101 - You have to fill your head with your own thoughts and not the thoughts of other people - Daniel Milnor
Une des expressions Américaines que je déteste le plus, c’est “never meet your heroes (because you’ll end up disappointed)”, parce que je n’aime pas l’idée qu’on se voile la face de peur de prendre la réalité en pleine poire. Si vos héros sont vraiment bien, il en sortent grandis, s’ils sont décevants, autant le savoir vite et s’en trouver des meilleurs.
C’est donc avec une pointe d’appréhension que j’ai rencontré une de mes principales influences, parce que c’est un excellent photographe, mais surtout parce que c’est un excellent créateur qui touche à plein de domaines et partage ce qu’il partage simplement parce qu’il a envie de le faire, comme il parlerait à un pote.
On va parler en Anglais, et c’est pour une bonne raison: je ne pouvais pas lalsser passer la chance d’interviewer Daniel, qui était de passage à Paris et que j’avais prévu de rencontrer, juste parce qu’il ne parle pas Français. Et je suis très content d’avoir saisi cette chance, assis sur un banc au pied de la Tour Eiffel.
Cet épisode va me coûter plus qu’il ne me rapportera: je vais perdre des auditeurs Francophones qui ne le comprendront pas, et je n’ai rien à gagner du coté des Anglophones car ça restera l’exception. Mais il est très intéressant, et au moment de le publier, je me dis qu’il vaut vraiment la peine d’être partagé.
On va parler de la photographie comme d’une petite partie d’une grande conversation, du fait que l’argentique est romantisé, de Roger Ballen qui passe l’air de rien devant nous, de curiosité, d’avoir le cerveau en ébullition en permanence, d’avoir désappris la créativité, de tenir un journal, de s’investir dans ses sujets, d’être vraiment unique, de se comprendre soi-même et de la nécessité d’un vrai editing, qui réduit non pas à 500, mais à 12 photos.
Bienvenue dans l’oeil de Daniel Milnor.
Legos de l’épisode:
I still do photography, but it’s a smaller part of a larger conversation I’m having now.
There’s a lot of romance surrounding what people perceived the analog era to be, but when you were in the middle of it, there were plenty of people, when digital came, that were “finally, I don’t have to go live my life in the dark anymore”.
I think the single most important trait you can have as a photographer is curiosity.
My life for a long long time was just about photography, and at that period of my life it was OK, but I would never do that again. Photography now is much better asw a small part of a larger conversation and that conversation to me is interesting. I’m interested in everything.
To me, photography has always been a private conversation more than a public conversation.
A lot of photographers are in it for the accolades and acknowledgment and I completely understand that, I don’t fault that at all. but for me it was always a private conversation.
The greater conversation is as important as the photography itself.
My brain never shuts off.
It’s based around curiosity. I’m so curious about everything that I want to investigate and that gets me out in the world to do it.
Creativity to me is based in the concept of freedom. It’s about the freedom to see the world in a way that’s unique to you, and being able to live your life according to how you see it. One of the challenges is determining what your own thoughts are.
Oftentimes as a kid, creativity is taught out of you: don’t daydream, don’t doodle.
I went to four years of photojournalism school, and we studied technique for about two weeks.
There’s a misunderstanding of the relevance of technique.
If you’re not 100% invested in telling the story, it shows in the work.
Why would you get involved in a story that you don’t care about?
You have to fill your head with your own thoughts and not with the thoughts of other people.
There are a lot of people who are doing/copying what they’ve already seen instead of taking the time to understand how they see the world and learning how to translate that with a camera. That takes time.
You have to understand your own thoughts, and I think people, a lot of time, are afraid of what they’re gonna come back with when they start thinking “who am I truly and how does that translate with a camera?”.
Printing forces you to make decisions about your work, but you have to pay for it.
Editing is a terrifying thing.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to work for whatever it is that you’re using.
There’s an online Photography world, and then there’s the industry of Photography.
My whole life is a good moment because of photography.
Dans cet épisode, on parle de:
Paris Photo
Roger Ballen
Eric Bouvet
Derek Sivers
Telex Iran - Gilles Perez
Film King Kong - 1977
The AP Stylebook
Film: Almost Famous
Elena Dorfman
-
Daniel
Gorilla-style recording.
Julien
Each record we have 10 hours of recording. I think, I hope, I sure hope because I have to get the kids at home.
Daniel
Is that enough for us?
Julien
They're a little young to be independent so maybe someday but not today.
Daniel
Don't worry about them. Modern kids are independent. They'll be fine.
Julien
They're French kids right so they're sophisticated?
Daniel
But they're French kids, right? So they're sophisticated.
Julien
We are not that sophisticated but I try to teach them. I have to be mindful of how I sit because
Daniel
Okay. Hey, how are you?
Julien
we are filmed today. Hi Dan! How are you after a long trip? It's a good place, it's a good place to be. Thank you for agreeing to this.
Daniel
I'm in Paris. How could I not be good? Yeah, it's always a blast to come back here. Yes, I'm here for Paris Photo.
Julien
You're in Paris for Blurb which is a company you work for. Okay so it's cooler to have you here anyway because you sent a message on I think it was
Daniel
We've got a team here, a couple more folks from the U.S., two from Europe are coming as well. And it's really the first event post-COVID for us to get into the field as a team. And I've been to Paris Photo many times in the past on my own, but this is the first time for Blurb. Yeah, I think you saved us.
Julien
YouTube saying oh I'm coming and Uncle Dan is coming to Paris would you want to do a photo walk? I said hey I'm in Paris and then next thing you know we are exchanging emails on best places to go and spots to see and I say hey would you like to do a podcast with me and he said yes. It was pretty easy.
Daniel
Because you saved us from ourselves, because us trying to—and non-French speakers trying to organize a photo walk in France. So you were a huge part of that, and we thank you greatly for helping us do that.
Julien
I thank you for being here also and for coming and it's cool to
Daniel
Thank you. Thank you.
Julien
get a chance to do a photo walk with you because I think that's the way you learn most by seeing how other people do. I've made a lot of photo walks with past guests of this podcast for people listening in English and never listening in French. It's like episode 100 so I've made a few. I always try to go out with people to make photos and when you see them working it's one thing to hear how they do and it's another thing to see how they do and I'm really impatient to see how you how you do and how all the people because I think we're going to be 50 on the photo walk. Welcome to Paris. You know Paris it's like three seasons are cold and rainy and the other one is winter. It's okay so you're enjoying your stay in Paris so far. Cool. It's a nice place to be.
Daniel
Love it, always.
Julien
You don't know the episodes and the structure of the episode but the first question is elevator
Daniel
Well, I would say that I'm a reformed photographer that now works as creative evangelist for
Julien
pitch. So you're meeting Steve Jobs in an elevator and he was known for cornering people in the elevator and saying who are you what do you do and firing them if the answer was bad. So you've got three floors to tell him who you are and what you do what do you say. I've noticed that you're a photographer from the analog era
Daniel
Blurb. And that's basically my entire life. I do a lot of other things outside of that, but that's really it, is I spent the bulk of my life as a photographer. I still do photography, but it's a smaller part of a larger conversation that I'm having now. So my life is a lot more diverse. The backbone is photography, but the overall shell would be trying to live a creative life. For sure.
Julien
which is pretty different than a photographer from the digital era. You know you're a photographer from the digital era. So you're a photographer from the analog era.
Daniel
Yeah. It was, I'm very, very thankful that I started in analog photography because it taught me
Julien
So you're a photographer from the digital era. So you're a photographer from the analog era.
Daniel
a lot of things that I don't think I would have learned had I started today. But there was an agonizing aspect of it as well, because it was like a glacial pace of everything that you did was tied to going back in the wet dark room.
Julien
So you're a photographer from the digital era.
Daniel
And that in some ways was a limiting factor because it would begin to creep into how you made things in the field, knowing that you were then going to have to go spend a day or a half a day or multiple days in the dark room, trying to make sense of that with the analog chemical wet dark room process. And there's a lot more freedom today, but I'm glad that I started with one foot in the stone age and now I have one foot in the space age. Yes. And you're sitting, I was going to say, and you're sitting in the, you're not sitting in a room full of chemicals. So it is, you know, yes.
Julien
You're just sitting in front of the camera.
Daniel
Yeah, there was, I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of romance surrounding that
Julien
So instead of destroying your lungs, you're just destroying your eyes. It's like the Leica M6 that everybody thinks was the greatest camera of all time in the 90s.
Daniel
what people perceived the analog era to be. But when you were in the middle of it, there were plenty of people that when digital came, they were like, finally, I don't have to go live my life in the dark anymore. Yeah.
Julien
And in fact, it's only the greatest cameras of the 90s, but today.
Daniel
Exactly.
Julien
And in fact, it's only the greatest cameras of the 90s, but today.
Daniel
Yeah.
Julien
People are thinking that it was like that, but it's not actually. I've noted, you're a YouTuber, that's how I know you.
Daniel
Mm hmm.
Julien
You're also a podcaster, not regular enough for me because I love your podcast. You talk a lot about a lot of things, which I think is interesting. Because probably it's what makes you a good photographer also.
Daniel
Sorry to interrupt, but you know who that was that just walked by?
Julien
It's that you have views on everything. Sorry, I didn't know who that was.
Daniel
Roger Ballen.
Julien
No.
Daniel
Roger Ballen is, that dude right there is a legend in photography, but we can, we can
Julien
We'll talk about him.
Daniel
talk about him later, but yeah, he's a very unique dude. Mm hmm.
Julien
I was saying, your podcast is about many things, not only photography. Even YouTube, you speak about bikes. You speak about politics. You speak about everything that comes to mind. You have this goat of the week. You have opinions.
Daniel
Yeah.
Julien
I was wondering...
Daniel
Classic.
Julien
Fuck. This is the problem.
Daniel
That is hilarious.
Julien
This is the first time I'm recording outside, which shows a very nice spot close to the Eiffel Tower. We have people passing by.
Daniel
There's a maintenance guy who decided to park.
Julien
There's a little car that's making a lot of noise. It's parking just across us. Please leave. Let's do that again.
Daniel
Yeah.
Julien
I stuttered on my words anyway. You have this podcast where you have a lot of opinions on many things that are not necessarily photography.
Daniel
Mm hmm.
Julien
You can talk as much as a bike you just got, as politics, as what happened in the world, as anything. I'm one person with one opinion because not everybody is able to have a quiet conversation about things that can be a little complicated. I'm one person with one opinion because not everybody is able to have a quiet conversation about things that can be a little complicated.
Daniel
Absolutely.
Julien
Do you think this is one of the things that makes you a good photographer, that you have other interests than photography? Yes.
Daniel
I think, I think the single most important trait you can have as a photographer is curiosity.
Julien
I think my life will be a little different.
Daniel
And I think my life for a long, long time was just about photography. And at that time in my life, in that period of my life, it was okay, but I would never do that again. And I think photography now is much better as a small part of a larger conversation. And that conversation to me is, is interesting. I'm interested in everything. I love politics. I love geopolitical affairs. I love history. I love science. I love space. I love all that stuff and cycling and motorcycling and you know, running and, and trail running and all that stuff. It's all part of my life and it's, it's interesting to me. I think it's as much, it's as important as the photography itself. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think to me, photography has always been a private conversation more of a, more than a public conversation. And that's, I would classify that as probably the, the minority view. I think a lot of photographers are in it for, you know, the accolades and, and acknowledgement. And I completely understand that. I don't fault that at all, but for me it was always a private conversation. And so I think now, I think now the, the greater conversation is as important as the photography itself. And I'm less inclined to get into conversations and relationships that are based solely around photography. And having said that, all my friends are photographers, so it's hard, it's hard to avoid. Oh yeah, I know of him. Yes. Yes. Well, it's interesting. Eric Bouvier was a guy that I have never met. We have, we have mutual friends in common and he was somebody that I watched a lot when I was coming up as a photographer. I think my energy level is probably, now I'm 54, I've had some health issues. Physically, it's not what it once was, but I think the, the problem, I'm using quotes around that, the problem that I have is that my brain never shuts off. So my brain looks around and says, look, you know, look at these things that you should be doing. You should do that. It takes my physical self to actually get out and do it. But yeah, I think I have, again, I think it's based around curiosity. I'm so curious about everything that I want to investigate and that gets me out in the world to do it. That's it. There's a, there's definitely a lot of, there's a shadow of guilt on everything I do. And you know, the, the cliche is fear is a great motivator. And I think that's very, very true. And I think it's trying to just keep it as a healthy, healthy fear and not a nervous fear. The book that I would give is the one that I stumbled upon accidentally in around 1990 at Half Price Books in Austin, Texas, when I was studying photojournalism. And I went to the Half Price Bookstore and I went to the photography section and there was a book called Telex Iran by a photographer named Gil Perez, who's a Magnum photographer. And I had been in the photojournalism program for several years and the photojournalism program was very structured. There were lots of rules. It was very kind of historical. And I had never seen anyone like Gil Perez. I'd never seen composition like that. The complexity, the layering, the even sort of the tilt to some of the images. But also there was a, an honesty in that book because the Telex messages from him in the field in Iran to back to the Magnum office in Paris, there was a vulnerability to those that made me realize that even though he was this legendary figure, there were, he had the same issues that I did in some weird, weird way. And I didn't buy the book because it did such a number on my head because I'd never seen images like that. I didn't really quite understand those images. And then also the vulnerability aspect of it made me nervous and I didn't buy it. I put it back on the shelf and I bought another book. But that Telex Iran just haunted me and haunted me and I could never get it out of my head. And I ended up with a copy of it 30 years later. And I was able to meet him in New York sort of accidentally one day and he was kind enough to take me to his studio. We had lunch together. He showed me kind of what he was working on at the time. Kind of one of the highlights of my photography career, but Telex Iran was a comprehensive documentary project about someone from one culture in another very different culture in a time of turmoil. And he was making sense of it photographically. And I was like, that's what I want to do with my life. [ Silence ]
Julien
Okay, good answer on the same style. I've just recently read a comic book called "Le Photographe" in French. It's a French photographer going to Afghanistan who made 4,000 pictures. He came back and six were published
Daniel
Okay.
Julien
over the years. It was in 1986. Six published pictures for three months in the war in Afghanistan. He made a comic book with the pictures. It's his story in comics and then the pictures in the middle. It's the same kind of... I will change the title. I will check if it exists in English. I will tell you because it's an amazing one. The next question I stole from you. What is creativity? [silence]
Daniel
This is a hard question. I think creativity to me is based in the concept of freedom. It's about the freedom to see the world in a way that's unique to you and being able
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
to live your life according to how you see it. And I think one of the challenges is determining what your own thoughts are.
Julien
Your own fault. [Silence]
Daniel
And I think creativity is just an absolute freedom to see and live the life that you want to live, sharing the stories that you want to in your own voice. And I think creativity is something, I think everybody has it, but we are, a lot of people, I can only speak to being in the United States, but oftentimes as a kid, it's taught out of
Julien
[Inaudible]
Daniel
you in America. Don't daydream.
Julien
It's the same in France.
Daniel
Don't doodle. And I think there's a lot of people that you run into that say, well, I can't do what you
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
do. I'm not creative. And that's just not true. Everybody has it. And it comes out in a variety of different flavors and shapes and looks. And it's all equal and it's all the same. But it's understanding what your unique creative fingerprint is.
Julien
And it's a long walk. [Inaudible]
Daniel
It is. It's a marathon.
Julien
This is what I'm realizing right now.
Daniel
It's not a sprint.
Julien
It's that you have to try and try and try and a lot of error. And then you may start to find something that you like. What makes you click on the shutter?
Daniel
Yep.
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
It starts with light. Light timing and composition. That's typically being in a place where I would call it a target rich environment. It's a situation that could depend on the spacing of elements within a frame. Like for example, yesterday afternoon around the Eiffel Tower in the area, lots of people doing lots of different things. It's my kind of spacing. But yesterday, what really sparked me was the light in the afternoon.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
By 3.30, the light was incredible. The sky was incredible. So it's most often just a light study. And then when I find the light that I want to work in, it's just go for it.
Julien
What makes a good picture?
Daniel
I think a good picture is anything that you, that invokes an emotional response in the
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
viewer. And what's good to me may not be good for you. It varies, obviously. But I think it's anything that invokes an emotional response. And that could be love. It could be hate. It could be indifference.
Julien
So what you're saying is you cannot please everybody. And you should not try to please everybody. [Silence]
Daniel
I can't even please my own family. How am I going to please everybody else? No, I think it's impossible.
Julien
I have four main questions that go around many branches.
Daniel
Puke stories.
Julien
The first one is about storytelling. You are a great storyteller.
Daniel
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Julien
You're making even puke story fun. I heard a few ones. Yes. When a podcast or YouTube starts with I have a great puke story, I know I will listen to it until the end because it's always very fun. And you have a way of making it like we were there. You know what I mean?
Daniel
That's hilarious.
Julien
I feel like I know the people that live the story.
Daniel
Good to know. I love puke stories. I love it.
Julien
And I want to hug them at the end because it's complicated for them.
Daniel
I love it.
Julien
So you understand that another car is passing.
Daniel
I love it.
Julien
So you're a great storyteller.
Daniel
I love it. I love it.
Julien
And to me, it's more important than technique and than skill.
Daniel
I love it. I love it. I love it. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Julien
Yesterday, I was making a presentation. And I said something like technique is 10% of the picture. And there's a girl. It was an amateur photographer group.
Daniel
[INAUDIBLE]
Julien
So she raised her hand and said, "How is technique only 10%?" And I said, "If your photo is beautiful, it's a good light, good composition,
Daniel
>> Yeah.
Julien
and no moment, it's like dating an amazing girl that looks beautiful, that is very well-dressed, but she only speaks Russian, and you don't." And then she understood.
Daniel
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Julien
I lost my train of thought because I didn't…
Daniel
No, I mean, Technique, put it this way, I went to four years of photojournalism
Julien
Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel
school, and we studied Technique for about two weeks. Two weeks was darkroom, was how to process your film,
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
was how the camera operated, the direction of light, and that was it. And then you spent the rest of your four years going in the field and making pictures. So Technique, I think, is something that is mired in the consumer, prosumer world, where there's a lot, there's a misunderstanding of the relevance of Technique.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
And Technique, obviously, is an integral part of every single picture you make.
Julien
The problem with technique is that it's what sells.
Daniel
But once you establish what it is, you'd never have to think about it again. Then all you have to think about is light and timing and composition. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Julien
Because if it's always about the story, why do you need to change your camera?
Daniel
Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
Well, that's it. I mean, I think 80% of the traffic about photography is about equipment and technique, and maybe 20%, if I'm being generous, is about the actual story.
Julien
Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel
I mean, if I do a film about a photograph, it gets a fraction of the traffic than if I even mention a camera that I'm using. And again, that's prosumer/consumer, whereas at a place like Paris Photo, if you go to a photo show like this,
Julien
So when you're good at storytelling, it's not a matter of medium.
Daniel
there's virtually no discussion of technique whatsoever. It's about the work itself. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Julien
You can do photo, you can do audio, you can do video. I had the example of Casey Neistat, which is an amazing storyteller,
Daniel
Yeah, I think any time you go from shooting random, single images, to telling a story, you have to adapt your style pretty dramatically.
Julien
which is not that technical in the way he creates videos, but he's a good example of that. But how do you translate the storytelling in the photography, which is the subject of the podcast? So I would like to have your view on this. [Silence]
Daniel
And the thing is, if you link together 10 of your best images, those may or may not tell a story. So stories require things that I call transitional images. It's an image where you have to assist the viewer along the passage of where you want them to go, what you want them to understand. And that often means using images that aren't aesthetically outstanding, but they're informational. And those informational images link to your best, most visual images that represent you as a photographer. But you have to have both. The 10 best images are a portfolio of your best work, but stories require much more of a well-rounded group of imagery. And it can be a little—it takes a while to understand how to do that.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
And that's why, like, I went to school for four years, and then I worked in newspapers for years.
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
And I did my own projects on the side. I worked for Kodak for four years, and all during the time I worked for Kodak, I was doing long-term projects on the side. And you realize by making prints and putting them in front of an audience that you see immediately where those holes are, where audiences get lost and say, "I don't really know exactly what this story is," and you have to help them out. And again, it's practice. This is all a very, very slow process, and that's why people spend years on documentary projects, is to try to make sure that those holes are filled in.
Julien
So a story is not a single picture.
Daniel
[What is the best image of a conflict?]
Julien
You can't, it's very, much harder.
Daniel
It depends. If it's a spot news image—I mean, if you look at—take, for example, the archive of the Time-Life Archive,
Julien
[Silence] Yeah.
Daniel
and you look at images—for example, Eddie Adams' image from South Vietnam of the execution of the South Vietnamese prisoner, or Nick Gute's picture from Vietnam, those—that's a summation of an entire, you know, conflict.
Julien
[Silence] Yeah.
Daniel
But those are rare. And most of the time—like, I'm not really a spot news photographer, I'm not a conflict photographer, I'm telling slower stories off to the side at a very slow pace, and occasionally you'll get something that could conceivably sum up the entire story in one frame. And as a newspaper photographer, that's what you have to do on a daily basis. That's why newspapers were such a good training ground.
Julien
[Silence] Yeah.
Daniel
You had to go out and you had to encapsulate an entire story, because the paper was typically only going to give you one frame, it was only going to have space for one image.
Julien
So you have to train for that,
Daniel
Yeah.
Julien
but the picture that makes one story in one picture is one in a million. Okay.
Daniel
[no audio]
Julien
There's one thing that you have in every video or podcast you make, it's culture. You can speak about a lot of things. You can insert references, pop culture or anything, in the thing you are discussing. How is it important to add to a storytelling? The culture of where I'm photographing.
Daniel
The culture of where I'm photographing.
Julien
The culture of anything.
Daniel
[no audio]
Julien
You can talk about something about photography, and then you insert a reference about a movie with a photographer. You know, you had one with King Kong, where he's going with three rolls of film on a four-week assignment.
Daniel
Oh yeah. Yeah. [no audio] Yeah.
Julien
And this is, I like this reference, I remember this one,
Daniel
[no audio]
Julien
but I think it's a way of connecting people to your story, no? [Silence]
Daniel
Jeff Bridges in King Kong, 1976 or '77.
Julien
I think what you're referencing is context.
Daniel
Yes, Jessica Lange, and he's, you know, Stowe Way on the Petrox Explorer ship, and he has like three rolls of film. I think what you're referencing is context. It's where—and I think again, it also speaks back to what we were talking about earlier,
Julien
[Silence] Yeah.
Daniel
which is photography is a small part of a larger conversation.
Julien
[Silence] Yeah.
Daniel
People will come to photography for a variety of different reasons,
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
and some of those reasons may be baffling to the photographer, but whatever, because it's brought them to you as an image maker, as a creative person. So I remember Blurb—this goes back to 2007 or 2008—Blurb sent a film crew to follow me for three days. And we did a film, and I remember someone reached out and asked me what kind of boots I was wearing.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
And I thought, "What a bizarre question."
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
But that person was then sucked into the story and the film because of a pair of boots I was wearing.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
And in my head, I was like, "Oh, I got to realize that photography means different things to different people, and not everybody is looking at it through the same lens that I am, but they may come to me for a variety of other reasons, and it doesn't really matter why they come. The most important fact is they're here." And then how do we develop a relationship where this just isn't a fleeting moment,
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
where how can I remain in contact with these people, and how else are we connected in our lives?
Julien
So you connect to people, yes, it's a lot of crows. [Laughs]
Daniel
We've got bird action, all kinds of stuff.
Julien
You're not whipping out your camera to photograph the birds,
Daniel
I don't have a long lens with me. My binoculars are in the hotel room.
Julien
it's your new thing. Okay, so, too bad, because I know a great bridge with a lot of birds.
Daniel
Oh, this is fantastic.
Julien
So I will show you the way,
Daniel
[silence]
Julien
and you can come back to that place. About the way you make movies, you make podcasts, it always seems to be one single take. And I'm always wondering, so you smile when I say that, so maybe it's not that much, but you seem to be at ease with what you say, and it seems to go out easily. Does it have anything to do with the fact that you journal? Maybe your ideas are clearer because you write them, and you don't have to remember everything. [Silence]
Daniel
So the short answer to your question is, it is one take.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
I don't ever redo anything normally because I don't really have enough time to do that. Journaling is a really important part of my life, and it's been a daily part of my life since 1993, so I've been doing this for a long, long time. But also, I am very much an introvert in my personal life, but for whatever reason, I love public speaking. Because some of my heroes in photography early on in my life,
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
when I got a chance to go see some of my heroes speak, they were not good speakers, and they were so bad at public speaking and speaking about their work that it turned me off to their work. And I made a decision, this goes back to the late 1980s, I made a decision that if I was ever in a position, and if I ever got good enough as a photographer to be put in a position where I had to speak about my work, I would not be that person. I would not fumble through a presentation and talking about my work. And so I just made a decision that I would never be fearful of public speaking, and if I got a chance to do it, I would be as good as I possibly could be. So when YouTube came along, I'm a reluctant YouTuber. It's kind of mortifying. I don't go back and watch myself on the films. I don't listen to the films. I find it a little bit embarrassing in some ways, but it's easy for me to sit in front of the camera and speak, because I'm thinking about these things a lot. And there is no separation, really, between my personal life and my professional life. They're wound together so tightly that these conversations that I'm having on YouTube are the same conversations I'm having in my real life with my friends and colleagues.
Julien
So you have the good way of using YouTube,
Daniel
I don't... yeah.
Julien
which is you just put a video on there, and you don't care about the algorithm and everything else,
Daniel
Don't care.
Julien
which is why I like your videos,
Daniel
Yeah, I think, you know, I'll never be a successful YouTuber,
Julien
because you don't really care about that, and that makes it interesting, because you don't bother just making something that will work. [Silence] Yeah.
Daniel
because to really get good at it, you have to really live your life to the algorithm. And that's not something I'm really interested in doing.
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
And a lot of people do it really well, and that's why they're successful YouTubers.
Julien
I've heard you say on still storytelling
Daniel
But I just... I don't know. I wouldn't... it wouldn't feel like me if I did that. [silence]
Julien
many times that you have more subject ideas than time to make them, which is very hard for me to hear, because I struggle to find good subjects. I've shown you a little of what I do. This is the first one I'm a little proud of. So what makes a good subject, and how do you find the good subject? [Silence]
Daniel
I think the only thing that really matters when it comes to good subject matter
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
is what is of personal value and personal interest to you. Because if you're not really 100% emotionally invested in telling the story,
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
it shows in the work. And as a newspaper photographer, you know, early on in my life,
Julien
I do it.
Daniel
there were plenty of things that I was assigned that I wasn't interested in. And you had to force yourself to engage with it. And it made me a better photographer. And then as I began, you know, a little bit later in my career, being able to do longer form projects that were more photo essay style work, I only wanted to work on stories that were of interest to me. So one of the best ways for me to find story ideas is reading. I do a ton of reading. I read somewhere between 50 and 100 books a year, depending on the year.
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
And through those books, it is just an endless... It's like... it's the bad cliche of peeling the onion. You pick up a book, especially nonfiction stuff, and it is just one project idea after another. Secondarily, that curiosity aspect comes into play. I'm in the field a lot. I talk to every stranger that I can come in contact with. I talk to everybody. I snoop around. I read the news. I'm interested in what's happening on a local level in my state where I live. And also things like, you know, I discovered birding a few years ago. And through birding, you know, people assume that the photo pic... the photo stories that I'm doing about birding are these tight images of birds. And it's really not. It's about the culture that surrounds where these birds are. And it's just endless, the number of stories out there that are telling. So I keep a list. And also, I come up with story title ideas. And this sounds a bit weird, but I will find a phrase that I love, and then I will find a story that represents the phrase.
Julien
This is something I do also,
Daniel
Song titles are good, too.
Julien
but it's with song titles. It works.
Daniel
Yeah, I mean, why would you get involved in a story that you don't care about?
Julien
So you're saying you have to feel something to make people feel something. [Silence] Yeah.
Daniel
So it's whatever that keeps you up at night.
Julien
[Silence]
Daniel
It's the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning.
Julien
Great advice.
Daniel
That's a good place to start to find a story. I don't think so.
Julien
On creativity, I told you earlier yesterday, it was my first public speech ever, and I quoted you twice. I quoted two persons twice. It was you and Erika Mann. I don't know if you know her. Erika Mann, she's from Two Man Studios. They're two of the biggest wedding photographers
Daniel
Oh, wow.
Julien
in the world. So there's a...
Daniel
I don't know her. Okay.
Julien
I have a very, very few sources that I learn from. I don't give permission
Daniel
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Julien
to most people. So that's a lot, having two quotes.
Daniel
Oh.
Julien
The first quote was, "Building a following is more important than good photography."
Daniel
Yeah.
Julien
The second quote was, "Creativity is supposed to be creative, and yet we find ourselves in a world of creative conformity."
Daniel
Mm-hmm.
Julien
Which was very hard for me to say on stage because I was in French one second, and in English the other one, and then I had to translate it. But I love this quote on creativity. And why I mentioned Erika Mann also is that she has another quote that I think relates to this one, which is, "Create before you consume." And the question is, how to be creative without redoing what other people do? [silence]
Daniel
It's a great question. And I think it's a very simple answer, which is you have to fill your head with your own thoughts and not the thoughts of other people. So there's a lot of people who are-- and I was just speaking about this this morning with someone else. When I was in college, I was making documentary projects, and I was shooting TMAX 3200 film.
Julien
[silence]
Daniel
And I was doing long-term projects. And I went into the archive at the university, and I found an old news photographer magazine that had a story about Antonin Krutakvill. And I saw his work, and I just fell in love with his work. A couple of years goes by, I'm doing projects, and I put my portfolio in front of a more established photographer. And he looks at the work, and he says, "Wow, this looks like Antonin Krutakvill."
Julien
No, it's okay.
Daniel
And I was nervous. It was not a compliment to me. It was nervous that I had somehow, maybe subconsciously, decided to copy Antonin Krutakvill. And I took it as not a good thing. I think that has shifted today. There's a lot of people who are copying what they've already seen,
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
instead of taking the time to understand how they see the world, and learning how to translate that with a camera. That takes time. It takes years to do that.
Julien
To me, copying is not that bad if you copy just the little piece that you like in a person
Daniel
And I understand why there's a reluctancy to do it now, because a lot of people want to get famous very quickly. They want to be relevant very quickly. And when I started, that was impossible. You spent 5, 10, 15 years trying to become relevant. And so I think you have to understand your own thoughts. And I think people, a lot of times, are afraid of what they're going to come back with when they start thinking, "Who am I truly, and how does that translate with a camera?" Yeah, I think we're all derivative in some way, shape, or form.
Julien
and you mix it with a little piece of a lot of other people, no? [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
But for example, I looked at a body of work a few weeks ago, and I looked at it, and it, to me, was an obvious reference to Sally Mann.
Julien
>> No, Sally Mann.
Daniel
And in my head, I thought, "Does this photographer know Sally Mann?" Because obviously, this work looks very derivative.
Julien
>> Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
But in their artist statement, there was no reference to Sally Mann. And I took that as a negative. I said, "This person should have referenced the influence that Sally Mann had,"
Julien
But maybe he doesn't know, which is why you should show your work to somebody who knows.
Daniel
which is completely fine to do work that's derivative of another artist. But mention who it is, and then mention why that you are adding to this conversation in your own way. Definitely, you want to show your work.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
I mean, Paris Photo is a perfect example. That crowd of people is incredibly well-established, and well-educated, and knows their photo history. And it's very different showing your work to somebody at Paris Photo
Julien
>> Yeah.
Daniel
than it is to show your work to somebody on YouTube, that an audience on YouTube that may or may not know anything about photography.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Mostly not, yes.
Julien
Yeah, mostly no, no, nothing. [LAUGH] Okay, the next question is about layering.
Daniel
[silence]
Julien
So I told you, you're one of the few people I'm classifying in the educator section. And my wife has a saying that roughly translates to education, is saying the same thing over and over again. We have small kids, so we say a lot of the time the same thing over and over again. There's one thing you're always coming back is on layering.
Daniel
Yeah. [silence]
Julien
You say a lot foreground, middle ground, background, which is something I've been listening to a lot because I'm eager to get better at layering. This was not my strong point and I want to do it better. So for people who don't follow you as I do, would you mind explaining what you consider a good layering? [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Yeah, I think layering is important because most of the people— the playground's coming alive—
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
most of the people that I see walking around with cameras
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
are walking around with wide-angle to medium-distance lenses. And one of the beauties of a wide-angle lens is not just to take in a wide angle of view, it's to help build depth within an image.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
And so, the way you do that is to have a foreground, mid-ground, and background,
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
all working in this—in, you know, good light, good action happening on all those planes.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And it is very difficult to do. And there are certain photographers out there—Alex Webb comes to mind— that have built their careers on doing this style of image. And it looks easy, and it is incredibly difficult. And to me, it's like, I can't remember the last time I made some really successful, what I would call like a five-star layered image.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
It's very hard. But it's just an active foreground, very close to the frame, to the photographer, mid-ground and background, all with interesting elements working in the right light, all at the same time. And it is—I would equate it very much to a good chess player. A chess—good chess player is 10, 12, 15 moves down the road.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And a good layer—you know, a good documentary photographer who works in layering is watching the pieces on the chessboard in front of them
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
and anticipating where those pieces are going to be at a certain moment
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
and then being fast enough to capture it. That's it.
Julien
You can learn the rules in five minutes, but spend a lifetime mastering it. Okay, it's very difficult to find a good explanation of a good layering.
Daniel
[silence]
Julien
Most people have part of the answer. I think you have most of what we need to know in the explanation. Thank you.
Daniel
Okay. [silence]
Julien
So since you've been a photojournalist, I can't help but think it's part of the toolbox that you're given when you start.
Daniel
Mm-hmm. [silence]
Julien
The things that you get yelled at, if you fuck them up. Can you explain me the rules of a good photojournalist picture, which is probably the rules of a good storytelling picture? [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Well, I think the rules of photojournalism and the things that you would get yelled at are based not in photography so much, even though they were very keen on, you know, rule of thirds and don't bullseye people in the frame and that kind of thing. But the things you get yelled at were rules of journalism. So, grammar spelling and punctuation. If you wrote a caption and had a grammar spelling and punctuation error,
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
that was an immediate F. If you made—there was a book at the time that every photojournalism student had called the AP—the Associated Press Stylebook. If you made a mistake that was contained in that book, it was an immediate F.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And then also your journalistic ethics. If you were in the field and you set up a photograph, that was a fireable offense.
Julien
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
Daniel
If you manipulated people into doing things in a photograph, that was a fireable offense. I saw people do this again and again. So, you know, the weakness—the pressures of journalism were very real.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
This was not—at the time, this was not, you know, everybody wins a trophy environment. If you screwed up, somebody was in your face yelling at you at the end of the day. The photo editor typically was the one who made it clear that you had made a mistake. And also, you know, it was basically these are the things that you have to uphold as a journalist, because the faith of the newspaper is based in these ethics. And the audience, the public, needs to know so that when you walked up with a press credential
Julien
That's a change a lot recently.
Daniel
around your neck that said you worked for whatever news organization, it meant something. It meant that you were vetted and that you were maintaining journalistic ethics. That is a very slippery slope. It has changed dramatically.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And again, you know, but it was terrifying because you went in the field—I was nervous all the time that I'm going to do something wrong or I'm going to get a—you know, if I met you in the field as a photojournalist and I photographed you and I said, "Okay, Julian, what's your name?" "Julian Pasternak." "Great. Can you—I would write it down and then I would hand you my notebook and I would say, 'You write it down,' and then I would record you saying it so that I would have three backups
Julien
Yeah. Okay.
Daniel
to make sure that your name was right."
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Then I had to write in the caption how—why we were together. And if I got that wrong, I was in trouble. And so every move—and in college, as I was—every time I wrote something,
Julien
And you get fired if you make the mistake.
Daniel
I had the AP style book in my hand looking at like, "Am I making a mistake here that's going to get an F on this project?" Like, in the newspaper, you can get fired.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And I know plenty of photographers who did things they shouldn't have done that got fired. And in journalism school, you know, you'd work for weeks on a project and get an F because you spelled something wrong or you did a grammar mistake.
Julien
So you learn not to make a small mistake.
Daniel
It was terrifying. You did.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
You learned. And it—you know, the downside of it, it was constricting. You know, you couldn't be as expressive as you wanted because you knew that if you strayed outside the lines, you were going to get penalized.
Julien
Okay, so in the end it was eye-opening on the fact that you cannot say all the time what you want.
Daniel
[silence]
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Ooh, no, it was—journalism was very formulaic, and it was very controlling. And, you know, even how you wrote—and I remember this very, very distinctly.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
I did a story about what we call in the U.S. a soup kitchen. It was for less fortunate folks who didn't have enough food,
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
and they would go to these places and get free food. And I did the story, and I came back, and my journalism instructor said, he said, "Content-wise, you're fantastic."
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
He said, "Grammar, spelling, and punctuation, you're a train wreck." And he said, "But that's why we have editors. That's why when you're working at a newspaper and you write something, it's not going directly to press.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
It goes through the photo editor, and then it goes through the assistant managing editor, and then it goes through a copy editor. And, you know, we're here as a safety net. The key for you is your content is good, but you need to refine the rest of it."
Julien
But it's a good lesson.
Daniel
[ Silence ]
Julien
If we talk about books, which is your job now, you work at Blurb, you're a creative evangelist.
Daniel
Yeah. Yeah. [ Silence ]
Julien
For them, what is that title, what does it mean?
Daniel
Creative evangelist means I get to go to Paris.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
[ Laughter ]
Julien
Oh, cool. I want the same job.
Daniel
[ Inaudible ]
Julien
I live in Paris, so maybe I get to go somewhere else.
Daniel
You get to go to New Mexico.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Yeah. My job has changed many times over the years, but my current title is evangelist. And basically what it is is it's a liaison between the company and the professional creative industry.
Julien
Okay.
Daniel
So photography, design, illustration, art, education,
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
I'm sort of a go-between between those two things. And then I do some writing for them. I do a lot of the public speaking.
Julien
Okay, and what you do on the side, do you consider this a part of what you do, or is it an extension for you?
Daniel
I do the educational outreach. I do some filmmaking. And, you know, I'm one piece of a much bigger marketing team. [ Silence ]
Julien
And how does it work together?
Daniel
Well, I would say the bulk of what I do is actually done on my own.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
But it still ties to Blurb because, as I mentioned before, there's really no separation between my personal and private life.
Julien
Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
My personal life and my professional life because all of my friends, my wife included, everybody's in this industry. So either photography or printing or publishing, it's hard for me to escape any of that. But the YouTube was not -- Blurb was -- YouTube was not something that Blurb asked me to do. My Shifter site was not something that Blurb asked me to do. So I have a specific set of duties that I have for Blurb. And then everything else is on my own, but it all still ties back.
Julien
It's always because most of what you say is make books.
Daniel
[ Inaudible ] Yeah. Print.
Julien
Also, print, make books, which is what I'm trying to do right now because of you.
Daniel
Yeah. Print, print, print. Put your work in print. [ Silence ]
Julien
What is so important about printing your work as a photographer? [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Oh, it's simple. Printing forces you to make decisions about your work because you have to pay for what you're doing. Whether you're making a small 4x6 printer, you're making a book, you have to pay for it. And that in itself right there changes the playing field. Because if you're going to make a book -- let's say that you shoot a thousand images. Well, you're not going to put a thousand images in the book. At most, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe if you did an incredible job, you'd have 50. So editing from a thousand to 50. But more likely, you might have 25. And then you need to determine what the top 10 are. And then what's the single best image? And then what's the single best image that goes on the cover that will help you tell the story?
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Or that will just trick people into opening the book? Those decisions, it forces critical thought that makes you a better photographer. [ Silence ]
Julien
This is funny what you're saying because yesterday I had to present my work, and I made the selection of the Pine Tree series, and I showed the 12 pictures I have selected, and I've been doing photography professionally for 12 years, but it's the first time I felt pro, really. I understood what it meant to have chosen the 12 pictures out of the 400 I made, which became 50 I printed, which became 12 as a series.
Daniel
Yes. [ Silence ]
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
That's it. I mean, I think if you look at the classic photo book, The Americans by Robert Frank. I'm going to get this math wrong, but I think he shot 72,000 images for that project. And there's 51 in the book. That's called editing.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
And that's what printing forces you to do.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Is it forces that a critical thought?
Julien
It's not 71,000 double clicks.
Daniel
[ Silence ]
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
No. And it's terrifying to a lot of -- especially with like consumer, prosumer photographers who didn't come up with a photo editor behind them all day long. You know, I would come back from an assignment, there was a photo editor there. And that's all they did. And they would help you make sense of your work. And a lot of people are not fortunate. They don't have that ability. So, you know, editing is a terrifying thing. And they'll shoot 1,000 pictures and they'll edit to 500 and say, "Okay, I did my edit." And I'm like, "That's not an edit.
Julien
No, you didn't. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
You haven't started." You know, what are the top 10? And they go, "Oh, that's impossible." And I'm like, "No, it's not impossible. It's just editing." [ Silence ]
Julien
The choosing, the clicking is easy, the choosing is very hard. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Oh, it's an art form.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
[ Silence ]
Julien
This is, I think it's the first time I understood that you're a real photographer when you know to kill some pictures. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
I think I love this analogy in speaking of culture. It's another movie reference. It's a movie called "Almost Famous" by Cameron Crowe. And Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a really unique character. And he's talking to a young journalist. And his line is, "You have to be merciless. These people are not your friends." And I think when you-- these people could be translated to your photographs. Your photographs are not necessarily your friends.
Julien
Photographs are not necessarily friendly.
Daniel
You have to be merciless.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
What's good and what's not? [ Silence ]
Julien
Very good analogy. How do you print well? [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Well, that's a tricky question because, I mean, a darkroom printing is a language. And there are master printers.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And I never reached master printer status. I never will. I was decent, not great. Inkjet printing is very different. It's much easier. But here's the thing. I have a horrible printer in my office. It's a Canon all-in-one scanner thermal printer. And it only prints in black and white.
Julien
Yeah.
Daniel
And it's horrible.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
There's lines all over. It's-- all the images are banded. I love it. I love it. I stick them in my journal. The ink comes off in my hands. So it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to work for whatever it is that you're using.
Julien
Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
So my journal, I'm not looking for beautiful prints. I'm looking for things that I can then put other art materials over the top of. I love having the ink on my fingers at the end of the day.
Julien
You work with it. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Yeah, you work with it. It's whatever gets you to make-- to press that print button is the key. [AUDIO OUT]
Julien
The books are the reason you're in Paris today. It's a Paris photo, it's like a giant book fair. You told me about when we prepared for the photo walk, you told me I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there. You told me about event. I didn't even know existed and I'm discovering that it's a huge world. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Yes. [AUDIO OUT]
Julien
That I'm supposed to be professional photographer and I don't know about. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Well, I think that's a very interesting question. And I'm actually glad you brought that up. Because I think-- and I've mentioned this many times on YouTube. There's an online photography world. And then there's the industry of photography. And this is the industry of not just photography, but more specifically, of fine art photography. Even though there are journalism, photojournalism installations. I went to an opening last night. Michael Robinson Chavez from the Washington Post had an image in a show. And he's a friend from a long-- way back. This is primarily more fine art photography. But it is the galleries, and the curators, and the collectors, and the publishers, and the major photographers in the world who are operating in this space.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And I think that a lot of the folks who live in the online world have no idea this world exists. But it is where the best work is coming from.
Julien
It's the world of the initiated.
Daniel
[AUDIO OUT]
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
It's the world of-- yeah, I would classify it-- there's a lot of fortunate people in this space who either went to photography school or went to art school,
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
and had the luxury of having the time to study what's been done before. And also how their work fits in, understand the context. But also the time and the ability to make this kind of work, which is not easy. And to get assignments. And to get publishing deals. And to find gallery representation. And how to get in museums, and work with curators and collectors. It is a conversation that I wish more online people knew about. Because it would make them better photographers just knowing this exists. [AUDIO OUT] No, it's not. [AUDIO OUT] Yeah, I mean, I think you can look at it two ways. You can look at it and say, oh, I wasn't lucky. I never got a chance to do that. I'm never going to get in. And that's not true. Or you can look at it and say, wow, there is a lot to learn here. And the thing is, there's a lot about this part of the photography world I don't like. There's a lot of people here that I would not want to hang out with. But there's an unbelievable amount of good work here. And also good books. And each of those, just to get a book published, that's 18 months to two years of your life. Not to mention making the work. And making the connection to the publisher. And getting someone to say, yes, we're going to invest all this money in doing this. And getting a printer in Italy or Iceland or China to put this-- it's like getting married. It's a huge relationship that isn't just about the photography. And so the amount of what an onliner could learn at an event like this is endless. We were joking that if you have FOMO, if you have fear of missing out, this is a terrible place to be. Because there's so much here, you can't possibly get to it all. But it's the industry side of photography. And that's the side that I spent my career in. And now I'm dabbling in the online side. And realizing the distance, the gap between these two is a pretty sizable gap. Oh no, I mean being part of this world is about who you know.
Julien
>> Yeah, but in the end it's not all about the photography. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
It's about your contacts. It's about how you look. It's about how you dress. It's about how you speak. It's about how you speak about your work.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
It's about your knowledge of photo history. It's about understanding context. All of those things. It is, it's far to me, it's the the relevancy. Yes, the photography is important. But everything else is on equal playing field.
Julien
It sounds like politics.
Daniel
A little bit, very political.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
You have a lot of people who are like photographers who are turned off by this. And I think if you fight it, you're never going to be happy. You have to understand that in some ways it's a bit of a game.
Julien
Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And there are people that play the game really well. And the people that I find most intriguing are the ones who can play the game without losing a track of who they are. And I love looking at immediately recognizable work. I love going into a gallery and looking on the wall and without seeing the caption saying, "I know who did that." That's to me the sign of a good photographer is that immediately recognizable work. When I saw that Gilles Perez work for instance, I was like, "I've never seen anybody that works like that before."
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And Perifoto, there's a hundred photographers in there who make work that I can look at across the room and say, "I know who did that." Yeah.
Julien
So it's a good place to be for you.
Daniel
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Julien
Last question for the interview. We always end up talking about one picture, one series of picture in particular. In your case, it's double exposures, which seems to be what you love doing at the moment. You talk a lot about that. I understand one double exposure. It's harder for me to understand full projects on double exposures. So why are you choosing this as a medium of expression, and how do you make them relevant?
Daniel
Great question.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
So I think this is really important, especially for people who struggle with how to come up with a story idea. I had never done double exposures until 2019 when I went to Albania for the first time.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And I went to Albania to take a workshop, not to teach it, but to take it. I've been back twice since to teach workshops in Albania. But I went to take a workshop with Elena Dorfman, who's a fine art photographer from LA, who's Albanian descent. And Elena said, "You should really come here and see this place before it changes." And so I made a decision to go. And she was teaching a workshop. And so I went. And before I left, I did research on Albania. And I needed to know more because like many Americans, we don't know that much about the country.
Julien
>> Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And I said, "I need to develop a way of telling this story, and it needs to be specific to Albania." And my original idea was I will use multiple exposures. I'll have one exposure to represent the old dictatorship of Albania, and then the new sort of burgeoning modern democracy. And I got to Toronto the first morning, and I thought the technique that I was going to use, it didn't work. And I kind of panicked. And I thought, "Okay, what I've got to do?" And I sort of invented a new way of doing it. And so I had a specific reason for shooting multiple exposures, was the old Albania versus the new Albania. At the same time, to me, it is a gimmick. Multiple exposures are in a way a gimmick. They're a lot easier than shooting standalone images. I've continued shooting them wherever I've been, although this trip to Paris is the first time that I'm not shooting them. I've just said before I left, "I'm not doing these anymore right now on this trip."
Julien
>> You're doing black and white this time.
Daniel
Shooting black and white and shooting just straight images,
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
because it's more challenging. The doubles, you can do anything. But I think when you have a specific reason for doing it, it makes sense. If you're just doing it all the time for no reason at all,
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
then it becomes too much of a gimmick for me.
Julien
Nice answer.
Daniel
[silence]
Julien
We are arriving to the end of the episode. I have two more questions. What is the worst moment in your photographic career? [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
Uh, this is pretty funny. The worst moment in my photography career was also one of the best moments, because it forced me to make a change. But I had become, at some point in my career, I'd left journalism. I'd done all kinds of other kinds of photography. I worked for Kodak for four years. I decided to leave Kodak, and I became a wedding photographer. This was before the wedding industry blew up. It was sort of still off to the side and like a weird, weird business. And I was shooting high-end weddings out of Los Angeles. And at one point in time, I'd been shooting on a wedding for like eight or ten hours. I was exhausted. It was in the middle of the California desert. It was 110 degrees. I was packing up my gear at the end of the night. And the wedding planner comes running out and says, "No, you can't pack up yet. You forgot to photograph the cupcakes." There was some high-end cupcake company that was... The bride and groom had paid for these overpriced cupcakes. And in my head, I thought, "I have a degree in photojournalism. I've had images in Life magazine. I've done all these things, and I am getting yelled at for not photographing a cupcake." I was like, "I've hit rock bottom." And literally, the reason why that was horrible, because as I just described, the reason why it was great was I went home, and within a week, I had quit photography. I just deleted my email account, and I said, "I'm not doing this anymore. I'm going to do photography, but I'm not going to work as a photographer." And that was it. That was the moment. My wife still makes fun of me because she was standing right there and saw the whole thing.
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
I've had so many good moments.
Julien
>> And so is this the best moment, or do you have another best moment in your career? [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
I would never be able to narrow it down to one. Photography has afforded me a life that is... I'm incredibly fortunate. I've had so many experiences. An older photographer pulled me aside when I first was an internship at the newspaper. He said, "You're going to live in one year what the average person lives in 10."
Julien
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
And I think that's an understatement. I think it's even more than that. Photography has put me in places and with people that I would have certainly never been exposed to before. I'm in Paris doing an interview with you right now.
Julien
>> Yeah. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Daniel
I get to spend another three or four days here going around to different events. My whole life is a good moment because of photography. Constant.
Julien
>> So it brings you a lot. I think what it brings is encounters, no? >> Constant.
Daniel
That's it.
Julien
>> All the time. You make friends all the time from crazy, far away people to corner of the street, or you just get to talk to somebody you met on the street and take his picture. >> That's it. >> It brings great encounters.
Daniel
It's given me an amazing life.
Julien
>> It's given me an amazing life. >> It's cool. Thank you for this encounter. We were almost killed by pigeons, right?
Daniel
Pigeons and a parrot behind you on the tree or macaw or something back there.
Julien
>> I was right there behind you on the tree. >> This is why we didn't sit.
Daniel
Yes.
Julien
We were in the park. We didn't sit under a tree because I knew what would happen. You're not from Paris.
Daniel
Okay.
Julien
You don't know how aggressive they are, but the pigeons hate me. I can tell.
Daniel
Good. Thank you so much.
Julien
Thank you, Daniel. It was amazing having you. >> Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Daniel
I really appreciate it.
Julien
It was a blast talking with you.
Daniel
It was a blast talking with you.
Julien
>> Enjoy Paris photo, and we'll see you on Saturday for the photo walk. >> Thank you.
A propos du Podcast:
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Générique d'intro: Joakim Karud (https://soundcloud.com/joakimkarud)
Générique de fin: Dyalla Swain (http://soundcloud.com/dyallas)