Transcript for Episode 214 – Celebrity, Fashion + Fine Art Photographer, Vincent Peters

Recorded September 13, 2021
Published October 7, 2021

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Vincent Peters 0:10
Calm is definitely the mood of the day,

Matthew Dols 0:12
I love it. Alright, so I did a first of all, huge fan, I have loved your work for many, many years, I have not only enjoyed your work personally as because I’m also my backgrounds as a photographer. But I’ve also used your work as teaching tools for lighting, tonality, your poses, like all the different beautiful technical things that you’re able to achieve in your imagery. So I’m a little bit of a fanboy here. So I apologize if I stand here. So always good to have one. One, you have so many fans, what do you talk about? Trying to be humble. Okay, the first thing I read about you that I was like, Oh my gosh, I want to know more about this was that you had some issues in childhood, like getting kicked out of schools and things like this. Because I too, also had problems I almost got expelled from high school twice, I got I am in college, I literally got sort of, quote unquote, asked not to return to the university. That’s their

Vincent Peters 1:17
polite way of finding my math teacher asked me that. I remember going into class and my math teacher says Why don’t you Why do you show up? You don’t understand what’s going on Anyway, you know, and I was like, I just turned around and left What am I gonna do? You know? It was definitely sort of negligent. Yeah, I somehow you know, the scary thing is, I still feel I have those problems from high school. It just didn’t just grow with them. But truth is I went to a Rudolf Steiner School, which is kind of a little bit easier, Terry, kind of, like private, very religious space school in Germany, founded around 1900. You know, they do put an emphasis on arts, which, in a way safely, but it was definitely a bit of a world on his own. I did, I think I was the only kid in like, 10 years that get kicked out. That’s true. You know, and, you know, it’s the funny story about this, that 20 years later, me being a photographer, and all that data class were union. There was never a clear reason given to me while I was being kicked out of school. I mean, I was 16 years old, and they’re really throw me on the street, you know, which he could have gone wrong. And I asked all my teachers back in that class reunion, I was like, What happened? You know, like, what was the reason? And they didn’t know. And then one of them just said, we just had we just had enough. That was 20 years later, that was the official kind of like explanation, you know, but I do think I was a bit of a troubled kid. And I didn’t really know to find my direction.

Matthew Dols 2:51
Well, and that’s something I love knowing about creative people, too, is like, how did you become creative? So was it your parents that sort of instilled creativity in you wasn’t natural? Was it some teacher Yeah,

Vincent Peters 3:02
my mom is an art teacher. So I mean, was always there I come from that background. But photography was not a part of it, it was all about drawing and painting. And it was really classic arts and I was never really good at any of that, you know, I was one of these kids that was, you know, within within all the trouble but I was very inclined to photography and my little tan tax camera was literally the kid that between the shampoo and the soap of offers, mother was doing enlargements in the in the bathroom, while the sister knocking on the door because she wanted to use the shower. And I was like, Don’t open the door, you know? So, you know, yeah, I was always that kid that that was just really like focus, you know, like when you’re in high school. And you know, some people do sports, and some people are into kind of like weird things. And then it kind of like goes off, but I kind of stick to it. Also, because there was never really a plan D because after I get kicked out of school, I’ve done like, one year somewhere else. And it didn’t go that well either. And then in Germany, you have kind of like a special show, you know, I couldn’t go to university, because I didn’t have a degree. So they didn’t take me. But then if you go to art school, in the town where I was, I don’t know if that’s standard. But I think you need to bet get around 50 points to get into art school. And there was like a special clause if you get 100 they take you anyway. Because literally, you know, obviously you you have this particular talent because you score twice as high as everybody else. And I did that test when I was around 17 and I got 99 points, which means they didn’t take me and my mom who was very concerned about my future, me wanting to become a gangster. She took me to the principal of the art school and I was like, What are you doing? You know, you take all these other kids with like 50 points, and my son has like 99 and you throw them back on the street. He was like, Look, it was obviously you know, we try to give him a sign or a signal because the thing is he’s like much younger all the other kids finish school so then their early 20s and your son is 17. So we think he doesn’t fit in yet. So we said okay, take the 99 points we clearly take you you got what it takes. But it’s it’s too early, do something else for a while and come back to us in a year or two. And then everything is gonna be fine. But we think with age and with everything is just not fitting in with all these kids with a degree with with being 20 years old and thing. And so me being a little lost. I knew this, this girl that was working with a photographer and she said, Well, maybe you can work as a system, because they’re kind of like really into photography, you know. And that was it. I done that. And he was sort of like teaching me pretty much at the first day. The camera I still use until today, it was a man me I’ve never changed camera since I’m 17. I never even changed lenses. But then he throw me out after like about six to eight weeks because it didn’t really know anything. And I was not a very disciplined worker, either. Because I was coming from school, I never had a job. So I was a bit like la dee da, but the whole thing. But he was a nice kid. And true story is that I remember literally the first day I worked with him, he was driving me to the subway station after the job after we came from the studio. And you know, I was sitting in the passenger seat and I looked at this guy, he was like, 2728, you know, he had a girlfriend in the back, that was kind of cute. And he had a job in a car. And I remember at this red light, I looked at him and I was like, that’s what I’m gonna do. You know, I’m gonna be a photographer, I like that this guy has a good life. I never changed my mind since that day. It’s what Robert Redford called the acorn moment. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that theory that sometimes in your life, something that just hits you out of the sky, like an acorn bang. And suddenly you’re like, you know, your life takes on a certain direction, it might have gone there. But suddenly, something hits you and you said you get a certain sense of like, notification from above that this is your calling, or that, you know, see the signs that have been given to you. And that was my sign.

Matthew Dols 7:13
One thing I’ve often wondered about, cuz also keep in mind, I’m a professor also. So I’m sort of in academia and all that crap, and you know, for better for worse. But one thing I was worried about is like, for you, you have this amazing career, you know, and you’ve done some amazing images that sort of are iconic of time periods and iconic of people and this kind of stuff, like you’ve done the things that most photographers wish they could achieve in their lifetimes. And you’ve done it multiple times. But anyways, this is me fanboying. But do you feel that not getting that education, that sort of formalized education was to your benefit, or to your detriment?

Vincent Peters 7:53
You know, what I’m debating with myself, and I’m kind of making peace with this right now. Because I read Carl Jung’s theory about intuition. And I just, I mean, I think, you know, without getting too heavy into that, he said, There is just introverted and intuitive people. And then there’s more extroverted and like sensational central people. I’m not a very rational person. And anything, you know, now, I always admire people who are more academic, they have a certain clarity, you know, they can explain you why your picture is good. They talked about another photographer, and they’re very analytical about it. But I’m coming from an extremely intuitive point, it just, it just feels right. Like I said, I was never really happy about that, because maybe I have this complex that I’ve never finished school, and that I’m kind of like the dumb kid. But in the end, it’s just a different sense of personality. And I think if you if you keep your intuition, or your instincts kind of pure, and you have the confidence to really listen to them, that’s what it takes. And that’s what guides me through. Again, it’s, you know, if I look at a photograph, or if I look at a person in the light, it’s nothing that I can pinpoint. In general, all you do with photography is your translating instinct into a craft. So my craft is good enough that I can translate it, but it still needs to start with the instinct of while I do think it would be an interesting conversation to distinguish the difference of instinct and intuition. Because there’s something in between I guess what you kind of like you know, have to figure out where your senses are going. But that’s pretty much what guides me it when you said that you’re a more academic person. I have a lot of respect for that. I wish I could be like that. But I get by without

Matthew Dols 9:47
it. Yeah, just to be clear, I work in academia, but I am not an academic person.

Vincent Peters 9:54
Okay, okay, good. I have a lot of respect for that. I always wish I’m reading a lot of books and I’m always thinking you know, I should be, you know, maybe you have just really this old kind of like inferiority complex of not being educated. Well

Matthew Dols 10:07
don’t we have these horrible inferiority complexes of like we’re not good enough to be in the art world and be successful in that way. And so we fall back on teaching.

Vincent Peters 10:19
Yeah, it’s funny I have this friend who’s a is a professor of photography, someone Dortmund, and we don’t agree on anything, not even under the weather. That summer, we keep talking. But he has such a different approach to photography. In the end, every sense of photography in my world. It’s a true process of self revelation, it has nothing to do with technical things, you know, there is a very intuitive journey into yourself, what matters to you, even from a sense of vocabulary? What what are the words that you can pinpoint that really mattered to you? When you look at what connects you with a word? Is it empathy is a provocative? Is it sarcasm? Is it curiosity always has some sort of like, trigger? what triggers you? And I think that’s more important than to know what camera you’re using.

Matthew Dols 11:14
I was never going to ask what camera you’re using, but it’s okay. But But I do want to know, like, Okay, so, as a photographer, when I go out and set up a photoshoot, or whatever, I have sort of a step by step of things that I find most important when I’m choosing wardrobe models, locations, all the different sorts of subjects, the mood, the lighting, etc. Like, what’s your sort of process for like, coming up with your idea, sort of, like, from the beginning of, I want to do a photoshoot? And then where do you go? So that is it the subject, the model is the first priority, and then the location, then the lighting, then the whatever, like, what’s the hierarchy for you, at most important to least important?

Vincent Peters 11:59
What like, like I said, the problem is that it’s really, and I don’t want to like, I really don’t want to sound esoteric on this. But it is really, there is some image that it’s not an image, there’s some sort of like mood you’d like to create. And I think then you try to construct it, and to rationalize it, but it starts with a very abstract feeling. And I do truly believe that it will arrive at the viewer, as a person like you, as a very abstract impression. You know, like, when you’re a writer, you might translate it into words, but it’s not the words that people are really looking at is what the words trigger in their mind, you know, and what are the images that can evoke. So when I look for something, it’s true, I’m very aware that everything has a meaning everything has a message. And if you start with a good painting, a good painter puts a flower or a window or a chair into his paintings. It has compositional reason has emotional reasons, it has a prospective reason. It’s not there by accident, because there was an empty space, you know, you got to know what you’re doing. But again, when I when I worked like this, it’s very, I’m very driven by a very particular sense of what kind of a demotion I’d like to translate. And I cannot really pinpoint it, I’m trying, because it’s a little bit like, you know, let’s go to sport like a you know, you can train so hard, and you can have every muscle in your body ready. But in the end, you know, there is like that one guy in the front of the goal that puts the foot in and that that the ball is in, and it happens so quickly. And it’s so intuitive, I don’t think you can really, I mean, obviously, there is a plan. But in the end, you need to be there. And Funny thing is always the same guy. So put the goal that because this is some sort of like intuitive sense of positioning of like where to be. And this ball is just like bouncing around and with photography is the same thing. A good image probably happens in 120/5 225th of a second, it’s so fast. And definitely if you if your work the way I do, you need to lay the ground for the happy accident, it’s very chaotic. And somehow you need to these accidents need to breathe. If you try to force it too much, the image looks very stiff. And that is also the same thing for the post production. You got to let it breathe, and it just kind of happens out of that moment. And then at that moment, you got to be prepared to take it, but it’s definitely a mix of preparation and intuition that you think that feels right. And I think you can take it a step further. Why does it feel right? It’s right to me It might not feel right to another photographer because I’m looking for this. I’m editing this in my head while I shoot. I edit I said put the nose a bit over there. I’m very directive I’m not too quick when I Should But still, I’m not really clear I wish I would be more clear like I said, but maybe it’s good not to be clear because I don’t really know what I’m looking for but I’m very clear about the emotion that I want to give to you. So for me the model is kind of a messenger it’s like a letter I’m sending to you. I’m writing something if you write something to a woman you don’t know what she’s gonna read maybe you just had a fight maybe you had an argument you’re writing her something you try to explain something now she’s in her mood. Maybe she rips it up maybe makes her even more angry. But that’s really what the picture is. It’s kind of a messenger that deliver something to another person and then they kind of like left alone with it. Now you cannot tell the other girl when you read this I want you to forgive me for everything and write the back and say everything is fine there’s no kind of happen you know, it’s it’s kind of out of your hands. You’re not controlling it. I think you need to very much let go. So yeah, but what you do with pictures you sending messages to people, they receiving them in their mood in their time, and they’re reflecting it in their mood. That’s the interesting part of communication. It’s so open. But that’s the same thing with me with myself. It’s very open. Does it make sense?

Matthew Dols 16:24
Absolutely. I mean, you said so many things, I’m just sort of like what’s what’s more do I want to know about but one thing I really want to know about is also you have a separation between your work or you seem to sort of your commercial and your celebrity work and and then your fine art work? Do in your mind? Do they overlap? Are they one in the same? Or are they somehow distinctly different to you

Vincent Peters 16:48
know, they’re a bit of a searching process. I mean, when I started being a fashion photographer, I was so poor, I couldn’t take a cab into the studio. Tell you the truth. The first time I felt very successful in my life is because I could pay a taxi, my agent called me and say, I said I’m not going to make it he says you take a cab, and I was I was I remembered sitting in the back of a taxi and I thought fuck man, I really made it. I’m driving in a taxi to a meeting. So in the beginning, I really wanted just to know if I’m good at if I can do it, more or less, I wanted to do good fashion pictures but because I’m maybe a little stubborn and I’m very driven. It just doesn’t last that long. So I think there’s a process where and I’m almost a bit afraid of that I’m turning it more and more into something more personal and more artistic again, and it crystallizes but in this business as much as in the movies, having artistic integrity is the most expensive thing you can have because it makes you lose work it makes you lose clients people pay you because you do what they say and the more you bring in with yourself whatever that may be a movie that maybe music they’re gonna be like why you want to do what you want to do that’s not really what I’m looking for. So you know you got to handle it a bit and it’s true you got to be relevant I’m very lucky that I shot a lot of celebrities because it’s always an interesting you know that message you I just talked to you about you know that letter you’re writing if a celebrity carries if it changes characters so it’s always interesting to have it delivered through somebody that people think they know at some point my work got a little I don’t want to say commercial but I couldn’t really recognize myself in it and I fell I’m not pushing it hard enough I’m not I don’t know if you know these pictures I shot of Mr. Watson with a white paint on her face. Absolutely. That was kind of a turning point because you know I was it was a very regular You know, my agent even says my you want to shoot Mr. Watson I don’t know you know, Harry Potter was like No, no, she’s beautiful. I really want to meet her. So I fly to London and I did these pictures with her and you know, I I liked the job. But I felt I have to do something more with it. That there’s these French movies on Foley Paddy from the 1930s and I think his movie scammy I saw that and you know these people have these white faces and it’s a bit theatrical and a bit surreal. And I showed it to her and I said you know, do you mind if we do something like this kind of like after the shoot, and she’s like, no, I love it. Great idea. And the funny thing is that actually then we put the makeup on and then when I started shooting it the editor from the magazine, which is kind of a vicious thing to do, came to Emma and said, You know what, we kind of like an overtime and we’re not going to use these pictures. So I don’t think this is really going anywhere, which basically talk to Mr. saying you’re wasting your time and no celebrity ever likes to waste their time. That’s the one thing you need to respect. If you tell them these pictures go to the garbage they’re gone. But Emma was kind enough and smart enough to say to her, I actually really like to shoot these pictures and like to finish this So she really pushed back and then obviously she was like oh excuse me you know she’s like okay just give us 10 minutes it’s not gonna take long so Emma really saved me. And we did those shots and I felt by adding on my more personal vision onto the back of the shoot. It really got me further and then it’s shifting a bit if you listen for example to movie directors or to Martin Scorsese, for example talks a lot about it I mean, how do you handle the balance of the studio you know you’re the one for them you do one for yourself? If you do one you do it how for you help for yourself other people pay for your production most of the time so you got it you got to compromise but where’s the compromise? Do you remember those those pictures I took of David Beckham with a blood on his face

Matthew Dols 20:45
I believe so yes. actually

Vincent Peters 20:47
called me like two days before and they said look you want to shoot david beckham and you know back in the day he was a football I was like, oh cares whatever you know, it was it was a really good looking guy you know, everybody knows him of course I showed him and it was for a cover of the face magazine. And the night before I was in the hotel room watching Private Ryan and I was like wow, that that would be very interesting to shoot back in like a soldier like a Private Ryan you know with a dirt on his face and with a helmet and really like really like roughed up and so I call the stylist and says you know what, get some military stuff, get some broken things. And I’m gonna see if I can kind of like pass the concept. And then we went to the studio. And David kind of liked the idea he didn’t want to do the soldier thing too rough but he liked the dirty part. So we kind of like you know, made it roughed him up a little bit and put a lot of makeup and sweat and stuff in his face. And the magazine was really unhappy with the pictures they really said look, this is not the david beckham we want to sue they want to have something clean and very good looking and very heroic and, and I made him look like he was kind of like walking on his knees into the studio. Then David had these kind of like Asian food for lunch in between. And you know, he had these little like, what is it called booster sauce, you know, the red stuff. You know, these little like red sauce you have in these little bottles? Yeah, really spices. So I was there and he was kind of like snacking something on the side. And then suddenly, he took this bottle, and he was putting it over his head. So it was just running down a little bit like blood. And I was like, Whoa, nice. And I took like three four shots. And literally at this moment, the editor from the magazine walks and he said that’s enough. That’s That’s not what I want. That’s not why you here I’m breaking off the shoe, as I do it, right. You know, relax this, come on listening. He’s like, this is not the david beckham that we want to have on the cover. So they literally broke off the shoe. And somehow, but then they looked at the pictures, I guess. And somehow the sun, you know, in England, got a hold off the pictures. And they printed it as a cover because obviously it was David Beckham, he had a mohawk shape for the shoot. So it kind of like shed it together. It ended up probably the most publicized pictures I’ve ever done. Then the face did printed on the cover of the magazine, and it’s sold like crazy. It just teaches you about the absurdity, especially moviemaking because I’m kind of interested in that I can give you tons of examples of producers, specifically almost personally tried to destroy your shoot or manipulated or taken away from you. And in the end, that’s a huge success. If you get away with it, which often you don’t like I said, If I would have done some clean cut, pretty boy shots of David, you know, it would have been maybe cute but not memorable. I can give you a long list of pictures that are maybe today more iconic, or in my books or in galleries. But these pictures were never supposed to happen. So coming from a commercial point of view, you really have to fight your Asha authorship group.

Matthew Dols 23:53
Indeed, I mean, I tried at one point in my career to be a commercial photographer specifically like fashion and that kinds of stuff. And it was a at a certain point it got because I was never really sort of at the Echelon that you are like, where basically people hire you because they already know what they’re going to get from you. I was still trying to prove myself. And there was this constant battle of the answering to the client, but keeping some integrity to what I do like so that you know, you won’t do certain things like I won’t do, like I did a wedding one time in my life, and I will never do a wedding ever again. It was the most horrible experience of my entire life. You know, and there are many things like this that a lot of creative people go through sort of this whole process of how how much of myself am I going to allow to be dictated by a client and how much am I going to stand up for my own beliefs? Do you go through that struggle as well?

Vincent Peters 24:52
Every day and it’s very like I said, you know you take Orson Welles you take every photographer out If you look at it, for example, what’s interesting is that an creative director would I work with in New York that told me that he wanted to use a picture from Irving Penn? for one of his books, one of the Volk pictures. And they were like, Nah, that’s not that’s not work, we’re going to release with urban pen, the commercial work will not be released out of this foundations. And if you look at, for example, the work from Richard Avedon 10 and evident I mean, these guys, they will evoke, photographers can’t contract for what, 30 years more, I’m not sure, but long time decades, you will not see that work very, very rarely, what you see from evidence is always the same pictures as the portrait, some celebrities, the fashion work, he’s publishing is that work from the 1950s. He’s done in Paris, which is excellent. But these people, they put all the commercial work under the table in the box and they lock it up, you see that there’s always that struggle. What do you want to be remembered for? What do you want your heritage to be like? It’s true. Do you like the money and you like the lifestyle? But I learned from that also, I think it’s interesting how rigid these people are to kind of like, cut out certain parts of the commercial work out of like all the foundation work.

Matthew Dols 26:17
Well, what do you want your legacy to be?

Vincent Peters 26:21
I think most important for a photographer, it’s also it has so much to do just with yourself, I think you cannot beg an audience to receive you in a certain way. I think if you’re any good. You have to go up the river, not down the river, you have to go where’s the source? Why do you take these pictures when I go through like a gallery show I’ve done I just had one in Sweden, and they had these huge prints of my stuff self on the walls. And it’s a very embarrassing process. But I think that’s what’s necessary. You kind of naked there. It’s like there’s so much personal stuff. And then you’re thinking why, especially with me, because my world is very specific. And I’m asking myself, why am I shooting like that? Why does my mind my intuition? Why do I translate it from that place and it’s a very psychoanalytical work. For example, if you if you’re, you know, I don’t know if this makes any sense to you right now, I used to have all these back pains because I was working with a camera like always bend over. And I went to these chiropractor and my back hurt like crazy. And I couldn’t even walk. And he was doing these things to my foot and to my knee. And I’m like, Nah, you okay? appreciate your attention. But you know, it’s kind of like Kurt’s, at the back of and he was doing something at the neck. And I really learned from him, pain travels, the pain is not where it hurts. And it’s the same thing with your pictures, your vision travels, and you have to, you have to follow the nerves, you have to find the source. And when you find the source, you might not feel it like that. But that’s how you find out it’s like I said, it’s really a process where you get to know yourself. I hope I learned something about myself, I probably learned something about how I grow up my relationship with my dad, maybe with Germany, you know, why did I leave that country? I mean that it’s biography that that drives your pictures.

Matthew Dols 28:13
He does when it comes to that kind of stuff to to like, when I’m thinking of legacy kind of things, like what do we want to be known for as artists and stuff we’re often I often think about, like when I put on an exhibition, this is what always happens. Every frickin time I’ve had an exhibition, I will put on an exhibition, I’ll be like, this is the best piece right here. This is the centerpiece, put it in them, you know, the most prominent place. And then and then I put up the entire exhibition, and then there’s like a little empty space. And I’m like, Okay, let’s just throw up this last piece. Everybody loves that random piece at the end, but nobody admires that one that I thought was the greatest. So my wonder is like, Am I alone in this? Am I the only person that we’re like, I love certain pieces that have incredible attachments to certain pieces that nobody else likes, and everybody loves the pieces that I’m just sort of like, it’s fine, it’s okay. But they think they’re the best.

Vincent Peters 29:06
It’s not healthy. In that sense. I feel to be so distracted by that sense of popularity. I’m so tempted to communicate with my Instagram community about this because of course we all eat we all want to be liked, we all influenced by things that we get a reaction for. And maybe sometimes we need a corrective push. But the way right now the audience is reacting. It’s very trivial. You can see that the taste levels are dropping, and it does influence us as photographers and I think if you’re looking at it, I knows nude, and celebrity gets attention. The nude celebrity gets the most attention, but it’s not substantial work. It doesn’t pass the message that I like to communicate with it does make me interact with people on the level that I think it’s interesting. It doesn’t peel the onion, it doesn’t take away those layers that I think are interested in communication. You know, if I get, however, a naked picture of Adriana Lima, it’s just instant gratification for kind of visual appetite. And I think we all you know, your audience has has a hold of you just like maybe your producers or your clients have financially and if they’re constantly twisting your arm, to stay away from yourself, it’s not healthy, and it’s not healthy for them. Because if you only give them what they already want, you’re not challenging the audience. You know, you’re not giving them something to think about. I don’t think a lot of people like to think about anything they’re watching on on their phones today. But I still think you look like we decided to communicate like this, we need to make more out of this. And in the what is it you know, you probably know better than me 1.5 seconds and average Instagram posts is being looked at. If you’re lucky, in a museum, even if you running, you can even run that quick from one image to another show, our whole sense of digesting our environment is really changing. You know,

Matthew Dols 31:12
what, what do you think about that? Like, because, of course, I have a long standing position that I’m not a fan of social media, though, of course, I you know, at being in business these days, you just have to participate, whether you like it or not, but I’m not a fan of it. Because, again, like you were saying, like it sort of waters it all down to mediocrity instead of excellence of craft and skill and whatever else. So that’s my little soapbox. But so do you still make prints because like I wonder these days about, like, How important are making physical objects of photographs anymore?

Vincent Peters 31:50
Well, like I said, I mean, I’m very stubborn with this, I do. But I think you have to approach it also from another things, these are all products of convenience, and we consume them on that level of Oh, it’s so much easier. And I mean, if you think about it, something that really changed the world the most is probably plastic and cars because it’s so convenient to jump into a car and to go to Vienna for the weekend or to go to Milan and you know, it gets it makes more world available, it makes space available. Yeah, you can see your girlfriend in another city or you know, go back to your parents or whatever fancy you But think about the same way with plastic on the 1950s plastic was the hottest thing you can you can pack up everything, it makes it easy, it makes the property even hygienic. And today, even if we would stop producing plastic at this very moment this day on Monday, we would not be able to get rid of this stuff for another 1000 years, as far as I’m aware of this islands in the Pacific made out of plastic. They’re the size of probably Ibiza. And I think what is plastic for the environment is what digital and social media is for your head. You know it goes in there. And it’s going to be very hard to get it back out because it it manipulates your awareness and your attention span. You know the way you focus on something that constant multitasking. Now we like maybe on the third generation of people they do not know life without television. Before you had to sit in a movie, to go to a movie, you sit there for two hours, then you sit watching the movie at home, you watch some popcorn. Today, nobody watches through a Netflix movie. I mean, first of all, it’s all shortened down. It’s all packaged up in between you take your phone, you talk to your friends, you probably go cooking, nobody watches the whole thing in one sense, it completely changes your attention. And those movies are made like that, because they constantly need to build in a cliffhanger. The emotional progress in the film, you know the emotional process and I don’t want to go back as far as an opera or a symphony, but the way an emotion can build up it takes a while. So basically what we’re doing today is it’s constant speed dating How fast can you understand the person in front of you? And just like oh he looks like that and he’s into that checklist now he’s boring I’m not no we’re not compatible, you know, our toxic relationship, but you don’t give timeframes anymore You know, sorry if my answers are too elaborate.

Matthew Dols 34:22
No, this is amazing. I love elaborate answers please continue. Though thing that I noticed is like when I think back to like being in undergraduate school, we used to go out and buy the new magazines that were out so the the American photo, the different publications that came out so like an image let’s say that was somehow even Vogue and all these other places. They would be there for a month. So they everybody would be looking at them constantly for a month, and they would become ingrained into our sort of cultural psyche of the time. These days. Even things like Vogue and all that stuff. They put out their cover thing. And then they put out like a dozen more images every week throughout the entire month. So they, we as a culture don’t even take the time to like let images be part of our culture in the same way that we did even 20 years ago.

Vincent Peters 35:15
And it majorly influences also just on a very practical note the production because you know an advertising campaign you know, they used to shoot you know, a couple of images for a season and they put them on the posters they’ve been repeated and that was the product I’m paying of 99 default you know what I mean? So that was it. And today obviously they put more images out in one day that they used to put out in a year but also the production that that doesn’t necessarily mean that they put more money out. So you have to produce a lot more images in a day you have to do the Tiktok video and the interview in the behind the scenes at the same time so I mean, everything has been squashed down because they just know that people don’t pay attention to it. But I do think it majorly influences the way people even see that image it doesn’t it doesn’t build the iconic state advertising campaigns from sovaldi or Gucci you know they just stay with you you know a product but I think what it’s very true what you say about magazines, I mean apart from the fact that when I started being a photographer, we shot about three four images a day for a six page editorial we had two days I mean today possible 12 pages a day No I mean like there’s just only so far you can pay attention and so quick you can shoot in so many concepts you can you can apply but also I think you have to say that passion is a business model that that’s 100 years old when magazines were good enough to slightly switch illustration against printing photography, when was it around, you know, the early 30s maybe late 20s that’s when Vogue really started rising and the whole Conde Nast magazine really walked up you know if you look at poor photographers like evident like Newton they followed one business model they like they try to develop a more personal style and editorial they were pushing boundaries you know, breaking some rules and then with the advertising they got compensated for it and that’s how they were able to sustain a living and today that is completely breaking apart within just a very short time within years. So again, what I like is what I said before about the plastic I think Instagram to be specific is causing damage to photography because there will be no Instagram images in a museum and in 50 years but there are images from Vogue 1930 1960 today in the museum’s from 10 from CF from you name it that’s the history of photography if you go to every photo it’s fashion pictures from Lindbergh taken for magazines and the way that they take it they took this away also for the simple exposures to get data and to kind of like you know cover it up with with you know kind of like the vanity of self exposure it cost a lot of damage to this industry and I don’t know if they ever will recover How is

Matthew Dols 37:59
your business model working these do not miss it I’m not asking like say how are you doing in business but like how is your business sort of changed so like you know from starting back in the 1990s Up till now you’re saying that basically less money faster turnaround all that kind of stuff? I mean of course back then you started with working with film and so now you’re having I’m sure having to do a lot of digital work so like what other kinds of things have been effected by the sort of advance quote unquote advances in the industry?

Vincent Peters 38:31
Well you know, I don’t know if you know these books I’ve done but there’s a book that called personal

Matthew Dols 38:36
I love that book Yes.

Vincent Peters 38:38
And that kind of like was quite a game changer for me because you know that girl you know name is Sonia I shot her in Coney Island for Italian Vogue story with six other girls and I ran into her in Paris on the street and I’m like what are you doing she’s the man you know not much just kind of like just hanging out and she’s like she was asked me Do you want to do some work and I was doing occasional like a little bit of like personal photos too. Sometimes you know some black and white stuff you know like all photographers you know you do some nudes or something you know a little bit on the side that just to keep your imagination going you know Sonia was quite a beauty and she was kind of like really into doing a photo shoot and I was thinking Yeah, let’s do something but let’s not just do it in some like hotel room against the window. I was like okay, let’s take this serious. You know, I rented this theater and I got real production I got assistant hair and makeup. It was the first time I organized a personal full production like it would be for a magazine. But it would be kind of weird for me because there was no commission. I didn’t know what to do with the pictures after nobody asked for them. I was not shooting any fashion. So I was a little bit just jumping into the water and I didn’t know where to go with this. It produced this photograph later on. You can. It was just you know, I was very lucky. You know, we shot at eight The morning and the first sunlight came through the, through the windows and, and I did some really nice shots. And they turned out to be very valuable to me and I realized that I don’t need to be commissioned. It’s not that people don’t need to tell me what to do. I don’t need to be commissioned. And I started working more and more also in that direction, and I’m trying to step it up. You know, if you’re a musician, if you’re a photographer, if you’re a painter, you do what you do, because you’re doing it, you don’t always just do it because somebody is asking you to put out a new album or to paint the, the neighbor’s wife, it’s just that that’s what you do. You know, for example, I was, you know, I was in LA for a while, in spring, I was lucky enough that you know, I could organize a couple of days, with Adriana Lima flying over. And we were just working, and we were just doing pictures and, and I’m so happy with the work and I’m very grateful that she’s flying over to LA. The point of this photograph was to do good work to do pictures that we both like, and there was no 30 images in a day, kind of like shoot the shoot, shoot the bag and do another behind the scenes video. While we why we added it was not about that. So that’s pretty much what I do right now. If I have time in between commissioned work, I’m trying to really define my authorship, and it helps me this do work that I feel is good. And that is not clouded. Or Where’s no editor like with Beckham walking in and just breaking off the shoe. I mean, I do think you need a bit of both. I’m a very nostalgic person. I’m just I just keep working the way I did in the 90s 2000

Matthew Dols 41:43
has the fine arts world a sort of embraced you and accepted you because for a long time there was this sort of divide in the photo world between commercial photographers and fine art photographers, and they don’t they rarely very rarely overlapped. Partly because very rarely did any photographers skill set sort of overlap. The interest of both as well as some amazing commercial photographers oftentimes didn’t make very good Fine Arts and Fine Arts photographers often didn’t do very good commercial works. But you seem to have bridged that pretty well, I think from from an outsider’s perspective, but do you feel like the fine arts industry has accepted your work?

Vincent Peters 42:25
Well, I think you know what’s so interesting. And I think a lot that I like that question. I think about that a lot. because really what it burns down to, it’s the definition of your point of view. I think the fine art world, maybe not in photography, but definitely in art in general right now is rather, the essential of what you are, as a photographer, your point of view, is an attitude is the distinction about how you connect with life and with other people. You know, obviously, what’s very appreciated today in the fine arts world, this is a provocative point of view, a sarcastic point of view, cynical point of view, also even a destructive point of view. But I have a kind point of view, I don’t mind if people are beautiful, it’s a sense of respect, it’s a sense of kindness. And to tell you the truth, without a base of kindness, I haven’t seen any relationship that got anywhere because people are not opening up. You know what, take a relationship to a plant, if you don’t have a sense of kindness to her, you’re not gonna get close to it, you’re not interacting with it, you feel repulsed by it, or you’re afraid of it. But to adopt something, maybe an English translation would be to have sort of a loving gaze with anybody you sit down in a cafe, if you don’t have that, you’re not going to be open and you’re not going to take anything in. I do agree with you that this is not a popular point of view. And I because I think people like to, you know, we have this, like the artist has to be the punk in the room. And he has to counter culture and disconnect from all the rules of the bourgeoise kind of like bankers, society, he has to be so different as to cut his ear off. And we all have to live through fangraphs biography. But I think from golf has had a very kind point of view, on humanity and on work. And if you look at his portraits, he’s a very gentle person. And I wonder if today, his work would have been provocative enough to be exhibited. If you look at all the Impressionists from the time and then Okay, I think, you know, Picasso was maybe battling to disconnect from an obvious understanding of let’s say that the middle class or the bourgeoisie for his work, but I think the reason why some photographers are more or less, not successful and more successful is because also the art world with financial or just with the expectation that Adopting or narrow themselves to this very provocative in comprehensive and absurd point of view. And I like I said, I think it’s not gaining audience, it’s just because people like your work or find something in it. You know, beauty is something that can be discussed for a long time. And it’s not superficial, that the beauty standards from the Greeks, whatever it is, it’s something that is shallow. Beauty is a very interesting subject. But I think art today doesn’t know what to do with beauty, because it doesn’t really know how to market it, because it feels it’s decorated. And I think that’s where the disconnect is between maybe some of my work and the artwork. At an exhibition at the retrospective at fotografiska. And Stockholm, I was sharing the floor with a very interesting photographer, from Holland that you know, she did these photo constructions, you know, was a bit humoristic was kind of funny, but, you know, very, like, you know, kind of more intellectual humoristic of my work is very emotional. I try to connect with a certain sensibility with people, you don’t need to use your brain, when you look at my work. I don’t think the brain is the most interesting organ that we have.

Matthew Dols 46:24
Well, I find your work to be what I refer to as sort of like an elegant timelessness. No matter who the person is, or when the person is they. They look like they’ve been removed from time periods. Even though of course, there’s hairstyles and makeup styles and clothing styles that probably have some time period to them. But still, there’s this effortlessness to them, that’s just, you know, again, timeless is the easiest word I can come up with. But along with that, you also use some amount of like nudity in some of your personal work and a little bit of your commercial work, but more so in your personal work. Have you had any pushback at least, especially in the past couple years about using nudity?

Vincent Peters 47:08
No, not at all, I think the beauty standards of nudity have been more or less established by the Greeks and have been changed very little since Venus of Milo or I think those beauty standards or nudity standards that that you find in my work, you know, you’ll find in any Greek temple from like 3000 years ago. It depends what you do with nudity, if you want to provoke if you want to provoke an obvious reaction, if you want to provoke sexuality, but nudity can also have a lot of degrees of honesty, you know, it has it has a vulnerability, you know, if I if I would be naked, standing myself in the gallery, I would feel very vulnerable. There is a sense of shame, and a sense of fragility. And if somebody comes to me, you have a kind point of view, a kind of look, that’s what I was trying to happen. Our because you know, you remember that kind of look that you got when you were a child and an adult looked at you in a kind way and it opened and open communication, you are less afraid. But like I said, I think if you if you clearly use nudity, just to to provoke a certain sense of hormonal reaction, it’s, you know, it, it may be a bit easy and works, I don’t think I’ll do that in my work. Personally, I don’t think my work is very sexual. But I mean, sex is part of life. I don’t mind it, I have a huge respect for Helmut Newton. And I think fashion couldn’t be without it. I think that the career Helmut Newton made is because he was he had the capacity to, to make money sexy, and to connect sex with money, and I think that’s what most of his pictures are. Honestly, I think it’s really important what you just said about the timeless factor, because I’m always searching what lies below the work and what you’re looking for. And it’s not easy to define this in a certain way. But I was, you know, even the photographs we talked about, if you go through history, photography, you mentioned the word time in this, but the photograph is so attached to that moment. And the way all those moments will pass, and even a picture that’s been taken 10 minutes ago, sometimes seems to be as far away for us as a picture that’s been taken 10 years ago, it’s gone, the moment has been passed. So every picture that we taken, is also a dialogue with in a certain sense, our own mortality, you know that everything just comes and goes and it has the melancholy that we cannot hold on to anything. Look how happy I was yesterday, you know, when I was with my friends, and I think when you talk about beauty and work, beauty is something so much bigger than an aesthetic manifestation or an aesthetic rules. Beauty is something that you feel part of something that’s bigger than you that there’s something out there that is larger you feel the beauty of the nature, you often feel the beauty of the moments with your friends, you know, you feel that you’re part of Something that is that holds you. And I think you can interpret it in the photograph, in that it’s so much attached to that moment. And all those moments are gone, everything disappears. There’s a beautiful book from a French writer Marcel Proust, wrote in 1913 in search of lost time. And I think there’s no better definition of a photograph. That’s really what we do in in a society that’s, that’s all everything we do today is about acceleration. Making things available making everything faster, everything is about time today. Everything is about getting to places faster, writing 30 emails instead of one letter it’s easier it’s faster it’s more convenient and what do we gain through that? We have longer to do lists we are more stressed about the end we have a huge sense today of holding on to time because yeah, I mean within anything we I think we both agree photography is the public exterior of the moment, everything will be photographed. We take more pictures today in two hours, then we took in the entire 150 years of photography combined. So where does this come from? Why does a society that’s constantly exhilarating everything always speeding up everything and you can really get into details that everything we want today needs to be faster and everything is about getting to places fast and being more efficient. saving time we cannot create any time and I think what we try to with within that fear that life is just running like sand through our fingers. We photograph everything we we put 1000s and 1000s of images onto our iPhones you know and we hardly ever look at them when we look for one How many times did you sit in a cafe with a person and he wants to show you a picture and he goes through his whole iPhone bang he doesn’t even find the picture because it’s it’s been one of 30,000 so yes I think even those women I shoot as famous as they are it’s always attached to that moment and if you look if you’re not like I just spend a few months in Hollywood at the Beverly Hills Hotel and you have sometimes you know in the evening you have these actors passing by and so interesting you know because you’ve seen them on film and then you see them sitting there having dinner but they’re 50 years older. Time just passed but within seconds like i said i said look I’ve seen you could Google you right now probably you know what you look like when you were 30 and now you’re sitting then you like almost 90 it’s very strange What time does to us the way it’s so unstoppable the damage it does you know the way it passes through and yeah that’s the big part of my work. Even when I shot Adriana like a few months ago in Hollywood she’s already a different person that the moment is already gone and we were trying to hold on to it everything that is there will disappear

Matthew Dols 53:00
oh yeah the the speed of the of life is astronomical and the speed of the social media and the speed of the expectations like you know like my artworks these days take me three to four months to create like one piece and like so as far as like the internet’s concerned I’m barely making anything versus some other photographers who were banging out hundreds and hundreds of photos every week and it It saddens me it’s the entire mediocrity of the way that the the Internet has sort of encouraged the art is I find very sad and depressing

Vincent Peters 53:39
for the future and the homogeneity on it in everything looks the same thing is becoming the same if you go through America if you go through any city you can go from Armani to Kentucky Fried Chicken you can go to Starbucks back to the you’re buying the same thing tasting the same sugar you know you can probably even stay in some boutique hotel sleeping with the same bedsheets saying the same pictures on the wall you have no idea where you are and the experience people have and the taste level is considered to be dropping and it’s not their fault because they constantly and even I noticed that you look at these girls on the internet they all look the same because they’re all using the same filters

Matthew Dols 54:21
absolutely totally random thing that I was wondering about so like when you’re doing commercial work of course you have a an art director or an editor or somebody overseeing the choices being made and stuff like this when it comes to your personal works do you make all the choices or do you work with a curator or some sort of an editor to help sort of refine the personal works

Vincent Peters 54:43
no I wish I had a good opinion you know I mean I’m open to everything but now I just walked through this I torture with this myself in I also go through some real depressions that I think it’s all meaningless and it’s a disaster and the worst photographer ever walked the planet but them I’m serious you know you I’m very like a kid of the tortured artist but maybe I just put too much pressure on myself but no no nobody’s helping me out

Matthew Dols 55:09
how is the gallery sort of working for you I know you’re with camera work in Germany which is an amazing gallery and so like I you know does is it I don’t know how to put it sort of like is it a big part of your business model doing like exhibitions and sales or is most of your work business income coming still from doing you know commercial works?

Vincent Peters 55:34
Well I think it’s it’s still more commercial works it really clarified what I do because doing artistic work you have it you know, there is no Purpose The purpose is a good picture but you have no excuse so the expectations you having towards yourself is very different and I think like I said when I when I look at fashion today you’re like oh, you know that’s a nice shot for a sweater because they had to shoot 10 of them in one day. But it only works on that if you look at like i said if you look at classic work I mean I again agreeing with you it keyboard Donna Helmut Newton dated two three pictures a day maximum and it worked only on that basis they could really it you are you cannot create more than that. You know, there’s the photographer that I really love Bruce Davidson says if you do three good shots a year you had a really good year and I think if you the evil that sounds very little but if you look at photographers like herb Ritts and you look at their career and then you think okay, you know this guy was maybe working you know, 1520 years and you know, three shots a year well that’s a good book, a movie talking truly good work, that sort of like what people came up with even like in the end, you can dial down most people’s work to 3050 good shots. And that’s a lot even with Newton you know, like the most iconic pictures it’s probably 30 pictures you know, and everything around it. It’s interesting and it’s a discovery but in the end you can cut it down to some and I think like I said when you work on a more artistic base I don’t think the artistic thing as a vocabulary should confuse you but you just don’t have any excuses you have to say look I’ve done this and it’s not just because it’s a good shot of some cereal or have a jacket or lipstick you know it needs to add the picture needs to live on his own it needs to have the the message needs to be an emotional response with the audience does it have that does it move people that’s in the end that’s what the picture is all about and I think it’s very important not to not to discard that

Matthew Dols 57:44
well i mean that brings up the idea of like the the idea of like taking an entire person’s career and whittling it down to just a few representations like for you when I think of your work I can think of like three prominent pieces that make me go like yes that is an iconic work by Vincent so how does it feel from your side when people sort of for lack of a better way like pigeonhole you or sort of like had this like the only things I know about that this person then their work is these three images and they don’t know about everything else and they you know, and you have a wide breadth of things you’ve done but these people only know a few things like is that is that good? Like does it make you feel like okay, at least they got those so like they know me or do you sort of wish that people knew the wider breadth of your work?

Vincent Peters 58:36
Well I think it can only be an entrance you know it’s kind of like when you said okay I only know I know I’m not really into rock but yeah I heard of the Rolling Stones and the Didn’t they do this I can get no satisfaction song going you know it’s maybe it’s just not your cup of tea but then if you’re interested you look at your you know, you know that there’s like 20 Records behind it and you know, a lot more material for yourself, I think you have to ask yourself, is that really your best work? Sometimes? It is or it’s not it’s not always it’s not easy to really what you said before with with the exhibition? Do I know what people expect from me? Do I see myself the way other people see me and I think as an artist, if you’re a photographer, you may do that through your work. Now maybe of your model or an actor or a celebrity you do it through your face. Do you see yourself the way other people see you and what do you think are your mistakes? Do other people see it even as a mistake? Or is it just your own insecurities? You’re trying to compensate? Are you fighting the right battles? Are you fighting the battles to really get better? Or are you just fighting you know your own insecurities? Do you just want to put some image out there of yourself? That may not really be you but maybe you always want it to be that guy.

Matthew Dols 59:56
When you are doing a sword? Let’s not worry about commercial works. As a personal works, when you’re doing it do you do you go into it with an intention and a purpose of like, I want to achieve this, I want to express this I want to I want to build an entire exhibition or a book or a something around this sort of topic, or do you shoot and then sort of retroactively sort of put things together and say, Oh, those look great together.

Vincent Peters 1:00:21
I think for everybody who does something as excessive as I do it, it’s sometimes it’s good to step back and try to think of yourself as doing another professional. Like, what, what would my pictures be? Like? If I would be a musician? Why would my pictures be like if it would be music? And I think how would you approach your work, and I think it gives you a better perspective sometimes. So in that sense, I think it’s more like that you feel sometimes, you know, you get a certain influence, and maybe you want to do a more jazzy song, or you want to do maybe something that’s more of a musical, maybe something, you want to do something that has more of an opera influence. And I think you just need to get this out and go for it. And I think you cannot always, even though you might be influenced by it, but I think you know, you need to liberate yourself from the from the pressure of popularity, but there’s something burning in you. And I think you sort of like need to digest it somehow, you know, there’s a certain hunger,

Matthew Dols 1:01:17
it is a difficult balance, because like, I’m the kind of artist I generally sort of work rather privately and I make my stuff and then it’s, and then I sort of drop it on the world and be like, this is it, it’s done. And there’s a huge anxiety on that sort of separation of like, I put a lot of time, effort, money, whatever into this project, you really, really hope that people respect and appreciate it, but you never know.

Vincent Peters 1:01:42
Yeah, but you know, success is, success is an affair. It’s not a marriage, and you need to take it while it flies. And if you if you run after it, it’s somebody you meet in a motel, you know, you got to take it for what it is as a good time, but it will never stay with you. It’s not a loyal thing. And I think the more you chase it, the more you get away from who you are, and where you’ve been, it happened at this place. So I think you cannot get away from it. And I think obviously, I think when you look I mean look an artist in any sense. And I it’s hard for me to use that word because it I don’t know if I could would ever have the privilege to consider myself being an artist, I have a lot of respect for that word. But I think let’s say no, we’re not talking about me, in general, an artist needs to be an island, you need to come to them, you in entering their world, and there needs to be an integrity and a complexity to that world, where you feel at that moment, you getting something it’s a place to visit, it’s a place you know, it’s like a vacation, you go there or city, you know, like to Prague, and it needs to be what it is. And if Prague suddenly wants to be more of a Dubai or it wants to be you know, it’s afraid or it needs to open more McDonald’s or Starbucks or, you know, because it needs to say, Oh, you know, look at Vienna has a lot of success with that. And we need to be more like them. You sell out your integrity and you know, you you just you’re not becoming somebody else, you just diminishing what you are. I mean, I just think about what Frank Sinatra must have gone through. I mean, he was the guy with a tuxedo on stage. And then suddenly the doors came and was the 60s and those rockers with a leather pants. And I mean, somebody told him, oh, you know, maybe you want to do my way with a bit more of a guitar, it would never work. It was hard for him to be that guy in a tuxedo in Vegas. But that was his world. And if you want that, and and if you’re lucky enough, after some point, you may become a classic. But you know, you’re not going to be able to go to Bob Dylan and tell him to pull out the disco riff or like get beat under his songs. It’s not him. It is what it is. And I think it’s the same thing for all of us.

Matthew Dols 1:03:52
Well, I read nor I read an interview with you where you talked about the the quote, unquote, like the luck of being in the right place at the right time with meeting the right people that sort of launched your career. But I think what, but what I’d like to know more about is actually not necessarily how you started but how you maintained it, because like it’s one thing to be in the right place, right time and all that. But then like you still have to continually evolve and reprove yourself and sort of continually, you know, progress. If you just rely on that one instance of luck. It’s not going to make a career but you’ve been able to sort of evolve and grow from that.

Vincent Peters 1:04:31
Well you can say you know, luck is when opportunity meets preparation, you know, you get a shot and you need to be prepared to take it it’s the same thing again, it’s like it’s like meeting your wife at an airport. You know in the end you just meet a girl you make the right joke you kind of like you make her think about you when you’re gone and you make a call you back. If you just say the wrong thing and you just sit there and smoke a cigarette and you’re distracted. It’s gone. You know it’s it’s a very fragile moment at this moment. If you do something, if you get a good job if you have an opportunity, and there’s definitely few and there’s fewer in between, you got to ignore what people expect from you the same thing for me if I work with a model, or I work with an actress and it did happen, and maybe at this point, suddenly they wanted to change the image, they wanted to complete the I mean, ever worked with the singer, very famous singer. And, and she had these moments, she was always very typecast with a hair and it was you know, and I could tell when, when I worked with her, she brought out a new record. And she wanted to have a complete different look. It was the look she wanted from the girl in Scarface, you want it to look like Michelle Pfeiffer and Scarface Do you know, the banks? And you know what I’m talking about? I know the look. Yes, yeah. And it just didn’t work. And it was very hard for me to say, Well, I can see that you’re going through this fatigue. And everybody, you know, he was working against herself. She was rather working out of a person and security than rather going with the audience as she was just experimenting in the wrong way. But like I said, some you got to know, to a certain point, what people expect from you again, going back to Frank Sinatra. And it’s the same thing for a photographer, I mean, obviously, we have to improvise and try different things. But in the end, you got to know who you are. And if I would do it like her, if I would suddenly just put some strange wigs on. In the end, they see it as a road that goes in the wrong direction, hopefully leads you back to who you are, you know what I mean?

Matthew Dols 1:06:24
I do indeed. Alright, so let’s sort of try and wrap this up a little bit. The last things I often ask people is generally some sort of advice for the next generation. So I’m still a teacher. And I’m, you know, I have the honor of being able to talk to somebody who’s had great success. And so anything, you could help them with this, maybe something to avoid even some mistakes that maybe you made in your career that you’d be like, yeah, don’t do this, that’s gonna fuck up your career.

Vincent Peters 1:06:51
You get these questions, people write me on Instagram, and you want to answer them. And they always ask you how to become a better photographer. And sometimes, you know, whatever, I’ve done a workshop and people look at you. And they say, basically, they said, Tell me how to make more money, tell me how to be successful. And I just don’t think, you know, there is not like a catchphrase that can solve this. I think, in general, what I’m saying is really what we talked about in this, that I said, you got to know who you are, you got to know where your where your strength is, where do you come from, like I said, compare yourself to other professions, like an actor, he needs to fit in that screen, people place him in a certain way he’s connecting is he’s passing a message. And I don’t think it’s a very rational process, that people connect with an actor because he’s representing a part of themselves. And they could imagine that he takes that part of who you are, and he runs with it. And at that point, you feel, I could be that guy, and you identify with it and you get invested. But he needs to know who he is to be able to carry that piece of you. And the photographer needs to do the same thing. Well, so to get back to your question, your photographs are clearly extremely connected to your biography. And you may not know about this, but even a photograph the unconscious meets the conscious, there is something deeper inside of you and very low levels that comes out in 125th of the second maybe in a repetitive way that you’re connecting with You Keep Shooting women in that way man in that way made it landscapes, you connecting with the world in a particular way. And if other people see that and and connect with the world, because the way you explained it to them, you found something very valuable. And I think, then you need to pursue that. But you need to know where you’re coming from. Like I said before, you need to follow that river up to the source and find out why do I take those pictures? You know what, how much of me is pure You know, when you talked about it before you asked me that question about the commercial part. And that shows very clearly photography and film there’s it’s not a pure art form. It’s not like that you’re a writer and you go to Norway for six months and you’re writing a book or like you know, like what you told me you take sometimes three months to finish an art piece. Photography is like you should celebrity if you should, even that, you know if you shoot any girl, like that’s a certain status. It’s like shooting out of a moving car, of a moving train that needs to be fast, you have to like it’s, again 125th of a second. There’s always a time restraint on it. And that takes that needs to happen right then and that little Second, the way the finger is the way she looks. Something can be there. You talking about some iconic shots I’ve done it’s because somehow they contain that message, everything came together. It’s almost like the perfect accident in that impurity of the moment. Have the people of everybody involved, let it go. But somehow, make sure it defines really what you are trying to figure out where your vision comes from. Because I think what’s most important in the picture, it’s not the picture that matters is the idea people take away from the picture, when they don’t see it anymore. It’s what the true process of photography happens after the picture. And that is what Marcel Proust says. He says, a beautiful line, he says, In the darkroom of our minds, we have many undeveloped films who explain us who we are. And that’s really true. We all have so many undeveloped pictures in ourselves that so many impressions that we haven’t processed, yet, there’s such an unconscious part in us. But it goes into our photography, somehow. It’s there. It is who we are. It’s that unconscious part that really defines us the things that we gravitate to. But when you take pictures of it, it’s very surprising because suddenly it comes up, it’s visual, it’s there, it’s right in front of you, I’ve done this, I like it. Why do I like this? Why do I shooter like this? Why do I chose this hair? Why do I choose the angle? Why do I shoot the beach like this? And that light? Why do I like this and another person, like something else? There’s this constant conversation with with your unconscious experiences. And that’s what makes it interesting. But if you want to be a good photographer, you somehow need to cultivate it, because you’re communicating with others.

Matthew Dols 1:11:34
Would you ever go into photoshoots with a picture that you desire to achieve? And then actually get that result perfectly? I asked that because I never do.

Vincent Peters 1:11:50
No, I do not really know. And you know what, that’s one of the reasons why I shoot film. And I don’t shoot digital. Because I think it’s the wrong that what you What you talking about right now is excessive control. And I think the entire digital part of photography is made to have more control over the result. And I don’t think that helps, I don’t even think that’s good. And I mean, I suffer with it, and I beat myself up. And I definitely, I’m a very tormented kind of person about it. When you shoot film, if I go to New York, in a studio, I shoot Scarlett Johansson, I don’t see the pictures 10 times until three, four days later, sometimes two weeks later, depending if I travel, until I see the film, everything changed, my mind changed, I’m in a different frame. And then I look at those pictures and I try to reconnect, clearly I was pursuing something. But it was never perfect, and I have to rediscover it. And I think that that idea of in general, losing control, not being in control is very important. It’s important for communication. Because if I go into a meeting with somebody, and I give him my opinion, and my opinion is well thought out, and I really presented it, well, I may be overwhelming this person, but I’m not ready to really connect with them or resonate with them or receive his part because I’m so full of my opinion. And I’m standing there, you know, like, with both feet on the ground, and like I said, I made me really well in my presentation and presenting people in my opinion, but it’s just my opinion. And that’s not what art or communication is about communication is about to involve the other person. And the more you involve them, the more they’re going to respond to your work. And if you just go there like you know, then you have some kind of one of these movies we’re having right now this sci fi flicks where people constantly flying through the air and you’ll be madly impressed when you see the movie. But when they over you take nothing home, none of these, none of them will be remaining classic. None of them will be a Casablanca or something that goes a little deeper into your own life. So I think you need to be not confusing, impressing people with communicating with people.

Matthew Dols 1:14:10
Well, I also feel like most of the work I know of us is always working with some sort of a person or a figure kind of thing. And that entire process is incredibly collaborative in a way that a lot of people don’t think it is. They think that the photographer is simply directing the subject to do something. But I find that oftentimes it ends up being that a much more collaborative thing. I mean between hair makeup wardrobe, you know, if you have a lighting, people, whatever. And then of course, how the model interprets what you’re trying to express and how you’re trying to dress. And oftentimes I find that I get exponentially better results when I kind of let the models define their own sort of definition of instead of necessarily listening to exactly like directly

Vincent Peters 1:15:00
And you can because you know it’s too much a child of the moment you know i mean even if you talk about here right now, you can never get here like exactly the way you want it. It’s here it moves. It’s it moves in the wind. It maybe has a certain texture in that day. You know the last time when I told you when we shot Adriana, we told her, just leave the hair alone. Just don’t wash it overnight. Tomorrow, it’s going to have like an interesting texture. She did wash it. So we had to start all over, you know, it’s out of control. We do something else. She’s in a different state. Does she wake up with a boyfriend? Does she wake up alone? How does she feel that day? When I shot there, just because I just told you about Scarlett Johansson. When I when I shot scarlet, she was pregnant. She didn’t feel good at all. I think she was in the hospital before I work with she had the morning sickness. You cannot bang these they did these are not it’s not stone, it’s an organic process. And you will get what that day will ever give you and you have to embrace it. Rather than trying to force it into a corset. You need to embrace it and the personality that defines it, it needs to come from you. Not by pushing people into kind of like as you say, look, let’s let’s compare it to this. Everything that’s rigid. Everything that’s stiff, eventually will break everything that’s adaptable and movable in nature, it will more or less fall back into its own shape. And I think if you if you apply that physicality, to a photoshoot, then you said let it move, let it go into all these weird shapes. Eventually it will go back into what it’s supposed to

Matthew Dols 1:16:37
be. Indeed, you have been amazing. Thank you very much for all of this. You’re one of those times where like, they say don’t meet your idols but you you’ve exceeded my expectations. You’ve been marvelous. Thank you so

Vincent Peters 1:16:51
much. Thank you for having an interesting conversation, you know, but if the same thing is for me, it’s always good to think about it. And it’s not always easy to verbalize everything you know, because it’s so you rationalize it, but it’s good. It’s a good process, I could feel that.

Matthew Dols 1:17:10
The Wise Fool is produced by Fifty14. I am your host Matthew Dols – http://www.matthewdols.com And the audio for this episode was edited by Jakub Černý. The Wise Fool is supported in part by an EEA grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – https://eeagrants.org in an effort to work together for a green competitive and inclusive Europe. We would also like to thank our partners Hunt Kastner – http://huntkastner.com in Prague, Czech Republic and Kunstsentrene i Norge – https://www.kunstsentrene.no in Norway. Links to EEA grants and our partner organizations are available in the show notes or on our website https://wisefoolpod.com