Latest / The MOOD Podcast / If You Still Question Your Photography, You Are Not Alone, So Does Matthew Genitempo (Part 1)

Transcript

If You Still Question Your Photography, You Are Not Alone, So Does Matthew Genitempo (Part 1) · The MOOD Podcast

• 0:00
  Matthew: The photographs that interest me the most are the ones that I kinda don't remember taking.
• 0:04
  Matthew: All we're doing is fictions.
• 0:05
  Matthew: Sometimes I wish that there were two of me because it's so difficult to deal with your own work.
• 0:13
  Matt: Meet Matthew Genitempo, photographer, publisher, and the maker of three books, Jasper, Mother of Dogs, and Dog breath.
• 0:20
  Matt: Jasper is my favorite photo book, and after all these years I still imagine and dream about what it means.
• 0:27
  Matt: Unsure if I want the answer, if there is one to find, or if any of that actually mattered.
• 0:32
  Matt: We talk in this conversation about the critique that sent him into the woods and the time he spent there with men who had cut themselves off from society, about shooting a slow camera fast, about the people he dedicated his books to, and the boy who is the source of narration for Dogbreath without ever appearing in it.
• 1:10
  Matthew: My dad was in a hunting accident.
• 1:12
  Matthew: Shotgun spray had gone across him and had blinded him in one of his eyes.
• 1:16
  Matthew: My mom said that he would just kind of disappear on the weekends and like just kind of go into these rural places.
• 1:23
  Matthew: Did you see your dad in these men?
• 1:26
  Matthew: Yeah, I mean to some extent, yeah.
• 1:28
  Matthew: Maybe I was dealing with being on the edge of, at the time I was on the edge of becoming 40 and kind of looking back at a lot of things.
• 1:35
  Matthew: I had a gun pulled on me one time.
• 1:37
  Matthew: I was shot at one time, and like a week or two went by, and I get this phone call from this unknown number, and it is Dove's ant.
• 1:47
  Matthew: And she was letting me know that Dove had taken his own life.
• 1:52
  Matt: If you're an emerging photographer still getting in your own way, wondering what to say with your images and how to say them, this is a conversation about what it takes to stop piece together something profound and what it might cost you in the process.
• 2:06
  Matthew: I'm gonna be uh an optimist about this one.
• 2:09
  Matthew: I still have a lot of self-doubt about work, but like the one thing that I feel still pretty good about is if I just do the work, if I just go out and make the pictures and trust myself that something's gonna happen, that it will find itself, it'll if I it'll find its own way.
• 2:23
  Matthew: Maybe we'll put more of an emphasis on the book, and more people will want to make books and enjoy books, and the future might be bright.
• 2:30
  Matthew: I would give this this advice to myself now and to myself 15 years ago, but Matthew Genitempo, welcome to the Mood Podcast.
• 2:52
  Matt: It's uh it's a real honor and privilege to have you on the show.
• 2:55
  Matt: Thanks for joining me.
• 2:56
  Matthew: Cool, yeah.
• 2:56
  Matthew: Thanks, Matt.
• 2:57
  Matthew: Thanks for having me.
• 2:58
  Matthew: Where do we find you right now?
• 3:00
  Matthew: I am in my studio in San Antonio, Texas.
• 3:05
  Matt: Give us an insight into your kind of daily life and uh what that looks like in in in terms of an ordinary day for you over in San Antonio.
• 3:12
  Matthew: Man, ordinary day.
• 3:14
  Matthew: Um, dude, I feel like I've just been taking things day by day lately.
• 3:18
  Matthew: Um well, recently it's been kind of busy.
• 3:21
  Matthew: You know, the fall is always so busy for the for the you know photography and photo book world.
• 3:28
  Matthew: So uh just kind of um I'm applying for a grant right now, so that's been taking some time.
• 3:34
  Matthew: I'm what have I been doing?
• 3:37
  Matthew: I've got a couple design projects I've been doing.
• 3:40
  Matthew: Trespassers putting out a new book, so that's taking up some time.
• 3:44
  Matthew: Uh what else have I been doing?
• 3:46
  Matthew: I got a new dog, so I've been playing with her quite a bit.
• 3:50
  Matthew: Um trying to run every day.
• 3:53
  Matthew: Um, you know, uh painting a little bit in here.
• 3:57
  Matthew: Um dude, what else?
• 4:00
  Matthew: I don't know.
• 4:00
  Matthew: I've I feel at the at the end of the day, every day I'm maybe you feel the same way.
• 4:04
  Matthew: I'm just I feel like I don't have enough time to do all the things that I want to do.
• 4:07
  Matthew: You know, and I I feel productive, but at the end of the day, I'm just like, you know, sometimes I wish that there were two of me or something to get all the things that I want to get done.
• 4:18
  Matt: Yeah, I think I read somewhere that you said that with your photography as well.
• 4:21
  Matt: You kind of you wish I mean correct me if I'm wrong, I could be completely misquoting this.
• 4:27
  Matt: Um it was something like you wish there was a second version of you that could go and take the photos and and bring the negatives back.
• 4:34
  Matthew: That's like what I that's that would be maybe my number one dream as far as like photography goes.
• 4:39
  Matthew: Like I wish there was somebody that yeah, that was me that could go out and make pictures, um, and then the me that I am could deal with them.
• 4:48
  Matthew: Um because like as you know, it's it's so difficult to deal with your own work, you know?
• 4:53
  Matthew: Yeah.
• 4:53
  Matthew: Um like I can see others' work, or like if I'm sequencing a book, it's um not that it's easy, but it's just like it's we don't have all of the context around how the pictures were made.
• 5:03
  Matthew: So like our relationship is like just with the pictures.
• 5:07
  Matthew: So um with my own work, it's a lot more difficult.
• 5:10
  Matthew: So yeah, I like um I I I've said this before to students, and and um but whenever I I get my my photographs back um from the lab, the the photographs that interest me the most are the ones that I kind of don't remember taking, um, where I can I can see me in the picture, or I can see um, you know, uh for the lack of better words, like my style or whatever, like whatever whatever makes my pictures my pictures, but um I can't um like pull apart like why I made the picture or the decisions um into how the picture was made.
• 5:51
  Matt: And that's you're comfortable with that.
• 5:53
  Matt: We talked off air a little bit about being in the gray area all the time.
• 5:56
  Matt: You feel comfortable, certainly the photography, kind of being in this gray area where you don't have answers and you don't necessarily want to have answers.
• 6:04
  Matt: And answers are boring, right?
• 6:06
  Matt: If you have have solutions to things, and I feel like that's kind of what you're saying in terms of not not really wanting to see why you made photos or the decisions that you made.
• 6:16
  Matt: And then you look at your your other background, your other profession in terms of uh and design, and we were talking about the the c dichotomy and comparison between the two.
• 6:27
  Matt: Why is it that you feel most comfortable in that uh those spaces?
• 6:33
  Matt: And we look at your book books and we'll we'll we'll go through your books during this conversation, and that is apparent that you you really revel in that that fog and that mist of the those not explicit answers or explicit stories necessarily to to your work.
• 6:51
  Matt: Why do you think that is that you're you're comfortable in those uh those grey areas?
• 6:56
  Matthew: I'm not sure why I'm most comfortable in them.
• 6:58
  Matthew: Like you know, I I I'm always looking to be um to you know to make some sort of discovery or to be surprised by my own work.
• 7:10
  Matthew: And that um yeah, that's ultimately what I'm after when I get my stuff back.
• 7:16
  Matthew: I feel like I feel like if I go through older work, and when I say older, I mean like it's work that was made 15, 20 years ago, I can very much see what exactly I was after, or that I saw something and I thought it was worth making a picture of.
• 7:34
  Matthew: Yeah, it's just there's so much more clarity in them.
• 7:36
  Matthew: And I want to be able, I don't know, I just want to be able to revisit my work and look at it and pull something new from it.
• 7:43
  Matthew: And like that's to me, that's the strongest work.
• 7:46
  Matthew: Like the the books that I that that I you know visit over and over again, um I'm always finding new things in them, you know.
• 7:55
  Matthew: I'm always there's always discoveries to be made, you know.
• 7:58
  Matthew: Can you give me an example?
• 8:00
  Matthew: Um of just like books that um last night I was looking at um uh American Surfaces, Stephen Shore, um, which is is my favorite Stephen Shore book.
• 8:11
  Matthew: And I got it on uh like I got it on a road trip in out to Marfa in like 2007 or 2008.
• 8:19
  Matthew: Um and I went through the book last night and like one, I mean it's just it's it's a brilliant body of work, but but two, there was just so many things that I was finding uh finding out and uh appreciating new things.
• 8:35
  Matthew: Um and uh yeah, I mean I think that that's just that just um speaks to to you know how wonderful of a body of work it is.
• 8:46
  Matt: Um is that because of the the photography itself, do you think, in terms of the subtleties and nuances and complexity of of a good body of work, or do you think it's your perspective changing?
• 8:57
  Matt: I mean, you could you could look at the same book.
• 8:59
  Matt: I mean, I did exactly the same with your books in in research for um thinking about questions for the for this episode.
• 9:05
  Matt: And I've I've gone through Jasper and Dog breath and Mother Dog's countless times, right?
• 9:12
  Matt: And I still uh did the same thing and I'm finding new things, but more importantly, like new ways of of how it makes me feel.
• 9:19
  Matt: Do you think that's like the way we interpret ourselves in the images, or is it just the complexity and the skill of the work itself?
• 9:27
  Matt: I I guess a bit of both.
• 9:28
  Matt: I was to ask you.
• 9:29
  Matthew: Yeah, I think it's a bit of I think it's a bit of both.
• 9:30
  Matthew: I mean, when I remember getting when I to go back to American Surfaces, um one, I you know, when I first got that book, I hadn't traveled the United States very much, and the internet wasn't as prevalent as as it is now, and um, you know, um it just seemed like um there was just so much, so many stones that could be um turned over when I looked at that book when I was younger, and it made me want to hit the road.
• 10:01
  Matthew: Um and you know, I was uh curious about the strangers in the book and the places he stayed and the meals that he ate and all that stuff.
• 10:11
  Matthew: Um and and I still am curious about some of those things when I go through it, but like when I was looking at it last night, I was just um kind of just like really impressed by how much movement is in the work.
• 10:24
  Matthew: You know, like the pictures are really still.
• 10:26
  Matthew: Um they're they're uh you know, it's just again, it's just like pictures of like, here's what I ate, like here's where I took a piss, like here's a stranger that I met.
• 10:35
  Matthew: Like there's no there's no motion in the pictures at all, but you can feel so much movement um just like driving across the country as you're as you're going through.
• 10:44
  Matthew: Um and like a lot of the pictures are made with just that that um real like high flash.
• 10:49
  Matthew: So it's like they're very um like scientific is the right word, but like everything's perfectly in focus um and and and still.
• 10:57
  Matthew: So yeah, there's just like for a body of work that is um uh so still, there's just so much movement through that book.
• 11:06
  Matthew: But yeah, I don't know.
• 11:07
  Matthew: I was also just like found found myself, I mean, there's a lot of pictures in that book, but there were so many pictures that either I forgot about or um pictures that I didn't pay attention to the first time because maybe I wasn't interested in those types of pictures, or um uh my eye hadn't like built up uh to where it is now to to appreciate those photographs.
• 11:26
  Matthew: And then some of the photographs that I remember really loving um when I was younger, they didn't really do too much for me now.
• 11:32
  Matthew: So I don't know.
• 11:34
  Matthew: I I I think that that's yeah, that's the sign of a good book, is is just something that you can revisit over and over again, and your relationship can change to it, and um, and you can just find new things to appreciate.
• 11:46
  Matthew: Um I do that with Gossage all the time.
• 11:49
  Matthew: Um you know, I have a a handful of his books, and every time I go through them, I'm I'm always finding new things.
• 11:55
  Matthew: But yeah, there's a I'm trying to think of other books that I've looked at recently that have done that.
• 12:00
  Matt: Um The Wonder of Photo Books.
• 12:03
  Matt: It's uh that's the the the beauty of them.
• 12:05
  Matt: Quick one from me before we carry on.
• 12:09
  Matt: Now most photographers I know do all of this completely alone, right?
• 12:14
  Matt: They think alone, ideate alone, they shoot alone, they edit alone, and they sit with questions about their work, about their process, about their brand.
• 12:24
  Matt: And they have really nowhere to take them.
• 12:26
  Matt: I know this because I did that for so many years.
• 12:31
  Matt: So I decided to build the room I always wanted to be in, and it's called The Mood Insiders.
• 12:36
  Matt: It's a private community for photographers just like us who want to go deeper than the scrolling feed or just posting the images and hoping to get something back.
• 12:46
  Matt: We meet online three times a week and a few times a year in person.
• 12:49
  Matt: We go through books that are important for learning in our craft, and we study and review photo books, or we look at each other's work through intentional and structured formal critiques, and every so often one of the artists from either the books or from the podcast comes and sits in with us.
• 13:06
  Matt: As well as that, all members have full access to my flagship video course, Voice Alchemy.
• 13:12
  Matt: They get access to master classes every six weeks, QA sessions, extra podcast features, posting platforms and chat forums, and so much more.
• 13:21
  Matt: It's a community of people who care about the why behind the work, not just the output.
• 13:27
  Matt: The community and resources you need to take the next step in your photography, not just another posting app or a sharing algorithmic platform, but a community that goes so much deeper.
• 13:40
  Matt: So if that sounds like your kind of thing, the link is below in the description.
• 13:44
  Matt: Go and take a look and hope to see you inside.
• 13:47
  Matt: Right, back to the conversation.
• 13:49
  Matt: Um let's rewind a little bit.
• 13:52
  Matt: For those that may not know who you are, give me I guess uh without uh being annoying, give me kind of the short version of your life, you know, the way you would tell it at a bar, maybe.
• 14:02
  Matt: Give us a bit of an introduction in in terms of how you got to the point where you had an interest in photo books and how you started seeing photography and how you got into photography because I know you had a a different background, or not a different background, but a different, I guess, skill set.
• 14:16
  Matt: So give us a give it give us an introduction in into that.
• 14:20
  Matthew: I took photography in high school, but uh most of my attention was on playing in bands and just kind of being a teenager f ⁇ ing around.
• 14:30
  Matthew: So like the the camera was there, um, but it was more just to record what we were up to, you know.
• 14:40
  Matthew: Um, you know, most of it, honestly, most of it was was um like a little handheld video camera um that my brother had.
• 14:49
  Matthew: And so we used that quite quite a bit, but we had to turn pictures in for class, so a lot of the pictures that I was taking then was just like um I don't know, skateboarding and and and shows and stuff that we're playing.
• 15:01
  Matthew: Um but then I studied uh my undergrad, I studied graphic design, and um for some reason I thought that like um like if I looked at um uh I don't know, like the CD packaging or something, like I thought that it was the designer's job to make the pictures of the band, or if there was like an advertisement for like a sandwich, I thought for some reason I thought that like, oh, the designer is also making the picture as well.
• 15:32
  Matthew: So um I signed up for a bunch of photography classes in in undergrad.
• 15:37
  Matthew: Um and the uh the first couple, I think it took three maybe in college, but the first couple were pretty good and it kind of piqued my interest.
• 15:47
  Matthew: But the third one that I had, um, the main professor, she she stepped out and they had um um like it was a uh maybe it was a grad student that came in that was teaching the class.
• 15:59
  Matthew: And so I was in school in Waco, and Waco's kind of an old town, and I was just kind of naturally drawn to like taking photographs of like old buildings and um like old neon signs and stuff.
• 16:12
  Matthew: And uh so she was like, Oh, you should you you should look at William Eggleston, and uh she she actually photocopied me the John Szarkowski's um um introduction to the guide, and she gave it to me and she's like, Oh, you should read this.
• 16:27
  Matthew: And so I'm like reading about all of these great pictures, um, but I didn't have the pictures to go with them.
• 16:33
  Matthew: So then I went I went to the library and and checked out the guide, and yeah, it was kind of exactly um what I needed right then.
• 16:41
  Matthew: Um but yeah, Eggleston then led to Stephen Shore, obviously, and then um just a bunch of other people.
• 16:50
  Matthew: Nan Golden was a big one.
• 16:52
  Matthew: Um uh Robert Adams came in pretty early.
• 16:55
  Matthew: Um so yeah, I mean uh books didn't seem super important at the time.
• 17:02
  Matthew: Um they didn't it wasn't until like I was in Austin until I started like a couple years later, until I started um really getting into books.
• 17:09
  Matthew: And um yeah, I don't know.
• 17:12
  Matthew: From there, uh I don't know, the the the the library kept growing and I kept discovering new new work and new artists.
• 17:21
  Matthew: And also Flickr was really big at that time.
• 17:23
  Matthew: Um I don't know if you remember Flickr.
• 17:25
  Matthew: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:26
  Matthew: That was like I still have friends, uh I have friends that I've made that I made from like like posting my pictures on Flickr.
• 17:35
  Matthew: Um and yeah, and you just learned about so many different artists that way.
• 17:39
  Matthew: Um, but yeah, um that was probably like 2007 to 2009 or 10 or something like that.
• 17:46
  Matthew: I feel like that was kind of the heyday of that, maybe a little earlier, I can't remember.
• 17:50
  Matt: Yeah, so then that went into design.
• 17:53
  Matt: You s you worked in uh design.
• 17:56
  Matthew: I mean, I still do a lot of design work, but I was working, I was doing design um in Waco and then moved to Austin, and I was still working for that company in Waco, but living in Austin and um continue to make pictures.
• 18:13
  Matthew: Like I would do these like little weekend road trips um with my girlfriend at the time.
• 18:17
  Matthew: And then I would I would also wake up, like if I had to be uh at work at nine, I would wake up at like five, five and five or six in the morning, and I would drive to these like um small towns around around Austin and go make pictures in the morning and try to be back.
• 18:34
  Matthew: Um and back then you could like drop off your film at like CVS and Walgreens and stuff, which was which was great.
• 18:40
  Matthew: Um so I could get them back like that afternoon.
• 18:44
  Matthew: Um but yeah, I kept making pictures and um, you know, kind of came to this point, maybe in like 2013 or 2014, that was like, okay, I need like I need to take this seriously.
• 19:02
  Matthew: Or I mean it was kind of this like I don't want to say I was stagnant because I was really I was still really excited about taking pictures, but it was like okay, I needed to do something to um to to to like you know really um show that I was serious about this, or not really show, but just you know, I needed to do something.
• 19:20
  Matthew: So I I applied to Hartford and then I got in and um I started there in 2015, and that's when um that's when I really felt like okay, shit, I'm actually doing this, you know, like I'm I I'm putting my own money towards this and I'm putting so much time uh into it, and that's when I I felt like okay, I'm uh you know, I'm actually gonna make a go at this thing.
• 19:46
  Matthew: Um but yeah, that was kind of like that's kind of my big begin.
• 19:50
  Matt: Uh so 2015 you were grad uh uh doing your master's in fine arts and Jasper was not long after that, right?
• 19:58
  Matt: So were you making that at school?
• 20:01
  Matthew: Yeah, Jasper was my thesis at school.
• 20:03
  Matt: Ah, okay.
• 20:04
  Matthew: Like yeah, I started I started at Hartford, and for the first few months I was trying to continue the work.
• 20:10
  Matthew: The work that got me in was all of this um color work that I had made out west, and it was just really kind of disparate work, and I applied with that and then got in and then tried to continue making that work while I was there and just kind of stalled out and um um you know I was encouraged to to to do something new.
• 20:33
  Matthew: So I I um yeah, I started I started working on Jasper, um which um started not in the Ozarks, it started in a different forest, which is is was kind of south of Austin a little bit.
• 20:48
  Matthew: It's a forest called the Lost Pines outside of Bastrop, and uh made work there for a couple months and then just moved that what I was doing there to uh to a bigger forest.
• 21:00
  Matt: Interesting.
• 21:01
  Matt: Um we'll jump jump into Jasper in a minute, but one thing that struck me uh from what you were just saying, but also knowing a little bit about you was your the the influence that music has had in in your life, but especially when you you you do photography and you create um pictures and especially when you you publish them.
• 21:21
  Matt: Give me an insight into kind of how you see uh music coupled with photography and what type of influence that music and you know we'll talk about the the Frank Stanfords and the the the the poets that may and the writers that may have had an influence, but I'm uh I'm keen to hear this relationship you have with music and photography and um what what type of influences you've uh have been kind of inserted on you in in that respect.
• 21:48
  Matthew: A big band for me uh in high school was Fugazi.
• 21:51
  Matthew: And uh I remember watching, I don't know if you've seen it, there's a fantastic documentary called Instrument and it's About Fugazi.
• 22:01
  Matthew: I want to say it was made in the 90s or maybe the early 2000s, I can't remember.
• 22:06
  Matthew: But I saw it when I was in high school, and there's this one moment uh that um just kind of like lives in my head um where they're um playing the song called Shut the Door, and uh and Ian the the singer just loses it.
• 22:27
  Matthew: He's just like and it's like you can just like when you watch the clip, it just kind of like your entire body is just like just it's filled with this energy.
• 22:36
  Matthew: And I I like I get chills just like thinking about it.
• 22:38
  Matthew: And like I remember watching that, and um it was like the but there was a shift that happened where it was like, okay, if these guys can do this and and and like not be okay, that's not the right word, but if they can do things this way, which seemed like their way, then it like gave me the um the okay, like to to to to do things my way, if that makes sense.
• 23:06
  Matthew: And like there's I forgot who said it, but it's like there's if you ever like no one goes to see Fugazi or watch Fugazi play or like listens to Fugazi and says, Oh, I wanna I wanna make a band that sounds like Fugazi.
• 23:21
  Matthew: Because like, one, I don't think it could be done, but two, like, I feel like what they did was they they encouraged people to go do things their own way, because they did things their own way.
• 23:34
  Matthew: So like I feel like w whatever that was, whatever whatever I was like soaking in, but they were whatever that whatever they were putting out that that I took in, um, I feel like has kind of um stuck with me throughout this entire journey, you know?
• 23:51
  Matthew: And has been something that it's just I that it's just always been kind of uh what's the word I'm looking for?
• 23:57
  Matthew: Like uh I don't know, just something that's been this undercurrent.
• 24:02
  Matthew: Um but yeah, I mean like that that was that was a that was a big one for me.
• 24:10
  Matthew: Um and then also just like you know, playing in bands when you're younger and and and sorting it out that way when um you know I mean everything now you can record anything, you know, on your phone or whatever, and and um and that's cool, and I'm I'm happy about all that stuff.
• 24:30
  Matthew: But um, you know, back then like you had that one friend that had a four-track, so you had to borrow that or like get him to go over and show you how it works or record it for you so you could record the shitty demo and you could make you know 20 tapes that you'd hand out to your friends at school or sell at a show, and it was so fulfilling.
• 24:50
  Matthew: Um, and whatever that ethos is, I feel like is kind of carried into my own work and then into trespasser and and into other things.
• 24:59
  Matthew: Um and um yeah, just just doing it your own way.
• 25:04
  Matt: Uh we when you were making Jasper, then how you know we talk about other inspirations that really kind of infused your your work in in that respect?
• 25:14
  Matt: I'm keen to understand where might have been a seminal moment for you, whether it was during critique or um, you know, your time in the forest um in Lost Pines or reading, constantly reading the the poetry of Frank Stanford or or whatever.
• 25:32
  Matt: Was there a moment like that or a period that really kind of propelled you to go out and and make Jasper and understand that maybe this is something that you wanted to go and do as a project?
• 25:45
  Matt: Or did it just kind of naturally evolve and suddenly you were in the Ozarks making making a body of work?
• 25:54
  Matthew: Yeah, I mean there was no like big moment.
• 25:59
  Matthew: It was it was a lot, a lot of you know more kind of uh smaller things that just kind of one led to the next.
• 26:07
  Matthew: But it was you know, I I I I was encouraged I had this like I mentioned it before on a uh maybe on a different podcast, but like I had this really terrible critique.
• 26:16
  Matthew: I mean it was actually a great critique, um, you know, looking back at it, but with with Todd with Todd Papageorge, and you know, he you know, I I was certain that the work that I had brought into this critique he was just gonna love, and um he didn't at all.
• 26:32
  Matthew: And uh he uh you know he encouraged me to stay in one place.
• 26:37
  Matthew: Um and um, you know, at the time I did not want to hear that at all because I had been just driving around the west and making pictures and just I was just like completely rudderless ship and I was just all over the place, and it you know, it was total and I now like looking back, I'm like, oh, it's totally a parent of my work.
• 26:55
  Matthew: Um how could I not how could I not see that?
• 26:58
  Matthew: Um so yeah, I was encouraged to stay in one place.
• 27:00
  Matthew: So I stayed I stayed in the forest for the first couple months, and um I I had picked up this book, Copper Canyon had released um the collected work of Frank Stanford, and um a couple people had had recommended it to me, so I had picked that up, and so I was just going, I was just like obsessed with this guy.
• 27:24
  Matthew: Like I was just reading it constantly, and um, you know, the this this this little forest that I was in um is uh considered it's called it's called a pine island, which is it's kind of fascinating, actually.
• 27:38
  Matthew: So there's like the piney woods region in East Texas that that feeds into the Ozarks.
• 27:44
  Matthew: There are all these like small islands, it's like an archipelago of like like pine islands that just go further west into Texas.
• 27:53
  Matthew: So I was in the furthest west Pine Island, which is the Lost Pines.
• 27:58
  Matthew: So it's it's got this species of pine called the loblolly pine, which which I think that's the maybe the furthest west one.
• 28:06
  Matthew: I don't know, I can't remember, but in this this chain of islands it is.
• 28:10
  Matthew: So when I had sorted that out, researching the area, I was like, oh, this is the same um uh kind of geography as the Ozarks.
• 28:21
  Matthew: And so I was just, you know, uh coincidentally having this big moment with this poet.
• 28:27
  Matthew: Um so I was like, fucking, I'm just gonna go drive to the Ozarks.
• 28:31
  Matthew: Like I was told to stay in one place, but I'm just gonna go check it out.
• 28:34
  Matthew: So I went, I went there and um, yeah, I think I was there for the first time for like maybe a week.
• 28:39
  Matthew: And um yeah, I don't know, just brought the pictures back and it was just kind of a continuation of what I was doing, but um uh you know, something else had kind of come over the work.
• 28:52
  Matthew: So I had, you know, early on I made there's a picture in Jasper that's early on of a um the interior of a room.
• 29:00
  Matthew: It's like a like a bed with um there's a bunch of posters on the wall and stuff.
• 29:05
  Matt: Yep.
• 29:06
  Matthew: This guy Calvin's room.
• 29:07
  Matthew: Um so that was one of the earlier pictures that I made.
• 29:10
  Matthew: I want to say I made it within like the first week or the maybe the second visit out there.
• 29:15
  Matthew: And so um, you know, at Hartford, you have to have these like once, once a week or once every two weeks you meet up with your advisor.
• 29:24
  Matthew: And so my advisor was Mary Frey, um, which was, I mean, she's a legend.
• 29:29
  Matthew: Um, so you know, I just felt very fortunate to have her on my side.
• 29:33
  Matthew: So I had shown her all these pictures from the Ozarks, and she pointed out that one and was like, um this one is and I didn't really know what it meant at the time, but she said, I think that this one is gonna be kind of like a table of contents for the rest of the pictures that are to come, or whenever you're dealing with the book, uh the pictures that you're gonna find later in the book.
• 29:54
  Matthew: And I didn't really know what that meant at the time.
• 29:56
  Matthew: Um uh but now looking back, I'm like, okay, this was kind of her um telling me that this was like almost the gift picture, like Robert Adams talks about.
• 30:06
  Matthew: Um maybe that was just enough encouragement to to to to keep going uh and and to continue on with what I was doing.
• 30:15
  Matthew: Uh but yeah, I don't know.
• 30:17
  Matthew: Like every critique after that was like, you know, it at Hartford's kind of a strange program, unique in the way that like you you you have these online critiques, um, but every like two or three months you go to a new spot in the world and you meet up there, and there's um you know, you have critiques in person.
• 30:39
  Matthew: And when I first brought back the work that I was making, um my critique lasted like five minutes, and Robert Lyons is basically like, We're not gonna talk about this work anymore.
• 30:51
  Matthew: Um, it's too early to talk about it, just keep going.
• 30:55
  Matthew: And like that, that was that was like such a green light for me.
• 30:59
  Matthew: Yeah, um, and and it really got a fire under my ass because I was like, okay, well, I'm on, I'm on to something.
• 31:04
  Matthew: And um, you know, every time I go out there, it just felt like it was it was also this really weird time, you know, like it was uh 2015, so like all this Trump shit was heating up, and um, you know, the elections were just around the corner, and the country was feeling this like brand new anxiety.
• 31:23
  Matthew: Um, and um it was totally palpable, like you could feel it everywhere that you went.
• 31:28
  Matthew: And I had this like little um sanctuary uh in the Ozarks, and you know, I'd I would meet uh you know all of these these people kind of living out in the woods, and um there were a couple that were like, you know, uh pretty like conservative Republicans, but for the most part, most of them were apolitical, you know, the system had failed them a long time ago.
• 31:55
  Matthew: So that and that was a big reason why they were out there.
• 31:58
  Matthew: Um so it did.
• 32:01
  Matthew: It felt like this really weird thing away from from the country at that time.
• 32:07
  Matthew: Um But how did I get here?
• 32:11
  Matthew: What were we talking about?
• 32:15
  Matt: Uh how Jasper came back.
• 32:16
  Matt: You've explained it perfectly.
• 32:17
  Matt: And uh as you're talking, I'm I'm looking through the book, and I've it it's my favorite book.
• 32:22
  Matt: Matt, it really is.
• 32:23
  Matt: You know, I've I'm privileged to have a great collection of photo books, but this has always been my number one, and um I appreciate that.
• 32:30
  Matt: I I just it's just such a masterful body of work.
• 32:34
  Matt: So I think um, you know, there's a few images I I I do want to touch upon, but um I I'm without asking for answers really in terms of this book, because I love where it sits in in that space, and just kind of understanding the context with which you made it makes a lot of sense.
• 32:53
  Matt: And I didn't know that I didn't even think that this was kind of the the genesis or or the the period of time that there was a there was a political kind of undercurrent that was really going on and this kind of like little solace that you found in this little kind of I don't really know where you would put this place and this the feeling of this book in terms of like a paradise or purgatory type uh feeling, you know, and I love that that it's yeah, I don't really know whether I feel good, bad, or somewhere in the middle, or what this is about.
• 33:32
  Matt: But it it what is jack what is this book about?
• 33:35
  Matt: What is it is this more of a kind of like an introspective exploratory um uh expose, or is it is it more of a document about these guys and the people that live here, or or is somewhere in between?
• 33:50
  Matt: And I know you don't really want to kind of uh that's not the intention with this book in terms of telling a specific story, but if you were to kind of explain it for someone who hasn't seen this book before, how what would you say it was about?
• 34:06
  Matthew: Uh I mean it's tough because like there's you know, it's I'm totally grateful um and and and and thank you for for the kind words you said about it.
• 34:18
  Matthew: Um and and and and you know, I've been fortunate enough to to be able to have the book published and and for people to get it and and for for the most part to be pr like received really well.
• 34:28
  Matthew: And that's kind of the cool thing about the book is that I've I've had people tell me, oh, I love this work, it reminds me, like I grew up in the Ozarks, and and uh I I didn't, but I'll have people that will email me or tell me, Oh, I grew up in the Ozarks, and you did such a great job of capturing how it feels there.
• 34:45
  Matthew: And um, and then there's other people that come from the complete other side of saying, like, you know, like they're they're more into the interior space of of the work.
• 34:56
  Matthew: Um I mean I can tell you that I I had absolutely no um interest in documenting the space uh in a way that like felt documentary in a way.
• 35:12
  Matthew: Like I think that I think that because we use the you know the camera and the documentary aesthetic or whatever, like it's it's kind of just it just naturally is just part of the work that in that way, but I didn't I I did I didn't go out to be like, oh let me show people this place, you know?
• 35:31
  Matt: But what did you go out?
• 35:32
  Matt: I'm I mean no no no no, you were at grad school, you were at school here, but were were you going out basically just experimenting almost, saying, look, I'm you know, there's there's something here, I don't know what it is, and I'm just trying to like be better at my craft, relate to people, and just kind of sit in this place.
• 35:49
  Matt: It's would would that be accurate?
• 35:52
  Matthew: Yeah, kind of I mean, I honestly I was so rigid about the way that I made work before.
• 35:58
  Matthew: I was making lists of things that I wanted to shoot.
• 36:01
  Matthew: Um, I had this kind of like um uh uh what is it called?
• 36:07
  Matthew: Like anxiety of influence.
• 36:08
  Matthew: Like just I had these, I I felt like I had uh, you know, I had um all of these people, people's work that I loved, like kind of living in my head.
• 36:18
  Matthew: And um Jasper was kind of the first time that I was able to like somehow magically lift up a lot of that and just kind of just go with it, you know.
• 36:29
  Matthew: Um I I stopped, I kind of threw out my agenda when I was out there.
• 36:33
  Matthew: There were times when um I was with someone for an entire day or two, um not making pictures really, just kind of hanging out.
• 36:43
  Matthew: Um and yeah, just I'm not I was I had completely thrown things out um and I was just gonna kind of can trust myself to to to make pictures.
• 36:54
  Matthew: I mean that that's where a the a big part of my of my process shifted.
• 36:58
  Matthew: Like I would I feel like I used to go out and I would have the pictures in my head that I kind of wanted to make, or I would see something and I would like kind of frame it how I would think that it should be framed, and I would spend hours and hours and hours waiting for light and like getting things perfect, and I would get the pictures back, and it was always kind of a bummer because I was like, man, it just doesn't, it's not coming.
• 37:21
  Matthew: I'm not like whatever sensation I should be getting is not it's not coming through.
• 37:26
  Matthew: And then when I started moving a lot quicker and stopped overthinking things and um and just made pictures and stopped questioning like what I was doing and started stopped being so meticulous about all my decisions, then I started getting more excited about my own work because I would go drop off the film and I would get it back the next day, and I was just going through and I'd just be like, oh man, I like this is this is fantastic, and this this turned out totally different.
• 37:53
  Matthew: And oh bummer, this one, this one didn't turn out, but this one over here is great.
• 37:56
  Matthew: And so, you know, one of my mentors in college was um uh Michael Warenwald, and I remember him early on at school, he was he said, you know, you you know this pro like this wasn't about Jasper, this was about my previous work.
• 38:10
  Matthew: He said, You know, this project can't be what you want it to be.
• 38:13
  Matthew: And I I didn't understand at the time.
• 38:16
  Matt: Yeah, I was gonna say, what does that mean?
• 38:17
  Matthew: Basically telling me that like it's gonna, it's something is going to work through you, and it's it's like it's going to like whatever's in you is gonna manifest itself the way that it should be manifested.
• 38:31
  Matthew: And like I was kind of getting in the way, like all of these other things, these preconceived ideas of what I was doing was kind of getting in the way of what was what was ultimately supposed to come out.
• 38:41
  Matthew: So um now I again like like looking looking back at it, I'm like, oh he's totally right.
• 38:47
  Matthew: And like that's how I uh uh like I still do get a lot of anxiety about projects, and I'm always curious, and I get a lot of I still have a lot of self-doubt about work, but like the one thing that I feel still pretty good about is that if I just do the work, if I just go out and make the pictures and trust myself that something's gonna happen that I'm gonna get like it's eventually gonna get there.
• 39:11
  Matthew: And so I I've I've dropped the idea of like what the thing is gonna be.
• 39:15
  Matthew: Like I'm pretty confident that that um it will find itself.
• 39:19
  Matthew: I'm confident enough myself that it will find itself.
• 39:22
  Matthew: It'll if I it'll find its own way, and um and I'm confident enough that I have enough good people around me that they'll tell me if I'm like majorly f ⁇ ing up.
• 39:31
  Matthew: Uh so um uh but yeah, I don't know.
• 39:35
  Matthew: That's what I love about the process though, is like, you know, just just being just being um surprised by my own work.
• 39:43
  Matthew: Like that's that's honestly like that's all I want.
• 39:47
  Matt: Another really quick note from me.
• 39:49
  Matt: Now I work with a lot of photographers, and I'll tell you the thing that keeps coming up almost every single time.
• 39:56
  Matt: It's never the technical ability.
• 39:59
  Matt: They can expose, they can edit, the images are clean.
• 40:02
  Matt: And it's not the camera, and it's definitely not the software.
• 40:05
  Matt: It's their voice.
• 40:07
  Matt: They haven't got a clear sense of really who they are, what their work is actually about, or what they want to say with it.
• 40:13
  Matt: So everything they make comes out usually looking like everyone else's.
• 40:17
  Matt: And we know how easy that is today with so many of us with a device in hand.
• 40:22
  Matt: So I built something for that.
• 40:24
  Matt: It's called Voice AI, and it's a free assessment that is built around my own voice and what I would ask you if I was actually asking you the questions that will help you get clarity on your voice, and it comes back with where you actually are and what your next steps look like.
• 40:40
  Matt: The members of my community, Mood Insiders, love it, so I wanted to share it with you here too.
• 40:46
  Matt: Like I said, it's completely free and takes just a few minutes.
• 40:50
  Matt: The link is in the description below, and I hope you get what you want out of it.
• 40:54
  Matt: Right, back to the rest of the conversation.
• 40:56
  Matt: When you talk about moving slowly and moving, not maybe not quickly, but with a bit little bit more pace and not overthink, and you know, we all get in our way so so much.
• 41:08
  Matt: I mean, we talked about this in Chico, and this is my biggest problem at the moment as well, just just uh getting getting in my own way with kind of what something needs to be, rather than just go trusting the process will help itself figure it out.
• 41:22
  Matt: But when you're shooting, so did you shoot Jasper on four by five?
• 41:26
  Matt: What what yeah?
• 41:27
  Matthew: It's all four by five.
• 41:28
  Matthew: There's like there's like one or two pictures that are six by seven, but for the most part, it's all it's all four by five.
• 41:33
  Matt: So there there is a slowing down there, right?
• 41:36
  Matt: There's there's you have to kind of be a little bit more um conscious of that setting.
• 41:41
  Matt: So when you say moving with a little bit more pace, you're still having to, or were you uh tell tell me about that process, especially with the portraits and and how you really connected with these individuals.
• 41:54
  Matt: Um, you know, I don't need to know who they are, but when you're getting these images and you're trying to not overthink too much, but you're still having to be conscious of your equipment, the the setup, the the composition, the focus, the light, all of the the technical stuff that people um you know sometimes overlook.
• 42:15
  Matt: But uh how how was how how did that go?
• 42:18
  Matthew: Yeah, I it did.
• 42:19
  Matthew: It was a a lot of like small changes to my practice.
• 42:23
  Matthew: Um, so uh a big a book that I uh that I had in the car with me pretty much the entire time was Andrea Modica's Treadwell.
• 42:31
  Matthew: And I I love that work.
• 42:34
  Matthew: Um and I I guess I had realized while on the road, like, oh my gosh, there's so much movement, and these pictures just feel so they feel like glimpses or something in a way.
• 42:44
  Matthew: And I'm like, well, I know she was shooting with a 4.5 or an 8.10 or something, and I'm like, so how did she do that?
• 42:49
  Matthew: It's so um, I was just like, okay, I need I I guess I just need to move faster or or sort out my own little way of doing things.
• 42:57
  Matthew: So, like before Jasper, I had all of my equipment in a bag and I would see something and I would get out and I would set the whole thing up and then wait for the good light and take the picture, and it was like a whole thing.
• 43:09
  Matthew: You know, it was like this is gonna if I stop the car, it's gonna be half an hour to do all this shit.
• 43:14
  Matthew: So I threw all that out and I was like, okay, I'm gonna have my four by five set up in my car next to me in the passenger seat, ready to go.
• 43:22
  Matthew: So it was like on I the try it was either sitting next to me or it was on the tripod in front of the seat, so I could move just extremely quickly.
• 43:32
  Matthew: Like so all of the fog photographs in Jasper, yeah, um, the camera was already pretty much set up.
• 43:38
  Matthew: Uh that's all the fog photographs are from the same morning, I believe, if I if I remember correctly.
• 43:44
  Matthew: Yeah, and the fog was rolling in, and I was like, I'm gonna get out and make as many as I can.
• 43:48
  Matthew: And I didn't know like the the light change it was changing so much that I was like, some of these are 30 second exposures, some are two minute exposures.
• 43:56
  Matthew: Um so it was just a lot of like, you know.
• 43:59
  Matthew: Th these are either going to work or not.
• 44:01
  Matthew: Um, so yeah, it was just like moving a lot faster that way.
• 44:05
  Matthew: Um, as far as like the pictures of the of the men go.
• 44:09
  Matthew: Um, I said the camera already set up and it was already hanging around.
• 44:13
  Matthew: So if something was happening, like that open one of the opening images, um the back of the the guy's head, the shoulder with the the um the collar and the the the kind of balding spot, like I was already taking a picture of someone else that was there.
• 44:30
  Matthew: Um, and I looked over and he was just kind of sitting over there, and I was like, oh, hold on.
• 44:34
  Matthew: So I just moved it over there, took the picture, and then moved back to what I was doing.
• 44:39
  Matthew: Um what was it that caught your eye in that moment?
• 44:42
  Matthew: I don't know, just the way he was like kind of sitting down, and it's like I m maybe I didn't notice that he had a bald spot or something, or the way that that little like curl or something was was falling, but it was it was really quick.
• 44:53
  Matthew: I think there was like I think there's like one or two frames of that, and then I moved back to what I was doing.
• 44:58
  Matthew: Um when I feel like nor like before I would have just uh I I would have just looked over and been like, well, I'm working on this right now.
• 45:06
  Matthew: So it was like just moving over the idea, like like moving the idea that this has to be a slow, slow process, um, like moving that to the side.
• 45:15
  Matthew: So then I also had read either read it or like it was in an interview with Justine Kurland.
• 45:20
  Matthew: Um I can't maybe she was talking about, I can't remember when she said this or what it's in, but she you know, she made all these photographs of her son out in the west, and there's like all these trains moving in the background, and like I think he was like four at the time, and like a four-year-old is not gonna sit still for a picture you made.
• 45:40
  Matthew: So I I she either said this or somebody told me this, but she she she would have an area of focus.
• 45:47
  Matthew: She'd be like, okay, it's it's it's focused from the beginning of this road to this rock back here.
• 45:52
  Matthew: So as long as my son is existing within this space, like I know he'll be in focus.
• 45:57
  Matthew: So I was like, okay, well, I can use that.
• 45:59
  Matthew: So there's like there's a picture of um Calvin in there, like drinking a beer with the two dogs.
• 46:04
  Matthew: Like I like I just I just brought some beer and we were hanging out, and then I was like, oh, this is a cool scene.
• 46:11
  Matthew: Had my my cameras already set up, and I was like, hey, just go hang out over there.
• 46:14
  Matthew: And so we're just talking and shooting the shit, and he's like telling me about all the land that's around and stuff.
• 46:21
  Matthew: Um and um I was just like, okay, well, I know he's in focus because he's in between this and in between that.
• 46:26
  Matthew: Even if he's not in focus, then it then it's fine, you know?
• 46:31
  Matt: Yeah.
• 46:32
  Matthew: Um, but yeah, a lot of that, like a lot of just like being um a lot less precious with a four by five and being okay with um some of the things that like people want four by people love using four by five because of the detail and because how meticulous it is and how exactly precise you can be with that.
• 46:55
  Matthew: But it's kind of great if you can fight it, if you can fight against that in a way and still make you know some great pictures.
• 47:03
  Matthew: I mean, and there's a lot of money wasted too.
• 47:05
  Matthew: I mean, there's so so many bad pictures, they just didn't work out, especially with um with freaking Dog breath.
• 47:12
  Matthew: I was going through looking for a negative the other day, and I was going through and I was like, there's just so many bad pictures in here.
• 47:18
  Matthew: Um, but that's that's part of it, you know.
• 47:21
  Matt: That's part of it.
• 47:22
  Matt: Yeah.
• 47:22
  Matt: Um it's it's very cool.
• 47:25
  Matt: Cool listening listening to this.
• 47:27
  Matt: Um the couple of things at the back of the book I wanted to just touch upon because um the first one being this, you know, we talked about Frank Stanford or already, but uh uh these photographs were inspired by the life and work of the poet in Lancevere, Frank Stanford.
• 47:42
  Matt: What what it what is tell me a little bit more detail about how specifically him and his writing influenced this work or your process or the way you saw this, the these these images, and you know, what did his poems essentially do to the the way that you saw this place, if anything?
• 48:04
  Matthew: Um well I'm I'm actually pretty thankful that I one, I had never been to the Ozarks before I started this project, um, but I had read so much Frank Stanford.
• 48:15
  Matthew: Um so when I got there, I kind of already had these like Frank Stanford glasses on.
• 48:19
  Matthew: Like I was already felt like I was kind of seeing the landscape um uh uh through his eyes.
• 48:25
  Matthew: Um but you know, there's there's so much more about Frank Stanford that we know now.
• 48:31
  Matthew: Um James James Williams put out a uh amazing biography on him last year, but at the time in 2015, I feel like he still had to kind of like look around the internet to find information out about this guy because there wasn't very much known about him, you know, like he he took his own life when he was 29 or 30, like real young.
• 48:52
  Matthew: Um, and a lot of his earlier books were like next to impossible to get.
• 48:57
  Matthew: So um there was already this mystery around him.
• 49:01
  Matthew: And when you when you read his poems uh they just live in this amazing space between this like like psychoactive um, you know, landscape that's inside of him, and then um also the reality of the Ozarks and um and also the history of of of the South.
• 49:27
  Matthew: And I mean he's I don't know.
• 49:29
  Matthew: He he again he I mean we were talking about books earlier about books that you can just revisit.
• 49:33
  Matthew: He's one of those he's one of those um poets where you can just go back through and read a poem of his that you read a million times and just continue to find new things from it.
• 49:43
  Matthew: But yeah, um I I don't know.
• 49:46
  Matthew: I just I I was totally under his spell.
• 49:48
  Matt: And that biography that was done on him last year, did you is that the one you have uh your one of your photos on the cover?
• 49:55
  Matthew: No, actually, so the biography has a picture of him on the cover, but James uh um he he wrote the introduction and and I think he re kind of re-edited um the the new um the third edition of Battlefield Where the Moon says I love you, which is a massive 400-page poem, which is like it it it it might sound silly to some, but like that that was having my picture on the cover of that book is one of the greatest things uh that's ever happened to me.
• 50:26
  Matthew: Like I I was I was reading that book while I was making Jasper.
• 50:30
  Matthew: I had a copy of that book in my car and was reading it all the time when I was making Jasper.
• 50:36
  Matthew: So for it to come full circle like that was such a massive honor.
• 50:40
  Matthew: And um, yeah, I mean it's it to me, it is it is one of the most important um pieces of poetry in existence.
• 50:49
  Matthew: It's it's phenomenal.
• 50:51
  Matt: Yeah, for he, I mean, he he wrote so much for that, such a tender age.
• 50:55
  Matt: It's kind of remarkable that like it is.
• 50:58
  Matthew: His biography is incredible.
• 50:59
  Matthew: I would I would 100% uh I would.
• 51:03
  Matthew: I mean he I think James was um was uh shortlisted for the Pulitzer for it.
• 51:08
  Matthew: Like it's it's a phenomenal.
• 51:10
  Matthew: It's like probably the best biography I've ever read.
• 51:13
  Matthew: I mean, obviously I love I love James and I love the um I love what it's about, but it's it's it's like it's a phenomenal book.
• 51:20
  Matt: Alright, I'm writing that down.
• 51:21
  Matt: I'll check it out.
• 51:22
  Matt: Um the other thing at the end of the book was was the little kind of uh note that you wrote for my father for my brother.
• 51:30
  Matt: What what is that relationship about in in terms of this book, or is it just it's just a thank you note essentially?
• 51:40
  Matthew: Um I mean it's a very male-heavy book, and those two are kind of the the two most important um like male figures in my life.
• 51:54
  Matthew: Um but other I mean that aside, um, you know, my brother's always been a like massive inspiration and and and big he's just always encouraged me in so many ways.
• 52:09
  Matthew: But um my dad, so my dad when my dad was I was three or four months old, my dad was in a hunting accident and he was uh shotgun spray had had gone across him and had blinded him in one of his eyes.
• 52:23
  Matthew: Oh my god.
• 52:24
  Matthew: So um when he when I was a baby, I mean obviously I didn't remember this, but um like when he was dealing with uh his uh this like new new loss for him, uh my mom said that he would just kind of disappear on the weekends and um like just kind of go into these rural places.
• 52:45
  Matthew: And I don't really know if he was going back out there to hunt or maybe just to find a place to be a feeling person.
• 52:53
  Matthew: And I I just thought about him a lot when I was out there because there were all these men out there, mostly men, that had just um completely fractured themselves off from society um for a a ton of different reasons.
• 53:13
  Matthew: You know, I I don't want to speak for them, but like, you know, maybe some of them just to to to go out there to to to live their lives outside of all of these um these pressures of of of of what it means to be, you know, whatever.
• 53:30
  Matthew: So I don't know.
• 53:31
  Matthew: I just I just thought about him quite a bit.
• 53:33
  Matthew: So um yeah, I did a case.
• 53:34
  Matt: Did you see your dads i in in in these men?
• 53:40
  Matthew: Yeah, I mean to some extent, yeah.
• 53:42
  Matthew: Um I I guess it just depends on who it was.
• 53:46
  Matthew: I mean, um, and I can't really remember too much.
• 53:50
  Matt: Um I haven't been out there.
• 53:51
  Matt: I haven't been back out there since I finished.
• 53:52
  Matt: It's been a while, yeah.
• 53:54
  Matt: It's been 10 years.
• 53:54
  Matt: So I mean, oh more than 10 years probably since you shot.
• 53:57
  Matt: I think this was when is it published?
• 53:59
  Matt: 2016?
• 54:00
  Matt: 2018 is when it was published.
• 54:02
  Matthew: So it's but yeah, I I think I stopped making pictures at the beginning of 2017.
• 54:06
  Matthew: So yeah, it's been been about 10 years.
• 54:09
  Matt: A short note before we close.
• 54:12
  Matt: For a while now, the first thing I've done most mornings before the camera or any other work or before the coffee, before the endless tabs, is sit 10, 20, 30 minutes, just watching the noise inside my head do what noise does.
• 54:29
  Matt: It hasn't just made me calmer in the way people imagine, it's made me more honest, more mindful, more compassionate, and more free in more ways than I could even describe.
• 54:40
  Matt: And that honesty and introspective clarity, more than any lens, workshop, or book, is really what changed my photography.
• 54:48
  Matt: The work I make now comes from a quieter place with more clearness and calmness.
• 54:54
  Matt: I notice what I'm reaching for, and I notice when I'm reaching for the wrong thing.
• 54:59
  Matt: The inner critic still talks, still exists.
• 55:02
  Matt: I just don't believe everything he says anymore.
• 55:05
  Matt: The app I've used for most of this is Waking Up by Sam Harris.
• 55:09
  Matt: It's the one tool I've genuinely kept returning to all this time.
• 55:13
  Matt: This is not a paid sponsorship from them.
• 55:16
  Matt: However, I am an affiliate partner, and for good reason, I believe that this app is worth it more than any other.
• 55:24
  Matt: What's kept me there for years is that it's not just one thing, is a guided daily meditation, which is the spine of it for me, but there are also short daily reflections, a daily quote that tends to do its own quiet work in the background, and these little moments, they call it, of awareness you can drop into during the day.
• 55:44
  Matt: Two-minute resets when the head starts running.
• 55:48
  Matt: There's also an entire library of guest series with teachers I'd never have found on my own, and a lot more besides that.
• 55:57
  Matt: It keeps the practice alive instead of letting it calcify into routine.
• 56:01
  Matt: So a link sits in the show notes for a free 30-day trial and 20% discount on their subscriptions.
• 56:08
  Matt: If you want the longer story, though, of how meditation reshaped my work, there's also a piece linked through my Substack page called There's No Self-Development Without Self-Awareness.
• 56:19
  Matt: Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
• 56:21
  Matt: Thanks for listening.
• 56:22
  Matt: The last kind of small questions about about this book.
• 56:27
  Matt: There's a there's a photo of an animal in a very dirty through a very dirty window or screen.
• 56:37
  Matt: You know, it's I I love it so much.
• 56:39
  Matt: But I what is that animal?
• 56:41
  Matt: Do you do you know which which image I'm talking about?
• 56:43
  Matthew: Yeah, I know exactly which one.
• 56:44
  Matthew: Uh everyone always asks about this one.
• 56:46
  Matthew: I mean, I could tell you, but it's it's gonna ruin it.
• 56:48
  Matthew: It's gonna it might ruin the picture for you.
• 56:51
  Matt: Uh no, I've gotta know.
• 56:53
  Matt: Okay.
• 56:54
  Matthew: Uh well, it was um that picture is not made anywhere rural at all.
• 56:59
  Matthew: It was actually there's a uh what is the town called?
• 57:04
  Matthew: I think it's called Harrison, maybe.
• 57:07
  Matthew: Harrison, uh, Arkansas.
• 57:09
  Matthew: There was a taxidermy shop and it was super foggy there in the morning, and there it's a it's like a bobcat in a window.
• 57:16
  Matthew: And I was like, oh, that just looks cool.
• 57:18
  Matthew: I'll take a picture of that.
• 57:19
  Matthew: Um and when I got it back, I was like, what?
• 57:22
  Matthew: I did I I was this looks totally obscured and um I love it.
• 57:26
  Matthew: Yeah, um, so I made it in.
• 57:29
  Matthew: But uh a lot of people think it's just like some strange animal because it looks like it looks like it's kind of there's headlights on it, maybe or something.
• 57:35
  Matthew: Um but yeah.
• 57:38
  Matt: Yeah, because the there's a building in the background which must be the reflection of behind you.
• 57:42
  Matt: It is, yeah.
• 57:43
  Matthew: Okay, that maybe it's yeah, it's totally it's totally ruined now, right?
• 57:48
  Matt: No, no, it's quite the opposite, actually.
• 57:50
  Matt: Uh you know, I I think yeah, I think that's uh the wonderful power of of editing and bookbacking.
• 57:55
  Matthew: Yeah, I mean that's also all we're doing is fiction, so you can you can bring in pictures from from other places.
• 58:01
  Matthew: There's a couple pictures in there that aren't even in in Arkansas.
• 58:04
  Matthew: There's a couple pictures in from Texas.
• 58:06
  Matthew: Um yeah.
• 58:08
  Matthew: Who is Jasper?
• 58:10
  Matthew: Jasper is the was kind of it's the there's a small town in the Ozarks called Jasper, which was the original reasoning behind the name.
• 58:22
  Matthew: Got it.
• 58:23
  Matthew: But it has nothing, it the title still doesn't really have I mean it kind of does, but it's I mean it's also it's it's the name of could be the name of a of one of the men in the book.
• 58:34
  Matthew: Um it's also a you know, a stone that has a lot of properties that people might be into.
• 58:42
  Matthew: But yeah, I just felt like it was kind of vague enough to where and I I just love I love the name Jasper too, so I felt like people could kind of attach kind of meaning to it.
• 58:50
  Matthew: But you know, um Susan Lipper talks about this because she named her her first book Grapevine, and she talks about the kind of the trouble with with naming books after a place because um if I remember correctly, people kind of go out there looking for that place and it's it doesn't exist, you know.
• 59:10
  Matthew: Like, yeah, sure, Jasper Arkansas exists, but um if you go out there you're not gonna find you're not gonna find what's in the book, you know.
• 59:18
  Matt: Well the good thing, yeah, exactly.
• 59:20
  Matt: It's again, it's very open to interpretation, right?
• 59:23
  Matt: I mean, I you know, you don't know this book, and um, you know, you read the poem at the beginning, which is just so wonderful, and you think, well, Jasper's a person, right?
• 59:32
  Matt: Because Jasper's just now if you're not from the US and I don't really know the these areas, which is exactly what happened to me.
• 59:38
  Matt: So um I I you know I love that again, kind of uh in in the gray areas.
• 59:44
  Matthew: There's also so many different cities named Jasper.
• 59:47
  Matthew: I think there's like 19 or 20 different Jaspers in the United States.
• 59:51
  Matthew: So that was it, that was another big thing.
• 59:52
  Matthew: I was like, oh, I can kind of get around this thing by by calling it that because there's so many.
• 59:58
  Matt: But um It's a very English name.
• 1:00:01
  Matt: It's a very posh English name.
• 1:00:03
  Matt: Oh, cool.
• 1:00:03
  Matt: Which is why I probably thought it was a person.
• 1:00:07
  Matthew: Yeah.
• 1:00:07
  Matthew: I mean, I've I've caught shit online before about like the the um the waterfall that's in there is is not even in Arkansas, and people that just take the work as straight documentary, yeah.
• 1:00:21
  Matthew: Um, which is fine.
• 1:00:22
  Matthew: I have no problem if you if you want to look at the work as documentary, that's fine.
• 1:00:26
  Matthew: Um it's it's out of my hands.
• 1:00:28
  Matthew: It's you know, um, but yeah, I I don't know.
• 1:00:31
  Matthew: Like I'm I'm I'm not super interested in the I don't know, the documentary parts of it.
• 1:00:39
  Matthew: I'm I'm more interested in the um poetic and and you know other aspects of it.
• 1:00:46
  Matt: Speaking of kind of taking shit, I'm I'm sorry to to um dwell on Jasper uh uh a little bit longer, but the the um you know, these guys, were they intimidating in any way?
• 1:00:57
  Matt: What did you have any problems in kind of getting close to them when it comes to portraits?
• 1:01:02
  Matt: Uh you know, a lot of them have got guns and they they live out there by themselves.
• 1:01:06
  Matt: And did did you have any kind of i experiences um that kind of gave you gave you the chills at all?
• 1:01:14
  Matthew: Yeah, we I had a I had quite a few.
• 1:01:17
  Matthew: Um I mean, all the men in in the book are for the most part really sweet guys and you know were really um gracious with their time and um you know I'm indebted to them.
• 1:01:32
  Matthew: Uh but yeah, I don't know.
• 1:01:35
  Matthew: There's people that are out there that that are out there for a reason and don't want to be found.
• 1:01:39
  Matthew: Um you know there uh I had a gun pulled on me one time, I was sh I was uh shot at one time.
• 1:01:47
  Matthew: Um yeah.
• 1:01:48
  Matthew: Yeah, I um I it was it was actually the the last I think it was the last New Year's is either New Year's morning or New Year's Eve morning 2015 or 2016 now I can't remember.
• 1:02:07
  Matthew: I think it was New Year's Eve morning 2016.
• 1:02:10
  Matthew: Yeah.
• 1:02:12
  Matthew: And so I had I had gone, I got up and I was like, okay, we're gonna go.
• 1:02:17
  Matthew: I I I'd always get up before the sunrise and be like, okay, I'm gonna start off like with um a sunrise picture.
• 1:02:25
  Matthew: Yeah.
• 1:02:25
  Matthew: And um I got up and I knew where some like coyotes had been strung up on the spence.
• 1:02:32
  Matthew: And so I was like, okay, I'll I'll get up and I'll go photograph them while the sun's coming up, and that'll be like a good way to like start start me making pictures, you know.
• 1:02:41
  Matthew: So I got out there and it was a few miles away from where I was.
• 1:02:46
  Matthew: So when I got out there, the the sun was already up, and it was like there's a roadway, and then there's this ditch, and then there's the fence.
• 1:02:52
  Matthew: And so I had gotten into the ditch and I was kind of setting up my camera and fiddling with that, and it gunfired, and it was like um like on a movie, it was like the Doppler effect, you know, it was just like it like kind of flew, I could feel it and could hear it, you know.
• 1:03:09
  Matthew: And so instinctually, I must have grabbed my camera because I was in the ditch, and then there were two more shots um that felt this exact same way.
• 1:03:22
  Matthew: And you know, I assume that the person who was shooting at me probably was probably just like either fucking with me or just warning me, you know.
• 1:03:34
  Matthew: Um so yeah, I ended up crawling back over to the um the driver's side of my car and like threw the camera in and then um yeah, hit the road.
• 1:03:45
  Matthew: Yeah, uh the other time where a gun was pulled on me, uh, this was just like a crazy coincidence.
• 1:03:55
  Matthew: Um, there was this car, there's like this car that was out in the middle of the woods, and I was like, oh cool, I'll walk out there and go take a picture of it.
• 1:04:01
  Matthew: And the car had no doors on it.
• 1:04:04
  Matthew: And so I was like taking a picture, and this car just pulled up out of nowhere, and the guy got out with a sawed-of shotgun, and like three days before someone had gone and stolen the doors off the car.
• 1:04:17
  Matthew: So he thought I was back to like steal more stuff from the car, and I was like, no, no, no, no, like I'm just taking a picture, and he ended up being a really sweet guy.
• 1:04:27
  Matthew: Um, we ended up hanging out for a little bit, but he thought that he had you know caught somebody that was um you know stealing sh off his car.
• 1:04:35
  Matthew: That's that's that's hilarious.
• 1:04:37
  Matthew: Yeah, just wrong place, wrong job.
• 1:04:42
  Matt: This is the end of part one.
• 1:04:44
  Matt: Tune in next week for the remaining part of my conversation with Matt.
• 1:04:49
  Matt: And as always, thank you so much for listening.