[MUSIC- Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studios in Soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on-demand, I'm really grateful you're here. On today's show, jazz performer and composer, Henry Threadgill will be in studio to talk about his new memoir, and photographer Ming Smith will talk about her exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. While we're on the topic of photography, let's get this started with Oscar-winning cinematographer, Roger Deakins.

[music]

Alison Stewart: Cinematographer. Roger Deakins has shaped film for decades. He's been the go-to collaborator for filmmakers like the Coen Brothers and Denis Villeneuve. He's worked with many of the modern greats, including Scorsese, Ron Howard, and Sam Mendes. Deakins has been recognized for his work with two Oscars, 16 total nominations, plus five cinematography BAFTA wins. Deakins's ability to create arresting visuals for movies is well known, but he also takes photos. His book, Byways, in it his cinematographer displays his work as a still photographer.

Byways features photos going back to his first photograph ever from 1969, which shows a man and a woman having lunch on a bench against a backdrop of brick and concrete. Roger Deakins will be at the 92nd Street Y on Wednesday in conversation with film historian, Annette Insdorf. He joins me now in studio. It's a pleasure to have you.

Roger Deakins: Pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: There are no captions. Actually, I want to start with this, the acknowledgments actually in the back of the book. It says, "Thanks, the Beaford Center Four gave me my first photographic job that sent me down my path of visual exploration." What is the Beaford Center? Am I saying that correctly?

Roger Deakins: Yes. Beaford Center. It was a small art center in North Devon in rural North Devon. I was very lucky. When I left art college, I intended to try and get into film and I applied to the National Film School, which had just opened that year in England, but I got rejected. I was very lucky for a year, I got this job at the Beaford Arts Center with a brief to photograph rural life. I found that was a really important year for me. At the end of that year, I reapplied to the National Film School and got in as I said I probably would the year I got rejected, but the one year I spent exploring the countryside of North Devon really and just photographing rural life.

Alison Stewart: When did you know? When did you get that sense of, "Oh, this is something that not only am I good at, but that it brings me some joy or artistic"?

Roger Deakins: I'm laughing because not for a very long time.

Alison Stewart: Really?

Roger Deakins: I got the bug of photography when I was at art college. I wanted to be a painter, but when I got to art college, I found I was put in a graphic design course. I had no intention of being a graphic designer, but in graphic design in the whole process, you tend to take photographs of objects. We got started being taught to photograph still life really for adverts and stuff. That wasn't that interesting to me, but then a photographer, Roger Mayne, I'm sure you probably know who he is, but he was one of the first photographers that just photographed on the street in Nottinghill area of London to start with. He worked totally as an independent.

Anyway, he came to teach at the art college for the odd weekend a couple of days every now and again, and he inspired me with the photography he was doing. That's what drew me into photography, really. I laugh when you say, when did I realize. It wasn't till very much later when I was working in film that I realized I'd found something that actually was me that really fit who I was.

Alison Stewart: Do you have a sense of why, now that you have perspective, your instructors eased you towards design rather than painting?

Roger Deakins: No, not at all. When I left school, actually, when I left secondary school, you go and talk to the headmaster, the career advisor's office, and they suggested I get a job in a bank. Then I applied to art college in Devon where I grew up. There was a local art college, Dartington Hall, which is really, really great art college, but I got rejected because they said I had too many qualifications. I got nine O levels and three A levels, which was then the end of secondary school curriculum. They said I was overqualified to be in an art college, which I thought was strange.

Alison Stewart: That is odd.

Roger Deakins: Yes. I guess I've always been reacting against what people say more than anything else.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: That's the creative spirit in you. You wanted to go your own way. It's interesting in the book because as you look through- the book's beautiful- the captions are at the end. What went into that decision?

Roger Deakins: Well, I think photographs have just got to stand by themselves. I think if the captions had been on the page with the photographs, it would've got a bit messy really. I like the clear-

Alison Stewart: It's clean.

Roger Deakins: Yes. The clear image and that's it.

Alison Stewart: This is described as your first photograph ever. Is that truly the case, the one on Page 59?

Roger Deakins: Pretty well. I was at art college then, and I had taken photographs of objects for graphic design work and maybe some architecture, but it was pretty well the first photograph that meant something to me other than just recording.

Alison Stewart: What do you remember about that day before you took this photograph? What's going on in your life that day?

Roger Deakins: I'd hitchhiked from a near Bath where the art college was to Bournemouth. I believe I slept on the beach and this would've been a weekend, spent the next day just wandering up and down the promenade with my camera. That's what I used to do. I used to hitchhike to places and sometimes sleep rough and take photographs in the early light.

Alison Stewart: Was that experience, the hitchhiking, the sleeping out, was that important to your image-making or was that just the reality of your life at the moment that that's what you could afford to do?

Roger Deakins: Oh, no, that's all I could afford to do. The camera I used was I think probably a secondhand camera with a plastic lens and the quality of the images is pretty poor.

Alison Stewart: How did you get that camera? Do you remember?

Roger Deakins: Secondhand sho in Bath I think. Pretty rudimentary, really.

Alison Stewart: You did what you had to do at the time.

Roger Deakins: Yes. Then at the art college, we had a dark room. We did our own processing. I took a key down to the hardware store one day and got a copy made. I used to go in the darkroom at night. I hope I won't get in trouble for this, a long time ago. I used to go in a dark room at night when there was no other students around and doing my own processing. It was wonderful. That was the best time, really.

Alison Stewart: Oh, wow. You're on the down low developing?

Roger Deakins: Yes. I'd develop and do the prints myself, spend all night in there and then had to go do my usual college work during the day, which not too clever.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: In the developing and printing process, that's really part of the artistry as well in knowing where to burn and where to dodge, and that's the place where you can also get really creative. What part of the developing process did you like or do you like?

Roger Deakins: Well, it's just great when you see the image come up in the developer. I just love that. Yes, I used to dodge and burn. I suppose everybody does it, but no, I like the mechanics. I suppose that's why I like cinematography, really. It's such a combination of some creative side of you, but also very technical side of you. I think that's what I'm drawn to.

Alison Stewart: My guess is Roger Deakins. The name of the book is Byways. Roger will be speaking at the 92nd Street Y with Annette Insdorf on Wednesday, May 17th at 7:30 PM. The first 22 pages focus on the life of a farmer. Will you tell us who he is and a little bit about him?

Roger Deakins: Yes. Well, that was a farm just close to the Beaford Art Center where I was living. His name was Iva Born. He had been a coal miner up in the Midlands and had given up coal mining and bought this small farm in North Devon. The young guy who's his laborer, a young guy, looks like an American Indian with long black hair, Derek. After I left, he ended up working on the roads. It's part of the whole thing about the people leaving rural life. He ended up working on the roads and then just a couple of years ago, I heard from him. He was running a transport company in a nearby town. I say it's very part of the disappearing of rural life in small farms, really. I got to know those people and I'd say it was the farm that was quite local to where I was staying. I would go down there once or twice a week and just see what they were doing.

I also just traveled around North Devon just wondering about really just following the local hunts. There used to be a stag hunt then and a fox hunt and an otter hunt and a hare hunt. I just photographed different aspects of rural life.

Alison Stewart: What did Mr. Born make of you and your camera taking all of those pictures?

Roger Deakins: I think he understood because I think the art center was part of the community. It took a while. North Devon people, it takes a while. I was only there for about nine months, less than a year. It's a shame, really, because it does take a long time to gain people's trust and confidence. The more time you spend with people, and the more they see the work you're doing, then they understand what you're doing.

I put a little exhibition on in the local post office window so that people in the village could see what I was doing. They could see themselves or see their friends in the pictures that I put in the window. Those little things really helped.

Alison Stewart: I love looking at people's faces because there's a couple of things. One is the only way you can tell that some of them are dated are maybe the eyeglasses. Otherwise, they're these great faces. I can imagine them today or I can imagine them 20 years ago. As someone who looks at faces, what makes a face a good face to photograph?

Roger Deakins: I think any face, really. It's just interesting to try and photograph something. That's what I always think about the films. I love movies, and the most important thing is photographing the actor's face. You can forget all the big landscapes and flashy action scenes. I like looking at people's faces, really. What was that line from Moby Dick? There's nothing so interesting than looking into a human eye.

Alison Stewart: I remember hearing in an interview that you really like to just work with the first unit. You really like to work with one camera as much as possible.

Roger Deakins: On films?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Roger Deakins: Yes, I do, and I always operate, and that maybe comes from my past with a stills camera. Then I worked in documentaries for quite a few years. It's very important to me looking through the camera and feeling connected to the subject like that.

Alison Stewart: There is a documentary feel about your photographs as well. They're beautiful as art pieces, but you are telling stories in this book.

Roger Deakins: Telling stories is it, really. I don't like the word art, certainly, when it comes to anything I do. I like to tell stories. I think photographs, you're trying to show a moment that demands the viewer thinks about what happened before and what's about to happen afterwards. That's what you try to do with a photograph. It's a story there, but you're not telling the whole story. That's what's interesting about it, but I think I've taken very few good photographs. I have taken a few good ones, but not very many.

Alison Stewart: What don't you like about the word art?

Roger Deakins: I think art can embrace all sorts of endeavors. I used to work on the building site, and there was a bricklayer,

who was an artist. There was a roofer who was an artist. They, just so much pride in their work and you could see the result of their work. It was art. What is art? Art's something that somebody cares about and it fulfills them and it expresses something of them in what they leave.

Alison Stewart: What is art is one of the great questions.

Roger Deakins: That's why I think the word is misused. From my point of view, I think it's misused.

Alison Stewart: That it's misused too broadly or too narrowly?

Roger Deakins: Too narrowly.

Alison Stewart: Interesting. My guess is Roger Deakins. The name of the book is Byways. Roger will be at the 92nd Street Y with Annette Insdorf on Wednesday, May 17th at 7:30 PM. I understand, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that you don't take a lot of photos.

Roger Deakins: No, I don't. I take very few really. I think it's an excuse, really. Having a camera is my excuse to just explore places. I love wandering around. We got into New York yesterday afternoon, and in the evening I went just walking across the city. I took one photograph, but don't think it was very good, but I just love looking and exploring, experiencing a place.

Alison Stewart: How do you know it's time to take that picture? Is it just instinct?

Roger Deakins: I don't know. It's something you connect with. Who can say? It's not like working on a movie, I know that. I don't have the same stress level and I don't have to take a photograph. I don't have to press the shutter on a movie. You have to shoot a day's work. Photography, for me, is much more of a relaxation and a sketchbook, if you like.

Alison Stewart: Is there any crossover between your photography and your cinematography for you?

Roger Deakins: I think there must be. You're still composing and putting yourself in a place to reflect what you see in front of you in a way that you feel best expresses what is in front of you, but I don't really relate the two, no. A different way of telling a story. Like I said, in a still photograph, you're trying to imply a story, whereas in a movie you're not trying to tell too much in one frame because that would be overpowering. You're trying to tell a story through a movement in frames.

Alison Stewart: What are your first conversations like with any film director when you come aboard a project?

Roger Deakins: I always have a conversation about the script to get a sense of where you both stand vis-a-vis the script, an interpretation of the script. I think the hardest thing is when you're put in a position where you have a different point of view on a script to the director.

Alison Stewart: What happens next?

Roger Deakins: It's best you don't work together, really, because if you can't put yourself into the film and work in unison with the director, then I think that the film will suffer, so you're best not being there, really.

Alison Stewart: Once you established this is going to be a good working relationship and a good collaboration, what's important for you to understand from the director?

Roger Deakins: I think it's important the passion. I think the most important thing on a film that I want from a director is passion. Not all directors are experienced. I work with some that's been like their first movie, but if they've had a passion for it, then that's what really matters.

Alison Stewart: What is it like to work with someone on their first movie given how much experience you have?

Roger Deakins: Well, then, I wasn't always that experienced.

Alison Stewart: You remember that.

Roger Deakins: I was starting off working on the first film with people that was also their first film. I worked with a gaffer for many years in the UK, John Higgins. He gaffed my first large film and it was his first experience as a gaffer, the head electrician. You've all got to start somewhere, but it's because of his passion that it worked.

Alison Stewart: When you think about how much technology has changed the way we capture images, what is something in photography that you embrace in terms of technology and what's something maybe doesn't sit right with you or you could do without?

Roger Deakins: If you talk about still photography, I use a very simple camera, a Leica camera, which has not changed other than it's become digital and not film, but it hasn't changed in essence for I don't know how many years.

In terms of film cinematography, technology has changed no end. What you can accomplish with a camera is amazing as we attempted in 1917, the film 1917 with Sam Mendes. Just because you can do things with a camera doesn't mean you should do things with a camera. I think there's places where it's better to stay still on a lens, then hold the shot and let everything happen within the frame, and there's places where you get involved with it.

I think those two things apply to still photography as well as cinematography actually, when I think about it.

Alison Stewart: There are these photos I'm showing, which must be participatory because they're aboard-- Is it a sketch? Is it aboard--?

Roger Deakins: It's a catch. It was a yacht that sailed in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race in 1977-'78 to nine months.

Alison Stewart: There are these enormous waves. I'll just grab them a little bit. There's enormous waves. You can see the spray.

Roger Deakins: I've got to say, the photographs don't do justice to the size of the waves. I can tell you that.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] Tell me about this trip and the making of, I think it's just these four, right?

Roger Deakins: There's a couple of shots in Rio, but that's at the carnival. There's just four. I was actually commissioned to shoot a documentary on the yacht, and I had to learn to sail. When I went for an interview for the job, I pretended, as I was from Devon, I was like Walter Raleigh or Francis Drake, and I was very good on the ocean, but I hadn't really spent much time on the sea at all, certainly not on a yacht. I suppose I fibbed my way into the job.

It was one of those opportunities you get early in your career that you can't turn down. For me, it was a life experience, but also at the end of nine months or a year, I came back having shot a documentary that was shown on a major television network, and it established me as somebody working in the industry. I think that's what it is, really. Film and still is its life experience, but it's also the creative work that you do.

Alison Stewart: What was one photo you knew had to be in this book?

Roger Deakins: Oh, I don't think any of them have to be. There's one photograph, I suppose, of a lady standing in a bus shelter in Western Supermare, and she's--

Alison Stewart: This one?

Roger Deakins: No.

Alison Stewart: No, okay.

Roger Deakins: She's standing in a bus shelter in Western Supermare, and she's under an umbrella, and it's really pouring with rain. She's looking across the frame at an advert of a young lady lying in the sun, in some sunny place, and the lady's naked apart from a pair of Wellington boots, I believe. There's something about that photograph I love because it makes you wonder what the lady's thinking.

Alison Stewart: I love this one, page 146.

Roger Deakins: All right.

Alison Stewart: That's a great photo. You'll have to get the book to see what photo I'm talking about. Roger Deakins's book is called Byways. Roger will be at the 92nd Street Y speaking with Annette Insdorf, Wednesday, May 17th at 7.30 PM. Thank you for making time to come by.

Roger Deakins: Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

 

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