FRAMES Photography Podcast
FRAMES Photography Podcast
Cole Thompson
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In today's episode, W. Scott Olsen speaks with Cole Thompson, a Colorado-based black-and-white fine art photographer whose quietly dramatic images transform landscapes, objects, and historic places into deeply personal interpretations of light, form, and feeling.
You can visit Cole's website here.
Find out more and join FRAMES here.
If you're at that point in your life where you're trying to find your vision and you really, really want it, have you tried it? I was giving a presentation back in New Jersey, and in the middle of it, the man stands up and he goes, You do what? He goes, How can you possibly deprive yourself of the enjoyment of looking at photographs? And my answer was, because I want to find my vision even more than I want to enjoy other people's photographs.
SPEAKER_00This photography podcast is brought to you by Frames, a quarterly printed photography magazine. Here is today's host, W. Scott Olson, with another fascinating conversation.
SPEAKER_01Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to another podcast from Frames Magazine. My name is Scott Olson, and today, folks, we are going to have the best time today. We're going to talk about some stuff that's really sort of deep core, soul important, not even aesthetics, not gear, not technique, but something about the heart and mind that we bring to our work as photographers, as artists, as people trying to make some kind of dent in the world to say, I'm here and I want you to see the world the way I'm looking at it. We might have something to talk about, we might not, but I'm going to be authentic and I'm going to present my vision of the world. We're going to talk about black and white photography. As you guys know, it's near and dear to my heart. We're going to talk about landscape, we're going to talk about all sorts of other genres of photography. But we are going to talk about, perhaps more than anything else, what it means to have a vision as a photographer. And the minute I use the word vision, if you're paying attention these days, you probably already know that we're talking with Cole Thompson. Cole is a man who has dedicated his artistic life to understanding, developing, and producing an authentic, individual, integrity-filled vision that is just rocking, at least my socks off, when you look at the work. This is stellar, profound. I don't got enough superlatives to talk about what he is imagining with his black and white photography. Now, normally on these interviews, I would take this moment and I would run through a list of awards and shows and books, you know, letters from somebody's grandmother explaining why they're a good person. You know, the whole CV stuff. And I'm not going to do that now because I started to do my research and I came upon very early a really cool statement. This is on Cole's website. I'm going to read it to you, verbatim. It's he says, My art has appeared in many exhibitions, publications, and has received awards, and yet I do not list these accomplishments on a resume. Why? He says, in the past I've considered those accolades as evidence of my success, but now I think differently. My success is no longer measured by my resume, but rather how I feel about the art I create. While I do enjoy exhibiting, seeing my work published, and meeting people who appreciate my art, this is the cherry on top of the real prize, creating work that I love. I believe the best success is achieved internally, not externally. Cole, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing, man?
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Scott. Thank you. Doing well.
SPEAKER_01Wonderful. I am looking forward. First of all, I'm a fan. And we're going to get to you the individual images in a bit. But my lord, what you have come to understand about black and white photography is just really, really special. But I I want to go back, you know, as as is, you know, pretty common to the origin story. And, you know, normally I get one of three answers when I say, How does you know did photography come into your life? Either somebody was given the camera and they really loved shooting, um, or you know, some high school darkroom class and there's you know the little tray of HC 110 and an image pops up uh and they think, oh, you know, this is great, or they fall in love uh with the gadget. You know, just this is the mechanics of the camera. You, you're 14 years old, you're out hiking in the woods, you come across an old ruin that you discover is you know got a connection to John Eastman, you go get his bio and you start reading it, and before you have ever pressed the show to release, you decide you're gonna be a photographer. So, okay, walk me through that more slowly. First of all, why were you interested in the ruin? What did Eastman say in his biography that term John? And and what grabbed your soul at that time?
SPEAKER_02Well, first, understand I'd lived in Rochester, New York in '68, and uh Kodak ruled the waves back then. Uh it was synonymous with the word photography, Kodak. And so to find this old home that he had once lived in, I believe, just kind of piqued my interest. So I uh went to the school library, checked out the biography. And as you said, before I'd ever taken a picture or been in a dark room, I fell in love with the whon concept of photography. Uh yeah, I don't know why. It just resonated with me. I just fell in love. And so I got my first camera. It was an old Kodak box camera and a Sears developing kit that had this little teeny enlarger that made three and a half by three and a half inch prints. And uh just fell in love more and more. And I spent the first five years in a wonderfully creative state because I had no instructor, no teacher, just pure childlike experimentation and creating what I loved. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I didn't know what I was not supposed to do. And as I look back now at those images, I could see, looking back today, I could see that I had a vision, just how I saw the world. But then something changed. I decided I wanted to be a quote successful close quote photographer. And I started following and copying and imitating and following rules and conventions. And I went through 35 years of what I just call a photographic wasteland. I literally don't have any images from those 35 years that were me. They just look like you could have put them in a pile and you couldn't have told mine from anyone else's.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, let's go back to the early days. So you and your you and your brother to get this the Sears developing kit. Um and and and you say, you know, you you commandeered the family bathroom um, you know, to become a dark room. What were you taking pictures? I mean, I there's one in particular that you've got on your website I want to talk about. But were you just, you know, were you doing family snaps? You know, here's dinner time, here's after dinner time, or were you more intentional and mindful from the get-go?
SPEAKER_02Well, the only source of photography I had to look at were the Time Life series, the, you know, those silver books. And it was pretty cool printing for uh a book of that nature. And I fell in, I was always attracted to a certain type of image. And they were always dark and contrasty, uh Adams and Weston in particular. And so I think that's some people have pointed out that that probably shaped my vision. And and so I created images uh that were similar, very dark and contrasty, and uh, and of course I experimented with all types of photography, people and things, and and I don't know, I just kind of found my own voice, if you'd like to use that word instead of vision. Uh and again, with no rules, I just did whatever made sense to me. And I'm glad I had no critics to to tell me, oh, I shouldn't do this or I should do that.
SPEAKER_01You know, mid to late 60s, we're talking Vietnam. We're talking, you know, a lot of fashion photography going on then, the explosion of color. Um, was this crossing your table as well? No.
SPEAKER_02No. Um boy, it was it was never just landscapes or particular genre. It was just whatever I saw that caught my attention and uh fueled my imagination. And just it was fun. It was pure fun. It was pure joy to create an image that I loved.
SPEAKER_01Okay, you've got on your website Gull and Moon, 1970. Um you claim this is the first image that you really loved and was proud of. W walk me through the taking of the image and then walk me through your own reaction to it once you had it in your hand.
SPEAKER_02Boy, it's interesting, you know, because at my age, memories are fading, but it's interesting. Every image I can remember, every detail. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, it just is like a time machine for me. I that's a sandwiched image. The gull was shot in my high school parking lot, Loara High School in Anaheim, California. And the moon was actually, I was out in in an old uh Kmart, empty lot next to a Kmart on Cotella Avenue, and it was at night, and I was shooting infrared. No, it wasn't at night. It was just had that super dark look. Yeah. So anyway, it was a sandwiched image, which I could never get looking as good as it does today once I imported it and worked it in Photoshop. I've got the the deeper blacks that I had sought. Um, but yeah, it was an early sandwiched image with an infrared and a daytime shot.
SPEAKER_01Okay, now you have you weren't taking photo classes. Yeah, you you you know have said you know you have had no formal training in photography. At age 16, how in the world did you know that you could stack negatives or that you could do this kind of stuff?
SPEAKER_02I didn't know that I couldn't. I mean, that's the beauty. I you know, I'm right now reading uh The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, and he talks a lot about you know childlike creativity. And I used to I grew up in a rather poor family with a lot of kids, and we had no money for art or culture or music or anything. So consequently, I grew up just believing I didn't have any creativity, just because I had never been introduced or developed it. And so when Rick Rubin talks about childlike creativity, I thought, no, that's wrong. Uh you have to develop your creativity. But now I understand Picasso's quote, you know, that we're all creative as children. The challenge is to stay creative as adults. And so as I got older and I started following and started imitating others, uh, I focused on the technical because I didn't think I had any creative abilities. And so for those 35 years, that creative waistline, it was all about technique and technical perfection. I thought if I couldn't be creative, I could compensate by being extra technically perfect. A silly, silly thought, but that's what I thought at the time.
SPEAKER_01Technical on both ends, the you know, the the gadget in your hand as well as the dark room or one over the other? Both.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I was so into technology, the darkroom technology, so into gear. Yeah, and it's it's it's sad. And the reason I I right now focus on vision so much, I speak on vision. Uh, we hold just finished a vision retreat. We do 10 people in my home for a week, and that's all about vision. And my whole purpose is to help others, not waste 35 years wandering in the wilderness, being unhappy, but not knowing why, having that emptiness inside, but not understanding what's the problem or how to solve it. And I believe the answer is to find yourself through your vision.
SPEAKER_01Oh, very cool. And we're gonna get a lot more into vision here in just a second. But uh but to get us a little bit more up to the contemporary times, you're chugging along, you're becoming you know as technically proficient as you can, and then you make friends with I'm gonna mispronounce the name here, sorry. Um, but Vered Gaylor? Gaylor, how do you say that name?
SPEAKER_02Vered Galore. She is I've had three mentors. She was the third mentor in my life.
SPEAKER_01Tell me uh her influence on your your journey.
SPEAKER_02Well, I was a straight photographer, you know, as and I use the word photographer to denote uh one who focused on creating images that you saw with your eyes, documenting. Okay. And she was an artist. And she just kept telling me that I could do more than just document, and I was so resistant, probably because I thought of myself as a photographic purist, you know. You know, back then it's we had those people who would ask, Do you manipulate your images? And if you were to say yes, oh, you were in a whole separate category. I was a purist, I documented. And she just kept beating me up with, come on, add something of you, be creative, uh, do more than just document.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. But but you you're the same, you're the same kid that was stacking negatives before that. How how did you get from being you know experimentally creative to just documenting?
SPEAKER_02Those 35 years of not thinking I was creative and uh not believing I could do anything more than be technically perfect and document.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Now, at the end of those 35 years, digital comes along, and that's sort of a prompt to get you back into what?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I uh had moved here to Fort Collins, I was retiring. Digital sounded interesting, and of course, from a technical perspective, I was going to get all into that. So I got into, you know, with one of those old gray plastic rebels, uh canon rebels, and started photographing again. And but the real change occurred in 2004 when I went to review Santa Fe, and I'm showing my work, and uh, and of course, I wanted to be the next Ansel Adams, and I had brought all of my individual images, I didn't even have portfolios then, to show to these curators and gallery owners and publishers. And they were all, you know, very polite and said nice things, encouraging things. And I got to the last reviewer, and I showed him my work. He looked at it ever so briefly and then brusquely pushes it back to me and says, It looks like you're trying to copy Ansel Adams. And I said proudly, I am. I love Ansel Adams. And he then said something that was gonna not just change my photography, but literally change my life. He said, Ansel already did Ansel, and you're not gonna do him any better. What can you do that exhibits your unique vision? Now, the way I'm telling it, he said it in almost in a kindly way, but in reality, he was so rude and throwing your face. And I was so angry that I remember coming home and I took my notes that had his name on it, and I hid them somewhere in my office. And I've never found them. I've never looked for them again because they trigger me. He was so, he could have delivered it a lot kinder and gentler. And to this day I don't remember his name, nor do I want to. But over the course of months, it kept eating at me. What was he talking about? Vision. And so I started trying to research it, and I couldn't really find anything back then. The internet was brand new, and I'd try to Google it. I don't remember if we had Google or something else back then, and all I could find was articles about my eyesight. So, what was this vision? And and more importantly, did I have one? Because I thought maybe it was like creative talent. And because back then I thought some people were creative and others were not. And I thought maybe the same was true with vision. And I could find nothing on it. So I just kind of came up instinctively with these 10 things that I thought I would do that would reveal if I had a vision. And that's really where my life changed and sent me into the third phase, which was this creative aspect of my life.
SPEAKER_01Okay, let's let's spend a moment just on definition, though, because vision is is one of those words that can mean a great many things. You're not talking about, I mean, in essence, you're not talking about style. You're not talking about a kind of I'm gonna photograph only left-handed polar bears that are Capricorns. Um vision means something both larger and more focused than either of those.
SPEAKER_02One thing this vision retreat teaches me is that everybody attaches baggage to words, and so it's difficult. Uh here's some other words people have been able to relate to a little better. Uh, your voice, your point of view, your photographic personality. For me, vision is how I see when I remove all the other external voices out of my life. Voices from a mentor, from a photo teacher, from a magazine article, from the rules of photography, from the conventions, from more importantly, from how other photographers saw and documented. Vision is getting back to a childlike state where you just see how you see. That as we age, we're we're so conditioned to conform that, and we listen to the other voices, that our vision atrophies and shrinks. I mentioned that I look back at my five first five years of photographs and could see that I had a vision. I didn't know what it was called, I didn't know what it did. It was just there, how I saw. But then over the years, I started tamping it down to a point I didn't believe I even had anything inside of me.
SPEAKER_01So it it is an aesthetic taste. It it it is a this is the way I see. So you are drawn to the black and white, you're drawn to the high contrast, to the moody, to that kind of stuff. And that that is your voice, that is your personality.
SPEAKER_02That was not a style.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02In fact, what's the difference? The style, for me, the way I define style, is a look that I contrive and then apply to my images. Uh for example, people told me early on, you need to come up with a unique style so that when anyone saw an image, they'd say, Oh, that's a Cole Thompson. That's contrived. Style, for me, is something you apply. For vision is something that's internal and comes out. I've got a lot of high-key images. I've got a lot of different genres. I am not constrained in any way by my vision. I'm liberated. A lot of people think of it as a style, and they go, oh, so all of your images are going to look like this. No. It's however I feel for that subject at that time. And vision is a sum total of all of my life experiences, everything that I've experienced in life that shapes how I see something. For example, Verid Galore was a child survivor of the Holocaust. When I created my series, The Ghost of Auschwitz-Birkenau, it meant one thing to me. It meant something completely different to her because of her life experiences. And so our life shapes how we see things.
SPEAKER_01And that that leads into another idea. Again, I keep pushing things back just a little bit about creating for others versus creating for yourself. You say you came up with 10 ideas. Perhaps the most famous of them is the idea of photographic celibacy. Um, but what what were the I've you know watched a number of interviews. What were the other nine, or just a couple of the other nine? What else was on that list?
SPEAKER_02Well, the first thing I did was really interesting. I printed out my favorite images. I sat cross-legged on the floor and I sat to divide those into two piles. The ones that I really, really loved, and then everything else. And as I sat there going through the images, I realized I couldn't tell you which were my favorites, which ones I really, really loved. I could tell you which ones sold well, which ones got a lot of likes, which ones others liked, which ones got published, but I couldn't tell you what I loved. I had been creating for others, for the accolades. And so the first step was to find out what did I love? And then I went through that smaller stack of the images I really, really loved and asked myself about each image, what is it about that image I love? I wasn't looking for continuity, I wasn't looking for relationships, just what about that image? And it was there I recognized that I love centered images, symmetrical images, contrasty images, typically with a dark image with a glowing subject. There were certain features that really got me excited. And I remember when I looked at those Time Life books, uh Frozen Light by Ansel Adams, and it would just send this shiver down my spine. I just loved it so much. And that's the kind of images I needed to get back to and create and stop worrying about if it would sell, if others would like it, if it would lead to something. So that was the first thing that I learned. Another step was learning to let go of what others think. I had to convince myself that if I loved it, that was enough. If anyone else loved it, that was the cherry on top of the real prize that I loved it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. When you look at one of your images, how do how do you say to yourself this one is good? What are you looking at?
SPEAKER_02I don't say if it's good or bad. I don't compare it to a previous image. I just say, do I love this? Do I am I proud of this? Even if no one else ever saw it, would I be happy with it?
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell And that that can be for silly as well as profound reasons, just depending on what the image is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, I remember as a child when I was creating images, it was I was so pleased with myself that I had created this and I loved it. And it was good. And again, good by my standards, not anyone else's.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, as as I said, one of the most interesting or if uh or most talked about items from that list of 10 uh is the notion of, and I just love the phrase here, uh, photographic celibacy. And this has been warmly received. It's been not so warmly received uh but by others.
SPEAKER_02Not so warmly received by anyone.
SPEAKER_01Okay, talk us through this. Where did the idea come from? Why did it come up? And then why is it working for you?
SPEAKER_02Okay, so when I was trying to understand what vision was, and more importantly, did I have one, I had to create a plan. And again, instinctively I just thought these things would help. One of which was how could I immerse myself daily in others' images and expect for my vision to become bubbling out of that big mess? It just seemed counterintuitive to me that uh because I was always prone to finding somebody doing something and I would try to copy it. I mean, how many people, raise your hand in the audience, didn't go out and buy a pepper and try to recreate pepper number 30?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we all did. And and some people think that's good because you learn technique from it.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02But you know that that old saying, uh good artists borrow, great artists steal, that always rubbed me the wrong way. I don't want to borrow nor steal. So I became photographically celibate for two reasons. First, I didn't want to be influenced, I wanted to find my vision. And secondly, I have uh this philosophy about creating honest work. And if I were to see an image, say of a single cloud, and then say, oh, I'm gonna go off and do a portfolio of these harbingers, to me, that's not honest work, and I wouldn't feel good about that project. And so I also practice, uh, continue to practice photographic celibacy because when I come up with an idea, I want it to be mine. Now, I've had occasions where I've created a series, uh, my Dunes of Nude series from the Dunes in Death Valley. I submit them to Lens work, and what does Brooke Jensen say? Oh, we see these all the time. But I didn't copy them, they were original to me, and so I can still be proud of them. So that's why I practice celibacy. I don't want to be influenced, I don't want to be copied. And you know, the biggest objection that I hear is well, I look at photographs to be inspired. Well, they inspired me too, to copy them. Uh and I would ask, if I can't be inspired by nature, I have to look at how Weston or Adams photographed a tree to be able to be inspired. Why can't nature inspire me or other forms of art? So I've had uh two people that I'm aware of who have tried it. Uh Sarah Marino tried it for a year, said it was important in helping her establish her vision. And a friend who took our vision retreat, Roger Rapel, who's got a, I think in the current issue of Lens Work, he's got a project there. And he's doing it also. But I would say 99.9999999% of people think it's a crazy idea. But I would only ask them to consider this thought. John Barkley came up with this as a group were fighting me on the whole idea. Actually, people get angry at times. Simply said, Have you tried it? If you're at that point in your life where you're trying to find your vision and you really, really want it, have you tried it? I was giving a presentation back in New Jersey, and in the middle of it, the man stands up and he goes, You do what? He goes, How can you possibly deprive yourself of the enjoyment of looking at photographs? And my answer was, because I want to find my vision even more than I want to enjoy other people's photographs. I was hungered and thirsted after my vision.
SPEAKER_00Let's take just a quick break. We hope very much that you're enjoying today's episode. The very fact that you are listening to this podcast suggests that photography means a lot to you. And if that's the case, you might want to have a look at Frames Quarterly Printed Photography Magazine. We truly believe that excellent photography belongs on paper. Visit readframes.com to find out more about our publication and use the coupon code podcast to receive a recurring 10% discount on your new Frames magazine subscription. And now back to today's conversation.
SPEAKER_01Do you worry that by not consuming a lot of you know uh photography, that you're gonna reinvent the wheel, that you're gonna say, Oh, I've just seen this beautiful picture of Half Dome and I've it's magnificent, and people are gonna say, yeah, the whole world's been there, done that. I don't care. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I would rather create an honest piece of work that got no likes than to be imitative and have thousands of likes. Uh when I am laying on my deathbed, I can't imagine me saying, waving my wife over and whispering, whispering to her, can you show me all the awards I've won and all the likes? You know, what am I going to be proud of? It's going to be family and things I've created.
SPEAKER_01You talk about intentionality, and you've said that you know a lot of photographers will go out and take pictures, then come back to the computer and figure out what they can do. You are a fan of pre-visualization, of sort of thinking in advance what you want to do. Talk to me about that a little bit. I mean, just your practice. You know you're going out to you know the dunes somewhere. What do you do before you turn the ignition in the car?
SPEAKER_02Well, again, words get in the way. I think of pre-visualization as I'm sitting at home and I'm planning a trip and I'm planning where I'm going to go and what I'm going to photograph. I don't do that.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02When I go to a location, I never research it. When I go to any location, I never buy a guidebook. I don't want to see the must-see sites. I never look at work from other photographers, obviously. I just go and I wander and look for something that speaks to me. And that's just how I work. So it's never prepared. Pre-visualization is where you plant it out, you say, oh, I'm almost storyboarding what you're going to photograph. I don't do that. When I get there and I'm standing before a scene that has attracted me, I like to say I take two pictures, one with my camera and one with my mind, my imagination, my mind's eye. And I know what the final image will look like. And that becomes a roadmap for me of both how to shoot it and then how to process it. And uh, so I don't take a picture and then go back and play with it hoping to stumble upon something great. To me, that's like going to Vegas and pulling the slot machine a thousand times, hoping you're going to hit a jackpot. I know what it's going to look like. And that visualization, that vision is what directs me.
SPEAKER_01Is there a lot of discovery for you in post-production? Not a lot.
SPEAKER_02Okay. I mean, there's always the challenge of being able to create to actually create what you visualized. For example, in the Ghost of Auschwitz-Birkenau, I had absolutely no idea how I was going to do that. But I had that roadmap burned into my memory, and I just had to learn a lot of new techniques to be able to execute the vision.
SPEAKER_01So the the ghostly figures, you know, the blurry figures and stuff, that was firmly in your mind before you were ever there. No, when I got there. Oh, okay. Well, well, well, first of all, describe that um portfolio for people, and then walk me through the process because these are just soul-grabbing images.
SPEAKER_02Well, I kind of got to tell the backstory. Okay. I'm visiting my son in Ukraine. He's in the Peace Corps, and so we go to Ukraine, and uh as is my practice, I never make any preparations, never study in advance what I might see. And I was there and hadn't seen anything for a few days, and I was kind of getting nervous. You know, you start counting down how many days you have left, and that pressure doesn't help the creative process.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02The people were interesting in Ukraine, but it's tough to photograph people because they all want to smile for you, and I don't want a bunch of pictures of smiling Ukrainians. And I didn't feel authentic. It felt like a mask they were putting on for the photographer. So I was trying to figure out how I would break down that mask. I don't have a common language, I don't speak Russian or Ukrainian, and I don't have time to get to know him to get to the real person. So I'm at a bus stop and I see an old guy standing there. And so I approach him and I tap on my chest, I say, America, and he nods. And then I hold up my camera, I say, photographer, he nods, and I do the sign of can I take your picture? And he nods, and I take his picture. Then I, using sign language, I say, stop, close your eyes. And he's like, What? You can see it in his face. And I said it again, close your eyes. And I took his picture a second time with his eyes closed. And I created this portfolio called Ukrainians with eyes shut. And I just walked the streets of Ukraine and would do that repeatedly with other people. So that's kind of how I work. So now we have two extra days, and we decide to go next door to Poland. Take the train over there. We're staying in Krakow, the city square, and we're discussing what we would do with our two days. Now I knew that that Auschwitz-Birkenau was nearby, but I didn't want to go there. I'm a a uh I I feel too much.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Uh overly sensitive. So I didn't want to go there. Um, and the family's discussing it, and they decide they do want to go, so I'm kind of locked in with the family. And so off we go, we take a tour bus and we're heading over to Auschwitz-Birkenau. And boy, the whole concept of going to a death camp was not appealing to me. So we get on the way over, I'm thinking about where I'm going, and I'm thinking, wow, if there is a sacred place on earth, this would have to be one of them. It would be irreverent of me to treat this like a tourist location and photograph there. So as we get off the bus, I ask the driver if I could leave my gear on board. He says, no, he won't be responsible. So fortunately, I begin the tour with my gear in hand. So the tour begins by being shown a book. On the left is this beautiful black and white photo of each person in their little prison stripes, and on the right, a description of the person. As I'm flipping through these photographs, I could see that this photographer was not just skilled, but he took pride in his work. And of course, you're thinking, why are you taking these beautiful photographs of people that you're going to murder? Or gas. So that was a my that begins my head spinning a little bit. Then we began the tour by going into the rooms with the piles, the pile of glasses, the pile of human hair, and the one that got to me, the pile of human bridge work, yanked from the mouths of the dead. Now I'm not claustrophobic, but in that moment I just could not breathe in that room. And so I said to my kids, You continue, I'm going outside. And once outside, I'm just walking along, looking at my feet, trying to breathe easier. And as I start to breathe easier, I'm focusing on my feet and where I stood. Who else stood right here and was now dead? Who else walked in the path that I'm walking on their way to the gallows or the gas chamber? And then I just started asking myself, I wonder if their spirits still linger. And then something just said to me, you need to photograph their ghosts. And so I began using a long exposure and using the other visitors at the camp to stand in proxy for those who lived and died at Auschwitz-Burkenau, started creating these ghosts. But I was faced with two challenges. The first, every time I set up my camera on the tripod, people would clear out of the way. And I needed them in there. So I had to really quickly devise a technique. And I would turn my back to the camera and I would play the part of the loud American and get on my cell phone and talk very loudly. And then when they wandered in, I'd use a remote shutter release to get the shot. And the second problem, I had 45 minutes left at Auschwitz, and then I had an hour at Birkenau. And I knew I'd never be back. I would never go back. So once being concerned about being irreverent, I now found myself running from location to location, trying to document these images that I have in my mind before the bus left. In fact, the bus was held up, and my wife came back so angry at me because I was holding the bus up. But I mean, I had to get them. I I was never coming back here.
SPEAKER_01So this entire series is an hour and a half's worth of shutter releases. Oh my God. Well, it it like I said, it it is uh emotionally powerful, visually, technically, you know, adroit. Just it's it's one of those series that you look at and you think, um, this this has to have been well thought out, well executed, planned, the whole bit. Boy, I'm doubly impressed.
SPEAKER_02And if I had been looking at other people's work and had seen something like this, I never would have been able to have created what I call honest work. That it was my idea and it was created from my vision. It was created for me. And if only one person, me, liked it, it would be enough. That's uh again why I don't look at other people's work. I want these ideas to be mine.
SPEAKER_01Um, tell me a completely different series. Tell me about the trees from a train um series, only because I I once rode all around the perimeter of the lower 48 uh in an Amtrak car. Um to and my project's called Scenes from a Moving Window. So when I got when I when I got to this one, I just leapt all over it. Was this planned? Was this because it's very different than the Auschwitz, obviously, in mood and character, still black and white, but it's it's one of these things is not like the other.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Well, I uh lived in Alaska back in the 70s and had never been back. And so right before COVID hit, a friend Jim Norman called me up and said, Hey, I've got a two-for-one ticket deal and I'm headed to Fairbanks. Do you want to join me? And I said, Boy howdy, let's go. And uh again, had no idea of what I was going to photograph. That's how I go. And we're on this train, and uh oh, so I should mention we're landing in Fairbanks, and he had told me about this 12-hour train ride that goes from Fairbanks to Anchorage through some of the most rugged and uh isolated parts of Alaska. And, you know, I'm perhaps dreaming of seeing McKinley over there in the distance and seeing some grand vistas. Well, that morning there's a big snowstorm. So we're on the train, and you know, the first thing you do when you get on a train is grab a window seat, start looking. And very quickly I realized this wasn't going to be what I had ever imagined. I'm in a tree speeding through a tunnel. I mean, I'm on a train speeding through a tunnel of trees in a blinding snowstorm. There's nothing to see but trees speeding by. So a little discouraged, this is before Amtrak, Amtrak just took this line over. I went between two cars and could open up both doors. And I just began shooting out each side of the car. And every shot I'd have to wipe the lens because the snowflakes were hitting it. So I'd shoot, wipe, shoot, wipe. And the only thing they shoot were the trees speeding by. So, you know, you start photographing trees. And then you think, well, what if I panned with the trees? And then because I love long exposures, I thought, what would happen if I panned with a long exposure? And the first image out of the camera, I'm like, whoa, what is going on here? It had this incredible swirl, I call it. Something I just couldn't understand. And for the next 12 hours, I just learned to control the swirl and created this series. And it turns out it it the swirl comes about because of our focal plane shutter, which is moving from top to bottom, and then the sideways motion of the train and me panning. And those two motions combined uh created the swirl. And and even though you might understand it intellectually, it blows me away because there's that one shot that was on the cover of lens work, and it is a solitary tree standing still with 360 degrees of swirl around it. It's like, how does that happen?
SPEAKER_01I I can see you looking at the back of the camera just going, hee-hee-hee.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was a playful discovery.
SPEAKER_01You have some really interesting thoughts about whether you're um thinking on portfolio-sized collections series, or whether you're assembling uh, you know, once you once you've got them, individual images into a package that somehow makes uh larger sense. Tell me when you're out doing the trees, for example, or when you're doing our shows, you're doing you know, the lone man or light poles or hotel rooms, you know, all these magnificent series here. Are you are you conceiving of the individual image as a part or as itself?
SPEAKER_02For the longest time, I only took individual images. I I guess I think I'm an impatient person, and I don't like I was never successful in building models as a kid because I didn't want to wait for the glue to dry, so I've got glue marks all over the model. You know, I just was impatient. And so this concept of creating a portfolio that might take years just turned me off. And so I decided at one point in my life to submit my work to lens work. And it's very clear the submission guidelines don't send us your greatest hits. But I thought to myself, but he's never seen my greatest hits. And off they went. And he came back very quickly with this comment pick one image and send me 15 on that subject. And that was the kick in the rear I needed to begin my first project, grain silos. And I just wandered the planes for nine months photographing these grain silos, not as objects of utility, but trying to see them as objects of art. And once I created that first series, I was hooked. And now I don't like single images. And in fact, the best single image will be one that leads to a portfolio. So I don't like some people say go through your Lightroom catalog and collect images that are similar. I call that a collection. To me, a portfolio or a project is something that you you move forward on and you have an idea, a concept, rather than just collecting tree images and say this is a tree portfolio. So that's not what I ain't mine. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01You you've got a really interesting, you know, tension is probably the right word between a kind of street photographer's you know, immediate response to stimuli you didn't expect, uh, or you know, whatever, um, and then the more intentional fine artist setting up, you know, a landscape shot and sitting there for four hours waiting for the light to be right. Is is it an either-or for you or a both and just whatever happens.
SPEAKER_02Just whatever happens. I mean, a lot of my portfolios are more tending towards more being a straight photographer. And I don't like those. I like ones that say something. Um, the ones that I don't know, an idea like my Harbinger series, where it means something to me. And um rather than this is Death Valley, and it's just about documenting what Death Valley looks like. So I'm I'm I'm I'm like on step two of my creative envision journey. I've got so far to go, and I know I've got great potential inside of me, but tapping into it is so hard.
SPEAKER_01You know, I I'm looking at your work, and the idea of photographic celibacy I find really intriguing because I'm looking at the Faroe Islands series right now. The Faroe Islands have been photographed endlessly. Um and if there's any place where it's gonna be easy to come across a cliche, it's gonna be there. And yet your work is not. Um
SPEAKER_02A lot of people who photographed the Faroe Islands.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's there's I mean, that's what that's on my bucket list. So I'm looking at that stuff all the time. Uh, you know, just sort of dreaming of being there someday. But you have found a way to compose uh shots, and especially with the long exposure. But some very familiar settings, you're in a slightly different place or slightly different angle, um, slightly different approach. So I really, really do like what this is uh providing for you. But I also want to um you know quickly mention when you say photographic celibacy, you're not talking about isolation. Your website, your newsletter, your blog are filled with quotes. They're filled with all sorts of other inspiration, artistic insight. So there is a large community of uh what do you want to call it, just stuff that you are aware of, participating in, putting out to the rest of the world. Does that not also influence you?
SPEAKER_02Everything influences me. Everything. What I ate for breakfast this morning influences me. But uh I limit it, I don't, I look at other art. I just don't look at other photographs because again, I don't want to interpret the world through other people's eyes. I want to see it for myself. I I want to be Stevie Wonder, and one day they come up with this new miraculous surgery, and he can suddenly see for the first time. And how does he see the world? He would be the luckiest man in the world for seeing things fresh and anew. And that's how I want to be. I can't forget what I've seen, but I can minimize its influence on me and my vision.
SPEAKER_01You you talk about the Beatles being a similar kind of inspiration for you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Simply because when you look at their growth, I mean, you you look at their first songs, I Wanna Hold Your Hand. There's not a lot of you know complexity to the lyrics there. And yet they were such a big hit. You could see the record execs in there saying, Okay, boys, you've done it. Now we want another one just like this. Don't change a thing. You've got a winning formula. And you know the pressure for them was to continue to produce the same stuff. They didn't want to. They wanted to grow and to experiment. And that inspires me because if you compare their later songs to their early songs, what growth took place? What are you working on now? Uh, I'm kind of been reinvigorated with Harbinger. I'm still doing it. Cool. Okay.
SPEAKER_01What well talk to why is that series calling to you now?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. There's something about the concept of that Harbinger. Look, the older I get, the less I need to understand the whys of things. I'm feeling it, and that's the direction I'm going. And people say, Well, how will you know when it's done? I'll just know. I'll just be done.
SPEAKER_01I forget where's, but you tell a story about going out shooting uh with your son when he was much younger. Uh, you know, Dad, are we done yet? Dad, are we done yet? You know, almost to get back to the card. Here comes the cloud.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that first one. Oh, was it the first one? Okay. That was the first one that inspired the series. Yeah, and if that wouldn't have occurred, you know, you think of all the event things that uh line up to make that event happen. That I was there at that moment, that I turned around and looked before I got in the truck. Everything that serendipity, is that the word? I mean, I just it just and then for some reason it triggers this idea in you. Truthfully, I never thought I'd find another Harbinger. I'd never thought. How am I going to find a single cloud over interesting subjects? But boy, when you're passionate about something, you see, you find.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you start finding them everywhere. Um, and and you know, as a side note, I think we need to come up, the community of photographers needs to come up with a special award for family members. Um, because we are probably the most annoying people to go anywhere with.
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh, isn't that the truth?
SPEAKER_01Oh man. Cole, this has been fantastic. I I really, really am deeply impressed uh with your work uh and humbled by uh the the technical ability, the composition. But most importantly, you you talk about you want to make you know photographs that create a visceral reaction that that make your body move. Um, and uh you've hit that with me, man. This is just stellar work. Thank you. Okay, well, and again, thank you for a magnificent conversation. I've enjoyed every bit of this.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Scott. Frames. Because excellent photography belongs on paper. Visit us at www.readframes.com. That's readframes.com.