Arrival And Plan For Reviews

Matt Jacob 0:00

Morning everyone, penultimate day at Chico. Look at where we are. How beautiful is this place. Just nestled in the hills of or mountains of Montana. And today we're coming with a little bit of energy. Here's Fee. For those of you who don't know Fee Fee's the genius behind the trailers, the drafts, the cuts. We have an editor, but Fee's the one that curates the draft. So if you don't know who she is, other than my wife, that's her role. So she's supporting me here during this week as well as doing her own thing in a non-photographic way. So today we have again the same format, couple of uh lectures, which I'm heading to now after a quick uh detour to get an espresso, which I will take you to. Not that it's that interesting, but um while I'm talking. And then a little break for lunch. I'm gonna take that time to speak to another uh couple of attendees and see if there's any reviewers that are hanging around I could potentially chat to. Actually, I have a review with Matthew Gennatempo at 12.30, and then I don't have another one until 2.30 with Odette England, and then Brian Scooter Mat at 3, and then Claudine Diary at 3.30 or 4, I can't remember. So it's gonna be a busy afternoon, and I'm going to really try hard, like I said last night, to give you guys more conversations with hopefully one or two reviewers if I can get them because they're super busy, and plenty more attendees, and I'll give you a tour later as well. Um, but here we are in the parking lot and the Gico gift shop, which they also call an espresso bar, which it's not, but uh it has better coffee than the swill we have at breakfast. So speak to you guys later.

What Publishers Want In Work

Matt Jacob 2:14

I'm here with uh Gianluca from L'Artier who kindly reviewed me a couple of days ago. Yes. Um Gianluca, tell me uh why you're here, what you're looking for, and uh what uh this week means to you.

Gianluca Gamberini 2:27

Uh this week means uh uh a lot of fun and a lot of work. Yeah, and uh great uh photographic work to discover, so that's always interesting. Um yes, I I don't know, I think I'm only looking for interesting uh work to publish. What's interest what what is interesting for you and your brother? I think that we like a lot work that deal with family and you know with a lot of empathy and connection between human beings, but not only. So this is like maybe one idea, but there are many other topics that we like.

Matt Jacob 3:08

Yeah, of course, you publish some incredible books. So um it's been a pleasure to meet you and thank you for for reviewing. Such a nice review with me the other day. Thank you very much. Alright, speak to you later. Bye bye. Thank you.

Jesse Lenz On Potential Over Polish

Matt Jacob 3:18

I'm here with Jesse Lenz. Finally got hold of the most busiest man on the planet right now. Um, I won't take up too much of your time. Give us uh give us an insight as to how the week's going.

Jesse Lenz 3:30

It's going great. Tenth year. Yeah, tenth year. I'm exhausted, so everything's going according to plan.

Matt Jacob 3:38

Um what's it like for uh the the I guess the event to be growing every year, for it to be scaling, but what's that like on you as a as an entrepreneur, as an artist, as a leader, as a manager? It's is it just all-consuming or how how do you manage that pressure and the responsibility?

Jesse Lenz 3:58

Yeah, I mean every year there's just new things to find out you did wrong. So just a constant reminder that no job is ever finished, no number is ever you know, checked enough times.

Matt Jacob 4:11

Yeah, yeah, just fire fighting all the time. Yeah. Before I let you go, um, what are you looking for as a as a publisher more than anything? What are you looking for in terms of artists that might just stand out and speak to you?

Jesse Lenz 4:24

Um I mean the work is always a thing that gets your foot in the door. Um that's you know, that's like first attraction with somebody. Um really, it's like um it's like an athlete who wants to be trained, who wants to be pushed, wants to be woken up at 5 o'clock in the morning, sent to go do a you know, cold bath. Um it's just someone who needs who needs the work is gonna do the work regardless, but uh might just need some pointing in the right direction. I'm not looking for work that's finished. Um that's actually kind of a turnoff for me. Um I want to see something with potential, but find somebody that uh maybe hasn't quite realized what how good they're doing just yet.

Matt Jacob 5:17

Yeah, I think that's the beauty of this week. It's uh we put so much pressure on ourselves to kind of have a finished body of work to present to our heroes. It's not finished just beginning. Yeah, talk about an ego death. Um Jesse, thanks so much for putting on such an amazing event. We're absolutely loving it. So um hopefully I you I get you to review my work uh at some point in the next few days. We'll get it. Cheers, Jesse. Cheers. Thanks, man.

Privilege And Finding A Story

Andrew Aiello 5:42

Okay, oh no. Uh I was like, okay, the things, and this is based off of like um even what we were talking about in terms of like living a privileged life. I was like, okay, if I just like that's not a good or a bad thing. Like, what are the things that like have shaped me and the things that like internally I want to explore? Concepts, concepts. One of them is privilege. So what does that look like? And I like I live in a neighborhood that's like rapidly gentrifying, and more white people are moving in, and part of my privilege is that I'm white. So like there's there's a whole there's something there to explore. It doesn't have to be right. I don't know what it looks like yet, but I'm like, that's a that's a that's an interesting one. So like maybe we can we did it together. Maybe I mean this is I could I mean that could be fascinating.

Matt Jacob 6:27

I just also want to explore that, like we're coming here from different yeah, because we're all we're all we're all I think that's why we've we've we're clicking this. This is true, by the way. Uh one of attendees here. Um we just had an amazing talk by by Lindo. I don't know how to say it was and we're about to sit down, but we'll we'll catch we'll continue this later. I need to know privilege. We were I'll I'll try and cut this straight from the conversation that we started to have inside about privilege, but I can't actually remember now. It's later in the day, and I've had reviews and other conversations, but as a concept, yeah, because it was we were talking after Lindo's talk about like almost feeling like we have like what do we have to share with the world in in some way.

Andrew Aiello 7:15

Because we haven't like I know Todd um and I have been talking about this a lot, another attendee, that it's like our life, relatively speaking, has been quite easy, so it's like what do we have to share with anybody? I think when you see other people's work, it's like I don't know, it's easy to minimize your own struggles, whatever they may be, right? Or compare them. Yeah, which is kind of like a a dead end of anything. I don't know why you do that to yourself.

Matt Jacob 7:42

It's just natural human um tendency. But uh yeah, when you see work like Linda's like you can't help but just go, fuck, I don't have that complexity in my life to create but actually you do. When you look hard enough, you do.

Andrew Aiello 7:54

Yeah, you do. But I think that's the challenge is trying to like have the confidence to talk about your whatever it is and make that I mean as impactful as possible, right?

Matt Jacob 8:05

Well you're on camera now, speaking to a lot of people. Do you have the confidence to talk about w your work and what you brought to Chico? Probably not, to be honest. Well you're gonna have to, I'm gonna force you anyway.

Andrew Aiello 8:16

I mean, my work is we've talked about this, it's quite similar to yours. I'd I'm it might not be as explicitly personal as yours though. I mean we haven't talked I haven't talked too much about the substance of behind your work, but um yeah, I think uh I've always kind of struggled with strangers or finding my place if I go to a a new place, like trying to crack whatever that may be, and so I tend to see the world from a distance. Which when I came here I thought that was my lens. And you know, I sp spoken to Janet and Claudine and a few other people and um it seems like there may be a barrier there that I have up, and I think I need to like crack that down a bit. Safety barrier? Yeah, whatever. I mean safety barrier. I don't know what it what exactly it is, but like Claudine, you know, there were a couple of my images. Like I have an image of like um through a window with like a toy house silhouette with the curtains, and outside is out of focus, and there's um and like she that for me was like kind of a last second one. I have a shot of like from New York where you barely see a building, but just a flock of birds. It's like kind of blurry. And they were like added for me late, like they weren't what I thought I was gonna show. Yeah. And multiple people have grabbed those and said, like, you need to do more of this. This is the connective tissue. Like people walking in cities framed nicely in beautiful light or whatever is fine. But this is the like Claudine talked this morning, like that's the poetry of it is the other stuff, right? So like that sort of fill your narrative out, which is I mean she's blown me away, but that concept like merging narrative with poetry, I think for me is like what I'm trying to do. So this has just been like fucking perfect to figure out what that looks like.

Matt Jacob 10:07

Like practically What where do you go next then with it? Do you you you don't go back to the drawing board, obviously, but you just you have at least some constructive steps that you wanna go back home and just start working on.

Andrew Aiello 10:21

I mean honestly, the first thing I'm gonna go back to my archive because the other thing, you know, Claudine said to me was like she took out a lot of the stuff that had defining characteristics of place. So she had some images that she really loved that I took in Tokyo. She was like, I know that's Japan. So take it out. And I was like, damn, that is because like there's something about loneliness is this like transient thing, like no matter where you are, you can experience it. So she was like, Do you have shots like in your in a hotel room? Do you have shots of I don't know, a ashtray or a I don't know, the view I mean not even the view, but something something else, bed sheets or these are the things that like can fill it in. So and I have lots of that stuff as I've traveled over the years. I might even open it up. I have I was in Poland by myself, and I woke up one morning and I I don't know, there was just beautiful light, and I took some really wide angle shots of my iPhone and I made it black and white. I'm like, maybe I need to be experiment like figuring out how I can throw that stuff. Because even the idea of like not having my camera lying in bed by myself with my iPhone, now that I'm talking out loud, it's like that's part of I don't know what I'm kind of like I don't know, thinking about in my work.

Matt Jacob 11:37

And uh fascinating stuff, and I really enjoy hearing about people uh un un not unraveling but unwrapping some things that they may have known deep down in subconscious that they'd be able to work on with their images. But images aside and reviews aside, because it's kind of like the formalities of this, and it's actually a small percentage of of our time here. How give me a kind of overview for those watching who don't really know what Chico review is about. Did it how has it hit or not hit your expectations and kind of what else around the review process have you really enjoyed? He's still recording. Thanks, man. Can you remember the question?

Andrew Aiello 12:39

Uh what else yeah, yeah, yeah. Um B. Um I tried not to come honestly, I tried not to come with any expectations. I was told like Marshall Tao, who was who's an attendee and he published the book, and I I contacted him before it came, and that's what he told me. He's like, Don't come here with expectations. Excuse me. But um if I did have expectations, it probably would have vastly gone past it.

Matt Jacob 13:07

So how how what what else have you enjoyed outside of obviously the the the feedback from the work, but in terms of the environment, the the the culture here, the sheer amount of people, the accessibility, what what has really resonated with you as part of the Chico review?

Andrew Aiello 13:22

I mean honestly the the review and the feedback is probably only like 20% of what I'm getting out of this place. I mean the f the very first night Jesse Jesse Lenz like he got up and he made a speech, and it was basically about how this place is a great equalizer and that nobody's better than anybody and you should go up. And I I thanked him right after he finished because I was like, I felt like it gave me permission to like go out of my comfort zone to approach people and to have maybe uncomfortable conversations or you know, and definitely be myself. Um and so I guess I give him a lot of credit for like pulling together the types of people that create that environment.

Matt Jacob 14:03

And I think where we are, because we can't go anywhere around this little campus, like you're kind of forced to like to to be present with everybody else, which I and the reviewers we forget are are all human, and you could tell that in the first days, first few days, people who hadn't been like the Brians and the Matt's have been here five, six times, they're just so oh they're just it's kind of natural for them. But some of the what some of the reviewers that maybe it's their first year or second year, this they took a few days to warm up, just like we did. But now on Friday, the penultimate day, like everyone is just mixing and chatting, and no qualms and going up to any of these people that you might have put on a pedestal, maybe still put be put on a pedestal. But yeah, what else are you gonna do? Like, I was sitting at the table down there, like my like oh, precious moment that was.

Andrew Aiello 14:49

I don't even know what was the other guy, Jenna Tempo, and then the other guy's name. Brian Scooter Matt. I don't know them, I didn't have reviews of them, and they sat down and I was just like shooting the shit as if they were you know what I'm saying? Yeah, and then like oh, yeah, they're they're reviewers and their publishers, and like they're absolutely huge artists in their own right.

Matt Jacob 15:05

Yeah. I love that about Brian and Matt. They're just you know they're best friends, but they um they're they're so open and just like they say it themselves, just normal normal guys just trying to shoot the shit and trying to do their own thing. And I think that's I agree with you, there's always gonna be some people that are a little bit more standoffish, but generally speaking, the the the the way this place is a is a leveller in both an intrinsic aspect but also as a community just brings people together. So yeah, we have a lot to thank for that.

Andrew Aiello 15:33

We also remember we ran into Paul Mowgli in the bathroom.

Matt Jacob 15:37

He was like, oh my we were he was having a shit and we were having a piss and we were just talking about Lindo's uh talk and just going, oh my god, and then he comes out and goes, Yeah guys, just just use your inspirations, just enjoy your inspirations, go back to work. I was like, fuck doing it.

Andrew Aiello 15:51

He was like, go home and like keep like going to the he's like go to the bookstore or go to the library, like don't stop when you leave here.

Matt Jacob 15:57

I think that's one thing I've really taken, like I need to I feel like I'm immersed in photography, but I come in and I go, no, I need to immerse myself more, whether it's doing it, reading it, talking about it. Um, and that's something I'm I'm really appreciative of this place. Anything else to add? I don't know.

Andrew Aiello 16:14

Is it been are you gonna be late? What time is it?

Matt Jacob 16:16

Yeah, I'm gonna be late. Um thanks for the chat, man. And we've had lots of good chats, but uh yeah, thanks for thanks for doing us and good luck with everything.

Andrew Aiello 16:23

Thanks.

Building A Long-Form Project

Matt Jacob 16:25

I'm here with Todd Anthony. Uh Todd is one of the attendees with us this year. And tell us, um, welcome. It's good to get to know you.

Todd Antony 16:34

Yeah, exactly.

Matt Jacob 16:36

Um give us a little bit of a background about why you're here and what you're hoping to get out uh out of Chico this year.

Todd Antony 16:42

Yeah, so uh normally I'm an advertising photographer on my day-to-day uh work and then been working on personal projects you know every sort of 18 months for the last 15 or so years, trying to regain my soul from the advertising world and uh you know do work for myself rather than for someone else under their control and what they want to do. So uh yeah, and then this recently the last two years I've been working on a new personal project in Tajikistan, and that is you know sort of turning into a long-form project. And uh yeah, I just really really want to find you know people that are in the industry and of a like mind who can you know give me advice on shaping it you know into its final form basically.

Matt Jacob 17:22

What's the final form of a book?

Todd Antony 17:24

Uh book and exhibition as well, because uh some of the shots in there sort of need to be two three. Yeah, I saw them last night.

Matt Jacob 17:30

First of all, they're incredible images. And uh I think yeah, you you to do them justice, you have to solve the. You want to step into it.

Todd Antony 17:39

I was speaking with Misha earlier and he was like, yeah, these need to be, yeah.

Matt Jacob 17:43

Um what's what have the reviews been like so far?

Todd Antony 17:46

Like it didn't pick out maybe a couple of uh the general the general sort of thate has been overwhelmingly positive, which is good. Um and then some people are like, you know, it could be a book right now. Um but equally you could also back go back go you know go back and shoot more. Uh because that's probably one of the biggest questions I think I hear everyone here asking is uh when do we have it?

Matt Jacob 18:05

When am I done? Yeah.

Todd Antony 18:06

Um Misha just said before, I said, like, you know, I think you're done, but but then equally he's giving me thoughts on how to de-advertise myself a little bit as well. Because I've got to get myself out of that mindset. Because I go into these shoots with a you know defined sort of list of ideas that I want to shoot. And then I let sort of serendipity and circumstance happen in between those waypoints. But the way I shoot, of course, is you know very controlled and stylised, and uh so yeah, he's just talking about trying to rough things up a little bit and uh What other avenues have you explored other than Chico view in terms of publishers or galleries?

Matt Jacob 18:42

I haven't used it.

Todd Antony 18:43

Yeah, so it's kind of a new world to you. Yeah, I've got a friend in London who's a he's a he's in the art side of things, he's a photographer, and uh yeah, we're always sort of talking about the you know completely disparate worlds basically. Uh you don't get many people that sort of straddle both um quite often because I think there's sort of a there can be a bit of a snobbery.

Matt Jacob 19:01

Definitely. Well, you feel that from the outside. Even when you're here, you feel like there's a little bit of like um, I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh, but there's there's so many people here. You gotta have your groups. Yeah. There's definitely a little bit of elitism with some of the reviewers, I think, and even some of the attendees, which may be maybe a bit harsh, and that's just kind of human nature. But yeah, I understand that. I get I I get that entirely. But um what tell us a little bit more about the project itself, why this location, what is it about?

Todd Antony 19:32

Why the hell is I'd stun? Yeah. Uh so it sort of stems from all my projects over the last probably 15 years. Uh I've been shooting little-known groups or subcultures around the world that sort of exist outside the standard frame. Um, people that are sort of individual lead from the outside lead ordinary lives, but they're actually extraordinary in their in their own unique ways. Um, started back in 2012-ish um with a group in uh Arizona in a place called Sun City. There's uh a cheerleading group there, but they're all uh retirees, so they're all 55 to 80. And where they live is like this love child of Wes Anderson and Tim Burton that goes to get like streets lined with orange trees and cactus and everything else, um, which is possibly at the polar opposite end of the scale of the current project. Uh it was all sort of hard flash, bright colours, you know, very uh and that was my first sort of project I shot where I sort of moved from shooting landscapes to people um because landscapes were fun to shoot because you didn't have to talk to them anyway. Yeah. Yeah, easier in that respect. And they're easier to, you know, you can just go and do your thing. Um and so that was sort of my first project of that regard. And uh from there it's moved on to um Bolivia, where I shot some uh uh native Tolitas who are climbers uh and wrestlers, Literalibre wrestlers. Um so they're basically breaking the stereotypical opinion of women in that culture and society. Um, women don't climb and they certainly don't wrestle. Um and so these uh women they climb and they wrestle in their traditional Cholita clothing with their big uh big dresses and uh and bowler hats and all that sort of stuff. Um and then for that, also after that was um Sarah Leone. I was working with MBT footballers by a team called the or group of teams called the Flying Stars.

Matt Jacob 21:16

Were all of these part of assignments or were they just me? You personal assignments.

Todd Antony 21:20

Yeah, so the the catalyst was the Sun City Plums, and then I was like, okay, yeah, I'm I'm I'm into this. Yeah. And uh and I got a bit of advertising work off the back of it as well that fitted that sort of genre as well. It was a great job I did for Finlandia vodka, where it was we just flew around the world and met ordinary drinkers. Drinking vodka. Drinking, drinking loads of vodka, drinking far too much, in fact. And uh, but yeah, that was just again ordinary people that led extraordinary lives. Like there was a gay Drake, Lutra Libra wrestler in El Paso, um ISAP fellow in New York, um, had uh the world's strongest man in Finland, and so it was just this amazing sort of list of people, then and the whole job was just there was no money in it, which for advertising. It was rare. Um but the concept was so good I was just like, yeah, hell yeah, let's do this. Um we just spent a few weeks flying around shooting portraits of these people. So it was sort of reinforced what I was doing in that regard and it was like, hey yeah, I want to do something here. Um and I just loved going to new places and experiencing new things and yeah, part of that. So the new project, long answer to your your your question, is uh on the sport of Buskashi in Tajikistan, which is like probably three, four hundred years old from the time of Genghis Khan. No one's a hundred percent sure where it started, but they think it was from him. Um and essentially you've got anywhere from like a hundred to four hundred riders on horseback uh all playing in the same game. Um, and the object is there's a a ball of sorts, which is a headless eviscerated goat. Um and they stuff it full of salt, so it's about a hundred pounds-ish of or 50 kilos odd. Um, and uh there's no teams, every man for himself. Uh so you've got like 300 riders, and there's a goat somewhere in the middle of it, and uh well most of the goat most of the goat. No, not the head, it's just the actual body. So that's why it's about 100 pounds in weight. It's like so the head gets cut off, and that's the body they use. Oh, because they've got to they've gotta be on their horse and reach down and get that off the ground or by the by the leg and sort of tuck it under them, and they've got to break free of uh you know all these other riders and and uh go down the field, which could be like three football fields long. There's not really any boundaries to the game either. So they try and play it in like riverbeds or the folds of valleys and things like that, but the but they still career up the up the hills through the crowd, crowd are scattering everywhere, you know.

Matt Jacob 23:37

It's uh and your approach with this is in a kind of a documentary type way?

Todd Antony 23:42

Sort of, yeah. I'm not really I would never call myself a documentary photographer. I sort of stand in that sort of straddled documentary and formal portraiture and yeah, because a lot of my shots are uh uh planned and staged as well. They're you know fully representative of what's going on, but it's but I'm I'm trying to get control over an environment, which in Buskashi is a bit of an oxymoron because uh there's actually a really interesting parallel between what I'm trying to do and the game itself, because the whole point of the game is trying to gain control over the goat in a sea of absolute uncontrolled mayhem. And uh the photography is me trying to gain control of that uncontrolled mayhem and a mixed at all. So it's uh it's quite an interesting parallel there.

Matt Jacob 24:21

Um what made you bring that this body of work here and not the other projects?

Todd Antony 24:26

Uh it's the first long form one I've done. Everything else has been again, it's trying to get myself out of the advertising head because I shoot advertising where you get a you know series of layouts for a campaign, it's like you we've got to go and get these three layouts.

Matt Jacob 24:38

But is that a bad thing? I mean, is that a bad thing?

Todd Antony 24:39

Like bringing that type of works for me. Yeah. Um but what I was doing is going into you know Bolivia, spending two, three weeks there, you know, capturing my stuff, maybe coming away with 10 to 15 you know bangers, which I'm super happy with, but that's that's sort of it. Whereas this is the first time I've I've sort of done that, and then I've also you know shot around it as well. Um and got yeah, I've shot a film, motion film as well. Alright, okay, cool. I did that with with uh Flying Stars amputees too, um because you can tell like a much greater story about individuals that way. Uh yeah, so this is the first sort of long form one which would actually fit a book. Um toying with going back to some of the other places as well.

Matt Jacob 25:17

But uh what do you hope people get out of what do you hope people get out of the the project? So if I'm going through the book, what is the intention of what you're trying to evoke or show?

Todd Antony 25:28

Yeah, it's all I've it's a weird thing where without me sort of realizing sports become like a constant theme through all almost all the projects apart from the one in Japan, which was on Decatur. Um, you're a sports fan, right? And that's my sister said to me, Oh, that's great, you're using sport as this vehicle. I was like, oh shit, yeah, yeah. It was and I used to be an athlete, and so uh yeah, I guess it's that sort of history in me. Um so I'm not so much shooting this, because I'm not a sports photographer, uh, I'm not a documentary photographer in the strictest sense. Um so I don't want to shoot, like it was cast year, I was really concerned about shooting it and it looking like it was an editorial sports thing. Um so I've had to sort of mentally work quite hard to try and pull it away from that. Um and same with all the projects really. So sport isn't so much what I'm shooting, it's the vehicle to tell the story about the people around it. So with the flying stars, it was uh you know their rehabilitation mentally and physically from you know the war. Um and uh the climbers was more about female empowerment and uh you know breaking the stereotypes around uh around you know what they do. Um Kaisi's probably the one that's probably a bit more I haven't focused on a particular person or group within that because it's so amorphous. Yeah, it's uh it's more about the the sheer spectacle of it because it is just like everyone's first reaction. And the uniqueness of it. Yeah, exactly. It's like because I'm always trying to find things people haven't seen or you know or might have, but it's only on a very low, low level. Um so with all of these, I guess it's trying to show other parts of the world, not in a sort of national geographic kind of way. Um it's just trying to show these different cultures and find that there are similarities between everything that we do. You know, it might seem Tajikistan might seem really far-flung and really, you know, off off people's radars, and they might have a a sort of opinion of what you know how it is there. But it's trying to show that there's similarities, especially in this day and age where pol you know everything's polarized to hell. Yep. Um it's trying to show our differences as much as our similarities as much as our differences are. Yeah, all these all these places I tend to, because I seem to be getting progressively going to harder and harder places places to shoot in. Um, I started off in America, it's simple, I did that myself. Um and then now I tend to get local fixes. So I sort of again treat it a bit like finding a good fixer is difficult. Yeah, I've been really lucky though in everywhere I've gone. Um you sort of that that understands photography? Yeah, well this one was a bit different. Like uh in Sierra Leone, I I found a local Australian cameraman and was like, how am I? Um do you know anyone that could help me out? And this is like oh yeah, Ma, I've got my guy, so you can you know, he he works with him, so he he knew that. Whereas Bolivia does not Bolivia, sorry, um Sajikistan doesn't have like a existing film industry structure. Um so there's no sort of benchmark for that. So I ended up getting hold of a uh a local tour company that I'd somehow stumbled across their old website online which had a section about Buskashi. And I was like, okay, this could be the the thing. So I had to get hold of them, but then I had to educate them that I didn't want to tour. I needed them to work as like a prefixer producer, so it's uh a much more focused, you know, all I want is Buskashi, basically. Uh and that would be great, yeah. So really, really helpful.

Matt Jacob 28:34

Cool. Well, just lovely to hear about a project and good luck with the work. Cheers, man. Cheers, man. There's the chat.

First-Time Reviewer On Intimacy

Matt Jacob 28:41

Hi. Hi, we're here with Harrison Miller. Uh Harrison first year as review.

Harrison Miller 28:49

Is that correct? Yep. I was an attendee in 2021, and now I'm I've raised through the ranks and I'm a reviewer.

Matt Jacob 28:54

So give us a really small synopsis of your journey since 2021.

Harrison Miller 28:59

Uh uh, came here right when I started self-publishing through Underlife Editions, but I just made a few small um things. Um so I came here with like some like confidence in that, but then like had this whole event that kind of shattered that a little bit. Didn't really feel like I fit fit in or anything. Um, so is that enough of I think that makes enough sense. We'll just leave we'll leave it for the imagination. Um went home, had to figure out, okay, well if I'm not like doing stuff like some of these people, then like what am I doing? And then I found more kind of solace in just the bookmaking aspect and like finding myself through the materials in the form. And so I just started experimenting more with printing, self-printing and binding and just playing around with like kind of the simplicity of bookmaking. And uh and uh yeah, and then so I just kept doing stuff that I liked, people liked it, and then I kept in touch. I made relationships here through the event and um been doing design for charcoal and trespasser and like off and on. And um yeah, and then so now I'm here. Like uh just kind of um I think there was some people that couldn't make it, so he asked me to fill in and um yeah, it's awesome.

Matt Jacob 30:16

Massive inspiration for someone who's who may may have struggled with their first uh I still struggle. Still struggle, and um you know it can be a real real uh deflating um events.

Harrison Miller 30:29

You hear so many things and you're not sure how to contextualize it because you you're getting like one day you get four different completely different points of view, you know, and and and um that was my experience, you know. You'll get people who are supportive of your work and they make you feel good, but then you go meet someone who's like, I don't really care about this, and then it's just like, oh great.

Matt Jacob 30:47

Last question, because I know you've got to get to reviews. Um uh last question. What are you looking for? With you when you're sat there in a across the desk from someone with their images, you've got 20 minutes. Obviously, like we get these beautiful moments where we can talk like we're doing now, but in that formal setting, what are you looking for in people's work like in a very high-level aspect?

Harrison Miller 31:06

Intimacy, intimacy, emotion, movement, beauty, immediacy. I want to impulsively know as soon as I see what I'm looking at that I like it without even having to think about it. I don't want to hear the story, I don't want to hear the narrative, I don't want to read the words, I just want to know that by just touching the object I already like it.

Matt Jacob 31:26

Beautiful. Thanks so much, Harrison. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.

Harrison Miller 31:28

That's awesome.

A Walking Tour Of Chico

Matt Jacob 31:31

Okay, guys, so a little bit of a tour. Uh, this is our room. Look at that view. Um, that is a reflection, but let me show you. Show you our view here in Chico. Um, so we're up in the upper lodge. I'm about to walk down for my review with Brian Scooter Mat, which I've been looking forward to for a long time. Always a little bit anxious. I had a review with which you may or may not see. I may keep the review for um personal reasons or for an extra bonus feature. It was with Matthew Genitempo, and I recorded the whole thing, and it was um, I don't know, I get a I I guess I'm an emotional person, but uh I get emotional when I I meet people I respect so much and they meet me where I am, and that's what Matt did, and he's a true gent, just like all of these guys are. Uh, just had a review with Odette England, who I'm a big fan, a big fan of as well. She's so sweet, so humble, so so much enjoying the process herself as a as a first um Chico event for for her as well. I mean, she's a she teaches four months of the year, so she's you know an expert reviewer, and um she's just loving the experience. So we forget it's kind of two-way. The reviewers love doing this, we love doing this, and um just again speaks to the nature of this event. Anyway, um, so we've got a garden here, so this kind of leads down to as you can see the main lodge. I won't I can't give you a full tour because it's actually quite a uh a big place, but as we walk down, we get to straight ahead. This is basically the main lodge or the conference centre, which they have a kitchen in. So we eat in here, we review in here. I can't show you, you would have already seen the meals that I've taken you through. Um I can't take you in there because people are doing reviews in there at the moment. The weather at the moment is insane. This is mid March, and usually it is not um 25-26 degrees Celsius, but I'm in t-shirt and jeans, and um I'm hot. So well I'm warm and it's lovely. It's lovely to get some sun. So we're now walking behind the main lodge. Behind the main lodge here is where they're doing little podcast interviews with Photoshow. Uh Michael, who's uh who's the media guy for this year, he's uh hosting a lot of the attendees, uh, which you might see me on because I was on there yesterday uh a couple of days ago. And now we come back to obviously a lot of rooms, admin offices, um, a lot of the the rooms where the attendees are staying are in here. And we'll come in here, and I want to show you guys. We've already done some conversations in the library, so you've probably seen that, but here there's no one in here. Okay, here we have a library, which is uh very nice indeed. Really good to a lot of people have either done photo sharing in here or obviously just some work. As you can tell, that's a very old building and um steeped in character with photos all over the walls of previous guests, um famous people, actors, a lot of Western uh film actors, and down here just goes to rooms upon rooms. And if we go back here just check the time because yeah, I've got to get going. But um just show you the lobby quickly. In here we have rooms, we have guest rooms. No, it's a hotel, so most of it's guest rooms. Uh I'll try and show you the hot springs later on, because that's in a separate area. I'll try you the show you the saloon bar and this is a lobby. So a lot of us just hang out here, do our thing, uh swap photos, talk about just photography and geek out. So um this is kind of nice when it's cold, but as you might be able to see a lot of people hanging around outside. So this is kind of a downtime for the place because everyone's in reviews right now. So we just get our review times and in between those times people will obviously hang out. Oh, we've got wine tasting today. Oh, I'm looking forward to that. That started already? Um yes. Oh yeah, okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna come back. I'm gonna come back and taste some wine. Um this is obviously the gardens, or uh I don't know what you call it, the yard. And uh straight ahead there where I'm heading now is the conference centre where we all do our reviews. Everywhere else, pretty much. Um uh guest rooms and um yeah, it's always a bit of a uh a daunting walk when we come up here and we enter. I don't want to get in front of uh filming here. So I'll give you a little peek into the waiting room. See if we can find anyone. People we're told to get to the waiting room about 10 minutes before. See now it's starting to fill up with attendees as we're waiting for our reviews. Here's Marshall. Say hi, Marshall. Um we've got the books obviously laid out as we can peruse through while we're waiting, but yeah, we won't go any further with this because pretty private affair. And um that's about it. So all of this is just to the huge conference room I've showed you before. And that's it. Um later on I'll show you the saloon um and the hot springs. But for now, that's kind of a little lap of what we're seeing and experiencing every day in terms of the location. So um hope that gives you a bit of an insight as to where we are and how it makes us feel.

Photojournalism Meets Fine Art

Matt Jacob 37:46

Jeremy Gaumore. Yeah, how's Chico going, buddy? Hey, how are you? Good. How's Chico?

Jeremy Garamond 37:52

Uh Chico's going well. That's uh very interesting. Meeting a lot of super nice people, nice person, uh saying very nice work too. Um and I'm happy because that's a different work than uh what I'm doing. I'm a photojournalist and uh this is more artistic and fine art uh photography, which is super cool, super cool, super nice. And some of them are introducing like a piece of history, I would say, uh with good sequencing, and uh I like that. Yeah, honestly, it's super cool.

Matt Jacob 38:20

If you're um photojournalist uh genre and style, what do you hope to get out of this week?

Jeremy Garamond 38:30

That's a very good question because that's finally why did I came? Uh and it's not only because it's in Montana, even if I'm so happy to discover Montana. Uh but even if the the the reviewers or keynote speakers are mainly, I would say, fine art photographers. Uh first some of them are photojournalists. Yeah, uh there are three out of 37 uh Magnum photographers here. Yeah. Uh Caroline, uh Lindo, and Larry. Uh so that's already a lot. Uh and uh, you know, some that's always I think interesting having um a view and opinion of I mean kind people here, everybody's kind, so that's cool, you know. And some people that are educated to photography. And even if um some photographers or keynote speakers slash reviewers are you know more into fine art photography, some of them have a photojournalistic past, such as Claudine Dioy, for example, who uh presented her work this morning. Uh she's a former photojournalist. Yeah. She was a picture editor. Yeah. And that's interesting to see also the process of how to go from one type of photography, I'd say, to the uh to the to the fine art photography. And I'm finally convinced that putting a little bit of aesthetic and foreign art in the photography, a little bit of what? A little bit of fine art and aesthetic. I mean the aesthetic aesthetic in the in the photography helps to support the message you'd like to give as a photojournalist when you're showing up a photo series, you know. So that's interesting, that's super interesting.

Matt Jacob 40:12

So, what's your background been up uh been up until this point in terms of photojournalism?

Jeremy Garamond 40:17

Uh that's something really new. I mean, uh I'm turning 50 and uh very few times, uh too few. Shit. No, that's fine. Um, you know, I'm I'm a former entrepreneur in uh InsureTech, so nothing to do with that.

Matt Jacob 40:40

Okay.

Jeremy Garamond 40:40

Uh then three years ago, um and I've always been into photography, I've always been photographing and love that. I've always been in love with photojournalism when discovered the work of uh James Nashtree, for example, or others like that, uh, in his famous uh documentary uh video war photographer, which is I think really well done. It's now more than 25 years ago. Uh old and uh three years ago I get sick. Um and I think was the best that could happen to me to go through that strong chemotherapy, uh, because I then realized that I was about to leave. Well, we'll all leave one day, you know, but I was about to leave uh without having realizing uh all my dreams for sure, but probably the best the biggest one, which was to be a photojournalist. So once all the treatments were done, uh I went to school uh well to photojournalism uh school training formation in Paris called the Anslucasque, that's the also the photo agency. And um so I've been there and uh and it ended up uh by being a trainee at uh 48. Uh so I was a trainee was yeah, after having been a former entrepreneur, I was uh like uh trainee to to validate uh the to validate my certificate. And uh so I went to Figaro magazine, which is a famous French one, very fine, very famous and with a very good uh uh vision on photography and a very good culture, photographic culture. Uh so I was there, and uh since then uh almost two years now, I'm a freelance and uh working closely with them, but also with others. But I've had uh quite a lot of uh um yeah assignment from them, uh so that's cool. And that's uh really on what I like, which is supporting community, nature, environment, stuff like that, social uh social uh issues.

Matt Jacob 42:42

Uh so uh so when you when you get home next week and you start to process what's just happened, what do you think you're gonna like what are the the bits you're gonna take away in terms of um what you've learned this week and how's that gonna evolve your the next chapter for you?

Jeremy Garamond 42:58

Yeah, um so I think the first time I'll do when I will arrive will be to eat fish and vegetables. It has nothing to do with food food and to eat light, yeah, and drink water, yeah. Yeah, uh but uh more seriously that gave me very, very good uh uh vision on the different series going on, you know, with long-term projects. I have one with the hijras, the transgenders in India, for example. And when I saw the Peter Peter Zugel's work uh in San Francisco, yeah um it really inspired me, you know. And uh I have I've had him as a reviewer, yeah. I told him uh so happy to see you because I have started a long term series with the hijras. And I'm starting to explain him what the who the hijas are, and he's like I stopped you, I was there two months ago, and I'm starting a new project with the hijas, and he has a totally different uh approach. Of it, I'm more in the photojournalism approach is more in uh on stage like documentary. Yeah, but that was super interesting. So uh that's an example, but uh that gives me it gave me a lot of insights uh on how to go through that. But not only this, I mean uh I have also another project which is how to show up, you know, uh when I'm when you're asked, oh, are you doing uh analog or digital photography? You know, like I mean a photography that's not uh how you shoot the photo, uh that's uh when you have the print or book or publishing uh in the end, and and and you can see something, you know. So I have I have a series of photography that I'm doing uh uh with a drone. Uh I know now exactly how it will end up. Nice. Uh but I keep it for me for the moment.

Matt Jacob 44:47

And I will present it next year, probably here. Then next year come on the forecast and we can share it.

Jeremy Garamond 44:51

Yeah, yeah. We'll do that, definitely. Um and uh also, you know, having had a good discussion with Larry Thorwell uh about uh the the last uh photo series I made in Madagascar with Father Pedro, uh even if it's already uh about to be published, but I mean yeah, it helps me a lot to know how to make my photographies better uh in order to have the messages going uh better to the reader and uh make it making it a little bit more aesthetic. So I make a new editing uh of it uh of those photos. So I have a lot of things to do. Every day I'm I'm doing a checklist to do one of those.

Matt Jacob 45:30

And you've shot a lot of projects here already, just in uh in Livingston and around uh this area.

Jeremy Garamond 45:35

Yeah, you're right.

Matt Jacob 45:36

I mean um because I meant it to give that away.

Jeremy Garamond 45:40

No, you're totally right. I mean the what happens is that when I I've I've arrived a couple of days before you know to avoid uh the jet lag, uh and that's what has changed since I've learned started to learn for photojournalism, is that how to say a story with your photo. Not uh, you know, that's a good picture, that one is a good picture too, the third one is a good picture too, but I mean are the three pictures all together are saying something. And so I don't want to shoot just for shooting nice pictures anymore. And I was at the Murray Hotel and saw that amazing train station just in front of the hotel, which at least is very noisy by night because the trains are keeping passing by. And uh I thought, why is that this big train station here in this little small town? Uh, and started to to question myself and also Chad GPT, because he's my best friend for that when you're getting curious, to know why um there were so many trains passing by and the relationship finally between the trains Livingstone and Yellowstone, where uh I was yesterday. So I made I realized all what happened in the in the 18th centuries and uh made a photo series about that and uh and went you know I I've rented a car and I've been driving all around in the area uh uh handing yesterday in Yellowstone to see exactly why and how it happened, and I made a photo story is that. Come on.

Matt Jacob 47:06

Well I look forward to seeing it. Thanks for chatting. Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks very much. Um what's the next step for you with this work based on the feedback you've had so far?

John Autry 47:17

The next step that I'm going to do is go back through my archive and see if my projects not projects, if my floating images will gel into anything with these. That's the first thing we're gonna do. Um because I have a tendency, I'll I'll shoot a day here, I'll shoot a day there, and they all just go on a drive or a stand, and I never look at them again.

Matt Jacob 47:41

Yeah, I know what you mean.

John Autry 47:42

Because they don't I'm not shooting them for any purpose other than that was cool. Um so I'm gonna go back and see what could potentially gel. Somebody do that, and I'm gonna keep shooting for these. I think. Or maybe be done. I think that the one You've got a lot. I think the one you're looking at, I have maybe 400 images, or maybe a thousand that are okay. And maybe I just go ahead and be done with that one if you're looking at. And so it's gonna make a tiny little book that's gonna be you know, it's taller than it is wide, and then have little images. Maybe there's titles to each in the end, just like a little bit of context, like like a plate number at the end. That you know lightning in X place or something, or like little tiny so maybe a word here or there in the titles could give you a little bit of context, but I'm the bad writer, so that'll be at the end. And then I'll put it on the shelf and nobody will see it, but I'll be able to move on.

Matt Jacob 48:51

I'll see it, man. I love it. Honestly, I'm not just saying that.

John Autry 48:54

I think it's I don't do social media. It's like like I said, I post like once a year. I'll I'll post for a week and nobody sees it. Nobody looks at it. I'm I'm very curious that you did, I guess, in in prepping to come here.

Matt Jacob 49:05

Um, I think uh maybe not prepping to come here. Maybe when we when we first I can't remember how I saw your IG actually. But yeah.

John Autry 49:14

Put it into your phone the other night. That's what it was. Uh okay. We all take pictures of birds, you know, almost everybody.

Matt Jacob 49:20

Yeah, but I mean, like we'll take pictures of beer birds.

Andrew Aiello 49:25

We all take pictures of the same shitty.

Matt Jacob 49:27

Yeah, because it's all around us. That's what we Nelly Furtado said it best. I'm like a bird, I want to fly away. I did not expect you to quote Nelly Furtado. But I'm glad you did. Expect me unexpected. Thanks for chatting, man. Yeah, appreciate you. Thanks for showing me your work, it's incredible. That's fine. That's fine. Alright, I'm gonna go get ready. We're going to the saloon. Someone's car alarm's going off. We're going to the saloon. And I need to go and get my stuff back to the room. Find the wife. I don't know where she is. And head over to the saloon. We're having I guess last well, it's not the last night, but we're going to the famous saloon restaurant. Everyone, like a hundred people, however many of us, including reviewers and speakers. And uh have some drinkers, have some food, have some fun. So um the sun's out, everyone's happy, everyone's exhausted because it's even in my last review with Claudine, she's amazing, but um, I just I just wasn't in it. I just was mentally fatigued and uh I feel a little bit guilty about it. Just tired and tired of talking about my images, tired of trying to listen to differing opinions um while still respecting them, taking them in, writing them down, going back through them, answering questions, all in the space of 20 minutes. It feels so much longer and so much kind of more intense, I guess. So um yeah. Alright, I'm gonna go get ready and uh we see you at the soon. Wow, look at the moon.

Odette England 51:22

It's so you see, that's what you really should be watching. Yeah, they don't know. Him

Odette England On Breakthroughs

Odette England 51:30

and the moon.

Matt Jacob 51:30

Well we're watching Odette England at the moment, so uh thank you, thank you. Uh so Odette reviewed me today, and uh what a wonderful experience. A huge fan, so definitely some kind of a little bit of Starstruck this afternoon, but we got through it. We got through it. Um Odette's first Chico review. Yes. How's it going?

Odette England 51:48

Yes, tell us about the experience. Oh my goodness. It's it's it's photocamped. And it's photocamped on an extreme level. And everyone is so friendly and so giving, and the best thing about being here is that if I can give one piece of advice or guidance to folk that's special in some way, that just makes my day.

Matt Jacob 52:15

Give me an example. Otherwise, so who do you think you've helped that like really kind of have any breakfast?

Odette England 52:21

I have no clue.

Matt Jacob 52:22

Other than me, but any do you think any like breakthrough moments this week for people?

Odette England 52:26

It's just you know what? It's not even if they've said it, it's that their their eyes change. And the best thing that you can experience with another human being is when they say something to you or you say something to them, and there's this expression that comes on their face, and you think, oh my goodness.

Matt Jacob 52:44

I definitely had that today. Oh, Deb gave me a couple of points of like, oh my god, I didn't think about that. Thank you.

Odette England 52:52

I've had this every single day I've been here, and I've done like I do eight reviews, and then you do a little extra, and then you do a little more because you can't stop looking at beautiful pictures.

Matt Jacob 53:02

Which I think that's one thing I've really enjoyed from this side of the fence uh about this week is the in-between moments. The reviews are obviously great, but they're like a little bit rushed, a little bit forced. But when you get a reviewer to the side and have a bit more of an organic experience, it's it's so much more natural.

Odette England 53:19

It feels like a conversation between two people who met at a bookstore or met on the street, and you're like, so what are you doing? And they're a bit like Evan and Bob and all these other people, Stuart, all these people. Love Evan and Bob. And I'd be like, Evan, so I had this thought about your pictures because I'm a slow thinker and a slow processor. This will happen tomorrow. I'll be like, wait, there was this thing that I should have told you. Oh, please tell me. So I hope all of these people like email me or I can email them together. I'm so sorry. Can I add this extra thing that I've been thinking about? Your title, I've been thinking about that third picture with the horse. I've been thinking about the horses.

Matt Jacob 53:55

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Odette England 53:56

You see? See, I hold them.

Matt Jacob 53:58

I love this lady. Um, on that note, on a purely selfish note, if I wanted to um, which I'm going to do with most of the review, all of the reviews if they let me, without like there's always this, I don't want to hound you, I don't want to bother you, because you're extremely busy, extremely successful photographers. If I want to then with any of these reviewers, like reach out, do how would you suggest one does that in terms of like send a PDF? These are the corrections I made, what do you think? Kind of thing.

Odette England 54:25

I think the best thing you could possibly do is to be very brave and say, I met you at this event.

Matt Jacob 54:31

Yeah.

Odette England 54:31

I loved what you had to say about this image or this selection or whatever. May I send you something to look at in your time.

Matt Jacob 54:39

Okay.

Odette England 54:40

And then that way you're relieved of the pressure of having to say, here's a PDF and here's all the things I want to know. And also they're relieved of the pressure of going, oh, I have to respond immediately.

Matt Jacob 54:48

That makes sense.

Odette England 54:49

And then it's just it's a permission thing. You're talking to another person. I think we forget in this whole we're all we are just people.

Matt Jacob 54:57

Yeah. We all shit, we all breathe.

Odette England 54:59

We all eat, we all do the same thing. We are all busy, but we are no more important than the person we're standing next to. You know?

Speaker 19 55:06

Like you're more important than me.

Odette England 55:09

Absolutely not. I've got amazing. I'm just stupider than you. And I have a dumber laugh.

Matt Jacob 55:15

The first time I saw The Long Shadow, I was moved to tears. So I think um and the new book to be developed, to be continued. Can you tell us anything about it?

Odette England 55:25

Or well, hang on, which one?

Matt Jacob 55:28

X.

Odette England 55:29

Oh, the isn't X beautiful? It's my first novella. I've never written a 26,000-word novella and then. 26,000 words. 26,000 words. Yeah, you can tell I have a lot of words. A lot of things to say. But it's it's it's it's a book that's all about the relationship between the letter X and photography. And it's built on a foundation of autobiography. Where I grew up, what I did. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Southern Australia. Very, very rural, very remote. No televisions, no, you know, bitchumen roads, no shops, none of that. Um I love it because it feels very sincere. What the book? The book feels very sincere. Yeah, it looks very good. The process of writing is really fun. I love to write. Is it out? It's out now. It's out, it's out, it's just awkward that I don't have it. It's it no, it's just been launched and it's it's pre-order.

Matt Jacob 56:22

Okay, alright.

Odette England 56:22

Like you can order it and it will be in the United States on in, I feel like, next month.

Matt Jacob 56:28

Next month. So by the time this comes out, okay.

Odette England 56:31

Yes, but it's elsewhere in the world. It's already available in the UK, Europe, Australia.

Matt Jacob 56:34

Cool.

Odette England 56:35

Isn't X Beautiful.

Matt Jacob 56:36

I'm gonna get it. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. Thank you.

Grief Turned Into A Handmade Book

Matt Jacob 56:41

I'm here with what's your last name, Hadley?

Hadley Rosenbaum 56:44

Rosenbaum.

Matt Jacob 56:45

Rosenbaum.

Hadley Rosenbaum 56:46

Yeah.

Matt Jacob 56:46

Hadley Rosenbaum, attendee of the year.

Hadley Rosenbaum 56:51

That's not true.

Matt Jacob 56:54

We we uh we met on the bus.

Hadley Rosenbaum 56:56

That's right.

Matt Jacob 56:57

Yeah, and we haven't actually talked properly about your work since, so tell tell us everything about it. Who's us Us, everyone, what or the eight people watching.

Hadley Rosenbaum 57:08

Um my god, is this live?

Matt Jacob 57:09

Well, it's not live, no, right, but it's gonna be it's gonna be price. It depends what you say.

Hadley Rosenbaum 57:14

Okay, wow.

Matt Jacob 57:15

Tell uh tell us um what brought you here and give us an insight as to the the work that you've been presenting.

Hadley Rosenbaum 57:20

Okay. Excuse me, so sorry, I had to hear that. Um what brought me here? I've been working on a body of work since last June on and off. Um after my grandma passed, and she's a national treasurer. Um it was based off of um a book that I found in her house, a Giacomedi book, um, and a a large uh archive of her of photos that she took of her Chinese antiques. Um I don't know why I'm looking here instead of at you, but anyway, this feels okay. Um sorry. Oh look, I'm lit oh, it's it's gone. I was lit up. Um ADD. Um and so I brought all of those materials to a bookmaking workshop at CPW with Ray.

Matt Jacob 58:10

Oh, okay.

Hadley Rosenbaum 58:12

And I started this project, and I it was just gonna be of my grandmother's photos and my family archive. But then we were like, actually, wouldn't it be so sick if we put we put like my a photo, an archive of mine that is idiosyncratic to me, paired with your grandma's archive, my grandma's archive. What is that grammar?

Matt Jacob 58:32

And so This was with you, you and Ray talking about this, okay?

Hadley Rosenbaum 58:35

Yeah, so I chose high heels slash feet because that seems to be the thing that I like to photograph the most.

Matt Jacob 58:40

I was gonna ask you about that appearing a lot.

Hadley Rosenbaum 58:43

I just I literally I went back home that night and I looked through my archive and I was like, oh shit, like I like feet.

Matt Jacob 58:52

In not in a fetish kind of way. In a fetish.

Hadley Rosenbaum 58:55

In a fetish kind of way, yeah. Almost exclusively in a fetishistic kind of way. Um and I was all for it. I'm like, because I do a lot of fashion shoots.

Matt Jacob 59:06

Okay, okay.

Hadley Rosenbaum 59:06

It is kind of the thing where you have to highlight the shoe. Like there, it's and because it gets boring if you're just doing a full body check or a full portrait. Like there has to be other interesting elements, and a lot of the models or actresses, whatever, they wear cool heels.

Matt Jacob 59:20

Yep.

Hadley Rosenbaum 59:21

So I made it my mission to like it, it was just it was kind of a no-brainer. So that's what I'm saying.

Matt Jacob 59:25

Fragments it a little bit.

Hadley Rosenbaum 59:26

Yeah. And once I started putting them on the page, like the Jacomedi bug, it kind of like became this energetic thing, this dialogue between these two disparate archives that became in c in this weird conversation with each other. Um, and since then I've been working on like different material um interferences and like using all different types of paper and printing techniques and um building this book up like big time. Like really, like I I I would try to finish like four pages a week. Oh my goodness. And go into the studio every day because because some of them, like, an idea would just fall out of me, but others like you'd have to print one photo five different ways to see how it looked best. So it unlocked, it kind of like dismantled my perfectionism because I'm like, there's no one right way to print this photo, therefore, there's many ways.

Matt Jacob 1:00:26

Can you give me an example?

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:00:27

Yeah, like I feel like I had there were a few things that I was working with. I had a few different colored index cards. Um, I had like 8.5 by 11 translucent film, um, newspaper, matte, glossy, um, and then um luster four by six.

Matt Jacob 1:00:49

Self-print or self-print.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:00:50

I'm doing it all by myself.

Matt Jacob 1:00:51

Okay.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:00:52

Um, so like I would print one on transparency, one on a tiny index card, one like on an 11 by 17 sheet, and then like test it out with all different shapes, sizes, elements. So like it was kind of like a chemistry lab, yeah. Like every day, just going in, and wow it it made me feel so close to my grandmom. Like, like we were like jamming together, and I felt like her her presence there. It was it was just her presence was present.

Matt Jacob 1:01:18

What's the name of the project?

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:01:19

Uh Heels and Rarities.

Matt Jacob 1:01:21

Heels and Rarities. And what's the well, okay, what the what have the reviews been like so far? But what do you hope is next with this?

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:01:30

The reviews have been baller. Um, everyone loves it. They're like, they're yeah, you heard it here first.

Matt Jacob 1:01:40

I told you, the attendee of the attendee of the week.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:01:43

I just don't think they know what to do with it because it's so colorful.

Matt Jacob 1:01:47

They're just like, yeah.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:01:48

Yeah, it's great. Yeah. No, I mean I my I came here with like a fully formed idea and a book, like ready to go. So I really wanted people to help me make it.

Matt Jacob 1:01:59

Okay.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:01:59

Like my goal in the meetings is like designer or publisher? I need a publisher. Okay. I designed it already.

Matt Jacob 1:02:05

Okay. I think I saw the book. I just saw your prints.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:02:08

Yeah, the whole book is there.

Matt Jacob 1:02:11

Okay, sorry.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:02:12

You can see it tomorrow.

Matt Jacob 1:02:13

I apologize.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:02:16

So yeah, I uh do you think you're gonna achieve your goal?

Matt Jacob 1:02:20

Like in terms of finding a publisher.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:02:21

Yeah. Look at this confidence. Literally, what else would I be doing here except calling list of publishers to email? And once they see the work, like what my brain it. Yeah, no.

Matt Jacob 1:02:31

Do you have a top uh number one publisher you're after?

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:02:34

I'm not gonna say that on here.

Matt Jacob 1:02:36

Damn it.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:02:38

You'd you'd all need to sign an NDA.

Matt Jacob 1:02:41

Um around that kind of number one goal, uh materialistic goal, I I guess, what else have you taken from this week?

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:02:52

That I'm an artist. Like not just a photographer, but I am an artiste.

Matt Jacob 1:02:58

I don't I mean yeah, we could have told you that.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:03:01

And I already knew that, but being in a it's interesting, I I chose to go to an MFA program that was interdisciplinary studio practice, so not just a photography program, and I feel like during my time I had a lot of regrets about that because I didn't get to just like lean into the technical or the history. Like I was studying a lot of theory in art history, yeah, and it really shaped my worldview and and my practice. And in hindsight, I can look back and feel so grateful for that. Um, and I feel like I carry that with me here because I feel like I'm looking at the work from an art perspective and not just a photography perspective. And so I feel like one year plus out of school is like the first time that I can be like, oh yeah, like this is one arm of my practice, and like it's serving me in this capacity, and this project is like the most healing, amazing thing to do post-grad, post like mourning my grandma. And then like I think I could take like a little thread from whatever this is and maybe make a film about it, or like make a sculpture or an installation, and so I feel like I'm it's affirming for me that it's being mirrored back to me through all of the reviews that like I'm an artist, like I'm a multidisciplinary artist.

Matt Jacob 1:04:16

What's your definition of art?

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:04:18

Of art. Uh for me, I at one point I thought it was to provoke. Um but I'm not really being provocative. I mean, I'm being provocative in a cheeky way with this book. But it's not it's not a political statement.

Matt Jacob 1:04:39

You're being provocative with the curiosity of the viewer and um the the emotive aspect of it. Certainly the sentimental aspect of your connections.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:04:49

Yeah, I do I do tend to think that art is trying to provoke emotion, and I think that a successful piece of art is something that changes your emotional landscape when you're looking at it. And it doesn't mean you have to like it. Like I think if you hate something that is equally as important and interesting, and if something disgusts you, then I think that's really cool.

Matt Jacob 1:05:07

Yeah. I hate it. Okay.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:05:11

All right.

Matt Jacob 1:05:11

Go check it out. Go check it out. It's unbelievable work. Adley, thanks so much.

Hadley Rosenbaum 1:05:16

Thank you so much. You too.

Matt Jacob 1:05:19

Bye, bye.

Morning Journal And Belonging

Matt Jacob 1:05:27

Good morning, everyone. We are at 6 30 a.m. Last day of GK Review 2026. And sorry I didn't give a kind of bedtime review, but um yesterday was great. You think you you know something? Know you yourself, or know your own work. And then you have a couple of reviewers who are completely different. You had never thought of before, whether that's with single images or sequences or just the body of work in general. And um gave me so much more food for thought. I loved my reviews with Odette and Brian and Claudine. Claudine was a little bit rushed because um I was exhausted. I was really, really exhausted, especially after my Brian, um, which threw a lot of curveballs my way in it in a good sense. I I value his um feedback and and hopefully I could call friendship, but that his the way he I'm waxing lyrical about this guy, but he you know uh they're they're all they're all just such wonderful humans, certainly the the people I've engaged with here on on this review. And Brian Brian, I know really cares, and that makes a huge difference. And yes, we've met before, and yes, we've done I've done his workshops before, and um we get along, but he he just cares about everyone, and he cares so much about the work and trying to get to the root truth or root um potential, reach people to get people to reach their potential. That's what I'm trying to say. Sorry, it's a bit early here. Um, so yeah, I I I can't say enough good things about Brian and and Odette and Harrison and Jesse and Matt and all of the reviewers here that I've come to contact with, and hopefully today I will be coming into contact with some even more incredible artists. So um today I've got um Mietcha Komeneck and Jonathan Levitt. So I'm both pretty different to what I normally shoot and my style of work, so it's gonna be really interesting. But for now, I've come down here to get some hot water for coffee because if I had one feedback of this place, the coffee is dire. So we usually have to go to the gift shop to get a double espresso. But today I'm just gonna get some hot water and make some of our own coffee from House of Yure. A little plug, go check it out. Okay, see you later. So while I'm here, um let me show you the the outside of the Chico Saloon Bar. This is kind of where everyone hangs out each evening after dinner. Um, apart from last night, obviously, where we went to the old saloon bar about five minutes down the road. But uh 6:30 in the morning, so I can't take you in there, but I'll take you in there tonight. It's such a cool bar. Um, it's where we did karaoke, where everyone just hangs out, drinks, plays shuffleboard, and uh gets to know each other, which has been, you know, the social fulcrum of the event really in the evening. So um people can get a little bit looser, have their beers, and uh get to know each other. So um it's been such an important facet of this week, and um, watching people make bonds, as well as myself making a few um bonds has been, you know, it's what life is all about, isn't it? At the end of the day, often we can come to these places and take things so seriously, take ourselves extremely seriously, and um you know, at the end of the day, we're just looking for connection, morning. Just looking for connection to be understood, to be seen, to be validated, the usual kind of human experience, desires, and uh that's what this is just a microcosm of that, really, isn't it? Whether you're showing the work or speaking to another human being. So, yeah, here we go. That's it. Um, I will try and take you through what else have I got to show you? Um take you to the gift shop, take you a little bit down the road a little bit if I have time later, take you to the bar and the hot springs, and then we're pretty much done. I mean, it's that's it. That's that's Chico. Um, I've wanted to come here for many years, didn't feel like I was in the right place either mentally or artistically. And uh financially, we we mustn't forget we you have to pay quite a bit of money to come here, um, which is which is obviously like a limiting factor for so many people. That's why they offer scholars. We spoke to a few of them. Uh, did we speak to a few of them? We spoke to Hannah, but um the battery ran out as soon as we started talking, and um we spoke to Tony, and I'm gonna try and speak to Aaron, um, who's another uh scholar. But yeah, that's why they they have these scholarships because they understand it is expensive. But when you do an event like this and you've got to pay um some amount of money to these expert reviewers to draw people in and to give people the best advice, best experience, best relationships possible, then of course you've got to charge. I have absolutely no problem with that. Um and also it does filter out people who may not be as serious as the ones who are willing to save for a few years. And for us, you know, we're coming from Bali, so it's um a long way, it's very expensive, and you know, even little things like not coming directly here so we wouldn't be jet lagged. We came a week early just to try and get on the time zone, and I'm so glad we did. But obviously, that's hotels, more internal flights, more time that we could be spent, um, you know, more opportunity cost. So, not that I'm playing the violin at all, I'm extremely fortunate to be in a position to do this, but I've been wanting to come here for um you know a long time, and I'm extremely, extremely grateful, and uh it's been a place, an event where I felt like I've had some level of belonging, which is ironic because my project is a lot about displacement, fragmentation, lack of identity, lack of belonging. Um throwing some cliche words out there, but essentially it's around those kind of emotional states. And um this has made me feel like there's a family here, there's people, undoubtedly, there's people that just get me, which is you know such a nice, such a liberating and fulfilling experience, and that's what I'm grateful for the most. And we'll see where this work goes. There's I've got a good core of work, and one thing that Brian said to me last night, uh, sorry, yesterday afternoon, because he knows my work because I've shown it to him before a few times, and he said, You don't need to go out and shoot more. Um and I will listen to his advice more than any other reviewers with uh um in with respect to that specific topic because they haven't seen my other work, they haven't seen previous stuff, um, they haven't seen my archive. Whereas Brian's seen a lot of that, and he just said, Look, you don't just dedicate an hour every day to going through your archive, dedicate an hour every day to looking at the way you might be able to edit or cut or affect your previous work, um, where you still had the same soul to it, but to make something that's cohesive but especially grounded, um, because you know this is the struggle I've been having whether today in this dream like space work, we'll ground it a little bit more. And um that's the advice that Brian gave me, and I'm very grateful for that. So when I go home, um it would take one or two weeks to just sit and process this and figure out just pass out like what everyone said, what I want to listen to, what I feel aligns true, and then kind of think about steps forward. I'll definitely be reaching out to people like Odette, Brian, of course, Matt, uh, Shana, who was so wonderful, gave me some really great insights. Tim, all of these just incredible people um who are so kind to give potentially extra time around this week. And um, yeah, I'll definitely not be taking advantage of that, but I'll definitely be taking them up on that offer and seeing how I can galvanize this this body of work a little bit better. So um this is more this is kind of like my morning journal. Instead of writing it down, I'm talking to you guys. So I hope I'm not boring you and I hope I'm showing you some beautiful landscapes. I mean, it really is just can't really do it justice on this wide angle I'm shooting on this little um DJI Osmo Pocket 3, which has been game-changing really this week because it's so light, so small, we can just whip it out and whip it out. I can just get it out and just shoot immediately with uh with the mic. But um, yeah, I hope I hope you you're kind of seeing how beautiful this place is, which adds to the experience, of course. If we were in a if we were in a big city and um and it was of course if we were in a big city and it was much more um protracted, uh it just wouldn't have the same it wouldn't have the same vibes. And when I was speaking to Jesse, um he said, Look, location is just one of the most important things. It sets the tone, makes people feel comfortable, feel welcome. And those things that you those unseeables, those untangibles, those you know, tacit kind of factors that go into a week like this, um are so, so important. And I'm not sure if I'm not sure if um many people really kind of think about those things. But I guess, you know, being the 10th year, Jesse has worked hard to iterate on those one percenters every year, and I love that approach. I I try and do that in everything I do. Um, it takes time, takes work, but when you get to 10 years down the line and you've created something that affects so many people's lives, doesn't really make much money, but it provides so much meaning, purpose, fulfillment, um, progress, happiness, joy, sadness, everything that you know, putting your work and your your soul and your heart on the line every day to essentially strangers who you respect and look up to so much and value their opinion, that is uh that that has been uh uh cultivated over so long, and you you have to give marks to Jesse for that. So if you're watching this, Jesse, thank you very much. Um I look forward to such a busy man. I've been trying to get him all week really for a review because he's not on my list, unfortunately, but I'm going to try and corner him this morning, maybe during one of the talks, which is a shame, but I think that's the only time he's available. I think that's the only time he's standing still, is when we're listening to uh another photographer for an hour talk about their work. So I'm gonna try and do that, watch this space, and I'm going to try and make the most out of this day because I don't want to get home next week and regret anything, or regret not asking any questions, or regret not getting any feedback, or regret not talking to someone I hadn't spoken to yet, um, whether they're attendees or reviewers. So um what I did realise is so many people here, I I can't I can't get around and get to know everyone. It's impossible. So I realised that after like day two and um put kind of a little bit less pressure on myself, but uh yeah. I'm just waffling now, guys. But I hope you're hope you're there, hope you're listening. And um I want to thank you for all your support. I want to thank you for being there for me, sending messages that you do. Um I hope this episode, not that we finished the episode yet, but I hope this episode has provided a really valuable insight into the world of fine art photography and photo book world. Uh, it's a world that I want to dive into deeper. I'm already kind of like in an exploratory phase with it and um loving every minute of it. And uh, you know, I wish I knew about this part of the photography world even two years ago. I mean, no, maybe maybe more. Three, four, five years ago is when I started taking photography a lot more seriously. So I'm here now. I'm really glad I made it. I know everyone here, it's pretty much changed the trajectory of their photography life, um, if not their life itself, and just in five short days. Five long, but five days. Alright, it's coffee time, and uh I'm I can hear Fee screaming through the window to make her coffee. Speak to you later.

How Reviewers Listen For Struggle

Matt Jacob 1:20:04

Well, I was just gonna ask you about like this is your first Tico review, right? Yeah. So I was just literally gonna ask you how your experience has been. I mean, you obviously do other reviews and have done many other reviews as well as education, but how's this experience been for you as a reviewer? You know, coming from the other side of the world essentially.

Lindokuhle Sobekwa 1:20:24

Yeah, I mean it it it's good that people meet here um to talk photography. I've never done something like this, but I've done reviews before. So this is quite a different experience that people gather for some time and speak photography. Doesn't feel competitive. Learn from each other.

Matt Jacob 1:20:46

Yeah. Yeah. What do you what do you look for when you're sat across the table from an attendee and they're presenting their work like I've just done with you?

Lindokuhle Sobekwa 1:20:54

I don't know, I just prefer to listen more to attendees. Um because you know when you're listening to them, you get where they're trying to go and maybe what's their struggle and how you can assist in terms of giving shape to what they're trying to develop. Yeah.

Matt Jacob 1:21:15

Yeah. Well, thank you for being here. Your talk the other day was you had everyone in tears, in including yourself. It was extremely, extremely moving. And I think I saw some stuff I had not seen of yours before. So um, yeah, I just want to say thank you for for presenting that incredible work. And what's what's next for you when you go home?

Lindokuhle Sobekwa 1:21:36

Uh continuing with trees, the family trees. Yeah. So that's what I've been busy with. Yeah. Uh, because it's still an ongoing work. Um, working with my family, traveling back to my ancestral land.

Matt Jacob 1:21:50

Did Magnum keep you busy? Like, do they give you a lot of assignments and stuff? Yeah.

Lindokuhle Sobekwa 1:21:55

Yeah. But I've been working more on my own personal work. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Matt Jacob 1:22:01

Well, thank you very much. Thank you for the review. Thank you for thank you for being here.

Lindokuhle Sobekwa 1:22:05

Good work and um looking forward to see how your work developed from there.

Matt Jacob 1:22:11

Thank you.

Lindokuhle Sobekwa 1:22:11

Yeah.

Matt Jacob 1:22:11

Appreciate it. Great. I'll let you go and have lunch.

Daniel Arnold On Process Over Products

Matt Jacob 1:22:16

We're here with Daniel Arnold, uh, legend of a photographer, legend of a Chico reviewer. Well, how many times have you done Chico now? This is my third one.

Daniel Arnold 1:22:24

In a row.

Matt Jacob 1:22:25

What does it mean to you?

Daniel Arnold 1:22:28

To be honest, my girlfriend loves to come to Montana. Um, and I'm not a guy, I'm not built to look forward to things. If something is ahead of me, I dread it. Um because of the commitment? I don't know what. I think, yeah, I just I just can only anticipate what will go wrong. But this is a a really I think uh this place is like rich with surprises if you let it happen to you. And every time I come in saying this is this is my last time, and by the end there's some like transcendent little surprise, different view of myself or perspective shift or connection or whatever. I'm like fine, bring bring Kay back to Montana next year.

Matt Jacob 1:23:19

It's it could be worse. What do you what do you um I mean we just talked about my work and just work in general in terms of how people see the world, but how people use books and images and the book making process not being I mean, is it right to say not being as important to you as the actual just going out and fucking shooting?

Daniel Arnold 1:23:42

Yeah, I find all of the sort of backward-looking, memorializing parts of this job to be the hardest, like making a show or a book or you know, giving any kind of summation or greatest hits purpose or whatever.

Matt Jacob 1:24:00

Um being on a podcast.

Daniel Arnold 1:24:02

Well, luckily I live in New York, so we don't do these things. It's too, it's there's too many distractions to so uh you live in the city or um, yeah. I've had so much fun diverting that I forget your question.

Matt Jacob 1:24:17

Yeah, sorry, that was me. I I interrupted you. Uh the importance of books compared to uh the importance of I guess materializing your work compared to the work itself, yeah, and putting pressure, pressure on yourself from other people as well as from yourself. Because we come here to the review and we just go, I want to make a book, um, come and like me. Uh but you have a very refreshing and honest take on that, and you mentioned it earlier about kind of the anticlimatic experience of a book which no one really talks about that much.

Daniel Arnold 1:24:49

Yeah. I mean a book is it's a period, it's it's the end. I want things to keep going forever so I can find out what they are. Um but you know, I work uh not not everybody works that way. Um I mean I guess what I was saying to you was like I find it very difficult to do anything honest and personal on purpose. Like basically all I know to do is trust a process, commit to a ritual, pay attention, and you know, try to live a brave and uncomfortable enough life that I can surprise myself.

Matt Jacob 1:25:37

Um so where does I have so many questions about that, but where does bus the business side of it come in? Because as soon as money enters the frame, business enters the frame, you start to think, well, I've got to come up with some ideas, or I've got to be, even worse, I've got to be told what to do, or I've been given a framework which seems to go against your very essence of how you want to photograph anyway. So how do you kind of baffle those?

Daniel Arnold 1:26:02

There's no answer, I guess, but well, there is an answer, and it is that I I mean I've just been extraordinarily lucky and answered that question from a place of like just immense privilege. Um I don't I don't do any of that. I mean, like the only time I've ever cared about money is when I don't have any. I don't have kids, so that helps with that. Um and I've never it feels crazy to to say this at this stage of the game, but like I don't think I've ever asked for anything.

Matt Jacob 1:26:40

Wow.

Daniel Arnold 1:26:41

I got crazy lucky. Wow. I mean, I just worked my ass off in a public way when Instagram was uh young and interesting and got good opportunities and was never interested in cashing out. You know, it didn't start. I quit my last job when I was 33, so I already had, you know, some youthful glamour under my belt and didn't care about it anymore, and just really got into now a 13-year business of seeing what else I can get away with. Um, and really, above all else, prioritizing the protection of this crazy little spark that I stumbled on that I didn't know was there, that continues to be this just massive source of endless energy, even as my body gets old and pathetic and I'm tired and you know, over it sometimes. Um How do you know when the body of work is complete then? Or what you you don't. I don't I don't know that I even have a b I mean my body of work is is everything. I go to I go to you know, like in a in the past month, what I did do, I did like a some goofy cashmere sweater fashion campaign and I shot venomous snakes at the zoo and I I can't even remember, but like over the course of any given month, I do so many different things. I insist on making room to do curveball shit that is for me. And and when I'm not doing that, I'm just wandering the street. And you know, as I said before, the camera was on, like, oh, I'm depressed today. Great, let's go see what a depressed brain brings back from the world. Um and so what it becomes, I mean, I don't know that this is good. I do constantly wonder, like, have I completely sabotaged myself and am I just gonna be found like in a garage under a pile of print? Not even prints, it's all on the computer. I'm just gonna be like under my laptop. Uh you know, I guess more than prizing any given picture or like striving to make the perfect edit to show myself to the world. I'm just so much more interested in seeing what the end-of-month edit looks like when I throw myself in a million different directions and cross my fingers and like think I really don't want to do that, so I guess I have to do it.

Matt Jacob 1:29:14

Um, and that's why photography in this sense can be so powerful.

Daniel Arnold 1:29:21

Well, and it's also a very nice way of negotiating the problem of hired work.

Matt Jacob 1:29:27

But you said it sounds like you get a lot of a lot of creative freedom with with those that hire you.

Daniel Arnold 1:29:32

Well, I I just I just have kind of taken it, I guess, from the front from the beginning. I mean, I didn't mean to be a photographer. I worked as a writer for ten years, and just like a path opened up in my life where I was like, this is very interesting, and it's giving me psychotic energy and focus that I've never experienced before doing anything in my life. I have to just like make space for it. And dumped my whole life. Genuinely ate toast three meals a day for like two years. I was so skinny and cute. Um and I don't know, just by like chasing this abstract thing, uh, and becoming less and less interested in quality or meaning, and just focusing on giving myself the opportunity to reveal myself in different places. I mean, it makes my job so so great because it's just like I'm given this curveball room full of shit that I never would have encountered on my own, often like with a bunch of people running around trying to make it perfect for me, which is not what I want. Um but still at the end of every month I get to mix it all up with street pictures and weird side projects and pictures of my life at home and see what what connects them all and make that pile and then make that pile the next month and do it all year, and then at the end of the year, make take that whole year pile and be like, okay, what's the thread here? What are the pictures that get to stay? And just play that game forever. I mean, have you seen my website?

Matt Jacob 1:31:10

Yeah.

Daniel Arnold 1:31:11

I feel like that to me is much more satisfying than a book because in a way it replicates the experience of going to find the photos.

Matt Jacob 1:31:19

Well, and it's all you.

Daniel Arnold 1:31:20

Yeah.

Matt Jacob 1:31:21

You know, there's no publisher involved, there's no designer involved. Well, there is, but it's you do, you know, fully, fully controlled. So when you come to places like this, so 30 in a row, and maybe you don't have an answer to this question, but what give if you're looking at work across the table, what type of approach, or what type of work, or what, what are you seeing that would give you a spark and just go, yeah, this is this fucking this is great, or this means something, or dive deeper into this? Are you looking for the truth? Are you looking for consistency, cohesion? What what is what are you looking for when you see other people's work?

Daniel Arnold 1:31:58

I mean, forgive me if it sounds corny and full of shit, but it's it's true. It's it's not like people keep asking me if I've seen any any great work that has blown me away, and I I actually don't know. Because you know, there's a lot of people in this mix who could offer you a a book deal through theoretically, or tell you like what you need to do with your portfolio to be able to one day approach a museum, or there are people who are extraordinarily confident about sequencing, who will open up your box of prints and tell you what they are and tell you to get rid of stuff, and the truth is it's 20 minutes of speed dating, and there's a lot of guilt and ego at play where you're like, I know it was hard for you to come here, and I've got 20 minutes to be useful, and God doesn't feel good to be useful, so I'm just gonna like freestyle whatever the fuck I can think of off the top of my head. And for me, I don't know, I guess I feel bad kind of because I don't I feel like I'm not even really engaging directly with the photos because I don't care. It's so much more interesting to me to try to conjure up this quick crack spiritual connection of like we we're both kind of after the same thing, and listen up, guys. It's probably the best advice you can hear. Well, I just feel like the I've had such a sweet, lucky ride. I've been given pats on the back that I didn't know existed, like before I could think to want them. And the the only consistent thing of value there is that I know it doesn't change anything. It doesn't matter, it doesn't make me f I don't wake up every morning and be like, I'm a good photographer, I'm gonna go take good pictures. I wake up every day and think, I'm shit. Maybe today I'll get lucky and prove to myself that I'm still worth a damn and that I wasn't just lucky when I was 33 and you know, audacious. Um and that's not false modesty. It's like I think there's this this perception now in this social media model that like you strike some magic note and the world just kind of like opens up and slows down before you and you get to luxuriate in being a good photographer. And I think the truth is like the more doors that open for you, the more you are you discover that this is just like a lifelong slog. And that there's no trophy that means anything except for the life that you get to live by uh committing to paying attention to your life. Mic job.

Matt Jacob 1:34:42

I didn't really take an instruction. Or like a photo. Hello.

Tim Carpenter On Actionable Feedback

Matt Jacob 1:34:47

Here with uh Tim Carpenter, legend of photographer, and how many times at Chico now? This is my seventh time. Seventh time. So any different experiences this time or is it secondary?

Tim Carpenter 1:34:59

This is the warmest by far time. Uh, you know, because this time of year can be widely divergent as far as the weather. Last year there were two separate snowstorms that came through. We were at late because there were a lot of snow. And like I went to the plunge this morning, and um it was the least painful plunge of all. Uh because it's that's like 20 degrees warmer today. It's like Celsius, I think it's about already about 25, 26 degrees. The other big difference we've all noticed is that the attendees this year are much milder in their partying. Last year we raged and closed down the bar almost every night. Yeah, did you stay out late last night? Uh no, not terribly, but like midnight. Or yeah, 12:30 or something like that. Tim's an excellent karaoke.

Matt Jacob 1:35:40

Yeah. Tim also reviewed me on the first day. I think even um I've remembered every little piece of advice on that. Because um, not only do I respect you and your work so much, I think you're you're extremely well friendly, humble, and open. So kind of accessible in that. And does that come from just how you've always been? Or I know you you do a lot of education, you mentor a lot, and has that kind of been evolution for you?

Tim Carpenter 1:36:04

In terms of teaching, yeah. No, I mean I've I I've I've taught now for six years in a year-long program, and I've done a lot of other you know things. So um I really tried to train myself to be that and to think about what I would want to move forward and how I I'm I call myself the practical guy. I really want to have you know like steps forward. Um, one time I took a work a workshop a long time ago with the Andrea Motica, and her comments were really actionable. And I just like I want to be like that, you know. I want to I want to try to find the way forward with something. And you know, the thing is like I I I said this to you and I say it to almost everybody, I never say good picture, bad picture. I want to hear what's in somebody's head and their heart that just has to get out. Yeah, and then I can think about let's think about how the pictures behave against that. Yeah, you know, yeah, because I do not want to see more of what I think I want to see, you know. I'm just one dumb guy, and I want to get what's what's weird and idiosyncratic in the person and not my opinion. Yeah, listen to listen to that.

Matt Jacob 1:36:58

Great advice. Um, one more question, let's go, because I know you've got to get into reviews. Um, seven times in a in a row, Chico?

Tim Carpenter 1:37:05

No, well like 2019, and then there was a COVID break, and then uh then they played catch-up by like doing a couple close together. But yeah, but basically, yeah, seven in a row.

Matt Jacob 1:37:14

What tell me what Chico means to you as as a reviewer?

Tim Carpenter 1:37:17

So as a reviewer, there's two, I mean, there's two things. It's like as the other reviewers, some of them I've known forever now, you know, and they're best friends. Some like I'm people I'm I'm just meeting for the first time. So for me to from like my professional relationships and personal relationships, because now I know all these publishers who if if I see a quality project, I can send them to Lartier or send them to uh Clint or send them to whoever, you know, and they're actually getting connected and getting made. Wow, that's nice. And then, but also connecting with all the the attendees, and like a bunch of people have actually become part of my year, the year-long program at Penumbra. So it's all kind of a web, you know, of everything. And then, you know, in a few years, some of these attendees are going to be reviewers. Yeah, and you know, they're gonna be the same the same people. So community connection. Absolutely, yeah. And you know, like I come out of here, like everybody has two or three pictures to just kick my ass, and I come out of here like so inspired, and I just like I gotta go start making pictures of being better again, you know.

Matt Jacob 1:38:06

We forget even even the pros at Tim's level still need to be inspired, not need to be, but still get inspired.

Tim Carpenter 1:38:11

Oh yeah, everybody can make pictures that I've never seen before, you know, and I love it. So Tim, thank you so much for the time. Appreciate it. Have a good afternoon.

Matt Jacob 1:38:18

Thank you.

The Broken Economics Of Photography

Matt Jacob 1:38:20

Tell me just tell me just what were we talking about?

Ann Hermes 1:38:24

What am I doing?

Matt Jacob 1:38:24

Yeah, no, no, that's kind of like journalistic interview. Tell me who you are, Ann Hathaway. What's your last name again?

Ann Hermes 1:38:32

Um Anne Hermes.

Matt Jacob 1:38:34

I was close with uh the H at least.

Ann Hermes 1:38:36

Yeah, you were you were partly there. Um, no relationship to the French scarf company, or I could pay for all the gear I wanted to. So yeah.

Matt Jacob 1:38:45

What um tell us what you're doing here at Chico at a 30,000-foot view.

Ann Hermes 1:38:51

I was uh trying to figure out what, if anything, I could do with my personal work because I've had it published in the editorial space and I've been so proud and grateful for that. But I don't feel like it's the end of the road for the work I've been doing. And so I came here to try and figure out if there was a path after this. And there have been a lot of direct and indirect answers to that, and I feel like I've been able to piece together some answers, both from discussions with not just the reviewers, but the reviees. Because I think having conversations with the other working photographers here has been one of the more rewarding things.

Matt Jacob 1:39:33

Working as in people doing it full time.

Ann Hermes 1:39:35

Like if you're making money off of your camera, okay, and I'm not saying you're making money off of the personal projects you've come to show here, um, even just like the unglamorous stuff that you're doing, and you're not, as we talked about, yeah, the hustling, you know. Like I wanted to talk about the hustle because I don't think a lot of people talk about the hustle. No, because it's not sexy, it's not well. How often are we gonna post that on our Instagram account or Substack? Yeah, um, it's much sexier to talk about the big personal projects photo books and the art reviews and the yeah. I love that. I would love I love looking at that, you know. I want to support that, but I also want to know how you're funding your life because that it's the model is broken, it's only gotten more difficult. And so, how do we support each other and how do we support ourselves? And having people who are not gatekeeping that information, especially here, has been one of the more valuable um lessons for like things that I've experienced is like learning some of the hard, direct paths and how to leverage your personal work in the commercial world or as a teaching gig, or you know, even doing more workshops. That kind of a thing has been really valuable.

Matt Jacob 1:40:52

So it sounds like the goal, the initial goal you had from TK Reviewers changed slightly, or the the expectation I should say.

Ann Hermes 1:41:00

Everybody came here wanting a book. Of course, I would have loved to come here and have somebody say, oh, here's money for a book, right? You know, like let's do it right now. Um and I didn't have anyone say this is not a book. No one said that. Everyone said this is a book, it's not a photo book. It is a uh for at least my project, it has more of a broad appeal outside the you know, photo book world. And so you should be looking at academic presses, which was very valuable information. But it's also kind of like, okay, so we're still talking about more time, more energy. And at the end of all of this work, you know, um, which I care about getting out there, uh I still won't make money off of the book because nobody makes money off of photo books no matter where you get published. So for me, I hate to say it, like I need to know how I can fund my life and continue doing this work because I work in the journalism world quite often and my projects about journalism, and my husband's in journalism, and I don't know if you've heard, there's no money in journalism. And oh, by the way, there's no money in the photo book world. So just figuring out how to piece this together to make it sustainable, because I think we shouldn't lie to each other at this point. It's the model is unsustainable, so we really have to help each other keep at it because there's so many valuable voices and stories that are being told here. And I just want everybody to be able to continue the work that they're doing, but we do have to put it We have to be able to afford it. Yeah, we gotta put food on the table, we gotta put a roof over our heads.

Matt Jacob 1:42:48

Um, when you as you mentioned earlier about the model that's broken, you elaborate more, certainly in the journalistic world for for those that don't really know. Tell us, tell us what makes you say that.

Ann Hermes 1:43:00

Well, I was a staff photographer at a newspaper, um, and that is a job that is disappearing and has almost entirely disappeared.

Matt Jacob 1:43:10

Yeah.

Ann Hermes 1:43:10

Um, and so that is a broken model in and of itself. Anyone who wants to get a staff job, like, whoa, get in line, you know. Um, but even freelancing for editorial, um, and I'm talking, you know, like big places, great reputations, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, when they still existed to some degree. Um, it's just, you know, it's they don't pay enough to live in a major urban setting. And even if you live in a remote area, they're not calling you enough to sustain you gotta be around it. Yeah. Um, and so being realistic about that really helped me enter into the freelancing life after I had a staff job in a newspaper, because if I had gone in thinking I was only gonna make money off of editorial, it would have been really painful. And so now I'm trying to find um client commercial clients that will basically pay me um 10 times more for the same skill set that I use in journalism. And somebody, another attendee here actually coined the, I had never heard this term, um, commercial documentary. And that was like, oh, that makes so much sense to me because the clients who are actually paying me to keep a roof over my head, um, they're hiring me for all the same skill set that I developed over years of being a working photojournalist. And they actually value that skill set tremendously because they're like, oh, I don't need to send a crew of 20 in with you. You can do an amazing job, and your critical thinking skills are stellar and you're flexible and you can work in any situation. It's like I learned all that as a photojournalist. And, you know, now I'm getting clients who are valuing that and paying me for that. Um, and you know, it's the same kind of thing where, like in my world, if there's a client job that I can't do um with a commercial client, I I always try to pass that off to another photojournalist because A, I knew that they can do a great job. Yeah. And B, I want them to be able to fund their documentary projects that they're doing as well. So that's the broken model that I'm talking about. Like, and and now I'm, you know, learning more about the photo photo book world. Um, you know, there's nobody here is gonna lie to you and tell you that there's money in photo books, you know, at least not until you build up like a tremendous-I don't think they have.

Matt Jacob 1:45:48

I think they I think we've yeah, I think it's been quite uh honest in that respect. Yeah, for sure.

Ann Hermes 1:45:53

So um for me, I'm working in two broken model situations, so I'm trying to figure out how to make that work.

Matt Jacob 1:46:00

Within a broken model environment, do are there opportunities that might spring from that? For example, is education, you know, the democratization of education, certainly with social media and online access that we get, maybe I don't want to bring AI into it, but uh, you know, people can do people can do everything these days uh at the touch of a button. And if you thought I mean, I guess my question is what happened, what do you what are the answers that you've been looking for? And what when you go home, what's what are you going to kind of attack next?

Ann Hermes 1:46:34

Well, I'm definitely wondering more and more now if I'm looking at a third broken model because commercial's probably also broken. Yeah, or breaking or breaking at the it's ripping at the seams as we speak. Um you know, I've found and this being here and speaking with the review reviewers has confirmed that being scrappy and hustling is the only thing that's gonna see you through to the end. And in some cases, that's gonna be taking work that you might at first find demoralizing. But let's it let's face it, wedding photographers are gonna survive AI.

Matt Jacob 1:47:14

Baby photographers, wedding photographers, not product photographers or I mean Larry was presenting. I want to hear what you think about Larry's uh lecture this morning because he you asked him that question actually.

Ann Hermes 1:47:28

Yeah.

Matt Jacob 1:47:28

I don't think he answered it specifically.

Ann Hermes 1:47:31

It's it's I mean, AI is definitely a piece of the puzzle for the erosion of public trust in photojournalism, but there's also a reputational um hit that we I think that's what you meant by the question, right? Yeah. Um, you know, with the fake news, you know, fake news wave that came about in 2016. I I've seen it in alarming ways because it's not just, you know, people saying that the New York Times is fake news, but people are saying that these local newsrooms that I photograph are fake news. And it's like, you guys shop at the same grocery store as the people who report on your neighborhood. Like you know better than anyone that they are not, you know, making this shit up.

Matt Jacob 1:48:15

Yeah, now it's uh uh anyone's opinion is is is worth as much as a fact. And it's and then polit politicization politicized Yeah, politizes.

Ann Hermes 1:48:23

Politiciz been a long week.

Matt Jacob 1:48:28

Um, but media's put politicized now, which which is why people don't trust anything that A doesn't fit their own narrative and B doesn't kind of uh fit into the whatever perspective they're watching or reading or listening to, right?

Ann Hermes 1:48:42

Yeah. Well, and the funny part of that is like I think and Larry touched on this a little bit of like there was never really a truth with the capital T. There was never true objectivity, um, true objectivity, because the way I photograph things is different from the way you would photograph.

Matt Jacob 1:48:58

So it got opinion attached to it all the time.

Ann Hermes 1:49:00

You can't escape from your own reality enough to be totally unbiased. And I've been trying to, in my journalism work, go more towards fairness because I think that's the best anyone can do. But Larry kind of in a way weirdly answered his own question through his own work because he's his work has transitioned from um, at least the photo books and the stories that he's telling, the way he's telling them, has transitioned from the very tried and true old school black and white books with minimal design, you know, and just like really intense war imagery. Um those were sort of like the traditional photo books uh in that particular field. And now you've seen like he has ephemera, you know, he has objects, he's scanning objects, he's music and video music and video. And I think he's seen the writing on the wall that like storytelling has changed a little bit. And, you know. Does that make the fresh out of grad school photojournalist version of me very uncomfortable? 100%. Do I think it's more relevant and will reach more audiences in a the world we live in? 100%. And if that is gonna get somebody who has not educated themselves about what's going on with you know Afghanistan or Ukraine, you know, then if if that's what's gonna connect with people, then I'm kinda like, all right, let's do it if that's what needs to be done, as long as we're transparent about the way that we're doing it.

Matt Jacob 1:50:38

Fascinating. Well, thanks for talking to me and good luck. We'll all keep in touch. I'm excited to see what happens.

Ann Hermes 1:50:45

We're all just making it up as we go along.

Matt Jacob 1:50:47

Don't tell anyone.

Ann Hermes 1:50:48

Yeah.

Matt Jacob 1:50:49

Thanks, Anna.

Last Review Emotions And Next Steps

Matt Jacob 1:50:52

Hey guys. Just finished my last review with Jonathan Levitt. And I think I don't know how I feel. I feel sad that it's over. I feel actually quite emotional that I'm not gonna see some of these people probably ever again. I'm not gonna see some of these people for a very long time. And I go back to life, a life that I love, but um this is where I want to be, and these are the people I want to be around. And uh in terms of the reviews, guys, I don't I actually like I it's this is gonna take me some time to process uh in terms of the reviewing the reviews and reviewing kind of where I want and where I need to go next with this. Um you may think like we uh we making mountains out of molehills, um but this is this is hard. Like if you you're trying to you're trying to um make something that is meaningful, important, and um means something to you, means something to other people, you're trying to get your voice out there and to be heard without using too many cliches. Um you are wanting to be wanted, you're wanting to be liked, you're wanting to be respected, you're wanting to be understood more than anything. For me, that's the the common denominator with everything in life, whether it's family, friends, um businesses, teams, career, health, um and art. And uh I'm very proud to call myself an artist, but if this week has taught me anything, it's I still have a long way to go to achieve what I want to achieve out of this, and um I don't really have any clarity on on how to move forward with that yet. And I'm just gonna trust the process, trust that uh I'm not gonna have clarity until you know there's people there's people here with pretty much fully formed books, and they will find clarity easier than someone like myself who's who's got a body of work that I'm after this week I'm 100% sure can be made into a book. But I've I've got so much more work to do to figure that out, to figure out where this connective tissue is with the work that I want to present to the world, and how to engage a viewer more, how to make sure my message comes across clearly but poetically, and um fuck, if it was easy, everyone would do it, right? Um and for the reviews, one thing I know is that pretty much every view has been wildly different. There's been some common themes, um, but there's been many different directions that the reviewers would like themselves or would like me to take the work, and that has been extremely confusing. The first few days, if I was to think back, the first few days were just ego death, was just like getting out of your own way, um, being punched in the face, which I knew would happen and you're absolutely fine with and in support of. Needed to do that. I don't present my work too often, uh, in person, in print, um, with intention and with seriousness. So, yeah, there's so many things I'm already gleaning from this week. One is I should present my work more, I should get it in front of more eyes, I should play more, experiment more. Um, I've shot so much work that I haven't really investigated with myself yet. And you know, Brian talked about this yesterday. Um go back and be more experimentation and be be more experimental with the stuff I've already shot. That shit. Are we still recording? Uh let me just hold it. And so yeah, uh at the moment it's it's it just is, I guess. Um I'm looking at my camera that's scratched now, great. It's been very windy here. Um to get away from kind of the deep and dark depths of the review process, it's been so um revelationary to meet like-minded, so many like-minded people, to connect with quite a few of them, and you would have seen them on this episode or heard from them on this episode already. Um and that's just such an honour uh to be within this community. So I would thank myself for that and thank you guys for that, and thank Jesse, Katie, um, all of the reviewers that spend their time. Um like I said, yeah, they get paid, but they they definitely don't do it for the money. Um, because uh I don't think it's life-changing money at all um to to divulge a little secret. But it's not. So they do it for m many of their own personal reasons, and uh I'm very grateful, very, very grateful for that and for Jesse to kind of bring them and us together. And yeah, it's a it's a it's a business enterprise, of course, but that's not the reason that this happens, and that's not the reason that Jesse started it. So um, yeah, as as as as far as portfolio reviews go, um, and I haven't done that many, but as part uh as as far as reviews go, this is you know uh in my mind the world leading world leading one and the most prominent that we have certainly in in this side of the world. So just extremely grateful to have been able to present my work and it be it be received really well. Um and had pretty much I think 90% of extremely valuable constructive feedback stuff that I can go away and think about first. This is gonna take me a few months to really just marinate and meditate upon and see where I want to go next. Um I haven't had a review from Jesse yet. He's had a quick look at the work, but I before we go, so it's now what is it? It's now 4.45 on Saturday. We leave tomorrow lunchtime, so we have less than 12 hours left, and um just like anything, it's sad that the end is uh upon us. But I leave here with an experience, with having met some amazing people and with some direction and with a lot to think about. Um a lot of my work is is disparate, so I have one body of work that is um more post-documentary, more I guess, um contemporary uh work that's more I don't know how to describe it, but it's more traditional and more rooted from where I kind of how or where and when I love photography. And um I have another body of work which is largely what I presented this week that is a bit more experimental, but much, much more personal and much more narrative-based. Much more poetic, and I lean, I'm I want to lean into that more, but stay true to what I'm arguably better at and what I'm arguably find easier. And I think they can both coexist, and that's what I've learned, is they can either I can either find a way for them to coexist together in the same project, in the same if it's gonna be a book or in the same series, whatever it might be, and I can find a way to separate them and have them two separate projects. So that has been uh a lot of clarity with regards to where I go next. And um that's it. I could I probably will. I'll do a I'll do a real reflective episode um I don't know in a month's time or something. I don't know when. I don't know if it's of any interest to you to be honest. I think I'm hoping this episode has been of real interest to you guys just because we've got a little bit behind the scenes, had a little bit of first hand experience from me. We've we've met other attendees who've given us insights, and we met some of the reviewers who've also given their insights from the other side of the fence. So I hope you've enjoyed it. I can't say that um I can do this all the time, of course, uh, but I hope you've enjoyed it, and um there's more to come. I'm gonna take the microphone around tonight, still a few people I want to speak to. Hopefully, I can get them. Everyone is exhausted, everyone's still really busy, everyone's trying to like get everyone they haven't got yet to speak to and to look at their work. So I don't want to do that disservice, I don't want to intrude. And so if this is the last thing you hear or see from me on this trip, then um I don't know what else to say. I think I've said enough, but uh I'll be writing a lot about my experiences just for my own purpose. I'll be obviously meditating a lot upon this and where to go next, and hopefully I can share some of that with you over the next however long it's gonna be. This is gonna be a long time that I'm going to be spending immersed in this work that I want to forge into something that's complete. So we'll see. We'll see, and hopefully I can share that process with you guys. But for now, I am going to grab a beer, try and relax, try and speak to people I haven't spoken to yet. Maybe I'll bring the camera out, maybe I'll bring the microphone out. Um, but yeah, let's see. See you guys.

Montana Beauty And Political Dissonance

Matt Jacob 2:01:31

Alright. Shouldn't be saying high highs, yeah. These brutally low lows from this beautiful room. Yeah, just a little bit, but you try and get I mean it collapses when that fucking summer goes away. Yeah, it turns into this like empty landscape that you kind of have to fucking survive almost not living in.

Rory King 2:01:55

What I find quite interesting about being here is like a real resonance with the land and feeling so grateful to be here. And then going out to Livingston and spending like five, six days there.

Speaker 19 2:02:10

Yeah, that must have been cool.

Rory King 2:02:11

Well, it's like an incredible place. It has like a creative kind of hit historical energy to it, and then meeting the locals, and they're the most warm, kind-hearted people. Yeah, some of the definitely the warmest people in the US. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking about the political climate here in the States and this differentiation of values, and you have these like moments of connection with people. You're like, you're so kind, holy shit. And then you're like, oh, where are you from? I'm from Australia. Oh you have a whole beautiful conversation, and then if you dig deeper, I can't really escape from like how do you feel about it. Not how do you feel about, but what are your values? Yeah.

Matt Jacob 2:03:07

For me, I feel like there's like profound dissonance with living here, and like it's such a beautiful landscape. There is that like connection to it. And like maybe it's where I live north of here, but like there's a very dark undertone of like cruelty and unwillingness to like talk to your neighbors and like be present, be part of a community, and let others in. Isn't that like cruelty in what aspects? Like the way they fucking treat homeless people, the way they treat trans people, the way like it's a fuck you, leave me alone. I came here to be left the fuck alone and don't talk to me, kind of thing. Um it's a it's a cold uncaringness. Which you don't necessarily see as a foreigner on the surface as much. You see, necessarily as a foreigner so much as just a visitor. Like uh yeah, that's a better you're here and like you get this. I mean, but by the sounds of it, this doesn't happen. You know, this isn't every day in Montana. This is this is a bubble. Livingston is also a bubble. Livingston is a very progressive liberal bubble. Um is it a liberal town? Yeah, not too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, Montana's a red state, right? So like uh red okay. Yeah. Um used to be more of a like a purple libertarian state. Like it was just like you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone. I'm gonna come help you shovel your fucking driveway off now. It's lost that in the last handful of years, I think. Really? Yeah. Why? I think a lot of people have moved in after COVID. Yeah. A lot of people came from like California and liberal states, and like I'm being uh what's the word? Oppressed. Like I don't have these freedoms, I have to wear a mask, I have to do all this fucking COVID bullshit. Now they come here thinking never matters. They come here thinking that the West is this rugged, hyper-individualized place when really like it it can't be that. Like this land's like it's so spread out, the resources are so spread out, the communities are so spread out. Like you need to be, you need to build community in here. Um give us some more details about your week. I'm I'm interested, like there's obviously I've spoken to like I want to ask Aaron a few more questions later, but I've spoken to a lot of the attendees here about just the the bubble that is TK review, but the the whole alumni thing is slightly different. And for those that may be listening or watching, can you tell us like the week that you've had, what that has entailed? I mean, with with Ray Meeks, you know, one of the heroes in the game, but um, yeah, just give us a little a few more details about what what what you've been doing this week.

Rory King 2:06:04

Well, okay, so this is my third year here. The first year I felt like I was bringing my practice, my world into this like sharing it with artists that I have known their name and their work forever. Yeah, and like so inspired by them. And daunted at the same time. Daunted. You like sit down and you have a beer and you have a conversation and you realize that we're actually all just trying to figure it out. We're all human beings. For me, Ray, huge influence on my work. His materiality, the way he treats images and like plays with them and puts them on different paper stocks and the craft. The craft of it. But the like the artistry of it. Yeah. It's artisanal, it's not cerebral, it's it embodied emotion. And for me, that was a huge influence on my practice. And now this was so when was your first year here? Uh four years ago. Alright, so 2022 is so I missed last year, but I had two years in a row and missed last year and then so sorry, your first year was Ray one of your reviewers? Uh no, he he he doesn't like reviewing. Oh, really? No. So he wasn't here, but then the next year I came back, he was running a workshop. And to like sit down with him and even hear his voice was like this is insane. Yeah. Now this is the second year of doing a workshop with him, and he feels like like just a another person. And he has his practice that I respond to and resonate with. But to have his wisdom, experience, and sensibility kind of gently just map itself out onto your work. Whoa, what a what an what an amazing gift.

Matt Jacob 2:08:04

So this is your second year as alumni or first year as always. Second year as alumni. Um before that, so last year.

Rory King 2:08:13

So I wasn't here last year.

Matt Jacob 2:08:15

Uh the so the year before, yeah, who was your you did a workshop?

Rory King 2:08:20

First year was just as an attendee. And then I did a workshop, a bookmaking workshop with Ray. Oh, okay. Second year. Oh, okay.

Matt Jacob 2:08:28

Missed last year, and now you've had Ray twice for workshop. Yeah, nice.

Rory King 2:08:33

Uh the difference is that in the first year I was in this state of it was like a dream, like surreal to me. And I was so overwhelmed. Felt like I'd been creating work in this bubble for my own relationships with people, portraits of people that I love, places that I love to go to. It's just this contained thing. And you're coming and sharing that with people, and it's vulnerable because you get you get validation, you also get criticism, you're thinking about why the f why the fuck do we do this? Why do we make work? Then to come back now for the third time, I'm I feel like I have friendships with the people that I was nervous to meet four years ago. Amazing.

Matt Jacob 2:09:24

Yes.

Rory King 2:09:24

And you sit down and the work is the work. We're all just gonna make it. It comes through us, we're conduits for something we need to express ourselves in in the world. But for me, now coming back, photography takes a bit of a backseat. And it's about how we relate together as people. How like tell me about your life. Tell me about how many times you've been heartbroken, tell me about what your relationship with your parents are like. That feels like it feeds it it feeds back into the photography. But that's why I come back. That's why I'm here. That's why everyone should try and get here. It's beautiful. It's gorgeous.

Matt Jacob 2:10:07

What um going to something more material, Gumsucker. Yeah, tell us what was the inspiration behind that, if there was one, or was it more of that organic um regurgitation of everything that you just talked about, or was it there like a specific document?

Rory King 2:10:23

It was quite a singular, unique experience because all of the work that I'd made, I'd done all of the photography, the sequencing, like making a maquette, everything is just you. And so Jesse asked to see my archive, which I'd never really shown anyone. Even more vulnerability, like all of the terrible pictures.

Matt Jacob 2:10:47

Yeah, yeah.

Rory King 2:10:49

And then he's sitting down with me, like essentially doing yes and no. And what he's pulling out for me is like, the fuck? Like, why are you why are you focusing on this picture? But then it became this collaborative experience of working with somebody who has their own vision, their own world, their own business, their own sensibilities, and trying to create something that is a a combination of the two of you. And so I I didn't come here with gum like that. Didn't exist that work. I had a completely different thing. And so now that book is like the love child of us connecting, talking, building a friendship and a relationship, and it being my pictures, but his I don't know his not not his vision, it's like it doesn't feel like his vision, but his sensibility, how he sees pictures. And so to see that book, it's like things that I would never do, yeah, that were so resonant and beautiful, and then also other. Decisions that I felt like that's not me, that's not my world. But I think this is what happens when you work with publishers. Like you have to give yourself to them and accept that the work lives outside of you.

Matt Jacob 2:12:13

It's no longer which I think so many people have uh an issue with. Maybe not an issue, but maybe a l a limitation in in that respect. Um yeah, fascinating. Oh I'd love to talk to you more about Gumsucker. I don't want to keep you too long either. Can you Aaron, can you tell us a little bit about what this week has given you or in terms of we talked a little bit before in terms of like expectations coming in here and as a scholar, was that more of a weight on your shoulders to come out of here with something a little bit more uh solid? I'm not sure that I had any firm expectations out of it. Like my practice has been so insular. I think my main goal was just like coming here, finding the people who I can trust, who I know like want to see me succeed as a photographer and as an artist, and building relationships with them in hopes of being able to lean on them to help me develop my own practice. How's I mean, uh I'm gonna put you on the spot, but how's it gone in terms of like what you're gonna go away with uh from the feedback but also connections here and the goal that you just talked about? How are you gonna like just fucking unpack all of this and essentially move forward, right? That's what we're try we're we're trying to do. Any ideas? I can't say that I know that yet. Um I need I think I just need to keep looking inward within myself and figuring out what the fuck I want to say. I keep coming back to this like feeling that with my work I want to write a poem and I need to what the f what's the poem gonna be about?

Speaker 19 2:14:01

Yeah, yeah.

Matt Jacob 2:14:03

Well, I've seen your work, I've also seen your work, both incredible artists. Um thanks for being here, it's nice to meet you. Thank you. Um thanks for having a conversation.

Final Night Book Fair Energy

Matt Jacob 2:14:13

Hey guys, uh as I hoped, uh give you a little bit more of the last evening. Just had the little bit of a photo book fair, and uh here's Rory again uh presenting some of his what he's been working on this week. Uh I'm not gonna disturb him right now. Uh but yeah, a lot of books laid out. I've bought and gone bankrupt a couple of times uh tonight. Got some right bangers, and so everyone's just kind of spending the last night mingling. Put Jesse in the corner. Uh I won't talk to him, he's absolutely exhausted. We've got Jesse over there putting his last little touches on the event, and then we're sitting down for dinner. Um I was just doing a little uh video ward. Uh that's Shana, she gave me a review the other day. Um sometimes it can be a little bit awkward for sure, like just talking to some of these people because they're just uh very sought after, right? So see like the likes of Brian over here. Um just getting Brian and Matthew. I want to grab Matthew before I go. Um but this is really the beauty of the event. We get to mingle with some of the best photographic artists in the world, and uh what a privilege.

Lindokuhle Sobekwa 2:15:46

Can I use your pencil for this?

Matt Jacob 2:15:47

Yes, just wish well. Harrison signing a copy here. That's not like that's not like real life, right? No, it's not Marshall always giving uh always giving great advice. Um Marshall's actually like uh hopefully he doesn't listen to this, but what a legend. Um obviously I didn't know him when he was he was on the show, but uh having spent a lot of time with him this week, he is a true gent and a true star, and I'm so glad that I met him in person because one thing the podcast doesn't do is give proximity, it opens doors and it uh asks questions and um gives me access to have conversations, but it's it often surface level, and uh being able to meet these people has just opened up an even deeper level of conversation and um familiarity, which is extremely valuable.

Reviewer Mindset And Staying Hungry

Matt Jacob 2:16:52

Is that you you obviously like the giving back? I mean, I can tell in this week that you really enjoy that that two-way um feedback process. Yeah, and just like collaborating with someone, even if it's just for a quick 20 minutes, but it's like feeding off the them as much as just teaching.

Matthew Genitempo 2:17:10

I mean, yeah, I mean I I don't know how in in regards to the teaching aspect of it. I've never been a I've never been a teacher, but um, and I I don't really have a desire to do that as far as like job stuff goes, but it is I I do like it in the these quick stints like this, but I mean honestly, it's like I was telling somebody earlier that I um I get I feel like I get a little jaded after all the books come out October, November, peri photo every year. It's just so much, it's like huge onslaught of books and stuff, and it's cool, and I'm it's really exciting. And then there's kind of a lull at the at the beginning of the year, January, February, and then I come here and it's stuff that you don't that's isn't hyped up all year, it's stuff you don't see online all year, and it's stuff that people are keeping a little bit closer to their chest. And I mean it happens at least once or twice a day here that I see something that I'm truly excited about and I love talking about. And it's just it's um, it's just one, it's it's very encouraging as far as the where the medium is headed, but also um just for you know uh selfish reasons, just it it it lights a fire under my ass, you know? And I think I think it I think it goes both ways with the attendees as well, you know. Forget, I was talking about this with a few attendees today. Yeah.

Matt Jacob 2:18:29

Forget that the reviewers that we put on this pedestal, right? Especially like before we get here, it kind of dissipates as we go to know know you guys. Yeah, yeah. And remember that everyone's human, everyone's like still, even even you guys that we look at, look up to and these guys have made it, they've made some incredible work. You guys are still wanting inspiration. You you feed off that person, yeah. Of course, and we just forget about that.

Matthew Genitempo 2:18:53

Yeah. Well, I think that um, I don't know, I just from a personal standpoint, I don't ever want to get to the point where I feel like I'm leaning on anything or I'm comfortable anything and I'm not um challenging myself in any way. Because I feel like there's things that I've, you know, I've only put out three books, but like I feel like there are there are things that I've done in those books that I could definitely lean back on and repeat and consider it like my style or whatever, but I don't know, I'm just not I'm not interested in that. I'm just and and and kind of to bring it back to this thing. It's like there's people that bring in stuff that it's like, how did you think of this? You know, I how did you do that? I like I'm always curious, it and maybe it comes from like them not being super in tune with either what's going on or they're not as well versed in the medium and they're not as like constrained as I am with like, oh, here's how things go, and they bring something new, and then I'm it just it just unlocks stuff, you know. How many years now have you done this Chico review? I think it's I think it's my seventh time, but I did the 2020 one that was online, but I think it's like my sixth time being a reviewer here.

Matt Jacob 2:19:59

What does it uh without being too trite, what does it mean for you each year? Is this something that you like look for? I know it's difficult, probably difficult to answer because a lot of it is, you know, you see your friends, yeah, you get to hang out with them. Yeah, and I imagine you don't get to see those types of people in the same room together too often in the year, and a lot of it is the reviews, and like we talk about getting inspiration and just seeing new stuff. Totally. Yeah. What else around that type of formal process uh excites you about this whole event?

Matthew Genitempo 2:20:34

I mean, it's funny that you talk about um like getting here and having any sort of uh uh uh I don't know, uh maybe nervousness or something that there's that there's like people on one side of the line and the other side of the line. I experience the same kind of thing because I walk in and there's people here that I'm crazy about their work too. Like I didn't know, I didn't know Odette England was gonna be here. She's like one of my favorite practicing photographers right now. And I guess that she um I guess either maybe she she hopped on last minute, but you know, I was coming out of the hot springs or something, and I was like, like, I love your work, you know, and I'm like a like I like I don't know, like a student again or something, just like, oh my god, like you have no clue how much I've spent time with your work and and how much I adore it. So yeah, I don't know. I I mean I can't speak for other reviewers, but I I feel like I'm in that same boat literally every single time, and it's cool to come here and see old friends that I haven't seen for a while, but yeah, I mean I still I feel like I still share that same excited nervousness that a lot of the attendees have here. And I hope it always stays like that. I don't know. There's that like that old um like the adage um uh if you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room. And every single time I feel like I'm in the right room here, you know? As as stupid as that sounds.

Matt Jacob 2:21:55

I love it. Yeah. How would you define like your review style? Like, what do you you sat across from the table for someone and they're presenting their work? What is it you're trying to look for? Or do you just let it come to you and just react in the moment? Or are you kind of piecing out like I need to see this, I need to see, you know, I'm gonna do this?

Matthew Genitempo 2:22:13

My I'm my to a fault, probably. I I my just brain automatically goes to book to the book, right? And um just because that's what I do. And um so I think that's really positive for a lot of people here because they want to make books. Uh but it's tough sometimes because that's like a pretty constrained way to look at work. Um, I usually a lot of people sit down and say, well, do you want to hear about the work or do you want maybe just to look at the pictures? And it's kind of a crapshoot because usually I usually I say go ahead and tell me about the project and I'll like look at stuff and kind of see what they're see where they're headed. Because everyone's at all different walks at where their project is. So um, yeah, usually I think too, I think maybe I should probably just look at the work and say what I'm seeing, but sometimes I'm way off, you know. I could be way off and and and then it takes a while for us to kind of find each other. Yeah. Um, in 20 minutes, yeah. So but usually the first couple days I I I just kind of go at it, you know, what are you up to? What are your goals? And then try to get them to um, you know, a little bit further than they were the 20 minutes before. And then the last two days, um I like to ask the attendees like what they've heard that's been helpful because I just don't want to be repetitive and want to get them a little bit further, you know. So it's like, hey, what have you heard that's been helpful? Yeah, so that we can say yes, and then let's build on top of that so we can move it a little bit further. Because if you know, there's been people where I've said, What have you heard? and they say, Oh, this person, this person, and this person, this person all told me the exact same thing, and I don't want to be a broken record and just, you know, you know, tell them the same shit. I think what I appreciate, you know, and thanks for giving me an informal review.

Matt Jacob 2:23:54

I think what I I think what I'm I hear from other reviewers as well that they find very helpful, not other reviewers, sorry, other attendees that I find very helpful with the reviewers, is if the reviewer can kind of meet them somewhere in the middle, yeah, if there's no harmony there, at least suggest, like what Brian did to me as well. He just took me, like I I feel like I can give you other inspirations through other books. Yeah. I think that's really helpful rather than trying to impose, trying kind of like put a square peg in around. Right, right. And I think that's what you're really good at as well. Like just knowing, just knowing your shit, yeah, and knowing where you can maybe direct someone, even if it's not through your own.

Matthew Genitempo 2:24:30

Totally, yeah. I and I always try to preface it like, hey, this is just to my taste, and I'm giving you literally one answer from one point of view, and not even an answer, just like maybe a suggestion of where you could possibly guide this thing. Um, but sometimes I'm way off, you know. Like sometimes I'll you know, the during the the second couple days, someone will sit down and show me their work, and I'll immediately have like ideas, like immediately my head goes here or there, whatever, and then I'll ask, oh, what's been helpful? And they'll say, Oh, well, Brad said this, or you know, or oh, dad said this, and I'm like, Oh yeah, no, like I was thinking, I was thinking way smaller than what this whole thing was. So I mean that's always a good thing about asking too, because then it's like, oh shit, someone kicked the door open for this idea over here, so we can, you know, try to suss that out.

Matt Jacob 2:25:23

Last question before we go and have a beer. Uh I'm keen to know who your inspirations were when you uh did you go to art school? Did you go to photography?

Matthew Genitempo 2:25:32

I did, yeah. I went to oh I went, my undergrad was in graphic design, but I um that's where photography kind of started because you have to take um, you know, like the uh I forgot what they're called, the extra classes or whatever. So I I I had taken um three photography courses on top of my design classes because um I just like naively thought that um you that if like a designer was designing a project and there was photography involved that you were supposed to make the pictures as well. So I was like, well, I should probably learn how to make pictures because if I'm like designing a, I don't know, a car ad or something, I gotta take pictures of the car or whatever. I just that's what I thought. Um so I was taking all these photography classes and that's kind of how I got started with that. But I went I ended up going um about maybe uh eight, nine years after I did my undergrad to uh the program at the University of Hartford in it was there 2014 or no 2015 to 2017. Inspirations? Oh, um shit, right now? No, no, no.

Matt Jacob 2:26:29

When you was when you were starting, like what kind of uh carved your your voice in that respect?

Matthew Genitempo 2:26:35

Just a quick man, I don't know. Like what from the very at the very, very beginning, um I was literally I went to school in Waco, my undergrad, and so I was just like naturally photographing old buildings, neon. Oh right, yeah, signs, stuff like that. Because it's it's it's an old town. And um it was funny because my the professor that was normally teaching the class, um, she was fine, she was a good teacher, but she I think she was pregnant, so she was on uh uh um leave, and so we had this uh grad student and that was into more contemporary uh photography, and so she saw all the stuff that I was shooting and she was like, Oh, you might like William Eggleston, and I was like, I don't know, I didn't know who that was. And she actually she photocopied me the introduction to the guide, Sarkovski's guide. And it was funny because she she should read this, and I read it, but there were like no pictures attached to it, so I was like, Oh well, this this sounds great, but I don't have anything to so then I went to the yeah, but I went to the library, and then that was kind of the um Eggleston was kind of the first love, and then Eggleston led me to Shore and Deanne Arbis and and Nan Golden and all these other people, and um it was just like the floodgate. Now I don't look at I don't look at a lot of photography. I mean there's there's like the heavy hitters, there's I come to this, I always make a a ton of new friends, and I keep up with their projects, and I'm always really excited about them, and that feeds a lot. Um but yeah, mostly I still a lot of poetry. I read a lot of poetry and then um just like looking at a lot of paintings these days, a lot of painting books and stuff like that. Yeah, I go to the library a lot and just check out painting books. Um as silly as that sounds, it's like I don't know, it it it lights a fire somewhere. So all right, man.

Matt Jacob 2:28:15

Well, um I know I can speak for the other attendees to say thank you for your I I see you give so many people so much time, and uh we we're forever grateful. So I do think the pleasure is all mine. Thanks so much, man. Thank you.

Matthew Genitempo 2:28:28

Yeah, seriously.

Goodbyes And Alumni Future

Matt Jacob 2:28:30

Alright, here we are. This is it. The final goodbyes. Everyone getting the shuttle. Quite a few people left this morning. Beautiful day to be saying goodbye to such a beautiful place. Um I hope to be back. I hope I'm gonna be back. We're gonna work hard to get back. Um the beauty, I'm not sure if I said this before, but as an alumni, now that we're alumni, we we can come back whenever we want, basically, without having to apply and be selected. So um, we can have the workshops or do reviews again. So um quickly.

Travel Home And Decompression

Matt Jacob 2:31:28

Because the week is done, and I'm sitting here on a flight somewhere between Chica and Home. I wouldn't even go into it. We've had flights cancelled, rebookings, and just a bit of a nightmare to be honest. Um, but we're on the way. And as such, I've had a few days to let everything settle. Um, because like I've said before, when you're in it, you don't really process it, you just want to take it all in, absorb it. Um, but now that I'm out of it a little bit, things are starting to land a bit differently. And like I did say before, it's gonna take weeks, if not months, I think, to for me to really grapple with what just happened and really process it and really understand where I need to go next. But looking back, I mean, I'll be honest, the first day hit me harder than I expected. Um, the reviews were fast, mixed, and really intense. I mean, the whole thing was intense for the first one to two days, and I didn't really know what I was walking into anyway. If you think you're ready, and then suddenly you're sitting across from some of the biggest names in the industry, and they're pulling your work apart in ways you hadn't even considered or hadn't hoped for, but maybe deep down really knew. But the biggest surprise wasn't necessarily these formal reviews, it was really how close you are to everyone and how accessible they are. These are people from some of the biggest publishers, curators, galleries, editorials, and of course, some of the biggest photographers out there. You know, we're talking Magnum photographers, people from the New Yorker, SF Moma, Trespasser, Blow Up Press, Latier, etc. etc. And they're just there at dinner, on the lawn, at the bar. And they're so nice, you can just walk up to any of them. And it's that access, these conversations outside the 20-minute formal slots that ended up, for me anyway, being the most valuable part of the whole experience and the most valuable part of my entire week, and will remain in my memories for forever. So let's talk about the few the reviews anyway.

Ten Reviews And Hard Truths

Matt Jacob 2:33:39

10 reviews, 10 different people sitting across from your work telling you what they see. And by the end of that day, one, one thing was painfully clear, and I mean painful. My work wasn't cohesive enough or clear enough with what I was trying to express and trying to portray, not necessarily in. Narrative, but and not in necessarily feeling. Um so by the evening, I'd already cut a lot out, which is confronting itself, also exactly why you come to something like this, and I had to try and remember that throughout those first few days. The interesting thing is, as the week went on, none of the reviews really contradicted each other at the high level. They all understood what the work was actually trying to do and where I was coming from. They just came at it from well, really, ten different angles. And that's actually more useful than conflicting, I think, because it gives you this 360-degree view of your own project that you can't just get alone and that you can piece it all together. The lovable Brad Zeller was actually the one who really understood me as the person behind the images. He got the me in the work almost immediately. And I'm not gonna lie, when he did, he he made me cry because of it, because that kind of empathy and understanding from someone who's seen thousands of projects and is a true expert in this type of thing, and that feeling of being seen and understood is something I've been searching for for so long now, and I don't know, it means something deeper than Brad or anyone could know. So I want to thank him for that. And that's part of what I'm trying to evoke with this work actually, and get to that a little bit later. People like Matt Jenintempo and Odette England were incredibly valuable in a different way. They pulled things out of my work that I hadn't seen or even thought about in the work or in myself. And for that, gosh, I'm so grateful because it genuinely unlocked what my next steps are and got me really excited about them. And then someone like Jonathan Levitt, who was a bit of a dark horse for me, he talked about the work as a piece of music, something I never thought about before. Analogizing each image with like a specific emotional act and leaning into that way of thinking. And like I said, I never approached my work like that before, and it completely reframed how I think about the work, what to include, what not to include, and how to sequence it all and edit it all together for this for this kind of one rhythm and emotion that I'm trying to get across.

Identity Shift And Quiet Ends

Matt Jacob 2:36:35

The thing that's still sitting with me, and I mean really sitting with me, um, is this conflict of where this body and where this project and where this these images can go. For so long, I've been doing a certain style of photography, certain subject matter, certain themes for which I'm kind of known for now, and I don't want to betray that because I love it and I'm good at it, but I also want to move into something into this kind of more evocative, more poetic uh style in that kind of visual storytelling. And here's the irony: this project to the quiet ends is literally about the struggle of breaking away from old identities and that turbulence within that psychological experience of existing between places, both geographically and emotionally and metaphorically. Of not quite being one thing anymore, but not yet being the other. Well, I'm there right now, I'm in it. I'm living the exact experience that this work is about. How beautiful is that? And I don't think I fully realised that until this week forced me to articulate it 10, 15, 20, 30 different times to as many people. So let's talk about the people. I mean, you're probably um thinking back gonna you've met a lot of them through this video and this episode already. I connected with Odette immediately on the reviewer side, and that was really beautiful. And then, of course, the old favourites Brian Scuterman, Matt Jen and Tempu, Brad Zeller, and people I'd spoken to before but never actually met in person, like Marshall Toe, Harrison Miller, and Rory King, who I'm gonna speak to more um in the next few months, I think. So watch that space. But the dynamic between all 80 attendees, as well as reviewers, was genuinely supportive. Of course, you get the natural the natural like cohorts, natural groupings, same as like school, really. You know, the cool gang, the all-rounders, the shy ones, the geeks, the awkward ones. But the beauty of it was none of that mattered at all. Yeah, it was it was visible, but none of it mattered. Everyone was just great and just to hang with and and get to know. But I made a conscious decision early on after day one to not try and meet all 80 people or all 110 people. I wanted to go deep, not wide. That's why I do this podcast. Real conversations, real connections. Otherwise, the week becomes just 80 different bits of small talk. And I think that was the right call because it also meant I got to see some incredible work and really spend time and sit with it. What about the setting and the review week itself in terms of the brand and the setting? But if we're honest, the week's still a bit of a blur, but the settings do stick with me. Obviously, an unbelievably stunning place. The saloon bar was the main hangout and night, I didn't get much footage from there, nor the hot springs. They were their own chilled world, and I couldn't or didn't really video in there, which honestly made it better, I think. But I think the lawn area was the most symbolic space of the whole week. We had great weather and it was open, warm, and approachable. Everyone just gravitated there during the day and but in between reviews, and that's I think where the real Chico happened, you know, in the sun, guards down and no agenda, as it were. For me, um, I took two roles of 120 medium format film during the week, so not much, nothing too deliberate. Was so focused on conversations, curating my own work for presentation that camera took a backseat, really, which for me is unusual, but it definitely felt right. It was really more about connections and conversations. And Fee, she was incredible, she completely immersed herself, meeting everyone, making friends, just being the usual amazing social backstop that I always appreciate having. So I appreciate more than I can say. So if she's watching this, she's asleep right now, but if you're watching this, thank you so much. Alright, so where are we going from here?

Practical Lessons For Next Time

Matt Jacob 2:41:11

What shifted? Has my vision for this project, Quiet Ends, actually changed? Yeah, I think it has. I have a much clearer sense already, I think, of what works within this theme and what doesn't and what kind of grounding the work needs, what more is needed in that respect for this. Am I confident? Honestly, after the first few days, no, I was much less confident. Definitely an ego death. Editing on day one, the realization that it wasn't cohesive yet, it's really, really humbling. But now, with some distance and some more reviews, I'm more confident than I was before with Chico, definitely. Not in the work as it is, but in how to make it something unique and powerful and successful. And that's a different kind of confidence and more like faith and belief. The process itself, the editing, sequencing, bookmaking, I have a completely new appreciation for all of it. There's a whole creative life that happens after you press the shutter. Really, the shutter is just like 10% of it. I knew that intellectually, but this week I actually like felt it and experienced it. I'm also excited to explore more creative techniques in the dark room, in Lightroom, um, and everything in post. Things I wouldn't have considered before, so I'm excited to kind of dive into that and tackle those aspects. But if I could go back and tell myself one thing before arriving with all of this, it's to not worry about the story or the pitch. Don't worry about the deeper narrative. Study how to piece different types of images together to build rhythm and journey and not be so immersed in this kind of deeper narrative. A book isn't just nice images in a row, of course, it's it's architecture. And I can see that now in a way I couldn't before. It's just education and familiarity. I also wish I'd printed the images better. I brought a mixture of different sizes and paper types, and in hindsight, I would have been more consistent with that if I had to do it again. Because the presentation does matter, it's the first thing a reviewer touches, and they'll ask why some things are different and why things are not. Anyway, I want to wrap up. Would I do it again? I'm hoping I'll do it again next year. I mean, in a heartbeat. But I will say this is not for everyone, of course. I mean it costs a lot of money, but that aside, if you don't have a specific body of work with real intention behind it, I don't think this is the place. If you're not ready to hear hard truths as well, to have your ego and your heart ripped out in certain moments, then don't apply. You need to be prepared to potentially start again, potentially to go back to the drawing board, and that's not failure, that's the whole point of this week. So my advice would be to go deep, not wide. It's my advice with everything. With your work and with the experience, go deep, not wide. Don't try to meet everyone, don't try to please everyone, research your reviewers deeply. Choose eight out of the ten that will align with your work the most based off their own, based off their own work, and leave a couple maybe that will be so different that they can come at it from a completely unique perspective and unique angle. Find your people, have the real conversations, take that time and be ready for the work you brought to look different by the time that you leave. Jonathan Levitt said something during my review that I keep coming back to in the days since. He talked about my project or any project, but when we're talking about my project, talk about it, thinking about it like a piece of music. And he asked me, what would I want to listen to over and over again and why? And what would I want it to make me feel? I think that's the question I'm taking home with me. Not what do the images look like, but what do they sound like? What do they make you feel? How can they ground you? How can they take you off into a different world? And am I brave enough to actually make that the work? I think that was my week of the Chico review.

Gratitude And Final Goodbye

Matt Jacob 2:45:52

So in closing, I think the journey of an artist, I think everyone there is an artist. The journey of an artist is a constant struggle and oftentimes a lonely one. You live in a world full of questions and so much self-doubt. You have moments of inspiration that keep you going, but the ebbs and flows can can often, I think they can often be really debilitating. The creative energy and support though that I found at Chico Review this year, 2026, seems to be settling into my being in a way that I don't think will ever fade. The place, the work, the people, the conversations, mostly the people, have become a part of the fabric of who I am. Even now, just a few days from the end. A part of the fabric who I will grow to be, and not just as an artist, as a human being. So I want to thank everyone at Chico Review who put such an incredible event together. Jesse may not have been the most accessible during the week, probably the busiest man I've seen. So that was totally understandable. And what he and more recently, the likes of Katie, have managed to build over the last 10 years now is honestly something truly special. So huge thanks and respect go to Jesse and his team. Because the amount of care, thought, and energy goes into making this week happen really shows in every detail and shows in the things you don't see or don't notice. And to all the staff who kept everything running seamlessly, to every reviewer who gave their time and honesty, and to all 80 attendees, thank you so much. And especially to those of you who took part in this episode, who let me interrupt to point a camera at you and a microphone in your face and ask you some real questions. I hope it was enjoyable. I hope it was helpful and interesting for you as well as the rest of the audience to watch and listen. And on that note, I want to specifically thank Hannah, one of the this year's scholars, who I did actually record for her ins her insights and to talk about her work. But the battery died about 10 seconds into us talking, and I didn't notice. She spent real time with my images, um, not just a quick glance. She spent genuine time, deliberation, and intent, and that's something you simply can't get in a formal 20-minute review, and that meant so much to me. So thank you, Hannah. I'm really sorry. Um, Hannah was one of this year's scholars, and I'm really excited to see where her incredible work ends up. Finally, I wish I got to chat with every person there. There was way more people than I thought, and it was strangely difficult to just meet everyone, but there is something in me that makes me feel like in some way I actually did. And if you're watching this and you were there, but we didn't get to chat properly, even if we didn't share many words, if any at all, I want to say thank you. Because this week reminded me of something I think we all forget sometimes. Although photography is an existentially solitary pursuit, the work we make doesn't have to exist in isolation because it lives in the spaces between us, in us, in the conversations, the glances, the energy, even the silence around the Chico lawn at midnight, a place for artists to be understood, to find connection, to be seen and heard long after they've gone. And if photography is really about how we see the world, then Chico really changed the way I see mine.