Latest / The Nerdy Photographer Podcast / 175 - Art Comes From the Soul: Analog, AI, and Authentic Portraits

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175 - Art Comes From the Soul: Analog, AI, and Authentic Portraits · The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

• 0:06
  Casey Fatchett: Oh, so there's a system to how you stack them.
• 0:11
  Oh, hello there. Welcome to the Nerdy Flagler Podcast. I'm your
• 0:14
  host, Casey Fatchett. Welcome, welcome, welcome. The first
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  amazing photographers from all corners of the globe, and
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  photography-related information, I also go on adventures with the
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  crew of the starship Fibonacci. Sure, keep going. I will keep
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  documenting. Right now, I'm taking photos of churlius ultra
• 0:50
  of rock farmers like Gabbro. Here, they go around collecting
• 0:54
  rocks to make dwellings out of. It's solitary, difficult labor,
• 0:58
  but absolutely essential for the continuation of the Society. On
• 1:01
  this episode of the show, I speak with portrait photographer
• 1:04
  Craig Fleming, whose photos of celebrities and everyday people
• 1:07
  have amazed viewers around the world. We discuss his process,
• 1:11
  as well as two ongoing portrait projects that he is currently
• 1:14
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  Hey, before we dive into the show, I have something to tell
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  you about, something a little sneaky I've been doing over the
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  four interview episodes from july 9 to august 20. I will be
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  dropping hints, lyrics to be exact, from the same musical
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  following along on both platforms, so you don't miss out
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  on a single episode and start taking notes, because the clues
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  are already in motion. Links are in the show notes. Good luck,
• 3:47
  and let's get into today's episode.
• 3:56
  Hello, and welcome to the Nerdy Photographer Podcast. I'm your
• 3:58
  host, Casey Fatchette, and I'm here today with photographer
• 4:01
  Craig Fleming. Craig, welcome to the show.
• 4:04
  Craig Fleming: Thanks for having me.
• 4:05
  Casey Fatchett: You're very welcome. And to get things
• 4:07
  started, we're gonna roll the dice breaker. It's a nine and
• 4:12
  that. What is the worst photography or business-related
• 4:16
  advice you've ever received?
• 4:19
  Craig Fleming: Ah, God, the worst that's put me on the spot.
• 4:30
  Casey Fatchett: What's the best advice?
• 4:34
  Craig Fleming: Never really been given much advice, to be fair.
• 4:36
  It's all self-taught. My dad once told me I wasn't as good as
• 4:41
  I thought I was, which probably at the time I was quite offended
• 4:45
  by it, but think I know what it meant looking back, and
• 4:52
  actually, in terms of actual advice, I think just shoot what
• 4:57
  you love. I remember years and years ago is just. Um, I was
• 5:01
  working for an industrial photographer when I left school,
• 5:03
  so it was about it was in the early 90s, late 80s, and we
• 5:08
  would be shooting anything from sort of sofas to lorries on the
• 5:15
  trucks on the motorway, we'd have to arrange a time and be on
• 5:18
  a bridge at a certain time for it to pass, we'd do portraits,
• 5:22
  we would do all kinds of what you call candy, we call sweets,
• 5:31
  just everything, but it was such a.. at the time I didn't really
• 5:35
  appreciate it. Used to throw me in the dark room a lot, you only
• 5:38
  used to let me out to go and fetch food at lunchtime, and at
• 5:42
  the time, when you're sort of 1718, you kind of don't
• 5:45
  appreciate it. You just want to be let loose on the good stuff,
• 5:48
  but that was such a good grounding. But when I did leave,
• 5:52
  he couldn't afford to keep me on, because he'd already got
• 5:54
  another younger guy there, and I was, I was part of some
• 5:58
  government sort of work placement scheme, so he couldn't
• 6:02
  afford to take me on full time, but he, but when I left, he just
• 6:05
  said, "Look, you've got a thing about portraits, we can tell, so
• 6:09
  that's what you should just throw yourself into, like don't
• 6:12
  worry about shooting commercial and toilet bowls and this kind
• 6:18
  of
• 6:18
  Casey Fatchett: no product photography.
• 6:20
  Craig Fleming: Yeah, yeah,
• 6:22
  Casey Fatchett: doesn't have you, don't, that's the, I think
• 6:24
  that people always say they're like, shoot what you love, and I
• 6:28
  think that they think that they have to enjoy it all the time.
• 6:34
  It doesn't mean that you're going to enjoy it all the time,
• 6:35
  doesn't mean it's always going to be a thrill, but it's
• 6:38
  something that you have a passion about, it's something
• 6:40
  that you care about, as opposed to like something that you're..
• 6:44
  it doesn't mean that if you have, because I've witnessed
• 6:49
  other photographers who will have this.. well, I.. I just
• 6:52
  don't.. I just didn't love this shoot. Maybe, maybe it's not
• 6:55
  right for me. And I'm like, "Well, wait a second.. like,
• 6:58
  what? Let's have a deeper discussion and thought about,
• 7:00
  like, why you didn't love it, and what does that mean? You no
• 7:05
  longer have a passion for this type of work. In discussing with
• 7:09
  them, 90% of the time, it's that's not the case. It's just
• 7:12
  that they had a difficult, like, having difficulty with something
• 7:16
  doesn't mean you don't
• 7:17
  Craig Fleming: exactly. Yeah, and some people you just don't
• 7:21
  gel with on a, on a portrait shoot, and if that happens, and
• 7:25
  some, I think, sometimes, especially with actors, some of
• 7:28
  them just, I think, they excel at sort of like trying to make
• 7:33
  your life as miserable as possible on that day, because to
• 7:36
  you, as a photographer, that could be one of the biggest days
• 7:39
  of your career, shooting a certain actor, but to him it's
• 7:43
  just run of the mill stuff, it's the stuff they hate, you know,
• 7:47
  answering the same questions, and
• 7:49
  Casey Fatchett: I also think that I discussed this with
• 7:51
  another photographer as well, who has done a lot of celebrity
• 7:55
  portraits, and the, the thing of trying to get them to drop the
• 8:00
  act like you don't have to act for the camera unless there's
• 8:06
  something that you're specifically doing, like, oh,
• 8:08
  we're doing something about this character or whatever, like,
• 8:10
  then sure, give me a little bit, but most of the time as a
• 8:15
  portrait photographer you're trying to get people to like to
• 8:17
  see the real person behind all that, and for them it's very..
• 8:21
  I'm a former actor, as the.. there's a.. there's a comfort in
• 8:31
  having that mask up, and you really have to feel comfortable
• 8:34
  with somebody, and yeah, if you don't build that, that comfort
• 8:39
  in there, then they start to feel like they can't, they have
• 8:45
  to have to come up with a, with a face to put on.
• 8:49
  Craig Fleming: Yeah, and you can very quickly lose them, and once
• 8:51
  you've lost them, think that's it. You might as well just end
• 8:54
  that, the shoot there and then. But I don't really, with actors,
• 8:57
  I don't really talk much about their work, or I certainly don't
• 9:02
  put them on a pedestal. I'm quite down to earth and from a
• 9:06
  working class background, so I just kind of just.. it's just
• 9:11
  normal conversation that I'd have with anybody, you know what
• 9:14
  I mean. So that I think that helps in a way. I think I'm not
• 9:18
  used to that.
• 9:19
  Casey Fatchett: I think, yeah, I think that's one of the things
• 9:20
  that most celebrities probably aren't used to, is being treated
• 9:24
  like a normal person.
• 9:26
  Craig Fleming: Yeah
• 9:27
  Casey Fatchett: That's a way to build comfort and like, and
• 9:31
  trust when somebody just talks to you like a real person,
• 9:33
  instead of being like, oh my gosh, talk about
• 9:38
  Craig Fleming: I loved you in this film,
• 9:39
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, and all of a sudden it becomes like, oh,
• 9:42
  I've got to put my, you know, dealing with the public face on,
• 9:49
  and, and deal with that. You kind of switching gears a little
• 9:56
  bit, you shoot both digital. And analog, and you had mentioned
• 10:05
  that going back to medium format several years ago was a way for
• 10:12
  you to put some integrity back into your work, I think, is the
• 10:16
  quote has that relationship between film and digital evolved
• 10:23
  since then, or do you still feel that that's the same thing?
• 10:26
  Because I have personal feelings, especially when it
• 10:29
  comes to portraiture, about film. I think it really, I think
• 10:32
  that when you're shooting film and portraits, you really, I
• 10:36
  mean romantically, feel like you really are capturing somebody's
• 10:39
  energy, and there's a whereas digital can feel a little cold
• 10:44
  to me. I don't know, yeah, there's.. but I don't know,
• 10:46
  like, what? How is that? Has that changed? That feeling
• 10:48
  changed for you at all? Or is that
• 10:50
  Craig Fleming: a little bit? Yeah, because now I find that
• 10:55
  sometimes, sort of like on Instagram, I'll get a message,
• 10:57
  it might be a digital image, a digital portrait, but someone on
• 11:00
  Instagram will just say, what film was this shot on, and then
• 11:04
  underneath there'll be a thread of people trying to guess what
• 11:06
  it was, you know, there'll be some saying pan F, and there'll
• 11:08
  be another one saying delta 100 and it's probably shot on a GFX,
• 11:12
  so I've used GFX now for about six years, I think, and I think
• 11:19
  it's the most I analog looking imagery, which is bizarre,
• 11:26
  because it's so high resolution, but especially the 50s. I think
• 11:30
  the 50s are a sweet spot in terms of resolution and image
• 11:34
  quality, and I just think that sense is like perfect. I know
• 11:37
  the auto focus is slow, but that's not an issue with
• 11:41
  portraits, so I think I think what happened is when I went, I
• 11:45
  was, I was fed up with digital, and everyone expecting a highly
• 11:50
  polished image, airbrushed. I didn't want to do any of that.
• 11:54
  I, to be honest, I hate sitting in front of a computer, I can't
• 11:56
  stand it. I get a knot in my neck after about 20 minutes, and
• 12:01
  I'm one of those that I'll retouch something, and then I'll
• 12:03
  look at it the day after. Now, Jesus, that's horrendous, that's
• 12:06
  horrific. So I have to start again, and often I do it on a
• 12:11
  top layer, so that I can reduce the opacity by about 45 to 45%
• 12:17
  so that the original image comes through a bit and it balances it
• 12:20
  out, because I think when you're staring at an image for that
• 12:23
  long, working on it, you just lose sight of what the original
• 12:28
  image was, and I think with digital, with film, because I
• 12:31
  went back to shooting film, what that allowed me to do then is I
• 12:36
  went on this quest of making the digital look like film as best I
• 12:40
  could, because I was always shooting them alongside, and so
• 12:44
  I think, especially with black and white, not so much color, I
• 12:46
  don't, I don't shy away from color a little bit, but
• 12:50
  certainly black and white, I think I got to a point where it
• 12:53
  did look quite analog, but I do put a lot of that down to the
• 12:58
  GFX, because I've tried it on other cameras, I could do it a
• 13:02
  little bit on the Canon, but it still looked quite polished, but
• 13:05
  the GFX that I use, I just think it's, it's like a perfect match
• 13:11
  with the RZ that I shoot on as well when Alfred films.
• 13:16
  Casey Fatchett: I think that there's just something about you
• 13:20
  had mentioned about polished look that has this, it's become
• 13:27
  a running theme in a lot of interviews that I've done
• 13:32
  lately, you know, talking about imperfection as something that
• 13:37
  is a, it's becoming a style of its own lately, like, last few
• 13:45
  years, not as, like, highly perfected, like, whatever, you
• 13:51
  can go, and I'm talking about, like, people shooting candid
• 13:54
  images at events to people doing portraits, this is like having
• 13:59
  that reality, because when that, when something is so like
• 14:05
  perfect looking, and I think it's maybe a backlash to AI and
• 14:10
  other things that, and filters, and things like that, that
• 14:14
  people are are seeing images, and they can, they know it's
• 14:18
  real, that sort of imperfection, and, and less polished. I mean,
• 14:27
  I don't want to say it's like we didn't put effort into it, or
• 14:29
  it's not the good, but that's sort of like a, a less perfect
• 14:34
  image has some more truth to it, and more reality in it,
• 14:41
  Craig Fleming: and also I think sometimes it takes more work to
• 14:45
  do less in Photoshop, so years ago when I, when I was sort of
• 14:49
  shooting, sort of back in the late 90s, early 2000 glamor
• 14:55
  models and things like that, not that I wanted to, it just that
• 14:57
  was what the work was and. Back then, and so it was easy to just
• 15:02
  do sort of like a global retouch, really quick, and
• 15:04
  airbrush, get rid of blemishes, get rid of spots, get rid of
• 15:07
  lines and wrinkles, but when you're doing it to the point
• 15:10
  where you need it to look natural, I think that's another
• 15:13
  skill entirely. So that was another learning curve, going
• 15:17
  back into digital. I never, I never left either, I never left
• 15:20
  film, and I never left digital, but I always just swayed towards
• 15:24
  one or the other, whereas now it's balanced out, and I'll
• 15:27
  happily just pick up whatever's nearest. So
• 15:33
  Casey Fatchett: they think that when you're talking about
• 15:34
  retouching, too, it's like it's hard to, you need a lighter
• 15:40
  touch, so that people look real, and not like I used to back in
• 15:48
  my acting days. I was also directing, so you get a lot of
• 15:50
  people's headshots, whatever it needs somebody's headshot would
• 15:52
  come in, and you go like, "Oh, well, let's take a look, let's
• 15:54
  have this person come in, and they come in, they look nothing
• 15:57
  like that photo, because it's been so airbrushed, like there's
• 16:02
  no texture in their skin or whatever, and you're thinking,
• 16:04
  like, okay, this person, maybe this person's 20 years old, and
• 16:07
  they come in, and they're like 35 and they look in a little bit
• 16:10
  more, a little rougher, or whatever, and it's like,
• 16:12
  Craig Fleming: yeah
• 16:13
  Casey Fatchett: that's fine, there's nothing wrong with how
• 16:15
  you look, but like, you gave me a completely different
• 16:18
  impression of what,
• 16:19
  Craig Fleming: yeah,
• 16:19
  Casey Fatchett: what I was expecting, and then you start to
• 16:21
  see it in the photos, and you start to not believe it, because
• 16:25
  you're like, that there's no way you look like that, and that you
• 16:29
  sort of, I talk about this with corporate clients of mine, in
• 16:35
  when they talk about, oh, well, you know, somebody says, like,
• 16:38
  oh, you just use AI for the team headshots, or whatever, and,
• 16:42
  like, well, when somebody figures out that you used AI,
• 16:45
  they're going to completely lose their trust in you, because
• 16:48
  they're like,
• 16:48
  Craig Fleming: yeah,
• 16:49
  Casey Fatchett: they, your integrity is tanked if once they
• 16:52
  figure out that you are not using real images of people,
• 16:56
  because then they don't know who they're talking to,
• 16:59
  Craig Fleming: and I think it's so obvious to a lot of
• 17:01
  photographers, if it is an entirely AI-generated image, I
• 17:05
  think you can just tell a mile off. So,
• 17:08
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, it's becoming.. I don't know, like,
• 17:10
  there's.. there was about a year ago, there were times where I'd
• 17:14
  go, "huh, what? And now I'm getting.. there was.. it was
• 17:19
  good enough where I could get fooled, and now I'm picking it
• 17:22
  up. I was following a guy who was doing fashion photography on
• 17:28
  Instagram. I was like, these are really interesting, and then
• 17:31
  it's like it's all the same five models, and I'm like, I must be
• 17:35
  shooting. And then I was like, wait a second, there's then
• 17:38
  every like 12 photos that he posted, there we get this really
• 17:42
  one wild, obviously AI image, and are these all, and I reached
• 17:48
  out, and I was like, you know, I want to, like, I have a show, I
• 17:52
  kind of want to discuss this, and he's like, no, I don't
• 17:54
  discuss my process at all, okay, all right, I get weak here, you
• 18:00
  don't make anything I could consider putting on the list of
• 18:06
  things to ask me about. I don't know if you've seen recently,
• 18:09
  there was just talking about film and digital and AI. They
• 18:16
  recently someone used AI to colorize and Ansel Adams,
• 18:25
  Moonrise over Hernandez, like one of his most famous images,
• 18:32
  and it was at a pad, the AIB, the photo show in New York at
• 18:36
  the Danziger Gallery, like a big gallery, and they were selling
• 18:40
  it as a limited edition for $10,000 a piece, and it brought
• 18:48
  up a whole stink of things like, yeah, because people like, wait,
• 18:52
  did the Adams estate approve of this, which they did. Yeah,
• 18:56
  apparently the image is technically in the public
• 19:01
  domain, but they, the process they went about to do is they
• 19:06
  acted like they leveraged Adams's name and the involvement
• 19:13
  of using one of his images to get backing to create a project
• 19:19
  to colorize other photographers, black and white work that
• 19:23
  happens to be above vein. They're just gonna print these
• 19:25
  off and sell them. I don't know how you feel about something.
• 19:31
  Just to me, it feels to be honest.
• 19:33
  Craig Fleming: Yeah, I hate AI. I hate it. I just see it as, I
• 19:38
  mean, apart from the fact that it's stealing everybody's work
• 19:41
  that we've uploaded over the last 20 years, there was a
• 19:45
  French fashion photographer I follow, and I attended a talk in
• 19:50
  Manchester about 20 years ago, and back then she was up there
• 19:55
  on a pedestal. Work was beautiful, she shot fashion, she
• 19:58
  shot cars, I think. Like, and she did a really good talk about
• 20:02
  explaining how she, you know, puts together shoots and stuff
• 20:05
  like that. And then yesterday on her Instagram, she'd posted
• 20:07
  this, you know, the McGreet painting with the apple in front
• 20:11
  of the guy with a bowl of hat. She posted that, and then he
• 20:14
  takes the apple and starts talking, and then underneath
• 20:17
  she's sort of like put hashtag creative, hashtag talent, just
• 20:22
  all that, the other, and I just thought you've kind of stole
• 20:25
  that image. It's not anyone could have done that. It's not
• 20:29
  a, it's not a particular skill, right? That's with the right
• 20:33
  prompts. It's just, it's quite simple, isn't it? So it's one
• 20:38
  Casey Fatchett: of the things that I have, I my thoughts on
• 20:43
  generative AI are no thank you, like that's a hard line for me,
• 20:48
  using it for pattern recognition thing, I think it should be
• 20:50
  being used for curing cancer, they should be, we're things it
• 20:57
  could be used for that would be helping society, yeah, but I
• 21:01
  don't think it should be stealing people's art.
• 21:04
  Craig Fleming: No absolutely not, especially art, because
• 21:06
  it's made from the soul, isn't it? It comes from the soul, so
• 21:10
  Casey Fatchett: there's nothing behind it. And you, it's funny
• 21:18
  to see, like, what people try to explain, like we've lowered the
• 21:20
  bar for entry, like the bar for entry was having something to
• 21:25
  say, yeah. And now all you're doing is like, oh, I want..
• 21:30
  well, I would love to have a.. I would love to have a color
• 21:33
  version of Ansel Adams, you know, like..
• 21:36
  Craig Fleming: yeah,
• 21:36
  Casey Fatchett: and the special, like solved the wound, as he was
• 21:42
  such a conservationist, and AI is just gonna like steal water
• 21:49
  and power from people
• 21:51
  Craig Fleming: steal water, power, memory cards, hard
• 21:54
  drives, yeah, destroy, and everything,
• 21:56
  Casey Fatchett: destroy the environment, and you know, be
• 21:59
  generally horrible for photographers,
• 22:01
  Craig Fleming: yeah, absolutely. I think there'll be a kickback.
• 22:04
  I think, in a way, it could help in that the integrity of proper
• 22:12
  photographers could become more valuable as a result of AI,
• 22:18
  especially shooting on film when you've got a negative, but I
• 22:22
  don't know. It's like, where you are, though, in the UK. I mean,
• 22:25
  the government's successive governments here just seem to do
• 22:28
  everything they can to stick the knife in to creatives, and they
• 22:32
  have done for the last 10 years everything they do. Nothing is
• 22:36
  good for creatives. Every bit of legislation they introduce about
• 22:40
  the arts, it's never, it's never good, so I just think there'll
• 22:44
  be some kind of kickback, and I'm just, I don't know if I'm
• 22:47
  talking myself into that, I'm hoping and praying, but
• 22:50
  Casey Fatchett: I think that we're already seeing it to an
• 22:54
  extent, and it's kind of hard to measure something like that, but
• 23:00
  a trend like the trend towards film here here is like people
• 23:05
  are like buying, I don't know what it's like there, but like
• 23:10
  people have been buying up like the point and shoot cameras, and
• 23:16
  I think that there are two reasons for this, I think that
• 23:21
  younger generations are nostalgic for a time period they
• 23:26
  didn't experience before the internet, when to them it's like
• 23:32
  life seems seemed much simpler, and in many ways it was, so they
• 23:38
  want to recapture or just capture that feeling, and
• 23:42
  there's a, they, they're also buying up digital cameras, old
• 23:48
  point and shoot digital cameras, they're not connected to the internet.
• 23:54
  Craig Fleming: Yeah,
• 23:55
  Casey Fatchett: that's
• 23:55
  Craig Fleming: they've been doing it with the, the original
• 23:58
  Digicams as well, under the cat, the early camcorders, yeah,
• 24:01
  Casey Fatchett: everything, and there's a sense of I want to
• 24:05
  have live a life that isn't necessarily
• 24:08
  Craig Fleming: attached, attached to the internet,
• 24:10
  Casey Fatchett: and also looks the photos haven't been like
• 24:14
  they're the photo on your phone automatically applies all sorts,
• 24:18
  it's computational, does all sorts of things, and they want
• 24:21
  to see photos of themselves that look like themselves. It hasn't
• 24:26
  been like their skin hasn't been smoothed out, like we're talking
• 24:28
  about before. Skin hasn't been smoothed to the point of, you
• 24:32
  know, it looks like, you know, a porcelain or whatever.
• 24:37
  Craig Fleming: Yeah,
• 24:37
  Casey Fatchett: you don't look real. Yeah,
• 24:38
  Craig Fleming: that I mean, that's where that lo-fi look
• 24:41
  came from, I think, isn't it? It just came from everyone being
• 24:45
  sick of seeing airbrushed images, so you know, nonsense
• 24:49
  images as well. But AI is going to do its best to bring that
• 24:53
  back, I guess. Everybody has a certain look in AI, don't they?
• 24:57
  They look kind of dead, I've shot plenty of people that have
• 25:01
  looked dead, but you can still tell the difference between that
• 25:05
  and AI. So, yeah,
• 25:06
  Casey Fatchett: for me, like, the real tell is in the eyes of
• 25:11
  the image, because you look at it like, okay, do these eyes
• 25:14
  look like they're actually focused on something? Yes,
• 25:17
  that's the main thing, like it looks, it's a little glassy, it
• 25:19
  looks a little like they're not actually like there's no life in
• 25:24
  that expression. I mean, maybe
• 25:27
  Craig Fleming: in the early days when it was like when you get
• 25:29
  six fingers brilliant. Yeah, at least it was entertaining,
• 25:34
  whereas now it's like too perfect, and it came so quick as
• 25:37
  well, from doing like, you know, funny hands and three arms to
• 25:42
  been pretty perfect, so
• 25:44
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, being being somewhat astute on
• 25:48
  technology, I was the thing I told friends who'd just be like,
• 25:52
  "Oh, you'll always.. it's you'll be able to tell, and I said,
• 25:55
  "This today is the worst it will ever be. It's only going to get
• 26:01
  better from here, like it's only gonna get better at figuring
• 26:04
  things out, like it's not going to take steps backwards,
• 26:09
  Craig Fleming: and then it's going to kill
• 26:12
  Casey Fatchett: You know, part of me is like, I welcome the
• 26:15
  robot overlords at this point,
• 26:18
  Unknown: the sweet relief.
• 26:20
  Casey Fatchett: Do you think... so, Here's a question for you.
• 26:23
  Do you kind of going back to the digital versus analog? Do the
• 26:28
  two formats themselves, do you feel like they inform each other
• 26:33
  as far as your work? Like, there are things that you're like,
• 26:38
  'I'm going to do this because, like, you were talking about,
• 26:42
  like, I can get that sort of film look via digital, but,
• 26:47
  like, the what you can do film-wise informs what you're
• 26:51
  doing digitally, or vice versa.
• 26:53
  Craig Fleming: Yeah, I mean, film is what made me the digital
• 27:00
  photographer I am now in the sense that I do a lot less on
• 27:02
  digital, and that's because of that, is because of film, that's
• 27:06
  because I just want that basic kind of look, so I do think
• 27:11
  shooting, going back to film, it did help me become a better
• 27:13
  digital photographer, so if that makes sense, in terms of the
• 27:21
  fact that I'm just not doing that much, so when I'm
• 27:24
  notorious, me, for turning images around really quickly, so
• 27:27
  if I shot someone in the day and they go back to London or
• 27:31
  Manchester on a train, often they'll get the pictures while
• 27:34
  they're on the train, and the reason is, is because I just
• 27:38
  throw it through Capture One, balance it up ever so slightly,
• 27:43
  not the film pictures, but the digitals, and then retouching
• 27:47
  wise, I might just remove non-permanent spots, lighting
• 27:50
  under the eyes a bit, maybe lighten the eyes a little bit,
• 27:54
  if the lighting's been a bit dull, but other than that,
• 28:00
  nothing really, so I can turn images around really, really
• 28:03
  quickly. So
• 28:05
  Casey Fatchett: I think that's one of the things about
• 28:06
  experience, you, you realize when a lighter touch is more
• 28:14
  helpful. Yeah, you like we were talking about before, with
• 28:17
  retouching that, or even just with your process of taking
• 28:22
  photos and capturing them, where you don't need all of the stuff,
• 28:29
  and it's sort of, I think, about, you know, people go like
• 28:34
  your evolution of like what gear you're working with, whatever,
• 28:37
  you're sort of like you start with like one camera, one lens,
• 28:40
  and then you start to like accumulate stuff, and then
• 28:42
  eventually you sort of come back to like, yeah, I'm gonna, I
• 28:46
  really just use these two or three lenses, and that's it. I
• 28:49
  don't need all this, or like, the lighting equipment, and I
• 28:52
  don't know about you, but I've got a lot of lighting equipment,
• 28:56
  and it's sort of like, I at this stage in my career, I need it
• 29:00
  for different things, but I feel like if I just like went at some
• 29:05
  point, I could probably just cut it down to like if you said
• 29:09
  we're gonna go do portraits of some people and like bring what
• 29:12
  lighting equipment you need, I would. I don't need all that
• 29:14
  stuff.
• 29:15
  Craig Fleming: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was sponsored by Nan
• 29:19
  Light for a while, and they sent me loads and loads of kit, and I
• 29:23
  reckon 90% of it hardly ever comes out the box. It did. It
• 29:28
  came out the box, and I used it whenever I did any reels for
• 29:32
  them, but I'd never get it out. Like the Pavo tubes are an
• 29:37
  amazing thing if fluorescent the tube things, but I don't use
• 29:41
  them. I just don't know. I don't shoot that kind of stuff. I
• 29:46
  mean, I prefer natural light anyway. Just give me one big
• 29:50
  window in a studio and I'm happy I can do a full shoot that way.
• 29:55
  So, yeah, I think that's not..
• 29:57
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, it's. Uh, experience to know what you
• 30:01
  don't need, and it's okay to do things simply, like the advice I
• 30:07
  try to give people when they're having, like, a creative block
• 30:13
  is always to just.. it seems really simple, but for people
• 30:19
  who never shot film, I'll say, like, pick one lens and take,
• 30:24
  choose 1224, or 36 numbers exposures, and you have to tell
• 30:30
  the whole story you want to tell in that number of exposures,
• 30:35
  that's it,
• 30:36
  Craig Fleming: it's good practice, really good practice,
• 30:39
  because it makes you, I use one, I use the GFX 50 mark two, and I
• 30:44
  use an 80 mil, and that's on it all the time. My friend's got a
• 30:48
  45 which I shoot some stuff for his brand, and it's sometimes
• 30:52
  put the 45 on, but only when we want a little bit of a more
• 30:56
  environmental type portrait, but other than that, it's it's the
• 31:01
  80 mil on all the time, so, and it's same on the RZ. I only own
• 31:05
  the 110 millimeter of 2.8 and then on the 35 mil stuff, it's
• 31:09
  either a 50 or a 35 so yeah, I like the sort of like faster
• 31:13
  lenses, because they do give a really creamy kind of look on 35
• 31:18
  mil, which I shied away again from 35 mil for years. I've just
• 31:22
  thought, yeah, it's not, it's not going to be nowhere near as
• 31:26
  good, but it's just got that it's got a different esthetic to
• 31:30
  it. I shot the circus on it a few weeks ago, and I shot it on
• 31:35
  Tri X as well, and there's something about it, just looks
• 31:39
  timeless, like it could have been shot at any time. She's
• 31:43
  wearing a fluffy dressing gown, that's the only thing that gives
• 31:47
  the game away. But if you, if you didn't recognize that, you
• 31:51
  would say that was 60 years old, that shot, and it's because it's
• 31:56
  shot on an F that was on an f5 or an f3 one of the one of the
• 32:00
  two. So,
• 32:01
  Casey Fatchett: okay, on the subject of timelessness, is this
• 32:03
  is something that I try to aspire to, and try to do with a
• 32:10
  lot of my own work, is things that you're not going to look
• 32:15
  back and go, oh, that was really 2026 look at that, I want to
• 32:20
  look, and it has been there to an extent in my work for a long
• 32:26
  time, because there's still photos, there's some photos I
• 32:29
  keep in my portfolio from early on that I people like, oh, when
• 32:33
  was this, they're like, oh, that was 25 years ago, 30 years ago,
• 32:39
  and you know, like, but it's because that image is so
• 32:42
  there's, there's nothing in that image, no, the way it was shot,
• 32:48
  in the way that it was like processed or anything that makes
• 32:52
  you think, like, oh, this is, this was last week, could have
• 32:55
  been, could have been last week, could have been, you know, 2030
• 32:59
  years ago, it's like there's nothing in it that's really
• 33:01
  giving it away, but when you talk about timelessness, how
• 33:05
  much of that do you think comes down to for you and your process
• 33:12
  comes down to your own like vision, your the equipment
• 33:19
  you're using, like lighting wise, like, what, what, what
• 33:22
  elements go into making it timeless.
• 33:25
  Craig Fleming: It's just an.. it's just.. it's funny, really.
• 33:28
  Because, as a child, I was obsessed with the future. I
• 33:31
  watched Star Wars incessantly every weekend. I'd have Star
• 33:34
  Wars Empire or Jedi on the video every day. Every weekend, I
• 33:38
  watched it. I knew the script. I could read the script alongside
• 33:42
  it. I actually got into photography specifically because
• 33:45
  my brother's friend, who was older than me, was at college,
• 33:49
  and he was really into special effects. And back then, what he
• 33:53
  used to do is he used to splice some black and white film
• 33:56
  together with some lith film, and then we would shoot the
• 34:00
  speeder bike in the garden on color film, then we would put,
• 34:03
  we would put some black sheet, a black card behind it, shoot, and
• 34:07
  then it would wind on, it was on a tripod, then the lift film
• 34:11
  would take over, that would give us a perfect black mat, and so
• 34:15
  we were doing that, and we were sort of like putting it together
• 34:18
  in the Indian larger, and then printing it to get the actual to
• 34:22
  do it like it looked, you know what I mean. So, but I was
• 34:26
  obsessed with the future, it was all about that Star Trek, Buck
• 34:30
  Rogers, Aliens, still into all that kind of stuff now, but at
• 34:33
  some point I just became obsessed with the past, and I
• 34:37
  think it's when you get to a certain age, like I'm 55 now,
• 34:40
  lost both my parents, but I've luckily still got my two sisters
• 34:44
  and my brother, but I think you just look back, especially the
• 34:48
  70s and the 80s, it was such a magical time, it was almost like
• 34:51
  the last generation that actually played in the street.
• 34:55
  You know, and just did normal things, and the summer holidays
• 34:58
  of school, our mum would kick us out the house at nine after
• 35:02
  breakfast, and then she'd be like, "Be back for your tea, and
• 35:06
  that was it, be back for five. She didn't know where we were,
• 35:10
  she had no clue where we were. We were generally up a tree, or
• 35:13
  fishing somewhere, or causing trouble, football, playing
• 35:17
  cricket, whatever. Summers was just so long, and it was just
• 35:20
  such an idyllic time. And I think, especially when I shoot
• 35:24
  kids, I try to shoot them, I try to only shoot the type of kids
• 35:28
  whose parents understand what I mean when I say, like, don't
• 35:31
  style it, like, don't, if they turn up in a football shirt,
• 35:35
  I've lost interest, you know what I mean. But whereas there's
• 35:39
  a couple of twins that I shot in Sheffield a few years ago, and
• 35:42
  the mum was, she's a really good artist, actually, and these two
• 35:46
  little fellas are just identical twins, and I said to, said to
• 35:50
  the mom, do you know anybody who knits, and she was like, yeah,
• 35:54
  my mom knits, and I was like, can she knit them to sort of
• 35:57
  vest tank top type things, cable knit type things, which is what
• 36:01
  I remember pictures, not even my general, like before that, but I
• 36:05
  mean we had hand-knitted things that our grandma knitted, so it
• 36:09
  was just that kind of look, and it was these, these sleeveless
• 36:13
  tank tops, these little scholars, and they were kind of
• 36:16
  like, it was such good big characters, and I photographed
• 36:20
  them just in Sheffield, and they just played up to the camera,
• 36:23
  they just assumed this role, and because it was black and white,
• 36:27
  and because some of them were shot on film, it just, it just
• 36:31
  looked so timeless. And then there was the other one of
• 36:34
  Robin, which is a makeup artist friend of mine, and Robin, her
• 36:38
  daughter, is the spitting image of her, albeit smaller, and
• 36:41
  she's quite arty as well, and she didn't dress her up in
• 36:45
  designer clothes or anything, she knows she just let her wear
• 36:49
  what she wants, so she'd be like wearing a rough knit jumper and
• 36:52
  bell bottom jeans, so I'd, so I'd look at that and think,
• 36:56
  right, where can I shoot, and there's plenty of places in
• 36:59
  Sheffield up north that are still sort of remnants from the
• 37:03
  60s, so I just, I just take them into these places, and I'm aware
• 37:07
  of the backgrounds, making sure I don't get any cars and stuff,
• 37:11
  but so it is a, it is a choice that they come out like that,
• 37:14
  but it's just an esthetic that I love, you know, and I try it
• 37:18
  with everything, no matter what, I'm shooting adults as well.
• 37:22
  It's just because I don't really shoot kids much, to be fair.
• 37:25
  It's only if I can find the ones that are particularly, you know,
• 37:29
  cool looking or
• 37:30
  Casey Fatchett: allowed to be ones kids.
• 37:33
  Craig Fleming: Yeah, yeah, yeah, proper kids. Yeah, I once went
• 37:36
  to shoot a model up in a place called Todmorden in North
• 37:39
  Yorkshire, which, oh, it's West Yorkshire, I think it's a UFO
• 37:42
  hotspot. It's the weirdest town in one of the weirdest towns in
• 37:46
  Yorkshire. It's like it's like you go back 20 years when you go
• 37:50
  there. And when I got there, I was arranged to meet this model,
• 37:53
  and when I got there, there was a load of kids playing football
• 37:57
  on this sort of grass verge in between two roads, and they
• 38:00
  started having a fight, and it was in England with football
• 38:04
  when we were kids, it was like skins versus tops, so half the
• 38:07
  players had to take the tops off, and then you'd be sort of
• 38:11
  like have nothing on, and then the other, after being that's
• 38:14
  how you knew who was who, and so skins and shirts were sort of
• 38:18
  like they started having a fight, a proper fight, and I
• 38:21
  remember looking at thinking, "Oh, that's just beautiful, just
• 38:25
  like six lines having a proper scrap. No one was filming it, no
• 38:28
  iPad, ball was rolling down the hill, you know what I mean?
• 38:32
  Casey Fatchett: Just no, not a phone in sight. Just, yeah, it's
• 38:35
  interesting, because I think that it's why I brought it up
• 38:40
  before. I think that there's a the back backlash the the to all
• 38:45
  of this stuff sort of like takes us out of living,
• 38:49
  Craig Fleming: yeah, yeah,
• 38:49
  Casey Fatchett: takes us out of being in those moments of being
• 38:52
  present, and I think that film makes you, as a photographer,
• 38:56
  you really have to be in it, especially depending on what
• 38:59
  you're shooting, especially if you don't have a, you know, if
• 39:03
  you have an older, like, fully manual film camera, you really
• 39:07
  got to be in the moment and understanding like what's going
• 39:11
  on and changing your settings accordingly, whatever, like, and
• 39:14
  being present in those moments and seeing other people in that,
• 39:18
  like, just this is a.. it was going with the imperfection as a
• 39:22
  style, is allowing things to happen without, like, oh wait,
• 39:26
  no, like, you're not going in there, be like, oh wait, guys,
• 39:29
  come back over here, I need to, you know, get you over here,
• 39:33
  like, I'm going to take a photo of this, and, like, let's wait,
• 39:37
  wait, wait, I need to get the light right, that just, you
• 39:40
  know, if you're going to photograph it, photograph and
• 39:44
  let it, you know,
• 39:45
  Craig Fleming: yeah,
• 39:45
  Casey Fatchett: be what it is. Yeah, completely sorry. Go
• 39:52
  Craig Fleming: One sorry, one thing I noticed early on with
• 39:54
  the RZT, because I've got that on the waist level finder, and
• 39:58
  straight away, as soon as I started using it. Realized that
• 40:01
  people interacted with you more as soon as they realized they
• 40:05
  couldn't see the image on the back of the camera, even though
• 40:08
  I used to draw a little stupid little face and a film holder,
• 40:12
  and I used to spin it round, that always made them laugh, but
• 40:15
  growing old, that joke now, but yeah, you just, the fact that
• 40:19
  you, it was on a tripod, generally not all the time, but
• 40:22
  you were sort of like looking down at it, but I could, I could
• 40:26
  still interact with the person, yeah. Whereas with the GFX, it's
• 40:29
  a big camera, it's in front of your face, and it's almost like
• 40:33
  you're working to get a shot with that, but with the RZ, I
• 40:36
  just feel that when you take all the digital stuff out of it, and
• 40:40
  the fact that you're not tethered to a Mac, and there's,
• 40:43
  you know, a makeup artist saying, "Can I have a look at
• 40:47
  it? and the subject knows they can't look at it. I just think
• 40:50
  you get a different interaction from your subjects, so that's
• 40:54
  another - that was another reason why I stuck with the RZ
• 40:57
  so long, because it just, it changes the game, and even when
• 41:01
  you're losing people, when I shot Bill Knight for the LA
• 41:04
  Times. I started off shooting digital, and I didn't feel like
• 41:07
  I was losing him, but I just didn't. I was like, that he was
• 41:11
  running through his range of poses that he's done for
• 41:14
  everyone, and I only had a few minutes with him. And then I
• 41:17
  just said, can we, can we shoot on the I's head, and he was
• 41:21
  like, "Oh, yeah, cool. So, as soon as I got that out, because
• 41:24
  he obviously remembers that from back in the day, those kind of
• 41:28
  cameras, and straight away he was invested, he was, he leant
• 41:32
  forward, he was looking straight into the lens, he wasn't just
• 41:35
  performing for the digital camera, he then started to
• 41:38
  interact with me under the camera, so it changed the game
• 41:42
  massively. So, and I saw that very early on with a lot of
• 41:45
  subjects. Well, it's
• 41:46
  Casey Fatchett: the, yeah, it's the relationship between the
• 41:50
  photographer and the subject when you're doing a portrait.
• 41:53
  It's not like I think that you've hit on a really
• 41:59
  important. the people who interact with the camera and
• 42:03
  people who interact with the photographer, and how do you get
• 42:08
  more of that interaction between the photographer, the subject,
• 42:12
  as opposed to people just like, oh, the camera, because people,
• 42:18
  I bring it up all the time, like when people see, like, if I'm at
• 42:21
  an event and I'm doing candid photos, and they see the camera
• 42:26
  pointed at them, and if they stop and look, then they're like
• 42:30
  the smile, like a fake smile comes in their face, like, "Hey,
• 42:34
  and I'm like, and I'll turn away, I'm like, "That's not the
• 42:37
  photo I'm trying to get. I just want to try to, like, let them
• 42:39
  know, like, hey, I'd rather you be you than to
• 42:44
  Craig Fleming: performative,
• 42:46
  Casey Fatchett: right? And that's because when you look at
• 42:50
  that picture, you're gonna go like, oh yeah, I put on my fake
• 42:54
  face to have that photo taken.
• 42:59
  Craig Fleming: Yeah, people do that all the time, don't they do
• 43:01
  the selfie face and the pout, and I just wait.
• 43:04
  Casey Fatchett: I thought about myself, just, you know, I don't
• 43:12
  like having my picture taken, so
• 43:15
  Craig Fleming: hate it. Doing YouTube, because I can't stand
• 43:18
  being on camera. So,
• 43:20
  Casey Fatchett: why do so many photographers not like having
• 43:22
  their picture taken?
• 43:23
  Craig Fleming: Don't know, it's why it's why I actually became a
• 43:25
  photographer, I think, because every party as a kid, if there
• 43:28
  was anyone taking pictures, I would grab the camera and say
• 43:31
  that, and I fell in love with the click. We had a little
• 43:35
  Hanimex 110 and I fell in love with the click of it, and then
• 43:40
  the, you know, when the thyristor in the capacitor and
• 43:43
  the flash recharges, I used to love that sound.
• 43:46
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, just I used to love it, like sort of
• 43:49
  like buzzing almost, yeah, yeah.
• 43:53
  Craig Fleming: That wasn't it, and just that I think I just I
• 43:57
  fell in love with that, and then this back then, like cameras had
• 44:01
  a smell as well. I don't know if it's just because you're more
• 44:04
  better senses when you're younger, but I don't know. The
• 44:07
  whole thing of photography was a kid was just very young as well.
• 44:11
  When I knew, because it could
• 44:13
  Casey Fatchett: have been the chemicals in the flash,
• 44:16
  Craig Fleming: chemicals, probably. It's chemicals now.
• 44:18
  Yeah, still, still on a high. I don't know if you can see.
• 44:21
  Casey Fatchett: You had mentioned Star Wars. I was gonna
• 44:22
  bring it up, but I don't know if you can see back here.
• 44:24
  Craig Fleming: This is that the lightsaber, yeah, that's
• 44:26
  Casey Fatchett: the Graflex. People have said, like, oh,
• 44:29
  you're gonna change that, turn that into a light. I'm like, no,
• 44:33
  because it's still got the bulb attached.
• 44:35
  Craig Fleming: Yeah, I found a grab it, though. Yes, yeah.
• 44:39
  Casey Fatchett: Oh, every time I pick it up,
• 44:41
  Craig Fleming: I'd be disappointed if you didn't,
• 44:43
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, like that has that has a like a bit of a
• 44:48
  scent to it as well, still, and I'm not sure, I've got all, I've
• 44:53
  got a whole collection of film cameras, I've got like an old
• 44:58
  Polaroid LAN camera that's. Has like one of the flash bulbs
• 45:01
  stashed to it, and also the Instamatic, like half frame,
• 45:07
  like 35 millimeter, that, that you can't, I can't find the
• 45:12
  cartridges, because I had a cartridge that went into it, it
• 45:16
  wasn't like a regular roll of 35
• 45:18
  Craig Fleming: was that one 126 was it?
• 45:21
  Casey Fatchett: Yes, I think so. And
• 45:22
  Craig Fleming: yeah,
• 45:23
  Casey Fatchett: but it's just like a Kodak Instamatic, and it
• 45:26
  had, again, same sort of thing. You had like a little cube that
• 45:29
  you'd push in on top of it for your flash.
• 45:34
  Craig Fleming: Did it have four flashes on it, and it twisted
• 45:36
  every time it shot one? Yeah,
• 45:39
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, yeah.
• 45:41
  Craig Fleming: Those were the days,
• 45:42
  Casey Fatchett: just, and it's, it's a, I mean, you slowed down,
• 45:45
  like, again, like we talked, you keep talking about it, slowed
• 45:48
  everything down, and you're really in it, as the
• 45:51
  photographer, you're in that moment, even if you're like,
• 45:55
  we're talking about, you said you picked up the camera,
• 45:58
  because you're like, I get to be behind it, but there's also
• 46:01
  you're like really in that moment and experiencing it with people,
• 46:05
  Craig Fleming: yeah,
• 46:06
  Casey Fatchett: as opposed to I feel like with digital, a lot of
• 46:08
  times I can get lost in the camera, as opposed to,
• 46:12
  Craig Fleming: yeah, yeah,
• 46:14
  Casey Fatchett: with film, yeah,
• 46:17
  Craig Fleming: that's why I like the GFX, in a way, because the
• 46:21
  menus, I mean, the menus are a bit silly on the on any Fuji
• 46:25
  film. There's so much, in fact, I did mention it to Fuji Film
• 46:28
  on, so that can be just put on it a 1987 button, which, when I
• 46:34
  press it, it just gets rid of everything on the menu, other
• 46:38
  than shooting in, I don't know, just gets rid of the video
• 46:41
  stuff, gets rid of all the film sims, and then it's just
• 46:44
  basically an aperture price or a manual camera, but because I've
• 46:49
  used it for that long now, it's just all set up nicely for me.
• 46:52
  So I do keep it dead simple. I never, I very rarely go into the
• 46:56
  menus when I'm doing workshops. If someone's, I always tell them
• 47:00
  on the email, set you mirrorless cameras up to exposure preview
• 47:07
  in the menu. Otherwise, when you're shooting with flash, it's
• 47:09
  a black screen from when they come out of the box. And then
• 47:13
  the amount of times when people said, "Do you know, can you do
• 47:15
  this for me? I'm like, "Oh, Jesus, now have to look on
• 47:18
  Google. I have to Google it every time, even on the project
• 47:20
  films. I still don't know where it is, so yeah, it's a
• 47:23
  nightmare. I'm not very technical, that's the other
• 47:26
  thing, I'm just not technical at all with cameras or Photoshop or
• 47:32
  Capture One, everything I, the software I use, I probably use
• 47:36
  1% of it, of its power, you know, I mean, I could just
• 47:39
  probably get away with something really basic,
• 47:41
  Casey Fatchett: what it's capable of, but yeah, and I
• 47:44
  think that that's okay, as we talked about having a, the,
• 47:49
  because you don't feel beholden to, I've got to use every
• 47:54
  possible, you know, tool in in this software on my photos, I
• 48:00
  know what I need. I'm just going to use that, and I'm not going
• 48:05
  to overdo it again. I think there's a.. it's part of the
• 48:10
  experience getting older, and sort of in a con.. I used to
• 48:15
  fence.. my fencing master would always talk about, like, economy
• 48:21
  of movement, like, you don't have to do all of these big
• 48:26
  things and just do one, like it's it's the learning that you
• 48:31
  don't have to do all the stuff you can do, you can have economy
• 48:37
  of retouching or process
• 48:39
  Craig Fleming: that's true,
• 48:40
  Casey Fatchett: and that's where, and learning that what
• 48:43
  the right steps are, because I mean, you, of course, do you
• 48:47
  could, of course, do very little, and it sucks, but
• 48:51
  knowing
• 48:52
  Craig Fleming: I've done that plenty of times
• 48:53
  Casey Fatchett: knowing the very little to do, that makes it the
• 48:56
  way you want it to be, in the way, like that makes it live is
• 49:03
  a whole other thing. I kind of want to get into a little bit,
• 49:06
  talk about Lee. I've got a couple of projects that you're
• 49:09
  working on. You had already mentioned circus, so I'm gonna,
• 49:12
  I'm gonna bring that up first.
• 49:14
  Craig Fleming: Yeah,
• 49:16
  Casey Fatchett: what attracted you to the world of the circus?
• 49:19
  Craig Fleming: It's quite an odd one, really. I was out in
• 49:22
  Sheffield. I was bored one day, and I thought I'll go out and do
• 49:26
  some street portraits, but set up street portraits. I'll find
• 49:30
  people that I like and find a background that I like. And
• 49:34
  there's a university in Sheffield, and just near the
• 49:37
  exit, where they all crossed the road, there was a building.
• 49:41
  There was an old building that there was, they were sort of
• 49:45
  working on, and I don't know, it's like where you are, but in
• 49:49
  the UK, whenever they're working on something, they sort of board
• 49:53
  it off with panels, and this was this particular building was..
• 49:57
  Jesus, I'm going so around there, so. A thing roundabout
• 50:01
  here, but it was the Henderson's relish business, and now
• 50:05
  Henderson's relish branding was orange, so when they put all the
• 50:09
  boarding up around it, they painted it orange, and orange is
• 50:13
  a brilliant, if you shoot black and white, orange is a brilliant
• 50:17
  background, because it, I always say to people, if you're going
• 50:21
  to shoot black and white in a studio, don't buy the Storm Gray
• 50:25
  color armor, buy the is it pumpkin, might be pumpkin, but
• 50:29
  just this, the basic orange one, because when you shoot that in
• 50:33
  black and white, it comes out with such depth, the Storm Gray
• 50:37
  doesn't have it, even in black and white, it just looks quite
• 50:41
  muddy and horrible, so this storm gray is just like the
• 50:44
  perfect thing. So I was out, I was out, like we've got my
• 50:48
  tripod, I've got the RZ, loads of film, and there were people
• 50:52
  walking past me, and they were, you know, poor people, they were
• 50:56
  poor from uni, they were from everywhere all over the world at
• 51:00
  Sheffield Uni, and absolutely everybody rejected me, but in
• 51:04
  the corner of this orange wall that I was supposed to be
• 51:08
  shooting against, they put a bill poster up for the circus,
• 51:12
  Circus Cortex, and I realized it was in Sheffield there, and then
• 51:16
  so I went on Instagram straight away, followed this circus,
• 51:20
  messaged him, any chance I can pop up today and do some
• 51:23
  portraits, and she messaged me back within two minutes, and she
• 51:27
  said, yeah, yeah, come on, I got all the care, I've got the GFX,
• 51:32
  got the RZ Ed, and so from that I just went to this circus,
• 51:35
  which was on this sports recreational ground, and it's
• 51:39
  only a small circus, you know, in the big tops, not massive,
• 51:43
  massive, but it was a few trucks around it, but the people were
• 51:47
  all Ukrainian and Russian. This is just when the war had started
• 51:51
  as well, so there was that dynamic going on, but Cassenya,
• 51:55
  that was who's the owner's daughter, she speaks fluent
• 51:58
  Ukrainian, Russian, and English, so she was a great, she's also a
• 52:03
  high wire act, so she was a great sort of in, and she was
• 52:06
  the one I was dealing with, so she was translator, she was
• 52:10
  everything, and so it was overcast, so it was perfect for
• 52:14
  black and white film, and then the people were just like they
• 52:18
  were just really odd, in a cool way, not in a, not in a bad way,
• 52:22
  and in a way that the sort of language barrier meant I had to
• 52:26
  simplify it, so I couldn't rely on, like, if I was shooting you,
• 52:30
  we could have a little bit of banter before we started, we
• 52:34
  could, you know, have a cup of tea and a chat, and I could find
• 52:38
  out a lot more about you, but when it's someone, even with a
• 52:42
  translator, all that's out the window, so you're in front of
• 52:46
  him, and then you've just got to direct him. So I learned pretty
• 52:50
  quickly on that day that even just keeping it really simple,
• 52:54
  small hand gestures, so you know, I mean, they're all
• 52:58
  performers as well, so that they kind of get that performative,
• 53:02
  aren't they? They're good with the body, so you know, I could
• 53:06
  just smile or chin down, that kind of thing. And before I knew
• 53:10
  it, they were just, even if Casseny wasn't there, they were
• 53:14
  just doing whatever I asked, they'd come and grab me, kind of
• 53:18
  a picture, and then they'd pick the dog up, kind of home with my
• 53:22
  dog. So yeah, it was cool, and then I've just visited them
• 53:25
  every year for the last four years.
• 53:28
  Casey Fatchett: It's the same group, yeah,
• 53:30
  Craig Fleming: the same group. I mean, the performers have
• 53:34
  changed ever so slightly, so every single time I go, there's
• 53:36
  someone that's left and there's someone that's new, but and it's
• 53:41
  such a wide range, and I've been photographing everyone as well,
• 53:44
  not just the performers, even the, you know, the electricians
• 53:48
  and the people that sell the popcorn and all that. So, it's
• 53:51
  been, it's been really nice, and projects I kind of shied away
• 53:56
  from projects because I had no ideas. I was just bereft of
• 54:00
  ideas. I wanted to do something deep and meaningful, and when
• 54:03
  you're trying to think of things like that, nothing comes to you.
• 54:07
  But then, as soon as I'd shot this circus, I realized that
• 54:11
  that was a that had legs as a, as a project, because it's very
• 54:17
  visual, it's unfamiliar to most people, you know, behind the
• 54:21
  tent, inside the tent, backstage, the caravans that
• 54:25
  they live in, trailers, as you call them, it's all alien to
• 54:31
  like normal working living people, but it was just such a
• 54:36
  visually rich project, and again, if they were in their
• 54:41
  circus attire again, it had that timeless look, but even, even
• 54:47
  when they were just like round, there was there's a guy that
• 54:50
  I've shot in a few times now, he plays the accordion, and in
• 54:53
  between performances, he just sort of like in his joggers and
• 54:57
  a white vest, and he. End, it could be any, it could be
• 55:01
  anywhere, it could be any time. So I just.. that's what I love
• 55:05
  about it. So it kind of hooked me, and it was a slow burner,
• 55:11
  because I didn't really know what to do with it. And then
• 55:14
  it's got to this stage, I've shot them for four years, and
• 55:16
  now I'm thinking, well, maybe I need to find just more circuses,
• 55:19
  and maybe travel further afield, and because it only takes me an
• 55:23
  hour, once I'm on site, you know, I don't, there's not a lot
• 55:26
  goes into it. Someone will come out of it, because then you'll
• 55:28
  knock on the door, someone will come out of the trail, and I'm
• 55:31
  just like, yeah, just stand here or just stand there. Two shots
• 55:34
  on the RZ at best.
• 55:36
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, so curious, My curiousity, you're
• 55:39
  asking, is he, you've turned this into a long-term project,
• 55:43
  but what do you, what do you think the goal is? Is it to be
• 55:47
  like, want to do, like, a book, an exhibition?
• 55:51
  Craig Fleming: Yeah, I'd like to do a book on an exhibition, but
• 55:53
  I think for me it's never.. I always think of legacy, and some
• 55:58
  people say it's a bit morose to talk about such things, but I
• 56:02
  always think it's for me. I want one of my ambitions was to get
• 56:07
  something in the National Portrait Gallery in London, so
• 56:10
  that in 100 years time, when some kid that's interested in
• 56:14
  whatever the medium is, then looks at it and goes, "Ah,
• 56:18
  that's cool, who shot that? And then the fact, then they look
• 56:21
  for my name and see the work and stuff, and I just think that's
• 56:24
  such a, that's a legacy I want to leave. I want people to sort
• 56:28
  of like keep looking at it in a, you know, 50 years time, 100
• 56:32
  years time. It's not, it's not in the now. None of my goals are
• 56:37
  just happy to bumble along finding interesting people, and
• 56:42
  all my projects are the same that way. I don't force any of
• 56:45
  them. I've got three currently running, one which should have
• 56:49
  finished, but hasn't, because it's so visually rich and fun
• 56:52
  that I keep doing it.
• 56:54
  Casey Fatchett: You don't want to put it down.
• 56:56
  Craig Fleming: Yeah, I don't want to put it down. And I
• 56:58
  announced last November that was done, and the zine was on its
• 57:01
  way, and then the work does not be much working, to be honest,
• 57:06
  over the last 12 months, certainly not enough to fund a
• 57:09
  zine at the minute, but someone like people just keep saying to
• 57:14
  me, can I come and shoot apples with you, and I'm like, well,
• 57:17
  it's finished, but yeah, you can come, so then they come and
• 57:19
  shoot it, and we get amazing pictures again, and I think,
• 57:22
  right, so that's another edit of the layout of the zine, which
• 57:27
  project is this? Because I know you have another one that's
• 57:30
  apples, so there's apples, which has been running for a year,
• 57:34
  apples ran into quiet men, that became an offshoot of that was
• 57:38
  quiet men, and that was because of the guy with the with the
• 57:44
  jumper on that's holding the apples inside his jumper and
• 57:47
  he's smoking, so he's a friend of a friend, we were shooting
• 57:52
  for his brand knitwear, and I'd spoke before about doing a
• 57:59
  project on middle-aged working men, the quiet men that just go
• 58:03
  through life, they're not on Instagram, they're not on
• 58:05
  Facebook, they get up every day, they go to work in a manual job,
• 58:09
  they come home, have the dinner, wash the pots, take the dog a
• 58:13
  walk, they don't do anything for likes, it's just get up and go
• 58:16
  to work, that my dad's generation type of thing, and I
• 58:21
  kind of wanted to, because, like, Sheffield is a very
• 58:24
  working-class industrial town, so there's loads of these people
• 58:29
  around, so when we shot Jordan for apples, me and Tom, my
• 58:34
  friend, was looking at him, I said, "That's just a good
• 58:36
  picture, that it's such a strong image, and he was, Tom was like,
• 58:40
  "Yeah, why is it? He said, "It's just Jordan with these big daft
• 58:43
  hands, and as soon as he said big daft hands, I went, that's
• 58:46
  it, that's the next project.
• 58:47
  Casey Fatchett: Working men's hands,
• 58:49
  Craig Fleming: yeah. So I started on it. That was still
• 58:54
  might end up as being called big daft hands, but it's whether
• 58:56
  anyone gets offended, which I don't think they will, because
• 58:58
  it's Sheffield, and no one cares. But yes. so that's how
• 59:03
  the quiet men thing started, and then that I could find those
• 59:08
  people anywhere, just walking around the streets where my
• 59:11
  studio was in Sheffield, it was very industrial, it was a
• 59:15
  brewery quarter and steel works, and so a lot of those things
• 59:20
  when I left school in 85 I worked with my dad for Stones
• 59:24
  Brewery. We just used to go and fix beer pumps in pubs, and so
• 59:31
  we'd be at the brewery every day, and my studio was about 10
• 59:34
  yards away from the actual stores where me and my dad used
• 59:36
  to go, and a lot of that area it's been gentrified a little
• 59:40
  bit, but largely it hasn't. I still see the same fish and chip
• 59:46
  shop still there that was there 40 years ago. The cafe sandwich
• 59:51
  shop is where me and my dad used to go to. That's still there.
• 59:55
  Nothing's changed. Do you know what I mean? It's been
• 59:58
  centrified. It's bizarre. Because a latte might cost you
• 1:00:04
  six pounds, but there's still that working class, like there's
• 1:00:09
  still prostitutes walking around. When I moved into the
• 1:00:12
  studio, I made a joke to someone, an actor, and it
• 1:00:15
  probably inappropriate. I don't think, I don't think she saw the
• 1:00:18
  funny side, and she was asking me about the air. I said, yeah,
• 1:00:21
  it's largely industrial. It's where I started my working
• 1:00:23
  career, but now you can get a latte for six pounds, and you
• 1:00:28
  can get a blow job for six pounds. So that was that's how
• 1:00:32
  it's gone. Do you know what I mean? It's still that you still
• 1:00:35
  see the girls on the street when you, if you leave the studio at
• 1:00:38
  sort of like after 7pm so it's such a.. it means it's a rich
• 1:00:45
  area, you get a bit of everything, so on the weekend
• 1:00:48
  you get all your hipsters down, there's music festivals, food
• 1:00:50
  festivals, but in the week it just reverts back to like this
• 1:00:53
  industrial 1970s kind of thing, and as you know, I'm obsessed
• 1:00:57
  with the past, so
• 1:00:59
  Casey Fatchett: well, and that's sort of like those jobs when
• 1:01:01
  you're looking at people who do sort of manual labor, those
• 1:01:04
  jobs,
• 1:01:05
  Craig Fleming: yeah,
• 1:01:06
  Casey Fatchett: really haven't a lot of those people who work
• 1:01:08
  those jobs, it hasn't changed, they're like what they do,
• 1:01:11
  Craig Fleming: yeah,
• 1:01:11
  Casey Fatchett: hasn't, if it hasn't been modernized, it's not
• 1:01:16
  going to get modernized, there's exactly,
• 1:01:18
  Craig Fleming: yeah,
• 1:01:19
  Casey Fatchett: there's the
• 1:01:19
  Craig Fleming: The small steel works just still there, so
• 1:01:22
  they'll have the big shutters open, so when you walk past at
• 1:01:26
  lunchtime, because it obviously they're quite hot in these steel
• 1:01:30
  places, but you can still see them working exactly as they did
• 1:01:33
  50 years ago, 60 years ago, more during the war. So it's, I
• 1:01:37
  think, sometimes you can be too close to home, so you can look
• 1:01:41
  at things and go, God, this is a shithole. Do you know what I
• 1:01:44
  mean? But actually, when you, when you get down to the bones
• 1:01:48
  of it, it's just so rich, creatively and visually, that
• 1:01:52
  it's amazing that it's still here.
• 1:01:54
  Casey Fatchett: There's a.. it's a glimpse into the past, but
• 1:01:57
  it's also just like what you're describing is kind of a rich
• 1:02:02
  variety, like it's.. I mean, I live in New Jersey now. I could
• 1:02:10
  just cross the river from New York City. Lived in New York for
• 1:02:15
  20 years, and it's. it's it's hard to find those neighborhoods
• 1:02:26
  anymore in New York City. You really have to go, because
• 1:02:29
  they've gentrified so much, and so much, and so much. The
• 1:02:33
  neighborhood that I lived in for that entire period of time, when
• 1:02:36
  I first moved there, it's kind of like, that's kind of a rough
• 1:02:40
  neighborhood, and then it kind of became like, oh, this is it
• 1:02:46
  being more gentrified, there, there, there's a lot of like
• 1:02:50
  actors and artists and other people moving into because it's
• 1:02:53
  inexpensive, so then like restaurants, more and more
• 1:02:59
  things start popping up in the neighborhood, and I've been
• 1:03:03
  through there a couple of times in the last this year, and just
• 1:03:07
  looking around, going like I don't recognize this place.
• 1:03:11
  There's now where there used to be a small grocery store,
• 1:03:14
  there's a six floor luxury condo building.
• 1:03:20
  Craig Fleming: Yeah,
• 1:03:20
  Casey Fatchett: and you know, like, what happened, like, the
• 1:03:24
  character of New York, I worry about, feel like the character,
• 1:03:30
  and it sounds like what you're describing is the character is
• 1:03:35
  there's very much still a lot of character, yeah
• 1:03:40
  Craig Fleming: The rich kids ruin everything, that's one of
• 1:03:42
  my sayings. Rich kids ruin everything, but Manchester has
• 1:03:46
  gone that way as well. Like, Manchester is a big money kind
• 1:03:50
  of place, but for some reason, and everybody in Sheffield
• 1:03:53
  complains about it, like, why doesn't it? Why do we always get
• 1:03:57
  overlooked? And I'm just like, no, it's good that we get
• 1:04:00
  overlooked, because otherwise you just become this homogenized
• 1:04:04
  high street, same as any other town. It was recently in
• 1:04:08
  Amsterdam, and we were walking around the city, and it was just
• 1:04:12
  amazed at how we could have been in any city in England, same
• 1:04:15
  brands, massive big brands everywhere, nothing, nothing
• 1:04:19
  particularly new about it, other than the odd canal, and we've
• 1:04:23
  got canals, so you know it's just, just bizarre, isn't it?
• 1:04:26
  That anywhere in the Western world you've got to. I found it
• 1:04:30
  when I went to New York as well. I went with the family and my
• 1:04:34
  brother's wife, she were walking, was it Fifth Avenue,
• 1:04:37
  where all the shops are that way? Yes, and she was like, "Oh
• 1:04:41
  my god, they've got a, they've got a Zara, they've got a H M.
• 1:04:45
  I'm like, "Yeah, you can, you can go in that at home.
• 1:04:48
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, sort of, the, yeah, I, and I talked about
• 1:04:53
  this with a photographer recently who was doing a book on
• 1:04:57
  Seoul, South Korea, and it's happening. There, too, he's like
• 1:05:02
  the, we talked about food, is always very important to me, and
• 1:05:06
  having like the local food culture, like sure, new
• 1:05:11
  influences, things come in, whatever, but it's the he was
• 1:05:15
  talking about the sort of like the fall of like mom and pop
• 1:05:21
  little restaurants, things like that, like that, that used to
• 1:05:25
  make up, you know, this was used. Most of the restaurants
• 1:05:29
  used to be these, you know, little stores, little like
• 1:05:32
  little fronts where people would go in. He's talking about, like,
• 1:05:35
  yeah, you'd be walking down the street and there'd be like a
• 1:05:37
  basement restaurant, you just like go down, and if you trust
• 1:05:41
  that you're gonna, the food's any good, you'll go and have one
• 1:05:44
  of the best meals of your life, you know, just in like one of
• 1:05:46
  these little, like tiny little spaces, but that stuff is
• 1:05:52
  disappearing because it's like
• 1:05:55
  Craig Fleming: globalization, isn't it?
• 1:05:57
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, homogenized,
• 1:05:59
  Craig Fleming: yeah, everything's homogenized, and
• 1:06:01
  it's a bit the thing isn't when it's gone, that's when you miss
• 1:06:05
  it, because one of the other projects I was thinking about
• 1:06:07
  was if anything goes wrong with my car, I never take it to one
• 1:06:11
  of the big garages, I always take it to sort of like a
• 1:06:14
  backstreet guy, you know, someone I can have a laugh with,
• 1:06:18
  someone that's covered in oil stuff everywhere gives you,
• 1:06:24
  gives you an invoice, and it's covered in oil. The steering
• 1:06:26
  wheel is covered in oil when you get it back. And I just thought
• 1:06:30
  they're not going to be here in 20 years' time, but they will be
• 1:06:32
  not. That's a dying job, dying occupation, because cars, what
• 1:06:38
  they're going to be, electrics, going to be battery and battery
• 1:06:41
  out,
• 1:06:41
  Casey Fatchett: they've made it more difficult discussion with
• 1:06:44
  the family mechanic, like my parents. I grew up in the
• 1:06:51
  Midwest, and we, my dad was friends with mechanics, they in
• 1:06:59
  the, we take all of our vehicles to them, whatever, and talking
• 1:07:03
  to his family about stuff, and they would say they've, they're
• 1:07:07
  making it so difficult now to change the battery in your car.
• 1:07:12
  Craig Fleming: Yeah,
• 1:07:13
  Casey Fatchett: you used to be able to, like, just go in, like,
• 1:07:15
  now they're making it, you have to remove all this stuff just to
• 1:07:18
  get to the battery, and it's proprietary, you have to be like
• 1:07:21
  trained on this, you know, make of car to like be able to get
• 1:07:26
  efficiently get to this stuff, because they want to take it out
• 1:07:29
  of that mechanics hands, they want to take it out of your
• 1:07:32
  hands, they don't want you doing it at home, those sorts of
• 1:07:36
  things that you know, the planned obsolescence of things,
• 1:07:42
  all that stuff, and I agree with you, like, and I think that what
• 1:07:45
  you're doing there, like, there's bits of kind of bring
• 1:07:49
  this back to the point of photography, documenting those,
• 1:07:55
  those jobs and those people, and that this is because what are we
• 1:08:00
  going to have to like? I look back at our youth, the time of
• 1:08:05
  our youth, we're fairly close in age. You're talking about like
• 1:08:10
  people don't know, like you were, you would be let out
• 1:08:12
  during the summer, you know, like leave, like my mom, we had,
• 1:08:16
  we had a, if you came back in the house, you're expected to do
• 1:08:19
  work, you're expected to do chores, or whatever. If you came
• 1:08:22
  back, if you entered the house, I've got a list of jobs for you
• 1:08:24
  to do. But it's like you left, and yeah, it's usually like
• 1:08:29
  sundown, closest on who you're talking back. Or my mother, my
• 1:08:34
  parents both grew up on farms. I think this is the bell from my
• 1:08:38
  dad's family farm. It was like the dinner bell, literally the
• 1:08:41
  dinner belt on this giant six by six post that was about eight
• 1:08:45
  feet high at a chain, and you hear that thing for miles
• 1:08:50
  because we lived out in the country, but you didn't know if
• 1:08:52
  you heard that bell you had to get home, and I talked to even
• 1:08:58
  my niece and nephews about stuff like that, and they're kind of
• 1:09:00
  like, what,
• 1:09:03
  Craig Fleming: yeah,
• 1:09:04
  Casey Fatchett: I'm like, you knew you met these people, you,
• 1:09:06
  you knew them before they passed away, like, you knew, yeah, they
• 1:09:10
  would just kick you out and say, like, leave, and then we don't
• 1:09:16
  want to deal with you for, you know, the rest of the day,
• 1:09:18
  because you're just going to be underfoot, and yeah,
• 1:09:21
  Craig Fleming: exactly, it's soon as Hong Kong Fui was
• 1:09:24
  finished, I was out. That was it done. Number one super dog, full
• 1:09:28
  day. Yeah, still love that dog. So, but yeah, I mean, that's the
• 1:09:35
  kind of subjects that I think people need to. I mean, for me,
• 1:09:39
  it's what revitalized my photography, because it's easy
• 1:09:43
  as a, as a photographer or artist, or whatever you want to
• 1:09:46
  call yourself, as a creative, to lose your mojo every so often,
• 1:09:49
  you just lose it, don't you? Just want to, it's about every
• 1:09:52
  three years for me, I've noticed cycles, every seven years I
• 1:09:57
  have, I look back through my hard drives, and I have. Call it
• 1:10:00
  a banging year, like every seven years it is. I look at my work
• 1:10:03
  from that year, and it's almost like I've realized I've got to
• 1:10:08
  take a step up, I've got to make that leap, or I've got to change
• 1:10:11
  the way I do things, whether that's through using certain
• 1:10:16
  cameras or whatever, but I have noticed that that's a cycle
• 1:10:20
  within my entire body of work, but it has just.. it just keeps
• 1:10:25
  changing every seven years. It's always seven. The year previous
• 1:10:29
  to the seventh is always a.. I call it a dog year. It's like
• 1:10:33
  kind of some absolute shit that year, but then it's almost like
• 1:10:37
  it forces you to push on, and you might have three months
• 1:10:42
  where you don't put your camera up for your personal work, but
• 1:10:46
  then when you do, I just know it's going to be good. So
• 1:10:49
  Casey Fatchett: I have a for me that that is like every five
• 1:10:52
  years, where I just.. I think everybody has different cycles,
• 1:10:56
  but we all go through it, like if you've been around long
• 1:10:59
  enough, you sort of.. but my five every five years, do I
• 1:11:01
  still enjoy doing this? Do I still.. what do I.. or am I just
• 1:11:07
  going through the motions? That's the question. It's like
• 1:11:10
  it's not that I do, I like it, I know I like it, but it's like,
• 1:11:14
  am I being active and intentional in my. what I'm
• 1:11:21
  making,
• 1:11:23
  Craig Fleming: that's where projects come in. Yeah, so, so
• 1:11:26
  on the workshops, if people ask about, they're always asking
• 1:11:29
  about kit and lighting, and I'm like, it's not really about
• 1:11:33
  that, but if you've just find yourself a project, and it can
• 1:11:36
  be something, so it doesn't have to be that tie to subject, it
• 1:11:41
  could be quite a broad subject. It could be just the color red,
• 1:11:45
  or just go out and find things that are red. I know it's a bit
• 1:11:50
  college kind of photography, but just having that reason didn't
• 1:11:56
  Ralph Gibson talk about a point of departure, a reason to go out
• 1:12:03
  with your camera, I think. Think that's what he meant, and I just
• 1:12:07
  think a project just gives you that thing, and there are some
• 1:12:12
  projects that fall by the wayside. I did one called
• 1:12:15
  Grassroots on Football, because Sheffield is kind of the
• 1:12:19
  birthplace of football, and it, I started it, and it kind of
• 1:12:24
  just lost its way a little bit, and I just, it fell by the
• 1:12:27
  wayside. I might pick it up in a few years, but it just didn't.
• 1:12:31
  Once you find a project, you think you know quite quickly if
• 1:12:36
  it's got legs, but, but that's the reason to go out. Now I've
• 1:12:39
  got three on the go, so,
• 1:12:44
  Casey Fatchett: so, why are you in the, why are you in the
• 1:12:45
  studio? Well, he did be going out.
• 1:12:48
  Craig Fleming: Well, it's, it's about, it's not far off, 90
• 1:12:51
  degrees outside this week. It's been absolutely horrific, so
• 1:12:55
  Casey Fatchett: you're getting the weather we had, not really,
• 1:12:58
  but like, you have a different weather pattern than we did, but
• 1:12:59
  we've been having very up and down weather, but I think a way
• 1:13:07
  to sort of like to bring all this to to a point coming off of
• 1:13:14
  what you were just talking about, like you know people
• 1:13:16
  saying like they ask about the kit, they ask about all the
• 1:13:19
  other stuff. What do you think is required to make a good
• 1:13:27
  portrait that doesn't have anything to do with technical
• 1:13:35
  stuff, equipment, or whatever, like what is it that
• 1:13:38
  Craig Fleming: it's connection 95% connection, I think, and
• 1:13:45
  also willingness to play around as well, to play with it. It's
• 1:13:50
  easy with portraiture, to especially if you shoot actors
• 1:13:53
  or you shoot headshots to do the spog standard thing, and I
• 1:13:58
  always like to have on a commission shoe, I always have a
• 1:14:01
  certain idea of what I'm going to do, and I get that done
• 1:14:05
  really quick. So, it might be two or three different looks,
• 1:14:08
  might be just one soft box, or I might just use two bareheads,
• 1:14:14
  something like that, something a bit different. I might do some
• 1:14:16
  direct flash for that low five look, if that's if I'm shooting
• 1:14:20
  for a magazine, it's just that's just to give them three
• 1:14:22
  different sort of looks, bit of variety, we've got plenty to
• 1:14:26
  play with, plenty to work with, layout, but ultimately in
• 1:14:31
  personal work I just think it's all down to connection. So I've
• 1:14:35
  noticed with the Apples project, a lot of the people that I'm
• 1:14:38
  shooting, or even even quiet men, people I've never met
• 1:14:42
  before, so they turn up at the studio or meet them at the
• 1:14:46
  station, and we just go for a drive, and then shoot them. It's
• 1:14:50
  a bizarre, you know, bizarre thing, really. When you think
• 1:14:53
  about it, someone you've never met before, and then all of a
• 1:14:56
  sudden they're in your car, but that's like in a studio when
• 1:14:59
  they're in the car. That's where in the studio they'd be in
• 1:15:01
  makeup, and if they're in makeup, I'll go and chat to
• 1:15:03
  them, introduce myself, and just have a chat. I don't, I don't
• 1:15:07
  like them, the makeup artists hogging them, or the stylists,
• 1:15:11
  as I always think it's, it's not about you, it's about me and the
• 1:15:14
  subject, ultimately, because when, when we're getting the
• 1:15:17
  images, it is me and them, so, so by the time they come on to
• 1:15:19
  set, I need to have a good idea who they are and what they're
• 1:15:23
  about, and they need to trust me, and kind of thing. So that
• 1:15:26
  connection, that's important, that's more important than
• 1:15:30
  anything. And, like I said earlier, when we started, some
• 1:15:35
  actors, especially, make a point, and politicians, I've
• 1:15:38
  noticed, make a point of deliberately not giving you that
• 1:15:41
  connection, you can tell them you can tell the blocking it,
• 1:15:44
  almost. They just don't want to play the game, but that's where,
• 1:15:49
  with me, I'll just turn it on its head and be sort of like I
• 1:15:54
  said, there's no, I don't kiss anyone's backside, you know?
• 1:15:59
  I'll just, I'll just talk about anything, football, dogs,
• 1:16:03
  Netflix. If I know they've been in a film that's been an
• 1:16:06
  absolute dog, I'll talk about that.
• 1:16:08
  Casey Fatchett: I always try to find the most random thing that
• 1:16:12
  someone's ever been in and mention it, because I was like,
• 1:16:15
  oh, I loved you in this one episode of Subshow Film, yeah,
• 1:16:21
  20 years, some episode of some show that they were in 20 years.
• 1:16:25
  I met Salman Rushdie at an event, he was the keynote
• 1:16:29
  speaker, and I had to do portraits of him with, like, the
• 1:16:34
  VIPS, and everybody's very much like, oh, I love, you know,
• 1:16:38
  books, whatever, just like talking to him, and I had said,
• 1:16:42
  "Oh, mr. Roshni, I loved you in Seinfeld, and he just cracked
• 1:16:46
  up. It was just like it took him out of the everybody like
• 1:16:52
  shaking his hand, and just like, "Oh, like, and the VIPS are
• 1:16:56
  never like.. I don't know, there's. there's always
• 1:17:00
  something performative about when they're meeting the keynote
• 1:17:05
  speaker, and they're talking to them, and there's a bit of a..
• 1:17:09
  it's all performance, it's not like a real..
• 1:17:12
  Craig Fleming: do you ever find that the bigger the celebrity,
• 1:17:15
  the easier to work with, but the people around them are
• 1:17:19
  problematic? Yes,
• 1:17:20
  Casey Fatchett: Yes, yeah, that generally tends to be, again, I
• 1:17:24
  think maybe this is a similarity between how we approach things.
• 1:17:28
  It's because treating people like a real human, and I think
• 1:17:32
  that, and this isn't just through work, I mean, this is
• 1:17:36
  just like having run into people living in New York, there's like
• 1:17:41
  famous people everywhere, and you just run into them, and it's
• 1:17:45
  like the number one rule is treat them like a normal human
• 1:17:49
  being, and don't act like, oh my god, there's, you know, there's
• 1:17:54
  Christopher Walken, like, yeah, there's Christopher Walken, and
• 1:17:58
  he's just as odd as you'd expect him to be, you know,
• 1:18:02
  Craig Fleming: yeah,
• 1:18:02
  Casey Fatchett: he happens to be one of those people who comes
• 1:18:04
  across, he's exactly what you would think you would be, but
• 1:18:07
  like you don't go up and be like, oh my god, you just like
• 1:18:11
  let them live their life, let them be themselves, and it's
• 1:18:14
  sort of a, I think, that when you, you're then, I guess we
• 1:18:17
  talked about, you were saying like it's 90% that relationship
• 1:18:22
  you have with them is letting them know that they can be a
• 1:18:26
  real person, and let that
• 1:18:29
  Craig Fleming: finding that common ground as well. I've met
• 1:18:31
  beforehand, that's the only research I do. I don't tend to
• 1:18:34
  research people, but I'll do, I might do a little bit, but it's
• 1:18:38
  always basic stuff, like what kind of, they're like dogs and
• 1:18:41
  stuff like that, nonsense. Because,
• 1:18:43
  Casey Fatchett: yes,
• 1:18:43
  Craig Fleming: because it starts from that, and then you know,
• 1:18:46
  what have you been watching on Netflix, or something stupid?
• 1:18:49
  Casey Fatchett: This is not that you're not in,
• 1:18:53
  Craig Fleming: yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, sometimes I just go
• 1:18:56
  completely dumb and just go, what's favorite comma? So, just,
• 1:19:00
  just to break the ice, yeah,
• 1:19:03
  Casey Fatchett: they say no yellow,
• 1:19:06
  Craig Fleming: yeah, but I mean, it's that's just a, that is the
• 1:19:11
  biggest skill, I think, is a portrait photographer, you gotta
• 1:19:15
  know your kit inside out on them big jobs, but I'm just as
• 1:19:20
  happily shoot, you know, the local mechanic, as I would an
• 1:19:23
  A-lister. In fact, I'd rather shoot the mechanic, because I
• 1:19:25
  don't have to drive to London and deal with any publicists and
• 1:19:29
  stuff like that. So, yeah, but that's where the, that's where
• 1:19:33
  the work is, that's where the money is, isn't it? People,
• 1:19:36
  that's where you get your work seen. I mean, one of the, one of
• 1:19:38
  the reasons I started shooting actors and stuff. It's just
• 1:19:41
  because I wanted the work to be seen. It's not because I had any
• 1:19:44
  particular love of celebrity, because I quite the opposite. I
• 1:19:47
  find I find it a very odd phenomenon of modern life. These
• 1:19:54
  celebrities that they've been in a few films, and then they get
• 1:19:56
  to speak out about politics and human rights, and my.
• 1:20:02
  Casey Fatchett: Sort of like we've given you a platform, and
• 1:20:06
  you now you're.. I don't know. There are times when I'm to get
• 1:20:13
  too political, but there are times when I feel like when
• 1:20:18
  you're raising, you're using your platform, and I try to do
• 1:20:22
  this here as well, because I know I've got a large amount of
• 1:20:27
  privilege, and I've got a platform here. It's like trying
• 1:20:31
  to amplify people who don't have as much of a voice when I can,
• 1:20:40
  like however I can, yeah, sort of thing, and that I find is a
• 1:20:43
  good thing. It's when people are trying to silence other people,
• 1:20:49
  a problem.
• 1:20:51
  Craig Fleming: I never touch on politics on shoes, never. I
• 1:20:55
  always think, stay away from that nonsense, it's too
• 1:20:58
  divisive, it couldn't, you could lose someone in an instant said
• 1:21:01
  the wrong thing, so
• 1:21:03
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, it's the
• 1:21:04
  Craig Fleming: dogs,
• 1:21:04
  Casey Fatchett: dogs, I mean dogs
• 1:21:06
  Craig Fleming: and aliens,
• 1:21:07
  Casey Fatchett: dogs and aliens. Okay, so have you seen the UFO?
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  Unknown: Hey, now for my favorite part of the show,
• 1:24:02
  what's that say? Useless information. This is always
• 1:24:07
  death.
• 1:24:09
  Casey Fatchett: All right, Craig, it's time for the useless
• 1:24:11
  information for this episode.
• 1:24:13
  Craig Fleming: Cool.
• 1:24:15
  Casey Fatchett: True or false, there were once 36 red cards
• 1:24:19
  given out in a single football match,
• 1:24:25
  Craig Fleming: false
• 1:24:27
  Casey Fatchett: true took place in Paraguay, an all-out brawl.
• 1:24:33
  The refs tossed every player,
• 1:24:39
  Craig Fleming: including the bench,
• 1:24:40
  Casey Fatchett: both starting lineups and substitutes.
• 1:24:43
  Craig Fleming: Yeah, I'm gonna say that's where that's what
• 1:24:45
  tripped me up. You think you want the night?
• 1:24:48
  Casey Fatchett: Nope, everybody, everybody's gone, because
• 1:24:51
  there's a bench clearing brawl that got everybody
• 1:24:58
  Unknown: football, man
• 1:25:00
  Casey Fatchett: It's called hooliganism, Craig. Thank you so
• 1:25:03
  much for being on the show. I really appreciate you taking the
• 1:25:07
  time. You've got some workshops coming up. I don't know if you
• 1:25:10
  want to tell people about those.
• 1:25:12
  Craig Fleming: Yep, I've got one in June the 20-first in London,
• 1:25:17
  planning one for Rotterdam again in July, and then the big one is
• 1:25:21
  Venice, which is September, that's the four day one, that's
• 1:25:25
  part of the Venezia Photo Festival, so yeah, there's
• 1:25:30
  always I always put the information on my website, but
• 1:25:33
  every time I post on Instagram, everyone, everyone's like, come
• 1:25:35
  to New York, come to Toronto, you know what I mean, yeah,
• 1:25:38
  could go anywhere, I think, and do one, but hopefully next year
• 1:25:42
  I'll be doing some kind of workshop, kind of tour. Yeah,
• 1:25:47
  we'll see, we'll see how it goes, see what happens,
• 1:25:49
  Casey Fatchett: and where they find weird. Let people know what
• 1:25:52
  your website is. It's
• 1:25:54
  Craig Fleming: just Craig fleming.net
• 1:25:56
  Casey Fatchett: and I will include that link in the episode
• 1:25:58
  notes, so that people don't have to type it in. You just go into
• 1:26:01
  the episode notes, click on it again. Craig, thank you so much.
• 1:26:08
  Thank you. It's
• 1:26:09
  Craig Fleming: been fun.
• 1:26:17
  Casey Fatchett: Okay, back and forth, and back and forth. Oh,
• 1:26:21
  welcome back. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Craig
• 1:26:24
  Fleming. Be sure to check out Craig's website, where you can
• 1:26:26
  find all of his upcoming workshops, and go follow him on
• 1:26:29
  social media. All of those links in the episode notes. And while
• 1:26:32
  you're following people on social media, be sure to follow
• 1:26:34
  us at The Nerdy Photographer, that's at The Nerdy Photo, at
• 1:26:39
  The Nerdy photo on Instagram, threads, TikTok, Blue Sky,
• 1:26:43
  Reddit. Don't miss out on all the shenanigans that happen
• 1:26:45
  between episodes. It's a lot easier than farming giant slabs
• 1:26:49
  of stone. Yeah, that's pretty profound. Gabbroj was just
• 1:26:59
  sharing a saying his people had. Let me see if I can translate it
• 1:27:02
  for you. You don't have to move a mountain, just give me the
• 1:27:06
  strength to climb. Wow, pretty deep. Until next time,
• 1:27:10
  everybody, stay safe and stay nerdy.
• 1:27:22
  Unknown: Who's that coming back to town? You better start.
• 1:27:24
  Listen, who's your heart been beating about? You better,
• 1:27:29
  you're better, you better, you better listen, you.