#16 Janine Wiedel - PHOTO TALK - WTF-STOP PODCAST - WTF-Stop Podcast - Photo Talk

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Zach Waters and welcome to another episode of
What the Geft Stop Forward talk at Chatter photographers about
their life and connection to the world through photography. Today's

(00:24):
guest is American born but British based photographer Janine Wiedell,
somebody I wanted to talk to for a long time
about her life on the road as a photographer. She
was born in New York City but being based in
the UK since the nineteen seventies. She's had two solo
exhibitions at the Photographer's Gallery. In the seventies, she's had

(00:46):
books including Irish Tinkers seventy six, Looking at Iran seventy six,
Vulcan's Forge seventy nine, Dover a Port in the Storm
ninety one, and Faces with Voices ninety two. About now
he is in the middle of her kickstart with Blue
Cooll Press with her new Vulcan Forge book. I was
really pleased when she agreed to have a chat with

(01:08):
me and we talked about her wonderless life Canada, Islander
ran and then you ended up with Guildford.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yes, that was strange. Well, I started off really I
wanted to be an architect originally, and I went to
architecture school in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
And we talked about her days as a student to
the legendary Antel Adams.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
That was amazing. I didn't take full advantage because at
the time I was very much photographic in the streets,
and of course his work was almost the antithesis of mine.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
And we talked about her time with the Irish tinkers
and travelers in Ireland.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I always speak to people a lot. I would go
in with the camera around my neck because it always
was around my neck, but I wouldn't take photographs for
quite a long time and until they were very aware
and had said it was okay.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
And we also chatted about how she feels invisible, sometimes.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Totally invisible, and I'm shocked when i find I'm not,
you know, because when you're photographing, I think you in
a sense are invisible.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
So first of all, and ask which was.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Up to I seem to always be up to something
and always working and scanning my older images for my
photo library, which has always been my kind of source
of way of living. So I'm always scanning the older
work as well as the new work because I'm still
photographing quite a bit at the moment. So that takes
up a lot of time. I'm also always working on

(02:32):
Cafe Royal book done that fifteen with Gray, which is
wonderful because it's a way of pulling my work together
in my projects together.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
I think Homo Sykes and Daniel Meadows must be quick
and in the beat now because they hold the world
record for coffee world books. We also be coming in
there very.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Quickly, exactly. I might beat them soon.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
How many more do you think you've got at the
moment to.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Have one Uneco Warriors, which should be coming out, you know,
in June or something, and then I'm working on two more.
But I'm also hoping to do a much larger book
with Blue Coat Press, which will be very exciting. That'd
be more like a I guess like a retrospective, the retrospective. Yeah,
And I'm also hoping that I'll get that book will

(03:15):
work out on Sidagnus Place, which was a squat I
photographed for several years.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Would there be a big exhibition, Yes, that's.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
One I've worked you know, I worked on it for
probably about four years, interviewing people. It's a big project.
It's a hard one to place. So I'm hoping that
will happen.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
I mean you've already had a big exhibition at the
photographer Scull in the past, timen't you?

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah? I had a couple of big ones in the seventies.
Actually I had I don't know if you knew, but
the large installation one which was up in the Photographer's
Gallery in nineteen seventy nine on industry has just gone
up again last year in Birmingham, which was really exciting
because it gave a chance for the workers I photographed

(03:59):
to come and their families to come and look at
their lives forty odd years ago?

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Was that from the Forge series?

Speaker 2 (04:07):
That was the Yes, the West it was Vulcans Forge.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Did you get the next generation of the families were
coming in?

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yes. It was absolutely amazing. And from the Forge. The
last day the exhibition was open we had a sort
of reunion and there were nine members from the Forge. Ok.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Wow, it was very exciting.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
How did you get in touch with them?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Do you know? It just happens. I guess that's one
good bit about the Internet, because people either see the
photographs somewhere and get hold of me. Yeah, it's amazing
how that happens.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
You're still very active, aren't you. I noticed in your
blog that you are still covering protest and that's a
theme which goes back really to the early sixties with you,
doesn't that absolutely?

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, well late sixties.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Sorry I'm old, But that's a theme which goes by
croom you with the late sixties, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yes, it's it's completely very much as a thread thro
all my work, even if it's protests that are direct protests,
it's communities who are basically trying to keep their way
of life. So there's a there's a definite thread of
which protest is a large part.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
By accident, do you think that was it something which
was cooking the way in the back of your head
that you wanted to do something which you could ask questions?

Speaker 2 (05:32):
You know, I don't think. I never really plan ahead
or I'm not good at that, so things happen. But
my interest obviously was always really about communities who are struggling,
it were struggling to survive outside of the mainstream. And
I like the fact that people have the courage and

(05:55):
motive to fight to retain that way of life. Yeah,
despite you know, authority society that's always trying to knock
people down.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, because early on you photographed the panthers Black panthers.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yes, that's right. That was sort of my first real
inspiration of going in that direction. That sort of pushed
me into the direction.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Was that because you were thinking this question here, and
I want to find out and investigate as a photographer, Yes.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
I think everything, and I don't ever at the time,
I certainly didn't particularly think of myself as a photographer.
I don't think I ever consciously said I want to
be a photographer. Interesting, it sort of happened in photography
was my way of trying to express myself and to
I guess I always wanted to record what I saw

(06:45):
and felt that it might be able to show people
what was happening since they weren't seeing it directly. Does
that make sense, Yes, So I never really set out
to be a photographer. In fact, my photography was very personal,
and I wanted to at the beginning certainly keep that
to myself and do any other work for learning a living.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Well, you've done well, You've made a good living out
of it. You can see in your archive is somebody
who's perceived personal work pursued a sort of route of
creating work that they wanted to focus on, but at
the same time making a living. And there's a massive
difference between making a living as a photographer and surviving

(07:27):
to actually going out and shooting your own work as
well to complement that. It's a circle, and not a
lot of people get that in terms of being able
to be a self sufficient photographer in a way, and
it's a very difficult thing to do.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yes, I think my biggest breakthrough in that, which happened
quite early on in the Oh gosh, I guess it
would have been in the seventies. I decided that I
wanted to photograph what I wanted, but I also had
to earn a living, so I set myself up as
a photo library, and I think that's what actually allowed
me to photograph what I wanted feed it into my library.

(08:03):
Then it obviously wasn't digital. It was masses of prints
that researchers would come and plow through. So that was
what allowed me to do that.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, And that's a secret of longevity as a photographer,
isn't it Just being able to have the resources to
continue just in daily life to give you that chance.
That's the platform to go. Now I can go and
continue what I want to shoot and do.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yes, And I think that's what the library gave me,
because then that did quite well. I mean as well.
I was doing quite a bit of teaching, which I enjoyed,
and doing commissions, but I was never as good at
commissions as I wasn't doing my own stuff.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
I mean, you've had some great teachers as well, haven't you,
Angel Adams.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
I sort of read, oh, but that was yes in California.
I had a workshop with him, really and what was
that like? Part of the San Francisco Art Institute. Through
that that was amazing. I didn't take full advantage because
at the time I was very much photographic in the streets,
and of course his work was almost the antithesis of

(09:06):
mine because everything was planned, everything was new, every zone
of gray, and it would be every photograph is that way,
whereas I was the opposite. But oddly enough, the workshop
I did with him was using polaroids, which were then
fairly new, which was kind of interesting and again very

(09:28):
much sort of different from most of his work.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
You look back at that period in that workshop, Anthel Adams,
do you take something from what you learned and that
achieved or as a photographer in the community.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yes, I mean, I think he's obviously a fantastic you know,
his images are a knockout, They're wonderful. So I think
I did and I did learn love, and I had
the opportunity to go and see his dark room, which
was amazing. And I think the discipline he had was well,
I learned a lot from things like that. Yes, he
had tremendous discipline.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, he's renowned for that, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yes, and control, even though that isn't the direction I
went at the time. I was doing landscape, but not
in that way.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
But he was very established though at the time, wasn't he?

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Oh? Yes, yeah, And it was a whole group you.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Were just a youngster coming through.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yes, very established, and you know, it was a whole
little group of them, with Beaumont Neull and Nancy Mule,
who were the photographic historians. I don't know if you
know their books. No, oh, I did. The history the
early history of photography books were all written by them.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Right. Okay, you've had a bit of a wonderless life,
haven't you. You started in New York, Colorado or San Francisco, Canada,
Island of Ran and then you ended up with Guildford.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yes, that was It was strange. Well, I started off
really I wanted to be an architect originally, and I
went to architecture school in Colorado. I grew up in
New York yet, and then I went to Colorado. There
were two hundred and fifty guys in about three women
who they had taken on this special five year architecture course,
and they we were a bit like treated like lepers.

(11:07):
You would have lecture halls and we went at the
three of us. Women would have seats between us before
all men were and we were then encouraged very heavily
to move into fine art, and they managed to move
all of us out into the fine art department on
the second year. After that, I moved. I went to California,

(11:31):
to San Francisco and took the part time courses in
it was painting, painting and sculpture I was really doing.
At that time. It was the days of Vietnam when
people were coming back with American flags on top of
their coffins, and you know, there were really turbulent times
and I found myself going out and wandering and looking

(11:53):
and observing in the streets rather than I didn't want
to be stuck in a studio. When really photography started
to interest me because it allowed me to wander and
look at things and also capture them. I had no idea,
but it was a very personal journey, and I never
thought of becoming a photographer. So what I did was

(12:16):
I took every odd job I could find. Sometimes it
would be waitressing, sometimes it would be I'd worked also
in a retouching photographic retouching studio, so I learned to
photograph to retouch old people's wrinkles, including Reagan's because he
was then governor. Yeah, in California, so I was. But

(12:37):
that was more. Yes, it was a job I could get.
It wasn't with the aim of particularly becoming a photographer.
I wanted to earn the money he was surviving.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
It's a bit of a big jump from New York
to San Francisco, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
You know America is that way. It is a long way. Yeah,
I'm very up for any adventure.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Who was your sort of inspiration then, photographicallyho graphically?

Speaker 2 (13:08):
I think one really important exhibition I had seen on
one of my trips back East was the Catchy Bresson
exhibition at Mama the Museum Modern Art.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, that was.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Sort of the first time I was really inspired because
we're huge prints and then small print. You know, it
was a change of scale, so it wasn't like a
ploty exhibition that you go around looking at everything the
same size. So I think I found that really exciting.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
It's interesting with Cartier Bresson, how you questioned sometimes why
was he and how was he so influential as a photographer,
and just talking to a lot of photographers over the
guest whenever I go back and ask a photographer who
inspired you? Who was that person? Nine times out of
ten Cartier Breston's in there. And he really was an

(13:57):
influential figure, wasn't he in any ways to people, whether
they knew personally or they were just looking at his
work like you in a gallery in New York, Well
say gallery, I mean museum and what not interesting?

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Well, I think his work was at the time incredibly exciting,
and I can't think of other photographers who had worked
in that way at the time.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
What made it exciting?

Speaker 2 (14:22):
I think it was the probably a thing called the
decisive moment, But you've got the feeling that he was
walking in the streets, moving around, seeing things, clicking them,
and there was a freshness. It was totally It was unplanned.
Of course, yes, his visual was such that each image

(14:45):
is very planned, but it was instinctive, and I can't
I think he was. I think that was it at
the time because you had the people, you know, whether
it was the West Coast people like strand and and etc.
Well I suppose yes, and even the FSA photographers were different.

(15:07):
So I think he was like very fresh at the time.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, So what was that moment in some Francisco where
you realized photography was it? Photography is going to take
you on the next journey.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
I'm not sure it even happened there, because in California,
I was port of going the Black Panthers, and I
was also my boyfriend at the time was very political
and very involved in the Berkeley People's Park and riot,
so I would spend a lot of time recording the
park as it was being built. I don't know if
you know about that, but it was the University Berkeley

(15:43):
had brought up a very scrappy piece of land and
students and took it over and decided to make a
park out of it for the community. So people would
go every weekend and we would plant trees, dig build
playgrounds for then the community also donated lots of money
and food for people. And then suddenly the university and

(16:07):
the Cambertley moved in and it ended up into a
full scale riot with the National Guard being called in
thanks to Reagan who was governor at the time and
thought it was a sort of a communist takeover and
he was going to squash it. I was photographing that,

(16:28):
and then my boyfriend actually got sent to prison. He
got shot during that with buckshot bird shot and then
sent off to a Texan jail, and so I kind
of was at a slight loose end. Moved and got
a job, oddly enough photographing down in the Galapic asylums,

(16:50):
which was sort of a breakthrough because I thought, oh gosh,
I never thought of myself as a photographer or working
as a photographer.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
How did the Glapical silence come about?

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Oh? That was amazing. It was, oddly enough, a British
ship which was making an exploratory journey to the Galapagist
for future you know, I suppose future trips taking tourists in.
So it was one of the initial journeys into the Galapagists,
which was fantastic. Again, that was kind of a landscape

(17:20):
based yeah. Shoot, so that was the first time I
started to realize that maybe I could earn a living
as well as take what I wanted.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
And then the Black Panthers as well.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Yes, but that was that was that was before that.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
Really how did that come about?

Speaker 2 (17:37):
That was while I was in California, so that I
was doing how pure curiosity interest? You know, it was
obviously really important time.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
And the interest is still there fifty years later, wasn't it.
It's interesting, yes, very much so how that period really
resonates now with a lot of the issues which were
going on and in the sixties it was never.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
It has never been solved. And you know, at that point,
Martin Luther King had been killed and they were tired
of waiting for getting their rights and their freedom, and
it was very much a separatist movement, and they set
up schools and decided to take care of themselves and

(18:25):
to defense by taking up rifles.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
So then you moved to London.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yes, then I was sort of at a loose end
and a friend who had been working with Irish travelers
there said to come over, ask me over to visit,
and I got completely hooked. She gave me some contacts
to go into some of the traveler camps, and yes

(18:55):
that my curiosity was completely and I wanted to know
more about them. I went from there. I went to
visit a friend in actually in Guildford with someone I
had met, oddly enough, was an engineer on the crew
in the galapagis odd obscure. And then so.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
You've gone from San Francisco to the United Kingdom, and
then did your journey with the Irish tinkers start all
most straight away?

Speaker 2 (19:25):
No. I traveled from from the US to Ireland to
visit a friend who had been working with the Irish travelers.
So that was my introduction and my first sort of
interest in pursuing them and finding out more about the
Irish travelers.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
What was the intrigue was not just a sort of
option to Goldwy. What was the intrigue about going to Ireland?
Northern Ireland? I presume?

Speaker 2 (19:52):
No, no, no, this was around Galway.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Southern Ireland, right, Okay, sorry.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Southern Ireland. And it started just as visiting a friend.
But then I got completely hooked when I met some
of the Irish travelers and wanted to know more about
them and their lifestyle and what they were up against.
So when I then moved to England, I didn't move.

(20:21):
I again traveled to I don't make plans ahead, so
it happened. I went and visited a frend in Guildford
in England. I guess the Guildford School of Photography, which
was then called West Surrey College for Art and Design,
was sort of down the road and I just walked

(20:42):
in and decided, really, I had never done studio work
and I didn't know very much about the technique of photography.
So I walked in and I think November, and spoke
to Walter Nurrenberg, who was then head. He was well
known industrial photographer, and just said, oh, I want to
I want to join the course, and I did so.

(21:06):
I spent three years there, but spent my whole time
going back to Ireland to visit the Irish travelers and
to document them.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
What were you trying to do there? What was the interust,
what was the intrigue?

Speaker 2 (21:21):
I don't know what. I don't think. I didn't have
an end outcome, an I just wanted to know more.
And once you get to know one family, you easily
get well. I did easily get passed on to the
other families, and it becomes more and more intriguing. So
I kept going back to take photographs back to them

(21:44):
and to revisit them. And at the time I was
living and I had an old mini van if you
remember those, and I set up curtains around the side,
so I would live in that, which was quite interesting.
But you couldn't live in the camps with the travelers.
You'd have to live up the road because even if

(22:07):
if a traveler married or got involved with a non traveler,
they would also be excluded from the camp.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
You didn't get any office of marriage.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
I didn't at that point. Very tough life.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
What questions were they asking you?

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Because it would have been a very tough life on the.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Road, What questions were they asking? You got this young
American girl coming into their camps and their lives and
their family, and I presume that they had their arms
open for you and they took you in. But what
questions were they asking you?

Speaker 2 (22:42):
I think they probably sussed me out quite carefully. But
I think that once one family or one part of
the family, because the very extended families had kind of
said you were okay, then they would pass you on
to another family and they would already assume you had
sort of been pasted as being okay and not a threat.

(23:04):
And I don't think I looked as if I was
anything to do with the authorities or any threat to them.
I think they probably thought this is just very odd,
and why is she wanting to take photographs. I always
speak to people a lot. I would go in with
the camera around my neck because it always was around
my neck, but I wouldn't take photographs for quite a

(23:24):
long time and until they were very aware and had
said it was okay.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
It's interesting how people view the photographer, isn't it. I'm
really fascinated with that because we see it as the
photographer's side, and we look at the community and we
have that interest. But I love the thought process of thinking,
how do they see us? We're just like like this
alien body. They can't quite understand why it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yes, I think it is. I think it's fascinating, and
I think probably that's where being a woman is very
different from being a man. Yeah, because I think we
were less threatening, but.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
You had this American accent.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
I presume do I still I don't know.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
You've got the more of a sort of London accent. Now,
I actually don't know. You've actually suits a bit irish
to be his will.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yes, I think I've gone but sort of into the
middle of the Atlantic somewhere. But yes, I was more
American at that point.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
I'm sure more than New York accent or.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Well my accent probably also everything else about me Americans are.
I found that when I came over here. Our whole
way of behaving is different, and we tend to ask
people rather quickly more about themselves, which I don't think
English people do as much, am I right?

Speaker 1 (24:49):
I don't know. Actually you probably are.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
You know, Americans have taught very early on if you
meet someone, you ask what they do, and I don't
think English do that.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
It's interesting you say that where I'm from and the
North of England, well he never stopped talking to each other.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Ah, you see, the North is probably very different.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah. You get on a bus and you talk to people.
You talk to the little old lady in the front
of the seat, you talk to a blog, you say
hello to somebody you've never met in your life. This
is interaction and when I went to London as a
photographer for the first time, I'd come back up North
after a month and I'd be like shell shocked. I'll
be on the tube in London, nobody's talking to each other. Yes,

(25:27):
And so I think the answer to that question you asked,
I'm not sure. I think you're potentially right, and I
think that's a lot of people who might listen to
this will see the same thing as well. Yes, you know,
but I think as a photographer, I'm looking from the
perspective a photographer. I've always wanted to ask questions of
the people in front of me, and I still do.
And I know you still do, you know. So it's
an interesting debate that one. Yes, I wouldn't say you're wrong,

(25:50):
and I don't know if you're right.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, yes, Now it is an interesting one though, because
I always yeah, maybe I was being a bit too
forward too quickly.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
That's not a bad thing to be. So you were
shooting on what at the time for the travelers with those.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
I think I was using hmmm, because it was mixed.
I had an old Lika, which was my uncle's old Lika,
which was a really early rangefinder, and then I had
a separate light meter. You know, we had the Western
light meters, which were again we're old. That was probably

(26:27):
my uncle's as well. And then I think my earlies
was probably a Pentax. I think it was a spot Mattic.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yes, I do. Is that the one that had the
purply casing had like a little sort of red purple
casing on it. I don't know the exact color, but
I think I had one early gone.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
I don't know. If it did, I would have taken
the case off. I don't think.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
No, you know, the grip, the rubber grip around the camera.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Oh, the grip, I don't remember that. I remember it's
sort of being black silver. But it had a funny
light meter with a needle that would go.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Oh yeah yeah, maybe min just turn purple.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
I don't think that was it.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Maybe might just turn purple because there was always residue
of fixed but fixed probably stop buff on it or
something like that.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Think about it. Because we had no idea. I had
no idea what I was getting.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Nobody did.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Then we didn't. You know, we would keep shooting.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
You're always looking into a black box, won't you.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Did I get that? And then you would? I was
always upbrating film because it was always bad light.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Oh don't go there, bulk rolling film there used to
be there. I used to scream. You could hear screams
in a dark green where I was trying to bulk
roll film and I could just never do it.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
And I was like, yeah, well I would do it
very kind of. Oh, I'll give it a few more
minutes and you'll shake the tank a bit more. But
also I think because I had several films on the go,
so you would have the uprated one and then you
would wind it in and count the number of frames,
leave the tag out, and I put another film in

(28:02):
that was a different speed, you know, a normal speed
maybe yeah, and you put that in and then the
light would go and you'd take that out, wind it
in and reuse the old one, counting off twenty frames
covering the lens. So it was quite tricky.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
When digital came in really ended in nineties where you know,
you could actually buy digital camera which you could potentially
use for a job. It was just like shooting transparency.
It was so unforgiving. Yes, at the beginning, and because
I was a film photographer and a transparency photographer, we
know that film but we had to learn about exposure

(28:42):
very early on. Yes, so when digital came along, it
was like the sun came out of the clouds, and
it was just so much easier because you could see
your mistakes immediately.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yes, it was phenomenal, and I think I switched rather
late to it. I think I switched in about two
two thousand and four, I think four or three. Well, anyway,
early two thousands, I guess. And up until that I
kept on with my dijon. Yes, I was taking I
mean now when I look, I have a mix of
old transparencies and then it switched to the film. In fact,

(29:17):
the old transparencies are very difficult to scare.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
And also in the early two thousands, when digit was
coming through, neg film became really good.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yes, the next film was much better.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
I used to say, around early two thousand, so you
can shoot in the dark when negative Now it was
that good. It was such a relief to be able
to use color film or shoot color and she shoot
it with your ice closes. Basically. Yes, what lens were
you using mainly in Ireland?

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Oh, in Ireland I would have had. I mean I
always loved just fifty normal standard lens was kind of
my favorite because I felt I could walk in and
walk out and it was a nice one for close
up without starting. But I had wide angle I wouldn't
have really had. I very rarely use a telephoto. I

(30:08):
would use either a wide angle, but it would be
probably thirty five in old times. And then the standard
lens was my kind of norm because I think you
move in and you move out.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
In and out anonymously, yes.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Totally unknown and unseen, which is another I think I
have always had the feeling that I'm totally invisible, and
I'm shocked when I find I'm not, you know, because
when you're photographing, I think you in a sense are invisible,
which isn't actually the case.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
Probably that's an interesting statement to make in that you
were a woman photographer in the sixties and seventies. What
was it like being a woman photographer in the sixties
and seventies. It was interesting on the eighties in nineties
as well.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, I'm still a woman photographer.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Yes, I think the world's changed a little bit attitudes
to women.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yes, and now certainly there are many many more women
photographers in the world. When I was teaching, there were
very few and certainly when I went to give a goophy,
I think there were only two women on the course,
so yes, fewer women went into photography, But yes, I
mean it's hard to say because I've never been a man,

(31:26):
so I don't know what that's like. I think it's
much perhaps easier to get into communities and groups because
you are less of a threat. You're less likely to
be suspected of being sent by the authorities or whatever

(31:48):
or undercover police, so I think we can blend more easily.
And also we're not taken very seriously in.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Terms of getting work as a photographer. Did it have
any obstacles in that?

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Gosh, that's a hard one to say. I mean, I
think at the time I was working a lot for
educational publishers in that in some ways probably it may
have been an advantage because working in schools and those
are the times when you would be sent in to
photograph a school, you could spend the day there basically
being a fly on the wall and photographing everything. So

(32:23):
that was quite a different thing from what would happen today,
where everybody would have to give their permission and everything
would be set up. So in that sense, working within schools.
It was quite easy because I could blend and people,
the kids wouldn't notice me after a while. I mean,
I think it's all about aura or something like that,

(32:44):
because you can walk into a room and make yourself visible,
or you can walk into a room and make yourself
basically invisible practically, And I think most male photographers tend
to walk in with bravaldo and big cameras and everything
else and are far more visible. Maybe does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yes, it does. The seventies was a pretty prolific period
for years a photographer. A big learning process, wasn't it
takeniques from the Irish Tinkers to Iran will con Forge
and then to Dover and anything in between.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yes, the Irish Tinker project was sort of the first
long term project that I had really worked on and
was sort of obsessed with. And then from there because
of those images, et cetera, I got very much into
educational Publishers such as Penguin would commission me to do
kind of long term studies on things like depression or

(33:46):
disruption in the schools or and they would give me
a sort of free reign too. I would find the
locations at schools and whatever and I would spend time there.
So that was a time when also I was getting
paid in commission to do something that actually I loved doing.
It was really interesting, involved kind of researching and looking

(34:07):
at things from there. Then, yes, in seventy I guess
I had an exhibition which was probably a break through
the Photographer's Gallery of Irish traveler photographs, which then led
to a book called Irish Thinkers, which came out in
seventy six. It was also of Inuit. I spent a

(34:28):
summer living with an Inuit family in Baffin Island from
the Arctic, so the Photographer's Gallery had an exhibition with
both of those bodies, so that sort of again set
things rolling. And then I was commissioned by an education
publisher to do a book, to write and photograph a

(34:49):
book on Iran and that was I think in That's
nineteen seventy seven, which was another total adventure and very interesting.
Coming back to being a woman was quite difficult being
a woman, Yes, very those are the days of the Shah.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Tell me about it. Talked me through some of your
Raginian adventures.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
That's a lengthy one, but basically going there, I had
to sign in with the Sabakh or the Shah's police force.
They ended up following me everywhere I went, really, although
I didn't always see them. And at the time my
sister was also a journalist working for the Kahan paper

(35:34):
in Iran, so she was based in Tehran, and every
evening we would get the savak, the police sitting in
the back garden. The backyard more likely we'd find all
the cigarette butts. So then whenever I traveled, I knew
I would be followed by them. I remember one journey

(35:55):
when I went down to Shiraz and I had to
and we got into this really bad accident, because what
would happen would be that they would everybody did this.
They would go into free wheeling whenever you went downhill,
so the engine would be cut off and you would

(36:15):
just glide sail and down the hill. And the truck
was coming towards us, which came right into us and
we rolled over. Driver was shrieking. I decided I wasn't
about to die, and somehow I got rescued from that
and taken by someone off to Schiraz, which was a

(36:36):
bit odd, so I assume that was someone who had
been following I don't know but I mean it was
a very odd experience. As a woman, I was perpetually
whenever I asked directions or anything, there was a certain
pride in telling me the wrong answer. So it was
very hard to do it, to do anything. So it

(36:59):
was an ex experience.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
What were you aiming to get out of the trip
to Well, it was.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
I had to write this book. I had to do
a book for It was A and C Black and
Lippen Cotton in the States. They co published it, but
I had to It was a book for children, well
for twelve to fourteen year olds about Iran, so really
there was I had to cover an awful lot of

(37:24):
ground and come back with pictures both in black and white.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
And color in color.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yes, I had to do both because the book was
paginated so that you had a spread of black, a
spread of color, and of course beforehand you didn't know
which it was going to be. Oh god, So it
was all a bit of a nightmare, just.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Even that to nightmare, never mind being being at that
time and being a lady.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Followed was quite difficult.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
But good experience.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
It was fascinating and it's an amazing you know. And
I got to go to Abadad, which were the where
the to the I was put up by the Iranian
oil company, so that was incredible. And there, of course
I got put up by the oil company in a
very expensive hotel which was like a shop.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Going back to that, shooting color and black and white
at the same time, I remember that people saying that,
but how do you physically do that? You see a picture,
you're going to decide. Going back to what you said
about on the decisive moment, you see a picture, you
shed it on the first come you pick up and
it's color. You've got an option. You can always some
point now later you could make it into a black

(38:41):
and white. If you shoot it in black and white,
you're never going to get the color. And it is
weird concept to be able to shoot in color and
black and white, because you're going to get two totally
different outcomes, aren't you? Yes?

Speaker 2 (38:51):
And I think you see you either see I mean
there is you either are seeing in color or you're
singing in black and white, because they're totally totally different.
How you can those things, how you look at things
is totally different. And I'm always.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
It's very easy now to do that.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah, I was always in black and white. You know,
I saw it in black and white, so I always
felt the color was a second string.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Very early on. Ian Berry, who didn't move over to
digital straight where watching him work very early on and
as hears he's obviously a black and white photographer, started
shooting very early on in color film because he then
converted it to black and white, and a lot of
his black and white actually color.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Ah, I didn't realize that.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
But even somebody likes Stilgard or when he moved over,
he shooting color a lot of the time and converted
to black and white.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
Hmm. It's interesting because sometimes I've tried with a color
turney into black white, and it's different because I just
think you're seeing in one or the other because they
are so different, aren't they? On how you compose things
as different?

Speaker 1 (39:53):
Very much, very much. What color were you shooting on
in Iran?

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Do you know? I have absolutely no idea. Would it
have been the ectochrome or what? Did we have codo
chrome ectochrome?

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Probably been. Did we have ectochrome then? I think so,
I'd have to look on the transparencies and find out.
I have no idea, but certainly to me, the color
was a second string. I had to do it.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Yes, yeah, blend into one the far back.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, have so much more leeway on black and white
because you can upgrade it and then sort of scratch
it and when you get to the dark room, no,
which one you've upgraded hopefully. That was always a tricky bit.
But yeah, so we ran was were inexperience. And then
the next sort of major project I did, which is
still kind of ongoing, was the Falkland's Forge.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
And I've got that book somewhere.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Oh you do. Do you have the original?

Speaker 1 (40:47):
We need to meet up South London at some point
so you can sign that.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Okay with pleasure, But because the original catalog now has
become quite rare. But Craig at Cafe Royal has done
a box set I know whether you have that of
six of the individual industries into a box set, which
is really nice because the original catalog obviously was printed
in nineteen seventy nine, so the quality isn't as good.

(41:13):
And that was really from the exhibition at the Photographer's Gallery.
But yes, that was a two year commission from the
West Midlands Arts to photograph the Midlands in any way.
I wanted to which was absolutely fabulous, so I could
decide whatever direction I wanted to do it in. I
had a year which actually I spent two years on

(41:34):
photographing what I wanted. That I'm based on industries because
that's what the West Midlands was originally known for. So
it took me into the coal mines and the steel
mills and forges and I mean that was great, and
I lived in I converted a Volkswagen van so I

(41:55):
could live in that.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
But you're floating around the Midlands, you know, yes, which
was new compa.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Most of the time, very hard to find somewhere to park.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
But it was that's the life.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
It was good and I could develop film.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
In it well.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Also was going to ask you, going back to the
Irish project, Iran and the Forge and then Dover, you
were shooting, I presume with bags of film in your bag.
You must have had a lot of film. Where did
you start printing all of this stuff up in respect
to the projects you're working on? So when you were
shooting the Irish, you went back and you put a

(42:30):
few bags of film and then you'd process home.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
I presume you'd have no idea what you got, so
it would sometimes be you know, a few weeks before
I went back and processed everything to find out what
I did get, which is which is an odd concept
now that we're so used to looking, you know and
making sure we got it. So, yes, I usually had
no idea what I had got.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Where were you developing it all? Then it's home, Yes,
in the.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
In London when I was based here. But yeah, as
I say, I could actually develop some of the film
in the van, which was my always my idea with
the van because I had blackout curtains.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Yeah, but looking back at that, it's probably the worst
thing you could do.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Terrible, But you know, I've had all sorts of mentioned
do gron so it's pretty good at that. In California,
I had a small cupboard and I would have you know,
just shells running up it, so I would have the
developer quite high up, and then i'd move it down
the shelf into the water bath and then down into

(43:30):
the fix and then carry it into the shower or
the bath to be washed.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Well, we were very industrious twenty years ago, you know,
thirty years ago, I remember going to friends who were
photographers dark rooms in the most incredible strange places. Yes,
it was amazing how industrious we were in terms of
making dark rooms. You could always tell somebody had a
dark room in the house because you could just smell
stop bath everywhere.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Oh it was all awful in our fingers would smell
a fix had hard because I was quite bad when
I when I had the dark rooms, I would sort
of wallow in the You know you rub the developer
to bring up its Yeah you did that, but you
know you bring up the highlights and whatever by rubbing
the fix a bit harder and warming it.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
Oh, warming of course with it. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
You know after you've done three walls, you'd be like
measuring that. After the fourth fifth wall, You're just like, yeah,
I know how hard it is. I'll just keep keep
it going. You know. I remember many years ago walking
into a photographer called Leo Wagan, who did something on

(44:42):
Garter in in Ireland. It's a fantastic he still is
a photographer filmmaker now. But I remember early on in
my London time, when I first moved, I went into
Leo's apartment in London, and in the living room of
this very nice house there was just this kind of
construction of black bin bags. It was like a walking

(45:05):
dark room in the middle of his living room. Yes, came,
I questioned that. But what I can remember was just
this amazing construction that I thought, Wow, yeah, he just
made this makeshift dark room in his living room. It
was just wonderful. Yes, I wasn't. The neighbor to my
land lady would have went nuts if I'd have gone
back and done that. Well, but we were very We're

(45:27):
very industrious, weren't we early on when it was all filmed,
so the vulcan forge and then you ended up doing
the door for docks, and then we're moving into the eighties.
I presume.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yes, it was actually a commission for a year, which is,
you know, just wonderful these open commissions. I could spend
a year documenting over. The idea was it was before
the Channel tunnel came in, so this would have been
early nineties eighty nine something like that, and that again woof.

(46:00):
It was incredibly challenging because you would wander around, I
would wander around over and you couldn't see anybody, You
couldn't find anybody. It wasn't the most visual of places.
So yes, I ended up finally finding things like older
people's dance dance classes and you know where they're doing

(46:22):
ballroom dancing. Well, all sorts of odd odd things you
would find, but you'd have to walk into places to
find anybody. You just sort of have to again knock
on doors. And then I also went onto the ferries,
so I finally got permission to do that, which was
interesting because they gave me fairly free rein to wander

(46:43):
around in the workings of it. So, yes, that was
that was a challenging one.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
Over So the in the eighties and nineties, you were
still continuing with your activist work. I guess is activist
work the work way to put it?

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yes, Also, out all this, I've always photograph protests, Yeah,
in many ways. And then after that I had got
I also spent a year doing a project on Sudbury, Yeah,
the town there. And then I'd also spent time down
which was again totally self motivated, the eco warriors in

(47:18):
Greenham Common. So I spent quite a lot of time
documenting that eighty four.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
I think it was I remember seeing that project early on. Yes,
you may have in the press. Was it the Guardian
or the Independent? I was. I think I saw the
Greenham Common stuff could have been.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
It may have been. Yeah, I can't quite remember where,
but I think it probably was, and that may have
been an offshoot of Craigs, the book Craig did.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
Who if you associate it with through this time? And
in terms of agent wise, have you had an agent
if you worked through a picture lobby, what have you done?

Speaker 2 (47:53):
No? Well, as I think I said before, what I
early on did was set myself up as a photo library,
which how been my main way of supporting myself. So
this must have been way back in the seventies. I
made that decision, and that one, obviously was photo library
with filing cabinets stopped with photographs of every sort and

(48:16):
researchers would come and research and use the use them
for mainly for books, magazines, everything. So that was really
my way of earning a living, and that has preceded
Now you're still independent, So I'm independent. I mean I
have had stuff with Alabi and Getty for a while
and photo fusion, but really the libraries now have undercut

(48:39):
photography in general tremendously.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
It has I think I've got a sort of barral,
was it.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
It's dreadful. I mean, it's insulting the prices that are
using the images for obviously my own library, I can
ask for slightly larger fees, but you know, people often
just go to the big ones or have contracts with
and automatically buy good enough images for a very cheap price.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
Yes. I saw an interesting conversation a couple of days
ago with Brian Harris and a couple of other photographers
on a closed press photographers group, and what they were
talking about is what you've got is having your own
picture libry. So there's a few people moving away from
Alame and that's not what Brian Harris was talking about.

(49:26):
What he was talking about was if I use this
provider to hoist my library, will it pay? Because how
am I going to attract the attention of picture bags
to my website?

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yeah, So with Alami, people know there's pictures there, so
they've come in and put a keyword in. For somebody
like David Hoffman, I can understand why he has his
own independent libe because he's very specialist. But with said
Brian Harris, he's a newspaper editorial photographer, so he is specialist.
But on a ye, a wide variety of work sort

(50:03):
would it pay it to have his work in his
specific stock Lubb, it probably not, And that's the juggle.
And my view is, as well as listening to what
you're saying, I totally agree and sympathize with you that
you've got this independent library and you've been literally hung
out to dry a little bit with prices and things
like that. Well, my view is, have that library independently,

(50:25):
but what's the harm in putting them on Alomy as well?

Speaker 2 (50:27):
No, there isn't a harm. You can do that, but
certainly well you can. But you see, I find that
luckily a lot of my work which comes through the
requests that come through to my own library are sort
of more specific. They might be the industry, they might
be Irish travelers, they might be black panthers. So those
are quite their unusual topics. Yes, and Google, you have

(50:50):
to get Google to pick up on them, both to
Google and put it in black panthers, you know, America whatever.
And if you don't come up, they're not going to
come to your library. But if you had them on Alami, yeah,
they might get them for nothing there of course, so
you have I'm quite careful that my more specialism, more
important work I don't have up there.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Yeah, and I think if you can overcome that bridge
of making your work accessible to buyers, and that just
comes with promotion and being clever about it. But that
text time, it's hard work. It's not easy.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
I mean I've been working for probably since oh, I
don't know, two thousands and when did we get the
digital and start scanning. But I now have about thirty
thousand pictures that are keyworded, scan et cetera, et cetera
and up online. But I mean this has been full
time keywording, which is deadly boring.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
Oh, don't go there, don't talk about keywords.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
Oh you know, it's just incredible. And the scanning as well,
it's boring. It's quite exciting looking through and deciding what
you're goe to scan, but it's time consuming to.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Get to that point with pictures. You get excited that
you scan them and you're going to put them on system,
and then you look at your keywords system and you go,
I'm going to have a cup of tea.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
Absolutely, it's just exhausting even thinking about keywords. It's yes,
it's horrid. It's a horrid process, Yes it is.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
And of course nothing's any good unless you do.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
It, and then all me what they did was you
know that where you input the keywords in the information
and it's like it's on an orange that it's law availability.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Oh that's terrible.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
And then you have to keep adding keywords till it
hits green. And then you know it's going to have
high visibility in amongst five million images. So it's not
going to be and then next week you get a sale.
Now I look at the sale and it's twenty dollars
and it's a low visibility. There's six keywords to it.
I'm thinking, I've just spent a week putting one hundred

(52:48):
keywords to fifty hundred images. Oh, drives me bunkers.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
But of course, if you try to make it go green,
what you have to do is put a word that
has nothing to do with the image. Yes, it isn't
taking the image, it's taking the work.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Putting swear words in. I used to put swear words
in just for the front of it.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
Yeah, and it probably went great.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
I've just put words in what I think it just
to get past the green. Yeah. I will mention them
here as kids listen.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
Really, it's insulting the way they're so stuff. You know,
it's it's wrong because photographers won't be able to survive
that way.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Yeah, there's some interesting discussions about that. And let me
taking your docs now. I was forced in to sign
the contract for the dacks, never realizing I could never
get out of that contract.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
Oh mistake.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Yes, And then they wanted exclusive rights to your imagery.
So if you signed over and said my images are
only on your site, you'd get sixty four. It split
your way. And then they changed the if you don't
sell over certain such amount, you go to fifty to fifty.
So I've looked at mine and I don't make that

(53:53):
much right, I'm thinking, because I don't get that threshold
of sales, they're going to move me to fifty.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
So I emailed them and I said, if I'm on
fifty to fifty, why you got me on exclusive for
sixty forty? And I said, can you take me off
the exclusive right? And I said, yeah, well you can
do that. And I said, no, you can do my
twelve thousand images. You could just press the button and
take it all off. They said, yeah, okay, we'll do that.
So I'm thinking, manly, it was a confusing period over

(54:24):
the last eighteen months of what they were actually doing. Yes,
mind you saying that I'll a me the best out
of a bad bunch.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Well they are, and I certainly earned an incredibly good
living off them in you know when I've I put
stuff in from the very beginning, and it was making
a lot of money. You know, it usd to, didn't they,
And just suddenly if you look at their graph, it
just drops because their revenue. You know, they were selling
stuff for decent prices.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
Have you looked at that graph and noticed from about
two thousand and nine boom? You remember the recession, Remember
that big recession in two thousand and eight.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Yes, but they dropped their prices and this that the other,
isn't it.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Yeah, two thousand and nine was one of my most
lucrative periods. I had lost loads of work because nobody
had any money. Then after that it's downward slope. Sales
have gone up, but just the sort of revenue slope
is dropped right down. You're still very busy as an
independent photographer.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
I'm very busy.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
You're covering a lot of protests, aren't you. You've sort
of revisiting some of the Rainian issues, and if you
go on your blog. It's a sort of stream of you,
this American female photographer, still in the face of protests
and still in the face of things going on and
the world in. What I did notice is that you're
at the Jungle camp in Calai a few years ago,
and I think I remember seeing that in the press.

(55:38):
What was that like?

Speaker 2 (55:40):
It was really, I mean, that was an amazing project.
I actually went in with a fellow photographer, Jackie chap
and also a woman. You know, beforehand people said, oh,
you can't go in there on your own. You certainly
can't go in, you know, as a woman, et cetera.
But you know, we just then we split up into
whatever photograph so we were taking, and it was it

(56:03):
had no problem at all.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
They give me just do look very warm in terms
of the old relationship with the subjects and the environment.
They don't look intimidating.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah, exactly. And you know, people were incredibly friendly. You know,
it was so sad because it was really I was
covering it before it closed, right before it closed down
for that year. You know, at least it provided far
more help for people. It provided a community. They had shops,
they had you know, lots of charities, clothes, et cetera.

(56:35):
And it was really like a town, a village, and
the destruction of it was absolutely terrible because then it
scattered people around and now what's happening is people are
just continually being uprooted from where they set up a
camp or a tent and moved on. So, yes, it
was an amazing experience.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
What made you and Juckie call.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Curiosity wanting to go, wanting to find out what it
was really like because there were all sorts of dreadful
stories about it and you know how people go in
and they'd get robbed and their cameras would get taken
at whatever whatever, which was very far from the truth.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
It's interesting, isn't it, because you only you only live
about one hundred miles from.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Exactly you know, it is something straight across, you know,
just which is why the exhibition finally went up quite
a lot of different places and into schools because I
think kids were just amazed it's something that was that
close to where they were, and they you know, they
got a loop, how do they know, really curious on
how people lived like that. It's really important that what

(57:38):
actually shows, you know, those shots about how people are
actually living how they're getting how they're getting their water,
their food or whatever. And that's just across the channel,
isn't it.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
It's a very brave thing to do in terms of
just doing it, But it's what photographers do, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Well, it's not about we have to, you know, see
what is happening in the world first hand, which I
think is why I really photograph, because it's the thing
of being able to show people what you've experienced and
what they haven't been able to see or haven't seen.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
Was it that same intrigue with the Rustafarian community as well,
which you've documented in London?

Speaker 2 (58:14):
Yes, well I got into that. I spent quite a
few years following the Saint Agnes squat, which was a
street that had been the longest running street that has
been squatted in London and it was up for demolition
once again, and part of that was the Rastafarian headsquarters.
So I got involved with the Rastafarian community through that

(58:38):
and then followed them. But yes, it's all you know,
life leads on to different things.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
What's leading on to now? Then?

Speaker 2 (58:45):
I don't know. I don't plan ahead, no, but I
always have threads that I have stories underlying my work,
you know, the same thing always in mind.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
Well, without giving any big secrets away, is there still
something you really haven't done yet?

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Oh? Yes, there's lots I haven't done.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
Come tell me something.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
No, I don't have a you know, at the moment,
I'm really kind of assessing to a large extent the
stuff I have. Because if I don't take care of
my art, no one will.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
What's going to happen to that in later life?

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Well, that's what I have to start thinking about. I
realize I'm not quite as young as I was, and
one has to start thinking how do you preserve it?
Obviously by doing books and pulling work together, that's incredibly important.
But then there's also the launching. I mean, ever, I
have rooms full of prints and book dummies that I've
put together because every project I always put several book

(59:39):
dummies together.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
Of Can I come have a look at them one
day and love to look at all of it?

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Yeah? Actually, Martin Park came and had a look and
purchased several of my older book dummies, which is great.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
Of course he did, and he knows what he's doing.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
That man, Well, it's it's wonderful because it is you know,
it's preserving. And I don't know about you, but we
were doing book dummies where we would put you paste
original of course, yes, prints into books.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
And yeah, he's collecting dummies.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Yes, I think that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
I've noticed that there'll be a dummy exhibition soon.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
I think, yes, But I mean it's great because what
do we do and we probably have I'm going to
have loads of not loads, but a lot. Yes. I
don't know about you, but I was always putting things
together into stories because that's what I'm kind of about the.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Book of dummies. You haven't told me what's next? Then
there is a project wise, project wise, what's next?

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
It'll bubble. You have to wait and see. You see,
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
I'm messing messing with you, but you've definitely got another
big documentary project there in your head.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
I'm a little bit wavering on the couple of several
different ones, but they all in wow.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
So yes, but if any finds your way down near me,
give me a shot mole of a coffee. Yes, I
mean you used to coming to door, who aren't you?

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Yes, Oh, yes, of course you're right near there. And
I am thinking, I mean, yes, one thing I am doing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Don't give I tell you you nearly slipped.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
There one thing and kind of it's a sort of
it isn't really a sideline, but it's something I'm very
interested in following up on the what has happened to
the workers who are photographed in the seventies and what
their lives, how how their lives have gone. Because I've
reconnected with quite a few of them, I'd like to

(01:01:35):
document them, which is kind of a follow up, nice project,
and I have an exhibition coming up in Stoke on
Trent in somewhere around June of the pottery photographs and
that again my aim is to get a lot of
the families of the people and who are working there
and the people themselves are alive and do a sort

(01:01:59):
of follow up on that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
That sounds fascinating, so.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
I think that's that's quite a big project and it'll
be interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Are you going to find these people through the local
newspapers and stuff like that or how are you going
to go back? And I'd obviously into that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Well. I mean, actually it was quite useful because when
I had the exhibition in Birmingham last year, BBC did
quite good the local BBC in Stoke and did quite
a good program where they asked for people to come
forward if they recognized any of the people in the photographs.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Yeah, you could also just quick simple Facebook page as well.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Yes, so it can happen. Yes, I think I'm on
a Facebook page, a mining one which a lot of
the people are turning up there.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
How interesting, that's really interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
So yes, that's all fascinating what happened because those the
seventies of course, where people were losing their job in
the in minds and in the steel mills, so their
lives transformed in a huge way there and you know
what happened to them? Where did they go? Yeah, so
that's one one link of my future projects. So yeah,

(01:03:18):
I mean there's endless start to do, isn't there.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
And to get the world record of coffee World books
as well, Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Yes, I have to get those, need Homer.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
So you, Homer and Daniel Meadows have abound forty between
these That is good and what you're scanning on? Then
what's your secret weapon?

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Oh it's the Nikon nick On five thousand, I think,
which now is.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
Quite is that the medium format as well?

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
No, no, no, no, it's only thirty five mil.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
What what neighbor. Is it four thousand?

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
Nick on here? Cool scam?

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Four thousand?

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
It's called a super schooled cool scam.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Yeah, you've got the four thousand right at the bottom.
Now it's four great because I'm looking at mine now,
I think.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
It's four thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Is that what you use I've got? I'm asking you
what it is, and I'm looking at mine right this second.
What I'm saying now is Genie's trying to show me
in the video. I can see her, but you can't
see because you're on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
You can see me trying to look over at my scam.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
I'm just saying enough for the people on the podcast
who cards see it, because she's trying try to pick
it up. Jane, it's been a pleasure. It's been lovely.
I've wanted to sort of find out more about you
for a long time, and I loved seeing all your
work being published on kafee Whiles it's must be great
looking at her, thinking wow, it's another chapter in my

(01:04:54):
life here is as a photographer. And I think Craig's
done an amazing job there. And yeah, Craig Akerson or
Biggie I think some point, well, no.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
Craig has been fantastic and I think his books are great.
And for me it's been wonderful because I've been able
to pull together the various stories that I've tried past
and you know, have been sitting around. So it's been wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
And for you to look back at your somebody reinventing
and changing the narratives of your past life in a sense,
it must be really fantastic. And that's somebody who hasn't
got a Coffee World booker, so we're not going to that.
It's been wonderful, and yes, it's been fantastic, and I'd
love to keep in touch with you and keep me

(01:05:40):
up to date with anything to you and give me
a shout if you want to come do another little
session and I will we'll do something. But it's been wonderful.
Thank you very much, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
I've really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
Thank you, good stuff, Thank you all the best.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
Take care, Bye bye bye.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Lady.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
They don't want to

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#16 Janine Wiedel - PHOTO TALK - WTF-STOP PODCAST

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