Transcript
Speaker: So today we have one of our favorite people on the podcast.
Speaker: Her name is Chloe Lodge.
Speaker: She is a creative warrior based in New Zealand and we're so excited to be chatting with her today.
Speaker: She's also going to be joining us at Unfiltered Retreat and sharing her incredible creative knowledge and thoughts and inspiring our attendees.
Speaker: So welcome to the podcast, Chloe.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: It's so good to see you guys.
Speaker: I'm really excited to be talking to you.
Speaker: And I wish I was in the same room having a coffee with you.
Speaker: But that's going to happen in August.
Speaker: In August.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It won't be long.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I know with the speed of time at the moment, I think it'll be here in like a flash.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: It will.
Speaker: It will.
Speaker: So tell us a bit about yourself, Chloe.
Speaker: What do you do?
Speaker: I know you do a lot of things, so it can be a little bit hard to kind of distill it down, but, you know, let our listeners know who Chloe is and what you do.
Speaker: Okay, perfect.
Speaker: Oh, talking about myself.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm Chloe Lodge.
Speaker: I'm a photographer essentially, but I've always been a bit of an artist.
Speaker: I've always done a little bit of painting and sculpture, but essentially I love to tell stories and I have a
Speaker: a very interesting internal dialogue going and noticing.
Speaker: So one of the ways that I communicate with the world basically is by taking pictures.
Speaker: So I can convey basically all the things I notice, all the things I see.
Speaker: I started on the photography journey
Speaker: I'll be totally honest to start a new career.
Speaker: I have done all sorts of things.
Speaker: So I studied art history at uni and then I ended up in event management and I realized after, well, almost a decade of that, but actually sitting in front of a computer and
Speaker: doing lots of spreadsheets and all that sort of stuff made me really, really sad.
Speaker: And, um, and it was after I went traveling that I realized that I loved working in the service industry.
Speaker: I loved working with people.
Speaker: I had my creativity bubbling away, which I'd kind of suppressed in that decade of office jobs.
Speaker: And I knew that I needed a new way to make money.
Speaker: Um, so I retrained, I went to, um, uh,
Speaker: brilliant photography school in Paris I had the opportunity to go and I did a year master's in photojournalism and documentary and basically I was surging forward on a path of a new career so it's always been that's been my reason for picking up the camera my why in terms of picking up a camera as I said is really to convey all the things that I notice all the things that
Speaker: I see and feel and, and I really want to be able to tell those stories and help other people tell their stories with using my imagery, basically.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: And then, and then we, after I trained, we went to Malaysia and I was pregnant with my son and I really had this urge to get out there and do documentary, but
Speaker: because I had recently become a mom, we were living in essentially a foreign environment for me.
Speaker: I ended up channeling down the family photography route, which I absolutely love.
Speaker: And basically from then on, it's been a real shift in terms of family photography.
Speaker: I've shot births, weddings, some commercial work.
Speaker: I love sharing my knowledge and teaching.
Speaker: And I've realized over that period of time as well that I struggle with labels.
Speaker: I struggle with...
Speaker: boxes I struggle with you know the I really kind of fear the question when people say what do you do and I say I'm a photographer the next question is well what kind of photographer are you um you know and I kind of like begin to shake gently because I I take pictures of everything and anything um I I'm attracted like a moth to light I love color and it took me a while to realize that
Speaker: color was really something that was really really important to me because I was very much focused on light um I love pushing my boundaries I uh
Speaker: surprising people.
Speaker: I love, I love surprising people with my work.
Speaker: I love, um, and I also love to, um, create work which holds people.
Speaker: So they linger that little bit longer.
Speaker: Um, so there will always be, I'll always kind of edge into trying to capture something where it brings me, it brings that little essence of me.
Speaker: So if it's a sunset, I'll be like, that's a beautiful sunset.
Speaker: How do I see it?
Speaker: How do I feel it?
Speaker: How can I bring me?
Speaker: How can I create that little edge to it?
Speaker: And I think that's why I'm not very good with kind of summing up who I am in terms of I am a family photographer or a landscape photographer or
Speaker: you know, I'm an abstract photographer because some days I'll do pure, pure documentary and some days I'll do crazy, beautiful light and mixture of palettes and then also bring paint and all the things.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So it's a real, so everything I have inside basically comes up through me, through my hands, through my eyes and through my camera.
Speaker: And that's sort of how, that's who I am really.
Speaker: I love how you described that then.
Speaker: And I think that I know for myself when I look at your work, no matter like what kind of,
Speaker: air quotes genre it's falling into, it's always so identifiably yours.
Speaker: Like I can always tell when it's something that you've created.
Speaker: And I'm so interested in how you manage to bring that out every single time because it's just, it's such a really, you know, it's a, I can't even think of what the word is for it, but I just, I really admire that in your work.
Speaker: I mean, it's why I've got two of your prints hanging on my wall.
Speaker: my house.
Speaker: You know, they're right outside my bedroom.
Speaker: So I, and they do, they make me linger.
Speaker: And I think that, you know, for someone like yourself, I know you get scared when people say like, what kind of photography do you do?
Speaker: When you look at your work, it just speaks for itself.
Speaker: It doesn't need any kind of explanation.
Speaker: And I think that's really wonderful.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I just, I think the thing is that I, you
Speaker: I just yearn for, like you say, for people to linger and actually it's taken, I think that in the last few years, I've come to the point of more consciously bringing certain elements and recognizing certain elements and those magnets in the world that I feel drawn to.
Speaker: It's interesting because I think a number of people have said, no, no, no, your work has been really recognizable for a really long time.
Speaker: But I'm like, but I think it was all fairly subconscious for quite a long time.
Speaker: And it's not really until probably the last maybe two, three, four years that I've actually been able to decipher those elements and just really kind of almost pull myself back.
Speaker: And that's what I often try and do is help people
Speaker: pull themselves back a little bit from their work because when we're creating you know particularly as moms and particularly as business owners you know that we've got so many other balls that we're juggling that actually we we often don't have that time to step back we are either working we're creating we're shooting clients or we're you know doing the next project or loop or
Speaker: you know, all of that sort of stuff and, and absorbing and scrolling and, you know, and so we kind of end up on this momentum, but taking that time to step back is so unbelievably powerful.
Speaker: And it's almost like you need to,
Speaker: to take that few steps back to be able to leap forward.
Speaker: And I think that's the thing is a lot of artists, we're doing this gentle stepping, gentle stepping, gentle.
Speaker: Sometimes there's a little bit of a leap and a little bit of a dance and a little bit of whatever, but you know, sometimes we do have to slow and just, just step back and, and look at our work.
Speaker: And that's what,
Speaker: I know Sig Harvey talks about her artist dates where she actually gets her prints out and just like immerses herself in the work that she's created to be able to actually see the work that's pouring out of her.
Speaker: And then you can literally pinpoint certain elements.
Speaker: You guys in your videos, there are certain things that you each instinctively do that you develop over time.
Speaker: But unless you actually take back and go, okay, I'm going to raise this to my conscious level, think about it, see it.
Speaker: maybe even, you know, exercise it a little bit more and then gently let it drop to your subconscious again, subconscious again.
Speaker: So when you go to pick up your camera, it's like you've worked that muscle.
Speaker: And I think that's really what I've been doing in the last, since I did my 365 essentially.
Speaker: And then definitely since then that I've really been doing that.
Speaker: So I, and it builds this
Speaker: inner confidence and trust in yourself and everything so when you go to pick up your camera you don't you have you always have doubts we all will always have doubts and we'll always feel nervous and we'll always because intrinsically as creators we have that deep sense of
Speaker: responsibility and accountability when we are particularly creating for others, whether it's family sessions, whether it's clients, whether it's, you know, but in terms of knowing that when you pick up your camera, when you have it in your hand, you know that you've done the work and you can trust yourself to actually deliver.
Speaker: And that's a really incredible place to be, but it does
Speaker: work it does and it takes that reflection time um so I think you know that's definitely where I'm where I'm at currently having sort of done it consistently for 12 years literally almost every day um you know with the
Speaker: Stepping forward, stepping forward, stepping back, stepping forward, stepping back.
Speaker: It's that time.
Speaker: And it feels very kind of navel gazing, you know, and it feels very like, you know, we think as creatives, we do enough navel gazing as it is, but I actually think that, you know, we owe it to our work to celebrate what we've created.
Speaker: We owe it to our work and
Speaker: you know, the time we've invested to be able to step back and look at the work that we've created to be able to move forward.
Speaker: So that's a lot of what I do.
Speaker: And that is why you're teaching at Unfiltered.
Speaker: We're excited to have that at the retreat for sure.
Speaker: I'm really excited to bring that together.
Speaker: When you talk about taking that step back to have a look at your work, is there anything, you know, are there particular things that you do or, you know, like you said, how Sig Harvey has their artist dates, do you set yourself certain times or does it come about more organically?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: um I'd love to think that I have any kind of routine or established process um there are certain things that I've done at different periods of my journey that have helped um and sometimes I do it on a
Speaker: relatively consistent level and then I won't do it for a while.
Speaker: Like for example, one thing that I went through a process of doing, I think I've done it for like two years, was to look at my Instagram feed and screenshot like a grid of nine.
Speaker: And then I put it up on my stories, put a month under it, and then I've dropped it into a highlight.
Speaker: So for the last couple of years, I can look back at that highlight and see
Speaker: literally and actually I was it was when I was really delving into the color aspect of my work and I was beginning to see patterns and flows and you know so I said that sort of was a really fun thing to do um what else do I do I I do print pictures um and once a year I'll print um and it doesn't even have to be high quality I you know you could do it at
Speaker: chemist you could or well in England we used to do it at the chemist in boots but I know that you know if you're in America it could be Walmart or wherever and you just go and get a bundle of 50 at like whatever sensor thing and then print them and and what I've done is before as well it's just gone through my phone and just gone think think think you know and just choose a whole batch of images it could be iPhone images it could be client images it could be personal work images and just
Speaker: And don't kind of like try and curate it and don't kind of think I want to choose all these pictures because I want to make a display on my wall.
Speaker: No, just print the ones that you're drawn to.
Speaker: then lay them out.
Speaker: And that's very kind of like in the kind of Sig Harvey sort of artist date way.
Speaker: And then have fun with them, what I do and like, you know, pair them up.
Speaker: The diptych project that I'm failing at at the moment, but I did do consistently for a couple of years was really helpful because often I wouldn't necessarily have new work to create these diptychs.
Speaker: So I would delve back into work that I've gone and gone, okay, well, I'm going to have this picture from
Speaker: last week and this picture from six months ago.
Speaker: And that's a really interesting process because all of a sudden you're pulling on your own threads.
Speaker: You're not spending time on Instagram scrolling and going, I like that person's work.
Speaker: I like that person's work.
Speaker: I like that person's work.
Speaker: You're not, you're looking back at yours and going, I like that, that I've created and that, that I've created and that, that I noticed.
Speaker: And, you know, so there's definitely, you know, different ways you can do it.
Speaker: And as I said, I don't generally have
Speaker: I really wish I was disciplined to have specific ways.
Speaker: But it is, it's, sometimes you need to, I always talk about, I like to talk about containers.
Speaker: You know, so we as creatives, we have such a beautifully,
Speaker: overwhelming kind of flow and pots that just kind of go all over the place.
Speaker: And especially me, I kind of like, oh, and I love this and I love this and I love this.
Speaker: And I think sometimes by forming a container for your work, whether it's a project like the Diptych project or, you know, we've talked before about Kylie, your project about, you know, you do your pictures, same pictures every year of your girls, you know, you need to like create this container for,
Speaker: to then be able to see it, you know, say you go down to the fish pond and there are like tadpoles everywhere and you're like, I want to have a look at the tadpoles and compare them and see which one I've got.
Speaker: you know frog feet and which one have got the tail still and whatever and if you look at the pond and you see them all swimming about you actually can't I know this is a really crazy analogy you actually can't like you know but if you get a plastic container and you scoop them up then you can actually see the development um I've never used that analogy before but I think it works it's a good one it works it's so good uh
Speaker: um so yes um you know I think uh I think find a type of container whether it's um prints whether it's highlights on your Instagram I'm quite I'm so often I talk to artists and they're like I've got I never know what pictures to post on Instagram and I never know you know how to um
Speaker: You know, what pictures to choose.
Speaker: And then I end up not choosing.
Speaker: And I'm always, I totally hand on heart.
Speaker: If you see images on my Instagram, basically that is all I'm creating at that given time.
Speaker: Because I would love to say that I'm massively prolifically producing, but I'm actually not.
Speaker: Like if I take a picture of the beautiful light in my bathroom, I'll put it on my Instagram and I may not have taken another picture that day.
Speaker: If I take if I do a client session, I will share a picture or two from that session.
Speaker: And that's basically because I'm at the stage that I I've kind of gone past that.
Speaker: taking pictures of everything.
Speaker: It looks like I'm taking pictures of everything, but I've gone past that stage of that, you know, the excited stage, which more advanced photographers will totally relate to.
Speaker: When you literally take pictures of everything and anything and you've got literally no filter, you know, I guess, you know, going against the sort of unfiltered, I have got to the point where there is
Speaker: a certain filter on me now.
Speaker: And it's really just knowing and it's not, it's not a negative filter in the fact that, well, I don't take this and I don't take that.
Speaker: It's like, oh, I'm really drawn to this and I'm really drawn to that.
Speaker: And I'm really drawn to that.
Speaker: So it's really like focusing your passion.
Speaker: It's knowing your passions.
Speaker: And I also talk about magnets, you know, what are you really drawn to?
Speaker: What are you so drawn to that you literally
Speaker: stop the car and drive back 500 meters to take a picture for, you know, because that's sometimes what I do.
Speaker: What are you, what are the things that you just cannot resist that urge to pick up your camera or that thing that's burning inside of you that you want to create and you want to get a family and you want to go out to a certain place?
Speaker: You know, it's the, excuse me, it's those things that I know I'm at that stage now where
Speaker: The experimentation still happens, but it happens within this, you know, series of specific draws, essentially.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: No, no, it is helpful.
Speaker: And I know for a lot of people listening, you know, they're going to be at all different levels and points on their journey.
Speaker: So particularly for those who are starting out, like I know I remember thinking to myself, I would never get to a point where I wasn't passionately photographing every single day and every, like you said, like that, you know, shooting everything with abandon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And now I'm in that place and I'm like, okay, so for me, I feel like for me at the moment, I'm kind of in a place where I'm starting to examine like, why do I feel like that?
Speaker: And then really trying to decide, well, what is it that I really want to be shooting when I'm shooting and picking up the camera?
Speaker: You know, and I think
Speaker: there's a lot of noise and life is so busy and I've got so much going on in terms of work and all the rest of it, that when it comes to just like, you know, working in a creative way, I want to do something where I don't have to think about it.
Speaker: And I want to just shoot so that then I can see what's coming out of that, which is why, like for me, I'm doing an analog shooting project this year.
Speaker: So it's kind of a three, six, five, but it's more like a
Speaker: a roll or two a month that I'm shooting on film.
Speaker: And what I'm enjoying about that is that, you know, once I've clicked the shutter, there's no control over that.
Speaker: So it's this pure like from my brain through the camera thing
Speaker: And then we see what comes back after I get around to sending the roles and then they scan them for me.
Speaker: And it's, I've only got a couple of roles back so far, but it's really interesting to kind of see that and to see what things are coming through in that film that I also see in my other work and my digital work.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: I love that idea of the, like, you know, for me, film is my container this year to like put it in and see what things are coming without the distractions of fancy things and fancy gear and digital and stuff and just what's coming out purely from what I see.
Speaker: And it takes away that the not being satisfied and not being
Speaker: I think one of our things as creatives is we can always be, we kind of think to ourselves, oh, I could always take something better or I could, maybe there's something else that's going to happen or, you know, the whole, I don't, I don't, I'm sure you guys feel it when you do a client session.
Speaker: It's that, okay, we finished.
Speaker: And then you just can't put your camera down and you can't put your camera down because, well, firstly, you're in that flow and it's just an odd,
Speaker: often some of those magic moments happen literally when everyone goes, Oh, good.
Speaker: But there's also that element of, um, we push ourselves so hard to, I don't want to say be better, but, um, see more and do more and, um, and create more and notice more and,
Speaker: And it's that insatiable, and I think social media perpetuates that, is that insatiable keep going and keep creating.
Speaker: And churning it out.
Speaker: Yeah, churning it out.
Speaker: And it's with your film, you're like, this is the moment, you know, that Henry Cartier-Bresson decisive moment.
Speaker: We've lost that.
Speaker: We have lost that part of what we do to a greater extent.
Speaker: And I think that's what I definitely try and do now for me.
Speaker: It's like, you know, some days actually I celebrate the day that I only take one picture in a day because I'm like, because that was the moment where I feel things aligned.
Speaker: And that was when I felt like,
Speaker: the need.
Speaker: I literally channeled everything and that, you know, that's what it was.
Speaker: It takes time to get to that point though.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it feels like at the moment, the way that just like social media is, the way that we're all sort of consuming right now, it's less about, it's become less about finding the moment and more about creating content.
Speaker: And so like that, I think that's where I struggle the most.
Speaker: It's because I have never enjoyed just creating content and, you know, and I can totally understand like, you know, we're photographers.
Speaker: So like we should be all over this and I am to a certain extent all over it.
Speaker: But at the same time, like my, what inspires me is waiting and finding like
Speaker: the most unexpected moments.
Speaker: And that I find the hardest.
Speaker: I find the hardest to do that in my everyday life when I've got so much like other stuff going on.
Speaker: Whereas, you know, when the kids were younger, it was a little bit easier to wait.
Speaker: for the moment, but there's just too much going on to wait.
Speaker: But I just, I just have so much more appreciation for the moments that I feel like in my images that I post the moments that are found rather than created.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And I think there's another part of it as well in that going back to what I was talking about and reflecting on your work.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: and trusting in the work that you've created that it still has, it's still valid.
Speaker: It's still part of you.
Speaker: I shot a singer songwriter two weeks ago now.
Speaker: And we were chatting in the car and on the way back from the wheat field.
Speaker: And I was listening to him talk about the gigs he was doing.
Speaker: And he was, you know, he was talking about this song that he's just released and he was talking about the gigs.
Speaker: And I was like...
Speaker: I didn't actually say it, but in my heart, I was like, oh my goodness, if only to be a singer songwriter that you could produce something that can be enjoyed over and over and over and over again.
Speaker: Because we do produce work that can be enjoyed over and over and over again.
Speaker: But because we're in the image business and we're because that we fall into that
Speaker: consumption business yeah we feel like we need to be creating new new new and it's like yeah oh my goodness like and that's another part of it like at the moment I'm I'm at the moment my business is um pendulum swinging very much to client work commercial work
Speaker: So my creating for me has lessened somewhat for me now.
Speaker: And so I don't have necessarily the content that fit with what I was sharing before.
Speaker: So I'm kind of going through a little bit of an adjustment.
Speaker: But I'm like, well, I'm actually going to go back into the work that I've created in the last year.
Speaker: six months, two years, you know, a little bit further back than that, but definitely probably up to about probably maximum three years ago, because I believe that the work that I've created in the last three years is strong.
Speaker: It's interesting.
Speaker: It deserves to be seen and enjoyed again and again.
Speaker: Whether it's anyone else enjoying it, I want to enjoy it again and
Speaker: I want to celebrate it.
Speaker: And that sounds really selfish, but you know, I just think that there's so much that can be learned from the imagery.
Speaker: And now I've had, like I was saying earlier, that step back and that little bit of distance between the work that I created three years ago, two years ago, I can actually learn more about myself, my journey, my
Speaker: the headspace I was in, the things that I was trying to say.
Speaker: And isn't that the reason why we all create this work anyway?
Speaker: You know, we talk about creating for families to be able to reflect back in five years, in 10 years, in 30 years when they're sitting on the porch.
Speaker: Why can't we do it right now with the work that we've created today?
Speaker: you know, because that is what photographs are for.
Speaker: They are to be looked at.
Speaker: They are to be enjoyed.
Speaker: They're to be, they're to, you know, pull people and transform and free them and allow them to relax or,
Speaker: think or all the things you know um so why why have we got to the point of I'm gonna shoot this picture I'm gonna create this picture I'm gonna share it and then I'm gonna move on because fundamentally the whole premise of a photograph is for us to be able to linger enjoy it longer and go back to it
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's a very interesting little conundrum that we find ourselves in, I think, as photographers.
Speaker: Like, what an amazing way to be able to share our work with the world.
Speaker: But then at the same time, it's forcing us to do things differently than what feels natural or instinctual.
Speaker: And yeah, so it's just, I think, and that's, it's so relevant as well, I think, for filmmakers, particularly because we go to so much effort to make this one film
Speaker: And then it's like you post it and then it's, it's very hard to think, oh, I can post that again.
Speaker: Yeah, you can like break it up, take segments out of it.
Speaker: You can, we can continue to enjoy that for a long time.
Speaker: Like you can, you can keep using that.
Speaker: So it doesn't have to be just all post and that's it.
Speaker: So it's a really, really great conversation.
Speaker: And I think that's, that's very true with the films, particularly like I have no problem, you know, sharing a photo that like my, it might come up in my memories and I think, oh my gosh, that was so good.
Speaker: I'm going to repost that on my feed.
Speaker: Like again, I know I shared it three years ago, but I'll share it again today.
Speaker: Cause I, like, I loved it.
Speaker: um and you know like different people are following me different people see it like you know more people can enjoy it but with the films I do find that you know like I share it once and I'm like oh you know is someone going to I think because they're a longer form yeah and so particularly you know once your films start to get up to that four five six minute mark not even going near Courtney's length of film now yeah
Speaker: We're so long.
Speaker: It's like, you know, does anyone want to stick around and say that?
Speaker: But I think, you know, it's about changing that mindset and going, look, this was made to be enjoyed.
Speaker: So let's, let's keep sharing it.
Speaker: So I know, um, one of the things that you, um, have started doing, um, I've
Speaker: I'm thinking in like the last 18 months or so is your kind of expansive art project.
Speaker: And I feel like that kind of came about as a way, not just like a happy accident, but I think whether consciously or subconsciously as a way for you to do that, where you sit down with your art and you look at it again and maybe you're subconsciously analysing it, but at the same time you're taking that time to really enjoy it and see what more
Speaker: It can become how can you get more or different enjoyment out of that work you've created.
Speaker: So I'd love to hear a bit about what expansive art is for people who are listening that may not know and how it came about and why it's something that you've become so passionate about.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: No, it's something I am super passionate about.
Speaker: And it came essentially, as I said earlier, I've always loved painting.
Speaker: I went to art college.
Speaker: I actually started a fine art sculpture degree.
Speaker: And I have that physical, tangible urge within me.
Speaker: And I think potentially it's also
Speaker: the over overwhelming consuming part of the digital era I feel grateful for the digital era because it enabled me I couldn't afford to become a photographer when it was analog because I learned from my mistakes and I make a lot of them and I loved experimenting and trying and I'm like and I'm also not very technically minded so if I
Speaker: I remember trying to do the analog age and thinking, right, I need to take this picture, but I also need to remember what shutter speed I took it at and what aperture so I can then go and do better the next time or, you know, try and master this, whatever.
Speaker: So, but that tangible, physical, and as I said, you know, I became a photographer because of the photograph, the physical form of the photograph.
Speaker: And I really,
Speaker: So I guess over a period of time, it was actually when we were, it's been in the back of my mind to paint on my images.
Speaker: I wrote in my book, like it was like almost at the end of one of the chapters, which was very kind of like, you know, sew on your pictures, paint on your pictures, whatever.
Speaker: But now I'd love to do like a whole book on it.
Speaker: Like honestly, it's something that I'm so crazy about because the physical form of that image, you know,
Speaker: just bringing that element of extra you to that work, you know, you know, if there's something that you love doing, whether, you know, some people love being in the kitchen or some people love glass or some people love water or, you know, and I see all these artists doing different things.
Speaker: For me, it was really like, well, the, the,
Speaker: fluidity of paint and the vibrancy of color and the also the sculptural three-dimensional um feel of bringing sculpture and that sort of thing that I just started to it was mainly when we were up living in a very isolated location um that I think I just wanted to literally get my art and my photographs in my hands and
Speaker: pull on the everything that's in there more and living in rural a rural life it's very physical it's very tangible it's very it's very cold it's very hot it's very sharp it's very gritty it's very you know you've got the like we were up on a farm and we had the wool the oily wool of the um sheep and then you've got the goats and then you've got the you know chopping logs and there's this kind of like
Speaker: physical feel that's happening, which you don't get with a digital photograph.
Speaker: You don't get it when you're looking at your computer.
Speaker: You don't get it when you're looking at your phone.
Speaker: And because I had photographs lying around, I just kept looking at them and looking at them and like, just do what you've always wanted to do and start expanding on them.
Speaker: And it also helped the fact that I have children and I have children who love painting.
Speaker: And my daughter Adeline was at the age where she was three and a half, four,
Speaker: And she wanted to paint.
Speaker: And I had these postcards, which I made, which are very inexpensive.
Speaker: I had the prints from when I did one of my reviewing my work.
Speaker: And I was like, right, let's collage.
Speaker: Cause you, what you do, you get out magazines and you get out whatever.
Speaker: And I said, let's just paint on the pictures, you know, let's paint on the postcards that I've got.
Speaker: And she started loving it.
Speaker: And then I started loving it.
Speaker: And then I brought it to our local village and,
Speaker: And I didn't, it was over winter and, you know, it's a very quiet kind of hibernation time in the South of the South.
Speaker: And so I was like, right, let's get people creating.
Speaker: And I called it expensive art because I felt like it's like having that art, it's there already, but it's expanding on it basically.
Speaker: And that's where that name came from.
Speaker: And I just, what I also love about it is it can,
Speaker: lessen that sense of um the precious nature we often can have with our imagery yeah we you know we work so hard to see and feel the world around us and notice light and notice color and compose an image and you know we try and be different and we try and you know
Speaker: stand out and therefore the image can, we can elevate it up to this pedestal level where actually we don't want to touch it and we get all fragile and we're like, oh, you know, let's just like put it in a glass case.
Speaker: And it's like, well, art is meant to be, you know, fun and freeing.
Speaker: So, and I think it's one way that I love to help artists not be so precious about their work and just allow their creativity to,
Speaker: You know, I remember when I first started my photography and I had, you know, obviously a DSLR and I think I was shooting in, it was when I was in Dubai and I was shooting
Speaker: And I would just get in the water and let, you know, because there's water and beaches and I'm like, let the water flow.
Speaker: And I was speaking to a photographer and she's like, I don't take my camera anywhere near the water.
Speaker: And I'm like, but how are you going to allow yourself to be totally free?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And that's what I feel.
Speaker: That's where the expansive art comes in because I'm like, if you can allow yourself to be free visually, tangibly, even once you've taken the picture and beyond,
Speaker: that only can serve to the images that you're then next taking because it allows that roll-on effect.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I love doing that.
Speaker: And I also love the process of I gifted postcards of my work to other people and I said, now you expand on my pictures.
Speaker: And I invited them in to my world and then saw where it took them.
Speaker: And that was beautiful.
Speaker: That was beautiful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's something that I'm I'm really passionate about and I really love.
Speaker: And I another thing that I also really love is that one thing about the digital and obviously analog, but digital images can be reproduced over and over again.
Speaker: They can be taken off your Instagram.
Speaker: They can be shared.
Speaker: They can be, you know, all sorts of things.
Speaker: But once you get a paintbrush out or get your scissors out or a needle and thread or
Speaker: whatever you want to do with your images, they become unique one-off works of art.
Speaker: And that also is something that I really love about it because, you know, I say we need to not be precious, but also that's element of being precious.
Speaker: So it's this real like pendulum that I always swing.
Speaker: But I think being able to create those unique works of art is something that we are beginning to lose now.
Speaker: to a certain extent in photography so the being expansive with them in different forms it could even be you don't even necessarily have to do anything specifically on the image you could do paint the frame or you could put it over a box or um you know uh like we talked about containers you could
Speaker: get a vase and like stick it round it and then put flowers like you can do anything and that's what I you know we've talked about before I know Kylie and Courtney you know you do things like putting the stuff in front of the lens and whatever you know when you're shooting and then you can do all sorts of things and post-processing but why not be able to do stuff
Speaker: once the image exists in the world, in the photograph exists in the world.
Speaker: And that's really, so that's where expensive art.
Speaker: And I'm so excited to be able to bring all of that side of things and that those exercises, and I've got lots of exciting things planned for Sydney.
Speaker: So
Speaker: I can't wait to bring that to you guys over there.
Speaker: I can't wait for people who come to the retreat to have a go at it.
Speaker: Cause I know for me, like when I saw you do that, like I watched it and I watched it and I saw you do it.
Speaker: And then finally it got to a point where I was like, I can't not do it any longer.
Speaker: You know, like I've got to do it.
Speaker: So I went, I bought some, because I've got, you know, crappy printer at home.
Speaker: I went and bought some paper so I could print some photos.
Speaker: And one of the things that I noticed, there was one picture in particular that I really loved and I thought this would be fun to paint on.
Speaker: So I printed it off.
Speaker: And it wasn't, you know, I've always enjoyed the tactile painting.
Speaker: nature of painting or coloring in doing those sorts of things.
Speaker: I do that a lot, you know, in my free time anyway.
Speaker: But one of the things I enjoyed about when I was doing it on my picture was that it actually made me almost like delve deeper into that photograph because then when I'm starting to paint on it, I'm starting to notice things like the exact shades of color.
Speaker: I'm noticing the texture of
Speaker: that was already there in the picture and how can I like bring that in?
Speaker: And it was just, it was a really, um, enjoyable experience and I've done more and I've, I've got a little, um, I've got a visual art diary that I'm like sticking them all in, which I'll bring to the retreat.
Speaker: So anyone who's coming, you'll get it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: You get to see.
Speaker: And I encourage anyone that's coming to the retreat, if you've done some, bring it along so we can share it and we can all enjoy that tactile experience that we're creating.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: I remember, so I went to straight after school, I did A-level art history and A-level art.
Speaker: And then straight after school, I did a foundation level in art, which helps you then decide what you want to specialise in, fine art.
Speaker: And you do all the different things.
Speaker: disciplines so you do painting drawing graphics sculpture photography um and in painting we had to paint a picture of an apple and um the the tutor was like okay so here's an apple um and it's maybe a red apple and then they're like
Speaker: but you have to look closer at that apple and see all the colors in it.
Speaker: So you've got obviously the reflected light and you've got the shadows and, you know, and so you literally start mixing up your paint palette and there aren't reds on it.
Speaker: There are all of these other colors because actually what you're looking at, you, your brain goes, it's a red apple.
Speaker: but what you're actually seeing is something totally different.
Speaker: And exactly like you're saying, you know, say you took a picture of an apple and what an amazing exercise to literally go through and paint the different aspects of that as it is and try and color match it, you know, and then you could get really, you know, you could do really pop art or you could get, you know, go really surrealist.
Speaker: And that's where my art history comes in.
Speaker: Cause I'm like, now I want to bring like my
Speaker: I did some, I went through a period of doing lots of pointillism, you know, and, you know, and that's the thing.
Speaker: And I believe that if you can work in any way to train your eye more, that can only be positive for your art and your photography and your filmmaking, you know, because it's that,
Speaker: It's that discipline of pushing your vision further is, you know, a lot of people talk about, you know, what's your vision and what's your this, you know, and,
Speaker: you know, they're thinking about editing style or they're thinking about a genre or they're thinking about your why in terms of, you know, what about what is actually happening in our eyeballs and what's actually happening in front of us?
Speaker: You know, that's a big part of it as well.
Speaker: And being able to really pull apart those visual aspects that are happening in front of us also.
Speaker: And I think that's doing lots of those exercises and doing the expensive art, as I said,
Speaker: I've now got to the point, you know, 12 years in that I pick up my camera and I'm pretty much sure what I know, what's going to come out of it.
Speaker: And I trust that now because I've, you know, broken it down.
Speaker: So, yeah, so there are lots of elements to it.
Speaker: And what I absolutely adore about the expensive art is that it can be done by anyone.
Speaker: It can be done on anything.
Speaker: It can be done however you want.
Speaker: Um, you know, I keep, I keep tagging.
Speaker: I've got this, um,
Speaker: I've got this collection on my Instagram of, it actually says, I've entitled it Things to Do with Adeline, which is obviously my daughter who's five, who loves art.
Speaker: But actually it's all the stuff that I want to do.
Speaker: So I've seen people like pouring resin over stuff and doing all these things, you know, and she's become sort of my excuse, but actually it's all the things that I want to do.
Speaker: And it's a lot, I'm following a lot of artists now and I actually, there are all these things that I want to be able to bring.
Speaker: to my photography because as I said I think it really helps your it helps knowing what your insides look like in and bringing them to the actual outside world because we're all about those influences and things that we love doing as kids and the things that we want to play with and all those sorts of things and that's what you know makes us the unique
Speaker: visual storytellers that we are rather than a carbon copy of someone else and what they're doing.
Speaker: So, yeah, so it's all good fun really, isn't it?
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: No, I just, I really love it and I think it's, I know it's definitely given me a great amount of enjoyment just to almost have that permission to just kind of let go and, you know, as you said, not be so precious about things.
Speaker: I think that's really kind of helpful as well because sometimes we can get really kind of bogged down and serious and, you know, we need to just,
Speaker: as Elsa would say, let it go, you know, like.
Speaker: Yeah, no, definitely.
Speaker: I definitely.
Speaker: And sometimes I'll paint on like the ones that I'm really, really proud of.
Speaker: But I also like there's one sheep one that I painted on that I really love.
Speaker: And basically I loved it.
Speaker: I just played around with
Speaker: overlaying two images in Snapseed and I thought actually I really like those results I'm going to print it off because it was two web size images on my phone in Snapseed the resolution was really horrible but I got my printer to print it like I think A3 or something
Speaker: And I just looked at it and I was like, that is so grainy and so horrible.
Speaker: And I looked at it for about four months sitting on my mantelpiece and I'm like, one day I'm going to paint on it, one day I'm going to paint on it.
Speaker: And then I painted on it and I absolutely love it.
Speaker: And a few people have actually wanted to buy it, but because the actual photograph underneath is that you can see through is still really grainy.
Speaker: I'm like, just let me do another one before I start.
Speaker: So I've actually recently got my printer to print me four versions of the really crappy one at A4 and I'm basically going to do different tests of sort of seeing how I can do it because now it's like this fun little project that came from a really bad photograph or really bad, you know, and I think that that's another way that we can do
Speaker: sort of trust in our vision in knowing that sometimes the photograph that we create isn't necessarily the end point.
Speaker: And none of what we do is our end points anyway.
Speaker: And that's what's really wonderful.
Speaker: I think we can seek out this end point and go, okay, what I really want to do is
Speaker: get to this point.
Speaker: I want to get to this point and I want to achieve this.
Speaker: And I want to, you know, like some people are like, oh, I wouldn't do an exhibition until I was at this point, or I wouldn't do this until I was this point.
Speaker: You know, I had 1500 followers when I wrote my book and I didn't necessarily, and I just got seventh prize, seventh place in the competition, but it was enough for me to go, but I want to make this book and I'm going to write it.
Speaker: And it's the same with photography.
Speaker: It's the same with, you know,
Speaker: creating imagery you know why wait um just uh if it's something that's pulling you and something that you want to do just give it a go um and if you really hate it you don't have to share it um no one's going to give you permission right like if you're if you're sitting there waiting for someone to say all right now's the time you'll never get it you are never going to get it no so you really do having kids
Speaker: You really do just have to jump in.
Speaker: You really do just have to go where your heart is leading you and follow it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: We can't wait to have you at the retreat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it's going to be something really special for everybody that comes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thanks, Chloe.
Speaker: Thank you so much for chatting with us today.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: It's an absolute pleasure.
Speaker: I can't wait to be at the retreat because it feels like it's been such a long time since
Speaker: I've been in a space with lots of sort of very like-minded people and creating and talking about photography.
Speaker: I've done it with a couple of people, you know, since the pandemic, but to be actually at a retreat where the energy is so positive and so focused on each other and the process and learning and just...
Speaker: being there for more than an hour and go, I've got to go pick up the kids up or whatever.
Speaker: It's sort of, you know, investing that time in ourselves and our work and our journey.
Speaker: And I'm really excited because I've got lots to learn as well.
Speaker: So I think it's going to be really, really cool.
Speaker: Me too.
Speaker: Thank you for making it and building it and being there.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: Thanks, Chloe.
Speaker: Lovely to talk to you.
Speaker: Bye.
