Why The Only Reason You Should Be a Photographer is Obsession - Jesse Lenz: E106

In this episode - the last guest episode of 2025 - I sit down with photographer, publisher, and curator Jesse Lenz for one of the most expansive and honest conversations I’ve had on the show - fitting to end the year with such a nice gift-wrapped present. 

What begins as a discussion about photography and photobooks quickly becomes a deeper exploration of obsession, taste, community, and what it actually means to build a life of artistry that lasts. Jesse speaks candidly about art not as a career path, but as something closer to devotion; something you shape your life around rather than extract from.

Here's what we talk about:

• Why art is an addiction
• Discovering photobooks
• Why most projects fail
• Editing and sequencing of art
• Making work for yourself before others 
• Charcoal Press and publishing work
• Chico Review
• Longevity over visibility

Follow Jesse and his incredible work:
Website: www.jesselenz.com
Instagram: @jesselenz
Charcoal Book Club: www.charcoalbookclub.com
Charcoal Press: www.charcoalpress.com
Chico Review: www.chicoreview.com

_____________________________________________

Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can also watch this episode on my YouTube channel (link below) where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as my social media, so make sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Threads and TikTok or check out my website for my complete portfolio of work.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:38 Meeting Jesse Lenz
• 5:29 Place, Weather, and the Artist’s Relationship to Environment
• 12:29 Globalisation, Remote Living, and the Disappearing Artist Community
• 15:45 From Collage To Camera
• 22:08 Art as Addiction, Not Career
• 28:10 Resonance Over Dictation
• 32:49 Obsession, Discipline, and Making Meaningful Work
• 35:20 The Magic in Photography
• 43:05 Universal Arcs In Family Work
• 56:20 Why Photobooks Matter
• 1:03:30 Early Influences and Finding Photography
• 1:09:40 State Of The Photobook World
• 1:16:30 Charcoal Press & Book Club Origin And Vision
• 1:24:20 How To Choose Projects
• 1:33:15 Editing As The Other Half Of Photography
• 1:42:10 When Is A Book Finished?
• 1:49:40 Chico Review: Community By Design

Transcript

Matt Jacob : 0:00

Welcome to the Moo Podcast, uncovering the art of conversation through the lens of photography and creativity, one frame at a time. I'm your host, Matt Jacob, and Merry Christmas to you. Today I'm joined by photographer, publisher, and I want to say cultural steward, Jesse Lenz. Jesse's work is documentary in nature, but expresses as much more transcendent and numinous. It sits at the intersection of family, childhood, nature, and quiet existential inquiry. Through his books, The Locust and Seraphim, as part of his ongoing seven-book project, he photographs real life without spectacle, allowing this vulnerability, uncertainty, and presence to remain unresolved. Alongside his own practice, Jesse is the founder of Charcoal Book Club, Charcoal Press, and the Chico Portfolio Review, really shaping how contemporary photography is seen, circulated, and of course valued. In this conversation we had, we explore his early life and entry into photography, why childhood and impermanence recur in his work, the ethics of photographing family, how meaning is constructed through the photo book medium, and what responsibility comes with shaping taste and access and being at the frontier of that. We also talk about reverence, influence, and what photography can still hold in an increasingly accelerated world. So without further ado, here is Jesse Let. Thanks for joining me, man. It's nice to nice to finally meet you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:41

Yeah, sorry it's taking so long. How's the weather a bit? Uh snowy, but it was I prefer cold and snowy, but it's like gonna warm up, which kind of sucks. So, you know.

Matt Jacob : 1:50

Yeah, we're we're that time of year where we're like we don't need any more like 30 degree, 80% humidity weather. Um we're we're missing being from the UK this time of year, we're missing, always miss the kind of the cold and the frost and the snow. So you know I'm jealous.

SPEAKER_01: 2:06

Something to get in your bones a little bit.

Matt Jacob : 2:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially if you've got kids, I guess. I mean, it might they must be loving it this time of year.

SPEAKER_01: 2:13

Yeah, we usually, yeah, they're always outside playing. We homeschool too, so it's nice. It's nice. Like, I feel like the one downside thing about living in the Midwest is at least in this area in the Midwest, is there's not a lot to do in the snow. Like if you're in out west, you can ski, you can like cross-country ski. If you're like really deep Midwest and north, like in Michigan or something like that, then there's a lot of winter sports you can do. Around here, it's just like, I mean, you can sled a little bit, but there's not really many hills. You know, there's just not a lot to do outside in the winter time, besides just kind of like walk around or you know, go look for owls or something like that. I grew up like really traveling a lot as a kid. My my my parents were missionaries. And so I'm constantly like every couple years, I get antsy and I start looking for a different place to be. Um, but my yeah, my gun is always going like farther north. Like, if I could have like nine seasons of ice where like I was only kind of responsible to like chop wood all year long, like that would be a dream. Um, but I think as an artist too, like I'm always really captivated by this idea that like 30, 40 years ago you could go places as an artist um and be able to afford to live as an artist. And those places usually were really fascinating and like really beautiful. Um, but really since the internet, uh just like like uh in my case, it's like like uh really far like uh remote, like fishing villages in the northeast, or even like up in like Scotland, like these places that most people don't want to be year-round, but yeah, like really set post-COVID, like all those places have been bought up. Um, and now more and more people are working remotely. So that means like before, if you're a weird artist and you could like work remotely, you could afford to live in this place and you wanted to be there, but now like you know, with Airbnb and stuff too, like uh you know, people can like uh some lawyer's clerk who who makes significantly more money than you can afford a house out on like some cool island in Maine, uh that no one goes to and they Airbnb it. You know what I mean? It's like it just things kind of change at a certain point, and it's like, uh, you know, you don't you don't have to be able to afford a house to have one anymore, which is like kind of good, but also like really ruins a lot of really great tucked away places because yeah, like a lot of the islands that I know, specifically, you know, islands have a tendency to disappear quicker than almost any other culture because they're physic, you know, geographically isolated. And so it there's always this tipping point in a community on an island if more houses get sold off for vacation homes to Airbnb, the island can't sustain itself anymore. You can't have a school teacher find a house, you can't, um, you know, you can't get new kids in, you start losing kids. You know, it's just like a whole the whole society collapses. And like I've seen that happen in like so many places in the past 25 years. It's pretty, pretty nuts. But that's a whole other conversation.

Matt Jacob : 5:10

Yeah, but it's it's right up my street because we're we're constantly searching for the next remotest place possible to live, to not to live like a completely nomadic, like isolated lifestyle. I mean, I I like that because I think my wife would go insane, but uh you know that it's so difficult to find, like you said, that hasn't been essentially globalized. You know, we're we're talking about the effects of globalization, much smaller world, increasing population all the time. You know, it's only just a matter of time before the the entire globe is is populated in some form or another. And this comes into a project I'm working at the moment in in Indonesia because Indonesia is one of the last countries where you can find literally remote islands that are still living in the dark ages. And even those these days are just getting, you know, the government here is just pushing tourism so much. Even, you know, once Bali gets full, which it is, it's horrible at times, it just goes to obviously permeates to other islands, and they're trying to kind of like drive tourism now to kind of the remotest places in Indonesia, and so now you're getting these just beautiful destination places that are beautiful for me because they're untouched by us westerners, and uh now we're just seeing it kind of eroded day by day by by us essentially, but by by by Western capitalism for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 6:34

But it's tough because when you get to a certain point, it's not even like you know, there was a time where if you do that, you either had to be able to afford multiple houses or you had to commit to being in a place. But now, with like rentals and stuff, you just need to be able to afford a deposit. And I think that really changes the landscape because there's only so many people that can afford multiple houses, like to have a house in Bali or something like that. And that's always been that way. But the huge transition now is like, you know, if you can just string enough loans together, you can have five or six rental properties, and you're just like a normal guy who works, you know, at like a bank, you know, but like, but now you have like five income properties, but you can't really afford any of them, you're just kind of juggling them and like you're just kind of paying the mortgage on them. Um so it's like create a situation where like there's not really any places as an artist to be besides places nobody wants to be. I always felt like if you want to like live as an artist, you gotta move to like Kansas or something. You know, some places like not very interesting, but like super cheap and probably like full of meth. Like that's like where I grew up in West Virginia. And there's the only place you can really, at least in like the English-speaking world, like still kind of afford to live as an artist. And like you're saying, it's not even to like be this like completely off the grid back to the land, but it's trying to reduce the amount of bullshit you're expected to do on a daily basis that takes you out of the ability to be creative. And I think the more we can like reduce how much we're actually financially and time-wise, like demanded to be like functional people, like we're probably gonna make better art because it's hard to kind of come and go out of those mindsets.

Matt Jacob : 8:16

Do you feel like then the creative uh journey or creative process is more outward looking in that sense, or do you feel like it it's it's more of an inward journey a lot of the time for those best artists out there? Do you do you feel like we need that consumption, we need that externality of of uh influences, of connections, of experiences, or do you feel like, you know, in in an extreme situation, just living by yourself in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, do you think that's kind of a better source of the the artistry and the the the creativity that we need to make impactful work?

SPEAKER_01: 8:53

I think I'm saying thinking about extremes here, but yeah, well, I'm an extremist, so it's it's fine. I only think in the extremes. Um, I think for me it's kind of interesting because like the people I'm interested in as artists are usually like I like to consider them more addicts than like if I think of art, I don't think of it as a career, I think of it as an addiction. And granted, people can like make a career doing it, but really it's people who basically set their entire life up to be able to afford their habit of being an artist as opposed to creating this like business plan. Like my uncle was a heroin addict, and like he never sat down and be like, you know what? Like, I actually think heroin's a better choice than like this drug because like it fits my budget better and I can get it access. And it's like, no, his whole life became around how can I score? What do I need to sell? What do I need to steal to be able to make this happen? And like the artists that I'm really interested in, and this was the same with like music or anything else, it was these people that it seemed like their entire life was just built around how can I be able to do this thing that I love the most that I can. And for a lot of them, that did mean moving to places where they didn't have to really like keep up a certain amount of like income. They could do a small job and then not have to work for four, six, five months at a time. Um, and I kind of feel like those two things that kind of externality and internality, they are constantly a force in all of us. But I think that like, I don't think it's a lot of a choice. And I think it's more or less this idea of being able to get away from like uh the demands of other people or the demands of society on you, so that you can fully go interior and really make what you feel like is coming out of you, and you can't stop it from coming out. So the best thing you can do is get to a place you can help it get out quicker or more often or um with less stress based on like trying to upkeep a certain kind of life.

Matt Jacob : 10:53

So addiction's uh an interesting concept when it comes to art. I do find in my own experience, like the the artists that I get drawn to, and you find out more, you end up doing a deep dive about the artist as much as their work. And you know, the common theme is they're just obsessed, right? They're just obsessed.

SPEAKER_01: 11:11

Yeah, I think it's I think it's the only way to make something great. Like you look at film filmmakers, you look at musicians, you look at visual artists. They're they're all people that are obsessed and they can't do something else. It's it's an incredible laser vision of needing to produce something. And I always say it's like kind of the more crass I was saying is just like I think the art is more like taking a shit. You just have to do it every day. And if you don't, you're gonna get sepsis and die. And it's better to just accept it. It's like, it's really cool if someone wants to come and offer you, like, you know, 50 bucks for like a cup of your shit, but you're not waiting around for someone to pay you to do this thing you have to do every day. And I think that like photography is an interesting background because it does come from a more working class situation because it was always connected. Well, it started off not that way, but very quickly within like our generations, it was something that like you did for a job. You were a photographer for a newspaper, you were like a school foot, you know, photographer for you know, school portraits and all these things. And there's always this like this mode of you know compensation for it. But you know, in the same way that painting, when it became like not the the quickest way to get something that resembled somebody you love, it had to find its own way and expression. And like that's what photography is doing now, because there really is no way to like really make a living as a photographer unless you're like a wedding photographer or something like that. And so I think it's really kind of just gotten to the point that, you know, there's no reason to be a photographer unless you can't stop being one. And so I think that like, you know, the idea of the extremes, I don't think it makes a lot of sense for anything in the middle. Either you're completely obsessed with this thing and you're doing it because it's a passion, and then none of the talks about like what is convenient or cost effective or more efficient matter because like art's not about efficiency and it's not about like what um what gets the job done. It's it's actually usually about what's most inefficient because it gives you the most opportunities to discover something you didn't know was happening in kind of the wreckage of it. You know, like you know, sculpting in marble is not like efficient, quick, or cheap, but yet like it's significantly a better material than using uh like foam core or something like that, you know? And so, like, as an artist, if your medium is marble, you don't really get a choice of like, well, I would prefer just using like scrap materials. It's like, well, that's not your medium. It that's not the medium that chose you, so it doesn't really matter at this point. I think photography is entering that thing where um it doesn't really make a lot of sense for any of us to do it on paper. Um, so you have to approach it like uh like an addiction where it's just like, no, I have to do this thing. I have to be in my dark room printing every month. It doesn't matter if people are buying prints, it doesn't matter if if anyone cares. Um, I have to do it for myself. It's part of my process, it's part of how I understand the world around me. And that's where kind of photography started. That's where things were back when Stieglitz and these people were just fing around with chemicals, trying to figure out how to make something and they become obsessed with it. And so it's really just kind of like this aura borus: like we're kind of coming back to the mouth and the tail, and we can kind of start doing things again for the I not won't say purer reasons, but I think a more artistically advantageous reason.

Matt Jacob : 14:35

Yeah, almost like a lifestyle, right? It's it's not something you really even think about.

SPEAKER_01: 14:39

Well, I must get up and it's like working out or eating good or anything else. It just becomes part of your process and it it's part of your uh mental and artistic workout. You just have to do it every day. It doesn't matter if you feel like it or not, it's it's what's required of you. So you do it.

Matt Jacob : 14:55

But but this interests me because where's the line between um and I don't really want to use the word like amateur and professional, but the the you know, you can still create great art if photography is just a hobby or not.

SPEAKER_01: 15:08

I think some of the best art has been made by people who are what you would call enthusiasts. Like, I mean, look at Eugene Meetyard. I mean, he was an optometrist for his entire life. He was, you know, he's an eye doctor, and he just made incredible photographs on the weekends and stuff with his kids because that was his obsession. I actually encourage people, like, I think it's better if you find a different way to pay for your life. Like, I always say it's like, man, like if you're like have an OnlyFans account, like do something that's not trying to make photography the thing that you make money off of. Because it's just it like for me, it ruins it. Like, I had to stop doing commercial photography or editorial because I was like, man, it's just like I'm tired of every time I go and do something, the client's telling me the way they want it done, and I know it's always the wrong way. And it just it just kills me. And so, like, I would rather I would rather pound nails into wood and like build stuff than I would try and make money off of this. And I think that's like a really interesting thing that you can talk to people about. It's like I think a really important conversation for people to have is to uh decide like your life is like your first creative project. And like uh you're building a life that can you know sustain your creativity and sustain your interests and sustain all your new interests over years is really important for a artistic practice. And most people spend so much time thinking about projects or this book I want to make, and it's like but you're kind of missing the key material, which is like uh your art is like it's an outgrowth of your interests and it's an outgrowth of your obsessions. And if you've spent no time fostering obsessions and interests, you're not going to have consistently interesting things to do or say because you don't know what you want to spend your time doing. And if you're gonna spend five, 10, 15, 20 years of your life working on something that becomes a book that you don't make money off of, like you have to be able to sustain that level of excitement and interest in the subject matter to get to the point that you've done it long enough where there's any great images there.

Matt Jacob : 17:10

Yeah, yeah. I mean, w if that's applied specifically to, I guess, the fine art photography world when where books are, you know, an important part of that. I mean, I I've meet many photographers who are who are just obsessed and but super happy with wedding photography.

SPEAKER_01: 17:26

Man, I wish I could be that way. It would be so awesome. I wish, I wish it so much. Uh, but no, I mean, that's like I tell people it's like, man, if you if you don't mind shooting weddings, if you don't mind being around those people like handling, it's like that's like your superpower, you know. Like for me, like I don't, I I I can uh host events, like I spent years, you know, publishing things before I started doing my own work. I understand how to put on like you know, how to handle the logistics of like 200 people because I used to like back in my high school days, I like built music venues and like used to like book tours for like the bands I was in. So it was like this whole idea of like bringing people to a place, like I understand how to do that. So like my life has took that direction for how I make a living, but I'm the only way I can do that is because it's also directly connected with my artistic practice. So, like any people, any time I spend doing that, I feel like it's parallel to what I'm doing or parallel to like connections or anything else. And that's how I personally have to justify doing that. Like, I can't physically spend time doing things I feel like are pointless. Um, it's why like I never like being in school or anything else, because you're kind of forced to do things you didn't want to do, and I don't really, you know, work very well in those situations.

Matt Jacob : 18:48

I I don't want to kind of lose this this train of conversation. It's it's really great, but it kind of I'm gonna ask you a few questions, can just kind of rewind back to we how how you got into photography and stuff. So like you talked about actually, I had I had it one of my notes and you mentioned it, like if your life was a project, right? And for for me, when I see your work and been following you obviously for a long time and uh have a couple of your books, obviously I know kind of Jesse Lenz on the outside of it, many interests, multifaceted uh artists, you've got so much going on that we're gonna we're gonna dive into both as an artist and entrepreneur and curator, etc. So if your life kind of was that project, what would what is it that's important to you or what has been? So kind of if you could rewind a little bit in terms of how you found photography, why that was important to you, and kind of what the tenets of that life project would be, would be about.

SPEAKER_01: 19:41

So, I mean, looking back in hindsight, I was exposed to photography in my teenage years through skateboarding magazines and like heavy metal. So I got into photography really because I love the things being photographed. And I think that that more than anything else has been. Like the consistent trajectory of my entire artistic career is like subject matter is really important for me. Like what you're looking at tells me a lot about who you are and what you think is worth spending time with. So I think that that's like, you know, kind of looking back, that was a thing that I've realized over and over again that a lot of times the artists I'm the most drawn to similarly have come to photography through some other medium. Like they're really interested in travel, and so they're traveling. So then they end up taking pictures because they wanted to represent what they see, and then they end up being obsessed with photography, and that starts the whole thing. But that obsession was with the experience, and the obsession was with the thing that you were looking at. And I think that that's really kind of key because my artistic career had, you know, starting when I was in college as a collage artist. And like when I was my senior year in college, I was already doing covers for like the New York Times and Time Magazine just as a photo collage artist. And I did that for quite some time, like until like it was like my first two sons were born. I was still doing that. And I really just got tired of sitting in my basement making images with other people's ideas. And so I decided I wanted to start doing photography again because that was the consistency that I had when I used to travel with bands and stuff like that. Like I was always photographing. It was kind of like my excuse to do something artistic while I was traveling. So I wanted to get back to that. So I started my own magazine, this like independent quarterly, that um was really just an excuse to like have a team and to like have a like to do the stories I knew No magazine would hire me as a no-name photographer to go and do that. I wanted to do, but I knew it was the right kind of work to do. And again, so it was like coming up with a business model, coming up with like getting learning how to explain what you're doing to the internet, basically, to get support to do something nobody else was doing was like pretty, pretty kind of core to that idea. And we did that, I think, for probably about like seven years or so. But that led into my discovery of like monographs or you know, photo books. I'd never really knew of them before. I was always making uh independent quarterly. It was a 200-page, basically photo book with some writing in it. Um, and when I discovered monographs, I think the first book I ever saw that I bought was Larry Tow's The Mennonites. Um, and that book just kind of changed the way that I thought of photography because I was like, oh, this is what I've always been trying to do. I just didn't know this existed. And that was kind of the genesis part for charcoal was um basically taking people along with my journey of discovering photo books and curating them and showing them the things that resonated with me and with like people that I really trusted. Um, but again, so like I don't know if that exactly answers your question, but like photographically for me, it it always comes back to like the consistent through all my career is like I need to be deeply obsessed and almost in love with whatever I'm looking at through my camera lens. And if I'm not in love with it, I need to be trying to learn how to love it by using the camera. And for me, when I moved to Ohio, that was really important because I didn't want to be here. We had just spent almost two years traveling North America in an airstream, kind of looking for a place to belong. And we never really found it. So when we moved here and bought the house that my wife grew up in, I was really kind of like felt like a failure. Like I felt like we spent two years on the road, we're trying to go to Alaska. I had all these dreams of like finding a cool town back in like my home state of Montana or something where we both just kind of fell in love with the location and it was like a happy ending. And we just never found that. Um, so when we moved back here, I realized like I started traveling quite a bit again and photographing in like Newfoundland and photographing with one of my close friends, John Levitt. And I remember showing him some photos I started taking here, but I kind of always hated people who did family photography. I always thought it was like really boring and uninteresting. Um, and so I started just like I was always photographing my kids, but just as a dad, never as like a serious pursuit. And actually, I felt like I wasted a lot of my time when we were traveling because I didn't really photograph the actual cool story, which was like a family of three kids and a dog like living in a 30 feet of space. That's true. Did a little bit, but not much. Um, because I was too busy looking externally. I was too busy looking at trying to find that perfect, you know, sunset, that perfect thing, or like going rock climbing or surfing, like all of these things that were like external and just kind of missing the point. Um, so when we moved here, um, I was showing John some of those pictures, and you know, I remember him telling me, he's like, dude, like I think you're making a really big mistake trying to photograph like me. He's like, I would give anything to have like your family in that place with your talent. He's like, you're traveling all over the world. He's like, I'm a single guy 10 years older than you with no kids. Like, you need to be doing your thing. You're not playing the hand you're dealt. Um, and that really stuck with me. And like I realized that like my subject matter is not necessarily something that I get to choose. It's kind of what's given to you. And your job as an artist is to learn how to react to it and to see it for what it is. And I think this is something that a lot of artists also kind of mistake is they'll see their subject matter or a subject matter. They're like, well, I don't like it. So I photographed it poorly because I'm not very interested in it, or like that's kind of the point, is it for it to be ugly? I'm like, no, I think the point as an artist is to learn how to find grace and beauty around you by translating the world in the way that you need to see it for you to feel like there's like magic left in the world. And so for me, and then I think this goes into our conversation a little earlier about like externality versus internality, you know, the way that I'm photographing these things that exist around me, the the th the images I feel that really resonate with me are the ones that feel like this, like this moment taken from almost a parallel universe or like a movie that someone else made in my life that feels so unique and so beautiful and so transcendent that it makes me realize that like those moments kind of happen throughout the day normally. And like no matter whether you are in love with the place or you love it or you find it interesting, like there's always moments that break through there special, and like it be you kind of train yourself to like feel like every day is like a little bit of a treasure hunt. And I feel like that's the thing that makes you feel like a kid again, where you feel like the possibilities are endless every day that you wake up that you might see something that's so interesting that like you have to tell people about. And that's what kind of got me started again, like going out in nature, and like I was always foraging and just realized, like, oh, like I could try to take a portrait of a mushroom in the same way that I that like some people try to take a picture of like a hitchhiker, you know, that like, but these are my subject matters, the owls, the foxes, the mushrooms, the kids, because these are the things I'm interested in. These are the things that I can spend hours and hours and hours and hours of my life doing, and I never feel like I've wasted my time, whether I get a good picture or not. These are just what I want to fill my days with. Um, so I think that like artistic journey, for me, it's always, I don't think it's really been a choice to follow that. Like, I have to be obsessed with the thing I'm doing. But I think just kind of over the years of learning that a bit more and just realizing that like I really need to be obsessed and fascinated by the thing that's on the other side of the lens for me to kind of have the emotional capacity to be able to interact with it for as long as it needs to be in order to get those kind of pictures that we all understand is like great images.

Matt Jacob : 27:53

And I think what you're describing, uh we'll we'll jump into your your books in a minute, The Locust and Seraphim, because you're basically describing a lot of what these these books are are doing. And what comes through to me when you're talking about this is is resonance with your subject matter rather than kind of a dictation or the the the you know a document of right, and that's a really kind of difficult balance, and you do it so well with your books because it could be easily, you know, when you when you maybe when you talk about it without actually seeing the photos, you think, oh, he's just describing family photos, right? Which is what you you mentioned earlier. But you do it in such a a beautiful expressionist way that is that resonance, you know, you really feel that you are involving yourself in an artistic expression with something you deeply, deeply love, right? And you're able to obviously make narratives around that and kind of I want to talk about the the the overarching seven seals and kind of the religious connotations as well as the subtext in the book. But it would I be correct in kind of saying that this did this difference between resonance dictation uh and whether that actually that really is the the differentiator between good work and bad work in in your I mean for me like artwork in general, I think that the greatest art harmonizes with the soul, doesn't dictate anything.

SPEAKER_01: 29:17

You know, I think that's part of my I think my rebellion against growing up um in like religious circles was always feeling as an artist that you're expected to tell someone what they needed to hear, what they should think, or what something like that, like Christian music or Christian art, it was always this idea of like you're like telling them the truth. And I really never that never sat well with me because the the art that I was always the most interested in was never telling me anything. It was simply harmonizing with my soul. It's a tuning fork, right? So you listen to sad music when you're sad because it helps you feel what you know you're feeling, but it kind of helps like put context to it, or at least it makes you feel like you're not alone in the world, right? And so I think that like that that has really adjusted the way that I see work. And it's funny to like kind of come from religious background, but then come into the art world, which I feel like has become significantly more um reduced on what you're allowed to do as an art form, whether it's like what you're allowed to say, what you're allowed to express. And like so much of it is like, cool, I got out of religion just to find myself in another religion that's telling you what you can and can't do, um, and that you should be doing something that you're not and you should be feeling this way. But really, art is a place to that you should feel free to do whatever you want and say whatever you want, believe with any anything you want, as long as you're doing it with everything you have in you. Um, the only real litmus test is sincerity. Um, and I think that that's like that's a really, really important um aspect for for creating great art that, you know, I always say like, I speak a lot in analogies. I think it comes from being a preacher son. Um, but like for me, like like the artistic journey is like, it's just realizing that in your life you've been given a certain set of ingredients to cook with. And your job is to try to find the most interesting and best tasting meal that you can make with those ingredients. And throughout your life, maybe you'll get interested in like, you know, what if I did this with a slightly more like kind of Asian flair? And what if, what if this time I try to make something that's a little bit more South American with the hizo ingredients, but you're always working with kind of a certain set of ingredients, and so many people think that the goal in life is like to get other people to buy the food that you're making. But a lot of times people are just like throwing something together and putting it out in the world and expecting someone to be like, oh, hey, come to my restaurant, eat this food. But like it, but you don't even like to eat it. I think that like the goal is to need to eat, like you have to eat. But if you can get to a point where you desire the food that you make for yourself with your ingredients, and it's something that you look forward to every day. That like when you get home, you're so excited to make this dish that you love eating so much. Like that desire and that focus and that energy that goes into it is irresistible for people. And at some point, someone else is gonna try it, and you'll have honed it so much for yourself, for your own personal intake, and when someone else tastes it, they'll probably have never tasted anything like it before. It becomes like a truly authentic voice. I feel like with most of the really great work I've ever seen, the artist is making it because they can't live without the work. Like they're taking the images, they're printing them, and they're putting them on their wall because they need to see those images every day to survive. Like for me, I feel like the act of like photographing of them, printing them and putting them up is like icon painting. Like, I need these images in my life to make me feel that my life is um like has like real magic to the easiest way to say it's like when I look at one of my books, like it's all of these elements, they're the elements of all my favorite fantasy stories. Like, all the ingredients I have is like the same ingredients that like the Grimm brothers had in their books. Like, it's the same mushrooms, it's the same animals, it's the same kids, it's all the same elements. It's the the idea of life and death. And so, like when I see that I've made this book or this meal with these ingredients that are like the same ingredients of some of my favorite things, but mine are done with actual moments that happen basically within my like my property, my house, and like the areas I bike every single day and hike, it makes me feel like, well, if those are all real moments and these moments I captured on camera are full of magic, then that means that my life is full of magic. And whether or not it feels like that every day, I have the evidence to show that it is actually full of magical moments. And so when I get frustrated or depressed about like the normal bullshit that happens in everyday life, like not being able to make art because you have to take your kids to, you know, to ballet recitals or anything that you just reminded, like, man, like not only are there tons of magical moments that can happen within those things, even in places that are disgusting to your eye, like you can find a moment in that that's beautiful, but also that like the way there and the way back is full of other areas that you might discover something that you've never seen if you're just looking for it, if you're not an autopilot. And so for me, like having these photographs that I've made in my life that I was not interested in in an area I did not want to be, but yet these moments and these like you know, this proof of magic is compelling to me. And it makes me feel like I can do this every day, that I can wake up every day and I might discover something I'd never saw before, even if I had seen it every single day for the past 10 years.

Matt Jacob : 34:54

It's such a nice reminder that magic, without sounding too cliche, magic is everywhere, right? But we're so consumed these days by finding or create, creating the magic outside of us and outside and going to try and find it when it's literally just from the moment we wake up to the moment we sleep every day, all in these little moments. We just don't always necessarily think about capturing those moments, right?

SPEAKER_01: 35:19

Well, and it's funny because it it really goes back into this like idea of becoming a kid again. Like um, the introductory to the book It by Stephen King, he writes, he kind of twisted a Camus saying. Okay, so he says, fiction is the truth inside of the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough. The magic exists. And like I think about that all the time because, like, there are so many times where, like, I mean, this is like one of the reasons I shoot in black and white, because like there's so many times where like the human brain goes on autopilot for a reason. We're like genetically engineered to overlook things we see on a regular basis to pick out things that don't, they're like novel, you know, like novel threats, all these things. But rediscovering the things you take for granted is the thing of that children have because every experience is new to them. And so, like, this idea of like becoming a kid again, like all these great like stories, these like fantasy stories and everything is it's always really about bringing childlike wonder back to your adult life. And so much of that is just realizing that something as small as like a trip to the store could open the door to like a whole new universe you didn't know was there. And for me, that's what like getting back like really deep into nature and like bird watching all these things, like that's what it showed me. Because like, man, I've like found mushrooms in the strangest places, like beautiful mushrooms that eat with my family, or like I'll find them because I'm like driving somewhere dumb and like on a time limit, and I see them growing in a field. You know, it's like there are these times, the same thing with like seeing owls or birds of prey. There's like it's just all around you at all times, like, but we just so rarely look. It's like we don't have eyes to see so often. And like just realizing you can click into that gear, and then magic's all around you. That's what like it just makes you feel like, whoa, like, yeah, like like this time of year, too, because we're like watching tons of Christmas movies, it's like you realize like that's the whole idea of Santa Claus, too. It's like as a kid, you think it's a physical manifestation. As a parent, you realize, no, it's actually this like experience that like when I, you know, believe in this thing and actually does make me a nicer person, it really does do these things. So, like, that is just as real of magic as what you think it is as a kid. And I think it's like a more mature understanding of like what magic and what all of these experiences really are. And I think that that that's the way with um with artwork too, where I think we get really cynical as artists a lot because we think so much about the commercial value of the things we're doing or whether or not they're successful, or if we have a big following on social media. Um, but so many of the great works of art, so many great films were never realized within the artist's life. Um, and you realize like it's just not about that. It's about making something so meaningful to your soul that makes you feel like your life is still worth living. You know, it's like all of these things, it's like it's why we do it. It's not for anything, it's for ourselves. And the quicker you can get in touch with those things that make life beautiful to you, you're probably gonna make something truly authentic and interesting, and other people are gonna like it more too. You know, it's like that weird catch 22.

Matt Jacob : 38:28

Because it comes through in the work, right? It if you do it with that sincerity that you've just talked about so much and staying true to what you love or what you know and what's in your life, and that magic that you can spot because you're doing it authentically rather than trying to fabricate something. People, people most of the time see it, maybe posthumously sometimes, but people do see, do connect with that. That's what we really connect with on a page or it's a harmonization of the soul, man.

SPEAKER_01: 38:56

It's like what what's your soul yearning for? If you can make something that tunes into your own soul and helps you relieve that pressure in your own soul, it's gonna tune into somebody else. Maybe it's only 30 people it's ever gonna be in tune with. That's 30 people you've helped relieve the pressure of their own soul to. And I think that's really important. Um, and I think that's like, you know, it's I think it's always important to say it's like, you know, to me, I've always been really attracted to like the filmmakers and composers, like even someone like Arvo Parad or Tarkovsky, these these people that almost have this like spiritual pursuit within their music or their their movies. Because I do think that what we're talking about, this like this this yearning for the soul, is like it is a transcendent desire that not every artist has. There's there's so much great art that's made by people that don't have that desire, they just make cool shit. And I think it's always like important that it's not saying that like no cool things could be made, but like the things that truly move me to tears are things that have this at their base. And I think that that's if that's Also, your desire is to help move yourself in that way and to move those around you, then like that's a specific path that many other people have walked down in the past. And many other people walk down completely separate paths. Like, you know, you can look at Christopher Nolan and like Tarkovsky B. Latar, and they're all three great film directors, and they're very, very different in how they approach things and what they think is important because of who they are as human beings and what they prioritize in their life. So, you know, I think that's always a good thing to point out as well.

Matt Jacob : 40:32

Yeah, but I mean, there's the there's still common theme, common denominators, there's a little common thread between between all of them, right? The fact that they can make people move and make people feel something. That is that is magic in itself. There's the rest is just taste and subjectivity.

SPEAKER_01: 40:47

Yeah. It's all that like 10,000 hour rule. It's why like Robert Frank became friends with the Rolling Stones. It's like they all had this certain amount of mastery and obsession in what they do. When you get to a certain point, you realize like that's the common denominator of everyone at a certain level, is they just have this drive and desire and need for the thing. Like their need isn't for the thing to be good so that it's commercially successful. They need it to be good so they can consume it. They have a high bar of excellence of what they put inside their own body or what they consume because they have good taste. Like, like one of my John Levitt, who's one of my like closest friends, he was a food writer for the Boston Globe for a long time. And he was a um, he has like a master's in gastronomy from like uh University of Tofina or something like that. And so like he was the one who taught me so much about photography, but he has this understanding of food and to like a way that I never really understood, but like there's so many parallels between like taste, right? Like having really good taste is something that's very hard to develop. It requires lots of eating, lots of training, and lots of thinking. But more than anything else, it has a lot to do with extreme passion for what you're doing. You can try to develop taste, but unless you're obsessed with going out and trying stuff constantly and like understanding what it is about it that makes it interesting, you're just not going to put in the hours that it takes to like really develop a really good sense of taste. And so much of being an artist is like having good taste and knowing where you came from and what you're trying to do. And you're not, you're not consuming, like I'm not consuming these books behind me because I'm just trying to be better. I'm doing it because I actually have a physical need to consume it. Um, and the the like the the result of that is a developed palette. It's it's not the goal is to have a developed palette. My goal is to satiate my artistic drive and urge and my sense of longing that I need to put something inside me that resonates with how I feel. Yeah, fascinating.

Matt Jacob : 42:50

Well, let's talk about the what kind of what came out of all of this obsession and and I guess consumption as well as practice. And in in your books, and um I I really want to kind of tie in potentially your childhood with what you've what you've been able to to to create with the your first two books, as well as what's what's in the future. Is there a lot of kind of ties there with kind of that childhood wonderment that you know maybe you did or didn't have growing up in a religious family and kind of projecting that as well as kind of reflecting it in in the work that you've you've done with your books?

SPEAKER_01: 43:30

Yeah, I think that a lot of my connection to the physicality of nature comes from like a real kind of disembodiment I had growing up, where when so much of your life is spent thinking about what's gonna happen in a different life, you by definition become very disembodied in this one. And so, you know, so those beliefs mixed with never really living in a place for very long term, like the place I lived the longest was in West Virginia. That's why like I went to school there and ended up going to college there. Um, but every place you're from, you're not from there, um, is like a defining characteristic. And that's that's why I was always a traveler. It's why I don't feel comfortable being in any place more than a few years. Like I always feel the most comfortable when I'm on my way to the next place. Um, because all your hopes and desires and dreams are in front of you at those times. You're never dealing with the reality of life, you're dealing with this excitement. I think one of the hardest things, whether it's like artistically or just in life, is like kind of coming to grips with the way that things are, but then finding opportunities within that. Like it's very tedious and annoying and not very uh not very fun. So like I feel like you know, with my work itself being kind of very connected to those like themes, like I feel like I had like I don't know how to how to say it exactly. Like I might just have to like work through it verbally, but like I mean, those themes of like growing up, always thinking about like the next life, and about like looking for like peace and harmony, and but also like a very profound thing of being connected to a higher storyline, even as a young child, is is very powerful. I think that that's something that I have really looked to and I found in art was like I think that artists taught me more about spirituality than religion ever did, because art has so much about embracing mystery and the unknown and being okay with um ambiguity. The opposite of a doctrine, yeah. No, absolutely, like the the the opposite of of um yeah, of doctrine. Uh and so growing up with like this idea that like the best thing in the world was having an absolute answer, becoming an artist, or maybe it's why I became an artist, is all about like actually, like I think mystery is the best thing because the only reason uh the like a painting is this if you if you're gonna pay thousands of dollars for a painting and you're gonna look at it every day, the worst thing you can ever feel like is you ever figured the painting out. You know, it's like the mystery of the Mona Lisa is what makes it interesting, and it's not just like a mystery you can put your finger on, it's just this like feeling of enchantment. And that idea of enchantment is the thing that we're constantly drawn to as artists in other people's work is when I view this work, when I watch this movie, when I listen to this song, I'm enchanted by it in a way that I can't quite put my finger on, but I know it's what I need right now. It's just an itch, it's it's an addiction, it's just this little thing in the back of my head that I need to do to be able to like make the world feel a little bit right again. And I think that like those things, like that desire to make something, but also find a way to connect that to a larger arc of humanity, for me with my work is really important because I don't want to just photograph, like I'm not interested in like documentary photography of my family, of like, here is us in this time. I'm trying to make something that feels like a film I would want to watch, um, but made up with all of the real elements of my life. Um, so I'm not really interested in like this idea of like, hey, this is the world and you know, this is the modern world of 2025. I have no interest in the modern world whatsoever. Um, I'm really only interested in these moments where it feels like my life is connecting to this like more uh higher connection to like the arc of humanity. And that's where to me it's interesting because that's like what parables are. You know, parables are a universal story told through a specific time and place with a like the specificity is what makes them universal. And I think that's something really interesting to think about work, especially in a day and age that there's just a million photographs everywhere. I think it's like it's kind of interesting to be able to make a body of work that feels like it was possibly constructed on like a movie set, but yet it all came from real life. Like some of my favorite films, like uh the film like um A Tree of Wooden Clogs, it was an old Italian film that was made up in the mountains, and all of the actors in there are real people. There was like, I forget, it was like this a very small percentage of the movie was scripted. The rest of it was just following people around filming them, and then the director cutting together the narrative that he already had planned for the film. And to me, that's what I feel like the real kind of magic of photography is like we have this weird medium where you're able to kind of like do these things in real life that these moments and glimpses that feel like it could have been on a movie set in the 50s without trying to. It's just like the way that film reacts to like these transcendent moments. Um, and that's what I'm really looking for is like those moments where your everyday feels like it almost pierces through a veil and like a like a spiritual event happens. And it whether you feel like that or not when you're photographing it, you have the reason you know, you have the results of it. Because sometimes amazing moments happen and the photograph is absolute shit. Um, and then other times, you know, it was a very mundane thing, but just some you know, stroke of grace enables a photograph that could never be taken again. You've just got to be there. You gotta be ready. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to like, yeah, if you be ready, you have to be like looking, and you have to be ready and looking all the times it didn't happen, you know?

Matt Jacob : 49:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you talked about this kind of high higher, high, higher um I can't remember how you described it, but more of a kind of a higher story arc that that might sit over the the top of of your work. Yeah, a universal like tone. What what is that specifically when it comes to your first two books, Locusts and Seraphim?

SPEAKER_01: 50:12

Yeah, I think that they're this this this looking for for grace in in life, like in a non-idealized life. Like I always say it's like I it's this line I've repeat in both my books and like the um uh in the description, but it's this like idea of looking for grace and brokenness. You know, it's like for me, that's like something that's like I think really important just the way I was brought up, like spiritually. It's like this idea that even the worst things can something great can come from tragedy. And I think that like so much of life, at least in the artist that I really love, has been them finding ways to turn disappointment, um, hardship, anything into something that resonates with the soul. And it's not because you're telling people it's gonna be fine. You're just making something that you needed to get through tough times because like tough times are coming, you know, tragedy, disappointment, heartache. Like, I mean, I think that's the thing. Like, when I look at my work, it's like I photograph my kids, and as soon as I see the photo, they're already older and I know they're gonna disappear. And there's so much tragedy that I've experienced with like people losing children and all these fears that come as like a parent and a father, and you know, all these questions that a lot of people use religion to kind of, you know, satisfy their anxiety with. And for me, it's about trying to like come face to face with those things that in spite of the fear and in spite of the longing, and in spite of the loss you already feel, find moments of beauty and grace. Because I think that's all we can really do. You know, it's just like, you know, you're with someone that you love and you know they're not going to be there, and the only thing you can do is like enjoy the time you have together. Um, so I think that like for me, like with my work so far, it's really about that. And it's even with this new book that I'm working on, the third one, it's you know, there's new the the interesting thing about like standing still and letting the wall, the world evolve around you is that like your work starts taking on its own like personality. And if you're aware of what your characters are doing in the story, like they just start doing things you would never write into the script. So, like, you know, I have like three teenage and you know, preteen boys right now, and it's just a whole new world. And the amount of testosterone and angst and anger and all these things that are coming out of my kids is like it's a whole new chapter. And you start seeing, but I think that's where like coming up, growing up in like a uh like a preacher's family is like I just see all these ties to stuff that have been just like eternal stories of what it means to be human. So, like this idea, this there's this, I don't think it I don't know if it's gonna be a teller for the next book, but this idea of the scapegoat has been going around in my head for a long time. This like old story of like it's uh it was a Jewish tradition where they would take two goats, and then they would um put all the sins of the village on the one goat and send it out into the wilderness, and that was like symbolic of it taking the sins of the village on it. It's a lot of other cultures had like cineaters or like you know, somebody, but this idea of like the uh like um the forgiveness of collective guilt, and even the concept of guilt is is really strong. And that's like biblically, that's where like the the idea of like Satanist stuff comes from is the goat and is like the the scapegoat. And I think but it's like really interesting things because you start seeing these things happen very naturally with children, you start seeing them blaming each other and lying and trying to get their own way. They go from this like really innocent, beautiful thing to this thing that is now kind of like discovering itself and this like this whole idea of like the fall and like Lucifer, like it's just the there are these there are these archetypal things that start happening in your life that I just when they start happening, I'm like, oh my gosh, like this this is just happening over and over and over in everyone's life. And those to me are those moments that connect me personally, I feel like, to a larger story of humanity, of like that this is just something that we go through, and this is like the way life is, and and being able to recognize those moments and being able to step back and be like, okay, like this is actually part of what makes us human. It's a really interesting, beautiful thing. It's not necessarily something to be upset about or scared of or anything, but like this is why we have these roadmaps built into art and built in the storytelling over thousands and thousands of years of what it means to try to be like a uh an interesting or a good person.

Matt Jacob : 54:58

And leaving a lot of not pretending you know everything, right? Leaving a lot of questions unanswered, which you talk about earlier.

SPEAKER_01: 55:04

And many of these things have never been answered, like all of humanity.

Matt Jacob : 55:09

It's just like it's kind of part of that's why we get addicted to hope, right? Totally. We don't have to.

SPEAKER_01: 55:14

And it's also just part of being a part of the journey. If you think about like trying to figure out what happens when you die, it's like there's actually something really calming about just realizing that regardless of what happens when you die, it's been the path of every human that's ever been born. You know, so it's like it's being part of the tradition, it's being part of not knowing, but that's okay because no one ever has known. And that's kind of that's the harmonization. You know, every single person who's walked this path has felt the same way at a different time. And that's if it's not, it's not an answer, but it is um it is realizing you're not alone. And I feel like that's the way I felt on my own artistic journey of realizing that other artists had worked the same way as me, and seeing how they built their life and almost judging my life based on what I could expect career-wise, from seeing how they were perceived and how long it took people to care about their work and what types of people cared. I always felt like that was really it was encouraging. Gave me something to like understand the trajectory of life from, like a balance.

Matt Jacob : 56:24

Yeah, it's such an important human need, isn't it? Even as you know, artists or whatever, what do you do? Just to not feel alone. Yeah. Oh, there's someone else out there that feels the same.

SPEAKER_01: 56:33

Or there's someone else that's or there was someone 30 years ago that felt the same way as me, and they wrote it down. And so that becomes part of being part of the lineage and part of like doing your thing of like, okay, now it's my job to record and write down what it means to be doing what I'm doing right now, because I found strength in someone who did it 100 years ago and I found their writing. So how can I leave my mark that maybe in 50 years one other person finds my weird path and it helps them? Because it's it's about like someone nurtured me so much and they were never trying to nurture me, but what they left behind helped me so much that like I can help someone else, even if it's only one or two other people, that's all I needed it to be. You know, it's like it's part of being a part of a lineage and like passing something down that's that's that's worth giving.

Matt Jacob : 57:23

How do you how do you think your children will look at these books? I mean, they're old enough, obviously, to to to to look and kind of understand them now, I guess. But you know, 20 years from now, um correct me if I'm wrong. This is you're planning to make seven books? Or do you tell us a little bit about the pro the the bigger project? And but what do you think your children also will be looking back and what do you hope they will maybe get from from these books?

SPEAKER_01: 57:50

I would say like I can't, I can't say what they're gonna think, because it's clearly not a pure documentation of like their childhood, right? It's it's my vision. But what I really hope that they see, like when I'm gone and these books are left behind, is when they're going through a similar point, like feeling that same harmonization of like this is like this is what my dad like saw in us and saw in this time, and this is the magic that he found. And like leaving out because I I don't think unless you're like right a lot you're journaling, I don't think there's a lot you can really leave behind your kids that like helps them understand what you were going through or what you were like what really stood out as magic with them, right? Like beyond like telling them, it's like you can't really show them. And I think that that's like something I'm really happy about that, like maybe years from now, or even like your grandkids, they see something and it it harmonizes with them, and they're like, oh wow, like this angst or this not feeling like you're gonna parent, or like the the fears you have as a parent or a grandparent, it's like, oh man, like all of that is just like they were going through the same thing. Maybe that's why they felt this way, maybe that's why they were doing this. It just I feel like it just helps give context to the your your own humanity and what you needed at those times to be able to like um feel sustained. Yeah. So for me, like I mean, this this whole kind of like project, it it's again built out of necessity. So when I did my first book, The Locust, I realized that like about every four or five years, I have enough images to make a book, and I don't ever want to be so precious with it that um I feel like I need to wait until the end. Like, I I think out loud anyway, so I kind of have to get my ideas out into the world before I understand what I'm doing with them. And so the first book came out, and I was like, I knew I was gonna do some more, but I just had twins at that point, and that was my fifth and sixth kid, and so I was just like looking. I was like, well, in reality, when my youngest kids graduate high school, if I do a book every four to five years, that'll be seven books. Seven's a really interesting number for like numerology and all these things. It's like it's a good, strong number. It gives me something to work towards. And I think more than anything else, it gives me a sense of like me making this work at this time, spending time doing this. It's not wasted and it's not so far off in the future that like I can't wrap my head around what it would be. It feels like I have this freedom to make work and like an episodic journey where I don't know where the story is going right now, but it's going somewhere. My job is just to be around and keep photographing it. Then I want to always be able to do this work, like with my grandkids and stuff like that. But I think having this like specific chunk of time where like I am a father mostly, when that work is done, when that last book comes out, my youngest twins will have just graduated high school. And I think that it's a at very least like good bookends of saying, like, during this like, you know, 35-ish year span of my life, like this was as a primary caregiver. And anything that happens after this, it's just going to be inherently different. So it kind of like, yeah, for me, it's like I need big, kind of crazy goals to feel like what I'm trudging away with every single day, and like the constant disappointments you feel, and the constant, like, you know, uh just not hitting the mark daily that you're still building towards something, you know. It's just like, okay, cool. Like, you know, I mean, I do this all the time. It's like I go through like a year or two, I'm like, fuck, I haven't taken like a good picture in so long. And then you finally sit down, you look back, and like, okay, maybe I got like 30 or 40 in the last year or two. Okay, like that's not bad. And like every year you get 20 more, then like, you know, all of a sudden you're like, okay, like I got enough to make from now. But it's like every time you start over, it's like, I'm never gonna take another good picture again. You know, it's like you just always think like it's never going to happen. This like crazy moment, like my kid playing with a cat that's being chased by a dog with two owls on it. It's like that moment's never gonna happen again. But then something else crazy happens that you could have never planned. And whether it's that or maybe it's like the a moment with your kid's first girlfriend. So you don't know what it's going to be, but there's always gonna be those moments, and just takes takes shooting every single day for five years to get enough of them to go into a small book. So it's just it's a math problem at a certain point.

Matt Jacob : 1:02:32

Yeah, yeah. Just easy, isn't it? Yeah. Can you tell us? Can you tell me more about the um what you're working on at the moment, or at least with the book, the shipping and the book of the month, I guess. I mean, you there's so much going on. I can imagine.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:47

How much do you want to get into? I almost feel like these things need like three or four different episodes on.

Matt Jacob : 1:02:52

Well, we we let's let's let's touch upon the photo photo book as meaning for now, and then we'll probably jump into to charcoal press, charcoal book club, chico stuff, and we'll try and touch upon those a little bit. So we were already talking about talking about your books, um, which I I guess the the medium in itself as a photo book is an obsession in itself, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:16

So I think, yeah, the photo book's really interesting because it's a fairly recent development in the you know, the whole scheme of the art world. Um I feel like it's really interesting because I think uh I wish I was a film director, but I don't really like working with huge groups of people and I don't like raising money and stuff like that. Like I don't like people telling me no either. So photography is this weird thing I found myself into. I think the photo book is about the closest thing to making a film that you can do as a photographer because you kind of have all the tools of um it's kind of like suspension of belief and this kind of like the sequence and you know, this atmosphere. And I think I've kind of found all these parallels with photo books of the types of images you use are almost like your soundtrack, like your title is like your opening score. So, like whatever your title is going to be, it kind of sets the opening tone of but so there's all these kind of like in their plays, and I find that really interesting because like I'm a huge film nerd, and like I really love films, but there's many times I just I want to live in the world of the film, but I don't want to watch the film right now. And to me, that's a really interesting place the books fit in because like I have books like open in my studio all the time sitting out because I want to be peripherally involved in that world that that book has been creating, but I don't have time or interest in sitting down for an hour or two and watching like a film or something like that that puts me in that same mood. And I feel like photography is almost like this really interesting like VR experience where it's non-narrative driven. So a movie is almost by its nature is like driven by its narrative and you have to move through it. But a photo book and a piece of like a photograph, like it's really more about kind of allowing yourself to be in this world that you can kind of just explore and no one's telling you what to do or what to think or how to feel. You're just kind of in there. And if you've done like a lot of like VR video games, like the worst ones are the ones you have to like follow the storyline because you just want to like go over here and like play around with the window for a while, and you want to like go see what this thing is. If you have to like follow this one person around from point A to point B, it becomes really tedious. I feel that way with like photo books that kind of like come from like a little bit more of a previous era of photography books where it was more about like basically printing a photo essay in book form where it was about this narrative and it was about something. So this entire book feels like you're like reading like a magazine article about why you should care about this thing. And to me, the the most interesting thing about the medium is this opportunity to make it um much more immersive and much more of, like we were saying, like a like a uh a resonance piece, like a piece of symphony versus a lyrical song. Um and I think that that's like where most of my obsession with the the the book form has really came up is this idea to to to make something or to appreciate something that really fulfills a need for me that really is in between like literature and film and really music in this weird space where like none of them quite scratch the itch the same way as a really great photo book does.

Matt Jacob : 1:06:40

Yeah, and it's like it's it's that form of and I'm not gonna throw religion in it, but it's like photo book is as the art form is a form of reverence, you know, without needing like you know, needing to explain it, control it, or necessarily extract from it. We talked about this, you know, harmonization earlier and that like the the this real kind of hitting the soul rather than kind of thinking anything else about it. I think the photo the photo books are the only way we can do that as as photographers, and that's what makes it so compelling.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:12

Well, and I think it really is like it's almost like the natural, it's like the perfect endpoint for a photograph. Like the wall was never the best place for a photograph. It still isn't, and it's why galleries and exhibitions and stuff are dying off. Um it's not the ideal environment, it's not the ideal place. So many of us learn photographs through books to begin with, or very, you know, it's very blue-collar. Um, but there's something so intimate about a book. And I think about that all the time because like I sit with a book in my, you know, I'm alone with a book, right? I'm it's in my lap, it's like a child. It's you're smelling it. There's like all these like peripheral things are happening, you're feeling it's like it's a very intimate experience, and it's so much more intimate than almost any other form of art we have, because like you don't smell a movie, you don't feel it. You have those feelings like in a theater when you're having popcorn and it's dark, and that's what so many Cinephiles like is this like experiential aspect. Um, both a book, like you have it every single time you open it up. And I think that there's a really deep aspect to that. Um, and it's kind of it's it's weird. I've I've thought about photography a lot in like opposition of other um I've thought about photography a lot in like the way it relates to other art forms that have a more performance-based thing, like growing up for years, like traveling in bands, like there is a benefit of those art forms having more of a practical utility in people's life where they want to go to a show or they want to go see a band play alive because it's an experience. The same thing as like going to in a religious like ceremony. There's like pomp and circumstance and fragrance, and it's it's more immersive. Um, but it's interesting because I think if we're thinking of photography as phot photo books, is there is a version of that because you have your own personal experience with it every single time you have it in your lap. And I think that's like I don't think it's really touched on in many other forms of art. It's like why people collect vinyl, you know, because there's this tangible ritual of putting it on, of cleaning it, of sitting in a room and listening to it's very purposeful. And I think all those things are like are really powerful about books, and you know, especially having kids, like this so much of our daily life is surrounded by books and sitting together and looking at them, and they're like half of my books have like greasy fingerprints of kids in them because there's there's a physicality to them. And I think that especially in today's day and age, like it's it's a really meaningful object, um, in the same way that like religious manuscripts were. I think that there's like something about them in physical form uh that it does something different than than many other forms of art.

Matt Jacob : 1:10:10

Yeah, fingerprints on paper rather than on the on a screen, right? It's it's it's a bit a bit bit different. Do you feel like how's the photo book world, you know, for for people out there who are maybe a little bit green in the space or maybe a little bit naive in terms of you know that this almost cottage industry, it feels like, with the the photo book world, from someone at the the kind of the the frontier of photo books, how do you see the the sector of the industry at the moment as well as the future of it?

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:41

Yeah, you know, it's it's interesting. So every career I've ever been involved with has always been at the bottom end where everyone's like, man, this it's completely disappeared, it's terrible. Like I've only ever seen it to be great. Um I will have to say that like to me, it's very much in line. Like, I feel that the photo book world is very similar to like the heavy metal world that I grew up in, like traveling with bands. It's like it's a really small community that everyone kind of knows each other at a certain point. It is big, and that like there are many people all over the world that love this, but like if you go to shows and you're traveling the US, you're gonna see a lot of the same bands because you're there's only so many of you out there, and you're going to like really have this opportunity to have like a real connection with the people that it deeply moves to. I think that's one of the really exciting things is like, unlike other art forms that maybe have a bigger uh kind of like uh commercial value to them, like more people are like casual experiencers, like people in this industry in the same way as like heavy metals, like the only people are there in it are people that really, really love it. And so it might not be huge, but the all of us that are doing this, we're doing it because we need it too. So it's like that there's a lot of bonding and a lot of you know camaraderie inside of the quote unquote industry. But I also feel even weird about saying that because the reason I've started anything I've started is because I've been on the outside of whatever this small community is, because I am not really interested in like um academic understandings of photography. I'm not really interested in being in this, like in the what kind of was the art world. Like I have a very different interest in it. And so even everything I'm saying is really kind of speaking specifically to like it's it's just like music, man. It's like I feel like I grew like I feel like it's almost like growing up in like Nashville and being super into like punk rock and heavy metal, and every music venue around is only doing country music, and your ability to like, okay, I'm gonna start my own venue. So you start your own venue, and like all of a sudden more and more people start coming. Because there's other people around that would like like to have a heavy metal venue in Nashville, but it's not the standard, it's not the industry that exists there. And so you kind of have to create your own space, but it's like the whole like if you build it, they'll come kind of thing too, because um I don't know. I think if the internet has taught us anything, it's like if you have any sort of proclivity or obsession, you can find some other people that have it too.

Matt Jacob : 1:13:25

So can you be more specific with that when it pertains to charcoal press and kind of why you started charcoal? Was it uh kind of outside looking in and like, oh, I want to basically know more about it and be more immersed in it? Or was it a need for doing something different that no one else was doing at that time?

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:43

When I got into photo books, I quickly quickly realized that like all the curation and most of the stuff I was seeing from like people saying, hey, this is a really interesting book, a really important book, you should get it. I just kind of consistently was completely uninterested in the work that was being shown. Um, because none of it hit me emotionally. It was all like academic or quote unquote important work. Um, but the work that always floored me was like if I talked to some of my mentors, people I really trusted, whether they're photographers or not, and found out what books they loved and the artists they loved, I would immediately find someone I'd never heard of before, and their work just knocked my socks off. And it was like, oh my God, this is exactly what I was looking for. And so it was always this like kind of word of mouth, like, hey, if you if you like this, you should check this out. It's just like every other thing in life. Like, if you want to, if you want to develop interesting music taste, get three or four best friends that are obsessed with music and obsessed with different kinds of music, and just take their top 10 every month and listen to them. At some point, you'll develop a better understanding of what really they're interested in. And so, like, I kind of realized very quickly that within like the photo book world specifically, most of the people that had any sort of like platform like that were either kind of connected to an institution or they're like kind of academic based, but it wasn't really anything that I liked. And so it was really just I had learned through doing the magazine I used to do, and then kind of my previous lives, that if I felt that there was a lack here, then there probably was, and I could probably do something like to help other people like me. It was really just about sharing the things that I fell in love with and you know, kind of reaching out, like letting other people knew like, hey, this is what I'm really into. And the people that were attracted to that, they would be really happy, and then they would be along for the ride. And then over time, the goal was to always then to be able to start publishing people. Because for me, what I realized doing the magazine I used to do is that it's very difficult to keep people interested in what you're doing every time you need to do it again. And so, like, when we were publishing that, you know, every time we did a new issue, it was always like, hey, like, we're doing another issue. Like, do you want it? It was like this constant, like it's an attention economy. So it's constantly asking people to support things. And what I realized going into, I had some friends making photo books, and I was like, this really sucks because there's no publishers the way they're used to, where they would just come and be like, think your book is great, we want to publish it, we're gonna do it. Everyone, it's like, you have to raise your own money, or you have to pay for the whole thing, or you have to do the whole thing yourself and self-fund it. And so, like, my goal with charcoal is like, well, at some point, I want to have this base and this community of people that really love the same thing as me. And so when I find something, whether or not it's an archive or whether it's a young artist that no one's ever heard of, I want to be able to have the trust of people to trust my instincts to be able to give that artist a deal I would never get, which is like, hey, I'll come in, I'll spend two to 10 years of my life working with you, and you're not gonna have to pay a cent for it. I'm just gonna do it. I have the community, I have everything already built for it, and be able to really like give a platform to people that would never be able to do it themselves. Um, and I always felt that way, like even with music, like, you know, when you're like booking shows, I always got excited about like, yeah, you have your headliners and stuff, but you always have your like your side stage acts where like if you really do your job well, like everyone who so shows up at the show actually starts trusting you as a promoter because you know that every single band coming is like there for a reason. They're not just there because they'll bring people or not just there because like they're cool, but it's like specifically like you should pay attention to them if you care about this thing. And so I feel like with charcoal, like that's where I started with it, was really just to kind of put out a bat signal of like, hey, like this type of work, which I always say, like looking back like seven years back through, I think it's been seven years, might be eight, of like curation every month. It's really just every book I can point to is like every book is made out of that same desire. Like I said, it's like it's a book made of necessity, not of desire. So like the artist just had to get it out of their system and make it. And I feel like all the books that we've curated, you can look through that and you can feel that sense of desperation in the artist of needing to get the book, um, not just the book, but the work itself out into physical form, like get it out of their spirit. And um, you know, when I think like when people get interested in that and they like the curation, then it just opens up the the doors to the other things we're doing with, you know, publishing or something like that. But it's exciting because I feel like Jack Woody at Twin Palms was really kind of the last publisher who was not a photographer, but almost every single book he put out had this consistent vision and voice because he was an artist making work with other people's work. And it was really strong. It's like it's why he had such a consistent kind of run of books throughout the years that he was the main publisher at Twin Palms. Um, because he needed that work, he needed those people's work, and they were never going to make a book that he desired. So he found their work and produced a book. Then whether you had ever heard of the artists or not, if Twin Palms or Jack was putting out a book, you paid attention to it because it was probably worth looking at if he spent four or five years of his life working on it with the artist.

Matt Jacob : 1:19:30

Wow, that's that's interesting. I yeah, I didn't I didn't know that. So then how is your voice and vision at charcoal being cultivated through you through the years of of doing it or evolved? And so what is that? If you were to kind of kind of define that, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:48

Um It's hard to say. I think that like charcoal press is is it's obviously it's it's what I kind of think of as like it's it's a more focused. Execution of what I'm interested in. Um, like the book Seal Skin, we did a little while ago is a good example of this. Like, you know, this is a guy, Jeff, who was obsessed with a specific thing in his life, which was being a fisherman. And he wanted to be a fisherman in Maine. He wanted to be a fisherman, he wanted to have a little house that he built with his own hands on this little island he got. He wanted to have a family. And the photographs were just the result of his obsession with his life. Um, and he was a photographer, he was very caught, like aware of photography, but he kind of always thought people would come to know him for like documenting this like rural fishing village that was disappearing. But the work that he was really making was this like pretty profound and beautiful arc archetypal story about like, you know, love and loss and you know, all these aspects of life. And so I think someone like him is kind of like the epitome of that, who is just so obsessed with his life, really. He make like the photographs are the result of his obsession with his life. And I think that like all of the people that I'm publishing, that's really what I'm looking for. I'm looking for someone who is just really obsessed with it. It doesn't really matter what it is. Like I'm work, I've been working on a book for a couple of years with a guy um who he was um he was he's a really amazing dark room printer. It's actually how I met him. But he was in like the uh in the 90s, he was living in New York, he was going to art school, he was like working at Sergio Partel's um dark room as like a large format dark room printer, but he was photographing for hip-hop magazines. He was like very deeply involved in the hip-hop culture at that time, but he was also like the like drug dealer for like Wu-Tang clan, like all these different people. So, like the crazy access he had to all these people's lives, but he was so fascinated by photography. But like it was this obsession during that time. It was like there's a documentary that came out a little while ago about this time of uh like culture where skateboarding met hip-hop culture. And that's like the same time that I started getting into skateboarding as a kid. And it was just this obsession over music and over like all of these different types of people being together in New York, and it was like skateboarding, graffiti and hip-hop, and like all of these different things coming together. And he was like at the epicenter of it as an artist taking photos, but he was also like a drug dealer, and like he was just like connected to all of it. He was like, and he was photographing for hip-hop magazines at the time. So, like, we've been working on this book for a while because like to me, to me, I don't see any difference in that book as I do with Jeff's book. It's all about this obsession with life and this preoccupation with life and photographs being kind of the eight, like it's like it's the second and third result of this life. But because he's a photographer, he obviously has to photograph everything because that's how he processes the world. So I think charcoal press, it's it's becoming more and more refined about finding those types of artists. And those are strangely the hardest ones to find because they're not trying to be found, they're too busy with their life. They just they have to be stumbled upon. Um, but that's what makes it fun. And then I think Charcoal Book Club is really the curation is also very similar to that, but it's a little bit easier because we can just pick from the books that harmony you know, harmonize with that. They're just coming out in the world because there's always someone making a book like that somewhere, and it's really just about looking. And as soon as you see it, like I always get goosebumps. I'm like, well, that's the book. Like, I got goosebumps. Like that's that's that's the creation process. It's just yeah, yeah, it's like, does it give me goosebumps? If it turns me on, then like, yeah, that's that's the book we're doing.

Matt Jacob : 1:23:48

Yeah, I love I love that because I do that, I I do that as well with it with anything, with any type of art form. If it makes me feel if goosebumps is a great indicator, it makes me feel something I like it. I don't need to think anything else, it need to think anything else about it. But like I'm interested in kind of this ecosystem that you've created. And uh I I ask you that question specifically because I wonder about the responsibility that you have by default, not by design, of essentially shaping taste and access, right? I mean, this is this is much your your artistic outlet in terms of the press and the book club. Book club's a little bit different, I think. It's kind of a little bit more community validated, but certainly with charcoal press, it's it's essentially your output into the world as well through proxy, right? And so, you know, kind of in the photo book sector of the photography industry, it's it seems like there's a lot of barriers to entry for artists. There's, you know, it's it's it's very selective. This is kind of what it can be perceived as. Do you find kind of feel that weight on your shoulders as well, and that kind of responsibility and uh of not necessarily being a gatekeeper, but also running a business and selecting, you know, people you you really want to work with and believe in and kind of this dichotomy between kind of the responsibility as well as truth and and the work that you want to put out there?

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:10

I think I do, but I think maybe in a slightly different way than expected. I think my the pressure I feel is usually um I see work quite often that I I know would be an easy sell, and it's usually because the person would be an easy sell, because they're popular, there's a lot of momentum. Um, and that is the publishing decision made by 90 or more percent of publishers out there. They see a young artist that has a lot of momentum, momentum's really easy to spot. For me, because publishing is not a business decision, it's an artistic decision. I'm looking for someone that it's like it's like training an athlete. I'm looking for someone who wants to be punished. Like I'm looking for someone who desires the same thing that I desire, to be pushed to my limits, to be exhausted, to be pushed beyond what I think I can be creatively to um to discover something in my own breaking that makes me go to the next level. And that's it's a very specific type of person. Um because I know that that's what it's going to take to make something that I feel artistically interested in at the end of the day. There's a lot of books I've passed on that I absolutely could have just hit print on and they were bringing enough people to the table that they could have been financially, you know, beneficial. They would win awards. All like I've passed on a lot of books that go on to win awards because to me, it's not really about that. Like a lot of times that work is like the work itself without the name or the momentum attached to it, it's it's kind of stale, it's not very interesting. Um, it's formulaic, you kind of expect what you're gonna see. Um, but it's like kind of what people want at the time. But I feel like that's like I think that's the the pressure I feel is to not be swayed by that. Because there's a again, there's just a lot of times like, I can't believe I'm passing on this because it would be so easy. But to me, part of like being a publisher, like and feeling that that's part of my artistic voice, it I see it very much like being a music producer. Like, I feel like everything I'm I'm doing has my name on it. Um, and I'm not getting paid enough from any of this to justify like doing something just because it would be popular, because it's like, why sell out if there's no money? Like, if I was being offered millions of dollars to like sell out, like, yeah, maybe I would consider it, but like I'm not. You know, it's like there's not any of that, you know, like besides like some awards or some award money, or like, you know, doing something that sells out quickly, it's just not interesting. It's like every one of these relationships that I get into, I feel like I'm I'm I'm marrying an artist for a certain amount of time. Jeff's book, Seal Skin, took 10 years to make. Um, and I think the shortest book I've ever made with someone took two years. But even after that, you know, I'm married to that book for four years of sales, of warehousing, of promotion, of, you know, doing all these different things. So, like it is, it's a life commitment to a certain to people. I think that's something that maybe photographers don't realize when they come into wanting to make a book, you know, they see it as like a very kind of transactional thing. And this is something that we talk a lot about Chico, is like all these things you're entering into relationships with people. And it's why it seems like there's a high barrier of entry and it's like very selective. But really, what it is, it's just it's all relationship-based. Like for me, if I'm gonna work with someone, I know I'm going to spend a lot of time with them for at least two years. Um, lots of time arguing, lots of time discussing, lots of time of mentoring, sending them things they should listen to, sending them films, like all this back and forth. And at the end of the day, there's a very decent chance the book won't break even. You know, so it's like, you know, like this just these are the realities of the world. And so when you realize that you you for me to justify doing that, the work is like the first foot in the door. It's like, okay, do I think that this work in and of itself is like excellent or has the potential of becoming excellent? Now I want to talk to the person, I want to spend time having a beer with the person, seeing what they're interested in. What are they obsessed with? Do they have cool obsessions? Do they not? Like, a lot of people have a cool project or a cool thing, but they don't have enough cool things in their life to develop that project where it needs to go to actually make it interesting to more people than themselves. And so, like, there's all these different kinds of personality things that kind of it's just like dating someone, you know? It's like, hey, they, you know, I like the way they look, but like, can they carry on a conversation? Do they have a weird tick, you know? Like, do they want the same things out of life that I do? And so all of that stuff is a filtering process. So I don't really feel like any sort of obligation or need to give that process to people that I don't feel connected with. Um, but I do feel the strain of it when I see work that I know fits the formula and I know would be so easy to make. And I'm lucky enough with like book club where I can pass that on to another publisher that I know will do it, or even just support it and buy it from the book club, but just know this it's just not the type of person that like I'm fated to work with because I've done it in the past and it just doesn't work out very well for either of us. Because it's just you're you're unequally yoked. You you each want something different from the work.

Matt Jacob : 1:30:43

Yep. Yeah. The relationship is is so important. And yeah, I you know, I before I got into PhotoBox, really just didn't understand that how how that worked and the the length of time it takes to kind of really build that coherence with not just you and a publisher, but you and a publisher and and ever the whole the whole kind of ecosystem that surrounds it, right? As well as an audience. And it's interesting you you mentioned there, like it's one thing making your work for yourself, but then you've got to think about actually making it appeal and connect with other people. And it's and it's really interesting you talk about that because that must be a huge part of your role. Is like, okay, we've got some cool, cool bits of work here. How can I be the conductor essentially and make it a fit together, but be uh be appealing to or hopefully appealing to a wide audience?

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:35

Well, I think that's the thing with like when it like I think photographers specifically underestimate the role of editing in a project. Because a photographer will always think about in terms of photographing, but editing and photographing to me are the same uh like requires the same skill set, but they're separate skill sets. So so many photographers are really good photographers, but they've never spent 10,000 hours editing other people's work. So for editing work, selection, uh it's it's just like knowing the moments to take a good picture. It's instinct, it's the way it feels, it's like having taste, right? And so a lot of times we think, well, because I'm really good at taking pictures and I can select out, I'll be really good at selecting photos for a wall or for a book. It's like, well, no, you have to do that work that you took to get to becoming a good photographer. You need to do that when it comes to this. It's just to me, it's it is so obvious because it's the same in music. So like you can be a really great band, but not really be good at putting together an album. So like there's people called producers, and their job is to sit and listen to all the riffs you're writing and help you connect the dots between them and come up with a good idea. It's like, you know, this one part of the song's not working. We recorded it, just been listening to it, but I think we drop out and do this, but I think we actually need to like double time the speed and do this instead. And like, that's their job is to like help put puzzle pieces together. It's what film directors do. You know, it's like all these different things that like become really, really important for the creation of a body of work. But like we don't really understand that that is part of it because we don't think of the book as the final art form. We think of the book as a collection of pictures. And I think that like the more we can do to think about books as um, yeah, so I think that that is like it is something that I don't think people realize the specificity that's required. And like it is not to like make photo book editing like or making photo books like some like rocket science or something, but there is like precision in doing it. And I think that like um, you know, doing the Chico review, this is this is our 10th year doing it, and like I can consistently say that I've never seen a book or a project there that's just ready to be printed. Um, usually when I see that, I always say it's like I think that the work is at the stage of being an adolescent or like a preteen where it's just now starting to develop its own ideas of what it wants to become. And then it's like another year or two of like developing that work to like the next stage of like it reaching its truest form. But like that's kind of what like I'm looking for at that point. It's like, okay, cool. Like this project is like becoming a teenager, like, there's a lot of potential here. How are you going to help it reach its fullest potential at this point? Like, what are the things you're doing in your life? How are you set up? Like, how can you help this project and this person get to a point where they discover something about the work that they didn't realize was put was a potential within it? I think that to me, like that aspect of discovery is what takes work from being a project and is very dictating. It's like, it's like having kids. Like there's a certain stage where your kids get to where it's like when they're small, you can just be like, oh, you're gonna be a doctor and you're gonna go to this school, and this is what you're gonna do. But it becomes like a teenager and starts having its own ideas of what it wants to do with its life. And your job as a parent becomes facilitating, kind of supporting it, discover something. And that's the point that I feel like so many artists up on is they hold down to like, no, you are a project about this. This is the book, and I'm gonna put you out right now. It's like, man, it was just starting to get interesting. It was just starting to transcend you and become something that you could be interested in, but you forced it to stay this like MFA school project thing that you started on just because you spent four years with it. Like, man, a lot of great books take 10, 15, 20 years. So, like, cool, you spent four years, spend four more. It's gonna change, you know?

SPEAKER_02: 1:35:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:49

That's why it's so important to like only work on something you're willing to spend your life doing, because you're gonna have to. So you might as well enjoy yourself.

Matt Jacob : 1:36:00

And that operate that often separates the wheat from the chaff, right? Is it's those people that see it out. Yeah. It is really kind of because in that time is where the the the extra I guess the difficulty is kind of knowing when it does end. I mean, a lot of these projects certainly photographically can just go on and on and on.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36:19

Read the book Um On Writing by Stephen King. He talks about people ask him all the time, how do you know when the book is done? He's like, you know a book is done when you have a new mistress. And I think it's so true. It's like when you are so sick of this one thing and you've discovered something else that has all of your all of your energy getting put towards it, then you know the old thing is done. And that's actually the best time to let that work come out into the world because all of your emotional attachment to it is just gone. It's just like when your kids are ready to leave home, you're kind of ready for them to leave because they are kind of self-sustaining now. It's time for them, and you're like super happy to check in with them every couple of weeks, but like you just don't need to be under the same roof anymore. And I think that this like if you still have this passion in what you're doing, then you need to be doing it. But as soon as like you feel it starting to pull you back, or you put it up on the shelf and you just can't stand the idea of going back to it, you either need to let it sit on the shelf forever, or you need to let it out into the world at that point. Either way, it it served as purpose and now you're on to your next thing. And sometimes you just gotta work through projects. Like, I feel like I spent seven or eight years working on projects for that magazine I used to do. That if those all could have been photo books, um, I'm really grateful that none of them were my first photo books because I ended up finding my subject matter at some point. I feel like that's like one of the really bad things at a certain point, is you can get to where you become known for a certain body of work because you were really young and you made something really great, but you never figured out why you loved doing it. And so you're connected to this thing, and now you're like, well, maybe I need to keep making work about the subject matter, but I don't really want to do that anymore. It's all these things, and it's just like it's just like seeing musicians that get like, you know, too much publicity when they're really young and they haven't figured out what they need from their music yet. And I think that's like something that's been so interesting to me about the photography world coming from music, is I was very obsessed with like what made a career artist as a musician, like someone who was like still playing music late into their life and they were still obsessed with it. It was always that thing where they were making music for themselves before they made it for anybody else. And that was the constant thread of like people who like consistently made great music their entire career. And the ones that were like one hit wonders, or these people who like came out with a great album that seemed to flounder around for years and years, and maybe they came back. It was usually people that like most people consider lucky because they're like the right place, the right time, doing the right thing, like skyrocket, skyrocketed to success. But they like the glue wasn't dry yet, and they never quite could find their mojo again because they didn't have that muscle memory down for like why they did what they did or what made them excited about their own music. And the lucky ones find that years later. Um, but it's the same thing with I think with all forms of art. Like, I remember um the first time I met uh Emma Gowen, he had told me um, I like we were talking about work and we have a lot of similarities, both being like minister sons and stuff. And he was like, I'm gonna say something over to you that sounds like a curse, but I promise you it's a uh it's a blessing. He's like, I hope that no one cares about your work for the first 30 years you make it. And I think it's like really powerful because like it's that pressure cooker of needing to do something for yourself, not for anybody else. And if you can figure out what makes you happy and what satisfies and sustains you, and you can repeat that and you figure out that formula, it's gonna work for other people. Then anytime what you need changes, you know that process of what you need to go through. If your life changes, if your interests change, if your subject matter changes, you know that process of what you need to go through to find a way for you to like desire what you're making. Um, and I think that that's like that's the main thing that people can't teach you. It's why it's usually a born of obsession and um necessity. Necessity. Yeah, exactly.

Matt Jacob : 1:40:41

Yeah, yeah. I I'm I'm super interested and I care a lot about it as well. And I think this is kind of one of the last, you know, remnants of the true photographic art in everything that you're doing, right? Everything that you you have done for the the photographic world, the photo book world. And you know, I I can't speak enough platitudes uh about you and what you're doing. So like I I'm I'm fascinated by it. I'm still really green in it as well. So and I know my audience, a lot of my audience is as well. And we we have um, I started this online book club earlier in the year, and we we'd we there's so many people that come in there and they're just so amazed at just photo books generally, but uh you know, the artists and everything that we've talked about, there is a there is a real thirst for it still, which is so nice to to see and hear. It's just the it's just writ literally because we're in that time and attention economy, it's just like getting it, getting this shit in front of people. And and going back to kind of my question about Chico, that's why things like Chico are super important and valuable as well. But tell tell us a little bit more about it and kind of the inception of it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:41:48

Yeah, so again, Chico is built out of necessity. Um, ironically, it was I started it when we were still doing the magazine I used to do um because I found out one year when we came back that uh one of our business partners hadn't been paying taxes on our company and we needed to raise money to pay taxes in like six months. I was like, well, I had I had been a concert promoter. I was like, well, we can do an event and I know the perfect place. We had found Chico because of that. We had done our second issue in Montana at Chico, and I we had had lots of kind of ties to that place and the owner of that place for a while. And so we just kind of built it and it worked. And then I was like, well, I'm just gonna keep doing this every year. Um, and then the second year we're kind of that's when charcoal started. So I kind of started shaping it more towards a photo book, and it's just been kind of this refining process. But I think Chico is kind of the perfect example of um why like set and setting are very important. I would say like Chico has so many filters built into it that by the time you get there, you're surrounded by exactly the people you want to be isolated with for a week because it takes a certain kind of person who like desires to go and be in Montana in the spring to be surrounded by you know a hundred other photography nerds to put yourself on the line and like to show your soul, but then to want to connect with people. You know, it's kind of just it's like it's like summer camp. Um, but I think that like again, though, it's like for me, it's it is so much about need because I need a community like that, like once or twice a year. That's why I do these sort of workshops, is like I need to connect with people. I think that's the thing that people forget, is it's just as um edifying for the people that run it or for the people that speak at it as it is for the people because we all get energized and then we take that energy and we use it throughout the year, but like you kind of need to come back and plug back into that source every so often. Um, and Chico for me is kind of the the epitome of that because it is such an extreme thing. It's you know, it's six days, seven nights at a hot springs resort in Montana. It's like everything is crafted to where, like the reason I did it like this, and the reason it's all inclusive and it's a big, it's a big cost and it's a big time sacrifice and everything. But when you get there, you have nothing holding you back other than your own ego. And so it forces things like I remember making the decision that it was going to be all inclusive because I was like, I never want someone to be like, well, I want to go hang out with people tonight, but like maybe I don't want to like buy another beer or two. It's like, no, no, like once you get there, then your only decision is to be social or not. And it creates an environment that you know people tell me every year, it's like, well, I'm not a very social person. I don't typically do these things, but I I was there and I felt like I should take advantage of it. I'm so glad I did. I'm like, yeah, that's that's the idea is that like you kind of have to, or you kind of are wasting your time and money. But it puts people in the right frame of mind where it forces you to do things. They're actually the things that you need to be doing, um, engaging with people, talking, finding out who you like, who you don't like, who you connect with, who you have like some weird connection to that you never knew. And we're so isolated as artists. Like, basically, I mean, Chico for me is like it's recreating what so many of my artistic peers and mentors had in like, you know, New York in the 80s. You know, they had they were living in places where you would like go out to the corner bar and like you would just end up meeting someone that you needed to for your career, but you're all in the same place because you had to be there. And so Chico was like a way to do that on our terms where it's like, okay, well, none of us live in the same place anymore, but we could bring the photo book world to my favorite place every year, and we could set up this thing where like everyone will be here. This is the one way that like if you want to get into the mix for the first time, if you come here, there's no it's almost harder to not become in the mix and to like you know, be part of the community because you're bringing, and then you also have this cohort of like 80 other people around you now who like now you are a crew and like doing stuff at like all the book fairs. We've been doing these like alumni meetups at all the book fairs around the world. And it's cool because like every meetup we have will have 50, 60, 80 people there, all from different years of Chico. Half of them don't know each other. And it's these like awesome networking things that like I never even had in my college, and I never did MFA, and most MFA programs don't even have that type of like community engagement with alumni. And so it's really cool to be kind of creating this thing that doesn't really exist anymore, but doing it and also it being something I always wanted to be a part of and never really got to. But now we get to it, and it's 100% on our own terms. And so it's really, it's really exciting and really fun. I think that like for me, that's that's the thing that like is the biggest reason to do it is like every year I find like so many more people that are doing it for the same reason me. And and and honestly, because I think of all those filters, many of them are coming to the photography world in the same way I did, which is from the outside. It's from a different career, a different path, not an MFA, not from the inside. And I like that because like I understand that box and I understand how to outgrow it. It's just like religions, like a lot of times the purpose of it is to put your kids into a defined area and let them outgrow it, but you have to know what's on the outside of it to allow them to successfully grow out of it. So, like, I feel really excited about the people that come to Chico because like I understand their motivations, I know the things they're gonna be disappointed in when they find out because it's all the same things I was disappointed in. And I know how I've had to cope with it and how I've had to do other things. And just to see the amount of people that came through Chico that ended up starting their own little publishing companies, they're working with other people from you know their year at Chico and they've published, it's like to me, that's the coolest thing because like that's showing real like sustainability and them finding ways to kind of like become a real community and support each other to continue this desire that we all have that's not based on awards or accolades or something that has to be given to you, but it's something that can be supported through your own desire and through people that believe in you. And I think that's like the only real way to make anything.

Matt Jacob : 1:48:21

Yeah, well, well said. And we need more people like you, we need more community events like Chico. And I, you know, I know there is a a lot of kind of filters applied to it, whether that's that's cost and the application process and you know, everything that goes into the uh the people that are there and the the the reviewers, right? That's kind of the whole essence of it. Um, but it's we you know, we it more than ever we've become this dispersed society, and and we need the whole reason I started this podcast was just to connect, right? And we we need more things like this, especially in the photo book world. So thank you for for being in this space and doing everything that you do um wholeheartedly with obsession.

SPEAKER_01: 1:49:07

It's just like getting a it's like getting thanked for being a heroin addict and being at the right place at the right time to like notice that something weird happened. It's like like I get it, like, but it's also like I'm just here because I can't not be here. And it's it's it's more exciting to see other people kind of come together and like truly being able to have to offer something, even if it's just harmonization with people in a way that I didn't have that I wish I had when I was going through this. And so I think that like so much of like community is based off of like being the thing that you wish existed when you were looking for it. And it's like it's not altruistic. Yeah, it's not altruistic. It's just if you realize that that's that's how everything works, then when you notice it, that's an opportunity and you need to, then you're the person that needs to do something about it.

Matt Jacob : 1:49:59

I felt exactly the same way when I got into photography. I was like, well, where the f is everyone? And why why are we not all connecting and you know, in a in a non-kind of, I mean, we can nerd out as much as we like, but uh in a non-kind of gear photo club, photo club way that obviously has its has its place for people. But like, where's the where's the community in in the photography world? So yeah, where where exactly and where are we gonna kind of is one thing getting inspiration from from a book or from someone you see and from someone's works? It's another thing getting inspiration from social connections and connections with people who are just share the same love that you do and might be at the same stage that you are and share the same fears and worries and questions. That is something that's just untouchable and um and um uh in the meantime, we've we could talk for hours and hours, and I won't take up your well, what is now night time. I'll let you go and be with be with your children at such an important time of year. But thank you, Jesse, so much for for being here with me. It's been a long time coming, but it's been such a pleasure. I'm ab. Yeah, cheers.

SPEAKER_01: 1:51:01

Merry Christmas.