Latest / The MOOD Podcast / The Mindset of a Hasselblad Master Photographer - Tina Signesdottir, E109

Transcript

The Mindset of a Hasselblad Master Photographer - Tina Signesdottir, E109 · The MOOD Podcast

• 0:00
  Tina: t I've never spoken about this before.
• 0:02
  Tina: I think I have so much to tell that it's even hard to know where to start.
• 0:05
  Tina: I have been through tough things in my life.
• 0:08
  Tina: I never believed that I had things in me that I could be proud of.
• 0:13
  Matt: Fast forward to the Hasselbladmasters.
• 0:15
  Matt: Your life probably changed after that.
• 0:18
  Tina: Being awarded and all this fame that is come like that's like side effects of it.
• 0:23
  Tina: That's never why I did photography.
• 0:25
  Tina: I don't know if I can do anything good again.
• 0:28
  Tina: Like, was this it?
• 0:29
  Tina: Is this it now?
• 0:31
  Matt: I'm convinced that the best art comes from those that know themselves the best.
• 0:37
  Tina: People just want to see some grasp of real nest.
• 0:41
  Tina: What is your voice?
• 0:42
  Matt: What are we not talking about in the photography industry?
• 0:45
  Matt: Or what are we not talking about enough?
• 0:48
  Tina: That's actually a very hard question.
• 0:59
  Matt: Okay, Tina.
• 1:00
  Matt: Um, thank you for joining me and welcome to the Mood Podcast.
• 1:04
  Matt: Great to finally have you on.
• 1:06
  Tina: Thank you so much, Matt.
• 1:07
  Tina: It's uh it's very nice to be here too.
• 1:10
  Matt: Now, this is your first I think I have the honor, if I'm if I'm not mistaken, of being the first podcast that you've you've appeared on.
• 1:17
  Matt: You've done many speak engagements, which we're gonna get onto.
• 1:20
  Matt: But yeah, yeah, really grateful and and very honored.
• 1:23
  Matt: Thanks for um taking the time.
• 1:26
  Tina: Well, thank you.
• 1:26
  Tina: And you definitely have the honor.
• 1:28
  Tina: This is my first podcast, and uh I'm I'm very happy to be here.
• 1:33
  Matt: Okay, so we've got to do it justice.
• 1:34
  Matt: We've got to make sure it's worth your your time, your time.
• 1:38
  Matt: Um, I wanted to start um really with you, your background, um, what photography, how photography came into your life.
• 1:46
  Matt: So kind of, you know, where when it came into your life, how it came into your life, what it what it kind of emanated from in the early days.
• 1:54
  Matt: Give us a bit of a background in in your life as a photographer.
• 1:58
  Tina: That's actually a very hard question.
• 2:00
  Tina: And I've thought about it uh for myself also uh many times, you know, because for many people getting into art or a creative uh profession or like a hobby, maybe they've like felt the need like they love to photograph or did this, or they have like um inspirational uh uh people that inspire them, like photographers, or like they knew them and them, and you know, and and that's amazing.
• 2:31
  Tina: But for me, it it's I always felt like it shows me like the camera was the tool, kind of.
• 2:39
  Tina: It could be something else also, but it happened to be the camera.
• 2:43
  Tina: And I was very young, and uh I ne like I didn't know of any photographers, you know.
• 2:53
  Tina: So later on, when I when I was asked, uh it's a little dysurrection, but when I was asked, like, who who inspired you, or like I didn't know, like I couldn't tell any photographer names, you you get me?
• 3:07
  Tina: Like uh I struggled with that because I was just very autodidact, uh, no schools, nothing, just a very passionate to create.
• 3:19
  Tina: It it was almost like a hyper focused when I got the camera and I started to photograph.
• 3:25
  Tina: But I was 18 years old, and uh it started a little.
• 3:30
  Tina: Uh I had uh I had a boyfriend that uh was on art school and um we experimented a lot with the camera.
• 3:38
  Tina: It kind of started there, but that was not uh eight factor that did it for me, and it's a tough question for me because it goes way back from also my upbringing because I'm uh uh I'm um what can I say, like I was in childcare, you know.
• 4:01
  Tina: Uh I've never spoken about this before, and uh my parents were drug addicts.
• 4:08
  Tina: I have been through uh abuse and tough things in my life.
• 4:16
  Tina: Um I never believed that I could be anyone, or I had uh things in me that I could be proud of.
• 4:27
  Tina: So the self-discovery when I figured out that wow, this I'm really good at this, and I didn't know why or what it was.
• 4:38
  Tina: Uh but I always turned my inside out with the camera, like all my darkness within kind of was my eye without.
• 4:49
  Tina: And you can also see it in my early works that it's it's very powerful, it's very dark, and I believe that that was some nothing that I could control, it was all my inside that was reflected uh of what that had molded me into a young, very sad, youthful woman.
• 5:14
  Tina: And I find I I suddenly I found inspiration in it, you know.
• 5:19
  Tina: Um being able to photograph.
• 5:25
  Tina: And when I I when I look back uh at where I've started, it was a lot of just experiment uh experimental experiment what is the word?
• 5:33
  Tina: Experimentation, yeah.
• 5:35
  Tina: Yes, uh and I didn't know you don't have a certain style in the store, you know.
• 5:41
  Tina: You just I just love to photograph and oh what does it look like if I do this and like what does it look like if I do this?
• 5:49
  Tina: And I and I'm the least technical person.
• 5:52
  Tina: So that's why I always said that uh a lot of equipment it will not do you good, it's opposite because it distracts you from actually taking pictures if you have uh too much of a choice.
• 6:06
  Tina: And for me it was uh I couldn't learn everything, so I just had this one camera and one legs, which was the 50 millimeter 1.48 at start.
• 6:19
  Matt: Which camera was this at the time?
• 6:21
  Tina: It was Canon.
• 6:22
  Tina: And also before I went, like before I was a Hasaba master and completely changed character to medium format, I've I've always been like doesn't matter with equipment.
• 6:32
  Tina: And I'm still there, but of course, you know, that's in a major it was a major shift to the medium format.
• 6:39
  Tina: But uh and yeah.
• 6:42
  Matt: If you're enjoying this conversation and if you're drawn to this kind of slow reflective discussions we have on this podcast, then I want to let you know about my free closed community book club, which might be something that you genuinely find valuable.
• 6:56
  Matt: Uh the Voice Alchemy Book Club is uh kind of an extension of these types of conversations.
• 7:03
  Matt: Uh each month we focus on one of three types of work: a book, a photo book, or a photo critique.
• 7:10
  Matt: And we might want to properly ask ourselves what it's meant to one another, what we can maybe learn from it, what ideas and actions we can take from it, what it's wrestling with, and what it asks of us as well and create us.
• 7:26
  Matt: It's a space for deeper introspection, long-form thinking, and honest discussions uh around uh photography, creativity, and authorship.
• 7:38
  Matt: Uh no pressure to perform at all, no chasing trends, no algorithms, no need to have everything figured out.
• 7:44
  Matt: Just honest, authentic connection with fellow like-minded creators, uh careful, collaborative looking, uh thoughtful and meaningful conversation, and a community of people who care about staying with the work long enough for it to mean something.
• 8:00
  Matt: Uh so if this episode and this podcast generally resonates with you, which I hope it does, the book club is a natural place to continue that way of thinking and actually participate for free with others that will be open and welcoming to you and your ideas.
• 8:18
  Matt: Uh you'll find more details via the link in the show notes, and I really hope to see you there.
• 8:24
  Matt: Where where where did this voice or when did you realize because I mean we the way I hear that is is often the same journey with not so much the difficult childhood, but the in terms of like where photography came and how you evolved in photography?
• 8:45
  Matt: A lot of people have that journey where it's like we're just playing around, a lot of photographers autodidacts out there, and it's just like we'll play around, oh that looks good, I'll keep I'll kind of do a little bit more of that.
• 8:56
  Matt: Oh, I like that look and did a little bit more of that.
• 8:58
  Matt: When was it?
• 8:59
  Matt: Did you feel not that there's usually a seminal moment, but when did you feel like this voice coming out and like, okay, well, I've nailed lighting, I understand kind of fundamentals of photography.
• 9:09
  Matt: When did this darkness start to when did you realize that it was the kind of this tool for your self-expression?
• 9:16
  Tina: Many years.
• 9:17
  Tina: It took me many years before I realized that.
• 9:20
  Tina: It was just that it became an obsession for me.
• 9:23
  Tina: It took away all the the other pain that I had.
• 9:27
  Tina: Because when I photographed, I was in this realm and it was like I could barely breathe, you know, it was so intense for me.
• 9:34
  Tina: And but I I also have to go way back because that uh it made a huge impact on me, and the difference is that I I was connected to a local photo club in my city uh to learn.
• 9:49
  Tina: And uh I was like the phone.
• 9:52
  Tina: Which city was this?
• 9:53
  Tina: Hugesen in Norway.
• 9:55
  Tina: And I started to do competition, and I don't know if you heard of it, but I was doing that a lot before I was kind of uh internationally known.
• 10:05
  Tina: I was so I have this AVF award, if you heard of it.
• 10:09
  Tina: AF.
• 10:10
  Tina: It's an French international recognition for outstanding uh uh uh competition internationally.
• 10:18
  Tina: So that was kind of me being trained.
• 10:21
  Tina: I sent in to a lot of uh salons in the world, and you get uh you can get medals and you have to be connected to uh to a photo club and you can uh compet do competition internationally.
• 10:34
  Tina: So very soon I received so many awards here, and I had this uh guy that was uh a man that was connected to another photo club that kind of found me.
• 10:49
  Tina: And he was so impressed by the way I saw photography and light, and he always said that you have something completely unique, and he was the person that kind of taught me all the techniques that I needed to know to get better because I had the eye, but I didn't have the techniques.
• 11:08
  Tina: Uh so I learned and I learned and I learned, and I was never afraid of criticism.
• 11:14
  Tina: I just sucked it all in.
• 11:15
  Tina: I just wanted to be best.
• 11:17
  Tina: I like not I don't know why I wanted to be best.
• 11:21
  Tina: I just I'm like I'm very perfectionist, like I'm kind of very OCD there also in my art, like it has to be a certain way.
• 11:29
  Tina: Um it's also a little, but I have to be honest because it's a little funny also how uh things change and how you see art.
• 11:39
  Tina: And one of my early uh photographer inspiration, I don't know if you've heard of him, uh, was uh uh Bill Gekas.
• 11:52
  Tina: Have you heard of him?
• 11:53
  Matt: Bill Gekas.
• 11:54
  Tina: Right, yeah, no, and it is I don't think he's he's so known, but I was just impressed by his child images.
• 12:03
  Tina: Like he took the most beautiful child images, uh portraits, and I remember that like I want to do that.
• 12:11
  Tina: Like it it just I think it was the simplicity for me, the cleanness, uh light and everything.
• 12:19
  Tina: So I was very inspired by him in the start.
• 12:21
  Tina: When I look back now, I'm like, oh my goodness, that was my inspiration, you know.
• 12:26
  Tina: Not to be um just that it it's dramatically changed through the years, and it's it's um interesting for me to see who was the person that I found so much inspiration from in the early years.
• 12:42
  Tina: So that's the start, and then I I uh I wanted to do child photography, and uh it felt I don't know.
• 12:52
  Tina: It felt so safe, and um I've never been impressed with like beauty, uh like predictable beauty, models, like pretty faces, like did nothing for me.
• 13:07
  Tina: No, it I always had that little when I saw a person that had a certain character, just something about them.
• 13:16
  Tina: And I was like I needed to take uh to try to take photo of them, or like I asked the mother of the parents.
• 13:27
  Tina: I um so that was my beginning.
• 13:31
  Tina: I moved out in the woods, way out in the woods to a uh a little house.
• 13:36
  Tina: I I was like just working on photography and uh art and was very little social.
• 13:46
  Tina: I was kind of like an ermet, and uh and I was working at a store at the same time, at uh in a cloning store, and this is a very uh important uh pile for my artistic career in my artistic career, I mean, approach, because this is when Lena came into my life, you know, and she was seven years old and she walked into the store with her mother.
• 14:15
  Tina: And I I nearly like I couldn't like I just I watched them go there everywhere, and like, oh my god, I need to talk to the mother, I need to talk to the mother, like this child has something so special.
• 14:29
  Matt: Just to explain, just um would just double-click on that a little bit.
• 14:32
  Matt: For those that don't know, tell tell us who Lena uh is and what she represents.
• 14:37
  Tina: Yeah, Lena is 25 today, 26.
• 14:40
  Tina: Um, yeah.
• 14:42
  Tina: So and we are like we are today, we we are such good friends, and we do a lot of things together, and uh she is the start of my career, the continuation of everything.
• 14:58
  Tina: She is always the red thread in my art, she's my muse.
• 15:02
  Tina: She is like our bond is uh very uh it's very strong.
• 15:10
  Tina: Like even when we worked together, um people found it so amazing to watch because we nearly didn't speak.
• 15:19
  Tina: It was like a quiet dance, like both knew what we expected of each other, and um uh it was a huge meaning that I I found her and she helped me through my through my art.
• 15:35
  Tina: And I also helped her, you know, and she was a very sensitive child, very uh shy.
• 15:41
  Tina: And she's a model today, and she loves to be take been thinking photography off, and she does theater, theater and everything, and we both kind of uh had so much um I don't know, good coming out of our our relationship together.
• 15:59
  Matt: She fe she features a lot in your in your works and your early work, right?
• 16:03
  Tina: Yeah.
• 16:04
  Tina: Which were very sentimental and quiet and still and dark, um, you know.
• 16:10
  Tina: Also because uh I lived out in the woods there, I uh I always used museum houses because it had a special light.
• 16:22
  Tina: I always used uh window light coming in from the side.
• 16:26
  Tina: I like traced the light, like I always knew what to expect from winter light or daylight or warm light in the evening.
• 16:33
  Tina: So uh, you know, and of course I don't use uh artificial light, that's kind of have become my thing through others.
• 16:42
  Tina: I didn't know I had that, but it's a natural light photographer, and uh when she walked into the store and I just asked her mother, like, I don't know how to say this, and I I even don't remember what I said, but I really wanted to take, and I explained I I do photography and I want to take a picture of Lena.
• 17:03
  Tina: And and she asked Lena while she stood there in front of me, like, oh, do you think this sounds fun?
• 17:09
  Tina: And she was like so open and like yes, like yes, I want to do this, and I got her phone number, and this is this is so powerful.
• 17:19
  Tina: And I did a series that called The Green Room and I.
• 17:23
  Tina: And actually, and not many people know this, uh this was this series was taken in a little, little room.
• 17:33
  Tina: Like, if you would see your surroundings, you would have been like, oh my, like, how could you do something that strong into this little room?
• 17:41
  Tina: But I saw just I saw this wall and this light and the window and everything.
• 17:46
  Tina: And it was the first time I met Lena.
• 17:49
  Tina: I was gonna take what you call test photography of her.
• 17:52
  Tina: And first time ever hitting the button, that was the picture I sent into Sony Award, and I was immediately shortlisted in the portrait category.
• 18:04
  Tina: First picture ever I took of her, first time, not edited, nothing.
• 18:10
  Tina: And it's called the Green Roman Eye.
• 18:13
  Tina: It's a very close-up portrait of Lina, and uh it had so much depth, and I I think I didn't even realize then uh how much this was going to mean for me, and how rare this little girl was.
• 18:30
  Tina: That's how our journey started, and throughout the years we always did like two photography sessions each year, two or three.
• 18:42
  Tina: So I trained myself on Lena, you know, and she was so easy to work with.
• 18:51
  Tina: She made me comfortable, and I made her comfortable in front of camera.
• 18:55
  Tina: That's also it's very important because we build it up a relationship, you know.
• 19:00
  Tina: You can you can see that on the photography, and that's also something that I've reflected over.
• 19:07
  Tina: Um all my portraits or the people that I have photographed is actually people that are close to me and that I know in some sort of way, and it's it's a very important uh thing to uh to achieve in photography.
• 19:24
  Tina: Um because you can tell if you are a photographer and uh object or a model if it's like a avoider, it's nothing, you don't have every uh uh reverence to them, or they are like very unknown, or even like if you don't have eye contact with them, or you don't make the menu or build up uh some core of some kind of relationship, it will get very emotional lesson.
• 19:53
  Tina: Absolutely.
• 19:54
  Tina: I think I have so much to tell that it's even hard to know where to start, you know.
• 19:58
  Matt: So yeah, well, that there's no rigid structure, we can go wherever you want to, but um you know it's important to kind of um I think reiterate how important relationships are, especially if you're a portrait photographer, of course.
• 20:12
  Matt: You know, you rarely you see incredible portraits where the photographer hasn't had time to develop a relationship or doesn't have a relationship with the person in front of the camera.
• 20:24
  Matt: Um, and that's something that's obviously paid dividends for you in in your work.
• 20:29
  Matt: When you don't know the person beforehand, say you're doing uh I don't know how much commercial work you do, but if you're going to do a commercial assignment, then do you what is your process then if you haven't met the person that you're you're taking?
• 20:46
  Tina: Yeah, that's the thing because it's very different with the commercial photography, and you can also see that I'm like uh like an artist in fine art photography, and I did some commercial work and uh especially with Oppo, I love with Oppo and did their campaigns and also other things, but like I have this ability to make them feel very comfortable, very in ease, and I just talk to them, we go and take a coffee, we sit down, and uh I think my personality and how I'm radiating through them make them feel safe, and that that's a very important thing, and you have to like you have to, you know, compliment them and kind of make a safe environment for them to can come out of their, you know, their I don't know how to even say it, uh, but it has it's very important.
• 21:44
  Tina: You can't just show up like the Yeah, you can't just show up as a photographer and like because it's it it's intimate, it's an intimate moment, you know?
• 21:52
  Tina: You take their picture and you you have to have them to relax and so it just happened.
• 22:00
  Matt: And I love the way you took one shot.
• 22:02
  Matt: Uh we we'll bring it up on screen as you're talking about it.
• 22:05
  Matt: I love the way you took one shot and won an award with it immediately.
• 22:08
  Tina: Uh yeah, and the Sony Award, you know.
• 22:11
  Matt: And so that was back in two thousand thirteen.
• 22:16
  Tina: No, I think it was 2013.
• 22:17
  Tina: It was the first time, and I I was shortlisted in Sony World Photography Awards two times.
• 22:24
  Tina: That's one of ten images, but I also won the national award three times for Norway.
• 22:28
  Tina: Uh same competition.
• 22:32
  Matt: And um yeah, I was sh I was shocked myself, but uh it sounds like awards have been uh a big part of your photography life and career, and they've helped you they've helped you learn more than necessarily you know any other utility that might come from awards, that it's more of a learning tool than anything else.
• 22:53
  Matt: Would that be correct?
• 22:54
  Tina: Can you explain that again?
• 22:56
  Matt: As in awards, if you're if you're submitting to awards, you you you get a good idea of if you're hitting the right, you know, notes with these with these photographs, if they're good, bad, um, if they're kind of resonating with people or not.
• 23:10
  Matt: It sounds like those awards did that for you in terms of getting better and less.
• 23:14
  Tina: Exactly, exactly.
• 23:16
  Tina: And uh being awarded and all this fame that is come like that's never like that's like side effects of it.
• 23:25
  Tina: It was never that's never why I did photography or wanted to achieve certain things.
• 23:31
  Tina: Uh but you send in and you want to see like where I am.
• 23:35
  Tina: I like, is this good, you know?
• 23:36
  Tina: Um it's like you say, and then you develop and you know.
• 23:41
  Tina: Uh and I didn't know about all these um great competitions either or what they were, even the Hasselbladmasters when I sent it in.
• 23:54
  Matt: And uh the that so that fast forward to the Hasselblad Masters, which is arguably the the crowning moment so far of your young career.
• 24:04
  Matt: What you know your life probably changed after that.
• 24:09
  Matt: Just tell us the whole kind of the moments in and around those awards, and tell us kind of what it was like to to win, obviously, and then the after-effects of of winning Hasselblad mask was it 2018?
• 24:25
  Tina: 2018.
• 24:26
  Tina: Yeah, that was uh it was a good batch of amazing photographers winning in 2018 and exciting like Ruth.
• 24:36
  Tina: Um because you know it's it's two years between the Hasselbah Masters Award where you can apply.
• 24:43
  Tina: And I remember I saw an ad about the Hasselbah Masters and uh a video, and I was just stunned uh looking at this camera and how they presented it, and uh it was just so amazing, and I wanted so banned to send in and to see if I had a shot like this, like oh, this this could be it.
• 25:15
  Tina: Let me see, you know, and I haven't heard about the Haseblah Masters then.
• 25:19
  Tina: I checked it up, of course, um embarrassing to say.
• 25:24
  Tina: Sorry, but sorry, but I didn't.
• 25:27
  Tina: And uh doesn't matter anymore.
• 25:30
  Tina: Doesn't matter anymore, and then I learned that like all great photographers throughout the years has one been a Haseblah master.
• 25:38
  Tina: So many great photographers, you know, Anton Coudine and like Marielle and Mark, and blah blah blah, and we know.
• 25:43
  Tina: And I just sent in and I forgot about it because it takes months, and then I woke up in the middle of the night.
• 25:52
  Tina: Um a friend was texting me, oh my god, Tina, you're a finalist.
• 25:58
  Tina: I was like, finalist.
• 25:59
  Tina: Like I didn't understand, and and then like boom, I saw myself, I was finalist in the portrait passabaster, and um we could send in three images that was uh good presentive for your work.
• 26:13
  Tina: One of my most known images is uh I don't know if you know it, but it's a very close-up portrait of a of a man, a young boy called uh Tolia, and uh it's the picture that I called from the north, and it looks very Android with strong colors and like it's striking, it's in your face.
• 26:35
  Tina: So I send them that, which was also a test photo.
• 26:39
  Tina: One time I pressed the trigger, one time I got that picture.
• 26:43
  Tina: And um, I just had 50 minutes with that boy, never met him before.
• 26:47
  Tina: I just knew I needed a photography to take his pictures.
• 26:50
  Tina: I sent it into the masters together with uh a picture of Lena taking in a museum called called the Chambermaid, and another picture of two children in uh in Lufoten in the north.
• 27:03
  Tina: So that was my selection.
• 27:05
  Tina: And uh, like they've said also in the company, like it it was just in our face, like it was just too good to not push out.
• 27:16
  Matt: Which image won, or was it they they they uh award for the selection, or do they award for one photo?
• 27:25
  Tina: No, they it's it's the whole selection, you know.
• 27:28
  Tina: No, it was three images, three separate images, but it it was the from the north picture that portrait face, Octolia.
• 27:36
  Tina: That's kind of what the eighth picture got it that they portrayed.
• 27:41
  Tina: Yeah.
• 27:41
  Tina: And uh wow, and from there on, then you kind of have what other people would say made it.
• 27:50
  Tina: You have this established name, like you're uh you have a title that's there forever with you throughout your career, like you're a Hasselbloodmaster.
• 27:58
  Tina: It's kind of put you in another place immediately.
• 28:03
  Tina: Uh, I didn't quite understand it, how uh how lucky I I also was, and I just felt an enormous uh gratefulness also for being recognitioned, you know, and I worked so hard for this.
• 28:21
  Tina: Like photography has been my life every day, you know, since I was 18.
• 28:28
  Tina: Like it's a I don't know why it's that's been such an obsession, but uh but it is.
• 28:33
  Tina: It's also made me true life, and that was in 2018, and we were making the book after that, Hasaba Master book, which was uh for me being so intense about my art and uh OCD about everything.
• 28:53
  Tina: Uh, I was so stressed.
• 28:55
  Tina: We had three months to to create an amazing theory, and you know, I never had like restrictions on me before or timelines, and you have to plan.
• 29:07
  Tina: And I flew out to the north to the Arctic.
• 29:11
  Tina: I have a major love for the Arctic north, also because of the light, it's so special and unique in the north of Norway.
• 29:19
  Matt: And in the summer, you have loads of life for so long.
• 29:23
  Tina: Exactly.
• 29:24
  Tina: Exactly.
• 29:25
  Tina: So I gathered all my forces then, and uh like I in the Hasaba master books is a selection of people, people that I found inspirational, uh, people that I know, Francis children, Francis uh youth, and my own daughter, which was having the cover of the the master's book.
• 29:50
  Tina: Um I didn't know that until I was in uh in Cullen at the Hassindam Master Ceremony, and they revealed it, the book.
• 29:58
  Tina: That was kind of winning again.
• 30:00
  Tina: No.
• 30:01
  Tina: But I chose my picture for the cover.
• 30:05
  Tina: And after that, I don't know where to like jump further here, or after the masters in 2018, kind of life hit me, if you know what I mean.
• 30:17
  Tina: That's that's the thing with uh like being an artist, yeah, you know, and you have to like you're mingling life and photography and art and everything that's happened in between.
• 30:29
  Tina: And it's periods when we don't take a single photography, and I always feel that I'm losing everything then, like, oh, I've lost it, like I don't know if I can do anything good again.
• 30:40
  Tina: Like, was this it?
• 30:41
  Tina: Is this it now, you know?
• 30:43
  Tina: But that's also the beauty of it, but because you don't know what lays ahead.
• 30:48
  Tina: And kind of life took me after that, and after I did the book.
• 30:55
  Tina: Um but also I have to like go a little back again now to 2014 after the Sony Award because which is a dear friend of mine and also a major uh inspir inspirational photographer.
• 31:13
  Tina: Uh his name is uh Jock Sturgis, American photographer from the from the 70s, and uh he's nearly 80 years old now, and uh we we talk we still talk, you know.
• 31:24
  Tina: He found me in 2014 and uh and reached out to me.
• 31:31
  Tina: Uh and I didn't know who he was.
• 31:35
  Tina: Uh and I looked him up and I was like shocked.
• 31:38
  Tina: I was like, oh my god, like who's this photographer?
• 31:42
  Tina: Amazing, like, and his his work with light and dark and humans and uh was amazing to to discover Serge's uh work, and he reached out and uh just needed to let me know that he found something very aware, like he said.
• 32:09
  Tina: I normally don't get expi uh inspired by photographers.
• 32:13
  Tina: What you have is a gem, and I'm just interesting in you.
• 32:18
  Tina: I'm interesting in you as a person.
• 32:20
  Tina: Who are you like to do this?
• 32:23
  Tina: And what do you know that I don't know?
• 32:26
  Tina: You know, this was kind of like intimate photographer to photographer, you know.
• 32:30
  Tina: And we started a friendship, and we were emailing all the time.
• 32:34
  Tina: We were stiping, uh, he was telling me about dark room photography in medium format.
• 32:40
  Tina: I remember this was very early on.
• 32:43
  Tina: I nearly didn't have a portfolio, and um I was so like oppressed by all his books, and I was like, oh, I want to do a book someday.
• 32:53
  Tina: And he's like, oh my god, like I promise you, Tina, you're gonna be you're gonna be so huge.
• 32:58
  Tina: And the problem is that you don't know even now how good you are.
• 33:01
  Tina: And but but you have to, like, you you don't have enough images.
• 33:06
  Tina: No, this will come natural at it at its time, you know.
• 33:08
  Tina: Just stay patient and just don't lose your sight here, you know.
• 33:13
  Tina: Don't you just stay in what you are in.
• 33:16
  Tina: And he learned me so much of the importance of photography and what's important, what's not important, and uh and so he was very proud of me and when I won the master, and like he never had doubt, like he said, and so I got um uh contact with um a book agency, Kerr Balog, and I presented that this was after the Haseblah Master, and I presented them uh I pitched them my book idea.
• 33:54
  Tina: And uh I've also talked about that with Sturge that was uh helping me with this, you know.
• 34:01
  Tina: Uh about Lena, you know, our relationship and um the book is going to be called Photographing Lena because that is what I had been doing for so many years.
• 34:13
  Tina: I've been photographing Lena.
• 34:14
  Tina: And they loved it.
• 34:18
  Tina: It was a yes.
• 34:19
  Tina: I was so proud and happy to to get to make my uh high-end photography book with curve a log.
• 34:26
  Tina: I still didn't had uh enough materials.
• 34:30
  Tina: Uh so it was a continuation.
• 34:33
  Tina: And this has been hard for me because uh the book project went it uh went extended uh a lot.
• 34:42
  Tina: You know, the COVID hit in uh in 2020, and everything was cancelled, and I worked so much on that book.
• 34:51
  Tina: Um I couldn't go to Germany for like uh print check.
• 34:56
  Tina: I couldn't like everything collapsed.
• 34:58
  Tina: And 2020 was a rough year for me, personal and as a photographer.
• 35:04
  Tina: Um after COVID hit in, uh I had a divorce, uh, I was struggling.
• 35:14
  Tina: I mean, my daughter went very sick, and uh it was a lot of life, personal things in life that uh I didn't have energy at all for photography, nothing was quiet for many years.
• 35:29
  Tina: Um the book is still going to be made.
• 35:35
  Tina: Uh I don't know when it will come out, uh, but it's uh it's very important for me to to release to release that.
• 35:47
  Tina: It's a life achievement about uh me and Lina's journey journey after all, you know.
• 35:55
  Matt: So fantastic.
• 35:56
  Matt: Um I have so many questions from from what you're just talking about, but let's just let's just go back to the awards quickly because we we were we were talking about that.
• 36:07
  Matt: Um tell us in that kind of year after you won the House of Blad Masters, did you feel like okay, well I've got to now try and I I've I'm kind of working and creating art to get back to that to try and fulfill that style and that that kind of award-winning type of images, or did you want to kind of get away from that and try and evolve in a different direction, or did were you just trying to hang on for all you all you all you had while you kind of enjoyed the ride from winning the award?
• 36:48
  Matt: It must have been like when someone when a band has a really successful album, the difficult the most difficult part is that second album, and some always try to kind of replicate replicate the success of the first album and fail, or they try and go completely in a different direction and run that risk of alienating the audience or themselves.
• 37:09
  Matt: Did you did this these kind of conversations kind of rattle around your head?
• 37:13
  Tina: I think I never actually thought about that.
• 37:16
  Tina: Uh but but I was very afraid of kind of like how can I overcome this?
• 37:22
  Tina: You know, at first I'd change also my my gear over to medium format, had a completely different expression, way uh better, if I can say like more intense.
• 37:34
  Tina: Like skin is like amazing with a medium format and um hassle by colors, and uh I needed to learn, you know, how to work with that also.
• 37:45
  Tina: And the book was uh took some like the breath out of me, you know.
• 37:50
  Tina: I was super exhausted after the book.
• 37:53
  Tina: I I photographed, it was nearly like 12 different different people, and um I always try to like uh stay true to what I love and what uh in photography, which is like it's the character of the people, it's great light.
• 38:12
  Tina: I do locations need to be right also outside.
• 38:18
  Tina: I love outdoors location and museums, and um but it's hard not to get polluted by all the content materials that is everywhere, and you need to and you feel that you need to like outcome yourself or or think like what do people want?
• 38:36
  Tina: And you have to just lay away though those thoughts.
• 38:39
  Tina: You have to stay on the line of feeling inspirated and just shoot when you feel there is something meaningful for you, you know.
• 38:48
  Tina: We don't have to make things all the time, also.
• 38:51
  Tina: And I was still continuing doing my own things after the masters, you know, still continuing with Lena and with other models.
• 39:01
  Tina: I also shot a lot uh pharaoh photography with uh Golko Andrea.
• 39:07
  Tina: She has albinism, she's albino.
• 39:10
  Tina: I just love her, and she has been a lot with me in my projects.
• 39:15
  Tina: So yeah, it's hard.
• 39:19
  Tina: I it's hard though, it is, and we always feel that we have to come up with something new.
• 39:24
  Tina: I'm sure you're you always hear this, it's very cliche, but we do have this feel, you know.
• 39:32
  Tina: But ultimately, yeah, people just want to see some grasp of realness in photography or what you put out because it's you, you put out something, you know.
• 39:43
  Tina: So so be a little be a little aware and like you know, soft about what what you're putting out to people, you know.
• 39:51
  Tina: What do you want to what what is your voice then?
• 39:54
  Tina: Are you just like out like contact or but uh a a lot of people don't know, you know?
• 40:00
  Matt: I think this is the really the the more I I live on this planet and stay in the photography realm, the more I'm convinced that the best art comes from those that know themselves the best.
• 40:14
  Matt: And so like if you if you're really able to understand who you are as a person before anything else and what you care about, what you really, really care about, and that they sound difficult, they sound easy to figure out, but they're not, they are really, really difficult to to figure out, and that's why you know have much so much respect for you because you manage to not figure it out, but you manage to you know tap into that at an early age.
• 40:40
  Matt: Often when people they're in their 40s, 50s before they really understand who they are as a person, how they've evolved as a human being, but more importantly, how to actually like get in there, like really uh understand and tap into what you want to express and what you care about.
• 40:59
  Matt: And the camera comes c comes next, right?
• 41:03
  Matt: So for for you to say that is I 100% agree.
• 41:07
  Matt: I think it's not so much we get distracted, like oh what we want what we think others want to see, what we feel like oh, we have to go out and create something new.
• 41:16
  Tina: But if you're always creating from but we're yes, and we're not creating for others, we are putting out things for us, you know.
• 41:23
  Tina: So yeah, totally.
• 41:26
  Matt: But that translates into resonance with the audience because they people can see that.
• 41:31
  Matt: People, even if they don't know why, it's like my one of my next questions is going to be what is it about your work that people really like, you know, really bite into, really capture uh their imagination, curiosity, and and love.
• 41:48
  Matt: What is it about that?
• 41:49
  Matt: But it's it's it most likely it's not yes, you've got an amazing light, yes, they're technically beautiful images, but it's this honesty, it's this wrong honesty and authenticity that for me anyway, uh I'll hear your answer in a minute, what you think, but I think it's I think it's that you can see that in your images, and people gravitate towards that, right?
• 42:13
  Tina: Oh yeah, I can so feel you're here, and I could talk so much about this, and I can I can only say what I've heard so many people say, but I also have my own, of course, opinion about it.
• 42:23
  Tina: It's uh it's something that grasps you, you know.
• 42:28
  Tina: It's kind of like this energy that is it's so intense, you know, because it's it's this it's what I said, it's a sense of something real, it's realness, it's autistic authenticity, and it's it's not nothing fake there.
• 42:44
  Tina: There it's real people, uh it's a very intimate moment between us.
• 42:50
  Tina: It may it may be like a very little room, there's no distractions.
• 42:56
  Tina: Uh we have a relationship from before I knew I know them, you know, and they know me.
• 43:03
  Tina: Most of them, not all.
• 43:05
  Tina: It's a hard question because sometimes I don't even know why, you know.
• 43:12
  Tina: I only know uh myself and what I found what I find beauty in and what I want to show, you know.
• 43:22
  Tina: But these are also humans that are picked from me because of that, because I see something in them and that shows on the camera too.
• 43:37
  Matt: When you uh first started relationship with uh uh your working relationship with Jock.
• 43:44
  Matt: What was he you know, in terms of mentor it sounds like what was he advising you when you you talked about what he said was important, what was not important?
• 43:57
  Matt: And I'm not asking for a checklist here.
• 43:59
  Matt: But give us some ideas of you know you are fairly young and early age in your career, and Jock Sturge is coming in and kind of taking you under his wing and advising, you know, don't worry about that, do that, uh, the time will come, etc.
• 44:15
  Matt: Or these pieces of advice.
• 44:16
  Matt: Share with us some of his nuggets of knowledge, as it were.
• 44:21
  Tina: This knowledge is also something I find very true myself.
• 44:25
  Tina: And uh he also used to say, like, you know, don't look at other people, you know.
• 44:33
  Tina: You know what you have and just do what you love.
• 44:37
  Tina: Most important is uh it's the person you have in front of you, you know.
• 44:43
  Tina: That's the most important.
• 44:44
  Tina: And to make that person in ease and sue them, and and to build that relationship as a photographer and a model, it's it's very important.
• 44:56
  Tina: Um and he also used to say that it's kind of it's also like it's three voices in the photography.
• 45:07
  Tina: I've used the phrase myself, uh, it's the first and second and third voices, you as a photographer, and then it's the model, which is the second voice, and you have a third voice, which is actually what I molded you into the person you are of all your experiences, everything you are putting out.
• 45:24
  Tina: And it's it's in a major truth, you know.
• 45:27
  Tina: You have to handle uh handle it with gentleness and grace, and it's your ability to see beauty and what is beauty, you know.
• 45:35
  Tina: Because you can put a person, a girl or a boy that mean means nothing to you uh in front of a camera, and it will be a wall between and you will see that.
• 45:50
  Tina: But to drag something out from that, I don't know how I do it even.
• 45:55
  Tina: Uh it's it's this moment we had we share together, and it's just really intense when I photograph, you know.
• 46:03
  Tina: I can barely breathe sometimes.
• 46:04
  Tina: I have to like remember to breathe because I hold my breath, even you know it's difficult to explain to people that don't know, isn't it?
• 46:10
  Matt: Especially because I I I shoot a lot of a lot of portraits as well, and and there's there, I mean all photographers get it, but there's this flow state that you have, and when it's when another human is involved, it's it is more challenging, it's more complicated, but it's also more it's so much more rewarding when you just get it and it's yeah, you can barely breathe, and time just doesn't mean anything.
• 46:31
  Tina: I know it's crazy.
• 46:32
  Tina: What is that?
• 46:33
  Tina: That's like true true artistry.
• 46:36
  Tina: I don't know.
• 46:36
  Tina: It's drugs, it is.
• 46:38
  Tina: I also have Asperger, so I'm a very I'm very hypersensitive.
• 46:44
  Tina: I have this sensitivity that often it's been brought in uh for me as a person that I I kind of sense things and my sensitivity has helped me a lot in photography, you know.
• 46:57
  Tina: But I'm also very fragile and uh I get overstimulated uh very, very uh much, you know.
• 47:04
  Tina: Um I have to protect my uh my energy because I get drained also.
• 47:08
  Tina: It's kind of my my superpower that's you know in photography.
• 47:13
  Matt: Yeah, uh you can't give your secrets away if you don't really know what those secrets are, but um you you mentioned uh you mentioned earlier about um your daughter and the kind of the personal issues you had through through COVID, and you know of course I'm I'm sympathetic to to that, but on a photography level, I know you've shot your daughter a few times.
• 47:37
  Matt: That that is both easier and more difficult at the same time, and we talked about this off air about how Sally Mann, you know, used to talk about shooting, you know, of the things right in front of you and how how it's you know if you know those things the best, they can create the best art.
• 47:55
  Matt: So um how's that experience been for you and where's that leading to, if if anything?
• 48:06
  Tina: Um I I highly feel everything that Sally Mann is saying, and especially in her documentary video that we talked about.
• 48:16
  Tina: Uh I've seen it a lot, actually, many times, because it gives me like like I chill on my back.
• 48:24
  Tina: It's this I get this very like yeah, inspirational energy of it because everything she is saying is so true.
• 48:33
  Tina: It's also something I've I've discussed together with uh with Sturgis many times.
• 48:37
  Tina: Um the people you photograph the best is the people that are known to you in some some kind of a way, you know.
• 48:46
  Tina: It's the relationship.
• 48:48
  Tina: And uh as long as you do as long as you like it's not like as long as you do what you love, it's about what do you want to show people, you know, who means something to you and and why.
• 49:04
  Tina: Uh I use my children uh a lot in my photography.
• 49:13
  Tina: I also have a son, but he is uh he's very little, but uh I'm planning to do uh a beautiful theory with him soon.
• 49:20
  Tina: He's uh turning eight.
• 49:22
  Tina: Uh also has red hair, which also has become like uh my thing without me knowing it, even.
• 49:28
  Tina: Shooting red hair to people.
• 49:31
  Tina: But I always had like a uh I found this very something very beautiful and beautiful about uh the Nordics and the melancholy about the Nordics.
• 49:45
  Tina: Has also connection with me being in the north so much and travel around the Arctic there.
• 49:51
  Tina: But it's it's something about uh it's personal for me because I love uh how the skin is with light, you know, especially with red-haired people.
• 50:01
  Tina: That's what I also figured out by shooting that with natural lights, uh how amazingly beautiful uh those people are on camera.
• 50:12
  Matt: Especially on a Hasselblad.
• 50:13
  Matt: Uh when did you so let's touch upon that?
• 50:18
  Matt: I don't really talk gear, but um I'm a Hasselblad guy myself.
• 50:21
  Matt: So when did you start on the H6D?
• 50:24
  Matt: Was the Masters the photographs you took for the Masters they went on Hasselblad?
• 50:30
  Tina: That's like a stage ship of a camera.
• 50:32
  Tina: What was the question again?
• 50:33
  Matt: When what what camera did you shoot the winning photos on for the Hasselblad Masters?
• 50:39
  Tina: H60.
• 50:40
  Tina: H60.
• 50:41
  Tina: H yeah.
• 50:42
  Matt: Uh it's a beast.
• 50:43
  Matt: Yes.
• 50:44
  Tina: I yeah, I have it.
• 50:45
  Tina: Like I changed between that or like the X2D, which uh we won.
• 50:51
  Tina: And I also have the uh the old one, the 907.
• 50:57
  Tina: But a digital version, yeah, but you can put on a converter also.
• 51:02
  Tina: Yeah.
• 51:03
  Tina: But my favorite is the H60.
• 51:06
  Tina: Like you cannot carry that with you everywhere, you know.
• 51:09
  Tina: But I've also learned how to freaking hand hold it, which is very difficult.
• 51:13
  Matt: Yeah, it is.
• 51:14
  Matt: I hand hold it.
• 51:15
  Tina: Because I don't like the tripod.
• 51:16
  Tina: I don't like tripods, yeah.
• 51:18
  Matt: I like a tripod with analog because you're you know you're looking down a viewfinder and you can you know wind the film on without the butt on the H6D, I love to, but your arms get tired because it's so freaking heavy.
• 51:29
  Matt: Um and if you move just a little bit, right, because it's such an old it's such an old camera, uh, you know, that focus will shoot off very fast.
• 51:39
  Matt: Um so yeah, it's there's no image stabilization or anything.
• 51:42
  Tina: It's like when you when you're shot with that, oh no, it's like it's never the same after, but because the skin is like will never be the same with another camera again that it is with an H6D, it's just the tonality, it's it's uh amazing.
• 51:56
  Matt: So yeah, that's so th this look of yours um obviously became a theme and it it represents so you you mentioned the word melancholy, I guess.
• 52:07
  Matt: What's this you know what and we talked earlier about kind of a sadness.
• 52:12
  Matt: Yeah, is that a a projection or reflection of you as a person or could be your childhood or yes, I think so.
• 52:21
  Matt: Yeah.
• 52:22
  Tina: Also, you bring you bring out everything with like what you have uh of your inner experience and childhood and everything of who you are as a person, you know.
• 52:33
  Tina: And I I have a strong life and I'm very sensitive, and I'm I'm sucking in on the people I'm I'm shooting, like I'm getting I'm getting them into that sensitivity space where I need uh where I need them to be, you know.
• 52:48
  Tina: And also I think one thing that has been important for my models, uh some of them have said I've never experienced that before because I never wanted them to smile, you know.
• 52:59
  Tina: There was a reason for that.
• 53:01
  Tina: Uh I wanted them to find their inner place before they were getting shooted at.
• 53:08
  Tina: So I always told them to close their eyes, to just think of something, and then open their eyes.
• 53:14
  Tina: And it makes them it pushes them into a state they don't even know that themselves, you know.
• 53:22
  Tina: Just having this um silent expression, not standing there, because immediately when you start like, oh, it's nine, and like then you're putting on the mask.
• 53:32
  Tina: You don't know that, but you're putting on a mask, you know, to be a presenter for the world.
• 53:37
  Tina: If you if you peel that off and you sit there with yourself, being quiet, closing your eyes.
• 53:42
  Tina: It's just us there breath breathing, you know.
• 53:46
  Tina: So uh that has a lot to say.
• 53:51
  Matt: Yeah, and those moments where real mask kicks in.
• 53:54
  Matt: Is this then this type of experience for you when photographing?
• 53:59
  Matt: This sounds like almost a coping mechanism as well.
• 54:02
  Matt: You know, this this um this methodology of of absorbing energy as well as giving out, having this or creating or at least enhancing this energy with another human being.
• 54:18
  Matt: That sounds like almost that kind of drug-like state for you.
• 54:22
  Matt: Is that it's always been like that, something that you chase, or it's something that you just sit with and accept and go from one thing to the next with in terms of that energy.
• 54:34
  Tina: Yeah.
• 54:34
  Tina: Interesting question, so I think so, and also that because of everything that I've experienced and uh all the traumatic things I have been in uh throughout my life of struggles.
• 54:55
  Tina: Art and photographing was always my escape.
• 54:59
  Tina: It was uh the world that I could kind of dive into where where I was able to shut out everything else, you know, because I was I was in that state.
• 55:09
  Tina: Uh so it has been necessary and healing and uh all at once for me.
• 55:17
  Tina: And the beauty, of course, of discovering what you had shot after, you know, to seeing what you made, that was also very like that energy was very addictive too in a good way, you know.
• 55:32
  Matt: Has it changed you in any respect?
• 55:35
  Matt: Um, been doing it for for uh numerous years now, and knowing yourself well enough to understand that you know what it's for and why you enjoy it, and the art that you want to create, where that's coming from.
• 55:48
  Matt: Has it also impacted and uh evolved you as a person?
• 55:55
  Tina: That is a hard question.
• 55:56
  Tina: Of course it has impacted me as a person, uh, I think.
• 56:03
  Tina: I don't know where I would have been if I didn't have that the art in my life, it's like completely necessary for me to be able to live.
• 56:16
  Tina: Uh in this world, actually.
• 56:20
  Tina: Uh it's a reaction of living.
• 56:26
  Tina: It's a reaction to to to live.
• 56:31
  Matt: Saved you, arguably saved you more than changed you.
• 56:35
  Tina: I would say it did, yes.
• 56:37
  Tina: It's never changed me, but it it kept me alive.
• 56:41
  Tina: Sounds very sad, but it did.
• 56:45
  Tina: And um I'm more in ease now than I was before.
• 56:53
  Tina: Uh that I don't need to create content, which we say all the time, you know.
• 56:59
  Tina: I only do something now, like uh when I feel so strongly about it, you know.
• 57:07
  Tina: Have to do it because now I also have a lot of commercial jobs, and I'm in this position and where I'm very grateful that I now I can be uh inspired to other photographers.
• 57:19
  Tina: I can like I'm a I'm a very uh I'm I'm sitting in this very professional judging panel with Alex Hood.
• 57:26
  Tina: Like we are third members, then I'm the photographer.
• 57:30
  Tina: Uh in this competition, and we had Steve McCurry in one year and Michael Yamasuti in one year.
• 57:37
  Tina: This is my fourth year, and yeah, I think it's amazing now to be able to judge other photographers and to to give back, and I can use my my knowledge, you know.
• 57:52
  Tina: Traveling the world, uh it's uh yeah, that's something I love to do also within this commercial world.
• 58:02
  Matt: Giving back is is is is is important, yeah.
• 58:05
  Matt: So to to touch upon your this the I guess the business model that you have.
• 58:11
  Matt: I mean this and I'm talking here for mostly the sake of the audience because this there will be lots of people who arguably want to be and be the next Tina or want to be the next Steve McCurry or whoever their inspiration is.
• 58:26
  Matt: It seems harder than ever to be a full-time commercial photographer these days.
• 58:33
  Matt: Question number one would be Would you say that's true?
• 58:36
  Matt: Question number two would be how have you created a business model where you can survive economically on photography?
• 58:46
  Matt: And what does that model look like in terms of what type of commercial work you do?
• 58:50
  Matt: I know you do, you know, like you said, judging competitions and you speak on stage.
• 58:54
  Matt: And so give give us an idea of where you see the photography industry at the moment for those that want to go full-time career-wise, and what your career looks like on a kind of day-to-day basis when it comes to being a professional photographer.
• 59:13
  Tina: Yeah.
• 59:14
  Tina: I've always thought about it like the commercial world are bringing artists in now more and more, you know.
• 59:22
  Tina: Not the typical commercial photographer, but they bring in they bring in artists.
• 59:26
  Tina: And I would well, I say artists because that are us that are just not a fully fully typical commercial photographer shooting campaigns all the time or something like that to bring in something different.
• 59:39
  Tina: And I've always tried to keep that in mind when I also do commercial things.
• 59:46
  Tina: Um, what I do now for the most is uh I do speeches and uh I've I've done some workshops.
• 59:58
  Tina: And uh and and I'm sitting in this judging panel.
• 1:00:04
  Tina: So I'm sorry, I kind of lost your question.
• 1:00:07
  Tina: Yes, because I fired I think ten questions at once.
• 1:00:11
  Tina: Because my my my brain starts with the first thing you're asking, and then it's like no.
• 1:00:15
  Tina: Let's start with the fans on it.
• 1:00:17
  Matt: How do you how do you see the photography industry at the moment?
• 1:00:20
  Matt: We've got you know social media running running riot.
• 1:00:24
  Matt: Uh we have more photographers than we've ever had uh since photography began.
• 1:00:28
  Matt: No, no, I know.
• 1:00:32
  Tina: I'm not trying to stay out stay out of it as much as I can.
• 1:00:35
  Matt: True, but because of that, by definition, the opportunities for photographers are a little bit more slim, a little bit less than maybe they might have been 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, or even five years ago.
• 1:00:50
  Matt: I don't know if that's true, but that's the perception I get from a lot of buddy.
• 1:00:54
  Tina: Oh, because it's more photographers, yeah.
• 1:00:57
  Matt: More photographers, less budgets, uh, more AI.
• 1:01:00
  Matt: You know, all of the all of these existential threats for photography.
• 1:01:04
  Matt: Uh how how do you agree with me for a start, or do you do you see do you agree with those, yeah, those threats?
• 1:01:10
  Matt: But so how would do you think the someone starting today can achieve the dream of being a full-time?
• 1:01:19
  Tina: Yeah, I think so.
• 1:01:20
  Tina: But you have to you have to have it, the the the it factor, you know, like like also other our artists need you, you have to like also when that other artists or piano players need to be.
• 1:01:33
  Tina: Like you can't be Ludovicu and Audi because you're good at piano.
• 1:01:37
  Tina: Like you you can, but you can't.
• 1:01:39
  Tina: And so of course you can be that.
• 1:01:42
  Tina: Um uh like I'm not saying you have to be like the super talent and autodidact and never went to art school, and you can learn, you know, but you have to have that inner eye.
• 1:01:52
  Tina: And especially today, it's it's more important to bring out something that is real, you know, the realness.
• 1:02:00
  Tina: I keep saying that because it's so much fake in our society, you know.
• 1:02:06
  Matt: And there's only gonna be more.
• 1:02:07
  Tina: It's a dark path, it's uh it's only going to be more, and it's flooded with content and it's AI, and we don't even know what's what the either more.
• 1:02:16
  Tina: So you have to use yourself as a tool, you know.
• 1:02:20
  Tina: And you have to be pay attention to what what what what is my voice, the cliche, but really what is it?
• 1:02:28
  Tina: Are you just putting things out there, you know, more and more and more, or is it something that means something for you?
• 1:02:34
  Tina: Because then other people can see it.
• 1:02:36
  Tina: Means something for you, then then you you you're there.
• 1:02:40
  Tina: You have to figure out who you are first and what do you want to show and what what is your voice, and then you can start to think about how, you know, light and model and this and this, and or else it's like this floating sea would just, you know?
• 1:02:56
  Tina: Well, kind so crap.
• 1:03:01
  Matt: Yeah.
• 1:03:02
  Matt: I love it, great advice.
• 1:03:05
  Matt: Uh okay.
• 1:03:06
  Matt: It is difficult.
• 1:03:08
  Matt: But it you know, life is life, life is as hard as you want to make it.
• 1:03:12
  Matt: And the same thing with photography.
• 1:03:14
  Matt: If you if you just if you can just kind of um you know pay attention and uh and be mindful and and and learn about yourself, I think the rest is downstream of that.
• 1:03:24
  Matt: Certainly in my experience and how how I teach to people as well, is it's finding your voice is as you said, cliche.
• 1:03:32
  Matt: But what do you want to say?
• 1:03:34
  Matt: You know, everyone, everyone has a voice in them, whether whether it's a quiet little voice, whether it's a little mouse of a voice, or whether it's a big giant of a voice, doesn't matter.
• 1:03:45
  Matt: But everyone, everyone has got something inside of them that can come out, whether that's through photography or filmmaking or music or painting or whatever it might be, there is all of that self-doubt imposter syndrome and difficult challenges, but all of that makes all of that makes you who you are.
• 1:04:06
  Matt: All of that that ambiguity and that uncertainty makes you who you are.
• 1:04:10
  Matt: And if you're just able to find a way to lean into that rather than pull away from it, you're on you're on the right road.
• 1:04:16
  Matt: The rest is the rest is downstream of that.
• 1:04:20
  Tina: It's true, you know, and just don't be afraid, I would say to people, and you know, just work hard and do what you know, do what you love, but I recommend like play with the light, you know, as an also as a natural photographer, like try to find an intimate moment, what gives intimacy, you know, because that's very powerful.
• 1:04:44
  Tina: Also, color is very powerful in photography now.
• 1:04:47
  Tina: A few colors and be attentive, what you are showing in your frame, you know, declutter it, you know.
• 1:04:53
  Tina: Take away things that's not supposed to be there, make it simple, you know.
• 1:04:57
  Tina: Uh and don't worry about don't worry so much about other things.
• 1:05:04
  Tina: Don't worry that if it's if you're gonna make it, if people are gonna like it, you know, those are things that will come.
• 1:05:11
  Tina: And if it does if it doesn't come, it doesn't matter, you know.
• 1:05:15
  Tina: Uh but you know, you can't lose, don't lose your inspiration because of other people's opinions, because that's not the reality, you know.
• 1:05:29
  Tina: Uh and just keep keep pushing it.
• 1:05:32
  Tina: Like even the the picture from uh that I won in the Hassan Master of Tolia from the North, it was refused hundred times in international competition.
• 1:05:43
  Tina: Never made a fucking single, I'm sorry, award, nothing.
• 1:05:47
  Tina: You know, I felt that picture so strongly, I sent it in either way to Hasselmaster, and it won, you know.
• 1:05:55
  Tina: Doesn't matter, you know.
• 1:05:57
  Tina: You can be rejected so many times.
• 1:05:59
  Tina: But you still have to have that oomph that keeps you going.
• 1:06:02
  Tina: I think that's a major difference, and it has also to do about what you want to achieve.
• 1:06:08
  Tina: You want to have it as work only, you know, being a commercial photographer, then it means for many people, and I can say it doesn't mean anything for them.
• 1:06:16
  Tina: The artist aspect in being a photographer, it's a job.
• 1:06:20
  Tina: It's techniques, you shoot pictures, you you go home, you know.
• 1:06:24
  Tina: Different line, you know.
• 1:06:26
  Tina: So yeah.
• 1:06:29
  Matt: If people are listening to this and getting inspired to enter competitions, what would kind of your main piece of advice be?
• 1:06:39
  Matt: Uh Hassel Blad Masters is coming up, I think, deadlines in a few weeks at the time of this recording.
• 1:06:44
  Matt: So probably by the time this is released, we're probably a few days away from the deadlines.
• 1:06:49
  Matt: So um, as well as many other awards and competitions out there.
• 1:06:54
  Matt: If you had to kind of distill it down into a piece of advice when you're you know looking at competitions, what would that be?
• 1:07:02
  Matt: Because a lot you have to pay for, not everyone can kind of enter all of these competitions.
• 1:07:06
  Matt: How would you kind of advise people?
• 1:07:09
  Tina: Oh, yeah, this is important, and I can also speak as a judge panel now.
• 1:07:13
  Tina: A winner, a winner, also being a judge, a judge, exactly, because I have looked through thousands of images, and you have to understand that it goes like this.
• 1:07:26
  Tina: You have like a nanosecond.
• 1:07:28
  Tina: When I look through pictures, I have like a nanosecond.
• 1:07:32
  Tina: Like I just look, it takes me like this to see if it's something there.
• 1:07:36
  Tina: And then do you reject it, reject it?
• 1:07:39
  Tina: Because we see so much of the same things all the time, you know.
• 1:07:46
  Tina: Yes, it's one.
• 1:07:48
  Tina: I'm not like it's wonderful you can go to different countries and you can pay someone to sit on a camel in uh in the desert and like uh laughing children, running away, and like mockery and son, and it's not bad, it's not bad images, you know.
• 1:08:05
  Tina: It's it's a lesson to look at, doesn't give me anything.
• 1:08:07
  Tina: Doesn't give me anything.
• 1:08:09
  Tina: Has to be something that I see that photographer has been thoughtful.
• 1:08:16
  Tina: Okay, it's like my brain stops, you know.
• 1:08:20
  Tina: Oh, okay, here it's something.
• 1:08:21
  Tina: And for me, it's a combination of aesthetics, the simplicity in the image.
• 1:08:28
  Tina: If it moves me also, it's great if I get emotional.
• 1:08:33
  Tina: I rarely do, but I do, you know.
• 1:08:36
  Tina: And then you got me right away, you know.
• 1:08:38
  Tina: It's a combination of everything, you know.
• 1:08:41
  Tina: Uh I love to see beauty in photography, and beauty is different from people to people, you know.
• 1:08:50
  Tina: So I would say just try to find your true self, whatever that is.
• 1:08:57
  Tina: Stay real, you know?
• 1:09:00
  Tina: Make something that means something to you for a reason.
• 1:09:04
  Tina: Don't think of what other people want to have.
• 1:09:08
  Tina: Trying to try to do something special, something different, you know.
• 1:09:15
  Tina: Like to find that stillness in an image, you know.
• 1:09:22
  Tina: I don't know.
• 1:09:22
  Tina: I even struggle myself sometimes.
• 1:09:24
  Matt: If you look at the Hasselblad awards for it, because just because we've been talking there, there are many competitions and many awards out there, but uh Hasselblad Masters.
• 1:09:31
  Matt: I I hear what you're saying, but that that has a specific look.
• 1:09:36
  Matt: And you know, if you're shooting on Hasselblad, but you have a different look, then you're you you might be tempted to try and fit into the more of the the style of the winners.
• 1:09:49
  Matt: I think many people do that, yeah.
• 1:09:52
  Matt: The European Hasselblad look, right?
• 1:09:54
  Matt: The clean, neutral, soft light, all of that kind of stuff.
• 1:09:59
  Tina: Yeah.
• 1:10:00
  Tina: Luckily, I never did that.
• 1:10:01
  Tina: Like I I've never I didn't looked at anything before.
• 1:10:06
  Tina: Like I didn't even know what the what it was.
• 1:10:10
  Tina: I think you should not like we can look at things to be, I also look at things, uh attentive and unattentive, to to feel inspired.
• 1:10:20
  Tina: And like we are, of course, uninspired often, and and then I look at others, and then I and then I feel like, oh, it's so good, you know.
• 1:10:30
  Tina: And you and you you drive your brain into other directions that oh, maybe I should do this and then I should this do this, and I think that's not too good.
• 1:10:42
  Tina: I try to not look at content at all because I want a natural flow of creativity into my brain.
• 1:10:51
  Tina: I want natural ideas coming from me inside.
• 1:10:55
  Tina: But that's hard today, you know.
• 1:10:58
  Matt: Very hard.
• 1:10:59
  Matt: That's a really good point.
• 1:11:00
  Matt: I was talking about this with um the people in my book club.
• 1:11:04
  Matt: Uh little plug there for my book club.
• 1:11:06
  Matt: But the uh people were people were talking about social media and getting inspirations or getting lost in scrolling for inspirations in social media.
• 1:11:18
  Matt: And and for me, I get very few, I think I get inspired by a lot of p put photographers on social media, so I will save them in a play or whatever you call it, save file folder.
• 1:11:32
  Matt: And the the amount of times I go back into that folder to actually look at their work is is hardly ever, which says to me Oh my goodness, it's so rare you're saying this, and it's so me too.
• 1:11:44
  Matt: Yeah, yeah, I do the same thing, which which means which says something to me.
• 1:11:47
  Matt: It's like, okay, maybe they're not, yeah, maybe they're not really as good as I thought they were, um, because they're not re they're not staying with me.
• 1:11:54
  Matt: Whereas if I see something on a wall or I get forwarded someone's website or portfolio, or I see a photo book that I haven't seen before, I'm like Yes.
• 1:12:04
  Tina: But what I do get inspired of is other people's greatness.
• 1:12:09
  Tina: If I can see other people, amazing photographers, their greatness, and if they have done something, I can feel it too.
• 1:12:18
  Tina: I'm like, I'm feeling that energy.
• 1:12:20
  Tina: I'm like, oh my god, that's so good.
• 1:12:21
  Tina: And that energy is good to bring out, to bring in.
• 1:12:25
  Tina: And then you can use that, you know, and it's like, oh, I want to make something also.
• 1:12:30
  Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:31
  Tina: But we we need to understand that we are different.
• 1:12:34
  Matt: What are we not talking about in in the photography industry?
• 1:12:38
  Matt: Or what are we not talking about enough as artists, as as judges, as beginners?
• 1:12:46
  Tina: Oh, I wish I could have this question to think about it for a day.
• 1:12:51
  Tina: Yeah.
• 1:12:52
  Matt: You could take as long as you want.
• 1:12:54
  Tina: What are we not having?
• 1:12:55
  Tina: Like, this is a good question that I would love to sleep on to have an amazing answer.
• 1:13:00
  Tina: Yeah.
• 1:13:01
  Matt: What okay, let me rephrase it.
• 1:13:03
  Matt: What what should we be talking more about?
• 1:13:06
  Tina: What should we be talking more about?
• 1:13:08
  Tina: Photography.
• 1:13:10
  Tina: Yeah, ending social media.
• 1:13:15
  Tina: I'm actually uh quitting uh Facebook now, putting getting myself out.
• 1:13:20
  Tina: I have to have Messenger, but yeah, that's a enormous relief for me to do.
• 1:13:25
  Tina: But again, I don't know.
• 1:13:26
  Tina: I'm I keep remi I I I think I keep uh like coming back to this that it it's the truth, it's it's the autisticity and the realness, you know.
• 1:13:37
  Tina: I'm there is so much uh fake uh visuals out there.
• 1:13:44
  Tina: I don't I don't mean to call other people's photography fake, I don't mean that.
• 1:13:49
  Tina: It's just that we see so much on social media and around us that has no true meaning because it's made up for another reason, you know, to sell us something or to get get our mind into something or like and I think our body and mind is so sick of it, you know?
• 1:14:12
  Tina: And especially in this society, I would call it's the darkest age we live in now in the with politics and the world, but I'm not gonna start on that, but it's uh yeah, I feel you.
• 1:14:24
  Matt: I think social media has a huge part to play in that because people figured out what works to get likes and engagement, and so they they created for that.
• 1:14:34
  Matt: So people are now chasing style rather than chasing voice.
• 1:14:38
  Tina: And I think if people are able to like swing through so much of that content to get through to a little bit of the real content, the the real mess.
• 1:14:48
  Tina: Well always uh it's a huge uh inspi inspirational thing for me to see that.
• 1:14:54
  Tina: Um many people like reach out to me to tell me, like, oh my god, like your photography did this and this for me, and that's a beautiful thing.
• 1:15:02
  Tina: And that's when I always keep thinking that they have emotional reactions of my photography, and it leads things in them that they didn't know why.
• 1:15:11
  Tina: And I also don't I want to write then, you know, and that's because we see something that is so real, we connect with it, it taps into our soul, you know.
• 1:15:20
  Matt: So tell us about what's next for you and what what you're working on at the moment.
• 1:15:24
  Matt: What are we gonna look out for in the world of Tina as a photographer?
• 1:15:30
  Tina: I would love to.
• 1:15:31
  Tina: I can't say so much about it, but I can say a little bit because it's being sent in somewhere and it's kind of uh unpublished work, but um okay, this is massive.
• 1:15:44
  Tina: My best friend's name is Gabriel Isaac, which is also a very renowned international photographer.
• 1:15:50
  Tina: He has also been working with the muse for 15 years, like myself, uh, in his photography.
• 1:15:57
  Tina: And um, we said years ago, before I was a master, even, or right after that, oh, we we should do collab.
• 1:16:04
  Tina: Uh and now we did.
• 1:16:06
  Tina: So we're like Isaac and Holt, collabing up.
• 1:16:10
  Tina: And we did a project on Iceland three years ago, never been published.
• 1:16:15
  Tina: It was the most exhausting project because it took out everything from us.
• 1:16:20
  Tina: So we couldn't even look at it for three or four months, you know.
• 1:16:23
  Tina: We were terrified to look at it because it was so draining.
• 1:16:26
  Tina: It's a breathtaking project.
• 1:16:29
  Tina: It's called Colliding Walls, which means me and Gabriel's walls are colliding.
• 1:16:35
  Tina: And you can see both of our work uh into the series.
• 1:16:41
  Tina: It's uh it's a series of nearly 80 photography, 80 images.
• 1:16:44
  Tina: Um I brought Lina by Muse to Iceland, and he brought his muse, uh Juke, from France, uh, and we did a very raw and honest and soft series, very dark, uh sensitive and still and harsh in the environment uh in Iceland.
• 1:17:03
  Tina: And it's going to be out very soon.
• 1:17:06
  Tina: Um as a book.
• 1:17:08
  Tina: Um as a project first, but also as a book, yes, and also being exhibited in uh huge museums.
• 1:17:15
  Tina: So um this is something I'm very proud of.
• 1:17:19
  Tina: It's uh extension of my work.
• 1:17:22
  Tina: I've dug some deeper with this, and also so did Gabriel, and that's why it costed us so much, and we we spent so much time on it.
• 1:17:31
  Tina: So yeah, I hope people will like it.
• 1:17:36
  Matt: When are we gonna see the first parts of that?
• 1:17:38
  Tina: Maybe in some weeks.
• 1:17:41
  Matt: Maybe when we release the podcast in a few weeks' time.
• 1:17:45
  Tina: Let's see.
• 1:17:46
  Tina: Let's see.
• 1:17:47
  Tina: Yes, I'm very happy to present that work together with Gabe Walso.
• 1:17:51
  Matt: We are extremely excited to see that.
• 1:17:54
  Matt: Um, not that we don't have enough uh photographs of yours to enjoy, but uh yeah, we always it's funny, isn't it?
• 1:18:01
  Matt: We always want the next thing.
• 1:18:02
  Matt: What's the next thing?
• 1:18:03
  Matt: Uh and um we suffer that as artists, right?
• 1:18:06
  Matt: It's like we put our work out there, even if it's successful, it's like the most questions you probably get after successful projects like, okay, so what are you gonna work on next?
• 1:18:15
  Tina: Oh, I know.
• 1:18:15
  Tina: And I'm like, oh that's not the important thing, you know?
• 1:18:20
  Matt: Yeah, just fucking enjoy this for 10 years.
• 1:18:23
  Matt: Yes, just leave me alone.
• 1:18:24
  Tina: My goodness, I'm a human being, not a machine.
• 1:18:27
  Tina: Uh, but I understand.
• 1:18:30
  Tina: Automatically questioned people don't think so much about it when they say it, you know.
• 1:18:34
  Tina: We just that's what we ask.
• 1:18:36
  Tina: Yeah.
• 1:18:36
  Matt: Yeah, but fuck them.
• 1:18:38
  Tina: Yeah.
• 1:18:39
  Matt: Thank you so much, Tina.
• 1:18:41
  Matt: Uh absolute pleasure to to talk to you.
• 1:18:43
  Matt: Thank you so much for uh taking the time to be on your first podcast.
• 1:18:47
  Matt: And uh yeah, like I said, it's an honor to uh have uh hosted you for this conversation.
• 1:18:54
  Tina: Thank you so much, Matt.
• 1:18:55
  Tina: Uh great to be here.
• 1:18:57
  Tina: Thank you.
• 1:19:06
  Matt: If you stayed with this conversation until the end, there is a good chance you're someone who values depth, reflection, and taking time with ideas rather than just rushing past them.
• 1:19:18
  Matt: That's the spirit behind my Voice Alchemy Book Club.
• 1:19:22
  Matt: It's a monthly space where photographers and creatives alike come together to sit with meaningful work, uh photo books, books, essays, and long-form projects, and talk honestly about what they're seeing, feeling, uh, and trying to make themselves.
• 1:19:40
  Matt: It's quiet, uh, it's thoughtful uh and intentionally human.
• 1:19:45
  Matt: There's no pressure to perform, no need to have answers.
• 1:19:49
  Matt: We're all just figuring it out.
• 1:19:50
  Matt: It's just time and space to reconnect with others, your work, and your thinking.
• 1:19:55
  Matt: So if that sounds like something you'd benefit from, you can find more information via the link in the notes and the description below.
• 1:20:03
  Matt: Hope to see you there.