"Ibarionex Perello: The Eaton Fire. Rebuilding a Creative Life"

[00:00:05] Yeah, everything else, you know, you know, I think about the books, that was like the big loss, but it's like, how could I have gotten started? Which books would I have taken if I had the chance? You know, I didn't have that kind of, I didn't have the luxury of that kind of time. It was just kind of like, well, I hope it's here. And now that it's not, it's like, eh. When I start thinking about the titles that are on that shelf, I go, oh God, yeah, I lost that one. Oh, it lost. And it just, but I can't, I can't go there for too long because it just gets very depressing.

[00:00:36] But yeah, yeah. Most of the stuff that I wish I had taken really other than photograph of my dad. Yeah. I think that's the only other thing I would probably, I wish I'd grabbed that, you know, but it just wasn't, it was a, it was a crazy 20 minutes, 20, 30 minutes of scrambling out of the house.

[00:00:59] Greetings and welcome back to the Camera Cafe Show, the podcast where we brew up inspiration for your photography journey. I'm Tom Jacob and behind the scenes, as always, are Tatiana Malavana and Richard Clarke pouring this all into a wonderful episode. Today, we have a guest whose work in photography and storytelling has inspired countless creatives. Ibarionix Perelow.

[00:01:29] For almost 20 years, Ibarionix has been the voice behind the Candid Frame, a short favorite of mine, and one of the longest running and most respected photography podcast out there. He's a photographer, journalist, educator, workshop leader, and writer who has spent his career helping others find their creative voice.

[00:01:51] But recently, past January this year, his own world has turned upside down when he and his wife lost his home and studio in Southern California due to the Eton wildfires. So I got an email out to him to see how in any way we can give back and help out, and we made the following recording from his temporary new home. I've always admired how Ibarionix approaches interviews.

[00:02:19] He lets conversation unfold naturally, without a rigid plan, making every discussion feel authentic and deeply personal. In the spirit of his approach, I came into this conversation without any prepared question, simply following what our discussion would let us. We will talk about his life in photography from shooting on the streets of LA to teaching the craft, the evolution of his Candid Frame podcast, and what he's learned from interviewing the greats over the years,

[00:02:48] what happened the night of the Eton fire, and how it changed everything for them, and that meaning of resilience, how he's moving forward now, and what's next in his journey of life. This conversation is deep, real, and important, people. It's about photography, creativity, and the power of community in times of crisis. Yes. Ibarionix has given so much to the photography world, now, in a small way. We can give back, and for that, check out our show notes on how to do it.

[00:03:18] But for now, grab a coffee, and let's dive into this conversation with Ibarionix Perel. Welcome on our show tonight, Ibarionix. Thank you, man. My pleasure to join you today. Ibarionix, first of all, thank you so much for being here. It's truly a pleasure having you on the show here tonight, since you are, for me personally, such an important voice in the photography podcast world for so many years now,

[00:03:46] where you've given countless photographers a space to share their stories. I'm glad to hear that. Thank you. As I told you in the email to you, I only wish that we could have had this talk today due to another reason. But, you know, sometimes life comes up with other ideas. Today, we're here for something a bit more personal. We're going to talk about your journey, your love for photography, and of course, the Candid Frame podcast.

[00:04:14] But we're also going to talk about something deeply difficult. The loss of your home and studio in the Etern Canyon wildfires passed January, only three months ago. I can only imagine how life-changing that experience has been. And I really appreciate you being willing to share your story with us tonight. Well, thank you for asking me. I appreciate that. Yeah, better circumstances would have been nicer, but, you know, it is what it is at this point.

[00:04:45] Before we start, you have one dog or two? You have one dog, Zoe? Zoe passed away last year, last February. So now we have Gracie, who we adopted when she was three years old, and she was a rescue. And we picked her up, I think, in November or December. We haven't had her very long. And how was she with all the weeks that now have passed? She's gotten better.

[00:05:13] We had just gotten her. So we're trying to train her, you know, because I don't know how long she had been on the street. And she's a part greyhound, so she has a lot of energy. And trying to get her to calm down was kind of difficult. And she's crate trained. But with the fires, we were staying in a hotel first and then later a small Airbnb. So she had to spend a lot of time in her crate. And with a dog with that much energy, it's a bit crazy.

[00:05:41] But now that we have, we're renting a house in Pasadena, she has a yard in the back. So as we train her, you know, she has more time in the yard to run around and do zoomies. And now we're just working on getting her to stay in her bed when we're in the living room. Because she's a very needy dog. She will paw you and lick you continually.

[00:06:05] So getting her to stay in the bed in the living room is our challenge right now. So, you know, that's, you know, with any dog who's a rescue, you know, you have to go through that period of training. It's not like you have them as a pup and you get to train them from the very beginning. There's a lot of work. We don't mind it. She's a sweet dog. Hmm.

[00:06:32] I heard this before from people who have these, I have three dogs, but they are Pomeranian dogs. They are tiny, tiny dogs. Oh, tiny. Okay. It's fun really to think that they are such active dogs and they can run very fast. And on the same time, they like to rest a lot. You ever take her on walks when you go to make pictures? No, not when I go to make pictures. It's impossible. I need to give her my full attention. With other dogs, I could have done that because they were a lot calmer.

[00:07:02] But, you know, she gets her walks and we get to focus on just the walk. Yeah. Yeah. She would be too much of a distraction for me to be able to make photographs. My wonderful companions. But I have three dogs and three cats. So there's always something going on in the house. Oh, yeah. You've got quite the menagerie. Ibarion X, for someone, if there is somebody listening to podcasts that doesn't know you,

[00:07:32] how would you describe yourself? In terms of what I do, you know, I wear several different hats. I'm a photographer. I'm a writer. I'm an educator. I'm a podcaster. I don't do just one thing. But they all revolve around photography. My nine to five, I work as a photographer for the Huntington Museum Library and Botanical Gardens here in Southern California. I digitized a lot of things that are in the collection.

[00:08:01] So that's artwork, letters, books, things like that. Primarily that are used by researchers who use, you know, the wealth of materials that they have at the Huntington. And then got for well over two decades, probably three. I lose count. I've been working as a photographer, as a magazine editor, as a writer, written multiple books on the subject of photography, countless magazine articles.

[00:08:30] And in 2006, I started The Candid Frame, which we talked about earlier, which is the podcast where I've interviewed photographers and have, I think it's well over 600 something interviews with photographers from all genres, from all, you know, modern contemporary periods of photography, which has been, you know, a passion project for me, something I really have enjoyed doing. You know, it's lovely to have the chance to talk to people whose work I admire, some of

[00:08:58] whom are people who I grew up learning from, you know, by looking at their books and looking at their images in magazines. And, you know, it continues to be a big, big part of my life. And I'm glad to have returned finally to production of the show after, you know, the fires that you mentioned. I think for me personally, when I started the podcast, I never thought it would grow. I mean, I had clear that this is not a thing you do for money. This is a thing because you like to do it.

[00:09:27] And it's like, it's like another hobby it becomes. But I would never imagine. I thought it was going to be only, I'm going to do an interview with someone and I'm going to publish it online. But it becomes, it becomes a part of yourself because every time I talk with somebody, every time he or she wants to make me go out and try this and do something different or think about something different. Yeah. Yeah. I was kind of like you when I started the show.

[00:09:56] I really, part of me knew it would be successful, but I didn't know what that meant. I knew there was an audience for it because at the time podcasts had been around for probably a year, maybe two at the most. And, you know, I was listening, of course, to all the photography podcasts, which include Martin Bailey's photography podcast, Tips from the Top Floor, Jeff Curto Educational Podcast.

[00:10:26] And there were a couple of more, I think a guy named John Arnold was doing more of a tutorial. And I think he was doing like video, but I think he was doing audio as well. And there were a couple, a couple of people, but no one was really doing regular interviews. At the time I was working as a editor at a photo magazine. So I was writing all the time about the technical.

[00:10:52] So I really didn't want to do more of that on my own time. Because I was just like, it's 40 hours a week. I'm already focused on that stuff. I really wanted to have a chance to sit down and talk with photographers about photography. And I would get to do that every once in a while at the magazine because we would do a profile on a photographer. So I'd get to interview them.

[00:11:19] But if I interviewed them for 45 minutes or an hour, you know, only a fraction of that would end up in the article in terms of quotes. Yeah. You know, I would talk to them, have a conversation, do my research, and then I would write how many, whatever word count I needed to write for the magazine. And so it wasn't an unfiltered, unedited conversation that found its way into the magazine. And there were a lot of things that, there were a lot of people who I wanted to talk to

[00:11:49] that just didn't fit into the goals of the magazine. There were still photographers I knew that more than likely they wouldn't get focused on because the nature of magazines was really to get advertisers to help, you know, pay for the magazine and the staff. So there was always a lot of, you know, photographers who could, you know, get people to pick up the magazine, but also were often tied to some product. Right. Hmm.

[00:12:18] Because product as now and then, you know, that drives a lot of traffic. Mm-hmm. So it's nice that with the show, I could interview anybody who I was interested in having a conversation with, regardless of whether or not there would be a big draw or not. If I saw something about their career or their work or a book that I wanted to learn more about, then I could send them an email and say, hey, I got a show.

[00:12:54] Mm-hmm. It's been a lovely part of my life, both creatively and personally as a result. Mm-hmm. Ibarra Nex, let's walk a bit back. What drew you to photography? Oh, I was a kid, about 10 years old, when I was a member of the Boys Club of Hollywood here in Los Angeles. And one of the counselors had fixed up a darkroom that had not been used in a while and brought

[00:13:23] in two freelance photojournalists to come and teach several kids how to shoot film. But filming a camera, learning the basics of exposure, processing film, and making prints. And the first time print appeared in that blank sheet of white paper in the developing tray, that was it. That's all I wanted to do. Mm-hmm. And so at that point, I just started, anytime I would go to the club, I would grab a camera,

[00:13:51] load film in it, and go out, shoot around the club or in the streets of Hollywood, and just make pictures, eager to go back to the darkroom to make more prints. So that was like, that's what I wanted to do. And yeah, I've been lucky that my whole life has revolved around photography since then, not because of any grand plan. But you know, I always sort of steered my way towards doing that.

[00:14:15] And yeah, yeah, I just have loved making imagery, making pictures. And that's not, that feeling of being able to make something out of nothing, just from what I'm seeing, has never left me. When people tell me that they started out in a darkroom, I started out also in a darkroom in the attic of my, of my parents. And, and I always ask them if you still smell the developer fluid.

[00:14:44] Oh yeah. It's something in my brain that will never go out. Oh yeah. You know that smell. Yeah. That fixture. Yeah. That fixture has a very distinct smell and the stop bath as well. Yes. Yeah. You know, I, I, I liked the, the meditative process of being in the darkroom, you know, there was, cause you had to be very exacting in terms of measuring the chemicals, the amount

[00:15:11] of time that the film was in the soup or in the developing or the paper was in the developing tray. And, you know, all this very careful refinement. So you had to be very singularly minded when you were making processing film and making prints. And, you know, you could have some music in the background, but you couldn't be distracted by a bunch of things. You couldn't have a browser window with a YouTube video playing or anything like that. You had to be like, like focused. And I, you know, I miss that because digital is not that, you know, digital, you can have

[00:15:40] any measure of distractions available to you. But that being said, a traditional darkroom now is very expensive. I just talked with Harvey Stein and, and I asked him. Oh, Harvey, yeah. He's a great guy. Yeah. What you put, because he's 10 hours a day in the darkroom. And I said, what you have there? He says, no, I might put some on some reggae music. So, yeah. You never know what people do to pass the time. Yeah. I'm, I like making prints.

[00:16:09] You know, at some point I'm going to replace the inkjet printer that I lost in the, in the fire. But I like making the prints. I like holding the photograph at the end. I feel as good as they may look on a screen. There's something to be said about when you hold the photograph. It feels like it's finished at that point. And, you know, I will always enjoy looking at a, at a print, whether it's silver based or whether it's, you know, it comes out of a, of a printer, especially that nice white

[00:16:37] border around the, around the image. It's always very, very satisfying. Or, or photo books. I was going to tell you have a big collection, but of course now. Yeah. That's all gone. Lost in the wildfires. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's hard. That's kind of heartbreaking because I had books there since that I started collecting while I was in college. So, and a lot of those books are just irreplaceable.

[00:17:06] You know, some has been personalized by, you know, photographers who are no longer with us and just, you know, other books are out of print or prohibitively expensive to replace. I haven't even looked to see how much some of those books that I would want to replace costs now. You know, I, I, you know, I just can't go there. All those books are just like, we're turned into white ash. Mm-hmm.

[00:17:35] And when I walked onto the property after the fire and I went to the area where my, where my, my book collection was, I just saw these piles of just white ash. And, you know, that's, you know, that's, I lost photo equipment there, but you know, the photo equipment easily replaceable, you know, the books, not so much, not so much because it was like, you know, decades worth of collecting.

[00:18:03] And, you know, some books are easily replaceable, right? Yeah. If I want to get Robert Frank's The Americans or something like that, I can easily get a copy of it. Other books, not so much, not so much. And yeah, there were some books that I had just spent a long time trying track, tracking down to get a copy of and finally getting it and to have it just, you know, gone into ashes is kind of heartbreaking.

[00:18:30] Probably people have offered to send me books and I'll probably start building up a collection again. But right now we're in a rental and I have to be kind of careful about how much I accumulate, especially with respect to books. I had a wall-like bookshelf that I had just built a year, year and a half ago, right? And it already filled it up, right?

[00:18:58] And I can accumulate books really, really quickly. So I'm going to have to be careful in terms of how much I accumulate here because I could do, I could, I could do a lot of damage in two years. You were always like this because you had a very, let's say you had different roles in your life. You're an educator, you had a writer, you're a journalist, you're a podcast and you're a workshop leader.

[00:19:23] You think as a little boy, you always had this vision in mind or you just wanted to be an astronaut like everybody else? No, yeah. I had no idea what I was going to do. Yeah, it wasn't until, you know, my early college career that I had any sense that I could do something that involved being, you know, taking pictures or writing. It was only then when I joined the newspaper at Los Angeles City College, community college

[00:19:51] here in Southern California, that I ever had the sense of what the heck I was going to do with my life. Even as a kid, I just wasn't, you know, I wasn't sure what I wanted or needed. You know, I did acting in high school. That was great fun. And for a while, I kind of entertained the idea, well, I become an actor. But, you know, soon after graduating high school, you realize it's a whole different game. And I just was not, I was not up for the ups and downs and the rejection and, you know,

[00:20:21] the constantly putting yourself out there that is required for being an actor. And I knew plenty of people who were working actors. And the more I got to see what their lives were like and what they faced, it was like, it didn't seem like it was a good, a good fit for me. It was certainly fun, you know, but. But you're not, you're, I think you were the guy who was up for a challenge, no? You bet your next? Yeah. Yeah. But not at the time.

[00:20:49] You know, my level of confidence back then was not what it is today. And I don't think I could have really dealt with the level of constantly putting myself out there and the inevitable rejections that come from, you know, being an actor. Because you get, you get more rejections than you get, you know, jobs. And it's even more difficult now.

[00:21:15] But photography and writing was very self, was very self-affirming, you know, and it was easy for me to go out there and make, and make work. And that's not something I could say being an actor. Right. I much preferred photography where it was just like camera, lens, roll a film, and I go out there. But street photography, I think, has always been this major core of your, of your work, about your next. What drew you to this genre of photography?

[00:21:46] Well, when I, when I started to learn photography, that was the very first subject that I gravitated to as a kid. You know, I was in Hollywood, so I just grabbed the camera and just walk around the street and see what I could find. So I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what this, this thing was street photography. I just knew that the things that I was interested in were outside. So that's what I just started to make pictures of.

[00:22:13] And then slowly, as I got better and better at it, it just seemed to be what was a good fit for me. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't in a fashion. I wasn't, I didn't, I didn't grow up with the outdoors. I wasn't an outdoor, thinking about being an outdoor photographer. But I wanted to make pictures. And the most accessible subject I had was out in the street, whether it was just walking, you know, the streets of Hollywood or Venice or, or downtown Los Angeles.

[00:22:42] It was like, I just want to make pictures. And then as I started to discover photographers that were doing that at a level that I had never, never could have imagined. And I realized that, oh, this is a thing. And I began to have a better understanding of how to make more effective photographs on the street. I made photographs that were good, but I really had no sense of, oh, wow, this is real artistry and a real thoughtfulness to make, making pictures on the street.

[00:23:11] So that's been my pursuit ever since in terms of how do I do this better? How do I challenge myself? How do I make photographs that, you know, I couldn't have made just a couple of years before? You know, I've made other kinds of photographs, but I think street photography has taught me how to be a better photographer more so than any other type of photography I've ever done.

[00:23:36] I was going to ask you about influences, but then I think, I think to read it by your next year, you spent a summer with Gordon Parks? Well, no, I wish I had spent a summer with Gordon Parks, but I got to visit him when I was in college. I had discovered his work in college and someone knew him and gave me his phone number and I was going to go and spend the summer in New York. And I called him and I was hoping to, you know, work with him or do something.

[00:24:06] But at that point he was, I forget how old he was, probably in late seventies, early eighties, something like that. So he was, he was not looking for an assistant. He already had an assistant and he wasn't actively working in the way that he had been in the past, but he invited me over to his apartment. And so we spent a couple hours just hanging out and talking, which is a remarkable experience. He was working on one of his multiple autobiographies. I think he wrote like four autobiographies.

[00:24:36] And I think the third one was, and he had galley proofs for it on his coffee table with a bunch of images that he was considering for, for inclusion in that book. So I was sitting there and having read the choice of weapons, which was his first biography, having seen the learning tree heading, having seen, you know, and learned so much about him.

[00:25:00] I was surrounded by things in his apartment and I kind of knew the stories behind them, right? Oh, there's a picture of his son, his daughter. There's the piano where he composes music. I mean, it was kind of surreal to walk into someone's place who you've never met before in real life, yet you're walking in there and you know what those several of the things are that are in his space. And he was very gracious.

[00:25:27] And I met him a couple of times afterwards when he came out to Los Angeles. And yeah, it was, it was really an honor to have a chance to meet someone as legendary as he, as he was and to find him to be very kind and generous. I wish I had had more times with him, but I'm grateful for what I had. So you went out with him shooting or? Oh no, no. Yeah. He was just there at his, at his apartment.

[00:25:55] And so I just visited him there while he was having breakfast. He was having a boiled egg and some coffee, if I remember correctly. Very simple. It looks almost like, like a start of, of the podcast. You had done interview there with him while he was having breakfast. Oh wow. Yeah. I wish I, I wish I'd had, had the chance to sit down and have a conversation with him and, and record it. Crazy thing is I was so nervous that I forgot to ask to make his, to make his photograph.

[00:26:25] You know, I was just, I was just. It was only after leaving, I was like, I didn't ask to make his picture. So I had one in my office before of a friend who had made a picture of him, which was a really nice portrait. So I may have to reach out to him or somebody else who I know have photographed him and asked for a print to replace in, in my, in my working space. Cause I liked having him present there in that way. Now we talk about podcast, a barionics.

[00:26:55] You think that by running your podcast so many years, it has say like shaped your own creative vision a bit. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, one of the things I often say about the show and the reason I do is the fact that I want people to discover that there's not just one way of becoming a photographer, that there's just not this one path, which in my younger years, I always felt like, oh,

[00:27:20] you had to do, you had to do these exact things in order to be able to like claim that you're a photographer. And because of the many people that I've photographed over the years, I've realized, oh no, there's not just one. There's not just one way of becoming a photographer. There's no one path to having a career. It doesn't mean that you have to have a studio and you have to do commercial work or things like that. There are people who are doing just that.

[00:27:48] And there are other people who have a quote unquote normal job who do photography on the side, but who nevertheless produce amazing work. Mm-hmm. And I've, you know, I've interviewed every, everything from that to, you know, from people who are complete amateurs who have never published anything and to people who've had careers lasting 40 or 50 years and everything in between. So it's just really, it's encouraging to me.

[00:28:18] Yeah. To, to hear that and to have those conversations and to share them with an audience because it encourages me, but it, it, it has encouraged a whole lot of people to kind of define for themselves what their photographic life is going to be. And, you know, some people who have gone out and have made professional careers, others who haven't, but who derive a great satisfaction from whatever choice they've made.

[00:28:44] And, you know, over the many years I've talked to many people who've listened to the show who told me how, how much of an impact the show has had on their lives. And then some people started second careers as photographers or, or people who were very early on in their career and that it served as a great source of encouragement and inspiration for their own path, you know, to become, you know, photographers in whatever form it finally took.

[00:29:11] And, you know, those, those, those comments come unexpectedly, you know, it's not like I hear that all the time, but every once in a while I'll, I'll be with someone and they will tell me about the impact the show has been, which is not something I anticipated when I started making the show. Right. But I hear it. And so I know that, that, that it's very, very true.

[00:29:37] And, you know, some of the people who have made, who may have been greatly impacted from the show, I'll never know. I'll never hear from them. I'll never see them. And that's, that's all well and good because the few people who I feel have told me that just tells me that there's a lot more out there that I've had that experience, which incentivizes me to just keep doing the show. So that's, that's a nice, that's a nice benefit to it.

[00:30:04] But ultimately I do it just because I just like having the conversations. So even if I didn't have the audience that I have now, I'd still be doing it. And ultimately that's really kind of the goal of the show is that, that I want them to hear something and then go listen to a photographer and go, oh, I can do that. That's it.

[00:30:29] I mean, for my audience, that's the goal is that they'll hear something and that'll encourage them to go out there and do something with their own photography, whatever form that, that may take. That's where the, that's where I think that's what keeps me, that's part of what keeps me doing it. Right? Because I know that that's what the show has kind of done for me. It encourages me. It inspires me. It educates me.

[00:30:59] And I know that if it's doing that for me, more than likely there's going to be others who it's going to do the same thing for. And that's why I can't imagine not doing the show because I'm always eager to grow and change as a photographer. And these conversations really helped me to be able to do that. Helps me understand photography in a way that I wasn't able to before I did the show, even though I was writing about it. So, yeah.

[00:31:23] I, I, I, as long as I have a voice and I can hear, I can imagine that I'll be keep doing the show until I'm just physically not able to do it anymore. Anyway. Ibarionix, you interviewed the greatest names in, in, in photography over all these years. There is like a common theme that comes back when you think about conversations that what

[00:31:52] it, or what you need to, to be a photographer or, or to keep on going as a photographer? That's a really good question. I think that one of the things that, that sort of is sort of a through line for a lot of photographers who have been doing this for a very long time is that they worked on

[00:32:17] projects was one of the things I focus on a lot, especially over the last couple of years, people who are working on projects, because I think that's where, where the photographer figures out what they want to say, you know, what they want to explore, what they want to use their camera for. I think when you're using just a camera, just to make individual photographs and that, that's just the starting point. At some point the photographer has to figure out, okay, what do I want to say with this,

[00:32:47] with this stuff? I've learned all this, all this about composition, about lighting, about exposure, learned how to make prints and know how to do Photoshop, all those other things and go, okay, now what, what are you going to do with that? You know, it's kind of like, you know, buying a souped up race car and never taking it to the track. Right. That's what it's there for. Yeah. You can tell me, yeah, yeah, this car has, you know, this, this engine and this exhaust and this manifold.

[00:33:17] You can talk to me all about it, about it and go, when was the last time you took it out of the race? So I've never raced it. You know, it's kind of like, well, it's kind of like what, what it's there for, not just to stroke your ego, but the photographers that I've talked to, you talked to the photographer you mentioned before, Harold. Harvey. Harvey, Harvey, excuse me. And he's been photographing Coney Island for decades. Right? That's his, that's his passion.

[00:33:46] Harvey, Harvey has been shooting, you know, that location in New York with his Leica and a 28 millimeter lens and produced amazing, amazing work. And that's what, and I think that really speaks to the long, his longevity. He's like, he, there was something that he wanted to photograph that he was deeply passionate about and he makes fantastic photographs as a result.

[00:34:14] Well, could he be, could have, could he made a career photographing something else? Yeah, probably. But he has a love for that, you know, for that, that part of the city and it comes through in the photographs. And I think, you know, Douglas Kirkland, who was a celebrity photographer, but ultimately he loved photographing people, loved the relationships that he had with people. And his photographs showed that.

[00:34:41] And his whole life, I think everybody would aspire to be Douglas Kirkland because he was just a big kid with a camera, always was, you know? And anytime you would sit next to him and talk to him, he would just be so effusive and so joyful about what he was, had the chance to do. And it's like, oh, I love that. Talk to Joel Meyerowitz. I've talked to, I've got four or five times.

[00:35:08] And that energy, that love for what he does is there. And that's, but each of those photographers has things that they're working on. They're not just taking pictures for picture's sake. And I think if you really, you know, at some point when you hit a wall in terms of, you know, your photography, it's like, well, what's your project? What are you working on?

[00:35:33] I think, I think inevitably you, every photographer has to come to a point where they have to make that decision. And when they don't make that decision, that's where things become a bit stagnant. Right. Right. Where you're making incremental improvements, but you're often left unsatisfied with what's happening with the work. Because yeah, you can make individual good photographs. Right. But to what end?

[00:36:04] Right. And, you know, photography is about communicating. So you have to find a way, okay, what do you want to communicate and how do you want to communicate it? Do you want to put together a book? Do you want to have an exhibition? Do you want to have a magazine spread? If there are any magazines out there that are left, but that's, but that's where I think that's kind of the end goal. It's like, what do you want to do with all this work?

[00:36:31] It's not to say you can't just be a documentarian of your own family's life, right? You could just do that. And that would be good enough and just as important as anything else. But you still have to have an idea of, oh, this is what I want to do. So that this work, you know, especially getting it off the screen and putting it into prints and putting it in the album so your family can enjoy it after you're gone.

[00:36:54] You know, you have to be thoughtful about that because once you're gone, if that stuff is on a hard drive, you know, no one's going to go through it. You know, try and find that stuff. So that's why it's like, if you're doing it just for your family, that's why it's important to make the prints or put together a book or a zine or something. So there's something physical of all that stuff to carry things over. Otherwise, it's like, what was the whole point?

[00:37:22] Other than just enjoying it, which is all well and good. But I think we all want our work to live beyond us. Ibarionix, let's walk a bit to the other part of the podcast. So last January, both you and your wife, you lost your house and your studio and everything due to the Eto' wildfire.

[00:37:51] Walk me a bit through this day and how it evolved, how it happened. There had been some high winds up in the area where I live at Alvodina. And these Santa Ana winds that happened every year. So it was sort of a norm that we would experience these really high winds.

[00:38:18] And more often than not, we would lose power. Sometimes for hours. At worst, maybe the worst, it was maybe three days that we had without power. So on this particular day, we again lost power. It was around 5 or 6 p.m. And so I was like, oh, okay, power's out. I'll just wait until it comes back on. And so I had loaded up my iPad with a book and it was all powered up.

[00:38:47] And so we were just like, I was just reading. And at some point around 9, 9.30, I went to bed. Power still wasn't on. And my wife and my sister-in-law was also living with me. Us at the time had already gone to bed and ready to go to bed. And I just glanced at my phone and I saw some notification about a fire, which was the first time I had been aware of it at all. And I looked out the bedroom window and I could see the flames up on the mountain.

[00:39:17] I saw my neighbor pulling his car out of the driveway. And I went out and to my deck because I wanted to get a sense of where the winds were blowing. And I could, as soon as I hit the step down to the deck, I could feel the wind against my body and I could feel that it was coming from the direction where the fire was coming. So it was like, okay, it's likely coming this way. And went out and talked to my neighbor. And he says he was evacuating.

[00:39:46] And so I went back into the house and I told everybody we got to leave. And they were like, they had, they were completely clueless about the fire because we hadn't got any notifications or anything like that. So we kind of scrambled, grabbed, you know, what we could because we, because the power was out, we were relying on our phones as flashlights.

[00:40:09] So we grabbed some pictures, some cremations, grabbed the dog, the dog food, you know, not, not, not much. And we just got in the car and we left. And we eventually ended up in a, found a hotel because by, by that time, countless other people had already evacuated because the fire started around five, four, something like that.

[00:40:37] And so the fire was well, you know, was going at a, at a good pace by the time we evacuated. But we had no idea the extent of what was happening. So we went to a hotel and then the next morning I thought I still would have a chance to get back to the house before the fire reached and maybe get a couple of things.

[00:41:03] But the fire, the alarm for the house had signaled that the sliding glass door had shattered or been broken into around 630 or seven. So by that time it was too late. You know, I hit a wall of smoke just several blocks away from my house and I couldn't see past the hood of the car. So I just had to turn around because even if I had been able to park my car in front of the house, I wouldn't have been able to see it.

[00:41:32] And then several hours later, you know, I drove back up there with my wife and it was all gone. And at that point it was like, oh. It was, it was very, very surreal. Even before we got to our house, we were driving through the area and we could, and this is before, you know, they had the National Guard or anything there to kind of restrict that.

[00:41:58] Because in the immediate aftermath of the fire, you know, we were driving through there and then, you know, still flames coming out of, you know, places. And it was just like all these things that were familiar to us, houses, stores, businesses, they were just leveled. And it was really strange. And so immediately after that, it was just trying to figure out, oh, what do we do next? Right.

[00:42:26] And so it was this huge sort of this learning curve of trying to figure out, okay, how do you survive this? And we were in a hotel filled with people who were in the same boat as we were, you know, because the great majority of the people that were staying in that hotel were people who were displaced because of the fire. Either they had lost their homes or their homes are still there, but because of the smoke and all that other stuff, they couldn't go back. So you had hundreds of people there.

[00:42:54] And we were just down the road, just down the way from the convention center where they had the evacuation center. So we were constantly going there to sign up for, you know, various relief efforts, FEMA, you know, and all those organizations that were there. And sort of figuring out, okay, what do we do next? You know, getting in contact with insurance, applying for grants, trying to figure out, okay, where are we going to live?

[00:43:22] Because hotel was expensive, right? And there were delays in terms of getting money from the insurance company. And, you know, and stuff you really didn't have to think about before, right? You never really consider it. And all of a sudden you go, okay, how do I piece together a life immediately after losing everything and, or at least losing all the physical things, the house and everything inside of it.

[00:43:50] And it was just, and doing that all the while being heavily sleep deprived, which is, I don't recommend it. Those first, that first month was really, really rough. Yeah. I lost about 10 pounds unintentionally just because my appetite was down. Clothes I had bought immediately afterwards, because I only had the clothes that I was wearing when I left the house.

[00:44:18] We bought some clothes and a month later, I couldn't fit into them anymore. I had to donate them because the pants were too big, the shirts were too big. And it was just like, I wasn't eating. You know, that was, it was just, I would eat maybe one or two meals a day, but there weren't of any significance. And all of a sudden these pants were like, I can't fit into these things anymore. So I had to go out and buy another clothes. But that was a, that was a big indication about how it was impacting me physically.

[00:44:46] You know, just that my, my appetite was, I just wasn't really interested in eating because there were so many other things that were more important. At least it seemed, that's the way it felt like at the time. And, and mentally, you were your naked? Because of course, not only this, but then you live together with your, your, your wife and your sister-in-law and the dog in all the same room suddenly, you know? Yeah.

[00:45:11] We were in a hotel room for the first week or so, week or two in a small hotel room. I'd have to take a look at my calendar and all that other stuff. I think it was about a week. And then my wife and my sister-in-law created a GoFundMe page. So we got money that was really helpful while we waited for an insurance company. But it gave her the means, my sister-in-law the means to get her own room.

[00:45:40] And because that first week we were all in a really tiny room, you know, me, my wife, my sister-in-law and two dogs. And that's stressful. That's stressful. But once she got her place and then at some point we transitioned out of there to an Airbnb and, in, in Atwater. And that was helpful, right? Because we just weren't within the confines of that small room. We had a little more space.

[00:46:08] It just felt like we could breathe a little better. And, and then we moved into this place about two, maybe two weeks, two, three weeks ago, which is a house we're renting, which luckily we're going to be renting for the next two years as we go through the process of rebuilding. But, you know, the first month was really, really stressful. I've never been so fatigued in my entire life.

[00:46:35] I mean, people talk about fatigue, but then that's, I've seen, I've said, oh, I'm tired. I've never been tired. I've never been tired like this. Because there was so much stuff that had to get done. And you're, and my mind was constantly running at 100%. And I, and I was returning to work within a very short period of time at the Huntington.

[00:47:02] And so I had that, and then I had dealing with the fire, and then I had other family issues that I was contending with at the same time. So I had a, I had like multiple plates spinning in the air. And now things are a lot calmer. You know, we still have to deal with a lot of stuff, but it's not as, not as frenetic a pace

[00:47:30] as it was in those first initial weeks of the, of the fire. So you, when, when this happened in the night about an X, you, you took your digital files. I think you told you took your digital files and let all the rest, because I imagine this is not the first time it happens. And you might think that you will come back. So you take only the digital files. Is there something that you say that I should have taken also?

[00:48:01] Now thinking afterwards. Well, I always had, always thought, well, everything in it happens. I need to grab the hard drive with all my, my digital files on it. I backed them up to a cloud. All my files are backed up to the cloud, but I always knew, grab the hard drive. So that was the only thing of value that I took from the house. I left all my, my camera equipment was in a safe.

[00:48:27] And I had an X-T3 that I just happened to be using for the last couple, couple of days before the fire and a 30 millimeter lens. I was borrowing from Fuji. So that was all that I'd left with. I didn't think to go into the safe and grab all the photo equipment. I, you know, part of me was thinking, oh, we'll come back and it'll be fine. But I said, just in case, let's get that. In retrospect, what else I would have taken?

[00:48:55] There was a portrait of my dad that hung in the hallway that I shot on film that I don't, I don't have otherwise. I think that's the only thing that I would have left with that I didn't leave with. But yeah, everything else, you know, you know, I think about the books that that was like the big loss, but it's like, how could I have gotten started?

[00:49:23] Which books where would I have taken if I had the chance? You know, I didn't have that kind of, I didn't have the luxury of that kind of time. It was just kind of like, well, I hope it's here. And now that it's not, it's like, when I start thinking about the titles that are on that shelf, I go, oh God, yeah, I lost that one. But I can't go there for too long because it just gets very depressing.

[00:49:48] But yeah, yeah, most of the stuff that I wish I had taken, really, other than photograph of my dad, yeah, I think that's the only other thing I would have probably, I wish I'd grabbed that, you know, but it just wasn't, it was a crazy 20 minutes, 20, 30 minutes of scrambling out of the house.

[00:50:15] And so you're, you know, when you're using your, your phone as a flashlight, not everything is obvious. And your, your wife, Ibaronix, how you, how you supported each other during all this time? It's been good. It's been good. And I mean, we, as with any married couple, you know, you have your issues, but we, it's, it's made us stronger.

[00:50:42] You know, we've been really relying on each other in ways that we're always present, but, you know, have really have become, we've become even more resilient than we were before. So, and you know, it was hard for her because she had, she had been sick since December. It turned into bronchitis and then with the fires, it turned into pneumonia. So for the first couple of months, she was really, it was rough. It was rough.

[00:51:11] With her breathing, she went, had to go to urgent care three times for breathing treatments and certain things. Her voice isn't completely bad, but that was, that was really rough. But, you know, we're there for each other and now we're slowly getting back on our feet, figuring things out financially about where we stand, what we need to do, you know, but, you know, we're good in terms of our relationship.

[00:51:38] I know other relationships would falter if not completely break up after a disaster like this, but, you know, no, we're really good with each other and which, for which I'm grateful for. I couldn't imagine going through this and having to deal with marital issues on top of it. And all this photography community you built about the next two years with, with the podcast

[00:52:04] also, they, they came forward and they, they helped. Oh yeah. That was, that was incredibly heartwarming, unexpected, gratifying. You know, the fact when she started the GoFundMe, she did that. And so many people who contributed to the GoFundMe were people who listened to the show. People, you know, donating a couple of bucks, people submitting hundreds of dollars to help us out.

[00:52:35] And it caught me by surprise, but it made me really have an understanding about what I had built with, with the show and, and, you know, the community that I was part of. Because those things helped us tremendously. Because it took a while, just because of the, the, the size of the disaster, it took a while for us to get initial funds from the insurance company.

[00:53:02] And, you know, we were like, how are we, how are we going to pay for all this stuff? You know? And then when we moved into the house, she did a thing on Amazon, like a housewarming thing where people could buy stuff. Right? So all the stuff that's in this house now largely has been donated.

[00:53:26] You know, the, the, the, the dishes, the towels, the, the bath mats, you know, all those little things that you've accumulated, you've accumulated over decades, which all of a sudden you realize you need. It's like, oh, yeah, we need, we need a place to put the dish soap or, or the bath soap. You know, all those, you know, all those things that you never really thought about. Oh, we need this and we need this and we need that. People were getting for us because people wanted to help.

[00:53:53] Um, and so she put a list of all the things we were figuring out that we needed, you know, waste, wastebasket, which just saved us the trouble of having to go out there and go to all these stores to get all this stuff. They were just getting delivered to the house. The garage now is just a stack of cardboard Amazon boxes that I'm going to have to slowly get rid of. But that's a big champagne problem to have.

[00:54:20] I mean, to go from your whole, all your worldly possessions filling, fitting into one suitcase to, you know, a whole house full of stuff, including a couch, a bed, a desk. It's all happened in a couple of months, which just amazes me, you know? Mm-hmm.

[00:54:44] And luckily we finally found this place, which is not too far from where I work and where, where home was once stood. But once I was in this room, it was immediately evident to me that it needed a lot in order to get to the point where I could do a podcast again. And we had talked about it because we initially talked about doing this some weeks ago, but I did a webinar when I just had the mic and the laptop and the echo in this room was just awful.

[00:55:13] Just awful. It was fine for the webinar, but I knew that there's no way that I could do a show on it. So I had to figure out, you know, different things to do, getting a area rug, getting these sort of sound panels in the room, got a couch in the back, you know, all of that stuff to help dampen the sound to the point where it's like acceptable.

[00:55:39] It's not, it's not as good as what I had before, but it's good enough. I think, I think we're, I think we're good now. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. And I don't want to drag this out more, Veronique, but for people, maybe the paperwork involved in this, I can imagine that this all heaps and heaps and heaps of paperwork, no? Yeah, so much, so much. Yeah.

[00:56:07] Not so much now, but man, those first, in that first month or two, man, so many forms you're filling out. So many forms you're filling out. And, you know, it was crazy, you know, from the stuff with FEMA, with the stuff with, you know, the Army Corps of Engineers who were going to clean up the site and all those things. Insurance. Yeah. Yeah. It was just endless.

[00:56:36] All the forms that you were signing, applying for grants, you know, for, for monies to help with this and that. And, you know, 200 bucks here, 500 bucks there. I had to, I had to get another car because the car that I, we left with one car and left one car behind, but it wasn't damaged to the, by the fire to the extent you couldn't drive it, but it was smoke filled. And because it, it would have been better if it had been burned in the fire because then

[00:57:03] it would have been a total loss, but the insurance company was not going to cover it as a total loss despite the smoke damage. And I was fighting with them for a month. It was like people, they're telling people don't go back into houses because of the toxicity. You know, there's asbestos, there's all this toxins in the air. They're going to be in the house. And they're telling me, oh, we'll just get the car detailed and it'll be fine. And I'm like going, I don't think so.

[00:57:30] So after a month of fighting with the insurance company, I was just like, screw it. I just asked the dealer at the car dealership, what will you give me for the car? And we just got another one. And what's, what's next for you? Because I suppose when this happens, you, you kind of live off day by day, no? And you, you can, you can see a bit more in the future now or? Yeah.

[00:57:57] The next thing right now is starting to talk to architects and contractors about rebuilding. That's, that's what we have to shop for, trying to figure out who we're going to hire to do this for us and then start going through that process of getting designs for the house, pulling permits, and then seeing when construction can actually start.

[00:58:22] From what I read, I think, I think permit, the county had just started issuing out permits for rebuilding about past week. So yeah, that's the, because no one really kind of knows how much everything is actually going to cost. Because you have thousands of thousands of people who are trying to build homes simultaneously. So how that's going to impact us, I have no idea. Yeah.

[00:58:54] So we have an idea of how much money we, we, we have towards rebuilding, but now we got to figure out, is that going to be enough? And I'm hopeful that it is, but who knows? Which is why, you know, we're still asking for people to sort of support us financially, which I've always felt kind of awkward about. But at this point, we kind of really need whatever help we can get. Hmm. You know, because the night. Running in BarionX, GoFundMe.

[00:59:24] How people can help out? Yeah, there's a GoFundMe that's active. And I'll send you the link for that so you can do it. But I think if you do family, it'll come up. But I can, yeah, that's, that's a good way to be able to sort of contribute. And, you know, if people don't want to use GoFundMe, they can have on my website, I have Patreon, I have, buy me a coffee. Hmm. You know, if people want to make, you know, modest donations, they can do that.

[00:59:53] Because all that stuff, you know, all that stuff helps. I mean, there was one person who's on unlimited income, and I think they sent me 10 bucks, and it was, and I was so grateful to that. Because I knew how hard it was for someone on unlimited income to even send me 10 bucks. Right? But that meant a lot to me. Because I knew how much of a hardship it was to even do that. You know, so I'm great, I'm greatly appreciative for anything and everything that people are able to do for us.

[01:00:26] You know, because there are a lot of people simultaneously who are in the same boat, who are asking for the very same help. Hmm. Right? And thankfully, I have, I have a community and audience that has done more for us than I could have imagined. And I'm very grateful, but this is a long slog. Right? It's going to be two years.

[01:00:50] So the help that people can have provided to us in the immediate aftermath of the fire has been a godsend. Overwhelming. Yeah. But I and other people who are in this boat are going to need help for a good time to come. I just hope, let's say in two years from now that you're settled in your new house. I invite you, you come here to Spain to mine. Okay.

[01:01:21] We'll have a coffee and we have a podcast like this together, maybe. It would be excellent. That'd be good. Let me round up this interview a bit, Iberion X, with a bit more lighthearted questions. I think you got a BA in English literature, no? Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. What's a novel you always can keep coming back to? One novel I always reread. I think I've reread more than any other novel.

[01:01:50] It's The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I don't know why I gravitate to that book, but every once in a while I'll go, oh, reread that again. I enjoy that. I enjoy that book. Juno Diaz, who's a Dominican-American author. I always enjoy his book. I always enjoy his book. He has a book of short stories called Drown, which was one of the first books I ever read

[01:02:16] that reflected my Dominican geek heritage, which was remarkable. And he has another book called The Amazing Life of Oscar Wao or something along those lines that he won a big award for several years back. But those, I think those two books are kind of like sort of my go-to.

[01:02:41] There was one book that I picked up a copy of recently because I hadn't read it in a while. And it was Juan Rufos Pedro Paramo, which is a Mexican writer.

[01:02:59] If I remember correctly, writes in the spirit of magical realism, which was a period of Latin American literature that was very popular, I think, during the 50s and 60s. But I remember reading this book, Pedro Paramo, which was just made into a film by, I think, Netflix or something like that. And I remember just reading that book and just going, wow.

[01:03:26] And I'm looking forward to rereading it because I haven't read the whole thing since college. But I'm hopeful that it will be just as impactful as then. Yeah, those are the books that immediately sort of come to mind. Okay. But I see you grew up in a Dominican household. Is there, because I like food on the other side of photography. Oh, yeah. Is there any dish that brings up like childhood memories? Oh, yeah. Yeah. A bunch of them.

[01:03:56] Like morro, which is like, it's rice and beans. Rice, usually black beans, maybe pinto beans. Arroz con guandules. That's just, that's kind of like a staple. And, you know, cencocho, which is kind of like a stew. And, yeah, you know, plátanos. Plátanos maduros. Plátanos majao. Bananas. Yeah. Yeah, all those foods, man.

[01:04:24] And it's hard, you know, there's no Dominican restaurants in most sillas, at least, that I'm aware of. So, it's when I go to New York that I get to eat an abundance of Dominican food, which I feel very, very happy. But who is the cook at home then? Oh, it kind of goes back and forth between me and her. Yeah. Yeah. As of late, we haven't been cooking a whole lot. It's just like, it's just so tired at the end of the day. But, you know, and unfortunately, I don't cook Dominican dishes.

[01:04:54] I never learned how to do that. So, I just kind of, well, pan fry it some salmon or bake some chicken, broccoli. It's very simple and boring. It's nothing exotic or as interesting. But, you know, eating out is quite expensive. So, you kind of have to balance things out. But you lost already so much weight now, Ibarionix. It's not good to eat only broccoli now. No, no, no.

[01:05:20] Luckily, they have a good cafeteria at work, so I can have a variety of stuff there at lunch. But usually, by the time I get home, I've just been like nibbling. So, and I think also just getting older. And I just can't eat as much as I used to. Yeah. I know, yeah. What was the funniest thing that ever happened to you while you were out shooting pictures? Funniest?

[01:05:44] Oh, I don't know if this is the funniest, but it's one of the weirdest things that happened. I was in downtown Los Angeles and was photographing at Union Station, which is an old railroad station in downtown Los Angeles near Olvera Street, for people who are familiar with Los Angeles. And I just left Union Station.

[01:06:11] I was crossing the street to Olvera Street, and I saw this woman with this dog whose hair was like dyed. Old chihuahua sort of dog. It was just an unusual looking dog. And I asked this woman, oh, do you mind if I make a photograph of your dog? Right? So I made a photograph of the dog. And then a couple of days later, I hear that the dog had been kidnapped.

[01:06:36] And what had happened is that the actual owner of the dog had taken their dog to a place to get it a bath. And someone had come and claimed the dog before the owner got back and took the dog. And then somehow that dog got in the hands of this homeless woman, which is who I met when I made the picture of the dog.

[01:07:05] But by the time the story had happened, other people had seen the dog and they got it back to its owner. I was going, hey, I know that dog. I made a picture of that dog. So that was, I think that was funny, surreal. I probably had other things that are kind of funny that have happened. But that's the one that immediately comes to mind.

[01:07:34] I think on this note, on this more positive note, I think we can round up this interview in BarionX and I will let you go on with your Sunday morning there. Thanks a lot for being here with me tonight. It's been wonderful getting to know you. I hope next year we can do a talk about something different.

[01:07:58] But just let me tell you again that I enjoy very, very much your podcast and please keep on doing them. And maybe for yourself also a bit more a creative outlet to not to think about other things. Yeah, that's the plan. And thank you for having me on your show. I really welcome the opportunity to talk to you and your audience. Thanks a lot. My pleasure. Have a great day still in BarionX and we see each other around. All right. Take care.

[01:08:28] And that's a wrap on our conversation with IbarionX Barello for today, folks. His passion for photography, storytelling and teaching has impacted so many people and his strength in the face of loss is truly inspiring. If his work has ever helped you in some way, this is a time when the community can return the favors. You can support IbarionX Barello for today.

[01:08:49] You can support IbarionX in small but meaningful ways, whether by sharing this episode, buying one of his great books or donate any amount to one of the links in our show notes. To see more of this photography, visit IbarionX Barello for today.

[01:09:19] To see more of this photography, visit ibarionX.net and make sure to listen to The Candid Frame.