DAVID HURN IN CONVERSATION WITH EMYR YOUNG.
TINTERN, MONMOUTHSHIRE, DECEMBER 2015
(released on the Ffoton Podcast 8 January 2016)
David Hurn is still working, photographing and publishing at the age of 81 years and is regarded as one of Britain’s most important reportage photographers.
A self-taught photographer who began his career in 1955 as an assistant at the Reflex Agency, he gained his reputation with his reportage of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. David became an associate member of Magnum Photo in 1965 and a full member in 1967. Here in Wales, he set up the famous School of Documentary Photography in Newport in 1973 where he remained for 17 years.
We met with David following the publication of a new book ‘The 1960s: Photographed by David Hurn’ published by Reel Art Press which demonstrates the breadth and strength of iconic images that defined the period. This second and final part of our in-depth conversation covers David’s joining Magnum Photo; establishing the original Documentary Photography course in Newport; and his frank views on photography in Wales and how it’s currently represented.
LINKS FROM THIS CONVERSATION:
David Hurn on Magnum Photos – https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/david-hurn
Philip Jones Griffiths on Magnum Photos
Henri Cartier-Bresson on Magnum Photos
Joseph Koudelka on Magnum Photos and his West Bank ‘Wall’ studies & video on ‘This Place’
Ken Russell – ‘A House in Bayswater’ (video) on YouTube
Lee Friedlander – selected works on MoMA
Garry Winogrand – great video of him in action on YouTube
August Sander – selected portraits on MoMA
Sergio Larrain on Magnum Photos
Weegee (Arthur Fellig) – selected works on MoMA
Elliott Erwitt on Magnum Photos
Ian Berry on Magnum Photos and his own website
Gallery images © David Hurn / Magnum Photos. Used with permission.
Podcast images of David Hurn © Brian Carroll
Please note: Comments or views made by interview participants are their own and are NOT necessarily the views of the Ffoton Wales team.
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Audio and images Copyright © 2015 – 2024 Ffoton.
No reuse without prior written permission.
www.ffoton.wales
Made in Wales
Magnum yeah um at Trafalga Square when and you met a magnum photographer yeah yeah well um I mean what actually happened was that I was in F Square shooting pictures of pigeons yes it’s not the first person that’s ever shot pictur of pigeon and and and there was another person shooting
Pigeon um who came up to me and and I thought I was being picked up or something um who said he said I think you’re very good photographer um he said I can I can tell photographers by watching them work you know so I thought that’s a strange line but um and being
Very heterosexual extremely at that time heterosexual but anyway it was s yes who turned out later when I you to be in my opinion with Ouiji and cadela the three for me the three greatest photographers um and what Sergio said was that you know he said some people
Shoot pictures and other people you can see are concentrating on shooting pictures and he said that he he said you can sometimes tell that that deep concentration of somebody who’s obviously doing it for a purpose whatever that purpose is um and so we became friends and and and he
Looked at my pictures now now at that time of course I was I was shooting anything to to make a living you know but I was shooting some things not as well as people around me so so that when it was a sort of current affairs sort of
Story I mean if it had violence in it McCullen did it better than anybody and if it was politically you had to be politically assuit then Philip Jones Griff because Philip was the person who had the political brain more than anybody else he really understood his politics I
Mean um it said and and so what I did was one of I don’t know who it was but somebody said I always did tinsel Society most of the time but of course you can’t I sheep dog trials or something like that I used to find those lovely you know it goes back
To yeah army officer buying his wife a hat but it was very difficult to make a living out of that sort of stuff CIO looked at my pictures and and and said this is what you should be doing you know this other current affairs thing
Yeah by all means do it but but know in your head that you’re in the second division in that yeah whereas in this other thing Perhaps Perhaps you have something that other people don’t do had a terrific bit of luck and that was that the color supplement started at that
Time 1961 I think it was or anything and what happened was that this other group of photographers were buying for the current affairs he thing of which most of the stuff in the magazine was that but I had a little niche that nobody else was doing right and so literally every story
I did was published because because nobody else was was was doing that and Sergio introduced me to a man called John hillerson who at that time was the Magnum agent he represented many other people besides Magnum but was the Magnum agent in London and it was through going
Into that office that I saw the contact sheets that were so influential in my life yeah um but also it meant that I came into contact with the Magnum photographer because and by now I knew what magum was yeah at the time I met Sergio I didn’t have a clue I’d never
Heard of it you know um and so because the magazines were really quite good at that time so there was a magazine called Queen and town and and and and queen magazine had a very good picture editor called Mark boxer and and it um and he brought over they brought
Over um Bruce Davidson for example and and Brian bre break from New Zealand and and Ernst T I think they all worked for Queen magazine and various things Elliot ow came over that’s why it’s so nonsensical sometimes you hear people trying to pretend that photography started and interesting photography
Started in the’ 70s you know what it means is that somebody had a gallery at that time and they tried to pretend that they had had a big influence all these photographers were all over in the early 60s were um and and I you know I just like what was going on
Basically so um I mean it means it opens doors for you presumably it it it it well what happened was that I met Bruce Davidson you know so Bruce Davidson came over for Queen magazine and I instantly latched myself to him and said look do you want to a guide which was exactly
What he needed because um the information he was getting from the research people at at Queen was in a certain kind of rather social socialistic so not socialistic social what establishment whereas I could introduce him to a different so I spent a lot of time with Bruce and then Elliot came
Over and I did the same thing very deliberately sort of said I I’m happy to be your assistant you you know right okay um and so not only did I learn enormously from working with them and seeing the way that they work but I also had a stronger
Connection to the London Magnum office so by and large it never seemed to me a problem of getting into Magnum because I found myself able to infuse about photography as much as Bruce Davidson did and Elliot did and I realized that I had the same kind of thought process that they had
You know the attention to detail the attention to the subject matter of what it was really about and what I was trying to do um and so every time the Magnum people came over I met them and so you know and George Roger had become who was the Great British Magnum
Photographer founder became a friend and then George introduced me to C bressel and and and I got on well with him as well so my process into Magnum was was kind of eased in quite easily yeah and and to be honest I mean it sounds pompous but I never thought I
Wouldn’t get in if you see what I mean it just seemed to me a it it was a natural progression a natural progression um it is for most people it’s a pretty torturous yeah uh thing because they don’t have th those sort of feelings um those those sort of that
Sort of and what sort of hands on do you have with Magnum now do you oh all the time I said you know I go up to the office I mean now I’m southwest but I go up to the office once a month I suppose and obviously with email and all that
Sort of stuff there’s not a day goes by when there isn’t emails from somebody about something you you know so the contact is very close but but it I mean Magnum is is it’s an agency like any other agency except the differences that is owned by the photographers rather than being an
Agency that employs photographers indeed yes so that has advantages and disadvantages right the advantages is that everything within Magnum is based on things like you know terrible words like integrity and and honesty and and all that and and and if you deviate from that at all you slapped down by the
Other photographers because part of the reputation of Magnum is that it does things really really thoroughly yes and and with whatever again you can have the debate about the word integrity but but with great Humanity of great integrity yes um and and I fitted into that sort
Of family you know it’s very important that you get on with the other people that you get on with the staff and you know more people come into Magnum and then don’t become a member because of their relation with a bad relation with the staff than
Through you know if if you get into the nominee status in Magnum you it’s pretty obvious you take pretty good pictures indeed but actually that’s only a part of it yes okay uh uh the part of it is that you know they always used to say if a magnum photographer goes somewhere and
Does a story it’s much much easier for the next person that comes along they leave that kind of feeling behind them which is a nice thing for somebody to have said and I hope it continues you know but it is it is lovely and and but
The main thing you get out of it is is the the companionship of the family of people around you that are the best I mean we have tremendous staff yeah you know they really are the best and and of course the photographers as the photographers to get into Magnum you
Have to be voted in by the other photographers indeed and it’s a a long long process of discussion etc etc by and large um I don’t think Magnum makes many mistakes uh you know I mean I I if I look through the members at the moment um I don’t think there’s anybody
There that I would say shouldn’t be there even on a personal even those I did don’t like them there are certain photographers I just don’t particularly like or I might not like their pictures personally I know what they do but but as photographers within their genre um I
Think it’s reasonable to say they are the best yes they are the best and and and and that’s great because it means that you know if I go up to the office and there happens to be somebody in from New York or Paris you go and have lunch and the
Conversation is kind of different from the conversation you tend to have with other photographers other photographers tend to in the main talk about money and and and whether they’ve got a job or whether they haven’t they magnif over never that or they’re interested in a subject matter M you know what are you
Working on is that interesting what is your approach to that particular story and that’s so refreshing sometimes one of the problems with Magnum is is that um because it was run by photographers you have the photographers that think they know something about Finance running the financial side of it now that was okay
For many many many years because it was pretty simple but as it got more and more complicated more and more photographers it and so you have a lot of these tremendous rows one hears about within Magnum were actually to do with Finance it would be to do with three or
Four people all saying you know this is the way to do it that’s when we finally came to our senses and realized we needed to get somebody really good in to to head up and and deal with the finance we we managed by sheer luck to
Bring this wonderful guy David he is you know a heavyweight he is the guy that negotiates between the Premiership lead and Sky Television you know so he he deals with the $16 billion deal so we’re talking about somebody who really knows what they’re talking about and he is at the
Moment the person that deals with all everything to do with the future finances of of Magnum etc etc now the beauty about that is that when you go to a meeting and you got two people that really don’t know absolutely what they’re talking about having having an
Argument he would just step in and say shut up you know and they had enough sense to realize that he knew what you’ve talking about and they didn’t so they shut up so the Magnum meetings now are incredibly quiet because there’s none of that thing not only that but the
Whole finances are uh therefore being sorted out and and um you know I mean simple things like if we were in financial problems you know people used to say oh we need to cut back on the staff you know when David came in he he
Said no you don’t cut back on the staff you get better staff you you go up Market you don’t go down Market you know you make sure that what you’ve got is great staff and if you got great staff then you produce more and you make more money and of
Course he was absolutely iric I mean we’ve got unbelievable staff now we’ve pinched them from the head of Christies the head of the SBE in the cultural studies Department very high ranking person from Reuters has come in and and and and and so and it’s really made a differ you
Suddenly find the atmosphere in the the office it was always very friendly but now it’s it’s learned in a way the people know what they’re talking about yeah and and that rubs off and it makes you want to you know maybe I you know the fact that I rushed around in Paris
Was partly to do with having shot the pictures of this Terror thing you know I’m 81 so it it’s not easy to to run around Paris when there’s a lot of young photographers doing that but I did have the experience to to download quicker than anybody else you
Know but I could download quicker because I had enough sense to realize that I can’t compete with them running but I can get my pictures out quicker which means something but I had faith in the Magnum office doing it right and so Magnum is very very healthy at the
Moment it’s um it’s in really good shape and so and also the young photographers that are coming in I mean the the latest sort of the last dozen photographers 10 photographers we brought in are just wonderful and and so Magnum is in really really good hands with them they’re nice
They’re Pleasant they’re very humanistic and they’re brilliant photographers and very brave more much less to do with trying to do stuff of which the general public would enjoy much more to do with oh it’s an intellectual exercise of which the head of the gallery can promote themselves in a further
Direction and in my opinion sadly it’s at its worst it’s ever been now in that what you have is somebody who is they do it it does it very well you know except that all the time it always seems to me as though it’s a wey bit self-promotion
You know I I can find this obscure Czech zakian photographer and my feeling is who cares a sh you know if you’re going to have a gallery in Wales let’s have a policy you either show the best in the world to people that have never seen it
For example there’s never been a c of Resturant exhibition in Wales that’s crazy yes um so you could show those sort of people to the public or you can show young people and promote young people or you can show the best of other people that have photographed in Wales
Now that seems to be a simple policy yes which would be advantageous to have but instead of that you have this weird sort of conceptual thing perfectly valid form of Photography but it’s a very very Tiner narrow genre and it dominates the gallery yes so in my opinion nobody goes anymore
Yeah whereas I mean you know one of the things I’m saying to the museum is that the first thing that I think this new creator has got to be and it’s very difficult because I have to not look as though I’m you know being over pushy
About it but is to link up with the the education department of which is a very good Department in in the university and the first thing they got to do is to devise a way of openings not being for people that go and buy a new hat to come
To the opening you you know but to be to attract taxi drivers yes yes and it’s a different it’s it’s very difficult for a museum because they’re so used to this cozy establishment sort of you know social thing you know we’ll all have wine at the opening buger that it I would prefer
Them to have beer at the opening yes and everybody you know have four times as many people democrati yeah yeah now I think it’s very easy to do I think it’s easy to do you stop having three lectures a year about sort of the B
House and the and the the the feeling of that you have an exhibition called sex you know and a lecture called sex and if you have a lecture which is called sex you’ve got 200 people AB come to it you can then do it very brilliantly within that thing and show
The history of yeah you know from the deera type and and and and pornographic pictures to to whatever you want to do and violence you can have but it’s got to be titles of which the general public understand aren’t we in a situation though where the establishment will
Never ever put their head on the Block well they might if they think money is involved ah and and and and so if a box office and B in my case if I give them my archives and and I give them enough pictures I’m giving them 1,500 prints well in terms
Of you know a PR of mine at the moment sells you know they don’t sell that many so it’s an artificial thing it sells for 1,000 quid that’s 1,500 time 1,000 a lot of money is the value and the accountant there is going to say if you’ve got that collection in that means
The sets of this Museum are yeah you know a few million that has a clout yes yes now it’s an artificial clout because you know if I sell 20 pictures a year 30 pictures a year that’s doing very well 1,500 pictures they’re not going to going to sell but in terms of the
Accountancy in the books it it’s very powerful and and so that I think is the way you have to do it nowadays you have to you have to battle them on their own ground and and and that is the sort of ground and and then you also have to
Battle through this this establishment thing of the people that buy a new hat to go to the open yes because it’s really refreshing to you say that at for gallery because we’ and many of many many of the photographers we’ve spoken to just don’t bring it up in conversation because they don’t feel
That institution that organization is relevant to them how sad is that it’s so sad it is so sad because the reason it’s sad is because they get all the money there was a little Gallery run by a Polish guy and somebody called the Third Floor Gallery and within a year that had
A stature around everybody people knew about it but of course they had no money the Arts Council said silly things like oh well you’ve got to be established for two years before and I mean it’s so ludicrous they needed the money and the two kids that were running it who were
Very enthusiastic and and cared about and knew who all the really good young photographers were and said they were brilliant and and but they’ve gone off to shoot pictures instead and and and sadly in my opinion the person that’s running it now is very good you know
Very well meaning etc etc but doesn’t have that kind of whatever it is personality that they had and and so that that stood that I thought was wonderful and and and should potentially have been but the photo gallery is is is okay if you’re interested in that tiny little genre of
What the guy picking up another point in your career because you spent I mean you spent 17 uh uh years with a Newport course uh uh because that happened by accident in a way it kind of happened by accident I what happened was that I had real realize that living in London
In basically 1970 I think it was that I was doing more things that I would prefer not to have to do yes just to pay for the cost of living in London it wasn’t that I was doing things which I didn’t enjoy doing you know I worked on
Some films and and obviously you know I became very friendly with people like Jane fond and you don’t KN you a year with a year with her yeah yeah and and and that was very close very intimate and and was lovely Etc um but what was
Wonderful about it was her it wasn’t I didn’t find a lot of the time the pictures all that interesting you know I mean I I shot some fashion at that time I had a contract with Harper bizar you know but I used to just at the end of
The session give the film to the picture editor I I didn’t even bother to look at the stuff you know I wasn’t that interested in the pictures I was interested in the phenomenon of doing it which was fun you know you go to the Canary Islands with six models it’s
Fun you know but the pictures for me yeah particularly as I knew that all I was was top of the second division in fashion you know I was never going to be Richard aan or gor or pen they cared about they care about clothes yeah and fashion photography is about you know selling
Frogs basically yeah that’s what you got to do now they cared about it I didn’t you know I did it well enough to to you know be at a pretty high level um but I was in London I was finding myself having to do things like this to give me
Enough money to go and do what I really wanted to do and I realized that if I would came back to Wales I could still do what I wanted to do but it would be about a third of the cost and so that that’s why I came back M when I came
Back to Wales um to the credit of the wal sharts council at that time there was a somebody called Peter Jones there and a really nice lady called Isabelle hitch hitchings I think her name was and somehow they knew I’d come back and knew
Of me and so they asked me to do they gave me £600 I remember to do something about Wales and so I decided that I would try to discover what was meant by the word culture yes um I was when I whenever I was back home in
Whale I was always talking about oh this is my culture this is my culture and whenever I sort of tried to discuss with somebody what that meant nobody actually came up with an explanation they just used the word a lot you know as though it was all terribly important but nobody could
Didn’t and I I I met somebody called Raymond Williams who was a really fine in my opinion one of the great Welsh writers indeed and and he wrote a book called culture I I I contacted him because I’d seen this book called culture and basically what he was saying
Is that this is a very complicated word you know but in very simple terms I he was saying that a we only have one word whereas in many other countries they have many words but by and large in our discussions came to the conclusion that that that culture is B
Is based enormous amount on on weather conditions and things so if you live in a very wet country on the top of a mountain you develop a different culture than if you live in the desert where it’s hot and you know so in a way it’s
To do with lifestyle and in a way it’s to do with isolation where you are and isolation builds a separate language which is part of it and it and it builds religion of some sort which is part of the whole thing but in W it’s very difficult to Define
What any of that is because um you know you have the language which is in my opinion overp powerful in Wales I mean I would defend it you know as was it em Zolo said you know to my last or something but but sometimes I feel it has too much
Influence you know I if I had to learn a language I don’t speak Welsh but if I had to learn a language I would want to speak Spanish or Chinese I wouldn’t want to speak Welsh you know um so I started to try to discover so I I I thought I’m
A photographer so maybe the only way I can discover what is meant by my culture is to actually try to shoot three books one is on the way we live in Wales one is to do with the people that live in Wales and one is to do with the
Landscape of whales that would cover everything and so I did what I normally do is I sketched out on paper you know what people doing well so I I still have the Bits of Paper you you know so I would make lists like say sport obviously and education and universities
And and uh farming and coal and steel and so I’d make this list of all the things that I felt ought to be covered and then I would subdivide those so under sport I would say well the important is obviously rugby but there is also you know football and this and
And and and then I have a like a spiders web of which I knew that I had to cover all of these things and then it’s a matter of you know going to wherever and do whatever you want to within it now that out of that came the book land of my
Father Yes um again when I look at it I had still had no idea what was meant by worsh culture because I I discovered that there is more difference between living in penrick Shire and living in tinon than living in North Wales or you know these places are totally different
So there isn’t some seem to be overall thing within it but having said that whenever I show the book to people they do say it’s very Welsh which I find really interesting because nobody can pinpoint why it’s very Welsh but it is very Welsh and I think that’s wonderful yeah because
Photography is obviously somehow sending out some sort of Vibes which are not not literary Vibes they can’t be described no they do something and and the fact that it does that to me is it’s lovely and so then one of the great problems with photography is
Access and if you are like I am working all the time freelance and not you know if you work one of the great advantages of working for a magazine is you usually have access so when I went to do the the portraits um of the people that live in
Wales I I had to find a way of getting access so I invented this little phrase you have enriched my life so I would write to people and say dear Dame Margaret price um you have enriched My Life by your and then I would you know
Quote a couple of DVDs I’d got and her performance and so and so and so and so and of course anybody that has been told you’ve riched their Liv they say yes you you know so that was my way of of getting in with these people and I
Enjoyed doing that book immensely it was incredible hard work because and over a long period of time as well well I had I only had a year and a bit to shoot it because sarin said they would publish it but they they had a publishing date and
So I had to shoot 10 I think it’s 101 pictures in less than a year now if you think it takes roughly a day to write the letters and you know do the search to set up and a day to shoot the picture and a day to print it afterwards I actually shot
300 something days out of the Year together so it was really hard work really really hard work yeah and I tried to do something which I don’t think anybody has ever noticed I tried to sort of make a political Thing by asking very simple questions to everybody so the
Basic questions were where are you born m um how long have you lived in W what’s your first language what’s your second language and everybody under the picture had this thing and so you came up with all sorts of wonderful things for example David wiggley who is in my
Opinion one of the great welshmen you know he was one of the only politicians that I actually believed in ETC was actually born in darbishire he was yes um and and these sort of things I thought were very interesting were thrown up and in in the book they’re
There but I don’t think anybody’s ever looked at it or seen it or or realized that it in theory has some significance you know but um and and and and then I’m I’m doing one at the moment on landscape which is I mean all I knew about the
Landscape was that I hadn’t shot much of it and I didn’t want to do what other people had done so I didn’t want to pretend I was anel Adams no you know he’d done it pretty well so so I redo what he’s done and uh I didn’t want to
Do sort of travelogy pictures you know this is my prettiest View and I certainly didn’t want to drive from Cardiff to to North Wales to real or something shooting a picture every 400 yards out the window and then writing five pages of text as to why this was terribly
Significant you know because the reality is I don’t think it’s very significant you know um so for a long long time I didn’t know how to do it and and then I found a very early book of the geology of Wales yeah and looking at that I I
Love the text in it I love the the scientists were so precise about what they were but I didn’t think the illustrations were that interesting no so I suddenly thought well why don’t I do the landscape the wrong way around why don’t I find experts that tell me what I ought to be
Photographing not subjectively saying so I went to the head of geology at Cardiff University and I said to him if you have a son where would you take him to show him the oldest rock in Wales there’s a bit of it there right and he he said oh
That’s an interesting concer so he said if the Precambrian this and I said no no cut out the academic I want to know the map reference yeah of the of where it is and so he said oh what an interesting idea so a few days later he sent me a 10
Ordinance survey 10 uh figure map reference and said if you go in that field on the top of hat Hill those are the oldest rocks in Wales wow so then I could go and do whatever I like but my job was to photograph those rocks however I wanted it I could be
Close I could be a long way away I could I could do whatever I wanted with it I could do it and so we then you know went back to him and said well what’s the best example of a glacier Valley what’s the best example of a rock fold so we
Went through geology and then I moved on to anthropology and and said you know what is the first example in the country of of Neolithic man and and right okay and then I could photograph those those sort of things and and then I started to investigate when
Was the first use of the word landscape and and and you know it’s interesting because castles were built to suppress people and yet at some point they suddenly became romantic yes in paintings and so so you can see what I’m saying and and very simple things like north south east
West well that is dictating something so you can go and photograph you know Mouse Island which is the North Rose which is the South yes the East is more difficult because it’s on private land in fact and and the people are a bit naughty about
Letting you get on there so you have to sneak in um and and then the West is the only one I haven’t done now because that’s the um the lighthouse way off it’s it’s it’s like 20 miles off St David out so you have to get a boat to
Go out there and all that sort of things but but that’s the way I’m I’m tackling the landscape um oh when do you hope to when is when do you hope to publish that well it it’s got to it’s really got to be finished by next July because I did I did a
Mistake I I put it as being the last book thinking it’d be the simplest to do I.E landscape is there all the time you you you know you don’t have if you want to go back if you’ve done it wrong you can go back you know and and and it’s
Not going to move that much but what I hadn’t realized is that I get older and that things begin to ache and your legs go and and I discovered this when I tried to get up Hatton Hill the first time because I went to go there I
Couldn’t get up there I just couldn’t get up there so I then had to come back and say well the only way I can do this is to go to the gym so I spent a year getting fit enough to walk up there to walk out hell you know so it was very
Good because it meant I did that but it has been going on too long you you know right and I am I’m pretty fit I I I you know I go to the gym three times a week and and and Etc but however much you go to the gym
As you get older you get weaker and so there and of course the thing is that you tend to put off the things that are most difficult like there’s a a one wonderful Bridge which bizarrely is right in the middle of Morland and nobody quite knows it was obviously on a
Drover’s Road or some sort of a pack Horse Road but it’s there but it’s 4 and 1 half miles into the middle of really tough terrain so that’s 4 and a half miles there and four and a half and and I’ve still got to do that you know well
If I don’t do that by next July I think the reality is that I probably won’t be able to do it you know and yet for me it is quite an important because it’s that symbolic of a certain kind of Welsh Bridge you know and and there’s a there’s a wonderful Hill fort
In North Wales near tror I think oh yes abely and I haven’t photographed that and it seems to be it’s very that’s exactly and and and I need to do that because it’s you know from the period it was it’s very important but again my guess is it’s probably
Quite a rough climb to get up there not bad not bad no it’s not bad okay well if you ever need a companion yeah so you know things like that and I be I begin to realize my my legs are running out um Etc but um but I try very hard
To overcome the problems each time but sometimes problems can’t be overcome you you know but do you do stuff locally in tinon I I I love you know I shoot pictures all the time um and and all I’m interested in is seeing something thinking it’s visually interesting or that the content
Is interesting so I photograph so I suddenly thought what would be a project that I could do which I could probably do forever and and I saw a quote by John Updike I was reading John Updike American writer who writes very much about Suburbia and he had this wonderful quote
Talking about the Exotic of the mundane yes indeed and I thought this is a wonderful idea the idea that going back to the Army officer buying his wife a had in a way as the Exotic of the mundane it was absolutely me it’s what I wanted to do at the
Beginning you know was to spend my life photographing officers buying their wives hat or the equivalent and and I’ve stuck to that perhaps that’s what we call authorship you know is knowing exactly what it is you wanted to do and not really deviating very much from it
And so I said was my Village is is you know it’s a nice Village you know words were said it’s the most beautiful place in the world although I later discovered he’d only ever been to two places you know um but why not you know if he said
If he said it fine I’m happy to go along but it is a nice Village and the nice people and it has a sense of community yeah so I thought well maybe I do that you know if I got a zither frame I can I can get around the village so I started
To photograph The Village um I’ve been a little bit disappointed about it because I I thought it might you know I had visions of going into people’s homes and photographing them all play Monopoly and things I you suddenly discovered that they don’t anymore you know it’s almost impossible to go into somebody’s home
And get a family community activity they don’t even eat together no anymore and and so I ended up photographing all the events bizarrely being um somebody who has no religious beliefs whatsoever one of my friends is that a woman who’s the local priest um Nora and and and I suddenly discovered
That she was doing more in the village than anybody you know so I had this strange sort of thing of realizing the person that was in many ways the most productive person productive person in the village happened to be religious and and so we sort of came to a pack that I
Wouldn’t try to change her beliefs and she wouldn’t try to uh change mine and and and so I I’ve shot a terrific amount in in the church you know to do with birth death baptism event and all that sort of stuff so the event Side of Everything Is is
Really well covered but the sort of more personal side you know luckily I’ve got a few friends that have family and so for example uh my dear friend who who they run the garage the local garage I will go and have Christmas with them now luckily they have quite a big family so
That lets me photograph a family at Christmas but but things which I was disappointed by I mean I put out the thing when I was starting it that you know if there were any young people that were the least bit interested in even just journalism Etc you know I I would
Say look I’ve got a lot of experience you know 60 years of experience perhaps I could pass on some of that experience um and I could do it by photograph and then I could assign people to go and interview all the people not one single young person came forward to good
Gracious me to do this no no given that opportunity given that not one single person and and I thought is that different from I don’t know if it was different than when I was that age or the opportunity was there but my guess is that they were too
Busy playing on their game boys or whatever there is do you I mean when you were when you started your course in Newport yes how did you I mean because there’s a kind of link is how did you because people would apply for the course how did you choose those people
David oh yeah well there was a question you asked earlier which I became very friendly with Peter Jones who was the person at the Arts Council incredibly constructive man and and and they organized some wonderful exhibitions at the museum at that time he in conversation said to me do you
Think it’s possible to teach photography you know and I in my ignorance or naivity said yes of course it is but only if you teach it as painting in the Middle Ages was taught as an apprenticeship thing so I said all you need to do is to have people that have
Really done it who pass on their accurate information to people that really want to do it so you swap you swap experience for potential yes I said if you set something up like that then I think you can teach it and in my own case I was very lucky very early on
Because i’ I’d met Sergio line who was at that time a member of Magnum I didn’t know what Magnum was at that time but he um introduced me to the Magnum agent in London and I learned more from looking at the contact Sheets if you look at the
Contact sheets of of Mark reu or or whoever bre on boy oh boy do you see but what I discovered looking at all these cont I used to go into the office every night and and and absorb contact sheets contact sheets contact sheets what I found surprising was that all the
Various photographers who by this time I’d realized were wonderful photographers um looking at their contact sheets they all had the same thing in common is and that they all realized that there were two controls in photography one is where you stand yeah and one is when you press
The button yeah and it is the simpl as that if you stand in the right place and press the button at the right time you get a picture and they all did it the same way by not being arrogant and thinking you can go and shoot one picture but they
All seem to you could see in the contact sheets they sensed a situation which might produce something whatever that something is and then they would shoot pictures as they got into a better position and you could then see them in that position waiting for something to
Happen or the thing to end very often nothing happened but you can read that in the contact sheet yes and so when I set up the course um what happened was that Peter Jones introduced me to John Wright who was a very laidback guy who
Was head of the art school it was an art school at that time and and John Wright literally said oh okay why don’t you set this up in whatever way you like you know and so I had a free hand so I made certain conditions one is that we didn’t
Have qualifications I didn’t want people all coming to get a qualification and later I I actually said I didn’t want it to be a ba course you know we just give a college diploma sort of thing because the problem with being a ba course is
That it’s in a way the structure of the course is is dictated by governments and things like that and as they were trying desperately to save money it meant that You’ go from being an apprentice method you know the the the practitioner passing on experience to to
Suddenly having 100 people in a lecture theater being talked to um because that made the star student ratio better so that developed the whole sort of theoretical side of Photography which is perfectly valid you know if people want to talk about photography and discuss it and be philosophers of at a in my
Opinion pretty low level philosophy but if they want to do all those things absolutely fine but don’t pretend that that’s going to produce photographers other than in a very narrow genre of Photography yes perfectly valid genre you know if that’s what you want to do
But it is a tiny little genre you know it’s nowhere near the amount of people that for example are scientific or medical photographers or wedding photographers it’s a minor part as I say perfectly valid and if you want to do it fine but I didn’t want to get in that
Field and and so having set up the course in this very practical way of which we made it very clear that our job was to get people jobs afterwards you know that people should survive in whatever field of documentary they wanted to do having set up there the
Second that the pressure was on to become a ba course I left that’s when I left that was the final thing yeah they said you know you have to be a ba of course I said thank you very much goodbye did you I mean presumably you interviewed people when to go on the
Course we interviewed people but we interviewed people in a strange sort of way because I was never interested in their pictures so normally you know people would come you know on courses with pictures and I I was interested in what they were interested in yes my Pro thought process in this was that
I can teach somebody to shoot pictures that’s easy yeah you you know to a certain standard yeah what I can’t do is teach people to be interested in something indeed and and I find it discouraging now because very often I see young people and and they come and
And I say before we start discussing photography what are you interested in so if you say well I’m interested in Social matters and you say I spend two days a week working in an old folks home helping out doing this that and the
Other I say I can I can teach you how to shoot pictures of those people in that old first what I can’t do is teach you to be a photog grapher who has this mythical thing I’m interested in in social issues yes you know yeah the social the interest in the social
Issue has to come first or the interest in in architecture has to come first it’s about being human being yeah yeah and and and but having knowledge yeah about what it is you want to photograph so if somebody came to me as one person did they had a degree already in
Architecture and they said I would like to expand that interest by taking pictures I’d say fine that that’s easy to do yeah you know because you know what is the front and back of a building and you know what you’re not going around saying oh I think this is a
Pretty building that’s not the way you would be thinking if you have a degree in architecture and it would be the same in anything whether it be botany or you know people that know about flowers they know how why that flower is that shape what insect pollinates that thing what
Is the life cycle of that if you know all that information it’s pretty easy to take pictures you say I I need a picture of this animal and this and this and this so the interview process was always to do with what are you interested in
Yeah the easiest people to pick up would people that want to be Sports photographers because you’d say to them okay if if next weekend you had the chance to go and do something what would you do and they’d say oh i’ I’d go to Darlington because it’s their 100th anniversary of when
They changed from a pink shirt to a blue shirt and and you suddenly realize they have all this information yeah so I could say well that’s okay now I’ll teach you how to make a little picture story out of that but just somebody coming and say I’m interested in sports
Yeah who cares you know I’m interested in sports yeah so so so that was the process which always surprised people you you know so I can teach people to shoot some pictures what I can’t teach people is to have a focused point of view on something how many people do you
Have on that first year I think it was 12 10 or 12 or something like that yeah and we did actually it it it’s a slight lie when I said we didn’t have qualification we originally I discovered that there was something or rather somebody else told me who was a very good
Um HMI that’s right guy called Hawkins I think his name was he was very very constructive he came down and I talked to him about it and he said well what you should do is is is set yourself up as a tops course which was a training
Opportunity but anyway it was to do with people that were being made redundant right oh yes okay um and they could get grants to retrain yeah yeah yeah right and and and and so that’s what we originally did as part of the course so we got a lot of Steel Workers and things
Like that right and and I very often say you know you’re you’re going to go on a course it’s going to cost you 39 27,000 quid to do it now do you really think that you’re going to be a better photographer than if you go and buy
Around the World ticket a camera decent pair of shoes and you go around the world for a year just shooting anything you like and at the end of that time when you begin to understand what it is you find interesting you then go and do a workshop with or do two or three
Workshops each of about a week or 10 days with somebody who does what you want so you know you might do it with Anders Peterson or somebody or or or you might go and do it with whoever Peter Marlo if You’ like that sort of stuff who’s going to be the better
Photographer at the end of that time you’re going to save yourself a staggering amount of money and you’re going to be a better photographer and a better all round a better all around person you would have understood what it’s like to you know and and and by
That time you might have learned you know whether you’re supposed to take your shoes off off if you go into a mask or not you know that those things are important to know you know how do you learn how not to offend other people in their country not through
Some cultural studies thing you learn by going there and asking and being polite yes and you suddenly discover that all these other countries have very nice polite people and that the general public don’t want to kill each other or don’t want to kill you or you and them
That the only people that want to do these things are people with rather extreme sort of views and that by and large the world’s rather nice place to be in you know and it’s fun and and you save yourself a lot of money when the photo gallery was started it
Came out of a series of lectures which came out the course we were doing at newborn we decided that what we wanted to do was to get out to a general public so we discovered that cardiv University had an extra mural Department that ran courses in things
Like basket weaving and this that and the other which went out to the the general public and you could do it as an evening workshop and things so we put forward the idea of having a series of lectures I forget how many there were but there were I think it was 24
Lectures or something and that we could do this through the extra mule department at Cardiff University and what it meant is that something like 150 people taxi drivers and people like that all signed up for this course and what they were suddenly confronted with was people like Bert
Hardy and s s Tom Hopkinson and people like really and McCullen and people came down and gave talks about photography and they were infraed by it at the end of it a few of those people Steve bembo was one Chris Gregory was another said look this is a shame can’t
We do something and Peter Jones who was at the Arts Council said well what do you want to do and they said we would like to start a gallery and and so Peter the Arts Council just instantly gave them some money to start the gallery not very much
But a little bit and so the photo gallery was started and it was if you look at the early program it was a wonderful program all sorts of people and they brought in people like Derek jman who was the film director but he’d shot some still pictures and did
That and we brought we showed Burke hle for the first time and and and and Su Paca had wonderful exhibition and it was very much and and then slowly it got taken over by people whose obvious ambition was to go and be the head of the Tate or something else and so they
It started to become much more much less to do with trying to do stuff of which the general public would enjoy much more to do with it’s an intellectual exercise of which the head of the gallery can promote themselves in a further Direction and in my opinion sadly it’s
At its worst it’s ever been now in that they do it it does it very well you know except that all the time it always seems to me as so it’s a weeny bit self-promotion you know I I can find this obscure Czech zakan photographer
And my feeling is who cares a sh you know if you’re going to have a gallery in Wales let’s have a policy you either show the best in the world to people that have never seen it for example there’s never been a c of restaurant exhibition in Wales that’s crazy yes um
So you could show those sort of people to the public or you can show young people and promote young people or you can show the best of other people that have photographed in Wales now that seems to be a simple policy yes which would be advantageous to have but
Instead of that you have this weird sort of conceptual thing perfectly valid form of Photography but it’s a very very tiny narrow genre and it dominates the gallery yes so in my opinion nobody goes anymore no whereas I mean it’s so sad it is so sad
Because the reason it’s sad is cu they get all the money there was a little Gallery run by a Polish guy and some called the Third Floor Gallery and within a year that had a stature around everybody people knew about it but of course they had no money the Arts
Council said silly things like oh well you’ve got to be established for two years before and I mean it’s so ludicrous they needed the money and the two kids that were running it who were very enthusiastic and and cared about and knew who all the really good young photographers were Etc they were
Brilliant and and but they’ve gone off to shoot pictures instead and and so that that stood that I thought was wonderful and and and should potentially have been but the photo gallery is is is okay if you’re interested in that tiny little genre but that isn’t the public I
Mean diffusion is a a two yearly thing that happens in Cardiff do you think it it does that have relevance or well it doesn’t to me because I just think that the people were in it are so boring I mean for example you see all this Pages
There was about six seven huge pictures up on a wall of American Native Americans whatever you like to call them um and then there was all this spiel about you know living with these people Etc well you know I spent a year in Arizona um on a fellowship with the
American government B Sentinal fellowship and I knew a lot about the Indian tribes there because I was doing a story on on premature babies and and the doctors there would go out into these tribes and that’s the way you can get in with the tribes you know if you
Link to a hospital because they’re interested in that what you soon discover is that they don’t none of them wear these bloody costumes the only time they wear these costumes is when they have their yearly Carnival thing for the tourists they will dress up now the pictures there I was saying to David
Whatever his name is I think I’m sorry you’ve got all this spiel about this person doing that they were taken in an afternoon at one of these dressing up things they get they stand there in front of their tent and tourists come and take the picture and that’s what it
Is now I said it’s it’s to me it’s appalling that somebody didn’t know that because anybody that comes from America knows that yeah you know yeah so so that’s ignorance not only that I thought the pictures are staggeringly boring yes but there was too much of that sort of
Thing people that have written lots of texts that that tell you why these pictures are so important but you look at the pictures and they’re boring yes they are a lot of work obviously went into it’s it’s quite difficult but they would then bring over some American
Photographers spend quite a lot of money bringing them over and and you’d think that hang on who’s ever heard of this person you know the only people that have heard of this are the people that read about four magazines which are written by so-called cultural studies people in a
University who talk to each other who write all write for the same magazine so it’s this incestuous little group that write and talk to each other and therefore they know these people and nobody else in the photographic world has ever heard of these people the whole
Thing is very incestous and and and one can understand how it happens and why it happens but it’s nothing to do with that world of Photography is there any subject matter you wouldn’t touch as a photographer not really because I mean my feeling is I you know I’m just
Interested in the world yes and so I look at the world and I take pictures of it yes now it’s not to say that the end product is isn’t boring as old boots you know because it there might not be anything that particularly interests me but but when it’s that sort
Of thing I I simply take it on myself that it’s a personal how do I make something out of this yeah which is interesting but not stylistically doing it yeah one of the problems I think with a lot of young photographers is that they try tricks the second that they’re
In trouble because they don’t understand what’s going on they try to tr oh I can make this all purple in in Photoshop and make it look as though it’s by infrared who cares a you know my mom can do that well she can’t cuz she’s dead but
If she’d been alive she could do that or I could teach her how to do it and so they’re continually trying to do that or or you know let’s make the skies purple or let’s do this or that or the other and as though that means it doesn’t mean anything no
It means that you know which button to press on a yeah computer to to make it thing the only thing that’s interesting is if the picture is a good picture if it starts off as a good good if you’ve got a bad picture you can’t make it better
No no what you can do is if you’ve got a good picture you can make it worse by messing about with these tricks so by and large I think you know the picture that you take in the camera should be the picture that comes out at the other
End obviously you could you know eyes because we scan and remember picks up a greater tonal range than than than either the the trace whatever that is the back or printing paper Etc has a far less tonal range and so it is absolutely reasonable that you know what you used
To do under an enlarger you can now do in Photoshop you can enhance the highlights you know get detail back there all you’re really trying to do is to get back to visually how you felt you saw something exactly so yes you don’t see something like that you look out the
Window and and you see it and then you look in and you adjust the light that’s in here well well there’s nothing in film or anything that can cope with those two things but M mine can because you just simply lay one on top of the other and and so so it is
Reason has has the technical technological age then and the Advent into computers and Photoshop and uh Lightroom and those sort of things has that impr has that given you more Armory for uh what you do has it made a difference to the way you work no I don’t think it’s made of scrap
Um it is you know I used to have much more of a struggle in the dark room dealing with the contrast and and and bringing it back then I do now I mean I use a program called Lightroom or something it’s unbelievable I mean you get the
Thing there and you think oh it’d be quite nice if there was a little bit more detail in these highlights and there’s a little slide you go and suddenly the highlights come out um so you can do that sort of thing much easier now than you could in the dark
Room but actually it’s the same process yes it’s just that you had to have much more technical skill in the in the dark room than you have to now with with Photoshop but the picture’s still the same picture all right um and as for is there a difference between digital and
And film well of course the I suppose there is but B large I you know I don’t think so as I say you you know the camera I said before is a box with a hole in the front um and and you have a different kind of sensitivity at the
Back of that box but once that was a deera type or a or a salt print or it was an or whatever it is and and all that’s happened is that at one point it was silver you know and now it’s digital but by and large that that comes through the
Front M has never changed and that that comes through the front is the important bit it is the yes the other thing is is comparatively less important right obviously in certain genres and and things it it has an importance you know but by and large you know I the the the
Genre that I think has been affected most by digital is that we call Natural History yeah Natural History photography was was always based an enormous amount on incredibly clever technical people that knew how to do things that flew through light and flashes went off and and people like Dr Edon Etc could you
Know uh do these very fast things now kids can go and buy a stop motion thing you know for 30 quid but the beauty about that is is that if they want to shoot something underwater for example they buy an underwater casing for whatever it costs 30 40 quid if they
Want the picture of that frog spawning they have to learn what time of the year the dogs the Frog spawns they’ve got to learn where they’re going to find it how to get underwater so all all of that’s developed so there was whereas I used to find those exhibitions you know the
Wildlife photographer of the Year always very monotonous and always exactly the same picture basically it was the the owl coming out of the the thing um they had this Exhibition at the sciencetist Museum uh which was of the natural history of the year they had an under 16
Section which was magical it was magical mhm and and there is a terrific development there and that is because of this the digital thing makes those things you can cut get away from the technical side of it yes and you can get on with making the picture yes and and
Young people are doing that they’re learning about nature in a way that I suspect they never did you know so I thought there was one I thought it was a lovely exhibition I enjoyed it do you use a phone to take photographs at all David not really not really but but I I
Don’t not I don’t deliberately not if you see what I mean I mean we we we have quite a lot of uh people in Magnum now that are using them quite frequently um for example Michael um Brown actually came into Magnum of of which although we
Didn’t know it at the time all the pictures he showed were all done on a on an iPhone now the reason he did it was again it wasn’t a gimmick it wasn’t he wasn’t going around saying shoot on an iPhone therefore you should write articles about me what he was saying is
That when he was in wherever it was Syria or somewhere he realized that if you had a camera with a big lens you were being shot at because they don’t like the press out there and he looked around and realized there were people on the street shooting pictures of each
Other with an iPhone so he had the sense to say well if I have an iPhone perhaps I won’t get shot at so that’s a good practical reason for doing it yes and then discovered that the iPhone now is probably of the quality of the best professional camera of about 5 years ago
Yes I mean the quality is amazing it is yeah astonishing and and and so in circumstances where it might be quite dangerous or difficult to shoot pictures you you you can get away with using it it’s it’s the thing that’s going to totally get rid of this all this
Nonsense about privacy in my personal space and all that sort of you know because everybody should fix on an iPhone now so it’s very difficult for anybody to S start talking about their privacy ET yeah that’s that’s a weird area isn’t it um uh very boring and very
Boring yeah because um uh I was doing something and I was shoting a building and a security guard came out and he said you can allow to photograph you as his private property and I asked him where um public property was and he said
Oh over there and I took one step I was taking exactly the same shots I mean the whole thing is nonsense because the second that you discuss any of these things with anybody they they collapse you know they have their statement yes you know I have the right to privacy so
So I mean if somebody says that to me you know particularly in in a a university setting I I say okay fine so what you’re saying is you have a right to privacy or do you mean all people have a right to privacy and then if they
Say all people so I’m saying well what you are actually saying is you want to go into your local Museum and you want to destroy all the pictures from the past because presumably you think that all those people had the right for privacy and therefore we better get rid of those
Pictures because we don’t have the thing so I say that’s nonsense and the answer is that what we’re actually talking about his taste yes um so I as a photographer think you know by and large I I have no clue who I’m photographing no you know except a personality when
I’m out on the street I’m not the least bit interested what they become is a symbol of lovers or a symbol of absolutely the guy buying his wife a hat it’s a symbol of a certain kind of thing and either you think that’s important yeah I think it’s important I think it’s
Very important in in in in violent situations because my experience is that if somebody doesn’t want you to be there it’s because they have something to hide therefore it seems to be a very good reason to be there indeed you know because even if they don’t perhaps they don’t go to
The excesses that they might go to if you weren’t there you know so that would be my justification all the time and and of course obviously the odd person is going to be um distressed or something about it but but when you put that up against you know seeing Vietnam Inc for
Example by Philip Jones Griffith you suddenly realize that that the individual person in some of those pictures not being asked to take pictures is actually if you’re really truthful is insignificant against the power of the book yeah that book might have helped people think war is a bad
Thing yes you know and and if that if you believe that then I think that that’s the end of the argument so but I mean things changed after Vietnam and I mean and access became difficult or you were embedded and you were controlled by PR or the military uh in order to and
You weren’t allowed really to do your work as you saw fit so does that sort of clamp down on um conflict zones I I think it just makes it different you learn stru I I mean the reality is that you weren’t embedded I mean I wasn’t
There but but I my knowledge of of the people that were you weren’t embedded at the time at Vietnam but in a way you were because if you wanted to get to the front line you needed to be on the helicopter yeah and you weren’t going to
Get on that helicopter if you weren’t on reasonable terms with whoever was in charge of the helicopters so it was a subtle B you know the people like McCullen Etc knew how to do what they want to do but boy oh boy would they make sure that
They knew the right people and all that sort of thing so so when it became embedded yes in a strange sort of way that seemed tighter my guess is it was tighter in a way but then you just adapt to that and you do you know what you
What you do within that thing so um you know I I when I went to Hungary before that time I had a I still have it but it was a little Kodak folding camera so when I decided I wanted to go to Hungary I wanted to go
To hungry because it just seemed to me an interesting place to go to politically and and I bought a secondhand contacts camera but I actually went to Hungry with a book reading the book on how to use it um and and you know I spent most of
The time getting to Austria we we we got left in an ambulance from Austria into Budapest but I mean that’s how naive I was but in another way I wasn’t naive because I I I felt I’d always felt photography was easy you looked at something that you
Were interested in and you press the button you know now if you happen to have some sort of inherent Instinct for geometry or design or composition whatever you like to call it you know it’s basically geometry it’s basically a geometry that’s there not manufactured You’ got to you’ve got to
Do this thing which I’m saying stand in the right place and the geometry becomes good and and what do you mean by that you mean it’s a way of organizing so that the subject matter is projected clearly that what good composition is to do with projecting the subject matter but you
Have to know what the subject matter is yes you know most people sort of vaguely think oh that’s right but they don’t clearly understand you know what they’re trying to do but so when I went into Hungary uh I very quickly realized that you can be standing in this street or having coffee
In this street and they’re hitting hell out of each other in the next street and and if you’re not in the next street you’re not able to shoot the pictures you’re drinking coffee and that’s to do with experience you learn so I somehow had the instinct to say
Let’s let’s find where all the photographers are and the journalists and and let’s tag along you know which is what I I did I I we found the hotel and and experience tells me later that by and large when photographers are on mass they tend to
They tend to congregate and stay in the same Hotel Etc one of the reasons for that is that they can cross fertilize information it’s much easier nowaday because you have iPhones and and everybody’s telling you information you’re picking it up off the BBC and God knows what but then you didn’t have
Those things you know and and I I with John went and we found the hotel and and it happened that Life Magazine with there and and they saw me as a new face and they I think they had one photographer in but that’s all they had
In and and so they said who are you and I said oh I’m a freelance photographer which um and they said okay you come with us and so I simply tagged along behind them and and you know these were some of the world’s great journalists
They knew exactly where to go what to do and then you know I tagged along and as soon as I saw what they were looking at which was interesting I shot a picture of it you know it it’s it’s not rocket science no it’s an observ observation
And and and maybe that little ability to analyze that this is slightly more important than that yes you you know yes and and then maybe an instinctive sense of geometry which which produces a picture of which you can see what the subject matter is very clearly what what
The picture is in theory about yeah and the storytelling aspect of and and but that’s a very instinctive thing yes it is you know and and it re and very often I see work which is perfectly competent work but but it’s not really about anything clearly and those are the people that
Are you know just not quite such good photographers it’s as simple as that you know uh the last question um I want to ask you the power of black and white photography what is it about black and white what just the well it it’s the beauty of black and white is it’s very
Easy not to get distracted M the problem with color for me I mean I’m now laying down my color theory if if if you have a yellow tie on now and the two of you were looking as though you were going to get in a fight or
Something I would be interested in the emotional thing between the two of you having a fight if I shoot it in color it first of all becomes a fashion picture of a yellow tie yeah get in the way that’s what you do now therefore I think that the people
That shoot color best are very aware of color Yes I’m not that interested in color I’m much more interested in the emotion therefore shooting in black and white cuts out that distraction of the color um and and so that’s my theory of doing it in practice I suspected is
Because when I started there wasn’t much color around and I shot in black and white and you get used to it and that’s the way you think and the way you see and therefore you defend what you’ve been doing take your pick you know I
Couldn’t care what I do you know I I mean obviously if you shoot digitally in theory you shoot in color yeah because what comes up on the screen is but the first thing that I do is is I flip it all to Black and White stra away yeah
And in Lightroom it’s amazingly easy to do and it’s does it really well really really well um so um although I on the tinon thing I’ve explored a weeny bit um kind of still Lifey things in color to see what they’re like I don’t do it
Terribly well so I I I’m dropping it but the landscape I’ve done is All In Color it’s all color yeah uh but there’s something about landscape that the landscape almost instinctively deals with color rather well nature nature is is very good at putting the Reds and yellows in the
Right place absolutely so and and um or if it’s in the wrong place it’s usually for some purpose which is makes it interesting you know so so the the landscape thing if it’s done will in fact all be in color what did you think of Mullins visit to landscape well it it
Doesn’t surprise me I mean the thing about McCullen is it’s not that he’s a great War photographer is that he’s a great photographer of tension he loves anything that makes his adrenaline go so it didn’t surprise me that when he you know when he’d hurt his back or hurt
Whatever he did and had to more or less give up because I remember him saying you can’t go and do the kind of photography I do if you can’t leap over a wall you you know which he suddenly couldn’t do and then he decided he lives
In a very nice part of Somerset I think um and and and he goes and shoots but you know his idea of of a good day out in the landscape is it’s pissing with rain or freezing cold and and and the day that nobody else go and that’s
Because it the tension that’s him and yes it’s it’s him so so one shouldn’t be surprised that his landscape pictures are exactly the same as meth drinkers in Liverpool or people shooting in Vietnam it’s totally consistent yeah um and and so it’s great you know he’s the Turner
That would if he was going to do it at Sea he would be tied to the The Mask you know as the waves go over his head you know he wouldn’t be on the the the the side Cruz would not interest him that that that much you know but but it’s totally
Predictable totally predictable simply that he does what he does you know and that’s what gives him a buzz and it’s exciting and some of us feel terribly cold he gets excited you know and he’s wonderful and he’s another one of the great great photographers you know
And um and he’s a nice man and a decent man and and cares cares cares cares about is a little bit too racked with reminiscences I think now um I I sometimes think he’s sometimes a little bit unhappy about life in general do you have any
Demons looking back no I don’t think so I I’ve had a wonderful life you know I had a lovely childhood it was you know if I look back we we didn’t have much money as a family but I I have no memories of ever needing
Anything you know I had a great I Lov school I went to a boarding school for the second part because of the problems of dad being away in the Army Etc but I loved that because I was so good at sports you know so it simply meant that
I as soon as we finished school I could go off you know and practice and train and do all that so I loved boarding school Etc I like sanur enormously because it was me going to a university in a way that I wouldn’t normally have
Done so I loved all that and and then I was had this incredibly lucky thing of opening up this flipping magazine you know I I sometimes think isn’t that bizarre if I hadn’t gone into that room and picked up that magazine well I wouldn’t still be but I
Would have been in the Army for whatever but I that would have been okay because I was enjoying MH being in the Army I I I I liked it you know it was fair enough um so I tend to you know always find the
Best in things and and and uh um and I have a lot of self-confidence you know so when people say you know what would have happened if you were starting now and I said it would have been exactly the same you know I would be in the equivalent of Magnum because that’s
What I would be striving to do and I would have the the understanding of what it took to do it and I would be willing to do that kind of sacrifice you know I would be the person you know photographing the students union yes and not feeling that
I had to go and get pissed to get you know I wouldn’t be interested in being pissed because I wouldn’t be able to shoot pictures if I was you you know um and that’s how I would be and and I don’t think it would be any different
Now than then so I love it I love it and uh well long made continue D well I I think it will I think I think it will go you know I’m one of these people that in the last 10 minutes will be asking for another five minutes you know because
You never know in that five minutes might Mak the difference you you might just take that great picture yes that you’ve missed out on all your life yeah