Chico Review 2026 - part 1: Why Feedback Beats 10,000 Followers

to Montana for Chico review week and this is going to be a slightly different podcast

“episode because I really want to take you through the whole process from an attendee standpoint”

as it happens. I'll be documenting the experience on screen as much as possible and hopefully speaking with some of the other photographers attending the review as well as some of the reviewers and speakers themselves along the way. Now if you're not familiar with Chico review it's one of the most respected portfolio review events in photography. For a few days for a week ask photographers from all around the world

gather to sit down one on one with editors, curators, publishers and other well renowned photographers

to show our work and talk about where it might go next and across this week you kind of

rotate through a series of reviewers about 10 to 20 of them and it does as a reviewers involved and

“you might meet many of them throughout the event we hope each conversation lasting around”

20 to 30 minutes that's all and the purpose isn't just to simply show photographs it's obviously to receive honest informed expert feedback from people who have spent their lives working in this type of realm. Book publishers, magazine editors, curators and some of the best know photographers around people who can look at a body of work and quickly understand both its potential and where of course it might need refinement. So for the past few years actually

but a few weeks certainly I've been deep in preparation for this editing images, secrets and then doing a load of prints and trying to kind of shape this work into something that feels like hopefully a finished body rather than just a collection of loose photographs. The aim being to present my project in a cohesive manner and something that could hopefully eventually become a photo book or some other long form storytelling outlet. So right now I'm in my hotel room with a bunch of

prints spread out on my bed or show you in a minute. I'm refining this sequencing, moving images around seeing how they kind of speak to each other in real life, in print form. Some images kind of open the story a little bit and some hopefully introduce bit of tension or space. But what's the sequence begins to feel right? I'm going to number each print so that when I sit down with the reviewers and Montana it's going to be pretty fast-paced. The work I'm forwarding kind of that exact order

there was intended and I don't waste time worrying about the sequence. This is my favorite part of the process actually. It's just me, the images and the question of whether this story actually holds together the suggested narrative I'm trying to put through. In these few days photographs be on the table in front of lots and lots of people who spent decades shaping the world of photography and photographs. But right now it's just about preparation and I'll worry about that next

week because as we do the reviews and as I get feedback each review will probably change the way I display them or the change the way I talk about them based on feedback that I might get each time. So it's going to be a whirlwind of a week, a lot of socializing, a lot of connections, a lot of networking as well as a lot of kind of professional insight that I think I'm going to be blown away with and it's going to be pretty overwhelming weeks. I'm going to try my best to

record the experience firsthand and hopefully give you guys an insight into one of the best and most famous photo weeks in the photo book world that is today. This happens every year so you

“can get in by applying. Obviously you need to have a pretty cohesive body of work already to go.”

And that's it. You have to pay a certain fee. You might be lucky enough to get a bit of a scholarship and then you're off to the races and I have no idea what to expect. I've obviously spoken to a lot of people the likes of Jesse Lens, Brian Scouts, Matt P. Arts. Those obviously Jesse and Brian will be there and peers and attend to it. I've also spoken to another few attendees on different

workshops before. Ken Andres and being one of them plenty of people and they all just say how amazing

the week is but how fast pace and how intense it is. So I'm trying to do as much preparation as I can right now so it can just be me and a camera sometimes recording but I don't want that to take away from me being immersed in the experience. So apologies if you don't get to see as much of

we see in the images so I'll I'll give you a little bit of an insight as to what it looks like.

Okay so I'll always show you like all my images because if this does become a book I want to

keep it a little bit a little bit one or secret but a little bit of a mystery. I'm not saying this is finished in any way whatsoever but this is kind of like my first attempt at putting this

“into a into a position where I think it can be promoted or at least suggested for print.”

So all I'm doing at the moment is what I've spent the last I kind of knew what my sequence roughly was going to be anyway but as you guys know or you might know putting something together on screen and actually print it out and playing around with them which I always recommend people to do on your floor on a whiteboard I've got eight by ten prints a few eleven by seventeen prints but eight by ten as kind of minimum size for me because you really want to kind of see the

images and see how they really flow together but you can also do like five by seven like kind of postcard size if you're limited for space I've got about I think I've got forty images here one two four six eight ten twelve thirty forty forty three images yeah I think that's it the biggest difficulty is obviously cutting images down because you know in this case I've spent three years at least three years just looking at images at least three years kind of putting

taking some actually more there's a few in here that are five six years old just taking images right and kind of figuring out where the story or where the narrative might the source of that narrative might come from which is usually inside of you but this is like trying to distill six years of photography down to forty five images when you probably take in thousands and thousands then you know as you can imagine that's a painstaking or challenging and enjoyable

but also painstaking exercise because you leave so many off the table that you're proud of but

“that's why editing and sequencing a book and a series is a skill and an art in itself so there's”

something I'm really learning steep learning curve and looking forward to getting better at it and yeah so you'll see here on my hotel bed we've got plenty of images there's about what I would say 43 and now it's just about moving them around making sure that there's pairings but also pairings points pairings making sure we've got the tension we've got the introduction we've got the bookends in place and you know kind of basic theory and I know I'm very open

mind I know as soon as I put this in front of for instance a publisher they're just gonna kind of rip it up and just say this is all wrong have you thought about a sequencing it like this so I'm I'm not trying to get all the answers now I'm not trying to know all the answers but this is just

kind of my first real attempt at putting an edit together that I feel tells what I'm trying to tell

and that's not a secret I'm not going to give it away too much but by the end of the week can blend by the end of this video and this podcast I will kind of give you a little bit more of an insights to what this project is about why it means so much to me and yeah if it has resonated at all with any of the reviewers or any of the other attendees so yeah with regards to the reviewers there are some just some huge names and actually I'm probably going to be starstruck a little bit

when I get there luckily with the part I've kind of met a few of them already online but there's so many more that I've put on as attendees we get to list up for preferred reviewers that we want to be reviewed by and we get a top 10 and then the rest start it's kind of filled in

“whenever you can imagine the logistics I think there are 64 attendees and there's 20 about 25”

reviewers and speakers because there's keynote speakers there's alumni attendees and then there's

reviewers as well all of them review at some point so yeah there's basically you know 900 people

in a conference room all trying to you know just just talk photography and and this is these are the types of rooms I want to be in and this is why I'm going and this is why I've traveled halfway around the halfway around the world you know coming from Bali to Montana is no mean feet and as you can imagine it's very expensive and I just I just is just a no-brainer for me

obviously working on photography to get to a point where I feel like I belong in a room

“and where at that point now some super excited quite apprehensive and yeah just curious”

as to what this is going to be like so I'll hopefully be able to translate that through here and through the microphone if you're listening and yeah I really hope to kind of sit down with a few people that I admire and I'll give you much more information as we start guys to whom I review is going to be and I'll try and keep you up to date because it's the

days of packed but after that first there have a good idea of what my schedule is going to be like

who I'm going to be reviewed by et cetera et cetera so I'll keep you guys up to date as much as possible but yeah for now I'm going to get back to putting numbers on the back of these images and I will see you on the other side. All right guys we made it to Chico so first night we checked in just a few hours ago we were pretty late we got delayed from Chicago we were seeing my brother for a few days in Chicago before coming down here before that we stopped in Vancouver

which is one of the spades you guys last and we're just trying to spend some days getting on with

time zone because from Bali it's like 14 hours time difference and I didn't want to go into this week

exhausted but hasn't quite worked out and then if I'm fighting something in terms of illness or if it's just lack of sleep but I definitely have been struggling the last few days with just energy and tiredness so it's not even late it's like 9/30 here at the moment we've had dinner we've met everyone done registration introductions tours and got the reviewer schedule which I'll show you guys in a minute but we are we're just done we're so tired after this week so we're hoping

to get a really good night's sleep tonight and attack tomorrow with as much energy and passion as possible because it's going to be a busy busy intense five days which I'm really excited about but also quite apprehensive about expecting some bad with the good and some up and down emotions

and a lot of socializing networking meetings and amazing people so I'm going to try and take

you guys through it as much as I can there's some stuff I won't be allowed to record there's some stuff I just want to be in the moment with and not want to pull out a camera like the last few hours so I tried my best I'm going to try and get a few guys to sit with me in a quarter and just chat about some things and yeah we'll see how it goes so there's a lot of people here I'm not going to be able to be friend and talk to everyone I don't think but we'll see and we'll see how tomorrow

go so I check in with you guys tomorrow morning we've got keynote speeches tomorrow morning after breakfast and then every afternoon is blocked for the reviews we get 20 minutes per review and this

“is my schedule and you can see here I can't remember a bit better I start tomorrow we have”

Tim carpenter at one o'clock and then just just back to back for three tomorrow just a couple of Wednesday and then Fridays a big day with Odette Brian and Claudine and then we finish and I put I've got Brad Zeller in here as well and Wednesday I just kindly spoke to him because I didn't get him and I didn't get Matthew Jenning temper either so my project my task tomorrow is to speak to Matthew and see if he can fit me in somewhere at least give me half an hour of his time

over a beer at some point in his week but yeah look at those names some really big names and some yeah really interesting reviews they can happen so I will check in with you guys tomorrow and try and keep you apprised of all of the cool stuff that's happening and hopefully take you on the journey as we go but until then I wish you a good night and I'll chat to you tomorrow see it okay day well to technically day two but day one really we're walking to have a breakfast now

“breakfast then two keynote speakers Peter Hugo and I think Caroline Drake I don't remember”

so I need to breakfast and then morning of speeches then lunch and then it's with you time guys end of day one sorry haven't given much of a behind the scenes or in front of the scenes but it's been a kind of hectic day and I haven't honestly felt that comfortable with

so today we had two keynote speeches on by Peter Hugo and another one by Janet Delaney

“both excellent some Q&A's at the end and then we had some lunch and all in in amongst all of this is just”

socialising essentially meeting people meeting all the other attendees as well as getting some access to the reviewers and meeting them and talking to them before we go into the afternoon reviews

so I first up had Tim Carpenter and then I had Carl Wully and then I had Janet Delaney

really interesting experience I was just getting 20 minutes to kind of present the work and uh someone's like speed dating and trying to kind of express something he'd be working on so long and something it means so much to you in that time and that's kind of the whole point right it's going to be done through the images and yeah I had mixed reviews all pointing to uh pointing to the same topics really of of what I should be looking at what I

should be potentially changing what I should be potentially working on moving forward so

really kind of a collective mix of reviewers which is good um because having a more objective

view on my work um from people who you know have very different styles in terms of their their own photography as well as their reviewer style and um wow it's windy here so that was really really interesting and um a little bit deflating at times but generally some really good points and really good uh critique that has really made me think and made me um not go back to the drum board at all but certainly when it comes to the edit and what

“images I'm presenting um I think where this work needs to go for me to be even tighter to be even”

more cohesive to be more importantly more clear on the the suggested narrative that I'm trying to express because it's a lot of it's quite abstract it can be a little difficult for me to collate the more pertinent images that do that work so yeah we'll see we've got another seven reviews left two tomorrow um trying to the beauty of this and the way Jesse from charcoal is kind of created this event we're now in the 10th year of it is that he he gives access to everyone essentially

is everyone's mingling the reviewers the speakers the attendees the staff we're all in it together and so even if you don't get a reviewer that you wanted on your review sheet then there's so many chances just to ask them politely in in the spare time we have quite a lot of spare time which is great to have a look at work as well as all of the other attendees that want to look at work and that want to share their work as well so it's really such a great community where

you can just talk for gig account photography but geek out on your own stories and learn from

“others and share ideas and that's what it's all about to kind of really understand if your ideas”

ideas are worth pursuing in the way that you're trying to pursue them so it's a long road long journey and um by by no means am I anywhere near a finished product but I think there's something bubbling that I'm just trying to pass out this week and hopefully by the end of this week I've made new friends new contacts potentially new podcast guests but more importantly like more clear picture of where this body of work is going and what it means to people who are seeing

it for the first time so stay tuned I promise tomorrow I'm going to try and get more footage from

inside the the scenes not the reviews I can't do that but certainly the the keynote speakers and the in between moments which is then going to be really important so as I get to know more people and be more comfortable putting my phone in their face so yeah hopefully tomorrow then Thursday we have a free day so I'm planning to kind of sit down with a few attendees potentially a few reviewers if they're they're willing but definitely a few attendees to just kind of

talk about what this experience means for them and their own perspective on what this week is showing for them so um I'm going to bed now it's midnight and we're going to be up early so see tomorrow okay we're here day two well day two point five breakfast time

yesterday and you know who did you get what did they say any good feedback

“is this reviewer to this reviewer too harsh some guys and girls definitely a little bit deflated”

and others pretty buoyant based on um based on what they they had reviewed so we are

basically prepping for another date of reviews and uh yeah time to to eat breakfast and

see where the day heads so we're going now yeah we're doing fair well we this is this is informal this is breakfast is breakfast using breakfast musings uh where with JJ was it last night's food and JJ student um based cream talking about what happened yesterday what do you um would you get out yesterday um it was helpful okay basically Christian Patterson and PS um two very different photographers

took a part to work in a different way but basically the same idea meaning just kind of figure out which path you're going to take and keep going go further and what are what what what's your project about uh my project is about I hate this question because I'm still struggling to talk about it yeah but uh showing the club yeah so how it came together it was I was going to this place year after year and I was a place I used to go as a kid and I my mom was from there

and I was very attached to it kind of emotionally and I thought it was a place I was very very connected to and I went back year after year and you year making these photographs and then all of a sudden I realized I don't want to go I mean the car driving and it's like a 12-hour drive like I don't want to go bad I don't want to be there I don't like this place and then I realized oh that's probably what the work's about this conflict of you know what what we're attached to

what home looks like what connection looks like to places nostalgia all these things so we're we're only on what day to day to kind of uh what what are you hoping to get out of the

rest of the week or with the reviews a put deal and a million dollars okay so not much yeah no

“expectations are low yeah I just I think just more information you know if I mean it's”

figure the sound I think I honestly I probably got enough of me yesterday like I I know what I need yeah yeah yeah yeah I could just go right now and probably just go work and probably be fine but but there's all these in the front I wasn't when I'm gonna get these three people yeah like the retention they're like it works oh you've got Matthew Jen and Tempo and Jesse yeah it was two oh you know I need to have it Sunday's a Saturday's a big day yeah tomorrow like it'd be great yeah I know I know I know I know that my

growing yeah my brody like my brody's okay yeah so it's Daniel you know I know I know I'm wrong because it's like in my neighborhood you know it's the record Brooklyn in New York okay did you see him you know I was so the interesting dude just kind of I think also the part of this that's interesting for me is um nobody's here to make money there's no money there's like there's no glory except for within this room you know so it's kind of just like being part of the community

and seeing being around people who are interested and what I'm interested in yeah I think yeah when I was about to Jesse a few months ago that was the one thing he said you got to come here for it's like okay you know it's about photography and potentially books but no one's making money here it's more about if you come with the intention of just expanding your community and meeting

“people like minor people and that's what it's all about you see that in two days here so yeah”

a hundred percent we go out and you just you know I guess maybe like a little drive to make more work for keep making work that's it good luck man look forward to seeing you work later thanks brother we had read what was your last name read Read Hathcock read Hathcock and nice to meet you

and um how did you kind of get to this point basically where we sat here paying thousands of

dollars for for just to be in a room with with some of the best people around uh it started with hanging around punk bands and just photographing shows and music and friends doing less than legal stuff sometimes uh and starting that observational process onto my life my friends my family my dog my wife just you know but photographing anything and everything and now we're finding that

just gets a little squirrely some things aren't quite what you'd expect to come across like you

turn a corner and there's a little little little little girl riding a horse down the street in the suburbs so they're like oh interesting so it was like a surreal other stuff sort of surreal this is definitely part of it um irony uh just when you come across something you didn't expect and it's either a little bit scary or a little bit funny um and now I'm here in Montana with the portfolio I'm showing the people who are like I don't know what to make of this I don't know

yeah yeah okay and so who have you had so far from yesterday I had Brian Sputman yesterday okay then Peter Hugo and then Cole Wally yeah from TIS yeah okay how did I go uh varied I had some some interesting feedback a little bit of like I don't know what to make of this like you got you have great images who was that uh that was Cole and Brian okay I had the same from Cole yeah like uh some some good advice I did you have from Brian was like go back to the beginning look at your

archive like go through do three rolls a day just see what you have bring out contact sheets go through and find what's connected within it which is fairly daunting because that's like a almost 25 years of you know almost back to the drawing board but like taking a step back to then get two steps forward yes so like and I tried to do that like look at what I shot over the years and see what connects from years ago to now to what I shoot on this trip and then I had

for Peter Hugo it was like totally different it was like I like this this is great lose this put this beside this one is like these are great prints like you could put a book together with us

“Oh well that's amazing huh so it's very big you see what happens today I think that's the the”

thing I took from yesterday as well like the the varied uh approach more than like yeah I mean I had some common themes but everyone said it in a completely different way which is kind of normal but I think we're here for that kind of eclectic mix of reviews right so I think you know as we talked about breakfast today like passing out what you kind of want to take from that not get too deflated by just stuff you may not resonate with you um are you taking any any kind of different

approach today into reviews are just open book type let's see what happens I think still open books see what happens maybe I've refined a little bit of how I talk about it when I meet somebody

for the first time um and I definitely spent last night like re-seek what's in everything uh just to see

“and I think I think that was helpful to come at it with like not fresh eyes but eyes that are like”

a little blurry like oh man okay there is stuff I need to rethink so yeah it's almost a trap to come in here think you've got like a complete not complete body of work but like something that you feel is ready to go yeah um which is what I thought and then to have kind of that just strip back a bit yeah yeah you still got more work to do but this is good this is not kind of aligned with it go go back to drawing board work more and that it's uh it's kind of it can be difficult to to take

but um but I think one thing to take away from this is like you know this is kind of you know this isn't a small deal to come to Gigo but we didn't get here by following everybody's advice we were ever get it so great a point of taking leave great well good luck look forward to seeing yours your stuff late at the end is the Carson found you in the library of Chico yeah how are you finding it's a fantastic it's so exciting to meet like amazing photographers and reviewers so it's also quite

never cracking you know to present your work and to get the feedback what was the journey like how

did you end up applying for Chico and so I had about Chico at first time last year I guess through Instagram and then I had to classmate a little masters in back and spank about photography so they were selected and of course seeing you know their experience here and it was Montana so I decided to apply for the second time and I'm delighted that I was selected so it was been part of an American adventure now because Montana has been one of mine go to states this is the first time

you're here not in the states but yes in Montana yes and tell us about the body of work that

“you're presented there is because you got a few bodies of work but I think I'm gonna tell you mostly”

about my main one which is a physical photo book dummy and this culture is a very particular city

environment my previous employer a Swedish energy company sent me to Siberia with a mission to basically question whether it was social responsible to buy enriched uranium company was buying

uranium to buy enriched uranium from a closed city so I have never heard in my life what a closed city was

so you're saying tell us what it is so the closed city is started back in the cold war back in the 50s understanding they were created to host spots for manufacturing nuclear weapons so they were secret and you know completely hidden so they were hidden to raiders and not even the Soviet population near the resistance so you could take a map back off from the USSR and they were not appearing anymore and also they would have like a cold name so they would have like always like a number so my city

is called krasnojarsk 45 not even a Russian national can go there if they want to you're only

“allowed there if you have for example like a closed relative or you have to go there for work”

which was my case so I can say that I've been one of the few people on earth that have been able to access one of these closed cities so they sent you your company sent you there with the intention of what just a document not to document but to do like this is the irony of it so to do like a human rights in past assessment okay to see whether it was social response to both Dubai so I was looking at there so my role in the company was to make sure our suppliers

comply with environmental and human rights standards so before you know I had been to Colombia looking at coal and displaced communities I went to Siberia I went to South Africa so I was not doing more like human rights in past assessments and now you know to be sent to Siberia that you're buying uranium and these are also interestingly the time when Russia had invaded Crimea so this is also part of the hypocrisy of the corporate world you know so

this was you know you had sanctions but there was no sanctions on uranium or coal so my company

was still buying coal and there are other things from Russia not anymore so it took a war basically

to support them to stop in a buying uranium from Russia okay what would take us take us through the images so the book is divided into parts and this is a dummy book yeah so the book is divided into parts the first part is about the transcribian journey so there is unfoldable maps where a lot of red sea yes so be a threat you know I look for it so you can see where I didn't do the whole route but from it course the like to know what signals then cross no yars this is here so I did like

kind of a loop and then so the first part is about we started Moscow and I'm showing a very different Siberia you know when I you ask people what do you think of Siberia people think of is no we landscape and let's you know beautiful and I'm showing a different one you know feeling

more industrial and and the first half of the book is you know you get on and of the train you know

and and the whole concept of sort of the first part is that when when somebody thinks about a close city you don't know the context you don't know what you imagine you know you're like what is it going to be like Chernobyl something abandoned there and it was the feedback being like so far the feedback is being very positive so I had a review with Daniel Arbol yesterday yeah I'm so really

“loved it um some other feedback is being said well you know maybe you need to kind of you know”

cut it down a little bit you know which accept so yeah because it's big like comes along but it's all it was also part of the what I wanted to create is this sense of you spend days and days and the train so it's kind of you know that that monotony so suddenly you find you see you see all these which is like loose camo i postcard emptiness um but really clean so it was really like a start contrast with the industrial sabiria which was kind of more for polluted now the second part

hardly contains any people because on board post because I wanted to give us all that sense of isolation and emptiness it was actually what empty so it's not like I'm unhiding things so what are you looking for in the reviews here at Chicago well um in the reviews I mean um I'm presenting this book to the publishers so I want feedback also on you know what could have been proved you know would it publish this book as well um I want to see kind of the reaction you know

to it you know whether it could see this it would be something that it would be kind of

“commercially successful yeah as well no I mean in my humble view I think who doesn't want to”

know about it for a bit in place are there any legal limitations with this in terms of like if this was published would Russia have a well I have a very good anecdote on this so I guess I was presenting

this book and I was presenting it in some of the galleries in Spain the my first presentation I don't know

why I thought it would be a very good idea to invite the Russian ambassador and I really un-very stubborn

“so I invited them to have the inauguration that didn't come but I think they sent some spies”

but then it must be my second presentation I actually managed to get an interview with with with with the second you know the the one after the ambassador and the cultural attitude so they received me they bring me you know tea and I'm presenting this and I'm thinking at the same time and showing this super serious guy I'm showing the book and I'm saying ester what are you doing you're presenting this book to them and they were like super you know like completely emotionless and my idea was to say well

I'm presenting this book people have a lot of questions which I don't have access to so we'd really

good to have like a Russian representative so that and they said well we never been to a close

“city so we cannot really say anything about these but okay we're welcome to the rent we will not”

share their own table with you but we'll come to the rent so they came to the rent three of them you know the guy on the two two young ladies and they were sitting at the first row me while I was you know doing all these speeds and presentation and now the when I finished the president of the Society of Photography and Spain gave water to him and this is when you had a had a master real moment so this person stands up basically says that everything upset is not really true

and he brings literally photocopies of beautiful landscape of Siberia and they start showing around two people basically with the methods to say what ester has shown is Agly Siberia and here is a

“much more beautiful this is what you really are and you can still travel I mean he wants to do”

and his work you know he was promoting Russia and you can and he says you don't have to travel for class in the Arabianian team he they're good in understand you know why chose for class in Siberia so that was like a fascinating experience to be honest there to have the Russian representation that is the whole thing sounds fascinating experience so we thank thanks for sharing and all thank you so good luck with with the book and the feedback and yeah we'll touch

base but we got to go to a view ourselves now but yeah thanks so much for sharing thank you thank you so much great those in paradise we're giving a choice happiness without freedom of freedom without happiness I hear with Merle Davis Merle House the cheeko experience going for you so far it's been really great I've gotten a lot of wonderful feedback and a lot of supportive feedback which was

been wonderful this is my first review so I've never been to one before so I was wasn't sure what

to expect but it's been a really positive experience of that tell us about the work we'll show this on the camera in a minute but I'm sat over your prints which look fantastic I'm intrigued to hear more about the work itself and the story and how you know tell us all about it give us your elevator pitch thank you so this is this body work is called the shoreline and it is a project I've been working on for about five years it's shot on medium format film and I have

shutter on the beaches of Washington which is my home state so most of these are shot around Puget Sound some on the Pacific Coast and really what I'm looking for in these images is the place where the amenity of the water the amenity of the sky and nature meets humanity and I want to explore how why community finds respite at that place because I find a lot of peace there this project began during COVID and my son was in kindergarten and cooked the first the first

year of COVID and we quarantined and he had school at home so we ended up going to the beach a lot or to the park for school which was really great for us and really great for my son to be able to go outside and I started noticing that while we were at the beach I noticed other people were finding this peacefulness and sort of a connection to nature

have to take them and I for me it is when I look at these they to me they inspire peace in

“me and it's helpful for me because we are surrounded by a lot of unpeaceful imagery”

and so and I also I want my son to be like to not to also have some peaceful imagery to absorb to and not just the media that is out there really right now so there wonderful images mirror and I really love first of all the color palette which evokes tranquility in itself and there's this observational standpoint you have behind people looking out you know just seeing watching them I guess you how long a period did you shoot

these over and did you do you spend a lot of time just sitting and waiting or is this more of like go shoot move on so this is all accumulated over several years yeah and generally I

would always carry my camera with me but what kind of feedback have you had so far from

from the set um really good I guess the some of the uh the critique has been maybe changed perspective a bit um and add more variety of perspective um maybe different weather patterns too so what what by the end of the week what are you hoping to to get out of it

“well like I think I really wanted to be back on the sequencing of it and”

is this a sequence now no no because it got all things got moved around and that's that's great I yeah um because I I was unsure about the sequencing of it anyway so um so yeah sequencing and ending um I'm kind of isolated and um I guess I was also just hoping to like talk people a bit about yeah because yeah about photography and um because it's hard it's like I'm in a little bubble like photography bubble at my you know my life so it was it's good to talk to people

about it yeah and stress test the yeah the images and yeah every point so well thank you so much for

“sharing yeah thank you for a wonderful project and yeah good luck with that thank you very much thanks”

Merle yeah so and of well getting to the end of day two we've got a day off tomorrow so people are now at dinner and we're in the conference room I'll switch the video around we're in the conference room so everyone having dinner and uh this is kind of where it's also doubles up as a waiting room when we're waiting for reviews for everyone um all of the the artists and the publishers here putting out books for us to obviously look through as as we wait and uh I'll

try and get more footage of the the waiting room I obviously I can't get much of the review process but I get more footage of the waiting room on Friday when we're back in here um we had a talk by Jonathan Levitt he's uh wonderful artist this is book here we've had some great great talks um obviously we've got Marshall's blank notes here and we've got Rory King's Gumsaka which I'm gonna

hopefully talk to him tomorrow so many obviously incredible incredible artists but yeah we're just um

a lot of this is what it's all about this is half of what it's all about at least yeah we're here for reviews and feedback but um you know we're also here for community we're here for socializing and uh we're here to make lifelong friends and throughout we can make some connections and uh yeah see where it takes us so um tomorrow we've got a day off and uh hoping to relax and uh eat some more drink some more and um we'll see about karaoke tonight

this is what it should be um I'm here with Katie Moore. Katie Moore that's

and what you do here at Chico. Alright well I am the event coordinator here at Chico

do I supposed to look like her? Oh it's taking me this is Katie's first little little podcast

like I'm like I'm so nervous I'm like oh my god um I hate being on the side of the camera I went to school for photography so I'm so much you have such a great ton of my voice thank I'm so much um this is um my sixth event here at Chico my fifth year um and my

“role essentially is to make sure that the event runs smoothly you know I think that I excel”

pretty well in communication I hope um and so so much of the work that I do is just um communicating and make people feel comfortable before they come here and feel um seen before they come here I think often times people are coming from a long distance and um just want them to come here feeling prepared and comfortable and then just like with the reviewers you know I don't do any of the art direction um but I'm like the main point of contact and in some ways I think I'm like

a little bit of like the blood and the heart of Chico. Alright so yeah so really good description I think for for those watching this thing Katie is like the backbone of this event so like just leading up to it all of the logistics and the communications I think this is the year this is the most you've ever had in a year in terms of attendees and reviews. Yeah this is the biggest event um we have been doing this well this is the 10th year that Jessie has been doing this

the first two years for me were post-COVID um so we had I think 40 people 40 attendees this year

“we have 80 so with more attendees you have to bring more reviewers um and so it just kind of grows”

exponentially we are so happy to have really I think exceeded our expectation at this point we I feel like it's like we have the whole resort we have this whole room and that's really what we have wanted to do and so it like it feels like we finally like fit in our pants. You know what I mean like we've had these pants like the first the first time it was sort of like it felt really intimate and like you know I think people are really awkward with COVID still and

there was a lot of um you know hesitancy around talking and people are still coming from distance here and um so there was like it was really small and you know and now we're like in this space where I love seeing people spilling out here they're on the inside they're inside talking in front of the fireplace they're at the bar having a drink you know where they're in the hot spring so I feel like we've really kind of like gotten to the point where we want to be and hopefully we can

“continue to sustain the size and I it feels like we can it feels comfortable. I think it feels right”

I mean I haven't been here before but yeah to be the folk room of that kind of community development must be so fulfilling but how did you get into this role and into it because I mean photographer in yourself and how did this all start for you? Phoma yeah that's a drive there's a very big driving force for most people yeah. I spent 10 years working in non-profit spaces okay I actually studied photography at Skat and when I came out of school my mom was so happy to

hear this I said I don't think I'm gonna be a shooter and so you know trying to figure out what spaces I wanted to be in and I I really wanted to be in museum gallery spaces and I did I was really fortunate to have an experience doing that that took me to Cleveland I was involved with a society for photographic education here in the US and did a lot of conference planning I feel like I again sort of funny metaphor for me I feel like I've been wearing big bridges the whole time where like

I didn't necessarily have I didn't feel like I'd learn those learned those acclades but I was standing there so there was a lot of holster syndrome early and I met Jesse while I was working at the Transformer Station in Cleveland Ohio and had moved to Atlanta a year later kind of during COVID was sort of between things and I've been seeing all these people that I knew and I was like I need to be there so I reached out to him and I said can I just help you in some kind of way

and in my head I was like I could be a reviewer like you know like these definitely get a higher he's gonna hire me to be a reviewer whatever and he was like well actually I'm looking for somebody to help run the event and it was just sort of like perfect timing for the both of us and I think it's really kind of amazing because we've worked distance the entire time like we've

never let it in the same parks I'm in Atlanta he's in Worcester or Ohio do you work on it all

year round or is it just like six months of the year okay I would say like four four of them

yeah you know well I know that for sure he's definitely like one of the things that's really exciting about people coming to the event is that once you participate here at the Chico Review that he's doing workshops in Maine and Western Massachusetts you know he has the charcoal book club he has the charcoal publishing they're going to Paris they're going to New York Art Book Fair they're going to ICP they're going to you know the LA Art Book Fair so I would love to be able to participate

“in those type of things and I think we're sort of trying to figure out where I fit in that you know”

like sort of leaning on each other's strengths to sort of disperse you know and and to be able to

support him because he is I mean he's an incredible person he's like a super human yeah I don't know

so much he's all over the place he does you know and he called and six kids six kids yeah and you call me the other day he's like I'm sick I feel like a mortal today you know yeah that's humbling that he actually he is mortal okay it's like he was like I will mortal today and I was laughing because he was still like faster than I was like I am still a mere mortal you know but he just has this like incredible ability you know and we've gone pretty close and I

would love to be able to follow him through you know you know what comes next and what the future is I think what's exciting is that Jesse is interested in pushing the boundaries of like what traditional photography education can't do you know and feel like traditional photography education is is dying in some ways it is I mean I think it's expensive for one and a lot I mean I don't know it's hard because there's so many different types of schools right but I think that there is an ongoing need

at least that I've heard from people who do teach or have done workshops I think workshops are

incredible being able to travel and spend a weekend or a week with a group of people sometimes

you can learn almost as much as you do an entire semester sort of in these condensed moments I feel more real and you almost learn from the people around you as much as the person and that's the beauty of this I think that's the part of it for attendees that might be wanting to come to Chicago or may not know so much about Chico how would you kind of invite them into this experience and what do you what could you say to them that they would get out of it so I think a lot of things

that one of the things that I think people are really excited about which of course they should be is the the book price and so one of the things that we do offer to people who come here is an opportunity and Jesse will offer a publishing contract to them and so I think everybody is just like really nervous and of course they want one which is great but I've already brought him as fun yeah okay yeah he takes

“trash yeah yes let's talk about big bills but you know I think the more important and I think”

the more pressing thing about this event is networking meeting people these are contemporaries

I mean I even say like I feel more comfortable going to like I've never been a Paris photo

but like I haven't like terrified that I would go there and like not know anybody or what to do and like when you come here we use the language like your family now you're part of the Chico family and so I think we could do more with like alumni types of like connect like doing sort of meetups or whatever but with so awesome I think about coming here is that you will run into those people all over the world if you continue to participate the relationships not only with the reviewers

what with your attendees or your fellow attendees and it makes the world feel a bit smaller

“and gives you a little bit more confidence and I think that's honestly the most important part”

of this event is creating connections not everybody lives in a city where you're surrounded by a creative community we have a woman this is her shoutout Susan why I wait what I'm just going to tell you where the name I'm going to call her Susan yeah Susan attendee Susan yeah she's she's an alumni okay and she's this is her third year that she has come and you'd be like so yeah no Susan's amazing she's come back through times she calls it

photo camp and like it's a little cheesy but this is a big opportunity for people to really

out here and talking about their gears how you about photographers or movies or music like sometimes even talking about things that are not even photo related are more and yeah culture is like it was more inspiring and we'll like support your work then I think you you don't have that

“opportunity in everyday life and so that's what we hope to provide for people sort of and for me”

I care so much about the space that I'm creating that allows that to happen yeah so I would say like for me my number one thing is that people that I'm creating a space that people feel like they can be creative and safe and I don't know we're an experimental and you know like sort of expose yourself I call this place pretty vulnerable yeah and I think that being vulnerable is being an artist you know and being able to have a place where people can be vulnerable but also feel safe and supported

is like my mangle here well I think yeah yeah I think you've achieved that thank you for making everyone feel safe I think there's this safety within walls that this place but I mean we've only been here a few days but you can feel it certainly when you're you're literally on the line putting your heart on the line for these for these reviews and actually it's like being seen being understood by people that are very similar to you or you have this similar outlet right

and that's all we're looking for as humans is some connection and some being seen and being understood so thanks for providing the space that I don't know you that well but I know Chico enough from leading up to the event it's just wouldn't be like this without you so thank you so much

for being amazing yeah it's great to have you tell me your favorite part so far I don't I don't

“know I think I had a really good review today with Brad where he just got everything I was trying”

to instantly and that feeling is that really got me emotional because I was extremely vulnerable but he yeah he just got everything and then gave me really constructive critiques so I think one in ten maybe reviews then might really you might like sing from the houses about but I came here for community and meeting yeah for sure it's just you know it's a slow burner but by Friday Saturday I'll probably come out of it with some girlfriends yeah can I tell you a funny story please

okay so I talked we talk about vulnerability a lot and somebody who is not here this year is Sergio he comes every year he makes people cry like 10 out of 10 like he is just like two your heart like guts you just from from like a emotional standpoint a sweetness standpoint and a couple years ago I had mentioned to the staff I was like oh you know we're so vulnerable here like it's such a great event but by the end of the week we're just so tired mentally physically emotionally and I came in the

first day and on each review table she had put um a box of tissues and I was like I walked in I was like a sweet what is that for and she was like oh well you said people were going to be crying and I was like no like not like I was like we're not here to like meet people cry you know

and so we kind of like joke at the end of the week we always have we give out kind of like photo

camp we give out like a words to people so every year we always call like you know that the cry baby or war or like or like you know whatever the word is and it kind of goes back and forth between Chris McCall and Shayna Lopez I'm really so full it's sort of like a joke I Shayna today she's right yeah Shayna you know but but um Sergio was the first person to make me cry here oh okay you know and just like a beautiful way you know like in a and a tears of appreciation and

being seen and it just sort of felt like that arrow through your heart you know and I think what's so important about this event I was saying earlier just like kind of as a side um is that working gallery spaces it's been like months putting together a show you know you put it together on the walls

you get people your exhibition opening but I always felt like hollow through that process

like I never personally ever felt like the climax because you didn't have an interaction with the artist or why I don't I I'm still I think I'm trying to impact that but I would have like what's

“about this event maybe it goes deeper than that if you want to go into therapy with me a little bit”

but um this event and being able to create these connections for everybody here it just affects me on such a spiritual level that that those are the like fireworks that I wanted the whole time

awesome you should chat with my friend over here and they became like best friends and I was just kind

of like you know follow and so I was always the one connecting but not being connected and it took me

a long time to realize that there is sort of power in that and that is my superpower and then I'm not alone I'm not just saying you're kind of in that role now but you're connecting everyone here but well hopefully wicked I'm connecting too right you know but I found a way to connect myself got it right but I I spent years feeling on the outside while I felt like I was giving a lot to people and not receiving that back yeah I don't get anything like that yeah as Brian

“excuse about just like doing a photo bomb yeah but but I honestly I get I get so much that I”

it's like you know like a video game like you get like five hearts and like okay I get five hearts year but by the time I leave I have like heat hearts you know what I mean like it like extends my my life force and there's something really special about being here and being able to build that community that expands beyond chicco like there's something extremely fulfilling with building communities and I'm just touching it in my own life as well but what's your plans tomorrow day off tomorrow?

No day off for Katie I don't know if I can expose where I'm going to lose I'm know but I am going to the chicco spa and I'm getting massage yeah I might I might go I might go to massage quick quick work with Brian I did then okay back thank you Katie thank you so good

your sick the chicco event you're kind of a veteran now getting bored of it no that's always

pretty fun yeah when you see it's followed twenty one spring and twenty two the twenty one was a

“twenty twenty make up twenty twenty four twenty five twenty six what is that?”

six yes six yeah it's good to see you again and why as a review I'm interested in what the motive is to to do this I know you're a big kind of connecting with community and giving back is is that kind of run deep here or is it more about connecting with your fellow peers? I think it's a little both yeah it's definitely a fun thing to do coming out of your beds

year after year so I definitely like that aspect but it's always a pleasure in a delight to see

new work and yeah we trespassor we did a book with some of you met here uh miliano zinniger now oh yeah yeah paris so yeah you can find some great stuff and every year there's something surprising and beautiful how some second print going selling fast yeah good yeah we're happy

“yeah what's next on the horizon fee for me I've honestly just been doing a lot of commercial work”

these days yeah like doing some brand work and um it's like haven't really been ready to dig right into the next uh serious art projects so doing a little gap I suppose yeah I think karaoke tonight what are you gonna sing? I'm not sure I mean I in the past I've done lefty for Zell George straight ten out of the thing I might do down Williams uh there's always cash and Hank the bank has done radio head before crepe um what else Brooks and Dunn I don't know there's a lot

what are you doing? I don't know but we'll try and yeah we'll try and record the video of some karaoke tonight and just to embarrass some people around pressure on all right I'm good to see you thanks mate cheers much love hi everyone and of another day and we've got a day off tomorrow it's Wednesday night I'll pass midnight day to day two of reviews done I had only two reviews today and um they were great I had um Shane and Lopez from SFMoma and Jean Luca and Jean Marco

Lamborghini who were from Latte and they both were um very supportive um focused a lot on the the edit the sequencing and I think as we distill the work down each review gets a little bit more useful but a little bit more clear in terms of how I should be moving forward there so in between moments we obviously spoke to people like Katie and a few of the attendees as well so that was really nice weather has been great I expected a lot of cold or a snow but

we're getting warmth this real springtime weather and it's really nice to see people opening up a little bit more some friendships starting to formulate and people sharing their work with each other

where people can sit together look at their work together and we had a few nice moments

“today of doing that so um tomorrow's a day off people are going to be doing kind of going down”

to Yellowstone or going to Livingston going to the spa working on their work again sharing

more work and I'm going to try and go around and speak to a few more attendees first spot any

reviewers that they're probably going to keep themselves to themselves but there's a few of my less to want to kind of get the attention of and yeah we'll see how it goes so nice kind of open day tomorrow I'm going to also work on my writing and my elevator pitch and a bit more my sequencing but yeah it's definitely a tiring mentally kind of fatiguing process and that has kind of taken the wind out of me but um not least I'm staying a much later than normal I normally would at home

um we had karaoke evening tonight um so after dinner everyone went to the slum bar here at Chico and I completely forgot to get any footage so sorry but yeah it was a good time um having some few beers playing shuffleboard and seeing karaoke you know that I got up and sung but it was good to watch others so um I'm going to hit there hit the sack now and see what tomorrow brings and uh morey kind of wishing this doesn't end because it's been so much fun already so looking

forth in the next three days and immersing myself even deeper so hopefully I can give you a little bit more of a deep insight as I become more familiar with people and get to know people a little bit better and rather than just shove a camera microphone in their face and hopefully get uh get

a little bit more access for you guys so let's eat tomorrow morning everyone this is my first video

of day what day are we on or on day three officially yeah it's like Monday was day one but not really but this is day three it's like day off day yeah we're here with um Matt Cosby my Cosby yeah um tell us how you week's been guys have fun in terms of cheeker review and what's there how you got here like what was the quick story synopsis of your your Jenny to cheeker what's so far so good I've had some good reviews uh close to tears only one time yeah but I was I was I was accounting for that you know

I I'm here to grow so if people have you know good critiques good notes I'm happy to hear it so I've had six reviews three on the first day three on the second they've bought and they all went really well and I met with some really good folks and I've been making good friends like

you Matt I've made some really good you know introductions and all the works been amazing I've been

looking a lot of uh participants work so good yeah but I got here because I've been an editorial photographer for going on 15 years and so I've tried a lot of work for other people and the whole time I've been making personal work on the side but I'm trying to get my work seen by more people than just my

“life and my mom and Instagram and Instagram exactly so that's why I'm here because I want my”

personal work to have a place to live what's um what's the the work that you're presenting tell us a bit about kind of the background of your work but most specifically this body that you're presenting to the reviews share so I applied with two bodies of work okay I printed out both of them here so I have both and um when I sit down with a reviewer I'm like hopefully we can you know if you have time we'll do you know both and everybody's been great do ten minutes on one ten minutes on the other um and

everybody's like that's that's yeah yeah okay you're cutting it fine like I know yeah everybody's talking at like one point five speed yeah but when you listen to a podcast everybody's been really nice to talk about so one of the bodies of work is something I've been working on for 10 years it's sort of like a tongue-in-cheek look at the American dream and you know I grew up in this country in the 80s when I was like if you do this you this you'll have the white picket fence at the

end of the road you know like and that myth has been busted and so I'm looking for like a sincere sincere quirky humorous look at the American dream so I make portraits of strangers okay and sort of like symbolic American roadside attractions and and all that kind of stuff so that's one project and that's the stuff I like to shoot all the time when I'm not working that's when I have my camera with me I'm looking for that stuff you judge to preserve juxtapose the the myth that the the photos that

represent the myth compared to the reality or is it more kind of like a like you said it more just tongue-in-cheek comedic look at the the the the the busting of the myth a little bit of both like

“Hollywood has this like view you know I think people from other countries and stuff they think”

about America and they take it's all fancy yeah sparkly and stuff but there's like a lot of

and so that's stuff I really like is like I grew up in the in the northeast and it's like all

lighthouses and like lobster man and that's really beautiful and beautiful sunsets but I like the people like the fishermen like the grittyness of the of the play so I'm looking for that you know

“the like the real show yeah and I if I can find a juxtaposition some humor and that that's what I find”

like my work's more successful so that's one project and the other projects very very different I got I got access to this family and Wyoming and I'm from the northeast so I have this obsession with the west because I didn't grow up there but this family a nephew and an uncle they took over their grandfather's ranch who passed away suddenly and so now all this pressure for them they have to take care of like 800 black angus cows and they move them over over the course of a year 800s yeah

with one one family one family yeah and they have helpers but it's really just the uncle and the nephew and so they let me hang out with them and I get to stay with them and crash at their camp

I stay at the horse hotel where it's basically just like you put your horse you tie your horse up

and then above there's a bunk bed and it's like a little hospital mattress and that's like as fancy as they get but I love just being there with them I don't want to stay at a fancy hotel I'd rather be with them and be in the trenches with them so I am basically it's like about you know loss of the family member but it's also this the new guard of ranching and it's so different from my thing but it's like still Americana yeah there's like a little bit of that but what's interesting

“I think for me is like I've shot so much color work but for this ranching story it's all black”

and white and that's a totally new thing for me so I'm struggling with the color so it's more

about gesture and light and yeah so that's kind of where I'm at. What do you hope me to get out of

of this week which is kind of it's a big week I mean they match just the sheer amount of people to I mean it's a good reviewer to attendy ratio but you know everyone you know put the book thing aside because everyone wants to have a book what else are you hoping to get from the the review specifically or the week of well with my tenure project I like to know if I'm close to being done that would be for a good start. Ever like yeah do another ten years. Yeah you're just getting

that. I like to know if the tenure project is like needs some things added or if I'm getting close to being you know being able to show it and then with the black and white ranching work it's such a shorter thing that I'm wondering and it's it's a 2000 miles away from where I live so I'm wondering if people are seeing what I'm seeing is it something that they think I could

“could should continue I think I will continue it even if they were like no it would sucks I'd still”

I love doing it so I could continue but I'm wondering if these people who have seen so much work over their careers if they think I'm onto something and so far so good people have been like yeah keep it up keep going cool Matt thanks so much for for trying to make it look with everything and well we'll see you later appreciate you having a moment and we're roommates we're yeah we're out we're hey guys so we're in Livingston right now and it's a beautiful town but it's

unseasonably hot not sure we can see the temperature gauge up there the opportunity bank but it's 25 degrees Celsius which in the middle of March and this part of the world is strange so we're enjoying the sun and everyone is doing their own thing today so it's kind of like a a desperate environment today which is which call everyone some people are going from massage some people are hiking some people are going to Livingston and I'm just talking to who

ever I can bump into so I've had a few conversations with people on the bus over here I didn't record anything but by the time we get back I think there'll be a few more people around and I can sequester a group of people I think there'll be some work sharing I'm getting a informal review later as well so watch this space but yeah I just thought I'd show you Livingston for those watching and it's a beautiful town for anyone who who does come to this state Montana

Livingston is one of those quaint historic and beautiful towns that has a lot of really cool local culture a lot of art here a lot of great coffee shops good restaurants and lovely people so yeah speaking which we're about to go for coffee now and I will speak to you soon either on the bus home we're grabbing a shuttle it's about 30 minutes from from Chico and yeah I'll speak to you maybe on the bus or I'm certainly later on we'll get back to

at Livingston now just kind of catching up with everyone you've had a quite a day today just chilling out super quiet got acclimated to the altitude yes and have problems with the altitude so

it's nice to finally feel like myself you had some info more reviews today I did I had to

them yeah it went well you know it's it's really nice that they allow that to happen that you can actually as somebody for a review that's not on the list that you got yeah that's really

“I think there's a deal breaker actually yeah I think if we were restricted to the 10 that they give”

us yeah it would I mean obviously it's still we great but the fact that we can probably get another 10 yeah you know out in between moments is yeah so I mean that's gotten three more then yeah tell us about how you how you got here because as as a scholar congratulations thank you can in scholarship

tell us about the the body of work or the bodies of work for you you're presenting that kind of

got you in that scholarship yeah so the the body of work that I'm presenting is the title of is Cox and it's about fighting roosters in an island called San Andres it's a Colombian island that is on the coast of central America very close to Nicaragua so and so they have a very rich tradition of cockfighting and so one of the reasons why I did it is because I'm Latino and we're associated to this subculture so tight that a lot of people don't want to deal with it

and so I said I have to make make it a challenge yeah I have to challenge myself to see what I can make out of this because I've seen a lot of different projects and it's more about you know in color bloody you know death and all that kind of stuff and I really didn't want to do that so for me the project is more about the taking care of the birds and the grooming of the birds to prepare them for war and the ritual of yeah the way that I see it is sort of like a samurai where

they're you know ironing their kimono and they get a haircut and they're sharpening their blades

“before they go out about also that's that's how I associated the project it obviously you know”

the people that handle the birds and the culture of the of the island I'll have to do with the project yeah and what was the approach to to do this project how how long how many trips over there and was it more of like an observational standpoint I mean we're showing I haven't seen the this project yet but we'll be showing on the screen now and I'm sure I'll see it later but give us

so so it started because of my dad of my father and he was a storyteller he never read to us

in bed so he after dinner he would tell us these stories growing up in Cuba okay so one of the stories that he would come back to is him dealing and participating with these cock fights and I didn't believe him I was in middle school and some of the stories that he would tell were fantastical and so I didn't believe half of the stuff he said when he came to this this stories and and so I had the opportunity to go to the island and I participated in cock fighting for two years

before I even introduced the camera so I really wanted to learn all of my work if you see all of my work 80% research 20% photography so I really dive myself into what I'm doing and so that's what I did with this project and I learned a lot yeah I'm sure how many years was it shot over so seven years of worth of work and I used to go during the spring I'm sorry during summer and during the winter break I teach so so those are the time that I would go

what are you hoping to get out of this week a contract with with a book published with a book published how's that going well there's there's two people that want me to send them a PDF of 150 images

“so 150 yeah I think they're very interested in doing it yeah so I mean until I don't see it”

in my hand published then I don't believe it yeah yeah well best of luck has thank you so great to meet you and I look forward to seeing the book thank you tool quite strong as well yeah my prints are really dark too so I forgot who I was with Brian

so dark and I'm like shining yeah lesson learned with a prints for sure no no I mean I love dark

“okay okay you just need it's tough you have to be outside yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but I”

don't think they're they don't look like you printed they were printed in current I think the blacks that the not intended to be that crunchy but I like that I love it but it's that's so how to make those types of images work in the set and who are those guys yeah I know but not in it it's just is this now it's like it's like is this a place that's important to you are these people like where are we so when you start to show our face it's like people are gonna ask this question

like I'm never gonna ask a question like where am I here like I'm not gonna think I'm not

but as soon as here I'm gonna okay or the hand I'm gonna see the language and that's in it's Adam just people are to be aware that people are gonna think that yeah I think it's important this is fix pass this I feel like I it's all right we have just finished dinner on what day we on Thursday day three I don't know what day day off middle middle at the month of the month day I'm here with Bobby Barbaric did I get that right you did you know Bobby

yeah it's good to have you here for conversation like I tell us why you're here and how the

Chica experience has gone for you so far um I'll start with the second one it's phenomenal it's much more

this says something about what I expected it's much more supportive and constructive than I thought like I mean I really quite intimidated yeah and actually when I was listening to the first speaker

“I think it was was a Janet now the first speaker was Peter he was Peter yeah yeah so he was”

during Janet's talk yeah and at one moment I was like what the fuck am I doing here I felt like that pretty much my whole photography career yeah but this just kind of exaggerates yes um but why I'm here is because I have like multiple person projects on the go and you're just by yourself all the time you're just I'm just sitting like mastocating on my own ideas and I I don't know if they have any legs or like everybody needs an editor so and Instagram is not that

and Instagram is not that Instagram is a whole shit and um so yeah I really I wanted support and I wanted some um options some direction some like as little validation maybe um or some like like go back to bed kind of thing like what do you do like whatever I just feel like I'm in this like nembulous spirit by myself have you got any of that so far how many reviews have you had five um five and I had two like uh like in front of someone yeah yeah how they've gone fantastic all of

them the the fastening thing for me has been um they they see your blind spots you know like like

“or like the thing that I the thing that I think that other people don't see but it's still there like”

I know it's still there but like maybe they won't see it you know that's exactly my experience

from the first they're especially like and everything they said it's like yeah I knew that I wish

you I just was hoping you wouldn't see it thanks yeah yeah thanks but I'm gonna go back and this is how I'm going to take how long that's like my question was it how long do I need to keep going this for can I just print it now um tell us tell us about the body or you to you presenting two bodies of work what you brought from turning into two you know what I did I did everything right I'm type A Virgo like there's a way to do things there's a right way I'm going to check all the boxes

and then I'm then I'm going to be the best you know like that's that's the trajectory that I'm on you know it's not like that it's like this um so I did like I wrote the elevator pitch and I wrote like like like here's a lot of things and like this is the sequence and this is how it is and then Caroline Drake was my first person and she's like she looked at one she had pulled out like ten that were interesting to her and then she pulled out one she's like what is this and I was like

like that's when you're not really supposed to focus on Caroline you're supposed to walk out it's that's just a filler so yeah it was it's stuff like that um it just feels really honest no authentic which is um the best you can hope for for for people looking at work there's been a couple that have been like huh like like totally out totally unexpected what they might say like

will clean okay yeah we had a big communication about that uh um and so and but as an artist those

are things that like you eventually have to think about and I I'm not even I hadn't gotten there yet and I'm like but but thinking about that's the transforms how you make it if you are also at the same time gonna thinking about like what what I do is but in my Virgo brain like I'm not at that step yet but maybe if I start thinking about it now then maybe maybe it will open up the work in different ways which which is like they'll come of all of this is opening up

the work in different ways so no my no it's not done no I'm not getting published tomorrow what's the work about I have work to do um it's is um I have had a history of dissociative disorder and in the last couple of years I've gone about doing some really significant healing so you want to hear my elevator pitch my perfect elevator pitch what for what please it is an intimate study of dissociation I can't listen to this I know go and reattachment through nature

that's it oh that's male elevator okay cool um nature through nature yeah yeah so in healing I found the most significant healings or moments of healing came when I recognize like I would be out

“in nature and feel this like sense of peace and safety um and I honestly in my life I've never”

experienced that before and so when I felt that I would take a picture because I've always

metabolized my emotions through photography and writing yeah um but in my later life more throw more so through photography and um so it just it just made sense for me to take a picture of this new feeling like I didn't I didn't know what this was and doing that kind of incorporates that into my into my body and then as I like I wasn't intending to make anything out of it and then as I looked back I'm like oh this is kind of this is a need story like this this is kind of in my

brain linear it's not side note it's not but yeah like that's that it's a healing journey it's a personal personal journey through a mental health struggle um Jesse said like moments of sublimity like

“you just have this sublimity and you need to make a photo of it and that's like when you draw it”

down that's what it is I was looking at it from this like broader scope and in like in a broader

context it applies to our dissociation from nature and why we're so fucked up we always I think

I'm getting that theme from a lot of attendees here we try and input so much meaning and layers into the work and a lot of a lot of the work can just speak for itself for what it is but I'm just to see it. Johnny Jesse both said don't ever think it yeah yeah so cool and you're sure we're showing it tonight so or you're gonna display some of it tonight yeah I'm excited. Me too. Thanks Bobby. Thanks Matt. It's great to meet you and look forward to seeing the work. I look forward to more

conversations. Okay with Marshall. Okay see again I'm good we had the pleasure of talking I don't

“know when October when Blackknows came up yeah this is your sixth year Chico. I honestly I think”

it's my seventh but I'm not entirely sure tell us like you you're like the glue that holds every day together here tell us your role pretty much I think what Jake said was I'm the fixer the fixer when when something goes outside of the straight line then I help it. Yeah pretty much yeah and you've seen this event grow I guess over six or seven years what does it mean to you now as a alumni an artist that's had a book published you know going through the whole process yourself

what does it mean to come back here every year? I honestly it means it means everything I think that I think that there's just such a responsibility for helping the like people that are going through what you went through to help them through it and then also inspire them I think that sometimes you can get to you can get difficult through you know like a week of of over views and there everyone's confused yeah you know so yeah it's very interesting Jesse Lens just wearing sandals

it's been warm today yeah come on so it's so good to to have met you in person and thanks for being such a legend of the space you really like yeah I've been to this speaking about this to

with 80 people here 80 attendees this year it's even more important like talked about responsibility

“but even more important just to provide people with someone not to cry on but just like”

give put an arm around them yeah I mean it's so new for everywhere yeah I mean even some some legends we're walking through this space as we talk I don't feel so weird yeah I just wanted to tell Alan you weird tonight this is like an open I don't even know what to call it but this is like a really interesting part of the review because you can't really comprehend 80 people's bodies of work and but it's it's such a cool

thing to go around and finally see I haven't met all of the attendees here yet so it's just nice to

see see people's work and hopefully get people noticed it is it's it's like it's a it's different views people can kind of relax you know they've already gone through two to two days of reviews yeah so with with that and then you know having karaoke night and you know a free day everyone can kind of like reset and then put it their work out again and put that shining armor on just but but like a little bit more next you know but it's more endearing that way yeah and like

“there's more everyone's more open I think well if you're I know you're not officially”

reviewing but you do you do I mean I want you to look at my work and review it right and I'm sure you've been asked by many people what are you looking we talked about it just off camera here yeah touching upon an interesting conversation what are you really looking for what what what is the spark that you you would see from someone's work that's a really hurt question well we talked

about creating for yourself maybe not not always knowing what you're making at the time but

you're realizing the kind of deeper meaning behind behind that and it's needed in rather than like shooting something that's a little bit too obvious maybe or too too clear because we're competing with so many other people and we just want meaning and we just want something personal intimate yeah I mean so many people are after success in this world and unfortunately in this then the photo book industry you know success can mean very different things and I've learned

through experience that success for me was really just having dinner with like having it like creating something in order to be somewhere and then having dinner with them you know it's success isn't

always monetary and and like it has to mean something more than then like it has to be intangibly

it has to be because if you know the photo business is not a lucrative business unless you're

“in the commercial world so there has to be something more otherwise you should probably try to”

search deeper right and that's not like a knock to anyone but it's like we're all here because we're like all open bleeding hearts and we're we're hoping that our hearts still get broken but that's exactly what needs to happen how some blank notes being since we lost by the I mean the sport has been amazing and you know doing this for so many years I felt like I was kind of campaigning you know for most of the time exactly right so no but it's like was there a relief

there was there was lots of there was lots of relief there was you know I had moved on from the project you know before it was done and then it's interesting seeing it done physically and then seeing the reactions from it and and I've been telling a lot of different people that you know everything's just extra at this point because you know it's everything that it's not necessarily everything I'd hoped for but it's everything I could ever imagine I guess you know or sorry I might

have met that the other way around where it's like you know where I imagine like great success and like just money flying around every and then people just ask me to do lots of stuff you know doesn't it quite work that all right no no but it gets you in the room with the people we want to be in the room with yeah yeah that's that's your definition of success yeah it was especially being older now and seeing people go through it and having you know seeing people be

really disappointed with how it didn't really meet their expectations you know it definitely

well deserved man thank you it's great to finally meet you and thanks for being such a legend of this

yeah this space I'm glad to see that you know it's not all just the makeup yeah well most of it is makeup and good lighting or I think that was a writer but he's taking taking a piss out podcast we did a few months ago were he's turning up like hop-hop however or yeah off a 16 hour shift or whatever it was with you with your boom mic right I was the ghost in the book right I we seem to forget it's just Marshall's first video podcast he did first first video

what any of us in our podcast no one cares yeah we talked about his known cares by you no yeah that that's fair I don't mean that in a no we were just talking about like no one

“one thing I've learned is that no one actually cares about you but they care about what you have to say”

yeah absolutely there's a there's a fine line in in that difference well unlike what people have to say something's more interesting than who they are but you still want to make some cat used to yeah yeah yeah and I think that that's that's where the response to be lies in making work especially nowadays because there's not much monetary incentive very few people are financially successful in this business so you know that's that's got to be the next best

thing yeah yeah I'd hope so hope so good luck everyone good luck got speed thanks Marshall okay we're just wrapping up day three the day off we've just been doing

“kind of we've been doing peer review for everyone putting their workout”

and basically looking at everyone's stuff there's like 80 people I thought it was 65 attendees but there's actually 80 and yeah just trying to like absorb everyone's work here's being

overwhelmed say the least and there's just so many incredible pieces of work and bodies of

photography that people obviously you know work hard to to put together to curate to present so yeah it's been really good to see everyone's work there's really some incredible artists to watch out for here for sure so yeah like we're wrapping up now we're getting going to get an early night tonight because last night it was a little bit late one too many beers and another big day tomorrow

“so next two days we've got multiple keynote speeches again lectures and then back to back”

reviews for the next few days and again as much socialising as we can we can as much meeting people and meeting them where they are and understanding who they are as people and who they are as artists and just broadening, broadening in depth and variety of art and and and expressionism and and voices so yeah it's it's wonderful hey guys check it in for the end of day three I wish I could give you guys more to be honest I'll be honest with you and find it difficult to

I don't know for our camera and microphone and people's faces and disrupt the rhythm like I'm not here for this right and they're not here to be interviewed that being said I you know we had a nice

a lot of conversations with incredible artists whether they're on the reviewer side or the

attendee side and a lovely evening just seeing everyone's work and having some deeper conversations as we all continue to get to know each other so um just had a lovely conversation with Harrison Miller who is like a therapist for artists and he really kind of gets the the struggles that the attendees have coming here putting their reviewers on pedestals not really kind of um really knowing where they might be accepted and might not be accepted

and understanding that we all have a desire to be alike to whether it's for our work or for ourselves and um he gets that he's been through this process and hopefully tomorrow or so tomorrow is Friday

the camera because he has so many salient things to to say especially for

“budding artists and budding photographers wanting to make books or wanting to be featured and be”

validated and be seen so um that's where we kind of left it and just it's exhausting I won't lie but it's I just want to embrace these moments these experiences that I've been having without worrying too much about doing this other than talking to you guys at the beginning and end of each day but I hope that you're getting a little bit of an insight into the world here it's becoming more and more precious to me as we go through this week and the connections

I'm making and some just wonderful people who are just trying to make sense of their own existence, their own art, their own voice and um yeah I'm truly privileged just to just to be here and be part of everyone's journey so yeah look guys make a deal with you I'm going to try and get at least five six more attendees over the next few days and I want to speak to definitely Jesse I know we've had him on the podcast but as the guy that kind of

the creator of this event and run a he's extremely busy running around obviously you know handling logistics managing all the reviewers and you know he's got over 100 people to try and coordinate here along with Katie so I'm going to try and get him in front of the mic just for five minutes as well as some other names like I want to speak to Matt Jen and tempo I want to speak to we've already spoken to Brian a little bit I won't put him on the spot again I want to speak to meet a

common egg I want to speak to everyone that I'm not going to be able to do it obviously but hopefully I'm going to bring you a few more of the reviewers and a few more of the attendees as well as just kind of the ins and outs I'll give you guys a tour of the resort because you know it's important

“that I think you see and listen to the environment that we get put in and how it's all kind of”

looked after for us and how welcome we're made to feel and how supported we made to feel so two more days I feel like time is running out already and well it is running out but I don't want the Sunday to come when we all fly off to kind of look back and on this this weird and wonderful existence we all had together for a week so my work is being received I think I have plenty of work to do Harrison made some really good insights he gave me like a rapid review

tonight it's like that's half the problem is just these 20 reviewers have 80 people to try and kind of

entertain or at least give attention to and just getting any one of them to who isn't on your list like Harrison's not on my list so getting him to give me some time to look at my work and give me some insights you know it's really difficult and you don't want to like impose they're here for that but they're not here to just be our every women so we're trying to be sensitive with that and be a Harrison gave me he really simplifies just said pick your pick your ten favorite

images show me your ten favorite images and we'll see what kind of call that is and then you just work from that and I did that and I felt stripped entirely because it felt so destroying it felt really clunky and it kind of made me think fuck I've got a lot more to do when I get back granted you any sort of kind of 20 selections if that maybe 15 so yeah we'll see I've got three tomorrow I've got Odette England which I'm really looking forward to a big fan of

her work or Brian ski to Matt tomorrow and I can't remember my my third one so yeah I'll let you know how those go I feel like I'm presenting a little bit more of a solidified body of work to them

“tomorrow so I think each day we make iterations and we we hope for improvements even in this week”

but we'll see I'm off to bed now to try and get a normal night sleep and then we'll be at it again

tomorrow all right like I said so that's always interesting what are you looking for in terms of

artists that might just stand out and speak to you yeah that's but you'll get people who support of your work and they make you feel good but then you go meet someone who's like

awkward that I don't have it what do you what do you look for when you sat across the table

from an attendee and presenting their work like I've just done with you I don't

know I just you strike some magic note and the world just kind of like opens up and slows down

“before you when you get to luxury eight and being a good photographer I think the truth is like”

we forget even even the pros at Tim's level still need to be inspired not need to be a bit

still getting inspired oh yeah everybody can make pictures that I've never seen before you know I love it

whoa what an what an amazing gift