Welcome to the Moo Podcast, uncovering the art of conversation through the lens of photography and creativity, one frame at a time.

I'm your host, matt Jacob.

Thank you so much once again for joining me in this week's conversation.

My guest today is Ed Sykes, a British photographic artist whose work really pushes the boundaries of what a photograph can be, both materially and metaphorically.

With a background that spans many years in news photojournalism, conceptual landscape work and climate-focused process art, ed's images aren't just captured, they're constructed, eroded, burned, dissolved and reimagined.

His practice interrogates memory, decay and deep time, and he's created series where negatives are scorched to a thousand degrees to mimic climate catastrophe, others where human absence speaks louder than presence.

He's also documented queer resistance, ufo mythology and collapsing coastlines, all while experimenting with plant-based chemistry and slow analog processes.

In my chat with him, we explore how Ed's journey from war photography in Somalia to melting film in the dark room reflects a deep rethinking of what it means to bear witness.

We talk about photography as protest, as alchemy and as a form of remembering, where the material process actually becomes the message.

All right, so let's get into it.

Here is Ed Sykes.

Ed Sykes, welcome to the Mood Podcast.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Absolute pleasure.

Thanks for the invite, matt.

Yeah, I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while.

Um, like we're talking about off air.

I've been following your work for for a good amount of time.

I can't remember exactly when and how I found you, but it's almost the beauty of the art world and photography world and just kind of, you know, stumbling upon some incredible artists and then you know being lit up by by their work and being inspired.

So I put that out there without blowing blowing one's trumpet too much, um, but thank you, thank you for being that inspiration and in my kind of like following of your work.

There are a few, lots of kind of quotes that I'm going to touch upon as we talk.

But something that really stood out to me and again we touched upon this before we went live but it was the phrase feeling your way through the industry and kind of trying your hand at different areas of the photography industry.

So tell us kind of what that means on a on a personal level to you and experientially, how, how you kind of started in photography but how you felt your way through the industry to kind of get where you are now yeah, I think um, that's an interesting phrase feeling your way through the industry and to me that is part of that is an instinctive thing that you do.

So when you feel, as an artist or a photographer, that you're comfortable doing what you do, the way that you operate, the people you work with or the people who you photograph, you've got to be at ease with yourself and your surroundings.

You know that I think in photography there's, as in in daily life, in the wider world, there's a lot of conflicting things going on and and at times they kind of impinge on your professional world.

Um, so, for example, you know, I mean my the first thing that I really did professionally was working for a national newspaper in London called the Independent, which had a fantastic reputation for photography, allowing photographers the space to express themselves, maybe more than traditional newspaper photographers would and then use photographs in a newspaper in a gallery-type showcase, as opposed to just a visual representation of a celebrity or a politician next to a story, of a celebrity or a politician next to a story.

But in that example I would say you're still working within a media organization and essentially the news cycle of a country or the world and as much as you like to think that you're kind of, whether it's sort of recording the truth or finding something, um sort of essential to show people through your photography, there are always kind of like other interests impinging on that.

Whether it's some kind of a political situation, you're photographing that, although you, with your own eyes, what you see is your truth.

To a certain extent, that situation has been set up before you even got there for a particular kind of viewpoint or agenda or something like that.

So can you elaborate on that a little bit.

It's set up in terms of there's the journalist there, there's production there, there's the world's eyes on it.

Is that what you mean?

Yeah, or just that, whether it's kind of like a political party has a photo call for something and it seems to have quite a natural sort of way of showing that to the world.

It's, you know, it's been thought through beforehand before you.

They've even invited a photographer to be in that space.

So so they already have a narrative and they want you to basically photograph that narrative and also, you know, I mean, when I was working on a regular basis for a newspaper, you would find yourself repeating sort of the same situation again and again.

So maybe you know, every year you would find the same organization and you know it might be a charity or I don't know, a sports body or someone who you know that needs public funding, that finds a way to visually show themselves to the world and photographers get invited along.

You know, um to help.

Essentially, you're helping them share their story to the world and they're trying to, you know, be ahead of another organization in a similar field.

And you are, yeah, you know you are repeating that situation.

So you might find yourself doing it one year and then, oh, again, you know, on the diary, a newspaper, they'd say oh, ed, can you go and cover this story, um about yeah, I mean it could be anything from um, a species of animal, say, that's being reintroduced to the wild, but they might have done exactly the same thing the previous year and they're going to do exactly the same thing the year after.

So there's a kind of you start to understand how the media works and how stories sort of get introduced to the world.

Um, so I hope.

But yeah, in a broader kind of um way of responding to that sort of feeling your way through the industry, I would say that I have actually tried a number.

You know whether I've worked in sort of photojournalism or something more corporate or potentially in something like that fashion.

I think you know the main thread to me as a photographer and feeling your way is actually finding your voice and I think throughout my career I've been conscious or always trying to find my voice, whether it's in a slightly different arena of photography, um, and I think you know not everyone is the same.

Some people find their voice really early on in their career and just stick with that and that really works for them, um, but for me it's been more of a sort of continual, I was going to say professional development cpd.

Yeah, I, uh, I, I resonate with that so much and I'm glad you kind of it's a little bit cliched, isn't it Finding a voice, but it's true, and I think when I look at your work now, there's so much meaning to it, right, and that's kind of that is voice, isn't it?

You're creating things and art and metaphors and stories and narratives, all of which actually mean something to you.

And if they mean something to you, they likely mean something to other people and hopefully, certainly if they're politicized or they're topical, then hopefully they mean enough to other people to actually inspire change or something along those, those lines.

So I think that's really, really important.

But that's the beauty of it as well, of kind of seeing how everyone's path is so different.

I get people asking me all the time, like you know, I don't really know what.

I love photography but I don't really know whether to go down this route or this route or this route.

But you don't really know until you try it right.

And I think you're a perfect example of that.

Like you said, some people know immediately and just go for it, but it's almost like when you you get to the point, maybe you ed get to the point of finding, finally finding something that I actually really meant resonated with your inner alignment so much that your voice could come from it.

And then you really know, you really know, right.

So this is, this is what I was meant to do, but I'm kind of almost summarizing this and generalizing a lot.

It obviously wasn't that easy for you, so kind of rewind, rewind us a little bit as to how you got you know, how you started this process, because you know why.

Why journalistic photography, why photojournalism in in the first place.

Was it because you had some kind of inner desire to tell stories that mattered?

I've always had an interest in the wider world and you know whether that is, um, you know sort of social issue issues, politics, the environment.

I've always been very aware of sort of what's currently sort of going on around me and sort of I was going to say in those broader circles, whether it's sort of elsewhere in the country that I'm living in or in the in the wider world and um, I suppose that you know, growing up, I think, always has a fairly big influence on you.

There are elements of your, you know, teenage years perhaps, or you know, and the things that I look back on that um influence me to that position that you talk of, of working for a newspaper and you know sort of a journalistic sense.

Um, I mean, as a young person I was really into music.

You know music was the kind of touchstone of growing up, being a teenager, um, and in my time, sort of growing up late 70s, 80s in london, you know there was the, the punk movement and then the post-punk movement and then moving into other areas like, um, I mean there was, there was always a lot of soul, funk, reggae.

You know it's quite multiracial.

You know there were gigs at the time where you had punk bands playing next to reggae bands on the same bill and it was like that was just the way it happened.

So that opens you up to a lot of things going on.

There's a thing called the ska movement, which was very much a kind of mixed race black and white together but delivering a message.

There was always some kind of message that people were trying to get across with their music.

To get across with their music.

So there was that combination of I would describe as a creative art and some kind of message with perhaps a political undertone.

So lyrics were really important.

And then, you know, sort of around that time I was exposed to a lot of sort of of nature in the environment.

You know my parents would take us away a lot to the countryside and complete contrast to my city life.

So I kind of had growing up these two things going on, this really kind of getting away from everything to this quiet space and then heading back into the city and you know the excitement, the thrill of lots of things going on.

Um.

So yeah, when I kind of got to introduce, you know, when I went to college in in, uh, nottingham, I did a three-year degree course and you know, at that time there was things like there was the you know the coal strike.

The miners were on strike in that area of in Nottinghamshire, in Yorkshire, and there was this whole kind of dynamic between the sort of strikers and the strike breakers.

So it was really visceral and there would be, you know, support, um, you know gigs, um fundraising for striking miners, um, so that sort of thing was always around and inevitably that was going to be part of my makeup at some point sort of further along the way.

And I I went straight from college.

I had a break where I, you know, in college I was I'm not saying that I I enjoyed college but I found three years too long.

It was almost like I could have done two years and got out into the big, wide world.

Yeah, and I was always frustrated at college that there weren't enough actual working photographers coming in and talking to us about being a photographer how do you operate, how do you?

You know what's life like for a working photographer.

So it felt like a little bit of a bubble, I would say, at college.

So the other extreme was that I went to the States for a couple of years, ended up working on a cruise ship, as a photographer on a cruise ship, which was, like, I mean, not exactly what I dreamt of doing when I was a student, sort of studying all the great photographers of the world and the history of photography.

But everything that you do teaches you a lesson.

You acquire skills that you didn't know you had.

You acquire discipline.

I mean I think you know, at a young age, finding the right discipline and in how you approach your work and how you operate, um, within certain situations, is, you know, you're still developing as a person.

And having those people skills, um, I would say, is always invaluable.

You know you might say, oh well, I'm not doing photography, I'm I, I have a job where I'm, you know I, I earn money and then I do my photography alongside that, but you know, you're always kind of acquiring ways of, you know, dealing with situations, dealing with people, and in photography that's a really important sort of skill to acquire.

But no one teaches that right.

No one teaches really the business side of photography or the social side of photography or the networking side of photography or the marketing side of photography.

They teach a lot of technical stuff, a lot of maybe some creative stuff, but that, that kind of people skills, is so important if you're going to make photography a career or you know a full-time art form, isn't it?

yeah, I mean you know and circling back to your original question about journalism how I ended up there.

You know, working for a newspaper as well, put me then in all sorts of different situations, so, but I was with a, I had a camera with me, um, and it, you know, I, I would, I would be going from, like you know, dealing with government ministers and foreign dignitaries to, you know, photographing someone who was a single mother with a baby in a flat with damp, and you know, real, kind of all the way across the board I was, you know, really interesting people, from actors to film stars to politicians, but then again doing some, really, you know, raw, kind of almost documentary style photography, where you have to earn the trust of people style photography, where you have to earn the trust of people.

You know you don't just walk into a situation and say, hey, I'm a photographer, you know, and everyone just goes, yeah, do what you like.

You know.

That is, you know, if you do that, you're not going to be a very good photographer or get very good photographs or or whatever.

Um, so you know the good thing about being um interested in the world around you, that I've always felt that I have been is you know, I've always had time for anyone, whether they're you know, someone you should look up to or someone who supposedly is not an important person in the world, to other people.

You know, as far as I'm concerned, you know I've got, I've got time for every everyone, um, and in the same way that they're giving their time to you, you know that you don't take that for granted, although I mean, obviously you do get some people who will take I was going to say take the piss and you know, say you've got 20 seconds and you manage to get half a roll of film, or you know a handful of files, and and you say thank you very much for your time, mr Filmstar.

So where did this?

Well, actually, before I ask the next question, that you talked about discipline and and that really kind of pricked my ears up what can you give us a little bit more of an explanation around those kind of lessons in discipline that you learned at that early age where you are still developing, you know, early 20s, mid-20s, when it comes to photography specifically, what do you mean by discipline?

well, I mean very simply, you know, I went from being a kind of arty student to being thrown into a commercial world of cruise ship photography where my earnings were based on commission only.

So, you know, I I needed to do a good job to earn a living and and there were no ifs or buts about it, there was no kind of, you know, stepping back looking at my work and sort of scratching my head.

So you know, you knew if you were doing a good job by the sails at the end of the day or the end of the week on the cruise ship.

And you know a lot of the work that I did.

I was working on daily cruises.

So you would, each morning I'd be walking down the gangway to a terminal next to the cruise ship and there would be, let's say, 700 people waiting to come onto that cruise ship.

And it was my job to try and photograph as many of those people next to a sign saying welcome aboard the Scandinavian star as possible.

You know, I was probably, like you know, hungover.

It was, it was hot, it was humid, it was Florida, I was wearing some horrible uniform that made me sweat even more and I had to do my job.

So you know that was, I would say, being thrown in the deep end and, as much as you know, in the back of my mind, towards the end of it.

I resented it.

I resented it A I got discipline very quickly.

B I earned some money.

So, for example, I had some debts from being a student because I was paying for film and paper and also having a social life.

So I ended up leaving college with debts and you know I went and went working.

I went working and earning and you know turning that around, so I'd sort of gone from one extreme to the other and then the next step was somehow to find that balance, that sweet spot that I guess we all hope to find, that sweet spot that I guess we all hope to find, which is being paid and the work, really kind of, you know, satisfying that urge.

Yeah.

The dream.

So so, going to the independent where you had it sounds like a relatively good balance between structure and freedom, would that be?

Would that be fair to say?

um, in terms of the projects that you were tasked and assigned, yeah, I mean it was, um, you know you're working to deadlines, um, and you know a normal day would be that I would get a couple of assignments, maybe two or three assignments a day, um, and most of that um work would go into the next day's newspaper.

So, um, you know, there's a certain amount of pressure that goes with that, um, but there was a mixture of news, photography, portraits, features, and some of it was political, some of it was business people, some of it was people in the arts, and then just real-life stories about people and their experiences that might be linked to a particular topic.

Did you find yourself gravitating towards a specific style or a specific area of those assignments, in terms of whether they're portraits or the fine arts, or whatever it might be?

I mean, I think at college I'd always been interested in either doing, you know, or at the same time doing portraits and doing more you know, photojournalist type work and working at the newspaper.

It gave me both of those things really, because, you know, I would get to do portraits of interesting people and, um, also be doing sort of moving new situation work.

Quite, you know, there was being a at a young age and being a news photographer in london was quite a, a thrilling thing to do.

When you, you know a, you've got this sort of you're working against other newspapers, there's a kind of competitive spirit and then, you know, if you do a really good job, you'll see your photograph on the front page the next day.

You know, I mean it was um, yeah, I mean it was really great sort of grounding and exciting times.

But, um, you know, things don't always stay the same, um, and at some point you know, either you change or the the situation you're working in changes and you find yourself moving away from that.

So which one happened with you and where did this dissonance come from, in terms of what you believed in, what you were doing and what was actually?

You know the reality of it.

Yeah, I mean, I suppose at that age, in my early 20s, you know, I had a lot of energy, I was really ambitious, you know, I really wanted to um, prove myself, uh, get a name for myself, I suppose, and to a certain extent I was working for the independent, had a lot of kudos and I was doing front page news.

But you know, the next stage for me was well, I want to be seen in the wider world as a photographer and I thought photojournalism was the natural way to do that.

So in those days there were a lot of stories going on in Europe and beyond.

There were a lot of stories going on in Europe and beyond, and the natural thing was always to go and cover stories in another country that would get worldwide attention.

Or the Holy Grail was to get some of your pictures in the World Press photo exhibition being, you know, be in the book.

So a lot of my contemporaries were doing that type of work and it was, you know, through through that I, in um the early 90s, I went to um somalia for three weeks um during, well it was, there was a civil war going on there between warring factions and then there was, because of that there was then.

You know there was starvation and you know a lot of the population was suffering malnutrition and you know it was quite a desperate situation.

And I went there at the same time that the Americans intervened in the country.

So they arrived with their military might to deliver aid.

But the way that the military deliver aid is very different to way, to the way that charities deliver aid, um, but what it did mean essentially from a, you know, photographic point of view.

You know, I I managed to get a little bit of money to cover expenses.

I went with um another photojournalist called Paul Lowe, who had a really good reputation, a fantastic photographer.

So we kind of worked together, pooled our resources and managed to get an interpreter, a driver, and also you needed to have some bodyguards out there as well because it was such a dangerous situation.

So we traveled around like that.

But the situation was that, especially because the Americans were there, it became an international news story around the world and you had all these photographers almost converging in Mogadishu in Somalia when the Americans arrived.

And it just completely opened my eyes up to the way that the international news media works at that time but still do to a certain extent and I found it really difficult to really come to terms with the way it played out.

There were so many photographers and news crews there that you would turn up to a situation and you would be shoulder to shoulder with another photographer in the same situation.

I remember that year in the same situation and you know, I remember that year that, uh, in the world press photo book that went with the exhibition, there were two photographers who had work in there and I, paul Lowe, who I was with, was one of them and he had a photograph in color of, um, this uh, young child kind of looking through the hole in this gate of a feeding centre.

And in the same book there was another photographer I think it was Chris Steele Perkins who was shooting in black and white because in those days it was on film.

And there was a photograph in black and white of this situation and colour from a very slightly different angle, in the world press exhibition.

And I just sort of thought, well, I might as well have been outside the high court in london jostling with another photographer trying to photograph someone coming out of a court.

And here I am in Somalia, shoulder to shoulder with, you know, another photojournalist trying to get the same image and it just sort of, you know, my whole kind of ambition to be that type of photographer kind of, you know, shriveled away after that whole experience.

Um, you know, not to say that, you know, having, you know, the the eyes of the world need to be on on on difficult um situations that that go on, you know.

But especially at that time I mean being in Africa, you know, seeing a white press corps from the Western world descending on an African country felt a very difficult situation to witness.

There are very few kind of African photographers there, maybe one black photographer and a guy called Dan Eldon who operated out of Nairobi, who actually, sadly he was killed in a situation which I think was linked to Black Hawk Down the film.

But yeah, it was a kind of typical kind of the western world descends for a couple of weeks to photograph it and then hocks on a plane and goes home um the western world fund, yeah, the, the photographers and the journalists funded by multi-billion dollar media companies.

You know, um, who could probably really help solve a lot of those situations if?

so, yeah, I mean, after that I went back to london and, you know, obviously started considering what my next step was going to be, which was ding, ding, ding.

Well, essentially, you know, as I said before, that I was doing portraits and photojournalism.

It really, you know, portraits became sort of the bed um Sunday.

You know, supplements, the newspaper supplements, um, yeah, you know, it was kind of.

I managed to find another, another balance for a while, that sort of satisfied my, my creativity, but um, in that transition, was it were, were you?

was it more of an existential question that you were asking in terms of photography, like, is this even something I want to do?

Or was you still had that, that desire and that passion for photography?

you just didn't quite know where to aim it still yeah, I mean, definitely I still had the passion and the desire and maybe to a certain extent it's looking back.

It's another example of me trying to work through different things, try different things to sort of maybe find eventually where I want to be.

And you know, maybe some people, you know, do those things for six months or 12 months and quickly move on.

But maybe I sort of had a desire to try it and then prove that I was the best at it before I decided that actually, you know, the question always comes back to me is this what I want to be doing for the rest of my life?

Is this giving me enough, beyond that sort of bit of success, earning money and getting a bit of approval from my colleagues along the way, approval from my colleagues along the way?

So, yeah, I guess I've always questioned and challenged myself, which?

has sort of kept me moving, I suppose.

Yeah, but it depends on at that time I would imagine you were still very young when you were doing your portrait and fashion work for all of these editorial um organizations.

Was you know the intent behind that and you mentioned it like approval and you know the word success and to be revered as a photographer?

Was that kind of overriding or shadowing, should I say, the real kind of intent that you wanted to find with photography in terms of, okay, now, this is really where I want to be forever?

Like if I had to do this day in, day out forever, I'd be happy.

But was something else shadowing that?

Or did you believe that at the time Like, okay, now I'm in this, I want to do this work with these magazines forever?

Yeah, I think at the time I was very much in that headspace, you know, really quite sort of quite a narrow focus.

I would describe it as, um, I enjoyed doing it, I loved the challenge of it, I loved meeting interesting, interesting people and photographing them, seeing my work in magazines.

Yeah, I didn't really sort of see beyond that, but I still think stalking sort of that approach was a need to prove myself and I think you know you do.

You mature as a photographer but you also mature as a person as you age and those two things kind of side by side, you know, feed off each other, impact each other.

So, yeah, I would say I was at that stage, I was still in that bubble and, of course, the pressure to earn money it was luckily at that juncture doing editorial photography in London paid well enough for that to be your, your way of earning money and creating, um, and I guess more than anything, uh, you know unfortunate that I was able to do that.

It did.

You know that did start to change, I think, which is another example of you know not just what's going on inside yourself but external forces.

You know meaning that you have to adapt your career, your profession, as you, kind of as the years pass by, because things change.

And you know, for me there was a period when I was doing portraits and fashion where some things changed very quickly.

One was um, you know, some of the budgets started shrinking.

Um, I mean, one of the another reason why I got out of doing newspapers was that, you know, some of the budgets started shrinking there and you weren't getting paid that much.

Anyway, I was working like six, seven days a week, so inevitably I was earning fairly decent money.

But when the budget started shrinking, I just thought this is not the future.

You know, it's kind of like it's not going to bounce back, it's not going to change.

And then, with magazines, a similar thing started happening.

And then there was the change from digital, and that had a huge impact as well.

Because I used to shoot on film most of the time.

Yeah, I think being um and we'll we'll touch upon this, I think, a little bit later as kind of today's um flexibility one has to have with, with everything that's going on and the speed at which things is moving.

But I, you know, I'm interested in um.

What happened next?

Almost like what?

What changed?

Because you look at the ed psychs of today and you think, oh, you, you used to work in fashion and editorials, so you wouldn't, you wouldn't think that right, because it's so different to what you do now.

So what?

Where did that, the next transition, come from?

yeah, I think you know the sort of the transition came slowly.

I think it was sort of almost subconsciously in the back of my mind something was going on all the time, although I couldn't sort of see it with my own eyes.

So the thing about fashion that I enjoyed doing when I started doing it and to a large extent fashion is an expanded version of portraiture, great portraiture in one way or another, in the loosest sense, what I really enjoyed about going into portrait fashion was that I was working with other people in a team, so you were working towards a kind of common vision or a goal.

You know working with um you know hair and makeup, a model, but then a you know, fashion stylist, sometimes a creative director or a photography director, um, and I really enjoyed that collaboration.

Um, you know, that was a really nice change for me from the being, the.

You know the soul, the solo kind of artist, operator, photographer.

You know the sole, the solo kind of artist, operator, photographer.

You know where everything is sort of comes through your.

You know your creation, your hands, your vision, whatever, um, but I enjoyed that idea of bouncing ideas with people and um, not saying there was less pressure at all actually.

But it was a different way of working.

Um, and you know, to be honest, I I didn't earn much money from fashion because I was never a commercial fashion photographer per se.

I did a lot of editorial which at the time I could earn decent money when I was shooting film because I used to do all my own printing, all my own contact sheets and I could charge money at every sort of part of that process to get to the final delivered commission.

But then there was the change to digital which meant I was earning less money as, past that process I used to love shooting black and white more than color, which is never a commercial kind of option, or is a less commercial option, put it that way and I did a lot of menswear as opposed to women's wear.

So that again kind of puts you in a bit of a sort of um, limits your options, um.

So I was kind of, you know.

But again, I was very ambitious and you know I was working for some cool magazines like ID.

There was a magazine called Sleaze Nation, a lot of I don't know Marie Claire I worked for.

I was doing some regular stints for Vogue magazine doing portraits.

So you know, it was interesting, interesting, but I wasn't earning much money and I think in the fashion world especially there are kind of various levels that you can achieve or work to.

So but there is some of these big gaps between from going from you know, working for lesser magazines to the biggest magazines, to getting you know a one page kind of commission to a eight page story.

You know, there are these very kind of wide things.

So, you know, and and it's incredibly competitive, and I sort of had a particular sort of 18 months maybe where I had the opportunity to make that step to getting an agent, to doing more work, maybe in New York and Paris as opposed to just to London, and for one reason or another that never quite happened at that moment where there was potentially, you know, you kind's a curator, a picture editor, a photography director, editor, whoever it is having someone like that, and I didn't quite have one of those people at my side kind of saying, you know, oh, ed Sykes is, you know, the next big thing.

So that sort of opportunity went.

And then I had a meeting with Terry Jones, who was the owner, creative director at ID magazine once, and I showed him an idea for a fashion story and I'd done some.

I wanted to show him a mood board of some pictures that I thought would create a great story for the magazine and I'd gone somewhere that I thought would be a great backdrop for this story.

And he looked through the mood board and the images and looked at me and sort of said why do you want to be a fashion photographer?

Why aren't you a landscape photographer?

At the time I was just like I was really kind of like, you know, left the meeting a bit.

He doesn't like my idea.

You know, for this fashion story, I'm a bit I'm a bit off actually.

You know, for this fashion story, I'm a bit I'm a bit off actually.

You know.

Yeah, the other bit, the you know advice conversation, didn't really sort of register with me until later on.

Um, so obviously during all that time, you know, when I was doing fashion and I used to love going to locations and scouting locations, going to the countryside, being in nature, imagining what it would be like at six o'clock in the morning, you know, okay, with a model wearing something there.

But you know, something was starting to kind of, you know, tap me on the shoulder and say do you remember how much you know, the natural world used to mean something to you.

Interesting.

You see, you had to really dig deep inside and listen to yourself, or as much as much as you could find inside.

Yeah.

Remember where you really felt, felt, felt the most alive, I guess, yeah, yeah, fast, fascinating, so this is really the kind of the genesis of your voice, I guess and and where you really felt authentic in in what you want to photograph, so art, so after, so this was clearly kind of like a slow transition.

And then was this where you got a 5.4 camera and started doing large format stuff.

I mean it took me a while to, because I think basically the thing with fashion is either you're in it or you're not.

I mean you, you to me you can't sort of half do it.

You know you have to commit yourself fully.

And you know, I got to the stage where I was doing fashion.

I was going, well, I'm not doing any personal work, I wasn't really necessarily thinking of, you know, the environmental nature, but I was just thinking fashion is totally consuming me.

I'm not doing anything else.

Why is that?

And eventually, through all sorts of different reasons and you know, with fashion you can find a lot of cons to the pros you know about, um, why, why not?

You know the fashion world is a good thing to be involved with and all the negatives just outweighed the positives.

And I just thought, you know what it's not, what I want to do for the rest of my life Too many, you know it's just it's not for me.

You know I'm not that person.

You know it's quite a definite moment of self-reflection and you know, I think always one of the questions when you're a photographer that you should be asking yourself if it's something that you really want to do, that you think is the way forward, is the future that you think is the way forward is the future is?

Can you imagine getting up at five o'clock in the morning to go somewhere?

I don't know it might be.

You might have to walk, you might have to drive and a couple of hours later hoping to get one photograph but you might not even get it, and having to go home and do it all over again.

Is it worth it?

When you do that, does that image or does that subject matter mean enough to you?

And if it doesn't mean enough to you to get up at five o'clock in the morning and do it, then the answer is kind of is there really?

Um, so you know, I, I kind of I went through that sort of period about trying to understand myself more and thinking what is it that I care about?

Um, does it involve even, does it involve photography?

Do I still want to carry on being a photographer?

You know, I guess I went through what you would describe as a?

Um, you know, professional, um, what's the word when you have a sort of break?

Um, sabbatical?

Yeah, I, I kind of mentally I had a sabbatical from photography.

Okay, um, I mean, I've always kind of mentally, I had a sabbatical from photography.

Okay, um, I mean, I've always kind of gone to exhibitions and looked at other art and been interested in creative creativity, so that didn't stop.

But you know, I had to ask myself some basic questions Do I want to carry on doing photography, what type of photography do I want to do and how do I want to do it?

You know, let's go, let's, let's sweep it all away, everything you've done.

You've got a blank canvas.

What does it look like to you?

And that essentially involved me buying a large format camera and going back into the landscape and doing that.

Um, and this is the, this is where the environmental kind of undertones started to to form.

Or did you?

Was the environmental consciousness always something that was there, you just didn't really pay much attention to it, or how?

How did this kind of emanate?

no, I mean you know the kind of the?

Um.

Environmental issues have always been there for me.

Um, you know whether it's um, you know, I mean I I remember when I was very young, the in 19, was it 1986 or 1987 when the chernobyl nuclear reactor went into meltdown?

Um, in the late 80s, I mean I remember that vividly when I was young, as you a kind of that was an environmental catastrophe and that I'm not saying that, you know, ever since then, I'd sort of, but I remember that I've always remembered that and you know, along the way, I've always been interested in, you know, climate agreements, understanding when you know when the CFCs were banned that were creating a hole over the Arctic, and the international agreements that came to ban CFCs because of the harm that they did.

I remember all the coverage of acid rain, which was a big issue as well, coverage of acid rain, which was a big issue as well, and then all the kind of climate agreements that you know when the us didn't sign up to them with george bush, and so, yeah, no, I mean I've always um, that has has been there, um, but that doesn't always necessarily translate into you know it being something that you find a creative outlet for um.

So but yeah, my, my, my interest in it was at a high level, um, and I think it definitely had to be to, you know, move forward absolutely.

And so at this point then, when you're kind of making this, okay, it was an overnight decision, but you know you, you looked inward a lot and you decided to, you know, go down this path one of the biggest concerns must have been well, how the f**k do I earn money for this?

Right, you're coming from, you know, a revenue stream that's pretty reliable in terms of the fashion and editorial work that you're doing.

Now you're kind of shifting gears.

How did you figure that out?

Yeah, I mean, I'd always managed sort of throughout these transitions to have some regular clients, okay, have some regular clients, whether they're in the design industry, so not quite advertising agencies, but below the level of advertising agencies, design agencies that produce material.

So that kept me going for a while and was quite well paid.

But eventually, you know that industry kind of shriveled as well due to various sort of circumstances.

You know it was a very lucrative thing for photojournalist type photographers for a while producing yearly brochures for big companies.

So whether a whiskey company or whoever it might be would ask a photojournalist or a photographer to come in produce images for an annual report, then annual reports weren't a legal necessity anymore in the same way.

So that was something that changed.

But yeah, I kind of I had to.

It came to the point because I needed to.

You know, I had a family and I needed to pay the mortgage, pay the rent.

To pay the mortgage, pay the rent.

And I, you know I've sort of I had a part-time couple of part-time jobs away from photography because I just, you know, sometimes you have to be honest with yourself and say, look, I can't just magic well-paid photography work out of nowhere and looking at the way the market was going, it was kind of well, I could put a huge amount of effort into getting clients in that particular sector, but I can see that sector is not expanding.

You know, wherever I was looking, everything photographically, you know, budget wise, whatever was shrinking and it was a real challenge.

So, um, I thought, okay, well, keep doing the photography that I enjoy doing, find some paid work, whatever it is, um, and yeah, I mean so.

Basically, since then, I've always had, um, a side hustle or a kind of paid job in in some shape or form, and sometimes that involves photography, it involves film, you know, but it's a constantly evolving thing.

I was, you know, up until last year, I was, um, doing corporate, uh, photography and films, working alongside a friend of mine, and you know that market has changed quite considerably.

Now there's, you know, content, um, you know, social content, any kind of moving image.

Content is, you know, um, done on a, on a, on a smartphone, and it's done by the marketing team in a big company that you know they look at their budget and go why are we spending thousands and pounds on a couple of people to come in to do this when we can do it ourselves, or or even like we can use that old footage and it'll keep us going for five years before we you know, um, yeah, so and so, yeah, I mean back to my current circumstances.

I'm at the moment doing a part part-time work, working for um, an art rest fine art restoration company.

Um, so they deal with, in a strange ironic sort of turn around, they work with a lot of insurers who, um have clients whose artwork has been damaged by flood or by fire and need their their artworks restored so they haven't got, so they haven't got hold of some of yours.

Have they from a thousand degrees I?

mean I could always add fire and water to anyone's image.

But yeah, so that's quite a strange one to be part of, but I occasionally do photography.

As part of that, I have to document some of the, the damaged works.

I have to, um, you know, build the buildings, the, the environment, um, and it's you know, it's varied and it's sort of I get to see some amazing artwork, um, so, but yeah, that's my, my sort of side hustle, um, alongside my other, you know, alongside the photography which you know I try to monetize as well, um, so yeah, well, you know, without asking you how you monetize things specifically, but how would you advise photographers who want to do what you do or go into this area of the photography industry and try and earn a living from it?

how would you suggest that we monetize our, our personal work for a start, as well?

As you know, obviously going to get some, maybe commercial, commercial work or other professional work that we can.

But you know what, what would your advice be to someone coming into the industry now?

Or would just be don't okay, uh I, I would.

I would never say, don't.

You know?

Um, I would always encourage and support people who who want to follow that, that path.

But, you know, do so with eyes wide open.

You know, be honest, don't sell, you know, an unachievable dream that doesn't exist anymore.

Um, so, yeah, you know, I always try and be honest.

I think one of the main things I would say is have quite a few different pots of earning potential around your practice and all of those things.

Even if the money is not all from selling your own work specifically, what you do around it is building your other people's awareness of you, your brand, your vision, what you bring to the table as a person, as an artist, and how you interact with people generally.

People, um, generally, you know, I think so.

You know, if you want to be a someone who, who has those plates spinning, you know, I'd say do some teaching, do some mentoring.

Um, you know, always collaborate with other people on some projects.

You never know where they might lead.

If you're really passionate about something and you like a group of people I'm not saying do it a lot, because I think you should never offer to do anything for nothing, but if you see people operating and giving their services, who are really creative people, to a particular cause that you believe in.

Join them, um, you never know where it might build to um, but you know that should always be at the back of the queue behind other stuff that you know sort of has an obvious way of being paid.

You know, sell your prints, sell your work, sell.

You know, have an archive.

You never know when people might be interested in a very niche topic that you photographed or a niche location and you know you can sort of find that you've got a very particular sort of market to sell to because of that um.

So always keep that in mind.

Um, yeah, sort of beyond, I mean you know, commissioned work.

You know that can be yeah, I mean that can just be through.

You know I suppose that links to selling prints and as well, um, and widening your um, your network.

You know I think networks and networking is incredibly important and that you know one of the things that I would say one of the biggest changes in my, I would say call it professional development.

But you know, when I was a photographer in my first 10, 20 years potentially, you know I very much saw myself as a kind of, you know, as a lone gun.

You know it was just me against the world and I was going to prove myself, and it was just going to be through my amazing work, that everything would fall into my lap.

My approach these days is very different.

I like networking, I like meeting people, I like meeting fellow artists.

I like to collaborate with other artists, maybe be involved in group exhibitions, not just think about my solo work.

Group exhibitions not just think about my solo work.

And, yeah, just be out there and be interested in stuff.

And, you know, talk to other people and bounce ideas around.

You know whether it's to do with a particular subject matter that you're interested in and they're interested in particular subject matter that you're interested in and they're interested in.

Or I mean, it might even boil down to a particularly new sort of creative techniques that you've discovered that you're obsessed with and you you find some other people who are obsessed by it.

You know, I mean that can just be a really fun thing to to become involved in.

So you know, I'm a lot I would say I'm a lot looser in my kind of approach these days and open um to other ways of kind of of doing things.

But you know it's I'm not going to say it, it's all easy keeping all of those plates spinning and then you know having, you know having another skill.

You know God, you know if you do have another skill and you know if you're great at fixing cars, fix some cars at the weekend and earn some great money.

You know, yeah, yeah, there are some things that people will always need, you know, someone around to help with and pay them.

So if you've got a skill, no shame in using that as well.

And the other thing that I would say is it can be really important to that other thing that you do that earns money if it doesn't involve something that you think is creative or photographics.

It gives you an opportunity to step away from that intensity that you put into your own work and your own practice and I think, increasingly, finding some headspace is really important.

Perspective.

Yeah, yeah I think it actually adds to the value of your work.

Anyway, photographic work makes you a better artist.

If you you're able to have that emotional space and gain some perspective, you can come back with, you know, even even more ideas, more skills, more tenacity, and I think that can only make one a better artist.

But yeah, so so much there, so much great advice, and I think you know one overriding thing, just listening to you and what we can all really learn from from you is just try as much as you can, and you don't know what will happen, right, you don't know who you might meet.

You don't know what skill you might pick up.

You don't know what might stick or what you might find that you absolutely love and um, that you might be able to pursue and find some meaning and, um, you know, find some money in it.

Maybe, maybe not, but the more you put yourself out there, the more you're able to try things, the more chances you are of gonna.

You are gonna, you know, collaborate with the best people or get your name out there, get your work out there, sell stuff, get some jobs.

You know.

The other thing, the other side of it is is also what you touched upon and I hear a lot of you know it's so many young artists or photographers.

These days they live through instagram, right, they live through social media, so they don't really see I mean they do, but less less so, I think, than maybe the likes of you and me and the older generation, where they don't see still the avenues that you have out there that are actually in the physical world.

You know, going out, networking, going to, maybe, clubs and you know, going to exhibitions and galleries and just meeting and networking and talking um, and I think that's, that's just a byproduct of of the age we're in, we're in now.

But, um, tell me, tell me, you know, tell me, tell me what you're.

You know I'm gonna try and kind of circle back and kind of round this off now, but tell me what your voice is now.

You know I can, I can see and we're going to talk about kind of some of your projects in a minute.

I don't want to end this conversation without talking about some of your fantastic projects, but just, you know, tell me what your voice is now and what that means to you and whether that is really your definition of success these days yeah, I mean, obviously, all my work pretty much revolves around landscape and the environment and, um, you know, there has to be, um, a strong reason why I start something.

Actually, let me let me change that phrase.

I think there has to be a strong reason why I see something through and do it over months and years.

Because I think, you know, be honest, I start things and I try things and not everything sticks things and not everything sticks.

And one of the one of the things I think is really important and I would like to emphasize is that that thing that not everything is a success.

You know not everyone.

You don't show the world all your mistakes and especially with social media, you don't see that.

And you know, when I was young, I would think up some great ideas for projects and a lot of the time I would see reasons why they would fail before I would even actually go out and do them, and maybe, you know I wouldn't even go and try it because of that.

So, first of all, really big one for me is try stuff.

You know, don't scrap it at the drawing board.

Try it and push it and then decide whether it's got legs or not.

And you know there are things that you do that you come back to.

Nothing is wasted.

You know you have ideas, put it in a notebook.

You have some prints that you didn't quite work, put it in a box.

Have some prints that you didn't quite work, put it in a box, go back to it.

So I think I'm also what I do is very process driven.

So that is an example of me sort of continually trying some different approaches and different techniques, different ways of telling a story or bringing something to people, and I don't want to be doing exactly the same approach time after time after time.

You know, creatively I need that those juices to be really kind of flowing on on a new approach.

And you know, obviously you know there are things that I've done, like melting negatives and using water to dissolve prints and just continually thinking about the ways that you know kind of natural elements can interact with the photographic journey.

And that might be right at the beginning, it might be right at the end, but to me it's it's weaving those things together in in a meaningful way.

That is kind of engaging um and sort of um just isn't purely a document of a landscape or something or where something has happened, but has my kind of imprint, my interaction with the landscape and within the photographic process, where there's two things together.

So one of the first things I did through a grant was do some printing.

That involved using natural elements.

So I used seaweed and incorporated that in a photographic developer and did a series on some Agfa black and white paper which I bought, which I still have a huge amount of actually up there just over my head, and you know that was when I photographed this eroded rock on a beach in um on the coast in norfolk.

And you know, using the seaweed from that landscape in the developer, from the print, was of set separate um and um.

So you know that's definitely sort of a good example, but it's also a um.

You know, I don't see that particular body of work or project as as being finished um, I kind of see it as an ongoing thing that I'm going to add to.

So this rock is eroding over the years and I've been back to photograph it this year and it's changed.

So it could actually be a 10 or a 15 year um project where I show the changes over um time.

Yeah, so those are kind of examples and for people listening and watching.

Well, you know, on the video we'll put these, these photos up, but, um, for people listening, it's on the on your website, right?

The project is called rock and I think the image is also on your home page.

One of the images is on your home page, but yeah, really, really fascinating stuff oh yeah, and coincidentally, just behind my head that you can't see at the moment but you can see now, is um, a framed print of rock and they're all completely unique, printed in slightly different ways.

But yeah, as I was saying, I've still got some of the paper amazing vintage Agfa paper and I see that paper being used over the next 10 years, returning to this particular rock and photographing it as it changes and potentially disappears and has gone forever wonderful and you know that you know all of your projects have these such unique and creative ways of either producing or displaying um.

You know, look at hanging by a thread which used um wood, torched wood to you know, as a metaphor for the?

Um fires that happen.

I can't remember the year, but the, the wildfires in the uk a few years back, or a thousand degrees where you're blowtorching paper or film, uh, film, I think, yeah, yeah, you know, I think it's.

There was such visceral interest um to that and so many layers to to the rhetoric behind it.

But you know, I still ask the question well, what's it all for?

And does it even matter in terms of getting in front of the right people, or do you not even care about that, whether this actually can inspire change or actually have an impact?

Is it more of an internal and personal journey?

Yeah, I mean first and foremost.

I think as an artist you have to do work that satisfies something within yourself.

That has to be the starting point.

You know there's no point kind of especially.

You know I'm talking about personal work.

You know commercial work it's, you know, that comes from the outside and you meet halfway as you do something.

But when it comes to personal work, it has to come first and foremost from here and then you kind of introduce it to other people out into the world.

And the further those ripples go, then great.

Um, but you know I'm not using a natural metaphor, I'm not at that point in my life where I'm, you know I'm.

If I create ripples, then great, but I'm not expecting a tsunami to happen straight away.

Um, you know it, it's it, it's um, it's almost the opposite of photojournalism, where you are going to get the story first and foremost and and create as much impact as possible, the, the actual kind of the.

You know, I guess we can use the phrase fine art, but the kind of the fine art side of things doesn't matter, whereas now you do it the other way around.

It's like you, you want to make something in a fine art way that is of so much importance to yourself, and if it has an impact, or if it is seen and if it does create, then great.

But that's not your number one intent no, no, no, it's not and I don't, I don't think, you know, I think artists also also.

I think, when artists get involved with certain issues and you know, there's sometimes a real pressure that artists are there to create change in some way.

Yeah.

Hang on, we're not campaigners, we're not politicians.

You know what are you expecting us to do?

We are showing a vision.

We're perhaps showing a different angle, a different way of looking at things and maybe those thoughts and ripples can percolate through into people's minds.

Um, but I think you have to see you know most artwork in that respect, in the particular field that I might be working in as a kind of as a slow burner, you know I.

I think it's totally unrealistic to say, hey, this is gonna create change.

And you know I.

You know there's something that I'm working on that's going to come out in the next six to 12 months, which is quite topical and it might well be getting much, you know, become more, have more eyes on it than any other work that I've done in this field before.

But if it doesn't, it doesn't, you know, it's not.

It's not going to stop me doing what I do.

It's not going to stop me doing what I do, you know, and I think if you are trying to do something that looks different and feels different, it is tricky to you know, I was going to say get mass appeal.

I'm not looking for mass appeal, but for it to find its way through does sometimes take time.

And you know, another thing of advice I'll give to some creative people is be patient.

You know, be patient with what you're trying to achieve, Be persistent, Be committed, Do all of those things.

But you know, there's this impatience in the world and some of that comes through social media, some of that comes through peer pressure.

Some of that come and that thing to be perfect straight away, to have a fully formed finished article that people go wow at it's, it's a.

It's unrealistic.

You know, um, just keep working.

You know, enjoy it, just keep working yeah, I always think if if it means if you believe in it, as my we talked about this earlier like if you've, if you really want to do it right, you've got to ask yourself that question, you can answer it.

If you can answer it, yes, and almost everything else falls to the wayside you, you've got to believe in yourself that you'll find a way, and as long as be, like you said, persistent.

Let's talk about patience, of consistency and consistency of patience, like just just be patient but be diligent, like keep working hard if things will come and they'll come in a way that you never even thought they would, right, so we have to be.

This kind of leads me on to the future and and what you're going to be doing over the next few years and beyond.

But, more importantly, how you see this space, in this photography space.

Um, yeah, on a professional level, but also on an art, you know, on a personal, artistic level.

How do you see things in terms of your legacy and what you kind of want to leave as your body of work, or what you're currently working on, and how the photography world and industry is going to change, if at all, over the next few years and beyond?

Oh gosh, this could keep us going for a while.

We'll do a separate podcast on just this question all right, you got two minutes, okay.

Legacy, um, to be honest, uh, that's not something that I particularly think of.

You know, I'm much more about being in the here and the now.

You know what happens after I'm gone.

Well, I can't affect that, so you know who knows.

And then you were asking about sort of how you see the photography industry, or yeah, I mean, I think I think one.

You know, speaking to a lot of my students and a lot of people, a lot of the audience, and you know everyone's so worried about AI and especially people who are trying to go from potentially photography as a hobby to photography as a profession.

You know we've talked about this.

We don't have to kind of go over that ground again.

You know we've talked about this.

We don't have to kind of go over that ground again.

But when it comes to looking at the photography industry as a job or as a career, as a you know, a professional art form, where do you see things going?

Do you think it would just be shrinking generally and we'll kind of forget about some parts of the photography world, or do you see photography generally being more of a valuable commodity or valuable skill to do?

And how do you kind of where do you see photography being placed in the ai world essentially?

I mean, I think you know sort of from my experience in my, my career and it's just a sort of continuation, whether it's, you know, the change from film to digital, you know, and then now sort of AI coming in the rise in social media, you know there's always been to understand where the next step is going and where you might fit in.

But I mean, generally I do see a sort of this kind of chasm opening up where that sort of middle area where there used tobe work has sort of disappeared and there's either, you know, imagery in a sort of broader sense either being in a very kind of exclusive, high-level, original artwork way or being something that is incredibly shareable and commercial and for the masses as well.

I mean, I guess there are certain things that kind of spring to mind as where it might go, you know, I think that I think sort of live experiences are a thing that you know, are something that can develop, and I think you know whether that's sort of anything from in-person workshops to certain things online.

But to feel where you're a part of something and involved with something in the commercial world, that is a very big thing, and I think we are sociable beings, you know we need that interaction and finding a way to sort of share and be part of something is always going to be there.

So if you can be involved and be part of something in some way, you know I think that's really important and you know I think it's a challenging thing to be a solo photographer delivering things.

I think that image and profile has gone to a certain extent.

I think collaboration is always going to be a big thing and then at the other extreme, you know doing something that is incredibly, you know, unique as well.

But the real kind of splintering of the kind of photography world has been happening and will kind of photography world has been happening and will kind of continue to happen.

But yeah, Well, like you said, it's been happening anyway, even 20 years ago or 25 years ago when the rise of digital photography, and you even inferred that, with what you were talking about earlier in terms of shrinking budgets, that's just a way for the market to tell us that, oh yeah, this, this, this area of the photography industry is is shrinking and, like you said, it's likely just going to disappear altogether.

But let's see.

Well, ed, look, um, it's been a pleasure you know I say this to a lot of guests, but especially with you.

I could talk to you for hours and listen to your wonderful takes on things and stories, and I'll keep a close eye on your work.

Do we have any exhibitions coming up or anything that we can watch out for on your end?

Yeah, there will be some things coming up.

But in a strange way I've kind of had a little bit of a kind of over this summer, a bit of a step back and a bit of a break.

So I'm I'm kind of raring to go again in in september and, um, there are some things coming up.

But you know, follow me on instagram, at ed sites, and you'll see what you know the next things are yeah, where the ripples, exciting okay yeah maybe I'm one of those, but um, thanks so much for for taking part no, and thank you, matt.

You've been a a great, generous host, um, and at some stage we'll our paths will cross again I, I and I really hope they do, and thanks for your patience with, for for those watching and listening.

We had quite a few technical issues today, so we've, uh, we've had to be patient and, uh, I want to thank you for that as well.

So, until next time, ed, take good care of yourself and, um, yeah, hopefully I'll cross a pass, will cross at some point in the future.

Indeed.

All right, matt take care.