Chico Review, part 2 - What a Portfolio Review Taught Me About My Photography (That 10 Years Didn't)

Just nestled in the hills of what mountains of Montana. And today we're coming with a little bit of energy, his fee. For those of you who don't know fee fees, the genius behind the trailers, the drafts, the carts. We haven't added to our book fees, the one that curates the drafts. So if you don't know who she is, other than my wife, that's her role. So she's supporting me here during this week as well as doing her own thing in an on photographic way. So today we have again

same format, couple of lectures, which I'm heading to you now after a quick detour to get in a espresso, which I will take you to, not that it's that interesting, but one I'm talking. And then I'll break for lunch when you take that time to speak to another couple of attendees and see if there's any reviewers that are hanging around, I could potentially chat to. Actually I have a review with Matthew Jenin tempo at 12.30 and then I don't have another one till 2.30 without debt England.

“And then Brian's talked about it at 3 and then Claude in Dary at 3.30 or 4, I can't remember. So”

he made it be easy afternoon and I'm going to really try hard like I said last night to give you guys more conversations with hopefully one or two reviewers if I can get them because they're super busy and plenty more attendees and I'll give you a tour later as well. Here on the parking lot and the jico gives shop which they also call an espresso bar which it's not but it has better coffee than the swirl we have at breakfast. So, it's been to you guys later.

I'm here with Jan Luker from Latia who kindly reviewed me a couple of days ago. Jan Luker, tell me why you're here, what you're looking for and what this week means to you.

This week means a lot of work. Yes, it's great photographic work to discover so that's always

“interesting. Yes, I don't know. I think I'm only looking for interesting work to publish.”

What's interesting for you and your brother? I think that we like a lot, work that deal with family and you know, with a lot of empathy and connection between human being but not only. So this is like maybe one idea but there are many other topics that we like. Of course you publish some incredible books so it's been a pleasure to meet you and thank you for reviewing such a nice review with me the other day. Thank you very much. All right, it's free to

later. Bye bye. Thank you. I'm here with Jesse Lens finally got hold of the most busiest man

on the planet right now. I won't take up too much of your time. Give us a gift and insight as to how the week's going. It's going great. 10 here. Yeah, 10 here. I'm exhausted so everything's going

“growing a plan. What's it like for the event to be growing every year for it to be scaling?”

But what's that like on you as an entrepreneur, as an artist, as a leader, as a manager? It's just all consuming or how do you manage that pressure and the responsibility? Yeah, I mean every year there's just new things to find out. You did wrong. It's just a constant reminder that no job is ever finished. No number has ever, you know, checked enough times. Yeah, just firefighting all the time. Yeah. Before I let you go, what are you looking for as a, as a, as a publisher more than anything?

What are you looking for in terms of artists that might just stand out and speak to you?

Mean, the work is always the thing that gets your foot in the door. That's, you know, that's like

first attraction somebody. Really, it's like, it's like an athlete who wants to be trained, who wants to be pushed, wants to be woken up, five o'clock in the morning, send to go to, you know, cold bath. It's just someone who needs, who needs the work is going to do the work regardless, but might just need some point in the right direction. I'm not looking for work that's finished.

but find somebody that maybe hasn't quite realized what, how good they're doing just yet. Yeah, I think that's a beauty of this week. It's we put so much pressure on ourselves to kind of have a finished body of work to present to our heroes. You get here and relax. There was just beginning.

Talk about the ego death. Jessie, thanks so much for putting on such an amazing event. We're absolutely

loving it. So hopefully I get you to review my work at some point in the next few days. We'll get it. Cheers, Jessie. Thanks a lot. The tongue kick, go. The tongue, no.

It was like, okay, the things and this is based off of like, even when we were talking about it, it was like living a privileged life. I was like, okay, if I'm just like, that's not a good or bad thing. What are the things that like have shaped me and the things that like internally, I want to explore concepts, concepts. One of them is privilege. So what does that look like? And I live in a neighborhood that's rapidly gentrifying and more white people are moving in

and part of my privilege is that I'm white. So there's, there's something there to explore. That doesn't have to be, right? I don't know what it looks like. Yeah, but I'm like, that's, that's an interesting way. So like, maybe we do it together. Maybe, I mean, this is, I could, I mean, that could be fascinating. Todd is also wanting to explore that. Like, we're throwing it from different.

“Yeah, because we're all, we're all, we're all, I think that's why we're, we're kicking this.”

This is true. By the way, one of the attendees here, we just had an amazing talk by Lindo.

I don't know how to say it, but that's a bit good. I'm worried about to sit down, but we're catching, we're looking at it in this later. I need to know. Privilege, we were, oh, I'll try and cut this straight from the conversation that we started to have inside about privilege. But I can't actually remember now, because later in the day, and I've had reviews and other conversations, but as a concept.

Yeah, because it was put, we were talking after Lindo's talk about like, we're almost feeling like we have, like, what do we have to share with the world in some way? Because we haven't, like, I know Todd, and I've been talking about this a lot, another attendee that it's like our life relatively speaking has been quite easy. So it's like, what do we have to share with anybody? I think when you see other people's work, it's like,

I don't know, it's easy to minimize your own struggles, whatever they may be, right? We'll compare them. Yeah, which is kind of like a, at that end of anything. I don't know why you do that to yourself. It's just natural human tendency. But yeah, when you see work like Lindo's, like, you can't help, but just go fuck, I don't have that complexity in my life to create. But actually you do, when you look hard enough, you do. Yeah, you do. But I think that's the challenge of trying to,

like have the confidence to talk about your, whatever it is, and make that, I mean, as impactful as possible, right? Well, you're on camera now, speaking to a lot of people, do you have the confidence to talk about your work and what you brought to Chica? Probably not.

“That's what you're going to have to. I'm going to force you anyway. I mean, my work is we've talked”

about this quite similar to yours. I might not be as explicitly personal as yours though. I mean,

we haven't talked too much about the substance behind your work, but, um, yeah, I think, uh, I've always kind of

struggled with strangers or finding my place. If I go to a new place, like, trying to crack whatever that may be, and so I tend to see the world from a distance, which when I came here, I thought that was my lens, and, you know, I spoke to Janet and Claudine, and few other people. It seems like there may be a barrier there that I have up, and I think I need to, like, crack that down, safety barrier. Yeah, whatever. I mean, safety, I don't know what it would

exactly it is, but, like, Claudine, you know, there are a couple of my images, like, I have an image of, like, um, through a window with, like, a toyhouse silhouette with the curtains, and outside is a lot of focus. There's, um, and, like, she, that, for me, was, like, kind of a last second, when I have a shot of, like, from New York where you barely see a building, but just a flock of birds, that's, like, kind of blurry. And they were, like, added for me late, like, they weren't,

what I thought I was going to show. Yeah. And multiple people have grabbed those and said, like,

“you need to do more of this. This is the connected tissue. Like, people walking in cities,”

frame nicely in beautiful light or whatever is fine. But this is the, like, Claudine talked this morning, like, that's the poetry of it as the other stuff, right? So, like, that's sort of fill your narrative out, which is, I mean, she's blown me away, but, like, concept like merging narrative with poetry, I think, for me is, like, what I'm trying to do. So, this has just been, like,

Then, where do you, you, you don't go back to drawing board, obviously, but you just, you have at least

some constructive steps that you want to go back home and just start working on,

“I mean, honestly, the first thing I'm going to go back to my archive, because the other thing,”

you know, Claudine said to me was, like, she took out a lot of the stuff that had defining characters six of place. So, she had some images that she really loved that I took in Tokyo. She was, like, I know that's Japan. So, take it out. And I was like, damn, that is, because, like, there's something about loneliness is this, like, transient thing, like, one of where you are, you can experience it. So, she was, like, do you have shots, like, in a hotel room, you have shots of,

I don't know, an astray, or, I don't know, the view, I mean, not even the view, but something else, bedsheets, or, these are the things that, like, can fill it in. So, and I have lots of that stuff as I've traveled over the years. And I might even open it up. I have, I was in Poland by myself, and I woke up one morning and I, I don't know, there was just beautiful light and I took some, really, really wide-angle shots of my iPhone and I made it black and white. Maybe I need to

be, like, figuring out how I can throw that stuff. Because, even the idea of, like, not having my camera, it's lying in bed by myself with my iPhone. So, now that I'm talking out loud, I was, like, that's part of, I don't know what I'm kind of, like, I don't know, thinking about in my work, and, uh, fascinating stuff, and I'm really enjoying hearing about people are un, un, not unraveling, but unraping some things that they may have known deep down in some conscious that they'd be

able to work on with images. But images aside and reviews aside, because it's kind of like the formality of this, and it's actually a small percentage of, of our time here. How, give me a kind of overview for those watching who don't really know what Chica review is about. Did it? How is it hit or not hit your expectations and, kind of, what else around the review process of you, really enjoyed?

“Oh, see this. Is it ready? Is it? Is it still recording? Yeah. Thanks, man. Can you remember the question?”

What, yeah, yeah. Can you give me that? Yeah, and B. I'm trying not to come. Honestly, I did try not to come with any expectations. I was told like Marshall Tau, who's, who's an attending, and he published the book, and I contacted him before it came, and that's what he told me. He's like, don't come here with expectations. Excuse me. But, um, if I did have expectations, it probably would have, yeah, vastly gone past it. So how, what, what else have you enjoyed outside of,

obviously, the, the feedback from the work, but in terms of the environment, the, the culture here, the share amount of people, the accessibility, what, what is really resonated with you as part of the Chica review? I mean, I honestly, to review in the feedback is probably only like 20% of what I'm

getting out of this place. I mean, the very first night, Jesse Lens, like, he got up and he made

his speech, and it was basically about how this place is a great equalizer, and that nobody's

“better than anybody, and you should go up. And I, I thanked him right after he finished, because I was like,”

I felt like it gave me permission to, like, go out of my comfort zone, to approach people, and to have maybe uncomfortable conversations, or, you know, and definitely be myself, and so I guess I give them a lot of credit for like pulling together the types of people that create that environment, and I think where we are, because we can't go anywhere, so I can't just like, you're kind of forced to like, to to be present with everybody else, which I, and the

reviewers, we forget are all human, and you could tell that in the first day, first few days,

people who hadn't been like, the brines and the mats that being here five, six times that just, so they're just, it's kind of natural for them, but some of the, some of the reviews that maybe it's their first year or second year, this, they took a few days to warm up, just like, we did, but now, on Friday, the penultimate day, like, everyone is just mixing and chatting, and no quams and going up to any of these people that you might have put on a pedestal,

maybe still put, be put on a pedestal, but yeah, what else are you going to do? Like, I'm just sitting at the table down there, like, like, like, oh, precious moment, that was you even know, what was the, like, agenda temple, and then the other guys, Brian Skutman? I don't know that I didn't have reviews of them, and they sat down and I was just like shooting the shit as if they were, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then like, oh, they're reviewers and

they're publishers. Yeah, they're absolutely huge artists in their own right. Yeah, I love that

and just like, they've said themselves, they're just normal guys just trying to treat the chair and

“trying to do their own thing. And I think that's agree with you. There's always going to be”

some people that a little bit more standoffish, but generally speaking, the, the way this place is, is a, is a leveler in both in intrinsic aspect, but also as a community, just brings people together. So yeah, we have a lot to thank for that. We also remember we ran into parmoly in the bathroom. You was like, well, he was having a shit, and we were having a piss, and we were just talking about Lindos talk and just going, oh my god, and then he comes out and goes, yeah, guys, just just

use your inspirations, just enjoy your inspirations, go back to work, he's like, okay, he was like, go home and like, keep like going to the, he's like, go to the bookstore, go to the library, like, don't stop when you leave here. There's one thing I've really taken, like, I need to, I feel like I'm immersed in photography, but I come in, I need to immerse myself more, whether it's doing it, reading it, talking about it, and that's something I'm, I'm really appreciative of this place.

“Anything else that? I don't know. It's been, are you going to be late? What time is it?”

Yeah, I'm going to be late. But thanks for the chat, man. And we've had lots of good chats, but thanks for thanks for the day, listen, good luck with everything. Thanks. I'm here with Todd Anthony. Todd is one of the attendees with us this year, and tell us, welcome, it's good to get to know you. Yeah, exactly. Give us a little bit of a background about why you're here and what you're hoping to get out, out of Chico this year. Yeah, so normally I'm

advertising photographer on my day-to-day work, and then being working on personal projects, you know, every sort of 18 months for the last 15 or so years, trying to regain my soul from the advertising world, and you know, do work for myself rather than for someone else under their control, and what they want to do. So yeah, and then this recently the last two years have been working on a new personal project in Tejika's town, and that is, you know, to turning into a long-form project,

and yet it's where we really want to find people there in the industry, and other like mine, who can give me advice on shaping it into its final form, basically. It was the final form of book. A book, and I have an exhibition as well, because some of the shots in there sort of need to be

two-throwed up to the first four they're incredible images, and I think you to do them just as

you have to sort of... Well, I just want to be, you're just trying to... I was speaking with me, surely, or any of us, yeah, there's need to be. What have the reviews been, like, so far, like, to pick out maybe a couple of... The general sort of sway there's been overwhelming positive, which is good, and then some people are like, you know, I could be a book right now, but equally you could also go back and shoot more, because that's probably the one of the

“biggest questions I think of here. Everyone here asking is... When do we start?”

Yeah, and me too, before I say, like, you know, I think you're done, but then equally, he's going to be thoughts on how to de-evertise myself a little bit as well, because I've got to get myself out on that mindset, because I go into these shoots with a, you know, define sort of list of ideas that I want to shoot, and then I let sort of surrender pretty in circumstance happen in between those wavelengths, but the way I shoot, of course,

very controlled and stylized, and yeah, he's talking about trying to rough things up a little bit. What other avenues of you explore other than Chicovue in terms of publishes? For this sort of gallery, I haven't anything. Yeah, this is kind of new, well, to you. Yeah, I've got a friend in London who's a, he's a, he's in the outside of things, he's a photographer,

and yeah, we're always sort of talking about the, you know, complete disparate worlds, basically.

You don't get many people that sort of straddle both quite often, because I think that's sort of a, can be a bit of a snobbery. Definitely. Well, you feel that from the outside, even when you're here, you feel like there's a little bit of like, I don't know, I'm maybe I'm being too harsh, but there's so many people here, you're going to have your groups. Yeah. There's definitely a little bit of elitism with some of the reviewers, I think, and even some of the attendees, which maybe

maybe a bit harsh, and that's just kind of human nature. But yeah, I understand that, I get that entirely. But um, tell us a little bit more about the project itself. Why this location? What is it about? Why the hell is that? It's the next time. Yeah. So it sort of stems from all my projects over the last, probably 15 years. I've been shooting little known groups or subcultures around the world that sort of exist outside the standard frame, people that sort of, you know, lead,

from the outside lead ordinary lives, but they're actually extraordinary in their own unique ways. Started back in 2012ish with a group in Arizona in the political sun city. There's a cheerlead in group there, but they're all retirees, so they're all 55 to 80. And where they live,

love, fight streets, line with orange trees, and we're kind of cactus and everything else,

“which is possibly the polar opposite into the scale of the current project. It was all sort of”

hard flash bright colors and that was my first sort of project I shot where I'd sort of moved

from shooting landscapes to people, because landscapes were fun too, because you didn't have to talk to me anymore. Yeah. Yeah, you're in that respect and they're easier to, you know, you can just go and do your thing. And so that was sort of my first project for that regard. And from there, it's moved on to Bolivia where I shot some native toiletors who are climbers and wrestlers, literally were wrestlers, so they're basically breaking the stereotypical opinion of women in that

culture and society. Yeah, women don't climb and they certainly don't wrestle. So these women, they climb and they wrestle on their traditional toiletor clothing, with their big big dresses and bowl of hats and all that sort of stuff. And then for that, after that was Sierra Leone, I was working with Ambity Footballers. My team got the group of teams called the Flying Stars. We're all

“of these part of assignments where they just rolled us to me. Yeah, personal. Yeah. So the catalyst was”

the Sun City Poms. And then I was like, okay, yeah, I'm into this lab as well. Yeah. And I got a bit of advertising work off the back of it as well that fitted that sort of for genre as well. It was a great job of it. And finally, the vodka where it was, we just flew around the world and met Ordinary Street Fighter. Drinking, drinking loads of vodka. Drinking fat too much, in fact. But yeah, that was, again, ordinary people that lived extraordinary alive. It was like there was a

gay drag, literally Baressler and El Paso. I was at Feller, New York. The world's strongest

man in Finland. And so was this amazing sort of list of people and the whole child was just,

there was no money in it, which for advertising is rare. But the concept was so good. I was just like, yeah, how we gonna do this. Yeah. So we just spent a few weeks flying around just shooting portraits of these people. So it was sort of reinforced while I was doing in that regard.

“And that was okay. Yeah, I'm just something, yeah. And I just love going in new places and experiencing”

new things and, yeah, part of that. So the new project, long answer to your, your question, is on the sport of Boskashi, in Tajikistan, which is probably 3,400 years old. From the time of Genghis Khan, no one's 100% sure where it started, but they think it was from him. And essentially, you've got anywhere from like 100 to 400 riders on horseback or playing in the same game. And the object is there's a ball of sorts, which is a headless, sophisticated goat.

And they stuff it full of salt. So it's about 100 poundsish or 50 kilos odd. And there's no teams every man from south. So you've got like 300 riders and there's a goat somewhere in the middle of it. And that was mostly the most of the goat. No, not the head, it's just the actual body. Oh, so it's about 100 pounds and weight. It's like, yeah, so the head gets cut off from it's the body they use. Oh, because they've got to be on their horse and reach down and get

that off the ground or by the, by the leg and sort of tuck it under them. They've got to break free of, you know, all these other riders and go down the field, which could be like three football fields long. There's not really any boundaries to the game either. So they try and play it in like riverbeds or the folds of valleys and things like that, but they still career up the up the hills through the crowd, crowd scattering everywhere. You know, it's, uh, and your

approach with this is an, kind of, a documentary type way. So, yeah, I'm not really, I've never

caught myself a documentary photographer. I sort of stand in that sort of straddle documentary and formal portraiture. And, yeah, because a lot of my shots are planned and staged as well. They're, you know, fully represented in what's going on there. I'm controlled. I'm trying to get control over over an environment, which in Bush County is a bit of an oxymoron, because it's actually a really interesting parallel between what I'm trying to do in the game itself, because

the whole point of the game is trying to gain control over the goat in a sea of absolutely uncontrolled mayhem. And, uh, the photography is me trying to gain control of that uncontrolled mayhem in a mix of all. So it's quite an interesting parallel there. What made you bring that this body of work here and not the other projects? Uh, it's the first long form one I've done. Okay, everything else has been, again, it's trying to get myself out of the advertising

head, because I shoot advertising when you get a, you know, series of layouts for a campaign, it's like you've got to go and get these three layouts. Is that a bad, I mean, is that a bad thing, like, bringing that type of, no, it's a problem. It works for me. Yeah. Um, but what I was doing is going into, you know, Bolivia, it's been in two, three weeks there, you know, capturing my stuff, maybe coming away with 10 to 15, you know, bangers, which I'm super happy with, but that's, that sort of

it, whereas this is the first time I've, of sort of done that, and then I've also, you know, shot around it as well. Uh, I've got the I've shot film motion film as well. All right. Okay, cool. I did that with, with flying stars at BT's too, um, because you can tell like much, quite story about individuals

talking with going back to some of the other places as well. But, uh, would you hope people get out of,

“right? Would you hope people get out of, you know, the, the, the, the project. So if I'm going through”

the book, what is the intention of what you're trying to evoke or show? Yeah. So I've, it's a weird thing where, without me sort of realising sports, because I'm like a constant theme through, well, almost all the projects apart from the one in Japan, which was on Deca Tora. Um, you're a sports fan, right? And that's, you know, my sister said to me, I was, that's great. If you're using sport, is this vehicle? Yeah, I was like, oh, yeah, I was, and I used to be an athlete.

And so, uh, yeah, I guess is that sort of history of me. Um, so I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a sports photographer, um, not a documentary photographer in the instructor sense. Um, so I don't want to shoot, like the postcard sheet, but I was really concerned about shooting it, and it, looking like it was an editorial sports thing. Um, so I've had to sort of mentally work quite hard to try and pull it away from that. Um, and same with all the projects really. So sport isn't so much what I'm shooting,

“it's the vehicle, but tell the story about the people around it. So with the flying stars,”

it was, uh, you know, their rehabilitation mentally and physically from, you know, the war. Um, and the climbers were some more about female empowerment. And, uh, you know, breaking the stereotypes around, uh, around, yeah, what they do. Um, but it's actually probably the one that's probably a bit more. I haven't focused on a particular person or a group within that because it's so amorphous. Yeah. It's, uh, it's more about the, the sheer spectacle of it because it is just, like, everyone's

first reaction. And then uniqueness of it. Yeah, exactly. It's like, because I'm always trying to find

things people haven't seen or, yeah, or might have that it's only on a very low, low level. Um, so with all these, I guess it's trying to show other parts of the world, not on a sort of national geographic kind of way. Um, it's just trying to show these different cultures and find that there are similarities between everything that we do. You know, it might seem to be a much similar, really far flung. And really, you know, off people's radars and they

might have a sort of opinion of what, you know, how it is there. But it's trying to show that there's similarities, especially in this day and age with politely, you know, if things polarize to hell. Yeah. Um, it's trying to show a difference as much as, as much as, as much as our differences in access was okay. Like, yeah, it's all these places I tend to, because I seem to be getting progressively going to harder and harder places this season. Um, yeah, I started off in America

that's simple. I did that myself. Um, and then now I tend to get local fixes. So I sort of, again, treat it a bit like funny. Good fixes, difficult. Yeah, I've been really lucky though, ever I've gone. Um, you sort of get understands photography. Yeah, this one was a bit different, like in Sierra Leone, I found a local Australian cameraman and was like, good, you know, how are you? Um, yeah, do you know, anyone that could help me out on this

is that I, you know, I've got my guy so you can, you know, he works with him. So he knew that whereas Olivia, not probably a story. Um, Tajikistan doesn't have like a existing film industry structure. Um, so there's no sort of benchmark for that. So I ended up getting hold of a, uh, a local tour company that I somehow stumbled across their old website online, which had a section about politely harshly. I was like, okay, this could be the, the thing. So I had to get hold of it. Then I had to educate them

that I didn't want to tour. I needed them to work as like a fixer producer. So it's a much more

focused, you know, all I want is postgarchey, basically. Uh, and I've been great. Yeah, so really, really

helpful. Cool. Well, it's lovely to hear about projects and good luck with the work. Cheers, man. Cheers, man. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Hi. Hi. We're here with Harrison Miller. Okay. Uh, Harrison first. Yeah. Yeah. Correct. Yep. That was an attendee in 2021. Um, I've raised through the ranks and I'm a reviewer. So give us a really small synopsis of your journey since 2021. Uh, uh, came here. Right when I started self publishing through under

like the editions, but I just made a few small, um, things. Um, so I came here with like some like confidence in that, but then like had this whole event that kind of shattered that a little bit.

“Didn't really feel like I fit fit in or anything. Um, so, is that enough of, I think that”

makes enough sense. Well, just like, well, leave it for the imagination. Um, went home, had to figure out, okay. Well, if I'm not like doing stuff like some of these people, then like what am I doing? And then I found more kind of solace and just the bookmaking aspect and like finding myself through the materials in the form. And so I just started experimenting more with printing, self printing and binding and just playing around with like kind of the simplicity of bookmaking and, uh, and, uh, yeah.

And then so I just kept doing stuff that I liked. People liked it. And then I kept into tomato relationships here through the event and, um, been doing design for charcoal and trespasser and like often on and, um, yeah. And then so now I'm here. Like, just kind of, um, I think there's some

for someone who may have struggled with that first. Yeah, I still struggle. It's still struggle.

And, um, you know, it can be a real, real, uh, deep-flating, um, if well, it's time to hear some things and you're not sure how to contextualize it because you're getting like, like, one day, you get four different completely different points of view, you know, and, and, um, that was my experience, you know, you'll get people who can supportive of your work and they make you feel good, but then you go meet someone who's like, I don't really care about this. I mean, it's just like, oh, great.

Last question, because I know you got to get to reviews, um, uh, last question. What are you looking for? When you're sat there and across the dash from somewhere that images, you got 20 minutes. Obviously, like, we get these beautiful moments where we can talk like we're doing now, but in that

“formal setting, what are you looking for in people's work, like, in a very high level aspect?”

Intimacy, intimacy, emotion, movement, beauty, immediacy. I want to impulsively know as soon as I see what I'm looking at that I like it. Was that even having to think about it? I don't want to hear the story. I don't want to hear the narrative. I don't want to read the words. I just want to know that by just touching the object. I already like it. Beautiful. Thanks so much, Harrison. Yeah, thank you, appreciate it. It was awesome. Eight. Okay, guys, say a little bit of a tour. Ah, this is our room.

Look at that view. Um, that is a reflection, but let me show you. Show you our view here in Tico. So we're up in the upper lodge. I'm about to walk down for my review with Brian Scootermat,

which I've been looking forward to for a long time. Always a little bit anxious. I had a review with

which you may or may not see. I may keep the review for personal reasons or for extra bonus feature. It was with Matthew Jenning tempo and I recorded the whole thing and it was, um, I don't know. I get it. I guess I'm an emotional person, but I get emotional when I meet people I

“respect so much and they meet me where I am. And that's what Matt did and he's a true gent, just like”

all of these guys are. I just had a review with Odette England who I'm a big fan of as well. She's so sweet, so humble, so so much enjoying the process herself as a first Tico event for for her as well. I mean, she's a she teaches four months of the year. So she's, you know, an expert reviewer and um, she's just loving the experience. So we forget it's kind of two way. The reviewers love doing this. We love doing this and um, just again speaks to the nature of this event. Anyway,

um, so we got a garden here. So this kind of leads down to, as you can see, the main lodge, I can't give you a full toe because it's actually quite a a big place. But as we walk down,

we get to straight ahead. This is basically the main lodge or the conference center, which they have

a kitchen in. So we eat in here. We review in here. I can't show you. You would have already seen the the mills that I've taken you through. Um, I can't take you in the because people are doing reviews in there at the moment. The weather at the moment is insane. This is mid March and usually it is not um, 25, 26 degrees Celsius. But I'm in T-shirt and jeans and um, I'm hot. So well, I'm warm and it's lovely. It's lovely to get some sun. So we're now walking behind the main lodge.

Behind the main lodge here is where they're doing little podcast interviews with photo show, Michael, who's the media guy for this year. He's hosting a lot of the attendees, which he might see me on because I was on there yesterday a couple of days ago. And now we come back to the obviously a lot of rooms, admin officers, um, a lot of the rooms where the attendees are staying in here and we'll come in here. I want to show you guys what he does in conversations in the

library. So you probably seen that, but here, snowman in here. Okay, here we have a library, which is very nice indeed. Really good to. A lot of people have either done photo sharing in here or obviously just some work. As you can tell, that's a very old building and um, steeped in character with photos all over the walls of previous guests, famous people, actors, a lot of western film actors and down here just goes to rooms upon rooms. And if we go back here,

“let's just check the time because, yeah, I got to get going. But um, do you show you the lobby quickly?”

In here, we have rooms with guest rooms, you know, zh hotel, so most of its guest rooms.

treat the saloon bar. And this is lobby. So, let's just hang out here, do our thing, swap photos,

“talk about just photography and geek out. So, um, this is kind of nice when it's cold, but”

as you might be able to see a lot of people hanging around outside. So this is kind of a down time for the place because everyone's in reviews right now. So, we get our review times and in between those times people will obviously hang out. Oh, we've got wine tasting today. Oh, I'm looking forward to that. That started already. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm going to come back. I'm going to come back and taste the wine. So, obviously the gardens, or I don't know what you call it, the yard, and Australia had there where I'm

heading now is the conference centre where we would be at reviews. We're asked pretty much, um,

guest rooms. And, um, yes, always a bit of a, a daunting walk and we come up here and we enter,

and we want to get in front of that filming here. So, I'll give you a little peek into the waiting room. See if we can find anyone. People would, we told to get to the waiting room about 10 minutes before. So, we're starting to fill up where the attendees is, we're waiting for reviews. Here's Marshall. Say hi, Marshall. Um, we got the books obviously laid out as we can bruise through while we're waiting, but yeah, we won't go any further with us because

pretty private affair. And, um, as about it, so all of this is just the huge conference room which I've showed you before. And that's it. Um, later on, I'll show you the saloon, um, and the hot springs. And, but for now, that's kind of a little lap of what we're seeing and experiencing every day in terms of location. So, um, that gives you a bit of an insight as to where we are and how it makes us feel.

Jeremy Gaomo. Yeah. Hashtica again, buddy. Hey, far too. Good. Hashtica. Hashtica's going well. That's very interesting. Eating a lot of super nice people, nice person, seeing very nice work too. Um, and I'm happy because that's a different work than what I'm doing. I'm a phtogenized and, uh, this is more artistic, uh, and fun art, uh, photography, which is super, super cool, super nice. And some of them are introducing like of

piece of history I would say. Uh, it was a good segmenting. And, uh, I like that.

“Yeah, honestly, super cool. If you, um, phtogen list, uh, shown around style,”

what do you hope to get out of this week? That's a very good question because that's the final, finally, why did I count? Uh, and it's not only because it's in Montana, even if I'm so happy to discover Montana. Uh, but even if the, the, the reviewers or keynote speakers are many, I would say, find out for the graphers. Uh, first, some of them are photojournalist. Yeah. Uh, there are three out of 37

magnum photographers here. Yeah. Uh, Caroline Lindu and Larry. Uh, so that's sorry here a lot.

And, uh, you know, some, that's always I think interesting,

having, um, a view on opinion of, I mean, kind people. We're here, everybody's kind. So that's cool, you know. And some people that are educated for a graphy. And even if, uh, some photographers or keynote speakers, flash reviewers are no more into find out photography, so what them have photojournalistic past, is just putting you away, for example, who, uh, presented a certain wall this morning.

She is a former photojournalist. Yeah. And she was a picture editor. Yeah. And that's interesting to see also the process of how to go from one type of photography, I'd say,

to the, to the, to the, to the fine art photography. And I'm, finally convinced that

putting a little bit of aesthetic and forming art in the photography a little bit of one. A little bit of fine art on aesthetic. I mean, the aesthetic in the, in the photography helps to support the message you'd like to give as a photojournalist when you're showing up for a serial, you know. So that's interesting. That's super interesting.

“So what's your background being up, uh, being up until this point in terms of photojournalism?”

That's something really new. I mean, I'm turning 50 and, uh, very few time.

But that's, that's fine. You know, I'm a former entrepreneur in the intro text. So nothing

to do so. Okay. Then three years ago, um, I've always been into photography. I've always been

photographing and loved that. I've always been in love with photojournalism. When discovered the work of James Nastry, for example, or others like that, uh, in his famous documentary,

“video War for the Grafer, which is, I think, really well done. It's not more than 25 years ago.”

All the, and three years ago, I get sick, um, and I think was the best that could happen to me to go through that strong chemotherapy, uh, because I then realized that I was about to leave. Well, we'll all leave when they, you know, but I was able to leave, uh, without having realising, uh, all my dreams for sure, but probably the best, the biggest one, which was to be a

photogenerist. So once all the treatment were done, uh, I went to school, uh, three, four,

yeah, well, to photogenerism, uh, okay. It was in training, our mission in Paris called the English Lucas, that also the photo agency. And, um, so I've been there and, uh, and it ended up, uh, by being a trainee at 48, uh, so I was a trainee. It was, yeah. After everything being a

“former entrepreneur, I was, uh, like, a trainee. Yeah, uh, to validate, uh, to validate my certificate.”

And, uh, so I went to figure out my cuisine, which is famous French one, very, very famous and with a very good, uh, uh, vision on photography, and a very good culture photographic culture, uh, so I was there and, uh, since then, almost two years now, I'm a freelance and, uh, working closely with them, but also with others, but I have had a quite a lot of, uh, uh, uh, uh, Simon from there, so that's cool. And that's, uh, really on what I like, which is supporting community nature,

environments, stuff like that, social issues, uh, so to when you, when you get home next week, can you start the process? What's just happened? What do you think you're going to, like, what are the bits you're going to take away in terms of, um, what you've learnt this week? And how's

“that going to evolve your, the next chapter for you? Yeah, um, so I think, first time I do,”

when I will arrive, we'll be to eat fish and vegetables. It does nothing to do, but it's okay, the food here can do it. Can you do it right? Yeah, and drink water. Yeah. And everyone. Yeah. Anyway, uh, but, uh, more seriously, that gave me very, very good, uh, vision on, on, I have different series going on, you know, with long-term project, I have one with the Hijwa as the Translangers in India, for example. And when I saw the Peter's Ego's work in

San Francisco, um, it really inspired me. Yeah. And, uh, I've had him as a reviewer. Yeah. I told him how I was happy to see you because I've started the long-term series with the Hijwa, and I'm starting to explain what the who the Hijwa's are and he's like, I stopped here was there two months ago, and I'm starting a new project with the Hijwa's. And he has a totally different, uh, approach of it. I'm more in the photojournalism approach, is more in a home stage, like, dormitory. Yeah. But there

was super interesting. So, uh, that's an example, but that gives me, you gave me a lot of insights on how to go through that. But not only this, I mean, uh, I've also another project, which is how to show up, you know, when I, when you're asked, oh, are you doing, uh, and I love or did you tell photography, you know, like, I mean, photography, that's not how you shoot the photo. That's when you have the print or book or publishing, uh, in the end. And, and, and you can see something, you know.

So, I have a series of photography. I'm doing, uh, with a drone. Uh, I know, now exactly how it will

hand out. Nice. Uh, but I keep it for me for the first time. And I was presented next year

probably here. And then next year, I come on a podcast and we can share it. Yeah. Well, there we go. Definitely. Um, and also, you know, I haven't had the good discussion with Larry Touwell, uh, about the, the last, uh, for a series I made in Madagascar with Father Pedro, even if it's already, uh, about to be published. But I mean, uh, it helped me a lot to know is how to make my photograph is better, uh, in order to have the messages going, uh, better to the

reader and, uh, making, making it a little bit more aesthetic. So, I make a new editing of it, uh, of those photos. So, I have a lot of things to do. Cool. And every day, I'm, I'm doing

area. Yeah, you're right. I mean, um, because I made it to give that away. No, no, no, no. You totally right. I mean, uh, what happens that when I, uh, I've, I've arrived a couple of days before,

“I need to avoid the jet light, uh, and that's what has changed since I've learned,”

started to learn for the photogenanism. Is that how to say a story with your photo? Not, uh, you know, that's a good picture. That's a good picture too. The third one is a good picture too, but I mean, are the three pictures all together as saying something. And so I don't want to shoot just for shooting nice pictures anymore. And I was at the mirror hotel and saw that the

amazing transition just in front of the hotel, which at least is very noisy by night, um, because

the trends are keeping passing by. And, uh, I thought, why is that this big transition here, and this little small town, uh, and started to, to question myself and also judge a BT because it's my best way for that when you're getting curious. To know why, um, yeah, there were so many trends passing by. And the relationship finally between the trends, livingstone, and Yellowstone, where it was yesterday. So I made, I realized,

all what happened in the, uh, in the 18th centuries. And, uh, metaphor is everything about that. And, uh, and when, you know, I've rented a car and I've been driving all around in the area of her, uh, handing yesterday in Yellowstone to, to see exactly why and how it happened. And I made a photo story. Is that coming? Well, I look forward to seeing it. Thanks for chatting. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks for sharing. Um, uh, what was the next step for you

with this work based on the feedback you've had so far? The next step that I'm going to do is go back through my archive and see if my projects, not projects, if my floating images will challenge anything with these. That's the first thing we're going to do. Um, because I have a tendency, I'll, I'll shoot a day here. I'll shoot a day there and they all just go on a drive

or a stand and I never look at them again. Yeah, I know what you mean. Because they don't,

I'm not shooting them for me. Purpose other than that was cool. Um, so I'm going to go back and

“see what, uh, potentially gel. Somebody do that. Emma, keep shooting for these. I think,”

or maybe be done. I think that the one, you've got a lot. I think the one you're looking at, I have maybe 400 images or maybe a thousand that are okay. And maybe I just go ahead and be done without really going on. Yeah. And so you're just going to make a tiny little book. But it's going to be, you know, it's a controller that it is wide and then have a little images. Maybe there's titles to each in the end, just like a little bit of context, like a place number at the end,

that, you know, lightning in X places or something like a little tiny. So maybe a word here there in the titles could give you a little bit of context when I'm the bad writer. So that'll be at the end. And then I'll put it on the shelf and nobody will see it. But I'll see. And I love it. Honestly, I'm not just saying that. I mean, I don't do social media. Yeah. Like I said, I post like once a year I'll post for a week and nobody has seen it. I mean, I'm excited. I'm very curious that you did. I guess

it was in practice to come to you. No, I think maybe not primed to come here. Maybe when we went, I remember how I saw it, I actually. But yeah, I went into your phone the other night. That's where it was. Okay. We all take pictures of birds, you know, almost everybody. Yeah, but I mean, it's like we'll take pictures of one beer bird. We'll take pictures of

“the same. Yeah, because it's all around us. Yeah, that's what we know. But Tyler said it best.”

I'm like a bird. I want to fly away. I did not expect you to quote, Nelly Fatardo, but I'm glad you did. Expecting unexpected. Thanks for chatting, Mom. Yeah,

do you share your love. Thanks for showing me your work. It's incredible. I want to see you

of course. No, you don't. Not now. I'm not showing you now. That's fine. That's fine. All right. I'm going to go get ready. We're going to the saloon. Someone's a car alarm's going off. We're going to the saloon. And I need to go and get my stuff back to the room. Find the wife. I don't know where she is. And head over to the saloon. We're having, I guess, last. There's not the last night, but we're going to the famous saloon restaurant. Everyone, like a hundred people,

wherever many of us, including reviewers, speakers. And have some drinks, have some food, have some fun. So, um, suns out. Everyone's happy. Everyone's exhausted. Because it's, even in my last review with

I felt a little bit guilty, but just just tired and tired of talking about me, images, tired of trying to listen to differing opinions while still respecting them, taking them in and writing them down, going back through them, answering questions. All in the space of 20 minutes, it feels so much longer and so much, kind of, more intense, I guess. So, um, yeah, all right, I'm going to get ready. And, uh, we see you at the saloon.

“Wow, look at the moon. It's so, oh, what? It's a beautiful, this is, that's what you really should be.”

That's what I'm saying. Yeah, they don't, they're healing the moon. We're watching Ode England at the moment. So, I don't know, thank you. So, I don't reviewed me today and, uh, what a wonderful experience. The huge fan. So, definitely some kind of a little bit of star struck this afternoon, but we got through it.

We got through it. Um, Ode, it's first Chico review. Yes. How's it going? Yes. Tell us about these

bridge. Oh, my goodness. It's, it's, it's photocamp and it's photocamp on an extreme level. And everyone is so friendly and so giving and the best thing about being here is that if I can give one piece of advice or guidance to folk that's special in some way, that just makes my day. Give me an example. So, who do you think you've helped that, like, really kind of, have no clue? I have no clue. I don't mean that I need to think any, like, great three moments this week

for people. Just, you know what? It's not even if they've said it. It's that there, there is change.

“And the best thing that you can experience with another human being is when they say something to”

you or you say something to them and there's this expression that comes on their face and you think, oh my goodness, I definitely had that today. Oh, I can't, I can't get it today. So I'm a god, I think about that. Thank you. I've had this every single day I've been here and I've done, like, I do eight reviews and then you do a little extra and then you do a little more because you can't stop looking at beautiful pictures. So I think that's one thing I really enjoyed

from this side of the fence about this week is that in between moments, reviews are obviously great, but they're, like, a little bit rushed, a little bit forced, but when you get a reviewer to the side and have a bit more of an organic experience, it's so much more natural. It feels like a conversation between two people who met at a bookstore or met on the street and you're like, so what are you doing? And they're a bit like Evan and Bob and all these other people are

Stuart, all these people love Evan and Bob. I'd be like, Evan, so I had this thought about your pictures because I'm a slow thing, grown a slow processor, this will happen tomorrow. I'll be like, wait, there was this thing that I should have told you. Oh, please tell me, I hope all of these people, like email. All right, email there. I'm sorry, can I add this extra thing that I've been thinking about your title? I've been thinking about that third picture with the horse. I've been thinking

about the horses. Oh yeah, you say. See, I hold them. I love this lady. On that note, on a purely selfish note, if I wanted to, or what I'm going to do with most of the reviews, if they let me,

without hat, like there's always this. I don't want to hound you. I don't want to bother you because

you're extremely busy, extremely successful photographers. If I want to then with any of these reviewers like reach out, how would you suggest one does that? And just like send a PDF, these are

“the corrections I made, what do you think? I think the best thing you could possibly do is to be very”

brave and say, I met you at this event. I loved what you had to say about this image or this selection or whatever. May I send you something to look at in your time? Okay. And then that way, you're relieved of the pressure of having to say, "Here's PDF and here's all the things I want to know." And also they're relieved of the pressure of going, "Oh, I have to respond immediately." That means sense. And then it's just, it's a permission thing. You're talking to another person.

I think we forget in this whole, we're all talking about this. People, we are just people. Yeah. We all share, we all breathe. Or we all do the same thing. We are all busy, but we are no more important than the person we're standing next to. You know? You don't want to put in the me. Absolutely not. I've got amazing. I'm just stupid in the new. And I've done a laugh. The first time I saw the long shadow I was moved to tears, so I think. Oh my gosh. And the new

book to be developed to be continued? Can you tell us anything about it? Oh. Well, hang on,

which one? Oh, that's the next. Oh, that is an ex-beautiful. It's my first novella. I've never written a

A lot of things to say. Not many things to say. Wait a minute. But it's a book that's all about

“the relationship between the letter X, and photography. And it's built on a foundation of”

autobiography where I grew up, what I did. Where did you grow up? I grew up in southern Australia. Very, very rural, very remote, no televisions, no, you know, bitumen roads, no shops, none of that. I love it because it feels very sincere. What the book? The book feels very sincere. The process of writing is really fun. I love to write. Is it out? It's out now. It's out. It's out. It's not. It's awkward that I don't have it. It's it. No, it's just been launched and it's

like, it's pre-order. Okay. Like, you can order it and it will be in the United States. I feel like

next month. Next month. By the time this comes out. Yes. Okay. Yes. But it's elsewhere in the world.

It's already available in the UK, Europe, Australia. Cool. It's an ex-beautiful. I'm going to get it.

“Thank you so much. You're so welcome. Thank you. I'm here with, what's your last name, Hadley?”

Rosembaum. Rosembaum. Yeah. Hadley, Rosembaum. A 10-day of the year. That's not true. We, we, uh, we met on the bus. That's right. Yeah, and we haven't actually talked properly about your work since. So tell, tell us everything about it. Who's us? Us, everyone. All the eight people watching. Oh my god, is this live? Well, it's not live. No, but it's going to be, it's going to be this is depends what you say. Okay. Wow. Tell us what brought you here and give us an insight

as to the, the work that you've been presenting. Okay. Excuse me. So sorry. I had to hear that. What brought me here? I've been working on a body of works since last June on and off. After my grandma passed, and she's a national treasure. It was based off of a book that I found in her house, the Jacoめて book, um, and a large archive of her, of photos that she took for Chinese antiques. Um, I don't know why I'm looking here instead of a you, but anyway, this feels,

okay. Um, and this is sorry. Oh, look, I'm like, oh, it's, it's gone. I was lit up. Um, it did. Um, and so I brought all of those materials to a bookmaking workshop at CPW with Ray. Oh, okay. And I started this project and it was just going to be of my grandmother's photos and my family archive, but then we were like, actually, it wouldn't be so sick. If we put, we put

like a photo, an archive of mine that is, it is incredible to me paired with your grandma's archive,

my grandma's archive. And so this was with you, you and Ray talking about this. Yeah. So I chose high heels, slash feet, because that seems to be the thing that I like to photograph them. I was going to ask you about that appearing a lot. I just, I literally, I went back home that night, and I looked through my archive, and I was like, oh, shit. Like, I like fear. And not in a fetish kind of way. In a fetish kind of way. Yeah. Almost exclusively in a fetish

just a kind of way. Um, and I was all for it. I'm like, because I do a lot of fashion shoots.

“Okay. Okay. It is kind of the thing where you have to highlight the shoe. Like,”

it's, and because it gets boring, if you're just doing a full body check or a full portrait, like, there has to be other interesting elements in a lot of the models or actresses, whatever they wear cool heels. Yeah. So I made a my mission to, like, it was just, it was kind of a no-brainer. So that's what I wanted it a little bit. Yeah. And once I started putting them on the page, like, the documentary book, it kind of, like, became this energetic thing, this dialogue

between these two disparate archives that became in this weird conversation with each other. And since then, I've been working on, like, different material, um, interferences and, like, using all different types of paper and printing techniques and, um, building this book up, like, like, big time. Like, really, like, I, I would try to finish, like, four pages a week and go into the studio every day because because some of them, like, an idea would just fall out of me,

but others, like, you'd have to print one photo five different ways to see how it looked best. So it unlocked, it kind of, like, dismantled my perfectionism because I'm, like, there's no one right way to print this photo. Therefore, there's many ways to give me an example. Yeah, like, I feel like I had, there were a few things that I was working with. I had a few different colored index cards. Um, I had, like, 8.5 by 11 translucent film, um, newspaper,

Southprint, I'm doing it all by myself. Um, so, like, I would print one on transparency, one on a tiny

index card, one, like, on 11 by 17 sheet, and then, like, tested out with all different shapes, sizes, elements. So, like, it was kind of, like, a chemistry lab, like every day, just going in. Wow. It made me feel so close to my grandma. Like, like, we were, like, jamming together, and I felt like her, her presence there. It was, it was just, her presence was present. What's the name of the project? Heels and raheries. Heels and raheries. And what's, uh, well,

“okay, what are the, what are the reviews being like, so far, but what do you hope is next with this?”

The reviews have been, um, baller, um, everyone loves it. They're, like, they're, yeah,

you're pretty, you're first. Uh, uh, I just don't think they know what to do with it, because it's

so colorful. They just, like, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I, my, I came here with, like, a fully formed idea, and a book, like, ready to go. So, I really wanted people to help me make it. Like, like, my goal in the meetings is like, then design your own publisher. I need a publisher. Okay. I designed it already. Okay. I'm like, I saw the book. I just saw your prints. Yeah, all books. Is there? Okay. Sorry. You can see it tomorrow. I apologize.

So yeah, I, uh, do you think you can air a TV goal? Like, in terms of finding a publisher? Yeah. Look at this, the confidence. Literally, what else would I be doing here, except calling list of publishers to email, and once they see the work? Like, one, yeah. Do you have a top number one publisher after? I'm not going to say that on here. I'm not damn it. Yeah. You'd need all of you to sign an NDA.

Around that kind of number one goal, a materialistic goal. I guess what else have you taken from this week? Then I'm up artist. Like, not just a photographer, but I am an artist. I mean, yeah, we could have told you that. And I already knew that, but being in a, it's interesting. I chose to go to an MFA program that was interdisciplinary studio practice. So not just a photography program, and I feel like during my time, I had a lot of regrets about that, because I didn't get

to just like lean into the technical or the history. Like, I was studying a lot of theory in history, and it really shaped my worldview and my practice. And in hindsight, I can look back and feel so grateful for that. And I feel like I carry that with me here, because I feel like I'm looking at the work from an art perspective and not just a photography perspective. And so I feel

like one year plus out of school is like the first time that I can be like, oh yeah, like this is

one arm of my practice, and like it's serving me in this capacity. And this project is like the

“most healing amazing thing to do post-grad, post like morning, my grandma. And then like, I think”

I could take like a little thread from whatever this is, and maybe make a film about it, or like make a sculpture or an installation. And so I feel like I'm, it's affirming for me that it's being mirrored back to me through all of their videos that like, I am an artist, and I'm a multi-disciplinary artist. What's your definition of art? Of art? For me, at one point I thought it was to provoke, but I'm not really being provocative. I mean, I'm being provocative in a cheeky way with this book,

but it's not, it's not a political statement. We're being provocative with the curiosity of the viewer and the, the emotive aspect of it, so the sentimental aspect of your connection. Yeah, I do tend to think that art is trying to provoke emotion, and I think that a successful piece of art is something that changes your emotional landscape when you're looking at it. And it doesn't

“mean you have to like it. Like I think if you hate something, that is equally as important and”

interesting and is something discussed to you, then I think that's really cool. Yeah, I hate it. All right. Go check it out. Go check it out. It's unbelievable work. Hadley thanks so much. Thank you so much. That's your pleasure to meet you too. Bye, bye, bye. Good morning, everyone. We are at 6 30 a.m. Last day of Chica Review 2026, and sorry, I didn't give a kind of bedtime review, but yeah, yesterday was great. And you think you know

give you completely different perspectives that you had never thought of before, whether that's

with single images or sequences or just the body of work in general. And gave me so much more food for thought I loved my reviews with Odette and Brian and Claudine. Claudine was a little bit rushed because I was exhausted. I was really really exhausted, especially after my won't Brian, which through a lot of curveballs my way in a good sense. I value his feedback and hopefully I could call friendship, but his, the way he, I'm waxing, lyrical about this guy, but you know, they're all, they're all just

such wonderful humans, certainly that people I've engaged with here on this review. And Brian, Brian, I know really cares, and that makes a huge difference. And yes, we've met before and yes, we've done, I've done his workshop before, and we get along, but he, he just cares about everyone, and he cares so much about the work and trying to get to the root truth or root potential,

“reach people to get people through each September. That's what I'm going to say, so it's a bit”

early here. So yeah, I can't say enough good things about Brian and Odette and Harrison and Jesse and Matt and all of the reviews here that I've come to contact with and hopefully today I will

be coming into contact with some even more incredible artists. So, um, did I, I've got,

meet your common egg and Jonathan Levitt, so I'm both pretty different to what I normally shoot and my style of work, so it's going to be really interesting. But for now, I've come down here to get some hot water for coffee, because I had one feedback of this place, the coffee is dire. So here, you usually have to go to the gift shop to get a double espresso, but today I'm just going to get some hot water and make some of our own coffee from House of Yorey, a little plug,

go check it out. Okay, see you later. So while I'm here, let me show you the, the outside of

the Chico Saloon Bar, this is kind of where everyone hangs out each evening after dinner,

but from last night, obviously where we went to the old Saloon Bar, about five minutes down the road. But six thirty in the morning, so I can't take you in there, but I'll take you in there tonight. It's such a cool bar. So where we did karaoke where everyone just hangs out, drinks, plays shuffleboard and gets to know each other, which has been, you know, the social folk room of the event really in the evening. So people can get a little bit looser,

have their beers and get to know each other. So it's been such an important facet of this week and watching people make bonds, as well as myself making a few

“bonds is being, yes, what life is all about isn't it at the end of the day, often we can”

come to these places and take things so seriously, take ourselves extremely seriously. And you know, then they were just looking for connection, morning, just looking for connection, to be understood, to be seen, to be validated, the usual, and a human experience, desires, and that's what this is just a microcosm of that really, isn't it? Whether you're showing the work or speaking to another human being. So yeah, here we go. That's it.

I will try and take you through what else have I got to show you, take you to the give shop, take you a little bit down the road a little bit, if I have time later, take you to the bar and the hot springs and then we've been a much done. I mean, it's, that's it, that's Tico. I've wanted to come here for many years, didn't feel like I was in the right place either mentally

“or artistically. And finally, we must forget, you have to pay quite a bit of what I need to”

come here, which is obviously like a limiting factor for so many people. That's why they offer scholars. We spoke to a few of them. I did we speak to a few of them. We spoke to Hannah, but the battery ran out as soon as we started talking and we spoke to Tony and I'm going to try and speak to Aaron, who's another scholar. But yeah, that's why they, they have these scholarships

some amount of money to these expert reviewers to draw people in and to give people the best advice,

“best experience, best relationships possible. And of course you've got to try to have absolutely no”

problem with that. And also it does filter out people who may not be as serious as the ones who are willing to save for a few years. And for us, you know, we're coming from Bali. So it's a long way, it's very expensive. And you know, even little things like not coming directly here, so we wouldn't be jet lagged. We came a week early just to try and get on the time zone. And so glad we did, but obviously that's hotels, more internal flights, more time that we could be spent,

you know, more opportunity costs. So not that I'm playing the violin at all, I'm extremely fortunate to be in a position to do this. But I've been wanting to come here for a, you know, a long time. And I'm extremely, extremely grateful and it's been a place and event where I felt like I've had some level of belonging, which is ironic because my product is a lot about displacement, the fragmentation, lack of identity, lack of belonging, throw some cliché words out there,

but essentially it's around those kind of emotional states. And this is, I mean, you feel like there's a family here, there's people undoubtedly, there's people that just get me, which is, you know, such a nice, such a liberating agent for filling

“experience. And that's what I'm grateful for the most. And we'll see where this work goes. There's”

I've got a good core of work and one thing that Brian said to me last night, so yesterday afternoon, because he knows my work because I've shown it him before a few times. And he said, "You don't need to go out shoot more." And I would listen to his advice more than any other reviewers with respect to that specific topic because they haven't seen my other work, they haven't

seen previous stuff. And I haven't seen my archive always Brian seen a lot of that.

And he just said, "Look, you don't just dedicate an hour every day to going through your archive. Dedicate an hour every day to looking at the way you might be able to edit or cut or

“affect your previous work, where you still had the same salt to it, but to make something that's”

cohesive, but especially grounded because, you know, the struggle I've been having in is three-like space work, working around it, and we'll split more. And that's the advice that Brian gave me and I'm very grateful for that. So when I go home, I take one or two weeks to just sit and process this and figure out, just pass out like what everyone said, what I want to listen to, what I feel aligns through, and then kind of think about steps forward. I'll definitely be

reaching out to people like Odepp, Brian of course, Matt Schaeiner, who was so wonderful,

gave me some really great insights. Tim, all of these just incredible people who are so

kind to give potentially extra time around this week. And yeah, I'll definitely not be taking advantage of that, but I'll definitely be taking them up on that offer and seeing how I can galvanize this, this body of work a little bit better. So this is more, this is kind of like my morning gentleman, instead of writing it down, I'm talking to you guys, so I hope I'm not boring you, and I hope I'm showing you some beautiful landscapes. I mean, it really is just,

I can't really do it justice on this wide angle, I'm shooting on this little DJ Osmo Pocket 3, which has been game-changing really this week, because it's so light, so small, I can just whip it out and whip it out. I can just get it out and just shoot immediately with the mic, but yeah, I hope you, you kind of seeing how beautiful this place is, which adds to the experience, of course. If we were in a big city, and it was cut.

have this, you know, we wouldn't have the same vibes, and when it's been to Jesse,

“he said, location is just one of the most important things, it sets the tone,”

makes people feel comfortable, feel welcoming. Those things that you, those unseeables, those untannedables, those, you know, tacit kind of factors that go into a week like this. I'm so, so important, and I'm not sure if, I'm not sure if many people really kind of think about those things, but I guess, you know, being the tenth year, Jesse has worked hard to iterate on those one-percenters every year, and I love that approach. I try and do that in everything I do.

It takes time, it takes work, but when you get to ten years down the line and you've created

something that affects so many people's lives, doesn't really make much money, but it provides so much meaning, purpose, fulfillment, progress, happiness, joy, sadness, everything that, you know, putting your work and your soul and your heart on the line every day to essentially strangers, who you respect and look up to so much and value their opinion, that has been cultivated over

“so long and you have to give marks to Jesse for that. So, if you're watching this Jesse, thank you very”

much. I look forward to such a busy man, I've been trying to get him all week really for a review, because he's not on my list unfortunately, but I'm going to try and corner him this morning, maybe during one of the talks, which is a shame, but I think that's the only time he's available. I think that's the only time he's standing still, is when we're listening to another photographer for an hour talk about their work, so I'm going to try and do that, watch this space and I'm going

to try and make the most out of this day, because I don't want to get home next week and regret anything or regret not asking any questions or regret not getting in feedback or regret not talking to someone hadn't spoken to yet whether they're attendees or reviewers, so what I did realise is there's so many

“people where I can't get around and get to know everyone, it's impossible, so I realise that I have”

to like date too and put a little bit less pressure on myself, but I'm just whaffling now guys, but I hope you're there, hope you're listening and I want to thank you for all your support, I want to thank you for being there for me, sending messages that you do, I hope this episode, not that we've finished the episode yet, but I hope this episode has provided a really valuable insight into the world of fine art photography and photo book world,

it's a world that I want to dive into deeper, I'm already kind of like in an exploratory phase with it and loving every minute of it, and I wish I knew about this part of the photography world, even two years ago, maybe more, three, four, five years ago, when I started taking photography almost seriously, so I'm here now, I'm really glad I made it, I know everyone here, it's pretty much changed the trajectory of their photography life,

if not their life itself and just in five short days, five long but five days, all right, it's coffee time and I can hear the screaming through the window to make her a coffee, speedy later. Well, I'm just going to ask you about like this is your first tea-car review, right? Yeah. So I was just literally going to ask you how your experience has been, I mean, you obviously do other reviews and have done many other reviews as

well as education, but how is this experience been for you as a reviewer, you know, coming from the other side of the world essentially? Yeah, I mean, it's good that people would meet

to talk photography, I've never done something like this, but I've done it for years before,

so this has got a different experience that people, the other for some time and speed photography, they didn't feel competitive. Yeah. What do you what do you look for when you're sat across the table from an attendee and they're presenting their work like I've just done with you? I don't know, I just prefer to listen more to attendies, because, you know, when you're listening to them, you get where they're trying to go and maybe what's their struggle

and how you can assist in terms of giving shape towards their trying to devote. Yeah.

and including a service extremely, extremely moving and I think I saw some stuff I had not seen

“of yours before, so yeah, I just want to say thank you for presenting that incredible work and”

what's next for you when you go home? I'm continuing with two definitely trees. Yeah, that's what I've been busy with. Yeah. Because it's still an ongoing work working with my family traveling back to my sister land. The Magnum keep you busy. Did they give you a lot of assignments and stuff? Yeah. Yeah. But I've been working more on my own this not work. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for the review. Thank you for

thank you for being here. Good work and really for it to see how you work to be looking for.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate it. All right. All right. All right. You're going to have lunch. Here with Daniel Arnold, legend of a photographer, legend of a cheekar reviewer.

“Well, how many times you don't cheeken up? This is my third one. In a row. What does it mean to you?”

To be honest, my girlfriend loves to come to Montana and I'm not a guy. I'm not built to look forward to things. If something is ahead of me, I dread it. Because of the commitment, I don't know what. I think, yeah, I just, I just can only anticipate what we'll go wrong. But this is a really, I think displaces like rich with surprises if you let it happen to you. And every time I come in saying, this is, this is my last time. Yeah.

And there's some like transcendent, little surprise, different view of myself or perspective shift or connection or whatever. I'm like, fine. I'm bringing, bring K back to Montana next year. It's, it could be worse. What do you, um, and we just talked about my work and just work in general in terms of how people see the world, but how people use books and images

“and the book making process not being, I mean, is it right saying not being as important to you”

as the actual just going out and fucking shooting? Yeah, I find all of the sort of backward-looking memorializing parts of this job to be the hardest, like making a show or a book or you know, giving any kind of summation or greatest hits, purpose or whatever. Being on a podcast while luckily I live in New York so we don't do these things and it's too, there's too many distractions to saw. You live in the city? Oh yeah. Yeah, I've had so much fun

diverting that I forget your question. Yeah, sorry. That was me. The importance of books, compared to, the importance of, I guess, materializing your work compared to the work itself. Right, and putting pressure on yourself from other people's words from yourself. Right. Because we come here to the room and just go, I want to make a book coming like me, but you have a very refreshing honest take on that and you mentioned it earlier about kind of the anti-climatic

experience of a book which no one really talks about that much. Yeah, I mean a book is, it's a period, it's the end. I want things to keep going forever so I can find it what they are. But you know, I work not, not everybody works that way. I mean, I guess what I was saying to you was like, I find it very difficult to do anything honest and personal on purpose.

Like basically all I know to do is trust a process, commit to a ritual, pay attention,

and you know, try to live a brave and uncomfortable enough life that I can surprise myself. Well, it's weird as I have so many questions about that, but where does the business side of it come in? Because as soon as money enters the frame, business enters the frame, you start to think, well, I've got to come up with some ideas, I've got to be even worse, I've got to be told what to do, or being given a framework, which seems to go against your very essence of how you want

to photograph any ways. How do you kind of baffle those? It's no answer, I guess, but well, there is an answer and it is that I mean, I've just been extraordinarily lucky and answer that question from a place of like just immense privilege. I don't do any of that.

I don't have kids so that helps with that. And I've never, it feels crazy to say this at this

stage of the game, but like I don't think I've ever asked for anything. Wow, I got crazy lucky. I mean, I just worked my ass off in a public way, went Instagram was, yeah, young and interesting, and got good opportunities, and it was never interested in caching out. You know, it didn't start. I quit my last job when I was 33, so I already had, you know, some youthful glamour under my belt and didn't care about it anymore.

And just really got into now a 13 year business of seeing what else I can get away with. And really above all else prioritizing the protection of this crazy little spark that I stumbled on that I didn't know was there that continues to be this just massive source of endless energy, even as my body gets old and pathetic and I'm tired and, you know, over it sometimes. How do you know when the body of work is complete? Then all what you know, I don't know that even

have a, my body of work is everything. I go to, I go to, I go to, you know, like in the past month, what I did do, I did like a some goofy cashmere sweater fashion campaign, and I shot venomous snakes

“at the zoo, and I, I can't even remember, but like over the course of any given month,”

I do so many different things. I insist on making room to do curveball shit that is for me. And when I'm not doing that, I'm just wandering the street. And, you know, as I said before, the camera was on like, oh, I'm depressed today. Great. Let's go see what a depressed brain brings back from the world. And so what it becomes, I mean, I don't know that this is good. I do constantly wonder, like, have I completely sabotaged myself, and I'm just going to be

found like in a garage under a pile of print, not even prints. It's all in the computer. I'm just going to be like under my laptop. You know, I guess more than praising any given picture or like striving to make the perfect edit to show myself to the world. I'm just so much more interested

in seeing what the end of month edit looks like when I throw myself in a million different directions

and cross my fingers and like think, I really don't want to do that. So I guess I have to do it.

“It's a nice way of looking at self-doubt. And that's why photography in this sense can be so powerful.”

Well, and it's also a very nice way of negotiating the problem of hired work. But you said, it sounds like you get a lot of creative freedom with those, are you? Well, I just, I just have kind of taken it, I guess, from the, from the beginning. I mean, I didn't mean to be a photographer. I worked as a writer for 10 years and just like a path open up in my life where I was like, this is very interesting and it's giving me a psychotic energy

and focus that I've never experienced before doing anything in my life. I have to just like

make space for it and dump to my whole life genuinely a toast three meals a day for like two years, I was so skinny and cute. And I don't know, just by like chasing this abstract thing and becoming less and less interested in quality or meaning and just focusing on giving myself the opportunity to reveal myself in different places. I mean, it makes my job so, so great because it's just like I'm given this curveball room full of shit that I never would have encountered on my own,

often like with a bunch of people running around trying to make it perfect for me, which is not what I want. But still at the end of every month, I get to mix it all up with street pictures and weird side projects and pictures of my life at home and see what connects them all and make that pile and then make that pile the next month and do it all year and then at the end of the year, make, take that whole year pile and be like, okay, what's the thread here? What are the

“pictures that get to stay and just play that game forever? I mean, have you seen my website?”

Yeah. I feel like that to me is much more satisfying than a book because in a way it replicates the experience of going to find the photos. Well, and it's all you. Yeah. There's no publisher

controlled. So when you come to places like this, so it's 30 in a row and maybe you don't have

an answer to this question, but what if you're looking at work across the table, what type of approach, what type of work or what are you seeing that would give you a spark and just go, yeah, this is this fucking, this is great, or this means something or dive deeper into this, you're looking for the truth, you're looking for consistency, occasion, what are you looking for when you see other people's what? I mean, forgive me if it sounds corny and full of shit, but it's it's true, it's

like people keep asking me if I've seen any any great work that has blown me away, and I actually don't know because, you know, there's a lot of people in this mix who could offer you a book

“deal three or theoretically or tell you like what you need to do with your portfolio to be able to”

one day approach a museum, or there are people who are extraordinarily confident about sequencing, who will open up your box of prints and tell you what they are and tell you to get rid of stuff,

and the truth is it's 20 minutes of speed dating, and there's a lot of guilt and ego at

where you're like, I know it was hard for you to come here, and I've got 20 minutes to be useful, and God does it feel good to be useful, so I'm just gonna like freestyle whatever the fuck I can think of all the top of my head, and for me, I don't know, I guess. I feel bad kind of because I don't, I feel like I'm not even really engaging directly with the photos, because I don't care, it's so much more interesting to me to try to conjure up this quick crack spiritual connection of

like we were both kind of after the same thing, and listen up guys, it's probably the best advice you can hear. Well, I just feel like I've had such a sweet lucky ride. I've been given paths on the back that I didn't know existed, like before I could think to want them, and the only consistent thing of value there is that I know it doesn't change anything, it doesn't matter, it doesn't make me, I don't wake up every morning and be like, I'm a good photographer,

I'm gonna go take good pictures, I wake up every day and think, I'm shit. Maybe today, I'll get lucky and prove to myself that I'm still worth the damn, and that I wasn't just lucky when I was 33 and, you know, audacious, and that's not false modesty, it's like, it's the truth. I think there's this this perception now in this social media model that like you strike some magic note and the world just kind of like opens up and slows down before you and you get to

“luxuriate and being a good photographer. I think the truth is like the more doors that open for you,”

the more you are you discover that this is just like a lifelong slog and that there's no trophy that means anything except for the life that you get to live by committing to paying attention to your life. My job. I didn't go to taking inspiration. We're like a photo, hello. I hear with Tim Carpenter, legend of photographer. How many times did you go now? There's my seventh time. Seventh time. So, any different experiences this time? What is it?

This is the warmest by far time. You know, because this time of year it can be widely divergent as far as the weather. Last year there were two separate snowstorms that came through. We were at Lake Israel a lot of snow and like I went to the plunge this morning and it was the least painful plunge of all because it's like 20 degrees per today. It's like

“Celsius, I think it's about about 25 to 26 degrees. The other big difference we've all noticed”

is that the attendees this year are much milder in their partying. Last year we raged and closed down the bar almost every night. Yeah, we did you stay out late last night? No, not terribly, but like midnight. Or maybe I talked after I do something. Tim's an excellent karaoke. No, I'm sorry. Tim also reviewed me on the first day and I think even I've remembered every little piece of advice because not only do I respect you and your work so much. I think

you're extremely well friendly humble and open. So it kind of accessible in that and does that come from

just how you've always been or know you do a lot of education, you mentor a lot and is that kind of

been evolution for you? Yeah, I mean I've taught now for six years in a year long program and I've done a lot of other things. So I've really tried to train myself to be that and to think about what I would want to move forward and how I call myself the practical guy. I really want to have you know steps forward. Once I'm going to take a workshop a long time ago at the Andrew

I want to try to find the way forward with something and you know the thing is like I said this

“to you and I say to almost everybody I never say good picture bad picture. I want to hear what's”

in somebody's head and their heart that just has to get out and then I can think about let's think about how the picture's behave against that. Because I do not want to see more of what I think I want to see. You know, I'm just one dumb guy and I want to get what's weird and idiosyncratic and the person and not my opinion. Yeah. Listen to listen to that. Great advice. One more question like Eric's, I know you've got to get into reviews seven times in a row. Do you go? No,

like 2019 and then there was a COVID break and then they played catch-up like doing a couple

close together. But yeah. What is it? Yeah. What? Tell me what Chika means to you as a reviewer.

So as a reviewer there's I mean there's two things is like as the other reviewers some of them I've known forever now and they're best friends. Some like I'm people I'm just meeting for the

“first time. So for me it's like my professional relationships and personal relationships.”

Because now I know all these publishers who have I find see a quality project. I can send them to Artieria or send them to a client or send them to whoever you know and they're actually getting connected and getting made. Wow. And then but also connecting with all the attendees and like a bunch of people have actually become part of my year-long program at Penombra. So it's all kind of a web you know of everything and then you know in a few years some of these attendees are going to be

reviewers. Yeah. And you know they're going to be the same people. So community connection. Absolutely. Yeah. And you know like I come out of here like everybody has two or three pictures just kick my ass and I come out of here like so inspired and I just like I gotta go start making pictures being better again you know. 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. Tim thank you so much. My time is here. Yeah. Have a good afternoon. Yeah. Thank you. Tell me just tell me just what are we talking about? Oh my what am I doing? Yeah and I don't know that's

“kind of like journalistic interview. Tell me who you are and Hathaway. What's your last name again?”

Anne Hermes. And I was close with the H of this. Yeah you were partly there. No relationship to the French scarf company or I could pay for all the gear I wanted to. So yeah. What I'm telling us what you're doing here at Chico at a 30,000 foot view. I was trying to figure out what if anything I could do with my personal work because I've had it published in the editorial space and I've been so proud and grateful for that. But I don't feel like it's the end of the road for

the work I've been doing. And so I came here to try and figure out if there was a path after this and there have been a lot of direct and indirect answers to that. And I feel like I've been able to piece together some answers both from discussions with not just the reviewers but the reviewers. Because I think having conversations with the other working photographers here has been one of the more rewarding things. Working as in people doing it full time. Like if you're

making money off of your camera and I'm not saying you're making money off of the personal projects you've come to show here even just like the unglamorous stuff that you're doing and you're not as we talk about. The hustling. You know like I wanted to talk about the hustle because I don't think a lot of people talk about the hustle because it's not sexy. It's not. How often am I going to post that on our Instagram account or a substack? It's much sexier to talk about the big personal

project. But I'll review something. I love that. I love looking that. You know I want to support that. But I also want to know how you're funding your life because the model is broken. It's only gotten more difficult. And so how do we support each other and how do we support ourselves? And having people who are not keeping that information especially here has been one of the more valuable lessons for like things that I've experienced is like learning some of the the hard

direct paths and how to leverage your personal work in the commercial world or as a teaching gig or you know even doing more workshops that kind of a thing has been really valuable. This sounds like the initial goal you had from Cheekerview's change slightly or the the expectation I should say. Every weekend you're wanting a bug. Of course I would have loved to come here and have somebody say oh here's money for a book right? You're like let's do it right now.

And I didn't have anyone say this is not a book. No one said that. Everyone said this is a book. It's not a photo book. It is a for at least my project. It has more of a broad appeal outside

valuable information. But it's also kind of like okay so we're still talking about more time,

more energy and at the end of all of this work you know which I care about getting out there. I still won't make money off of the book because nobody makes money off of photo books, no matter where you get published. So for me I hate to say it like I need to know how I can fund my life and continue doing this work because I work in the journalism world quite often and my projects about journalism. My husband's in journalism and I don't know if you've

heard there's no money in journalism and oh by the way there's no money in the photo book world.

“So just figuring out how to piece this together to make it sustainable because I think we shouldn't”

lie to each other at this point. The model is unsustainable so we really have to help each other

keep at it because there's so many valuable voices and stories that are being told here and I just want everybody to be able to continue the work that they're doing but we do have to have to be able to afford it. We've got to put it in the table, we've got to put a roof over our heads. When you mentioned earlier about the model that's broken you elaborate more it's only in the journalistic well for those that don't really know tell us what makes you say that.

Well I was a staff photographer at a newspaper and that is a job that is disappearing and has almost entirely disappeared and so that is a broken model in and of itself. Anyone who wants

“to get a staff job like whoa get in line you know but even freelancing for editorial and I'm talking”

you know like it places great reputations, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post when they still existed to some degree. It's just you know it's they don't pay enough to live in a major urban setting and even if you were living a remote area they're not calling you enough to sustain. You got to be around it. Yeah and so being realistic about that really helped me entering to the freelancing life after I had a staff job at a newspaper because if I had gone

and thinking I was only going to make money off of that editorial it would have been really painful. And so now I'm trying to find commercial clients that will basically pay me 10 times more for the same skill set that I use in journalism and somebody another attendee here actually claim that I never heard this term commercial documentary and that was like oh that makes so much sense to me because the clients who are actually paying me to keep a roof over my head

they're hiring me for all the same skill set that I developed over years of being a working photo journalist and they actually value that skill set tremendously because they're like oh I don't need

to send a crew of 20 in with you you can do an amazing job and your critical thinking skills are

stellar and you're flexible and you can work in any situation and it's like I learned all that as a photo journalist and you know now I'm getting clients who are valuing that and paying me for that and you know it's the same kind of thing where like in my world if there's a client job that I can't do with a commercial client I always try to pass that off to another photo journalist because AI knew that they can do a great job and be I want them to be able to fund

their documentary projects that they're doing as well so that's the broken model that I'm talking about like and now I'm you know learning more about the photo photo book world you know there's nobody here's gonna lie to you and tell you that there's money in photo books you know

“at least not until you build up like a tremendous I didn't even have I think I think we yeah I think”

it's been quite honest in that respect yeah for sure so for me I'm working in two broken model situations so I'm trying to figure out how to make that work within a broken model environment other opportunities that might spring from that for example is education you know the democratization of education certainly with social media and online access that we get maybe remembering AI and two but you know people can do people can do everything these days

at the touch of a button and if you thought I mean I guess my question is what have what what are the answers that you've been looking for and what when you go home what's what are you going

a third broken model because Marshall's probably also broken yeah we'll break it I'm breaking

that it's ripping at the seams as we speak you know I've found and this being here and speaking with the review reviewers has confirmed that being scrappy and hustling is the only thing that's going to see you through to the end and in some cases that's going to be taking work that you might at first find demoralizing but let's it let's face it wedding photographers are going to survive AI baby photographers wedding photographers not product photographers or I mean Larry was present

I want to hear what you think about Larry's lecture this morning because he you asked him that

question actually yeah I don't think he answered it specific it's I mean AI is definitely a piece of

the puzzle for the erosion of public trust and photo journalism but there's also a reputational

“hit that I think that's what you meant by the question right yeah you know with the fake news”

you know fake news wave that came about in 2016 I I've seen it in alarming ways because it's not just you know people saying that the New York Times is fake news but people are saying that these local newsrooms that I photograph our fake news and it's like you guys shop at the same grocery store as the people who report on your neighborhood like you know better than anyone that they are not you know making this shit up now it's anyone's opinion is is worth as much as a fact

and it's the politicization politicization politicization yeah politicization being a long way but media is put politicized now which which is why people don't trust anything that a doesn't fit their own narrative and b doesn't kind of fit into the whatever the perspective they're watching or reading or listening to you right yeah well and the funny part of that is like

“I think in Larry touched on this a little bit of like there was never really a truth with the”

capital T there was never objectivity true objectivity because the way I photograph things

different from the way you would photograph it so it got opinion attached to all the time you can't escape from your own reality enough to be totally unbiased and I have been trying to in my journalism work go more towards fairness because I think that's the best anyone can do but Larry kind of in a way weirdly answered his own question through his own work because his work has transitioned from at least the photo books and the stories that he's telling the way he's telling them

has transitioned from the very tried and true old school black and white books with minimal design you know and just like really intense war imagery those were sort of like the traditional photo books in that particular field and now you've seen like he has a femurah you know his objects he's scanning objects he's he's he's he's a convidio music and video and I think he's seen the writing on the wall that like storytelling has changed a little bit and you know

does that make the fresh out of grad school photo journalist version of me very uncomfortable 100% do I think it's more relevant and we'll reach more audiences you know the world we live in 100% and if that is going to get somebody who has not educated themselves about what's going on

“with you know afghanistan or Ukraine you know then if that's what's going to connect with people”

then I'm kind of like all right let's do it if that's what needs to be done as long as we're transparent about the way that we're doing it fascinating well thanks for talking to me and good luck we'll keep it up yeah I'm excited to see what happens to us interesting we're all just making it up as we go on yeah thanks guys just finished my last review with Jonathan Levitt and I think I don't know how I feel I feel sad that it's over I feel actually

quite emotional that I'm not going to see some of these people probably ever again I'm not going to see some of these people for a very long time and I go back to life and life that I love but this is where I want to be and these are the people I want to be around and in terms of the reviews guys I don't actually like it's this is going to take me

and where I need to go next to with this you may think like we we making mountains out of

more hills um this is this is hard like if you you're trying to you're trying to you make something that is

“meaningful important and mean something to you need something to other people you're trying to get”

your voice out there and to be heard without using too many cliches you are wanting to be wanted you're wanting to be light you want you to be respected you're wanting to be understood more than anything for me that's the the common denominator with everything in life whether it's

family friends businesses teams career health um and art and uh and very proud to call myself an artist

but if this week has taught me anything it's I still have a long way to go to achieve what I want to achieve out of this and um I don't really have any clarity on how to move forward without yet

“and I'm just going to trust the process trust that I'm not going to have clarity until you know”

there's people here with pretty much fully-formed books and they will find clarity easier than someone like myself who's who's got a body of work that I'm after this week I'm 100% sure can be made into a book but I've I've got so much more work to do to figure that out to figure out where this connective tissue is with the work that I want to present to the world and how to engage a viewer more how to make sure my message comes across clearly but poetically and um

fuck if it was easy everyone would do it right um and for the reviews one thing I know is that

“pretty much every viewer is being wildly different there's been some common themes um but there's”

being many different directions that the reviewers would like themselves or would like me to take

the work and that has been extremely confusing the first few days first to think back the first few

days would just ego death was just like getting out of your own way um being punched in the face which I knew would happen and you absolutely fine with and in support of needed to do that I don't present my work too often uh in person in print um with intention and with seriousness so yeah there's so many things I'm already gleaning from this week one is I should present my work more I should get it in front of more eyes I should play more experiment more um

I've shot so much work that I haven't really investigated with myself yet and you know Brian talked about this yesterday um go back and be more experimentation and be more experimental with the stuff I've already shot oh that's shit are you still recording let me just hold it and so yeah uh at the moment it's it's it's just is I guess I'm looking my camera that's scratch now great it's been very windy here um to get away from kind of the deep and dark depth of

the review process it's been so um revelation read to meet like minded so many like minded people to connect with quite a few of them and you would have seen them on this episode or heard from them on this episode already um and that's just such an honour to to be within this community so I would thank myself for that and thank you guys for that and thank Jesse, Katie all of the reviewers that spend their time um like I said yeah they get paid but they they definitely

don't do it for the money um because I don't think it's life changing money at all um to to divulge a little secret it's not so they do it for many of their own personal reasons and uh

and yeah it's a it's a business enterprise of course but that's not the reason that this

happens and that's not the reason that Jesse started it so um yes as far as portfolio reviews go and I haven't done that many but as far as reviews go this is you know in my mind the world leading world's leading one and the most prominent that we have certainly in in this side of the world so just extremely grateful to have been able to present my work and it'd be it'd be received really well um and had pretty much I think 90% of extremely valuable constructive feedback stuff that

I can go away and think about first is gonna take me a few months to really just marinate and meditate upon and see where I want to go next um I haven't had a review from Jesse yet he's had a quick look at the work but before we go so it's now what is it it's now 445 on Saturday we'd leave tomorrow lunchtime so we have less than 12 hours left and um just like anything it's sad that the end is upon us

but I leave here with an experience with having met some amazing people and with some direction

and with a lot to think about um a lot of my work is is disparate so I have one body of work

“that is um more post documentary more I guess um contemporary uh work that's what I didn't”

had a describe it was more traditional and more rooted from where I kind of how I wear and when I love photography and um I have another body of work which is largely what I presented this week that is a bit more experimental but much much more personal and much more narrative based much more poetic and I lean I want to lean into that more but stay true to what I'm arguably better at and what I'm arguably find easier and I think they can both

coexist and if that's what I've learned is they can either I can either find a way from it to coexist together in the same project in the same if it's gonna be a book or in the same series whatever it might be and I can find a way to separate them and have them to separate projects so that has been uh a lot of clarity with regards to where I go next and um that's it I could I probably will I do a I'll do a real reflective episode um I don't know a month's time

“or something I don't know when I don't know if it's of any interest to you to be honest I think”

I'm hoping this episode has been of real interest to you guys just because we've got a little bit

behind the scenes but a little bit of first time experience from me we've met other attendees

who've given us insights and we met some of the reviewers who've also given their insights from the other side of the fence so I hope you've enjoyed it I can't say that um I can do this all the time of course but I hope you've enjoyed it and um there's more to come I'm gonna take the microphone around tonight set a few people I want to speak to hopefully I can get them everyone is exhausted everyone's still really busy everyone's trying to like get everyone they haven't got yet to speak

to and to look at their work so I don't want to do that disservice I don't want to intrude and so if this is the last thing you hear or see from me on this trip then um I don't know what else to say

“I think I've said enough but I'll be writing a lot about my experiences just for my own purpose”

I'll be obviously meditating a lot upon this and where to go next and hopefully I can share some of that with you over the next however long it's gonna be this is gonna be a long time that I'm going to be spending immersed in this work that I want to forge into something that's complete so we'll see we'll see hopefully I can share that process with you guys but for now I am going to grab a beer try and relax try and speak to people I haven't spoken to yet maybe I'll

bring the camera out maybe I'll bring the microphone out um but yeah let's see two guys

that fucking summer does away don't pretend to be like empty lands get that you kind of have to

“fucking survive we're almost not getting it what I find quite interesting about being here is”

like a real resonance with the land I'm feeling so grateful to be here and then going out to Livingston and spending like five six days there yeah that must have been cool well it's like

an incredible place it has like a creative kind of hit historical

energy to it yeah and then meeting the locals and they're the most warm kindhearted people there's some of the definitely the woman's people in the US but in the back of my mind I am thinking about the political climate here in the states and these differentiation of values and you have these like moments of connection with people you're like it's so kind hold your shit and you're like oh where are you from I'm from Australia you have a whole

“beautiful conversation and then if you dig deeper I can't really escape from like”

how do you feel about but not how do you feel about what are your values yep for me I feel like there's like profound dissonance with living here and like it's such a beautiful landscape there is that like connection to it and like maybe it's where I live north of here but like there's a very dark undertone of like cruelty and unwillingness to like talk to your neighbors and like be present be part of a community and let others in isn't that

like cruelty and well aspects like the way they fucking treat homeless people the way they treat trans people the way like it's a fuck you leave me alone I came here to be left the fucking alone don't talk to kind of thing like it's like it's a it's a it's a cold and carrying this what you don't necessarily see as a foreigner on the surface as much you see it's not so as a foreigner so much is just a visitor like oh yeah that's about like yeah yeah like

you're here and like you get this I mean they're about sounds of it doesn't happen you know this isn't every day in Montana this is this is a bubble living scene is also a bubble living scene is a very progressive liberal bubble is it a liberal town yeah yeah yeah yeah oh okay yeah a little muntana's a red state all right so like yeah how red yeah um you used to be more of like a purple libertarians day like it was just like you leave me alone I'll leave you alone I'm going

to come help you shall be your fucking driveway now it's a it's lost that in the last handful of years it's like really yeah why I think a lot of people have moved in after COVID yeah a lot of people came from like California and liberal states and I'm being yeah what's the word a press like I don't have these freedoms I have to wear a mask I have to do all this fucking COVID bullshit

now they come here it's nothing never matters they come here thinking that the West is

this rugged hyper individualized plays when really like it can't be that like this lands like

“it's so spread out the resources are so spread out the communities are so spread out you need to be”

you need to build community and here I am give us some more details about your week I'm I'm interested like there's obviously I've spoken to like I want to ask Aaron a few more questions later but it's going to a lot of the attendees here about just the the bubble that is cheeker review but the the whole alumni thing is slightly different and for those that maybe listening or watching can you tell us like the week that you've had what that is entailed I mean with with Ray Meeks you know

one of the the heroes in the game but yeah just give us a few more details about what you've

been doing this week well okay so this is my third year here the first year I felt like

I was bringing my practice my world into this like sharing it with artists that I have known their name and their work for ever yeah yeah yeah and don't it at the same time don't you like sit down you have a beer and you have a conversation you realize that we're actually all just trying to figure it out we're all human beings for me Ray huge influence on my work

paperstocks and the craft of the yeah but the like the artistry of it yeah it's artisanal it's

“not cerebral it's it embodied emotion for me that was a huge in some of my practice and now”

this is where was your first year here four years ago all right 2022 yeah so I missed last year

but I had two years in the run missed last year and now so sorry your first year was Ray one of your reviewers and no he he doesn't like reviewing really no so he wasn't here but then the next year I came back he was running a workshop and to like sit down with him and even he has voice was like oh yeah this is insane yeah now this is the second year of doing a workshop with him and he feels like like just another person and he has his practice that I respond to and resonate

with but to have his wisdom experience and sensibility kind of gently just map itself out onto your work

“whoa what an amazing gift so this is your second year as alumni or first year as I'm not second year as”

alumni and before that so last year so I wasn't here last year so the year before yeah who was your you did a workshop first year was just as an adult and then I did a workshop a bookmaking workshop with Ray okay second year oh I missed last year and now you've had Ray twice for a workshop yeah nice uh the difference is that in the first year I was in this state of it was like a dream like surreal to me and I was so overwhelmed felt like I'd been creating work in this bubble for

my own relationships with people portraits of people that I love places that I love to go to it's just this contained thing and you're coming and sharing that with people and it's vulnerable because you get very you get validation you also get producers objection you're thinking about why do we do this why do we make work then to come back now for the third time I feel like I have friendships with the people that I was nervous to meet four years ago

amazing yeah and you sit down and the work is the work we're all just gonna make it it comes

through us where conduits for something we need to express ourselves in the world but for me now coming back photography takes a bit of a back seat and it's about how we relate together as people how like tell me about your life tell me about how many times you've been heartbroken tell me about what your relationship with your parents alike that feels like it feeds it feeds feeds back

“into the photography but that that's why I come back it's why I'm here it's why everyone should”

try and get ahead it's beautiful it's gorgeous what um going to something more material gum sucker yeah tell us what was the inspiration behind that if there was one or was it more of that organic um recurgitation of everything that you just talked about or was it there like a specific that it was quite a singular unique experience because all of the work that I'd made I'd done all of the photography the sequencing like making a Macad everything is just you and so Jesse

asked to see my archive which I'd never really shown anyone even more vulnerability like

all of the terrible pictures yeah yeah and then he's sitting down with me like essentially doing yes and no and what he's pulling out for me is like the fuck like why are you why you focusing on this picture but then it became this collaborative experience of working with somebody who has their own vision their own world their own business their own sensibilities and trying to create something that is a combination of the two of you and so I didn't come here

with gum like that didn't exist that work I had a completely different thing and so now that book is like the love child of us connecting talking building a friendship and a relationship and it being my pictures but his vision he's not not his vision it's like it doesn't feel like his vision

do yeah that was so resonant and beautiful and then also other decisions that I felt like that's

not me it's not my world but I think this is what happens when you work with publishers like

“you have to give yourself to them and accept that the work lives outside of you it's no longer”

which I think so many people have an issue with maybe not an issue but maybe a limitation in their respect yeah fascinating I'd love to talk to you more about gum so I don't want to give you too long either can you can you tell us a little bit about what this week has given you in terms of we talked a little bit before in terms of like expectations coming in here and as a scholar was that more of a weight on your shoulders to come out of here with something a little bit more solid I'm not sure

they had any firm expectations out of it like my practice has been so insular gone I think my main goal was just like coming here finding people who I can trust who I know I want to see me succeed as a photographer and as an artist and building relationships with them in hopes of being able to lie on them to help me develop my own practice house I mean I don't put you on the spot but how has it gone in terms of like what you're going to go away with from from the feedback but

also connections here and the goal that you just talked about how are you going to like just

“fucking unpack all of this and essentially move forward right that's what we're trying to do”

I can't say that I can't say that I know that yeah um I need I think I just need to keep looking inward within myself and figuring out what the fuck I want to say I keep coming back to this like feeling that with my work I want to write a poem and I need to what what's the poem going to be

about yeah well I've seen your work I've obviously seen your work both incredible artists

thanks for being here it's nice to meet you thank you thanks for having a conversation thank you guys as I hope I'd give you a little bit more of the last evening just had the little bit of a photo book fair and his warrior again presenting some of his what has been working on this week I'm not going to disturb him right now but yeah a lot of books laid out I've bought and gone bankrupt a couple of times tonight got some right bangers and so everyone's

just kind of spending the last night mingling but Jesse in the corner I won't talk to him he's absolutely exhausted we've got Jesse over there putting his last little touches on the event and then we're sitting down for dinner um hi and I was just doing a little video walk that's Shane and she gave me a review of the other day sometimes give me a little bit awkward for sure like just talking to some of these people because they're just a very sort after right

so as you like likes of Brian over here just getting Brian and Matthew I want to grab Matthew before I go um but this is really the beauty of the event we get to mingle with some of the best photographic artists in the world and uh what a privilege

“I think I use your pants as well Harrison Sony a copy here”

like there's not a drill right now Marshall always giving always giving great advice

Marshall's actually like hopefully he doesn't listen to this but water legends obviously I didn't know him when he was he was on the show but uh having spent a lot of time with him this week he is a true gen and a true star and I'm so glad that I met him in person because one thing the podcast doesn't do is give proximity it opens doors and it asks questions and gives me access to have conversations but it's it often surface level and uh being able to meet these people is just open up and even deeper

level of conversation and familiarity which is extremely bad

that you really enjoy that that two way um the feedback process yeah and just like collaborating with someone even if it's just for a quick 20 minutes but yeah like feeding off the them as much as just

teaching I mean yeah I mean I don't know how it in regards to the teaching aspect of it I've never

been a I've never been a teacher but um and I I don't really have a desire to do that as far as like

“job stuff goes but it is I do like it in these quick stints like this but I mean honestly it's like”

I was telling somebody earlier that I um I get I feel like I get a little jaded after all the books come out October November Perry photo every year it's just so much it's like huge onslaught of books and stuff and it's cool and it's really exciting and then there's kind of a lol at the beginning of the year January February and then I come here and it's stuff that you don't that's is it hyped up all year it's stuff you don't see online all year and it's stuff that

people are keeping a little bit closer to their chest and I mean it happens at least once or twice today here that I see something that I'm truly excited about and I love talking about and it's just it's um it's just one it's it's very encouraging as far as the where the medium is headed but also just for you know selfish reasons just that it that lights a fire under my ass you know and I think I think I think it goes both ways with the attendees as well you know forget I was talking

about this for the few attendees today yeah forget that the reviewers which that we put on this pedestal right especially like before we get here and it kind of dissipates as we go to no

“no you guys yeah yeah remember that everyone's like still even even you guys that we look at”

like up to you guys have made it they've made some incredible work guys are still wanting inspiration you feed off that oh totally yeah of course we just forget about that yeah because and why I think that um I don't know I just from a personal standpoint I don't everyone I get to the point where I feel like I'm leaning on anything or I'm comfortable anything and I'm not challenging myself in any way because I feel like there's things that I've you know I've only

put out three books but like I feel like there are there are things that I've done in those books that I could definitely lean back on and repeat and consider it like my style or whatever but I don't know I'm just not I'm not interested in that I'm just and kind of to bring it back to this thing it's like there's people that bring in stuff that it's like how did you think of this you know how

did you do that I like I'm always curious it maybe it comes from like them not being super

in tune with either what's going on or they're not as well versus the medium and they're not as like constrained as I am with like oh here's how things go and they bring something new and then I'm

“it just it's just unlocked stuff you know when he is now if you've done this Tico review I think it's”

I think it's my seventh time but I did the 2021 that was online but I think it's like my sixth time being a reviewer here what does it uh we've got it been to try what does it mean for you each year is this something that you like look for I know it's difficult probably difficult to ask because a lot of it is you know you see your friends yeah to hang out with them yeah and I imagine you don't get to see those types of people in the same room together too often in in the year

and a lot of it is the reviews and like we talk about getting inspiration and just seeing new stuff totally yeah what else around that type of formal process excites you about this whole event I mean it's funny that you talk about like getting here and having any sort of uh I don't know maybe nervousness or something that's there's like people on one side of line and the other side of line I experience the same kind of thing because I walk in and there's people here that I'm

crazy about there work too like I didn't know I didn't know oh dead England was going to be here all my life one of my favorite practices of photographers right now and I guess that she I guess either maybe she she hopped on last minute but you know I was coming out of the hot springs or something and I was like like I love your work you know and I'm like like I don't know like a student again or something just like oh my god like you have no clue how much I've spent time with

your work and and how much I adore it so yeah I don't know I mean I can't speak for other years but I I feel like I'm in that same boat literally every single time and it's cool to come here and see old friends that I haven't seen for a while but yeah I mean I still I feel like I still

share that same excited nervousness that a lot of the attendees have here and I hope it always

stays like that I don't know there's that like that old um like the adage um if you're the smartest person in the room then you're in the wrong room and every single time I feel like I'm in the right

review style like what do you you sat across from tofu someone and their present yeah I work

what is it you're trying to look for oh yeah you just let it come to you and just react in the moment where you kind of piecing out like I need to see this I need to sit and you know I'm here this but am I to a fault probably I might just bring automatically goes to book to the book

“right and just because that's what I do and um so I think that's really positive for a lot of”

people here because they want to make books uh but it's tough sometimes because that's like a pretty constrained way to look at work um I usually a lot of people sit down and say well do you want to hear about the work or do you want just to look at the pictures and it's kind of a crap shoot because usually I usually I say go ahead and tell me about the project and all like look at stuff and it's kind of see what they're see where they're headed because everyone's at all different walks

at where their project is so yeah usually I think too I think maybe I should probably just look at the work and say what I'm seeing but sometimes I'm way off you know I could be way off and and then it takes a while for us to kind of find each other yeah um most of you in 20 minutes yeah and 20

minutes yeah so but usually the first couple days I just kind of go at it you know what are you up

to what are your goals and then try to get them to um you know a little bit further than they were the 20 minutes before and then the last two days um I like to ask the attendees like what they've heard that's been helpful because I just don't want to be repetitive and want to get them a little bit further you know so it's like hey what have you heard that's been helpful so that we can say yes and then what's built on top of that so we can move it a little bit further because of

you know there's been people where I've said what have you heard and they say oh this person this person this person this person all told me the exact same thing and I don't want to be a broken record of just you know yeah you know tell them the same shit I think what I appreciate you know thanks for giving me an informant it was my pleasure man I think so I think what I'm I hear from other reviewers as well that they find very helpful not other reviewers sorry other attendees they find

very helpful with the reviewers is if the reviewer can kind of meet them somewhere in the middle yeah if there's no harmony there at least suggest like what Brian did to me as well he just took me like I feel like I can give you other inspirations to other birds yeah I think that's really helpful rather than trying to impose trying kind of like put a square peg in around race and yeah and I think

“that's what you're really good at as well like just knowing just knowing your shit yeah and knowing”

where you can maybe direct someone even if it's not through your own totally yeah and I always

start a deficit like hey this is just to my taste and I'm giving you literally one answer from one point of view and not even an answer just like maybe a suggestion of where you could possibly guide this thing but sometimes I'm way off you know like sometimes all you know during the the second couple days someone will sit down and show me their work and I immediately have like ideas like immediately my head goes here or there whatever and then I'll ask oh what's been helpful I'm

also oh well Brad said this or you know or I was dead said this and I'm like oh yeah I know like I was thinking I was thinking way smaller than what this whole thing was so I mean that's always a good thing about asking too because then it's like oh shit someone kicked the door open for this idea over here so we can you know try to suck that out. Last question before we go and have a beer ah I'm keen to know who your inspirations were when you uh need to go to Costco need to go to

photography. I went to I went my undergrad was in graphic design but I um that's where photography

“kind of started because you have to take you know like the uh I forget what they call the extra”

classes whatever so I I had taken um three photography courses on top of my design classes because I just like naively thought that um you that if like a designer was designing a project and then was photography involved that you were supposed to make the pictures as well so I was like well I should probably have learned how to make pictures because if I'm like designing I don't know car add or something I got to take pictures of the car or whatever I just that's what I thought

so I was taking all these photography classes and that's kind of like I got served with that but I went I ended up going um about maybe eight nine years after I did my undergrad to the program at the University of Hartford in it was there 2014 or not 2015 to 2017. Inspirations? Oh um shit right now no no no like you was when you was starting like what kind of uh popped your your voice in that respect just a quick man I don't know like well from the very at the very very beginning um

I was like I went to school in Waco my undergrad and so I was just like naturally photographing all buildings neon all right yeah sign stuff like that because it's it's it's an old town and it was funny because my the professor that was normally teaching the class um she was fine

grad student and it was into more contemporary photography and so she saw all the stuff that I was

“shooting and she was like oh you might like William Eggleston and I don't I don't know who that was and she”

actually she photocopied me the introduction to the guide Circuski's guide and it was funny because she she should read this and I read it but there were like no pictures attached to it so I was like I love this the sound's great but I don't have anything to so then I went to the library and then

that was kind of the um Eggleston was kind of the first love and then Eggleston let me to show her

and DN Arbus and and Ann Golden and all these other people and um it was just like now the floodgate now I don't look at I don't look at a lot of photography I mean there's like the heavy hitters there's

“I come to this I always make it a ton of new friends and I keep up with their projects and I'm always”

really excited about them and that feeds a lot but yeah mostly I still a lot of poetry I read a lot of poetry and then um just like looking at a lot of paintings these days a lot of painting books and stuff I've got yeah I go to the library a lot and just check out painting books um as silly as it sounds it's like I don't know it it lights a fire somewhere so all right my well um I know I can speak for the other attendees to say thank you for your thank you man it was I see you give so many people so much time and we we're forever grateful

so thank you thank you thank you so pleasure is on mine so we're sure thank you thank you so much Thank you yeah seriously all right we are this is it fun of the buys everyone getting the shuttle quite a few people left this morning beautiful day to be saying goodbye to such a beautiful place I hope to be back I hope I'm gonna be back we're gonna work hard to get back the beauty I'm not sure if I said this before but as an alumni now we're alumni we we can come back

whenever we want basically without having to apply and be selected so we can have the workshop

so do reviews again so yeah let's see what happens I might just run in quickly and see if we can just find Jesse so goodbye to Jesse's packing up and um most of the reviews have gone now and uh it's it's kind of a bit of sweet looking for it to get in home but see if he's in here yes and packing away books so you guys yeah man it's Justin here we go how empty it is now the bar I've didn't show you guys the um show you guys the saloon bar or the hot springs so

I'm really so about that I didn't go in the springs when in the bar a lot has in the bar last night

“it's probably a bit too late but it's it's all good I don't think I showed you I think show you”

do this press a bar here's our shuttle sad times but here we go we're off and um I will be able to process it I think I said this to you last night or yesterday maybe I have to process this a lot better when I have some emotional space and write some essays write some notes maybe write the op-home and just see what comes out but yeah we go time to head to the airport

it's amazing. Hi guys this is the last thing you'll probably hear from me for this episode

because the week is done and I'm sitting here on a flight somewhere between Chica and Poem when I'm going to we have flights cancelled, read bookings and just a bit of a nightmare to be honest but we're on the way and as such I've had a few days to let everything settle because like I've said before when you're in it you don't really process it you just want to take it all in absorb it um now that I'm out of it a little bit things are starting to land a bit

really grapple with what just happened I was really process it I really understand where I

“need to go next but looking back I mean I'll be honest the first day hit me harder than I expected”

the reviews were fast mixed and really intense I mean the whole thing's intense for the first

one to two days and I didn't really know what I was walking to anyway if you think you're ready and then so many years sitting across from some of the biggest names in the industry and they're pulling your work apart in the ways you hadn't even considered or hadn't hoped for but maybe deep down really new but the biggest surprise wasn't necessarily these four more reviews it was really how close you are to everyone power accessible they are these are people from some of the biggest

publishers, curated galleries, editorials and of course some of the biggest photographers out there

you know talking magnum photographers people from the New York as of mama, trespasser,

blow up press, latte, etc etc and they're just there a dinner on the lawn with the bar and they're so nice you can just walk up to any of them and it's that access these conversations outside the 20 minute full more slots that ended up for me anyway being the most valuable parts of the whole experience in the most valuable part of my entire week and we'll remain in my memories forever so let's talk about the reviews anyway 10 reviews, 10 different people sitting

across from your work telling what they see and by the end of that day one one thing was painfully clear I mean painful my work wasn't key so enough what clear enough with what I was trying to express and try to portray not necessarily in narrative but I'm not necessarily feeling so by the evening I already can't a lot out which is confronting it's out water exactly

“why you come to something like this and I had to try and remember that throughout those first few days”

the interesting thing is as the week went on none of the reviews really contradicted each other at at the high level they all understood what the work was actually trying to do and where I was coming from they just came at it from I really 10 different angles and there's actually more use for them conflicting I think because it gives you this 360 degree view of your own project that you can't just get alone and that you can piece it all together the lovable Brad Zello

was actually the one who really understood me is the person behind the images he got the knee in the work almost immediately an unorganized lie when he deity he made me cry because of it because that kind of empathy and understanding from someone who's seen thousands of projects and there's a true expert in this type of thing not feeling of being seen and understood is something of his 34 for so long now and I don't know it means something deeper than Brad

or anyone could know so I want to thank him for that and that's part of what I'm trying to work with this work actually and get out of that a little bit late people like Matt Jen and Tempo and her dead England were incredibly valuable in a different way they pulled things out of my work that I hadn't seen or even thought about in the work or in myself and for that gosh I'm so grateful because he genuinely unlocked what my next steps are and got me really excited about them and then

someone like Jonathan Levitt who was a bit of a dark horse for me he talked about the work

as a piece of music to me and never thought about for analysising each image with like a specific

emotional act and leaning into that way of thinking and like I had never approached my work

“like that before and it completely refrained how I think about the work what to include”

what not to include and how to sequence it all and edit it all together for this kind of one rhythm emotion that I'm trying to get across the thing that's still sitting with me and I mean really sitting with me is this conflict of where this body and my this project and when this these images can go for so long I've been doing a certain style of photography certain subject matter certain themes for which I'm kind of known for now and I don't want to betray that so I love it and I'm

style in that kind of visual storytelling and here's the irony there's projects to the quite ends is literally about the struggle of breaking away from old identities and that turbulence within psychological experience of existing between places both geographically and emotionally and metaphorically of not quite being one thing anymore but not yet being the other well I'm there right now I'm in here I'm living the exact experience that this work is about

how beautiful is that and I don't think I fully realise that until this week force me to articulate it 10 15 20 30 different times to as many people so let's talk about the people I mean you probably think back in there you've met a lot of the through this video in this episode already I connected with a dead immediately on the reviewer side and it was really beautiful and then of course the old favorites Brian Scooterman Matt Jenin tempo Brad Zeller and people I'd spoken to before

but never actually met in person like Marshall Toe Paris Miller and Roy King who I'm going to speak to

more in the next few months I think so watch that space but a dynamic between all 80 attendees as well as reviewers was genuinely supportive of course you get the natural the natural like co-bots natural groupings the same as school really you know the cool gang the arounders the shy ones the geeks the awkward ones but the beauty of it was none of that matted at all yeah it was visible but none of it matted everyone was just great and just hang with and get to know

but I made a conscious decision early on after day one to not try and meet all 80 people or all

“dungeon temp people I wanted to go deep not wide that's why I do this podcast real conversations”

real connections otherwise the week becomes just 80 different bits of small talk and I think that was

the right call because it also meant I got to see some incredible work I'm really spent time and sit

with it what about this setting and the review week itself in terms of the brand and the setting but if we're honest the week's still a bit of a blur but the settings do stick with me obviously I'm unbelievably stunning place the saloon bar was the main hang out night and get much footage from there nor the hot springs there were their own chilled world and I couldn't or didn't really video in there which honestly made it better I think but I think the lawn area was the most

symbolic space of the whole week we had great weather it was open, warm and approachable and

“one just gravitated there during the day in but in between reviews and that's I think whether”

real cheeko happened you know in the sun guards down and no agenda as it were for me I took two rolls of 120 medium format film during the week so not much nothing to deliver it from so focused on conversations curating my own work for presentation that camera took a back seat really which for me is unusual but it definitely felt right it was really more about connection as a conversations and fee she was incredible she completely immersed herself meeting everyone

making friends just being the usual amazing social backstop that I always appreciate having so I

appreciate more than I can say so if she's watching this she's asleep right now but if you're watching this thank you so much all right so where are we going from here what shifted has my vision for this

“project quite and actually changed yeah I think it has having much clear essential ready I think”

of what works within this theme and what doesn't and what kind of grounding the work needs what more is needed in that respect for this am I confident honestly after the first few days no I was much less confident definitely an ego death editing on day one the realization that it was a cohesive yet it's really really humbling but now with some distance and some more reviews are more confident than I was before cheeko definitely not in the work as it is but in how to make it something unique

the process itself that editing sequencing but making have a completely new appreciation for all

“of it there's a whole creative life that happens after you press the shutter really the shutter”

is just like 10% of it I knew that intellectually but this week I actually like felt it and experienced it I'm also excited to explore more creative techniques in the dark room in lightroom and everything imposed things I wouldn't have considered before so I'm excited to kind of dive into that and tackle those aspects but if I could go back and tell myself one thing before arriving with all of this it's to not worry about the story or the pitch don't worry about the deep narrative

study how to piece different types of images together to build rhythm and journey and not be sort of immersed in this kind of deep narrative but book isn't just nice images in a row of courses it's architecture and I can see that now in a way I couldn't before it was just education and familiarity I also wish I printed the images better I brought a mixture of different sizes and paper types and in hindsight I would have been more consistent with that for to do again

because the presentation does matter it's the first thing you review a touches and they'll ask

why some things are different and why things are not anyway I wanna wrap up would I do it again I'm hoping I'll do it again next year I mean in a hobby but I will say this is not for everyone of course I mean it costs a lot of money but that aside if you don't have a specific body of work with real intention behind it I don't think this is the place if you're not ready to hear hard truths as well to have your ego and your heart ripped out in certain moments then don't

“apply you need to be prepared to potentially start again potentially to go back to the drawing board”

and that's not failure that's the whole point of this week so my advice would be to go deep not white it's my advice for everything with your work and with the experience go deep not white don't try to meet everyone don't try to please everyone research your reviewers deeply choose eight out of the ten that will align with your work the most based off their own best of their own work and leave a couple maybe that will be so different that they can come in it from a completely

unique perspective and unique angle find your people have the real conversations take that time and be ready for the work you brought to look different by the time that you leave Jonathan Levitt said something during my review that I keep coming back to in the days since he talked about with my product or any project but when we're talking about my projects talk about it thinking about it like a piece of music and he asked me what I want to listen to over and over again

“and why and what did I want it to make me feel and I think that's the question I'm taking”

home with me not what do the images look like or what do they sound like what do they make you feel how can they grow and how can they take you off into a different world and am I brave enough to actually make that the work I think that was my week of the Chico review so in closing I think the journey of bent artists I think everyone there's an artist the journey of an artist is a constant struggle and often times and lonely one you live in a world full of

questions and so much self-doubt you have moments of inspiration that keep you going with the abs and flows can often I think they can often be really debilitating the creative energy and support that I found at Chico review this year 2026 seems to be settling into my being in a way that I don't think will ever fade the place the work the people the conversations mostly the people have become a part of the fabric of who I am even now just a few days

from the end and part of the fabric who I will grow to be and not just as an artist there's a human

being so I want to thank everyone at Chico review who puts such an incredible event together

Jesse may not have been the most successful during the week probably the busiest man I've seen

over the last 10 years now is honestly something truly special so huge thanks in respect to Goethe

Jesse and his team because they might have cared thought and energy goes into making this recap and really shows in every detail and shows in the things you don't see or don't notice and do all the

“staff who kept everything running seamlessly to every review of who gave their time and honestly”

I do all 80 attendees thank you so much and especially to those of you who took part in this episode

who let me interrupt to put the camera at you and a microphone in your face and ask you some real questions I hope it was enjoyable I hope it was helpful and interesting for you as well as the rest of the audience to watch and listen and on that note I want to specifically thank Hannah

“one of the this year's scholars who I did actually record for her insights and story about her work”

but the battery died about 10 seconds into us talking and I didn't notice she spent real time with my images not just a great glance she spent genuine time deliberation and intent and that's something you simply can't get in a formal 20 minute review and that meant so much to me so thank you Hannah really sorry Hannah was one of this week this year's scholars and I'm really excited

to see where her incredible work ends up finally I wish I got to chat with every person there

there was way more people than I thought and it was just strangely difficult to just meet everyone but there is something in me that makes me feel like in some way I actually did and if you're watching this and you would there but we didn't get to chat properly even if we didn't share many words

“if any at all I want to say thank you because this week reminded me of something I think we all”

forget sometimes a lot of photography is an existentially solitary pursuit the work we make doesn't have to exist in isolation because it lives in the spaces between us in us in the conversations the glance is the energy even the silence around the Chico lawn at midnight a place for artists to be understood to find connection to be seen and heard long after they've gone and if photography is really about how we see the world then Chico really changed the way I see my

thanks for watching thanks for listening happy shooting