SALAD DAYS magazine (Italy)

Autumn issue 2014 – Interview in Italian

Se siete qui a leggere Salad Days oggi, un più che ossequioso ringraziamento lo dovete al fotografo che più di chiunque altro al mondo, ha influenzato il pensiero che sta alla base di tutto questo progetto. Glen E. Friedman è l’anno zero da cui è partito tutto, senza se e senza ma..

(click image below for PDF of original article)

Original RAW interview unedited below in English:

GLEN E. FRIEDMAN INTERVIEW

Almost 40 years after your first steps into photography and after many other publications a new comprehensive book of your early works has been give to the prints. What’s the reason of this new book? And did it came about?

This new book is a celebration of all the most wonderful, most inspiring, and favorite images I have created celebrating the rebels, radicals and creative artists that i have had the honor to work with and portray. Twenty years since the original publication of FUCK YOU HEROES after multiple pressings the original old films made to print the book in 1994 – have deteriorated, so it was time to start over and make it more than ever and better than ever. Bigger and better quality than ever, at an affordable price to get to as many people as possible who are interested or want to learn more.

In a era of ephemere digital media contents, where kids bounce at light speed through youtube videos. Will new generation feel the need for off line paper book browsing? Why should they?

Kids don’t have to do a thing, i don’t expect them to do a thing other than what they feel compelled to do. Driven young people are always the ones to effect change on the planet and it’s never a majority of the people, truth is there are very few leaders, but those who lead, those who want to know, those who already know and want to continue to inspire will be excited to see the roots and the beauty or great photographs that helped to shape and form cultures that still influence change and progressive action and art to this day. They amy want o look at pages bigger than computer of phone screens and feel pages of a book that will speak to them with special images from a special period in time.

How do you pick photos in your extensive archive in order be on your books?

the archive is not that extensive, it’s very particular, and i have just picked what i think is best and most important at this point in my time to share and expose further in a way like never before. Be sure it’s not a complete history for anyone, not even me! there’s been plenty i’ve seen i did not photograph, and plenty more i did not photograph or even see that I wish i had, but it is what it is, and you can be the judge, it’s still pretty fucking amazing and incredible.

Your pictures made an extensive use of fish eye which at the time defined the aesthetic of skateboard and live pictures. Today’s world is flooded with those kind of Go-Pro Style images. Do you still shoot fish eye?

I almost never use a fisheye these days, obviously it is totally overused these days and the aesthetic of great photographs is barely understood by the younger generations at this point because their tastes have been so watered down by so much fucking garbage, it’s just kind of unfortunate and even sad or depressing even at times, but fuck it, it is what it is. I’m just attempting to show folks what it once was and what it could be. 

I’d use the fish-eye  appropriate to my taste and aesthetic, pool riding is the most appropriate, and few other places…. Although i do still love wide angle lenses i more often , honestly, almost exclusively these days use renticular or Rectilinear wide angle lenses (wide but do not curve lines that are straight.

In the last few years buying and developing film became less and less an available option. Do still shoot film and why?

Yes, because it’s what I grew up shoot ind have always shot, it’s what I’m used to and what I know, my cameras use film and i like the way they work so YES i still use film. But i don’t shoot in general that much anymore, and in fact if they made a camera that would fit my old lenses with a full frame sensor I would probably start moving over to digital, but so far, as far as I know I can not use my lenses they way they were meant to be used with the digital technology that’s out there, so i stick to what i got and what I know. It’s served me well for a lot longer time than digital has even been around, why fuck with a good thing?

Modern photography workflow unleashed heaps of possibility. Being Raw file the corespondent of negative film, and lightroom files the one of processed film. Do you think modern photographer has more control and possibilities than before on the final result? 

I actually don’t know what most of the terms you just used mean. Yes there are many more options and it’s easy to make a shitty photo look decent nowadays, but for the most part there are just way many more pictures being snapped, i read some where there were more pictures taken with cell phones in one year, than since the invention of photography in it’s entire history taken prior. That’s fucking gnarly! But also means there’s a lot more crap and over documenting, but at least the natural resources aren’t being wasted as much.

A professional commercial photographer i know told me due to technology being so forgiving, most photographers today 8-% in fact by his estimation, if they were given film to work with would never be able to pull it off, even if it wasn’t actual film, but just the way film was used, if they had to operate like that their probably would be 10% of the photographers that you have out there now…

Your photos are part of important museums collections such as Smithsonian institution. At the same time skateboarding, hip hop and independent music became mass products. Is this a sign of subcultures being institutionalized?

NO, it’s just a sign of these cultures being recognized as something influential and having something important to add to the culture at large, the institutions came to us, we did not go to them, these cultures are important, and being recognized does not mean they have been institutionalized… (“All i wanted was a Pepsi!”)

As change of times the number of youngsters choosing videography instead of photography as their mean of expression grow enormously. Is photographers as group of creatives  going to shrink indefinitely for the future?

Who know? Who cares? i don’t… quality is always more important than quantity

Are you still shooting a lot? Is commercial photography a prominent part of your work today?

I have never shot “commercially”.

You paved the way for generations of skateboarding and music photographers back in the days. This subject became daily job for many today. Where did your attention move as an artist. What’s your favorite subject today?

What ever inspires me at the moment, i can’t say what it is today, but it’s much less often than it used to be.

You have been shooting seminal characters of underground scene al thought your career. How much the subjects contributed to make your photography so significant?

If it was not for the inspiration I got from the subjects I would have not created the work that I did.

Dogtown, early indy music scene, you have always been able to be in the right place at the right time. How did it happen? Was it by chance or result of a specific effort?

A lot of fucking hard work brother, nothing comes easy.

Magazine nowadays are backed-up with courtesy picture from companies or mere filler contents in between advertising. Young generation don’t read as much as we used to and editorials are becoming weaker and weaker.  Is this dangerous behavior going to sentence paper magazines to death?  

Perhaps for most people yes, but for those most educated and with a thirst for knowledge and in depth coverage, it will be there in one way or another, and if not, so be it, if there is no demand than that’s just how it goes. Seeing all the poor quality shit out there it’s no wonder so much has been lost. There’s so much to go through…

Jay Adams recently passed away. You have been one of those depicting most of his earlier and precious action. Is there any story you want to tell us that would help describe and remember him?

Just read my books, the pictures tell all those stories…  For so many, he was the inspiration, he was the seed. He was one of the originators, and he didn’t do any of it on purpose. He was as spontaneous as they come, and because of that he was one of the sport’s great revolutionaries.

Straight edge culture and veganism are defining aspect of you culture and being. How do you see this surge of Marijuana legalization, development of business and mass consumption among youngsters?

Stupid and pathetic on the one hand and freedom for people to phase out serious thinking in their lives on the other, you choose. i choose to “be in touch” – Veganism, it’s a choice of a civilized human being who cares about life on the planet, all life, particularly the life of the environment, humans and animals… it’s all connected, you wanna avoid reality go ahead, you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution, go fuck yourself.

Industries such as skateboarding and music are capitalizing on merchandise sporting Marijuana leaf and Jamaican flag color. Don’t you find this marketing any dangerous or un-ethical?

People get what they want, i don’t support it in anyway, I don’t know why it survives, promoting a mind numbing seems totally un-rebellious to me, so i just don’t get it, mass conformity under the guise of freedom to do what you like to your own senses? OK lie to yourself if you like, but you are being taken advantage of and willingly dumbing yourself down.

If you had to pick three of your photos to symbolize your work, what would they be?

different any day of the week, look in the books, you decide, why do i always have to make everything so fucking spoon fed for you and your readers, do some fucking research on your own and find out which 3 mean the oat to you, surely they won’t be none, but what’s more important? what ever moves you is what’s good to you.

Did you ever had to accept any compromise in order to work as a photographer?

Depends on your definition of compromise. Sure i have at times, working with others is almost always some compromise, working with natural light there is always some compromise, working with any automation there is always some compromise, anything other than your own eye and brain is some compromise, but there are two sides to that. But as far as my artistic integrity very little if any. but it’s happened and been argued, i live in the world and do the best i can.

What’s the worst situation you ever find yourself as a photographer?

Doing stupid interviews 😉

Imagine being sentenced to a 9 t 5 job. Imagine you had the chance to choose. What would you do and why?

Be a school teacher, because you inspire the future generations, it’s the most honorable profession there is.

Can you give youngsters willing to make a life of their passion for taking pictures any advise to make it through?

Pictures or what ever you do, just take it seriously, put all your heart into it and do the best you can for yourself, if it’s not in your heart of hearts, then quit now and find out what is.

Any final message?

Look up the word integrity, think about it every morning when you wake up for at least 10 minutes, every day, for at least a week, then just go live the rest of your life. good luck!

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