Sasha Wolf: All right, let's do this, peanut. If you're staying in the room, no talking. Hello and welcome to the Photo Work podcast. Talky and touchy feely version of my book photo 40 photographers on process and Practice. Hello, everyone. I'm Sasha Wolff, recording from Woodstock, New York, and joined as usual by my friend and producer back from Montana, Mr. Michael Chovindal. Hello, Michael.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Hi there.
Ed Templeton: Yes.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Yeah, back from my very intense week of recording with some wonderful people. But, you know, it takes a while to. To come back and caught a little cold, but doing all right.
Ed Templeton: It was a lot of fun and
Sasha Wolf: people, you know, these are recordings that people can find on your podcast, real photo show. So, folks, thank you. That out for sure. Well, you aren't feeling great, so we're gonna just get right to it so you can get back to taking care of yourself.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: I think I underplayed the code.
Ed Templeton: A little cold. Yeah.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, you're pretty sick. But in good humor as usual, which is amazing because when I'm sick, I'm a grump. So today's episode was with the photographer Ed Templeton. And I'll say this, Ed and I have a lot of. But I really don't know Ed. And, you know, so it was, you know, sometimes, obviously, as listeners know, I'm talking to friends of mine, and sometimes I'm talking to folks I'm really just meeting for the first time, which was the case with this conversation with Ed. He's such a lovely person. I'm always a little nervous when I, you know, talk to folks I don't know for the first time as a podcast, you know, but. Right, right. Yes. I felt so comfort with Ed right off the bat. And I just, on a personal note, really enjoyed speaking with him. So I hope that everyone enjoys listening to the conversation. What did you think?
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Yeah, I mean, editing the show, it was so calming to listen to Ed talk.
Sasha Wolf: It is very calm.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: It's very calming. I loved it. I loved it. He's also deeply philosophical, talking about different stages of photography and all. And it's a really lovely window into process and practice and, you know, things. I think a lot of people take for granted that maybe some photographers, like, they have this, like, super intense, complicated routine for doing things. And I think Ed tries to keep it not simple because he produces incredible work, but just sort of a nice workflow, a nice easy workflow that he has, I think.
Sasha Wolf: Well, he's a photographer who wants to be photographing all the time, first of all. So he's someone who always has a camera with him and is, you know, making tons of pictures and, you know, he falls into that category of artist who's then has to grapple in the editing process with exactly thousands of so. But he really takes us through that whole process, and it's like I. I realized, like, as I came to the end of the conversation with Ed, that the whole time I was talking to him, I had built a space in my mind of where Ed was and the way he talked about it, I was just able to completely visualize it. Probably not correctly, but nonetheless, I just kept following Ed with just this whole visual story in my mind. And so I really loved hearing him talk about his process so thoroughly and with such insight.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: He also has some great book publishing stories. Yeah, totally want to hear those.
Sasha Wolf: Yep.
Ed Templeton: Yeah.
Sasha Wolf: Well, let's let you get back to bed. So dragging Michael Chovendalton out of bed to record an intro. I will just say for our listeners that I'm in the thick of researching for our next episode, which is going to be a wonderful conversation with Jess Dugan and Charlotte Cotton, who collaborated on a new opus published by Radius called Love Pictures. And so when I get off with you, I'm going back to that, but that's going to be a really wonderful upcoming episode, so. Absolutely.
Ed Templeton: Yeah.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah. So you'll go back to bed and I'm going back to Love Pictures, to research.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Oh, good, good.
Sasha Wolf: All right, Michael.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Sounds good.
Sasha Wolf: Well, if you don't mind, please take it away.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: My pleasure. And here's your conversation with Ed Templet.
Sasha Wolf: Ed Templeton, welcome to the Photo Work podcast. It's wonderful to have you on. I'm really excited to talk with you today about your incredible career, both as a photographer and painter, but also as a business owner, as a professional skateboarder. And you've just had sort of an amazing life, and I'm really, really looking forward to getting into it with you. So welcome.
Ed Templeton: Thank you. It's an honor.
Sasha Wolf: So, Ed, tell everyone I just dropped a whole bunch of stuff in there, but tell people about your journey and where you were, where you grew up, and how you got into all the things you've gotten into. Take it away.
Ed Templeton: Yeah. I was born in Orange County, California. Anaheim, to be specific, was where I was born in Garden Grove, and that's a city right next to Anaheim. We lived in Anaheim. So I like to say I was born in the shadow of the Matterhorn, the fake Matterhorn, because we could see Disneyland from our house. And then, yeah, my, you know, my dad ran off with the babysitter.
Sasha Wolf: Wow.
Ed Templeton: My grandparents. Yeah, yeah, he was by all accounts, kind of an asshole. And my grandparents lived in Huntington Beach, California. We had been moving around different places when. When the divorce happened, we were in Corona, California, which is kind of out in the desert. So my grandparents set us up with an apartment in Huntington beach. And that's where I feel like my life began. It's a culture, you know, it's a coastal culture, it's very much suburbia, but it's also steeped in skate and surf culture. And so most kids who live here essentially do one or the other. And so I found skateboarding and felt like I got accepted into this incredible group of creative people just through the act of picking up a skateboard. And. Let's see. So, yeah, started skating in 1985, and by 1990 I had turned professional. And that was when I was 18. So my world really cracked open right at that point. Going from, you know, suburban street urchin to traveling around for skateboarding, initially locally, like driving to Arizona and Nevada and San Francisco all the time to do skate contests and things, amateur contests, and then turning pro. I was essentially shooting shipped off to Europe. And so, yeah, 1990, I get sent to Europe to be in these skateboard contests. And for me, that trip was just a mind blowing sort of awakening, I guess, seeing different cultures, of course, just, you know, seeing the way art is integrated into culture there, the history just being blown away that you're standing in a church that was, you know, 300 years earlier than America was even founded. So, yeah, that, that whole trip was amazing. And I. And I did really well on that. On that trip I won all the contests I entered. So I became world champion at 18 in 1990, which helped put me on the map, put me on the map for skateboarding and, and that sort of. Even though I really started shooting in earnest in 1994, there was four years there where I was shooting photos a little bit like a tourist might. But I'm surround photographers because there's a bunch of photographers who work for the magazines whose job it is to shoot photos of me. And so all my friends were. And the people I was hanging out with were photographers. So I was really surrounded by cameras and that kind of culture. One of my best friends, Christian Klein, worked for Poweredge magazine. It's now defunct, but he was a big into the zine culture and making fanzines and photo zines and sharing them with people and sending them to and from. So I got exposed to that early on and. And then one of the godfathers of zine culture and skateboarding is this guy, Gary Scott Davis, GSD for short, who was the art director for transworldscape magazine. And so I just felt like I was immersed in this kind of culture, this zine culture. And then, yeah, I guess in 94 is when I sort of realized I'd been blowing it, documenting my life. Because I felt like, what. Who gets to live this kind of life? You know, who gets to do what they would be doing anyway, but getting paid for it and getting traveled around the world and actually being a sort of, you know, superstar in this little microcosm of skateboarding. Yeah, I think it was 94 when I realized, like, I should be documenting this. I kind of talked about this before, but I was really seeing a few landmark books that spurned me in this direction. My friend Thomas Campbell was a big surf guy. He was going on these surf trips, and he's the kind of person who would just duck out of society for a while and do, you know, with a surfboard and a tent, kind of like a vagabond. And so he was about to go to Morocco on this. On this, like, sojourn, and he saw that I had started collecting some photo books. I mean, I'm. Art books, actually. You know, I had some, you know, I had like a. You typical mall, sort of mall kid culture. I had like a Basque book and a Picasso book or a Dali book or something. And he said, I see you have some books like, will you hold my books for me? And amongst those books that he wanted me to hold for him while he was going on this surf trip was Nan Golden's Ballad of Sexual Dependency and Larry Clark's Teenage Lust. And needless to say, like many in my generation, those two books just blew my mind and gave me the example of shoot your own life. I mean, that's what they.
Sasha Wolf: Right. Yeah.
Ed Templeton: So. And I. And I wasn't even worried about copying those people. Like, it wasn't about, like, oh, I'm trying to copy what they're doing. There's, like, no way I could possibly copy those two people. You know, a person in New York or a person in Tulsa. Like, I had my own cast of characters that I was surrounded by. And I think, you know, those two books gave me that. That idea to really look deeply into the culture I was in, skateboard culture, and the superstar ness of it. And I don't know, I realized I also wasn't. I always felt a little bit separated from the group I was in because I wasn't Doing drugs, and I wasn't chasing women. I had basically met my wife Deanna when I was 15 years old. So way before I turned. Even turned pro for skateboarding and was. Was with. With her. Married at 91. At the age. At age 19, I got married to her.
Sasha Wolf: Another photographer.
Ed Templeton: She's also. She's also a great photographer.
Sasha Wolf: That's so strange. Yeah, she is a great. She is a great photographer. Deanna Templeton, Shout out.
Ed Templeton: You know. Yeah, we've been married since 1991. So I was, you know, I was in this group of people that was really doing drugs, partying really hard, living the rock star life, traveling around on tour. And I always felt a little separated from that, which I guess lends itself really nicely to being a photographer, because I had decided to document that sort of. That world, the dynamic of that superstardom and the brutality of it and all the stuff that ends up being in the book Wires Crossed, that I finally, finally realized after all this time. But what's funny is, like, right when I started in 94, wires crossed was conceived. It's like I knew this would be a book someday like I wanted. That's why I started shooting.
Sasha Wolf: And this. This book was published by Aperture a couple of years ago.
Ed Templeton: Yeah, I think 2023. 2023, that's right.
Sasha Wolf: Incredible book. And I want to really get into that. But go, go on. I don't want to interrupt you.
Ed Templeton: Oh, sure. Well, yeah, I was. So I was, you know, I guess from there, that's kind of what I've been doing since. Ever since in some way, you know, I started painting before I started doing photography. I started painting in 1990, that same year.
Sasha Wolf: A very prolific painter.
Ed Templeton: Getting inspired from that trip to Europe made me want to become a painter. So I've been painting some of my first exhibitions. I think my first solo exhibition was at the alleged gallery in 1994 in New York City. And it was all paintings. And then started incorporating photography into the shows I was doing around 1998 in earnest, I guess. I think I did a show in this space called 1026 in Philadelphia, and that one had photographs and paintings in it. So I've been kind of like, dabbling in everything, painting and photography and doing shows. And even though I had started with the idea to document the culture I was a part of, once you start carrying a camera around, everything opens up. So I kind of instantly became a street photographer without really realizing it, because my job had me going all over the world. So I'm in Paris, you know, one month I mean, then I'm driving a big tour across the United States. I'm, you know, crisscrossing the United States in a car. Very Robert Frank on the road sort of style and shooting at shooting everything. So, yeah, from that point on, I just became one of these collector people. I don't decide a project and then go shoot it. I just kind of live my life and whatever happens to be in front of me, I shoot pictures of. So that's why a lot of my work involves, of course, the culture I was a part of. And especially now the suburbia I live in is a big subject and my relationship with Deanna is a subject. And then the fact that I get to be traveling around means I'm really in a lot of different cities all the time. So I'm kind of shooting street photography as I go, even though I never really.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, because you're still. You're still very involved in the skate world. Company.
Ed Templeton: Yeah, I run a skateboard company still. I'm less involved. Like, the travel that I get to do from skateboarding has decreased a lot, but my travel as an artist has stayed the same. So luckily I get to cruise around and do different things. I still work with a clothing company, Ruka, which is a. Was one of my sponsors when I was a pro skateboarder. But since I had kind of spanned across two different cultural things, skateboarding and art, they've kept me on as a brand ambassador now. So they actually helped fund the Wires Cross book and.
Sasha Wolf: Which is awesome.
Ed Templeton: Helped me helped with the framing. You know, like, the museum sort of ponied up some money to produce that show. But also Ruka stepped in to set up an account with a frame shop that's nearby them in Costa Mesa. And. And I was basically able to frame most of the work on Ruka's dime, which is amazing.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah.
Ed Templeton: So, yeah, they've been really helpful. And I lend them artwork, designs for clothes and stuff like that. For instance, this April coming up, in a couple weeks here, I'm leaving to go to Paris and because Ruka is setting up some kind of skate and art activation there. In Paris. They have a store in Paris and so there's going to be a Wires Cross exhibition at the OFR bookstore in the Marais there. They have a gallery in the back. And so I think the work that I had shown in Copenhagen, which is sort of a selection from the big Wires Cross museum show, is going to be sent from Copenhagen to Paris for that show. So any. I don't know if this comes out before.
Sasha Wolf: Very exciting.
Ed Templeton: So, yeah, so I get to travel. So that means I'll be in Paris. And then, you know, since we got a free trip to Paris, we ballooned that into a three week trip and. And we're gonna be going to Zurich to see the Kerry James Marshall exhibition, the big retrospective of his work that's happening. And we'll probably hit all the photo museums and everything in Paris and we'll go visit. Yeah. Cartier Bresson foundation and everything.
Sasha Wolf: I want to get back a little bit to what you were saying about your process. Just quoting you from an interview you did a while back. You said, photography is a constant for me. I don't leave the house without a camera and the entire world is open to me as a subject. So the collection of photographs and then archiving and editing them is a big part of my process. I don't work on any one project at a time, but I'm constantly moving images around and including them in one themed book project or another. So that's just, you know, obviously one way of working and obviously works really well for you. What is the actual. How do you manage that, you know, amount of imagery? Like, what does that actual process look like for you? I know you. Are you still shooting on film?
Ed Templeton: Yeah, still shooting film.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah. So can you just walk us through a little bit of, you know, whether you are making little prints that you make piles of. Some of our mutual friends do. I know. Or are you scanning and is everything on the computer? How are you actually, you know, engaging with the work?
Ed Templeton: Yeah, it's a constant. It's a constant pruning, pruning and fixing and, you know, cleaning up and building the archive takes all the time. I'm 53 now and I'm kind of realizing that I'm never gonna get done what I want to get done in my life. I don't think there's enough time and it's really frustrating. And I remember my grandfather, before he died, having all these thoughts about not finishing the projects that he wants. And I already. I feel like I'm young still, but I already see that thing. So, yeah, the process is I go for. I'll just break it down. Like taking a trip, for instance, like. So we just went to Japan for five weeks and I come back with 70 rolls of film. Luckily, I don't do that processing myself anymore. I take it to a lab and my lab makes proof. Does processing and proof sheets for me. So kind of old school. I get an actual proof sheet. And then when I get Those home, I have a flatbed scanner and I scan the proof sheets and that's how I get my digital archive built. So I scan the proof sheets kind of big so that each individual image is about 12 inches wide at 72dpi. So they're really low res.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, but you can see what's black and white.
Ed Templeton: But you can see it. Yeah, you can see it. And, and that's what takes a lot of time. So you know, scanning the proof sheet, scanning 70 proof sheets takes, takes a while. Then I go in and straighten out the proof sheets because my lab doesn't make them that straight. So I'll go in and you know, straighten out the, the strips that are kind of askance on the sheet a little bit. And then I sit down and separate. I call them separating. So I'll take that proof sheet and I'll, you know, draw a Photoshop square around each image, cut it, paste it into a new thing, title it with the book number. So I have these albums and it's pretty literal. It's just like book one, proof one. I think I'm on book 80 now.
Sasha Wolf: Amazing.
Ed Templeton: Each book holds about 75 to 80 proof sheets. And so yeah, I take these little things I. And so like a, you know, for instance, one of the files might be called 8025 and then the place and the, and the keywords that I can kind of search for. And that lets me know exactly where the neg is when I'm looking. So I can. Now once I have these low res files on my computer, that's how I build all my books. I build them with these low res JPEGs and do all the editing and all that stuff. And only when I'm right at the end, when I'm like, these are the exact same, you know, 50 images that are going to be in this book. Then I can go pull the negs. And it's really easy because I just print out a list of the. And it's just easy to go like, oh, this is book 80 proof 20. Pull it out, get that neg out, take it to the lab to get drum scanned. But that archive pruning is constant because I'll go back through the book and realize I didn't title things correctly. So I'm constantly just like, part of my fun every night before I go to bed is opening up a book and retitling stuff. I'll be like, you know what? So I started doing like a double A triple A system too. I'll add like a double A if it's a good photo a AAA if it's one of my favorite photos and then I'll search a book, I'll open a folder and search one of the books and it'll, you know, for double A. And I'm like, oh, there's only like 10 AA's in here and usually the average is like 215 or something. So I'll go back through and like, oh, you know what, I never titled these correctly. Like this is a favorite so I want to be find it easier. So I'll go list AAs on things or. So yeah, it's a constant process, like constantly getting film to put in there, constantly refining the one, the archive that's there. And then I do scan images now because I finally invested in a DSLR system. I had a lot of fun listening to your episode with Nelson Chan because Nelson is the person who gave me a complete play by play on how to set up a DSLR scanning system. He was super generous with his time and I barely know Nelson really. I mean I've obviously met him at book fairs and things.
Sasha Wolf: Good part of our community for sure.
Ed Templeton: And. But he was like so overly kind and helpful to just some random guy calling him up and saying, hey, can you help me with this? And so yeah, he, you know, told me what camera to buy and sent me like an Amazon list. Here's what you get. You know, like, and so awesome. So I have like the negative supply light box and all that stuff. And so I've been scanning and, and you know, now my recent books, the, the small books I do with Superlabo, the City Confession series, all those books now I just make completely in house.
Sasha Wolf: Oh, that's awesome.
Ed Templeton: Because I'm a designer too, so I design my own books and everything. So yeah, it's just constantly kind of working on that system. I don't, I, I do. I'm kind of practical so I don't make a lot of prints. I should, I think I will in the future make some more make prints to shuffle around.
Sasha Wolf: But I know you're a print person.
Ed Templeton: Oh yeah. I mean I have a dark room here at the house. I make prints like that. But for making a book and stuff, I feel like I'm too practical. I just print out those low res. Yeah, they look really shitty, but I know what it is, you know, like it's funny because another mutual friend of ours, Chris McCall, when I'm trying to show him photographs, he has trouble getting over the fact that the low res scans off the proof sheet look so bad.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah.
Ed Templeton: You know, so he's just like, these look so muddy and bad. I'm like, Chris, you have to like realize that this is just a prus sheet, like, and it's going to look great when it's like finally drum skinned. It's going to look, it's going to, it's going to sing, you know, but it is hard though because it's like, you know, you have to kind of overlook all the flaws of.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, of course.
Ed Templeton: Crappy the pooch she looks like. I know that this photo is good, but. And there's been some times, I mean, Building Wires Crossed. There was a few photos that I had only really interacted with in low res form and I assumed were sharp, but once I scanned it, realized, ooh, this, this photo is actually not that sharp.
Sasha Wolf: Right.
Ed Templeton: And had to kind of take it out of the book.
Sasha Wolf: So tell folks a bit more about Wires Crossed because it's really an incredible accomplishment of a book.
Ed Templeton: Thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's just one of those.
Sasha Wolf: It's got a lot of some of your influences in it, you know, a lot of Jim Goldberg in it and. Yeah, sorry.
Ed Templeton: Oh, for sure. No, yeah. I mean, Jim. I mean, why are so. Yeah. I mean, I think I've shouted this from the mountaintops forever. That Jim is one of my all time favorite photographers and people and Raised by Wolves is a major touchstone for me and it obviously shows in my, in my work too, but. But it's also like, in a way it's Robert Frank, late Robert Frank, through Jim Goldberg, directly to me. And people like Allen Ginsberg's photographs and Peter Beard was a big influence when I was younger. Just that aesthetic of making artwork on the prints really excited me.
Sasha Wolf: Write a text. A handwritten text.
Ed Templeton: Yeah, writing stuff on it. I always felt like I kind of approached photography with the goal of being Cartier Bresson. Meaning that you attempt to take that perfect photograph that's composed perfectly and tells the story without any text or anything needed. But then there's a lot of stuff you can do with those photographs that don't quite make that perfect grade, that still have a feeling and a vibe to them. But maybe a little bit of text will help put it in context. Or just maybe some decoration and art on this will kind of make it into a cool thing. And then you've got this cool object too. Like the object itself.
Sasha Wolf: Absolutely.
Ed Templeton: So that shows through in Wires Crossed. And getting back to that, that idea of, I mean, for sure, Jim's Raised by Wolves was a Touchstone for me on that, wanting to build a book that is a photography book. But, you know, there's so much more, especially with the way I work too. It's like I'm kind of collecting ephemera. I'm not. I'm not as good at collecting ephemera as Jim, but. But wanting to put that context. And really it came from when I started, Wires Crossed didn't have all that text and all that design stuff in it. It came from trying to figure out the dates and the locations of some of the photographs. Sometimes when I'm doing. That's why I'm constantly pruning the archive and fixing it. Like I said, because sometimes in the earlier days, I didn't write the dates on the photographs or anything like that. I wrote the book number and the place maybe and the person who was in it, but not necessarily the date. So I was a little spotty with the. The titling back in the day. I'm a lot better now. And so when Wires Cross came aperture is a big operation. They have a lot of. There's a lot of back end to making a book. You don't just kind of throw images on a page and go for it. Especially working with Leslie, who wanted to.
Sasha Wolf: Leslie Martin.
Ed Templeton: Leslie Martin, yeah. Who wanted to put a lot of context into the book. Probably due to the sort of spicy nature of some of the work and that, you know, the obvious toxic masculinity in. In the book. You know, fast forwarding 20 years since the work is made kind of thing like, or 15, you know, 10 years. I think it was important as the world evolved to have that context. Leslie did. I actually fought that a little bit, but then realized that she's a photo book whisperer and knows what she's talking about.
Sasha Wolf: And she is, she is absolutely brilliant.
Ed Templeton: I should listen to her and, and take that advice to heart. So, yeah, and I'm really glad, looking back, that we have that context in the back. Those interviews with the subjects in the photographs and how they've all evolved from what they were to what they are now.
Sasha Wolf: And you are a real bookmaker. I mean, it's really wonderful to hear someone like you talk about the openness to collaboration and stuff, because it wasn't your first rodeo. I mean, I think you have like 17 books out or so. I mean, whatever the number is, you are, you are really a book guy. So I think that's a really great little nugget, little wisdom there. I just want to do my Sasha thing where I'm undermining that.
Ed Templeton: Yeah, it's exciting. I mean, I think it's. Most of my books have been a solo show in a way, which is. Which is weird. You know, Yasunori at Superlabo pretty much lets me do what I want. And maybe there's a trust from seeing what I'd already done that he doesn't need to babysit me or anything like that, but. But I'm my own editor, my own designer. I just kind of make those books in a vacuum and put them out in the world and with wires crossed. It was like, a welcome change to have Leslie to go pore over everything and question everything and, why are you doing this? And what's happening here? And why is this important to put in the book? To be questioned on that level is really, I think, helpful and amazing.
Sasha Wolf: It's really an honor in some ways, right, to have someone else be so interested and so completely immersed in your work. And I feel like. I'm sure, like, look, I know that obviously, for a lot of people, can be challenging to all of a sudden have someone pushing back, but I think, for the most part, especially when you're working with someone of Leslie's caliber, to have that kind of attention, I think is a real honor, personally.
Ed Templeton: For sure. Yeah. I mean, nobody has done a deeper dive into that work than her when we were making this book, and so she saw all the stuff that was left out and helped me come to that conclusion in the end, to the point where it was, like, kind of amazing that at one point we. She said, you have to lose 10 spreads or something like that, which normally would be, like, a total freak out. Like, what? 10 spreads? Are you crazy? And it was so easy. Like, I think because we.
Sasha Wolf: It's still a big book just to let people know who don't have it in front of them.
Ed Templeton: Yeah, yeah. But it was crazy because it's like, I was surprised when she told me that. I was like, I went through, like, a mini panic. And then.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, I'm sure.
Ed Templeton: And then. And I had this, like, miniature. I have a corkboard in my negative room. And so I do everything really tiny in a way. I have these, like, little spreads that are maybe about 8 inches wide, you know, And I had the whole book, all wires cross fit on this cork board. And so I was able to, like, move spreads around physically with these little mini, mini black and white printouts. Just laser. Laser printer, you know. And, yeah, it was. It was kind of easy. But I think the reason it was easy is because we had done so much work getting it. Getting the themes sorted out and everything that it was, like, really easy to lose. Lose stuff.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, you had that clarity. Yeah, that's true.
Ed Templeton: I talked to. I interviewed Jim Goldberg a long time ago for a magazine I was helping to edit, AMP Quarterly. And I asked him this question about Raised by Wolves. I said, how did you edit down this body of work? And he said he had done it by character. So he had Tweaky Dave and the different runaways that he was following around, and he put them in big piles and then said, I could only fit X amount of Tweaky Dave in the book. So he did it that way, and I tried to do it that way. For me, I have Alyssa Steamer, who is one of the. The first female pro street skater who was on our team, and, you know, Brian Anderson, all these different characters in the book. And I did them in piles and tried to do it that way, but I couldn't. I couldn't end up doing it that way. I couldn't use Jim's, like, style just because it didn't work for me, because there was just too many photos of different people that represent a different theme. So we ended up doing it kind of by theme. Like, you know, as you go through the book, there's sort of these subtle themes that kind of come in, like injuries, the fame and rock star ness of pro skaters, the sort of the conflict with police. These kind of themes kind of merge in and out as you go through the book. But back to what I was saying, I guess I kind of, like, was trying to explain how I ended up going in this Robert Frankie, Jim Goldberg sort of way with it is it was my sketchbooks. So I keep these sketchbooks when I travel. It's kind of a diary. I write, you know, what I did each day and make little drawings and, you know, fantasize about book layouts. All that kind of stuff is in there. And I was using those to find the date of a photograph. Like, I was like, you know what? I can't remember what tour this was and what year it was or what city we were in. And I would kind of dip into those books to be like, oh, yeah, we were in, you know, Kansas City at that point. And then I was realizing as I was looking through that, that, oh, man, I wrote about some of the photos. Like, I would write, like, what photos I shot that day. And then these stories kind of emerged, like, how. Why would I not add these stories about. Because I was writing stories about what was happening on Tour, like, the shenanigans we were getting into and the stupid stuff, doing as kids and, like. And just kind of complaining about, oh, it was raining, and, you know, we blew through this city or that city. And, you know, I was realizing, like, without knowing it, like, I had sort of a Karawakian flow to some of these things, and I wanted to, you know, and I. Yeah. So then I started scanning the text directly out of my. Out of my sketchbooks and putting those into the layout and playing around with it. This was before I got to the Aperture phase, but once I showed it to Leslie, she, of course, just loved those text bits and all that stuff.
Sasha Wolf: No, I'm so glad you brought it back to that, because I had read that that's how this came to be the text. And I'm glad you brought it back to the diaries because I find that just so interesting and wonderful and. And, you know, also just another thing for people listening who are artists, to think about the. You never know when those notes that you took or you are thinking about taking could be of use and. Or more than use. Right. Become part of the artwork. So, yeah, I wish I.
Ed Templeton: Wonderful. I wish I had been better at it. I mean, you see these. I don't know if you've seen those, like, recent books of, like, Kudelka Koudelka's books where he's got all these journal entries, or like Susan Mysella's the. The Making of Carnival. Carnival Strippers and like, all those copious notes and everything. I was, like, so jealous of that stuff. I wish I had done it that. Yeah, that. That. Well, really. My sketchbooks are really spotty, especially traveling. I, like, I barely write when I'm at home, but when I travel, I do it. I make a point to do it every night when I'm. When I'm traveling. So when we were just in Japan, I have lots of. Lots of sketchbook stuff. But, yeah, here at home, I'll realize, oh, I haven't touched that thing for a month or something. And I get bummed to myself because it is really, like you said, it's really important to look back. You never know. And I'm not even writing.
Sasha Wolf: Never know.
Ed Templeton: Profound stuff. I'm not writing deep thoughts in these.
Sasha Wolf: Well, it's good not to put that pressure on yourself. Right? Like, I mean, no one should put that pressure on themselves that keeping a, you know, a journal or a diary to. In general, I could just stop, you know, with that. But we're talking about thoughts that accompany art making, you know, the worst thing you could do is put that pressure on yourself, that it needs to be profound, because then you'd never want to open the book and write.
Ed Templeton: That's true. That's true. Yeah. I do wish that. I. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know how I. I don't know if I'm built that way to, like, just be confessional with it. So, yeah, the. I guess it sometimes morphs into that, but most of the time it's literally just got up, ate here, went. Did this, did that. You know, like, pretty. Pretty.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, that's fine. Straightforward. It should be. Whatever it is, you gotta just, you know, let it be you. And then you can shape it later, like with the pictures themselves. I wanna ask you. This is an odd question, maybe, but I'm gonna quote you, and then I have a question for you. In another conversation, another interview you were doing, you said, I remember Nan golden and her use of tungsten light. So effectively the darkness of her natural environment and the indoor light casting a yellow over many of the photos, but conversely, the deep blues. I recall her photo, Ryan in the tub, having such a great blue shade. And there's a photo of her as Gino in the Lake Bavaria, where a woman is shot from behind as she is about to dip into the water. And I remember being struck by the light in that photo, and perhaps the light was what the struck Nan to take the photo. I wanted to ask you about that because you seem so, in that quote, sort of seduced by Nan's colors. I mean, not just the light, but colors. You're a black and white photographer. So I was sort of struck by that when I read that and just wanted to ask you about the decisions that you've made in terms of color versus black and white in your work.
Ed Templeton: Yeah, I think I want to say it's mostly just for practical reasons, because I have the dark room here and I don't do color. And so, yeah, I think I just shoot black and white, mostly because of that. In a lot of ways.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah. Sometimes you have to stick with what makes sense in your life and how something fits into your life. There's nothing wrong with that.
Ed Templeton: But I do subscribe to the idea that I think color works. When it works, it works great. But I think that might be like 25% of the time, and the rest of the 75, the colors end up being kind of garish and vulgar in some way and kind of end up messing it up. And I like. And I. So I like the idea of Just paring it down to the. To the content and the shape.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, you're a true black and white photographer. Really. I mean, that answer is. And I understand exactly what you're saying, a lot of people shoot in color and don't realize that if you're going to shoot in color, you need to really, really understand color and work with the color palette. And if you're going to have those garish colors, which to me often shows up in that sky blue, which I have my own personal problems with, that baby blue sky, that it needs to be used in a way that makes sense for the content, and it's another character. And I think a lot of people don't. Don't really understand that who shoot in color. And. Yeah, I was just really struck by that. But, you know, you're just a black and white guy, which I totally respect.
Ed Templeton: But the light stuff still applies. I mean, I feel like, of course, even though your eyes see in color and you might be struck by a certain color or light situation, the fact that I have black and white, I guess I'm just not the kind of person that would be like, I'm gonna change my role just for this. Like, I just kind of have what I have, and it's kind of whimsical. Like, I might just be like, I'm gonna throw in some color today and then. And then be angry that it. You know, I'll get a couple photos that I like and then a bunch that I wish were just black and white or.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah.
Ed Templeton: Or vice versa. You know, like, mostly I'm shooting black and white, but of course, every once in a while you come across like, oh, my God, this is such a color photograph, and I don't have color on me. You know, so.
Sasha Wolf: Sacrifices.
Ed Templeton: Yeah, it's. Exactly.
Sasha Wolf: Can you tell folks a little bit about this incredible little object that I'm holding in my hands right now, this little book called Contemporary Suburban.
Ed Templeton: Oh, yeah. Gosh, there's such a crazy story with that book. It's the little book that could.
Sasha Wolf: I don't know if it's still available, so.
Ed Templeton: But I think it actually is. I think it's on the site.
Sasha Wolf: If it is, people should get it. Yeah. Tell folks about its construction stuff. It's pretty special.
Ed Templeton: It's a fascinating story. Okay, so this came from. I was at a book. I'm at the LA Art Book Fair, and I'm talking to Chris Pickler from Nasraeli, who's trying to come up with some ideas for not wasting paper, because one of his Artists, and I forget who it was, was kind of demanding a certain size book, and he couldn't convince the guy to, like, go to a smaller or bigger sheet kind of book. He had a very specific size in mind, which means that he, as the publisher, had to buy a certain size paper, which was, in his view, wasteful because it was cutting off a big chunk of it and going to be wasted. And I guess in his head, he was like, I wonder if I can, you know, proposition a bunch of artists, see if they have any ideas for a book in this weird size. And so he was actually pitching a scroll. He's like, hey, would you want to make a book, like a scroll book, like, where it. It literally comes in a tube and you have to, like, roll it, unroll it to look at it? And I was like, yeah.
Sasha Wolf: I mean, oh, my God.
Ed Templeton: And I'm sure he was saying this to everybody. Like, any different artists he was talking to this day, like, trying to come up with ideas, but, you know, and then he was like, or it could be an accordion book or something. He's like, do you have anything? And I was just like. I'm like, well, yeah, actually, you know, me, Indiana are, you know, constantly shooting suburbia where we live, and we have a. A huge body of work that will be a bigger book project someday with that, but we could definitely do something on. On this subject. And I think right there on the spot, we came up with the idea to, like, oh, what if, like, one side was one artist and one side was another artist. Artist. We'll do a little accordion book. And he had this, like, very specific strip of paper that was going to be wasted. So that kind of dictated the size. So unlike a lot of books where you're like, this is the size I want. This is what I want. Like, everything was kind of dictated to me by the. By the size of what the strip of paper he had, you know, and so that was kind of what was handed to me, like, as an idea. And then.
Sasha Wolf: That's awesome.
Ed Templeton: And then as being a designer, I was able to kind of, like, build that. That idea in InDesign. We broke it down.
Sasha Wolf: I love this book. I'm obsessed.
Ed Templeton: We broke it down into how big each, you know, sheet is, because then, you know, within an accordion book, you have to glue together different segments. And so, you know, I built the InDesign file, and we're starting. Me and Deanna are both adding photos to it and making, like, that design with a different sort of a flowy design with different photos. Different sizes as it goes through and. And worrying about what photo lands on, what cracks or what folds, you know, and all that kind of stuff, but, you know, having fun doing that. But essentially it was a book about the suburbia we live in and sort of a his and hers take on it. We both shoot the same way in a lot of ways. We shoot back to back a lot of times. And what's interesting is the way she sees the world and the way I see the world. And there's a Venn diagram where we see the same thing and sometimes shoot the same thing. But then she veers off into more portraiture. She's more patient and talks to people and gets better portraits of people and things like that. And I'm a little more of a run and gun type of person. And so that's kind of the concept for it. But then coming from those humble beginnings of like, hey, let's save some paper and make a book project so I can, you know, maximize on this paper I have to spend money on, what happened afterwards is just what's crazy, because it's like we kind of do this book and we're not placing a lot of importance on it. You know, like, maybe we should have placed more importance on it, but we were kind of having fun with it. Like, it's a fun project. It's. It's a small book. But then Chris McCall likes the book at Pier 24 Museum and asks if we would want to show the work in a room there. So we suddenly. We make this body of work from. And again, like this. Another side note is that we. Since the book was so small, I didn't have my DSLR scanner system yet. We had one of those Epson flatbed scanners where you, you know, put. It's. It's like a flatbed scanner that has a light box on the top built into the top of it, which is not a very good scanner. But. But we scanned all the stuff with there. We were getting pretty good scans out of it, honestly. But. But it's not optimal. It's not a drum scan. So, you know, we're building the book with that spirit in mind, like, just do it yourself. And. And then Chris says, we want to, you know, we want to show it. Luckily, the scans were good enough to use. So we made prints from the scans, and then he frames them, and we have this show at Pier 24, which is incredible. And then the director of the Utah Mocha saw that show and wanted that work to show there. So Chris sends that work to the Utah Mocha. And it shows at the Utah moca. And suddenly we're like, wait, how did. How have we. From this, like, weird. From this weird beginning, how have we gotten two museum shows out of this work?
Sasha Wolf: Fantastic.
Ed Templeton: And then on top of that, now then the work goes back to Chris and Clement Charu, who was the director for a short time at the SF moma, took the job at the New York moma director of photography. And I think since Chris had a connection, he said, hey, do you want. I'd like to gift this work to the. The Museum of Modern Art. Would you accept it? And then it goes through the whole accession board and everything and gets accepted. So that work, now that was scanned on my little crappy scanner. Yeah. Has been in two museum shows, is now literally in the collection of the New York MoMA. So Deanna and I both have, like, 40. 40 images each in the MoMA.
Sasha Wolf: That's fantastic.
Ed Templeton: Who knows if they'll ever show them or anything. But it's like, so a weird story. It's like. That's why we call it the little Book that Could. It just came from such humble beginnings, but now it's like, somehow in the hallowed halls of moma.
Sasha Wolf: Well, that's great. I didn't know any of that. And that's so wonderful because I love this little book. I think it's just beautiful. Beautifully done. I love its spirit. I love the images, and I think it's a real triumph. So if it's not sold out, I don't know if it's expensive or not. So I don't want to be cavalier about.
Ed Templeton: I think it's relatively cheap, and I think it's still.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah, I might buy myself. I might get another copy.
Ed Templeton: Well, if you can't find one, I have a little stash that I can.
Sasha Wolf: Okay. Okay. Yeah. This is very special. Well, we're coming towards the end. I want to ask you one last question, sort of getting back a little bit to just mentioning our mutual friend Leslie Martin. You did an interview with Leslie When Wires Crossed came out, and she asked you how your work has evolved over the many years that you've been photographing, and you found that hard to answer. You said that was hard to quantify or what's the word to use? Anyway, I'm wondering. I know it's not. There's. It's only been a few years since Leslie asked you that question. But I'm wondering now, as you look back on from when you first started to now, if there's anything that you see that's different or evolved or devolved. And. Yeah, anything you can point to that's different about the way you make work or the quality of your images.
Ed Templeton: Yeah, I mean, I think in a lot of ways you hope to devolve a little bit. You know, it's like that Dylan lyric, you know, I was so much older than. I'm younger than that now. You know, you want to keep that childlike approach to things. But having said that, I mean, I think you can't really stop evolving. And so looking back on some of the older work compared to now, I think that there's, you know, I think people are familiar with the whole Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours type of concept, at least. I don't know if it's been completely debunked or not. But, I mean, there's something to it. And I think when I'm walking through the streets, my anticipation has gotten a lot sharper.
Sasha Wolf: Interesting.
Ed Templeton: My understanding of how trying to corral chance in your favor by looking at human patterns and, you know, putting yourself in likely situations that will create a film. Yeah, of course, has gotten a lot better. And I guess, you know, the fact that I'm still fascinated all these years later by the mystery of what humans are and. And still interested in shooting. I mean, even with my iPhone. I mean, when I'm in. When I'm traveling, I don't know if you follow me on Instagram, but I'm. When I'm in a city, when I. When I'm traveling, I go on a rampage of posting just iPhone, iPhone photos too. Because once I am shooting street photos, but sometimes you can't lift your camera up or whatever. So then I'm like, using. Using an iPhone to shoot, and. And then it gets like, too. Too dusky to shoot with my natural light kind of camera. So then I'll bust out the iPhone and shoot. And it's just like an obsession with, like, wanting to, like, do it. So. So I don't know. I still have that. That fever to keep shooting all the time. And so, yeah, what I notice is that I'm a little better. I still look at the proof sheets when I come back from a trip and go, if you ever shoot the back of someone's head again, I'll. You know, I'll kill you. I'll kill myself.
Sasha Wolf: Yeah.
Ed Templeton: And then I. And I end up doing it and doing it and doing it and like, you know, it's like something like. So it's like, you know, it's like a constant Struggle of, like, you know, be brave. Like, if you see something you want to shoot, don't be afraid to. To jump in front of that person and get it. Like, you know, not full Bruce Gildan style, but.
Sasha Wolf: No, I hear you. I think that's actually a great answer. I mean, it's such a wonderful combination of what you started with talking about, you know, trying to maintain that enthusiasm and childlike sort of fascination and interest, as if you're sort of seeing something for the first time mixed with, like, genuine recipes you learn and adjustments to make.
Ed Templeton: Yeah, it's like that stare. You know, I think someone has probably made this analogy, but photography is like a child staring at somebody where as adults, you become polite and you don't want to stare at anything. But photography freezes that moment and lets you kind of, in the privacy of your own home, stare at that person. And that's what's interesting. Like, you know, you see someone with some really cool outfit on or. Or some interesting face or something funny is happening. Whatever it is, you know, you just kind of shoot it and freeze it, and you get to look at that for longer than you might in the real world.
Sasha Wolf: So, yeah, that's great. Well, Ed, thank you so much for hanging out with me this morning. It's really wonderful to talk with you and have to arrange to get Diana on. Thought about having both of you on at once, but there's no reason for that just because you're in the same house. So you're. You each are, you know, great for our audience to hear from each of you separately about your amazing career. So. So thank you so much. Really, you know, really wonderful.
Ed Templeton: Thank you so much. Yeah, it was a real pleasure. Yeah, man, I'm really happy to do it. I've listened to it so many times that it's. It's going to be surreal.
Sasha Wolf: I hope in a good way.
Ed Templeton: In a good way.
Sasha Wolf: All right, be well and have a wonderful upcoming trip. And the podcast will definitely be airing while your show is up. You want to just tell people the exact dates and place for that upcoming Paris show.
Ed Templeton: Oh, gosh. I think it's April 17th at the OFR bookshop in Paris.
Sasha Wolf: Okay.
Ed Templeton: And I think it'll be up for a month, so I guess until.
Sasha Wolf: All right, awesome.
Ed Templeton: Until around May, middle of May.
Sasha Wolf: We have a lot of folks who listen in Europe and in France and Paris, so hopefully they'll hear this and check it out. All right, well, have a great trip and great talking with you.
Ed Templeton: Thank you. Bye, Sasha.
Sasha Wolf: Bye, Ed.
Michael Chovan-Dalton: Photo work with Sasha. Wolf is a production of the Photo Work Foundation. Executive Producer is Sasha Wolf and the associate producers are Taylor Salzback and Noah Lynn. The show is also produced and 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.