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
Redefining Street Photography: Phil Penman’s Take on Urban Life, E059
What if a single moment could redefine your entire career?
In this episode, British-born photographer Phil Penman, known for his compelling street photography in New York, shares how his observational experience and resilience during 9/11 shifted his focus from celebrity photography to more photojournalism-type work, leading him to capture profound and impactful images on the New York's streets.
Known for documenting the raw and unfiltered essence of urban life, Phil's work reflects a deep understanding of the human condition in the beauty of metropolitan environments.
What we discussed:
- How 9-11 transformed Phil's career
- The importance of self-critique and high standards
- Balancing spontaneous and planned shots
- Overcoming creative ruts and leveraging social media
- Finding your own style and being true to one's self.
Find more of Phil's work on his website and Instagram:
Website: www.philpenman.com
Instagram: @philpenman
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Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can also watch this episode on my YouTube channel (link below) where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as my social media, so make sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Threads and TikTok or check out my website for my complete portfolio of work.
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yoreh.
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That was a career starter and a life ender. I was working as a waiter. There's got to be more to it than this.
Speaker 2:I think you were named as one of the most influential photographers street photographers of today.
Speaker 1:Never give up, man. How do you judge your own photography? I think photography is by nature just ultra competitive. You can't be the master of everything. The photography is the person. Do you feel?
Speaker 2:like being so critical of ourselves is almost negative in a way. You can't be the master of everything. The photography is the person. Do you feel like being so critical of ourselves is almost negative in a way, and we can never kind of be in the moment and be happy with kind of what we've done?
Speaker 1:As you get older, you start seeing life in different ways. I've done this. What's next? How much higher can it get? Is?
Speaker 2:there one moment or image that really kind of changed the way you fundamentally view yourself or life in general through the lens of photography.
Speaker 1:I describe it as the day that my life ended and a new life began.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the Mood Podcast, where we jump into the minds of the most creative and inspiring photographers, artists and storytellers. I'm your host, matt Jacob, and today we have yet another wonderful guest joining us on the show. Phil Penman is a renowned British-born New York-based photographer who has been documenting the ever-changing streets of New York City for over 25 years. His work has featured in prominent publications such as the Guardian, the Independent and the New York Review of Books. Phil is especially known for his powerful reportage following 9-11, arguably a seminal period for his photography career, and his photography has been exhibited in Leica galleries and international exhibitions in cities like Venice, berlin and Sydney. He's also a sought-after photography educator, teaching workshops around the globe for Leica Academy.
Speaker 2:In today's episode, then, we touch upon Phil's philosophy on photography and life. We kick off with a moment or image that fundamentally changed his view on life, and we explore the role of serendipity in his art and discuss the significant events he's covered, including, notably, the pandemic lockdown and how these experiences have really shaped his perspective. The pandemic lockdown and how these experiences have really shaped his perspective. Phil shares his thoughts on the current state of photography, the impact of technology and what aspiring photographers should focus on to stay true to their vision. We also touch upon his process of curating exhibitions, his experiences at photography festivals and the rewarding moments of teaching photography to his students in his workshops. In addition, we discuss Phil's approach to blending narrative and visual poetry in his work and we discuss the relationship between photography and time and how he injects his personal philosophy into his images.
Speaker 2:Phil also provides valuable insights into his writing process, the challenges and rewards of the industry and his views on the future of street photography. A shame I couldn't quite be there in person with Phil, but we battled on with conversing through the computer and I hope it still did the experience justice. So now I bring you Phil Penman. Mr Phil Penman, welcome to the Moo Podcast.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us all the way from New York. Thank you very much for having me, sir, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I wanted to start by, as I kind of do do, opening with a more of a philosophical a gambit, should I say. And you've had an extensive experience and career in the street photography world, which we're obviously going to kind of dive into a little bit, but is there one moment or image that really kind of changed the way you fundamentally view yourself or life in general through through the lens of photography?
Speaker 1:Wow, one image, huh. No, it's got to be 9-11. Harris town, yeah, any, any, any one of the pictures I took, one of the, any one of the pictures I took on 9-11, that was like the yeah, that was a career, a career starter and a life ender.
Speaker 2:Let's put it that way. You know, tell us a little bit more about that, because that's obviously a long time ago now and it almost would I be correct in thinking it's kind of a seminal moment in your photography career, really kind of kick-started you from being in the journalist paparazzi world into more of the kind of fine art and individual pursuit of photography.
Speaker 1:I think it was, just like you know, completely life-altering moment as well, though I describe it as the day that my life ended and a new life began for a lot of us. But from a photography standpoint as well, yeah, I've never done anything like that biggest thing. Our biggest thing I'll ever do, I think, is the biggest picture I'll ever take, which is kind of depressing in a way that you're never gonna. That's it. That was the pinnacle of your career, right, everything else is down from there. Uh, that would be, hands down, the biggest picture that I've ever taken, and it just changed. You know, I still had to go, I was still doing the celebrity photography for many years after that, but it definitely, definitely. It's like oh, my life is short, really short, and I can't let myself go down this rabbit hole of not doing what I love as well.
Speaker 2:And how long had you been in New York at that point? Was it still kind of a new city for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I know New York pretty well. I came here in 94. That was when I first moved hereork. Pretty well I I came here in 94, that's when I first moved here. Well, when I first came here and just I was come, I'd come here like two or three times a year. I was a big hip-hop head, so living in reading, I was. I was the guy with the big baggy pants, the hoodie, the cap. You know the yankee caps. I'm still still rocking the yankee. Yeah, I was. I was that guy.
Speaker 1:I was going over like two, three times a year find all the bootleg records from like rock and soul. I dj'd as well for years down in uh was he jw's in redding? I used to. I was a resident dj there and uh, I come here. I was just buy on, buy all my stuff. So I was coming back and forth a few times a year for like six years before I moved here. I think it was January of 2000. I moved here but I moved to LA first in August, lived there for a few months. Then I moved to New York, set up the office, lived in like a tiny little apartment on 9th Avenue not far from where I am now actually lived in like a tiny little apartment on ninth avenue, not far from where I am now actually, and shared that with, shared a one bedroom with, uh, my co-worker dan, and we just we never really even saw each other anyway. We're out the door like we were flying all the time. We never saw each other.
Speaker 2:So but yeah, I know, I know it pretty well what made you get up and get out during 9-11 or post 9-11 to take photos, and is that something that you think about even to this day, like I consciously want to get up, get out there to capture this, or how has that evolved over the years?
Speaker 1:I think it's just doing something you love. I really, really enjoy it. The process of taking pictures I always have from when I first started doing it. It's very addictive, and I do, you know. I've shopped for money as well, you know, obviously, but I've found myself in a position now where I've been doing this long enough 32 years now. I don't really have to do any assignments now, but I don't want to do. You know I can't deal with the bs anymore, with that world as well, and also the photography world has changed drastically. From when I first started as well, there was people used to flaunt their checks in front of your face about how much money they used to make, and I guarantee you there are not people doing that anymore well they are, but it's just likes and follows instead of money yeah, oh, I've got, yeah, I've got x amount of followers on this.
Speaker 1:It's like it's this social currency of how important you are in life based on how many followers you bought. It's just insane yeah, oh, I got four. I got four thousand likes.
Speaker 2:I'm obviously better than you yeah, it's a little better person, let alone better photographer.
Speaker 1:Yeah it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a little, yeah, it's a little sad well, speaking of good and best, um, I mean, I've been a fan of yours for a while and um, your, your street photography is is definitely. You know, I, I consider I'm not a street photographer, but I love street photography. I've I've tried to do it and failed, um, but I, I think from where I stand confidence there are two incredible street photographers in today's day and age. You're one of them. I love billy d as well.
Speaker 2:Um same city and different styles, um, but incredible, incredible artwork, both of you, um. So yeah, I just want to want to get that in there, but I know you've been recognized across many platforms publications, exhibitions, articles, all that kind of stuff and I really I think you were named as one of the the influential photographers, street photographers of today, one of the top 50 or 52 or something. Is that something that?
Speaker 1:That one was a strange one. It came up as 52 most influential street photographers and I'm like, oh, hang on, let's have a look at this. And then, sure enough, my name's on there and there's only about four people on the list that were actually living. And I'm like I I realized that most of these, most of these lists, are all just like subjective. It's like, all right, it's something.
Speaker 1:But the guy did it based on google data, had nothing to do with his list of his favorites, it was just purely based on who had the most google data driven around them. So, like, someone like eric kim was listed on that and he says, look, eric kim might not necessarily be a defining street photographer, but he has a massive influence and has a huge audience and based on the google data at the time. So that was one. And then the next one came out. It was like top 10 contemporary street photographers living today. I'm like, all right, we've gone from 52 to 10 and I keep, I keep hitting these, like you know, top 20 photographers to to follow in 2024. But it's all you gotta remember. It's just that person's opinion and there's. You know, it's probably a heavy sway or they get lazy and they look at the other lists and just copy that list yeah, well, I mean not if there's data behind it, right.
Speaker 2:I mean define influential, I mean that that's a good word for them to put in the title. Otherwise, Otherwise, if you said 52 best, I mean what's best, right. But you know it is subjective, but I do think the excellent stands above all else. So it's, it's quite. I think it would be quite difficult for people to see your photography go no, that's shit, Right. So you know that once, once you get to that, that it does well, you're in good company.
Speaker 2:She gets a pass. Yeah, she does. Yeah, I always use my wife as a like a litmus test of how how I think a photo would be received in the outside world, because you know, as us, as photographers, this is amazing. Then you might put it out, I mean social media. Obviously it's a great, kind of not a great, but it's probably the first thing we go to to get validation. But actually mine is my wife. I show the photo and I can see within a second if she's going to pretend to like it or she actually likes it, right. So I don't know, it kind of helps, do you? How do you? How do you judge your own photography? Probably very harshly, but is that still, having done it for a few decades and you're almost veteran, in kind, of the photography world these days? How do you judge yourself? Is that important? Are you very critical of yourself?
Speaker 1:I don't buy into the hype. I don't buy into the hype, it's, it's. I don't buy into it. I'm like shit, I've got to do better or I've got to come up with something. Switch it up, like, make something a little bit more interesting for myself as well. You know, and you've got, you've got to stay motivated as well. Right, and in the, in the work that you're doing, you've got to like, look at a shot and go, yeah, that's, that's pretty good. I'm, I'm enjoying, I'm enjoying taking this picture, or that's a cool effect, you know, just to try to switch it up a bit, uh, but when it's really just, it's really hard. When someone describes you as like legend or goat or someone like that, you, you're like what have you been smoking, mate? It's very surreal, it's appreciated, it's really overwhelming, let's put it that way.
Speaker 2:Do you think it's important that we do judge photography? People talk to me all the time about art being subjective and photography being subjective, and I think that's true. Only up to a certain point, right, you know, going out with an iPhone and just snapping a photo of someone without any thought or intent or kind of concept behind it is, technically, yeah, it's a photograph, but is it photography or is it? I mean, it's such a gray area that we always seem to be, you know, in this endless pursuit. How do you feel about that today, compared to where it was maybe 20 years ago?
Speaker 1:Well, the barrier to entry was a lot harder back then. You had to really know what you were doing. You couldn't just go out and wing it like today. The process of learning is a lot, lot faster today, like when I started right, you had to shoot film, develop it, print it. You know you could go to snappy snaps and get your prints done if you wanted to. You know like a a bulk standard kind of thing or, but you, you know, if you got your exposure wrong, that was it. You kind of messed up. Now you've got, you know, 12 stops dynamic range. You can really screw up really badly and it's still savable.
Speaker 1:Anyone can pretty much shoot a picture these days and you look, you know, we I was in the summit. It's a location there, but I was teaching a, teaching someone, and we're watching this girl and she's doing like a million selfies of herself. And the poor boyfriend has got to do all these pictures as well. And we were already on the third level and we realized shit, she hasn't even come up yet. She's still shooting pictures of herself.
Speaker 1:Because even like, that person is like, yeah, they're doing it on a phone, but they are really striving to get the best picture that they, she, can get of herself and you see it everywhere, people. You know, I think the general standard of excellence of photography has come down, but I think the average has gone up, way up. You know, there's a lot more average, a very high average now. But the problem is, now a lot of people are just like either they're not getting seen the really good stuff or it's just that everyone's copying everybody else because they're chasing the likes and they're not innovating and bringing something new to the table.
Speaker 2:I think that's happening a lot, yeah, and I think it's happening a lot, yeah, and I think it's okay for us to say something is good and something is bad. You know, I think it's in in it, certainly in the west it's um, you, you're kind of demonized if you have standards right. And even in photography and the art world it's like, well, something can be good and something can be bad. Yeah, A lot it's like, well, something can be good and something can be bad. Yeah, A lot of it's in the eye of the beholder. But you know, if you actually to break things down quite structurally, then you can identify something's good or bad. That's why there are still I don't partake in competitions, but there are still competitions. And again, that's subjective, but there's still a fundamental principle behind all of this. So I think it's okay, okay to to kind of have that view.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great that it's homogenized more in the, in the way that it's more accessible, more accessible to people who may not have had access to it before because, you know, back in the analog days, it's it's expensive, right, it's very expensive today, but and it's time consuming, yeah. So how do you break through that? How do you? Street photography is often synonymous with you know kind of a poetic way of of illustrating, you know, visual elements. How do you go about kind of creating that message, creating that poetry? Do you shoot from the hip or some of it, kind of researched and set up? And how do you go about your process there?
Speaker 1:so I come at it more from like a press photographer point of view because that's my background, you know it's. It's been my background for a long, a long time. So I'm the way I look at it. It's like, well, some, you know there's some things are a portrait, some things are a candid moment, some things are I'm waiting for a scene to happen. I want to be able to, I want to be able to adapt. You don't want to become like one of these one note photographers that only knows how to do one thing and they might be able to do it well, but that's it. I don't want to become. I don't want to become in that. Get to that place. Get to that place where you're just bored with your own work. So I'll go out there. I'll assess whether something's going to be better as a candid moment or it's a portrait. But I was thinking about this earlier today.
Speaker 1:I don't know what it is, but for some reason, a lot of people think that a lot of the photography from the past was all candid, and I get it every day. I get messages on instagram saying oh, did you ask them to pose or do you go up to people? A lot of the most famous pictures that you've seen that you thought were candid were not candid moments. You know, a lot of them were set up. Um, there's the one famous picture, the the two. It's the woman walking down the street I think it was in rome, where all the guys are looking at her. I don't know if you know that picture, but very famous shot right and you look at it and you go alright, that's yes, that's a cool candid moment. Only it wasn't a candid moment. That was created and they actually ran through that a couple of times. So she didn't just do, she didn't just do one take, she did a couple of different takes of that. But to the viewer today they're like oh, that's a candid moment, but it wasn't. There's lots of great pictures that were set up and it's just that's the way it was.
Speaker 1:Look at it and they genuinely think that some photographer has just standing in front of that person and taking a picture and they didn't say anything. Like there's a vivian meyer show at the fotografiska. Um, it's an exhibition in new york right now and a lot of the work. You know, it's beautiful portraits on the street, but some people they think that it's all candid moments. It's not. So I you want, you need to be a good photographer where you can adapt to a situation. You can say you know what I'm? I'm not going to go by the conformities of what some person has deemed is street photography and I'm just going to take pictures and I'm going to enjoy taking pictures what does street photography mean to you then?
Speaker 1:I'd love to find the person who first termed it. I'd love to find the person who first termed it?
Speaker 1:I would love to. The shit that this guy or this woman has caused is just like the endless questions. What would you call it? I'm just a photographer. It's just photography. At the end of the day, it's just. Yeah, we can't. Life can't handle things just being a thing. Yeah, we can't. Life can't handle things just being a thing. We have to put everything in boxes because our brains are too small to be able to handle. It's just something. It's a thing. Leave it at that. You know, we don't all have to be in a box. There's a difference. When you're trying to market yourself Okay, that's the difference, because you can't be the master of everything it doesn't happen. It's like you're the master of nothing, right? So street photography people will say I'm a street photographer because they're marketing themselves in that category. But I'm just, I'm just a photographer.
Speaker 2:Always have I can't wait to put street photography in your title of this podcast Street photographer.
Speaker 1:Phil Pittman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but in the same respect, though, does cohesiveness? I mean, cohesiveness is important. So, you know, does there need to be a, you know, a clear identity to your style, which I think is, I guess, more organic, right, certainly as you get on in the in the profession? But is black and white, then, something that you consciously thought would bind your photos together and, you know, give more of a timeless aspect to them? Or is it just that you naturally were drawn to black and white?
Speaker 1:I'm more drawn to black and white. Anyway, that's where I started. So you know we didn't, I didn't have the money for color and printing color is a bloody nightmare. So I was more drawn black and white was easier to shoot, easier to print in the dark room. You could go out, shoot in the day, process it, print it by night, nice and easy. Um, so that was where I started and I really there's something you really enjoy about that.
Speaker 1:And then you go into like the work world and everything's color. That's not enjoyable. You know, I'm not that many great memories of that stuff. So when I, when I started going back into like shooting for myself, it was more black and white again because it was the, it was. That was the mental separation for me between the two. Was this one's for me, that one's for work?
Speaker 1:So you know, there's plenty of pictures that I shoot in color, but I don't necessarily choose to share them. I don't also share the bar mitzvahs that I shoot every now and then or the pharmaceutical campaigns that I do as well. I don't share that stuff. I had to do stuff in the style of Martin Parr, where it's completely very poppy flash where if you saw the work. You wouldn't even recognize it as me. That is a photographer. You have to be able to shoot everything and anything to a decent level, enough, good enough for the client. But then you have your work as well, right, the stuff that you really enjoy doing, and that's the black and white, the moody, the timelessness. You know, that's what I gravitate to, the the timeless images, creating images that you don't know when they were taken, but you're going to remember them.
Speaker 2:And why New York? Does that play into the black and white theme? Or was it just a city you found yourself in a long time ago and fell in love with it? Was it a deliberate decision?
Speaker 1:Love it, absolutely love it. Yeah, it's very different from Reading, let's put it that way. I I tried, I tried to get you know, I tried to get it once before and it was coming. You you may know it's like trying to get in here is almost impossible for us. Like for me to get my first visa. It was like I was coming in under a journalism visa and I got denied the first two times and I was like, well, I got denied the first time. I was like, well, I want to come over on holiday. Oh, you can't do that. Well, when can I go? Well, you can't, you can never go to America, ever again. And it was like what? And I said, no, you have to get that visa, otherwise you can never go to the States again.
Speaker 1:This estates again, this is a city, that country that I was just like I, this is where I'm gonna live. So I had to go through hell to get free attempts, got got the journalism visa, came over here and I was I was working on a. I was actually working in real estate as well and trying to make some extra bucks because I was doing this thing for the, this dj magazine and didn't really there wasn't enough work to make it livable to be able to be here and this realization kicked in. They're like shit, this is not going to happen. I'm gonna have to go back with my head, you know, back to england. And then I was like you know, I found myself living in my parents house in dorchester after trying to make it here and just like this shit, you know this, this can't be. It found myself working as a. I went on unemployment for one week and I was like sod this. I was like I'd rather earn the money, like this is ridiculous. So I became a waiter. I was working in a place called judge jeffries in dorchester. So I was working as a. I was working as a waiter and then I was like well, there's got to be, there's got to be more to it than this.
Speaker 1:I've just studied in reading doing photography for years, got a sort of job came up, a woking newspaper called wokingham times went back to. I moved back to Reading where I've been living, and I was sharing a house with two housemates. I managed to bullshit my way into the job. I was chief photographer my first photography job. I was chief photographer and I was doing that for a year and then I got offered a job working for an agency outside of reading called ins, and it was like you know. It was good.
Speaker 1:I was living in reading, I was outside london, I was making you know about my 13 and a half grand a year. Um, had myself a nice ford fiesta. You know life, life was good. And then met some guy in a car and said well you, actually, my two friends in la got jobs going. You should probably call them up and then boom away. And then it's all right, it's back on. And now it's different, because I'm working for an agency, I've got a journalism visa. Um, they said can you go and set up the new york office for us? They paid for my rent for one year and my utilities for six months, which is huge. It's huge because you've got you've got your broker fee paid for as well, which is like that's five, six grand right there and I'm in new york city doing exactly what I want to do. So never give up, man, even if you find yourself as a waiter. Even if you're a waiter, it's going to come.
Speaker 2:It's around the corner you know Although, yeah, I don't want to put a negative. I mean, not everyone can do it, not everyone can do it right, not everyone can be a photographer. You know, I don't want to be snobby about it at all it's encouraging and inspirational to know that people could work hard over years and years and get to where they want to get to. But going back to what we talked about before, I think we sometimes fall into the trap that anyone can do anything. Well, yeah, they can, but whether they're going to be good at it is a different kind of kind of not everyone gets a medal yeah not everybody gets a medal.
Speaker 2:You've got to bloody work hard for it, you know yeah, unfortunately, I think today we kind of also give out medals for just participating um in the metaphorical sense of the word, so it can kind of blur the lines a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't always work. When you look back at those kind of tough times and I'm sure because you're human like the rest of us, you've had many tough times since have any of those kind of tough times? As a kind of established photographer kind of, from that moment that you described onwards to today, have you had any kind of creative blocks or lack of inspiration, lack of motivation, and if so, how have you managed to kind of grind yourself out of it?
Speaker 1:right, every photographer gets it and it happens all the time. So don't don't let it get to you, because I always realized it was like right, well, and you could go through a two-month period when your pictures are just terrible, okay, you're not getting anything, and then you'll shoot one week and you'll get three of the best images you've ever taken in your life, and that's just the way it rolls. And the important thing is just to not beat yourself up, because it will come back around again. Just to not beat yourself up, because it will. It will come back around again. It happened to me so many times when I was doing like news jobs. You'd be wondering like why you're not, why you're not finding your flow? So yeah, it's happening to me. It's happened to me a lot was there.
Speaker 2:Is there anything deliberate that you kind of dig into in terms of a mental toolkit to kind of break yourself out of that, or do you just?
Speaker 1:are you just patient, you just wait out, knowing that it's going to come, it's going to come, it's going to come um, surround myself with like art that influences me, go, go back to things that I know well, that I enjoy. So like shooting in the shooting people in the steam or shooting people with umbrellas in the rain something I know, know well and something that I enjoy, and I'll use it as not that I'm going to get necessarily some great image from it, but I'm like, alright, I'm going to exhaust the hell out of this, trying to find my groove again. I'll go to museums. Just walk around the museums, like, just drink it in movies, taking in as much as I can trying to get, believe it or not.
Speaker 1:One of the ones I used to do is sound pretty weird. I used to go in the nike store in on fifth avenue because whoever, whoever handles their digital marketing and the store stuff on point, I'd go in there and I like I'd see some like digital thing on a bill on a board. I'll go. That would be an awesome idea for something on a website. I'm going to take, I'm going to take that creativity, I'm going to work on that part of it and I'm going to work, spruce up my website whilst the other thing is coming. So I'm always, always trying to do something creative, whether it's that or like font design. You know it doesn't. It's not always necessarily photography, but it all kind of clicks together design is a big element of photography, isn't it?
Speaker 2:especially in the digital world we live in today? And look at your website and it's so wonderfully created and designed. Um, and I'm the same like I keep playing fonts, especially keep playing with fonts. I don't like that, even if it's just like subtitles on a podcast reel or something, and I need to change that, change that. But I think that's it's kind of good, you know, it's kind of good to have oh, driving nuts yeah, that's really fun, fun design.
Speaker 1:Fun design is way worse, way worse than photography. I I work with. I work with a designer called uh the letterist. Um, she did the the book for me and she's done a lot of stuff for me, really, really top-notch like. She designed my signature and everything. So we'll be like we'll go back and forth on like font design and then I'll try to. You know what it's like trying to implement a certain font on a website and then it doesn't exist and you're like shit, but everything's gotta be cohesive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can lose your mind with that stuff and you even bring that over into the, the kind of the dilution of instagram posts. Right, you bring that design over into your beautiful carousels and your beautiful post, which I think is extremely important. How time consuming is that?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's not an everyday post. If people knew, if people really knew, you know when they're just flicking through and you're like that guy spent an hour on that this morning. You know it's um, now I'll come up with like templates that I can just work with. But there's like a lot of thought that went into maybe creating a template, how the algorithm works, how you know keeping what pictures people react to.
Speaker 1:I know that pictures that I like might not resonate on social media, so I can't put them in or I have to bury them in a carousel and you'll say, all right, well, which one resonates with you the most? And it will be the one that you really like and it will be buried you know, number five in a carousel, right? So the people that take the time to flip through the carousel, they're actually invested in your photography, they're willing to take the time to look and they'll say that's the one. But then when you post it as an individual shot on its own, it'll get no reaction. So it's very interesting. You see what it's like when people are scrolling with their fingers and they're like speed scrolling and you're like, how are you seeing anything? The doom scroll. Oh, it's unbelievable to watch it. I don't think they're even looking at the screen. That's the thing.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a dopamine chase, isn't it? It's something that almost now is plugged in and I say they, you know, I'm called bull of it as well. I have protocols around my daily routine that prevent, hopefully prevent, that kind of stuff. But I think photography is a little bit different. When it comes to social media, right, we're looking for photos, we're looking for inspiration. Sometimes it goes the other way. When people get competitive, why is his photo better than mine? Why can he do better photography than me? But that's just life and and art. But I think, yeah, you know, see people kind of the general public who may not be interested in visual arts, just literally scrolling their life away and, you know, damaging their brain almost irreparably. But that's a separate conversation for a separate day, I think.
Speaker 1:I think photography is, by nature, just ultra competitive. I know when I was working in the press world, it was horrendous. One of my friends I won't name, I'll just say he won a big award and it was just like the. The rest of us, like, would just thank you know. Thank god he finally won it, because now he'll shut up because he was out of his system. He'd achieved what he wanted to achieve when I was doing the and then he was a lot easier to work with after that because he did it.
Speaker 1:But a lot of people, um, like in our world. It was like, right, who's making the most money a month and who's getting the most bylines, or who's getting the most placements, who's getting the biggest paparazzi pictures? That was like the, the scorecard of where you, and there's always someone else's, younger who's going to come along, maybe they got better informants. It's going to knock you off your perch and then, once that's beaten out of you, you kind of don't get it again because you realize it's very easy. It's very easy and I'm I find it very awkward when you're around these people and it's just like me, me, me, me, me, like you. You hear them like. Do you even hear yourself talking. It's like you're spitting out your resume at me, and it's obviously that they're not confident in themselves of why they do this yeah, they're projecting yeah, they're just, they're projecting and it's like, you know, I'm kind of past, I'm way past that.
Speaker 1:now I think, as you get older, you, and also because you you've reached like I've already reached way beyond anything I ever thought of. So, everything's bonus, you know, would I have ever thought that I would have done two books or done all the shows, or that I can go around the world and do photography? Hell, no, I was a waiter in a Judge Jeffries in in dorchester, you know, and that was where I thought it was going to end, and obviously not. So what's around the corner?
Speaker 2:exactly what a wonderful story and, um, certainly inspiring for many. Let's talk about the books a little bit. I I was a day late, actually. No, amazon were a day late. By the time time I'd left town Phoenix in the US they had put late delivery and then they delivered it, so I didn't get a copy of your book, unfortunately. I will do. It's a bit difficult to get it over here in Bali. But tell us a little bit as kind of the second book you've come out is relatively new this year, isn't it? Tell us a little bit about the book's in it, the process and kind of how you're, how you're thinking about the, the book these days uh, so it became.
Speaker 1:I really enjoyed I first off, first book. I knew that I needed to do a book because it's marketing, right, it's getting your name out there to the world. You never, never know how it's going to play out. It's a heavy investment, really heavy investment. You could drop 40 to 100 grand easily on producing a book You're not going to get back. You're not going to make that money back. That's your first book, so it better be a hit. So I did the first book where I exceeded whatever I imagined and it meant that getting the second book with Tenoist was a lot easier to do because I had you have history. You can say, right, I can come in and I can guarantee I'm going to sell you. I'm going to sell 2,500 copies of your, of this book. I can guarantee I'm going to sell you. I'm going to sell 2,500 copies of this book. I can guarantee that. You know that's based on historical figures. Of the last one, which was at 5,000 social media following versus like quarter of a million. Now, right, they look at. These are statistics that they look at.
Speaker 1:So the second book came along, pitched it to tannoyus who are a big publisher. Um, they've done a lot of the favorites, my favorite photographers, like elliot erwitt, thomas hopker, you know rankin robert maple, for all these guys did books with these guys. So I pitched it to them. They said, yep, we'd love to do a book. I didn't expect them to even email me back. So you're just thinking, well, I've actually got to come up with a book now. So it was fortuitous, in a good and bad way, that we'd just gone through covid and I documented about 20,000 images edited from those COVID years in New York under the lockdown. So I knew that I just needed to shoot everything and anything and document it, not knowing that I was going to necessarily do a book with it, but I wanted to get it in for historical purposes. So we started producing the book with Anya the letterist. Lou Proud is the gallery director in London for Leica. She curated it.
Speaker 1:We launched it in Europe. First it came out in Germany in May of 23. Yeah, may of 23. And then it came out in August over here in the States yeah, may of 23. And then it came out in august over here in the states, and today we sold just under 5 000 copies in less than a year. So it was a huge success from a book point of view.
Speaker 1:Uh, I really enjoyed doing the book. On this one, like the first book didn't have as much control. Second one it, you know. And also the first book, I kind have as much control. Second one it, you know, and also the first book, I kind of wanted to tell the story about, you know, my days of doing paparazzi and I wanted to get those stories down there just for myself. I figured if I'm going to refinance my house, I might as well get the? Uh the stories in the book as well. Second book uh had a lot more control on how we put it together. I'm really really happy with how it came out. The, I think the the level of photography definitely went up as well. I've improved as a photographer, I think. Uh, and I hope people have been enjoying the book. But go out and go out and get it while you can.
Speaker 2:I will. Yeah, next time I'm over in the US, I will definitely grab a coffee. Coffee, I'll grab a coffee as well, but I'll grab a copy of the book. Yeah, how do you measure your own improvement? Then you talked about I think your first book was 2019, just before COVID, so you've had five years between both books. Having said that, you've recognized your photography has got better. How do you what do you mean exactly? How do you kind of recognize that improvement in your own work?
Speaker 1:just a little bit. It's a lot grittier as well. The work I like. Moving helped as well, believe it or not. Like we passed the the passport control on 14th street in new york. Move further uptown where I, where I live, is a little bit grittier. I think that plays well to the camera as well. Like it's, everything's not so perfect and as you get older you start seeing life in different ways, you start depicting things differently. I'm sure in five years' time, if you were to interview me again, I would say no, the work was terrible and I'm much better now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But isn't that the beauty of it. You know it's one of the yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and it might be that your best picture you ever took was 20 years ago. You know so, but it's definitely better. Like I said, I'm my worst critic.
Speaker 2:I, um, I keep trying to push myself forward just for myself, not for anyone else, just for myself is that important as artists that we are never like 100 happy, maybe in a fleeting moment or when we've produced a photo. Right, great I'm. I'm absolutely proud and happy of that. Move on, how can I make it better the next time? You know, the best photo is always the next one. Is that important or do you feel like being so critical of ourselves is is almost negative in a way, and we can never kind of be in the moment and be happy with kind of what's what we've done up to this point oh it's, it's horrible, I think it's.
Speaker 1:I think, though, if you look at it with a lot of very successful business people as well, it's like this common trait that they never enjoy any of it. There's because you I know that I have it where you, all right, I've done this, what's next? How much higher can it get? Because you, because you've been doing that your whole life, you've been like, right, this is, you know, I used to write down at the back of a notepad, right, goals for 20, 2005. And then you look at the back the end of the year, you go in the notepad, right, how many of those goals did I achieve? And then you, you say, all right, well, what's the next goal? And you, you look at people like, uh, you know, mask Zuckerberg, all these people, they're the same way, I don't think. They're never really in the moment and they're never enjoying it. It's, but that's why they are as successful as they are.
Speaker 1:I hope that I enjoy it. I enjoy the process of taking one. That I do, but I have lofty, lofty goals, and when you achieve them, the goal gets bigger. So the last goal post was US Library of Congress, which I achieved, which was a lofty one. And then the next one was um, I wanted to have something in Paris photo, so I don't know if you know that one. That's like the big. It's the big photo show. Everyone, everybody's in Paris for the photo week In November and that to me is like pinnacle. Everyone in photography is in paris that week and I just got uh, offered a solo show outside, like one of the richest areas of paris, so I'm gonna have like 32 prints up on the streets wow done, done, fantastic.
Speaker 1:Um, so now it's like when and not only that came about like two weeks ago, so that's not announced or anything yet. Um, so it's like the next goal will be solo show within the next 20 years in the met metropolitan museum in new york. That would be the next goal no small feat, that one.
Speaker 2:How do you? I mean, you do a lot of exhibitions, right, you do a lot of photo shows how, why?
Speaker 1:it's a great way that people can actually see print. You know it's so much better in print than it is on the phone. You know you and I'm lucky enough now that I'm in a position where people come to you. You're not pitching for anything. You know they're coming to you and they're pitching like right, well, this morning was some group in Argentina hey, we do exhibitions in Argentina, we'd love to have you as part of the show. Do you want to be in it?
Speaker 1:And then it's like well, you know, I can't afford, like a lot of photographers do this where they enter competitions, they have to print the thing, frame it, ship it to the to the show, which could be some scam. Where it's like an exhibition in an office building where they've charged everyone else a hundred dollars to enter, or 50 bucks or whatever it is Right, and it's a scam and you'll. I can't afford to be doing that. I don't want any part of that. I don't really agree with it either. But I do get these ones where people say, like you know, we'll do, do you want to do a solo show in harrods? We will pay for all the prints, we will put it all together. Definitely, count me in. You know, those are the ones that I I want to do, uh, but again, it's not. It took 32 years to get to that position where you can do that yeah, and I interesting, you said you don't, you don't have to pitch anymore.
Speaker 2:there's there's almost like this uncanny valley where you work so hard to kind of pitch to others to get jobs, to get get money, to get a bigger audience, and then at some point it switches right You've got enough audience, you've had enough jobs, you've got enough recognition. Your work is amazing because you've been evolving all this time anyway, and now it's kind of flip reverse, where you just have people coming to you all the time. And you mentioned, when you're talking about your book, about how you know you had the efficacy of social media behind essentially your pitch to do the book, which is great to hear, because I'm one of the first ones to just lambast social media for many reasons. But if you use it correctly and you put in the time and use it as a tool, it can open up so many doors, can't it? And can provide this kind of evidence to a huge publisher, to, you know, to guarantee a level of sales or a level of exposure, right?
Speaker 2:So has that been always a kind of conscious? Do you talk about that with? I mean, does it ever enter the conversation with your students? You know, I know we'll talk about your workshop to teach in a minute. But are you purely when you're teaching, is it purely kind of technical stuff and narratives and storytelling, or do you kind of encompass business and encompass social media and how to get exposure out there?
Speaker 1:you, you gotta, you got to do both. You, you got I. I work with a lot of. I've worked with a couple of thousand people. At this point, I think there's there's there's people that need technical, okay. So the first question is you always ask people right, do you want to do this as a career or do you want it, or are you just doing this for relief from work? That's the first question. And then you go from there, because if it's relief from work, you don't even need to touch on the social media stuff or any of the marketing or any of that. But if you're someone that's coming and saying, look, I want to be where you are, then you say, okay, well, your photography, we need to improve this, but we need 50% of the time needs to be dedicated to doing this. You've got to work on your social media, your website, your online presence. It's, it's huge what the what it will bring to you. So we're saying earlier it's like this bloody social score of how many followers you have. Companies look at that. You know.
Speaker 1:I remember I was with, I was with a particular group and they turn around and say, wow, you're seeing a huge rise in your instagram right now and I was going through this period where I added like 60 000 new followers in like six months and I said, well, how are you seeing that? What? You're monitoring my account and so, yeah, actually we are, and they deep dive into your engagement, like the types of engagement. They have all this information to hand. So you're looking. If that's what that one brand is doing, it means all the other brands are doing the same thing. Okay, so I had one where porsche came to me and it was through a connect at Leica and he put everything together and said we want to do a video featuring you with one of the Porsches, but that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the connect at Leica and the fact that you've got quarter of a million followers. That is kind of like their demographic.
Speaker 1:So, whether you hate it or not, I just use it as a tool. I don't post pictures of my food, not interested in any of that. I'm not interested in any of the politics, the religion, the comments. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in. It's a tool to get my work out there to the world. I'm very appreciative of everyone that takes the time to comment on the pictures, you know, because I realize that's something. And you, you've managed to meet all these people like we wouldn't have connected necessarily.
Speaker 1:Right, there's all these people that I've able, connected to with all around the world that I talk with back and forth, the amount of students that have written to me through social media saying, hey, I'm doing my final year project On a photographer. I want it to be on you. Would you be willing to do something for my final year project? Yes, I always do the test Send me an email, and if someone can be bothered to send you an email, then they're actually invested, like they will take the time to actually do it. Those are the ones I will. I will back up, because if you can't be bothered to send an email, then you would never really you. I could be one of 20 dms that someone's done, so I wouldn't have met half of these people. So, no, it's whether you love it or hate it, it's, you know, it's done wonders for me and my business absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it. We're too quick to kind of. Again, it depends on how people use it, but, um, we're too quick to judge and, uh, me, me included, bigger judgment. I want to rewind and it's something I forgot to ask, when you were talking about your early days as paparazzi, did you get a lot of judgment from you? Know, I remember paparazzi. I don't even know if they still exist, but you know the photographers that would chase celebrities around, get in their face and basically piss them off. Tell us a little bit about your experience as that, because I'm just interested. Did you?
Speaker 1:get a lot of haters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're hated yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're in a little group. Think of it like this you are, you're hated by the public, you're hated by the security, you're hated by the celebrities right, you're pretty much hated by everybody. It's the most hypocritical thing I've ever been involved in, because all the public are the ones that buy it. It wouldn't exist if you didn't buy it, because it's only by demand. All right, the security guys they have a valid point. They don't really want to deal with us. They've got more important things to worry about than us. They've got stalkers, all the rest of it.
Speaker 1:The celebrities themselves, though, they need it and a lot of them work with photographers. So most of the work that you would see was actually set up and a lot of the celebrities, a lot of the celebrities involved, actually get direct payment from the photographers. So it would be like control. You'd look at an image and it would be like, well say, there's a new product, a new type of water has come out, and you see that picture of a celebrity walking down the street holding that bottle of water. It's because that company has paid that celebrity to carry that bottle and be photographed by this particular photographer to make it look like paparazzi.
Speaker 1:So once you in the beginning, you, you, it does like your morals. You're like questioning yourself. And then you start realizing how the game is played and you're like, hang on a second, they're all bloody in on it and it's like it's a big joke and it's like you know we'd have the public complaining. Sometimes You're like you don't get it. She's the one that told me I'm only here because she called me up. I remember once we were waiting for Sarah Jessica Parker coming out of a hospital. She had a kid and we were on day rate for the new york post to get this picture. And this old woman comes up to me and it was like, why won't you just leave her alone? And I said, because you weren't bloody, let me. And she had a new york post underneath her, underneath her arm. I'm like you're paying for me to be here.
Speaker 2:And she, she's like, oh, okay, I get it what did you learn from that experience that you, you, you know in a photography sense or a human connection sense? What did you learn that you kind of took into your own photography?
Speaker 1:tons. There's some of the best photographers out there. Hands down, incredible. Um, you have to be so good and like some of the most driven business people because it's like there is no paycheck. You go out in the morning you don't get paid. If you don't get, if you don't come home with something, you'd have guys working 24, 7, like non-stop. I tell them look, at least take the weekend off. I've always you're going to burn out within a year. You'll be, you're going to be done. They, they're driven, they hustle like no tomorrow. You know it's like right.
Speaker 1:I, one of my friends hardest highest working photographer I've ever met in my life, guy called Dennis Van Tine, friend's hardest hardest working photographer I've ever met in my life, guy called dennis van tyne. He used to shoot 12 events a day premieres, red carpets, you name it. He would be syndicating his images through like seven or eight different agencies. It got, unfortunately got the better of him in the end. Um, but you imagine that guy now shooting 12 different events a day, like every day. This guy was doing this and he was. He wasn't like the official guy, like the wire. Image at the time was like the big agency that would cover all the press event, all the big. He wasn't like the official guy, but he would be the guy that everyone would buy because he was so bloody good. And you look at photographers like that and you're like fuck, you know, I wish and he could go, he could switch it on like he could be doing like a really creative shot and get like a double page in newsweek and then flip the switch to like a red carpet event and it was just like adaptable, like if you learn 12 different things a day, you can adapt to anything. So there was some of the best photographers, but then you know you'd get like the the shit that would come in as well, like they weren't all great photographers. Let's get that, um, but a lot of them were really.
Speaker 1:We call them like operators. That's like some. The stuff that I used to do is like you were called an operator. It wasn't that I used to do was you were called an operator. It wasn't that you were just a photographer, you were also a journalist. You could fly me. You could say to me right, I need you to go find this person. My job was to go out and find them and do whatever it took background checks, all of this stuff, whatever it took background checks, all of this stuff.
Speaker 1:I remember the funniest one I ever got was this lawyer came out and said that he would represent Osama bin Laden if he were to go to court. And he was on CNN, my friend Paul the journalist. He showed me this picture and said look, if you just happen to see him walking around on the streets of New York, if you just happen to see him walking around on the streets of New York, right, and it's just like my job is just trawling around the streets. I call up two hours later. I got him. What do you mean? You got him who? I said that lawyer, how did you get him? And I said saw him sat outside a restaurant and went up to him and said if he wouldn't mind posing for a headshot done. And it was just like that was the job, or it was, uh, you know, flying down to brazil to find, track down some guy, or you know.
Speaker 1:I remember we were doing a, a couple related to a pedophile priest, and we tried four cities. We've flown to four different cities in america and then finally we found out. It was pretty shady, but it was the story. It's that it was the story itself. We found, we found out like a relative had died. We called up the flower company and we just said, look, there was a disc, there was some discrepancy with the invoice and we said, look, do we have, do you have the address for the new? And it was like a rental. And we showed up and nobody you know their name wasn't even on this thing. It was only because it was through this flower company. And we showed up and the person just looked at me. I was like I'm really really impressed how you found me. Like wow, like they didn't say anything else, it's like wow. So yeah, you just. I learned, I learned so much during that job and it's applied to everything I've done going forward. So even I hated it at the time, I owe it.
Speaker 2:I owe that job a lot to my current status what specifically do you apply to going out into the streets of New York and shooting people, places, scenes, atmosphere that you've garnered from that experience?
Speaker 1:Being able to think things through quickly. Like you know, you're never reacting to things. You're always predicting things. You're you're trying to predict how things are going to play out, even on the street. You're looking at, like, people that are coming a hundred feet away from you and then positioning yourself before they've even got anywhere near you, you're already thinking about the shot. These are things that you would do, as when you're doing celebrity photography like well, which, if the security is walking on this side, which side do I need to be on to get the picture?
Speaker 1:You know, same kind of thing like all right, what? What background do I want to use for this particular candid shot when that person's walking towards me? How do I want to set this up? You Things like that, like planning out my day like all right, I'm going out in a snowstorm, where's the first area that I want to hit? If I'm going out at 3 am, where do I want to hit at this time? And then building my route around that as well. So everything's kind of planned out to the hour, like how can I get the most out of today?
Speaker 2:so I'm not just walking around freely, everything's very full through that's a common misconception, isn't it with I'm going to put this in vert commerce street photography is people think I just shoot for the hip. You know all the time, but you still got to know where the the. The good times are the good light, the good conditions. The good times are the good light, the good conditions, the good atmosphere. And, like you said, even in the moment, you're thinking three, four steps ahead or you're predicting people coming this way or how it's going to hit the light, so you're kind of visualizing it. A lot of that, I guess, is through just practice and repetition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like anything. You have to practice. I personally I can shoot from the hip, I can do all of that. But it would get really, really boring if that was all I was doing. I would just lose my bloody mind after like six months.
Speaker 1:There are there are occasions where, like, I look at something and go right, that guy would be an amazing portrait. So I'm going to go up to him and I'm going to ask, and I'm going to put my 75 on and I'm going like, I look at something and go right, that guy would be an amazing portrait. So I'm going to go up to him and I'm going to ask, and I'm going to put my 75 on and I'm going to do a nice portrait. And then there's some situations where I'm going to say, right, that's a good shot from the hip. Right, I want it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do it because there's too much in the background. I'm going to stick my lens at 1.4. I'm lens at 1.4, I'm going to put it at four feet and I'm gonna. I'm gonna hit them right, as they're four feet away from me, you know. So there's none of this like, right, I'm gonna bung it on fa and do zone focusing, it's everything and just shoot everything like that. You know that would get incredibly dull and boring. So everything for me is like every setting is different. You know, do I want to add motion blur to this? Do I want to show the hustle and bustle of the street by doing a pan shot? People walking across 42nd street, tracking them, so there's all the movement by catch one person sharp with the briefcase, all these kind of things. That that's what I'm thinking about yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:I talk about this all the time in terms of intent and mindful kind of photography, just being mindful of what you're trying to do or what you're receiving from your external environment. Right, how can I oh, I might be getting this back to my lens, which case? How can I kind of canvas that the best with maybe technical settings or whatever it might be? So it's good to hear.
Speaker 1:I think that does separate the best from the rest I guess, certainly does with you, I'm sure of it well, I think a lot of people listen to too much. There's too many videos out there from experts.
Speaker 1:There's a hell, it's a hell of a lot of experts out there experts yeah, there's a hell of a lot of experts and it's like you know the, the magical settings you know. Or if you leave your camera on auto all the time, you get a great picture, but you don't know how you got it, because the camera was an auto. You know little, little things like that.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I don't know what to say really just stop, stop listening, just go out, stop listening to all the magical settings and, uh, the the experts like myself you've also got to find what works for you and you've got to find your own style, and you can only do that if you you know, learn the basics and go and figure out the rest right um yeah, you've got to stand out yeah yeah, I mean it's and that's more difficult, I would argue, today than it than it ever has, because, as we touched upon the beginning of this conversation, there's so many of us right guys millions and it's like all, how do you stand out in a pool of millions and when?
Speaker 1:and also people put so much pressure on themselves Like I've got to make it. I've got to, you know, or I'm going to quit my life and become a street photographer, I'm going to be a millionaire. It didn't work like that for me. You know it's long, long journey to get to a certain point. And then there was also that grace period of like right, I needed I need a proper job where I've got health care, I've got an income and I can go and enjoy my.
Speaker 1:I can go and enjoy doing this because you feel so much you, you're more free because there's not the pressure of shooting for a client. So the stuff that you are shooting, stuff that you truly love and enjoy doing, because you're only doing it for you. And if you're going out and you're shooting pictures because you're like I want this picture to be in the style of billy d, you know billy's a great photographer and billy has his look. But if you're going out and going right, I want to, I want to do a picture exactly like billy then you're not doing yourself any justice by doing that. You've got to go out and create something for yourself, because otherwise you're just going to be a clone of something else that already exists. How are you going to stand out?
Speaker 2:If I was to throw that question back at you, if you were to try and pinpoint one secret ingredient that made your work so attractive and made people follow you and love what you do. Try and pinpoint that one secret ingredient for me.
Speaker 1:That's tough because it's not technical. The thing is, the thing is the photography. The photography is the person Right. The thing is, the photography is the person right. That's what it is when someone takes a picture that's them showing themselves to the world. It's like you're putting yourself out there and people read into it what they will. So that's me putting myself out there, who I am, and people are going to take their own slant on the way that that they see your work and some people might not like it at all. So just go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you gotta be you as well yeah, be true to yourself and and actually more than that, kind of know yourself. If you're getting distracted with, like you talked about earlier, your inspirations, or or watching a silly little video from a so-called expert, got to do this. You've got to do that. It's so easy. It's certainly in photography with and today's cameras right, we've got a million settings and I don't even know what page that's on at this and what should I shoot at? And often the first question from an audience member is what camera settings was it? Or what camera was it lens to use? That's the wrong question. Like, get to know yourself. Get to know, yeah, how you shoot. And yeah, I think that's a lovely way of kind of ending this conversation. At least be be true to yourself and if that's, that's probably got to be one of the most not secret, but one of the most important ingredients any of us can have as photographers.
Speaker 1:Definitely.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Phil. What do we look out for in the future now? How do you evolve over the next five years, over the next 10 years?
Speaker 1:Is that something that you think about every day? Yeah, I've taken like a two-month block off because I go pretty intense, it's all in and it's like, right, I needed a two-month block where I just backed off, take care of stuff at home, still shoot. But the mental thing of like, all right, what's next? It's going to be another book. I think that's what I'm going to have to do. I'm going to have to do another book, but it won't be New York next time it'll be. I think it's going to have to be a mixture of overseas all the work from overseas, from different cities I've had the luxury of visiting, so that would be a cool thing. And then I'm just carry on, really just carry on, really Just carry on enjoying it. Never know what's around the corner.
Speaker 2:I love it and until last week I didn't know this was around the corner, so I've certainly enjoyed it. Thank you so much for taking the time. I'll let you go and have your dinner or, whatever you do, watch the Netflix show.
Speaker 1:Thank you, sir, good to see you Good to see you to see which is the land.
Speaker 2:Yeah, neither of us in the country we were born in, but maybe that speaks something for the, for the country itself. But thanks again, phil. I hope to uh to meet you one day when I'm next in new york and until then, take good care of yourself definitely, mate stay well okay.
