Every Photo Is a Crime Scene - Brad Zellar on How He Reads Photography and Inspects an Image

I love books in the library with my refuge when I have a photo book I really engage with. I can just be lost in it for hours. Every photo is a crime scene.

“What happened in the picture before what happened in the picture after?”

What's outside the frame? I just write down everything I noticed and interrogate them. I despise the 21st century and what is done to me. Can you elaborate a little bit more? Are you pessimistic generally about the future of the written word as much as the photographic word?

You can train a whole generation of people not to care about it, which is the more dangerous thing we're dealing with.

So here's what I wish happened in literature.

“Let's talk about writing. If you're happy, we've got to go into it because we've already took about some stuff on it.”

I actually think this was from your Instagram page because obviously I looked in a little bit more detail. I'm just putting some questions together. There's something that you wrote. There's so much that you've written that I don't own but I've read or seen snippets of. Let me give you a preamble because I want to make sure you know why I want you on the show.

Although you already have this right of first, you obviously have a deep respect and love for photography and photographs.

For me that gives you this rare objective lens on this medium that we've just been talking about photography and I'm at this slightly utilitarian edge for me. Of talking to you because while I don't want to like use you and your insights and I'm still extremely interested you as a person and write it. I do want to leverage your knowledge and your experience to help me and ask the people watching and listening become better photographers. So I'm hoping like these questions and these notes I put together will kind of lead us down that line for you to impart.

Well I'm wisdom and all of the photography world that you've been immersed in for so long to give us some you know really kind of good advice for us.

“Biding photographers and you know the likes of people attending the first Chico review and all this kind of the that type of cohort that I think you can be so valuable for.”

So that's the context with which I want to frame this conversation and kind of get to know you a little bit more. So that there was this thing I saw on Instagram and I just love obviously love the way you write and love the way you see things I perceive that you see things and you wrote this. I've been nothing but a writer for more than 40 years and though the world doesn't have much use for writers. It's too late for a plan B thankfully I still love to write and look forward to the challenge of doing every night digging back through the landfill of words from so many chapters of my largely miss bent life.

I think that's a really good place to start. Please kind of can you elaborate on these these terms like miss bent life or your so many chapters and dig a little bit deeper into where writing emanated from and your passion for that and then we'll get on to kind of photography thing later. All right so I'm going to do this fast because I am old and I've had a lot of chapters like I was young. I grew up in a blue collar family in a small town slaughterhouse town. I don't have a college degree. My dad was one day automotive garage in a tire shop in a small town down near the Iowa border.

It was just you know about thinking anyone on any either side of my parents went to college was very isolated place. I was drawn to all sorts of strange things as a kid the library saved me that's right first saw. I mean I I was writing about this last night at the library in my hometown because it was there was a large meatpacking company that has that had a plant there. And their corporate office people were there and there was a well endowed library where they they you know. I didn't know anything there was no context for anything but that library I went to a section by section.

I knew from the time I was literally my mom had always pull out this little book that kids made when we were in our like first or whenever you first learned to write.

Where the teacher asked the students to write a little little to write you know draw a picture and then say what you wanted to be when you grow up. And she'd pull it out to show all my friends in mind said you know I want to be an author and that's all I ever really wanted to be but I was drawn to music. We were very musical family and I was I loved like books in the library was my refuge. My mom in the summer I didn't I was afraid of water and she would take my siblings to like the municipal swimming pool and the library was where she would drop me off.

And I made my way through it and I do maps that I would put on the wall of my bedroom of the library and the things I discovered there and on the top floor of the library there was a section of records and right around the corner was the art and photography. And I started just you know not knowing anything we didn't have that kind of stuff around my house and I wasn't we didn't talk about those sorts of things in the school. And I wanted to there was really a not a big emphasis on culture at all no emphasis in fact.

So I would pull these photo books down and I would just sit at this big white table and I would look at them and we weren't a family that went anywhere.

“And I was like where is this who what what is this and so I mean this is the truth is that I it was so vivid and experienced to discover that collection of photo books.”

So the ones that I would grab over and over that was there were a lot of good ones, but they had Bill Owens suburbia. Susan Mercedes carnival strippers William Eggleston's guide. And this book called the champion pig which was like for an act killer or studio photographs from all these old small towns photo studios in those four books.

I was obsessed with them. I didn't know that Eggleston or Susan Mercedes or Bill Owens are these books were significant. I'd never heard of them.

But the pictures and them took me into different worlds and places and made me immediately realize I am not going to live in this town. I need to go out and see that kind of a world.

“And there you know around the corner in the record room I would check out records just because there was you know they some strange cover or title or often this my town was entirely white.”

A small white working class town and anything that had a black person on the cover I learned that's usually salonious monk what a name never had known it ever mentioned him to me. There was a thornious monk record that name like checked it out or neck Coleman science fiction. I know the records like I would check out thornious monk the genius of modern music Or neck Coleman science fiction and then they had these two sunrise records and I might be talking like for language to you or other people, but

These are the people who made me who I am like these two sunrise records who was this avancard big band leader free jazz guy there were Atlantis in the magic city two names that were like whoa that's like comic books. And so I would check out records and and I would take them home and I'd record them on my little radio shack cereal and to me it was like

I was drawn to things I didn't I'd never seen before or that I'd never heard before that didn't sound or look like anything around me and so all of those records I didn't understand them.

But I'm a person who from the time I was a kid if I found something that sounded different or looked different and I didn't understand it.

“That's what I was looking for and I was being super drawn to it and so”

From that experience of those records those books novels I was reading catcher and the rye which I discovered as if if it was another continent. No one had ever told me you should read this book this guy was drawn to it for some reason. It seems like everything in that library that I would get I was just drawn to it. I didn't have friends who were saying you should look at this. There weren't anybody that were no there were no algorithms you know it's like you there was no internet you couldn't look up who are these people.

So there were there were records I found there book and photo books I found there and like Susan materials as carnival strippers was because I was a young kid you know adolescent.

In the in the text interestingly enough most of the books I'm taught that I was drawn to had a text and he photo component like if you know bill always suburbia.

It has the voices of the people he's photographing it's funny and it was relatable. See looks this all of her books have kind of a both a great photographic element in the textual element when which you you you learn something about these people in their lives and I when I left that town was many years before the internet and I would look and use books to try to find copies of these books. That I only knew from my own experience I didn't live in a world still where anybody I knew who these things were and I oh they had arbus is first monograph the aperture monograph and I did an arbus in the library and that one really built you know just like wow this is the kind of people in the kind of world I want to see.

It was amazing some of the things they had there no one had ever checked them out the records are the books like they had cards in those days. You know where you put your name on it so I could see in the most cases I was the only person that was looking at these things.

I just want to yeah before we go to the next chapter I want to want to understand why you think you were so curious about those types of bands or writers or photographers what was it about you that you didn't have that exposure as a child so it's just kind of like this. Kind of great to curiosity or what was it that you think drew you so much to that that type of form. I think part of is that I you know they didn't have a diagnosis then but it was you know I was I was diagnosed as a hyperactive which is the what they called ADD then so I was taking riddle and.

And then as I got older and into my you know what I was had jobs and stuff then I was on stimulants for a long time for basically attention deficit disorder.

And I was born out of my mind and when you're bored boredom is the enemy of ADD like if you're bored you it's like somebody's got their thumb on the channel on the remote and your brain they're just changing the channel every 20 seconds try to find something more interesting.

“So school was bad that's why I didn't want to go to college.”

It was it was a very small conformate you know town work conforming is very important I don't know why I mean I do spend a lot of time like why was I.

What happens if I don't find those those books or those records.

I you know basically this is this is how I do feel like like my life is sort of miraculous because I left there because I chose not to go to college. I wanted a lot. I lived in Maine at work for the park service at built trails. I went to Florida worked in a minor league baseball stadium came back home and I worked in warehouses and factories. And I didn't know anybody that was making any kind of art I didn't have friends who are writers I had a lot of musician friends and there was a lot of music going on in town my brother was musicians.

That's probably a big part it was saved me but I was.

“I still was just always drawn to things that were like challenging me you know like I had to work to understand why why would someone make this kind of music or why is this music important.”

Or is it important or why do I find it interesting because I didn't even know it was important. I didn't know what it was it was all I thought I was discovering like every week I felt I discovered a new planet because no one else was checking these things out. I thought I'm discovering these people you know like no one knows who these guys are. And you know I remember I came up to the Minneapolis and I there was a box called an anthology of American folk music that they had at that library but they didn't have any of the notes or their actual packaging it was just in like a live plastic library sleeves with a zero ox of the cover.

I checked it out for some reason and I taped it and it was like old old American music of all kinds you know the foundations of like American pop music gospel and old folk blues and country hillbilly singers. And it was like it was old 78 transfers and it sounded like transmissions from another planet crackly and I would listen to it with headphones and I would be like I have no idea what I'm listening to but like this is like. Maraculous noise and I would come up I came up to the Twin Cities and I would ask all around about some of these records and some of these photo books and no one seem no one even in these places knew who these people were so I had this illusion into my twenties that I was like.

I made it unto myself like I'm the only person who knows these it turns out that all of them were significant to certain types of people and when I started gradually meeting artists I would learn that they also had had similar experiences but I was. In that same era segue into the next chapter of a serious like drug and alcohol problem and I ended up in a treatment center when I was 26 and I came out of that treatment center and I was like.

“And now what you know my life is going to see punk rock shows with my friends and and you know just being crazy all the time and and I self medicating so that was when I started to be like.”

And I came from a blue collar background I'd work blue collar shitty jobs all through from the time I graduated from high school till I went to treatment so eight years of just bouncing around working what we call shit jobs and I thought I'm not qualified to do any of the work I really would like to do which is be a writer or journalist or. I think because I was too messed up and I started I was a big reader and and I I noticed that almost all the new books novels that I would read were not were about like people who were like.

All who were Wall Street treasuring never some working or they were white color professionals or professors and all they did is sit around and talk all the time about their issues and their problems.

And it's like you know at one point like a dozen straight books and I realize there's not one book that's about the kind of people I am and the kind of people I come from like blue collar workers and blue collar work and like the kind of place I grew up.

“I was in an American heart it's all college educated stuff and this really does segue to where we are as a country because I saw that coming long before.”

But very large percentage of my hometown which at one point was at blue collar union liberal town has become the epicenter of that sort of Trump world and because everybody who.

You know this was the myth of the small towns in America is a brain drain everybody who had any potential or talent left there and the people that were left behind had to stay there and do the shit jobs and they got bitter and they hated the people who went away and got called judications even though I didn't do that I left but because I left that's enough to make me you know. That's what it's like.

“That's how I started doing a scene little type written scene that I would print it a copy shop with some friends and it was really interested in like.”

You know it's not from that world and like blue work somebody who has to actually worry about I may think at the time I was working at a warehouse and a parking lot and.

And I'm working in a parking lot where I would stand there and people would leave at the end of their days driving you know forty thousand fifty thousand dollar cars. You know it was before computer and I have to say hey how you do it I take their money or their car and everybody would just ignore me they wouldn't leave them look at me they wouldn't acknowledge my greetings and I was like. You know this has in between the world I was living in in the world other people were living in and I did this scene.

I did this scene. I did that I became a journalist I worked at papers in weekly magazines until all of the all kind of dried up and one of the publications I worked for. Because it was a magazine that was had a lot of cultural bet they gave me a lot of ropes so I wrote about you know photography and I you know they gave me a lot of space and also Alec. Like south who's from here why did not know but I knew his work he he would do freelance assignments for us and and then I did a book of the archive of small town like ambulance chasing community photographer.

I did a book there was a museum show and the publisher the editor of the book.

“Ask Alec to write the intro to the book I did I still hadn't met him I did not ask him but he wrote he wrote the intro to my first book and that's really when I met him and I think then.”

We ended up somehow you know from that experience get ended up working together and then I which was great because once the whole journalism world claps Alec was there to say to me hey do you want to project with me and then it was just this is this new chapter and there's no like overlap between any of these lives like my wife is always saying when we go to a gathering of my old friends like how do they know these people they don't my music friends don't really know my journalism friends my journalism friends don't.

No my photography world friends there's no overlap here and it's like. It's like it's sort of frustrating and especially now because on my work like almost everybody on my friends you know on instagram that I actually know which is a lot. I know from photo workshops and book art book fairs and projects around all over the place and I not here so it's it's.

I was just sort of in the wilderness but I do think I had an advantage because I did a lot of.

You know work for for you know I took jobs it to seem like they'd be interesting or I would choose at one point I chose this is kind of like why did I choose those books I was in Orlando Florida. And I was working the temp for temp agency where I was loading luggage at the airport and I chose to live in like a roaming house that was for like people mostly people that were being. You know independent we're on probation from prison and it was like in a really bad neighborhood but everyone in there was called a Christian hostel but it was actually.

All old guys that had got a lot of prisons and some of that oxygen tanks you know and I thought well this would be an interesting place to live for stories you know I had two other guys in my room and.

And it was just you know and I made that decision because I thought while this might be interesting it was it was miserable it was interesting you know like that.

So that was actually pre-treatment I don't know if I would go quite that extreme anymore but I was it I was just really I still am I most motivated by like. Having an interesting being interesting to myself or having an interesting life and not ever feeling bored. I mean that you can only see part of this but I mean this is my this is a little shed in my backyard and it's just full of.

Thought of books and music I've seen that I've seen photos of it.

“Oh wow back I think you might have put them in the screen as well it's like oh my goodness that that looks like a heavenly little cave.”

I just I have to do whatever go over the years without the at all I need something that replaces that and it's like. It's be very hard to be too bored. Sitting in here you know because I can just put another record on or switch to a different type of music or grab a book and start looking at it and if I'm doing something. That really is the question why was I drawn to those is it's very hard to to strange things it's very hard when you're bored. But if you find something you don't quite understand or the challenges you then suddenly you can flip the switch and you can pay attention because you're trying to figure it out.

I think that's key yeah it's the curiosity and that this this this questions left unanswered that we want to answer just kind of part of you nature just following your curiosity and trying to get answers and then those answers will lead to more questions and those questions lead to my answer. So I think that's that's kind of the beauty of art as well we get to follow that path and just see where it leads without hopefully being limited too much.

“And that's what I love about thought about it's like that you know thought books there I can just a lot I mean I'm sure I'm on the spectrum but like when I have a thought book I really engage with.”

I can just be lost in it for hours you know. Why did so I just want to touch upon this relationship with Alec because that's really where I first got to know about you just having having followed Alex work for so long and you seem to have met you've already kind of explained how you met but I'm interested in this collaboration and you've you've by the looks of it turned into the best of friends over the years but this initial collaboration with a photographer right her photographer maybe you didn't delineate that clearly but.

What did what is collaboration teach you about the limits of photography on his own because there's this there is this beauty and ambiguity that photography photo books can.

“and narrate and can tell a story in its own right but throw in writing and kind of this tension that I think you emanate between emotional truth and factual fabrication I guess.”

I correct me if I'm wrong I mean I'm keen to hear your answer but how does collaborating with a photographer work and what are you trying to do to not. I think that the Alec and I were both interested in. So my my basic I often have conversations with photographers where they will say. You know good friends. You know photo is a visual language of its own and it shouldn't have it doesn't need to be it doesn't need words.

You know don't explain the photos don't don't step on the photos with words.

“The picture pictures or you know photography is a visual language and it doesn't need the architecture of words and I'm always arguing with that and that.”

I mean the example I always give is the way a kid learns to read.

There's a picture in a text like you know more he send that or go go or pick up any your formative childhood book and there's something about the way you learn if you were curious kid who studied everything and how it worked. Was like why does this work this picture now in my mind 50 years later 55 years later whatever six years later I translate it into those words automatically. Somehow it does that they they meld so I can't talk about you know.

“I mean we really it's been a really really super.”

Educational and gratifying friendship because we both come from different places and so we were just both interested in.

You know visual storytelling how you can and we talk we together we would think about like. I mean I am I consider some sort of you know. I'm not expert in very many things but like the use of thought my collection of photo books is all the different ways people have used photos and words to tell stories from documentary to sort of impressionistic. But I could sit here and rattle off in the teach you know image of texts a lot of workshops and. It's hard to do but like most of my favorites including some very you know already people and some you know from Jim Goldberg to Susan materials to add that.

But they're all skin to build brands to you know there's like Danny lion a lot of my favorite people Robert Frank later in his career.

Below and this text and image and all of them do it differently but they never ever.

The academia are explaining the work or calling the works and the work the words are a compliment to the to the photos are they speak to each other without ever.

“Intruding on the same I always feel like the words in a photo book they should read at the same pace as the photos and you should be able to adjust them and you should.”

You should get something different so we we talked about all the ways together or let you know it was possible. To tell a story with photos and images so started like started with the little brown mushrooms which were modeled on the little golden books which were children's picture books. It was the same and they got like Trent Park and he got Seth Laura and he said got you know me to do little little little picture story books with pictures and images her pictures and text very simple like a children's book.

It could be a more like a poetic approach or storytelling approach and then it was like we did an illustrated novel collaboration which was House of Coats where we created a character. We created this character that he used throughout his broken manual project and then we tried to you know. In habit that character and in that book Alec you know was this the pretence was of the book was that Alec was in fact. Lester B. Morrison and he was the strifter who was lost out in this god forsaken landscape south of the Twin Cities near this oil refinery where there's a lot of transient hotels.

And we were really like method acting so there's like a room in house above this bar and Alec got a room there and he was out there and he was taking pictures these were supposed to be pictures that Lester was taking himself. He was using disposable cameras and it was in the middle of the winter was this very bleak landscape and then I went out there and I you know figured out how would I tell Lester's story in this terrible winter in this terrible place. We combine the words in the images and then you know the other book conductors of the movie world was an archive that we knew nothing about the person or the work and I just had to find a textual treatment to make this kind of artist book of you know die cut pages with inserted mix and match photos with a text it was very fragmented and kind of zen like.

And then the next step was like we both really admired. All those great you know life magazine photo essays Jane Smith and Robert Capab and you know country doctor and like what if we did a you know.

called the winter garden dispatch and we had business card I was the bureau chief and we would go to the small town dances and town meetings and and like you know care karaoke and we would go to the strange. local is the last snow globe repairment in America we were doing research and finding out who and what they've been these interesting little places. And we would go there as if we were a partner in a photographer and we'd be create this body work. And then the goal was to put out a paper together that would be like those time life photo essays. And because of that it's became the little brown mushroom dispatch and magnum got involved and we ended up going on the road.

And all the work we did in Minnesota we still really never did anything with it because.

“And they were like oh you should do this in somewhere else you know so we ended up going on the road for several two to two and a half years or whatever three years I don't know what it was.”

Putting out these publications is where we traveled for two to three weeks and we just.

And we did stories in the way it worked was sometimes the in the nature of the collaboration is.

Sometimes it would be this guy story is so great that you got to find your picture because we're going to. That picture that he thought was really strong and I didn't have a story at that there wasn't a story there. I couldn't make one up or I could use a story fragment of a story from somewhere else.

This is from like the WPA guides to these places and we were started just mixing and matching and we realized we didn't have any rules we weren't a real newspaper.

“We were really really drawn to that was a real story. We told it faithfully in both pictures in the text but other times we were having fun and it would be very hard for anyone I think to read those things today.”

And that was sort of the nature of our collaboration is like to find a way that like we both had fun and that we and but yeah, we also both were do I don't think. I don't feel like either of us any of the things we did ever had to go like oh no I have to compromise and get rid of this beautiful thing I want to do. I think we were pretty good about being able to do each do our thing and put them together and be happy with it. We were some small compromises there's things that you know I think in a lot of ways some of the pictures that didn't make it into the dispatch of the ones that want me more than the words.

So we'd have to cut them down you know we'd have I'm sitting here right now I'm looking like that the. We do a draft so everything we did so we have draft folders and I you know all the work the work prints and work works sheets and like so there's probably like. And there's probably times as much material that that we ended up being able to use because each publication was like 48 pages so we'd have to cut cut cut. And I look through these things all the time some try to figure out how to make a book of the whole project and I'm just like how do we ever cut this one how did we cut this one and I think we're both two guys who are always.

“Under the next thing so that dispatch archive which I have boxes of it here the notebooks and the work and the various drafts and folders and brochures and maps and I've never.”

Since we wrapped it up I just haven't been able to find the time to do it but. I mean once I just allow myself to talk through it and I'm like man there's just so much stuff in here that's so good but I don't know I don't know what what will be come of it but I know that we. I like killed a lot of his kill the lot more of his darlings and I did. Well I want to get on to editing later and it comes to photographs but also writing but I did want to double click on this relationship you have with the images as much as maybe Alec had with.

I think we all look at them differently. Well it's one of the reasons I always talk to photographers and teach classes and say like.

“Even if you're not a verbal person and you don't know how to you should know how to write an artist statement or a grandpa pose on the objects playing your.”

I think we have to communicate to people while you felt compelled to make this work and that you did feel compelled to make this work that there was some urgency or that you couldn't wait when you got up to go out and make this work but like. I believe this is true every great artist that I know in the photography world is able to articulate in an entertaining or informative way. I mean the guy can actually as a great speaker he has a real internal logic when he's making his work he has big ideas he's not afraid to eat when he gives a talk he's not he's like he's not isn't trying to like make it sound.

“Grander that is he's explaining in a very matter of fact fashion how he makes a work it but more importantly why he felt compelled to make this particular work and I think all of the great photographers that I know.”

I can write about their work they can talk about their work and so words matter and like I think it's always interesting when they when a photographer gives his talk even photographers who will say they don't believe words have anything to do with targeting when they give a talk they can't resist going oh this one I was doing this and that you know and I think the story is behind the the photos are really interesting and like when I was teaching briefly. College program one time we went to a you know there was a photo show at the at the museum in town that that the.

The major museum in that city and we would walk through there and I I loved to like. You know I think every artist should experience that like people are looking at this photo and each of them has their version and they're talking about it. I mean if you think your photo is completely should be all free of any kind of language or thought processes like people stand there and look at it and they talk about it and here's what they say you know it's think if you made an anthology recording of everybody in one day what they said in front of a piece of art it would be really super entertaining that's a great idea.

I still try to like go around when I go see art and listen to stand and I stood at you know. You know one of Alex shows it open I stood at one picture for for like an hour and just everybody that came up I listened to what they said to each other about it was like. Wow wow wow wow and so I'm one of those I look at something and the thing I what happens to me is because I'm a writer and because of the type of mind I have.

And I read a photo book as slowly as I read a novel I do two things to every picture and I work with photos when I'm writing I always have a pile of vernacular photos sometimes I'll use a photo book.

This is to the for descriptions and for the way that place I'm writing about looks or the way the character looks or how they dress or I will look at a picture and I'll make up. I will often probably more than half the time when I'm trying to get started on something. So I use them as these kind of effective minds for material but what I do.

When I write about photos and when I write and when I look at photos as I do two things just instinctively that I've done since I was young one is what I always assist forensics.

I just sit there and I make on index piles of index cards everywhere and I just write down everything. I notice or the catches my attention in that photo.

“And then I have a separate one right right every single I interrogate them so it's a kind of like a crime scene I think that's somebody that's a famous quote I think I remember which photographer said every photo is a crime scene but.”

So then I will ask I will write down just brainstorming every question that I could pose to that photograph what is this what's going on who is this where is this why is this hat that way what we said person and the margins you know no I'll try to come up with and then I try to expand. So what's outside the frame what happened in the picture before what happened in the picture after and I'll just play with them to try to get a story and to turn it into words and fiction I will just try to move.

That that was one moment in this great sometimes we would spend a long period of time with these people and sometimes that guy he took many pictures of this person and that person was particularly funny or interesting character in the picture he looks very serious and so I know a lot more.

“About those photos and you'd see looking at those photos because I was standing there and like because of that and I think even before that experience when I look at a photo I'm always curious about.”

What's this person that's smiling looks like when they smile how does there what is their laughter sound like you know are they funny where do they live and I like to see in tears of people's houses because I can use that descriptions are hard for me to write I steal all mine just from photographic backgrounds.

Whether it's a farmhouse or somebody's bedroom I'll like look at a picture and I'll go that's it you know he's living in Emma Collins farm and it's sick.

I think it's interesting because I am a writer and I do talk a lot with photographers.

“I do I do fundamentally I think we see things differently but there are photographers who I think are very candid with the way I see photographs I think it's philosophical more than anything and there are other photographers who I have no idea.”

I don't know if they're talking about you know I respect their work I respect them but I'm like I don't get your right you know when they start talking about photography then I'm just like I don't get that that's not how I think about photos I don't I can you give me an example of a photographer. I just just an example of what that photographer that you don't get might say you know mean that too abstract or too vague yes so here's what I do a lot of you know portfolio reviews and I work a lot with you know some different programs where I work with them on writing.

And so the first thing I always do is before I see your project you said before they send me a PDF and this is true of people who you know are established and have books before they send me the PDF of the work I want to hear. I want to project statement. So if I get the project statement this is the way it works on most grants now they'll ask you know even the Guggenheim they'll ask them to send a project statement a grant proposal. Before they decide if they're going to request to see the images so you have to be able that's my ace card right there you have to be able to use words to describe your work in a compelling enough true enough fashion that somebody's going to go I want to see those pictures.

Are you not going to get your foot in the door so I ask for the statement and there's two things that happen sometimes I'll be like oh this is person can really write and this is a really great compelling statement I want to see this work and then I'll get the work and I'll be like you just wrote the statement it's not in the work. You're making a cake you're shooting this plan maker this theme into a work that I don't see it in any of the pictures so that always gets me hacked off and then sometimes they just resort to the usual bombastic art speak from you know graduate school or whatever that I don't speak that language and it's like from reading the statement I would have no idea what I'm going to see.

“So I think like the I always encourage people like it should be. The most honest answer I can say to people's like what if you and I get together for coffee and you say well I've just started a new project and I say oh yeah what do tell me about it.”

You're not going to go you wouldn't resort to like the usual academic essay in the photo book you'll tell me like oh man I'm really you'll be at your most excited you'll what I will I mean this is true of every one of my friends when I have that conversation that's when they're most excited they're getting rolling and they're that they're really enthusiastic and they're conveying like I really am excited about this work and that's what you want to communicate and that's what I think if you can see that in the work like I mean often I will be looking at something.

And a portfolio review and often I'll have read the statement it'll be like Paul you know some.

It's like it's kind of a zeitgeistie it's a piece about some important theme or subject in the world today identity or you know. The climate change or something and so the same will be very profound. But I'll look at the work and I'll say about halfway through I'll say so you know did you when you got up in the morning we just die into do this get do this work and they'll say I'm not kidding like this has happened to half dozen times they'll say not really.

You know with with with with a blueprint you cut out of like a magazine like it's not like that's not how it works you find something they get to excited and you figure out if there's a theme in there.

“But like I don't know I'm interested in I think I'm interested in passion projects.”

You know they can be really quiet or they can be really loud and they can be really wild and they can be street photography but I'm interested I think it's really clear when you see somebody's work.

And they're just like a junkie you know they want to do this work they live you know most of the photographers I work with and that I love as people were my friends. And then I want to work with our people who are like obsess. This is just all they want to do you know Alex like that Todd Hydo's like Jim Goldberg's like that most of the you know. Tony Franco clients like that I mean like people who are just really really. This is their life you know it's like the thing that most matters to them and that's like.

“That's how I am about everything so I'm drawn to that.”

I think because it also moves the most like when you can see the obsession and passion behind any type of art or body of work it. It moves you if you can feel that movement from the person that created it and I was talking about this with Jesse Lens. I'm going to come up to Chico and a little bit because we're going to meet each other. In fact this is probably going to be out when we are in a room together at Chico so that would be interesting. Because the whole. The obsession thing is something Jesse talked about a lot and he said exactly the same thing you know because he obviously reviews a lot of work himself as well as publishers a lot so he's looking for that obsession.

He's looking for that. He doesn't really matter what the the story is as long as it's something close to you and passionate. To you and that you are obsessed about and like said you want to get up every morning and just go go and do it. And that is it seems to be from your side of the fence and Jesse side of fence that that's very very clear when you're reviewing work is very evident to see that and to not see it. So when you know we go to Chico I'm kind of asking some of these questions from a selfish standpoint like what do.

How might go to explain this bodywork because I can talk about it for hours but I need to kind of maybe write something down that's succinct. I tick let very clear for people to understand but I also hear other reviewers don't want any explanation they might just want to go straight into the photos.

“So the photos have to do the work but also you have to have some kind of way of explaining it rather just like this is my obsession and I love this and I do that and getting kind of carried away.”

Oh no no is that I think like so just you know I do it because these things can be long and like Chico can be very long and you look a lot of work and you start done remembering who get what and but sometimes I'll just. Oh oh before they sit down I will ask them you know to tell me something about it and recent years I've gone more the other way where I'll just want to like.

Look at the work first and then like half you know usually if they are actually about a scene.

If it's about some subject if they have a statement that that makes a case that this work is about. You know I'm trying to avoid saying anything particularly because it would all somebody would know I'm referring to their work but like you know it's about American violence or it's about you know. You start you know if you're making a case that this book is about blank and I don't know that. Yeah I don't ask you that I write a front and I start paging through and like six seven photos in I have no idea of.

What it is. Then like. And then I get done and I say okay you want to tell me something about this and they say something and I go why don't. See that anywhere in the work. How will you visually trying to communicate that with these pictures. Some people are really successful I mean like sometimes it's it's you know I get like. I don't know if I can hear it or halfway through flipping and I'll look up at something and I go oh my god you know like.

What's going on here you know like this is powerful there's an undertow here like I'm really compelled to keep turning the page but I also.

You know. I mean I did this once where I you know it was a very mysterious work I mean there's this is analogy I give a lot. There's two two probably I would say like more half of the photo work I see that comes to me unsolicited.

What the fuck I don't get it and the other one is I'm like a half I just start getting into it and I'm like what the fuck and that's good.

“So one of the what the fucks is bad and one of them is the best for me like I don't get it but I just want to keep turning pages and like void is really good at that kind of a book sleep creek.”

You know that those guys are they don't that group of people and some of those books when I was first seeing their books like they were they had that down like I love those books I don't need to know this is like the subconscious there's like. It's just this under toe and I'm in it and once I'm in it I don't really need to know like well what's the story here you know like it's just it's mythical. Jessie's very into the mythical the you know the middle ground between reality and myth and like dreams and reality and and that's kind of this liminal space is is like is a certain genre.

And I like a lot of that work and a lot of it I don't I mean it's just how much does it just like. Does it push the right buttons but I mean I think the thing is. If if your work. Is a theme if it's a narrative it's a photo narrative or it's a book about blank. That has to be in the pictures you know like and that and if it's not you just have to go back and take some more pictures and work harder to find a way how to.

Photograph whatever it is you're trying to photograph you can't just tell people your book is about X Y or Z and then go here's the pictures and they're supposed to just take your word for it or that's the one instance where.

“You need to find a text treatment that doesn't get in the way the photos to help you with me there are some books that are just amazing pictures and I see.”

I have doesn't it Chico or at she goes amazing is most amazing and other ones I don't see as much stuff that I'm like whoa.

Chico's jury that I think and that makes it channel it makes it you see a lot of amazing work there but like. I see a lot of amazing work at Chico where I'm like this is amazing work. But you need to tell me what's going on. Or why you did it and they tell me and then I go okay you need to have a text treatment because people need to know that.

“That's that's a compelling part that makes the photos even more compelling to know that this this took place at this place it's this you know whatever it is a theme park or school for the you know.”

I can say I'm going to give away somebody's book yeah that's okay that's okay yeah there you see stuff and you're like this is great this is totally a book. But you're going to have to have a text treatment and then that's where like it can be fairly simple or it can be.

The one thing I just never want is a academic essay telling me how significant this work is unless it's a famous person who's been photographing for 40 years or something.

You know and that used to be all the books all the photo books before I met. You know before the internet when I was first collecting photo books it was like aperture monographs and they were just greatest hits packages. So when you saw something like. And it's a great idea that they were really compelling to me and they were very rare those people really all deserve credit as like the pioneers of everything that's happening today and that's happened in the last 10 years and everything that I can I did and it's a small group.

You know always write Morris you know the WPA FSA people that were they were doing these very ambitious projects.

You know Mitch Epstein's family business there's so many text image books that are not just greatest hits packages that tell us story through text and documents and archives. Christian Patterson's really good at that too. Making a book that's about something using a lot of different materials and I am making a beautiful object and actually preserving some some of the mystery. I don't know. When you look at it, you've answered many of my questions all the answers. That's great. Go back to like a print on a war and you talked about Alex you know you stand it one of Alex's photos and listening to what people said for you.

What makes you go wow when you look at a photo and I know that's a really kind of based question but what is it what are you looking for is it is it.

Is it kind of that investor investigation side of things that you you know you want that curiosity or is it more aesthetics or is it more narrative driven what what makes you really fall in love.

“I think there's a real difference between the books I am drawn to.”

I've worked like all right this is a narrative this there are a lot of great photo books that I've seen and then I've actually you know somewhat worked on that work as a great you know. You they read as a book there's a narrative they're about something. But like at the end of you get to the end and you start talking about this is great this will be a great book I can see the beautiful design I can see everything about it it turns nicely you know like it feels flows almost like a film. Like an art house film or something but like what are the prints like what would you if you had a show.

And I think if you think you could pull books down or like this is a great book but like as is there anything in here that you would really want to have on your wall and look at everyday. And so that's I have a lot of photography in my house and in my my studio and there are all things that are there are prints that pictures it could be abstracted from a book. And so I can stand on their own as something I could look in I mean there's a photo at the bottom of my stairs I get up in the morning I come down it's right there.

It's an air and spring or photograph. And I could look at I look at it. Fifty times a day. I have a bunch of alic photos and I. They're all pictures that not like probably wouldn't.

I think about them that I could look at that photo, you know like there's just something about it that. I'm I'm drawn into it again and again and again or each time I stopped awesome look at it I feel like I'm rewarded. Whereas in a book you tend to like you know it has to sort of function as part of the the edit and the flow.

But I'm always when I'm looking at books and other people's books especially I'm always looking like well this this is you know I'll say to them and this is funny because a lot.

If you hug her if people don't really understand I'll also I'll pause and go this is a great print. And I'll say thank you. And I mean no I mean like you could sell this photo. People don't have to know your work or this photo this is a photo you could make money on and that's where people will make money down the road. So like they should you know at least it's it's it's a good business practice to like.

To like be sort of conscious that like here this is the money saying this is a single you know like this is like this one I can pull out of the book and put in a frame and someone will want it on their wall. And you know there are a lot of pictures you know to often that tends to be. What Alec would call her lot of photographers will disfarage pretty pictures.

“But you know that's what pretty pictures you know.”

The whole trespasser guys Matthew and Brian and Henry had and all those guys that I love their work and I love their bookmaking. They all make great prints as well. You know they know how to mix in a landscape and often the function of some of these pictures is that that's going to be a print you know that would look good on the wall of. Your house you're living room and it's like and I don't think that's their cynical thinking. But I could go through a lot of those guys work and I find dozens of great prints but they also function as a book.

That also tells a totally different story. So it's a good question what I've drawn to want I want that picture sometimes is because there's a story behind it that I know I was with like some of the helicopters I have from our trips.

“And I remember that day like one of them is being lost in a dust storm and out in in Death Valley in which I actually was the person out there lost in the dust storm that you can see sort of like in the haze.”

There's a beautiful picture mysterious picture I like mysterious pictures and I'm I'm I'm I love like beautiful landscapes I think Todd Hydo's like I'm drawn to Todd Hydo the first book I ever bought on mine was a Todd book before I ever knew him before I ever knew any photographers because I was I'm a not turtle person. I walk around I work and I and I live in the middle of the night and I'm up I usually go to bed about the time my wife is getting up.

And so I'm all since I was young I'm out walking and when I first saw one of Todd's house haunting photos in a magazine.

But that's me that I took that picture that's like that guy was with me like I see that picture every night when I'm out walking in the in the misty snowy winter's.

I just got in the internet I had a dial up and I looked him up and I found the book.

“And then Harper's magazine that the was this one picture it said nothing it just had his name in the misery but then there was part of us.”

A little that story that was unrelated to the photo was this in illustration. So I imported the book and I got it and I was like wow this is like my world like you know this this sort of the kind of film to our aspects and the internal aspects and the fog and here in Minnesota you know.

If you haven't lived through this kind of a winter at night when it gets colder or cools off there's just this missed off the snow and you're walking it's kind of like a foggy.

“You know it's this I loved this that this is why I live here is like this just kind of.”

This strange weather that we have in the extreme weather is like I love it from a standpoint of in the middle of the night when you have the city to yourself. You see who's up and there's a TV going and there's a lamp and like you see somebody walking and they come emerging onto the fog and it's just I love that film noir aspect of it. So that I'm drawn to those tabs kinds of moody atmospheric. I'm drawn to kind of film noir pictures a lot. I think what I'm hearing is a lot of it is seeing yourself in part of yourself in these images or part of what you are naturally interested in in these images.

But if I was driving you know because I still think and travel like a photographer and I'm a roadtripper and I'm constantly driving back and forth from here in Montana where I have a place. And I just I never go on the inner state highways. I travel on small roads and there's always you know I'm always drawn by pictures where when I'm driving you know how you if you're photographer you're scanning the landscape. And I'm always thinking that's a picture I would take if I'd seen it like I would recognize that picture if I saw it you know like I would recognize that as a picture. And I'm drawn or I'm just drawn back to it again and again. Like if you go to Perry photo you go to some of these you know a pattern.

You know you know I've walked really fast around and around at these things because I have ADD and there's a lot of people and I do laps and like the third or fourth lap I realize that I keep my eye keeps being drawn to one thing and then the lap that as the day goes on I see you went on the things that I've noticed that I keep my attention as I walked by keep being drawn to that and I go to those.

And I found a lot of amazing stuff that I didn't know about the people from doing that like I'm continually my eyes caught by one thing I'll return to it again and again and and I do think that's.

There are a lot of alic photos that when I open his books. And this is unconscious I mean I have a large collection of alic stuff. But when I open a thinking by the Mississippi or Niagara or broken manual or even the dispatch is almost always unconsciously I go to one picture that I want to look at again you know that I go to again and again there's a handful but like I'm interested something draws me back to certain pictures. Obviously there's a narrative there is in that picture for writer that there's like a flat real connery conner character in that picture and there's like a world in there that I could write a whole novel about this picture and.

I do believe this is the challenge I mean I wrote a book you know. Without I've written books without pictures and my novel that came I came out a couple years ago. I wrote you know. The entire sections of that book inspired by one or by a handful of photographs that are kind of famous and no one's ever going to know that but like. It was that photograph launched this whole section of the book and it was deliberate. It was a challenge and the real challenge is I'm going to see if I could write an entire novel made based on I have a bunch of photos that are like some of my favorites.

The photo that has the most compelling potential narrative or story in it to me and I've written a whole bunch of short stories that are entirely based on one still photo.

“I have a collection that I've done of those and some of them are rather long but I think I'm super interested to see if I could stretch it out.”

You'd be like a down the little project but if I could like really I'm looking when I find the right photo and I'll know that's the one I can write a novel based on this photo.

You should launch a competition and open course like everyone give me one photo each and I'll choose one and they get them to pay it and then you'll be rich. I don't want to talk about money but talk to me about your working life as a as still working writer and it's kind of loops back to what we open the conversation with in terms of what you're saying in terms of the world doesn't have much to use for writers.

“But tell me tell me what your working life is like as a writer at the moment and you go you do a lot of different things like said you're a bit of a road trip what is what is your working life kind of.”

Well I always have you know not always but I have the dog and I have a life and I have you know so part of being a writer to me is that I have to like I always have to read.

I just spend time I'm trying to read you know. I read every day try to read 50 pages every night before I go to bed of whatever novel or book I'm reading. I have to write my words I have these books which are. I they go back this is my I just passed the 31th year. They look like this I write in every single night I've never missed a night. And they're 31 years and I'm not done well.

“So this is like you know I mean this is like it's chicken scratch like it's like my micro script and you know it's about 700.”

2000 words a night.

And I it's often continuation of something I'm everything I've worked on is in here or you know if I'm traveling it's in here depending on what's going on in my life.

This is really my work like and my. It doesn't have a strictly a die refunction I'm working through ideas the dispatch trips and the you have the original version of house a coach started in here and all my books are in here. And so I do that in the middle of the night that's that and then I read my 50 pages. So I listen to music I have to have and then I take you know paying gigs which are either like working on a right me right now I have like. You know several photo projects with photographers where I'm kind of behind and I need to like start figuring out a text treatment and so my days are usually like.

Photow work whether it's teaching or critiquing of looking at somebody's work or in this right now I'm going to have three things that I'm trying to like. Do we book with someone and and figure out how my what my contribution would be or how it would work from my end. I mean I'm I'm at this point I work with people like mostly no and they know that like. They started give me like the work and say figure out. What you want to do with it.

They're not telling me like do you give me an essay or about this they're just like here.

You do the thing you do which is I look at it and I mean basically I mostly tell people unless they're offering me a lot of money which they don't.

If you give me the work I'm not going to write about you or your photographs or the work or its significance or I'm not going to mention the photographs or you. I'm going to respond in some way it's going to be. In conversation or complimentary or on the same frequency is the photos and I write something that is a response my response to the photos but it's not going to be. Any kind of like a traditional photographic essay it's going to be a piece of. It's going to be a photograph another series of photographs but this words.

It's in response or in dialogue with your pictures and none of that maybe makes sense but that's my goal is to find a way to like write about. I mean last year I had a really great. I did two projects that I love one was with Todd Hido and it's a very small limited edition book that was published in Paris that only has 500 copies but. Perfect collaboration because Todd Marina gave me the work and said to you're out how to.

“What you want to do with this and and I set them what was quite honestly quite crazy because it was a very ADP of channel surfing.”

For fragments that I wrote in the middle of the night and the work is very much a scrapbook of kind of Todd's self conscious subconscious mind and how he works and is somewhat closious and as pictures and there's stuff from his childhood and it's a very much a scrapbook kind of approach and. And because the work his work resonates with me in this work really resonated with me I came up with something that really felt like an out of body experience and I sent it to him and to the editor.

Irresponsible piece of writing in response just you know a really great photographers work and they they're like this is great. And just know we don't have to change you have to change or add anything and so basically they ran it exactly as I sent it to him and then I did another book with this photographer in the clear islands same thing like I said I'll do it but I'm only going to do it if I. I'm just going to do something that you know. Your photographs make me you know took me to a place in my mind and and like you know I had a immediate response to your photographs but it was not about your photographs.

So I wrote something again much shorter than the stuff for Todd and Marina. But I sent it to him and then they just use it so like if I get away with that I'll be super happy that rest of the way. Do you write um do you write any poetry or you you know purely pros and I know you sometimes cross between fiction and kind of fact I wrote I mean I write poetry I'm embarrassed by it you know I mean I've never started publish it I love poetry I read it all the time. And I.

You know I have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of poems I have never attempted to publish them so.

“And I think it's I think most of my pros like the book of the Todd stuff is essentially.”

I mean it's like I'm just me. I'm more influenced by poetry poets than I am by fiction writers by far and I mean I think it sounds pretentious to talk about you know. I don't know it feels presumptuous to even call yourself a writer not a long poet because I think it's really hard to be a good poet and I. I think poetry has a battering at batting average of probably like you know the lowest batting average of any art form like one out. One out of ten.

One out of ten. Poems I read as do I think I even have any idea or like it or get anything out of there's not even a single line that I remember but those one out of the ten are what keep me going. So I will say that no I don't this is pretty much universally agreed and it was one of the early points of agreement with Alec and me is that. It's almost impossible to do a poetry poetry and photography are trying to do the same things and it's there's almost almost no examples of a photo book that incorporates poetry that's any good.

It's almost impossible to do it so like when you see them in workshops is kind of almost like a gag at this point you know it's almost like did you write this poem. Yes. Do you consider yourself a poet? No not really. Do you read a lot of poems?

No.

“Well I think you should take this poem out.”

Because there are a lot of photographers. They're very kindred art forms. Yeah. And I'll I'm a lot of my friends. You know, met Jenna tempo.

You know we talk poetry like in Brian Schumann loves poetry. You know, grades the mountain sand is a line from a Richard Hugo poem. Alec loves poetry.

But they would never attempt to puty poem their pictures upon you know like they're doing something with photography that poets are doing with words.

So it's just very very very hard to compare to to pair the two. Even if you're using someone else's poem who's a very good poet. I mean I could think of I mean there are books that have done it. But they're so rare that they I can remember all of them.

“I mean that's I mean I think that's the truth like that are published that are like there's poetry and photographs together.”

And it works because the poet and the photographer are really crosswired and melded in Elsa. They're just. It works.

And the first the first people I sort of were Matthew and Brian.

I think Matthew and don't breath has has some poems in there as well. They just seem to work for some reason but like you said you don't see you don't see it too often and it's so often it can just be too much on the nose. Because because of that clash. Yeah, I mean a lot of times the poem you know and the thing is the problem with it when people do is you know if they wrote it themselves is it's very personal. And I'll say well then why do you have it in here and they go I really like it.

I mean it's like it's so there's you know there it's a battle often a battle when I'm at these things because the other. Yeah the other reviewers will say you know you see you know they're wondering what the poem is and I'll be like yeah you got to tell them to take that out you know like you're the writer you know. So I'd love to know what guys online the scenes that these reviews.

But there often will be hey you know. It's always constructive like it's almost no one will talk about the work someone else's work unless it's great.

But there's something that they think has to be changed and so there was a case where this was a very strong collection of photos like really really really good. And then there was like handwritten you know child like handwritten poems next to the pictures. You know like about horses and stuff and it was like when why are these poems here are these yours yes I wrote those you know I love horses and it's like. I would take them out you know I really like them well. You know it's like this was a case where there had been a lot of discussion about like yeah this book is great but those poems have to go.

“And this person was literally like dug in like those poems are the key to the whole book that's great you know.”

It's a hard world but like you make yourself a little book. It's even harder now and when we think about the photo book world the photography industry in general but the photo book world the even smaller sector of the industry that is poetry writing. What are you'd pessimistic generally about the future of the written word as much as the photographic word. What what do you see over the next five ten years please listen to what I mean we could talk about if you want but I don't know anything about I mean we don't know.

No of course as we started out I literally have no idea what he is. I mean it sounds ridiculous as I'm sure I'm against it. I know I'm against it but I have no idea what is brilliant. Whatever and if you can throw basically you know it's like if you can throw a pork chop by a wolf and he doesn't know that you sort of a pork chop by.

“I mean you must be pretty good what you're doing so somebody got put something in front of me and it's.”

AI which I believe stands for artificial intelligence correct so if I saw something. I'm sure I'm exposed to it all the time and I just don't know. I think it's I don't I don't know. I mean I have a hard time believing that like. You know I mean I think the photographer the great musicians the great photographers the great writers I know the poets.

I feel like I recognize their voice and I feel it's distinctive to them and if somebody can just if a machine can just imitate that.

“That's what AI is and it can do that then I would be very afraid of it but I'm not going to live long enough to have to worry about it.”

I'm surrounded by you know 20,000 books and 10,000 records that are not AI that I can always resort to that so I just feel sorry for kids.

I think I'm very excited that you let's leave AI side it it's they're going to be it's going to be someone like you in 10, 20 years time doing doing so I mean I don't. I'm more bullish about the photography world and the people I meet in the photography world they're more passionate they're more interested in going out in the world. They're they're capable and willing to make so here's what I wish happened in the literature. It's happened on my music friends you know 10, 15 years ago they figured it out they were getting screwed by everybody.

So they all started you know they're own labels and they put out their own records and they use the internet and band camp and things to sell their own product and they control their merch and they control everything and they can make money of performing. And they can make you know my my brother and my many friends that were in bands that were signed to major labels and they made no money and they got ripped off and then they. But they made enough of the name for themselves as they can put out their own stuff now and perform and make a living.

In some cases pretty good living they make no money from because they like Spotify.

There's always these people I mean the phrase I always use is there's always these people who you know want to steal all the honey and kill all the bees.

And they can scrap by it's not as flush as easy as it was photographers. They can make prints they can make zines most of the really cool so when I started in the photo book world.

“The first year I went to the New York Art Book Fair I think it was like you know there was a foot photography publishes where one room and it was you know aperture and like a little brown mushroom was brand new.”

And now it's like. They're bigger and bigger and a very very photo and then and photo London and and L.A. Art Book Fair in San Francisco and New York Art Book Fair these things are everywhere.

Our photo book stores popping up all over the world in the country not here but unfortunately but every year for 15 years I've seen more and more amazing.

Photoblox and and more and more of them are being made by publishers that are owned and run by photographers like Trust Passer and. It's a deadbie club and you know it's like it's it's it's a it's a much more. That the I know from traditional publishing that I've worked in. It's you know I signed a contract for a book this finished to three years ago and it's still two years away from coming out. Photoblox like you know everyone I've ever worked out and I would get stuff out within like three weeks and you know even like big books I've worked on like.

I've worked on like a lot of things that are. I've worked on like a lot of things that are. I've worked on like a lot of things that are.

“I've worked on like a lot of things that are.”

I've worked on like a lot of things that are. I've worked on like a lot of things that are. I've worked on like a lot of things that are. I've worked on like a lot of things that are.

So we put out a book last year and basically that book you know very.

Printing China you know beautifully made design. We had that book within like three or four months. So it's like photographers have got to figure it out. They're doing it for themselves. Some of them are making more zini type type stuff which I'm all for.

I have like and there there's a really good sets of community in the photo world.

“I mean I would used to go to trade shows and publishing as a writer and as a correspondent for magazine.”

And they got to the point where there it's like you wouldn't know you're out. You could be at a hardware trade show. I mean there's like no sense of any kind of this is cool or something exciting is happening. And like every one of those photo book fairs and every one of the workshops that I've been to in the festivals. Or like great great times or great party. There's a great sense of community people are having a blast.

I've lived in a lot of different worlds and a lot of different lives. This is like the rock and roll without the drugs and alcohol. You know there's some alcohol involved that you go but like. But yeah it's it's nice. I climbed into this thing whole you know whole hog in the last six years because it's really.

A beautiful bunch of people and they're making beautiful stuff. And I don't have any hope at all for what I. For my other life you know not journalism in that book. I mean I was a book store owner and I'm a writer who's published books. You can't make any money on any of it like I.

I got 10,000 books in my garage and I mean I'm you know I'm kind of a snob about books. Hundreds and hundreds of poetry books and. I open my garage every year and I sell books for a dollar each. And I can't even get people to buy. These are all like the great books of them of you know.

The greatest books ever published like all of the top books and every list of historically and in the 20th century. And like no one will even pay a dollar for them. Like there's a little free library on every block and the 20 series where people just giving away their books. And it's like. I don't have any any hope that I don't.

I mean as barring of you know. Somebody throwing some maybe can say it amount of money.

I mean I'll never publish another I will self publish or put it online.

There isn't a model. And like if you self published a novel no bookstore will carry it no distributor will carry it nobody will review it. It's considered like you know. They kind of get that like some some kind of like rate you know retired data or something wrote is memoir. No one will touch it but yet almost every.

Engage in a form of self publishing and it's it's killer they're killing it.

“But I don't see any I don't see that changing for me.”

And I think I will just. It's better to self publish a book and get it out there and miss out 500 copies and get all the money then to get no money. For waiting around for five years from some publisher you know. I mean none of my books that are traditional books without pictures have ever made any money. Let me rephrase this because I saw it and I picked another quote for me so excuse me if I'm.

If I'm not providing context around it but I let you do it and it was. It's just some of these really make me laugh because because I feel. What you're saying and I resonate with it so much. And what is that? What is it?

Which one is it? I despise the 21st century and what it's done to me what it's done to all of us. So like I feel you but can you can you elaborate a little bit more what are we what are we missing here what are we not talking about or what what do you hope that we kind of. Get back in connection with as we move through these weird difficult crazy times. That's a good that's a good I mean that's my that's my life.

Work that's my obsession no you know half of my life know internet no streaming no smart phones no smart TVs no cell phones even.

So when I started my first journalism job I didn't have nobody had a cell phone we did we had dial up connections in our in our office and we did not have a website.

And it was like.

“It's rewired everybody's brains and like so what I'm talking what I'm talking about when I say that and I believe it 100%.”

And it's why I love things like chico and you know any of these you know thought of book reviews portfolio reviews book fairs I will go to them because this. Before the internet I'm a book guy I'm a record guy I'm a culture guy. I would walk into a record store or a bookstore in the people working there. Would like recommend things to me they knew what I liked my friends would be like hey have you heard this new such and such record. So when I talked at the beginning about all discovering all these things on my own in the library with no place to look them up or even see what they were where they significant did anybody else know about this was there anybody else out there that had ever heard of this musician or this book.

It's like now like you know there's the algorithm of the internet and this I suppose this is AI but like you know you type in something and then customers you bought this brought this. They're absolutely right like that customer who bought that when I bought this yes I bought I would buy that as well they know me and I but like I would rather my. So if I go to Chico and I sit around I talk to like whoever like you know most of those people are my good friends we talk about stuff and I see only place left were like.

That will tell me have you ever heard this yeah. Matthew or or. Or somebody I like will say if you've seen this book or if you heard of this you know it'll be like no.

“Based on that those people and what I know of them I will go out and find that whatever they tell me I should find that's what I know I became who I am there's all these forking past year like.”

My friend you went to his house and he played you a van Morrison record his uncle had and you're like man I bet what's this and and you that van Morrison takes you here and takes everything takes you somewhere. And now that you're not just steers you through all these it's like border collies.

You know I mean I used to say I always use the analogy when I'm making work there's a border cut there's a bloodhound and there's a board border collie and I used to be a bloodhound like.

One thing I was interested in and then I would just pick up the traces of that work and I find more of like that and I went through life like the bloodhound trying to find my next obsession. And then it became at a certain point like when I'm making work like I started out as a bloodhound and then to finish it I have to become a border collie and kind of heard the ideas through certain gates. Well the internet is all border collie is just telling you here going to take you here and move you here is just moving sheep.

And like there is no more bloodhound to it you can find there's a record I have. And I think this will be my this will close my 20th century but I had a record that I discovered in a thrift store when I was a 15 or six year old. There's a record called Eddie Sene is the guy's name step by step. It's a funky he's got kind of as a black exploitation cover he's got this cool outfit on and this is cool bright color cover and I was a white kid in a white town and I found this record and I was like I played it and is this great song Tamio.

Has a super great groove and I was in to roller skating and it was like man this is the greatest record I played for everybody.

And I would go into record stores lots of cool record stores here have you ever heard of this guy Eddie Seneau and nobody's never heard of it.

“And for like 15 years I would play it for friends who are musicians who are hip who are cool and I would ask it every record start went to you ever heard of this guy.”

Well, I kind of forgot about it. Yeah, so I'm moving my I'm moving my records around and organizing one day. Not that long ago. And there's that Eddie Seneau record. And I realized well I wonder in the day you know it's I just record record. I've just been this great mysterious grail record for me forever. No one I know knows this record.

I'm the only person in the world that knows this record. And so I go on I'm I and I like oh you know I don't know that I've ever looked this record up on mine you know the my session with this record predates the internet. So I look it up and there's like you know like 85,000 returns. It's been reissued in 180 grail vinyl and there's all sorts of people just like me who found that record and think it's great. And I'm like, you know like that's boiled the whole experience. If I found a human being said, oh yeah, I know that record that's great.

But when the computer tells me that I can buy you know 70 copies of it on discogs. It's like it's this sort of it's it's said like the most magical book to me of of the photo books that I talked about finding is this book to champion pig. And it's precious to me like I love that book so much. They had such a profound effect on me and I, you know, all those books you could look up on. You can find copies of it for like you know nothing, you know, it's like it's not worth anything. But before the internet when I was a book seller, you know, there were books that were.

You didn't know what shit was worse. So you would sell somebody wanted this book at cell to him for 15 dollars and then I find out is when the internet comes along that you know those books are like a thousand dollars. And there was no photo books, you know, really.

When I was first had my books or before the internet, the like you would just sell them for like 15 to 20 bucks.

And then within like a year or two suddenly everything is like a baseball card and it's expensive and not affordable to someone like me that I want. So I just I also feel like there's all these erasets fake communities that like people feel like they have like sets of community on social media. Facebook or Instagram and they don't they don't they're lonely they're sitting at home and it's like. And there's spending more and more time doing it and young people don't know a world without it and I they don't even know like.

“I mean if you wanted to answer to some question you're doing research you know what I was first a journalist you have to go find books and look stuff up and it's just all of that is gone you know like.”

I'm lazy I'll be sitting here I mean when I started my built this we had the shed built in my backyard it was like there was going to be no internet rule. I didn't have a wired for internet and I did was not kind of bring a phone out here. I work on a manual typewriter now I have a laptop now I have up you know what internet out here and I'll be sitting here you know. Looking stuff up on my phone when I have books right here that I could find the answers like they used to like in the process of going to find that answer I'd find something else and I would like.

I would go down other you know past and now I'm just like it's just all we definitely don't want to introduce you to today I then because you'll make you even lazy. It certainly makes you a human.

No I would never I don't ever want to do the lazy thing I want to do the hardest thing.

“And I think I think we're seeing some certainly in the art world and say in photography world we're seeing a.”

We're seeing a resistance to that in in some respects now with like general admin tools and you can get stuff done now so fast with AI so. You can also save money with AI so there's like there are some really like incentives might be existential threats that come that get downstream of that but certainly for the let's say the photography world. I think it's we are seeing something of a Renaissance in the way people are thinking about work because they're wanting to go down the slightly more difficult avenues.

They're wanting to go and do the work and that's where I think the cream will rise rise to the top at least I hope so and you will know a lot more about that over the next few years is AI has a even bigger footprint in our world but yeah I guess time will tell. So the mess they can I mean maybe you see more of it in front of that I mean might in writing.

$2 a word for magazine story now people like in the past week somebody offered me what I want to do a story from magazine for a hundred dollars like a obligitum at real.

“Like reputable magazine like no I'm not going to do something for a hundred dollars.”

And it's like yeah and it's like so a lot of people I worked with were really good writers and like have journalism degrees and masters in journalism. And even myself like you know you're doing like catalog copy or you're doing press releases or you're doing. That I saw I had personal experience was like you know like writing catalog copy describing books for a website. Now that's all AI can do that better than I can I've that's my only experience with the eyes I used to do this for somebody and they sent me one day and said hey man we you are.

Our one of our interns put these things through AI this is what I really really heard that it was being used and was and this is not that long ago because I'm way behind everybody else but like hey one of our interns put this through what is it chat. and this is something I had been doing for them and getting paid not much so they go can you look at and edit it. I'm like sure we'll still pay you so I get the descriptions and this is where you simply here's a book. This is their catalog online and you summarize the book and like you know hundred words.

It's hard to do as a writer like it's very hard for me to do that so. I open the file I start reading it.

“And I still remember like I got kind of like this weird feeling and I'm like.”

And I and I emailed them and said so is this like did somebody fuck with this or is this actually just a robot or machine is this actually how it was written I mean this is like chat. And I just said I could edit it for pride say can change a word or two or something but for this purpose. It's perfect you know like unless you notice something that's an error in the description of the author of the book it's really really a clear summary I didn't read the book obviously but like. It would take me 90 minutes to our as to write this like.

If I edit it it's just going to be just you so I can say I did something but I didn't really feel like I needed to edit anything.

And so just not surprise surprise I've never been called again to do those works.

Well we love but that is symbolic of the way the world is going unfortunately. Yeah and I hear these stories from my friends who do not have the fall back of like what I have like I mean I at least have like. You know a bunch of I've stumbled just walked into this watery with this photography people who I love and I love doing it. And it's it's not exactly you know lucrative but like I it's super satisfying work and I love that love it. I have a lot of friends who are just like you know writing little 20 25 dollar music blurbs for websites and shit that were used to be full time you know writers.

And it's depressing and even those will be robotic out. I don't I mean every week you know I still have a friends who are in the.

I mean we're still trying to be journalists and I mean every week what happened at the Washington Post is a couple weeks ago like they laid off you don't have a third of 30 years.

Yeah including their entire art section you know their book section. And there are no if you lose your job and you've been working as a book editor or book reviewer. There's none left that's one of the last ones up just one left now and they make me say near times and I mean every paper I know. And one point I knew people in that world everywhere and they're all gone they're all bought out or laid off or are they're close I mean I work for you know. A series of publications is either got sold to like venture cap was bottom feeders who laid everybody off or they closed and they're just went online and.

Yeah I don't think there's any.

“I mean I think you would it I think you would agree with this I think most people would agree with this but it's hard to say.”

The next general younger kids like. I think I have people I like and trust you feel like it's an experiences satisfying experience to read a book online as it is.

I've never do that never in my life but I can understand it.

Taring a big book particularly big hard cover book with a dust jacket and you're you know on a plane. So I get how like that could be. You know especially for young people who've never over their whole lives have been squeezed but I don't think that you can replace the experience of seeing. I don't think you can replicate the experience of looking at a really beautiful well designed incredibly. I don't think there's a book with a on a device and I don't think that you could even a great photo.

Particularly what you can do when galleries and museums will size and print size like you can see a photo even on a photo book and then see it in the museum.

“Oh, because it's not it's so much bigger or sharper or amazing in person. It's kind of like going to see a band and being like wow they're just you have to see them live to really appreciate them and I don't think that.”

Photography. I don't think you can you can replace that experience you can train a whole generation of people not to care about it which is the more dangerous thing we're.

We're dealing with I mean that might just be a generation of kids who just that doesn't mean anything to them.

Yep, then you're screwed you know like if if that they can hold a copy of you know. Seeking by the Mississippi or you know. Decides of moment or pick your favorite photo book you know. And then you can hold that in your hands and be like it's left cold by it and not be like this is a great experience to remember I remember this experience and I want this. We're screwed. I mean you know.

I'd rather just see these scroll through these pictures on my phone. But I think that's happening. That's happening in front of our eyes and social media has a big pot to play in that. I think. Oh absolutely. Yeah.

So yeah. Like we're all basically Brad.

But thank you. Thank you so much. As long as we have this as long as we have like you know with chance to get together with people and we can. You know they can't take this these books away from me. And they can't take social connection away from us.

And you know, I look forward to having that. I'm trying to do that. But they can't still like yeah. I mean it's like these how other people are with their guns. You know like I was proud of my guns. Why do my dead hands. You know it's like I'm that way about my books and my records. And like as long as you know if you don't want this if you reject this this culture and if you don't these me these are meaningless to you.

I don't really care. I have them and I like I'm not going to part with them. And I still know there are people out there that I can connect with anytime they care about these things. They may not be them when I'm gone. But yeah.

And then we die and then that's it. So on that note. Brad is let's continue these conversations in Chico. I'm going to be he's going to be so sort of privileged for me to go down super excited.

“And I love that you love that type of thing and that's what it's all about.”

So thank you for that. So what type of thing? The Chico photographs with connections that the the part where we meet like minded people and share our oddities and our passions. So we'll wrap it there, Brad. Thank you so much for your time.

I'm going to get lucky quick before when we go after screen here. Yeah, absolutely. So you're going to Chico what are you going to keep talking? Okay. I was going to sign off and say goodbye and then we'll talk. But we'll do that in our business.

All right, go ahead. You'd be great. Like this is being so good. But yeah, I was just going to say thank you. Thank you, man. I appreciate it.

Cheers, Brad. If you stayed with this conversation until the end, there is a good chance. You're someone who values depth, reflection and taking time with ideas rather than just rushing past them. That's the spirit behind my voice alchemy book club. It's a monthly space where photographers and creatives are like come together to sit with meaning for work.

“Photobokes, books, essays and long-form projects and talk honestly about what they're seeing, feeling and trying to make themselves.”

It's quiet, it's thoughtful and intentionally human. There's no pressure to perform, no need to have answers.

It's just time and space to reconnect with others, your work and your thinking. So if that sounds like something you'd benefit from, you can find more information via the link in the notes and the description. But I hope to see you there.