Episode 380- London-based photographer and writer Michael Collins on the perils of photography, and art criticism, and why to give your viewers the benefit of the doubt

0:00this is a conversation it's a podcast that goes behind the scenes and between the lines of photography and art writing in this case i'm michael shaw welcome to the show and happy fall this is episode 380 with michael collins he is a london-based photographer and art writer and writer period the website for this podcast is the conversation pod.com where i stack the decks

0:34course in this case being having a photographer on the show and you can see there everything from the view from a gorilla's perspective through its cage out to a few children which is one of the many intriguing moments from his michael's recent book blind corners you can also see an actual blind corner in london a black and white photograph from the 19th century which is a very important era to photography that you will learn about from michael's perspective

1:06you can also see a few of his photographs including a couple versions of the who flats mud flats basically and then you can see as well andreas gursky's photograph auto salon paris from 1993 which became the subject of a little bit of manipulative controversy that took place in michael's first art review back in the day that comes up in the second half of our conversation and let me tell you what else we're talking about in the main feed that is the conversation you are hearing shortly we

1:40talk about the similarities and differences between the uk and the u.s from both a consumer perspective but also all the way up to an existential one michael's great anecdote doing a presentation at the hamstead photographic society his own battles with social media and he begins to unpack his background being a photo editor at daily newspapers and then all of a sudden deciding he wanted to learn large format photography and did so by asking the guy at the photo store where he bought his camera how does it work

2:13and the guy said are you serious and michael said deadly serious so that's coming up you'll hear all that and more in the first half of the conversation in the complete recording which you will hear if you are or join our patreon supporters at patreon.com slash the conversation pod where you can support the show for as little as a dollar a month or you can make a one-off purchase of this full episode if you prefer you can hear michael talk in greater depth about his experiences with photography over

2:45the years including writing his first big art review of andreas gursky's exhibition at the tate liverpool that i mentioned and thanks to a tip from the custodian who accompanied him through the show he kind of busted gursky by outing him for digitally manipulating a photo without acknowledging it up front and now apparently michael's review of that show is nowhere to be found so you'll have to hear about it here the last episode i checked with a photographer and writer was chris wiley episode 356

3:17and i always find that writers on the show bring two great things to the table analysis and anecdotes and at the end of our recording which you can hear on patreon we finally talk a bit about his recent book blind corners a book of essays across a very broad range of approaches and ways of thinking about what a photograph is and can do so that's all coming up lot to look forward to hope to see you over at the patreon page as well and by the way i had the since we last spoke i had the opportunity

3:53of meeting running into a patreon supporter at an opening here in los angeles and it was great great experience i'm not going to call them out i don't think they would want that but all to say that if i happen to run into you at some point whether it is somewhere around the rounds of la or new york or abroad london or what have you i think it would be a little bit nicer for you for us if you happen to be a supporter of the show no pressure though so i know we don't talk about the business

4:25side of art much on this show but i do want to and we will more often as artists we probably all need to be investing more time and energy into our websites our marketing and how to actually sell our work so if this resonates with you i think you will appreciate the platform art storefronts they have everything you need to streamline the business side of your art their website builder is designed to sell art their marketing tools handle the repetitive promotional work most of us avoid or never get around to and they back it all up with hands-on support so you're never left without

5:01help they also have a supportive community of over 15 000 experienced artists who you can communicate with so you don't have to go it alone their platform is set up so you spend more time in the studio less time worrying about the business side and since before you know it the biggest art buying season of the year the holidays will be here it's a great time to get your art sales dialed in this is a great opportunity to help your career out and to help the podcast out because when you mention the conversation when you sign up art storefronts will include their add-on service build and optimize

5:36your website completely free normally that's an 1800 service but as a listener you will get it for free just by signing up for the art storefronts membership check it out art storefronts.com the all-in-one solution for growing your art or photography business and when you sign up please mention the conversation art podcast thank you very much for being here let's get to this conversation with michael collins now and uh yeah i will talk to you more on the back end until then ciao for now

6:07i absolutely know where i want to start there's so much to cover but um you're in london you've been in your place for a long time i think we have a fair amount of uh overlap there because i've been in my place a long time too um i'm curious about a number of things about that first of all what is your neighborhood in london like what would you can use an analogy but or you can just describe it whatever is easiest for you well it's it's funny i've been here 35 years which is

6:40too long really when i first moved here it was a sort of in-between place that no one really knew about it was between clark and well and shoreditch but london's basically moved east in the last 35 years and so it's almost the epicenter you know i'm now a 15 minute walk from take modern for example which is great except you can count the number of trees on one hand you know it's that central um but the flat's tiny it's bursting at the seams for years i had a variety of storage lockers

7:12and stuff and so it's now become some sort of um wallace and gromit type storage challenge and i'm looking to move somewhere else with a bit more space oh okay so you're despite what i'm seeing in your office uh there are other parts of your place that are just oh getting overly crowded completely yeah yeah yeah okay wallace and gromit that's a that's a good comparison so you've been there 35 years and are you in a building with other tenants yes so it's actually a late 19th century

7:45um rent-controlled tenement built around courtyards um and um initially it was entirely white working class for um 100 years or so because when flats kept empty that they'd be passed on to people's children but um uh the housing laws changed that because it meant that it was it was just a sort of white bastion really in london is not white you know it's you know healthily multiracial so in fact

8:18the i moved in and the same week and my immediate neighbor was sam taylor wood as she was then um and you know she was back in those days she was working as a bartender um long before she married jay joplin and then remarried and became a famous art star and so gradually over the years more and more middle class people kind of snuck in under the wire and it's a more mixed place now um which is good and there's and there's many more black people than there ever were before but do you have this

8:51phenomenon that new york and and la have where uh you have people people who've been there for a long time you know who have some rent control that you know that's like way below market and then you have these people the the most recently moved in people have these rents that are closer to market if not market right no fortunately the the law for these types of places is you can't do that um but um i have noticed that over the years the um value of people's cars has gone up and up and up

9:22which is a bit crazy really but it's quite nice that the fact that um you can't buy the place you can't sell it you know um i mean the rents have gone up but you know when i first moved here my rent was 25 a week wow which for an artist was brilliant well you have obviously have much more progressive housing laws than we do so uh be grateful for that um the other thing that came to mind is that you had the olympics uh what 13 years ago now is that right yeah yeah we in

9:58in los angeles uh unless a miracle happens we'll have them in 2028 i hope it doesn't a lot of people like me hope they won't but they probably will because of the powers that be and this is uh you know again it's a different situation as you describe with your building but did you want to get out of town and did you want to sublet your place for a lot of money or was that on the table no um partly i mean i i share your views about the olympics you know i think it's basically um

10:29a you know government's um flying the flag of soft power and it's also a property developer's dream and and you know the olympics like like the football world cup it's just so corrupt it's it's you know it's the sort of zenith of of neoliberalism really but no i i were right to sublet my place i'd have to remove so much stuff i would i couldn't face it you know yeah it's so so do you have friends

10:59stay in your place if you go out of town for a while yeah i do that um but um uh you know because there's you know i've i've got thousands of negatives prints you know all that sort of stuff and you know it's um yeah does it do any of your friends find that charming as a charming uh uh stay with character um people are sort of vaguely impressed and also horrified by the degree of storage for example my kitchen is so small um the deep freeze is a small deep freeze set over the

11:34kitchen door on a shelf it's it's you know grommet would complain aka aka your freezer your deep freeze is that right yes what what we call freezer right so so in other words you're you're a day shopper right you uh you have to get your your goods for the day or maybe two days but you can't keep much in the house no i mean i the reason i bought the the deep freeze was to put film in right you know i i using eight by ten inch film it's really expensive in britain but much cheaper in america so i used to

12:09bring back boxes and boxes or indeed you can get it on fedex um and um you know just put it in the freezer yeah so so is it uh eight by ten film and and a small bottle of vodka no um or you don't put vodka in there either no not enough room at the moment there's this eight by ten inch film and um a big um bag full of damsons which i picked yesterday on a walk with some friends in camp so so you go to michael collins house forget about having ice cream at home you gotta go after that

12:44you gotta go out you gotta go out for most things got it got it that's definitely i think even another level than new york because certainly back in the day and probably in some cases still today you know new york is uh small kitchens and small refrigerators but you know i think that's changed you know just like with a lot of the rest of the country and and uh you know larger places more luxury places and so on but i think europe as you know i mean it's it's a fact europe has has long been the and maintain continue to be the place of small kitchens and small refrigerators

13:20right compared to the states the states is the land of plenty i've got very good friends in the states i visit and you know your refrigerators are the size of our wardrobes you know british people are always amazed yeah when they open them and the size of them the depth of them you know um it's it's almost terrifying to get something out of someone's fridge because the choice is startling you know it's um no i i'm quite happy shopping by the day um and um you know thinking well what looks nice

13:52today and then buy it to make dinner you know i i think uh hopefully most people listening if not everybody listening are thinking yeah i would take the small everything to be to not be in this country right now to not be in this country yeah mind you you know look at england you know it's um i mean on the one hand america is all your listeners know this but you know you're basically bullied by advertising it just comes it's like a sawn-off shotgun from every corner firing at you and um

14:27the sheer commercialization is is just ugly and deafening and blinding and you know it it's overwhelming but you know england i mean we have a terrible government now this this the legislation that's been introduced about these um pro-palestinian groups is is is awful it's it's very repressive um our civil liberties have never been so constricted um the difference between rich

14:59and poor is accelerating we have a labor government that's really like a tory government i mean you know that it's it's it's the most right-wing labor government i've ever known um and um uh the difference between working class and middle class has accelerated if you look at art schools you look at artists you look at the arts broadly it's almost entirely middle class and up because otherwise people can't afford to do it and also they didn't get the education and training possibilities that

15:29that you know expensive education provides we used to have free university education here you know you'd never pay a fee which meant anyone could apply to do anything on merit rather than income not anymore you know um yep and it's you know it's um it shows it shows in everything really you know and um and there's a new conservatism with a small c you know you know um television programs are commissioned much more warily they're less political you know we used to have terrific political plays on

16:05tv not anymore when you said uh the way we're bombarded like with i can't remember what weapon you uh you used did you say uh a uh bazooka or a machine gun a sawn-off shotgun uh of advertising here um thanks to social media you too can have a sawn-off shotgun of images thrown at you but i i should add to that preface by saying that generationally i presume like me you have a very wary and uh uh you know try to keep

16:42arm's length distance from social media well i i do i don't you know i don't have a facebook account and stuff but um god knows why but i probably spend half an hour a day mindlessly scrolling through instagram um and i could be fluent in not only italian but japanese did i not do this um and i i mean i think well why am i doing this um it's you can't blame it on the tech companies why am i doing this

17:12um it's um it's crazy so you don't have an answer for yourself um it's i don't know it's it's it's that sort of it's like someone forever eating sweets or something you think why would you do that it's it's um it's a difference between being rational and being impulsive i think and it's just letting the impulsive creature out of the cage every now and again isn't it sure but i mean for me and i and i think for a lot most art well a lot of artists i think maybe i i couldn't put a finger on it

17:47percentage wise but for me and presumably for you i'm gonna guess the whole start of getting on is because it's something you kind of have to do i mean that's that's what a lot of artists who want to have their work more widely seen are thinking you know and some some artists are much better and and or much more tolerant of it than others obviously but i wonder if the reason you get on it in the first place you know regardless of how long you doom scroll is because uh if it's a more of a fomo thing

18:22or if you uh feel like you need to you know help sell your books or you know you're get more people more people familiar with your work your photographs it's a number of things sometimes you know after you've spent i don't know an hour doing some exacting you know emails or budgeting or you know research you want to just look at a panda falling out of a tree for five minutes to kind of relax um

18:57partly it's because people say you must develop followers and otherwise and and you know and you think how am i going to promote this book and i'll post this and um and um wow pandas are amazing they don't kill themselves um and that that sort of weird mix of shoulds but but but really you know um uh i'd must even sure he's a he's a he's an acquaintance of mine a bit of a friend really and um he quit instagram about a year ago um i thought good for him um not that he needs it anyway

19:30but um uh but so there is that thing of on the one end you're supposed to be reaching out to people and um but really and then people say yeah i've seen your picture on instagram you think well no you haven't you saw an instagram post on instagram and that's not looking at the pictures and the idea that you think oh now i've seen them i know what they look like um is nonsense so you're sort of trapped if you don't do that then then your reach is smaller um and at the same time if you do do that then people can kind of take and move on and you think you know it's i remember i remember once um

20:04this i was in this exhibition this group show and um the writer writing the catalogue essay uh wrote the essay by looking at jpegs and i said um what i mean you know we must meet so you can look at prints you know i've got some you know 20 by 24 inch reference prints my exhibition prints are large four foot by five foot so i can show you these no that's fine she said you know i'm i'm a professional you know i thought this is insane you know i mean no two screens have the same

20:38coloration anyway even if they've just been you know calibrated but um the idea that you're looking at a compressed compressed jpeg online is sort of is nutty i mean imagine a music critic writing about you know it's just but but that's that's what this is i don't know um someone accused me recently of becoming um uh obsolete you know um and i thought well actually no that's that's not the

21:10case at all it's just you're lazy and it is you know expediency is is lazy you know it's this casual thing of well i can have a coffee and look at the picture at the same time um what would you rather do look at the pictures i have a coffee um i don't get it you know um i find that um for me um actually the the the better um the better red people are which is non-visual the better they

21:41are actually at dealing with the visual and it's partly because they're used to sort of close reading a text and um taking their time to actually you know look at something and absorb it and partly because it just that whole sort of brain activity is one of not instant gratification but but but sort of um earned reward as it were and so i think that yeah that's a great that no that's a great point uh and and i think not a not one you hear that reading that readers you know people who take

22:17the time who have patience who have attention that's what it's really i mean it all comes down to attention and you know uh from gen i don't know where it starts you could you could say now it goes all the way up to anybody who has a smartphone really but certainly with to some extent millennials gen z and down you know it's just like another level of attention taken away you know because now kids have their ipads and depending on the parent you know they might get it after school

22:52every day to as little as maybe over just the weekend but if they have if they have friends you know if they don't have ipads at all they have friends who do all this to say that uh attention is dwindling massively and so i think that point about people who read being able to sit with something for a while you know just is logic is a logical point um and let me and let me just segue before you answer that or address that because um it's interesting to me it's good to know how big

23:26your photos are four by five feet because and i'm interested to hear uh you know specifically the the thinking behind it but both in your book blind corners and in your on your website with your photographs which are very presumably very high resolution you know uh and if that's the right term even because they're prints uh from film you put them very small in your book and on and on your

23:57page and i and if i had to guess i would think well it's a it's a placeholder to see the actual images to see the actual photos and or um you don't want the photos uh decontextualized or misrepresented well it's it's i mean it's it's an albatross making photographs to eventually be printed at a large scale because a you you know they're not mobile um and they're really expensive

24:30to print and frame um and it means people really i rarely see them if you think that you can't i don't have a big studio i don't have the resources to just make prints and put them on a wall look at them so unless something's actually being printed for an exhibition or for client um i don't see the big prints which is a bit crazy so i i print at 20 by 24 inches which is sort of large enough to see the characteristics embedded in the picture but it's not you know there when you actually see the bigger

25:04print it has a different effect you know there's um scale actually does something plus um because you you know they're either photographed like up until recently i'd photograph on eight by ten inch film and then drum scan them to huge files or more latterly use a powerful digital camera to make big files um as you open them up the detail rather than softening just becomes more apparent it it it just surfaces as it were um but it's so it's a it's a real issue that sort of thing and um i i want them

25:40large because um you know uh this thing you know roland barke famously said that a photograph has one particular thing some sort of incidental detail that the the um uh punctum that that for some reason pricks your attention in the photograph i don't believe that you know um uh i you know i i think that that's that fetishizes a photograph too much um and different people will pick up different things

26:11and not just one thing they'll pick up they'll go from maybe one element to another as they explore the picture i wanted big pictures big prints partly because they're very detailed and they're made on sort of you know such high quality production but also if they're that big you're you can actually walk into the picture it's so large you know you can go up close and look at a particular section walk back the whole thing go look at another section you know you're free to come and go and wander around

26:43the picture and that is what i want to encourage with viewers of my work and and that's what i i love about photography is that you know you take a picture of um like you know looking at you now i mean i can look at you and your face and your t-shirt and also i look i think what's that behind you you know it's you can you know you photography's nosy it's great like that you know and um uh and that's to be encouraged you know it's it's what um friedlitter called a generous art you know it admits

27:17everything in it and um and that that's part of its um its substance really that's its its stick you know is that there's tons there it's like fly paper you know and so let's make the most of that um you know so when i go to see exhibitions of 19th century photography i always take a magnifying glass people laugh but why wouldn't you you know um uh it's it's there to be explored and also if you if

27:49you you know um uh i can't remember the guy's name but there's this amazing ukrainian film probably about 10 years old or so now uh called the tribe and it's about this deaf school in kiev um uh or kiev now and um uh and this guy arrives there um and he tries to sort of make sense of the place and it's it's it's hell on earth you know it's it's a completely feral institution it the film's actually

28:22this this terrific parable on neoliberalism and um so this this bloke wanders in with his bag to this academy and he's about 16 or something uh and um the film it's all in ukrainian sign language ukrainian deaf sign language so you have no idea what they're saying and there's no subtitles um so at first you

28:55think what and because of that you sort of what and of course you then try and make sense of it all because you're curious as to what and you can you know you can see by gestures and things and within five minutes it doesn't matter you know you're like this in the film it's terrific amazing that's got to be a hard entry point though you got to get somebody over that the hill to get into that space yes but that then we're back to people that read and people that

29:28that don't want to bother reading and if you you know i mean here the guardians film critics said he's a terrible critic said yeah they need subtitles subtitles would have killed it you know it would become about them rather than of them right right right right well said i think good to know thank you i'll add it to my list i'm actually watching a very long and some would argue challenging film right now over several over a couple of weeks actually if not more

29:59anyway it's called the best of youth have you seen it no oh okay you got out of your list it's over five hours long so you're not going to watch it in one sitting you might even if you're like me watch it in uh half hour to 45 minute chunks but one of the best films of this century for sure anyway right if not if not beyond anyway um one thing that you said that stuck out with me which is a little uh sensational perhaps but i do want i i do there is a method of my madness and that is

30:31how much does it cost to make one of your four by five foot prints um um to print mount and frame it um it's um about uh well really you need non-reflective glass for something that size so like a museum glass right yeah otherwise the the reflections you know kill you so really you're looking at you wouldn't get much change from two thousand dollars you know yeah right

31:07so in other words from the 24 did you say 22 by 20 20 20 20 by 24 from those prints you determine an investor who's who's all in in order to to for you to make that investment correct or or if you have a show and the gallery is going to back it yes i mean some people buy the 20 by 24 inch prints um but yes i mean i i discourage people from exhibiting them yeah that's an interesting line

31:44too uh so is but so it's a conversation between you and your collector you know okay you own this now you could in theory include an exhibit but i would kindly request that you don't yes if if they said they wanted to do or lend them to a gallery to a museum or something i would ask them not to yeah interesting has there been a situation where that comes to mind where

32:15that's happened and similarly was there a situation in which there was an opportunity for one of your works to be shown in a museum and that gave you the opportunity or the moment to try to advocate for them buying the full-sized version of it the um the closest example i can think of is a quite a long time ago i did these pictures inside battersea power station um which is um a similarish building to the

32:54to tate modern um it's now been turned into some hideous um duty-free shopping mall with ludicrously expensive apartments and staff and offices um and it's so um she she post-industrial it's it's it's it's revolting um but um i i got access to photograph inside before any renovations happened when it was sort of derelict really and it was a beautiful place um and um the uh architects for tate modern were

33:29herzold demuron and one of the junior architects working on that um emailed me and said that he's seen these pictures i did a they were exhibited in in um reber which is the the royal institute of british architects they've got this beautiful building um in central london and i had this big exhibition on these pictures there and he saw them there and he said he wanted to he was going to move back to um i think sweden he was from or finland might have been and he finished working on tape

34:00modern he was going to go back to scandinavia and he wanted to buy a print um he was a junior architect in his 20s um and he came along and i showed him some 20 by 24 inch prints he um said he you know he'd get back to me and um and about a week later he he asked if he could meet again and he said look he said um um i discussed it with my girlfriend and um uh we'd like to buy a bigger print not the small print

34:31um and i said you know that's amazing i'm so pleased to hear that he said well we had this long discussion and we thought we'd go without buying any furniture for a few years and get the print first and i thought if i could afford it i would just give you the print um and that that's you know and that's what you want because ultimately you you make pictures to be looked at for a long time you know so if someone actually has them on their wall rather than in their storage unit you

35:01know it's and that happens sometimes you know this really nice um uh collector in new york sent me a picture of you know one of my pictures in his hallway you know that's that's what you want is the picture where on a daily basis the person looks at it so so what did you do did you did you did they make the big print and sacrifice their furniture they did i i you know i i gave him a hefty discount but but they did that you know i thought you know that's good for you you know that's awesome

35:34that must have been satisfying terribly you know yeah that's what you want you know is um because you know uh you make pictures and you you never really know where they end up really what's happened to them um uh i mean you want collectors to collect them and and collectors have collections which you know are archival and in the dark um but um but ultimately you want pictures to be looked at you know ditto books you know um uh i mean this this this book of essays i've done recently blind corners

36:07someone emailed me from toronto out of the blue via the publisher um talking about one of the essays and you think hey it's because you when you do something it's it's almost like being on a desert island and just throwing bottles into the sea i'm thinking will any of it wash up somewhere you never really know um so it's great to sort of you know find someone out there you know in um the ether just come across it yeah yeah for sure well you alluded to this a little bit before but um this is

36:41one of the really uh pivotal i don't know if nothing else very memorable uh encounters that you've had out in the world as a photographer and i'm just going to set you up since you already have written about it but you can give us the more expansive version you wrote when someone says they like photography i take it as a bad sign rather as if their interests were formula one or golf a while back as a favor to a friend i gave a talk to the hamstead photographic society as anticipated the

37:14audience proved to be bristling with new cameras when the secretary opened my thumb drive he was incredulous to discover that it contained only 20 photographs is this the lot normally our speakers show hundreds if not thousands half the room fled during the break and there was an awkward and relieved silence at the end so i love for you to take it from there they're probably still laughing about that every now and again um yeah the um uh it's um

37:47um give people give people especially not in the uk a context for you know what these photographic clubs are about really i mean they're they're very male and they're about people turning up with their new cameras um and um comparing kit um and comparing snazzy photographs they're they're they almost exist in a

38:18complete vacuum to the history of art their cultural references will be some shiny kit heavy monthly magazine with tips on you know how to have a backlit picture of some bird in a wet t-shirt literally you know and you think um uh and it's not it's not and it's it's weird photography photography does encourage that sort of thing i mean when someone says they're interested in photography i really do think oh no really you know um

38:51uh you know why is it that you never hear painters talking about a punchy photo punchy painting you know people talk about a punchy photograph it's mind-boggling um and also for you know photography let's face it you know you go click click click you get reams and reams and reams and reams and reams of photographs um you know i began working in photography and um on magazines as a picture editor and photographers would turn up with with you know all these contact sheets and stuff and nine out of

39:24ten felt kind of um confused and uh uh sort of just um unable to edit their own stuff they wanted someone to take the contact sheets and look through them and mark the good ones they wanted someone to to edit for them and which makes no sense to me at all i mean you know there is a minority that would pale at the thought but very often photographers want this and they say well i'm good at taking pictures i'm not good at editing them the two things to me are interlinked you you you know you it's like

40:00saying someone's a great writer they need an editor well yeah writers need editors but if they just write reams and reams and reams and reams of stuff you may as well get a chimpanzee to do it you know it's ridiculous um but photography's like that and so this camera club was like that but um and were these sorry were were these all digital cameras yeah so this was only about 10 years ago and it was in this it's in hamstead which is you know the best place to live in london really sort of you know it's on the hill beautiful victorian houses lots of green trees you got hamstered heath around the corner

40:32it's a famous literary place you know um george alwell if they know that they all the great and the good live there and um and yeah here they all were in this church hall with their cameras and um they were in fact i remember what one stage i showed this picture of um uh a blast furnace by um bent and hill of besher and um i heard this guy mutter at the back god that's boring and i thought right i said who said that i said it was like a school room and this guy put his hand up i said stand up

41:06would you please you know and it's probably a barrister or a bank manager or you know whatever and he stood up i said okay you said why is this boring to you you know come on please tell me why do you find this boring he said well there's nothing going on you know i said there's nothing going on could you describe the picture that you're looking at you know and of course the more he described it you know the um and the more there was there mind you he was so resentful he was definitely one of the first guys out the door at half time but um do you think he got it maybe after he left or wait probably

41:42he was still soaking in shame rage more than shame i think no i mean it's you know it's you can talk about a film to somebody and if they're not receptive it doesn't matter what you say that they're disclosed um and um i you know i think a lot of photography photography is almost a sport as much as a culture you know i can do this and you know and it's sort of you know it's painting isn't a sport let's face it you know as a sport standing like that in front of a canvas is pretty low value

42:17whereas photography you go out places you've got this shiny thing you've got bags and you know tripods maybe and you know clickety click there's all this you know and that's it's the action and and people want that in terms of look often looking at the picture you know if if you say to people as i do how can you possibly understand photography if you don't immerse yourself in its history in 19th century photography you've lost most people's attention by the time you finish the sentence because to them 19th century photography is either people sort of standing like this or

42:53some static topographical view uh and um they're small pictures uh and you know there's no movement and um um and it's all a bit it's a bit sober and so they're not interested well yet um you know it's it's weird you know and it's i mean in london we have i can't think of the last good 19th century exhibition several years ago um the vna shows some take britain doesn't really you know it's it's just not shown um and it should be on you know i don't know so much about the west coast but new york of

43:28course the met's always showing it moment's always showing it you know we're impoverished in britain about that and yet you know we were the co-inventors of photography it's ridiculous um but but in new new york how well attended do you think those exhibitions are compared to the more you know uh crowd-pleasing ones oh yeah no i mean if you had you know um a 19th century survey show and versus a sort of contemporary photography survey show one will get a few column inches the other will get

44:02reams and reams of press and on weekends it'll be sort of you know 10 deep in front of every picture um but it's it's partly because of what you know um it's partly because of what what people are shown and um what you get used to you know there was um uh you know if if if you accept it takes longer to engage with some pictures then you need to acclimatize to that somehow and get used to that but hang on you got to lean into this

44:33a bit and give it a bit more time then it'll be rewarding but but if if the culture's sort of saying you know flick flick flick flick flick then it mitigates against that which is why you know you know this is the enemy you know um and um uh but wow that's not going to be a popular view is it back to your anecdote uh i i have to mention that i had an english teacher in high school and this was about writing not photography but i think it still applies who said uh regarding

45:08somebody saying you know a consumer slash reader saying it's boring he said you're boring that was his retort to anyone who claims something to be boring you're boring which is you know you can interpret that a number of ways but i think uh it's kind of implied in your story you know that it's somebody's not really looking well it's a it's a bit like you know um why would you munch on

45:39fries and hamburgers when there's

45:47so much more interesting food out there that's tastier more nutritious more interesting you know would you really choose to sit down and have dinner with with people and munch holding a burger in your hands rather than eating something a bit more sophisticated you know it's the same goes for art you know why would you do this um but but you know ultimately it's education people have to be made aware of more possibilities and and be given a sort of way into them you know um and um you know

46:18it's uh for a while i used to live in west dorset beautiful part of of southwest england and there was there was this particular bay there called west bay with just a you know a little um harbor with some boats in it and a promenade and stuff it's long since been developed out of its skin but back then it wasn't and um now what you'd get is towards sunset people would come along to the promenade and walk westwards along this promenade towards the setting sun and there'd be this lovely little

46:52tea kiosk so tea and cakes and stuff beautiful and there'd be a little low wall and you sit on the wall and watch the sun go down over the sea and now and again people show up may sort of say cool there's nothing here you know um what's there to do here what's what where are the attractions you think what um and photography is a bit like that you know you've got to sort of stop i mean you know really that is i mean if if every photography exhibition dispensed with captions and just put stop next to

47:28the picture we'd be better off you know um and yet people always want something done for them and you know most after we talked last week i realized that most photography actually is there to fulfill expectations whereas really what it's doing is it's saying forget what you've heard forget what you think you know look but it's it's used the other way around it's weird isn't it um well you you talk about

48:01photography as being uh this thing that people don't um invest in you know don't give uh an opportunity to really see right but i think aren't you just talking about or couldn't you just translate that to be talking about contemporary art uh certain you also you made the food analogy you know certain more sophisticated for lack of a better word um images objects etc to experience view etc because as you

48:37were saying that i i couldn't help but think well you know street art pop art you know uh the lowest common denominator that's how do you how do you compete against that right when that's what people gravitate towards especially people you know who let's face it dominate the western if not the whole world who don't have patience um i mean you know some conceptual art that appears very very minimal rather than

49:08the minimalist um if you don't engage with the concept behind it there's nothing there um and so um that it does it does call for some sort of cerebral subscription which is good but um and i don't i don't want to sound you know like some sort of some old testament guy that's shaking his fist at the modern world far from it you know um you know um the great thing about art whatever it may be is that it's always slightly

49:42beyond arm's length in terms of understanding you know you can you can never quite put your finger on it which is wonderful it has that it's just you can fumble towards it but you can never you can never fill it in like a crossword um and um if only that was sort of more widely accepted what people want these days and because of a lot of it is about the house the education set out they want something that is

50:13understandable that um uh that they can say oh yeah got it and then move on yeah but you can't ever get it it's not there to be got you know it's it's there to be asked not um solved and that's it is and it's that sort of you know and we live in in such uncertain times that people sort of want certainty you know they want to travel somewhere and know that that they will encounter this particular experience there um and it's in some ways that's human nature you know but it's become overly so

50:48um and um and partly because you know we're you know it's not when people say um oh i don't know rather than that being something interesting um and uh you know a position that then invites wonder and curiosity and exploration it's regarded as a limitation what do you mean you don't know hang on you should know about this thing you know and um uh oh that's that's not very reassuring whereas actually why do you have to be reassured and um and also as you know the more you learn

51:22about something the more you realize there is to learn you know it's that's the thing about um research is it it never tapers off you find a wider world in front of you opening up that's a perfect segue that's a perfect segue to what i was thinking about asking you next which is that you told me when we spoke before how you really didn't have an art education per se you came more from from photography so what was the turning point that led you to the more uh art side of photography or art generally

51:58you know coming from photography well um i mean i studied politics um uh i didn't do an awful lot of work it has to be said but um but by the time i left i realized that most of my friends were history of art students um and i've always i've always been a sight hound really you know i've always looked at things stared at things looked at pictures but but never in a in an educated way and um uh i um i sort of stumbled into photography by complete chance just doing a temporary job on a

52:36magazine um and i thought oh this is sort of fun you know i mean i didn't take it seriously and it wasn't a serious magazine it was a teenage girls magazine which was serious to the teenage girls but not through a guy in his mid-20s who thought why am i working on a magazine where you get a free comb on this week's cover you know but it was it was it was just i was there i had no money and it was you know easy work and kind of a good fun and from there i ended up working for the observer magazine you know the observer's one of britain's um key sunday newspapers um and that's where they treated

53:12photography a bit more seriously but but even then it wasn't you know it was still um um a bit lifestyle-y really and then not you know there was no they their entire framework of references was other magazine photography that was it um and i worked hard and i worked on various features and finally ended up um with very little experience i sort of blagged my way into the position as picture editor on the daily telegraph saturday magazine same thing there you know the editors

53:46knew about writers they knew about you know the politics was being published and all that sort of stuff about you know um investigative journalists but then even next to nothing about photography what they knew about photography was what the sunday times published about photography or what the new york times published or what stern published that's what they knew you know national geographic those sorts of things and i thought wow this is interesting because um they don't really know what i'm doing here and um nor do i and i'm not going to be here long anyway so so what if i make a load of mistakes i

54:20want to i want to do something i want to find out and i was interested so i started um you know looking at photographs and photography and photographers outside the canon you know of magazine outside magnum and you know those sorts of agents you know ap and those sorts of agencies and of course suddenly you come across you know um independent art photographers and fine art photographers and i thought this is much more interesting and um uh and every week we'd have this this features meeting you you the editors pa would go

54:54around ordering you know nice deli sandwiches and we sit in his office and and go around one by one suggesting features for the for the next few issues and um uh you know then someone would say oh you know let's do a feature on x you know um and um they go yeah who should we get to to write the piece oh i know bob he was he did that really good piece on you know on on y and yeah that was he'd be perfect for this and um yeah because isn't this guy and we're gonna leave it there for this public episode

55:30to hear the rest you can go to patreon.com slash the conversation pod and again you can hear more crankiness a lot more crankiness a lot more discussion of photography as well as the whole andreas gursky review anecdote and a bit about blind corners more about differences between the uk and the us and as michael says the wind always blows from the west so and the culmination

56:03of late capitalism you'll find out um also you can hear and see michael talking about social media and his relationship to it particularly instagram on our youtube channel which is at the conversation our podcast on youtube so go check us out there as well thank you very much for listening i'm glad you did i'm glad you're here uh i would certainly be even happier to see you over on patreon in any case thank you very much for listening until next time

56:42so you