Leadership BITES
Leadership BITES
Simon Townsley, Photo Journalist
Simon Townsley is an acclaimed international photojournalist and twice recipient of the British Press Photographer of the Year Award. Simon is known for his ability to connect with people and convey their story with dignity, even in extreme contexts.
“Trust is an essential value in being able capture a powerful image, but trust isn’t just between subject and photographer. It criss-crosses all threads, from NGO, publisher and authorities to photographer and subject. It is a privilege to be able to bear witness, and it is one I seek to honour. By creating compelling images of distressing situations I can break down the barriers that stop people engaging, to open their eyes without fear and broaden their perspective. – Simon Townsley
Arriving in London in 1987 from New Zealand, he was appointed Senior Photographer at the Sunday Times where he remained for 14 years. He covered conflicts around the world, including the Balkans, West Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He was assigned to photograph in depth numerous major news events such as Tiananmen Square, the Gulf war, fall of the Berlin Wall, siege of Sarajevo and the election of Nelson Mandela.
In 2002 he felt a need to explore photography in a deeper sense, to understand photography in its purest aesthetic, Using the power of the image to convey a message through its beauty alone. He embarked on a personal project- OILMAN.
Industrial landscapes from over 20 countries explore mankind’s relationship with the natural world in the desperate and dramatic pursuit of oil across the planet. Using his love of the simple aesthetic, the images were shot in large-format and displayed as grand-scale prints, exploring the sense of scale that the oil and gas industry operate on and the issues it creates.
For the last four years Simon has been working with the Telegraph Media Group Global Health Security Team. With support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Global Health Security project seeks to bring awareness of vitally important issues to wider audience and focuses on key pillars of health and security around the world.
To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below.
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Guy Bloom 00:00
Welcome to leadership bites with myself, your host, guy bloom. This is a leadership podcast where I have conversations with colleagues, I chat with guests, and sometimes they'll be just me talking. You can connect with me at livingbrave.com and when you enjoy the episode, subscribe and please tell everyone. So, Simon, great to have you on this episode of Leadership bites welcome.
Simon Townsley 00:24
Thanks guy, it's nice to be on your show.
Guy Bloom 00:28
I know. Well we had a little dalliance of trying to make it work the first time and the computer said the proverbial no. So this is our second attempt. So well done us. Now I know who you are because I've invited you on and I always just want to make sure that people have clarity. So you know, if you're at a party and somebody said Ohh, you know what do you do then, Simon? What do you do? Introduce yourself?
Simon Townsley 00:55
Okay, well, I'm a photographer. And I'm currently working with the Daily Telegraph and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. On a project. Called global Health Security, which has been running for about four years, whereby we travel out into the world looking for stories that are usually unreported or underreported, stories of situations and crises that are occurring out in the world but that affect us all. Back where we live, even though we might think they don't.
Guy Bloom 01:36
So we'll get into that because i came across you as I do with a lot of people through LinkedIn and I saw some of the things that you were posting and people have been referencing. And I think it helps a lot to understand what somebody's talking about when you understand the journey that got them to where they are. I think it adds weight and a kind of sense of depth to the human being. So some give me a sense of because you know, I mean everybody's got a camera on their phone right these days and back in the day you probably had to know how to take a good photo that well in the sense of you know, getting the focus right and all that kind of stuff. So you started, and this is no judgment on age, but you started a little bit before that. As I did. So how did you yeah and then in a kind of in a sensible sort of way, how did you get here?
Simon Townsley 02:34
Well that's a long journey. I have to impress that somewhat. I started in New Zealand in the mid eighties and I discovered photography and I thought this is the career for me. You know, having. I shot some pictures while I was on the dole. In fact, I spent all my time as an unemployed youth in the library, reading photography books and I finally. Got accepted to one of the only photography courses that was available in the country, which I proceeded to fail and then simultaneously got a job as a photographer on a national newspaper for a couple of years. Where I covered my first foreign assignment, which was the military coup in Fiji. And I thought, well, this is pretty good. So i wanna, I wanna do this. So I travelled out to Fleet Street. In 1987 and worked there and on and off. We've worked in Fleet Street ever since, although have done a number of other things as well in parallel.
Guy Bloom 03:43
Is a normal first assignment a military coup in Fiji that?
Simon Townsley 03:47
First foreign assignment or so was misled, it sounds.
Guy Bloom 03:51
Like she always do a couple of weddings first at least.
Simon Townsley 03:55
Well, I've done a lot of domestic news, but it was my first foreign assignment and I was misled into thinking that foreign assignments involved, you know, sun kissed beaches and wonderful tropical cocktails and then you find yourself in the Balkans in the middle of winter and it's not like that at all.
Guy Bloom 04:16
That's just pick up on that one because I imagine an experience like that could either make you go, well, I don't mind going abroad, but do you know what, I don't want to be doing this kind of thing. So what's the what got you? What hooked you into that?
Simon Townsley 04:31
Well, so many. There are so many different aspects of it that are compelling. You know, travelling gives you the opportunity to record things that you wouldn't even get to experience, you know, and you kind of. A life of work and holidays, so to be completely immersed in the story is. It's such a wonderful privilege and. You know. Living photography the way that I do, you want to put yourself, you know, front and center. Of all of those experiences so that you know you can record the absolute extremes of human emotion and you're only going to see that if you're moving around.
Guy Bloom 05:20
Like i understand that, but when one experiences something like war. And conflict. That's a very particular. Experience I can imagine as a as opposed to covering. Presidential cavalcade or ohh yeah you know it did you kind of thing. So what is it that keeps you or has enabled you to operate in that space and. I don't know if the word is enjoy it or continue in it or.
Simon Townsley 05:55
Be satisfied by it.
Guy Bloom 05:57
Be sat that's.
Simon Townsley 05:58
Filled, by it. Thank you yeah.
Simon Townsley 06:01
Well, I discovered pretty early on in life that I have mechanisms and techniques for separating experiences from. That I'm witnessing from affecting me. And in fact I just this morning had a cup of coffee with someone I haven't seen for a while who said you've just come back from Ukraine, how are you? You know, are you sleeping at night? And I have to say, I'm a very disappointing photo journalist. I don't suffer flashbacks and PTSD. I have developed techniques that. At least when I'm in the moment when I'm in a hospital or in a morgue or. In a situation where someone's been terribly hurt, i can. Use all my energies and my skills to record their story and to show you what they're experiencing without me experiencing it. And that's quite hard to describe to you, but it's almost. It's like having a series of filters that you that you. Acknowledge you have all this inside you and you can deploy these things. And so you go into a terrible situation and you think, OK So what is the picture here? What is going to show you the viewer, this situation? How do I distill this down? How do I find? The light for this what? What are the technical parameters that I'm working, and what are the physical security parameters? And so I'm? I'm dealing with all of these emotional things I'm witnessing, but with the other side of my brain. And that protects me. The moment. If I think about it later on, then that's hard. But when I'm there, it's OK.
Guy Bloom 07:47
And listen, i want to be very careful about sort of translating what I'm hearing into guy speak, but it did. I just hear you have a methodology of almost being connected to the requirements of the moment.
Simon Townsley 08:04
That's professionalism, isn't it?
Guy Bloom 08:05
Yes, I was going, yes. yeah i always wanted to not always use the word professionalism because it sounds a little bit more than that, but maybe that's what it is. It's no, it's stepping outside of the moment. But maybe stepping into it through the fact that know what I'm going to do is maybe it's like a fireman or a somebody with the emergency services. Actually what I'm going to focus on here is doing like flipping job and that's what keeps me going.
Simon Townsley 08:29
Yeah, process and procedure completely. You couldn't. Do it for very long if you don't have those things to fall back on. And that is the same for anybody in any other role in the military, in any of the emergency services and in the police, anybody who has to deal with the situation. Really, if you want any longevity in this career, then you've got to have processes that you follow and procedures that you follow. Otherwise, you know you're just be immersed. You can't function and then there's no point being there.
Guy Bloom 09:06
I'm also very alert to your inner scenario where people are raw. For the want of a better phrase. They've experienced loss at all levels. And what do you find? Is it you know when you're there with what could be quite a invasive? Intent not that I know you have that, but all in an invasive instrument, a photograph. I know if I was crying I might not want somebody to take a photograph of me, for example. You might, yes, exactly. And that's the bit that is it a judgment on who is willing. Is it then realising the reality of why you're there? What gives you that? That entry point, I guess into a moment of intimacy.
Simon Townsley 10:02
I mean, you begin doing this, it's difficult, and the more you do it, the more you realise that. Frequently people have bigger things on their mind than being photographed in the first instance. A lot of times people are initially hostile and. You have to push through that a little bit, to the point where they realise you're not actually hostile yourself and that your sole purpose is to record. Whatever tragedy has occurred and you. Ultimately, you only have to look back a few hours, days, weeks, certainly years to see the benefit of having recorded the things that we have recorded over the last since the beginning of photojournalism to see the value of it. And I think people ultimately realised that and they might not necessarily realise that in the moment. But I would also say that to presuppose that me going and talking to people in photographing. People in a moment of absolute despair is in some way wrong, is taking away the right of those people to have their story told. And so when I meet a mother who's just found her the body of her son in a morgue, I. She she. Quite quickly takes the opportunity to tell me about her son and to show me photographs of him as a little boy when he was alive. So that is not those are not the actions of people who feel that you're being intrusive. It might feel intrusive, and it's hard to do because that is not what we do as Westerners anyway. Generally, that's not the way that we behave so. You know, I'm not there for me. I'm there to tell the story on somebody else's behalf really that's the professional part of it obviously I'm there.
Guy Bloom 12:07
So am I hearing that correctly that people may in that moment see you as a conduit to, capturing their truth?
Simon Townsley 12:18
Yeah, completely. I don't think. They're consciously see that. But if they thought about it for a moment, it's fairly obvious you know when. You say what happened and they want to tell you all about their child or their loved one. Then that's exactly what they're doing. They want that. You know and I've been to so many situations where we've. I've been in events, and I've spoken to people and said look, you know, if you want to talk then that's great. You know, I'm not in the business of. And this is the other thing. So anybody who watches a lot of TV or movies sees journalists and photographers in particular portraying in a very specifically aggressive way, very self-serving very aggressive, only interested in one thing so. That's television. That's fiction right.
Simon Townsley 13:17
And debts. Ohh, I'm so sorry. You can hear that? I thought I'd music everything. I apologize yeah so, yeah, so there's something here i think I'm kind of interested in, which is the do you have to? Monitor, I guess yourself in. I'll let you just get that.
Simon Townsley 13:54
On it. Don't worry. Yeah, it's done. That's it.
Guy Bloom 13:57
Normally I can. Normally I get an Amazon person. Knocking so delivery yeah,
Simon Townsley 14:05
Normally that happened. I've got a bit of feedback now, ohh, for some reason, it's something happened at your end that's different. Ok do you want me to hang up and come again or something?
Guy Bloom 14:20
No, hold on. Let's see what I can do there. Okay, I'll just. Ohh under that mind when I edit it? ok so. I suppose it's managing timelines and if you have a target on getting something done, i just. I just wonder. Do you have a sense of just how you stay alert to the danger of a situation that the needs of the person the requirements you have for getting something done because of maybe sunlight and daylight and you know how do you is that a conscious thing or is that an element of God just been doing this for so long now i just kind of I'm just, I'm just present and you know i just make the judgment calls as they happen. You know, how do you sort of traverse that? Because in a wedding, I know I've sat there and they've hurry up the lights going, and I go, well, that's fine when nobody's shooting at us.
Simon Townsley 15:37
So yeah wonder how you do that?
Guy Bloom 15:40
It's nice to have some constraints so I think to push against and that just makes you work a bit harder. So if the lights going then you do push harder and you say I gotta stay here a bit longer. People are saying we can't stay here any longer. I think, wow, I didn't come all this way not to get the photo or if the lights going, you might need to interrupt the interview that's taking place to shoot, you know, and that, but at the same time, some things just happen. As a matter of second nature, so, yeah, like that really so.
Guy Bloom 16:17
When you get into these places, Simon are you? What are the protocols? Are you? Are you? Do you have security? Do you? Are your flapjack jacketed up? You are your helmeted. What does Simon look like what? What's the cause? The photographs there. But you know what's going on around you, I guess, to make sure that while you're focusing you can't be alert maybe all the things that are going on. So what does that look like?
Simon Townsley 16:48
Well, you I hate wearing all that stuff body armour, and particularly don't want to be wearing it when the people around you aren't wearing it. That seems really peculiar if you're, you know, in a situation. In a refugee camp or something where nobody else has protected except you, it's not a really good look. So you have to make quite a good call on that in terms of and just you do develop a bit of a sixth sense and you become fairly aware of the situation around you. We do have some security consultants that don't travel with us, but we phone and speak to them. If we're moving from one part of the country to another, we don't speak to them on a daily kind of basis. And then of course, we're speaking to other journalists who are working, who are coming in and out of the same areas as we have. And that really does help create some kind of level of, you know, to safety, making those assessments, working with people that you know intrust.
Guy Bloom 17:50
So imagine it's quite a tight network of. Not maybe not even camaraderie, but there's some. We're all in this together. So just let's, let's make sure that we're spreading the news around about what we're seeing and experiencing and sensing, I guess.
Simon Townsley 18:04
Yeah, very much. You know, nobody would sit willingly send somebody or allow someone to go somewhere dangerous or because you know, to be, you know, careless. I mean, you would offer advice. I mean, where people take it or not, everybody has a different risk threshold.
Guy Bloom 18:26
While I was just going to ask you that yeah what is what is 1 person's not a problem and another person's no way Jose and I just wondered when it comes to what you guys do, are the levels or tiers like people that climb these mountains and some use ropes and some of them free climb. Is there is there a tearing of photographer where yeah he's a tier one danger? Yeah, talk to me about that.
Simon Townsley 18:50
I think there are some people who do this job because they want to experience the most intense situations that they can, and then there are other people who do the job because they want to record. The most intense? Things that they can. And that's a big difference. You know, you don't have to photograph guns to photo to cover a wall. You don't have to be shot at. to. Cover the story in Ukraine? That's not necessary. I mean, as far as I know, nobody's shot at me this time, so. You know, I spent a lot of time in Bosnia and a lot of people shot at me. I'm not sure those images were any stronger for it. You know, it's a byproduct of getting into places where you're recording what's going on, that you might get shelled or shot at or have some. Air strike waiting to happen, but but that shouldn't for me. That's not the reason for doing. I'm not going there looking forward to getting shot at. I'm not going there looking forward to coming face to face with a global superpower. Not at all.
Guy Bloom 20:09
That's interesting in some respects that I guess you being shot at. Might increase a person's kudos, maybe to the to the general public, but in terms of the narrative. It's with somebody's at loss or you're seeing somebody that's you know in a great amount of pain. The fact of what's just happened to you to get there. Yeah and now I think about it doesn't really add value to the to the story itself is I think what I'm hearing from you there.
Simon Townsley 20:40
Yeah, I don't think it does. And you know, people make assumptions, but they really don't know what's going on behind the image and what risks the photographer is necessarily taking in order to capture. What they are, you know, I mean, you can take big risks covering things all over the world. Don't dissary have to be in a war.
Guy Bloom 21:01
So when it comes to something like bosnia and the Ukraine and the Ukraine's very new right now, do you have any sense of? People's relationships to. Imagery, maybe. And the narrative that goes with conflict and if that's becoming more acute because we now have social media, so actually people are a lot more sensitive to it, or are they becoming desensitised to it because they're seeing it, you know, along with funny puppy dogs on pianos and then, you know the same stream, you know there's something else going on. I wonder if you have a sense of a barometer. Or anything like that might be. Sort of relevant, just to understand.
Simon Townsley 21:51
Yeah, so I'm like a powerful picture is a hard thing to make. And just because everyone's can record things on their phone and they generally record video, that doesn't create a powerful image. It doesn't necessarily distill the event in the way that presents the information. In the strongest possible terms. So, you know, I could wave a camera around a mass grave and that might give you an idea of the goriness of it and the number of bodies, but I don't know if it'll give you any real insight into what that means. And not everybody's going to respond in the same way to the same image anyway. But I've been surprised at how many people have. Written to me who've, responded to the stuff that we've published and and it's really affected them, you know, really affected them so. I just, you know, how people see my stuff. That's not something I have any control over, how they react to other material. I can only tell you how I react to it, and a lot of the time I'm. You know, slightly wanting to understand more than I'm getting from the some, from what I'm seeing on social media, I mean, social media is not media, right? It's just entertainment. You know, it's not the way that we should get our news and our information. Not like that. You need verifiable sources of information, otherwise it's meaningless. Absolutely meaningless.
Guy Bloom 23:30
I seem to remember, I'm 52 So I seem to remember believing that when I heard a news outlet say something, it was probably true. Yeah, it will take. Now I feel that news outlets have bias dependent on who owns them and where they're coming from. So do you ever worry, fear, experience, or it's not really within my scope of control, so I just let it go that an image that you've taken. Can be distorted.
Simon Townsley 24:01
Well, it could be.
Guy Bloom 24:02
Why narrative?
Simon Townsley 24:04
Yeah, and it can be, but generally it isn't. And it's certainly the news outlet I work for at the moment, the Telegraph, that's not happening. You know, you might not agree with the angle that we take on it. I'm sure numerous Russians wouldn't agree with the angle that and the approach that the Telegraph's taken, which is very clearly Pro Ukraine and anti Russia, but. The reality of the things I'm shooting and the stories that we're running that go with those. I'm entirely comfortable with that and I think you can't. You know, it's like the difference between me shooting a portrait of you and you showing me your passport photograph so that they're both photographs of you, but that one of them is perhaps going to give someone some insight into you. And the other one is just, this is how far apart your eyes are, you know? So you've gotta have an angle, you've gotta have something to say ohh there's just no point being there ohh.
Guy Bloom 25:03
That's interesting. A photograph is, in essence, that's an interesting thing is if I stand still against a wall for my passport photo or a portrait is taken. Yeah, technically still me, but very different. So how much of this is? I was gonna use the word art, but that isn't quite right. maybe i think what I'm asking is how do you get? Sixty four thousand dollar question how did you get the story into a picture?
Simon Townsley 25:38
Well, when I figure that out, I can stop working.
Simon Townsley 25:46
Sometimes you get close to it and you find that all the elements come together to create something slightly bigger than. You know. Than the sum of the parts so. I think. You need to be kind of cognizant and aware of everything. At the same time that you can rely on your own. A night. You know whatever gifts you have for being a photographer and balance that with any. You know what you've learned. Overtime your subconscious will help guide you as well. So there are different components that will help you create and make that image. Which is why I'd much prefer to say you're making a photograph rather than taking a photograph, because you really, in order to be really effective, I think you need to be able to bring all those elements together, you know, whether it's Cullen's colours or patterns or composition. Which lens you're choosing, or how far you're standing, or apart from the moment when you actually drop the shutter? You know, all of those things come together. To say, right, that's what I'm seeing here.
Guy Bloom 27:10
So taking a photograph then is. Yeah, just almost pressing the shutter regardless, or pressing the button regardless of not what's going on. But you're really only focused on trying to capture maybe a, I don't know, the an image to remind yourself of something or whatever that might be. But you're talking about composition. You're talking about paying attention to the human being in front of you, or the or the moment in time, not to. Maybe not to create something that's artificial, you know, but to actually try your best to actually capture, I guess, what you're experiencing and why you're reacting to it. I guess that's potentially what I'm hearing there.
Simon Townsley 28:00
There's some idea of a photograph being some kind of eternal. Unimpeachable truth, because it's a mechanical process. That doesn't hold water at all and there's nothing. About the photograph, that's inherently truthful and accurate. So when I show you one of my photographs from anywhere, that is likely to be something that I've put together. In a moment. That represents everything. What a great deal of what I was seeing and experiencing and thinking about at the time and that. Is the truth of the situation as I'm reporting it to you now. If you tell me that anybody can do that, you just push the button, point the camera and push the button. There's no more truth than that than there is in me, you know, waiting for the right light standing, getting down low, or standing up high to make something look more or less significant. Those interpretations are just things that I've brought to it because that's what I do so. But the idea that in itself a photograph is somehow just like unimpeachable truth that doesn't stack up, does it? Because it's a 2 dimensional moment in time and a five hundredth of. A second well, we don't see things in five hundredth of a second. We don't see things in two dimensions and the colour gamut and the you know that we record on film and the way that things are recorded on digital media is limited, right? So it's just. Nothing about it, in its essence, is true until I bring to it what I consider to be a true evaluation, and you may or may not agree with it.
Guy Bloom 29:46
So there is something there may be about. I wanna be, I don't know, a ordain photography with something that doesn't exist because i'm not, I don't do it for a for a profession. But I think I notice it in podcast, for example, there's something about people who are trying to promote themselves versus people that want to chat with the guest. There's just a it's still, it's just a podcast. Audio is being recorded and video is being recorded. But somehow when I experience it, I experience something different. And the questions might even be the same, but for some reason I connect more to the person that's clearly just having a chat versus the person that's interviewing the other person. And it's weird because technically they're virtually identical, but there is an element of. Maybe the catalyst for it, the integrity not the integrity behind it. Remember the main reason behind the intent? Yeah that seems to somehow make it different. And maybe that's true in a photograph. Yeah it's technically the same. It's light on captured on paper or whatever. You know it is. But the truth of the matter is maybe that's when a for a photograph speaks or maybe well maybe that's when a song speaks. It's because the audience or the observer senses. For whatever reason that this two CD thing. There was a human being that instigated it, captured it, and maybe there's an element of their of them within it, even though it's not a photograph about them. So that sounds a little bit esoteric, but I just have a sense that might be true.
Simon Townsley 31:34
Yeah, I mean we, we're complicated people, beings, right. Human beings are complicated. You know, we have this inner child that's responding to different information from the adult and, you know, layers and layers of cultural and social influences that have made us, who brought us to where we are today. And which is one of the reasons I think photographers, you know, need to kind of work to the market to the people that they work to. You know, it's about understanding your audience and understanding what. Resonates with your audience and what speaks to them and the mechanisms that meet are meaningful, you know, that you can employ to pass on that information. So I mean in a way you can kind of deconstruct pictures into a component part. If I want to photograph someone and reinforce their phones ability, if I look down on them, they look smaller. And more vulnerable, if I look up at you look more powerful and dominant. I mean that's a very simple technique that can frequently work. To portray significance so and one of like a million that you might use at any one moment. That might not work for another audience that it does work for the audience that I take photographs to show to.
Guy Bloom 32:55
So there is something if I have a politician that I want to denigrate. So I take a picture on purpose to try and make them look small because there's a lack of, you know, I'm not going to get into it. But the to me there will be a lack of integrity that you've done that to manipulate somebody who might be strong but to try and make them look weak.
Simon Townsley 33:16
But that would be a lack of integrity if they're strong. We want to make them look weak, then that's a lie. But if there's if they're weak and you want to make them look weak and reinforce that, then that is the truth. And so that is the big difference of it.
Guy Bloom 33:29
Yes, and am I trying to make them look weaker and even more vulnerable or am I actually what I'm trying to do is to replicate my emotional reaction? To what I'm sensing in front of me and to try and capture that in a manner that somebody eating their breakfast, you know in. Something Coldfield in Birmingham will have a sense of the experience I'm having. So actually if I. Over manipulate here I'm it may look staged it may look you know. I found a doll on the floor. Could you hold this? You know, it'll make it look more. Yeah, that would that would you know that little bit of contrivance may absolutely ruin a shot.
Simon Townsley 34:14
Might you?
Guy Bloom 34:16
The shot might make the shot right, but if I'm saying do pick that up and hold, that is it, because what I recognise is that will give people the reaction that I'm having now. So they'll be a line. Wouldn't there be a balance? And maybe that's what experience is and maybe that's what judgment is and maybe that's what I imagine. There are people that go too far. Get it wrong and you can, and maybe you more than I. But you could pick it up in there photography where you'd have a sense of the I can see what you've tried to do there, but maybe you've gone a bit too to the wrong way.
Simon Townsley 34:53
Yeah, there's not a lot of that going on and you know, newspapers and magazines now. You'll come across that all the time on social media and that kind of overt lying and manipulation and just. Inaccuracy, but, you know, I mean, you'll see, you know, you're not going to see a very flattering photograph of Boris Johnson in the Guardian newspaper because their whole political approach is that Conservative government is a failure. So it's unlikely they're going to show a flattering image of the guy. They might, but that's a long way from deliberately, distorting the reality. Our reality of the situation to the point where it bears no resemblance to do anything that was occurring.
Guy Bloom 35:52
Do photographers. Adjust their style according to the newspaper or the medium that they're being asked to create for? Or is it generally no, they have a style and that connects them to the right, the right one. What generally tends to happen? I'm sure they'll be outliers, but generally speaking, how does it work?
Simon Townsley 36:18
Yeah, I think the photographers got a style and a way of working that they can apply on behalf of any client. Whether the client chooses to publish the pictures or not, it's difficult to know if you're working for. The newspapers that I work for, you know, there are some stories that they're less likely to be interested. In comparison with other stories. So you're less likely to shoot those you know, because I don't just turn up having been asked to go and photograph something, I go and find the stories that I want to photograph. Yeah, I just do it so. It's it depends on how you work with the newspaper. You know, if they've asked you to go and photograph. Press conference that Boris Johnson's giving, then you know the Guardian is going to be more interested in the photograph that makes him look. Vulnerable and exposed, perhaps, and given situation, but that's not necessarily the case. So no. I think photographers generally have a style they shoot as a range of different images from an event, and then the publisher will choose which one reflects their editorial perspective. That's how that works.
Guy Bloom 37:31
So all the people in when you go to these places like Bosnia and Ukraine are the photographers out there who are completely freelance, who are literally just, they've self funded to go out there, they're taking photos, they put it out. Into the world and almost, you know, they're literally just trying to sell their wares. And then there are photographers who are staffers who are literally that they are working for a dedicated outlet. That's is that the two things that are going on there.
Simon Townsley 37:59
Yeah, no staff photographers anywhere anymore. Pretty much. It hasn't been the case for a long time. People on contracts and. We're working with organizations directly.
Guy Bloom 38:09
Ohh so we want to get you for a month to go and do that or a whatever it is.
Simon Townsley 38:14
Well i mean, it's, yeah, they generally have a relationship with the newspaper, but they are not on the staff. So they might have had a contract with them for 20 years.
Guy Bloom 38:24
Ohh, it's right.
Simon Townsley 38:25
Ok slightly. Yeah, you want to point? I didn't meet so many self funded people in Ukraine. Certainly there isn't that much going on. For freelancers. It's increasingly difficult to do that because it's very expensive to cover a war. You need a vehicle and fuel that's expensive on a daily basis, and then you've gotta have a fixer, translator, also expensive. And then you've got to stay somewhere and so and eat. So those five elements can set you back. Like, I don't know. 700$ a day so in order to break even you have to sell, you know, that much and you gotta get flying and out. So you it's a hell of a lot of money for a freelance to do to cover something on in that way effectively. And you can cut a lot of corners, and I'm sure there are a lot of people doing that, trying to make their name, but mostly people are on assignment, the people I came across for on assignment.
Guy Bloom 39:30
Do you decode? How do you decompress, Simon? Or is that you know your particular makeup doesn't need it? Or do you have a when you come back from somewhere like that and you've seen and experienced certain things? Yeah what what's your process to suddenly be walking down the Main Street with McDonald's on your left and, you know, people on your right and, you know, I imagine it's it's quite a shift.
Simon Townsley 39:59
I tend to do that quite quickly. You know, I do leave stuff behind. I'm a very disappointing photojournalists. I don't have PTSD, I don't have flashbacks, I don't wake up in the night in the cold sweat. I just don't. So whatever my processes are, when I'm in the field, they tend to protect me quite well. When I come back, I spend time with my kids and I'm very focused on them and I'm planning the next trip. The only time it's very difficult is when I have to talk in depth about what I've experienced or write about it. Then I find it hard. Then it's all coming back in a different way. That's hard, but otherwise, you know, it's OK. I hang around with other photographers and journalists that I work with out, and when we get back together we might catch up and talk about a few things, but mostly you been leaving it behind.
Guy Bloom 40:54
Quite well, so there is a cult compartmentalism of I'm going to work yeah.
Guy Bloom 41:04
Different literally putting it into that box. And so when you write it, when you have to write about it is that because it's you're having to go if you wrote about it when you were over there doing the photography?
Simon Townsley 41:18
Well, I did. I did, actually, a couple of times. And that was tough, yeah.
Guy Bloom 41:22
So why was that tough?
Simon Townsley 41:25
I haven't. I can. I can only imagine it's because you have to use a different part of your brain when you're describing it, and I don't have any mechanisms to keep those things apart. You know, when I'm in the field and working, I'm thinking about all of the technical aspects of the work in association with understanding and feeling, albeit slightly separated feeling the things that I have to feel in order to take the. To make the images. So when I'm not doing that, when I don't have the camera, when I'm just thinking about it and telling you how it felt, then I'm really just digging straight into the vein of how it felt. That's all. And then it's really hard.
Guy Bloom 42:12
Yeah, because very often when you working with people encouraging them part of people accessing their emotions is to say right things down. You know, when you physically write it down, I think you're right, there's a connection. There and so for some it can be very cathartic if they've if they've held it, it's causing them some issues to say well actually by writing it down and literally closing the book on it. So you can bring it out of yourself but then the but the chances are you will have to relive the experience to get it out. Ohh yeah so i guess there is something there about well if it's not causing many harm why do I need to do that you know versus you know that methodology so it's just interesting that you you have that experience so just being alert to time. You know how one of the big questions for me is, you know, is this something that a lot of people like the idea of potentially being, you know, I'd love to be a photographer, you know, that sounds, you know, i'm into photography, you know, so is it, is it a glamorous? Kind of, because I always find that most roles look absolutely awesome until you start doing them.
Simon Townsley 43:26
It can be glamorous until you spend 8 hours on the floor in Addis airport waiting for the next connecting flight. You know, I mean. Yeah, I mean, in fact i'm going to Zambia in about four hours time and I'll be back for four days and then I'm going to Afghanistan for two weeks, so. Is that glamorous mate yeah, kind of. But it's also very disruptive, makes it difficult to live a kind of, you know, regularised life where you can arrange to play sport with people or go. Even joining a gym seems pointless because I'm never around, but the lifestyles pretty it can be extremely lonely. Extremely lonely if you're on your own. And a Sudan hotel room for five days watching the proverbial slow turning fan and just thinking, Get Me Out of here. Then that's a hard place to be. But then other times you just feel like you're the most fortunate person in the world and I wouldn't be doing anything else, wouldn't be doing anything else.
Guy Bloom 44:33
So listen, on that note, Simon, I'm just aware that we've been sort of chatting for 45 minutes now. So it's time goes very quickly when we do this stuff. So, you know, I was just fascinated to reach out and I think one of the things I'm picking up on with you is I. And I and I say this as a point of praise. Not the judgment which is. And of course I don't know you, so this may be, or anybody that knows you may be going. You're clueless. You've gotta, if you only have to be around him for a day to realise how ridiculous what you're about to say is. But there's an element of normality to you, and that doesn't probably mean that you're normal. It's there's an element to doing something which isn't you know per se in the normal spectrum of what somebody might doing be doing. But it feels as if having spoken to you and searching potentially for things that don't exist with you that is actually no. The professionalism, the craft, the ability to be relatively surgical in terms of what I'm doing. Is to look at it through a lens of normality to a let me to let me do something that you know I'm not in a SWAT team I'm not in a special forces unit you know but you know it. It's definitely i'm definitely not stacking the shelves at Tesco's so there's something there that is for some people will be considered on being on the edge a little bit but you bring a kind of dare I say a mundaneness. Do it. And I mean that very carefully as in because no, I packed my bags, I get on the plane, I go there. I mean, I know my craft, I take some bloody good photos and then I come back, which is quite, which I know is a lot more. There's a lot more going on. But there is A and I've noticed that with certain military types where they say, well, we just do the basics very well yeah and I kind of pick up on that with you, I think.
Simon Townsley 46:41
There's a great, you know, there's a huge, I get a huge amount of satisfaction in being able to do something that I know other people can't do. And you might, you know, I remember talking to a guy who was a tremendous mentor of mine, guy called Tom Stoddart, and he, he died just a few months ago. He said to me, listen, you know, don't ever imagine for a moment that anybody can do what we can do. And I thought, well, maybe you, buddy. But, but I've come to realise that, you know, people can't do. What we do and you know, it takes a great deal of time to get to the point where not only can you be a good photographer, but you can function as a good photographer. And you know, I've discovered over the years that the more professional you are, the more you really care. So you know the idea of that appearing mundane. I'm OK with that.
Guy Bloom 47:42
Yeah, and I said that very carefully.
Simon Townsley 47:46
Well, you can just look at the pictures. They're not mundane, they speak for themselves.
Guy Bloom 47:50
And that's what I mean. It's like when I speak to people again in the military, they're doing, you know, the taking over small countries with the spoon. That's not what they're doing is extreme, but they're very level. They're relatively mundane. They don't, you know, they're not fulfilling the caricature of what you see in a Hollywood movie. And you go, I know what you do for a living, but it's only because I know what you do for a living that I can. That I, because it's not fulfilling any of my stereotypes, you know, fulfill a stereotype for God's sake, you.
Simon Townsley 48:23
Know it's disappointing.
Guy Bloom 48:26
But that's maybe that's what you're thinking. I'm professionalism, you know? The more you care, the more professional you are and the more professional you are, then the more everyday it is. Because that's just what I do. And if I was an aspiring photographer looking at you, what would I be picking up on? I go. Focus on the craft, and the craft will take care of you. I think that's what I'm. I think that's what I'm getting from this. Yeah okay.
Simon Townsley 48:53
You're right to get that.
Guy Bloom 48:55
Well, that's a beautiful thing. So on that note, Symon, I'm gonna put what if somebody wanted to kind of look you up? I'll put it in the description for the podcast, but for the episode. But if somebody wanted to sort of check you out yeah well, the Simon townsley.com I got a website, andsimontownsley.com and then Simon Townsley on Instagram. There's regular material going up on there, so you can find it all perfect so what we'll do is I'll bring this to a close if you just stay with me just to make sure everything's uploaded and we'll chat afterwards. But Simon from me and those that are listening, thank you so much.
Simon Townsley 49:36
Thank you.
Guy Bloom 49:36
That's it. So I hope you enjoyed the episode. Please share so others get to hear about us and subscribe so you keep up to date on new episodes. Also visit livingbridge becom if you want to connect with me and find out more about executive coaching, team effectiveness and changing culture ohh and of course you can buy my book living Brave leadership on Amazon O on that note, see you soon.