EP119 Michael Coyne | Renowned Australian Photojournalist

[00:00:24] Speaker A: Well, good morning, everybody. Or good afternoon, depending on where you're. Where you're watching or listening to us from. This is the Camera Live podcast. [00:00:31] Speaker B: It's. [00:00:32] Speaker A: What is it? It's the 25th of September already. I don't know where September went, but this is episode 119 of the camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps. If you go over to Luckystraps.com and check out the collection of handmade Aussie made premium leather camera straps, and if you use code, Greg, you'll get a healthy little discount. Or Justin or Jim. But Greg's the better one, I promise. I promise you get a better discount with my name. I'm sure you do, but this is the Camera Live podcast and obviously Justin's with us today. Good morning, Justin. [00:01:04] Speaker C: Good morning. [00:01:05] Speaker A: Good to have you here. [00:01:06] Speaker C: Great to be here. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Well, it's your show, but it's good to have you here. And joining us today is someone I consider to be probably photography royalty. It's Dr. Michael Coyne. G', day, Michael. [00:01:20] Speaker B: Good morning. How are you? Greg. Justin, nice to speak to you and to you. [00:01:25] Speaker A: This is an absolute honor. Of course, I have met you before and we'll get to that little story a little bit later on, or at least what I can remember of it. That was back in the days when I used to drink. But Michael, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for your time today. We've got a lot to unpack and if my past experiences of you are anything to go by, there'll be a lot of amazing stories to be told before we dive into your full history or full story of how you became a photographer. Could you give us just a quick and dirty version of who you are and what you do? [00:02:03] Speaker B: Okay, well, I'm a documentary photographer or photojournalist. I mean, you can cross over the lines either way there. And I've worked for many magazines around the world for a long time, like National Geographic or Life or Time or any of those type of magazines. And I've done about 14 books on different topics and I also lecture. I have a doctorate in photography, documentary photography. And I spent a long time in the Middle east working there for Black Star, the photo agency out of New York. God, I think that just summed it up. [00:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, I think, and I love the fact that you're a doctor of photography. That, that just, that just makes my day that someone can become. It is possible for someone to become a doctor of photography. [00:02:56] Speaker C: I don't think I've ever met a doctor of photography. [00:02:58] Speaker B: There's a few around. Jack the cone has got a doctorate in photography as well. So there are a few of us. We're not, we're not that isolated. Yes. No, it's actually interesting because doing it gave me three years or so time to study about what photography means to so many different photographers and why you do things and where it takes you. It's fascinating when you start looking at the situation behind the scenes and look, I say it like this. If you're working, I look as the workers, as the mice and they go around the ground working amongst the fields. If you're doing a doctorate or you're teaching this in any way, you're like an eagle overlooking what's going on. Where, where do the pictures take people? What are the meaning of them? What is the long term effect on them? Why did you take it there and not over there? And it's quite fascinating to look at all those things. You don't think of that when you're working, but afterwards you do. If I looked over here, maybe that had happened or this had happened. So it's quite interesting. So it gave me three years to look at what why Eugene Smith was doing something or why Koudelka was doing something or how Solgado started. And it's quite fascinating. [00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah, that sounds amazing. Now I think, Justin, you and I have been doing this podcast for a little while now. We're up to 119 episodes. Surely that deserves some sort of certification or qualification. Maybe we can just make our own. Not to diminish what you've done, of course, Michael, but I'd be happy with. [00:04:31] Speaker C: An apprentice of photography. Maybe, I don't know, start there. Maybe it does. It's a, it's a, it's a really good way of viewing it. I had never thought of it that way of, of studying the bigger picture, the broad overview of photography. Not when you're out, when you take yourself out of the moment and out of the work. Yeah, it does sound fascinating. [00:04:52] Speaker B: And the other thing is, because of the type of work that I do, you have to look at the ethics of it. And every day there's ethics in one way or another involved. Did you take advantage of that person? Are you showing them in the best light or are you only trying to capture a picture that makes them look bad for your photography? Excuse me, all of those types of things that you don't think about immediately when you're working there. [00:05:19] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, we're going to wind back the clock Shortly. But first, Justin, you want to say good morning to some people. [00:05:27] Speaker C: I sure do. Rodney Nicholson is in the chat. He says he's a patient of photography, which is. [00:05:34] Speaker A: Oh, you're a bit more than that, Rodney. You're at your 52nd year as a pro photographer. I think you're a bit more than a patient. Maybe like an understudy or. I don't know. [00:05:46] Speaker C: Good morning Paul. The camera life hits the big league. That's right, we have hit the big league. But it is probably with some Fujifilm undertones in there. Always. I don't know what you mean. [00:05:55] Speaker A: Fujifilm. Fujifilm. Fujifilm. That's $3.75, Michael. [00:06:00] Speaker B: Oh look, I can leave now. [00:06:02] Speaker C: Yeah, you bet your fee. [00:06:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I said 3.75, not 375. [00:06:10] Speaker C: LTK photo. Good morning. Philip Johnson. Good morning as always. Elaine is here. Good morning. And good afternoon to David, David Mascara, who's joining us from San Francisco. Good afternoon, David. Hope it's nice weather over there. John Pickett, good to see you. And Lisa Leach. Everybody's here. We're, we're ready to get rolling. [00:06:30] Speaker A: Very good. Now just before we roll back the clock on, on your, your story and your journey, Michael, I just wanted to share a little story of my own, if you don't mind. If you can give me a moment for that. So the first time I met Michael was at a Fujifilm event in Sydney in 20. What did we say? 2019 probably October, November, yes. It was for the launch of the Fujifilm X Pro 3 which was a phenomenal launch experience because the X Pro 3 was different to the previous two generations in the types of coatings and, and alloys they used to machine not just the body but the finishes that. [00:07:05] Speaker B: They put on it. [00:07:06] Speaker A: They put. It was a duratech that was a scratch proof finish on them. It was a really interesting move for Fujifilm. The X Pro series had already proved to be incredibly popular and then the X Pro 3 came out in three different finishes, three different variants plus an extra special variant with a special surface. And anyway, so sorry I got sidetracked. Michael, you were the keynote speaker at that presentation at that launch and that was the first time that I had met you and seen your work in that, that level of detail. I think for me the highlight of that night, whilst it was great going to that Fujifilm event, we happened to be staying at the same hotel and you and I hit up. I can't remember who it was with. You were with someone else and I think I might have drunkenly Just invited myself to your table. But we spent a couple of hours just talking about photography, about the craft, about image making, about why it's. Why it's important, why it's vital. And granted, that was a bit of a drunken conversation. I'm not saying you were drunk. I would never assume that, but it was such. It was such a. I felt privileged to be invited to a Fujifilm event in the first place. But then to actually get to spend time just talking to you about the craft was. Was absolutely phenomenal. And it's a story that I'll never forget. It was one of the highlights of my. Of my journey. So I thank you for that experience and looking forward to hearing more from you today. What we like to do here, Michael, when we. When we talk to guests, we like to roll back the clock a little and get a bit of an understanding for where it all began. You know, it might be that your parents or your family influenced you to pick up a camera. It might be that you realize very young age that this was the path for you and you. You know, there was nothing that was going to stand in your way. So can you talk to us about your early days and what led you into photography, please? [00:08:58] Speaker B: I can, but can I just follow up on your little story, Please? Please? They. There was only one Pro3 around at the time, and I had it. Nobody knew it existed. And I took it to Siberia and it took us ages to get up. We went up through Russia by train, and then we started crossing the tundra up there on these amazing vehicles. Russian vehicles, they're like tanks, but so they could go across the marshes and the snow and everything else. And they had no insulation, so they were cold tin boxes on wheels, and they just threw you, like peas in a can everywhere. They were amazing. And every now and then you had to stop and get out because you're getting seasick in these things as we're crossing the tundra. So we got out and there was a little hillock there. So I climbed the hillock with a camera. And at this stage, I hadn't taken one picture on this new secret camera that no one knew about. I took it to Siberia because there's. Nobody up in Siberia is going to recognize that this is a new Fuji camera. [00:10:08] Speaker A: That's very cool. [00:10:09] Speaker B: I go up on this hill and I stepped to the top, and then I tripped on a rock and the camera left my shoulder and started bouncing down the hill. And I thought, oh, my God, I'm in real trouble. I'm promoting this canvas there's no others. It's gone. I've lost it. I haven't taken one image with it for the promotions. What the hell am I going to do? And the next thing, this man that had been with us on the trip through Siberia was behind me. And I felt him pick me up and standing up, he was built like, you know, huge man. He was. He was from these security service with the Russians watching everything I did the whole time I was there. And he said to me, you take lots of pictures, don't you? I said, yes. And so we went down the hill and we got the camera and it worked perfectly. Of course it did a mark on it. You know how you were saying it was made? Not a mark on it, not a mark on it. And it worked perfectly. But that guy was a member of the, whatever, security service from Russia, and he was behind me the whole week we were up there. There wasn't anything I could do. Even going to the bathroom, he was there watching. [00:11:28] Speaker A: Wow, that's crazy. [00:11:30] Speaker C: Did Fujifilm send him to protect that Expo Pro 3? Is that why he was there? [00:11:34] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it could have been that, but I know that I dealt with the Russians before. I was in Africa and I was with a group of freedom fighters. And one day I'm in my hotel and I get a phone call in my room and. And the guy looking after me said, can you come down? I've got someone down here wants to meet you. So I go downstairs and they take me into the dining room. And then my contact left, left me with this man and he started chatting to me. And it. Eventually I found out that he was from Russia and that he was interested in knowing if I'd spy for Russia. And he offered me money to spy for them. Oh, wow. And I say, I didn't. This is such a thing. I go, my gosh. I said to him, how much are you going to pay me and how do you pay me? He said, we pay you in rubles. I said, I'm not interested, thanks very much. [00:12:38] Speaker A: Oh, that's amazing. [00:12:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So how did I start my journey to end up in Central Africa, where. Okay, well, look, there is a connection. My mother and father were spies. Really? Yeah. During the Second World War? Yes. Or after. Whatever. Yeah. I can't tell you anything about them, but they were for obvious reasons. We only found out just before my mother died, because my mother, they signed a contract that for a lifetime, you can't say anything about what you're doing. So it turned out that my mother was a whisperer do you know what the whisperers were during the war? Okay, so she would go to London and she would go to Churchill's bunker. They would tell her something word for word. She would have to go back to the security center, Blecom park or whatever it was, I can't remember, and she would have to repeat exactly those words. And so she was cleared to know what was going on. So that was the, their contribution. So that's where it all started for me. But with the photography thing, my father went, we went to New Zealand. My father had security clearance obviously and was doing something for the New Zealand army. So we went there. We were there for four years. On the way home back to England, which is where I was born, we went through the Panama Canal and I was 11 at the time. And I was on the, on the deck of the boat looking over the side, watching everything going on. And a man had a camera, little box Brownie camera. Remember those? A few of them here. And he was taking pictures and he turned around and saw me. He said, hey Sonny, do you have a look at this? So I go and I look in this little box. And that was it. That was it. It was just fantastic. I loved it. So from then on it was a pursuit and it's. It took a while to get to where I wanted to go. But I was 11 at the time when I first saw and was fascinated by photography. [00:14:52] Speaker A: It is interesting. We've talking, we've talked to, we've spoken to a number of, you know, long term career photographers and, and past guest Rodney Nicholson comes to mind. I know he's in the chat today and he talked about how his mother had a box Brownie and he was, he was all about the ocean, he was all about surfing. And he put his box Brownie into a, an ice cream tub and paddled out to the back of the, of the break where the surfers were and took it out, took photos, put it back in his tub and, and went on his way. And it is interesting hearing how the Box Brownie started for so many people, like started photography for so many people. We've heard that store a variant of that story about, you know, someone handed me a box Brownie and, and that was it. [00:15:39] Speaker C: They must have sold so many of those cameras. [00:15:41] Speaker B: Yeah, they did. They were just so popular. Yeah, we had them at home. You know, my family used them. I think I got three of them here. Yeah, yeah. [00:15:51] Speaker C: One kicking around somewhere here. Yeah, they're everywhere. [00:15:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So that my beginning was with a vox Brownie Camera, as you said. And then I moved on to the. We came to Australia and my father was a gambler, amongst other things, and he picked up a newspaper called the Truth because it had the best racing section in it. And we don't remember that paper. Okay. We just arrived in Australia and he saw this ad for an office boy at Truth. He said, you want to be a photographer, you want to get into newspapers and all that sort of world, go and ask if you can get a job. So I went for the interview and I got a job as a, what they called a copy boy and I worked there as a junior, getting coffees for everybody and making tea and all the rest of it and started there and that's how I began my career. [00:16:46] Speaker C: What was that like? Like. So was there any, any prospect of you getting a camera in your hand at that job or were they like, no, we don't. You're never going to be a photographer. You're just, you're just here to do this, this one job. Or was there the potential? Like how? [00:17:00] Speaker B: Yeah, well, when you go there to become a copy boy, it's presumed that you want to go into the industry and that's why you're working there and not an office boy in the office area. So I was in the editorial area. So, yes, I was working with the photographers and the journalists and then they gave me a cadetship, which in those, they don't have them anymore. But at newspapers, to become a journalist or a photographer, you had to do a four year cadetship. And so you're a junior. And now just to jump back, I went to a very strict Catholic boys school in England and I knew nothing about life. And here I was at Truth newspaper, the sleaziest, slimiest paper in Australia it was. And a lot of the time it went over my head. And it was very quickly that they realized that all of this stuff that was going on went over my head. In fact, the photographers, every week they had a competition to see who could do the most topless girls on an assignment. [00:17:59] Speaker A: Yes, I remember it used to have a boob page. [00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And I, I mean, I don't think I'd ever seen a breast since I was a baby. So it was. [00:18:12] Speaker A: And so, yeah, some, some days I feel like that too, Michael. [00:18:17] Speaker B: And so what happened was they sent me on my first job. They said, we want you to go take your camera up to the courts up in Latrobe street, this is in Melbourne. And what we want you to do is leave your camera with the guard at the door, go in, listen to the case, and then work out who's the main witnesses and get a picture of them as they come out of the court. So I go up to the court and I'm sitting at the, a county court there. And I sit down and the judge call. Oh, it's a magistrate calls this woman and he said, I want to tell you. I want you to tell me what you've been doing. And she said, oh, oh, your honor, I was making love to this man. And he said, no, no, I want you to tell me what you're doing. So she said, well, I was giving him French love and giving him a head job and I had no idea what they were talking about. Oh, no, she's the witness. She's in the witness box. So I went outside and I waited for her with the camera and she came out and I put the camera up. You little off. Introduction to Photography. Wow. Oh, yes. [00:19:35] Speaker C: Baptism of fire. That's amazing. Yeah. [00:19:38] Speaker A: Is that, is that like the, is that like the standard response that photojournalists get off your little. I'm sure that's still being said today. [00:19:50] Speaker B: No, actually worse because they then sent me to photograph some wharfside workers. Remember the wharfies? Very powerful when I was a kid. And so they sent me a photo and they didn't like it at all. So two of them set on me and started kicking me, bashed me to the ground and started kicking me. So I was being well and truly blooded, you know, the kind of innocent Catholic boys school thing, and then coming here and then blooded at this newspaper. But what happened then was Murdoch bought the Truth and a slew of magazines and the people on the Truth realized that I was not cut out to be a truth photographer. So they sent me to the magazines and that began my career working in magazines both here and internationally. [00:20:37] Speaker A: Yes, that's amazing. Just on that, I just want to list some of the magazines that you've actually, that you've been published in. Where did I put that list? No, I've lost it. [00:20:49] Speaker C: It's a pretty big list. It's a huge. [00:20:52] Speaker A: So Newsweek, Life, Time, National Geographic magazine, New York Times, Sports Illustrated, continuing with the boob photos there, obviously. Smithsonian, the German Geo, the French Geo, the Paris Match, and it goes on London Independent, London observer and Vogue. That's, that's pretty phenomenal resume. Just, just looking at your, your, you know, your print work in magazines. What was that like back in the day when, you know, this was obviously very much pre Internet, very much pre digital. What was that experience, like for you, you know, what was the turnaround between you, say, taking a shot out in the field or on the streets and it actually appearing in a magazine. [00:21:34] Speaker B: Oh, it's fantastic. And because I had a contract with Blackstar Picture Agency, and I'll tell you about them in a minute, but my job was to work in the Middle east, and Middle east was my kind of playground. That's where I worked for them. And I would shoot a story, send the film back to New York. They would process it, send it to the magazine. And if I was on location, I could go to a newsstand, I'd pick up a magazine and think, gee, they're the pictures that they use. So I never saw. The only things I ever saw was if I picked up the magazine and saw the images, or every month I get a box of the rejects. So when you're shooting Kodachrome at film and all you're getting is a reject, so they. Oh, my God. Stuff. But luckily I'd already seen the magazine, so I haven't. You know, you're seeing, as somebody said, it's like you're dirty washing. So you're seeing all the stuff that nobody wants. So they're obliged to send it back. And we take a lot of film with us when we're shooting. So they send all these boxes of film back. Absolute rubbish, you know, with some stuff in there that was okay. Yeah, yeah. So that's. So I didn't see it straight away. So. Instance, when I was in Tiananmen Square covering the. The big event there, we'd put them in a bag, and then we'd fly them to London or New York or Paris, and then they go straight to the agency and magazine and get edited. So we never saw anything. The beautiful thing was you wrote a caption with the. With the film. You sent it in. You didn't have to do anything. Digital comes in, you have to download the images, write out the captions, check them all out, fix it all up, edit yourself. There were people doing that for you? Not anymore. [00:23:20] Speaker C: I'm sure there was lots of downsides, but. Oh, yeah, it does sound. It sounds so, like, romantic. Back then, just like I took, you know, the roll of film and you just send it off and it just, you know, someone takes care of it on the other end. And then you see it on a newsstand in some other city on the other side of the world, you pick up the magazine, you see your photo in there. That sounds like one of the coolest experiences you want to hear the other. [00:23:42] Speaker B: Side of all that. [00:23:43] Speaker C: Yes, please. [00:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:23:45] Speaker B: Try getting filmed through all the X rays and not having them X rayed. Right? [00:23:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:50] Speaker B: And often. So you're shooting. If I'm shooting black and white, it'd be Tri X, that's 400. And then Kodachrome or whatever else at the time as films change, faster films. So always they wanted to open every box of Kodachrome and check it out. All the films and check it out. So it was that sort of thing. Plus we. If we're shooting for a number of the magazines like National Geographic or Life or somebody, you had to shoot Kodachrome. It was. That was the thing that was accepted. 64 ISO. 64. The tie. And when, you know, we. People worry about Ibis now, if it hasn't got Ibis, you can't take it. We're shooting on 64 ISO. Love it. And the times I'm standing against the wall trying to shoot on an eighth of a second or a fifteenth of a second. So after a while, you just get used to it. And I looked at pictures I've taken and I think people don't realize a slow shutter I took. Sure. You take a few because you're not sure the subject's moving, you're moving, whatever. But that was one of the things, two of the things, X rays and that slow film. Beautiful film. Absolutely beautiful reproduction, but so slow to work with. And I laugh now when, oh, there's no Ibis on this camera. How am I going to shoot it? [00:25:09] Speaker A: We've had that debate on this, on this podcast a number of times. [00:25:13] Speaker B: We have. [00:25:14] Speaker A: And yeah, I don't worry about Ibis. Being a Fujifilm photographer, every shot just turns out perfectly like yours, Michael, regardless of the lighting. But I did have a question about those experiences of you, you know, being you're in the Middle east. And let's face it, there's always been tension in the Middle East. But you're sending off films. [00:25:35] Speaker B: What. [00:25:36] Speaker A: How certain were you that those films were actually ever going to reach the editorial office back home? [00:25:42] Speaker B: Okay. We had methods of doing it in those days. You could get people to carry a parcel for you. You couldn't do that now. It ended at a certain stage. But we'd give, you know, I'll give you 50 bucks at the other end. They'll give you another 50 bucks. There'll be a courier waiting for you and they'll take the film from you and give you 50 bucks cash. So people didn't mind. It was easy. 50American dollars was good. Money or whatever we gave them. It was easy. It was, yeah, that. Those sort of things we were doing every, every way we could get it back to, to usually back to New York to the office, to black size offices. And then they would handle it all and make sure everything went through and, you know, so on, unless I had to do something direct for Time on Newsweek, directly to them. Differently. Yeah. [00:26:30] Speaker A: And did you ever have films not show up? [00:26:31] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what. Exactly what I was about to ask. Was there ever something you shot? Know you shot it and, and it just never made it. [00:26:38] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I don't remember stuff not, not getting there. I'm sure there's instances, but I can't remember at the moment where something didn't get there because usually as soon as we'd given it to somebody to carry on a plane, if I was staying in the spot, then I would contact the office, they would know who they were looking for, etc. At the airport. So, yeah, it's usually that or I would go straight back from the job to New York and drop the film off myself or to London and drop it off myself. [00:27:08] Speaker A: So at the end of the day. [00:27:09] Speaker B: Black Star had people in London handle everything there for them. Yeah. Do you want me to tell you what Black Star is now while we're talking? [00:27:16] Speaker A: Yes, please. [00:27:17] Speaker B: No. [00:27:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:17] Speaker B: Okay. Black Star was an agency that started before Magnum, but it was the same setup as Magnum. And the people that were at Blackstar were people like, people you might have heard of, like Cardia Bresson, Robert Capper, Eugene Smith, and today, you know, in later times, Jim Nakway, the great war photographer, the Turnley brothers. A whole lot of people, really very, very big names were there. And like Magnum, you couldn't join. You were in. You could do small things for them, but to be part of their. Like I was under contract, you had to be invited, so you had to show the. Show the. Your folio, etc. But to the owners, whereas at Magnum it's to. Everybody gets a say on it. At the Black Star, it was. The owners looked at it and they were very good. I mean, Howard and Howard Chapnick and Ben Chapnick were just icons in the photo industry. So I showed them my folio and I joined and had a contract. And I was working in the Middle east because of all my contacts in the Middle East. So that was where they wanted me to work most of the time. So I think I was on and off there for nine years working in that area again. I mean, I'd Go back later, but in that time, I covered the Iran Iraq war. I covered the post revolution in Iran. I did Palestine, Israel a number of times. So people think it began two years ago. This has been going on for a very long time. So I've been. I covered mostly those sort of stories. But the other thing that Blackstar did was they had a big corporate section where you shoot corporate photography. Now, what people don't realize is that the real, really big money has always been in corporate photography. Like, I did a lot of annual reports around the world and things like that. And Elliot Erwitt made his money shooting corporate jobs. There's a famous picture of his, Of Khrushchev next to a Westinghouse washing machine or something like that. So he was doing a corporate job, but got this stuff. So Elliot would go and shoot the assignment wherever it was in the world and then wander off and shoot his dogs or his humor pictures or something like that. But the real money for us was in the corporate work. So not only would we shoot editorial work for Black Star, we do corporate shoots as well. Yeah. But they do have a downside. I was. Because I'm contracted. I was contracted to Black Star. I was working on a huge assignment and they phoned me up one day. So you gotta leave. What do you mean I gotta leave? Well, we've got a job that we want done back in Australia. We want you to go back there and do this job for us. So. Okay, I have to go. Whatever it is, I have to go. So I left this big job and I went down to a portrait down in Australia. But that's the point of it. They give you big jobs. Whatever it is, you're under contract. You do it. You. You know, like, they gave me some phenomenal jobs, but also it works the other way as well. Yeah. [00:30:35] Speaker A: Yep, yep. [00:30:37] Speaker C: There's. I have a question I'm gonna write down. I'm gonna bring up a couple of questions in the chat, too, just while we're. While we're on this stuff, because there's a question in the chat about Black Star, but before that, David Mascara says, love this man. The kind of man I would share some beers with. [00:30:54] Speaker B: Red wine. [00:30:55] Speaker C: Red wine, right? This is an interesting one. Robert Varner says breasts are just modified sweat glands. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Oh, come on. [00:31:02] Speaker C: I used to teach anatomy and technology. [00:31:04] Speaker A: So much more than that. [00:31:05] Speaker C: So much. What else have we got? Andrew Chapman would like to know, did Blackstar retain the copyright on the images that you shot? [00:31:17] Speaker B: No, I own the copyright. They own the right to sell my Contract, Contract. Said that they could sell my images, a negotiated fee percentage. But I own the copyrights to everything I took and they were very, very strict about. About that. I. Their photographers own the copyright to their work. They're very good in that sort of thing. [00:31:38] Speaker C: Yeah, that's great. Probably wouldn't happen these days. They'd probably just say, well, if you want to work for us and you want to earn money, we. We keep everything. You know, there's. [00:31:46] Speaker B: Yes. At the moment. I'm sorry, Justin. Sorry. [00:31:49] Speaker C: No, I was just saying it's happening more and more these days. I mean, there's even concert photographers that if you want to shoot some of these famous bands, the bands won't let you in unless you sign over the copyright to the images to the band. [00:32:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:03] Speaker C: Which is getting. Yeah, it's getting crazy. Sorry, go on. [00:32:07] Speaker B: I was going to say that one of the big things about the Black Star situation was that the jobs were always negotiated. So if it was a Time magazine, it was two weeks American rights and then one week English rights or whatever, that sort of thing. So Black Star would on sell everything. I made a lot of money from the resale of my images. Every job I did goes to the magazine, but negotiated by Black Star for a particular time of usage and particular usage and then they would go on to other usages and a lot of the income, because you don't get big jobs every day. You don't work in this business every day. It's not that sort of business. But the income comes in by the resale of your images. Yep. [00:32:54] Speaker C: Interesting. [00:32:55] Speaker A: And can I ask what you go, Jay, please. [00:32:59] Speaker C: I was just, I was just going to ask what, what was it like financially in the, in the earlier days of your career? Was it. Was it hard to make a living or were you able to sustain yourself as a photographer? Pretty much from the start? [00:33:12] Speaker B: Yes, it was. It was a glory days. It was the days where. Well, it was the days where, you know, if you shot a job, especially with my agency, it goes there. They negotiated good fees and expenses, they got good sales for it. So you're getting a constant, good, strong stream income stream. And I could choose my jobs. I think people misunderstand why you go to an agency like Blackstar, Magnum, something like that. You come because of your contacts in your ideas. They can get any photographer. If you don't have ideas, if you don't bring them up and say, I want to do this, I got these ideas. It's like people go, I'm going to work for National Geographic Fine, but what do you want to shoot? What is your story idea? Have you laid it out? Have you put together a proposal? So what Black Star wanted was people that would be able to come up with ideas, be able to just get on a plane and go and do something and say. And I would, I'd ring them, bring New York and say, I'm in Baghdad, I'm doing this. Great, we're ringing time. We'll get you contracted, we'll do this, we'll do that. And so that's, it's, it's more what you can give them because we know what they can give you. They'll sell it, they'll market it, but you've got to produce the goods. So they want ideas, people. Yeah, it's quite the opposite to what people think. You join an agency, give you lots of jobs. Now you join an agency and you tell them what you can do on where you can go. [00:34:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that's great advice for, for anything in life, agency or not. [00:34:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:49] Speaker C: Take control of the situation. Don't just let, don't wait for someone to, to give you the idea, you know? [00:34:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I got into the international scene in a big way by. In the 80s. There was terrible bushfires and terrible drought where Australia seems to go through those every now and then. And I went out and I documented it to the nth degree, sent it to an agency in London. It went everywhere, it went in magazines all over the world. It just kept going and going and going. And that was my first. I got published in National Geographic, it was in Life magazine. So I went into all these magazines. So suddenly my name was on the horizon and I did it myself. I did it with a colleague writer. And so we set up everywhere and it just got used in magazines right across the world. And that's how I began. I then noticed got picked up and it just went from there. From that. I got my first time job up in Papua New guinea and it went on from there. Yeah. [00:35:58] Speaker A: Michael, you've obviously been to, I imagine you've been to quite an impressive amount of countries around the world, but often when you're in a place of conflict, we see this in probably in movies more. And I just wanted to sort of check it against the reality where you have a minder, as you talked about earlier, you know, with the Russian minder that you had, that lifted you off the ground and kept an eye on you even when you peed. But have you ever had a scenario where someone has actually taken your Gear from you. [00:36:25] Speaker B: You. [00:36:25] Speaker A: Because they didn't like the idea of what you were doing or didn't understand it or it was considered too sensitive. Have you ever had that sort of experience? You see in movies where a minder walks up and takes the camera off the photographer and pulls the roll of film out and exposes it? And I know that's a fantasy version of life, but have you ever had those sort of scenarios? [00:36:45] Speaker B: I've had those scenarios, but I haven't had someone come and rip my film out. They'll take the camera away or they'll, you know, they'll confront me or, you know, or. Well, in China, I was. Got into. I. We were driving along. I was with some minders, and we were driving along. I think it was in Yunnan. Was it? I can't remember where it was. I can't remember where we were. Anyway, I saw this factory on the side of the road and. And the whole area was covered in pollution. It was terrible. So I said to the driver, stop. And we. I said, I want to go in. And the gate was open, so I wandered in and I shot it. And it was just. The conditions were awful. The smoke was pouring out. The pollution was terrible. This was in the countryside, quite beautiful countryside. And so I shot all these pictures. And as I'm coming out, somebody rushed over and grabbed me and tried to stop me leaving. And then I had these couple of Chinese guys that were helping me, and they kind of pushed the guy back. I mean, then I got to the car and I was shooting with digital. So as soon as I got to the back of the car, grabbed the digitals out of the. Grab the. What do you call it, the memory cards out of the camera, shoved them into my shoe and put in other ones. And as the guy got up to the car that was trying to get me, stop me shooting, I said, look, I showed you that. Here's the camera. I'm cleaning up the cards now. I'm cleaning them up. Anyway, that wasn't good enough for him. So they locked me into the compound. They wouldn't let me out of the compound. Then. Oh, wow. And they called the police. And then when the police came, you know, the. One of my minders said, don't worry about it. It's all fixed. And then we're sitting there for an hour or so, and next thing, this new black, shiny car came up. And it was the chief of police, who happened to be a good friend of his, and they let him out. But the condition was I didn't have Any pictures on the card? Well, I did but not in that car. [00:38:59] Speaker A: So yeah, nice, well played, Very well, well played. [00:39:02] Speaker B: So but it's also happened in Iran as well. We, we. What happened was that we managed. I was with a film crew and we managed to get into. No one had got into the American Embassy s has been taken over at the stage. You remember the American agent. American Embassy in Tam was taken over by the students after the revolution. Now you have to look at it this way. The students took over the internal part of the American Embassy ex American Embassy. The Revolutionary Guards took over the compound and the Iranian government took over the wall around it. So it had three tiers that you had to get through to get into the embassy. We got permission from the government to get past the wall that surrounded the. It's a huge area. If you can think of Myers, David Jones, that big block in Melbourne it's as big as that very big area. So the government controlled that. We got through there. The students said we could go into the main building but we couldn't get permission from the Revolutionary Guard. So what we did was we had a little minibus type thing because there were about six of us that included the mind interpreter and all that sort of stuff. We get through the gate into the place and they took the van right up to the embassy. So we slipped into the embassy without really being seen by the Revolutionary Guards, got inside and we got photographs. Now this is. Nobody's seen this stuff. One other photographer or one other person had ever got in, but not where we did. We went into this room and there were bags full of chopped up American documents. Just huge plastic bags full of these American documents that the Americans had tried to cut up before they left. On the table were these books where people had put the documents back together. What the Iranian government had done was brought in carpet. We weavers and the carpet weavers came in and went through the bags and they stuck all these things. It was extraordinary to see them. I've got all these pictures of them, pictures of it happening and pictures like that. No one's ever seen this. They couldn't work out what was going on. And they had books of this stuff that they. So they knew what the Americans were doing, right. So we got all these pictures and then while we're in the. One of the students is come around here. So these are students from the university, highly educated people, very, very smart. The education system in Iran was extraordinarily good, equally men and women. So students around and you see this really weird room and it's called. What's it called? I can't think what it's called. It's terrible. Anyway, this room is a steel door. You open it and it's a big plastic box, giant plastic box. You know those big containers that ship around the world? [00:42:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:19] Speaker B: It's shaped like that, right? So you go into this plastic box and it's off the ground and off the walls. You know, it's got things to hold it up and around so that you couldn't put any bugs or things on it because they could see in or easy found. Remember this is in the 80s, late 80s, right. So we don't have the sophistication of now. So it's called the bubble. And every embassy in American embassy in the world had a bubble. And we went in there, so we photographed the bubble, which, the array, which is where the CIA used to meet to discuss what they were going to do in Iran. So I took these pictures of the bubble, right? And all the documents getting put back together again. Now I did this for National Geographic magazine when I got back to Washington because the Geographic, I took all the film back to them and we edited it there and we put it together there and all the rest of it. Oh, sorry, processed in New York at Black Star, did all that. Got it down there, went down there. And when we, when we got all the pictures together with the. The editors at National Geographic had this big meeting. I mean, having a look at the stuff that I done in the ran, they couldn't believe it. And the direct editor that I was working with, Alice, said, we need to talk to the CIA about this. So he rang the CIA and we went to see the CIA, right? So we go to this room at the CIA's office. Gray carpet, IKEA type furniture. And we're sitting there at this little round table, right? And income, two men, and they're wearing cargo boot shoes, you know those shoes? Yeah, right. Okay. Khaki pants and blue shirts straight out of a B grade movie. And they said, hi. Hi, Michael. Hi. Alice obviously knew who we were. And I said, I'm Chuck, he's Harry. And if I'm looking down, I said, Harry. Either one would answer, or either one would answer the Chuck, because that's what that was, their names at all. So we're talking and, and they kind of go, yes, no, yes, right. About what I'd done in Iran, because It was a 28 page spread, which is extraordinary. The access that I had was amazing. I'll tell you about it later. And so we're showing him these pictures. And then we showed the documents all being put back together again. They go, oh, wow, it's amazing. And then we said, we got the bubble. And they said, we don't know anything about a bubble. And we showed them this room that's a bubble. And they were denying what this room is or it even existed. And then one of them said to me, on the 3rd of June, at 3 o', clock, when you were down in Avars on the war front, what sort of weapons were the Iranian soldiers using? So in other words, we know exactly where you were, what you were doing, when you were doing it, what you were up to. Yeah, it was fascinating, isn't it? [00:45:27] Speaker A: Yeah. That's incredible. [00:45:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. [00:45:31] Speaker C: You're like a secret agent. [00:45:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:35] Speaker B: You don't know the times I've been said that it's been said that I'm a secret agent or, you know, question I'm not. But I've had many, many involvements with him, including one that wanted to execute me. [00:45:51] Speaker A: Let's hear that story. [00:45:55] Speaker B: Okay. I was. I was with these people and we were staying in a hotel in Jordan and one night there was a car bomb went off with one of their leaders and killed the leader. Blue car up, killed the leader. The next morning, the hitman came to see me. He said, you are the one that gave away the information, said where the leader were. You came here not to say anything. You're the one. You're gonna die tonight. Which kind of worried me because I couldn't go anywhere or get out or anything. So I stayed in my hotel room. Nothing happened that night. Hello. [00:46:43] Speaker A: How did you sleep? [00:46:46] Speaker B: Not very well. Following night, nothing happened. So the following day I just said, I went looking for him in the hotel. I said, okay, if you're gonna do it, just bloody will do it. And he said, oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you. We found out it wasn't you. I should have told you earlier. Oh, it's terrible. Oh, man. [00:47:07] Speaker C: Two days of just. Of just stressing out for nothing. Oh, man, that's crazy. [00:47:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:13] Speaker A: Michael, a question for you. Obviously, your photojournalism crossed from film into digital. What was that transition like for you? You know, you obviously learned on film. You, you know, been successful with film photography. Did that, did that shake you up in any way? Or did you find it precarious to trust in digital technology? [00:47:32] Speaker B: In the early days, I went into kicking and screaming. I didn't want to do it. I put it off as long as I could and Then there was no option. And if you remember the beginning of digital, it wasn't very good. I mean, I can look at the files from some of those, and they were not very good. And I wasn't very happy with what I was getting. I had to buy a whole new set of cameras where I just continually use the same set of cameras, cameras and lenses for ages, whereas, you know, each different model. I had to buy a new one because it got bigger files, better lenses, better everything. It's just a continuous buying, buying, buying, buying. I found it complicated at first because I'm not technical. And I. Once I got into it, then you do it because you either have to. You make the decision, I want to stay in this industry, so I have to learn it. So I learned it. And then you learn to find the. The good things about it, and you then, you know, just forget about film and just move on. Yeah, yeah, no, that's. [00:48:38] Speaker A: That's fair enough. [00:48:39] Speaker C: Going back to the film process, Lisa made an interesting point here that I hadn't really thought about. She says the anticipation of receiving your processed film in the mail or collecting it from the pharmacy was intense and something that you viewed alone. Imagine seeing your images in print in a magazine for the first time. Because that's the thing is, like, you don't even. You don't see that image that you've captured. You know, now we see it on the back of the camera. Straight away, we know what we've got. So you're taking rolls of films from these amazing situations, sending them off, and then potentially the first time you see what that photo turned out like is in a magazine. [00:49:14] Speaker B: That's okay. [00:49:16] Speaker C: Seems crazy. [00:49:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. But here's the thing that made you do in those days, okay? You checked your camera vigorously all the time. You made sure they were really working. You made sure they were really clean. There were no hairs in there on the film or anything. There was nothing. You checked thoroughly as you could. You're as thorough as you could with the film, and you trusted your equipment. You know, before you go away on the site, your cameras are going to work. You can trust them. You didn't need to look on the back. I mean, yes, it's a. It's a wonderful luxury, but you didn't need to. You, you just were very thorough, about as thorough as you could be. Look, things happen, you know, that you're out of your control. It's mechanical stuff. Something might have happened. It wasn't firing the right shutter or, you know, the lens was sticking. You didn't realize things like that. Yes, it's happened and you get caught like that, but you're very thorough about it, and that's what you did. I had a system about. This is what I do always before I went on assignment, cleaned all the cameras, made sure everything was functioning well, checked everything, all of those sort of things. And you just got used to not seeing it. You knew instinctively that it was working as long as nothing was out of your control. I mean, I've had films that have been developed and someone in the lab has stuffed them up. That happens. But that happened. You. That could happen anyway. So. Yeah, I mean, it's just one of those things. And you just did it. You just get used to it. And you. You did eventually see it. Yeah. Yep. [00:50:50] Speaker A: And there was a question. Yeah. [00:50:53] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, just while we. There's a few questions I want to get to because there's some really good ones, but this one's on. On topic. LTK photo wants to know what was your favorite or longest used film camera? [00:51:01] Speaker B: Camera. [00:51:02] Speaker C: What was that, that gear that you stuck with for so long? [00:51:05] Speaker B: Oh, dear. That's a word I've learned not to use. [00:51:10] Speaker C: Oh. Oh, I see. [00:51:13] Speaker B: It was prior to Fuji. [00:51:16] Speaker C: You're not even allowed to utter his name. [00:51:18] Speaker B: Okay. So the thing about it was I use Nikons up to when the very first Fuji X camera came out and I started using Fuji from that point, but I was using Nikons and very, very happy with them. They. They did. They were sturdy, they were good. The lenses were good, the bodies were good. Yeah. So I was using Nikons all the very beginning of my career. Yeah. Up until. Until digital started. Yes. [00:51:48] Speaker C: So. So that. All the kind of the F series all the way through. [00:51:52] Speaker B: Yes. [00:51:52] Speaker C: The twos, threes, fours, you know, like all the way as. As they evolved. [00:51:56] Speaker B: You look into, you know, my favorite camera was the FM2 without a motor drive. I love that. Use it without motor drive. Just click, click, click. Not motor drives became heavy. And also it trained you to think, you know, if you're only buying one frame and then firing another, you've got to think about what you're taking. Yeah. So you're watching what goes on and you shoot it and you, you know, you really train yourself to work on that. And it was when we went to the digital and you just kept your finger on the button and it just kept. Was kind of like, wow, it's not the way I work because I just want to see that image. And really it's only that one fraction of a second. That you capture. That's important. The rest of it's rubbish. Yeah, indeed. [00:52:41] Speaker C: A couple more, actually. Let's. Let's just. Let's dig into these questions. Paul, Paul mentioned while you were telling the story earlier. Good grief. I remember those photos. Thin strips of paper from old school shredding machines been painstakingly reassembled. [00:52:56] Speaker B: That's right. [00:52:57] Speaker C: And then he had a question here, Please ask Michael about Iraqi soldiers throwing rocks at him while he was standing on a wall in the middle of an Iraqi swamp during the war. [00:53:11] Speaker B: Actually, it wasn't rocks. I was covering the Iran Iraq war on the war front for Newsweek magazine. And what the Iranians hadn't told us, that we'd gone into Iraq. So with the Iranian soldiers on an island in Iraq, we get onto this island, get onto the island. It's totally surrounded by mines. And so it took us ages to kind of, you know, go through the mines in the water and then get on to the. Onto the island. I'm cutting the story short. It's a long story. So go on to the island. And it's just full of dead bodies, Iraqi soldiers everywhere. So we're running across these bodies, doing pictures and things. And then I wanted to get a shot, a better shot, so I stood up on a wall to try and get an overall shot of what was. Was going on on this island. And this is down in Basra. This is what the CIA were interested in, the same area, because the oil is down there. So I was standing on this. I'm standing on this wall shooting these pictures, and suddenly I see all what I thought as a gentleman said, rocks bouncing all around me. And then I realized they were machine gun bullets bouncing around my feet. So I threw myself down onto the ground. And then the Iraqis started blowing everything at us. And what had happened was I didn't realize until later that we were in Iraq with the Iranian army. And when we went down there, we had two German film crews were invited down there as well. And one German film crew said to the Iranian soldiers, can you fire off a mortar? And so we can get some movement? Because nothing was happening at this stage. It was very. You could hear the war going on, but it was a bit out there, not in our area. And so the Iranians, that's what they're there for. They fired a mortar at the Iraqis. And then the other film crew said, well, you fired one off for us. Will you fire one off for us? You fired one off for them. So they fired a second mortar off, and the Iraqis then thought this was, was the big attack because when we came down to this island, we were in a convoy of boats with soldiers, security people, Islamic leaders, all sorts of things. So you. They must have seen all this stuff coming down. They thought it was a big attack, so they threw everything at us. Rockets, mortars, machine gun bullets. So I was, because I was up high, somebody kind of spotted me and fire and machine gun. So I dive to the ground and just lay there amongst the dead bodies. Wow. Now here's a question for everybody. What do you think about when you're lying there thinking you're about to die? And I've asked many soldiers about this and all come up with a similar answer. Okay. [00:56:07] Speaker A: Family? Your mom? [00:56:10] Speaker B: Mom. [00:56:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I could imagine. [00:56:17] Speaker C: Oh my gosh, that is. That is so intense. [00:56:22] Speaker B: Anyway, so what eventually happened was that the. It subsided because we did. Nobody fired back. There was no battle plans or anything. So they, they must have thought it was, you know, they didn't. The Iraqis thought nothing was happening, so it stopped. Yeah. And then we thought we got to get out of here. We. We got to get out of this place in case it starts again. So I'm with a colleague and Tony runs for the boat to get on the boat because none of us going to move slowly if they've been shot at. So Tony runs to the boat and gets on the little boat to get out off the island. Gets on the boat and the kid couldn't start the boat. Now he's a Revolutionary guard, right? No, a besiege. He was a besiege. They're the young men that run across the minefields before the soldiers come in. And you can imagine what happens if you run across minefield. You clear all the mines away, but you die or you lose your legs or whatever. So. But they die and they've been promised if they go to paradise, all the things you get in paradise. So this, they go down to die in the waterfront. To die and go to paradise. The boat was drifting towards the minefields and Tony's in the boat and he's watching these mines get closer and closer. And he said, come on, get, get it going, get it going. The kid couldn't get the boat going. And then Tony jumped up and said, get the fucking boat going. You little idiot. Managed to get the boat. Didn't understand English, but he understood Tony was upset. [00:58:04] Speaker A: The tone is there. The tone is there. [00:58:06] Speaker C: Yeah. It crosses languages. [00:58:09] Speaker B: So we get back to Tan, we get back to Tyron, right? And the news service they had was English and Then fy the local language, they have several news service. So the first one is English. So it's for the world. What the Iranians want to tell the world, world about how they're winning the war and their revolution is wonderful. So the news leads with today the. The. The. Sorry, the commentator comes on and says, glory be to God and the Blessed be the Ayatollah. And today we took some foreign correspondence down to the war front to show them how we're winning the war against Iraq. And then his voice disappears and all you hear is, get that boat. Go, you little. No. And the next news service, they just had the commentator's voice. Yeah. [00:59:03] Speaker C: Oh, they actually put it on the news. That is amazing. [00:59:07] Speaker B: Extraordinary, isn't it? [00:59:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. Reminds me of a story that Billy Connolly tells in one of his interviews before he became too unwolf to talk properly. He talked about how off is a universal language. It's a universal phrase, and it doesn't matter if you don't understand what it means when it's said. People kind of understand the tone of it. He was talking about, you know, he'd be overseas on tour and he'd be in an airport and there'd be someone coming up, you know, messing around with his luggage, and he'd go, oy, off, as, you know, Billy Connolly does. [00:59:38] Speaker B: And. [00:59:39] Speaker A: And that the, you know, the person kind of slunk away and he said, you know, off is a very much a universal A term, but that's an amazing story. That's. [00:59:49] Speaker C: That's insane. It's like it sounds like a scene from a movie. You know, the boat's drifting towards the mine. [00:59:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:55] Speaker A: You're lying in the ground. [00:59:59] Speaker C: You couldn't. That's in. That is. [01:00:02] Speaker A: Would that have been the most, you know, the most worrying situation that you've ever found yourself in, Michael? [01:00:08] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Well, yes, basically, it was one of the. It's. It's a highlight of it. Yes. [01:00:15] Speaker A: A highlight or a low light. [01:00:16] Speaker C: It sounds terrifying. [01:00:19] Speaker A: It does indeed. [01:00:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's funny enough, you know, when I got back to Australia, I came back to Australia after. Been there for a while in Iran and rock for a while. And I got to the airport in Melbourne. This look, it's true, because I have to kick myself when I hear some of these stories. They can't be true, but they're true. They're just reality. I get to the airport in Melbourne, taxi driver pulls up, get into the taxi, and he's driving me home. And he said, what are you doing this afternoon? It was a Saturday. I said, oh, nothing. He said, you're not going to the races? I said, no, I don't gamble. He said, you go to the footy. I said, I don't know anything about football. Sorry, I don't do it. He said, jeepers, mate. What do you do for excitement? Get a life. [01:01:04] Speaker C: Yeah, get out and live. That's. Wow. The chat's pretty solid. David. David Mascara says, best stories I've heard on this show. And John Pickett says, michael's done more in a day than I'll do in my life. [01:01:23] Speaker A: Oh, goodness. [01:01:24] Speaker C: And David also followed up. Nikons are war cameras. He's a, he's a Nikon fan. He's. I think he's got 13 or 14 Nikons, including old FM, FM2s and, and all the way through up to modern. [01:01:37] Speaker A: Nikons is a street photography in, in the Bay area of San Fran. [01:01:43] Speaker C: Great images. [01:01:47] Speaker A: Michael, let's, let's just have a little conversation maybe about some gear. You're now a. You're a Fujifilm X photographer and. Which is, you know, obviously that's how I first met you, years ago in Sydney. When did you, when did you pick up Fujifilm as a. As a, you know, as a camera system and what, what motivated that change for you? [01:02:12] Speaker B: Fuji offered the first X100 to me to test and I took the X100 all over Asia for about three months. I had the Nikon gear still and I was shooting with a Fuji and it was this tiny little camera that fitted in my pocket. And when I got back, I looked at the files. I shoot a bit of both. In fact, the picture you're using as the advertisement for this talk, that was shot on that Fuji, the very first Fuji X camera, at night on a very slow shutter speed. I'm down on the ground and just shooting it in the shadows. The only light coming is the firelight, except a tiny, tiny little lal, which is not even as big as my hand. And I put it under the fire because the men sitting in the background didn't have enough light. And I just put it twisted a little so I was hitting their eyes. So basically it was shot by firelight, but with that tiny thing just to put a spot in the guy's eyes. Yeah, so. So I thought, wow, this is an amazing camera. And I shot a lot of pictures with it. I got caught one night in a village. Now I'll just be careful about this story, but I got caught one night in a village. All I had on me was this camera because it goes in my pocket. So I'm walking around the village with it and somebody said, would you like. We've got some girls coming over. So, yeah, okay, I'm going to have a look. So we go in this small room and it only had a bed in there and a couple of gentlemen. And then two girls come in and the way they were dressed and behaved, I knew that girls was a euphemism for sex workers. And so I thought, oh, goodness gracious me. And I said, I'll go. No, no, no, stay, stay, stay, it's fine. Well, I didn't know what was going on at that stage. And then the girls did a little dance. So I've got the Fuji, it's not very well lit, there's a little room, bad lighting. So I was using the flash in that Fuji X100, right. I'm shooting on an eighth of a second at about 5, 6 with that tiny flash, which took ages to build up. So I'd fire a shot white, shoot another one. And the girls were dancing. They had veils on and pantaloons, nothing much else on. And then the one of the guys started playing with one of the women. The other woman got upset. So she obviously knew this man from previous engagements and he started playing with her and gradually her clothes started to disappear. And all the time I'm shooting with this little Fuji X flash, eighth of a second, five, six, right. And I thought, no way. And when I got back, I'd say 50% of them were perfectly usable. Right up to the point you looked at the book. Have you seen the book? There's a picture on the book of him in a very passionate moment, which is done. I don't put it online because the gentleman that was involved with this woman, they asked me not to put it online. I can put it in the book, but don't put it on social media. Yeah. Anyway, so I've got the pictures and the one I've got used in the book is funny, but it was. That's what turned me onto this camera. Because shooting there, this is right at the beginning of the whole Fuji movement into digital. And that little, tiny, tiny flash in that badly lit place was just did it for me. In fact, an eighth of a second, I've got these frames that got all perfectly usable. But what happened was when the couple got to a certain point, the guy then suddenly, it must have been just clicked in his head that I was documenting it all said, go, go, go, go. So I went to leave, but the other lady had gone off with My driver. So I had to. Oh no. But that's what got me onto. It's a strange story but it got me on to using it because I thought wow, if you can do that with just as tiny the pocket camera, I'm in for it. So I've been using it ever since use. And then I went on to all their other cameras that yeah, I've been using the GFX's, I've used the X pros. XTS. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:06:56] Speaker A: Well, Justin's still got his X100 copy. I. That was the first Fujifilm camera that I picked up and I converted from Canon to Fujifilm and I just bought the Fujifilm because a girl I was dating at the time had one and she let me have a crack at it and. And yeah, I was fascinated that this tiny little thing that I could fit in my jacket pocket was a complete camera system in one. And. And that got me on the Fujifilm journey also. [01:07:24] Speaker B: Yes. [01:07:25] Speaker A: And still am. Still am a big fan of Fujifilm and a Fujifilm shooter. And so with Fujifilm, I'm curious to know about the. The kind of ambassador ex photographer setup from back then. So what came next? Did they. They obviously wanted to see the images that you were able to capture with their camera. [01:07:47] Speaker B: Yes. And yeah, the deal was that I would give them cameras to use for. For the page that they have for ambassadors. So put pictures on the page and then they. We. I would be paid to shoot things for them or do films for. They did a lot of videos of each of the ambassadors. So I appeared in those which we would go to different countries at the time time it while I was working. There's one just gone on my social media few days ago by a very good photographer who shoots video and it's while I was working in Borneo. Yeah. [01:08:25] Speaker A: So we went all over the landscape almost Pano. Yeah. [01:08:30] Speaker B: Yep. Yes. Yeah. And that was for the 23 mil lens. Took the 23 mil lens with me to Borneo and David Callow filmed the whole thing. He did a fabulous job. Yeah, yeah. So I did a lot of those sort of things. I also wrote a report on a camera the other day. I tested it and when I test the camera I actually test it. I take it on assignments, I take it on shoots. I do it as a professional photographer, not I'm going to do street photography. Here's a picture of a street or this is my dog. I did it in the studio. This is. I took it to demonstrations. This camera I wanted to really I looked after it but I took it demonstrations, I took it on a corporate assignment, I took it on, you know, I did portrait, I did all sorts of things. If I was working with this camera, what do I think of it and how does it work? Because as a professional it's waste of time if I don't actually take it on to professional assignments and see if it can do what it claims it can do. [01:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting you bring that up because we've often talked about on the show here about you know, when people get review because I do photography reviews and I've done some work for Fujifilm as well and they often send me new or pre release concept versions of cameras to test and review. And one thing that really frustrates me and we've talked about this is you'll often see on YouTube that the second a new camera is announced, Petapixel Kyman, Wong Locke, you know, all of these familiar faces will all of a sudden drop videos because the embargo is lifted and they all feel very samey samey and they all kind of go out and shoot the same stuff together. Often it's street because that's the most successful genre to everybody. And a little bit of portraiture of you know, more often than not just one another out in the field and we've talked about how often then down the track, track you'll, or on a, on a separate topic that camera review will come up and they'll be less favorable than they were in the review of the gear. We're seeing that more and more where people just want to be first to market with or first, first to gain I guess domination or superiority in YouTube rankings by being, getting the review out as quickly as possible. And I think it really misses that opportunity that you talked about to actually go, go out and use it properly. [01:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:54] Speaker A: Shoot a documentary with it, you know, go do some, some high end portraiture with a single light or you know, we don't, we don't see enough of that happening in the review space I think. So it's great to hear that you actually thoroughly tested your Fujifilm gear by dodging bullets. So I think that's wonderful. I don't think anyone can compete with that. I don't think anyone can compete. [01:11:16] Speaker B: I think I'm the only person who actually had a memory of the Russian security guarding a Fuji camera. [01:11:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. And it survived, which is wonderful. [01:11:28] Speaker C: I have a question. I don't know. I did. I had to go and answer the door. Someone was furiously knocking on my Door. So I don't know if you've already covered this or not while I was gone for a couple of minutes. Why did you choose the X Pro 3 over the X100? For a lot of the work. Work that you do. [01:11:47] Speaker B: I feel very comfortable with it. It's. It's. I can change lenses, so the X100 I can't change lenses. And that I still like working with because it's a size lens that I can work with. I. I've got a lot of lenses but I prefer to work with short lenses. Hence it was the X100. It was made for me, the X Pro. I still only have a 23 mil. I've had several of them. I have a 23 mil on one and I think I have a 16 on one and 18 on the other. Sorry. Yeah. And that's how I work with those short lenses because I like to get close to people. I think the X Pro is made for the sort of work that I do. If I'm. I'll use the T for other things. Look, cameras have. In their way they're made to do different things. Things nowadays. So the Pro cameras, the cameras that Fuji have have different things you. I prefer to do with them. Like the gfx. I've just been using a gfx, I think environmental portraits with that. That is fantastic because the files are beautiful files and the. What I'm getting out of those are phenomenal. And even at a demonstration, I shot Portrait of a Woman in the environment with that, the GFX I was using and it was just beautiful and I loved doing that. And the corporate shoot I did was portraits and it was just perfect. I find it that. But other things, it works or it doesn't work. Whereas with the X Pro, for what I do, I think it works perfectly. It's the right weight. You can change the lenses, it gives me the files I want. It works quick enough for what I do. So, yeah, all of those small things now I've checked each of them and that's the one I. I still use the xts and I like the xts. I'm not saying I don't like them, I'm just saying I'll use them more if I'm doing corporate jobs. But if I'm doing the work for my projects, it's the X Pro 3s or the X Pros that I use. Yeah. And. Sorry. God. [01:13:56] Speaker A: I just wanted to. Because I'm a bit of a Fujifilm fanboy. Which, which 16 were you shooting with the older 14 or the more compact 2.8, which. The 16 mil lens. Sorry, yeah, the 2.8. Yeah, I've got that too, actually. I just, I just wanted to. Sorry, I cut you off just with the, the X ray. When I was at that X Pro 3 launch, it really inspired me how you were running around with that, with, with the smaller lenses, with the, you know, the more compact, lightweight. They only weigh a couple of hundred grams, tops, maybe 300 some of them. And that inspired me to drop, to make my kit more streamlined. And so now I only use. They call them Fujicron primes. So the, the 16, the 23, the 35 and the 50, the F2s and the F 2.8 and the 16 because it's such a lightweight kit. [01:14:46] Speaker B: Yes. [01:14:47] Speaker A: You know, and you can be very discreet with it. Is that another reason why you think Fujifilm perhaps felt comfortable to you because of. It is a relatively discreet system compared to bigger DSLR or mirrorless bodies? [01:15:02] Speaker B: Well, I'll give you an example. I was in again in, in Tehran and I was going into Khomeini's tomb and I had a colleague with me and I had an ex pro with me with just the 16 or the 18 on there. He had another camera and they. As we go into the tomb, the guard said, you can't take that camera and it's professional. So they took his camera off him and I went in there with the pro and I'm taking pictures all over the place, shooting everything that's in there and no one stopped me. He couldn't take it in. So, yes, your answer, it works that way. But look, with pros, I've been in things like inside a volcano and the BBC had just been shooting in that place and their cameras all broke down. The pro kept going in that volcano. How can I complain? Why would I change? Because I'm going to the extremes all the time, like a lot of people in our industry do, you know, and you're in like in Siberia, it's bitter. It's all the things. I mean that, I mean, rainstorms. If you look at that thing I did in Borneo, we were in rainstorms. And if it's going to keep going, why would I change from something. [01:16:13] Speaker A: I often say in my reviews that, you know, this Fujifilm body can be used to hammer in nails. [01:16:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:16:18] Speaker A: Because they are incredibly tough. And I'm still, I still rock around with a Fujifilm X70. It's kind of like my Primary street and travel camera sometimes, because it's tough. I Love the files. Yeah, it's a bit of a ripper. [01:16:34] Speaker C: I don't know if you'll be able to answer this question because you do work with Fujifilm. So if you, if you prohibited to answer this question, just blink twice and we'll move on to the next question. Is there anything you would like to see in an X Pro 4 in terms of features that would, that you would enjoy or ergonomic changes or anything like that that you would like to see in an X Pro 4? [01:17:05] Speaker B: When I write reports, I give it to Fuji and they're kept confidential. So it's probably better that I don't say very much. Okay. Because of the confidentiality of saying. [01:17:17] Speaker C: I see. So you might given feedback. Yeah, so you might have given feedback on the X Pro 3 and who knows what, what's happened with that feedback? So you don't want to make it public because it's for them to kind. [01:17:28] Speaker B: Of say things that I don't mind. [01:17:30] Speaker A: I mean we respect that. Yeah, absolutely. [01:17:34] Speaker C: Great insight into the process actually, that they're, that they're taking feedback on board from people like yourself. [01:17:39] Speaker B: Oh yes, look, the executives, when Fuji first came out, the executives would fly around the world and speak to their ambassadors and say, how can we change? How can we. Don't, don't tell me how good this is. Tell me how we can improve it. Tell me what's wrong with it and what you want. And they listened and they did it, which is fantastic. They did what we said we wanted done. And it's funny because they never say what other people have said. You say what you think and they said, okay, that's the feedback that we've been getting. So then they're taking all that feedback and they listen and they do something about it and that's fantastic. So they respect the, that fact. Fact. As professionals, you know, like I told you, if I take out a camera to test it, I test it under real world circumstances. Yeah. And so they're asking me, did it work here, did it not work there, how could we improve that? So what I'd actually have to say to you if I, if I say about the export is how do we improve it? So you're going to then say, People then say, oh, I didn't know it had that problem. Doesn't have a problem. It's just how can we. Yeah, what level up? [01:18:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that's very cool. Yeah, that's a perfect answer. [01:18:45] Speaker A: Thank you. And yes, we, we always, we always respect guests who, you know, are under contract or an Embargo or things like. Because we, you know, I've been in that position too. But yeah, were there any questions that you wanted to cover off from the chat? [01:19:02] Speaker C: I mean there's a, there's a comment. If we want to balance out all this Fuji love, we can read LTK's photo. I finally, I finally had my first problem with my X Pro 2 over the weekend. I was shooting with the 100 to 400. Then the camera said lens error. I took it off the X Pro 2 flange screws all came loose. Sounds like someone played a prank on you. Loosened off screws while you maybe those. [01:19:28] Speaker A: Big lenses just slowly wiggled it out. [01:19:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean the X2, these things happen. [01:19:34] Speaker B: These things happen with any, any, you know, I'm not underplaying it but it can happen anytime, anywhere. Of course. [01:19:41] Speaker C: Yeah. And that could be. What's that, a seven or eight year old camera now? Maybe, maybe. [01:19:46] Speaker A: Well not to be longer because the X Pro 3 is six years old. [01:19:51] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. [01:19:52] Speaker A: So yeah, it's probably eight or nine. [01:19:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I've still got mine. I like the X Pro 2. They were very good. [01:19:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah they were, they were a really nice step up from the one. Same with the XT2. That, that step up was, was really noticeable. The incremental changes we see now are less and less, I think. [01:20:10] Speaker B: Yes. [01:20:10] Speaker A: You know, as they're maxing out sensor technology and processes and now a lot of brands are turning to, you know, relying on AI functionality on their chips. We're seeing so much more of that. [01:20:22] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [01:20:25] Speaker A: But often that's more just using buzzwords, current trending buzzwords to, you know, add to a product. Because we've, we've talked about on here some of the funny AI names that they add to camera gear or software or, or whatever it may be in our industry and we often have a bit of a chuckle over some of the extrapolated names they use to, to say basically it has better autofocus but it's. What was that one for the Canon Neural networking? Deep learning. [01:20:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it went on. [01:20:53] Speaker A: It went on. [01:20:54] Speaker B: I use a little. [01:20:55] Speaker A: Yeah, autofocus. Yeah. [01:21:00] Speaker C: But I mean their autofocus is good but yeah, I don't know about the neural network. So in, in the, in the, the second half of the show, I guess I'd really like to obviously dig into your book Village, the long term project. But I also, I wonder whether, should we, should we have a quick look at some of these images from Iran before that and just go to Iran? [01:21:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:21:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:21:28] Speaker A: Let's have a look at this. [01:21:30] Speaker B: Iran was such a big story and it just ran for a very, very long time. [01:21:35] Speaker A: So, yeah, if. [01:21:37] Speaker C: If you're watching the. This is on the ngv.vic.govau website that I'm looking at, so you can track it down on there. Just search mine, Michael. You'll find it. If you want to have a closer look at these images. [01:21:52] Speaker B: Would you like me to explain the images? [01:21:55] Speaker C: Sure. And just tell me. [01:21:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:21:56] Speaker C: Which one you want me to bring up and we'll go. [01:21:58] Speaker B: Okay. Start with the first one. We'll go to the blood fountain. It's just interesting. Okay. These fountains were all over Iran to encourage the martyrs to join the war, soldiers to join the war. They were trying to encourage people to fight the fight against Saddam Hussein who had attacked Iran, and also keep the revolution further going. And they die. Not. It's not real blood, but there were loads of them and some of them are ginormous in different places. But I got out. This is the first one I saw. So I got out of the car to take it and it was splashing everywhere and it was like having blood dripping down your clothes as it splashed on you. Yeah. Wow. In the background, it's the martyrs from the war, people who died in the war or the revolution, and the leaders like Khomeini and Khomeini and all that on the wall behind there. Yeah, if you go to the next one, please. Yep, that one. Okay. Whenever. Whenever there was anything on, huge at this stage of the. Just at the end of the actual revolution and Khomeini coming back, the huge numbers of people turned up, like 2 million people. Just extraordinary, the numbers. Now I'm photographing on a platform and I'm the only foreign correspondent. For most of the time I went to Iran, I was the only correspondent or one of the only correspondents there. I had this incredible access to go in many, many times. Anyway, standing on the platform with the Rasanjani, the president, and he's screaming at the crowd and he's got a gun in one hand and he's shaking the gun at the car. Then he'd wave his fist at the crowd and the crowd would all leap to their feet and they'd scream and wave, shake their fists, as you can see back at the president and. And I said to my interpreter, Saeed, what is the President saying to the crowd? And he said, all pro. All foreign correspondents tell lies. Death to all foreign correspondence. Oh, What? Oh, Michael, 2 million people looking at you. [01:24:24] Speaker C: Was there Any chance that he was just messing with you and thought it was. Would be funny to tell you that. [01:24:29] Speaker B: Have a little gag. [01:24:31] Speaker A: He's a funny guy. He's a known trickster. He's a known trickster. [01:24:38] Speaker C: That would be a great g. He's just having a little giggle to himself later about the look on your face when he said that. [01:24:46] Speaker B: Let's believe that. [01:24:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably nicer for that to be the story. [01:24:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And the other thing is a hanging Khomeini from a crane, which you can't quite see in this frame, but you can see it in other frames. And the point about the crane is, is that that's where they hung people on street corners from the cranes. So it was kind of, you know, they had got Khomeini's head on there. Yeah. Anyway, go to the next one, please. Just. Yes. [01:25:18] Speaker A: Roddy Nicholson has aptly titled this section of the show. Holy. [01:25:24] Speaker C: It's about all you can really say. [01:25:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:26] Speaker A: I think that's what we'll call this part of the show from here forward. Thanks. Thanks, mate. [01:25:30] Speaker B: Okay. You know, the pressure to get good pictures for National Geographic is, is unbelievable. You just got to keep. You got to really step outside every comfort zone. You have to do it. I saw these soldiers marching down the road and what struck me was they were goose stepping. They'd been trained, trained by the Nazis. The, the, the Shah, it had them trained by the Nazis. And I thought, this is interesting, but just soldiers marching down the road is dead boring. So I lay in the middle of the road and they marched over the top of me and I've got this one frame. Remember I said I was using. This was way back in the early times when I was still using Nikon. And I don't. Didn't have motor drives or anything. So. Excuse me. I fired one frame. I'm lying on the ground. Fired one frame and I copped it. And I always automatically fired a second frame, but it missed it. The first frame was exactly that. That's the full frame. I captured it. One of the things you do with shooting with film, you fill. Fill the frame. Now you can't fill the frame better than that. Can you see it from every inch to edge. But to get that actual kind of feeling of the marching was lying on the ground. They're shooting it with a 20 mil lens as they're coming over the top of me. Yeah. And just kind of get that power. Yeah. [01:26:56] Speaker A: That's remarkable. What year was that roughly, Michael, or exactly remember 1984? [01:27:02] Speaker B: 5. [01:27:04] Speaker C: That's when I was born. [01:27:07] Speaker A: And what have you done with your life? Look what Michael's done. What are you doing? You've done plenty I feel you've done. [01:27:14] Speaker C: You know, I feel like it's. This is where it's a. It's a mental barrier, because I know it's not true, but I feel like these sorts of adventurous careers don't happen anymore, and I know they do, but. But I feels like this is a time that, you know, I've actually got this question written down for later, but maybe we can take a little quick break for the. From these images just for a second to. [01:27:40] Speaker A: Yeah, please. [01:27:41] Speaker C: This question that I had written down with, like, so much gets captured now on phones. You know, everyone's got a phone to document things. And then now we're even seeing. You know, just the other day, meta. Facebook released their new glasses with cameras built into them and a display built into the. So you can. You can see what you're framing up in the. In the photo wearing a pair of glasses that look like normal glasses. So more and more people around the world have a way to document what's happening in the world around them. Like, what's the role of documentary photographers in the coming decades when. When so much of the world's getting captured by just the. The population on their devices? [01:28:26] Speaker A: Great question. [01:28:28] Speaker B: Yes, it is, and it's a very important one, because documentary is about capturing the reality of life. And as soon as you alter or change anything within that picture, it's not documentary, it's your view of what's going on, which is a totally different thing altogether. So what you're trying to do, and my colleagues, still, as many of them out there today, doing phenomenal jobs. I mean, I'm the past generation in that sense. And it's about capturing the decisive moment. To use Bresson's expression. Well, it's not actually his expression. He stole it from a bishop or a cardinal, I should say. What you're trying to do is capture what's happening in front of you without altering or changing anything. So as we move into AI and other things, and it's always happened. I mean, the second picture ever taken was a. Was a con. It was a setup picture of a man drowning. But it's always happened. But what happens is, if you want to show what's going on in reality, then you document it and you don't change it. And when we're shooting with film, the whole idea is filling that frame is because I'm telling the story what you see in this frame is, is what I want to show you. Nothing else do I need in that frame. It is the reality of now. So as you said, all these things are changed and what we can do with them, that becomes your personal view of something, not the reality of what happens. So documentary is about telling the story as you see it because it's only as you see it because it's your vision. Somebody else comes, they will have a different vision. But what comes from you is as you see it. Now what I'm lucky enough, have been lucky enough in the last 20 years of my career to do is spend time on things so you can go somewhere. And when I work for newspapers, you had to go in, get a picture that would make page one or page three. So I had to be dramatic, as I think the expression is if it bleeds, it leads. Yeah. And that might not be the full truth of the thing. I mean, for instance, I've been at demonstrations where nothing has happened really. It's been a visit. And yet you turn up and you'll come back home and you'll see a story about the fight that was on at the demonstration. But it's two people on the edge having a punch up about something else or whatever they're doing. But it wasn't the general story. So by being like, I have the opportunity, like I spent three months working for National Geographic on that Iran story, you have time to try to understand what's going on and try to show documented as it happens, not documenting what other people think is happening or want to happen. So as these new technologies come in, yes, they're great, yes, you can use them. Yes, you can. But you can't call it documentary because it isn't the reality of what happened on that day. It's your vision of it. It's quite different. [01:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah, can I follow up to that? You know, we're seeing, we're seeing at the moment, particularly in the USA and we're starting to see it in other parts of the world, unfortunately, the whole fake news mantra that whenever anything's it seems to be fake news is added to anything that actually is real and is a correct document of what's actually taken place. So in that respect with, with people challenging the validity of news or the reality of news, what role do photographers have in pushing the reality forward? And how do you think they're going to overcome this whole deep, fake, deep news trend at the moment? [01:32:16] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I can't read the future. We don't know what's going to happen. Yeah, I keep getting asked this. I get asked this a lot. In fact, I was asked to do a project on it, but. But I don't know what's going to happen because it actually happens really quickly, doesn't it? I mean, imagine we didn't hear of AI and all of a sudden it's suddenly taking over in so many areas and ways. But doing what I do, my colleagues do, we try to show it as we see it and that reality. And that's all. All you can do, keep doing the reality. And you're always going to have people who are going to twist things, change things. You know, all the time I worked in Iran, which was a very long time, there was all. I always got abuse because I was defending terrorists. People don't know the true story about it. I mean, Iran is. Persia has this extraordinary culture and highly educated, you know, some of the greatest poets come from there. The great philosophy comes from there. All of these sort of things. You have to see it as it is and you have to reflect it as it is. And that's what I do. I say, I. We do. My colleagues try to show it as it is. Sure, you're always going to get people that are not going to do that. They're always looking for, you know, fame and glory and money, but you're never going to be able to stop that. And even if you go back to the days of film, when people. You can still change things. I mean, goodness gracious me, Eugene Smith was the greatest changer of fact that we know, wasn't he? Remember how he put two images together? He changed things. His famous picture from the village in Spain. He's opened the eyes of somebody, turned the head or something. He changed the images to suit him. His point was, I'm showing. As it is, it's the reality that I see. That's his take on it. Yeah. [01:34:16] Speaker C: Are you familiar with this book at all? No, no, it's. It's sort of. It's very much on this topic in terms of, you know, I can't remember who. Who shot this image. The cannonball strewn on the road. [01:34:32] Speaker B: Oh, yes, yes, yes. And what's the truth of it? [01:34:35] Speaker C: Yes, yeah. What's the truth of it? [01:34:38] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:34:38] Speaker C: You know, it was, you know, the. The cannonballs were there, but putting them on the road made the image more dramatic, but that wasn't what it was. And then it sort of digs very much into that whole topic about what, you know, everything that you do in your choice to make an Image changes it. You're controlling something, the framing, what you include, what you leave out all the way through. And where does that line end? You know something. [01:35:09] Speaker B: Yeah, but what he was doing was changing the situation though. And that's a different thing altogether. Where you stand or where you point is fine. But when you go and change the situation in that life, this was in the crime year war, it changed everybody perspective of it. So you're actually lying to the people. So Greg's question about what the photographers do, they keep as close as they can to their version of the truth or what they are seeing, not what others want to see. You know, I'll give you an example. When I first came back from Iran, no one had been allowed in to do as much as I had. And everybody knew I about this series that I had. Somebody from Rupert Murdoch's company rang me up and wanted to buy, offered me very good money to just buy the bloodthirsty images. You know, I've got images of people running across minefields and all this sort of stuff. Blood and guts everywhere. They just wanted the negative side of Iran. They didn't want to see the nuanced side of Iran. Yeah, and that which leads to the fact of how did I get into Iran and stay there on again and again and again. I was honest in the National Geographic story, they didn't like everything. There were some pictures in there and story I did not like at all. But they thought that I was honest. I didn't do what some people do, come there, try to find the negative side and get out and do the naked. I was balanced about it. I showed stuff that I didn't like. I showed stuff that they did like I show, you know, but it was balance and that's why they let me come back because even though they didn't like it, in fact I did a big. I did a job for Life magazine. They flew me in and I got there, I was there for three days and they kicked me out. I got kicked out of Iran. So, you know, it happens. But it just so happens on this one I had to fly business class first class around the world. It cost Life magazine fortune. I didn't get a picture. But then, yeah, there was a bit of COVID. [01:37:13] Speaker A: Better luck next time. [01:37:15] Speaker B: Well, no, because then I gave them the last picture of Kamania live and that was amazing. And it was an amazing picture because he's on a platform and his son is behind him who everybody thought was going to take over, but the people going to take over. Well under the Platform in the corner. And there they were, Rasanjani, Kaminay, the people that took over, standing there talking. So there's the old. There's what we thought was. There's the reality. I mean, and it was a double trucking night. They got their money's worth in the end. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yep. [01:37:49] Speaker A: No complaints. No complaints. Do we. Jay, you want to just. I would like to talk about Michael's book, but let's have a look at a few more images first, maybe. [01:37:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Are there any more of these that you'd like to pull up for us and. And talk about? [01:38:02] Speaker B: Okay, go down to the bottom one of the rehabilitation center. I think this is important because. [01:38:12] Speaker C: Hang on, my Internet's obviously. There we go. [01:38:14] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, as I say, they're in Koda crime. It's a p. We can't see them in Kodakrome. They're so rich. It's just. Yeah. Anyway, what happened was that because I, as I explained, explained to you earlier on, they had these perceived young men running across the minefields. And obviously this is what happens. You lose your legs, you lose your limbs, or you damage your legs and limbs. And they had these centers around Iran where you could get new legs and limbs. And I went and shot this picture, and the Iranians were really furious because, a. I wasn't supposed to be in this area. And obviously they didn't want that picture used at all to talk about it because it's so obvious about what's going on. So we were upstairs working, and I just wandered off when the gut minder wasn't looking and went down and saw all this and then shot this picture downstairs. Yeah, we. On one occasion when I was in Iran, we. We took a besiege, one young besiege, down to the war front. He'd been down there twice and hadn't died, but his friends have all died. So he wanted to go down. He wanted to go to paradise with his friends. So we take him down to the war front and they run across the American flag before they go out into the. Under the war front. Go down there. Then they get training. I don't know what training you get, but they were looking at mines and things when I was there. And then the people looking after us down there who were from the Revolutionary Guard, said, well, you've. If you got everything you want with Mustafa, which was the name of the besieged kid. And we said, yeah, yeah, we're fine, we're fine. He said, well, look, I'm going to run him across A minefield. So you can get him running across a minefield. He said, no, no, we don't want to do that. He said, well, I'll shoot him then, because then you got a picture of him dead as he goes to paradise. Oh, now I'm telling you what's going on, Right? And we thought, this is terrible. Anyway, we thought, look, there must be a way of getting through this minefield. So we're standing there waiting, and suddenly we hear this little tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. The next thing, these sheep are coming along a path through the minefield, and the shepherd's following behind them. So we got behind the shepherd who had the sheep in front of him in Christ there was any mines there. And we went up through the minefield that way. Wow. Didn't have most of her shot killed or anything. [01:40:35] Speaker C: Well, that's good. [01:40:36] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not the only time. I've had a few things. Situations where people want to kill people so I can get good pictures. [01:40:46] Speaker C: Really? So that's. That's not. That's not the only time that that's happened when someone. [01:40:50] Speaker B: No, no. [01:40:51] Speaker C: We got an idea that this would be great. I've got a great idea for a photo. Trust me. Come over here. [01:40:56] Speaker B: Would you like me to tell you? I can tell you one or both. [01:41:00] Speaker C: Yeah, both. Give us all the stories. Hang on. Let's go. [01:41:02] Speaker B: All right. Okay. We got time. Yep. [01:41:04] Speaker A: Yeah. All the time in the world. [01:41:06] Speaker B: Okay. First story is we're in Tehran and we get a phone call. Our mind has said, would you like to go to a murder trial to show justice in Iran? So we go to the murder trial, and there's two judges. There's an Islamic judge and a civil judge. So the man on trial was Mustafa, and he was involved in a drug deal, and he'd been accused of killing his partner by slitting his throat from ear to ear. We found there was a film crew with me at the time. They filmed the whole thing. And I shot the images of what's going on. There's not a lot you can shoot people standing in there. But it was interesting how they had the family in the courtroom, and at one stage, the father leapt in the air and screamed out, that man killed by so. And I managed to capture that picture, which we used in National Geographic, etc. But then when the trial was ended, Mustafa was found guilty of murder by the civil judge. So we thought we'd go and talk to the Islamic judge and ask what he was going to do. And we go around to the Islamic judge's office. And we said, well, Mustafa's been found guilty by the civil judge. What are you going to do? And now I'll kind of paraphrase what he said. He said, mustafa is like a weed in a garden of roses. He must be plucked out and killed. He will be executed. When would you like me to hang him? When would the light be best for your photographs? Would you like me to hang him in the evening or the morning? Come back tomorrow and let us. [01:42:43] Speaker A: Golden hour, blue hour, like, oh, my God. [01:42:48] Speaker B: So, yeah, I'm not laughing at the situation. I'm just. [01:42:52] Speaker A: No, no, obviously, yeah. [01:42:55] Speaker B: So we went back to the house where we were staying in Tehran, and we're sitting there talking about, do we give Mustafa for an extra day or she'll be. Put him out of his misery or what are we going to do? You know, we can't. If. If we make a judgment, we are part of the execution. Yeah. We have involved ourselves in it. So we decided, no, we're not going to do it. He just tells us when he's doing it. Anyway, we got a phone call to say that the family of the victim had accepted money from Mustafa's family, which is an Islamic thing. So he's paid off. They didn't execute him, so he didn't execute him. So we didn't have to worry about whether we got the golden light or the blue light, as you said. [01:43:34] Speaker C: Yeah, what a. What a predicament. [01:43:38] Speaker B: Position, movement. My very first shoot assignment with that sort of thing was in the Philippines. And this is. I just begun. Just begun my international career. And I was up there working with the Jesuits. I don't know if, you know, Jesuits there, of the intellectuals of the Catholic Church there, the. The Pope, stormtroopers sort of thing. And they were working on a social justice thing in the Philippines. I asked him if I'd like to come to this social justice thing. So I go up there and they. I met a guy up there, really nice young man, and we got on very well. And he said, would you like to come and photograph my people? And I said, oh, yeah? What are. They said, well, we're the Islamic people living down in Mindanao in the southern island. And mind now. And so, yeah, I'd like to come up. I'll organize it. So we set up something. And then later I'm talking to one of the Jesuits, said, you know who he is, don't you? I said, I have no idea. He said, he's the third most wanted man in the Philippines. He's a SPY Tomorrow National Liberation Front So I thought, this will be interesting. So I had organized to come back. So I come back and I was told to go to Davao City, which is down the south of Mindanao. Wait in a hotel. Now I say hotel. It was a dive. It was just a dive. It had dead mosquitoes on the wall, a spinning fan that used to click five times a minute. And it just. You could hear nothing in there. Just. Just a bed, right? And I waited there for days. And then one day there's a knock on my door about 2 o' clock in the morning and open the door and. And there's three men in medical clothes. They said, come quick, quick, grab your gear. So I grabbed my gear, I go down the back stairs, get into a waiting ambulance. They put me on the floor, throw the blankets over me. They drive like hell to get through the city and up into the mountains where they are. And I'm met there by a squad of kids, or I say kids, young men with amolites and all sorts. And they surround me. They are my guards for the next week. And I tromp through the jungle with these people to hunt for soldiers to kill, because these are the Islamic revolutionaries. And one day I'm out in a boat with the two leaders. These are the two most wanted men in the Philippines, right? And one was a military commander, one was the head of the mnlf. And the military commander said, you know, it's a shame I didn't know you before because I was studying in Lebanon for revolutions, and everybody in that class is now running a revolution, revolution somewhere in the world today. I could have got you in. That's how I got in, through him. And he said. And the military commander said to me, well, look, you know, he said, what we're going to do is we don't think you're getting very good pictures. I wasn't, but what could you do? He said, what we're going to do is there's this hill over here. We want you to wait on this hill. And what I'm going to do is send some of my men around the hill up to the this village and the soldiers there. We're going to drive them down the road to where you are and we'll kill them there for you. In front of you, you're going to get all these amazing pictures of us ambushing the soldiers. He said, what do you think? Oh, can I think about it? I said, well, look, I've got a deadline. The New York Times want everything I've got. Now. I'VE got to go. I'm awfully sorry. I can't take any pictures. I have to leave. Thanks very much for the offer. So I left, but I couldn't come back and work with them again like that because I would never know whether they were just doing me a favor and setting up an ambush or really killing soldiers because they got some military thing in mind. Yeah. [01:47:29] Speaker C: Oh, what a terrifying. [01:47:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And when I say that, I remember at that time, after I'd been through all the, that we got a, excuse me. Phone call from Black Star saying do not in any way be involved in setups and da, da, da, da. And there was a story in Newsweek magazine about a photographer set up an ambush. Not with these people. Something totally different. And got caught and never worked again. You know, getting people killed or wounded or whatever. [01:48:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just. [01:48:03] Speaker C: It'S like, it's like the ultimate like we were talking about before, like interfering with the scene, interfering with the story and the narrative. This is like one that, that has consequences of life or death or injury. [01:48:17] Speaker B: Yes. [01:48:18] Speaker C: It's, that's terrifying. [01:48:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:48:23] Speaker C: Samantha Olsen says, best damn stories ever. And I agree. [01:48:27] Speaker A: Hey, Sam. Good to see you. [01:48:29] Speaker C: Quite amazing. [01:48:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:48:31] Speaker C: Should we talk about your newest book? [01:48:33] Speaker B: Oh, yes, please. It's for sale, so. Yes, I have to sell it. [01:48:37] Speaker C: Yes. You know, I, I, I should have bought it before this. I, I hummed and hard as to whether to, to buy it before the interview or not. I wasn't sure. But I'm going to order it straight after we get. [01:48:53] Speaker A: Were you waiting to see if Michael was any good? [01:48:55] Speaker C: I wasn't sure if it's worth the 150. I wanted to see what the stories were like first. And then I'm just. [01:49:01] Speaker A: You've got inside. Inside scoop, boss. [01:49:03] Speaker C: So I'm just. Yeah, exactly. No, so there's, there's actually, there's two, there's two options. There's the fancy option for $450, which is, includes a slip case with a sign and a print. So that's the, that's the very fancy option of the book. And then I think if I go back here. Yeah. This is the regular option which is $150. $150 a page. It's a bargain. [01:49:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Tell us about the. Sorry, Michael cut you off. I was just going to say, you know, tell us a little bit about the book. What, what can people expect from your latest book? Because this isn't your first book. You've published quite a few and you've even had yeah. And you've even had documentaries made about your journey, which. Which is phenomenal, you know, when you. When you say it like that. But tell us a little bit about this book, please. [01:50:00] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. It's. For over 10 years now, I've been going to villages and documenting the changing way of life, village life how, for instance, in China, when I started this book, 80% of the population lived in the countryside. Now 70% live in the cities. Now it's a huge change because of the environment, climate change, global warming, change of how machinery is used, how things are done in the countryside. And so many people are leaving to get jobs or to work in bigger. In cities or bigger towns because they can't survive with the family farm or plot of land in the countryside. It's not. It's not a negative book in that way. It shows that, but it also shows the joys of people that stayed in the country, how life is like in. What life is like in the countryside, because it's still those that are there. It's a community. It's like a tribe. And people rely on each other. And so I do all the kind of celebrations as well as all the other stuff that. That's driving them away. And there's so much going on in the countryside now, and we ignore it. When people say there's no climate change. They need to come with me to these places and see how it's working. For instance, in Bangladesh, where I worked there is. The country's being eaten by seawater. There's 10%. They've lost 10% of the land. The Himalayas are melting, so now they're big floods all the time. The farmer I have from Bangladesh is on a boat on his land because it. What was a little stream is now a lake, so he can't earn a living. Then you have the other thing, because all these countries are tribal. So what happens is, say it will keep on Bangladesh. When they had the farmers lose their land and their income, that tribe moves. Now they've moved into another tribal area. So now you've got climate refugees. With the climate refugees, they've gone into another tribal area where that tribe is struggling to survive, so they don't want another tribe. So now you're having these clashes. People say, where do these clashes come from? Well, they come from climate change in some instances, because I've lost everything. I move into your land, you can't afford to have me there. Then the seas move more, so I've got to move. Now you've got two tribes moving. So You've got two groups of people who are climate refugees. And this is happening everywhere. In many places that I've been to, in actual fact, people leaving the countryside to go to the city are climate refugees. They left what they can't sustain to come to find another way to sustain it. But we lose. We lose all those cultures, we lose those languages, we lose. People are not producing the food because nobody's out there doing it. So there's all of these things that go on. But it's a huge shift in what's happened in. I started this, excuse me, up in China and I've been back because I lived in Hong Kong for a long time. I've been there many, many times. And the change is enormous at what's going on. But you can't bring everybody off the land into cities because then you've got mega cities and you've got those problems because no infrastructure. So there's huge things going on. So it's altered everything that happens on the planet today. And that's why I thought it was quite an important thing, because it's not something I'm seeing very much in the sense of who else is documenting it. But it's an enormous change in our society today. Yeah. [01:53:39] Speaker C: How. So how did the idea for this project sort of germinate? Did it. Is it something that you. You had been to a few villages on other assignments and you started to see this and the idea of it becoming a bigger project came about. Or did you. Did you have the idea before you went and started doing these projects in villages? [01:54:04] Speaker B: You're right that I saw it, but then I also. My in laws had a sheep property and I saw all the changes that were going, going. In fact, when I began and I did that big shoot of the. In the 80s that got me launched and I was doing droughts and fires. I went to Bendigo because there was. The farmers there couldn't afford to feed their sheep. So they're putting them all in a pit and putting lime over them, killing all, killing execution, shooting the sheep and then putting them in his feet. And because they couldn't do it, now all this meat is going, all this wool is going, all this is going because climate change is happening because they can't afford to do it. So there was that. So I was on my wife's family's sheep property and seeing all these issues that were going on in the countryside then, going and seeing people going into, in and out of China in the countryside and seeing what was happening. In fact, I went To a video village one day in China early on in this project, and I saw all these jeans lying on the road just up and down the main street. There were piles and piles of jeans. I couldn't figure out what was going on. What had happened was that people had left that village and gone to get jobs in the city and Shenzhen and everywhere where the zones are from to doing things. And the conditions were not very good. People committing suicide. There was. Conditions were so bad. So. But they. People picked up ideas, went back to the villages, and then they thought, we can make buttons. This could be a village that makes buttons, and we can make good living making buttons. Or in this instance of the jeans, we can sell these jeans. Who then will sell them in New York for $500 a pair? Because they look all groovy and torn and they've got holes in them and they. They've got, you know, the blue is coming off. And we don't tell them that. They just lie in the middle. And we put the cattle across and we put the trucks across them and we walk on every morning. And then they go to New York for hundreds of dollars. But that started a business. So I saw all this changes, right? And then it started to dawn on me what was going on. So nothing is ever one thing. It's just as you start to see things. And I did a book about the Jesuits I've done. I've worked with the Jesuits since I'm 20. I've done a few books with them, and at that stage, I did a book about them. And I visited villages around the world as part of what I was doing for this project. And I was seeing the same things again. So it just started to reinforce. So it became something that I thought, I have to do this because I think this is what's going on. So it was just the seed, and then another seed, and then it glows and it just comes. Becomes that way. Yeah, it always is with projects. It's not. Suddenly the bulb goes off and that's it. It takes something to see. And then you go checking, has it been done before? And. Yeah, so. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. [01:57:07] Speaker C: I wouldn't mind hearing you talk about if. If you don't mind. Can I do this first of all before I'll bring this up? Is this going to work? No. Yes, There it is. So this video. [01:57:25] Speaker B: Yeah, this. [01:57:26] Speaker C: This video. It's on your YouTube channel. It's from. It's from a while ago, but I might just play it without sound. And I thought maybe I found it interesting just Watching the scenes from this and wondering about your process. Process when you are going into a place you've never been before with people you've never met to document them and capture photos for this project and what your process is into. Breaking down barriers, making sure they're comfortable, just that, that kind of thing. Is that something you could. [01:58:02] Speaker B: Yeah, sure, sure, I can, I can do that. Do you want. While the film is going or do you want. [01:58:06] Speaker C: Yeah, I thought so. Because I just thought it was interesting watching you, watching you work. But I'd love to hear your thoughts behind it at the same time. [01:58:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Look, I enjoy the company of people and I enjoy different cultures. I'm fascinated by their food, their lives, everything. And I can chat to them even if I have to use an interpreter. I can find ways of talking to people and getting on with them. I usually learn a couple of words, words before I go to a new culture. You know, hello, please, thank you or something. And it's usually not a very good accent. And so they laugh and you've got them. And I always ask questions about them. I always get my interpreter say, how many children you got, how long you been married? Where do you do, what's your, you know. So they feel like they are the center of attention, not me. Sure they're interested in why did I come here and all that, but once I get them the center of attention and I show an interest in them because people don't come out there and take much interest in these people. So that's my thing. I talk to them and find out about who they are and trying to understand them or what they think. And it's not that hard with an interpreter to kind of get a rapport going on with people and listen to them and respect them. And that's really important, respect what they do, how they do it. It's not. I come here, I'm an Anglo Saxon middle aged male. I'm a person that's come here because I'm interested in your life and your way of life and what goes on. So I ask them about their life and I take an interest in what they do. And then I just wander around and I just shoot what's going on. Sometimes I get nothing. Some days I just wander and nothing happens. Some days something happens and you just keep doing it. You spend the time and then you get something. Yeah, and sometimes I might just drive through a village, see something, stop, wander over with the interpreter and talk to them and then something happens. Yeah. [02:00:01] Speaker C: How long, how long are you normally somewhere for? Or is it. Is it loosely planned? Depends on. On how it evolves. [02:00:09] Speaker B: We book. We usually book a week or so to spend in places, and we just see how it goes. You get to a village, maybe it's not. You go to another village. That might work. You know, it just. Anema might need to stay longer. I always give it enough a week or so. But it really depends on what happens and who the people are helping you and how efficient they are and that sort of things. And if you pick the right person in the village, somebody. Everybody knows everybody in the village. But if you're someone that they respect or they will listen to you, you. You find it a lot easier to. To go and do it. Yeah. [02:00:48] Speaker C: I. I love these images too. Like the. That are popping up in between these shots. And just the. The entire aesthetic of the images in the book, they're like. It's. It's like my dream style of photography. It's the sort of photography I'd love to be able to create. Especially is when you started the project, did you want it to be in black and white? Was that. [02:01:13] Speaker B: Yes? Yes. Why? Well, I've always been a fan of Koudelka Salgado, Eugene Smith, and I think that you take the color away and you're relying on content, composition and lighting. When you put color in there, you had an added factor, a different. So it's a different scene. And often you'll see a lot of these people are not. Don't have a lot of money or don't have a lot of wealth or whatever. And as soon as you put color in there, they don't. You take away that kind of. You're looking at the color, you're not looking at what's going on. So rather than that, I just take the color out and I find it's much stronger. And then you're concentrating on them. And if they were wearing a beautiful blue outfit, in actual fact, it's very cheap. Soon as you put it into black and white, you're not looking at that blue outfit. You're looking at what's going on. Yeah, yeah. You look at a lot of stuff as it goes. Later on, there's a lot of using of light. I chase the light all the time, so that's really important to me. And I find that I can work better in black and white with the way I use light. [02:02:27] Speaker C: Let's look at the rest of this. Just. There's a little bit more. Yeah, I just. I found this fascinating watching. I could watch. I could watch hours and hours of this footage with the. With the images coming in that you take. Yeah. I wish someone had followed you for the entire project with a video camera. That's so cool. [02:02:51] Speaker B: Let's see. [02:02:52] Speaker A: It is very cool. [02:02:53] Speaker B: Yeah. It's lovely to be able to show them what you've done as well. [02:02:57] Speaker A: Yep. [02:02:59] Speaker C: Yeah. A big plus from the film days. [02:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Dave is fantastic. Very good filmmaker. [02:03:07] Speaker A: Can I ask you a question about photography genres, Michael? I think at the start of the show you talked about being a photojournalist and a documentary photographer. How do you define the two as being different styles or are they not different styles? [02:03:23] Speaker B: We thought different styles in some ways. But all documentary is journalism because it's a form of writing, isn't it? So this is a form of taking pictures. But what it is as photojournalism, mainly it was. I had a deadline, I had to get done done. I'm working for a publication that want it done, want to cover this. Whereas with documentary, I'm more free. I can go there, spend my time, not have somebody telling me what their. What they want. It's just what I want and how I want to do it and how I see it. So I'll document it in the way that I want to document it and show it the way I want to show it. Yeah. And that's what documentary is. It's a form of journalism, but in a form, form. A longer form of journalism. Yeah. Yep. Yep. [02:04:13] Speaker A: Thank you. Did you have any other questions, Justin, that you wanted to cover off? [02:04:21] Speaker C: Like a million. [02:04:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:04:25] Speaker C: Keep Michael here all day. [02:04:26] Speaker B: If we can, we could, we could. [02:04:28] Speaker C: I don't know. [02:04:28] Speaker B: I just. [02:04:29] Speaker C: I want to hear more about the book. Like, because. So 10 years. What. How many countries are represented? [02:04:36] Speaker B: I went to 50 countries. [02:04:40] Speaker C: And. Okay, how did you know when the book was done. [02:04:47] Speaker B: Something called Covert happened and that stopped me at head in my tracks. [02:04:52] Speaker C: Okay. There was a. It was a good time to be like, okay, we can. We can stop here. [02:04:57] Speaker B: Well, look it. And they're not a slip and answer now. I set out to show certain things. You know, I wanted to show the changes, I wanted to show the effects. I wanted to show people enjoying themselves in their lives that they had in rural areas. And I had everything that ticked all the boxes that showed it. I wanted to show things that caused the reasons that people were moving or how people dealt with what was going on. So all of those things happened. So I ticked the boxes and I thought, well, I can't really do any more. I'm just repeating it, you know, if I Go back. I've been to different Latin American countries. If I go back there again, I'm just going to repeat what I did in other Latin American countries. So I don't have a whole sort of a whole series of the same thing happening in different countries. I'm trying to show use as a global thing, but by using different countries. Countries as that example for that global thing. Yeah. So I was, over the period of time I felt like I was able to show the different issues that were happening and the different situations that were going on in rural areas. Yeah. [02:06:09] Speaker A: So you don't think it's a project that's. Sorry, Michael, you go, oh, I haven't. [02:06:15] Speaker B: Stopped, I'm still doing it. [02:06:16] Speaker A: I'm sorry. [02:06:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Because it's, you know, there's 190 something countries in the world. Depends on how you define the country. So I'd like to do more in different things and keep going because the world so moving so quickly. You asked about AI before. Well, it's changed so much. So it's again, it's changing. In fact we had then the sea change. People wanted to go back to the countryside and that stopped People that went to the countryside up, they've come back again. Not all. So, so the changes keep going back and forth. So even though I got to a point of saying what I wanted to say, it keeps changing. So I'm still doing it. It may become another book or what, I don't know what will happen but, but it, it goes on. But I did come to a point where you've said it, you can't say anymore about this at this stage. [02:07:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was going to be my question about, you know, know the, the effects of, of climate change, which is a catalyst, I guess for this book's creation. They're ongoing and if, if, if nothing else, they're actually accelerating. [02:07:23] Speaker B: Yes. [02:07:23] Speaker A: And now, you know, we've got governments denying them and all of that sort of stuff happening. [02:07:27] Speaker B: So. [02:07:27] Speaker A: Yeah, but I guess my question was going to be, yeah, is this a continuing project? But you've already answered that, so thank you. And, and so what else? [02:07:37] Speaker B: You go, what else? [02:07:39] Speaker A: I was just going to say what else have you got on the horizon? What else are you working on? Are you still picking up photojournal? Like are you still on assignments for publications? Where are you at at the moment? [02:07:52] Speaker B: I'm, I'm really doing that and I'm doing speaking, speaking, doing lectures and various things or public speaking. I do a lot of public speaking around the world. I've got, I'm shooting odd bits and pieces, but nothing. A lot of it's focused on doing this village project because. Yeah, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm heading off again to do various things and I just want to keep doing it. I mean, I find it fascinating and I'm enjoying it. And what I'll do is I'll sell images for it, sell stories from it. It's. Everything I do is multi layered, so it always has been. Working at Blackstar, I, you know, learned all about multi, Multitasking really, you know, selling stock to one agency under speaking contract to another agency, you know, my editorial under that agency. Yeah. So there's always various things going. So I'm always trying to look at ways that I can make money by doing, say, one trip. I look at different ways of doing things. Yeah. [02:08:56] Speaker C: And that's how this, this, this entire project, this book, it's all self funded in the sense that you, you, you pay for your expenses and then you have to figure out a way to recoup money by selling images and things like that to be able to keep doing this. You know, like, travel's not cheap these days. How do you continue to afford. Because this isn't just a project where you can just walk out at your door and take some photos each day. You've got to fly to the other side of the planet to document these places. Do you have to try and get, I don't know, people to help fund those trips or is it something you take on your own and then you try and figure out how to pay for that. [02:09:44] Speaker B: Through the journey. I've been, at the beginning of the journey, I was given a grant and I did assignments. I did what, I did assignments. When I'm in assignments, I'd stay and shoot stuff for myself, so. Or I get assignments from an area and that was in the sort of work that I was doing for the Village. You know, there's a few things in there I, I shot for an online news service and it was exactly what I wanted for the Village. So I shoot for them and then it worked out for me. So I did a lot of stuff like that. So all sorts of ways, it's just every way. Yes, I paid for some trips because I wanted to go to particular places, but I just look for all different ways of doing it. So if I'm paying for a trip, all right, what can I do with this? Who can I sell that to? What can I do with that? Will that help me with something else that I'm doing. So. Yeah, it's just trying to always multitask all the time and. And earn the money in different ways. Not. Not in the obvious way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so that's what I do. Yeah. It's not. It's not. That's not an escape clause for me, that answer. It's just the right. Some have paid for, some I've paid for, some has been assignments. It's just a multitude of what ways, otherwise you couldn't do it. No one's going to put up the money that this would have cost to do, and I certainly don't have millions of dollars. But there's just a. Found ways all the time. I could find ways of doing it, whether it was for assignments or whatever. Yeah. [02:11:17] Speaker C: I think the kids these days call it hustling. Just whatever's. Yeah, Whatever's got to be done. [02:11:22] Speaker A: To me, that's a good word for it. A hustle. [02:11:27] Speaker C: Or. All right, if you need to go, just let us know. But I have a couple more questions, just because we haven't had enough amazing stories yet. First of all, why can't people in China buy your book? [02:11:43] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. When you see the book, there's several things that they didn't like. I don't know which one they don't like. There's. First of all, there's the mining. I sneaked and got into a mining village and photographed the miners there. And the government were really furious because they didn't want people to see the terrible conditions of the miners. That was one. What else didn't they like? Oh, they didn't like the way I'd shown the wee people, the indigenous people. And there's. I can't remember. There's a few things they didn't. Didn't like. They didn't feel it was a true, true reflection of village life in China because it wasn't their reflection. [02:12:24] Speaker C: I was gonna say what. They wanted it to be a little bit nicer and prettier and. [02:12:28] Speaker B: That's right. [02:12:29] Speaker C: In color. [02:12:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I'm not the only person friends of mine have had books back when it's. A book of theirs was printed in China, the Chinese had taken out things they didn't like out of his book. Wow. [02:12:45] Speaker A: Remove pages. [02:12:46] Speaker B: Wow. [02:12:48] Speaker A: That's crazy. [02:12:50] Speaker B: So, yeah, they didn't like what I said about China. There was a couple of things in there they were upset about. So that was it. Yeah. Banned. They didn't like the naked miners bottoms, I don't think. Oh, picture that. Picture you had up before their miners in a public bar. I don't think they like that. [02:13:12] Speaker C: Oh, actually, here we go. I'm gonna. Oh, whoops. I just liked that photo. I was quick trying to find it to bring it up and I liked it. So hopefully no one comes after me. So. [02:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, you see that? Yeah. It's all cold coal embedded in their skins and they're dying from the. The mind, the breathing diseases. They don't have proper equipment or nothing. It was terrible. Yeah, yeah. And so I shot it and they didn't like it at all. [02:13:42] Speaker C: The images are this. [02:13:43] Speaker B: And that's the one in the book. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that took a while to get. Because I had to shoot it to show them naked but not front on. So with all the men going in and out, that was very difficult. I didn't think I'd get it past the sensor with the front on. [02:14:01] Speaker C: Yeah. How many. How many penis images did you have to get color out of your lightroom library while you were trying to find the right shot for the book? You're like, oh, no, penis, penis, penis. This one work? [02:14:13] Speaker B: There were some. [02:14:16] Speaker C: Wow. [02:14:17] Speaker A: I think we should clip that. Little question there, Justin, about how many penis images for. For social media. I think that'll do really well. [02:14:24] Speaker C: I'll get on that. [02:14:25] Speaker A: You questioning guests about their penis images. [02:14:27] Speaker B: Okay, go back up. Back again. There's one of the others that they didn't like. This one here. Oh, sorry, I'm pointing at it. The death scene there. The we. [02:14:36] Speaker C: Oh, this. This one? [02:14:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's not in the book. That's another one. But the one in the book they don't like. Yeah. Oh, that one's in the book. [02:14:45] Speaker C: Yeah, that one's in the book. [02:14:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:14:47] Speaker C: These seem like very, very intense moments that you were a part of. [02:14:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yes. And the people said I could do it. They didn't, you know, they didn't stop me. I. I saw them in a village. We're driving through this village and we saw these people walking in a line and we. And I asked my fixer what was going on. She said, it's a funeral. An old man has died. I said, ask me if I can come and photograph it. And they said, yes. So I went to this hut where he was, and I managed to shoot for all these angles. The lighting was terrible. Terrible lighting. It was just like coming through. I mean, it's really nice in that way, but it's very little light coming through a doorway. And it was. The women were celebrating the man's life. So it was quite fascinating, the whole thing. But when you ask, look, it's about that respect thing. I asked. I just didn't burst into the room and do anything or take pictures. I asked my mind, can we do this? And they said yes. So we did it. Yeah. [02:15:50] Speaker C: Just while I'm on your Instagram, scrolling through these images and if. Also, if you don't follow Michael, you're crazy. Go over there and at michaelcoin photographer, and follow. Is there anything else that stands out from the book or anything else that you've got a fun story from? Maybe a crazy, crazy adventure that happened? [02:16:14] Speaker B: Oh, keep going. I'll see if there's any other interests. Oh, look, come down. Go down. Go down. The other way. The other way, the other way. Go up. [02:16:20] Speaker C: Oh, this way. [02:16:21] Speaker B: Sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, just keep going. Keep going. There's a man there with a gun. Just go on him, please. Okay. [02:16:30] Speaker C: Singing KARAOKE Yes. [02:16:32] Speaker B: What? This is when I was. This is in the book. What happened was we were in the rural area of the. The Philippines, and we. We went out to this prison is the local prison. And while I'm walking through the cells, we could hear all this karaoke going on. It was an Elvis Presley impersonation, not very good, I might say. And I said, where's this coming from? So we walk out into the prison yard and we saw this guard doing the karaoke for the prison. So he's got his arm light under his arm. The whole area that he's in is caged in. That's why I came back. And as you see in the right corner, you've got the barbed wire and everything. So you can see it's a cage and you can see the wire across. So I wanted to show that he was in the prison, in the cage, and he's doing this Elvis Presley impersonation which goes into every cell. And the prisoners have no option but to listen to him. Him doing Elvis Presley, is it part. [02:17:35] Speaker A: Of their sentence and their punishment? [02:17:37] Speaker C: Some sort of punishment? [02:17:39] Speaker A: You shall listen to karaoke for the next 20 years. [02:17:42] Speaker B: That's. [02:17:42] Speaker A: That's your sentence. [02:17:44] Speaker B: Bad karaoke. It's very funny, though. It was just one of those weird things. [02:17:50] Speaker C: This is just something that an imagination couldn't think up. You know what I mean? [02:17:55] Speaker B: Like this. [02:17:56] Speaker C: Yeah. This scene is so bizarre. [02:18:00] Speaker A: It is so bizarre because the karaoke machine's massive, but it's just standing there. [02:18:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:18:05] Speaker A: In prison. [02:18:07] Speaker B: So without looking for things, you've got to. Sorry. In a second. Okay. You're always you asked me before about looking for. You never know what you're going to get, but you just have to be. You have to look, you have to walk and you have to look and you have to be inquisitive and find out what's going on. And wander, Wanda, wander. We didn't come to do this, we came to do something else. And then by hearing and seeing and wandering off, you find something. Yeah, sorry. Go, please. [02:18:36] Speaker A: Oh, no, I was just going to say, you know, with all the achievements, I mean, you're also, you know, you've got countless awards under your name. You've shot for the world's biggest publications, both print and online. You know, you're a university lecturer. You've traveled to 50 plus countries over the course of your career. Is there an image that you think defines your journey that you've shot? [02:19:03] Speaker B: I wouldn't, I don't know, to be honest. I, I don't know. I mean. [02:19:12] Speaker A: If someone was going to show one image that, that of yours. [02:19:16] Speaker B: I don't know. I think that's for somebody else to say in the sense of I, I don't know. I do because I just shoot so many different things in so many different ways. Basically, you know, because I shoot. When I was shooting for magazines, I shoot in color. Now I'm shooting black and white because I'm doing these projects. It, you know, I'm, I think I'm known now for all the black and white work I do. And that's what I mainly know. But if you go back 20 years, I was known for the. Stop that one there. Thank you. I, I was known for the color that I was doing with, with national Geographical time or whoever it was. But I was shooting all color, so. Yeah, so it's quite. Yeah, I'd like it to be something in black and white. There is a picture, but let me just do this picture that would. Yes, please. See the woman there with a naked buttock. [02:20:09] Speaker C: Oh, yes, I spotted her. [02:20:12] Speaker B: Okay, all right. Just have a look at this. This. I was in a country town in Australia called New Merca, near Shepparton. Right. You may know it, you may not know it. Okay, so I'm there. I stayed there for three months shooting the, shooting the village there. And one day I get this phone call and the guy said, hi, I'm so and so. And he was the star footballer of the New Merca football club. He said, you haven't photographed my wife. I said, oh, I'm sorry. I said, I don't know. She said, she's the most beautiful woman in town. I want you to take a picture of my wife for your project. So I said, all right. He gave me his phone number. So I rang her up. I said, hello, are you that photo boy? I said, yeah, that's me. She said, oh, well, look, I'm going down to the beauty salon today. If you want to come down, eat a shot of me there. So I go down and this woman in black in the left corner there goes, you're kidding me. She didn't tell you that? I said, yeah. They said, do you know what she's going to do? I said, no, no idea. Say, wait there. And she comes out like she is, right? Nothing but a G string on. I'm going, oh, this, this football is going to kill me. I'm going to be killed. This is terrible. And she walks into there and then this woman in the left start spraying a suntan lotion all over her, right? So I got this job and this woman on the left is a child. I think it's her daughter. And she goes, oh, this is terrible, this is shocking. Which makes the picture right. [02:21:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:21:42] Speaker B: With her going, oh, this is embarrassing. [02:21:44] Speaker A: I can't believe you're doing this, mum. [02:21:46] Speaker B: So, and then that was it. Nothing else was said. Then one day I went out to photograph the new Merca football club. And as I'm walking past the stand, I hear a voice. Oi, photo man. Oi you. I said, yeah. I turn around, there was this big bloke and he said, yeah, I told you my wife was the most beautiful woman in town, didn't I? Said, yeah, thanks very much. [02:22:13] Speaker A: My favorite part of that story is that you've been all over the world. You've had bullets shot at you and mortars fired in your vicinity. You've had to wade through my minefields. Yet you were more concerned about the full, the football star in America. [02:22:24] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you never know. [02:22:28] Speaker A: You don't know. You never know. Absolutely. [02:22:32] Speaker B: Okay, you know, photographs live with you in different ways. Look, can I, can we go for a few more minutes? Tell me when to stop. Go to this man here that's cross legged and sitting there because it's, it's more important than what it seems. [02:22:48] Speaker C: The. It's a video, I think. [02:22:50] Speaker B: Yeah, well, okay, well, let it go. It doesn't matter. What he's doing is singing the death of his language. And so it's really, oh, there's the still of him. He's blind. He's the last man left in the Pikalama tribe that can speak that language. When he dies, his language goes. Now this is what happened is happening to the countryside. This is why we're losing. Losing creatures at 250 a week, I think we're losing them. It's not an exaggeration, the statistics we're losing language is an incredible rate. So much is disappearing of our culture on the planet that we're losing and things like that. So this guy, he's a chief of the Picalama tribe, and that's the last time you're going to hear. Hear the sound of that language. It's gone. Isn't that fascinating? [02:23:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's amazing. [02:23:43] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's why I'm doing this, to kind of get. I'll go back to that. Go back to that one. It's just. It's what happens as you're on the road. The one where the, the, the. The guy's selling the coffins. [02:23:58] Speaker C: Oh, I can't. Hang on. I found that somewhere before because it's a video. I'll see if I can find the. [02:24:03] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Don't worry about. In that case, then. Yeah, it doesn't matter. [02:24:06] Speaker C: I saw this one here somewhere. [02:24:08] Speaker B: Now, look, can I. No, don't worry, keep going because there's plenty. Go, Go down a bit. No, just go down a bit more. Just slow up, up, up. Sorry, I'm going the wrong way for it. No, go the other way. The other way. [02:24:18] Speaker C: Oh, okay, sorry. [02:24:19] Speaker B: Down. Yeah, that's why I said down. And slowly there. And keep going. And this one. Okay, but just click on it for a second. The Men in the Hoods. I just wanted. [02:24:29] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [02:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it's from the book, but. But the reason I wanted to look at it is. You can't. Oh, there's another video. [02:24:38] Speaker C: I'm sorry, I think I can pause it. Hang on, let me. I can do this. [02:24:41] Speaker B: Well, in actual fact, that picture is on the front of my website and you can get it. [02:24:46] Speaker C: Yes, it is, too. [02:24:48] Speaker B: Yeah. I tell you what, I just want to make a point about people who are interested in photography. If you still got people listening. [02:24:55] Speaker C: Absolutely, we do. They're riveted. You know, when the chat goes quiet, that means they're listening, because otherwise they. If it's just me and Greg on here, there'll be a million comments about how uninteresting we are. [02:25:09] Speaker A: Doesn't stop us. [02:25:14] Speaker B: Okay, there it is. I'll just. [02:25:17] Speaker C: Yeah, okay. I want to make a point about. [02:25:19] Speaker B: The structure of the image because it's important. Important if people are interested in photography, that's why? But you can't quite see. But I wanted to do this Samana Santa Easter ceremony. And I was there for a week. We were there for a week and I went every day to these processions every day. And it doesn't finish till late at night. I went because. To get. I got lots of pictures of it, but I wanted to get the defined picture. I want to get one picture that stood out. So the night it was finishing. This is taken at 11 o' clock at night. It was the very last thing I shot between 10 and 11 at night. It might have been a little earlier than 11, but it just. I stopped at one point in this village under a light that just gave me enough light to show them framed in the way they are. That's why if you see it on the website, you'll see the full frame. How it's all. All laid out. Excuse me. Composed. And it's the full frame. Always shoot the full frame. What you want, you keep in. What you don't want, you cut out. [02:26:25] Speaker C: Yep, I found it. I think I've got it here. Sharon said that. Oh, damn. The. The. [02:26:32] Speaker B: There it is. [02:26:34] Speaker C: Yeah, Hang on the book. Because the book, it automatically flips through, which is actually quite. It's an awesome way to get. Of the book, but I can't keep it on one picture. All right, there it goes. I thought I'd figured out a way to do it. There we go. [02:26:53] Speaker B: Okay. Because look at the content and look at the composition. Yes, I know, but there was a composition that, that, that I was looking for and the content. But it was the time I took a week to get that one picture because. Yes, I've got the others. But this, that's what you're doing to try and get those sort of pictures. They don't just come. Sometimes you're lucky. But I kept trying and trying and trying and it was really literally the last night when they stopped at that moment in that formation with those candles there. Just enough light on those candles, just enough light to silhouette them against the wall. Bang. And it. It. That's. You can get the pictures, but getting the one that says it and has strength to it takes a lot of work. Takes a lot of work. It's not just luck. Yeah. [02:27:44] Speaker C: So I have a question. This will probably seem maybe like a beginner question, but it's something that's always been in my mind is obviously so much of this. So much of your work for this project and other stuff that you've done has been documentary and not not changing the scene. And not setting things up, but sometimes it is a portrait, just a portrait of somebody like the men that were. I'll try and find it. The men standing in front of the coffins, you know, they're standing in front of the coffin for sale. [02:28:20] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. [02:28:21] Speaker C: And the two men are standing, looking at the camera. And it's a beautiful image. Yeah, but it. But. But it's a. So how do you. How do you know when to. When to just document the scene? So you spent a week just trying to capture that image because you weren't telling those people where to stand. This is my perfect shot. You stand here. You stand here. You stand here. I'm going to get this photo. You had to wait for that moment to happen. But then for some other images, particularly when it's of a character, I guess it's. It's okay for them to, I guess, pose for the camera. How do you. Yeah, how does that work in your head? [02:28:58] Speaker B: Well, if it's not something that's a scene, it's just a headshot. I just ask them to stand there in the light or hold it there in the light or look over here or something like that. I don't see that that's altering anything because I'm not shifting them to another background. I'm not doing anything, really. I'm just asking him to hold that or whatever I am. But that's what they are, you know, unless I'm putting up a background or unless, like you've got. I saw you had one. A picture there of one of the wee people standing against the wall. Well, I set up a sheet on that wall because there was all this Chinese graffiti on the wall. And. And I'd already got the trouble with the government because I shot some people in front of a wall before in China, and it had a number there where you could buy the local drugs and gu. Oh, well, I don't speak Putin. Wa. Yeah. I didn't know because somebody said that was a bit dangerous putting that number up. He must have changed his phone number after that picture went live or business was booming. [02:30:00] Speaker A: Who knows? [02:30:02] Speaker B: Funny you asked about the. The picture of the men standing at the coffin. We're driving along this old dream road in Papua New guinea, and as we came around the corner, we saw these two guys with his coffin. So I said, stop, stop, stop. I leapt out to take the picture and. And we thought, Jesus, you know, I bet he doesn't have much business. We literally went around the corner and there were a gang of rascals there. Do you know what the rascals are? They're the young men and they've got axes and knives and they attack and kill people and they attacked our country car. And luckily we had a local driver that knew. And as soon as they started heading into the car and they got to the car, but he just put his foot down, flat down and knocked him out the way. And we went. Yeah, wow. Yeah. So I'd stopped for that image, but it was fun. I think nobody's gonna buy a coffin around here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was nearly your coffee. They nearly had three coffins. [02:30:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Obviously it's, you know, location, location, location, drumming up business. [02:31:06] Speaker B: But an environmental portrait, Justin, is an environmental portrait. You know, it's not like you're trying to say something about scene other than the person that you get. Unless you've got like I had with a Chinese guy standing there with a bit of writing on the wall and all the rest of it. Yeah, yeah, it is. [02:31:23] Speaker C: And so, and so that's the difference. It's either an environment portrait or you're trying to document the scene as it unfolds in front of you as opposed to saying, hey, it'd actually be really good if you, if you could, if you could stand over there while you. Yeah, yeah. Or while you, while you prepare your meal or whatever it is you're doing. Can you just do it over there because the light's better, you know? You know what I mean? [02:31:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:31:46] Speaker C: And then where those lines are for different. [02:31:50] Speaker B: But they're always great. [02:31:52] Speaker C: Yeah, well that's true. Yeah, exactly. Because at the end of the day, it's an art form that, you know, there are no. There's rules, but there are no rules. [02:31:59] Speaker B: That's correct. Yeah. [02:32:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. [02:32:02] Speaker C: I've always found that really interesting when looking. [02:32:04] Speaker B: There's a portrait in the book. I thought we kept flicking past it. Yeah. Of an old man, a 92 year old farmer in the Ukraine. No, it was. No, not Ukraine, it. Uzbekistan. It's a close up of him, but I asked him to sit near the window. So it's exactly what you said. He's got his eyes shut. It's a black background. [02:32:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll see if I can find it on here. [02:32:31] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you have to go the other way. It's right at the top. [02:32:33] Speaker C: Oh, it's up the top. Oh, I think I know the. [02:32:38] Speaker B: Yeah, there he is. [02:32:39] Speaker C: This one. [02:32:40] Speaker B: Yes. [02:32:40] Speaker A: Yep. [02:32:45] Speaker B: So he's just sitting in the window. [02:32:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yep. [02:32:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:32:48] Speaker C: But it's a portrait. It's a portrait as opposed To a. Yeah, yeah. [02:32:53] Speaker B: And there's nothing there. He was sitting. He was sitting near there. I think he was sitting in a chair. I just asked him, move the chair closer to the light. That was all. But I don't see any problem with that because I've changed nothing except the light on his face. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which was really nice. Yeah, yeah. [02:33:09] Speaker C: It's a beautiful shot, especially with the hand. The hand there. [02:33:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:33:14] Speaker C: Oh, man. So cool. So many great images. Is there any, any. Any trips that stand out in your mind as sort of big moments in this project where you sort of thought, I don't know, like it's really starting to come together or a turning point or anything like that? For such a long project with so many locations. [02:33:39] Speaker B: Oh, look, so many things happened along the way that were just fabulous. And if you kept. I thought if I keep getting pictures like this, like the man on the COVID of the book, the Chicken Man. That was very funny. I mean, we. Paul Burrows, you know, Paul Burrows, the editor of Professional Photography magazine. Anyway, Paul Burrows is a local guy and Paul knows someone in Italy who he stays with and who introduced me to the owners of the property, and they helped me get around that part of Italy in that village. And they said, my grandfather. She said, my grandfather has a farm. Do you want to come up to the farm? So go up to the farm. And when we're up there, I asked him, asked his grandfather if he wouldn't mind being photographed. And he said, yeah, look, I don't mind being photographed. Can I put my chicken in the photograph? I said, sure, you can get your chicken. So he goes over the. Goes over the coop, he gets his chicken out and he starts giving. He does opera and he's like Buddy Pini giving his piece of opera was amazing. So. So the chicken must be used to this. Then chicken lifts its head up so you've got the cock there. But then the wind blew his hair up like he's cock. You see that? Yep. And it's just standing on it. And he's like the chicken with his hair standing on end, and he's got his mouth wide open like a chicken. And I thought, oh, this is beautiful. There you go. That's the picture. That's my life. That's the picture I'd use. If you want to use a picture from my work. [02:35:24] Speaker A: Go with that one. Michael, can I ask you to elaborate on the title of the book? So Village Hearing the. Obviously the village part you've explained in detail, but hearing the grass grow. Talk to us. [02:35:37] Speaker B: A little bit about that. George Elliot's Middlemarsh. And if you listen, there's a quote in there about, things are so still in the countryside. You can hear the grass grow and the villages and the rabbits. Yeah, it goes on. It's a little poem there. Yeah, that's how it comes from. And I thought, what a beautiful thing to say, hearing the grass grow. Because in the countryside, you sit there, it's so quiet, and you are hearing the grass grow in that sense. Yeah. So I thought that was really lovely thing to say. Yeah, that's why. [02:36:10] Speaker A: No, it's lovely. Thank you for sharing that. [02:36:13] Speaker C: I can't wait to get it. I'll be ordering mine asap, although I don't. Unfortunately, I don't think I can afford the slipcover one. Unfortunately, I'll have to stick with the standard. I had a question written down. Where's it gone? Oh, yeah. So you're still adventuring around the world? World. [02:36:38] Speaker B: What? [02:36:39] Speaker C: Are there any habits or daily practices or exercises or things that you do to be able to just keep traveling the world and going to these crazy places, listening to people sing, opera, chickens. Yeah. How do you. How do you stay ready to do this work? [02:37:00] Speaker B: All right, there's several things. And if any of my friends or family listening, you're going to go, oh, I play tennis. I play a lot of tennis when I'm home. But with tennis, you have to move a lot. You have to think a lot. You have to move back and forward. You have to move like I move when I'm taking pictures. You know, I use your feet a lot. You've got to think before it happens. You're looking for the decisive moment of when to hit the ball. There's a lot of. There's a lot of comparable things I do at tennis that I do at when I'm taking photographs. So I'm always moving because I'm. I mean, I'm watching. I'm trying to fill the frame. You know, I'm looking at your head now, Justin. There's something behind your head. I would have immediately moved or gone down or gone to the other side. You know, it's just an automatic reflex. But when I'm doing tennis, you know, I don't know where the ball is going to go till it leaves the racket. And I've got between the ball leaving the racket and going over the net to make a decision. Now, that is a very quick decision, exactly the same as when you're taking a photograph. Right. So, yeah, I'm doing The same things in another way. Not as well, I must say, in tennis, I have to tell you, but doing the same things as I would in the that. Moving a lot, quickly, slowly thinking, working out what's going at and where I should be. All of those things are the same. So I do that a lot. I have an exercise regime I do at least five times a week to keep myself fit. I read enormous amounts about. I love reading, so I read books about places I'm going to or where I've been, do a lot of research. So, yeah, so I keep my mind active to keep my body active. And I'm trying to understand what's going on. So I'm reading like we were up in Mova a little while ago. Mova is a Russian part of Moldova, and Russia has been looking at Moldova and taking it over for a long time. But I needed to know that because I got into the Russian area when I was there. It's quite dangerous for somebody like me. If the Russian army knew I was there, I would have been gone. So, you know, you've got to be careful. So I knew about all these things because I'm reading about it, so constantly reading about what's going on and trying to understand what's happening and where I should be and what to do and not what not to do. Yeah. So all of that. Yes. So they're the things that I do plenty of exercise. [02:39:32] Speaker C: What's your exercise regime? [02:39:35] Speaker B: I lift weights. Not small weights, not big weights. Upper body. Yeah. I'm only a tiny guy. I'm only five foot six. But it, it's. It's not. It's just keeping up and down all day, you know, lifting. Because. Not that I carry all the bags now. When we were shooting 64, I needed lights like you wouldn't believe. So I got lights, tripods, you know, stands. And carrying all that bloody stuff for years. Now I don't. Because the camera's are so good that you can. You don't need so much lighting. But it's by keeping doing all these things. So I also do. Probably. It's hard to tell, but I do meditation as well about five times a week. [02:40:18] Speaker C: Really? That's great. Do you do most of this stuff in the mornings? [02:40:23] Speaker B: Yes, I do it in the morning. I'm an early morning person. That's the other thing. When I'm traveling, I'm up early in the morning, an hour before the early morning light. So I can see. I can see what it's like. And in village life, people are working early, because it's either too hot or too cold during the day. Usually it gets too hot in places I go to. So working early or late. So I'm up very early and I'll be working quite late. Yeah. So, yeah, when you're on the road, you work. You work forever. You know, you get little sleep and all that. You've got to be really prepared for everything and sleep if you're in a decent bed or a bed at all. That's good. Yeah. You just think, I'm in the countryside sometimes in the jungles or deserts or things. There are no hotels where I go, places I go to. We've stayed in a cave. I slept on concrete slab in the sedan. Look, all my colleagues do. I'm no different from everybody else at does this sort of work. You do what you could. And the place I was in, out in the jungle in South America, up somewhere and just off the Amazon. And I was staying in the hut away from the main building. And I'd walk from, like the length of my house, right from the main building to the hut I was staying in. And I would tread carefully and I'd stand at the door, wait, and quickly open and shut it because of all the snakes that were in the area. And then I spent my time trying to kill the mosquitoes before I got under the mosquito net. And there's always one that gets in the mosquito net. [02:41:58] Speaker C: Yeah. It's not all. It's. It's not all, you know, just romping around taking photos, is it? It's. It's all the hard stuff that. [02:42:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:42:07] Speaker C: Is in between the images. [02:42:09] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [02:42:11] Speaker A: I've got a question. [02:42:13] Speaker C: Oh, okay. [02:42:13] Speaker A: If you don't mind, this will be my last question, I promise. You've been to so many places, you've seen so many amazing things. You know, historical, you know, country changing events. Is there a place that you haven't been, that you've wanted to, but for whatever reason you just can't. Can't get there? [02:42:37] Speaker B: Oh, not. Not really. I mean, it was only 50 for the book. I've been in a lot more countries than that during my work. Other work. [02:42:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:42:47] Speaker B: So I've been to most. [02:42:49] Speaker A: Only 50. You said only 50 for the book. [02:42:52] Speaker B: I'm doing it from the other 20 or 30 I've been to for other projects. But no, not, not really. I mean, I love going to. It doesn't matter where you go. I can always find something interesting there in those countries. But no, not really. Is there anywhere I haven't been that I'D really like to go. Yeah, the place I'd like to go back to, but. But no, there's no. I've been to most of the people on. On the list. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough. Yeah. There was just, you know, at one stage when I was in Iran, the Contra deal had happened. Do you guys know the Contra deal, Robert? [02:43:32] Speaker A: Vaguely, but not, not. [02:43:34] Speaker C: That's what I was about to say. [02:43:35] Speaker B: Was doing deals under the table that the government didn't know about with the conquestors and they're not conquests with the rebels in down in Latin America and he did a deal with the Iranians. Okay. So what happened was George Bush senior and Oliver north, who was involved in the Contra affair, came to Tehran in an Irish plane with a present for Khomeini, a chocolate cake and a Bible. And the government wouldn't let them in and left them in the plane with the chocolate cake and the Bible until they went away. It's just the most amazing thing which is quite extraordinary and I mean it's been documented historical so it's not a kind of a. But that was how stupid they were. They come with a Bible and a bloody chocolate cake to talk to them at that time of the Contra affairs, huge issues and because I was going back and forward into Tehran and working there, doing all this stuff and getting into Khamenei's house and all that sort of stuff. The White House rang National Geographic. Who the is this guy? What's going on there? So yeah, like it was kind of really strange having the White House. It's not Donald Trump. It happens with all of them. So they were kind worried what seeing there. [02:45:07] Speaker A: Nice. [02:45:08] Speaker B: Anyway. Too much for you? [02:45:10] Speaker C: Never. No, no. Here's the comments from before. Matt. Matt Talk talks Photography Matt Palmer from Alpine Light Gallery says still listening. What a great way to start the day. LTK said, just been. Just been listening and editing. And Paul said yep, still listening, just not typing. So yeah, they were all. [02:45:26] Speaker A: Yeah, they're all still there. [02:45:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I did still have a question and. And this comment from Andrew Chapman kind of helps lead into it. Personal projects are a must do for photographers. It makes all aspects of their work stronger, as you can see from Michael's work. And my question was what advice do you have for people that. That maybe struggle to come up with an idea for a personal project or just to get started, but they want to push their photography with a personal project. Do you have any advice? [02:45:58] Speaker B: Well, you. I read the papers. It's what I said before about reading a Lot I look at what's going on and I mean, the way I started with a personal project, I went out and did that. Nobody paid me to go and do that. That project about the drought and fires and I put a lot of time into it. But you've. You've got. Well, that's the first thing you have to do, is put a lot of time into it. But you could do anything. I mean, if you want to do it, it's not hard to find something. You can document your local basketball club, your local football club. And I mean document, not photograph the games, because what goes on, the training that goes on, the after effects, the. That happen. You know, some footballers or basketball players end up with images, injuries, so there's that going to hospital. There are so many things that go around, these things that you could take any topic. So what I suggest is if you're involved in something, so I say football club or basketball club, if you're a member of a tennis club, you can document life in a tennis player. You know, it's not hard, it's just that look at what goes on or look at the paper, what's going on, what's happening in wherever you live, you know, there's an event happening. I could spend a week at the Melbourne show and don't do cliche pictures, look for something. Always shoot a picture that's not a cliche. You know, you can. The boundary you've got. There's no boundaries on these things. You just have to use your imagination. But find a topic that you. Find a topic that you care about, you like, you love or you're interested in or involved in, because then you know what it's about, then you understand what's going on. So that's why I use these easy examples of sporting club, because a lot of people follow sport. So why don't you involve yourself in it? Go to the changing rooms, go all the things that happen, not just the actual game, but all the things that surround it that make it happen. There's so many things that make something happen that you can make a series out of it, but choose something that you know and understand and care about so you can be involved in it. Yep. [02:48:00] Speaker A: That's fantastic advice. [02:48:02] Speaker C: Excellent. Exactly what I was hoping for. I'm going to clip that, put on YouTube and we'll be famous. I think it's great advice. [02:48:14] Speaker B: Can I say one thing? That's my mantra. The cameras and lenses now are fantastic. The equipment is good. That's not what take pictures. It's there in your head, it's there in your heart, and it's there in your gut. That's what takes pictures. They're only machines that help you move along. Okay. [02:48:36] Speaker A: Indeed. [02:48:38] Speaker B: That's it. [02:48:38] Speaker C: Love it. And with that, Fuji's just released the new X. No, I'm kidding. Head to fujifilm.com and get yours today. [02:48:49] Speaker B: Hang on, hang on a second. Can I take this out of the ramps? I can, because you got one. [02:48:59] Speaker C: Oh, dear. [02:49:00] Speaker A: Love it. [02:49:01] Speaker B: Love it. [02:49:01] Speaker C: It's an important thing. Like Gears, gear is not the most important thing, but it's. It is, you know, it's still fun. You can enjoy your camera. You can get a new camera if you can afford it and you want a new one or whatever. But you're right, it's not what makes the images. [02:49:13] Speaker B: No. And you gotta know it really well. You gotta keep using it to know it. And when you know it, you don't have to think about how it works. You just do it. Like you drive your car, turn it on, and away it goes. Yeah. Yep. That's important. [02:49:25] Speaker A: Definitely. Absolutely. [02:49:27] Speaker C: It makes a difference. It definitely does. I've played around with different camera systems and stuff like that, but ultimately I end up shooting with my canons because I've put hundreds of thousands of reps in on. On shooting it in different situations. So it's just. I know exactly what it's going to do before I try and make an image with it. And I sort of end up just gravitating back to that. [02:49:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. [02:49:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:49:52] Speaker B: Now we can't end on that, Greg, because the last camera word should not be what he said. [02:49:57] Speaker A: No, it shouldn't be, obviously. [02:50:00] Speaker C: Let's talk about Fujifilm. [02:50:01] Speaker B: Oh, oh. [02:50:02] Speaker C: I have a question. I have a Fujifilm question. I have a Fujifilm related question. Do you use Fujifilm's. What are they called, film simulation, JPEG recipe things, or do you shoot RAW? [02:50:18] Speaker B: I shoot two ways. I shoot RAW and JPEG. The JPEGs are always in black and white, so I can see what I'm doing because I'm working in black and white. If I'm working in color, I switch it to color and just I can see it. And I have to say, and I'm sure all cameras are the same, the JPEGs that come out are great. You can use them. The RAW files are something to put away, as, you know, to file because they're the negatives. But the JPEGs that come out, these cameras are just. I just did a job the other day and just sent the JPEG straight Off. That's all I needed because they're so good now, but I, and when I'm shooting in black and white, White, I can just shoot those. I can see the black and white because the black jpegs are in black and white. I can use the jpegs. I can send them off to the publishers because they're good enough to use. They're so good. Yeah. [02:51:10] Speaker C: I have another question. So you shoot with the X Pro 3. It still has the optical viewfinder option in it. Yeah. Do you use that or do you use the EVF when you shoot evf, you. Do you like to see the black and white image? [02:51:24] Speaker B: I need to see what I'm doing. Yeah. Because I get very. Because I use wide angle lenses, I get very close. Everything for me. I like to have no barriers between the people I work with. So I, you know, I feel when long lenses push you back now, this is my opinion, everybody has their way of doing things and I like to get close. I like to communicate with the people I'm working with. I like to be connected to them. So I find working with short lens helps me connect with what's going on. Yep. [02:51:56] Speaker C: Brilliant. Brilliant. Any, Any questions, Greg, Anything else that you, you got on your. [02:52:02] Speaker A: No, I, I think, I think Michael has well and truly earned a rest this afternoon after we've grilled him on everything that he's well on a fraction of the things that he's done and seen and known. [02:52:15] Speaker C: To do a. We'll have to do a part two. [02:52:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:52:17] Speaker A: I might have to get you back in the future. Maybe when Village Book 2 comes out, we'll, we'll have a chat. But, but I think, I think that's a good place to park the episode if you're in agreement there, boss. And, but obviously, first and foremost, just want to thank Michael. Thank you so much for your time, for your insight and inspiration. You know, you've, you've, you've taken us on a journey, a global journey of life through your photography and through your work. And, and it's been an absolute pleasure and a little bit of a dream to have you on the podcast today to share that journey with, with us and obviously with our, with our viewers and listeners. So we thank you very much for your time. [02:53:00] Speaker B: My pleasure. And thank you very much for the time it was. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you. [02:53:05] Speaker A: Glad to hear. Very glad. We love what we do and you've just elevated us. I've got goosebumps. So, yeah, it's been such an amazing discussion, Michael and We certainly wish you all the best. So just before we do wrap up, is there any people can head to the website to look at Village the book and obviously to order it? We'll put that in the, in the description. We'll put some links in so people can check it out. [02:53:35] Speaker C: Let me just quickly pull it up while we're doing this. I just want to show people. Hang on. Why isn't this working? There it is. Okay, so if you go to michaelcoin.com and then you click on the Village book, it'll take you over to this site, which is where you can buy it. So that's what it'll look like when you can buy it, which is it's a slightly different website and then you can choose from which package that you want and then go in and order it from there. So get on it. I am going to. I'll do a little. I'll do a little book review after it arrives on the Monday night show. [02:54:07] Speaker A: Yeah, looking forward to it. [02:54:08] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you very much. [02:54:10] Speaker A: But on that note, I think we'll wrap. Justin, did you want to say farewell to a few people in the chat? [02:54:15] Speaker C: I did. I wanted to say. So I just want to read some of these out. So Lisa Leach says, wow. Just wow. Incredible episode. Thank you, Michael, for sharing your amazing stories. Thanks, Justin and Greg. [02:54:28] Speaker A: Thanks, Lisa. [02:54:29] Speaker C: LTK photo said, I saw a post about a local drift event, went to take photos because I wanted to. I think it's some of my best work. I know Now I've got 11 of the drivers following me. Great job. You just got to go out there and make it happen. [02:54:43] Speaker A: Yeah, be present. [02:54:45] Speaker C: Paul signed up for a couple of photojournalism style workshops at the Bright Festival of Photography next month. Thanks to Michael. I'll have to try to step forward a bit more. [02:54:54] Speaker A: Yeah, get in there. [02:54:57] Speaker C: Philip Johnson says, thanks Justin and Greg. Special thanks to Michael. Fascinating show. P.S. fuji might have to split Greg's commission over two transfers this week. [02:55:08] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't want the ATO finding. [02:55:10] Speaker C: Out, so just keep it on the download. Rodney Nicholson says, thoroughly enjoyed Michael. Classic. Thanks, Paul. Boys. Matt says, thanks Michael. Greg and Justin ltk. Amazing work. Loved all the stories. Yeah, it's been, it's been brilliant. We really, really appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. [02:55:27] Speaker B: Pleasure. Have a good day. Thank you very much. [02:55:30] Speaker A: But look, on that note, this is the Camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky straps. Head to Luckystraps.com if you were looking for a handmade Aussie made Justin made premium leather camera strap and use Code Gray Greg or Jim or Justin for a healthy little discount at checkout. But. But that's all we have time for today. Once again, thank you, Michael. It's been a wonderful episode. And we'll see you on Monday evening, 7.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time, for the random photography show. We've got lots to talk about and we'll see you then. Thanks, everybody. [02:56:02] Speaker B: Thank you.