The One Question That Helped Rich-Joseph Facun Find His Photographic Voice, E116
5/14/20261 hr 26 min
In this episode, Matt sits down with Rich-Joseph Facun, a celebrated American documentary photographer, former photojournalist of 15 years, and founder of the independent publishing imprint Liar's Corner.
In this conversation we discuss his three monographs: Black Diamonds, Little Cities, and 1804, the ethics of street and portrait photography, photographing strangers in Trump-era Appalachia, walking away from photojournalism, finding your photographic voice, and why the global photo book industry urgently needs more marginalised and Indigenous voices.
Other things we discussed:
- Street portraiture, approaching strangers, and consent in documentary photography
- Growing up in a Southern Baptist military family and door-to-door evangelism as training for portrait work
- Photographing Trump-supporting Appalachia as a person of colour with a trans child
- The viral portrait of a stranger with a damaged forehead tattoo crying on the street
- Quitting photojournalism after 15 years and the identity crisis that followed
- Why he stopped using Rembrandt lighting and the decisive moment in his portrait work
- How to find your photographic voice after mastering the craft
- Self-publishing a photo book vs pitching to independent publishers
- The making of Black Diamonds, Little Cities, and 1804
- Launching Liar's Corner as an Indigenous-owned photo book imprint in Appalachia
- Elitism, gatekeeping, and barriers to entry inside the global photo book publishing industry
- Mentoring emerging documentary photographers and funding their first monographs
- Why awards, accolades, and staff photographer positions stopped mattering
Rich-Joseph Facun
Instagram: https://instagram.com/facoon
Website: https://facoon.com
Imprint: https://liarscorner.press
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMatt Jacob· Host0:00
Having been a photojournalist for, I think, 15 years, that's a long time to be getting better and better and better at what you do. So then to stop It's, it's been very challenging.
Rich-Joseph Facun· Guest0:10
If you weren't a photographer making a living as a photojournalist, what would your photography be?
Matt Jacob· Host0:15
What is it that you see in strangers that makes you reach for your camera?
Rich-Joseph Facun· Guest0:19
Everyone looks interesting to me to some degree. We are naturally attracted to people that we see something about them that we're mirroring or reflective of our own self. Everyone's got a story, and I'm down to hear someone's story.
Matt Jacob· Host0:31
There's a huge responsibility on the photographer to be ethical, have dignity, respect, but also portray the people that you're photographing in a respectful manner.
Rich-Joseph Facun· Guest0:42
Whenever image I make, there's some accountability. People are looking at that.
Matt Jacob· Host0:47
What is involved in, in that challenge?
Rich-Joseph Facun· Guest0:49
Where do I even start?
Matt Jacob· Host0:50
[gentle music] Rich Joseph Fourkun, what a pleasure to have you on The Mood Podcast. Thank you for joining me.
Rich-Joseph Facun· Guest1:07
Thanks for having me. It's gonna-- I'm looking forward to this.
Matt Jacob· Host1:10
Yeah, sorry to, uh, for, for those listening, um, Rich Joseph is a little bit under the weather, so we appreciate him even more spending some time with us. So if you hear the odd splutter or cough, then [laughs] you know why. [laughs] So sorry to hear- I'm struggling [laughs] ... it's not so great.
Rich-Joseph Facun· Guest1:26
Thank you.
Matt Jacob· Host1:27
Um, I wanted to start with an opening question. Usually,