All right, let's do this. Peanut, if you're staying in the room, no talking. Hello and welcome to the Photo Work Podcast, the talking and touchy feely version of my book, 40 Photographers and Process and Practice. Hello, everyone. I'm Sascha Wolf, recording from Woodstock, New York, and joined as usual by my friend and producer, Mr. Michael Chovendalton. Hello, Michael.
Hey, how are you doing?
I'm doing all right. I just said to you before we started that I was a little sniffly because just from the cold because it's. Fall has arrived in upstate and it's incredibly beautiful, and I'm not complaining because I love the cooler weather, but I gotta get my hankies out. But yeah, no, absolutely spectacular. I think it was about 44 degrees this morning and wow. Went outside and I'll go out of leaves on the ground. So.
Are you getting color up there already?
We're starting to get color, yeah. I almost don't want to say that because we already.
You don't want people visiting, right?
Correct. That is correct. Actually had a fantastic visit yesterday with center for Photography, Woodstock and Kingston opened its fall shows. And we'll talk more about that probably next episode, but people can check it out on their website. Really fantastic opening evening. The place was packed. It was like the place to be in upstate. It felt like so super happy for CPW just to continue doing such incredible work and also to really have, you know, created such a sense of excitement that when they have an opening, I mean, just hundreds and hundreds of people. So it was really wonderful. Met a lot of wonderful people, saw a lot of old friends. Raheem Fortune and Randall Barnes were up because one of the shows is a show of Raheem's that we put together. So yesterday I had Raheem and Miranda over, and it was really wonderful. It was their first time here. Hanging out in Woodstock at the Cottage and.
How nice.
Yeah, it was super, super nice.
Yeah, I'm gonna get up there before things close, obviously, but I wanted to be there for all those great openings. I had to go to work Saturday, so. But we did have some nice events at the Galleria Run in Trenton, so that was nice.
Well, come on up. I'll give you a pass so you can. You may come to.
You mean an actual pass to enter?
I'm gonna give you a Sasha Wolf made up pass to enter Woodstock.
I thought you meant, like, I'm gonna.
Give you a pass on missing the big event.
No, no. You are allowed.
Yes.
And then. Yeah, you and I'll go over to CPW and have a good hangout.
That'll be fun.
So, Michael, let's talk about this episode. It was with Michael Brody, photographer, who is very well known for a book he did many years ago called the Period of Juvenile Prosperity, which is sort of documents Mike's foray into train hopping and sort of living that life of a train hopper.
I think he refers to it as a kind of a punk life.
Mm. His punk life. And the Ralph. And Mike has a new book out with Twin Palms called Failing that was edited by Mike and Paul Sheik, who is really Mike's collaborator. Paul Sheik, the great Paul Sheik of TBW Books. And this was. This is a very large book documenting the last. I don't even know how many, I'm sorry to say, 10 years or more of Mike's life. It's extremely personal. Just like the Period of Juvenile prosperity, this is darker. And Mike and I talked a lot before we got to talking about the new book, which I really recommend. It's actually on the table right next to me and has been there for many weeks now. And when Mike and I get into it, his recording device died, which I didn't know. So really, that conversation was not recorded, that part of the conversation. And so it cuts off very abruptly.
Just talking about the book. Right.
So, you know, that's really a shame.
Obviously, but there is a really great conversation about Mike's life leading up to that book. And of course, talking about a period of juvenile prosperity, which is sort of the foundation of the work that comes later, too, in a lot of ways, because Mike isn't just a photographer seeing things. Mike is a. In that photography, in that world. And I think that part of the conversation is fantastic.
Yeah, for sure. One thing that's very important to Mike Brody, and we want to honor that and mention the two people that the book Failing is dedicated to, William Rutland Loeffler and Mia Justice Smith. Mia passed away quite young. I think she was 24, from addiction. And that's a big part of the book. And it's a part of Mike's life and the work he's made over the past 20 years. And Mia was also a photographer. And Mike is working on bringing Mia's pictures out into the world for a wider audience. And to that effect, I know there's something coming up at Picture House.
Yes. On Saturday, October 4th at 4pm, Mike Brody and Leo Fitzpatrick will be presenting the work and talking about the work of Mia Justice Smith.
So really admirable and moving that Mike is Working to get Mia's work out there into the world. I have a lot of respect for that. And obviously, it's really. The whole thing is very tragic. Mia and Mike were extremely close, and so it's very personal to him. And I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to talk about that. So we're talking about it now. But let's get to the episode. It was a very freewheeling conversation. You know, Mike, it's the way he thinks. He's not a, you know, polished linear thinker and that. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's quite.
No, not at all to talk.
Not at all.
I found the conversation really interesting and fascinating because of the way Mike goes back and forth in time and the way he talks about his work and thinks about his work. It is so integral to his life and his own sort of struggle with the idea of being an artist or being successful and all those things that you talk about in this show.
Yeah, well, so why don't we get to it and we'll save some other announcements we have for next time around, but let's get to Mike Brody now. Michael, if you don't mind, please take it away.
My pleasure. And here is your conversation with Mike Brody.
Michael Brody, welcome to the Photo Work podcast. It's great to have you on. Thanks for hanging out with me this morning.
No problem, Mike.
We start, you know, every show with folks just telling me, the audience, about their journey, where they were born, grew up, however much you want to share. But you know, how you got into photography and all that stuff, so people have a sense of who you are and where you came from. So tell us about yourself.
Okay, cool. So basically, like, I was born in Arizona in 1985 in the town of Mesa near Phoenix. Kind of how the story goes with my mom and dad is my mom was walking down the street barefoot, and my dad whistled at her, and somehow they got together after that. I think his dad, my grandpa, had a pool in their backyard, so he invited her over. So that's how my parents met.
Courtship.
Yeah, that was the courtship there. I can go into a lot of family stuff, but I can jump right to photography, basically.
Well, give us a little bit, you know. Did you grow up in Arizona? Is that.
Yeah, I lived there till I was. I lived there till I was 13, jumping around different apartment complexes. My mom was more or less a single mother. Well, she was a single mother. My dad really wasn't in the picture. He tried at the beginning. He did a Little. He had a landscaping business where he, like, trimmed palm trees. But he was kind of a fuck up and ended up in prison just stealing stuff and messing around with drugs and just, you know, I don't want to call him a deadbeat dad because I love the guy, but he just kind of became a product of the system and institutionalized and spent most of my upbringing in prison. So he wasn't around. I didn't grow up with a dad. You know, I have childhood experiences driving around in his car and his El Camino, him showing me, like, my first Playboy magazine that he kept under his seat, you know, putting on leather gloves and helping him move, you know, pile up tree branches or palm fronds from trees, or him smoking Marlboro cigarettes. You know, I have these poignant childhood memories with him, but, like, it was more of just this interesting guy that was around sometimes. So I guess I would say growing up with that fatherlessness, it led me, you know, I had a lot of time alone, me and my brother. My mom was at work, so me and my brother were just alone after school, just kind of left to our own devices. And eventually that naturally led me into getting into, like, BMX bike riding, you know, like street riding, like on BMX bikes. So that. That really appealed to me when I was like 12 or 13, because I had some friends in a nearby neighborhood who had BMX bikes, and they started doing tricks. And that just seemed super fun. So I started scheming up ways to get a BMX bike. And eventually I talked my mom into allowing me to do that. And I saved like, well, a combination of her money, my grandma's money, and some. However I got money, I was able to buy a BMX bike for $120 from a bike shop. It was called a Powerlite P19. It was a chrome BMX bike. And I would say that was the beginning of being out on my own and exploring the streets of Mesa, Arizona, getting into trouble, all that stuff. Photography didn't happen yet, but I think how that came into the picture was within the BMXing community. Just like skateboarding and alternative sports and stuff like that. There was videos you can buy like, or VHS tapes where you can buy and watch, like, pro skaters and BMXers doing tricks. So I had this mail order catalog called. It's called Dance Comp. They were one of the original mail order catalogs for bike parts. And I remember at the end they would always have, like, the most recent VHS tapes that were available. And I bought a. I ordered a Video called Seek and Destroy. And it was a BMX biking video of all these pro or semi pro BMXers just doing dirt jumps and street riding, you know, combined with music, mostly just like punk or metal or whatever. And so I only had that one video. Like I couldn't afford to buy a lot of them. So, you know, me and my friends would come over. I'd three friends that I BMX with. Their names were Ty, Ross and Daniel. So they would come over and we'd watch this one tape over and over and over. And then after we watched it, we would like, you know, we'd be inspired and we'd hit the street and start BMXing. I mean, subconsciously that had to have had an effect on like, like a visual interest in just like photography. I mean, I'm watching this BMX video. It's, you know, semi artistic. There's some cinematography. I mean, it's mostly like Hi8 and mini DV kind of camera camcorders, but there's music. So, yeah, I hadn't got into camp into photography yet, but subconsciously, I think there was a creative thing brewing in my mind. I like to do at that time, I like to draw a lot. I did a lot of crappy graffiti around town. It wasn't very good, but I was good at drawing and so I did that a lot. Mostly just copying. I would just basically tear pages out of BMX and skate magazines and meticulously draw them with like mechanical pencils. Because I didn't really develop. I didn't really develop my own style. So I would like more or less just try to copy them to practice. You know, it just felt good to create and to draw, but that kind of never went anywhere. I never really developed my own sense of style with that art. Like, it wasn't really honed.
Well, it sounds like you were very young too.
Yeah, I was very young. I was only 13. But still, I mean, that's a time where, I mean, if someone has a skill, I mean, if directed in the right way, I mean, I could have got way better at drawing or writing, but I just stuck with BMXing. So I kept doing that. But probably. I don't know what year this is. Was it 1998? I don't know, 96, 97, 98. Those years I was BMXing in Arizona. And then my. My dad has been in and out of prison about five times. So I get which times confused. But I know he was in prison and he just served some time and he was about to get out of prison. And my mom didn't really want to deal with the situation. She knew he would come back around, try to get into our life, whatever. Maybe she had a new boyfriend at the time, I'm not sure. But for whatever reason, she did not want to live in Arizona anymore. So we had an uncle who lived in Pensacola, Florida. He was stationed here for the navy. Big navy town here in Pensacola. So he encouraged her to move here. So me and her and my brother, we all. I was in 10th grade. Yeah, the beginning of the 10th grade, we just left. We just moved here. And my uncle, one of my uncles, had drove all our stuff here in a U haul. And then we. We took a Greyhound bus, Me and my mom and my brother, we took a greyhound bus to Pensacola, Florida. And still I hadn't gotten into photography then when I got to Pensacola, Florida, Ended up hooking up with a couple bmxers in town. You know, you go to the skate park or, you know, anywhere, Anytime you see anyone who does that, you'd, like, try to connect with them. So I ended up getting a couple. Couple friends who bmx. So that was my community, and I kept doing that. And then that. I think that scene, BMX skateboarding, has always been tangentially connected to punk. Punk music, all that. So through a friend of mine who I was bmxing with. His name was Evan Butts. He was my bmx friend here in Pensacola. So I started hanging out his house a lot, watching more bmx videos. Think he was kind of into photography, too. But through him and his brother, maybe his brother, I ended up meeting some more, like, punk type chicks. They were hanging out with, like, girls in the punk scene. And that's how I met my first girlfriend. Her name was Savannah. And basically overnight, I kind of switched my interests. I was a bmxer. And then all of a sudden, I got really, like, interested in, like, these punk kids I was meeting in Pensacola, Florida. So I was hanging out with Savannah, and we started dating, and she lived downtown in this house. So I'd go to her house, and there'd be punk shows and bands, and people would travel through town on trains. And I had no idea what this world was. This is just like a new world that just busted open. I was like, what are all these interesting people? What are they doing here? What are they about? And at around that same time, I had already started with Evan. Me and him started shooting videos. BMX videos. I worked at. I got a job. I dropped out of high school, and I was working at Albertsons grocery store. I was a courtesy clerk bagging groceries. I'd push people's groceries out, you know, with their carts and. And all that. And it took about six months. Really diligently. I saved twelve hundred dollars, and I bought a Canon GL1 video camera because I wanted to make a bmx video. Like those. Those videos that I loved so much. Oh, I want to. I want to be, like, a pro bmx. I don't really care about being a pro bmxer, but I like. I want to be a bmxer and make these BMX videos. They're so cool. And you with the music. And so I got that camera, started shooting a lot with it and playing around and editing. But I wouldn't say it didn't go anywhere. But once I met Savannah and I met some of these punks around town and the train hopping, and I got a polaroid camera. It was one of Savannah's friends. She had a polaroid camera in her car that she wasn't using. You know how stories change over time where, like, you think of memories?
Yeah, of course.
And you're like, did that really even happen? And then as time goes by, you keep telling people this thing happened, and then you start to question, did that really happen? Or does it start? Or does it. Does the truth start to get, like, bent over time? Like, the more I tell that story, which I haven't told it a lot of times, but I'm like, did that really happen? Was there really a cam, A polaroid camera in the backseat of my friend's car? And I really think there was, because I do. It was a. Because that's something. We went thrifting a lot at thrift stores, and I think it's something she got at a thrift store. Like, it was a polaroid, one of just those ones with the flip up front, and she didn't want it, and so it makes perfect sense. So that's. So she gave me that camera, and I started shooting polaroid photos. So kind of overnight, I want to say almost overnight, I lost interest in bmxing, because I just started wanting to, like, photograph all these, like, punks, which I didn't even know they were really punks yet. I didn't really know what it all was. I just knew people. I was intrigued by these people that I was hanging out with, and I would see them at these shows. And that's how I met the. That's how I met train riders. Because Pensacola, Florida, used to be what's called a crew change point. And that's where when trains go on like kind of these more long distance journeys, the crews have to, the conductor and engineer have to, by law they got to get a new crew like every 8 to 12 hours. And Pensacola was a crew change point for the CSX railroad. The industry has kind of changed a little bit. So it's not as there's still trains coming in and out of Pensacola, but you don't see the train riders anymore because the routes have changed. So you used to get a lot of influx of people coming off trains in the 90s and early 2000s because the trains would stop, say they were coming from Florida, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, coming west into Pensacola. They would get off and you know, hang out, get more beer, hang out at a punk house or whatever. Or alternatively they'd be coming east from New Orleans and then Pensacola would be a crew change point. But that does not happen anymore. You can still catch a train in and out of Pensacola, but it's really slow, it's pretty difficult, it's not really fun. So no one really does it. I did it, I've done it a few times since the changes and it's just, it's more for nostalgia really. But anyways, that's when. So a lot of those train riders would come through town and Pensacola was like a stop. It's like, oh, we can stop in Pensacola, go to the beach. You know, especially if you lived in New Orleans. Some of the train riders would come from New Orleans and there's no real beach there. Of course you're on the Mississippi river, but it's where you're gonna go swim. No one's gonna get in that. You can go hang out by the water but you can't get in it really. So people traveling east, they would make it a point to stop in Pensacola, Florida because they're beautiful beaches here. So. So anyways, there's just a lot of, a lot of these interesting people traveling through town and I just, I wanted to photograph them. So that's where it started, taking these portraits with this Polaroid camera. Well, that first Polaroid camera I got didn't work very well because, you know, you can only take a. If you get closer than say 3ft, the photo is blurry. So you can't really take portraits. So I ended up getting a Polaroid SX70, which I still have. It's. I just. A friend of mine just sent it, mailed it back to me. He had it in his studio for a long time, but. And that's. That dates back Way, like, to the 70s, more like that flat metal camera. It folds flat. The best camera ever. And so I started shooting portraits with that because I can get more. I was able to get more of a tighter focus. I could really get, like, you know, a foot away from someone's face and focus real nice on their eye or something in their hand. And so I loved using that camera. And unfortunately, it was on the tail end of Polaroid. Like, that was the last couple years. So it was frustrating because here I am, I'd almost just found my calling in life. I was like, oh, I'm gonna photograph. I'm gonna get this film and just photograph for the rest of my life, you know, take these portraits. I love them, you know, but then I could only do it for, like, a year solid, like, literally. And then they stopped making that film. So that's when I switched to shooting with a Nikon and portrait film and studying up a little more. Some of the traditional photographers, not really studying, vicariously studying, because I would flip through photo books. I'd see maybe at Barnes and Noble or. So there was some inspiration there.
Well, yeah, I mean, I. I wanted to. I wanted to ask you about that because, you know, you're still really young at this point. Probably, what, like, 17 or something?
Yeah, 2005. I was. I was 20. I was 20. When I first. When I was 20 is when I really saw that photography could be a path in my life to follow. Like, because of these portraits I got. I was like, oh, I'm onto something here. The three years before that, I was shooting photos, I didn't take it seriously. I was just. It was just kind of fun. And I just. I wasn't really getting great photos. But. But with that Polaroid SX70, I took a couple things. Took a couple of portraits that felt to me like a great photograph.
And how do you know it's a great photograph? Like, what are you. This is super important. Like, what. What are you looking at that.
Well, it's. It's just. It's a great question. It's just a feeling. The photo looks back at you, whether it's a person or a landscape. It's just a. It's only. It's a feeling that. It's an impulse. It's a feeling that happens instantly, and the photo either has it or it doesn't. And if I try to like a photo, if I stew on a mediocre image for a long period of time, ah, it's. I've already lost it. It's not a Good photo. But that's just my personal perspective. Because when I've involved other people, like, that doesn't always work. Because what will happen is if I don't have that feeling, I'll skip over certain photos that actually are good. And when I revisit them later, then I have that feeling where it looks back at you, you know, emotionally. Or I have another. I have another friend or who wasn't emotionally or personally involved in my life or that experience. And they look at the photo and then they could pull something from it, and they're able to say, this is why this is a great photo in context of your life and everything. And so there's more. There's more to it. I mean, the process with Polaroids are different because the film would roll out of the camera with that nasty emulsion and it smelled like chemicals. And you have to sit there and wait for it to develop. And it was so exciting. And probably within that first one minute, I would know if it's a good photo or not. Because I could see the silhouette, how it was framed, the sharpness of the port, the sharpness of what I was trying to photograph. So that was kind of a different thing that I'm so far removed from because I haven't shot Polaroids in a long time. With film photography, my process has always been, and it still is, pretty much I get the film developed in a long strip of negatives and then I scan them on a film scanner. So the first time I see that digital scan of the film photograph is the first time I see I'm seeing the photograph. That's a very special, fun, exciting moment. And I still get that feeling. I was just talking about it the other day with my girlfriend. I had some. I started shooting with a Leica, and I don't know what I'm doing. And it doesn't have a light meter. And I got five rolls of film developed and I didn't scan them this time. I had the photo lab scan them for me. But still, when I opened those files and looked at the photo for the first time, it was so exciting. And so I'm just searching for that feeling where the. Where the image talks back to me. Obviously, that's figurative speaking, but it's emotion that's there. It's a relationship. It's a relationship I have with that time and that photograph that I took. And that feeling is either there or it's not. Obviously there's some subconscious skills I have of composition or whatever, but the feeling has to be there. And the feeling could be. It could just be a blurry, crappy photograph, but if I feel like it's relevant, I'll like it. It. I'll put it in my little saved folder or whatever. So. So I'm just addicted to the. That feeling and I'm so happy it's still there. I thought I lost it for a while actually, but I looked at these negatives the other day and it was. I felt. I felt good. I felt. Feeling. Does that make sense?
Yeah, of course. It makes perfect sense. So let's talk about. Because you sort of, you know, went from a life of, you know, obviously your childhood was complicated and not, you know, sort of the smooth ride that some other folks have with, you know, a certain amount of stability and whatnot. And you hook up with Savannah, you guys wind up train hopping and meeting a lot of people who it sounds like were really fascinating to you and thrilling and exciting to be around. And you're shooting and then you explode on the scene in I think it's 2012, when a period of juvenile prosperity. Your very well known book is published by Twin Palms. Can you talk about how that happened and what that felt like? Because that's like such. It's really an incredible sort of jump from how you're living your life to all of a sudden being this sort of young, you know, celebrated figure in the art world. It's sort of hard to imagine those things going together. But can you explain how that all unfolded and what it felt like?
Yeah, sure. So explain how the explosion happened of like my photography.
Well, how did you wind up getting a book published? I mean, I know the story.
Yeah, that's a great. That's a great. Well, for one, I believe that my photograph, some of my photographs, the ones I show people anyways, are good, but I didn't see it at the time. I was just doing my thing. I think the explosion happened because of, well, the Internet. I mean, this was. This was before social media and the Internet was still very much like exciting. You know, I remember getting that stupid like America Online disc at my mom's house and, and putting it in the computer and being like, oh, you know, it was really. The Internet was this unexplored world where you can actually use it, you know, for incredible ways. It actually felt exciting. And so it was a great platform to share my photographs as I took them. So from really from day one, I figured out how to Google they. There was like a way to make a free website. And when I started shooting Polaroids, I would scan Them and play around with them on the computer. Eventually, when I got a collection good enough that was together, I just put them on this crappy website, you know, that's all it was. I just put them on a crappy website. It said Mike Brody. Well, no, I had a website called Man, I should have kept it. It was called plrds, like Polaroids with no vowels. And I thought that was so clever. And I should have. Should have kept it.
You're ahead of your time.
Yeah, but I would shoot Polaroids and scan them and as I was taking the portraits that I liked, I would upload them to that website.
So you had a certain amount of ambition, really, to share your work with people?
Yeah, yeah. Yes. So even though I was young and naive and. And kind of dumb, and in some ways I still have always had a killer work ethic and I've always been very ambitious, it's just showed itself in a weird way. And obsession. So it was more of just this obsession with just like getting these images and putting them on the Internet. And of course, when you have a website, you don't know who's looking. I don't know who's on the other end. All I know is like, that I was making the website for me. I needed to see them digitally on the screen because that is the technology of the day. You know what I'm saying?
It's a way of organizing things. Yeah, yeah.
If. If there was a photo lab on every street corner that had other tools available, like analog stuff like that, what's. What I would have been using. But it was the technology of the day. So I'd post the pictures on the screen to look at them and title them, and I would keep working on that. And so I think people were looking at it and I had a MySpace page. I don't think that really did anything, though. That was more just for people in the community. The train riders, the punks and stuff, they would see some of their friends on there and be like, see themselves in a photo. So really it was just the start making that website. And I just kept taking these Polaroid portraits and it was. I mean, I could tell you exactly how it went down, I think. I don't know who showed this guy, but there's a gallerist out of la, his name is Benjamin Trigano of M and B Gallery.
Yeah, I know Benjamin.
Yeah, I haven't seen him in years. I mean, we emailed the other day, but I actually bought one of my Polaroids back from his gallery the other day. So My life has really come full circle. But I think someone showed him, or he saw my website and he loved the portraits. He loved those Polaroids he was seeing. Oh, let me back up. Before that. You know how a bunch of people were passing through Pensacola. So I'd meet people, they were transient, on their way to somewhere else, and they all lived at other places. They lived in Olympia, Washington, Dream, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chicago. And they were passing through town, traveling either in a band or just train riding. I started to kind of like, catalog them in my mind of people who I wanted to photograph. And I made a list. It was about 50 people that I wanted to photograph. Like, portraits I wanted to take of certain people that I thought were interesting or maybe if they weren't that interesting, at least gave me a motive for going to visit them. Say hi and go get to that town. Because I've never been one to roam aimlessly, even though I don't really care what happens in my travels. But I don't. I'm not aimless. I'm kind of going somewhere, or at least I tell myself. So I made this list of 50 people, and it started in Pensacola. I headed west the summer of 2005. It was like. Like one week before Hurricane Katrina. And I went to New Orleans, left town before Hurricane Katrina. It's totally coincidental. Like, I didn't know that was even. We heard a storm was coming, but so I headed west. I went Pensacola, New Orleans, San Antonio, Texas, El Paso, Tucson, Phoenix. Skip Southern California. Oh, I went to Denver, went to Oakland. Loved Oakland, California. The weather was so nice. Just that. That morning, like, the Bay Area, that morning, kind of marine layer, they call it, like, where it's just like, you know, it's like 65 degrees until noon.
Oh, I know. Yeah.
Like, it's like, amazing. So I ended up my old friend Monica, who is also an artist. She had a really cool house there off Pine street. And she let me sleep in her backyard for three months. And so I remember just sleeping in her backyard. I found this, like, long piece of, like, foam. I don't know where it came from, but it was this big piece of squishy foam. And it was my bed, basically. And it was in her backyard. And I slept. I ended up sleeping there for three months because it didn't cost me anything. I could just sleep in her backyard. So Oakland very much became like this little hub where I would explore the Bay Area, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, shooting more photos. And I ended up going to. It was a fashion designer who was in the who was in an art school there in Oakland. I think it was called cca. He was like a fashion designer or something. He wanted to. He wanted to, like, put me in his fashion show, so I agreed. So he dressed me up and put me in this fashion show. And I went there, and I ended up meeting Paul Chic.
The publisher of the TBW books.
Yeah, actually, I met him before that. I met him at Monica's birthday party in Oakland. And she was like, hey, you should meet my friend, because he's into photography. He'd probably really help you out or whatever. So I met him, and they were both, at the time, very much in the punk scene. So we're all just like young punk kids, basically, trying to find our way in life and doing art, you know. So I met Paul Sheikh at a party in Oakland. Then I ended up running into him again at cca. That was the art school. And I think him and Monica both attended it. And by that time, I already had, like. I had 100 Polaroids in my backpack that I had shot on that trip. And I showed him to him. And I remember sitting on this just a little wooden bench and showing him those photos and him just telling me how great they were and how I need to keep shooting these photos because they're very. They're very important. And that was the beginning of our relationship of just him just supporting my work and my photography and him always just being a helping hand.
And Paul's done a lot of editing of your work as my understanding.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, I lost. I need to get to your question, really. The Polaroids are one thing. See, it gets complicated because I have the Polaroids and then I have the 35 millimeter work. And the 35 millimeter work is really what blew up. The Polaroids were like. You know, there was some interest online, but once I started shooting the. The train hopping on 35 millimeter is when things more or less went viral on the Internet. And that's when I changed my website. I kind of started putting those on there. Benjamin Trigano saw my website or someone showed him my photographs or my website, and he loved the portraits. And that initial trip with the 50 people, I ended up in Philly, North Philly, ended up living there. And Benjamin flew there. I think he had some other business as well. He flew there to meet me to look at these Polaroids in person. Shit, I might have just gave them all to him right there. Or maybe I made a book that. Where they were copied. But he met me. He flew to Philly, you know, told me about his gallery and he wanted to give me my first show. So very cool, very great opportunity. Back in a time where it felt like opportunities like that were once in a lifetime. Now it feels like now it almost feels like there's a hundred people asking me that because, you know, anyone can publish a book and anyone can open a gallery or anyone can do anything kind of. I don't know, it just felt like it was an awesome opportunity. And I said, yeah, I'm down. Sounds good. So we, we had an art show to show my Polaroids and I think there was some subsequent like, press. And by the time that art show had happened, I started shooting my 35 millimeter work. I think I got some sort of press like on CNN or something. You know, I got, it went viral. Like I got all these like online articles in major, like Time magazine, cnn, just like these. And it was all the headline was, you know, 17 year old homeless kid hops trains and photographs. You know, just something corny like that. But, you know, it was like, good. It was good clickbait for people to check it out. So I think that was that initial hit. That was that initial, like viral hit where it's like, okay, everyone in the world knows about Mike Brody, the supposedly homeless kid who hopped freight trains and whatever. So that was, I think that was that initial like boom of interest. It was just because the Internet and that led into my relationship with Paul Sheik supporting that work. And so that book, A Period of Juvenile Prosperity was. It was published by two Jack, Woody and Twin Palms. But Paul Sheik very much edited and kind of made the entire thing. Not to discredit.
No, no, I think everyone knows that was the collaboration.
Yeah. So that's been our relationship still is him.
Because Paul just finished editing, or not just finished, but Paul also edited with you your most recent book, which came out this year called Failing and huge period of time between Period of Juvenile Prosperity and this new book. And I think they're, they're so different. It's really interesting. I mean, there's a lot of similarities in terms of content and the certain motifs that appear and reappear and a kind of real emotional tenor, very personal. You know, all your work has that incredible intimacy. But failing, in addition to being quite sad in many ways, and there's a lot more sort of overt darkness in it, they're also really, I feel like the work in Failing is looser as far as form. And also of course, the way the two books are printed. I mean, you have other books, but I'm focused here on these guys. But a period of juvenile prosperity. There's the paper and there's a lot of varnish on the pictures. And so the blacks are really rich and the light is very special. And in general, it feels like a period of juvenile prosperity is much more aestheticized and failing is. I don't know if it's uncoated paper, but there's no varnish on the pictures and those deep blacks. Right. And it's also a much bigger book. It's really like almost like 2 inches thick. It's really. First of all, both of the books are so beautiful.
Thank you.
And just filled with emotion and. But even though the subject matter at times in a period of juvenile prosperity is tough, I mean, certainly there's a lot of young people who look like they may be struggling. There's also just a tremendous amount of sort of young ecstatic and feelings that come from a sense of freedom and whatnot. So can you tell us a bit about failing, since it's your. Your new book and the decision to a make, you know, put so many pictures in, and the style of the pictures, the sort of looser shooting and the feeling of the book, which is. Obviously, it's in three sections and it sort of outlines a more difficult time in your life. But can you talk to us about that?
It really was. I kind of told myself I wasn't going to do photography anymore after the success with a period of juvenile prosperity.
Why?
Because I've always been that way. I get really, really into something and then I'm like, okay, fuck this, I'm gonna go do something else. But I was just lying to myself because photography is always there, kind of just nagging me, you know, it's like, I can't go through life and ignore these. The beauty I see in the world around me. And if I can't get a photo of it, it haunts me forever. I mean, I'm still thinking about this random picture I didn't take of this guy one time. I don't know why, but it was a job. It was a job I had. Like, seriously, it was a job I had. It was in the Bay Area. I was working for a tractor repair company, and I went to this landfill and we had to go. We had to go reattach these tracks on a bulldozer. It was a bull. No, it wasn't a landfill. It was a scrap yard. It was this bulldozer that pushed scrap around a scrap yard. And scrap yards are so Beautiful. To me it's just like metal being recycled and all the dust and the patina in the air. Everything is just. The lighting is always good any time of day. It's just incredible. Anyways, we. There was this bulldozer and I actually had my camera with me. I brought it with me in the service truck. I wasn't really photographing a lot at that time but I still kept my camera with me just in case. But I was caught up in the repair and I just was caught up in the moment. But this guy, like to repair tracks in a bulldozer you need like serious tools and serious equipment. And this guy and they had tried to like hook it back together with chain. Anyways, I just remember walking up to the scene and this man, older white man, pretty skinny but buff, hard working, just real dusty. And he's pulling, he's trying to pull the tracks back together by hand like with this chain. And he was wearing a hard hat that was chrome. So like all I remember is this chrome, shiny chrome hard hat and this man trying to like you know, this human man with flesh and bone like pulling this metal chains back together. And I still think about how I didn't photograph it.
Yeah, the picture didn't take.
Yeah. And that was 14 years ago. But it's like who cares? Like it probably wouldn't have even came out. I do have a photo of the bulldozer because we finished the repair and then I took a picture of it. Just basically I missed the moment. Anyways, to your question in regards to failing after the success of the train of APOJP or apogpuh. That's what we said. That's what my girlfriend says. Apachpa. Because it's a mouthful saying the whole thing.
It's a long title.
Yeah, yeah. But I love the title. But. But it still resonates. It just feels good. Poetic. But it just felt like I did it. Okay. I did what I wanted to do. I photographed these people and it's at this time and I don't need a photograph anymore. I did it, you know, I don't need a photograph. But as my life went on I was like, oh, the photograph, the interest is still there. I kept seeing things that were interesting that I wanted to photograph. So I just kept casually photographing. So we're talking. The book came out in 2012. So we're talking. I went to diesel Mechanic School in 2009. So 2009, 10, 11, very much a lull. There's really just a couple photos there. And then 2012, even 2012, 13, 14, 15. That was all a lull, really. But my camera was always around and I was just casually taking pictures of things. Like, my camera was kind of. It would always be in my truck or in my toolbox, like in a cardboard box. So it didn't get beat up. It was always available, you know.
Can I ask you a question, a personal, ish question for sure. You don't have to answer, but did the art world turn you off? I mean, was that any part of.
You know, it didn't turn me off in the sense that no. Anyone did anything bad to me. Like, no one did anything bad to me. It just didn't. The art world. You know, when that book Apache. Sorry, Sorry. When that. When my first book came out, I very well, you know, I got an offer to be a director of photography and filmmaking. I had all these offers to do this, to do that. I very could have took that and developed and honed a photography career, you know, but that didn't really appeal to me because the nature of my work, my photography is it doesn't take. I don't have to have a career. I barely even need any money. So why would I, like, have a career? Why would I go do all these things that the world was wanting me to do additional to the photos that were being made? Because I don't. It didn't seem like it would lend itself to being creative, so I kind of rejected it. Maybe it was in a kind of a punk way, like, oh, fuck all that. Fuck, you know, whatever. Or maybe it just really just. I wasn't ready for it all. But that's why my friendship with Paul was perfect, because he was better at navigating that world. So he did a lot of that on my behalf and managed the work and the book. So. And I still very much feel the same way. Like, I'm not really. I'm not really interested in all this stuff. I mean, of course, like, talking to you and doing a podcast, what a cool opportunity, you know, all this stuff is. It's great. It's all opportunities for new things and new life experiences. But at the end of the day, does it help me make more photos or make. Does it make me a better artist? Does it make me money? Or is it just for attention? Then that's where you're like, when you start to have a career that starts to conflict with your art. So it's like. But, you know, now life's different. And I have a son. I'm 40, so I'm trying to. I'm trying to navigate things differently and not be so punk about it and just be open and new experiences and. So, yes, I hated the art world and didn't want anything to do with it back then. And now I'm doing my best to kind of navigate it, but it seems all fucked up. Like, no one knows what they're doing right now, so.
Well, I think you can continue to just make your work right. And I mean, I would say to, like, anyone who doesn't feel comfortable in the art world, it's like, you know, you can still do your work and let it just unfold without getting too caught up in it. In fact, I don't think anyone should get too caught up in it. It's not a healthy place, and it's not good for your art to be too caught up in it, but it is. You know, I'm glad you're photographing and, you know, it feels to me like the thing you were meant to do. And, you know, the work that you put out is, I think, important. And so I'm glad you're figuring your way through it all. And I know it's not easy, and I'm sure it wasn't easy to have that much attention all of a sudden. I'm sure that was completely overwhelming.
It was, but it was. It was fun.
So let's talk more about failing.
Yeah, I'm going back to that. But I want to tell you because it really is. This is important. It really is. With a period of juvenile prosperity and almost that photographer identity that was created out of that. It's very. It's very much. It's very easy to stay that. It's very easy to get caught up in this idea of who I am or who I was or who the world made me become because of. You know what I'm saying? So I very much can Google my name and it says, oh, Mike Brody is this. And I can very much feed into. Be like, okay, I guess that was. This is my calling, is I'm a. I'm a hobo. I'm supposed to just go roam free and photograph. Like, okay, maybe that's. There is some truth there. But there's more to life, more to you. There's more to you. And I have more life to live and more experiences to have. So it's very much easy to get caught up in that. So I'm so happy that I was able to do failing. And I never planned on it. Basically, failing was just a culmination of taking photographs for 12 or 13 years of photographs. So I never had a plan to publish another book. All I know is I just took photos. I just took photos every day, every few days, once a week, once a month. There was some train trips in there. There was some things. Basically, I took a lot of photos over a long period of time, documenting mostly my personal. Mostly all my personal life, my work life, girlfriends, ex w, whatever. And the time felt right. I was on a trip with some friends of mine and we visited Jack Woody. And I think he mentioned, so, do you want to do another book? And I was like, yeah, I think I have enough photos for that. Let's do it. And I didn't know what that meant. All I know is I had 12 years of photographs that I'd been taking, and I didn't know what they were, what they meant. All I knew is that I was ready to be done with that chunk of time I spent photographing. So I showed them to Paul Sheik, and basically me and Paul Sheikh, like, hashed out an initial edit of 600 photos and made another book. But I found the. I found the process frustrating with a lot of. It was so much different than a period of juvenile prosperity that was all in person, working together in the flesh, whereas failing wasn't. Like, everyone's working remotely these days, but like me and Paul Sheikh, the whole process of making the. The book was through zoom calls and through editing some photos down, emailing this back and forth. And I think it's just the nature of the beast these days and how we work with, you know, to accommodate art in our lives. Because he lives here, he lives there. I'm over here. So we can't just, you know, maybe we don't have the time or the money just to meet up and spend enough a month working on a book. Regardless, I'm sidetracking. That's kind of a different conversation. Basically, I just shot 12 photos for 12 years and made a book out of it. What it means to me, what it means to the world is to be determined. Obviously, I was trying to imply some things in there. Paul was trying to imply some things, you know, as Paul's not necessarily a photographer anymore. So as an editor, even in that process, I think you're still implying your art.
Of course. Absolutely.
Your art, your personhood. You're like, who you are in that work, in that editing. So what he sees of my photography is what he sees in him, his journey in life. And then there's my photos and the way I look at them, how. And how it reflects on my life and what I experienced. So here we are, two men, kind of looking at this art and trying to figure out what it means in our own lives and how to share it with the world. And so. And so that's how Failing came about. It's not a perfect book. Nothing is perfect. Well, I think a period of juvenile prosperity was quite perfect, but it was just a different time. Every.
It's also a much smaller book.
I mean, yeah, it's a much smaller book. Failing. That first book was edited from 8,000 photos. Failing was edited from like 14,000 photos. And it's just a different time, a different feeling. Photography is different now. The way people look at photos, the way people feel about art. The whole world is different. So that's why you get that darkness so naturally. That was Paul's idea. Beginning, middle and end. We chopped it up to that beginning, middle and. Which at first sounded. Seemed cliche, like beginning, middle and end. But then it started to make sense. So we just started to. To. I don't know if you noticed, but the titles get sparser and the content gets darker and it gets sadder. And that was all Paul.
I noticed. I noticed it all.
I wanted to get a period of juvenile prosperity, had no titles and failing has a lot more titles. I don't think everyone should title every photo. Like if a photo, nothing comes to you. If there's no title, you should not title a photo. It should just be what it is. So at first I titled every photo unfailing. But then slowly we took. We shortened the title to three words, two words or no title. And if you, as you look at it, the titles get sparse.
Hi everyone. So, as Sasha and I discussed in the introduction, this is unfortunately where the recording ends. And just one final note. I checked on the status of the event at Picture House, the small darkroom. An evening with Mike Brody and Leo Fitzpatrick on Mia Just Smith. And the event is sold out. But hopefully this is just the beginning of getting to see more of the work by Mia Justice Smith. Photo Work with Sasha Wolff is a production of the Photo Work Foundation. Executive producer is Sascha Wolff and the associate producer is Taylor Selsbach. The show is also produced and edited by me, Michael Chovendalt in a real photo show. Music is by J. Walter Hawks. If you like the show and wish to find out more about the foundation, please visit PhotoArch foundation and be sure to subscribe and review with all the stars on your listening platform.