Why Your Photos Are Boring - Photographer David Chancellor Explains...

impactful, and as traumatic as it is, it's worth the effort.

“It's worth cook trauma, if we lose the ability to be able to tell the stories and understand”

what's going on when we're not aware of it, then we're doomed. This is David Chancellor, he has spent his career inside the moral gray areas most of us judge from a distance, photographing not what is right or wrong, what is true, and pushing us to ask questions, promote discourse, and open education and dialogue around issues that really do ask as much from ourselves as they do the wider society.

I also wasn't going to take the obvious route of condemning it, I wanted to understand it,

so let me walk the pens with you, and let me see what come out the other end, and let's

see where we go, if you're producing images of complex and distressing stories, the people go, oh, this thing's to stock, then you've lost the battle, if you're producing images, the people go, how do we make this stock, this is terrible, then you've won the battle. This conversation is about whether a photograph can still change anything, it's about how to stand in the nuance and the gray, without losing yourself your relationships

or your hope, and what it truly costs to make work that matters.

“No, I think as a species I think we suck, it also became very difficult to separate what”

you're seeing and what was going on and the blood and the trauma and watching things die

to come in back to your two-year-old son and your wife, this is the break of the relationship that I represented this work, possibly not, possibly it's my personality, I'm not sure I'm going to get this out. Do I do I find myself in a supermarket somewhere unrelated, tasting their elephant? Yeah, I do, I have accepted the cost and I do accept the cost and I'm still working within

this particular sphere and I will continue to do so, making that makes me who I am I would not want to change a single thing that I've done in my life, not a single thing. David's photographs make people look and ask questions, conversations open, minds shift and as such his work has helped end his selection of practices that are morally and ethically charged, and that is the true power of photography.

David and his work are the proof, open it we talked about on the work that we do, hopefully has the ability to be able to pull people back from that precipice and understand in some cases the significance of what shouldn't be happening and other cases the beauty of walks is available to us and it is out there, are you numb to it now, you know, seeing so much death?

I'm not sure I could answer that. How often do you travel, are you traveling a lot, or are you trying to base yourself for long ago? Yes, I mean I travel, yeah I try both, I mean I travel, if I'm doing stories then I have to travel but I try and spend as much time in one place as I possibly could.

Somebody said to me, actually in Kenya many, many years ago, but it was, it was somebody I was working with and it was a difficult project to work on and it turned around and said to me, it was okay for you because you can just pack up a leaf and I thought you're actually

“not grown, you must look at me as somebody who just comes and arrives and takes and doesn't”

really, at that time doesn't really give much back again and they describe you just parachuting in, you just parachuted and then you just, you know, just look off again. I think that's, it was various ways I tried to get around it but I think, you big thoughts to your question really, but I think one of them was, you know, it's committing the different landscapes and committing, to be long term on these projects which obviously

has many different, by products about many different, you know financially it becomes much more of a footprint if you commit to be in a place for a significant amount of time but it does mean that you have long term relationships with the people that you work with the most people who give you or allow you access to their lives and those projects so you were asking,

sure, you know, you're aware of all the way to this type of documentary work, there is a

large amount of time spent traveling and, you know, there's casualties to that which I'm sure we'll talk about as well which is, you know, harmony and relationships and everything else when you start to, you start to move around and you start to work in these very intense environments

“and it's, that's what we do. There are a lot of casualties to”

these sacrifices that you're willing to make for something believe in but, you know, just, just on the travel side. It's, it's a bit to travel these days anyway and, you know, we're talking just before we, before we started about the world being in chaos and, and travel is part of that, not only is travel so expensive these days, it's just, it's just utterly miserable. There's, there's nothing enjoyable about it. So, um, yeah, I guess that's more of a, and I run a take on

on my careers, what, what you do so much of but, you know, the spending the time in these places directly correlates to better work anyway, not only more special connections, not only, you know, deeper forged relationships and understanding with what you're trying to capture, but better visuals, better stories, more meaningful and purposeful and, and deeper narratives that you're, that you're trying to tell, which is exactly kind of the intent behind

all of these projects that you do correct? Yeah, totally correct. I mean, great, great way to put it, and I think it's also, Gary's, he's been enormous amounts of trust that he's given, by the people, the individuals and the organisations that you work with on these projects, because a lot of these projects are, when they are long-term, you know, work is not necessarily released immediately, and that has to be a trust that when the work is released, and if you're

through released slowly, then it tells the story, you know, you know, you know, in an understanding, cooperative way that it's actually meant to do. So, um, if people are letting you into their lives,

“then I think you have to very much have to commit and have to have to return that faith and that”

honesty that is shared with you. I think photography is an incredibly powerful tool, you know,

it was used to joke with my son that, you know, there were three or four emergency services and one of them should be photography and on assignment, and it should be maybe it should be, you know, at the time where we're sort of thinking maybe it should be a pink and yellow-spotted light or something on the top of a vehicle. So, everyone knew there was a photographer rushing to an assignment, so they should move out to the way, because it was, you know, it was urgent, and it was important,

that that person got there, which I know is a bit, so to, you know, up here and asked, but, you know what I mean, you get the principle, it's the fact that these stories are really, really important, and I think in many ways we are losing, because we're losing, um, the markets, other markets are opening up, but we're losing some of the solid markets to present

“these long-term stories to the world. Um, you know, I think that's, um,”

I think, not only is it a big regret, I think it's wrong. I think we should still have the ability to be able to allow people to delve into worlds and societies and issues over a longer term, and it not just be a social media, you know, you've got 10 images, 20 images to present something to someone who may look at it all may not, you know, to be about travel again, I go, like, look, kind of for flight the other day, and we're starting

behind some of the first thing everyone does is time they're going on, and she was literally

cursing she did was turn her phone on, check to WhatsApp, not many messages when straight to Instagram, and she just scrolled, and she would find something she liked, and she'd like it scrolled, she'd like it. That's where a lot of our stories end up. That's not a long term, that's not a way to be a long-term storytelling. It's a great, it's a great tool, but the needs to be a second level of that. You know, and they're well, unless they're all, I like some National Geographic

and various other magazines, who do this in a fantastic way. I don't think they do it in a comprehensive way as they did, and I don't think they necessarily support those stories. I was having my haircut the other day, and two ladies were folding towels, and they couldn't get through five towels without checking their phone, and this is their job, right? This is their work, and they're literally attached to their phone. This is one example of billions every day.

society become degraded and completely dumb down to the rot that is social media, soon to be AI.

“And this short form content. I mean, I remember when there was no such thing as long or short form,”

it was just, you know, conversation. It wasn't long form conversation. It was story, not long-term stories. It was just newspaper. It was stories over time. That was just the norm. It wasn't five seconds of effects. And now we have this with a long film. It was still, sorry, sorry, mention. There was still, you know, long-term. I don't know how long you'd be doing this. There was still long-term and short long form stories in short. You know, when I worked for a lot of magazines, the times,

and et cetera, et cetera, then, you know, editors would often apologize because they would say, okay, we've already got two or three days for you to go and do this story. And we know this is potentially a long form story. And you might go do that story, and that magazine would be published.

“In fact, that's how I ended up in Kenya working with the individual that I'm working with in the”

moment. It was a time story where I got three days to spend with him and flying on a lighter aircraft, just two-seater aircraft with him. You know, I said, you know, this is, this is extraordinary. There must be, you know, I said, anyone looked at you over a length of time. And he said, no,

no, I'll never house. And I went back to the times and various other magazines,

time magazine at the time as well. And just said, look, I think there's a great story to be done here. It's, it's an important thing to do. I can get access, and I can get access for three years. I mean, is it something you'd be interested in? And we got funding and we did it for three years. And I'm here now. And that was 2013. And I'm still working on the story now. So, so yeah, I agree with you. I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I'm just saying there

were, there was an opportunity to do that. I'm not sure where that opportunity would come from now. I'm not sure what my vehicle would be to put something, you know, a maybe it would be social

media, maybe it would be SNIPS, maybe on the outside it might be national geographic. But off

“and I'm limited to 20 inches now, which is social media, which is bizarre. And then you have to”

play the game. I mean, even the likes of national geographic have to play the game if they want eyes on paper. They have to play the social media game to get the portal, get the window of eyes through to their publication. And just as us as individual photographers, artists, people with something to say people with a voice, we almost have to tell our story in a single pot, like even a carousel or one image to try and get just a reaction or an engagement to then hopefully uncover this other

world and hopefully uncover, you know, the rest of your work, a portfolio or story, whatever you're trying, you know, music or poetry or books, whatever you're trying to tell, so you kind of have to play that game these days. But yeah, I mean, you started this conversation by saying you wouldn't know where to start if you wouldn't know what to say to a young photographer. You wouldn't know where to start if you were starting today. And I guess, you know, I would like to

ask you that question anyway, because I see it day in and day out, people are so overwhelmed with not only information, but overwhelmed with where to start, how to get out there, they can learn the basic, anyone can learn the basic, anyone to learn photography, but how to actually cultivate their voice and where to distribute that voice and how to actually get seen and especially if they've got stories and impactful awareness, stories, activism or not that they want to show the world,

that they feel so important to get out there, how do they even do that without connections and without grants and without history and a pedigree of having done this for the last two decades or so. No, totally, totally agree. And you know, I get a lot of requests from people, I have conversations with people and not because, you know, I'm just going to say particularly nice person or different to anybody else, but I do think that when you get those requests, you, you know, we are

duty bound because of where we are, um, career-wise and photographically and storytelling-wise and they access the we've been given to totally its stories to respond to those and to help wherever we can, because sure, have conversation with, uh, not because I'm exceptional in any way shape or form, but because I have years behind me, a conversation with somebody like me or somebody like

important to people who have, um, innate visual literacy and you can, you know, that's the beauty

for me of social media now, which wasn't as easy to be able to read, you dwell as somebody can actually see and produce images whether they have that in a visual literacy and if I have somebody present work to me or or want to have a conversation or they're working on projects and I see a particular thing that, uh, makes me believe that they have a future in this industry then I will support them and move happen to help them in any way I can to, to get the access that they need

“to, to achieve what they want to achieve because I think they're still having everything we've just”

set us, still think there are gaps. It's just more difficult to find those gaps, um, but when we

do and when a good story comes out, when it's told, well, then it has a massive impact because it, if you can get it across the various mediums we have available to us now, including, um, physical print as well as social media and everything else, then the reaches in arms. So, there it, you know, there is, there are opportunities, but it's just, it's much more difficult than it was previously. Where do you, if you were to pinpoint some of those opportunities,

where do you see those opportunities? I mean, to look at the, the research that's a film, I look at the print market. I, I don't see much buoyancy there. I still think that's the demand of things like prints and I see the commercial assignment market, dwindling is with the budgets. I, I see generally, a downturn in so many areas, but also there's that it, it's a cyclical and, and every action hasn't, it can lobster reaction and that, like you said,

“there must be opportunities in social media. I believe is one of those opportunities,”

depending on what time of photography, what to be. So, where, where would you see the opportunities for, for an emerging photographer these days? Well, um, I think, you know, remind me, if I don't answer that question, hand to the sentence, but I think for me, the, you know, the biggest advantage I have is problems. And again, not because, yeah, the exceptional, but just for years and time spent, is that your, you know, hey, here, do you refer to a mosaic, an elder, some, some movie refer to

people as mosaic. So, somebody that they would look up to and they would see advice from. And by default, when you have, you know, age and you spent time in a particular environment, so they know who you are, then you will get access to things and doors will open. I'm people who want to talk to about things, people might even ask advice, you know, how to be tell our story. Somebody who's starting out to answer your question. I hope that somebody who started out who doesn't have that, um, it's,

it's incredibly, I would think it's incredibly difficult. It's incredibly difficult to get your work out, or to get your work in front of the people who need to see it and can make decisions as to, the future of your career and the opportunities that you might have available to you. I know that's maybe dodging the answer or dodging the question. I honestly don't know. I think reaching out to other photographers who are prepared to share and talk and assisting other photographers,

as it always has been, it's an fantastic way to do it. But the possibility of then, or the,

the strength of them saying, well, thinking, well, then, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, and this is how I'm going to, if I decide to support a family, just the basics, you know, have them all reach out to have a house, do they ever get on the plane, to be able to place? I might be able to buy equipment. Do you know anything come? How do you do that? You know, remember when I started, and I was super young, I remember having a conversation with my father,

I had a conversation with me, rather when I was about 16, 17, and I've been doing photography by then, from about four or five years I'm getting getting the image is published in the local newspaper, and he said to me, what are you going to do with your life for your leave school? I want to be a photographer, and he said, no, you can't be a photographer, he said, you know, everyone wants to be a photographer.

“You're not going to make a living, you need to do something else that will allow you to generate”

some incomes, so that you can have photography as a hobby. I said, it's not what I want to do,

like banking, you know, so I said, well, I've never never going to do that. And he said, well,

apply, and then, you know, see how you get on, you continue doing photography, and then I'm money open by equipment, so you said, maybe you can do weddings. So basically, you know, I knew I wasn't going to do weddings, and I thought, well, okay, so let's just do what he said, yes. So I started to do, I had an interview, and I started to do some product change dealing, and I lasted about two or three months, and I had a meeting, my sort of quarterly meeting, and sat in this office,

the manager said to me, we don't know why you're here. And he said, I'm not sure, you know why you're

“here. He said, so I think probably the best thing would be if you weren't here. And I said, okay,”

fine, so I left, and I actually rang the BBC, and I said to the BBC, I want to work with you.

I want to be an outside broadcast world-life cameraman, and they said, okay, what are your qualifications? And I told them, he said, okay, you don't have a level, thinking of signups, a level, because it's okay, why don't you do a level 50? He said, well, because if you're outside broadcast, you're going to know what you're doing, et cetera. And the WBRS things are now, so they said, we suggest you go back and then come back to us again. And I thought, okay,

I want to do this because I want to be a photographer primarily, not moving image. So why don't I try and study photography? So I found a, I found, what was two places I found? One was documentary

in a tour of photography, which the other one was medical photography because I've always been

passionate about biology and medicine. And so one was in Portsmouth and the other one was in in London, and I applied to them. I went down, I took this portfolio, which was like, you know,

“four or five people, why? Because that's what I thought we had to do. Because tiny pictures are”

whiteboards in the middle, because I was that was created. And I went to both these, both these people and had these interviews. And both them off of places, but the one, the documentary editor of photography guy said to me, your work is not for a good. He said, in fact, it's probably below average. He said, but I'm gonna offer you a place. And he said, in the reason I'm gonna offer you a place is because you're working in foreign exchange dealing in the city. So you have a great

future in front of you. So if you're prepared to give that up, then you're obviously want to be a photographer and those are the type of people we want. So we can, hopefully, use some of our skills to allow you to generate an income from photography. So the fact that I'd taken a job, lost a job, and then become a photographer's result. So that gave me a route that allowed me to do what I'm doing now. But it's a long story. But, you know, I have somebody who would, I don't, I have somebody who would do

that now. I'm not quite sure. Yeah, this is a wonderful story. And I know you've praised that story of your, your provenance. So, you know, we could, we could spend a long time getting into that. Sorry to cut away from the episode from in it, but I wanted to talk to you about something very quickly. Now, I spent a long time thinking that isolation was part of the deal when it came to photography. That if you were, so it's serious about the work you did it alone.

You'd consume enough, watch enough, read enough, and eventually it would all cohere into something meaningful. And it sometimes did. But mostly, I was just alone with my doubts and no one to push back on them. What changed things for me wasn't a course or a workshop. It was a conversation with someone who was doing the same kind of work and cared about it in exactly the same way I did. The doubts didn't disappear, but they got a little bit smaller, and I felt more okay with them.

“They got named. That's what I'm building with the mood insiders. It's a place where the work is”

taken seriously, where you can bring your questions and, of course, your hard-finished ideas, and where someone would actually engage with them. We have the ad-free extended podcast episodes with bonus content. We have monthly Masterclasses, Q&A sessions, and of course the weekly book clubs, and direct access to me and my team, because you don't have to do this alone. So the link is in the show notes, and hopefully I'll see you inside. What did that school? What did that person see in you

specifically do you think in terms of skills that you could bring to photography? You know, if your photography is below average, they know that you could improve photography,

further and took you into kind of the realms of quote unquote success? Whatever that definition

means. Was it a hustle? Was it, you know, street, wise, knowledge? Was it that you've been, you know,

“your way with people? Was it that you knew exactly what you cared about and why at that young age?”

What do you think, where those skills? It's such a good question. I think I think of, I mean, we should sort of press it with this, I guess, with all the way through with the fact that it's not, yeah, I'm not particularly, I don't particularly like talking amounts, any of us do really, but to be more myself, and where we are. But I think what they saw and what they still see was what people still see is that it's who I am, it defines who I am.

There was, you know, I wasn't going in there because I'd done an art class. It was bolted on to another particular thing that I was studying. I think it was quite nice. So I thought, well, right now, I'm going to do photography. I wasn't coming from a background where it didn't need to make a living, because they knew I needed to make a living. But they thought I had the potential to make a living, and I could choose that. And the fact that I choose a photography,

but then probably take some boxes, because I'm sure the intention or their success rate will be judged by the number of photographers who completed the course, and then went into working

“at that time. And also, I was pretty ruthless, and I was pretty focused. And I remember the first”

morning that I had to, you know, I got, I got digs, you know, I rented a room in this house that I stayed

in for the whole time. And I remember the first morning I woke up, and I literally remembered it,

and I just saw this doesn't get any better. I have now got the next three years to do nothing, but photography. How the fuck did I get to do this? I thought, okay, I'm not going to fail. There's no way I'm going to fail at this, because I don't want to do anything else. I, you know, I had no relationship with the time, I was completely and utterly dedicated. I remember the time billing and bags were all the rage, which are, you know, I'm sure you familiar with billing and bags,

but they've used it for, but they're unforgiving things to carry. And I got to billing and bag, I got a couple of Nikon cameras and some long lenses. And I thought, right, what I'm going to do, yep, what I'm going to do every morning when I walk, and it was probably about an hour, hour and ten minute walk from where I was staying to where college was. I'm going to carry the bag for the cameras every day, back and forth, because then it's going to make me fitter and it's

going to make me more capable and understanding what I need to do when I work full time. So everywhere I went to used to carry my cameras, not necessarily because they didn't want to met a picture,

but because I wanted to be in a position for them to be second nature. There were always there,

I could always carry them, and it wasn't the last thing I thought was something that I always had with me. So the rage definitely, you know, an autistic focused drive that just said, "No, this is an opportunity. This is something I want to do. I know it's an opportunity. I'm not going to fail. Disgusting binds the rest of my life. I'm not what I'm going to do." And we had a store, so ruthless. We had a store there, where they had the long galensis, and I remember

the lecturers saying to me, "You know, your long men's work is great. I wanted to be a sport

“of talk for over time." So your long men's work is fantastic. So, you know, you should try and”

shoot as much as you can. I suggest over the weekend, you try and do as much long men's work as you can. Now we had one, 300 to 8 nick on men's manual focus in the store, so I used to just book it out of store every weekend. So I would put it back on a Monday, and I'd book it out on a Thursday. And so no one else had access to it. So it became my lens, and it's allowed me

and then I would process all the next week, and then carry all the energy college, and go to the

lecturers. And I haven't stopped. It hasn't changed. That's exactly what I've done, and it's exactly what I still do. So there is a drive, there is a passion, and now equipment, although equipment

“is still important to me, because that's definitely I have to like it, but that's the only reason.”

Yes, I have to like what the images are, but I don't ever consider what I'm carrying. I don't ever think, you know, you know, this doesn't work in this particular given situation, because I know it's so intuitive that I know exactly what I want, have I got the right tool to get it, want to make sure I have. So I'm not shooting something, and then saying, okay, well, that's probably good. You know, I can look at something and go,

okay, I know exactly how I want to do that. I know exactly what that like is. I know what I want to produce. So this is how I produce it. So it's it's turned around from being learning how to do it. It's it's now more knowing exactly how to capture exactly what you want. So now it's access. It's not anything to do with equipment. It's 100% access. But I don't have access. I might just, I might just, I might just give up. It's all access.

The, is that killed you questioning? No, no, I have too many, I have too many now. So I'm just trying to figure out what had had to go from here because this, I know, I know what it feels like to have that singularity in that that focus and drive nothing else matters in the whole world. Nothing else matters. This is what I was born to do. This is this is what I want to do. I don't care what it costs. I will do anything to get it. Many people don't have that. And probably more,

well, I know, you know, data wise, more. So these days, less than less people have that almost innate drive or identification of what they actually want to do. That obsession. We talked about obsession in photography all the time. I had that when I was a young boy. I wanted to be a pilot and then I found it with photography as well. It makes extremely fortunate. And my wife

never had that. She found it a couple of years ago. I have friends who have never even got close

to having that. So can you, can you describe, you know, it's wonderfully refreshing to hear that you still have that, you know, at a live and you today, you know, I'm going to ask you if it's any different in terms of its material structure. But explain what that feels like to people who, who maybe watching a listening to this and may have an interest in photography, but may not

“have that drive because I think you're right. I think, you know, I don't know you through”

me well, but I would, I would hazard a guess and a strong bet, actually, that what got you through into where you wanted to get to was just pure focus at drive and nothing's going to stop you to skills or no skills. It's just that intense desire. So get, how can you kind of translate that to people who, what does it feel like to have that? And then did it in

Wayne when you kind of got there when you got your first sports photography job and you became

salaried photographer, did you still have that drive and, you know, you kind of questioned it at times and then you kind of went freelance. Can you explain that process and give us an insight into kind of those emotions and that internal, internal kind of introspection that you constantly having with what you want to do in the photography world. Okay, great questions, right. I mean, yeah, I mean, really, yeah, questions we really made me think, um,

where do I start? There was, I mean, there was unquestionably there has to be a selfishness. It's an odd word. I can't think of a better word, but there

“has to be, but I think at the age I started, um, it was wholly acceptable because you were not”

the only person that was going to, um, not, or it was not going to have, it was not going to benefit from that, or it was going, it was going to be a problem to was mean because there was no one else to rely on to a comment. So I didn't have, you know, a different wife family. I didn't, you know, I didn't have to generate income. If it all went horribly wrong then it would be,

because I was already doing it and I knew how to do it. And I've thought about, you know,

how, why it, why is that so? I just thought about that many times, you know, my father was a, was a, a university principal and a mechanical engineer, but general engineering drawing would be in the days when they had, when he had a, you know, drawing board and he would draw the most into good things, you know, with the bar, like the ruler and that mean just extraordinary. And his passion was watches and clocks and he used to go and find, and sometimes get given grandfather and

grandmother clocks. There's big wooden case clocks that were, weren't even not working or were in complete. And he used to make the clocks that would then repair the clocks. Now, you know, I know now, obviously didn't know at the time, is that, you know, one cog turning one way

turns another another. I mean, we always see no this, but all those clocks have to go so many times

to turn a finger, the right amount of time. So he's got to calculate back how will those get into each other and draw them. And he used to make them by hand and then he would fit them all together again. And then we would get presented with this clock to keep the best time and would have to be wound up. So there was a physical site. Now, there was an artistic side to that as well. There was also a very artistic side to it. There was a, this is how we need to do this in this particular direction

in order to make that work. And other university lecturer, he was really quite severe. So he was quite a difficult person to get on with. Now, my mother was a professional window dresser. So she used to put, you know, the window dress the windows on shops. So she was completely the opposite, but she was super, super conscious. So colors and styles.

“And, you know, you walk it on with it. And she got what is she wearing? And you kind of, what?”

And somebody would walk past and you go, yeah, you know, that's, you know, that's a bit kind of bizarre. So you had this sort of, maybe Melonji's a wrong, is not the right word, but this sort of blurring of this sort of, I'm going to do this and this needs this to do that, which for me at the time was mechanical photography and then an artistic side to it. So there was kind of, that acts that made me was a combination of the two. And some reason I got this sign off.

The basically said, okay, well, this is this is how if I was to try and do what I want to do

and I wanted to be creative, I wanted to work with wildlife. And I loved the ability that photography and art had to pre-y something to me to look at it for a long time and study it and kind of,

“this is amazing. Then the only way I could do that at the time, because I couldn't really draw”

about what was to take pictures. So I knew what I wanted to do. So like my concern was, how do I get myself into that position to do it? And then as I say, because there was nobody who was reliant upon me, I could be a selfish and self-centered as I wanted to be. And then once I got myself into a position that I was doing what I wanted to do, it wasn't a question of not wanting to let go, but it was a question of why, what do I want to let go? This is who I am, this is what I do.

So therefore the relationships that I have and developed is once I done that and I didn't really had because I started so young. They've all been aware and continue to be aware of who I am and what I am and what I do. So relationships that were not accepting that that just didn't last. So you've developed a network of friends, family and people who are accepting the facts that you are likely to get up from a dinner party and leave that you're likely to be unreliable. It doesn't

mean you don't care. It just means that you're doing what you're doing because you're a photographer. You've got that pink spotty light again. You've got the ability to be able to drive through traffic and say, but I'm going to want to sign. So that kind of has allowed me to do what I do.

“And it's also allowed me to approach people and say, look, I think you have a really interesting”

life and I think what you do is extraordinary. I'd like to document it and I'd like you to allow me to spend the next year, two years, three years with you understanding what that is. And also when I get questioned, I have the ability to be able to say, this is why I think this

it was a difficult body of work to work on. I remember, first of all, trying to get into that

industry for many, many years. So there's the doggy determination. But no, I wanted to do it because

“I knew it was a good story and it was an important story to do. And also continuing to research it,”

which again is the artistic side of it. So pulling books, going to Cape Town, where I knew there was a big industry, pulling those 19th century reference books that allow me to decide exactly when I got access how I wanted to do it. So I'm building the project while I'm doing it. And then constantly talking to people who potentially would let me know who consistently said no. Until one individual

just said, sure, why don't you come and tell us what you want to do? So driving five or six hours into

the absolute middle of nowhere in South Africa and arriving at this kitchen table on the hunting farm, where the whole family is assembled. And they basically said, okay, so tell us what you want to do. I will tell you whether we want to support it. And then having the ability and I guess the confidence and the understanding of the project by then to be on the stand-in. So everything is what I want to do. And I want you to let me do it. And I want you to let me in. And

I have nothing else to say to you. And then saying, okay, fine, a bit like, you know, electoral university saying, okay, he's prepared to do this. Why don't we just, why don't we

go with it? And sure, there's always a warning, you know, the warning that was if you, if you do anything,

we don't want, we'll make sure that you don't ever work again in this industry. Now, I knew that wasn't going to happen because I wasn't going to do that because I wasn't going to promote the world. And I made that clear to them, but I also wasn't going to take the obvious route of condemning it. I wanted to understand it. So let me walk the fence and let me walk the fence with you and let me see what comes out the other end and I'll share it with you. And let's see where

we go. So I don't know whether that answers your question, but that's kind of. Yeah, I mean, I guess half the question was more rhetorical as it is extremely difficult

“thing to to bottle and give to someone else. But I think explaining that that journey really does”

help. And I think what I'm, what I get from you so much David is that you, you know exactly what you care about. And I guess my, my follow up question to that, or you, you know exactly what you have cared about. They, you know, may change a little bit from time time with through your wildlife in there as it as a kind of branch of of things that you care about as many as what as many other things. You can then focus your driving to those specific things. And I think

to, to make a good photographer, you really have to understand what you care about and believe in what you, what you want to do with that. And I get that a lot from you. I guess my follow-up question be why not why photography, but let's, let's touch upon the wildlife because, you know, that project hunters. I, as an animal obsessed person myself, I don't know how, I just don't know how you did that. You know, it must have been torture for you to, to, to see as well as an education. I know

and I really want to hear about that and that this kind of, this balanced, not argument, but a balanced opinion and a balanced experience of what you, you came away from it with. But I just

“don't, you know, you must have had so much drive and focus to do that project. And I want to know”

why, what, what, what is it about wildlife that you care about so much? What is it about photographing these inherently kind of volatile stories and very, very fascinating stories that lead so much curiosity and nuance, which is really what we want in the world, you know, going back to the dumbing down of society, we want these interesting stories that have something to say and leave something on a precipice for us to kind of pick apart and discuss and talk about because there's

both sides to everything. Why, why, why that project, why wildlife, why these projects that you choose, what is it that you get from it? Is it, is it something that you want to externalise and put out there and feel like you can help the world and then kind of more activism kind of way?

for yourself? Bro, is it something else? What bit of both? I think, I mean photography for me is

“definitely a diary. You know, if I had the ability to write, I don't think this is true,”

but I'll say it. If I had the ability to write, then maybe I wouldn't be working in photography, but I don't. If I had the ability to draw, maybe that would be a consideration. But I don't. But I do have the ability to take pictures and I do understand the technical side of it to such a degree. And for some reason, I can see light and there is nothing more, more emotive, more, more beautiful for me than light. My son, I used to drive my skill, I still do. I used to

drive my son mad because, you know, I would just say, my God, light. Then you would just go, you know, will you stop saying a light? So how many times I'm light, but then you see that, and you go, you know, yeah, okay, it's nice, but, you know, and that's literally for me, it's the light. If I'm buying a house, if I'm renting a house, if I'm traveling, if I'm doing stuff, it's the light. We'll go back to your story, I hope. But, you know, the guy who sat me at the kitchen table

was a lion breeder and hunter in South Africa, which was the industry that I want to look at, because I didn't understand it. So short answer to your question, but we'll pull it out. It's the fact, because I don't understand why they want to do it. So tell me why you want to do it, and my medium, my, my way of doing things, if you like, about the standing is, it is to photograph. And he was, you know, he became a very, very good friend, and we worked on that project for a long

“time together. And let's say, worked on it together. We did, because that's what he was doing.”

So it documented him through his life, the changes in the industry. He became my, my, sort of, my conduit into that particular world. And from sitting down at that table and meeting this big South African guy, about a year and a half, two years into that particular project, and I used to spend a lot of time with him. I got a, I had a phone call from him, which I just didn't get. And he said to me, you know, this brilliant East and Cape South Africa accident,

he said, David, where are you? And I said, I'm in Cape Town. He said, you can eat to come here. I said, okay, where do I need to come there? He said, because we've just got a family who brought over this, this girl, let's have first hunt. And once she's extraordinary looking, she's redheaded and they're going to start hunting tomorrow. And two, the light now at this time of

year is incredible. I was like, this guy is genuinely the light is incredible. This guy would

not have known the light was incredible prior to the time we'd spend together. If it's a knocked-y mouth, you know. So I'm like, okay, so what he's telling me to this person's amazing, and two to photograph, he's two, he's telling me the light's right, so I can't eat to get. So we're literally just got in the car and drove and through the knife and arrived there for them to go out in the morning. And that's Joseph. That's the image that won the Taylor West import trade prize.

That was entirely due to this guy, because she was exactly what he said, she was extraordinary looking, and he understood the light. So he'd learned what I was looking at. So he was learned that, you know, he knew exactly what I wanted to tell the story that I wanted to tell, and he was engaged to it. So I don't know where that answers your question, or whether there's a broader part to it. I'm interested in the concept of beauty all the time, and I'd love to hear what beauty is to you.

“I think the way I see your such incredible work is a crossroads, is it almost a symbiosis”

between a moral issue and a story and an artistic one, and you seem to marry the two so well, which I think is kind of the Holy Grail, so in documentary photography. Now when it comes to photography,

the whole infrastructure of the internet rewards speed, post more, post faster, be first, be everywhere,

the algorithm doesn't care whether you went deep, it cares whether you showed up yesterday, and I guess that's not photography specific. Now for me, I built my work around a different

than go fast and understand probably nothing. That depth is not a liability that the work you make

“when you take your time is categorically different from the work you make when you're chasing the”

feed, maybe, or chasing the algorithm. Now, the mood inside us is built on that same bet. It's a private community for photographers and visual artists who are serious about the slow work. We have monthly masterclasses where we actually go deep on craft, and thinking we have a weekly book club, monthly Q&As. We have the podcast of course, but add free with bonus content, and we have direct access to me and my team. It's not another newsletter you'll forget about,

not a discord server full of noise, it's a room with a small number of serious people, and a very clear and supportive focus. It's just $19 a month. The link is in the show notes, and I really hope I can see you inside. So, I'm interested in what beauty means to you in that sense, because when you nail it with a portrait like that, that wins awards, you've got to go, well, I nail it. Yes, I had some help. But, you know, it dissects that image. If we dissect that image,

why does it work so well? So, you know, what is beauty to you when it comes to photography? What does

that mean to you? You're very good at this fact. Well, it's a tool. It's a tool. It's always a tool.

It's a tool to tell what I see and what I want people to understand. And I learned a long time ago that's, and National Geographic used about it back to Europe, the head with it is, if you're producing images of complex and distressing stories, the people go, this thing's to stop, then you've lost the battle. If you're producing images, the people go,

“how do we make this stop? This is terrible. Then you've won the battle. So, you have to have a”

conversation and a dialogue. So, I knew with Hunters that the majority of people were going to want to condemn it or just say, "Well, it's exactly what I thought." And I didn't believe it was, because there's too many of us on the planet, so that's the side of the research. And in many cases, we need to commodify for wildlife to survive with us alongside us. It needs to have a value.

And South Africans would always say, "If you pay as it stays, if it doesn't pay, it does the

stay." And it's never a true thing said. As far as wildlife is concerned, it needs to pay for itself in many landscapes. If it's easy to pay for itself, then communities who have to live a long side, it will see no value in it. But there was because they can't benefit from it. So, there's so many

“different things in there. Those communities need to be allowed to benefit from living long-sighted.”

If we want to send, so the mar are as an example of that, if we want to send tourists in there to generate income. And so, isn't this amazing that we have to allow and to benefit from the fact that predators, lions, and other wildlife and elephants will be causing issues. And how do we deal with those issues? So, from a trophy hunting point of view, I wanted to look at how we manage wildlife and complex environments, such as a 9, 9, 9, and maybe alongside the Sam people, the Bushman people,

how do we do this? And in order, I needed to be able to produce images that confused people and made people want to understand more and drew them in and rather than turn them away. So, classic example of that is the beautiful curved giraffe that was on the cover of the book, which is an incredibly complex image. And it was just the most in beautiful place to photograph that image. And for many people, it's a sleeping giraffe. It's obviously not. You can see the

bullet holes in the giraffe. It's a hunted giraffe. But by the time people have bought into the fact that this is beautiful and they see the mist and they see the animal. And they see, they've they've softened somewhat to the subject and then they learn that it's trophy hunting. Now you can have a conversation with them. And so that's for me, my work is increasingly trying to do that, which is why I shoot on the format I shoot on and why you're going back to the technology in

the beginning, you know, up until COVID, I shot 6/7 film and would continue to shoot 6/7 film

hunters, you don't particularly want to be with, but you have to, you know, you have to be. And in

“many cases, like elephant hunting, of lion hunting, I would be sleeping side by side in the tent with”

three or four hunters for a week or two weeks. They didn't have the opportunity, which was part of the consideration of the project to look and see what I was shooting on the back of the camera because I was shooting 6/7 film. So I'd walk away with a bag of film and a relationship that would be based on what they thought of me and what I learned from them and what I put them, rather than do they like what I'm shooting on the back of the camera. So there's many, many different reasons

why that was shot in that particular way, in that particular style and why I felt it was a

project that I wanted to work on and why all of my work, even, you know, handle like eggs, the documentation

of if you like the collapse of my relationship due to work is shot in a particular way that is it's formulaic. I'm not using long lenses, I'm not using wide, I'm not, I'm using a camera that shows pretty much what you see and something comes into that square and I capture and leaves that square and it's calm, but it's in the square. And if you put those squares next to each other you begin to tell a story because you're not seeing something shot in a different way

on a different format, consistent camera, consistent lens, consistent film, stop, consistent processing,

“consistent printer, consistent scanning, consistency. So the only thing that changes is the image”

within the frame. So that's all you have to concentrate on, strip everything down to its basics.

You're in the middle of the bush, you know that you're 65, metalize on the on the left side of your body and your 55 is on the right side of your body. All the backers are the same. Everything's the same, nothing changes. If something charges you as something attacks you, you know exactly how aware everything is at that time. You only think you need to concentrate on the image. The technology does not, I mean, to play. It's nothing to do with it. I'm not going

to watch unless you do that song. I need to get closer, I walk, I need to get further away, I walk back. So it's stripped down. But it's then putting images within those particular squares that makes people, or stairs them in the direction that you want them to go in because they're going in the root, you're going in, not telling them anything. I'm saying, I don't understand why these people are slaughtering me is Emmett, these elephants. But I want to understand,

“if you want to come with me, I will produce images, but you can look at them. They may be complex,”

and they may be conflicting with what your sensitivities are. But at the end of it, when you get spare time, spare time at the other end, you will understand a little bit more about the subject than you did when you started with you. Yeah, I think there's a lot of ignorance in, you know, not necessarily deliberate ignorance. We can't all know everything. But when I see projects like this, and I see your hunters projects, I, you know, this a while ago now. But I, you know, I immediately

go fuck these guys. This is everything that I, I stand against in principle, and in, and in my own ethics, it's really difficult for me then to somehow dig deep and find compassion or a willingness to, and you, you've hit the nail of head, this kind of willingness to try and understand, or why the fuck should I understand? Like these, these people are killing innocent animals. You know, and it's like going to watch a bullfight. It's not like that. It's different. But you,

you kind of cheering for the bull. And so, you know, I see these pictures, and I go, you know, I'm cheering for the lion, unfortunately it's too late. I'm cheering for the elephant, unfortunately it's too late. And then when you go to these places, and I've also, I've also been very fortunate to go to some of these places and, and talking to the, the locals and the people that are living within these areas and alongside this wild. If you get to understand a little bit,

more of their perspective, I still feel there's still kind of the cynic in me. It feels that, you know, these, these, you know, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to say any names, but you feel like these people are just paying to play a, a cruel sport. Whether that helps the wider picture or not, I don't know. But I'd throw that over to you and you say these images are

conversation we should be having? And play out for me, play, play both sides out for me, so I can

“understand a little bit more in terms of the predicament and the nuances that we presented with.”

Sure. I mean, you know, Anksas was, it wasn't purely based in South Africa. It was based all over Africa. I worked all over Africa doing it, but it started in South Africa and it was looking at a country that had private ownership of its wildlife. So they could define the destiny of the wildlife because they owned the wildlife. So the next project I want to look out was here. It was Kenya because here it's not owned by individuals. It's owned by the

governments and it's managed by Kenya wildlife services. So here you, you, you can't, you know,

if you're going to commodify you, I have a different way if you're going to make a money for wildlife. For if you're going to allow, an allow is a word that comes up a lot because it should not be

“a decision in my mind, but it has become a decision because we are conflicting with wildlife”

to such a degree that we have to try and find a way for communities who we are asking to live to keep a job with wildlife to benefit from it. So how do we do that? And what happens in those given situations? Are we, wait, David, are we asking them to live or we, we found ourselves in that

position because of urbanization, pushing people out of certain areas or encroaching on land

because of just population growth. Both, both, we're encroaching, put it on land. So they're why should the animals pay for that? Well, the animals shouldn't pay for it and that's the point. We should, well, we're going to get some really sort of deep conversation now because, you know, something like COVID might might have helped the situation in as much as, you know, we need to lose the numbers of us on the planet because we are destroying this planet. Now, you know,

no one wants to say, well, everyone should die and we've all been inflicted by what happened within, go of it. But we are now incredibly skilled at keeping ourselves alive and in almost amounts of time and defending ourselves against disease. And if we look at what's going on now, in the wars that are spreading across the planet, you know, they are being wage, particularly something like Ukraine remotely. So there are deaths and it's appalling what's going on. But it's not

massfall to the way it was and we are continuing to expand our own species and find ways of peeping out our own species alive. And we are conflicting with wildlife in so many different locations. No, it's not their fault. It's our fault. But we need in order to say to a community in a remote landscape, such as the Sanburo or the, or the mass eye that you shouldn't kill that lion when

“that can lion kills your cattle. We need to find some way of giving them compensation if that's what”

we want to happen. All we need to push back on the development in those lands. And that's what all this work is about. So you look at the most defined way of commodifying wildlife and that's putting a price on its head and killing it. The other is to keep it alive. But in order to keep it alive, you have to put in place something that allows the community to say, "Well, yeah, I am not either not going to use a lion as a right to passage." Therefore, how do we allow them to continue

their traditions without killing lions? And how do we allow them then from a community conservation point of view to live alongside them? And how do we compensate them? And that has to be the same honesty and trust. And this is where, again, where we started this conversation with something like, if you're going to say, "Okay, we will shoot an elephant in this landscape and we will then give them the meat to the community, the community want them each." Or is

it just an excuse for us to kill an elephant? We will give a large percentage of that money to the community so they can open schools. It's actually happening. And this is what I look after this is what I document. If you say to the mouse, when a lion kills your livestock, you shouldn't kill it. We will compensate for it for you so that you can replace the livestock because that's how

them. And those tourists vehicles are paying a fee. Is that fee going down to the community?

And if it isn't going to the community, and that lion is, you don't want you to kill a lion.

“And we say, "We will compensate you within 24 hours. Are we compensating with 24 hours?”

Are we taking three months?" And if we're taking three months in that three months, have you killed the lion? Yeah. So this is all, this is everything that we need to look at. So, you know, part of the references and part of the stuff that I keep going back to, it's key to be it, and key to be it, and key to gear to work. And a lot of other stories, and a lot of other, you know, the end of the game, a lot of other opportunities where we had in

the 60s to be able to look at what was happening and where we were and to look at where we are now.

So, yes, if the passion within me that says this is wrong, and this shouldn't be happening. But there's also something in me that says, "The more people that I can bring on board to understand these subjects and to have a conversation about these subjects, then the better." You know, I'd spend you go back to people, people, I can't remember how you put it, but you put it to music, you know, to track an elephant for the amount of time

that we track the elephants, you know, two, three weeks, two, for a hunter to choose, which was the elephant that he wanted to shoot. So you live the life of that elephant. And in many cases, those elephants are the same age as me. And so to think what I've done in my life and we've talked about it here on this podcast, and to think that that's elephant, while I'm going, okay, I've got a billing and bag that I'm going to walk with every day, and that elephant is now

1780, 19 years old, and now you're in your 50s, and you're tracking that elephant, and you're, and you're seeing where it's laid in the mud under a tree, you're seeing the print of it here, they're judging the side of the elephant by the print of the year, you're seeing the footprints, you're seeing how warm the footprint is, so you're judging me, and then you find that, yeah, okay, it's a big elephant, so they want to shoot it. And you are a hazard observed,

“and you are a hazard observed, you have to be, but you also can't be combative in that situation,”

because you want to get to the stage where they either, as you quite rightly said, go, okay, this is not the one I want to choose, you need to go for that, or this is the one I want to choose, and you don't fucker, but you need them to shoot it, because you now need to document it, and if they don't shoot it, then you have no story. If they don't shoot it, you go down a different direction with that story, because now you've got a group of minutes of the happened

on several occasions where the hunter will do this for two or three weeks, and then he will say, "I don't want to shoot this elephant." I've got what I want to shoot, I do not want to shoot it, I'm done, and I walk away, so you are living in a, again, you put in quite beautiful, you're living in a, in a globe, you know, in a snow globe, that things can go in, in any particular direction, and how do you tell that story, and once you're in that snow globe, you're committed

to either saying, "Okay, this has happened, and this is the reason that's happened." So you're

subject matter, never changes, but the way you depict the story and watch your, watch your learning

from that particular situation does change. So they shoot the elephant, and you go down warmer route, they don't shoot the elephant, you go down another particular route. So how does the community then benefits, and how does the community other time from the fact that they haven't shot the elephant and how do you now then allow that community to benefit from the fact that they haven't made the money from the trophy fee, and they haven't got the meat, did the community want

“to meet in the first place. The only way you could do that is to spend time and to do this,”

and yet it's, it's, you know, because a huge price to pay for that, a huge price. But, you know, there are several individuals who you might whose work you will look at, and pay a far greater price for allowing us to understand what's going on in parts of the world where there's human conflict. Here for me, this is human wildlife conflict, it's human wildlife coexistence. My work is human wildlife coexistence, and as I call them the lovely guy's name now, time magazine,

you know, it's the bloody intersection between humans and wildlife, and that's what I work.

you know, obviously like what you do is so impactful. I'm interested to know how, let's take

“hunters because we're talking about it already, but you know, you've done for people who,”

you know, we didn't even enter, I didn't even introduce you probably, but people can go and find out, you know, you go and look at your website and look at all of the, you know, projects and awards,

and incredible pieces of work that you've done. Let's, let's just stick on hunters,

because I'm interested in your concern, if any of glamorizing these types of issues or the opposite, but in reality, how was that project seen, what was the feedback, and did it do what you basically talking about? Did it actually succeed in the goal of opening up discourse around, yeah, 100% did it, and I don't think there was, I don't know, there's a single image in there that glamorizes both sides of the argument, and that for me would be the biggest

mistake. We'll be either giving something to a hunting community that says, "See isn't this amazing,

or giving something to an anti-hunting community," who says, "See, this is a pauling." It was so confusing, and it was so deeply confusing. And that, for me, is again going back to your, one of your other great questions is it's producing images that are singularly beautiful, but the subject matter is a pauling, but they're shot in amazing light, consistently, not super wide, not anything they are just, you have walked on to a scene of a sleeping giraffe, but guess what? The guy who shot it is a

“trauma surgeon from an LA hospital, and so if you want to know more, you scroll through and you'll”

see the guy on his hands and knees in the car because trying to find the bullet and the track of the bullet that has just killed the giraffe, so he understands the trauma that has been caused about giraffe, because that's how he gets his particular kicks or justifies what he's doing. And how do we show that? The leopard, the guy with a leopard is a classic example of that. You know, we could go into the statistics in the leopard. I mean, I looked at leopard hunting in the

media because there was a certain number, I can't remember the number off the top of my head, but there was a certain allocation for lepids within the media at that particular, it was 2011, at that particular time, and a South African guy had produced a group of hunting dogs that had turned something that was 90, 95% of failure to 99% of success because he had dogs that could track lepids, so they crashed the leopard population in the media in very short amounts of time.

And I went over there to work on lepid hunting with that particular pack of dogs, and the hunter that I worked with was a hedge fund manager from the US who received the picture of the leopard that he was going to shoot from a trail cam on a batit carcass in a tree at his desk in the US. I decided that yes, this was a big enough leopard, got on a private plane, flew over, arrived on the Monday, shot the leopard on the Tuesday,

“I'm flew back on the Wednesday. And I asked him, you know, why did you do this?”

And he said, because I can and I always wanted lepids, but it was a result of that,

what? And it was a result of that particular situation, the lepid that hunting was stopped and hunting with dogs in many parts of Africa was stopped because people are constantly finding ways to be the system and to get what they want from wildlife, whether it be lion breeding, whether it be trophy hunting, whether it be the over-comodification of the migration in the mara, it's a constant pushing and a constant pulling and you know, the party between all of this

talk to you for hours about kind of these types of tensions, the human society has either put

“themselves in or finds themselves in, you know, we do, I mean, just have to look at the animal”

population for slaughter that we, you know, there's one thing having an argument against hunting,

but if you eat meat, you're contributing to, you know, 10 times more torture and suffering than

“that yourself. So we, you know, we will leave that aside because that's a whole other conversation”

that I'm sure a lot of photographers may not be that interested in, but when it comes to the photography

side of things, that's where you are most drawn to. So tell me, tell me, you know, the, I guess

“the most difficult, some of the difficult experiences you've had and are you kind of numb to it?”

Now, you know, seeing so much death, I guess, not numb, I don't think you could probably ever be numb, but you find, does it ever get easier? No, yeah, no, yeah, I'm not sure I could answer that. Okay. Sorry to stop you here in the conversation and thank you so much for listening up into this point. Now, if you're enjoying it so far and would like to hear more, then the remainder of this episode, including bonus questions, extra content and conversations, I don't release

anywhere else, lives the inside my private community for photographers called the mood inside us. So if you would like to listen to the rest, you'll find the link in the description to find out more about this community. And if not, of course, thank you so much for listening this far, it really does mean a lot and I hope to see you inside.