Our first interview is with the photographer Jake Baggaley. The interview went really well even if we did get carried away and started talking about a lot of non related issues. It’s a great read and an insight to a great photographer.

Brick: How did you get into photography?

Jake: Well my dad is a photographer so there have always been cameras around the house, I was like 12 and he had an Olympus m2 and I was just playing with it. I was like ah shit this is cool just turning the lense and bringing it into focus and pressing the buttons. I always used to play with that but never really thought anything more of it because my school never did photography. I bought one of those cameras and I loved it. Then when I went to college they did photography so I thought yeah I’ll do that, its better than doing real work.

Brick: You just spent the last 2 years at the arts institute, how was that?

Jake: Er yeah it’s been good, I didn’t know what I was expecting when I went there but I’ve definitely developed a lot through the 2 years. If I look at the photography in my portfolio when I went it was almost laughable compared to what I’m doing now. It’s made me think a lot differently about photography. Its also really helped me find a direction of what I wanted to do and focus on.

Brick: Yeah how did your interview go at the arts institute, to get on the course?

Jake: Well after my interview I thought I had done really bad, because I didn’t have foundation. Oh, no actually, at first I didn’t even get an interview, I knew I wanted to go to Bournemouth and I applied then they sent a letter rejecting me. So my tutor at college suggested she wrote to them saying Jakes one of our best students, but I wasn’t expecting anything out of it because they had already rejected me. But I got an interview and after that I thought it had gone really badly. He was asking me all these questions like, what do you think you could bring to the photography world and I was like dunno.. Photos?  That was literally what I answered. They asked, what do you think of Susan Sontag? I was like yeah she’s alright innit. I know a few words. I thought ah that went shit.  But I ended up getting in.

Brick: Why did you go to Ukraine, how was your trip?

Jake: Yeah it was insane, an incredible experience. I really wanted to go to this abandoned city and had my final project for uni.  I was really stuck for an idea; we had 2 and half months to do it and I had got 2 weeks in and I still didn’t know what I wanted to do.  I knew I really wanted to go to this place and I knew I could make it interesting but I also knew a lot of photographers had been there before and taken a lot of photos. Obviously I really liked them because the place interested me and the story did as well. So I wanted to do something a little bit different from what everyone else had done, like take it from a different angle. I started to get in contact with charities from the UK, some of which didn’t respond, some of them said sorry we can’t help you, it would take too many resources, but one replied and said we would be happy to help you. Originally I was thinking about going to Ukraine and Belarus because a lot of the effected people are in Belarus. I went and had a meeting with the charity and we discussed what I wanted to do and they phoned some contacts in Russia and Ukraine and it turned out it would be a lot cheaper and easier to just go to Ukraine, as you need visas for Belarus. So it all fell into place as I was organising it. I had such a short time and I knew I wanted to go for a long time, I knew there where people living in the dead zone because you always see photos of people, but they are always old, so after a few emails and talking to him a bit I found out about a person, a young girl who lived there, she snuck out every day to go to school, which was a new angle. That’s pretty much what the books about, focusing on the people who live there and how their lives are affected because they live in this place that’s illegal to live in. So I booked my flights and went for a month, I didn’t know what to expect because the charity had organised it because I couldn’t speak Russian. I just told them what I wanted and they did it. When I was out there I was with 2 charities’ that helped to send the children from the radiation to England for like a month. This helped increase their life span because of the higher way of living, food, and air, etc.

Brick: That’s crazy how much it effects them.

Jake: Yeah its crazy, there’s this one area where the people live illegally, it’s the main interest area, that’s where the radiation is highest but obviously all of Ukraine is effected as well. And also there is radiation from when the Soviet Union did nuclear missile testing there.  So the food is really bad, the milk and bread especially, and because it’s such a poor country that’s what everyone eats.  I went to a farm and this woman made me a glass of milk that she had just squeezed from a cow and I was really hesitant about drinking it.

Brick: It must have got lonely out there not being able to speak the language.

Jake: Well yeah it did, but in the day I had my translator and driver so it wasn’t too bad, but in the first week I was on my own at night in this room and one night this guy got shot and killed outside my room so that was pretty scary. If I was hungry I couldn’t really go to the shop and get some food because it was such a bad area.

Brick: Do you have any projects you are planning at the moment.

Jake: Yeah I have a bout a million… but I’m trying to fit them into uni as well, like the structure of the course so I can use them for that. The main one I’m thinking of doing is Real life super heroes, who are people that dress up as super heroes and just go out and fight crime, like batman, he didn’t have any super powers, but fought crime, that sort of thing but…. Lame.  So I’ve organised a trip with this guy, to go and meet him and his friends in New York. He lives in Virginia and I’m going to go out for a couple of weeks and take photos of him doing his thing, I think it will be really interesting seeing these guys dressed up in the middle of New York fighting crime.

Brick: So do they actually fight crime? Like save people?

Jake: Well yeah I’m excited to see what they do, they have all this equipment like handcuffs and grappling hooks. He has this thing he attaches to his arm and it shoots out little sharp disks. I think it will be interesting seeing a normal house with his superhero costume hanging up in the corner. So that’s the main project I’m working on at the moment.

Brick: Did you have any photographer that inspired you or your work.

Jake: I think more than anyone my dad is a huge inspiration to me, I love his photography and I loved it before I even did photography myself. He has been so helpful, like I know he will be honest with me if I show him a photograph and he doesn’t like it, which is really useful for me. Umm in terms of professional photographers, I don’t know, I like a lot of people, it depends on the time and what mood I’m in. At the moment I really love Nadav Kander’s work and I always use to love Peter Hugo but I haven’t looked over that in a while. I love war photography; I love the fact that you don’t even have to take a good photograph because there’s so much there and if you do take a good photograph its so meaningful because it’s a war.

Brick: What does the future hold or are you just going with the flow?

Jake: It depends, I could have this meeting with Magnum and they could publish my book, then someone could see it. I’m trying to save up money so after uni I can go travelling with my brother, but ideally I would want to go travelling to take photos, come back and sell them, go travelling and so on. I don’t want to go travelling and go to Thailand, then Australia, I want to go to like East Russia and find something really interesting, so that is kind of the plan but it all depends on what happens really. I’m trying to get my motorbike license at the moment, so I can go to a country, hire a bike and just drive around for a bit and see it for real, I don’t want to just go to the capital cities and stay there. I think Ukraine made that more real for me, I’ve always loved travelling but it’s so different from all the travelling I’ve done. I think being alone is a big part of that, because I had no option apart from to sit in a room on my own all day or go out and be part of a culture, seeing how real people live rather than what the tourist board want you to see. So basically I’m just going to keep taking photographs and see what happens.

We would really like to thank Jake for doing this interview, it was a great insight. Check out his websites and blogs:
www.jakebaggaley.com
www.jakebaggaley.com/blog/
www.jakeb-photography.blogspot.com/