#17 Patrick Ward - 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 They Get Stop Chatter Photographer is about their life
and connection to the world through photography. Today's guest, British

(00:25):
editorial and documentary photographer Patrick Ward, is somebody I'd been
chasing for a while to have a chat with. I
really wanted to find out about his connection to the
world and his life through photography. What really impresses me
about Patrick is his hyearsiasm and his drive to still
continue to take pictures to this day. He's been a
photographer for over sixty years and that's some mean feat.

(00:49):
I was really happy when you agreed to have a
chat with me. So we talked about a lot of things,
and we talked about in particular his time as an
inverted commerce assistant with John Chillingworth, who is renowned picture
post photographer.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
I mean he had a full time accountant, for example,
who just sat in another room doing his books, which
when I think that I did an accountant for half
an hour each year, I've never quite worked out how
he structured his working life. But as I say, he
was very good to me. He was very generous.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
He then we chatted a little bit about all these
friends that inspire him.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
In my twenties, I had a group of real friends,
I mean David hearn Ian, Barry, Philip Jones, Griffiths, Don McCullen.
So one was surrounded by people who were very fired up.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
And then when we were talking about architecture reviews mud
Plan in the sixties, I thought I had to tell
him how good he was.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
And so many of my visits were so fleeting. I
mean I went to the Gorbles, for example, and I
was actually there for about four hours with a mind done.
And out of that, you know, I have eight pictures,
which probably amongst the best pictures I've shot.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
So that makes a great photographer. That proves how good
you are. That's what photographies can be like in the
working context, that you do have fleeting visits, but it's
what you get when you're there. Anyway, the day came,
I had a chance to chat to them and I
jumped thraight in. You were a very prolific magazine photographer book.

(02:24):
I've always saw you as a bit of a street photographer,
an early street photographer as well, if you don't mind
that title, not at all.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I think to a large extent that would encompass all
of my best work would be where I've been out
on the street, photographing people enjoying themselves, people celebrating people
basically having fun and letting me be a bystanderism.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, I've always looked at your work like that, and
especially the period when you were really prolifically doing that.
I mean you have done that. You did do that
prolifically for sixties and the seventies, in the eighties, and
we'll go into that later, but I think a lot
of talk about Tawny Way John's in the seventies and
coming back from America and documenting the British way of

(03:05):
life in leisure time. With all respect to Tony D. Johns,
who was a marvel of a photography, you already doing.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
That, I guess so. I think I think he did
bring something that really did catch the eye, didn't he.
There's a sort of angst and the tension in his work,
which perhaps mine would not have had the same degree.
I think mine was more of an affectionate celebration of
what I saw around me. I think his was possibly

(03:34):
more hard hitting.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
I guess you saw come together in a sense with
Bill Jay's album as well, and because Bill Jay had
a lot of influence with Tony read Johns, did you
manage to be influenced by Tony read Johns and then
he went with his approach?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
No, No, I don't think so that. I'm trying to
think if any of my contemporaries influenced me, I would
say someone like Ian Berry would be more of an
influencer that I would and yearned to take pictures that
had his sense of competition and so on that perhaps
I didn't any Ray Jones I admired, but I didn't

(04:10):
feel an affection about his work in the way that
I do say about Ian Berris, which I think is
so diffused with humanity and warmth, you know, and a
sense of really connecting with the human condition to a
greater extent. I think the whole thing about the documentary
photography is that there's so much of the photographer's ego
I think can creep in. I guess that I admire

(04:34):
most of the people who are in love with what's
in front of the fold, and perhaps a little bit
more in love with themselves. Yeah, harsh judgment to me,
but I'm sure get what I mean.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
The hindsights are powerful too, isn't it because we can
look back now and see how certain photographies work influenced
the process and the development of photography. At the time,
it's very different, isn't it a smaller world, isn't it
around you?

Speaker 2 (05:00):
I of course, at the time, you're too busy pressing.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
On you know, you exactly are in love with.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
What you're seeing through the future finder and not sort
of seeing yourself in some historical context. I think that's
something you can have the luxury of later on.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Perhaps.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
I think when you're young, ambition and drive for your
own recognition and also wanting to find the moments that
mean the most to you, that's what it's going to
be about at that stage.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
What are you up to these days?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Well, I've spent the last eighteen months getting my archive
into poper Photo, which is run by very nice guy
Bob Tomas, and he sells pictures through Getty. So what
he offered me was the chance to I mean, I
think so far he's uploaded something like five thousand images

(05:51):
into getting and I think there's another ten thousand to
go perhaps, which is kind of quite good for me,
and that these pictures will have a life on into
the future, and I think probably, you know, while pictures
are being sold, probably Getty will always be there. So
to that extent, I feel that that's been a very

(06:13):
worthwhile use of my time, which happened, in fact, to
coincide very much with COVID, when the kind of pictures
I like to shoot were not really that kind of
work really wasn't available to me in that I mean,
with people's faces hidden behind mass, then looking for candid
moments where you know, mirth and jollity are in abundance,

(06:38):
just wasn't happening. But so's that's the last eighteen months.
And then before that I've been shooting a project called
in London and Starry, which was very much photographing back
on the streets again, people celebrating all the things that
one can do and enjoy in London.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, so that's the day.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Sort of a quick resume of the last five or
six years.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
I guess you had the wonderful job of keywording all
your images.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Well, funnily enough, with the Paper Photo they have a
guy who is their sort of wizard at keywording. So
although I provided captions for my work and to some
extent had keywords them. I think the major task for
keywording in a way that would actually make sense for Getty,

(07:25):
you know, has been done by Garriott at Proper Photo.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah, it's a very difficult thing to do keywording and
a very sort of brend up being experience. Especially, Yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Not something I'd like to spend too much time on.
I mustn't it, and especially as I think it's become
such a skill that it's probably a professional keywording chat
will do a better job than I could, even though
they're my pictures. I think the background information, but certainly
from a pure business of selling pictures, I think probably
someone who knows the insights out of keyword I think

(08:00):
is a better choice than perhaps the photographer himself or herself.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
I've always thought about the phrase every picture of a
thousand words, which never really worked with a keyworded No, exactly.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
No doubt one could find a thousand key words. But
that's not the same as hopefully the picture still says
something that heyor was will never say.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah, take me back to when it all start from
you and you were born in nine thirty seven, Where
were you brought up? To take me through your journey
a little bit right through to your archive editing.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
I think the real starting point for as far as
photography goes, was my being just old enough to be
in the last group of men I would have boys
actually who were called up to do national service. So
in nineteen fifty five, when I was eighteen, I was

(09:00):
called up and became gunn Award for two years. And
what was good about that was that I'd led us
as somewhat I was an only child. I'd led a
somewhat sort of sheltered life up until that point, and
going into the army really threw me into a much
sort of wider group of people, and that coincided with

(09:21):
my becoming interested in photography. And while I was in
the army, my girlfriend, who is still a great friend.
Put my girlfriend off all those years ago with great wisdom,
sent me a book called The Family of Man, which
was a kind of pretty defining moment in a way.

(09:41):
Come across a book of pictures that showed just how
brilliantly the camera could be used to document the way
people live. And you will know that the book basically
covers life from birth to death with all of the
great moments in between. I was completely knocked out by
this book book and there and then decided that I'd

(10:03):
like to be a photographer. And also while I was
in the Army, I found that the only way I
could get out of camp was joining a course of
some sort, so getting this book and then joining an
evening photography course in Salisbury for one night a week,
which was I mean, it was completely useless. It was

(10:24):
basically a group of middle aged men who wanted to
photograph you girls, So it wasn't exactly a deep, meaningful
documentary photography, but at least I began to pick up
cameras and get a sense of what I don't know.
Pretty early on I kind of was very sure the
route I wanted to take, so on leaving the Army,
I went to the Regent Street Polytechnic for a couple

(10:46):
of years. I mean, in retrospect, I don't think it
was the right course to go on. They wanted to
turn out sort of generous photographers who could do a
fashion shoot one day and a dental photographs and net next,
and I don't think they Fortunately, there was one guy
who came in a day a week who let roliflex

(11:06):
and said go and shoot some pictures.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
You know.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
So there was a combination of things going on that
at least kept me knowing the direction I wanted to take,
which was to go on photograph people doing things.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
How'd you bought a camera bout this point?

Speaker 2 (11:21):
No, I think you know, that's all getting a bit
blurred now. That's the only problem about having been snapping
for sixty odd years. The beginnings are getting a little
bit afrayed at the edges. But I kind of seem
to think that within the first couple of years after that,
I must have got my first lika. In a sense

(11:41):
that was like gave a sense of joining the great
brotherhood you know of people who used a camera to
record life. It came through pretty early on that was
what I wanted to do, that these were the sort
of cameras you needed to have the Regent Street Polytechnic.
Coming back to that from a in a way, I
felt I probably was treading water for two years after

(12:04):
being in the army, and I was fairly fortunate that
I'm trying to remember the guy's name. There was an
Australian who ran a photography magazine who i'd see and
he said you should go and see John Chillingworth right,
and John Chillingworth, who was the last man in the
world he did an assistant, took me on as his assistant.

(12:29):
I think I was just fortunate in that he took
a liking to me, and maybe took pity on me,
and so he took me under his wing. And although
nominally I was his assistant, in practice, within a very
short time I was out, you know, getting signments, and
he was happy for that. He was very generous. He

(12:49):
himself was at this stage. He had been one of
the I think the youngest photographer on Picture Posts, and
he'd been there in it's last year or so. But
by the time I joined him, picture post had gone.
He was freelancing. He had an office in Fetter Lane,
off Fleet Street. He was largely working for corporate magazines,

(13:13):
people like the cod Board and the Unilever and so
on at that point often had really rather good magazines
and almost shooting for them.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
It must have been a massive learning cove. You've been
introduced to John Chillingworth. Was that after fifty about fifty
seven fifty eight? Was it? Well?

Speaker 2 (13:32):
I would have been. By the time I got to John,
I was twenty. When I left the Army. I was
twenty two when I left Resent Street polyp so I
was with him from the age of twenty two to
twenty four.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, John Chillingworth was a prolific I guess he was
a picture Poul's photographer. I mean he was very prolific,
wasn't it. You couldn't have a better person to be
the assistant to at the time for what you wanted
to do. I guess because he was incredible. He was.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
And yet I've I don't really recollect that to any
real extent assisting him. I mean, if ever, a photographer
didn't need an assistant, I mean, rather like Ian Berry.
You know, he was very much a fly on the
wall photographer, so my being in the background would have
probably been a distraction and an annoyance. So I struggle

(14:20):
in a way to recollect how I did assist him,
except that I think he liked having a little team
of people around him. I mean he had a full
time accountant, for example, who just sat in another room
doing his books, which when I think that I die
an accountant for half an hour each year, I've never
quite worked out how he structured his working life. But

(14:44):
as I say, he was very good to me. He
was very generous. He encouraged me. I began getting assignments
from the Observer newspaper and also from Queen magazine, which
was very furtureous because the art editor of the Cream magazine,
a man called Mark Boxer, became the first editor of

(15:05):
the Sunday Times magazine. So when I went freelance age
twenty four, I began working for the Sunday Times magazine.
So I was very blessed and very lucky. I mean,
I think, you know, timing is everything sometimes, and I
think of a young photographer starting out today, I think
they'd be very lucky to have the various introductions and

(15:28):
openings that just seemed to fall open in front of me.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
What was your portfolio of work like then to sort
of get work with the Observer and the Sunday Times
and macasines like that. What did you have in it?

Speaker 2 (15:40):
I think I probably had about a dozen tear shoes
at that point. I mean, it does sound ridiculous. At
that stage, I was getting work by word of mouth.
If I did a job, well, then I got another job.
But I think I didn't begin to think about putting
a portfolio together, probably for several years after that.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
That's really interesting you're saying that, because that's how my
working life a bold word of mind. You do a job,
You go to a job as a guardian photographer or
some detims photographer, and they go, your guardians, would you
like to come and photograph? I think, And it works
like that, doesn't it. It's a really interesting and I
think have we lost that these days? Well?

Speaker 2 (16:21):
I think, certainly successfully success I think we have lost it.
That the openings just aren't there anymore, at least I
wouldn't think they are. It could be that people do
it to take a different route now, you know, they
go and build up blogs or do things on the
internet and build up a following in that way.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Yeah. I think people definitely meet each other less these days.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, yeah, yes, I mean that was another really nice
thing in my twenties. I had a group of real friends,
I mean, David hern Ian Berry, Philip Jones, Griffith, Don McCullen.
So one was surrounded by people who were very fired
up and yeah, we're doing great work. And that was

(17:04):
a terrific incentive to for as figure out and get
out there and shoot, you know, because you had colleagues
who were doing likewise, they were all getting published and
getting assignments.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
I think that's really important, having your peers around you
who were influencing you. I've spoken to photographers and the past,
you've always thought that the photographers were a threat to
them and their work and the love you. I've always
been the opposite. I've always loved having other photographers around,
even if they're doing the same things as me, because
it inspired me. I learned from them, give me that

(17:36):
sort of understanding and that level I had to work out.
Even now, some of the friends of mine who were
amazing photographers, I used them for inspiration and their friendship.
I think it's important. In the sixties you had your likers,
you started going out and documenting Britain. What was the
urge to document daily life the people of Britain.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Well, I think to some sense it was coming back
to the friendships I had. These were all photographers who
were doing pretty important and serious work. I mean, Philip
was doing Vietnam Incorporated. Don was shooting these major war
stories for the Sunday Times magazine. Ian you know, was

(18:21):
under contract with you observer, doing lots of powerful stuff.
And I think I got a sense that none of
what they were doing was kind of quite me. I
felt there was kind of room for a court yester somewhere,
someone who would not have a sort of political message
to give, not wanting to save the world, not wanting

(18:43):
to you know. I mean, Philip, for example, was incredibly
politically motivated when he did Vietnam Incorporated. And I just
knew that I didn't have that kind of deep feeling
about that's what photography should be. So I had to find,
in a way, what was it that I felt I
could do. And I suppose what I felt I could

(19:05):
do was take pictures that just gave pleasure. I just
got great joy myself of finding, you know, fleeting moments
that people could identify with and smile at. I just
felt there was room for a photographer who would do that.
And coming back to Tony ray Jones, for example, it
seems to me that, I mean, it's interesting to think

(19:26):
that if he and I went to the same event,
we would have come back with very different pictures. And
I think that is bred by the attitude of mind
that we have to our subjects. I suppose I've you know,
never been that earnest about things. There was a time
when I felt, well, does that mean that what I'm
doing is trivial? And gradually I built the sense that no,

(19:51):
it wasn't, because you know, there is room for what
I for what I want to do, and that people
will enjoy it. Although in the sixties I did have
some pictures which have you know, remained in the public
eye of minors and worked for Shelter, for example on
the Gorbels in Scotland. I mean, these were very striking

(20:12):
and powerful images of people leading very tough and underprivileged lives.
But I would say ninety percent of my work has
been much more middle class home counters England. Really the
English should play, yeah, you know, and it's taken me
up into the Yorkshire Dales and the Highlands and so on,

(20:33):
but it's usually hasn't was very except for quite early work,
which was usually commissioned my own personal work, which is
I suppose you know, if I put together a portfolio now,
it would be ninety percent personal work. You know, that
has been to a large extent middle class England at.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Play Yeah, well film are.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, I was trying XHP for I mean, Bert Hardy's
lad did all my processing for a large part of
my working life. I was quite happy to delegate that
one of the joys of the last twenty odd years
has been that I have during that period, starting around
two thousand and three, so nearly twenty years ago, I

(21:25):
switched to digital and it was only at that point
that I had really claimed that and I became a
fully rounded photographer in the sense that I went out
and took the pictures, came back and processed and made Prince,
designed a book, got it published. That's something I wouldn't
have dreamt off earl earlier in life. So digital was

(21:46):
a wonderful turning point for me and remained.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
So seems to be as well, because you self published
a lot as well, didn't you. And I think the
digital age really sort of helped in ways in terms
of output, it was a lot. I mean, the cameras
were quite expensive, but in terms of your working methods,
digital was a lot chi But I don't think people
realize the process and the expense involved with black and

(22:10):
white and were or negative I should say, or E
six or whatever. It was a massive, sometimes laborious process,
wasn't it. I think, Yeah, digital opened up my world,
and I know you still published a lot of books,
and we'll look at that later. One project which is
always fascinated, even before I knew you were part of it,

(22:31):
was man Plan. I think Architectural Review is that sort
of period in sixty nine and that series of images
projects they did in the Review. I thought it was amazing.
And this has been hindsight, you know, I'm probably thirty
days before I realized it was happening. And I can't

(22:52):
get a copy of it. It's really expensive actually to
get a copy of the original Architectural Review Man Plan.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
It certainly is a real, real struggle.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
No.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Well, Architectural Review took on a guest editor called Tim Rock.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, well, let's just go back actually, because what I
want to do is what was man Plan. Just talk
about what man Plan was and how you got involved,
and then we'll talk about some of your pictures.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Right well, as far as I knew, Architectural Review was
a magazine that published nice, sharp pictures of buildings where
all the versicals were vertical, which basically meant they were
probably shot with plate cameras, with rising backs and all
the paraffern you need to represent architecture faithfully.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
And it was a bit of a purist wasn't it. It
was for people who really loved architecture academics as well.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
And of course all the advertising in the magazine was
put in on the basis that it was that sort
of magazine. So along came this man called Tim Rock
who lived around the corner from me in Holland Park
in nineteen sixty nine, and he was given carte blanche

(24:07):
to produce I think it was six or eighty's six
issues of the magazine, which would be about the state
of life in Britain. At that point there seemed to
be no reference to architecture at all. He ranked me
and said would I come around and see him? And
I kind of thought it was a mistake, because I,

(24:29):
you know, I'm not an architectural photographer. I don't wish
to be an architectural photographer. And anyway, when I went
to see him, he said, no, no, it's not about
an architecture. He said, I want you to do what
you do. I want you to go round Britain and
show the state of Britain. And I spent the next
six weeks doing precisely that, and I can remember coming
back to the office every sort of you know, sort

(24:51):
of five or six days and fifty sixty year rolls
of film, getting them processed by my lab, going in
with the contact sheets and there were pouring over them.
They were building the magazine almost day by day as
I brought the material in. It was the most unusual
and bizarre experience. I mean, I in some ways I've

(25:12):
never done anything as intense before or since. It was
a sixth week, as I say, flat out on the road,
non stop. And of course it built on itself. You know,
you got into a frame of mind where I could
walk around the corner without seeing, you know, a dark,
somber image that would fit into mantplan. So it was.

(25:33):
It was an amazing experience.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
It was an amazing experience for the subscribers of Architecture
Review as well, wasn't it? Because I think it was
an amazing one. I think it did a feature all
the sixth supplements within over a few months. There was
six or seven different supplements, which was different photographers.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Think Actually happened was I did the first one, which
was I think seventy four pages, which in itself, you know,
with every other page, but every other spread was a
double spread image sort of thing. It was deliberately printed
in it to come out looking incredibly black and white
and dark and moody. And I think the subsequent it

(26:23):
did seem to tail off. I think John Bomer did one,
Ian Berry did one. I think Tyner Ray Jones was
involved in one. I think there was a lot of
nerve as it proceeded. I think there was probably so
much a negative feedback from the readership and even more
from the advertisers, who, you know, said, what the hell

(26:45):
you know? This isn't architectural review anymore. This is Life
magazine or reality or picture post, but it's certainly not
architectural review. So I think I think I was very
lucky to shoot the first one with a almost open brief,
whereas the subsequent issues were focused much more tightly on

(27:06):
individual subject matter.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
I've never quite worked out why it was commissioned, but
what happened and what was the result of it were
some amazing images. I mean, it was it was incredible.
Some of the images came back and subsequently two books
Illustrating Your Man Plan was published by Kapi World Books

(27:30):
about twenty fifteen or something, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
That's right?

Speaker 1 (27:34):
My favorite is Man Plan too. Some of the images
are just beautiful, and you really went into the heart
of the communities, didn't you.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Well, I did. But having said that, you know, the
truth is that I'd say it was six weeks, but
in a way it was only six weeks. And so
many of my visits were so fleeting. I mean I
went to the Gorbles for example, novel and I was
actually there for about four hours with a mind done.
And out of that, you know, I have eight pictures

(28:07):
which are probably amongst the best pictures I've shot.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
So that makes a great photographer. That proves how good
you are. That's what photographies can be like in the
working context. You do have fleeting visits, but it's what
you get when you're there. Then you're tuned into what
you need to get. If you were just saying you're
fleeting photographer, then that really says a lot about how
good you were because them images, some of these images

(28:32):
are just I mean fantastic. Two of my favorite shots.
I'm not going to let you talk because I'm convincing
that you two shots out of the mind planned two
couple of board books. Is how you composed the six
miners together, all six guys in the working caps Black
caps and stuff like that. It's such a clever composition

(28:52):
of shot. But I think a shot of a raw
of men in a room with the natural daylight coming
through the window and they are sitting at a table,
and then they're well queuing up the table. What's that that?
That's beautiful?

Speaker 2 (29:07):
You know, I can't place that picture in my mind's
sigh at the moment.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
It's like a community center or.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
I think there was probably just going in to do
their weekly signing on signing on.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
For powerful, so powerful, go back and justify it. Now
you're just fleeting, but you know.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
You were just you mean, justifying, justifying man plan. Yeah,
I think man Plan. It wasn't just about the photography.
It was about although you could say a seventy page
feature has to be about the photography, but it was
also about the way the images were used. That the
use of text was sparing but very powerful. The printing

(29:50):
was incredibly black and white, which added another dimension. So
it was, you know, pretty much a team effort, and
I have to be at the sparehead of it.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Did you do much of your black and white printing? Then?

Speaker 2 (30:05):
No? In fact, oh this is embarrassing. I don't think
I started printing until I went digital. Seriously, Yeah, so
I managed to work for forty years. You know, grow
Hardy made my Prince. I mean I certainly reached a
point where I could suggest to Jerry Grows, you know

(30:27):
how I would like a print to look. But when
I think of the printing I do now. I realized
that with the best one in the world. I was
another client, and he was fond of me, and he
put effort into my Prince. But I don't think anyone
makes the print that you're as satisfied with as the
print you make yourself. So in a way, my photography

(30:50):
has had a new lease of life post digital because
it has encouraged me and given me the opportunity to
be a fool forographer rather than just going out and
taking the pictures. I have a modern doctor, which is
with daylight flooding into it where I poured the curtains.

(31:10):
In other words, my doctrine is my iMac screen.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
Absolutely, of course it is. Towards at the end of
the sixties, you started getting involved with Bill Jay's album,
which was twelve magazines photography Magazines. How did that come about?

Speaker 2 (31:31):
Well, I think there was this, As I say, there
was this coterie of photographers that I've mentioned previously, and
we all used to meet up at David Hearn's flat
and go out for supper together, and we were a
real community. And of course Bill Jay hovered on the
edge of that community, knew us all. So I think
it became inevitable in a way that you know, everyone

(31:52):
had a body of work that he liked that you know,
he would publish it.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
So I was.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
Fortunate to say, to be within that group that he
was very much involved with.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
What was Bill jo like?

Speaker 2 (32:04):
He's a strange guy. Somewhat later on he became professor
of history of photography at University in Tempe in Arizona.
Paid two visits to him there. One photographed a group
of Hell's Angels which he helped facilitate, and also a
couple of years later, I went back on a grant

(32:27):
a bi centennial fellowship, and I went and stayed with
him for a few days and bought a car in
Arizona before setting off across America. So I spent quite
a bit of time with him. I've never known anyone
who was so intensely in love with photography and with

(32:47):
that whole range of photography, and also i'd added it
was no mean photographer himself. I mean, he's produced a
series of portraits of photographers that he'd met over the years,
which I think are absolutely terrific. But he was incredibly driven,
incredibly driven. I think probably probably let nothing stand in

(33:11):
his way, you know, when he was pursuing his interests.
You know, he certainly left behind a very substantial body
of work.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
This album is beautiful the magazine. I remember seeing the
photograph that he took of Tony Wade onto the pub
in short Itch or somewhere like that, and actually sitting
in front of me, I have a copy of album ten,
number ten, which has got your It looks like Hyde
Park or somewhere like that. You've got a picture of
a young boy as a sort of night of the

(33:43):
round table, and that's the cover, and then you're you've
got flicking through it. You've got your work, which seems
it's a bit more about the English a play. And
there's a loverly picture of you smiling with the camera there,
youthful picture. This is quite a lot about the sort

(34:05):
of middle classes. What's in here as well, isn't it?
Because you did pick up on that earlier. But this
is a sort of the English at leisure, isn't it?
In this? Yes?

Speaker 2 (34:13):
I think that what year is that?

Speaker 1 (34:16):
It is October seventy I think yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
I was at that point really just getting into photographing
the English at play, which eventually led to a book
published by Gordon Fraser in nineteen seventy seven called Wish
You Were Here The English at Play. And I think
it's probably fair to say that that does have some
of my best sort of personal black and white photos

(34:41):
in it.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
The reproduction qualities are wonderful on this. I mean, these
pictures look amazing. It's weird that you have to turn
your book round, so you have to turn the album
around to a sort of horizontal format of your pictures.
I love the cheek of that. I love the way
to making you do that right.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
That was the thing. I think we all wanted to
be an album because it was such a wonderful show
plays for our work.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
It is definitely you've had quite a few Kaffie World
books published. You've had six. I think you've had done.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
I think two plans.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
The Jersey doesn't The Englisher Player, Bonfire Societies. Is that
Lewis is it the Bonfire Society. Yeah, yeah, I think
I've been to one of them pegan nights many many
days ago, by accident, not to photograph. I just went
with somebody who said you need to see this, and
I didn't take my cumboin, but.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
I actually joined. I joined one of the societies for
a couple of nights and dressed up in their uniform
so that I could sort of blend, really blend.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
In your corvert. Well.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
It was really helpful because when you're on the streets
through the night, you know, you have various sort of
marshals and officials. If you're a photographer, they tend to
push you away, whereas if you're wearing the uniform of
in my case, the Waterloo Bonfire Society, then you're in
the mix of it all, you know. And I just
spent the whole time doing with short lenses, you know,

(36:05):
from closing, which was lovely.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Did they know what you were doing? The group you joined?

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Oh yes, no. I approached them and asked them if
I could, and in fact they invited me to wear
the kids and so on, so that I could sort
of blend in. In many ways, it's good because for
the public audience you know, photographer is right in the
middle of a situation is much less than an annoyance
if he looks like he's one off the role. And so, no,

(36:31):
that was a really good arrangement.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Well, you continued documenting Britain in black and white, in
predominantly black and white in the seventies and into the eighties,
you crossed off and went to America. And I know
you've just said you went awful to live with Bill Jays.
I think was that when you did the dirt.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
He doesn't No, I'd gone over previously. In nineteen seventy nine,
I photographed a book about biking which had about eight
or ten essays in it on various aspects of motorcycling,
and I felt it wouldn't be complete without an essay
on an American biker gang. I think I must have

(37:10):
spoken to Bill about this and he said, well, we've
got a girl one of my students, and her boyfriend
is the president of the Dirty Dozen, which was a
motorcycle gang based around the Phoenix, Arizona, and I can
remember I gave I think I went over for a
week or so and gave some tutorials for his students,

(37:35):
and one afternoon I gave them a slide show and
there were a dozen, you know, twenty year olds sitting
at the front of the hall and in the back
with at these three rather dangerous looking characters in letters
who were from a Dirty Dozen, and we'd invited them
to come and do the slide show, which actually contained

(37:57):
like the first half of my biking book.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Did Bill just invite them down?

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Well, No, we spoke to his student, who was a girl.
She approached them and said, would they come and see
the show because we've got this English photography who'd like
to photograph you? And they came. One of them was
on crutches, I seem to remember, having fallen off his
bike and they watched this sholm and then afterwards I

(38:24):
went up and saw them and said, what do you
think would you let me come and photograph you? And
they said, yeah, join us next weekend, which is what
I did. It's just a weekend riding pillion with the
president and photographing what they were in too.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
It's amazing. I've done that in the Hardy Davidson and
it's amazing, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Well they do vibrate a lot, so that's amazing. That's
for sure. I was lucky in a way because they
certainly looked the part, and yet they were kind of
I was called them Hell's Angels light, by which I
mean they were not the real heavy who I might
have got myself into trouble with. And they've made me welcome.

(39:04):
And I have to say I kept my face buried
behind my camera more or less throughout the weekend, you know,
so that as far as they were concerned, you know,
I hadn't come there to enjoy myself or pretend to
be a Hell's Angel. I was there purely to record
what they were doing, and I think they accepted and
respect to that. I think there are tires as a

(39:26):
photographer where you you have to be really self effacing.
You know, you can chat about it and brag about
it afterwards, but while you're with a group like this,
you know you have to put all of your energies in.
You know, if you don't come away with with lots
of film, then you haven't done anything.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Nor pressure then.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Well, as I say, fortunately, at that point, you've probably
reached a stage in your life where a lot of
what you do is on an instinctive level, So you
know your mind remains clear. You know, you're looking for
those fleeting moments that sum up what you what you're enjoying,
and what you're seeing. So there is pressure, but on

(40:10):
the other hand, there's also a terrific sense of fulfillment.
So it's an interesting trade off that between the you
and you. See in that particular situation, I had a
book that was fifty percent finished, maybe even more, and
I just realized, you know, from work the word go,
the moment I got behind the President on his wholey,

(40:31):
that this was the set of pictures I really needed
and I had to do, you know, to the best
of my ability.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Did they like the pictures very much?

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yes? And the fact that they've been in touch with
me over the years since I had a wow. A
woman wrote to me a few years back and said
that her son had come across had seen the pictures
and did I know where she could could get a print,
And in fact I sent her some prints. But it
also heard sad things like a year or so later,

(41:03):
the Dirty Dozen were drawn into the Hell's Angels and
became a much more serious and dangerous group of people,
and quite a lot of them died, either you know,
getting short or murdered. I think I was blessed in
that when I visited them they were rather more relaxed,
friendly group. Later on they did turn into something rather

(41:27):
more dangerous and ugly.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
The work's published by Caffee World Books twenty fifteen. Again,
I wonder looking back now then seeing that, you know,
because there'll be sort of a lot of them being
retired gentlemen now, probably be interesting how they looked at
this period in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, when they see
that anybody been in touch about it at all.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
I've had I've have had a couple of messages. I
mean I would have been in forty two when I
shot the pictures, and I would think that some of
the riders were of my age, but most of them
were younger. So that would suggest that most of them
now are being there sixties and seventies. I suspect that

(42:20):
this was always going to be a phase in their
life from which they would eventually move on. Yeah, you know,
family children, orgagees in Catch Up with Hell's Angels.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
It's great memories, and that they've got a nice documentation
of a part of their lives or probably in some
cases maybe still their lives staying in America. I'm quite
interested in this. You shot a lot of Americans at play,
Americans leisure in the ages in black and white, but
I was not the thing in the eighties in England

(42:53):
you were shooting color, or you were shooting a lot
more color. You stayed with black and white for the Americans.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yeah, it seemed to me that. I think at that
point I still strongly believe that black and white was
what photography was really about, and that color was for
assignments really and for color magazines and so on. I
tend not to think that now, but certainly back then,
I think in a way the American Project was my

(43:22):
swan song for black and white photography, because thereafter I
think I began to feel that I wanted to shoot
everything in color. Ironically, I now tend to go through
the things I shot in color and find that some
of those images make very good black and white pictures,
and fact looks stronger in black and white than they

(43:43):
did in color. So yeah, well that means that I'm
still basically a black and white photographer who shoots color
film or colored color files. There's an interesting point in itself.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yeah, I wondered if your commercials, I'd had an influence
on staying in the UK, because I remember when black
and white in editorial and that side of commission work
came a little bit unfold and color was distorted. They
want the people wanted color, and we want them to
see color portfolios as well. And I just wondered if

(44:17):
that had something to do with that transition period of
the eighties and the nineties where it was sort of
struck off a bit.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
I can't say I was conscious of somehow outside force
pushing me towards color. I was working for Sunday Times magazine.
Then I was working with the Telegraph magazine for quite
a long time in seventies and eighties, and for American
magazines and German and French Geo. Now all of these

(44:47):
magazines published color pictures. So I shot in color. But
when I think about it, when I go out and
shoot now, I really don't think about it that much.
I think that I've thinking about what I'm shooting, and
I happen to be shooting color color material. But one
of the joys of digital is that at a later

(45:08):
date you have that ability but to make very good
quality black and white as well from the images which
are initially shot in color. Yeah, I don't think I've
ever been a photographer who was bewitched. I was probably
believed more in black and white than I ever got
to believe in color. If you see what I mean it.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
I think it's interesting. I think if you go back
and we were talking about Ian Berry, before he looked
black and white, he used color negative. He looked color
negative because he give him an option to use it
as black and white exactly and to use it as color,
and that's what he did. And he did remember him
shooting his water projects in China and stuff like that,
and that was his attitude. But he didn't like digital

(45:51):
at first, because I remember him saying to me, oh,
you can never be eat an egg, and I was
just like, it's quite interesting concept, but like somebody like
full of John's. I don't think Philip was ever comfortable
shooting color, even working with him in color, I don't
think he ever really liked working in color. He was
definitely a black and white man through and two, and
I think could have struggled with color a lot. And

(46:13):
I may be wrong, but that was just my personal
experience with him. Because his commercial work he had to
shoot color, and I just never thought he really enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
No, except that I think Philip was always up for
a technical challenge.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Oh absolutely, And.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
To that extent. You know, if it was in some
way breaking new ground and color film came out that
was a thousand ASA, he'd be in the front of
the queue to try it and to find subject matters
that worked with him. So No, I, in fact, I
would argue that Ian far More is the photographer who
at heart is a pure black and white photographer and

(46:50):
would happily not shoot color ever again if he could
go on shooting and selling black and white pictures. As
I say, for myself, it's never really been an issue.
I'm really much more interested in the content of the
picture role, whether it's a cover of black and white,
and obviously if one can reach a bigger audience with color,

(47:13):
I suspect that that would tempt me to go down
that route.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah, you had a retrospective work being English published in
twenty fourteen. I think, yeah, how did that come about?

Speaker 2 (47:26):
I'm trying to remember. I think I just sent a
dummy off to Colin Colin Wilks and it was actually
a more general coverage but he said, why didn't you
narrow it down to the English, which I was happy
to do. And I think if you recollect that it
runs in chronological order and it is black and white

(47:46):
for the first half, in color for the second.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, did you send him a blurb?

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Jommy, Yes, I think I made a dummy and then
I refined it several times. I think he said, well,
I've just run it past my design and I said, no, no, don't,
let's do that. This is the book I wanted to be.
And that was great about Colin. I mean I've done
a second book with him on the Thames, and both

(48:13):
of them, for better or for worse, he was prepared
to stick with my design. I say my design, that's
a bit of a grand word for the fact that
I put pictures as big as I can on a page.
That's my design philosophy is that photographs should be big
and bold. I don't get enchanted very much by big

(48:34):
white spaces around pictures that scream on.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yes, negotiating, wasn't it in terms of.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
That's a challenge. But again I think I'm surprised how
often designers are very rigid and they work out a
design grid and the pictures are then expected to fit
the design, Whereas I when I put a picture across
the spread, I'm prepared to move it to the left
or sort of right so that I don't lose the

(49:05):
importance part of the picture in the gutter. So that
means that my design grid is not as formal as
I think most designers would prefer it to be. But
I think it does tend to respect each photograph as
you come to it.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Yeah, you're part of permanent collections. What did you do
with the Arts Council? Was it a funded exhibition program
or a book?

Speaker 2 (49:28):
No, I think with the Arts Council they've merely bought
in pictures from time to time. It's really strange. I mean,
I've got a couple of pictures in the VNA, for example,
but they got them because they were part of a
collection by a magazine editor, which I found somewhat surprising
that they hadn't even approached me. You know, I don't

(49:51):
think I am that representative in collections.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Actually, yeah, I did have a little chuckle to myself
when I saw that you're part of the Royal Institute
of British Architectures colle I'm thinking about the controversy and
the whole type of imagery. I thought, Wow, they succumb
and put it into the archive because it was a
major thing, that it was really interesting part of the history,
Wasn't it that I was happy when I saw that.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Yes, in fact, I think sadly they've actually taken me
out of their archive.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Now.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Well, I had an issue that they were offering prints
for sale, and that rather clashed. It became a bit
of an issue. I wasn't keen on it, and particularly
whatever prints they were offering were obviously made from copying
prints that they had got when the magazine was published,
because they'd never had a print from me. And yet

(50:43):
they were offering pictures for commercial use. And I've never
allowed my pictures to be used except for editorial use.
So that created a bit of a stink, which was
heightened by my relationship with proper Fetter. And in fact
I said, look, I'm happy for you to have the
picture in the collection, but I'm not happy for them
to be for sale in any way. And the last

(51:06):
I heard was that they removed them from the collection
because their computer SYSM didn't allow them not to offer
them for sale or something. Wow, which is rather a
shame because I'm not at all averse for them being
there for students and people to see, but they were
actually offering them commercially for sale. I'm sure they was

(51:31):
illegal in that they were not model released in any way.
And I have never asked anyone to sign a model release.
I mean, I just would never ask someone to let
one of my pictures sell cigarettes or things that I
might not know about or approve of.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
I definitely man planned is on my book at list
to find and buy. It's one of them.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
Yeah, they must be out there somewhere.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
Last it is it is. I'm hoping to find it
in a charity shop one day, a dock fun bookshop
one day. Because the prices have been asked ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
Yeah, yeah, I think Martin Palm I'd be one of
the last buyers who maybe forced the prices up.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
Well, Martin's got everything over there, He's got everything, which
is good, which is good. He's doing great things over there.
The foundation, what you working on? Have you got any
exhibitions lined up? What little projects you're working on, What's
what's the next step?

Speaker 2 (52:32):
And it's really trying to get the Londoner's Diary published.
Bluecoat Press published my previous books, and I would have
loved them to have published The London's Diary, which is
a book of the same size and format as being English,
and I think would have made a wonderful companion piece.
But sadly the publisher is retiring and the future of

(52:56):
that publisher is uncertain, so I'm out this kind of
certain I'm still actually shooting pictures for that.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
I don't think Blue Court's going to end, and that's
all I can say on the matter for now. I
think it will continue. There's other people like Dewi Lewis,
there's the crowdsourcing connection and doing it. I think there's
options and ways of doing it. I think there's blue
Court will continue, and I think it's great that you're
doing it, and I think it's great that you've still

(53:24):
got the vision and the drive to get out and
create and work up it, and I commend you on that.
And I think it's very easy to sort of sit back,
especially when you put a lot into the industry, and
I think you've got a lot out of it mentally
as well and obviously physically. Have you ever thought of
mentoring and putting stuff back into the youth, the grassroots

(53:44):
level of the industry.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
I think it sounds silly for an eighty five year
old to say this, but I still really feel that
I'm a young lad who ought to be out there shooting.
That mentoring is for the old guys. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Yeah? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
I get much more an adrenaline rush anticipating seeing a
great moment unfolding in front of me than I could
by mentoring. I mean, I've done the occasional talk and
things of that sort, but I really still want to
be out there shooting. I think mentoring to me would
be accepting that it was time to retire, and I'm

(54:21):
there at that point yet.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
Excellent Patrick, It's been wonderful. I'm really pleased that I've
had time to have a chat with you and just
find out about where you've connected with the world.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
And I've enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
It's been a pleasure, and thank you for your time, Patrick,
and I wish you well and many many picture frames
ahead of you which will cross your puff. Thank you right,
I've enjoyed it too, Thank you, pleasure all the best,
take care, Bye bye the lady. They

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#17 Patrick Ward - PHOTO TALK - WTF-STOP PODCAST

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