TB - A SMALL VOICE - SIMON ROBERTS
Simon Roberts is a British photographer and from what I have seen and heard in the podcast, his work is very meticulously planned and talks about important social, economic, cultural and political events. He has done a few big projects: Motherland, We English, with the latter being voted on of the best photography books in the past decade by Martin Parr. Both of those project lasted for about one year of just travelling and shooting on location. Motherland was in Russia and We English, as you can probably tell, was in England. For both projects he travelled with his wife.
He has won multiple awards, along with bursaries and grants, he has worked for major publications and was even commissioned to be the official Election Artist by the House of Commons, to produce a record of the 2010 General Election. For one of his early projects he was the very first to gain access to a pyromaniacs event in the USA, which took him over six month of communication with the people that organise it, but then later lead him to sell and resell his work in many magazines and newspapers in several countries worldwide. He was given access by the Olympic Committee to photograph the London Olympics.
After listening to the podcast thoroughly, here are some things that I would take away for myself:
As a photographer he was extremely lucky that very early on in his career he was surrounded with the right people – good photographer and picture editors, with whom he could talk about all the things that he was passionate about without a feeling of comparison
As I previously mentioned he says that he is a very good planner. Motherland was over a year of planning, without him ever thinking of the actual route for the journey he would make. This included him learning some Russian, researching how is Russia represented in photography, bought photobooks etc. etc. Learning all of this would set you free when you have to do the actual production part of the process.
He says that the way he worked drastically changed with time. When he was younger, he would work more intensely, he would go on projects and take photographs every single day for a year, but as he got older and became a family man, he would now work in shorter bursts, to fit in everything else. Of course, the only reason why he was able to adapt so well, was all the experience he gained at an early age.
When it come to the financial aspect of the work, you have to diversify, you cannot rely on one source of income, even if you are an experienced professional. For him it was all about trying to find ways to fit in, what he was interested in, with what other people or companies are doing. This way you can fund your personal projects in multiple stages, while still working commercially.
The election project in itself, took three months of research. Considering that it was an official political project, he had to find out what would be the most impactful image and to do that he spoke to everybody he knew in politics way before taking his first shot.
The good thing about working today is that we have access to all the information just a few clicks away. So he says, that his pre-production has gotten way easier right now, all you have to do is have the ability to sift through all the information we are bombarded with and make a plan.
As photographers if we could shoot all day, that would be the best, but unfortunately it's not feasible, find a way to sell what you have already done and even resell it. He says he has a project that he finds a way to exhibit almost every Christmas.
Good ideas are very valuable and working on them even before being commissioned to do so is even better. Show people what you are passionate about and why.
Years ago he made a project about migrating families in the us, the first time he flew over to take photos of them he took several cameras, multiple lenses and every piece of technology that he thought might help him. At the end he only used the photos that were taken with a single camera and single lens combo. Sometimes carrying lens around sets you free to look for the perfect moment and composition.
