed with that creative journey. I love photography. I don't know whether I will ever be able to find the words to describe the passion that I have for it, and it is an aspiration for greatness. But it's not an aspiration for greatness that you clap. For me, it's this absolute fear, paranoia, that I won't be able to wake up tomorrow morning and be allowed or be asked to pick up a camera. It's terrifying that thought, because I so love the process, I so love the process. I can't, I can't live without it, and that's whether that's healthy or not.
Speaker 2:That's for you, the audience, to decide yeah, I think that resonates with a lot of um, true artists, and I use the word true because you know, like you said, there's five billion photographers out there and I don't think all of them could call themselves true artists. But I think that's really where that inner and we talked about inner urge. Let's dive into that now. What do you mean by that inner urge? What does that inner urge look like for you?
Speaker 1:And it's very difficult to annotate, but try for us to explain that, okay well, I'll make a segue back to the first conversation that we have, which hopefully nobody gets to listen to, but I'll ask myself the question you first asked me and I think that's a good breach and I was thinking about it afterwards what is humanity? You said to me. What is humanity? Obviously, anybody seen my images. It's primarily people. It's people in portrait, people in landscape, and I started asking myself what is humanity? Humanity is me. It's people in portrait, people in landscape, and I started asking myself what is humanity? Humanity is me? It's you, it's the listeners, it's all of us, it's what we feel, it's compassion we talked about it last time empathy, it's love, it's all those human instincts, that sort of kaleidoscope of the experience, and it's everything but technology. It's everything but computers, it's everything but AI, it's everything but a robot. So that's what humanity is for me has been the whole of my life, ever since early childhood.
Speaker 1:Although I got my first camera when I was around 16, I was busy looking at the other and analyzing myself since very early childhood. So it's sort of an ongoing reflection on where I fit in the world, how others see me and how I see them, and there have been a variety of sort of waves in that ongoing process and there'll be more waves to come. But it's where I fit in that kaleidoscope of humanity, my validity in that kaleidoscope of humanity in 8.3 or 8.4 billion and what I feel as a human and what I feel as Jimmy and being very, very, very, very connected to that. And I use the camera, literally. I use the camera for that process, for that journey, and it's an obsessive journey because I really, really, really and I can't exaggerate enough want to feel, define, feel, what do you?
Speaker 2:feel.
Speaker 1:I want to feel wealth, but I want to feel wealth of existence. It's not a material wealth. I want to feel wealth, but I want to feel wealth of existence. It's not a material wealth. I want to feel beautiful. Now that's a little bit sort of um? Um, of a bold statement. As I sit here in front of you in front of the computer and I can see myself sort of bald as um, I've spent the whole of my life perhaps if I'm being very honest, it's very early in the morning here, but I'm now somewhat more focused than last time wanting to feel beautiful. But it's not beautiful in the aesthetic, it's beautiful in the validity.
Speaker 1:I think I felt beautiful as a child, and please bear with me and the audience. When we refer to beauty and when you ask me, what is it? It's a feeling. Beauty is validity, beauty is being seen, beauty is whole to beauty. But it, and when you ask me, what is it? It's a, it's a feeling. Beauty is validity, beauty is being seen, beauty is whole, beauty is wealth and up until the age of seven I really felt that.
Speaker 1:So I can remember very clearly how my early childhood was. I traveled extensively. I had an enormous privilege because of my father's work internationally and then, between the years of 7 and 17, I was in an internet, a boarding school in the uk, and that's when that, that journey, that concept of being attached to my beauty, my humanity, stops and a different journey started, through early childhood experiences that weren't that positive. I ran away when I was 17. I ran away back into the world, back into all the world's far, furthest and most remote locations, to redefine and rediscover my place, my beauty. I don't think I ever will see it or discover it. Somebody the other day asked me isn't the ultimate journey, jimmy, you make? Start making self-portraits, self-portraits Now. It took me 25 years after the age of 16 to dare to look in a mirror after my hair had fallen out one night and never came back. So I don't know whether I'll ever get that far, but I am beginning to start feeling again and I am beginning to feel held and it's very important for me to feel loved. But that's in the process of making the picture.
Speaker 1:I, I crawl, I beg, in most cases at the feet of others, uh, uh, to, to, to, to be acknowledged, to be seen, to be trusted and to let me in, let me into their world. Let me into their life, let me into their being, let me into their humanity, let me into their wealth of understanding, their wealth of existence, their traditions, their, their aesthetic, their, their balance, their ability to own their space. Um, that's the obsession. So it is is a lifelong search for beauty. Can I? I don't know ever whether I ever will, and perhaps that's the thrill. That's why it's unending and that's why I have these sort of unending, sleepless nights. The journey has to be sustainable, to get closer and closer to, perhaps one day, that that beauty that I see and I really do see it and I'm convinced it exists will one day reflect back on me, and I will dare to say that I feel the same. What is?
Speaker 2:it about the other people. What is it about? You know you and I shoot similar types of subjects. You weigh more and probably more in depth, but I know why I'm kind of curious in those types of subjects. I think I know there's probably a lot of subconscious layers underneath there, stemming back to childhood. Is that? And you talk about your childhood and you know your childhood and you know share what you want, um, but it do you think a lot of this kind of interest in something so different to you and wanting to not necessarily fit in but be part of that, belong in it and get into that world. Is that something that's followed you from trauma and early childhood? Or is that something that you that emanated from you in in adulthood, where you kind of figured out what you wanted to photograph I'll take you there, I'll take the audience there.
Speaker 1:It's very much based on childhood, but I want to be very careful and not lean on it too much. It's not. We all have our experiences. We all have our moments that formed us by default. What happened to me and I'll share it, uh, has ended up enabling me to have an extraordinarily beautiful existence being in the world, with the world, with humanity, up until the age of seven, feeling very safe, feeling seen, seen, not feeling judged, not being hurt, not being punished, not being fed or indoctrinated with guilt. I lived in I don't know. We lived in the Congo, nigeria, papua New Guinea, iran, tehran, afghanistan, pakistan, venezuela, all before the age of seven. It didn't matter where I was or how people looked or how they dressed or how they spoke. I was cool and they were cool and I was completely unaware of the other. They were just me and my mates.
Speaker 1:At the age of seven, I sent to this institution thanks to a couple of Catholic Jesuit priests. They indoctrinated me with something else you are not worthy, you are not beautiful, we are going to make you suffer and it's your fault. So an institution and a group of people that were meant to protect me, meant to educate me, meant to bring me from childhood into adulthood safely. The opposite happened. I disconnected from that beauty, I disconnected from that trust and I have, and I am still living, a lifelong journey of guilt. It's all my fault, I am not worthy. Uh, that's. That was the, the beginning. At the age of seven, the teenage years. You disconnect from it, you bury it. One morning I woke up with no hair, uh, all to do with stress and a little bit of the wrong medicine and malaria. Then you, it's your coming out moment, you are ugly. That's how I felt. I wasn't necessarily told, but it's the, the story I indoctrinated myself with. And it's my fault.
Speaker 1:I was never dark insofar as wanting to sort of end the journey. I wanted to begin the journey again. I wanted to reconnect with the, the beauty, the wealth. And this comes back to reconnect with the beauty, the wealth. And this comes back to your question what am I looking for in the other? But I felt as a child. I didn't understand it when I was seven, but I felt something very aligned. I felt something where I was in flight, I was capable, and I spent the whole of my life trying to get back into that zone, into that space, and I think that space is not necessarily I'm. I didn't study. I haven't studied since the age of 17. I ran away, spent the better part of three years in tibet, between 17 and 19, with my first camera, and that's how the journey began. There's this lifelong autodidact learning of uh.
Speaker 1:Coming back to the question at the beginning what is human, what is being connected? And it's only until you understand what it is to be connected that you can feel that beauty and that validity and that wish to be a sustainable, healthy human being for the short period of time that we're blessed to be here on this planet. And the closer, the more I invest in the other, the more I invest in the often it could be seen as the misunderstood or the hidden, the more I realize that perhaps their humanity is something that we're seriously losing in the west. Uh, and as we evolve and as we develop and it's been going on throughout history as we get more, more, more technological, more, digital, more and these are many conversations that you have where we're leaving that we're going further and further and further and further away from that, that feeling, that humanity.
Speaker 1:I was taken away from that when I was seven, brutally, I died in a way, and I've been trying to realign my two states of being the dead j Jimmy and the alive Jimmy back into one whole Jimmy that feels, that's aware of the experiences that they had in the past. And I use, to be honest, I use the learning, I use the wisdom, I use the kindness, the inclusion, the warmth, the caring, the laughter Very important, we don't laugh here anymore. Our egos are so fucking big. Nobody.
Speaker 1:You know the simplicity of the other, you know I'm very selfish, I have to admit and I use them to come back to that humanity, to dare to feel that Jimmy is okay, jimmy is a sustainable, potentially on good days when he slept well, happy human being to get closer and closer and closer and closer and closer till we sort of become one whereby the wisdom that an enormous amount of these indigenous communities that I meet have ends up sort of reflecting. I sponge it up. So that's sort of what I'm looking for. Align with that, there is an aesthetic, there is photography, there is art, there's a story, there are books, there are exhibitions. But at the very top of the cake fortunately or unfortunately, I have to admit it's very much about me, yeah.
Speaker 2:What about? What has photographing these types of people, photographing the human spirit, humanity, whatever kind of label we want to put on it, and I think you touched upon a little bit there collective humanity. But what is your process in this, and kind of finding yourself, almost, and finding that beauty in yourself? What has it taught you about collective humanity as a society, as a global population, and the interconnectedness of all of our stories?
Speaker 1:Well, big question Whether I have a succinct, one profound answer. I'm not sure. We're all valid, we need each other and all those stories have to be collated and collected. I think the simplistic way of looking at it is how I think it was. The other day I read or heard that by the year 2050, 80 to 85% of global humanity will live in a conurbation.
Speaker 1:So, in fact we're leaving and leaving, leaving the natural world. As we leave the natural world, we stop having respect for it, understanding for it, kindness for it, a care for it, having respect for it, understanding for it, kindness for it, a care for it and the global collective knowledge that by far the majority of the communities that I visit have. They have that wisdom, they have that awareness of how one can live aligned with the natural world, whereby one has a humility One isn't bigger or better, one is in service of. So I always say that in in the developed world, where I am here in the netherlands, it's you know, come on natural world. You know you're in service from us. You know you gotta you're.
Speaker 1:Most one immerses oneself in the, the developing indigenous world. It's the other way around. You wake up, as you've experienced, I'm sure, many of your listeners. Often you wake up with the chickens at four o'clock in the. It's the other way around. You wake up, as you've experienced, and I'm sure many of you are listeners often you wake up with the chickens at four o'clock in the morning. It's still dark, the village is rustling. Everybody wakes up in this sort of almost sort of meditative state of how are we going to care for the ground, the earth, the world. Today, before the light arrives, they're busy for hours respecting we are here in service for you. How can you keep providing for us as the light of the day arises and the day begins?
Speaker 1:It's the complete inverse, and each of these communities have different rituals, different traditions, different ways and different awareness of how they have to be kind to the world around them that will sustain them. As a result of that, I find and I feel a harmony, a humility, a balanced and a total submission. Whenever I leave and I disappear deep into the jungle or high up into the mountains or lost in the desert, there's a silence, there's a silence of humility. And then I walk humbly behind, often with a camera, in the footsteps of the people who walk in balance with that natural world, and I wish, I wish I could take I don't need to take you, I know you take yourself. I'm sure the majority of the listeners also take themselves but the greater world into that state of being, into that place of humility, into that place of of humility, into that place of awe, into that place of wonder. And and again, the camera is just the bridge to take me on that journey yeah, fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I often think that as well. But there's also a beauty in other people not sharing. It's kind of there's that selfish thing. Oh no, this is it's just for me to experience. Yeah, I'd love to show people what, what other real beauty, simplicity, other, just other educational ways of life that we can learn from to make ourselves better people. But also, hopefully through a portal such as the camera, other people, inspire other people, maybe educate other people. But yeah, I think I, I do think about the more remote I go, the more I'm like, oh, people need to see this. But then I'm like I'm no they don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm um, doing something which for me, is, I find, very brave. I'm not too and this is no disrespect for you or to all the male listeners I'm not too enamored with male company. I'm not going to point a finger who I'm going to blame for that, when I was a child, but anyway yeah and so this summer I'm going to do something I've never done before.
Speaker 1:Uh, I have three kids uh 28, 24 and 22 and I'm taking my son, who's 24. Two years ago. I needed to reconnect with him. I've divorced from his mother about 10 years ago and they grew up as teenagers and obviously there was a need for a reconnect and I was sort of you need to understand me. You know you are heavily indoctrinated as to who you think I am, but that's not the case and you will see me in my, in my my highest state of being on the road, so to speak. So I eventually persuaded my son two years ago to come with me to northern pakistan, to the karakoram, and we went seriously hiking, we went on a motorbike trip up into the wakham valley of afghanistan and it was mind-blowing. We reconnected and he sort of said I get it, dad, I get it, you know.
Speaker 1:So this summer he myself, he and nine of his friends were going for a month-long hike through the karakoram and they're all terrified. He's persuaded them. They're all in their twenties, he's persuaded them. And luckily I have some phenomenal uh, balti guys who are going to look after me, because I don't think I can look after them, but he's persuaded them to come on this journey. Come with me and my dad, yeah, and we're going to go off into the, into the wild wonders of the natural world. That's thrilling A group of men. First time for me in 40 years to be in an intimate situation with a group of other men.
Speaker 1:But in some of the world's well, not some the highest mountains in the world. In northern Pakistan there are 180 mountains over 7,000 meters. I mean unbelievably epic. There are people that live within those mountains, and so I'm daring to do something at a sort of middle stage of my life that I've always wanted to do not just make pictures, but take people with me, take them into that environment and take them on the journey that I've been, sort of I am still on, ever since that I can remember. So I'm very, very excited about that and, which is interesting, I'm not going to take a camera.
Speaker 1:They're all. They're all photographers and filmmakers and painters and artists and writers and poets, and I've decided to, to, to not necessarily guide them, but to watch them and be. They're all substantially younger than I, am far, terrifyingly, far more capable. I sort of hide behind you. I use these 10 by 8 analog cameras and they're all looking at me going. You know that's your problem. So, which is also another journey, how can I be reintroduced to this world that I love and the people that live in it, but without a medium in my hands? And let them guide me, let them show me? So I'm terrified, but very, very excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is there something? Without trying to analyze this too deeply, but because I know this from a personal experience, sometimes the camera is a, is a, a conduit for me, or at least a barrier between me and the outside world. Not a barrier, but it's a kind of a paradoxical barrier where I can connect with other people, but there's also then there's something in between me and someone else. So it's your normal projects where you go, you know, all over the place, in some of the most remote places in the world. Do you feel like that's a form of therapy? Do like you're? That's still kind of a way for you to just feel better. I know you talked about feeling earlier, but do you think you're on a process of, you know, a therapeutic journey with the camera? Do you see it like that at all?
Speaker 1:if I'm being honest yes, I mean I don't think I can ever get away from that narrative, but it's, hopefully it's evolving into a healthy therapeutic journey. So the best way that I can describe it is the evolution of, of the medium, my understanding of the medium. I always used to and this is the guilt and I'm not worthy issue from the past I'm not a photographer and I'm not good. And it's not about photography. Well, I have to admit I love photography, I love the medium and I'm aspiring to be good at it. Aspiring it will always be subjective, but I'm beginning to really, really enjoy it. So I don't feel now that I'm hiding behind it. I think perhaps I did in the past. Now I'm living with it, I'm owning it, I'm holding it, I'm loving it, I'm caring for it, I'm letting it care for me. And in the last five years the transition I've gone deep back into analog. I had a friend of mine design a portable 10x8 analog plate camera, a young Italian designer. It's epic when you meet these young people who are far more capable than we will ever be. And I had this idea and he's built it. I take that with me. I take a limited number of sheets. Obviously, it's extremely expensive. But it's also that narrowing down of the moment.
Speaker 1:When you expose the film, you don't arrive somewhere and just spray and pray. It takes days, sometimes weeks, before you even expose one plate. And you're not. When you make the image. You're not standing behind the camera. You're next to the camera, as every photographer knows. You've you've set the camera up, you've attached the lens, uh, aligned it, focused it with a hood over your head. It's upside down and back to front, and then when you expose the image, you're looking at the subject. You're not hiding behind the camera. And I do that on my own. We were talking about just before we started talking. I don't take assistance. It's my burden, my suffering that I've got to carry all this gear up the mountains across the, it's a whole other story.
Speaker 1:And when I'm there sweating and sort of crying and bleeding, and then it's all set up and there's that one sheet, you know, and 10 by eights, you know about this big and uh, am I going to expose that? Am I not going to expose it? Uh, it needs three seconds. There's eight guys standing under a waterfall in the middle of nowhere. I'll never come back here again. I'll never find it again um, do I dare? And?
Speaker 1:And when you put the image in, you're looking and you're in total focus with the waterfall, with the light, with the guys standing in front of you, that they've all got to be looking at you and I'm looking at them. I'm not hiding behind anything. I'm totally naked, I'm totally vulnerable. I'm totally in the zone, in the space, in the moment, daring to expose that film which I will not see for another one and a half months. Did or I didn't, I get the picture.
Speaker 1:And so, to answer your question, I'm not hiding behind the camera anymore. I think I did. I'm embracing the camera, I'm embracing the medium, I'm embracing the moment'm I'm embracing the camera, I'm embracing the medium, I'm embracing the moment, I'm embracing the subject, I'm aspiring to be all one. The camera is there. The camera is the validation of the journey, but it's become much more. It's become an obsession of the aesthetic, of the art. Can I record the feeling, that humanity, that I feel where I'm aligned? It's taken me one and a half months to get into this location. I'm physically more connected with the environment than I've ever been before, with my vulnerability, with my need to make that picture, all the senses they raise and raise, and raise and raise, until it becomes a cacophony of alignment it's just the best way to describe it and I'm buzzing.
Speaker 1:And then you know, you expose the picture and you're looking at everybody you're not looking through the camera and all five of them didn't blink and didn't move and you go I think I have it and you, I mean I'm not going to use this sort of, I'm not going to refer to a sort of orgas, but it could be it actually goes far beyond that.
Speaker 1:And it's a high and I scream and I run to them and I hug them and they hug me and they're not quite sure what all the excitement's about. But I've obsessively been looking at them for weeks on end and I think I saw you. I think I saw you, I think I've recorded you in the highest aesthetic that I could in that moment, and I want to share this beauty with the world. And it's total ecstasy when you strip yourself down. You dare be in that moment and you dare want to believe that you have that image. Your emotions are shared, they become mutual and more often than not I don't know whether you've ever experienced this parties ensue and you're in the middle of nowhere and these epic parties start happening Because we're one. I saw you, I saw you, I saw you. I saw you in your highest state of being and we can't see the picture's no polaroid, there's no computer I never take laptops with me but we're in the moment. I saw you. And then as a result.
Speaker 1:As a result, you know, and what I'm looking for and this is the selfish journey is, jimmy, we see you, you're one of us, don't leave. And then I, then I melt, that I invariably cry because I'm exhausted and I feel safe, I feel held. I feel held by humanity and it doesn't matter where it is, whatever dangers there could have been in reaching these destinations or indoctrination of the potential, jane, there's kindness and this humanity, these very rich, valid, knowledgeable human beings holding me and say we see you, you're different from us, that we're not here to hurt you, we're not here to punish you, we're here to see you and hold you. And that's sort of the bridge to what is humanity. Humanity is love, without being all airy-fairy and putting candles on my head and coming in in a few minutes wearing white robes. Yes, I'm a little bit down to earth, but it is. It's all about love and I think if we as human beings I've got to give a talk next week for a whole lot of politicians here in the Netherlands and they'll go yeah, you're going to give us the.
Speaker 1:We need to make a 10-year plan for humanity, jimmy. First of all, I have to do it in dutch, which is quite complicated. And then you know, 10-year plan for humanity, you know. And then majority of these politicians, you know I hope none of them watch this podcast um are sort of somewhere. You know like politicians are, and I'm going. You know how on earth? First of all, we have no idea what's going to happen in 10 this time. But how on earth can you care about anybody else or have any understanding of anybody? Well, look at yourself in the mirror Again. I don't mean to be unkind, I don't mean to point fingers, I don't mean to Come on, fatty.
Speaker 1:It's not about fatty, but it's do you love yourself? Just joking. Do you love yourself? Are you in this role for the greater glory of humanity? Are you in this role for your own ego? Reflect on yourself. If you dare to love yourself and if you dare to give yourself a 10 year plan.
Speaker 1:I, ex-politician, want to be in 10 years time. The only way you can do that at middle age and I'll tell you about to the age of 56 is you've got to look after yourself. Only when you align with that and love that and embrace that can you embrace the other or have an opinion or care about the other. So, yeah, I use again bridging back to the camera, to again to be careful at this time in the morning, to love myself, to be kind to myself, to say, jimmy, it's not your fault that you feel this or you look like this or you carry this guilt. You're okay. You're okay. Just keep doing what you're doing and love what you're doing and celebrate what you're doing.
Speaker 1:And you're just a photographer, you have no qualifications. Guilt, guilt, guilt. But that's enough. That's enough. You're allowed to carry on in that process. You're not an anthropologist, you're not a politician, you just love humanity and you're doing that because you're trying to love yourself. It's a very, very, very simple, simple, simple journey. It's become my obsessive journey, but it's not very complicated, and I would love other people to not necessarily pick up a 10 by 8 camera and disappear off into the jungle. It's complicated, but to dare to go on that, that, that that creative journey of discovery but it's a discovery of self. Why do I need to do what I need to do? How can I sustain it? And if it's involving other human beings, how can I uh, learn, feel, align, be inspired?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think there's. There's so much to learn from what you're just talking about. The phrase I think I saw you really resonated with me. I haven't really heard it explained that way before, but it makes total sense, certainly from portrait photographers, you know, you just get it. Not only are you able to see other people, but you are also to see yours. You're able to see yourself more, I mean you. Sometimes I just react in the way, in ways I never knew I could react, you know, or could behave in most, hopefully, good ways. But it's really fascinating that symbiosis between seeing other people, allowing this camera to, to kind of formulate that, allow you to be present in that moment.
Speaker 1:I think it's such an underrated uh power not power, but it's very powerful, I should say. But yeah, go on. Thank you. I don't know whether I related this story the other day when we did our pre pre pre podcast, which is hopefully down the pin. Um, something happened to me not so long ago. This is the, the, the antithesis of of seeing this story, and. But I don't have a picture, I don't have a name, I don't have a telephone number, I only have a memory of a few minutes. But it's all about this obsessive uh, uh curiosity of the other and humility. What can I keep learning by connecting with the other?
Speaker 1:Not so long ago, here in the winter in the netherlands, I was on a station platform very early in the morning. I didn't really want to be there. It was 6 30, wet, cold, rainy, as it invariably is. Here in the netherlands, not like in bali, everybody's wearing black, including me. I'm, for one stupid reason, another got a big bicycle. I want to carry onto the train and at the other end of the platform there's a, a red person wearing a red coat, and I'm sort of a bit curious, as always, and I'm a bit half sleepy. And red coat at 6 30 in the morning in november on a station platform in the netherlands are you mad, you know? Well, you know, we should all be with our head in our telephones in the darkness and I said, oh, wow. And I looked a bit closer, very beautiful woman, forgive me said wow, interesting. So I sort of well, you know, okay.
Speaker 1:And then the the curious sort of what on earth is somebody's making an effort here and I want to understand why. So I sort of fought the crowd, put my bike on the train, everybody's huffing and puffing and grunting and being very direct and very dutch I'm one of them now, by the way, so don't worry, I'm not judging park my bike, sort of walk down a couple of carriages and there at the end of the carousel is a lady sitting and uh, great coincidence this is serendipity, I love serendipity there's the only chair that's empty opposite her. So I said I'm gonna go and sit there. So I sat down opposite it's not that I'm some sort of, you know, overly confident, uh sort of gigolo, but just curious of the other sat opposite her and within seconds of sitting I understood why I'd sat there. She was sitting very straight, a little bit like a sort of Mary Poppins figure, very classically dressed, tight jacket, flowers in her hair, beautiful colors, and she was sort of waving from side to side, a little bit like Stevie Wonder. And then she started folding a white stick and she put the white stick on her lap and then it clicked. She's blind, okay. So now this is interesting. So now you know you're thinking I knew there was a reason, I knew there was a reason.
Speaker 1:And then the story evolves and then she, in a very high, beautifully pitched Dutch voice, says I need somebody's help. Everybody cringes. And she says I need your help like this because today's a special day and people are looking but sort of cringing, and you know, oh, my god, you're not going to talk to each other this time. In the morning people are turning up with olive. I'm going on a date.
Speaker 1:As you can see, I've made an enormous effort today to look. I've got my heels on, but I need to get out of the station platform further down and I've never been there before. So no white stick's going to help me get anywhere. So I need somebody's help to get off the train. Nobody replies. Nobody replies, including me. I'm sort of dumbfounded again, first of all not knowing where she needs to get off and I've got my bike, so I'm not going to abandon my bike and help this beautiful lady off the train. So I'm quiet, her surroundings are quiet and then she's sort of flustered, but also, you know, accepting. Well, here we go again. You know, this is the way of the world. Doesn't look like there's anybody else sitting on the train with me.
Speaker 1:Doesn't look like there's anybody else sitting on the train with me here today. I suppose I'll just have to look after myself. Like always, it's okay. So she's rummaging in her handbag and she pulls out a pair of headphones on a cable and they're in a knot. And then I said, I leaned across and said excuse me, I'm Jimmy. I don't know where you're going and I don't think I can get off the train and help you, but I can help you untangle your headphones. And she goes oh, finally somebody to talk to. So I sort of untangling the headphones and then I sort of gather a little bit of bravery. I said can I, can I ask you a question please? And she starts to smile. She says yeah, I love questions. And I said I noticed you earlier and I was a little bit confused. Where and why has all this effort come from? Where do you, where do you find the daring to to be so beautiful? I simply said look at us, look at this carriage. And you said you're going on a date, but I'm sure there are other reasons. And she started to beam from end to end of her mouth. It was wonderful to watch.
Speaker 1:Everybody starts now listening and looking up from not that they have newspapers anymore, but from their telephones she goes thank you for asking. You know, this is epic. She says I know I'm beautiful, but I haven't seen for 25 years. But I feel beautiful. Many, many years ago, when I was a young child, my mom came up and said you know, sweetie, you're slowly going blind. You'll never see again, but that's okay. You're going to go on a journey most people will never go on. We're going to discover what your real, real beauty is and when you connect with that, this will carry through your life and it doesn't matter whether you can, you can't see. So that's the journey. She went on with her mother and she said today I wake up every morning and I invest. Obviously, people taught me how to do it. I invest in looking beautiful. Today is an exception because I'm going to meet somebody, but there's not one day in my life that people don't come up to me blindly, using a metaphor, on the street and thank me for my beauty.
Speaker 1:She stood up. As she stood up, three other men got up and said we need to help you. So they grabbed her, they sort of carried her and she sort of floated across the platform, up the escalator and I sat behind in the train. I hadn't made a picture, I hadn't got a number, I didn't know her name, I just listened to her story and I had envy beyond your wildest imagination.
Speaker 1:Here's somebody who has I have all the assets, I have all the privilege, perhaps missing a little bit of hair, that's it. And here's somebody who hasn't seen for 25 years and she felt beautiful and she was beautiful and she is beautiful and and that's that journey, that's what I'm looking for, that incessant curiosity, to be in stories, to be with humanity, to be searching, to be looking for answers and learning as you go, realizing you'll never get there to know it and learn from it. Whether it's in papua new guinea or wherever, or on a train in rainy netherlands, those stories are all there and that so it's. It's not about the camera, it is. I'm an obsessive photographer, but even if I don't have the camera, I'm innately curious about other human beings. I want to listen to their stories. I want to, I want to learn yeah, so where does that mean where?
Speaker 2:where do you belong in the world in that respect, then, and where does your photography sit in the photography hemisphere?
Speaker 1:um, good question, I don't know. To be honest, I'm Jimmy, nothing more, nothing less. Uh, every night I go to bed worried that I won't be able to wake up in the morning and be allowed to take pictures. I love the art of photography. I would love to inspire other people to see the world the way I see it. And it's very subjective, it's very romantic, it's very directed. When I arrive, I don't take pictures, sometimes for weeks. It's all about the interaction, it's the stories, it's the awareness. All about the interaction. It's the stories, it's the awareness, it's the understanding, it's the observation, and then it's the safety that we mutually feel.
Speaker 1:And then I ask a community to present themselves to me as they would like to be seen, as they feel in their pride, in their honor. So I'm not a journalist. I will never win any award. I think I'm just an. I think I'm just an artist. I'm just jimmy, I'm an artist and I use a camera, and nothing more, nothing less. And whether my art or my aesthetic resonates, uh, that is to be seen in time. I don't know. It does with me. Um, I used to worry that it wasn't valid. It is valid for me and I love it. And if the rest of the world never looks at another picture that I make, I will carry on making them until I sort of disappear. Um, so does that answer the?
Speaker 2:question it does. Yeah, I find that sometimes, including myself, it's difficult to have that feeling of belonging. You know photography. If we, if we take photography just as a craft right, just the technique of taking a photograph, it's kind of an individual sport, it's an individual pursuit, so it's not like you're in an office. I mean, I know we have studios and we work with other people, but you kind of know what I mean. Like pressing that shutter button is just you and getting the project, the idea, the concept. You know. Most of the time, in your case especially, you don't really want other people helping you. There's, you know, you, you, you are the, the, the person that is, you know, on that journey. You're the only person that's on that journey for that specific journey. We're all on different journeys, but I mean photography specifically, and sometimes it can be lonely, sometimes you, you know, all the time imposter syndrome you know, sets in.
Speaker 2:So I only ask that question because sometimes it's difficult for us to and I only say us because I've spoken to other people about that and, and me included, it's sometimes too difficult to grab onto that feeling of, okay, I belong in this world, in terms of this world of photography and world of art, and you know the community of photographers and the community of travelers or the community of the tribe that I'm, I'm visiting, so it's, you know. That's the reason why I kind of asked that question where do you kind of fit in.
Speaker 1:Where do you belong? Okay, it's a very, very important question. You asked it again and I'll I'll evolve my answer. So I'm losing my english. Having lived in holland for more than 33 years, sometimes I'm sort of struggling for dutch words, but also english words nowadays. That's why I'm a photographer. We can put subtitles. Um, um. I think it.
Speaker 1:My advantage is, amongst others, I'm 56. I'll be 57 in november. I'm I'm.
Speaker 1:I personally am not on social media. I have a small team here. Anybody who sustains themselves as an artist, like I do, has people to help them. They, more than help me, they look after me. They care for me. There are five amazing ladies. One of them does the social media.
Speaker 1:I have no idea how to open social media or apply something to social media, and I'm not watching other people on social media. That has advantages and disadvantages. Let's talk about the advantages is I'm free, I'm not counting, I don't feel I'm being monitored. I'm in the zone. I'm in my zone. It's very indulgent. Uh, whether that zone's healthy or not or it's complete madness could be time. Time will tell. They'll go.
Speaker 1:Oh, that poor guy. He thought he was making images that were valid. But if you leave that zone and you start analyzing where is my place, what is my validity, what is my legacy? It's paranoia that sets in, and it's not that I haven't occasionally been there. Perhaps last week, when we spoke a few days ago, I was there. I'd sort of gone in and started getting objectivity. Oh my god, jimmy, you are not worthy. Um, maybe that was the issue. It's extremely important not to to, to, to. I don't, I don't want to preach, uh, but but to be in that space. What, what matters to you? What is the wealth of the process, what is the wealth of the pigeon? If you're happy making it, if you're satisfied with what you've seen, with what you've experienced and you love yourself again. We're getting back to that. That should be enough. That should be enough. And I've had sort of many cycles in my sort of life journey and there'll be many more to come.
Speaker 1:But I can remember very clearly 16 years ago, big onset of digital photography. I've been working as a commercial photographer. I mean basically the work I do now. I started as a kid. I let go of, or it became.
Speaker 1:I got married very young, when I was 23, had three kids amazing, as I said, I'm separated and then I worked as a commercial photographer for many years to pay, and she said the gas and the lights and the bills and the nappies for many years to pay. And she said the gas and the lights and the bills and the nappies and the schools and the handbags for the wife sorry, I shouldn't go there and I ran and I ran and I ran and then one day I sort of you know, had this sort of you know crisis moments. You know, let's say, I crashed and the onset of digital photography and, uh, commercial photography was nose-dicing. My day fee went from 10 euros to one euro and, jimmy, we like you, but we're not gonna, you know, we're only gonna pay the market price. So essentially, my business died, amongst other things, um, and I can remember thinking, going back to that child, going back to that voice of when I was seven what matters, what matters is being in the world, being with humanity, being with a camera, with people that I see, I want to connect with. And I remember having this sort of you know, this sort of a moment of inspiration and people around me were going well, you're mad, photography's dead. Nobody's interested in pictures of indigenous cultures.
Speaker 1:I can remember saying very clearly what I am. I am. It's.
Speaker 1:The wealth of my journey is what I need to be happy. It's what I need to be whole. It's what I need to sustain. If I carry on on this journey, I will will go mad, and I can't go mad because I have the responsibility of three young kids. You will never earn a single penny ever again. Well, it's not going very well at the moment, is it so? Everything's more than where I am at the moment. So, but at least if I go down this path, which I chose full time 60 years ago, I'll be a happy bunny, whether I earn any money doing it or not, but I'll be happy and, as a result of being a happy person and a healthy person, I may be a better dad than I am being at the moment. I was earning quite well, and that was a very profound moment.
Speaker 1:And then I disappeared. I ran away I have the habit of doing that every now and again and I disappeared into Mongolia in the depths of a winter that was the worst winter they'd had in decades and got lost, didn't have the right clothing, froze, but came back to life, and that was 16 years ago. And then, from that day on, this is happiness. This is me, maybe very eccentric, maybe very odd, maybe very obsessive. There may be no reason for it, but this is where this is me maybe very eccentric, maybe very odd, very, very obsessive. There may be no reason for it, but this is where I belong, this is who I am and I'm going to do everything in my power my limited power and it is quite limited, unfortunately to sustain this happiness.
Speaker 1:To get back to jimmy's okay, and here we, 16 years later, and it's still a daily process. There's no cruise control. I wish or not, there's no cruise control. Every morning, I wake up as early as possible, do my hair, put on my makeup and go right, seize the day. How are we going to survive today? But I love it.
Speaker 2:So, you know, let's touch upon that a little bit before I come back to something you talked about earlier how, without sounding too crude how do you make money? I know you, you know it must be so liberating to not be under the pressure of you're under many pressures, I know, but just commercial jobs and commercial pressure. Tell us a little bit about your business model, because I know some of my audience who are just kind of getting into photography, who look up to you and want to kind of do what you do, but they also need to pay the rent and then it was pay the bill. So, you know, tell us a little bit about your current business model and how that's sustainable.
Speaker 1:First of all, I'm not a businessman. Uh, I can't add that one in one. That's perhaps one of the reasons I ran away from school. It's 11. It's 11. I thought it was 32.
Speaker 1:I tried to be, when I was younger, a businessman, an entrepreneur, and I failed on more occasions. I'm not going to show you the evidence or the crash landing. The first and most important thing in the business model is I delegate all the things I can't do, and that's nine out of the ten. So if you look at my ten fingers, I often say this is me, I'm, I'm the industry say the pinky, the small finger, and my team supplied the other nine. Um, that's the most important aspect. As a result of that, I need to their salaries, so I need to work my ass off. But that's also a bit like sort of you know, here we go into sort of Catholic education. I'm sort of flagellating myself to run like hell to to enable to pay their salaries. But that gives you the power I. I'm so not good at all those other things. They so don't make me happy because I'm reminded how not good I am. The only thing I can do is or I think I can do is make a picture. So perhaps I it's not that I work even harder, but that really sustains me, that really drives me, because without those, that team, I can't make the picture. What they do for me, they manage.
Speaker 1:I have a studio here in amsterdam that's where I am at the moment. It's a studio, workspace, gallery. Um, they, we publish our own books. So we design, invest, publish and distribute our own books. So that's one very important part of the business model. I've been publishing and selling books, not personally, but we've published this in for the last 15 years. Um, very important, and this is also important for listeners.
Speaker 1:You, as you will enter the artistic world, there's a multitude of people around you that will indoctrinate you into being insecure. You can't, you can't, you can't. We will do it for you. For that we need a percentage. One of them is publishers. The first few publishers I went to, uh I and you ended up earning, you know, not more than a toothpick for every book that was sold, and in some cases hundreds of thousands of books were sold and we never had more than a toothpick because after a long process of attrition all that money sort of dissipated. So that business model we flipped. So we will do it ourselves, we will control it, we will make it, produce it, print it, design it and distribute it. That requires part of the team. It's a very expensive process, but at least you can control the return.
Speaker 1:I exhibit in galleries and museums and I sell limited edition prints. That's a very interesting, difficult process. You can do it in one of two ways you can do it yourself, where you can control the business model, or you do it in the artistic world, and when you do it in the artistic world you have to disconnect 50% to 60 percent of the income, but then the curatorial word validates you, but for that they earn in return, yeah, and you have to choose option a or b. Option a is both options are so insecure, uh. Option b when you do it yourself, you will never perhaps be validated in artistic or in the curatorial world because nobody's earning directly from you. But you can perhaps control the narrative, uh.
Speaker 1:Thirdly, uh, I do quite a bit of public speaking. Uh, this is a uh. A medium, uh, that I fell into accidentally about 10 years ago. I did a ted talk by accident and that resulted in quite a bit of corporate speaking and that's a very important business model, um.
Speaker 1:Thirdly, fourthly, I have a small foundation and once or twice a year I will take a group of CEOs with me on a journey and they contribute to the foundation. The foundation is a pot whereby all the excess income that we earn gets put back into and I return it to the people I work with sort of theme of reciprocity. I am given something, I monetize your identity and your with a picture, but I have to return an element of that monetization and that's what we do within the foundation. So I think I mentioned this last time at the end of the month there's never anything in the pot. There's no. It's no pension, there's no, there's no mortgage to be paid. So whatever comes in goes out. That's terrifying, to be honest.
Speaker 1:But if I don't do that, if I don't reinvest everything to the people who work with me to sustain the little business and to give back within the foundation, I don't believe I'm and this is where we all get sort of, you know, into guilt I'll be allowed to carry on doing what I'm doing. So I don't believe I'm allowed to hold any of that material asset. So I will never be a rich businessman, but I'm aspiring to be a very rich individual. So I think, as artists, as photographers, everybody who's listening don't go on this journey hoping to go on this journey to feel that wealth. And I think one can get very close to becoming one of the richest people, humans, in the world if one indulges deep on this journey. But you will always have an empty bank account, so there, you go everyone, or you don't have to.
Speaker 2:But then here's another part of the business model an empty bank account. So there you go everyone.
Speaker 1:Or you don't have to. But then here's another part of the business model. So I'm regularly asked by commercial organizations. Let's say I'm going to mention that Shell wants to come and put a sticker on my head. A nice irony. It's the company my father used to work for. Oh Jimmy, here's a pot of gold and never have to have to worry about money again. Then I would believe I would solve all my financial issues. But then I would believe I wasn't walking the talk. Uh, then I would become a hypocrite. Then, uh, I would be using funds to and there are a number of other people whose names I'm not going to mention, who wallow in their self-worthiness, but behind the scenes they're being funded by large corporate organizations and I think that's somewhat hypocritical. But it's for them to feel that and know that, without for me outing them. I uh feel very, very strongly. Um, you have to not. Uh, yeah, do that, but that's my own suffering and that's my own journey well you.
Speaker 2:You're clearly a person with a lot of integrity. That comes across just in an online conversation.
Speaker 1:I try, I'm failing the whole time. I mean, the other day, when I was in a bit of a bad mood, that was because I was worrying, I was panicking. And here I am. It doesn't matter how many books I've published or how many exhibitions I've had or how kind people are on their compliments. You're always on that narrow edge of but perhaps you have to be there to be alive, to be alert, to not be complacent, to not be sanct. What's the right word? No, I think you get what.
Speaker 1:I mean Sanctimonious yeah, sanctimonious yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think again, you may be being too harsh on yourself. You're the first guest I've had to admit that. You know I didn't present myself in the best possible way, and can we do it again? I mean, I was, I was shocked, what, the what I mean? I mean I, I didn't, I didn't notice it, but but that's, that's pure honesty, right, that's that's ego aside, that's, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:So, you know I, I think you know you may everyone's human in those aspects like you will have a shit conversation every now and then, or you may not turn up to be the best version of you at various points in your life. Of course that's going to happen but yet be able to a be aware of that, acknowledge it and admit it, and then not just to yourself but to the other person that it may have affected, affected. That is true integrity. I mean that's and that is surely and I talk about this all the time in terms of honesty and dishonesty. You know, if you live a dishonest life, however kind of nuanced that definition is you, you will escape happiness until, until you realize what true honesty is. And but I wanted to dive in on that you know, certainly as as photographers who have the little devil on their shoulder. It may not be a devil. It may not be as big conglomerate like Shell, who's, you know, got that pot of gold ready for you to dive into. It may just be a sponsor who's going to pay you a little bit of retainer every month so that you can live and therefore able to go out and do more meaningful work.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, there is always this fine balance between commercialism and passion and I think it's difficult to remain integral all the time when you might be able to free up some of your capacity, some of your creative thinking. Maybe you might be able to afford that trip to somewhere that you want to go and explore. So it's a constant conveyor belt of temptation versus, you know, honesty and meaningful and trying to be just a better person as well as a photographer. So I do understand people who who have that battle and and most commercial photographers do have that, that battle and some, some, don't care. It's the people that don't care and then lie about you, like you said, have this persona and, you know, chase that status. That's a little, a little bit different, but on the kind of smaller scale I do, I do have a lot of sympathy with with.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm there, I am that, I, I I do. And you know I've been struggling, and I'm still struggling, as a photographer since I was a kid. It was always a struggle from the beginning, but maybe that's my nature, maybe that's my narrative. I think the only thing that's important is for you to know your narrative. If you flip it and, like you, I'm often asked yeah, I want to do what you do and the simple question what camera should I buy? Oh, that's the wrong question, and I sort of flip it, I said, well, that's okay, I understand why you've asked that question. I'm not judging you for it. When I was 18, I bought a box of cameras with long, long lenses because I thought that was the package that I needed.
Speaker 1:The only thing that matters is what's the story you're going to tell. And that story gets richer and richer and richer and richer as life, as for as long as we're given life, passes, and you have to be aligned with that story and resonate with that story and listen to that story and love that story. And then how you tell that story, with whatever medium, whatever camera, whatever lens, whatever sponsor, whatever business model, is up to you. Right, and it's all valid. It's all valid. And if you want to go and save the rainforest but be sponsored by a mining company, go and do it.
Speaker 1:I'm not judging, but that's your story and, as long as it's true to you and it's the narrative you want to tell, be my guest. We, we've sat here for the last few minutes and I'm sort of, you know, woe be me. And suffering the fear. But that's what makes me tick, that's what keeps me alive, that's what pushes me. Without that I wouldn't be obsessively running around the world with a 10x8 analog camera. So that's my story, that's my journey. I think I now understand the narrative, but it's not the journey. I'd advise everybody, everybody, to go but don't only think go on.
Speaker 1:Sorry, the only thing that matters is it in an artistic context. And if I'm what's trying to sound like I'm gray, wise, old man, I'm obviously not gray and definitely not wise. But getting old is is you have to be obsessive. You have to be obsessive. There's an amazing ted talk on with this young chinese lady, american chinese, and she's epic, and she goes, you know what success? And bam, bam, bam, she reels it all of good looks, height, money, and she says no, it's grit, obsession, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever giving up. And if one doesn't have that, I don't think it's possible to sustain this journey as a photographer or as an artist. And you have to deeply align with that obsession, and that's the narrative. And if you understand the narrative then you know where you get the, the, the energy from. Now you've got to be careful. The obsession has to be healthy, because it can sort of take you the wrong way it can.
Speaker 2:And there is a line, I think, whether you agree with me or not on this, there there is a. There's a point as a photographer, as an artist or someone, if, if your work is in the public most people's work is in the public now, for reasons that we know about. But do you not think that we have a responsibility to be integral, to be honest, to try and promote a good message where you know obviously it has to be true to you, otherwise it will mean nothing and you won't do it. You won't find that obsession to make it better and better and better and better and spread that voice. I think voice is so important, especially as a photographer, do you? Do you not think, then, that there is you know, it's not like, go and do whatever you want, as long as it's true to you.
Speaker 2:I, I do think there is a line that we, we can influence people for the for the good or or bad things, and we have to be aware of that, especially if we're in a public facing role, whether we like it or not. I'm not talking about super famous or anything, but you know a thousand loyal followers, whether they're followers who buy your books, clients who come to your talks or followers on social media, whatever. There is an element of responsibility. We can't just go around, you know, shouting shit and just you know creating outrage, just because it's going to make us money. Right, so I did I. Would you agree with that? It's not like go do whatever you want.
Speaker 1:I, I seriously agree with it. But I don't want to judge. I know how difficult it has been and still is for me to be, to be honest, and it's this lifelong obsession. It's this lifelong obsession of understanding why certain things happen, uh, but, but, but I can't, uh, I can't.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to preach or advise others. It's not for every individual, but I think if humanity was vulnerable and honest, then we would be in a far different place than we are. And that's the biggest issue and that's what so upsets me, because the potential for humanity, the potential for kindness, for compassion, for empathy, all these aspects we need as photographers, if that could sort of saturate into other parts of society, then we would be in a far better place. But the individual themselves, you can, would be in a far better place. And but, but the individual themselves, you can't be indoctrinated, you can't be told to do that. You have to be it and feel it. So the same goes for photographers. Um, they themselves have to. You, the listeners, have to discover that truth. All that I can say is passing the pivot of Mivel Life and getting a little bit older, it's liberating. That truth, that honesty. It's wonderful, it's terrifying, but you're alert, you're alive, you're flying in that fragility. The story I told last time, and I'm not going to rabbit on about that feather of Forrest Gump, that's letting it fly and it taking you to the lightness of being, when that feather is whole, when that feather is pure, when that feather is the essence of the wing, that child. It flies, is the essence of the wing, that child, it flies, it flies and that comes through being honest and being vulnerable and being human and being fragile. And in that fragility you're, as you say, all armed, you're gathered and held by the world. And I'm still here.
Speaker 1:I've been to done some perhaps stupid things over there, but I never go over the edge. I'm always touching the edge. I'm always here. I've been to done some perhaps stupid things over there, but I never go over the edge. I'm always touching the edge. I'm always looking over there. I'm touching the void, to use the term of the title of the book. I'm looking over the edge, but I never get so close that I fall off it. But by always looking over the edge, I'm getting, I'm learning, I'm learning. I'm getting closer and closer to a very, very fine line of, yeah, fragility and honesty and it's liberating. And to answer that question to the person who asked me the other day would you one day end up taking self-portraits? And it's not perhaps about vanity, but turning the camera on yourself. What do you see? And you can only do that if you're totally honest. I'm not there yet, but I'm trying.
Speaker 2:How do you then it? Are we going to talk about this in in two facets of your, your images. So first of all, it's going to be the process where I want to talk about the, the logistical and physical process, because I know that's it's interesting to me, but I know it's interesting to to many people out there. You know how do you go and get these images. But really more important for me I want to dive into it is how you go about thinking of a story, how you go about creating that story with the camera, with you, with connections, and we talk about film. Photography allows you to be more present. Is that a conscious decision or was it a evolutionary decision? But talk to me about those two kind of sides of your images and your projects and that, the art that you put put together. Talk to me about that process and then talk to me about the storytelling. How do you, how you go about telling a story and creating a story?
Speaker 1:um, good question, thank you. I'll try and begin with the first part and then we'll evolve into the second part and I'll take you and your listeners on the creative journey I'm on at this moment today, not necessarily sitting with you, but I'm manifesting a project in the Middle East. The working title I don't think it will be the title it's called the Souls of the Sand. I think most of the books I make are fairly ambiguous titles because I don't want to be specific before they pass away between the sea and the sky. It's more about a sort of poetic, artistic interpretation of a subject. So when you refer to the Middle East, often you think of religion, you think of economy, you think of anger, think of anger, fear, hate. I think the middle east has been more documented than any other part of the world in the last 40 years, but there's only one form of documentation that comes out of there. I want to invert that narrative.
Speaker 1:I am traveling on a regular basis to a variety of countries between the Stans and Morocco, which are it's the greater Nima Um, and I'm trying to retell a narrative. I'm trying to look for, uh, indigenous, authentic culture that still exists to, to make a picture, to tell a story that's a positive as opposed to a negative narrative and, as I said, this part of the world. I've just been in Yemen, on the border of Saudi, and I'm going back there again next month and I'll explain what I'm doing. The only images and only stories we've had from that part of the world are negative, ever since I can remember. The narrative that I'm going to tell is something very different and experiencing as a result. So a part of this greater story. I wanted to visit some tribal communities on the border of Yemen and Saudi, in the Asir region, in the far southwest, right down in the corner. You straddle the border, so you're working in Yemen. I've never been there before. The only narrative and information I have is online, which is negative Don't go.
Speaker 1:So how I normally go, so I go anyway. When they say don't go, that's the first thing. I go. Everywhere they say don't go, I go on my own and I go with no cameras. So I was there last month, went with a little backpack and I did take an iphone with me, and I went on a two-week journey, two and a half week journey right the way down, just as a tourist, and I went to, to see to to to see is what I read on the internet the real story or is there something else going on? I discovered what I knew was there uh, I didn't make any pictures had a variety of conversations and said can you help me if I was to come back on my own with cameras? And this is what I would like to do. I obviously took copies of my books with me and it's basically a two and a half three weeks conversation. The answer was yes and we will look after you and we understand what you're trying to do. So I'm going to go back again next month. I will go on my own.
Speaker 1:I've got a small team on the ground going to meet me, a translator, a guide, a couple of tribal leaders and I will turn up with a lot of kit. It's always a bit of a struggle getting the 10x eight camera, probably about 10, a hundred, 10 boxes of 10 sheets, so it's a hundred images tripods, backgrounds, reflectors I only use ambient lights, never artificial light gear. So it's probably about a hundred kilos. 50 of that kilo I carry as hand baggage because I've got to get on four different flights. I could write a book about that one day, how you travel around the world with 50 kilos hand baggage. It's fun, it's an art into itself. We could have a whole other podcast if you want to talk about that.
Speaker 1:You can't check in any of the gear because I will never see it again. It's not only bespoke made, but I just won't see it. I know through experience. By the time there's three or four flights, I will not see it. So I carry it. That's a whole other story. If and when I get there, I will disappear and hopefully come back. Be careful what I say, touch wood and hopefully come back. Careful what I say, touch wood.
Speaker 1:95% of the time is conversation and 5% of the time will be making the image. Of that 5%, 4% is portraits. It's the meeting of the individuals. It's creating a set using ambient light and reflected light, photographing the primary individual within the community, praising them, honoring them, worshipping them in essence. And reflected light photographing the primary individual within the community, praising them, honoring them, worshiping them in essence, and gradually the rest of the community come to the camera and then, as the climax, we go off into the mountains and I try to make these landscape shots. The region I'm going to is unbelievably beautiful. It's not online. You can't see any images there. I mean, if you think Wadi Rum in Jordan is spectacular, just you wait and see what I'm going to do, if and when those images are complete, I come back and then I'll go back again with one of my colleagues here and we'll film it. So it's a three-tier process 90% of the time.
Speaker 1:So that's the build-up. So, for example, I'm going the beginning of next year to Iran. I'm going to go and live with the Qashqai nomads for a month. I've been there once on my own. I'll go back again on my own with the camera and then I'll go back again for the third time and film it, and that tends to be the more difficult and complicated regions in the world. It's always on my own at the beginning. That's when I'm most fragile.
Speaker 1:If you arrive with an entourage and there's a whole crew and there's drones and there's bags and there's pelican cases, it's very intimidating. If you arrive, fucking terrified, on your own and you show it, there's that fragility and in that fragility there's an enormous sort of oh dear, somebody's lost, Not too different than I was when I was 17, wandering across Tibet as a lost teenager, but you're sort of almost reenacting that moment of abandonment, vulnerability, nakedness. I'm a little bit eccentric, I'm a bit odd and oh wow, this is somebody we don't normally want here but being on his own, he's not here with any long black things and he's crying, sitting, shaking, sweating. Perhaps he needs our help. And then that's the beginning of the process. It's extremely important to be in that way and to be very, very, very, very patient. And then I mean I'm covering a lot of ground.
Speaker 1:The longer-term dual, we say in Dutch process is it's not about the quantity of images, it's about that small, small, select handful where everything is aligned. It's the investment of the story, the journey, the understanding, the connection, the knowing, the learning, and that's where you're aligned with your narrative. This is what I want to put into the picture. That helps with being older. You know, when I was younger you would spray and pray, although we didn't have digital, but still with analog. And as time goes you narrow down the image that you're looking for. So it's very much about the experience up front, the that I'm going to tell I have no idea right second part of the question.
Speaker 1:I have no idea. Uh, the best way, this is how I always, and people look at me and they go. But but you must know. You must know who you're going to meet and what it's going to cost and how many pictures you're going to make and what time you're going to come back. Now I have this is the analogy of a good chef. I cannot cook to save my life 10 years in an institution. But let's use the analogy of a chef. A really, really like.
Speaker 1:My eldest daughter can cook like nobody. She can walk into any kitchen anywhere, she can analyze the ingredients, but she instinctively knows and trusts that she can align all those ingredients and make something spectacular. She doesn't have a something spectacular, she doesn't have a menu, she doesn't have a picture and she's not going to publish a book. But she's, she trusts that process. It's in her blood, it's in my blood. For a variety of reasons since my birth that I intuitively know, I've gathered a variety of ingredients and it will align to something. But what it will align to I don't. What it will align to, I don't know. There is no menu and there is no picture and there is no expectation Because there's no client. I'm my own client. This is very important and because I'm the only one who's responsible for the investment, I can trust that process. There is no expectation, so I don't have to promise anything to anybody other than to myself. So I'm my own beast of burden, so to speak. So my expectations are beyond here. So if I'm to make a new book, it has to be beyond anything I've ever made before for it to be valid.
Speaker 1:What it will look like and the story that I'll tell, I don't really know. All I instinctively feel is that it's a journey that I have to go on. I have to retell that narrative of that part of the world. I know and I've seen and I've already recorded it and I'm not going to show yet. There's unbelievable beauty there, human beauty From the last part, I the most. If you talk about civilization, it all began here, but for ever since I can remember uh, uh and younger people around me, it's only one story. I want to flip that story. How I'm going to flip it and whether I will survive to tell the tale, time will tell. So that's how I go about a journey making a book. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. I mean you've got an overarching concept right, you've got a narrative and you decided, like I want to put a positive spin on it. I want to see what it's really like.
Speaker 1:It's not necessarily a positive spin. I want to tell a different story. I visited a number of these countries as a child. I spent many months in Afghanistan. When I was in my late teens we lived in Iran, so I know there's something else there. For the last 30 years I haven't been brave enough to go there because I was told it's not safe. I'm now curious enough and it's not about being brave, but in my own narrative to want to go and discover for myself, and I know that the medium I'm using and I know the context of the story that I want to tell. I'm looking for beauty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what you're trying to.
Speaker 1:I'm looking for beauty in humanity, yeah. That's what you're trying to evoke in your images that is the story, that, yeah, yeah, nothing more, nothing less.
Speaker 2:And that's aligned with, yeah, my own search quick one on the process, because I get this all the time. Like half my images are semi-staged, right, I'm directing, I'm, you know, putting in specific positions to, in order to create a beautiful aesthetic and also have something underneath that. Right, I, you know, people, ignorant people, kind of criticize that a lot and I'm sure you may get that I mean a lot of your. I understand why you have to stage these things and why you want to stage them, but when you talk about I, you and and and, uh, you know, getting into the soul of these people with a staged photo is almost like a um, a contradiction in terms. Right, how do you, how do you, analyze that?
Speaker 1:long answer, short term. I'll start with the short answer you were. I listened to your podcast with the amazing photographer joey l, and he said there isn't, there hasn't ever been one picture since the beginning of time that wasn't essentially staged in a variety of forms. It's, it's, it's, it's a a farth to say that a picture isn't staged. And again, I don't want to use names of other photographers, we're not going to go there, but every single picture is subjective to the eye of the photographer and how they're going to build the frame around and how they're going to choose when or not to expose the shutter speed. But then, at the same time, there's a whole arc of what can be perceived as staging. But it's all staging.
Speaker 1:It's the subject of recording. I do stage, but I stage for me. What is a different truth? So I don't take I really take a reportage pictures. Oh, I'll use my iphone every now and again to record a few things for myself. Uh, my pictures are a climax at the end of a meeting and an end of a knowing and end of an understanding, but it is as truthful as running in a spring and praying with an iphone at the beginning.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to tell a different story and I can remember 10 years ago when one of my first books came out and there was quite a bit of online discussion Jimmy Nelson and his Before they Pass Away and I remember thinking, well, this is a bit odd. And a number of journalists, what do you mean? It's odd. And I said, well, ever since time began in our world, let's say in the western world, uh, every picture, that's the majority of the pictures that we, we see, we publish, we show, are all staged, but we never comment on that. That it's this aspired state of being, it's this beauty, it's this wealth, it's this elegance. 90 of all images are this, this sort of celebrated podium, but we've never commented about that. Whether it's true or untrue, this is our aspired state of being, this beauty, aesthetic, if I, in my eccentricity need and want to disappear into the developing world and apply that same narrative sorry, they're the poor people.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:They run around the jungle with feathers on their banging drums. No, no, no, no, no, no. The same is what happened if you spin it back up more than 100 years to edward sheriff curtis. Edward sheriff curtis if any of your listeners don't know who he is, please google one of my heroes. He spent 30 years of his life documenting the native american indian. He made 30 volumes, the most extraordinary aesthetic documentation of one of the richest cultures to ever walk this planet that was annihilated. When he died, the same narrative was being told oh, you're a loser, this is a waste of time. This is poverty. This is backward. This is ancient, this is primitive. Uh, the last 30 years of your life are wasted. We're going to destroy 90 of your images and you're going to die a pauper. That's what happened to him.
Speaker 1:In the 1970s, a few of the negatives were found in a bookshop somewhere in new york. They were published and contemporary American society went oh, was this? Did this used to be the people who walked this nation? Yeah, and look at them. And they entered the world. And then there was this massive conversation around it. But this wasn't real. He staged them.
Speaker 1:Now, he spent the last 30 years of his life and the last 30 years of the Native American Indian on this tour and he did do not too different to what I'm doing. He would walk into their communities and he said this is about to go and disappear. I'm here to record it for posterity's sake. It's valuable and it's important. Come to me at your most dignified, come to me at your most beautiful. Come to me when the light comes from here and the mountains here and the winds here and the feathers are there. I don't want to photograph you in disrespect or in poverty. Your wealth, your beauty. I want to put you on a pedestal, so not too dissimilar to him. That's what I'm doing now.
Speaker 1:There are two different narratives. You can disappear off into Yemen, which is where I was, and run around with a reportage camera and follow everybody with the guns. Or you can walk into their communities, spend weeks sitting watching, watch their ceremonies, look at their traditions and ask them to come to me in a kind space and tell a different narrative. Show you and the world and wait until you see what I've made, and I'm making some of the most beautiful people I've ever seen in my life, with traditions that do not exist anywhere else on the planet. It's unbelievably, and that's staged or is it? That's the conversation, or is it just a different narrative? Do I go in with a flak, jacket on with press and photograph a couple of dead bodies on a street? Or do I disappear off into the mountains and live with the community and say what's going down there in the city is a very different story.
Speaker 1:What's happening up here on the mountains? Tell that story with me, show that to me. Show that in its dignity, its beauty and the way I do it is obsessively with a camera, because I'm trying to make an artistic aesthetic. So I totally stand behind my process of working and it's not too dissimilar to Edward Sheriff Curtis, many other photographers, and in all honesty, I don't think as a photographer, as an artist, you should worry about that. The only thing you should worry about is where we were half an hour ago, is what is your truth, what is your story? And if you, if you connect with that and hold it, it's fine. If you want to stick a sticker with shell on your forehead and that's your truth and you earn it, fine. Who am I to say any different? It's all about the narrative you're telling to yourself and if you're truthful to yourself and that can only come when you love yourself, then it's fine what other people think of it, don't, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2:Don't worry about it I love, I love, I love what you said about a different truth. I mean narrative, yes, but there are. There is not just one truth that photographers can um express right. There are many.
Speaker 1:It is subjective and therefore there are your own subjective, it's all subjective, but that's what, that's what's beautiful, but the stories that last, the work that I would believe, or hope they believe, is the one that's closest to the truth yep, your truth.
Speaker 2:Let's round off with with something similar to that and and that's the the, I guess, a dilemma, but the responsibility you have as a photographer to represent ethnic groups in a way that is with dignity and is with beauty and allows you to serve them the way you want to serve them. Talk, to talk to us about that pressure that you probably put on yourself but also feel from others externalities and how do you get around that, or how do you do it.
Speaker 1:You don't get around it, you jump into the narrative. There's no avoidance, it's a lesser of two evils. This is the way I look at it and this is the narrative I told myself, and, whether it's true or not, it's my truth. You ignore them, you don't document them, you don't share them, you don't show them. They will disconnect from their self, their beauty, their respect. They will perceive themselves to be less wealthy and, more often than not, when they're hidden and not celebrated, they will be abused by us. We will exploit the land that they live in and on and with. If you go in and you put them on a pedestal and you say I'm here to see, you, celebrate you and show you in a particular narrative to the world and you open the door to their existence, to and to themselves. It's a different narrative. Now you change the narrative, you interfere, which is what I do, uh, unintentionally, but it's, it's inevitable. Other people follow in your footsteps. Having seen the pictures and it's.
Speaker 1:I've been back to many of the communities I've worked with over the years and they literally said you were, if not the first, one of the first people to ever come and visit us with a camera. As a result, we have many other visitors, but now, listen, they say that's a good thing for two reasons. One, because we now earn an income from it. Other people visit and they ask to make a picture. We now charge for that purpose. As a result of that, in many cases, the communities grow, people realign with their culture, their tradition, with the environment that they lived in, and they come back from the urban zone. The other thing is, though, jimmy, it's changed, we're evolving. It's not the tradition that it was many years ago, and we're applying it. We're maybe even making more aesthetic, maybe even making it more visual for the picture to earn more money, but if it wasn't for that, they all say unanimously, we wouldn't even be here anymore.
Speaker 1:So you either open up the door and let us rediscover ourself, that you perceive us as valuable. There is a wealth in our tradition, uh, and we all end up running around with a smartphone, which is more than 80 percent of the places I now go to in the world, even the most remotest corners. There are smartphones there, so they're connected. Or you go like this or don't touch, don't tell, don't relate, don't record, don't photograph, and this will happen. So it's off off either, or that's my opinion, it's a very sort of simplistic way of looking at it. So I'm owning the narrative, owning the story and owning the discussion, and then that's the bridge to the foundation, the majority of places that I've worked that I have the opportunity to go back to.
Speaker 1:We go back and say how can I help you consolidate your heritage, your traditions, your state of being? How can I enable you to believe and realize that that's value? Don't abandon it like we have and all become homogenous and disconnect. Stay connected where you need you to stay connected. I use these pictures to tell that story. Let me use some of the income to persuade you to hold on to that. Time will tell. I'll be long gone and somebody will write something somewhere one day and say, well, I got it totally wrong, or maybe right, and that's the uh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining me again.
Speaker 1:Uh, I probably kept you way too long again.
Speaker 2:Um, but it's. It's been even more pleasurable as, as I get to know you a little bit deeper and, um, I want to, I want to just thank you for taking the time out to represent yourself in a second way to the world, and you've certainly done it justice.
Speaker 1:So thank you, thank you for your patience, thank you for providing this platform. It's a privilege to have been with you in and on it for the second time.
Speaker 2:And good luck on your trip. Thank you so much. Where can we find you? What's coming up? I know you've got some online gallery events and I know you're traveling soon, and what are we looking out for?
Speaker 1:I'm in the middle of this project, but I have an immersive exhibition in Carrière des Lumières Even though I have a French girlfriend she mocks my accent, it's not very good In the village Beau de Provence, just an hour north of Marseille. It's where I believe the first immersive experience started about 10 years ago. It's from a company called Cultural Spaces. They have Atelier de Lumiere in Paris, so it's this sort of massive halls with 150 beamers, so it's in a sort of audio-visual experience. That's for six months there, starting in the summer, and I have a traditional uh framed exhibition in a museum in barcelona we haven't got the right date, opening in the autumn, and then here in anselm there's a gallery.
Speaker 2:People are welcome to come and visit me here if they'd like Well if I'm ever there, I'm definitely going to come and visit, if you're happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, welcome Come. It rains a lot and it's a bit like living in the Truman Show, but they're nice people.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Jimmy. Take care of yourself.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:And hopefully speak to you again soon.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your time and your patience. Good luck, bye.
