The Chaser Report - Photographing a Larrakin | Jennifer Forward-Hayter

Episode Date: November 12, 2023

On this episode of The Chaser Report, Charles chats to travelling photographer Jennifer Forward-Hayter about her tales in photography, and her upcoming exhibition "Larrakin". Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles, and even though it's usually with Dom and Charles, Dom is not here today. But instead, we have Jennifer Ford Hater, an artist extraordinaire, and someone who very creepily followed us around for actually a couple of months or something. See, you keep saying a couple of months. I don't know how terrible it was for you, but it was actually only less than one month.

Oh, less than one month. This was last year, and she just kept on taking these creepy photos everywhere we went. But we're going to find out why she did it right after this. What's better than a well marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue? A well marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the barbecue. kitty pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy zero dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees,

exclusions and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over deliver. Now, so Jennifer, let's go back to the very beginning. Yeah. You're an artist. I am, yeah. I'm studying my masters at the moment. It's a pure academic pursuit of art. And this is in England. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In London, the centre of the universe. Yes. I've got libraries and cafes that stay open past 2 o'clock.

It's extraordinary. It's unbelievable. Well, we don't know what you're even talking about here in Sydney. But then you rang me about, I don't know, like about a year ago, over a year ago, like a year and a half ago. And you went, hello, I'm from England. Can I come and photograph you? What?

Yeah, that's what I do. That's why I love stalking people. And I, you know, I'm 25 years old as well. so I'm almost the same age as the chaser. So I've got no reason at all to know what the hell the chaser is. No. And I was intent. I was obsessed with coming to find you all.

And actually it starts even creepily than just a phone call. I had a picture of the boys, the chaser boys, stuck up on my wall above my desk at the beginning of my degree. So that's where it actually started. And yeah, and then I ended up quite quickly in your phone and then in your house when I met you. And then, yeah, so it's kind of, I probably shouldn't be here. You should probably bring some people.

Yes, we're called crime stoppers. The weirdest thing to me is that before there, didn't you go to Ukraine or something to do photos of the Ukraine? Yeah, so my whole... Isn't that far more important than fucking chaser? Yeah, so my whole kind of interest at the moment is I'm photographing contemporary journalists, the people that we love to hate. And it was quite handy.

We had quite a lot of big global events. happening in Europe at the time. I mean, I don't know if you heard the Queen died. Oh, really? Yeah, it's shocking. It's gone too soon. Yes, exactly. So we had, you know, and we had several prime ministers.

So really the world's press was coming to me and then war in Ukraine. I mean, the tickets to Ukraine, so cheap. I think it was about 15 quid. Really? It's a bargain. And they've got a coat, I took a coach out there. It's fantastic. It's a great sort of package holiday deal.

And I was photographing all these journalists that were kind of going over the border and some of them it was their first war and they were super excited and they were going to like you know get up close and personal with bombs and it's quite interesting there's quite a large amount of like middle eastern journalists as well that had been for so long covering the beat in you know Syria one of them showed me pictures of like ISIS he had on his phone he spent his birthday with ISIS oh my god and so he was quite they give good birthday presents they tried to offer him a rocket launcher but he was like I probably shouldn't accept No, yeah, yeah, you're going to stay impartial.

That's what they teach you in journalism school. Don't accept the rocket launcher. Yeah, in case it then makes you have favourable coverage of the... I mean, how would it affect your coverage at the chaser? If someone gave me a rocket launcher, I'd be like, yeah, yeah. Go for their life. It's better than the, what is it, the Qantas lounge or whatever. Yeah, and also women's rights.

We don't need women's rights, they've got a rocket launcher. Who needs a woman when you've got a rocket launcher? rocket launch. And so they were quite enjoying that now it was a war in Europe. And so they got to travel outside. Much more easy, better, better facilities. Well, they just sort of got to sort of not have really distressing images of their own people being blown up. And instead it was other people. Yeah. It was a nice holiday break for them as well. But also, presumably, the plugs would all be the same, the right size. They didn't have to bring all the adapters and stuff, things that's so close. Yes. So was on the fly. Was that scary?

No, and I went on my own. I was meant to have a friend come with me who had gone over to, like, Kosovo and stuff and was a real cool, you know, like action star. She couldn't find a babysitter, and so it was like, you go. And so I was just sort of stuck at Luton Airport, which I think is more scary than Ukraine. It's like our version of Frankston, but somehow worse and more depressing. For Sydney listeners, it's a bit like living in Tempe or something. And yeah, so I just went out on my own, stayed in a nice, really nice little Polish,

B&B plays and had a nice time around it. It was actually really weird because a load of Americans had just gone over because they, in their mind, they were going to fix the whole war and they got there, didn't speak Polish, didn't speak Ukrainian, didn't speak Russian, didn't have a car, didn't know any geography, you know, completely useless. And so they got hidden and were forced to make sandwiches. And so they would have a whole like shift making sandwiches throughout the day and they'd be let out at night to go back home.

So you could walk around. It was this tiny little, like, on the border of Ukraine and Poland, this tiny little village in Poland. And you could just close your eyes. And it was all these loud Americans sort of speaking about how they were upset. They were forced to make sandwiches all day. There's one guy. He was like, I got refused entry to the American army.

And that's why I'm here. And it's like, how do you not get into the American army? What is going on with you? So that was the type of people there. Right. So they were freelancers. Yeah, they'd just come over. To sort of, there's a war on.

Yeah, you need an American there. Yes. And the Poles and the Ukraine just went. No, you can make some sandwiches. There are so many sandwiches, actually. You got a whole lot of photos out of there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I went back in time and all the kind of retired journalists and stuff.

It was one guy I spoke to, like, he's lost both his legs above his knee and, you know, was wheeled down a church in London just after it happened, you know, to sort of to help. raise money for the paper to help continue their reporting and so I don't know how you'd feel if you'd just come back from war zone you'd lost your legs and your editor had sort of put you in a wheelchair and marched you around to raise money yeah yeah yeah he was like they should have put a bucket on my chair like that's how it felt like and it was all these like terrible stories of like bits of camera ending up in the necks of their friends and killing them and yeah really depressing heavy stuff and then I went into a sort of a circle of like the investigative journalist who were all being sued into oblivion and losing all their money.

And I think there was one, I photographed Carol Codwalla, who basically discovered, blew the whistle on the whole sort of Cambridge Analytica scandal and Brexit and all of that stuff. I photographed her in the next day, the court, I think, announced that she'd won the case and she was right to publish what she did, but somehow she still owed the people money. So I don't know how that works exactly. And I worked a lot with the Daphne Foundation as well, and Daphne-Kowarnaglizia was the first European journalist

to be murdered in Europe for ages or whatever because she wrote about how the government in Malta were very corrupt, and they sent a whole load of London lawyers to sort of attack her, and they would send her like 50 pages of emails a day, we'd have just complete legal mumbo-jumbo, you know, was nothing, just to sort of harass her and fill up her inbox, basically. And then someone ended up someone, who knows who, Maybe the government that she attacked for many years, but who knows?

Blew up her car and her son recalls he was walking down the street and found her knee in the street. Yeah, and I met them all. They were having a church service to kind of memorialise that and everyone was like, you know, crying and, you know, praying to God's for answers and for resolution. So I was down in the trenches of journalism. To what possessed you to follow this path? Why were you doing it? Journalists are all people that we love to hate. And also, I think photography is a great excuse to be somewhere you shouldn't.

And the old kind of, I don't want to sound too conspiratorial, but there's always a thing of like, the mainstream media, they're all in a group, and you don't know how it works inside. And that's because the normal person doesn't really know how it works and how something gets turned from a story into a published thing and a newspaper and that. And it's a really complex thing.

And so I was like, I just want to find it out. You want to poke around? You want to look behind the scenes and actually get a sense of it. And documented in a way where you can then show it to everyone else. Exactly. And journalists actually are quite an underreported story themselves. Even though, I mean, there's loads of books on journalism and written as autobiographies and stuff. It's all about them.

It's not really about the kind of the industry. The process. Yeah, and the bad points. And it is true because, you know, you put your camera on. This is what happened with you when you arrived in Australia. You put the camera on and suddenly you just melted into the background and we just let you take photos of us wherever we were doing. That's good that you say that because I felt like I was about five inches from your face

with a massive flash all the time going. So it's good. I'll put that in my swope. She melts away. It wasn't disturbing at all in any sense. But it is true. But it gave you a sort of license to be. there was, the camera meant that you were sort of like, oh, okay, she's legit because

she's got a camera and I don't know why she's here, but, because I don't think I ever really quite understood. No, and you never introduced me to the rest of the team. Oh, did I know? No, no. So, like, Dom turned up and he was like, who are you? And I'm like, oh, don't worry. Click.

Sort of perfect in a way. And the same with Cam as well. Like, they were all just like, but that's kind of, I like that. I enjoyed that. Yeah. That's my organizational abilities going to the floor. Don't you think that it's just not like the chaser is not nearly on the same scale? Like I sort of feel like you've sort of already turned direction in your careers and gone down to terribly.

You know, like surely you should be sticking around, you know, heading over to, I don't know, Gaza or something like that. Like what was the pivot point where you went, okay, well, I've done Ukraine. Now I'm going to go to Australia, that bad lands. So, I mean, Australia has got very unique. Because it wasn't just Chase that you came out to photograph, wasn't it? You photographed a series of people. Who else did you? I mean, going back to the series, I photographed Kate McClough.

I never checked how you say her name. I hope that's how you say her name. She's got fantastic eyebrows. That's all that matters to me. Right, yeah. I was really interested in Juanita Nielsen's story back in the 70s. So my history of Sydney and Australia is really weird. It is just like the chaser, Winita Nielsen, and the Toll Puddle Martyrs, and that's about it.

If you ask me where, like, you know, Wall and Gong is, don't know. Try again. Or Brisbane. I never know where Brisbane is. Well, they're both shoot old, too, so I wouldn't worry. Who else? Friendly Jordy's. What was he like? Very good. I treated him quite badly, I think, and was quite strict with him. I played mother a little bit, because it was him and his kind of team, and they're all, like, young boys. So I was like, okay, we're going to do this.

And stop playing with that. and focus on me and, you know, you've looked enough over there, let's do it. So I was very strict and motherly with him. And I think, well, so he was... Did he introduce his team to you? He did, yeah. Yeah, so he was more polite. And so actually, he was so distracted because he's lost his house keys, you know.

But it wasn't his house firebom? Well, yeah, so this is the anecdote that I was saying. So I stopped him from looking for his keys, and I was like, you don't need to look for them. They're not important. I'm just going to photograph you. You can look for them later, you know, whatever. It doesn't matter.

I don't care about your house keys. I'm here. photograph you. And then I left, and then a day later, his house had been firebombed. So I'm saying if I hadn't had been there and he would have found his keys, he would have died in his sleep. Yes. So you saved him? I did. You saved his life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk about burying the lead. That'll make you a very unpopular person in Australia, saving his life. Yeah, definitely. So I don't know, I don't know whether to publicise that or not. It depends on what I'm talking to. What's better than a well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue?

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The Chaser report News a few days after it happens And the whole point of doing this is that you then went back to London And put it all together Into some sort of exhibition Is that right? Well yeah, it's a moving project

A moving archive we call it And I'm still technically shooting it I'm still busy So I shot sort of our version of Mark Humphreys very recently called Nish Kumar, who also had his show cancelled. So Mark can relate to them. They should get together and have a sort of tete-a-tete. Or just to cry.

Yeah. Yeah, and do their own podcast. And I shot Russell Brown recently as well. So I'm still technically shooting it. It's sort of a moving archive. And I basically, what that means is that I stare at pictures of your face for just hours to try and fit them into various places. And it takes many different forms.

I've got some interest to put it all in a book. book and to publish it somewhere as a book and as exhibitions and eventually so i i went out to take photos of andrew as well a hot one from the chaser and his portrait has won some awards oh wow oh cool so he's lived up to that title and just in time yeah yeah just in time for his new show and his theatre thing as well um but we shan't plug his things today no no well we should if you haven't seen everything yet Australian epic is now all the whole season season is on i view i've only watched the first couple of episodes but my fucking god it's good and i and i actually i think you should watch the stephen bradbury episode first because i think it sets up the concept

and there's quite a lot of chris and andrew in that episode so right so you've already won awards you had it on a little bit in in london yeah so i had an initial one where i kind of rebuilt the chaser newsroom i called it um in sort of 3d i blasted the podcast out in between In particular, I blasted Cole Makes Me Come, which... That's great. It's fantastic to an audience of people who don't know who Scott Morrison is, who don't care, who it was a song that was... It's out of date by now.

Don't understand any references. Oh, because the time was classic. Yeah. It made them listen more because they were like, why is calm suddenly being said so many times so loudly? And yeah, there were so many Wiggle songs as well. And people were like, what the hell is this? Like Wiggle parody songs you did?

Do you realize that you did so many? Oh, yeah. Yeah, was that back in the sort of during Radio Chaser or something? No idea. I just was like, I need some tunes to bang out. Yeah. And it's all these wiggle songs. So I had a little bit of that, a little bit.

So, you know, I've been doing the good work of advertising the Chaser for you in London. Lovely. And we got a few extra, you should have seen it in your analytics, a few extra London listeners of the podcast. Oh, right. Oh, well, hello to our London listeners. I mean, a few of them came back to me a few days later. and was like, I don't understand any of the people being mentioned.

Like, who is, what's his name? With the man with the leg. Oh, Ben Robert Smith. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who is Ben Robert Smith? I was like, oh, well, he kicked an old man off a goat. Of a cliff, yeah, that's right, yeah. And so I did a little bit of that.

And then now I'm back in Australia. Yes. It's exciting. With the big exhibition of the Tap Gallery in Sydney, in Surrey Hills, starts on Tuesday, which is tomorrow. Yes. And it goes all week. So the 14th of November.

to, I think the 19th of November, is that right? Yes, that sounds right. On Tuesday night, tomorrow night you're having sort of drinks, like the opening night drinks. It's a party, so it's a private view. Oh, okay. No, so anyone can come, but because we call it a private view, if we don't like the look of view,

if you're not sort of elite enough, that we can kick you out. You've got to be arty. So you've got to, do people have to dress sort of? No. No, it's just the look. Yeah, right. No, it's a very low bar. Yeah.

And there's lots of free drinks So come and drink all the drinks, please Yeah, because I think young Henry's has sort of decided To just give you a whole lot of beer, haven't they? Yeah, it'll be good And they're cider, ginger beer, that'd be nice Yeah, and we've got gin and tonic, they're ginatonic as well Well, they did gin and tonic

Yeah, Charles is now coming, he wasn't before. Yeah, no, I'm now, definitely coming. And then on Friday, which would be, I think, the 17th, is it? Whatever the Friday is, we are doing this, podcast live from the art exhibition, like in the middle of the art exhibition. It's called The Chase Report Live and Artie. I think what we'll do is we'll record it. I don't know whether we'll necessarily put it up on this feed.

We might just put it for subscribers or something because we did some experiments with live shows last year. Were you around? No, I just missed it. I'm so annoyed. And what we found was, although they were very enjoyable on the night and a huge amount of fun, they didn't translate very well into. listenable to content, especially the first couple, certainly I, and I think everyone made the

mistake of getting way too drunk. So we won't be doing that again. So there are free drinks at this one as well. Yes. So especially the gin and tonny. Oh, yes. It's all like 8% and stuff. It's really like pure acetone kind of levels of alcohol.

Oh, dear. Okay. So yeah, just repeat the same mistakes and it will be fine. Yeah. Okay. Well, definitely. Anyway, so come along to that. Tickets to $30, you can buy tickets.

If you Google, chase a report, live and artie or something, you'll be able to get tickets. It will come up, yeah. And if you look at the Tap Gallery website, they have a link to the... Oh, do they have a link now? They do, I think. They've got an ad for it, but they don't have a link to the tickets. Oh, okay, maybe I'll double check. I thought they did have a link.

You'll find it. We believe in you. You're smart. You'll figure it out. Because I think there's only like 60 people are allowed to come to that. So I think that will probably sell out. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if we don't like the look of you, you can fuck off.

If we don't like the look of you, you can come and talk on the podcast. Yeah, and I think that podcast will concentrate on artiness. You're going to do the podcast with us. Oh, I come. Yeah, I come. Yeah, surprise announcement. I'm going to. Yeah, you'll be the special guest of honour, the artist.

Mm-hmm. And what is the exhibition? Like, can you give us a sense of what we're going to see? So Tap Gallery is a really famous kind of little place in Surrey Hills. The woman that owns it is a complete, like, major. arch of the area, has been doing it since I think the 70s or 80s. Yeah, at least that, yeah, yeah. And it's really known for nude art.

Woo, so close optional at the party and the podcast recording. There is, I think she's doing on the same night. And it's a range, it's a sort of a sprinkling of all the different stories and all the different journalists that I've encountered. There's some fantastic portraits of Mark Humphreys. Yes. It's very easy to photograph, fantastic to photograph. And are we going to see the Andrew Hanson one that won an award?

We will, yeah. That's got a special frame. Okay. All right, okay. And there's one of Gabby as well, isn't it? There is, there is. Yeah, I love that one of Gabby. She looks fantastic.

I hope she doesn't mind it. I haven't asked it. I've just sort of. I hope you have chance. The other people who are coming to the podcast. Mark Humphreys, no. Who is it? It's Mark Humphreys, Gabby Bolt, you, and create.

Rooka, so that'll be a fantastic night. It will, and I want to photograph Craig so much, so I'm going to sort of force him into a corner and get a date off him. Yes, no, that's a good idea. So that's what I will be doing that evening. Well, he does the most dangerous work of any journalist, which is the fight against plastic bags. Yeah, lovely to see, and we'll see you tomorrow night at the Tap Gallery in Surrey Hills.

If you're not in Sydney, suck shit. Well, speak to your local art gallery. and tell them you want to see photos of Charles. And they'd be, yes, please, you know. And we'd be there. No, that's right, exactly. Our gear is from road. We're part of the iconic class network.

Catch you tomorrow. What's better than a well marbled ribby's sizzling on the barbecue? A well marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kitty pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply.

Instacart, groceries that over-deliver.