Perfect Bound with Jennifer Yoffy
Perfect Bound with Jennifer Yoffy
Daniel Milnor
If you want to be inspired to break your addiction to social media, live the #vanlife, and still do all kinds of badass photography-related projects, listen to this episode with Daniel Milnor, creative evangelist for Blurb. If you've ever met him, you're still buzzing from the interaction, and he not only remembers you, but everything you talked about. Prepare to crush hard.
Daniel Milnor once worked as both a fragrance model and a hot tub installer but is better known as a reformed-journalist, photographer and writer who is now, once again, performing these duties in his role as “Creative Evangelist,” for Blurb Inc., the world’s premiere indie publishing platform. He lives in New Mexico and owes most of his success to several “Shifter-types” who were kind enough to help him along. He is a husband, brother, son and uncle four times over. He is partially fluent in Spanish, can kinda still ride a skateboard and just picked up a guitar for the first time ever, something he now regrets not doing decades ago. A compulsive journal-keeper, he believes in the power of print, taking one’s time, slowing down, reading paper books, casting off the shackles of social media and talking to one’s neighbors if you really want to know what is going on in the world. He is disappointed in the power of celebrity, American architecture, for the most part, and how mobile phones have reduced most of the population to complete and total zombies. He dreams of downsizing, writing something memorable and living somewhere in Latin America.
Welcome to Perfect Bound. I'm Jennifer Yoffy, the founder and publisher of Yoffy press in Atlanta, Georgia. This is a podcast where we talk to artists about their journey, how they got where they are, what right and wrong turns they made along the way, and where they're heading next. In this episode, we talked to Daniel Milnor who has the coolest bio. Daniel Milnor once worked as both a fragrance model and a hot tub installer, but is better known as a reformed journalist, photographer and writer, who is now once again performing these duties in his role as creative evangelist for Blurb, the world's premier indie publishing platform, he lives in New Mexico and owes most of his success to several shifter types, who were kind enough to help him along. He is a husband, brother, son, and Uncle four times over. He's partially fluent in Spanish, can kind of still ride a skateboard and just picked up a guitar for the first time ever, something he now regrets not doing decades ago. A compulsive journal keeper, he believes in the power of print, taking one's time slowing down, reading paper books, casting off the shackles of social media and talking to one's neighbors if you really want to know what's going on in the world. He's disappointed in the power of celebrity American architecture for the most part, and how mobile phones have reduced most of the population to complete and total zombies. He dreams of downsizing, writing something memorable and living somewhere in Latin America. We talk about almost all of these things in the podcast. So let's welcome Daniel Milner. This podcast in general is about the journey, the artist journey and kind of what right turns and wrong turns you made along the way, what you saw as a right turn that ended up being a wrong turn and vice versa. And I think you more than, you know, certainly anyone I can think of, adaptation is kind of your MO, right? I mean, you have, it seems from the outside, been able to stay very centered around what is working and what's not working for you. And when something isn't working for you, you make a change, and which I think is incredible and hard to do. And not something that most people do, they get kind of stuck in thinking it can't be done differently, or no one, no one does it the way that I'm thinking. And so, you know, and you quit photography twice. And by that I mean commercial photography. And it seemed like you didn't quit because you fell out of love for photography is almost the opposite. It's like you loved it so much that you wanted to be free from the commercial expectations of it. Would you say that's accurate?
Daniel Milnor:Yeah, that's exactly right. I love photography. I mean, I think about it all the time. It's rare that I get a chance these days to actually work on projects. I think, in the last year, I've spent one day total working on on a project; what I would what I would call an actual project. It's something I've been working on for a couple of years. And I love photography, it's still just as challenging now as it was when I first picked up the camera and I haven't even remotely scratched the surface. And I will never be a transcendent photographer. I think there's only a handful of those every generation. I certainly have never really even given myself the opportunity to be a transcendent photographer, but quitting was really the way that I learned that there was a greener pasture for me out there. I knew early on I didn't fit in the industry, the kind of work that I wanted to do and how I viewed photography was not in line with the commercial industry, whether editorial, commercial, advertising, any of that. And I dabbled in all of that. I studied photojournalism, but knew even before I got out of school, the odds of making a living in America as a photojournalist were tricky to begin with. And then realizing that I didn't want to be a classic photojournalist. I kind of felt more like a documentary photographer more than journalist. I wasn't so much consumed with the time element and the news angle. I was more concerned about the longer story. But the real death knell to death knell for me was I never wanted to be known. I grew up in the country, I grew up very independent. And you know my goal in life is to disappear. I have this reoccurring dream where I'm laying on my back in like some primordial forest and this piece of like clear film falls down from the sky and it covers me and I'm suddenly erased from the memory of everyone on the planet and I and I start over. And I can navigate the world without a single person knowing that I ever existed. So that's the kind of twisted, reoccurring dream I have. So that does not bode well for someone being a photographer, because I just never cared, I just wanted to be in the field and make pictures. And I realized in '97, that I got out of school '92 by '97, I was like, there's no career for me here, unless I want to be somebody else's photographer, you know, if I want to, if I want to join the mold that already exists, sure, I can be a photographer, and I was getting assignments and work. And you know, I was shooting all kinds of things. But to your point, when I would, I would make changes. That to me didn't really seem that profound. But my colleagues and friends
Jennifer Yoffy:lost their minds....
Daniel Milnor:they lost their minds. And I mean, there were times where I got like, hate mail from people. You know, I quit the first time in 97, got a job with Kodak. And that was awesome. They gave me a company car, I had insurance. Kodak was like the Wild West at that time, it was hilarious. But I learned a lot. And the people I worked with were incredibly smart. And I learned this history of Kodak that I didn't know. But I knew that was never going to be a career. I was like, Okay, I'm only whatever, 26 years old or something or 30. I'm never going to be here forever. And so that was a relief of knowing that this was not some, you know, place I was going to be forever. But when I quit Kodak, and went back to being a photographer, but this was in 99, I went back to being a photojournalist to being a wedding photographer. In 99, nobody, I mean, this was prior to the bubble, this was prior to really digital exploding into the market. I had friends and colleagues who were like, so insulted. I remember being in New York at Photoplus Expo, this is a this is hilarious to me. I'm at Photoplus Expo, I'm with several consultants, photo agents consultants, and then a crowd of like, what I would call high end commercial photographers, none of whom I knew, but I knew who they were, but I didn't know them personally. And I was like, I'm gonna do a little experiment here. So we're making introductions. And it comes to me and I go, Hi, I'm a wedding photographer, and the looks on their faces. And then one of the agents I knew really well, I didn't know anyone else in the circle, but literally, it was like, they just ran away from me as fast as they could. And the agent looks at me and goes, why did you do that, you know, don't ever introduce yourself... and I wanted to see what would happen. And that to me was great. And then I probably should have never gone back to working full time. But I did. And from, from 99 to like 2010 I had by far, in terms of like, my revenue and commercial. By far the best run that I'd had, you know, but I knew my heart was not in it. It was never going to be me in the long run. And so I quit for real.
Jennifer Yoffy:Well, you've managed to create a situation where you're able to use your knowledge of photography to make a living without shooting for anyone else. So did you have a model for this? Or did you just sort of make it up as you went along?
Daniel Milnor:I made it up. I didn't really have a model because everybody was telling me not to do it. And I quit really on a Tuesday afternoon and I deleted my email account. My wife was behind me and I said look, I'm done, and I was going to move to Santa Fe, full time. And then move back and forth because her job was in Southern California. And I was going to completely change my career and work in some other industry. I don't know what, I love the cycling industry. There's a lot of other things I have interest in. But I didn't really have a roadmap, I just did it. But what happened in 2010 when I knew I was done for real, my life changed for the better within minutes of making that decision. And...
Jennifer Yoffy:just because of like the mental and emotional weight being lifted or the freedom
Daniel Milnor:...all the above. And also I realized that I had spent almost 30 years of my life looking through a little rectangle or a square. And all I thought about, all my friends were in the industry. Everything I did outside of working was still focused around the industry, all the parties I went to, all the events I went to, all the travel I did was to make pictures, I never did anything else. I put the entire rest of my life on hold, all of these other interests and passions I had I just scrapped it for 30 years and the second I rediscovered those, not only did my life get a lot better, but I just felt wealth, far more well rounded as a human being like I felt in some weird way like my intelligence level went up because I was suddenly able to have conversations about things that didn't regard and revolve around photography. And it was amazing how my life changed in a positive way in terms of also to the people I was exposed to, I suddenly was not just so myopically focused on photo people, I was suddenly engaging with financial people, and you know, environmental people, scientists, and just all kinds of people that I was like, wow. And Santa Fe is an interesting town, because for such a small city, there's an incredible amount of things happening here. And we had a tech industry here in the 80s, Santa Fe was referred to as the info Mesa. And so you have the beginnings of the tech world here, you've got the Los Alamos National Laboratories community, you've got science, you've got space, you've got the art world, the photography world, the publishing world, there's a lot going on here. And so every night, I was just venturing out meeting new people in new fields and saying, Wow, why didn't I do this all along? I think, I think what it made me realize more than anything else, for me was that photography was, and still is an incredibly powerful resource. But I think it's even more powerful as a small part of a much larger idea.
Jennifer Yoffy:Do you think also part of the weight, or, you know, the weight that was lifted, or maybe the space that was created mentally for you was, you know, when you're working for yourself as a photographer, you have to, it's really myopic, and you're really focused on you. Whereas if you're not scrambling for, you know, or competing for the next job, or assignment, or gallery show, or whatever, that, you know, you can be more magnanimous. I mean, you're still so involved with photography, I mean, you shoot for yourself, but in putting that in a different category, where you're doing it for you, you can take that love of photography and, and teach and inspire and help other people in a way that feels maybe more in line with your values are what you want to be focusing on.
Daniel Milnor:Yeah, I think I think working full time as a photographer these days, regardless of who you are, at what level, whether you're a low level professional or an elite level, professional, it can be incredibly unhealthy the amount of time that you have to focus thinking about yourself and your career. I have friends who are still friends of mine, that you will never have a conversation with them about anything other than them, and their career and their work. It's just the way it is. And you know that if you're friends with them, that's all you're gonna get. Because their entire world is directly above their head. And in some cases, the industry demands that. I mean, it's really hard to make a living now, especially folks who are what I would call making a living in the classic sense of like making real money, you know, having health insurance, putting stuff away for retirement, having an archive that they're licensing years after the work was made, those people are few and far between. And the younger generations, in some ways, don't understand how those folks operate. And then you throw in social media. And I knew for me the death knell, the final nail in the coffin for me was when Facebook landed. Here's the crazy part. I've sort of developed a reputation as someone who deleted social media, which also came with two years of hate mail. And I mean, you can't believe the stuff that people..., you know when I deleted social like 10 years ago, man, two years of just incredible hate mail, but I went to...
Jennifer Yoffy:They're jealous that they don't have the guts to do it.
Daniel Milnor:You know, it was weird. It was the the people who say you're too dumb to understand the brilliance of the platforms. And you know, these are physically addicted people who don't have any else to do. They don't they can't look at it any other way. So, but I went to New York, I was doing a shoot in Manhattan and I was working with this client, and she was the first person I ever heard use the word Facebook. And I was like, Wow, what's Facebook? And she told me. So I head back to California and so I was on Facebook before any of my friends. And I was like, hey, this thing's really cool. And same for Twitter. You know, I got on Twitter when Twitter was just simply people telling where they were in what they were doing. There was no massive, you know, underground marketing campaign under every single tweet. I was at a creative festival in Amsterdam and this guy said Twitter and I looked at Eileen, who's the founder of Blurb, we were together on that trip and I go, what's Twitter? And she goes, I don't know let's you know, figure out what Twitter is. Social [media] to me is what turned professional photography inside out, and not in a good way. And it's gone down a path that I cannot see it ever recovering from.
Jennifer Yoffy:Is it just oversharing and and not waiting? Not waiting until like an image or a body of work is resolved or as a pressure for output, that's kind of not sustainable.
Daniel Milnor:It's an extension of what we talked about a minute ago, which is, being a professional, full time creative often means that you're spending an unhealthy amount of time thinking about yourself. And that was really kind of always the case. It's that's how hard it is to be a professional and do these do these things. And then all of a sudden, social comes along. And social takes that idea, that concept and just magnifies it exponentially. And suddenly, your goal in life is to make a palatable version of yourself for the online world. It's a fake, phony, unrealistic, oftentimes idiotic version of yourself that you're trying to be palatable, and everyone plays along, because they know it's not real. And we're at the point now, where clients, oftentimes in meetings, when clients are discussing photographers, there is no discussion of the work at all, it has nothing to do with the work.
Jennifer Yoffy:Right? It's the number of followers.
Daniel Milnor:It's data and metrics. That's it, that's all they're talking about. No one even identifies what's good and bad anymore. And that's not always the case. But it's, it's at a level that's kind of alarming in the sense of how how frequent that is. And it's, it's kind of weird. So to me, I was like, okay, when clients started to demand that work, you know, the, the primary delivery mechanism of work was Facebook, I was like, I don't want anything to do with this. And I would tell clients, I'm not I'll shoot this for you, but I'm not putting it on Facebook. I don't want it on Facebook, and there was a lot immediate pushback. And I was like, okay, once again, another indicator that I am probably not long for a career in photography. I think the single most destructive platform I've seen is Instagram. I've never seen anything like it.
Jennifer Yoffy:It drives me crazy when.... So, p`eople submit to Yoffy Press their projects, and I look at everything. I respond to everything. Not necessarily in a day. But you know, eventually within a month usually. When people send me you know, I have this project. I've been working on it. You can see the images on Instagram. Are you kidding me? Like, one that seems just insane to me - because it's not, it's not sequenced. It's not curated. It's just, you know, thrown up there. And also, to me represents such a lack of intentionality, and professionalism in terms of, you know, you want to sign up to work with me for the next two years to publish and sell your book, and you're sending me your Instagram link? Like, how about just a PDF? I don't know, you know, throwing it out there. Just just an idea.
Daniel Milnor:Yeah, I think, you know, I...
Jennifer Yoffy:Just so casual and...
Daniel Milnor:It's casual. And it's, you know.... Look, the people who built that platform, are very intelligent people. They knew exactly what they were doing. And we know because they've admitted it, after the fact. So if you were looking for a delivery mechanism, to implode the mindset of a creative, you could not build anything. I've never seen anything better, more effective at doing that. I mean, how many times have I been to photo festivals where you hear industry professionals saying, quote, everyone in this room has to be on Instagram. And in my head, I go, wait a second, let me get this straight, we're supposed to be the most creative people walking the face of the earth and the first thing you want to do is put us all in the same funnel. That is the most pathetic lane and you look around at the industry and you go look, it's no surprise that the industry is teetering. Because that is not not the way to do it. And you know, Instagram to me, that was the first network I deleted. And I literally detoxed for two weeks, I physically detoxed, where, when I would be between tasks online, my brain would default to Instagram and I caught myself and I thought, holy cow, and I don't have a physical addiction problem. It runs in my family to a certain degree, but I didn't get it. But I was like, wow, I kind of feel like this thing has a little bit of control over me that I'm not happy. Two weeks later, I sort of was like surfing, you come out of the barrel and you you're like, wow, that was incredible. And you turn and look back and I look back on that period of my life where I was on Instagram, I kind of find I'm kind of embarrassed. And I get why people use it. There's no question of the strategic and the fact that everyone has bought into such a degree is what allows it to thrive. But life outside of social to me, and I still have a Twitter account, I have a YouTube channel now, so I'm a total hypocrite in some ways. But those are primarily... you know, when I deleted social It was so long ago, that Blurb at the time asked me to keep my Twitter account. If I was doing this today, they would ask me, they would have asked me to keep my Instagram account, but at the time they were said, you know, can you keep your Twitter account? I said, yeah, I don't want to be a jerk about the whole thing. I'll keep it. But I really felt a lot better. And to your point, you know, occasionally I'll do a portfolio review. And people walk up with an iPad. And I kind of feel the same way. Because when I see work on an iPad, it's typically not edited very well, there's far too many images, there's no penalty for the, you know, keeping things in the digital space. And I've done portfolio reviews where the, where the reviewers to my right and left, were so far superior to me, it's not even funny. They're like legends in photography. And I remember Jeff Dune is in LA put together this incredible portfolio review a few years ago. And I'm looking at the lineup of reviewers, and I'm thinking why am I even on this list? Like I don't, I don't deserve to be on this list. But the two people next to me, I sat down and I was like, Oh, my God, these are my heroes, there's a hero. And after the first couple of people, one of these folks leans into me and says, Why would anyone show their work on a on an iPad? You know, where? Why are they not printing, like, show me a box of prints? And I was like, Look, it's a whole different ballgame now, like, get ready, because at some point, it's just gonna be a phone or you know, something, but...
Jennifer Yoffy:Right, right. Let me airdrop it to you.
Daniel Milnor:Yeah, it's, um, you know, it's different. It's just a different time. It's not a it's not a better or worse time. It's just a different, completely different time. You know, I look back at the beginnings of my career, I had no social, no computer, no phone. And my entire career was based on a landline telephone, calling people in New York that I didn't know. And, and somehow it worked. And oddly enough, these people I didn't know would actually answer their telephone. You know, I would cold call some editor in Manhattan and they'd be like, hello. And you know, I live in Laguna Beach, and I really want to work for your magazine; oh, well, hey, send me a portfolio. Now, you know, those people are never gonna get them in person on the phone. And there's 800 ways of communicating with him. It's just a different scenario. There's so many things about today that are, that are incredible. And then there were so many things about the pace of life back in those days, that was much more, I guess, humanistic than it is today. You know, the fact of not having a phone and a computer was actually a really good thing in some ways.
Jennifer Yoffy:What would you say? Alright, so aside from quitting photography, we talked about, what were some career decisions or twists of fate that took you in a positive direction?
Daniel Milnor:Let me think about that, starting to study other fields, being more well rounded.
Jennifer Yoffy:I love your book list, by the way on your shifter site. Yeah, I was like, This is some good recommendations.
Daniel Milnor:Yeah, reading to me was, again, was something I just sort of put on hold I was reading during my career, but not nearly like I'm doing now. And the odd thing was when I deleted social the first time, I made the secondary decision to just anytime I felt my brain saying go online, instead of doing that, just read. And so the first year alone, I read 80 books, I read 80 the second year, 80 the third year, and all of a sudden, you're like, wow, I kind of feel intelligent, I feel like I know more than shutter speed. So reading and branching out, getting back into a lot of the things that I was into before, being more well rounded. And also, like you mentioned this earlier, but one of the cool things about my job is that I get to help other people. It's so much more fulfilling, for me to say, oh, okay, you know, here's a person that is trying to do something either photographically or publishing wise or whatever and there's a riddle that they do not know how to figure out. And for whatever reason, my little twisted background, I might have an answer to that riddle. And just little tiny things. I mean, when I started a YouTube channel about a year ago, and again, it was because Blurb was asking for motion content, I don't know how to do films, I'm like, Okay, I need to learn how to do this. And the sort of things that I would mention in these films very casually that I thought were things that everybody knew. And all of a sudden people would be like, what was that you said, like, for example, box speed, rating of a piece of analog film, Tri-X, or whatever it is, and not shooting at a box speed, but shooting at different. . . but people are like wha are you talking about? And I m like, no way, I thought it w s sort of common global knowle ge. Another thing that I started to do that it took me way, way oo long to understand was colla orate, and collaborati g through the travels at Blurb I was able to meet a lot of ta ented people that I would have never met had it not be n for the Blurb job and I woul have never met them had I no stopped working as a photogr pher. And all of a s dden, I'm around these peo le. And I'm like, wow, these peo le are way more advanced than I am. And what I figured out early on was that my gift in the coll boration process is get ing the ball rolling. That's the end of my scope.
Jennifer Yoffy:You're the activator.
Daniel Milnor:Yeah, I'm like, Hey, we should do X, Y, and Z and people are busy and they go, I don't have time to do that. I'm like, well, I'll get it started. And then I collaborate with people who are way more talented. And the second I started collaborating, the work one got way better, way more diverse, way more conceptual, a lot less linear. And I almost started to increase my knowledge through [or] based on other people. I mean, I've been able to do some really amazing collaborations in the last few years that have changed my entire philosophy about being creative
Jennifer Yoffy:Can you give an example?
Daniel Milnor:Yeah, so I, I would say I would go back to probably 2012 I think it was around 2012. I met a designer in Sydney named Chloe Ferres. And Chloe had done a book through Blurb. That was a book about Irma Boom, the architect. But Chloe had done a book unlike any other book I've ever seen, done through Blurb. The only one, of the millions of books that have been done, she had created something completely and utterly unique. And it sort of gamed our system into allowing her to create this very special book. And I was like, wow. And it was a book designed to be altered after you bought it. You had to cut each individual page inside the book with a straight edge. And she gave you instructions. And I'm like, never seen that before.
Jennifer Yoffy:Yeah, that's awesome.
Daniel Milnor:I went to Australia, several times for Blurb. And on the first trip, I met her, and Chloe is like a tour de force. She was a dual major at the time. Anyway, she's out of school and working now. But she was a really skilled photographer and a really skilled designer and a publication designer. And so a couple of years later, I'm in Florida with photographer Andrew Kaufman, and we decide we're going to do this collaborative photographic project on Miami, where we go out and we shoot for 48 hours straight, and I was shooting Polaroids and he was shooting color film. And when we got done with it, we sort of looked at the overall take, and he's like, what are we going to do with this? And I said, what I would love to do is send this to Chloe Ferres. And I was like, I don't know if she'll do anything with it.... And sure enough, she wrote back and she goes, I'll do this if you let me cut your photographs up. And I was like, no problem. Andrew Kaufman was like, what, what are you talking about? And I was like, trust me, she will do something with this that you will never see coming. And sure enough, we did this book called Magic City, which was a book designed to be cut into pieces. And I went back to Miami, we did a second book called Magic City Two. And it's a book design where all the internal pages fold, and they reveal a secondary design that you would never see if you hadn't folded the pages.
Jennifer Yoffy:Wow, that's amazing.
Daniel Milnor:of 20 million or 15 million books through blurb no one has ever done a book like this. And that book, you cannot believe what happened with that book. But here's the other twist, is we specifically decided not to make that book publicly for sale. The only way to get that book was to have a, quote, personal experience with one of the three of us. And that, and that would vary. Nothing, you know, nefarious here, but it would, it would vary depending on where we were. And the second that people couldn't get that book. T`hey wanted it 1000 times more. And people would go crazy trying to get copies of that book. That one taught me a lot. And then recently, about two years ago, this is the last collab that I'm still working on that I'm hoping is going to last for a long, long time - years. I met, there's a photographer in Orange County, a friend of mine, and he calls me and he goes, Hey, there's this guy that wants to meet you. He's a friend of mine. And I said, Okay, and my buddy was having a birthday party for his two year old. And so we all went to this two year old birthday party. And I meet this guy...
Jennifer Yoffy:Where all the best collaborations begin.
Daniel Milnor:I mean, a two year old's birthday parties are really fun. I mean, there's cake, there's candy, there's screaming, it's what every adult really wants. And I meet this guy, his name's Rick Elder. He's a director of a clothing brand. A brand called Beyond out of Seattle. I didn't know Rick, I didn't know Beyond, I didn't know anything about him. And we sit down and we're talking and Rick has never been a professional photographer. But he's very, very interested an keen and is a complete devote of photography. He shoots al the time. And he says te minutes after meeting and he' like, we're doing somethin together. We're doing a projec together. And I was like, no we're not, you know, I'm busy. don't know you. I don't kno what you're talking about. He' like, we're gonna do something And I'm like, no, we're not an but there was like, som endearing thing about Rick an he's like, so driven. So h keeps passing through Orang County and he's like, let's g to lunch, let's go to lunch. S I would hang out with him. An he was very interesting guy t hang out with because hi background was completel different than mine. And I g What are you talking about? I we're going to do something. H goes, you know, let's do printed something together. An I go, well, what are we going t do? What's the goal? I go Blur and Beyond have nothing i common. Like, what are we goin to do? He goes, we're going t do something that just promote understanding. We're going t print whatever we want to prin and it's going to promot understanding. And I was like No, I go too time consuming, to costly. It's going to be nightmare. I'm not doing this This is something he reminds m of all the time. He always goes You said no, you said no, yo said no. I was like, Yeah, did. This is not going to b easy. And so we still hadn' really defined it yet. And the he just kept wearing me down And he wore me down. And realized, I was like, maybe I a the one that is the weak lin here. Maybe I need to rethin this. And so I thought, Oh, know how to get rid of them I'll just talk to him about wha it's going to cost to do this And then he'll be like, I'm no gonna pay for that. And I' like, Well, I'm not paying fo it. You know
Jennifer Yoffy:It's your idea...
Daniel Milnor:Your idea, you're gonna pay for it. I said, Okay, what do you want to do? And we decided on doing a zine, a twice a year thing. 60 page, softcover, nothing fancy. It's not a prized object. It's not fancy. That's not the idea. The zine is just a catalyst to get people interested in the stories that we have inside. And the stories can be anything we want. And the first thing I said to him was, we gotta hire a designer. And, I was like, he's, he's gonna balk and say, I don't want to pay for that. And I was like, Look, I'm not doing it if we don't have a designer, because neither one of us is good enough to do it. And so I reached out to Zoe Sadokierski in Sydney, who I had also met in Australia prior. And I'd done an interview with her where I hired a film crew, and we came in and went to UTS and did this interview with her. And I was so blown away by her as a person. And also she had her own publishing imprint, she founded the Australian book design Association, she'd been designer of the year and she was just this most down to earth. I mean, I have no background in design. So when I'm talking to a designer, I feel like Crocodile Dundee, like I just, I don't, I don't fit in, I can't talk that, and Zoe was so accommodating, and kind, and also, at the same time, just gung ho about trying new things. And I went to her and said, you know, do you know of anyone who would be interested in designing this zine? And she goes, What is it? And I go, it's a zine to promote understanding through design and art, dialogue, and art. And we're going to print whatever stories we want, whether they're from professionals or non professionals, it does not matter. If we think it's interesting, we'll print it. And she goes, I want to do it. You know, that's what my life is about. I want to be the designer. And so we got her. And I kept thinking, Okay, what else can I tack onto this list that will drive Rick away from this project, and there was nothing to put on there. So we had the first issues out, it's sold out, the second issue right before I called you today, I was sending the proof off to Zoe for corrections. And we're about to do issue two and issue three is full. And I have two people for issue four. That has been the collaboration experiment. It is not easy. Anyone who tells you that it is easy is crazy. It is a battle to do something like this, it takes so much time and energy and money. It's a very expensive process. And then convincing those around you, you know, explaining this to Blurb. The marketing department, even though there's Blurb - our large order services is printing it, but there's nothing in the zine about Blurb, that's not the point. There's nothing in it about Beyond. And so it's a really hard sell. And, you know, people are like, well, what's the goal? And it's like, just to put this stuff out and get people talking about these stories. Yeah, it's it's fun. It's interesting and different. And you know, we're combining some of the contributors are people I know, some have come through the submission portal on the website, there's all different kinds. I have learned so much in the last year, about even furthering my education about collaboration, about what it means for brands to partner together without overpowering the project, about paying, you know, how do you pay contributors? How do you market and promote them? You know, building a website, building a community, all of this stuff and trying to do it without selling out and going down a path that we don't want to go down. You know, I'm not gonna beg people to follow us on Instagram to get this to get this group of people, there's better ways of doing things. It's like a second
Jennifer Yoffy:That's exciting.
Daniel Milnor:It's like a second job for free is what it is.
Jennifer Yoffy:I know what that's like, because I publish photo books.
Daniel Milnor:Exactly. It's like when you get up and you go, Did I agree to do this? But then something happened. So one of the contributors called me two weeks ago, very atypical guy. And he's like, Hey, I just sold some prints to a collector in Europe. And I go, Oh, that's great way to go. And he goes, I asked the guy how he found me. And he said, AG23 the zine and I was like, I was like, Oh my god, it's working. It's happening. It's slowly like building, building up. When I think about the future, and that's really fun to like, help someone else realize anything positive in the creative space. It's a lot of fun, and we haven't scratched the surface yet. So this collaboration and others totally changed my life.
Jennifer Yoffy:That's amazing. So my last question for you. Um, so we talked about good decisions that you made? Have there been big wrong turns or things that you thought were bad decisions at the time in your career?
Daniel Milnor:Yeah, I mean, there have been some some minor things, there's plenty of things in hindsight that I would have done differently, you know. I would have stayed quit in 99, or 97, I would have stayed quit, I think my life would have been very, very different. Had I done that and potentially better. Not like monetarily better, just more diverse. But there were other things about, about taking certain jobs. I had a friend, a really good friend in California, who unfortunately right now is a bit ill, and not doing so well in life. But he was very influential on me when I first moved to California. He was a designer and a photographer. And he said to me, once, he said, the jobs you say no to are more important than the ones you take. And I was like, what a bunch of BS, I'm like put that on a T shirt. It's a cliche. You know, I was like, I know everything, and you are nothing. And you know, low and behold, a few weeks later, I took a commercial job that was more money than I'd ever made on a job in my life. And I was like, I am a superstar. But during the meeting, I had this sinking suspicion that this was going to go sideways. And sure enough, it went sideways. And I spent two years battling with this client. And it made my life a living hell, I was waking up in the middle of the night and going, why, why? Why did I do this? And my buddy was, like, you know, very politely saying, look, I told you, when you have those feelings, and you know something is not right, or you're looking at a client and saying, I think they're gonna go sideways, you got to bail. Because even if you need the money, it's not worth it. The other mistake I made was, I spent too many years shooting other people's photographs and not my own. And again, you can make a living and there's a lot of people doing that, that are perfectly happy. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. But I knew that I was an imposter that underneath this trench coat, I was somebody completely different. And that there was probably not a place for me in the industry, but that I still wanted to be that person and wanted to make those right...
Jennifer Yoffy:You were playing a role that didn't fit you.
Daniel Milnor:That's it. And then once I quit, I was like, Oh, I can be this person that I actually am. And that was that was pretty illuminating. But in terms of major, other major mistakes. I don't know I've been I've been so fortunate and landed on my feet and had so much help from other people. When I started in photography, I was assisting. I spent years assisting and those photographers saved me from myself. They taught me how to do my taxes. They taught me how to travel. They taught me how to speak to clients. They taught me how to speak about my own work. These folks really bent over backwards to help me. You know, Eileen Gittins, who founded Blurb, she's been a mentor of mine from the second I met her, I was like, I've never met anyone like her. She was the first like, highly powered, eccentric female entrepreneur I'd ever met. And just like, I would hang out with her. And I would be taking notes nonstop, like, Oh my god, I feel like I haven't figured out how to live yet. And then you meet her, and you're like, wow, I'm way behind, I better get my act together and start getting better. So I've been fortunate, I don't think I've made any massive, tragic mistakes. And some of the negative things that have happened to me over my life have ultimately turned out to be in some weird way positive, you know. I had a long term illness and that made me rethink everything. And, you know, I sort of came through that and was like, Wow, I've I'm actually a little sort of pleased that I went through that misery.
Jennifer Yoffy:Well, it seems like you also approach everything wide open. You know, people that you meet and experiences that you have, and because you aren't afraid to pivot when you have an opportunity to, or have a gut feeling that you should. If people, (I'm really talking to myself), you know, can get out of their heads and not put so many expectations on how something should be or what it's supposed to feel like or how it's supposed to turn out, can just be more in the moment, less on the Instagram and take it as
Daniel Milnor:I think it's about perspective. You know, the it comes. vast majority of people in the world are looking for food, water and shelter. That's it. They don't care about photography, and they never will and they don't care about you or me or a project. They just don't they can't they're trying to survive. And I think when you realize that, it puts things in perspective, like okay, you know, is this the end of the be all end all of the world what I'm doing In this project? Probably not. And I need to keep that in mind. And I think it makes everyone around you happier and healthier when you have those perspectives. And I think at the same time we have such an opportunity, creatives have a responsibility in society to play the most creative card they can at all times, because society is waiting for us to do so. They are waiting for creatives to show them an alternative path about how to see the world and how to navigate the world. That is a huge responsibility. And if you're conforming, and you're not the person who you know you are, because you're conforming to an industry standard, that's not helping anyone. And it may be a great short play, but it won't work in the long run. So it's hard. And I think when you distance yourself, you know, for me, it was interesting when I quit photography, and even today when people ask me, if I'm at a party and people say what do you do? And I go, I work for a publishing platform, I work for a printing..., you know I work for Blurb. And I have friends that will say, No, No, No, No, No, he doesn't. He's a photographer. And I'm like, I haven't been a photographer in over a decade, I will never be a photographer again. It's not what I identify as because it doesn't really benefit me or anyone else. Right? It's just it is what it is. And so I love the option and the ability to take a step back and look at things in a broader space. Like photo books to me are their testimony, their history, they're going to gain power. The longer we go into history, the further we go, the better the books that you're printing today are going to be they're going to be more impactful and more relevant to me, the further we go. And that is an interesting pursuit and the idea of visual communications in our species going back to cave paintings, this is the same story we've been telling since then. And so it is an integral part of who we are and what we're doing as a species. But we have to keep it in perspective that it's not the be all end all. My brother and I are completely twisted. And my growing up in Texas, my brother and I would be like, how long can you go without taking a shower? I'd be like, I can go a little bit longer than you. And then we had breakdowns like Does swimming in a lake count?
Jennifer Yoffy:Right?!?
Daniel Milnor:What if I just shaved my head then maybe I don't need to take a shower? And so there were no limits and my brother and I pushed the boundaries forever. And so the van is like a is a five star resort compared to what my brother and I were doing.