The Truth In This Art Beyond Philadelphia: The Power of Connection in Photography with Aaron Richter

Rob Lee: Welcome to The Truth In This Art Beyond, and we are back in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. I am your host, Rob Lee. And thank you for joining us as we explore the intersections of artistic narratives, cultural exploration and community connections. Today, we're unraveling the captivating visual stories framed by our guest, a seasoned editorial and commercial photographer who skillfully navigates the creative landscapes from Philadelphia to New York. please welcome Aaron Richter. Welcome to the podcast.
Aaron Richter: Man, how's it going? It's nice to be here one-on-one with your soothing podcast voice.
Rob Lee: Well, thank you. It's great to connect and being able to talk with folks and learn more about their process, how they create, how they go about their work. It just adds to it, adds to a fulfilling day. To start off, You know, I want to, you know, before we get into like sort of the current work, I want to go back and see if you could maybe recount an early experience with photography that left a lasting impact or played a pivotal role in, you know, shaping your creative journey.
Aaron Richter: Yeah. Stuff like this, I always come back to one kind of early event and it was getting laid off from a job. And it's kind of like the end of the story. kind of where my photography career starts, but I can go back and kind of like recount, like my experiences with it when I was younger, like, you know, I was into photography when I was a kid, I did black and white darkroom. I think I first did it in like summer day camp. And I remember being in the dark room when, you know, the image popped up when we were agitating the developer. And like, that just felt like the most magical thing I could imagine. And I wanted to do that all the time. I didn't do it a ton until like later when I got into high school and I was like a darkroom brat for, you know, my senior year and was fully thinking that that's what I wanted to do. I was going to go to college and study journalism, photojournalism, something like that. And so when I got to college, I took I went to the student newspaper. I figured, you know, make some work for myself. You know, I was taking classes that were like Statistics 101, the basic things you're not really getting like photography experience, so I was like, let's get some assignments at the student newspaper. I did two assignments, two photo assignments, and I messed up both of them. One I remember I'd had a yellow filter on my lens because when you shoot black and white, that that does something to the black and white film. And I was shooting color film and I just didn't have the reps in me to know that I should be taking that off. So I messed up two of them. It kind of scared me away from photography. Not just that, but like the assignments that I was getting. It was like, go to this event and take pictures of these people at this event and come back, develop your film. and we'll run it in the newspaper. And I didn't know that there were other ways to take pictures. I kind of thought for myself that that was the only thing. And so the one thing that I did love was I did love the newspaper, and I liked working there. And so I kind of got into writing. I started writing music reviews, interviewing bands. That was kind of the thing that I did throughout college. Started magazines when I got a little older, moved to New York and got a magazine job. I was a copy chief at a magazine called Giant Magazine for three years. And while I was there, I was starting my own music magazines, but also working at Giant. And the thing that Giant kind of gave me, and keep in mind, I'm not taking pictures at all. I'm editing the magazine. I'm, you know, pitching stories to other magazines. I'm writing a ton. And Giant was kind of the first experience I had with an art department, because where I sat in the magazine office, the art department was right behind me. The creative directors that we had there were kind of these legendary, you know, people who'd done these like really great work for magazines like The Face and America Magazine and Trace. And I really kind of got hooked on the visual side of it. I think a big turning point for me was when I would be the writer for this feature that we would do every month, where we would have like 10 up-and-coming actors or musicians or artists come, and one photographer would shoot all of them on that day, and I would interview them. And I would watch the photographer, my buddy Ruvan, work. And he would have so much fun and he would get such genuine moments with them. And the time that he spent with them felt like real and honest. And then they would get to me and I would say, so tell me about your new album or tell me about your new movie or what was it like working with such and such director? And those are the questions that I had to ask because I had to write a blurb that was 150 words and I couldn't really get into it with them. And so that kind of like reawoken something in me. to be interested in photography and kind of be interested in the process. I also saw that my friend didn't have all of the skills to light things. He could kind of just show up with a point and shoot camera and a flash and make a beautiful photo. And so that as well tore down a barrier for me. I realized that I didn't necessarily have to, you know, know everything in order to take a good picture of someone. You know, I tell people all the time that if they want a good camera, like the iPhone is a great camera, you can take amazing photos with it. And it's just kind of like the barrier to entry is so low. But I picked up the camera again and I started taking pictures again. And this was at a time, this is around 2009, 2008, 2009. And magazines were kind of going down and magazines were closing. And I was one of the first people laid off from that magazine when it was starting to close. I literally spent my severance on a camera and decided to teach myself photography from that point out. And I had journalism skills, so I was able to kind of you know, make money so that I didn't have to rely on photography in a way where, oh, I got to shoot a wedding or I have to shoot this event because I need to make my rent. I could just shoot the things that I wanted to because I could pick up journalism jobs and that would, you know, pay my rent, pay my bills. It was, you know, New York is an amazing city to kind of learn in. And I just started giving myself assignments from that. You know, it came from you know, doing early test shoots with models that I found on Craigslist, like literally like meet me at a park and we're going to like take pictures, to at the same time I was making my own music magazine. And so I'd taken over the art direction for that. And if we had an assignment that was coming up, I could tell, you know, the people who I was working with, you know, Dev from Blood Orange has a new album that he's putting out. Like, I could commission a photographer to do this or I could just shoot it myself. So because of that, I was able to, you know, develop a small portfolio of assignments. And, you know, from there, magazines started noticing. The first two magazines that started giving me assignments were Nylon Magazine back in its print days and Spin Magazine, which is wild to me that a lot of people don't know what Spin was, but Spin was like the legendary magazine to me. Like I moved to New York because I wanted to edit and write for Spin Magazine. And by getting laid off and teaching myself photography, I was eventually shooting for Spin Magazine like all the time. Wow. So that's kind of I know you like superheroes. That's kind of my origin story.
Rob Lee: I love it. I love it. I like that a lot. It's something to be said about, you know, some of the things I took out of what you were describing as sort of the having, I guess, the fall, if you will, and being able to to revisit after having some of that that time away from it, separated from it and exploring something else. I've touched on that in this podcast where if things were what they were, quote unquote, intended to be, I would be a comic book artist. That's what the beginning of the creative journey was for me in this sort of visual realm. That, murals, things like that. And I got the hit in high school. It's like, eh, this isn't good. So I abandoned it and I started writing. And in that writing, it was storytelling, whether it be poetry, whether it be rap songs or whatever, or short stories. And, you know, kind of exploring sort of this self-taught thing. I was like, I always had a microphone on me. I'm always talking to this microphone and kind of be a jerk with a microphone. I used to speak in the third person like The Rock. It was ridiculous in high school. But I want to say, you know, I was listening to a lot of like talk radio, like more of the, not the morning zoo stuff, but You know, but it was radio from a regional sort of sort of sense, like it was like a lot of K-rock, a lot of D.C. oriented stuff, things like Sports Junkies and really in that sort of era where HD2 radio and things of that nature became a thing. And it was very personality oriented. And then I discovered Smodcast, the Kevin Smith podcast. And I went across the street after listening to that and he'd slipped up that he uses a fast track pro. And that's what I went across the street at Best Buy to buy. And it was just kind of like stumbling into this thing. And I still own that gear nearly 15 years later. And, you know, it's afforded me opportunities to connect with pretty big people in that that way you were describing that you were doing these interviews and kind of feeling like you have to ask certain questions. I'm like, I'm I'm always going through like, what would someone find interesting? But it's also what do I find interesting? And, you know, the people that I think would like it will get that will get perspective from coming from, I suppose.
Aaron Richter: Yeah, I mean, it got to the point with journalism where I was so fed up with asking the questions that I was supposed to ask that I would have interviews that I was going to do. And I would literally show up. I remember I showed up to this interview with this metal band called Mastodon. And I looked at the two guys from the band that were with me and I was like, I didn't prepare. What do you guys want to talk about? And I had prepared, but I kind of wanted to know what they were thinking about that day. So. You know, and you know, this is all stuff that I still use with photography. It's kind of like just this natural curiosity that I have that kind of like helps me engage with subjects. But, you know, the guy in the band was just like, well, I'm really into like vintage T-shirts. And from vintage t-shirts, we got into him going thrifting and then it involved stuff that he had done with his kids. And then he started talking about family and how his family was important and how he spends time with his family. And it's all this stuff that I'm like, well, this is really interesting because I wouldn't get any of this if I asked you about the influences on your new record or why you paint it's had someone paint a giant whale crushing into a ship on the album cover like you know like it's like this is who you are as a human not who you are as a musician and who you are as a human is going to inform it it's just there's it's not as easy to get to that point yeah i think with the structure that a lot of these things go with
Rob Lee: You know, I've really been on this recently and talking with marketing folks and I'm not slagging off marketing folks, but they're not necessarily podcasters. They're not necessarily interviewers. Those are different skill sets. And I find that with these sort of rigid, these are the talking points. You're closing off doors. You're closing off doors to the structure of a conversation. And, you know, I hear it all the time when I talk with folks that this was my first interview or this was the best interview I've done, because people usually ask me about this project that I did, but they didn't really do any research. And it seems like it's these sort of canned questions. And it's not audible, but you can almost notice the interviewer yawning because they're not interested in asking the questions that they're given. But in that, I'm jumping ahead a little bit because I think it's a good spot. How important, because you were talking about connection a moment ago with the dude from Acidon, how important is it for a photographer to connect with the subjects, with their subjects, and to bring out their true self? Like, speak on that a little bit, because we're right there and it doesn't make sense to go backwards.
Aaron Richter: I mean, for me, it's kind of everything. And I can kind of touch on some of the other questions that you had, too, with this. But, you know, the connection is what you look for. I think you were one of the questions was like, what makes a good portrait or what makes a good photo? And it's such a hard question because there's so many things that someone can connect with that someone else can look at and be like, oh, that's boring. You know, I went to a photo, like a museum exhibit of a great photographer and my partner and I walked through the exhibit and at the end of it, we're just like, okay, I don't, I didn't enjoy that at all. But they're great photos and they're historical photos and it doesn't, there's no like common thing that it's all I mean, I guess for a great photo, you can kind of get to that point where it's something that makes you linger on it. But then for each person, what makes you linger on it is going to be different. And I think that for me, The connection is central because all of the photos that I take and, you know, I will do a photo shoot with someone and I will take 2000 photos and then I pick one. And that is the photo that I show or I'll pick six. And those are the photos that I show. And the ones that I always come to are the ones where I specifically see myself. It's a photo of that person, obviously, but for me, it's a self-portrait as well, because the moment that I'm capturing is specifically the moment that that person is sharing with me. And, you know, it's this thing where people will talk about, like, timeless images and that kind of thing. And I don't really dive into that with my work because it's so much about that specific moment and the fact that that person was there and I was there. And so because of that, the connection kind of is everything. you know, there's lots of ways that you can connect with someone. I used to do a thing where, you know, if I would shoot celebrities and there was already this power dynamic on set where the celebrity has all these handlers and there's this reverence for them, and how do you kind of like bring them to the level that you want to work at? And so what I would do is while they were getting their hair and makeup done, I would actually sit on the ground by them and chat with them rather than kind of like hover over them or kind of be a person, another person who's bothering them, you know what I mean? And so it was kind of just like that same way of like, well, what do you want to talk about? We're just kind of hanging out here. You know, you might have a little power now. You're sitting up above me. I'm sitting down. But yeah, but but I'm but I'm I'm I'm going to be in charge in a second. We're going to share this together. We're going to make something together. And so there's lots of ways that you can establish that kind of connection with people. There's There's big like photo theory brain stuff that I'm kind of into right now that is about connection and maybe we can get into it a bit but it might be a little over. I don't know. I'm into this stuff now because I'm self-taught and I didn't I didn't learn, I didn't go to school for any of this. So all of these amazing photographers and all these people who wrote about photo theory and why photos exist, I didn't experience any of this stuff up until very recently. And so now that it's stuck in my head, I'm very like in my head about why we take pictures, what we're looking at, why our process is important. And there's a really great book right now, and it kind of speaks to what I look for in connection, or at least what I'm looking for. recently in connection. It's called to photograph is to learn how to die. It's by Tim Carpenter. It's a really tiny book. And it's very heady. You can read the whole thing and not get a single word out of it. Or you can read the whole thing, get a couple things. But it, it's something that I feel like I'm going to keep coming back to. And ultimately, the ultimately, One of the main points that I took away from it is him talking about his attraction to photography and why he likes photography over other artistic mediums. And it comes down to for him, the fact that photography is a medium of limitations. You are held by what's in front of you. If I was painting a picture of you on this screen right now, and you know, you were looking at me seriously just now, but I'm like, you know, we've been having a good time. I could paint a picture of him smiling. I could change your face to make you smiling. But if I was going to take your picture, I would have to actually connect with you and interact with you in some way in order to make you smile, because I need to engage with you in that way. Thinking about that kind of stuff has pushed me into kind of like different things that I'm exploring. I'm shooting a lot with like couples right now, because it's kind of like the ultimate in, well, at least for me right now, the ultimate in, like, how do I get these people to engage with themselves in front of me? You know what I mean? Like, how do I create an image of intimacy in front of two people I have to connect with them in a way where I can convince them that this is safe and there is permission granted. But at the same time, I don't necessarily want something safe. I want something that might feel like it's a little bit private. So how do I work that connection to get to the point where they're giving me something that feels like it could be stolen, but they're also giving me permission. It all has to do with connection and how I'm able to engage with the person.
Rob Lee: Connection is super important, I mean, in doing this, you know. We hear people, storytellers and so on. I facilitate people sharing their story. And it's just like I try to craft questions in a way. And I like one of the things you touched on earlier as far as like, what do you guys want to talk about? Because I find that I try to, and I find a lot of people do this, they try to add some sort of complication into what their process looks like to kind of re-engage it, to reinvigorate it. There are times where I don't bring pieces of my gear And it's just like, I'm going to MacGyver this. He gets the brain, he gets the brain working well. Or it's just like, I got like two questions, but I know generally my approach is to come up with like, you know, probably eight to 12 questions between the regular questions and the rapid fire ones. But it's like, there's only like two things I really, really want to know. And in it, we ended up getting a really long, robust conversation out of it. because it didn't have like parameters or, or these sort of topics that are off limit and on limit. And, you know, and I don't, I don't even want to do something like that. I want to do something that feels like free, that feels open, that feels connection oriented.
Aaron Richter: I mean, the best photography sessions that I have are the ones that kind of develop organically. You know, give me a stretch of three hours and a vague idea of what I want to get and we will kind of like figure out what the story is here.
Rob Lee: So could you, could you walk us through sort of what that actual like process looks like to set up a portrait, to set up like, you know, a shoot that, that you're going to do. Um, and you know, in that, like, what is it now? How much has it, has it changed as a, as a, as a person who's self-taught, you know, you've, I would imagine you're tweaking, you're, you're, you're like, all right, I've read this book. Let me work this in there a little, definitely be a part of this one now.
Aaron Richter: No, I mean, and it's it's funny because, you know, we're we're at a time where we can consume so many images and consume so many movies and consume so many books that like, it all changes the process. And, you know, I'll spend a lot of time listening to other photographers on podcasts or listening to other artists on podcasts and seeing bits of their process or looking at a book and seeing how an image is you know, kind of intuiting how an image is made from looking at it in the book and knowing how that photographer works and then bringing those sort of practices into what feels right for me. I mean, so much about taking a picture for me because I'm a photographer who works on commission primarily. I shoot a lot of my own personal work. I make a lot of images that are assignments that I get for myself. But, you know, a lot of it is a magazine coming to me and saying, we need you to take a picture of this person. They will be here at this time. It ranges from having 15 minutes in a hotel room with such and such celebrity where you have to get there an hour early and have everything set up and just be on it with all of the pieces that you need and the way that you like to work so that when they're there, you can have a little bit of chit-chat, you can take those pictures and you can get a photo that you're proud of. You can also have three hours in which you can kind of think about, well, how do I want to take this picture and I think when I first started so much of being self-taught is coming from the perspective of just making it work and you know just going into the situation and making it work because I realized that I was going to get a lot of a lot more jobs if I wasn't any fuss so like If Nylon Magazine called me up, and these were my first jobs, like literally the first job, I was working as a copy editor at Us Weekly, and I got a call from the photo director at Nylon. And I just, I had to take the call in the hallway. And he's like, can you shoot 12 fashion stories for our next issue out of your apartment in one day? And so that means like there's 12 story items and each has a photo or two. And I was just like, yeah, I'll figure it out. Like I'd never done any. I'd done test shoots. My photos looked good enough to be a nylon, I guess. They liked working with photographers who would say yes. But there was a big part of me that was like, I better do this and I better not be a fuss about it or I better not like make demands or say I work this way or that way. And because of that, I kind of developed this ability to just make it work in many situations, whether I was in like a closet apartment or out on the street at a terrible time of day. Like I remember, I mean, this is later and luckily I had like a lot of experience under my belt. But like, New York Times had me photograph the national, the band, the national. And you know, you get that assignment. And you're like, Oh, cool. Five dudes in a band was right up my alley. I photographed The bands were the first thing that I was photographing, so it was very familiar to me. But the day before, they were like, oh, so this album, two of the guys in the band have their wives also sing on this new album. And so we need you to photograph the band, but also the band with both of their wives, and also each of the husband and wives together. all four of them and then the two pairs. And by the way, you're gonna do this at noon in Midtown West when the sun is just the absolute worst. And you're just thinking about it and you're like, okay, I'm just gonna have to make this work. I can plan and I can figure it out, but it's a lot to shoot. And it's a lot to shoot in an hour, which is what I had. And the sun is just awful. Like your situation is not good. And so, You know, it's situations like that where I kind of relied on the fact that, like, I've done this before, I can make it work. And you just, you shoot it and you shoot it and you figure out which ones are good and which ones you want to hold on to. And then the ones that are crap, you just don't show anybody. And I think that in spending time with artists' process and figuring that out for myself, I've sort of been able to, at least in the assignments that I can, let myself step away from that make it work attitude and sort of approach shoots with more intention, approach shoots with, well, this is my practice. This is how I like to operate. I think a nice example of how I work this way is I do a lot of studio visits with artists or take pictures with artists. And the thing that I love about artists is artists always love when you need to take another photo. They always understand. If you shoot an actor, they're like, are you done? If you shoot a chef, they're like, is it over? And an artist will always understand when you need another photo. And so I kind of approach this in two ways. One way, I will go to their space and I say, I want three hours. I want to just sit there with you while you work. And so I go, you know, we chat a little bit. I set up my gear. You know, I have some rough lighting. And then I just tell them, why don't you start working on something? And then I just start taking pictures of them working kind of in a documentary way. I take pictures of small details. I found that. you know, in addition to portraiture, having documentary elements and more small details that you might not notice are things that really help tell a story. And so I like to show all of those things together with the portraits. But really what I'm doing in addition to that is kind of seeing how they occupy their space and how they live in their space and how they're comfortable with the tools around them. You know, I just had a session with a photographer and she'd kind of cleared out everything so that she didn't know how much gear I was bringing. And I just, you know, told her, like, you know, it'd be great if you just started working. And she's like, oh, OK, well, we can do that. And really what I needed was just headshots. She just wanted headshots for a show that she has coming up. And so in seeing her work, I saw that she took this you know, this cabinet of all of her paints and she kind of brought it into this piece that she was working in at an angle. So now all of a sudden I have objects that she's working with that are in the frame that make the image more dynamic. I have a foreground element. I have a background element. I have how she interacts with those pieces within here. You know, if I just sat her down, I mean, I think about it in this way. It's like if you have five seats in your living room and you come home you're going to go to the one that you always sit in. You're not going to be like, well, maybe I'm going to go try out this other seat today. You go to the seat that's yours. It's the comfortable one. And I want to kind of figure that out with people that I'm spending that time with. And from that, I'm able to kind of see how they are, see how they're comfortable, see how they're uncomfortable, see how they kind of live in their own space that they've created for themselves. And then I say, well, let's stop this for a second. my lighting is right, I've bounced this light around this room a ton, just stand here or just sit here and let's do some portraits that are a little more still. And I can kind of, you know, move them around a little bit so it doesn't feel super still. But, you know, that's kind of how I get portraits in that sense. And the other way that I work with, you know, portraiture and, you know, I've been doing it a lot with artists lately is just creating a studio setting. And this is a very different process because this is kind of how I learned how to light things. I would do kind of like boot camp for myself where I had a piece of lighting equipment and I had access to a model agency. And I would say, send 10 models over this week. I'm going to figure out how this new lighting that I'm trying to figure out works. And I'd have color backgrounds or white backgrounds or a black background and they would just, you know, pose or sit or I'd figured out how their lighting works. And I still use that process today as, you know, just very kind of more classic portraiture. So I will have someone come over or I will set it up at their place and I'll hang a white piece of paper or a black backdrop and we will just make portraiture that is, you know, all about the person's presence in that image. And I love this too, because it's it's so much more engaging with the act of getting your picture taken than that kind of process of let's just see how you are here, which the other thing on that is, you know, they kind of get comfortable when they forget that it's a photo shoot. It isn't rigid like what they're expecting. Oh, I should stand here. I should look like this. You want me to turn my head this way? And so when I'm setting up studio stuff, I do kind of like let it like sit in that sort of awkwardness of, oh, I do need to turn my head this way or I do need to, you know, I'll always tell people like pretend like there's a someone's got a string that's attached to your shoulder and they're pulling it this way. And I'll, you know, reach to the string and pull it and they'll pull their shoulder in that way. And it kind of moves their body in a way that might feel awkward to them. But for what the lens sees, it's it's right. And that's just a different way of taking pictures. It's much more engaging with like the act that we are taking a picture. And I find that interesting as well. Wow.
Rob Lee: Thank you. Wow. No, that's, that's really good. And I mean, you know, I'm hearing the connection. I mean, I'm hearing, you know, sort of trust and how you're going about like sort of one of the things in there, like being flexible, like I can figure this out. And, you know, I've had some instances where I've done like contract work or like, you know, freelance stuff as a podcaster. And one I did, you know, during this this this last season where I was in a boat doing a podcast and I don't know how to swim. So it's just like, I want to figure it out. I'm going to make it happen and just sort of. That this experience and I was thinking I was like, I just give you my gimmick It sounds like I'll do podcasts and weird spaces today. I'm on the Space Needle. I don't know but yeah, you know, I think it's something about sort of that get it done sort of attitude that can do attitude. And, you know, that comes from, and I've said this before, that comes from having a conversation with a casting director. Again, you know, being able to have all of these interesting conversations with folks and picking up pieces here and there. And, you know, talent is talent, right? But being available, being on time, having a perspective, being professional, whatever those those different things are, I think that's one of the things that comes a lot of times when you're when you're self-taught.
Aaron Richter: I mean, yeah, I mean, with photography, you you really do have to. I mean, especially in the commissions that I get, you really do have to think on your feet like you can have the whole thing planned out like crazy, but without fail. And I mean, something's going to kick you in the dick. You know what I mean? Like, it's just like, you know, what's an example? Just recently, I photographed Devante Smith of the Philadelphia Eagles and photographed him for a story in which we needed to show his body. It was about athletes who don't necessarily have the prototypical or the exact body type for the position that they play. He's skinnier and shorter than most wide receivers, so we wanted to show his body and it involved him shirtless in football tights and cleats so that he could do full runs. And we were shooting at some high school in Jersey, and he shows up in, you know, joggers and slides. And I was just like… Okay, so I got to get you kind of up to full speed for some of these shots that we want to do because it's got to be an active shot. And he's like, I'm not going to run in these. No one told me that I needed this, which is fair. He's an athlete. He's busy. His job is not. getting his picture taken. It was probably an email that he got late at that night and he didn't read or his cleats were at the facility and he just didn't see it in time. You know, there's so many reasons why he wouldn't have it, but we just have to kind of like flex the shoot to that now. So we actually went and shook down some high school kids to try to find a kid who had like similar size cleats to him. So at least we could do like full length ones and he wasn't just in slides. But there's always, you know, I had that shoot. you know, I went the day before, I scouted, I planned the time, we got there at like 6 30 a.m, like the lighting was going to be beautiful, like it's like you don't get better lighting, it was the day after the haze cleared when we had those bad weather days. and we're worried about whether the sky was going to be hazy and the haze just cleared and it was just like perfect temperature, perfect lighting. And he shows up and he can't actually do the thing that we need him to do for the images because there was a miscommunication somewhere. So you just have to, you know, kind of expect it and know that There are things that, you know, now it's time to problem solve. And how are we going to fix this?
Rob Lee: So, yeah. Yeah. And I've heard different creative folks talk about it. You know, definitely I'm on Austin Kleontip and things of that nature. And I remember it was just one of these quotes and maybe I'm misattributing it, but it was just like a quote from a famous artist. I'm blanking on who it is, maybe Pete Townsend, I'm not sure. But it's one of those things of like the reason I'm good is I don't know what I'm doing. And I think we have sort of this, this you touched on earlier. This is how I go about this. My thing is, chiefly, if I'm doing this chiefly, I need to get this interview. I can get audio in a multitude of ways. Everything else past that is gravy. Generally, I structure my stuff this way, but I'm able to flex and go about it in a certain way. But again, it's like you were touching on. It's about that connection. You can feel, you know, feel through that. Like, all right, what kind of how is this person? Because there are some that I'll, you know, have conversations with who. they're not the most vocal. Yeah. And they have like the very monosyllabic. And then you have other people who are like, yeah, I got here's the full story. They can spin a yarn. And you got to be able to play off of that.
Aaron Richter: Yeah. I mean, I would modify that quote to the reason why I'm good is because I didn't know what I was doing. And I think that I hold on to the fact that I went through so many years as a photographer and I couldn't believe people were giving me jobs, but they saw something in the photos that they liked and I was definitely engaging with something that they wanted in the images or else, you know, they wouldn't have kept hiring me. But my daily practices all come out of the fact that I didn't know what I was doing at one point and that I had to make it work. And I had to kind of approach photography with that attitude of, well, I need to learn this. You know, I don't hold on to it now because I approach each job and I'm like, I kind of do know what I'm doing at this point. And there are plenty of instances in which I'm like, well, I don't know how to light it like that. Or, well, I don't know how to handle this situation. Or, you know, there's a big thing where it's like photographers, there's a big difference between a photographer who can take a good picture on a job and a photographer who can take a good picture on a job in which it's pouring rain that day. And, you know, there's different levels of which you can understand how to do your craft because, you know, you've been hired by a client and it's pouring rain and your talent is there. Like, you still have to get an image even though they can't go outside or they can't do, you know, what you wanted them to do. So, you know, I have gotten to the point where it's like, you know, it took me a long time to realize that I was good at it. And I think that I am, but I do think that a lot of it is because I do hold on to the fact that it was a very vivid time for my development in which I was not good at taking pictures. It was important for me at that point to still show people the work, and I think that that contributed to my development. I was learning, and I was proud that I was learning, and so I would take my photos and send out email blasts to all the magazines, and they would see them, and they'd see that I was getting better, and there was never a point where I felt like, well, I'm not good enough yet. I always was like, well, you know, I'm still learning and I can take a good picture. And it's cool. It's not like whoever who can light their ass off, but like, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm getting there, I will get there at some point. And there is something to the fact that I'm unstudied, that I'm going to hold on to. But yeah, you know, at this point, I, I like to think about it as I've done my like education, and I've I won't ever stop, but as far as the photo school and the schooling that my assistants will have gotten who went to RIT or something like that, who have this amazing technical knowledge, I think I'm there. I'm at that point.
Rob Lee: I hear you. I mean, my background is not in journalism. It's not in podcasting. It's just I've been doing it for a long time. I have a business degree. And, you know, just being in practice and again, you know, being curious and seeing sort of that progression. And, you know, I know it may be a piece of it comes from you know, trying to really, trying to, trying to really improve upon what I did previously. You know, when I look back and in terms of repurposing, I don't really like to call it content, but let's say repurposing interviews, you know, I'll put out a newsletter, email blast, what have you. And I'm like, these are some photographers I've interviewed. Here's sort of the through line. I was thinking about cutting out, you know, sort of, you know, what a response to a specific question is from from each photographer. But I feel like that's weird. And it kind of gets to having standardized questions and it feels less organic. But, you know, really going through and really picking through what what what's the what's a good standpoint, what's a good conversation and things of that nature. That's what I'm looking for. And I find that the that the conversations like this that make my job easier is when folks like you I have answered four questions, and I'm going through, I was like, do I have any questions really left? But I want to key back in on two more things before I go into these rapid fire questions. I got two last sort of real questions. You mentioned the recent project with Devante Smith. So going back, is there another project, as you mentioned, the Mastodon one as well? Is there another one that really sticks out as that, you know, and working with these prestigious publications, you know, Esquire, GQ, all these different. Is there a project or shoot or just any sort of interaction? It could be a project that you couldn't take for sake of argument, but you really learned something from it that shaped, you know, sort of subsequent projects.
Aaron Richter: I think the biggest thing for me was COVID. And it's not a not a project. And it's not something that I was working on. It was a complete absence of being able to do my job, which changed my photography more than anything has, you know, more than learning the little lighting techniques or more than, you know, how to interact with people and figuring out those strategies. Like going into COVID, I was living in New York and my work just disappeared. And when I tell you that I didn't work for maybe almost two years, that's like, that's what it was. I, was on unemployment. I mean, my job requires me to be in the room with people or share a space with people. And COVID kind of got rid of that. You know, there were lots of developments in the industry as well at that point. Like, the most amazing thing happened during COVID was that all of a sudden, photo editors had to ask themselves, why am I hiring this white photographer, this white male photographer? And they started inviting other voices to contribute. Like, if I look at old issues of nylon or spin, would I have found a black photographer in the mix? Probably not. And that also contributed to, at this time, all of a sudden, you know, I'm not working. And I had to look at why I was taking pictures for the first time in my life. Because up until that point, I had never thought about, you know, if at any point in this conversation, it's felt like I'm like into my process. Like I wasn't before this. I was a photographer who when I would talk about it, I would honestly say my attitude toward this is I really like to make rad shit. Like that was what I had to like. my like, whenever I would do art direction for something, my art direction would be MRS, Make Rad Share. And so that was the depth of which I thought about it. And people would say, Oh, you're an artist. And I would say, No, I kind of am a commercial photographer, a magazine wants me to take a picture, and I know how to do this. And then it all got taken away. And I had to think about one, whether I could continue doing this or whether I had to think about finding another career. And part of the thing that I did was start a podcast. And it's what everyone did during COVID because it's the only way we could like chat with each other. But I told myself that I was going to use my journalism skills and interview one photographer about one photo that they've taken. And so we would have like an hour and a half conversation. I would kind of edit it down to maybe half hour, 45 minutes, sometimes an hour. And we would just tear apart one photo, talk about it as deeply as we could. And in that, I learned how other photographers worked. And I learned that other photographers thought about their process and would show up and think about the importance of the images that they made. The fact that they took a picture of someone and there was like history behind it. And they're working because of other photographers who came before them. And I hadn't, you know, I was familiar with photographers to some extent, but I hadn't consumed photo books like I do now in a way where I'm curious about what other people have to say. I loved other photographers, but I was mostly gravitating toward photographers who shot like me because I was like, oh, this is familiar, I like this, or I aspire to that one day. And I just really loved finding that other photographers had this process that was very vivid to them. once work came back, which it did, you know, like, two years later, work came back like crazy. And it's so strange, because it happened in one month, it just switched on. And it just was like, nonstop after that. And, you know, as a freelancer, it goes up and it goes down. But I looked at it and I like sat with it and I was like, oh, so work is back. I don't have to go to school for something, go back to school for something and change my career. I'm back to being a photographer. But what I was able to bring with me was these new considerations about why I take pictures, why I work in the way that I do and you know, like being able to show up for a shoot in which you need to get it done, but being able to say, but no, this is my process. This is how I work is such like a liberating thing because now all of a sudden you're making the image that you want to make and not this image that will look good in GQ or work well in Esquire, that kind of thing. It, it changed me more than anything. And, and Even on top of that, just the idea that like photography is important. I can take a picture of this person and it can change someone's perception of who that person is. And I didn't realize that before. I thought I was just making cool stuff. I didn't realize that I could take a picture of someone and it could cause harm. Like it could actually be a form of violence. I could take a picture of someone in a way in which someone looks at that and sees a stereotype or a negative image of someone when that's not what I would have wanted or intended. But now that photo exists in the world. So there was a new element of care that I was able to bring to everything. And I just, it's the point where I, it's as simple as this. It's like the point where I started taking myself seriously. And it was from those conversations with other photographers that I learned that, like that for me was my, my photo school.
Rob Lee: Wow. Thank you. And, um, that's, yeah, that was, that was a, that was a period where I think we had this time to sort of reassess, you know, and this is when, you know, the podcast I was doing beforehand sort of ended and this podcast kind of rose out of it. They were running concurrently, but sort of, um, this one really took off during that time because people felt inclined to share their stories and, you know, having those different considerations and, being able to put something that's out there that's not just for you and the fellas or you and the friends, but really something that's out there that has a purpose bigger than occupying one's time or to a degree entertaining, you know, me and my my friends or have you, you know, this, you know, podcast is more, I think, informational, more. It's entertaining, I suppose, at times, but it's more informational and it's intent. And that was not that. And when this kind of grew out of that and I started taking things more serious, taking how I approach things more serious, and yeah, I think that there is a fair amount of kinship there. And in that, I think that's the good spot for us to kind of wrap on the real questions because I think I got it in there. I think I got that last one covered. So now, now it's the part that I especially like. Most people are like, I'm a little nervous. This is the part I like. I'm looking forward to this part. This is the rather fire portion. And, you know, folks don't get that. If you have a website, I'm going to check out your website. If you, you know, have anything, I'm going to be trolling a little bit. All right. So, and remember, you know, brevity is key here because, you know, what I said is what I said. So you mentioned, you know, music and that's kind of that lane for you. What is the last song you've listened to or last album? Because it's, you know, we've been talking for about an hour, so you might not remember the exact song.
Aaron Richter: Oh, man. OK, so this is I listen to I listen to albums. I'm not a like song guy. I know a lot of people are like playlists and that kind of thing. But like I'm an albums person and I listen to Emotional Rescue by the Rolling Stones. OK.
Rob Lee: So. I've been listening to a lot of her recently, so it's been a romantic darling. Let's go. So, you know, obviously, as I mentioned a moment ago, I was hanging out on your website a little bit, and I like that you have what you recently watched, read and listened to. What are your top three movies from 2023?
Aaron Richter: Oh my God, this is stressful. The killer. For sure, number one. Past lives. I think that is this year and it is funny. I'm I'm the type of person like my engagement with movies is if I get to the Oscars the day of the Oscars and I haven't seen as much as I can, I get stressed. Because, like, I need to, like, fill it out and make my picks. And I don't like, you know, my partner and I, she will watch less than I will, but we have a new tradition where, at the very least, the day before the Oscars, we watch all of the trailers. So that she's familiar with it and she can make picks based on the trailers. Um… What else? I know there's something else. I need to pull up my letterbox. Can I pull up my letterbox?
Rob Lee: Yeah, sure. Me and my partner, we do a similar thing. One of the first times that we actually got together, it was she always gets tickets to the Oscars Best Picture Showcase here. So I was like, I asked her, I was like, hey, can I go to that with you? And she was like, it's like 10 hours. It's kind of boring. And I was like, no, no, no. I was like, I have ulterior motives. I'm trying to get to know you. and having to be a snowstorm. So we got to hang out a lot longer after the movie as well. And that's become like a regular thing. We always go to at least one of the weekends of the Best Picture Showcase and we do a big sort of Oscars weekend.
Aaron Richter: OK, I got it. I'm going to do. Let's see. Past Lives came out. Did Past Lives come out this year? I think it did. So I'm just scanning my letterbox. The best thing that I saw was Beau is Afraid, which is absolutely bonkers. And I was like, I. was by myself at home watching it. And I think I was like screaming at the TV. The killer for sure. And probably past lives. I'd say if John Wick 4 came out this year, that's in there. And Anatomy of a Fall is in there as well. But yeah, that's where I'm at. I take this very seriously. I'll make my top 10 list at the end of the year.
Rob Lee: I dig it. I do a movie review podcast very sparingly. I need to get back to it a bit more, but me and my buddy Dom Griffin, shout out to Dom, we did a retrospective on Kill Bill for the 20th anniversary, and then we started talking about our Tarantino list, and I disrespected Jackie Brown. No, don't do it. He was like, that's my number one. Why is it like your number seven? I was like, look, maybe I got to rewatch it. And then upon rewatching it, I was like, damn, I was really wrong.
Aaron Richter: I was like, this is really good. It's it's the like low key. It's the like the one that like critical reassessment brings it up more. It's like it's toward the top now. It's like most people, I feel like. I mean, too many good movies to for it to crack the top three, though, I think.
Rob Lee: And I, you know, based on what you were saying, those are two that are on my list. Like three, like John Wick is on there. I haven't seen it yet. Beau is Afraid, I haven't seen that. And The Killer, I haven't seen that.
Aaron Richter: Oh man, get ready for Beau is Afraid. Talk about, I mean. I'm looking forward to it. That movie is like damaged in a way that I, like, I love a damaged movie and it is just like, There's so much stuff in it where you're just like, and you did that. Oh, my. I can't believe you also did that. Like if the entire movie was the first third, it'd be like the scariest nightmare I could have ever imagined. It's so good, though, and not for everyone. I would never tell someone you should go watch Bo as a friend.
Rob Lee: I'm going to watch it probably. So this is the last one I got because I see the, you know, the Philly connection, the the the New York connection. So I definitely got to ask because I enjoy going up to the Philly and I always look for like places to go. So what is your like sort of favorite place to get a bite in Philadelphia?
Aaron Richter: Oh, man. Let's see. Sankey, Peking duck at Sankey in Chinatown. Hopefully it will still be there in however many years time it takes them to do this stadium relocation if they end up doing it. Sankey is amazing, like just great, great Chinese food. Getting Peking duck, getting like sweet corn soup. There's always like a really loud table there, which is like part of the experience. Someone is being way too loud. I think it's because some of their tables are huge. So like you just actually have to yell to the person at the other side of it. But that place is that place is amazing. I mean, yeah, I love that spot. And I mean, shout out to it's going to be closed probably by the time this comes out. But shout out to Weckerle's and Little Pop Shop, which is ice cream and ice cream sandwiches. I mean, that was like, I'm fairly new to Philly and I'm definitely really new to West Philly, which is where I live now. Bought a house in West Philly and we found this place, a little pop shop that has ice cream sandwiches that are just like incredible. I've always been disappointed by ice cream sandwiches because they're either too big or they're too messy or they're not enough. And these are not messy at all. And they're the perfect size. But this place is closing at the end of the month and like all of Philly is devastated but I do have to shout them out because it's just like legendary.
Rob Lee: Well, that's it. You're off the hot seat of the rapid fire portion. And in these final moments, one, I want to thank you so much for coming on and taking the time to chat it out with me. This has been a fun, wonderful conversation. And two, I want to invite and encourage you to share with the listeners where they can check you out, your work, website, social media. The floor is yours.
Aaron Richter: This is my hot ones moment where I point at the camera and say what I'm doing, OK? I mean, simple for me. Aaron Richter Studio is my Instagram. It's the best way to stay in touch with me. I kind of wanted to use this section to mention some photographers because I feel like I am nothing if not the photographers that I engage with and that I love and that I kind of like look at every day. And so I just made a little list of some photographers who I really dig right now, and I'd love to shout them out. Gioncarlo Valentine is a photographer whose process I hold very deep in my heart. Like, I had a conversation with him on my podcast, and honestly, that conversation changed my life. The feeling of how important taking pictures can be to someone and the people who get their picture taken that I have came from the conversation that I had with him. His work's incredible. Photographer from Baltimore, makes work in New York now, lots of photos in his community, lots of focusing on legacy and, you know, his peers taking pictures and lifting up people who aren't lifted up very often. Rahim Fortune. I love Rahim's work. Rahim Fortune is an amazing photographer, art photographer. You just got to look him up. His stuff is incredible. He doesn't show that much work because as an art photographer, I think he's holding on to it. So whenever he shows new work, it feels like such a treat. Caroline Tompkins. Caroline Tompkins is a photographer who used to be a photo editor who has just made an amazing just ground for herself with the work that she's making. Her work feels so strange to me and strange in a way where it just, it always surprises me how she's lit someone or how she's engaged with them or how she's posed them. And I love being surprised by photos. Sinna Nasseri, who shoots a lot for the New York Times, a photographer who, talk about like unstudied, like this is a photographer who uses very hard, unflattering light to kind of make these incredible compositions in which he's using frames inside of frames. And it's just like, you shouldn't be able to make amazing photos in the way that he's shooting them, but somehow he does. And when I know that he is somewhere, like he covered Burning Man for like Bon Appetit, I just saw that he was there and I was like, well, I have to know what these photos look like, and they never disappoint. And lastly, Chantal Anderson, who is a photographer who I believe is in LA, and she kind of specializes in, you know, she does her own work, but she has been making the most amazing celebrity portraiture. in which it feels so stolen and it feels so private and it feels so much like an image that you're not really supposed to see. And she is able to get to that point with these people and have that kind of connection with them. and then not only have that connection, but then execute upon that connection a photo and then share it with the world in which, like, I've looked at these photos so many times and it still feels like I shouldn't be seeing them. And I think that's kind of what I love about her work. So photographers that I'm into right now, photographers that I kind of love and always return to their work, I feel like this is a good way to spend that time.
Rob Lee: And there you have it, folks. I want to again thank Aaron Richter for coming on and sharing a bit of his story with us. And I'm Rob Lee saying that there is art, culture, and community in and around your neck of the woods. You've just got to look for it.