Will Waterworth: Cinematic Photography & Storytelling

This week on Chaos & Creativity, we’re joined by photographer and visual artist William Waterworth. His work feels like scenes from an old film — dark, cinematic, and full of emotion. We talk about why he prefers shooting out in nature instead of a studio, how literature and art inspire his photography, and why he looks for real character over the “perfect” model.

We also get into film vs. digital photography, creating timeless black-and-white images, and what it means to make art that actually feels something in a world full of content. If you’re into photography, fashion, creativity, or visual storytelling, this is a really good one.

Check out more of Will’s work:

• Instagram: @willwaterworth
• Website: William Waterworth 

Connect with the Show

• Hosts: Kimi Recor and Lou Lesko
• Producer: Claire Duncan
• Instagram: @chaosandcreativitypodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Hi, Kimmy.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Hi, Lou.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

How you doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:20

I'm doing great. Just uh sitting in the sun in Berlin. We finally are in spring, and it's the best thing ever.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

I was uh just in London like 24 hours ago and I was there for a week. The weather was better than California, if you can believe it.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Yeah. I mean, uh I was just talking to Claire, our producer, she said that she's sitting at a cafe inside because it's raining and I'm just like looking outside, the sun is coming in, everything is beautiful. And it's so funny because I think Berliners are so traumatized by the winters that we forget, like we immediately, the minute the sun comes, we're like, oh yeah, this is the best place ever. Um basically since October, we've just been cursing um the sun for not coming out and like becoming little tiny depressed rat people who are just like, I ha I don't have enough vitamin D. And then like the first hit of summer, everyone's like, let's get ice cream and lay in the park, and it's beautiful. Yeah, we're all delirious.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

That's really sort of Berliner, actually, to be honest. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

It's like this cycle that repeats every year. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

We never learn natural environments. Um, our next guest, Will Waterworth, is a photographer who is um relies heavily on environment. And if you look at his stuff, I'm looking at his site now, it's breathtaking.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

I mean, it is shockingly, and you know me, I am a a photo snob. Um and his I my jaw rarely goes on the floor, and I every time I look at his work, my jaw goes on the floor. He's spectacular.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

He is amazing, and um I'm really excited about this episode because I really I feel like there's like an old guard of photographers and a new guard, and he has this like way with light, and this is something you guys talk about in those episodes using light, and that is truly an art form. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

And uh one of the other things I like about it is that he has figured out how to really take what he does and offer it to the commercial space or the editorial space, and it's sort of like a take or leave it. Like I'm not going to adjust what I do or how I work in order to conform to making the money. I'm just gonna put it out there and then whoever wants it can grab it. And yeah, I think that's actually laudable at on the at the highest level. And speaking about myself who has chased the money, who's you know, chased it, and it never worked out well for me, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

It's it was always a total train wreck.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

I just want to put that out there.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Never it never does.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

So I mean it took me, it took me like two decades to learn that lesson. Like, listen, this is who I am. If you if you like it, grab it. If you don't, you know, I will get another job someplace as a barista or something.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

So um, but his stuff is haunting, it's uh evocative, and it really translates well into the uh campaigns that he does for advertising, and I just feel that I'm touched every time I look at his work. So um, and he is he's a chill dude, man. He is so cool. Uh so I think we just drop right into this and and have a listen. Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

All right. So we were just talking, and the creative world has changed radically, and you seem to be from what I could see from your photography in the space of the old romantic version of being a photographer in a new world. You have created a bridge which I haven't seen before because people have sort of changed with the zeitgeist uh things, and so it's um it's amazing what you've done just with your work. So, oh, and congratulations um with uh your WSJ cover. How was that?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

That was good, yeah. Um first time shooting in New York, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

And that was a Ben Stiller, right? Yeah. So and did you have to so would you term yourself an editorial photographer?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

An editorial photographer, yeah. Um You're from London, right? I'm from the Welsh Shropshire, Welsh border. Okay, got it. All right. So, but I wouldn't say I'm an editorial photographer, more of like a fine art photographer. I'd love to, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

And so then you made a transition into sort of the editorial space.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

How how so if we if we can get the the permission from the WSJ, we'll uh put your pictures up of uh Ben Stiller. Of course. Because they're good, but the stuff that I showed me today, I don't know if it's if it's viewable or not yet. But you're here in Los Angeles with me and you're shooting in studio at Kyote yesterday for Wall Street Journal magazine again, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I think it's due out next month or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Yeah. Story. And um, so but how did you make the the transition into the editorial space from because your your fine art stuff on your website, which we'll put in the show notes, is it's stunning. Yeah. And it's just, I mean, it's it's beautiful to look at, it's beautiful to stare at, and you get a lot captured immediately when looking at your work. How did that translate into getting editorial work at Wall Street Journal magazine and then maintaining that creative integrity which really kind of echoes your artistic background?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Um well, I probably began with I began in Paris studying ph photography there, and um the early pictures were of friends of friends who are models photographing in the streets. Right. And I would go down to the thrift store and style them, and I would have maybe two models a day sometimes, and I would just be shooting the whole time. Okay. And I had a year there, and I um after my year of studies in Paris, I got an agent, a French agent, who looked after So So how did you get a French agent so fast? I mean they came to the end of year show and they saw my pictures and he was he had looked after Peter Lindbergh and Paulo Ravesi in the 90s and stuff. And then he took me on and I was 21, 20 maybe, 21. So I didn't know what I was doing in terms of the bigger picture. Right. But I mean the pictures were like the essence was probably there, you know, the black and white was there.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Yeah. And Peter Lindbergh was so one of the things when when our mutual friend Kieran introduced us and you showed me your work, and Kieran said he's a natural light photographer, which is exactly how I started.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

And Peter Lindbergh was a huge influence because kind of like you can shoot this beautiful stuff, it doesn't have to be in studio. And I couldn't afford lights when I was learning how to be a photographers, so I was like, oh sun seems like a reasonable source. But um, so you you get the agent, you're out of school, you get the agent immediately. And was that bewildering? Because it's you it seems like you went from the slow lane to the fast lane very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Very quickly, and they had a huge office on Rue de la Paix, and it was that you go up, and I was so nervous, and sort of it was a hot summer's day, and I walk into the office, and he's uh you know, all these old limbo pictures on the walls and all this. Right. And it was like kind of this is how it's gonna be, this is you know, this is what I think of you, you know. Let's begin. I've got we've got an editorial next week.

SPEAKER_03 7:47

Yeah, oh, and he had something for you right away.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

So it was like uh it was Madame Figaro and it was in London. Oh, is it London? Yeah, London's calling Madame Figaro. That's what Oh, that's great. That was my first ever story, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

And um, and then and then how uh so how old are you now?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Twenty-nine.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Twenty-nine, okay. And um so you start with this agent, do you Madame Figaro in London? Um, and then when did you start feeling grounded with the machine that you were in, so to speak?

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Uh last yeah. Really?

SPEAKER_03 8:21

It does it takes a minute, doesn't it? Last it took how long did it take you? It took me a decade. Ready? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It took me a decade. I mean, I had a slower start than you, but similar start. I got discovered by a super agent, and you know, when you look at the you know, the ladder to elevate, and there's like those 25 steps, and you just kind of leap right over them because somebody very powerful kind of throws you into the fray.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Um That's what's that's what happened with you.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Yeah, yeah. And so, but it took me 10 years to to understand that I could shoot pictures. Yeah. I love doing it. But did you have a similar experience type of thing?

SPEAKER_00 9:05

I'm talking about editorial photography here, which is like kind of more of a like uh you're capturing s I could take a fine art picture and but I I would take one picture in a day. Yeah. Whilst yesterday is like capturing 16 images, 20 images in one day with 20 different setups with 40 people behind you. That's like a completely with artificial light, with natural light with how how did that feel?

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Like that was that's a big day yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

That's 10 years. I think that's what 10 years is how that's how long it takes, I think, for me. Yeah. Yeah. To kind of get uh to get there.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

And then when you were when you were directing yesterday, did you um was is that your biggest set so far?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Not my biggest set, but I mean they they tend to be a little bigger over here, don't they? Well, we are Americans.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

More stuff, more stuff. Get more people. What do they do? I don't know, just fill the studio with people. They can eat the craft service, it'll be great.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

So um so but um but I still believe a great editorial photograph is a fine art picture, you know.

SPEAKER_03 10:09

Oh, that's a great line. That's good. Yeah. And so you approach editorial with sort of a fine art sensibility.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

I try and I get there as as close as I can sometimes, but sometimes a watch, you know, gets in the way or something, no?

SPEAKER_03 10:21

Yeah, we're oh the reason we're getting paid type of thing. Um, do you ever feel that you're just shooting editorial or even commercial stuff, and that you are compromising your fine art? Does that feel like a compromise, or do you compartmentalize it, or you just think that like I've got a camera in my hand, I'm gonna do my thing?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

I think if you're working like I did yesterday, that's like uh and I'm not paying any putting any money into my own money, then I think I'm I'm willing to accept that like 70% of the shots probably aren't gonna be like pure, and I'll get 30% pure. Right. Or maybe less. I might get three or four images, which might I could probably put up on a wall. And I'm willing to like accept that but prior to the commission.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Oh, you are so you do you have to put yourself in a sort of a headspace for that?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

It's yeah, you're like, okay, well, this I know I'm not gonna like 60% of the looks, probably.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

But whilst with when you're paying for like a uh more of a fine art like um magazine, yeah, you're maybe putting a lot of your money in, then you probably expect to get 90%, 100% every image is okay, you know, great.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, I like I like the way that feels, right? Did you um and so you're you're traveling all over the world now, basically, for shooting. And is this still through the same agent or different agent now? Oh, really? I ran from him, yeah. Oh, why? What happened to your story? I think it's important because I I think people listening who get first representation, you know, my feeling was like I I'm so lucky to be represented so young that that comes, I think, with a bizarrely unless you're utterly abused, but it becomes with an inherent loyalty. Do you know what I mean? So did you did you have that sense too when you left your first agent?

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

You know, it's like a breakup.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

It was a huge breakup, yeah. And also the first one is always like the you know, the guiding yeah, uh guiding captain now. He's sort of like right, right. So, but so and you you left him greener pastures, like what was I left because it just wasn't really working for me, and I thought, you know, that um I don't want to say yeah, I don't I would rather not speak out of school, but like this personally speaking, was it sort of like you were looking for something more? I was looking for something fresher, something younger, something more uh um aligned with you know where I was going, you know. Right. And he had maybe had older he had taught me as much as he could, I think.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Oh, so you you saw the end of the of the education cycle, but yeah. I think that's a good point for um people listening that you know when you sense that things are becoming routine, you get out. You gotta get out, right? So unless the money's really good. Unless the money's really good.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Which it wasn't.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Which it wasn't so no education. Yeah. Well, if if somebody pays you five dollars, you're like thrilled beyond belief. For me. So as you keep shooting um some of this editorial and commercial stuff, how are you keeping your um fine art practice going? Is it how you find yeah, how are you finding time?

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Uh I just by not stopping. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

Fair point.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

By not stopping and uh but it's tricky for sure, yeah. Very tricky, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

Do you find that it edit by not stopping and keeping the fine art going as much as possible, but do you find or do you feel that any of the fine art stuff starts to suffer at all?

SPEAKER_00 14:07

I guess it does a little bit, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It definitely comes down and um down and down and down, yeah. But I mean you give time to the projects that you love, and maybe you have them on the burn and as soon as you have a pause and you jump on it. You jump on it, you know. Right. Um so you keep you kind of keep that going. It's like a fire that's going just and then you kind of just you know jump straight to it when you have a pause.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

And then is it is it gonna manifest in a show or do you do shows?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

So like how does this maybe yeah, I want to do an exhibition called Down the Garden Path. Okay. It's just like um I went to go and photograph Rick Owens. I don't know, Rick Owens. He's a fashion designer. Okay. Um last cr last winter, and he gave me a book by Beverly Nichols called Down the Garden Path. And I thought that would be great to do a whole exhibition on that and a book. So that's what I'm working on at the minute. And it's based around that book, but other things um surrounding that topic of the garden. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

Yeah, and and like can you give me give me some insight into what that looks like or um can I get into that?

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Um I think it's like a little bit about how you can cultivate your own, everyone has their own like capability, cultivate their own garden. Um, and how that looks is like completely up to you. And you can bring in whoever you want, and you can travel to wherever you want, and then it's like um it's a very personal thing, no, the garden. And I we went to go and see Derek Jarman's garden the other day. Oh, wait, wow, okay. Um and my godfather is like a great like um historian on the gardens of like 17 of the UK and stuff like that. So I'm gonna go see him. So I'm in the process of like uh getting to like without even beginning really um the process of just like learning about the direction of the whole. But so I want to go a bit deeper.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

Yeah, so what I'm hearing is it sounds like you approach this fine art project as almost like a writer would approach a book or screenwriter would approach a screenplay. It's like you're going deep, you're getting inspiration, you're doing the research, you're seeing the places, and then do you just let it sort of simmer in your head?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Let it simmer for a little bit while yeah, because I what I'm finding a little bit is that you do these projects like like yesterday I go back to it, and it's like five days to prep, and then you and you have you can't there's only like a you're on the surface.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

You can't think about anything creative, you're just answering emails and answering questions. How many lights do you want? I don't know. You know. Um are you vegan? No, I'm fine. Thank you. So um but mentorship I think is quite important, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 16:54

And yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

Have you taken somebody on to mentor them?

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Well, I had uh a great photographer called um Tim Walker mentor me a lot. Oh, okay. Um, and he's helped since when I first had my Madame Figro shoot, he he lent me his studio and he lent me all his equipment and stuff like that. Yeah. So ever since for the last eight years or so, he's been a great mentor, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah. But um getting back to your process for this fine art project, yeah. Um down garden. Um down the garden path, right? Down the garden path. Yeah. Is it so you're you're you're seeing these places, you're taking in what exists, I guess. Yeah. And then is you I are you keeping a notebook by the bed for the middle of the night when you go, like, oh that would be a great shot? Or like how is that how are you starting to to to foment like the project?

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Um sometimes um there is a the there's some there's different elements to the book. There's some documentary, there'll be some documentary sort of chapters. There'll be a very far more like theatrical um story, which will be more fashion related, which will will there'll be maybe two shoots of which will kind of come in. Okay. Um and then there's also like I find myself um doing photographs or finding myself down the garden path, and I'll be with like Janet or I was photographing someone called Janet the other day who's a um who was a man, and um and I found that I was down the garden path with her, down this little path, and she was dressed in this um in a large dress and she had a wig on and she had a glass of champagne in her hand, and there was a lovely cat that was walking underneath the um the bench, and I just sort of found myself there rather than like having even though it's back in the back of my head, it was like suddenly I arrived there without even like going there. Right. So some of it's kind of spontaneous as well, I think. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

It does make sense. It's it's it almost feels like it's it's a planned project with journalistic elements to it.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

And some stage, some's like reacting. Reacting. Right. Yeah. And you can find yourself in someone's garden, you know, after like a I don't know, a party or like something like that, or something. I don't know. So it's a lot of it's unplanned, no?

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Yeah, it's um it's it's interesting because the uh do do you feel like for for uh for what I'm seeing from my perspective, which is zero to do with your perspective, but um it sounds to me like you have this thought of this abstract in your head of what you want this thing to look at, and so you're on alert for something that can add to it. Yeah, it's a reactive part, and then that may inform the more theatrical setups. Is that exactly?

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

That's cool. That's a great process, right? I mean, I think so. I hope so. We all hope, right? There's um do you know Natalie Dibbett? She's out of Brighton. No, I think she did um Birth Undisturbed series that was that hung in the Sachi. Her we interviewed her for this podcast. Um, and she does these wonderfully, hugely theatrical setups. They're incredible. You must see them, but um she speaks about having a lot of what she has inside her that she needs to see in front of her almost. Is are you feeling the sort of the same way about that? I think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

And um yeah, I probably am need to do more research. I need to do more research. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:40

When does the research stop and the shooting start? You know?

SPEAKER_00 20:44

I think it should start pretty soon. Um, but I'm gonna go see my godfather when I get back and I can do more research when I see him and dive deeper, deeper, deeper. Yeah. Okay, that's great.

SPEAKER_03 20:54

Yeah, that's good. And you're you're going from LA to Paris, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Going to L to Paris, you're gonna go photograph Lou Doyen. Okay. Um Jane Birkin's daughter, also just like uh she's a musician. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Is this is this for um This is for a personal project, yeah. Okay, that's fantastic. Um, so I kind of have a list of people that I've always uh want to meet in my life, and there's a long list, and I sort of slowly getting through them, you know. But that's I make connections through that as a kind of continual conversation, yeah. Right. So kind of I'd like to shoot your pictures, please. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

So can we can we um I I and I I don't know if I'm bringing this up because I I think I'm bringing this up because I want validation from my early career in that like natural light is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

You prefer natural light.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Oh god, I love natural light. I can't, I mean, I can I used to shoot, you know, obviously with lights and depending on whatever the job called for, but I would hire people who knew how to set up those lights. I can I can describe it in words what I want. It's like, you know, when you're in the high. Desert and the sun just goes down. It's like that beautiful ghostly light. And these very tacky people would just look at me like, yeah, sure, whatever. You know, but um there's something about um natural light that I find very comforting. And I don't know if it's because it's very real or because it's challenging and real, or do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was wondering what your what your view was.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Um I've yeah, I definitely prefer natural light. It was it's kind of, I mean, it's what we are though, really more, don't you think? I mean our essence, yeah. I mean I started with natural light and then I knew nothing about artificial light. Who needs it? Who needs it? No. Some people do editorial they do maybe sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

Yeah, or if it's a commercial job, and yeah, you need to have to have complete control. But it's I just remember my agent at the time was I was a hard sell into clients because you know, as I was drifting into more of the commercial space, you know, she would have to go talk to people with real budgets and say, just get him on location and let him do his thing. And it's like, that's not how we work here. You know what I mean? And it's like, no, trust me. It's like, you know, so it's it's uh Were you first a documentary I so editorial fashion was my thing, and then photojournalism for your with that first trip I was telling about to the Soviet Union. Yeah. And that must have been amazing this yeah. It was amazing, but I was so broke after you're shooting photojournalism. It doesn't pay. I mean it was amazing and it filled my soul for sure, and I was young enough to like I didn't have any expenses, so it was great. But um but uh it was uh I think that uh the commercial world is a very different space than the the editorial and photojournalism world. And one of the things I like about what you do is looking at your work on your website and then looking at the stuff that I saw, and thank you for the the preview for the stuff that's coming out in What Wall Street Journal is um it it it uh it maintains a very artistic sensibility. I was a very journalistic eye and you have a very artistic eye. And and I think that's uh worth calling out because I could never do what you do artistically. It's just it's just not how I see the world. And do you ever find yourself in that spot where I see the world this way and colliding with what people want sometimes?

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Um collide with people. Hopefully they come to me for what you know for what I can give them. Right. Yeah. Right. So it's usually it's usually okay, actually, even with big commercial magazines and clients and stuff like that. Yeah, I can that's fine usually. I don't have sometimes I collide with the outside world, you know. Oh well. Outside of work, you know? I kind of yeah. Yeah, so um usually it's okay. Yeah, they come and they they say, What would you, you know, what would you like to do? What's your ideas? We'd like to hear them and right. And if it doesn't fit, they then I say, mate, yeah, or ask someone else.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

Do you have any problem yeah, you have no problem walking away? Yeah, yeah, fine. Yeah. Yeah. So is it exactly we're not a good fit, sorry. So um and then what do you what are you seeing um for the you know next couple years after uh down the garden path?

SPEAKER_00 25:35

What am I seeing within that project?

SPEAKER_03 25:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Uh I think I would love, yeah, I would love to find the right space for space to exhibit it. And I'd love to um I'd love to, yeah, I mean I'd love to like I've started doing moving image as well, so I'd love to kind of do a moving image piece on it as well. Yeah. Um started using Super 8 a lot.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

Oh really? Okay. Oh, that's right. You we were talking earlier that um the job that you shot yesterday was film. You shot in film.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Shot all in film, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Pentex uh 672.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

What did you use? I was I was I love the the Pentex is the big 35mm looking one, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:17

It's the six by seven.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

Yeah, yeah. I used I used that. I used um I shot a lot of 35 too. I love 35. I need to look through the viewfinder. Because if I if you give me something with like a 4x5 or the image is reversed or something like that, I I can't make it. I can't register. I can't like I can see it, but I can't see it through my artistic eye. It's which is uh some sort of bizarre short circuit in me. You know, I should have been thrown back on the pile. So um, but how about you?

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Can you um when you're shooting the Super 8 stuff, um well it's funny our generation starting on digital and then uh rather than your uh kind of So I started in film. Yeah, and then you and then you're kind of like going to digital. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:01

So that's an interesting I just I just was my experience with it was I detached myself from any sort of religious, you know, sort of adherence to film and just realized like I'm I'm making images and how those images come out, it's like I see it in my brain, I try to make it. Do you have a dependency on film to ask a pointed question?

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Um the colour, the colouring I because for three four years when I was young, I was just black and white, black and white, digital black and white, black and white, black and white. And I'd go out uh after I left my first agent, I was looking for a new agent. Yeah, and I was knocking on all the doors, and they're saying, but your colour is it's just really not working, you know. You don't you can't do colour. Oh wow come back in a year and show us your colour, and then I'd come back and still not there, still not there, still not there, still not there. And then I I was like, um, wow god, I I really can't do this. And then I found um a printer. Oh no, a printer came to me and was like, um, hey, I'm just beginning my dark room. I'd love to print for you, I don't print for anyone else. I was like, okay, well, let's give this a go. Yeah. So after months and months and months of work, we mastered like a look, the look on colour film. Okay. And then now I I can I can I can do it, you know. Yeah. But another ten years.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

How did it feel um when you're getting the criticism about like you can't shoot color, you can't shoot color? Like, did it did it inspire you?

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Yeah, inspire, yeah. It's like you kind of you you you just keep knocking, don't you? Yeah, knock and knock and knock, you go back and then you knock again, you go back, you knock again. You just dial into absorpted impulsive tendencies until somebody says, Okay, come on.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

Go on in. It's good in here. Yeah, right. So, and then um as you've really um embraced film for a lot of you look, do you so do you see yourself ever moving away from it, or is it something you want to hold on to, or do you care? Are you more idea-driven or more look-driven, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Um idea or look driven, both. They they kind of they need both. I need both. Yeah, yeah. Fair point. Yeah, that's great. And spoken like a true artist. Well what about you? Are you idea or look driven?

SPEAKER_03 29:23

I I think I'm I'm idea first and then I apply the look, and then however I can get the look is fine with me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

So yeah, even for documentary, do you ever go out and um without any uh story or narrative, and then this the narrative comes through the action?

SPEAKER_03 29:38

I think that is probably my most favorite type of work is to go out and ferret out a story. It's that sense of discovery that adds to the whole process for me. Do you know what I mean? It's like I love to go someplace where I know nothing and then learn a lot about it through my camera. I think that's probably like that, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

It's a little bit like that, yeah. Yeah. That's great. So it's the it's the self-discovery of the kind of the the going down, treading down the unknown, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 30:15

And then coming back with something and then Yeah, but it sounds like your self-discovery is internal. Yeah. Or is I invoid my internal self-discovery at all costs? I don't need anybody to see that craziness. So um, so d yeah I know it's a tough question, but when do you think like two, three years for down the garden path?

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Yeah, maybe two, three years. Yeah. I should like to I should do it. Um in I told my gallerist actually the next September I've got to provide um the first body of main body of work, which is quite fast. That's looming. That's looming. So looming, yeah. But um I don't know. Like you said, the editorial and the commercial that come in and it's it's uh you set a deadline for next September and suddenly you're like, God, I need another year here. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

But so well, I think when you when you get down the garden path um done, it would be great if you could come back and talk to us and tell us about how that went. Yeah, yeah. I'm really looking forward to it. The concept sounds great, and your enthusiasm is I can visibly see you're very enthusiastic about it, so it's gonna be a good thing. So fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Thank you so much for coming to talk to us. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, this has been great. All right.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Which thing?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

I really loved it. Um, first of all, I wanted to say real quick, I love that you um when he asked you who if you knew who Rick Owens were was, you were like, Oh, I don't know who that is. And it just makes me love you so much. I love Rick Owens. He's like a very special designer, uh, very, I think, very endeared to all the goths and rockers of the world because he just does this very avant-garde black stuff. But I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense that he would shoot Rick Owens and that Rick Owens would give him a book that he would then create an entire series, right? He said he could create a series around it. I thought that was like, I was like, that that really checks out, and also I love Lou being like, I don't really know who that is. You're saying that you don't know who Rick Owens is just to be like, Oh yeah, that guy's great. Just fake it.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

Oh my god, I no, no, but you know, I I can't fake it. I'm not good like that.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Like, oh yeah, I think I've heard of that person.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

Yeah, well, I you also have to, you also have to, you know, nobody looks at me in a cafe and says, Oh, there's a goth person.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

No, so yeah, no one's looking at you being like, wow, there's an avant-garde goth style fan.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

You know, it's it's funny, I've been asked to categorize myself, and and I think the best uh description is I am a campfire storyteller.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Uh yes. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

You know what I mean? So it's it's like, but I I wish I was avant-garde like you, Kimmy.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Oh yeah, I am. But I really, I really like this episode a lot. He is a very chill person, especially when you look at or listen to him, and then you look at the art he makes, you're like, this is so funny because he's he's just he is obviously so passionate about his work and about his art, his work as art. Yes. Um, but he's also like very chill, and then his pictures are just like Oh.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

I mean you can almost you can I I see the pictures and a few of the pictures, honestly. And that's that's a tough thing to do. And I think in a lot of ways, in in his own sort of micro niche that he has going on, he is redefining what commercial photography looks like as we move forward into the future and things get more complicated and get more weird. Yeah. And he has it it almost feels like a pendulum swing from when you and I started, in which people are like, hey, this is what I do, and take it or leave it, sort of what we were talking about before we dropped into the episode. And it's okay to do that and find yourself something else to help you out financially so you can really just pursue the things the the the way you like to do things.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Totally, which I think is really cool. But yeah, I I really dig him. And I think uh if you're listening to this episode and you haven't checked out Will's work, um, we're obviously gonna drop the links to his work in the podcast episode description.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

I I would actually recommend before you go clicking on that link, especially if you're on a subway or you know, just sort of like looking at your phone, I pour yourself a glass of wine or something and then and then on the subway.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Just take out one of those little mini, take out a little mini, uh, you know, that you bought the bodega, like one of those little mini-bottles of wine, pour it in a cup on the absolutely right.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

No, 100%. It's it's called tube cocktails. It's it's genius. No, seriously, um, what I'm advocating for is uh take the time, take the time to to really to really feel it and and pretend like you're checking out the gallery because his stuff is is inspirational.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

You're not advocating for alcoholism.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

Yes, I am always.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

I love I love the idea of just like someone with this little bottle of wine looking on their phone at these pictures and just crying, and everyone around them is like, uh what's going on there? What's happening right now? Yeah. Absolutely. Okay, yes. I'm gonna I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

Well, we'll yeah, let's do it. Um, Kimmy, always a absolute pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Always. See you soon.

SPEAKER_03 35:35

See you soon.