(00:00:00) Listen st. Paul skies are Sunny it is 47 degrees. There is a brand new book out about Canada. It's a large book of photographs entitled a day in the life of Canada. All the pictures were taken as the title implies within a single 24-hour period one of the two directors of the project is with me in the Studio's the stone and we'll be opening the telephone lines in just a moment for your questions to him Rick smolan came up with the day-in-the-life idea producing one on Australia and one on Canada. He's an internationally recognized the Tog refer and Rick. Thank you for coming in the morning and afternoon. Yes, it is. Just exactly afternoon now, isn't it? What particular day is shown in Canada time? It's June 8th 1980 for last year. And what we try to do with these books is to invite a team of very talented men and women from all over the world. So the best photographers from many different countries, in this case. I think there were 19 countries represented and give them all the same 24-hour period to try to capture pretty much an ordinary day. We're purposely trying to stay away from The cliches in the tourist attractions and the rich in the powerful in the famous and we're asking the photographer's to do something which I think is a lot more difficult which is to take extraordinary pictures of ordinary everyday situations. Why one day well in some ways it's kind of a selfish reason it's which is that when I was in school as a kid, I used to be bored all the time and I would spend a lot of time just imagining what my father or my mother and my brother and sister were doing it that exact same moment. And this is sort of an expanded version of that fantasy. I think people are very interested in each other. I think that people always wonder what's going on the exact same while we're sitting here right now talking, you know, what's the president doing right now or what, you know, what are our relatives or friends doing that idea that which exists in our own little reality sort of fascinated me and that was the the idea that book and what we're trying to do the way we lay it out. The whole book is actually chronological. So you begin today with people waking up all over the country. We are team of photographers in research people. We have about 10 people on our staff and we spend three months in the country before the photographer's arrived trying to figure out where to put the hundred photographers a hundred sounds like a lot until you think yeah does how big a country like Canada really is it's a second largest country in the world second only as opposed to what Soviet Union Soviet Union Rayna. Yeah and yet the population is pretty small. So you try to figure out well do we put everybody just where there are people but you know Canada is known for its landscape and scenery. So how much emphasis we put on that it's sort of a juggling act and I think what makes the books the most interesting is that very few of the pictures in the book have anything to do with our assignments very often a photographer will be on the way to what we asked him or her to shoot and on the way they'll discover something else and that will end up being a much more interesting situation because it's real and it's spontaneous. You say you had a hundred photographers involved. That's right. What geographic range is included it just about any place you can think of we had people at the North Pole. We had people photographing children jumping across ice floes in 28 Harbor in Newfoundland people in Vancouver. All the major population centers. Some of the photographer's had specific requests. Everybody. Wanted to photograph the intimate the Canadian Eskimos, and we as I said, we try obviously wanted to cover them. But we also didn't want to have it'll be a whole book of mounties polar bears and Eskimos. There's a certain tendency. I think of photographers were they don't know anything about a place is to gravitate towards the cliches and so our job is to make sure that we don't end up with just cliches. Hmm. Well, I know from watching Presidential news conferences and so on that photographers taken inordinate number of pictures. Yeah, I can imagine how I can't imagine how many pictures of photographer would take in a 24-hour period a lot you multiply that by a hundred humming. Did you have to pick from more than a hundred thousand pictures more than Some pictures and the only way you can make sense out of that is to is to take the world's best picture editors and have the met at the pictures of the world's best photographers. So we invited Arnold dropped in the picture editor of Time magazine in the picture editors life in the picture of the London Sunday times and leading picture editors from around the world to also come to Canada and during a very intensive one-week period edit all that film narrow it down to say two thousand photographs and then the design team comes in and starts laying out the book and see which pictures work together. It's a very painful process because no matter what you do you feel like you've left out so much how many actually wound up in the book? There's 263 I think in the Canada book and SAS about 1/100 of the number take so small and my worry always is that you know, if a picture editor is tired after eight hours of editing. Is there a great picture that gets left in a little Kodak Yellow Boxes, you know at the end of it. Yeah five minutes past 12:00 Rick smolan is in the Studio's today talking about his Newest book A Day in the Life of Canada previous ones on Hawaii and Australia were very popular. If you have a question for him this noon by all means give us a call in Minneapolis. And st. Paul the telephone number is two two seven six thousand 2276 thousand elsewhere within the state of Minnesota. We have a toll-free line 1-800-662-2386 one 865 to 9700 and if you're listening in one of the border states in Wisconsin or Iowa The Dakotas or upper Michigan or in Ontario, you know, we get a signal into Ontario generic. Yes. Yes, you can call us directly in the Twin Cities. The area code is 612 and the rest of it is two two seven six thousand what kinds of Impressions were you trying to convey about Canada. What were you really after in your mind before you set the tiger Furs out? I think that sounds a little crazy to do a project this big and to say that you didn't have a clear picture. Your mind of what you're looking for, but I think there's a certain I don't know if arrogance is the right word, but I think it would be arrogant to say that this book either is the definitive. Look at Canada or was intended to be I think it was supposed to be very much a series of anecdotes or random sort of snapshots of a country on one day and I think it's a little bit what the viewer makes them. It's like a Rorschach test in a way. It seems like every person who picks the pick up the book up gets a different feeling about you know about Canada. I think that the Canadians are at a point right now where they're very curious themselves about who they are and it's a question. They ask themselves a lot and I think that their excitement about this project was due in part to the idea that here are a hundred people holding up mirrors and the mirrors are all distorted by the personalities of the individual photographers. But at the same time maybe by looking at all those mirrors the Canadians themselves and get a sense of who they are and what makes them different than America because I think that's Will that it's a confusion of identity? I think the first thing they always tell you that they're not American but sometimes they have a little more trouble telling you what they are. We have some listeners on the line. Maybe we will get to our callers and continue chatting here with Rick smolan the director co-director of the project that produced a day in the life of Canada. Hi, you're on the air. Yes. I'm a semi-professional photographer and I was just very impressed by the product of the Australia book and really enjoyed the look of the Hawaiian book as well. Doubly impressed by how how you finagled getting Airline backing and the photography for photographers backed up separately and really not having any money to begin with. I'd like to know what what kind of financial situation you're in now and what future projects you're looking towards. Well, if you know anything about the books at all and if you know anything about publishing, I think you probably know that most picture books do not make very much money. They're very expensive to produce obviously much more. Into the book with just words in it and these books each cost at least a million dollars to do the books Never earn anywhere near that back. So the only way that we could figure out how to do the first book and all the books subsequently have been to find companies who for one reason or another want to do something back for the country. So Canadian Pacific Airlines agreed to fly all the photographers from all over the world to Canada for free and then fly them all over the country to their assignments fight them back to Toronto so they could be interviewed and debriefed and then fly them back home. That's incredible. It's like a hundred thousand dollars in airfares Kodak has been a good friend and all of our projects and donates the film and one of the things we do which is kind of fun as we give Kodak instamatic camera to schoolchildren all over the country hundred kids is like a little secret team of kids are out there working as well in the day and they all get like two pages in the book to answer your question. The reason one of the reasons these companies help the these projects pitcher Canada is it was like our major sponsor in Canada is we give them a certain amount? Of copies of the book and they're copies are special edition to the first page of their books say, you know Petrol Canada is proud to present or Sheraton Hotels put up all the photographers for free. So this book is given to you with the compliments of Sheraton. They don't in a way they don't get that much out of it, except I think it's a nice gesture of some supporting Canada our caller want to know what and I'm sure a lot of other people do too want to know what your next project might be if you got something in the well, we just finished shooting a day in the life of Japan on June 7th and the book we're getting our first copies. I think next Tuesday at our office in New York and the books coming out the first week of December here and it's a very different book than all of our previous ones because it's the first time we've done a non-english language speaking country and had special problems and in certainly special Fascinations, it's the closest to going to another planet of any place I've ever been and it's a very different book than the others more listeners on the line. We also have a couple of lines open to to 76 thousand in Minneapolis and st. Paul and It's 65297004. Those of you outside the Twin Cities area. You want to talk with Rick smolan about Canada and your next good afternoon. I was wondering what sort of background you furnish photographers with what their assignment is going to be you mentioned that you did allow them to choose was wondering how much help and background you gave them as far as what they were going to be shooting. It's a good question. It's funny. I work for Time Magazine and National Geographic and a lot of other magazines for about 10 years and most of my assignments. Someone someone someone would call me up and say can you fly to Bangkok tomorrow? And I'd say what's the what's the story? They'd say well just fly to Bangkok. You meet the writer in the hotel. He'll give you the lowdown on what it is that we want you to photograph other times. I would just arrived in basically. I'd have to figure out the story for myself in the case of the photographer's working on a day life of Canada. He tried to find things that were we had specific ideas in our own minds of what we thought should be covered in order to do a book about Canada. So when the photographer's came to Toronto, which is where we all met at the beginning, we had a series of briefing sessions and they were told the flights are going to be on if there's gonna be a rental car for them or a guide the family they be staying with the name of the factory or the the the the ranch or whatever the specific assignment was but we also said to them look, you know, you guys are professional journalists and if you get to the place that we've assigned you to and it looks boring don't don't stick their find out ask questions and they all get out there three days before their the day begins. So they have three days to do research to find out where the Sun is going to be at Sunset. Everybody always wants a good Sunset location just to give you an example one of our photographers found them Douglas. Kirkland is a very famous glamour fashion photographer who does a lot of things for a People magazine now, he lives in LA, but he's Canadian was born in Toronto. Doug wanted to photograph a society wedding in Toronto. So he was taking pictures over the shoulder of the official wedding photographer and they were all posing on a very beautiful sort of Green Lawn the late afternoon and all of a sudden by accident the water sprinklers went off and the whole bridal wedding party went running across the lawn trying to escape from the water sprinklers and it's a hysterical photograph and you can even see the wedding photographer in the middle running also and Doug just stood his ground and just got totally soaked and took this this wonderful series of pictures and that's one of the photographs in the book and you could have never planned for that. A lot of us have a theory that Doug actually paid the gardener to turn on those water sprinklers, but we're not sure but just to give you a second example of something spontaneous and Argentine photographer named Diego Goldberg was supposed to go out with an Eskimo Hunter and when he arrived in the town to meet the Hunter he found out the hundred been killed in a very tragic hunting accident the day before and he ended up photographing the funeral ceremony for this Hunter and Sort of a four page essay in the book and it's very sad, but it's the it's what I guess what I'm saying is there's an incredible amount amount of planning and then complete Serendipity in terms of what it actually ends up in the book 13 minutes now past 12:00 noon. Another listener has a question. Hi, you're on the air. I'm really excited about this book. I'd like to know first of all where I can get a copy of it and I'm excited because I am Canadian. I live in the state's now I've been here for six years and it's taken me that long to kind of get a grasp of my identity. What made you choose Canada and how familiar were you with the background of the country before you took this project on I'll hang up and listen Okay. I was not familiar very much with Canada at all. And sometimes I think that's an advantage. I think sometimes the things that make these books interesting is that you're taking a group of people who are there their profession is that they're trained to see and understand things quickly visually. I mean, it's very much it just a visual book. At the same time if you're not coming in with preconceptions, perhaps your little more open as a New Yorker. I find it almost impossible to photograph in New York. I know too much about it, I grew up there and I think that there's a certain advantage to coming in sort of with a blank slate and seeing you know, what what your experience is of a place. The book is published by Collins Collins Publishers, and it should be available in most bookstores here. But Bob is it is. Alright if I give out a phone number I've got there's two there's two companies that specialize in locating books for people and I know that the Canada book has been selling out very quickly. So there's one book there's one company called readers Express and I think for two dollars more than the price of the book they'll delivered to you within five or six days. And the number that I have is 800 852 5000. The second company called book call which is 800 2552665 the book listed $40 and a lot of people have suggested that we charge more for it just because it as I said before it's a pretty expensive book to produce but basically $40 is is about as much as I would pay for a book. I'm actually really interested to see the difference between the way that Canadians react to this book to the way Americans do the book is number two in Canada right now, which is pretty extraordinary for a book this, you know, pricey. We've been told that in Canada if you sell 5,000 copies of a book that's a best-seller and this is sold a hundred thirty thousand last 12 months so somebody up there must like it. How is it done in the United States? It's only been out for a week or so, but we've been told that they're selling the out as fast as I can get them in bookstore. So yeah, it's a pretty encouraging you can never tell I mean there's there's never any way of predicting you can spend we don't spend any money on Advertising basically, but there's no way you can make The book successful just by spending lots of money. So we hope that if people like it, they'll tell each other about it. More listeners are on the line. We also have some lines open again at 2276 thousand if you want to chat with Rick smolan, who is the Project Director of a day in the life of Canada a new picture book. Just coming out on Canada when you look through this book and I'll get to another caller and estimate when you look through the book Rick you if you didn't know that it was Canada by the title you'd say. Well I just wonder what this is It's doesn't really necessarily it's not necessarily the United States. I think there's enough about it to say no. It's not the United States but it's hard to identify. Well in some ways. It's I'm not going to say It's Our intention but the book which I like the most when I was a kid in the thing that I think made me into a photographer want made me want to be a photographer was a book called the family of man, which showed how people in different societies around the world the things that linked people as human beings. It showed at weddings around the world and adolescents around the world in childhood and in some ways that's one of the things we've asked the photographer's to do is to the books are as much about And it about how people live their lives as it is about that specific country. It's also about photography. There's a lot of stories in the book itself about what happened to the photographers out there and what their Impressions were of Canada, so and I think as our caller said before I think that there is a of all the countries I've been to Canada is for me has been the hardest one to get a handle on we all know it for its scenery and its Landscapes, but the people are what I think I'm the most curious about perhaps because Canada has a relatively small population in comparison to its size people have not had to the whole idea of the United States being a Melting Pot I think is not nearly as true in Canada. I think as I traveled around Canada found the people maintain their own sort of cultural heritage a lot more strongly and so the problem is that as you travel across Canada, you're seeing hundreds of different candidates. It's a little hard to sort of sum that all up with one nice phrase and Canadians are X. I find Canadians to be a little bit reserved when you first meet them. They want it. They want to know who you are before they let down their sort of defenses. But once they like you there there's some of the nicest people I've ever met. Let's move on to some more listeners with questions. Go ahead please you're on the air. Yes, sir. You had said that the Canadians felt themselves not to be an extension of the United States. But as you saw the photographs, what did you find made them unique or what did the Canadians field as they saw the photographs made them unique. For example, I would think that the pockets of French or the retired civil servants in Victoria might be unique findings, but I would was interested in what you found as how they could be defined as unique. It's a good question. Also, there's I'm going to read you a quote from the back of the book from one of the photographer's a Canadian photographer who I think summed it up very very well. He was talking about what he Hoped what he learned about Canada. He said this is a founding bottom or bottom. Our beer wagon has a wonderful sort of series of pictures in here of some kindergartners in all little graduation outfits graduating one day and not Maher said it's difficult to be a Canadian because we have such a disparity between regions. I was in Newfoundland which is so isolated. They develop their own dialect their own terms and vocabulary. So has the West I hope it stays that way that we don't become a Melting Pot that we have room to allow other cultures to coincide. I think that that really summed up my feeling about the country as well is that I was in Winnipeg and which is very large for Ukrainian population in Quebec. You feel like you're in a different country altogether you feel like you're in part of Europe in the West Vancouver reminds me very much of sort of California of San Francisco. But there's a there's I think someone once told me that and I can have this wrong, but that during the American Revolution At the Loyalists went to Canada and that the revolutionaries went to America and I think that Canada tends to be a little bit more conservative a little quieter. I don't know if that really answers your question. I just the book as I said is a little bit like a Rorschach test and different people have different reactions to the pictures in it. Hmm two two seven six thousand is a telephone number if anybody wants to chat with Rick smolan, it's 20 minutes past 12:00 o'clock. He's the director of the project that produced a day in the life of Canada, which you might find at your local bookstore. And then again, you might not because they're apparently going fairly fast. What myths do you think that Americans have about Canada that might be exploded by what they find in this book. Well, Canada has a bit of the old west in it and I was really surprised to find out that around the the Yukon that it really looks like the old west. I mean it's sort of there still people gold mining up there with you know pans. It's really the it has a sort of wide streets with you know, sort of the Dust blowing down the middle of them the things that I think people were so surprised that is how the modern cities of their Toronto has now become is considered to be one of these sort of cultural capitals of the world the Opera the ballet the music up there is incredible theater. I mean now apparently outside of New York that many playwrights won't open their their their Off-Broadway plays in Toronto to start off with it's apparently very good testing grounds. The thing that I think fascinated me the most about Canada it was it seemed as if if you took a time machine and you took people from all different eras in history and all different parts of the world and drop them into a country each keeping their own culture and traditions and Whatever time frame they were from that's what Canada reminds me the most of it seems as if in one day you can go from very primitive Landscapes and you know primitive peoples all the way through to something like Toronto which is like the height of modern society. You think you knew lesser than United States. Yeah. I think that I mean again, maybe I have not seen as much of this country as I should but it seems as if America that there's a sort of it and evening out here. It's taking place where I mean, I've been on a 10-city tour for this book and it seems like the city's all start looking the same very much after a while. There's a certain blandness after a while in Canada. They're still sort of jagged edges of its Society two different societies sort of poke into each other with neither one of them wanting to give up what they are. It's a little more dramatic there for me. Let's move on to some more listeners with questions Rick smolan is here and he's listening go ahead, please and what I was going to ask is going to come. After I make a comment on what you just talking about, we're right here across the Rainy River from Fort Frances and and then canora's One Direction's underbase the other direction. So, you know, we're all we had to do is go across the river and we're in the Canadian culture and they are different and America United States became a Melting Pot and it was very very important for my ancestors who came over from Europe to be Americans. I think you were kind of forced into it. But Canada hasn't done that wrote. It's very important there. They have a lot of in phasis on the multiple, excuse me, Multicultural type things and this is important in the government encourages it I'm going across right now and taking Swedish lessons over in Canada. You can believe this from Minnesota another land of sweets, but they have done this. The thing that I my question was since we are right across from Northwestern Ontario, are there any pictures from Northwestern Ontario included in the book? Yes, there are I was just She went when you were talking. I was just thinking about the fact that there's one essay in the book about the Mennonite Community which to me is the perfect symbol of what you were just talking about the fact that that here's a whole group of people who appear to be totally unchanged by the country that they're in and you're right that it seems to be much more encouraged in Canada than here. The people there will tell you immediately where they're from what their ancestors their their background is their Heritage. Whereas here, you're right people tend to want to be known as Americans. They want to sort of fit in. It's a good point. All right. Thanks for your call from International Falls. Enjoy your Swedish lessons across the border there. Here's another listener with a question. Go ahead. You're on the air wondering if you were planning on making a public I take it you saw the one in Hawaii excellent job. Thank you. That was actually made here by KT C A. They allowed us to spend many hours from their midnight shift last year just about this time to produce the daily life of Hawaii. Movie we have done a film with the CBC and Canada and I don't know what the plans are right now to broadcast it. We are working right now in the day in life of Japan movie, which I think would be pretty interesting. It's funny, you know as a as a photographer and as I guess now, I guess I'm sort of a publisher or something. I don't know quite what I have anymore. It's interesting to me that more people get to see the movie than get to see the book and I guess in our minds what we've been trying to do with these projects is to say that what we're doing is we're creating an event and then we're documenting it and one of the ways is where the book and one of the ways is with the movie American Express in Canada's just created a 300 photograph traveling exhibits going to be touring Canada for the next six years many pictures which were not included in the book because we have enough pages. But so that partially answers my question about what do you do with the other hundred and forty five thousand, but yeah, well it still doesn't really Dent it. But at least there's The Way We Lay these books out as we actually just take all the pictures and we lay out. Of the way we want it regardless of how many pages we have and then we get practical and say, okay. Well we laid out 300 pages but we've only got 224 in this book. So which you know 60 pages are we can we cut out and can we can we combine pictures but as you've seen looking through the book there's many double-page spreads and if you put into many little pictures you lose all the drama of it. So a lot of pictures get sacrificed at the last minute and having this exhibit is a great way of showing people what the pictures look like. You make the movies out of some of the still photographs that we know we actually have film Crews that go out with what we did in Hawaii is we Sony Corporation see all these companies helped us the I think people feel sorry for us because we sort of have great ideas and no one in our group knows how to tie their shoelaces. Basically that so neat loaned us six portable betacam cameras. And so we took six of our still photographers all the photographer always say someday. I'm going to make movies. So he said okay, you know put up or shut up. So we took them off they're still assignments and said you guys are going to be the movie the movie team and we basically thought of it as a home Be and then Katie CA here offered to help us turn it into a real one hour special for PBS and it did very well. I didn't want to an honorable mention for the American Film Festival or something this year. All right, we have more listeners with questions will take you next. Hello? Hello. I was curious about the photographer's there were a hundred. Is that it? That's right. Yeah. It's each one of them represented or did you even attempt to do that? It's another good question. That is one of the worst parts of the projects is which is that the pictures are edited anonymously for a number of reasons one. Is it the film all comes back sort of broken up some people just go through it as they come through it. Each photographer is a number which is stamped on the side, but we did not put in pictures by every photographer. The bottom line had to be what was best for the book and we just the photographer's know that and I think that's what adds to the tension and the I think that most of these people are a little obsessive. I mean it there we call them photojournalist as opposed to just photographers because they are people that tell stories with their photographs. Most of them. These are men and women in their most of them in their late 20s early 30s around that age range spend about 11 months out of the Year by themselves in foreign countries are on the road living in hotels and it gets to be a little bit lonely and these projects are Kind of the first time that that this group has ever been brought together and while they normally compete with each other, you know, if I'm working for Newsweek and you're working for time we show up in the same events, but we're basically in competition these projects bring together people from all different parts of the industry and they all work together but the competition still there because there's only so many pages in the book and people know if they have a good day. They may get 11 pictures in the book. I think a bad day to get nothing how many photographers wanted to be involved in the project a lot more than we had room for the reputation of these books has been spreading the first time we did it everybody thought it was an April Fool's joke. I mean, I remember one photographer and Iranian photographer named Abbas who works with an agency agency called Magnum in New York. Send me back italic saying come on. This is a joke, right? You're not really going to fly a hundred people to Australia. This has got to be some kind of April Fool's thing. I think the photographer's have felt that their work is treated with a lot of respect as far as I'm concerned the photographers of the people. I have to please with these books because they're not going to Back at work on it. Again. There's no way that we can afford to pay the photographer's for a week of their time. It's only a one-day shoot but we have them all together for a week. So we try to make the experience of being together and the way that their pictures are reproduced the best we can we have we actually fly a designer to Japan. Each of these books are printed in Japan. So the the photographer's donate their time basically pay them. It's an honorary feasts in Canada. They got $350, huh in Japan. We raise a lot more money. So we gave them each a Macintosh computer her one day work, which was fantastic. Sure in Australia. We couldn't raise any money at all basically, so they'll work for free. Most of these people are friends. It's a very very small world. I mean they're from all over the world, but they're probably only 200 men women the world that do it for a living you tend to burn out pretty quick. So the group is small and as you were asking that all 200 want to work on each book and it gets harder as we do each project because if you don't invite somebody was on the last book their feelings are hurt, but you want to invite new people. They're actually there are three groups of people that we invite to work on. These projects are heroes the people who when I was growing up as a young photographer with the people, I looked up to people like Eddie Adams and Elliott erwitt and the short of the Great's of Photography. And then there are our peers people who are starting in photography. I guess when I was 10 years ago sitting outside of Time Magazine with our yearbooks under-armed hoping that somebody would give us an assignment and then we're looking for the sort of the next generation of photographers the young photographers who were remind us of ourselves some of whom are incredibly talented and perhaps not as good at promoting themselves as some of us are after 10 years of learning how to talk yourself up a little bit. So it's kind of fun because we feel a little bit like we're passing the torch on to the next generation of young photographers. It's about half-past twelve Rick smolan is in the Studio's the director of the group that put out a day in the life of Canada, which is now around at area bookstores. We have some listeners on the line. And also a couple of lines open again to 276 thousand 2276 thousand if you have a question for him in Minneapolis, and st. Paul elsewhere around the state of Minnesota. Our toll free number is 1-800-695-1418 somebody in International Falls, which is just across the border from Canada, but we haven't heard from Canada yet and I suspect our signal is getting up there this afternoon. You can call us directly in the Twin Cities at area code six. One two, two two seven six thousand. All right, here's another listener. Go ahead. Please howdy. Hi Eric. I'm a student of art education in Duluth and you'd mentioned handing out cameras to school children, right? Okay. I was wondering how is that similar to what you did with the professional photographers and how does that differ like for selection of photographs where the same editors use the regions that they came from things like that? Right? What we did is because Kodak it's been a sponsor of all of our projects and all of our photographers use Kodak. Film we suggested that it would be fun to find kids in this sort of 628 age range throughout the country. So we contacted the public school system up there. And what we did is we invited the kids to all come in 222 centers in Vancouver actually three Vancouver Montreal and Toronto to meet the famous photographers and the kids all sat on the ground with photographers in the photographer's try to figure out how to work these instamatic cameras, which is more difficult. It sounded for our guys. And so the kids reach given sort of the private hands on Lesson by a famous photographer the kids were then sent back with their parents and on the Friday Friday, June 8th, the kids took their cameras to school with them. They got to keep the cameras and they sent us the film the editing was done also by our team of professional editors, but it was obviously we knew it was, you know, they were snapshots and they were not slides we all the books are actually all done with slides Kodachrome or ektachrome. So how does the quality of the stuff the kids do hold up? Well it Different than everything else in the book and I think it's fascinating. First of all, the perspective is a lot lower than most of our photographers. I mean you're looking up most of the time but the things that they choose to photograph our have a nice innocence to them and you know pictures of their dogs their cats their friends their mother washing dishes that sort of thing. We had their a couple of pictures and send them in kind of embarrassing were young kids have wandered in and photograph the parents taking showers and things like that. Those haven't ended up in the bones were in the window. All right, let's take another listener question. Good afternoon, Rick smolan is listening earlier that Manitoba and West considers itself Western and not very British at all whereas Ontario and East The exception of Quebec which considers itself more French considers himself more British. I think that is true and perhaps it's because the senators of government are located on the East Coast. I think that tends to happen whenever the politicians are around who they see themselves being aligned with definitely the Manitoba area seems a lot be a lot more sort of Rough and Ready and much more independent. I don't think they see themselves as being part of anything else. Okay, another caller with a question. Good afternoon. You're on the air. I've heard good things about the series of books, but I want to question you about something you mentioned the blandness of America and then you were talking about the Hutterites. We have hundreds of hutterite families in Montana and South Dakota who are related to those Hutterites up in western Canada. And in fact those in the u.s. marry their children into the Canadian families and vice versa. So I guess my question is why not do a book on the United States. Well you and my partner should get together because that's what he's been trying to talk me into the last The year or so I guess it's not that I don't find America interesting. I do it just because I'm from here. I think it's harder for me as an American to see this country. I mean one of the ideas that David my partner's suggest is that we bring in all far in photographers and make it all European and Asian and South American photographers to show how they see America. It may be my own sort of conceptual problem. I used to work as I said it a lot for Time Magazine and other magazines here and I did travel around a lot around the United States, but I found that when you sent me to Morocco or to Africa or Australia my pictures for me. Anyway, we're more interesting. Maybe maybe it's just my own personal problem. I think we are going to do the United States. I think we're going to do it next year. We've been talking about the shooting at next may but let me know if our listeners still on the phone. I want to ask you a question back, which is we have an idea which I think could make this a lot more exciting than just having a hundred photographers, which is to say to people all over the United States on that day. Why don't you all go out and take pictures as well? I mean, you know instead of just having our hundred photographer. See I don't I don't think you can do America with a hundred photographers. I think you need 10,000 and then we don't have a book that's big enough and and that the other thing that gets me about America's I think that people from Minnesota think of themselves as being from Minnesota. I don't my problem is in some ways the United States I think also has not an identity problem because I don't think I think most Americans are very confident about their own country, but I think New Yorkers think of the world as being or think of America's being New York and certainly Californians do and like if you only had two photographers per state, what could you possibly say about State each state my idea my question to you is whether would you take the time if we chose, you know, May 1st next year to put a roll of film in your camera and go out and shoot as well. Yeah. I think that would be neat. We wouldn't it be fun if we could sit everybody. Let's leave a time capsule for the future, you know that in that maybe 60 years from now people will pick up the book or pick up. Your copy of the book and your great grandchildren can see what your family didn't that day. I mean unless it can be something where a lot of people feel involved. I don't know if it would work as well in this country. Hmm. Well, it's interesting idea. I wonder now Japan has a very very large population. Didn't you have a considerable similar problem with doing that country? Well, Japan has a hundred twenty million people in it and Islander series of islands, basically the size of California. It's like half the population of the entire United States. Yeah. What fascinated me about Japan was the way the the society the the methods of behavior that they've worked out to coexist in some place. It's so crowded like that. Your question is do we have the same problem in Japan as we might have in the United States we could have fallen on our faces very easily as much because people say that Outsiders going to Japan often only see the surface and Japan can be very disconcerting place when you first go But we were saved by the fact that a large television network called NHK heard about the project and called us up and said we'd like to make a movie for television about your photographers and I said fine which photographers would you like to cover and they said all of them and I said no, you don't understand. We have a hundred photographers and they said no. No, we understand we would like to cover all of them. So they assigned 400 people for a hunt 104 man Crews to go out with our photographers and the photographers were horrified when they found out because imagine the pressure on you on one day assignment let alone having four guys with light in microphones and cameras dragging along after you following you it kind of kills your spontaneity. But in fact what happened was the opposite which was because most of our photographers could not speak Japanese these Crews and they were all journalists who are from the areas of the photographers were working in ended up becoming drivers translators assistance guides and one of the women on the project wanted to photograph in a bathhouse and they normally would Let a woman to do a bathhouse not into the male side of it anyway, and anything are photographers wanted in HK Crews got our photographers into so I mean it helped a lot in this country would be very difficult to do and any of the listeners have have any ideas of how to make it work. I'd love to hear them. All right, let's move on to some more listeners who are waiting with questions or comments. Go ahead. You're next. He was ago. I happened on a wonderful exhibit down in Chicago that was called between friends. Yes. We're the Canadian border in the United States border all the way across this fantastic book. Yes. Yes, and I ended up I have the book and I've enjoyed it for years. I'd like to know where the exhibit of your photography pictures are going to be. Well it started off in Toronto. It's in Ottowa right now. If you call American Express in Canada, their main offices in Toronto, they can tell you the location of the exhibit. It's it's going to be truly. I believe they're going to have it at expo 70. Sorry 86. Sorry. Yeah, what century am I in here? It's a Wonderful exhibit and it's so nice to have the pictures blown up without seams going through the middle of them. That's my frustration with the book. Is that being in a book format? You have to if you want the pictures big you've got to run a seam through the middle of the pictures, but anybody getting to see the exhibit I think would enjoy it. All right, 20 minutes before one o'clock. Another listener has a question. I you're on the air. Hi, good afternoon. Mr. Smolin. Hey have in the Twin Cities. Thank you. Last April. We saw an issue of American photographer. Yes. I was it gosh that lovely story of you and Natasha. Yes. Can you tell us a ship and back to Seoul? And how did the trip go? Maybe I should give the rest of the tell the rest of the students. There's I was working for Time magazine in Korea in 1978, and I was doing a story about amerasian children children who had been fathered by American GIS and abandoned in Southeast Asia, and I'd photographed a lot of the children and there was one little girl named once took who I was photographing and I spent about two weeks with her and her grandmother in a little village about 10 miles from the DMZ. And the grows different than all the other children had met she was very proud of very funny and very intelligent and was not did not seem to be psychologically damaged by other people making fun of her and pointing at her and she looked very very American and her grandmother died shortly after my visit there and I got a telephone call one day saying that someone had left me an 11 year old girl and their will and the next thing I knew I had this little kid who was supposed to be mine. I didn't know what to do with her. She was wonderful. I love I loved her I'd just wasn't married. I'd deliver anywhere and I called my best friends in Atlanta, Georgia who had 11 year old son and they ended up coming to Korea in the adopted her and she started college this week in Atlanta Georgia. She she's been living in Atlanta for seven years now and to answer your question. She's not been back to create yet. She wants to go back and work on the Olympics in 88 and she was the subject of a p.m. Magazine piece Last Friday Night in Atlanta. I don't know if it was shown here or not. But it's one of the things I'm looking forward to is getting back to New York tonight and taking a look at Videotape they're going to send me a copy of it. If you kept in touch with her over the years I go there that down there all the time. We're very good friends. That's nice. She's a wonderful kid. All right more listeners have questions a day in the life of Canada is the book that were talking about today Rick. Smolan is our guest. He's the director of the project that put it together and you're on the air. Go ahead. Yes. I was driving along listening. I've always had a lot of respect for the concept of the book and I had an idea I wanted to pass along and that was a way to take a cut at the United States day in the life of Lake Wobegon. And if I could see it being shot in small towns home towns all across the country as a way to find for Lake Wobegon might be and sponsorship would probably be a problem powdermilk biscuits probably couldn't come up with a whole lot of funding but I could see instead of a hotel chain hosting the photographer's all the small towns doing that and creating a Nice experience for the for the photographers. It's funny. Yeah, Garrison Keillor wrote a very very funny story about 10 years ago Life Magazine did one day in the life of America as a special issue of life. And it was one of my first professional assignments and I was just out of college that was where the whole idea for this whole series came up. They did an issue of a magazine photographers didn't meet each other in our idea was to actually do a country where the photographers were brought together and ended up in a book but Garrison did a hysterical peace making fun of the concept, but it would be interesting to talk to him now about it. It's a good idea. I mean, I think that that perhaps what I was complaining about in terms of the blandness that I saw in this trip was the fact that I was staying, you know, an airport hotels and and traveling image. I think that business Travelers tend to see America as a series of hotels and airports and you're right maybe getting away from the major cities and getting back into the small towns is really the way to do a book like this. Well, I suspect there's nothing that would saw a person quicker on travel and attend Nation City promoting a book. There's no killer killer a lot of fun. This is actually the most fun I've had because I'm having people call in and being able to talk back and forth. I've heard all my stories. Yeah, I'm a lot more interested in hearing what people what people's questions are. All right, we can take some more of them to 276 thousand is the number we have a couple of lines open again in Minneapolis. And st. Paul for those of you outside the Twin Cities area who have a question or a comment Rick smolan happy to respond. You can call us at 1-800-695-1418 next high. Well, I can't wait to get to work. I'm kind of a Canadian file myself. I go to the Winnipeg Folk Festival every year and one thing I also have done some train riding across Canada and I'm wondering if any of the hundred people had the opportunity to observe Canada from the railroad almost at Via the railroad, but I guess that would have been a pun. Yes. There was a photographer actually deranian photographer named Adam Jalil. Who travel in a train there's a photograph in the front of the train. It's in the book. I just by way of a side my assignment on that day was in Winnipeg and it rained. It was just pouring all day and I was really depressed because I just thought you know, this is just going to look like soggy pictures and in the afternoon. I got a call from a fellow named Fraser who is a sorry. He was he was a I think I know Sergeant who is in charge of the snowbirds the Canadian acrobatics Air Force team is little to man Jets and they took me up in one of these Jets along with the other 18. We did Eric robotics sort of flips over the city and I saw the one picture I have in the book is of these jets that appealing out over Winnipeg in the rain. It's kind of fun. You have only one in the book yourself. Yeah that was candidate was the hardest one for me because I said it rained a lot of Winnipeg. I yeah and some of the other books have done better. I actually I known as a people photographer but on these books always end up in a plane or a helicopter and every single one of them. It's fun because by the time the day arrives, I'm so exhausted that basically all I can do is they can put a seat belt on me and hang me out the window of a helicopter and I just pointed down and sort of by reflex. There you go, huh? Yeah it sort of the common the eye of the storm. It's the food. It's the most relaxing day for me. Yeah. Another listener has a question. Go ahead. You're on the air. Hi. I'm miss the first couple minutes, but I'm wondering what what your background is in photography. If you could give a brief biographical sketch. Well, yeah and it's funny. I've always thought that someday everybody was going to find out I'm not really a photographer. I mean I felt that way the whole time. I was working for Time Magazine. I was I was always sure that with each assignment that they'd finally find out that I had been, you know Faking It All Along I never studied photography. I did the yearbook in the newspaper in college and most of the photographer's I know seem to have gotten started the same way so pretty much self-taught. It seems like everyone I know who did well found things that they cared about They didn't wait for someone else to call them up and give them an assignment but there was an old folks home in my college town and it was actually not an old folks home. It was it was the it was a small hotel and people in town when they got tired of taking care of their parents would put them in this hotel for 12 bucks a week. And it was also the Greyhound waiting station. So all of us going home from our for our College vacations would sit in the lobby of the hotel and try not to stare at the old people and I just thought nobody knows who these people are where they've come from. They're all lonely and I thought I'd just start spending time with them and photographing them and it became a big project I did for a year in college. And that was what I went to show Time Magazine. It's really that simple. I mean everybody always thinks you have to you know have already been started on your career to get work. But in fact, I think most people talk themselves out of trying at least in the world of Photography everybody. I know who's ever been Quietly aggressive enough has done. Okay. What what kind of advice can you give younger folks who might be interested in a career in photography. Is it is it something that's worth pursuing or is it really really tough to break into it's getting harder and harder. It seems like the new sort of hot medium is his television. That's where most of the young people I've met are going right now is they all want to work in video but as a photographer, I think I have a lot more freedom to follow my own instincts as a cameraman for television very often. You've got to photograph what the what the the commentator want you to photograph. Whereas as a still photographer. You're pretty much a one-man team at least the way that I used to work. It seems like the most Creative Photography that's being done now and this country is not being done by magazines. It's being done by small newspapers and people like the Kansas City Star the Topeka Capital Journal Louisville Courier-Journal the photographers in the with the work coming out of those papers, I think is way Superior to what you see in the National magazines May because they give it more space because it's their own community. So any I would say anybody wanting to start a photography there are a number of schools that specialize in photography but rather than trying to go for the magazines like the geographic and time seems like the newspapers are really good way to start. Well, we're talking about a day in the life of Canada this afternoon with Rick smolan who directs the project and we have another listener with a question. Go ahead please you're on the air. Yeah. I was curious. What is the percentage of the women that are women photographers in both the 200 that are nationally known and the percentage of the ones that worked on this project good questions about the same I'd say there it's about 10 to 20% It's not a great number and I think it's changing there are more and more women coming into the business. I think that for a number of years it required somebody who's really willing to be alone most of the time in foreign countries and sometimes a lot of women didn't like the idea of that the geographic has Probably 10% photographers that are women. We've been trying to get more and more women on our projects. And in fact all the women who are on their projects have been lobbying for other women who are their friends with so the number has been growing it's hard to find women photographers, but the ones that we find are fantastic and I'm not just saying that to be nice the there's a NSA and the Japan book the woman who shot. The cover of the book is Jody Cobb from National Geographic and she did a series of pictures of a young Geisha and training which is unlike anything I've ever seen the girls in bed at night writing in her diary. And on the wall behind her is of Michael Jackson poster the throughout the day you seen her dressed up as a very traditional Geisha. It's wonderful. She really captured this Cross of modern and traditional things going on in Japan right now ten minutes before one o'clock. Go ahead, please you're on the air. I wondered if you'd read definitely Pete Moon book on the blue highways and United States. No, I haven't but actually you're the third person the last week who's mentioned it to me, so I better get it. As Natick, I'd love to read it. You said fire sitting in the airport? Thank you. Actually, I'll recommend a book back a couple of years ago. I met a woman in Australia who walked across the Outback all by herself with four camels in a dog. She her story was in the geographic and she's written a book called tracts that carry city has yeah, right and it's her name is Robyn Davidson. I heard he will look it up to the free plug for her book is one. It's a wonderful book. It's very it's about what it's like to be a young woman growing up in Australia and all the thought she had out there in the desert and she's very intelligent. She lived indoors lessing's house for a year then if you like Doris Lessing is writing I think you'll love tracks. We have time for some more questions from those of you who want to talk with Rick smolan this afternoon to to 76 thousand in Minneapolis. And st. Paul elsewhere around the state of Minnesota one 865. 29700 Rick. Was there anything magic about that particular day that you picked I think did you say June 8th route a 3/8? Yeah. We've Purposely picked non days. I mean on special days. We always pick a Friday because it's always been our theory that a country is both work and play and that if you chose a Saturday you'd have nothing but people relaxing. So Friday seems to be the transition date where you can get people working then in the evening get people relaxing getting ready for the to enjoy themselves over the weekend. There's a funny series of pictures in the evening in Vancouver their of a group of Housewives protesting prostitution in the neighborhood and they have signs up saying shame the John's and they started a policy with the housewives would go out at night and copy down license plate numbers and Supply them to the local newspaper. Well on this particular night our photographer Ethan Hoffman who works for Life Magazine was photographing the wives protesting and all of a sudden across the street a group of prostitutes came out with sign saying we love you John's and it's this wonderful. They're not they're not huge pictures in the book but through all these little wonderful moments like that that just came out of nowhere. We could never have predicted or signed it. That's what makes Look so much fun is is not knowing what we're going to end up with and if the book had been shot the day before or the day after it would be a totally different book. Well, that's the other thing. I was going to ask you if it wouldn't be a lot different. It would be completely different there would probably be maybe 1% at the most of the photographs in there. Maybe the Landscapes that would be similar but even they would be different obviously because the light changes all the time. It's really interesting if you think about all the different things that are going on at the exact same time in the country and it's like, you know, the the book is just like skimming like taking a rock and skimming it across the surface of a lake and where it hits that's what you show that's where you going to picture. I don't know if it's accurate or not. I have no idea. Well, I suspect it. Probably there certainly are different things. I mean had you tend to take in the month of January. For example, you certainly would have seen a lot of different activities than you would in June. Well all the Canadians that we were trying to raise money to do this project. One of the comments many people says, you can't do Canada one day and Australia find y fine, but Canada is snow and you can't do it but it's not just know and they said so you can't do can In the middle of June because you won't be able to show what it's like to be sitting on the freeway outside of Toronto, you know with a blizzard coming down but you know, there are pictures in there. These kids jumping across the ice floes. There's there's pictures in the North Pole. There's a dog sled, you know, this this one photograph the beginning of the book of this dog sled, you know photograph there there. In fact seem to be pictures taken throughout the whole year even though they're all done in one day. That's what I think is so, you know incredible about Canada. Yeah. She was tremendous diversity and Brandi we have more listeners with questions. Go ahead you're on the air. (00:53:52) I came in late and I don't know how much I missed but I'm fascinated by this. I spent a year as the reference librarian at a little newspaper called the Columbia Missourian, which is a teaching organ of the University of Missouri journalism school and I saw some of the most fascinating stuff I've ever seen in my life come out of the photographers in that place. They were doing for a number of years portraits of little towns along the river and they And of war that out I always thought it would be a really good idea. If you could do a day in the life of America. No that's been done in the magazine. (00:54:29) It's something that one of the other listeners suggested as a matter of fact, right this week. The Missouri school of Journalism is having the Missouri Workshop, which I attended 10 years ago. They take 50 photographers some working professionals some beginning and you did they take you to a different town of Missouri and you have to come up with an assignment you have to sell it to the editors and the editors are from life and time in National Geographic you have ten rolls of film and every night. They project your pictures and they basically tear you to shreds the first few days so that everyone everyone is totally sort of egoless and then they and then they fill back in with what they want you to learn It's a Wonderful course, but I agree with you that stuff coming out of the small towns, especially things like the Missouri journalism school just fantastic. Okay, we have time for a couple more listener questions. You're on the air. Go ahead, please (00:55:14) you mentioned not liking to have To stitched in the middle in the middle in a book. What about reserving the cold outside? (00:55:26) Well, the trouble is that after you fold it out three or four times the pages start tearing and if you do it what they call Landscape book, which is The Binding on the short side to the book opens up as a long picture. Apparently The Binding doesn't hold up too. Well, these are big books. I mean someone once joked that you could screw legs into the bottom of them and actually turn them into coffee tables. They weigh about 6 pounds each and believe me. I've carried enough of them to know how heavy they are. This seems to be the best format for what we're doing but you always have regrets and you know, you always wish you could use ten color printing instead of five color and most people use for so five is a luxury. Is that what you have in here? That's $5. Yeah. Okay. Another listener has a question. Go ahead Rick smolan is listening. (00:56:09) Hey there, I wonder how helpful you think it would be for a young photographer to spend a week on a project such as your Canada project with a professional photographer given the opportunity. I'd jump at (00:56:21) it. I think it's a good idea. We always have a few what we call interns whatever that means people who are you know, students who are working in photography you call us up and say look can I come and be part of the project? It's not actually the week that's important. It's the three months leading up to it where I think that you know, an intern would learn the most because you get to see not just the photographers working but you can see all the work that goes into setting up an assignment and all the logistics of juggling. I mean, it's a hundred photographers, but then there's like ten picture editors. There's like 15 to 20 staff members. There's there's there's a whole group of designers that come into the writers in the picture editors, then the printers it's like a little bit of like a modular approach. So we have two people working for us right now who showed up one day and our front door where wrote to us and if you're interested if you call after the program I can give you an address to write to Okay, we have one or two listeners left and maybe just about the right amount of time to fit the questions in go ahead please (00:57:14) yes, it's and wondering if he and his group were thinking about spending a day for instance in Lebanon or if you appear our and Africa and third world nation. (00:57:27) It's also a good question. We have thought about doing a number of countries other than English language speaking countries. Japan was our first foray into the world where we didn't speak the language. I'd like to do it. The problem always is we have to find sponsors for it. There has to be a market for the book and before Japan I would have said that our biggest problem would have been the language problem. But absence Japan appears to have gone very successfully. I would very much like to do a third world country. I think it'd be fascinating. Do you have any plans Beyond Japan? Well, I think that that under pressure from David United States is looking more and more likely as our next project at the end of each one of these I'm usually so tired. I always say I'll never do this again. I'm going back to being a Target for when life was simple. Yeah, but after two or three months and people started calling up and making suggestions and there's a I think like most photographers. I live on adrenaline and I work better when I'm scared. I learn a lot better when I was scared and these products are definitely frightening. Hmm. Yes, I can. Well imagine. Well, this one is is out and it is beautiful and I suspect the people will be finding it around at their area bookstores a day in the life of Canada. Thank you Rick smolan. Thank you very much. Rick. Smolan is the co-director of the project that came out with this book A Day in the Life of Canada and the Japan want apparently will be coming out sometime before too long as well. Skies are generally sunny in the Northern parts of our area, but it's beginning to show a few signs of clouds in the South and that's going to happen continue throughout the rest of the day temperatures today will be mostly in the 50s across Minnesota. And then tonight Skies will be cloudy rain is likely and there's a possibility of more rain at least in the early part of the weekend afternoon Gary eichten here inviting you to join us later this afternoon for MPR Journal today on our cover Story the Twin Cities Music Scene It seems that our area is a mecca for musicians MPR Journal 4:30 on rfm network five o'clock on ksjn am in the Twin Cities, and that's our midday broadcast for today. This is Bob Potter. In the Twin Cities cloudiness increasing by later on this afternoon 20 percent chance of rain this evening 80% chance tonight and 50% tomorrow. The high today will be around 60. This is ksjn in Minneapolis and st. Paul.