Transcript
Speaker: Hey folks, Duncan Kinney, host of The Progress Report here with a little bit of bonus content for you. In our last episode, we had to cut out some of our conversation with Abdul Malek because, well, the news happened. Calgary City Council
Speaker: gave $290 million to billionaires. The AUPE won an injunction against the UCP. So we had to cut out this conversation that we were having about the state of kind of visual journalism and really just the media landscape in Alberta. A little known fact about myself, I was actually a working photojournalist for a couple of years.
Speaker: and Abdul has a lot of experience in that field as well. So we just wanted to clip this conversation, bring it out to you as a bit of bonus content. So enjoy.
Speaker: I have a journalism degree. I was a news photographer. I did an internship with the Edmonton Sun. I freelanced with the Calgary Sun for almost two years. I would say 18 months maybe. I have an embarrassing amount of time spent in newsrooms, and newsrooms
Speaker: are particularly brain -poisoned part of our world. I think it's worth talking about, not necessarily my experience in photojournalism, but really just the state of photojournalism both in Alberta and how it relates to
Speaker: the declining superstructure of the media ecosystem itself here in Alberta and really across Canada. Well, actually, Duncan, as someone who watched Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom, I think you're a brave warrior on the front lines of content and journalism, really telling people how it is and how it should be done.
Speaker: I still have not watched a couple of the clips that showed up in my thing, and they're fucking awful, but I've made a point to never, ever, ever watch the news. Aaron Sorkin should, at this point, retire. Yeah, retire, bitch. Okay, so in the context of this, and you are also, you're not a news photographer in the context of you working for a newspaper, but you do do a lot of news photography, right?
Speaker: Yeah, like, you know, sort of quickly explain the journey. You know, I was in film and video production back in Toronto. I moved here a couple of years ago, realized that making moving images is a means to no end because it's a very like labor and time and money intensive process. So I picked up a photography camera and started shooting. Right. Went to some protests, took some nice photos. Next thing I know, people were paying me to do it. Next thing I know, you know, I
Speaker: bought like a house's worth of equipment through like just my freelance work. And now it's like a pretty, it's a pretty steady income on top of my like a regular job, which is also doing photo and video. So it's like, yeah, it's.
Speaker: And the thing that really blew up for you was your photos of the confrontation between the activists and the folks who stopped the Edmonton Pride Parade and the people who were agitated that people would dare to commit activism at a Pride Parade. A legitimate pivot in my career, right? That was really the point where people were actually calling me and being like, hey, can you take my photo or something like that? I'm like, why do you want me to take your photo, curiosity? And they're like,
Speaker: Well, I saw your photos of pride and I'm like, do you want me to take a photo of you fighting with your partner? Yeah. I mean, like, um, but no, it was, it was actually like, it was very warm and gentle. And like the response to that, uh, yeah, like my take home, like, uh, work, uh, basically, um, my freelance just, yeah, it, it started like picking up a ton of steam after that, which was really welcome and really nice.
Speaker: And I mean, this is still a job that exists like for now, like full -time photojournalist, but there are, I mean, I called around to the various newsrooms and this isn't like a fully 100 % certified number, but I think between the Star Metros and Calgary and Edmonton and the post media newsrooms in Calgary and Edmonton, we have 15 full -time photojournalists in Alberta whose job is to take pictures.
Speaker: And they're also not even, like a lot of them work freelance for like Canadian press or Newswire and sell their photos, right? And stuff like that, which is a extremely stressful because you're competing with every other Newswire photographer in town, stuff like that. And it's also just really sad.
Speaker: You know what I mean? Like we have some amazing photographers in Edmonton. We have Amber Bracken who won, I believe it was the World Press Photo Award for photos of Standing Rock, right? Still a freelancer. Obviously she, you know, is a working photographer and, you know, probably on the high end of that scale, you know, her partner, Jason Frans and same thing. There's a great photographer who moved to Edmonton recently, Hannah Lawson, right? Who's not just doing photography. She's doing,
Speaker: uh, journalism at the St. Albert Gazette and photography is a component of that, right? Um, so a lot of times they've just rolled people into these jobs. Like, oh, take a few photos on your phone, um, or here's one of the cameras from the newsroom, take a few pictures, send the, send them with your article and stuff like that, which is a pretty bankrupt way of doing things. You know, uh,
Speaker: Well, I mean, Metro has, I mean, the Star Metros in both cities are like, I mean, they have tiny resources compared to the post -media or CBC newsrooms, but they're, those people are obviously, I feel those people are doing like the most honest work, right? But they don't have, there's one, in Calgary and Edmonton, from what I understand - There's one staff photographer, I think, in both. There's like one part, like they're three days a week, a staff photographer in Edmonton, and then in Calgary, I think it's the same arrangement.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know who is currently doing it to Star Metro, but Kevin Tuong, who did it before the current person who's doing that, amazing photographer, right? But I can't speak for him, obviously, but I'm sure the calculus was, oh, if I quit this job and made it in freelance, it would probably be a lot better for me, which is probably also an indication how much
Speaker: We take care of the labor pool and like modern journalism and stuff like that. So like just speaking in the context, the direct like how it was as a job. I mean, when you're doing it, you're like you're in your car almost all the time. You're driving around. You usually have like a police scanner on in case someone gets shot or there's like an emergency or a nightcrawler. Yeah. I mean, it's it's like nightcrawler, but it's it's like, but it's much less. It's much more low stakes, especially in like Calgary or Edmonton, right?
Speaker: And so, and it's just incredibly isolating to just drive around all the time. Like I hate driving. Like I have a job now where I drive for my work, practically not at all. And I am a much happier person.
Speaker: Oh, I'm the opposite. I mean, it makes me a bad leftist, but the only way I consume theory is via like audio books and podcasts while I'm driving. So it's like, but I totally get that, right? It's extremely, I mean, photography in general is a strangely lonely yet social profession, right? Yeah, like you have to interact with people, especially when you're doing portraiture, right? Like you've got to be like, okay, I'm going to be in your space. I'm going to tell you how to look so that you actually don't look like a gourped out.
Speaker: person and that I can make you look good. To be able to do that in an appropriate and tender way to get a good photo of someone is actual real hard work. And before I even did news photography, I spent almost nine months a year assisting two commercial photographers whose primary position was they had big hassleblads. They were doing a lot of corporate portraiture work.
Speaker: Again, it's a hard job. It's a real job. It's real work. I'm glad I washed out of the profession. I like what I'm doing now. It's backbreaking too. We don't often talk about the fact that even our high -end commercial photographers, people who are essentially freelancing at the best step they could, they don't get benefits as a function of their job. They
Speaker: Um, are oftentimes like stringing together, uh, eight or nine gigs at once, you know, kind of banging them out and then taking two weeks to edit and then running back into the field. Right. And they're still organizing their schedules while they're doing all of this as new clients come in and stuff like that. And like all for what, right? Your, your take home isn't going to be more than when I was freelancing for the Calgary sun, I want to say it was like $150 a day, no gas.
Speaker: Which is like, I mean - That's like Uber money, right? Yeah. And plus you got to haul around like $6 ,000 worth of camera gear. Yeah. And insurance doesn't come cheap either, right? On your equipment. You know, there's like two companies that ensure camera equipment professionally. And if you file a claim, you actually have to, when you renew, you have to actually justify why you deserve to be renewed, which is insane.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's that is ridiculous. Okay. Okay. I think it's enough time spent nerding out on like camera stuff and and and I think I think News photography and photojournalism is like it's hard to discuss I mean, it's it's you know, it's fundamentally visual medium. It is extremely isolating There's just so few people actually doing it that it is like incredibly difficult to get them to talk about it It's like and it's also just the fact that so much our media again is Consumed visually, right? So it's like what?
Speaker: What separate someone who picks up a camera and starts taking photos versus someone who's perhaps a little more sensitive to the material right i did a gig for boil street community services which is a group in edmonton that you know supports basically marginalized people at risk people in edmonton right they say.
Speaker: Oh well, you know, unless someone here had already vouched for you, we would have said no, right, on the basis of so many people come here trying to like fetishize poverty in some way, right and stuff like that and I think that's really interesting because it's, it's very much like you know photography has become a cloud driven economy.
Speaker: And, like, in a lot of ways, you know, I consider myself, like, extremely lucky, right, in as much as I'm able to actually take photos of things I care about, you know, have a regular list of clients that pay me to take photos of things I agree with and sort of trust my process and trust the intention, right? Which, even though it makes less than, like, a newsroom is still
Speaker: Um, like a good feeling overall, you know, I don't feel like I'm giving anything up yet, but also I would sell out in a second. So if anyone's listening to this, please give me a call, please. Uh, I am for sale. Okay. I do want to close out with a little hilarious piece from my past, and this is a job performance review of my time as an intern with the Edmonton sun between the times of December 27th, December, 2007 to March, 2008.
Speaker: This is written by a guy who doesn't work in the industry anymore who's selling Kia's and who was an absolute. Hell yeah. Kia Soul, best starter car out there. A fantastic vehicle. Don't buy cars, but if you do buy a Kia Soul, it will last you about half as long as a Toyota for half the price. Yeah. There we go. All right. That was a very sweet and low -key sponsored post from Abdul. Okay.
Speaker: But Bancar's entirely, actually. If you want real Kia Soul, it'll be a train. There you go. Yeah. Agreed. So he starts off by talking about, you know, my stated guest, Quest in Gold, become a full -time photographer, videographer, and not a reporter photographer, which, I mean, is some kind of hilarious lingo from, I guess, 12 years ago now.
Speaker: But he goes on about. All right, here we go. This is the meat of it. We push students harder and have a higher level of final results in production than any other department that I know of. We let students know well before they get here that we will not lower our standards for work ethic and final results for any student.
Speaker: We push the students very hard so that they will be good enough to get a full -time photography staff job here or at any other newspaper anywhere in Canada. This has led us to banging heads and disagreeing with several students over the years as to how good and how far a student might go in the business. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm going to actually stop you there for a second. That one's really interesting to me.
Speaker: I'm not sure if people know this about photography as an idea but your sort of longevity or entry into the profession is not really based on talent. Talent helps a lot, right? But it's based on access. And I think that's something that these people don't
Speaker: One, the relationship with your boss too, especially in a newsroom, right? Yeah, but like, I mean, for people who want to make a full -time career doing like professional photojournalism or like documentary gigs, right? Like I would call Nat Geo photographers or Getty photographers, like I would call them photojournalists, right? But like, even for me, like one of the reasons I, like my career blew up after the pride stuff, right? Was because
Speaker: I had access to this thing that happened that is not repeatable, that other people did not have access to, right? Like everyone, every journalist who was covering the pride parade at that point was playing catch up about halfway through that protest when I was right in the middle of it, right? Me as a 23 year old in Edmonton, a city I didn't live in, didn't have any network or connection in, essentially going out on assignments, being told to take portraits of X person or go cover Y sports game, right?
Speaker: Yeah. And like even, even a lot of photographers, I know blow up on the basis of self -directed projects. They pitched to other people, right? Just cause they have access or they need the institutional backing to be able to like legitimize them going into a certain space. Right.
Speaker: All right, and he goes on to kind of talk about how hard he is on people. And if you can survive, if you can make it through survive and produce to a to a high level during your internship at the Edmonton Sun, then you can survive at any newspaper in Canada. It's framed as survival as opposed to like an actual job.
Speaker: I mean, it is a pretty doggy dog profession. I will actually know the Edmonton community is pretty supportive, but like in general, it's a pretty, uh, yeah, just media in general. So fucking rabid. You know what I mean? Like it, you consume people or they leave to do something else like sell Kia's Kia sold the car, the people. Here's, here's where it gets into the, like the stuff where I still read 12 years later and I'm like, Oh,
Speaker: Duncan does seem to enjoy and is easily impressed with most of the photographs that he takes and puts a higher opinion on his work than we do when it comes to critically judging his own photography work. This is currently one of the biggest causes of us being on a different page than Duncan as far as his current photography abilities are concerned.
Speaker: Do they expect you to be like, you know, like fucking Bruce Gildan or something? Like, I don't know. What do they, what do they want from you? Did they want Afghan girl every day? Um, I'm just, I'm very curious as to what, what their baseline for a good, what good photography is.
Speaker: Yes, Duncan should also be aware of how others perceive him in the workplace. It is the only way he will improve his working relationships wherever he works in the future. Near the end of his internship, I tried to shop him around to other areas of the newsroom. I was taken aback a bit with the responses I received from other editors. Both the city desk and an editor with the website said in different conversations that they do not really like Duncan's attitude and that they were not interested in having him work with them in either department.
Speaker: I asked famous bad boy of Canadian journalism, Duncan Kinney, you know, tearing up hearts and newsrooms wherever you went. I mean, is this is this a bad thing that I did not get along with the like people who worked at the Edmonton Sun, but even the like the bosses at the Edmonton Sun of all of the content?
Speaker: They're probably the shittiest people in an industry known for having shitty bosses. The Sun was a trash paper and it's like worst elements for now, thriving at the journal.
Speaker: Um, it's just crazy to, yeah, it's just a really funny, um, you know, piece of feedback to get, uh, and also the amount of time invested as I think, especially, um, incredible. Right. I mean, this guy wrote a two and a half page, like screed about this guy who did three months in turning out his new single or double space, single space. Holy shit. Oh my God. Um,
Speaker: Anyways, I feel like that's a fun and not at all embarrassing for me way to go out talking about photojournalism and with Abdul Malik. Abdul, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. Oh, thank you. How can people get a hold of you? How can people follow your work? I am a cloud shirk, so you can find me on Twitter at Abdul, A -B -D -U -L -Y -M -A -L -I -K. You can find the show on Apple Podcasts. It's Kino, K -I -N -O, L -E -F -T -E -R.
Speaker: You can also find the show on Twitter as well with the same handle. You can check us out on Facebook. You can also check out my photography at my rarely updated website, AbdulYMalik .photo.
Speaker: The .photo domain is brutally expensive to maintain, so please hire me. And yeah, you can also just, at any time, just shoot me an email, abdullymalloc at gmail .com if you want to get in touch, or if you have any questions about photography, films, podcasting, or if you just want to send me death threats, because I get a lot of those these days. So yeah. Woo -hoo. All right. Again, thank you, Abdul. Thank you for being on the show. Check out KinoLifter if you haven't, and goodbye.
