THE CONVERSATIONS |
|
ANDY ROMANOFF
Sunday, June 23, 2024
Edition ONE Gallery
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Pilar Law, Edition ONE Gallery Owner and Curator, welcomes LEICAS & SCOTCH to the gallery for Mark Berndt's conversation with Raconteur. Historian. Witness. - Andy Romanoff
All images © Andy Romanoff | All Rights Reserved Images may not be reproduced without written permission from the photographer.
Sunday, June 23, 2024
Edition ONE Gallery
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Pilar Law, Edition ONE Gallery Owner and Curator, welcomes LEICAS & SCOTCH to the gallery for Mark Berndt's conversation with Raconteur. Historian. Witness. - Andy Romanoff
All images © Andy Romanoff | All Rights Reserved Images may not be reproduced without written permission from the photographer.
PILAR LAW:
So - welcome again to Leicas & Scotch here at Edition ONE. It is my pleasure to have these two men speaking to each other. I introduced Mark and Andy in Los Angeles, and of course, I've known Andy since I was a little kid. And it is a real honor to have you here. Thank you for coming - for being here.
ANDY ROMANOFF:
It is a pleasure.
PL:
I’m going to turn on the A.C. because it is getting a little warm in here, and I'll let you guys take it away.
MARK BERNDTt:
Thanks. And as usual, thank you for letting us do this here. Oh, and thank you, Chris, for helping get all this working.
So, Andy Romanoff, I'm going to do a little intro.
ANDY ROMANOFF
Biker, Bad Boy, Street Rat, Mechanic, Captain, Photographer, Cinematographer, Filmmaker, Technician, Entrepreneur, Executive…
AR:
Pick any three!
MB:
Husband. Father. Witness. Artist. Storyteller. Author…
and my friend. Nice to have you here.
Andy's here today as the author of Stories I've Been Meaning to Tell You. This is his new book, the debut memoir, chronicling his screwed up years and how he survived to transition out of them. Andy takes us along for a ride as he makes a meaningful life for himself without turning his back on the person he's been or the places he's come from. With stories about getting thrown out of high schools, plural, stealing cars and motorcycles, getting tossed in jail, finding his way into the sleazy end of the film business, being there for the invention of Gore films, introducing remote camera technology to American cinema, spending time with counterculture legends like Ken Kesey and Nick Ray, and slowly learning about love, life, friendship and family while raising hell along the way to his own reluctant success.
AR:
Thank you all for coming. I'm not going to say another word.
MB:
I have a feeling you can't possibly have any stories to tell along the way, you know? And you've been making photographs.
AR:
I've been making photographs pretty much my whole life.
MB:
Yep. And you're still making them today?
AR:
Absolutely.
MB:
Okay, so that's kind of what we're going to talk about. We have a lot of ground to cover. We're going to move kind of quickly if you guys have questions. We're going to do a Q&A at the end. So hang onto those thoughts and we'll stay as long as anybody wants to stay.
Okay. So I want to start talking about making pictures. First of all, what caught you? How did you start making photographs?
Biker, Bad Boy, Street Rat, Mechanic, Captain, Photographer, Cinematographer, Filmmaker, Technician, Entrepreneur, Executive…
AR:
Pick any three!
MB:
Husband. Father. Witness. Artist. Storyteller. Author…
and my friend. Nice to have you here.
Andy's here today as the author of Stories I've Been Meaning to Tell You. This is his new book, the debut memoir, chronicling his screwed up years and how he survived to transition out of them. Andy takes us along for a ride as he makes a meaningful life for himself without turning his back on the person he's been or the places he's come from. With stories about getting thrown out of high schools, plural, stealing cars and motorcycles, getting tossed in jail, finding his way into the sleazy end of the film business, being there for the invention of Gore films, introducing remote camera technology to American cinema, spending time with counterculture legends like Ken Kesey and Nick Ray, and slowly learning about love, life, friendship and family while raising hell along the way to his own reluctant success.
AR:
Thank you all for coming. I'm not going to say another word.
MB:
I have a feeling you can't possibly have any stories to tell along the way, you know? And you've been making photographs.
AR:
I've been making photographs pretty much my whole life.
MB:
Yep. And you're still making them today?
AR:
Absolutely.
MB:
Okay, so that's kind of what we're going to talk about. We have a lot of ground to cover. We're going to move kind of quickly if you guys have questions. We're going to do a Q&A at the end. So hang onto those thoughts and we'll stay as long as anybody wants to stay.
Okay. So I want to start talking about making pictures. First of all, what caught you? How did you start making photographs?
AR:
I started making photographs when I was 12 years old, maybe, in Chicago. I picked up a Box Brownie camera and, you know, took pictures and they came out - because how could you go wrong with a Box Brownie?
And something grabbed me. Who knows what it was? I was not particularly in touch with who I was. I just knew that I started to make pictures. And it took years before I discovered that the pictures I made fell more in the canon of, maybe not fine art, but street photos and life photos rather than snapshots. That’s what pulled me, was I wanted to see what it would look like if I made a picture of those railroad tracks or that assemblage of people or whatever.
MB:
But I think today we're going to talk about making pictures. But I think today is a lot about archive. I think at this age a lot of us have amassed like these baskets of pictures. You kept everything. You've got, obviously, stuff from your early days of shooting…
AR:
These are a tiny fraction of the pictures I made. The pictures that are only in my mind? I would give anything to have those pictures again. But yes, these are the few rolls of negatives that didn't get lost along the way.
MB:
And you have a filing system? All organized? A library?
AR:
Yes, I do. I admit to it. Yeah, sure. I mean, these pictures are in a folder that I think are called “Scans of negatives - Roll 160344” or whatever was the number from the lab that developed the film. But I can remember where it is and get back to it.
MB:
That's good! And so what do you call this? Is this documentary photography? OR - it wasn't that formal, right?
AR:
Not at all. It was not at all. These are pictures of my friends when I was a hog farmer.
MB:
And what was that life? How were you there? Were you the only guy with a camera?
AR:
No. I was the only guy who was there on that bus with a camera. But the the pictures that are around that bus are pictures from when I was living on a bus called the “Fast Bus”. And the “Fast Bus” was a reaction bus to all the painted buses to “Road Hog” and “Further” and all those very first buses. Wavy Gravy, who then, you know, was I think still Hugh Romney at that point, decided he wanted a bus that was camouflaged, that could go anywhere in the country and not be stopped every 40 miles by police saying, what are you doing here? And so we bought that Greyhound. And inside it is the most beautifully collaged and formed space - you know, it was just the most wonderful place to live. And on the outside, it was a Greyhound bus.
And we were able to cruise across the country in, you know, three days or whatever - 14 of us - and I was crew on that bus and it was my first moment on the Hog Farm. How that happened? There were 100 people that wanted on that bus. And Wavy said, “You”. So I got on that bus!
MB:
We were talking before about intentional photography. Was this intentional? I mean, it had to be because you were shooting. You were you showed up with your camera. But did you have any idea where these would go?
AR:
No. So intentional photography, in my mind, is to begin a project knowing why you're doing it. It doesn't mean you know everything about it, but knowing why you're doing it and pursuing that aim. And there are some people we were talking about Danny Lyons, who is brilliant at that. Just, you know, incredible at that.
There's a guy who started Elektra Records his name is Jack Holzman, and I was lucky enough to work for Jack for a while, not at Elektra but at another place. And he once said to my wife, you know, “Andy is like a chicken on meth.”
MB:
That’s a compliment?
AR:
I took it as an accurate description.
Because I was. Because my interests go everywhere. And I you know, I was never a person who stuck with a thing. I didn't know why I was making these pictures. I just knew I got up in the morning and I said, Oh, that's cool. Oh, shoot, that. Oh, that's cool. Shoot that. And when I got bored, I moved over and did something else.
I started making photographs when I was 12 years old, maybe, in Chicago. I picked up a Box Brownie camera and, you know, took pictures and they came out - because how could you go wrong with a Box Brownie?
And something grabbed me. Who knows what it was? I was not particularly in touch with who I was. I just knew that I started to make pictures. And it took years before I discovered that the pictures I made fell more in the canon of, maybe not fine art, but street photos and life photos rather than snapshots. That’s what pulled me, was I wanted to see what it would look like if I made a picture of those railroad tracks or that assemblage of people or whatever.
MB:
But I think today we're going to talk about making pictures. But I think today is a lot about archive. I think at this age a lot of us have amassed like these baskets of pictures. You kept everything. You've got, obviously, stuff from your early days of shooting…
AR:
These are a tiny fraction of the pictures I made. The pictures that are only in my mind? I would give anything to have those pictures again. But yes, these are the few rolls of negatives that didn't get lost along the way.
MB:
And you have a filing system? All organized? A library?
AR:
Yes, I do. I admit to it. Yeah, sure. I mean, these pictures are in a folder that I think are called “Scans of negatives - Roll 160344” or whatever was the number from the lab that developed the film. But I can remember where it is and get back to it.
MB:
That's good! And so what do you call this? Is this documentary photography? OR - it wasn't that formal, right?
AR:
Not at all. It was not at all. These are pictures of my friends when I was a hog farmer.
MB:
And what was that life? How were you there? Were you the only guy with a camera?
AR:
No. I was the only guy who was there on that bus with a camera. But the the pictures that are around that bus are pictures from when I was living on a bus called the “Fast Bus”. And the “Fast Bus” was a reaction bus to all the painted buses to “Road Hog” and “Further” and all those very first buses. Wavy Gravy, who then, you know, was I think still Hugh Romney at that point, decided he wanted a bus that was camouflaged, that could go anywhere in the country and not be stopped every 40 miles by police saying, what are you doing here? And so we bought that Greyhound. And inside it is the most beautifully collaged and formed space - you know, it was just the most wonderful place to live. And on the outside, it was a Greyhound bus.
And we were able to cruise across the country in, you know, three days or whatever - 14 of us - and I was crew on that bus and it was my first moment on the Hog Farm. How that happened? There were 100 people that wanted on that bus. And Wavy said, “You”. So I got on that bus!
MB:
We were talking before about intentional photography. Was this intentional? I mean, it had to be because you were shooting. You were you showed up with your camera. But did you have any idea where these would go?
AR:
No. So intentional photography, in my mind, is to begin a project knowing why you're doing it. It doesn't mean you know everything about it, but knowing why you're doing it and pursuing that aim. And there are some people we were talking about Danny Lyons, who is brilliant at that. Just, you know, incredible at that.
There's a guy who started Elektra Records his name is Jack Holzman, and I was lucky enough to work for Jack for a while, not at Elektra but at another place. And he once said to my wife, you know, “Andy is like a chicken on meth.”
MB:
That’s a compliment?
AR:
I took it as an accurate description.
Because I was. Because my interests go everywhere. And I you know, I was never a person who stuck with a thing. I didn't know why I was making these pictures. I just knew I got up in the morning and I said, Oh, that's cool. Oh, shoot, that. Oh, that's cool. Shoot that. And when I got bored, I moved over and did something else.
MB:
So when you were making these and these are, and this kind of represents a lot of what we talked about in the opening - your varied careers - did you have any sense that they would become, like, historical documents?
AR:
Oh, God, no. I wasn't thinking I was living in history. I was thinking I was having a good time. I was thinking I was, you know, I was getting high. I was like, Oh, that's cool. Let's do that. You know? No, I wasn't thinking ahead or, you know, beyond the moment.
MB:
Were you always connected to them or did they sort of go in a box and then you discovered them later? You shoot these pictures, they get amassed somewhere, you travel around, you change careers, you move to different cities. Did you let go of them and then rediscover them?
AR:
Well, to begin with, there's everything that's not here and everything that’s not here is, you know, God knows, in the early days. Now, I'm a total packrat, but in the days when I was making these pictures, these negatives, I didn't see these Nick Ray negatives for 20 or 30 years, you know? Oh, shit. Look at these pictures. I made of Nick. Nicholas Ray.
MB:
Remember this? This the first thing that we worked on together. [Andy’s book Nicholas Ray at the Chateau Marmont.]
AR:
Oh, my God.
MB:
This book of is, like, one roll of film, right? Or two rolls?
AR:
The primary Nick images are one roll of 120 film. It was it was shot with a Bronco and then maybe a couple of other pictures - maybe one or two Polaroids.
MB:
So that was kind of how we got introduced to each other - working on that.
AR:
I don't believe you have that.
MB:
So when you go back and you revisit these, what are these? I think we want to talk about feelings and meaning. With a perspective on it, what are these pictures about for you now?
AR:
Good question.
So it took me a long time, okay? I was very cut off emotionally for many, many years. And in my forties, fifties, sixties, I began to be connected to them. And now, especially the last ten or 15 years, as I deeply look at the work and look at my new work and stuff like that, I began to really, you know, relate emotionally to this stuff. So I think it's safe to say everything that I did, there was some emotional connection to. I was just not aware of that. I don't mean that as a joke. I don't mean that in a lightweight way. You know, I just I mean, I can tell you a story about every one of these pictures. So obviously they had meaning to me.
MB:
But the shooting then was intuitive?
AR:
Totally. Yeah.
“Get over there.” “Do that.” “Mario, stick your arm up.”
These guys? The guy riding the motorcycle may even be in one of Danny Lyon’s books. He's Pete Walter from the Chicago Outlaws and the other guy is a guy who only lived a year or two after that picture. And was murdered for messing with somebody's wife. So these were people I was hanging out with - they were not all kind of lightweight guys.
MB:
Are you still shooting this way today?
AR:
I think so.
MB:
I mean - about intention…
AR:
Oh, no. Oh, no. I'm hugely more intentional now. Oh, yeah. Once I understood it, once it kind of came to me too. Oh, that's so cool.
Look what you can do when you're actually in touch with this stuff. And in fact, in fact, if we can go back for a second
MB:
Where do you want to go?
AR:
I want to go to 15,000 Buddhas film that was playing at the beginning, because that's kind of the place where I learned that.
MB:
Ok.
AR:
So I was at Panavision for many years. I was an executive at Panavision along the road and eventually they were good enough to fire me. And so I had, I had my life back, because I would have stayed, you know. I was a senior executive and I made a lot of money and… and you get comfortable, you know, and people liked me and I thought I would be the old guy who whenever the visitors came to the factory, they’d say “Andy, why don't you take them around?” So I had all the stories and that kind of stuff. And then they kicked me out!
I said, “Oh, wow!” And it turned out to be…
Well - sitting in the front row, right here, is my wife, Darcy, for whom and without which - that's all I’m saying.
And every day we would sit out in the backyard and the guy who fired me was a guy named John Suh. And every day we would say, God bless you, John Suh… because he gave me freedom.
And I started to make pictures again. Because I made some pictures but they were all business and that kind of stuff. And I did a project - I spent seven months at the Pacific Design Center. I had total access and I spent seven months shooting there every day. And I had a gallery. I did shows there. It was cool. I shot at architecture and I shot people and I kind of relearned that stuff a little. And then that was done.
And then I was looking for another project and I wandered into a Buddhist temple not far from our house. And I was suddenly struck by the fact that you can always kind of feel the artist, you know, that you can that there's always a double image. Particularly, I think in sacred imagery, there's always the person they are trying to convey and then what they bring to it that they can convey it with. And I started thinking about - it is not uncommon that you look at a statue, you find, you know where the light is, you find an angle, whatever, and you shoot a picture of it. And I realized what I wanted to do was to make portraits of stone images, of plaster images. I wanted to find ways to see them that resonated with me emotionally and that I hoped might have been the artist's view when they were making them. And that project ended up being called 15,000 Buddhas. And I spent two years, three years and I shot in Europe, and I shot in museums and I shot in many cities in America, and wherever I went that was the intention. So maybe that's the first time I really had that kind of an intention - to make a portrait. And in order to make a portrait, I was really forced to sit still.
And because I already told you who I am, sitting still was not the easiest thing, you know. But I learned to not pick up the camera. I learned to sit down in a room and I really look at it, and then say, okay, what's it like over there? And then at a certain point, you know, I would feel it. And it's just totally about feeling. I would feel it and I would pick up the camera and maybe I would get up and then I would start moving, I would start shooting.
And that was a revelation. That was just amazing.
MB:
Really different from any commercial work.
AR:
So among the people who are sitting here today are two cinematographers. Two Hollywood, dare I say it, big shot cinematographers.
And these guys have to size up a situation. I worked with them for years, I worked on a lot of movies. They have to size up a situation in 15 seconds while a director says one thing in their ear and the production manager says, “No, no, we don't have time for that.“
MB:
“No, you can't have a crane. “
AR:
“Why do you need a crane? There's a ladder in the closet!”
MB:
And you don't get to go back if it's not right. It's got to be right.
AR:
Do it right. Or at least when you see the dailies say, “God, that's exactly what I wanted.“
And the difference between making a thing commercially where you have to, you know, make your decisions and live with your decision. You polish ‘em the best you can, but it's very, very rare that you can throw away your first decision and just sit there and say no, I want to sit here for a while and feel what's going on.
MB:
Intention wise, was this always going to be a little movie?
AR:
No. Thank you. And that's so that's the other thing. I shot stills forever. I worked on movies forever. I shot a lot of really bad movies.
MB:
And let's play some of those!
AR:
Ha!
And then very slowly I started to amass a real body of work. Because if you look at the numbers, my work in the 50s, 60s and 70s, maybe I have a thousand images. And now I have 200,000, you know, and that was 200,000. 90% are 15 years or younger.
MB:
So, how did it become a film? Was it first a book? Was it first an exhibition?
AR:
So how I got into the film business was I started shooting in Chicago and I got interested, you know. I was a biker. I built motorcycles. It's what I cared about more than anything. But I started getting really interested in this photography stuff. But something was wrong. And I concluded that what was wrong was that they lacked motion. I didn't understand yet that they were still for reason.
So I called around and there was a school in Chicago called Columbia College, and they had a class in motion pictures. And I called them and I said I might be interested in coming and taking a class in motion pictures. And they said, “Well, we're not offering it this year, but the guy who teaches it is about to make a movie and he might hire you as a P.A.”
And so I called that guy's office and he said, “Does nudity bother you?” And I said, “Not as far as I know.”
And so the very first film I ever worked on was something called “Boing”.
It was a nudie and and suddenly I was learning how to make movies. And I was just so excited. I knew that's what I wanted to do. And then there's a hundred detours and I get in the movie business and I shoot crappy movies, and then I find a piece of technology called the Luma Crane, and I got involved in bringing it to America. And then I became the guy who taught a whole first generation how to run that thing. And I worked on every expensive movie in Hollywood for a few years, and then I had a bad drug problem and and those were related.
And then other stuff happened, and I ended up as a an executive. And when I came back out, I thought what I wanted to do was to shoot stills. I wanted to go back to the simple original thing. But I discovered something new as the number of pictures started to climb. And that was one picture is not enough. I mean, that idea that comes from magazines and comes from 100 years ago when every image is precious and you need one image to sum it up because the story is only four pictures long. We're past that. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. God knows I'm not saying that. And I'm in awe of people who can do that really well. But there is another way to look at it, and that is a kaleidoscope of images. We can put the images together and tell a much bigger story. And that began to interest me a lot. So SACRED FACES, that we're looking at right now, was the first time. And I couldn't edit, so I found somebody to edit. So we put this one together as part of a show of these sacred images in a large church in Los Angeles. They hung 38 images or something up on the walls. As a photographer it was a time of great, great pride.
But almost as an afterthought, we made this video and it was in a chapel and it would run on the screen. And I saw people were crying! We made it thinking that, you know, people would watch it for two or 3 minutes, and people would sit down and they would just meditate to it. I was so fascinated to learn that. I was so excited to see that. And I began to realize I might do more of that. So...
MB:
Great.
Uh - let’s look at these now. This is a relatively current project?
BONNEVILLE
So when you were making these and these are, and this kind of represents a lot of what we talked about in the opening - your varied careers - did you have any sense that they would become, like, historical documents?
AR:
Oh, God, no. I wasn't thinking I was living in history. I was thinking I was having a good time. I was thinking I was, you know, I was getting high. I was like, Oh, that's cool. Let's do that. You know? No, I wasn't thinking ahead or, you know, beyond the moment.
MB:
Were you always connected to them or did they sort of go in a box and then you discovered them later? You shoot these pictures, they get amassed somewhere, you travel around, you change careers, you move to different cities. Did you let go of them and then rediscover them?
AR:
Well, to begin with, there's everything that's not here and everything that’s not here is, you know, God knows, in the early days. Now, I'm a total packrat, but in the days when I was making these pictures, these negatives, I didn't see these Nick Ray negatives for 20 or 30 years, you know? Oh, shit. Look at these pictures. I made of Nick. Nicholas Ray.
MB:
Remember this? This the first thing that we worked on together. [Andy’s book Nicholas Ray at the Chateau Marmont.]
AR:
Oh, my God.
MB:
This book of is, like, one roll of film, right? Or two rolls?
AR:
The primary Nick images are one roll of 120 film. It was it was shot with a Bronco and then maybe a couple of other pictures - maybe one or two Polaroids.
MB:
So that was kind of how we got introduced to each other - working on that.
AR:
I don't believe you have that.
MB:
So when you go back and you revisit these, what are these? I think we want to talk about feelings and meaning. With a perspective on it, what are these pictures about for you now?
AR:
Good question.
So it took me a long time, okay? I was very cut off emotionally for many, many years. And in my forties, fifties, sixties, I began to be connected to them. And now, especially the last ten or 15 years, as I deeply look at the work and look at my new work and stuff like that, I began to really, you know, relate emotionally to this stuff. So I think it's safe to say everything that I did, there was some emotional connection to. I was just not aware of that. I don't mean that as a joke. I don't mean that in a lightweight way. You know, I just I mean, I can tell you a story about every one of these pictures. So obviously they had meaning to me.
MB:
But the shooting then was intuitive?
AR:
Totally. Yeah.
“Get over there.” “Do that.” “Mario, stick your arm up.”
These guys? The guy riding the motorcycle may even be in one of Danny Lyon’s books. He's Pete Walter from the Chicago Outlaws and the other guy is a guy who only lived a year or two after that picture. And was murdered for messing with somebody's wife. So these were people I was hanging out with - they were not all kind of lightweight guys.
MB:
Are you still shooting this way today?
AR:
I think so.
MB:
I mean - about intention…
AR:
Oh, no. Oh, no. I'm hugely more intentional now. Oh, yeah. Once I understood it, once it kind of came to me too. Oh, that's so cool.
Look what you can do when you're actually in touch with this stuff. And in fact, in fact, if we can go back for a second
MB:
Where do you want to go?
AR:
I want to go to 15,000 Buddhas film that was playing at the beginning, because that's kind of the place where I learned that.
MB:
Ok.
AR:
So I was at Panavision for many years. I was an executive at Panavision along the road and eventually they were good enough to fire me. And so I had, I had my life back, because I would have stayed, you know. I was a senior executive and I made a lot of money and… and you get comfortable, you know, and people liked me and I thought I would be the old guy who whenever the visitors came to the factory, they’d say “Andy, why don't you take them around?” So I had all the stories and that kind of stuff. And then they kicked me out!
I said, “Oh, wow!” And it turned out to be…
Well - sitting in the front row, right here, is my wife, Darcy, for whom and without which - that's all I’m saying.
And every day we would sit out in the backyard and the guy who fired me was a guy named John Suh. And every day we would say, God bless you, John Suh… because he gave me freedom.
And I started to make pictures again. Because I made some pictures but they were all business and that kind of stuff. And I did a project - I spent seven months at the Pacific Design Center. I had total access and I spent seven months shooting there every day. And I had a gallery. I did shows there. It was cool. I shot at architecture and I shot people and I kind of relearned that stuff a little. And then that was done.
And then I was looking for another project and I wandered into a Buddhist temple not far from our house. And I was suddenly struck by the fact that you can always kind of feel the artist, you know, that you can that there's always a double image. Particularly, I think in sacred imagery, there's always the person they are trying to convey and then what they bring to it that they can convey it with. And I started thinking about - it is not uncommon that you look at a statue, you find, you know where the light is, you find an angle, whatever, and you shoot a picture of it. And I realized what I wanted to do was to make portraits of stone images, of plaster images. I wanted to find ways to see them that resonated with me emotionally and that I hoped might have been the artist's view when they were making them. And that project ended up being called 15,000 Buddhas. And I spent two years, three years and I shot in Europe, and I shot in museums and I shot in many cities in America, and wherever I went that was the intention. So maybe that's the first time I really had that kind of an intention - to make a portrait. And in order to make a portrait, I was really forced to sit still.
And because I already told you who I am, sitting still was not the easiest thing, you know. But I learned to not pick up the camera. I learned to sit down in a room and I really look at it, and then say, okay, what's it like over there? And then at a certain point, you know, I would feel it. And it's just totally about feeling. I would feel it and I would pick up the camera and maybe I would get up and then I would start moving, I would start shooting.
And that was a revelation. That was just amazing.
MB:
Really different from any commercial work.
AR:
So among the people who are sitting here today are two cinematographers. Two Hollywood, dare I say it, big shot cinematographers.
And these guys have to size up a situation. I worked with them for years, I worked on a lot of movies. They have to size up a situation in 15 seconds while a director says one thing in their ear and the production manager says, “No, no, we don't have time for that.“
MB:
“No, you can't have a crane. “
AR:
“Why do you need a crane? There's a ladder in the closet!”
MB:
And you don't get to go back if it's not right. It's got to be right.
AR:
Do it right. Or at least when you see the dailies say, “God, that's exactly what I wanted.“
And the difference between making a thing commercially where you have to, you know, make your decisions and live with your decision. You polish ‘em the best you can, but it's very, very rare that you can throw away your first decision and just sit there and say no, I want to sit here for a while and feel what's going on.
MB:
Intention wise, was this always going to be a little movie?
AR:
No. Thank you. And that's so that's the other thing. I shot stills forever. I worked on movies forever. I shot a lot of really bad movies.
MB:
And let's play some of those!
AR:
Ha!
And then very slowly I started to amass a real body of work. Because if you look at the numbers, my work in the 50s, 60s and 70s, maybe I have a thousand images. And now I have 200,000, you know, and that was 200,000. 90% are 15 years or younger.
MB:
So, how did it become a film? Was it first a book? Was it first an exhibition?
AR:
So how I got into the film business was I started shooting in Chicago and I got interested, you know. I was a biker. I built motorcycles. It's what I cared about more than anything. But I started getting really interested in this photography stuff. But something was wrong. And I concluded that what was wrong was that they lacked motion. I didn't understand yet that they were still for reason.
So I called around and there was a school in Chicago called Columbia College, and they had a class in motion pictures. And I called them and I said I might be interested in coming and taking a class in motion pictures. And they said, “Well, we're not offering it this year, but the guy who teaches it is about to make a movie and he might hire you as a P.A.”
And so I called that guy's office and he said, “Does nudity bother you?” And I said, “Not as far as I know.”
And so the very first film I ever worked on was something called “Boing”.
It was a nudie and and suddenly I was learning how to make movies. And I was just so excited. I knew that's what I wanted to do. And then there's a hundred detours and I get in the movie business and I shoot crappy movies, and then I find a piece of technology called the Luma Crane, and I got involved in bringing it to America. And then I became the guy who taught a whole first generation how to run that thing. And I worked on every expensive movie in Hollywood for a few years, and then I had a bad drug problem and and those were related.
And then other stuff happened, and I ended up as a an executive. And when I came back out, I thought what I wanted to do was to shoot stills. I wanted to go back to the simple original thing. But I discovered something new as the number of pictures started to climb. And that was one picture is not enough. I mean, that idea that comes from magazines and comes from 100 years ago when every image is precious and you need one image to sum it up because the story is only four pictures long. We're past that. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. God knows I'm not saying that. And I'm in awe of people who can do that really well. But there is another way to look at it, and that is a kaleidoscope of images. We can put the images together and tell a much bigger story. And that began to interest me a lot. So SACRED FACES, that we're looking at right now, was the first time. And I couldn't edit, so I found somebody to edit. So we put this one together as part of a show of these sacred images in a large church in Los Angeles. They hung 38 images or something up on the walls. As a photographer it was a time of great, great pride.
But almost as an afterthought, we made this video and it was in a chapel and it would run on the screen. And I saw people were crying! We made it thinking that, you know, people would watch it for two or 3 minutes, and people would sit down and they would just meditate to it. I was so fascinated to learn that. I was so excited to see that. And I began to realize I might do more of that. So...
MB:
Great.
Uh - let’s look at these now. This is a relatively current project?
BONNEVILLE
AR:
This is Bonneville, Utah in 2018.
So I'm going to read you a little bit from a story called “For the Love of Fast Cars”.
And I'm going to skip through it because some of it is, you know, necessary in a story, but it's not necessary for what we're doing.
"I first went to the salt flats of Bonneville, Utah, in 1973. I drove there in a 1968 Chrysler loaded up with a 16 millimeter Arri, a Bronica, a porn star and a pocket full of drugs.
I'd been hired by Steed Oil to shoot movies of a car they were sponsoring - the T1 Bentley Roadster. It was the year land speed racing legend Al Teague drove that roadster 266 miles-an-hour, a record that would stand for almost 30 years. We didn't know how long the record would last at that time, though, and I was too busy keeping a jealous eye on my erstwhile playmate and shooting pictures to fully appreciate what was in front of me. But I've never forgotten the sound of that car as it pulled away, speeding down the course, the motor winding up as the sound faded across the miles. Years passed. I occasionally thought about my experience at Bonneville. Not so much the girl, but the extremely flat, bright land that stretched on forever. The baking heat, the extraordinary cars and the singular people. I thought more than once about going back, but I never got around to it.”
And then I tell a story about how I was kind of reintroduced to the idea and and how I decided to go.
“The road from Salt Lake to Bonneville is 100 miles straight line with a speed limit of 80 miles an hour. There isn't much humanity along the way, just a landscape that slowly transforms from urban clutter to eerily beautiful salt crushed desert. Each glimpse of white ground stoked my emotions as I drove and brought back old sensations. I began to remember how much I loved this. When I finally turned off at the Bonneville exit, I rejoiced. For the next few days, I would have the privilege of being part of a tribe gathered from across the world in pursuit of an idea that this week someone might drive faster than any human being had ever done before, and we would all be there to witness it. How human, how utterly unimportant and yet how important this is to what we are. I was filled with pride to be part of it.”
That's all I'm going to read because now we can talk about it. So that's why I went to Bonneville - to see that again and to make these pictures.
MB:
So sort of a chicken or egg question…
You wrote this book.
This is Bonneville, Utah in 2018.
So I'm going to read you a little bit from a story called “For the Love of Fast Cars”.
And I'm going to skip through it because some of it is, you know, necessary in a story, but it's not necessary for what we're doing.
"I first went to the salt flats of Bonneville, Utah, in 1973. I drove there in a 1968 Chrysler loaded up with a 16 millimeter Arri, a Bronica, a porn star and a pocket full of drugs.
I'd been hired by Steed Oil to shoot movies of a car they were sponsoring - the T1 Bentley Roadster. It was the year land speed racing legend Al Teague drove that roadster 266 miles-an-hour, a record that would stand for almost 30 years. We didn't know how long the record would last at that time, though, and I was too busy keeping a jealous eye on my erstwhile playmate and shooting pictures to fully appreciate what was in front of me. But I've never forgotten the sound of that car as it pulled away, speeding down the course, the motor winding up as the sound faded across the miles. Years passed. I occasionally thought about my experience at Bonneville. Not so much the girl, but the extremely flat, bright land that stretched on forever. The baking heat, the extraordinary cars and the singular people. I thought more than once about going back, but I never got around to it.”
And then I tell a story about how I was kind of reintroduced to the idea and and how I decided to go.
“The road from Salt Lake to Bonneville is 100 miles straight line with a speed limit of 80 miles an hour. There isn't much humanity along the way, just a landscape that slowly transforms from urban clutter to eerily beautiful salt crushed desert. Each glimpse of white ground stoked my emotions as I drove and brought back old sensations. I began to remember how much I loved this. When I finally turned off at the Bonneville exit, I rejoiced. For the next few days, I would have the privilege of being part of a tribe gathered from across the world in pursuit of an idea that this week someone might drive faster than any human being had ever done before, and we would all be there to witness it. How human, how utterly unimportant and yet how important this is to what we are. I was filled with pride to be part of it.”
That's all I'm going to read because now we can talk about it. So that's why I went to Bonneville - to see that again and to make these pictures.
MB:
So sort of a chicken or egg question…
You wrote this book.
AR:
Hm-hmm.
MB:
Are these the photographs that inspired the stories, or did you inadvertently make a library of illustrations of your memories? Do you get an idea for a story and start looking for what you've got to illustrate it?
AR:
No, I wasn't making this story. I wasn't making the video that comes out of this. I was there to shoot stills. I was there to experience the land and the people, because people who build high speed racing cars are extraordinary people. And they are my kin. You know, they are. I mean, many of them, right wing. Many of them, you know, much, much different than I'm assuming many of you are. But they are not bad people. And they are bound by the laws of physics. And every mistake they make is a really dangerous mistake. And they know that. And that conditions their lives. They're very cool.
Hm-hmm.
MB:
Are these the photographs that inspired the stories, or did you inadvertently make a library of illustrations of your memories? Do you get an idea for a story and start looking for what you've got to illustrate it?
AR:
No, I wasn't making this story. I wasn't making the video that comes out of this. I was there to shoot stills. I was there to experience the land and the people, because people who build high speed racing cars are extraordinary people. And they are my kin. You know, they are. I mean, many of them, right wing. Many of them, you know, much, much different than I'm assuming many of you are. But they are not bad people. And they are bound by the laws of physics. And every mistake they make is a really dangerous mistake. And they know that. And that conditions their lives. They're very cool.
MB:
And I don't get that you're just standing there taking pictures of these people. You get to know these people.
AR:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I used to be more stand back and see the frame. Shoot the frame. And now I'm much more interested in making that connection. And very often I don't start shooting until I've actually struck up a conversation. You know, see a waitress in a restaurant and say, “Hey, do you mind if I take a couple of pictures?” And now we're friends. And now I can ask her to do things.
MB:
Was this one trip to Bonneville?
AR:
One trip. This is two or three days.
MB:
Oh, really? Would you go back? Because you're not done?
AR:
I'm never done it. You know, you go away for a couple of years, you say, Oh, I didn’t do this or I wonder if those guys made it through last year.
MB:
Right?
AR:
Yeah, there’s always another story to tell.
MB:
We were talking earlier about the famous photographers, the 5% of the people that are in museums and all the rest of that stuff.
Are you making art when you're doing this? I mean, when you talk about a story that has four images, and how do you tell a story in four images, and you want to tell a bigger story… Is this an art form? Is it storytelling? Is it documentary?
AR:
I am a storyteller. If I lived in another time, I might have been a magazine photographer. So one more piece that we need to talk about really before we can talk about that, is - and then I started to write. Because I never wrote anything until I was about 70 years old or something like that. I never wrote a word. I wouldn't sign a check, you know?
MB:
Uh… aren’t you married to a writer?
AR:
I am married to a writer.
I am married to a novelist, yes.
And when I had my business, I had a partner, a woman named Rosie Guthrie. And when Friday came, Rosie would write out checks for everybody. And I got whatever - 500 bucks a week - because it was not a successful small business. And she would sign my name on the bottom of the check and I would take it home and hand it to Darcy and she would endorse it in the back.
MB:
You're kidding. Really?
AR:
Yes. True story.
MB:
You had a phobia about writing, I think.
AR:
I was so embarrassed by my handwriting and my belief that I had nothing to say. I mean, I'm the kid that when it came time, when you got a present from your aunt, and your Mom said, “You have to write a thank you note.” I was consumed with fear. I had no idea how to do that. You know, when they said at school, you know, you have to write a report on this…
Well, I did get thrown out of five high schools and I got thrown out of five high schools because I couldn't do that stuff. I really hadn't learned how and I could not figure out how to learn that stuff. And then suddenly I could write, I mean, really, like 50 or 60 years later, I had some stories I wanted to tell, and I started to write them down, and they were kind of clumsy.
But I have this wife who's a writer, and I would say, “Honey, would you look at this?" And she would say, “You know, you have five problems.” She is a great, great editor and she never tells you do this. What she says is, I don't know why this happened or this or this. She tells you what's missing and turns you loose to wrestle with it. So I began to write and writing opened up everything. And suddenly I would take these pictures. And then. And even sometimes nowadays, the act of taking them begins to form the story. All of what I'm doing now is, is three things. It's it's the moving of images and it's the telling of story, and it's the use of stills as the way to tell the story.
MB:
Just on the writing thing for a second, you were publishing online. Yes?
AR:
Yeah. All this began… I didn't start out to write a book. I started out with one story. I took a trip with my daughter and I made a picture. And later I started thinking about that picture and I started to write about it and it turned into a story and I posted it on a blog. And I did three or four more. And then there's a place called Medium. And Medium is a place where anybody can go online and create a place for themselves and then, you know, you start writing and you try to get people to come to it. And I started to thing called “Stories I Want To Tell You.” And I started writing these stories and I thought, “That's it. I'm amazed. I'm writing short stories. This is incredible.”
And then I looked about six years later and I said, wow - I got a hundred of these things! I kind of have told the story of my life. You know, maybe there's a whole book here, and that's how that book came to be.
I'm not the guy who looks ahead!
MB:
So we always do this little section called What's in Your Bag? And so this is the stuff you're shooting with today.
WHAT'S IN YOUR BAG?
And I don't get that you're just standing there taking pictures of these people. You get to know these people.
AR:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I used to be more stand back and see the frame. Shoot the frame. And now I'm much more interested in making that connection. And very often I don't start shooting until I've actually struck up a conversation. You know, see a waitress in a restaurant and say, “Hey, do you mind if I take a couple of pictures?” And now we're friends. And now I can ask her to do things.
MB:
Was this one trip to Bonneville?
AR:
One trip. This is two or three days.
MB:
Oh, really? Would you go back? Because you're not done?
AR:
I'm never done it. You know, you go away for a couple of years, you say, Oh, I didn’t do this or I wonder if those guys made it through last year.
MB:
Right?
AR:
Yeah, there’s always another story to tell.
MB:
We were talking earlier about the famous photographers, the 5% of the people that are in museums and all the rest of that stuff.
Are you making art when you're doing this? I mean, when you talk about a story that has four images, and how do you tell a story in four images, and you want to tell a bigger story… Is this an art form? Is it storytelling? Is it documentary?
AR:
I am a storyteller. If I lived in another time, I might have been a magazine photographer. So one more piece that we need to talk about really before we can talk about that, is - and then I started to write. Because I never wrote anything until I was about 70 years old or something like that. I never wrote a word. I wouldn't sign a check, you know?
MB:
Uh… aren’t you married to a writer?
AR:
I am married to a writer.
I am married to a novelist, yes.
And when I had my business, I had a partner, a woman named Rosie Guthrie. And when Friday came, Rosie would write out checks for everybody. And I got whatever - 500 bucks a week - because it was not a successful small business. And she would sign my name on the bottom of the check and I would take it home and hand it to Darcy and she would endorse it in the back.
MB:
You're kidding. Really?
AR:
Yes. True story.
MB:
You had a phobia about writing, I think.
AR:
I was so embarrassed by my handwriting and my belief that I had nothing to say. I mean, I'm the kid that when it came time, when you got a present from your aunt, and your Mom said, “You have to write a thank you note.” I was consumed with fear. I had no idea how to do that. You know, when they said at school, you know, you have to write a report on this…
Well, I did get thrown out of five high schools and I got thrown out of five high schools because I couldn't do that stuff. I really hadn't learned how and I could not figure out how to learn that stuff. And then suddenly I could write, I mean, really, like 50 or 60 years later, I had some stories I wanted to tell, and I started to write them down, and they were kind of clumsy.
But I have this wife who's a writer, and I would say, “Honey, would you look at this?" And she would say, “You know, you have five problems.” She is a great, great editor and she never tells you do this. What she says is, I don't know why this happened or this or this. She tells you what's missing and turns you loose to wrestle with it. So I began to write and writing opened up everything. And suddenly I would take these pictures. And then. And even sometimes nowadays, the act of taking them begins to form the story. All of what I'm doing now is, is three things. It's it's the moving of images and it's the telling of story, and it's the use of stills as the way to tell the story.
MB:
Just on the writing thing for a second, you were publishing online. Yes?
AR:
Yeah. All this began… I didn't start out to write a book. I started out with one story. I took a trip with my daughter and I made a picture. And later I started thinking about that picture and I started to write about it and it turned into a story and I posted it on a blog. And I did three or four more. And then there's a place called Medium. And Medium is a place where anybody can go online and create a place for themselves and then, you know, you start writing and you try to get people to come to it. And I started to thing called “Stories I Want To Tell You.” And I started writing these stories and I thought, “That's it. I'm amazed. I'm writing short stories. This is incredible.”
And then I looked about six years later and I said, wow - I got a hundred of these things! I kind of have told the story of my life. You know, maybe there's a whole book here, and that's how that book came to be.
I'm not the guy who looks ahead!
MB:
So we always do this little section called What's in Your Bag? And so this is the stuff you're shooting with today.
WHAT'S IN YOUR BAG?
AR:
This is the stuff I'm shooting with today. And and you have to know these are not Leicas.
You can see there on the front of them…
MB:
Okay. You'll have to leave now.
AR:
And I don't drink scotch either.
So I said to Mark, he said, you know, show me what's your bag. So then there's some filters and there's like 20 of them because my bag is really this big and the cameras just bump up against each other. And the years in the rental business of toys that cameras are, you know, tools and they ain’t gonna last forever. I'm not saying I break them on purpose, but you stick them in a bag and they better work when you take them out. Yeah, but then you need a few more things.
MB:
Are you a gear guy?
AR:
Oh, God, am I a gear guy.
MB:
And you print.
AR:
And I print. Absolutely. I print everything. You know, that's my way of knowing whether I made a picture or not.
And it's a down shooter, where I shoot flat art. Whatever - there’s a lot of crap. And there's a slide converter we made.
MB:
So - curious. Looking at this stuff. You've gone digital, right? Obviously.
AR:
Totally.
MB:
Do you handwrite your book, your stories? Are you a longhand guy? A typewriter guy?
AR:
I’m a one-finger typist. When I was at Panavision, people used to come to my office and stand in the doorway to watch me type. True story.
MB:
On the computer or on a typewriter.
AR:
On a computer.
MB:
Okay.
AR:
Couldn't be any slower either way.
MB:
But you're using A.I. now, right?
AR:
I'm planning to.
MB:
For writing or for photography?
AR:
I need it for imagery. For years, what I have wanted is the pictures I either didn't take or lost along the way. And I've decided it's time to either retrieve images - not real life, but to find a way to make them - or to create images that were in my mind and the time is gone, and to find a way to do it. So I have a story I'm working on right now called “Driving Up to Kesey’s Farm”, and it's about me and two guys that are going now - Terry Ream and Bobby Skye - and we set out in a van from San Francisco, we’d drive up the road and we take a lot of drugs and we didn't think they work so we took some more drugs and they worked. We had some adventures and and after dark, we're up in the mountains, in the Redwoods, and everything is very psychedelic. So we park the van at the top of the mountain and we decide it's a good idea if two of us climb up on a roof rack and just lay there on the roof rack while a third guy gets back in and he starts the van and he drives it back down on the road, and then he turns off the motor and turns off the lights. And we coast down…
MB:
You were wearing helmet, right?
AR:
I was protected by the drugs!
And it was beautiful. I cannot lie. It was beautiful, you know? So it turns out I have photographs of those guys. Not exactly at the moment, but I have photographs of those guys in the van. So I’ve got that for the story and I’ve got some Super eight film that I shot in the van on that trip, and I got a little bit of these guys at the airport where we're doing something, and so I’ve got most of it. But what I don't have is the psychedelic moment - what a surprise!
And so I have decided I the first A.I. I want to do is to create those images using A.I., and I'm looking into how exactly I'm going to do that now.
MB:
Wow. With like their faces or… ?
AR:
No. No. No. What I want is, is the trees melting. And the motion.
MB:
And I think Tiffen makes that filter. I'm not sure anymore.
AR:
Ha! But is it a… ?
MB:
You'll need a step-up ring.
AR:
Yeah, I think. (Laughs)
MB:
So you have an array of images here that you said were hero images.
AR:
Yeah.
MB:
You wanna pick and we'll talk about a couple of them?
HEROES
This is the stuff I'm shooting with today. And and you have to know these are not Leicas.
You can see there on the front of them…
MB:
Okay. You'll have to leave now.
AR:
And I don't drink scotch either.
So I said to Mark, he said, you know, show me what's your bag. So then there's some filters and there's like 20 of them because my bag is really this big and the cameras just bump up against each other. And the years in the rental business of toys that cameras are, you know, tools and they ain’t gonna last forever. I'm not saying I break them on purpose, but you stick them in a bag and they better work when you take them out. Yeah, but then you need a few more things.
MB:
Are you a gear guy?
AR:
Oh, God, am I a gear guy.
MB:
And you print.
AR:
And I print. Absolutely. I print everything. You know, that's my way of knowing whether I made a picture or not.
And it's a down shooter, where I shoot flat art. Whatever - there’s a lot of crap. And there's a slide converter we made.
MB:
So - curious. Looking at this stuff. You've gone digital, right? Obviously.
AR:
Totally.
MB:
Do you handwrite your book, your stories? Are you a longhand guy? A typewriter guy?
AR:
I’m a one-finger typist. When I was at Panavision, people used to come to my office and stand in the doorway to watch me type. True story.
MB:
On the computer or on a typewriter.
AR:
On a computer.
MB:
Okay.
AR:
Couldn't be any slower either way.
MB:
But you're using A.I. now, right?
AR:
I'm planning to.
MB:
For writing or for photography?
AR:
I need it for imagery. For years, what I have wanted is the pictures I either didn't take or lost along the way. And I've decided it's time to either retrieve images - not real life, but to find a way to make them - or to create images that were in my mind and the time is gone, and to find a way to do it. So I have a story I'm working on right now called “Driving Up to Kesey’s Farm”, and it's about me and two guys that are going now - Terry Ream and Bobby Skye - and we set out in a van from San Francisco, we’d drive up the road and we take a lot of drugs and we didn't think they work so we took some more drugs and they worked. We had some adventures and and after dark, we're up in the mountains, in the Redwoods, and everything is very psychedelic. So we park the van at the top of the mountain and we decide it's a good idea if two of us climb up on a roof rack and just lay there on the roof rack while a third guy gets back in and he starts the van and he drives it back down on the road, and then he turns off the motor and turns off the lights. And we coast down…
MB:
You were wearing helmet, right?
AR:
I was protected by the drugs!
And it was beautiful. I cannot lie. It was beautiful, you know? So it turns out I have photographs of those guys. Not exactly at the moment, but I have photographs of those guys in the van. So I’ve got that for the story and I’ve got some Super eight film that I shot in the van on that trip, and I got a little bit of these guys at the airport where we're doing something, and so I’ve got most of it. But what I don't have is the psychedelic moment - what a surprise!
And so I have decided I the first A.I. I want to do is to create those images using A.I., and I'm looking into how exactly I'm going to do that now.
MB:
Wow. With like their faces or… ?
AR:
No. No. No. What I want is, is the trees melting. And the motion.
MB:
And I think Tiffen makes that filter. I'm not sure anymore.
AR:
Ha! But is it a… ?
MB:
You'll need a step-up ring.
AR:
Yeah, I think. (Laughs)
MB:
So you have an array of images here that you said were hero images.
AR:
Yeah.
MB:
You wanna pick and we'll talk about a couple of them?
HEROES
AR:
Sure. Well, first with this one.
MB:
This one here?
AR:
Yeah, because this is where Bonneville begins. The ones you just were looking at were from 2018. But this is a picture made in 1973 when I was hired by the people whose name is on that car. And that's the moment when I first experienced that life. And the thrill to me about this picture is, I had said to the guy who drove this car…
Okay. Understand, a guy got in this car and he drove it 266 miles an hour.
MB:
In what year?.
AR:
1973.
There's nothing there. There's a steel roll cage, you know, But if this car goes wrong in some kind of way - this is part of what I wrote about in the story - in a heartbeat, in the space of a breath, you go three blocks. If the wind takes you and really pushes you off course and you begin to spin or whatever, you can be dead so fast in this car. And they know that. This is not a daredevil act. This is an act of supreme trust in the people who have worked with them, helping them build a car, and the people who maintain the course and make sure that there is nothing, there isn't a tiny nail or anything anywhere. Because the drivers can't see. They don't look straight ahead. They look at a pylons on either side to judge where they are. And they travel - if 60 miles an hour is a mile a minute, these guys are going four and five times faster than that.
So I looked and Al Teague is still alive. So I called him and I said, “Al, I promised I send you pictures in 73. I never did it. If I made just some prints, could I bring ‘em down to you?"
He was so thrilled. And I went down and we spent an afternoon and I gave him some prints. And this is one of the prints that I gave him.
MB:
Real value in that.
AR:
So yeah, one of the things that I think is really important, I don't know how many of you here are photographers…
MANY HANDS RAISE.
MB:
Now we know!
AR:
So I'm just probably speaking to the choir here…
But we don't know the value of our pictures for 20 years at least. And that's why they're worth saving. That's why it's worth knowing where they are and how to put your hands on them. And why it's worth revisiting them is because we don't know, until life has taken us a long ways down the road, what's important. So that.
MB:
Good point.
Pick another one.
AR:
Wavy?
MB:
Wavy.
AR:
So this is a portrait of Wavy Gravy. I don't know, ten years ago, maybe. Something like that. I am assuming most of you know who Wavy is. You know, he's a professional psychedelic clown. He's a deeply caring guy.
MB:
Humanitarian.
AR:
But he never lets you see the real Wavy Gravy. He shows you the face. He shows you the clown face. And if you go looking for pictures of Wavy online. I'm not saying they're not sensitive. They are a lot of things, but they are never the guy. And so I, I shot this. I asked him to do a session and I shot this one afternoon and I thought I had done a good job. And his wife called me and she said, Andy, nobody has ever done this. I have never seen a picture of Wavy that, you know, that is just him not being Wavy Gravy.
So I'm really proud of that.
MB:
Wow.
LISA LAW (in the audience)
And that's saying something because I've got a million pictures of him.
AR:
And they're all close.
I have a lot of other pictures are Wavy. There's none like that, you know, And if it was an accident, that would be a different thing. But this was a picture, you can see it in a roll as it goes, we come to this picture together as I ask him to trust me over and over.
MB:
Yeah.
AR:
But just for contrast, there's John Cale.
So I love this picture. I love this picture because it's not the kind of picture I usually make.
MB:
In what way? Like, not eye contact. Is it that, or…?
AR:
It's partially that. So, John and I are friends. We've been friends for many, many years and he is the most deeply, personally hidden guy I know. I mean as a friend he's wonderful, but he's not a guy that reveals himself easily. And so when you shoot John Cale, what you get are John Cale pictures. And this, in fact, was for an album shoot. And, you know, the ones that were used are very, very different. But twice during the course of this shoot I tried hard to break away from that and to make a picture where … I don't know if you like John's music or you know, he's one of the founders of the Velvet Underground and he's as old as I am, he’s 82. And he's still creating music every single day. He is my personal hero as an artist who continues to do the work. And and you cannot you're not going to see that in his eyes. But I got him to do that.
MB:
Studio?
AR:
Made up studio. A couple of lights.
MB:
A lot of grain in here - really adds. Conscious choice?
AR:
It's always a conscious choice if it happens well.
MB:
So that’s a yes. Yes, absolutely! Of course.
AR:
It's the first thing you learn in the movie business is - you’re a young assistant cameraperson and the cinematographer - if you get to go in the dailies - the first thing the cinematographer says says to you is, “I don't want to hear a word like, ‘O God!’ or anything like that, because whatever shows up on that screen, we meant to be that way.“
MB:
I’ve got to ask you about this one.
AR:
Oh, Sure. This is called “Random Baby”. And in honest truth, I now have to say, I don't know that I shot it or Darcy shot it. Did you shoot it? Yeah. See, it’s Darcy. That's what happens after 50 years.
MB:
I love this picture.
AR:
Why I love this picture is because it reminds me how accidental it can be. We don't have to always know. And just sometimes the world gives you the most wonderful shit. You just. All you got to do is push the button.
MB:
Well, but you got to be prepared. You got to be ready to do that, right? Yeah, yeah. What else have we got here? Do you want to talk a little more about Nick?
AR:
Sure.
MB:
That was such an interesting event. So we've talked before about access being, like, one of the most important things for any photographer.
AR:
Yes.
MB:
So how were you in this room?
AR:
It's in the book.
MB:
And so we'll move on and, uh, warm up the cash register…
AR:
So I was living in L.A. and I was kind of scuffling along in the movie business and Wavy Gravy called me, because by that time I had already lived on the Hog Farm bus, all that kind of stuff. And Wavy calls me and says “Andy. Do you know who Nick Ray is?” And I say “Nah - I don't know.” He says, “Well, he's a really famous filmmaker and you should know him.”, he said, and he's working on editing a picture and he’s at the Chateau Marmont, And he really needs some speed.”
He said, “Have you got any speed?” And I said, “Yeah, I got a jug of drugs.” So I went over to, you know, to give Nick some drugs. And this is the interior of the bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, where Nick had years before prepared to direct Rebel Without a Cause. But this is not Rebel Without a Cause. This is actually the last picture he worked on called We Can't Go Home Again.
And what's happened by now is Nick has hopelessly fucked up and he has been given a job teaching young filmmakers somewhere in New York or something. And he the first thing you know, he takes this class and he says to them,”I can't teach you how to make films in a classroom. We have to make a film. I'll show you how it's done.” And in a couple of months, he turned them into this mad unit . They were shooting a thing that was intended to be seen on, like, seven overlapping images and they were shooting multiple strands of storyline and then they had to edit it. And where the money was going to come from to do all this was, this film was invited - because Nick Ray is a gone and France - this was invited to play at Cannes. So Nick takes all the kids and says, “We'll go to the Chateau.” He goes to the Chateau and says, “You remember me, Nick? Ray? You know, I did Rebel Without A Cause. I'd like that bungalow again.” Doesn't mention he has no money. And so they give him the bungalow. He moves all the kids in and they start editing these strands of film, now overlapping them on a large projection screen. They’ve got six or seven sixteen millimeter, maybe even eight millimeter, projectors. And Nick, you know, they would rouse him from his torpor because he was drinking a ton of wine and and then taking the speed to keep moving, and they would run everything and you know and and amazingly he would say (imitates a gruff voice), “All right. you gotta shorten that up and and …” and would give them directions for the for the next piece of the editing. And they were all 18 years old and could not in any way, you know, control him or make him do anything. And I'm 30 or 35 and fearless for no good reason. And I can say, “Nick, we got to get out of here. Nick, you're making a scene. Come on, man, let's go.” And sometimes you would listen to me.
So I got to hang close with Nick for the time that he was in town.
MB:
And did he ever find his pants?
AR:
He was in no rush!
He was very proud of that bikini underwear. And I have film of him dressed just like that.
Do you guys know, the Chateau Marmont? It's a fabled hotel in Los Angeles, I have a film of Nick walking up the stairs outside the chateau, dressed exactly like this as the college kids are yelling “Come on, Nick, come back.”
MB:
So is there one more? Because I want to get to your other two little films.
AR:
Yeah. Kansas.
So this is Kansas. So this is why it's necessary to write stories. I think this is a good picture. I mean, I'm very proud of this picture. I don't mean in any way to say this is not a fine picture. This is the last Pony Express station still standing. It's in a field in Kansas. Nobody ever sees it this way. If you go look for pictures of it online, the pictures are all made from the other side.
I was really taken the day that I was taken there. I was really like - that’s important. This is stuff that's really important. And it's still there. And I came around and I found this place and I said - this is a this place stood in prairie. There was no grass. This was all prairie and this prairie in the foreground. So I crouched down. And what I'm saying is this is an intentional picture. I made this picture with thought and care, and it's everything that I could make of that at that moment. But it doesn't tell you the story. And that's why I tell stories. Because the combination of this and the stories I get to tell, I think it makes a bigger thing.
MB:
Got it. Got it.
We've got two short films of yours. We're going to start with The Museum Is Closed.
AR:
Oh, yeah, Yeah, sure.
THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED
Sure. Well, first with this one.
MB:
This one here?
AR:
Yeah, because this is where Bonneville begins. The ones you just were looking at were from 2018. But this is a picture made in 1973 when I was hired by the people whose name is on that car. And that's the moment when I first experienced that life. And the thrill to me about this picture is, I had said to the guy who drove this car…
Okay. Understand, a guy got in this car and he drove it 266 miles an hour.
MB:
In what year?.
AR:
1973.
There's nothing there. There's a steel roll cage, you know, But if this car goes wrong in some kind of way - this is part of what I wrote about in the story - in a heartbeat, in the space of a breath, you go three blocks. If the wind takes you and really pushes you off course and you begin to spin or whatever, you can be dead so fast in this car. And they know that. This is not a daredevil act. This is an act of supreme trust in the people who have worked with them, helping them build a car, and the people who maintain the course and make sure that there is nothing, there isn't a tiny nail or anything anywhere. Because the drivers can't see. They don't look straight ahead. They look at a pylons on either side to judge where they are. And they travel - if 60 miles an hour is a mile a minute, these guys are going four and five times faster than that.
So I looked and Al Teague is still alive. So I called him and I said, “Al, I promised I send you pictures in 73. I never did it. If I made just some prints, could I bring ‘em down to you?"
He was so thrilled. And I went down and we spent an afternoon and I gave him some prints. And this is one of the prints that I gave him.
MB:
Real value in that.
AR:
So yeah, one of the things that I think is really important, I don't know how many of you here are photographers…
MANY HANDS RAISE.
MB:
Now we know!
AR:
So I'm just probably speaking to the choir here…
But we don't know the value of our pictures for 20 years at least. And that's why they're worth saving. That's why it's worth knowing where they are and how to put your hands on them. And why it's worth revisiting them is because we don't know, until life has taken us a long ways down the road, what's important. So that.
MB:
Good point.
Pick another one.
AR:
Wavy?
MB:
Wavy.
AR:
So this is a portrait of Wavy Gravy. I don't know, ten years ago, maybe. Something like that. I am assuming most of you know who Wavy is. You know, he's a professional psychedelic clown. He's a deeply caring guy.
MB:
Humanitarian.
AR:
But he never lets you see the real Wavy Gravy. He shows you the face. He shows you the clown face. And if you go looking for pictures of Wavy online. I'm not saying they're not sensitive. They are a lot of things, but they are never the guy. And so I, I shot this. I asked him to do a session and I shot this one afternoon and I thought I had done a good job. And his wife called me and she said, Andy, nobody has ever done this. I have never seen a picture of Wavy that, you know, that is just him not being Wavy Gravy.
So I'm really proud of that.
MB:
Wow.
LISA LAW (in the audience)
And that's saying something because I've got a million pictures of him.
AR:
And they're all close.
I have a lot of other pictures are Wavy. There's none like that, you know, And if it was an accident, that would be a different thing. But this was a picture, you can see it in a roll as it goes, we come to this picture together as I ask him to trust me over and over.
MB:
Yeah.
AR:
But just for contrast, there's John Cale.
So I love this picture. I love this picture because it's not the kind of picture I usually make.
MB:
In what way? Like, not eye contact. Is it that, or…?
AR:
It's partially that. So, John and I are friends. We've been friends for many, many years and he is the most deeply, personally hidden guy I know. I mean as a friend he's wonderful, but he's not a guy that reveals himself easily. And so when you shoot John Cale, what you get are John Cale pictures. And this, in fact, was for an album shoot. And, you know, the ones that were used are very, very different. But twice during the course of this shoot I tried hard to break away from that and to make a picture where … I don't know if you like John's music or you know, he's one of the founders of the Velvet Underground and he's as old as I am, he’s 82. And he's still creating music every single day. He is my personal hero as an artist who continues to do the work. And and you cannot you're not going to see that in his eyes. But I got him to do that.
MB:
Studio?
AR:
Made up studio. A couple of lights.
MB:
A lot of grain in here - really adds. Conscious choice?
AR:
It's always a conscious choice if it happens well.
MB:
So that’s a yes. Yes, absolutely! Of course.
AR:
It's the first thing you learn in the movie business is - you’re a young assistant cameraperson and the cinematographer - if you get to go in the dailies - the first thing the cinematographer says says to you is, “I don't want to hear a word like, ‘O God!’ or anything like that, because whatever shows up on that screen, we meant to be that way.“
MB:
I’ve got to ask you about this one.
AR:
Oh, Sure. This is called “Random Baby”. And in honest truth, I now have to say, I don't know that I shot it or Darcy shot it. Did you shoot it? Yeah. See, it’s Darcy. That's what happens after 50 years.
MB:
I love this picture.
AR:
Why I love this picture is because it reminds me how accidental it can be. We don't have to always know. And just sometimes the world gives you the most wonderful shit. You just. All you got to do is push the button.
MB:
Well, but you got to be prepared. You got to be ready to do that, right? Yeah, yeah. What else have we got here? Do you want to talk a little more about Nick?
AR:
Sure.
MB:
That was such an interesting event. So we've talked before about access being, like, one of the most important things for any photographer.
AR:
Yes.
MB:
So how were you in this room?
AR:
It's in the book.
MB:
And so we'll move on and, uh, warm up the cash register…
AR:
So I was living in L.A. and I was kind of scuffling along in the movie business and Wavy Gravy called me, because by that time I had already lived on the Hog Farm bus, all that kind of stuff. And Wavy calls me and says “Andy. Do you know who Nick Ray is?” And I say “Nah - I don't know.” He says, “Well, he's a really famous filmmaker and you should know him.”, he said, and he's working on editing a picture and he’s at the Chateau Marmont, And he really needs some speed.”
He said, “Have you got any speed?” And I said, “Yeah, I got a jug of drugs.” So I went over to, you know, to give Nick some drugs. And this is the interior of the bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, where Nick had years before prepared to direct Rebel Without a Cause. But this is not Rebel Without a Cause. This is actually the last picture he worked on called We Can't Go Home Again.
And what's happened by now is Nick has hopelessly fucked up and he has been given a job teaching young filmmakers somewhere in New York or something. And he the first thing you know, he takes this class and he says to them,”I can't teach you how to make films in a classroom. We have to make a film. I'll show you how it's done.” And in a couple of months, he turned them into this mad unit . They were shooting a thing that was intended to be seen on, like, seven overlapping images and they were shooting multiple strands of storyline and then they had to edit it. And where the money was going to come from to do all this was, this film was invited - because Nick Ray is a gone and France - this was invited to play at Cannes. So Nick takes all the kids and says, “We'll go to the Chateau.” He goes to the Chateau and says, “You remember me, Nick? Ray? You know, I did Rebel Without A Cause. I'd like that bungalow again.” Doesn't mention he has no money. And so they give him the bungalow. He moves all the kids in and they start editing these strands of film, now overlapping them on a large projection screen. They’ve got six or seven sixteen millimeter, maybe even eight millimeter, projectors. And Nick, you know, they would rouse him from his torpor because he was drinking a ton of wine and and then taking the speed to keep moving, and they would run everything and you know and and amazingly he would say (imitates a gruff voice), “All right. you gotta shorten that up and and …” and would give them directions for the for the next piece of the editing. And they were all 18 years old and could not in any way, you know, control him or make him do anything. And I'm 30 or 35 and fearless for no good reason. And I can say, “Nick, we got to get out of here. Nick, you're making a scene. Come on, man, let's go.” And sometimes you would listen to me.
So I got to hang close with Nick for the time that he was in town.
MB:
And did he ever find his pants?
AR:
He was in no rush!
He was very proud of that bikini underwear. And I have film of him dressed just like that.
Do you guys know, the Chateau Marmont? It's a fabled hotel in Los Angeles, I have a film of Nick walking up the stairs outside the chateau, dressed exactly like this as the college kids are yelling “Come on, Nick, come back.”
MB:
So is there one more? Because I want to get to your other two little films.
AR:
Yeah. Kansas.
So this is Kansas. So this is why it's necessary to write stories. I think this is a good picture. I mean, I'm very proud of this picture. I don't mean in any way to say this is not a fine picture. This is the last Pony Express station still standing. It's in a field in Kansas. Nobody ever sees it this way. If you go look for pictures of it online, the pictures are all made from the other side.
I was really taken the day that I was taken there. I was really like - that’s important. This is stuff that's really important. And it's still there. And I came around and I found this place and I said - this is a this place stood in prairie. There was no grass. This was all prairie and this prairie in the foreground. So I crouched down. And what I'm saying is this is an intentional picture. I made this picture with thought and care, and it's everything that I could make of that at that moment. But it doesn't tell you the story. And that's why I tell stories. Because the combination of this and the stories I get to tell, I think it makes a bigger thing.
MB:
Got it. Got it.
We've got two short films of yours. We're going to start with The Museum Is Closed.
AR:
Oh, yeah, Yeah, sure.
THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED
Audience applause.
AR:
Thank you.
MB:
So that's an evolution from your Sacred Faces film .
AR:
That's the evolution from Sacred Faces. Sacred Faces was a slideshow. Now I'm writing. Now I've got stories to tell. Now all that stuff starts to happen. How this one came to be was I was invited to be guest artist at Photo L.A. the year that Photo L.A. could not be an in-person event. And the woman who put it on called me. She said, “Andy, you know, I'll give you a slot. I would love to give you a slot. You know, what can you do in a month?” And because I'm crazy, I said, “I think I could make five films.”
And I did.
But I'm not as crazy as I used to be. So I knew I could never do it by myself. And so I knew I had five stories and I had to work on them a little bit. And I knew I had the stills. What I knew I couldn't possibly do was to shoot all of the stuff of me reading. I couldn't edit. I had to give that away. And so I got two or three people - one a woman friend of mine, a wonderful director and cinematographer, and she did two or three of them. This film was shot by a young man Momba Kimball, who was still a student at Art Center. He was probably 20, 21, something like that. And one thing I really, really love is giving away control. I don't love it before I do it, but when I can find a way to let go, it always gets better and more wonderful. So I met Momba and and we said we would agree we would shoot the stuff of me reading at the house. And I had this whole idea of where we would do it and everything.
And Bomba came and he walked around and looked. He said, “Would you mind if instead of shooting it in the house…” - I had said the house because I knew the sound was going to be easier to control neighborhood sound - he said, “Would you mind if we shot it in the backyard?” I said, “Yeah, maybe, you know, I guess, you know.” So he goes out and he says, “How about how about here?” And I said, “Okay,” He said, “Can you bring a chair out here?” And once I was seated in a chair, he said, “Would you mind if I put one light on you?
And he made that.
MB:
That's great.
AR:
I was so excited. I said, Oh my God, I'm so lucky. I got somebody who got what I was trying to do and added to it. And that's the thing that, when you're when you're a still photographer, you are so often on your own, you so often you're your whole resource, you know. And the one thing about making movies that is beyond compare is when you get to work with a bunch of people in the band, when everybody is aimed in the same direction. And that was the first time I ever had that in my life in that way. And it was so wonderful.
MB:
Well, it makes such a difference too, because today personal filmmaking is this (a phone). And and everybody's not only a cinematographer, but a screenwriter and a director and an editor. And shooting really bad sound and all that. So you're. You're like, doing it. You're getting into as much of a crew as you can get into to do it the right way.
AR:
Yeah. I made the mistake of going up to San Francisco some months ago to shoot some some interview footage with old Hog Farmers who are not so well anymore. And I said - I have an iPhone 15 Pro Max. It makes extraordinary pictures. I know it's not the same as my real camera pictures, but it makes extraordinary pictures. I got two Nikons - they both shoot video. I said, “I think I can do this as a three camera shoot. I think I can really pull this off.” So I got in the car with a friend of mine and we drove up here with three cameras, a couple of tripods and a light. And I got up there, I said, “Oh, shit, I got to do all this. And I'm supposed to be the guy in the scene asking the questions!”
And so I, I did it and I fucked up. And some of the footage is unusable as a result of it. Thank God. Three cameras, you know. So it's so I have usable footage.
Yeah.
MB:
Sometimes it's takes a village.
AR:
You got to have people.
MB:
Yeah, absolutely. We're going to show this and then we're going to do Q&A. I want to show this last film - kind of saved the best for last, because this is the latest, isn't it? Or is it the latest?
AR:
Well, it I guess it is, you know. Yes, of course it is, because this comes after COVID, right? Yeah.
So, I love shooting on the road. I love I've always loved the road. And I'm fortunate - m y wife does not like the road with me, but I have a good friend who loves to drive and is happy. He's like a teamster. He sits in the car. And I say, “Hey Bob, I'm going to go over there and it's gonna be beautiful.” And he says , “I’ll wait.”
So this film was made with my friend Bob. We went to shoot motorcycles, not to shoot anything else. I said, “We’ll shoot Kansas, I'll do some Kansas while we're there because I love 2 lane road and small towns. And I love that because the the evidence of of earlier America remains. You know the the stuff of my childhood and - you know, looking around you guys are all too young but…
So we went to Kansas and the story I went to tell was the story of the motorcycles you're going to see and the story you're going to see is the story that told itself to me.
PICTURING KANSAS
AR:
Thank you.
MB:
So that's an evolution from your Sacred Faces film .
AR:
That's the evolution from Sacred Faces. Sacred Faces was a slideshow. Now I'm writing. Now I've got stories to tell. Now all that stuff starts to happen. How this one came to be was I was invited to be guest artist at Photo L.A. the year that Photo L.A. could not be an in-person event. And the woman who put it on called me. She said, “Andy, you know, I'll give you a slot. I would love to give you a slot. You know, what can you do in a month?” And because I'm crazy, I said, “I think I could make five films.”
And I did.
But I'm not as crazy as I used to be. So I knew I could never do it by myself. And so I knew I had five stories and I had to work on them a little bit. And I knew I had the stills. What I knew I couldn't possibly do was to shoot all of the stuff of me reading. I couldn't edit. I had to give that away. And so I got two or three people - one a woman friend of mine, a wonderful director and cinematographer, and she did two or three of them. This film was shot by a young man Momba Kimball, who was still a student at Art Center. He was probably 20, 21, something like that. And one thing I really, really love is giving away control. I don't love it before I do it, but when I can find a way to let go, it always gets better and more wonderful. So I met Momba and and we said we would agree we would shoot the stuff of me reading at the house. And I had this whole idea of where we would do it and everything.
And Bomba came and he walked around and looked. He said, “Would you mind if instead of shooting it in the house…” - I had said the house because I knew the sound was going to be easier to control neighborhood sound - he said, “Would you mind if we shot it in the backyard?” I said, “Yeah, maybe, you know, I guess, you know.” So he goes out and he says, “How about how about here?” And I said, “Okay,” He said, “Can you bring a chair out here?” And once I was seated in a chair, he said, “Would you mind if I put one light on you?
And he made that.
MB:
That's great.
AR:
I was so excited. I said, Oh my God, I'm so lucky. I got somebody who got what I was trying to do and added to it. And that's the thing that, when you're when you're a still photographer, you are so often on your own, you so often you're your whole resource, you know. And the one thing about making movies that is beyond compare is when you get to work with a bunch of people in the band, when everybody is aimed in the same direction. And that was the first time I ever had that in my life in that way. And it was so wonderful.
MB:
Well, it makes such a difference too, because today personal filmmaking is this (a phone). And and everybody's not only a cinematographer, but a screenwriter and a director and an editor. And shooting really bad sound and all that. So you're. You're like, doing it. You're getting into as much of a crew as you can get into to do it the right way.
AR:
Yeah. I made the mistake of going up to San Francisco some months ago to shoot some some interview footage with old Hog Farmers who are not so well anymore. And I said - I have an iPhone 15 Pro Max. It makes extraordinary pictures. I know it's not the same as my real camera pictures, but it makes extraordinary pictures. I got two Nikons - they both shoot video. I said, “I think I can do this as a three camera shoot. I think I can really pull this off.” So I got in the car with a friend of mine and we drove up here with three cameras, a couple of tripods and a light. And I got up there, I said, “Oh, shit, I got to do all this. And I'm supposed to be the guy in the scene asking the questions!”
And so I, I did it and I fucked up. And some of the footage is unusable as a result of it. Thank God. Three cameras, you know. So it's so I have usable footage.
Yeah.
MB:
Sometimes it's takes a village.
AR:
You got to have people.
MB:
Yeah, absolutely. We're going to show this and then we're going to do Q&A. I want to show this last film - kind of saved the best for last, because this is the latest, isn't it? Or is it the latest?
AR:
Well, it I guess it is, you know. Yes, of course it is, because this comes after COVID, right? Yeah.
So, I love shooting on the road. I love I've always loved the road. And I'm fortunate - m y wife does not like the road with me, but I have a good friend who loves to drive and is happy. He's like a teamster. He sits in the car. And I say, “Hey Bob, I'm going to go over there and it's gonna be beautiful.” And he says , “I’ll wait.”
So this film was made with my friend Bob. We went to shoot motorcycles, not to shoot anything else. I said, “We’ll shoot Kansas, I'll do some Kansas while we're there because I love 2 lane road and small towns. And I love that because the the evidence of of earlier America remains. You know the the stuff of my childhood and - you know, looking around you guys are all too young but…
So we went to Kansas and the story I went to tell was the story of the motorcycles you're going to see and the story you're going to see is the story that told itself to me.
PICTURING KANSAS
Audience applause
MB:
So I just want to say that I think a lot of us - I mean, a lot of people here in this room have made books. And books have been the sort of the accessible medium for taking collections or looking through archives or getting work out where it can be seen. But this gives me a whole bunch of new ideas.
AR:
I would love to see stuff you would do.
MB:
Yeah, this is a real way to take it beyond and have it have the benefit of words and the benefit of music and all the rest of it. You really did a beautiful job.
AR:
The work that the music and the editing does enhances what I've done, so much. It is so pleasurable for me when I see what other people have done and you know, and now I'm editing by myself and even then,, the point is this to me, the most - what’s the word I'm looking for? - the most promising format that I think we have available to us. This combination of everything that we know how to do. And it's so - it's affordable. It's so easy to edit now, you know, it's just a wonderful way to extend the work you're already doing.
MB:
But I think also that the concept - Jan and I did a little film - that the idea of using stills instead of having to shoot motion for an entire film…
AR:
Yes.
MB:
Gives you an awful lot of freedom. Flexibility. The ability to do a lot of this stuff as a one man band kind of thing, and then bring in other parts that you need, and intersperse a little bit of motion in in the middle of it. It works great.
AR:
It's a pleasure.
MB:
So I just want to say that I think a lot of us - I mean, a lot of people here in this room have made books. And books have been the sort of the accessible medium for taking collections or looking through archives or getting work out where it can be seen. But this gives me a whole bunch of new ideas.
AR:
I would love to see stuff you would do.
MB:
Yeah, this is a real way to take it beyond and have it have the benefit of words and the benefit of music and all the rest of it. You really did a beautiful job.
AR:
The work that the music and the editing does enhances what I've done, so much. It is so pleasurable for me when I see what other people have done and you know, and now I'm editing by myself and even then,, the point is this to me, the most - what’s the word I'm looking for? - the most promising format that I think we have available to us. This combination of everything that we know how to do. And it's so - it's affordable. It's so easy to edit now, you know, it's just a wonderful way to extend the work you're already doing.
MB:
But I think also that the concept - Jan and I did a little film - that the idea of using stills instead of having to shoot motion for an entire film…
AR:
Yes.
MB:
Gives you an awful lot of freedom. Flexibility. The ability to do a lot of this stuff as a one man band kind of thing, and then bring in other parts that you need, and intersperse a little bit of motion in in the middle of it. It works great.
AR:
It's a pleasure.