Atkins Labcast

Atkins Labcast Episode 54 - Sarah Black

• Paul and Kate Atkins

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SPEAKER_01:

G'day listeners, welcome to episode 54 of the Atkins Labcast. Well, it's not every day, but it does seem to be every episode that I get a chance to sit down with someone truly interesting and special. This episode... I'm on the Zoom with Sarah Black from Melbourne. Sarah is a fine art photographer shooting families as well as all sorts of different things. She's in the middle of her Masters of Fine Art, which is a big challenge. Sarah has a family, so there's a lot to talk about in balance and juggling and all those sorts of things. But it's her perspective on life and her look at the journey and where photography fits into it and what being a good human being is about. I think it's a great episode. I hope you all enjoy it. This is a Maggie Smith poem that I got off of your sub stack because you're quite a writer. I love this. If you drive past horses and you don't say, horses, you're a psychopath. If you see an airplane but don't point it out, a rainbow, a cardinal, a butterfly. If you don't whisper, shout, albino, squirrel, deer, red fox. If you hear a woodpecker and don't shush everyone around you into silence. If you find an unbroken sand dollar in a tide pool. If you see a dorsal fin breaking the water. If you see the moon and don't say, oh my God, look at that moon. If you smell smoke and don't search for fire. If you feel yourself receding, receding, and don't tell anyone until you're gone. It's a Maggie Smith. Now, this is not Dame Maggie Smith, of course, but it's a writer. And I thought it's such a beautiful piece because I have just come back from a road trip and I'm one of these, oh, my God, cows sort of a person. And I wanted to know, and I know there's a lot more to this story, then there is this, oh, my God, cows thing, which, of course, I'm a pretty basic person. But it just hooked me and I thought, is this something, do you go through life being excited by things and drawn into things and find yourself down strange little paths?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, yeah. So Maggie Smith is actually a very well-known poet and has a number of books out and is a teacher and writer She's incredibly amazing and I have other favourite poems of hers too. But I think that's why that poem really appealed to me is because absolutely I'm someone who shouts rabbit, kangaroo, moon, blade of grass, worm. I mean, one of my current obsessions is composting. And you have a

SPEAKER_01:

rat in your compost, I hear.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, there was a rat in the– well, yeah, the cat eventually did its job and I think that rat potentially is no more. But, yeah, we do have rat– compost attracts rats. Yeah, I love all of it. I love all of it. There's another poem. Don't get me started on poetry. And I think it's– I don't know how to pronounce her name. Mary Ruffler? Or Mary Ruffler? R-U-E-F-L-E. And she has a poem that starts, they noticed, you see, that I was a noticing kind of person. That's

SPEAKER_01:

beautiful.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a really beautiful poem. Look that one up too. And it's just all about this. And it's, I like to think I've always been a noticing kind of person, but I think with age, I won't say wisdom because I don't think I'm wise yet. Still waiting for that. But certainly with age comes wisdom. less of a propensity to label things as good or bad or black or white. And it's just the noticing itself. Is

SPEAKER_01:

this something your children are teaching you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, definitely. Although teenagers are very judgy. So yes and no. My teenagers are. I shouldn't throw everyone's teenagers under the bus. But yes, definitely. I think Children and life just teaches you that the binaries aren't useful and they're really not in fact true. So I think when you see the moon, the most honest response is just, oh, my gosh, there's the moon. Look at it. Like it's not even it's beautiful or it's this or that. It's just extraordinary because it is. So do

SPEAKER_01:

you think you take, I mean, you're, we'll talk about where you started with photography, but just talking about your photography, is it about showing people those, the joys that you are seeing and the things that sort of spark off in you like the, Oh my God, horse. And is that what you're taking pictures for to, to, to show that to be like a photograph? I mean, have a look, this is the moon, you know, get up off your chair and have a look. Oh, you're not going to get off your chair. Then have a look at the photo I took. Like I get frustrated with people around me that don't, That don't fall for the trap of, not the trap, but, you know, the joy of that sort of stuff. It's like, dude, get up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. No, I totally know what you mean. Yeah, it's like, are you even alive? Hello? Yeah, I guess so. I think in some ways it's more just, you know, I wouldn't be as presumptuous to think I was showing these things to anyone else. I think it's more about holding them up to the light for myself. And it's exploring them. I think very much for me, photography is now about asking questions and not saying that anything is like this or that. It's a process of exploration. It just sounds really cliche, but it's about the journey. It's about the process of looking. You know, the act of paying attention. If I look at the moon, I look at it and then, you know, someone drops something in the house or whatever, in a split second your attention is gone. If you go outside with a camera and think about maybe you will attend yourself to the act of photographing the moon, well, that's going to be a half-hour activity because you're going to go and find a tripod presumably at that time of day or whatever. So you're really going to drop into that process, that slowness of paying attention. You're going to drop into the act of observation as if it is a real act, a really embodied act. I'm always going on about embodiment too. So I just think it extends that idea of looking and drops you into it with your body, heart and soul. So you

SPEAKER_01:

find it sort of quietens... the other noises, and it allows you to be there and be present and witness what's going on. You don't have that sense that you sometimes have with photography where you're fussing about something when you should just put it all down and sit there and look at the moon. Well,

SPEAKER_00:

that's the other side. Yeah, that's a really good question, Paul, because, yeah, that's right. At what point are you fussing about with tripods and missing the moon? But I guess that's the challenge. as a visual artist is is maybe or maybe particularly as a photographer as knowing where that fine line is between seeing everything only through the lens of a camera and objectifying everything and making everything into the end result of your your process and your practice and so you know whether you get a bit too ego driven by the whole thing or whether you can stop before that happens and just allow it to be something that maybe adds to your experiencing of something, the moon, a rabbit. Yeah, there's definitely a sense of you need to know when to put the camera down. I mean, I certainly had to figure that out with my own children because I did go through years of... I would say years of photographing everything. And thankfully when they become young teens, they start saying go away. And, yeah, I think you do have to really start to reflect in terms of having experiences when you need to put the camera down and just have it.

SPEAKER_01:

So did your journey in photography begin with this kind of, you know, level of mindfulness or is it something you were– Was it another thing for you? When did it all start?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so the mindfulness and the understanding of what I'm doing or attempted understanding, probably a deeper thinking about photography has definitely come later on. I'm one of those people who I fell into photography. I don't have this romantic story of my grandpa gave me a camera when I was four. None of that. I was actually working in IT. And having a grand old time, although I do have a literature, arts literature background. So

SPEAKER_01:

tell me, what were you doing in IT?

SPEAKER_00:

I was a business analyst and tester.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, BA, right. That's a really interesting role and interesting skill set because you kind of, yeah, because a lot of creatives in that world, they make things that they don't understand how other people engage with them. And then suddenly

SPEAKER_00:

your

SPEAKER_01:

job is to, yeah, be the human in the room.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Well, I came to it from test. I fell into it completely accidentally because I wanted to get into publishing and I couldn't. And I hadn't researched that area of employment prior to completing an entire BA. And then I found out afterwards that far too late that you had to do it as an apprenticeship. That was in those days. I don't know what it's like now. So then I ended up working in call centres just to pay the rent. And I fell into IT coming from that user, from the user interface side of it as a tester and then ended up doing a little bit of postgraduate study in IT. Anyway, so I was working in that area and I really liked it and I was really lucky to have fallen into that. And then I started having children and I went back after the girls. I've got two girls and two boys. They're now age 22. two down to 14. Cool. And after the first two, it sort of became, I'd worked in airlines. I was a bit of a specialist in the airlines industry area of IT and there was a lot of travel involved and that became really, it was just not at all family friendly. So yeah, I thought I would take a break and study photography. I really, I only started I picked that because I really loved looking at photographs in museums and art galleries. That was, I didn't really think about it much more than that.

SPEAKER_01:

So what was the photograph that, like looking at photographs in museums and art galleries is an interesting thing because often there's not a lot of, you know, photography that we would either understand or connect with in these places. And there's a bit of a poor cousin in the art world. What particular work, in the gallery that just sparked you off? Was there anything or was it just generally?

SPEAKER_00:

The type of work that has always and, I mean, my taste is a lot broader now and it's very broad. In fact, I like all sorts of things. But at the time I would say that Robert Frank, Andre Cortez type of documentary, 50s, 60s, black and white, you know, I would say quite dynamic type of style would it be, was what used to attract my attention. Cartier-Bresson, that sort of thing. Pretty classic, actually. And classically black and white film. So it's not a surprise that I've ended up circling via, you know, many other rabbit holes back to that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I totally get that. I mean, it's so attractive and it's been a, it's been, the gateway drug for a lot of us. Yeah. You know, it really is something special. I've got a picture of Cartier-Bresson in my office of Matisse painting the doves or drawing the doves when he was working in ink.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

wow. And it's just lovely because there's an aged Henri Matisse and there's the doves in a cage and he's got a shawl, you know, and it's got so much in it in that little story. I mean, you kind of– the context really helps having an education in art and going, oh, that's freaking Matisse going blind.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah. So that does help. So your degree in fine art or writing before?

SPEAKER_00:

No, it was in English literature and philosophy, actually. What a

SPEAKER_01:

great foundation for storytelling.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I was a terrible student, very distracted. I mean, it took five years to get a three-year undergraduate degree. I was not... focused or living my best life at that point. But I do have that degree. I think I sometimes used to write assignments having not read the books. But I did whole subject semesters on Shakespeare. And, you know, I love high drama and playwrights like Williamson and Williams. And, yeah, probably that mid-century. Maybe I would have flourished in that mid-century time.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. I feel like, I mean, I know a lot of people felt that way, but I don't know if living there would have been. No,

SPEAKER_00:

that's true. Actually, women had no rights.

SPEAKER_01:

It's just a shocking period. But really, it was moving the right direction very slowly at any rate. But yes, it's interesting because the things that have always grabbed me about your work is, I mean, if you think about, and this is just my own metaphor, I'm sure I've stolen it from from someone else. But, you know, with writing, you've got long form, you know, stories and novels and you've got novellas and then, you know, essays and we're down to poems. There's this sort of distillation. And I've often felt that your, particularly your double exposure and triple exposure work, it's got a poetic feel about it because it's a shortcut to a story that you've conjured in one frame, which is a, you know, that's a real neat trick, how you put it all together. And you photographed my girls who are now 20, and got about to be 21. And the shots you took of them, there's so much tied up in them, in their relationship that holds true today. And look, it may have been good luck. It may have been a magic trick that you have up your sleeve. You know all the girls are going to hopefully like each other and then you feed off. But you really got that. So do you think of that as poetry when you're looking at putting these things together? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I do now, Paul, actually, but I didn't for years. I think it took me years to figure out what it was I was looking for through the lens. Now I see really strong correlations between my love of the poetic form. And even in poetry, I like when I write poetry, it's not always, but like there's a Korean form called Sejo that I really, really love. And it's three lines. really 14 to 16 syllables, three lines. And I guess I do really love this idea that smaller and smaller bodies of work can say something really more concisely. You know, like we've all read books. I've read books that I've got to the end of, you know, 11 hours on Audible and thought, I'm pretty sure that could have all been said in an hour and a half.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

People love to listen to the sound of their own voices, including me. But I'm interested in that. And, again, it comes back to ageing. I'm really loving the ageing process. I think you start to really value what time is and means, and I see it as increasingly precious. And I feel like I have more and more to say, and I just want to get on with that. But that's taken me a long time. Like, I mean, I... I have a dear friend, Kim Selby, who's an incredible photographer. And I laugh with her all the time about some of the rabbit holes that we went down in the early days. I mean, dressing my girls in tutus in the park and making them have tea parties. And they were probably more like long, really bad romance novels than beautiful, succinct poems. But I've done all of those things in my exploratory journey. But I think I the things I haven't been afraid to to explore those rabbit holes so I do think I'm the way I'm working now feels really really um it just feels really right for me the last couple of years but I had to go up a lot of quite strange and pretty uncool um That's a

SPEAKER_01:

learning thing. You either do it by copying and trying to be someone and do their work. I mean, I spent a whole, like, I reckon it was a decade trying to be Ansel Adams. But what I learned about that is how to meter, you know, and how to play with the zone system and everything. And I got like three photos that I like out of the whole thing. But, you know, I got a handle on large format. Look, no matter how daggy it is, oh, you know what I take away from that? He was lazy. He stayed in Yosemite and just photographed things that were just outside his door and were easy. We know he didn't do that, but when you go to Yosemite, you know, the air goes from your lungs at the intense beauty of it all. It's just so easy, really. Whereas if you go into the Australian bushland and find that kind of beauty. You have to look and you have to stand still. Yes. It's a very different experience. But

SPEAKER_00:

it gives you that foundation. And you have to carry a lot of equipment with you on that very long search. I think that takes me to my other favourite topic, which is something that's very much talked about in photography at the moment, which is that idea of you have to try things on and you have to be inspired and you have to go out and look for inspiration. And whether that's in nature or whether that's other photographers, it's an active process. But I think there's something really beautiful about circling back to what is actually in front of you, what has been, you know, and I can get a bit woo-woo and talk about, you know, energy in the universe. Are you a

SPEAKER_01:

woo-woo person?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm an everything person, Paul. So this is one of my problems. ADHD,

SPEAKER_01:

is it?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No need to get that diagnosis. Save myself$4,000. I'm spending all that on all the children's diagnoses. I shouldn't say that. No,

SPEAKER_01:

we've done the same. We've done the same. It's fine. Help them with school and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, that's right. And so I am loving life actually at this age and this stage, so I don't need to go and get a diagnosis, but probably. So, yeah, and so, yeah, figuring out– Listening to what seems to be being given to me, I think, is a really fascinating journey. Looking at the things that pop up in your field of reference and then pop up again and then come back at you some other way has been really insightful. So it's not to say that we all shouldn't tromp through the national parks with a large format camera and a tripod and our lunch on our back. But I guess if you're at it for 10 years and something's not happening, then maybe you look at what is in your backyard, what is in front of you. I think that's the great, excuse me, a really wonderful thing about what's happening in what used to quite recently be really derided, which was mums with cameras. That's the really beautiful transition of that whole field is that we've gone from eye-rolling mums with cameras to look at this incredible body of work being produced by women who are photographing what is in front of them for 24 hours a day who can't get out to Yosemite because they have a child in a front pack, a child in a backpack, and And a whinging five-year-old who wants to stay home and do his thing. Still

SPEAKER_01:

making amazing things.

SPEAKER_00:

Amazing things within those constraints. So, yeah, I'm really interested in that. So I've dropped into that more and more, I think, over the years.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the industry's done a great pivot. And, you know, you can feel the... the horrified men in leather pants that were the previous generation. You know, you can feel their fizzing away with, you know, with rust.

SPEAKER_02:

These are not even in focus.

SPEAKER_01:

I know. It's like drives me bonkers. And, you know, at the same time, like with all the love and respect they have for the industry and everything, but at the same, no idea how to apply that love and to, you know, particularly handed on well, they're just sort of, and I don't know, I think it just ended so quickly for so many people. It was really hard for a lot of people. I

SPEAKER_00:

think we can have empathy that it is hard. I mean, the world's changing really quickly now, but you either, you know, clutch the train as it goes past or you get run down. So, you know, I think the things that I see happening are really beautiful. I just went to, I don't know if you know Amy Woodward's work, So I just went along to her. Her book has just been newly released through Tall Poppy Press. I think some of these small presses is I was lucky enough, as you know, I lived in Paris in 2023 and got to go along to my first ever photographic book fairs, which are now happening here as well. So I decided to be able to go along in Melbourne. Hopefully, I think there's one later this year. But, you know, this sort of thing is changing really fast. Smaller run books by interesting people, a real multiplicity and a real feeling of fertility in the industry of all these people making beautiful, beautiful work out of their actual real lives. I think it's really democratising and I think that's really lovely.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that is interesting. I was speaking to an old friend. We go to a lot of exhibitions together and we were just looking at work and he's someone who's struggling a little bit with the sort of– because like everyone has got– you're a bright light but a lot of people have got a lot of heaviness in their life and they're using art to tell and share that story. And it's actually quite from young people as well. Yeah. It's like there's something about like that honesty and truth in the art is incredible and so important. But there is a lot of, and sometimes you go, where is the beautiful simplicity of something? And it's not saying that we, you know, there's just a lot of heaviness, a lot of artist statements talking about, you know, listing everything that's important. board. And I really feel for those people because it's a great outlet. But I worry about the people who are, you know, because art's got to bring people into it as well. And it's not going to turn people away. It's got to, you know, it's It's a tricky sales thing, really. I mean, it's selling an idea that you want to put something like this or engage in something like this and it doesn't have to be about suffering, if you know what I mean. I don't know what I'm saying there.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I know. I think that's, yeah, I think you've just hit the nail on the head there that it doesn't, yeah, I think you do see scenes of things coming through where it feels like there is a lot of suffering. But I think that... It's really important to give voice to that. I'm a huge believer in intergenerational trauma healing. And that's something that's been really important to me in my life. And I think certainly I was the way that I approached photography when my kids were little probably did have a sense of For me, I certainly had a healing element, just being able to witness their beauty and innocence and the preciousness of that childhood bubble. There was something that was really, really important to create this environment for my children and then to be able to document that. And, in fact, when I discovered film photography, I did one of– do you know Jonathan Canlis?

SPEAKER_01:

No.

UNKNOWN:

No.

SPEAKER_00:

Huge. He runs the Find Lab.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the Find Lab, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so the Find Lab. So I actually sent my film to the States for about, oh, the first three or four years. Yeah. And that was hugely helpful for me. So he did one of his last ever, he used to travel the world and do film photography, real intro to film photography workshops. And I did his very last one or one of the last few before he stopped doing that. And then now he does a workshop in a box. I think he still offers that. And that was incredible for me because we were going, my husband had taken three months off work, sort of, and we went around, we went from Perth to Darwin in a motor home. And the kids were aged two or three, I think Rupi was, and the oldest was 10. So yeah, two to 10. In a motorhome. So we drove this RV. And we had no experience doing anything like that. And we're not even outdoorsy people, really. But I

SPEAKER_01:

wanted to be. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

yeah. And it was just absolutely. The first couple of weeks were high trauma. But the rest of it was fantastic once we settled into a rhythm. I was planning for this. And I suddenly had this idea. I just knew that I was going to come home with. hard drives upon hard drives, and that that was going to be a stress, that this was the biggest, most fun adventure we'd ever embarked upon, and really the first holiday we'd taken in years. And I just had this vision of me coming back with all these USBs and files that I was going to need to edit. So I did this Jonathan Canlis course. I said, I'm thinking about buying a film camera. Because love, like, you know, every other man and his dog, I've got the old shoebox full of random pictures underneath the stairs, most of which are terrible but also very, very dear to me.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the quality is never, like, with those things that have survived it, quality is nothing. And it actually says, yeah, we've all got to relax about quality anyway.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, the... complete randomness of these images adds to their beauty and joy the dog's butt obscuring the dead aunt's face you know it makes it had so many layers of stories these photos than if I had a random box of photographs where everybody was perfectly arranged which I think you know really very much plays out in the work that I do now because I still photograph families but um Anyway, I wanted that. I thought even if I just get a handle on a film photography, on a film camera, so that I can bring home a box of random photos and they'll be what they'll be. And so, yeah, but I did luckily buy a Contax 645, which is now worth about$8,000. Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Those prices go up and down again. And that is still, if I could only keep one camera, that would be it. I think it's making a percent. And it has never... I'm not going to even say that. I was going to say I'll touch wood, but I'm not even going to say it. I'm

SPEAKER_02:

touching wood

SPEAKER_00:

for you. You know what I want to say, but it's been a very faithful friend. I now have actually two and a half of those things, but I was, yes. Yes,

SPEAKER_01:

so Jonathan's workshop, you were going to go on this trip and you took the workshop to try and understand so

SPEAKER_00:

you're not stuck with the hard drives. Yes, I'm going to get the contacts. I can do this. So from the minute that I had that connection, film camera, it just felt right. Like I just knew that that was,

SPEAKER_01:

I

SPEAKER_00:

pretty much didn't shoot digital again after that. Only if I really had to.

SPEAKER_01:

Other than your phone probably. Oh

SPEAKER_00:

yeah, I use the phone all the time. It's a

SPEAKER_01:

great camera, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00:

It's a great camera. And you know, then people see me roaming around in public with five cameras hanging off me and they think, oh, she's obviously me. knows what she's doing and they hand me their iPhones and say, could you take a picture in front of, you know, the Chrysler building in New York? And I say, I'm a terrible iPhone photographer. So just know. But anyway, they seem to think that it'll lead to something. So I'm trustworthy. Maybe they just think I won't run off with their mobile phone at least.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's probably it. That's probably it. That's probably it. So, like, I totally get your love of film. Yeah. Tell me, is there something about the making of the picture with him? Like, have you got to the point where you just know what's happening, the exposure, and you just, you know, is it intuitive enough for you now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I do, Paul, but as a lab that processes, you know, quite a lot of my film still, you will see that,

SPEAKER_01:

you know. Your work's fine, Sarah. Your work's lovely. We know when we're processing yours, we can actually rely on that. We haven't really particularly done anything wrong because I go, well, Sarah's going to get it right. If it looks good, we know it's all good, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

No, and that's the funny part, isn't it, is that because I pretty much meter with my eyes, or it depends what I'm doing. I mean, look, if I'm shooting, you know, velvety slide film, of course I have the light meter out because I don't want to set fire to my own money. If I'm on a family shoot and it's more important for me to be developing a connection with a child and if I need to be moving quickly, I can't stop and meter every time I change from backlighting to frontlighting. But I sort of have... formulas that I have in my head that work with the film stocks that I will be shooting at that time. And

SPEAKER_01:

you throw it open when you spin around, you know, without needing a re-meter, you would know. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

that's right. If I just, like if I go in, yeah, you just know. So if I go from front lighting to back lighting, it an hour and a half before sunset, I just know how many, I can just whiz down a couple of stops and it'll be ballpark and I'm shooting Portrait 400, which is very forgiving. That's why it costs$36 a roll.

SPEAKER_01:

It's so beautiful, isn't it, really?

SPEAKER_00:

It's so beautiful. It's been a very, very good friend. It's my

SPEAKER_01:

best friend with film.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, there's horses for courses in other times. And now I'm, I don't know if I've mentioned to you, but I'm doing a Master's of Fine Art.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, so I've embarked upon that and I'm going to try and do that two years full time really quickly. So we'll see. But so I'm shooting a lot more carefully, a lot more slowly. I'm at the moment for my major body of work this semester, I'm caffeinol processing everything. And that's something I've just,

SPEAKER_02:

not

SPEAKER_00:

color, obviously, um, And also that just speeds up the process a bit because I don't have to send it away. And the university has scanning equipment that I can use. Although I did just discover that, so that was a bit funny. I'm halfway through the semester before I realised they have all this amazing equipment. Are

SPEAKER_01:

you at RMIT? I

SPEAKER_00:

am at RMIT, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, wonderful. Oh, and I should say, we're here on Kaurna land and you are on...

SPEAKER_00:

Well, normally...

SPEAKER_01:

RMIT's NAM.

SPEAKER_00:

Normally I'm, yeah, normally I'm in at NAM, but I also spend a lot of time on Boon Wurrung land. And so what you're looking at here, which obviously the listeners can't hear, is Boon Wurrung, which is down near the coast on the Mornington Peninsula. I

SPEAKER_01:

might do a screen grab of you and I for the sake of the title of the episode, so people will see a little...

SPEAKER_00:

That's

SPEAKER_01:

so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00:

But just that's a film. But I shoot, I really cry. I try and shoot a variety of film. I love the different varieties of film and their vagaries and the colours and different things. And, yeah, I'm back using a little bit of slide film on this project and I love films like Delta 3200. I really like to lean into different things. and I'm always trying out new films.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, cool. So tell me what about your, what's the, if you don't mind sharing, what's a master's, what's your, how do you title that and what's the story you're trying to tell with that?

SPEAKER_00:

Look, that's a great question. I still don't really know. I think it's a bit like I said earlier, it's the process of doing it. That's just as interesting for me as the outcome. I wanted, I've decided to do it. I really want to be pushed conceptually. I'm really time poor. So what seemed like a good idea was to throw a master's into the mix and see if I could have more regular nervous breakdowns that my family has to resuscitate me from. I have a very patient mind. who supports me in a lot of my antics. I'm sure

SPEAKER_01:

you do the same thing back his way.

SPEAKER_00:

He's not as random. He's the sensible one in the relationship. So he's not usually doing random things that require him to be scraped off the floor when it all becomes too much. But, yeah, we're a good team. I can slow it down and spread it over three years if I want to. I'm really interested... I'm trying

SPEAKER_01:

to nail you down here.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, please don't laugh.

SPEAKER_01:

This might help you, by the way, if you tell me and it comes out of your mouth.

SPEAKER_00:

It's still really hard for me to put language around and that's because my neurodiverse brain is just right out with the universe and the stars at the moment. But if I said it's about compost, try not to laugh.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I'm listening.

SPEAKER_00:

So I'm reading really, really interesting sort of post-humanist theoretical books feminist type things. And I think one of the major bodies of work, so it's kind of about the domestic food. It's about domestic food production, the domestic food garden, compost life cycles, and how we think about nature, how we think about how we as humans exist within natural life cycles. So it's actually quite environmental, I would say. Wow,

SPEAKER_01:

that's cool.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't think it will be figurative at all. But I mean, there's other projects that will get woven because you do different subjects. But my major sort of conceptual research work, I think, will be, or coursework, will be around that. I

SPEAKER_01:

mean, you've talked a lot in this little chat about life cycles, you know, in different, using different words. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02:

yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And, you know, the garden... the home garden, the garden that feeds you is actually a really lovely, you know, metaphor or not even that, representation of the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00:

I think the human beings, without going sort of too out there, but I think that human beings, you know, particularly in the West, we're a little bit disconnected from the reality that we are part of a greater...

SPEAKER_01:

For sure.

SPEAKER_00:

you know, we are just part of the world. The egg shortage

SPEAKER_01:

actually puts the light on. Like, I was at a supermarket yesterday and there was no eggs on the shelf. And

SPEAKER_02:

it's

SPEAKER_01:

really funny what something like that does to someone who normally walks in and goes, oh, my God, what do I choose?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes. I think these sorts of things are going to, because I don't think that this is going to go away. I don't know. I'm not an environmental expert. But, you know, I just think that, that these things will start to really creep in more and more and just about that thoughtfulness. But to circle back to what you said earlier, trying not to be depressing about it. Because I've had, look, I am a little bit, I probably err in my personality towards the side of existential angst. I mean, me at 16 was all dressed in tie-dyed, home tie-dyed, black clothing, including my hair. Which I then, you know, and then jeans that were slashed from top to bottom.

SPEAKER_01:

Proto emo.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, so emo. Yeah, absolutely. You know, if it wasn't being sung by Paul Smith, I wasn't interested. You know, so that was me. And I do still tend towards that. So it probably in some ways is my small effort at, you know, trying to find positive spins and trying to figure out how to go forward into the world and just being as positive and as useful as you can in your sphere of influence. I don't know if you've ever thought about this. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

no, I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_00:

That sphere of influence, like I can't do anything about big oil, so what can I do, you know? Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah. No, you want to be honest about the situation, but what is the point in– digging the grave right now and to climb on in.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And, you know, you have kids. I have kids. I don't. I think that the kids deserve more than for, I mean, we're not boomers, but we're in that sort of middle awkward era that's, well, we didn't really make it either. I don't know who made it. What's the point of pointing fingers? What can we do that's also better than just saying, well, sorry, kids, but I guess it's your mess now. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, how do you find

SPEAKER_00:

that? Liminal space. I love liminal spaces.

SPEAKER_01:

It is. I mean, I'm terrified of them. I'm just so– I struggle a lot with things not being clear. But I don't know– I do and I don't. It's just one of these things. Some things keep me up at night, but I do and I don't. But I was just thinking about the idea of like your kids, it's so easy– if you're not on guard, that you can fall into being a boomer, right? I'm so sorry, Generation Boomer, you're not all like this. But, you know, it is so easy just to look for the simple things and to be binary about a very non-binary situation we are all together in.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. And we're very deeply connected to all elements of this. And, you know, if we just... put the telly on and sit on the sofa and watch maths. You know, no beef to anybody who's spending their time doing that. I love White Lotus as much as an ex-person. But, yeah, it's trying to engage. And that's, you know, the act of photography is engaging physically with the problem. And doing the Masters is really, you know, you're forced to do a lot of really heavy, full-on non-binary reading. I mean, universities are the least binary places in the world. I'm really loving that side of it. I'm finding it very inspiring. Sometimes I have to press pause on these books, Paul, and then go back and listen to it again because the first time I listen to this stuff, I go, I don't even know what you're saying. These people are very intelligent. But the bulk of them are saying the same thing, which is that we have to engage in as many areas of our lives as we can stand to with people. Yeah, absolutely. Whether that's just sticking your banana skins in your indoor plants or whether that's marching when the opportunity comes or whether that's, you know, making pickles from a box of cucumbers that you got cheap at the market. You know, you do you, whatever. But I think that's really where a lot of my interest is.

SPEAKER_01:

So do your kids appreciate, do you think they see what you're trying to do? I think.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they do. I mean, kids all have their own interests, don't they?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I know they do. And I'm amazed at how positive like my 22 and soon to be 21-year-old are in this circumstance. And I know that there's been discussions about not wanting to have kids, but it's not been because the world's such a terrible place. It's because they've got other stuff they want to get on with.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't understand how they– Are you okay with it all?

SPEAKER_00:

It's really inspiring, actually, the way they just get on with, yeah, what they want to be and what they want to do. And, look, I think my kids are all really lovely people, and I'm really proud of them for that. I think, I mean, look, I still open the bin and fish out banana skins that someone's put in there and then run around yelling, who put a banana skin not in the compost? And they have rolled their eyes. But I think some of these things take a long time for them to really get on board with. So, yeah, I think they're more and more on board with it. And, like, I'm sure your girls are too. It's all about depop and vintage fashion and all of this stuff. So kids do an amazing job of that side of it.

SPEAKER_01:

They do. And I think the slow, I mean, whilst there is an idea of slow fashion, certainly in my house, there is also piles of clothes that are You walk into the room and it's like an unstable floor because there's a great turnover. And we measure my youngest in clothes per hour. Her entire life, since she was putting clothes on, there would be five outfits ganged up, tutus included, but clothes per hour. Yes, we

SPEAKER_00:

have one of those and she's still like that.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a wonderful thing, isn't it? And Jo's a fashion icon around Adelaide, so she's doing the right– and she's at art school, so she's out on the right spot for all those things. Oh, is she? It's an absolute joy. That's awesome. Yeah, that's so interesting. Are you finding– like I've got two girls and– And Kate and Frank, who's our Cavoodle, who is just, you know, very sweet and dopey, just like, you know, I think I'm a bit that way. But how's– because you've got a boy, haven't you? Is it just one boy? I've got two boys. Two boys. How are they navigating a very different world for young men? Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

I think they're doing a great job of that too. My 16-year-old has a girlfriend and– It's been really interesting for us. I just think that we're watching adolescence at the moment, actually. We're one episode into that.

SPEAKER_01:

Kate, the kids have watched it. I'm actually a little too sensitive and that would probably crash me for a week, but I'm very curious about certainly the way it's made. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

the way it's made is extraordinary because you've obviously heard it's all made in one take, so it is quite intense. I thought it was beautiful. We've just watched the first episode, but we're doing that as a family because we try and have discussions. It's a

SPEAKER_01:

great thing, I think, that you're doing. Are the 16s a good age for that?

SPEAKER_00:

They're at really good ages. To be honest, hand on heart, I've never enjoyed the kids more than I do at the moment. They can all make themselves a toasted sandwich and I can get on and do what I like to do. But

SPEAKER_01:

can they load the dishwasher the right way around?

SPEAKER_00:

That's taken years of work. We're getting there. Getting there. We still have that, you know, I asked you to unload the dishwasher and you haven't done it. Yes, I have. But there's all these dishes still on the bench. Oh, well, you didn't say reload it too. So, you know, those conversations. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah, yeah. I just give up and do it. Because I can't do anything. I can't. And I'm in a unique position as the only bloke in the house that, you know, and it's fine. I love it. And I just want. Yeah, that's why

SPEAKER_00:

I asked about your boys and how they're coping with it. Sorry, I was going to say it's a numbers game in our house, and I've always been the person probably who just did it, but now I'm doing study as well as still working and still running workshops and things, as you know, and so I've just got to the point where I've said no more.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

yeah. I did get to a point where I couldn't just keep doing it, so we've had to... But they've all stepped up. They're doing a great job.

SPEAKER_01:

That's great. Well, we... You've mentioned workshops, I wanted to ask. You know, they've been, how long have you been running for? It's quite a few years now, aren't they, that you've been doing workshops?

SPEAKER_00:

I have, yeah, but they've changed in their, you know, the nature of them has kept on changing a little bit. But always

SPEAKER_01:

film, film core, film blood,

SPEAKER_00:

always film. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, always film.

SPEAKER_01:

So is it about helping people pick up film for

SPEAKER_00:

their practice? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was just having, you know, initially people would be, you know, just messaging me saying, oh, I've, I really just want to, I bought a film camera. Generally women who were already film photographers, photographing families or perhaps weddings and saying, I want to get into film mostly, you know, just to capture my own family. And so I started having workshops, which were called Film Baby initially, and they were me teaching and And then that's morphed into the last couple of years, Film Blood, which is a several-day retreat, which was incredible. So what we did on the last one, I get catering in and we just have it. It's a really nurturing, again, for these women who tend to be primary caregivers and trying to fit in this fledgling career or even just learning it for themselves, for their own families. Yeah. really, really talented, amazing, inspiring, inquisitive women. And I think that, you know, their love of film photography is, it sounds really cliche, but I honestly believe that it's helping them to be better parents in the same way that this helped me lock into, it helped me find a voice and words for what I was experiencing at times, you know, in the lonely business of, you of being at home with small children and feeling that you have things to say about the world and your experience, but having no outlet for that. And the film camera gives them an outlet and there's so much information out there now on the internet. So they're finding forums and they're finding ways to upskill really quickly. And then they're wanting to be hanging out with other people who were interested in these same things. So now that's what Filmblood is. So this time I came up with this list of really kooky topics and I made them all do a 20-minute presentation. It was a collective. It wasn't me. I do a couple of presentations and a collective project, which we did last year and we made a zine and that was really fun and we've done it again this year. So we're still collating all of those images. They're all still... Coming back and then we do a Zoom and go through them all and that takes about half a

SPEAKER_01:

day. And the time away from their environment to get together with other like-minded people talking about something which maybe no one in their inner circle understands. Yeah. It would be

SPEAKER_00:

a gift. Exactly. We all got up at dawn on the Saturday and go down to a local beach and run around screaming. We had all these red things because that was our theme. So we've got red tinsel curtains and scarves and gumboots and, you know, there's locals going for a quiet dawn walk on the beach and there's this screaming group of women running about with some of them naked with cameras hanging off them and creating a complete scene.

SPEAKER_02:

Hilarious.

SPEAKER_00:

So just, yeah, just lots of fun. So sorry, there is a lie.

SPEAKER_01:

I can see it.

SPEAKER_00:

Snuck in. It's driving me insane.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, look, we're getting really close to where we are. Four minutes is going to be our hour. And I don't want to– I want to respect your time and stick to that. But I did want to ask you about your process with your double exposures and where that comes from and just– Could you talk us through putting together a picture like that and why you're choosing one element and another element?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's something that I've always been attracted to, I think. And, yeah, you mentioned it. I mean, I should, gosh, how old were your girls when I did those photos for you? I think

SPEAKER_01:

they were like 14 and 13 or 15 and 14.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, something like that. Are they only a year apart?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, 17 months. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You're right, because I did double exposures. I think there might even still be one on my website of Josephine.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm just, I mean, looking at your Insta and everything, it's just, it's so rich. Oh, it's so beautiful. It's so rich with... with sort of story in just that, in any one of those pictures. And I like to decode things. So for me, I just look at it and I'm going, okay, what is she doing here? What does she mean? What's happening? And it might not be the story you're intending, but it's prompting me. And I do love it. Sy Moore, our friend in New Zealand, does some beautiful, and Sophie Bailey, his partner, do some beautiful double work as well. And it used to be such a kid's thing back in the day. And you've just got another level of it now. It's just...

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know. I think sometimes I make things and I do think, oh, is that edging on kitsch? And I'm aware of that. But also I don't like labels and I've always talked about that. So we only get, I'm only into neurodiversity labels insofar as they help the person who might be wearing that label as a hat. One of my oldest was probably what most people would have called, one of my oldest, one of my kids was, was vegetarian until she was about 13. We always said, let's not use that word. You're just a person who mostly doesn't eat meat. Why? It labels it. Words are made up. And that's why I love poetry is because you have license to play with them, but they're a bit the same. So sometimes you have to risk kitsch to get something that's not kitsch. Sometimes you have to risk them not working out. And I love the joy of that. And that was the whole thing behind my dog, Piss Poems project in Paris. So there's two major ways of doing double exposures. They're all done in camera, but one of them is to shoot a roll, certainly for 35mm film. So what I did in Paris was I shot the whole roll of film and then deliberately put it away and then I marked the rolls as, say, 35mm film. Sorry, 35. I would mark the rolls of film with the lens that I'd used. So say if I'd shot the first roll with a 35 mil lens, I would then go and put on, say, 100 macro or something quite different and then reshoot with no memory of what was already on those. Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

Serendipity. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Total serendipity. It was an exercise in the idea was to see what serendipity might have to say, but more specifically kind of making space for the voice of the city.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and letting go. And

SPEAKER_00:

letting go, yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because I know

SPEAKER_01:

how precious it is when you load it and you go to shoot and, you know, it's got to be something special in that. If you know you've already done something else to this frame, it's very interesting.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, because sometimes I would get a rollback. I mean, that project was probably about 25 rolls all up. And sometimes you would get a rollback where you would just go, it's just a hot mess. So I got better at learning how, what was more likely to at least result in a few, you know, legible, usable images and not just be, you know, completely blown out. The easiest mistake to make with double exposures regardless of how you're doing them is just blowing out. So you have nothing whatsoever. So if there's too much sky, for instance, in the image, that will happen. But yeah, the other way that I do them is just to look around, particularly on a family shoot or in COVID, I did a lot of this with my own family because in Melbourne, as you know, we weren't allowed out. Pretty much. So I just look around and notice what I notice and use what I find. And I still do that in client homes or out in nature. Just what is something where we are and just try and incorporate that and see what happens. They don't always work out, but, you know, you have to be willing to. If you want to be surprised, I think you have to let go of control. Yeah. That's

SPEAKER_01:

so interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

Otherwise you're just doing, you're just replicating things that you have already done. So how do you learn anything new or grow if you're not brave enough to let go of that, even just for a millisecond while you press a shutter?

SPEAKER_01:

And, you know, film feels like something that you want to control. Yeah. It's a bit of a rare thing that you, you know, because it's expensive.

SPEAKER_00:

It's the financial side. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I totally get that. Yeah, I'm as aware of that as the next person. And it's something my supervisor at uni has already spoken to me about because I can be quite left brain and also quite right brain. Yeah. And sometimes both at once. But my supervisor has said to me, less thinking, more doing. Because I can get a bit tied up in the, oh, and particularly because this is a new type of work for me. I've worked always with people. You know, just that, oh, what happens if? And it's like, well, sometimes you have to just find out by doing it.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Roll the dice, I suppose. Roll the dice. Yeah, so the whole journey thing and, I mean, I've felt more and more about that because I think life is a bit like, you know, you crest that hill thinking you make it to the top of the hill but you find there's another hill just… Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if you've put so much pressure on getting to the top of that hill…

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

…you've just fucked yourself, excuse the language. But you really have and this journey thing, as you said earlier, it's a cliché but… It's something that we get to. And I don't– I feel my kids have a better grasp on the journey thing than I did then. I think it may have been an 80s thing. Was it an 80s thing that we had to– you know, like because you did school and the school got you to uni and if you didn't finish– if you didn't get to year 12 or whatever, what are you going to be? Yes. Whereas we know there's so– like– My kids went all this weird way to get into where they are. My youngest did. And they're there. They're there. They're well ahead of me now still. At 20, they're ahead of my 55-year-oldness. Oh,

SPEAKER_00:

I totally agree. I've had this conversation with my girls. that particularly in terms of their emotional development and their self-understanding, they're miles ahead of where I was. I was just sort of tromping down the safe and for good reasons, you know, like, I mean, I was financially self-sufficient at both my daughter's ages. And so, you know, there was only so much self-exploration that the rent bill could stand, whereas they live at home. But yeah, they're brave and they're awesome, but The thing that we talk about all the time is, and I don't know who said this, it's certainly not me, I can't remember, but there's this idea of going as far as, you know, it's like life is like you're driving at night and you've got the headlights on. You can't, you know, let's say you're driving from here to Albury, you can't see Albury if you start in Melbourne, but you can just see as far as your headlights are shining. And I think that's such a beautiful thing. metaphor for just doing everything you can wholeheartedly and passionately and, you know, non-destructively to other beings, other people, whatever, and just worrying about that. Because as you say, you can't worry about what's on the other side of the hill. You can't worry about what is beyond the light of your headlights. That's

SPEAKER_01:

so interesting. Yeah, I think

SPEAKER_00:

that's beautiful. Isn't that lovely? It really is. I will have to Google who said that. It's really beautiful and definitely not mine, but I think of it all the time.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I think it's wonderful. Hey, so last question. What's next for Sarah Black? What are you doing? Have you got some travel lined up? Have you got an exhibition you're putting together? What's happening?

SPEAKER_00:

No, I'm really just leaning into this master's process. I mean, there will be– I'm sure that there will be work to be exhibited later to come in the future. Again, I don't know. My headlights are on the MFA, Paul, and then I'm still working with families, but a bit reduced capacity, but I still need to fund all the film that I'm purchasing for the university. course um yeah still hoping to run just you know some educational things from time to time um because they're fun i would love love to make a book i'm doing a book making course at the end of the isn't it's

SPEAKER_01:

so much fun i've done one handwork

SPEAKER_00:

and now i'm doing a longer one yeah it's handwork so i did a short little one with tall poppy press and they're running some interesting things here in melbourne and That was so fun. I can see that there's– and I'm definitely getting into things like eco-printing. So I think that, yeah, bookmaking and eco-printing will be the future, but it won't be– I think it's just outside my headlights at the moment. I just need to do–

SPEAKER_01:

You can feel it, though.

SPEAKER_00:

I can feel it. And I still would love to make a book from my Paris work. I really feel that– Yeah, so you

SPEAKER_01:

lived there for a year, so you must have got quite a bit of–

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I did an exhibition for that, which was at the end of last year, and that was part of the head-on festival, and I loved making that work, and it was really kind of inspiring. So, yeah, I would one day love to make a book out of that. I mean, I'd love to do so many things.

SPEAKER_01:

It just feels good that you've got all that there. It's like a giant box of chocolates that you can go and peck at whenever you feel like it, and it's never going to empty, you know?

SPEAKER_00:

I feel so lucky. right now like my life has really run a very entertaining gamut not all of it has been as easy and as comfortable as it is now but um yeah I feel very lucky Paul that I'm getting to really do what inspires me and fires me up and I feel like you know some of it's self-indulgence the MFA is self-indulgent but but you know the workshops I think that I'm

SPEAKER_01:

I think

SPEAKER_00:

it's really important. And I get so much out of working with these people and offering a space where people can play. We don't get to play. We leave school and it's like, right, the play is done. I

SPEAKER_01:

know.

SPEAKER_00:

And people need to play.

SPEAKER_01:

I know. And I think that spotting the kangaroo, kangaroo, you know, I think that's joy and play and that's being a little person inside, you know, and sort of feeding that joy. being excited by things, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

We just got a kitten, Paul, which I said no to. So my eldest said, because we have a cat and a dog already, can we have a kitten? Can we have a kitten? Can we have a kitten like Bart Simpson? No, no, no. Of course, now we have a kitten. But I tell you, there's nothing more fun than all five of us, or six of us, least count of the

SPEAKER_02:

children,

SPEAKER_00:

lying on the floor of our bedroom watching the kitten play slash torture the older cat for 45 minutes and leap around like a maniac and we all are busy and we all just lie there and it's so fun

SPEAKER_01:

that's the best that's well it's so lovely seeing your joy and feeling it i think it's a good thing it's it's it's good to live by that um i i hope that people can feel that and you know everyone gets to live with such joy it's a beautiful thing

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, look, it's hard times for lots of people and I don't ever want to take that for granted. But I do think, yeah, if you are able to live with a little bit of joy, whether it's five minutes or half an hour or three hours, then,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah. You know, I mean, our dear American friends who are not that different from us, when they see the, you know, the socialist reality wonderland we live in, according to them, like by their definition. And they see us living with joy and freedom and choice and yet not worrying about, oops, I broke my leg, I now have to sell my house. We, yeah, like it's fun and it's healthy to be loud and sort of proud about.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Haven't we all just realised we are five minutes from a dystopian horror land? Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Like...

SPEAKER_01:

This is good for your inside monologue, isn't it? Yes, it is. Thank you. The horror that's so close. Well, we're going to leave it at that because I don't want to make everyone cry, okay?

SPEAKER_00:

Sorry. Back to the joy. Back to the joy.

SPEAKER_01:

Back to the joy. Thank you so much for your time, Sarah. And, oh, well, I'm going to look forward to catching up with you soon, I hope. I don't know. Are you– there's word that the Refocus Retreat might be starting up in– Ballarat for the Biennale, which, I mean, I'm going to be going to the Ballarat Biennale regardless. Are you

SPEAKER_00:

thinking about that? I have plans to go to the Biennale with some friends, with some film-led friends. There's a group of us who are, yes, I'm almost definitely going to go to the Biennale.

SPEAKER_01:

Have you not got a show planned to hang at the?

SPEAKER_00:

No. I should, though, but no, not yet.

SPEAKER_01:

Well.

SPEAKER_00:

One day.

SPEAKER_01:

You should. You should totally. And don't wait for them to invite you because that's always never great if they never do. But you can always put a show on in the Fringe. part of the show and Alexis is the most amazing thing there being our last so it's beautiful

SPEAKER_00:

one of the big things that I'm passionate about now that I've got a toe in this photography world is um well more a couple of toes even is um what's that what's that phrase that word that means you know like the idea of the gatekeepers

SPEAKER_01:

oh yeah

SPEAKER_00:

I'm not having that. I'm just a middle-aged woman gone wild. So one of my big passions is emancipating, and we don't have time or intention to wait in the queue for our names to be called up.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, just screw them, the gatekeepers. Look, I've got to say I've got a lot to do with and I've had a lot to do with gatekeepers, and I think right now it's– They're holding the doors open. I really think it's different because they don't know what's going on. They're looking for genuine creatives and genuine, you know, stuff that moves people. They're scratching around for it because none of what they did before is working. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's a great time to be a photographer. with an idea. I really do. I think that, and self-publishing is obviously another thing, and sorry, here I go off rabbit holes again. I know, we're off again. Another thing that opens it all back up. But I think it's a really open, it's an opening, I shouldn't say open, it's a really quickly opening field. And I think that's really exciting for photography.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, thank you so much for your time, Sarah Black.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you, Paul. This is lovely. Thank you for all of your beautiful film development.

UNKNOWN:

I just think of you as Sarah Black.