Latest / The MOOD Podcast / Why Photobooks Will Outlast the Internet - Matthew Genitempo (Part 2)

Transcript

Why Photobooks Will Outlast the Internet - Matthew Genitempo (Part 2) · 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 Dogbreath.
• 0:20
  Matt: Jasper is my favorite photo book, and after all these years I still imagine and dream about what it means, 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 his flow 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.
• 1:11
  Matthew: Shotgun spray had 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, 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 this is part two of my conversation with Matthew Genitempo.
• 2:56
  Matt: You can find part one in the link in the description or on my channel posted from the previous week.
• 3:02
  Matt: Thanks as always for listening, and I hope you enjoy the rest of this episode.
• 3:07
  Matt: I could talk for hours about Jasper, but we we we shall move on because after a book like that, the next thing that you ended up turning your attention to a few years later was um your second book, Mother of Dogs.
• 3:26
  Matt: Um can you can you give us a quick overview of that and how that that came about and the the conceptual conceptualization of it?
• 3:35
  Matthew: Um well I I had actually started Dogbreath before Mother of Dogs, but I mean obviously no nobody knows that because it came out a couple years later.
• 3:44
  Matthew: But um yeah, COVID had started.
• 3:48
  Matthew: Um and so um Ada, who is my wife, but my girlfriend at the time, um, she was living in Tucson and um COVID kind of forced us to consolidate our lives.
• 4:01
  Matthew: So she um moved to MARFA and um, you know, I I I feel guilty saying this, but like the the beginning of COVID was really lovely for us because we had ever we had never lived together and we had like we're like you know, she moved all her stuff in and it just felt it was just nice, you know.
• 4:20
  Matthew: It was just like the first time, first time living together, and um yeah, I feel guilty saying that because the world was like in such a shit place, but we were just like we kind of had our own little spot in Marfa.
• 4:32
  Matthew: Um so uh what initially happened was uh Brad Feuerhelm did a uh a series of books.
• 4:43
  Matthew: It's like this box set that that uh void put out um uh called Bleak House.
• 4:50
  Matthew: And so he had reached out, I want to say to like 14 or 15 different photographers and said, like, hey, we're gonna do these these small books.
• 4:57
  Matthew: There's uh it's gonna be a small edition of like 25 uh or 50 or something, and um they're gonna be kind of COVID projects.
• 5:06
  Matthew: So I was like, okay, cool, I'll you know, I'll do that.
• 5:09
  Matthew: So um started making the work.
• 5:12
  Matthew: Um, and um, you know, the house, the house that we lived at in Marfa um is is right across the street from some train tracks.
• 5:21
  Matthew: And um uh, you know, when I first moved in, I was like, I'm never gonna get used to these, I'm never gonna get used to this train because it would like it was so loud and um uh it just would shake the entire house and um and it ended up being kind of more of a comfort.
• 5:40
  Matthew: Um but we actually lived next to a train that co-blocks that way, and it's like it's just kind of nice to to hear the train go by.
• 5:46
  Matthew: Um but uh yeah, so the train would come by every day and COVID happened and and we, you know, nobody was going out and we couldn't really leave.
• 5:56
  Matthew: So um to try to kind of introduce some sort of routine into our life, we Ada and I started doing um these like kind of evening walks.
• 6:09
  Matthew: There's a there's a trail that runs alongside the the train tracks.
• 6:13
  Matthew: So we just started walking every day and I started bringing the camera um with yeah, no like huge intention of it being like a a project.
• 6:22
  Matthew: I thought there was just gonna be kind of a few pictures for this um, you know, for this uh bleak house thing.
• 6:28
  Matthew: You know, kept making the pictures and it was it was nice because um it was um I don't know, this kind of lesson that you don't really have to go really far away um and you know travel to all these exotic places to make good pictures.
• 6:46
  Matthew: Um and I was essentially seeing the same spots every single day, um, just in in different ways.
• 6:53
  Matthew: And so I got the first pictures back and um thought they looked pretty good and then got some more back, and um then like curiosity got the best of me and I started um making I started making dummies.
• 7:09
  Matthew: And so um I had this paper here that I always make dummies on this kind of inexpensive mohawk paper, and um my printer, which is this one right here, uh can only print so wide and I and I was like trying to make more of a large format book.
• 7:25
  Matthew: So I was printing the pictures out, and when I was ordering them, I was I was using like essentially this tape, um, and it's a tape that we use to to um box up all the the trespasser stuff that we ship out.
• 7:39
  Matthew: And so every single spread had this um piece of of uh craft tape, and I just thought it looked really nice.
• 7:47
  Matthew: Um that's I that's that was it.
• 7:49
  Matthew: I just thought it looked really nice.
• 7:50
  Matthew: So I made the entire dummy, I sequenced everything, and the dummy just had this tape that went through it, and I was just like, oh I gotta make this book.
• 7:58
  Matthew: I want it, I want it, it needs to be something else.
• 8:01
  Matthew: So um there is a version of Mother of Dogs that exists that Void put out.
• 8:07
  Matthew: It's really small, it's a it's a small book in the in the series, and it's it's lovely in a different way.
• 8:15
  Matthew: Um but it's totally different than that version.
• 8:18
  Matthew: But yeah, once we once I finished that, I was like, okay, we got I wanna I want to put this out as it is.
• 8:24
  Matthew: Um so then we had to go through the whole um issue of production of how how do you get how do you run tape through every single every single spread in a way that uh you know um it's it's actually doable.
• 8:40
  Matthew: So we figured it out.
• 8:41
  Matthew: Um but yeah, that I mean it was it was pretty simple, you know.
• 8:45
  Matthew: It was just like um I don't know, like I again, like I felt like it was such a nice lesson in being like, hey, you can make a you can make something lovely that is just at home, you know?
• 8:58
  Matt: Yeah.
• 8:59
  Matt: Almost you know, learning the like putting the lessons that you learnt from from school and what you were told and critiques to to into practice.
• 9:09
  Matt: Um was this the Trespasser was obviously already up and running at this point?
• 9:14
  Matt: Yeah.
• 9:15
  Matt: So what what stage in Trespasser's life was did this book come into?
• 9:21
  Matthew: Okay, so that came out in uh 2021 or 2022, and we we we started in 2017.
• 9:29
  Matthew: You know, I want to say it was like I don't know, maybe like the fifth or sixth book that we had put out.
• 9:36
  Matthew: I can't really remember.
• 9:38
  Matthew: Yeah.
• 9:39
  Matt: Can you touch a little bit on on Trespasser um since since we mentioned it?
• 9:44
  Matt: Give us uh, you know, for those that don't know Trespasser Publishing, give us a little bit of uh an idea of um again how that started and and why you felt the urge, shall we say, to start your own publishing apps?
• 9:58
  Matthew: Bryan and I have been friends for a very long time.
• 10:00
  Matthew: When you have a friendship with somebody and you care about a lot of the same things, photo books being one of those, uh a lot of opinions are shared uh between the two and how things how what you would have done different or what you like about this and what you don't like about this.
• 10:18
  Matthew: And um it's kind of similar to how bands start, you know, like oh, you play drums and you like this band, and I play guitar and I like this band and he plays bass and yeah, yeah, and it all kind of comes together in this thing.
• 10:29
  Matthew: So um we were always kind of throwing around the idea uh that we should like start our own imprint and um didn't really know how to do that or how that would work, but given the kind of ethos that uh that I had talked about earlier, it was like, okay, well, let's just give it a shot.
• 10:48
  Matthew: Um so we were kind of always throwing around the idea of like what would be a good book to publish first.
• 10:55
  Matthew: Um and Bryan had finished Gray's The Mountain Sends, it had been published, it had been well received.
• 11:04
  Matthew: His second book was also well received, um, and he had made this work um good goddamn.
• 11:12
  Matthew: And um I want to say he pitched it to Kevin at Silas Finch, who Kevin's now twin palms, but uh and it wasn't I don't know if Silas Finch was done at the time or it just wasn't the right fit.
• 11:27
  Matthew: But um like I remember talking to Bryan being like this sh this should be the first trespasser book because Bryan had already kind of gained a following and people were looking forward to what he was doing next to gonna do next.
• 11:41
  Matthew: So it wasn't a it wasn't gonna be this massive gamble.
• 11:44
  Matthew: Um so we gave it a shot.
• 11:47
  Matthew: Um, you know, we printed the thing at an um college station, Texas, at this place that normally prints like baseball programs and like pamphlets for churches and stuff, and there was this this really eager guy running the machine that was really into to what Ryan was doing.
• 12:05
  Matthew: So he was all about printing this thing.
• 12:08
  Matthew: So um it was very inexpensive to make, you know, it was um digital offset, and then it was just bound by these like carton staples, so it wasn't it was not an expensive book to make, and it was like cool, well, we're gonna see how this goes.
• 12:23
  Matthew: So published that it did well.
• 12:27
  Matthew: People kind of started paying attention to trespasser, which was really cool.
• 12:31
  Matthew: And then the second thing we did was we kind of took a page out of the TBW playbook.
• 12:39
  Matthew: Um, because they I think they did this with like Twin Palms and maybe Brody's book.
• 12:43
  Matthew: Like Twin Palms put out Mike Brody's first book, and then TBW like handled the special edition.
• 12:51
  Matthew: So we did the same thing with Jasper.
• 12:52
  Matthew: Like Jasper was published by Twin Palms, and then so you know, I made the the I handled the um the uh slipcase, and then it came with the print, and there were 25 available um special editions of Jasper that were available through Twin Palms and Trespass.
• 13:10
  Matthew: So that was kind of a way that we could hitch our wagon um to a bigger publisher.
• 13:15
  Matthew: Um, and that worked out too.
• 13:17
  Matthew: That was cool, and Kevin was Kevin and Jack were both super supportive of that, and it was awesome for them to let us do that.
• 13:23
  Matthew: And then came like, hey, now we're gonna do books that are not our own.
• 13:28
  Matthew: So um it just became like who do we know that has a project?
• 13:34
  Matthew: Um a lot of I feel like a lot of publishers aren't gonna pay attention or take a big chance on someone, especially now um on uh someone that's that's unknown or maybe doesn't have um a ton of people in their corner, which is kind of the sad reality of it.
• 13:52
  Matthew: Um but the good thing is is that that more people are self-publishing or starting their own imprints, which I think is awesome.
• 13:58
  Matthew: That's kind of how it started.
• 14:00
  Matthew: Like we just kind of we just have kind of worked book to book, and a lot of it is the book the books that we've done that um haven't been our own, like either one of mine or Bryan's, it's it's usually someone's first book.
• 14:14
  Matthew: Um or or or or work that like has been we've shown to other publishers and publishers haven't taken a chance on, so we're like, well, we just we gotta do it because we love this work, you know.
• 14:28
  Matt: Well, I'm thinking something like the North Fork or Yeah, North Fork's a is a good example of that.
• 14:34
  Matthew: I mean, and Trent is crushing it.
• 14:35
  Matthew: I mean, we saw that work, Bryan sent me that work a long time ago, and um I think Trent sent it around and and nobody would bite.
• 14:44
  Matthew: Book was made, book did really well, and now Trent just put out his second one, Sun Pictures, which is phenomenal.
• 14:51
  Matthew: I mean, I just I he sent me a copy a week ago, and um I've just been digging into that one.
• 14:56
  Matthew: It's great.
• 14:57
  Matt: Um, we had him on the show a f a few months ago, and um yeah, he's he's what a what a great artist.
• 15:03
  Matt: And it's nice it's nice to see, you know, talking about the photo book, I guess cottage industry more than anything, but the this photo book uh weird and wonderful world and giving people a chance, it's uh you know it's a difficult thing for an imprint because you're obviously taking a lot of the risk, but there are mechanisms around that to to hedge against that, I guess.
• 15:27
  Matt: And you see a lot of that with imprints these days, asking for the for the artist to shoulder most of the upfront cost or whatever it might be, especially if they have an audience and you see Kickstarters coming out, which is which is good, you know, great.
• 15:39
  Matt: Why where do you see this going, should I say?
• 15:43
  Matt: Where where do you do you see it being a little bit more dispersed in terms of self-publishing?
• 15:49
  Matt: Because that's also you know, it's extremely difficult if you don't know about bookmaking, it's extremely expensive, you're taking a huge gamble, then you have to really do really good at marketing and have an audience, and it's almost like uh you know, we talked about this at Chico, and you know, a lot of people go to events like Chico hoping to get seen, as it were, which is in reality most of the time doesn't quite happen.
• 16:13
  Matt: But it why why do we make these barriers to entry so difficult?
• 16:19
  Matt: And and what would your advice be to those be those emerging photographers or photographers looking to feel like they've got a body of work to to put out there?
• 16:28
  Matt: What would your advice be as into where to look first or or what to actually how to go about it, shall we say, in in the most um respectful manner?
• 16:38
  Matthew: It's such a case-by-case thing because like what you said about Chico, like I think for some like I always leave, I I'm always the very beginning of Chico, I'm always like, okay, here we go.
• 16:52
  Matthew: And it's always like, okay, there's a ton of people here, they all have their work, everyone's really excited, and there's always between like two and four projects that will knock me on my ass and will make me like really want to get back home and get back to work.
• 17:10
  Matthew: Um and I'm you know, I'm really grateful for that.
• 17:14
  Matthew: And it's I I think that I think that that does work for some people, like it has worked for some people in the past.
• 17:21
  Matthew: I don't think if you go like if if you have the expectation that you're gonna go to Chico and then leave with a book deal, like maybe shift your expectations a little bit.
• 17:30
  Matthew: I don't know.
• 17:33
  Matthew: Uh man, I I I I it's I'm really hopeful and then also, you know, not hopeful in a lot of other ways.
• 17:43
  Matthew: Like we're right now there are a handful of publishers that I really love and I look forward to what they're gonna be putting out because they have such a um, for lack of better words, style or like thing that they do with their books um that is really difficult to replicate.
• 18:05
  Matthew: Paul at TBW, like I think is one of the most exciting publishers.
• 18:09
  Matthew: I always look forward to what Paul's doing.
• 18:11
  Matthew: Um chose commune, always doing great stuff.
• 18:15
  Matthew: And then there's other sm small publishers that are doing really great.
• 18:18
  Matthew: I mean, they're both relatively small, I guess you could say if you compare them to like um Feiden or like I don't know, uh Mac.
• 18:27
  Matthew: Massive publisher, you know.
• 18:29
  Matthew: Um yeah, Mac's on their way to being a massive publisher too.
• 18:32
  Matthew: I mean, they're putting out so much, but yeah, I don't know.
• 18:36
  Matthew: Like I I think that that's kind of encouraging in a lot of ways that um people aren't paying attention as much as they used to.
• 18:44
  Matthew: Like, I feel like people used to be on the edge of their seats waiting for like what the next book this publisher is gonna put out.
• 18:52
  Matthew: And to some extent people do do that, but a lot of people have said no and then they're just doing their own thing.
• 19:00
  Matthew: They're self-publishing, they're putting works out in other ways.
• 19:03
  Matthew: But yeah, I don't know.
• 19:06
  Matthew: I don't I don't follow it as closely as I used to, too.
• 19:09
  Matthew: So I could be like totally out of touch with this stuff.
• 19:13
  Matt: Um let me rephrase it a little a little bit, because uh I want to kind of get into your mind when you're you correct me if I'm wrong, Tresparas is basically you, Bryan, and Cody.
• 19:23
  Matt: Right.
• 19:24
  Matt: Right.
• 19:24
  Matt: When you're sat around a table and it I it for me, it sounds like it's a very organic process for you guys.
• 19:31
  Matt: One of you might send work to the other, and then you end up, you know, like you said, you all have opinions, but you come together and you all love something, and it sounds like it's quite an instinctive process.
• 19:45
  Matt: We all love it.
• 19:46
  Matt: We feel like we've got to do something with it, whether whether we refer it to another um publisher or we do it ourselves.
• 19:54
  Matt: What do you you know, my question was going to be what are you looking for in a body of work when it's something that trespasser might want to print?
• 20:03
  Matt: That's a kind of verbose question, really, because it's not as simple as that, I know.
• 20:08
  Matt: But you know, if you the the ones that you've have published, it why them and not others?
• 20:15
  Matt: Was it just you just saw the work and you felt you didn't really have too many questions about it, or was there much more of an intrigue that you felt like there was potential that you had to dig out and work through?
• 20:28
  Matthew: Yeah, I mean, again, uh again, it's like it's it's it's a case by case thing.
• 20:34
  Matthew: I mean, there there are so many books that we have passed on it that we wanted to do.
• 20:41
  Matthew: We just don't have either the time or the money.
• 20:44
  Matthew: And we've tried I've tried to send them to other publishers and say, hey, please check this work out.
• 20:49
  Matthew: Um there's so much good work out there that's not being published, and that's why I I I encourage people to look into self-publishing or doing it in some other way because uh yeah, I I think the reality is that people are not like not everybody is gonna have their their book published by you know um by Mac.
• 21:12
  Matthew: It's just not it's just not gonna happen.
• 21:14
  Matthew: Like um so uh yeah, I don't know.
• 21:19
  Matthew: To go back to like how we decide on things, it's yeah, it's organic to some extent, but I think it's way messier.
• 21:25
  Matthew: Like it's like it like messy might might not be the right word, but it's just like uh we really like this project.
• 21:33
  Matthew: It sat around for months, it's still not published.
• 21:37
  Matthew: We know this person uh wants to do this book, they're ready to go.
• 21:43
  Matthew: Like some things as far as like with Anishka's book, like somebody emailed Bryan that work, and it was completely not on our radar at all.
• 21:53
  Matthew: And then Bryan sent a text to like me and Cody was like, Look at this work um that was just sent to me, and it was immediately like wolf this would be a fantastic book to do.
• 22:03
  Matthew: We should we should definitely look into this.
• 22:05
  Matthew: This is four, yeah.
• 22:07
  Matthew: Um and then um I don't know, like with with Mark's book, Mark Mahaney's book, he know he went up to Alaska for two weeks and made pictures and we didn't I didn't know anything about that.
• 22:20
  Matthew: And then um that work was either mailed to us or maybe I think Mark and Bryan had a relationship before that.
• 22:30
  Matthew: So Mark had sent the work to Bryan and then it, you know, was like, oh shit, this is fantastic.
• 22:36
  Matthew: Like let's see if we can figure out a way to make this make sense, you know?
• 22:40
  Matthew: But yeah, I don't know.
• 22:42
  Matthew: It's like it's so it's you know and again we're so inconsistent too.
• 22:47
  Matthew: There's there's people that do photo books for a living and do it full time and we we were just not that.
• 22:53
  Matthew: Like we have in 2024 we put out three books which is the most we've ever put out in one year and then we didn't put out a book last year.
• 23:02
  Matthew: I mean we did the second edition of of Sons but you know we didn't have any new releases last year.
• 23:07
  Matthew: So it dude it's just it's so we're not a good like case study as far as like uh as far as like um um publishing goes but I don't know I think at the heart of it though is just to make the best work you can and make the best book that you can and then um usually other things just like everything else just kind of follows along which I know sounds like a cop-out or something but like it really the pictures and the work has to come first and in order for anybody to pay attention to this stuff.
• 23:40
  Matt: Um and also you've got you've you've got to do the work and you've got to press send on that email right you or you send on the message.
• 23:46
  Matt: You've got to put yours you've got to put yourself in front of of of people totally you've got it you've got to do that.
• 23:52
  Matthew: But I mean every once in a while there's a there's a book that's like self-published that that I that I come across I'm like this is amazing.
• 23:59
  Matthew: Like I didn't even know that this existed or again with with like Chica stuff or you know we'll have a workshop and somebody will bring something in that's just like amazing and and um like um Jake Knapp's a good example of that like he brought uh he he did that Trump uh Trump Colorado book did you see that book?
• 24:20
  Matthew: Yeah it's great it's great and like it was one of those things that you know you see the work as a publisher before it's made into a book and you're like there are a lot of moving parts and this book's gonna be really expensive to make and nobody knows you or this work so it's gonna be difficult to find a publisher that's gonna want to take a chance on that you know because books are expensive to make.
• 24:43
  Matt: So Jake made it himself and he started his own uh imprint doing it and it was a lot of work for him and he reached out a few times to to ask about um production things and had you know had a uh other people on his side that were helping him with this stuff but again like you know like it's the the photo book world is maybe as intimidating as it might seem to some like people are not unreachable you know like you can send an email if you have a question about a paper stock or a typeface or something and probably nine out of ten times people are going to get back to you you know like I like when people send me messages on Instagram and ask me questions about um like someone a couple weeks ago asked me about the what what we used for the paper stock we use for Dogbreath I have no no problem sharing that information um and uh yeah so it's like the I feel like for the most part people are pretty helpful um in this world and are willing to offer up uh offer up help with you you know yeah I think that's one of the most refreshing things I've learned through this this entry into the the the the photo book world in the last few years is um people are yourself included Bryan and you know all a lot of the people at Chico for example and a lot of people in and around these types of even the artists themselves everyone is extremely friendly and helpful and um you know you know how busy these people are and they still they still have the the kindness to to try and help you out and give advice.
• 26:24
  Matt: Harris is another great example of this yeah I've just used up so much of his his time in terms of asking things like paper stock and and and designs and all that kind of stuff.
• 26:35
  Matthew: And he's do I mean he's doing it too like he's he's you know with with underlife he's I and I know he's running that out of his house you know he's he's he's doing all of this at home so um you know he the where there's a will there's a way.
• 26:51
  Matt: What is trespasser working on at the moment you know were you able to talk about the the the new book?
• 26:56
  Matthew: Yeah we have uh a book I mean we just got the uh the wet proofs back um for a book called Angel by Joe Leavenworth and I I really love this book um I won't say too much about it um but this book was sent to me he was in a workshop from uh with a friend uh I want to say like five years ago or something maybe longer but the the PDF was sent to me and I was already I already knew of Joe's work um and um because I have his his he made a book called Native Sun in like 2015 or 2016 that's like next to impossible to get because I think they only made a couple hundred but it's a really great book and it's kind of been in between like a book and a zine it's like a it's a softbound and it's like pretty short but it's um it's definitely like a first first book.
• 27:52
  Matthew: Um but yeah so Angel was sent to me and I was like oh this is great and it was kind of one of those things where it just kind of stuck in the back of my head for like a couple years and then I think in maybe 2021 maybe I think we were just like all right we're gonna do this thing.
• 28:08
  Matthew: And it's taken forever because of life and and and other things but um I I am I I you know knock wood I'm fairly certain it's gonna be coming out in the next couple months hopefully in time for Paris.
• 28:20
  Matthew: Yeah yeah yeah that's the plan in time for Paris.
• 28:23
  Matthew: But you know again I don't want it's like I don't want to I don't want to like say anything until it's it's like till I have the freaking book in my hands because I just know you know every time we print a book there's some new um speed bump uh or creative problem that we could have never imagined which is good because you you learn these things and you know how to handle them if they happen in the future but um it's like there's always one thing like oh I didn't I didn't uh account for that happening you know really really interesting.
• 28:55
  Matt: But it's good to hear there's a there's another book coming out.
• 28:58
  Matt: I know you know that it's a kind of slow process with just uh running uh an imprint itself let alone like putting books out all the time so um it you know it's it's really great to hear and hopefully I'll see it in Paris.
• 29:10
  Matt: I'm going to Paris this year so that for once so that'll be nice hopefully I can see it and have it in my hands then yeah I'll be I'll be there so yeah it's gonna be okay cool um I know we didn't dive too much into to Mother of Dogs but this is a beautiful beautiful book I love the size by the way and the uh kind of the the softbound nature of it and this yeah this this tape I wondered what that was like the design of this book is so gorgeous and now I have the explanation of the the tape um it it it it makes sense well it's funny I I swear it's not like an ego thing uh with the size of the book it's just that with when when you're dealing with that weird tape binding if it's if you wouldn't even want to call it a binding when you run a piece of tape on the front and the back of every single piece of paper it you need a weightier paper.
• 30:04
  Matthew: So like it needed to be bigger but also I think a lot about pacing with photo books um you know I I want people to move through slowly and the the book um really demands you to sit down at a table and to look at it.
• 30:23
  Matthew: So um you know there's not there are not a lot of things we can control with photo books.
• 30:28
  Matthew: Like you know someone might just flip it open look through it backwards and put it back on the table you never know.
• 30:34
  Matt: But um but it's also quite delicate like you know I w when I received this book I can't remember when I bought it but um I still have the plastic cover that it that it came in which is which has the um the three pebbles and I want to talk to you about these three uh pebbles or stones that are that are kind of the motif but um I just wanted like take care of it and I think uh hopefully that was kind of your intention as well is just kind of like really handle this like eggs and um almost with the with the content of the book as well.
• 31:06
  Matt: It's such a sweet little love letter to that time in your life and to this new home that you're a new life you were building while the rest of the world was going through this incredibly uncertain time.
• 31:17
  Matt: So um yeah really beautiful what what are the three what what what is this um let me hold this up to the camera.
• 31:25
  Matthew: These these three this this in a f one of the photographs right is it your wife holding these three stones yeah they're actually um uh pennies so we would put oh okay we you put pennies on the track and then the train goes by and smashes them and then you have these like smash pennies and we actually um I don't know if if you if you bought it directly from us or if you bought it from second hand but we with every book I had taped a penny to the front like one of the pennies that we have put on the track.
• 31:56
  Matthew: Yeah.
• 31:56
  Matthew: Yeah so but the three pennies that were in the front if I remember correctly it was the I think the pennies are the dates on them.
• 32:07
  Matthew: I don't know if you can see them.
• 32:08
  Matthew: Yeah yeah those pennies um and I don't know if those are the same pennies in the photograph that are on the cover but the ones that are on the cover yeah I think they are different.
• 32:16
  Matthew: I think the ones on the cover are the year that the house was built which was like 1923 or 1926 and then the year that Ada and I met which is 2017 and then 2020 was the year the work was made.
• 32:35
  Matthew: So it's I I think maybe if you get a a loop or something you might be able to see the dates on there.
• 32:40
  Matthew: But those were the that's why I picked those three pennies if anybody cares about that.
• 32:45
  Matt: Oh absolutely wonderful book um Matt it's it's really delightful and um yeah published by trespasser.
• 32:53
  Matthew: Interesting you mentioned earlier that uh the some of the some or all of the photos of Dogbreath were taken before Mother of Dogs um yeah probably like maybe like half or something I don't know I I cause I started making uh Dog breath like maybe a couple pictures before no I don't know I want to say Jasper was published 2018 in like October I don't know it could have been I could have been already making pictures for it um but yeah Ada had moved to Tucson and we were we were kind of starting our relationship and she we were doing long distance and so I would go visit her and um she'd be in class during the day and so I had to kill time so I was driving around making pictures but yeah I I kept seeing I kept seeing like you know kids walking around and it was like 110 degrees outside and um and Tucson is just a great city um in general so um and a very photogenic city so um again just like not not overthinking things and just um making making pictures in the city and just kind of being naturally drawn to things and then getting the film back and seeing seeing what I'm doing you know over what period so if your wife was in school was it uh kind of what over how long were the were these images shot?
• 34:23
  Matthew: So she started uh University of Arizona I want to say 2017 or 2018 I'm pretty sure it's 2018 so yeah so I started going over there 2018 and then um everything stopped during COVID um Ada moved to Marfa.
• 34:46
  Matthew: She had the the great thing I mean it was not good financially but she had signed a lease uh she still had her lease in Tucson so I could go to Tucson and stay there still while we were living in Marfa and I could go out and make pictures and then once her lease ran up I because I made pictures up until I want to say 2022 maybe um and yeah I would just I would I I like once the once the the the I I'd say like the photographs are maybe like three fourths on the way to Un and Ada no longer live there had her place I was just I would just go there and stay for three or four days and make pictures.
• 35:25
  Matt: Yeah.
• 35:25
  Matt: Um okay there's a few things to get through here because I I'm intrigued by so many um I guess um stories behind behind some of these pages.
• 35:35
  Matt: And I'm gonna ask you about Dove because it's the the character so not just the character the person is so central to to to this book.
• 35:46
  Matt: And I I just want to start by reading the first page several people who haven't um haven't seen this book.
• 35:52
  Matt: Dove tells me that a meteor created the neighborhood we're in and that everybody here is crazy.
• 35:58
  Matt: Says everyone here's got guns and they just spend all day typing on the internet.
• 36:02
  Matt: He can't stop talking about a place in the desert where they used to fire missiles.
• 36:06
  Matt: Says he can take me down in the tunnels under us where the Tucson pagans go.
• 36:11
  Matt: Obviously that would have sounded better in an American or or Tucson act um g just give us an idea of the the the the I guess the the the context behind this book but more specifically who is this this character that is that is Dove once all of the pictures were made well let me rewind.
• 36:40
  Matthew: So I met Dove and he was he was in the alleys and he was looking for old stereo equipment and I didn't know that people did this but you there's there's metals inside of this old stereo equipment that you can find and you can harvest the metal and then I guess take it to either pawn shops or places that buy these precious metals.
• 37:01
  Matthew: So naturally intrigued by all that and um just follow them around and sometimes when people are um really interesting um I will I'll just get my phone and turn on record and kind of put it in my pocket um just if I want to like remember some of the things and so he was saying saying all this stuff and I was like this is wild stuff um and we were walking around and you know he let me make a few pictures of him and um like going into Dogbreath I had made the decision that I was not going to spend a lot of time with people.
• 37:41
  Matthew: I spent a ton of time with people in Jasper and I you know I put myself in all sorts of scenarios that were probably unsafe but you know um I was I I I I had this new way of working where I was only going to spend 30 minutes with each person and just make take pictures as quickly as I could so I walked around with Dove you know he we looked we looked at stuff we were looking for for stereos and and and made a couple pictures with him and then um I went on my way but before I left I um I asked Dove for his phone number because sometimes if like I don't know like if the picture doesn't turn out maybe I can like we can go back and meet up and so I got his phone number and um went home and kept kind of thinking about um about Dove and I wanted to take more pictures.
• 38:38
  Matthew: I hadn't even got the pictures back but I was like oh this guy's kind of intriguing like let's go try to make some more pictures so I sent him a text message and hey it was great meeting you like if you're available tomorrow like let's go out and make some more pictures and I never heard anything back and like a week or two went by and I get this phone call from this unknown number and it is um Dove's aunt and um she was letting me know that uh Dove had taken his own life and had um like brutally had had had laid down on some train tracks and um it felt like such like I was obviously very very sad but I didn't know him and it just felt like this like very privileged information um and she had called me because I was the last person that had texted him so I guess she had assumed that I was a friend.
• 39:34
  Matthew: So I had this information that I was kind of holding with me and I had this recording and um had just kind of put it all aside um and didn't really understand I don't know I just hadn't made sense of it yet.
• 39:52
  Matthew: So um like months later I was sequencing all the work everything was done I had sorted out where the TV pictures were going to go where everything else was going to go and it was all the work was kind of sitting on a table and it had sat there for weeks and I was just kind of sorting out where things were going and um just had the idea like, oh I'm gonna go through those recordings and listen to them and then so transcribed all the recordings and then kind of you know put them put them in um you know the way that I wanted them to sound as far as like you know Dev saying these things to me and the and had kind of split it up and then started kind of piecing them in with the work.
• 40:31
  Matthew: And that is kind of what solidified the book for me.
• 40:35
  Matthew: Like it it uh it kind of widened out the portraits in this way um that I wasn't expecting and uh I thought it was kind of beautiful that you could you could um attach Dove to any of the the characters in the book.
• 40:50
  Matthew: You don't you don't really know um and Dove isn't in the book.
• 40:55
  Matthew: There's no there's no picture of Dove but um it's kind of up to the reader to to to um put that voice to uh to whoever you want in the book.
• 41:05
  Matthew: But what was so wild about it um about the whole thing um is that you know Dove had Dove had taken his own life by laying down on some train tracks and we were living in Marfa at the time so the train that took Dove must have definitely gone by the house because it's the same line that goes out that way.
• 41:27
  Matthew: Wow um so I just um yeah it's it's it's wild.
• 41:33
  Matthew: Um but yeah uh Dove Dove came in that way and um did you have any did you think about putting photos of him in the book and did did did they ever make the sequence before the final I developed the pictures I had told Dove's aunt that I that I there were pictures that I had the the last pictures of Dove and so she wanted me to email them to her.
• 42:00
  Matthew: I email I mean I had no clue apparently he was estranged from the family and so I sent her the pictures and she told me that he was like nearly unrecognizable which I don't know what he looked like before so to me that just seemed really unfair um so I scrapped the pictures there is a picture of a it's a picture shot through a TV screen of a hand holding a rock.
• 42:27
  Matthew: Oh yeah that's that's Dove's hand and I felt like that was okay because I took um at one point when I was doing all of the TV work I was it started off making pictures of like old movies and like punk shows and punk tapes and skate tapes and stuff that they used to watch when I was a kid um and then uh it then I started feeding my own pictures through the TV and re-photographing them.
• 42:54
  Matthew: So that was a photograph of Dove's hand holding um I don't even know what it was a piece of quartz or something that he had found.
• 43:02
  Matthew: And I I fed it to the TV and then re-photographed it.
• 43:06
  Matt: Dove says you can't get money for anything says he can get 20 for the copper in the old stereo says the quartzite is probably worth five the tapes ain't worth shit.
• 43:16
  Matt: And then there's the photo on the next page.
• 43:19
  Matthew: Yeah he had he had found a box of uh um of like old VHS which I thought kind of kind of went back to the TV screen pictures in a in a really uh wonderful way.
• 43:32
  Matt: That's such a nice thread yeah um wh why why the youth is was this something that you was it because of the the heat and you wondered why these youth were wandering around in the heat or they had nothing to do?
• 43:46
  Matt: Was it something that you saw yourself in?
• 43:48
  Matt: Why why this subject matter in terms of the the people um that are the the the youth adolescents in suburbia um
• 44:00
  Matthew: I don't know.
• 44:01
  Matthew: There's no like there was no conscious effort.
• 44:03
  Matthew: Um and like I was saying, I always I always just go out and just kind of naturally drawn to things and get the pictures back, and the pictures kind of shape the project from there.
• 44:12
  Matthew: Um but yeah, I mean I'm a I'm a I'm a child of the suburbs, and um most of my uh adolescence was spent on a on a bike uh or a skateboard around in the neighborhood.
• 44:25
  Matthew: And so um yeah, in a in a strange way, it's like um maybe I was dealing with, you know, being on the edge of at the time I was on the edge of becoming 40 and um kind of looking back at a lot of things, but also like with like another one of the like positive aspects of COVID is everybody was was taking stock of their past and like looking back at themselves and like going through their archives and like for me it was like I was going back through and trying to figure out music.
• 45:00
  Matthew: Like I was like, okay, I love these bands and I know their catalogs front to back, but there are all these other blind spots in my musical history because I mean you know, when you're when you're younger, it's like finding music was tough, you know?
• 45:16
  Matthew: It was like you had to have an older brother or you had to have somebody that like made you of mixtape, or like you know, you lucked out and watched M Tv late at night and some new band that wasn't on the top 40 came on, and like like it it was it was tough to find stuff, and so there are all of these like kind of like gaps in in understanding stuff.
• 45:36
  Matthew: So I used I spent a lot of COVID like going back and trying to understand that that part of it.
• 45:43
  Matthew: So I think that kind of ties into the work in a way too, of like going back and and and trying to understand something about my own history.
• 45:52
  Matt: Yeah, fascinating.
• 45:53
  Matt: Who is the because there's one boy that appears twice and he's got the scar on his uh on on his head.
• 46:01
  Matt: Who who is this?
• 46:02
  Matt: There's there I think they're uh he appointed he appears twice.
• 46:05
  Matt: Let me see.
• 46:06
  Matt: Appears twice or are they two different people?
• 46:10
  Matthew: They're probably two different people.
• 46:12
  Matthew: You're talking about the guy at the very beginning with the with the cut.
• 46:15
  Matthew: Yeah, okay.
• 46:16
  Matthew: Yeah, yeah, he should not I think he only appears once.
• 46:20
  Matt: Okay, so it's not the same.
• 46:21
  Matt: Hang on.
• 46:22
  Matt: And this the probably the most famous photo of this book where the head is different guy.
• 46:28
  Matt: Okay.
• 46:29
  Matthew: Yeah, different guy, yeah.
• 46:30
  Matthew: Um yeah, actually, so we were talking earlier about like the gift photograph.
• 46:37
  Matthew: Um and the picture of the guy with the cut on his head was in was one of the first pictures that I had made in Tucson and had just lucked out because I don't know, like I mean, I'm sure this is it's similar with your own work.
• 46:58
  Matthew: Like you get your you get a photo back and you're like, okay, the bar, the bar and maybe hasn't been raised, but we we're now we're over here.
• 47:08
  Matthew: Like things things have changed and the work has moved over here, and now you hold yourself to um a different standard.
• 47:16
  Matthew: And that that's what I want with all my like I like whenever I'm working on a new project, um, I want to get something back that I'm like, okay, everything has shifted, and now we can toss out all this other stuff um because now now we're over here.
• 47:32
  Matthew: And I was lucky enough to get that really early on with dog breast stuff.
• 47:36
  Matthew: Like I I and maybe it's because I know all of the photographs around it of him.
• 47:41
  Matthew: Um and we were in, we were like quite literally in a ditch that leads down to the tunnels that go underneath Tucson.
• 47:49
  Matthew: And because he was like, he was like, Oh, I'll go show you him.
• 47:52
  Matthew: And so we didn't really go too far, but he showed me a couple things, and I like tried to make a lot more traditional portraits of him so I know all the pictures around it.
• 48:00
  Matthew: And then that one that was made was so quick.
• 48:05
  Matthew: It wasn't like it was one of those things that was just like, oh, let's just make this quickly and move on.
• 48:10
  Matthew: And it was not the picture that I thought was gonna work out.
• 48:13
  Matthew: And so when I got it, I was like, okay, here's where we are now.
• 48:18
  Matt: Does that make sense?
• 48:19
  Matt: Yeah, it definitely does.
• 48:20
  Matt: Yeah.
• 48:21
  Matt: I feel like I'm always, always doing that.
• 48:23
  Matt: I guess that's evolution almost, whether it's in in in the project itself in the in the micro sense, or if it's just us as photographers trying to make sense of stuff.
• 48:32
  Matt: Um but yeah, that definitely definitely does make sense.
• 48:36
  Matt: Um go quickly going back to Dove here because uh I think the the there's an important part in the book, certainly with the text where the um what's the best uh what's the best word for this?
• 48:50
  Matt: Instead of third person, it becomes you narrating, right?
• 48:54
  Matt: It becomes you, you know, how how you meet Dove.
• 48:56
  Matt: And this is the last thing that you kind of quote Dove saying, which is a very poignant part in the book uh now that we kind of know what happened to Dove.
• 49:07
  Matt: The last thing is says if he don't leave here soon, it's never gonna happen.
• 49:13
  Matt: Says he knows the way out, but he can't just give it to you.
• 49:17
  Matt: Which is extremely uh moving and poignant now we know what happened to him.
• 49:23
  Matt: So was this a conscious kind of part in the book in the middle, and you talked about pacing earlier, which I think is so apparent here for you to kind of shift gears a little bit, and then we start kind of you kind of start to talk in your in in the first person.
• 49:41
  Matthew: Um yeah, I don't know.
• 49:44
  Matthew: I don't really know how that like I don't think it came together consciously.
• 49:49
  Matthew: Is as as silly as this sounds, um like how you're relating it to to to where where Dove ultimately ended up.
• 49:59
  Matthew: Like I could totally I could totally see that, but I always there's a this is gonna sound so stupid.
• 50:06
  Matthew: Um, but uh there's this fantastic music video for this song called Rocket uh by Smashing Pumpkins, and it's amazing because they get it's these kids, and there are all these houses that they can't enter because all these houses are like all these funky shapes and stuff, and they have their own little spot where they're building a rocket ship, and they get or they they have all this equipment and they get this um this uh this like signal from outer space and it's the smashing pumpkins and they're playing on a different planet.
• 50:41
  Matthew: So they build their own rocket ship to go to them, to go to this planet that they're on.
• 50:46
  Matthew: And the entire video they're like putting all this shit together.
• 50:49
  Matthew: Um anyway, in my mind when he said that and when I was like transcribing things, that's where my head went was that he he knows something that we don't know that's gonna get us out of there, you know.
• 51:03
  Matthew: Um uh and it's had some sort of childlike wonder to it, you know?
• 51:08
  Matthew: Um yeah, I don't know if that answers your question at all, but uh that's that's where my head was at whenever uh whenever he said that.
• 51:18
  Matt: Interesting.
• 51:18
  Matt: But I I love the fact you just dive into the the the ambiguity and you you know every answer to to my questions is that you've said is pretty much well, I didn't really do this consciously, it kind of fed through me, which I think is which is not only honest, it's just so so poetic in in itself, and I think that comes through in in all of this.
• 51:40
  Matt: Um and I I love the fact that we can interpret our way through these things, and I think that is an intention of yours, right?
• 51:47
  Matt: To leave, to leave a lot of this to to put ourselves in it and to make make of it what we th we think.
• 51:55
  Matthew: Right, yeah.
• 51:56
  Matthew: I I mean it's and it's again what I was saying earlier about like I have all this self-doubt and I have all these things that I worry about with my own work.
• 52:04
  Matthew: The thing that I don't worry about is I think is what makes that, you know?
• 52:08
  Matthew: The one thing the the the the me just trusting in that something will happen is is one of the main reasons why the work uh comes out the way that it does.
• 52:18
  Matthew: But again, I also have um I feel like I also have people that know me and know my heart.
• 52:24
  Matthew: So I keep all my work pretty close to my chest until it's about ready to come out, and then you know, I have a handful of people that that I can show that know me and know my work and know what I'm after, they can kind of help guide it.
• 52:40
  Matthew: Like there was something in Dogbreath that was pretty um explicit about Dove taking his own life, and that was towards the end of the book.
• 52:53
  Matthew: And when I had shown the PDF to a few friends, they told me you need to take that out because it it it it basically just like pigeonholes the experience into one thing and it it it it someone said to me, my friend Ashland said, I it makes me not want to revisit the book when you make it so narrow of a story like that.
• 53:13
  Matthew: And so I was like, okay, it's out, it's gone.
• 53:16
  Matthew: Um so I mean I tell people now what it what had happened and I I still think it I still think it's it's fine, but I don't I I don't I didn't put it you know expos I wasn't explicit about it in the book.
• 53:27
  Matt: Yeah, we want to we want to use our imagination as to who who Dove is and what what this is about and you know if it's not about teenage adolescence what is it about?
• 53:39
  Matt: You know, is the is you know we can we can overlay many of our own stories as as many as as much as yours probably in in some of these uh these sequences.
• 53:48
  Matt: So um uh you you talked about the you know when these types of books get made and you have you're sitting on your body of work, the importance of people around you to uh maybe ground you and to bounce ideas off.
• 54:04
  Matt: Talk to us about that kind of that process once you because it's a very solitary pursuit, isn't it?
• 54:10
  Matt: Photography, and we you know, we're kind of in our in our focus for s for so long making what we think is something that we might want to show one day.
• 54:22
  Matt: It how important is it to you to have the right people in your corner that can not only support you but can also like play devil's advocate?
• 54:30
  Matthew: Yep.
• 54:31
  Matthew: Um yeah, I mean it's it's it's huge for me.
• 54:34
  Matthew: Um but again, I I don't really show any of those people until I'm like fairly certain I'm on to something, you know?
• 54:46
  Matthew: Um uh and that's just for me, that's just personally for me, because I know that like like everyone's situation is different, and some people uh need to put their work on Instagram and and and that helps them get work and and all that stuff, and I'm totally cool with that.
• 55:02
  Matthew: Like I have no issue if that if for for you, but for me that doesn't work.
• 55:06
  Matthew: Um I I just don't I I I think that that sharing a project before it's done um with a enormous audience could could sh would would shift the work for me.
• 55:18
  Matthew: Um I know there's people that can do it and it they wouldn't be phased, they'd stay on their track.
• 55:23
  Matthew: But for me, I think it would just not work.
• 55:25
  Matthew: Um but yeah, I don't know.
• 55:27
  Matthew: I I usually get it, I usually get my work to a pretty good spot where I'm like, okay, I think this is not done, but like, hey, the the core of it is here, and then I can begin to to show it to to Bryan and Cody and and Ada and um and just other folks that that I you know think the the feedback would be helpful.
• 55:52
  Matt: This is uh, you know, I talk about community a lot, and I think community is now becoming a little bit of a trope in a way, and uh certainly with the the rise of digitized media and uh and AI here to stay and only have more of an impact.
• 56:09
  Matt: Community is is so important.
• 56:11
  Matt: Um Are you worried about the lack of community that we may have in the photography world, if anything?
• 56:20
  Matt: And because I mean the the reason I'm asking this is because we have events like Chico, which is essentially a community event.
• 56:27
  Matt: It's a community event for you reviewers who could get together once here and shoot the chip.
• 56:31
  Matt: It's a community event for us as attendees, meeting new people, showing our work, all coming together.
• 56:36
  Matt: You know, then times that by however many of the similar portfolio reviews or workshops go on.
• 56:42
  Matt: I think the more the merrier.
• 56:44
  Matt: And when we talk about publishing and imprints, the more democratized that is, the better, because it creates communities and it and it creates kind of options for people.
• 56:54
  Matt: Um, I don't really know where I'm going with this, and maybe it's not a question, but is it something that concerns you as we move forward?
• 57:03
  Matt: You talk about the things that might worry you these days and what might worry and you get concerned about with your own work.
• 57:09
  Matt: What what worries you and concerns you as we move forward into even more uncertain times on this planet as well as just in the photography world?
• 57:19
  Matthew: I'm I'm gonna be uh an optimist about this one.
• 57:22
  Matthew: Um because, you know, there's that dead, the dead internet theory, you know.
• 57:28
  Matthew: Have you heard about this?
• 57:32
  Matt: No, please tell.
• 57:33
  Matthew: Okay, I'm gonna totally butcher this, but essentially the internet is, and I think that there was some uh report saying that like half of all accounts are like bots now, and that people are just kind of there's bots arguing with bots and stuff.
• 57:48
  Matthew: That um the dead internet theory is that people will not know what to believe online in any way.
• 57:56
  Matthew: Um that it's people are just gonna become so untrustworthy.
• 58:01
  Matthew: And in response to that, people are going to come back to theaters, to exhibitions, to books, to physical media in a way that we haven't seen before.
• 58:13
  Matthew: And yeah, I want to be, I, you know, I'm I want to be an optimist about it and say that that's that that's what I think it might look like.
• 58:21
  Matthew: Um, you know, I I think maybe it's because of the the uh the financial side of the world right now, but it seems like less books are coming out, even though there's a lot more people making books.
• 58:33
  Matthew: I feel like people are um the time in which people are putting out books is kind of getting a little more spread out.
• 58:40
  Matthew: At least that's in my world it is, it might not be true at all.
• 58:43
  Matthew: But um uh I think people are gonna get more um uh thoughtful about what they put out, which is it is in turn gonna make better books.
• 58:55
  Matthew: Um and if people are wanting to get off the internet and head towards books and head towards exhibitions, then hell yeah, like make the internet fake and then bring people out to the shows.
• 59:07
  Matt: I uh I love that you said that.
• 59:09
  Matt: I've been saying this for for years now, since since we've have first had Chat GPT in our in our world.
• 59:16
  Matt: But I think the more we push everything cyclical and everything I always you know attribute to Newton's second law of motion, I can't remember which law, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
• 59:27
  Matt: And I think uh we're gonna see that, and I think photography is gonna become real photography.
• 59:32
  Matt: I'm gonna say real photography in terms of kind of the the the real craft of it is gonna and the real storytelling side of it is gonna be more and more valuable.
• 59:40
  Matt: I don't have a doubt uh about that.
• 59:44
  Matt: However, you know, I had uh Shana Lopez on the show uh a few a few weeks ago, and um you know the the from the horse's mouth from people who are actually running exhibitions and curating museum and seeing kind of this drop in demand for those types of pastimes, uh that worries me.
• 1:00:07
  Matt: Uh you know, we we we have a theory about yeah, of course, people are going to be lost in that ether of i AI and the that kind of uh weird dystopian world that we're heading towards, but uh it's gonna leave behind and or kind of bring people as many people over to to this side of the fence, as it were, in terms of real kind of tactile uh craft, whatever art form it may be, but I still don't see that yet.
• 1:00:38
  Matt: I s I still see you're right.
• 1:00:40
  Matt: I mean, you know, I'm on Instagram as much as the next person, and uh and I personally don't know what to believe.
• 1:00:46
  Matt: You know, you watch Fox News or CNN, you don't half of that is absolute bullshit, let alone social media and bots against bots and Instagram ads.
• 1:00:56
  Matt: People, I know people putting 20, 30 grand a month just into ads to try and brainwash people.
• 1:01:03
  Matt: And I it's just this whole world that is extremely sad to look at.
• 1:01:09
  Matt: That has to funnel people back to their real things in life.
• 1:01:12
  Matt: It has to.
• 1:01:13
  Matt: I just I just I don't think we're there yet.
• 1:01:16
  Matt: Um, but I think yeah, I I'm in agreement with you in the in uh in the large aspect of things and and hopefully Well, I think the the hopeful part about it too, just in in in the way that it relates to photography, is that like photography is more ubiquitous than it ever has been, ever.
• 1:01:32
  Matthew: Like there's more images being produced with you know in every way possible.
• 1:01:37
  Matthew: And you know, I said this before, but like I feel like the role of the photographer has shifted in a lot of ways, you know.
• 1:01:43
  Matthew: I think that the reason why people are so interested in books and making books um is because there it's it's kind of a loophole in this weird, like like musicians right now, like a lot of I don't think a lot of people are buying physical media.
• 1:02:01
  Matthew: Um, from what I understand, I mean, I know I'm not buying a lot of physical media as far as music goes.
• 1:02:07
  Matthew: Um a lot of people are not sitting down and listening to records the way they used to.
• 1:02:14
  Matthew: I used to sit down in my room, put my headphones on, and just look through the the CD and read the lyrics and read the liner notes and all this stuff.
• 1:02:21
  Matthew: I just don't do that anymore.
• 1:02:23
  Matthew: And I know I mean I would just say that I would guess that a lot of people, that a lot of younger people are not doing that.
• 1:02:29
  Matthew: A lot of people are enjoying music while they're doing other things.
• 1:02:32
  Matthew: Like you feel like you've done something if you sit down and watch a movie without looking at your phone.
• 1:02:37
  Matthew: Like it is it is like a thing now.
• 1:02:40
  Matthew: Like I f I mean I'm totally guilty of it.
• 1:02:42
  Matthew: I will be watching a movie and I'll I'm getting on I'm getting on Instagram while the movie's playing.
• 1:02:48
  Matthew: Like I'm not giving it my full attention.
• 1:02:50
  Matthew: Like we're pretty lucky as photographers that we figured out this strange loophole that if you have the book, the book is the thing.
• 1:02:58
  Matthew: Like, I don't you don't really hear about people saying, like, oh yeah, I have a PDF of the book, you know, like and and and calling that ownership or saying that they've they've experienced the book without seeing it.
• 1:03:10
  Matthew: Like it's so important to sit down with the book.
• 1:03:13
  Matthew: So I feel grateful in a lot of those ways.
• 1:03:15
  Matthew: And I think that like again, the optimist in me is like, well, maybe with all of this AI bullshit going on and with with the ubiquity of images and how the the images are so easily made these days that maybe we'll put more of an emphasis on the book and more people will want to make books and enjoy books and um and the future might be bright.
• 1:03:36
  Matthew: I don't know.
• 1:03:37
  Matt: I hope so, Matt.
• 1:03:38
  Matt: Uh you talk you we have uh we have you know I'm a huge into uh meditation and it gives me a uh a real reason to um find peace and equanimity and happiness just in in any moment.
• 1:03:54
  Matt: But I am distracted most of every day, and I see that in everyday life, wherever I go, where uh whichever part of the world uh I I travel to, especially in the service industry, which is weird.
• 1:04:10
  Matt: I I'm not talking about photography here, but just hospitality industries where you are asking someone to help you with something, uh, whether it's at a restaurant or in a hotel or in a taxi or something, and you know, you know for sure you do not have their full attention.
• 1:04:29
  Matt: That just blows my mind.
• 1:04:31
  Matt: And and I see it that it's either very visual, they're on their phone, or they're you you can just see behind their eyes, they're thinking about something else.
• 1:04:39
  Matt: They're thinking about their Tinder date that night, or they're thinking about a nasty comment that someone left on their Instagram, or they're thinking about the dopamine hit they're gonna get when they do the next scroll, or whatever it might be.
• 1:04:51
  Matt: We live in a world of abundance, right?
• 1:04:54
  Matt: Where we can get everything at our fingertips at any point in time.
• 1:04:58
  Matt: And so there's this beautiful there's this beautiful feeling and peace and just real satisfaction you can get from holding something like this in your hands and and drifting away with it like we used to do with a CD, because I remember those days uh and reading, you know, reading books, like no one fing reads books anymore.
• 1:05:24
  Matt: They either listen to them or they don't, they don't, you know, they they will only watch the 30-second reel that's on Instagram and this is a bad thing, guys.
• 1:05:32
  Matt: Like this is this is this is not good.
• 1:05:35
  Matt: This is not good for society.
• 1:05:37
  Matt: I see the effects of it already, let alone fast forward five to ten years.
• 1:05:41
  Matt: And so people like you are are saving the world in that respect, and we need more people, people like it.
• 1:05:48
  Matt: So you talked about music though.
• 1:05:50
  Matt: I want a quick question because this Dogbreath came with a piece of music that I actually didn't know about when I bought this book, but I listened to it um Um and w went through this book at the same time and it and it adds such a visceral element to the experience of of going through this book.
• 1:06:09
  Matt: So you say like the book is the thing, but you can add layers to it, and you obviously don't want that to be a distraction.
• 1:06:17
  Matt: You want it to complement the actual experience of Right.
• 1:06:20
  Matthew: Yeah.
• 1:06:21
  Matthew: It's uh I again I'd I took a I took a page out of um uh Ron Jude's book.
• 1:06:27
  Matthew: He's got this book called Lago, and there was uh I forgot the uh I forgot the musician did this like sound piece for it, and it's it wasn't this thing that was like um necessary to enjoy the book, but if you wanted it, it could accompany it, accompany it if you wanted it to, but uh or it could just live by itself however you wanted to, however you want it.
• 1:06:50
  Matthew: And um I remember listening to it and I just I loved it.
• 1:06:53
  Matthew: So when I was when I was doing this, you know, there are all these pictures of um the TV screens, and I was during 2020, I was like telling you I was about going back through and kind of filling in all these um blind spots with my own like musical history.
• 1:07:08
  Matthew: And uh so you know, I just had the thought, um, my my dear friend Michael Muller, who's uh uh great friend and amazing uh composer, uh I said, Hey, would you uh want to take a stab at um at doing some sort of uh piece to accompany this?
• 1:07:26
  Matthew: And uh I think I either gave him a dummy or a PDF of the dummy or something, or we looked through them all.
• 1:07:35
  Matthew: And then so I I made my own recordings from just uh my tape player has a little recording setting, so I was recording uh like pieces of the video tapes that I was photographing, and then I mailed Michael the tapes, and then Michael was recording all sorts of stuff.
• 1:07:53
  Matthew: I mean, he recorded himself walking in the desert, just dogs barking.
• 1:07:57
  Matthew: At one point, he was at a concert uh um uh recording that and played it in reverse.
• 1:08:04
  Matthew: He was doing all sorts of stuff, and then he at one point you know he's playing guitar over it.
• 1:08:08
  Matthew: Um and then um, yeah, actually, what's kind of cool, a little a little fact about that, there's a drummer from a band that I used to listen to, um uh this band called Norma Jean, uh old hardcore band.
• 1:08:22
  Matthew: Michael ran in to him at a cafe in Tucson uh and asked him if he would record drums for it.
• 1:08:31
  Matthew: So you're you're hearing the drums from like uh like one of my favorite uh crew.
• 1:08:36
  Matthew: Yeah, anyway, it's like it's not again, it's not uh it's not a thing you have to listen to while you look at the book, but it's something that just kind of widens the world out a little bit.
• 1:08:44
  Matt: Yeah, I like it.
• 1:08:45
  Matt: It's the it's it evokes that imagination, which I, you know, going back to what with the rant that I was going on about earlier, that power of um of almost being bored, but uh getting lost, mind wandering, right?
• 1:08:58
  Matt: Daydreaming, getting lost in imagination, and and that's what I love so much about your work as well.
• 1:09:04
  Matt: It kind of evokes that feeling of imagination and dreams, and uh that's that's so much beauty in that.
• 1:09:14
  Matt: Um look, we've we're way over time.
• 1:09:16
  Matt: I I could talk to you for hours, Matt, and I'm sure we all talk again and look forward to seeing you in Paris.
• 1:09:21
  Matt: Um last question before we go.
• 1:09:25
  Matt: Um give me a bit of advice.
• 1:09:28
  Matt: And I know you're not an educator per se, but people listening to you and people who respect you so much and my audience will be be part of that crowd.
• 1:09:37
  Matt: Um what what after everything that we've talked about, including what you've learned from making three incredible books and and the the troubles and the concerns that we we have in the photography industry today, as well as the optimism and things to look forward to.
• 1:09:51
  Matt: If you're sat where I am, or or maybe you know, an emerging photographer who's just picking up a camera for for the first year of their their photographic life, what would be the one piece of advice you would you would uh give to them to in order to make some meaningful work ahead of them?
• 1:10:11
  Matthew: You know, I would I would give this uh this advice to myself now and to myself 15 years ago.
• 1:10:17
  Matthew: But just get out of your own way and trust yourself, man.
• 1:10:22
  Matthew: Like just like it's it's it's yeah.
• 1:10:25
  Matthew: I I have uh I you know, especially when I was younger, I used to over used to just overthink things all the time.
• 1:10:33
  Matthew: And um yeah, just um just trust yourself.
• 1:10:38
  Matthew: I know that's that's probably pretty cliche, but like it's it's it's uh something that I have to remind myself all the time.
• 1:10:46
  Matt: Yeah, I d I talk about this within my community a lot, the kind of the power of subconscious and uh being able to trust that that instinct, intuition, and and trust that you're able to to to find what you want to find without thinking about it consciously too much.
• 1:11:01
  Matt: So um good to hear.
• 1:11:03
  Matt: Matt, thank you so much for your time.
• 1:11:05
  Matt: Uh always uh an honor and a and a privilege and uh one of my favorite artists for sure.
• 1:11:09
  Matt: So thank you for spending the time with me.
• 1:11:13
  Matthew: Cool.