On Landscape - Any Questions Private

Tim Parkin (00:02.456)
Hello and welcome to On Landscape. Any questions. I'm here with one of our regular hosts, Mark Littlejohn. Hello, Mark. And I'm also here with our guest, Damian Shields, coming all the way from Lanarkshire. Is Lanark a word or is it officially Lanarkshire?

Mark Littlejohn (00:10.284)
Hello.

Damian Shields (00:15.209)
Hey there.

Damian Shields (00:20.637)
The Lanark's a town, I'm in North Lanarkshire so there's North and South Lanarkshire and the greater whole being Lanarkshire area.

Tim Parkin (00:29.324)
Yeah. And for those of us who don't know much about you, how would you introduce yourself these days? Do you have a little mini bio that you tell people?

Damian Shields (00:40.041)
No, really. I'm just a guy with a camera and an interest in the landscape for many reasons to convoluted and layered to condense into one line. But, you know, I just love the art of photography and it gives me an enormous sense of well-being.

Mark Littlejohn (00:43.0)
I'll just go for bit.

Tim Parkin (00:44.43)
I'll do it.

Tim Parkin (01:01.23)
I'll do little one for you because I did have a, well, I read up last time we interviewed you. I was trying to remember when we did a feature photographer on you, but it's a, you have a background in art from your family from a while back. And you went on to study fine art under Thomas Joshua Cooper. I didn't realize that until I read that today. And went on to work in press and media.

Damian Shields (01:15.144)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (01:25.693)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (01:30.887)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (01:30.956)
And that's a reasonable summary. I'll go back to the like the your family background on art. Is it one of your family was a sculptor? Is that right?

Damian Shields (01:41.194)
Yeah, my father, well he was mainly an art teacher all his life as was my mother's father. He studied, my dad studied sculpture at Ontario College of Art. At the time he was living in Canada, my mum's parents had moved over to Canada briefly. My mum met my dad during the height of the swinging 60s. So a few parties later, myself, my older brother Sean and Francine came along.

I was only there for a couple of years before they relocated back to Britain, ultimately back to Scotland. So I have really no memory of it whatsoever. But yeah, so he studied at Ontario College of Art. he majored in sculpture. So that was kind of my first sort of looking back, you know, what was kind of a...

infecting my mind from a very early age was being surrounded by, you know, an eclectic array of weird and wonderful stuff basically. But I mean, home life was kind of, you my dad was, you know, as soon as he kind of, you know, hit the ground back in Scotland, he got a job as a primary school teacher in my first primary school in Airdrie in North Lanarkshire.

Tim Parkin (02:44.446)
Lots of Lots of art books.

Mark Littlejohn (02:45.878)
Mm.

Damian Shields (03:05.129)
and he eventually went on to basically when my mother's father, Silvio, he was with St Margaret's High School in Airdrieve pretty much all his life as an art teacher and when he took his retirement he left the position that my father actually slotted in behind him and took over his position so it was a nice kind of you know synchronicity of events you know that he could do that and sort of continue the lineage.

Tim Parkin (03:22.934)
Okay.

Damian Shields (03:32.906)
for the family. And yeah, so that was kind of, you know, was a kind of childhood suffused with art and a jazz soundtrack and, you know, just sort of weird and wonderful sort of things. You know, the house was completely chock-full, like a kind of, you know, Moroccan bizarre of like weird kind of objects. And mostly my father's work.

Tim Parkin (03:44.258)
Yeah. Well, Jai's album covers the inspirational art.

Damian Shields (03:59.742)
and it was mainly coming into abstract impressionism and sculpture. So that was already kind of leaking into my brain from an early age. know, it's funny, you know, being asked to do this today and thank you very much, Tim and Mark, you know, I should get that and thanks for having me on, I'm very honored and I very much appreciate it. But it just kind of, it threw me into that kind of spin, head spin of like where you do actually have to sit down and consider.

And I'll try not to sweet, there are a lot of conversations with Mark about this. You just try to, you know, try to like self sense yourself. if you've got the beat thing, that would be great. But I was just thinking, you know.

Tim Parkin (04:38.05)
I'll have an 18 radio channel just for you.

Mark Littlejohn (04:38.712)
You've just got fall back to Billy Connolly and then they'd be what, you know, Billy Connolly's language is, you know, perfectly descriptive. It's just a case of language is what it is.

Damian Shields (04:49.193)
Yeah, but yeah, just, know, to like actually to sit down and consider who you are and, and I think, don't get me wrong, I think it's a great thing to do. I think you have to, and it's like a lot of people, especially photographers or artists, of like only almost like consider their appreciation of their influences and where what they do emerges from is from when they first engage with the tools.

but you have to kind of like look at the wider picture of like, know, every time I press that, you know, shutter release, every time I press the button, it's like the end point in the chain of a thread of events that continue right through my life, right back to the day I was born and the first influences that were seeping into my head. Even though at the time I wouldn't have like stopped and taken stock and realized that that was what was going on, but it's only now in the used guys say, hey, then come on this.

podcasting, and I'm like, shit, have to like, who the hell am I? And you actually have to sit down and consider.

Mark Littlejohn (05:54.808)
I wrote a wee bit about that because I remember as a kid, you'd look in the mirror, bathroom mirror and think, who am I? You what am doing? Why am on the world and whatever else? And a lot of time taking pictures, it's very much... Well, I haven't... I haven't done it... Well, you might be looking at other things when you're wee, but it's like... I haven't done that for years, but photography is a very instinctive thing.

Damian Shields (06:08.253)
Well at our age, Mark, we do that quite a lot. We don't even know why we're in the bathroom looking in the mirror in the first place.

Mark Littlejohn (06:23.032)
for me and I guess it's for you, but your instincts have been well honed. I mean, you talked before about Moroccans, so I'm guessing there was a wonderful sense of color as well growing up in the house. And that was basically something your psyche was infused with, if you like. Whereas mine, my father was like, know, totally unartistic. He was a golfer and a whiskey drinker that was pretty much all he did. apart from working. Well, no, in order to get enough money.

Damian Shields (06:40.839)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (06:50.03)
...

Mark Littlejohn (06:53.24)
to play golf and drink whiskey. But I mean, the art side of things, I have to say I'm a wee bit jealous if you like, because I mean, didn't hit into this until way later in life. But yeah, those issues said, you think it's an instinct, but it's really just an instinct that's just grown up with you and just...

Damian Shields (06:54.057)
You inherited the golf and the whiskey from that, didn't you?

Damian Shields (07:14.927)
Yeah, because you're not considering it, you're not thinking about it on a day to day level. It's like, but when you actually have to kind of like focus and think, well, why do I do the things I do? Why do I have? It's like any habit you pick up over time. It's like you catch yourself sometimes that where does that come from? I think so, definitely, because it's not something I do and I feel uncomfortable doing it. But you guys have kind of forced my hand.

Mark Littlejohn (07:17.569)
No, no.

Mark Littlejohn (07:31.638)
Do think it's a wee bit dangerous thinking too much?

Tim Parkin (07:41.88)
How was that a-

Mark Littlejohn (07:41.964)
We're not answering your questions!

Tim Parkin (07:45.678)
At the Glasgow School of Art, mean, that's self-reflection is probably the meat and veg of art school in many ways. How did you cope with that?

Damian Shields (07:55.08)
Yeah. God, it was a nightmare. It was difficult because I had, it was almost like expectation versus reality. It was two different things. When I was at high school, there was always an expectation because I had a natural aptitude for drawing and painting and draftsmanship. You know, I was good with charcoal on my pencil and composition on paper and with paint. And it was always, I always felt the weight of that on my shoulders, especially given

my father's profession and my grandfather as well and there was lots of other artistic people in the family too so I kind of felt the weight on my shoulders that the natural progression was for me to apply to art school and the expectation was Damien should breeze us he should get in no problem and I did apply and I didn't get in and I think I know why was because I had

a lot of other stuff. I was quite interested in science, I was quite interested in physics and electronics and I was obsessed with gadgetry and emerging technologies. I mean, looking back at it now, it's like, it's a nice marriage for me and a nice balance for having that side of me that's to do with the technical side of things and the technology and the artistic side, just the way things of Peter Doe, but at the time it was immense pressure. So I ended up, you know, spending years in the wilderness of higher education where

Tim Parkin (09:02.616)
Yeah, definitely.

Damian Shields (09:15.847)
I went down to Wales Polytechnic to do a BA in Humanities. I went to Bell College in Hamilton to Physics and Electronics, Electrical Engineering. I did all these courses, but I never finished any of them. kind of like, it was like I had to get something out of my system because that was a huge interest of mine. And I just felt like...

Tim Parkin (09:24.897)
I left.

Damian Shields (09:38.556)
It wasn't a kind of F you to my mum and dad, but part of it was a kind of rebellion against the expectation that that was for me and that's what I should do. And I kept feeling like, no, hold on a minute, you know, I'm not just, you're not going to like, you know, pigeonhole me because of, you know, I do have this, you know, attitude for doing this thing and that's natural progression. I'm interested in other stuff. There's more kind of things about me that I want to explore. So as I said,

I got all that out of my system. And also at the time, staying in various places and bedsits and student accommodations and just getting older and having more experiences. But I did end up coming full circle background again, but I thought this time I want to get it right. And that's where my love affair for photography began was in the early days of trying to prepare for art school. went to...

Tim Parkin (10:33.719)
Okay.

Damian Shields (10:35.177)
what was called the Strathclyde Arts Centre near the Kingston Bridge in Glasgow. The building's still kicking about, lovely old building. I don't know what's been repurposed for now, but it hasn't been an arts centre for a long time. But they did a portfolio preparation course. And part of the key ingredient of that was photography. And they had dark rooms there and we did simple dark room process and print in your own film that you were shooting. They used to simple exercises where...

you would pair off with somebody and they had this great big hall that had really tall glass windows with big heavy black curtains and they've maybe just opened them a little bit so they've just had the kind of single shaft of light kind of, you know, coming in side light and you'd stand your pal over there and you'd be shooting in black and white and you'd go into the dark and you'd process and you see these images emerge. And I was like, fucking hell, this is amazing. And because...

Tim Parkin (11:16.77)
Thank you.

Damian Shields (11:32.508)
It was kind of speaking to somewhere in my brain that was like my frustration with drawing and painting was that there was a certain amount of this kind of laborious process of sitting down and dealing with these kind of visceral kind of physical things like oil paints and mixing your liquid to mix with oil paint and having a selection of brushes and constantly kind of adjusting and wiping off your canvas and starting again and doing pre-sketches and kind of, but don't get me wrong, it's like,

I really loved it and I will go back to it at some point. But it was just the immediacy of like being able to see something before you and to capture that moment. And it spoke again as well as one of my biggest heroes of influence was Caravaggio. And I was thinking about the Carioscuro of like his ensembles of people sitting around a table eating and drinking. And it was just a single point of light coming from the side.

And that triggered in my brain and I was thinking, this is great, just the immediacy of it. And yeah, and just anyway, I decided in the end when I did, after that, this is like a year course and then you applied and you went for your interview and you took along your big fat portfolio, chock full of life drawings and various bits and bobs that you'd done at the portfolio preparation course and your photography. And I sat down with two guys, Pete Devon, sadly no longer with us. He was like the first year tutor.

for me at the time and Von Judge who was a photographer and tutor and lecturer at the art school at the time attached to the fine art photography department. So these were two guys that sat in interview and it was like good cop bad cop and he went through my stuff and but in that moment I decided I wanted to go for fine art photography department. I ditched the notion of going into drawing in pain.

much the shagging of my father who wasn't too happy about it the time. But I was like, no, this is for me. There's something here that's just sparked something in my head and just really excited me. But getting back to what you were asking about, just the process of art school was interesting. I had this expectation in my head because it always helped the kind of over romanticised versions of the stories of my father and stories. My grandfather went to Glasgow School of Art as well and

Tim Parkin (13:28.008)
ha

Mark Littlejohn (13:29.912)
Thank

Damian Shields (13:55.21)
I always had this impression of it in my head. But as I said, wasn't like that really. The technicians were great because they gave you sort of practical advice and help and obviously held your hand through the printing process and showed you various techniques like selenium toning and stuff like that. They showed you how to use the Devere Colour and Largers and stuff like that, which to me was like black magic. It was like...

Tim Parkin (14:10.979)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (14:22.643)
this weird esoteric kind of art and very frustrating process, I might add. I ended up hating it and I ended up becoming sick of the darkroom because that initial sense of having the immediacy of photography kind of waned a bit because, and not to mention the fact that it was an expensive thing to do, know, between your lab fees and your papers and your films and your trial and error, and the amount of paper I was throwing in the bin was ridiculous. And I just remember feeling really demoralized by the whole thing.

Tim Parkin (14:27.502)
Was this?

Damian Shields (14:51.571)
But the technicians were fantastic. But the tutors themselves, I mean, some were better than others in terms of how they nurtured you and how, but generally they didn't really hold your hand. And I felt conflicted because on one hand, they were kind of saying to you, you you've got to look at them, you've got to look at her, you've got to look at him, you've got to expose yourself, you've got, here's a book to read, you know, and here's an exhibition to go and see.

Tim Parkin (15:04.066)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (15:15.305)
here's a thing to absorb, but the other hand, they're trying to push this sense of who you are and your individuality and that you shouldn't really be looking at other people. So there was all these kind of contradicting messages that were feeding you along the way. And it was quite a daunting experience. And I also found out that you did wee projects that kind of lasted X amount of time and the culmination of said project was your class crit. So.

me and the rest of the department would kind of stand around with maybe Vaughan Judge and we'd go through this one at time and you'd have to have a show and tell what you were up to and what you were doing. And I kind of felt that way, I was kind of like, if I was like the magician who was like kind of explaining how he did the tricks, it was almost like frowned upon because I could basically talk from start to finish about exactly where my inspiration came from, exactly what I was doing, how I got to, you know, where I was going.

yet you could get somebody who kind of like just mumbled their way through it didn't really say much and were as vague as possible and they got like, you know, round of applause standing ovation. You know, so it was like, all these kind of things going on in my head and I like, and ended up, you know, at end of it, you know, just feeling like, is this for me? You know, it started to kind of, and I was worrying that it was making me, you know, it was infecting my enthusiasm for photography in a sense.

which I was never going to stop doing, you but I just felt it was kind of tainted slightly because of expectation, you know, of the way was going to be. had this romanticized version of view of art school. And then the reality was that, you know, the biggest thing I learned from it was at the end of the day, everything's subjective and it's all down to personal opinion. That's pretty much what I learned. And I didn't have to go to art school to learn that lesson.

You know, so I kind of feel it's a bit of a waste of time, but basically after my third year at art school, Thomas Cooper got me in for a wee chat. says, Damon, says, you're in the wrong department mate. He says, you need to be in a graphics photography, not fine art photography. It was the only thing I was doing because at the time I had an obsession with, I was getting into pop art. I had been reading this book, Decoding Advertising, and I was obsessed with advertising and how they constructed these.

Damian Shields (17:28.457)
And it's funny because it still feeds into me today because I do a lot of graphic art, right? But I've just, I found it intensely interesting, the juxtaposition of, you know, a pack of fags to some woman leaning on a bridge looking, shaking romantic. And I thought that there's obviously a lot more to this in terms of like deep layers of psychology and how people guide you. And the composition of these advertisements as well, I thought there's something extremely important here and something to learn here.

Tim Parkin (17:48.589)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (17:55.942)
about what you present and how you present it and how you play with notions of symbolism and visual metaphor. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I went down this kind of rabbit hole with pop art as well. And he was kind of looking, I think he was looking at that stuff I was doing at the time. And he was like, Damien, I think you're in the wrong department. But the upshot was I had basically pissed the

Tim Parkin (18:05.176)
bit like cinematography and that sort of interpretation of

Damian Shields (18:25.319)
the most of my grant money up the Victoria Bar's wall. So I couldn't afford to do, because basically I was going to have to do year three over again in the graphics photography department. And I only had finances to last me for my final year, my fourth year. So I was like, you know, bugger this. There was a course going on down at the college, then College of Building and Printing now, then, but it's now just a kind of vacated.

Tim Parkin (18:41.453)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (18:52.177)
of a brutalist building now that they can't make up their mind what they're going to do with. But it was great at the time, brilliant photography department, but I did like a kind of print publishing course. I was doing book binding, I was doing Photoshop, I was doing Illustrator, I was doing InDesign, I was doing a whole kind of smorgasbord of things that were related to printing, of which photography, but more importantly Photoshop was part of the process of what I learned there because I'd already started using Photoshop and this was another reason why

Thomas Cooper thought I was a kind of a wrong fit for the fine art photography because he loathed anything to do with new technology.

Tim Parkin (19:32.59)
I can see that.

Mark Littlejohn (19:32.857)
Do you think that was unfair on his part?

Damian Shields (19:36.137)
I think so because given the way the art school evolved, I'm not saying it was all down to me, but it kind of felt like it away because it was ironic that after I left, they invested heavily in new digital technology, digital cameras, the digital department, and now it's like a huge faculty in itself. But I was kind of like doing it when it was...

Mark Littlejohn (19:54.836)
It's like you at, you can describe the advertising photography and everything else and she's like that's fine art, the images themselves. Okay, it's been used for a different purpose but it almost seems to me like a wee bit of a snobbish approach from Thomas Cooper in relation to what's fine art and what isn't fine art. I mean, in

Damian Shields (20:15.699)
Do know, Mark, I think it was just fear of the unknown. I think that because Thomas's ethos, and don't get me wrong, I think I'm kind of vilifying him slightly here. It was just literally.

an overlap of a kind of earlier generation and a mentality when it came to photography. And because Thomas was coming from the biblical school of like large format photography, where he was like lugging his camera, his field camera like 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness and like spending the same amount of time in the dark room trying to perfect, you know, the best print he possibly could, a la Ansel Adams. was like to see that there was this technology where I could sit in a brightly lit room and I could use a scanner and scan

scan a negative or a print and bring it up on a screen and manipulate it in the same, admittedly using the same darkroom techniques I would be using maybe like dodging and burning and things like that. But I think he didn't, maybe at the time he just didn't understand, well, why would you want to do that? You know, I need to see you bleed, Damien. I need to see you suffer, you know, because it's only out of true suffering that you're going to like have this, you know.

Tim Parkin (21:20.76)
He's got a very admiring look at what he does.

Mark Littlejohn (21:23.256)
It's very... yeah.

Damian Shields (21:25.883)
epiphany and you know you're going to emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon you know, you know we we didn't see eye to eye.

Mark Littlejohn (21:32.052)
I would think it's a wee bit like you've got to carry a grand piano flying flights of stairs from your back instead of using the lift.

Damian Shields (21:43.315)
Basically.

Mark Littlejohn (21:44.256)
It's just, you a bit of... But I mean, when you look at your... I mean, you talk about advertised, and I always think when I look at your pictures that they're beautiful adverts for Scotland. But it's almost like a Walter Scott romanticized...

Tim Parkin (22:01.666)
Where did the landscape start? The landscape connection? Was that during that time when you started doing landscape?

Mark Littlejohn (22:01.762)
fruit of

Damian Shields (22:08.425)
I think it was, I mean, I kinda, my first sort of foray, I guess, was pre-art school days. I was working down in the Isle of Wight as a lifeguard on an outdoor swimming pool on the Pontons Holiday Camp on the Isle of Wight. The deep end of the pool was five foot.

Tim Parkin (22:34.979)
Hahaha

Damian Shields (22:35.033)
You can imagine most of the time we spent playing the guitar and getting a suntan. But that was an interesting place to explore and there was a great, there was like an old disused holiday camp just up the road and it was all overgrown. It was a bit like the Planet of the Apes or something like one of these kind post-apocalyptic kind of landscapes.

Mark Littlejohn (22:36.216)
You

Damian Shields (22:57.083)
where nature was taking back and you know you could still see their old swimming pool with all the murals on the tiles and stuff like that and all the creepers and the blackberries and everyone were coming in and the old kind of buildings and the big entertainment hall we used to have so it was almost like for like when I was working but it was a kind of post-apocalyptic version of that but I became really pallid with the camp staff photographer and guy called Daryl Burton and he was from the Isle of Wight

and he would go up to the camp generally on evenings and he would photograph the guests because they would have shows every night. So he would go around the family tables who were watching the kind of cabaret and the shows or he would photograph maybe during the day if they were having competitions for the kids and stuff like that, he would take pictures of them. And there was a wee, he had a wee kind of booth in the reception where the guests could come and collect photographs or buy photographs of things that they were doing during their stay. And then...

But Darrell absolutely hated what he did. He hated doing the whole camp photography thing, but it was good money. And we used to go out together and get drunk and go over to the other side of the island and go to the clubs and stuff. And we spent a lot of time together, we really good pals. he was, you know, but I seen a whole other side to his photography. He showed me his portfolio and he showed me these photographs that he took, like from the place I was describing the Disused Holiday Camp.

And I was looking at it thinking they're not conventional photographs, you're taking pictures here of like maybe a broken window grill with broken glass in it lying on the side and it's a bit rusted and there's like sort of briars coming into it.

But this was interesting to him, but I didn't quite click at the time. But I was seeing photography presented in a whole different light to what I was used to and what I considered photography for B. But it was just all about he was seeing things that he basically liked that interested him in terms of textures and shapes and color, you name it. know, he would point a camera, if he liked something he'd point a camera to take a picture. And it was just purely for the pleasure of like recording the thing that he saw. So.

Tim Parkin (24:59.534)
I'm gonna say not doing anything commercial with it. Yeah.

Damian Shields (25:04.425)
At its core, know, it was just the basics of photography. But it really, you know, it sparked something in my head. And when I left, he sold me, that was my first film camera, it was an old Miranda 35 mil camera. And he chucked me it for, I think it was like 40 quid. And I think I've still got it kicking about somewhere, probably up in the attic.

Tim Parkin (25:16.155)
yeah, yeah.

Damian Shields (25:24.105)
But I used to take that when I come up the road, because I used to love taking my bike and just cycling around, because the back of Coatbridge where I live, it's all just kind of farmland between here and the Campsie Fells and the Kilseith Hills. So I used to go up there on my bike and I used to this camera with me. And it would just be pulling up to you, like you'd see a white horse in a field and you'd be like, oh, that's a lovely horse. And it's on its own in a field and it's a beautiful day.

you know, go take a picture of the horse or go down to the local scrap yard and just take pictures of piles of like broken cars because that lived with me in my head of what he was doing and it was just purely this kind of let's just react with a camera to things you see and things you like and just take a picture and then, you know, put them through boots or whatever it was, you know, to get your

Tim Parkin (25:54.294)
to see what attracts your attention or interest.

Mark Littlejohn (25:56.087)
Come

Damian Shields (26:13.737)
your negatives printed up and get these photographs back and it was which is a really exciting kind of journey in itself and the excitement of opening up the packet and then obviously throwing half them away because they were all fogged and it's stickers on them and you just made an arse of them and but it was it was fun yeah yeah the advice advisory kind of stickers like maybe you should give up photography stickers

Tim Parkin (26:29.538)
that when they the little stickers on them that told you you'd done something wrong.

Yeah. Like Mark said, in terms of your landscape photography and interpreting it as what's the use of it? When did you start actually deciding that you wanted to do landscape photography as a form of, well not a job, but you know, as a secondary job as it were? And did you think about it as like promoting anything or was it just again you just being curious?

Damian Shields (26:52.454)
And.

Damian Shields (27:00.185)
No, was just, I guess it was just an evolution. I think when I started working in the Herald, seriously started working full time and I was exposed continuously to other people's work, albeit of a photo journalistic bent and also having constant, watching constant feeds of wire pictures from Getty, PPA.

coming through the wire day in day out and also scanning in other people's stuff because initially a lot of stuff was still analog. I used to operate a massive drum scanner and know taking the eggs onto this massive drum scanner which evolved into a kind of little tabletop thing. I can't remember what make it was but it was really expensive and so that was my job you know and so it was just continuously just kind of working on other people's work and looking at other people's photographs.

Tim Parkin (27:35.758)
All right. Yeah.

Damian Shields (27:53.042)
And then just tying that in, yeah, just tying that in because through the art school process and just the general love of the landscape, because I already had the love affair with the landscape going right back to me when was a child, because when we moved back to Scotland, I was scared shitless. Everywhere we lived, which was a few different houses, and they weren't nice. We stayed in a kind of scheme in Airdrie called...

Tim Parkin (27:53.152)
and expose some very good pictures, I imagine.

Damian Shields (28:20.873)
Petersburg and they had established this housing area and it was basically a breeze block, kind of homes and flats and masonets and it was ironically named the Four Isles. So one was Mull, one was Ling, one was Islay and then what was the other one? We were in Iona and down the back of Mull

Tim Parkin (28:35.269)
really? Right.

Damian Shields (28:42.003)
There was a Glen, we just called it the Glen, know, and that's where we went and played and we went and hid and we explored and it was beautiful. There was a river running through it, beautiful old arch bridge over the road that takes you up to Chapel Hall. But that was our escapism and that's where we would go. And exploration was a thing, because obviously you're talking about pre-internet days, pre-mobile phones, pre anything, everything's analog. And we had moved around about three or four different homes. I'd been in about three primary schools by this point.

And I was getting, you know, what you would refer to in Scotland as a square goal in the playground more often than not, because mum and dad were complete hippies. I had long hair. was getting accused of being a girl every other day, getting asked what team I support, if I was a prode or a Catholic. And I was wearing like flared dungarees and this kind of flared power of child. So.

Tim Parkin (29:28.854)
Hahaha

Yeah, not fitting in.

Damian Shields (29:34.886)
I was getting a lot of unnecessary attention, put it that way, but because I had my older brother and Sean and Francine, it was like we kind of clubbed together as a wee kind of mini-gang for security. But we used to just like pushing the boundaries of exploration and it was about exploring your surroundings was kind of like a way of kind of making peace with a place and feeling secure and feeling that this is home because we desperately wanted something to call home and...

because we were frightened and because it would be reason to be because we had enough experiences along the way to make us wary of where we were and was like people kind of automatically almost rejected us because we were a wee bit different and I think I was still carrying a Canadian accent and calling the pavement a sidewalk and things like that and yeah, so it was like this idea of pushing your boundaries and exploring, especially finding somewhere like the Glen down the back of the scheme.

Tim Parkin (30:20.59)
You're not for round here, are you?

Mark Littlejohn (30:22.84)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (30:30.313)
was brilliant and we used to go out and catch newts and we used to put bumblebees in a jar and things like that and bring them home and watch them buzz around. We'd let them go, you know what mean? But it was just these fascinating wee engagements with nature are building a swing on a tree over a river and things like that.

Tim Parkin (30:45.39)
and not was not was factory territory.

Damian Shields (30:49.736)
But do know what I mean? was like, sorry to have this love of exploration because it gave me a sense of my fear eroded away a wee bit more each day that I kind of pushed my boundaries and went a wee bit further. So when we eventually moved to Colbridge and the home that I kind of largely grew up in, I could see the Kilsyth Hills and the campuses from my bedroom window. And it was just wondering.

I wonder what's over the other side of those hills. And it just kind of like, it was like a tantalizing, I was reading a lot of fantasy books at the time as well, and escapism, literature, science fiction, and horror and fantasy. And it was just that kind of notion of like, I don't know what's beyond those hills. I want to find out. So every time I went out with my bike, I try and cycle a bit further, until maybe one day I got all the way up to the Campsie viewpoint and just stood there like Rocky Balboa, looking back at the landscape before me.

Tim Parkin (31:39.438)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (31:41.748)
But it was just this notion of the tantalizing nature of a place not visited and to visit that. And I felt like the wider that reach would spread out, then the more I would feel at home and I'd feel a sense of place. I'd feel a sense of who I am and attached to a place. And obviously going back again and again and again, but it just involved it taking the camera with me. As I said, you know.

Tim Parkin (32:05.506)
How far did that, how long did that take until you reached the highlands then?

Damian Shields (32:09.961)
Christ, I remember I remember I got up to Iranic Muir the first few times and just going, holy shit. then, you know, like literally, you know, and by that point I had a digital camera. I was like early days of digital photography and like literally just like filling every single compact flash card I had with images. I was literally shooting thousands because it was like, I'm trying to like take all this in. Just everything, you know, that I'm seeing is just.

Mark Littlejohn (32:17.4)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (32:35.744)
Everything's amazing, yeah.

Damian Shields (32:39.113)
And I've kind of, as I've worked out over the years, know, I'm a wee bit oversensitized to visual information. And I could see that in the early days that I wasn't really coping with that. And I just kind of always had a fear of, you know, that kind of form of feeling of like coming home and feeling that I'd not got something, I'd not captured something, witnessed something and brought it back because it was almost like, you know, you know,

it didn't happen if I didn't bring it back with me so I could then look at it and spark something in my head for the next visit and you know what and I just wanted to cover all bases and I was too kind of like whatever as I'm kind of the opposite now and it's like I'm taking hardly any energies when I go try to you know

Tim Parkin (33:21.154)
Yeah. When did that train turn? how? Go on, Mark, sorry.

Mark Littlejohn (33:25.784)
So it's really, the photography is almost like secondary because you're using that to display your love of where you are, your love of what you see in front of you. And these little bits of beauty that make your heart beat faster. I mean, I always felt that going into photography was secondary to, I suppose I fell in love with the landscape and then the camera just became a way of me.

Damian Shields (33:43.229)
Basically,

Mark Littlejohn (33:54.616)
sort of capturing the little bits that I saw in my head. And that's pretty much for me, and it sounds, you know, it's a similar sort of thing for yourself. It's not a case of Thomas Cooper saying, right, you're doing this or you go to art school. So, you know, look at this book, look at that book, look at whatever else. Your photography for me just seems to spring from a love of where you are. A love of what you see in these little moments. And I suppose it's then your instincts, as you were saying before.

from the way you were brought up, from what you saw when you were getting brought up, the colors, everything else, has resulted in how you take photographs now.

Damian Shields (34:33.566)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (34:35.032)
How does that affect the way you go out and look for pictures in terms of either reacting or planning?

Damian Shields (34:44.873)
I don't know, guess like, I'm a bit like, know, obviously Mark always kind of like, I'm kind of on the sidelines seeing what you're up to as well and what you're talking about. And a lot of it, Chy and you're saying how things that I'm seeing are chiming with you. A lot of things that I see you saying chime with me as well. that, especially around the aspect of using a tripod, that's one that comes to mind. Where I've kind of, similar to you, I think you shoot a lot of handheld now as opposed to.

know, feeling that things need to be a bit more considered and set up. You're just being a bit, you're being a lot more reactionary now and just carrying it in your hand and taking stuff as you go. Because, you know, I feel that I've kind of evolved a lot more into that side of things. so, I mean, I'm still kind of like...

I still will slow down sometimes if I arrive at a location and stop and take it in and take a more considered approach to composition. But I think there's a kind of 50-50 thing really, because when I'm going from that point of considered composition to the point over there of considered composition, I've always got the camera to hand, usually the 200mm where I'm kind of catching stuff as I'm going sort of thing. And I always think you have to be...

I'm not a very technically minded person, but I do think you have to obviously learn the ropes of, you know, how things function and like the holy triangle and you have to familiarize yourself with your own equipment to the point where it does become instinctual and second nature to be able to react because you guys know yourself, there's like sometimes something happens and it can literally be a nanosecond and that.

you are now compared to where you are now to compare to when the way you were 10 years ago, 10 years ago you wouldn't have got that shot. But now you're prepared for it, but it's just hardwired in here now. It's just an instinctual thing. You know what your go-to equipment is and your go-to settings are to make sure you're not robbed of that moment and you know the horrible feeling of having missed out.

Damian Shields (36:55.281)
So there's that kind of side of it for me, which I enjoy more, is just being reactionary and getting a wee bit lost. Because like when I was a wee boy, was about not knowing where that wee path through the bushes led and where you would end up if you followed it. Even though it a wee bit dangerous and a wee bit dark and shady. But it's the same thing. It's like trying to kind of like...

Tim Parkin (37:12.29)
Does that mean a lot of your trips?

Damian Shields (37:21.787)
Although, I mean, it's different if you're doing it as a job or something like that, you know, I'm really OCD and meticulous about planning if I'm doing it for somebody else and making sure I increase my chances of getting the goods and getting what I think they would require versus me putting my own stamp on it. I mean, I'm never completely kind of subservient to somebody saying that I'm going to change the way I do things for you.

Because I would like to think the reason why they're asking me to do the job in the first place is because they like what I do and they want me to do more of the same, but for them. So it's a different approach, but for myself, you know what mean? I just love opening myself up to, you know, happenstance and randomness.

Tim Parkin (38:01.422)
Does that mean you go for a walk, essentially? Go to explore? Go to wander around somewhere to see what it's like?

Damian Shields (38:06.503)
Yeah, I mean, it's always just a general area kind of thing. And it's obviously keeping an eye on conditions and then, or just areas that you kind of, but then I always feel you get the best out of the land if you familiarize yourself as much as you can with an area. And you know, it is about going back again and again. And while you're there saying to yourself, do you know what? I didn't get the best out of today, but at least I came and at least I stood in that spot and at least I saw that view. And I took a note that,

Mark Littlejohn (38:34.744)
Do you think that sense of love for a particular area comes through in your photography? mean, you've got an awful lot of nice stuff from, I think it's Loch Chon and Loch Ard. And I always get the feeling that when I look at those, that you know intimately. Like some of the images from camera scenario as well, you get the feeling that, know, it's favorite little bits, little things that you love when you take a picture of it.

Damian Shields (39:03.389)
Basically, it's just like, there's special places that draw me back again and again, and it's almost like an unresolved conversation that you've been having with him that spans many years. And there's some places you kind of, you almost like say goodbye to because the conversation's been resolved and you feel like you've came away with resolution.

Mark Littlejohn (39:08.92)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (39:27.569)
and you feel like there's no sense in adding to a pile and trying, because I go completely against this kind of idea of perfection anyway. So I'm not trying to achieve a sense of perfection and completion. It's just that I've got something that I feel that I'm happy with. So sometimes I'll kind of, I'll maybe still go back to these places, but I don't feel I draw to them as much to other places. It's like,

As I said, it's just kind of like maybe being at a location maybe six or seven times and I feel it's still unresolved and I just feel like, I just feel like, know, and obviously these are all kind of beautiful places that you would want to go to anyway, but it's just kind of something's maybe.

unresolved feeling about it. You feel like if I get that special day, that's, but you know, it's not the perfect moment, but just for you, for this ongoing conversation you've been having with the place and you feel there's a bit more resolution.

Tim Parkin (40:22.071)
Always different,

Mark Littlejohn (40:24.984)
I've always hated the idea of perfection because I always think that perfection just implies something that's sterile and lacking in atmosphere. I'm not saying that your pictures aren't the perfect sort of thing, but you know, mean, it's just that thing. think it's just, know, character and atmosphere, individuality. mean, almost every image I think we take, there's a compromise somewhere. It's just learning to live whichever compromise suits you best.

Damian Shields (40:49.639)
I definitely, I even deliberately include things like pilings or a bit of letter that people maybe don't spot in first glance and things like I just love kind of throwing people off about something that's in there because they haven't looked hard enough or they haven't seen it. Or just something about the overall composition that kind of unsettles you. And that's maybe gone back to my days of looking at advertising. I don't know where that comes from but.

But like you, Mark, I hate the idea of perfection, but I see a lot of people that are kind of like, you know, fervently trying to pursue the sense of perfection and you can see it comes across in their images because they're all seem to be converging in the same place in terms of the way they look. And it drives me nuts because the thing is I can't see them in their pictures anywhere. They are nowhere to be seen.

Tim Parkin (41:39.501)
Yeah.

as a designer to try and simplify things in a lot of landscape photography and you end up just making things bland because they're oversimplified. There's not much left apart from a small structure.

Mark Littlejohn (41:53.634)
I suppose sometimes when you think about the, when you go to art school and they're saying, right, look at this book, look at that book. And I sometimes feel with, you when you're saying about the perfection, you get the Stentford Wives School of Photography, where it's just, you know, everything's done just so. Everything's perfect. There's, know.

Tim Parkin (42:15.232)
uncanny valley of photography.

Mark Littlejohn (42:17.432)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (42:18.171)
Yeah, I mean people should say, well there are no rules, there's only you. Especially now, given the emergence of artificial intelligence and how it's encroached upon the art world. I think that now more than ever, and I think that's something positive that I feel has come out of the whole discussion, the emergence of AI, is it puts front and centre.

just like you did to me by asking me on this thing in the first place was to stop and consider what it means to be a human being and what it means to have individuality and how that affects your creativity. And it kind of puts that in a spotlight almost. It's like, because end of the day, what do you want to take home and possess if you go to a gallery or something like that? You know, is it just because it's pretty?

you know, is it just purely the pure aesthetic or are you interested in something that's deeper? Are you interested in, do you care who painted this painting? Do you care who've like made this sculpture?

Tim Parkin (43:12.27)
not going to say it. It has to be about people, doesn't it?

Damian Shields (43:15.057)
You know, and I think it brings these things into question. I think it's quite a pertinent necessary debate that we should be having. And I think if anything, humanity, hopefully, you know, come out the better side of the discussion, because with the proliferation of AI into people's psyche and into society and every layer and every level, I think it does kind of bring us back to the basic concept. And I think a wee bit of it comes from

for a lot of folk, especially in the creative industries as well. It's a little bit of fear, isn't it? It's a little bit of kind of considering, where does that leave me?

Tim Parkin (43:49.516)
Yeah, it's commoditizing creativity.

Damian Shields (43:51.114)
Yeah, but it's a chance and it's an opportunity for people like us to stand in our soapboxes and shout about, you know, being a human being, having a lifelong of experiences that create a unique object or a photograph or a thing that is the culmination of like my 55 years to bring you this thing, you know, and that's the evolution of that, not pushing a fecking button.

Tim Parkin (44:13.454)
That's why I like to a body of work. I like to see a set of pictures that portrays a character or portrays what you're interested in. I look at a set of pictures yours, I get an idea of who you are. And one photograph on its own might not do that in the same way, but I don't think AI will ever have anything like that where...

you're getting a sense of somebody and a character and a level of interest to whether you're interested in woodland or mountains or...

Damian Shields (44:42.77)
No.

Mark Littlejohn (44:43.768)
I

But it gains more more experience of more and more people and more and more individuality. You've got music and everything else.

just hate the idea of it for music. I love listening to different folk, you know.

It's just listening to different albums on the way up the road from Milton Keynes over the last two days. It's great discussing music with other folk.

Tim Parkin (45:14.606)
In terms of your artwork, I know your use of contrast is quite powerful. I see it in one of your interviews, you mentioned Vermeer and Charoscuro and also mentioned Samuel Palmer and his work. I see a little bit of that and I see a little bit of Thomas Joshua Cooper in the way you play with contrast and the blacks in pictures.

Damian Shields (45:33.641)
Hmm.

Tim Parkin (45:44.366)
Was that a conscious thing from the start or is it that reveal itself over time with the old post-processing? You worked as a retoucher as well, didn't you? So did that inform the way you worked?

Damian Shields (45:51.881)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (45:56.426)
I guess so. I've always been interested in techniques that kind of almost like play with your brain in terms of depth perception. mean Mark, know you're kind of, you know, this is something you're quite interested in, it's like the use of split toning. Because I was always taught in painting about the use of color tones to create a three-dimensional, you know,

Tim Parkin (46:24.566)
Yeah, recession and forward.

Damian Shields (46:26.225)
Yeah, it's like receding, you know, worms and cold hues and how you can infuse a shadow with the colder hue and highlights of the warmer hue and that immediately creates a sense of separation. So I'm always conscious of because, although, especially in the early days, you can see a lot of, I mean, I look at some of them now and I kind of think, maybe was a wee bit too heavy handed there, but I could see where I was going with it. I try to be a bit more subtle about it now, but.

The basic sort of premises there where I'm trying to kind of like push an image into something that retains a sense of its identity and its place. It's not about ramming a square peg into a round hole and introducing anything that is alien to the place. It's about enhancing what is there. And it's also about

Mark Littlejohn (47:19.201)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (47:21.927)
bringing it to a place in terms of where it exists for you in your mind after you've gone home and you've left the place. So that's a wee bit of romanticism that kinda creeps in in my mind where I'm trying to mold things in terms of my approach with tone and contrast to I want it to kinda speak to me in the way it spoke to me when I was there in terms of how I've created a memory of a place.

Mark Littlejohn (47:50.552)
It's like recreating it as you envisage it in your own mind's eye. And it's almost like a bit of artistic license with a camera. And that's how I see the process. And I see you doing the same thing. It's a romantic, yeah, was thinking about Walter Scott and whatever, but it's a romanticized view of Scotland. It's how we see it, how we'd love to see it, how we think of it in our own heads. And then creating that.

Damian Shields (47:55.794)
Yeah, exactly.

Damian Shields (48:12.019)
Yeah.

Mark Littlejohn (48:18.646)
vision on the screen in front of you. And sometimes now when I come back in and I look at the picture after I finished it and everything else, that's how I remember the scene. I don't remember the scene as it was exactly at that point. I remember it as it is now created in front of me on the screen because it's so was the labor I love it. It's how it now or how it presented itself to me in my head. And in fact, it's not 100 % real because of I've used.

Damian Shields (48:43.56)
Yeah.

Mark Littlejohn (48:48.184)
with color or the darkness or whatever else, then so be it, couldn't give a bugger. And I see that in yours and I think that's possibly why I love it because I see it and I almost identify the Scotland I love with what comes out in your images. And I love the fact as well that you look at a lot of your images and they're not of any really immediately recognizable bits of Scotland, they're just little snippets of beauty that could be just about anywhere.

Damian Shields (49:18.237)
Yeah, I've got more.

Tim Parkin (49:19.054)
Does that inform your choice of weather to go out in as well in terms of this sense of contrast? Yeah, does this inform your choice of sense of the weather you like to go out with in classical Scottish mixed conditions?

Damian Shields (49:24.135)
Sorry, could you ask that again, Tim?

Damian Shields (49:34.122)
Yeah, I guess I've got my favourite conditions but they do change and they do evolve and I guess, I mean it's going to sound terribly cliché thing to say but I just think that you can always get something out of any conditions and I sometimes like to be challenged especially at this time of year. You kind of think, know, what the fuck am I going to do? You know, the sun's kind of high in the sky and it's like, it's just blue, green, blue, green, blue, green.

Mark Littlejohn (50:04.012)
It was for a month.

Damian Shields (50:04.603)
And it's like, what do I do with that? But I find that interesting, I would have been hibernated for the entire summer before. But I do like, I'm a sucker for, and I've got a soft spot for, you know, obviously moody skies and, you know, especially like the particular quality of light right after a terrible shit storm of conditions. And when things start to break, I love that.

Tim Parkin (50:05.837)
Yeah.

Mark Littlejohn (50:27.8)
Hmm.

Damian Shields (50:30.833)
I just love a dappled landscape. I always love a wee dappled landscape. I just love the clouds just gently drifting little pools of light. I could sit and watch them all day just drifting across the hills. So I don't know if that answers your question but, weather, but I guess I do have getting a favour conditions. Aye, that's the one. So that's trying to say Mark, thank you.

Mark Littlejohn (50:51.928)
Any weather as long as it's interesting.

Tim Parkin (50:58.52)
And your interpretation of black and white, I noticed you mentioned in one article about having your camera in black and white mode. Is that all the time or is it just when you decide to work in black

Damian Shields (51:08.425)
No, it's just I don't do so much now, but for a while I did it religiously. It was just purely to like, I thought, you know, what if I'm just considering my composition in terms of mono, you know, just composition because as I alluded to before, it's sometimes I feel that I'm over sensitized to colour, light and texture. It's like it really bombards my mind. And I thought that's maybe a way to kind of calm myself down a wee bit.

Tim Parkin (51:20.472)
Tones, yeah.

Damian Shields (51:38.538)
and just to purely kind of like form something within a digital viewfinder, the back of camera, or to snap and just check it on the back and to look at it and make a consideration based upon what I was seeing, whether I recompose or just go somewhere else. You know, and it was just, it was an interesting exercise to undergo. I don't do it just now. I haven't done that in a while, but yeah, but I felt it was a good...

a good thing, a good process to do.

Tim Parkin (52:06.84)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (52:11.054)
When you work in, well you've done courses in books, printing, have you done many books of your own or do you have any plans to do anything on that medium?

Damian Shields (52:21.673)
I have a plan, rough plans to do something myself. I'm actually, I just finished a book there for, do you know the Photo View series? Diggie Cunningham had just completed the, well he's in the middle of doing the Northern Highlands. I've just completed the Western Highlands. I met with the publisher just recently and you're talking maybe early next year before you'll see that at the bookshops.

So that's been an amazing thing to do. It's been maybe dragged on a wee bit longer than I thought or hoped it had done because when I first sat down with Dougie and Mick Ryan from Photoview, we're talking about five years ago and then COVID hit as well. So it was in middle of all of that.

Tim Parkin (53:07.832)
Yeah, the big project as well. It's a lot of land.

Damian Shields (53:11.529)
And it's just been, obviously I worked full time as well. you know, it's taken me a long time. Admittedly, I had a lot of locations already in the bag for the book, but I had to go out and visit a lot of new places, which was great in itself. And the writing, obviously, you know, it's kind of went on a wee bit longer than I hoped it would. But thankfully, we're there with it. And yes, answer your question, there's a book on its way.

in the form of the photo view guide. But I will at some point do something a wee bit more personal in the near future.

Mark Littlejohn (53:49.656)
there be a wee bit of writing in there as well? Because I know sometimes when you put your pictures up there's wee bits of writing and it's obviously thoughts that you had when you were taking the pictures or would it just be a pure collection of images?

Damian Shields (54:06.257)
Yeah, in my head I thought I didn't want to do a book. I definitely want to do a wee bit of writing but not so much descriptive in terms of, you know, here's a place or even here's a place and what this place means to me. It's almost like...

Mark Littlejohn (54:17.526)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (54:23.361)
I'm still unsure about it how it would be received, you know, that people expect in a book about landscape or my images and but a lot of that I guess is kind of just the kind of stuff that I've been talking to you guys about which I feel is terribly important. It might even just be a rambling story about the time you fell in the burn and but just something that comes out of it that something speaks to your journey.

Tim Parkin (54:43.862)
Yeah, I like those ideas. Very personal stuff.

Damian Shields (54:51.965)
Because there is a connection to the photographs, it's just not immediately apparent and obvious. And if you're buying a book that's about my work, then I would assume that you're already interested in me and my work. Therefore, I'm just almost like filling in some of the blanks, giving a wee bit more of myself. And I like writing. I always find it a difficult process, but at the same time, I really enjoy it.

Tim Parkin (55:04.632)
Yeah, that's me.

Damian Shields (55:19.005)
and it'd be good to get them back to, because I used to dip into a bit of poetry as well, and it'd be good to get back to doing that as well. And I would like to include a wee bit of that in a book as well, but I'll say no more, because it's very embryonic in my brain. I've been taking notes for this book for the past 20 years.

Mark Littlejohn (55:26.712)
That's nice.

Tim Parkin (55:28.982)
I think so.

Mark Littlejohn (55:30.4)
Yeah, that'd be really nice.

Mark Littlejohn (55:36.888)
Yeah, because you think, know, it's photography, how many people are going to anything or they're just going to flip the page to the next picture.

Damian Shields (55:50.077)
Yeah, I don't know.

Tim Parkin (55:50.414)
I think books with just photographs in them are boring, I've got to say. I like to think of a book as a symphony of not just the pictures, but the chapters, the separation from the story. That'd be quite good. Like a little birthday card.

Mark Littlejohn (56:02.691)
Open it up into music please as well.

Damian Shields (56:05.577)
Something jumped out of the pages, you?

Mark Littlejohn (56:06.936)
Happy

Tim Parkin (56:12.494)
So as last question, because we're running out of time, what are your favorite parts of the Highlands or Scotland for photography then, or for personal?

Damian Shields (56:20.925)
What a question, Next. Honestly, honestly, I couldn't answer that question. And I'm being honest here. There's places I love, there's places I've been back to more than I've been back to other places because I know that...

Tim Parkin (56:28.285)
I'm interested in that way if you can choose.

Tim Parkin (56:36.376)
Yeah.

Damian Shields (56:44.029)
But it's usually a logistical thing. It's because maybe I know a trail that goes somewhere like maybe up to.

the falls of Kirkakeg, if I get tired by the time I get to the falls, at least I know exactly I can head back. But if I'm feeling that my legs are up to it, I can push a bit further up to Sylvan. So there's always those considerations. And I obviously love Torridon, all the Western Highlands and Northern Highlands. I gravitate more to the West than I do to the East. But again, it's a logistics thing as well. It just depends on where you stay.

and what sort of effort and plans you have to made in terms of the road networks and the transport networks to get access between you having the inclination to go somewhere with your camera and how you're gonna get there and when you're gonna return and the pre-planning and everything you need to pack and things like that. So.

Tim Parkin (57:25.421)
Yeah.

Tim Parkin (57:39.458)
Decamp a fan or stay in a combination or when you're away.

Damian Shields (57:43.853)
Usually just, I mean, the rare time I camp, I've got a couple of tents, so maybe go and do a wee wild camp, but usually I prefer the comfort of a bed and I'll just do a B &B. So I can get my meal at the hotel in a dram, and maybe a Guinness, and I get a good night's cup and feel refreshed the next day, which I don't get from the tent.

Tim Parkin (58:05.046)
literally.

Tim Parkin (58:11.672)
Thank you very much. I really enjoyed that.

Damian Shields (58:14.289)
No, thank you, Tim, for having me. I said, Mark, cheers for getting me on. I've got a terrible bloody imposter syndrome that I carry with me everywhere I go. So, I just like, as I said, was like, what the hell am I going to, who am I? Why do I do the things I do?

Mark Littlejohn (58:25.304)
You feel

Tim Parkin (58:37.628)
I think that's healthy, healthy attitude sometimes.

Mark Littlejohn (58:41.752)
Yeah, it's getting the right balance, it? I think too much self-introspection isn't great because then it maybe interferes with what we do and it interferes with our instincts, interferes with our individuality. As you were saying before, that snapshot you take isn't the result of half a second's thought. It's about the last 55 years. But if we start questioning different aspects of that 55 years, we'll just disappear of our own vicariousness.

Damian Shields (59:11.197)
Did I say 55? I meant 35.

Tim Parkin (59:25.166)
Well, thanks very much Mark and Damian. I hope to chat to you again in another 10 years.

Damian Shields (59:29.033)
That was great to see you.