Andy Adams lives for promoting photography and visual culture. Learn how the art of curating images and ideas is also an exercise in mindfulness.
“In the history of human culture, we've never had a time that’s been better for learning about photography. There are images everywhere, and hopefully somebody like me can help you see some of the good stuff.” — Andy Adams, FlakPhoto Projects
In an era flooded with so much photography, usually without context, it’s a relief to have Andy Adams as a guide. Based in Madison, WI, Andy is the founder, curator and director of FlakPhoto Projects, a hub focused on conversations about photography and visual culture. Andy’s built a formidable community of people who revel in his curation of images and ideas.
In this episode, you’ll learn about the art of curating imagery in 2023 and how the art of seeing can be a form of meditation.
Other highlights, inspiration and key learnings:
👋 Say "hi" to Andy.
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Andy's own favorite newsletters and his curated picks.
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This transcript was generated by AI, which may affect its accuracy. As such, we apologize for any errors in the transcript or confusion in the dialogue.
Mia Quagliarello:
Dorothea Lange once said, The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. You could say the same thing about being a photography curator. It teaches you how to see without being a photographer. My guest today has an amazing eye for interesting and aesthetic photos and writes about them so eloquently. He knows the difference between just looking and really seeing. In fact, for him, the practice of seeing is a kind of mindfulness meditation. How has he built a thriving community around this passion? What is he looking for when he's looking at photographs to share with his sizable following? How can any of us train ourselves to be more observant, and to adopt a photography curators mindset? That's today's episode. Welcome to the Art of curation, the show from Flipboard that explores the role of human tastes in a tech driven world. Each episode we talk to someone who's an expert at finding Signal and the Noise. People who do this for a living in Media Tech, fashion, music, photography, and more. I'm your host Mia Quagliarello. Like You I get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content out there. I crave authentic people to guide me in making smart choices that make my life better people with taste the real kind. My guest today is Andy Adams, the founder, curator and director of FlakPhoto projects. Flak is an online digital arts lab promoting photography and visual culture. It exists in the form of a substantive newsletter, a vibrant Instagram account to Facebook groups, and a network of over 20,000 members. Andy is also supports photography curator in residence this summer, the summer of 2023. In this interview, we not only get to dig into his curatorial process, and curatorial techstack. We also get to learn how he's thinking about AI's impact on photography, and curation. His philosophy on photography is positively inspirational. So Andy, you're the first photography curator that I've spoken to for this show. And you're a fantastic one at that. So what is unique in your mind about photography, curation?
Andy Adams:
This is my opinion, I don't know that it's, it's wildly different at all, really, I mean, I tend to think of photography as pictures, which is to say not always significantly different than other kinds of pictures that exists in the world. So in terms of, you know, selecting them and presenting them and contextualizing them, I think that, that photographs, a lot of the time, we're not unlike the way that you might talk about a song or the way that you might talk about a painting or really any other cultural objects. So maybe I don't know if that's a popular opinion. But I I I'm a generalist. I like to try to think about all cultures being kind of cut from the same cloth and drawing connections between those things is sort of how I operate.
Mia Quagliarello:
Well, how did you get into this in the first place?
Andy Adams:
I suppose, you know, my interest in photo goes back to my childhood. My mother was an avid amateur photographer, she made photo albums of our family. And so we were always around the camera growing up. So I suppose truly from the moment I was a kid, I was fascinated with pictures. But I didn't always think about pictures as art. And I didn't really understand or know about the history of photography is a word that came much later after I graduated from college, I went on a backpacking trip over in Europe, and every city that we went to, we went into the art museums, and I found myself consistently gravitate gravitating toward the photography exhibitions. And that was really the start that was probably 2000 to 20 years ago, that was that was really the start of me starting to learn and see and understand how photography fit into the history of art and art making, and image making and sort of also thinking about the ways that pictures could be presented for audiences, and contextualized and surrounded with additional content to, you know, to bring a spectator through an experience that would give you the ability to do more than simply look at a picture but really to see a picture and really to understand the picture. And the work that I'm currently doing with like photo projects, starts a few years after that, when I discovered the internet, and realize that the web was a publishing platform and a social place in a community connector and you know, probably let's see 2003 For not long after I came back from that trip, I stumbled into an online photography community called Photo blogs.org. And that was when I started to really participate for the first time in the online photography, conversation. And that was like catnip to me, I just couldn't get enough of looking at pictures but more importantly Talking about pictures and thinking about pictures online with other people. And you know, not long after that I launched my photography blog flat photo.com. And the rest is history. I've done a lot of things since then. But yeah, I suppose that's, that's a succinct through line.
Mia Quagliarello:
I want to pick up on something that you you mentioned earlier, which is the difference between looking and seeing? Can you explain what that difference is? Because I think it'll really eliminate part of how you think about curation?
Andy Adams:
Yeah, I mean, it's probably a subtle distinction. It's certainly one I just made for myself. But right, we can look at things all day long, but not really see what they might mean, I think that there are probably various ways to slice that up. But you know, you might look at a picture of a landscape and it will mean something to but when you're provided context for, you know, the place, in particular that's being depicted the photographer who brings his or her their perspective to the situation that is in front of the camera, when a curator or writer contextualize the picture, you know, within the context of their understanding of the way that the picture lives within the historical context of photography's history, or the way that the picture might represent something that's happening in the real world, either socially, or culturally, or politically, these kinds of things, I guess it's really context, these kinds of things really give you an ability to see deeper and to see more coherently what you're looking at, and a picture really starts to mean something. It means more, I think, when it's contextualized. And when it's, and when it's surrounded by various levels of meaning. And I suppose I've never really described these things before. But I suppose that that really is why I find the curatorial practice, fascinating and important, and probably even kind of critical. In this day and age, it's with so many images circulating in the world without context.
Mia Quagliarello:
Do you think it helps to be a photographer in order to be a good photography curator?
Andy Adams:
Yeah, probably, you know, it's funny, people always say that I'm a photographer, and or assume that I'm a photographer, and I am in insofar as I think we're all photographers, but it's not really at this point. It's not, that's not really my primary practice, though I do really I make pictures every day. For pleasure, I guess it's sort of, I think, trying to think was, I think it was Dorothea Lange that said, a camera is a tool that helps you to see without a camera, I'm paraphrasing something along those lines. But that's been really true for me, you know, practicing photography a little bit every day, getting out in the world, walking around looking, seeing things, making pictures of them, not only has it strengthened my ability to, I think, see and understand a good picture, formally, harmonious picture, which I think is probably critical, as far as the curators role goes, is to be able to identify something, you know, some kind of a quality in the picture that sets it apart from something that might not be so much. But yeah, I don't know that it's a requirement, I suppose it probably helps. But I know there are, I know plenty of professional curators, museum curators that are not, but are not photographers, officially. And I think that, you know, studying visual culture, independent of practicing image making, I think also is a real, real essential qualifier.
Mia Quagliarello:
I think it's also really interesting that you're saying make a picture instead of take a picture.
Andy Adams:
That's my thing. I think that I actually wrote a substack post about this a couple of months ago. Personally, I think that you make a picture there as opposed to take a picture though. The spell check on my on my phone is constantly correcting me when I when I try to write that I think you make a picture because I think that as with all media, photography is a cultural construction, right? Photography is what exists within the confines of the frame that you put onto the world. And so, you know, pictures are made in various ways, right? I mean, I'm making a picture merely by choosing to slice a particular part of the world out and and to select it with the camera to show it to you. But these days, essentially, especially these days, with so much digital technology involved in literally shaping and creating the final outcome. I mean, these are these are layered constructions, right? These are these are not just Documentary objects sliced from the real world without a human hand touching them. And I've always believed that and I believe that, you know, these days, especially with AI, and all of this other stuff that's kind of coming to the scene, I believe even more.
Mia Quagliarello:
Now, for people who haven't seen FlakPhoto or know much about it, what is your mission there? And what kinds of photos are you curating?
Andy Adams:
Well, good question. My mission, I suppose is twofold. First and foremost, it's to have fun, and it's, it's to learn about photography and to, and to practice, it's a creative practice for me, it's a way to it's a way to have fun, and it's a way to learn and to feed the curiosity that I have. But sort of more formally, as far as the audience goes, because I, I don't do these things in a vacuum, I do these things, keenly aware of the, of the spectators and the readers and the photography community that's out there, engaging with the stuff that I'm putting out into the world. You know, largely, it's, it's a community conversation project, photo has evolved a lot over the years, I've been doing the frog photo project now since about 2004. Five. And it started as a blog that was very community driven, you know, pre Instagram I, I would show a photo a day on this photography blog. And, you know, the start of that was, was inviting photographers from around the world on the internet to submit their work, and then selecting pictures and showing them and promoting the people that that made that work. And as the project has evolved, and the project really has evolved as, as the, as the internet has evolved, and as the as the web became web 2.0, and a social place increasingly, I I was intrigued with the conversational qualities of the internet and the ways that I was seeing photography people coming together online to discuss and debate their mutual their passions, you know, in this in this mutually shared interest, which is photography, in particular, and visual culture at large. And so, yeah, that's the target the flag clutter project, for the most part, I guess I'd call it a, a community hub. But I do lots of different things I write about photo and I, I encourage conversation within various social spaces online, and I promote people from within the community, and I promote projects within the community. So it's kind of this multi headed photography machine. It's, you know, it's really, it's not a, it's not inaccurate to say that it has changed my life, it has introduced me to many creative people around the world that I would otherwise never have known and that I'm forever grateful for that. It's, it's been pretty amazing.
Mia Quagliarello:
I love that, what makes it picture worth sharing on FlakPhoto?
Andy Adams:
I suppose what makes it worth showing on flag photo is does it moved me and the atoms in some way? Like, am I into it? I mean, these things are completely subjective, right? What I think is good or cool or hip or interesting is going to be different from from you. I think that you know, this is funny. My friends have a joke, even, you know, they'll point something out. And they'll say that's a fact photo. So I think what's true is that I do have a, probably the kind of a an aesthetic and a style that I'm attracted to and in photography, and that shifts and changes, I think is my interests shift. But yeah, I mean, what is it that makes a picture stand apart for me? You know, there's a couple of different formal qualities that make a picture. Good in my mind, the thing that is is strongest for me, or the signal that kind of like I pick up on first is composition. And, you know, is it just a well constructed image? And then I have topical hobbyhorses, you know, things that I'm into, I'm really into landscape photography, for example, and I love portraiture. And so within the confines of those two genres, you can really play and, and riff a lot and so, yeah, it's hard to describe exactly why. There's not one singular look for me, there's not one singular style for me. But generally speaking, I think that I favor representational imagery, that is images that look like the real world. What Walker Evans would have called documentary style imagery, not necessarily documents per se, but images that reflect the way that the world is to us and you know, increasingly I as I age, I sometimes wonder if I'm, if I'm a little too traditional and some of my tastes but I guess you like what you like, and you should just go deep on the stuff that that moves you, you know.
Mia Quagliarello:
Yeah. Well, what do you want people to feel when they think of flak photo as a whole
Andy Adams:
Oh, wow. I guess I wanted to, I want people to feel good when they engage with black photo eye, it's really important to me, because it is a community space that it'd be very inclusive and welcoming of all perspectives. And I don't mean just like, you know, diverse perspectives, but I mean, within the hierarchy or experience level of the photography community, you know, people that are just amateurs or early students, people that are just purely folks, it's just that just love looking at pictures all the way up to practicing artists and, you know, really famous name, it seems as though people from all across that spectrum from all corners of the photography community, check in on what I'm doing with my photo. And so yeah, that it sort of feels that it's a place for everyone that's generally interested in photo culture. That's and that it's not too exclusive or, you know, that you don't belong. That's, that's really important to me that everyone's welcome. And every project I've ever done, and the way that I, and really, the style that I write and talk to the readers is one of really welcoming everybody. And because that's a value that's really important to me.
Mia Quagliarello:
I can tell that you're a phenomenal community builder. And what are some of your like, first principles when it comes to community building, you seem like a very genuine person, you're taking calls from people like, how do you think about your community management and building of it?
Andy Adams:
Yeah, um, well, I appreciate that. Thank you for the compliment. That's nice to hear. You know, my whole community building experiences one of learning by doing, you know, I didn't study anything formally, I didn't even intentionally set out to create a community, I just, I started just as a person that wanted to be part of the community. I live in Madison, Wisconsin, here in the US. And when I first got started on this 20 years ago, I didn't really know anybody in my town that was doing photo. And quickly, when I realized that it was happening on the internet, I ate it up, and I couldn't get enough of it. And I think a lot, you know, that really, my mom taught us when we were kids. Basically don't do unto someone what you wouldn't have them do to you, right. And the golden rule, I guess, just be kind, be empathetic, be nice, be polite, be courteous, be helpful, be useful, these are all values that I think about every day. And that's the way that's where it kind of where I started. And, and I do my best to do that every single day. I mean, it has been challenging over the years, you know, in addition to writing about photo in my newsletter, and, and showing artists on my Instagram, for over a decade now I have hosted two photography discussion groups on Facebook, one's called the Black photo network, which is general visual culture conversation group. And the other is black photo books focused on photography, book culture. And, you know, those groups aren't, aren't huge, but they are, you know, the photo network is nearly 20,000 members in that group from around the world. And so that has, that really was a crash course in sort of learning about community management. And eventually, you know, you, you have to set guidelines, and you have to, you have to decide what the culture of your community is going to be. And, and my values are, as I already described, inclusivity, but also really emphasizing empathy and openness and kindness. And, you know, the internet's certainly not known for encouraging that that kind of a value system. Certainly social media generally, I think, is where a lot of people go to just not really think about how their words impact other people. And so, you know, it's been painful at times in the process of having to learn how that works, because I I kind of alone, the show have had to shoulder the, the psychic burden of those bad vibes, but it also has been a really, over the years very positive experience in teaching me how to communicate with people and I've learned a lot about I think just how people are which is, you know, we're all just difficult sometimes and we're all having a bad day sometimes. So you know, when I do my best when I go online to bring my best self and I always encourage my, my fellow community members do the same and for the most part, it works out.
Mia Quagliarello:
I love your latest newsletter, where you curated from Instagram, and you picked artists who didn't necessarily have large followings. So I could tell that you really did some digging, like how did you How do you think about curating images and artists from my huge universe like Instagram?
Andy Adams:
For as much as I gripe about Instagram. I truly love it and I'm probably kind of addict into it, to be honest, but I look at it every single day, I start my day with Instagram, because I love looking at pictures at this point, and a lot of photography folks know about black photos, so people are tagging me and stuff and, and sending me DMS. And so I'm constantly discovering things, which is wonderful. And I also, I also follow a ridiculous amount of photographers, I mean, Instagram cast me at 7500 accounts that I can follow. So I'm constantly having to, like prune back my accounts, and, you know, make sure that I'm not missing anything, because I do have an insatiable appetite for for imagery and for people and something I do all the time when I see. For starters, I mean, I'm constantly bookmarking and saving things that look interesting to me on Instagram, and I have a whole, you know, organizational system there for, for tracking the the artists that are interesting to me, because I, I do a lot of different stuff. I mean, I, I show photographers, in my stories, every day I write about and show photographers in my feed, I, I discover people on Instagram that I'll write about in my newsletter, or I'll host a conversation in the Facebook group about something that we were talking about on Instagram. You know, Instagram is, unfortunately, it's surrounded, there's so much noise out there, that's not really geared for the photographer, that it's increasingly getting in the way. But there, there is still an enormous amount of talent out there. And so, you know, to your, to your question about curating, I mean, I suppose a huge part of that work is all of the sort of behind the scenes admin that you do, right, just to try to, just to try to hold on to the imagery that you're seeing. And before you even get a sense of who that person is. And so something I do, I probably do this four or five times a day, when I see something new, either in the, you know, the Explorer part of Instagram, or someone who's just DM me, immediately, I will message that person and ask them to email me and tell me more about themselves. And so, you know, frequently I, I tried to get the conversation outside of Instagram into my email. And that's the case with all those photographers. So in that latest newsletter, but these are just people that I've gotten to know online, people who I think are really talented and interesting. And, and yes, for the most part, people that don't have a sizable following, because that's also been one of my goals always. From the start, you know, which is to get people's work seen. And at this point, you know, enough people in the photography community sort of are aware of what I'm doing that I can bring some attention to those people. And that feels great. I mean, that. That is totally what drives me. And yeah, I love it.
Mia Quagliarello:
Besides Instagram, and email, what other tools do you use to organize yourself as a curator?
Andy Adams:
Oh, let's see. My my curatorial tech stack. Yeah. I mean, I'm a Google man. So Gmail figures pretty heavily into it. I use Google Keep to collect notes here. And there. I am. On drive. It's, you know, really, what it is, is notes. I actually scribble lots and lots and lots of things on paper. So if you can believe it, in fact, on my desk here, right now, there's a big stack of paper clips, stuff that I have to type up and make some sense of and hold on to but, you know, essentially, it's, it's looking every day, it's like, keeping my eyes open. And then it's doing my best to try to, you know, bring it back. You know, we were just what comes to mind is I was just out hiking last weekend, on a trail in the woods, where I live in Wisconsin, and we, we stumbled on some wild ramps that were out there, and everyone was so excited to see this big cluster of ramps. And so we took a bunch of them up to bring back to cook. And it's it's not unlike that foraging, I suppose. Right? And you just go out into the wild, of the noisy cacophony of the, of the internet, and you try to come back with the gems that, you know, the tasty morsels that catch your eye. And I do that from week to week. And, yeah, I mean, it's, I guess I keep saying practice, because it really is. It's like, there was a period in my younger days, when it was discovery, I didn't really know what I was doing. And at this point, I know what I do, and I've got my systems and I know how I operate. And I have very efficient digital systems that work for me and, and as a result, I can be pretty productive. And I'm quite prolific, you know, I write something every day. And it feels good to do that. So yeah, I hope that answers your question.
Mia Quagliarello:
Totally. It reminds me I listened to a podcast with Rick Rubin. He was on Krista Tippett's on being talking about his Yeah, it was such a good episode. And he talks I think in that about, like, really working hard every day to notice something new. So I've been trying to do that myself.
Andy Adams:
I agree. You know, and I've written a little bit about this. This is like my, my new thing I'm on right now is sort of the parallels between, like mindfulness and attention and noticing, and photography and walking and seeing, and I think that there are all these connections between these various things, you know, largely, it's, it's not easy to pay attention, right. I mean, the culture is so noisy, and the media essentially is bombarding you with this firehose of inputs, and you do have to learn, I think, how to pay close attention, careful attention, and to really notice things and also to appreciate things, and I, too, am working on that. And I think in a way, in a way, what I'm doing with FlakPhoto is sort of strengthening that muscle. But I know that I'm so easily distracted that I have a lot of work to do still, but I have believed for a number of years now that photography is good for you. And I think that's part of how practicing photography looking at photography, thinking about photography, they're, they're good for your your mind, and your well being I really believe that.
Mia Quagliarello:
And what do you make of the AI revolution? And do you think a machine could do your job?
Andy Adams:
I mean, I mean, anything's possible. I, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, if you could feed all the data points about me into it, you could probably do a pretty compelling job of mimicking, mimicking my style. And the things that I see, I shudder to think that that's true, because I don't want to be put out to pasture. But maybe, at the same time, you know, I'm a humanist, I want to believe that there's something really pure and rich about human connection. And I'd like to think that, if that's possible, it's a ways out, hopefully, hopefully, it's longer. It's further out than that I'm around. But you know, it's hard to say it's really hard to say technology is changing very rapidly. And, and as you know, the AI topic is one of interest to me, so I'm watching it relatively closely. And yeah, you know, it'll be very curious. I hadn't even thought about that. Everyone's talking about how AI might replace photographers in the commercial realm, or how AI might replace reporters, but I haven't even considered how AI might replace curators. That's a big one. That's that's a good question.
Mia Quagliarello:
Or do you think you might curate AI pictures? Or is this like another criteria? You have to keep in the back of your head? Like, is this genuinely created? Or was this created by a machine?
Andy Adams:
Well, that's a good question. Okay. So I, I'm fascinated by what I see happening with AI imagery. I've written a couple of things about this recently. You know, for starters, these AI images, they are not photography, they're distinctly separate from photography, but they definitely resemble photography. And in the same way that I started this call by saying, I didn't know that curating photography was wildly different than curating other cultural forms. I don't personally see AI pictures as being significantly different than photographic images, in terms of their resemblance to each other can be quite similar. And similarly, then the meaning that they convey. You know, what they mean? How they look, the stories, they tell the things they make us feel, I think, can be similar. So personally, I'm quite, quite interested in what I see people dealing with AI imagery. I'm completely open to the idea of curating a show of images. I actually just recently put a call out on Twitter yesterday, asking for folks that are, that are making AI images that resemble photography to drop me a line, because I'm interested in doing I want to see who's doing stuff out there. I mean, I've seen a handful of these pictures that people are making, and they're interesting. Some of them are beautiful. Some of them are terrifying. Some of them are thrilling. I mean, there are there is a lot of really interesting work to be made out there. And there's much you can say about you know, why AI isn't art, but I'm more interested in finding how it might be art. And I'm more interested in just in as I've always been in finding the good stuff. I think it's out there a handful of people that I know who I would call photographers, are using these tools to make images and the thing I'm struggling with right now is what you call those images. At this point, I guess they're AI images. People have tried to give them new names, and it's not quite working for me. I mean, I've seen folks call these pictures Cyntha geography I've seen people call it prompt geography, that stuff doesn't really rhyme with my own sensibilities, but I'm completely open to what people are doing with it and I have already started to show some of these pictures. to the consternation of some of the photographers that follow my work, and so we'll be you know, we'll see how that shapes up. But yeah, I'm doing my best to keep my eyes and my mind open about these things.
Mia Quagliarello:
Yeah, upon pumped Agra fee was the term I had most recently heard, I thought that was a interesting way to frame it, that kind of takes all the soul out of it, and all the art out of it. And when you were talking, I hadn't really thought about the recipients, emotions, when looking at those images, they can be just as powerful. So
Andy Adams:
yeah, I mean, truly me, that's the way I tend to think about most of the photography that I work with is like how it makes me feel as a spectator. That is the starting point. For me almost every single time is, does it resonate with me in some way? And how does it make me feel? Or? Or do I like it? Or if I don't like it, why not? You know? Can I can I identify that? Can I? Like, we were saying, Can I notice these things? And, frankly, there are there are lots of bad pictures out there that perhaps one could say are soulless, I'm not quite sure that's the right way to frame it. But here's the way I see it, I've been working through these ideas that I bear with me, I don't totally have this together yet. But it's like this in the last 20 years photography, which used to be, I think, what we might call the plastic medium, like it was a purely analog thing became electric, right? Photography, with the digital revolution became an electric medium. There are still plenty of photographers out there practicing film photography, but lots of photographers don't do that anymore. For the most part, photography is a purely digital experience. So that means that the image is captured in a camera that is completely digital, it is exported, and into a software situation that is processed using digital technologies. And in many instances, it's displayed, you know, backlit on a screen in some sort of a digital environment now, sure, lots of folks print things out onto paper and make books and and exhibit, you know, in shows, and I'm all for that. But the idea that I've been kind of working through as well, it doesn't seem, you know, you have a whole generation of photographers that have essentially evolved into being these digital technicians, right, you know, as far as processing their images, or realizing their their images goes and it to me that skill set transfers over perfectly to what's happening in, you know, these AI prompt, software's. It's not, I don't think, too far off from thinking about the way that photographers have used have used Adobe Photoshop for the last 15 to 20 years. And so that's really, that's interesting. I mean, I don't think it's wildly different than the CGI that you see in movies, there's a skill set there, right, there's a vision, there, there is lots and lots of human creativity involved in that process. And so just because it's not what we've traditionally called photography doesn't mean that it's not exactly photographic, at least in terms of style. I think that this is something that's probably happened in the history of art and or the history of media, when we don't have words for things, it gets really confusing, right, and that liminal time between things when things are not yet defined, or they're sort of, you know, the edges are kind of blurry. That's a confusing time that is, you know, causes a lot of fear in some people. And I think it excites some people and I happen to be one of the people that it really excites.
Mia Quagliarello:
Well, how can any of us train our eyes to be more discerning, more observant? How can we train ourselves to be better photography curators?
Andy Adams:
I guess I would say, two things would be my recommendation. I would imagine everyone that listens to the podcast, has a camera phone and probably uses that phone uses that camera in some way. I would say one way to hone your vision would be to make pictures every day and start to see what looks good in a picture. I do it every day. And that includes photographing ordinary things like your house, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've photographed the way the light is falling in my own little house here, because it's just where I happen to be. I truly believe that every place is photographic, if you can see it that way. So one way to do it is to is to practice making your own pictures a little bit every day, using that camera that you have, the best one you have with you is the one that you have in your pocket. And then the other thing is to is to look at pictures every day and to really see a diversity of images. And, you know, really in the history of, of human culture we've never been we've never had a time that has been better for I think, learning about photography right there. There are images everywhere. Hopefully somebody like me can help you see some of the good stuff Some of the stuff that is, you know, compelling, but I'm not the only one, right? Yeah. So I guess I'd say make your own pictures and and look at other people's pictures and then see the connectivity between those two experiences. And the image that comes to mind, I guess as MC Escher was drawing hands where one hand is essentially trying the other, I have really started to see influences from the image makers I admire, turned up in my own images. And that in turn influences, I think, the kinds of work that I seek out and show and so yeah, you know, above all, you have to keep your mind open. And you have to be willing to see with fresh eyes every day.
Mia Quagliarello:
You've been so inspiring and helpful to me in recommending photography books that would help do that. So I'm really excited to move into the recommendations portion of this interview, like what photography books, in particular, would you recommend people check out if they're interested in what you're doing?
Andy Adams:
Yeah, good question. Well, a book that I haven't actually I was just thinking the other day, I need to pull this off the shelf, and I have to find where it is. But Stephen Shore, the great photographer, published a book a number of years ago called the nature of photographs that I'd recommend everyone look at it. I think the premise was that he essentially took he's also professor of photography at Bard, and has been teaching photography for many years, he essentially took his classroom lessons and turned them into a book with pictures to sort of talk about the formal qualities of, of pictures, and also how pictures work and operate within the world. I'd love to think about things on that level. So the nature of photographs is a great one. And then given some of the recent stuff that we were describing about mindfulness and attention. So the whole world published a book last year, called the mindful photographer, with Thames and Hudson, that I would recommend to everyone. This book is really it's, it's something I was what I was doing every day is I would wake up and I'd open the book and I'd read a chapter every morning. And it's a way to sort of what Sophie does is she pairs pictures with mindfulness lessons that I think, you know, they're not just hippie dippie mindfulness lessons, they're about awareness and about attention and about the way that we move through the world. And then she uses imagery to sort of illustrate these concepts. So the mindful photographer is another one that I would highly recommend.
Mia Quagliarello:
What other podcasts music, movies TV shows let you up?
Andy Adams:
Let's see, well, photo podcast wise, Sasha Wolf's photo work, podcast is great. I like to listen to grant Scott's un photography Podcast. I'm also just what am I watching? Gosh, I watch all kinds of things. But I, the stuff that's been really turning out lately from an art creative perspective is I mean, going in the archives and watching the art 21 videos on YouTube, the profile artists from all walks of life and across disciplines and they produce these short little video profiles. And that's really inspiring, great way to learn about people who make the art you know, so much of the time we're focused on the art itself, but I always love to learn about what inspires the people who make it and those videos are wonderful for that.
Mia Quagliarello:
You can see Andy's work by following FlakPhoto and all the places on substack, Instagram, Facebook and Flipboard. That's FL a K Photo. We've put the links to everything Andy has recommended in the Flipboard storyboard that you'll find in the shows notes. Big thank you to our audio editor and Les. If you want to find out more about Flipboard or enthusiast or curating stories, they recommend across 1000s of interests. Download the app or head over to our website@flipboard.com Anyone can be a curator on Flipboard. Simply create an account and start flipping to share your ideas with the world.