Atkins Labcast
Hosted by Kate and Paul Atkins, the third generation owners of the oldest photo lab in Australia. A podcast about living with and loving photography. From philosophy to technicalities, for amateurs, artists and professionals, we talk about it all.
Atkins Labcast
Atkins Labcast Episode 52 - Milton Wordley
Milton and I sit down together to discuss his long career as an editorial photographer, which has been interspersed with running a major studio, photographing streakers at Lords, starting a first class E6 lab and devoting more than most to our photographic community.
Milton's website: https://wordley.com.au
Milton's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/miltonwordleyphotographer/
Cathy’s Child: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathy%27s_Child
Sam Wordley: https://samwordley.com
G'day listeners, welcome to the Atkins Labcast. This week I sit down with one of the most generous stalwarts of the Australian photographic industry. Milton Wordley has always been active in the community, nurturing photographers and their ideas, ready to give support where needed. Through all of this he's run a successful editorial photography business as well as a large active studio. Seeing Milton navigate such a competitive industry and still share so much has been inspiring to us all. He's carrying a significant brain injury these past two years and he can't shoot professionally, but he hasn't outwardly changed and has a great perspective on life. I think he'll enjoy this. You ran probably the biggest commercial studio in South Australia called Southlight. When did Southlight close down and how long was it running for?
SPEAKER_01:Gee, I sold the building in 2014, so that was 10 years ago. I think I kind of stopped operating Southlight as such probably in about 2008, I reckon. And before that, it was probably 30 years? Yeah, it was
SPEAKER_00:from the early 80s. Wow. So there probably wasn't a style of photography in Adelaide or a client that you didn't have some contact with over those 30 years?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I didn't do much studio work myself. Right. And my background is newspaper and magazine photography. And that's actually how I ended up with a lot of clients. And one of them in particular is still a really good mate of mine. In fact, he's now a bloody neighbour. And he was a journalist at the ABC and then he started a PR business. And he rang me one day and he said, I see your photographs in The Australian. Have you ever thought of doing commercial work? And I said, well, yeah, okay, I can do that. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:so. So what led you to be a newspaper photographer? Where did that start? My father
SPEAKER_01:was quite a highly regarded and quite well-known and all that sort of journalist.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:You may or may not have ever seen a movie called Cathy's Child. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's based on my father.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So the story of Cathy's Child was an Australian helped recover a mother and child that had been taken by her husband to another country?
SPEAKER_01:No, a child has been taken. One of the issues in Australia law is that when you have children, your parents are on their Australian citizenship thing. Yes. And when you go your separate ways, the names still stay there and a mother or a father can still, can go overseas with the child on their own and not tell the other partner. And Dad was working for the, I think called Hotline at the Sydney Sun and he kept getting these calls from these, mostly women, whose men had, or ex-husbands, had taken their kids back. Like, this one went back to Greece or somewhere. I can't remember exactly where. And he was then involved with the federal government about changing the law. And, yeah, they made a movie based on my old man. And Dad, when he was a journalist in the early 50s when I was born, He worked the Adelaide News, and Rupert Murdoch was just taking over. It was the first paper that the Murdoch family bought out of Melbourne, I think. I think that's right. Yeah, and Rupert came here as a young guy, and he was my father's cadet. And when I was going to school, I was dyslexic. I failed every year. I never did year two. 12, did year 11 twice, and I did one of those. My parents separated when I was about 13 or 14. I became what was called in these days the only kid in the school from a broken home, and Dad was living in Sydney, but while he encouraged me to do a vocational guidance test, And they said that while you can't spell or anything, you're pretty good at design and stuff, maybe a designer or an architect or a photographer or something. And so I started work as a printer. Right. And after a couple of months, the boss came to me and he said, look, we've got a good decision to make, mate. Either I sack you, because you're not very good at this, or you resign and I'll give you a reference. And then you might get another job. And I told the old man, and he then rang Rupert Murdoch and said, listen, my son's in Adelaide, and he– He rang Keith? No, he rang– He rang– yep. What's his name? Who's the boss
SPEAKER_00:fellow? The old man. The old man. Rupert's dad? Yeah. That's Keith, I think. Oh, no, no, he rang Rupert. Oh, he rang Rupert. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And he said, I'll go and see Scan Sutherland in the Adelaide News. And so I went in, and if you became a copy boy at the news, you were either a journalist, a printer– A salesman or a photographer. Right. And I couldn't do any of this, so I became a photographer.
SPEAKER_00:And, yeah. Like, it's the strangest thing in the world, our little city, Adelaide. And, you know, all of the Fox News empire, Murdoch and everything has all come from our little place. And the amount of people that you talk to, including my grandfather and father, you know, they all had dealings with Rupert. They did. And the news was a... It was our paper here. Yes,
SPEAKER_01:yes.
SPEAKER_00:And I think it's probably, back then it had a different reputation to what Murdoch papers have today. There was less interference, I think. You could actually find things to read in. So you're both a journalist.
SPEAKER_01:So I worked there for a while. Yep. And then I moved to Messenger Press. Yep. And I spent about a year or so as a cadet. So Messenger, who owned
SPEAKER_00:Messenger?
SPEAKER_01:It wasn't a Murdoch. It wasn't a Murdoch, no. Okay. It was somebody else. Yeah, yeah. And so I worked there for a year or two and I decided to go and live with the old man in Sydney and went to Sydney and ended up getting a job on the Daily Mirror as a cadet. Wow. And I was there for about three or four years, travelled around Australia a bit and became the assistant picture on the Australian. Did a lot of cricket photography and all that stuff. Yep. And then I went and lived in London for two or three years. Worked for the Evening Standard and the Daily Express and freelanced. Yep. In fact, if you Google certain pictures, I got involved in freelance photography at cricket. Yep. And I photographed in 1975 at Lourdes. I was the first streaker.
UNKNOWN:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And if you Google 1975 Lord Streaker, my picture on the front of the Daily Mirror still comes up. And because I was the only one of the 15 photographers there, I got this guy's hand in exactly the right position. Of course. Oh, wow. Yeah. And yeah, I did cricket for quite a while.
SPEAKER_00:So was that like a frenzied lifestyle, you know, being a press photographer? Were you everywhere all the time? No,
SPEAKER_01:you just... You just went and did what you were told. You might only do a couple of jobs a day. That was in London, and I was very much a junior. So this was mid-'70s? In the early-'70s, I came back to Australia in 76, I think. My daughter was born in 77. Wow. So, yeah. You had to be here for that. Yes, yes. And, yeah. And I started freelancing. I was freelancing for... the Australian newspaper and I was working from home. Yep. And the Women's Weekly, I became a contract photographer for the weekly. Oh, wow. And yeah, in fact, Ida Buttrose rang me one day and she said, photographers here tell me you know about cricket photography. And I said, yeah, I do a lot of cricket. She said, we need a cricket photographer. I said, what's the bloody Women's Weekly need a cricket photographer for? She said, haven't you heard of World Series cricket?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I became, for the first couple of years, the official photographer of World Series Women's Weekly.
SPEAKER_00:Well, through the weekly. Through the weekly. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. So your preference would be working on location in a photojournalistic way as a photographer. So, I mean, of recent years, you've done a lot of work with wineries and the like and all that stuff. That's all on site. We're not talking about bottles. We're talking about winemakers at their job.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and landscapes and… I still have quite an interesting wine, even though I've now had a brain injury and I'm not able to drink much wine. Non-alcoholic wines are... Capacity. Yes, are okay. The whites are all right. The reds are pretty ordinary, but, you know, that's life. So what happened with the brain injury? I fell down the stairs at a granny flat that we, because we live at Aldinga Beach now, but we still have our house in town. And it's right near the Central Market. And we'd rented out on Airbnb. But at the back, we have a granny flat I built for my kids 30 years ago. And I sleep there. And anyway, I fell down the stairs there one night. And my own partner rang. And I didn't answer the phone. And she rang our neighbor here. And he came and found me at the bottom of the stairs. And I'd been lying there, I reckon, for about five hours with a brain bleeding. Wow. And he was an ex-journalist, a chap called Lance Campbell.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And he remembers doing a story on ambulance and they said, if you ever find anybody that's not moving, don't touch them, call an ambulance. So he called an ambulance and I ended up in intensive care for two or three nights or days. And then I had two, two and a half months in hospital. Wow. And that's two years ago, wasn't it? Yep. It was,
SPEAKER_00:yeah, 2020, it was August. 2022. Yeah. And that's affected you in the way that it's taken a while to get back on going, but you can't drive now.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not allowed to drive.
SPEAKER_00:And your eyes aren't doing what they used to
SPEAKER_01:do. Yeah. In fact, my son, who's also a photographer, lives in Spain now. He came home to help Anne-Marie look after me. And when he was going home, he said, Dad, you've got to promise me a few things. And I said, yeah, Sam, what is it this time? He said, get yourself an iWatch. So if you fall over again, we know where you are. Got one of those, I can see. Yep. Get yourself a new phone because it's got a decent camera in it and sell all these bloody cameras because one day you're going to die and all the family will expect me to sell them and it'll be a pain in the butt, but it won't be worth anything. So I just bundled them all in and took them into the camera shop in the market and I've been dealing with for about 30 years and sold them all.
SPEAKER_00:So you're pretty pragmatic. You did that without batting an eyelid? You just got on with it? Yep. I'm a different person, isn't I? Yeah, I can see. We're surrounded by my mess and my grandfather's mess, and Mills just got rid of his career in camera gear.
SPEAKER_01:I've still got a bit of crap in the shed, stands and things, but all the cameras, I've got one camera left.
SPEAKER_00:One left. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, I would argue that I think the iPhone's a pretty darn good camera. Oh, yeah. And it's on you all the time. Yeah. And the video's very good. It's interesting because
SPEAKER_01:it– You have it on you all the time. And so the things that I think photography is important for are able to be captured. I'll never forget a good friend of mine, Philip White, who's a wine writer and he wrote the book that I published called Year in the Life of Grange. He was opening an exhibition for us here in Adelaide and he stood up and he said, look, he said, I'm a I'm not a photographer, I'm a journalist. He said, years ago I was involved in this accident. He said, if I was to try and write what happened and what it looked like, it would take me about 10 or 20,000 words and you wouldn't even understand it. If I had a picture of it, I'd show it to you, you'd know.
SPEAKER_00:He's a great writer. He's a really good writer. There is something magic about reading words and how it conjures the image in your head. They're very different things. being a photographer and being a writer, but you've always worked closely with writers. I suppose it's your journalist days. So with someone like Philip, and you've collaborated quite a few times on projects, haven't you? Yes, yeah. And he
SPEAKER_01:really is a very good writer. Yeah. In fact, when we did this book together, I'll never forget one of the wine writers in Melbourne, Mark Shield or Max Allen, one of them, said to me, look, just tell Philip, One of those essays is the best bit of writing ever done in Australian wine writing. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's amazing. So all these things sound like you're doing what you want when you want. Yeah. Did you find yourself ever like, you know, harnessed to your job? Did you ever feel that way? Were you always doing exactly what you wanted?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, look, I suppose like everybody, I went through times, but I can't remember the times. Now,
SPEAKER_00:this isn't the brain injury talking. You're generally an upbeat person and you've had a good run.
SPEAKER_01:And I had a great run. And probably one of the things that I enjoyed the most, and I wasn't a commercial photographer or a portrait photographer or a wedding photographer, but there was a studio here in Adelaide that was run by a guy called John Ploog.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. I can't remember what it was called. And his last place I knew him at was at Marananga in the Barossa Valley. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I started freelancing for him back in the mid-70s. Right. And he introduced me to the IAPP. Yeah. IAPP. IAPP, yeah. Whatever it was back then. Whatever it was. And I got involved with that. And one of the things that if any young photographers are listening to this is, associate yourself with those sorts of organisations because you learn things from people who've done it before. And I'll never forget one of the very senior people saying to me in Sydney, it's good to see a young bloke here. And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, the thing about going into an industry, if you're interstate, they tell you the truth. If you talk to the other people in your town who are your opposition, they probably tell you a few fibs about what they charge and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00:True.
SPEAKER_01:So I got to know a Melbourne photographer called Brian Brandt really well, and he was like my mentor.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And in fact, he came over here in the early 80s. I'd just moved from working from home to an office in town, and he came and he said, you're always busy. I said, yeah. At that stage, I was employing probably four people. Right. And he said to me, who do you pay your rent to? I said, I pay it to the landlord. He said, pay it to the landlord. Go and pay it to the bank. And then when you're about 60, you might have something left. And I did. And I did have something left. I sold that building about 10 years ago, and that's my superannuation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. There's not a lot of... We're sole traders as photographers mostly and there's not a lot of people having a great time with their income with it. No. And having a physical space like that, that's a great investment. Yeah. So this is the building we're talking about that was Southlight Studio. Southlight, yeah. So you said you employed four people but you had– was that at one time or was it always four going through? No. When I bought
SPEAKER_01:the building, it was probably– Well, there was Don Bryce, Mike Inessi, Peter Fisher, Paul Flavel, plus some assistants. Yep. And then I changed the way we operated to making everybody a freelance because there are all sorts of rules about employing people and I don't need to tell you that, but you probably know all that. Yeah. So I suggested we turn the studio into a, a carbon copy of Brian Brandt's studio in Melbourne and the photographers that went through his place were people like Robbie Hoff.
SPEAKER_00:A famous, like, there's nothing bigger in Australia really or more creative and powerful with what came through there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. And so I just said to all the photographers and I paid them out their super and all that kind of stuff and I said, for now we're going on as freelancers, you'll pay a monthly rent You can do the accounts or we'll do the accounts or whatever. There's a darkroom there you can lose. There's an office. And in the end, I think we had four or five photographers plus their assistants and they were all running the place and then he left and then... So Paul Fulfill was also doing your darkroom work too, wasn't he? Yes,
SPEAKER_00:he was, yeah. And then, yeah. Yeah, it was like as an... As an Adelaide icon, at any rate. Yeah, it was good. They're funny models. There was a feeling, and I know that people join these studios, these big open studios, and they stay for as long as they want. And I know there's certain models of why people ran them around Australia, and some of them The people felt like, oh, you know, the owner's taking too much of a cut of everything. The rent's too expensive. You never really did that. You made sure that people were happy being there. So people stayed around.
SPEAKER_01:Oh,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. Well, Peter Fisher,
SPEAKER_01:who worked as a salesperson and a mate of his did a photography thing with him. He said, I think I'll be a photographer, not a salesman. Was that Mark Kimber? That was Mark. I think Mark told him.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And so Peter moved into the same street as me. Right. Selby Street. No, no, when I was living in, when I was working from home. Okay. In Koonalight Gardens, West Parkway. Right. And he started freelancing for me and then he went on staff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then I was involved in a very serious car accident in 1989. A couple of people were killed. And I changed my whole life. Unfortunately, my wife and I went our separate ways and still talk to each other. In fact, I was talking to her this morning. That's a really, that's an achievement. Yeah. And Peter said, I couldn't talk to you then. And he went out on his own. Then after he'd been on his own for a while, he rang me up and he said, could you give me a hand? I said, I'll give him a hand. We became friends. Direct opposition to each other. Running the same business, we were directors of each other's companies. And we used to have lunch in there. In fact, I usually see him when I'm in town now. I'm probably going to see him tomorrow morning. But we had a rule. We didn't ever talk about business when we were out or together. Right. Because often we'd be quoting against each other on jobs. Yeah. And I still think he's... He's
SPEAKER_00:really a very good photographer. He is remarkable. He's one of those people where you know a Peter Fisher picture when you see it. And, yeah, he does keep doing, you know, he does inspirational stuff. Absolutely. And he's working with AI at the moment doing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't know what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think Mark Kimber, who is probably a little further out than as far as his thinking goes than Peter, I think the pair of them get together and.
SPEAKER_01:They do. And kind of things. In fact, Pete turned 70 late last year and I organised a night. or lunch with Greg Newington, Mark. And there was Peter, because I said to him, what are you doing for your birthday? He said, well, why don't I give a couple of people a ring? He said, yeah, I'd love to lunch. So I rang them all up and they said, yeah, we all went to lunch. It was good.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's great. Those connections are fantastic. So for you the community has always been a big part of– Absolutely. A big part of what– I know you've always– Put as much into the Institute of Professional Photography as, and if not more than anybody, and any opportunity, you're right in there. It's interesting you say that. Apart from
SPEAKER_01:the time I, you know, I became the national president of the ACMP.
SPEAKER_00:So that's the Advertising, Commercial and Magazine Photographers.
SPEAKER_01:Magazine Photographers, yeah. And I just went over to Melbourne. I think Kevin O'Daly and I went over and, We were quite involved with the AIPP. We were sitting in the Ansett Lounge and there was Robin Hoff, someone, anyway, there was six photographers from all over Australia. Yeah. And we got around to being the president and Rob said, I think Milton should be the president. I looked up and I said, well, I don't think I should be. He said, listen, mate, you've worked in Sydney, you've worked in Melbourne, you know all of us, you get on with us. You can be the president. So I became the president.
SPEAKER_00:And how long did that last? Two or three
SPEAKER_01:years. Right. We started the
SPEAKER_00:collection. Yeah, so it was the collection. And so it was sponsored by Fuji, wasn't it? Yep. And so what it was was people submitted their work and they're accepted into this collection. Yes. It was judged in a way, but it wasn't as formal as the AIPP awards.
SPEAKER_01:No, we just lay them all out on tables. And the first one was in the Balmain Town Hall. Yep. It was good.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, really, a really good model. Oh, yeah. I think it was sort of less under a microscope for everything, whereas ARPP judging feels like it's, you know, very under a microscope. Yeah. And the end result was this fabulous book that was produced. Yeah, yeah, I think we did about, Rob Imhoff organised all that and it was great. Yeah. And tell me, like, that, That stopped because the ACMP rolled into the AIPP, did
SPEAKER_01:it? I think so. Look, as I said, one of the problems I have with my brain injury is I can't remember much.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's hard to sustain these separate organisations because the wedding portrait people had Portrait Maker, which was a Melbourne-based thing, and they had a Perth branch and Adelaide branch. But, you know, at the end you've got these competing associations all needing the same resources, and so we got the growth and the AIPP got bigger and bigger and bigger and then eventually… Yeah. It itself couldn't survive. And there's some court case at the moment, isn't there? Yeah, they were trying to get a hold of the name to be able to reuse it and the final funds, which wasn't a lot left over. Yeah. But there is a desire for, because there is no association right now. No. There's no Australia-wide association, which is sad, but I personally think you wouldn't want to repeat the same thing again. No. You need to be what the photographers working today need. You know, what the James Knowles, the Randy Larkhams. Well,
SPEAKER_01:it was
SPEAKER_00:interesting that
SPEAKER_01:James Knowler and one of my oldest, James was the reason my son was working with me.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, really?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I used to have a rule I picked up from Branty that any photographer who worked in the studio and had an assistant only had the assistant for two years. At the end of the two years, that assistant had to find you a new assistant and because I didn't think that you should say assistant
SPEAKER_00:for too long. That's really interesting because most people would be terrified of losing their good assistant. You just trained them up. Yeah. And in two years you're saying you're out
SPEAKER_01:of it. So James presents me with my new assistant and it's my son. And I said, James, that's not part of it. He said, you said it was my choice and he wants to do it. So my son and I worked together for two years and it was good.
SPEAKER_00:That's wild.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you worked with the old man
SPEAKER_00:for a few years. I know, I know. And look, I don't know– how you and your business was structured. And I certainly didn't feel the kind of family business pressure, but that was not from the beginning. It was built in that Sam wasn't going to be around. Two years and that was it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And when I closed everything down, because when my kids turned 21, I bought them a round-the-world ticket they had to use in a year because I think getting out of this small town is a good thing to do as a young person. It's also a great place to come back to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:As my former wife reminds me regularly, that's the worst thing we could ever buy him because he's now 45 and he's never come home. Lived in London for years and New York and he met a girl from Spain and he got married and he now makes a living running an international e-bike station called Sam's Bikes. Oh, wow. And he's number two or three in the world and he makes a living out of it. But he was a photographer. He was, yeah. What sort of work was he doing? Mostly in newspapers. He worked in the Mildura on a local paper. He came back here. The Mildura Sun, I reckon. Yeah, it was one of them. I think it was the Mildura.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Worked here in Adelaide. He did a few shifts for the Tizer. Yep. When he was in London, he started working over there for newspapers. Yep. Then he made a lot of money out of a picture he did and he became a paparazzi.
SPEAKER_00:Oh. I had heard that. So he was a pap. He was a pap. Yeah. How do you reconcile that? Was he comfortable doing that work?
SPEAKER_01:He didn't mind doing it, but he stopped doing it after a while. He got sick of it. Yeah. He was very good at it. Yeah, yeah. In fact, he used to occasionally ring me and say, I've got this job at the moment. There's this singer and she's pretty good. Have you ever heard of her? And I said, no. Amy Winehouse. Yeah. And I thought, geez, she's really good. I still listen to her. Yeah, she's fabulous. And he was just photographing her. And you'd go out and see him in London, and one day we were in a restaurant and some really well-known person came in. He said, you want to get kicked out of here? And I said, why? He said, well, I could go there and photograph him and make a great picture, but we'd get kicked out. So what did you do? I said, no, we're not doing that. And he said, that's good. I don't want to
SPEAKER_00:do it anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what, like, I remember Brian Charlton telling me, When he photographed that serial killer, the name escapes me, but I might put it in notes, remember. But you remember the guy looking down the lens at him? Because Brian was a press writer. He finished his career. He sort of ended as a press. But he said, looking down the lens at this guy, Murdoch, Bradley John Murdoch, perhaps it is. At any rate, the first... He had a ute and he picked his backpackers up and done away with them. He said he'd never seen more evil than that. What's the hardest thing you've photographed and the thing that's affected you out through those years?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, look, I never did
SPEAKER_00:a lot of
SPEAKER_01:hard news stuff. I mostly did features for people like The Australian and Women's Weekly, and then I became… So a feature is
SPEAKER_00:a wider… Yeah.…an essay, photo essay,
SPEAKER_01:isn't it? Yeah, you know, you pick up the magazine for the…
SPEAKER_00:Oops!
SPEAKER_01:…for the Weekend Aussie, and the features are in there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, like, I'd be living in Adelaide, but we, from the Women's Weekly's point of view, we covered all of the Northern Territory. Oh, right. So I would go up to Darwin all the time, and Alice Springs, and Ayers Rock, and you might recall… A Day in the Life of Australia? Yeah. I was one of the Australians who worked on that.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. Now, was that just a one-off or that was repeated? It
SPEAKER_01:was a one-off. It was a one-off. For the year 2000, wasn't it? 1983. 83. And then I became involved with Rick Smolin, who did it. He's an American photographer. He's now living back in America. I think he's retired. But then I worked on a Day in the Life of Singapore and Day in the Life of Western Australia. We did a whole bunch of
SPEAKER_00:them. So it's like a portrait of a city, of a country. Yeah, yeah. That's probably one of the nicest things you could be asked to do, really. Oh, yeah, it's really good. I mean, ask any street photographer. Like, they just want to tell the story of the area and to have an assignment and be paid to do it.
SPEAKER_01:No, we weren't paid. No? No, we all just– well, we got free airfares and everything, but it was just labour of love and– I think there were nearly 80 photographers come from all over the world into Australia and Qantas were a sponsor. It was printed here in Adelaide at Griffin Press. In fact, I gave Rick, he stayed with us and took him down to Griffin every morning and looked at it. It was a
SPEAKER_00:really
SPEAKER_01:good
SPEAKER_00:exercise. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What a
SPEAKER_00:fabulous opportunity. Oh, it's great. So at what stage, when you... When you set up Southlight, had you stopped doing the freelance for papers? No. So you were still doing all that? I
SPEAKER_01:was doing commercial photography, like the Delphin Property Group. Yep. They became a major client of mine, and I used to travel all over Australia photographing their developments.
SPEAKER_00:So they're like lifestyle pictures rather than architectural pictures.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I used to do architecture. Yep. Well, in those days you did everything. Yeah, yeah. And you shot film. I was one of the first photographers in Australia to move to digital. Yep. And that was back in, whenever Kodak bought out the whatever.
SPEAKER_00:Was it the 14N? No,
SPEAKER_01:that was even before then.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, yeah, I know what you mean. So it was the Nikon with a big cable and the. No, it
SPEAKER_01:wasn't. That wasn't a Nikon. It was a Kodak. Was it? And Nikon got involved. I bought a Nikon very early on. Bernie Van Olsen. Yep. He started doing– he was the first photographer, I think, in Adelaide to do digital. Yeah. But you couldn't shoot any bigger than an eight-meg file. Right.
SPEAKER_00:So– So is that eight for all three channels, or was it total eight? Totally eight? It was just totally
SPEAKER_01:eight.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And, you know, it was okay for doing catalogues, but you couldn't do a big job on it because– and when Kodak brought out this– new camera used to shoot about a 40 meg file i think i can't remember and i had one of those and so that was in the early 80s i think
SPEAKER_00:yeah yeah and was that like did you you just thirsted after that you thought this is the best thing since sliced bread
SPEAKER_01:i love it i don't i'm one of those old photographers i don't care if i never see another sheet of film because the quality of the digital is this shadow detail everything yeah yeah and you know i mean shadow detail is
SPEAKER_00:amazing really yeah It's all there. Sensitivity is amazing. Especially when you
SPEAKER_01:shoot raw. With the
SPEAKER_00:iPhones now, you can shoot raw. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I think it's definitely gotten better. Yeah. But part of that process, though, is everyone's taking pictures. Yes. And you've got, you know, maybe Delphin, you know, the Delphin's got someone with a camera that's capturing this sort of work. So how do you feel about all of that? A bit frustrated. There's two parts to that.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. One is... When I was in the hospital, the brain injury thing, you have all these consultants and people that you talk to and they ask you questions. And when I left, they said, is there anything you're happy about? I said, I'm happy I'm not 18 again and go through all this bullshit again. And they said, oh, your brain must be a good mate because it's the same thing you said eight months ago. Wow. But I did a favour for a mate of mine who runs a magazine.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And... It was only a simple little thing, but I said, just, I won't charge you. I said, but out of curiosity, what's your budget for photography now for something like this? And he said, we don't have a photography budget. Everyone just deserves an iPhone picture. Yeah, right. And that's why, you know, I'd think twice before I went into being professional photography now. Yeah. But I think there are sectors of it which are, you know, really worthwhile doing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I can, you definitely feel that. There's things that you can't leave to amateurs. And certainly if something's really critical that it's bought on, you know, it's got to be made. But it's a really challenging industry. And I think the tools have gotten better, but the expectations, you know, they're just completely different, aren't they? Yeah. Well, I was at the
SPEAKER_01:airport a little while ago and there was a young girl standing and there were a group of other young girls looking through the glass. She was about to get on a plane. And they all had little signs and they were saying, you know, farewell, so-and-so and this. And I went up to her and I said, look, do you want me to take a photograph of you? Because it looks like it's really important. And she said, oh, I'd love you to. And I gave her, got her phone and took it, took one with my camera. She came up and she said, oh, thank you. I've been here for nine months and they're all my friends here and I'll probably never see any of them again. She said, I'll take that home and get a print made. And that's what, from what you do here. the printing part of it's really important.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I think if we're clinging on, because I still think it's one of those things that there's a relationship with physical things that people have.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, you sit down with somebody and they'll say, I'll show you a picture and they'll get their bloody phone out and they'll spend 10 minutes going through all these pictures and they'll say, oh, I don't know where it is, I can't find it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, whereas there's no battery, you just pull it out of the wallet, pull it out and there's the print. Exactly. It is a good thing. It is a good thing. With... With Southlight, you then moved further into the wine industry. Was that always part of what you were doing? Because where I'm heading towards is you made this fantastic book about Grange. Was it A Day in the Life of Grange? A Year in the Life. A Year in the Life of Grange. Tell us a bit about that. I
SPEAKER_01:photographed quite a few winemakers for magazines. Like Gourmet Traveller had a wine section. Back in the early 80s, there's a winemaker here locally called Brian Crozer who started Petaluma, you know, runs Tapanapa, and I see him pretty regularly. Max Harris, who was a journalist here, sent me up to the Adelaide Hills to photograph this bloke who'd planted Chardonnay in the Adelaide Hills. And I've got this picture of Brian standing with some young vines, He's gone on, and the story of the Adelaide Hills is really interesting, but he researched it all and found that the climate was very similar to the French climate where Chardonnay was. And so I started doing things in the wine trade, like Robert Hill Smith at Yolumba. They were a client for years. Penfolds, even though I did their book on Grange, were never a client, but I knew Peter Gago quite well. Yep. He's chief winemaker, right? He's the chief winemaker, yeah. And, you know, I still see Crozer every now and again. And I love the industry. There was a book done here called The Great Australian Wine Book back in the early 80s. A chap called Robert Main, who was the editor of the Australian, and he and I worked together in Sydney. And... He was in Adelaide working for Hardee's. And he said, I've got this idea to do a book. Can you give us a hand with the photography? So I started doing a lot of photography with him and meeting winemakers. And what stuck in my mind, I was up in the Clear Valley and we did a day in the life of a winemaker and we chose Tim Napstein. Yeah. And I'd been with Tim the night before and he'd got up at like six o'clock and gone to the winery and there was this truck full of Shiraz and he came away and he said oh she's in he said to the driver didn't you get my message and the driver said no I didn't get any message mate Tim said but we don't have any room for the fruit and then Tim and was over on the phone I said what are you doing now he says look that's some of the best fruit in the Clare Valley and I'm ringing up all my opposition and Because I don't want to see it wasted. Yeah. And there's not very many industries. Yeah. That everybody helps each other. Yeah. And he, you know, that's what got me interested in the wine trade.
SPEAKER_00:It's a really interesting business. Yes. Because there's a lot of smoke and mirrors around it. Yeah. There's also a lot of really careful times where people are doing the best science that can be done.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I, you know, I've worked on a number of wine books. Yeah. Got to know Andrew Kayard quite well. He just did this major book on the Australian wine trade, and I was going to give him a hand with it, but then I fell on the stairs. But, yeah, it's a great industry, and I still see a number of the clients who used to work. In fact, I went to the wine centre the other night to the first formal tasting I've been to for three years. Wow. And Crozer was doing something on Chardonnay. Right. And it was just fascinating. Yeah, and the injury hadn't knocked your taste around. Yes, yeah, the tastes are all different. I like sweeter things. Oh, really? Philip White and I often compare because he's been quite ill as well. Yeah. He's got cancer and, yeah, but I still love the idea of sitting down and sharing a glass of wine with a couple of good friends. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of fun. So I even have wine writers ring me. One of them's a guy called Hugh and Hook in Sydney. Every now and then he rings me. He said, listen, mate, if you find... Any of those non-alcoholic wines, any good, let me know because I get asked to review them all the time.
SPEAKER_00:So you're desperately chasing them, are you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was with Peter Gago a while ago and he said, I've got this wine and that wine. I said, I don't miss the alcohol. I miss the flavour and the body and the texture and all that stuff. He said, listen, mate, you miss the alcohol because it's the alcohol that gives it all the things you miss. Oh, really? Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Anyway. That's interesting. So when it came to this wine, year of in the life of grange yes you you traveled the world you went to some really interesting places met some really interesting people
SPEAKER_01:one
SPEAKER_00:of them's
SPEAKER_01:coming dr bob yeah he lives in new orleans he's going to be here later this month and i've just been on the phone to him last night he's we're gonna have a day with him and whitey um and he's a fascinating doctor yeah he's a good mate of peter gay goes yeah and The reason, that's why I went to, one of the reasons I went to America and I did the American thing twice, but Peter Gago said to me, if you're going to do this thing, you've got to go and photograph some of the people around the world. So these are the people that collect? He collects Grange. Yep. And a number of other things as well. Have you ever heard of an American singer called Alan Toussaint? What's his band? What does he sing with? He's a jazz, he's, Okay. Just Google him or get him on, what's that called? Not Netflix, Spotify. Yeah, Spotify, yep. He's a good mate. In fact, when he died, Dr. Bob was one of the funeral bearers. He was the only white fellow who was a funeral bearer. Wow. We've been to New Orleans two or three times to the jazz festival. His son runs a jazz festival. Yep. But yeah, so I just had this idea to do a book based on a day in the life of Australia. I thought... The wine industry is a yearly thing. It's agriculture. It's technical. It's marketing. It's a really unique industry for many ways. And yes, I went to America a couple of times, all over the thing. I went
SPEAKER_00:into China and yeah. So with Grange, because some of the listeners might not know, but what might someone pay for a bottle of a fairly rare bottle of Grange? A couple of thousand bucks. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:In fact, the idea, I was in New York. One of the other photographers who I worked with me and I've remained really good friends with is a chap called Hugh Hartshorn. Oh, yeah. He's living there now, isn't he? He's in Sydney. Oh, Sydney, right. Yeah, he was in the States, but he's now in Sydney.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And what was
SPEAKER_00:I going
SPEAKER_01:to tell you
SPEAKER_00:then? Well, he was in New York and you were going over there. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I went and had a look at an exhibition. Yep. And it was something you'd be interested in. It was on horses. Yep. And there was all these really big prints, huge prints. And I said to the photographer, why have you got all these bloody big prints? All I know about having an exhibition is you need a big shed to put all the stuff you don't sell.
UNKNOWN:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And he said to me, no, listen, mate, people who've got horses have usually got a lot of money. And big, tall ceilings. And he said, I sell all of them. Yeah. And so when I thought I'd do it a year in the life of wine, I thought, why don't I do Grange? Because if people have got a thousand bucks to spend on a bottle of wine, they might have 600 bucks to spend on a book.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So we self-published it. Yep. And I rang Peter Gago one day and said- I've got this idea to do a year in the life of wine. He said, that's good. I said, I was thinking of doing it in Grange. Would you give us a hand? He said, I'd love to give you a hand, mate. He said, but Penfolds is a big company. You're going to have to deal with marketing. Good luck. So I crossed the whole thing out and worked it all out. Then I got in touch with marketing and they came over here and then they said, yeah, we'll give you permission to do it. We're not guaranteeing to buy anything. You can't call it Grange because the Grange name is...
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, trademarked.
SPEAKER_01:And then Peter Gago heard about this and he rang him up and said, no, you've got to let him call it Grange. So it was able to be called Grange.
SPEAKER_00:Jeepers, that would have been a tough gig if they weren't allowed to use... I mean, it's a well-known brand.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Anyway, we
SPEAKER_01:sold out. We haven't made any money out of it. Yeah. I think I made... You sold out. I sold out. I got the budget, the target... to break even was$330,000. Yep. Because I paid for the designer and I paid the writer. So
SPEAKER_00:John
SPEAKER_01:Nowland designed it? Yeah, John Nowland
SPEAKER_00:designed it. Yep. And it was printed at? Finsbury Press. Finsbury Green, wasn't it? Yeah. That's right. And then bound by Chas Daw on demand. So you had the leaves printed, the spreads printed, and then as they were ordered, you would get a bunch bound.
SPEAKER_01:In fact, if anybody's ever going to print a book, print– what's called the block.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:But don't get it bound. Yep. Because the bindings are a really expensive bit. Yeah. And you are able then to do different issues. And I was talking to somebody in interstate who's doing the same thing and I told him about that and he rang me and he said, that's a really good idea. Thank you. I'm just going to do that. And so we did three editions. We did the limited edition.
SPEAKER_00:Which had some prints. No, that was the
SPEAKER_01:winemaker. Okay. The winemaker edition had, no, that had just, It was just a bit different. Yep. And then there was one called The Collector's Edition, which was retailing for$4,000. Wow. But it had the book and 10 original photographs that were printed here. Yep. And it came in a box that was made out of American oak that Granger had been aged in. And Chasdor made all that. Yeah. It was really good. I've got two of those and
SPEAKER_00:basically it's sold out. That's impressive because, you know, the running joke is how do you know the photographer in your street? His car's parked in the street because the shed is full of the books he can't sell. I mean, breaking even is one thing. It would be nice to make some money out of it, but actually moving them all is wonderful. But that's
SPEAKER_01:one of the things that I loved about the area in which I worked in photography is I've just had 50 years of having a great time. Yeah. And I'll never forget when I was much younger and an editor said to me once, I got a really big job and they were sending me away and he asked me to call in his office and I thought, well, I'm in trouble now. And he said, look, mate, you're a young photographer and this is an important job. You're going to the country. I said, yeah. He said, just do what a lot of people don't do. I said, what's that? He said, just talk to the locals. If you talk to the locals, you'll know what's going on.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Don't talk to them like some smart-ass city fella.
UNKNOWN:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. I've always done that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's really smart. You're listening. You spend the time hearing about what they want. And by the way, back on the book, how many books in the end did you make? We printed 1,500. Okay. And the limited edition I think was 700 or 800. So of the 1,500 total or on top of the 1,500?
SPEAKER_01:No, we printed the block. Yep. And had the block. The only thing that had to go interstate was to get binding. Yep. So they had to go to Melbourne to get bound. Yep. And then it came back here and I've got a box. In fact, up at Penfolds there's a box because Chasdor recently moved and they found a box that had 100 of the blocks in it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh.
SPEAKER_01:So that's up at Penfolds now because they may want to use it. But, yeah, so we pretty well sold well over 1,000. That's
SPEAKER_00:amazing. That's really good. It's a spectacular book. Yeah. And I think with an item like that, it sort of connects so many different people. Yeah. I mean, you've not just got the agriculture side of it, but then you got, you know, was it the lead singer of Tool? Oh, yeah. You know, like, and pre-concert they were having a drink. Well,
SPEAKER_01:I flew up to, as I said, my memory thing, it was somewhere up in Ohio. Yep. In America, when I was over there, in fact, when I was in New York, Peter Gago gave me some wine. He said, listen, Maynard, I'd love Maynard to try the new wine. And I said, he said, but I can't ship it up to him. Can you take it when you go up there to photograph? So I just took it up and gave it to him. Because it's luggage. Yeah, it's luggage. And Maynard, we had dinner with him when he was here in Adelaide. And, you know, once again, one of the great things about being a photographer is, you often meet people who are very capable of doing things, but you meet them on day-to-day terms. Yeah. You know, you sit down and have dinner with them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. That's a really wonderful door to have opened nicely. They see you as a professional and all that kind of stuff. Oh, that's fabulous. That's, you know,
SPEAKER_01:like the State Library are looking at– or somebody saw some of my old photographs– He said, why don't you ring the library? So I rang the library, and I think I've already mentioned it to you. Yeah. There are some photographs there they said they'd love, and one of them is our Premier Don Dunstan dancing with Keith Michelle.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Classic picture. So Keith Michelle is the wool broker. No, Keith Michelle is the singer. Oh, the singer. Sorry, I thought you meant the Michelle Wool. No.
SPEAKER_01:And then there's the Marilyn Galan's handover where the Premier is sitting in the dirt with all the… Yeah, yeah, with Indigenous folks. Yeah, it's…
SPEAKER_00:So, yeah, anyway. So do you feel like you were a witness to all these little things and they're just being stuck, that sticks in your mind? Yeah, well, one of the things
SPEAKER_01:with Dunstan, and I would have photographed him quite a lot, I'll never forget an interview with him with somebody and he said, the question was, who are the premiers of this state that you really admire? He said, oh, Playford. Playford was the Yeah, dead off the mission. Yeah. And in for 30 years or what? Yeah. And he just said, no, Playford did a fantastic job. Yeah. Even though that was the Liberal Party and Dunstan was the Labor Party. And I think that's missing from
SPEAKER_00:politics now. There seems to be a lot of– If you don't back the tribe. It's funny, yeah. And you can see it's really wrong. Not just politics. Yeah, well, that's right. And Dunstan was fascinating. I mean, I just finished his– well, last year I read his biography and what he did for South Australia. Oh, yeah. He really put us on the map as a city of art. Absolutely. Because before that we were a land development that had a lot of churches.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, and suddenly we're this creative hub. Yeah, no,
SPEAKER_01:he
SPEAKER_00:was really good. Yeah, and it's interesting that he saw Playford as being a… That's what we said. That was my favourite one, yes. Oh, that's absolutely fantastic. Oh, that's great. And
SPEAKER_01:I… One of the things that I think is good about some industries is I've known you since you were a little kid. Yep. I was a customer of Atkins over 40 years ago. Yeah. And then we started a lab.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. So you started a lab in opposition to our… No, no, no. You didn't do any… We didn't have Technicolor at that stage.
SPEAKER_01:No, you didn't have E6 processing. Not until we bought Technicolor. And one of the things… So we started in opposition to you then.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And then you bought us. Yeah. But that all… And it's a great story. Bernie Van Elsen and I were at Juggie Brown. Do you remember Juggie Brown?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We were at Juggie Brown's Farewell. Yeah. And… Bernard came up to me and he said, are you happy with your E6 processing? And I said, oh, I don't know much about it, mate. And he said, well, I'm not very happy. I think we should start our own lab.
SPEAKER_00:Wasn't Bernie messing around with himself at that stage? That was later. It was later. Yes. Okay. So he went into opposition with the own lab he set up? No. It's a
SPEAKER_01:strange order, isn't it? Yeah, no. We should start our own lab. So between the two of us, we spoke to a few other photographers, Grant Hancock, Lennon Connell, Lyndon Stacey. And we all decided together we could pay for a lab. But we all had to put$20,000 cash in. This was back in 1985, if I recall. That's a lot of money. And it was a lot. Anyway, so we all did it because Bernie said... You can only come in if you've got cash. I'm not dealing with someone who says– Yeah. He was a bit like that, Bernie. I don't think he's much different. No, he hasn't changed much. I don't believe he has. Anyway, we started Duck Pond. Yep. But it was very ethical in a sense that we used to have a– one of us would be the managing partner, but we had a rule that if you were– you weren't allowed out the back. You weren't allowed to go and see what film was going through and the staff were not allowed to tell you. And it was quite ethical in that way. And then Atkins bought it, I
SPEAKER_00:don't know. It was 2007. 2007. Yeah, 2007. And so then we bought the– I mean, in many ways, Duck Pond was John Clark. Yes. The general manager there. But it also was the Refrema dip and dunk machine that you guys– bought, which was a heroic bit of a hit. We also
SPEAKER_01:had to put a water filtration system in.
SPEAKER_00:Incidentally, the water you're drinking is from that Rowe
SPEAKER_01:water system.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Cheers. So we still run the filtration. So we bought all that in here and we bought John in here. And it was an interesting time for us. And we've always found, so we bought Technicolor, which is the building we're in now, and they had an E4, E6 lab built. which at that stage was in opposition to Duck Pond. I think we bought it in 1990. You started Duck Pond in 86? 85. 85? Yeah. So there was a little bit of a crossover on the same street, Technicolor and Duck Pond on the same street. And there was other labs. It was Chromacolor between the two of us who was doing the Cibachrome processor. So there was this– You know, there was this little crossover period and I think it was a very warm industry at that stage. And it was very vibrant. There's a lot of work going on. Yeah. There was enough work for everybody at that stage. I think digital was the thing that made it hard for all of us to be in our own little places. Yes, I agree. Yeah. And so, you know, it has wider effects. One of the things that's impressed me by you and your career is your ability to step into partnerships more. I've not had a lot of luck with business partnerships. They're really very, very difficult things. Well, they can be because there's a lot of people with a lot of money in the line and a bit of ego and ideas on how it should be run. How did you make those things work? Or was that just how you were brought up, that you just had to be with an equal to run a business? No, I think you just need to– I think
SPEAKER_01:one of the rules about anything, It's when you do something, don't expect anything in return. And business partnerships that work are often because they understand each other and they accept each other for what they do, but they don't want to compete with each other. Right. As I said, Peter Fisher and I were in direct competition with each other, but we were still able to go and have
SPEAKER_00:lunch. I mean, that was remarkable, but you did have some rules that held it together that we're not talking about business and we're going to be on directors on each other's companies, which is wild. Yes. Anyway, it was good. I'm so impressed. I think our experience, and I don't know whether it's just our experience, our desire for control. I don't know what it is. We might be, that must be in our psyche. But every partnership we've been has always been a difficult thing. It's never felt like it's a
SPEAKER_01:good thing. But what you said then is spot on. It's our desire to be in control. Yeah. And sometimes that's dangerous. Yeah. You've got to let that go. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I
SPEAKER_01:mean,
SPEAKER_00:look at life in general. I mean, you could be angry, so angry at yourself for that slip down the stairs. If you don't roll with it, and enjoy your life for what you got, you could be fighting against that frustration and have a miserable time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I know that I drive and all that, but I'm quite enjoying it. And one of the things I think is a major problem in the world that we live in now, firstly, there's too many people in the world. Yeah. How do you fix that? Well, Vichana did. Vichana did. You can't do that. No, you can't, no. But the biggest problem is money.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's all about money. Yeah. And, you know, there are some people with a lot of money and they don't want to share it with anybody else. You know, you look at this thing with Trump at the moment.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Who's that guy who runs the website? Elon Musk. Elon Musk. Elon Musk. Someone said, yeah, he'll be worth billions of dollars. What's billions of dollars going to do for him? Hasn't done anything so far. No, exactly. I personally have a real problem with social media for a number of reasons, but my main reason is that the effect it has on people's lives because... I remember Des Ryan, who was the editor of Messenger Press here, and he said to me about 25 years ago, he said, social media, it just ruined our industry. And I said, what do you mean? He said, look, you can put anything you like up on social media. I said, what do you mean? He said, you can say anything you like. You can crucify somebody. You can do whatever you like. And nobody's there to control it. Whereas in newspapers, I can't run a story about Colour Labs and say, well, Atkins are a bunch of crooks, but you can do that on Facebook. And if you're a young person, and particularly a young female person, it's how you look. And it's just, you know, it's crazy. Yeah. And the number of young people who's
SPEAKER_00:ruined their
SPEAKER_01:lives.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. And there's a sense of competition in that. You've got to look better than the next person to do that or always be performing that next thing. But how do you feel about the, like, newspaper day, there were gatekeepers that wouldn't allow information through unless they approved it. So, you know, the argument, and I'm not suggesting that social media is a great thing, but you don't have these gatekeepers, these, you know, Rupert Murdoch saying, well, we're just going to tell them this, you know, skew the news a bit. I mean– I would disagree with that too.
SPEAKER_01:Do you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That luckily for me, most of the newspapers I've ever worked on– you see, News Limited is a different organisation now than it was 30 years ago.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I've got to the stage that I almost can't read the advertising. If you– If your house didn't burn down or there wasn't a car crash or you didn't kill somebody,
SPEAKER_00:it's
SPEAKER_01:not even in the paper.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Unless you're an attractive young person.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. There's a
SPEAKER_01:nice big picture of someone drinking wine. It's like,
SPEAKER_00:I don't need to see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny, with a name like The Advertiser, you wonder what the focus of the paper is, don't you? Yeah. Well, the other thing
SPEAKER_01:is the only bit of social media I ever refer to is Instagram because And that used to have interesting pictures in it. Now it's just got a lot of bloody ads.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. The feed gets messed up. Yeah. Yeah. And they keep playing with it and adjust. You just don't know what's going on. Have you ever tried to get off Facebook?
SPEAKER_01:It's impossible.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:yeah. I've never used it. I've had a Facebook account, which I've never used, that I can remember, but you can't get off it. So how do we fix the world, Milt? What do we do? We just learn to work with each other and understand each other and not have so many fixed ideas. And sit down and have a drink. Yeah, have a cup of tea
SPEAKER_00:or a glass of water or a wine or whatever you feel like. Yeah, yeah, but face-to-face. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Well, thanks. It's been a fabulous hour. I think we're right on the now. It's okay. It's been wonderful. Thank you, Milton. And, hey, look, I don't know where you're going with your injury. You seem fine to me. I'm sure you're frustrated as hell at the inside of the things you want to be able to do. Are you expecting improvement?
SPEAKER_01:According to my doctor, I'm doing really well. I said, well, I don't feel like it. And he said, listen, mate, you're not going backwards and you're not dead like you should have been. So I'm starting to really enjoy understanding public transport. I had no idea that so much of your life revolved around driving a car. In Adelaide here particularly. And, you know, I go in the gym two or three times a week. I've always gone to the gym. Yep. And, yeah. Any art projects in the, any photography projects? Well, I did one, did something yesterday which I'm in the middle of processing on my phone. One of the things, we live at Aldinga Beach and we never intended to go down there but we went down for three weeks five years ago and we loved it. Got lost. And the people we've met down there are fantastic. And last night we went around to a friend's place and she was having a retro dinner.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And I said to her, what would you like me to do besides bring some old wine? And she said, I want you to take some pictures. So I've got all these pictures of this great thing and that's what people, she said, because that's what people will remember of the night.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And it was a great night.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_01:And I put in, for anybody who knows wine, I found in my wine room, and I've still got a wine room, a bottle of Orlando Star Wine. Right. That was apparently 53 years old, according to Ali. Did it
SPEAKER_00:open up all right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was really good.
SPEAKER_00:That's great. Yeah. That's great. Well, it's nice to see you having a good time and enjoying
SPEAKER_01:life. I am, yeah. My life partner, Anne-Marie, we've been together 30-something years. Yeah, she's wonderful. She's great.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:My biggest concern in life is the pressure of her, because she's a couple of years younger than me, for looking after an old bloke who's not well. Well, good luck with
SPEAKER_00:that. That's all right. Yeah, exactly. Well, thanks, Bill.
UNKNOWN:No problem.