The Messy Truth - Conversations on Photography

Recorded remotely on 24th April 2020 during lockdown, Gem chats to renowned photographer Christopher Anderson, who continues to have a fascinating journey through the industry. He’s created world-renowned photojournalism, some of the most disarming magazine covers of the last two decades as well as a series of fascinating photo books about a range of different subjects from his children to documenting the NYPD in the wake of 9/11. He first gained recognition for his pictures in 1999 when he boarded a handmade, wooden boat with Haitian refugees trying to sail to America. The boat named the Believe In God, sank in the Caribbean. In 2000 the images from that journey would receive the Robert Capa Gold Medal.

In this conversation, Christopher shares his unexpected and organic journey into photography and his constant search for meaning. We talk about how his career evolved and how he crafts and refines his visual language. We discuss how he approaches portraiture, and it's complex power dynamics. He shares personal insight into sittings with Barack Obama and Donald Trump. We learn about his ethos about picture-making and how he uses photography as a tool to understand the world better. We discuss how he doesn't describe a scene, but instead tries to capture emotional energy exploring what it felt like to be there in that moment. We talk about his new book Pia published by Stanley Barker about his daughter and the process of creating and editing such profoundly personal work. We talk about social media, what it means to him and the highs and lows of the tool itself. We talk about slow photography and the importance of photographers building a body of work.

Follow Christopher on Instagram @christopherandersonphoto on Instagram and visit christopherandersonphoto.com to see his work. Christopher is a member of Magnum Photos. Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram and Twitter. If you've enjoyed this episode PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe 5 stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth, we will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected]

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Recorded remotely on 9th April 2020 during lockdown, Gem chats to renowned photographer Alec Soth, best known for his iconic work Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004). A series of 47 images of people and places which evolved from road trips along the Mississippi River. The project brings together Alec’s documentary style and poetic sensibility capturing the spirit of the community he encountered. 16 years on and he is one of the most celebrated image-makers of our time. He went on to publish over twenty-five books including NIAGARA (2006), Broken Manual (2010), Songbook (2015) and I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating (2019). He has had over fifty solo exhibitions including survey shows organized by Jeu de Paume in Paris (2008), the Walker Art Center in Minnesota (2010) and Media Space in London (2015). He also created Little Brown Mushroom, a multi-media enterprise focused on visual storytelling.

In this conversation, Alec shares his thoughts on his recent body of work I Know How Furiously Your Heart is Beating (2019), and how his approach to these photographs was a dramatic shift away from the narrative based work he is known for. He shares the motivations behind this work, how he worked and how he feels about it now. We discuss character; working with subjects and the complicated power dynamics at play in portraiture. We learn about his experience creating editorial work and how that sits within his wider practice. We talk about experimentation, the influence of language and why hotel rooms are such profound spaces in his creative process.

Follow Alec on Instagram @littlebrownmushroom on Instagram and visit alecsoth.com to see his work. Alec is represented by Sean Kelly in New York, Weinstein Hammons Gallery in Minneapolis, Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco, Loock Galerie in Berlin, and is a member of Magnum Photos. Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram and Twitter. If you've enjoyed this episode PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe 5 stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth, we will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected]

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Recorded remotely on 31st May 2020 during lockdown, Gem chats to leading photographer and artist Shaniqwa Jarvis, best known for her fusion of modern fashion aesthetics with sensitive and emotional portraiture. Her approach captures vivid reality across a wide range of subjects, each frame imbued with profound optimism. 

In this conversation, we explore how Shaniqwa found photography, how she entered the creative industry at the turn of the century and all she had to overcome to be the iconic artist she is today. She pressed on through an industry that still to this day is rife with systemic racism and sexism, creating space, not only for herself but for the next generation. She brings focus to the institutional changes urgently needed to ensure the value and worth of new Black and Brown photographers remains intact. She asks, "If there is no worth put on black lives, so how in turn is there suppose to be worth on black art?” We learn about Social Studies, the mentoring program she co-founded for Black and Brown photographers that connects youth communities to creators through curated programming. We explore her collaborations with brands like Adidas, SNS, The Standard Hotels Group and Supreme and what this aspect of her practice means to her. We find out about her sold out self-titled monograph, which documents two decades of her practice and how it shifted the perception and awareness of her work on a global scale. We discuss her joy of collaboration, why portraiture is such a deeply personal endeavour for her and hear about her recent shoot with Erykah Badu.

Follow @sheekswinsalways on Instagram and visit shaniqwajarvis.com to see her wider portfolio. Shaniqwa is represented by IMG Lens. Follow Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram and Twitter. If you've enjoyed this episode PLEASE leave us your feedback and maybe 5 stars if we're worthy in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth, we will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected]

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Georgie Wileman is a portrait and Documentary photographer focusing on social injustice. Her work highlights our internalised lives, the struggles we live with mentally, physically and emotionally.

What may appear dark at first glance is more about enlightenment. Georgie’s photography seeks to educate audiences on urgent human struggles that often go unseen, while in turn enabling her subjects to feel validated in their suffering.

Gem Fletcher talks to Georgie Wileman about her process and what it takes to capture such vivid emotions.

@georgiewileman

georgiewileman.com

Recorded in London, UK

Edited by John Webb

Music by Judd Greenstein – Change from Awake

Design by Ruby Wight

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Micaiah Carter's stylised photographs have graced magazines, screens and billboards capturing icons, past and present with his unique blend of 90’s maximalism and 70’s hues.

He is clear about his intentions as an image-maker – wanting the work to be a quality platform for the representation of people of colour that hasn’t been seen before. What I love about his photographs is how they emanate a powerful hybrid of joy and resilience.

Gem Fletcher chats to Micaiah Carter about collaboration, identity and popular culture.

This conversation was recorded in November 2019.

https://micaiahcarter.com/

@micaiahcarter

Micaiah is also part of See In Black, a collective of Black photographers who uplift and invest in Black visibility. Through the sale of highly-curated prints from Black photographers, we raise funds that support five key pillars of Black advancement: civil rights, education/arts, intersectionality, community building, and criminal justice reform.

https://seeinblack.com/

@seeinblackproject

Recorded in London, UK

Edited by John Webb

Music by Judd Greenstein – Change from Awake

Design by Ruby Wight

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leonard Suryajaya uses his work to speak profoundly to the challenges of being an outsider, and the deep complexity of navigating identities. He embeds his life experiences into every facet of his work, testing the boundaries of intimacy, community and identity. His subjects, often family, friends and lovers, work in a kind of absurd theatre within the frame.

Viewing Suryajaya’s work is an emotional experience. The photographs are disarming, intense and even over stimulating at times. The chaos he conjures feels entirely appropriate for our times. As our world continues to be in flux, his images provide a strange comfort in their authenticity.

Gem Fletcher talks to Leonard Suryajaya about resilience, collaboration and how the act of creating gives him joy and freedom.

@leonardsuryajaya

http://www.leonardsuryajaya.com/

Recorded in London, UK

Edited by John Webb

Music by Judd Greenstein – Change from Awake

Design by Ruby Wight

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Born and raised in New York City, with pit stops in South Carolina and New Orleans, photographer Arielle Bobb-Willis has been using the camera for nearly a decade as a tool of empowerment. Battling with depression from an early age, Bobb-Willis found solace behind the lens and has developed a visual language that speaks to the complexities of life: the beautiful, the strange, belonging, isolation, and connection. Inspired by masters like Jacob Lawrence and Benny Andrews, Bobb-Willis applies a ‘painterly’ touch to her photography by documenting people in compromising and disjointed positions as to highlight these complexities.

Toting the line between fashion and contemporary art, her use of is therapeutic and speaks to a desire to claim power and joy in moments of sadness, confusion or confinement. Her photographs are all captured in urban and rural cities, from the South to North, East to West. Bobb-Willis travels throughout the US as a way of finding ‘home’ in any grassy knoll, or city sidewalk, reminding us to stay connected and grounded during life’s transitional moments.

Gem Fletcher talks to Arielle Bobb-Willis about her relationship to the medium, facing adversity and the realities of being a young image-maker working today.

https://ariellebobbwillis.com/

@ariellebobbwillis

Recorded in London, UK

Edited by John Webb

Music by Judd Greenstein – Change from Awake

Design by Ruby Wight

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Eva O’Leary has been producing photographs in and around her hometown of Central Pennsylvania, ironically nicknamed Happy Valley. Gaining access to college parties, dorm rooms, and proms and other social spaces of those in the midst of pivotal coming of age moments, O’Leary examines individual vulnerability in these transitional times. Her work explores intimate moments to deftly confront power dynamics as it falls along gendered lines, especially within the lives of adolescents.

Eva’s work navigates structural and social systems that perpetuate ideologies of fantasy, power and control within American society, specifically focused on the impact on young women and their experience in the world. Her work is deeply personal, using her own experiences, memories and journals as the foundation of her practise.

We recorded this episode in early April 2020 during the Covid 19 pandemic, which was bringing up many questions about the role and purpose of art and creative work for both of us. This inevitably ended up being a core part of our conversation because how could it not be.

Gem Fletcher talks to Eva O’Leary about process, growth and how art can be both therapy and liberation.

evaoleary.com

@evaoleary

Recorded in London, UK

Edited by John Webb

Music by Judd Greenstein – Change from Awake

Design by Ruby Wight

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chris Maggio is a photographer living in NYC with 8.6 million of his closest friends. Often exploring the quotidian details of American cities and their tourism, his documentary practice sits at the intersection of both observational and staged photography.

He examines the humanity and hidden complexities of humour in everyday life. His hybrid practice crosses documentary, fashion, portraiture all laced with his signature intervention. While his work feels loose and organic, every inch of the frame is deeply considered. He’s interested in challenging truth in a playful yet profound way.

Gem Fletcher talks to Chris Maggio about his process, storytelling, and what it takes to shoot candidly on the street.

@chrismaggio

https://cargocollective.com/chrismaggio

Recorded in London, UK

Edited by John Webb

Music by Judd Greenstein – Change from Awake

Design by Ruby Wight

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Devyn Galindo is fearlessly nomadic, honest and observant, with an eye toward the gently radical. Having grown up between California and Texas, she between Los Angeles and New York, keeping time to explore and the South.

Devyn documents the lives of her friends emerging from the Chicanx scene in Los Angeles. Exploring her own identity as a queer artist during the current political climate has become an obsession that led to their first publication, We Are Still Here, which launched in November 2016.

Devyn Galindo talks to Gem Fletcher about representation, activism, motivation and the responsibilities that come with image making.

http://devyngalindo.com/

@devyngalindo

Recorded in London, UK

Edited by John Webb

Music by Judd Greenstein – Change from Awake

Design by Ruby Wight

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.