“Four Questions on Photography: Ilvy Njiokiktjien in Conversation With…” is a series of events where well-known photographers discuss with Ilvy their response to the four questions below.
– What is your most important photograph, how did you make it, and what impact do you think it had?
– What is your biggest photo failure; an image you wanted or needed but you messed up somehow?
– What is your dream image or story?
– What advice would you give to your younger self?
In this episode for this event, Ilvy is in conversation with Jocelyn Bain Hogg.
TRANSCRIPT
0:05
[music plays]
0:40
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Here we are! Thank you, PhotoWings. Joce, are you ready?
0:46
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: When you are, yeah.
0:50
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: What I would really like is if you would introduce yourself. Usually I do an introduction, but I saw part of your lovely biography and I think it’s better when you read it instead of me.
1:06
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Okay, well, I’ll put my best BBC voice on, people. So yes, this is from an introduction I had to write for a portfolio that’s doing the rounds as we speak. Anyway, so the preamble of course is how I started, but since then I’ve become a member of the VII photo agency with 7 published books to my double-barreled name. I’ve seen the dark side of organized crime, been shot at in Palestine, sat on the podium in the beat of Manumission with Fatboy Slim, winked at by Uma Thurman in Cannes, and fallen over in front of Joan Rivers wearing my kilt at the Oscars. A photographer always, I grabbed my Leica first, not the up-flying garment that exposes a true Scot. From the look on Joan Rivers’ face, it was a smile, I think.
1:56
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Love it. Thanks. Thanks so much, Joce. It’s amazing.
1:59
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: You’ve got to have a sense of humor in this life; otherwise, well, it’s all too much.
2:02
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: I would actually love to talk about the kilt for a little bit, but I’m not allowed?
2:08
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I should be thanking David Campbell. My family is MacDonald for God’s sakes. Saved in Glen Coe by the Campbells.
2:14
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Do you still sometimes wear a kilt, or was it only to the Oscars?
2:18
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I think since lockdown and become too fat.
2:20
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Oh. Well, not anymore.
2:23
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, I don’t know. I mean, I must admit I haven’t had a cause to wear it, but it is Burns night coming up on the 25th of January. So, I might have to have an honorary haggis and a wee dram and we’ll see.
2:36
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: A good moment to wear it I think.
2:37
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Always. Any excuse.
2:39
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: So my first question to you would be, What is your most important photograph? And feel free to share your screen whenever you feel like is the right time.
2:52
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Yeah, it’s interesting you say that. The important photograph. Oops. Not that one. It’s probably this one. Well, am I sharing it with you? I don’t know if I am.
3:04
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: No, not yet.
3:05
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Okay. Share. Let’s see if that works.
3:14
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: There we go.
3:16
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Good. So, in a way, I’ve got two of them. I mean, because my career is a little left field in terms of what we expect of photojournalism. I think I was always reminded to go back to my roots, which are documentary, but I had a hiatus for 10 years doing fashion. This was the picture I took in 1983 when I was at college. Now, I started photographing at my boarding school because I didn’t like boarding school. I still don’t. And I felt then that photography could be a vehicle to express what I felt but also to show something that people didn’t otherwise see or know. And of course, I didn’t know what I was doing. I taught myself. That body of work is what it is. But I remember going to see Magnum photographer David Hurn when I was at school. I was 18, I think. And he looks at my pictures and he looks at me, you know, up and down, up and down. Basically he said, well, no. Put your pictures away and go and learn.
3:16
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Oh, wow.
3:27
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I think he said go and learn boy, actually, but I’m not quite sure. A bit like Captain Mainwaring, if anyone’s seen Dad’s Army, I was Pike. Anyway, I went to learn. I went to Newport which was, in 1983, 82, the kind of preeminent documentary course in the UK, if not the whole of Europe. So David was the tutor and it was kind of weird because I didn’t really fit in. This was the days of Margaret Thatcher, none of us approved of or agreed with, but I was always a little bit left field. I was too tall, I was a bit public school, I didn’t really fit. And when it came to doing a final major project, which is what we did at college, I wanted to do something that was close to home. So, I literally—I was brought up in Brighton, which is a small English town seafront on the seaside. And it’s known to this day for its care homes. And that, at the time, even in the 80s, was a bit of a scandal where money was being taken from old ladies and they weren’t having a very good end-of-life experience. And I banged on about 10 doors trying to get access to one of these care homes and one let me in. And it was literally 100 yards from where my mother lived in Brighton. And I spent about two weeks there getting to know these these ladies and gents, and it was really a rather lovely experience in itself. But also, I think it brought me home to the idea that you can photograph on your doorstep.
5:48
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah, literally around the corner.
5:51
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Literally 100 yards from home. And this picture, it’s still in my portfolio to this day. And I don’t know, it’s one of those rare moments. Black and white Tri-X. I remember processing it in my, in my mom’s downstairs toilet for God’s sakes because that’s what my darkroom was, until I went back to college. And somehow— it’s on my wall behind me on the top. It reminds me where I come from, you know, I have to sort of go back to that time as a 21-year-old student looking for stories that mattered in my neighborhood.
6:27
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Well, how old were you when you took this image? Like, around what…
6:33
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Twenty. I think 21, 20.
6:35
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: It’s an amazing image.
6:38
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I was 20. I started at 14. So you know, I had a head start.
6:45
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: I know that. Yeah. You started in boarding school then with photography, right? Yeah.
6:50
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Absolutely. I think, again, this generation I come from, we were inherently critical. It was something that photography was a way of being a journalist with a camera, but criticizing. So, this picture is a sort of refreshing change where actually it’s very beautiful, I think. The reality is, of course, this was a physiotherapist helping an old lady to walk. But of course, it looks like she’s found God because we know a picture can, you know, belie the truth in so many ways. So…
7:18
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: You’re right, because when you look at this image, you think, okay, what is she looking at? Is she, you know? I wouldn’t have thought she was at a physiotherapist session.
7:30
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Exactly. And I think this is again that what’s interesting in our field is that one has to be careful with captioning. And I tend not to over-egg the pudding when I’m writing captions. But in this case, it’s just, you know, Millie and Mrs. Ansal. Because I remember their names. It’s very strange, isn’t it? You have a memory for these things. But it’s lived with me ever since. Because when I left college, I couldn’t get work for love nor money. What people don’t realize, it was a very closed shop in the 80s in Britain where a few very good photographers did all the work. And you could not get in. There was absolutely no way an era vis like myself could actually get any work. So, when I left college, I got a job at the BBC doing publicity stills. And from then on did fashion. I spent 10 years. Yeah. I just could not get any other work.
8:21
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: So, just to be clear, so you first did photojournalism and documentary at university or schooling, and then you did fashion photography for 10 years. Yeah. And then after that you returned to documentary.
8:35
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I went back to documentary, but I never really left it behind. Because again, for myself, and I think this is the difference between some of us, you know, we talked about this at VII. But I was never really, I can’t ever claim to be a photojournalist. Because of my experience, I did my own personal stuff. So, most of my output was projects because I couldn’t get editorial work. As soon as The Firm came out in 2001, yeah, I got assignments, but before then I remember trying to join an agency, I’m not going to name it, but a London agency. And the guy who ran it looked at me and went, This work is really extraordinary, but I’ve never seen your name anyway. Who the fuck are you?
9:07
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Okay, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, right. I didn’t get in, of course. But that’s how it was, I think, in those days.
9:27
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: But, I think that’s also your strength, right? I mean, I don’t know, I think getting a lot of assignments or getting assignments in general can also kind of deprive you from or derail you—or what’s the word— from telling good stories because you worked on stories that you actually found interesting instead of just doing assignments all the time.
9:47
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I think so. I mean, there’s no right or wrong. I think everyone comes to the same end in some strange way. But I’m very glad the experiences I had, some even doing fashion, it really helped. I think, again, I had this mentor, Percy Savage, you couldn’t invent his name, who, famously, I think, well, he claimed that Christian Dior had named Eau Sauvage after him. He was Australian. And he was a fashion PR. Looked like a kind of Australian version of John Wayne meets, I don’t know, John Galliano if you like. Big floppy hat. He was rude to everybody. Six foot three. And I met him and I don’t know, he really helped me. He kind of taught me how to see—it’s gonna sound strange, but to look at beauty. Because fashion after all, is all about presentation and looks, which in documentary we do not take seriously. Nor should we. It’s not really that important. But actually, when I look back, understanding the look of things, it was really, really useful, a hell of an advantage I think, to the way things are because we live in a visual culture. So dear old Percy, who used to walk his leopards around the Bois de Boulogne, no less, given to him by Haile Selassie, was a mentor.
11:05
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: What!? I knew that we’re going to be some crazy stories here.
11:08
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Yeah, it’s true. He did. Percy, Percy, God love him, may he rest in peace. I was in the beat of photographing Norman Cook when he passed away, so I couldn’t be this funeral. A hell of an interesting character. But I think, again, photography then, it didn’t have the same constrictions that we are now faced with. I think as well…
11:28
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: What kind of constrictions do you mean?
11:29
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, certainly looking at how magazines and newspapers are kind of declining, and it’s very hard to make a living.
11:36
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah.
11:36
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: It wasn’t hard to be a photographer then, it wasn’t necessarily—as I say, I couldn’t get access to the Sunday Times then because it was a closed shop. But I certainly could be a photographer and do the work I wanted to do. Yeah, I built a darkroom in my bathroom. I processed all the film myself. I mean, I remember somebody asked me why was the film black and white? I didn’t actually have the nerve to say, Well, I couldn’t bloody well afford to do it in color. I had to process it myself. What do you think, you know.
12:02
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: But I think actually, The Firm is perfect in black and white.
12:06
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Luckily for me, I mean, looking at big fat red-faced men sweating in the dark in black clothing would not look good in color. So yeah, it was black and white. But yeah, again, that sense of not belonging to anything and making your own path was part of the cultural identity in Britain in the 80s I think. You know, whatever you did, certainly in London in my neck of the woods in Notting Hill, it was very political. Nobody agreed with Margaret Thatcher, we all hated her. I remember with Seamus going to Thatcher’s funeral, and I had to be there to make sure she died. Sorry, but I had to say that. But we felt very strongly that we were fighting against a regime that we didn’t approve of and that photography could be of benefit to that, even bizarrely in fashion.
12:53
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: But I think that’s coming back now again, Jocelyn. I think that we’re about 20 years in between or 30 maybe, yeah, but it wasn’t like that, but now it’s becoming more political again. I feel photographers are yeah, more political, are becoming more political.
13:10
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I mean, how, the question, of course is how to survive it. Because, again, that’s the sea change. Is my flat that I still live in—when I moved in here in 1985, I think it was 300 pounds a month rent which my then partner and I got it down to 140 because you could get the rent assessed. That meant it was affordable. Now I don’t know how that can be done, but I know it needs to be. You know, the first casualty, of course, is news and truth. So there’s Trump and our great leader, taking a leaf out of the Goebbel’s handbook and dismissing all press. Yeah, fake news. Clever, isn’t it? Which means we in turn, don’t have a vehicle. But we’ve got to find one somehow. I mean, again, my early days of fashion, the agency I was with was called Zed. And I’m, you know, Juergen Teller and Stéphane Sednaoui, a lovely Scottish photographer, Donald Christie, and myself, Nina Schultz and a few others. But it was owned by Ziggy, who was Jamaican. So, we had a West Indian Londoner who was running an agency where we were really trying to kick over statues. And it was— I look back on those days and think now it’s hard to believe but we did, we broke boundaries. I mean, it was absolutely—the questions that people are talking about now with mixed race and transgender, we were asking the same questions then.
13:18
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: And when was this?
14:01
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, Zed folded in 1989. So, this would have been 80, I suppose 88 to 87, 88, 89. God.
14:42
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Time flies.
14:44
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: But it’s funny, looking back on stuff is not necessarily healthy, but sometimes it is because you remember the positivity of it.
14:54
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: I think it’s actually a good thing to reflect as well. Like going back in the archives.
15:01
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Yeah, I think, again, an archive, I’m not sure. I’ve been looking through the fashion stuff again because, you know, in our world, you tend to dismiss that. It’s not brain surgery, let’s face it, it’s pretty pictures, but, again, it’s quite curious how I think what I was trying to do was something very democratic and inclusive. Along came heroin chic and it all went to dust, but and it’s still there, that sort of size zero, really offensive way of dehumanizing people that fashion now propagates was anything but what we were doing in the 80s. And along come, you know, the grunge revolution, it’s never gone. It’s interesting how people don’t know this because this new generation is not looking back. And maybe…
15:50
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Do you feel they aren’t? I feel, okay, I’m not allowed to ask all of this probably, but I think actually, in the current schools, there’s a lot of looking back.
16:00
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I hope so. Because I think you can’t learn from anything if you— we need to look at the past so we don’t make the same mistakes, let’s face it. So certainly when I was at the LCC, it wasn’t that experience at all, very different.
16:11
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Oh, oh, I didn’t know. So good to look back I feel. You learn so much more from everyone who’s done this before you. And what has been done. Hey Joce, before we run out of time. Four questions. You already broke like a little rule. But for the people who’ve watched a couple of weeks back when Sara Terry actually interviewed me, I also broke some rules and asked her to make some switches in the programming. And now Jocelyn did the same.
16:11
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Oh dear.
16:18
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Because you have three images that you took with you instead of two. Usually we have one image, which is the important image and one that is a photo failure. But you brought two important ones, and now we want to see them.
17:00
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: This is the pivotal one, I think, which again, it’s only ever been published once in The Face magazine.
17:06
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: What’s happening here?
17:07
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, this is a story. I pitched the story to The Face. The Face in Britain was the coolest magazine, the uber cool, cool, cool, cool, uber cool magazine everybody wanted to work for. And again, it was a closed shop until they got a New York art director in because the English guy had left. Boris Venevic, Croatian New Yorker who didn’t have the processes that English people had, looks at my work and says, yeah, okay, you can work for us. So, I pitched the story on the Criminal Justice Act, which at the time, 1991-92, was a big deal. So, Thatcher and Major, between them, had criminalized travelers. So, and this is also a time of rave culture and enclosure of a lot of freedoms. So, I pitched the story on travelers and I did a big story for The Face on travelers. This is I think, the defining image of that story. At Glastonbury, in 1992 before it was this huge ban that it now is, the greenfield was full of crossties.
18:05
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: This is, I mean, hardly recognizable as a festival. Different and yeah, to the current one.
18:14
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: It an ad for Leica, it’s quite a good one because this is the only frame on the whole thing. With a Leica, you can see what you’re getting. So, I kind of felt great. I’ve actually got that. It was the last frame. So anyway, there he is, bubble man.
18:27
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: That’s such a cool shot. Amazing.
18:29
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: With the drip in exactly the right place.
18:31
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Exactly.
18:32
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Talk about luck. But that’s photography for us. I think in a way that changed everything for me, because in 1992 I was still doing fashion. But this picture led to a 10 page story in The Face. Then another feature in The Face. I did about three for them before Boris left, but another English guy took over and I left. But it led to the European newspaper, which was my big break, I think. Working for Patti Kelly, great picture editor that she was, on The European, brought me back into the documentary world, to a certain extent kind of opened doors. And thanks to Paul Lowe as well who introduced us, my old friend who is now in VII. So, that picture did it all. That really changed everything. I mean, admittedly, I was off the next month photographing some fashion shoots somewhere, but you could do both. It was a parallel line.
19:22
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Did people ever question that you could kind of do both? Was that a thing to like, were people saying oh, you can’t be a photojournalist or a documentary photographer, you’re also doing fashion.
19:35
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: But don’t forget, I wasn’t— I couldn’t get into the Sunday Times or The Observer or any of the magazines that we now look at as being pivotal, influential news magazines. So, my market you know, I was working for Elle Magazine and Marie Claire and I was doing fashion for goodness knows who and The Face, which was not exactly you know, it was a style thing. And yes, I think looking back on it, The Face was probably more important than some of the other magazines that were much more newsworthy at the time because it really did break boundaries with young people. It was a young person’s magazine. So what was I? Thirty. Just. Twenty-nine. It was the right time for me to be doing that.
20:17
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah. 100% I love this image. And Sara does, too. And Maggie does too. And she says the tie is just in the right place, just like you just said.
20:28
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I know. And that drip. Oh, dear.
20:30
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: I know. It’s perfect. It’s really amazing.
20:33
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I have to I have to confess I was particularly with grass at the time. And I was lying there like, wow, this is really cool, the way it reflects on the grass and my Leica in my other hand.
20:45
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: That’s the best moment when you really know I mean, it doesn’t happen a lot. But when you just know you shot a good image it’s like, whoa.
20:53
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I tend to agree with Cartier-Bresson who said to Eugene Smith one day, how many good pictures have you taken this this year, Gene? Oh, probably about 12? He always did exaggerate. One a year if you’re lucky.
21:06
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah, exactly. It’s so true. One a year is a really good score. I feel.
21:11
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I feel I’ve got two in a 45-year career. So I’m not winning at all.
21:14
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: No, no, no, you have way, way more.
21:16
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: But ones that really stand out, that I mean, that stand the test of time. But actually, I look at those two now and they still remind me why I do this. Yeah, there’s something about the way that photography can just go right under the skin.
21:31
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Why you do this? It reminds you why you do this? Why?
21:35
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I think because it’s, it’s a way of connecting with the human race and seeing something beyond the obvious.
21:44
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: That’s beautiful.
21:44
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: That sounds very pretentious, but actually, that’s just for me. But I think for other people, it entertains them too. I mean, again, back to Newport, being British, and David Hurn, but what we do is, and I think this is proven now with Instagram, we’re never going to be rockstars or writers or poets. We’re just photographers, which I’ve always rather liked. It is the most democratic medium on the planet. Everybody can be a photographer. Okay, so it’s an Instagram world, and now everybody is, but is that a bad thing? You know, I think it connects.
22:17
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah, that’s true. I totally agree. I just wonder if this job will stay as special?
22:25
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: No. I think it goes back to Kodak. When they invented the box brownie they said you know, you press the button, we do the rest. That was in 1898. Now, you know, you’ve got an Instagram, iPhone, Instagram, everybody presses a button. All it means is there’s just an awful lot more shit out there I think to really sift through to find the good stuff. But I have a feeling it’s really up to us to find ways of getting those messages out there. This was a light picture about something very serious. So, these guys could not be this free ever again after the criminal justice came to pass in Britain. So again…
23:01
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Well, that’s also the thing I think that kind of divides documentary or the photojournalism from a lot of the other images we can nowadays see on Instagram, is that this really has a story to it and therefore an importance to it. Or there’s a second layer basically.
23:23
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I hope so. Again, 1983, 1992 So, it’s 10 years apart for those but the messages are still very much, well, they’re very similar.
23:31
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah.
23:32
Jocelyn Njiokiktjien: Care in the community. Look at the society we’re in.
23:35
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: True. Yeah.
23:36
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Address it.
23:37
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: So, Jocelyn…
23:38
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: The fuckup. Well.
23:43
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Can we move to your biggest photo failure?
23:47
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, though, too in a way this one.
23:49
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: I love the image. I don’t know. But well, yeah,
23:53
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: But this is the only one there was just about. It was so surreal.
23:58
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: So what is the story of this image?
24:00
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, it was a fashion shoot for a designer, a very famous British designer called David Fielden and I’d never worked with him before and he commissioned me to do his spring-summer couture collection, which included wedding dresses. And I don’t know who it was, probably me, who had this harebrained idea of doing it. This was March so it wasn’t that cold but it certainly wasn’t warm and photographing in the Avebury stone circle, which is on Celtic burial ground in Wiltshire. Very dramatic landscape. These meninas are everywhere. And I didn’t think twice. So we kind of turned up. Hair and makeup was done. This lovely Filipino model who’d never been to England before was out chattering in this white dress, poor love. And oh god, the heavens opened, the rain started, then the hail started, then the snow started. And that’s kind of weird. It’s March. It’s not—and this is 1989 I think; 89-90. I was with Zed at the time, so yes probably then. So, climate change wasn’t quite as pronounced as it now is so this was just weird. Then it got worse. So, I think I had about— I had a panoramic camera that I— I think I’d sold the shoot on the fact I was going to use a panoramic and all these meninas would be in the picture, Celtic stuff. It packed up, two panoramic cameras. Both of them.
25:26
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Wow because of the weather it just like…
25:29
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I don’t know. I don’t know. We are standing on sacred ground here. Yeah. Burial ground. Whoo do do do do. Bottom line. Then I was left with 35 mil trying hard to cover my ass and pretend that everything was fine when clearly it wasn’t. And then one of the 35 mil cameras broke.
25:50
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: No way.
25:51
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Yep. So I was left with two, well, two 35 mm cameras, one that was functioning. And that was the black and white one. So, I had to kind of literally shoot black and white and color. Don’t forget this is film. So, we didn’t have this wonderful luxury of digital where you can convert. You had one camera body that was black and white, one that was color. Two cameras, or four cameras, panoramic, 120 panoramic and 35 mil. What was I using at the time? Nikons, I think. Which let’s face it, Nikon FMs are pretty reliable. They don’t go wrong. And they both did. Then the last surviving camera that also— I could feel the film, the winder stopped.
26:33
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: You had one very unlucky day.
26:37
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Seriously spooky.
26:39
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: And what did, like, did you…? What do you do in a moment like that?
26:43
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Cry? There’s not much you can do.
26:44
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Exactly, but do you tell people like…? I can’t imagine.
26:46
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I had to pray that I had enough stuff. I mean luckily it was halfway or maybe towards the end of the shoot. So most of it, not all of it, but there was enough. I thought. Then, of course the film was processed. Apart from about three roles, completely blank. And the ones that survived— Tri-X, which is not super grainy—look like this, golf ball grain. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like—and processing marks all over it. You can see in the background. It looks like, it looks quite cool.
27:24
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: I kind of like it. That’s what I said when I saw it, I’m like, oh.
27:28
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Exactly. So that’s me selling it to the designer. Isn’t it great? It looks like— he didn’t fall for it for a second.
27:35
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Oh no.
27:35
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: And I think my name was mud for about a year. But there we go.
27:39
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Were they angry? Or were they…
27:41
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Furious. Absolutely. Well, of course, because all the film was blank. I think Zed were pretty upset because of course, I had to sort of not accept the fee because, you know, I had to accept responsibility for it. So, yeah, all in all it was a disaster.
27:55
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: And they didn’t want to redo the shoot?
27:57
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: They did, but not with me.
27:59
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Yeah, no. I meant with you.
28:01
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I think David went into the studio the next day with somebody very sensible. And, you know, no herring around feels, you know, doing a wicker man shoot, which is what this became.
28:12
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: And now that you see this image, do you—I mean, as I said, I really like this image actually. I can see it’s grainy, and I can see it’s like has spots in the background. But what do you what do you see when you see this? Do you have a little bit of…
28:26
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: She was frozen stiff and I felt so guilty that I was making her do this. Actually, no, I like the picture. Trouble is doing fashion shoots, you’d never just did one. There was something like six or eight frocks that had to be photographed. That was just one of them. And in color and in black and white. So you know, pretty bad.
28:47
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Yeah.
28:48
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: And just pure weird, weird luck. I mean, cameras breaking down, processing going wrong, freak weather. All I can say is never shoot in the Celtic burial ground. My answer is like, don’t you dare piss off the old gods.
29:06
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Everyone that’s in this call, now please remember that.
29:09
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I mean, I am big somewhat flippant here, but you know, I don’t, I can’t explain it any other way. But thank god that’s— aside from being at school and photographing my school chaplain’s wedding and which fucked up, I touch wood, haven’t had many major disasters.
29:27
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: That’s also not something you want to…
29:29
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Good. No, the two disasters were real ones. They were absolutely Grade A disasters but…
29:30
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: You survived them.
29:36
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, who’s to say? Yeah.
29:39
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: And you have a good story.
29:40
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Who hasn’t got good stories? I think that’s the thing about our lives is that they’re never dull.
29:45
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Exactly. That’s the thing. I think there’s a question coming in. A good question from Paul. Paul Marotta. Did you get paid for that shoot? (18 question marks.)
29:59
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: No, absolutely not. I had to give all the money back. In fact, I was out of pocket because obviously paying for the processing and everything, so yeah. The only thing I could do was do the decent thing and grovel, whew. He wasn’t happy, that designer. He was difficult at the best of times.
30:17
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: I see there’s some people raising hands. I actually haven’t seen that before. I’m guessing because they have a question. But if you have a question, please put them in the q&a, because that’s where we see them. The q&a box is on the bottom. On the right side. Well, at least on my computer. Maybe it’s different on someone else’s. But that’s where we see it.
30:40
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: The hand? How do I find them?
30:42
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Yeah, someone raised the hand. But if you guys, if you have a question, put it in the q&a. And if there’s a question, if there are questions coming in Jocelyn I’ll let you know.
30:52
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: For some reason. I’ve managed to lose the button that shows me who’s asking questions. Typically.
31:00
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Okay
31:00
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Chat.
31:01
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Next question from my side Joce, what is your dream image or your dream story? And this could be anything. It doesn’t necessarily have to be something you want to shoot, it doesn’t have to be something that’s even possible to shoot. Just what would it be?
31:18
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Ironically, I, as I was thinking about this the other day, I’ve pretty much done all those seven books of mine, all those projects, all the things I wanted to do. I still have five left to be published. But actually, I don’t know. I mean, I’d almost like to kind of look at all— it sounds ridiculous, but I’m kind of intrigued by the middle America and the whole white man rubbish that Donald Trump brought up. But I’d like to do that through country music. Isn’t that bonkers? And look at Nashville and the understanding of, in inverted commas, and don’t take me seriously, the white man. So through country music, wouldn’t that be fascinating?
31:58
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: That is a fascinating idea.
32:00
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Yeah.
32:01
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: That’s really a great idea.
32:02
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I’d quite like to do that. [inaudible] I am Scottish. So, the English folk revival, which is—everyone is jumping for it, you know.
32:14
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Is there really a, is there a folk revival? Is it happening?
32:18
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, I think it’s been saying that for about 30 years, but yeah, it’s, it seems to be fairly, I suppose actually. Given the the difficulty it must be now for young musicians to have a band and the record label and getting stuff out there, singer songwriters and solo acts probably is the way forward.
32:35
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Yeah. Okay, so is this a project that you would really like to…
32:42
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I’m thinking I would really like to do that. Yeah. I mean, spending time in Nashville would be very, would be great fun. Yeah. I am a bit of a fan too. I do quite like country music.
32:52
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: That’s funny.
32:53
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Sorry.
32:55
Ilvy Njiokiktkien: Really?
32:55
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I did a story, again, for The Face with Ekow Eshun, a lovely Nigerian journalist. And it was weird, because we were photographing black guys in Atlanta and they were looking at me and going what are you doing with that guy, and they were saying the same to him, What are you doing with that guy? And we compromise in the car in Atlanta by having Sly and the Family Stone. Because that’s the only thing we’d ever find was country music, which I quite liked and Ekow couldn’t bear. So yeah.
33:17
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Interesting. Yeah. I think if you listen to country, when I was growing up, there wasn’t a whole lot of country music in the Netherlands.
33:27
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, funny that.
33:28
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Funny enough, but then I moved to the United States when I was 16 and I remember, I was staying with a family, like a rancher family with cowboys and horses and, well, the whole thing. And in the car they would constantly listen to country music and I couldn’t stand it in the beginning. And then after a month, I was so addicted. I’m still listening to it now. It’s years later.
33:50
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Absolutely.
33:50
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: I love it.
33:51
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: It’s good. I mean, Joline is one of the all time great tracks ever.
33:55
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Hundred percent. You need to do this project. I feel…
33:58
I think I do. I quite like the idea of …
34:00
Yeah, you should.
34:00
Jocelyn Bain Hogg…a bit of Britain in cowboy town. I mean, yeah.
34:05
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: I agree.
34:05
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: And again, there’s the sub, the subtext always is, you know, where is this coming from? I mean, my ancestors are Scots, you know, the Scots Catholics were ousted from the highlands by the Clearances. And, of course, my contention is Scottish. It’s the Scots in country music, not the Irish sorry, but it is. And it comes from that kind of working class white blues, if you like, of the dispossessed. They’re all sad songs about loss and love, Scottish and Irish.
34:32
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: It’s kind of storytelling in its own way, as well, this kind of music. It has a lot of well, stories in it. And sometimes there are a lot of the same stories about love and loss and but there’s definitely a lot of politics in country music as well.
34:49
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: It’s now been appropriated by the right wing, which again, is really sad and shouldn’t happen.
34:53
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: No, you’re right. That’s interesting stuff. So, you’re really good at picking like…
34:57
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, I think I do things nobody else wants to do That’s my problem. Look at my…
35:02
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Sorry, what did you say? You do the…?
35:03
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I do projects that nobody else wants to do.
35:06
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: No, I don’t think we’re smart enough to think of these kinds of projects.
35:06
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: You are.
35:11
I’m like, this is such a good idea.
35:12
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I remember last time I did a talk for VII, poor Ziyah was looking at me, I mean he was just aghast at why would I waste such time on something as trivial as celebrity culture. He’s got a point. You know.
35:22
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: No, no, because it’s a popular thing for people to look at celebrities and it’s…
35:27
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I think that’s again, that’s where you get the message across. If you do something that is either humor or populist, you have a fighting chance of people looking at it, I think. Not sure it’s worked, but I have a feeling that’s something we forget, you know. You don’t always want to scare people over their breakfast tables, you want to show them something they can respond to.
35:46
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Exactly. No, you’re really good at finding these, I mean, in all of your previous books as well. They’re all, they’re always subjects that are things that you actually want to see more about.
35:59
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I think, again, you know, that was the thing. It was the 80s and 90s, with my contemporaries and my peers doing the hardcore stuff and I couldn’t get in the door. So I had to choose an alternative. And it’s worked out well.
36:10
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah, yeah, you’re right. It’s worked out very well, actually. So, there are a few questions coming in. Thanks for that. Oh, there are quite a bit of questions coming in. But before I go to those questions, I think it might make sense to ask my last question, and then we’ll move to the q&a box.
36:30
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Sure.
36:28
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Anyone who has a question for Jocelyn, please put it in the q&a box on the bottom right. But my last question to Joce is what advice would you give your younger self.
36:42
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Get a good accountant.
36:46
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: I haven’t heard that one before. But that’s a good one. Why?
36:49
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I was never good with money. Let’s face it, most photographers aren’t. But I think if I’d had a decent accountant— I’ve got a good one now. But, I mean, it might have saved me a fortune, a lot of anger, aggravation with the Inland Revenue, though. Nothing you do— things you don’t want to worry about are that, you know, it’s money well spent.
37:06
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Very true. That’s really solid advice. I really do think that as a photojournalist, or as a photographer, documentary maker, in general, we would really like to just focus on taking the pictures, making the books and not be emailing people all day long. And…
37:26
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Exactly.
37:28
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: …doing accounting. Yeah.
37:29
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I’d willingly pay, you know, as much as I have to to get that off my back. You know, I think it’s, you want to focus on what it is you want to be saying. And it’s hard enough just doing the projects, certainly doing it off your own back when you’ve got no real backing. I’m making light of the processing the film in the bathroom, but bloody hell. There were times— food or developer. Wait a minute, you know. You’ve got enough to worry about.
37:56
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah. So you started to kind of, so you would have started earlier with having an accountant, earlier in your career.
38:04
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Absolutely. Yeah.
38:06
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Okay. First question is from LR don’t know who it is, but LR. When is Muse going to be released?
38:14
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, I wish—yes, it’s been years. But actually, you know what, that’s God almighty, that’s 22 years, that project…
38:25
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: In the making?
38:26
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Yeah.
38:27
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Wow.
38:30
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: God, it is actually
38:31
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Can you explain a bit about what it is maybe?
38:34
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Muse, again, it’s an interesting one because I was brought up by four women. And obviously, I’ve done fashion. I live in Notting Hill. I’ve had the kind of London life if you like. But I’ve always known full well that beauty is actually unlike Percy Savage’s fashion ideal. It’s in the eye of the beholder. You know, when you fall in love with someone, you fall in love with them. And you love someone for who they are, not what they look like. And I got very intrigued by this idea way back in the 90s when I started The Firm, when plastic surgery became a big deal. And I had a friend who, she had a boob job. And it was like, oh my god, what have you done, you know. Here, feel this, she said. Oh and it was really strange, a beautiful woman who’s done this to herself. It was very—or that that had become some strange form of currency. And now of course, it’s gone haywire with people believing that Photoshop is actually real. And no, I don’t like my look. So 21 years ago, 22 years ago, I started looking at all the people I knew, all the women in my life. I’d already done the—I was doing the big book of men, before anyone jumps at me. So, there was no way I was going to photograph men for this project because that was The Firm. So, this had to be something from my own experience, which is my mum, my grandmother, my aunts, my mom’s best friend who brought me up, and in some way a homage to them and the reality of what love, trust and beauty are. And I’d also read JG Ballard’s The Kindness of Women, where he talks about beauty being the square inch of skin. And how delicious is that? So when you’re in bed with someone you love, and you’re, you know, pressed against them all you see is the detail. Bingo, you know, that was it. So for 22 years, I photographed bits of people. Good heavens. According to that tenet, obviously not literally. But that intimacy, that closeness of skin. And it’s family, its friends, mostly friends.
40:37
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Beautiful.
40:38
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: And asking people, you know, what do you like about yourself. It’s a terrible thing to ask any woman. But it’s actually a give and take, the process.
40:45
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: So you were asking that like, this is in text as well, like you write text. You just ask them and photograph them.
40:54
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: The pictures are simple. I mean, there’s no— just Christian names as captions and no names, nothing. Because in a way, it’s not about— it would be invidious to start, t make it about the individual really. It’s just, you know, somebody likes their eyes, somebody likes the scar on their shoulder. But also, you know, these are portraits. So you work around that process. And it’s done and dusted. But of course, climate is wrong for it. I’m male, I’m white, I’m middle class. It is too easy to misinterpret it without understanding the context. And people do not read context. They just read what they want to read. It’s a difficult project to get out there right now.
41:35
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: And it’s such a project of with, like, I love the angle, and I love the fact that it is like a— to the women that you…
41:46
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Oh, absolutely.
41:47
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah,
41:48
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: The idea that it should be in any way the male gaze or sexist, it’s just disgusting. I’ve been against that all of my life. You know, when you’re brought up by single parent family by four women, believe me, you become a feminist. It’s just the way it is. And rightly so. The very thought that I’m doing anything that’s in any way against women, or whew. It makes me angry. But that is the consensus, so…
42:15
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah. That is quite—Is that the reason the book is not yet here or not here, or…?
42:22
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Yeah. Very much. I mean, I had a show of it in 2009. It’s not that old. And I remember being approached by a collective of women photographers in France, saying, We’ve seen your work, we think it’s amazing, best work on women by a woman photographer we’ve ever seen. You know, Jocelyn. I have a girl’s name. So they assumed. They didn’t know who I was. As soon as they found out I said, Well, I’d love to be at your festival. I could wear my kilt. But sorry, I’m a guy. I never heard another word.
42:49
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: They didn’t even reply.
42:50
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, no. Now, of course, I think because people do know I’m a male, it’s the other way. So, how dare you photograph women like this? You know, they’re not even nudes. It’s weird. But this is the the sort of sensibility that a lot of—certainly I’m facing with that kind of work in this climate as a male in Britain.
43:12
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah.
43:13
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I don’t think it’s the same everywhere. But it’s certainly not easy here.
43:16
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Well, yeah. And do you think there won’t be a book?
43:21
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: No. Eventually, it will. Maybe I’ll be long dead, but there will be one one day. I hope so. I think it’s important.
43:28
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Book as maybe upcoming.
43:33
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I just hate the idea that yes, again, you’ve got teenagers looking at magazine covers or billboards, and thinking they have to look this way. That is just not right.
43:42
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: It’s unfair. I mean, it’s impossible to look that way.
43:46
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: It’s, it is wrong. I mean, you don’t fall in love with that.
43:49
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: I mean, and that’s why I think that this project is so beautiful and important.
43:52
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Yeah. Well, I’m glad you said that. I’m very proud of it. But again, I’ve revised it, I’ve just kept it back because you know—wrong time.
44:02
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah. Now I see.
44:04
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Again, another thing I was interested in, the idea of beauty. It fits my canon of you know, crime, rock and roll, celebrity culture and beauty.
44:12
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah, I feel it’s beautiful. But, I see where you’re…
44:16
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I have no problem with it, but yet again, you know, it’s a difficult thing to counter when people do not brook any sort of criticism. They don’t listen. We live in a weird culture for that now. Look at Germaine Greer, who’s been, I mean, how can anyone blank Germaine Greer? She’s one of the greatest people of our time. Because she had the temerity to say something that people didn’t like hearing.
44:41
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah. Also, I mean, that’s again with social media. I think so many people have—we all have a voice now and an equal voice and then you get more discussion as well.
44:54
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, we would hope so. Rather than the tick box, like, don’t like, attitude.
44:58
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah, well, yeah, that’s what it kind of can turn into as well, sadly. So, we have three more questions and not a whole lot of time. But let’s see. And if anyone else got one. No, two more questions. Sorry. Let me organize this a bit. Um. Oh, this is a good one from Ron Shuck. What work do you want to be remembered for?
45:24
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I think it’s got to be bubble man. A sense of humor. And I think provocations through humor.
45:30
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Provocations of humor,
45:32
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, provocation through humor. It’s ironic, you know, I do The Firm and I know it’s gonna sound terrible. I know, it’s good, but I’m not—it’s not my favorite work.
45:46
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Jocelyn, can you explain what The Firm is? I just realized I know the project so well, but maybe there’s people in here that don’t like know it.
45:54
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Yeah, I mean, I suppose…
45:57
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: I guess they do, but maybe not.
45:58
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: If I’m known for anything, it’s two big projects on the British underworld. So, photographing the British mafia, which you know, it’s powerful stuff. But of course, again, open to a lot of interpretation. So, the idea of glamourizing violence. It’s contentious, actually, for me, it was important because it spawned, I suppose, my sensibility of looking at the social mores. So as I say, crime, beauty, rock and roll and Pleasure Island and how we try so hard to have fun. Those are element of life that— the obvious, the obvious, but it’s caused a bit of a problem. The Firm is, yeah, it’s gangsters.
46:41
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: And you said it caused a bit of problem.
46:46
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, I mean, you just I think, just by nature it’s, again, it’s partly down to interpretation. Twenty years ago, when it came out, it was unequivocal. The Sunday Times ran it. It was a critical appraisal of a world that isn’t ours. Twenty years on I suppose, that platform has gone. So, all people see without any context are big, ugly, blokes looking big and ugly and blokey, and it isn’t necessarily what the project is about. So, context is everything. And I’m concerned now that the stuff—you know, you go on Google images, and it’s hopeless, it doesn’t tell you anything useful.
47:29
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: You find them without the context. But if you would have to name, would that be the specific project by itself that you would like to be remembered by?
47:40
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Anything but. No, it’s the one I wouldn’t like to be remembered by. But the one sadly that I am. I think if I, if it’s a project, it’s either Muse, or it’s Idols and Believers, personal ones. I mean, Idols again, you know, because turns out my birth mother was a model and my birth father was an actor, kind of rather prescient since I did fashion and wanted to be an actor. And it’s all about looking at that Hollywood life and really exploring that side of myself. Because I mean, I got a place at National Youth Theatre when I was at school, and couldn’t go because it clashed with my school curriculum. And that’s when photography at—no, it’s fine—at 15 kicked in.
48:22
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Oh, that’s when you started.
48:24
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I never looked back.
48:25
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Photography or acting, you know, okay, photography won. And that was…
48:29
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: But you photographed a lot of the acting, and…
48:32
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: A lot of my friends are actors and in that world, you know. I naturally gravitate to it. Just, I suppose you do. It’s nature-nurture.
48:40
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Interesting how you pick two projects to be remembered by and the one that everyone knows is the one you don’t want to be remembered by.
48:48
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, it’s just a nightmare. I mean, of late, it’s got worse because Jay Z, of course, copied my pictures for an album cover. And it’s 20 years since that happened, so there’s all this nonsense about Jay Z. One of the villains wants to own the pictures to do his own version of the book. Oh, god. Forget it.
49:06
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah, I can imagine that’s draining. Okay. Let’s not remember you by The Firm, even though I love the images.
49:13
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Hey, I am not a gangster in case anybody thought I was, which believe it or not people did.
49:16
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: They thought you were a gangster!?
49:19
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, they looked at the pictures and thought, Oh, I’ve, you know, not to my face, but no one could have done that unless they were a gangster themselves. My favorite story was I was the daughter of a famous, famous criminal, which I heard—I stood next to someone at my book launch when they said, oh, oh, this woman, no, she’s the daughter of a famous criminal. That’s why she’s got this access.
49:35
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: No way. People are literally saying that. That’s lovely, actually. I mean, you know.
49:40
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: It’s delicious. I love it.
49:41
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Exactly. I like that.
49:43
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: It proves the point, doesn’t it?
49:44
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah.
49:45
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: But what we do is about access and conveying information to others. So, I think that gets lost a bit now.
49:51
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: There is actually one question from Tom. But now I’m not sure if we can ask it because Tom also says—sorry. Are you seeing this q&a box?
49:51
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I’ve got the chat thing. Is that it?
50:04
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Yeah, the q&a is to the other side. Wait, let me …
50:07
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: No. I’ve got it.
50:08
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Okay.
50:09
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: How do I get it?
50:11
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: So it’s on the it’s on the bottom right. Q&A.
50:14
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Oh, there you go, ah haha.
50:16
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: You see the top question? I’m not sure if I should read that one…
50:19
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: About the relationships you built in The Firm project, do you still see the heavy guys? Being remembered for The Firm is better than not being remembered, right? Well, I’m not sure about either of those really. I mean, yes, I do speak to guys from The Firm because they want to republish the damn book without me, which is kind of entertaining.
50:39
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Is that going to turn into…? Do you think there will be a book or do you think there will be a court case?
50:45
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I don’t know. I mean, I’m leaving it all up to somebody, you know, this is not my call. It’s, there’s an agent involved and let them deal with it. No, it’s funny, isn’t it, because you know you photograph a group of people that— you know this yourself—I mean, I must have photographed 500 people, maybe over all those different, the two projects, The Firm and The Family. Maybe I made one or two friends out of the people I photographed, but you’re not there to make friends. You’re there to document. So, keeping in touch with them isn’t really, they’re not my mates. I don’t have them around for dinner. I don’t meet them in the pub. I mean, I get on well with them. But it’s a different thing to having them as close friends, you know, from being a subject that you photograph to being a close friend. It’s a fine line. I wouldn’t want to cross it. I tried very hard not to.
51:39
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Makes it difficult.
51:40
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: It could become a Netflix production. I wish it would. Although sadly Hugh Grant as Mickey Blue Eyes rather stole my thunder.
51:49
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: There’s Luka. I hope it becomes a Netflix production.
51:52
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Yeah me too. I’d like that. That’d be good. Make some money finally.
51:57
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: And then Ted says, Being remembered for The Firm is better than not being remembered, right? Is he right?
52:03
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: I don’t think it’s an issue. I don’t know about being remembered at all. I’m not quite sure. So that’s the beautiful thing about that. It’s not at all cool, is it? So, other people will make that decision. Not up to me. So, I can abrogate that one without having to say too much. I’ll just walk away from that question quite, quite quietly.
52:22
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Well, Jocelyn, the time is actually up and this…
52:26
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Okay.
52:27
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Well, when we talk about being remembered, I think such a good last question or remark that you just made, but thanks for sharing all of that with all of us.
52:39
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Thank you, Ilvy.
52:40
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Let me just quickly check in the chat because I did see someone is typing. Oh, wait, there’s a lot of people typing in the chat. Oh, but that’s just love coming your way from Maggie. “That’s fascinating. Love.” Jonathan says, “Fabulous as always Ilvy and super to see and hear you again, Jocelyn. Racking tales told and lessons passed on.” Well there’s a lot of love for you. Are you seeing the chat? You should really read it.
53:06
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Yes. That’s very sweet.
53:06
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Okay. Aw. Thanks everybody.
53:07
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: It’s made my day after blowing up my [inaudible.] Excellent, good, thank you.
53:14
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Peter says, “Liking country music and being a Scotsman would be a great way to connect to Americans.”
53:19
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Well, hey, I’ll tell you though that Barrowlands in Glasgow, that’s where it all started. Sydney Devine, Send Me The Pillow You Dream On, no less. Great song. Anyway.
53:31
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Oh thanks. Well thanks, everyone, for watching as well. Thanks, Jocelyn for your time and please check out the website of VII Insider for more episodes that are coming up soon.
53:42
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Thank you, Ilvy. Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to listen.
53:46
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Okay.
53:47
Jocelyn Bain Hogg: Take care.
53:47
Ilvy Njiokiktjien: Bye. Bye bye.
