really thought about a lot of things. You come across very
few instinctive, great photographers. On the other hand,
it’s sort of a burden that people are so educated. It isn’t instinctive anymore. It is an intellectual practice now. It’s very
self-conscious. I miss, at some level, the period when people
were driven by instinct rather than intellect.
This brings me to where photography is right now. I think
that there’s been such a shift, and not only because of technology. Photography is not just a camera and straight photographs. A photographer doesn’t want to be called a photographer anymore, they want to be called an artist. And if
they do mixed media, then they’re definitely an artist.
Well you noticed, I don’t always use the word “artist,”
I mix. I think everybody is an artist at some level, everybody. I don’t find the words that meaningful. We can’t really define what a photograph is anymore. The boundaries
are blurred of what is and what isn’t a photograph, and I
defy anybody to give me a clear definition of what a photograph is at this point. We’re all photographers. We all use
cameras. It’s the nature of the world we live in. We all make
pictures with photographic technology. If I was to locate
myself in photography within one specific place I would
use the words “documentary art.” Documentary, because it
is about the observed world. Art, because it’s fashioned by
the unique approach of the individual photographer. We’re
in this world where suddenly there are billions of people engaged with photography, and I see it as our job to bring the
story and culture of photography to as many of the people
of today using cameras. It’s all about history being relevant
to what photography is becoming.
There are lots of people enthusiastic about contemporary
art who really don’t know anything about the story of
photography. I’m here at Aperture because I think the story which Aperture has been so much a part of is relevant
to today: how people make pictures, how people use pictures. They may be going off in new directions, but there’s
a history to the way people frame a photograph today. It
comes from inventions in the past and the work of certain
individuals who created ways of looking at things. It has
a genealogy, even as the borders of what photography is
and isn’t are no longer clear. That doesn’t matter to me.
We are photo-centric, we’re engaged in this particular story and it has fascinating chapters underway now, which
is what the magazine is tracking; the evolution of the medium as it happens. Some of the photographic work no
longer involves a camera, and that’s where the nature of
the medium is blurred.
What has been the shift in viewpoint from before you took
over at Aperture?
It’s a question of emphasis rather than anything radical. I
completely identify with all of what Aperture has done in
its past. But there’s this incredible growth of photographers
making their own books; and in that context I see our role as a
publisher, our job, to cultivate relationships. We offer the opportunity for people to meet and get to know photographers
in person. Events are key to how I see publishing. It’s not
just the book launch, it’s the fact that we are offering multiple
points of access as well as multiple revenue streams that go
with that. We offer workshops with the photographers we
publish. It helps to build a direct audience, building opportunities for people who want to have an intimate connection
with the photographer, where books are key to that, they are
the heart to it. But it’s not only about the book. We work in
part as an events organization. I think this is what the publishing future for photography is going to be. We try to offer
people a rounded experience.
I want to ask you something that is dear to my heart. Fashion photography: Why, in your opinion, do you think it’s
still snubbed by the photo community?
I think there are two reasons. One, there’s the issue of commercial photography generally being somewhat snubbed.
There’s a certain snobbery in the art photo world about photographs made for commercial purposes which, by the way,
I don’t happen to agree with. Then the second part: fashion
is an enclosed world. I blame us, but I blame fashion too.
They don’t necessarily think outside their own world. There
are a lot of things that exist in the fashion world only for the
people in the fashion world.
You don’t think they reach out?
Very few fashion photographers come to us with projects. I
think that’s going to change because of people like Viviane Sassen. An amazing fashion photographer making amazing books.
Absolutely stunning work. There are some artists/fashion photographers breaching boundaries in that area and beginning to
change that. We will do more fashion projects in future.
This is our fantasy issue, so I have to ask. What’s your personal fantasy right now?
I picture myself walking country footpaths in England, with
the dog.
That’s very clean.
I’m not giving you my dirty one.
When we were talking about the photographers going to
graduate school, one of the things that I noticed, is that everybody I’ve interviewed, the artists, are so articulate about
their work. And they never were before. If you had asked me
about my work, I wouldn’t have been able to talk about it.
We’ve trained ourselves. It’s happened. The naive thing is
gone, it’s over. I mean, Google. Everybody knows everything about everybody. It’s horrible. That’s my fantasy. A
world in which there was no internet and we acted on artistic instinct, and we didn’t know what was going on on the
other side of the fence. I grew up in that world. I grew up in
a photographic culture in England where we didn’t know
what was going on in Paris.